Wright County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 9 of those read), 1915

Pioneer Boyhood

Experiences of John B. Walker - Arrival at Lake Charlotte - Grasshoppers and Forest Fires - Fish and Game - Supplies Brought From St. Paul - Ground Corn and Wheat - Hard Times - Schools - Indians - Ginseng - Wright County War.

About the first of August, 1856, we started from St. Anthony for Rockford with an ox team. It took three days te make the trip, and the next day we reached Lake Charlotte, where my unele, James Sheridan, had a partly built log shanty on his homestead, which he and his family shared with us for a few days, while my father was preparing ours for ocenpaney, and making the winter's supply of hay for the three cows he brought in.

Shortly after our arrival at Lake Charlotte the grasshoppers appeared and devoured everything green, though very few settlers had any crop planted. The fall of that year became very dry and forest fires raged in every direction, burning a great deal of the hay my father had made, The settlers fought these forest fires night and day until danger had passed. November 2, 1856, we moved into our log house on my father's homestead, on the banks of Lake Walker, and that night there came about six inches of snow that never went off until spring, making the longest and eoldest winter ever known in Minnesota. On January 2, 1857,

In recounting the many hardships, trials and tribulations of my boyhood, pioneer days, I must say that my father's family fared much better than many of our neighbors in so much that before moving onto our homestead he purchased three valuable cows, which he brought into the wilderness, and they were the only cows in the neighborhood for several years, and supplied many of the settlers with milk and butter, and during my fortyfour years' sojourn on the farm I never saw our house without our own milk, butter and eggs. However, we suffered much for the other necessaries of life, though my father had loaned a firm in St. Anthony, Holmes & Hollister, $1,600, which was to be paid in May, 1857, but the panic came on that spring and they were unable to meet their obligations and he was obliged to take groceries at fabulous prices in order to get a settlement at all,

In the summer of 1857 the grasshoppers again made their appearance and for a time threatened to devour every green thing. For days and days they darkened the sun and literally covered the ground. Most of the settlers had an acre or two of corn and a small patch of potatoes on which they had expected to subsist during the coming winter. Wright county was then covered with heavy timber, the clearing of which was no small task, and this without the proper tools or teams to draw the logs together to be burned or otherwise got rid of. The settlers planted their corn and potatoes, digging the seed into the ground with large hoes, and about as soon as they were through planting had to begin hoeing, or rather grubbing the ground between the rows in order to get a crop.

Well, when the grasshoppers began to put in their work of destruction on the corn the settlers were struck with consterna~ tion, not knowing what to do. Still they did not give up hope of some remedy, and many were resorted to, but the most effectual was for the whole family to march up and down, abreast, through the rows of corn with cow bells, tin pans, wash boilers, etc., etc., making all the noise possible and not allowing the pests to remain undisturbed from morning till night. They (the hoppers) rested at night. In this way we saved a little corn and the potatoes were only slightly damaged. Most of the garden crop was also saved. The grasshoppers were with us about a week or ten days only, but in that short time they destroyed the entire crops of many of our neighbors, many of these neighbors being so discouraged as to contemplate leaving the state if they eould.

In the spring of 1857 my parents made a little maple sugar and syrup. Game of all kinds and fish were plentiful, but the settlers could hardly spare the time to hunt or fish as it took all of their time to take care of their little crops and fix up their

My father in his younger days, and even then, was a great sportsman and would go out for an evening's hunt, now and then bringing down a deer. The carcass would be divided with the neighbors. Fishing had to be done mostly with pole and line from the shore as there were no boats up to this time in our neighborhood except two Indian canoes that were left on Lake Charlotte by the Indians. These canoes were extremely dangerous vessels to venture into as they were made from the trunks of trees hollowed out with axes. They were about 12 feet long and there was Just room enough for a person to sit down in, and would carry two persons only, and if one of these only turned to look around the boat was sure to upset. Therefore, few voyages were made in deep water with these crafts. Later, boats became plentiful, and this helped the settlers very materially in providing fish for food. Many of them were so poor that they were obliged to borrow the fish lines from neighbors to get the fish with, and as for ammunition, they had no money to buy it with, and therefore were deprived of living luxuriously on game.

In the meantime the townsite owners of Rockford: Ames, Florida and George, were building a water power grist mill, but the dam persisted in leaking, then, as it ever afterwards did, sometimes taking trips down the Mississippi, leaving nothing but the mill and a washout in the opposite bank to mark the spot where the dam had been. Hence, Rockford became noted for having ''more dam trouble'? than any other town in Minnesota. Then the fall came and workmen were still doing their best to get the mill dam repaired. Winter came on and the dam was still leaking, but the company kept promising from time to time that '*Next Monday the mill would be running.'' However, they did get. the sawmill started and made a little lumber, which helped the settlers greatly, enabling them to procure rough board floors for their cabins, which up to that time had bare ground only. These boards were dealt out very sparingly, those needing them most being first served.

As winter set in (December, 1857) my father walked to St. Anthony and purchased a barrel of flour and a barrel of pork, paying $20 for the flour and $40 for the pork. He also purchased a few other articles such as tea, coffee and sugar. (This was the balance of the Holmes & Hollister loan.)

He paid a teamster $20 to haul that little load te our homestead, but when he reached Rockford the man refused to go farther until he was paid an additional $10, which was done.

Much of that flour and pork was icaned to needy neighbors during the winter, That spring my uncle, William Walker, arrived from California on the day that Minnesota became a state.

My father had already secured a fifty-acre farm on the bank of Lake Martha for him. My uncle afterward married Elizabeth Thompson, and resided on this little farm up to the time of his death in March, 1898.

Early in 1858 my father purchased an ox team and wagon. This was the only team north of Rockford for about eight miles, and during the first years of the ginseng activity hauled many sacks and loads of ginseng to Rockford for the settlers. Usually there would be a certain day agreed upon to make the trip and the neighbors for several miles around would carry their ginseng to our place the day before so that an early start might be made to Rockford. The wagon would be piled high with sacks of ginseng and the owners, men, women, boys and girls would walk behind. It always required the whole day to make the trip and return. The distance was four miles, but the roads were very poor.

In the fall of 1858 my father planted about four acres of winter wheat, which turned out a fine yield the next year. This wheat crop pleased not alone ourselves but gladdened the hearts of the neighbors for miles around.

As soon as this wheat was ripe enough to harvest my father rigged a thresh floor of sheets, threshed about four bushels and took it to Rockford, as the mill had just started, but limited each customer to a small amount of grist. Therefore, we had to divide the flour with needy neighbors, and by the time that grist was used up the dam had started another leak, so there we were with plenty of wheat and corn, but no flour nor corn meal.

The mill company, as usual, kept up cheered up with promises that the ''dam trouble'? would be soon at an end. In the meantime we were, as well as the neighbors, living on potatoes and corn coffee.

Among the furniture and fixtures my parents brought into the "Big Woods'' was a coffee mill, one of the old-fashioned kind that was bolted to the wall One day my mother was grinding roasted eorn for coffee, when the thought struck her that possibly she might make corn meal the same way. It worked fine, though the process was laborious, as it had to be first ground coarse and then ground again and again until it was fine enough for table use. To our great surprise she had a Johnny cake for dinner that day. The news of the success of our mill went far and near and from early morning until night nearly every day it was kept busy, that is, some neighbor was grinding his little bag of corn with it, so we had to do our own grinding in spare time, Finally my mother thought she would try grinding wheat. This also turned out to be a grand success, as it made the very best. graham flour, after sifting, and I shall never forget the nice graham biscuits it made. Many neighbors came to see them, and my mother always gave them some of the flour to take home.

The rest of that winter we fared very well as we had quite a variety of food, potatoes, Johnny cakes, graham bisenits, and oeeasionally my father would kill a deer, or a few partridges or fish, and coming on spring the Rockford mill started up, but before the many waiting patrons were supplied with small grists the dam was washed out, or rather, a portion of it, and the people were again obliged to resort to our coffee mill.

It took the greater part of the summer to repair the break in the dam, nearly every man and team for miles around being pressed into service, and everybody was willing to do their best to get the mill running again; but for several years the flouring mill could never be relied upon, because of the many washouts or bad leaks in the dam.

When the Civil war broke out times grew much worse. Prices on everything the settler had to buy kept going up, while prices for their farm products went down. This was the time when corn coffee, sweetened with maple sugar became one of the luxuries on the settler's table.

Seme of the old ladies gathered ironwood leaves and dried them for tea. Corn coffee was quite palatable, but to set ironwood tea 'before a visitor or poor wayfarer was simply an outrage. Afterwards roasted barley became the universal beverage morning, noon and night, but later, ripe peas, roasted, proved to be the favorite substitute for ''Java.'' Green tea was up to from $2 to $2.50 per pound, and I have known my mother to make a pound of tea last a year. My father hauled wheat to St. Anthony and sold it for 40c per bushel. It took from three to four days to make a trip with an ox team; but wheat, hogs and cattle prices went up quite high after the war progressed a while, but prices on everything we had to buy went up, too.

About the year 1860, William Sleight, an enterprising and publie-spirited settler, residing about two miles northwest of Rockford, became instrumental in organizing a school district, which became known as District Number 44, and that summer school was taught in a little house across the road from Mr. Sleight's log cabin. This school was presided over by Estella Strickland. However, I did not attend school that year on account of the long distance (four miles by the road) from our place to the schoolhouse. The next year Lizzie Bushnell taught this school and my father and myself blazed the way for a footpath through about a mile of woods, crossing diagonally from Walker's road to Sleight's road. This footpath shortened the distance to two and one-half miles from my home to the schoolhouse. Miss Bushnell was my first teacher, but because my help was so

'much needed on the farm about that time, and my father not being very strong, I attended school that summer only fifteen days, (In those days the school terms were only three months in the year, and were held in the summers only.)

In those days the crops had to be proteeted almost from the very hour of planting, until well overground from depredations of wild pigeons, blackbirds and crows. The latter preyed chiefly on corn, but the pigeons and blackbirds would come in such great numbers as to destroy in a few moments whole fields of wheat, just after sprouting in the ground.

Then take a hoe and grub and dig around the stumps. Then I'd proceed to plant the corn in nice straight rows, When I'd have to run and chase away a flock of nasty crows; Or perchance, in the springtime cold, and pouring rain, Must go and ''shoo'' the blackbirds off the sprouting grain. Wild pigeons, too, the naughty birds with feathered feet, In millions came to devour our new-sown oats and wheat. And when night came on, perhaps in pouring rain,

The next year Nellie Florida taught the school, and that summer I was allowed to attend more regularly. The war was then raging at its fiercest. A deputy United States marshal came to the school once a week to drill us beys in the arts of warfare. We marched up and down the road, each one of us armed with an army musket. We were fourteen strong.

new school building, but had to be dismissed after one week's session, and before I had attended one day. The teacher was a young man, named Ennis McGary, and in the spring he brought suit against the district for three months' wages and the school board had to pay him in full.

The following summer a three months' school was opened in the new (the log) schoolhouse with Sarah Spaulding as teacher, but after teaching about two months she was prostrated by an attack of diphtheria and died. That eompleted my scholastic education. However, I continued my studies, during spare hours and winter evenings. Afterwards, I beeame much interested in both ancient and modern history, political economy, civil government, law, ete., ete., and always kept myself informed on the topics of the day, by reading the newspapers or anything which gave me information. Therefore, I am a staunch supporter of good, reliable, truth-loving newspapers.

When I was about fourteen years old I became an expert nimrod. I was a good marksman, and all-around deer hunter, and when the deer hunting season came in the fall and early winter nothing could prevent me from the chase, Many a time when nightfall came on it found me twelve miles from home, However, I always made my way home that night, lest my mother might worry about me, thinking, perhaps, I was lost or had fallen from fatigue. But, as great a hunter as I was I never allowed the sport to interfere with my work.

Up to the time of the Indian outbreak in 1862 a large tribe of Indians called the Winnebagoes would come to Rockford to camp every winter, much to the disgust of the white nimrods, 'These Indians almost monopolized the hunting, for it was almost impossible to find a deer track without an Indian following it. This changed after 1862 and deer became very plentiful. Long before I was 21 years old I took great interest in public improvements, such as road building, ete., ete., and after I became of age I served almost continuously on the school board and other town offices, and before leaving Rockford I resigned from the office of chairman of the board of supervisors, and elerk of the school board.

Ginseng. When spring of 1859 came on many of the settlers were discouraged and disheartened at the prospects before them. Fearing another visitation of the dreaded pests, the locusts, and not knowing what to do, whether to stick to their homesteads or flee the country (though many of them were not in a position to do the latter), men, women, and children went about barefoot and in rags, there being no opportunity to obtain employment of any kind. Many of the bachelor homesteaders did abandon their claims, or had done so during the winter, when lo and behold! Wright county, ''The Big Woods"' as it was called, had a savior, a ''Moses Invisibilium.'' We were actually treading on wealth but did not know it. The woods were full of it. Just below the surface of the ground an inch or so, and even between the roots of gigantic oaks as well as the maple or elm saplings; it was everywhere, except in marshy or grassy land.

In May of that year there eame to Rockford a well-dressed old gentleman from Virginia. This man was not the Moses, but came to give testimony of the great treasure that was in store for the children of the English, the Irish, the Germans, and the Americans of ''The Big Woods.'' This man's name was Robert Blaine, and he was reputed to have a ''bag of gold,'' and he had.

He soon made his business known to us. He was here to buy roots of a certain plant, known as ''sang'' (ginseng), and he said the people of Virginia had dug it for 40 years and were still digging it. He took men and children into the woods and showed them the plant and tried te induce them to gather it and bring it to him; but for several days he met with nothing but disappointment, for it looked as if his proposition was ridiculous, but gradually the people began to look into the matter. At first, men would sneak into the woods Sundays and look for it, sometimes digging it with their fingers, which was both difficult and wasteful, for often the root would be lost, or at least a part of it. Usually these men would not eare to admit that they were out ''sanging'' and often would take the children out for fun as it were, Often when hurrying through the woods, a man finding a plant would break a branch of a tree or place some mark near it that he later might come with hoe and dig it, and in finding hia way to it later, would find many more to dig, It did not take long to discover that the children were betters ''sangers'' than the grown-ups. There was no particular skill required in digging it, but the art. of discovering or finding the plant was the main point, and in this, children from about six years of age to sixteen or so were gifted with the art of discovering, or discerning it from thousands of other plants, such as sarsaparilla, young spikenard, wild turnip, ivy and young shoots of trees, such as hickory, maple, elm or oak when they were from eight inches to twelve inches high. But at first children could not venture into the woods alone because of the danger of getting lost, as even grown men got lost oceasionally and had to spend the night in the woods. However, it did not take the children long to learn to make their way through the woods as well as the best woodsmen and before two years we had the country for miles around named from the different natural points, such as the deep marsh, the round hill, the big rock, Mud lake, Cook's landing, then the abandoned homesteads such as Godfrey's Clearing, Burnside's Clearing, Stanford's Shanty, Jo's House, Sleight's Road, Steel's Road Dixon's Road, Walker's Road and scores of other names.

During the first year the ginseng business had not fully developed, only a few taking any interest in it, the others thinking that Mr. Blaine would be soon stocked up with all he needed, and would quit buying and betake himself back to ''Old Virginia.''

When Mr. Blaine first began buying ginseng he paid about three to five cents per pound for it, but toward fall he raised the price to six cents, which was considered pretty good. The next spring Mr. Blaine again put in his appearance at Rockford, with his ''bag of gold,'' yes, several of them, and that year the business became general, many of the settlers not waiting to put in their crops, though their clearings (fields) were small. Rockford was the ''great headquarters,"' though sub-agencies were established at Buffalo, Monticello and Kingston (Meeker county), From Kingston it was carried down the Crow river in row boats to Rockford, where Mr. Blaine had erected log warehouses and washing machines for washing it before drying it for shipment. These washing machines were cylinders about four feet in diameter, made of strong boards. These cylinders had paddles fastened to them which gave them the appearance of under shot water wheels, and were placed in the river in such a way as to be kept continually rolling, by the current and were about half under water, with about 500 to 800 pounds of ginseng within the cylinder, or about one-half its eapacity, thus the agitation caused by the rolling motion of the cylinder washed the ginseng, In this connection I will say that owing to its shape it was difficult to wash it thoroughly. The name ''Gin Seng'' is purely Chinese and means ''like a man,'' or shaped like a man. Some tribes of the North American Indians also named it Garentoquen, which also meant "'like a man.'' However, in a thousand pounds of ginseng roote it would be almost impossible to find tee or three shaped exactly alike. The root was located from 1 to 4 inches below the surface of the ground. They varied in size according to age, a real good root would be about 20 to 30 years old. The age of the root was easily discerned because of a notch for each year's growth at the neck of the root, these notches alternating from one side of the neck to the other side each year. Exposure to the sun and air was very injurious to the roots and besides reduced the weight, so Mr. Blaine instructed his customers to bury it in the ground and keep it moist. This proved a boon to the ''sangers,'' and Mr. Blaine became noted for paying the highest price paid before or since for Wright County Real Estate, for he bought it by the pound, yes by the ton, paying at the rate of three to ten cents per pound for it. At first we were careful when digging not to leave any more clay on the roots than could be reasonably helped, but after Mr. Blaine's instructions the diggers left as much clay on the roots as they could, and when they came home every evening with their "'sang'' they buried it and poured water over it and then mixed nice black clay into the mass of roots, thus making it weigh much more, always increasing the amount of mud mixed into each consignment, expecting each time to be ''docked for dirt,'' but never a word from the kindly Mr. Blaine, though often the mud alone outweighed the ginseng.

Little did the people know all this time that Mr. Blaine should have been paying them at the very least from fifty to sixty cents per pound, instead of three to ten cents, which amount he was paying. (At this writing it is about $8.00 per pound.) But even at this ridiculously low price the people were satisfied, many of them earning enough to buy cows and oxen, and in some instances paying for their land from the proceeds of their ginseng sales. The months of July and August seemed to be a sort of closed season, that is during the first years of traffic, as the roots were spongy then and Mr. Blaine would shut down until about September 1; but the merchants would take it in trade, though at a very low price.

The month of September and up to the frost in October was the best time for '"'sanging,'' as the leaves were then a beautiful yellowish color and often could be seen several rods distant. But the first frost killed the plant and ''sanging'' was over for that year. <A fair day's work, digging ginseng, ranged from about two to ten pounds for an adult and from about ten to forty pounds for children. However, there were a few exceptions. During the summer of 1860, when I was only 11 years old, several days I dug as many as forty pounds in a day.

The ginseng business kept on increasing in importance up to 1861, when the Civil war broke out, and that year Mr. Blaine did not come back to Rockford, but the local merchants, Messrs. Ball and Schultis, took up the business in place of Mr. Blaine, and afterwards separated, each conducting a business for himself, which was very beneficial to the people of Wright county in so much as it caused much better prices to be paid for the roots through competition, when they often ran the price up to twentyfive cents a pound (mud and all).

During the next three years the business flourished, though the people thought each year would be the last, as the ground was so thoroughly dug over and re-dug that it seemed almost impossible for any more to be left to dig. Often the same ground was gone over by several different gangs im a single day, each gang finding as much as the preceding one.

Through all these years and up to 1864 the little plant had no fixed name, though everybody seemed to have a name of his own for it, but everybody knew what everybody meant whenever it was spoken of, by whatever name; but in, 1864 several enterprising citizens of Rockford, headed, I believe, by George W.

Florida, of Rockford, discovered that its true name was "Gin Seng."' ''Gin Seng"' is of the genus ''Panax Quinquefolium,"' and is used chiefly by the Chinese for purposes unknown to any but themselves. The medical profession denies that it has any medicinal value whatever.

During all these years of the ginseng traffic my father never neglected to plant, care for and harvest the crops, and whatever "'sanging'' we did was at times when we could be spared from the farm without seriously interfering with the farm work. About 1865 the ginseng became so scarce that only children sought after it, though the price was up to about twenty-five cents a pound.

The Wright County War. In recounting my recollections of the '' Wright County War'' I must say that on account of my youth at the time this great event took place I am unable to give exact dates now, and I must rely solely on my memory. However, the events are just as fresh in my mind now as they were then.

In the spring of 1858, a young man, Henry A. Wallace by name, came to our neighborhood and entered a homestead about two miles from our place, and while building his homestead shanty lived with Amor Moore, another bachelor homesteader. Mr. Wallace was about 25 years of age, and gave people te understand that he was fairly well off. He wore a valuable diamond ring and gold watch and often displayed large amounts of money.

One day in the latter part of August, 1858, he failed to appear at Moore's cabin, and after several days' absence the neighbors turned out on the twenty-first day of September to search for him, or his body, and at 12 o'clock found his dead bedy within a few feet of where he had been mowing grass. The body showed plainly that he had been murdered with an axe.

A. near neighbor, Oscar F, Jackson, was at once suspected and later arrested and at the October term of court was indicted for the murder. His trial was continued to the spring term of court and he was confined in the jail at Fort Ripley until court convened. At the trial he was acquitted. The acquittal was a surprise to everybody, as public sentiment was strongly against him, though not everybody believed him guilty. Friends advised him to leave the state at onee, which he undertook to do but was arrested in St. Paul on a trivial charge, which was a mere pretext to get him back to Wright county. The arrest was made April 9, I think, and that being Saturday, the Wright county sheriff stayed over at Minneapolis until Monday and before the sheriff could start for Monticello with his prisoner attorneys got out writs of habeas corpus, returnable at once, and Jackson was set at liberty. Jackson declared in open court that it was the intention of those interested te get him back te lynch him as soon as he put foot in Wright county. No sooner was he set at liberty than he was re-arrested. After going through the same proceedings over again he was set at liberty the second time the same day. By this time a large crowd of men had gathered in the courtroom, some out of curiosity, others desiring to get Jackson back to Wright county. In the crowd were men from Wright county. Loud talking and arguing became general, almost riotous, until the judge, comprehending Jackson's danger, ordered the courtroom cleared, which the bailiffs did with difficulty. Jackson was smuggled out of the courtroom and out of town, and it was supposed out of the state.

His friends and sympathizers had raised quite a purse to aid him in his flight, but in less than two weeks and for some unaccountable cause, supposedly with a view to perfecting his residence on his homestead that he might prove up, or perhaps inspired by bravado through his recent successes, the unfortunate man returned to his cabin. His return was kept a secret until an old lady informed the neighbors, or rather, a neighbor.

On Friday night (April 22, 1859), about 20 men gathered at Jackson's house, but were told that Jackson was at his fatherin-law's house a short distance away, and was well armed and had several friends to help him in case he was attacked.

The mob surrounded the house and kept watch all that night, making fires at regular distances to give light. Saturday they were reinforced to about 50 men. Sunday the sheriff came from Monticello and ordered the mob to disperse. Then he approached Jackson and his friends and assured them that Jackson would be protected at all hazards. At this, Jackson allowed himself to he arrested and the sheriff, on foot, started off with Jackson, shackled, but had not gone far when the mob appeared and took the prisoner from him, They took him to some house, supposedly Wallace's, and kept him all night, trying to get him to confess, but in the meantime emissaries were out scouring the country in every direction for recruits to join the rabble.

I well remember being in our field with my father and my two uncles, James Sheridan and William Walker, when the men came after them to go to the lynching, but they absolutely refused to go. My father always had doubts as to Jackson's guilt, While circumstances were against the man all along, many believed him innocent.

Monday forenoon, Jackson's wife and her father, Mr. Oldship, undertook to find Jackson's whereabouts, and meeting one of the mob in the woods, they were piloted to the Wallace cabin, and at first refused an interview, but later Mrs. Jackson was permitted to talk with him through an open window for a few minutes, and then ordered away, as was every man unwilling to take part in the lynching which was then about to take place. Whatever happened after this was known only to those taking part in the affair, At any rate, Jackson was hung about noon from a gable of Wallace's cabin and his body was left hanging until the next day when it was taken in charge by the coroner. Some of the lynchers had been delighted to inform Mrs. Jackson of the lynching, but neither she nor Mr. Oldship could find the way to the place alone and had to wait for several hours for friends to come, It was reported that when Mrs. Jackson saw the body she made the woods fairly ring with her screams and lamentations, and utterly collapsed.

At the coroner's inquest, held that day, a majority of the jurors it was believed had been in the mob that lynched him, and some of them were witnesses also, at the inquest, and on the evidence given by them, we must depend for an account of the real hanging. Several questions asked some of these juror-witnesses were ruled out because the answers might incriminate them.

Their story was that before the hanging, April 25, 1859, every man was sworn to seerecy, and that ''Jackson was strung up on a projecting pole in the gable of Wallace's house.'' After being hauled up the first time he was let down and the spokesman asked him to confess, Jackson refused to do this. He was again hauled up, and when almost dead, was again lowered and again asked to confess. Someone said he tried to mumble something about Wallace trying to take away his wife. He was then almost dead and they hauled him up again and left him hanging, There was never any eredence given this confession story, for it was well known that the motive for Wallace's murder was robbery and nothing more.

Thus suffered Jackson, a victim of public sentiment; a man tried by a jury of his peers, given a fair and impartial trial and acquitted of the charge, was ruthlessly sent into eternity without a ehance for his life. Thus was Wright county's fair name smeared with a black spot that will forever stand out against it. At that time, and afterwards, there was a strong suspicion that one of the ring leaders of the mob was the real murderer of Wallace,

Shortly after the hanging the authorities took up the matter and had a number of the lynchers arrested and lodged in jail, but the jail being a frail affair built of wood, a second mob liberated them, though it was said they met with only a pretended resistance, as the sheriff favored the lynching. But the state authorities took the matter up and sent a detail of the state militia to Rockford to arrest everyone connected with the mobs. About that time men began to be very scarce in the vicinity of Rockford, especially during the day time. Many of the bachelor home- steaders skipped the country for good. I have known of neighbors who would leave home at day break and spend the whole day in a tree top within sight of their cabin, watching for the "soldiers to come after them.'' The soldiers made a few arrests and took the prisoners to St. Paul, but the proceedings never amounted to much, as it was impossible to procure evidence against those taken into custody.

Years afterward Wallace's rifle was found in a hollow leg on the Jackson homestead, by its later owner, and a year or so later the gold watch was plowed up on the same farm, thus strengthening the theory that Jackson was guilty. However, many persons suspected that these articles were placed on Jackson's land by some one other than Jackson.

After I grew to manhood I often tried to draw some of the lynchers into a conversation about the lynching, but they always evaded a discussion of the subject in any form whatsoever.