Bridge No. 12

This township was organized in 1858. The first settler was Mr. Eger, who located a claim on section two, near the line of Wacoota township, in the spring of 1854. Erenest Schubert, Mr. Wakefield, George Steele, and Henry Einnzih settled in the township in 1854. In the fall of that year George Frederick, father of Mr. Frederick, of the firm of Frederick & Hack, Red Wing, came to the township, but removed to Belle Creek immediately after.

Passage source: History of Goodhue County, Including a Sketch of the Territory and State of Minnesota; Together with an Account of the Early French Discoveries, Indian Massacres, the Part Borne by Minnesota's Patriots in the War of the Great Rebellion, and a Full and Complete History of the County from the Time of Its Occupancy by Swiss Missionaries in 1838. Pioneer Incidents, Biographical Sketches of Early and Prominent Settlers and Representative Men, and of Its Cities, Towns, Churches, Schools, Secret Societies, Etc, published 1878.

This township was organized in 1858. It was named in honor of Florence Graham, daughter of Judge Chris. Graham, now of Red Wing. The township is full of historic interest. It stretches along the upper end of Lake Pepin, with its jutting headlands and ragged northeastern border looking out across the water. Here the early explorers disembarked and planted their banners, more than two hundred years ago, and some of these romantic landmarks still wear the impress of those primitive footsteps in their march of advancing civilization. It is said Count Frontenac, a French voyageur, landed where the little village that bears the musical name of Florence, now stands, as early as the middle of the seventeenth century ; and on the 17th of September, 1696, La Perrie du Bouche, with his party, ascended the Mississippi, and landed on the shore of the lake, at a point below Frontenac, where a peninsula stretches an arm out into the water. This was named by the French Point du Sable, and there they built a post or stockade, almost two centuries ago. Savs a recent writer : "The stockade was one hundred feet square, within which were three buildings, subserving, most likely, for store, chapel and quarters."

Passage source: History of Goodhue County, Including a Sketch of the Territory and State of Minnesota; Together with an Account of the Early French Discoveries, Indian Massacres, the Part Borne by Minnesota's Patriots in the War of the Great Rebellion, and a Full and Complete History of the County from the Time of Its Occupancy by Swiss Missionaries in 1838. Pioneer Incidents, Biographical Sketches of Early and Prominent Settlers and Representative Men, and of Its Cities, Towns, Churches, Schools, Secret Societies, Etc, published 1878.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Hay Creek Township - 12,355 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.