Rochester City (part 3 of 4)

A few days later Staley was arrested and examined by Justice Thomas Stevenson, who discharged him on the ground of insufficient evidence, but the citizens held an indignation meeting and took means to employ a detective. Edwards disappeared immediately after the murder and Whitman and Staley left a few days after Staley 's discharge. It is an interesting fact that Staley was put in charge of Whitman during the preliminary examination, he not being suspected at that time. About the time of their disappearance D. J. Page, a Chicago detective, came to St. Charles to ferret the case. He traced Whitman through Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania to Runnelsville, New York, where he had left his family. He found and arrested him in the Michigan pineries and brought him to the Rochester jail. Whitman pleaded guilty to murder in the third degree and was stentenced by Judge Barber to eight years imprisonment in the state penitentiary. His health broke down in prison and Governor Austin pardoned him after he had served about two years and a half of the term.

Eight days after the arrest of Whitman, Staley was arrested in a lumber camp in the Wisconsin pineries. He was tried at Rochester on a charge of murder. County Attorney Start and Attorney

General F. R. E. Corull prosecuted and R. A. Jones, of Rochester, and Benjamin Franklin, of Winona, defended him. He was found guilty by the jury and was sentenced by Judge Barber to be hanged. The sentence of death was commuted by Governor Marshall to life imprisonment, and after sending six years and a half he was pardoned by Governor Davis.

The legislature of 1868 appropriated $500 for the apprehension of Edwards, who was believed to be the most guilty of the three men, and Detective Page went to Texas in pursuit of him, but he was never found. He was reported to have been a Texas ranger and a soldier in the Southern army in the rebellion.

rUlagc of Dover. - The Winona & St. Peter Railroad Company established a station in the spring of 1869, and gave it the appropriate name of Dover Center, it being in almost the exact geographical center of the township, on the crossing of the wagon road from Chatfield to Plainview, on the farms of George C. Sheeks and Charles Gerrish. J. Fairfield Smith, who was killed on the railroad in 1874, built an elevator and established a lumber yard, and Samuel G. Hyde, of St. Charles, built an elevator; Charles Williams and J. G. Weeks opened general stores; Calvin Hitt, a veteran of the Mexican war, started a blacksmith shop, and the village grew. Forty loads of wheat a day were taken in at Smithes elevator in 1870. The suffix Center has fallen into disuse and the village is now known as simply Dover.

One of the first businesses was a drug store kept by Dyar & Ingham. They sold in the early seventies, to Avery K.and John G.Bush. Avery K. moved to Minneapolis and John C. is still carrying on the business as a general store. A. K., J. G., Frederick C. and Charles Bush are sons of Harvey F. Bush, a pioneer settler of Quincy township. They became identified with the business of Dover soon after it was started.

Lebbens W. Ingham came to Dover in 1876 and became a business leader of the village. He was engaged several years in grain buying and, later, also conducted the Bank of Dover, part of the time in partnership with E. D. Dyar and Dr. A. W. Stinchfield. He retired from business in 1899 and died greatly respected in July, 1903.

The village has but one church. The founder of the community raised the money to build a church with the agreement that when built it should be decided what its denomiation should be. When it was finished the Methodists and Congregationalists were contestants for its ownership and the Methodists were the most numerous, and won, and there has ever since been but the one church. A good sized and pretty frame building was erected in 1876. Rev. O. McNiff was the first minister, the present one is Rev. Irwin B. Wood.

Soon after the church was built a first class public school house was erected. It is a large two-story brick building, located on a sightly elevation and standing out as a testimonial of the intelligence of the community. The school includes a high school and eight graded schools and has four teachers.

Captain Charles H. Hawley was appointed Postmaster of Dover in 1878, having located there in 1875. ^^'^^ ^ son of Charles G. Hawley, one of the earliest settlers of Chatfield. He served in the Fifth Minnesota Regiment in the Sioux campaign and afterwards, in Colorado, raised a company of cavalry, and again engaged in fighting the Indians. He kept as a souvenir the head of an Indian arrow with which he was wounded in the arm. He removed from Dover to Chicago and is believed to be still living.

The First State Bank, which occupies a pretty one-story brick building, was started in 1877, by Dyar, Ingham & Stinchfield, and has been part of the time a national bank, and now a private institution. Elmer E. Rank is the cashier. He is a son of William J. Rank, one of the earliest settlers of the township, and was born on the farm. He has been in the bank twenty-five years.

The village has the advantage of two railroads, the Winona & Southwestern road having established a station there and directed its course to a southwesterly direction to Stewartsville. The brick residence of John Ellsbury was converted into a passenger depot.

In 1 89 1 Ernst Eckles, a son of George Eckles, an early settler of Eyota township, and Elmer W. Haack, started the first newspaper, the Dover Independent, a monthly publication. It lived a year. In 1905 Mr. Eckles established a weekly paper of the same name, which is still living and doing a business not to be expected in so small a town.

One day in September, 1898, a company of returned volunteers of the Spanish war passed through Dover on a special train from New Ulm to Spring Valley, where they were to disband. As they were delayed there about three hours, Dover extemporized a reception. They were welcomed in a speech by Rev. O. H. P. Smith and taken to a hall and treated to a banquet, and during the rest of their stay treated as guests of the village. They left cheering lustily for Dover.

The Dover Creamery, a farmers' co-operation company, was started in 1900, and has been prosperous, doing much for the village. It has 130 patrons and is supplied by 1,000 cows.

Early in June one of the burglars, Thomas O'Neil, known to the fraternity as Omaha Kfd, a notorious safe breaker, was arrested by Pinkerton detectives at Chicago and brought to Rochester by Sheriff Vine for trial. It developed that there were four engaged in the robbery: O'Neil, Lefty Fitzgerald, Daddy Flynn and Toronto Jimmy. Fitzgerald and Flynn were not brought to Olmsted county, being turned over to the United States authorities.

Two indictments were found against O'Neil, for burglary, one in the first and one in the second degree. He was tried on the first indictment at the June term of the district court. He was prosecuted by County Attorney Thomas Fraser and defended by Burt W. Eaton, Callahan and Granger. He was acquitted by the jury.

He was tried on the second indictment in August. At this trial County Attorney Fraser was assisted in the prosecution by W. \V. Irwin, a distinguished lawyer of St. Paul, whose previous experience had been in defending criminals. The defence was by Messrs. JEaton, Callaghan and Granger. This trial, as well as the previous one, was thoroughly contested, and the result was different, O'Neil being convicted. He was sentenced to four years and six months* imprisonment in the penitentiary.

In January, 1901, word was received that James Sawyer, alias Toronto Jimmy, had been arrested at Juno, Wisconsin, together with Daddy Flynn. It developed in the trial of O'Neil, that Toronto Jimmy had at the time of the robbery secured a bag of gold and one of silver and carried them to Wisconsin, where, while drunk, he engaged a driver to take him to a railroad station and on the way threw the bags into the brush, but was induced by the driver to recover them.

Toronto Jimmy was brought from Morris, Illinois, by Deputy Sheriff Harlow Brown, the first week in January, 1903. He was arraigned in the district court, pleaded not guilty and was remanded to jail to await trial. He gave his real name as James Johnson. He employed as counsel Burt W. Eaton, Callaglian and Granger. His trial was set for the June term of court and in default of $6,000 bail, he went back to jail to board till that time. On Sunday morning before the spring of the June term it was discovered that Jimmie had fled the jail in the night, and that a lesser criminal, Charles Reynolds, held for burglarizing a hardware store in Stewartville, had also fled. It was believed that confederates had got into an outside window and with drills had cut the steel bolts and bars, and the prisoners had got out of the windows. Jimmy vanished and has not since been found, though rewards have been offered and thorough search made for him. Whether the detectives of the Bank Insurance Company, who are said to never give up the search for a robber, will ever catch him remains to be seen. Unlike his accomplice, O'Neil, previously sent to the penitentiary who looked like a vulgar thief, Jimmy was a good looking, well dressed and gentlemanly looking young fellow of about thirty years. He looked the professional man that he was, thoroughly qualified in his profession of safe breaking. Since the above was written Jimmie has been overtaken by his fate, which he had been dodging for five years. He was captured by a bank insurance detective at Cincinnati, in October, 1908, and taken to WilHamstown, Kentucky, where he is held to answer to two bank robberies in that county.

Forest Henry, a farmer of the township, but a resident of the village for six years past, has had an extensive experience as a lecturer, for ten years, at Farmers' institutes, and other agricultural assemblies. He has not only been a regular lecturer at the Minnesota institutes on the subjects of com, clover, swine and dairying, but has also lectured before such bodies in New York and New England. He is a son of John R. Henry, who came to the township in 1857 and he was at that time a year old. He conducts a model farm in the township and is associate editor of the Northwestern Agriculturist of Minneapolis.

The secret and insurance societies are the Modem Woodmen, Royal Arcanum, Good Templars and Beavers. The Woodmen hall is a commodious frame store building that is used for alj public purposes.

ELMIRA TOWNSHIP (7V?7c';/^///> 105 North, Range 1 1 West). - The first settlement in this township was made in tlic spring of 1854 by James McClellan, who pre-empted a claim on Section 31, which now constitutes North Chatfield. The business portion of Chatfield is in Fillmore county, there being only residences in that part of the city which is in Olmsted county. Mr. McClellan built the first frame house and is said to have kept the first store. The house, which is claimed to be the first frame house built in the county, is still in good preservation. McClelland died in 1856, his being the first death in the township. Other settlers in 1854 were F. A. Coffin, Thomas Holmes, Joseph Tatro, Charles Redfield, T. B. Twiford, G. Willis, Franklin Blodget, A. C. Jennings, Mr. Huntley. J. Trumbull, E. Prindle, Allen A. Cady, and Samuel M Herrick. John Clarkson, a native of Scotland, who came from Wisconsin in 1854, died in 1903, aged ninety-two years.

The first birth in the township was that of Charles Pembroke Tatro, son of Joseph Tatro, in September, 1854. The first marriage was of Chester Wood and Martha Grant in August, 1854.

A terrible accident happened on the farm of Chauncey G. B. Jones, in Septeml^er, 1876. A steam thresher was operating with the usual crew of men. The boiler exploded and William Lawton, the engineer, was thrown through the top of a poplar tree about twenty feet from the ground and about eight rods from where he stood, killing him instantly. Charles Arnold, the band cutter, and William Bennett, the measurer, were instantly killed by the boiler, which was carried past the end of the separator, and Everett Jones, son of Chauncey Jones, who was feeding, was scalded and had a leg and arm broken.

A storm of rain and wind, on June 10, 1880, caused great damage to farms and crops. It was nearly a mile wide and lasted twenty minutes. A fine stone barn on the farm of Alonzo Foster was demolished and two horses killed.

A brutal murder was perpetrated in this township in 1880. Terrence Desmond, a native of Ireland, who had lived on his farm on Section 6, since 1857, left his house on the afternoon of June 23 to cut weeds. He did not return and the next day his son notified A. A. Cady, a neighbor, of the disappearance. Mr. Cady and others made search and found the body of Desmond in the afternoon, near a spring, where, it is believed, he had been for a drink. His throat was cut from ear to ear, severing the jugular vein; there were cuts near the ear and the skull was crushed with a club that was found near by, on which there was hair and blood. His scythe was found hanging in a tree. There had been a quarrel between Desmond and his brother-in-law, Edwin Reynolds, a neighbor, and in a fight a few weeks before, Desmond had whipped Reynolds. The latter had frequently threatened to make way with Desmond. A coroner's jury failed to charge any individual with the murder, but Charles Van Allen, a boy of eighteen years, working for Desmond, was arrested and examined before Justice Laird, of Chatfield, but was discharged for lack of evidence. Reynolds was then arrested, examined before Justice S. W. Eaton, at Rochester, committed to jail and indicted at the December term of the district court. He wa^ prosecuted by County Attorney Eckholdt and Attorney General Start, and defended by C. Kingsley of Chatfield and R. A. Jones, of Rochester. The jury disagreed, standing one for conviction to eleven for acquittal. Reynolds was held to bail, but not retried and the indictment ae:ainst him was dismissed. Noth-

EYOTA TOWNSHIP (Tonmship 106 North, Range 12 West). - Benjamin Bear, a Pennsylvanian, made the first claim in this tow^nship in 1853 and brought his family from Iowa in 1854. A spring on the farm is the head of Bear creek, named for Mr. Bear. William Potter, who came from Pennsylvania, also located in 1854. His brothers, John and Oliver, came the next year. H. G. Freeman, John Hughes, John James, Charles Keyes, Clark Brown, John Campion and Elias Tottingham also came in 1854. Truman Matteson with eight children, came in 1855. He was killed by lightning in 1870. His son, Milo Matteson, became an extensive farmer. Jephtha Cline, Thomas Harris, Patrick Dougherty and William H. Pearson came the same year. Mr. Harris built the first frame house in the township.

The following were among the settlers in 1856: William Busian, James Williams, Thomas H. and George Eckles, Stickney Buck. John H. Bliss, Andrew J. Doty, Jeremiah Plank, George Plank and John Elliott.

The first births in the township were two in one day, November 6, 1854: Martin, son of H. G. Freeman, and Electa, daughter of William Potter, now Mrs. Merry, of Fairmont, Minnesota. The first death was of Hiram Smith, the same year. Anson Boyer and Miss Smith were the parties of the first marriage.

The first town meeting was held at the residence of A. Smith, which was the first hotel, in 1858, and the following officers were elected: Supervisors, Richard Hull, Benjamin Bear, Truman Matteson; clerk, B. Cutler; assessor, A. J. Doty; justices, O. P. Whitcomb, J. K. Randall; collector, J. H. Bliss; overseer of the poor, Stickney Bush; constables, Nathan M. Smith, James L. Hodges.

The township when first organized was called Springfield, but in 1859 the name was changed to Eyota, which is said to be an Indian word meaning superior. It is certainly a superior agricultural township.

When the Winona & Southwestern railroad was built a station was established in the southeast part of the township and named Laird, for William A. Laird, a w-ealthy lumberman of Winona, a director in the company. An elevator was built, but was burned down about 1903 and now there is only the station and a couple of dwelling houses.

Plank's Crossing, where the Chatfield railroad crosses a wagon road near the southern boundary of the township has failed to become a village and has now only a box car as a depot.

A station was also established on the same road on the farm of William Potter and named Horton, in honor of Charles Horton, a Winona lumberman of the same firm as Laird. It, too, has failed to grow into anything more than a neighborhood accommodation for the shipment of grain and stock.

Eyota Village. - A station of the Winona & St. Peter railroad was established on Section 14, on the land of Milo Matteson in 1864 and a town was platted by Samuel E. Everett and Milo Matteson in November of that year. Everett was a speculator from the state of New York. A few years later he returned to that state and sold his Eyota interests to his brother. Charles P. Russell came from Winona and built the first store in 1865 and, later, formed a partnership with Orlo H. Jackson and built an elevator and bought grain. Mr. Jackson moved in a few years to Lake Benton, in this state, where he died about ten years ago. Mr. Russell and his son, Fred H., are still in the mercantile and banking business. A few years ago their store was burned down and was replaced by a handsome brick store and bank that would be creditable to a much larger place. Milo White, of Chatfield, built a store, which three years later, he sold to Charles R. Blair, who had been conducting it for him. Mr. Blair had his brother, Arthur B. Blair, as a partner from 1869 to 1893. is now in business in Winona.

Charles R. Blair was born in Vermont in 1837. He enlisted in a Vermont regiment in 1861 and served three years in the Army of the Potomac, participating in twenty-one battles. At the close of his service he came to Chatfield and was employed in the store of Milo White. He kept the store in Eyota till 1907, thirty-nine years, when he sold to Frank J. Cramer, of St. Charles, and went to California for the benefit of his health, where he died in May, 1908. He had the highest respect of the community and held the offices of supervisor, member of the school board and village treasurer, and was postmaster sixteen years.

Clark & Wheelock opened a store in 1865 and sold to Walkinshaw & Ross, who went out of business in about a year. T. T. Stevens & Co. opened a store in 1866 and the next year sold to Wheelock & Cresap, who conducted the business a few years. Needham & Wheeler opened a store in 1866 and continued in business several years. Among the earliest business men were Walter Dixon, hardware dealer; Edwin Dunn, lumber dealer; Mai- were elected : Council, George W. Barto, O. H. Jackson, E. D. Dyar; recorder, C. S. Andrews; treasurer, C. P. Russell; justice, S. E. Keeler; assessor, Edwin Dunn; constable, H. B. Herrick. The vote for councilman between Milo Matteson and Charles Ellsbury was a tie and at a second election Matteson won. There were 108 votes polled.

A Presbyterian church was organized in June, 1866, and the next year built a good sized and pretty church building. The United Brethren church was afterwards started by Rev. M. L. Tibbetts, who came from Iowa. He was a very energetic and popular preacher and was a resident of Eyota and the vicinity a number of years, but a few years ago moved to California, where he is now living. In 1872 the Presbyterian church was discontinued and their church building was sold to the United Brethren, who still occupy it. Rev. William C. Bacon came to the United Brethren church in 1877. After remaining three years, he left for another locality, but came back to Eyota in 1890 and has ever since lived there and preached in the vicinity. He has now retired from active service. He is a native of the state of New York, bom in 1834. Rev. William W. Vine is the present pastor of the United Brethren church. He is a vSon of William Vine, an early settler of Viola township. The Methodists started a church and built a pretty edifice soon after the Presbyterian. Rev. C. H. Miller is their present pastor. Rev. Stephen Maddock, the priest at Chatfield, organized the Church of the Holy Redeemer about 1891, and built a neat place of worship. He officiates at both places.

The village had a rapid growth and became an important grain market while wheat growing was the fashion. The principal buyers were Jackson & Russell, C. R. Blair and Needham & Wheeler. It was estimated that 300,000 bushels were taken at the elevators in the year ending July i, 1865. The receipts for September, 1867, were stated as 46,619 bushels and for October 135,000 bushels. Two thousand bushels were said to be bought in one day of September, 1872, and the four elevators are said to have taken in 800.000 bushels a year in 1868, 1869 and 1870.

Charles H. Alden came in 1868 and was engaged several years in grain buying. He is still a resident of the village. He was born in Nevv Hampshire in 1832 and was engaged in the grain business in Winona before coming to Eyota, where he bought the first wheat

The Eyota Advertiser was first pubHshed in April, 1869, by T. G. Bolton, a druggist. It was a good advertising sheet and was kept alive while Mr. Bolton remained in Eyota. It was published more for the benefit of the village than for the profit of the publisher. It was sold to Dyar & Ingham, who published it five years. A. De Lacy Wood started the Eyota Enquirer in 1873, and ran it about a year. E. A. Rising started the Eyota Eagle in 1878 and ran it a few months. There is now no newspaper published there.

In 1875 ^ handsome, large two-story public school house, of cream colored brick, was built. It is the most conspicuous public building of the town. The schools comprise a high school, with two teachers, and eight graded schools with three teachers.

A novelty in municipal reform was effected in the spring of 1893. No license having carried at the election it was claimed that the village board would be unable to have the streets lighted for lack of the money derived from saloon licenses, whereupon a temperance organization of young women raised the money by subscription, bought the lamps and oil and, with the consent of the board, assigned each lamp to one of the ladies who kept it burning regularly, till the village again, at the next election, voted for license.

Edson G. Hill, came from St. Charles to Eyota in 1893, ^^i^ elected justice of the peace the next year and has served in that capacity thirteen years.

The Western Telephone Company was established about 1895, and a local company called the Viola Telephone Company was afterwards established. It has sixty miles of lines. The Tri-State company has a long distance station.

The Eyota Creamery Company, a farmers' co-operation company, was organized in May, 1898. It has done a large business, increasing from $8,000 the first year to $40,000 in the year 1907. It is supplied by 1.200 cows.

The Eyota Hospital, established by Dr. R. C. Dugan, in October, 1900, has been very successful and is a benefactor to the surrounding country. It is a pretty frame building with a capacity of eight beds and devoted principally to surgical cases. Dr. Dugan has a high reputation as a skilful operator. In 1907 the number of major operations performed was sixty-three; minor operations forty-one and medical cases, eleven.

Dr. Rollo C. Dugan is a son of Elisha S. Dugan, deceased, an early settler of Eyota township. He was born on the farm in 1865, graduated in medicine at the Minnesota University in 1890, has since practiced at Eyota and is the only physician there. He is a member of the leading surgical and medical associations.

The village showed its enterprise by voting for a system of waterworks for protection against fire by seventy-eight votes in favor to only eighteen against the proposition, and the system was established in 1906. A well connected with a tank holding 19,000 gallons of water under air pressure is pumped by a gasoline engine and the water forced through mains extending along twelve blocks in the business and residence districts. A neat stone building encloses the machinery and there are two hose carts and a volunteer fire department of thirty-two men, under the direction of Herman E. Smith, the village marshal. It is a very complete and efficient system.

The Masonic Lodge is a large and flourishing organization. There are also of secret and fraternal organizations, lodges of the United Workman, Odd Fellows, Woodmen, Good Templars, Highland Nobles, Beavers and the Equitable Fraternal Union. The Masons, Odd Fellows and Good Templars own their halls.

The first National Bank of Eyota was organized in June, 1900, with F. H. Russell as cashier. Farmers' Institutes have been held here. Recently a Red Cross Society was organized here with Mrs. Armstrong as president. In 1900 Brittenfelt brothers raised 500 acres of potatoes. Interesting stock shows have been held in this township. An old settlers' association was organized here in 1878, but did not survive long.

FARMINGTON TOWNSHIP {Toumship 108 North. Range 13 West). - This township was not settled till 1855, when Z. Tumbleson, Junia Lathrop, Mr. Ball, Andrew Parsons, Conrad Schacht and Robert Moody made claims in the southeastern part of the town. The following winter Mr. Parsons died, his being the first death in the township.

In 1856 claims were made in the south part of the township by Henry Dresser, Thomas Brooks, Orrin OaJces, John Walker, William Searles, Chris Neimier and others. The same year claims were made in the northwest of the township by Archibald Baker, S. H. Baker, A. M. Baker, Adelbert Baker, Philip Hope and Christopher Hope.

In 1857 Asa Kidder, J. F. Hodge, Ethan Kimball, Robert Little, John V. Little, A. M. Hall, P. Russell, Osbom Earl, J. R. Haggerty, Dan McArthur, and others settled in the same neighborhood and the village of Farm Hill was started with a church and a school. The Baptist church is still living, but a Methodist church, which was built in 1868, was torn down in 1880 as the result of dissension of the congregation. A store and the postoffice was kept by Ethan Kimball and afterwards by Asa Kidder, but the village

In 1856 Haven Schacht, Fred Kohn, Martin Guhrt, William Kutzky and Peter Yonk, all Germans, settled in the northeast of the town. They were followed by others of German birth or descent, and many of the best farmers of the township have been of that origin.

The township was organized in 1858 and the following officers elected: Supervisors, Ethan Kimball, chairman; E. Evans, P. Russell ; clerk, T. H. Rose.

Two miles west of Potsdam is the Emanuel German Methodist church, and Zion German Evangelical church, two miles south of Potsdam. They were built about forty years ago.

Stephen Greenwood, a native of Pennsylvania, came from Wisconsin in 1859 became one of the most prosperous farmers of the township. The beautiful prairie, which includes nearly all of the township, was given his name and is known as Greenwood Prairie.

Near the south line of the township is the Ringe creamery, started about 1893 by Hans Hendrickson. It was made a co-operation company about five years ago and is doing a large business. The odd name Ringe was given when a postoffice, since discontinued, was located there and was named from the estate in Norway, on which Mr. Hendrickson was born.

On an afternoon in September, 1878, Herbert Bamhart, a young man, while hunting rabbits, near the residence of Amos Parks, discovered the dead body of a man in a grove, with the skull fractured, apparently by a blunt instrument. At an inquest the remains were identified as those of John Schroeder, a harvest hand from Davenport, Iowa, who had been working for Carl Schultz and had left there a few days before with another harvest hand, a German named Fred Hittman. They had spent Sunday together at Potsdam and spent the night of the murder in the grove. Schroeder had $28 when they left Schultz', when the body was found the money was gone and Schroeder's pockets were turned inside out. Hittman had come to Rochester, eaten his dinner at the Union Hotel and gone east by railroad. Within a week he was found at Davenport and on information from the sheriff of that county, Sheriff White went there and brought him to Rochester. He was indicted for murder and tried at the December term of court, being prosecuted by County Attorney Eckholdt and C. M. Start and defended by R. A. Jones. He pleaded guilty and was sent to the penitentiary for life. The death penalty was not in force at that time.

He became insane in the penitentiary and was transferred to the State Hospital at Rochester, and after spending two years there, was pardoned in 1901 on condition of being returned to Germany by his brother.

Potsdam, - In the northeast portion of the township the village of Potsdam grew up about i860; a village of German Americans. Louis Ouentin established a harness shop and Mr. Goodert a blacksmith shop, and they were followed by John Ingleby, who built the first store and was for years the village merchant. He sold to Fred Patrick who sold to John Frahm, who was succeeded by Rufus R. Zander, and Herman Reiter Zander is still in the business. Ingleby moved to Rochester about 1885, and was an alderman two terms from 1892. He is now living in Montana. A hotel was kept by Theo. Tomow, who about 1878 sold to William Bemke and moved to Rochester, where he is now living.

The Emanuel German Evangelical Lutheran church was built in 1872 and is the most conspicuous building in the village. It has connected with it a parochial school. The village includes ten or fifteen families.

An ill fated mill was built at Potsdam in 1874. It was a large wind flour and feed mill with two runs of stone, was on a rise of ground, and was conspicuous for miles around. It was built by a contribution of $6,000 by the neighboring farmers, and for a time did a good business, but was fated with two horrible accidents. During a strong wind in April, 1875, large wheel became unmanageable, and William A. McCarron, an athletic young blacksmith of about twenty years, went with three others, to the top of the tower to stop it. He was knocked down and caught in the cogs of a large wheel and in spite of the efforts of the others to rescue him, was drawn in and literally ground up between the wheel and a timber, his body passing through a space of less than two inches, crushing it into a pulp. The most of the body was gathered up in a grain sack.

In December, 1876, Emil Seeman, the miller, a German, was on the top of the tower oiling the machinery before starting the mill, when a check rod that held the mill from running, broke and the mill revolved with great velocity; a cast iron wheel of a ton and a half, burst and crushed the platform on which Mr. Seeman was standing, hurling him down thirty feet against the timbers of the mill and crushing him horribly and he died within a couple of days.

HAVERHILL TOWNSHIP (Tountship 107 North, Range 13 West). - This township was first settled in T855 by Garrett Van Houghton, Gideon Fitch, Cyrus B. Dodge, James G. Whipple,

The first birth and death in the township was of a son of Gideon Fitch, who was bom in October, 1855, and lived only about two weeks. The first marriage was of a member of the Fitch family.

The township was organized in 1859, and the following officers were elected : Supervisors, O. A. Hadley, chairman ; C. H. Crane, Samuel R. Woodbury; clerk, Charles Parker; assessor, R. H. Talbot; collector, Baldwin Martin; justices, Francis Dresser, R. W. Palmer; constables, Baldwin Martin, John P. Simmonds; overseer of poor, Gideon Fitch ; poundmaster. Garret Van Houghton.

The township was first named Zumbro, but a town in Wabasha county, having been so named, it was changed in 1864 to Grant, and in 1865 to Sherman, which in 1867 was changed to Haverhill, the present name.

The nearness to Rochester has prevented the development of any village within its limits, and it is an exclusively farming township. The settlers have been principally of Irish birth or descent.

The existence of a cave, the resort of wild cats and wolves on the farm of I. C. Van Hook, about three miles north of Rochester and near the Lake City road, had been known in the neighborhood, but it had not been explored till a Sunday in December, 1870, when five boys, from twelve to sixteen years old, sons of J. Van Smith, J. T. Van Hook, I. C. Van Hook and M. S. Higbee and a Danish boy entered it. They found at the bottom of a slope of fifteen feet a pit hole and beyond it a large irregular shaped chamber 260 feet long, forty wide and about thirty high, with rocky walls hung with stalactites, some of them a couple of feet long. The story of the boys was confirmed by the visits of several men, but we believe the cave has never become generally known.

CASCADE TOWNSHIP (Township 107 North, Range 14 West). - Cascade creek, a beautiful little stream running across the southeast portion, has given this township its name.

There was quite a number of settlers in 1855, among them Ephraim and Noble Cobb, George W. Huyler, Edward Proudfoot, Lyman L. Eaton, Abel Moulton, Elvin Clason, Charles Horton. Barney Hackett, John Hendricks, Joseph Fogarty, and John Newell. Charles H. Crane came to Rochester in 1855 and settled in Cascade in 1856, living there several years and later returning to Rochester, where he is now living.

The first birth in the township was in the family of Joseph Horton in 1855, and the first death the same year, that of Adelaide, a daughter of James Bucklin, aged about sixteen years.

The township was organized in 1859, the first officers being: Supervisors, James Bucklin, chairman; Alvah Southworth, Philo Boardman; clerk, George Carpenter; treasurer, Sylvester Conklin; assessor, Hibbard Smith; constables, Joseph Chambers and Lewis Rice.

Miss Lucy Cobb, who came to the township in 1856, was one of the earliest teachers and taught several years in Cascade and adjoining townships.

In 1858 the county commissioners declared that portion of the township of Cascade east of the Zumbro river a part of the township of Haverhill. In 1870 a petition was presented from the people of Cascade asking that the strip be detached from Haverhill and reattached to Cascade. The matter was referred to County Attorney Start, who gave the opinion that the action in 1858 was illegal and void, and the commissioners passed a resolution declaring the territory a part of Cascade, and it has since been so considered.

Cascade postoffice was established in 1868 and E. Clason, an early settler, was appointed postmaster. The office has given way to the rural free delivery.

A very pretty little Methodist church was built at Five Corners in 1901. A frame structure on a sightly elevation, with stained windows and handsomely finished interior. Instead of following the old custom of naming it after a dead saint, it was called after a live preacher, being dedicated Doran Chapel, in recognition of the zeal of Rev. Frank Doran, then of Rochester, in building up the congregation.

Olmsted station was established in 1870, on line between Cascade and Kalman on farm of J. V. Matthews, four and one-half miles west of Rochester.

HIGH FOREST TOWNSHIP {Township 105 North, Range 14 West; and part of Tozvnship 104 North, Ranges 14 and 15 West), - The elevation of the site of the villages, on w^hich the first settlements were made and the surrounding belt of large timber, gave the township the appropriate name of High Forest.

In the spring of 1854 John S. Robinson with his family, comprising his wife, their daughter, Mary R., Lucretia Stafford and Charity Oleson, came to what was afterwards the site of High Forest village, accompanied by John S. Pierson, and Mr. Robinson made a claim there. The same summer claims were made in the township by George I. Covell, Nathan R. Lyon, John S. Pierson, Charles J. Johnson, Charles Grannis, Ira Smith, Frank Wilson, Henry White, Albert Munson, James Griffin and Timothy Twohey. In 1855 settlements were made by William R. Tubbs, Lawrence Bums, John C. Buckley, Michael McCarthy, John G. Engel, David Munson, P. M. Tuttle, Lee Duncanson, L. Mahoney, James Thomas and William Wood. Among those who came in 1856 were Martin Holland, John Kelly, William Kelly, James Kelly, M. Hiser, Edward Judge, John Stewart, Lawrence Fitzpatrick and Mathew Fugh.

It is narrated in a sketch of the township by Dr. A. Grant, published in Mitchell's History, that on the night of July 6, 1854, a terrific thunder storm came up with a rain that overflowed Robinson creek. The whole of the little community of first settlers were gathered in one log cabin, which was so crowded that a lady with two little children slept in a wagon box. The freshet flooded the cabin, driving out the lodgers, and swept the wagon box oflF the ground and the woman and children were barely rescued. A thousand dollars in gold was lost by the woman, but was found in the morning.

The first marriage was of E. G. Earle and Miss Reese, in 1855. The knot was tied by Thomas H. Armstrong, then a justice of the peace for Mower county.

In the spring of 1856, before townships were organized, the part of the township then in Mower county was set oflF into a precinct and the following officers were appointed by the county

John S. Pierson, who located in 1854 in the part of the township in Mower county known as Pleasant Valley, was appointed postmaster for that region. The village of High Forest wanted the postoffice and tried hard to get it, but could not till Mr. Pierson resigned, when W. K. Tattersall was appointed.

The political conformation of this township, with twelve sections on its south taken off Mower county, has always been an inconvenience in the transaction of town business to those living farthest from the village, and a law was gotten through the legislature of 1869 to incorporate four sections, sections 5, 6, 31 and 32, which include the village of High Forest, and also to set off in a separate township the west half of the township from a line running north from between sections three and four. This would have made High Forest and Stewartville the local capitals of the separate townships and would have given each a separate representation in the county party conventions, as they were then constituted. The proposition was submitted to the voters and carried, but Hon. Charles Stewart, of Stewartville, had its legality tested in the supreme court by a suit for an injunction to compel Thomas Kinsella, the assessor, of the original township, to assess the property of the Stewartville half of the township, which he refused to do, assuming that the separation was vafid and that the new township was outside his jurisdiction. The supreme court decided that the law of separation was unconstitutional because it embraced more than one subject. No further attempt was made at division of the township.

High Forest Village. - In the spring of 1855 John Robinson had a village plat surveyed on his pre-emption and the same season Capt. William Russell, from Oswego, New York, bought, and improved the water power within the village and erected a saw and flour mill.

In the fall of 1855 Reppy, from La Crosse, opened the first store in a building erected by Mr. Robinson and another store w^as started by Coe & Huddleston. Mr. Huddleston was a well educated young Englishman who also practiced law. He sought a wider field at Hastings, and afterwards at Minneapolis, and served as a lieutenant in the Union army.

Dr. Alexander Grant came in 1855 or 1856. He was a native of New York, of Scotch parentage, born in 1825 and reared on a fami. He acquired an academic and collegiate education, attended the medical department of Michigan University and graduated at Buffalo Medical College. He taught school and practiced medicine in Wisconsin and came to High Forest as a physician. On the failure of the firm of Coe & Huddleston he acquired their stock of goods, and kept a store as well as practiced his profession. He moved to Bath, South Dakota, in 1881 and died there in 1907. He was thoroughly educated, of keen intellect and scholarly tastes and took an active interest in all matters of local enterprise.

In 1856 William K. Tattersall came from New York City and built a three-story frame hotel and was, for years, its landlord. He was postmaster twenty-six years.

Edward H. Armstrong, a native of Ohio, was one of the earliest settlers in the village, but he removed in a few years to Dakota, and after living there a few years, returned to High Forest, and has been one of its most prominent citizens. He is now a merchant there. His son, Charles H^ Armstrong, is county surveyor and city engineer of Rochester.

A Baptist church was built in i860 and a Methodist church in 1 86 1. The Baptist church was later occupied by the Congregationalists and, a few years ago, was torn down and the Methodist is now the only church in the village.

About 1880 an academy was established by E. W. Young, under the patronage of the Methpdist church, after about two years it was removed to Rochester.

In its early history High Forest was one of the most prominent villages in the county. It had a most attractive location, an unusually intelligent and enterprising population, with great local pride and faith in their home, but the failure to get a railroad, said to be because of engineering difficulties of getting into the village, and the development of Stewartville, only three miles away, put a stop to its progress, and it has since stood still.

Judge. - The Winona & Southwestern Railroad Company, in 1 89 1, established a station on the farm of Edward Judge in the northeastern part of the town, and named it Judge station. It has an elevator and a store and the postoffice was kept, some years by Lucius B. Gaskill, but it is now merely a flag station and a convenient shipping station for the neighborhood. Mr. Judge was a native of Ireland and settled on his claim in 1854. He died in September, 1904, aged about seventy years.

the state of New York and acquired a water process on Root river about three miles below the village of High Forest, and in 1858 got control of the Russell mill at High Forest and moved it to his location. He developed a fine mill and a small village grew up under the name of Stewartville. There was but little of it till the railroad reached there in 1891. The original villagers were, besides Mr. Stewart, William R. Tubbs and David L. Bonner, who were pre-emptors and farmers. David Stewart, Hiram Sage,, who kept hotel, Thomas Fairbom, a blacksmith, and J. S. E. Stevens, a carpenter. Job Collin, who afterwards moved to Rochester and is now in the insurance business, there, was the miller. A brick Presbyterian church was built and Rev. George Ainslie, of Rochester, preached there for years. There was the usual public school house.

In 1878 William Everett Smith came from Rochester, built a store and, till the railroad came, was the only merchant. He was born in the state of New York in 185 1 and was brought with his father's family, to Pleasant Grove township in 1857. He attended Curtiss' Commercial College in Minneapolis, and was a clerk in the grocery store of Charles H. Morrill, at Rochester, a year before going to Stewartville. He is still doing business as the pioneer merchant.

In 1890 the Winona & Southwestern Company, in anticipation of building their railroad, bought a quarter section of land that had belonged to the Stewart estate for the site of their depot and elevators. It was their intention to build a new town around their depot and a few buildings were put up there, but the old settlers refused to move to the new location, and the village grew up on the old time site near the mill. William S. Davis, from Wisconsin, built a hardware store in 1889. John Prehoitz started a meat market. Tuttle & Stillwell, Burr W. Tuttle and H. Leslie StillwelK built a store; John Owens built the Stewartville House hotel, and Roswell Sage, a son of Hiram Sage, built the Sage House. Later, the Robbins brothers, Frederick and Herbert, came from Fillmore county, built a store and did a large business in merchandising and banking.

Additions to the original plat of the town were platted by Eugene S. Wooldridge, Charles N. Stewart and others, and residences became numerous. In a few years several fine business blocks were erected. The first was built by Tuttle & Stillwell about 1895. The two-story brick Ginter block was built by William Keenan and bought by Mathew Ginter. The C)pera House, built in 1895, is a very handsome two-story brick building with stores on the first floor and a very commodious and pretty amusement hall and convenient rooms of the Commercial Club in the second story. The Moore block, built by William Printz in 1896 is a large and attractive twostory brick building of two fronts. In 1897 William S. Davis built a very handsome two-story double front brick hardware store of beautiful style and finish; he also built other substantial buildings. John H. Twohey, an old settler, built a two-story brick glass front furniture store that is one of the largest and prettiest in the place. The First National Bank building is a two-story structure with a strikingly handsome stone and brick front. The village drew a large trade from the rich surrounding country and had a rapid and unusually substantial growth, both business and residential. The buildings erected about that period were nearly all very pretty and of a size and finish far ahead of the size of the town, and have given it an air of prosperity that would be creditable to a place several times larger.

The mill pond, which is wide and long and very picturesque, was named I^ke Alice by Charles N. Stewart, in compliment to his wife, and has been improved by a park on its shore and a launch and other boats on its waters, and is very popular as a picnic resort for the surrounding country.

The Stewartville Star, a weekly newspaper, was first issued May I, 1891, with L. K. Alden as ])ublisher and Linus Blank editor: was transferred to W. S. Dyars that fall and resumed by Alden & Son in the spring of 1893. Linus Blank again became the owner in July, 1893, H. L. Walker bought it in October, 1893. He was an energetic business man and built up a good paper and ran it successfully till November 1906, when he sold to the Olmsted County Publishing Company and moved to the state of Washington.

The Stewartville Times was started in October, 1895, by Rev. M. H. Galer, who had been the Congregational minister. He sold in November, 1896, to Ben. Kamerer, and he, in October, 1898, to M. E. Sloan, who was appointed a clerk in a government office at Washington and sold, in August, 1899, to H. B. Foote. Edward Fanning was a partner for six months. The paper was afterward consolidated with the Star.

The Star is now the only paper in the village, and is a creditable sheet, and one paper is enough for any moderate-sized community. It was published and edited by J. L Wheeler from December, 1906, to July, 1907, when Ulick Madden conducted it till September, 1907, when Wallace V. Olin became editor and publisher, and is still conducting it.

Following the new growth of Stewartville, Dr. Edward Stoddard, who had been practicing at High Forest, removed to Stewartville and became its pioneer physician. He is a son of Mr. Stoddard, an early settler of Viola township, and afterward a merchant in Rochester. He, in partnership with Frederick L. Wood, a son of Milton R. Wood, deceased, of Eyota, established a drug store.

Dr. Frank W. Bums, a son of John Burns, formerly of High Forest township, now a resident of Rochester, came soon after and practiced in partnership with Dr. Stoddard. He is a graduate of the College of Physicians and surgeons of Chicago. He is still in practice. Dr. C. E. Fawcett, from Marion, and H. R. Russell, from Pleasant Grove, are also practicing physicians.

A Methodist Episcopal church was organized and built a pretty church building, but, the pioneer Presbyterian church having ceased to exist, the Methodists sold their frame building to the German Methodists, and bought the brick Presbyterian building. The Congregational church has a pretty building. The Second Adventists also have a neat building. St. Bernard'^ Catholic church was organized by Rev. Stephen Condron and has a large place of worship. The first Methodist preacher was Rev. Royce; the present one is Rev. M. Meade. The first Congregational minister was Rev. E. C. Crane; the present one is Rev. J. L. Jones. The first Adventist preacher was Rev. John Hopkins; the present one is Rev. Comer. The present Catholic priest is Rev. Stephen Condron, who is also in charge of St. Bridget's church in Pleasant Grove township.

The mill, after the death of Charles Stewart, in 1866, was carried on by his son, Charles N. Stewart, who sold it to John N. Cussons, a native of England, who had for several years been a miller at Chatfield. He and his sons, Wauzee and Jackson Cussons, have made it a modem mill, unusually well equipped with the latest improvements, and doing a large business.

O. E. Hammer opened a law office in 1895, and is the only lawyer. He was bom in Fillmore county in 1867, and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.

A system of waterworks for fire protection was established in 1895, by a vote of eighty-six to eight. It consists of a tank, on top of an eighty- foot tower, holding 2,000 barrels, filled from a well in the central part of the village by steam pumps, with a capacity of 500 gallons per hour. This supplies 2,700 feet of mains in Main street, with six hydrants - a liberal provision for a community of the size. There are about twenty-five members of the fire company, with a neat and convenient engine house, 2,000 feet of hose, hose carts and hook and ladder apparatus.

An electric lighting system was established in 1900 and is in general use. It was started by Mr. Johnson, who, for lack of capital, worked under much discouragement, and died about the time that he had got it fairly established. It is now managed by T. F. Alexander, from Rochester.

The public school district including the village was changed to an independent district in 1898, and, after a very spirited contest, a vote for the issuance of $15,000 in bonds was carried by fifty-five majority. The old school house was sold for $1,000 and a new brick school house was built in 1899, at a cost of $16,000 - a large and very handsome two-story brick edifice, centrally located and standing as a splendid memorial to the educational spirit of the builders of the village. The school ranks among the first of the county, including a high school, and having eight teachers.

The secret and beneficial societies are the Masonic Lodge and lodges of the Modem Woodmen, United Workmen and American Yeomen. There have been lodges of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, but they have been discontinued.

That almost mythical individual, the oldest person in the state, would seem to have been William Sargeant, who died at Stewartville in 1883, at what was believed to be the age of one hundred and fourteen years. He was a native of England and uneducated.

In November, 1893, a vote for the incorporation of the village was carried by fifty for to five against the proposition. The first officers elected were: President, John Preleitz; council, Herbert Robbins, Frank Andrews, Ralph Whitney; treasurer, W. E. Smith; recorder, A. C. Tichenor; justice, H. S. Walker; constable, Edward Fanning. There was only one ticket voted for.

In June, 1903, after a freshet had washed out the dam of the Cussons Milling Company, the community showed its public spirit by voting 129 in favor to 32 against issuing $2,000 in bonds for the rebuilding the dam and improving the park - an action that, whether strictly legal or not, was highly necessary for the prosperity of the town.

Seventy of the young men of Stewartville and the vicinity enlisted in a company of Spanish war volunteers organized at Spring Valley in April, 1898. On their return, in September, 1898, they were given a cordial public reception at Stewartville. The opera house was crowded and speeches were made by Edward Buck, Editor Sloan and O. E. Hammer; a bountiful banquet was served at Mack's Hotel, and there was dancing till morning.

of a small seaport city in Sweden, we cannot state. This is one of the timbered townships of the county, the northwest third, through which the Zumbro river pursues its crooked course, having originally been a forest, but the saw mills that furnished the pioneers with their building material, and the wood haulers who in the early years furnished Rochester with most of its fuel, and the farmers who had their wood lots there have so denuded the forest as to have changed it into quite an open farming district.

John Soble, J. Lyman Wright and E. Sinclair Wright are said to have settled in this township in 1854. In 1855 settlements were made by David L. King, Francis C. and Ira S. Whitcomb, Marinus King, Almeron Randall, Israel Devine, John Colwell, Alpheus Merritt, George W. and Ensign Chilson, Obediah Gilbert, Norman Haight, Frederick A. Olds, Joseph V. Matthews, Garlord Hurlbut, Benjamin and Samuel J. McDowell, Nathan Bowman, Isaac Dodd, John and Darius Ellison, Richard Middleton, Jerome Harrington, Joseph Edmiston, George and Dudley Sinclair, James A. Blair, Thomas S. Kesson, William, Henry and Ffederick W. Postier. Michael H. Staats and others.

The first death and marriage were in the family of James Canfield. An infant son died in August, 1855, and his wife died three days later; the following Christmas he was married to Mariva Bonner.

A saw mill was built in 1855 by I. S. Whitcomb, James A. Blair and Michael H. Staats; two years later it was changed to a grist mill and swept away in a freshet in 1866, and not rebuilt. W. W. Doty built a saw mill in 1857, Richard Middleton built a saw mill in 1858, and changed it to a grist mill. He also kept a store from 1856 to 1858, but it proved a losing venture.

Miss Ann Losinger taught the first school in a claim shanty in the summer of 1855, and the building was moved to New Haven township, and she continued teaching there*, so becoming the first teacher in both townships.

The township was organized in May, 1858. At the meeting D. L. King was chairman ; James Ford, moderator ; John C. Simonton, clerk, and Hiram Fairbanks, assistant. The first township officers were: Supervisors, D. L. King, chairman; H. C. Sheldon, Moses Hcrrick; clerk, Samuel McDowell; assessor, Benjamin McDowell; collector, James Ellison ; overseer of poor, R. Middleton ; overseer of roads, John Kinsey; justices of the peace, J. H. Harding, Norman Haight; constables, James Ellison and Robert Canfield. A town hall was built near the center of the township in 1874.

The jackrabbit, the big white hare (Lepus compestris), native to the western plains, first made its appearance in the western part of the county about 1890. There is a tradition that a couple of men who went from Kalmar to Dakota and back by team had as part of their camping outfit a combined chicken coop and feed trough at the back of their wagon, and on their return brought a few jackrabbits in the coop and turned them loose after exhibiting them as curiosities. They are no longer strangers, but permanent residents.

Byron. - ^\Vhen the Winona & St. Peter Railroad was built across the southern tier of sections in Kalmar township, in 1864, the company established a station ten miles west of Rochester and named it Byron. It was located on the farm of Addison J. Dibell, who donated the depot site to the railroad company. The village is quite above the surrounding country, being 260 feet higher than Rochester, and is surrounded by rich grain farms. Mr. Dibell sold part of his farm to John W. Simonton and George W. Van Dusen, who platted the village, and Mr. Dibell platted an addition. An elevator and warehouse was built by G. W. Van Dusen and Thomas J. Templar, of Rochester, in 1869. It had a capacity of 30,000 bushels, and while wheat was grown, Byron did a large business in buying grain. In December, 1869, there were 4,500 bushels taken in ^er week. Thomas J. Templar was the first grain buyer. He moved to Kansas. J. Frank Weed, from Rochester, was station agent and grain buyer twenty- four years.

John W. Simonton built and kept the first store, which he sold to Knud E. Mo, who, after carrying it on a number of years, sold it and moved to the northern part of the state. Mr. Simonton carried on a wagon shop till a few years ago, when he moved to Rochester, where he now lives. Hiram Fairbanks and Robert Simonton started a store in 1865 and were in business several years.

A Baptist church was organized soon after the village was started by Rev. E. W. Westcott, the pioneer Baptist minister of Rochester, and in 1866 a good-sized and pretty church building was erected. The present pastor is Rev. T. S. Rooks. A Methodist church, also a good-sized and pretty structure, was built in 1873, during the pastorate of Rev. Robert Forbes, who is now secretary of the General Home Missionary Society of the Methodist church. The present minister at Byron is Rev. Arthur McCausland.

Dr. Staunton B. Kendall, who had been for three years living on a farm in the township, built a hotel in the village in 1867, and also practiced his profession. He died in November, 1897, aged ninety years. In 1868 his son, Joseph B. Kendall, opened a large store and was also postmaster fifteen years, and kept the hotel several years. In 1892 he sold the store to John C. Crabb, now of Rochester, and Sam E. Tompkins, who is now keeping a grocery store and is postmaster.

William A. Rickert, who is a son of Nathan Rickert, deceased, who settled in the township in 1858, started a harness shop in the village in 1868 and continued the business till 1899, when he engaged in the restaurant business, which he is still conducting.

Byron was incorporated as a village in 1873. The limits were extended far beyond the village plat, to give the better control of the sale of liquor. It includes all of section 32, the west half of section 33, the south half of section 29, and southwest quarter of section 28, an area larger than that of many a city. Within those limits saloons are not allowed. The first village officers were: Councilmen, Dudley Sinclair, Francis C. Whitcomb and Thomas S. Kerson ; recorder, Knud E. Mo ; treasurer, Perry Newell ; justice, George H. Stephens ; assessor, George W. Gove ; constable, W. L. Standish.

A cheese factory was organized in 1873 by sixteen persons making a promissory note for $1,000. The factory was a benefit to the community, but a loss to the organizers. It failed to pay the note or the interest on it, and the makers had ultimately to pay a penalty of $2,000 for their public spirit. After running ten years the factory was sold to Marvin & Cammack, of Rochester, who ran it about eight years and changed it to a creamery. About 1896 a co-operative creamery company was organized and is still run successfully; Fred C. Little is president. It uses the cream of 106 cows.

The leading business establishment is the brick yard. John Christensen and the Whitcomb brothers started a brick yard about 1878 and did a local business for a few years. Crist Nelson started a yard about 1888 and in 1893 sold it to J. B. Kendall, who is conducting it on a large scale. He employs from twelve to twenty men. The first year he made about 800,000 brick and now turns out from 1,000,000 to 1,300,000 a year, shipping mostly to Rochester and Owatonna, along the railroad to South Dakota and to various towns in southern Minnesota.

Albert L. Cutting came to Byron from Rochester in 1880 and established a general store, which he is still carrying on. He was bom in New York state in 1852 and came to Rochester with the family of his father, Lucius S. Cutting, in 1855. He clerked in the store of J. D. Blake and was a partner with Miss Mary Macomber in the ladies' furnishing store now conducted by Misses Scott & Everstine. His son, Fred E. Cutting, is the proprietor of a large nursery.

The State Bank of Byron was started as a private bank, in 1902, by Williams & Williams, from Concord, Minnesota. It was incorporated in 1905 as a state bank, with a capital of $10,000, and has deposits of about $50,000, most of it the money of farmers. J. B. Kendall is president and Frank E. Decker cashier. The bank building, a pretty one-story brick structure, finished in thorough business style, is an architectural ornament to the town.

Douglass. - When the branch railroad was built from Rochester to Zumbrota, in 1878, it ran across section i, the northeast comer of the township, and a station was established and called Douglass, for Harrison Douglass, the owner of the land on which it was located. Mr. Douglass built a grain elevator with a capacity of 18,000 bushels. He was a native of the state of New York, a blacksmith and a California pioneer, and came to Kalmar township in 1855, starting a blacksmith shop before there was any at either Rochester or Oronoco. He acquired a large amount of farming land and was influential in the community. He died in 1902. Hiram Miller put up and kept the first store and was postmaster for a number of years. Douglass is a village of but few houses. Its most prominent feature is a large and good-looking school house, which is also used as a church. There is a lodge of the Modem Woodmen of America.

Olmsted. - An attempt was made to establish a village on the Winona & St. Peter Railroad, in 1870, four miles and a half west of Rochester, on the farm of J. V. Matthews, in Kalmar township, right on the boundary line between that township and Cascade. A side track was built, a small warehouse put up ; William M. Leonard and Sterling Cross, of Rochester, started a store; a postoffice was installed, and a school was kept there, but the attempt to make a town failed, and after about five years the station was abandoned and nothing but the side track was left. It was too near Rochester.

MARION TOWNSHIP (Tozvnship io6North,Range 13 West). - A colony consisting of Alfred Kinney, I-evi M. Phelps, Nathan S. Phelps, Eleazer Phelps, George Mills and a few others located, in April, 1854, in the neighborhood of what afterward became the village of Marion. They arrived on Saturday and on Sunday held an outdoor religious service (there was no indoors yet), with a sermon by Rev. Predmore, from Iowa, which is claimed to have been the first sermon preached in the county. J. W. Predmore, William Marquardt, Jacob Bonham, Lewis W. Wright, Philip H. Kavanaugh, Timothy Twohey, George Allen, J. D. Campion and John Dooley settled the same year. Mr. Allen was town treasurer eleven years.

James W. Livingston and John and William Hyslop located in the neighborhood of the now village of Chester in 1855. The same year locations were made in the township by Thomas McCoy, James Campion, J. W. Fulkerson, George Herber, Domnick Kennedy and John O'Neil.

The first death was of a child of David Baumgartner, in 1856, and the first marriage was of Jacob Bonham to Letitia Phelps, the same year. Mr. Bonham moved to Rochester and was a merchant there.

In the winter of 1856-57 a daughter of Benjamin Roberts, in going from a neighboring farm in a severe blizzard, was lost and her body was found frozen to death against a fence a couple of days afterward.

The pioneers of Marion were quiet and orderly people and there was not the frontier roughness there that is imagined to accompany the opening of a new country, but in i860 some of them allowed their zeal for law and order to lead them into lawlessness. A valuable watch belonging to a Mr. Rutan was reported stolen, and a German laborer was suspected of the crime, but denied it. Half a dozen of the most respectable citizens, to extort a confession, strung him up to the limb of a tree and almost executed him, but without securing the confession. The executioners were bound over to the grand jury, but that body failed to indict them. It was reported that they got the main witness against them, the laborer, so drunk that he was useless as a witness. Later public opinion was that the watch had not been stolen.

The death of John A. Howard, a veteran of the War of the Rebellion, occurred in October, 1876, under peculiar circumstances. There had been horse stealing in the neighborhood and some colts of John Mayhew, a neighbor, had been put into the barn with Mr. Howard's horses; for greater safety. A son of Mr. Mayhew and a son of Mr. Howard secreted themselves in the barn, with firearms, to guard the horses. Near midnight Mr. Howard, thinking he

Marion Village. - In the fall of 1854 Alfred Kinney opened a store about a mile east of where the village now is, and in a year moved it to the village, going into partnership with James D. Graff, who came from Freeport, Illinois. Stores were also started by Ansel C. Rodgers, Curtis & Dudley and Clark & Moulton. Charles H. Morrill, a native of New York state, came from Winona, and, buying out A. P. Moulton, became a partner with Gardner Qark in 1856, and afterward bought out Clark, and later sold to John H. Fawcett, a farmer of Marion township, and moved to Rochester, where he became a leading grocer. Mr. Fawcett was the village merchant for years, and was postmaster thirty-five years in succession. George W. Root, later a Rochester groceryman, was his partner for a time. Mr. Fawcett sold to Horace Willis in 1900 and moved to Stewartville, where he is now living. Dr. C. E. Fawcett, of StewartvHle, and Dr. A. C. Fawcett, a dentist of Rochester, are his sons.

The first blacksmith was Leonard Chase, and the first wagonmaker John Strangeway. Aaron Hill, a blacksmith, came in 1856. Dr. J. C. Cole was the first physician.

The Methodist Episcopal church was organized in 1855 by Rev. Benjamin Criss, whose circuit extended from Brownsville, on the Mississippi, to the northern part of Olmsted county; and he traveled it on foot through the timber and wading streams. A church building was erected in 1859. It was burned down in 1868, but was at once rebuilt.

The Church of Christ was organized in the village in 1866 by Rev. Levan, who preached there and at Pleasant Grove sevenil years, making his home much of the time in Rochester.

The village grew and bade fair to become one of the largest towns in the county till, in 1857, the election contest between it and Rochester, for the county seat, resulted in favor of the latter. The two places are only eight miles apart, and the advantage thus gained by Rochester, and the fact that Marion has no railroad, has retarded its growth. The railroad station of Predmore is only a mile and a half from Marion village, just far enough away to kill the old village, but has not yet done so. The railroad did not go to the village; it remains to be seen whether the village will go to the railroad.

Predmore. - A station on the Winona & Southwestern Railroad, built through the county in 1891, was located in the southeast comer of Marion township and called Predmore, the name of a family of original settlers in the neighborhood. It is a small village of only one .store, a blacksmith shop and a few buildings. A creamery was established a couple of years after the station was located, and is still in successful operation.

Chester, - ^About 1868 Chester station was established on the Winona & St. Peter Railroad, in the northeast part of the township. An elevator was built and Ezra La Claire was aK)ointed the first postmaster. Till about 1885 it was a thriving village, and had at one time 125 or 130 inhabitants. A great deal of grain was bought there; one day in September, 1872, 1,450 bushels of wheat were taken in at the elevator. Loren B. Parker kept the elevator and a' store several years. He moved away about 1880, and is now in Colorado. O. T. Caswell, from Winona, was the station agent, grain buyer and storekeeper about ten years. The business has dwindled and it is now a village of seven or eight houses, with a postoffice, school house and store.

There has always been rivalry between Chester and Marion villages as to which should be the political capital of the township, and the town elections have been held sometimes at one place and sometimes at the other. They are only about four miles apart.

NEW HAVEN TOWNSHIP {Tozniship 108 North, Rannc 15 West). - The first settler in this township was Matthias C. Van Horn, who came from Iowa to Oronoco in the spring of 1854, and, pushing beyond, on foot, found a location on the Zumbro river where he made his claim, built a log house and, the next season, brought his family. He died in 1895. Park Amsden settled the same season. In August of the same year Samuel Brink came from Iowa with eight teams and eighteen men, all of whom took timber claims and sold out to Brink. History repeats itself but slowly. This was more than fifty years ago, and the government has only within a few years begun prosecuting millionaire miners, lumbermen and ranchers in the far West for following Brink's humble example. He started the town of Durango on the river, built a saw mill and a store in partnership with John Holmes. Brink moved to Lake Chetek and Holmes sold to Charles Nye and in 1857, on the death of Nye, Daniel Heaney, of Rochester, became the proprietor of the store and mill. John H. Hill, afterward a druggist in Rochester, was postmaster. In 1858 the name of the hamlet was changed to New Haven, the name also given to the township. The store was closed, the dam went out, and the embryo city collapsed about 1864 and is now a farm owned by John Comwell, who was for years

The first boards sawed at the Durango mill were used in building houses for Abram Clason, who settled in the township in 1854, and for Daniel Salley, who settled in 1855.

Among the laborers digging the race for Brink was Barney Mc- Ginley. He remained in the neighborhood and in 1868 settled on a farm in the township.

In 1855 John B. Bassett and son, Joshua B. Bassett, Joseph and John Comwell, Cornelius White, Edward P. Reynolds, Charles W. Osbom, William W. Button, A. Clason, F. W. Comwell and P. Kennedy and a number of others made claims.

In 1856 settlements were made by James H. Hodgman, Walter Martin, Daniel Jewell, Samuel Campbell, A. O. Cowles, R. Elliott and Herman Frost.

The first death was of Mrs. Helen Madison, wife of Henry Madison, in August, 1856. She was under twenty-one years of age. The first couple married were John Holmes and Miss Diana Phelps, in the spring of 1855.

In 1857 the county commissioners changed the boundaries of New Haven and Oronoco by setting off three sections in the northeast comer of the former township and attaching them to Oronoco. The Zumbro river runs across that comer. This loss of territory was acquiesced in by the people of New Haven till 1866, when, as the result of a suit in the district court, it was decided that the action of the commissioners had been illegal, and the territory was restored to New Haven.

The township was organized in May, 1858. At the town meeting, held at Heaney's store, the following officers were elected: Supervisors, John Loury, chairman; Daniel Salley, Thomas Mc- Manus ; clerk, John Comwell ; assessor, J. H. Hodgman ; overseer of poor, Arnold Hunter; collector and treasurer, A. N. Bowman; justices, A. B. Chapin, L. S. Howe; constables, Charles Osbom and A. N. Bowman. John Comwell was re-elected clerk every year during his residence there. There were eighty-one votes cast at the first election, and Daniel Salley cast the first vote.

New Haven was the only township in the county that voted against the $5,000,000 loan of state credit to the railroads in the election of 1858.

This township was originally the most heavily timbered in the county, about two-thirds of it having been forest. Most of the building timber of the early settlers came from it and Kalmar township.

A postoffice was established in 1862 within a mile of the west line of the township and county, and named Othello. The Postoffice Department required the mail to be carried from Mantorville without expense to the government, and David Rowley did that favor to his neighbors once a week till the government felt rich enough to establish a service of its own three times a week. Almeron O. Cowles was the first postmaster. After ten years he resigned in favor of William Porter, who died in about a year, and Mrs. Cornelius White, the wife of a pioneer and veteran soldier, was apK pointed. She did faithful and poorly paid duty for years, and resigned in 1902. The office is now among the things that were.

For years the woods from Kalmar and New Haven to Pine Island were the resort, in the early summer, of wild pigeons which nested there. Every morning and afternoon, during the breeding season, flocks of the birds could be seen for miles around, leaving and returning to their nests, and the Genoa woods were raided ruthlessly by hunters from the surrounding country. The pot-hunters shipped the birds and their squabs in bags and barrels to Chicago and other markets, and the breaking up of their nests and the thinning of the timber for fuel destroyed the homes of the birds, and the pigeon roosts are no more.

Genoa. - A saw mill was built in 1856 at the location known as Genoa, by Mapes, Baker & Frycke. In 1857 another one was built in the same vicinity by Charles Chapin & Son. In 1863 J^^^^ Kilroy and Leonard W. Kilboum built a larger steam mill, which was burned down in 1864 and rebuilt. In 1869 Joshua Bassett built a steam saw mill. All the mills did a good business till the bringing in of pine lumber by railroad destroyed the market for native lumber. Ira Richards opened the first store in 1863, and J. L. Bassett started one in 1864, and Hiram Miller in 1865. The village of Genoa was platted by John B. Bassett in 1865. A large and well-built school house is the principal institution of Genoa.

ORION TOWNSHIP (Toumship 105 North, Range 12 West). - The first settlements in this township were made in 1854 by George M. Gere, John Schermerhorn, Joel Ballard, David Hazelton, James Edwards, C. J. Robinson, Henry Goodman and Joseph Rose.

Francis H. Cummings, Thomas Harris, Franklin B. Burk, Levi Lovejoy and Lemuel Denny came in 1855. Mr. Cummings built a saw mill and platted a town that he called Cummingsville. The mill ran only a few years and the village failed to develop. The same year Thomas Harris built a steam mill which had a short life. Mr. Harris went into the army and ceased to be a resident of the township. F. G. Tesca, Daniel Hisey, John H., Joseph and Amos Plank, E. Monette and W. F. Sevmour pre-empted in 1856.

The first birth in the township was of Edward, son of F. H. Blodget. bom in June, 1854. The first death was of John Schermerhom, in October, 1855. The first marriage was of O. H. Chapman to Miss Eliza Schermerhom, in November, 1854.

The first school was taught in 1856 by Andrew Beardsley, at the home of Mahlon Clayton. A school house was built the same year and the first to teach in it was Miss Deming.

The township was organized in 1858. At the first town meeting Thomas Harris was moderator, and Richard S. Russell, Thomas Harris, B. F. McVey and L. B. Bliss, judges of election. The first township officers elected were : Supervisors, L. B. Bliss, chairman ; Stephen Case, Seth A. Cole; clerk, John T. Hancock; collector, Henry Goodman; overseer of poor, F. H. Cummings; justices, Thomas Harris and F. B. Burk; constables, Henry Goodman and M. L. Scarbrough.

John T. Hancock held the offices of town clerk and justice of the peace more than thirty years continuously. He wrote a most beautiful, old style, round hand.

The Orion flouring mill was built in 1866 by Christopher Ecker, who sold it to William Hueston in 1874. It was burned down in 1879 rebuilt by Mr. Hueston, with three run of stones, run by water power.

There is a creamery, with M. B. Chapman as the buttermaker. A town hall was built in 1894 and dedicated by a dance. The population of the township, as g^ven in the state census of 1905, was 669.

ORONOCO TOWNSHIP {Township 108 North, Range 14 West). - Leonard B. Hodges, while engaged in southern Minnesota as a deputy United States surveyor, obtained knowledge of the site of Oronoco, with its great advantages for the building of a city, and, with John B. Clark and Ebenezer S. Collins, came from Iowa and located there March 13, 1854. The nearest other settlements were Cannon Falls, thirty-five miles away, and Red Wing and Faribault, forty miles. They built a log cabin and kept bachelors* hall and spent the season in developing the future city, raising a crop and clearing a road through the timber for M. O. Walker's stage line from Dubuque to St. Paul. They platted the village and donated the mill site, the best in the cotmty, to Ezra Odell and James Holliston, who built a saw mill. In 1855 Dorman J. Bascomb, T. A. Olmsted and H. D. Evans built a grist mill and in 1856 Allott & Wilson built a planing and sash mill, which was carried away by the freshet of 1859. Robert K. Whiteley, from St. Louis, and John

A. Moore, from New York, were the next settlers. E. C. Stevens moved with his family from Red Wing to the village in 1854, and they were the first family to settle there. A log house was built in 1854 by S. P. Hicks and fed and sheltered from sixty to a hundred men. Reuben Ottman, the first lawyer, came to the village in the winter of 1854-55 and made investments in real estate. Newell Bascomb and Samuel Wi throw came to the village in 1855, and Thomas C. Clay, Simeon R. Terwilliger and John McMaster in 1856.

B. Webster, Amosa and Sobieski Moulton and Abram M. Moulton, a Mexican war veteran, and Lyman S. Crowell settled on farms in 1855, and George Atkinson, Richard Waterman and Elisha Gorton in 1856.

Small parties of Chippewa and Sioux Indians were frequently camped about the village in its earliest days, and Mrs. Hodges remembers a camp of two or three hundred the first season - ^probably attracted by the good fishing. They were perfectly friendly.

J. B. Clark, one of the trio of original townsite proprietors, tiring of the loneliness of their bachelor existence and lamenting that there was no woman in the rapidly growing settlement, made it known that he would give a lot to the first woman who would visit Oronoco. A Miss Stevens, living in the neighborhood of Pine Island, came down with her brother, and got the lot. We do not learn that she lived on it. She probably took it as a speculation.

The first birth recorded in the township was of Ida, daughter of J. B. Qark. The first marriage was of James Holliston to Mary Stephenson. The first death was of William McVeigh, a mill-

The township was organized in 1858, and L. B. Hodges was elected chairman of supervisors and John McMaster town clerk. W. C. Buttles was elected town treasurer. Times were hard and many settlers very poor, and Mr. Buttles, finding that the office required him to levy on the only cow or other property that the poorest taxpayers could not spare, he gave up the distasteful political job and resigned the office. Though still living, he ought to have a monument.

In 1855 1856 there was every prospect that Oronoco would be the leading town and the county seat of the county, and it was settled rapidly and prospered.

The first newspaper in the county was the Oronoco Courier, first issued in December, 1856, by a company consisting of Leonard B. Hodges, John B. Clark, Ebenezer S. Collins, Reuben Ottman and E. Allen Power. The printing material was brought from Dubuque. Dr. Hector Galloway, the first physician of the village, was editorin-chief, and E. Allen (Ned) Power, local editor. John R. Flynn, of Dubuque, was foreman of the office. It was issued weekly, and ably edited, and lasted about a year. The financial panic of 1857 killed it.

The Oronoco News was started by E. O. Hickox in 1897. was published successfully for a few years, after which it changed ownership frequently, and was discontinued in 1907, leaving the town without a paper.

The first church in the village was built by the Disciples in 1865. It was allowed to become useless, and in 1871 a neat edifice was built by the Presbyterians, and has been used also by other denominations. The German Lutherans have within a few years past built a pretty church. The comer-stone of St. John's German Lutheran church was laid in June, 1908.

The most prominent feature of the village is its school house, erected in 1875. It is of brick, two stories in height, and has four ample schoolrooms, and is on a very sightly location.

The water power and mill at Oronoco were bought in 1863 by Abraham D. Allis, in partnerhip with George W. Wirt. Mr. Allis is a native of the state of New York, was a California pioneer in 1849, moved from there to Waupun, Wisconsin, and engaged in the manufacture of wagons. He bought out the interest of Mr. Wirt in the mill and enlarged and improved it, and in 1873 A. Gooding and D. S. Hibbard, of Rochester, as partners, and built a large mill with eight run of stones, which did a very successful business till November, 1879, when it was burned down, with 30,000 bushels of wheat, at a loss of $90,000. Mr. Allis since that has conducted the business alone, rebuilding the mill on a smaller scale. He has also developed a summer resort. The mill pond has been named Lake Allis ; pavilions and cottages have been built ; the lake has been furnished with boats, and the grounds, which are very picturesque, are the resort in the warm weather of daily picnic parties from Rochester and other places, and some persons have built cottages and spend the summer there. It has been the summer residence of Drs. W. J. and C. H. Mayo for several years past.

Deaths by drowning have been frequent in the waters of the Zumbro near the mills. Edie, a young son of Alfred G. Lawyer, one of the early settlers, was the first victim. A four-year-old son of John Irish was also drowned. John and Alden Hill, young men and brothers, were drowned by breaking through the ice of the pond. Two little children of Arthur Nichols, a boy and a girl, were drowned in October, 1878. A young man named Rose was drowned in May, 1880. In June of the same year Dr. John N. Farrand, the village physician, was capsized in a boat while fishing, and drowned. Michael A. Reid, principal of the village school, was drowned in June, 1900, while swimming with two of his scholars.

Both the Chicago & Northwestern and the Chicago Great Westem Railroads, in building from Rochester to St. Paul, avoided Oronoco, running through New Haven township and establishing switches and small depots called Oronoco station, located in New Haven, about three miles west of the village of Oronoco, though of but little value to that place.

The failure to obtain railroad communication with the world has prevented Oronoco village from becoming the city that nature fitted it for. The water power is the best in all this region, and there are within a short distance two other excellent but undeveloped powers. Unless electricity shall be superseded by some as yet undiscovered power (and who knows?), it may some day be an important electrical center. It has great electrical potentiality.

PLEASANT GROVE TOWNSHIP {Township 105 North, Range 13 West), - The first settlement in the county is believed to have been that of Jacob Goss, who made claim in this township in the spring of 1853, and lived on it till 1854, when he sold to Mrs. Pattridge, who, with her sons, was among the earliest settlers. There also came to this township in 1854 Philo S. Curtis, Y. P. Burgan, David and Robert Overend, Nathan S. Phelps, Joseph L. Parks, Jesse Bagley, Robert Angus, John B. Hendricks, Barnard Denny and others.

In 1855 locations were made by M. Brittendall, O. H. Page, Robert Tait, Lindsley Flathers, Robert Overend, John Lambert, John and William Burch, Joseph Prentice, J. D. Bunce, W. H. Mills, E. D. and Samuel Barrows, John and Martin Kinney, Frederick Sibeck, Thomas S. Harris, Erven H. Stuckman, David Bernard and Welcome A. Geer. In 1856 Richard Russell and Herbert G. McCaleb came.

The first child bom in the township was Minnesota, daughter of John Collins. The first death was of an old man named Holmes. The first couple to wed were Marvin Harwood and a daughter of Benjamin Winans.

The township was organized in 1858, with the following officers: Supervisors, J. H. Hartenbower, chairman ; E. H. Stuckman, F. L. Stevens; clerk, W. H. Mills: assessor, H. G. McCaleb; justices, Samuel Barrows, I. W. Norton; collector, William Kennedy; constables, William Kennedy, J. S. Stevens; overseer of poor, John Collins.

St. Bridget's Catholic church is located in the northwest comer of the township. It was established in 1859 by Rev. Pendergast, of Winona, and is the place of worship of numerous Catholic families in the vicinity, mostly the descendants of Irish early settlers. It is a large stone edifice of pleasing proportions and pretty interior finish, with a priest's house and a well-kept cemetery attached. It was at first under the charge of St. John church at Rochester, but has had an independent existence since about 1882, when Father Stack became the resident priest. It is now in charge of Rev. Condron. A hall has been built for the use of the societies connected with the church.

: There is a large German Lutheran church, about the middle of the west line of the township, which was established at an early period in the settlement of the township.

of the township in 1871, with a capacity of twenty-five barrels a day. It has changed millers several times, but has been kept running, and is now conducted by Leonard Chase.

A view that is perhaps the most picturesque in the county is from a portion of a road from Marion to Pleasant Grove, that is known as the Hog Back. A ridge about a hundred feet higjh runs between the river and rocky cliffs overlooking wooded slopes of rare beauty.

Pleasant Grove Village, - When the route of M. O. Walker's stages was established from Dubuque to St. Paul, through the unsettled country, in the spring of 1854, it ran through Pleasant Grove, and Philo S. Curtis built a hotel which was made the stage station, and Curtis was appointed postmaster. The location was in a beautiful piece of timber, and was given the appropriate name of Pleasant Grove.

The village was platted by Philo S. Curtis, Dudley Taylor and Samuel Barrows. W. H. Mills was the surveyor. A log store building was put up by E. B. Barrows and a large stock of goods brought in by F. A. Olds, who sold to Rumsey & Qough, by whom the store was conducted till 1862. Judge moved to Rochester, where he did much to build up the town.

Dr. Ira C. Bardwell, a native of the state of New York, located in Rochester in 1856 and in 1859 moved to Pleasant Grove and for a number of years was the only physician of the place.

A tragic event in the history of the new community occurred in the year i860. Jacob D. Bunce was a storekeeper in the village, having come there in 1855; John C. Chandler, who had been in the village about four years, was a blacksmith ; Chandler's age was about forty-five years, and Bunce's thirty-six. On the afternoon of the 22d of May, Chandler went into Bunce's store, and an altercation followed about an account between the two. Each accused the other of lying, and Bunce ordered Chandler out of the store, and he refused to go, whereupon Bunce endeavored to put him out. The two men were pretty evenly matched, Chandler being rather tall and muscular, and Bunce shorter and stout. Bunce had picked up an iron weight. Bunce had succeeded in pushing Chandler out the door, and, when he was about three feet away, threw the weight at him, striking him on the temple and breaking the skull. Chandler fell unconscious and was taken home. The skull was trephined by Dr. E. C. Cross, of Rochester, without success, and Chandler died the next morning. Bunce had a preliminary examination before Justice Samuel Barrows, at Pleasant Grove, and was tried in the district court the next May, on an indictment for murder. He was prosecuted by J. A. Leonard, county attorney, and William H. Yale, of Winona, and defended by E. A. McMahon and Stiles P. Jones, of Rochester, and Benjamin Franklin, of Winona. The trial was closely contested and resulted in a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in the fourth degree, and a sentence by Judge Thomas Wilson of one year's imprisonment in the county jail and a fine of $i,ooo. The next November he was pardoned by Governor Ramsey, after about six months' imprisonment. The petition for the pardon was signed, among others, by six of the jurymen who had convicted him.

The first Masonic lodge in the county was organized in the village in 1856. It has had a prosperous existence and meets in a well furnished hall of its own. The first officers were : Worshipful master, George P. Budling; senior warden, George W. Green; junior warden, Jacob Ginter.

The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Christian church was celebrated in June, 1906. There was a very large attendance. The history of the church was read by W. W. Parkinson.

The organization of the public school of the village is peculiar. In 1892, when H. E. Wolf was teacher, the district included in the village was united with one adjoining it, and they are known as a consolidated district. It extends six miles from the school house, and the scholars are taken to and from the school by team, at the expense of the district. George Fordham, the driver, has only been tardy once in the five years of all kinds of weather that the system has been in operation. This plan is not followed as yet by any other district in the county, and by not more than half a dozen in the state, but is very satisfactory to the Pleasant Grove district. The school house is one of the best in the county - a commodious and handsome frame structure, and finished throughout with all the latest appliances for teaching. There are two departments of the school, and eighty scholars, nearly all from outside the village. The school board has also the credit of paying the teachers higher salaries than are paid in other rchools of the same grade in the county outside of Rochester. The principal is paid $60 a month.