We had a Newfoundland dog by the name of Sancho, a most affectionate, faithful beast. A neighbor who had a lonely cabin borrowed him to stay with his wife while he was away. Someone shot him for a black bear. No person was ever lamented more.

In '54 my father built the first furniture factory at Minnetonka Mills. Our house was near it. The trail leading from Anoka to Shakopee went right by the house and it seemed that the Indians were always on it. There were no locks on the doors and if there were, it would only have made the Indians ugly to use them. Late one afternoon, we saw a big war party of Sioux coming. They had been in a scrimmage with the Chippewas and had their wounded with them and many gory scalps, too. We ran shrieking for the house but only our timid mother and grandmother were there. The Sioux camped just above the house, and at night had their war dance. I was only seven years old at the time, but I shall never forget the awful sight of those dripping scalps and those hollering, whooping fiends, as they danced. I think they must have been surprised in camp by the Chippewas for they had wounded squaws, too, with them. One old one was shot through the mouth. The men were hideously painted. One side of one's face would be yellow and the other green. It seemed no two were exactly alike.

One Sunday morning I was barefoot, playing in the yard. There were bushes around and I heard a queer noise like peas rattling in a box. I could not see what made it, so finally ran in and told father. He came out and lifted up a wide board over two stones. He jumped back and called to me to run in the house, then grabbed an ax and cut the head off a huge rattlesnake. It had ten rattles. We never saw its mate.

The first school taught in Minneapolis proper was taught by Clara Tuttle, a niece of Calvin Tuttle, in one of the rooms of the government log cabin where we were living in '51. The pupils were her cousins. Miss Tuttle returned to the east the next summer and died of consumption. My cousin Luella Tuttle, the next year used to go over to St. Anthony to school, on the logs, jumping from one to the other, rather than wait for the ferry.

In '58 we returned to Minneapolis to live. Old Dr. Ames was our doctor. He was one of the finest men that ever lived. I had terrible nose bleeds. His treatment was to whittle pine plugs and insert them in the nostrils. It always cured. No matter how poor a patient was, Dr. Ames always did his best. No child was ever afraid of him. He was very slow in his movements.

Mrs. Mary Harrison—1850.

I came to Minnesota from Maine. I had never been on the railroad or seen a train, so when I saw what I thought then was the most awe inspiring and stupendous mechanism there was ever going to be in the world, I took my seat with elation and bumped along on that crazy track with the greatest joy. I took no thought of danger. Now I should want an insurance of $100,000 to ride a block under those circumstances. The rails were of wood, with an iron top. I have heard my friends say that these iron pieces sometimes came up through the floor. We went by water to Boston, again by rail and then by the Erie Canal and Great Lakes.

We landed at Milwaukee. It was a little town. They were just building their first sidewalks then. I can shut my eyes and see those little narrow walks now. We drove in wagons with boards across for seats from Milwaukee to Galena. Weren't those seats easy!

Somewhere in Wisconsin we stopped at a little log hotel over night. We knew that rattlesnakes abounded in this region as we had seen them on our way. There were holes all around the base of the room. We took off our petticoats, of which every little girl had several, and stuffed them in the holes, shaking them carefully the next morning to see that there were no enquiring friends of the snake tribe rolled up in them.

We took the Nominee at Galena. After the high bluffs began, the scenery was magnificent. At a trading station called La Crosse, fifty Indians came on board. One chief in a white blanket I have always remembered. He was certainly majestic looking. A little two year old tot had his ears pierced from top to bottom and common wire with three cornered pieces of shiny tin run through all the places. His eyes were very black, shiny and bright, but we could not raise a smile from him. That chief was all porcupine quill and bead embroidery. He was painted, too, as were all the rest. St. Paul, after we had climbed that awful flight of stairs up the bluff, looked like a little town that had been left. Our carriage to St. Anthony was a light express wagon with more boards across for seats. When we came to University Hill in St. Paul, there were no houses in sight, but oh! what a beautiful place it was! We did enjoy that drive. We stopped at DeNoyers to water the horses. This was a little tavern between the two little towns.

When we came to the ravine in St. Anthony, with its little cascades, father said, "I have not a doubt that the time will come when it will be settled through here." We all thought it was very grand of father to take such a long shot as that.

When we reached St. Anthony, the people were lovely to us. We did begin to feel at home at once. We had to find a place to live. One of them went with us to the "Stranger's House," a slab house standing near the falls. Anyone who came and had no place to live was welcome to live in this house until they had a home of their own. This was why it was called the "Stranger's House." The Mousseau's, a French Red River family were living in one half of it. We scrubbed it out and moved in. Mother sewed some loops on some quilts and made two bedrooms. We told her she was a fine carpenter. We did have lots of fun in our family. The floor was rough boards, but we planed them off by scrubbing with white sand. When the floor was dry, we always sprinkled it with white sand. The slabs were put on lengthwise, and there were always rows of bright Indians' eyes like beads on a string watching us through these cracks. My brother had smallpox in this house. We never knew how it came, but come it did. Dr. Murphy when he first saw him said it was measles or smallpox, but he vaccinated us all. It took just lovely. In those days they used a scab from the arm of someone who had been vaccinated. My brother took quantities of penny-royal tea and no other medicine. He came through fine.

On the Fourth of July we went to a dancing party or ball at the hotel. We did have a beautiful time—Mrs. Northrup was a lovely cook. I remember the butter was in the shape of a pineapple with leaves and all. We danced contra dances, such as "The Tempest" and Spanish dances. The waltz, too, with three little steps danced very fast, was popular. We took hold of our partner's elbows.

I taught the first school at Shingle Creek when I was a girl of seventeen. My school house was a claim shanty reached by a plank from the other side of the creek. My boarding place was a quarter of a mile from the creek. The window of the school house was three little panes of glass which shoved sideways to let in the air.

One afternoon just before time to dismiss the school, the windows were darkened by the faces of savages looking in. Each carried a gun and the terror inspired by them was very great as they were not the friendly faces of the Indians we were used to. The children all flocked around me. I went on hearing their lessons and then told them to sing. The Indians appeared delighted with this and laughed and talked with each other. After school, with the children clustered around me, I took an atlas and went out and showed the Indians the pictures. I knew they were very fond of looking at pictures. They all stayed until the last picture had been shown and the leaves turned again and again and then with a friendly glance at me and my little flock, strode off and I never saw them again.

The only time I ever fished was when I was teaching this school. I went with friends to the mouth of Shingle Creek. I did not know how to go at it when the pole and line were given to me. I asked what I should do and they told me if I felt my line pulling, to throw it over my head as quickly as I could. I was standing before some thick hazel brush and when I felt a tug, I did as I was told, landing on my back in the hazel brush at the same time. However, the largest black bass that the fishermen had ever seen was on my hook in the hazel brush. They thought it weighed over four pounds.

My little sister was taken to a revival meeting in the old church in St. Anthony. She was about as big as a minute and understood nothing of what was going on but was very wise looking. The minister did not slight even this atom, but asked her if she had found Jesus. She said hastily, "I didn't know he was lost."

Mr. William W. Ellison—1850.

Mr. Ellison now in his ninety-third year, with a perfect memory says:

I came to Minnesota with a determination to lead an outdoor life as my lungs were giving me much trouble. One of the first things I did was to take a yoke of oxen to Traverse to meet Mr. Williamson who was a missionary at Lac qui Parle. It was in November. I was new at this kind of work. The oxen were delivered to me at Fort Snelling. I crossed the river in a canoe and swam the oxen across to Mendota. Then I went on towards Shakopee. There was a wellworn Indian trail leading along the Minnesota River and I followed that. I went through Black Dog's village. I started late in the afternoon.

A young couple had been married at Mendota a few days before and had gone on ahead. I expected to catch up with them. My oxen were most tractable and the country through which I passed very beautiful. The trail led along a ridge.

My Uncle, Mr. Williamson, had always told me to make my camp early while there was plenty of light, so not seeing or hearing anything of the other wagon, I made my camp where an old Indian camp had been and prepared to spend a comfortable night in the woods. I cooked my supper and then turned in. The wind had come up and I soon became very chilly, so I looked around for a warmer place. I found a windfall and made myself a nice little fire by crossing the trunks and building a fire under them. I spent the next four hours in comfort, though it was very cold. My uncle had told me to start with the first rays of the sun. I had no timepiece, so when I saw a glow in the east, I got up, ate my breakfast and started. It was not long before I saw that my dawn was a prairie fire. I had not gone far when I heard a horse neighing and soon found my Mendota friends. They had not understood how to camp so were nearly frozen to death. Their wagon had broken down when they were in a swamp. They had taken what little bedding they had and camped on a knoll in this swamp. I surely was sorry for that bride. Her husband had had a chill early in the evening before they camped. She had been up with him all night and now thought he was dying. I thought he was too. I tried to make a fire out of the wet willow wood there, but could not and he got bluer and bluer. We used all the blankets we had. Finally I said, "You lie down on one side of him and I on the other." After some time his teeth stopped chattering and his color returned. I think it would have been the last of him if I had not found them as I did.

I tried to fix the cart but could not. A half breed who was driving for them had gone on to Shakopee for help, taking one horse the night before. I started on with my oxen to bring help. When I got nearly to Shakopee, I met a half breed, John Moores, going to their help. I waited for them in Shakopee. McLeod's boat came along and they took that as they could not get their cart mended well. I could make about twenty miles a day walking with my oxen. I stayed one night in the big woods at Belle Plaine. The wolves were very thick, "so I hung my food on a sapling and leaned it against a tree. When I got to the crossing at Traverse, it was dark. I hollered. I could hear someone say, 'That must be Ellison.' Then they came over for me. The Hopkins' and Huggins' had the mission station there then. It did seem good to get where I had a square meal. I had been living principally on a sweet biscuit my Aunt, Mrs. Williamson, the missionary's wife at Kaposia made. Don't ever take anything sweet to eat for any length of time."

Martin McLeod met the boat with a string of Red River carts. They were loaded with furs and were to take supplies back. It was very interesting to me to watch the loading and unloading of this boat. I was not yet familiar with those half breed drivers. They seemed sociable fellows, among themselves, laughing, joking and talking in their lingo.

The boat had brought a barrel of flour, one of pork and other supplies for the Mission at Lac qui Parle, so after spending a week at Traverse waiting for the train to start, I took these in a cart drawn by one ox and started with the rest on Monday morning. The Dressers had their cart which I had managed to fix and their team of horses. I started with them and the string of carts. I could see the trail two miles ahead. It had to go around the sloughs. The cart train of course followed it. I soon saw the sloughs were frozen and would bear my ox and wide wheeled cart where it was not deep, so I cut across. When Mrs. Dresser was getting dinner, I appeared and ate with them. They could not understand how I could keep up with horses. The train was several miles back. We all camped together at night. The first night was spent on the border of Swan Lake. The trail followed a straight line from Traverse to Lac qui Parle, except for these sloughs.

Saturday night we camped at Black Oak Lake, twelve miles from Lac qui Parle. In the morning, McLeod and his train went on, but we stayed and kept the Sabbath, arriving the next day.

The first Indian I ever shook hands with was Little Crow at Kaposia, his village. He was common looking even for an Indian. My uncle, Dr. Williamson said, "He is the smoothest Indian I know. Usually when I am told a lie once, I look out for that liar and never trust him again, but Little Crow has fooled me with his lies a dozen times and I suppose he will a dozen times more."

When I first knew John Otherday he was a savage with all a savage's instincts. My uncle, Mr. Williamson said to me one night, "We'll lock the cattle up tonight; Oupeto Topeca, later Otherday, is back from Washington and feels very much abused. He might kill them." When he became a Christian all this was changed. He never forgot his religion for a moment. At the time of the outbreak he led a party of refugees at the greatest risk to himself through the back country to Shakopee. I think there were over forty in the party.

I used to walk fifty miles a day with ease, and could keep it up for several days. I never walked in moccasins, for they gave no support to the feet; but a soldier's shoe, bought at the fort for $2.00 was ideal to wear. It had a long, heavy sole leather sole, a very low heel and heavy leather all hand sewed, for the uppers.

The Northwestern Fur Company's trail started from New Cave, now St. Paul, and followed the Mississippi River through St. Anthony to Anoka. It forded the Rum River at Anoka, near the Mississippi, following as nearly as possible that river to St. Cloud, where it crossed at a ford. It then followed the Sauk River about eleven miles; then turned to the right and crossed Big Bend forty-five miles, striking the river again four miles north from Sauk Center. Then it passed through the timber to Alexandria. It crossed Red River near Fort Abercrombie; then went directly north to Pembina, passing from point to point of the Red River of the North. The Red River carts had wheel rims eight inches wide. I have seen them with solid wheels cut from a single round of a tree. I have heard that the carts around Pembina were formerly all like this, but in my day they generally had spokes. I suppose they were lighter. It was the width of wheel and sagacity of the animal that made it possible to go with security over the most impossible roads. They usually carried eight hundred pounds. When they reached St. Paul they camped where Larpenteur's home now is.

I never knew an Indian who had been converted to go back on the whites. Some people would sell them a pair of pants, for a Christian Indian could vote and then say as they saw them so dressed, "There is a Christian Indian." It took more than a pair of pants to Christianize an Indian, but when they were once converted, they stayed so, as the many people who were saved by them in the massacre could testify.

Mr. D. E. Dow—1850.

In 1850 when I first came to Minnesota, I took a claim at Lake Harriet near where the pavilion now stands. The ruins of the old Steven's Mission were on my claim. It had been built in 1834. I did not keep this claim long, though I built a log cabin there and kept bachelor's hall, but soon took a claim where my present house stands in Hopkins. I built a cabin here but boarded with a widow and her children. All the food we had was game, pork and buckwheat cakes. The buckwheat they had brought from their home and it was all ground in the coffee mill then sifted through a horsehair sieve before it could be used. There were seven in the family to grind for, so it kept one person grinding all the time.

I was supposed to live alone in my cabin but hardly ever spent a night without the companionship of some Sioux Indians who were hunting around there. I gladly received them as they were friendly, and their company was much better than none. One winter they came in such numbers that at night the floor was entirely covered by their sleeping forms. Early in the morning, they would go out and all day hunt the deer, with which the woods abounded. It was very cold and the slain deer froze immediately. They stacked them up, making a huge pile. Suddenly all the Indians left. One morning shortly after, I was working in the clearing around my cabin, when I saw a line of squaws which I think was a block long, coming over the trail which led from Shakopee to Hopkins. The squaws went to the pile of deer. Each took one on her back and silently trudged away over the trail toward Shakopee. Some of the squaws were so small that the frozen carcass had to be adjusted by another squaw or it would drag on the ground. They were two weeks removing this pile of deer and had to walk twenty-eight miles with each one before they got home with it.

When I first made my way to Minnetonka, I came out at Gray's Bay. There were vast numbers of Indian mounds there and bark sheds for drying fish. This was in '53.

An Indian trail led along the shore of Lake Calhoun just above where the street car track is now. It continued on the high ground to the Mission at Lake Harriet. I killed a deer at what had been the Mission ground the first time I ever saw the lake. The trail continued on the high ground around Lake Harriet. There were fishing trails, too, around the lakes near the water, but the trails ordinarily used were on high ground where there was no fear of ambush. Another trail was north of Lake Calhoun and led to Hopkins, then to Shakopee, Little Six Village. The opposite shore was a big swamp. Another much used trail followed along the highlands of the Mississippi River to the fort sawmill which stood near where the old Union Station was in Minneapolis. The reservation on which the fort stood was ten miles square and included all the present site of Minneapolis. This is why that city was so long without settlers, although the water power was the finest to be found anywhere.

Mrs. Elizabeth Clifford—1850.

My father had asthma terribly and was advised to come to Minnesota for his health. He arrived in Stillwater with his family and a stock of goods in 1850. He exchanged these for land six miles out of that town and two and one half miles off the main traveled road leading to Marine. We had a very fine barn and comfortable home made of lumber from the Stillwater Mills. Our nearest neighbor was two and one-half miles away, Mr. Morgan who kept the halfway house, but I cannot remember that I was ever lonesome.

We spent much time in the woods, where we found the most wonderful wild flowers. There was not a tame flower known to us whose counterpart we could not find in our woods. Of vegetables I remember best a small pink eyed potato, the most delicious I have ever tasted. As they baked, they could be heard popping in the oven. They are not raised now. The wild plum found in the woods my father cultivated and they were as large as small eggs and looked like small peaches.

One day as I glanced from the window, I saw a body of Indian warriors coming on the trail that led around the lake near us. As they came up, I saw they were in full war paint and feathers. They entered, examined everything, but took nothing. They asked for and ate bread and molasses, as they had seen the children doing when they came in. They all had guns and, big bowie knives sticking in their belts. One particularly villainous looking one took out his knife and felt the edge, looking wickedly at us. One was exceptionally pleasant looking and I thought he would protect us if the rest got ugly. They finally went away. They were followed in the afternoon by a band of Chippewa braves who asked if the Sioux warriors had been that way that day. When told they had, they rode hurriedly after them. They said the Sioux had taken some Chippewa scalps.



Mrs. Richard Chute—1851.

I came to Minnesota a bride in 1851 and with my husband shortly afterwards took the steamer for Traverse de Sioux, where a great treaty with the Indians was to be signed. With us we took a tent, provisions and a French man to cook. I was the only woman in all the company.

It was all so wonderful to me—the beautiful country through which we passed and the preparations made for all the company on landing.

The Indians, a great concourse of them were down to see the boat come in. To see them scamper when the boat whistled was a sight to be remembered. Some fell in the water, but fled as soon as they could get themselves out. I think this was the first steamboat they had ever seen. They were frightened and curious at the same time.

Ten years before, at my home in Ohio, I had seen the Indians often as they would stop at our house for food on the way to Fort Wayne. My mother always cooked corn dodgers for them and gave them milk to drink. They loved her and knew she was their friend. They always gave me strings of vari-colored glass beads. I think I had one of every color.

These Indians at Traverse made me feel at home at once and I gave them a friendly smile. The glances they returned were shy, but friendly. Their painted faces and breasts and gaudy clothes were different from our Indians. Their tepees stretched as far as the eye could see. It seemed that the squaws must have had instruction in embroidery from some civilized teacher. Their patterns were so intricate. Their colors so well placed. Their moccasins were always beautifully done with beads and colored porcupine quills; their best petticoats, too. As for their liege lords, their best suits, if suits they might be called, were beautifully done. A young squaw, instead of pouring out her love in song, would pour it out in embroidery and her husband would be very gay, indeed.

Mrs. Hopkins, wife of the missionary, met us and took us home with her where we were very well cared for. She was a charming little woman, full of missionary zeal and greatly loved. I never heard her complain. Her husband, too, was greatly beloved by the Indians.

We took our stores and cooked there and with fresh vegetables from the little farm worked by Mr. Huggins, fish and game, we had choice meals.

I used to ride horseback, or rather "pony back," every day, always with my husband and frequently with Mr. Sibley. My pony was borrowed from the Indians. Mr. Chute and Mr. Sibley rode large horses. Every Indian brave, who came, came on a pony. His tepee, household goods and children were drawn by one. There were so many that they seemed more than the blades of grass. Literally thousands of these ponies were grazing some distance back of the encampment. We three rode out to see them. As we neared them, and they smelled my pony, that vast herd, with one accord, started towards us and almost at once literally engulfed me. The men called, "For God's sake, don't get off. Hold on for your life." I took the pony around the neck with both arms and did hold on. The men came after me as fast as they could and rode their big horses on either side of me. The Indians rushed in on their ponies and after some time succeeded in turning that vast multitude and letting the prisoner escape. I was cool and collected while the danger menaced, but when it was over, trembled and shook. My taste for horseback riding at Traverse was gone.

Mr. Sibley, Mr. Chute and I, with a guide, went to see a miniature Minnehaha. We walked all day going there and back—crossing the little stream many times. My husband took off his boots to ford the stream. He always carried me over. He cut his foot badly and could hardly get to the commission tent. Mr. Sibley urged us not to go to the Hopkins', but to stay there, but Mr. Chute wanted to go. It was bright moonlight, and I walked three quarters of a mile to Mr. Hopkins' to get a pony to take my husband back. I passed a little lake on the prairie. Mr. Chute and I always walked arm in arm as was then the custom for married people. Mirrored in the lake I could see reflected many, many Indian lovers walking as they had seen the pale faces do. I laughed to myself as I thought what mimics these children were. It was their following the customs of the white man, drinking as they saw him drink, that degraded them so.

On the Fourth of July there was to be a great celebration. The Indians were to have all their dances. Early in the morning, Mr. Hopkins went out to bathe in the river. He did not return. A little Indian girl said she had seen him go under the water and only two hands come above it. His body was not found for two days. A great crowd of squaws surrounded the house, showing by their sad looks what the loss was to them. At the burial, the Indians, a vast number of them, sang the hymns in Sioux. This funeral, way off in the wilderness, with these crowds of savage mourners, could never be forgotten.

Mr. Charles Bohanon—1851.

I moved to the farm where I am now living in '53. My father first took up a claim in 1851 where the Central Market now stands, but while he was in the woods, Old Man Stimson squat on that, so he took a claim at what is now Camden Place. He built a small house there. The farm was covered with brush and "oak openins". Everyone of these trees had to be grubbed out. One of my earliest recollections is the Red River carts that used to go squawking by on this side of the river as well as on the St. Anthony side. They were called the Red River Band. They were one of the loudest bands ever brought together, as their music, that of wood rubbing against wood, could be heard three miles. While my father was in the woods, the Indians used to come and sleep in the dooryard. Sometimes it would be full of painted Sioux. They never stole anything or begged, but would gratefully take anything offered them. They were very friendly and kind and full of curiosity, as their looking in the windows at all times showed.

My father had brought a fine pair of horses from Galena. One day when he was mowing wild hay on a meadow, he left them unhitched and was excitedly told by a neighbor that they had got in the river. He ran and saw one swimming near the other shore but as the other had turned over with his feet in the air, the combined weight of the horse and wagon was too much for him and before help came, he sank. We recovered the running gear of the wagon later when all came upon a sandbar, but the harness had been stolen. What the loss of this team was to a pioneer farmer, we can hardly conceive.

The countless number of pigeons which migrated here every spring could never be estimated. At all hours of the night their cry of "Pigie, Pigie, Pigie," could be heard. They could be seen in countless numbers on the "slab trees," that is, old, dead trees. Anyone could kill hundreds in a day and thousands killed, seemingly made no impression. They flew very low and in dense masses. Ducks and geese were exceedingly plentiful. I have never seen wild swan here, but many in Minnesota in the Red River country.

On our farm was a thicket of plums which probably came up from the stones from one tree. Some were blue, some red, others yellow and red. Some were sour, some bitter, others tasteless, while others still, were sweet and of an exquisite flavor. These trees soon ran out and I think all of this best variety are gone. I remember picking raspberries, blackberries and wild strawberries in quantities. Every summer we would go up to Anoka and spend a week camping and picking blueberries.

We sold our corn which was our first crop, to Alexander Moore in St. Anthony. At that time, he was the only one buying corn. Two bushel baskets made a bushel. This sold for 15c. Mr. Moore had much larger baskets than those ordinarily in use and measured the corn in these. When the farmers demurred, he said, "If you don't like my measure, take your corn home." He knew there was no one else for us to take it to, so was very brave. There were very few scales so farm produce was generally sold by measure.

I never saw a pair of shoes until after the war. Everyone wore boots.

In the northern part of the State I have seen men start out in the morning with an ox team and return at night, blind themselves and the oxen, too, from the sting of the buffalo gnat. The mosquitoes came in great clouds and were everywhere.

Every little clear space of a hundred acres or more was called a prairie.

When I first saw Duluth it was only a cotton-town. That is, log houses with canvas roofs or tents. Most mail carriers used dog teams. Three dogs hitched tandem was the common sight. I have seen three dogs haul a dead horse.

In our expedition against the Indians only thirty-seven of the eight hundred horses we took, came back with us. The rest starved to death. Unlike the Red River stock which would paw through the deep snow to the long grass, fill themselves and then lie down in the hole and sleep, they knew nothing of this way and so could not forage for themselves. This campaign was with Hatch's Independent Battalion.

Lieut. Grosvenor who was new to the Red River country was married and on his wedding trip was to stop at McCauleyville. He sent word ahead that he wanted a private room. When he got there, he was shown into the only room there was—full of half breed sleepers. He hastened to the proprietor and said, "I ordered a private room." His answer was, "There are only six beds in there, what more could you want?"

Mr. Austin W. Farnsworth—1851.

We came to Fillmore County in the Fall of 1851 from Vermont. We were strapped. Not one cent was left after the expenses of the trip were paid. A neighbor took my father with him and met us at McGregor Landing with an ox team hitched to a prairie schooner. We were four days getting to Fillmore County, camping on the way. The nearest town, only a post office, was Waukopee. Father had come the previous spring and planted two acres of wheat, two acres of corn and one-half acre of potatoes. The potatoes all rotted in the ground.

I was only nine years old and my brother thirteen, but we made all the furniture for that cabin out of a few popple poles and a hollow basswood log. For beds, beams were fitted in between the logs and stuck out about a foot above the floor and were six feet long. To these we fastened cross pieces of "popple" and on this put a tick filled with wild hay and corn stalk leaves. It made a wonderful bed when you were tired as everyone was in those days, for all worked. After we had cut off a section of our big log by hand, we split it in two and in one half bored holes and fitted legs of the unpeeled popple for the seat. The other half made the back and our chair was done. As we had no nails, we fitted on the backs with wood pegs. Our table was made of puncheons split with a wedge and hewed with a broadax. The cabin would have been very homelike with its new furniture if it had not been for the smoke. My mother had to do all the cooking on a flat stone on the floor with another standing up behind it. She nearly lost her sight the first winter from the smoke. Our attic was filled with cornstalks to make the cabin warmer.

Our fare was good, as game was very plentiful and we had corn meal and a coarse ground wheat more like cracked wheat. There was a little grist mill at Carimona, a tiny town near. My mother made coffee from corn meal crusts. It would skin Postum three ways for Sunday.

When I was nine years old I killed a buffalo at Buffalo Grove near us. That grove was full of their runs. Elk were very plentiful, too, and deer were so plenty they were a drug in our home market. I have counted seventy-five at one time and seven elk. Pigeons were so thick that they darkened the sky when they flew. Geese and ducks, too, were in enormous flocks. In season, they seemed to cover everything. We used the eggs of the prairie chickens for cooking. They answered well.

Once my brother shot a coon and my mother made him a cap with the tail hanging behind and made me one too, but she put a gray squirrel's tail at the back of mine. She knit our shoes and sewed them to buckskin soles. I was twelve, when I had my first pair of leather shoes. They were cowhide and how they did hurt, but I was proud of them. None of the country boys wore underclothing. I was nineteen before I ever had any. Our pants were heavily lined and if it was cold, we wore more shirts. I never had an overcoat until I went in the army. Before we left Vermont, my mother carded and spun all the yarn and wove all the cloth that we wore for a long time after coming to Minnesota.

We found the most delicious wild, red plums, half the size of an egg and many berries and wild crab-apples.

The timber wolves were plenty and fierce. My sister was treed by a pack from nine o'clock until one. By that time we had got neighbors enough together to scatter them. I was chased, too, when near home, but as I had two bulldogs with me, they kept them from closing in on me until I could get in the house.

There was a rattlesnake den near us and once we killed seventy-eight in one day. They were the timber rattlesnakes—great big fellows. I caught one by holding a forked stick over its head and then dropped it in a box. I kept it for a pet. It was seven feet, one and a half inches long, I used to feed it frogs, mice and rabbits. I thought it was fond of me, but it struck at me and caught its fangs in my shirt when I was careless, so I killed my pet.

The only time I ever went to school was for two months in '55, to John Cunningham. Wilbur made our desks out of black walnut lumber, cut in Buffalo Grove. It was very plentiful there.

Later we used to go to dances. I was great for cutting pigeon wings and balancing on the corner with a jig step. We used to dance the whirl waltz, too. Some called it the German waltz. We spun round and round as fast as we could, taking three little steps.

Mr. Elijah Nutting—1852.

We came to Faribault in 1852 and kept the first hotel there. It was just a crude shanty with an upstairs that was not partitioned off. Very cold too. I rather think there never was anything much colder. But it was very well patronized, as it was much better than staying outside.

There were many Indians whose home was in our village. We used to have good times with them and enjoyed their games and seeing them dance. Families were moving in all the time. Finally winter was over and spring with us.

We began to think how near the Fourth was and how totally unprepared we were for its coming. We decided to have a minstrel show. We had seen one once. My brother was to be end man and black up for the occasion. But he was a little tow head and we did not see our way clear to make nice kinky black wool of his hair.

Unfortunately for her, a black sheep moved into town in an otherwise white flock. We boys would take turns in chasing that sheep and every time we could get near her, we would snatch some of the wool. When sewed on to cloth, this made a wonderful wig. The proceeds from this entertainment, we saved for firecrackers. Then we bought some maple sugar of the Indians—very dark and dirty looking. It looked very inadequate for a young merchant's whole stock of goods, but when it was added to by scrapings from the brown sugar barrel, when mother's back was turned, it sold like wild fire.

We felt like Rockefeller when we entrusted the stage driver with our capital to buy the coveted firecrackers in Cannon City, which then was much larger than Faribault. They cost forty cents a bunch, so we only got three bunches. The size of the crackers depressed us considerably for they were the smallest we had ever seen. We feared they would not make any noise. We put them away in a safe place. Brother was a natural investigator. Every time I was gone, he would fear those crackers were not keeping well and try one. He wanted no grand disappointment on the Fourth.

Joe Bemis, son of Dr. Bemis, always trained with us fellows and never backed down. We were going to have a circus in the barn. Joe said, "I'll ride a hog." The hogs were running around loose outside. They were as wild as deer. We laid a train of corn into the barn and so coaxed one old fellow with great tusks into it, and then closed the door. Joe ran and jumped on his back. Like lightning the hog threw him and then ripped him with his tusk. Joe yelled, "For God's sake let him out." We did. We laid Joe out on a board and Dr. Bemis came and sewed him up. He said, "Joe won't ride a hog very soon again, boys. Neither will you, I guess."

Mr. Charles Rye—1853.

Mr. Rye, eighty-six years old, hale and hearty, who still chops down large trees and makes them into firewood for his own use, says:

I left England in a sailing vessel in 1851 and was five weeks on the voyage. My sister did not leave her bunk all the way over and I was squeamish myself, but I see the sailors drinking seawater every morning, so I joined them and was never sick a minute after. We brought our own food with us and it was cooked for us very well and brought to us hot. We did not pay for this but we did pay for any food furnished extra. Some ships would strike good weather all the way and then could make a rapid voyage in three weeks, but usually it took much longer. I stayed in the east two years and came to St. Anthony in 1853.

The best sower in our part of England taught me to sow grain. After three days he came to me and said, "Rye, I don't see how it is, but I can see you beat me sowing." I hired out to sow grain at $1.00 a day as soon as I came here and had all the work I could do. I would put the grain, about a bushel of it, in a canvas lined basket, shaped like a clothes basket and fastened with straps over my shoulders, then with a wide sweep of the arm, I would sow first with one hand and then with the other. It was a pretty sight to see a man sowing grain. Seemed like he stepped to music.

Once I saw twenty-five deer running one after another like Indians across my sister's farm where St. Louis Park now is. I was watchman for the old mill in St. Anthony the winter of '53. It was forty degrees for weeks. I kept fire in Wales bookstore, too, to keep the ink from freezing.

I made $34.00 an acre on the first flax I sowed. A man had to be a pretty good worker if he got $15.00 a month and found in '53. Most farm hands only got $12.00.

I used to run the ferry with Captain Tapper. It was a large rowboat. Once I had eight men aboard. When I got out in the river, I saw the load was too heavy and thought we would sink. "Boys", I said, "don't move. If you do, we'll all go to the bottom." The water was within one inch of the top of the boat but we got across.

I graded some down town, on Hennepin Avenue when it was only a country road. There was a big pond on Bridge Square. The ducks used to fly around there like anything early in the morning.

I cut out the hazelbrush on the first Fair Ground. It was on Harmon Place about two blocks below Loring Park. We cut a big circle so that we could have a contest between horses and oxen to see which could draw the biggest load. The oxen beat. I don't remember anything else they did at that Fair.

Mr. James M. Gillespie—1853.

I remember that our first crop on our own farm at Camden Place in 1853 was corn and pumpkins. The Indians would go to the field, take a pumpkin, split it and eat it as we do an apple with grunts of satisfaction.

There was an eight acre patch of wild strawberries where Indians had cultivated the land on our new claim about where our house stands today. They were as large as the small cultivated berries with a most delicious flavor. Everyone that we knew picked and picked but wagon loads rotted on the ground.

A good strong, quick stepping ox could plow two acres a day but much oftener they plowed one and one half acres only. The pigeons flew so low in '54 that we could kill them with any farm implement we happened to be using. They seemed to be all tired out. We killed and dried the breasts for winter.

Miss Nancy Gillespie—1853.

I remember a pear shaped wild plum which grew along the river bank. It was as large as the blue California plum and of a most wonderful color and taste. I have never seen anything like it and have not seen this variety of late years.

Mr. Isaac Layman—1853.

My father came to Minnesota in '52 and bought the land where Layman's Cemetery now is for $1,000.00 of Mr. Dumar. He returned for us January first '53. Snow was two feet on a level and the cold was terrible.

We went with our horses and wagon to Chicago from Peoria. There we bought a bobsled and put the wagon box on it, adding a strong canvas top. We put in a stove and made the twenty-one day journey very comfortably. We came up through Wisconsin. The only spot I remember was Black River Falls. The woods abounded with game. There were thousands of deer and partridges. We killed what we could eat only. We saw many bear tracks. We crossed the Mississippi at St. Anthony and arrived at our cabin.

Our house was only boarded up but father got out and banked it with snow to the eaves, pounding it down hard so it would hold. It made it very comfortable.

In the early days ammunition was very expensive for the farmer boys who loved to shoot. They found that dried peas were just as good as shot for prairie chicken, quail and pigeons, so always hunted them with these. The passenger pigeons were so plentiful that the branches of trees were broken by their numbers. They flew in such enormous flocks that they would often fly in at open doors and windows. They obscured the sun in their flight. Looked at from a distance, they would seem to extend as far up as the eye could reach. I have brought down thirty at a shot. They could be knocked off the branches with a stick while roosting and thousands of them were killed in this way. In these early days, they brought only 10c or 20c a dozen. The ducks used to congregate in such large numbers on Rice Lake that their flight sounded louder than a train of cars.

Mrs. Mary Weeks—1853, Ninety years old.

We came to Minnesota in 1853. My husband went up to our claim and broke from twenty-five to forty acres and sowed rutabagas. It was on new breaking and virgin soil and they grew tremendous. We moved there and bought stock. They seemed never to tire of those turnips and grew very slick and fat on them. We, too, ate them in every form and I thought I had never tasted anything so good. They were so sweet and tasty. The children used to cut them in two and scrape them with a spoon. We said we had "Minnesota apples" when we took them out to eat. It did seem so good to have real brooms to use. In Maine, we had always made our brooms of cedar boughs securely tied to a short pole. They were good and answered the purpose but a new fangled broom made of broom straw seemed so dressy. I can well remember the first one of this kind I ever had. It was only used on great occasions. Usually we used a splint broom which we made ourselves.

I used to do all the housework for a family of seven besides making butter and taking care of the chickens. If help was short, I helped with the milking, too. I made all the clothes the men wore. A tailor would cut out their suits and then I would make them by hand. I made all their shirts too. You should have seen the fancy bosomed shirts I made. Then I knit the stocking and mittens for the whole family and warm woolen scarfs for their necks. My husband used to go to bed tired to death and leave me sitting up working. He always hated to leave me. Then he would find me up no matter how early it was. He said I never slept. I didn't have much time to waste that way. We lived on beautiful Silver Lake. In season the pink lady-slippers grew in great patches and other flowers to make the prairie gay.

For amusement we used to go visiting and always spent the day. We would put the whole family into a sleigh or wagon and away we would go for an outing. We had such kind neighbors—no one any better than the other—all equal.

Mrs. E. A. Merrill—1853, Minneapolis.

My home was where the old Union station stood. In 1853 my father, Mr. Keith, learned that the land near where the Franklin Avenue bridge now is was to be thrown open to settlement. He loaded his wagon with lumber and drove onto the piece of land he wanted and stayed there all night. In the morning he built his home. In the afternoon the family moved in and lived there for three years.

Mrs. Martha Thorne—1854.

We started from Davenport, Iowa, for Minnesota Territory in 1854. We had expected to be only two weeks on the trip to the junction of the Blue Earth and Minnesota rivers, but were six weeks on that terrible trip with our ox teams. There had been so much rain that all dry land was a swamp, all swamps lakes, and the lakes and rivers all over everywhere. Sometimes we worked a whole day to get one hundred feet through one of the sloughs. We would cut the tallest and coarsest rushes and grass and pile in to make a road bed. We would seem to be in a sea, but finally this trip ended as all trips, no matter how bad, must, and we came to Lake Crystal where we were to stay.

Such a beautiful spot as it was, this home spot! We camped for three weeks, living in our prairie schooner, while the men put up the wild hay.

We built a log cabin with "chinkins" to let in the air. We filled in the cracks except where these chinkins were, with mud. The roof was made by laying popple poles so they met in the middle and fastening them together. Over this we laid a heavy thickness of wild hay, and over that the popple poles again well tied with hand twisted ropes of wild hay, to those below. It was a good roof, only it leaked like a sieve. The floor was just the ground. Over it we put a layer of the wild hay and then staked a rag carpet over it. A puncheon shelf to put my trunk under, and the furniture placed, made a home that I was more than satisfied with. It took my husband over two weeks with a pair of trotting oxen to go for the furniture to St. Paul.

My baby was born three weeks after we moved in. There was no doctor within a hundred miles. I got through, helped only by my sister-in-law. What do you women nowadays, with your hospitals and doctors know of a time like this? When it rained, and rain it did, plenty, that October, the only dry place was on that trunk under the shelf and many an hour baby and I spent there. Whenever there was sunshine that carpet was drying.

We were much troubled with what the settlers called "prairie dig." It was a kind of itch that seemed to come from the new land. It made the hands very sore and troublesome. We did everything but could find no cure. The Dakota Sioux were our neighbors and were very friendly. They had not yet learned to drink the white man's firewater. A squaw came in one day and when she saw how I was suffering, went out and dug a root. She scraped off the outer bark, then cooked the inner bark and rubbed it on my hands. I was cured as if by magic. She buried all parts of the root, so I think it was poison.

The next year we raised the first wheat on the Des Moines River. We put the sacks in the bottom of the wagon, then our feather beds on top of them. The children were put on these and we started for the mill at Garden City, one hundred and thirty miles away. We had two yoke of oxen; the leaders were white with black heads and hoofs and great, wide spreading horns. They were Texas cattle and were noble beasts, very intelligent and affectionate. I could drive them by just calling "Gee and Haw". They went steadily along. My husband and I spelled each other and went right along by night as well as day. We were about forty hours going. The moonlight, with the shadows of the clouds on the prairie was magnificent. We never saw a human being. We had our wheat ground and started back. As I was walking beside the oxen while my husband slept, I started up a flock of very young geese. I caught them all and they became very tame. They once flew away and were gone three weeks, but all returned. When we got home, we had a regular jubilation over that flour. Twenty of the neighbors came in to help eat it. They were crazy for the bread. I made three loaves of salt rising bread and they were enormous, but we never got a taste of them.

The Indians were always kind neighbors. They learned evil from the whites. The father of Inkpadutah used to hold my little girl and measure her foot for moccasins. Then he would bring her the finest they could make and would be so pleased when they fitted. The Indians always had wonderful teeth. They did not scrub the enamel off. They used to ask for coffee and one who had been to school said, "Could I have a green pumpkin?" and ate it raw with a relish.

We had a carpet sack for stockings. An Indian orator used to look at it with covetous eyes. One day he came in, laid two mink skins on the table, took the stockings out of the bag and stepping right along with victory in his eye, bore that sack away.

We lived on salt and potatoes for five weeks that first winter. We paid $1.00 for three pounds of sugar and $18.00 for a barrel of musty flour that we had to chop out with an ax and grate. That was in the winter of '55. During the Inkpadutah outbreak, the soldiers ate everything we had.

During the outbreak of '62 we moved to Mankato. I belonged to the ladies aid and we took care of the wounded and refugees sent from New Ulm. We made field beds on the floor for them. One poor German woman went to sleep while carrying a glass of water across the room to her husband, who was wounded. She just sank down in such a deep sleep that nothing could arouse her. I never could imagine such exhaustion. Old man Ireland had sixteen bullet holes, but had never stopped walking until he got to us. Mrs. Eastlake, that wonderful woman, was in this hospital. She was the woman who crawled all those miles on her hands and knees.

Mrs. Nancy Lowell—1854.

I came to Faribault in 1854 and boarded at the hotel kept by the Nuttings the first winter.

One evening I stepped to the door to throw out a washbasin of water and saw a large dog standing there. I put the dish down and was going out to call him. When my husband saw me going toward the door he said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "Call in a dog." It was bright moonlight. He said, "Let me see him." He looked and hastily closed the door saying, "The biggest kind of a timber wolf. Be careful what kind of pets you take in here."

The upper part of the hotel where we lived the first winter, was all in one room. I was the only woman, so we had a room made with sheeting. Sometimes there were twenty people sleeping in that loft. We did not have to open the windows. Most windows in those days were not expected to be opened anyway. The air just poured in between the cracks, and the snow blew in with gusto. It was not at all unusual to get up from under a snow bank in the morning.

I brought many pretty dresses and wore them too. Those who first came, if they had money and were brides, were dressed as if they lived in New York City.

We had a dance one night in our little log hotel. It was forty degrees below zero, and very cold anywhere away from the big stove. The women wanted to dance all the time and so set the table and put on the bread and cake before the company came. Five hours afterward when we went to eat, they were frozen solid. The dish towels would freeze too, as they hung on the line in the kitchen over the stove, while the stove was going, too.

One morning, after we were keeping house, my husband said, "I guess we have some spring company. You better go in and see them." I did and in the parlor was the biggest kind of an ox standing there chewing his quid. He had just come in through the open door to make a morning call. All kinds of animals ran at large then.

Mrs. William Dow—1854, Little Falls.

We came to Little Falls and built this house we are now living in in 1854. It was built right on an Indian trail that paralleled the Red River cart trail. You see that road out there? That is just where the old Red River cart road went. That is Swan River and it went between us and that. Our back door was right on their foot trail. You could step out of our door onto it. There is a big flat rock on the river up about four miles where the Chippewa and Sioux signed treaties to behave themselves. After this they were killing each other before they got out of town. You know our Indians were the Chippewas. They were woods Indians. The prairies belonged to the Sioux. They had always been enemies. Hole-in-the-Day was head chief here and a pretty good chief, too. His tribe got suspicious of him; they thought he was two-faced, so shot him, as they did his father before him. He had married a white woman, so the real chief now is a white man. I think he was on the square though. He used often to drop in for a piece of pie or anything to eat. He is buried upon the bluff here.

Swan River Ferry was three miles from Little Falls. It was on the direct road through Long Prairie to Fort Abercrombie. The Red River Cart Trail crossed the Mississippi River at Belle Prairie. There was a mill at that little place.

When the lumber jacks were driving logs they used to have their wamigans tie up in the river just outside that front door.

The Indians were camped all around here. They used to fill their moccasins with rabbit hair to take the place of stockings. Once I was standing by the river and I saw a squaw come out with a new born baby. She wasn't making any fuss over it. First she took it by the heels and plunged it in the river; then by the head and soused it in that way.

Mrs. Salome was a squaw who had married a white man. Her husband went to the war. I used to write her letters to him and she would sign them with her cross. She became very fond of me. At the time of the outbreak she said to me, "Kinnesagas?" meaning, "are you afraid?" I did not reply. Then she said "If you are, I'll hide you." She made a wigwam by the side of hers and wanted me to go into it with my children, but I would not. I liked her, but I remembered how when the Indians had had a scalp dance, I had seen her shake one of the scalps in her teeth. This was after she had married a white man. I asked her if she did not like the Indians better than the whites and she said in Chippewa, "If I do, why do I not stay with them?"

At the beginning of the outbreak the Sioux were sending runners all the time to get the Chippewas to join them. One of our men, William Nichols, spoke the Indian language as well as English. He had lived with them when he was a fur trader. He used to disguise himself as an Indian and go to the councils, so we all knew just what was going on. Old Buffalo, a chief, said, "If you go to war, I'll be a white man; I won't be an Indian any more. I'll go away and stay by myself always." We knew at once when they fully decided not to join the Sioux.

Finally I yielded to the entreaties of my friends and went down to St. Cloud to stay with friends until the danger should be over. My husband was in the war. One day someone coming from Little Falls said, "There's someone living in your house." "Well," said I, "if anyone can, I can," so back I went. I found an old friend from further up the country there. We joined forces and lived there until the war was over.

One day in war time I looked out of my window and could see Mr. Hall milking his cow in the pasture. It had a rail fence around it. I could see what he could not—some Indians sitting in one of the corners of the fence stretching Sioux scalps over withes. When they finished, they got up all at the same time, giving a blood curdling war-whoop. The cow kicked over the milk and fled bellowing. I think that Mr. Hall made even better time and he never even looked around.

The squaws would often have ear rings made of wire with three cornered pieces of tin dangling all around their ears. It was not how good, but how much, with them. How these Indians ever lived through a winter the way they dressed, I don't see. They wore only leggings, shirts, breech clouts and a blanket. Their legs were no barer than a Scotchman's though. Our Indians used to tuck things in the bosom of their shirt, as well as in their belts. They used to tuck butcher knives in their leggings. If they were ever going to go on a tear and get drunk, when we first came, they would always get my husband to take charge of all their guns and knives.

When the squaws wore mourning, they were all painted black and always slashed themselves with knives.

During the last of the fifties, we never had any money. It would not do you any good if you had for if you took money to the store they would just give you an order for more goods instead of the change. The Red River carts used to camp in that little grove of trees over there. We used to sell them supplies and they would give us English silver money. Once we took some to the store and they were terribly surprised to see money. They could not understand how we came by it. Thought we must have hoarded it, but we told them that it came from the Red River drivers.

Mrs. William J. White—1854.

My husband, Mr. White, started for Lake Addie, Minnesota Territory, in May, to join some friends and take up a claim. Mr. Hoag had named this lake in honor of his daughter. The settlement, if you could call it that, was called Grimshaw Settlement. It is now Brownton. He got up his cabin and began clearing the land. He and his friends did their cooking and only had two meals a day—breakfast at eight and dinner at three. One hot day they had just cooked a big pan of apple sauce and set it out to cool. Some Indians on their way to a war dance at Shakopee came streaking along all painted up. First one and then another plunged his fist in that apple sauce and stuck it down his throat. It must have skinned them all the way down, but not one made a sound, only looked hard when they saw the next one start in.

My husband wrote for me to come to him. I had no pilot, so could not start at once. My boy fell and broke his arm and I thought he was badly hurt inside so I wrote for father to come home. It generally took so long for a letter to go through that when two weeks later I got a chance to go with company, I started, thinking I could get there before the letter would, as they were generally much longer in going than one could travel. When I got on the Northern Belle, a fine boat, one of my children was taken with croup. Dr. N——, a Universalist minister, got off at Dubuque and bought medicine for me. This saved the child, but he was sick all the way. We were stuck in Beef Slough for several days. I never left the cabin as my child needed me, but some time during the first day a boat from St. Paul was stuck there too, so near us that passengers passed from one boat to the other all day. It was only when I got to Hastings, where I had thought to meet my husband that I found he had been on that other stranded boat. Later, I learned that he had spent some time on my boat, but of course, did not know I was there. The letter I had written him had gone straight, as a man who was going to their settlement had taken charge of it from the first. I had to wait six weeks in Hastings until he went clear to Pennsylvania and back. Evangeline wasn't in it with me.

Finally he came and we went on to our new home. I thought I had never seen such wonderful wild flowers. Mr. Grimshaw came after us with his horses. We had supper at his house the night before we got to our home, and I never tasted anything so good—pheasants browned so beautifully and everything else to match. The most wonderful welcome, too, went with that meal.

We passed fields just red with wild strawberries and in places where the land had been cultivated and the grass was sort of low, they grew away up and were large with big clusters, too. We did just revel in them. They were much more spicy than any we had ever eaten. The wild grass grew high as a man's head. When we came in sight of our home, I loved it at once and so did the children. It was in the bend of a little stream with stepping stones across. I knew at once that I had always wanted stepping stones on my place. About two feet from the floor a beam had been set in the whole length of the room. It was roped across and a rough board separated it into two sections. These were our beds and with feather beds and boughs, made a fine sleeping place. Wolves used to howl all around at night but with the stock secure and the home closed up tightly, we were happy. Our walls were plastered with mud and then papered by me with paper that was six cents a roll back east. We made a barrel chair and all kinds of home-made furniture out of packing boxes. Our rooms looked so cozy. Father was a natural furniture maker, though we never knew it before we came here.

Game was very plentiful and as we never had enough back home, we did not soon tire of it. My husband once killed a goose and eleven young ones with one shot.

The first year our garden was looking fine when the grasshoppers came in such swarms that they obscured the sun. They swooped on everything in the garden. There was no grain as the squirrels, black birds and gophers had never tasted this delicacy before and followed the sower, taking it as fast as it fell. We planted it three times and we had absolutely no crop of any kind that first year.

We bought four horses later and had them for the summer's work. They came from Illinois and were not used to the excessive cold of Minnesota. That winter it was forty degrees below zero for many successive days. It seems to me we have not had as much cold all this winter as we had in a week then. Christmas time it was very cold. We wanted our mail so one of the men rode one of the horses twelve miles to get it. When he arrived there the horse was very sick. He was dosed up and was seemingly all right. When the man wanted to start for home, he was warned that it would be fatal to take a horse which had been dosed with all kinds of hot stuff out in the terrible cold. He took the risk but the horse fell dead just as he entered the yard. We lost two others in much the same way that winter.

We then bought a yoke of young steers. They were very little broken and the strongest animals I ever saw. Their names were Bright and Bill. Once the whole family was going to a party at New Auburn, a kind of a city. My husband had made an Indian wagon. He held them in the road while we all got in. They started up with such a flourish that everything that could not hold itself on, fell off. The road was full of things we wanted with us. They ran on a keen jump for nine miles until we came to the house where we were going. It was the first house we came to. When they saw the barn, they must have thought it looked like home for they ran in there and brought up against the barn with a bang. As soon as Mr. White could, he jumped out and held them, but their fun was all gone and they stood like lambs.

I never saw anything funnier than those steers and a huge snapping turtle. They found him near the creek when they were feeding. They would come right up to him (they always did everything in concert) then look at him at close range. The turtle would thrust out his head and snap at them; then they would snort wildly and plunge all over the prairie, returning again and again to repeat the performance, which only ended when the turtle disappeared in the brook.

Wolves were very fearless and fierce that winter. They ran in packs. They would look in at our windows. Once we sent a hired boy six miles for twenty-five pounds of pork for working men. When he was near home a pack of wolves followed him, but he escaped by throwing the pork. Mr. Pollock and Mr. White were followed in the same way.

Once one of our friends killed a steer. We were all anxious for amusement so any pretext would bring on a party. All the neighbors had a piece of the meat but we thought the friends who had killed the steer should have a party and have roast beef for us all, so we sent word we were all coming. Mrs. Noble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards around. In these shirrings she run rattan—a good heavy piece so it would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery was all ready to put on. One of the neighbor's girls was to stay with the children. The baby had been quite restless, so according to the custom, I gave her a little laudanum to make her sleep. I did not realize that it was old and so much stronger. Just before going, when I was all dressed, I went to look at the baby. I did not like her looks, so took her up to find her in a stupor. Needless to say there was no party for us that night. It took us all to awaken her and keep her awake. I never gave laudanum after that, though I always had before.

Mrs. Paulina Starkloff—1854.

My name was Paulina Lenschke. I was twelve years old when I came to Minneapolis in 1854. We intended to stay in St. Paul but were told that this was a better place, so came here and bought an acre and a half just where the house now stands, Main Street N. E. The town then was mostly northeast. The St. Charles hotel on Marshall Street, northeast, was just below us and so were most of the stores. Morgan's foundry and Orth's brewery were just on the other side of us. We paid $600.00 in gold for the land and half of it was in my name, as my mother paid $350.00 that I had made myself. I think I was probably the only twelve year old child that came into the state with so much money earned by herself. It was this way.

We went to Australia to dig gold in 1847. We drove an ox team into the interior with other prospectors doing the same until we came to diggings. The men would dig and then "cradle" the soil for the gold. This cradle was just like a baby's cradle only it had a sieve in the bottom. One man would have a very long handled dipper with which he would dip water from a dug well. He only dipped and the other man stirred with a stick and rocked. Most of the soil would wash out but there would always be some "dumplings" caused by the clay hardening and nothing but hard work would break them. The miners would take out the gold which was always round, and dump these hard pieces. After a day's work there would be quite a pile that was never touched by them. I would take a can and knife and go from dump to dump gathering the gold in these dumplings. One day my father went prospecting with a party of men and was never seen again. After months of fruitless search my mother took me and my little tin can of nuggets back to Germany. She sold them for me for $350.00 in gold. Then we came to Minnesota and bought this place.

The Red River carts used to be all day passing our house. They would come squeaking along one after another. Sometimes the driver would take his wife and children with him. These carts had no metal about them. One man would have charge of several.

Mrs. Anna E. Balser—1855, Ninety-four years old.

I was the only girl in our family that ever worked, but when I was ten years old I laid my plan to get myself out of my mother's tracks. She had so much to do with her big family. I could cry when I think of it now. So, when I was fourteen, my father, scared for me and holding back every minute, took me to the city to learn the trade I had chosen. I was through in six months and could do the heaviest work as well as the finest. I wish you could see the fancy bosomed shirts I used to make when I was fourteen! No one could beat me. I always had a pocketful of money for I got two and six a day. That would be 38c now. I went from house to house to work and always had the best room and lived on the fat of the land. It was a great event when the tailoress came.

I came to Lakeland in 1855. The prairies around there looked like apple orchards back home. The scrub oak grew just that way. I would bet anything I could go and pick apples if I had not known. I had thought of buying in Minneapolis, but my friends who owned Lakeland thought it was going to be the city of Minnesota, so I bought here. I was a tailoress and made a good living until the hard times came on. Money was plenty one day. The next you could not get a "bit" even, anywhere. Then, after that, I had to trade my work for anything I could get.

I brought a blue black silk dress with mutton leg sleeves among my things when I come. It was the best wearing thing I ever see. Cheaper to wear than calico because it would never wear out. I paid $1.00 a yard for it. It was twenty-seven inches wide. It took twelve yards to make the dress. For a wrap we wore a long shawl. I had one of white lace. We got three yards of lace webbing and trimmed it with lace on the edge. Or we would take one width of silk and finish that fancy on the edge. The ruffles on everything was fluted. When you shirred them you would hold them over the first and third finger passing under the second finger. That would make large flutings. If you had an Italian iron you could do it fast, but there wa'n't many so fortunate. An Italian iron was a tube about as big as your finger on a standard. Two rods to fit this tube come with it. You could put these heated, inside then run your silk ruffle or whatever you were making over it and there was your flute quick as a wink.

Mrs. Mary E. Dowling—1855.

As Miss Watson I came from Pennsylvania in 1855 and took a school to teach back of Marine. I got $36.00 in gold a month and so was well paid. Had from five to twenty-five children who came to learn and so behaved well.

When I would walk through the woods I would sometimes see a bear leisurely sagging around. When I did, my movements were not like his. All kinds of wild animals were very plenty. The foxes were the cutest little animals and so tame. They would seem to be laughing at you.

A band of Indians was encamped at a lake near. One brave all dressed in his Sunday best used to come and sit in the kitchen day after day. He used to talk to the men but never said a word to us. He could speak good English. One day the chief came in and went for him. Said he had been away from his tepee for days and his squaws wanted him. Like lightning he crossed the room to where I was and said, "Me got Sioux squaw. Me got Winnebago squaw. Me want white squaw. You go?" I was very earnest in declining.

Mrs. Robert Anderson—1854.

I was the first white woman in Eden Prairie. I came in 1854 with my husband and small children and settled there in one of the first log houses built. We paid for our farm the first year, from the cranberries which grew in a bog on our land and which we sold for $1.00 a bushel.

I had never seen Indians near to, and so was very much afraid of them. One day a big hideously painted brave marched in, seated himself and looked stolidly around without making a sound. His long knife was sticking in his belt. I was overpowered with fright and for a few moments could do nothing. My children, one two years old and the other a baby, were asleep behind the curtain. Realizing that I could do nothing for them and that his anger might be aroused if he saw me run away with them, I fled precipitately in the direction where my husband was working. I had run about a quarter of a mile when my mother heart told me I might not be in time if I waited for my husband, so I turned and fled back towards the cabin. Entering, I saw my little two year old boy standing by the Indian's side playing with the things in his belt while the Indian carefully held the baby in his arms. In his belt were a tobacco pouch and pipe, two rabbits with their heads drawn through, two prairie chickens hanging from it by their necks, a knife and a tomahawk. His expression remained unchanged. I gave him bread and milk to eat and ever after he was our friend, oftentimes coming and bringing the children playthings and moccasins. When he left, he gave me the rabbits and prairie chickens and afterwards often brought me game.

One day Mr. Anderson was at work in the field, a long distance from the house. He was cutting grain with a scythe and told me he would just about get that piece done if I would bring him his supper. I had never been over on this knoll which was on the other side of a small hill from the house. I got his supper ready, taking all the dishes and food in a basket and carrying a teapot full of tea in my hand. I had to pass a small cranberry bog and could see squaws at work picking berries. As I came to a clump of trees, ten or twelve Indians with their faces as usual hideously painted, the whole upper part of their bodies bare and painted, rose from this clump of trees and looked at me. I waited for nothing, but threw my basket and teapot and made for the house. As I got to the top of the hill I looked back and could see the Indians feasting on my husband's supper. Upon his return home to supper that evening, he brought the dishes and the teapot with him.

We had been in Eden Prairie about six years and had never been to church as there was no church near enough for us to attend. We heard there was to be preaching at Bloomington, and determined to go. We had always been church-going people and had felt the loss of services very keenly. We had nothing but an ox team and thought this would not be appropriate to go to church with, so, carrying my baby, I walked the six miles to church and six miles back again. The next Sunday, however, we rode nearly to church with the ox team, then hitched them in the woods and went on foot the rest of the way.

Mr. Anderson was always a devoted friend of Mr. Pond, the missionary and attended his church for many years. One of Mr. Anderson's sons took up a claim in the northern part of the State. When Mr. Pond died, he came down to the funeral. Upon his return, he saw a tepee pitched on the edge of his farm and went over to see what it was there for and who was in it. As he neared it, he heard talking in a monotone and stood listening, wondering what it could mean. He pushed up the flap and saw Indians engaged in prayer. He asked them who taught them to pray and they replied "Grizzly Bear taught us." He told them Grizzly Bear, which was the Indian name for Mr. Pond, was dead and would be seen no more. He took from his pocketbook a little white flower which he had taken from the casket, told them what it was and each one of them held it reverently with much lamentation. This was twenty years after these people had been taught by Grizzly Bear.

Mrs. Wilder—1854.

We settled on a farm near Morristown. There was an Indian village near. We always used to play with those Sioux children and always found them very fair in their play. We used to like to go in their tepees. There was a depression in the middle for the fire. The smoke was supposed to go out of the hole in the top of the tent. An Indian always had a smoky smell. When they cooked game, they just drew it a little—never took off the feathers much or cut the head or feet off.

Some of our Indians got into a fuss with a band from Faribault and one of our Indians killed one of them. He brought a great knife that he had done the killing with and gave it to my father all uncleaned as it was. He said it was "seechy" knife, meaning bad. As they were still fighting, my father took it just as it was and stuck it up in a crack above our front door in our one room. Then he sent to Morristown for Mr. Morris to straighten out the fight. He had lived among the Indians for a long time and knew their language. He brought them to time. Later they came and wanted the knife but my father would not give it to them.

Geese and ducks covered the lakes. Later we had the most wonderful feather beds made from their feathers. We only used the small fluffy ones, so they were as if they were made from down. Wild rice, one of the Indians' principal articles of diet, when gathered was knocked into their canoe. It was often unhulled. I have seen the Indians hull it. They would dig a hole in the ground, line it with a buffalo skin, hair side down, then turn the rice in this, jumping up and down on it with their moccasined feet until it was hulled. I could never fancy it much after I saw this.

We had great quantities of wild plums on our own place. Two trees grew close together and were so much alike we always called them the twins. Those trees had the most wonderful plums—as large as a small peach. We used to peel them and serve them with cream. Nothing could have a finer flavor.

Just before the outbreak, an Indian runner, whom none of us had ever seen, went around to all the Sioux around there. Then with their ponies loaded, the tepee poles dragging behind, for three days our Indians went by our place on the old trail going west. Only a few of Bishop Whipple's Christian Indians remained.

Mr. Warren Wakefield—1854.

My father came to Wayzata with his family, settling where the Sam Bowman place now is. We had lived over a year in southern Minnesota. As the hail took all our crops, we had lived on thin prairie chickens and biscuits made of sprouted wheat. It would not make bread. The biscuits were so elastic and soft that they could be stretched way out. These were the first playthings that I can remember.

A trader came with cows, into the country where we were living, just before the hail storm and as there was nothing to feed them on, my father traded for some of them. He traded one of his pair of oxen for forty acres of land in Wayzata and the other for corn to winter the stock.

The first meal we had in our new home was of venison from a buck which my father shot. It was very fat and juicy and as we had not had any meat but ducks and prairie chickens in two years, it tasted very delicious. I have counted thirty-four deer in the swamps at one time near our house; they were so abundant. We lived the first winter in Wayzata on fish, venison and corn meal and I have never lived so well.

I was sixteen years old before I ever had a coat. We wore thick shirts in the winter and the colder it was, the more of them we wore. In the east, my mother had always spun her own yarn and woven great piles of blankets and woolen sheets. These were loaded in the wagon and brought to our new home. When there was nothing else, these sheets made our shirts. We never wore underclothing, but our pants were thickly lined.

My mother was a tailoress and that first year in Minnesota we could not have lived if it had not been for this. She cut out and made by hand all kinds of clothing for the settlers. My father used to buy leather and the shoemaker came to the house and made our shoes.

One spring we had a cellar full of vegetables that we could not use, so father invited all the squaws who lived near us to come and get some. They came and took them away. In the cellar also was a keg and a two gallon jug of maple vinegar. Cut Nose, one of the finest specimens of manhood I have ever seen, tall, straight and with agreeable features in spite of the small piece gone from the edge of one nostril, was their chief, and came the next day with a large bottle, asking to have it filled with whiskey. Father said he had none, but Cut Nose said he knew there was a jug and keg of it in the cellar. Father told him to go and take it if he found any. He sampled first the jug and then the keg with a most disgusted expression and upon coming upstairs threw the bottle on the bed and stalked out. This maple vinegar was made from maple sugar and none could be better.

Cut Nose was often a visitor at our home. He was a great brag and not noted for truth telling. He was very fond of telling how he shot the renegade Inkpadutah. This was all imagination. He had an old flint lock musket with the flint gone and would illustrate his story by crawling and skulking, generally, to the great delight of the boys. One rainy day my mother was sick and was lying in her bed which was curtained off from the rest of the living room. As Cut Nose, who did not know this, told his oft repeated story, illustrating it as usual, he thrust his gun under the curtains and his face and shoulders after it to show how he shot the renegade chief from ambush. My mother dashed out with a shriek, but was no more frightened than Cut Nose, at the apparition of the white squaw.

One day my brother and I took a peck of potatoes each and went to an Indian camp to trade for two pairs of moccasins, the usual trade. We left the potatoes with the squaws for a moment and ran outside to see what some noise was. When we returned there were no potatoes to be seen and no moccasins to be traded. We began looking about but could see nothing. The fire was burned down well and was a glowing bed of coals in its depression in the center of the tepee. After a while, one of the old squaws went to the ashes and digging them with a stick, commenced to dig out the potatoes. As the fire was about four feet in diameter, the usual width, there was plenty of room for our half bushel of potatoes. They gave us some of them which had a wonderful flavor, but we never got any moccasins.

Among the Indians living at the lake one winter was a white child about three years old. My father tried to buy her, but they would not let her go or tell who she was. They left that part of the country later, still having her in their possession.

If it had not been for ginseng in Minnesota, many of the pioneers would have gone hungry. Mr. Chilton of Virginia came early and built a small furnace and drying house in Wayzata. Everyone went to the woods and dug ginseng. For the crude product, they received five cents a pound and the amount that could be found was unlimited. It was dug with a long narrow bladed hoe and an expert could take out a young root with one stroke. If while digging, he had his eye on another plant and dug that at once, he could make a great deal of money in one day. An old root sometimes weighed a half pound. I was a poor ginseng digger for I never noticed quickly, but my father would dig all around my feet while I was hunting another chance. The tinge of green of this plant was different from any other so could be easily distinguished. When we sold it, we were always paid in gold. After ginseng is steamed and dried, it is the color of amber.

Mrs. Leroy Sampson—1854.

Six families of us came together from Rhode Island and settled on Minnewashta Lake in '54. There was only a carpenter shop in Excelsior. We spent the first few months of our stay all living together in one log shack which was already there. The first night the man who had driven us from St. Paul sat up all night with his horses and we none of us slept a wink inside that little windowless cabin on account of a noise we heard. In the morning we found it was the mournful noise of the loons on the lake that had kept us awake, instead of the wolves we had feared.

Mrs. Anna Simmons Apgar—1854.

When our six families got to the springs near Excelsior it was near dark and we struck the worst road we had found in the swampy land by it. The mosquitoes were dreadful, too. How dreadful, no one today can ever believe. One of the tiredout men said, "This is Hell!" "No," said another, "Not Hell, but Purgatory." The spring took its name from that.

When my father had put up his cabin he made our furniture with his own hands out of basswood. He made one of those beds with holes in the side piece for the ropes to go from side to side instead of our springs of today. They used to be very comfortable. When father got ready for the rope he had none, so he made it by twisting basswood bark. Then mother sewed two of our home spun sheets together for a tick and my uncle cut hay from the marsh and dried it, to fill it and we had a bed fit for a king. Our floor was of maple split with wedges and hewed out with a broadax. Father was a wonder at using this. A broadax was, you know, twelve or fourteen inches wide and the handle was curved a little. A man had to be a man to use one of these. It took strength and a good trained eye to hew timber flat with one of these axes.

When I was playing I tore my clothes off continually in the woods. Finally my mother said, "This has gone far enough!" and made me a blue denim with a low neck and short sleeves. Has anyone ever told you how terrible the mosquitoes were in the early days? Think of the worst experience you ever had with them and then add a million for each one and you will have some idea. My little face, neck, arms, legs and feet were so bitten, scratched and sunburned that when I was undressed I was the most checkered looking young one you ever saw. Those parts of me might have been taken from a black child and glued on my little white body.

Such huge fish as overrun the lakes you have never seen. We thought the Indians numerous and they had fished for ages in those lakes, but they only caught what they wanted for food. It took the white men with their catching for sport to see how many they could catch in one day, and write back east about it, to clean out the lakes.

Father hewed a big basswood canoe out of a log. Eight people could sit comfortably in it as long as they did not breathe, but if they did, over she went! We used to have lots of fun in that old canoe just the same and the fish got fewer after it came into commission.

When we six families first came we were all living in one little cabin waiting for our homes to be built and our furniture to come. One of the women was very sick. Dr. Ames came out to see her and cured her all right. It took a day to get him and another day for him to get home. He wanted to wash his hands and my aunt, who was used to everything, said she thought she would drop dead when she had to take him the water in a little wooden trough that father had hewed out. He made such cute little hooded cradles for babies, too, out of the forest wood.

Mrs. Newman Woods—1854, Excelsior.

When we made our tallow dips or rough candles, we took the candlewicking and wound it around from our hand to our elbow, then cut it through. We held a short stick between our knees and threw one of these wicks around it, twisting it deftly, letting it hang down. When we had filled the stick, we would lay it down and fill another until we had wicks for about ten dozen dips. My mother would then fill the wash-boiler two-thirds full of water and pour melted deer or other tallow on top of this. Two chairs had been placed with two long slats between them. She would dip one stick full of wicks up and down in the boiler a number of times, then place it across the slats to cool. This was continued until all the wicks were dipped. By this time, the first would have hardened and could be dipped again. We would work hard all day and make eight or ten dozen dips. Later we had candle molds made of tin. We would put a wick in the center where it was held erect and then pour these molds full of tallow and let them harden. Later the molds were dipped in hot water and then a spring at the side, pushed the candle out. This was very simple.

We had our first kerosene lamp in '61. We were terrible frightened of it. It did smell terrible but this did not keep us from being very proud of it.

Once mother was frying pancakes for supper. A number of Indians going by came in and saw her. They were all painted or daubed. They kept reaching over and trying to get the pancakes. Finally one of them stuck out his leg acting as if it was broken. I ran madly to the back clearing where father and uncle Silas were working and told them there were Indians trying to get our pancakes and that one of them had a broken leg. They were not frightened for they knew the Indians and their customs. I just waited to see father give them a pancake apiece and that leg settle down naturally, then ran and got under the bed.

The Indians were very fond of father who had a very heavy beard. It used to be stylish to shave the upper lip. The Indians used to watch him shave with great interest. The neighborhood was full of them, generally all painted for the war dance. They used to bother father to death wanting to be shaved. One morning he did shave one of them and you never saw such a proud Indian, or more disgusted ones than those who were left out. Nearly all of the Indians who came were Sioux and fine looking.

One of the greatest pests to the pioneers around here was the thousand legged worms. They were very thick around where we were and very poisonous. My little sister nearly died from getting one in her mouth when she was lying on a quilt on the floor.

Mother used to make mince pies by soaking pumpkin in vinegar. We dried the wild grapes for raisins. My, but those pies were good. Everybody bragged on "Aunt Hannah's mince pies."

My father and brother frequently went hunting for deer. They used to run their bullets, which were round, by melting lead in a ladle in the stove. Such a looking kitchen as they would leave! Ashes from the ladle all over everything. It wasn't much of a trick to shoot deer, they were so thick and so tame. They used to come right near the house. I did not like venison for it seemed to me like eating a friend.

All six of us families used to wash at the lake in summer. We used soft soap that we made ourselves and boiled the clothes in a big kettle. They were beautifully white.

Mr. Chester L. Hopkins—1854, Hopkins.

When I was a little boy we had a grindstone in our yard which was used by us and our few scattered neighbors. One night we were awakened by hearing the grindstone going, and father went to the door to see who was using it. A party of forty Sioux braves on their ponies were standing around, while some of the braves ground their knives which each in his turn put in his belt. It was a bright moonlight night and we could see them as plainly as if it was day. The Indians were in full war paint and feathers and after their task was accomplished, rode one after the other over the hill where they stood out like black silhouettes, and finally disappeared. They were probably going to a war dance.

Miss Florinda Hopkins—Hopkins.

When I was a little girl a number of Indians came in on a rainy day, and tired from a long tramp, lay asleep on the floor of the kitchen. The party consisted of a chief and seven braves. My mother was making dried apple pies. When she had finished, she cut two of them into six pieces each and gave each Indian a piece which he ate with the greatest relish. All of them kept a watchful eye on the remaining pieces which they regarded wistfully. The chief with a noble gesture motioned them all to leave the house and remained himself. As soon as they were outside he motioned for the rest of the pie and ate it all with the greatest relish while the rest of the band looked enviously through the window. Were these not, indeed, children?

I remember a Sioux war party of ten or more going by our house, returning from a war dance at Shakopee. They were doing their war song business as they trotted along and swinging one pitiful scalp on a pole. Their battles were generally like this. Ten was a small number to kill one Chippewa. When the Chippewa retaliated they would go in the same proportion.

One morning a party stopped here. They were very tired. Had probably trotted a long, long way for their endurance was wonderful. They just said "Chippewa?" and as soon as they knew we had seen none were flying on again.

We often traded food with the Indians as well as giving it to them, allowing them to make their own terms. They would bring a pair of fancy beaded moccasins and trade them for six doughnuts.

Mrs. J. W. Ladd—1854.

I remember seeing and hearing the Red River carts as they passed through St. Anthony. The cart was almost square with posts standing up along the sides to hold the furs which were piled high above the cart and roped down in place. There was one swarthy man to five or six ox drawn carts. He was dressed in a coonskin cap or broad brimmed hat with buckskin trousers and jumper. He had a knit bright colored sash about his waist and his hat had a bright colored band.

One day my mother was sitting sewing while I was playing about the room, when the light seemed obscured. We looked up to see a number of Indian faces in the window. They made motions to mother to trade her earrings for moccasins and failing in this, they asked for the bright colored tassels which hung from the curtain. They also very much admired my mother's delaine dress which was of triangles in blue, red, black and white. When refused they went away peaceably but afterwards often returned trying to make a trade.

Mrs. C. H. Pettit—1854, Minneapolis.

In 1854 I attended church in the Tooth-pick church. This was a small church so called from its high, narrow tower. I had never seen Indians as we had just moved to town. I was walking along through the woods on what is now Fourth street when I was surrounded by yelling, painted Indians on ponies. Seeing that I was frightened nearly to death they continued these antics, circling round, and round me, whooping and yelling, until I reached my home. Then they rode rapidly away undoubtedly taking great pleasure in the fright they had given the Paleface.