Among the enterprising men of the Falls was Z. E. B. Nash, or "Zeb" as we called him. He operated a line of steamers from Fewer's Landing, on the East Side above the present bridge, to St. Cloud. There were only two small boats, but they served the purpose well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. MARGARET KING HERN (ST. PAUL)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Medal presented to Margaret King Hern by the State in 1896. (See page 143.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Late type Red River Cart, taken in the Fifties. Earlier Carts had tires eight inches wide. (See pages 14-22-218)]

Colonel Levi Longfellow--1851.

One day back in my old home in Machais, Maine, when I was six years old and my sister Mary nine, my father said to her, "I will give you ten cents for your little tin trunk." This trunk was one of her most treasured possessions, and she asked him what he wanted it for. He answered, "I am going to save money to take you all out to Minnesota and I want the trunk to hold the pennies and dimes we shall save for that purpose." She was so delighted with the idea that she readily gave up the trunk and contributed a dime to start the famous fund. Many times we emptied the contents of that little trunk and counted to see how much we had, though we all knew that not more than one or two dimes had been added since we last counted. It took us three long years to save enough for the eventful trip. In those days, instead of a run of two or three days, it took a month to make the journey.

One bright day in June, an ox team drove to our door and took us, a family consisting of my father, mother, two boys and two girls with our luggage to the Boston boat. From Boston, a train carried us to Albany, New York, and from there by ca.n.a.l boat we went to Buffalo. Here we boarded a lake steamer for Chicago. This place I remember as the muddiest hole I had ever seen. A plank road led from the boat landing to the hotel. One railroad ran west out of Chicago for a distance of about ten miles. Beyond this lay the unexplored country we were to enter. We hired a man with a team and a covered farm wagon to drive us across the prairies to Galena. One week was occupied in this part of the journey.

This same man three months later drove a herd of cattle from his home to St. Anthony Falls. From Galena we took a steamboat to St. Paul where we were met by my grandfather, Washington Getch.e.l.l, who had come west with his family three years previous. He brought us to St. Anthony Falls with his ox team. Among our luggage was a red chest. Every family in those days owned one, and I remember in unloading our things from the boat, the bottom came out of the chest scattering the contents about. Men, women and children scrambled to pick up the things but mother always said one half of them were lost.

On the second of July, 1851 we arrived, receiving a hearty welcome from our relatives. My grandfather had built the second frame house erected in the town.

Early in the winter of 1854 at nine at night I was crossing the unfinished bridge one evening with a schoolmate named Russell Pease. We had been over to see his father who lived on the west side of the river.

When we had reached the middle, Russell slipped and fell through onto the ice beneath. I ran back and down the bank to where he was lying, but he was unconscious and I could not lift him, so I ran back for help, found some men and they carried him home.

One day, before there was a bridge of any kind across the river, my father carried two calves over on the ferry, to pasture on the west sh.o.r.e. Several days later as he stood on the river bank, he noticed something moving on Spirit Island, the small island below the falls.

Going out in a boat he found the two calves running about seeking a way to reach the east bank. They had evidently become homesick and started to swim across above the falls, and in some miraculous manner had been carried over the falls and landed safely on the island. Father rescued them, bringing them to sh.o.r.e in a boat.

I remember the greatest excitement each summer was the arrival of the caravans of carts from the Red River of the North. They would come down to disperse their loads of furs, go into camp in St. Anthony and remain three or four weeks while selling their furs and purchasing supplies.

The journey and return required three months.

In the spring of 1853 our family moved from St. Anthony to a farm in Brooklyn Center, about nine miles out from town. Roving bands of Indians often used to camp near our home. We never enjoyed these visits, but neither did we wish them to think we were afraid, so we never locked our doors or refused them anything they demanded in the way of food. Often my mother has fed a troop of those hideously painted fellows.

In those days the only means of communication between the settlers was a messenger, going from house to house. The people of our community wished to have some way of signaling each other in case of danger. So a number of tin horns were purchased, each family being given one, with the understanding that if a blast was heard from one of these horns, the men would ride as fast as possible to the home giving the signal for help.

Among the settlers was an old German who was given his horn along with the rest. After a few days, this old fellow became curious to know what sort of a sound the horn would make. Not wishing to give any alarm, he went into his cellar, thinking to be out of hearing, and blew a tremendous blast to test the power of the horn. The effect was far from what he had antic.i.p.ated. The neighbors hearing the signal came from all directions, expecting to find serious trouble. My brother, Nathan, with his friend Will Fisher, mounted their horses as quickly as they could and rushed to the scene. In about an hour the boys came back disgusted, and what the settlers said and did to the old German, I leave to your imagination.

This same German figured in another amusing incident. When my father was building one of the roads in Brooklyn, he hired this man to work for him. One Sunday morning the old fellow reported for duty. My father informed him they did not work on Sunday. The man threw up his hands and exclaimed "Mine Gott! is this Sunday? My ole woman is at home washing; she tinks it is Monday too!"

I enlisted in '62 expecting our regiment would be ordered immediately to the Army of the Potomac, but within a week after the formation of the regiment, news was received of the Sioux outbreak on the frontier. We were ordered to report at once to St. Peter where we arrived August 24.

Four days later we were hurried across country forty miles to Fort Ridgely which was then in a state of siege. After a sharp skirmish with the Indians, we drove them off on the second of September. We were ordered to Birch Cooley, sixteen miles away. Capt. Grant, with his command had been sent out to bury the victims of the Indian ma.s.sacre, including twenty-seven men of Capt. Marsh's Fifth Minnesota troops. He had gone into camp at Birch Cooley when the Indians attacked him. The firing was heard across the plain at Fort Ridgely and we were sent to his relief. We arrived early in the morning and the command was halted to wait for daylight. With the break of day the Indians opened fire, but after a hard fight we drove them off and made our way into the camp. It was a sickening sight. Twenty-three men lay dead with fifty or sixty wounded. In the camp was a woman lying in a wagon. She had been picked up on the prairie where the Indians had left her for dead. After the Indians had gone she had managed to crawl to a rock which had a cleft in it, and there had fainted. One of our boys jumped up on this rock and noticing what seemed to be a bundle of rags lying in the opening, poked his gun into it. To his horror he found it was a woman's body. He called and another of the boys, Comrade Richardson, now living in Champlin, Minn., sprang up beside him and together they lifted her out and she was placed in a wagon. When the Indians attacked the camp, the wagons were drawn around in a circle with the camp inside and this poor woman laid there for thirty-six hours all through the fight. The wagon was riddled with bullets and she herself had been hit in the arm, though she was scarcely conscious of what was going on, having not yet rallied from her terrible experience in the ma.s.sacre. I understand she afterwards recovered and lived in Minnesota.

At Wood Lake, I also helped to bury the dead, among them sixteen Indians killed in the fight there. At Camp Release situated on the west side of the Mississippi river opposite where Montevideo is now located, we surrounded an Indian camp and compelled them to give up over one hundred captive women and children. We were also sent out with a small squad and surrounded and captured another camp of hostile Indians, bringing them in to our camp. Col. Crooks, of our regiment, was appointed Judge Advocate and I was present at the trial of over one hundred of these Indians. All were found guilty and sentenced to be hung. President Lincoln commuted the sentence of all but thirty-nine, the rest being sent to the government prison at Rock Island where they were kept as prisoners of war. At that time my wife who was then Olive Branch, was attending High School in Moline, and she went with some friends to see these Indians in the Rock Island prison. She recalls distinctly the interest the people felt in seeing the savages who had been the authors of such atrocities.

In February of 1863, our regiment was sent to Forest City to build a stockade for the protection of the settlers. From there we marched across country to Camp Pope, where the main forces were being a.s.sembled, preparatory to our expedition across the plains to the Missouri river a few miles below where Bismarck now stands. We had no fresh water on this trip and were also on half rations for two months. When we finally reached the river we rushed in to fill our canteens, when the Indians suddenly opened fire on us from the opposite bank. Fortunately they fired over our heads with but few casualties. While we were halted at the river, Gen. Sibley, who had remained at his headquarters, two miles in our rear, sent a message to Col. Crooks, carried by an officer with his orderly. Col. Crooks received the message, wrote his answer leaning on his saddle, and the messengers started back to Gen. Sibley with the reply. On our return trip we found the bodies of this officer and his orderly horribly mutilated. The Indians had come up in our rear and encountered them as they rode back to camp.

MINNEAPOLIS CHAPTER

CAROLINE ROGERS SHEPLEY

(Mrs. O. H. Shepley)

FLORENCE SHEPHERD LITTLE

(Mrs. F. W. Little)

MARY SHERRARD PHILLIPS

(Mrs. Alonzo Phillips)

Mrs. Helen G.o.dfrey Berry--1849.

My part in the history of the G.o.dfrey house is the first chapter. My idea of geography in 1847--at the age of eight years--was that Maine was the only state and that Bangor was not far from Boston in size and importance. "Out West" was a wonderland in my child mind. I did not realize when or how my father, Ard G.o.dfrey, went so far from home as to St. Anthony Falls, but I did realize his return to take my mother and us children west. My father was obliged to leave us with our relatives, Alex. Gordon's family. We stayed in Beloit, Wisconsin for the winter.

He, with Capt. John Rollins and some others went through on ponies, or as best they could travel. Cold weather had stopped the boats from running. That trip was one they did not forget and often told of it.

In the spring of '49 we took a stage coach from Beloit, with our baggage strapped on behind. I remember well the black mucky mud we rode through, the wheels sinking in to the hubs first on one side then the other.

Father met us in St. Paul and we children at once got on the calico covered settee of the Ba.s.s House, too sleepy to eat. My next idea of being anywhere was in a room given up, very kindly, by Mrs. Calvin Church to my mother, in what was called the "messhouse," Main St. S. E.

It was the most comfortable place to be had. We were hungry for mother's cooking. Our first meal was of biscuits, salt and tea with strawberry jam, mother had found in the blue chest. This was in April.

If the work had not been already begun on our house, it must have been hurried as in May my sister was born in the house.

There was considerable concern because there was no doctor nearer than St. Paul to call on in case of need, but a few days before my sister, Harriet was born, someone said there was an old gentleman living on the lower island, a Doctor Kingsley, so he was called in. There was no foot-bridge and but one way to get to the island, that of fording the river.

The house was built before the time of baloon frames. The princ.i.p.al workmen were Chas. Merceau and James Brisette, who must have worked faithfully and well. Doors and window-sash were done by hand, the lumber having to be seasoned after it was hauled to the spot. I was so interested in the many kinds of planks and tools used by these carpenters, every floor board being tongued and groved by them. The cellar under the whole house was dug after the house was partly built. I have a faint recollection that a limekiln was built near the old landing and lime burnt before the walls and plastering could be done. A brick oven was built, which did good service while we lived there.

When it came to the painting of the outside of the house, father and mother wondered if the natural color of Minnesota pine was not a shade or two different from that of the old state of Maine. They were so impressed they concluded to paint the house as near the shade of this new pine as possible, but were hardly satisfied because not a perfect imitation.

My mother was favored with much-needed help most of the time. The house was often a hospital. Two years after we built, the brother of the young woman who was helping my mother, came with a bad attack of cholera. He was brought in, cared for and sent away comfortable. Many families came from the far east with sickness from the long journey, many of them cases of typhoid fever. My mother was not behind in extending a welcome and a.s.sistance to these sufferers.

I would not omit my recollection of our first Fourth of July. It was either in '49 or '50 and carried out with all patriotism. I went early in the morning with my new friend, Emma J. Tyler, to touch the Liberty pole set up on the hill not far from the mills and near where was afterward built the Winslow Hotel. It was a genuine celebration. In my mind, somehow, like a dream of a birthday in spring, comes a faint picture of a number of pioneer mothers, in my mother's partly furnished parlor. I rushed in after school and stood upon the threshold. I saw bright colors in stripes, and stars of blue that they seemed to be in a quandary how to place and how many to use. Was this the first flag made in St. Anthony? Was it made in the old G.o.dfrey House, or was I only dreaming? Anyway, it was a real celebration that came after. The Declaration of Independence was read, I think by J. W. North, a volunteer choir of our best singers--Mrs. Caleb Dorr, Mrs. North and others--sang the patriotic hymns, Isaac At.w.a.ter, Capt. John Rollins and others sat upon the platform and my father was marshall of the day.

I probably took the first music lesson on the piano given to a learner in St. Anthony, my teacher being Mrs. J. W. North, living at First on Hennepin Island in the house afterward known as the Tapper House, where Capt. John Tapper lived while running the ferry-boat, before the bridge was built from our side to the island. It was not a very safe or easy trip for me to skip over on the logs, but I got to be quite an expert.

My piano came later than Mrs. North's, but was the first new piano brought and bargained for to be sent to St. Anthony.

By this time the house was comfortably furnished. At first a few articles were brought from the Slaymakers who had been one of the families who had lived in the building I have spoken of--father's shop.

This family became discontented enough to return to their old home so from them we got our large six-legged dining table, the cradle, both of black walnut, and a few other pieces of furniture.

If such a thing could be done after fifty years, I could replace any piece of furniture as my mother had then. The parlor with its warm colored red and green carpet, the piano in its corner, the round mahogany table of my mother's with its red and black table spread and always the three worsted lamp mats I had made when seven years old.

Mother's hair-cloth rocker, the parlor stove and the round back chairs, also in the sitting room were mother's small two-leaved tea-table and the settee like four chairs in a row, a stove, etc., all so comfortable.

We never lived in a house in Minnesota in which we felt the cold so little in winter. From an item in my old sc.r.a.p-book concerning the moving of the house, it said it had three thicknesses of floor boards, and the same for the outside, so it was built for comfort. My little room over the parlor--my first own room--had in it the bureau made by my grandfather Burr. My bedstead, a posted one, was corded with bed cords, had one good straw bed and a fluffy feather bed on top of that, with patch work quilts. In that little room I made many beginnings. I learned to wash the floor on my knees for I had no carpet.

At the time when the Mill Company's property was partly owned by a bachelor named A. W. Taylor, the other owners were very anxious to buy out his share so were making great effort to persuade him to sell. My mother was given the money, all in gold, or probably father put it in her care, ready to make the payment if he came to terms which he finally did. My knowledge of this fact came from mother being all alone at night. She told me that in one corner of the blue chest were bags of gold amounting to $10,000. Afterward I could understand that she felt too anxious to sleep and that in case of any foul deed, I could answer for her. In those days, however, men were honest and money plentiful.

Many times has my father ridden to or from St. Paul with a sack of money in the buggy seat beside him.

About this time it was getting to be the custom in Washington and other large cities for ladies to receive gentlemen callers on New Year's Day, so the first year St. Anthony followed that custom, by Mrs. Camp's suggestions and help, I was the first to receive callers, with Mrs. Camp as chaperone. I am not quite sure who were our callers, probably Mr.

Camp, T. E. B. North, J. B. Shaw and others. Pound and fruit cake with fragrant coffee and rich cream were served.

In our house was organized the first Masonic Lodge. I remember it perfectly well. My mother had arranged the house in such perfect order we children felt something unusual was to happen. Mother first was elected Tyler. I couldn't understand why we couldn't even peep through the key-hole. I saw Mr. John H. Stevens and Mr. Isaac At.w.a.ter pa.s.s into the parlor where they spent the evening with my father. Mother proved a faithful Tyler and all the satisfaction we got was that they had "Ridden the goat."

Father had told brother Abner wonderful stories about the country he was intending to take us to and one was that "sleds grow on trees" and he should have one when we got there. He did not forget. Maybe he was reminded, but some time before one Christmas day daddy brought home two strips of wood that he said could be bent into the shape he wanted it.

It took some time and I do not know whether brother suspected what was coming until his own frame sled was brought to him, all completed but the steels--they came later. So he can claim having had the first real coaster, for the other boys had only board runners or barrel staves.