Part 18

Lieut. Governor Gilman--1855.

The winter of '55 and '56 was thirty five degrees below zero two weeks at a time and forty degrees below was usual.

I have often seen the Red River carts ford the river here. They crossed at the foot of Sixth Street between where the two warehouses are now.

Mrs. Austin W. Farnsworth--1855.

We came to Dodge County in 1855. The first year we were hailed out and we had to live on rutabagas and wild tea. We got some game too, but we were some tired of our diet before things began to grow again. When that hailstorm came we were all at a quilting bee. There was an old lady, Mrs. Maxfield there, rubbing her hundred mark pretty close. She set in a corner and was not scared though the oxen broke away and run home and we had to hold the door to keep it from blowing in. We said, "Ain't you afraid?" She answered, "No, I'm not, if I do go out, I don't want to die howling."

The first time I worked out, when I was fourteen years old, I got 50c a week. There was lots to do for there were twin babies. I used to get awful homesick. I went home Saturdays and when I came over the hill where I could see our cabin, I could have put my arms around it and kissed it, I was that glad to see home.

Mr. Theodore Curtis--1855, Minneapolis.

When I was a little boy my father was building some scows down where the Washington Avenue bridge now is at the boat landing. There were five or six small sluiceways built up above the river leading from the platform where the lumber from the mills was piled, down to where these scows were. These sluices were used to float the lumber down to the scows. A platform was built out over the river in a very early day and was, I should say, three hundred feet wide and one thousand feet long. As the lumber came from the mills it was piled in huge piles along this platform. Each mill had its sluiceway but they were all side by side.

It was very popular to drive down on this platform and look at the falls, whose roaring was a magnet to draw all to see them.

We boys used to play under this platform jumping from one support to another and then finish up by running down the steps and cavorting joyously under the falls. I used to get the drinking water for the workmen from the springs that seeped out everywhere along near where my father worked. Once he sent me to get water quickly. I had a little dog with me and we unthinkingly stepped in the spring making the water roily. Childlike, I never thought of going to another but played around waiting for it to settle, then as usual took it on top of the sluiceways. It seemed father thought I had been gone an hour and acted accordingly. I shall always remember that whipping.

Mrs. Charles M. Godley--1856.

My father, Mr. Scrimgeour, came to Minneapolis in 1855 and built a small home between First and Second Avenues North on Fourth Street. When my mother arrived she cried when she saw where her home was to be and said to her husband, as he was cutting the hazel brush from around the house, "You told me I would not have to live in a wilderness if I came here."

Mr. Morgan lived across the street. He and my father decided to dig a well together and put it in the street so that both families could use it. My father said to Mr. Morgan, "Of course, there is a street surveyed here, but the town will never grow to it, so the well will be alright here."

Mr. Morgan was a great bookworm and not at all practical. If his horse got out and was put in with other strays, he could never tell it, but had to wait until everyone took theirs and then he would take what was left.

There was a big sand hole at the corner of Second Avenue South and Fourth Street where they had dug out sand. It was the great playground for all the children, for it was thought the town would never grow there and so it was a good place for a sand hole.

When I went to school I always followed an Indian trail that led from Hoag's Lake to the government mill. It was bordered by hazel brush and once in a while a scrub oak. I was much disturbed one night on my way home, to find men digging a hole through my beloved trail. I hoped they would be gone in the morning, but to my great disappointment they were not, for they were digging the excavation for the Nicollet House. My school was in an old store building at the falls and was taught by Oliver Gray.

Dr. Barnard lived on the corner by our house. He was Indian agent and very kind to the Indians. One night a number of them came in the rain. Mr. Barnard tried to get them to sleep in the house. All refused. One had a very bad cough so the doctor insisted on his coming in and gave him a room with a bed. Shortly after, they heard a terrible noise with an awful yell like a war-whoop. The Indian dashed down the stairs, out of the house and away. The slats in the bed were found broken and the bed was on the floor. Later, they found that he had started for bed from the furthest side of the room, run with full force and plunged in and through.

In 1857, when the panic came, all stores in Minneapolis failed and there was not a penny in circulation. Everything was paid by order.

There was a small farmhouse where the Andrews Hotel now stands. Fourth Street North, that led to it from our house, was full of stumps. We got a quart of milk every night at this place. They never milked until very late so it was dark. I used to go for it. My mother always gave me a six quart pail so that after I had stumbled along over those stumps, the bottom of the pail at least would be covered.

No one who was used to an eastern climate had any idea how to dress out here when they first came. I wore hoops and a low necked waist just as other little girls did. I can remember the discussion that took place before a little merino sack was made for me. I don't remember whether I was supposed to be showing the white feather if I surrendered to the climate and covered my poor little bare neck or whether I would be too out of style. I must have looked like a little picked chicken with goose flesh all over me. Once before this costume was added to, by the little sack, my mother sent me for a jug of vinegar down to Helen Street and Washington Avenue South. I had on the same little hoops and only one thickness of cotton underclothing under them. It must have been twenty degrees below zero. I thought I would perish before I got there, but childlike, never peeped. When I finally reached home, they had an awful time thawing me out. The vinegar was frozen solid in the jug.

A boardwalk six blocks long was built from Bridge Square to Bassett's Hall on First Street North. It was a regular sidewalk, not just two boards laid lengthwise and held by crosspieces as the other sidewalks were. Our dress parade always took place there. We would walk back and forth untiringly, passing everybody we knew and we knew everybody in town. Instead of taking a girl out driving or to the theatre, a young man would ask, "Won't you go walking on the boardwalk?"

Lucy Morgan used to go to school with us when we first came. She had long ringlets and always wore lownecked dresses, just as the rest of us did, but her white neck never had any gooseflesh on it and she was the only one who had curls.

We went to high school where the court house now stands. It was on a little hill, so we always said we were climbing the "Hill of Knowledge."

I can well remember the dazed look that came on my father's face when for the first time, he realized that there were horses in town that he did not know. The town had grown so that he could not keep pace with it.

Mr. Frank Slocum--1856.

When we drove from St. Paul to Cannon Falls in '56 we only saw one small piece of fence on the way. A man by the name of Baker at Rich Valley in Dakota County had this around his door yard. He had dug a trench and thrown up a ridge of dirt. On top of this he had two cross pieces and a rail on top. You call it a rail fence. We called it oftener "stake and rider." We followed the regular road from St. Paul to Dubuque.

The original Indian trail which was afterward the stage road, started at Red Wing and went through Cannon Falls, Staunton, Northfield, Dundas, Cannon City to Faribault.

My father had a store in Cannon Falls. I was only thirteen and small for my age but I used to serve. One day a big Indian came in when I was alone and asked for buckshot. They were large and it did not take many to weigh a pound. He picked a couple out and pretended to be examining them. I weighed the pound and when I saw he did not put them back, I took out two. You never saw an Indian laugh so hard in your life. You always had to be careful when weighing things for Indians, for if you got over the quantity and took some out they were always grouchy as they thought you were cheating them.