Part 42

Mrs. Conrad Magnus.

Several homes near New Ulm had been burned by the Indians. The women and children left without homes were all sheltered in a warehouse in town. At night the men were on guard. They lacked ammunition, so I sat up all one night melting lead in a teaspoon to make balls.

During the night an infant cried incessantly until finally we were afraid it would cry itself to death. There was no milk to give it. At three o'clock in the morning I said I would go out and milk the cow if the men would guard me. Several men, with loaded guns, stood around the cow while I got a cupful of milk for the baby.

Mrs. Orin Pike--1864.

We left Buffalo late in September, 1864 for Rochester. As we went on, soldiers came on board the train returning to the country's service, as they said; after a brief furlough at home; votes were then taken from time to time to ascertain the most popular candidate for the presidency resulting, as I recall it now, each time in a large majority for Lincoln. This seemed to greatly disturb an elderly man and when apparently he could stand it no longer, he denounced the government as despotic, the draft unconstitutional, the Emancipation Proclamation as an effort on Lincoln's part to flood the whole North with "niggers," characterizing Lincoln as a tyrant, who ought to be shot.

Then there stepped out into the aisle a fine looking young man, who wore shoulder straps and in distinct tones said, "There are three things in this world that I hate--a thousand legged worm, a rattlesnake and a copperhead. A copperhead is the meanest of all." Then turning to the old man he went on, "Your gray hairs have been your protection while you abused the government. This is a land of free speech, but if you traduce Abraham Lincoln farther, I will not be answerable for the consequences." Votes were afterward taken but the old man was silent contenting himself with looking mad.

Our train was gone when we reached Chicago. We stayed all night, going on early in the morning, reaching La Crosse at dusk and leaving the cars to take the boat for Winona. The Mississippi was very low and the night was spent ere we reached Winona.

Monday morning we again took the cars for St. Charles. The railroad then called Winona and St. Peter, was not completed beyond that point. Looking from the car windows, we saw sleds and low looking wagons with one and sometimes two large barrels in them which those who knew, said were for hauling water. The stage took us safely to the "American House" at Rochester.

MONUMENT CHAPTER

Minneapolis

MARY FRANCES PARTRIDGE

(Mrs. M. E. Partridge)

ANNA MACFARLANE TORRANCE

(Mrs. Ell Torrance)

Mrs. Mary E. Partridge--1854.

The pioneers were brave souls, able to cope with emergencies of many kinds. In them, the adage was verified, "As thy days so shall thy strength be." In 1854 I left Wisconsin, a bride, with my husband, to begin life on a government claim in Minnesota. As we passed through what is now the beautiful city of Faribault, there was only one frame house, which belonged to a half breed from whom the town was named. We settled eight miles beyond in the township of Medford in a small log cabin with bark floors, as there were at that time no saw mills in that locality. Soon our simple house was crowded to the utmost with relatives and friends looking for claims in this rare section of the state. There was a scarcity of neighbors, no schools nor places for church or holiday meetings. It was years before I heard a sermon preached.

It was plain living in those years of self-denial. Only necessities could be gotten, but soon all this changed. Neighbors began to settle near. All were willing to share, ever solicitous for the other, all were on a level, simplicity and cordiality prevailed. There were hardships, hard labor and trials of many kinds, but these developed strength of character. All were in the prime of life, of strong manhood and joyous womanhood. "How beautiful is youth, how fair it gleams, with its illusions, aspirations, dreams." There were no complaints or murmurs. Children were welcomed gladly. To my home came three before the oldest was four years old.

In 1857 came the hard times. Indian corn was the staple food. Few things the farmer raised would bring money. We went without many comforts heretofore deemed indispensable.

A little later this first home was sold and another in a southern county better adapted to cattle raising was bought and thither we moved. With a good beginning in horses and cattle and an experience in farming, better than all else, the future held high hopes and bright promises, but, alas for human expectations, the Civil War come. Already one call had thinned the county of the younger and unmarried men. The second call sounded. The call was urgent,

"Cease to consult, the time of action calls. War, horrid war, approaches to your walls."

All able-bodied patriots enlisted, my husband among the number, with a promise from the stay-at-homes to take care of the crops and look out for the interests of the family.

Then came hardships and troubles to which pioneer life could not be compared. I was obliged to see crops lost for lack of help to harvest them; cattle and horses well nigh worthless as there was no sale for them, neither was there male help sufficient to cultivate the farm, which went back to former wildness. The government was months behind in paying the soldiers, who at best received only a beggarly pittance. One night, alone with my children, I was awakened by a knock on the window and a call, "Hurry! Leave at once. The Indians are upon us, scalping as they come." With the little ones I fled across the fields to the nearest house, a half mile away, later, to find this a false alarm. Another time the alarm was given and again it proved false, but was no easier borne for it was believed the truth. All night long we were kept to the highest pitch of terror expecting every minute to hear the awful war-whoop. The night dragged on without this culmination.

My husband died just before the war closed. His nurse at the hospital wrote me of his serious condition and I started at once for the hospital in Louisville. There were no railroads in the country at that time, stages and boats were the only means of reaching that point. To show the contrast between traveling then and now, it took me over two weeks to reach Louisville and when I arrived at the hospital found that my husband had been buried a week before my arrival. The nurses and officials at the hospital, while exceedingly busy, were most kind and sympathetic in relating to me pleasant recollections of my husband's last days.

I recall only two pleasant instances in the otherwise unhappy experience of our separation occasioned by the war. These were the furloughs which brought him home, one while he was stationed at Fort Snelling lasting for a few days, and later when he was sent home for two or three months as a recruiting officer for his regiment.

Does the luxurious life men and women of today enjoy, develop character, consideration for others, generosity and sympathy towards the less fortunate neighbor as did the trying pioneer days? If not, where lies the blame? What is the cure?

Judge Loren W. Collins--1852.

In 1853 my father visited Eden Prairie. On arriving they found a lynch court in session. A man named Gorman who had squatted upon a very desirable piece of land had gotten into an altercation with a squatter by the name of Samuel Mitchell. These men were Irishmen, Gorman a Catholic and Mitchell a Protestant. Gorman had filled Mitchell's left arm full of shot, and the court gave its judgment that Gorman must get out of the country with his family, within twenty-four hours. He had staked out the claim, had built a log house and had ready for crop about two acres of land. My father had $100.00 in gold with him, probably more money than any other man in the community possessed at that time. Gorman sold out to him for the $100.00 and father took possession.

There were then a dozen or fifteen settlers in that vicinity, among them the Goulds, the Mitchells, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Gates. There came about that time, Mr. Staring, who lived immediately east of us.