MISS STELLA COLE
Mr. Elijah G. Nutting—1852.
My father's hotel, the Hotel de Bush, as we derisively called it, was the first hotel in Faribault. It may perhaps be called a frame house by courtesy, rather than technically, as it was made by placing boards vertically side by side, battened together by a third board. On the first floor were the family apartments, separated from the dining room and the "office" by partitions of cotton cloth hung on wires. The office, ten feet by twelve, boasted an improvised desk, a stool and a candle. The second floor was called the "school section," a large apartment filled with bedsteads rudely made of boards and supporting straw, hay or coarse grass ticks. Here the fortunate early bird took his rest, fully clothed, even to his boots, protected from the snow, which blustered in at the unglazed windows by his horse blankets. Later comers took possession of the straw ticks on the floor and made no complaint next morning when, after a breakfast of salt pork, black tea with brown sugar and butter so strong it could seldom be eaten, they were presented with a bill of $2.00. In one corner of this "school section" was a tiny enclosure, screened with a cotton cloth partition, containing a bed and two soap boxes, one for a dressing table and the other for a chair. This was called the "bridal chamber" and was to be had at a suitable price, by those seeking greater privacy. We had bread and pork for breakfast, pork and bread for dinner, and some of both for supper.
A large sheet iron stove down stairs was kept red hot in the winter and a man was employed to prevent people, coming in from the icy out-of-doors, from rushing too near its heat and thus suddenly thawing out their frozen ears, cheeks or noses.
When in 1858 or '59 my father sold the hotel, its purchaser mortgaged it, paying an interest rate of twenty-four per cent a year.
On July Fourth, 1856 the Barron House was formally opened on such a scale of splendor that the days of the Faribault House were numbered.
The Scott brothers built the first saw mill in Faribault. It was located on the spot where the new addition to the shoe factory now is. The machinery was brought in from St. Louis and came up by boat to Hastings at an enormous cost and it took twelve yoke of oxen to haul the boiler from that point. They were a long time getting it from Cannon City, as they had to cut a road through the dense woods. A party whom they met after dusk, when he saw the huge cylinder, exclaimed, "Well that is the largest saw log I ever saw."
Mr. J. Warren Richardson—1854.
I came with my father and mother from St. Anthony where we had lived for a short time, to Faribault and settled in Walcott where we secured a log house and a claim for $75.00. This was on Mud Creek. While at St. Anthony my father had made us such furniture as we needed. From the saw mill he got plank fourteen feet in length, which he cut into strips. He then bored holes in the corners and inserted pieces of pine, taken out of the river, for legs, and thus we were provided with stools. For tables we used our trunks. We slept on ticks full of prairie hay on the floor. These were piled in the corner daytimes and taken out at night.
Our house on the farm contained one room twenty feet square and as my father used to say "A log and a half story high." We were ourselves a family of five besides three boarders and a stray family of three appearing among us with no home, my mother invited them also to share our scanty shelter. At night she divided the house into apartments by hanging up sheets and the two families prepared their meals on the same cookstove. We made our coffee of potatoes by baking them till there was nothing left in them but a hole, and then crushing them. It was excellent. In winter my father cut timber for his fences. He loaded it onto the bobs which I, a ten year old boy, would then drive back, stringing the logs along the way where they would lie till spring when father split them into rails and built the fence. I have often chased the timber wolves with my whip as I drove along. They would follow the team and then when I turned around to chase them they would turn and run in front of the team.
Finding that the snow blew in through our covered shake roof, we cut sod and covered the roof with it. The following summer, my father being away, I planted some popcorn, which we had brought from the east, in this sod roof. It grew about fourteen inches high and my father, upon his return, was greatly puzzled by the strange crop which he found growing on his roof.
When kindling was needed, my father would raise the puncheons which made our floor and hew some from these.
Our clothing consisted of Kentucky jeans and white shirts for best, with overalls added for warmth in winter. We also wore as many coats as we had left from our eastern outfit. These had to be patched many, many times. The saying always was "Patch beside patch is neighborly; patch upon patch is beggarly." I never had underwear or an overcoat until I enlisted.
One day I was plowing with a double yoke of oxen. I was driving while Mr. Whitney was guiding the plow. Mr. Whitney's brother was across the river hunting for a lost horse. For a long time we heard him shouting, but paid no attention until at last we saw him retreating slowly down the opposite bank before a big bear. He called for help. We got over there in short order. Mr. Whitney said that the bear had three small cubs up a tree, but when we reached there she had disappeared with one cub. He climbed the tree while his brother and I kept guard below. He caught the two cubs by their thick fur and brought them down and kept them.
In 1856, we came into town and I often played with the Indian boys, shooting with bows and arrows in "Frogtown," which was lined with Indian tepees. They always played fair.
Our log schoolhouse had rude desks facing the sidewall.
Mrs. Henry C. Prescott—1855.
My father, Dr. Nathan Bemis, came to Faribault where his father and brother had already settled when I was eight years old. We went first to the Nutting House, but as there was only the "bridal chamber" with its one bed for the use of women, Mr. John Whipple, although his wife was ill, invited my mother, with my baby sister, to stay at his house, which was across the street. My sister, and a young lady who had come with us, slept in the bed in the "bridal chamber." My father and brother laid their straw ticks on the floor outside and I occupied a trundle bed in Mrs. Nutting's room.
We soon moved out to the Smallidge House, east of town, where our family consisted of our original seven and four men who boarded with us. There was but one room, and only a small part of the floor was boarded over and on this, at night, we spread our cotton ticks, filled with "prairie feathers" or dried prairie grass, and the men went out of doors while the women went to bed. In the morning the men rose first and withdrew. The ticks were then piled in a corner and the furniture was lifted onto the floor and the house was ready for daytime use. Gradually by standing in line at the sawmill, each getting a board a day, if the supply held out, our men got enough boards to cover the entire floor.
The next winter General Shields offered us his office for our home, if we could stand the cold. He, himself, preferred to winter in the Nutting Hotel. This winter was a horror to us all. We all froze our feet and the bedclothes never thawed out all winter, freezing lower each night from our breath. Before going to bed my brother used to take a run in the snow in his bare feet and then jump into bed that the reaction might warm them for a little while. All thermometers froze and burst at the beginning of the winter so we never knew how cold it was. Someone had always to hold my baby sister to keep her off the floor so that she might not freeze. At night my mother hung a carpet across the room to divide the bedroom from the living room. Dish towels hung to dry on the oven door would freeze.
That winter my father's nephew shot himself by accident and it was necessary to amputate his leg. My father had no instruments and there were no anesthetics nearer than St. Paul, so my cousin was lashed to a table while my father and Dr. Jewett took off the leg with a fine carpenter's saw and a razor. He was obliged to stay in bed all winter for fear the stump would freeze.
Later we lived, for a time, in a log house. The rain penetrated the chinks, and I remember once when my sister was ill the men had to keep moving the table around, as the wind shifted, to screen her from the rain.
There was no butter, eggs, milk or chickens to be had; no canned things or fresh vegetables. My mother once bought a half bushel of potatoes of a man who came with a load from Iowa, paying $3.00 a bushel. When she came to bake them, they turned perfectly black and had to be thrown away. The man was gone. Again my father bought half a hog from a man who brought in a load of pork, but my mother had learned her lesson and cooked a piece before the man left town and, as it proved to be bad, my father hunted him up and made him take back his hog and refund the money.
The first Thanksgiving my mother said she was going to invite some young lawyers to dinner who boarded with "Old Uncle Rundle". What she had I can not remember, except "fried cakes" and rice pudding made without milk or eggs, but the guests said they never had eaten anything so delicious.
Judge Thomas S. Buckham—1856.
In 1856 three or four hundred Indians on their way to the annual payment, camped in the woods between town and Cannon City. One evening we went, in a body, to visit them and were entertained by dancing. However, too much "fire water" caused some fear among the guests.
We had several courses of lectures during those early years. One year we had as lecturers, Wendell Phillips, Douglas, Beecher, Tilton and Emerson; following them came the Peake family, bell ringers and last of all, a sleight of hand performer from Mankato, Mr. Wheeler, who astonished his audience by swallowing a blunt sword twenty-two inches long.
At another time we had a home-made "lecture course" in which Mr. Cole, Mr. Batchelder, Judge Lowell, myself and others took part.
One of our first celebrations of the Fourth of July ended rather disastrously. We had planned a burlesque procession in which everybody was to take part. It started out fairly well. Dr. Jewett delivered an oration and Frank Nutting sang a song called "The Unfortunate Man," but the enthusiasm was shortly quenched by torrents of rain which in the end literally drove most of the participants to drink.
After the panic of 1857-8, I was sitting idly one day in front of my office on Main Street, as there was absolutely no law business. No other man was in sight, and there hadn't been a dollar seen in the town in months, except the "shin-plaster" issued by banks, which must be cashed on the instant lest the bank in question should fail over night. Suddenly I saw a stranger walking down the street, and as very few strangers had come to town of late, I watched him idly. As he came up he asked, "Young man, do you know of a good piece of land which can be bought?" I spoke of a farm south of town of which I had charge, which was for sale for $2100.00 or $12.50 an acre. He said, "I'll go and see it." Two or three hours later as I still sat dreaming, as there was no other business of any kind for any one to do, the man returned and after asking about the title of the land which its owner had pre-empted, said that he would think about it and went into the bank. Having made some inquiries as to my responsibility, he shortly reappeared with a bundle of greenbacks of small denominations and counted out the $2100.00. They were the first government bank notes I had ever seen and such a sum of money as had not been seen in Faribault in many months. My client then said, "Now young man, you'll see that land worth $25.00 an acre some day." Today it is part of the Weston farm and is valued at $150.00 an acre and is the nicest farm in the county.
The first political machine in the State was organized in Faribault the year Minnesota became a State. Five or six of us young men decided to put a little new life into politics and we prepared a slate. It was five or six against a hundred unorganized voters and we carried the caucus and were all sent as delegates to the Convention. Here also our modern method produced a revolution, but such a fight resulted that the Convention split and some of them went over to vote the Democratic ticket. However, we elected a fair proportion of our candidates and defeated those who had been holding the offices by force of habit.
Mrs. Rodney A. Mott—1857.
We came to Faribault, I think, the nicest and easiest way. We drove from Illinois in a covered immigrant wagon. At first we tried to find lodgings at night, but the poor accommodations and the unwillingness to take us in, led us at last to sleep in the wagon, and we came to prefer that way. After we got away from the really settled country, everyone welcomed us with open arms and gladly shared with us everything they had.
We came up through Medford. I begged to stay there, but Mr. Mott insisted on going to Faribault as they had planned. Our first house was a little cabin on the site of the present cathedral and later we lived in a house where the hay market now stands, but this was lost on a mortgage during the hard times in 1857.
Mrs. Kate Davis Batchelder—1858.
As Kate Davis, a girl of ten, I came with my brother, a lad of eighteen and a sister fourteen, from New York to Wisconsin. Our father was in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where his business as a millwright had called him, and it was thought best to have us go out to be with him. We came in a wagon drawn by a team of spirited horses. We came over the thousand miles between New York and Wisconsin, fording unfamiliar rivers, stopping in strange cities, through prairie and forest, with only rough wild roads at best, never doubting our ability to find our father at our journey's end and perhaps because of that unquestioning faith, we did find him. What a journey to remember. We camped in Chicago when it was no larger than Faribault is now, on the spot near the Lake front where the Congress Hotel now houses the most exclusive of Chicago's mob of humanity. Milwaukee as we passed through it was a tiny hamlet.
When I went to visit my brother who had taken the farm on the east shore of Cannon Lake, I made the trip to Hastings in a boat, and from there in a wagon. As we were driving along, I saw coming towards us, three figures which instinct told me were Indians. On coming nearer, I saw each of them had scalps dripping with blood, hanging to his belt. They reassured me by telling me they were only Indian scalps.
Mr. Berry, afterward a Judge on the Supreme Bench, started out on foot from Janesville, Wisconsin with Mr. Batchelder and after prospecting around and visiting St. Paul, Shakopee, Mankato, Cannon Falls and Zumbrota, they finally walked in here. Fifty years afterwards Mr. Batchelder went out to Cannon Lake and walked into town over the same road that he had come over as a young man, and he said that while, of course, the buildings had changed things somewhat, on the whole it looked surprisingly as it had the first time he passed over it. Mr. Berry and Mr. Batchelder opened a law office in a little one story frame building in the back of which they slept. While coming into town, they had met O. F. Perkins, who had opened a law office, and business not being very brisk, he had turned a rather unskillful hand to raising potatoes. At $2.50 a bushel he managed to do well enough and eked out his scanty income from the law. It was while he was carrying the potatoes to plant that he met Mr. Berry and Mr. Batchelder and having become friends, they all, together with Mr. Randall and Mr. Perkins' brother, started bachelor's hall back of Mr. Perkins' office, where they took turns cooking and washing dishes. I have heard Mr. Batchelder say that "hasty pudding" or what we call corn meal mush, was his specialty and I believe, partly in recollection of those old days when lack of materials as well as unskillful cooks compelled the frequent appearance of this questionable dainty, partly perhaps, because he had learned to like it, "hasty pudding" was served Monday on his table for all the later years of his life.
During one winter I attended several dances in a rude hall whose walls were lined with benches of rough boards with the result that my black satin dress was so full of slivers that it took all my time to pick the slivers out.
We always wore hoops and mine were of black whalebone, covered with white cloth. One day, when at my brother's house, my hoop skirt had been washed and was hanging to dry behind the stove and I was in the little bedroom in the loft. My sister called to me that some young men were coming to call and I was forced to come down the ladder from the loft, to my great mortification without my hoops. There they hung in plain sight all during that call.
At Cannon Lake, near my brother's cabin was a place where the Indians had their war dances. One night after we had gone to bed in the little loft over the one down stairs room, I was awakened by my brother's voice in altercation with some Indians. It seemed the latch-string, the primitive lock of the log cabin had been left out and these Indians came in. They wanted my brother to hide them as they had quarreled with the other Indians. This he refused to do and drove them out. The next morning the tribe came by dragging the bodies of those two Indians. They had been caught just after leaving the house. The bodies were tied over poles with the heads, arms and legs trailing in the dust.
Mrs. John C. Turner.
The Nutting Hotel was the scene of many a dance when settlers came from miles around to take part in quadrilles and reels to the music of violin. We used to bring an extra gown so that after midnight we might change to a fresh one, for these dances lasted till daylight.
When sliding down the hill where St. James School now stands, it was rather exciting to be upset by barricades erected near the foot by mischievous Indian boys, who greeted the accident with hoots of joy.