We would certainly have starved if it had not been for my shot-gun, with which I went down into the woods of Belle Creek every morning at day-break, generally returning with pheasants, squirrels or other small game. One Sunday the weather was so disagreeable and rough that I did not succeed in my hunting, but in feeding the team back of the kitchen some oats had been spilt, and a flock of blackbirds came and fed on them. Through an opening between the logs of the kitchen I shot several dozen of these birds, which, by the way, are not ordinarily very toothsome. But, being a splendid cook, my sister made them into a stew, thickened with a few mashed beans and a handful of flour—in our estimation the mess turned out to be a dinner fit for kings.
Our supplies being nearly exhausted, I started for Red Wing the next morning, partly to save the remaining handful of provisions for my sister and her husband, partly in hopes of obtaining fresh supplies from a steamboat which was expected about that time. Three days afterwards the steamer arrived. As soon as practicable the boxes were brought to the store of H. L. Bevans. I secured a smoked ham, thirty pounds of flour, a gallon of molasses, some coffee, salt and sugar, strapped it all (weighing almost seventy pounds) on my back, and started toward evening for our cabin in the wilderness. I had to walk about fourteen miles along the Indian trail, but in spite of the heavy burden I made that distance in a short time, knowing that the dear ones at home were threatened by hunger; perhaps the howling of the prairie wolves near my path also had something to do with the speed. There are events in the life of every person which stand out like mile-stones along the road, and so attract the attention of the traveler on life’s journey that they always remain vivid pictures in his memory. My arrival at our cabin that evening was one of those events in our humble life. I will not attempt to describe the joy which my burden brought to all of us, especially to the young mother with the little babe at her breast.
[ CHAPTER IV.]
Future Hopes—Farm Life—Norwegian Pioneers—The Condition of the Immigrant at the Beginning of the Fifties—Religious Meetings—The Growth of the Settlement—Vasa Township Organized—A Lutheran Church Established—My Wedding—Speculation—The Crisis of 1857—Study of Law in Red Wing—I am admitted to the Bar and elected County Auditor—Politics in 1860—War is Imminent.
We had now commenced a new career, located on our farm claims in the boundless West, with no end to the prospects and possibilities before us. We felt that independence and freedom which are only attained and appreciated in the western wilds of America.
From the Mississippi river and almost to the Pacific Ocean, was a verdant field for the industry, energy and enterprise of the settler. To be sure, our means and resources were small, but somehow we felt that by hard work and good conduct we would some day attain the comfort, independence and position for which our souls thirsted. We did not sit down and wait for gold mines to open up before us, or for roasted pigs to come running by our cabin, but with axe and spade went quietly to work, to do our little part in the building up of new empires.
OUR WAGON.
In the beginning of May, my father came from Illinois and brought us a pair of steers and a milch cow; this made us rich. We made a wagon with wheels of blocks sawed off an oak log; we also bought a plow, and, joining with our neighbors of Belle Creek, had a breaking team of two pair of oxen. That breaking team and that truck wagon, with myself always as the chief ox driver, did all the breaking, and all the hauling and carting of lumber, provisions, building-material and other goods, for all the settlers in that neighborhood during the first season.
Soon others of our party from last year joined us. Some letters which I wrote in Hemlandet describing the country around us, attracted much attention and brought settlers from different parts of the west, and while the Swedes were pouring into our place, then known as “Mattson’s Settlement,” (now well known under the name of Vasa), our friends, the Norwegians, had started a prosperous settlement a few miles to the south, many of them coming overland from Wisconsin, bringing cattle, implements and other valuables of which the Swedes, being mostly poor new-comers, were destitute. Many immigrants of both nationalities came as deck passengers on the Mississippi steamers to Red Wing.