There was cholera at St. Louis that summer, and I remember how a steamer landed a large party of Norwegian immigrants, nearly all down with cholera. Mr. Willard and myself happened to be in Red Wing at the time, and the American families, considering these Norwegian cholera patients our countrymen, hastily turned them over to our care. We nursed them as best we could, but many died in spite of all our efforts, and as we closed their eyes, and laid them in the silent grave under the bluffs, it never occurred to us that they were anything but our countrymen and brothers.
From these small beginnings of the Swedish and Norwegian settlers in Goodhue county, in the years of 1853 and 1854, have sprung results which are not only grand but glorious to contemplate. Looking back to those days I see the little cabin, often with a sod roof, single room used for domestic purposes, sometimes crowded almost to suffocation by hospitable entertainments to new-comers; or the poor immigrant on the levee at Red Wing, just landed from a steamer, in his short jacket and other outlandish costume, perhaps seated on a wooden box, with his wife and a large group of children around him, and wondering how he shall be able to raise enough means to get himself ten or twenty miles into the country, or to redeem the bedding and other household goods which he has perchance left in Milwaukee as a pledge for his railroad and steam-boat ticket. And I see him trudging along over the trackless prairie, searching for a piece of land containing if possible prairie, water and a little timber, on which to build a home. Poor, bewildered, ignorant, and odd looking, he had been an object of pity and derision all the way from Gothenburg or Christiania to the little cabin of some country-man of his, where he found rest and shelter until he could build one of his own.
OUR FIRST HOME.
Those who have not experienced frontier life, will naturally wonder how it was possible for people so poor as a majority of the old settlers were, to procure the necessaries of life, but they should remember that our necessities were few, and our luxuries a great deal less. The bountiful earth soon yielded bread and vegetables; the woods and streams supplied game and fish; and as to shoes and clothing, I and many others have used shoes made of untanned skins, and even of gunny-sacks and old rags. Furthermore, the small merchants at the river or other points, were always willing to supply the Scandinavian emigrants with necessary goods on credit, until better times should come. Our people in this country did certainly earn a name for integrity and honesty among their American neighbors, which has been a greater help to them than money.
Some of the men would go off in search of work, and in due time return with means enough to help the balance of the family.
Frontier settlers are always accommodating and generous. If one had more than he needed, he would invariably share the surplus with his neighbors. The neighbors would all turn in to help a new-comer,—haul his logs, build his house, and do other little services, for him.
The isolated condition and mutual aims and aspirations of the settlers brought them nearer together than in older communities. On Sunday afternoons all would meet at some centrally located place, and spend the day together. A cup of coffee with a couple of slices of bread and butter, would furnish a royal entertainment, and when we got so far along that we could afford some pie or cake for dessert, the good house-wives were in a perfect ecstacy. The joys and sorrows of one, were shared by the others, and nowhere in the wide world, except in a military camp, have I witnessed so much genuine cordial friendship and brotherhood as among the frontier settlers in the West.
One fine Sunday morning that summer, all the settlers met under two oak trees on the prairie, near where the present church stands, for the first religious service in the settlement. It had been agreed that some of the men should take turns to read one of Luther’s sermons at each of these gatherings, and I was selected as reader the first day. Some prayers were said and Swedish hymns sung, and seldom did a temple contain more devout worshipers than did that little congregation on the prairie.
Before the winter of 1854-55 set in, we had quite a large community in Vasa, and had raised considerable grain, potatoes and other provisions. During that winter the Sioux Indians again became our neighbors, and frequently supplied us with venison in exchange for bread and coffee. The following spring and summer the settlers increased still faster, several more oxen and other cattle, with a horse or two, were brought in, and I had no longer the exclusive privilege of hauling goods on the little truck wagon.