Old Rail Fence Corners: The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History

by Unknown

During that summer some fifteen acres were broken up and the two acres which had been previously made ready for seed by Mr. Gorman, were planted to corn and potatoes. Father hired a yoke of oxen to use during the summer and kept one cow.

Father returned to Massachusetts and in the winter we came to Buffalo by rail. In early May we embarked on the steamer "Nominee," which was then the fastest boat on the river. At the head of the flagstaff was a new broom which indicated that the boat had beaten every other vessel then running on the river north of Galena. The Captain was Russell Blakeley who for many years commanded the best boats belonging to the Packet Company.

We reached St. Paul about ten o'clock on May seventh and I remember very well that the thing which attracted my attention more than any other was the newly trimmed cupola of the Territorial Capitol building. There were at least fifteen steamboats at the lower levee when we arrived there, all busy in unloading. They were packed with passengers and freight coming up the river, but going down they carried very little, for there was nothing to ship. The first shipments of any consequence were potatoes in the spring of 1855. For two or three years after that nearly all the flour and grain used in the territory was brought from Galena.

Father took a pair of oxen and his wagon from the boat and we made our way up a very steep hill from Jackson Street to Third. From there we went up Third to the corner of Wabasha, where father bought some flour and feed and we drove back to the boat. About five o'clock in the afternoon the Nominee steamed up the river as far as Fort Snelling, taking at least one-fifth of its passengers and freight. We tied up at the ferry boat landing, at the foot of the hill under the old fort, and began to take off our cattle and freight. The hill was very steep leading up to the fort and father, aided by the boys, began to take our goods in small wagon loads to the top of the hill, so that we could properly load them. Uncle William, my mother, Aunt Isabel and the small children had been transferred at St. Paul to a small steamboat called the "Iola," which was to take them up the Minnesota river to Hennepin Landing, a mile or two from our claim at Eden Prairie.

One of the wagons was left at the top of the hill while father went back for more of the goods. I was told to take care of the cattle. Among the cattle was a white heifer, a very wild animal. Father put a rope around her horns and gave me the rope to hold, while he went down the hill. I put the rope around one hind wheel of the wagon thinking I could hold the animal that way. While I was standing there in the twilight, six or seven soldiers came out of the fort for guard duty and when they passed me the heifer became frightened, gave a jerk upon the rope and necessarily upon the wheel. The wagon had not been properly coupled, and when the animal at one end of the rope and myself at the other brought pressure upon the wheel, the hind wheels separated from the front, and the wheels, the heifer and the boy, went very hastily to the foot of the hill. Part of the time the wheels were off the ground, some of the time it was the heifer, but it seemed to me it was the boy who filled air space the greater portion of the period consumed in the descent. This mishap created great consternation not only among the representatives of Uncle Sam, but among the people who had just left the boat. It was my first encounter with the United States Army and I was badly scared.

About ten o'clock after we landed, we started three wagons with a pair of oxen for each and about ten head of cows and young stock. It was a beautiful night, with full moon and after traveling a mile to what was known as Bloomington Creek, we stopped to graze the cattle and to rest. We all got more or less sleep and it was eight in the morning before we were able to start the cavalcade. We arrived in sight of our future home, under most auspicious circumstances. The weather was mild and the sun shining brightly when we came to a place from where father pointed out the log house in the edge of the woods, with a stovepipe through the roof and the smoke coming out. My uncle Sherbuel had remained an occupant of this house all winter, that he might hold this claim of my father's and the one next to it, which had been selected for my Uncle William. Uncle Sherbuel was something of a hunter and trapper, and had made good use of his time during the winter and had a good assortment of furs, otter, wolf, mink, fox and those of smaller animals. He had killed several deer and was tanning the hides at the time we arrived. He had also caught and salted several hundred pounds of bass, pike and pickerel.

Father had little money left and we were without seed, except potatoes, for about three acres of our land. Potatoes were of very little value and it was doubtful if it would pay to plant them, but as we had nothing else to put into the ground father concluded that he would seed the three acres with potatoes, of which he had plenty of the kind known as Irish Reds, a round potato of exceedingly fine variety. He sowed a few acres of wheat, two or three acres of oats and planted two or three acres of corn and of course, we had a garden. We had to build a yard for the cattle at night, some sort of shelter for them, and we also had to build pig-pens. Lumber was almost unobtainable so these structures were largely of logs. They had to be very well built, strong as well as high, in order to keep cattle and hogs out of the fields. I remember that we had one hog that would climb anything in sight and what she could not climb she would dig under. Many a time in the summer of '54 and '55 did I chase that animal and her offspring back into the pig-pen.

I had a most tremendous appetite. Our food consisted mostly of potatoes, bread, wheat or corn, beans and plenty of game. Ducks, chickens or fish could be had by going a few hundred feet in almost any direction. We had no well and all the water we used was hauled from the lake, nearly a half mile distant. Father rigged up a crotch of a tree upon which was placed a water barrel and this was dragged back and forth by a yoke of cattle. Starting from the lake with a full barrel we had good luck if we reached the house with half of it.

In the summer when the corn began to get into the milk stage, we had a great fight with the blackbirds. They would swarm down upon the fields and picking open the heads of the ears, would practically spoil every ear they touched. Scare-crows were of no service in keeping the birds off, and finally the boys were put into the fields, upon little elevations made of fence rails, with guns loaded with powder and shot. We killed hundreds of birds in order to save the corn and had good crops of wheat and oats and we also had a most remarkable yield of potatoes; so large in fact, that we had to build a root-cellar in the hillside out of logs. We dug potatoes and picked them up that fall until I was nearly worn out, but in the spring the demand for potatoes was so great that father sold bushels at $1.05 a bushel. This gave him a large amount of ready money and he bought a pair of horses.

There were plenty of Sioux Indians living in the vicinity of Shakopee. A reddish colored stone, about two feet high stood a half mile west of our place on the Indian trail leading from Minnetonka to Shakopee. Around this stone the Indians used to gather, engaged apparently in some religious exercise and in smoking kinni kinic.