I used always to make twenty-one pies a week. One for every meal. I had two boarders who were friends of ours. Not that I wanted boarders, but these men had to stay somewhere and there was no somewhere for them to stay. Each took her friends to help them out. I was not very strong and cooking was hard on me. There was no one to hire to work. After a very hot day's work, I was sick and did not come down to breakfast. One of the boarders was not working. I came down late and got my breakfast. I set half of a berry pie on the table and went to get the rest of the things. When I came back, it was in the cupboard. The boarder sat reading. I thought I had forgotten and had not put it on, so set it on again and went for the tea. When I came back again, the pie was again in the cupboard and the boarder still studying the almanac. I said, "What are you doing to that pie?" He said, "Keeping it from being et! After this you make seven pies instead of twenty-one and other things the same and you won't be all wore out, we'll only have them for dinner," and so it was. I suppose there were more pies on the breakfast tables of that little village of St. Anthony than there would be now at that meal in the great city of Minneapolis, for it was then a New England village.
Dr. Lysander P. Foster—1849.
I came to Minneapolis on the Ben Franklin. She was a wood burner and every time that her captain would see a pile of wood that some new settler had cut, he would run ashore, tie up and buy it. A passenger was considered very haughty if he did not take hold and help.
My father built his house partly of lumber hauled from Stillwater, but finished with lumber from here, as the first mill at the foot of First Avenue Southeast was then completed. It had one saw only and so anxious were the settlers for the lumber, that each board was grabbed and walked off with as soon as it came from the saw.
The first school I went to as a boy of fourteen, was on Marshall Street Northeast, between Fourth and Sixth Avenues. It was taught by Miss Backus. There were two white boys and seven half breed Bottineaus. It was taught much like kindergarten of today—object lessons, as the seven half breeds spoke only French and Miss Backus only English. McGuffy's Reader was the only text book.
The Indians were much like white people. The Sioux boys at their camp at the mouth of Bassett's Creek were always my playfellows. I spent many happy days hunting, fishing and playing games with them. They were always fair in their play. The games they enjoyed most were "Shinny" and a game played on the ice in the winter. A stick with a long handle and heavy smooth curved end was thrown with all the strength possible. Some could throw it over a block. The one throwing it farthest beat. I suppose what I call "shinny" was really La Crosse.
What is now Elwell's Addition was a swamp. I have run a twelve foot pole down in many parts of it without touching bottom.
Mr. Secomb, the father of Methodism in Minneapolis, was going to St. Paul to preach. He took a dugout canoe from the old board landing. His friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, now that he practiced it.
The peculiarity of the swamp land in St. Paul was that it was all on a ledge and was only about two feet deep. You could touch rock bottom anywhere there, but here a swamp was a swamp and could be any depth.
In 1848 half breeds had gardens and raised famous vegetables up in what is now Northeast Minneapolis.