Mr. Frank Slocum—1856.
When we drove from St. Paul to Cannon Falls in '56 we only saw one small piece of fence on the way. A man by the name of Baker at Rich Valley in Dakota County had this around his door yard. He had dug a trench and thrown up a ridge of dirt. On top of this he had two cross pieces and a rail on top. You call it a rail fence. We called it oftener "stake and rider." We followed the regular road from St. Paul to Dubuque.
The original Indian trail which was afterward the stage road, started at Red Wing and went through Cannon Falls, Staunton, Northfield, Dundas, Cannon City to Faribault.
My father had a store in Cannon Falls. I was only thirteen and small for my age but I used to serve. One day a big Indian came in when I was alone and asked for buckshot. They were large and it did not take many to weigh a pound. He picked a couple out and pretended to be examining them. I weighed the pound and when I saw he did not put them back, I took out two. You never saw an Indian laugh so hard in your life. You always had to be careful when weighing things for Indians, for if you got over the quantity and took some out they were always grouchy as they thought you were cheating them.
The farmers used to come through our town on their way to Hastings with their grain on their ox drawn wagons. They had a journey of two hundred miles from Owatonna to Hastings and back. They would go in companies and camp out on the way.
During the years of '56 and '57 many people could not write home as they had no money to pay postage. Our business was all in trade.
In 1854 a man whom we all knew who lived up above Mankato took an Indian canoe and paddled down the river to St. Paul. There he sold it for enough money to pay his fare back on the boat. He was a man of considerable conscience in his dealings with white men but when a man was only "an injun" it had not caught up with him yet. Now for the sequel: The man who bought it had it under the eaves of his house to catch rain water. During a storm his window was darkened. He looked up to see an Indian with his blanket held high to darken the window so he could see in. The white man went out. The savage said, "My canoe. Want him." The man would not give it up, but the Indian and his friends went to the authorities and he had to. They had traced it all that long way.
We bought an elevated oven cook stove in St. Paul and it was in use every day for fifty years. We brought Baker knock down chairs with us and they have been in constant use for fifty-eight years—have never been repaired and look as if they were good for one hundred years more.
We made coffee from potato chips, sliced very thin and browned in the oven. Not such bad coffee, either.