Fifty Years In The Northwest / With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

by William H. C. Folsom

The accessions of 1843 were John R. Irvine. C. C. Blanchard, J. W. Simpson, A. B. Coy, Wm. Hartshorn, A. L. Larpenteur, Scott Campbell, Antoine Pepin, Alexander Mege, A. R. McLeod, Alexis Clautier, Joseph Gobin, David T. Sloan, Joseph Desmarais, Louis Larrivier and Xavier Delonais. These mostly engaged in trade. Messrs. Irvine, Blanchard, Hartshorn and Coy, and later, Mege, were associated together. Some of the last named accessions of 1843 were Canadian French, half-breeds, or allied by marriage to the Indians. There were other settlers of whom we can find only casual mention, probably transients or adventurers.

The prominent accessions of 1844 were Capt. Louis Robert, Charles Bazille, Wm. Dugas, Francis McCoy and Joseph Hall. Louis Robert was a trader, Bazille was a carpenter and built this summer for Capt. Robert the first frame house in St. Paul. This house was built of hewn lumber, sawed lumber not being obtainable. It was on the lower levee, and was used as a warehouse but was moved to East Fourth street, where, as No. 58, it was still standing a few years ago. Dugas was a millwright and built a saw and grist mill on Phalen's creek (spelled in an old deed Faylin's creek). The mill was a failure. Dugas was a man of some prominence and represented the New Canada precinct in the first territorial legislature.

McCoy and Hall were carpenters. This year the governor of Wisconsin Territory appointed Henry Jackson a justice of the peace. Jackson, before his commission arrived, married an eager couple by bond, they giving bond to reappear when he should receive his commission and be legally united. Jackson was justice of the peace, postmaster, hotel keeper, legislator, and clerk of court combined in one.

This fall Father Galtier was transferred to Keokuk and Father A. Ravoux took charge of the churches at Mendota and St. Paul. Rev. J. Hurlbut, a Methodist missionary, held the first Protestant service, using the house of Henry Jackson for that purpose.

The first deed on record bears date of April 23, 1844, and transfers from Henry Jackson, St. Croix county, Wisconsin Territory, to William Hartshorn, of St. Louis, Missouri, for a consideration of $1,000, half of the following tract of land in St. Croix county, Wisconsin Territory, being the place where the said Jackson now lives, situate immediately on the Mississippi river and known as the St. Paul landing, containing three acres, with all buildings and improvements thereon. The permanent accessions of 1845 were Francis Chenevert, David Benoit, Leonard H. La Roche, Francis Robert, Augustus and David B. Freeman, W. G. Carter and Charles Cavileer. La Roche was a carpenter, but engaged in trade. He bought the land on which the Merchants Hotel now stands for $165, and the year following built a cabin of tamarack logs, which was known as the St. Paul House. This property he sold to S. P. Folsom. La Roche died at Crow Wing in 1859.

W. G. Carter, better known as "Gib" Carter, was a member of the Stillwater convention in 1848. He died in 1852. Francis Robert was a younger brother of Louis Robert. He died in 1849, from an injury received while running the St. Croix rapids in a birch canoe. Chenevert clerked for Capt. Robert. He was unmarried, and died in 1865. Of Benoit little or nothing is known. The Freeman brothers were engaged in trade in connection with Hartshorn and Randall. David died in 1850, and was buried by the Odd Fellows, the first Odd Fellow funeral in the Territory. Augustus Freeman died in New York. Cavileer was a saddler, and was connected at first with the Red Rock mission. He was territorial librarian for awhile, and is now a resident of Pembina. Miss Matilda Ramsey opened a school (the first in St. Paul) and taught a short time, when she was married to Alexander Mege, and the school was abandoned.

Alexander R. McLeod, who came from Selkirk settlement in 1837 with Pierre Bottineau, erected in 1845 and 1846 a log house between the Catholic church and Jackson's store. This was the first house built in St. Paul expressly for a hotel. It was afterward enlarged and called the Central House, and was kept by Robert Kennedy and others. The second deed on record bears date of May 1, 1845, and transfers, for a consideration of $500, from William Douglass to H. H. Sibley, of Clayton county, Iowa, lands situate on what is known as Faylin's (Phalen's) creek, and more fully known as Faylin's falls, 100 acres, where said Douglass now lives. This was a mortgage deed. A subsequent deed conveys the same premises from Edward Faylin to Wm. Douglass, for a consideration of $70. In February, 1846, a quitclaim deed conveys the same tract to Alexander McLeod.

The settlers in 1846 were William H. and William Randall, Jr., father and son, James McBoal, Thos. S. Odell, John Banfil, Harley D. White, David Faribault, Louis Denoyer, Jo Monteur, and Charles Roleau. Randall, Sr., engaged in trade and became immensely rich, but was wrecked in the financial panic of 1857. He died in 1861. Randall, Jr., is best remembered as an artist and caricaturist of no mean ability. He died in 1851. McBoal was also an artist, the first who pursued that calling in St. Paul. He was a member of the territorial council in 1849-50, and was adjutant general of the Territory during Gov. Ramsey's administration. He died in Mendota in 1862.

Odell had been a soldier, but on being mustered out at Fort Snelling came to St. Paul. He died in 1879. We have made mention of White in biographical sketches. Crittenden went to Crow Wing and represented the Twenty-first district in the first state legislature. Denoyer married a sister of Louis Robert and in 1850 removed to Belle Plaine. David Faribault was a son of Jean Baptiste Faribault. He now resides in Dakota. Banfil removed to Manomin, and represented his district as senator in the first state legislature.

The writer of these sketches visited St. Paul in 1846, and was entertained at Jackson's hotel, which he well remembers as a log building, one story high, with store and post office in the east end, a dining room in the west end, with small, low sleeping rooms in the rear. The hotel stood on a romantic elevation, a precipitious bluff, and commanded a magnificent view of the river and valley. Louis Robert's tamarack pole store was located east of Jackson's, under the bluff, and directly on the bank of the river, a good steamboat landing in front. West of Jackson's was J. W. Simpson's store, and still further west the store of Faribault & Co., beyond which were two small dwellings, all these buildings fronting the river. Still further west, Alexander McLeod was building a handsome hewed log house. On the next rise of ground stood the Catholic church. On the next plateau the store of Wm. Hartshorn, and near a small creek the dwelling of John R. Irvine. There were two residences on a plateau a short distance north of Jackson's hotel. There were in all five stores, one tavern and a few dwellings, mostly built of logs. A few United States soldiers and Indians were lounging about the stores, some drunk, some sober. Such was St. Paul in 1846. The settlers of 1847 were Jacob W. Bass, Harriet E. Bishop, Benj. W. Brunson, Dr. J. J. Dewey, G. A. Fonrnier, Simeon P. Folsom, W. H. Forbes, Aaron Foster, Daniel Hopkins, Parsons K. Johnson, C. P. V. Lull, and W. C. Renfro. Bass and Johnson had been in the lumber business at Chippewa Falls. On arriving at St. Paul Mr. Bass leased a hotel on the corner of Third and Jackson streets, known as the St. Paul House. He was appointed postmaster in 1849, and in 1852 opened a commission and forwarding warehouse on the levee. Mr. Brunson was a surveyor, and, assisted by his brother, Ira B., laid off the town plat of St. Paul, also a plat known as Brunson's addition, in the fall of 1847. He was a member of the first and second territorial legislatures, and justice of the peace for several years.