Fifty Years In The Northwest Part 44

MATTHIAS WELSHANCE was born in 1818, in Pennsylvania, where he lived during his minority and learned the carpenter's trade. In 1843 he removed to Galena, Illinois, in 1847 to St. Croix Falls and in 1848 to Marine Mills, where he worked at his trade until 1856. From that time until his death, May 19, 1886, he was engaged in hotel keeping. He was for nine years keeper of the Marine Hotel and has since been proprietor of the St. Croix House. He was married Nov. 12, 1848, to Mary J. Hooper. They have five children living. One daughter, Mrs.

Tolan, met a tragic death at the hands of an insane husband, in 1881.

Mr. Welshance died in 1886.

BENJAMIN T. OTIS was born in Fairfield, Maine, in 1816. He came to St.

Croix Falls in 1841, and engaged in lumbering. In 1846 he located on what is known as Colby Flat, on the site of Taylor's Falls, and improved a farm. In 1849 he removed to Marine. His first wife died suddenly at Marine. He was married to Mrs. Church, of Stillwater, in 1859. Henry F., a son by his first wife, enlisted in 1862, in the Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, was wounded in 1864, and honorably discharged.

WILLIAM CLARK was born in New Brunswick, July, 1815. He came to Marine Mills in 1848, and since has followed lumbering. He married Elisa Jane Nelson in 1861. Mrs. Clark died in 1879, leaving two daughters.

JAMES R. MEREDITH was born Aug. 22, 1812, in White county, Illinois, where he lived until eighteen years of age, when he removed to Galena, where he spent five years in mining. He went thence to Burlington, Iowa, and in 1849 located in Marine, and was employed by the Marine Company several years. In 1860 he located upon his present farm. In 1847 he was married to Eleanor Freeman. They have three children living.

JOHN D. AND THOMAS E. WARD. The Ward brothers are natives of Ma.s.sachusetts. They came to the St. Croix valley with their brothers-in-law, John and George Holt. They have engaged chiefly in steamboating and river business.

SAMUEL JUDD, son of Lewis Judd, was born in Illinois in 1840. He graduated at McKendrie College, Lebanon, Illinois, and came to Marine in 1863, and became a member of the firm of Walker, Judd & Veazie. In 1874 he was married to Amelia D. Flaherty, at St. Louis. Their children are Orange W. and Lucille M. In 1886 he changed his residence to St. Paul.

FREDERIC W. LAMMERS was born in Germany in 1829. He came to America in 1843, locating first at St. Louis, where he remained two years. In 1845 he removed to the St. Croix valley, and for several years engaged in lumbering. In 1852 he settled on a farm in Taylor's Falls, and was married to Helen C. Nelson, of Marine. In 1865 he sold his farm and removed to Big Lake Marine. Mr. Lammers has been a public spirited and excellent citizen. His family consisted of fifteen children; of these thirteen are living.

JAMES R. M. GASKILL was born in Madison county, Illinois, in 1820; graduated from McKendrie College in 1843; graduated from the medical department of the Missouri State University in 1854; practiced medicine a short time at Centralia, Illinois, and came to Marine in 1855, where he practiced medicine and interested himself in milling, lumbering and merchandise. He represented his district in the house of the first legislature of Minnesota, 1857-58, and of the fourteenth and fifteenth, 1872-73. He served during the Rebellion as surgeon of the Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteers. He was for many years a trustee of the Minnesota State Prison. In 1861 he was married to Clara E. Hughes.

They have one son and one daughter.

NEWPORT.

The town of Newport includes fractional townships 27 and 28, range 22, and part of sections 34, 35 and 36, in township 29, range 22: It was organized as a town Oct. 20, 1858. The first supervisors were William Fowler, E. B. Schofield and John Willoughby. The surface is mostly prairie. This town has some points of great historic interest. Gray Cloud island, in the southern part, in the Mississippi river, separated from the mainland by a slough, is the place where, according to some historians, Le Sueur planted a French fort in 1695. It was styled the "Isle Pelee," and was described as a beautiful "Prairie Island."

The description of the island tallies precisely with that of Gray Cloud, and is applicable to none of the other conjectured localities.

It is mentioned by many antiquarian writers as a place of rendezvous for French traders during the French domination in this part of the continent. Gray Cloud has been known as a trading post for the last hundred years, and has the credit of being the first white settlement in Washington county, and probably in Minnesota. Here came Joseph R.

Brown in 1838, and here he married the daughter of d.i.c.kson, the trader. Hazen Mooers, one of the commissioners of St. Croix county in 1840, Joseph Boucher and others were living at Gray Cloud when the Methodist mission was established at Kaposia in 1836. Gray Cloud is the translation of the Indian name of the island. It was also borne by an Indian maiden, who became the wife of Hazen Mooers, who seems to have been a man of excellent repute and considerable influence. The Browns cherished for him a very warm feeling of regard.

Red Rock, another historic locality, derives its name from a painted rock which seems to have been held in great reverence by the Sioux Indians. According to Rev. Chauncey Hobart, a veteran pioneer and preacher still living in Minnesota, it was the custom among the Sioux to worship the boulders that lie scattered along the hills and valleys. When a Dakotah was in danger, it was his custom to clear a spot from gra.s.s and brush, roll a boulder upon it, paint it, deck it with feathers and flowers, and pray to it for needed help.

The peculiarity of the painted boulder from which Red Rock took its name is that it was a shrine, to which from generation to generation pilgrimages were made, and offerings and sacrifices presented. Its Indian name was "Eyah Shah," or "Red Rock." The stone is not naturally red, but painted with vermillion, or, as some say, with the blood of slaughtered victims. The Indians call the stone also "Waukan," or "mystery." It lies on a weathered stratum of limestone, and seems to be a fragment from some distant granite ledge. The Dakotahs say it walked or rolled to its present position, and they point to the path over which it traveled. They visited it occasionally every year until 1862, each time painting it and bringing offerings. It is painted in stripes, twelve in number, two inches wide and from two to six inches apart. The north end has a rudely drawn picture of the sun, and a rude face with fifteen rays.

Red Rock is noted as the site of a mission planted here in 1837 by the Methodist Episcopal church, by Alfred Brunson, a distinguished pioneer preacher and missionary. The mission was originally established at Kaposia, on the western bank of the river, in 1837, but removed by Alfred Brunson in the same year to Red Rock. Rev. B. T. Kavanaugh, of this mission, and afterward a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church South, superintended the erection of the first buildings. Taylor F.

Randolph and wife were teachers here, as a.s.sistants in the Indian school, and also in a school of mixed bloods and whites. B. T.

Kavanaugh was postmaster in 1841. John Holton was mission farmer in 1841, under a commission from Maj. Taliaferro, of Fort Snelling. The mission was discontinued in 1842. Mr. Randolph and wife made them a home in the town of Afton, where both died in 1844.

The first marriage was that of John A. Ford to Mary Holton, daughter of John Holton, in 1843. The first birth was that of Franklin C. Ford, September, 1844. The first death was that of a child of Rev. B. T.

Kavanaugh. The village of Newport was platted in 1857. W. R. Brown's addition was platted in 1874. A steam saw mill was built in 1857 by E.

M. Shelton & Brothers. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1874. A flour mill was built in its place by Joseph Irish. The first Baptist church was organized Jan. 18, 1858. The first commodious house of worship was built in 1878. The Red Rock Camp Meeting a.s.sociation was organized in 1869. A plat of ten acres, beautifully situated in a natural grove near the village, and on the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, was donated to the a.s.sociation by John Holton. These grounds have been improved, and adorned with tasteful cottages. The camp meetings held during the summer are largely attended.

GRAY CLOUD CITY

Was platted in June, 1856, by J. R. Brown and Truman W. Smith, and surveyed by J. Donald McCullom.

NEWPORT VILLAGE

Was platted May 2, 1857, by Joseph H. Huganin, R. C. Knox, Wm. and James Fowler, and surveyed by B. Densmore.

JOHN HOLTON came to Red Rock in 1831, with the Methodist missionaries; served some years as Indian farmer under Maj. Taliaferro, Indian agent, and afterward settled on a farm just above the mission ground.

He donated ten acres of this farm to the Methodists for camp meeting grounds. Mr. Holton died in 1884, leaving two children, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Winters.

JOHN A. FORD was born in Utica, New York, in 1811. He learned the trade of edge tool and rifle making, and in 1834 came West with his father, locating a land claim where Chicago now stands. In 1841 the son came to Red Rock and erected a store building in which he sold goods for twelve years. Subsequently he engaged in farming. With the exception of the traders Mr. Ford was the first merchant in Washington county. Mr. Ford was a representative in the second territorial legislature. He was married to May Holton in 1843. Their children are Franklin and Willis. Franklin, the eldest son, was married to Addie Witherspoon in 1870, and resides in Newport.

DANIEL HOPKINS, a native of New Hampshire, came West at an early age.

He was a gunsmith by trade. He located in Green Bay in 1836, and removed to Prairie du Chien in 1838, where he built a stone shop with a large double window over his workbench and overlooking a spot where he kept his money buried. A large mullein growing over it sufficiently indicated that his treasure was still undisturbed. Growing somewhat doubtful of the security of his h.o.a.rd, he removed and placed a thousand dollars in a stone quarry as a safer place of deposit.

Unexpectedly to him, the quarry was reopened and a well placed blast scattered the old gentleman's treasure to the four winds. He recovered but a portion of it. In 1844 he left Prairie du Chien and came to Red Rock. He was three years a.s.sociated with John A. Ford in selling goods, after which, in 1848, he removed to St. Paul, where he opened a store. He died in 1852, aged sixty-five years.

WILLIAM R. BROWN was born in Urbana, Ohio, in 1816. He spent his boyhood at home on a farm and served as an apprentice to a carpenter in Mt. Carmel, Illinois. In April, 1848, he came to Red Rock mission in company with Rev. B. T. Kavanaugh, Charles Cavalier and Julia Bosnell. He lived upon a farm until 1854, when he sold out and removed to St. Paul, where he dealt in real estate. During the Rebellion he served three years in Company C, Sixth Minnesota Volunteers. He was married in 1841 to Martha Neuman. He died Nov. 25, 1874.

WILLIAM FOWLER settled in Newport in 1852 and has become a prominent farmer and successful stockman. His farm, which originally cost him $2,500, he sold in 1887 for $80,000. He was for two years president of the Minnesota Agricultural Society, and five years of the Dairymen's a.s.sociation. He was a member of the house of representatives in 1872.

During the war he served as lieutenant in the Eighth Minnesota Volunteers.

OAKDALE.

Oakdale includes township 29, range 21. Originally it was covered with white, black and burr oak timber; the surface is rolling, and the soil well adapted to the cultivation of wheat. It is well watered and has numerous lakes, among which Lake Elmo is favorably known as a summer resort.

Oakdale was organized as a town November, 1858. The first supervisors were E. C. Gray, John Bershen and E. L. Morse. The clerk was W.

Armstrong.

The first settler was B. B. Cyphers, who kept a hotel or stopping place on Sun Fish lake in 1848. The year following John Morgan built a more commodious house a mile and a half west on the stage road, and this was afterward known as the "Half-way House," it being nearly midway between St. Paul and Stillwater. At this well known station the pioneer stages of Willoughby & Powers changed horses at noon, and the pa.s.sengers took dinner. In 1855 the property pa.s.sed into the hands of E. C. Gray. The Malones, Lohmans, Grays, Day, Stevens, and Gardiner located here in the '50s.

The first post office established was in 1857, in the south part of the town, in section 35. Arthur Stephens was for ten years postmaster.

The office was called Oakdale, and was discontinued and another established at the Half-way House, and called Lohmanville post office.

In 1873 it was transferred to the Oakdale station on the railroad. It was discontinued in 1876, and re-established at Ba.s.s Lake station, where it has since remained but is now known as the Lake Elmo post office.

The St. Paul & Stillwater railroad pa.s.ses through this town from east to west. It has three stations, Lake Elmo, Oakdale and Midvale.

The churches of Oakdale are the St. John's Lutheran and the Church of the Holy Angels. These churches have fine buildings and good congregations. The buildings are located on the line of the old stage road, and have s.p.a.cious burial grounds attached.

Lake Elmo is the only village in the town. It is handsomely located on Lake Elmo. The company that platted the village has expended over $65,000 on improvements. The hotel is an elegant and s.p.a.cious building, and a favorite resort for summer tourists. The lake was originally known as Ba.s.s lake, and the station was known as Ba.s.s Lake station. In 1879 the lake and station were rechristened Elmo, a name certainly more musical and charming than the original, and inferior only to the aboriginal name, which ought to have been retained.

E. C. GRAY came originally from Pennsylvania, and located in Oakdale in 1855, having purchased the Half-way House of John Morgan. He died in 1874, leaving a large family of children. Two of his sons, M. P.

and W. H., remain on the family homestead. Others are in St. Paul. All are known as men of good business ability.

ARTHUR STEPHENS was born in Scotland in 1830. He came to America in 1839, lived awhile in Illinois, learned the trade of a mason and plasterer, came to St. Paul in 1849, worked at his trade until 1854, when he removed to Oakdale, where, with the exception of six years'

residence at Stillwater, he has since lived. Mr. Stephens served as postmaster ten years, as county commissioner three years, and has filled town offices. He was married to Marie Payden in 1852. Their children are Harris S., Arthur, Elizabeth and Emma.

ONEKA.

The town comprises township 31, range 21. It was organized as a town in 1880. A. J. Soule was the first moderator, George Walker the first clerk and treasurer. The eastern and southern portions are diversified, being quite rugged and uneven. The western part is quite level, and was originally timbered with burr oak and poplars. The town abounds with lakes. Bald Eagle lies partly in the town; Oneka; Rice, Egg, Eagle, Horseshoe, and others are within the town. Small springs and rivulets abound. A tamarack swamp, varying in width from a few rods to a half mile, traverses the town from north to south, forming a natural barrier between the eastern and western divisions. The princ.i.p.al lake is Oneka, located in sections 9 and 16. Rice lake has been celebrated as the resort of Indians from Mendota, who camped here annually to gather wild rice for the St. Paul and Minneapolis markets.

The first settlers were Fayette Tainter and John Chester, young men who came together in 1850 for the purpose of locating claims and baling hay. They carried on a stock farm for five years. The next settlers, Lewis Sempler and his son-in-law, Joseph Freeman, came in 1855. They were followed by Dunn, Barnum, Hatch and Beecroft.

The St. Paul & Duluth railroad pa.s.ses through the western part of the town, entering in section 31, and leaving in section 5. There is but one station upon the road, Centreville, a thriving little village, having a hotel, store, school house, etc. Its post office was established in 1874.