Old Rail Fence Corners Part 13

In 1858 I built my own home in St. Peter and made my garden. The year before I had gone into a clump of plums when they were fruiting and tied white rags to the best. I had moved them into my garden and they were doing fine. One day I took off my vest as I was working and hung it on one of these trees. Suddenly my attention was attracted to the sky and I never saw a more beautiful sight. A horde of gra.s.shoppers were gently alighting. Nothing more beautiful than the shimmering of the sun on their thousands of gold-bronze wings could be imagined. They took everything and then pa.s.sed on leaving gardens looking as if they had been burned. When I went for that vest, they had eaten it all but the seams. It was the funniest sight--just a skeleton. Not a smitch of white rags left on the trees, either.

We people who lived in Minnesota thought there was only one kind of wild grape. A man by the name of Seeger who had been in Russia and was connected with a wine house in Moscow came to St. Peter. In the Minnesota valley were immense wild grape vines covering the tallest trees. Here he found five distinct varieties of grapes and said one kind would make a fine red wine--Burgundy. He told me how to make this wine from grapes growing wild on my own farm. I made about ten gallons. When it was a year old it was very heady.

Edward Eggleston belonged to a debating society in St. Peter and was on the successful side in a debate, "Has Love a Language not Articulate."

He was a Methodist preacher here, but later had charge of a Congregational church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He said when the Methodists abolished itinerancy and mission work, he thought the most useful part of the church was gone.

In my boyhood days at home, a little boy in the neighborhood had the misfortune to drink some lye. Fortunately the doctor was near and using a stomach pump saved his life for the time being. However, the child's stomach could retain nothing. In a short time he was a skeleton indeed.

One day his father who carried him around constantly, happened to be by the cow when she was being milked. The child asked for some milk and was given it directly from the cow. Great was the father's astonishment when the little lad retained it. Milk given him two minutes after milking was at once ejected. The father had a pen made just outside his son's bedroom window and the cow kept there, and here many times a day the cow was milked and the milk instantly given. After several months the child was restored to health.

One night in Minnesota just as I was going to sit down to supper my wife told me that a man who had just pa.s.sed told her that a child that lived ten miles back in the country had drank lye some days before and was expected to die, as he could retain nothing. Without waiting to eat my supper I jumped on a horse and made the trip there in record speed. This child followed the same formula and was saved.

It was easy for youngsters to get at lye for every house had a leach for the making of soap. This lye was made by letting water drip over hard wood ashes in a barrel. A cupful would be taken out and its strength tried. If it would hold up an egg it was prime for soap. It was clear as tea, if it was left in a cup it was easily mistaken for it.

During the days when New Ulm was expecting a second Indian attack and the town was full of refugees, I was ordered to destroy some buildings on the outskirts. I started with a hotel and opened all the straw ticks that had been used for refugees beds and threw the contents all around.

I believed all the people had left but thought I would go in every room and make sure of this. In one room I heard a queer noise and going to the bed found a small baby that had been tomahawked. Its little head was dented in two places. I took it with me and went out. Its grandmother who owned the place came running frantically and took it from me. Its father and mother had been killed and it had been brought in by the refugees. In the hasty departure it had been overlooked, each one supposing the other had taken it.

On the 25th day of August after the ma.s.sacre of the 22nd, around New Ulm and in that vicinity, a little boy who had saved himself from the Indians by secreting himself in the gra.s.s of the swamps, came into New Ulm and said there were twelve people alive and a number of bodies to be buried sixteen miles from New Ulm. He said he had seen a man who was driving a horse and wagon, shot and scalped, but could not tell what had become of the woman and baby that were riding with him. The troops marched to the place, having the boy as a guide, buried a number of bodies and brought the twelve survivors to New Ulm. They could find no trace of the woman and baby, although the father's body was found and buried.

Later the troops marched to Mankato, stopping at an empty farm house sixteen miles from New Ulm for the night. This farm house was on a small prairie surrounded by higher land. The sentries were ordered to watch the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians might ambush the troops. It was a night when the rain fell spasmodically alternating with moonlight. Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on the horizon and watched it disappear in the gra.s.s, then appear and crawl along a fence in his direction. He called, "Who goes there?" at the same time c.o.c.king his gun ready to shoot. At the answer, "Winnebago" he fired. At that moment there had been a little shower and his gun refused to fire. Later he found that the cap had become attached to the hammer and the powder must have been dampened by the shower. He dashed for the figure to find a white woman and baby and was horrified to think that if the gun had fired she would have been blown to pieces. This was woman for whom they had looked in the swamp thirty miles away. He aroused the troops, who took her in. She held out her baby whose hand was partly shot away, but said nothing about herself. Later they found that she had been shot through the back and the wound had had no dressing except when she laid down in the streams. Her greatest fear had been that the baby would cry, but during all those eight awful days and nights while she lay hidden in the swamps or crawled on her way at night, this baby had never made a sound. As soon as it became warm and was thoroughly fed, it cried incessantly for twelve hours. The mother said that for three days the Indians had pursued her with dogs, but she had managed to evade them by criss-crossing through the streams. She had said "Winnebago" as she thought she was approaching a Sioux camp and they were supposed to be friendly to the Winnebagoes. She would then have welcomed captivity as it seemed that the white people had left the earth and death was inevitable.

In May 1857, eggs were selling in St. Peter for 6c a dozen, b.u.t.ter at 5c per pound and full grown chickens at 75c a dozen as game was so plentiful.

Mrs. Jane Sutherland--1856.[3]

[Footnote 3: A sister of Mrs. Duncan Kennedy.]

Mrs. Cowan came to Traverse in 1856 when it was almost nothing. At her home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to continue them here. She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town, no matter what their situation in life, to come. My maiden name was Jane Donnelly and she asked me to come and "Help pa.s.s things"--"a.s.sist"--as you call it now. She had tea and biscuits. Flour and tea were both scarce so she warned me not to give anyone more than one biscuit or one cup of tea. This we rigidly adhered to. She had the only piano in our part of the country and we all took great pride in it. I could sing and play a little in the bosom of my family, but was most easily embarra.s.sed. Judge Flandrau was our great man. He dropped in, bringing his tatting shuttle, and sat and made tatting as well as any woman.

Mrs. Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his mind and keep it off from weighty matters. Mrs. Cowan insisted that I should sing and play while he was there. I resisted as long as I could, then was led still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin piping, all the while covered with confusion. When I arose we both looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes--just kept right on tatting.

Finally Mrs. Cowan asked, "Don't you like music, Judge?" He looked up with a far-away look in his eyes and said, "Yes, martial music in the field." Then we knew he had never heard a thing, for, as Mrs. Cowan explained to me as we were making a fresh pot of tea, "He is the kindest man in the world. If he had noticed you were singing he would have said something nice."

Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out there to live. The first time I came into town was on a load of wild hay drawn by my father's oxen. The man I later married saw me, a girl of sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then. A few days later he drove past our farm and saw me out in the corn field trying to scare away the blackbirds. I was beating on a pan and whooping and hollering. That finished him for he said he could see I had all the requisites for a good wife, "Industry and noise."

During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the war, we were repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety. This we were loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock. We often saw the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sometimes heard shots. One day I was with my children at a neighbor's when a new alarm was given by a courier. Without waiting for us to get any clothes or tell my parents, the farmer hitched up and we fled to Fort Snelling. It was two months before I ever saw my home or parents.

There were three gra.s.shopper years when we never got any crops at Middle Lake. When I say that, I mean just what I say; we got nothing.

The first time they came the crops were looking wonderful. Wheat fields so green and corn way up. The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously and this was the first year for ours. I went out to the garden about ten o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans, onions and lettuce that were simply luscious. The tomatoes were setting and everything was as fine as could be. I felt so proud of it. The men came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country and the crops. While we were talking it gradually darkened. The men hastily went out to see if anything should be brought in before the storm. What a sight when we opened the door! The sky darkened by myriads of gra.s.shoppers and no green thing could be seen. Everything in that lovely garden was gone. By the middle of the afternoon, when they left, the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots eaten. Not a leaf on the trees. My husband's coat lying outside was riddled. Back of the house where they had flown against it they were piled up four feet high. They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to hatch and ruin the crops the following year. And enough the second for the third, though we did everything. The last year the county offered a bounty of three cents a bushel for them and my little boy, four years old, caught enough with a net to buy himself a two dollar pair of boots.

You can perhaps get an idea how thick they were from that. The rail fences used to look as if they were enormous and bronzed. The gra.s.shoppers absolutely covered them.

We lived only a short distance from my father's farm. One afternoon I saw smoke coming from there and could hear explosions like that of cannon. I caught our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their home. We trusted the Indians and yet we did not. They were so different from the whites. I thought they had attacked the family. I don't know how I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went. When I got there I saw my father and mother tearing a board fence down. A swamp on the place was afire and the fire coming through that long swamp gra.s.s very rapidly. The swamp had a number of large willows and when the fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon. I don't know why, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of similar experiences. I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the fence.

Governor Swift had paid me $5.00 to make him a buffalo coat. I had put it all into "n.i.g.g.e.r blue" calico and had the dress on. When we went into the house mother said, "What a shame you have spoiled your new dress." I could see nothing wrong, but in the back there was a hole over twelve inches square burned out.

Another time my husband was a short distance from the house putting up wild hay. We had several fine stacks of it near the house in the stubble. I happened to glance out and saw our neighbor's stacks burning and the fire coming through the stubble for ours. I grabbed a blanket, wet it soaking and dragging that and a great pail of water, made for the stacks. I run that wet blanket around the stacks as fast as I could several times. My husband came driving like mad with half a load of hay on the rack and grabbed me but as the stubble was short that sopping saved the stacks.

We had a German hired man that we paid $30 a month for six months. Crops were plentiful and we hoped for a good price. No such good luck. Wheat was 25c a bushel and oats 12-1/2. He hauled grain to market with our ox team to pay himself and was nearly all winter getting his money. That was before the war. We boarded him for nothing while he was doing it.

How little those who enjoy this state now think what is cost the makers of it!

Mrs. Mary Robinson--1856.

We came to St. Anthony in 1856. b.u.t.ter was 12-1/2c a pound; potatoes 15c a bushel and turnips, 10c. I have never seen finer vegetables. We made our mince pies of potatoes soaked in vinegar instead of apples.

One of our neighbors was noted for her mola.s.ses sponge cake. If asked for the recipe, she would give it as follows: "I take some mola.s.ses and saleratus and flour and shortening, and some milk. How much? Oh, a middling good sized piece, and enough milk to make it the right thickness to bake good." Needless to say, she continued to be the only mola.s.ses sponge cake maker.

Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder--1856.

Mr. Snyder and Mr. Pett.i.t used to batch it in a cabin in Glencoe before our marriage. In '56 we decided to move to Glencoe and live in this place. We, together with Mr. Cook and Mr. McFarland were forty-eight hours going the sixty miles. We stayed the first night at Carver and the next night got to "Eight Mile Dutchman's." When we came to the cabin we found the walls and ceiling covered with heavy cotton sheeting. My mother had woven me a Gerton rag carpet which we had with us. The stripes instead of running across, ran lengthwise. There was a wide stripe of black and then many gaily colored stripes. When it was down on the floor, it made everything cheerful. We had bought some furniture too in Minneapolis so everything looked homelike. Later, six of us neighbor women were invited into the country to spend the day. While we were gone some of the neighbors said, "The mosquitoes must be awful at the Snider's today--they have such a smudge." A little later, they saw the house was in flames. In this fire, we lost money and notes together with all our possessions. These notes were never paid, as we had no record so we were left poor indeed. We were able to get boards for the sides of our new house, but lived in it six weeks without a roof, doors or windows. We had a few boards over the bed. There was only one hard rain in all that time but the mosquitoes were awful. During this time, we lived on King Phillip's corn, a large yellow kind. We pounded it in a bag and made it into cakes and coffee. We had nothing to eat on the cakes nor in the coffee and yet we were happy. My husband always kept his gun by the bed during this time. One morning we awoke to see two prairie chickens preening their feathers on the top of our house wall.

Father fired and killed both, one falling inside and the other outside.

Mrs. Colonel Stevens was our nearest neighbor. We just took a little Indian trail to her house.

We had wild plums and little wild cherries with stems just like tame cherries, on our farm. They helped out tremendously as they with cranberries were our only fruit.

One morning twelve big braves came into my kitchen when I was getting breakfast. They said nothing to me, just talked and laughed among themselves; took out pipes and all smoked. They did not ask for anything to eat. Finally they went away without trouble.

Indian Charlie, afterwards hung at Mankato, was often at the house and became a great nuisance. He would follow me all over the house. I would say, "Go sit down Charlie," at the same time looking at him determinedly. He would stand and look and then go. He once found my husband's gun and pointed it at me, but I said firmly, stamping my foot, "Put it down Charlie," and very reluctantly he finally did. Then, I took it until he left.

My husband enlisted, so in 1862 we moved to Fort Ridgely and lived in one room. One day three squaws, one of whom was old Betts, came in to sell moccasins. I asked her to make some for my baby and showed her a piece of pork and some sugar I would give her for it. She brought them later. We had eaten that piece of pork and I got another piece which was larger but not the same, of course. When she saw it as not the same, she said, "Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey squaw," and was very angry. I then gave her the pork and two bowls of sugar instead of one and she went away.

Later I saw her in the next room where another family lived and said, "Aunt Betts called me, Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey Squaw." Quick as a flash she drew a long wicked looking knife from her belt and ran for me and it was only by fleeing and locking my own door that I escaped. She was never again allowed on the reservation. Later in the year, before the ma.s.sacre, I went home to Pennsylvania.

When we built on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Tenth Street, we could plainly hear the roar of St. Anthony Falls. I used to follow an Indian trail part of the way down town.

Mrs. Helen Horton--1856, Minneapolis.

When I came, things were pretty lonesome looking here. I found the young people just as gay as they could be anywhere, however. The first party I attended was a cotillion. I wore a black silk skirt, eighteen feet around the bottom, with three flounces, over hoops too. A black velvet basque pointed front and back, and cut very short on the sides gave a great deal of style to the costume. My hair was brought low in front and puffed over horsehair cushions at the sides. It stuck out five inches from the sides of my head. We danced square dances mostly. We took ten regular dancing steps forward and ten back and floated along just like a thistledown--no clumping around like they do now. Just at this time, I had a plaid silk too. It was green and brown broken plaid. The blocks were nine inches across.

One evening we were to have a sociable. It was great fun playing games and singing. They wanted me to make a cake. It was in the spring months before the boats began to run and after the teams that brought supplies had stopped. It was always a scarce time. I wanted some white sugar to make a white cake as I knew a friend who was to make a pork and dried apple cake, a dark cake, so I wanted the opposite kind. We went everywhere but could find no sugar. I was so disappointed. Finally a friend took his horse and cutter and in one of the houses we were able to find a little. My cake was delicious. Did you ever make a pork apple pie? You cut the pork so thin you can almost see through it. Cover the bottom of a pie tin with it, then cut the apples up on top of this. Put two thin crusts one on top of the other over this, then when cooked, turn upside down in a dish and serve with hard sauce. This recipe is over a hundred years old but nothing can beat it.

The first home we owned ourselves was at the corner of Ninth Street and Nicollet Avenue. There was only one house in sight, that of Mr. Welles.

Our whole house was built from the proceeds of land warrants that my husband had bought.

My father had a store at the corner of Helen St., and Washington Avenue.

To reach it from our home at Fourth Street and Second Avenue North, we followed an Indian trail. There was generally a big cow with a bell to turn out for somewhere on it.

Mrs. Mary Staring Smith--1856.

When we first came to live at Eden Prairie I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as that flowering prairie. In the morning we could hear the clear call of the prairie chickens. I used to love to hear it.

There were great flocks of them and millions of pa.s.senger pigeons. Their call of "pigie! pigie!" was very companionable on that lonely prairie.

Sometimes when they were flying to roost they would darken the sun, there were such numbers of them. Geese and ducks were very numerous, too. Black birds were so thick they were a menace to the growing crops.

I used to shoot them when I was twelve years old.

Once my father and uncle went deer hunting. They got into some poisonous wild thing, perhaps poison ivy. My uncle's face was awful and father nearly lost his sight. He was almost blind for seven years but finally Dr. Daniels of St. Peter cured him.

Once during war time we could get no one to help us harvest. I cut one hundred acres strapped to the seat as I was too small to stay there any other way.