Old Rail Fence Corners Part 29

I had in my pocket $1.50, and I told the landlord, Mr. Bullis, my condition and that I wanted to stay all night.

When supper was ready I went to the table and much to my surprise met a Hastings lawyer with whom I had some acquaintance, our Seagrave Smith.

Smith urged me to give up the idea of becoming a farmer and take up the study of law. So it was this hail storm that made me a lawyer.

In the fall of 1858 I secured a school and was initiated as a country school-master. The school house was a log building, about two and a half miles up the river from Cannon Falls. The neighborhood was largely Methodist and the pupils were all boys, about twenty-five in number.

There was not at that time in the district a single girl over six years of age and under sixteen. Mr. Hurlbut had one boy Charles about fourteen years of age. Very soon after my school commenced for a four months term the Methodists concluded they would have a revival. They used the school house every evening for that purpose and on Sunday it was occupied all day. Nearly all of the pupils attended these meetings, began to profess conversion and in three or four weeks had become probationists.

I had adopted the New England custom of having each pupil read a verse from the New Testament at the opening of school in the morning, and in a short time Deacon Morrill and Elder Curray came to me with the suggestion that I open the school with prayer. I replied that it would not be just the thing for me to be very active in this for I was not a professor of religion but that I had considered the matter and if the boys were willing I should be very glad to call upon them in alphabetical order for a prayer each morning. I submitted this question to the pupils and found that, without exception, they were anxious to adopt the plan. I then said that if it was adopted it would have to be followed to the end of school, no matter what their wishes might be.

I made out a roll, putting the names down in order and called upon one boy each morning for prayer. This worked well for a few weeks, but one evening Mr. Hurlbut said to me that Charlie had told him, while they were feeding the cattle, that night, that he would refuse to pray next time I called upon him. I had found it unnecessary to inflict corporal punishment upon a single pupil up to that time, but had in my desk a good stout switch. A few mornings afterwards when it was Charlie's turn to open the school with prayer, I called upon him and met a point blank refusal. I directed his attention to what had been said at the outset about continuing this as a school exercise when once adopted, and he still refused. It became necessary for me to stop the insurrection without delay. I took the switch, seized Charlie by the coat collar, as he was attempting to get out of his seat, switched him around the legs pretty smartly and the rebellion was at an end. Charlie prayed briefly, but fervently. After that there was no more trouble but many of the boys had somewhat fallen from grace before school ended. Yet they kept up their devotional exercises without any urging on my part. Mr. Hurlbut was something of a scoffer at religion and my prompt action with his boy made me extremely popular in the district.

I boarded around as was the custom in those days and built my own fires in the schoolhouse. Some of the pupils are still residents of that neighborhood and I rarely meet one who does not remind me of my whipping Charlie Hurlbut until, as they say, he dropped on his knees in prayer.

For my four months teaching I received a school district order for $60.00 and in the fall of '59 with this as my sole a.s.set, I commenced the study of law in Hastings, with the firm of Smith and Crosby. It is hardly necessary for me to say that we were all poor in those days.

There was no money and no work except farming, but in this way we could earn enough to live upon in a very humble manner.

I first saw the late Judge Flandrau at Lewiston, he was then Indian agent and was making his way on horseback from Faribault to Hastings. He had a party of twelve or fifteen men with him, all full blood or mixed blood Indians, and they stopped for dinner. Judge Flandrau was very tanned and clad in the garb of the Indian as were his a.s.sociates; it was with difficulty that I determined which one of the party was the white man Flandrau.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY SOLDIERS AT FORT SNELLING.

(See pages 19 and 158.)

Presented by Mrs. P. V. Collins.]

CHARTER OAK CHAPTER

Faribault

MISS STELLA COLE

Mr. Elijah G. Nutting--1852.

My father's hotel, the Hotel de Bush, as we derisively called it, was the first hotel in Faribault. It may perhaps be called a frame house by courtesy, rather than technically, as it was made by placing boards vertically side by side, battened together by a third board. On the first floor were the family apartments, separated from the dining room and the "office" by part.i.tions of cotton cloth hung on wires. The office, ten feet by twelve, boasted an improvised desk, a stool and a candle. The second floor was called the "school section," a large apartment filled with bedsteads rudely made of boards and supporting straw, hay or coa.r.s.e gra.s.s ticks. Here the fortunate early bird took his rest, fully clothed, even to his boots, protected from the snow, which bl.u.s.tered in at the unglazed windows by his horse blankets. Later comers took possession of the straw ticks on the floor and made no complaint next morning when, after a breakfast of salt pork, black tea with brown sugar and b.u.t.ter so strong it could seldom be eaten, they were presented with a bill of $2.00. In one corner of this "school section" was a tiny enclosure, screened with a cotton cloth part.i.tion, containing a bed and two soap boxes, one for a dressing table and the other for a chair. This was called the "bridal chamber" and was to be had at a suitable price, by those seeking greater privacy. We had bread and pork for breakfast, pork and bread for dinner, and some of both for supper.

A large sheet iron stove down stairs was kept red hot in the winter and a man was employed to prevent people, coming in from the icy out-of-doors, from rushing too near its heat and thus suddenly thawing out their frozen ears, cheeks or noses.

When in 1858 or '59 my father sold the hotel, its purchaser mortgaged it, paying an interest rate of twenty-four per cent a year.

On July Fourth, 1856 the Barron House was formally opened on such a scale of splendor that the days of the Faribault House were numbered.

The Scott brothers built the first saw mill in Faribault. It was located on the spot where the new addition to the shoe factory now is. The machinery was brought in from St. Louis and came up by boat to Hastings at an enormous cost and it took twelve yoke of oxen to haul the boiler from that point. They were a long time getting it from Cannon City, as they had to cut a road through the dense woods. A party whom they met after dusk, when he saw the huge cylinder, exclaimed, "Well that is the largest saw log I ever saw."

Mr. J. Warren Richardson--1854.

I came with my father and mother from St. Anthony where we had lived for a short time, to Faribault and settled in Walcott where we secured a log house and a claim for $75.00. This was on Mud Creek. While at St.

Anthony my father had made us such furniture as we needed. From the saw mill he got plank fourteen feet in length, which he cut into strips. He then bored holes in the corners and inserted pieces of pine, taken out of the river, for legs, and thus we were provided with stools. For tables we used our trunks. We slept on ticks full of prairie hay on the floor. These were piled in the corner daytimes and taken out at night.

Our house on the farm contained one room twenty feet square and as my father used to say "A log and a half story high." We were ourselves a family of five besides three boarders and a stray family of three appearing among us with no home, my mother invited them also to share our scanty shelter. At night she divided the house into apartments by hanging up sheets and the two families prepared their meals on the same cookstove. We made our coffee of potatoes by baking them till there was nothing left in them but a hole, and then crushing them. It was excellent. In winter my father cut timber for his fences. He loaded it onto the bobs which I, a ten year old boy, would then drive back, stringing the logs along the way where they would lie till spring when father split them into rails and built the fence. I have often chased the timber wolves with my whip as I drove along. They would follow the team and then when I turned around to chase them they would turn and run in front of the team.

Finding that the snow blew in through our covered shake roof, we cut sod and covered the roof with it. The following summer, my father being away, I planted some popcorn, which we had brought from the east, in this sod roof. It grew about fourteen inches high and my father, upon his return, was greatly puzzled by the strange crop which he found growing on his roof.

When kindling was needed, my father would raise the puncheons which made our floor and hew some from these.

Our clothing consisted of Kentucky jeans and white shirts for best, with overalls added for warmth in winter. We also wore as many coats as we had left from our eastern outfit. These had to be patched many, many times. The saying always was "Patch beside patch is neighborly; patch upon patch is beggarly." I never had underwear or an overcoat until I enlisted.

One day I was plowing with a double yoke of oxen. I was driving while Mr. Whitney was guiding the plow. Mr. Whitney's brother was across the river hunting for a lost horse. For a long time we heard him shouting, but paid no attention until at last we saw him retreating slowly down the opposite bank before a big bear. He called for help. We got over there in short order. Mr. Whitney said that the bear had three small cubs up a tree, but when we reached there she had disappeared with one cub. He climbed the tree while his brother and I kept guard below. He caught the two cubs by their thick fur and brought them down and kept them.

In 1856, we came into town and I often played with the Indian boys, shooting with bows and arrows in "Frogtown," which was lined with Indian tepees. They always played fair.

Our log schoolhouse had rude desks facing the sidewall.

Mrs. Henry C. Prescott--1855.

My father, Dr. Nathan Bemis, came to Faribault where his father and brother had already settled when I was eight years old. We went first to the Nutting House, but as there was only the "bridal chamber" with its one bed for the use of women, Mr. John Whipple, although his wife was ill, invited my mother, with my baby sister, to stay at his house, which was across the street. My sister, and a young lady who had come with us, slept in the bed in the "bridal chamber." My father and brother laid their straw ticks on the floor outside and I occupied a trundle bed in Mrs. Nutting's room.

We soon moved out to the Smallidge House, east of town, where our family consisted of our original seven and four men who boarded with us. There was but one room, and only a small part of the floor was boarded over and on this, at night, we spread our cotton ticks, filled with "prairie feathers" or dried prairie gra.s.s, and the men went out of doors while the women went to bed. In the morning the men rose first and withdrew.

The ticks were then piled in a corner and the furniture was lifted onto the floor and the house was ready for daytime use. Gradually by standing in line at the sawmill, each getting a board a day, if the supply held out, our men got enough boards to cover the entire floor.

The next winter General Shields offered us his office for our home, if we could stand the cold. He, himself, preferred to winter in the Nutting Hotel. This winter was a horror to us all. We all froze our feet and the bedclothes never thawed out all winter, freezing lower each night from our breath. Before going to bed my brother used to take a run in the snow in his bare feet and then jump into bed that the reaction might warm them for a little while. All thermometers froze and burst at the beginning of the winter so we never knew how cold it was. Someone had always to hold my baby sister to keep her off the floor so that she might not freeze. At night my mother hung a carpet across the room to divide the bedroom from the living room. Dish towels hung to dry on the oven door would freeze.

That winter my father's nephew shot himself by accident and it was necessary to amputate his leg. My father had no instruments and there were no anesthetics nearer than St. Paul, so my cousin was lashed to a table while my father and Dr. Jewett took off the leg with a fine carpenter's saw and a razor. He was obliged to stay in bed all winter for fear the stump would freeze.

Later we lived, for a time, in a log house. The rain penetrated the c.h.i.n.ks, and I remember once when my sister was ill the men had to keep moving the table around, as the wind shifted, to screen her from the rain.

There was no b.u.t.ter, eggs, milk or chickens to be had; no canned things or fresh vegetables. My mother once bought a half bushel of potatoes of a man who came with a load from Iowa, paying $3.00 a bushel. When she came to bake them, they turned perfectly black and had to be thrown away. The man was gone. Again my father bought half a hog from a man who brought in a load of pork, but my mother had learned her lesson and cooked a piece before the man left town and, as it proved to be bad, my father hunted him up and made him take back his hog and refund the money.

The first Thanksgiving my mother said she was going to invite some young lawyers to dinner who boarded with "Old Uncle Rundle". What she had I can not remember, except "fried cakes" and rice pudding made without milk or eggs, but the guests said they never had eaten anything so delicious.

Judge Thomas S. Buckham--1856.

In 1856 three or four hundred Indians on their way to the annual payment, camped in the woods between town and Cannon City. One evening we went, in a body, to visit them and were entertained by dancing.

However, too much "fire water" caused some fear among the guests.

We had several courses of lectures during those early years. One year we had as lecturers, Wendell Phillips, Douglas, Beecher, Tilton and Emerson; following them came the Peake family, bell ringers and last of all, a sleight of hand performer from Mankato, Mr. Wheeler, who astonished his audience by swallowing a blunt sword twenty-two inches long.

At another time we had a home-made "lecture course" in which Mr. Cole, Mr. Batchelder, Judge Lowell, myself and others took part.

One of our first celebrations of the Fourth of July ended rather disastrously. We had planned a burlesque procession in which everybody was to take part. It started out fairly well. Dr. Jewett delivered an oration and Frank Nutting sang a song called "The Unfortunate Man," but the enthusiasm was shortly quenched by torrents of rain which in the end literally drove most of the partic.i.p.ants to drink.

After the panic of 1857-8, I was sitting idly one day in front of my office on Main Street, as there was absolutely no law business. No other man was in sight, and there hadn't been a dollar seen in the town in months, except the "shin-plaster" issued by banks, which must be cashed on the instant lest the bank in question should fail over night.

Suddenly I saw a stranger walking down the street, and as very few strangers had come to town of late, I watched him idly. As he came up he asked, "Young man, do you know of a good piece of land which can be bought?" I spoke of a farm south of town of which I had charge, which was for sale for $2100.00 or $12.50 an acre. He said, "I'll go and see it." Two or three hours later as I still sat dreaming, as there was no other business of any kind for any one to do, the man returned and after asking about the t.i.tle of the land which its owner had pre-empted, said that he would think about it and went into the bank. Having made some inquiries as to my responsibility, he shortly reappeared with a bundle of greenbacks of small denominations and counted out the $2100.00. They were the first government bank notes I had ever seen and such a sum of money as had not been seen in Faribault in many months. My client then said, "Now young man, you'll see that land worth $25.00 an acre some day." Today it is part of the Weston farm and is valued at $150.00 an acre and is the nicest farm in the county.