Old Rail Fence Corners Part 8

One evening I stepped to the door to throw out a washbasin of water and saw a large dog standing there. I put the dish down and was going out to call him. When my husband saw me going toward the door he said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "Call in a dog." It was bright moonlight.

He said, "Let me see him." He looked and hastily closed the door saying, "The biggest kind of a timber wolf. Be careful what kind of pets you take in here."

The upper part of the hotel where we lived the first winter, was all in one room. I was the only woman, so we had a room made with sheeting.

Sometimes there were twenty people sleeping in that loft. We did not have to open the windows. Most windows in those days were not expected to be opened anyway. The air just poured in between the cracks, and the snow blew in with gusto. It was not at all unusual to get up from under a snow bank in the morning.

I brought many pretty dresses and wore them too. Those who first came, if they had money and were brides, were dressed as if they lived in New York City.

We had a dance one night in our little log hotel. It was forty degrees below zero, and very cold anywhere away from the big stove. The women wanted to dance all the time and so set the table and put on the bread and cake before the company came. Five hours afterward when we went to eat, they were frozen solid. The dish towels would freeze too, as they hung on the line in the kitchen over the stove, while the stove was going, too.

One morning, after we were keeping house, my husband said, "I guess we have some spring company. You better go in and see them." I did and in the parlor was the biggest kind of an ox standing there chewing his quid. He had just come in through the open door to make a morning call.

All kinds of animals ran at large then.

Mrs. William Dow--1854, Little Falls.

We came to Little Falls and built this house we are now living in in 1854. It was built right on an Indian trail that paralleled the Red River cart trail. You see that road out there? That is just where the old Red River cart road went. That is Swan River and it went between us and that. Our back door was right on their foot trail. You could step out of our door onto it. There is a big flat rock on the river up about four miles where the Chippewa and Sioux signed treaties to behave themselves. After this they were killing each other before they got out of town. You know our Indians were the Chippewas. They were woods Indians. The prairies belonged to the Sioux. They had always been enemies. Hole-in-the-Day was head chief here and a pretty good chief, too. His tribe got suspicious of him; they thought he was two-faced, so shot him, as they did his father before him. He had married a white woman, so the real chief now is a white man. I think he was on the square though. He used often to drop in for a piece of pie or anything to eat. He is buried upon the bluff here.

Swan River Ferry was three miles from Little Falls. It was on the direct road through Long Prairie to Fort Abercrombie. The Red River Cart Trail crossed the Mississippi River at Belle Prairie. There was a mill at that little place.

When the lumber jacks were driving logs they used to have their wamigans tie up in the river just outside that front door.

The Indians were camped all around here. They used to fill their moccasins with rabbit hair to take the place of stockings. Once I was standing by the river and I saw a squaw come out with a new born baby.

She wasn't making any fuss over it. First she took it by the heels and plunged it in the river; then by the head and soused it in that way.

Mrs. Salome was a squaw who had married a white man. Her husband went to the war. I used to write her letters to him and she would sign them with her cross. She became very fond of me. At the time of the outbreak she said to me, "Kinnesagas?" meaning, "are you afraid?" I did not reply.

Then she said "If you are, I'll hide you." She made a wigwam by the side of hers and wanted me to go into it with my children, but I would not.

I liked her, but I remembered how when the Indians had had a scalp dance, I had seen her shake one of the scalps in her teeth. This was after she had married a white man. I asked her if she did not like the Indians better than the whites and she said in Chippewa, "If I do, why do I not stay with them?"

At the beginning of the outbreak the Sioux were sending runners all the time to get the Chippewas to join them. One of our men, William Nichols, spoke the Indian language as well as English. He had lived with them when he was a fur trader. He used to disguise himself as an Indian and go to the councils, so we all knew just what was going on. Old Buffalo, a chief, said, "If you go to war, I'll be a white man; I won't be an Indian any more. I'll go away and stay by myself always." We knew at once when they fully decided not to join the Sioux.

Finally I yielded to the entreaties of my friends and went down to St.

Cloud to stay with friends until the danger should be over. My husband was in the war. One day someone coming from Little Falls said, "There's someone living in your house." "Well," said I, "if anyone can, I can,"

so back I went. I found an old friend from further up the country there.

We joined forces and lived there until the war was over.

One day in war time I looked out of my window and could see Mr. Hall milking his cow in the pasture. It had a rail fence around it. I could see what he could not--some Indians sitting in one of the corners of the fence stretching Sioux scalps over withes. When they finished, they got up all at the same time, giving a blood curdling war-whoop. The cow kicked over the milk and fled bellowing. I think that Mr. Hall made even better time and he never even looked around.

The squaws would often have ear rings made of wire with three cornered pieces of tin dangling all around their ears. It was not how good, but how much, with them. How these Indians ever lived through a winter the way they dressed, I don't see. They wore only leggings, shirts, breech clouts and a blanket. Their legs were no barer than a Scotchman's though. Our Indians used to tuck things in the bosom of their shirt, as well as in their belts. They used to tuck butcher knives in their leggings. If they were ever going to go on a tear and get drunk, when we first came, they would always get my husband to take charge of all their guns and knives.

When the squaws wore mourning, they were all painted black and always slashed themselves with knives.

During the last of the fifties, we never had any money. It would not do you any good if you had for if you took money to the store they would just give you an order for more goods instead of the change. The Red River carts used to camp in that little grove of trees over there. We used to sell them supplies and they would give us English silver money.

Once we took some to the store and they were terribly surprised to see money. They could not understand how we came by it. Thought we must have h.o.a.rded it, but we told them that it came from the Red River drivers.

Mrs. William J. White--1854.

My husband, Mr. White, started for Lake Addie, Minnesota Territory, in May, to join some friends and take up a claim. Mr. Hoag had named this lake in honor of his daughter. The settlement, if you could call it that, was called Grimshaw Settlement. It is now Brownton. He got up his cabin and began clearing the land. He and his friends did their cooking and only had two meals a day--breakfast at eight and dinner at three.

One hot day they had just cooked a big pan of apple sauce and set it out to cool. Some Indians on their way to a war dance at Shakopee came streaking along all painted up. First one and then another plunged his fist in that apple sauce and stuck it down his throat. It must have skinned them all the way down, but not one made a sound, only looked hard when they saw the next one start in.

My husband wrote for me to come to him. I had no pilot, so could not start at once. My boy fell and broke his arm and I thought he was badly hurt inside so I wrote for father to come home. It generally took so long for a letter to go through that when two weeks later I got a chance to go with company, I started, thinking I could get there before the letter would, as they were generally much longer in going than one could travel. When I got on the Northern Belle, a fine boat, one of my children was taken with croup. Dr. N----, a Universalist minister, got off at Dubuque and bought medicine for me. This saved the child, but he was sick all the way. We were stuck in Beef Slough for several days. I never left the cabin as my child needed me, but some time during the first day a boat from St. Paul was stuck there too, so near us that pa.s.sengers pa.s.sed from one boat to the other all day. It was only when I got to Hastings, where I had thought to meet my husband that I found he had been on that other stranded boat. Later, I learned that he had spent some time on my boat, but of course, did not know I was there. The letter I had written him had gone straight, as a man who was going to their settlement had taken charge of it from the first. I had to wait six weeks in Hastings until he went clear to Pennsylvania and back.

Evangeline wasn't in it with me.

Finally he came and we went on to our new home. I thought I had never seen such wonderful wild flowers. Mr. Grimshaw came after us with his horses. We had supper at his house the night before we got to our home, and I never tasted anything so good--pheasants browned so beautifully and everything else to match. The most wonderful welcome, too, went with that meal.

We pa.s.sed fields just red with wild strawberries and in places where the land had been cultivated and the gra.s.s was sort of low, they grew away up and were large with big cl.u.s.ters, too. We did just revel in them.

They were much more spicy than any we had ever eaten. The wild gra.s.s grew high as a man's head. When we came in sight of our home, I loved it at once and so did the children. It was in the bend of a little stream with stepping stones across. I knew at once that I had always wanted stepping stones on my place. About two feet from the floor a beam had been set in the whole length of the room. It was roped across and a rough board separated it into two sections. These were our beds and with feather beds and boughs, made a fine sleeping place. Wolves used to howl all around at night but with the stock secure and the home closed up tightly, we were happy. Our walls were plastered with mud and then papered by me with paper that was six cents a roll back east. We made a barrel chair and all kinds of home-made furniture out of packing boxes.

Our rooms looked so cozy. Father was a natural furniture maker, though we never knew it before we came here.

Game was very plentiful and as we never had enough back home, we did not soon tire of it. My husband once killed a goose and eleven young ones with one shot.

The first year our garden was looking fine when the gra.s.shoppers came in such swarms that they obscured the sun. They swooped on everything in the garden. There was no grain as the squirrels, black birds and gophers had never tasted this delicacy before and followed the sower, taking it as fast as it fell. We planted it three times and we had absolutely no crop of any kind that first year.

We bought four horses later and had them for the summer's work. They came from Illinois and were not used to the excessive cold of Minnesota.

That winter it was forty degrees below zero for many successive days. It seems to me we have not had as much cold all this winter as we had in a week then. Christmas time it was very cold. We wanted our mail so one of the men rode one of the horses twelve miles to get it. When he arrived there the horse was very sick. He was dosed up and was seemingly all right. When the man wanted to start for home, he was warned that it would be fatal to take a horse which had been dosed with all kinds of hot stuff out in the terrible cold. He took the risk but the horse fell dead just as he entered the yard. We lost two others in much the same way that winter.

We then bought a yoke of young steers. They were very little broken and the strongest animals I ever saw. Their names were Bright and Bill. Once the whole family was going to a party at New Auburn, a kind of a city.

My husband had made an Indian wagon. He held them in the road while we all got in. They started up with such a flourish that everything that could not hold itself on, fell off. The road was full of things we wanted with us. They ran on a keen jump for nine miles until we came to the house where we were going. It was the first house we came to. When they saw the barn, they must have thought it looked like home for they ran in there and brought up against the barn with a bang. As soon as Mr.

White could, he jumped out and held them, but their fun was all gone and they stood like lambs.

I never saw anything funnier than those steers and a huge snapping turtle. They found him near the creek when they were feeding. They would come right up to him (they always did everything in concert) then look at him at close range. The turtle would thrust out his head and snap at them; then they would snort wildly and plunge all over the prairie, returning again and again to repeat the performance, which only ended when the turtle disappeared in the brook.

Wolves were very fearless and fierce that winter. They ran in packs.

They would look in at our windows. Once we sent a hired boy six miles for twenty-five pounds of pork for working men. When he was near home a pack of wolves followed him, but he escaped by throwing the pork. Mr.

Pollock and Mr. White were followed in the same way.

Once one of our friends killed a steer. We were all anxious for amus.e.m.e.nt so any pretext would bring on a party. All the neighbors had a piece of the meat but we thought the friends who had killed the steer should have a party and have roast beef for us all, so we sent word we were all coming. Mrs. n.o.ble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards around. In these shirrings she run rattan--a good heavy piece so it would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery was all ready to put on. One of the neighbor's girls was to stay with the children. The baby had been quite restless, so according to the custom, I gave her a little laudanum to make her sleep. I did not realize that it was old and so much stronger. Just before going, when I was all dressed, I went to look at the baby. I did not like her looks, so took her up to find her in a stupor. Needless to say there was no party for us that night. It took us all to awaken her and keep her awake. I never gave laudanum after that, though I always had before.

Mrs. Paulina Starkloff--1854.

My name was Paulina Lenschke. I was twelve years old when I came to Minneapolis in 1854. We intended to stay in St. Paul but were told that this was a better place, so came here and bought an acre and a half just where the house now stands, Main Street N. E. The town then was mostly northeast. The St. Charles hotel on Marshall Street, northeast, was just below us and so were most of the stores. Morgan's foundry and Orth's brewery were just on the other side of us. We paid $600.00 in gold for the land and half of it was in my name, as my mother paid $350.00 that I had made myself. I think I was probably the only twelve year old child that came into the state with so much money earned by herself. It was this way.

We went to Australia to dig gold in 1847. We drove an ox team into the interior with other prospectors doing the same until we came to diggings. The men would dig and then "cradle" the soil for the gold.

This cradle was just like a baby's cradle only it had a sieve in the bottom. One man would have a very long handled dipper with which he would dip water from a dug well. He only dipped and the other man stirred with a stick and rocked. Most of the soil would wash out but there would always be some "dumplings" caused by the clay hardening and nothing but hard work would break them. The miners would take out the gold which was always round, and dump these hard pieces. After a day's work there would be quite a pile that was never touched by them. I would take a can and knife and go from dump to dump gathering the gold in these dumplings. One day my father went prospecting with a party of men and was never seen again. After months of fruitless search my mother took me and my little tin can of nuggets back to Germany. She sold them for me for $350.00 in gold. Then we came to Minnesota and bought this place.

The Red River carts used to be all day pa.s.sing our house. They would come squeaking along one after another. Sometimes the driver would take his wife and children with him. These carts had no metal about them. One man would have charge of several.

Mrs. Anna E. Balser--1855, Ninety-four years old.

I was the only girl in our family that ever worked, but when I was ten years old I laid my plan to get myself out of my mother's tracks. She had so much to do with her big family. I could cry when I think of it now. So, when I was fourteen, my father, scared for me and holding back every minute, took me to the city to learn the trade I had chosen. I was through in six months and could do the heaviest work as well as the finest. I wish you could see the fancy bosomed shirts I used to make when I was fourteen! No one could beat me. I always had a pocketful of money for I got two and six a day. That would be 38c now. I went from house to house to work and always had the best room and lived on the fat of the land. It was a great event when the tailoress came.

I came to Lakeland in 1855. The prairies around there looked like apple orchards back home. The scrub oak grew just that way. I would bet anything I could go and pick apples if I had not known. I had thought of buying in Minneapolis, but my friends who owned Lakeland thought it was going to be the city of Minnesota, so I bought here. I was a tailoress and made a good living until the hard times came on. Money was plenty one day. The next you could not get a "bit" even, anywhere. Then, after that, I had to trade my work for anything I could get.

I brought a blue black silk dress with mutton leg sleeves among my things when I come. It was the best wearing thing I ever see. Cheaper to wear than calico because it would never wear out. I paid $1.00 a yard for it. It was twenty-seven inches wide. It took twelve yards to make the dress. For a wrap we wore a long shawl. I had one of white lace. We got three yards of lace webbing and trimmed it with lace on the edge. Or we would take one width of silk and finish that fancy on the edge. The ruffles on everything was fluted. When you shirred them you would hold them over the first and third finger pa.s.sing under the second finger.

That would make large flutings. If you had an Italian iron you could do it fast, but there wa'n't many so fortunate. An Italian iron was a tube about as big as your finger on a standard. Two rods to fit this tube come with it. You could put these heated, inside then run your silk ruffle or whatever you were making over it and there was your flute quick as a wink.