Old Rail Fence Corners. Various
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boats for the purpose. One day when I was at work I heard hollering and thought someone must have gone beyond his depth. I went out and looked around, saw nobody, but still heard the calling. I finally looked at a pile of logs near the Falls and there saw a man who was calling for help. I threw a rope to him several times which he finally was able to grasp and I hauled him in hand over hand. His clothing was all wet and bedraggled, but a straw hat was still on his head although it was so wet that the green band had run into the straw. No trace of his boat was ever found. As soon as he landed, he took a whiskey flask from his pocket and took a long pull, which disgusted me very much. I discovered that these long pulls were what was accountable for his trouble, as he had taken a boat when he was drunk and had gone too near the Falls.
When we came through Chicago, the mud was up to the hubs everywhere. Much of the time the bottom of the stage was scraping it. In one deep hole where the old road had been, a big scantling stuck up with these words painted on it, "They leave all hope who enter here."
I remember killing a snake over seven feet long down near Minnehaha Falls. Snakes were very abundant at that time.
When I was in the Indian war, one of the Indian scouts showed me how to find the Indians' underground store houses. Only an Indian could find these. The soldiers had hunted for days without success, but the Indian succeeded in a short time and found a community store house holding several hundred bushels of corn. This was six feet under the ground and looked exactly like the rest of the ground except that in the center a small tuft of grass was left, which to the initiated showed the place.
I had a serious lung trouble and was supposed to have consumption as I was always coughing. After I was married my wife induced me to take the water cure. She kept me wrapped in wet sheets for several days. At the end of that time an abscess of the lungs was relieved and my cough was cured. This climate has cured many of lung trouble.
I have to laugh when I think how green I was about these western places. Before I left my old home at Troy, New York, I bought twelve dollars worth of fishing tackle and a gun, also quantities of cartridges. I never used any of them for the things here were much more up to date. When I went to church I was astonished. I never saw more feathers and fancy dressing anywhere.
In 1860 hogs were $2.00 a hundred and potatoes 14c a bushel.
Mrs. Samuel B. Dresser—1850.
We took a steamer from Galena to Stillwater, as everyone did in those days.
They were paying the Sioux Indians at Red Wing. A noble looking chief in a white blanket colored band with eagles' feathers colored and beautifully worked buckskin shirt, leggings and moccasins was among them. He stands out in my mind as the most striking figure I ever saw. There was so much majesty in his look.
We took a bateau from Stillwater to Clouse's Creek. My uncle came the year before and had a block house where Troutmere now is, four miles from Osceola and we visited him.
A little later when I was seven years old, we went to Taylor's Falls, Minnesota, to live. There were only three houses there. We rented one end of a double block house and school was held in the other end. Our first teacher in '51 and '52 was Susie Thompson. There were thirty-five scholars from St. Croix Falls and our own town. Boats came up the river to Taylor's Falls on regular trips.
In our house there was a large fireplace with crane hooks, to cook on. These hooks were set in the brick. We hung anything we wanted to cook on them. The fire was directly under them. My mother brought a crane that was a part of andirons, with her, but we never used that.
I was married when I was sixteen. My husband built a house the next year. The shingles were made by hand and lasted forty years. The enamel paint came from St. Louis and was as good as new fifty years afterward. The paper, too, which was a white background with long columns with flowers depending from the top, was good for forty years.
In Osceola there was a grist mill that cracked the grain.
The Delles House looks the same now as it did in '52 when I first remember it.
In '52 I saw a party of Chippewa Indians hiding in the rough ground near Taylor's Falls. They said they were going to fight the Sioux. Some white men came and drove them away. They killed a Chippewa. A Sioux warrior, looking for Chippewa scalps found the dead Indian, skinned his whole head and rode away with the white men, with the scalp in his hand, whooping and hollering.
There was a road from Point Douglas through Taylor's Falls to Fond du Lac. It went through Stillwater and Sunrise Prairie, too. I used to watch it as the Indians passed back and forth on it and wish I could go to the end of it. It seemed to me that Adventure waited there.
We used to go to dances and dance the threestep waltz and French four with a circle of fours all around the room, and many other old style dances, too. We put in all the pretty fancy steps in the cotillion. No prettier sight could be than a young girl, with arms circled above her head, jigging on the corners.
My wedding dress was a white muslin, made very full around the bottom and plaited in at the waist. My traveling dress was made the same. It was a brown and white shepherd check and had eight breadths of twenty-seven inch silk. That silk was in constant wear for fifty years and if it was not all cut up, would be just as good today. My shoes were brown cloth to match and had five or six buttons. I had another pair that laced on the outside. Nothing has ever fitted the foot like those side-lace shoes. My traveling cape was of black net with bands of silk—very ample looking. I wore a white straw bonnet trimmed with lavender. The strings were white lute-string and the flowers in front of the flaring rim were small and dainty looking. There was a wreath of them on the crown too. When I tied this bonnet on, I felt very grown up for a sixteen year old bride.
Mr. Luther Webb, Indian agent, used to visit us often.
The Indians were always very curious, and spent much of the time before our windows watching everything we did. In time we were as calm with those glittering black eyes on us as we would have been if a gentle old cow had been looking in.
Mrs. Rufus Farnham—1850.
I moved to the farm on what is now Lyndale Avenue North, sixty-four years ago. The Red River carts used to pass along between my home and the river, but I was always holding a baby under one arm and drawing water from the well, so could not tell which way they went. I only saw them when they were straight in front of me. Women in those days never had time to look at anything but work.
Sugar came in a large cone. It was cracked off when needed. When purchased, a blue paper was wrapped around it. This when boiled, made a dye of a lovely lavender shade. It was used to dye all delicate fabrics, like fringe or silk crepe. I have a silk shawl which I dyed in this way in '56 that still retains its color. Later I paid 50c for three teacups of sugar. This just filled a sugar bowl.
My mother used to live on First Street North. Once when I was spending the day with her a dog sled from Fort Garry, now Winnipeg, passed the house. There were never many of these after we came for it seemed that the Red River carts had taken their places. There were six dogs to this team. They laid down and hollered just in front of the house. I suppose they were all tired out. The half breed driver took his long rawhide whip and give them a few cracks and they got up and went whimpering on to St. Paul. When they were rested, they would come back from St. Paul, like the wind. It only took a few days for them to come and go, to and from the fort, while it took the carts many weeks. The drivers would have suits of skin with the hair inside. They never forgot a bright colored sash. A bridal couple came with a dog team once, after I moved here, but the sled I saw only had a load of fine furs.
I made sour emptyings bread. Very few could make it. I stirred flour, sugar and water together until it was a little thicker than milk, then set it aside to sour. When it was thoroughly sour, I put in my saleratus, shortening and flour enough to make it stiff. It took judgment to make this bread, but everyone thought there was nothing like it.
Captain John Van der Horck—1850.
I always relied on an Indian