Old Rail Fence Corners. Various
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we got across.
I graded some down town, on Hennepin Avenue when it was only a country road. There was a big pond on Bridge Square. The ducks used to fly around there like anything early in the morning.
I cut out the hazelbrush on the first Fair Ground. It was on Harmon Place about two blocks below Loring Park. We cut a big circle so that we could have a contest between horses and oxen to see which could draw the biggest load. The oxen beat. I don't remember anything else they did at that Fair.
Mr. James M. Gillespie—1853.
I remember that our first crop on our own farm at Camden Place in 1853 was corn and pumpkins. The Indians would go to the field, take a pumpkin, split it and eat it as we do an apple with grunts of satisfaction.
There was an eight acre patch of wild strawberries where Indians had cultivated the land on our new claim about where our house stands today. They were as large as the small cultivated berries with a most delicious flavor. Everyone that we knew picked and picked but wagon loads rotted on the ground.
A good strong, quick stepping ox could plow two acres a day but much oftener they plowed one and one half acres only. The pigeons flew so low in '54 that we could kill them with any farm implement we happened to be using. They seemed to be all tired out. We killed and dried the breasts for winter.
Miss Nancy Gillespie—1853.
I remember a pear shaped wild plum which grew along the river bank. It was as large as the blue California plum and of a most wonderful color and taste. I have never seen anything like it and have not seen this variety of late years.
Mr. Isaac Layman—1853.
My father came to Minnesota in '52 and bought the land where Layman's Cemetery now is for $1,000.00 of Mr. Dumar. He returned for us January first '53. Snow was two feet on a level and the cold was terrible.
We went with our horses and wagon to Chicago from Peoria. There we bought a bobsled and put the wagon box on it, adding a strong canvas top. We put in a stove and made the twenty-one day journey very comfortably. We came up through Wisconsin. The only spot I remember was Black River Falls. The woods abounded with game. There were thousands of deer and partridges. We killed what we could eat only. We saw many bear tracks. We crossed the Mississippi at St. Anthony and arrived at our cabin.
Our house was only boarded up but father got out and banked it with snow to the eaves, pounding it down hard so it would hold. It made it very comfortable.
In the early days ammunition was very expensive for the farmer boys who loved to shoot. They found that dried peas were just as good as shot for prairie chicken, quail and pigeons, so always hunted them with these. The passenger pigeons were so plentiful that the branches of trees were broken by their numbers. They flew in such enormous flocks that they would often fly in at open doors and windows. They obscured the sun in their flight. Looked at from a distance, they would seem to extend as far up as the eye could reach. I have brought down thirty at a shot. They could be knocked off the branches with a stick while roosting and thousands of them were killed in this way. In these early days, they brought only 10c or 20c a dozen. The ducks used to congregate in such large numbers on Rice Lake that their flight sounded louder than a train of cars.
Mrs. Mary Weeks—1853, Ninety years old.
We came to Minnesota in 1853. My husband went up to our claim and broke from twenty-five to forty acres and sowed rutabagas. It was on new breaking and virgin soil and they grew tremendous. We moved there and bought stock. They seemed never to tire of those turnips and grew very slick and fat on them. We, too, ate them in every form and I thought I had never tasted anything so good. They were so sweet and tasty. The children used to cut them in two and scrape them with a spoon. We said we had "Minnesota apples" when we took them out to eat. It did seem so good to have real brooms to use. In Maine, we had always made our brooms of cedar boughs securely tied to a short pole. They were good and answered the purpose but a new fangled broom made of broom straw seemed so dressy. I can well remember the first one of this kind I ever had. It was only used on great occasions. Usually we used a splint broom which we made ourselves.
I used to do all the housework for a family of seven besides making butter and taking care of the chickens. If help was short, I helped with the milking, too. I made all the clothes the men wore. A tailor would cut out their suits and then I would make them by hand. I made all their shirts too. You should have seen the fancy bosomed shirts I made. Then I knit the stocking and mittens for the whole family and warm woolen scarfs for their necks. My husband used to go to bed tired to death and leave me sitting up working. He always hated to leave me. Then he would find me up no matter how early it was. He said I never slept. I didn't have much time to waste that way. We lived on beautiful Silver Lake. In season the pink lady-slippers grew in great patches and other flowers to make the prairie gay.
For amusement we used to go visiting and always spent the day. We would put the whole family into a sleigh or wagon and away we would go for an outing. We had such kind neighbors—no one any better than the other—all equal.
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