The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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— furs from Hudson Bay, oranges from Messina, teas from China, coffee from Brazil, silks from Paris, and all the products of industry from our own land; to behold the streets alive with people, crowded with farmers' wagons laden with wheat and flour; to read the signs, "Young Men's Christian Association," "St. Paul Library Association"; to see elegant school-edifices and churches, beautiful private residences surrounded by lawns and adorned with works of art, — to see this in contrast with what we have so lately witnessed, and to think that this is the development of American civilization, going on now as never before, and destined to continue till all this wide region is to be thus dotted over with centres of influence and power, sends an indescribable thrill through our veins. It is not merely that we are Americans, but because in this land Christian civilization is attaining the highest development of all time. The people of St. Paul may justly take pride in what they have already accomplished, and they also have reason to look forward with confidence to the future.
The county is quite small, containing only four and a half townships. The soil is poor, a sandy loam, of not much account for farming purposes, but being at the head of steamboat navigation a good start was obtained; and now that railroads are superseding steamboats, St. Paul reaches out her iron arms in every direction, — up the Mississippi to St. Cloud, westward through Minneapolis to the Red River of the North, southwest to touch the Missouri at Sioux City, due south over the line by which we reached the city, down the river towards Chicago, and northeast to Lake Superior. As a spider extends its threads, so St. Paul, or perhaps, more properly speaking, St. Paul and Minneapolis together, are throwing out their lines of communication, making themselves the centre of the great Northwest systems of railways. The interests of St. Paul are mercantile, those of Minneapolis manufacturing. They are nearly five hundred miles distant from Chicago, — far enough to be an independent commercial, manufacturing, and distributing centre. That such is to be their destiny cannot be doubted.
The outfit of our party had been prepared at Minneapolis; and a large number of gentlemen from that city made their appearance at St. Paul, to convey us to the town in their own private carriages.
It is a charming ride that we have along the eastern bank of the Mississippi, which pours its mighty flood, — mighty even here, though so far away from the sea, — rolling and thundering far below us in the chasm which it has worn in the solid rock.
On our right hand are fields of waving grain, and white cottages half hidden in groves of oak and maple. We see New England thrift and enterprise, for the six States east of the Hudson have been sending their wide-awake sons and daughters to this section for the last twenty years. The gentleman with whom we are riding came here from the woods of Maine, a lumberman from the Penobscot, and has been the architect of his own fortune. He knows all about the Upper Mississippi, its tributaries, and the chain of lakes lying northwest of Lake Superior. He is Mayor of Minneapolis, a substantial citizen, his hand ready for every good work, — for the building of schools and churches, for charity and benevolence; but on the Upper Mississippi he wears a red shirt, eats pork and beans, and sleeps on pine boughs. He directs the labor of hundreds of wood-choppers and raftsmen.
How different this from what we see in other lands! I find my pen runs on contrasts. How can one help it after seeing that gorgeous and lumbering old carriage in which the Lord Mayor of London rides from Guildhall to Westminster? The Lord Mayor himself appears in a scarlet cloak not half so becoming as a red shirt. He wears a massive gold chain, and a hat which would be most in place on the stage of a theatre, and which would make him a guy in any American town. Not so do the Lord Mayors of the Northwest appear in public. They understand practical life. It is one of the characteristics of our democratic government that it makes people practical in all things.
In 1865 the town of Minneapolis contained only 4,607 inhabitants, but the population by the census of the present year is 13,080.
The fall in the river at this point is sixty-four feet, furnishing 120,000 horse-power, — more than sufficient to drive every mill-wheel and factory in New England, and, according to Wheelock's Report, greater than the whole motive-power — steam and water — employed in textile manufactures in England in 1850. Thirteen flouring-mills, fourteen saw-mills, two woollen-mills, and two paper-mills, are already erected. Six million dollars have been invested in manufacturing at this point. The only difficulty to be encountered is the preservation of the falls in their present position. Beneath the slate rock over which the torrent pours is a strata of soft sandstone, which rapidly wears away. Measures have been taken, however, to preserve the cataract in its present condition, by constructing an apron to carry the water some distance beyond the verge of the fall and thus prevent the breaking away of the rock.
No one can behold the natural advantages at Minneapolis without coming to the conclusion that it is to be one of the great manufacturing cities of the world if the fall can be kept in its present position. Cotton can be loaded upon steamers at Memphis, and discharged at St. Paul. The climate here is exceedingly favorable for the manufacturing of cotton goods. The lumber-mills by and by will give place to other manufactures, and Minneapolis will rank with Lowell or Fall River.
Our ride brings us to St. Anthony on the east bank of the river, where we behold the Mississippi roaring and tumbling over the slate-stone ledges, and hear the buzzing and humming of the machinery in the saw-mills.
St. Anthony was one of the earliest-settled towns in the State. Its projectors were Southern men. Streets were laid out, stores erected, a great hotel built, and extravagant prices asked for land, but the owners of Minneapolis offered lots at cheaper rates, and found purchasers. The war came on, and the proprietors of St. Anthony being largely from the South, the place ceased to grow, while its rival on the western shore moved steadily onward in a prosperous career. But St. Anthony is again advancing, for many gentlemen doing business in Minneapolis reside there. The interests of the two places are identical, and will advance together.
How can one describe what is indescribable? I can only speak of this city as situated on a beautiful plain, with the Mississippi thundering over a cataract with a power sufficient to build up half a dozen Lowells; with a country behind it where every acre of land as far as the eye can see, and a hundred or a thousand times farther, is capable of cultivation and of supporting a population as dense as that of Belgium or China. Wide streets, costly school-houses, church spires, a community in which the New England element largely predominates, — a city where every other door does not open to a lager-beer saloon, as in some Western towns; where the sound of the saw and the hammer, and the click of the mason's trowel and sledge, are heard from morning till night; where the streets are filled with wagons from the country, bringing in grain and carrying back lumber, with the farmer, his wife and buxom daughter, and tow-headed, bright-faced little boys perched on top — such are the characteristics of Minneapolis.
There was a time when Pegasus was put in harness, and the ancients, according to fable, tried to put Hercules to work. If those days of classic story have gone by, better ones have come, for the people of Minneapolis have got the Father of Waters in harness. He is cutting out one hundred million feet of lumber per annum here. I can hear him spinning his saws. He is turning a score of mill-stones, and setting a million or two of spindles in motion, and pretty soon some of the citizens intend to set him to weaving bags and cloth by the hundred thousand yards! Only a tithe of his strength is yet laid out. These men, reared in the East, and developed in the West, will make the old Father work for them henceforth. He will not be allowed to idle away his time by leaping and laughing year in and year out over yonder cataract. He must work for the good of the human race. They will use him for the building of a great mart of industry, — for the erection of houses and homes, the abodes of comfort and happiness and of joyful and peaceful life.
CHAPTER II
ST. CLOUD AND BEYOND
St. Cloud was the rendezvous of the party, where a grand ovation awaited us, — a band of music at the station, a dinner at the hotel, a ride to Sauk Rapids, two miles above the town.
St. Cloud is eighty miles above St. Paul, situated on the west bank of the river, and is reached by the St.