CHAPTER VII
FIRST SETTLERS
MISSIONAIRIES and traders,
as we have seen, were already within the limits of
our territory. A few of the French had strayed from
the Selkirk Settlement and Canadas, but no actual
settlement had been commenced; no efforts made for
the future emigrant, or to induce him hither.
In 1837, Franklin
Steele, from Pennsylvania, found his way
up the Mississippi, and was the first man to commence
active, energetic measures for the future weal of
our beauteous land, and at that time was probably
the only man thus employed between our present boundary
on the south, and Pembina on the north, and between
Superior on the east, and the Rocky Mountains on the
west. He is supposed to have been the first man that
"fleshed his axe" in all this wide domain.
The same year he commenced lumbering operations on
the St. Croix.
It may not be improper,
or uninteresting to state the humble beginnings of
a business already so important, and destined to become
even more so. His team consisted of a single ox driven
before a cart, and a crew of seven half-breeds. His
supplies consisted of a barrel of pork, which cost
$40, a barrel of flour $11, half a bushel of beans
at $4, molasses at $2 per gallon, &c. &c.
His operations the first year were principally confined
to getting lumber for a mill. Now, some thirty saws
are
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running on that stream, and from thirty
to fifty of millions feet lumber are produced annually.
The great sagacity and
foresight of Mr. Steele enabled him to make many fortunate
strikes, of which we shall have more to say hereafter.
His energies have been extended into every department
of business, and every effort has been crowned with
surprising success; and now, as a business man, as
a man of wealth, socially and otherwise, he ranks
first in out territory.
A Mission station was
commenced by the Methodists at Koposia in 1835, but
was soon after given up to the Presbyterians, and
a new one started by them at Red Rock. In a short
time this also was abandoned, and those engaged in
it resolved to become citizens, and were the original
settlers of that beautiful prairie.
Numbered with these was
Mrs. Holton, who came at the outset
of the mission, and no American woman having preceded
her, she can be safely accounted the first white citizen
woman in the territory.
About this time Dr.
Carlie built his cabin on the banks of the
St. Croix, and introduced his wife to the
varieties of pioneer life. Not long, however, was
he permitted to enjoy his rural home, but was drowned
in crossing the lake. His wife still survives, having
married a brother of her first husband, who is a physician
also.
Mr. Hone,
with his young bride, was one of the early arrivals
in the country; but his frontier cabin at Point Douglas
has been supplanted by a spacious dwelling, and the
wilderness around him has been "made to rejoice
and blossom as the rose."
Mr. Anson Northup
came to Minnesota in 1839. He drove an ox-team through
the pathless country from Illinois, and the following
year returned east for his
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family. He built and kept the first
boarding-house on the St. Croix, and to him and his
inestimable wife is the country greatly indebted,
for services rendered during this important period.
The coarse lumberman found shelter and a full board
beneath their roof, and many a tenderly-reared son,
who had seen brighter days in a far-off land, was
kindly cared for, and if sick, gently ministered to,
by her benevolent hand.
Then was the basis of
our present prosperity laid. They lived not in the
present, but future, yet the most sanguine ventured
not a hope of what their own eyes were so soon to
see, of their own and the country's prosperity.
In 1840, Orange
Walker, from Vermont, erected the marine
mill on the St. Croix River. In 1844, John
McKusick, from Maine, built the first one
at Stillwater, at the head of Lake St. Croix, and
about the same time Mr. Northup built the first public
house there. These formed the nucleus of a settlement—the
first to attain importance in the Territory. The enterprise
of Mr. Northup has pushed him on from settlement to
settlement, one after another being indebted to him
for its first hotel.
With the heroism of a
true woman, has Mrs. N. done
her duty, amid increasing cares, privations,
and hardships, all struggling for the mastery. But
prosperity has triumphed, and her name deserves to
be inscribed in letters of gold on historic pages,
a pattern of patient endurance and virtuous excellence.
Not unfrequently [infrequently]
is it that those who "bear the burden and heat
of battle," are unknown and unchronicled. So
with the pioneers in infant settlements. The hardships
met, the trials endured, and difficulties overcome,
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are overlooked or uncared for, by those
who swell the after-tide of population, and they behold
the laurels which of right belong to themselves, gracing
the brows of those who have no just claim to them.
And women there are in
every such community, whose unwritten lives would
make many an interesting chapter in our country's
history; without their coöperation the foundations
of society could not have been laid. They have toiled
early and late to encourage those who were hewing
the north timbers for the beautiful superstructure.
Their words of cheer have sustained the heart-sick
wanderer, and with unrewarded care, save in an approving
conscience, have they watched beside the sick bed
of the stranger, and never known fatigue so long as
the wants of their households were not met.
Woman, in all states of
society, and in all ages of the world, has had a part
to perform, and all-important part, known only in
its results. The women of the Revolution, though they
could not use the musket, and appear on the tented
field, could run their pewter spoons into balls, and
bid fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, be firm
in their duty as they left for the camp.
So those who were earliest
in Minnesota, and who lived more in the future than
the present, were indeed blessings to their companions.
Even since the writer's introduction in the Territory,
it has been said most emphatically that a "unit
added to the female population, was virtually of more
importance than a whole cargo of the sterner sex."
Chapter VIII
