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 just as I did on a white man and never found my confidence misplaced. I often went hunting with them on the sloughs out of St. Paul. Game was very plentiful. My Indian companion and I would both have a gun. He would paddle the frail canoe. We would see the game. "Bang!" would go my gun. "Bang!" would go his. I would be loading while he was shooting. All game was plenty, plenty.
Well I remember the woodcock, long bill, big, big eyes—look at you so trustingly I never could shoot them.
There were such mighty flocks of ducks and geese in season that their flight would sound like a train of cars does now. Once I went deer hunting and saw six does. They turned their beautiful faces towards me and showed no fear. I could not shoot them.
I have seen strings of those Red River carts and many, many in a string, loaded with furs coming from Fort Garry or Pembina.
Mrs. James Pratt—1850.
My father moved to Minnesota Territory in '50. We lived with my uncle, Mr. Tuttle, who had a mill for some time on this side. He was living in a small house belonging to the government, but my father and he added two more rooms so we could stay with them. In the spring my father took up land and built a house down by the river not far from the Minnehaha Falls. He began to work on the Godfrey mill at Minnehaha. My mother was very timid. The sight of an Indian would nearly throw her into a fit. You can imagine that she was having fits most of the time for they were always around. Timber wolves, too, were always skulking around and following the men, but I never knew them to hurt anyone. Father said it used to make even him nervous to have them keep so near him. They would be right close up to him, as close as a dog would be. He always took a lively gait and kept it all the time. One night father was a little late and mother had seen more terrifying things than usual during the day, so she was just about ready to fly. She always hated whip-poor-wills for she said they were such lonesome feeling things. This night she stood peering out, listening intently. Then she, who had tried so hard to be brave, broke into wild lamentations, saying, she knew the wolves or Indians had killed father and she would never see him again. My grandmother tried to calm her, but she would not be comforted until father came, then he had a great time getting her settled down. She said the whip-poor-wills seemed to say as she looked out in the blackness of the night, "Oh, he's killed—Oh, he's
