Fifty Years In The Northwest Part 60

Murphy, John W. North, J. P. Wilson, and John G. Lennon. During this year the west half of sec. 14, range 29, was surveyed and platted into town lots by W. R. Marshall, B. W. Bronson and S. P. Folsom. Anson Northrup commenced the erection of the first hotel, the St. Charles.

John Rollins was elected to the territorial council, W. R. Marshall and Wm. Dugas to the house of representatives. The district was comprised of St. Anthony Falls and Little Canada.

The first school was taught by Miss Electa Bachus, in the summer of 1849. A post office was established and Ard G.o.dfrey was appointed postmaster. There were occasional mails brought in John Rollins'

pa.s.senger wagon. In 1850 Willoughby & Powers ran a daily stage line from St. Paul and the mail thenceforth was carried regularly. John W.

North built a dwelling on Nicollet island, which became a social centre, and was made attractive by a piano. In 1850 a public library was established, the first in Minnesota. Rev. E. D. Neill, the historian of Minnesota, delivered the first public lecture and preached the first sermon in 1849. The following year, the Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians organized societies, and in 1851 the Episcopalians and Universalists. Amongst the accessions to the population were Judge Isaac At.w.a.ter, W. W. Wales, J.

B. Ba.s.sett, C. W. Christmas, and Joseph Dean. Col. Alvaren Allen opened a livery stable. The St. Anthony _Express_, the first newspaper, was established May 31, 1851; E. Tyler, proprietor, Judge I. At.w.a.ter, editor. Measures were taken to locate the university in St. Anthony Falls. Citizens contributed $3,000 aid to in the erection of the building.

Facilities of communication with the surrounding country were none of the best, yet communication was early established with the Red River country, a dog train having arrived from Pembina, distant four hundred miles, in sixteen days. On this train Kittson, Rolette and Gingras came down to attend the territorial legislature at St. Paul as representatives of Pembina county.

Franklin Steele, in 1847, established a ferry above the Falls. In 1854 the Minnesota Bridge Company was organized, consisting of Franklin Steele, H. T. Wells, R. P. Russell, and others. A handsome suspension bridge was finished in 1855. This bridge remained in the control of the company fifteen years, when by an act of the legislature the value was a.s.sessed and Hennepin county purchased the bridge, and it became a free thoroughfare.

April 13, 1855, St. Anthony Falls was incorporated as a city with the following officers: Mayor, H. T. Welles; clerk, W. F. Brawley; aldermen, B. F. Spencer, John Orth, Daniel Stanchfield, Edward Lippincott, Caleb W. Dorr, and Robert c.u.mmings.

In 1872 St. Anthony Falls was annexed to Minneapolis, and placed under the same government, a movement which has resulted in great benefit to both cities.

ST. ANTHONY FALLS.

The earliest written descriptions of St. Anthony falls were by the Roman Catholic missionaries, Hennepin and LaSalle. The former with Accault and Du Gay ascended the river in a canoe until captured by a band of Sioux Indians. These Indians left the river at a point now the present site of St. Paul and took their prisoners to Mille Lacs. In September, when the Indians set out on their annual hunt, the captives were left to go where they pleased. Accault preferred remaining with the Indians. Hennepin and Du Gay obtained a small canoe and commenced the descent of the Rum and Mississippi rivers to the falls, then called by the Indians Ka-ka-bi-ka Irara or "Severed Rock." They reached the falls about the first of October, and named them after St.

Anthony of Padua. The description given by La Salle, a second hand one, was probably derived from Hennepin, Accault or Du Gay, as La Salle did not visit the falls, and these voyageurs were his subordinates, and had been sent by him to explore the Upper Mississippi.

He says: "In going up the Mississippi again, twenty leagues above the St. Croix is found the falls, which those I sent named St. Anthony.

They are thirty or forty feet high, and the river is narrower here than elsewhere. There is a small island in the midst of the chute, and the two banks of the river are bordered by hills which gradually diminish at this point, but the country on each side is covered by thin woods, such as oaks and other hardwoods, scattered wide apart."

This description corresponds very well with the earliest pictures of the falls, which with "the small island in the midst of the chute"

make them resemble slightly a Niagara considerably diminished in height. The historic falls have almost entirely disappeared or so changed as to become unrecognizable. Spirit island, if this be the island referred to by La Salle as in the midst of the chute, is now so far below the falls that it can scarcely be brought into the same picture with them. The falls have undoubtedly receded, by a process easily explained by a geologist, some distance up the river, and have diminished somewhat in alt.i.tude. The movement of the falls up stream, caused by the breaking off of limestone ledges, overlying sandstone, easily washed from beneath by the falling water, threatened the total obliteration of the cataract unless arrested by artificial means, as the dip or inclination of the rock is such that the alt.i.tude of the falls diminishes with the wearing away of these ledges: It has been found necessary to strengthen the ledges and prevent further erosion by means of ap.r.o.ns, till the present appearance of the falls is not unsuggestive of a series of dams. The entire cost of these improvements has amounted to more than $1,000,000. The sh.o.r.es of the islands and mainlands have been covered with mills and manufactories, while the scene is still further disfigured by a maze of railway and other bridges, waterways and flumes. Scarce a vestige of the original falls remain to recall their appearance as they were when the sandaled and robed Franciscan, Hennepin, first gazed upon them. In the midst of this solitude, and on the banks once covered by a spa.r.s.e growth of trees, one of the finest cities in the West has sprung up as if by magic, and the scene is one of busy life. This marvelous change has occurred within a s.p.a.ce of fifty years.

MINNEAPOLIS.

From the establishment and occupation of Fort Snelling in 1819, to the settlement of the county in 1840, numerous traders and adventurers, generally of French or Canadian origin, and not infrequently intermarried with Indians, and semi-Indian in their habits of life, occupied transient homes on or near the military reservation; but these have exercised so little influence upon the development of the country that they merit no recognition or record from the historian.

As a general thing, they disappeared before the march of civilization.

A few, wiser, stronger, more far-seeing than the rest, adapted themselves to the new order, made claims, engaged in the enterprises of civilized life, and thus obtained an honorable position amongst the pioneers of the country.

Of these, Joseph R. Brown, by far the most distinguished, by permission of the military authorities, located in Hennepin county near the falls of Minnehaha, in 1829. He is the first white settler.

Maj. Taliaferro, then in command of the Fort, in the same year made a farm on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Calhoun, and placed Philander Prescott in charge. In 1834 the Pond brothers, missionaries, located on Lake Calhoun and erected the first dwelling worthy of the name within the present limits of the county of Hennepin. In 1849 Philander Prescott made a claim on what is now Minnehaha avenue. Frank Steele obtained permission from the secretary of war to occupy this claim, whereupon Mr. Prescott abandoned it, and made another on laud adjoining. This he was allowed to retain. Charles Mosseaux, by permission of the military authorities, made a claim on Lake Calhoun in 1856. This claim is now occupied by the pavillion. Rev. E. G. Gear, chaplain at Fort Snelling, by permission of the military authorities, made a claim near Lake Calhoun and employed Edward Brissett to live upon it. Afterward a contest arose as to the owners.h.i.+p. Chaplain Gear, by the aid of Judge Black and H. M. Rice, secured a congressional enactment allowing him to purchase the land from the government. David Gohram made a claim on the Lake of the Isles, but subsequently sold out to R. P. Russell.

John Berry, the Blaisdells, Pierce Lowell and many others located in the vicinity of Lakes Calhoun and Harriet, and in 1853 were followed by settlers on nearly all the lands lying immediately west of the Mississippi, in the vicinity of the falls. In 1854 there were twelve farm houses scattered widely from the falls to the vicinity of the lakes. It had been evident for some time that a city of considerable pretensions must arise somewhere in the vicinity of the Fort and the falls. The locality of the coming city was decided largely by advantages of situation, and these were in favor of the locality immediately adjoining the falls, the water power there afforded being a powerful attraction. For the first recognition of these advantages we must go back to a period several years anterior to the location of these claims and there find a starting point in the history of Minneapolis.

In 1820 the military authorities at Fort Snelling had erected a stone mill for sawing their own lumber and grinding the grain s.h.i.+pped from St. Louis. They also built a log house and cultivated a few acres of adjacent ground. This mill, run by the water of the falls, was located a short distance below. This was the first utilization of the water power. The mill, which has long since disappeared, was located on the present site of Sidle, Fletcher & Holmes' flouring mill. In 1854 one saw mill, the first in Minneapolis aside from the old government mill, was located just below the falls. It had a capacity of 1,500,000 feet per annum and besides manufactured great quant.i.ties of s.h.i.+ngles. It was under the direction of C. King. A steam saw mill was built at the mouth of Ba.s.sett's creek, above the falls, in 1856, and another the following year, half a mile further up the river. Thus began the great lumber business of Minneapolis, in 1857 there being three mills with an aggregate capacity of 75,000,000 feet per annum.

The att.i.tude of the government with regard to the lands reserved about the Fort, the act of 1839, driving off those who had settled upon them and destroying their property, and the uncertainty with regard to the tenure of land claims, acted as an effectual bar to further improvement until ten years later, when Hon. Robert Smith, member of Congress from Alton district, Illinois, and Col. John H. Stevens, the pioneer of Minneapolis, each obtained permits from the secretary of war and the officers of the Fort to occupy one hundred and sixty acres of the reservation. Smith's location included the stone mill, which he agreed to use in grinding Fort Snelling grain. Mr. Smith engaged C. A.

Tuttle to operate the mill and hold the claim. Mr. Tuttle was to have an interest for his labor. This interest he afterward sold to Smith, who, when the government relinquished the reservation, transferred his claim to Anson Northrup and others, who were organized into an a.s.sociation for the entry of land. Soon as the entries were completed the land pa.s.sed into the hands of the Minneapolis Water Power Company, which proceeded at once to improve the water power.

Col. J. H. Stevens meanwhile located in person on his permit, and in 1849 built the first frame house in Minneapolis, on the ground now occupied by the union depot. J. B. Ba.s.sett purchased the fraction of land on the river above Stevens, Col. Emanuel Case the fraction above Ba.s.sett's, A. E. Ames the eighty where the court house stands, and Edwin Hedderly the fraction below the water power. Mr. Stevens made the first survey of village lots in the spring of 1854; Chas. W.

Christmas, surveyor.

The Smith claim was surveyed by W. R. Marshall in the fall of 1854. In 1856 At.w.a.ter's addition was surveyed. Other additions were added from year to year as the growth of the city demanded. At the release of the reservation in 1855, the entire present site of the city was covered with claims.

The name Minneapolis, derived from an Indian word _minne_, meaning _water_, and a Greek word _polis_, meaning _city_, had been early applied to the new village, Chas. Hoag having first suggested the name. In March, 1853, the commissioners of Hennepin county adopted the name as that of a territorial precinct. A government land office had been established in 1854, of which M. L. Olds was register and R. P.

Russell receiver. The first, newspaper, the Minneapolis _Democrat_, was established in 1854. During the same year the Masons and Odd Fellows organized lodges, the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists organized societies, and public schools were established. In 1857 the court house, at a cost of $12,000, a school house, and several churches were erected.

The village of Minneapolis was organized in 1858. H. T. Welles was the first president. In 1867 Minneapolis obtained a city charter.

Minneapolis and St. Anthony Falls were united under the same government, by act of legislature, approved Feb. 28, 1872, under the name of Minneapolis, St. Anthony Falls being recognized in the directory as East Minneapolis. The united cities elect in common a mayor and city council, but each is financially responsible as to contracts existing previous to the union, and each maintains its own schools.

We append a list of mayors of the two cities prior and subsequent to the union:

MAYORS OF ST. ANTHONY FALLS.

1855. H. T. Welles.

1856. Alvaren Allen.

1857. Wm. W. Wales.

1858. Orrin Curtis.

1859. Orrin Curtis.

1860. R. B. Graves.

1861. O. C. Merriman.

1862. O. C. Merriman.

1863. Edwin S. Brown.

1864. O. C. Merriman.

1865. Wm. W. Wales.

1866. O. C. Merriman.

1867. O. C. Merriman.

1868. Winthrop Young.

1869. W. W. McNair.

1870. W. W. McNair.

1871. Edwin S. Brown.

MAYORS OF MINNEAPOLIS.

1867. Dorillius Morrison 1868. Hugh G. Harrison.

1869. Dorillius Morrison.

1870. Eli B. Ames.

1871. Eli B. Ames.

MAYORS OF MINNEAPOLIS SUBSEQUENT TO THE UNION WITH ST. ANTHONY FALLS.

1872. Eugene M. Wilson.

1873. George A. Bracket.

1874. Eugene M. Wilson.

1875. O. C. Merriman.

1876. Albert A. Ames.

1877. John DeLittre.

1878. A. C. Rand.

1879. A. C. Rand.

1880. A. C. Rand.

1881. A. C. Rand.

1882. A. A. Ames.

1883. A. A. Ames.

1884. Geo. Pillsbury.