Part 4 (1/2)

Joseph R Brown had a trading post on Gray Cloud Island, sixteen miles below St Paul and was a Justice of the Peace with unlieur and a young fellow, both claireed to refer their quarrel to Brown Accordingly both appeared at his place on Gray Cloud and stated their cases to Brown Brown knowing that he had no jurisdiction over land titles and seeing an opportunity for a joke, informed them that the one who first put up a notice that he would write and give them, would be entitled to possess the land They ive the a line and causing the the word ”Go” started the sixteen mile race and retired to his cabin to enjoy the joke The younghe had an easy victory before hi it was a sixteen mile race took a stride he could keep up to the end and placed his notice first on the property; hence the first naiven by the Missionary Priest, Father Gaultier, who told e notice of Vitale Guerin, he had to give the little log confessional on the hill some name, and as St Croix and St Anthony and St Peter had been honored in this neighborhood, he thought St Paul should receive the distinction

Mr Reuben Robinson--1850

Mr Reuben Robinson, ninety-five years old, says: I came to St Anthony and worked at theplace had been discovered near the mill and was much used by the feomen and men of St Anthony who came over in boats for the purpose One day when I was at work I heard hollering and thought soone beyond his depth I went out and looked around, saw nobody, but still heard the calling I finally looked at a pile of logs near the Falls and there saw afor help I threw a rope to hirasp and I hauled higled, but a straw hat was still on his head although it was so wet that the green band had run into the straw No trace of his boat was ever found As soon as he landed, he took a whiskey flask froustedpulls as accountable for his trouble, as he had taken a boat when he was drunk and had gone too near the Falls

When we cao, the mud was up to the hubs everywhere

Much of the ti it In one deep hole where the old road had been, a big scantling stuck up with these words painted on it, ”They leave all hope who enter here”

I re down near Minnehaha Falls Snakes were very abundant at that time

When I was in the Indian war, one of the Indian scouts showed round store houses Only an Indian could find these The soldiers had hunted for days without success, but the Indian succeeded in a short ti several hundred bushels of corn This was six feet under the ground and looked exactly like the rest of the ground except that in the center a srass was left, which to the initiated showed the place

I had a serious lung trouble and was supposed to have consu After I was married my wife induced me to take the water cure She kept me wrapped in wet sheets for several days At the end of that tih was cured This clih when I think how green I was about these western places

Before I left ht twelve dollars worth of fishi+ng tackle and a gun, also quantities of cartridges I never used any of thes here were much more up to date

When I went to church I was astonished I never saw s were 200 a hundred and potatoes 14c a bushel

Mrs Samuel B Dresser--1850

We took a steamer from Galena to Stillwater, as everyone did in those days

They were paying the Sioux Indians at Red Wing A noble looking chief in a white blanket colored band with eagles' feathers colored and beautifully worked buckskin shi+rt, leggings andtheure 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, ent 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 on Boats caular 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 anted to cook on theht 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 shi+ngles were made by hand and lasted forty years The enaood as new fifty years afterward

The paper, too, which was a white background with long coluood for forty years

In Osceola there was a grist rain

The Delles House looks the same now as it did in '52 when I first reme in the rough ground near Taylor's Falls They said they were going to fight the Sioux Some white men came and drove the for Chippewa scalps found the dead Indian, skinned his whole head and rode aith the white

There was a road froh 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 seeo 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 ar on the corners