Part 7 (1/2)

Mr Charles Rye--1853

Mr Rye, eighty-six years old, hale and hearty, who still chops down large trees and makes theland in a sailing vessel in 1851 and was five weeks on the voyage My sister did not leave her bunk all the way over and I was squea seawater every , so I joined theht our own food with us and it was cooked for us very well and brought to us hot

We did not pay for this but we did pay for any food furnished extra

Soood weather all the way and then could e in three weeks, but usually it took er I stayed in the east two years and came to St Anthony in 1853

The best sower in our part of England taught rain After three days he came to me and said, ”Rye, I don't see how it is, but I can see you beat rain at 100 a day as soon as I carain, about a bushel of it, in a canvas lined basket, shaped like a clothes basket and fastened with straps over my shoulders, then with a wide sweep of the arm, I would sow first with one hand and then with the other It was a pretty sight to see a rain Seemed like he stepped toone after another like Indians across my sister's farm where St Louis Park now is I atchman for the old rees for weeks I kept fire in Wales bookstore, too, to keep the ink fro

I made 3400 an acre on the first flax I sowed A ot 1500 a ot 1200

I used to run the ferry with Captain Tapper It was a large rowboat

Once I had eight ot out in the river, I saw the load was too heavy and thought ould sink ”Boys”, I said, ”don't o to the bottom” The water ithin one inch of the top of the boat but we got across

I graded some don, on Hennepin Avenue when it was only a country road There was a big pond on Bridge Square The ducks used to fly around there like anything early in the

I cut out the hazelbrush on the first Fair Ground It was on Har circle so that we could have a contest between horses and oxen to see which could draw the biggest load The oxen beat I don't re else they did at that Fair

Mr James M Gillespie--1853

I remember that our first crop on our own farm at Cao to the field, take a purunts of satisfaction

There was an eight acre patch of wild strawberries where Indians had cultivated the land on our new claie as the small cultivated berries with a most delicious flavor Everyone that we knew picked and picked but wagon loads rotted on the ground

A good strong, quick stepping ox could ploo acres a day but eons flew so low in '54 that we could kill the They seemed to be all tired out We killed and dried the breasts for winter

Miss Nancy Gillespie--1853

I re the river bank It was as large as the blue California plum and of alike it and have not seen this variety of late years

Mr Isaac Layht the land where Layman's Cemetery now is for 1,00000 of Mr Dumar He returned for us January first '53 Snoo feet on a level and the cold was terrible

We ith our horses and wagon to Chicago froon box on it, adding a strong canvas top We put in a stove and made the twenty-one day journey very coh Wisconsin The only spot I reaes We killed e could eat only We saw many bear tracks We crossed the Mississippi at St Anthony and arrived at our cabin

Our house was only boarded up but father got out and banked it with snow to the eaves, pounding it down hard so it would hold It made it very comfortable

In the early days ammunition was very expensive for the farmer boys who loved to shoot They found that dried peas were just as good as shot for prairie chicken, quail and pigeons, so always hunted theeons were so plentiful that the branches of trees were broken by their numbers They flew in such enormous flocks that they would often fly in at open doors and s They obscured the sun in their flight Looked at from a distance, they would seeht down thirty at a shot

They could be knocked off the branches with a stick while roosting and thousands of theht only 10c or 20c a dozen The ducks used to congregate in such large nuht sounded louder than a train of cars

Mrs Mary Weeks--1853, Ninety years old