Part 28 (2/2)

War, horrid war, approaches to your walls”

All able-bodied patriots enlisted,the number, with a promise from the stay-at-homes to take care of the crops and look out for the interests of the family

Then came hardshi+ps and troubles to which pioneer life could not be coed to see crops lost for lack of help to harvest theh worthless as there was no sale for them, neither was there male help sufficient to cultivate the farovern the soldiers, who at best received only a beggarly pittance One night, alone with my children, I akened by a knock on theand a call, ”Hurry! Leave at once The Indians are upon us, scalping as they come” With the little ones I fled across the fields to the nearest house, a half mile away, later, to find this a false alarain it proved false, but was no easier borne for it was believed the truth All night long ere kept to the highest pitch of terror expecting every ed on without this culmination

My husband died just before the war closed His nurse at the hospital wrote me of his serious condition and I started at once for the hospital in Louisville There were no railroads in the country at that ti that point To show the contrast between traveling then and now, it took me over teeks to reach Louisville and when I arrived at the hospital found that my husband had been buried a week before my arrival The nurses and officials at the hospital, while exceedingly busy, wereto me pleasant recollections of my husband's last days

I recall only two pleasant instances in the otherwise unhappy experience of our separation occasioned by the war These were the furloughs which brought hi for a few days, and later when he was sent hoiment

Does the luxurious life men and women of today enjoy, develop character, consideration for others, generosity and sy pioneer days? If not, where lies the blae Loren W Collins--1852

In 1853they found a lynch court in session A man named Gorotten into an altercation with a squatter by the name of Samuel Mitchell These men were Irishmen, Gorman a Catholic and Mitchell a Protestant Gorman had filled Mitchell's left aret out of the country with his family, within twenty-four hours He had staked out the clai house and had ready for crop about two acres of land My father had 10000 in gold with him, probably more money than any other man in the community possessed at that time

Gorman sold out to him for the 10000 and father took possession

There were then a dozen or fifteen settlers in that vicinity, a them the Goulds, the Mitchells, Mr Abbott and Mr Gates There ca, who lived i that summer some fifteen acres were broken up and the two acres which had been previously made ready for seed by Mr Gorman, were planted to corn and potatoes Father hired a yoke of oxen to use during the summer and kept one cow

Father returned to Massachusetts and in the winter we came to Buffalo by rail In early May we embarked on the steamer ”Nominee,” which was then the fastest boat on the river At the head of the flagstaff was a new broom which indicated that the boat had beaten every other vessel then running on the river north of Galena The Captain was Russell Blakeley who forto the Packet Company

We reached St Paul about ten o'clock on May seventh and I re which attracted my attention more than any other was the newly tri There were at least fifteen steamboats at the lower levee e arrived there, all busy in unloading They were packed with passengers and freight co down they carried very little, for there was nothing to shi+p The first shi+p of 1855 For two or three years after that nearly all the flour and grain used in the territory was brought froon from the boat and we made our way up a very steep hill from Jackson Street to Third From there ent up Third to the corner of Wabasha, where father bought some flour and feed and we drove back to the boat About five o'clock in the afternoon the No at least one-fifth of its passengers and freight We tied up at the ferry boat landing, at the foot of the hill under the old fort, and began to take off our cattle and freight The hill was very steep leading up to the fort and father, aided by the boys, began to take our goods in son loads to the top of the hill, so that we could properly load them Uncle William, my mother, Aunt Isabel and the small children had been transferred at St Paul to a small steamboat called the ”Iola,” which was to take the, a mile or two froons was left at the top of the hill while father went back for oods I was told to take care of the cattle A the cattle was a white heifer, a very wild aniave me the rope to hold, while he went down the hill I put the rope around one hind wheel of the wagon thinking I could hold the aniht, six or seven soldiers cauard duty and when they passed ave a jerk upon the rope and necessarily upon the wheel The wagon had not been properly coupled, and when the aniht pressure upon the wheel, the hind wheels separated from the front, and the wheels, the heifer and the boy, went very hastily to the foot of the hill Part of the tiround, some of the time it was the heifer, but it seereater portion of the period consureat consternation not only a the people who had just left the boat It was my first encounter with the United States Army and I was badly scared

About ten o'clock after we landed, we started three wagons with a pair of oxen for each and about ten head of cows and young stock It was a beautiful night, with full ton Creek, we stopped to graze the cattle and to rest

We all gotbefore ere able to start the cavalcade We arrived in sight of our future home, under most auspicious circuhtly e ca house in the edge of the woods, with a stovepipe through the roof and the s out My uncle Sherbuel had reht hold this claim of my father's and the one next to it, which had been selected forof a hunter and trapper, and had ood assortment of furs, otter, wolf, mink, fox and those of s the hides at the tiht and salted several hundred pounds of bass, pike and pickerel

Father had little money left and ithout seed, except potatoes, for about three acres of our land Potatoes were of very little value and it was doubtful if it would pay to plant theround father concluded that he would seed the three acres with potatoes, of which he had plenty of the kind known as Irish Reds, a round potato of exceedingly fine variety He sowed a few acres of wheat, two or three acres of oats and planted two or three acres of corn and of course, we had a garden We had to build a yard for the cattle at night, so-pens Luely of logs They had to be very well built, strong as well as high, in order to keep cattle and hogs out of the fields I reht and what she could not cli under Many a time in the su back into the pig-pen

I had a most tremendous appetite Our food consisted mostly of potatoes, bread, wheat or corn, beans and plenty of ga a few hundred feet in almost any direction We had no well and all the water we used was hauled froed up a crotch of a tree upon which was placed a water barrel and this was dragged back and forth by a yoke of cattle Starting froood luck if we reached the house with half of it

In the sue, we had a great fight with the blackbirds They would swar open the heads of the ears, would practically spoil every ear they touched Scare-croere of no service in keeping the birds off, and finally the boys were put into the fields, upon little elevations uns loaded with powder and shot

We killed hundreds of birds in order to save the corn and had good crops of wheat and oats and we also had a e in fact, that we had to build a root-cellar in the hillside out of logs We dug potatoes and picked the the dereat that father sold bushels at 105 a bushel This gave hiht a pair of horses

There were plenty of Sioux Indians living in the vicinity of Shakopee A reddish colored stone, about two feet high stood a halffrom Minnetonka to Shakopee Around this stone the Indians used to gather, engaged apparently in so kinni kinic

My cousin William and I raised that su been brought froons with them and with oxen as the motive power started one afternoon for St Anthony We had tountil we came within two miles of the fort Then we turned towards our destination It was a long and tedious trip We caht and did not reach the west bank of the Mississippi River opposite St Anthony until three o'clock the next afternoon We fed our cattle in a grove not far from where the Nicollet House now stands, then started for the ferry, which swung across the Mississippi River about where the stone arch bridge now is The island was heavily ti out at a bridge on First Street South We got up onto the street just about the ti out of the mills, sold our watermelons and went ho It was a three days trip and a very tiresome one for the boys as well as for the cattle

A friend by the name of Shatto and I took up a claim but were hailed out When the storm ceased, I crawled out and looked around My stove was broken, everything ater soaked, except some provisions which I had in a bucket which had a cover and my cattle had disappeared I consideredI could do was to start for the hotel at Kenyon, some three miles away I was drenched My boots, all wore boots in those days, were soaked ater and very soon hurt my feet so I had to take thereat destruction which had been done by the hail There was not a whole pane of glass in the little village and the inhabitants were engaged in patching up their ith boards and blankets, as best they could The crops were entirely destroyed Many people had suffered by being struck by hailstones, sos