A
Review of Early Times in Eastern Portland
(By
James Ruane, Slayton, Minnesota)
That part of the Town of Portland lying east and north of the Crawfish
River was the last part of that town to be settled.
This lateness in settlement was no doubt due to the poorness of the soil,
which in many places was stony, its quagmires and marshes, and its very heavy
timber. The oak openings, more
fertile land, and a smoother surface on the west and south of the river made a
country much more inviting to the settler and held him longer after he had set
stakes.
In 1858, my father purchased forty acres a quarter of a mile north of Van
Deldan Bridge, and late that year we moved from Watertown to open up a new home.
He had previously arranged with one of the settlers in the vicinity to
live in his granary until a house could be built.
My father had come from Ireland several years before but we children came
over in 1857. Mother died at New
York and we children came on to Watertown alone.
To start life on a heavily timbered tract without a house, and with four
small children, the oldest fifteen, was certainly not an inviting outlook.
In the early spring of 1859, a "bee" was held, as was the
custom in those times, and a small log house was erected.
The family moved into this in the spring.
A small clearing was made the first year and this was planted to potatoes
and corn. Additions were made to the
clearing each year. In a few years,
sufficient ground was cleared to raise a crop for market.
With regard to the clearing
of land, the history of one settler is the history of all in that section.
When we settled there, the families north of the river were Michael
Milan, in whose granary we lived the first winter, John McKean, James Stokes,
Henry Yerges, Ernest Swantz, Mr. Valaskey and Henry Winters.
Farther north lived John Vokes, Lafayette Fisher and Thomas Baker.
Of these families, McKean and Milan were Irish, Stokes, Vokes and Baker
were English, and all the others except Fisher were German.
The original settler north of the river appears to have been a man named
Van Deldan of whom little appears to be known by anyone.
He gave his name to the bridge. He
built a house and made a small clearing about twenty rods north of the bridge.
Only the caved-in cellar hole and a few charred logs remained to mark the
spot where he had his residence when we settled there.
Some surmised that he had killed a man and had wandered away into the
wilderness to shun the gaze of men and to stifle an accusing conscience.
As settlers encroached upon his seclusion, he pulled up stakes and left
for more lonely parts. These may
have been mere surmises but his name remains to mark an important point on one
of Portland's important highways.
On the south side of the Crawfish, in 1858, most of the land was
occupied. The families of James
Donahue, Patrick Reynolds, Thomas and Hugh McGovern, John Gingles, William Dunn,
Mrs. O'Meara, John Corcoran, James Murray were settled there.
They were all Irish. Among
the Germans were M. Wolfgram, Mr. Sommercorn, and William and Adolph Geise.
Residing near the latter was an old recluse named Frank Parker who spent
most of his time writing epic poem that would completely eclipse Milton's
Paradise Lost. By way of diversion,
he wrote short poems about people who happened to displease him.
When I left that country thirty-three years ago, he had not yet completed
his great epic poem. John and Arthur
Youker also resided in that section, the latter of the "Plank Road".
Most of these settlers remained on their farms for many years and several
of the places are still owned by the children of the original settlers.
In 1860, from Van Deldan
Bridge to the settlement on Mud Lake in Lowell Township five miles away, there
were but two families, that of James Stokes and my father's family.
This bridge was an important point at that time because it was the only
one on the river for a distance of twelve miles or more.
People from Columbus, Elba and Lowell had to pass that way in driving to
Watertown or to Waterloo.
Each year new settlers came. Among
the early ones were Michael Devney and family, who settled west of the Milan
place. A Mr. Burke from Watertown
built a house on the old Van Deldan place but he never moved there.
He sold the place to a Mr. Baumann, a German whose family resided there
many years. The death a short time
ago of a son of Mr. Baumann, age forty-three, reminds me of the stern march of
time for he was born on that farm soon after Mr. Baumann located there.
Frank Larabee, whose father lived near Portland village, built a house
and made some improvements but did not locate permanently.
He sold to Gottlieb Gaumitz who lived there until his children married. Henry
Walter located on a farm south of Mr. Yerges.
A Mr. Franc located northeast of Mr. Yerges.
William Ott cleared a home in the timber south of Henry Walter.
A Mr. Krueger succeeded the McKean family on the hill on the east side of
the river, southeast of the "Bluff".
Further south, Charles Haseleu, a son-in-law of Mr. Sommercorn, cleared a
farm on the point on the opposite side of the river from Adolph Geise.
A Mr. Grund and his wife, an old couple, located on ten acres just north
of the old log school house. Both
died there and the place came into the possession of Mr. Gaumitz.
William Webb, an Englishman, who lived up near the Fisher settlement,
located on twenty acres northeast of Mr. Gaumitz. In the heavy timber east of
Mr. Stokes, Charley Kohl opened up a farm and in a few years added to his
holdings until he was one of the wealthy men there.
All these farms were small, not many being over forty acres.
To the first settlers, the clearing of the land of timber and underbrush
was the big task.
Timber, that would now bring a small fortune, was burned in great
quantities. Next to this, the hard
work was that of prying out the stones and hauling them into piles or making
fences of them. After 1865, however,
timber began to be of some value. At
that time, the wood was used in firing railway engines and, as the supply of
timber along the railway lines became scarce, a demand arose for that farther
away. In the next few years, the
woods presented a scene of some activity. Hundreds
of cords of wood were cut and hauled to Waterloo and sold to the townspeople,
the brickyards, and to the railroad company.
Soft wood brought about $3.00 a cord and hard wood $4.00 to $5.00 a cord.
This was a source of considerable revenue.
Teams traveled over the ice on the river to within a few miles of
Portland village. Many of the
farmers west of the river and in the vicinity of Portland and Waterloo had
timber lots of five or ten acres north of the river.
From this they harvested their year's supply of fuel every winter.
The woodsman's ax and the jungling of sleigh bells resounded through the
timber from early in January until well along in March.
From early morning until late in the evening, the Crawfish was a busy
thoroughfare so the value of timber increased.
The farmers in this section had two harvests, one in summer when they
gathered the crops on their cleared patches of ground, and one in winter when
they sold off their cord wood. In
selling the cord wood, they were in manner getting pay for clearing off
the land, which was a great advance over burning the timber as had to be done in
the first years of their residences there.
EDITOR
DEMOCRAT:
I
was astonished to see in a recent issue of the Democrat a paragraph in the
History of Portland reflecting on the character of two or three of the early
residents of the town. Of course, it
was an error and illustrates how necessary it is to examine carefully the
evidence in historical matters. For
the benefit of the readers of the Democrat and to correct the misstatements, I
wish to say that the brothers, Aaron, Samuel and Milton Fisher, whom I knew as
well as I ever knew anyone, were instead of being quarrelsome and drinking
people, temperate and peaceable citizens, as good as we ever had.
I was sorry to see the article and wish to make this correction for the
reflection was an unjust one on old and respected neighbors.
Very
Respectfully,
Henry
P. Whipple
Up to this time all the farm work was done by oxen.
The slow moving ox readily stopped when he struck a stone or a root when
plowing. In the early days, his
service was invaluable. He broke up
the land in summer time, hauled heavy loads to town, and did an immense amount
of drudgery. When he got old, he was
turned out to grass and was sold fat in the fall.
Until the land was all fenced off, there was considerable pasturage.
Nearly every settler managed to have a few head of steers to sell in the
fall to provide the few requirements of those hardy pioneers to tide them over
the winter.
For school purposes, this part of the township had been a part of the
Fisher District, but in 1857, a separate school district was organized, and in
1858 a small log school house was built. It
was about 16 x 20 feet, made out of unhewn logs with a door in front, a small
window on each side, and a small window in the rear.
In one corner, there was a small raised platform for the teacher's desk.
The first teacher was Miss Ellen Milan, daughter of Michael Milan,
mentioned above. The pupils were few
and the equipment of the most primitive kind.
Sander's readers and spellers and Thompson's arithmetic were used.
Miss Milan taught but one term. She
married some gentleman named Casey soon after and lived in Milwaukee.
The next teacher was Miss Fannie Vokes, a daughter of another settler
already mentioned. She taught one
term and soon married a gentleman in the Town of Elba.
The next teacher was Miss Ann McKean whose family also lived in the
district.
Her successor was Miss Margaret Kelly of Richwood, a sister of Supt. John
Kelly of Dodge County. Woe to the
boy that would transgress the rules of good society in that school!
She taught for two winters. She
married, raised a large family and died two years ago in Chicago.
In the winter of 1862-1868, David Youker taught.
He received $24.00 a month, a sum that was thought to be great wages at
that time. He boarded with his
brother, Arthur Youker. He was a
splendid young man and a good teacher. Later,
he became a Methodist preacher and last year was stationed at Gowrie, Iowa.
He was succeeded by Miss Mary Dolan of Shields, now a resident of
Watertown. Miss Mathilda Kelly
taught several terms and was succeeded successively by Sophie Foster, Georgianna
Rowe and Nancy Campbell, all of Portland.
In the spring of 1871, your humble servant began teaching in this
district, an occupation which he followed most of the time for eighteen years.
L. H. Mead of Waterloo, later a judge in Northern Wisconsin, began his
public career here in 1873.
The log cabin, which had served as the seat of learning in the wilderness
for eleven years, was replaced by a more pretentious structure in 1869.
The new building was of frame and was located across the road from the
old building. It was furnished with
a dictionary, maps and other modern adjuncts.
From the beginning, there had been a school library but it was very
little used. When the district was
formed, it received half of the books in the library of the Fisher school, but
in the division, it was said that the representative of the Fisher district
selected the choicest books. Among
the books, I remember the "Life of Henry Clay", "Life of General
Francis Marion", "Adventures Among the American Indians",
"Manners and Customs of the American Indians", "History of the
Jews", "The Creole Orphans ", a novel, and "Life of
Napoleon", besides a number of stories and sketches.
For a time, the books were well kept, but later they became badly torn.
They were not kept in the school house but were kept by a librarian
appointed each year. At a time when
reading matter was very scarce, these books filled a much needed want to a boy
anxious for reading matter. The
lives of Clay, Marion, and others furnished considerable inspiration.
I was about the only pupil in the school that patronized the library.
The reference to reading matter reminds me that papers were taken at that
time in that neighborhood. The
Beaver Dam Argus was a weekly visitor at our house during the war.
It was a rabid anti-Lincoln sheet and its criticisms and riducule of that
statesman were exceedingly bitter in both prose and verse.
Its criticism reached the climax when
Lincoln issued his
emancipation proclamation. It
required nearly a column of poetic effusion to do the subject justice.
It recounted his personal boorishness and all the imagined wrong doings
of the president. The
"poet" ended up each stanza with "but his last has made the
nigger the equal of himself". Another
important publication that entered every home was Ayer's Almanac. Aside
from furnishing a panacea for all manner of ills, Dr. Ayer put out an almanac
that was read and reread many times. When
all else failed in the reading line, Ayer's Almanac was at hand ready for
perusal.
Of the boys and girls who attended the little log university in the early
60's, all have passed middle life. Their
sons and daughters have grown to manhood and womanhood and a third generation is
crowding itself toward the middle of the state.
Of the girls, there were Augusta Walter, Louisa Yerges and Delia Ruane.
The former married John Etcheid, the second, Hugh Stokes and the latter,
Martin Stenson of Elba.
All but Hugh Stokes have passed to the great beyond.
Augusta died five or six years ago and her husband followed her to the
grave last year. Louisa died about
twelve years ago. Delia died in 1906
and her husband died last October. Etcheid
lived just south of the Fisher school house.
Martin Stenson and family had lived a quarter of a century in
Minneapolis. "Bill" Yerges
settled on a farm near the old homestead. His
brothers are all located in that section. John
Donahoe died some years ago in Jersey City where he had lived many years.
His brother Farrel lives in St. Paul and the rest of the family have
removed from the vicinity of the old home. Martin
Ruane lives on a farm near Wiota, Iowa and his brother John lives at Marshall,
Minnesota.
In the winter of '61-'62, a recruiting sergeant who was passing through
stopped at the schoolhouse and taked to the large boys about enlisting.
The teacher, Miss Kelly, sought earnestly by looks, to dissuade the boys
from enlisting but her persuasion had no effect.
Two of the boys, Charley Walter and a brother of Mrs. Yerges enlisted.
Two other boys struck out for Watertown the next day to enlist but their
parents followed. As the youngsters
were not old enough, the parents put a veto on the enlistment.
Charley Walker and companion were both shot down before they were a year
in the service. Thus the district
lent its quota of blood to cement the union.
Mary Gaumitz married William Geise Jr. and they and her elder brother and
his family located many years ago near Frederick, S. D., where they were living
a few years ago.
Of the Irish settlers north of the river, my father was the longest to
remain. He left in 1815.
They had all been farmers in the old country.
They came to this country after being impoverished by the famine and
sought employment at whatever occupation presented itself.
They worked on the railroad until they earned enough money to locate on
land, but farming among stumps, stones and swamps was not what they anticipated;
a better opening presented itself on the railroad.
They sold out for more than they paid for their land.
The young people of the Devney family are occupying good positions in the
business walk of life. Mr. Devney
was engaged in railroading many years in Owatonna, Minn., where he and his wife
died within the past few years. One
of the Milan boys became a conductor on a passenger train, a position most any
young man would prefer to farming. Their
successors on the farms had not the hardship of blazing the way in the
wilderness. The Irish settlers were
Catholics, but no religious services of that church were held there.
They attended church at Hoy Hill or at Elba. All of the German settlers
were Lutherans, with the exception of the Gaumitz family.
They belonged to the German Methodist church near Arthur Youkers.
Mr. and Mrs. Gaumitz were very devoted church members and carried their
christianity with them through their daily lives.
Her Lutheran neighbors accused Mrs. Gaumitz of getting the "power at
revival meetings".
In the early 60's, a German Lutheran minister used to come from near
Lowell and hold services in the old log school house about once a month.
He was a kindly, clerical looking gentleman of middle age with an
unpronounceable name. As we lived
close to the schoolhouse, they always borrowed our table when they celebrated
the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. As
the settlers became well off enough to have horses, they drove to the churches
about four miles northeast of the school house and preaching was discontinued in
the school house, but a flourishing Sunday School was conducted in the new
schoolhouse in the early '70's. In
the late '60's, doctrinal differences arose among the members of the Lutheran
Church, which resulted in a split in the congregation and the erection of a new
church not far from the old one, making the two churches referred above.
About 1870, a small Moravian Church was built just south of the bridge.
The Germans were a thrifty, hardworking, industrious people; kind,
religious, good neighbors.
Some of the men who came here from Germany in the early '60's with all
their worldly goods tied up in a red handkerchief are among the wealthy farmers
of the county today. There was one
mysterious death in the district. It
was that of an old German who bought the Milan farm.
The old gentleman had one daughter who married a young man soon after
moving there. A couple of years
after the marriage, the old gentleman was not to be found.
His daughter and son-in-law searched for him but could not find him.
The neighbors were notified and people from far and near turned out to
assist in the search. There was an
old unused well near the house. It
was deep and had but little water in it. When
it was proposed to lower a lantern into the well to see if the old man might
have fallen into it (it was well curbed), the son-in-law objected strongly to
its being done. The searchers,
however, had their way. The lantern
was lowered into the well and at the bottom the body of a man was discovered.
On being hauled up, it was found to be the body of the old man.
He and the son-in-law had not got along well together and suspicion at
once rested on the young man. He was
arrested and tried for the murder but there was not sufficient testimony to
convict him. Superstitious neighbors
told many ghastly stories about the place being haunted.
A semblance of truth was added to these stories by the actions of the
suspected murdered. Although the
house was a good one and the outbuildings good, he built a new house and new
outbuildings on another part of the farm. He
was shunned by the neighbors and in a few years sold out (I have forgotten the
names) and went west.