Fifty Years In The Northwest by William H. C. Folsom
1859. Henry F., a son by his first wife, enlisted in 1862, in the
1246 words | Chapter 135
Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, was wounded in 1864, and honorably
discharged.
WILLIAM CLARK was born in New Brunswick, July, 1815. He came to Marine
Mills in 1848, and since has followed lumbering. He married Elisa Jane
Nelson in 1861. Mrs. Clark died in 1879, leaving two daughters.
JAMES R. MEREDITH was born Aug. 22, 1812, in White county, Illinois,
where he lived until eighteen years of age, when he removed to Galena,
where he spent five years in mining. He went thence to Burlington,
Iowa, and in 1849 located in Marine, and was employed by the Marine
Company several years. In 1860 he located upon his present farm. In
1847 he was married to Eleanor Freeman. They have three children
living.
JOHN D. AND THOMAS E. WARD. The Ward brothers are natives of
Massachusetts. They came to the St. Croix valley with their
brothers-in-law, John and George Holt. They have engaged chiefly in
steamboating and river business.
SAMUEL JUDD, son of Lewis Judd, was born in Illinois in 1840. He
graduated at McKendrie College, Lebanon, Illinois, and came to Marine
in 1863, and became a member of the firm of Walker, Judd & Veazie. In
1874 he was married to Amelia D. Flaherty, at St. Louis. Their
children are Orange W. and Lucille M. In 1886 he changed his residence
to St. Paul.
FREDERIC W. LAMMERS was born in Germany in 1829. He came to America in
1843, locating first at St. Louis, where he remained two years. In
1845 he removed to the St. Croix valley, and for several years engaged
in lumbering. In 1852 he settled on a farm in Taylor's Falls, and was
married to Helen C. Nelson, of Marine. In 1865 he sold his farm and
removed to Big Lake Marine. Mr. Lammers has been a public spirited and
excellent citizen. His family consisted of fifteen children; of these
thirteen are living.
JAMES R. M. GASKILL was born in Madison county, Illinois, in 1820;
graduated from McKendrie College in 1843; graduated from the medical
department of the Missouri State University in 1854; practiced
medicine a short time at Centralia, Illinois, and came to Marine in
1855, where he practiced medicine and interested himself in milling,
lumbering and merchandise. He represented his district in the house of
the first legislature of Minnesota, 1857-58, and of the fourteenth and
fifteenth, 1872-73. He served during the Rebellion as surgeon of the
Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteers. He was for many years a trustee of
the Minnesota State Prison. In 1861 he was married to Clara E. Hughes.
They have one son and one daughter.
NEWPORT.
The town of Newport includes fractional townships 27 and 28, range 22,
and part of sections 34, 35 and 36, in township 29, range 22: It was
organized as a town Oct. 20, 1858. The first supervisors were William
Fowler, E. B. Schofield and John Willoughby. The surface is mostly
prairie. This town has some points of great historic interest. Gray
Cloud island, in the southern part, in the Mississippi river,
separated from the mainland by a slough, is the place where, according
to some historians, Le Sueur planted a French fort in 1695. It was
styled the "Isle Pelee," and was described as a beautiful "Prairie
Island."
The description of the island tallies precisely with that of Gray
Cloud, and is applicable to none of the other conjectured localities.
It is mentioned by many antiquarian writers as a place of rendezvous
for French traders during the French domination in this part of the
continent. Gray Cloud has been known as a trading post for the last
hundred years, and has the credit of being the first white settlement
in Washington county, and probably in Minnesota. Here came Joseph R.
Brown in 1838, and here he married the daughter of Dickson, the
trader. Hazen Mooers, one of the commissioners of St. Croix county in
1840, Joseph Boucher and others were living at Gray Cloud when the
Methodist mission was established at Kaposia in 1836. Gray Cloud is
the translation of the Indian name of the island. It was also borne by
an Indian maiden, who became the wife of Hazen Mooers, who seems to
have been a man of excellent repute and considerable influence. The
Browns cherished for him a very warm feeling of regard.
Red Rock, another historic locality, derives its name from a painted
rock which seems to have been held in great reverence by the Sioux
Indians. According to Rev. Chauncey Hobart, a veteran pioneer and
preacher still living in Minnesota, it was the custom among the Sioux
to worship the boulders that lie scattered along the hills and
valleys. When a Dakotah was in danger, it was his custom to clear a
spot from grass and brush, roll a boulder upon it, paint it, deck it
with feathers and flowers, and pray to it for needed help.
The peculiarity of the painted boulder from which Red Rock took its
name is that it was a shrine, to which from generation to generation
pilgrimages were made, and offerings and sacrifices presented. Its
Indian name was "Eyah Shah," or "Red Rock." The stone is not naturally
red, but painted with vermillion, or, as some say, with the blood of
slaughtered victims. The Indians call the stone also "Waukan," or
"mystery." It lies on a weathered stratum of limestone, and seems to
be a fragment from some distant granite ledge. The Dakotahs say it
walked or rolled to its present position, and they point to the path
over which it traveled. They visited it occasionally every year until
1862, each time painting it and bringing offerings. It is painted in
stripes, twelve in number, two inches wide and from two to six inches
apart. The north end has a rudely drawn picture of the sun, and a rude
face with fifteen rays.
Red Rock is noted as the site of a mission planted here in 1837 by the
Methodist Episcopal church, by Alfred Brunson, a distinguished pioneer
preacher and missionary. The mission was originally established at
Kaposia, on the western bank of the river, in 1837, but removed by
Alfred Brunson in the same year to Red Rock. Rev. B. T. Kavanaugh, of
this mission, and afterward a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church
South, superintended the erection of the first buildings. Taylor F.
Randolph and wife were teachers here, as assistants in the Indian
school, and also in a school of mixed bloods and whites. B. T.
Kavanaugh was postmaster in 1841. John Holton was mission farmer in
1841, under a commission from Maj. Taliaferro, of Fort Snelling. The
mission was discontinued in 1842. Mr. Randolph and wife made them a
home in the town of Afton, where both died in 1844.
The first marriage was that of John A. Ford to Mary Holton, daughter
of John Holton, in 1843. The first birth was that of Franklin C. Ford,
September, 1844. The first death was that of a child of Rev. B. T.
Kavanaugh. The village of Newport was platted in 1857. W. R. Brown's
addition was platted in 1874. A steam saw mill was built in 1857 by E.
M. Shelton & Brothers. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1874. A flour
mill was built in its place by Joseph Irish. The first Baptist church
was organized Jan. 18, 1858. The first commodious house of worship was
built in 1878. The Red Rock Camp Meeting Association was organized in
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