"History and Description of Lyon County, Minnesota", 1884
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Town of Clifton.
Clifton is on the east side of the county, joining
Redwood county, with
Stanley north,
Amiret south and
Lake Marshall west. It is town 111, range 40.Its surface is all prairie with very little standing or running water. The outlet to
Lake Marshall cuts the southwest corner, and is its only stream. On section 28 and some adjoining territory a rather swampy lake called
Goose Lake is found, and constitutes the town's lake inventory. The prairie soil of
Clifton, however, is unsurpassed for fertility, and its meadows and grazing lands are among the best in the county. While the town has no native timber, there are numerous thrifty groves of cultivated forest trees, some very fine, but a few years hence the monotony of prairie scenery will have disappeared in one of nature's pleasantest landscapes, prairie and grove combined. The lands of
Clifton are almost free from waste pieces, and it will in time, when its coming rich farms are opened and improved, become one of Lyon county's best agricultural townships.
The first settlers who located homes in
Clifton came in
1872.
J. A. Dillman, a native Nova Scotia, who lives on section 20, took the first claim in
June 1872, although he did not move his family there till the next
May. He came from
Hennepin county. In
1872, also, settlement was made on section 6 by
K. D. Barnes and
C. A. Cook from
Iowa and
G. P. Ladenburg, from Hennepin Co., on section 18. The next two or three years brought in several settlers, and the town was organized in
1876, the 100th birth year of the
U. S.
Like the naming of a new child the christening of
Clifton was arrived at through much discussion. The town first caught the name of
Edenview, a name conceived with
June landscapes and an active imagination as a basis, but through the more practical ideas of
Christopher Dillman was changed to
Clifton. This name of course, means a cliff town, and is appropriate for this town because there isn't anything that the most vivid ideality could distort into a cliff within twenty miles or so of it. The cliffs of
Clifton are not a foot high, and raise rutabagas and wheat in immense quantities.
The first town meeting,
Oct. 6, 1876, elected as the first town officers,
A. J. Waite, chairman;
G. P. Ladenburg and
Christopher Dillman, supervisors;
R. D. Barnes, clerk;
J. A. Dillman, assessor;
C. A. Cooke, treasurer;
G. W. Mossman J. Lynn, justices;
H. J. Newhouse and
W. B. Franklin, constables.
Miss
Ida Mead taught the first public school in the town in
1876. There are now three organized school districts with school buildings on sections 8, 11 and 23.
The first public religious services in the town at which preaching was done were conducted in
1875 by Rev.
H. C. Simmons, a Congregational minister of
Marshall, and a church society has since been organized there preaching being supplied from the church in
Marshall. Services are still held in the school house.
In
1883
Clifton had reported 2,205 acres under plow; 1,115 wheat, 605 oats, 308 corn, 116 barley, 18 potatoes, 11 beans, 23 flax.
The vote of the town in
1882 was 31.