"History and Description of Lyon County, Minnesota", 1884
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Town of Eidsvold.
Eidsvold, town 113, range 43, is located in the northwest corner of the county, joining
Yellow Medicine county on the north,
Lincoln county on the west and the towns of
Westerheim and
Nordland on the east and south.
The first settlement is said to have been made by
Nels Torgerson in
June 1871. The same year
Swend Peterson and
Ole Esping took claims and settled there. An organization was effected in
1873, and the first election held
Sept. 20, electing the following officers:
H. T. Oakland, chairman;
Nels Torgerson and
A. Amundson, supervisors;
John Coleman, clerk;
O. B. Ringham, assessor,
Swend Peterson, treasurer;
H. D. Frink, justice;
O. H. Esping and
G. Amundson, constables.
In
1878 Mr.
Frink opened a store west of the present village of
Minneota. He had been appointed postmaster of the postoffice of
Nordland in
1872, and continued in that office till
1875, when it was transferred to
N. W. L. Jager and moved to the present site of
Minneota on the southwest quarter of section 25. Mr.
Jager had opened a store in
1874 at the old site of
Nordland and had moved it to the new site in
1875, this being the first store there. The second store was started in
Nordland in
1875 by Dr.
T. D. Seals.
Christian Lee ran a blacksmith shop on section 26 for two years previous to this. In
1876 the railroad company laid out the present village of
Minneota, which, however, went by the name of
Nordland till it was changed by act of legislature in
1878 to its present name.
Rev.
J. Berg held the first religious services in
Eidsvold in the section house at
Nordland. The services were Lutheran. There are now two Norwegian Lutheran and one Icelandic Lutheran organizations.
The first public school was taught by
O. H. Dahl, a railroad section house being used for school purposes till
1879 when a school building was put up at
Minneota.
The first marriage was that of
J. J. Wallen and
Annie Olson.
Oct. 24. 1874.
The first birth was made a good omen for the town in a pair of twin girls to
Swend Peterson and wife in
1871.
The death of a daughter of
Ole Peterson in
1872 was the first death.
In
1879
Bishop Ireland made a purchase of the railroad company of a large tract of land in
Eidsvold and adjoining towns, and located a Catholic colony there. A considerable portion of this first purchase was in
Eidsvold, and the population of the town was at once increased by an immigration of English and Irish Catholics, under spiritual charge of Father
M. J. Hanley the first priest of the colony. These immigrants were, as a rule, too unskilled in the business of western farming to make a suddenly large success of this colonization scheme and many of the first immigrants after a time left the colony for other pursuits; but new and better efforts were made by Rev.
Hanley and his successor, Rev.
Louis Cornelis, and a class of more practical agriculturists were soon gathered into the colony from
England,
Ireland,
Canada and
Belgium,and Rev.
Cornelis built a church and parsonage at
Minneota, the only Catholic church in the county.
The colony is now divided into two branches with two priests. Father
Lee at
Minneota and Father
Devos at
Ghent, some seven miles east of
Minneota, and numbers about one hundred members who are fast becoming thrifty and prosperous farmers.
The Winona & St. Peter R. R. cuts through the town of
Eidsvold diagonally from southeast to northwest, giving the town the advantage of a near market and trading point in
Minneota, and greatly enhancing the valuation of the real estate of the town.
The two branches of the
Yellow Medicine river flow through the town, the south branch from south to north and the north branch from west to east, with a branch from the south in the west part of the town. This makes
Eidsvold exceptionally well watered, and gives it rich meadows and vaina de grazing fields as well as unsurpassed farming lands. The grain crop of
Eidsvold has almost always been a large yield, and the town is one of the most fertile districts of the west.
The assessor's report for
1883 gave for the town 1,812 acres in wheat, 556 in oats, 278 corn, 60 barley, 22 potatoes, 2 flax, and a total acreage under cultivation of 2,735. It had also 65 acres of forest trees growing.
The last assessed valuation of the town was $66,761, and its highest recorded vote, that of
1882, was 104.
School district No. 55, organized in
1882 has a good school house and an enrolled scholarship of 40. School district No. 39 has the same enrolled scholarship and is in the north east part of the town.
One of the curiosities of
Eidsvold is a fossil tree found on the north branch of the
Yellow Medicine river by
Ole O. Svennes in
Dec 1875. The larger piece is now in the yard of
Samuel Hovland in section 1. It is 25 inches in diameter and over six feet long, showing part of the roots, knots &c. This piece has been named
Dale Gudbrand, after an old Norwegian chief who bought against
St. Olof, the king who christianized
Norway.
In the center of section 2 stands an old land mark in a big cottonwood nearly 90 feet high and visible for 15 miles.
A fine truss bridge spans the north branch of the
Yellow Medicine on the section line between sections 1 and 2. It is 146 feet long, built by the town at a cost of $600.
During the big flood of
1880 several very strange fish were caught in the
Yellow Medicine, never seen there before. One is claimed to have been a codfish. It was a fresh one.