Winona County, Minnesota CHAPTER THIRTY: REFLECTIONS
Pages 298-306 From the book
"History of Wabasha County" Published in 1884
Concerning Wabasha and Winona Counties in Minnesota
There is no doubt but what Haddock and Murphy were conscientious in their acts when they located the colony at Rolling Stone. They reported to the association that their village site was on the Mississippi, and it was believed that such was the case. Mr. Haddock was the leading spirit of the organization, and apparently controlled it by a sort of mesmeric influence. For the first three months the colonists had almost unbounded confidence in their leader. He made a mistake when he assumed it to be a fact that Straight slough was a navigable channel; and, firm in his belief, he impressed the same idea on the settlers, and it was a year or two before they were fully convinced to the contrary.
Mr. Haddock assumed that the reason why Minnesota City was not made a landing-place for the steamboats was because the management of the boats was in the hands of men interested in rival town sites. This was believed by the settlers, because repeated applications had been made to have the boats land passengers at the colony during the high water, but without success; none would make the attempt.
When the flood in the river had subsided and the water was confined to its ordinary channels, and about the time that the report of the committee which had been sent to explore the back country was received, it was considered important that a landing should be established on Straight slough. The matter was freely discussed in the meetings of the association, and referred to a committee for investigation.
This committee, with other members equally interested in establishing the fact that navigation was practicable, made, as they supposed, a thorough survey of Straight slough, from its head, above Minnesota City, to its mouth, a short distance above Johnson's landing. A chart was drawn showing soundings, etc. The committee reported that there were no serious obstacles in the way, and that the slough was navigable for the largest boats running on the upper Mississippi.
At the time of this survey the slough next to the bluff, which empties into Straight slough nearly opposite Minnesota City, was given the name of Haddock slough, the name by which it is now known. Mr. Haddock had selected the shore next to the bluffs, above where Mr. Burley now lives, as a proper landing-place for immediate purposes. A landing-place on the slough below was selected for future improvement.
The committee were instructed to present the matter before the proprietors of the steamboat lines at Galena, by whom it was referred to Capt. Smith. Notwithstanding their chart demonstrated the feasibility of a free passage through Straight slough, Capt. Smith considered the route impracticable; and, as it was charged against him that his opposition to it was because of his holding an interest on Wabasha prairie, he consented to allow his own boat, the Nominee, to make a trial trip under the pilotage of the committee.
The success of the committee thus far was duly reported to the Association. So confident were the colonists of the arrival of the steamboat that many of them went down to the landing at Wabasha prairie to meet the boat, while the whole settlement prepared to give it a joyful welcome. For this trip the Nominee was given in charge of the first clerk, with instructions to go through the slough, if possible, without delay. The boat, with Mr. Brook as captain, arrived at Johnson's about noon on Sunday. As the trip was a holiday excursion the settlers on the prairie were invited to make a social visit to the colony.
The Nominee started up Straight slough under the guidance of the committee. After ascending for a mile or so the boat struck a bar and came to a sudden stop. By some oversight this obstruction had not been noted on the chart. After repeated attempts to pass this barrier without success, the officers of the boat decided that Straight slough was not navigable by the Nominee at that stage of water.
This failure was a great disappointment to the settlers, both at Minnesota City and at Wabasha prairie. The boat swung around and steamed back to Wabasha prairie, and, after discharging the excursionists, started up the river under the guidance of her own pilot.
The failure of the Nominee to go through Straight slough was a serious blow to the colony. The ideal maritime port of Mr. Haddock was unfortunately at least six miles from any practicable steamboat landing. Still the colonists were not wholly disheartened. Many of them believed that the slough might be made practicably navigable by opening a passage over the bar, the only obstruction that was supposed to exist. During the following winter the colonists built a large log building on the bank of the slough opposite Minnesota City, which they designed for a warehouse and landing-place. A road was surveyed across the bottom, but never improved. No passengers or freight were ever landed there. No attempt was ever made to improve the navigation of Straight slough.
The extreme high water was followed by an extreme low stage of water in the river. The summer of 1852 was hot and dry, and the miasma eliminated from the sloughs and large marshes in the immediate vicinity of Minnesota City rendered that locality particularly unhealthy. Serious bilious diseases afflicted the settlers in the colony. They were mostly from the Eastern States, not acclimated, unprotected by suitable dwellings, and a large majority of them incompetent and unsuited for pioneer life. A few deaths occurred early in the season, and exaggerated accounts of the sickness and mortality at Minnesota City were put in circulation and prevented many from locating there. The most common disease was intermittent and remittent fevers.
There were no regular medical practitioners belonging to the association or living on the west side of the river; domestic treatment and patent medicines were generally depended on. Quinine was quite extensively relied upon in these malarious diseases. On of the colonists was attacked with intermittent fever, for which a neighbor recommended quinine. He sent for a pound or two of quinine by a friend who had business at St. Paul. From insufficient funds only four ounces were procured. When the bill of $20 was presented the exorbitant charges of the St. Paul druggist was strongly condemned. The neighbor who had prescribed the article was called in to dose out the medicine, and he explained that it was a dram or two he had recommended him to send for instead of a pound or two. "The Squire" said, in relating the incident, "I knew nothing about the stuff ~ any way, it was no serious mistake, because it was needed in the settlement, and the neighbors took it off my hands without any pecuniary loss."
It was said that not a settler in the colony escaped an attack of fever and ague. Robert Pike, Jr., in a letter published in 1854, says, "Although most were prostrated by sickness, only fourteen deaths occurred (in 1852) and a majority of these were young children. The wonder is that the mortality was not greater."
Among the deaths which occurred was that of Mrs. Haddock, the wife of the president of the association. Mr. Haddock went down to New York city and brought her here to make her a home in the colony he had labored so hard to build up. She arrived on the 13th of July and died on the 24th of August.
After the death of his wife Mr. Haddock became disheartened and completely discouraged. Many of the settlers were compelled to leave because they could find nothing to do by which to earn a living. The most of them were mechanics from the city of New York, and they went down the river to find employment. Although the association maintained its organization, it was no longer attractive to Mr. Haddock. It had apparently accomplished all that could be expected from it. With a large party of his friends Mr. Haddock left the colony on the 11th of September and went down the river. He stopped for awhile at Dubuque, and mover from there to Anamosa, Jones county, Iowa, where he engaged in publishing a newspaper, using the press and material designed for a printing-office in Minnesota City.
Although the organization was kept up in the colony during the next year, but comparatively few members of the association remained to become citizens of this county.
Quite a number of the members of the association lived on their village lots in Minnesota City until after the survey of public lands in this part of the territory. Several of them then made claims of the locality they were occupying according to the divisions made by the government surveyors, without regard to the previous divisions made by Mr. Haddock.
The town site of the Western Farm and Village Association was never made a matter of record. The whole village plot was absorbed by claims which were pre-empted as homesteads by their resident claimants. The plot of the original village of Minnesota City was thus wiped out ~ swept entirely away. The name has been preserved for the locality, and a more diminutive and modern village has grown up under it, on what was originally the claim of Israel M. Noracong.
The original village plot was pre-empted by T. K. Allen, A. A. Gilbert, H. B. Waterman, Robert Pike, Fr., James Wright, O. M. Lord, Hiram Campbell, S. E. Cotton and D. Q. Burley, all members of the association. Each of them had held claims in other localities, which were abandoned to enable them to share in the spoils of the dead metropolis of the colony.
H. B. Waterman and family have continuously occupied the same locality he settled upon in 1852, when he first came into the colony. When Mr. Waterman came to Minnesota City he built a very comfortable house, a part of it of logs and a part of frame and boards. This he inhabited for several years. After the government survey was made he selected this locality as a homestead, and claimed a quarter-section of land in the vicinity, which he pre-empted after the land-office was opened at Winona.
With the exception of a large and comfortable dwelling-house and a good barn, which stand in a beautiful grove on a sightly elevation, with a small field of cultivation, but little improvement was made on this claim until within a few years past. The table on which it lies was covered with groves of oak. At this [writing?] timber is cut away and the clearing enlarged [so?] a fine farm is becoming developed.
Mr. Waterman was a lawyer by profession when he joined the colony, but he never practiced his profession in Minnesota. He had but little taste for agricultural pursuits, and but little inclination to make it an occupation. He made the farm his home without making the cultivation of the soil his business.
In November, 1852, Mr. Waterman was appointed by Gov. Ramsey one of the justices of the peace for Wabasha county. He was subsequently elected to the same office, and held the official position of justice of the peace over twenty years for Winona county, in the town of Rolling Stone, where he resided. He was also elected judge of probate at the election in the fall of 1853.
The first case on his docket in 1852 was Jacob S. Denman vs. individual members of the association. This was a matter which grew out of the claim difficulty already mentioned. These members of the association went on to Denman's claim, destroyed his fences and burned his rails, with the intent to drive him off the claim. Denman refused to leave, and sued them for damages to his property. The matter had been commenced before Squire Allen, but when Squire Waterman received his commission the case was discontinued and again brought on before the new justice of the peace, where it was settled by the members of the association paying the costs of prosecution and the damages assessed.
Robert Pike, Jr., made a claim among the village lots of the colony on the same table on which the school-building now stands. He here used his pre-emption right and made a farm of part of the original village. A part of this claim is still in possession of Mrs. Pike, his widow.
Mr. Pike came to Rolling Stone early in May, 1852, and at once became prominently active in the enterprises of the association to develop the resources of the country and build up the colony. His eccentric genius and zealous efforts made him popular in the settlement. Soon after his arrival he was appointed surveyor for the colony, [and] explored a road to the Minnesota river. He was chosen as a proper person to be appointed postmaster. He was elected justice of the peace, served as county commissioner and as county surveyor. During his whole life he was active in all of his public duties.
Robert Pike, Jr., died about the middle of April, 1874. At the time of his death he was interested in an effort to start a colony in the vicinity of Lake Kampeska, Dakota Territory. His widow is yet a resident of Minnesota City. One of the two children who came here with her in 1852 died many years ago. The other is the wife of Frank D. Stewart, living in the town of Rolling Stone.
Mr. Pike was in many respects a very remarkable man. Naturally ingenious, he made mechanical improvements a study. On most of the questions of the day, religious and political, he espoused the radical side. Among his many friends, his special peculiarities were overshadowed by the open-handed generosity of the man toward his fellow-man.
As a specimen of his eccentricity, his business card has been copied from the "Winona Republican," as regularly advertised in 1856, as follows:
"Robert Pike, who writes this ditty,
Lives at Minnesota City;
Is Postmaster, Magistrate,
Buys and sells Real Estate,
Conveyancer and county Surveyor,
(The City's small and needs no Mayor),
Sectarian rules he dares resist,
And thinks Christ was a Socialist.
Loving mankind and needing dimes,
He waits to serve them at all times."
When disaffected members of the association decided to abandon the colony, O. M. Lord purchased their interest in such of the village lots as were in the vicinity of where he resided; and after the government survey, when the village plot was comparatively abandoned, he made a claim of the quarter-section on which he was living and pre-empted it. The village lots surveyed by Mr. Haddock for the association, that were included in this claim, are a part of the homestead on which the Hon. O. M. Lord now resides.
The first claim selected by Mr. Lord was before he joined the association, while on the first exploration made into the country back from the Mississippi. This he abandoned for another about three miles above Minnesota City, in what is now known as Deering's Valley, where he then proposed to establish a stock-farm. On account of its isolated situation he did not move his family there, but located them in the settlement or village. Like many others, he also made other selections of good claims which were marked with his name.
From the time Mr. Lord came here in the spring of 1852 to the present time he has been prominently before the public, in very many instances intimately connected with events that make up the history of Winona county. Owing to his habitual modest reserve, no record of these instances has ever been compiled for reference. It is indeed questionable whether a connected biographical sketch of this pioneer settler has ever been given to the public. Advantage of a long-time acquaintance and personal friendship has been the source of the following memoranda of events in history with which he has been connected.
End of Chapter
From the Webmaster: I looked on "Mapquest" to see if I could find "Straight Slough." Instead, I found "Haddock Slough," a very insubstantial little tributary running parallel to and between Highway 61 and the main channel of the Mississippi. I wonder if it was named for Mr. Haddock. With my very limited knowledge, I would say that the problem these settlers faced in not finding a suitable place for a steamboat landing near Minnesota City was that the land on either side of the main channel of the river is strewn with tiny lakes and tributaries. They should have looked for a location further upriver where the land is solid right up to the main channel.
