Fifty Years In The Northwest - Folsom William Henry Carman

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settler (1875), and Stephen H. Whitcomb the second. The first school house was built in 1875, and the first school was taught by Clara Davis in the same year. The village has now a good graded school with three departments, Charles Irle, principal. Its two church buildings, Congregational and Methodist, were destroyed by the cyclone of 1884, but are being rebuilt. The Swedish Lutherans have a church a mile from the village. Chas. Decker was the first postmaster; A. Symme & Co. were the first merchants; P. Gates, M.D., the first practicing physician; F. M. Nye the first lawyer. The first marriage was that of John C. Gates and Ella Scovill. The first birth was Chas. W. Whitcomb, and the first death that of a child of Hans Johnson.

      PINEVILLE

      The town of Pineville, a railroad station and village in section 9, is a lumbering centre. The Pineville Lumbering Company have here a saw mill with a capacity of 7,000,000 feet. The logs are brought on wooden railways three to ten miles. P. B. Lacy & Co., of Hudson, are the proprietors.

      Frank M. Nye was born in Shirley, Piscataquis county, Maine, in 1852. His parents removed to Wisconsin in 1854. He was educated at the common schools and at River Falls Academy. He came to Clear Lake in 1879, and was elected district attorney for Polk county in 1880, and representative in the Wisconsin assembly in 1885. He removed to Minneapolis in 1887.

      EUREKA

      Eureka embraces township 35, range 18 and a fractional part of range 19. The west part is somewhat broken by the St. Croix bluffs; the remainder is undulating and capable of agricultural improvement. There are many good farms in this town. There are a few small lakes in the eastern part. Eureka was set off from St. Croix Falls, and organized Dec. 16, 1877. The first supervisors were Lucius A. Harper, Jens Welling and William Booth. The first settlers were L. A. Harper, John C. Beede, Henry Cole and others. There are three post offices in the town, – Harper, Cushing and North Valley. At the mouth of Wolf creek, in the extreme northwestern section of this town, J. R. Brown had a trading house in the '30s, and Louis Roberts in the '40s. At this place Alex. Livingston, another trader, was killed by Indians in 1849. Livingston had built him a comfortable home, which he made a stopping place for the weary traveler, whom he fed on wild rice, maple sugar, venison, bear meat, muskrats, wild fowl and flour bread, all decently prepared by his Indian wife. Mr. Livingston was killed by an Indian in 1849.

      In 1855 Carma P. Garlick surveyed a quarter section here and laid it off into town lots, and had lithograph maps published, calling the prospective village Sebatanna, an Indian town signifying "Water Village."

      Charles Nevers settled here about 1860, and has now a fine farm and good buildings.

      FARMINGTON

      Farmington was organized as a town in 1858. It contains forty-two sections of land, in township 32, ranges 18 and 19, with some fractions of sections on the St. Croix. It is a rich agricultural town, well diversified with prairie and timber land. Its western portion, along the St. Croix, has the picturesque bluffs common to that river, with some unusually beautiful cascades and hillside springs, of which the most notable are the well known mineral spring and the springs at the lime kiln. The mineral spring is situated on the St. Croix river, at the base of the bluff, and about one mile and a half below Osceola Mills. A beautiful hotel was built in 1876 on the cliff above, at a cost of about $20,000, which became quite a popular place of resort until 1885, when it was burned. It has not been rebuilt. The property was improved by Currant & Stevens, but afterward sold.

      The following analysis shows the chemical constituents of a gallon of the water of the spring:

      South Farmington Corners has a prosperous cheese factory, owned and operated by Koch Brothers, erected in 1883, turning out in 1884 sixteen tons of cheese and in 1885 over twenty tons. South Farmington has a Catholic church building.

      The first crops in Farmington were raised by Wm. Kent on a farm near Osceola in 1846, and the same year Harmon Crandall and Richard Arnold improved land and raised crops not far from the present village of Farmington. Here, owing to the sandy nature of the soil, well digging proved rather perilous to the two farmers. Mr. Arnold attempted to dig a well in a depression, a sinkhole, in the prairie. As he dug deeper the sides of the well caved in, almost burying him. He managed by his own utmost exertions and those of his friend Crandall to escape, but left his boots deeply imbedded in prairie soil.

      In 1887 the Soo Railroad Company bridged the St. Croix, at the cedar bend at the south point of the leaning cedars, and extended their grade along the base of the precipice overlooking the river above, and commanding an extensive view of bold, picturesque and beautiful scenery.

      BIOGRAPHICAL

      Harmon Crandall. – The Crandall family were the first to settle in Osceola Prairie, in the town of Farmington. Mr. Crandall moved to his farm in 1846, and lived there many years; sold out and removed to Hudson, where, in later life, he became blind. He had three sons born in Farmington. In 1882 he moved to Shell Lake, Washburn county, where he died, Aug. 8, 1886. Mrs. Crandall died May 11, 1888.

      Samuel Wall. – Mr. Wall was born in 1824, in Shropshire, England; went as a British soldier to the West Indies in 1840; two years later came to New York City; one year later to St. Louis; in 1844 to St. Paul and in 1846 to the St. Croix valley, where he made a permanent home at the lime kiln, which he bought of William Willim. He was married to Anna Maria Moore in 1857. They had been educated as Episcopalians, but are now Catholics and have educated their children in that faith in the schools at St. Paul. Mr. Wall served five years in the British army for thirteen pence a day, but West India rum was cheap, only ten pence per gallon, and this, Mr. Wall pathetically remarked, "was an unfortunate element for the lime-kiln man." After twenty-six years of struggle Mr. Wall came out victorious and now strongly advises all young men to "touch not, taste not, handle not," anything that can intoxicate. The writer trusts he may stand firm.

      William Ramsey was born in Ireland in 1814, and came to America with his parents in his youth, first settling in Nova Scotia. In 1834 he came to Washington county, Maine. In 1839 he was married to Sarah Stevens, at Crawford, Maine. In 1849 he went to California. In 1850 he returned, and located on his farm in Farmington, Polk county, where he still resides, an efficient citizen, who has borne his full part in the organization of town and county, and filled various offices.

      Hiram W. Nason. – Mr. Nason was born in Waterville, Maine, in 1792. When of age he settled in Crawford, Maine. In 1852 he was married. He came to Polk county, and settled in Farmington in 1853. Mr. Nason died in 1859. Mrs. Nason died some years later. They were members of the Baptist church. Their children are Joel F., Levi, Merrill, Crocker, Albert, James, Maria, wife of Thos. Ford, of Farmington, and Frances, wife of Moses Peaselee, of Farmington. Mr. Ford died in 1880. He was a well to do farmer. Mr. Peaselee, also a farmer, has served as sheriff of Polk county.

      Joel F. Nason. – Mr. Nason was born Aug. 31, 1828, in Washington county, Maine. He was married to Bertha Hanscomb, of Crawford, Maine, in July, 1851. Their children are Everett, Fred, Louisa, wife of Albert Thompson, and Bertha. Mrs. Nason died in 1862. Mr. Nason was married to Mary Ann Godfrey, of Osceola, in 1867. Mrs. Nason died February, 1885. He was married to Miss Fanny Field, of St. Croix Falls, in 1887. Mr. Nason settled in Farmington in 1852. He engaged in lumbering many years, and was called by his fellow citizens to fill several important offices. He served eight years as county clerk. He was appointed receiver of the United States land office at St. Croix Falls in 1871, which office he resigned in 1884, when he was elected state senator.

      John McAdams was born in Tennessee in 1808. He was employed for many years on the Louisville (Ky.) canal. He was married to Eliza Robinson in 1840. Mrs. McAdams died in 1844, leaving one son, Melville, born 1842, who came with his father to the St. Croix valley in 1849. He first located at Osceola, but in 1854 removed to Farmington, where he died in 1883. Mr. McAdams was a mineralogist of some ability.

      Charles Tea was born in Pennsylvania in 1817; came into the St. Croix valley in 1849; was married in 1850 to Mary McAdams, sister of John McAdams, and in the same year settled on a farm in Farmington. In 1880 he removed to Southern Iowa.

      GARFIELD

      Garfield

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