Читать книгу Old Rail Fence Corners - Various - Страница 18

I came to Minneapolis on the Ben Franklin. She was a wood burner and every time that her captain would see a pile of wood that some new settler had cut, he would run ashore, tie up and buy it. A passenger was considered very haughty if he did not take hold and help.

My father built his house partly of lumber hauled from Stillwater, but finished with lumber from here, as the first mill at the foot of First Avenue Southeast was then completed. It had one saw only and so anxious were the settlers for the lumber, that each board was grabbed and walked off with as soon as it came from the saw.

The first school I went to as a boy of fourteen, was on Marshall Street Northeast, between Fourth and Sixth Avenues. It was taught by Miss Backus. There were two white boys and seven half breed Bottineaus. It was taught much like kindergarten of today—object lessons, as the seven half breeds spoke only French and Miss Backus only English. McGuffy's Reader was the only text book.

The Indians were much like white people. The Sioux boys at their camp at the mouth of Bassett's Creek were always my playfellows. I spent many happy days hunting, fishing and playing games with them. They were always fair in their play. The games they enjoyed most were "Shinny" and a game played on the ice in the winter. A stick with a long handle and heavy smooth curved end was thrown with all the strength possible. Some could throw it over a block. The one throwing it farthest beat. I suppose what I call "shinny" was really La Crosse.

What is now Elwell's Addition was a swamp. I have run a twelve foot pole down in many parts of it without touching bottom.

Mr. Secomb, the father of Methodism in Minneapolis, was going to St. Paul to preach. He took a dugout canoe from the old board landing. His friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, now that he practiced it.

The peculiarity of the swamp land in St. Paul was that it was all on a ledge and was only about two feet deep. You could touch rock bottom anywhere there, but here a swamp was a swamp and could be any depth.

In 1848 half breeds had gardens and raised famous vegetables up in what is now Northeast Minneapolis.

I once took my sister over on the logs to pick strawberries on the end of what is now Eastman Island. They were large, very plentiful and sweet. Almost every tree that grew anywhere in the new territory grew there. Black walnut grew there and on Nicollet Island.