Rushford High School - Valley Legend Yearbook (Rushford, MN)

Page 12 text:

Here he made a claim, built a rail shanty, broke up a small piece of ground, and cut and put up hay. In the fall he returned to Houston and, with his family, went into the timber to live in a shanty to get out black walnut logs About the first part of March, 1854, they heard from the Indians that their claim at Rushford was in danger of being jumped, so they packed up their goods and on the following morning started west with an ox-team and reached their destination before sun-down. Luckily, they were able to get across the river on the thin ice. Here they lived in a rail shanty until they built their log-house. (The location of this house was at the west end of the prepent city park, and northeast of the present Guild House. It stood on land that is now usod as a street.) They were comfortable but lonely at first with no human beings to be soon except the Indians, who roamed up and down the Valloy and who made froquont calls in quest of food which they shared liberally with them’1 Early in the spring of 1854 another ’voyager' upon the great tide of emigration, riding its most advanced northwestern wave, driftod into this charming Valley, and being a man of sense, he concluded there was no better place to stop forever. Joseph Otis, the second man who located upon the town sito of Rushford, come afoot and alone from LaCrosse whore he had been working for two years as a millwright. Mr. Otis ’located1 on a claim adjoining Dyer land. The government survey, though begun, was not yet porfoctod at this point, and there was some guessing about the lines, but the Creek served to separate them in a general way, Otis taking the east, and Dyer the west side, In the month of June, two families arrived from 'Wisconsin, those of Duncan Cameron and Roderick McLeod, who settled on farms in Rush Creek valloy near and north of the present city0, When Mr. Otis returned to LaCrosse he gave such glowing accounts of the- Root River Valley that his brother-xn-law, S. S. Stebbins (Mrs. Stebbins and Mrs. Otis wore sisters), who was operating a store there, decided to sell his business and accompany Mr. Otis to investigate the Upper Forks as it was then called.

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The settlement of Rushford began in 1854, four years before Minnesota was admitted to the Union. Since the year of 1938 is the eightieth birthday of Minnesota's statehood. The Valley Legend, published by the Senior Class of 1938 is dedicated to the pioneers. Therefore we feel that it is most fitting and proper to include in our publication, some of the early events of Rushford’s history. For the items appearing below, we are indebted to Stevens Memorial Library, The Rushford State Bank, and Mrs. Mary Manley Layne. Most of the accounts were written by T. H. Everts (Rushford Star, 1873) and Mary I. Cameron West. The first white man who seems to have appreciated and became enamoured of the precise spot where the Rushford of today is built, was E. K. Dyer, a native of Amorica and a sea-captain from the state of Maino— 'a Konebee Coaster'. Mr. Dyer, his wifo, and one child come to LaCrosse in August of 1852. In September they went to Houston by flat-boat where they made a olaim and lived about two weeks in a shanty made of brush covered and banked with clay, Mr. Dyer soon sold the claim and in November moved farther up tho Valley to what is now Cushing's Peak, namod after the first claimant and in whoso house tho two families lived during the winter. Mr. Dyer made another claim near the Peak, but in the spring of 1853 sold it and moved westward to what is now the city of Rushford.

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V In July, Otis and Stebbins on horseback reached ushford whore Mr. StobLins bought a claim from Mr. Dyer for $75. This claim Mr, Dyer profossed to be holding for a friend, and on it he had built a cabin. The cabin on this land stood on tho corner of Grove and Mill strocts. This cabin was next to the first dwelling-houso in Rushford, the first hotel, first meeting-house, first store, and first postofficc . When Mr. Otis and Mr. Stobbins wore returning from LaCrosse to thoir claims in August, 1854, they met a party of eight men on a land-seeking tour from Onalaska, Wisconsin. After reaching here by a long circuitous route, all the Onalaska men except two decided that they had scon enough to Minnesota and returned to thoir homos. Hiram Walker, one of the men was a very enterprising and progressive person who saw tho possibilities of starting a town here . After Mr. Walker had boon up with a hired man named Meacham and put up the walls of a house, he returned to Onalaska again, and sot out with Roswoll Valentine and Joseph Poase in a canoe to explore Root River, and determine its navigability as far as the Upper Forks . I ir. Walker soon utilizod the water power on the land which ho como to possess. By tho spring of 1855 he had a saw-mill in operation. Ho also built a grist-mill which he bogan to run in 1857. Some years later he built a woolen mill and foundry . In tho month of May, 1855, throe inoro homo-sookors arrived—W. i. Snell, Solomon tVost, and Goorge West--from Massachusetts. In tho spring of »56 Mr. G. G. Stevens arrived from St. Charles, Illinois. During tho same summer several families arrived from the oast,