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

Page 13 text:

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,

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 first religious meeting held after Mr. Snell's arrival was a prayer-meeting at the home of Duncan Cameron, near the city cemetery. The house was of logs, sod-covered, with earth for a floor and hay for a carpet to kneel upon. The prayers offered up were in two languages, the Scotch Gaelic and English. On the following Sunday, he held religious services at the house of Mr. Stebbins. One of the first religious organizations in Rush-ford was that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Reverend David Tice organized it in 1860, and it flourished for some thirty years. The church building was constructed in the same year that the church was organized, and is still standing, but it has long since been converted into a dwelling-houso. (it is known as the Eide house, and is now owned by the 0. H. haasaruds.) There were a good many of the Methodist faith in the early days of Rushford. During the most active period of this church, the Reverend M. 0. liacNiff was the pastor. The Presbyterian Church bell is not only Rushford's oldest boll, but it is said to bo the first bell metal brought west of the Mississippi River. The Reverend Mr. Snell, thor. nastor of the church (it was of Congregational denomination then) took the small sum that had been raised by the Ladies' Aid Society, collected some more from the citizens hero, and went east whore he succeeded in raising sufficient funds to buy the bell. 'William Cullen Bryant, tho American author, was one of the contributors. The bell was bought in Massachusetts, and shipped to aCrosso. It was brought from there by team by Reuben YJhittemore, my brother-in-law (by Mary Cameron Tfest). Hugh Lampuian rang the bell for tho first time on Christmas Eve in 1860. Mr. Lampman had built the belfry. The Luthern Church parish was organized in 1855 and was incorporated in 1861. Reverend Jensen, tho first pastor, served from 1859 to 1868 .