NOV. 22, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
657 
The Story of An Early Settler 
W E were living in the State of Ohio, and 
one of our neighbors had gone to the 
then far off land of Minnesota Terri¬ 
tory. He wrote back and induced my oldest 
brother to come out to this country. 
In 1856 he came here, and after a while he 
wrote my father to come out to this beautiful 
country, where the soil was rich and land was 
cheap, and as there were six boys of us, father 
concluded to go to this distant eldorado. He 
and my second brother went to Gelena, the 
nearest point to which the cars came. They 
crossed the Mississippi, and took their satchels 
and journeyed on foot for many days across 
almost boundless prairies, passed over miles of 
land as good as there was out of doors, and 
went further from market every mile, and after 
many weary days of travel on foot, sleeping in 
the open where night overtook them, they 
arrived at this place, a town consisting of a 
log tavern with a board lean-to, a log store 
without any floor, stock mostly a few boxes of 
boots and a barrel of alcohol, and four or five 
other houses. My mother was to come in the 
fall, when the railroad was completed to Prairie 
du Chien. She left Ohio in September, 1857. 
We journeyed westward to Chicago, where there 
was a straggling village, and saw-horses with 
planks laid on for a walk, and the men in the 
cars wondered how any one would think of 
building up a town in such a place. 
We arrived at Prairie du Chien, where Gen. 
Taylor was stationed for a number of years, at 
Fort Crawford, from where Lieutenant Jeffer¬ 
son Davis ran away with his daughter. 
I understand that houses were built here 
before they were in Philadelphia. We crossed 
the Father of Waters on a ferryboat to Mc¬ 
Gregor, Iowa, and there met my father with two 
wagons and three yoke of oxen. On going up 
the hill to the top of the bluff (four miles), one 
of the teams balked and backed the wagon into 
the gully. Mother and we children walked up 
the hill. About evening my father and Frank 
came up with the teams and mother told father 
she would go by stage the rest of the way. 
The tavern had out a sign on which it read. 
"Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow you 
go to Minnesota.” Not very interesting to our 
folks. We went on by stage, and at Postville, I 
think, we were told we would have to wait, as 
the stage was full. A woman that was there 
commenced to cry, saying she had been there 
four days, and they had told her the same story 
every day. Mother told her she was going and 
she could go with her. Mother started out to 
hire a team, when they told her they guessed 
they could arrange it for her to go. She said, 
“Very well, but this woman goes with us.” So 
we all went forward, and in due time arrived at 
Osage, Iowa, where we found we could not go 
by stage to Albert Lea, except in a round about 
way. Mother saw the woman on the last stage 
to her home, and hiring a team, we started on 
our last sixty-mile lap. It was beautiful— 
boundless prairies with tall grass, interspersed 
By HUNAN BLACKMER 
with great beds of wild flowers, that waved in 
the breeze like a green and flowered sea. After 
many miles of prairie we came in sight of burr 
oak openings, and we children thought they 
were orchards, which they resembled very much. 
It commenced to rain and darkness came 
on, and we were cold and hungry. We saw an 
Indian family sitting about a fire without any 
shelter, cooking game on the ends of sharpened 
sticks before the fire. We children were much 
alarmed, as we had heard people tell mother 
she was foolish to go way out there in the 
wilderness and get killed by the Indians. We 
arrived here about 10 p. M. and stopped at the 
tavern above mentioned, where we had to stay 
until father came on with the household goods. 
We had to sleep on the floor. 
Our house was 14 by 18, had a long pro¬ 
jecting roof all shingled with shakes, a window 
with four panes 6 by 8, shaded by the porch 
and it was so dark inside that one could not 
distinguish things for a few moments. A few 
loose boards laid down at one end was all the 
floor there was. 
The country was practically all unsettled, 
many Indians camped about. There were 
sloughs and small lakes and larger ones. In 
the lakes there were fish in large quantities, and 
that was a source of great help to all, as little 
was raised the first year. Game was there by 
the thousands, in the sloughs and lakes, but few 
settlers had guns, and those that did, killed but 
little game—no more than they could eat—as 
ammunition was high and money was scarce. 
The ducks and geese nested about the sloughs 
and lakes, and the sand-hill crane in the open 
prairies. 
To convey an idea of the numbers 
of wild game fowls that gathered in the 
lakes in the fall and formed into flocks, pre¬ 
paratory to their Southern migration, is impos¬ 
sible—thousands and thousands everywhere. 
There would be great flocks rise and fly about 
and alight again, seeming to be practicing and 
drilling for their long flight. I am sure any¬ 
thing I could say of the numbers, no one could 
sense that . did not see them. The prairie 
chickens could be found at every turn. We 
caught some in traps. Partridges were at home 
in nearly every thicket. Moccasin rabbits were 
very numerous. Pigeons came in the spring in 
clouds, and for days they would come flock 
after flock and pick up some of the grain we 
were sowing. Most of them passed on to the 
North, but a few would nest here. They were 
a very foolish bird, for they would light in dead 
trees, and if one loaded light, so as not to make 
too loud a noise, one could kill quite a number 
before they would fly, and almost invariably 
they would return in a few minutes. In the 
fall they would come back and remain a week 
or two, eating acorns. When they would fly up, 
the whole woods would be filled with a rush¬ 
ing sound, as they had a way of striking their 
wings together, like a dove. I have seen boats 
loaded with barrels of them that had been trap¬ 
ped in nets, and squabs that had been pulled off 
the limbs coming down the Wolf River, in Wis¬ 
consin. 
It seemed strange when 1 came back, after 
a number of years’ absence, not to see even one 
of them. 
At last came the breechloaders, and clerks, 
village idlers and saloon men would go out 
with a democrat wagon and return with it full 
of game, and after showing it and bragging of 
their kill, take the game to the lake and throw 
it into the water. This was a common sight. 
The self-hunting dogs do a great amount 
of damage. One morning last summer I saw 
two dogs ranging over the meadows, and every 
time a bird flew up. they ran to where she flew 
from and devoured whatever was in the nests. 
At evening I saw them ranging back; they had 
been at it all day. The number of nests robbed 
must have been large. The house cat is another 
great destroyer of young birds. I saw my cat 
catching birds, and I tried to break her of the 
habit, but could not, so killed the cat, and we 
had twice as many birds after that as in former 
years. 
I came home on a visit, and our folks had 
cats and rats and mice in all the farm buildings 
and house. I got some “rat bane” and spread 
it thin on slices of bread, and spread warmed 
butter over it, cut into about inch squares, put 
pieces into every rat and mouse hole I could 
find, and put pieces in tins in the barn and 
grainery. In the morning it was a sight to see 
the dead and dying vermin, and it was more 
than a year before we saw any more. After 
that, when we saw there was any about, we did 
the same thing, and we had no need of a cat. 
"THERE IS A VEILED BEAUTY.” 
BY ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN. 
There is a veiled beauty in the fading day! 
Whoever will at twilight wander out 
In peacefulness, shall hear the last devout 
And saintly farewell on that gilded way; 
His eye shall see that glory pass away, 
Whispered to sleep by tender, dying doubt; 
O languored eve—engloomer of all rout, 
O soothest murk one moment still delay! 
There is a reverence in the slow failing light! 
Smoothed on the breast of Murmur—less 
And less the reach of shadows—trees 
Soundlessly stirring in forgetfulness: 
The wind’s eternal kiss—low, humming vesper bees 
The sun that sinks into the folds of night! 
SONNET. 
BY ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN. 
When I do take mine ease ’neath sunny skies 
Then am I most content—will I but turn, 
Behold the wide world greets me—I can spurn 
With lordly air the most alluring prize! 
My throne a hillock—lowlands for mine eyes 
To feast upon; twilight fires that burn 
In slumbering radiance—gay or stern, 
A monarch am I—wonder-laden—wise! 
Sweet are these hours of a hopeful love: 
Whoever will Life’s worry quite forget— 
Let him his pillow choose upon the sod, 
Roofed by the sky, benignly arched above; 
And he no more shall turn in pain or fret, 
Resting immortal on the breast of God! 
