Fifty Years In The Northwest
subsequently destroyed by fire, was built in 1871. Many of the
buildings of ancient Crow Wing were moved to Brainerd. The Leland
House was built in 1871-2; the Merchants in 1879. The post office was
established in 1871, with S. W. Thayer as postmaster. The county seat
was removed to this place in 1871, and a court house and jail built by
L. P. White, at an expense of $971.60. The first marriage, that of
Joseph Gronden and Miss Darby, occurred in 1870. A city charter was
obtained Jan. 11, 1873. The following were the first officers: Mayor,
Eber H. Bly; aldermen, L. P. White, M. Tuttle, W. S. Heathcote, Wm.
Murphy, T. X. Goulett; president of the council, L. P. White.
Brainerd has a court house, built at a cost of $45,000, and school
buildings worth $45,000. The Northern Pacific depot and shops were
built at a cost of $500,000, and the Northern Pacific sanitarium at a
cost of $35,000. The sanitarium is a hospital for the sick or disabled
employes of the entire line of road, and is supported by monthly
installments from the employes. Dr. Beger is superintendent. Brainerd
has one steam saw mill with a capacity of 12,000,000 feet per annum,
another with a capacity of 3,000,000 feet, and many fine business
blocks and tasteful residences. It has also electric lights, water
works, and street cars, and is making rapid progress as a city.
In 1886 a charter was obtained by Charles F. Kindred & Co. to build a
dam across the Mississippi. The dam has been completed at a cost of
$125,000. It has a head of 20 feet, with sufficient flow to secure
25,000 horse power, and a boomage overflowing 3,000 acres, forming a
reservoir 12 miles in length, with side lakes, the whole capable of
holding 1,000,000,000 feet of logs. The whole city machinery,
including electric lights, water works, street cars, and Northern
Pacific railroad shops, will be attached to this water power. Crow
Wing county contributed $50,000 in bonds to the building of this dam.
Brainerd has an opera house, and is well supplied with churches, the
Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians,
Lutherans, and Methodists having organizations and buildings.
L. P. WHITE was born in Vermont in 1811. He was self educated. He was
married in Vermont, came to Chicago in 1858, and engaged in
railroading until arriving at Brainerd, in 1870, where he built the
first frame house. His wife was the first white woman resident of the
city. Since locating at Brainerd, Mr. White has been the acting agent
of the Lake Superior & Puget Sound Company, which has laid out all the
town sites from Northern Pacific Junction to Moorhead with the
exception of Detroit.
ALLEN MORRISON was one of a family of twelve, seven boys and five
girls. His father was born in Scotland, but emigrated to Canada, where
he died in 1812. Two of the boys were in the English Navy, and killed
at the battle of Trafalgar, in Egypt. William Morrison, a brother of
Allen, and several years his senior, was among the early explorers of
Northern Minnesota, having visited the Territory as early as 1800, and
was one of the party who discovered Lake Itasca, the source of the
Mississippi river. Allen's first visit to this region was in 1820,
when he came to Fond du Lac, as a trader in what was then known as the
"Northern Outfit." For several years he was associated with his
brother William in the Fond du Lac department, during which time he
was stationed at Sandy Lake, Leech Lake, Red Lake, Mille Lacs, and
Crow Wing, and when the Indians were removed to White Earth, went
there also, and remained until his death. In 1826 he was married to
Miss Charlotte Chaboullier, who died at Crow Wing in the fall of 1872.
She was a daughter of a member of the old Northwestern Fur Company,
who was a trader on the Saskatchewan, and died in Canada in 1812. Mr.
Morrison was the father of eleven children. Caroline, now in Brainerd,
was married to Chris. Grandelmyer in April, 1864. Rachel resides with
her sister, Mrs. Grandelmyer. John J. and Allen, at White Earth; Mary,
the eldest, now Mrs. J. R. Sloan, at St. Cloud; and Louisa, now Mrs.
John Bromley, at Northern Pacific Junction. Mr. Morrison died on the
twenty-eighth of November, 1878, and was buried at White Earth, in the
historic valley where he had passed so many eventful years. His name,
however, will not perish, nor his virtues be forgotten. In the first
territorial legislature he represented the district embracing the
voting precincts of Sauk Rapids and Crow Wing, and when the present
county of Morrison was set off, the legislature named it in honor of
this esteemed veteran pioneer.
CHARLES F. KINDRED, an active, enterprising citizen of Brainerd, is
doing for his adopted city all that one man can do. Mr. Kindred, for
many years after his arrival in Minnesota, was a trusted agent of the
Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and while in their employ acquired
a thorough knowledge of the resources of North Minnesota, which he
uses to the best interest of the section in which he has made his
home. He is at present superintending the building of the Kindred
dam.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AITKIN COUNTY.
This county consists of an oblong section, six towns in width, lying
between Mille Lacs and Kanabec counties on the south, and Itasca on
the north. It is a heavily timbered region, upon which the lumberman
has drawn for hundreds of millions of feet of lumber, with but little
apparent diminution in the quantity of the supply. The whole surface
is dotted with lakes and variegated with natural meadows. The southern
portion of the county affords good farming lands. Mille Lacs, in the
southern part of the county, is the largest lake, and settlements have
already been made along its shores. Sandy lake is second in size. It
lies on the great portage route from Winnipeg, by way of St. Louis
river to Lake Superior, and has been a noted point on that route for
two hundred years. The missions of the Jesuits, and later, of the
Presbyterians and Methodists, had been located here and abandoned. The
fur trader and the Indian trader have made their headquarters here.
Sandy lake has become historic. The county contains about one hundred
and three townships, which are drained chiefly by the Mississippi and
its tributaries. The Mississippi is navigable from Aitkin to Pokegama
falls, a distance of over one hundred miles.
Aitkin county was created May 23, 1857, but was not organized until
July 30, 1872. The first officers chosen were: County commissioners,
Nathaniel Tibbetts, chairman; Wm. Hallstrom, Wm. Wade; treasurer, Geo.
Clapp; register of deeds, Wm. Hallstrom; auditor, W. E. Crowell;
sheriff, James W. Tibbetts. That part of the county including the
village of Aitkin was organized into a town in 1873; N. Tibbetts,
chairman. The Northern Pacific railroad passes through six townships
of this county, namely: townships 27 and 28, range 22 to 27,
inclusive. While the road was in process of building in 1870,
Nathaniel Tibbetts made a claim where the village of Aitkin now
stands, and built the first house, a hotel known as the Ojibway House,
and the next spring built the Aitkin House. He moved his family here
in 1471. He was appointed the first postmaster at the organization of
the county. The county and village of Aitkin were named after Wm. A.
Aitkin, who was a prominent trader on the Upper Mississippi for a
number of years.
AITKIN VILLAGE.
Aitkin was made the county seat at the organization of the county. It
is pleasantly situated on the west branch of Ripple creek, near the
east branch of the Mississippi. It is now a prosperous and thriving
village with heavy mercantile establishments, two first class hotels,
a good school house, and pleasant homes. One newspaper, the Aitkin
_Age_, is published here. Warren Potter, Richard Mills, William Wade
and George Jenkins are early citizens. In 1873 Capt. Houghton built a
steamer, called the Pokegama, to run from Aitkin to Pokegama Falls.
This steamer was burned in 1878. Capt. Houghton replaced it with a new
boat called the City of Aitkin, which still plies the Mississippi
river between the points named.
Pokegama Falls is a headquarters for lumbermen and a place for general
trade.
WM. A. AITKEN.--The date and place of Mr. Aitkin's nativity are not
positively known. He came to the Chippewa country when a boy of
fifteen, as servant to a trader named John Drew, and in time became a
successful and well known trader. He died at Sandy Lake in 1851. His
life, in common with that of the early traders, was adventurous. He
witnessed many stirring scenes, among them the battle of Stillwater
Ravine, in 1839. Although raised among the Indians, and continually on
the frontier, he was noted for his urbanity and geniality, and is well
spoken of by the early explorers.
ALFRED AITKIN, son of the foregoing, was killed by a Chippewa Indian
at Cass lake in 1836. He had stolen the wife of the Indian, and
refusing to return her to the enraged husband, was shot by him. The
murderer was arrested, taken to Prairie du Chien for trial, tried
before Judge Drum's court and acquitted.
NATHANIEL TIBBETTS was born in New Sharon, Maine, March 21, 1824.
While a mere boy he moved to Piscataquis county, and in 1845 came to
Plover, Wisconsin, and two years later to Stillwater, Minnesota. He
engaged in lumbering until 1850, when he moved to St. Anthony, and
soon afterward made a claim at the mouth of Elk river, then in Benton
county, where he remained until the Civil War, when he enlisted in
Company A, Eighth Minnesota, of which company he was commissioned
first lieutenant, and was afterward appointed regimental
quartermaster. He was mustered out with his regiment at the close of
the war, when he returned to his home at Elk River, and resumed his
old business of lumbering. In 1870 he was engaged in the preliminary
survey of the Northern Pacific railroad, and located the same year at
Aitkin, of which village he was the pioneer, building the first house
and barn, keeping the first hotel and serving as the first postmaster.
He served four years as county commissioner. He has also served as
register of deeds and sheriff. Ten years after his location at Aitkin
he removed to Morrison county, where he now resides. His health is
somewhat impaired from the exposure and fatigue of army life.
CARLTON COUNTY.
Carlton county lies between St. Louis county on the north, Pine on the
south, Douglas county, Wisconsin, on the east and Aitkin on the west,
and contains twenty-four townships. It is abundantly watered by the
St. Louis river and its many tributaries on the northeast, by the
tributaries of the Nemadji and Kettle rivers on the south. It is well
timbered with pine and hardwoods. The St. Louis river affords one of
the finest water powers in the Northwest. The rapids of this stream
extend from the falls at Cloquet to Fond du Lac, a distance of twelve
miles. The channel is rocky, the rocks being of a trappean or slaty
formation, not easily worn by the water, and capable of furnishing
good foundations for dams and mills. The first settlers were A. K.
Lovejoy, Cephas Bradley, Joseph Meyers, Sexton Lyons, and some others.
Mr. Lovejoy died at Thomson, Feb. 11, 1888, aged sixty-three years,
leaving a wife. They had been the parents of twenty-four children,
twelve pairs of twins. The county was named in honor of R. B. Carlton,
who was a representative in the first state legislature. Mr. Carlton
died at Fond du Lac, Sept. 10, 1863.
The county was organized in 1858, and the county seat located at Twin
Lakes, but changed by act of legislature to Thomson. It is subdivided
into five towns, Knife Falls, Mahtowa, Moose Lake, Thomson, and Twin
Lakes. It has a well defined slate stone range running from northeast