Fifty Years In The Northwest
an unscrupulous and worthless fellow. As a matter of course, his
establishment being to many the chief attraction of the place, it was
called by his nickname. The Indians would travel hundreds of miles to
_the place where they sell Minne waukan_ (whisky). The location was
near the once well known Fountain Cave. The name of "Pig's Eye" might
have been perpetually fastened upon the young city but for the timely
arrival of Father Galtier, who gave to it the name of St. Paul,
because, as he says in a letter to Bishop Grace, referring to the fact
that the name St. Peter (Mendota) had already been affixed to a place
some miles above, "As the name of St. Paul is generally associated
with that of St. Peter, and the Gentiles being well represented in the
new place in the persons of the Indians, I called it 'St. Paul.'"
It does not appear that Father Galtier was ever a resident of St.
Paul, as he only came at stated times to hold services and administer
the sacraments. The name Pig's Eye was subsequently transferred to a
place several miles below, where it is still retained. The best known
of the first settlers of St. Paul are B. Gervais, Vetal Guerin and
Pierre Bottineau. The two former gave to Father Galtier the ground
necessary for a church site and cemetery. "Accordingly," writes the
good father, "in the month of October logs were prepared and a church
erected so poor that it would well remind one of the stable at
Bethlehem. It was destined, however, to be the nucleus of a great
city. On the first day of November in the same year I blessed the new
_basilica_ and dedicated it to St. Paul, the apostle of nations. I
expressed a wish at the same time that the settlement would be known
by the same name, and my desire was obtained." During the fall of 1841
Father Augustin Ravoux arrived from below and became a resident of
Minnesota and later of St. Paul. In 1841 Rev. B. T. Kavanaugh
established a mission at Red Rock. Henry Jackson came from Galena the
same year, established a trading post and did well. He was afterward a
member of the first territorial legislature and of the first town
council. Jackson street perpetuates his name. Sergt. Mortimer and
Stanislaus Bilanski also came in 1842.
The accessions of 1843 were John R. Irvine. C. C. Blanchard, J. W.
Simpson, A. B. Coy, Wm. Hartshorn, A. L. Larpenteur, Scott Campbell,
Antoine Pepin, Alexander Mege, A. R. McLeod, Alexis Clautier, Joseph
Gobin, David T. Sloan, Joseph Desmarais, Louis Larrivier and Xavier
Delonais. These mostly engaged in trade. Messrs. Irvine, Blanchard,
Hartshorn and Coy, and later, Mege, were associated together. Some of
the last named accessions of 1843 were Canadian French, half-breeds,
or allied by marriage to the Indians. There were other settlers of
whom we can find only casual mention, probably transients or
adventurers.
The prominent accessions of 1844 were Capt. Louis Robert, Charles
Bazille, Wm. Dugas, Francis McCoy and Joseph Hall. Louis Robert was a
trader, Bazille was a carpenter and built this summer for Capt. Robert
the first frame house in St. Paul. This house was built of hewn
lumber, sawed lumber not being obtainable. It was on the lower levee,
and was used as a warehouse but was moved to East Fourth street,
where, as No. 58, it was still standing a few years ago. Dugas was a
millwright and built a saw and grist mill on Phalen's creek (spelled
in an old deed Faylin's creek). The mill was a failure. Dugas was a
man of some prominence and represented the New Canada precinct in the
first territorial legislature.
McCoy and Hall were carpenters. This year the governor of Wisconsin
Territory appointed Henry Jackson a justice of the peace. Jackson,
before his commission arrived, married an eager couple by bond, they
giving bond to reappear when he should receive his commission and be
legally united. Jackson was justice of the peace, postmaster, hotel
keeper, legislator, and clerk of court combined in one.
This fall Father Galtier was transferred to Keokuk and Father A.
Ravoux took charge of the churches at Mendota and St. Paul. Rev. J.
Hurlbut, a Methodist missionary, held the first Protestant service,
using the house of Henry Jackson for that purpose.
The first deed on record bears date of April 23, 1844, and transfers
from Henry Jackson, St. Croix county, Wisconsin Territory, to William
Hartshorn, of St. Louis, Missouri, for a consideration of $1,000, half
of the following tract of land in St. Croix county, Wisconsin
Territory, being the place where the said Jackson now lives, situate
immediately on the Mississippi river and known as the St. Paul
landing, containing three acres, with all buildings and improvements
thereon. The permanent accessions of 1845 were Francis Chenevert,
David Benoit, Leonard H. La Roche, Francis Robert, Augustus and David
B. Freeman, W. G. Carter and Charles Cavileer. La Roche was a
carpenter, but engaged in trade. He bought the land on which the
Merchants Hotel now stands for $165, and the year following built a
cabin of tamarack logs, which was known as the St. Paul House. This
property he sold to S. P. Folsom. La Roche died at Crow Wing in 1859.
W. G. Carter, better known as "Gib" Carter, was a member of the
Stillwater convention in 1848. He died in 1852. Francis Robert was a
younger brother of Louis Robert. He died in 1849, from an injury
received while running the St. Croix rapids in a birch canoe.
Chenevert clerked for Capt. Robert. He was unmarried, and died in
1865. Of Benoit little or nothing is known. The Freeman brothers were
engaged in trade in connection with Hartshorn and Randall. David died
in 1850, and was buried by the Odd Fellows, the first Odd Fellow
funeral in the Territory. Augustus Freeman died in New York. Cavileer
was a saddler, and was connected at first with the Red Rock mission.
He was territorial librarian for awhile, and is now a resident of
Pembina. Miss Matilda Ramsey opened a school (the first in St. Paul)
and taught a short time, when she was married to Alexander Mege, and
the school was abandoned.
Alexander R. McLeod, who came from Selkirk settlement in 1837 with
Pierre Bottineau, erected in 1845 and 1846 a log house between the
Catholic church and Jackson's store. This was the first house built in
St. Paul expressly for a hotel. It was afterward enlarged and called
the Central House, and was kept by Robert Kennedy and others. The
second deed on record bears date of May 1, 1845, and transfers, for a
consideration of $500, from William Douglass to H. H. Sibley, of
Clayton county, Iowa, lands situate on what is known as Faylin's
(Phalen's) creek, and more fully known as Faylin's falls, 100 acres,
where said Douglass now lives. This was a mortgage deed. A subsequent
deed conveys the same premises from Edward Faylin to Wm. Douglass, for
a consideration of $70. In February, 1846, a quitclaim deed conveys
the same tract to Alexander McLeod.
The settlers in 1846 were William H. and William Randall, Jr., father
and son, James McBoal, Thos. S. Odell, John Banfil, Harley D. White,
David Faribault, Louis Denoyer, Jo Monteur, and Charles Roleau.
Randall, Sr., engaged in trade and became immensely rich, but was
wrecked in the financial panic of 1857. He died in 1861. Randall, Jr.,
is best remembered as an artist and caricaturist of no mean ability.
He died in 1851. McBoal was also an artist, the first who pursued
that calling in St. Paul. He was a member of the territorial council
in 1849-50, and was adjutant general of the Territory during Gov.
Ramsey's administration. He died in Mendota in 1862.
Odell had been a soldier, but on being mustered out at Fort Snelling
came to St. Paul. He died in 1879. We have made mention of White in
biographical sketches. Crittenden went to Crow Wing and represented
the Twenty-first district in the first state legislature. Denoyer
married a sister of Louis Robert and in 1850 removed to Belle Plaine.
David Faribault was a son of Jean Baptiste Faribault. He now resides
in Dakota. Banfil removed to Manomin, and represented his district as
senator in the first state legislature.
The writer of these sketches visited St. Paul in 1846, and was
entertained at Jackson's hotel, which he well remembers as a log
building, one story high, with store and post office in the east end,
a dining room in the west end, with small, low sleeping rooms in the
rear. The hotel stood on a romantic elevation, a precipitious bluff,
and commanded a magnificent view of the river and valley. Louis
Robert's tamarack pole store was located east of Jackson's, under the
bluff, and directly on the bank of the river, a good steamboat landing
in front. West of Jackson's was J. W. Simpson's store, and still
further west the store of Faribault & Co., beyond which were two small
dwellings, all these buildings fronting the river. Still further west,
Alexander McLeod was building a handsome hewed log house. On the next
rise of ground stood the Catholic church. On the next plateau the
store of Wm. Hartshorn, and near a small creek the dwelling of John R.
Irvine. There were two residences on a plateau a short distance north
of Jackson's hotel. There were in all five stores, one tavern and a
few dwellings, mostly built of logs. A few United States soldiers and
Indians were lounging about the stores, some drunk, some sober. Such
was St. Paul in 1846. The settlers of 1847 were Jacob W. Bass, Harriet
E. Bishop, Benj. W. Brunson, Dr. J. J. Dewey, G. A. Fonrnier, Simeon
P. Folsom, W. H. Forbes, Aaron Foster, Daniel Hopkins, Parsons K.
Johnson, C. P. V. Lull, and W. C. Renfro. Bass and Johnson had been in
the lumber business at Chippewa Falls. On arriving at St. Paul Mr.
Bass leased a hotel on the corner of Third and Jackson streets, known
as the St. Paul House. He was appointed postmaster in 1849, and in
1852 opened a commission and forwarding warehouse on the levee. Mr.
Brunson was a surveyor, and, assisted by his brother, Ira B., laid off
the town plat of St. Paul, also a plat known as Brunson's addition, in
the fall of 1847. He was a member of the first and second territorial
legislatures, and justice of the peace for several years.
Miss Bishop was one of the company of teachers sent West by Gov.
Slade. She organized the first permanent day school and the first
Sunday-school in St. Paul. The school house was a cabin on the corner
of Third and St. Peter streets. Miss Bishop, later Mrs. McConkey, was
the author of a valuable book of frontier sketches entitled "Floral
Homes." She died in 1884.
Of Mr. Forbes mention is made in biographical sketches. Aaron Foster
came from Stillwater. He was a carpenter by trade. He married Fanny
Mortimer, daughter of Sergt. Mortimer. He died in 1864. S. P. Folsom
is mentioned in biographical sketches. Dr. Dewey, the first practicing
physician in St. Paul, was a member of the first territorial
legislature, and established the first drug store in Minnesota.
Parsons Johnson, a descendant on his mother's side of Jonathan Carver,
engaged in tailoring, the first of his trade in St. Paul. He was a
member of the first territorial legislature.
Cornelius V. P. Lull was a carpenter. He served as sheriff in 1849,
and still lives in the city. Daniel Hopkins engaged in general
merchandising. He died in 1852. W. O. Renfro, a cousin of Henry
Jackson, had studied medicine, was a young man of ability but addicted
to drinking habits. The winter after his arrival he wandered forth,
suffering from _mania a potu_, and froze to death near the bend in
Phalen's creek.
This year was memorable for the organization of a regular steamboat
line from Galena to Mendota and Fort Snelling. The steamer Argo was
purchased for the trade. M. W. Lodwick was made commander and Russell
Blakely, clerk. The Argo was designed to make weekly trips, but sank