Fifty Years In The Northwest
consisting of files of carts drawn by cows, oxen and ponies, and
commanded by a captain elected to the position who exercised over them
a rigid military rule. Their carts were rude, creaking affairs, made
entirely without iron, all the fastenings being sinews and leathern
thongs. This harness was made of raw hides, Indian tanned, and sewed
with animal sinews. Their costume was a happy cross between the
civilized and savage. Their caravans included from 100 to 600 carts,
which were laden with furs, buffalo robes, buffalo tongues, dried
pemmican, etc. As they came a distance of 450 miles, the journey
required many days, but was made in good military order. The raising
of a flag was the signal for starting, the lowering, for stopping. At
night the carts were ranged in a circle about the encampment, and
sentinels posted. Their encampment within the suburbs of St. Paul
attracted great crowds of the curious. In 1857 their train consisted
of 500 carts, and in 1858 of 600, but later, as railroads were built
northward and steamers were placed upon the Red River of the North,
their number gradually diminished and finally their visits ceased
altogether.
CYCLONES.
Recorded and unrecorded, Minnesota and Wisconsin have had their full
share of those atmospheric disturbances that have wrought so much
destruction in the Western States. In the early days, when the country
was sparsely settled and villages and towns were few and far between,
they came and went unnoted, or attracting but little attention. They
left no traces on the plain, and in the forests only a belt of fallen
timber, known as a "windfall." These belts are sufficiently numerous
to establish the fact that these storms were probably as frequent in
early, even in prehistoric, times as at the present. Their movements
are more destructive in later times because of the improvements of
civilization, the increased number of human habitations and the growth
of towns and cities. The tornado has more to destroy, and as a
destroying agent, its movements are better known and more widely
published.
Scientists are not agreed as to the cause of these destructive
phenomena, but enough is known to overthrow the theory so persistently
advanced that it is in consequence of the cutting away of the forests
and the substitution of farms. In fact much of the country was already
prairie land and abundant evidences of tornadoes are found in the
midst of old forests in which have since grown up trees of
considerable size, and this at a period long before the lumberman
commenced his destructive work.
We append a few sketches of cyclones that have occurred in
comparatively recent times.
THE ISANTI COUNTY CYCLONE.
This storm occurred in September, 1865, and spent its fury chiefly in
Isanti county, but extended beyond and was felt even in Wisconsin.
The tornado gathered its wrath in the southwestern region of Isanti
county, in what is called the "Lake Typo settlement," some forty miles
north of St. Paul. It was first discovered in the shape of "two
clouds," as the people there residing expressed it, "approaching each
other from different directions." Suddenly the mingling of these
counter currents of strong winds appeared to form the blackened
heavens into a funnel-shaped mass. The direction of the whirlwind was
from southwest to northeast, and after crossing the St. Croix river
passed through an unsettled portion of timber lands known as "pine
barrens," a growth of scattering pines interspersed with black oaks of
medium size.
On Wood river, Burnett county, Wisconsin, the trunks of pine trees,
three feet in diameter and eighty feet high, were twisted into "broom
splints" and carried high in air. The intervening oaks were also
served the same way; and the whole track of the tornado, from thirty
rods to three-fourths of a mile in width, had left no tree standing.
Pines and oaks were all prostrate, and promiscuously heaped up in
winrows over the ground, their branches and trunks interlocked, and in
some places piled to the height of thirty feet.
The author of this work lost about 10,000,000 feet of pine logs in
Wood river in this cyclone. On Clam river, Wisconsin, for four miles
in length and about half a mile in width, the forest was laid in
winrows, and parties who came through soon after the tempest had to
cut their way.
The tornado, traveling with the velocity of lightning to the
northeast, overtook Dr. Comfort, of Wyoming, as he was crossing
Sunrise prairie with a mule team, accompanied by a hired man. The
doctor and man saved themselves by clinging to some shrubs near by,
but when the fury of the whirlwind had passed, all they could find of
their outfit was the poor mules, half frightened to death, and the
fore wheels and tongue of the wagon. The hind wheels, box, and the
rest of the outfit, together with the doctor's medicine kit, which he
had along, when last seen, were bound zenithward.
Wm. A. Hobbs, late quartermaster sergeant of the Third Minnesota
Battery, Light Artillery, and Orville Grant and brother--sons of R.
Grant, Esq., a farmer living in Isanti county--were out hunting, and
happened to be caught where the storm passed through the heaviest
timber. They saw it approaching, and at first attempted to take
shelter in an old school house near by, but soon saw that was no place
for them and made for an old pine log which they got behind; soon that
commenced to move. Hobbs seized hold of an oak, some ten inches in
diameter, which immediately commenced to be loosened at the roots and
to spin around like a top. The tree was prostrated and he with it--he
receiving very severe injuries. The Grant boys, were also injured, but
none near so badly as Hobbs. The log school house shared the fate of
the surrounding forest. A resident near by states that he saw one-half
the roof sailing upward at least four hundred feet above the tops of
the tallest trees.
THE COTTAGE GROVE CYCLONE.
On June 15, 1877, a terrific cyclone visited the town of Cottage
Grove, Washington county, Minnesota. We append the correct and vivid
description taken from the "History of Washington County:"
"At 9 o'clock P. M. there arose in the southwest a dark and heavy
cloud, attended with loud thunder, vivid lightning and a strong wind.
The cloud moved forward rapidly; soon the rain began to fall in
torrents, when suddenly the wind came dashing with great violence,
sweeping everything before it. There seemed to be two currents of
wind, one coming from the west and the other from the southwest. These
two currents came together in section 22. The stronger current being
from the southwest, the storm took a northwestern direction, and did
some damage in section 27, taking away a portion of the roof of Ethan
Viall's house, and a trunk out of the chamber, no trace of which could
be found. A corn cultivator was taken up, some portions of which were
never found, while other parts were found two miles from the place of
its taking. In section 22, when the currents met, the destruction of
property beggars description. The timber in its track was prostrated;
fences were torn up and scattered in every direction; E. Welch's house
came in the line of desolation; Mr. and Mrs. Welch had stepped out to
look after some chickens in which Mrs. Welch was specially interested,
and, startled by the roar of the wind, were in the act of returning to
the house. When near the door the wind took up the house, bearing it
away, and a stick of timber struck both Mr. and Mrs. Welch, knocking
them down. When Mr. Welch recovered he had hold of his wife, but she
was dead. The stick of timber struck her on the head and caused
instant death. The next object in the path of destruction was C. D.
Tuttle's two story dwelling, located in the northwest corner of
section 26. The main part of the house was torn to pieces and
scattered in every direction, while the wing was left unmoved. The
family, consisting of six persons, fled to the cellar and were
miraculously preserved. The large barn a few rods further on was
completely destroyed. Next in its course was Mr. J. C. Tucker's barn,
the roof of which suddenly passed along on the breeze. At this point
the storm turned, taking a northeasterly direction, and struck the
house of Robert Williams, damaging the house and entirely destroying
the barn. A horse tied to a girder in the barn was found, uninjured,
sixty feet outside of the limits of the building, with the girder
lying across him, and the strap still tied to it. Next in line was a
small lake in the southwest corner of section 23. It was almost robbed
of its treasure. The water and mud was carried a long distance up the
bluffs, fifty feet above the level of the lake. Next came the fine
house of John Morey, giving a portion of its roof to the excited wind;
then passed into the town of Denmark, continuing its destructive
course, killing a horse for W. G. Wagner, near the town line. A man
known as Michael Schull, a farm hand, was taken up by the wind and
dashed against a pile of wood, injuring his brain, causing him to
become dangerous. He is now at St. Peter in the insane asylum. The
destruction of property was great. No accurate account of the amount
of damage done has been compiled. Mr. Tuttle, living in section 26,
suffered the most. He estimated his loss at $7,000. His house was
situated in a valley surrounded by oak trees, and we would suppose was
protected by the strong bulwarks of Nature, and yet house, barn,
farming utensils, and machinery were scattered over the country. The
next morning sheets of tin two feet square, found in Mr. Tuttle's
yard, were supposed to have come from a church in Dakota county.
Portions of Mr. Tuttle's house were found miles away."
The same cyclone visited Lake Elmo and did great damage, blowing down
the depot buildings, Lake Elmo Hotel and other structures. The
buildings and trees of the agricultural fair grounds were destroyed.
Some parts of the buildings were carried miles away by the storm.
THE CYCLONE AT WHITE BEAR AND MARINE, MINNESOTA, AND CLEAR LAKE,
WISCONSIN.
Sept. 9, 1884, a storm arose in Hennepin county and did some damage;
continuing to White Bear lake, Oneka and Grant, in Washington county,
it gathered force and proved very destructive to life and property. As
it passed through Oneka and Grant its path was about ten miles in
width. Churches, school houses, dwellings, barns, grain stacks, and
fences in its way were either partially or wholly destroyed, and the
wrecked property was distributed for miles around. The cyclone passed
on over Marine, Big Lake and Scandia, crossed the St. Croix, passed
over the town of Somerset, Star Prairie, New Richmond, in St. Croix
county, and over Black Brook, Clear Lake, Pineville and Clayton in
Polk county and Turtle Lake in Barron, pursuing the usual
northeasterly direction common to these cyclones, and disappearing in
terrific thunderstorms, in the timbered lands of Barron and Chippewa
counties. An eye witness, Mr. Ivory Hatch, of Oneka, thus describes
the approach of the storm:
"I was standing near a shed in the barnyard, when suddenly the sky
became black and threatening. In about five minutes I saw two
funnel-shaped clouds descend and approach each other. I started for
the house to warn my family, when, as quick as a flash, I was
enveloped in the cloud, and while clinging to a post for safety my
grain stacks and buildings disappeared. The storm did not continue
over a minute and a half. I escaped almost miraculously without a
bruise." The testimony of others in the neighborhood is substantially
the same. In the town of Oneka the destruction was worse than in any
other locality.
In the track of the storm through Washington county not less than
fifty houses were demolished. The loss on each averaged $600, making a