Fifty Years In The Northwest
Kinnikinic, in section 18, township 27, range 18 west. It has one
grist mill and two saw mills, belonging to Cox, King & Goodsall. No
intoxicants are sold here. The Glenwood saw mills, having a capacity
of 3,000,000 feet, are located on the lake shore. In 1868 a limestone
quarry was opened on the lake shore, by Oakley & Nichols. In 1881 the
firm became Oakley & Hall. They have a patent kiln and good machinery,
and some seasons have manufactured as much as 5,000 barrels of lime.
GEORGE W. MCMURPHY was born at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1821. In 1845
he came to St. Croix Falls, and in 1848 to Clifton, where he
pre-empted the beautiful homestead which he still holds, and where he
has successfully followed the business of farming. He has been
repeatedly elected to town and county offices. In 1848 he was married
to Maria A. Rice. Their children are Augustus (resident of St. Paul),
George (a physician living in Ortonville, Minnesota), James A.,
Robert, Albert and Edward, and two married daughters. Mr. McMurphy is
a member of the Congregational church.
OSBORNE STRAHL was born in Belmont county, Ohio, in 1818; came to
Galena, Illinois, in 1838, in 1845 to Mauston and Stevens Point,
Wisconsin, and to Chippewa Falls in 1847. During these years he
followed lumbering. In 1850 he came to the town of Elisabeth, St.
Croix county, which on subsequent division of towns and counties left
Mr. Strahl in Clifton, where he has been engaged in farming. He was
married in 1860 to Rebecca McDonald. They have two sons, Wm. Day,
living in Dakota, Howard P., in River Falls; three daughters, Mabel,
wife of Joseph M. Smith, banker at River Falls, and two daughters
unmarried. Mr. Strahl filled various town and county offices.
CHARLES B. COX was born June 25, 1810, in Chenango county, New York.
He learned the trade of a miller, lived in Ohio seventeen years and
came to Clifton in 1849. He built at Clifton the first saw and grist
mill in the Kinnikinic valley, in 1850. He changed his residence to
River Falls in 1854, where he lived till 1874, when he removed to
California. During the year 1851 he ground three hundred bushels of
wheat, the sole product of the valley.
EPHRAIM HARNSBERGER was born in Kentucky, Nov. 21, 1824, moved with
his parents to Illinois in 1832, and to Prescott in 1847, where he
pre-empted a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. He was married
at Alton, Illinois, in 1858, to Lizzie Johnson. Their children are
Charles, Sarah Etta, and Jennie.
DIAMOND BLUFF
Is a triangular shaped town, the hypotenuse being formed by the
Mississippi river. It contains ten sections and three fractional
sections in town 25, range 18, and five sections and five fractional
sections in town 25, range 19. It is traversed in the eastern part by
Trimbelle river. The town was established in 1857, and the first town
meeting was held that year at the home of David Comstock. The town
board consisted of: Supervisors--James Akers, chairman; Wilson Thing
and C. F. Hoyt; justice, S. Hunter. Susan Rogers taught the first
school. This town has the honor of claiming the first white settler,
aside from traders, in the Upper Mississippi valley. He came to the
site of the present village of Diamond Bluff in 1800, and named it
Monte Diamond. We give elsewhere a somewhat extended account of this
ancient pioneer, with some speculations concerning him and his
descendants that are plausible enough to warrant their insertion. In
historic times a post office was established here in 1854, called at
the time, Hoytstown, from C.F. Hoyt, the first postmaster.
On the organization of the town the name was changed to Diamond Bluff.
Quite a village has since grown up around it. The first frame house
was built in 1855, by Enoch Quinby. The first sermon was preached by
Rev. J. W. Hancock, a Presbyterian minister, for some years a
missionary among the Indians. The first birth was that of Mary Day, in
1851, and the first death that of Daniel Crappers, in 1854.
CAPT. JOHN PAINE.--Jack Paine, as he is familiarly called, was born in
England, and for the greater part of his life has been a seafaring
man. For the past thirty years he has been a steamboat man on the
Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers. He has been married three
times: first in Rhode Island, second to Mrs. La Blond, of St. Louis,
and last to Miss Ressue, of Diamond Bluff. He came to Diamond Bluff in
1848, with four children of his first wife, his second wife having
died childless. He is now living with his third wife in La Crosse.
They have three children.
JOHN DAY was born in Martinsburg, Virginia. In 1850 he and his wife
and three children, with Allen B. Wilson and his wife, came to Diamond
Bluff. Mr. Day is well known as a fearless and enthusiastic hunter. In
1852 he had a close encounter with a large black bear, which, after a
desperate struggle, he killed with an axe. The Indians considered Mr.
Day as "waukon," supernatural, averring that their bravest warriors
would not have attacked singly so large an animal.
SARAH A. VANCE, the wife of Mr. Day, was born in Kentucky. The Vance
family were famous pioneers, and some of them were noted Methodist
preachers. Miss Vance's first marriage was to John R. Shores, by whom
she had two children, one of whom, Isabella, became the wife of A. R.
Wilson.
ALLEN R. WILSON.--Mr. Wilson was born in Kentucky; spent his early
boyhood in Shawneetown, Illinois; was married to Miss Shores at
Potosi, Wisconsin, April 16, 1848, and in 1850 came to Diamond Bluff.
Mr. Wilson took great interest in politics, was an ardent Republican,
and was among the first to volunteer his services for the suppression
of the Rebellion in 1861. He enlisted in Company B, Sixth Regiment,
Wisconsin Volunteers, and fell in battle, Sept. 14, 1862, at South
Mountain. Mr. Wilson was well informed, a close observer of political
events at home and abroad, and was a brave and efficient soldier. He
left five children.
E. S. COULTER.--Mr. Coulter is a Virginian by birth. In early manhood
he traveled extensively as a book agent, and finally settled at
Diamond Bluff, where he successfully engaged in farming and dealing in
wheat and merchandise.
JAMES BAMBER, ex-musician in the British and United States armies.
JACOB MEAD, ex-shoemaker, ex-soldier and miner, a man of superior
natural and acquired talent.
CHARLES WALBRIDGE came to Diamond Bluff in 1852.
JACOB MEAD died in 1884, leaving a large property.
CHARLES F. HOYT, with his wife and one child, came to Diamond Bluff
from Illinois, in 1853.
ENOCH QUINBY was born at Sandwich, New Hampshire; was married to
Matilda Leighton, originally from Athens, Maine. Mr. Quinby and his
wife came from Pittsfield, Illinois, to Diamond Bluff in 1854.
THE FIRST SETTLER.
There is a pretty well grounded tradition that the first white man who
found his way to Diamond Bluff was a French Vendean loyalist of the
army of Jacques Cathelineau; that he fled from France in 1793 or 1794,
landed at Quebec, and was traced by his enemies to Mackinaw and
Chicago, where they lost his trail. He came to Diamond Bluff in 1800,
and named it "Monte Diamond." He had for his housekeeper the daughter
of an Indian chief. He died here about 1824. After his death the
Indians always called the place the "Old White Man's Prairie." E.
Quinby, of Diamond Bluff, to whom we are indebted for this account,
adds: "All the additional evidence I can give in regard to this
pioneer is that prior to 1793 his wife died, leaving him one daughter,
who was deformed. A former friend of his had a beautiful daughter of
about the same age of his own. After the uprising and defeat of the
Vendeans, they became enemies, and he, to save his life, took his
former friend's daughter, instead of his own, and fled to this
country. The father pursued them as far as Chicago, where he saw his
daughter in company with some Indian girls, and having on her person
some ornaments once worn by her mother. He at once seized her and
carried her back with him to France, and the old Frenchman found his
way to Diamond Bluff." Faribault's son,[C] now living somewhere in
Minnesota, wrote me a few years since, inquiring about the old
Frenchman, saying that his grandmother claimed that her husband was a
French nobleman, and that he lived near Lake Pepin. He believed the
old Frenchman was his grandfather. The above statements were
communicated to the late Capt. Orin Smith, of Galena, Illinois, Allen
B. Wilson and myself, in 1854, or in 1855, by an old Frenchman then
residing at Potosi, Wisconsin, who claimed to have seen and gathered
these facts from the old man himself. Capt. Smith was well acquainted
with the Frenchman at Potosi, and gave the fullest credence to his
account.
EL PASO
Occupies township 26, range 16. It is drained chiefly by Rush river
and its tributary, Lost creek, on the west. The two post villages in
this town are, El Paso, located in section 5, and Lost Creek, in
section 3. George P. Walker was the first settler. He built the first
house and raised the first crop; Thomas T. Magee came in 1855. In 1860
the town was organized, Thomas Hurley and Geo. P. Walker being
supervisors. In 1862 Mr. Magee built a saw and flour mill in section
5, and platted the village of El Paso. In 1875 he removed to Clear
Lake, Polk county, of which town he was the first settler. Clara
Green taught the first school in El Paso, in 1861. There is one
Catholic and one Lutheran church in the village. The name El Paso
signifying a crossing, is of somewhat obscure derivation.
ELLSWORTH
Was organized under the name of Perry, March 3, 1857, but in 1862 it
received its present name. It occupies a central position in the
county and includes township 26, range 17. This is a rich farming
town, originally timbered with hardwood. The surface is elevated and
gently undulating. It is drained on the east by the tributaries of
Rush river, but has no large or important streams. The first
supervisors were: P. M. Simons, chairman; Caleb Bruce and Wilson
Kinnie. The first settler was Anthony Huddleston, who came April 23,
1856, and pre-empted the southeast quarter of section 20. On November
26th, of the same year, came Caleb, Elihu W. and Eli T. Bruce, who
pre-empted farms on sections 18 and 19. During the same year Wilson
and Norris Kinnie and David Klingensmith pre-empted farms in sections
18 and 19. Lilly, Miscen, Russ, and Campbell came also in 1855. The
first log house in the town was built by Anthony Huddleston in 1855.
Norris Kinnie built the first in what was afterward the village of
Ellsworth. The first school house, a log building, built was in 1857,
and Mary Filkins, now Mrs. G. H. Sargeant, of Minnesota, taught the
first school. The first marriage was that of Charles Stannard and Mary
Leonard, in 1855. The first birth, that of the twin children of
Wilson. Both died. The first death of an adult was that of Mrs. Jacob
Youngman in the winter of 1855. The post office was opened in 1860,
with Seely Strickland as postmaster.
ELLSWORTH VILLAGE.
The original owners of the southern half of section 18, and the
northern half of 19, Norris Kinnie, Eli T. Bruce, Henry P. Ames, and
Wm. Crippin laid out and platted the village of Ellsworth in 1862. Wm.
Crippin, built a frame hotel there in 1860. C. S. Dunbar opened a
store in 1861. The prospect of Ellsworth becoming the county seat gave
a great impetus to business enterprises. This was decided by a popular
vote in 1861, but owing to some technical defects was resubmitted to
the people of the county in 1862, and then definitely decided. In the
year 1862 the citizens of Ellsworth built a log house in which the
first terms of court were held; meanwhile the county officers had
their offices in the basement of Crippin's hotel. The permanent county