Sociability Run: Jefferson Highway

[Note — General Manager McDougal of the Pershing Way [Association], who was for a short time Publicity Commissioner of the Jefferson Highway,  admits that he appropriated from the Jefferson many of the successful methods he is using on the Pershing. He also admits they are pretty good. 

We likewise are going to appropriate the story of his trip to Winnipeg, and in doing so likewise admit it is pretty good. That Manager [Herbert F.] McDougal has a microscopic eye, a retentive memory and a happy way of telling it is evidenced by what he saw and tells of his trip. 

Judging from his experience at the "Line", he should have borrowed the Jefferson's Rabbit Foot. 

Mr. McDougal's story will be read, with interest by the J. H. family, especially those who "made the trip" last July.  The following is an excerpt about the final leg of the run...]

AT Hallock the P. W. runs onto the Jefferson Highway marks and continues with them the rest of the way, going through Northcote, Humboldt, St. Vincent and Noyes to the International Boundary.

The Jefferson Highway touring group paused their sociability run 
in Emerson for "short" speeches and this group photograph...

Pro-lemonaders made another hit when Bronson was reached, where "most excellent lemonade was served" by the ladies. Decorations were mainly American and Canadian flags. Mayors Hodgson and Behrman spoke. The hotel menu at Hallock, a noon control, was a novelty, and uniquely distinctive over any other during the entire trip. Part of it was in French, and embraced dishes served especially in New Orleans. Banners and flags formed the principal decorative feature. Luncheon was served at the hotel and restaurants in the city. The Custom Houses of Noyes and Emerson were soon passed, owing to arrangements having been made beforehand. Short speeches were made by Governor Pleasant and Mayor Hodgson at Emerson.¹

We had been sweeping along across the prairie, much of the time with no fences along the road, and came to a turn to the east along what, as memory recalls it, looked like the back side of a farm yard with perhaps an orchard bordered with forest trees in a sort of a scrubby growth. Straight ahead and eighty rods beyond was a dingy railroad station, and just before we reached it a turn to the right and north.

Before us loomed a signboard, high on stilts, announcing the "International Boundary," and there was a moment of bewilderment as we saw in one direction a road turning off to the station and in the other a pair of ruts curving around as entering the farm yard.

The original routing of the Jefferson Highway entered Canada directly from Noyes,
Minnesota into Emerson, Manitoba, Canada.   This is the approximate route the JH
followed. [Source:  Two Lane Traveler] NOTE:  The red line leading off 171 going
north was the 'Emerson Road' (dirt when I was growing up, now plowed under...)  

Over this seeming by-road was the remains of an arch¹, placed there last July to welcome the Jefferson Highway tourists on their great sociability run, and the presence of the arch gave rise to the theory that this must be the entrance to the Dominion. Pursuing the tracks a bit further we were convinced that we really were on the highway into the neighboring nation, for at the side of the road was a glorified Keep Off the Grass Sign, bearing a solemn warning against going across the line without proper formalities.

The road took another turn and crossed a railroad track, which itself had crossed another track just previously. The one was the Soo, which ran along the margin of Canada, and the other was the Canadian Pacific, both heading for Winnipeg. All our pictures of an imposing entrance into Canada were dashed, as almost any country cross road is as pretentious. But still there was something picturesque about it and something that impressed itself upon the memory.

There are two railroad stations — one on the American side and one across in Canada, and at each immigration and customs officials, representing the two governments, are on guard. It looked as if it was a pretty simple thing, after all, getting into a foreign country, but it took just about an hour to do it, for a becapped official, swinging down the track to reach the switch tower and climb its dizzy steps to the bird-like house above, said that there was nothing to do but to report to the officials at the Emerson station, which took time and proved not to be the right thing, for we were first to go a mile or such a matter up town and be interviewed by the immigration official and get a card and then go across the street to where the Union Jack flew over the government building, and make our clearance at the customs office.

THE customs officials were polite, but inquisitive. They wanted to know how many in the party, what make of car, how many cylinders, its license number and factory number, whether it was equipped with windshield, top, speedometer and clock, and how much it cost, what baggage we carried and whether we had any camping equipment and how long we expected to tarry in Winnipeg.

Then a very nice old gentleman came down and rummaged through our suit cases in a formal and perfunctory way, withal rather thorough. But first there had come up the serious question as to the very typewriter on which this is being written. It is one of the folding sort and a constant companion. The G. M. would be lost without it, and the work of the organization would be hampered. It was rather important that it, too, make the trip into Winnipeg, for there would be the matter of correspondence and perhaps some magazine stuff.

But the officials were stern about it. They said that the wee machine was dutiable and that we had better put it in hock, so to speak, at the customs office to be picked up on our return, and to borrow a machine in Winnipeg. It looked as if the typewriter was to part company with the official car.

But the missus, waiting all this time down in the auto, said it didn't sound reasonable to her that a car and all that luggage could go in and a mere typewriter barred.

So we went back and argued that the typewriter was a tool of the trade and analogous to a monkey wrench in the tool box.

But these English are a fixed folk. They all had a look at the proposition, and turned it down; it wasn't regular. Then we offered to put up a cash bond, and finally succeeded in parting with $13 to that end, the money being in good American currency. Seeing the brand of money on deposit, a kind gentleman in the office suggested that we would be entitled to that sort back, as it was at a premium in Canada. So, on our return, we got $13.40 in Canadian currency, taking it across to the bank to be exchanged for American money. The rate of exchange had fluctuated during the walk across the street, however, and the bank demanded 50 cents instead of the 40 we had been paid.

And even at that we afterward discovered that we had a few Canadian bills in our script and had to give a discount on them.

BUT our troubles were not over yet. We discovered that our Canadian immigration permit, nor our clearance papers from the customs were sufficient; the becapped gentleman had deceived us. We had to go all the way back to the American side, to that little station of Noyes, to see a blue-eyed Irishman named Fahey in order to get a formidable document showing that Uncle Sam was willing to relinquish us for a few days.

That document had to be turned in to the Canadian customs officials, and then we were ready to go — all excepting the changing of a flat tire that had grown discouraged and depressed during all this formality. If we had known about the rest of that night that tire would have worried us.

But let us move on.

Over a bridge, combined wagon and railroad, under a viaduct we turned and then we were on the road to Winnipeg, sure enough. A little further and we were as good as in France, for, turning into a little village that proved to be Letellier, we grew uncertain of the way and stopped at a house to make inquiries if this were truly the way to Winnipeg.

The answer was "Oui, oui," which the doughboys all will recognize at once.

Turning just at the edge of that little village, which was mostly edge, we were at once in the old Hudson Bay Company's trail, a road 132 feet wide that goes in windings along the Red River of the North right into Winnipeg and becomes Main street, remaining 132 feet wide. That and Portage avenue, at right angles and of the same width, are boasted the widest streets in the world.

The boundary is sixty-eight miles from Winnipeg, and all the tedious details at Emerson, had taken time. It was 5 o'clock when we left Emerson, and that was Canadian time, the Canadians not having turned their watches ahead as the States had.

So we rather stepped forward a little on the gas, for there was a certain strangeness about the country that urged us to get along before dark covered the unknown roads. The trail at places was little more than sections of a fenced pasture, with ruts winding about between an endless row of telephone and telegraph poles. Winnipeg is paving out for miles and someday will have a concrete road to the border, no doubt, but nature still holds sway largely as yet there.

Jefferson Highway Sociability Run, NOLA to Winnipeg
L'Observateur (Reserve, Louisiana) · 28 Jun 1919

And we came into St. Jean Baptiste, a French town of 500 with only two English families in it. We sought to replenish our gas supply and pulled up at a garage and said "Five gallons." The tank filled up as we filled with astonishment. The answer was that we were getting British Imperial gallons, 277.274 cubic inches to the gallon, instead of our own United States gallons of 231 cubic inches. Five of our British cousin's gallons made six of our own, but we paid 40 cents for each and every gallon. 

They said in Winnipeg that American watches can be bought cheaper there than in the states, the protective tariff making it thus, but there was nothing like that about the gasoline, even Imperial gallons. 

Hunger was gnawing and we decided to have a bite to eat, much as we hated to waste daylight. So we asked for the eating place and were directed to a little wooden building that plainly was labeled "Public Hotel." 

Entering we found a dingy office that was a combination of a barber shop and bar. Prohibition had put the bar out of business, age had done for the barber chair, and the prospect was discouraging. But that was where appearances were deceptive, for, after a brief delay, we were led into a neat little dining room and |served with a supper as only the French served food. Bright-eyed French girls were jabbering French in the kitchen, and one of them went to the telephone and assaulted it with a flow of language that was beyond us. 

Then a husky chap went up to the instrument and bawled out a question. "What's the score?" he demanded. It seemed that Cincinnati had won. We felt quite at home for a minute. 

WE had been inquiring anxiously about the road conditions, and the official car had attracted considerable attention, so supper done, we stepped out of the dining room into the midst of a curious crowd that wanted to talk. The men all agreed that the best road lay across the Red River, and they grinned as they said that the largest city along the way was Winnipeg. Afterward we came to realize the point of the remark. Only one village intervened in all that fifty miles. The rest of the trip lay through a country where a house was a surprise and bachelor shanties were the rule. Mile after mile was along a fence-less road that ran at will and at angles, but it was a good road, except lonesome. In the distance we could see straw stacks burning in various places, and occasionally we passed an automobile, but mostly there were solid banks of second growth white birches.

If we had ever needed a bit of gas or some air pressure we'd have had quite a walk for it. And there was that flat spare on the rack!

It sounds a bit dreary, just to tell about it. but it really was a wonderful drive, with the air balmy and the night pleasant. Occasionally we would wonder whether we were on the right road, and would stop at a house to make inquiries. Always we were, although sometimes the children had to be called up to translate, the parents being French.

The engine worked to perfection, the tires held out and we had had a good supper, so on we sped, over bridges, through woods, out in the open. Finally we came to that sole village, passed it, got out into the wilds again and wondered. Then there appeared one of the blessed concrete roads that Winnipeg has built out for nine miles, and we felt as if we were nearing the goal.

But the lights of Winnipeg didn't settle all of our troubles. There was the matter of a hotel. A motorman, waiting to catch his car, offered advice. It wasn't any good, for every hotel he mentioned was full for the night. Finally, after we had tried one after the other, we were forced to put up at one that always will haunt our memories and make as firm in favor of strict hotel inspection laws.

The next morning we found room in a comfortable one...
____________

¹ - "A very artistic arch-way had been erected at the border, but we had already been made to feel that we would be just as much at home in Canada as in Louisiana." [The Story of the Run, The Modern Highway, Vol 4, No. 7, August 1919, Pub. by the Jefferson Highway Association]

The Litchfield Brothers - "...Minnesota beckoned them in 1862"

Electus Backus Litchield
"Flagrantly & monumentally impudent"

How did the St. Vincent Extension (which was the rail line between east St. Cloud and St. Vincent) get made?  Well, it so happens that St. Vincent had its own version of "Hell on Wheels"... 

In the course of his various "business enterprises", E.B. Litchfield is said to have bought many an elected official. Except for one: Populist Congressman Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota. While Donnelly worked for all the railroads in Minnesota at one time or another, he refused to continue working for E.B. Litchfield and the First Division St.P&P RR.

While lobbying Congress to expand the St.P&P RR land grant to 10 sections (square miles) per mile of track built, E.B. needed the help of members of Congress. Railroads would sometimes hire sitting members of Congress (and other elected officials) to serve as their "legal counsel".

In 1868, Donnelly wrote to E.B. regarding his $1,000 "retainer" and position as legal counsel to the First Division: "The matter has given me no little uneasiness of conscience. I have been laboring under the fear and dread I might instinctively be willing to do more for your company as attorney than I would if I did not hold that relation to it." Donnelly even offered to return the $1,000 or perform some actual legal services for the money.

- Source: Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait of a Politician by Martin Ridge

Electus was just one of five Litchfield brothers, all involved in one way or another with the railroad business.  Their main involvement: Investment.

Edwin Clark Litchfield was put in charge of the First Division.  He agreed to finance the branch line from St. Paul to St. Cloud.  To the Associates¹, he was a greatly vexed investor, "a wary old bird".  The Associates had trusted allies in Horace Thompson and Edmund Rice, who promised to "leave no stone unturned to bring about a reconciliation" between the contending parties.  If they failed, the Associates had contingency plans "to handle, with or without gloves on," Litchfield, Becker, Farley, and anyone else who got in the way.  They had not come this far only to lose the much-coveted land grant from St. Paul to the Canadian Border.

Source:  Google Books

A second act, one of the many "special acts" of the Minnesota legislature appropriating funds to further build out the railway lines, provided for another land-grant line - an extension branch from St. Cloud to Minnesota's northern border at the town of St. Vincent.

1867 was the year the British North America Act granted Canadians their political independence.  "Knowing that newly independent Canadians would soon embark on their own transcontinental railroad schemes, SP&P directors held a special stockholders meeting to map out ways to pull northern wheat-growing riches down a proposed Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) branch line from Winnipeg to the international border, through St. Vincent, and then down into St. Paul.  On the strength of this scheme, the state legislature gladly renegotiated the land grants, rescheduling their completion for 1878."

The plan was for SP&P to construct a northern extension, connecting first with the NPR main line near Fargo, then with the proposed CPR branch line at St. Vincent.

Elisha Cleveland Litchfield
One of the brothers who swooped in, bought up several
railroads,  and sold them for profit as fast as possible. . .

Erasmus Darwin Litchfield - genially called "the old rat"...was "ornery" and "obstreperous")

Egbert Savage Litchfield (youngest brother) - Sent to St. Paul at one point to oversee and manage the brothers' investments in the railroad.  In 1868, Egbert became James J. Hill's early partner.  Soon, Hill began emerging as a businessman in his own right.

"The Litchfields' capital propped up the railroad's coffers and accelerated construction into the the state's already populated agricultural regions," and towards the Red River Valley (which the state legislature had recently approved a special act securing $3 million in bonds for railway construction projects...)

Trivia:  NP used contractors to build the St. Vincent Extension.

To break it down to its simplest terms, the Litchfield brothers simply "went where the money was". [See the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association's incredible article about the slippery Litchfield Brothers, and their particular involvement with the building of the railroad that eventually included the St. Vincent Extension...]

Question: Where did all the money the Litchfields stole from Brooklyn go? 

Answer: To an attempt to take over the lands and railroads of the northwestern United States (Minnesota) via federal railroad land grants and other financial tools, and then mortgage this wilderness property to unwary European investors (the Dutch) at vastly inflated sums.

No doubt E. B. Litchfield used his brother E. Darwin Litchfield, then a London banker, to launder the money hijacked from Brooklyn to acquire all the stock of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad First Division, their new land and railroad speculation entity in Minnesota, which already owned 307,200 acres (480 square miles) of federal land grants. The Brooklyn loot was likely used as seed money to construct more track in Minnesota, thereby leveraging more massive federal land grants, which in turn enabled E. B. Litchfield to issue more St. Paul & Pacific securities in Holland with these land grants used as collateral.

It should be noted, that the activities of the Litchfield brothers, as well as that of governmental officials, was quite the norm for the time period. In fact, "Robber Baron" business practices as well as "Urban Machine Politics" are considered to be two of the three "antecedents" of Organized Crime in the United States. (See Organized Crime by Howard Abadinsky, 1997, pg 39-69.)

Trivia: The construction of the St. Vincent extension was promptly put under contract, and large quantities of rails and fastenings for track were imported from England. These were of iron, weighing 30 pounds per linear yard, and went from Buffalo to Duluth by lake. Their cost at the latter point was reckoned at about 90 per ton. Construction proceeded with vigor, and, for the methods of those times, with rapidity, until shortly after the financial collapse in 1873. [Source:  Minnesota Historical Society, James J. Hill Papers "The Great Northern Railway System"]

¹ - The Associates were George Stephen, Donald Smith, James J. Hill, Norman Kittson, and E.S. Litchfield. Hill enlisted the support of Donald Smith and his equally wealthy cousin, George Stephen, of the Bank of Montreal, in getting control of the steamboat business on the Red River, the route to Winnipeg. Their syndicate, “George Stephens and Associates,” comprised Stephen and Smith, as the financiers, Norman Kittson, The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Minnesota agent, operating the steamboat line, and Hill, their St Paul freight forwarder. Once in control of steam navigation on the Red River, the Associates then went after the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific Railroad which they intended to complete to the Red River and a connection with Kittson’s steamboats.

- From: STEEP AND CROOKED: THE MINING RAILROADS OF THE CANADIAN BORDER, by Bill Laux

PROFILE: Dr. Alexander B. Campbell

Dr. Campbell was a versatile man, with credentials as a Dentist as 
well as a Physician, from the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati
[Source:  Google Books]

Alexander B. Campbell, Surgeon was a local physician living in St. Vincent from approximately 1880 onward.  

News from the Past V: Brown & Moorhead

Pembina Pioneer Express masthead
[Courtesy:  Pembina County Historical Society]

Jim Benjaminson recently shared some excerpts from old local papers.  There is a reference to Sheriff Charley Brown in one story, and in another we even find out the likely reason for a well-known local man's nickname...

Northern Express – Drayton (R.H. Young, Editor; Weekly, published on Fridays - $2 per year)
December 9, 1881 Vol. 1 No. 1 is the first issue
(Becomes the Pioneer Express April 20, 1883 at Vol. 3 No. 38)
____________________ 

December 23, 1881 Vol. 1 No. 3 

The train loaded with some $2,000 worth of goods which Ricard Bros. sent out from here the 7th to Turtle Mountains was captured by Indians and half-breeds at or near Pembina mountains. The Indians claim the land as their own, and say that no one has the right to cross it, and therefore appropriated the goods to their own use. Sheriff Brown of Pembina was out there yesterday and found most of the goods, but could not get them as they refused to give them up. They were too many for him, so he returned for help. We understand he has gone out today with a squad of soldiers from Fort Pembina. We will give full particulars tomorrow. – Independent (Emerson, Manitoba) 

February 10, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 10 

Announcement – We announce this week our intention to remove the Northern Express to Pembina, at which place the next issue will be published. (page 1) 

February 24, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 12 

Amongst many drawbacks and inconveniences incidental to the removal of our business and the enlargement of our paper we lay before our readers this week as good a paper as we can under the circumstances.

Townsite Auction Bill

March 24, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 16 

[Indian Title to Dakota Lands – page 1]

The St. Vincent townsite company have sold their interest in that town to a Winnipeg syndicate. St. Vincent has invested $200 in a hook and ladder truck with other fire apparatus. This is a wise move which should be a reminder to this town of its duty in the promises. Of course when Pembina takes hold it will be on a larger scale. 

March 31, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 17 

Quite a number of our citizens went over to St. Vincent on Tuesday evening to attend the auction sale of town lots.

April 21, 1882 Vol 1. No. 20 

The unmistakable double-toned whistle of the steamer Selkirk was heard on Tuesday evening for the first time this season. Passengers from various points on the river improved the opportunity of making a business trip to Town and taking in interesting features of the flood along the way.

The Selkirk has had a lively business the last two days carrying freight across from St. Vincent.
The ice made a new door into the engine room of the St.Vincent elevator last Sunday. At St. Vincent the situation is becoming somewhat unpleasant. Several of the streets are covered with water. Around the Northern Hotel it is nearly a foot deep, but the higher portion of town is dry yet. 

April 28, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 21 

Moorhead has had several bets at stake including a town lot and a suit of clothes, that the water would not rise to the level of his saloon floor. He has won the bets with just a quarter of an inch to spare. 

Now we know how William Moorhead got his nickname, “High Water Bill”...!

What Could Have Been

From the 1893 Plat Atlas - Click to Enlarge
[Map Credit:  Library of Congress]

In the section of Pembina shown above - part of the 1893 Plat Map of Pembina County - you can see how the railroad was set up to come in north/south, but had a spur going southeast towards St. Vincent. In a stereoview of St. Vincent, it shows a spur coming up from the main track into town from the east, that then turn north and goes along the river to the exact point across the Red from the Pembina spur. At that time, the only thing needed was a railway bridge over the river, but that never happened, and that was one reason of many that discouraged more growth in St. Vincent. There was some serious missed opportunities, poorly thought-out politicking, etc. that went into it all. The nail in the coffin came around the infamous 1897 flood, after which J.J. Hill wanted to move the town out to the wye, aka the Junction and higher ground.  But Mayor Deacon said no to the offer, without discussing it with any other city council member, let alone the townspeople.  We can only speculate as to his reasons.

St. Vincent Spur that once went round north to opposite bank
from Pembina's spur, meant to cross river via bridge never
built, every likely thanks to William Deacon's fateful decision

1857 Incorporation

As I have earlier hypothesized when discussing St. Vincent's earlier incorporation (the first of two), it appears I was right -  it was most definitely linked to Minnesota's "impending statehood"...

Impending statehood stirred speculative interest in the future of the area's northwestern reaches. That interest was reflected in the 1857 sessions of the legislature, where a remarkable number of acts benefiting the Red River area were passed.

Among the 49 towns incorporated during the extra session alone, seven were located in the valley. One of them, St. Vincent, was situated on the Red River just south of the international border. For it the legislature chartered a ferry and authorized the construction of a branch railroad¹ as well as telegraph lines to terminate there. Although it was located on land that still belonged to the Ojibwe, a St. Paul firm sent Charles W. Iddings² to St. Vincent in the summer of 1857 to survey the new town site along with that of Pembina on the opposite shore of the Red. By February 1858, the two towns had been platted with streets named for well-known fur traders and legislators.

- Minnesota's Boundary With Canada: Its Evolution Since 1783, by William E. Lass

Sewall & Iddings 1860 Map
[Copyrighted 1857]

¹ - May 22, 1857, the Territory accepted the grant and conferred it upon the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad Company.  Breckenridge, at the mouth of the Sioux Wood River, and St. Vincent, on the Red River of the North, were designated as the western termini of the main and branch lines respectively (Law of Minnesota, Minnesota Territorial Legislature extra session 1857, p.3)  The Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company was one of four such companies created to take advantage of the eventual  federal land grant act. It eventually reorganized as the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, which in turn became part of James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway Company. 

² - Charles W. Iddings was a surveyor living over the post office in St. Paul in 1856. After the Densmore expedition he was associated with Joseph S. Sewall of St. Paul, the engineer who built the Wabasha Street bridge. During this connection the two men published a map of Minnesota which is known as the Sewall and Iddings map of 1860.

A Prohibition Communion

A "Rye Communion" was held in Christ Church during Prohibition!

I stumbled across a mention of St. Vincent in a Google Books snippet recently. I tracked down a second-hand copy of the book, which wasn't easy since it's pretty obscure. The title? God's Dodger: The Story of a Front Line Chaplain, by G.W. Stephen Brodsky.

The main scope of the book (written in autobiographic, first-person style) is about a man named Russell Oliver "Rusty" Wilkes. Wilkes was a Canadian officer during WWII, a chaplain (among many other roles) which is what the book is mainly about. He was a hero of sorts, but that is another story. The part of the book I was drawn to was the lead-up - his earlier life as a student, young husband, and new minister. One of the areas he was sent to, was where I grew up. In fact, he ministered to my own family (my grandparents and my mother, then a young girl...) at Christ Church.

The colorful story below is told with the warmth and humor that the perspective of time gives us all of such awkward occasions!

In the spring of 1932...I took up new duties at the town of Emerson, Manitoba, on the Manitoba-Minnesota border. The parish included Dominion City, Ridgeville, and St. Vincent, Minnesota. This was prairie wheat country, and here we experienced the worst of the infamous '20's drought and the awful poverty it brought at the peak of the Depression...[There was a ] scarcity of water in summer. Our basement cistern was cracked and empty, and a sweaty session of pumping proved only that the well was dry. Everybody was in the same fix, and the town's water was carefully rationed. Water came in a tank car a couple of times a week from somewhere west of Emerson, and every morning townsfolk would line up at the railway station with their pails while Emerson's lone constable unlocked a padlock on the town pump.

My usual Sunday routine was to drive to Dominion City in time for a late morning service, then to Ridgeville by mid-afternoon, and back to Emerson in time for evening service. Once a month I'd leave the folk of Ridgeville wallowing in a moral slough, and head across the border for St. Vincent in Minnesota, where the Episcopal Church observed Anglican rites.

These were prohibition days, and I suppose I could have made a tidy profit exporting other kinds of spirit.  But, discretion being the better part of piety, I left my stock of communion wine in St. Vincent in care of the verger. The verger and organist Henry Young was a slightly built elderly gentleman of great devotion and impeccable morals. He would bring the wine faithfully to every service and return it to his home afterwards. One Sunday as I prepared the cruets for communion my nose caught the pungently unmistakable bouquet of 100 proof rye whiskey. I tiptoed from the vestry, across the church to where Henry was at the organ warming up the congregation with a rousing dirge.  He was smiling beatifically, his eyes closed in reverential rapture.  I murmured in his ear, "Henry, would you join me in the vestry, please." Henry came in still smiling vaguely, and stood swaying unsteadily.

When I told him he'd turned wine into whiskey, the smile vanished and his eyes bugged in spirituous indignation. He drew himself up to his full five-foot-three. "My dear Reverend Sir," he burst out, "I have NEVER had whiskey in my home. THAT, sir, is your communion wine." He turned on his heel and stalked out, his dignity marred only slightly as he tripped on the raised door sill and shot back into the church. Consecrate as I might, I didn't have a divine knack for turning whiskey back into wine. But there was nothing for it, so we had a rye communion. There was an occasional grimace of surprise among the kneeling celebrants, and even a smile or two. But nobody commented afterwards except Ethel, who didn't admire my novel approach to the sacrament.

Another interesting aspect to the excerpt above is its opening paragraph. I always wondered how the Depression manifested itself in my hometown area. Whenever I asked my Mom, she didn't have much to say about it. Granted, she was just a kid at the time, but I always figured that people here felt the effects in some measure. Turns out they did.

St. Vincent for Sale

From Daily globe (St. Paul, Minn.) April 16, 1882 
Source: Library of Congress' Chronicling America

Coolican took his stand before a huge plot of St. Vincent, ambitious enough in appearance for a city of a hundred thousand, and opened the ball. Shades of Andrew Johnston, how he talked! There was not a symptom of let up for two hours. Here is a sample:

James Sarsfield Coolican,
Auctioneer of St. Vincent

“Gentlemen, I can’t go away from St. Pauland believe that you are all paupers. Twenty dollars for such a lot as that, two blocks from the shop reserves, and a corner lot, too; just the place for starting a saloon! Do I hear thirty? Going at thirty. Do I hear thirty-five? Remember, this sale is without reserve. Hitch on while the boom is on, and you will be wearing seal-skins and diamonds next year. Thirty dollars! Thirty dollars! Thirty dollars! Five do you say? Just in time; why I met a young man on the train the other day, and he showed me his bank book with a credit of $18,000, and he said he had $45,000 worth of real estate. He came to Winnipeg in a cattle car, and was returning in a Pullman. Made a little stake shingling roofs, caught on and there you are. Gentlemen, this double row of lots clear outside the town was bought by Winnipeggers yesterday at $250 per lot (whereupon he proceeded to sell a block in St. Vincent’s centre at prices ranging for $33 to $56 per lot). Hitch on to the boom boys, while she is moving. Telegraph to Sheppard, the town clerk in St. Vincent, or any one else there, and if he don’t say lots such as I am offering you are selling to-day at from $250 to $300, I'll open the wine for the house, provided there’s enough wine in town to fill such a thirsty crowd. Now pick your block; I’ll sell in any one of them not already purchased.”

From: Manitoba Historical Society

Pembina vs. Fargo

Competition for political and economic power between the emerging territorial cities was common in the early days, even between Pembina and Fargo...

The first active politics, in the way of a spirited clashing of interests, occurred in 1872, when old Pembina and youthful Fargo locked horns, as it were, in a contest for supremacy. A term of the United States court was held at Pembina in June, presided over by Judge French¹, and in order to secure the necessary jurymen almost the entire northern part of the territory was thoroughly combed. After exhausting the Pembina and St. Joe settlements, drafts were made at Grand Forks, Goose River, Elm River, Fargo, and Richville. Every available man was utilized for the grand and petit panels, and the work of subpoenaing them was no small task. 

Jud LaMoure was deputy United States Marshal, and upon him devolved the selection and notification of the jurors. During this process, when LaMoure visited every settlement in the northern section, it developed that the deputy marshal had something else on his program besides the business of subpoenaing jurors. The first to scent the alleged "darkey in the wood pile" was the coterie of live-wires at Fargo, led by S. G. Roberts, G. I. Keeney, John Haggart, Captain Egbert, and others. 

Immigration Chaos

From a traveler's observation of an immigrant train arriving in St. Vincent comes this account...

It was a dull rainy evening when we bade farewell to Pembina, and were ferried across the shallow muddy river to St. Vincent. I suppose it is called the Red River because the water is of a whitey-brown color. At the railway station confusion reigned. A large party of immigrants had just arrived with through tickets by the steamboat line to Winnipeg. But owing to the lowness of the water, and an accident which occurred a few weeks before, there was no boat ready to go down the river. The party must go on by rail, and the officers of the branch line from St. Vincent to St. Boniface, opposite Winnipeg, refused to make any allowance for the steamboat tickets. Despair ruled in the crowded, murky car into which we were packed. Many of the poor immigrants could ill afford the additional cost. We had to pay $3.25 for riding over sixty-five miles of wretched track at the rate of ten miles an hour. The road-bed is so rough that when they run at higher speed, the engine bell is rung by the oscillation.

Long after midnight we were landed in the mud at St. Boniface. Here we fell into the hands of the custom-house Philistines. Never have I seen courtesy and intelligence so successfully concealed under the veil of rude stupidity...

From: Harper's Magazine (May 1880)

In Their Own Words: Charles Cavileer

Source:  State Historical Society of North Dakota
[Click to enlarge...]

THE OLD-TIME POST OFFICE AT PEMBINA
By Charles Cavileer

Cavileer

I came here (Pembina) in 1851, in company with N.W. Kittson and others. After being here a few days Mr. Kittson asked me to act as assistant postmaster, he having been appointed postmaster some time in 1849. Joseph R. Brown was contractor to carry the mail from Pembina, Wisconsin Territory¹, to Crow Wing in the same territory, via Thieving River, at its mouth at Red Lake River, thence by land and canoe to Red Lake Village, making short portages, thence making short portages between small lakes to Cass Lake and then by the same order of travel to Leach Lake and so on to Crow Lake and to the end of the route at Crow Wing Village, which was the headquarters of the North-West Fur Company for all that section of the country claimed by the Chippewas from Crow Wing to Pembina northwest and northeast to Sandy Lake, and Fond du Lac.

The contract was a go-as-you-please, on foot, horse back, cart or canoe, anyway-to-get-there affair. The contract price for carrying it was $1,100 a year. Kittson, being postmaster, could not act as sub-agent. He appointed me as assistant postmaster, and I ran the machine until some time in 1853 or '54. I did all the business of the office, made the quarterly returns and deposit of funds due the department, attending to every detail of the office, which at that time was no child's play as every letter and package had to be tied up in wrappers, waybilled and addressed to its destination. St. Paul packages contained nearly all of Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit and east and west exchange.

An example of an 1868 letter with U.S. postage
sent from Red River to St. Paul via Pembina.
Source: The Minnesota Territory in Postmarks

Letter rates of postage ran 6 1/4, 12 1/2, 18 3/4, to 25 cents, according to distance, from 6 1/4 for short distances to 25 for 500 miles and over. Every letter and package had to be wrapped and addressed. Even single letters had to be wrapped and addressed to their proper offices. All wrappers had to be saved and used as long as they would hold together and an address could be put on without showing another.

But when it came to making out the quarterly reports the dance had just commenced. Every letter received and dispatched must be returned from the records kept on bills for that purpose, and it made a package about the size of a family Bible, and the footing up of columns with the amounts running from 6 1/4, 12 1/2, 18 3/4 to 25, was a corker. And right here let me tell you, with a feeling of pride, that I never had a quarterly return come back to me for correction.

Let me give you a sketch of the business at that early day, and the hardships and tricks of some of our carriers.

County Seat Battle

Old Kittson County Courthouse - I must say, it has a lot more style than the current
courthouse building...too bad it couldn't have been saved. Architecturally it was
described as "...a three-story brick building above a high battered-stone basement
with Romanesque tower; unusual half-timbered attic story gables; large chimneys
on each side above medieval corbelled cornice brick." It was once described as
"...one of the finest county capitols in the northern half of Minnesota."
First 100 Years of Minnesota Bar Association

Kittson County was organized February 25, 1879. The first county commissioners, who were appointed by Governor Pillsbury, designated Hallock as the temporary county seat. However, in 1891, a group of citizens from St. Vincent, circulated a petition to move the county seat to St. Vincent, with a promise to build an $8,000 courthouse. The petition was dismissed by the county commissioners because of the "unauthorization of the circulation of the petition" and that they had no jurisdiction for this matter. 

From the NWRDC's History of Kittson County

But the whole story is a bit more interesting than that...

Census of a New Town

1857 Minnesota Territorial Census of St. Vincent...
[Click to see larger image]

The above image is of the actual 1857 census of my hometown.  If you look at the enlarged image, you will note it says that at this time, the town existed in the "...County of Pembina, Territory of Minnesota." Kittson County did not exist yet.

That year was a momentous year for St. Vincent.  It was the year it was FIRST incorporated.  First, because it was incorporated twice. 

Old Highway 81

Red line shows route of Old Highway 81

Highway 81 as it was prior to the Interstate age, was the main highway through the Pembina area, the North Dakota 'twin' to Minnesota's Highway 75, as Pembina was the twin to St. Vincent, in a manner of speaking.

I often heard the term "Old Highway 81" used in passing, by my parents and other older residents of the area, growing up. I caught on that part of it was the road that went into an area I never knew that well (not knowing anyone that lived there) called South Pembina. South Pembina was the area south of Pembina proper, across the Pembina River. It was where the old museum was, and where the park, baseball field, and grandstand still are.

However, there was a lot more in South Pembina at one time.

Brain Drain

Amen to the message of this video.

This is what has been happening to my hometown and all such hometowns for many years now. As the video says at the end, it does NOT have to be this way, and those with the most at stake, the residents of these towns, have GOT to wake up and take back responsibility and action for what's going on...

Rural Life: Dying or Changing?

We all have seen the decline and depopulation of our hometowns in rural areas, but then you see an inspirational story like this and are reminded it doesn't have to be that way...

Awhile back, Minnesota Public Radio did a series on small town life in Minnesota. It found that "...A number of communities are struggling to manage growth while saving their history. Some say small towns are losing their character. Others say small town life is still good." I daresay most of you from my hometown area reading this - or those of you from other rural areas - will probably agree life is good where you live. I truly don't think those living in rural areas feel stuck there, or disadvantaged, but quite the contrary. It is the spirit of the people that will keep small towns alive.

"As Seen in the New Era!"

Emerson: Good Times Ahead?

"Thus it appears that Emerson, Manitoba, will become the natural gas centre of the universe – or at least a significant trading hub – based on the interconnect of three to four major pipelines supplying gas from two major natural gas supply basins and connecting to all the major demand centers east of Chicago and North of the Mason-Dixon line."

Read more here...

Young Artist Documents Early Area

View of the two company forts (fur trading companies, Hudson Bay on the left and the Northwest Company on the right) on the level prairie at Pembina on the Red River of the North, with the smaller tributary the Pembina River between the two forts.  As seen on May 25, 1822, and painted by Peter Rindisbacher (1806-1834).

I have seen other artistic renditions of the early fur trading posts on the Red and Pembina rivers (where Pembina and St. Vincent are today), but never such a well done one before. This perspective shows what is now considered south Pembina and Pembina proper (on the right), the Pembina River branching off the Red River in the foreground, dividing the two.


This is a rough sketch by Rindisbacher, of the interior of the HBC post at Pembina in the 1820's.

It shows (from left to right) a Swiss wife, German man, Swiss husband with children, a Scottish Highlander, and a Metis man.

A fascinatingly diverse group, which was not uncommon at trading posts across the region during the fur trade era.



The painting below shows a winter scene at Pembina in the 1820s, of men fishing out on the ice (another Rindisbacher).

As this documentary painting shows, not all buffalo hunting was done in the summer, on horseback, as is often assumed.  Many times, hunters would be on foot, sometimes disguising themselves under animal skins and slowly creeping towards a grazing animal, using stealth, patience, and skill to eventually bring the giants down.  At other times - like above and below - they would go out, and using their dogs to chase, surround, and weaken an animal, would then come in for the kill shot.  It is easy to imagine a big animal like the American Bison, that they may weaken, get shot and go down, but that the hunter may have had to cut a throat to end the life entirely.  Note that all these particular scenes were painted from events that Rindisbacher the artist, witnessed himself in the Pembina area [Images:  Google Image Search, various sources].

Manifest Destiny

From The Diplomacy of Trade & Investment: American Economic Expansion in the Hemisphere, 1865-1900 by David M. Pletcher