Mark Twain: Passing Through

Mark Twain, due to financial problems, undertook a world tour in 1895. The tour began in America, and after an initial stop in Cleveland, proceeded to Minnesota, by way of the upper peninsula of Michigan.

It was not easy for lecture-hall and opera-house audiences of the nineteenth century, conditioned to expect formal and usually oratorical lectures, to become accustomed to the Mark Twain manner. Frequently, Twain walked nonchalantly onto the stage, hands in pockets, as if he had wandered in from the street and appeared surprised to find himself facing an audience. Unlike the loud, haranguing, even hell-fire-and-brimstone voice of the average circuit speaker, Twain's voice was quiet. He spoke slowly, in a drawl described abroad as "Yankee." He did not hide himself behind the lectern but strolled about the stage from time to time. Though he had his talk memorized, he delivered it as if it were coming to him on the spot. It took an audience a while to become attuned to this peculiar sort of lecture. Perhaps in fear of misunderstanding among audiences, Major Pond was reluctant to call Twain's performances lectures. A Winnipeg advertisement promised "Two 90-Minutes Chat and Character Sketches;" advertising in most American towns called them simply "talks," and the Australian manager Smythe advertised them as "At Homes," hoping, no doubt, to prepare audiences for Twain's informal delivery.

From a July 30, 1895 Grand Forks Herald interview, Twain had this to say about the Red River Valley: "This country of yours out here astonished me beyond all imagination. Never in my life have I seen such fields of grain extending in all directions to the horizon. This country appears to me to be as it were a mighty ocean; my conception of it is the same as that of a man who has never seen the ocean before, he sees nothing but water as far as the eye can reach; here I see nothing but oceans of wheat fields. Why, it is simply miraculous."

From the July 26, 1895 Crookston Daily Times: "The people along the Fosston line have caught the contagion, and are not to be outdone by the towns on the St. Vincent line who secured a special train to take their people home after the performance. The Fosston people have also arranged for an excursion rate and for transportation home after the performance. Through the courtesy of Supt. Jenks, the Fosston Flyer, which leaves here at 6 o'clock will be held until 11 o'clock Monday evening. This insures a large attendance from Fosston way, and already telegrams are pouring in for seats. There is now no question that the opera house will be packed with the largest and best audience ever assembled in Crookston."

Although the entire program presented in Crookston's Grand Opera House is not known, the Polk County Journal reported that Twain, after doing six unnamed selections, "announced that he would give a few extracts from the 'Diary of Adam,' something new to this audience, and which in our opinion is the drollest of all his writings. This kept the audience in a continual uproar from start to finish and put them in excellent humor for 'The Golden Arm,' which wound up the entertainment."

When the lecture concluded at 10:30 P.M.. Twain reportedly was so pleased with his audience — all those people from miles away, from towns along the St. Vincent and Fosston lines of the Great Northern, including such places as Hallock, Warren, Mcintosh, and Mentor — that he "...stepped down off the stage and was introduced to all who desired to grasp him by the hand."

- From Mark Twain in the Red River Valley of the North, by Norton D. Kinghorn [This article is based on a speech Mr. Kinghorn gave in 1975; at that time, he was an associate professor of English at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks...]

NOTE:

This post came about thanks to William Ash, who wrote me to say, "...I thought this article from the Minnesota Historical Society would really interest you. It appears that the writer Mark Twain or Samuel L. Clemens was in the Red River Valley of the North in July 1895. He was in or gave speeches in Grand Forks, ND, Winnipeg, MB and Crookston, MN among many other towns and cities on his world wide speaking tour.

It appears that he was traveling by train in July 1895 and if he didn't travel thru St. Vincent, MN ( the article doesn't really say if he was in St. Vincent, MN or ever got off the train in St. Vincent, MN) but I think it is very probable that he traveled very close to St. Vincent, MN or thru St. Vincent, MN on his travels from Winnipeg, MB to Crookston, MN since you now as well as I do where the Great Northern Railroad or even the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks were..."

At the rate he is going on story suggestions/submissions, I'll have to make him a staff member here soon! Thanks, Bill!

Travel Writers of our Past

The train from Red River had just brought news of the murder of a young teacher sent last year from St. Paul to the Selkirk settlement, by a party of Yankton Sioux, who are hostile to the inhabitants of Pembina, it is supposed on account of their relations to the Chippewas. It is well known that there has been a feud from time immemorial between the Sioux and Chippewas, two of the most powerful Indian nations in the territories of the United States.

From Summer Rambles in the West by E.F. Ellet (1853)

Scientific History Made

In the 19th century, science was making great strides. Included in those gains of knowledge was the field of astonomy. St. Vincent and Pembina played their small parts in playing host to many expeditions that came to the area or were passing through...


"The interest aroused in total eclipses was now so great that astronomers were determined to take advantage of every opportunity, no matter how short the time of totality nor how great distances it was necessary to travel in order to view the eclipses."

Title: Excerpts From Simon Newcomb's Diary of 1860
Authors: Kennedy, J. E. & Hanson, S. D.
Journal: Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 90, p.292

Using the Google coordinates for St. Vincent below, I think your best candidate for an eclipse visible from your town that would have attracted scientists would have been that of May 26, 1854. It was a rather long annular (ring) eclipse, with the Moon too far from the Earth to cover the Sun entirely, that had a duration of 4 minutes and 10 seconds in the annular stage. Here's the chronology:

2:30:38 p.m. CDST, SW edge of Moon makes first contact with the Sun, then 52 3/4 degrees above the SW horizon.
3:57:12 p.m., annular stage _begins_ with both bodies 40 degrees above the WSW horizon.
3:59:17 p.m., maximum annular eclipse, with 90.5% of the Sun's surface covered by the Moon.
4:01:22 p.m., annular eclipse ends as the leading edge of the Moon exits the Sun's NE rim, with both objects 39 1/6 degrees over the WSW/W skyline. Duration = 4 min. 10 sec.
5:18:42 p.m., last contact, with both bodies 26 3/4 degrees above the western horizon.

The partial solar eclipse of 7/18/1860 covered 83.3% of the Sun's surface, the partial solar eclipse of 10/19/1865 obscured 68.5% of the solar surface, and the partial solar eclipse of 8/7/1869 hid 93.5% of the solar disc. There were some piddling little partial solar eclipses that I have left out of consideration. Therefore your best candidate for a major eclipse that would have attracted the attention of astronomers and which lasted long enough to justify an excursion to St. Vincent would have been that of May 26, 1854. Hopefully narrowing down the eclipses to one strong contender will enable you to discover some eyewitness accounts.

Dr. Timothy L. Bratton
Department of History/Political Science
Jamestown College
Jamestown, ND

An 1890 Traveller's View

In the last two decades of the 19th century, St. Vincent and it's neighbors were growing by leaps and bounds. Even from as far away as New York City, people could see that amazing things were happening on the developing frontiers of our country; they were coming of age.

From a New York Times archive article comes this excerpt, of a man traveling through our area in 1890...

At the Kittson County Fair held at Hallock Oct. 3, there were cabbage heads and cauliflowers which measured 22 inches in diameter, beets and turnips which weighed 20 pounds apiece, and potatoes a foot long. Eight-rowed white corn was shown which ripened on the stand, and savory peppers, large and pungent. Creameries are established at prominent points, and cheese and butter are produced in considerable quantities. A good deal of attention is paid to beef and horse stock. There are some flocks of sheep. The exhibit of fine stallions exceeded any similar collection on record elsewhere.

It is cheering to note the hopefulness which pervades the Red River Valley at this time. It seems to be the reflex of a like feeling which possesses the whole Northwest. There is no doubt that the entire region is on the threshold of another great advance. The promise is in the air. A remarkable business year is anticipated for 1891.

1936 Plane

Some early aviators had to contend with our local weather in creative ways!

Impressions

Mary Agnes FitzGibbon

First impressions, as we all know, are important. Below are some first impressions of early Pembina/St. Vincent by travelers (not of the fur trade or military); the one thing they have in common is their attention to a particular feature that stood out like a sore thumb:

MUD

The frontier post, Pembina, is well known as the spot beyond which in 1869 the rebel Louis Riel, the "Little Napoleon" of Red River, would not allow Mr. McDougall, the "lieutenant-governor of Manitoba," appointed by the Canadian administration, to pass. Here we had a visit from the custom-house officers. They were good specimens of their different countries. The Canadian was a round, fat, jolly, handsome, fair man; the Yankee was tall, slight, and black-eyed, with a cadaverous look, increased by his close-fitting mackintosh and cowl. They did not give us any trouble, and I felt sorry for their lonely life, and the pounds of mud they had to carry with them everywhere.

Such mud! There is no wharf or planking of any kind, and all freight and baggage is landed on (or into) the muddy bank. Barrels rolled through it became unrecognizable, and were doubled in weight before they reached their warehouse. Men worked on bare feet, with trousers rolled to their knees, and the slippery, swashy look of everything was horrible. An Indian (not of the Fenimore Cooper type) leant against an old cooking-stove stranded on the bank, and an old squaw squatted on a heap of dirty straw, watching with lack-lustre eyes the disembarkation. A mile or two above Pembina is the American fort, with its trim barracks, fortifications, mounted guns, sentries, and some military life about it. Near it is the house built by Captain Cameron, when out with the expeditionary force in 1867...

From A Trip to Manitoba by Mary Agnes FitzGibbon

From:  "Minnesota and its Resources to which are Appended Camp-fire Sketches, or Notes of a Trip from St. Paul to Pembina and Selkirk Settlement on the Red River of the North", by J. Wesley Bond. Publishers, Redfield, New York (1854).