timbered of them all. All the region between the Upper Mississippi and the Great Lake is a wilderness of wood, except a narrow belt of prairie along the river. All the great valleys above described have an abundance of wood for fuel, fencing, and building purposes.

I think it is the best watered country in the world. A settler can hardly select him a farm in any part of the state that will not be near a spring, a creek, or lake. Cascades and

waterfalls, too, are to be found all over the state, and are valued for their beauty and utility. Water-power, as it is called, is inexhaustible in Minnesota, and is rapidly being appropriated to various branches of manufacturing. Flour and lumber have already become important staples, and command high and cash prices, from the Falls of St. Anthony to New Orleans. Other manufacturing will soon spring up, and make Minnesota, in this respect, the New England of the north-west.

The more intense periods of cold in the winter of Minnesota, are shorn of their severity, by the absence of winds and the peculiar dryness of the atmosphere, which imparts an elasticity and buoyancy to the spirits. It has been ascertained by theometrical observations, continued for many years at Fort Snelling, that its spring temperature is identical with that of Massachusetts; its summer with that of northern Ohio; its autumn with that of northern Vermont, and its winter is like that of Montreal. The population of Minnesota, in 1850, was 6,075, and in 1860, 176,535: and farms under cultivation, 19,075.

ST. PAUL, the capital of Minnesota, derives its name from the Catholic church which had been organized there six years previous to the laying out of the town. St. Paul stands on the left or east bank of the Mississippi; but at this particular point the course of the river is from south-west to north-east: the town is 8 miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, and 5 below Fort Snelling and the mouth of the Minnesota: distance, by the Mississippi, above New Orleans, 1,900 miles; above the mouth of the Ohio, 860; above St. Louis, 688; above Galena, 280; above La Crosse, 114; and about 400

from Chicago by the usual route of travel. The main part of St. Paul stands upon a plain of land about 80 feet above the river, and 800 above the Gulf of Mexico, on one of the most beautiful and commanding of sites. "Commercially, it is the key to all the vast region north of it, and, by the Minnesota River, to the immense valley drained through that important tributary to the Mississippi. The approach to it from below is grand and imposing. The traveler, after leaving Dubuque nearly 300 miles below, sees nothing to remind him of a city until he rounds the bend in the river below St. Paul, when her tall spires, substantial business houses, and neat dwellings burst upon his view.' St. Paul is near the geographical center of the continent, and is the prominent business point of one of the most beautiful, fertile, and healthy of countries. Population 1860, 10,401.

snows.

The first settlers at St. Paul were the Swiss, originally from Pembina, Lord Selkirk's colony, on the Red River of the North. In the spring of 1825, the colonists there were driven from their homes by a terrible freshet in the river, consequent upon the melting of the "After the flood, they could no longer remain in the land of their adversity, and they became the pioneers in emigration and agriculture in the state of Minnesota. At one time a party of 243 departed for the United States, who found homes at different points on the banks of the Mississippi. Before the eastern wave of emigration had ascended be yond Prairie du Chien, the Swiss had opened farms on and near St. Paul, and should be recognized as the first actual settlers in the country." They first located on the land on the east side of the Mississippi, between St. Paul and Fort Snelling, and commenced improvements. In March, 1838, the commander at the fort selected this land as a part of a military reservation. It was, therefore, withheld from sale. The settlers, who were principally the Swiss, were ordered to be removed by the war department. On the 6th and 7th of May, 1840, the troops from the fort, with undue haste, removed these unfortunate people, and destroyed their cabins: they then removed to the site of St. Paul: among them were Messrs. Massey, Perry, Garvis and Pierrie.

"The year [1838] that the Dakotahs ceded the land east of the Mississippi," says Neill in his History of Minnesota, "a Canadian Frenchman, by the name of Parant, the ideal of an Indian whisky seller, erected a shanty at what is now the principal steamboat landing in St. Paul. Ignorant and overbearing, he loved money more than his soul. Destitute of one eye, and the other resembling that of a pig, he was a good representative of Caliban.

In the year 1842, some one writing a letter in his groggery, for the want of a more euphonious name, designated the place as 'Pig's Eye,' referring to the peculiar appearance of the whisky seller. The reply to the letter was directed in good faith to Pig's Eye,' and was received in due time.

In 1842, the late Henry Jackson, of Mahkato, settled at the same spot, and erected the first store on the hight just above the lower landing; and shortly after, Roberts and Simpson followed, and opened small Indian trading shops. In the year 1846, the site of St. Paul was chiefly occupied by a few shanties, owned by certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," who sold rum to the soldier and Indian. It was despised by all decent white men, and known to the Dakotahs by an expression in their tongue, which means, the place where they sell minne-wakan."*

St. Paul was laid off as a town into lots in July, 1847, by Ira B. Brunson, of Prairie du Chien, in the employment of residents. "The names of those who were then sole proprietors, barring Uncle Sam's prior lien, were Vetal Guerin, Alex. R. M'Leod, Henry Jackson, Hartshorn & Randall, Louis Roberts, Benj. Gervais, David Farribault, A. L. Lar penteur, J. W. Simpson, and J. Demarrais." For a year or two the place showed no signs of a promising future, until the Hon. Henry M. Rice bought in, and by his energy and reputation for forecast, "infused new life into the place." When the territorial bill for the organization of Minnesota was passed, St. Paul, through the exertions of Hon. Henry H. Sibley, was named as the temporary capital. The act was signed on the 3d of March, 1849. Says Neill:

"More than a month after the adjournment of congress, just at eve, on the 9th of April, amid terrific peals of thunder and torrents of rain, the weekly steam packet, the first to force its way through the icy barrier of Lake Pepin, rounded the rocky point, whistling loud and long, as if the bearer of glad tidings. Before she was safely moored to the landing, the shouts of the excited villagers announced that there was a Territory of Minnesota,

* Supernatural Water.

and that St. Paul was the seat of government. Every successive steamboat arrival poured out on the landing men big with hope, and anxious to do something to mold the future of the new state.

Nine days after the news of the existence of the Territory of Minnesota was received, there arrived James M. Goodhue with press, types, and printing apparatus. A graduate of Amherst College, and a lawyer by profession, he wielded a sharp pen, and wrote editorials, which, more than anything else, perhaps, induced emigration. Though a man of some glaring faults, one of the counties properly bears his name. On the 28th of April, he

issued the first number of the 'Pioneer.'

On the 27th of May, Alexander Ramsey, the governor, and family arrived at St. Paul, but, owing to the crowded state of the public houses, immediately proceeded in the steamer to the establishment of the fur company known as Mendota, at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi, and became the guest of the Hon. H. H. Sibley.

For several weeks there resided, at the confluence of these rivers, four individuals who, more than any other men, have been identified with the public interests of Minnesota, and given the state its present character. Their names are attached to the thriving counties of Ramsey, Rice, Sibley, and Steele.

'As unto the bow, the cord is,

So unto the man is the woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other.'

Fort Snelling, originally called Fort St. Anthony, is a noted point in the

history of Minnesota. It stands on a lofty bluff, 5 miles above St. Paul, on the west bank of the Mississippi, at the junction of the Minnesota, and on the north bank of the latter. It is composed of large barracks and numerous edifices, surrounded by thick walls. Previous to the organization of Minnesota, in 1849, it was the only important point north of Prairie du Chien, and was for years the rendezvous of missionaries, of scientific explorers, and of mercantile adventurers, on their way to the Dakotahs. The scenery at this point, up the valley of the Minnesota, is surpassingly beautiful. The fort was named from Col. Snelling. He was a brave officer of the war of 1812, He and particularly distinguished himself at Tippecanoe and Brownstown. died in 1828.

FORT SNELLING.

In Feb., 1819, the war department ordered the 5th regiment of infantry to concentrate at Detroit, for the purpose of transportation to the Mississippi, to garrison Prairie du Chien and Rock Island, and to establish a post as the head-quarters of the corps at the mouth of the Minnesota.

Col. Leavenworth ascended the Mississippi with his soldiers in keel boats, and erected temporary barracks above the present village of Mendota, on the south side of the river, where they wintered. Col. Snelling subsequently assumed command of the garrison. On the 10th of September of the next year (1820), the corner stone of Fort Snelling was laid.

The wife of Colonel Snelling, "a few days after her arrival at the post, gave birth to the first infant of white parents in Minnesota, which, after a brief existence of thirteen months, departed to a better land. The dilapidated monument which marks the remains of the little one,' is still visible in the graveyard of the fort. Beside Mrs. Snelling, the wife of the commissary, and of Captain Gooding, were in the garrison, the first American ladies that ever wintered in Minnesota.”

6

The Minne-ha-ha Falls, the existence of which the genius of Longfellow

has perpetuated in living lines, is within a few minutes drive from Fort Snelling, or St. Anthony, being between these two points.

Waterfalls, in the Dakotah tongue, are called ha-ha. The 'h, has a strong gut

"Here the Falls of Minne-ha-ha

Flash and gleam among the oak trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley."

tural sound, and the word is applied because of the curling or laughing of the waters. The verb I-ha-ha primarily means to curl; secondarily to laugh, because of the curling motion of the mouth in laughter. The noise of Ha-ha is called by the Dakotahs 1-ha-ha, because of its resemblance to laughter. A small rivulet, the outlet of Lake Harriet and Calhoun, gently gliding over the bluff into an amphitheater, forms this graceful waterfall. It has but little of 'the cataract's thunder.' Niagara symbolizes the sublime; St. Anthony the picturesque; Ha-ha the beautiful. The fall is about sixty feet, presenting a parabolic curve, which drops, without the least deviation, until it has reached its lower level, when the stream goes on its way rejoicing, curling along in laughing, childish glee at the graceful feat it has performed in bounding over the precipice."

St. Anthony is beautifully situated, on a gently rising prairie, on the left or east bank of the Mississippi, at the Falls of St. Anthony, 8 miles by land above St. Paul, 2 miles further north, and 12 by the windings of the river, and also 7 miles by the latter above Fort Snelling. "The first dwelling was erected in this city in the autumn of 1847, and Mrs. Ard Godfrey claims the honor of having given birth to the first of the fair daughters of St. Anthony." Here is located the University of the State. "Minnesota seems determined to be in advance of other states in education, for two sections in every township have been appropriated for the support of common schools, no other state having previously obtained more than one section in each of its townships for such a purpose.'

The celebrated Falls of St. Anthony were named, in 1680, by their discoverer, Louis Hennepin, in honor of his patron saint.

"They are only twenty feet in hight; but the scenery does not derive its interest from their grandeur, but from the perfect grouping of rock and wood and water on a magnificent scale. The Mississippi is upward of six hundred yards wide above the falls. These are quite perpendicular, and the water drops in beautiful single sheets on either side of a huge mass of white sandstone, of a pyramidal form, which splits the stream. The rapids below extend for several hundred yards, and are very broad, divided into various channels by precipitous islands of sandstone, gigantic blocks of which are strewn in grotesque confusion at the base of lofty walls of stratification of dazzling whiteness. These fantastically-shaped islands are thickly wooded, and birch and maple cling with desperate tenacity to nooks and crannies in the perpendicular cliffs. The banks of the river are of a character similar to the islands in its stream. The snowy-white houses of St. Authony are almost hidden by the thick foliage of the left bank."

Situated at the head of navigation on the Mississippi, with an unlimited water power, St. Anthony has a fine prospect of becoming an important manufacturing and commercial city. It has abundance of building stone, is in a rich agricultural region, and with abundance of lumber in its vicinity.

Immediately opposite St. Anthony is the thriving town of Minneapolis. An elegant suspension bridge connects the two places. "As a work of beauty and art it can hardly be surpassed, while it has the appearance of great solidity; its massive cables being firmly anchored on either side in the solid rock. The work was undertaken in the spring of 1854, and finished the next year, at an expense of over $50,000, being the first suspension bridge ever built in a territory, and the first to span the Father of Waters." The two places, St. Anthony and Minneapolis, have unitedly about 7,000 inhabitants.

Travelers visiting this region are apt to be eloquent in their descriptions. Part of this is no doubt to be attributed to the pure, dry, bracing atmosphere, which not only imparts a wondrous distinctness to the whole landscape, lending unwonted charms to the skies above, and to the earth beneath, but so braces up the system with the sensation of high health, that the stranger looks upon all things around him with most pleasing emotions. The effect of this elastic, life-giving atmosphere has, indeed, been described by some, as at times producing in them a buoyancy of feeling, that they could compare to nothing but the exhilaration occasioned by a slight indulgence in ardent spirits! Here the weak man feels a strong man, and the strong man a giant! The enthusiastic Bond, in his work on Minnesota, says that, owing to the strengthening nature of the climate, the labor of one man will produce more, and yield a larger surplus above his necessities, than in any other western state or territory. "We have," says he, "none of the languor, and debility, and agues, that turn men into feeble women in the harvest field, as they have south of us. Labor here stands firmly on its legs, the year round, and drives things through!"

Among the travelers in this region, who have spoken in its praise, is the celebrated savant Maury, superintendent of the National Observatory, at Washington. Says he:

At the small hours of the night, at dewy eve and early morn, I have looked out with wonder, love, and admiration upon the steel-blue sky of Minnesota, set with diamonds, and sparkling with brilliants of purest ray. The stillness of your small hours is sublime. I feel constrained, as I gaze and admire, to hold my breath, lest the eloquent silence of the night should be broken by the reverberations of the sound, from the seemingly solid but airy vault above.

Herschell has said, that in Europe, the astronomer might consider himself highly favored, if by patiently watching the skies for one year, he shall, during that period A telesfind, all told, one hundred hours suitable for satisfactory observations. cope, mounted here, in this atmosphere, under the skies of Minnesota, would have its powers increased many times over what they would be under canopies of a heaven less brilliant and lovely.

Col. F. A. Lumsden, of the New Orleans Picayune, writing from St. Anthony, two weeks before his death and that of his family by shipwreck, on the ill-fated steamer Lady Elgin, on Lake Michigan, thus gives vent to his admiration:

I have missed much by not having visited this section of country before, and one can The have no correct idea of this region by anything they may hear or read about it. scenery-the country-the lakes and the rivers-the crops and the climate are the finest in the world.

Such scenery as the Upper Mississippi presents I have never beheld: its beauties, its romantic grandeur can never be justly described. On either shore of this vast river, for miles on miles, stand the everlasting hills, their slopes covered with the emerald carpeting of spring.