Secretary oF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY; Cor. Sec. of the Old
Settlers AsSOCIATION OF MINNESOTA; Sec. of the RAMSEY
COUNTY PIONEER ASSOCIATION, &C., &c.

[COLLECTIONS OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY:

SAINT PAUL:

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.

1876.

VOL. IV.]

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by the

"MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,"

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.

This work was prepared at the request and advice of a number of friends, who believed that the writer had the material at hand and the opportunity to prepare it, better than any one else who was likely to undertake it. There seemed, too, a necessity for such a work. The old pioneers of our city and State were, one by one, passing away, and the events of our early history, if not soon gathered and placed on permanent record, would be lost. The names even, of those who first planted their cabins on the site of our city, were fast becoming lost and forgotten; and their worthy acts, their labors, their adventures, the privations and struggles of frontier life, and other events in the earliest days of our city, were rapidly fading from the memory of the little group of pioneers who survived. Even what manner of men they were, whence they came, their personal history, particulars which will interest those who come after us more, perhaps, than they do the present generation, were matters known to so few, and scattered in fragments among widely distant households, it was almost a sealed book to some of the pioneers themselves.

It needed, therefore, some one who was, by occupation and taste, interested in such a work to perform it—since it was certain to be both laborious and unremunerative-some one who would hunt up from the various sources the lost and forgotten threads which, little by little, might be woven into the record of the founding and early days of our goodly city. It was this work that, in a rash moment, I was induced to undertake, little foreseeing into what a labyrinth of troubles I was about to plunge. (At first, however, I should say, only a pamphlet was projected.)

It is now fully ten years since I began collecting material and data for these chronicles—and it was fortunate that I began the work then. I secured, in writing, the minute statements of some of the earliest pioneers of our city, who have since gone to their reward, and which, if not recorded by me then, would probably have been lost. Among