Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/140

 98 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY Goodhue was attached to Wabasha for judicial purposes, and the legislature further enacted that at any general election after March, 1853 ; the county of Goodhue might he organized for all county purposes, provided that at the election there should be not less than fifty legal votes cast. The law under which the county was organized authorized the governor to appoint all county officers until the next general election thereafter. The first Tuesday in October was named as the day for general election, and as the only two questions upon which the people of the county could vote were for the location of the county seat and for a representative to the territorial legislature, party feeling did not run very high. There was. however, a necessity for calling out the fifty voters required by the legislative ad which created the county. AVacoota and Red AVing at once became rivals for the location of the county scat. It was a1 thai time supposed that AVacoota was designed to become a great city, and the lumbermen who had made it their headquarters were anxious to have the county seat located there. The people of Red AVing. just as confident in the future of their village, were just as anxious as were their brethren down the river. A discussion of "ways and means" by the citizens of Red AA T ing resulted in the hiring of some twenty unmarried men from St. Paul. These young men were at once set at work at various occupations. The law required six months' residence in the ter- ritory, but ten days in the precinct gave to a citizen of the terri- tory the right to vote. These young men being already citizens of the territory, it can easily be seen that ten days' employment in Red AVing duly qualified them to become voters in the new county. The fateful first Tuesday in October, 1853, duly arrived, and great preparations were made for the election. There being no one in Red Wing at that time qualified to administer the oath of office to the judges of election, one Benjamin Young, a French half-blood, who had been selected as one of the judges, journeyed to Point Douglass and found a justice who administered the legally required oath. Thus equipped with the dignity of the law. "Judge" Young returned fully prepared to act and to qualify the others to act. It was found that there was no ballot box, and Young, having already covered himself with immortal glory as the first judge of election in Goodhue county, proved equal to the second emergency and provided for the deficiency an empty tea chest. A conspicuous feature of the decorations on this chest was a dove of peace with red wings — surely a fitting emblem for the village in w T hich the election was held. The statutes of the state of AViseonsin were used as the authority as to the manner of conducting the election, and "Judge" Young proved fully appreciative of the solemnity of the occasion.