Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/319

 HISTOKY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 259 C. W. Smith were also early settlers, as was C. P. Bonney, who arrived .May 26, 1856, and built a cabin. It is related that for the first six weeks Mrs. Bonney saw the face of no white man but her husband. In the fall of 1S55 Rev. II. X. Gates, a missionary who had been laboring in Iowa, returned to Stafford, Connecticut, where he had formerly lived, and proposed organizing an emigration company to establish a colony in the AY est. The first meeting was held in Stafford, at which time the company was organized, under the name of Stafford Western Emigration Company, with Albert Barrett, of Stafford, as president and Charles Ward, of Lowell, Mass., as secretary. The following members constituted the board: T. P. Kellett, Josiah Thompson, Joseph Bailey, D. B. Goddard, Dr. Ira Perry, James Elwell, Milton Bonner, Samuel Chaffee, Ruben A. Smith and C. ('. Webster. At a meeting held in Palmer, Mass.. January, 1856, they adjourned to meet at Lowell in February, 1856. One hundred and sixty persons joined the association at the time of the adjourned meeting in Lowell and the capital stock paid in at that time was $30,000. At this meeting Rev. H. N. Gates, Albert Barrett and Mr. Sher- wood were appointed a committee to go to Iowa or Minnesota and purchase a township of land. The funds of the association were placed at the disposal of Rev. H. N. Gates, chairman of the com- mittee. Nothing was heard from the committee after their de- parture until the latter part of May. 1856, when a call for a meeting was issued by the secretary, Charles Ward, stating that the committee had returned and would report.. Gates and Sher- wood both made reports but disagreed, and the company dis- banded. A smaller company was formed soon after. There were certain transportation concessions that had been made to the old company and the company wished to secure these and at the same time not have the name of the old company, a thing which was accomplished by the insertion of the letter "r" in the oh! name, the new designation being the Strafford Western Emigra- tion Company. The members were Josiah Thompson, Ira Perry, Joseph Bailey, D. B. Goddard, T. P. Kellett and Samuel Chaffee. In the latter part of July oi* early part of August. 1856, some of the members of the company came to this pari of Minnesota and, after looking over the country in different local it it's. Samuel Chaffee, D. B. Goddard and Joseph Bailey came across the Zum- bro river valley with the intention of returning to ev England via Red Wing. As they ascended the hill north of where the village of Zumbrota now stands, Samuel Chaffee discovered the beauties of the valley, and probably to him belongs the en', lit for the subsequent settlement of the colony at that point. The fol-