Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/320

 260 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY lowing day the party arrived in Red Wing, where Mr. Chaffee, who had heen taken ill on the journey, died, August 9, 1856. His remains still repose in the cemetery at Red Wing. There was quite a tide of immigration to Zumbrota, ehieliy among those who belonged to the company, in the fall of 1856 and spring of 1857. Prink and Walker's stage route from Du- buque to St. Paul had previously been established through the township, but in March, 1857. the route was changed so as to lead through the village. T. P. Kellett was the first postmaster. The first death was that of John Cameron, December, 1856. AVilliam E. Winter was married in .May. 1857. his being the first marriage in the township. An active participant in the settlement of Zumbrota is authority for the following items regarding the early days of the township: "Zumbrota was settled by a small fragment of a large company called the Stafford Western Emigration Company. The original company was organized in the winter of 1855-56. This company contained over 150 members, most of them heads of families. Its members were mainly from Massachusetts and Connecticut, h had a paid up capital of $30,000. The plan con- templated the purchase of at least a township of land in one body, and laying ou1 a village in the eenter of the tract. The aim of the projectors was to plant a distinctively New England colony in the West. At a meeting of the company at Lowell, Mass., in February. 1856, the organization was perfected and plans matured to transplant the colony in the early spring as soon as a suitable site could be selected by the committee of three chosen for the purpose. This committee started for the West soon after the meeting at Lowell and took with them about $30,000, with which to purchase land and make the needed improvements ready for the colonists, when they should arrive. It would be tedious to relate the details which followed the de- parture of the committee for the West. Suffice it to say that not one of the committee was a practical man. They had no ac- quaintance with western affairs. And at least two out of the three seem to have had separate schemes of their own by which each hoped to subserve his own interest, or that of his friends and backers. The result was such as might have been expected. There soon developed dissensions and divisions in the committee. After wasting some three months of time and $3,000 of the com- pany's funds, the company was called together again in May, at Lowell, to hear the report of the chairman of the committee. The outcome of this meeting was a dissolution of the original company and a repayment of the funds to the members, less the amount expended or squandered by the committee. This re-