Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/321

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 261' paymenl of the funds was obtained through the unflinching in- tegrity of* Charles Ward. "Immediately upon the breaking up of the original com- pany, a few of its members proceeded to reorganize a new com- pany upon a much smaller scale. Several members of this com- pany immediately started for Minnesota in order to find a location for their little colony. Instead of a special committee, the members constituted themselves a committee of the whole, and upon their arrival in Minnesota started out in search of land. They had agreed upon Red Wing as a place of rendezvous, where they should meet and compare notes. A company of three of these explorers, who seem to have been a leading sub-com- mittee of the company, in the latter part of July, 1856, proceeded to the southwest of that point to a southerly portion of the then territory of Minnesota. This committee consisted of Joseph Bailey, Daniel B. Goddard and Samuel ( 'haffee. After several days of weary search for government land that could be had for their purpose, and finding nothing to their liking, they started on their return to Red Wing, weary, footsore and discouraged, fully resolved to return to New England. "Let us now for a brief period leave our travelers making their melancholy journey to the Mississippi river, and give a few moments' attention to what has transpired in the valley of the north branch of the Zumbro. There was a beautiful valley, three miles in width, and perhaps four miles in length, through the center of which the Zumbro coursed like a serpentine band of silver. On account of this tract not being represented on the maps of the time as surveyed lands it was supposed by many to be on the 'Half Breed' tract, so called, consequently up to the midsummer of 1856 scarcely a settler had ventured into this beautiful valley. No road traversed it.' The trail of the red men and the old paths left by the buffalo were the only evidence re- maining that any living creature had ever traversed the valley. The old territorial road from St. Paul to Dubuque crossed the Zumbro about one and one-half miles below the lower end of this valley. In the spring of 1856 a backwoodsman by the name of Smith, who was a born pioneer and could no more endure civilization than a Sioux Indian, who, nevertheless, was shrewd and scheming, in one of his hunting trips for (U-i'v. ducks and prairie chickens, strolled over the divide from the big woods on the middle branches of the Zumbro. where he had settled the year before, into the above described valley. He round to his surprise that no settler had invaded its precin'cts. His interesl was aroused. He traveled over its length and breadth, appre- ciated both its beauty and its advantages, though one may sup-