Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/614

 532 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY hardly covered that expense, but the office was a great conven- ience. Up to that time the nearest postoffice was twenty-five miles away. The mail was carried in those days to and from St. Paul easterly, by steamboats in the summer and by a one-horse train in the winter. The few people here usually expected a mail as often as every week, but it was sometimes delayed three weeks on account of storms or floating ice in the river. In the spring of 1852 the one-horse mail train was by accident totally wrecked in crossing Spring creek, three miles west of Red AYing. The mail bags, some five or six in number, were left several hours in the water. After being fished out they were brought to the Red AYing postoffice and a whole day was spent in opening and drying the contents. In 1851 also occurred the first death. In the words of the Rev. J. H. Hancock: "The first white person known to have been buried within the limits of this county was the dear wife who accompanied me hither from our eastern home and shared in the labors and privations of the situation for the first two years. She was a daughter of New England and of Puritan stock. We were joined in marriage at her father's house in Worcester county, Massachusetts, in 1846. In the latter part of the year 1848 we received the appointment to go and labor among the Dakotas west of the Mississippi river. For several reasons we did not start for the west until the following spring. The health of my wife seemed greatly improved for a time after our arrival at Red Wing's village. She entered upon the task of acquiring a knowledge of the Dakota language with great zeal. She attracted the attention of the Indian children, taught the girls knitting and sewing and soon had three of them washed and dressed like white folks, living in the family with us. But I think she labored beyond what her strength could endure. In the autumn of 1850 her health began to decline and she died March 21, 1851. At her own request she was buried on Indian ground at the foot of the towering bluff. When a more advanced civilization came to found a city on the site of this Indian vil- lage and the ground was wanted for business blocks, a city for the dead was platted on the summit of the southern bluff over- looking the place, and to this cemetery her remains were re- moved. A marble slab at Oakwood cemetery now marks the last resting place of this devoted woman." Early in the spring of 1852. John Day came over from Dia- mond Bluff. Wis., and made a claim in the upper part of the town. Benjamin Young, a French half-breed, also settled here at about this time, and Day, Young. Bush and Potter staked out claims on the land now occupied by the city, in anticipation of the Indian treaty which was then being discussed and anticipated.