Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/615

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COl TY .533 About the middle of May in this year came those two sturdy pioneers, William Freeborn and Dr. AY. V. Sweney. Later in the season Dr. Sweney brought his family here, as did also James MeGuinness, and later E. C. Stevens. The story of Dr. Sweney 's coming is told in his own words in the general history of the county which appears in this volume. To Dr. Sweney and his brother-in-law, William Freeborn, belong the honor of selecting the place as a village site. The former purchased the claim right of Bush and Potter and the latter that of Young, which adjoined the Bush and Potter claim on the west or upper side. All these events occurred before the Indians had received word that the treaty had been ratified, and when as a matter of fact, the whites had no real rights here, though Dr. Sweney, the "medicine man," was a most welcome settler, and the others, for one reason or another, as the case might be, were tolerated. In this year came the real influx of population. A raft of lumber from the saw mills at Stillwater was floated down and taken out of the river for building purposes and two young men were employed as carpenters during the winter of 1852-53. They were Hiram and Joseph Middaugh. They prepared the timber and finishing wood for a hotel, which was erected and made ready for the reception of guests as soon as the weather would permit in the spring. That hotel was the first frame building erected here. It stood on the corner of Main and Bush streets and was kept open for the accommodation of travelers for about two years by Andrus Durand. While Mr. Durand was the land- lord it was the Red House, afterward it. was called the Tee-pee- tonka, or "big house," and was kept by Jacob Bennett until destroyed by fire in 1865. In the words of Mr. Hancock : ' Troops of claim hunters came in this season (1852) and many and amusing were the strifes about who should hold this or that favored claim in the surrounding county. At that time there had been no United States survey and each man was permitted to mark off his 160 acres. It was astonishing to see how long some men could pace. Then, every one had a host of friends coming after, for each of whom he must have a claim selected, and in duty bound must see that their rights were protected. All this made business lively in our embryo city. Arbitrations and appeals to the court of Justice Lynch were everyday occurrences. A slight skirmish was not infrequent, but to the honor of the first settlers of Red Wing, no lives were lost and none to our knowledge were seri- ously injured. Very few of the first claim hunters remained as permanent residents. They had come too soon. It was dull business to wait until the land could be surveyed and brought into market, boarding one's self in a log cabin eight or ten feet