Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/617

 IIISToKY OF GOODHUE COUNTRY 535 their land by treaty and had<agreed to move to a reservation. However they still maintained their tepees here. The great fire occurred near the time when the Indians were accustomed to return from their winter hunting grounds to occupy the summer tepees .iiid he ready In plant corn, which usually was early in .May. The day was serene and cloudless; carpenters were en- gaged »iti the new houses that were being constructed. Between 12 and 1 o'clock the cry of fire was heard while nearly all the people were eating dinner. Leaving their tables immediately, they saw smoke rising from the hark wigwams, which was quickly followed by flames bursting from the roof of every structure of the kind. Nobody seemed to know what to do. All stood look- ing as if paralyzed with amazement. In less than an hour all the bark covered houses in the place disappeared. This evidently was the work of incendiaries, but they 'were not discovered. There was no policeman and no magistrate to bring them to justice. The few log houses then occupied by the white settlers escaped the conflagration, as did the new frame buildings. Only a few days after some of the natives returned, looking somewhat disappointed at the change, hut took it all as a matter of course and fixed their habitations temporarily at other points in the vicinity. W. B. Hancock, who arrived in Red Wing in October. 1853, thus describes the city at that time, after speaking of the rather starting appearance of the Indians: "The whole town-site was covered with hushes some ten or twelve feet high. The hotel on the corner of Main and Bush streets was nearly finished and occupied by Mr. Durand. William Freeborn had a fairly large frame house. II. L. Bevans had some goods in a board shanty on Main street. W T arren Hunt had a small house. That is all the buildings on Main street that I can think of. . William Lauver. Squire Akers, and a man by the name of Smith, had small frame houses on the other side of Jordan, as it was then called. John Day lived on his claim all the time. I do not think the city ex- tended that far. His shanty stood on the bank of the bay where the Red Wing Stoneware Company now 7 has its works. Rev. Sorin had a frame house. Calvin Potter had a hewed log house with a store in the same building. The same was afterward used, with a new front built on. for a hotel called the Metropoli- tan, burned many years ago. There were some mission houses, which stood on Bush street (what would now be about the mid- dle of the street, a little to the south of mid-way between .Main and Third streets). II. L. Bevans lived in one. A. W. Hancock, the other. The latter was two stories and double, one end being used as a school and n ting house. Dr. AV. W. Sweney lived in a log house near the river hank. A man by the name of IIovl