The following is from the Dubuque Telegraph:

CAPTAIN ORREN SMITH, well known to the early settlers of Galena and Dubuque, and in fact along the Upper Mississippi, died October 31, 1881, at the residence of his brother, Sam T. Smith in La Crosse, Wis. Capt. Smith was born in Hamilton county, Ohio, near Cincinnati, in August, 1806, and was over seventy-five years old. Before he was eighteen he emigrated to the lead mine region with Moses Meeker in the capacity of a clerk at Galena or vicinity. After a year or two he engaged in mining with James Langworthy, and they discovered the famous Phelps lode near Hard Scrabble, Wis., since known as Hazel Green. About 1827 he married Miss Mary Ann Langworthy, a sister of the Dubuque Langworthys. In 1833 he removed his family to Dubuque, and still engaged in the lead trade by building a smelting furnace near the Wilson grove, now better known as the William Y. Stewart farm. Two years later he went with Lucius H. Langworthy to spend the winter in Cincinnati. In the spring of 1835 he bought the steamer Heroine and engaged in river commerce. In that and other navigation enterprises, aided by the Langworthys, he was so successful that he commanded and largely owned a number of steamboats in the course of the next twenty years, and was for a long time president of the Minnesota Packet Company. About 1866 he removed to Chicago and engaged in manufacturing and commercial affairs. He returned to Dubuque a year or two ago. His wife died about five months since. One daughter and two sons survive. The remains of the deceased arrived at Dubuque November 1st and were interred November 2nd at Linwood.

REMINISCENCES OF PERSONS AND EVENTS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE MINNESOTA

HISTORICAL SOCIETY.*

BY WILLIAM H. KELLEY.

The writer was appointed Actuary of the Historical Society in May, 1858. Disappointed in farming, in the vicinity of Crow river, he had come down to St. Paul in the summer of the year 1856, and obtained a position as book-keeper in the clothing store of G. G. Griswold on Third street, near Cedar street. Early in 1857, the directors of the St. Paul Bridge Company, a company organized to construct the Wabasha street bridge, appointed the late D. A. Robertson managing director; and that gentleman having made known to Mr. Griswold that he wanted some one to be secretary of the Bridge Company, who could also be a clerk to him, Mr. Griswold recommended me to Col. Robertson, and I received the appointment. The financial crash of the year 1857 caused the suspension of work upon the bridge; and it also stopped the sale of city lots, which was Colonel Robertson's business. Therefore I was out of work, and, the position of Actuary of this Society being offered me, it was immediately accepted, having been proposed by Col. Robertson.

The Historical Society then had a small collection of books, and a cabinet containing a few curiosities. An open case of shelves extended across one end of the room, and it was only partly filled with the books. The room was in the capitol, on the Exchange street side.

Soon after the room was open to visitors, a barometer was brought in that had belonged to Nicollet, who came to this country in 1836 and explored the upper Mississippi. The barometer had belonged to the Society for some years, but had

Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, September 14,

been loaned to Mr. William Markoe at the time he made his balloon ascensions. It had been left in charge of the occupants of the room used by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. One of the employees, in relating an amusing anecdote, wanting a cane to help him in his illustration and seeing the barometer in a corner, seized that and broke it in his stampede about the room.

The Society's library included ten volumes of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, which were placed upon the shelves and were consulted by a few visitors. One in particular, Mr. John H. Bowes, found matter that interested him. In the January number of the volume for the year 1856 there was a letter from an Englishman, with the name of Bowes, who had seen copies of the Register in the British Museum, and wished to learn something of his relatives in America, as his ancestor had left the country at the time of the War of the Revolution.

While I was acting as clerk to Col. Robertson, he was collecting material for a work on anthropology. From his library he would select the needed book and dictate, in his own language, such items as applied to the matter, to be put into writing. Then, after my reading it to him, he would make changes in the phraseology in many instances, as the work was intended to be a Cyclopædia of Anthropology. On the day that he had promised to deliver a lecture, the object and date being now forgotten, it was incomplete late in the afternoon and remained unfinished a half hour before the time it was to be delivered. He continued to dictate, his carriage was in readiness, and the lecture was finished and delivered at the hour advertised.

The Rev. Edward D. Neill published his History of Minnesota in 1858. On page 295 is the description of the outfit that was furnished to the men employed by the American Fur Company, about the year 1816, one item being a "three point or triangular blanket." Mr. Neill's attention was called to the statement, and he said it was copied from the reminiscences of Hon. James H. Lockwood of Prairie du Chien. In the second volume of the collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society the original article can be found, with the same statement of a triangular blanket. English Mackinaw blankets were never made triangular. They were of different qualities, the

coarsest having two short black lines woven in a corner of the blanket, and the finest having five short lines. These lines were designated as points, the three point blankets being the quality that traders sold to the Indians. American Mackinaw blankets were first made near Buffalo, N. Y., in 1831, and in these similar points were used to represent the size.

It was the Legislature of 1858 that passed the $5,000,000 Loan Act, and I was employed by Gov. Sibley to number the bonds and coupons and to write in the name of the railroad company to which they were issued, one hundred at a time. Being in Louisville, Ky., at the time when Mr. Chamberlain made his proposal to take one-half of the principal and interest of the large number of the bonds in his possession, and the Courier-Journal having alluded to Minnesota as a Republican state that repudiated its bonds, my Minnesota pride was aroused and I prepared from memory a statement showing that the people, without regard to party, were largely in favor of amending the state constitution to admit of their issue, and were nearly unanimous when they voted to repeal the amendment. This statement was published in the Louisville Commercial.

Returning to St. Paul shortly afterward, I consulted documents and made a longer article which was published in the St. Paul Dispatch. Before the publication, it was shown to the late J. F. Williams, for the correction of any errors it might contain, one statement being that all the judges of the supreme court were in favor of the writ to compel the governor to issue the bonds. The paper being returned without any comment, I was mortified to learn, after it had been published, that Judge Flandrau did not concur in the issue of the writ and had been unjustly accused of favoring it.

Employed as a clerk in the state auditor's office when the railroad bonds were retired, I remember that the agent of Mr. Chamberlain, coming to exchange his old bonds for the new issue, said to Auditor Whitcomb, "Now we will make an ap plication for the other half." The reply was, "You will have to be satisfied with what you have got; we have had to do too much hard work to get it."

August 5th, 1858, the laying of the Atlantic cable between Ireland and Newfoundland was completed. St. Paul, with other cities, celebrated the event on the first day of September;