working in the sawmill, farming, and performing the duties and enjoying all the emoluments and honors of probate judge, United States commissioner, and postmaster, all at the same time, deemed himself well equipped with necessary qualifications for a mail carrier.

In addition to the writer's official qualifications, he was equipped with that which was vastly more necessary, a boat for summer and his large Newfoundland dog, "Duff," for winter travel. Not many dogs mentioned in history deserve more commendation than Duff. During the winters, when not carrying mail, he was employed in hauling wood from that part of the present city of Duluth between First and Second avenues west and Superior and Second streets to the writer's home on the point in Duluth where he then lived, or in bringing supplies from Superior, or taking his master or mistress to visit a neighbor. He would carry the writer's children across the ice on the lake about a mile to school in Portland. He often made the trip on the ice from Fond du Lac, stopping at Oneota, to Duluth, with his master and the mail bag in the sled, in less than two hours. Duff toiled thus faithfully for ten years. It is hoped that the writer may be pardoned for taking up so much space in mentioning this early Duluth mail carrier.

It would seem incredible that for fifteen years, within the present city of Duluth, the United States mail had to be carried on a trail, by packer and dog train, yet such is the fact. From 1855 to 1870, the mail was carried in that way between Duluth, Oneota, Fond du Lac, and Twin Lakes. The writer can certify, from actual experience, that the mail carriers of those days were compelled to face and undergo extreme dangers and hardships.

DECREASED COLD OF RECENT WINTERS.

During the past ten or fifteen years the extreme cold and rigor of our winters have materially modified. In the early days, forty years ago, the cold of our winters was steady, dry, and uniform. Moccasins could be worn without having wet feet, from the middle of November to the first of April. It was almost the rule to see ice on the lake until the first of June. The writer knew of two men getting off a steamboat

that had been stuck in the ice for several days, on the 9th of June, almost forty years ago, and walking to shore on the broken ice a distance of six or eight miles. Our winters are now much milder than in the early days. We are not now surprised to see all the snow disappear in midwinter and to have it rain. Such extremes would have been surprising thirty or forty years ago.

VOLUNTEERS FROM ST. LOUIS COUNTY IN THE CIVIL WAR.

The writer is able to give the names of only a few of the sixteen patriotic volunteers of St. Louis county, who, during the civil war, without hope of reward, except the conscious pride of the performance of a patriotic duty, responded to their country's call.

Besides Col. J. B. Culver, before referred to in this paper, who was one of the sixteen, I remember six others. Two of them are yet residents of Duluth, Freeman Keen and John G. Rakowski. Mr. Keen was born in Oxford county, Maine, on November 20th, 1831. He came to the head of lake Superior in April, 1854, and in the fall of that year settled at Oneota. At the first call for 75,000 men by President Lincoln, he took a steamboat for Detroit, and at once enlisted in the First Michigan Battery. He zealously followed the fortunes of that battery through three long years of hard fighting, taking part in all the battles, which were many, in which it was engaged. In the fall of 1864, Mr. Keen returned to Oneota, where he has since lived.

John G. Rakowski was born March 24th, 1824, at Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. He came to the United States in 1855; and came to St. Louis county in September of that year. In 1861 he enlisted in Washington, D. C., in the Eighth New York regiment of volunteer infantry, and served with it for three months. Then he enlisted in the Eighth Ohio volunteer infantry. He took part in many battles, from the first battle of Bull Run to the siege of Petersburg. After the close of the war he returned, in 1865, to his preemption claim just west of Rice's point, now in the Second division of Duluth.

Julius Gogarn, a German, whose history or military record the writer is unable to give, enlisted in a Michigan regiment in 1861. He lived near Oneota, back on the hill on his preemption claim, of which he made final proof and obtained his

title before leaving to enlist. He is now an honored citizen of Wetmore, Alger county, Michigan.

Robert P. Miller, after whom Miller's creek was named (which runs through a part of the city of Duluth), enlisted in the Fourth Minnesota regiment in December, 1861. William C. Bailey, who resided on his homestead adjoining Oneota,with his wife and a large family of children, enlisted in the Fifth Minnesota in 1862. A part of his homestead is known now as Hazelwood addition to Oneota. The only other St. Louis volunteer, whose name I can recall, was Alonzo Wilson, who was enrolled in November, 1861, in Brackett's cavalry battalion of Minnesota.

THE TOWN OF BUCHANAN AND THE LAND OFFICE.

The townsite of Buchanan, St. Louis county, named after James Buchanan, then candidate for the presidency of the United States, was platted in October, 1856, by William G. Cowell. The survey and platting were done by Christian Wieland, then one of the best civil engineers at the head of the lake. It was located on the shore of lake Superior, southwestward from the mouth of Knife river. Like many other paper towns on the north shore, it never amounted to anything. Cowell never obtained title to the land embraced in the townsite. It was a wilderness while the land office was located there, and it became still more so after the removal of that office to Portland. The land embraced in the townsite was afterward entered by purchase from the United States.

In 1857, the United States land office was located at Buchanan. In May, 1859, it was removed to Portland, but unfortunately there was no suitable building that could be obtained in Portland for office room, so a small story and a half frame building was erected by William Nettleton and J. B. Culver on the Nettleton claim, nearly on the site of the old first election log shanty. The land office was kept there until the appointment of Marvin and Luce as register and receiver in May, 1861. Then the land office was removed into the general office room in Mr. Luce's residence in Portland, where it was kept for eight years, until the appointment of Ansel Smith and William H. Feller as officers. The old building, after the land office was removed, was occupied as a resi

dence for a short time in 1861 by Judge John Dumphy, who was the register of deeds of St. Louis county in 1859. He also held the office of judge of probate for some years thereafter, and is yet an honored resident of Duluth.

It was in that old land office building that the first public school for the Duluth School District No. 5 was kept in 1862. The same building was also used, in the years 1866 to 1868, as the headquarters of Mr. Mayhew, Prof. H. H. Eames, and others, upon their return from their explorations of the north shore of lake Superior and the Vermilion lake country. That old building is also entitled to still greater fame. It was in it that Masonry in Duluth had its birth, when, on the evening of the 10th of April, 1869, the Palestine Lodge No. 79, A. F. and A. M., held its first meeting. The years since that time have witnessed the healthy and steady growth of Masonry in Duluth, springing up, as it were, "from the little acorn to the mighty oak."

In 1870 the old building was moved down from its historic site to Superior street about seventy-five feet east of the corner of First avenue east. It was enlarged and for a time it was occupied by Frank McWhorter as a fruit stand, and was afterward destroyed by fire.

FIRST SERMONS AND CHURCHES.

After Rev. W. T. Boutwell's sermon at the Fond du Lac trading post in 1832, the next preaching that we have any account of was a sermon delivered at Oneota by Rev. J. G. Wilson, then of Superior, in the month of October, 1855, in the log boarding house. In 1856, a frame building was erected between First and Second streets and a little east of Fond du Lac avenue, according to the plat of Oneota, by the proprietors of that townsite for public use as a schoolhouse and a place for the ministers of all denominations to preach the gospel to the inhabitants of Oneota and neighboring settlers. A bell for this building was donated by B. W. Raymond, a wealthy merchant of Chicago. Rev. James Peet, a Methodist minister, came to Oneota in 1857, and remained until 1861, preaching there and at other points, including Superior. After Mr. Peet left, Rev. James Pugh, of the same denomination, came and preached there for a year or two. After Mr. Pugh

left, ministerial preaching was quite limited at all points on the north shore until 1869.

The first sermon in Duluth was preached by Rev. John M. Barnett, a Presbyterian minister of Superior, on a Sunday afternoon in July, 1856. His congregation was not very large. The writer was one of the number, having accompanied him in a flat-bottomed skiff from Superior. His pulpit was at the head of a table in the dining room of the sawmill boarding house, kept then by Mr. Newell Ryder and his family, which house was afterward owned and occupied as a residence by the writer. It was some years ago destroyed by fire.

There were no church organizations established in Duluth or in St. Louis county prior to 1869. The early settlers of St. Louis, Carlton, and Lake counties were a law-abiding and Christian people. They lived for fifteen years without churches, but not without preaching, without doctors and lawyers, but not without medicine and law.

The churches established in Duluth in 1870, with their seating capacity, are reported are follows: The Methodist church, seating 400; the Presbyterian, 400; the Baptist, 300; the Congregational, 300; the Episcopal, 300; and the Roman Catholic, 200.

On the first day of June, 1869, the first Presbyterian church of Duluth was organized by the Rev. W. R. Higgins, now deceased, who was the Presbyterian minister at Superior. Mr. Higgins had then for about three years also preached and ministered to the people of Duluth. The writer is in possession of a copy of a diary kept by Mr. Higgins, which was kindly furnished by his son, Alvin M. Higgins, now one of the leading attorneys of Terre Haute, Ind. To an old timer this diary is intensely interesting reading. In it Mr. Higgins makes mention of many trips on Sunday afternoons, both in summer and winter, across the bay to Duluth to preach and minister to its people.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND SCHOOLS.

The first meeting of the board of county commissioners of St. Louis county was held on January 4th, 1858, at the office of R. H. Barrett, then acting as register of deeds, at Stuntz's warehouse at the lower end of Minnesota point. There is no record that the board had a clerk. Without transacting any