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Thence the trip to Chicago was by the steamer Nile, and we encountered a very severe storm on Lake Huron. Reaching Chicago, I was disappointed in the appearance of that far advertised city. Lots close west of the river could be purchased for two hundred dollars.

After a few days' stay in Chicago, I went on by stage to Belvidere, Illinois, near which place my elder brother George, who had come west earlier, was farming. His children were sick with the ague. According to my wish, he sold his property in Belvidere, and we together moved onward to a healthier location near Freeport, in northwestern Illinois, where he took a farming claim of government land.

During the following winter I explored the Galena mining region, and in the spring of 1845 went to the Wisconsin pineries. Two years of hard work in lumbering and sawing followed, with good investments of money partly brought from Maine and partly earned during these years. The spring and summer of the next year, 1847, found me rafting lumber down the Wisconsin river and thence down the Mississippi, selling it in Dubuque, Galena, Quincy, and St. Louis. As lumber bought in northern Wisconsin, rafted, and sold in these growing towns and cities along the Mississippi, brought large profits, I decided to return in the fall to the pineries and continue in this business.

ARRIVAL IN MINNESOTA.

While I was resting for a part of the summer of 1847, in St. Louis, after the sale of my lumber, the heat became so intense that I decided to leave for my voyage up the river. Just then Capt. John Atchison, with his steamer Lynx, arrived from New Orleans, carrying a cargo of government supplies for Fort Snelling, and having on board a pleasure party for the same destination. I secured a stateroom and joined the party. They were all southerners excepting myself, a jolly crowd of ladies and gentlemen. The captain of the boat supplied a brass band that played and entertained us all day, and then furnished string music to dance by in the evening. Thus the whole trip was spent in pleasure, and the time passed rapidly until we arrived at Fort Snelling.

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There Mr. Franklin Steele awaited the arrival of the party with carriages to convey us across the waving prairie to St. Anthony falls. I rode with Mr. Steele in a two-wheeled cart, and he entertained me by describing his claim at the falls, and the improvements contemplated for the following autumn. At the end of our ride, he pointed out the site of the dam and the sawmill he intended to build, while the steward of the boat was preparing dinner for the party on the grass, between the spring and the old gristmill.

There were prepared by

When all the carriages had arrived, every one was anxious to secure the best view of this magnificent body of water as it plunged and seethed over the rocks on its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of people had gazed on this grand spectacle, but no man with capital as yet had attempted to utilize this wonderful natural water power. The bell rang for dinner, and the party gathered to the feast. luxuries prepared by the steward, and delicacies the ladies and distributed by their own hands. There were good wines in abundance, which made the crowd merry, and two hours were spent in feasting and drinking. But clouds were gathering and indicated a shower very soon, and that the party would get a drenching before they could reach the boat. The horses were urged on, and the party reached Min. nehaha falls as the rain began to pour down. Those in open carriages found shelter under the shelving rock, where they were secure until the storm passed over, when all returned to the steamer. The captain had invited the officers and their wives from the fort to join in the dance in the evening, and all had a good time.

I rode back to the steamer with Mr. Steele, and we discussed more thoroughly his claim at the Falls of St. Anthony, and the improvements he wished to make on it. He wanted me to examine the claim, and, as soon as he should hear favorably from Hon. Caleb Cushing and other eastern capitalists forming a company for the manufacture of lumber at the falls, he wanted me to explore the upper Mississippi for pine. When the dance was over, I bade the company good-night and the excursion party adieu, and had my baggage put ashore and removed to the hotel kept by Philander Prescott, where I tarried until I started on my exploring trip.

In the morning the steamer was gone, when Mr. Steele and I crossed the ferry at the fort and went up the east side of the Mississippi to the falls. Everything was just as nature had made it, and the scenery of the islands and river bluffs was indeed beautiful. Civilized man had seen it, but had left no evidence that it had ever been visited before. The falls looked abandoned. No new improvements could be seen any. where. A few weather-beaten buildings marked the sites of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Stillwater. At St. Croix Falls a mill and hotel had been recently built, and these were the only new improvements or new buildings in the whole country.

Benjamin Cheever, Cushing's agent, came from St. Croix Falls to Fort Snelling to finish up the agreement for the improvements to be made on the Franklin Steele water-power claim at St. Anthony falls. Cushing had written to Mr. Cheever what he would do, and that, if Mr. Steele was satisfied, the writings should be drawn up. The conversation took place in Mr. Steele's front parlor, and the argument lasted all day. I was also present. The contention was that the claim was not adequate security for the capital necessary for the improvements, as it was on unsurveyed land, and it was settled in the following manner.

Franklin Steele, of Fort Snelling, Wisconsin Territory, and Caleb Cushing, Robert Rantoul, and their associates, of Massachusetts, entered into an agreement to make the improvements for the manufacture of pine timber at the Falls of St. Anthony, on the Steele claim on unsurveyed government land. It was agreed, between the capitalists and Mr. Steele, that, before the advancing of capital, the Mississippi river and its branches above the falls should be explored by me, and that a written report should be made by me of the estimated amount of pine found, and of the navigation of the river and its tributaries. On the receipt of my report, Cushing and Company were to decide on the amount of capital they would invest in the improvement for lumber manufacturing on Mr. Steele's claim.

Soon after this agreement was made, Benjamin Cheever returned east, and within a year he died. His brother, William A. Cheever, was one of the pioneers of St. Anthony, settling there in the same year, 1847.

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