team and return at night, blind themselves and the
oxen, too, from the sting of the buffalo gnat. The mosquitoes came in
great clouds and were everywhere.

Every little clear space of a hundred acres or more was called a
prairie.

When I first saw Duluth it was only a cotton-town. That is, log houses
with canvas roofs or tents. Most mail carriers used dog teams. Three
dogs hitched tandem was the common sight. I have seen three dogs haul a
dead horse.

In our expedition against the Indians only thirty-seven of the eight
hundred horses we took, came back with us. The rest starved to death.
Unlike the Red River stock which would paw through the deep snow to the
long grass, fill themselves and then lie down in the hole and sleep,
they knew nothing of this way and so could not forage for themselves.
This campaign was with Hatch's Independent Battalion.

Lieut. Grosvenor who was new to the Red River country was married and on
his wedding trip was to stop at McCauleyville. He sent word ahead that
he wanted a private room. When he got there, he was shown into the only
room there was--full of half breed sleepers. He hastened to the
proprietor and said, "I ordered a private room." His answer was, "There
are only six beds in there, what more could you want?"

Mr. Austin W. Farnsworth--1851.

We came to Fillmore County in the Fall of 1851 from Vermont. We were
strapped. Not one cent was left after the expenses of the trip were
paid. A neighbor took my father with him and met us at McGregor Landing
with an ox team hitched to a prairie schooner. We were four days getting
to Fillmore County, camping on the way. The nearest town, only a post
office, was Waukopee. Father had come the previous spring and planted
two acres of wheat, two acres of corn and one-half acre of potatoes. The
potatoes all rotted in the ground.

I was only nine years old and my brother thirteen, but we made all the
furniture for that cabin out of a few popple poles and a hollow basswood
log. For beds, beams were fitted in between the logs and stuck out about
a foot above the floor and were six feet long. To these we fastened
cross pieces of "popple" and on this put a tick filled with wild hay and
corn stalk leaves. It made a wonderful bed when you were tired as
everyone was in those days, for all worked. After we had cut off a
section of our big log by hand, we split it in two and in one half bored
holes and fitted legs of the unpeeled popple for the se