the Minnesota river at St. Paul,
but she was well worth all the trouble for she was the only cow in the
settlement that first summer. She went dry during the winter and not a
drop of milk could be had for love or money in the town.

The want of salt bothered the pioneers more than anything else. Game
abounded. Buffalo herds sometimes came near and deer often came through
the settlement on the way to the river to drink. The streams were full
of fish, but we could not enjoy any of these things without salt.
However, our family did not suffer as much inconvenience as some others
did. One family we knew had nothing to eat but potatoes and maple syrup.
They poured the syrup over the potatoes and managed to get through the
winter. Sometimes flour would be as high as $24 a barrel. During the
summer when the water was low and in the winter when the river was
frozen and the boats could not come down from St. Paul, the storekeepers
could charge any price they could get.

Our family had a year's supply of groceries that father had bought at
St. Louis on the way up. We had plenty of bedding and about sixty yards
of ingrain carpet that was used as a partition in our house for a long
time. There was very little to be bought in St. Paul at that time.
Father bought the only set of dishes to be had in St. Paul and the only
clock.

There were only a few houses in Mankato and the only thing we could find
to live in was the frame of a warehouse that Minard Mills had just begun
to build on the south end of the levee, where Otto's grocery store now
stands. My uncle purchased the building and we put a roof on and moved
in. We were a family of twenty-one and I remember to this day the awful
stack of dishes we had to wash after each meal. A frame addition was put
along side of the building and in July my cousin, Sarah J. Hanna (later
Mrs. John Q. A. Marsh) started a day school with twenty-four scholars.
It was the first school ever held in Mankato.

In 1855, a tract of land twenty four miles long and twelve miles wide
was withdrawn from civilization and given as a reservation to two
thousand Winnebago Indians who took possession in June of that year
against the vigorous protest of the people. Everyone in the town was
down to see them come in. The river was full of their canoes for two or
three days. As soon as they landed, the Indians began the erection of a
rude shelter on the levee of poles and bark, perhaps twenty feet long
and twelve f