The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1926-03-04


and Pennington, he managed to- get
all his companions placed on farms,
while he himself secured work on the
Northern Pacific R. R. which was then
being constructed between st. Paul
and Duluth.
When winter came and the ground
froze, this kind of work had to be
discontinued, and he drifted with the
rest to the logging camps of North
ern Minnesota where he soon learn
ed the art of telling the giant pines
with ak and saw. He soon became
quite expert at it and before spring
was made foreman of the telling
gang, which also helped his income
somewhat. This kind OF work was
however very dangerous, and many
were the times that a large tree or
limb missed him only by a few inch
es. Once a very large tree missed
him by less than ''the skin on the
nose" for the trunk of the tree lit
orally scraped the skin off his nose
when it fell to the ground. Two
inches closer and this story would not
have been written. When spring
came and the snow melted and the
big spring-drive was on, my grand
father at first had intended to try
that also; but after learning the ma
ture of the work he decided to ride
the train instead of the logs that they
had cut. Loosening them here and
there when they had run into
liam" and otherwise regulate their
orderly flow down the river, did. not
appeal to him. Every once in
while someone would slip off log
into the icecold water, often never
to come up; and if they did climb
out, they would still have to dry
their clothes on their bodies. Ac-
cording to my grandfather's ideas
that was too much risk even if the
pay was extra good. Some men
earned almost as much on a weeks
driving as during the whole winter
in camp, but it meant whole week
almost entirely without food or sleep.
Grandfather took the safer means and
walked several days to the nearest
stage coach and then to the nearest
railroad. He always went on the idea
that his health was worth more than
the job.
After getting back to Minneapolis
after his, first winters logging, he
finally secured work on a farmstead
that was located on what is now the
corner of tenth street and Hennepin
Avenue or where the present City
Library stands. This was then just
in the outskirts of the city, so this
gives some idea of how it has grown
in the last fifty years. This farm
was, however, sold that summer and
plated for streets and lot purposes.
The farmer retiring, wanted grand
father to move with them "to town"
and be their coachman, and many a
time has he since regretted that he
did not accept, for he has always felt
that he then passed up the best OPP
portunity in his life. But who knows?
He then worked on the Pennington
prairies during the harvest season and
| that fall, when he again started north
for the logging camps, for adventure
and for the farthest northern out
posts of civilization. But he got too
far northwest and got work on a
railroad and later for logging con-
tractor who was irresponsible, and he
did not get his pay. Too much wis
ky got into the camps, and the men
drank and fought and gambled more
his troubles, he became ill because of
! poor camp facilities only lot
of lumberjacks for nurses. After sew
eral weeks he managed to leave camp,
starting off on foot in southwesterly
direction towards a Swedish settle
ment about 200 miles southwest of
Leach Lake. He finally managed to
reach Fergus Falls almost penniless
and with his feet all played out. He
had no work, no money, and was ut
terly discouraged. Someone staked
him with enough money to get to
Minneapolis, SO he came through Sank
Center sometime in the winter of
1901 by stage coach from Fergus
Falls to St. Cloud, and then by train
from there to Minneapolis. This was
his second year in America, and the
hardest in all his life.
In Minneapolis he had friends and
credit, and it did not take long before
he had regained his health and his
financial losses. He would bind grain
in harvest season, and log in the
lumber camps in winter till he had
SdVeu up COHSluerdDle money. In
the early summer and fall he would
grub trees on the farms east of St.
Paul. He then decided to go back ia
his native country, thinking he could
do well at farming there by estab-
fishing some Of the American meth
DDS of working. So, in the winter of
1894, he again set sail for what
to him was "dear old Sweden'-but
on a much better and faster going
ship than the one on which he had
come across five years earlier. That
spring he married and commenced
farming according to good American
standards, figuring that if he work
ed as hard as the farmers here do he
was bound to succeed. But up to
that time he had had no chance to
acquaint himself with government as
it affected the farmer. So after five
years of hard toll for both himself
and his good wife, he found he was
no better off financially than when
they began. Taxes and interest took
everything above necessities.
Realizing that this could not con-
tinue, he decided to return to this
country and see if he could do bet
ter than he had on his first trip here,