The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1926-09-30

sip and corner story tellers.
l give but two references Of the
Kngihts of Malta orgies, but they will
scuffice to show that there were men
in the "Main Street. of 1870 and a
year or two later, who were full of
certain kind of "pep." The order
disbanded because of its rankneSs and
perhaps also because as in the case of
the awakened stage driver, summary
vengeance of personal nature
was melted out. On THAT oc-
casion the village justice escaped
from the office door with but an inch
or two between his head and the cas-
ing; the stove poker welded by the
irate initiate when his eye bandage
was removed and he beheld himself
before the tall mirror where he had
been placed at the windup. The roar
of laughter which sounded as the
gang outside and at the doorway saw
the final show aroused his wrath.
Anther incident of those days was
the battling of the negro porter and
handy man at local hotel, an inof-
fensive niddleaged man, who was
made the victim of a cruel hoax as
10 his apparent bad health. Some of
the humorists conceivd the idea of
working the psycologic influence on
the Negro, to see how much he could
stand. A leading merchant one
morning meeting the Negro on
Third Street, remarked on his pale
ness. The man declared he felt all
right. The word having been passed
around the next man he met repeated
the legend, until the victim had been
assured by dozen or so that he was
in dangerous condition. This went
on a few days, and persistently. He
finally began TO feel poorly and be-
came nervous, losing appetite anq
unable to perform his routine work.
He finally took to his bed n the gar
ret. He was called on and sympathiz-
ed with and on the street the jokers
discussed the power of suggestion on
their victim. believe this lasted
two or three weeks end the mans con-
dition became serious. Some consid-
crate one sought ito cheer up the man
and restore his mental and physical
condition, but it was too late; the
poor fellow died. This tragedy was
finished shortly befor my arrival in
February 1871, and learned of it
through my employers who had not
been mixed up in the persecution. 1t
was by most of the community re
garded as ineNcusable cruelty and /
leave the readers of half century
later to draw their own conclusions.
tt must be conceded that the "Main
Street" of Mr.. Lewis did not turn
out a sample of small town life equal
to that in severity. The tragedy of
the little school teacher of his story,
through the malevolence of the Cos
siping woman with the praying little
devil of son, was bad enough,
but not afatal one. The pitiful de-
movement in the case of the anarchist,
who was a strong and honest man,
and of his wife and children, was
more probable as sample of neigh
borly cruelty and imhumanity.
"Main Street" of those days had
the average keen witted business
men for town of around Thousand.
Drawing a line north and south
through the state I do not think there
was town west of st. Cloud as large
as Sank Centre then was. 1t was the
terminal of Central Minnesota for
daily stages, the railroad reaching only
TO the east side of the Mississippi at
st. Cloud, where it was built in the
fall of 1866, nearly two years before
Sank Centre had it. The telegraph of
fee opened in the postoffice and the
Herald building in the spring of I'll
with Sam Simonton as operator. He
had been one of the first to learn the
keyword at Bloomington, H., where
he was in early life assistant dis
patcher.
About that time Henry Grant Ris-
i ing and Son established the Wdllmar
Republican in Kandiyohi county, on
the then main line OF the old St.
Paul & Pacific. About 1866 it was
proposed to-move the state capitol
from st. Paul DO Kandiyohi-one of
those crazy schemes that happens TO
many states.
The mail for the northwest military
boys and its start at Sank Centre.
Fort Wadsworrth, in the present Ran
cOlfi COuihty, ~ H., FOIt IOCVSll az
Devils Lake, Abercrombie alt the
crossing of the Red River, Stevenson,
Berthold, Fort Garry, now Winnipeg,
and others, were on the list of rural
routes" of those days, leading from
"Mlain Street"
Long trains of freight teams laden
with supplies for THE military posts
and few settlers passed through to
the far West, loaded usually at St.
Paul. As the early contracts We're
made before the railroad came above
Anoka, but much came from st.
Cloud.
The Burbark Brothers had the.
stage line half way ACROSS the con-
tinent, with freight outfits also. /
little thought then hat / should for
a third of a century run newspaper
in a town founded by brotherlin-
law of the Burbanks- Wilbur Steele,
a Boomer" and later to come before
the public as the man who hung
the Harry X. Thaw jury. One of
the three Burbank sisters lived IN
Steele until the middle nineties.
Still living in modern Main