Part three of a series
In preparation for Houston County’s diamond anniversary (75 years) homecoming celebration in 1929, one committee produced a 48-page history pamphlet that included the information recounted here, surely drawing from extensive county histories published in 1882 and 1919. One section was devoted to the early settlement of several townships and villages.
There were claims that Jefferson was the first site of white settlement in what became Houston County, but “Brownsville has often been accorded that honor.” Mexican War veteran John Ross arrived from Galena in 1847. Winnebago Indians helped roll logs for construction of the first cabins in Jefferson.
Brownville was settled in 1848, platted by brothers Job and Charles Brown. It was the center for early land sales in the county. A smallpox epidemic took 16 lives as it swept through the township in 1857. During a fourth of July celebration in 1855, “an ox was roasted and fed to the assembled multitude. The town was full of people and every available room and stall for man and beast was occupied, while many of the horses and oxen had to stand in the streets. Where the people all came from was a mystery.”
The first man of European extraction claiming land in Houston Township was W. G. McSpadden, who came up the Root River from La Crosse in 1851. He platted the original town site, which became known as “Old Houston” after the village moved west to secure railroad access. The first regular store was opened in 1854 by Ole Knutson, who used his keel boat to transport goods from La Crosse. Since Houston was on navigable water, there was for a few years a shipyard that built steamboats. The post office and first hotel both opened in 1857. The highly anticipated amber (sugar) cane industry was a regional disappointment but “reached its height” in Houston.
Money Creek Township was originally called Hamilton, but that had to change with there already being a Minnesota township with that name. “Some man, having got his pocketbook and contents wet in the creek, spread out the bank notes on a bush to dry. A sudden gust of wind blew into the water again and some of it was never recovered, so this circumstance suggested the name of the stream, after which the town(ship) was named. The village of Money Creek, like Black Hammer, first chose the name of Clinton, but were also too late to be entitled to keep the name.”
A tannery lasted only about two years, but brick, at first manufactured on a farm, proved to be a profitable enterprise. The bricks were first molded by hand, but a machine became available in 1870. The bricks from Money Creek were used in other
Photo courtesy of the Houston County Historical Society
parts of the county in numerous constructions, including a Caledonia jail.
The village of Hokah was the Native American name for the Root River and the name of a prominent chief. Edward Thompson was known as the first white pioneer in 1851. At the first town meeting, May 11, 1858, it was voted that “all hogs running at large after the 20th of May shall be liable to a fine of one dollar each.” There was a resolution that “a fence four and a half feet high and with not less than four rails, not over eighteen inches from the ground, shall be a legal fence.”
There were hopes Hokah would develop into a great milling center, but removal of the railway shops and the washing away of mill dams and wheat fields prevented Hokah from competing with the mills farther north at the “head of the Mississippi navigation.”
The first white family in the area of Caledonia was thought to have been Ralph L. Young, said to have been a Mormon elder, who 1851, built a bark hut in the southern part of what became Caledonia township. The village of Caledonia was founded by Col. Samuel McPhail from Illinois of Scotch origin who named the village Caledonia, the Latin name used by the Roman Empire for Scotland. He built a log dwelling and store in 1854.
“Manufacturing has never flourished to any great extent in the village because of its lack of power and shipping facilities but at the present time (1929), it has two hatcheries whose equipment is as modern as any in the state and whose yearly output amounts to about seven hundred fifty thousand chicks.”
The first white settler in La Crescent was Peter Cameron, who built a “commodious double log house” in the spring of 1851. The name Manton was considered but “then its crescentic physical formation and rival, La Crosse, across the river, recalled the ancient contests of the Crusaders against the Saracens and Turks, and they resolved to challenge their La Crosse neighbors by raising the standard of La Crescent.”
He first settler on record who located a claim and built a dwelling in Spring Grove Township was James Smith, who came from Pennsylvania in 1852. He established the post office and selected the name Spring Grove. It was a favored stop for “the heavy stream of pioneers coming from Brownsville, or up over the Iowa prairies” in search of farm land farther west. The location featured lime rock and brick clay used in construction.
The name of Mound Prairie Township was suggested by Dr., Chase for a “remarkable rounded bluff, surrounded by a wide valley on all sides.” Thought to be the first to make a claim was John Crypts, who employed Native Americans to help him harvest black walnut logs along the Root River. Seth Lore and his daughter operated the Lorette House, a tavern and stopping point for three stage lines on the old Territorial Road from La Crosse to St. Paul.
The village of Freeburg was located on the claim of Mr. Oxford who came to the county in the autumn of 1852. Situated so distant from a mill, the farmer used a coffee mill to grind buckwheat and sifted it through his wife’s green silk veil.
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