Part four of a series Indians, in the 1850s, did not live around the village of Houston but were downstream toward the Mississippi, noted Ben Benson. “They often came up the Root River in their canoes on hunting trips.” As a senior citizen, Benson wrote about his childhood as one of the earliest white settlers in Swede Bottom. Although for completely different reasons, all … [Read more...]

It was a lovely day. The birds were singing. They were singing, “Ya got trouble, folks! Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for piano!” That’s right, there was a storm looming on the horizon. We’d bought a house that came equipped with a piano. The piano had been placed in the basement, and the rest of the house … [Read more...]

Part three of a series on Swede Bottom They constructed small log barns for the oxen and covered the roofs with wild slough grass, cut with, “old-time scythes.” There was no “tame grass” for many years, according to Ben Benson, who in 1853, at age eight, was one of the first Swedes to settle in what became known as Swede Bottom, just east of present-day Houston in Houston … [Read more...]

He was a cowboy. There was no doubt. He never missed an episode of “Gunsmoke.” He’d seen all 635 episodes at least twice. He thought Marshal Matt Dillon should have been president. He even listened to the singing cowboy, Gene Autry, when his ears had a vacancy. He tried watching a TV series called “Yellowstone,” but found it resembled “The Godfather” or “The Sopranos” more … [Read more...]

Part two of a series on Swede Bottom Ben Benson turned eight years old on the Atlantic Ocean shortly after leaving Sweden with his family, among five families, on the way to the Root River Valley in Minnesota Territory. As a senior citizen, Ben left a written account, the basis for this series, which began last week with their arduous three-and-a-half-month immigration … [Read more...]