They thought the valley the “grandest spot on Earth, their home without an equal in the land and which they would not exchange for any other in all Christendom.” That grand valley was Yucatan Valley in Houston County, Minn., as described by Capt. Samuel B. McIntire.
McIntire (1838-1917) was the first Minnesotan appointed to West Point. Graduating in 1862, he was thrust into the Civil War, including the famous battles of Antietam, the Second Battle of Bull Run, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Retiring from the military, McIntire came back home to Houston for many years of community service.
McIntire, writing in 1901, reminisced back to the good old days of the 1850s and 1860s when white pioneers first settled in Yucatan Valley. It was, for him, an idyllic time before the arrival of doctors, lawyers and preachers – individuals he deemed “not needed” for the advancement of civilization. Getting by with only the basics of life in a log cabin with few furnishings and walls without decoration, “no one could claim precedence over the other.”
Photo by Lee Epps
McIntire recalled his first visit to the Torus Kittelson family, who lived in a dugout, the roof formed with poles and sod. The floor was nothing more than mother earth. “The hut resembled a “V” upside down, yet the inmates of that rude home seemed happy and contented.”
Life entailed mostly the work that must be done, both outdoors and indoors, by both men and women. House cleaning was not a high priority since “flamboozles” such as carpets and curtains were “scarce as hen’s teeth.” Furniture was lacking in both quantity and quality. He noted women of the era were neat, but not to the extent as to “grow to a broom, wed a mop or marry a carpet stretcher.”
Clothing was dictated by function rather than fashion, mostly without shape and used for all occasions. A daughter might be given a few yards of calico from which she could make a dress.
Boys’ trousers, frayed and repeatedly patched, were worn both in the field or at social gatherings. Stockings and overcoats were scarce. Those early settlers brought with them a supply of clothing, but due to constant use and made of the cheapest material, became barely sufficient. When McIntire finally acquired a new suit, he felt out of place as if he was “trying to put on a heap of syle.”
House raising was quite an event with men and women coming from far and near. By nightfall, “the walls were up, the floor laid below and a roof of shakes above, and with rude doors and windows in, a comfortable home was well underway, a story and a half high, containing when completed a sitting room and bedroom below and two bedrooms above, low in ceiling but ample otherwise.” With the day’s labor completed, the evening’s housewarming celebration began with both young and old enjoying food and friendship late into the night.
McIntire, who advised against the use of alcohol, was proud to say the closest saloon was in Caledonia, but he also lamented, “altho’ later in the valley’s history, the little mill shook off its high standing in the community and was converted into a distillery.”
McIntire’s mother and her good friend Charlotte Kelly had both come west in proud possession of a velvet cape – an article of clothing wholly inappropriate for life on the frontier where a plain shawl was the norm. But the two ladies devised a somewhat theatrical, ostentatious plan to make use of their capes. They lived more than mile apart, but both on high ground with no trees to obstruct the view. Decades before telephones were available, the two ladies came up with a method of communication reminiscent of Native American smoke signals. When a piece of white cloth was displayed on the exterior of either dwelling, it signaled to the other dwelling that something unusual was happening, possibly important guests, and was an invitation to come over and participate – but with a pre-planned flair of fabric finery. No matter how warm the weather, the receiver of the signal would don her finest attire, including the velvet cape, and appear as if by chance “just to astonish the natives.”
Source: The 1901 book “The Yucatan Valley in the Early Days by One Then There” by Capt. Samuel McIntire