Peering at the Past Marriage Meant Instant Live-in In-laws

By Lee Epps

Water was quite a problem for her family, according to the childhood memories of Augusta Burow in the 1870s. Her parents collected rainwater off the roof in big barrels except in winter when they melted snow or hauled water from a creek about two and half miles from their farm home on South Ridge in Houston County, Minn.

Her father Friedrich Martin Burow was one of the early pioneers in Houston County in the 1850s after immigrating with his brother’s family from Pomerania, a province in northern Germany. After spending about a year near Watertown, Wis., he traveled to Minnesota Territory with the John Frey family in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. Once in Minnesota, he found plenty of work as a carpenter, building log homes and barns. After a year or more, he purchased land on South Ridge, which according to daughter Augusta, “was quite an achievement for a young man who had been so poor that the only thing he could call his own were his carpenter tools.”

His purchase included a “claim shanty” made of logs and a stable with log sides and a straw roof – just large enough for a span of oxen and a cow. It was not long before deciding he needed to be a family man. He proposed to only one person, but a family of three would move in.

Three years previous, back on the eight-week immigration voyage from Hamburg, Germany, many passengers had been on deck one day enjoying the pleasant weather. Thirteen-year-old Emilie Freischmitt was wearing a white cap, called a “night cap” because they were worn mostly at night. The cap suddenly was blown off her head into the sea, which elicited a laugh from 28-year-old Friedrich Burow, standing nearby. Four years later in July 1857, they would be married in Minnesota. Augusta surmised that was the first time her parents “took notice of each other.”

Emilie accepted his long-distance proposal of marriage (presumably in a handwritten letter) on the condition that her parents could come and live with them. Friedrich readily accepted. Her parents Ludwig and Louise Freischmitt secured a covered wagon and a span of oxen, and the three of them began the trek to Minnesota (presumably from the Watertown, Wis., area).

It was a safe journey overland, but there was some drama while crossing the Mississippi River. There was no bridge, so they boarded what was called a flatboat. There was no railing, and the oxen wanted to back up and were in danger of backing into the river. But Emilie’s father managed to talk to and calm the four-legged passengers until an otherwise uneventful landing on Minnesota soil.

They located Friedrich Burow’s claim shanty, but he was away applying his carpentry skills. However, they were sure they were in the right place and made themselves at home. The marriage soon followed, officiated by a judge. There were no ministers available at the time in such an unsettled area.

The dwelling or claim shanty was only about 12 feet by 15 feet with a cookstove, two beds, a large trunk about three feet long by two feet wide. About three feet tall, the trunk also served as a table with two handmade benches, which were long enough to seat two people. Augusta said there must have been a cupboard as well.

Despite the crowded conditions, Augusta said she did not remember any quarrels between the two families. But the two men (father-in-law and son-in-law) gathered material to build a new house. They cut down tall trees and removed the branches. Some cottonwood trees provided wood that was taken about three miles to the sawmill, where they were sawed for flooring. But there was no way to have them planed.

Friedrich also made the roof shingles by hand, tapering them with a draw shave. Storing them during winter in one corner of the shanty took up some of the precious space. But in the spring, they “raised the house,” which referred to placing logs one on top of the other until attaining the intended height. Then came the roof. Since the logs were too heavy for two men to handle, such construction was a neighborhood project.

The new house was much larger than the claim shanty, but there was still only one room. However, the attic was large enough for a bed. There was no stairway, just a ladder to ascend to the attic. “This all sounds rather crude to us,” Augusta noted, “but it was ‘home sweet home’ to my parents.”

It was difficult to clean the floor with the floor boards not having been planed. But it was better than pioneer cabins that had shakes for flooring. “They looked like if someone would take a fence post and split it into boards then nailed them down.” And others had no wood on the floor at all, just tamping down the bare ground as firmly as they could.

After a year or more, a lean-to was added to the south side of the house for a kitchen, which provided more space inside the main part of the home. Another welcome improvement came with Friedrich and his father-in-law digging a rainwater cistern near the house. It was much better than the rain barrels, because it was large enough to hold the equivalent of many barrels. Water was brought up by a rope tied to a pail which was lowered down into the water.

The family planted trees and other shrubbery around the property, including plum trees and apple trees. Augusta specifically remembers Sam’s Fall Strife, two Haslips and a pair of Russet winter apple trees.

Augusta was the third of seven siblings, born between1861 and 1880. She was born in the summer of 1865 when her father was away in a Union uniform during the Civil War. Augusta would marry Charles Arnett and become the mother of six. She wrote about growing up on South Ridge in 1944 at age 79, three years before her death.
Source: booklet, “My Parents,” by Augusta Burow Arnett, written 1944, published 2015