St. Croix Riverway Time and the River: A History of the Saint Croix

CHAPTER 3:
"The New Land": Settlement and the Development of Agriculture in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

Farmers and the Repopulation of the Valley

In the 1850s, the St. Croix Valley boomed. Most of the prosperity came from logging. However, the lure of cheap land encouraged land speculators as well as simple farmers to seek their fortunes in the West. In this decade the entire country was on the move. It is estimated that in 1850 nearly one in four Americans moved from one state to another. And between 1847 and 1854 immigration to the United States from Europe hit its peak during the first major wave of immigration to this country before the Civil War. Once these migrants reached the Mississippi River, the St. Croix River's natural advantage as a major artery of transportation worked in its favor. Wisconsin was determined to steer as many of these people to the state as possible. [34] Part of the problem the valley had to dispel, however, was its image as a frozen, barren wasteland for permanent settlement and farming. [35]

Throughout the decade of the 1850s, St. Croix newspapers continuously bragged about the North Country's comparable advantages to the regions below it. These papers were distributed widely. A settler from Osceola wrote to the St. Croix Union of that areas advantages "knowing that it, as well as all other papers from this part of the State, have an extensive circulation, and that they are eagerly caught up and read by persons in different parts of the States who are interested, or have any idea of coming to the North Western country." [36] Local newspaper articles were reprinted in such prominent publications as the New York Tribune.

In an era before modern medicine and public health boards curbed epidemic diseases, before swamps and marshes that teamed with malarial mosquitoes were drained for cultivation and agricultural science gained control of other pests, and before modern technology, such as the air conditioner, could make warmer climes more comfortable and tolerable, Minnesota and Wisconsin argued that its cooler climate eliminated pests and health threats without sacrificing agricultural productivity. "Hundreds and hundreds of families," wrote the Stillwater Messenger, "are annually driven from other Western States to take up their residence in Minnesota to escape this offensive and troublesome foe [fever, ague, consumption] to the emigrant and his family." [37] Travel writer E. S. Seymour had interviewed residents of Marine Mills who confirmed the healthful benefits of Minnesota compared to Illinois. "I was impelled by curiosity. . .to inquiry of Mr. Lyman why he had left the fertile soil and sunny prairies of Illinois, and wandered off here in the woods, in the northern clime," Seymour related. "He stated, in reply, that he had been severely afflicted with the ague in southern Illinois; that his constitution had become nearly broken down by the disease. Many of the young men of his neighborhood came up to work at the Marine Mills, and he noticed that all returned with recruited health, although suffering with ague at the time of their departure." Mr. Lyman, therefore, decided to seek relief in the North Country. When he arrived, he was so weak he could scarcely walk from the landing to the boarding house. "He was immediately restored to the enjoyment of excellent health." [38]

"As to the Agricultural capabilities of Minnesota as compared with those of Illinois," wrote the St. Croix Union, "we have this to say: Minnesota is a far better country for the producing of some agricultural staples than Illinois." Among the region's advantages was in the production of oats, wheat, Irish potatoes, and garden vegetables. While the paper admitted that the growing season was shorter up north, it argued that crops matured more quickly here due to its richer soil, nighttime rainfall, and warm sun. "The vegetable productions of a northern climate are generally superior to those produced in a lower latitude. For this reason Minnesota wheat, corn, potatoes, etc. will doubtless command a premium in the Southern markets." The north woods were also a hunter's paradise teaming with fish, fowl, and game. [39] The forests and marshes were also abundant in wild rice and cranberries that had been a staple of the Indians' diet. Whatever their feeling about Indians, white settlers quickly learned to appreciate their gastronomic delicacies and even used them as a selling point for the region. "We have used this kind of rice a number of times" wrote the Hudson Star, "and believe it to be richer and better than the southern rice, and equally wholesome." [40]

The Stillwater Messenger also engaged in the promotion of the Minnesota Territory for would-be emigrants. It claimed, "Minnesota is the healthiest State in the Union." Its soil was among the most fertile in the country. "It is rich with decayed vegetable matter, yet owing to the large proportion of silica which it contains it neither bakes in dry weather nor becomes very muddy in wet. Minnesota is almost entirely exempt from that intolerable nuisance — mud!" In an era before paved roads and when fields were manually plowed and sowed, mud produced by rain or melting snow was a major problem. New England states were particularly plagued by this problem. Minnesota's and northern Wisconsin's other advantages compared to the prairie states below them was that they were one of the best timbered and one of the best watered- and water-powered regions in the country. "Owing to the numerous navigable streams that traverse the territory, Minnesota has for seven months each year advantages unsurpassed for interior communications," the Messenger related. The St. Croix Union echoed its claim when it wrote, "The publication of these and other facts which characterize Minnesota as a competitor for Western Emigration. . .would do more good than all the newspapers combined. . .in the distribution of intelligence." [41]

Given the challenge of wintering in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, North Country settlers could not ignore the reservations expressed about this region's weather. Many residents tried to minimize its harsher realities by emphasizing the positive side to winter snows. "Sometimes we have good sledding for 100 days in succession," the St. Croix Union bragged. "The farmer, or lumberman can make all his arrangements for hauling on the snow, with a perfect assurance that they can be consummated." [42] Humor, too, proved a useful coping mechanism. "It is an established fact," wrote the St. Croix Union, "that it (Minnesota) is not further north than the North Pole, and that men can winter here without becoming congealed like mercury when it is subjected to cold about 40o below zero." [43] And "Here we have snow, snow, snow everyday; it remains with us like a true friend." Minnesotans argued that this was a great advantage to the damp chill and mud that marked eastern winters. The Stillwater Messenger could not help but gloat after eastern newspapers reported that frost had arrived in Connecticut by September 9^th "–three weeks earlier than Minnesota." The tinkling of sleigh bells on a bright, brisk winter day prompted many to claim, "that the winters are the most delightful season of the year," and would make others "envy Minnesota life." [44]

Another advantage Minnesota boasted of to attract settlers was that it still had plenty of land that could be claimed under the pre-emption law. Although land offices had opened up in the late 1840s along the St. Croix River, surveying teams had yet to finish their work. A squatter could still claim choice land of up to160 acres without having to first purchase it. He could farm it, thus making an exclusive claim as well as have the opportunity to sell his crops and raise money to purchase the land at $1.25 per acre before it was put up for sale. Under this system the average settler was able to beat out land speculators who purchased large tracts of land and held on to them until values increased and a tidy profit could be made without any improvements made to the land. [45]

Land speculators, though, were not completely absent from this Minnesota frontier. Simeon P. Folsom, a land agent from St. Paul, advertised his three thousand acres near White Bear Lake in St. Croix Valley newspapers. He claimed his company aimed to sell its land to "actual farmers," and would provide them with "prices and terms that will make them the cheapest lands in that section." Tracts of land were not to be sold under one-hundred-and-sixty acres. Banks also tried to make a profit out of the popular preemption. If a squatter had not made the money necessary to purchase his land when it came up for sale, the Banking Office of C.H. Parker, and Co. in Stillwater gladly provided "reasonable terms." [46]

There was also a ready local market for farm products with the logging companies. "Those who desire to settle on lands where the pine lumber interest will furnish them a market for surplus produce," wrote St. Croix Union, "we would direct to the. . .rich valley of the St. Croix." [47] Throughout the 1850s many logging encampments still imported much of their food from states to the south, such as Iowa, Illinois, and parts of Wisconsin. [48] In 1850, E.S. Seymour verified these observations of the St. Croix Valley. "This portion of the country will always have a good market for agricultural products," he explained to prospective pioneers. "Surrounded as it is by a manufacturing district, and by populous towns springing into existence on the Mississippi and the St. Croix, it is not too much to predict that it will, ere long, be dotted with farmhouses, and enlivened with the songs of multitudes of cheerful and thriving husbandmen." [49]

While newspapers of the St. Croix Valley did their best to promote the North Country, Wisconsin's state legislature decided more aggressive tactics were needed to lure settlers. In 1852, it passed an act that established the position of Commissioner of Emigration with an office in New York. The following year it added a traveling agent to aid its recruiting efforts. The commissioner's office annually distributed approximately thirty thousand copies of a pamphlet that described Wisconsin's singular features. John Lathrop, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, authored the tract. Trying to dispel fears of a hostile, northern environment, Lathrop wrote that Wisconsin's climate and topography compared well with New York and New England. It was perhaps even milder and more beautiful. Its soil was richer. It was certainly more healthful than the east coast with its diseases and epidemics and free of the hot, stagnant, malarial-infested lands of Illinois and Indiana. It certainly had more timber than these prairie states. The commissioner's office sent half of these pamphlets to Europe. The other half was distributed to ships and hotels in the East. Traveling agents posted advertisements in more than nine hundred newspapers throughout the northeast and Canada. Once in Wisconsin, the office gave migrants personal assistance. It also worked with emigration societies, foreign consuls, shipping lines, railroad companies, and freight handlers. By 1854, the emigration office opened operations in Quebec. [50]

Competition between states for immigrant settlers was fierce. Although it was still a territory, Minnesota refused to be outdone by Wisconsin. In January 1855, the Governor of the territory requested that the Minnesota Territorial Legislature establish an emigration office. "We need not stop to inquire why it is that thousands of our fathers, brothers, and friends can content themselves to stick to the worn out and comparatively barren soil of the old States, rather than seek a home in this invigorating and healthy climate, and fertile soil," the governor asserted to the legislature. "They will soon find out our facilities for wealth and comfort, when we take steps to advertise them." Upon the governor's request the legislature opened an emigration office in New York City. Its purpose was to provide "correct information of our Territory, its soil, climate, population, productions, agricultural, manufacturing and educational facilities, and prospects." The governor complained that he received numerous inquiries from other states about Minnesota winters and whether it is so cold "stock freezes to death, and man hardly dare venture out of his domicile." The governor also asked the legislature to prepare "a brief well written pamphlet giving the facts." [51]

St. Croix newspapers heartily endorsed these efforts. "The emigrant whose purpose is to find a home in the west, on his arrival at our eastern ports," wrote the St. Croix Union, "must hail with heartfelt joy the man who can give him reliable information in regard to any portion of our unoccupied lands, and who can instruct him what route to take in order to reach these lands." The paper expressed approval at the selection of a native of Switzerland who was fluent in many languages to be the territory's emigration agent and that he took the trouble to visit the St. Croix Valley to survey the land before he set out for the East. [52] "We understand he is much pleased with this section of our Territory," wrote the St. Croix Union. "The prospects for Stillwater and the beautiful Valley of the St. Croix are very flattering, and we may expect a large immigration the present season." [53]

The 1850s were exciting years for the St. Croix Valley. Its development and prosperity seemed assured and unlimited. Newcomers arrived regularly by steamboat. Once in the valley their movement up and down the river was facilitated by the construction of a military road that was completed in 1856 from the Point Douglas area northward to Sunrise, a distance of approximately sixty miles. Logging, was of course, the first booming enterprise, but the decade also marked the emergence of agriculture beyond a subsistence scale of garden vegetables, potatoes, and corn. The St. Croix River Valley encompassed an area from twenty to ninety miles wide and approximately 120 miles long. W.H.C. Folsom claimed that, "About eight-tenths of this entire valley is fitted by nature for agriculture." [54] Pioneers and speculators responded to all the advertisements. Between 1849 and 1863, Hudson did a "land office" business, especially in the middle years of the decade. In 1849, it sold 9,097 acres. From 1854 through 1856 over 500,000 acres of land went into private hands. By 1863, the peak was over as only 1700 acres were transacted. [55]

Ancient glaciers had shaped the St. Croix Valley's geological features and determined its potential for agriculture. When the Superior and Grantsburg ice lobes melted, large glacial lakes formed north of the St. Croix Valley. The remainder of the glacial melt-off drained through the St. Croix Valley. The first glacial river cut broad terraces into the sand and deposited gravel along the way. When the St. Croix's ancestral river formed, it cut deeply into the underlying bedrock and formed more terraces. Once the valley was deepened, streams that fed into the St. Croix also cut through the sand, gravel, and underlying bedrock making deep side ravines in what is now Washington and Chisago Counties. When the glacial lakes had finished draining, the river that ran through the St. Croix Valley became smaller and unable to carry all the sediment coming from the northern country and it began to fill up the valley. Washington County sits on approximately one hundred feet of sediment. Lake St. Croix was created when some of this sediment damned the river. Sand and decaying plants formed wetland, marshes, and peat bogs along the river way. [56]

The climate would also profoundly affect agriculture. The St. Croix Valley is in what is known as the Wisconsin tension zone that divides the state into two distinct floral and vegetation regions. In the northern zone, the climate is generally marked by cool, dry, continental arctic air masses from Canada. Its winters are longer, colder and snowier. In the southern zone, the climate is influenced by the interaction of Pacific air, warmed and dried from its passage over the Rocky Mountains, and warm, moist, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico. Its summers are longer and warmer and snowfall varies. In this tension zone is a mixture of vegetation common in the southern part of the state, such as prairie, oak-savanna, and southern-hardwood forests as well as vegetation common in the northern zone, such as boreal forests, conifer-hardwood forest, and pine savanna. [57]

The first farmers in the St. Croix Valley faced the challenge of discerning the quality of the soil in this geologically and climatically varied landscape. Those who arrived first had the advantage of choosing prime prairie land along the lower St. Croix. Farmers who sought land further up river found woodlands of pine, tamarack, cedar, balsam as well as hardwoods with scatterings of wild meadows and marshes. Those who settled in these clearings began the slow, laborious task of felling one tree at a time to increase their farm acreage. Throughout the lower half of the river, farmers found that the rich, virgin soil produced bountiful harvests, and that the St. Croix provided easy access to southern markets.

The first strictly agricultural settlements in the St. Croix Valley had started in the Mississippi and St. Croix River delta, near Prescott, Red Rock, Cottage Grove, Lakeland, and Afton. [58] Much of this area was composed of prairie land. [59] Near present day Afton farming began quite early. French settlers had come here in 1837. By 1839, local desire for food beyond what could be scavenged in the countryside prompted the breaking of the first farmland. By the winter of 1845-46 Afton had a flourmill -- the first gristmill north of Prairie du Chien. The area was ideal for farming. W.H.C. Folsom described a good part of Afton as "rolling prairie." The rest of the land was a patchwork of woods and fields. "The soil is all productive," Folsom claimed, "and the streams afford good water powers." [60] However, Philander Prescott, who began farming in the early 1840s near his namesake town, complained there was no market for his goods thus discouraging more ambitious farming. [61] However, as pioneers began moving into the valley in the 1850s, the delta region was the first area they saw before heading up river. It did not take long for would-be farmers to recognize its potential. Many stopped for a look around. In 1853, one settler noted that the "steady tread of the immigrant land looker" wore down roads where none had been before. [62] In 1854, a guide pamphlet entitled, "Description of Pierce County," described the Prescott area as composed of terraces of limestone and sandstone deposits that created "a beautiful prairie." Decomposing limestone fertilized the fine sand and clay soil. By 1856, the wheat harvests were bountiful enough to encourage the town of Prescott to erect its first flourmill and begin exporting its agricultural surplus. [63]

Just north of the delta and on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix River was another vast stretch of prairie land that began at what is now the town of Hudson and extended to the Willow River, up to the Apple River on the north and down to the Kinnickinnic River on the south. [64] Many early pioneers recognized its value and took advantage of the pre-emption law to squat on the land before it was surveyed. When the surveying work was completed and the land here was opened to the public on August 23, 1848, many squatters were ready to make their claim. On the first day of filing three men, Louis Massey, Peter Boucha, and Eleazer Steves, claimed nearly all the land fronting Lake St. Croix. These Yankee settlers were taken by the resemblance of the St. Croix to the Hudson River Valley in New York and had the new town christened "Hudson."

Despite its Yankee name, Hudson's steamboat landing became an immigrant port of entry for the St. Croix Valley. Newcomers from many different countries disembarked there for the rich prairie lands to the east of the town and made Hudson's population very ethnically and religiously diverse. In 1854, the St. Croix Union commented "It appears to contain a very intelligent, industrious, and enterprising population, whose principal aim appears to be, to make Hudson, the town of the St. Croix valley." The Stillwater paper, however, added, "with the exception of Stillwater, they will doubtless succeed." The Wisconsin legislature's chartering the St. Croix, Superior, and Bayfield Railway that year no doubt provoked the paper's defensiveness. Many people along the St. Croix had speculated that Hudson would become the "metropolis of the west." Stillwater's actions to keep itself out of Wisconsin had backfired on this issue. The Badger state's legislature could hardly be expected to promote a Minnesota town as the terminus for its railroad. By the end of the 1850s the booming town of Hudson boasted Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches. [65]

Church and community played a role in the settlement of the backcountry prairie land as illustrated by the stories of a devote Episcopalian from New York state named Varnum Maxon and two brothers, Thomas and Trueworthy Jewell from Massachusetts. In 1846 Maxon claimed land near Cedar Lake for the Episcopal Church. He returned back to New York and recruited fourteen families who arrived by wagon train in 1856. The Jewell brothers came west in 1854 and were taken by the beauty of the countryside that reminded them of their old home in New England. They decided to stay and bought seven hundred acres of land near present day Star Prairie. This was the first contract of this type in the St. Croix Valley. They then offered free lots to anyone back home who would set up homesteads here. [66]

A few Irish immigrants made their way to this farming frontier in 1855. Unlike most migrants to the valley the first ones took the overland route and arrived by way of four covered wagons pulled by eight oxen. They chose to homestead along the east fork of the Kinnickinnic River, near present day Town of Pleasant Valley. Lawrence Hawkins led the party of eighteen who all began their journey back in County Galway, Ireland in 1852. They had stopped along the way in Connecticut and then in Madison before finding their way to the St. Croix Valley, a sort of "promised land" for them, and formed the nucleus of an Irish farming community. [67]

German immigrants also carved out a place for themselves in the St. Croix Valley. In 1851, Haley and Nicholas Schwalen disembarked in Hudson having come all the way from Hunsfeldt, Germany. They were looking for a large tract of land to support a small community of German farmers they planned to bring over. They selected a site approximately six miles southeast of Hudson, and then returned to Germany. The Schwalens organized their family and friends into an emigration party and set sail for America. At sea they battled cholera. By 1852, they landed in Racine, Wisconsin and then took the water route from Chicago to Galena and then up the Mississippi River, this time fighting off diphtheria. Once they reached Hudson, the entire group had no choice but to live in one building until individual families could file their claims and build their own homes. They survived in their first years by selling their products, particularly butter, to the townspeople in Hudson. The "German Settlement," as it became known, eventually prospered. "The soil is the best I have seen in America," wrote H.H Montman to his parents in Germany. "They have birch trees just like in Germany. The climate is very much as it is at home." [68]

The ethnic diversity of this prairie region was further enhanced by the arrival of Dutch immigrants to the area near present day Baldwin. The Dutch generally organized a whole community to emigrate together across the Atlantic. Many who came to Wisconsin settled in the southeastern portion of the state, but some pushed further on to the St. Croix Valley. The first Dutch pioneers reached the St. Croix in 1857 after a long, hard overland journey. Another Dutch group took trains to the Mississippi and then tried to make it the rest of the way to Hudson by river. Although technically spring when they arrived in April, the Mississippi north of Winona was still frozen over. The group continued by rail to St. Paul and then made their way by foot to the Baldwin area. [69]

French-Canadian settlers, or the Quebecois, added to the ethnic mix of the St. Croix Valley. Unlike their fur-trading forbearers, they came with the intention of farming. Their farms along the St. Lawrence River were too small to prosper much. In 1851, Joseph and Louis Parent chose a spot along the Apple River. Their enthusiasm for the location was communicated in their letters back home, and soon a stream of French-Canadians made their way to the St. Croix Valley. By 1890, nearly two hundred families of French-Canadian decent lived along the Apple River up to the town of Somerset. [70]

The land further up river from Stillwater began to display some of the variety common to the tension zone. Most of it was heavily wooded or marsh and swamp land with smaller patches of clearings. [71] The land was very rich and fertile with glacial sediment, but breaking ground for farming in this region was an even greater challenge since the land had to be cleared of trees first. One of the few areas that had stretches of prairie in this area was near Osceola on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix. Its rich prairie land gently rolled to the bluffs along the river. "Osceola [has a]. . .beautiful situation, commanding a fine view of the river in both directions for miles," wrote the St. Croix Union in 1855, "there is no place that had such prospects to become ultimately a large and flourishing place of business." [72] The town became the county seat for Polk County, and also had a good stretch of river bottomland for an ideal steamboat landing. One resident wrote, "I can without any hesitation, pronounce it the best landing from Point Douglas to the Falls. . .The land within two miles of this place is all taken up in farms and under good cultivation, and had hitherto produced abundant crops." [73] Farmers were also lured to the area by the prospect of selling their products to local lumber companies. "Corn is worth $1, and at this time the loggers are offering seventy five cents for oats and cannot get them at that as they are scarce. For the want of farmers up here the loggers have to buy their corn, Oats, Flour and Pork, below." [74] These features attracted farmers as did access to Osceola and Close's Creeks. They created the nucleus of a prosperous farming community and Osceola became one of the first wheat producing areas in the St. Croix Valley. Osceola Creek provided an ideal site for a water-powered flourmill that was built in 1853. However, the settlement of Polk County was much slower than lower down river because of the difficulty of breaking ground in this more wooded area. The population did not take off until after 1866. It would then prosper as a farming country in the years to follow. [75]

During the 1850s wheat began to rival logging as a valley export. The St. Croix River gave settlers a transportation advantage not enjoyed by all farmers in Wisconsin. Until railroads penetrated into the hinterland of the frontier many farmers could not participate in commercial agriculture. While many farmers in more remote regions depended upon local markets and bartered goods, St. Croix farmers were able to engage in a national market almost from the time they broke ground. Wheat became their first commercial crop, and it was an ideal first crop for a pioneer farmer. Unlike other crops, which required careful cultivation or large start up costs like animal husbandry, wheat was easy to grow. Unlike corn, which required more refined breaking of the root-packed prairie sod to allow its own deep roots to grow, the soil for wheat only needed minimal preparation before sowing. Tree stumps did not even have to be removed. The wheat then could be ignored until harvest. In the meantime, the farmer could spend the rest of his time clearing more land and fencing it in. When harvested, wheat had a ready market, and was considered as "good as money." Wheat was easily stored in private warehouses. Farmers were then issued wheat "receipts," "tickets," or "certificates," which they could then use in local stores. "As good as wheat" was a common expression on the frontier, which implied that it was often used in lieu of money. Farmers could then obtain other merchandise they needed. The Prairie Farmer, published in Chicago, celebrated the virtues of wheat production claiming "It pays debts, buys, groceries, clothing, lands, and answers more emphatically the purposes of trade than any other crop." St. Croix farmers could not help but concur with this observation. [76]

The Willow, Apple, and Kinnickinnic Rivers and their tributary creeks offered many prime locations for mills to turn wheat into its marketable form of flour. Gristmills usually ground grain for a local farmer's use, but it did not take long for the first commercial flour mills to appear. Caleb Greene and Charles Cox built the first mill in this area on the Willow River in 1853-4. They called it "Greene's Paradise Mill, and "Paradise" became its brand name. Local farmers often helped repair the sand road to the mill whenever it washed out. The Bowron brothers followed suit by building a second mill near the confluence of the Cedar Lake Creek and the Apple River. In 1855, Horace Greeley, the renowned editor of the New York Tribune, took a trip up the St. Croix River and proclaimed, "The cry is Wheat!! Wheat!!. . .Every steamboat goes down the river with all the wheat on board she will take, and a couple of wheat laden barges fat to her side." Many predicted that the farmer would follow the lumbermen as the forests receded and the entire North County would be turned into an agricultural paradise. [77]

Wheat was not the only export from the St. Croix Valley during these years. Cranberries, which were native to the area, grew wild in the abundant marshes lands scattered throughout the woodlands. It did not take long for settlers to realize the potential profit from harvesting what grew naturally and cultivating it to enhance their harvest. The first experiments with systematic cultivating began in the late 1840s near Stillwater. The travel writer E.S. Seymour noted "the soil and climate of this region are so well adapted to their culture. . .it is not unreasonable to presume that its culture may, hereafter, become so general as to render it a prominent article among the staples of Minnesota." [78] "We hear of [cranberries] selling at from $3 to $4 per bushel," wrote the St. Croix Union in 1855, "We believe that even at $1 per bushel they might be grown with a great profit." The paper explained how to cultivate cranberry vines and claimed; "One acre will yield from 200 to 400 bushels each season. This would be better than corn, or wheat or almost any other crop." [79] By 1859, the St. Croix cranberry trade exceeded ten thousand dollars with five thousand bushels of the fruit harvested netting two dollars per bushel. [80] Wild blackberries also had a ready market. "These berries are found in great abundance in the valley above us," the Stillwater Messenger reported, "and are of a very fine quality." [81]