First Year of Northfield History

              157 C-1 FIRST YEAR OF NORTHFIELD HISTORY. By Mrs. Mary North Shepard. (This interesting lettering letter of greeting by Mrs. Mary North Shepard, of Alhambra, California, duaghter of the founder of the City of Northfield, was read before the Rice County Historical Society Meeting Northfield, May 7, 1930)   At this time when you are preparing for the celebration of Northfield�s seventy-fifth birthday, if is an honor to be asked, as the daughter of the founder of your beautiful city, to tell something of the man who, more than any other, had to do with the starting of the little village which has so far outgrown his highest hopes and expectations. In 1849, when Minnesota was first admitted as a territory, John Wesley North, lawyer, anti-slavery lecturer, temperance advocate, and believer in woman suffrage, brought his bride of a year to St. Anthony Falls. Six years later, after building a saw mill on the Cannon river and a dwelling house nearby, he brought his family there. The trip was not made as it might be today. You, who know so well the blizzard-swept prairies in mid-winter, can imagine the hardship of such a trip at that time. The conveyance provided for my mother and her three little children---the eldest four years and the youngest four months,---was a long lumber bob-sled, floored and supplied with a prairie-schooner top.  A feather-bed was put inside, also a small stove and a rocking chair.  This equipage was drawn by four strong horses, and one and one-half days were required to complete the journey.  They left St. Anthony January 1, 1856, in an atmosphere of forty-four degrees below zero and arrived at their new home January 3.  None of the family suffered any ill effects from the trip. They had butchered some two weeks before and twelve dressed turkeys and thirty dressed chickens which had been sent down ahead of them gave a feeling of security as to their larder. Altho the saw mill was running day and night, before the end of the month a new circular saw was installed and a wheelwright was brought down to start the installation of the grist mill. The latter, however, was not completed until the following May when my busy mother had to sew sacks by hand for the meal, the first load of which was taken to Faribault and sold for three and one-half cents a pound. It was that same January that my father started the agitation for a school house �which would be used also for religious and other meetings.� That school house, the first in Rice county (for there was none as yet in Faribault) was in use that summer and fall and in it were held religious meetings, and a Lyceum where debates and other literary entertainments were held. A public reading room was established and $50.00 was subscribed and sent away for books and periodicals.  Another $50.00 was raised to provide for a vestibule for the school house which had already been so useful and it was completed and ready for the formal dedication which took place November 7, 1856, and lasted thru the afternoon and evening.