Hello—My name is Mrs.
Mary Pribble and I am a pioneer woman. My father, Hiram Smith, first arrived in
Brooklyn (later named Brooklyn Center) in April of 1854. My mother followed in
July of the same year with us three children; myself, aged 7, and two brothers,
age 2 and 5 years. We arrived in St. Paul on July 9, and my mother with her
usual forethought and thrift (realizing that before long navigation would close
for the winter and shut off all source of supplies), laid in a supply of
provisions while we were in St. Paul. Among other things, she bought a bag of
rice flour which was all of the flour in our colony until April of the next
year.
We came by stage to
Anoka and were to cross the Mississippi River in a canoe to the trading post of
Mr. Miles, which was on a high point of land in what is now Champlin. It was
where Elm Creek empties into the Mississippi. But the canoe was too small to
carry us all at once and so I was left on the east shore sitting upon our
luggage, to wait for a return trip. When I finally arrived across the river,
there were Indians gathered at the landing and they touched me on the cheek and
called me “heap pale face.”
There was great joy in
our little colony when that same autumn my father discovered a fine cranberry
marsh. Much picnicking and picking followed. My parents secured seven bushels
and joyfully chatted about how much winter supplies these cranberries would buy
when they sent them to market, the only one of which was in St. Paul.
Soon one of our
neighbors prepared to set out on a trip to St. Paul. The only road at that time
was by Indian trail, which for several miles was where the county road now
leads from Robbinsdale to Champlin. Then on to the ferry at St. Anthony Falls
and so on down the east side of the river to St. Paul.
My mother had made out
a careful list of the real necessities to be purchased, putting them in the
order of the need for them, in case the neighbor would not be able to buy them
all. She knew very well that there would be no possible way to purchase any new
clothing all winter and so the first items on the list were new cloth for
patches and thread to sew them on with. This came in hanks then, instead of
spools.
After that came the
list of provisions, as seven bushels of cranberries were expected to buy a
great many supplies. How well I remember the joy on my mother’s face when those
precious cranberries were loaded on the neighbor’s already full wagon, and the
oxen slowly disappeared down the old trail. It was a long tedious journey to be
made in that way, and they had many days to wait before they would receive the
fruits of that wonderful wagon load!
Finally the neighbor,
who I believe to be a Quaker, was back and he said, “Thee will be disappointed
when I tell thee that the last boat left for St. Louis the day before I arrived
in St. Paul. There is not a yard of cloth or a hank of thread in the town, and
I could only get thee three brooms for thy fine cranberries.” Shock and disappointment set in! To think how
many hours of back-breaking work it took to pick those seven bushels of
cranberries! Mother sat in her rocking chair for hours and rocked until the
noise of all us children shook her out of that chair, and her doldrums.
Next spring was better.
Father made maple sugar and was able to buy a cow and six hens from a man who
came overland from southern Illinois, driving several cows and bringing a box
of hens. We began to live more comfortably after that!
Note: Taken from the
book, Old Rail Fence Comers, Frontier
Tales told by Minnesota Pioneers. Edited by Lucy Leavenworth Wilder Morris.