Forest City, Minnesota

In the late spring or early summer of 1855, John W. Huy, Benjamin Brown, and someone named Mackenzie, all employed by a St. Paul lumber company, paddled a canoe up the Crow River to the Minnesota Territory’s west-central area, the Big Woods, in search of pine timber. Not satisfied with their findings, they returned to St. Paul, but Huy organized another expedition, consisting of a young lawyer named D. M. Hanson (called the first Swede to visit the area), Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, and Rudolph Schultz (1825-1910). Late that summer, the explorers took off for the same area and in the fall they stopped in what is now Harvey Township. There they planned to start a new town and call it Kar-i-shon, Sioux for “crow”, which is what the Indians called the area. But, for some reason, they moved on to the present day Forest City area where they met Dr. Frederick Noah Ripley. They preferred this area, so Schultz and Huy made a dugout house on the banks of the Crow River where it made a junction with a creek, (section 13 of Harvey Township), and Huy stayed in it through the following winter to make a claim on the land. He thus became the first permanent white resident of the county. The others, except for Dr. Ripley, returned to St. Paul where Hanson went before the legislature and urged them to create a new county, which would include the area he had just visited.

The legislature complied and established Meeker County on February 23, 1856. The county was named in honor of Bradley B. Meeker (1813 -1873) of Minneapolis, who had been an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1849 to 1853. Early in 1856, the settlers in Forest City were Milton C. Moore and Elijah Bemis (b.1812). Moore became Meeker County’s first Register of Deeds and Bemis became the county’s first sheriff. James Benjamin Atkinson, Sr. (b.1822) opened the first store in Forest City on March 1, 1857. It was also the first in the county. In 1862, Atkinson took on a partner, Mark W. Piper, who ran the store starting in October 1863 while Atkinson enlisted to serve in the Union Army. In 1866, after Capt. Atkinson returned, Piper sold his half back to him and Atkinson ran it until 1879.

D. M. Hanson and John W. Huy, who were appointed county commissioners, met in the newly started Forest City on May 6, 1856, and organized the county on paper. Ripley, another appointed commissioner, was to have joined them, but he had frozen to death on March 3, 1856, by the lake in Litchfield that hence bore his name. William S. Chapman found Ripley’s body later in that spring. With the nearby Crow River for transportation, more and more people gravitated to Forest City. It was named the county seat because it had a river for shipping goods. The addition of the railroad through Litchfield changed the population makeup of the county. A referendum was held and, with the difference of only eighty-nine votes, they changed the county seat to Litchfield. So, Litchfield had the courthouse that was in Forest City. The old Forest City Courthouse was moved to 15 East Fifth Street in Litchfield in 1870. Litchfield Village Council President Jesse Vawter Branham, Jr. owned the building and he leased it out residential because the city decided it was too small for a courthouse. After all, it was only a small wooden house painted white. Many of the buildings in Forest City became buildings in Litchfield. One of those was F. G. Alvord’s blacksmith shop.

Other new settlers to Forest City in 1856 were Walter C. Bacon, James Bramhall, Henry Clinton, Charles E. Cutts, Wait H. Dart, Isaac C. Delamater, Edward Fitzgerald, John Flynn, John W. Griswold, Loring Huy, Thomas Carlos Jewett (came on June 20 and was the postmaster in 1863), John W. Johnson, John Kimball, Charles McAron, David Mitchell. Mitchell, who had traveled from Maine by covered wagon with his pregnant wife Belinda was representative of settlers who traveled considerable distance to their new home. Additionally, John Patterson, John A. Quick, Rev. John Robson, Wyman Ryan, Charles N. Shed, Mathew Miles Standish, Judson A. Stanton, Samuel and Dudley Taylor, George O. Thomas, Ogden T. Tuttle, William H. Van Ness, Leander L. Wakefield, Jacob Weymer, Joseph Weymer, Sr., John Whalen, and John Wigis were early arrivals.. The first 4 July celebration took place in Forest City in 1856. On June 22, Rudolph Schultz, Charles Johnson, and James W. Quick brought a large tree pole out of the woods and raised it in Forest City. A small tin pan was washed and nailed on the top of the pole and the flag was raised up to it. The U. S. flag was made from a white cotton shirt furnished by Thomas Carlos Jewett (1827-1900), some red flannel underwear given by Sgt. Matthew Miles Standish (1833-1864), and a blue denim overall offered by John W. Huy. What took place at the actual 4 July celebration was never recorded.

Sarah Jane Dougherty, daughter of Thomas Dougherty, was born in a covered wagon in Forest City on July 15, 1856, and she has been called the first white child born in Meeker County. She died in 1952. The first post office in Meeker County was started in Forest City on October 4, 1856, with Walter C. Bacon as the postmaster. He was succeeded by James B. Atkinson, Sr. The post office remained in operation until 1907. The first death reported was Frank Parsons on November 12, 1856. The first religious service was by a Methodist minister, Rev. John Robson, Jr., in November 1856. Rev. Thomas Hardwood was the first permanent pastor.

New settlers in 1857 were Henderson Marsh Angier, James B. Atkinson, H. N. Baker, Jacob Ball, Gilbert M. Blandin, Benjamin F. Butler, W. S Chapman, David Poster Delamater (1828-1907), Milton Gorton, Thomas Grayson, N. O. Griffin, L. F. Haines, A. F. Heath, John Heath, Azro B. Hoyt, Jacob Knapp, Michael Lenhart, John and Michael Murray, Isaac Perrine, William Richards, Hamlet Stevens, John Sullivan, Allen Teachout, H. S. Walker, Charles and William Willis, James Willis, and W. W. Woodman. Forest City was platted in 1857 and was named for its location near the Big Woods. The first Catholic mass in Meeker County was in the plain cabin home of John Flynn and it was officiated by Rev. Father Alexius in 1857. Two years later, Father Benedict administered the last rites of the church to one of Forest City’s first settlers. Father Benedict has been memorialized by one of the windows in the Church of St. Gertrude. Dudley Taylor and his wife operated the first hotel. It was a large log building. The first schoolhouse (District 2) was built in 1857. W. W. Woodman was employed to build it at a cost of $250. The first teacher was Thomas Carlos Jewett. A creek in Litchfield was named after Jewett, who came to Meeker County on June 20, 1856. At different times, Jewett was the Meeker County Sheriff, the registrar of deeds, a Justice of the Peace, and a United States Commissioner to Alaska, appointed by Grover Cleveland.

There were another 20 settlers who came in 1858 when Minnesota had just become a state. In 1858, John Robson built the first steam-powered sawmill near the village. Fitch and Stanton opened a store than he ran from 1858 to 1862. J. A. Baird had a brickyard (the first in the county) briefly in 1858. Thomas H. Skinner started a store in 1862. When the Sioux attacked in August 1862, Jesse, V. Branham, Sr., at the age of fifty-nine, was the only person, of the six hundred assembled in Forest City, to volunteer to ride his horse to St. Paul to get help. That’s about a hundred miles or more on horseback. His son, Jesse V. Branham, Jr., was a scout with Capt. Richard Strout and it was Jr.’s idea to build the stockade at Forest City. While his father rode to St. Paul, Jesse, Jr. rode around the county, like Paul Revere, alerting settlers that the Indians were attacking.

On August 17th, on Branham’s ride, during the skirmish with the Indians, Jesse, Jr. had stopped to reload his rifle and he was shot in the chest. The bullet passed through his lungs and came out his back. He never fell and he was able to walk instead to his team of horses and go for help. He rode without medical attention for eight hours until he reached Hutchinson. Jesse collapsed at a farmhouse. The wound was cleaned by running a silk handkerchief entirely through Jesse’s body before the doctor, who was summoned, came. “I can do nothing for this man,” the doctor said, after taking one look at Jesse. “Make him as comfortable as you can. He’ll be dead in three hours.” Obviously, he was wrong. Branham survived and became Litchfield’s first Village Council President.

The stockade had been begun before the uprising, but it wasn’t quite finished when the Indians had begun attacking the settlers. Luckily, the majority of the stockade went up in one day, on September 3. There were logs close by that were going to be used to build the Forest City Presbyterian Church and a road. The settlers hurriedly put the stockade up with about 1200 logs. They planted a double row of logs on end, three feet into the ground and ten feet protruding out, approximately 120 feet square. Henderson Marsh Angier took charge of the crew that was putting up the timbers for the stockade. He also went on many of the expeditions looking for the missing settlers and burying the dead. That night, just after midnight, the Sioux snuck up on the Forest City Stockade corral to take the horses so that the settlers would be trapped inside the fort. They had no problem accomplishing their task except for Peter Lund’s Indian pony, which shied away from the Indians and started making noise. (Months before, the Indians had abused the horse and finally sold it to Lund.) The pony bolted out of the corral and headed for the gate of the stockade where an aroused sentry let the horse inside. Thus, Lund’s pony was the only horse the settlers had during the attack until help arrived later.

About 200 to 250 Indians attacked at around three in the morning on September 4, 1862, and they were driven back in a couple of hours. While attacking, they resorted to burning and random shooting. Ten to twelve Indians were reportedly killed (one source says 3), and one soldier was injured. Henderson Marsh Angier was with a group outside of the stockade fighting the Indians and he was standing next to Alsog Olson when Olson was wounded. He helped assist Olson, and William Branham, who was also wounded, back inside the stockade. A state of siege existed at the Forest City Stockade for ten days following the Indians’ initial attack. No one could come or go and the provisions inside were meek. A young man risked his life running through the Indian camp under cover of darkness to return to his home for a sack of flour. Surprisingly, he made it back to the stockade.

Finally, on September 15, 1862, Capt. George F. Pettit's Company B, 8th Minnesota Infantry Volunteers Regiment, hastily organized in Faribault as the “Guerrilla Guards”, arrived as the first military organization to help in Meeker County and the Indians scattered. The Sioux left in three groups by the Manannah Road, the Greenleaf Road, and the Rice City (Darwin) Road. As they left, they stole livestock and burned one barn and six houses belonging to William Richardson, Milton Gorton, James P. Howlett, Dudley Taylor, A. B. Hoyt, William Richards, and A. C Smith. Over time, the stockade disappeared from a combination of the elements and the desire to use it for building logs or firewood for surrounding settlers. On September 12, 1976, a restored Forest City stockade was dedicated in a grand ceremony and it is now open to the public. The replica stockade is located 6 miles northeast of Litchfield and approximately ½ mile south of Forest City on Highway 24.

The first homesteader recorded in Forest City was Michael Flynn (Lot 2, Sec. 34. D.E.) on January 1, 1863. Recorded means he was the first man to go to St. Cloud and register his claim. The first Masonic Lodge in Meeker County started up in Forest City on May 18, 1867. The original Meeker County News was Meeker County’s first newspaper. Frank Belfoy started it in Forest City in the spring of 1868 with Minnesota’s first printing press. The paper was moved to Litchfield, where it merged with the Litchfield Ledger in April 1882, becoming the News-Ledger. Frank Daggett and Wellington D. Joubert had established the News Ledger newspaper in April 1872 in Forest City. That paper was also moved to Litchfield where it was joined with the Meeker County News.

The Church of St. Gertrude was built in 1867. John Dougherty and others hauled the lumber from St. Cloud to build it. It was located north of the stockade and was moved in 1897 to its present location. It has been remodeled and enlarged. The cemetery, which is a part of the church grounds, is one of the oldest in the county and contains the marked graves of many of the earliest pioneers. Among the graves in this cemetery is the one of John Dougherty, who helped build the church and assisted in the internment of the victims of the Acton Massacre in the cemetery at Ness Church by Litchfield. Anna Crusoe (Mrs. Joseph Crusoe, 1859-1943) came with her parents from Sherburne County in 1869. Also in 1869, a house was moved to 114 Marshall Avenue North in Litchfield from Forest City. Adam Klass had owned the house in Forest City. It was twenty-five by thirty-six feet and two-stories high. It had been Klaas’ saloon in Forest City and it became the same in Litchfield, plus a boarding house. It eventually served as a unit of the Exchange Hotel, which was next door to the north. The original house is still at that address in Litchfield today. Otis C. McGray moved his dry goods cash store to Forest City from Litchfield in February 1873. The Baptists built a church in Forest City in 1879.

Terry Tales by Terry R. Shaw