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From: Julie Zetterberg Sardo <>
Subject: Lewis Johnson - One Man's Journey - Part VIII
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 08:51:16 -0600


Posted on: Kandiyohi Co. Mn Biographies
Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Mn/KandiyohiBios/10025

Surname: Johnson, Johanson, Lundgren, Peterson, Granquist, Rehn, Selvig,
Mattson, Janson, Olson, Englund
-------------------------

"ONE MAN'S JOURNEY"
An Autobiography of the Late
LEWIS JOHNSON
1859-1935
Pioneer Resident of the Kandiyohi Lake
Country and of the City of Willmar

VIII.
Trapping Experiences, Including Foxes -- Inventive Pastimes -- Getting
the Cattle -- No Pasture Law -- Fencing the Fields -- Shooting Geese.

Father made me a little flat-bottomed boat for hunting muskrats in sloughs
and I would drag it from slough to slough. One time I found a drowned mink
in a trap and, the fur being all wet, I did not notice it was a mink until
afterwards. I sold it and got a good price for it in spite of the fact
that I had skinned it wrong and had to patch the tail together. After ice
had formed on the water strong enough to hold me I would scare the rats
out by stepping their houses and I would then spear the muskrats. In this
way I speared and skinned over 40 rats in one day.

The first reaper I saw in the community was one which a farmer by the name
of Peter Monson had purchased. We made arrangements with him to cut the
grain for all his neighbors on condition that we furnish the number of
men required to bind the grain. As Christian and I were at that time not
each expected to do a man's job, it was agreed that we would bind one "station"
together. We were quick and limber and made it easily and had time to rest
before the machine came around the field next time and delivered its untied
bundles on our station.

In those days the settlers raised their own tobacco, and we aimed to have
a supply in a good sized box, all carved and ready for any visitor who
might happen to call. I generally had the job to see that the supply in
the box was replenished as needed. Once a friend of ours who had been to
Willmar and was on his way home stopped and called on us. This was in the
winter time and the winter road to town had been lead by our home. He had
been treated to a cigar while in town. It had, however, been crushed, and
he handed it to me with his pipe which he asked me to fill with the "homestead"
tobacco. Without his knowledge I filled the pipe with the tobacco of the
crushed cigar. Imagine my amusement, after he had lighted his pipe and
was enjoying his smoke to hear him say: "This is tobacco, I tell you. Not
such stuff as they have in town." It should be said that nearly all the
early settlers enjoyed a drink of alcohol and water mixed, and would have
a bottle upon coning from town with which to treat their friends, and it
made them sometimes "tipsy" and lively.

(Photo)
A Primitive Cabin on the Kandiyohi Prairie. See the snow-drift up against
the side of the cabin.

In those days the young people had to amuse themselves with whatever games
they could think of. I remember one was of passing a coin from one to the
other as they sat in a ring, and singing -- "Denna dollar den skall vandra,
frn den ena till den andra," etc. The winter evenings were long and we
had to spend them in some way. Sometimes I would figure arithmetic problems
for amusement just as one now solves word puzzles. In day time, Christian
and I would spend much time in skiing or at making something. I took a
liking to soldering, making things out of tinplate. At one time I did make
a little steam engine.

My father spent quite a little time trying to solve "perpetual motion."
He made a number of experiments with models that he constructed and tried
to operate. At times he would be certain that he had found the correct
idea, but there always lacked just a little "something" to make it run.
A friend of ours by the name of Andrew Anderson, who resided at Minneapolis
came up to visit with us. My father and he got their heads together and
figured out a machine that they thought would be sure to run. They spent
weeks at building it, only to be again disappointed.

Mr. Anderson was then a single man and was employed by W. D. Washburn as
a coachman. Later he lost his hearing and then was put to work in a flouring
mill. After he was married, he made his home on Franklin Avenue. When I
made my first visit to Minneapolis, taking in the State Fair which was
then held in South Minneapolis. I visited at the Anderson home. His brother
Erick took me around. Erick was quite a musician -- playing the piano,
cornet, guitar, etc. He was then organist of the first Swedish Lutheran
church of Minneapolis. He returned the visit the next winter and brought
his guitar along, and entertained us with his playing and singing. We also
went out to Big Kandiyohi Lake to shoot rabbits.

Finally I was able to buy a double-barrelled gun, and I was much pleased
with it, even if it was a muzzle-loader. Some years afterwards I sold this
gun and also my little Swedish gun. Later I regretted having sold them
instead of keeping as a remembrance of my early days on the farm. Fortunately
I was able later to get them back, and I still have them in my possession.

Since I wished to try something else than farming my father leased our
land to C. L. Englund, who was married to my sister, Christine. He later
sold the farm to them with the understanding that my parents should be
permitted to occupy some of the rooms. There my father and sister both
passed away. My mother lived with us in Willmar until she passed away.

In those early days we did not have any pasture law. Instead of fencing
pastures for the stock, the cultivated fields had to be fenced in. This
was done by procuring poles from the woods from which were split rails
which were nailed to posts set in the ground. Neighbors who had cultivated
fields adjoining would join in fencing the fields. The cattle were permitted
to roam at large, and most always our stock and that of our neighbors would
get together in one herd and drift away to the east and away tot he weeds
near the lakes. It was Christian's and my job each even to hunt them up
and drive them home. Rain or shine we made off for the rounding up on our
stock, and at times it would be pitch dark when we came home with them.
Having not much else to do some days we would start early in the afternoon,
and Christian would repeat to me stories which his mother had told him.
She was well stocked with these. As my pal told them, it was to my great
enjoyment.

In the early fall I would go hunting for wild plums which grew in all the
natural groves at that time in great abundance. Later in the fall we got
our traps ready. Muskrats, minks, and foxes were plentiful, and we had
much sport in catching them. After winter had set in for good, we generally
went after the foxes exclusively. We caught eight foxes one winter.

At that time many wild geese came in the early spring and stayed all summer,
nesting and rearing their young. As there was no law regulating shooting
seasons, we shot the geese whenever we had the chance. My gun, having a
small bore, was rather light when the geese were full-feathered in the
spring, and I would resort to round slugs or bullets. When I judged that
the range was too far for the regular load, I would slip in a bullet on
top and on several occasions got my goose in that way.

(To be continued)


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