Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Importance of the Scandinavian Element—A Swede Elected Secretary of State in Minnesota—False Rumors of Indian Depredations—The Northern Pacific Railroad is Built—Trip to Philadelphia—The National Convention at Indianapolis—Delegation to Washington—A Swedish Colony in Mississippi Moved to Minnesota—The Second Voyage to Europe
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Story of an Emigrant.
3 35
organize the settlers into militia companies and commission
officers for the same. Selecting a few friends for company
and aids, we went by rail as far as Benson, Swift county,
thence by ox teams northward, following the frontier
settlements to the northern portion of Otter Tail county. Four
companies of militia were organized and officers duly
appointed, the last being in Otter Tail county, with a Swedish
count, Ragnar Railing, as captain. This prompt action
stopped the panic, and all has been quiet since that time.
The rumor of the Indian depredation proved to have
originated with some settlers who, in the disguise of Indians, had
tried to scare away a Norwegian from a claim which he had
taken from another man.
During this year one of the greatest railroad enterprises in
the world wras commenced, namely, the building of the
Northern Pacific, extending from Lake Superior to the
Pacific coast, a distance of over two thousand miles. The
celebrated financier Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, who had
acquired a great reputation as the financial agent of
President Lincoln’s administration during the war, was at the
head of the enterprise. The Northern Pacific Company had
received a government grant of many millions of acres of
land along the proposed railroad, and it required millions
upon millions of dollars to build the road. One of the
important financial questions with Jay Cooke was how to
derive a revenue from the sale of lands, and how to get
settlers and communities started along the line of the road.
So ignorant were the people of this country about the region
lying within the limits of the Northern Pacific railroad that
it was generally supposed to be either barren or too far
north for successful agriculture; yet that very region has
since proved to be the greatest wheat producing country in
the world. Mr. Cooke himself had been all over it with a
small party, under the escort of United States cavalry, on
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