History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis

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Excerpt from History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis: Including the Explorers Ans Pioneers of Minnesota We live not alone in the present but also in the past and future. The radius that circumscribes our lives must necessarily extend backward indefinitely and forward infinitely. We can never look out thoughtfully at our immediate surroundings but a course of reasoning will start up leading us to inquire the causes that produced the development around us, and at the same time we are led to conjecture the results to follow causes now in operation. We are thus linked indissolubly with the past and the future. "Now for my life, " says Sir Thomas Browne, "it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortune, do err in my altitude, for I am above Atlas his shoulders. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind." If, then, the past is not simply a stepping-stone to the future, but a part of our very selves, we can not afford to ignore it, or separate it from ourselves, as a member might be lopped off from our bodies, for though the body thus maimed might perform many and perhaps most of its functions, still it could never again be called complete. We, therefore, present this volume to our patrons in Hennepin county, not as something extrinsic, to which we would attract their notice and secure their favor, but as a part of themselves, and an important part, which it is the province of the historian to re-invigorate and restore to its rightful owner. Moveover, we can not but hope that we shall thus confer much pleasure. The recounting of events which have transpired in our own neighborhood is the most interesting of all history. There is a fascination in the study of the intermingled fact and fiction of the past which is heightened by a familiarity with the localities described. The writer remembers the glow of enthusiasm with which he once stood at the entrance of the old fort at Ticonderoga, and repeated the words of Ethan Allen: "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, etc." "The river which flows through our native village acquires a new interest when, in imagination, we see the Indian canoe on its surface and the skin-covered tepee on its banks, as in days of yore. Log cabins, straw roofs, and the rude "betterments" of the hardy pioneer, are the next changes on the scene, followed soon by mushroom towns, some of which perish as quickly as they spring up, while others astonish us by their rapid growth, cities are built, and moss and ivy, the evidences of age, soon accumulate. The log cabin and all the incipient steps of first settlement are things of the past, "The place which knew them shall know them no more forever." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.