We often spend a little fantasy time considering “what might have been.” We wonder what the outcome might have been if only the star running back had not fumbled the ball, what her life might have been if she had not been injured in an accident, or how rich we would have been if we had only transferred our stocks before the collapse of the market. What about our community? How would things have turned out if a couple of things had gone just a little differently? Maine Prairie was almost different. In its early years, it faced three forks in the road of history which could have made considerable difference in its community. Two are oft-noted pieces of lore and the record of our early pioneer history, but a third fork is seldom noted even by those who made a careful effort to record our past. Two of these “what-ifs” were based upon what didn’t happen, and the third upon what did. Paradise found … and lost Thirty-some years ago, while a student at St. Cloud State, I stumbled across E.H. Atwood’s History of Maine Prairie, Fair Haven, Lynden, Eden Lake and Paynesville for the first time. In his account, published in 1895, Atwood describes the prairie in the early 1850s. Among the few settled areas north of St. Paul, only St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids could claim the status of settlements. It was only a year before pioneers gained their first glimpse of Maine Prairie that John Wilson bought 297 acres of land, a purchase that made him the father of St. Cloud. Sauk Rapids had a head start, with about 100 residents. Scatterings of settlers had also staked out homesteads along the Sauk, “but there was a vast unexplored territory west of the Mississippi and south of the Sauk River, that had probably never been trodden by the foot of the white man,” a broad area between the feuding Sioux (Dakota) and Ojibwe (Chippewa). Atwood’s History of Maine Prairie … is only one resource that describes the early history of Maine Prairie. The History of Stearns County by William B. Mitchell (1915) and History of the Upper Mississippi Valley (1881) also record the discovery and “loss” of Maine Prairie by its first explorers. Although none of these publications identify the original explorers by name, they all describe them as “agents” looking for a suitable location for a permanent colony of settlers coming from Massachusetts. Their guide on the trek of discovery is identified by Mitchell as James Cambell, from the Clearwater area, though the settlement itself would only gain its first permanent residents the next spring. Impressed with the beauty of the spacious prairie, jeweled by a collection of small and large lakes, they christened it “Paradise.” Mitchell reports that as they continued to explore the area “they were bewildered by a flurry of snow, lost their way, and never returned to their chosen site until years after it had been settled. The members of the colony were scattered and took up their residences in various localities.” Atwood’s story-telling is more picturesque, concluding that, when this group could not locate the prairie again, “they called it Paradise Lost.” While Atwood says the settlers split up, taking their places in many of the early settlements of the area, the account in the History of the Upper Mississippi Valley records that those despondent early explorers then “located at Manannah, Meeker County. One of the number visited Mr. Greely’s house, on the bank of Pearl Lake, several years later, and at once recognized their Paradise, which was now lost to the discoverers.” Meanwhile, the reputation of the lost “Paradise” spread and, just over a year later, a group from Maine who were wintering in St. Anthony, heard the story from “Henry Johnson, who kept a hotel at Neenah, six miles south of St. Cloud” close to current St. Augusta. In 1855 a hotel in this area would not have seen much for travelers. Johnson was one of the earliest settlers to the region and gave his name to the creek next to which he built his home. Most likely, he built an extra room or two onto his home where occasional weary travelers making their way into the unpopulated center of the state might find a place to lay their heads. Some travelers were settlers in the outlying areas making their way to and from St. Anthony for supplies. Atwood records that the group from Maine, excited at the prospects of “Paradise,” left St. Anthony in February by foot to find the prairie, but returned without success. A month later, A.S. Greely, Augustus B. Greely and his wife, Alvin Messer and Ansel Crommett began the trek again, this time making it to Neenah and from thence, three miles west to a section of open prairie where they built a claim shanty. They may have thought they had indeed found “Paradise,” but it simply was not quite as beautiful or as large as the tales that had grown up about it. They were soon joined by additional settlers from Maine (Atwood names Hercules Dam and his wife, Horace Greely and Albert Staples), whose undimmed dream kept them searching. It is Rev. Alvin Messer who is given credit by Atwood for finding the “main” prairie, while the Greely prairie was named Little Prairie. Messer immediately staked out claims for himself and Albert Staples (who is named in the History of the Upper Mississippi Valley as “the first man to settle in Maine Prairie”). Atwood writes that “about the first of May, the group of pioneers cut out a road through the timber from their home on Little Prairie to Maine Prairie…. Soon after the road was cut through, many other settlers from the east began to arrive.” So our first permanent residents were from Maine instead of Massachusetts. Would our community have grown up differently as “Massachusetts Prairie”? Atwood contemplated the question of “what might have been” as he recounted the early discovery: “The golden dreams that they had cherished of a colony of intelligent, progressive and advanced thinkers, where they could rear their children in the atmosphere of the highest ideal attainment of human life, were unrealized.” He goes on to ponder “whether the world has lost or gained by their failure to establish a colony or not, is hard to tell.” Watch for the second installment in the “What might have been” or “Glimpses of the Prairie” series in two weeks and see what important role transportation played in shaping the future of Maine Prairie. Duane Stanley is the Communications Director for the Hennepin County Bar Association. He is four generations removed from Thomas B. Stanley and from Joseph Eaton who arrived on Maine Prairie among the early pioneers. Thank you, friends and members, for providing stories and photos for several of these columns, like member Duane Stanley’s this week. Why not look in your own records and see if you, too, might have the makings of a story for this column which so many enjoy. Don’t forget to think of ways you might help for the third annual History Exhibit at Kimball City Hall Aug. 8-10, 2003, and the second annual dinner event the evening of Aug. 8. More details will follow in the coming weeks in the Tri-County News. Several wonderful items have come to us just recently which will be featured this year. It has been especially rewarding to play our part in the Kimball Days Festival, improving the world we live in and the world we leave to our children and grandchildren. For more information, call (320) 398-5250, 398-5743, or toll-free (800) 252-2521.
