always had before.

Mrs. Paulina Starkloff--1854.

My name was Paulina Lenschke. I was twelve years old when I came to
Minneapolis in 1854. We intended to stay in St. Paul but were told that
this was a better place, so came here and bought an acre and a half just
where the house now stands, Main Street N. E. The town then was mostly
northeast. The St. Charles hotel on Marshall Street, northeast, was just
below us and so were most of the stores. Morgan's foundry and Orth's
brewery were just on the other side of us. We paid $600.00 in gold for
the land and half of it was in my name, as my mother paid $350.00 that I
had made myself. I think I was probably the only twelve year old child
that came into the state with so much money earned by herself. It was
this way.

We went to Australia to dig gold in 1847. We drove an ox team into the
interior with other prospectors doing the same until we came to
diggings. The men would dig and then "cradle" the soil for the gold.
This cradle was just like a baby's cradle only it had a sieve in the
bottom. One man would have a very long handled dipper with which he
would dip water from a dug well. He only dipped and the other man
stirred with a stick and rocked. Most of the soil would wash out but
there would always be some "dumplings" caused by the clay hardening and
nothing but hard work would break them. The miners would take out the
gold which was always round, and dump these hard pieces. After a day's
work there would be quite a pile that was never touched by them. I would
take a can and knife and go from dump to dump gathering the gold in
these dumplings. One day my father went prospecting with a party of men
and was never seen again. After months of fruitless search my mother
took me and my little tin can of nuggets back to Germany. She sold them
for me for $350.00 in gold. Then we came to Minnesota and bought this
place.

The Red River carts used to be all day passing our house. They would
come squeaking along one after another. Sometimes the driver would take
his wife and children with him. These carts had no metal about them. One
man would have charge of several.

Mrs. Anna E. Balser--1855, Ninety-four years old.

I was the only girl in our family that ever worked, but when I was ten
years old I laid my plan to get myself out of my mother's tracks. She
had so much to do with her big family. I could cry when I think of it
now. So, when I was fourteen, my father, scared