a school district order for
$60.00 and in the fall of '59 with this as my sole asset, I commenced
the study of law in Hastings, with the firm of Smith and Crosby. It is
hardly necessary for me to say that we were all poor in those days.
There was no money and no work except farming, but in this way we could
earn enough to live upon in a very humble manner.

I first saw the late Judge Flandrau at Lewiston, he was then Indian
agent and was making his way on horseback from Faribault to Hastings. He
had a party of twelve or fifteen men with him, all full blood or mixed
blood Indians, and they stopped for dinner. Judge Flandrau was very
tanned and clad in the garb of the Indian as were his associates; it was
with difficulty that I determined which one of the party was the white
man Flandrau.

[Illustration: EARLY SOLDIERS AT FORT SNELLING.

(See pages 19 and 158.)

Presented by Mrs. P. V. Collins.]

CHARTER OAK CHAPTER

Faribault

MISS STELLA COLE

Mr. Elijah G. Nutting--1852.

My father's hotel, the Hotel de Bush, as we derisively called it, was
the first hotel in Faribault. It may perhaps be called a frame house by
courtesy, rather than technically, as it was made by placing boards
vertically side by side, battened together by a third board. On the
first floor were the family apartments, separated from the dining room
and the "office" by partitions of cotton cloth hung on wires. The
office, ten feet by twelve, boasted an improvised desk, a stool and a
candle. The second floor was called the "school section," a large
apartment filled with bedsteads rudely made of boards and supporting
straw, hay or coarse grass ticks. Here the fortunate early bird took his
rest, fully clothed, even to his boots, protected from the snow, which
blustered in at the unglazed windows by his horse blankets. Later comers
took possession of the straw ticks on the floor and made no complaint
next morning when, after a breakfast of salt pork, black tea with brown
sugar and butter so strong it could seldom be eaten, they were presented
with a bill of $2.00. In one corner of this "school section" was a tiny
enclosure, screened with a cotton cloth partition, containing a bed and
two soap boxes, one for a dressing table and the other for a chair. This
was called the "bridal chamber" and was to be had at a suitable price,
by those seeking greater privacy. We had bread and pork for breakfast,
pork and bread for dinner, and some of both