came from the afflicted regions, and much aid
was extended. Governor Pillsbury was a big-hearted, sympathetic man, and
fearing the sufferers might not be well cared for, he travelled among
them personally, incognito, and dispensed large sums from his private
funds.

In 1877 the governor, in his message to the legislature, treated the
subject exhaustively, and appropriations were made to relieve the
settlers in the devastated regions. In the early spring of 1877, the
religious bodies and people of the state asked the governor to issue a
proclamation appointing a day of fasting and prayer, asking Divine
protection, and exhorting the people to greater humility and a new
consecration in the service of a merciful Father. The governor, being of
Puritan origin, and a faithful believer in Divine agencies in this
world's affairs, issued an eloquent appeal to the people to observe a
day named as one of fasting and prayer for deliverance from the
grasshoppers. The suggestion was quite generally approved, but the
proclamation naturally excited much criticism and some ridicule, but,
curious as it may seem, the grasshoppers, even before the day appointed
for prayer arrived, began to disappear, and in a short time not one
remained to show they had ever been in the state. They left in a body;
no one seemed to know exactly when they went, and no one knew anything
about where they went, as they were never heard of again on any part of
the continent. The only news we ever had from them came from ships
crossing the Atlantic westward bound, which reported having passed
through large areas of floating insects. They must have met a western
gale when well up in air, and have been blown out into the sea and
destroyed. The people of Minnesota did not expend much trouble or time
to find out what had become of them.

The crop of 1877 was abundant, and particularly so in the region which
had been most seriously blighted by the pests.

Before the final proclamation of Governor Pillsbury every source of
ingenuity had been exhausted in devising plans for the destruction of
the grasshoppers. Ditches were dug around the fields of grain, and ropes
drawn over the grain to drive the hoppers into them, with the purpose of
covering them with earth. Instruments called "hopperdozers" were
invented, which had receptacles filled with hot tar, and were driven
over the ground to catch them as flies are caught with tanglefoot paper,
and many millions of them we