The Village of St. Anthony
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Métis ox-carts on Main Street, 1855
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
In 1850...
You would have seen
- a beautifully wooded island in the center of the river, and a waterfall that some people claimed rivaled Niagara Falls in scale and beauty. Huge rocks scattered at the base of the Falls caused water to spray in every direction. Eagles nesting nearby hunted for fish at the waterfall.
You would have heard
- the creaking of ox-carts along St. Anthony’s Main Street on their way to St. Paul as Métis drivers brought furs and hides from trade routes across the west.
- the clatter of a sawmill running six days a week, twenty-four hours a day to provide materials for newcomers to build houses
- People speaking Dakota, Ojibwe, French, and English in regional accents that told you if they were newcomers from the Northeast or the South.
At the newly built village school house Elizabeth Backus, a Connecticut native, taught nine boys----including seven of Pierre Bottineau's children who only spoke French, while she spoke only English.
At Roswell P. Russell’s store, the first in the village and a makeshift room portioned off the cabin he shared with the Luther Patch family, customers bought some needed provisions
At the First Baptist church organized in 1850 a congregation of ten people gathered together in an unplastered and unfloored room with low ceilings. Catholics traveled to St. Paul while their church was being built, and Episcopalians started construction on their own church. Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians built churches in the next decade.
Cite This Entry
Dart, Danielle. "The Village of St. Anthony." Clio: Your Guide to History. August 5, 2020. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://theclio.com/entry/110755
Sources
Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Twin Cities. Minneapolis, MN. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007.
Petersen, Penny A.. Hiding in Plain Sight: Minneapolis' First Neighborhood. Minneapolis, MN. Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association/NRP, 2009.
Vaughan, Margaret. "Métis in Minnesota," MNopedia. October 24th 2017. Accessed July 26th 2020. https://www.mnopedia.org/group/m-tis-minnesota.
Minnesota Historical Society