Ramsey

In 1849, Alexander Ramsey wrote in his journal: “Appointed Governor of Minnesota.”

When he told his wife, Anna that they would be moving to Minnesota, she exclaimed, “Minnesota! Where upon earth is it? Denmark?”

Alexander Ramsey, 1950 Anna Ramsey, 1860

Because the house in St. Paul was not ready for them, Alex, his wife, and their three-year-old stayed with the Sibley’s,

“...and here we have been ever since, save that I have been to Saint Paul several times, to Fort Snelling, and to the Falls of Saint Anthony, etc. It is very pleasant here, their entertainment is good and kind…Saint Paul is a very new town, there is scarcely a house in it that looks as if it were two years old.”

By June 25, 1849, the house in town was ready, as Alex noted in his journal,

“Paid man on bark canoe coming down from Mentoda to St. Paul $2.00. Man hauling us from landing to house, $1.00.”

Alexander Ramsey Jr, 1850

Alex and his wife, both born in Pennsylvania, had never seen the Mississippi River, much less considered crossing it into the frontier to make their home. But they traveled by rail and steamboat to Wisconsin, which they crossed by stage.

“We feared we should be compelled to remain several days in Prairie du Chien for a boat up the river, but fortunately before we had been there two hours one came in sight…at St. Peter (now Mendota) met Mr. Sibley…the agent of the American Fur Company.”

It was in a small frame house they made their home, with Alex working in the first capitol building. Much food was imported from the east, using the river as the highway. Alex wrote in his journal,

“Paid the old Irishman on the boat for articles brought from Galena.”

Although initially Alex had commented on the lovely climate, by winter things had changed. Anna recounted that there was

“...nothing in the house to eat but strong butter and coffee without cream every potato and vegetable is frozen up….The sleigh in the river is splendid…Sonny enjoys it amazingly if mama will hold him and not let him get cold….”

Minnesota's first Territorial Capitol 1849

By March, Alex noted

“All the town out of patience at not seeing a boat arrive…. Ice out of the river as far as the eye can reach.”

The boat would carry their only contact with the country west of the Mississippi, including letters, newspapers, and food. By April,

“On Sunday the ice had disappeared from the river….

Ten days back our people were sleighing on the ice + this for nearly four months we had on the ice of the Mississippi a magnificent winter road.”

“The river has…been clear of ice (that) would obstruct steamboat navigation, between this and the head of Lake Pepin, but, on that lake ice is still solid and immovable…”

Later that day,

“Great noise in town-great tumult, and presently discovered that a boat was approaching, the first of the season…with each about 350 passengers.”

St. Paul, 1857

In a later year, perhaps feeling less anxious about the ice, he wrote,

“I have, in consistence with the spirit of the town, made a bet of a box of cigars that there will be a boat in by the 5^th of April.”

The year after the Ramsey’s arrival saw many settlers and sightseers in the St. Paul area. In October,

“Mr. Sibley and Miss Fredericka Bremer, the Swedish authoress on board. The latter a guest at our house.”

“With Miss Bremer took a drive up to the falls of St. Anthony….”

“After dinner walked out with Miss Bremer over the bluff back of St. Paul…and she was most delighted with the views all around.”

They also visited St. Peter’s Indian Agency, and Minnehaha Falls, so Miss Bremer could write her book, Homes of the New World.

By 1857 the opening of the river to steamboat travel was more predictable, and steamboats more plentiful, as Anna’s brother, a drugstore owner writes,

“Our river opened the 1^st day of May and the first boat arrived on that night- Since then we have had from 10 to fifteen boats daily….we have bought a very heavy stock this spring hoping to double the amt of business this year over last

Our town is full of strangers…3 to 300 arrive daily and the hotels are full to overflowing.

I expect to see thee out to St Paul next year…the place is nearly double the size to what it was two years ago.”

St. Paul continued to grow, as did Alex’s family. In 1870, his wife and eighteen-year-old daughter Marion were in Europe, but still thought of home. Anna wrote,

“Mont Blanc looks about like the bluffs of the Mississippi river…. I feel there is no country like our own….”

By this time the river was a means of transportation, but didn’t seem to hold the same mystique as it did in the early years of settlement.

Marion Ramsey, 1872

When Marion returned home and began courting, she received many letters from young gentleman eager to pursue her hand. In 1873, Fitch Gilbert wrote to her,

“…my father…says he is going up the River from St Louis to Eau Claire so who knows perhaps he may be inclined to run up to St Paul, and say how do you do to you and sincerely I wish I had the same opportunity.”

Still thinking of her in his travels three months later,

“You will be surprised to hear from me as far south as this, but…I had made up my mind to come down with a party to for “Mardi Gras….

Four of us left St Louis coming down to Memphis by rail and from there taking boat down the river with all the romance and cotton plantations, enjoying everything.”

He was again planning to head north,

“To St Louis where I expect to stay until the 20^th of March, when I shall go up to Eau Claire for a little while, and if you were in St Paul…how gladly would I go a little further to see you once more.”

Unfortunately for Fitch, Marion chose to marry a different man, and on her honeymoon trip, her mother wrote to her, in 1875,

“Our city is very quiet at present: the river being the only thing which produces any excitement: It is very high and look grander than I have seen it in many years.”

A few days later,

“Your Father and I spent most of the afternoon sitting upon the top of the house watching the river and looking down upon our neighbors and commenting on the neatness of their homes….

“The cats are well. Tipsey for continued misdoings was last week taken down to the river and drowned.”

The river continued to be a means of travel, Alex noting in his journal that summer,

“Mrs. Gardiner of St. Louis & her two children reached here this morning, having come by river.”

Trains, however, and their bridges over the river were becoming more important, and it seems careers on either were interchangeable,

“The Porter in the Milwaukee car says he conveyed my baggage and my family on board the Steamer at Prairie du Chien from the Pheonix hotel in 1849.”

It is clear 27 years after the Ramsey’s first crossing, that their relationship with the Mississippi had changed, as Anna writes,

“The river opened yesterday: and to day there is a strong wind from the south which must seriously affect the Lake: but as we don’t depend on the river so much as we did twenty years ago: we are rather indifferent about steam boat navigation.”

Twenty years later, Marion’s children found in the river a source of recreation.

High Bridge, St Paul 1891

In 1895, Alexander Ramsey spoke of early immigration to Minnesota, and of his first experiences here,

“It was about sunrise on a bright spring morning that, following a well-marked Indian trail, I plodded up the high bank of the river and caught my first glimpse of St. Paul….I looked to the North, I looked to the South to the East and to the West, but all that met the eye was the river as it flowed past and the wide expanse of prairie, the only evidence of civilization, the straggling little village by my side.”

Laura and Ramsey Furness and friends, Clearwater Minnesota 1895

Alexander Ramsey Furness, 1896

Ramsey Furness measuring current on the Mississippi River

Marion’s son also worked on the river for a winter,

“I have at last found out what we do up here. It is gaugeing the water, that is finding out how much volume of water passes by in a certain time. We measure the Mississippi about every 20 ft for a half mile or so….”

He wrote to his grandfather,

“We have been getting up at five in the morning and working until seven at night….

It is’nt so bad now but in the winter it will be pretty disagreeable.”

Ramsey, Anita ans Laura Furness, 1886

Many of the images used can be found on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website: www.mnhs.org