40 Years Ago THE HASTINGS STAR November 20, 1980

COUNTY BUDGET CUTS: Services May Suffer

By Judy Hemp, staff writer “There is no explanation given on how we are expected to provide the same level of service while receiving less money,” commentated Richard Graham, director of the Dakota Area Referral and Transportation for Seniors program.

“We’re on a maintenance budget,” interpreted George Moudry, director of the Developmental Learning Center program. “Meanwhile we’re experiencing a 20 to 40 percent increase in demands for service,” he explained. Moudry said the DLC may soon be back to having waiting lists for mentally retarded or cerebral palsied citizens needing the agency’s services.

Graham and Moudry are two of the private providers of services in Dakota County who are concerned that the 1981 funds allocated by the county in the human services area will not be adequate to meet their agency’s needs…(full story at Hastings Pioneer Room at the Hastings City Hall).

Modern Cottage Grove begins to rise Almost 62 Years Ago THE REPORTER Serving Thompson Grove, Woodbury Hgts. & So. Wash. County January 22, 1960 Water, Sewer Line Delay Will Cost Owners More ST. PAUL PARK–Residents of the Park who have water and sewer lines available to their homes, and who do not hook into the lines until after the street program starts, are in for serious financial trouble, the council says.

The street program, scheduled to begin this year, is expected to be delayed because the village hesitates to put in the streets before the water and sewer connections are made to the homes on the streets affected.

Less than half the homes which have the facilities available are connected to the municipal systems. New streets, authorized by recent bond issue election. will not be laid until the majority of homes are connected, according to Robert Coates, utilities commissioner.

Coates, who is preparing an article for the Reporter concerning the program, said that the village’s ordinances require homeowners to connect within one year after the facilities are in. “With the exception of one small area, all the sewer and water connections have been in the ground for more than one year,” he said.

January 15, 1960 Park Well Water Unsafe, 48 State Tests Indicate ST. PAUL PARK – Private wells in the village are not safe as sources of water, according to a report released this week by the utilities commissioner Bob Coates, covering 48 wells tested by the state health department All but one of the well indicated contamination of some sort, Coates said, and the one test which indicated good water was tied into the village’s municipal system and was tested by mistake. The range of seriousness was from a slight trace in some wells to a high of 36 parts per million of nitrates, enough to make it dangerous to use the water in preparing infant formula.

The tests were made over the entire village, which gives an excellent cross section of the community and making valid the projections the department made for the entire village.

Most of the village is served by municipal water and sewer systems. The systems have been in the ground for more than a year, in most cases, and are available to the majority of homes, according to Coates.

Farms and small town items 120 Years Ago WASHINGTON COUNTY JOURNAL Motto: “Independent and Impartial” November 2, 1901 News from abroad: A hunter in Maryland mistook a brier pipe for a squirrel and killed the smoker.

The story of the finding of 10,000 English sovereigns in an old hulk at the bottom of Lake Champlain turns out to have been a fake.

SOMETHING ABOUT CARROTS

A syrup is prepared from carrots. Carrot is easy of digestion, and gently laxative. Boiled carrot is used as a poultice for foul sores, and as a vermifuge.

A strong ardent spirit is distilled from carrots in some parts of Europe, ten pounds of carrots yielding about half a pint.

In the reign of Charles I, ladies wore carrot leaves as an ornament instead of feathers; and the beauty of the leaves is still acknowledged by placing a root, or the upper portion of one, in water, that it may throw out young leaves to adorn apartments in winter.

As an article of food carrots contain a large amount of what are called heat-producing compounds, with a small proportion of flesh-forming matter. It consists essentially of starch, sugar and albumen, with a volatile oil which communicates a flavor unpleasant to many dyspeptics.* *Those with digestive troubles.

IMPROVED TRAIN SERVICE

Stillwater to Milwaukee and Chicago via the Milwaukee Line.

Leaving Stillwater 6:15 p.m. daily, except Sunday, arrive Hastings 7:15 p.m.

Fine compartment sleeper leaves Hastings on fast government mail train at 7:33 p.m. arriving Chicago 7:00 am. A Milwaukee sleeper is also carried on this train, which is set out at Milwaukee.

Connection is also made at Hastings with the celebrated Pioneer Limited leaving Hastings 8:55 p.m, arriving Milwaukee 7:00 a.m. and Chicago 9:30 a.m.

This superb service will be appreciated by the traveling public. Upriver at the Stillwater Prison 134 Years Ago THE PRISON MIRROR Published by the inmates of the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater Minnesota Vol. 1, No. 3 August 24, 1887 Motto: “It is never too late to mend” Retiring Editor Schoonmaker comes to the defense of THE MIRROR’S old motto, “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: in a vigorous manner in this issue.

What was said: The motto of THE PRISON MIRROR, printed at Stillwater, is, “God helps those who help themselves.” This admits of a double construction. – Daily Journal. Fergus Falls, Minn.

Schoonmaker’s defense: Is there a sentence, story or book, written in this wide, wide world that does not admit of misconstruction? The motto of THE MIRROR is no exception: it was taken from Holy Writ,** and anyone who believes in God, will not admit that He will help them to do wrong. For eighteen hundred years, people have been endeavoring to misconstrue the Scriptures in a thousand ways, but without success; the Scriptures stand today just where they stood eighteen hundred years ago, undaunted by misconstruction, the one power that is steadily christianizing the earth, and bringing peace and humanity into heathen lands, and uniting in bonds of peace the whole world. So it is with the motto of THE MIRROR. “God helps those who help themselves,” may be misconstrued, the sentence may admit of a hundred constructions, but God’s word is still intact, and cannot be misconstrued: it means just what it reads in THE MIRROR, as well as in Holy Writ.

**Though it is a common belief even today that the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” originates within Christian Scripture, this is not in fact the case. The motto dates much later, and approximates with John Cassian’s views on grace, later being picked up and championed by Ben Franklin.

Four things cannot come back—the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, the neglected opportunity.

As announced by THE MIRROR’s founder and retiring editor, Mr. Lew P. Schoonmaker, in its last issue, the undersigned has assumed editorial charge (with scissors, mostly) of its columns. As the foster father of this promising child, I shall endeavor to fulfill the duties with which I have been entrusted. I am afraid, however, that my fellow unfortunates, and the public outside, have been led to expect more at my hands than they will receive. I am not especially endowed for this class of editorial work and in order that the readers of THE MIRROR may not be too grievously disappointed in its new editor, I take the first opportunity of undeceiving them. THE MIRROR belongs to every inmate in this prison. That there are capable writers within its walls I am assured, whose acquaintance I shall endeavor to cultivate at the earliest opportunity, and to them I shall look almost wholly for original articles suitable for the columns of our little journal. Contributions are solicited from all: but articles simply laudatory of the present prison officials or condemning its former administration, will in no case be published.

Soliciting the cooperation of all who are interested in the success of THE MIRROR both inside and outside of these walls, and believing that by such cooperation the highest degree of success will be attained, I am, yours truly, W. F. MIRICK 156 Years Ago Hastings after the Civil War THE HASTINGS CONSERVER November 14, 1865 Election Returns.

The returns which come in very slowly indicate that Marshall is elected by 2,000 to 3,000 majority. The suffrage amendment is undoubtedly defeated.

Shooting Affair Mr. William Altenberg, a citizen of Denmark Washington County, and well known in this vicinity, was shot by his son on Wednesday last, and dangerously injured. It seems that he and his son George had some dispute concerning a bill of about $50 which the boy had contracted here on his father’s credits and considerable words passed between them. In the evening, as the family were at supper, the boy procured a double barreled gun, heavily loaded with shot, and fired through the window, taking effect in the back of his father’s head, and inflicting a frightful wound…Mr. Altenberg is a quiet peaceable man, and is one of the oldest residents of the state. The boy has been arrested.

Elsewhere: Wirz was hung in Washington on Friday last (for war crimes at Andersonvile prison in Georgia).

A Pike’s Peaker writing to a Minnesota journal, says the miners are very much discouraged in that region: “they have to dig through a vein of solid silver four feet thick before they can reach gold.”

Territorial Dispatches 169 Years Ago THE WEEKLY MINNESOTIAN November 13, 1852 Official Vote of Washington County Prairie Legislative District For Representatives: Cottage Grove, John Colby 43, Caleb Truax 16 Point Douglas, John Colby 3, Caleb Truax 33 49 total votes each Constables elected: Point Douglas: William Altenberg, Patrick McKenna Cottage Grove: Warren Atkinson, E. M. Cox Stillwater: Norbert Kimick, Frederick Curtis Marine: John Holt, M. H. Cartwell PRAIRIE DISTIRCT.—We learn from the Democrat that a second trial will be made in this District on Monday next to elect a member to the Legislature. It will be recollected that at the former election the result was a tie. Hence a new election.

Almost 170 Years Ago THE DAKOTA FRIEND Published by the Dakota Mission G. H. Pond, Editor January 1852 (Example Dakota text and linguistics).

Matthew Chapter VII 13. Tiyopa cistiyedan kin he ohna ya po Canku wiconte, ekta iyahdaya wanke ein he tankaya, qa tiyopa kin nakun tankaya, qa wicota ohna eyaya.

14. Tuka canku wiconi ekta iyahdeya wanke cin he e cistiyedan, qa tiyopa kin nakun cistiyedan, qa wicaxta tonanan canku kin he iyeyapi.

The Dakota Alphabet (chart with letters and associated pronunciations but lacking F, L, and V.)

The vowels represent each but one sound. G. represents a low guttural or gurgling sound. R represents a rough hawking saound higher than that of g. Besides their simple sounds, c, k, p, s, t, and x have each a compound sound which cannot be learned except from a living teacher. They are printed in italics when they represent these sounds, except k, which is never italicized for this purpose; but q is used instead of it. The last named letter might as well, perhaps, be expunged from the Dakota alphabet, and k held responsible for the performance of this service. When a follows a vowel at the end of a syllable, except in contracted words, with very few exceptions it is not full but sounds like n in tincle, ancle.

It was intended that the Dakota orthography (writing system) should be strictly phonetic and it fails but little of doing so. To learn the names of the letters is to learn to read it, and no English scholar need spend more than a few hours, or even a few moments in learning to read the Dakota language.

A Fragment from an unwritten Chapter on the Minnesota Fur Trade.

SEIUR DU LUTH No. 1 (continued from last week) While Hennepin was at work in the month of July, 1680, with the wives of a chief, tending the “European pulse” he had planted upon an isle in Mille Lac, he was much gratified by the unexpected arrival from Lake Superior of Sieur du Luth.

This man was accompanied by five men, and was anxious to trade with the Dakotas. At his request, Hennepin accompanied him to the surrounding villages, and acted as a kind of interpreter. Some of the villages visited were probably on the west side of the Mississippi, as they did not reach them until the 14th of August. After they had exchanged their manufactures for peltries, Du Luth returned to the vicinity of Mille Lac, the old home of the Medawakantonwans (a Dakota band). Upon the promise of returning again with iron and other commodities, he and Father Hennepin were permitted to go to Canada by the way of the Wisconsin and Green Bay. Sieur du Luth was a man of great enterprise and decision and character, and his name is conspicious in the annals of the wars between the French and Indians of New York. He had been absent from Canada two and a half years when he arrived in Minnesota. Either before or upon his return he had caused two Iroquois to be killed, who had assassinated two Frenchmen upon Lake Superior. This so incensed the Five Nations, that they declared war against the French. De la Barre, the Governor of Canada, did all in his power to appease their wrath, but notwithstanding his protestations, in the month of March, 1684, a band of two hundred Seneca and Cayuga warriors, having met seven canoes manned by fourteen Frenchmen, with fifteen or sixteen thousand pounds of merchandize, who were going to trade with the Scious, pillaged them and took them prisoners without any resistance; and after detaining them nine days, sent them away without arms, food, or canoes.

This attack caused the French much uneasiness, as they feared that the English, by forming an alliance with the Iroquois, might take possession of their posts at Mackinac, Fort Creveceur, and Green Bay, and thus command the trade of all the distant nations…( to be continued).