MAKING A POSTOFFICE.

I had settled on the frontier, where Traverse des Sioux and Mankato were the extreme border towns in southwestern Minnesota. About the year 1854 or 1855 a German settlement was commenced at New Ulm. It originated in Cincinnati, with an association which sent out parties to find a site for a town, and they selected the present site of New Ulm. The lands had not been surveyed by the general government, but our delegate in congress, Henry M. Rice, had anticipated that by obtaining the passage of the law allowing settlement and preëmption on unsurveyed lands. Under the law a town site could only embrace 320 acres, but the projectors of New Ulm laid out an immense tract, comprising thousands of acres. Many of the settlers had not taken any steps toward becoming American citizens, which was a necessary preliminary to preëmption, and everything among them was held in a kind of common interest, the Cincinnati society furnishing the funds.

It was not long before they discovered that they needed legal advice in their venture, and called on me to regulate their matters for them. I was deputy clerk of the court, and always carried the seal and naturalization papers with me, so that I could take the declaration of intention of anyone who desired to become an American citizen anywhere I happened to find him, on the prairie or elsewhere. In this way I qualified many of the Germans for preëmption, and took them by the steamboat load down to Winona to enter their lands. I would be furnished with a large bag of gold to pay for the lands, and sometimes, with the special conveniences furnished by the land office, I would work off forty or fifty preëmptions in a day. I became such a necessary factor in the building of the town that, if any difficulty occurred, even in the running of a mill which they erected and ran by the accumulated water of many large springs, I was immediately sent for to remedy the evil.

The nearest postoffice was at Fort Ridgely, about sixteen miles away, and it soon became apparent that one ought to be established in the town. I was, of course, sent for to see if it could be accomplished. It was a very easy thing to do with the very efficient and influential delegate we had in congress, Hon. Henry M. Rice. Having agreed upon a Mr. Anton Kouse as postmaster, I at once wrote to Mr. Rice to give the new settlement a postoffice. It was not long before I received an answer, which contained the postmaster's commission, his bond for execution, a key for the mail bags, and all the requisites for a going postoffice.

The New Ulm people were a very social lot, and my visits to the town always included a good deal of fun, so I concluded to make a special event of the establishment of the new postoffice, and, as the weather was fine, I invited half a dozen friends to accompany me in a drive to New Ulm, to participate in the opening ceremonies.

One of the earliest settlers in the town was Francis Baasen, who became Minnesota's first secretary of state, and was a gallant officer in the First Minnesota Regiment, so celebrated in the War of the Rebellion, and has recently been appointed by Governor Lind as assistant adjutant general of the state. He had a claim about two miles below the town, just where the ferry crossed the Minnesota river, at Red Stone, and had erected a log shanty there, in which he lived. Of course, we always called on Baasen on our way up, and also on our way back, when we visited New Ulm. Baasen was a charming gentleman, and while his shack was destitute of any of the luxuries or elegancies of life, there was a door, or hatchway, in the middle of the floor, which led to a kind of cellar, the contents of which supplied all the deficiencies of the house, and, flavored with the generous hospitality of the proprietor, made everybody happy.

On this occasion we stopped to take Baasen into the party, and while discussing the great event which brought us up, I decided to add some new features to the inauguration of the new postmaster. Baasen had been appointed a notary public, and was provided with large business-like envelopes and formidable red seals, so I wrote a letter to Mr. Kouse in about the following language:

Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. "July 20, 1855. "Hon. Anton Kouse, Postmaster at New Ulm, Territory of Minnesota,

"Sir: We have been informed that a flourishing settlement has been founded on the waters of the upper Minnesota river, in Minnesota Territory, which has been named New Ulm, and that the inhabitants are sufficiently numerous and intelligent to need a postoffice. It has also been represented to us that you are a good and true Democrat, and the choice of the people for the office of postmaster. It is therefore our duty and pleasure to appoint you to that office. It is our desire that you locate the office in a part of the town which will accommodate its inhabitants, and see to it that they always vote the Democratic ticket at all elections. I am,

"Yours very truly, (Seal) "FRANKLIN PIERCE, "President of the United States of America."

I inclosed this letter in one of Baasen's large envelopes, and we all drove up to the house of Mr. Kouse, and called him out. I stood up in the wagon, and made him a speech, informing him of the creation of the office, and that I had his bond and commission and a letter to him from the president of the United States, which I was instructed to deliver to him in person, and I added that it was customary on such important occasions for the newly appointed postmaster to propose the health of the postmaster general.

Kouse rushed into his house, and appeared with a brown jug and a tin cup, from which we all drank a bumper to the health and prosperity of the postmaster general, the town of New Ulm, and its postmaster. I then handed him his credentials, including the letter from the president, and the postoffice at New Ulm was a reality.

I have never learned whether my friend Kouse caught on to the joke, or whether he has cherished the executive letter as an heirloom for his posterity.

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