Early Days In Chatfield
More than 120 years have passed since the late summer day that Thomas B. Twiford, pushing north into the Minnesota wilderness from the more settled Iowa country, stood upon the crest of the hillside south of town, and surveyed the beauty of the valley before him. His quest for the perfect town site was over, for here in abundance were to be found the needs of successful frontier communities. The virgin forest stood ready to supply a great reserve of wood, the Root River, with its tributary creeks, provided a boundless source of water power, numerous springs furnished needed drinking water, and the rich, black soil of the slopes promised generous returns to a pioneer farmer.
After marking his claim carefully, Twiford hurried to Winona, his mind busy with a scheme to make his proposed town the county seat of Fillmore County, which at that time embraced a vast region extending for seventy miles west of the Mississippi. Taking advantage of a factional fight in Winona, he gained enthusiastic supporters for his plans, and a company was organized which built a tine log cabin on the site, named it Chatfield, in honor of Judge Andrew F. Chatfield of the Territorial Courts and settled a man named Case to live through the winter in the cabin and so hold the locality for the company. Two of the county commissioners were members of the Chatfield Company and in December of 1853, without consulting the third commissioner, they held a meeting in the Case cabin and voted to remove the county seat from Winona and locate it at Chatfield. The uproar at Winona was quelled only when Fillmore County was divided and Winona became the county seat of one of the new counties, which were created. However, Chatfield’s triumph was short-lived. The division of the original county meant that Chatfield was now located in a far corner of the new Fillmore County, and the county seat was moved to the more centrally located Carimona, and, later, to Preston.
Late winter and early spring brought renewed activity in the new town site. The first house was completed early that spring by James McClellan on the corner of Fillmore and First Streets. As a reward for being the first white woman to make her home in Chatfield, Mrs. McClellan was presented with a town lot by Twiford and his partners. A small stock of groceries and liquor were brought from Winona, and the McClellan house became Chatfield’s first grocery store and inn as well as its first home. Here a daughter, Fannie, was born that summer, the first white child born in the town. Here, too, James McClellan died in February of the following year. He was the first person to be buried in the cemetery south of town, which was acquired by the newly organized Chatfield Cemetery Association.
Other settlers followed the McClellan’s in quick succession, and the new town stirred with life and growth. The second permanent settler to come, Grove Willis, was appointed post-master soon after his arrival, and made his little log house on Winona Street Chatfield’s first post office. By summer’s end Twiford had surveyed his town site, the streets had been laid out, and a block-square tract in the heart of the area had been set aside to be used forever as a city park. The new sawmill run by J. R. Jones hummed with activity, and an inn, built by Isaac Day on the location of our present hotel, was often filled to overflowing by travelers on the Territorial roads from Winona and Iowa.
Chatfield’s big boom, however, came as a result of other transfer of the Federal Land Office from Brownsville to Chatfield in May 1856. By this time claims had been filed to practically all the land for 25 miles west of the Mississippi, and it was a matter of expediency to move the Land Office from Brownsville to a center farther west. Federal law provided that, if a man cleared and fenced a half acre of land and lived upon it at least thirty days, he might file a claim at the nearest land office to a maximum of 160 acres. The claim could be purchased at the minimum price of a dollar and a quarter an acre at any time before the government put the land up at public auction. It was a matter of record at the Brownsville Land Office that in 1854 Thomas Twiford paid the sum of $195.60 for his town site of a trifle over 156 acres. After the transfer of the office, legal title to five million acres of southern Minnesota land could be cleared only in the Chatfield Land Office. The result was an influx of people of all types, officials of the Land Office, speculators interested in buying up lands for future profits, surveyors, lawyers, moneylenders, and settlers whose primary interest was in establishing homes in the new country.
The town bustled with activity in 1856. A Baptist Church, a schoolhouse, and scores of other buildings were erected. Within a year Chatfield was known as the most flourishing and progressive settlement in southern Minnesota. It boasted four grocery stores, two hotels besides the McClellan place, a boot and shoe shop, a stove and tin ware shop, and a livery stable. That year the Root River Bank was established. In that year, too, the Chatfield Democrat put out its first issue. Although the name has been changed, it has continued to publish a weekly newspaper uninterruptedly up to the present time. A second newspaper the Chatfield Republican was also established, but after a few years it was transferred to Preston. The sawmill was busy from morning to night turning out lumber for the building boom. The next year an English brick-maker arrived in town and established a brickyard and after that a number of brick buildings were erected. In 1856, to, the West Chatfield addition was laid out across the river and a number homes were built there.
In 1857 Chatfield was incorporated as a village. Thirty years later an act of the state legislature provided for its incorporation as a city. It operated under this charter until 1947 when a Home Rule charter was adopted. The decades after 1856 saw a continuing business growth in spite of depression and the removal of the land office to Winnebago. Outstanding among the enterprises, in addition to the sawmills and brickyard, were the flourmills, and woolen mill, an iron foundry, a door sash and blind factory, a broom factory, and a cheese factory, which was later, converted to a creamery. But, as Chatfield grew older, it also grew more conservative, and it became increasingly difficult to interest local capital in young business ventures. Eventually, through one cause or another, fire, depression, outside competition, or changing times, most of them dwindled away or moved to more promising locations. A most pressing problem for local business was always that of transportation. In favorable weather it took two days to make the trip to Winona, and in severe winter weather the journey was far more difficult. From 1856 every effort was made to get a railroad, but it was not until 1878 that a branch of the Chicago and Northwestern was extended to the town.
At the outbreak of the Civil Ware, the Chatfield Guards, a militia company which had been training for some time, immediately answered the call for men. Under Captain J. W. Bishop, they were mustered in as Company A of the Second Minnesota Regiment. A second Chatfield company was organized under Major Bennett and, later, a third company was recruited by Norman Culver. In all, 200 men from within the town, in addition to a large number from the surrounding countryside, served in the Northern armies. It was a matter of pride in the community that the quota was filled by voluntary enlistments and that it was not necessary to resort to a draft. The honorable record of the Chatfield companies was also a source of gratification, and the town was justifiably elated when J. W. Bishop was made a Brigadier General. On the other hand, war brought its usual burden of grief, for a number of Chatfield men sacrificed their lives upon the battlefield.
In those early years the town was a study in contrasts. Its homes ranged from one-room log cabins and frame shanties to the beautiful Gere and O’Ferrall mansions. Its people ranged from the rich to the poor, from the well-educated and highly cultured professional men to the untutored backwoodsmen. The stories of many of the individual settlers from both the Old and the New Worlds are delightfully told by Margaret Snyder in her book, “The Chosen Valley”. One thing they had in common: All labored from daybreak to darkness to conquer the hardships of frontier life and gain comfort and security for themselves and their children. They were undaunted by loneliness, sickness, winter blizzards and summer droughts. It is true that, occasionally, a discouraged pioneer gave up and returned to older sections where life was easier, but the majority remained to build the foundations of the pleasant life we know in Chatfield today. To their descendants they left a precious heritage –a heritage of courage, industry, faith in themselves, and a belief in the future.
Credit for this bit of history comes from
“Early Days In Chatfield” found in the
Bicentennial Bugle ’76 page 8, published 1997
By the Chatfield Centennial Committee
Still a flourishing town, Chatfield is celebrating their 150-year Sesquicentennial this year 2003. Check the calendar out for ongoing events occurring throughout the year. Come visit the community and its many businesses within. There is something for everyone in the Chosen Valley.