External view of a Red Wing boarding house, which was formerly a city hospital. It was located on East side of Dakota, North of Main Street. There is a sign on the side of the building that reads, "American House."
Early Barn Bluff businesses are shown. On the far left is the sawmill of Grannis, Daniels and Company. The Francis Ives building is in the center and the Metropolitan Hotel, which was later destroyed by a fire in 1869, is on the left.
Group portrait of four people, seated on a porch. The location of this photograph is unknown; but the Iron Range includes parts of the following Minnesota counties: Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis.
Early ventures in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1880-1890). About half of the student body of the academy in 1882-1883 (those in the photograph wearing medals) were prospective candidates applying for membership in the Benedictine community. Some members of this class who became sisters are identified as follows: Top row: 3. Susan (Sister Rose) Kilduff, 5. Josephine (Sister Adalberta) Gerard. Second row: 2. Margaret (Sister Eleanor) Irving. Fourth row: 1. Mary (Sister Felicitas) Knapp, 2. Margaret (Sister Ethelburga ) Farrell. Second from bottom row seated on steps: 3. Sophia (S. Ehrentrude) Wessel, 4. Mary Magdalen (S. Ursula) Hoffmann. Bottom row seated on steps: 2. Emily (Sister) Cherrier, 3. Bridget (Sister Magdalen) Walker (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
St. Mary's Mission, Red Lake Indian Reservation (Red Lake Nation). The Benedictine monks and sisters were preceded in the Red Lake mission by Fathers Francis Xavier Pierz and Lawrence Lautischar. These two missionaries had founded the mission in the 1850s and Father Lautischar remained there as its first pastor. After his untimely death in a snowstorm, Father Lawrence was succeeded by Father Ignatius Tomazin, the Yugoslav missionary who was removed from White Earth for antagonizing government agents at that reservation in1878. In 1883, his zeal for the rights of the American Indians once again brought the soldiers from Fort Snelling to the reservation to remove him. For the next five years, the Red Lake mission was without a priest. In 1888, when the Drexel sisters* paid a visit to the reservation and heard the Ojibwe's plea for priests and sisters, Katherine begged the abbot of St. John's Abbey to take over the mission. She offered to pay the traveling expenses and to rent temporary buildings for them. The following year in November 1889, two priests, Fathers Simon Lampe and Thomas Borgerding from St. John's Abbey and Sisters Amalia Eich and Evangelista McNulty from St. Benedict's Convent made the arduous trip to Red Lake; the last lap from White Earth to Red Lake was by lumber wagons. St. Mary's Mission in Red Lake began in some empty buildings on the reservation. The sisters converted an abandoned Hudson Bay Company's warehouse into a school. In spite of its poor condition, the school opened with an enrollment of 25 day pupils. Years later when Sister Amalia was asked how they kept warm in that drafty house, she replied that they didn't keep warm; they froze. The next spring they took in 27 boarding pupils in addition to the day students. St. Benedict's sent two more sisters and a candidate to help. The candidate, Jane Horn, who later became Sister Marciana, was a former pupil of the sisters at White Earth. She was a helpful bridge for building understanding between the missionaries and the Ojibwe at Red Lake. (*Katherine Drexel and her two sisters, daughters of a wealthy banker in Philadelphia, engaged in charity for the American Indian and African American missions.) [SBMA McDonald, pp. 246-249 Sister Owen Lindblad, OSB, FULL OF FAIR HOPE: A History of St. Mary's Mission, Red Lake, (Park Press Quality Printing, Inc., Waite Park, MN, 1997), pp. 15-17, 34-39]
Exterior view of Hamline University which was constructed in Red Wing in 1855-56 and later moved to St. Paul in the 1860s. The courthouse shown behind it was built in 1858-59.
Schools in south-central Minnesota (1876-1909). By 1850, Stillwater, which owes its existence to the building of Fort Snelling in 1819, became the lumbering capital of the St. Croix River region. This soon brought pioneer settlers to the area. Though not the first white settlement in Minnesota, Stillwater claims the title, "Birthplace of Minnesota," because it was at this site that a convention was held to organize the Territory of Minnesota in 1848. The wealthy lumbermen built lavish homes such as those they had built before in the New England States. To this day, Stillwater maintains a characteristic historical atmosphere. One of these historic buildings was purchased by St. Mary's Parish in 1907 to be used as the convent for the four Benedictine sisters from St. Joseph, MN, who were teaching in the German parish school, St. Mary's (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; Shifra Stein's Day Trips: Gas-saving Getaways Less Than Two Hours from Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul, page 105
Portrait of two unidentified women, standing on a porch. The location of this photograph is unknown; but the Iron Range includes parts of the following Minnesota counties: Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis.
A group of unidentified people standing on a balcony, close block-7/A in 1907. The location of this photograph is unknown; but the Iron Range includes parts of the following Minnesota counties: Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis.