Cynthia Couch Jackson Speech,
June, 1930
Old Friends
and Dear Friends,
It is not
only a great pleasure but an inspiration to be with so many of my
old friends on this occasion. Being the first white child to be
born in Cleveland Township, I have been asked to say a few words of
the earlier days and settlers.
My father,
B.Y. Couch, came to Minnesota with his wife and three children,
Clara, Jabe, and Milton, in the Fall of 1854. He settled in what is
known as the big woods. He came all the way from North Carolina
with ox team. They were just blazing the way for the Dodd Road.
The first winter they lived in a log shack without doors and
windows. Three hundred Indian trapes (probably teepees A.J.K.)
camped around the shack that first winter.
Father had
the first sawmill and Blacksmith Shop.
Mother kept
the first Post Office in a log cabin. Grandville, its name, was
painted on a board with lampblack and hung up in the sawmill over
the entrance.
Cleveland
was unknown at that time. We lived two miles east of Cleveland.
Charlie
Montgomery’s father held the first Christian service in mother’s
house, that was held in that community.
I myself
was the first white baby girl born in Cleveland Township.
We must not
forget the little log church. It was built long before the Civil
War in the wild wood. It seems it was the first thing our parents
thought of. People came from far and near to hear the preaching and
to take part in the singing of the hymns. The Thayers, Misses,
Johnsons, and my sister, Clara, led the singing.
The first
death among us was Israel Thayer. They did not know where to bury
him so they laid him to rest on one of the bluffs near St. Peter.
Tomorrow is
my birthday. I will be 74 years old.
I hope to
be with you another 74 years.
I thank
you.
(Speech by
Cynthia Couch Jackson at the Le Center Park Old Settler’s Picnic,
June 1930. Cynthia Ann Couch was
born in 1856, in Cleveland, in the Minnesota Territory. She married
Dewitt Clinton Jackson in 1880. One of their children was Chester
Orrin Jackson, who was born in 1888. Cynthia Couch Jackson died in
1932, in Minneapolis, MN.)
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