I came across a bit of information that some might find interesting. I know a couple of my kids will like it.
My Great-great Grandfather wanted to run a ferry service from one point on the Minnesota River across to another, in the southern part of the state. This required permission from the State of Minnesota in the form of a Legislative Act. I stumbled across a transcript of that Act from 1878. It is fascinating to me for the way it details how he is to run his business - even to how much he can charge his customers.
"GENERAL LAWS OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA,
PASSED DURING THE TWENTIETH SESSION OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE,
COMMENCING JANUARY EIGHTH, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT,
AND TERMINATING MARCH EIGHTH, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT.
8,000 COPIES ORDERED PRINTED.
ST. PAUL:
RAMALEY & CUNNINGHAM, PRINTERS.
1878.
Page 411 - 412
Chapter 131.
AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE WILLIAM MATHENY, OF THE VILLAGE OF OTTAWA, TO ESTABLISH A FERRY ACROSS THE MINNESOTA RIVER, AT OR NEAR THE VILLAGE OF OTTAWA, LE SUEUR COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota:
SECTION 1. That William Matheny, of Ottawa, Le Sueur county, Minnesota, his heirs, executors, administrators and his assigns, shall have the exclusive right and privilege for the full period of fourteen years, to establish, keep and maintain a ferry on the Minnesota river, at a point where the section line between sections twenty-seven (27) and thirty-three (33), town one hundred and eleven (111), range twenty-six (26), in Ottawa, crosses the Minnesota river. Said right of ferry to extend one and a half (1-1/2) miles on each side of said described location of said ferry.
SEC. 2. That said William Matheny, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, shall within four months of the passage of this act, place and maintain in good condition such boat or boats in said river as the requirements of public travel may demand for the safe and expeditious crossing and transport of teams, horses, carriages, cattle and other animals, and for the safe and speedy crossing of all foot passengers, goods, baggage and lumber, and all other freight that may offer or be offered at said ferry, and shall, on all occasions, give prompt and ready attendance at all hours of the day, during the season of ferrying, from the hour of seven (7) o'clock A. M., to the hour of seven (7) P. M., from the removal of the ice in the spring until such time as autumn or winter ice renders crossing dangerous. Provided, always, that such ferrying shall not be demanded of the public as a right when by reason of high winds, floating ice, or other impediments of nature, crossing would be dangerous to the ferry or public safety.
SEC. 3. The said William Matheny, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, shall have the right to land their boats on the land of any person or persons in the county of Le Sueur, or in the county of Nicollet within the three mile range hereby granted in this act, provided the permission of the owner be first obtained.
SEC. 4. The said William Matheny, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns shall, within three months after the passage of this act, file or cause to be filed with the auditor of said Le Sueur county a bond of satisfactory to such auditor with two or more sureties, in the penal sum of five hundred dollars (500.00) conditioned for the faithful performance of all the conditions of this act, and which said bond shall be for the benefit of any and all persons sustaining any damage by the neglect of the said William Matheny, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns to perform duties enjoined by this act, and in case of failure so to do, the rights, benefits, and privileges granted by this act shall at once determine.
SEC. 5. That for each and every neglect to keep good and sufficient boats, or failure to give due and prompt attendance to all persons wishing to cross said ferry, the aforesaid parties shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding ten dollars ($10) to be recovered by and for the use of the county of Le Sueur, in a civil action before any justice of the peace, or court having competent jurisdiction, and shall further be liable for all damages that may be sustained by any person by reason of neglect of any of the parties acting under the privileges of this act.
SEC. 6. The rates to be collected at said ferry shall not exceed the following: Each foot passenger five (5) cents; each horse or mule and rider fifteen (15) cents; each team of two (2) horses, whether loaded or not, twenty (20) cents; each single carriage, drawn by one (1) horse or other animal, fifteen (15) cents; each head of cattle, horses or mules five (5) cents; each swine or sheep two (2) cents. Provided, That the parties desiring to cross said ferry at unusual hours shall pay double prices.
SEC. 7 If any person or persons, other than the said William Matheny, attempt to cross for passengers, teams, stock or freight within the three mile limit granted by this act, he or they shall forfeit and pay to him, the said William Matheny, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns the sum of twenty dollars ($20), to be recovered in any action before a justice of the peace or court of competent jurisdiction.
SEC. 8 All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed.
SEC. 9 This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Approved March 11, 1878."
I thought this was awfully wordy for permission to run a ferry, but I guess that's how the government does things - even at the state level. It amazes me what information is floating around on the Internet.
Note to my kids - Now you know how your Great-great-great Grandfather spent his time in 1878.
Vicki, that is awesome! I should get busy and work on my family history. My maternal grandmother was a D.A.R. member so it would not take much effort on my part to get things brought up-to-date. I also have a great deal of family history back to the 1600's for my paternal side of the family. Now, if I could just get it all organized in some nice fashion for my son and beyond. I think you and I have some similarities...my maternal grandfather was a farmer and my father's father worked on the railroad as a railway mail clerk. Both kept their families fed during the depression and wars. They were the salt of the earth...
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing, CW
CW...Isn't that fun? To think that the state told him how much to charge and when he could be open to run his ferry! I thought maybe someone else might enjoy reading it.
DeleteOver the years I have collected so much family information that I doubt I will live long enough to enter it all! :) But I will give it my best shot. I have one branch that goes back to Scotland in 1635 and another to France in the 900's. My favorites are the scoundrels. We have some of those, but most were upright, hardworking folks, like your grandfathers and mine. It must have been horrible for those in the cities who couldn't find work during the Depression or those in the middle of the Dust Bowl. I think it is important for our kids and grands to know what kind of people went before and had a hand in shaping who they are. That's why I do this.
That reminds me of when the politicians says he's going to say a "few" words.
ReplyDeleteGorges...We both know the politicians don't know how to say 'just a few words.' Just like they mostly don't understand 'truth."
DeleteI was born and raised in Le Sueur county. My husband and I live in Waterville. There is a beautiful old Limestone church still standing in Ottawa.
ReplyDeleteCindy...A fellow Minnesotan! Wonderful! It has been years since I was in that area even though I don't live all that far away (Shakopee). I have searched online to see if I could find some other reference to my ancestor's ferry service, but no luck. Le Sueur County is a beautiful area. And if you follow the river, you will pass by my apartment about a block off the river. :)
DeleteI love learning about out ancestors like this. Even then the Govt. needed to try and control peoples lives. I know that most of our ancestors were god fearing, religious people. So it is always fun to find out about the scoundrels. Love, Duane
ReplyDeleteSon...I'm glad you enjoyed this post. I found it fascinating how even back then the state government regulated every aspect of our ancestor's business. We do have mostly hard working, God fearing folks in our heritage, but I think God gave us the scoundrels to keep us humble. :)
DeleteLove, Mom
That is neat you have that record. Ancestry is so interesting and fun when you find something like that!
ReplyDeleteOne Family...I was looking for something different concerning this ancestor and lo and behold, this record popped up! Love this kind of surprise. :)
DeleteYou have to feel for the folks running the printing presses. Type setting all of that, then run 8,000 copies. Thank god for modern tech.
ReplyDeleteRob...I hadn't thought about that, but you are right. Must have been quite a chore to do that kind of printing in 1878.
DeleteVery cool, Mom.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I'll have my kids read it too.
Glad you liked it, Son...I found it interesting not only for the content but also for the fact that one of our ancestors had an Act in the State Legislature concerning him and his business.
DeleteLove, Mom
Thanks for the 'atta-girl'. The emails from my cousins on Dad's side and reading your posts here got me to jump into my family history. I've since sent emails out to my cousins on my mom's side with interesting results.
ReplyDeleteSo...how in the world do you organize all the information? Do you print everything? Keep it on your computer? I'm just a tad overwhelmed already but in a good and fun way. And, what a time sink!!
So far, I've found a Civil War veteran, two Baptist preachers, and a college professor among my greats and farther back.
And from your last comment - glad you're keeping warm. And I think your landlord is a very nice guy and you're very fortunate to live where you live.
Cheers, SJ
SJ...It is addicting, isn't it!! And yes - very much a time sink. But I enjoy every minute of it. :)
DeleteI'm probably going to give you more information than you ever hoped for, but here goes.
I set up paper file folders for things like the physical birth certificates, actual written letters, photos, etc. But I found it way to cumbersome to print out everything else. I have been at this for at least 10 years and have accumulated thousands of names. Not all are direct ancestors. Many are families of spouses, etc. Sometimes there are interesting things found following those lines. An ancestor of the wife of a person in my line has a family castle in Scotland - fun to read about. Anyway---
I found the best way for me to organize it all is to first set up a Genealogy file in My Documents. Under that I set up a file for each of my grandparents families. In my case it is one for Matheny and one for Olmstead on Dad's side - Paul and Morehouse on Mother's side. Whenever I find a bit of information I set up a file for that person under the proper heading. For instance, I find a census record for my grandfather, Clifford Matheny. In the record are listed his wife and nine children. I set up a file for each person, copy the record and save it to each file. Then whenever I find another piece of information, say the death certificate online for Clifford, I copy it to his file.
To get an overall picture of my family tree, I use a genealogy program. I have tried several. Some are complicated. Some only let a person enter so many names before demanding they buy an upgrade. Some want access to your information for use on their website.
The one I use is Personal Ancestral File (PAF) from the Mormon website, familysearch.org. Sadly, they no longer offer the program, but I found a website that has it for download.
http://parowansoftware.com/
On the right of that page are a list of downloads. Clicking on PAF 5.0 will download the setup to your Download file.
This program has lots of options and is really simple to use. In addition to entering the basic information (Name, sex, birth date, birth place, death date, death place, spouse, children, etc.) I use the 'Notes' feature for each person to add census transcriptions, birth certificate and death certificate and Social Security Death Index transcriptions, obituaries, etc.
When I first started, I lumped all the families in one, but that soon became too large to handle, so I am breaking it down to each of the four surnames. With this program it is easy to break it down that way. Say I am tired of working on my Matheny line. I simply save it to a file on my computer and start another for my Paul line. Every once in a while the program will ask if I want a backup and I always do. I also have an external hard drive and once every couple of weeks I copy all my files (family name files and PAF files) to that. Don't want to lose all my work should my computer crash.
That's likely way too much information, but there it is. That's how I organize. It sound like more work than it really is. My problem is that I let too much time pass between collecting information and entering it into PAF. This system may not work for others, but it works well for me.
wow,wow, wow---thank-you! Definitely not too much information. And I started to take notes immediately. Thanks for the help - I was already starting to get overwhelmed with all the information I've been finding.
DeleteSJ
SJ...Glad I could help. You will likely develop a record keeping system that works for you, but maybe this will be a place to start.
DeleteYes, but it's nice to not have to recreate the wheel so to speak.
DeleteHaving a slow day today. Didn't eat breakfast until 10- yikes. then walked the dog. He's now sleeping under my recliner footrest and snoring. Cheers,
SJ