Ramsey County History – Spring 1968: “From A Pioneer Farmer: Memories of Those Early Years Make ‘A Chill Run Up My Back’”

From A Pioneer Farmer: Memories of Those Early Years Make ‘A Chill Run Up My Back’
Author: John D. Schofield

“The days were too short for the work that must be done, the nights too short for the needed rest.” John Schofield came to St. Paul in 1849 from upstate New York. In 1914, he wrote a memoir, excerpted here. He arrived with $2.50 and two shirts, found work, built a little capital, rented farmland at Red Rock, built a farming and threshing business, moved to present-day Bloomington, married, had and lost children and a wife, in all lived a long and productive pioneer life. And he wrote well: the excerpt is vivid and forceful.
PDF of Scofield article