Meeker County

Swan Lake, was named after a lake of that name in this township-originally part of Kingston. The first settlers were men by the name of Ayres and Richardson in 1856, from Mexico, N. Y. They were surveyors. They left in 1862 and the Indians soon burned their cabin. After the Indian war, Isaac N. and A. W. Russel, were the first settlers in 1864 or 5, and were followed soon after by a colony from Kentucky. The village of Dassel is embraced in this town, and was platted and settled in the spring or summer of 1869, on the completion […]

Acton was organized April, 185, and originally embraced 118-32, and the south half of 120-32. Acton takes its name from Acton, Canada, where the Ritchie family came from when they first settled in Acton, in 1857. In 1857 Robinson Jones, Howard Baker and mother and Abram Kelley settled here. Capt. Robinson and John Blackwell came in about the same time. All except John Blackwell had formed an acquaintance with each other in a lumber camp the previous winter, on the upper Mississippi. Of the old settlers named, Abram Kelley alone remains. The first child born in Acton was to Peter

The morning of the 4th, of September 1862, was celebrated in Forest City by the early arrival of about 200 Indians. They were evidently unaware of the existence of our stockade and appearances indictated that they intended to take the people by surprise. Coming into town at 3 A. M., some twenty or more mounted Indians advanced to about the center of the town-site and discharged a volley in the air evidently intending to rouse the sleeping settlers, and during the panic, have things their own way. In this they were disappointed. With what we knew of the Indians in

In conclusion of what we promised on the 4th, of July, 1876, we have but little to add. As a primal history it has been a much more difficult job than we anticipated and yet we regret not the labor. For the innumerable facts, names and dates, we think our book is reliable and will promise a fund of material for- the future historian, far better qualified than our self, for the task of putting it together in readable shape-we have endeavored to do no injustice to any one-we have had nothing to refer to but our memory and an