Sherburne County Heritage Center Interpretive Plan Final Report 2005

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The building, consisting of a large Tavern, Store building, separate dwelling, and Barn and Stables, are the best in the upper country. Enquiry can be made of J.W. North Esq., of St. Anthony, or the subscriber at St. Paul. Marshall & Co. March 18, 1853" (St. Anthony Express, March 18, 1853) John Quincy Adams Nickerson purchased the property from Bottineau and renamed it the Riverside Hotel, enlarging the property several times over the next 25 years. "... at Elk River the improvement is surprising. A mill at that point is in successful operation and finds plenty to do to supply the home demand. Buildings are going up on all hands, and as many as 20 families have selected property at this point with a view of settling in the Spring. The mill is the property of our worthy townsman Ard Godfrey Esq." (St. Anthony Express, January 14, 1853) The more wooded northern sections of the county, away from the Mississippi River were generally settled later than the prairie of the river terraces. Meadowvale, located in the northwest corner of Elk River Township was not settled until the 1870s. This area was on moister, more fertile soil than most of Sherburne County, and it supported a Maple -Basswood forest, typical of the Big Woods on the west shore of the Mississippi in Wright County. Harriet Roberts was a niece of Orlando Bailey, who founded Bailey Station near Big Lake. The Roberts family farmed near the Baileys, and she married William Eaton in 1872. The Eaton family had arrived in Becker Township in 1867. Harriet Eaton remembered her move to Meadowvale with her new husband to settle near Hiram Bailey, another one of Harriet's uncles who had settled there shortly before. That's What They Said! We started from Becker on the sixth day of March, 1873, with a team of oxen, taking two cows and all of our possessions.... [Uncle Hiram] took us in and helped us to locate the land and build a comfortable log house into which we moved in April, 1873." There were Elm and Maple trees and we tapped some Maple trees near the house that yielded enough sap to make all the maple sugar we needed for a year. There was a brook that drained the meadow on one side of a gentle elevation that the house stood on, and virgin soil awaited the plow. This land was not very hard to clear. The cabin that was to be our home looked very homey. I had no neighbors nearer than Uncles but other claim seekers soon came. Mr. Keasling took a soldier's claim near us and built a house similar to ours, and moved in with his family. They had lately come from Iowa and were looking for land to homestead. Mr. Keasling and his family were fine neighbors and citizens and he and his wife lived on the claim until they died, which was many years later. The next new settler to come was John Frisbe and family. They were looking for a claim and had come from Illinois. Sherburne County Historical Society Heritage Center Interpretive Plan, April 21, 2005, page 42