Excerpt from History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis: Including the Explorers Ans Pioneers of Minnesota

If, then, the past is not simply a stepping-stone to the future, but a part of our very selves, we can not afford to ignore it. Or separate it from ourselves, as a member might be lopped off from our bodies for though the body thus maimed might perform many and perhaps most of its functions, still it could never again be called complete.

We, therefore, present this volume to our patrons in Hennepin county, not as something extrinsic, to which we would attract their notice and secure their favor, but as a part of themselves, and an important part, which it is the province of the historian to re-invigorate and restore to its rightful owner. Moveover, we can not but hope that we shall thus confer much pleasure. The recounting of events which have transpired in our own neighborhood is the most interesting of all history. There is a fascination in the study of the intermingled fact and fiction of the past which is heightened by a familiarity with the localities described. The writer remembers the glow of enthusiasm with which he once stood at the entrance of the old fort at Ticonderoga, and repeated the words of Ethan Allen In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, etc. The river which flows through our native village acquires a new interest when, in imagination, we see the Indian canoe on its surface and the skin - covered tepee on its banks, as in days of yore. Log cabins, straw roofs, and the rude betterments of the hardy pioneer, are the next changes on the scene, followed soon by mushroom towns, some of which perish as quickly as they spring up, while others astonish us by their rapid growth; cities are built, and moss and ivy, the evidences of age, soon accumulate. The log cabin and all the incipient steps of first settlement are things of the past The place which knew them shall know them no more forever.

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