Young folks, some from nearby towns, brought in modern dances and a little more life than the promoters were used to, and the hall gradually folded up.

        The oldest living resident of Cameron township is Mrs. W. S. Pattinson of Slayton. The Pattinsons came to Cameron Township from Scotland in the fall of 1883. The late Mr. Pattinson was prominent in township affairs. He served as county commissioner from this district for 12 years. He was instrumental in bringing black cattle into this section. The Pattinsons left the farm several years ago, but Mrs. Pattinson still owns two farms in the township. Of the family three sons remain: William, James and Donald.

        The only fence of the kind we have ever seen in this section was constructed on what is now the C. F. Sierk place. Back in the '70's Phillip Stanley homesteaded the place. He had a bunch of calves one year and had neither barb wire, posts nor boards. So he made his fence out of sod. He piled the sod up three feet high and three feet wide around the pasture, then plowed a couple of furrows in the inside close up to the sods. It made an effective fence when the calves were young and the only cost was the labor.

        Stanley's first house was a semi-log and sod affair. He planted a few trees some of which are still left. The farmers came to the Stanley place frequently in the early fall. He had a cane mill and the farmers would bring in the sugar cane with enough wood to keep the tanks going and they would turn out a supply of sorghum. Stanley lived on the southeast corner of the quarter.

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Murray County Known to White Men in 1820

        This area was well known to white men, even before the construction of the American Fur Trading Post at Bear Lakes.

        According to early maps when this section was in the states of Wisconsin and Iowa, there is an "official" map published by the Federal government that depicts a trail which crosses Murray County, north and south.

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        It was called the William Dickson and Lewis Musick trail of 1822. According to the map this trail was used by drovers when they took cattle and sheep to the far north.

        The trail came up the west side of the Des Moines river. On this trail map the Bear Lakes are named Otter Lakes. Sheep and cattle from Missouri were driven northward to Pembina for the Hudson Bay colony. The journal of the Indian agent at Fort Snelling discloses that drovers with cattle got lost on the prairie and they left the livestock. They were later picked up at Lac Qui Parle. That was in June 1828. A big drove of sheep, being driven up to the Hudson Bay colony, was abandoned in 1833.

        The journal of Taliaferro, the Indian agent at Snelling, contains mention of Indians finding the body of a well dressed white man on the upper Des Moines in 1831.

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THERE WAS PLENTY TO EAT IN 1836

        Catlin, the great Indian painter and explorer, had met La Framboise in 1835 at Prairie du Chien, Wis., and became interested in western Murray county and the Pipestone quarries. He promised La Framboise he would visit him the next year. In his diary Catlin tells of his arrival at the Bear Lakes in 1836 and his welcome. He wrote: "La Framboise was surprised and pleased when our party galloped up to the post, and standing in the gate of the trading post said 'I assure you gentlemen this is the happiest moment of my life. I cannot give you feather beds to sleep on; but I have plenty of buffalo robes. We can give you plenty of buffalo meat and tongues, wild geese and ducks, prairie hens, trout, young swan, beaver tails, pigeons, plums, grapes, young bear, some green corn, squash, onions, water melons and pommes des terres (potatoes), some coffee and some tea. There is plenty of sport here, and in a short distance you will find buffalo'." If Catlin was sticking to the truth, something that few explorers did, he must have been pretty well filled up before he started across the prairies for the Pipestone quarries. Most explorers were a little inclined to exaggerate.

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