Quincy Township
(Township 107 North, Range 11 West)
In the spring of 1854 Mason and Irving Wetmore and D. D.
Woodward built a saw mill on the Whitewater River in the
northeast part of this township, and furnished the
surrounding country with building material for several
years. Truman T. Olds was the next settler, locating in
the valley of the Whitewater. Jairus Richards and Norman
Libby came in 1855 and Gideon Lewis, Samuel Tenney,
Nicholas W. Murphy. T. L. Fay, George Hinton and John M.
Weagant in 1856.
At an old settlers' reunion, held in Quincy in 1874, the
following list was made of the earliest male settlers of
the township, with the dates of their settlement: In
1855, Mason Hatfield, Harvey F. Bush, O. S. Ford, George
P. Logan, Thomas Stevenson, N. M. Murphy, W. H.
Hatfield, George W. Smith, Robert L. Stevenson, Alfred
Olds; in 1856, Michael Kepner, Samuel B. Evans, George
W. Kepner, John Bush, M. M. Kingsley, James Richards,
Joseph Olds; in 1862, Thomas Wilson, Burr Deuel; in
1865, Thomas B. Vivyan.
The first birth in the township was of a son of D. D.
Woodward, in 1855.
The township was organized May 11, 1858. The first town
officers elected were: Supervisors, T. T. Olds, J. L.
Williams, H. Hat field; clerk, Jotham Holland; assessor,
Samuel Loy; collector, J. S. Olds; overseer of poor,
Robert Smith; justices, G. Lewis, D. B. Alvord ;
constables, J. S. Olds, Harvey Wood.
A good grist mill was built on the middle branch of the
White water in 1857 by Charles and Frederick Johnson,
from Jackson, Michigan, and a store was established by a
man named Spalding, in 1859, and a blacksmith shop by
Joseph Mixture. The settlement was known as the Quincy
Mills. The mill was sold in 1862 to a Mr. Barns and his
son, Byram. In 1863 they sold to V. Simpson, of Winona,
and Burr Deuel, and the mill was improved. The store
changed hands several times and was sold to Mr. Jackson,
who moved it to Eyota in 1864. There was at one time a
village of eight families, with the mill, store, post
office, blacksmith and repair shop and school, and a
good business was done there till 1876, when a
cloudburst took out the dam, wrecked the mill and washed
away the blacksmith shop, which was at that time owned
by Mr. Westfall. The dam and mill were rebuilt on an
improved plan and in 1880 Mr. Deuel's interest was
bought by Edward J. Dowling. In January, 1809, the mill
was burned down, and in 1901 Nicholas Feltes bought the
property and has taken down the buildings, and there is
now nothing there but the school, and what promised to
be a thriving village is but a farm.
Quincy is a strictly agricultural township, there not
being, now, any village within its limits. Post offices
were established in neighborhoods known as Six Oaks and
Little Valley.
The state census of 1905 gives the population of the
township as 590.
In October, 1865, Warren Youmans, from New York state,
and Patrick Callaghan, a native of Ireland, were
neighboring farmers in Quincy. There had been trouble
between them about Callaghan's cattle trespassing on
Youmans' fields. Both Youmans and Callaghan disappeared,
but nothing was thought of it at first, but after a few
days search was made for Youmans, and his dead body was
found on Callaghan's farm, near where the latter had
been mowing when last seen, and a bloody scythe was
found. It was evident that Youmans' death had been
caused by a cut across the thighs, which had severed the
femoral artery in both legs. An inquest was held by
Coroner S. B. Clark. There was no doubt that Youmans had
been killed by Callaghan, and search was made for the
latter, and the governor offered a reward of $500 for
his apprehension. But he successfully evaded all
pursuit. He was believed to have been secreted in the
neighborhood for a few days, and afterward worked as a
laborer in various cities, being at one time as far away
as California. He at last, after five years of
wandering, located in Chicago, living with a brother,
who kept a saloon and working as a laborer. He was a
very reticent man, but became intimate in Chicago with a
fellow laborer, to whom he confided the fact that he was
a fugitive from justice. As the result of a quarrel
between them, the ex-friend denounced Callaghan to the
police, and in May. 1872, nearly seven years after the
homicide, Callaghan was arrested while at work on a
building, and brought to Rochester. He was tried,
arraigned before Judge Waterman, and prosecuted by
County Attorney Start, and defended by Thomas Wilson, of
Winona, and John Van Arman, a distinguished lawyer of
Chicago. In view of the deficiency of proof after so
long a lapse of time, Callaghan was allowed to plead
guilty to manslaughter in the second degree. In a
statement to the court he claimed that on the fatal
morning he was mowing and expecting to keep watch of his
cattle, but a couple of them got on Youmans' land. He
started to bring them back, when Youmans came toward him
driving them. A quarrel arose between the two, in which
both were very abusive. Callaghan claimed that Youmans
approached him threateningly and struck him on the
mouth, making it bleed, and Callaghan struck him across
the legs with the scythe and went home. Callaghan was
sentenced to four years' imprisonment in the state
penitentiary.
It is stated in Volume I of the Final Report of State
Geologist H. Winchell that "In the museum of the
University is a magnetic boulder of silicious iron ore,
known as lodestone, presented in 1875 by James Hinton,
said to have been found in the neighborhood of Quincy,
Olmsted County."
Olmsted County |Minnesota
AHGP
Source: History of Olmsted
County Minnesota, by Hon. Joseph A. Leonard, Chicago,
Goodspeed Historical Association, 1910.
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