In 1846 a party of speculators, composed of Caleb Cushing, Rufus Choate, Robert Rantoul, and others, located a mineral permit, one mile square, covering part of the site of the two towns of St. Croix and Taylor's Falls, with the water power as the centre. Their permit was filed in the general land office at Washington. They located another permit at or near the mouth of Kettle river. As no money was ever expended in improving them, these permits were never respected. Subsequently the government resurveyed the lands and sold them. The present title to these lands is perfectly good. MARRIAGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. In the olden time officers could not always readily be found to execute the laws. Parties desiring to be married, being unable to secure the services of a minister or justice of the peace, would seek for an officer on the other side of the river, get on a raft or boat, cast off the fastenings and under the concurrent jurisdiction of the state and territorial authorities, would be pronounced "man and wife." Parties have had the same rite performed in the winter season while standing on the ice of the St. Croix midway between the two shores. AN INDIAN SCARE. During the excitement following the Indian outbreak, there was a general feeling of insecurity and alarm. The half-breeds were especially apprehensive of some kind of violence. One bright moonlight evening, at St. Croix, a surveyor was taking some observations, and as his instrument glittered brightly in the moonlight, the half-breeds saw it and fled, badly frightened, fancying a Sioux behind every bush. The whites seeing them running, as if for their lives, caught the panic, and fled over to the Minnesota side. The Taylor's Falls people were aroused from their peaceful slumbers to find, soon after, that it was a false alarm. Some of the fugitives hid underneath the bridge and clung to the trestle work till morning. THE FIRST FIRE CANOE. I am indebted to Calvin A. Tuttle for the following reminiscence: In July, 1838, the steamer Palmyra, Capt. Middleton, of Hannibal, Missouri, in command, the first steamer on St. Croix waters, brought me to St. Croix Falls, landing in the Dalles, east side, opposite Angle Rock. The snorting of the Palmyra brought many curiosity seeking Indians to the Dalles. They gathered on the pinnacles of the trap rock, peered curiously over and jumped back, trembling with fright at the "Scota Cheman" or "fire canoe," the first that had ever floated on the placid waters of the St. Croix. I had been employed as millwright to erect mills in the new, and, as yet, almost unknown settlement. On the Palmyra came the proprietors, Steele, Fitch, Hungerford, Libbey, Livingston, Hill, and Russell, with mill irons, tools and provisions for the enterprise. MILL BUILDING.