Dreadful as this affliction was to almost everyone in the territory, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It compelled the people to abandon speculation, and seek honest labor in the cultivation of the soil and the development of the splendid resources that generous nature had bestowed upon the country. Farms were opened by the thousands, everybody went to work, and in ten or a dozen years, Minnesota had a surplus of forty millions of bushels of wheat with which to supply the hungry world. LAND TITLES. All the lands of Minnesota were the property of the United States, and title to them could only be obtained through the regular methods of preemption, town-site entry, public sales, or private entries. One event occurred on Aug. 14, 1848, which illustrates so clearly the way in which western men protect their rights that I will relate it. The recognized price of public lands was one dollar and a quarter per acre, and all pioneer settlers were willing to pay that sum, but when a public sale was made, any one could bid whatever he was willing to pay. Under the administration of President Polk, a public sale of lands was ordered to be made at the land office at St. Croix Falls, of lands lying partly in Minnesota and partly in Wisconsin. The lands advertised for sale included those embraced in St. Paul and St. Anthony. The settlers selected Henry H. Sibley as their trustee, to buy their lands for them, to be conveyed to them subsequently. It was a high offense under the United States laws to do any act that would tend to prevent persons bidding at the sales. Mr. Sibley appeared at the sale, and bid off every tract of land that was occupied by an actual settler at the price of $1.25 per acre. The general, in a paper he read before the Historical Society, says of this affair: "I was selected by the actual settlers to bid off portions of the land for them, and when the hour for business arrived, my seat was universally surrounded by a number of men with huge bludgeons. What was meant by the proceeding, I could, of course, only surmise, but I would not have envied the fate of the individual who would have ventured to bid against me." It has always been assumed in the far West, and I think justly, that the pioneers who first settle the land and give it value should enjoy every advantage that flows from such priority, and the violation of laws that impede such opportunity is a very venial offense. So universal was the confidence reposed in Mr. Sibley, that many of the French settlers, the title to whose lands became vested in him, by his purchase at this sale, insisted that it should remain in him, and he found it quite difficult in many cases to get them to accept deeds from him. THE FIRST NEWSPAPER.