Continuing his letter of April 15, 1868, Seth Wilbur Payne, the country's first transcontinental pedestrian, described catching a ride in Winona, MN on a Winona & St. Peters train going north. The train moved slowly and Payne chatted with farmers working in the fields as he passed. Where had they come from? What was the price of land? Where did they stand on impeachment?

From Winona, Payne travelled to Owatonna and then Mendota, where he switched to the Minnesota Central RR. St. Paul was "romantic," "substantial" and "refined," and just cold enough to keep the mosquitos at bay nine months of the year. (Utica Weekly Herald; April 21, 1868) The tracks ended at Hinkley, and Payne walked to Duluth--about 75 miles. The prairie was marshy and sparsely settled, "good for nothing," per Payne; just a few wretched sod huts inhabited by Norwegian and Swedish immigrants. Payne couldn't communicate with them, and it made for a cold and lonely hike.
The Duluth area was an important mining region, and it would boom when the railroad completed its line. We don't know how long Payne stayed here . . . going into details would take "too much space," he avows, besides readers could always find out when he published his travelogue. We're left deeply lamenting the absence of the oft-promised book and pondering (not for the first time) the mystery of how he spent nearly four weeks in this historic region.

Payne hiked west to Crow Wing along the right-of-way mapped out by the Northern Pacific Railway Co. Congress had chartered the company in 1864 to connect the Great Lakes with the Puget Sound, but they had struggled to arrange financing, and construction hadn't started here yet.

From Crow Wing Payne followed the military road down to St. Cloud, about 185 miles. This was a branch of the Red River Trail and it had seen thousands of the famous Red River carts since the founding of the Canadian Selkirk or Red River Colony in 1811.

Trappers would be coming down the road hauling loads of furs in the spring, but in the winter the road was still. It was well marked, however, and bordered by settlers eager to exchange a roof and warm fire for a little news and conversation after a long winter. In St. Cloud Payne picked up the Winona & St. Peters RR again and rode it into St. Anthony and Minneapolis.

If Minneapolis was a "twin city" then it was definitely of the Cain and Abel sort. Residents competed tooth and claw with those of St. Paul for regional dominance. Minneapolis clearly came in second in Payne's mind. The borough resembled a "prim," "peaked" and "pettish" New England village . . . "Boston all over." St. Paul was a city where he could settle when his walk was over, but Minneapolis? Never! "Ugh! It cramps me up to think of it." (ibid.)

Payne followed the Minnesota River to Mankato and then down to Albert Lea for a scheduled lecture. A few days to explore Iowa and then he would resume his trek westward. To be continued. ... See MoreSee Less

2 days ago  ·  

Exactly 150 years ago, on April 15, 1868, Seth Wilbur Payne, the country's first transcontinental pedestrian, resumed writing letters to his hometown newspaper in Utica, NY. He reported on his movements since Feb. 15 when he put his coast-to-coast walk, the first ever documented in the US, on hold. He was in Albert Lea, MN, reviewing notes in his journal, preparing for an upcoming lecture in the city.

Payne had caught a Hannibal & St. Joseph RR train out of St. Joseph, MO in February, and travelled east in the cab with the engineer, intending to return in the spring. He crossed the Mississippi at Quincy and boarded a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger express train speeding toward Chicago. He had spoken of the city in glowing terms in his letter of Feb 11, but this visit dampened his enthusiasm considerably and now he wondered why anyone would be in hurry to visit the pesthole.

In Chicago Payne hopped a freight train bound for Milwaukee and on to Minnesota via La Crosse. He earned his passage by helping to fire the engine for the first stage and load and unload freight on the second leg.

In La Crosse, Payne called on the famous editor of the La Crosse Democrat, newspaperman Marcus M. "Brick" Pomeroy. Payne is strangely silent about his meeting. Did the Utica editor delete a passage or did Payne know his readers would resent any approving words for the notorious Copperhead?

No newspaper editor in the country had been more anti-war, anti-abolition and anti-Lincoln than Pomeroy during the Civil War. After Appomattox, Pomeroy took up the cause of the poor Northern workers, and transferred his animus to wealthy bondholders. It wouldn't have escaped Payne's notice that Pomeroy was less motivated by love of the poor and down-trodden than hatred of eastern industrialists. He was probably disappointed. Still, Payne had to respect Pomeroy's business acumen. He was planning a career in newspapers himself, and whatever your thoughts about Pomeroy's politics, you still wanted to read him. La Crosse had a population of just 5,000, but circulation of the Democrat was nearly nearly 100,000!

The "Copperhead" movement (named for the poisonous snake that struck without warning) was centered in the Midwest during the Civil War. A sizable portion of the population had roots in the South and were sympathetic to its cause. In addition, many residents were suffering serious economic distress. The large German and Irish populations in some communities worried about competing with freed slaves for unskilled jobs, and with shipping blockaded on the Mississippi and RR freight rates prohibitive, a deep recession gripped the farmlands and communities dependent on shipping. Dubuque was the center of the movement here in Iowa.

From La Crosse, Payne followed the banks of the Mississippi upstream to the "sprightly little city" of Winona where he talked his way onto an engine of a Winona & St. Peters train heading north. Thus began a month-long tour up and down the state. Minnesota Impressions next week. ... See MoreSee Less

5 days ago  ·  

By chance, Seth Wilbur Payne, America's first transcontinental pedestrian, applied for work at the Leadville CO Chronicle on the day in May, 1879 when the editor and business manager were out-of-town on business, the press foreman, Arther H. Tyrrell, died and the entire reporting staff save one had called in sick. "There strolled into the office a great burley-looking fellow, weighing over two hundred pounds. He looked like anything but a newspaperman. His mustache was heavy, long and straggling, and his hair unkept. He wore a policeman's cap, and boots whose tops reached almost to his thighs." (Leadville Carbonate Chronicle; June 23, 1883) Payne was put to work and stayed, working as City Editor, covering town politics, business, social life and crime, of which Leadville had plenty. His prison experience gave his stories a unique insider's perspective--Payne knew these men and talked their language. He wrote a number of in-depth pieces exposing the methods of the bunko artists that plagued the city. He started another book. . . . you know how that ended.

Payne left the Chronicle after eight months and took a similar position at the Leadville Democrat. He resigned after just four months and announced plans to start a newspaper at Ruby Camp in Gunnison County, CO. The boom at Ruby had taken on almost mythical proportions and even Payne was affected by the silver fever this time. He invested in several mining properties and lost everything. He abandoned a new printing press he had purchased for Ruby in a Leadville freight depot. It was sold at auction in December. (Leadville Daily Herald; December 16, 1880)

Payne moved to Denver in Sep. 1880 and became a traveling reporter for the Rocky Mountain News. His circuit called for him to visit a dozen cities and travel about 1,000 mies by RR every week. (Alice Payne letter, Duluth Weekly Tribune; March 18, 1881) He was in Leadville working on a story in March, 1881 when he contracted pneumonia and died just two days later. He was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Denver. Payne was called, "one of the truist of (his) profession. . . who thought only of his duty to the public." "In his devotion to his duties he knew no cash box, slashing right and left, and trusting to luck for financial patronage. . . . (he) was merciless in his assaults on both public and private citizens, yet strange as it seems. . . (they) almost universally afterwards became his most devoted friends. . . none are remembered more kindly than Seth W. Payne." (Carbonate Chronicle; June 21, 1883)

Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of the restart of his epic walk across the continent. We'll pick up the story where we left him two months ago, in St. Joseph, MO.

see Seth Wilbur Payne (1838-1883) at Find a Grave memorial # 103774309 ... See MoreSee Less

6 days ago  ·