Account: Lake Union History
The following Lake Union history was compiled by the Annandale History Club
secretary in November 2011 in conjunction with Mary Larson’s October
presentation,
Growing Up on an
Indian Reservation
LAKE UNION
Lake Union is located in Township 121, Range 28, Section 30
and 31, Southside Township, Wright County, Minnesota, and Section 36, North
Kingston Township, Meeker County.
48 acres of Lake Union are in Wright County and 43 acres are in Meeker County.
According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Lake Union
covers 91 acres and has a maximum depth of 35 feet.
(The Minnesota DNR Lakefinder website lists Lake Union’s area as 92.66
acres.) The ordinary high water
elevation is 1035.2.
Kingston Township and Southside Township were surveyed in
1855 at the time of the Original Government Survey.
All of Section 31, Southside Township, Wright County, including south and
northeast Lake Union lakeshore, was deeded by the United States to the State of
Minnesota. Through Railroad Land
Grants, the state deeded odd sections of land to early railroads to aid in
building a railway. The railroad
sold thousands of acres to the Litchfields, who resold the land to settlers.
The earliest plat map (1879 Southside Township plat map)
shows that Southside Township, Section 31, was owned by E.D. Litchfield, with
the exception of 80 acres owned by S. B. Hutchins.
The Hutchins property ended south of the road by Lake Union and didn’t
include the narrow strip of lakeshore.
In 1879 there were seven landowners in Section 30, Southside Township,
including Ed Marquardt on the north side of Lake Union.
Sections 16 and 36 in each township were reserved to
benefit schools through Minnesota’s School Land Grant.
North Kingston Township, Section 36 was school land and the income from
sale of the land was to be deposited in the Permanent School Fund.
The 1880 Kingston Township plat maps has no land owners in Section 36,
which includes Lake Union shoreline.
Origin of Lake
Union Name
Union Lake is on the 1879 Southside Township map.
All plat maps since 1879 have Union Lake.
Lake Union Church was named in 1906.
Union Lake is on the DNR sign at the public access.
Local people generally say Lake Union.
The origin of
the name “Lake Union” isn’t known, but it is thought it’s because the lake
unites
Wright and
Meeker Counties. Another
possibility is that Civil War veterans or other patriotic people
named the lake
for the Union Army or the union of our nation.
Civil War veterans in the area included
the following:
Lake Francis
pioneer Joseph N. Hamilton (1839-1924), Maine Infantry; Andrew J. Francis,
(1839-1924), 39th Kentucky
Infantry, who
lived at Lake Union; Andrew Larson
(1844-1936), Ninth Minnesota Infantry, who lived
near Lake Union;
Moses A. Hutchins (1839-1920), Second Minnesota Infantry, and Charles M.
Hutchins
(1843-1910),
Fourth Minnesota Infantry, sons of Samuel B. Hutchins.
Samuel Hutchins was an 1856
pioneer in
Kingston who homesteaded 153 acres on the northeast side of Lake Francis in
1863. S. B.
Hutchins also
owned land near Lake Union, as shown on the 1879 Southside Township map. S. B.
Hutchins named
several lakes in the area, including Lake Moses (aka Moose Lake) after his son.
Lake
Francis was Lake
Hutchins on French Lake Township plat maps until the 1940s.
Road and Bridge
on the South Side of Lake Union
Mary Larson, resident on the south side of the lake, said
that part of the original road past Lake Union went closer to the lake to go
around a hill. The original bridge
was a little further north than the present bridge on County Road 2 and was made
of wood and cement. The remains of
the pioneer bridge on the Larson’s property were removed by the Department of
Natural Resources in 1982.
According to the Wright County Highway Department, another
bridge was built in 1930. The new
bridge had a concrete box culvert.
In 1986, the 1930 concrete bridge was remodeled and a 20-foot addition was made
on both sides of the road. County
Road 2 was gravel until it was paved about 1958 or 1959.
Lake Union is five miles southwest of South Haven.
County Road 2 and other roads were given street names and addresses in
1991 or 1992 for the 911 emergency response system.
The grid system was developed by the Wright County Board in 1972 but
townships were not required to adopt the street names until the early 1990s.
Wright County Road 2 is Quinn Avenue from Highway 55 in South Haven to
Lake Sylvia, Redwood Avenue southwest to Lake Union, 750th south from
Lake Union on the Wright/Meeker line, 60th Street east on the
Southside/French Lake Township line (continues to Widmark Lake), and Rhoades
Avenue N.W. south to Lake Francis.
Street names and house numbers became post office addresses instead of
“South Haven, Rural Route 1.”
Creek
The creek flows from Spring Lake and sloughs in the Sutton
Ranch, aka Lake Sylvia Ranch, into 30-acre Widmark Lake.
The outlet from Widmark Lake is through a culvert under present-day
Rockwood Avenue (this part of the road is referred to as Widmark Road by local
people), through a meadow and lowlands, under County Road 2, and into Lake
Union. The creek continues from the
northeast corner of Lake Union, flows north to Scott Lake (101 acres, maximum
depth 23 feet) and exits Scott Lake as the Clearwater River.
A plat map identifies this creek as “Six-Mile Creek.”
The Department of Natural Resources has no name for the creek and
considers it an “ephemeral” creek (lasting a short time).
The creek flows through a very wide meadow and wetland.
Nels and Betsy Nelson’s children crossed a small bridge over the creek
while walking through the meadow on their way to Lake Francis School.
The Nelson boys did a lot of trapping in the meadow.
In 2011, area lakes were high because of a rainy spring and
summer. After a 6-inch rain in
mid-July 2011, rushing water at the outlet from Widmark Lake washed out the road
and exposed the culvert.
Widmark Lake
Widmark Lake covers 30 acres.
According to fishermen, it has a maximum depth of 20 feet.
The DNR identifies Widmark Lake as the alternate name, but the lake is
officially “unnamed.” In 1890
Olaf Peterson Widmark (1862-1933) purchased 80 acres by the lake.
In 1893 Ole Widmark married Christine Erickson (1864-1943), and they
raised three children, Emma, Ruth and John.
The Widmarks were the only people on the road past the lake, and it
became known as Widmark Lake. The
80-acre farm is still in the Widmark family in 2011.
The Widmarks found many arrowheads or points on their farm.
There have always been a lot of beavers at Widmark Lake.
Dorman Lake, which became known as Widmark Lake, is on the
1879 Southside Township map.
Dormans were pioneers at Kingston and Lake Sylvia.
Clearwater River
Watershed District
Lake Union is part of the Clearwater River Watershed
District formed in 1975. The CRWD
encompasses the entire drainage area of the Clearwater River, about 159 square
miles. The Upper Chain includes
Lakes Betsy, Union, Scott, Louisa, Marie and Mill Pond at the Fair Haven Dam.
The mission of the Clearwater River Watershed District organization is to
“promote, protect and preserve water resources within the boundaries of the
District in order to maintain property values and quality of life.”
Jame McGannon
The pioneer bridge on Mary and Martin Larson’s property on
the south side of Lake Union is where James McGannon was killed by Little Crow’s
son-in-law, Hi-Uka, on July 1, 1863.
Two days later McGannon’s body was found by the mailman.
The ground was too wet at that spot, so McGannon was buried near Lake
Lilly (present-day County Road 2 and Rockwood Avenue).
The marker where the body was buried mistakenly says he was killed there.
James McGannon’s family later reburied him at the Fair Haven Cemetery.
His gravestone in inscribed, “James A. McGannon, Killed by the Indians,
July 1, 1863, Age 28 years.” Little
Crow was killed by Nathan Lamson near Hutchinson on July 3, 1863.
James McGannon’s jacket was with Little Crow.
Lake Union
Covenant Church – 1906 to Present
Lake Union Covenant Church (organized in 1906) and cemetery
(organized in 1899) are on Meeker County Road 19, which continues from Wright
County Road 2 on the southwest end of the lake.
The land for the cemetery was part of Andrew and Christine Anderson’s
farm and included a small amount of lakeshore.
Land with lakeshore was donated for the church by Hedwin and Agneta
Olson. Until the church was built
in 1906, services were held in homes or the Lake Francis School.
Circa 1991 the church purchased an additional 300 feet of Lake Union
lakeshore. 150 feet were sold in
2010. In 2011 the Lake Union
congregation built a new church, which was dedicated October 23, 2011.
Ditch No. 9
The following article appeared in the Kimball Kodak and was
reprinted in the Dassel Anchor on September 21, 1911.
“Kingston Ditch Controversy:
Quite an interesting judicial hearing before Judge Qvale at Litchfield last
week. The ditch has its beginning
in Meeker County, where it is proposed to drain two small lakes located
northeast of Kingston, and it runs across the line into Wright County, where it
is expected to empty its waters into Lake Union.
The farmers near the lower end of the ditch object to the assessment for
benefits, as they feel that their land will be flooded.
The judge has reserved his decision for a later date.”
The farmers on the lower end of the ditch that were
affected are Andrew Anderson, Peter Norgren, Pete Peterson (later the Thurber
farm) in Kingston Township, Meeker County, and Hedwin Olson in Southside
Township, Wright County. The water
from the ditch flows under County Road 2, empties into a creek on the former
Hedwin Olson land, and then flows north into Lake Union.
One of the drained lakes is named Lake Robinson on the 1880
Kingston Township plat map. Nearly
all the land around that lake was owned by George Robinson or John Robinson.
Later Hokkala owned part of the land, and it was known as Hokkala’s
slough. According to Arthur
Hasselberg, the other drained lake was named “Lake Charlie” for Charlie
Hutchins, who from 1873 to 1886 owned an 80-acre farm nearby in North Kingston
Township, Section 26. This farm was
sold to A.O. Nordstrom in 1886 and in 2011 is still owned by Nordstrom
descendants.
Department of
Natural Resources Lake Union Public Access
The DNR purchased property for a public access on the south
side of Lake Union in 1980, and the DNR Parks and Trails Division developed the
public access in 1982. The access
is on the west side of the creek inlet on a small piece of land Mary and Martin
Larson originally sold to Ron Strand in 1961.
Ron and Joann Strand built a small cabin in 1964.
The Strands sold the property in 1972, and the new owners sold to the DNR
in 1980. There is a cement boat
ramp and a boarding dock at the public access.
Lake Union
Residents
In 2011 there are ten dwellings on the south side of Lake
Union, nine on the north/northeast side, and two on the west/northwest side.
Andrew & Hannah
Francis
Circa 1881 Andrew Jackson Francis (1839-1924) and Hannah
(Cline) Francis (1839-c.1924) purchased land from the State of Minnesota in
North Kingston, Township, Section 36, on the northwest side of Lake Union.
They were married in Kentucky in 1857 and moved to Dassel, Minnesota,
circa 1871 and then to Lake Union.
According to census records, their children were Sarah, William T., Nancy E.,
Joseph F., Andrew and Margaret Mae.
Andrew, Jr. was born in Meeker County in 1872 and Margaret in 1874.
Andrew J. Francis was a Civil War veteran.
He was wounded October 2, 1864, at the Battle of Saltville in Virginia.
Andrew J. Francis may have been the first person to own Lake Union
lakeshore in North Kingston Township.
In 1891 his son Joseph F. Francis married Annie Hamilton, daughter of
Lake Francis pioneer, Joseph N. Hamilton.
The property later became the Sandell farm.
Mary Sandell
For over 100 years and four generations the Sandell family
has lived on the west/northwest side of Lake Union in North Kingston Township,
Meeker County. Mary (Nilsdotter)
Sandell (1855-1943) and her children, Albertina, Mathilda, and Frank
(1886-1956), moved to the Lake Union farm after Mary’s husband John (Johnson)
Sandell died. Their previous home
was a log cabin in what is now the Northern Unit of Stanley Eddy Park.
This log cabin was later moved to Wulleiinda Lodge at West Lake Sylvia
where it was used as a cabin and later became the resort’s store.
The Sandells rented boats and a cabin at their property.
Frank Sandell (1886-1956) and Beda (Adams) Sandell (1891-1935) had two
sons, Franklin and Wilford. Franklin,
and wife Betty Sandell, lived at the Lake Union farm, and all three of their
sons presently own property at Lake Union.
Wilford Sandell (1915-2005) and Elaine (Erickson) Sandell (1919-1982)
purchased the Simberg farm near Scott Lake.
Andrew &
Christina Anderson
Circa 1889 Andrew Anderson (1863-1942) and Christina Olson
Anderson (1862-1956) purchased an 80-acre farm with Lake Union lakeshore.
Since 1900 the Lake Union Church cemetery has been on former Anderson
property bordering Lake Union. In
1906 the Andersons were charter members of the Swedish Christian Mission
Congregation (Independent) of Lake Union, North Kingston, Meeker County (changed
to Lake Union Covenant in 1935).
Their children were Nellie, Mathilda, Oscar, Arthur, Albert, Esther, Ruth,
Clara, and Clifford.
Joseph Hamilton
Circa 1875 Joseph Hamilton (1839-1924) homesteaded 80 acres
on the east side of Lake Francis in Wright County, which he sold to daughter
Belle and her husband, Leonard Holm.
Joseph Hamilton taught a free school in his home, and was instrumental in
establishing the Lake Francis School in 1886.
In 1894 Joseph Hamilton purchased 23 acres near Lake Union and moved to
that property. He served as a Kingston
Township supervisor and was a member of Annandale’s Buzzell GAR Post 24.
Joseph Hamilton’s 23 acres were later sold to Frank Sandell.
Hedwin & Agneta
Olson
Hedwin Olson (1845-1925) and Agneta Johnson Olson
(1833-1922) homesteaded a farm between Lake Francis and Lake Moses in1872
(homestead granted 1877).
They donated land for the Lake Francis School in 1886.
They moved across Lake Francis to Cedar Point and then to an 80-acre farm
near Lake Union circa 1900.
In 1906 Hedwin and Agneta Olson donated land at Lake Union for the Lake Union
Church. Their children were Emma,
Ole, Albert, Simon (infant), Emil, Gust, Oscar, Frank and Henry.
Nels & Betsy Nelson
In 1902 Nels (Johnson) Nelson (1860-1916) and Betsy
Dahlberg Nelson (1873-1950) moved to a farm with Lake Union lakeshore.
The farm was sold in 1928.
Their son Henry B. Nelson (1903-1958) later purchased 40 acres of the farm,
which included all the lakeshore on the south side.
Nels and Betsy Nelson’s children were Vera, Clifford, Henry, Leny
(infant), Delbert, Evelyn, Alice, Edna, Lloyd, Mildred, Harvey (infant), and
Harris.
Salmela Family
The outlet from Lake Union is on the northeast side of the
lake in Southside Township, Wright County.
As shown on plat maps, some of the owners and dates they purchased this
farm property were Ed Marquardt (1879), Carl Ecker (1901), Frank Ecker (1911),
Homer Peterson (1928), Paul Murphy (1948), R. Niles, Roy Johnson, and Everett
and Lillian Salmela (1956). Salmela
descendants, Roger and Susie Salmela, are the present owners.
Peter & Karin
Peterson
Peter Peterson (1833-1906) and Karin (Nildotter) Peterson
(1846-1929) emigrated from Sweden and purchased a farm near Lake Union.
Their children were Karin, Olaf, Christina, Jacob, Gustav, Mary and
Oscar. Their grandson, Hilbert
Peterson (1892-1900) was the first burial in Lake Union Church cemetery.
Ditch No. 9 flowed from west to east through the middle of their 40-acre
farm, and the farm had a lot of wetland.
Other owners of this property were Jacob Peterson (1935), Gust Peterson
(1944), and L.P. Sederstrom (1948).
The farm was later sold to Clayton and Lila Thurber.
Clayton & Lila
Thurber
Clayton Thurber (died 1953) and Lila (Foster) Thurber
(1899-1995) purchased the Peterson farm and another 40 acres to the north, which
had a large amount of Lake Union lakeshore.
Three of their children, Marrell (Bernice), Clayton, Jr. (Norma), and
Violet (Clarence) Kramber, each built a home at Lake Union.
Thurber family members sold 300 feet of Lake Union lakeshore to Lake
Union Covenant Church in about 1991.
Thurber descendants still live at the south shore of Lake Union.
Ed & Marian Schramm
Since about 1945 Edward Schramm (1902-1967) formerly of
Hutchinson owned a gravel pit by nearby Lake Lilly.
He purchased lakeshore from Henry
Nelson in about 1950 and moved the Wadman School (aka Lake Sylvia Woods School,
open circa 1900 to 1938) to the property on the southeast side of Lake Union. He
added to the schoolhouse, and he and wife, Marian, lived by Lake Union for many
years. Ed Schramm died in 1967, and
Marian (Holloque) Schramm (1918-1995) later married Walt Piepenburg (1908-1997)
of Hutchinson, and they lived at Lake Union.
Walt Piepenburg donated farm land for Piepenpenburg Park near Hutchinson.
The Shramm gravel pit also included land formerly a part of Lake Sylvia
Ranch. The gravel pit continued
under the ownership of Bauerly Brothers and later Knife River.
Mary & Martin
Larson
In 1948 Mary and Martin Larson purchased lakeshore property
on the south side of Lake Union from Henry Nelson.
Over the next four years, the Larsons built three summer cabins and a
boathouse (platted as Secluded Beach). Two
cabins and boats were rented to vacationers.
The two rental cabins were sold in 1959.
A third cabin built in 1952 is still owned by the Larsons.
Annandale History Club Secretary