History of Green Bush Township and Milles Lacs County MN where the Jesmers came in 1867
History of Greenbush township and Milles Lacs County MN where the Jesmers came in 1867
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The Jesmer family was involved in the “Great Western Expansion” which occurred throughout the nineteenth century in the USA and Canada. For three generations the Jesmer family lived in and farmed the St. Lawrence Valley, near Massena N.Y. and Cornwall Ontario. They were hard working French Canadian Catholic farmers. But in 1867 a landmark event occurred. Two men, Joseph Duhaut-Jasmin and his son Joseph A. Jesmer, along with twenty three other family members, made decisions to leave their old lives in Upper State New York and embrace the hard life as pioneering farmers on the western frontier. Perhaps they were enticed by the lure of cheap farm land. (The Homestead act gave 160 acres free to settlers if they set up living quarters and develop a few acres into the fields.) Perhaps they were encouraged by the Catholic church to move west. Whatever the reasons, they, twenty five in all, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, all packed their bags with all they could and traveled towards Minnesota. They stopped in Taylor Falls, on the Mn/Wisc border and purchased land. They also stopped in St. Paul and moved about 60 miles north to Greenbush Township that fall. Initially Joseph A. Jesmer purchased 160 acres of land on section 32, about seven miles west of Princeton MN. It was an area of dense timber. There, in Greenbush Township they built a log cabin and established the “French Settlement”. Some began to farm, some began to work in the forest industry, others opened stores and still others carried on to destinations further west. Many settled in the surrounding towns like St. Cloud, Princeton, Duelm, and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
From Joseph A. Jesmer’s obituary
Joseph Jesmer was born in Franklin county, New York, in 1831, when that region was a wilderness, and with the other members of the family assisted his parents in clearing out a habitation in that new country. Young Jesmer left the farm when he became a young man and went to boat in on the St. Lawrence river, which occupation he followed until he became the captain of a boat. In 1867 in company with his wife and six children , his brothers A.D. and N.E. Jesmer he started west, landing in St. Pauland coming the fall of the year to this section, and locating on what is now Greenbush. Then the region was a wilderness of dense timber, and they hewed out a cabin of logs for their future home. His two brothers were not married, and the three brothers, after purchasing a sack of flour, had $1.65 between them. A.D. Jesmer remained with Joseph while the other brother, now the prosperous merchant of Princeton, came to the frontier logging camp and worked for Wm. F. Dunham for some time. Joseph and A.D. remained in Greenbush, where Joseph remained until his death. His first wife was Mary Ann Robideaux, whom he married before coming west. She bore him fourteen children… Mr. Jesmer was one of the most enterprising and progressive farmers of Greenbush and during his long residence there always took great interest in the welfare of the town. He never sought public honors, preferring to perform his duty as a common but faithful and loyal citizen. He belonged to a class of good, sturdy pioneers to whose untiring energy the progressive West owes a great deal.” (The obituary was received from Sue Kirkey: geneologist)
Description Of The Land Of Greenbush Mn
This town originally embraced four Congressional townships, lying along the western line of the county, beginning with the southwestern township of the county, and so remained until the organization of the town of Milo, which reduced its area one fourth. Near the south line of the town is the border of heavy timber which extends many miles northward, and the dense forest suggested to the early settlers the name adopted – Greenbush. The entire area embraced is about 69,120 acres, of which 1,236 is improved.
The surface is rolling, and somewhat broken near some of the streams. In the southwestern part of the township, is a small track of brush prairie, with light sandy soil; the remainder of the township having a rich, heavy soil, heavily timbered, with extensive wild meadows intervening. In the next township north, is a fine growth of hardwood timber, with tracts of pine, much of which has been removed by lumbermen.
The town is watered by Battle and Estes brooks, the Rum River in the south, and in the northern part by the Western branch of the Rum River, also the main stream, Chase Brook and several affluents of Rum River further north. (History of the Upper Mississippi Valley. p. 676)
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