Chauncey Hill: Part 3

By Craig Hilmer

During the 1860’s settlers to the Saint Charles area not only tamed the prairie for agriculture and commerce, but the settlers of this fledgling town and citizens of the young state of Minnesota sent their sons and husbands to help fight for the Union in the Civil War.

One of those early settlers in the area was Chauncey J. Hill of Saratoga. Hill was a 26-year-old freshly married pioneer who had followed his family to Minnesota from New York. He met a young neighbor girl, Sarah Downing, married her, and was starting up his own farmstead when he was called up into the Minnesota 9th Regiment, Company K.

He and Sarah corresponded during the war and those letters were maintained by family until they were donated to the Minnesota Historical Society in the 1960s.  Some of those letters are being reprinted in The St. Charles Press over the next few weeks.

Chauncey Hill: Part 2

By Craig Hilmer

During the 1860’s settlers to the St. Charles area not only tamed the prairie for agriculture and commerce, but they sent their sons and husbands to help fight for the Union in the Civil War.
One of those early settlers in the area was Chauncey J. Hill of Saratoga. Hill was a 26 year old pioneer who had followed his family to Minnesota from New York. He met a young neighbor girl, Sarah Downing, married her, and was starting his own farmstead when he was called up into the Minnesota 9th Regiment, Company K.

He and Sarah corresponded during the war and those letters were maintained by family until they were donated to the Minnesota Historical Society in the 1960s.  Some of that correspondence is being reprinted in The St. Charles Press over the next few weeks.

The image is some of the envelopes the letters were mailed in 150 years ago. 1 cent stamps.
Sometimes the envelopes are sent to Saratoga, some to St Charles.

Chauncey Hill, St. Charles Civil War Soldier: Part 1

By Craig Hilmer

The initial non-indigenous settlers of the St. Charles area experienced incredible hardship. They experienced no modern convenience, having given up any recent advances when they left the comfort of the East. They had to first travel incredible journeys just to arrive in a land that looked much different than St. Charles does today. That land needed to be cleared of rock and scrub trees so that it could be tilled for food for sustenance and income. Disease was ever prevalent, medicines were scarce and largely ineffective. Medical care was the same.

In early 1860’s settlers to the area were just calling Minnesota home when two crises broke out. The first was the uprising of the Native Americans, precipitated by encroachment of white settlers to the area. The next was the Civil War. Young men all over the new state and many from the St. Charles area were mustered into the Minnesota Reserves.

Chauncey J. Hill was one of those men. Hill was born in New York State in 1938. Somewhere along the way he and his family made a stop in Michigan, as, according to census records, he had a sister born there in 1856.

A picture of the newly married Chauncey and Sarah Hill. Sarah tells Chauncey in her letter that she doesn’t care for it as “they both look mad when it was taken”.By that 1860 census Hill, his siblings, and parents were residents of Saratoga. Hill served as a farm hand in the area as he turned to adulthood and from all available records seemed to be starting his own farming operation in 1864 when he was called into the Reserves to serve his newly adopted state of Minnesota.