Archive - Dec 2009

The Northfield Historical Society will be closed December 31 and January 1.  We will be open on January 2; however, we will be closed from January 5 through January 10 for painting.  If you have any questions about our hours please call us at 507-645-9268 or email us.

As the year is coming to close I would like to share this winter photo with you all.  This is downtown Northfield in the winter of 1941 or 1942.  The photograph came from the Fran Hall Collection, which is part of the NHS photograph collection.

Hours

NHS will be closed on December 24 and 25.  We will be open on December 26.

NHS will also be closed on December 31 and January 1.  We will be open on January 2.  If you have any questions concerning our hours please call us at 507-645-9268 or email us.

New Donate Button

If you are looking to make a year-end donation, do not forget about NHS.  We have installed a new easy to use "Donate Now" button on the right side your screen.  Click on the button and you will make your donation through GiveMN.org.  100% of your donation will go to support NHS. 

Museum Store

If you are looking for last minute gift ideas, do not forget about the NHS Museum Store, we are you destination for Northfield related items.  Some featured items are

Pioneer Women: Voices of Northfield's Frontier, Caught in the Storm, and NHS memberships make great gifts as well! 

Thank you all for your support this year and happy holidays!

In 1895, the two teenaged sons of Henry and Emma Fey were mostly tending to their schoolwork, although they far preferred other amusements.  Lincoln, affectionately known as “Link,” was sixteen years old and had already seen his name in the newspaper within a year of coming to Northfield.  He was, as the Northfield News wrote with some amusement, “attaining quite a reputation as a taxidermist,” having mounted in his room “a specimen of almost every bird known in these  parts,” as well as a handsome pair of ducks in a store display window.  Link also spent time observing and befriending the mechanics at work in the Fox and Ferris foundry, a habit that would benefit him later.  Frank, three years Link’s junior, was enthusiastic about his brother’s hobbies and probably spent much time hunting and fishing in the Cannon River, a favorite activity of both sons and father.

Life was not entirely easy for the boys, however.  Lincoln’s days were marred by asthma, which he believed had been caused by early exposure to the mill dust that his father labored in as head miller of several different mills through the years.  Although Link loved being outdoors, it was difficult for him to travel long distances by the horse-drawn vehicles of his time because the road dust that rose beneath his horses’ feet provoked his asthma.  He began to dream of machines that would independently be able to travel the same dusty roads as the horses.  Such daydreams brought him to the doorway of the Fox and Ferris foundry, where he learned lessons that were not being taught at school: how to construct a steam engine, how the engine operated, and what all of its parts and functions were called.  Link made up his mind to design and build an engine-powered vehicle.  He first drafted plans for a steam engine and had already constructed it and much of the vehicle’s carriage (with the help of some of his friends in town and at the foundry) when he saw an advertisement for a gasoline engine in a machinery catalogue. Gasoline engines did not require boilers, thereby reducing the weight of the engine in a vehicle’s carriage, and Link thrilled at the possibilities these engines presented.  He quickly sold his finished steam engine and hoped to begin work on a gasoline engine soon, but his aspirations did not go unnoticed or unopposed.