12.3.2023 [archived ~ previously published 12.14.17]
Blackduck in about 1902 ~ town where Will and Lucy Buentemeier got off the train before making their way to Pinetop
Pinetop, it was at the crossroads of two old tote roads, a couple of miles east of Moose Lake in Grattan Township, northern Itasca County. Or was it nine miles east of Northome in southern Koochiching County? Actually, there were two communities named Pinetop in Minnesota for some years until the former was changed to Grattan. And this was the Pinetop that Lucy Buentemeier recalls as a newly married bride.
“We came here on our honeymoon in March of 1902. It was some honeymoon! At that time the head of the railroad was at Blackduck. There was no depot here. The rails only stopped there. We came as far as Blackduck by rail, got a team and sled to bring our stuff as far as Bridgie on an old tote road.
From there we walked around by way of Swallow Point on the north shore of Island Lake, around the east side of Island Lake, then east to the south side of Moose Lake, then north along the east side of Moose Lake until we hit the government survey line which we followed east to our homestead.” [From Northwoods Pioneers, edited by Robert S Porter 1980. Work Projects Administration, Minnesota Papers, 1849-1942, Interviews and Biographical Sketches, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.]
Lucy Gill and William Buentemeier married in Minneapolis, and though only seventeen, Lucy was ready for the adventures of homesteading. William had previously filed a claim, but the homestead building was very primitive. It was a lean-to of wood logs covered with cedar bark. The roof extended clear to the ground on the north side. The east and west ends were then covered with smaller logs and bark, while the whole south side was left open.
That year was filled with many challenges. Together Lucy and Will finished a small log home, and started a makeshift garden. “…we planted potatoes and peas. Will carried the potatoes on his back from Blackduck. They cost five dollars a bushel. We had very little open land at that time, so to save planted a hill of spuds and then a hill of peas, and we have never raised a better crop of either than we raised that first year.
Soon after we came here Mother sent me up a few chickens. They came to Vance’s by way of Bena. Will walked down there to get them, and brought them home on his back in a wash boiler. There were two eggs in the boiler when he reached home. We fed them on wild rice.”
In March of 1903, Elizabeth was born. She was followed by four brothers and two sisters. Rosy, the youngest was a leap year baby. As the family grew, so did the Buentemeier’s commitment to the community. In 1904, three years after a post office was established at Pinetop, William was appointed postmaster. Previous postmasters had been Jefferson Sherman, 11-26-1901; Charles Wirt, February 2, 1903; and Minnie Folsom, May 26, 1903.
Chances are Will and Lucy ‘shared’ the responsibility since Lucy stated she was the postmistress! “On Jun 24, 1904 I was appointed postmaster. The post office was in our house and known as Pinetop post office. The first post office here used to serve the territory as far south as Frank Vance’s on the Popple River. The name changed to Grattan post office some time during the first world war.”
Officially, Lucy was appointed postmistress on April 11, 1914 and remained so through the name change to Grattan in September 1920. The USPO ledger documents the name change, but there is not a new entry with appointment data. Previously, Lucy’s occupation was listed as postmistress in the census, but in 1930, no occupation is stated. The Grattan office closed in 1935, and mail went to the long-established post office in Northome.
Daughter Elizabeth Buentemeier remembers that in 1913 there were enough children for a school, three of them being from her own family. “School was first held in a very small log cabin shack, located a short distance east of the Martin Torkelson farm home. Miss Stella Whipple was the first teacher. It was heated by the use of a box type cast iron stove. We had benches made from rough boards…Another [school building] was being built on the Alfred Pierson land by neighbors, a mile west of the present site.
About mid-winter, Miss Whipple and pupils moved to this newly constructed log school, called Pinetop.” [Pinetop vertical file ~ Itasca County Historical Society.] A frame school was built in 1920 and named Grattan. The last time Pinetop appeared on an Itasca County map was probably the 1916 plat. On current maps, the location is approximately where County roads 26 and 31 meet at the corner of sections 9, 10, 15 and 16.
According to Elizabeth other early individuals and families at Pinetop include: “Ricroft and Alex Fenton, Arthur Lacher, Willis McCrady, Alfred Pierson, Joseph Plemel, Joseph Ecenroad, George and John Sencerbox, Anton Sterle, Tim and Maurice Pendergast, John Skully, Olaf Holm, James and John Meyers, Art Bowers, Charles Cross, Sam Reed, Frank Drobnick, and EG Baily.”
In the interview done with Lucy in the 1940s, she shared some interesting facts about Indian artifacts. “When we came here there was an Indian village just across the brook from the house. We found a great number of stone arrowheads and other items there.
One of my boys found a copper spearhead there a few years ago. It was pounded from pure copper and was so hard it could not be touched up with a file. It was 14 ¾ inches long. The upper end had been pounded out flat, then bent around to form a socket for a handle. This he sold to the State Historical Society for $25. Prof. Jinks from the State University said he had never run across anything like it in this country before. The village site was on the west bank of Moose Brook in sec 15, 150-27.
The old Hudson’s Bay Trail used to run just west of here about three-fourths of a mile. The Indians used it a great deal in the early days. They used to go south to get to Frank Vance’s place. I don’t know just where they left it to get there, as it went farther west from Vances.”
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