As you approach St. Paul, at Fort Snelling, where the Mississippi and Minnesota join forces, the country grows bold and beautiful.  The town itself, then boasting about thirty thousand inhabitants, is finely situated, with substantial stone residences.  It was in one of these charming homes I found a harbor of rest during my stay in the city.  Mrs. Stuart, whose hospitalities I enjoyed, was a woman of rare common sense and sound health.  Her husband, Dr. Jacob H. Stuart, was one of the very first surgeons to volunteer in the late war.  In the panic at Bull Run, instead of running, as everybody else did, he stayed with the wounded, and was taken prisoner while taking a bullet from the head of a rebel.  When exchanged, Beauregard gave him his sword for his devotion to the dying and wounded.

I had the pleasure of seeing several of the leading gentlemen and ladies of St. Paul at the Orphans’ Fair, where we all adjourned, after my lecture, to discuss woman’s rights, over a bounteous supper.  Here I met William L. Banning, the originator of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad.  He besieged Congress and capitalists for a dozen years to build this road, but was laughed at and put off with sneers and contempt, until, at last, Jay Cooke became so weary of his continual coming that he said:  “I will build the road to get rid of you.”

Whittier seems to have had a prophetic vision of the peopling of this region.  When speaking of the Yankee, he says: 

    “He’s whittling by St. Mary’s Falls,
     Upon his loaded wain;
    He’s measuring o’er the Pictured Rocks,
     With eager eyes of gain.

    “I hear the mattock in the mine,
     The ax-stroke in the dell,
    The clamor from the Indian lodge,
     The Jesuits’ chapel bell!

    “I hear the tread of pioneers
     Of nations yet to be;
    The first low wash of waves, where soon
     Shall roll a human sea.”

The opening of these new outlets and mines of wealth was wholly due to the forecast and perseverance of Mr. Banning.  The first engine that went over a part of the road had been christened at St. Paul, with becoming ceremonies; the officiating priestess being a beautiful maiden.  A cask of water from the Pacific was sent by Mr. Banning’s brother from California, and a small keg was brought from Lake Superior for the occasion.  A glass was placed in the hands of Miss Ella B. Banning, daughter of the president, who then christened the engine, saying:  “With the waters of the Pacific Ocean in my right hand, and the waters of Lake Superior in my left, invoking the Genius of Progress to bring together, with iron band, two great commercial systems of the globe, I dedicate this engine to the use of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, and name it William L. Banning.”