Do you know who Moses Sailor was?

I asked some folks this question recently. No one was really sure, but one person did answer correctly that, “Isn’t he the guy who has the tombstone in the Riverside Cemetery in the shape of a log cabin?”

That was right, but the better answer is that he was the first pioneer to permanently settle in the newly named Faribault County.

Others had been here before, of course, just traveling through, but Moses Sailor was the first one of those to actually stop here, build a cabin, and live here the rest of his life.

And, before anyone gets too excited, yes there were Native Americans here for many years before Moses Sailor ever came here.

Moses came here in May of 1855 and built his cabin along the west fork of the Blue Earth River a little over a mile south of the current Putnam Park, near where Darling International currently is.

About six months after Moses built his cabin, he had company. James B. Wakefield and three others showed up at his cabin door in February of 1856. They stayed with him and then started the city of Blue Earth two miles north of Moses’s cabin, where the east and west forks of the Blue Earth River come together. That was before Minnesota even was a state, which happened on May 11, 1858.

Moses Sailor became a leader in the new Blue Earth City, but he actually never lived there and farmed all his life.

A dozen years ago or so, Glenn Gaylord told me there was some kind of marker on the exact spot where Moses Sailor built his cabin. As a hiker, I decided I should go find it. It took me three tries. The first time I didn’t go far enough, the second time I went far enough but couldn’t find it. The third time I was successful.

Talking about Moses Sailor recently with others, I decided to go see if the marker was still there. Again, it took a bit of effort to find it, even though I knew about where it is. That is because the Bicentennial Trail, which used to go along the river, is pretty much gone, wrecked during numerous flooding events, including one this past June. That, plus dozens of downed trees in and out of the river, lots of undergrowth of bushes and small trees and no clear path, makes it very hard to find.

But it is still there, as the photo with this column shows. I don’t advise anyone going to look for it, however, as it isn’t easy to find and probably not worth the effort. Go walk the paths at Steinberg Park instead, or the path to the I-90 rest stops.

On the other hand, it was interesting to sit there for a moment or two and think about Moses Sailor, and then James Wakefield, being on that very spot and saying, “Hey, I think we should go down river a little bit and build us a town there.” That will soon be 169 years ago, this coming February. And, a lot has certainly happened here since then.

The next time someone asks you if you know who Moses Sailor was, you can answer, “I sure do.”