DENMARK TOWNSHIP: The Trees, the River and the Land
By Mavis A. Voigt, board member Denmark Township Historical Society
Denmark Township’s scenic beauty and natural resources attracted settlers well before 1849, when Washington County became the first county in Minnesota Territory. French explorers had visited the area in the 1600s, and for hundreds of years before that, Native Americans lived in the St. Croix valley. Beginning in the 1830s, white settlers came for the trees, the river, and the land.
Denmark Township was established in 1858, the same year that Minnesota became a state. It has been primarily an agricultural community. However, because of its nearness to the Twin Cities, Denmark today blends farms with semi-rural residential neighborhoods. The population reported in the 2000 census was just under 1,350.
Denmark Township is at the southern tip of Washington County, south of 60th Street (the boundary for the town of Afton) and east of Cottage Grove. The St. Croix and Mississippi rivers forming the eastern and southern boundaries create a point where the lumber town of Point Douglas grew. The village was located around what is now the intersection of County Road 21 (St. Croix Trail) and Highway 10, the highway to Prescott, Wisconsin.
Point Douglas
Pioneer Joseph Mozoe (also known as Monjeau or Mosier) built the first log hut in the Point Douglas area in 1838. In 1840 entrepreneurs Levi Hertzell (also spelled Hurtsill) and Oscar Burris opened a mercantile store housing the first post office in Minnesota outside of Fort Snelling. Their store became the major supplier of goods for the interior. David Hone, one of thirteen men who composed the Marine Mill Company, moved to the area in 1843 and built the Union House hotel the next year.
Other settlers soon followed: William Dibble came in 1845, Martin Leavitt and Simon Shingledecker in 1847, and Ephriam H. Whitaker in 1848. Caleb Truax, G. W. Campbell, Thomas Hetherington, H. A. Carter, and James Shearer came in 1849, as did Thomas Wright, whose brother Mark came in 1852. John Allibone came in 1851 and Burton Davies in 1852. Treaties in the 1850s opened Minnesota to settlement on a wide scale and in the next few years the trickle of immigration became a flood.
Hertzell, Burris and Hone platted the village of Point Douglas in 1849. They named it for Senator Stephen Douglas, who was instrumental in forming the Minnesota Territory, which took place in that year.
Hertzell built the first grain elevator in 1851 and served as postmaster until 1856, when he mysteriously disappeared with more than $20,000 while on a buying trip east. It was rumored he went to California to search for gold; many years later his son located him there.
By 1858 Point Douglas was a thriving lumbering and supply center with a busy sawmill handling logs floated downriver from the forests up north, a church, a school, two general stores, a post office, a blacksmith shop, two hotels, 15 to 20 homes, four warehouses, and ferry sites to Hastings and Prescott, Wisconsin. It was the regular stopping place for steamboats to take on wood for fuel and to transfer passengers and freight bound up the St. Croix Valley.
The village thrived until the supply of big trees ran out and the competing towns of Hastings and Prescott flourished, then it gradually faded, becoming a ghost town by the end of the 19th century. Most of its buildings either burned or were moved to other locations. Hertzell’s store/post office, built in 1873 to replace one that had burned, was moved in 1904 to the Nicoll farm on 110th Street South, where it still serves as a residence.
Basswood Grove
A school and store once stood near St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on St. Croix Trail, which was built in 1863 and is still serving the community. Basswood School, built in 1854, closed in 1957. The first store built in the early 1870s by John Olson was later made into a home; a second store built by Samuel Dangerfield in 1874 burned two years later. In 1876 Asa Clothier opened a store that was also used as a town hall, for parties and meetings of the Grange, and a post office. Asa’s son Edson later operated a feed mill at this location.
Transportation
Early settlers depended almost entirely on the river for water and transportation. According to James Taylor Dunn, author of The St. Croix: Midwest Border River, “It was their lifeblood, their glistening highway, and they desperately needed the stern-wheelers and ‘double wingers’ to help settle the country, to bring in supplies, and to keep in touch with the outside world.”
Ferries were the first means of crossing the rivers. A ferry between Point Douglas and Hastings was established in 1849, and was replaced in 1895 by the Spiral Bridge connecting Denmark Township to Hastings. It was torn down in 1951. A ferry between Prescott and Point Douglas was established in 1851 and replaced by a bridge in 1923.
In 1850 Congress approved funds to construct four roads in the territory, two of which started in Point Douglas, one continuing through Stillwater to the St. Louis River; the other through St. Paul to Fort Ripley. These roads have been obscured in Denmark by later development of a section-grid road system. County Road 21 (St. Croix Trail) parallels the old Point Douglas St. Louis River Road , which was completed in 1858, about a quarter mile to the east.
In 1879 the first railroad line, a branch line of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, began making daily runs along the river from Hastings through Point Douglas to Stillwater. The “Peanut Line” operated until 1978.
Agriculture
Agriculture replaced lumbering as land became available following treaties enacted in the 1850s. Soon farmers were able to haul their grain to Afton for milling. In 1845 Lemuel Bolles erected the first privately owned mill in Minnesota for grinding corn and wheat, on the creek bearing his name near Afton.
The Whitaker farm on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi river in Denmark Township is the oldest family farm in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. Ephraim Whitaker came up the Mississippi from Kentucky and built a log cabin in 1846 on the outskirts of Point Douglas. He built a large house in 1854, the second floor of which was used for community socials, dances and meetings. Whitaker died in 1903 at age 84 and used to boast that he had lived in two territories and a state without ever moving. His land started out in the Wisconsin Territory, then Minnesota Territory, and finally in 1858 became part of the state of Minnesota. Ephraim’s son, Clarence, built a new farmhouse on the bluffs to replace the old homestead that was demolished for the railroad. In 1972 Clarence’s son, Ken, built a one-story home next to the bluff-top farmhouse. After Ken died in 1999 his grandson, Mike Kelz, moved into the house.
Six “Century Farms” were formally recognized in Denmark in 1995. They are the Ephraim Whitaker Farm (1846) on Highway 10; Thomas Hetherington Farm (1848) on St. Croix Trail; Oscar Davies Farm (1852) on St. Croix Trail; George Van Alstine Farm (1862) on 90th Street; O’Connor, Frost, Stoffel Farm (1883) on St. Croix Trail; and Frederick Gorgus Farm (1883) on Neal Avenue.
Today there are several apple orchards in the township that attract visitors in the fall. They include Fischer Croix Farm Orchard, McDougall’s Apple Junction, Whistling Well Farm, and Afton Apple Orchard.
Churches, Schools and Civic Life
Religion played an active role in the development of Denmark Township. According to Lyla Davies, a founder of the Denmark Township Historical Society, a Methodist minister named Joseph Hurlbut preached at Point Douglas in 1843. In 1956 Reverend Timothy Wilcoxson organized an Episcopalian parish at Point Douglas called St. Paul’s. The church was later moved to Prairie Island. In 1863 Reverend Wilcoxson organized St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at Basswood. A few families separated from St. Mary’s in 1883-85 and started a new parish called The United Brethren. They met at “The Meeting House” on the corner of 90th and St. Croix Trail.
There are four cemeteries in Denmark Township: Leavitt on Highway 10; Basswood Grove on St. Croix Trail; Evergreen on 90th Street; and Point Douglas across St. Croix Trail from Carpenter Nature Center.
Valley School District #34 in Point Douglas was the first school in Minnesota, beginning in 1844 when Sarah Judd taught classes in the Dibble/Shearer home. Mary Hone taught in 1845. Valley School was officially organized in 1850 and a log building was built that burned two years later. The existing school house was built in 1852 and still stands on its original site on St. Croix Trail. The Denmark Township Historical Society (founded in 2000) is in the process of saving and restoring the Valley School as an educational and community resource.
Other schools were Basswood Grove (District #35), built in 1876; Concord Hill (District #49) or “Mark Wright School,” built in 1867; Eden Grove (District #45) or “Shingledecker School,” built in 1867; Dalrymple (District #58) or “Harris School,” built in 1877; North Star (District 59) or “John Wright School,” built in 1874.
The Denmark Town Hall at 90th and Oakgreen was built around 1880 and remodeled in 2002. Today, Denmark Township has no village, no post office and no schools. Residents’ mailing address is Hastings, and children attend school there, across the Mississippi river in Dakota County.
Parks, and Recreation
Washington County’s St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park on St. Croix Trail opened in 1996 on a site purchased and developed in the 1940s by architect Thomas Ellerbe. It was for many years the Control Data-Ceridian employee park.
Carpenter Nature Center on St. Croix Trail originated as a residence and apple farm developed 1939-43 by Thomas Carpenter, President of Sperry Office Furniture Co., and his wife, Edna. They established a foundation that still owns the property, which became a nature center in 1981.
Lost Valley Prairie was part of the old Mark Wright farm on 110th (entrance off Norell Street). It was developed by the Department of Natural Resources and is open to the public (foot traffic only).
Other parks are Point Douglas Park and Beach on Highway 10, a popular area for swimming and picnicking, and Afton State Park, entrance at 70th Street and St. Croix Trail (CR 21). Surrounded by the state park is Afton Alps Ski Area, which opened in 1963.