John W. North's Letter

“I first came to the spot now known as Northfield about the first of January, 1855, or it may have been December, 1854.  I took measures to secure that location soon after I first saw it.  In the summer of 1855 I commenced work on the dam and mill, which was completed so as to commence sawing lumber about the first of December of that year.  During that month we sawed lumber and built with it the dwelling house we moved into on the third of January, 1856.  There were settlers around there before I made my claim.  The first time I saw that place I stopped at the house of Mr. Alexander.  He called my attention to the water-power in the river at that point.  Mr. Stewart, Mr. Olin, Mr. Drake, Mr. Turner, and several other families were living in the vicinity at that time.  When we moved down there, there were the whites, Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Hoskins, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Coburn, Mr. Pease, Mr. Trawle, and several other families.  Mr. Jenkins acted as my agent until I moved there.  Mr. Coburn, Mr. Pease, Mr. Collett, and others worked from me.  No one was associated with me in the enterprise.  I did not at first contemplate starting a town, much less a city; I only though of a mill.  There was then no road running through the place, but I got one laid out from Waterford, crossing the river just below the mills at Northfield.  I then thought a post office, school. House, blacksmith shop, store, town site, and finally a railroad, and by energetic work got them all.” (Curtiss-Wedge, 445)