The sight of the bluffsA Closer LookThere are many reports that Alexander Faribault had expressed his intention to settle in the Faribault area early on. Henry Sibley was Alexander’s friend and boss. He was an important man in Minnesota's early military, and became the state's first governor. He said: "Indeed, that locality on the Straight river was for years so firmly fixed in his [Alexander's] regard that he frequently adverted to it and wished for the day to come when he would be permitted to carry out his darling project." Peter Bush, an early settler, reported meeting Alexander Faribault in 1852 in St. Paul. He told the Faribault Republican on March 10, 1875: "[Mr. Faribault] had been farming [in Faribault]... He told me...that he only intended to stay in Mendota a short time, but always intended to return [to Faribault]." Henry Sibley also was quoted in an 1877 newspaper article: "It was on our route homeward [from hunting] that we passed through the site of your thriving city, and Faribault pointed it out to me as the spot upon which he intended to settle and spend the rest of his days so soon as the Indian title was extinguished and the land opened to white occupation." |
