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This week is a continuation of an interview
with Mr. Florenz Lins, a very early settler in Dieter
Township. Mr. Lins came to the Roseau
River Valley in 1886 to
inspect the country and made a decision to move from his farm
near Nash, North Dakota to the
untamed, unsettled country of Northern Minnesota. In the
spring of 1887 he planted his crops in North Dakota, returned
to his homestead in Dieter with George Davis, and Martin
Dieter, and put up hay. In the fall of 1887 Lins returned to
North Dakota for the threshing season and returned to his
Roseau County farm when the season finished.
A Mr. Whitney and Mr. Box, both of Warren
established a ranch in the NW corner of Section 8 in Moose
Township. in 1888. They tried to raise full-blooded cattle, but the “swamp
fever” doomed the experiment to failure. Lins remembered
other pioneers like Pete Foss, Mr. Dowhower, coming in 1890,
and Olaf Efshen and John Hendrickson, both about six feet
tall, who were sent as emissaries to inquire about the Indian
scare. Dieter Township was surveyed in 1899 this was the
heaviest year of settlement. Pinecreek was settled at the
same time, the results of a bad crop year in
North
Dakota.
The Florenz Lins’ story from Pioneers! O
Pioneers! was written by the family. It reports that
Florenz was born in Germany in 1862, and moved to
Saskatchewan, Canada with his parents in 1877. They came as
recruits for a German Land Company. Later they moved to
Wabasha County, Minnesota where they met the Martin Dieter
family. According to family legend, it has been told that
Florenz’s father, Michael Lins, had been a blacksmith in
Germany. He is said to be the first man to put a steel rim on
a wagon wheel—instead of driving spikes into the wood, in
order to keep the wooden wheel from wearing out on the
cobblestones of German streets. Florenz and his wife,
Christine, had four children; Anna (Mrs. William Maiers),
Elisabeth (Mrs. Arthur Askegaard), William and George.
Florenz Lins passed away in July 1944.
Dieter
Township is said to have been named for Martin Van Buren Dieter who came with
Florenz Lins to this area. Martin Dieter was born in
Springwater Valley, New York,
in 1841. When he was twelve years old he came with his father
to Wisconsin on a cattle boat, bringing their stock with
them. They settled in Wabasha
County where they met the Lins family. Martin volunteered for the Minnesota
Regiment in the Civil War and was wounded and captured. The
bullet was never removed from his thigh, and gave him trouble
all of his life. He was forty-five years old when he came to
Roseau
River Valley. After proving
up his homestead, he moved to Grafton, North Dakota and later to
Spokane,
Washington. He passed away there in 1917. There were ten
children born to Martin and Catherine Dieter.
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