| Summary: | T II K DAWNING OF 11 15 TT ID It TIMES ill ish lumber, including sash and doors, was teamed down from Moorhead. For several years thereafter, even the brick used in building chimneys was imported. Huffman and Loon burned a quantity of brick about the year 1878, but no regular yard was started until 1.880. That year Bartholomew Brothers started a yard in what is now Bartholomew's addition to the city. Just as the year was about closing, some twenty of tlie old settlers of this part of the valley met in a hall at Grand Forks and on December 27, 1879, they organized tlie "Red River Valley Old Settlers Association." The permanent form of the association was completed February 4, 1880, about 35 persons being present at this second meeting. At the close of the year Grand Forks had a population of at least four hundred inhabitants, perhaps over five hundred. These are the estimates ol two prominent citizens well qualified to give a fair estimate of the matter, which, of course, in the absence of a census, cannot be otherwise than somewhat uncertain. Tlie first estimate is by D. McDonald who was appointed postmaster of the village the preceding spring; the second was made by 1). M. Holmes who based bis estimate on the tax-list of that year and his knowledge of residents. The railroad reached the east side of the river too late in the season to materially influence the population of Grand Forks in 1879; hence the year closed leaving tbe place with what is usually the population of an average village. THE EARLIER. CHURCHES. At this point we may as well speak of tlie first church societies that were organized in tlie county, and of the first houses of worship that these societies erected. In the west, itinerants or missionaries have generally preceded the regularly appointed pastors, holding services in private houses, schoolbouses or any suitable building large enough to hold any small assemblage of people. We can mention here only such societies as had effected something in the way of organization before tlie close of 1879. The Methodists were tlie first to attempt the forming of a society at Grand Forks. Prior to 1878, Dakota was attached to the Northwest Iowa conference as regards the polity of this denomination. North Dakota next became part of the Red River district, of tlie Minnesota conference, but was made a mission conference in 1884 and became a separate or full conference in 1880. A building owned by the Hudson Bay company was at first used by this society which was gathered in 1878. Rev. John Webb, who was presiding elder for the district, came that year and began a small church building, but the work lagged for a few years owing to the small number of that denomination then located here and the scant population of tlie place. In 1874 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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