In the memoirs of Amanda Johnson she records that she remembers her father saying that the snow came on November 20, in the winter of 1855 and 1856, and stayed on until April. The temperature was often thirty to forty degrees below zero.
Among the settlers who came in 1855 was William Lewis and his family. He died a month after his arrival here and was the first person to be buried in the Lewis Cemetery which was located on his claim and named for him. Other settlers in 1855 were Robert Stinson from Maine, J. W. and Needham Perkins from North Carolina, B. Barnhart, Thomas Thornton, and Frank Sutton, who later moved to Wright County. John Cathcart settled on Section 6.
Arriving in 1856 were Elkanah Cox, uncle of Charles Cox who passed away in Maple Plain at the age of 91, having lived his whole life here; also Daniel Styner and family on what is now the Herum farm, Mose Williams and family, Henry Swingler, Wesley and Hollis Hall, John Stevens, Cyrus Chapman, Henry Astrope, Jacob Bryant, father of Rufus Bryant, Major Whitehead, William Kissinger, Ebenezer Sutherland, the grandfather of William Sutherland, William Fogleman. Sam Moody settled where Clifford Hillstrom farmed until recently. John Wolcott settled in the northwest corner of the township.
In 1857 the following settlers came: Jacob Rader, two sons, George and Washington, and a nephew, John Rader. Allen Hosmer built a sawmill on Pioneer Creek, but it was discontinued because of lack of water power. George Hoisington, from Wooster, Ohio, settled on what is now known as the Sunny Valley Farm, where the Gustafsons reside. Elkanah Shaw and Timothy Shaw located at Shaws Crossing together with John Wilson and Joseph Crooker of Maine, who owned a store in Perkinsville, Jacob Batdorf, grandfather of Mrs. Wallace Stinson, Mrs. Charles Soley, Norman Batdorf and Henry Batdorf, all deceased. William Cox, who made a claim in Section 22, came from Indiana in 1856 to settle on Pioneer Creek. He had migrated from North Carolina ahead of the railroads and had never seen a train until the present railroad was built through his land, although he was sixty years old. Two years later he moved to Iowa where he died. S. W. Yokley came in 1864. Yokley and Breed opened a store in Maple Plain. The Yokleys lived on Lake Independence, on what has since been called the Doctor Peterson farm.
