Meet Mary Marie Bolles, one of the earliest Stillwater students

featured Stillwater Gazette,

225 North Second St. Suite 100, Stillwater, MN 55082

Back in time:

 

 Brent Peterson is the Executive Director of the Washington County Historical Society.

Moving across the country is not an easy thing to do – especially if you are young. It was even more difficult during the early years of the settlement of Minnesota and Wisconsin. One of those young women to do so was Mary Marie Carli – she came to the St. Croix Valley with her parents, Lydia and Paul Carli in the early 1840s.

She was born in Chicago on Dec. 29, 1836. The family decided to follow the frontier and Mrs. Carli’s brother, Joseph R. Brown, to a new settlement on the St. Croix River. They traveled by river, coming up the Mississippi to Grey Cloud Island and from there, the family used a flat bottomed boat to travel north – they needed to use poles to push the boat at several spots until they arrived at the town site of “Dakota” on June 29, 1841.

Her father, Paul, drowned in the St. Croix River in 1845. Her mother married her brother in law, Dr. Christopher Carli, the following year.

According to an account of that trip up the St. Croix in the “Stillwater Messenger” of December 1896, the editors commented, “As they neared the beautiful, wild shores of Lake St. Croix they could see but one house and that was the Tamarack House, just put up by Mr. Carli and his helpers.

Being made of tamarack logs and plastered with mud or clay was considered quite an aristocratic residence. It was not unlike the adobe houses of Old Mexico and Lower California.”

Mary Carli also known as “Dede,” became one of the first students ever in a Stillwater school. This first school was located on Olive Street between Second and Third streets. This school was a log building and each time it rained the new plaster (mud) had to be applied by hand to keep the weather out of the building. According to Mrs. Bolles the walls, inside, were lined with benches and she says the first teacher was a Miss Hamilton, who was followed by Miss Sarah Judd. In the first class there were nine students including Mrs. Bolles.

Carli married Noah McKuisck on Nov. 19, 1856. The couple had one child, Mary Eva McKusick, born March 2, 1858. Later that year, Noah left for California to enter the gold fields. McKusick stayed out in California and in February 1863, Mary petitioned the court for “relief.” The couple were divorced and even more tragic was the death of their child in April 1864.

She married again on June 3, 1866 to Civil War veteran Harlow McIntyre. This marriage also did not work out and they were divorced sometime in the 1870s. Mary married for the last time in May 1879 to George W. Bolles of Valley Creek.

On the porch of 322 E. Aspen Street, Maria Bolles, Lydia Carli and Joseph Carli, circa 1900

 

 

By 1900, she was living in Stillwater at 411 N. Fourth St. The 1924 Stillwater High School yearbook, the Kabekonian, had an article about her and her early days in Stillwater Schools. Later that year she fell ill and a few weeks later, on Nov. 17, 1924, Mary Marie Bolles died at Lakeview Hospital at the age of 89.

She was a member of Chapter 63 of the Order of Eastern Star, and of the Woman’s Relief Corps, of the Grand Army of the Republic.

She was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Stillwater. Her funeral was presided over by Rev. Arthur W. Ratz of the Presbyterian Church and she was interred at Fairview Cemetery in Stillwater.

The “Stillwater Gazette” said of her, “She was a sturdy, self-reliant woman, capable of taking care of herself in any emergency, as were, indeed, all of the pioneers of this vicinity. Her home was always open to her friends and her hospitality was proverbial.”