Farm Horizons
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April 4
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Page 32
Little Swan Lake once featured
school, church – and cemetery
By Brad Salmen
Today, Little Swan Lake, four miles north of Dassel, is
your normal mid-Minnesota lake, dotted by permanent and
seasonal homes.
But back in the late 1800s, it was a hub of sorts for nearby
residents, with a schoolhouse and a Methodist church, and, as
so often accompanies a church, a cemetery.
Today, there are few physical traces of these community
pillars. Both the church and schoolhouse are gone, and the
only remnants of this bygone era are a few gravestones from
the cemetery, called both the Little Swan Cemetery and the
Cunningham Cemetery.
According to a Works Progress Administration (WPA) report from the Minnesota State Historical Society in 1936, the
cemetery had already been in disuse by 1915. It was used by
settlers who were members of the Methodist church.
Complete records cannot be found. However, there are bits
and pieces that can be discerned from archived records provided by the Dassel Area Historical Society (DAHS).
The cemetery was deeded by the St. Paul and Pacific
Railroad Company to the Swan Lake Cemetery Association
(trustees Caleb Hull, Andrew Davidson, Wells Tuman, E.A.
Russell, JP. David, and Nelson Tuman) in 1878.
The Minnesota State Methodist Church Archives has only
one mention of the church, its dedication in 1886, suggesting
the church operated for at least eight years before being officially recognized by the overarching Methodist organization.
The church did not appear on the Minnesota Methodist’s
appointment list for preaching assignments. According to
DAHS researcher Julie Lindquist, the archivist for the Minnesota Methodists thought the Little Swan church may have
been served by the Dassel Methodist Church (first record,
1870), as pastors often had more than one “preaching point.”
The only reference to the church in DAHS newspaper archives is from May 25, 1889, from the Litchfield Saturday
Review:
“The Colfax Post GAR will observe Memorial Day by visiting the Swan Lake Cemetery, Cassel Cemetery, and Bogar
burying grounds. All old soldiers specially and the people
generally are cordiall H[