Then & Now: A History of Rice County, Faribault & Communities

Hause of Dr. Jackson, corner Second St. and Second Ave. NW (early days)
developers, were not happy with the sudden change in
county seat designation. They were incensed.
Gradually, Cannon City's planned growth diminished.
Many settlers moved away.
Although the town failed in its bid for greatness, its
fame still lives on because of a widely read pioneer
days novel, "The Mystery of Metropolisville", written
by Edward Eggleston, an Indiana Methodist Church
leader who also wrote ''The Hoosier Schoolmaster''.
La Vern J. Rippley, writing in the "Golden
Nugget", published in Northfield, reviewed the
"Metropolis" book. He comments:
Similarities Recalled
"Nowhere in the novel does Eggleston specifically
equate Cannon City with Metropolisville but the
historical facts are only thinly veiled. For example, a
boating accident occurred on Crystal Lake at Cannon
City on July 4, 1857, taking the lives of four people. As
preparations for the funeral were made, it was
discovered that the regular minister was out of town so
a 20 year old man by the name of Edward Eggleston,
who had studied for the Methodist ministry,
volunteered his services. In the novel, only two persons
drowned and the incident does not happen on Crystal
Lake but on 'Diamond Lake'.''
Referring to the change in county seat designation
in 1855, Eggleston, in his novel, tells it this way: "If this
were history I should feel bound to tell of all the
maneuvers resorted to by Metropolisville to get the
county seat removed from Perri taut (Faribault).''
"A dedicated Cannon Citian, Eggleston wastes no
chance to slam Faribault, always, of course, in the
guise of Perritaut. 'I couldn't stand the climate at
Perritaut' and 'Perritaut was named for an old French
trader, who had made his fortune by selling goods to
the Indians on its site, and who had taken him an
Indian wife- it helped trade to wed an Indian- and
reared a family of children who were dusky! '
·''To be sure we never see the Cannon River in the
novel but who can doubt what Eggleston meant by 'The
Big Gun River' and when the fictional characters visit
Glenfield, it is obvious that in fact they were coming to
Northfield. Red Wing was called Red Owl by
Eggleston.''
Came Here for Health
"It was for the reasons of health that in the spring
of 1856, the 18-year-old Eggleston, convinced by
brochures and advertisements that Minnesota was the
healthiest state in the union, decided on Minnesota as a
last resort. Born in Virginia, Eggleston for some time
had lived in Vevay, Indiana, but the climate there had
gotten to him.
"His health was in a shambles, lungs
hemorrhaging, consumption eating its way through his
vital organs, he seemed destined for an early death. By
the end of the summer of 1856, Eggleston found his
health so dramatically improved by his stay in Cannon
City that he walked nearly 400 miles to Galesburg,
Illinois. He returned to Cannon City a year later and
was given new Methodist church assignments.
"Though published in 1873, Eggleston's book opens
as if it were yesterday. 'Metropolisville is nothing but a
memory now - the last time I saw the place the grass
grew green where once stood the City Hall, the corn
stalks waved their banners on the very site of the old
store - I ask pardon, of the Emporium of Jackson,
Jones and Co., and what had been the Square, flanked
by a white courthouse, not a Temple but a Barn of
Justice, had long s.ince fallen to base uses. The walls
which had echoed with forensic grandiloquence were
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