In the early spring of 1876,
the extended Thompson family, nine members in all, headed out towards the west. They had been given a piece of land in the northeastern parts of Minnesota, and had made plans to set up a lumbermill near a small lake known as Desolation Lake. The work started at once, and they soon had set up
a small log cabin and were well on their way to finish a larger building.
The winter of 1876 came and went, and nobody ever heard from the Thompsons again. A multitude of theories regarding what had occured abounded, one more far-fetched and grusome than the next. Some claimed that the family father had gotten mean drunk one night and killed the others before hanging himself in the unfinished farmhouse. Others claimed that natives had done the deed, while yet others said that outlaws were to blame. Another theory was that the youngest child, a toddler of the age of three, had fallen into the waters of Desolation Lake and that the entrie family had drowned one by one while trying to save him, while another story said that the farmstead had been struck by pestilence.
The spring of 1877 passed, and nobody ever got to the bottom of the story. Not much of an investigation was held in any case, since the farm was far away from people and sometimes these things just happens in the wild. Tragic, but nothing much could be done about it. Then, around mid-summer, a man by the name of Joshua McKay managed to purchase the rights to the farmstead. He collected a larger group of people, as there could be some truth to the stories about outlaws and indians, purchased the needed suplises, and set out towards Desolation Lake.
Immediately upon arriving, McKay found the buildings still in good shape, but the larger one far from finished. In order to shelter the large group from the rough midwestern winters, the main building had to be finished as soon as possible. Not wanting to waste another moment, McKay ordered the work to start at once.
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