When Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge wrote &uot;The History of Freeborn County,&uot; issued in 1911, one of the citizens of Albert Lea received very special notice. His book had only two directly quoted reminiscences made by area pioneers, and one of those citizens was Daniel Webster Horning.

Horning was born on Dec. 25, 1835, in Jefferson County, N.Y. He came to Freeborn County in 1857 with his mother and brother, William J. Horning. They acquired 160 acres of land in Albert Lea Township from the government and started to develop a farm.

However, Daniel began to hear stories told by others about a major gold strike out in Oregon, likely in the eastern part of the state near Auburn in Baker County. He decided to go west to make a fortune. And what evolved over the next four years was the narrative quoted by Curtiss-Wedge in his book:

&uot;In the spring of 1862, I went to Ft. Snelling to haul hay for the fort. In the spring of 1863 Willard Eaton and Jack Waller and I started for Oregon with two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows. After traveling for some weeks we joined a train of some 80 teams, and with this train we went over the Missouri River and the Platte. After traveling about three weeks we encountered the Indians. They came up on both sides of us, but after a slight brush with them, they left us, and for the next two weeks we traveled unmolested, although they kept in sight a larger part of the time. Then we reached a fort. The commander said that he had orders to forbid all trains proceeding further, for the Indians had been burning trains and killing people beyond the fort… and the soldiers could not go to their rescue, as there were scarcely enough in the command to protect the fort. However, we continued our journey. We had traveled but two days further when the Indians came down on us again, and held us at one point a day and a half. The fighting was not continuous, but consisted of a series of brushes, the Indians seemingly coming to try our strength from time to time and then driving out of shooting range. Evidently they found our party too large, for finally they left us, and we continued our journey, going up the Sweetwater about one hundred miles. Then we went to the Black Hills and thence to Idaho City, arriving in the fall. In the winter the city burned, and we worked the remainder of the winter building up the city. The following summer we worked in the gold mines, and in the fall Eaton and I went to (Baker County) Oregon and stayed all winter. There was a report that Montana was so rich that one could pick up gold anywhere, and that the mines were half a mile wide and unlimited in length. Naturally, everyone was excited to go there. Consequently a train of about 150 started for Montana, but when we reached Helena we found only three claims that were paying wages. Half of the company went back to Oregon, but the rest started prospecting for gold.

We prospected a year for gold but did not find it very profitable. We lived like wild Indians, on the wild game which was very plentiful. We had no bread of any kind. For two years I lived on this kind of fare. After mining a year I teamed from Fort Benton (as far as boats could go on the Missouri River in Montana) to Helena a year, and then decided to start prospecting again. We formed a company of eight and worked about two weeks in trying to run a cut. We thought it was rich, so we worked two months placer digging. Most of the company left us, but the two or three who remained worked a day or two longer. Then the claim began to get rich. So we went to Helena to get some more men, for it took ten men under the law to hold a mining claim of that sort. We did not put up the notice as the law required, and when we returned we found that another company was there, a thing they had a right to do under the miners’ law. Then I went prospecting again. I made at one time $15.000, but lost nearly all of it again.

Then I came home through Salt Lake City, spending about two weeks in that place. Since then I have stuck to the farm.&uot;

About 1866 Daniel came back to the family farm, located near the present junction of County Road 17 and U.S. Highway 69. He later added 80 acres to the place.

In time, Daniel came to the realization that a fairly reliable income could be made by farming, instead of following gold rush fever in east Oregon, south Idaho and central Montana.

On Dec. 25, 1870, he married Caroline A. Powers. They had eight children. Three daughters and a son died at young ages.

David and Caroline left the farm in 1907 and moved to 529 Water St. in Albert Lea. He died on July 28, 1918.

His Tribune obituary said, &uot;The men who came to this state in the 1850s had a hard task to perform, their work was foundation work. As one of this number, Mr. Horning did his work well. He placed a stone in the foundation of this great empire of the Middle West that is fast becoming the keystone of the mightiest democracy that has ever blest the earth.&uot;