Tale of Two Bovines

     One of the pleasures of the Internet age is the availability of so much information at your fingertips. The first cow story is just a short add found by doing a search on the address of Patrick and Mary Hogan in St. Paul.
The Library of Congress has digitized selected newspapers and a search may be made at Chronicling America.
The following add was in the November 12, 1889 issue of the St. Paul Daily Globe:

Lost and Found.

Cow Lost—Lost since Nov. 6, 1889, one red cow with white spots on both flanks, with horns turn in.  Finder will please send word to Mrs. P. Hogan, 755 Sylvan st., city.

The other story was found the old fashioned way--by cranking through pages of microfilmed newspapers at the Minnesota History Center. 

Cow Walked Her Way Back Alone from St. Paul to St. Thomas Farm

By Win V. Working

          It’s a shame to start this story with a hackneyed reference to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Chicago fire, but it can’t be helped. For this is a tale of another cow that achieved distinction in a novel way.  She didn’t start a fire, but she set a record—not for butterfat, but for finding her way home from West St. Paul to a farm near St. Thomas.  It happened back in pioneer days.  The cow belonged to James Whalen, an early settler who lived two miles south of St. Thomas. Here is the story as related to the writer by Thomas Whalen, son of the pioneer, who now lives on the old homestead:

          “I was only a young gaffer at the time, but I remember the incident distinctly and can vouch for the facts stated.  We came here about 60 years ago and one fall not long after we had settled on the farm father sold a cow to a man named Donovan.  He got $40 for her.  She was a fine cow, red in color, but only a scrub, of course.  We needed the money and had more cows.  Anyway, Donovan led the cow to Belle Plaine and there loaded her in a wagon or truck drawn by oxen.  At Jordan he picked another cow and took both to West St. Paul.  He wintered them and along in May put them in a pasture along the river.

          “Our cow had had a calf and seemed contented in her new home.  But one day, along about the first of June, both cows broke out of the pasture and disappeared, leaving the calf, which was probably tied up, behind. Donovan hunted for the cows high and low and decided they might have fallen in the river.  But he write to us to learn if we had seen anything of the cow, and we sent word back that we had seen no sign of her.  There the matter ended for the time being.

          “Then along in the later part of August—I know we had our harvesting and stacking done—we happened to look in the barnyard one morning and there was our cow.  She had a bell on and her udder was full.  We finally decided that she had just wandered away and had stopped at different farms, going in at night and being milked with the other cows.  Farmers along the way had probably milked her because they saw that she was fresh and had a full udder.  Any sensible farmer would do that.  Then she likely wandered on until she got to our place. She was nearly three months on the way, and, of course, we don’t know that she really started for home.  She may have simply drifted along until she got here.  But the fact is, she did get back home all by herself, all the way from West St. Paul.

          “We wrote to Donovan and he told us to keep the cow awhile.  In October he came and got her and that was the end of the cow incident.  But a good many people have found it difficult to believe the story and I am glad to have an opportunity to make public the real facts, so that people will not think we had been trying to put something over all these years.”

          The Whalens came to Minnesota from Michigan.  Thomas was born at Portage in that state in 1860.  His parents came from Ireland.  He was about 10 years old when the family settled on the farm near St. Thomas, where one son has lived continuously ever since. That section was all woods when the Whalens arrived, although several families were there ahead of them.  Among their early neighbors were Dennis Sheehan, an uncle of Thomas; Charles Denzer, Dennis Ring, John and Timothy Shea, Michael Courtney, John Merry, Thos. Healey, James Hickey, Daniel Fowler and the Connellys.  The church at St. Thomas was a log structure then.

          The Whalens farmed with oxen and lived in a log cabin.  There were seven children when the family came to Minnesota and two ore were born here. Only three are living.  This two besides Thomas are Mrs. Frank Blake and Mrs. John Buckley, both of St. Paul. These two sisters, by the way, can substantiate Mr. Whalen’s cow story both he and his wife informed the writer.  Thomas married Mary Herlihy June 28, 1892, in St. Paul.  She had been keeping house for her brother, Daniel Herlihy, near the Whalen farm.  Mrs. Whalen is a native of county Cork and the rich, charming brogue of old Ireland still distinctly marks her accent, and there is no danger of mistaking Thomas for a Swede or a Bohemian from his accent for that matter.

          The elder Whalen died in 1880 and his widow’s death occurred 14 years ago.  Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Whalen have three children, all boys—James, John and Thomas. They live at home and operate a farm near St. Thomas, which their father bought three years ago in addition to the home place.

          “Times have changed since I was a lad here,” Mr. Whalen mused. “it was a wild country then, but all the new improvements have come right into our neighborhood.  The news comes in by radio and every little while an airplane passes overhead.” “Ah, yes, there have been changes,” he added as he shook his grey head. But Mr. Whalen and his good wife both chuckled heartily as amusing incidents were recalled and gave evidence that they have not been cheated of their share of happiness, which by the way, they found for themselves.—Midland Feature Service.

Belle Plaine Herald, 19 February 1931