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Minnesota's State Flag 
 (By courtesy of the Secretary of State of Minnesota) 
 
OUR MINNESOTA 
 
 A HISTORY FOR CHILDREN 
 
 BY 
 
 HESTER McLEAN POLLOCK 
 
 TEACHER OF 
 
 HISTORY" AND CIVICS IN THE SAINT PAUL HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 MEMBER OF 
 
 THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
.T7J 
 
 Copyright, is>i7 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 APR "4 1917 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 ©aA457842 
 
3^ 
 
 
 This Little Book on 
 OUR STATE 
 
 IS SINCERELY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 MY CHILDREN OF "CENTRAL" 
 
 AND TO THEIR CHILDREN 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In giving to the public this little book on the 
 History of Minnesota, the author makes no claim 
 that much is presented in the way of new material, 
 but hopes that the fact that it is written for chil- 
 dren will make it possible, as it has not been before, 
 for the children of Minnesota to learn the history 
 of her past and hence to love it. 
 
 While many things are necessarily omitted, not 
 only for lack of space, but also because they are 
 not of particular interest to children, the aim 
 throughout the work is accuracy. The sotirces 
 which have been used are to be found largely in 
 the diaries and papers of the Minnesota Historical 
 Society, reliance put largely upon the statements 
 of those who helped to make the history here related. 
 
 The author acknowledges, most gratefully, the 
 help and encouragement received from the His- 
 torical Society of Minnesota, the Forestry Depart- 
 ment, Minnesota Department of Education, and 
 also her obligation to the Department of State for 
 the use of valuable material. 
 
 Thanks are due to T. E. Rickard, G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, Miss Bessie Twigg, and Hanford Gordon for 
 the use of copyrighted material. 
 
 vii 
 
viii Preface 
 
 The author wishes to acknowledge her indebted- 
 ness to the late James J. Hill for valuable material 
 in the chapter on transportation; and to Maj. 
 R. I. Holcombe for his assistance in regard to the 
 Indian massacres; and she cannot too fully express 
 her gratitude to Mr. Warren Upham, the learned 
 archeologist of the State of Minnesota, for his 
 helpfulness in placing material at her disposal, as 
 well as for his interest in everything concerning the 
 book. 
 
 She wishes particularly to thank Miss Boody and 
 her helpers for their zeal and untiring loyalty in 
 typing the entire manuscript. 
 
 We are apt to lay much stress upon the necessity 
 for teaching the responsibilities of citizenship, but 
 it is really more important that we plant in the 
 hearts of children a love for the place where they 
 live, so that the care and responsibility for it will 
 grow as a natural result. 
 
 If anything written here shall make the children 
 of Minnesota love their State more, and feel more 
 deeply the heritage which is theirs and the duty 
 which they owe to this Commonwealth, the book 
 will have attained its object. 
 
 Hester M. Pollock. 
 
 St. Faul, July, 19 16. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — Minnesota, Sky-ey Water 
 
 II. — The First Minnesotan 
 III. — The Red Man's World 
 IV. — What the Red Man Left us 
 
 V. — How WE Gained the Land 
 
 From the White Men. 
 Treaties with the Indians. 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 46 
 56 
 
 VI. — The First White Man . . 79 
 
 Explorers. 
 Missions. 
 
 VII. — Minnesota, The Gopher State 112 
 
 VIII. — Early Days .... 127 
 
 Fort Snelling. 
 Old Settlers. 
 Pioneer Minnesota. 
 
 IX. — The Gift of the Forests . .161 
 
 X. — Watch us Grow . . . 181 
 
 XI. — Minnesota, The Bread and 
 
 Butter State . . .191 
 
 ix 
 
X Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XII. — The Sad Story .... 204 
 
 War against Slavery. 
 Indian Outbreaks. 
 
 XIII. — Getting from Place to Place . 233 
 
 XIV. — The Father of Waters and Ten 
 
 Thousand Lakes . . . 259 
 
 XV. — Troublous Times . . . 277 
 
 XVI. — How THE State Cares for her 
 
 Children .... 285 
 
 Education. 
 Protection. 
 
 XVII. — The Treasures of the Earth . 300 
 
 Mines. 
 Stones. 
 
 XVIII. — Some Legacies . . . .312 
 
 Landmarks. 
 Great Men. 
 The Historical Society. 
 
 XIX. — Minnesota, the Star of the 
 
 North ..... 332 
 
 Today and Tomorrow. 
 
 Governors of Minnesota . . . 356 
 
 Dates to Remember .... 357 
 
 Index 359 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Minnesota's State Flag. . Frontispiece 
 
 Our State Flower, the Moccasin Flower 
 
 Maiden Rock or Lovers' Leap, Lake 
 Pepin 
 
 Minnehaha Falls .... 
 
 The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, 1851 
 
 Father Galtier's Chapel of St. Paul 
 
 Joe Rolette (Tailpiece) . 
 
 A Dog Train (Tailpiece) 
 
 Old Guard House, Fort Snelling . 
 
 Henry Mower Rice 
 
 Franklin Steele ' . . : . 
 
 Alexander Ramsey. 
 
 Mississippi River Ferry at Fort Snelling, 
 1865 
 
 Central House, where the first Legis- 
 lature MET 
 
 Firebreak in Koochiching County . 
 
 xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xiii "^ 
 
 108 ^ 
 
 iii^ 
 
 126^ 
 
 133^ 
 141^ 
 141^ 
 
 152- 
 154 
 
 154-- 
 
 177- 
 
xii Illustrations 
 
 Old Betz, the Berry Picker . 
 
 **In Sunday Best," Pioneer Days . 
 
 Fourth Minnesota Entering Vicksburg 
 
 Interior of Fort Ridgely, Built in 1856 
 
 Exterior View of Fort Ridgely . 
 
 Charles E. Flandrau 
 
 Red River Ox Cart {Tailpiece) 
 
 *'The Infant Mississippi," Itasca Park 
 
 Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul 
 
 Sibley House, Built in 1835 . 
 
 Henry Hastings Sibley . 
 
 State Capitol, St. Paul 
 
 PAGE 
 194 
 
 194 
 
 204 
 
 217 
 
 217 
 
 231 
 
 256 
 
 271 
 
 285 
 
 312 
 
 312 
 
 332 
 
Our State Flower. The Moccasin Flower 
 (By courtesy of the Secretary of State of Minnesota) 
 
THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 
 
 Far wandering from a foreign shore, 
 
 I stand amid the silent places, 
 And strive to people, as of yore, 
 
 These woods with vanished dusky races, 
 Till, back from days that are no more. 
 
 They rise from out the earth's embraces. 
 
 But here did pixies ever dwell? 
 
 (I muse on childhood's well-loved story) 
 What evidence is left to tell 
 
 An alien of their elfin glory? 
 When, lo! on this my charmed eyes fell — 
 
 A radiance in a forest hoary. 
 
 Quaint, curious shoelet that I find, 
 
 In dainty pink, in daintier yellow, 
 *Tis very sure thou wert designed 
 
 By pix for fairy Cinderella; 
 Thou'rt much more suited, to my mind, 
 
 Than boot of buckskin or prunella. 
 
 And did she dance unto the dawn, 
 
 That night when Hiawatha wedded. 
 And, hurrying homeward through the dawn. 
 
 When all good souls were safely bedded, 
 Ne'er miss you till, alas! you'd gone. 
 
 Nor mind the spot where you were shedded? 
 
 She sleepeth yet. Who knows the rest? 
 
 Some day the prince, his elf horn bringing. 
 May find the object of his quest 
 
 And wake her with its joyous ringing. 
 Then, hand-in-hand, into the West 
 
 They two will fare forth, loving, singing. 
 
 B. R. T. 
 xiii 
 
OUR MINNESOTA 
 
Our Minnesota 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MINNESOTA, SKY-EY WATER 
 
 Minnesota, "Sky-tinted water," so the Sioux 
 Indians called it, and we have never been able to 
 find a better or more beautiful name. The word 
 Minne-so-tah describes the queer milky appearance 
 of the water when, in the early springtime, it rises 
 high and, lashing against its banks, wears away the 
 clay which falls in and makes it turbid-looking. 
 The name was given first to the river from which 
 the State was later named. If you want to know 
 what it really means, some day when you are going 
 by a brook or a lake let a handful of dirt slide 
 gently and softly in ; or let a few drops of milk fall 
 into a glass of water, and there' you get the same 
 lovely, mysterious, cloudy effect which one sees 
 on a summer day all over our beautiful State, 
 spread with lakes. The way the water looks with 
 
2 Our Minnesota 
 
 the clouds in the blue sky, mirrored back, that is 
 the best of all, for if there's any such thing as a 
 "sky tint'* we show it reflected in the thousands of 
 lakes that are scattered all over Minnesota's surface. 
 ' Our wonderful State is eighty-four thousand 
 square miles in size or fifty-three millions of acres, 
 and if it were all cut up into farms it would give 
 each person living in the State a farm of almost 
 thirty acres. It is nearly half as large as the whole 
 of Sweden and more than half the size of Norway, 
 while if England were put into our State there 
 would be a great edge left over all the way around. 
 It is about one fortieth the size of the United 
 States, although it is only one of the forty-eight 
 States, and of them all there are only nine larger. 
 One fifteenth of the whole State is made up of water 
 — lakes and rivers. From north to south it is 
 three hundred and eighty miles; from east to west 
 in its widest part it is three hundred and forty-six 
 miles, and one might ride in a railroad train from 
 north to south all day long, and from east to west 
 all night long, and never leave the State. Lake 
 Alexander near the city of Brainerd is almost exactly 
 in the center of Minnesota. 
 
 If you were standing on the highest ridge in the 
 State and could see the ocean, if it were not too 
 far off, you would be two thousand and two hun- 
 dred feet above it. The lowest part of the State 
 
Minnesota, Sky-ey Water 3 
 
 is six hundred and two feet above the sea on the 
 shore of Lake Superior, less than twenty miles 
 away from the highest point on the Misquah Hills 
 northeast of the Mesabi Range, or Giant Hills as 
 the Indians called them. 
 
 The United States has a surface of two ridges and 
 a central plain, and Minnesota is in the center of 
 that plain. In fact it is the very central spot of 
 North America. 
 
 The western part of our State is low and rolling, 
 almost flat, unless you are walking on it, when you 
 find that you really go up and down, because the 
 surface is in waves like the ocean, and we always 
 speak of it as the rolling prairie. This great plain, 
 as we call the prairie land, is lowest along the Red 
 River, on the western boundary. 
 
 In the southeast we find bluffs, from two hundred 
 to six hundred feet high, and along the north 
 shore of Lake Superior, great headlands of frowning 
 rock which rise above the lake, and here the water 
 has dashed for hundreds of years, cutting out caves 
 and little islands along the edges, making it one of 
 the loveliest spots in nature. 
 
 The rivers of Minnesota flow in three different 
 directions. Half of all the water flows out through 
 the Mississippi, and from rivers which flow into it, 
 south, past all the center of the United States, into 
 the Gulf of Mexico. Northern and northeastern 
 
4 Our Minnesota 
 
 streams flow into Lake Superior and so on, down 
 through the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic Ocean. 
 Red River, on our western boundary, and Rainy- 
 River on the north flow north into Lake Winnipeg 
 and on up through many lakes and rivers until they 
 reach Hudson Bay, way up in Canada on the way 
 to the north pole. 
 
 Red Lake, which includes four hundred and forty 
 square miles, is the largest lake inside of any State 
 in the Union. Mille Lac and Leech Lake and 
 Vermilion are very large, as you will see by look- 
 ing at the map. Winnibigoshish is almost as big 
 as its name sounds. There are ten thousand of 
 these lakes in Minnesota, all of them beautiful, 
 and most of them swarming with fish of many 
 kinds. 
 
 These lakes and rivers, which we love so much, 
 were loved, too, by the Indian who found them 
 such an easy way to get from place to place. Hun- 
 dreds of years before the White Man came here, 
 the graceful canoes of the Red Man traveled up 
 and down these waterways, sometimes shooting 
 the rapids or falls going down, but usually carried 
 around them, and these "portages" then made 
 were the first real roads of Minnesota. 
 
 Along the edges of the lakes grew the wild rice, 
 which was the food of the Indian and made these 
 shores picnic grounds where the wild ducks and 
 
Minnesota, Sky-ey Water 5 
 
 geese used to come regularly when they were 
 driven down by the cold of the north, and where 
 they stayed until the snow came, and lakes and 
 rivers were frozen up. So you see the same thing 
 which attracted the Indian attracted the birds, and 
 in this way the Indian gained a great deal of his 
 food. 
 
 Today most of the Indians are gone and only a 
 few of the wild fowl come here to feed, but the wild 
 rice still grows year by year on the edges of the 
 lakes, which are inviting as ever, and where we 
 love to go in the summer. They attract thousands 
 of people from other places where there are no 
 such beauty spots and they spend the summer here 
 rejoicing in the cool winds which blow across the 
 waters. 
 
 Can you realize what it would mean to live in a 
 place where you couldn't swim, or skate, or row, or 
 paddle, or skip stones, or wade excepting in a tank 
 inside of a building? Well, these pleasures are 
 especially yours because you live where you 
 do. 
 
 Everywhere in Minnesota where there aren't 
 lakes and excepting on the rolling prairie, were 
 once deep forests, where many kinds of trees and 
 shrubs grew, and along their edges rare flowers 
 of all sorts, because right here we are between 
 the northern growth — which is different from 
 
6 Our Minnesota 
 
 the temperate — and the temperate growth, so we 
 get the plants and trees which live in both 
 climates. 
 
 I could never tell you all the kinds of trees we 
 have in Minnesota, because that would take another 
 book, but we must speak about a few, and then you 
 can see how many of them you know. 
 
 Of evergreens, in the north there are pines, white 
 spruce, and fir, and in the swamps, tamarack, black 
 spruce, and white cedar; all beautiful in winter as 
 well as summer, whether their dark green needles 
 show against the lighter green of the other trees, 
 or whether they stand up grand and stately under 
 a burden of pure white snow. We find in the 
 central and southern part of the State hardwoods 
 which are so useful; hard maples from which the 
 Indians took the sap to make the maple sugar; 
 basswood or linden which bears such sweet flowers 
 about the Fourth of July; great elms ("slippery 
 elm") and red oak. 
 
 In the southeast are black oak, black walnut, 
 which is suitable for furniture, and shell-bark 
 hickory, so hard and durable that it is more useful 
 than any other kind of wood for axe handles and 
 other things which need strong fiber. Along the 
 rivers are tall cottonwood and graceful poplar, box 
 elder and white elm. The wild fruit trees are : plum, 
 crabapple, and black cherry. 
 
Minnesota, Sky-ey Water 7 
 
 Scattered through the woods, fringing their 
 edges and bordering the lakes, are many shrubs 
 and vines, among them prickly ash, smooth sumac, 
 frost grape, Virginia creeper, bittersweet, red and 
 black raspberries, gooseberry, blackcurrant, cornel, 
 wolfberry, honeysuckle, elder, viburnum, and 
 hazelnut. 
 
 In the woods and dotting the prairies in the spring- 
 time and all through the summer until late autumn 
 covers them with white snow are the flowers. 
 Early come the pasque flower which is the very 
 first, violets of many kinds, phlox, spiderwort, and 
 roses. Later we have clover, which is useful as 
 well as pretty, harebell, gentian, which is very rare, 
 larkspur, and evening primrose of pale yellow, blaz- 
 ing star and false indigo, and in the early autumn 
 sunflower, vetch, aster, gerardia, and many kinds 
 of goldenrod. These are only a few of the many 
 flowers in Minnesota. 
 
 One of the early explorers tells us in his diary that 
 every part of this region "is filled with trees, 
 bending under loads of fruit — plums, grapes, and 
 apples. The meadow is covered with hops and 
 many vegetables and the ground full of useful 
 roots, anjelica and groundnuts." We read too of 
 wild potatoes and artichokes. 
 
 In the early days oiu: woods were the homes of 
 wild animals — bear, deer, and antelope — and the 
 
8 Our Minnesota 
 
 prairies were covered with feeding herds of huge 
 buffalo or bison. 
 
 The climate of Minnesota is considered very 
 healthful and the air is so dry that the extreme 
 cold is not felt as it would be if it were damper, 
 and is so fresh and pure that it makes people active, 
 so there is no excuse for laziness here. 
 
 Now it is very interesting to us, and it is going 
 to be the purpose of our book to show how the 
 White Man has used the lakes and forests; how 
 he has hunted the animals, sold the fur, and driven 
 off the herds from the prairies so that he might 
 plant great fields of grain to feed the world; how 
 he has changed the waterfalls into power and the 
 rivers into useful trade routes ; how he has covered 
 the parts of the State that were hard to get at, with 
 railroads ; how after he cut the forests off the great 
 ridges, underneath the earth he found such treas- 
 ures of mineral wealth as no other place in the 
 world has discovered. So today instead of great 
 prairies with roving bands of Indians and herds of 
 great wild beasts, instead of magnificent dense 
 forests sheltering every sort of little animal life, 
 and quiet lakes where the sun rose and set only on 
 the timid birds and here and there an Indian 
 family; and in place of the great rivers flowing 
 northward, eastward, or westward bearing only now 
 and then an Indian canoe, we have many cities 
 
Minnesota, Sky-ey Water 9 
 
 where hundreds of thousands of people find homes 
 and work. 
 
 Thousands of miles of railroad carry food and 
 clothing and shelter throughout our country; our 
 great forests are turned into homes and warmth 
 and furnishings for the people of many States; and 
 our lakes give health and rest to the people tired 
 of working, so they may go back to their work 
 stronger and better for them; our mines are turn- 
 ing out iron for great furnaces, rails and engines to 
 carry man where he would go and to give him what 
 he needs. Today we hear the noise of the ceaseless 
 wheels of industry instead of the sounds of nature, 
 and see the smoke of factories and furnaces instead 
 of camp fires. 
 
 So we shall look at what we have done in this 
 Minnesota of ours and see whether we have done 
 it well, and whether it has been wise to change 
 "Minnesota, Sky-ey Water," into "Minnesota, the 
 North Star State." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FIRST MINNESOTAN 
 
 The first people who were in our beloved State 
 were not white like most of us, nor black like a 
 few of us, for the ancestors of all the white people 
 came from Europe and the ancestors of all the 
 black people from Africa. The people who really 
 owned this country were not our relatives at all 
 but the so-called Indian or "red man," who isn't 
 red at all but sort of copper color, some of them 
 like dull tarnished metal and others like highly 
 polished bronze. 
 
 These people are called Indians all over America 
 because when Columbus, the first man from Europe 
 to write about them, saw them he thought he had 
 gotten to India, the place he was looking for. For 
 many years afterward, people thought that the 
 whole of America was a mere strip of land not 
 nearly so wide as Minnesota, instead of a vast 
 country almost three thousand miles wide, and if 
 their belief had been true, we shouldn't have had 
 any Minnesota at all. 
 
 People don't agree as to the way these Indians 
 
 10 
 
p The First Minnesotan ii 
 
 came to Minnesota. Some think they came from 
 the east and others from the west, while a few 
 believe that they came down from the north, but 
 at any rate here they are. The first whites came 
 into this far western land more than a hundred 
 years after Columbus had lived and died, and we 
 do know that all the white people came from the 
 east and south, as everybody who came from 
 Europe had settled along the Atlantic shore, or on 
 the edges of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Our Minnesota Indians were like all the other 
 Indians in the United States in some things and 
 different from any others in some things, enough 
 alike so that we are sure that once, ages ago, they 
 were the same people and perhaps the same as 
 the Japanese and the Filipinos and the Eskimos. 
 
 They were all wild, roving, uncivilized, without 
 education, and the ones in Minnesota were es- 
 pecially fierce and revengeful. Perhaps they had 
 been made so by sad things long before we ever 
 knew them. Losing to the white men their homes 
 and the beautiful lakes and valleys which they 
 loved so well, didn't make them any happier ! 
 
 There were two families of Indians in what is 
 today Minnesota and the Mississippi Valley; one, 
 called by the French the ''People of the Lakes," 
 called themselves the Dakotas, which means a 
 union of many, like our own **E Pluribus Unum. " 
 
12 Our Minnesota 
 
 History gives many a story of people standing 
 alone against their enemies and failing, then unit- 
 ing for strength against a foe, as did these Indians. 
 This foe was probably the Ojibwa or Ojibway, 
 which we call Chippewa, of whom we shall speak 
 later. 
 
 The first Indians are commonly called Sioux, a 
 nickname given by the traders for a much longer one, 
 Nadowaysioux. The Chippewas always called 
 them this name, which means ''hated enemy," 
 just as the Greeks called their foes "barbarians," 
 which meant not able to talk Greek, and so the 
 word barbarian today has come to mean uneducated 
 or not civilized. The Sioux, as we shall call them, 
 lived very early about Mille Lac, which they called 
 Spirit Lake because they believed that the Great 
 Spirit protected them there. They spread all over 
 what is now western and southern Minnesota and 
 built the mounds which are scattered here and 
 there along the Mississippi Valley. They wandered 
 over the country, gathering berries in the summer, 
 wild rice in the late autumn, and had plenty of 
 game and fish from the woods and lakes, around 
 which there were no other people than themselves, 
 and in November the whole tribe went on a yearly 
 buffalo hunt to get meat for the winter. The 
 children had no school; early they learned to use 
 bows and arrows ; always heard of war and hunting 
 
The First Minnesotan 13 
 
 until they thought they were the only things in 
 the world for a man to learn. At sixteen a boy had 
 often made his war-club, gone on the war-path 
 and destroyed things, instead of learning how to 
 make the useful and helpful things that you do to- 
 day. The little girls learned to weave clothing for 
 their fathers and brothers and to make beadwork 
 for decorating the "braves," as they called their 
 best fighters. 
 
 It all sounds very pleasant: no long hours of 
 school, every day like Saturday or vacation, and 
 no lessons to study, but they had no settled homes, 
 no way to keep clean, no clean clothes, no books, 
 not even moving pictures. 
 
 The tee-pees, or tepees, which were their houses, the 
 women, or squaws, carried from place to place, on 
 long marches lasting often many days. For they 
 had no street cars nor even streets, but walked 
 up and down through the forests and over the high 
 hills, until they found a place with food where 
 they would settle for a little while. The squaw 
 would cut poles about ten feet long; fasten them 
 together at the top, and cover them with skins 
 sewed together. One of these poles she planted 
 firmly in the ground; then the others were spread 
 around, the loose ends making a circle, the whole 
 covered with the skins. A fire was built in the 
 middle and over it swung a pot or kettle around 
 
14 Our Minnesota 
 
 which they all sat and out of which the squaw 
 ladled their food. They had no dishes, nor knives 
 and forks, nor table, and if the men had killed 
 an animal they had a good meal; if not, a poor one, 
 for they had no stores in which to buy things. 
 
 In the summer time they ate and lived almost 
 entirely out of doors, but in the winter time inside 
 the tepee, which had no windows, and where they 
 had no lights but the fire. After the big game 
 gave out in Minnesota, the Indians often covered 
 their tepees with bark instead of skins. 
 
 Life in an Indian village couldn't have been very 
 pleasant. It was dirty, untidy, with no stores, 
 no lights, no churches — nothing was sweet or clean 
 or wholesome. The Sioux had no regular time for 
 sleep or for eating, and while they often feasted for 
 days at a time, and nights at a time, they were 
 often cold and hungry. 
 
 In the summer the men wore shirts and trousers 
 and leggings of buckskin, often fringed and beau- 
 tifully decorated by the squaws, and after the 
 traders came they dressed in gay blankets. They 
 painted their faces and clothes from dyes which 
 they made themselves, and wore ornaments of 
 shells, teeth, feathers, and anything glittering or un- 
 usual. They called all their ornaments "wampum," 
 and used them instead of money whenever they 
 wanted to trade. 
 
The First Minnesotan 15 
 
 The Dakota Dandy was as proud of his clothes 
 as any young man that you now meet on the street 
 wearing a suit in the latest fashion. 
 
 The full habit of the Dakota chief Wanotah 
 consisted of: "A cloak or mantle of white, dressed 
 buffalo skin covered with tufts of owls' feathers and 
 the colored plumage of birds. This was the famous 
 'feather blanket' or mantle. He wore a splendid 
 necklace of fully sixty glassy bears' claws; leggings, 
 jacket, and moccasins of white skins, much deco- 
 rated with human hair and embroidered in a 
 pattern of porcupine quills. In his hair were nine 
 painted sticks fastened with red cloth, to show the 
 number of gunshot wounds he had received. Two 
 braids of hair fell forward over his face, which was 
 painted brilliant with vermilion. He carried a 
 huge turkey-feather fan, which he waved in a dig- 
 nified way. His son wore a great bonnet of 
 war eagle feathers, which reached way below his 
 knees in the back. The dress and cape of white 
 ermine skins were much too large, as the suit had 
 been made for his father." 
 
 In order to honor a guest, the tribe always 
 gave a dance. The braves were all dressed in 
 their finest and wore all kinds of queer ornaments. 
 At a dance once given to a pioneer one of them 
 had an open paper of pins fastened to his head- 
 dress. 
 
i6 Our Minnesota 
 
 The braves began the dance by stooping and 
 running forward a few paces, singing in a low tone 
 which gradually rose and ended with a shrill yell, 
 then stopped and began all over again. This was 
 rather ridiculous, but the song would have made 
 one decidedly uncomfortable if he had heard it 
 when he was alone and not sure of the friendliness of 
 the Indians. 
 
 The Indians were always very fond of games. 
 The most interesting one, called Ta-kap-si-ka-pi, 
 the Sioux pla3^ed on a prairie near the Mississippi 
 River, and the Canadian French liked it so well 
 that they learned it too, and called it "la crosse." 
 So the place was named that, from the game, and 
 is now the town of LaCrosse, where they used to 
 ship a great deal of lumber down the Mississippi 
 River. The game of la crosse was a good deal like 
 hockey or football, only it was played with a 
 long stick curved at the end, with a net in the 
 curve, somewhat like a small tennis racket with 
 a long handle. The players were divided into 
 two sides and tried to get the ball into the opposite 
 goal. The French played the game with ten or 
 twelve on a side, but the Indians had a whole band 
 or camp as rivals. When they could no longer 
 play at LaCrosse they used the prairie which is 
 now near St. Peter. 
 
 The Indians always played all their games with 
 
The First Minnesotan 17 
 
 stakes, not just for the fun of it, and the stake- 
 holder was a very important man. He took his 
 place on his horse on one side and an Indian would 
 come up and offer his pony as his stake. Pretty 
 soon another Indian would bring up a pony to 
 play against this one and if they were of equal 
 value it was all right, but sometimes four or five 
 would be offered before one was taken. They put 
 up everything they had, feathers, bows and ar- 
 rows, and sometimes even their clothes. 
 
 The players wore no uniform, but were dressed 
 in a pair of trunks, and their bodies were painted 
 in streaks and stripes of red and black and blue and 
 yellow, for the worse they looked, the better pleased 
 they were. Sometimes in playing they scattered 
 over a mile of prairie. The game was a very excit- 
 ing one, because they never stopped until they 
 were absolutely tired out, instead of having a set 
 number of innings or playing until a certain time. 
 The\' used to play over a wild country where there 
 were many snakes, which they killed as they ran, 
 and sometimes a hundred were left dead on the 
 field by the end of the afternoon. After all their 
 games they had a great feast, which they usually 
 kept up half the night, and the victors were as 
 important as the football champions of today. 
 
 The Sioux were a very cruel people. They had 
 never been taught any better, and when tracking 
 
i8 Our Minnesota 
 
 an enemy, skulked along in the woods or crept low 
 on the prairie until he was caught unawares; then 
 the Indian scalped him with a tomahawk, a short cir- 
 cular knife set on a handle, and took the scalp home 
 with him in triumph. This was not mere cruelty, 
 but for proof that he had killed him, as it was the 
 only proof that no one might contradict. Then the 
 tribe would have a scalp dance. The squaw would 
 dry the scalp on which the hair was left and attach 
 it to a hoop with handles, and while the men 
 danced, their figures all painted up, crouching low, 
 holding their tomahawks high, the women, waving 
 the scalps, would come into the circle with queer 
 little cries, which were fairly inhuman, and they 
 would all dance until they fell tired out. The 
 scalp dances kept up, if the victim was killed in 
 the summer, every night until the leaves fell, and 
 if in the winter, until the leaves came out in the 
 spring. Anyone who had scalped a man or woman 
 was allowed to wear an eagle feather in his hair, 
 and sometimes an Indian chief would have what 
 was called a "bonnet" of feathers cut to encircle his 
 head. The bonnet of a great chief sometimes 
 reached clear down to his knees, because scalping 
 was considered the greatest thing that anyone 
 could do. You see the Indian didn't know any 
 better, and thought that if he didn't kill his enemy 
 he would surely be killed by him. 
 
The First Minnesotan 19 
 
 All people who progress at all settle down as soon 
 as they learn to farm, and the Indians, who at first 
 wandered from place to place, gradually settled 
 down for a part of the year in the same place, 
 and all the little Indian villages had near them 
 many patches of corn. All the people who lived 
 in a village belonged to the same band, which 
 means that they were related or connected with 
 one another like one great family. 
 
 Besides maize, which the Europeans called com, 
 they raised tobacco. One tribe, because they 
 raised so much, was called the Tobacco Tribe. 
 Some of them raised squash and potatoes, and they 
 had ponies and dogs. The}'- called the dog chunka, 
 and the horse, waken chunka, which means ''spirit 
 dog. " The dogs they ate as great luxuries, or when 
 there was a famine, though the Indians near the 
 lakes lived a good deal on wild rice and fish. 
 
 They made beautiful bows and arrows and pipes 
 worked in copper and silver, and dyed their skins 
 and the skins of animals with colors which they 
 made themselves from berries and roots. The arrow 
 heads were made of flint, which was very hard to 
 chip off. There were at least ten Indian villages 
 where the city of St. Paul is today, but one 
 by one they were all deserted, as the wandering 
 spirit took the people away or their enemies fright- 
 ened them off. — 
 
20 Our Minnesota 
 
 THE OJIBWAYS 
 
 The other tribe in Minnesota was the Ojibway, 
 which the White Men called Chippewa. We shall 
 see these people after the white man came instead 
 of earlier, as we did the Sioux. They live today on 
 the reservations of Red Lake, Leech Lake, Pigeon 
 River, Nett Lake, and White Earth, and also, at 
 Cass Lake, Winnibigoshish, and at Mille Lac where 
 they settled after they had driven away their 
 enemies, the Sioux, who, you remember, used to 
 call Mille Lac their own place. They still love 
 their lakes and rivers where they used to live, and 
 they are still called Fish Indians because they 
 would rather eat fish than anything else. 
 
 They used to live almost entirely upon fish, 
 which were plentiful, as thousands of Minnesota 
 lakes were teeming with them. The Indians called 
 these Tullibees, their name for our white fish. 
 They were caught in the fall, before the ice formed, 
 and hung on scaffolds to freeze. Every Indian 
 village had these scaffolds scattered all through 
 it. Sometimes warm weather would come and the 
 entire food supply for the whole village would 
 spoil, and then the winter was indeed a starv- 
 ing time. 
 
 The Ojibway was tall and muscular (often six 
 feet, four inches tall), had beautiful hands, and 
 
The First Minnesotan 21 
 
 walked with a springing step, as though he were 
 the lord of creation. The only Indians left like 
 them seem to be the Nez Perces, who live in Idaho 
 and sometimes come into the towns holding their 
 heads as high as though they were kings, as indeed 
 they used to be. The Ojibways had very thick, 
 black hair, which never turned white no matter 
 how old they were. They had beautiful teeth, 
 were sinewy, and could swing along a trail all day 
 without getting tired. The women were all tall, 
 but had no beauty of face or figtire. They trudged 
 or plodded along on the trails, as they well might 
 because for hundreds of years the women packed 
 all the household goods and often carried burdens 
 of two hundred pounds. Many times a squaw 
 would carry the birch-bark canoes, rush mats, 
 cooking utensils, and on top of all, perch the baby. 
 The Ojibways were blanket Indians, though as 
 soon as they learned dress from the white men. they 
 wore cotton shirts and leggings, though they never 
 could be induced to give up their moccasins. 
 These Ojibways were very hard to civilize, because 
 they loved their old customs, and some of the 
 earlier missionaries tell us that the congregation used 
 to go from church to an Indian dance and whoop 
 and jump with the best of them. Once after a mis- 
 sionary at Red Lake had worked with them all sum- 
 mer and felt sure that they had really adopted the 
 
22 Our Minnesota 
 
 new religion, an old grand medicine man (a high 
 order of the medicine men) came to the village. 
 The missionary was discouraged to see his con- 
 verts take off their civilized clothes and join in the 
 dances, and to hear them boast of the Sioux they 
 had scalped, and he tells us that they ate so many 
 dogs at that dance that they all went home barking. 
 
 The Leech Lake Indians were always very fierce. 
 They were wild blanket men, with painted faces, 
 long scalp locks, and feathers. But on the reserva- 
 tions there are now very few blankets and most of 
 the scalp locks are gone. The villages used to be 
 surrounded with great stones and on all of them 
 were offerings of tobacco to make friendly any of 
 the gods who might come by. 
 
 The Ojibways lived in bark wigwams, which 
 were very cold, as there were great cracks between 
 the layers of bark, yet many of them even now leave 
 their comfortable houses and live in the summer in 
 these one-room bark wigwams. They all sat on rush 
 mats around the fire in the center, and the fire 
 kept their faces warm, but their backs were very 
 cold. When a visitor came he lifted the blanket 
 door, because you must never knock at an Indian's 
 home. They were very sociable and glad to see 
 visitors, although they didn't often tell you that 
 you were welcome. In an Ojibway house peo- 
 ple sat opposite the door, where was the bed 
 
The First Minnesotan 23 
 
 which was also the seat of the master of the house, 
 and if he was very glad to see you, the father of the 
 family gave you his seat, just as we always like to 
 give the best we have to any of our friends who 
 come to see us. Around the fire was a fender of 
 small sticks, and it wasn't polite to move nearer to 
 the fire than this little barrier. On a sapling hung 
 one or more pots or kettles. 
 
 These Indians were very curious about all that 
 happened and, instead of being (silent and morose 
 like the Sioux, were very cheerful and talka- 
 tive and laughed a great deal. They loved to tell 
 stories of early days, among them, stories of the 
 moose and elk herding together by the hundred, 
 and of killing them off with axes. They say now 
 that they never thought that these animals could 
 grow any less in number, but of course when the 
 white man came and cut off the timber, there 
 wasn't any place for them to live longer. The 
 little children (who even in the coldest weather 
 wore only a cotton shirt), fat and dirty, swarmed 
 around the floor, falling over everything and being 
 laughed at just as white children would be. The 
 jib way father was very fond of his children and 
 very affectionate. 
 
 Housekeeping was very easy and simple even in 
 the winter. When she happened to think of it, one 
 of the older women (because you must remember 
 
24 Our Minnesota 
 
 large families lived all together in one wigwam) 
 would go outside and chop off some frozen fish, 
 which she put into a pot. If she had flour she 
 would bake bread in a pan set up on edge near 
 the fire. After the white man came, the Indian 
 learned to drink tea, and it was a great luxury with 
 him. This meal of fish with bread and tea was 
 always offered to the visitor, who was expected to 
 say '*Oongh ondjita," or "This goes to the right 
 spot." 
 
 Many of the earlier settlers tell us that the Indian 
 women were wonderful fish cooks and that this 
 simple meal was always delicious. In the fall, of 
 course, they had rice and venison and prairie 
 chickens and other good things. They ate a great 
 deal every day when they had it, but often forgot, 
 or were too lazy to store up anything for the winter, 
 and so winter was always a hard, starving time for 
 them, but they were always hospitable and always 
 friendly to the whites. They were very vain and 
 thought they sang wonderfully well. Perhaps 
 when a visitor was in a lodge the father of the 
 family would reach for his drum and play and sing 
 chants of peace or war, or whatever he happened to 
 think of, and his face would light up as though 
 he saw visions. 
 
 When "sleepy time" came the Indian mother 
 would hold up a little blanket and the child would 
 
The First Minnesotan 25 
 
 lie down wherever he happened to be, and be tucked 
 in on a mat. One by one everyone would lie down 
 with a blanket over him, his head tightly covered, 
 his feet exposed to the fire, for the Indian knew 
 that if your feet are warm you can't feel very cold. 
 As the fire died down they would curl their feet 
 up and roll up into little balls, and while the white 
 visitor with heavy clothing and an extra blanket 
 often shivered all night, the Indian slept peacefully. 
 The women never wore more than a cotton shirt, 
 a petticoat, and a calico dress, and with a cotton 
 blanket over them would sleep out in cold weather. 
 During the year the jib way Indians had a great 
 many things to do. In the winter they watched 
 carefully, eagerly, to hear the first crow call, 
 because that meant winter was over, the starving 
 time was gone, and now they would have plenty to 
 eat. Very early the whole tribe went into the 
 woods to make maple sugar, and while the women 
 made the sugar, the men went off to trap muskrats. 
 For sugar, a little slit was made in a hard sugar- 
 maple tree, and a little trough propped under the 
 slit, leading to a bucket on the ground. These 
 buckets, called mokuks, were made of birch bark. 
 Then when the sap began to run it flowed down the 
 troughs into the buckets, and the children were very 
 busy empt3^ing them into the great big iron pots 
 and kettles, which the women tended and skimmed 
 
26 Our Minnesota 
 
 over a great fire. There was always snow on the 
 ground and they were wet all day and all night, 
 but they enjoyed this part of their work more than 
 anyt hing during the year, and no one was too tired, 
 or too sick, or too old, to go into the sugar camp 
 when the sap began to run. When the men came 
 back with the pelts of a great many muskrats, they 
 all had a big feast and rejoicing which lasted until 
 the little leaves began to peek out. Then the 
 sap stopped running and the tribe all went home. 
 
 Soon time came to plant potatoes and corn. 
 Then everyone had to go out and gather strawber- 
 ries, and after that raspberries. Later the blueber- 
 ries came, which were their favorite fruit, and they 
 went many miles for them, and each tribe had 
 another camping trip like the spring one. In 
 September they cut birch bark for their canoes and 
 wigwams and dried it. Later, rashes had to be 
 gathered from the lakes for their mats. Then they 
 all fell to, and made their canoes. By that time 
 wild rice had to be gathered, and last of all came 
 the cranberry season. Each one of these different 
 occupations meant a trip and the Indians were just 
 as much excited over going camping as you would 
 be, though to us they seemed to camp all the year 
 around. Too soon the cold weather brought hunt- 
 ing, and then the squaws made the moccasins and 
 leggings for the tribe. The deer skin was stretched 
 
The First Minnesotan 27 
 
 on a square of wooden stakes and dried for a few 
 days. Then with a piece of bone the soft parts 
 on the inside were scraped off and, with a knife 
 like a plane, the hair was removed. The skin was 
 put into some sort of a vessel, covered with the 
 brains of animals and worked until it was very soft. 
 It was then stretched and dried and when finished, 
 was as soft as velvet, and if a doe skin, almost 
 pure white. The skins were often beautifully em- 
 broidered with grass, hair, quills, feathers, and 
 later, beads. 
 
 The men stayed out hunting until the first of 
 January, when the dark time of the year kept them 
 indoors until March, and again they had their sad, 
 hard, starving time until the crows came again. 
 A few days' work would have stored up all the food 
 that was necessary for the winter, and they always 
 made up their minds to turn over a new leaf, but 
 they always forgot in the summer when food and 
 sunshine were plentiful. 
 
 These Indians never even cut enough wood for 
 more than a day at a time and so it was a great 
 hardship to get the wood in the winter. Often you 
 might see, on a winter's day, the long line of squaws 
 going into the woods and coming back with great 
 heavy loads of sticks, which they threw down in 
 front of the cabins and which they had to go out 
 into the cold to get as they were needed. 
 
28 Our Minnesota 
 
 The little children, when babies, were strapped to 
 boards and tenderly cared for until they were about 
 six years old, the mother carrying them everywhere 
 she went, but after this age they were really left 
 to bring themselves up. 
 
 The jib ways were great walkers and after the 
 whites came, carried the mail, sometimes walking 
 thirty-five or forty miles a day and thinking 
 nothing of it. A story is told of one Indian, 
 the Red Lake mail carrier, used to walking an 
 average of thirty miles a day, who was asked 
 by a woman of his tribe what he did, and when 
 he told her, she said: "You have an easy time, 
 nothing to do but to pick up your money at the 
 end of the day." 
 
 These people were very secretive in regard to 
 their names and never told them, so if one must 
 be learned they let someone else tell it, and when 
 the early settlers wanted to get the name of any 
 Indian chief, they would ask someone else with an 
 air of great secrecy. The story is told of one In- 
 dian who said he didn't know his wife's name, 
 although they had been married fifteen years. 
 
 Chippewa is a very beautiful, soft language, full 
 of fanciful expressions, but it is very hard to learn, • 
 although the early missionaries and many of the 
 traders and pioneers knew it well. 
 
 We shall see that little by little both these Indian 
 
The First Minnesotan 29 
 
 tribes were pushed farther and farther west by the 
 white man until, except for a scattering few here 
 and there, they were gathered on reservations. 
 The way the United States Government gets the 
 Indians to live on reservations is to pay for their 
 lands, usually a fixed sum each year, and offer them 
 houses, stoves, wagons, sleighs, cows, and oxen. 
 Some of the people have taken up the customs and 
 habits of so-called civilization, which really means 
 putting on white men's clothes, which are not half 
 as picturesque, although they are more convenient, 
 than the Indians'. 
 
 The Ojibway chiefs, once so powerful, have little 
 influence today, although they are wonderful 
 speakers and, when they want to stir up the tribe, 
 are fiery and eloquent. The Ojibway is very 
 clever and can make a great many things, useful 
 and beautiful, but he is so lazy that he does very 
 little. The result is that he never gets anywhere 
 in development. He has a good mind and his 
 sight and hearing are very keen so that he can see 
 the glance of a deer's eye in the woods, or hear a 
 bird or the footfall of an animal at a great distance. 
 He is always patient, always polite, he never swears, 
 but he never saves anything. He is cruel to his 
 enemies and to animals. He doesn't even take 
 care of his own ponies and often leaves them out 
 in the winter cold. 
 
30 Our Minnesota 
 
 Red Lake, which is really twin lakes, both of 
 them large, is the present home of many of the 
 Ojibways, who live along the shores on their re- 
 servations and on the narrow point between the 
 two parts of the lake. Their houses of logs, with 
 one room, have chimneys made by themselves, of 
 whitish clay. These Indians are most of them 
 Christians and are the most thrifty of all our 
 Indians. 
 
 The Leech Lake Indians, who are Christians 
 too, have larger houses, neat, light, and airy, with 
 little gardens beside them, and they are a great 
 contrast to their neighbors north, the Cass Lake 
 Indians, who are heathen and are shiftless and 
 dirt}?-, and their houses little and poor. 
 
 For many years the Indians lived on the edges of 
 our towns all over the State, but usually in the 
 north. It is only a few years since Old Bets, the 
 most famous relic of the Sioux squaws, ceased to 
 haunt the railroad station and the river levee in 
 Saint Paul, hoping to pick up coins from tourists, 
 and indeed her hopes were justified. 
 
 John Bluestone, an Indian chief, lived for many 
 years at Shakopee, going to Prior Lake in the 
 summer to fish and gather berries for the hotel, 
 and his children and grandchildren are still about 
 these places. 
 
Maiden Rock, or Lover's Leap, Lake Pepin 
 (From the E. A. Bromley Collection) 
 
 Minnehaha Falls 
 (By courtesy of the Haynes Photograph Co.) 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RED man's WORLD 
 
 The Indians were too ignorant to know about 
 God the Father, but had their own stories about 
 creation and believed that there were many gods. 
 Anything the Indian loved or feared, hated or 
 admired, he thought had something to do with 
 a god. When the winds rustled he thought it was 
 the voice of a god, when the fire burned brightly he 
 thought it was a god's hand that did it, and we don't 
 wonder that when he looked up at the stars at night, 
 he thought there were gods behind them. So he 
 prayed to the sun, the moon, stones, dogs, and trees, 
 but he believed in a Great Spirit above and beyond 
 all others. 
 
 The Chippewas called their great god ManitoUf 
 the Mighty Father of the Waters, whose picture is 
 in the State House in Saint Paul. The Sioux had a 
 queer idea of Adam and Eve, and of the Creator, 
 whom he called Taku-Waken, "that which is 
 more than human. " He was like a great ox with 
 eyes as big as the moon, and he could pull in or 
 lengthen his horns and tail like a turtle. 
 
 31 
 
2,2 Our Minnesota 
 
 The animals were all made before the earth was, 
 and where do you suppose they lived? Now before 
 there was any world, Taku commanded them all 
 to bring earth, and after many trials the muskrat 
 dove again and again under the water and at 
 last brought out a handful of dirt, — I suppose we 
 ought to say "a pawful, " — and out of this the 
 earth was made. Then the god took one of his own 
 children and ground him up to powder and scattered 
 it over the earth, and it turned to worms and out of 
 the worms men were made, which is why, I suppose, 
 we call people "worms of the earth." 
 
 Another god, Oanktayhee, lived under Saint 
 Anthony Falls. He was very cruel and ate up a 
 soldier who was swept off and whose body was 
 never found. One of the early missionaries, Robert 
 Hopkins, preached against this god and when he 
 was drowned at Traverse des Sioux, all the Indians 
 thought that he had been swallowed as a punish- 
 ment. The god of opposites, Hayokah, was a queer 
 one; his followers called hard things, soft; white 
 things, black; smooth things, rough, because he did, 
 and they believed that he groaned with joy and 
 smiled with pain. They used to dance in his honor 
 and tried to do exactly the opposite of what they 
 really felt. 
 
 One of the greatest of the Sioux gods was 
 Wahkeenyan, the Thunder Bird, who lived in a 
 
The Red Man's World 33 
 
 lodge on the top of a high mountain. At his 
 east door was a butterfly; at the west a bear; at 
 the south a fawn; at the north a reindeer all 
 dressed in sacred red down. He created tomahawks 
 and spears, and he was so big that he made what 
 are called thunder tracks, which you can still see 
 near Big Stone Lake, huge footprints in the stone 
 bigger than any human giant could possibly make. 
 
 The Indians placed their dead on scaffolds high 
 above the ground, building one at each stopping 
 place, and on them put food in a cup or bowl, and 
 bow and arrows to use on the journey to the Happy 
 Hunting Ground. After building as many scaffolds 
 as there were stopping places on their travels from 
 place to place, the Sioux buried some of the bones 
 in the mounds that we shall speak of later, and 
 which we find scattered all up and down our State. 
 
 The Sioux thought that any object might be some 
 kind of a spirit, but only hard, egg-shaped stones 
 were to be worshiped, like the reddish bowlder, 
 called Red Rock, on the Mississippi shore near 
 Saint Paul. 
 
 Like the Indians of the Far West, the Ojibways 
 had totems; clan symbols, carved, burned, or 
 painted on their grave posts which told of great 
 deeds of their families. The totem was like a 
 family history and had at the top a sign which was 
 the clan name, like buffalo, or crow, or deer. 
 
34 Our Minnesota 
 
 The jib way sign was an eagle on a rock, eating 
 the head of an owl. We should think their totems 
 very ugly, but they revere them and think they 
 are the most beautiful pictures possible. 
 
 The Indians all know how to show the family 
 names very quickly. A camper once asked a Chip- 
 pewa Indian what his name was. He stepped to a 
 nearby tree; with his hunting knife made a few 
 slashes and designs and then stepped back as 
 though he had done a wonderful thing. And he 
 had, because a caribou horn and some rushes were 
 plainly shown. It was found afterward that his 
 name was Swamper Caribou. 
 
 The medicine men, who taught all things, were 
 trained when boys by the older medicine men 
 and were told all the mysteries of religion and heal- 
 ing. When anyone was sick the medicine man was 
 sent for in a hurry, and the messenger ran back 
 from his lodge as fast as he could, while the medicine 
 man had to follow. If he refused to do this, the 
 family sometimes sent five or six times, and the 
 more he had to be coaxed the more the Indians 
 thought of their medicine man. Meanwhile, the 
 sick man was waiting. When the medicine man 
 came to the lodge he went through all sorts of 
 queer, mysterious incantations and mumblings. 
 Sometimes, but not often, he put the patient, 
 stripped of his blanket, in a small tent where stones 
 
The Red Man's World 35 
 
 had been heated redhot and water poured over them 
 and gave him a sweat bath. But usually he tried 
 to charm away the sickness. The charms were 
 always carried in a medicine pouch, which no one 
 was ever allowed to see, and which gained its power 
 from its mystery. Several of these pouches came 
 into the hands of white men and all they contained 
 were a few stones, a lump of clay, pieces of an 
 animal's tooth, and a dried root or two. Yet the 
 Indians believed in them and in their power. 
 
 As everything in nature was a god or spirit, and 
 all the animals and birds and plants were once in 
 different shapes, they tell us many stories of the 
 way they came to be. 
 
 THE WATER LILY 
 
 Once a tribe noticed above the village a very 
 beautiful star which came every night and which 
 was so large and so luminous that it seemed im- 
 possible to be just a star. Night after night they 
 used to go out and look at it as it rose and hung 
 above the tops of the trees. 
 
 One night one of the young chiefs had a dream of 
 a beautiful maiden, who said that she was tired of 
 living far above people in the heavens and that she 
 wanted to come down to the earth to live, but she 
 did not know how. He awakened, hurried out of 
 
36 Our Minnesota 
 
 his tent and there, just above the wigwam, the face 
 of the maiden smiled out of the great star. After 
 he had begged her to come down and promised her 
 that the tribe would protect her, she appeared as 
 a white rose beside the trail, but she was so afraid 
 of the people and of the dogs that daily passed by, 
 that she moved farther away from the path and 
 fastened herself on a great rock and was called the 
 rock rose. But she was almost as lonely here as 
 she had been in the heavens, and so one night, she 
 moved out into the quiet waters of a beautiful 
 lake near the camp. There she has lived ever since 
 and her children are spread over the waters of the 
 lakes of Minnesota. 
 
 THE ARBUTUS 
 
 Once there was an old hermit who was about to 
 die in a lonely wigwam, and he was wondering 
 what he could do to leave something worth while 
 to his people to be remembered by, so he called all 
 the spirits to help him. 
 
 A lovely girl came into his hut. Her hair was 
 covered with moss, her hands and feet bound with 
 pussy willows, and she had a lovely pink and white 
 face, which smiled out from under her strange 
 covering. 
 
 As soon as she came into the wigwam, a delicate 
 
The Red Man's World 37 
 
 fragrance arose and as the old man asked her who 
 she was, she said: "I am Hope, which keeps people 
 warm and happy through the long, cold, winter 
 months. I will be a promise of Spring to your 
 people always." 
 
 The old man became weaker and weaker and, 
 as he fell, worn out at last, with his breath gone, 
 the maiden came near him, covered him up with 
 leaves and moss, and in among them she tucked 
 tiny pink blossoms which were hidden in the folds 
 of her garments. They were so sweet that they 
 filled the whole air with fragrance, and today, 
 when the snow melts, you will find them along the 
 shores of the lakes in northern Minnesota. 
 
 THE ROBIN 
 
 An old man had an only son named Opeeche, 
 whom he wanted to have surpass all others in the 
 trial of strength, which every young Indian has to 
 go through before he is worthy to be called a Brave. 
 Most of the boys take a steam bath and fast for 
 seven days. During the fasting when they become 
 so faint that they can no longer stand, they dream 
 dreams or see visions, which they think will foretell 
 their future or help them in their after lives. 
 
 The old man made up his mind that his son 
 should fast twelve days instead of seven, and in this 
 
38 Our Minnesota 
 
 way gain great fame for his endurance, which 
 means more to the Indian than anything else. 
 
 So Opeeche went through three sweating baths, 
 and, taking a clean mat, went all alone to the 
 little lodge made ready for him, and there he fasted 
 nine days waiting for the vision, which was to 
 foretell his path in the future. Over and over again 
 he had bad dreams and begged his father to let 
 him go and come back later, for this seemed a poor 
 time for his trial. But the father insisted, and 
 encouraged him with the hope that his twelve 
 days' fast would make him a very great man among 
 his people and that he would have power always. 
 The eleventh day the father came to see his son 
 and found him lying on the ground in the lodge, 
 faint and scarcely able to speak. He talked to him 
 and promised to bring him food early in the morn- 
 ing, but the young man made no reply and scarcely 
 seemed to hear him. 
 
 In the morning the father went to the hut with a 
 light meal of things that his son loved and he 
 found, to his surprise, that Opeeche was sitting up 
 and painting himself with vermilion all over his 
 chest and as far back as he could reach on his 
 shoulders. The father was terribly worried and 
 begged him, then ordered him, to stop; but he kept 
 on just the same, and at last when his father tried 
 to take the paint brush away from him, Opeeche flew 
 
The Red Man's World 39 
 
 to the top of the lodge and began to sing. His song 
 was very sweet and very cheerful. He told his 
 father he could never be a warrior but a messenger 
 of peace and joy. He promised always to live near 
 men's houses and to be a friend to man and always 
 to be happy and contented. Then where his son 
 had been, the unhappy father saw instead, singing 
 in the sunshine, his breast aflame with vermilion, 
 a Robin Redbreast. 
 
 THE STAR FAMILY 
 
 White Hawk, a young Indian chief, was wander- 
 ing one day through a prairie when he came to a 
 well worn path in the form of a ring. There was no 
 path leading up to it and there was no path leading 
 away from it, so he was sure the ring was made by a 
 Manitou. He hid himself in some bushes and after 
 a little while heard some sweet singing, and right 
 out of the sky a great wicker basket was lowered 
 into the middle of the mystic circle. Out of it 
 sprang a dozen or more lovely maidens, who joined 
 hands and began dancing and singing around the 
 ring. White Hawk started towards them but the 
 minute they saw him, they all got quickly into 
 the basket and disappeared right into the sky. Day 
 after day he hid himself and watched them, and day 
 after day they disappeared as soon as they saw him. 
 
40 Our Minnesota 
 
 But one day he ran up quickly and seized one of the 
 girls in his arms, and the basket disappeared with 
 all her sisters, leaving her on the earth alone with 
 White Hawk. 
 
 He took her to his lodge and spent his time in 
 making her happy. Finally she seemed to forget 
 about her own people in the heavens and lived 
 happily with White Hawk. 
 
 After a while a little son came to live with them, 
 but the star mother began to long for her own people 
 and secretly made a basket (she had been taught 
 how by the Manitou) of rushes. One day she took 
 her little son with her and away they flew up to the 
 heavens she came from. 
 
 White Hawk was very unhappy and he wandered 
 about and wouldn't be comforted. Every day he 
 visited the mystic ring, hoping that he should see 
 again his star and his little son. The star found, 
 when she was among her own people, that she 
 wanted White Hawk to come and live with them 
 too, and so one day the Manitou sent for him, but 
 White' Hawk wouldn't go without all of his tribe, 
 so they all went, taking presents up to the heavens 
 with them. These presents were distributed among 
 the people there and they were all turned into the 
 image of the thing which they chose; some of 
 them animals, some of them eagles, and some of 
 them other birds. 
 
The Red Man's World 41 
 
 White Hawk chose a white feather and he and 
 his wife and Httle son, white hawks, all flew away 
 together, and now when they want to live on earth 
 they come here, and when they want to fly up to 
 the heavens their wings are able to carry them 
 there. 
 
 HIAWATHA 
 
 Hiawatha you all know very well. His mother 
 was the daughter of the moon and he was a messen- 
 ger of the Great Spirit, who sent him down to earth 
 to be a teacher and a prophet. He talked all 
 winter and taught all year until the spring came 
 and then school closed and he went, like the rest 
 of us in the summer time, to wander or to hunt, 
 or to be out in the world until winter gathered his 
 people together again. 
 
 lAGOO 
 
 The Chippewas had a queer legend of lagoo, a 
 talker who, like some people of today, always saw 
 things bigger than anyone else and had bigger 
 stories to tell. His eyes were like magnifying 
 glasses, his ears heard the soft wind as though it 
 were thunder. The birds that he saw were always 
 big and brilliant. The animals had queer eyes like 
 great wheels and claws like steel traps, and they 
 could step over the hills and fly over mountains. 
 
42 Our Minnesota 
 
 He saw water-lilies whose leaves were big enough 
 to make a dress for his wife and all his daughters, 
 and mosquitoes with wings large enough for sails 
 for his boat. He went out one day to get some 
 red willow for smoking, and found a thicket so big 
 that it took him half a day to walk around it; 
 so whenever an Indian wants to tell another In- 
 dian that he doesn't believe him, all he has to say 
 is, "lagoo, the story teller, is here again." 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN CORN 
 
 Mondamin was the son of a chief, and when 
 it came time for his trial of fasting, he made 
 up his mind that he would try to learn something 
 which would help his people. He was a very earnest 
 young man, very kind-hearted, and it hurt him year 
 by year to see his tribe almost starve toward the 
 end of the winter, for they had nothing to live on 
 but fish and game, and these never lasted into the 
 springtime. 
 
 So he went away to his little lodge where he was 
 to be all alone for seven days, or until the dreams 
 came to him, and after he had been alone one 
 day, he walked in the evening and looked at 
 plants and pulled them up by the roots trying 
 to find something that would feed his people all 
 winter. 
 
The Red Man's World 43 
 
 On the third day of his fast, a beautiful spirit, 
 dressed in a rustling robe of all shades of vivid 
 green with nodding plumes above his head and a 
 face like the sunshine, came and wanted to wrestle 
 with him and encouraged him by telling him that 
 Mondamin would finally throw him. Mondamin 
 was very weary, but as he wrestled he seemed to 
 get strong and, although the spirit overcame him, 
 he lay down that night and dreamed again of the 
 beautiful vision. He wrestled with him three 
 times, each time getting stronger, although he had 
 nothing to eat all the while. 
 
 On the evening of the sixth day the stranger told 
 him that on the morrow he would overcome him, 
 and said that he must plant him where he fell, 
 keep the ground soft, and not let any weeds grow 
 above him. All this happened and Mondamin 
 kept it all a secret, going every few days to keep 
 the earth soft and to keep the weeds away, and 
 one day late in the summer he took his father to 
 see the beautiful green dress of the tall Indian 
 com with its nodding plumes, which has ever since 
 been a blessing to the Indians, in the long hard 
 winter. 
 
 the"summer maker 
 
 Once a fisher, a queer little. animal, living in the 
 
44 Our Minnesota 
 
 north, had a son who was very much spoiled, and 
 one day beginning to cry because he was so tired 
 of the cold and snow, he begged his father to make it 
 warm and green and beautiful. The father kept 
 telling him that he didn't know how, but the child 
 insisted and finally cried himself sick. So the 
 father started off with two friends, the otter and the 
 raccoon, and after they had walked many, many 
 days, they came to the lodge of a very ugly 
 Manitou, with whom they finally got to be friends, 
 and he showed them a high hill, from the top of 
 which he told them they could jump into summer. 
 
 The otter jumped very high, but he hit the hard 
 wall of the sky and fell back wounded. The raccoon 
 jumped higher and harder and made a hole in the 
 sky, through which, with a mighty jump, after 
 trying and falling back three or four times, the 
 little fisher managed to crawl. 
 
 He found himself in the sought-for land of 
 summer. All along the edge of the wall were cages 
 with bright-colored birds in them and he began 
 opening the doors and letting them out. They 
 flew down through the hole to the earth, where the 
 warm winds were descending, and although the gods 
 of heaven shut up the cages and tried to tie up the 
 summer winds, many of them escaped. So the 
 little boy ceased his crying even though summer 
 came for only a part of the year. But the poor 
 
The Red Man's World 45 
 
 little fisher was thrown down through the hole 
 which he had made and never enjoyed any of the 
 summer except the little glimpse he had when he 
 was in the summer land. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHAT THE RED MAN LEFT US 
 
 It is strange to think that the people who 
 first lived here are almost all gone but that the 
 lakes and streams and prairies where they fished 
 and hunted and the places where they lived such a 
 care-free life are still left. 
 
 The traces and memories of these first men will 
 never die out in Minnesota, because they have 
 given us so many reminders of themselves in places, 
 in names, and in stories which they have handed 
 down and which make us see the kind of people 
 they were. Along the banks of rivers beginning 
 away down in Ohio and making a line of almost 
 eight hundred miles, stretching all along the valleys 
 are the mounds where they buried their dead. 
 Once there were more than ten thousand of these 
 mounds. Now many like the famous one which 
 used to be at Red Wing, are leveled for streets 
 and roads. These mounds are all in beautiful spots, 
 which makes us believe that they wanted the 
 
 46 
 
What the Red Man Left Us 47 
 
 "quiet" people to rest in the places which they 
 would love and which their spirits would often 
 come back to visit. 
 
 The most commanding of all these old burial 
 places is the one in St. Paul on a high bluff over- 
 looking the Mississippi River, where it bends to the 
 south. Whether the scene is all covered with 
 green, summer birds about, the Mississippi River 
 flowing through it like a wide blue ribbon; or 
 bright with many-colored autumn leaves reflecting 
 themselves like blurred pictures in the river; or all 
 under the white snowflowers with the river a silver 
 band of ice, — it is wonderful to look at. On one side 
 is the forest broken by patches of green farm land, 
 on the other are the spires and towers of the capital 
 city and the smoke of factories, while high above 
 all shine the two glittering domes, one of the 
 Cathedral of St. Paul, the other, the State House of 
 Minnesota, showing two things brought by the 
 white man which have helped so much to make this 
 great State, and which have made the whole world 
 civilized. These two things you know before now 
 are religion and law. 
 
 As we stand today among these mounds rising 
 green and shapely from the ground, we seem to see 
 the Indian looking toward the west as though to 
 watch his departing people leaving the lands they 
 loved, and ta ever remind us of those who are 
 
48 Our Minnesota 
 
 buried in the ground about, and over whom his 
 spirit seems to be keeping guard. 
 
 Once there were thirty-two of these mounds; 
 now only thirteen are left. The Minnesota Histori- 
 cal Society has had all but a few of them opened 
 and inside were found a few bones, some arrows, 
 pipes, and here and there a bowl or so. Almost all 
 of the things that were inside the mounds are in 
 the museum in the State House under the glittering 
 dome, way over to the right. 
 
 Jonathan Carver, one of the first white men who 
 ever came to this part of the country, tells us that 
 while he was here he saw Indians come in the fall 
 bringing the bones of their tribe who had died dur- 
 ing the year, and that they had great exercises 
 when they buried them. 
 
 Scattered all over the State, always on the banks 
 of rivers or of lakes, are many more. Mound City, 
 Lake Minnetonka, was named because of them, and 
 there are mounds all around this lake. 
 
 Besides these mounds there are many heaps of 
 stones and in a few places flint chips, showing 
 where the Indians made arrows. This flint is 
 very hard and difficult to chip, but nothing else 
 was so good for arrow heads. Professor Win- 
 chell and Miss Babbitt were the first to find 
 heaps of very old flint chips, near Little Falls, 
 and these were the first great discoveries which 
 
What the Red Man Left Us 49 
 
 proved that the Indian was here many, many years 
 ago. 
 
 The Indian, too, will always be remembered 
 because of the names of many places in our State. 
 Some of them are connected with myths and legends. 
 All of them are story-telling names, for the Indians 
 called everything and everybody a name which 
 meant something. These names, of course, tell so 
 much more of history than any new ones could, 
 that they were kept when the white settlers came, 
 and always will be. The name of our State, you 
 remember, is an Indian one, and every time you go 
 by a lake, I am sure you will try, when it isn't 
 covered with ice, to see the sky-tinted water. 
 
 Winona (you will find it on the map in a county 
 of the same name) was a name given by the Sioux 
 to an oldest child if a daughter. This Winona 
 from which the city is named was the daughter of a 
 great chief. She was very handsome and a young 
 brave of her band was always playing on his flute 
 to her. They cared a great deal for each other, but 
 he was poor and her father wanted her to marry a 
 warrior who was famous because he had taken 
 many Ojibway scalps. Winona objected to 
 marrying him and told her parents how much she 
 loved the young brave and begged them to let 
 her go to his tepee. They refused, and day after 
 day the summer went on, making Winona more and 
 
50 Our Minnesota 
 
 more unhappy, until the time came to go to Lake 
 Pepin to fish and hunt. The tribe camped on a 
 level spot with sunny meadows and dark, cool, 
 deep shadows under the great rock which rises 
 four hundred and fifty feet above the lake. While 
 everybody was feasting one evening, Winona 
 climbed up this high cliff and stood on a bare place 
 at the top, where she reached out her arms and 
 began telling her story to the people. Appealingly 
 she told them that she couldn't bear to marry 
 anyone but her own brave, and as soon as the 
 people below, disturbed in their meal, understood 
 what she meant to do, they started to go to her, the 
 great warrior leaping first and away ahead of all 
 the others, but before he could reach her, Winona 
 sprang from the height and was dashed to pieces 
 on the rock below. There the great cliff called 
 ** Maiden Rock" stands today and you may easily 
 see it from the cars on the railroad as you go toward 
 the city which stills bears her name. 
 
 PILOT KNOB 
 
 A hill near the Minnesota River above Mendota, 
 where Eagle Eye, a great Dakota, was buried, has 
 a story which will always be remembered. Eagle 
 Eye was accidentally killed by a companion when 
 hunting with his band and had only enough time 
 
What the Red Man Left Us 51 
 
 to call for his wife, whose name was Scarlet Dove, 
 before the breath left his body. Scarlet Dove 
 wrapped him tenderly in skins and carried him on 
 her back on the journey. Every place where her 
 band stopped on the way home she built for Eagle 
 Eye's body a scaffolding of saplings on which she 
 laid him, and under it she watched every night. 
 When they reached home she laid his body on its 
 last resting place and died underneath it, and from 
 Fort Snelling you may see the place where their 
 graves are. 
 
 Red Wing was named from several great chiefs of 
 the Dakotas, who lived near the present city of Red 
 Wing. Kaposia, meaning *' light," a town on the 
 Mississippi River near Pig's Eye, was named 
 because of the fleet-footed Sioux who lived for a 
 long time in that village. Kasota, which means 
 *' cleared off," is named from the limestone quarries 
 which were all about there. This limestone is a 
 beautiful pinkish-yellow, and the halls of the State 
 House, and the stairways, and the floors are all 
 made from Kasota stone, polished so that even on 
 the darkest day it looks sunny inside of that great 
 building. 
 
 Mahtomedi, which means White Bear, is on that 
 lake, whose name has been translated; Mankato, 
 changed from Mah-kah-to, which means ''blue 
 earth," is in Blue Earth County. Minneapolis is 
 
52 Our Minnesota 
 
 half Sioux and half Greek, Minne, meaning * ' water " 
 and Polis, "city," and this name instead of St. 
 Anthony was given to it in 1852. Shakopee 
 was the name of a chief who lived there and trans- 
 lated means "six." His son's name Shakpidan, 
 means "little six." 
 
 PIPESTONE 
 
 Gitchi-Manitou had his throne at Pipestone. 
 You remember he was the great god who gave so 
 many useful things to his people. Upon his heart 
 was trouble because men warred with one another, 
 and he split open with his hands the quarry, that 
 warring men might make calumets or peace pipes, so 
 the Indians made wonderful pipes of this red slate. 
 Often these pipes were beautifully inlaid with silver 
 and many of them are in the State museum today. 
 
 Before a council or "big talk" the calumet was 
 passed in silence, from the chief who smoked it 
 first, to each one who took a whiff until it had gone 
 around the circle. Then the talk was begun and 
 afterward the peace pipe was smoked again as a 
 token of agreement just as we would sign a paper. 
 Near Pipestone, you remember, the Manitou left 
 his thunder tracks and near there also is "Leaping 
 Rock," where the early people used to make trials 
 of strength. 
 
What the Red Man Left Us 53 
 
 Chaska is named after the eldest son of a chief 
 and this was the name that was always given to 
 an oldest child if a son, as Winona was given if 
 a daughter. Shadow Falls was named after a Chief 
 Chaska and his daughter who disappeared over 
 the edge of the clifE one stormy night and whose 
 spirits for many years might be seen in the mist 
 at the foot of the rock. 
 
 Wabasha means "red battle standard," or ''red 
 leaf"; Isanti, "long knife," was the name which 
 the Indians called the American soldiers because 
 of their long swords. They called St. Paul, Im- 
 ni-ja-ska, which means white cliff, one of the 
 names that we ought to be glad we changed, because 
 it would have been very hard for us to use. 
 
 Anoka means "on both sides" and the city was 
 called this because it was on both sides of the Rum 
 River. 
 
 OJIBWAYS 
 
 The Ojibways have left many names also and 
 their language is much more beautiful though not 
 more meaningful than the Sioux. Bemidji means 
 Cross Lake because the head stream of the Missis- 
 sippi River crosses it and comes out on the oppo- 
 site side. Mesabi, or Messabi, where are the great 
 iron mines, means giant range. Watab River, which 
 flows into the Mississippi north of the capital city, 
 is named from the long, thin, threadlike roots of 
 
54 Our Minnesota 
 
 tamarack and pine trees which the Indians split 
 up and used for sewing together their birch-bark 
 canoes. Satik, which names so many things, the 
 rapids, the lake, and the town, reminds us that the 
 Sac and Fox Indians once lived here. 
 
 Mahnomen, the name given to one of our new 
 counties, means wild rice. 
 
 Chisago is the lake which the Ojibways called 
 kichi (large) and saga (fair or lovely). Because 
 this was hard to pronounce it was smoothed into 
 the present name. Kanabec is the jib way word 
 for river or snake. 
 
 We have translated into English the Indian 
 names for Big Stone, Cottonwood, Redwood, 
 Traverse, and Yellow Medicine, which are Sioux; 
 and Clear Water, Crow Wing, Ottertail, and Red 
 Lake are translated into English from the names 
 which the jib way called these places. 
 
 The early traders used in French the same name 
 which in Indian means the "lake that talks," so 
 Lac qui Parle was named because of the echoes 
 which are thrown back from the cliffs. In the 
 same way came also the name of our Mille Lacs, 
 which the Indians called the "wood of a thousand 
 lakes," and Roseau, which they called Rush River. 
 The Indians called one of their rivers, which was 
 hard to get through, by a name which the French 
 called "la Riviere des Embarras, " which means 
 
What the Red Man Left Us 55 
 
 *'the difficult river.'* It was shortened to Desem- 
 barras and, by a way almost as winding as the river 
 itself, we get the word Zumbro and Zumbrota. 
 
 Many words, too, which we use almost every day, 
 come from the Indians. Some of them are words 
 which the children east and west of us know only 
 from books, while we keep the words because the 
 things they mean we borrowed from the Indians 
 who used them first. 
 
 The Ojibways called their houses wigwams; the 
 Sioux called theirs tepees. The word powwow, 
 which means their Indian council; barbecue, an 
 animal roasted whole; totem, canoe, moccasin, and 
 toboggan are all Indian words. The animals found 
 here by the white men keep the names the red 
 man called them. Some of these are: moose, 
 caribou, woodchuck, chipmunk, and our own de- 
 structive little State animal, the gopher. Our 
 words, maize (com), potato, hickory, tamarack, 
 and kinni-kinnick, the Indian word for red willow 
 (their tobacco), are from the red men. 
 
 And so, although the Indian is almost unknown 
 in his haunts, we keep and always shall keep the 
 words which ought to remind us of the people 
 who, though fierce and unforgiving, were brave and 
 patient and who show us by these names how keenly 
 they looked at the things about them and how much 
 they loved nature. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW WE GAINED THE LAND 
 FROM THE WHITE MEN 
 
 If you will look at the map of Minnesota, you 
 will find that it is divided into two parts by the 
 Mississippi River and the chain of lakes from which 
 it flows. You remember that in the early days, the 
 northeastern part was lived in by the O jib way 
 Indians and the southwestern part by the Sioux, 
 but the white men who came into the Indian coun- 
 try did not usually consider that the Indians had 
 any rights over the land and so claimed whatever 
 they discovered. 
 
 The land east of the Mississippi River, you re-. 
 member, too, was explored by the French and so, of 
 course, they claimed it. The English, who had 
 settled all along the Atlantic Ocean and up as far 
 as Maine, claimed all the land clear to the Mis- 
 sissippi River but made no settlements so early 
 as the French, and when they began to spread 
 westward, as soon as the Atlantic Coast was filled 
 up, they had trouble, of course, with the French 
 
 56 
 
How We Gained the Land 57 
 
 who had already settled along the Ohio River, 
 the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. 
 
 The Algonquin Indians, whom we think were 
 relatives of the Ojibways, knew the French, who 
 had taught them to be Christians and had settled 
 down in their little villages and lived with them 
 for a long time. Other Indians called the Iroquois, 
 who lived farther east, had been selling furs, and 
 trading generally with the English for a long, long 
 time, and so of course when the English and the 
 French claimed the same territory the Algonquins 
 helped the French and the Iroquois the English. 
 
 They fought many wars for nearly a hundred 
 years and we call them ''French and Indian Wars'* 
 although really they were French and English wars. 
 In one of the fiercest fights, in what is today Pennsyl- 
 vania, George Washington fought with the English 
 because this, you see, was while the United States 
 belonged to England long before the Revolution. 
 Finally after many villages had been burned, many 
 homes destroyed, and many people killed, the 
 English won some great battles and in 1763 the 
 French had to give up their claim, which is the way 
 that all Canada became English and all the land in 
 what is today the United States east of the Missis- 
 sippi River became English too. 
 
 Now only twenty years after this came the 
 Revolutionary War when we became independent 
 
58 Our Minnesota 
 
 of England, and all the land east of the Mississippi 
 River was United States territory, but north of the 
 Great Lakes it remained English. So you see, 
 east of the Mississippi River, Minnesota was now 
 territory that belonged to the Union. 
 
 Now let us cross the river and look at the land on 
 the western side. Long before the French came 
 here it was all claimed by the Spanish, clear down 
 to the Gulf of Mexico, but none of the Spanish lived 
 here, and so their claims didn't amount to much, 
 for the French who came afterward began trading 
 with the Indians and lived with them, making little 
 settlements. And so, of course, all the land as far 
 as the Rocky Mountains was claimed by the French, 
 but when the French gave up the eastern part of 
 their land to the English they owed Spain a great 
 deal, on account of many wars and troubles last- 
 ing a century back, and they had to let Spain have 
 all their land on the western side of the Mississippi 
 River. Poor France, who had done so much to 
 explore and settle it, was squeezed out of North 
 America and after 1763 didn't own anything over 
 here, except two tiny islands away up near New- 
 foundland. 
 
 After a while the great French general Na- 
 poleon tried to conquer all of Europe, and he did 
 get the land between the Rocky Mountains and the 
 Mississippi River away from Spain. We did not 
 
How We Gained the Land 59 
 
 like having the French on the other side of the 
 Mississippi River because we wanted to be able to 
 float all our goods down to the Gulf of Mexico with- 
 out any trouble, and so we bought this land from 
 France in 1803 and called it the "Louisiana Terri- 
 tory. " Now you see the United States owns all of 
 Minnesota though we were not quite sure where our 
 northern boundary stopped and where England's 
 began. 
 
 When the land south of the Great Lakes and 
 north of the Ohio, extending as far as the Mississippi 
 River, came to us from England in 1783, it was all 
 claimed by some of the States, for it had been 
 promised to them by England when they were 
 colonies, and a large part of it wasn't settled at all. 
 
 The little States were afraid that when it was 
 settled there would be so many more people in the 
 big States like Virginia and Connecticut, that they 
 would have all the power, so they refused to have 
 anything to do with the government unless the 
 land, which wasn't settled, was given to the United 
 States. After quarreling about it for some time 
 New York generously gave up her western lands 
 and the others followed her example, so that every- 
 thing in this region belonged to the United States 
 Government. 
 
 It was called the Northwest Territory, and a set 
 of rules called the ''Ordinance of 1787" was made 
 
6o Our Minnesota 
 
 by Thomas Jefferson for its government. This set 
 of rules in a good many ways governed all of our 
 territories, but there were three things which 
 belonged only to this region, and of course the 
 eastern part of Minnesota was under these rules, 
 though when the part west of the Mississippi was 
 added they were applied there too. 
 
 These important things were: First, that every- 
 body should have the religion he wanted, for there 
 were then laws about religion in some of the eastern 
 States. Second, that there should never be any 
 slavery in the Northwest Territory, and third, that 
 children should be educated at the public expense. 
 So we inherited these three good things for which 
 we ought to be thankful. 
 
 You remember part of Minnesota was Louisiana 
 Territory, while that east of the Mississippi River 
 was called the Northwest Territory, which was cut 
 up into different States and finally the only ter- 
 ritory left was Wisconsin, our next-door neighbor. 
 
 When Wisconsin Territory wanted to be a State 
 (because a State is so much more powerful than a 
 territory) people in the eastern part of Minnesota 
 between the St. Croix and the Mississippi Rivers 
 didn't want to belong to Wisconsin, because they 
 had many more friends along the Mississippi River 
 than they had along the St. Croix, and so they asked 
 to be the territory of Minnesota and have the 
 
How We Gained the Land 6i 
 
 western part, far beyond the Red River, joined 
 with that left over from Wisconsin. After send- 
 ing one of our settlers, Mr. Sibley, to Washington, 
 to beg Congress to let us be a separate territory, 
 we became one in 1849, as we shall learn later. 
 
 Now let us take a trip along the edge of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 For one hundred and fifty miles Lake Superior is 
 our northeastern boundary and until it meets the 
 St. Louis River, which the boundary follows to a 
 point near Fond du Lac, when it goes south in a 
 straight line until it meets the St. Croix River. 
 The boundary winds down the beautiful St. Croix 
 until it flows into the Mississippi at Point Douglas 
 a little north of Hastings, where the Mississippi 
 becomes our boundary until it reaches the northern 
 line of Iowa, which was settled before Minnesota. 
 At this point it leaves the river and goes west in a 
 straight line two hundred and sixty-two miles when 
 it turns due north until it meets Big Stone Lake, 
 the centre of which it follows until its end, and 
 then the line jumps across Brown's Valley to the 
 centre of Lake Traverse, whose outlet flows north 
 instead of south. When the water is high a canoe 
 may sometimes be floated across Brown's Valley, 
 and once a steamboat, attempting to get over, was 
 sunk by a rock on the prairie. Taking up the 
 boundary again we go north from Lake Traverse, 
 
62 Our Minnesota 
 
 by Bois des Sioux River as far as Breckenridge 
 where it flows into the great Red River of the 
 North, which forms the boundary until we reach 
 the southern border of Canada. Then we go east 
 in a straight line until we run into the Lake of the 
 Woods and Rainy River, which border the State as 
 far as Rainy Lake and down a series of many lakes, 
 into Lake Superior by the Pigeon River. Now that 
 is a long trip and it would take us many days to 
 go around the State for it is many, many miles. 
 
 But look at that queer little peninsula up north 
 in the Lake of the Woods! That is one of the 
 strange things about our boundary, for when it was 
 settled in 1814, by the Treaty of Ghent after the 
 War of 181 2, that the Lake of the Woods should be 
 the northern boundary, it was supposed that there 
 were many rivers which flowed from the Lake of 
 the Woods east, and we were to have the land 
 drained by those rivers. 
 
 When the survey was made it was found that 
 there wasn't one river which flowed east and so 
 because of the intention, after many surveys had 
 been made and committees appointed to settle the 
 matter, this little piece which is called the Northern 
 Peninsula was ceded to the United States in 1873 
 and the question finally settled by the United 
 States and England in 1877. 
 
 The boundary is marked by posts with the initials 
 
How We Gained the Land 63 
 
 of the United States on one side and of England on 
 the other, and so at last was settled the question 
 of boundary between us and the Mother Land one 
 hundred years after we gained our independence. 
 
 Now we have seen how the White Men settled 
 with one another about the ownership of the land 
 but we haven't adjusted matters as yet with the 
 Indians. 
 
 TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS 
 
 The people who came here first claimed the land 
 that they discovered and where they planted their 
 flags, but they knew all the same that it really 
 belonged to the Red Man. They could have driven 
 him out because he didn't know anything about 
 law, although it would have made him a deadly 
 enemy forever, and it would never have been right. 
 We are glad to remember that, although the 
 White Man was not always fair to the Indian, at 
 least he let him know that the first right to the land 
 was his. It would not have been a very good plan 
 not to be friends with the Indians even if it had been 
 right or possible, because we know that, aside from 
 the fact that right is right, honesty is the best policy 
 after all and so we made many "treaties," as they 
 were called, with the Indians. 
 
 The first treaty that we hear of was said to have 
 
64 Our Minnesota 
 
 been made by Jonathan Carver who said that the 
 Sioux deeded to him all the land near the city of 
 St. Paul and whose heirs, many years later, claimed 
 the property for miles up and down the river, in- 
 cluding what is called Carver's Cave and Dayton's 
 Bluff, that beautiful place along the river where 
 the Indian Mounds are, and where, you remember. 
 Carver saw the Sioux burying their dead. This 
 claim was not made until years afifeer he died. 
 People didn't believe that the Carver fimily ought 
 to own all the land from the head of St. Anthony 
 Falls as far as Lake Pepin, though the .deed was said 
 to have been written at the great cave, and was 
 signed with a turtle and a snake, ti^^ totems of 
 two great Indian tribes which sealed" the treaty. 
 This treaty was never proved to be a real one, and 
 it is thought that it was never signed by the Indians 
 though it has been talked about a great deal, and 
 for many years the family tried in the courts to get 
 the land. 
 
 After the Revolutionary War, you remember, 
 the English still kept their posts in our country in 
 spite of their promise to withdraw, and of course 
 they did not want to leave because their trade with 
 the Indians was so profitable to them. So in 1805 
 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike was ordered to visit this 
 part of the country and expel the British traders. 
 You know that this was just after we had bought 
 
Treaties with the Indians 65 
 
 this part of the country from France and so we 
 owned both sides of the Mississippi River. Lieu- 
 tenant Pike was a wonderful man, for he was not 
 only a leader, a scout, a hunter providing all the 
 meat for his party, but a surveyor, an astronomer, 
 and a geologist, and with a few soldiers unused to 
 frontier life he made a very difficult journey and 
 had wonderful adventures on the way. 
 
 He went to Kaposia, the little Indian village 
 below St. Paul, made friends with the tribe who 
 lived there, and then camped on the big island just 
 at the mouth of the Minnesota River where it 
 flows into the Mississippi, below the bluff on which 
 Fort Snelling was going to be built years later. 
 This island is still called Pike Island and it was there 
 that he made his treaty with the Dakotas and 
 obtained for the United States the grant of land 
 nine miles on each side of the river, allowing the 
 right to the Indians to hunt and fish there. For 
 this he gave them two thousand dollars in goods 
 which seemed a great bargain to the Indians at 
 that time. 
 
 Lieutenant Pike had many adventures which 
 were thrilling and which make us feel that he was a 
 remarkable man, for he was so firm and so friendly, 
 and so patriotic all the way through. His diary 
 is most interesting to read. Here is a little extract 
 from it, telling of a talk with the Indians : ' * Brothers, 
 
66 Our Minnesota 
 
 I am happy to meet you here at this council fire, 
 which your father has sent me to kindle and to take 
 you by the hands as our children. We have but 
 lately acquired from the Spanish the extensive 
 territory of Louisiana. Our general has thought 
 proper to send out a number of his warriors to visit 
 all his red children, and to tell them his will and 
 to hear what request they may have to make of 
 their father. I am happy the choice has fell on 
 me to come this road as I find my brothers, the 
 Sioux, ready to listen to my words. . . . Brothers, 
 these posts are intended as a benefit to you. It is 
 the intention of the United States to establish at 
 these posts, factories in which the Indians may 
 procure all their things at a cheaper and better 
 rate than they do now or than your traders can 
 afford to sell them to you. Brothers, I expect that 
 you will give orders to all your young warriors to 
 respect my flag, and protection which I may extend 
 to the Chippewa chiefs who may come down with me 
 in the spring ; for was a dog to run to my lodge for 
 safety, his enemy must walk over me to hurt him. " 
 The Indians themselves had much trouble about 
 the lands, where the different tribes used to fish 
 and hunt, and the second treaty, in which they 
 had a part, was made between the Ojibways and 
 the Sioux in 1826 not very long after Fort Snelling 
 was established. 
 
Treaties with the Indians 67 
 
 The United States Government decided to help 
 the Indians make dividing lines between their 
 hunting grounds and so ordered them to meet at 
 Fond du Lac, not very far from Duluth on Lake 
 Superior, in the middle of summer. The commis- 
 sioners came in a great barge all decked with flags 
 and banners of red, white, and blue. They brought 
 with them a band and it was there that the Indians 
 heard Hail Columbia for the first time. There were 
 seven tribes, who sent their chiefs, and of course 
 they had a great deal of speech-making and feasting, 
 and "pow-wowed" for ^lyq days before they could 
 be made to promise anything. They were finally 
 brought to time by the thought of the presents 
 which they were always keen about, and which they 
 were told would not be distributed until they 
 agreed. 
 
 One old Ojibway woman came in place of her 
 husband, and, instead of giving a present to the 
 great white men, she brought only a handful of 
 porcupine quills and a few blades of grass to show 
 her husband's good will. She said: "My husband 
 is old and blind, but he has a mouth and two ears 
 so he can speak and hear, and I have come for a 
 present for him from the great white father. It is 
 all I can give for we are very poor. " 
 
 The Chippewas promised at this time not to war 
 on the Sioux, and to hunt only in certain places. 
 
68 Our Minnesota 
 
 to give up all allegiance to England and to deliver 
 up four of their number who had killed four white 
 people at Lake Pepin. Twenty-nine surrendered 
 later but because their case was not taken up soon, 
 they cut their way out of the log jail, returned 
 to their tribes, and were never arrested. 
 
 There was not very much trouble between the 
 bands for some time after this, and the next treaty 
 with the whites was made, twelve years later, in 
 1837, at Fort Snelling when the jib ways ceded to 
 the United States all the pine forests on the St. 
 Croix River, and all the rivers that flow into it — 
 a great tract of untold wealth for which the Indians 
 received less than two cents an acre. 
 
 The same year the Sioux went to Washington 
 and ceded all their rights to all the land east of 
 the Mississippi River. Many people, who were 
 waiting to settle and were afraid that they might 
 have trouble with the Indians' claims, began to 
 settle the land on the instant. Before daylight 
 the next morning after the news came that the 
 paper was signed in Washington many people had 
 staked out their claims and by sunset the land was 
 dotted with the stakes of future citizens. 
 
 In 1850 the Chippewas and the Sioux, who were 
 still deadly enemies, were called to a council by 
 Governor Ramsey to settle their quarrels. He had 
 them meet at Fort Snelling so that he might have 
 
Treaties with the Indians 69 
 
 the help of the cannon and the troops if they did not 
 behave well. The council was held outside of the 
 walls of the Fort and the Chippewas, who were 
 always friendly to us, came early as though they 
 were coming to a frolic. The Sioux, all dressed up 
 and painted, suddenly appeared on the brow of the 
 hill across the Minnesota River, and lashing their 
 horses, rode down pell-mell as though to attack a 
 deadly foe, but it was all just for show. They came 
 into position and fired their guns into the air satis- 
 fied that they had shown themselves off very well. 
 
 The United States' infantry was stretched out in 
 a long line, on opposite sides of which were the 
 two tribes. The Sioux chief, "Sitting-in-a-Row, ** 
 was six and one-half feet tall and looked very 
 terrible, which pleased him and his warriors, who 
 loved to have people afraid of them. A white flag 
 was raised over the Fort and the pow-wow began. 
 
 During the ceremonies the Sioux got up and left, 
 marching off in a very haughty manner because 
 they were insulted at the presence of ladies and said 
 that they came to meet chiefs, not women. The 
 ladies, who had come to see this wonderful sight 
 of the two great tribes all in full war paint, meeting 
 as friends, of course got up to leave, though "Hole- 
 in-the-Day, " the great chief of the Chippewas, 
 politely asked the women to come over to their 
 side of the line and said, *'A11 welcome, angelic 
 
70 Our Minnesota 
 
 smiles." When they insisted upon leaving after 
 thanking him, he solemnly shook hands with each 
 one of them and in that way made a great hit so 
 the ladies at the Fort were the friends of the Chippe- 
 was forever. The two tribes were well scolded by 
 Governor Ramsey, who threatened them with all 
 sorts of dreadful things if they were not good in the 
 future, and then they all shook hands with one 
 another and departed. 
 
 The next year, 1851, came the greatest treaty 
 ever made in Minnesota. There were two tribes 
 of Sioux called the Lower and the Upper Sioux, who 
 claimed all the land west of the Mississippi River 
 and clear into Iowa though, of course, they really 
 could not hold all of that property. The President 
 of the United States considered this treaty so im- 
 portant that he appointed Luke Lea, who was Com- 
 missioner of Indian Affairs, and Mr. Ramsey 
 special commissioners. The meeting for the Upper 
 Sioux, who were divided into Sissetons and Wah- 
 petons, was appointed at Traverse des Sioux on 
 the Minnesota River, where there was quite a 
 settlement for those early days and where there 
 had been a mission for some time. There were 
 three frame houses, one painted, a number of log 
 huts, and beyond them the bark houses and tents 
 of the Indians. 
 
 The white men, of whom there were many, went 
 
Treaties with the Indians 71 
 
 in a steamboat to the meeting place the last of June 
 and waited until they were weary, for the Indians 
 were slower than usual in coming. The Indians 
 always think that they make themselves more im- 
 portant by keeping people waiting, and were not 
 taught as we are that it isn't polite nor businesslike 
 to be late. 
 
 During the days before they all gathered, they 
 had many dances, a wedding ceremony was per- 
 formed, and they expected to have a very grand 
 festival on the Fourth of July, but on that morning 
 the Reverend Robert Hopkins, the beloved minister 
 of the Indians, was drowned and this cast a gloom, 
 which lasted for many days, over the whole meeting. 
 
 A great lodge was built for the ceremonies, in the 
 form of a circle with four big aspen trees to support 
 the top which was a lattice work all intertwined 
 with leaves. It had four arched gates, all decor- 
 ated with boughs, and was the work of Alexis 
 Bailly, a trader. 
 
 Before the pow-wow began, the Dakotas gave a 
 great dance. There were a thousand of this tribe 
 present and many of them took part. In the 
 center of the lodge, they had a huge bark image of 
 the Thunder Bird suspended from the roof and 
 another one at each archway, while on one side was 
 an Indian sorcerer who, with his face blackened and 
 wearing a wig of green grass, directed the cere- 
 
^2 Our Minnesota 
 
 monies. There were other images here and there, 
 among them a great bark buffalo. The young 
 men sprang through the openings and began to 
 dance, going more and more quickly and circling 
 faster and faster every minute. Every little while 
 they would run out and then come jumping back 
 through the arches. Now and then someone would 
 rush in with wild cries and at one time during 
 the dance, hundreds of girls and boys sprang in 
 and joined the swaying circle. Finally several 
 rifles were fired off, cutting down the bark figures. 
 All the actors fell exhausted on the ground and the 
 dance was over. 
 
 Meanwhile more and more Indians kept coming 
 and it was a wonder that the large number of cattle 
 and stores of provisions, which the commissioners 
 had brought with them, lasted so long as they did, 
 for all the Indians had large families, who were 
 always eating, and were always hungry. The Red 
 Man believes in eating while there is food to eat, 
 because he knows too well the time comes often 
 when there is none. 
 
 The Indians insisted on changing the treaty and 
 haggled about little things until almost a month 
 went by and then finally when everyone was in 
 despair they accepted it, selling to the United States 
 this wonderful tract of land, richer than any money 
 in the world could express, and stretching from the 
 

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Indian Treaties 73 
 
 Mississippi River far away to the westward land 
 of promise. The treaty made the Indians promise 
 to be at perpetual peace with the white man and 
 set aside for the Indians a large tract which was 
 for a long time the Yellow Medicine Indian Reser- 
 vation, ten miles on each side of the Minnesota 
 River from the Yellow Medicine River to Lake 
 Traverse. The treaty promised enough money to 
 move all their household goods and thirty thousand 
 dollars for schools, mills, blacksmith shops and 
 other things to help them in settled homes: beside 
 a sum of money or "annuity" each year for fifty 
 years to come. 
 
 First, the commissioner read the treaty, and then 
 the Indians; that is, it was read in English and 
 translated into Sioux by the missionary, Reverend 
 S. R. Riggs, in whom all the Indians had great faith. 
 It was hard to get the first Indian to sign but at last, 
 as the White Man had signed, one chief after 
 another came and "touched the pen," which was 
 their way of signing their names. The Pipes of 
 Peace were smoked first by the white men, one by 
 one, and then passed to the Indians. The Indians 
 were then "pulled by the blanket" to the trader's 
 paper, which they signed promising to pay all their 
 debts. Some of them had owed the traders for 
 thirty years, and you may be sure that they charged 
 the debtor enough now. 
 
74 Our Minnesota 
 
 After it was all over, the Sioux Indian Agent, 
 Major Nathaniel McLean, gave them the presents 
 which had been displayed during the whole month, 
 but carefully guarded until they should sign the 
 paper, and the sight of which, no doubt, had a great 
 influence on the signing. 
 
 In August, the Lower Sioux signed the treaty at 
 Pilot Knob in Mendota under a great bower of oak 
 trees. This treaty took even more patience and 
 almost as long a time as the first one because the 
 chiefs were so afraid, as well they might be, that 
 they were not getting what they ought from the 
 Whites. 
 
 Most of the objection was carried on by Little 
 Crow, the fifth, who had studied in an Indian school 
 and knew more about the customs of the Whites than 
 any of the other Indians. He was very much dressed 
 up in a white shirt and collar, a gay neckerchief, 
 his beautiful embroidered medicine bag on a cord 
 around his neck, a red belt with a silver buckle, 
 beaded trousers and moccasins. He was the hand- 
 somest of all the Sioux Indians having long, black, 
 curly hair, and a soft voice which is said to have 
 been very pleasing, and an eloquence in speaking 
 which made him a great orator among Indians and 
 Whites. Little Crow was the son of Little Crow, 
 whom he succeeded as chief, one of the first In- 
 dians, probably, who used the "soldiers' thunder 
 
Indian Treaties 75 
 
 tracks" and learned to plow under the direction 
 of Dr. Williamson at the village of Kaposia on 
 the Mississippi River, just below the Willow Brook 
 State Fish Hatchery of today. Little Crow had 
 a wonderful memory. His totem was the crow 
 worn on his back just below his left shoulder- 
 blade. While fighting for the chieftainship, he 
 was wounded in both wrists though he was victori- 
 ous. His people took him to the surgeon at Fort 
 Snelling after the battle was over, where he was 
 told that his life could be saved only by cutting off 
 both of his hands. The Indians knew that a chief 
 who could not use his hands would be useless to 
 a fighting tribe, and so they took him home to 
 his camp. After many weeks of careful nursing, 
 his life and both his hands were saved, though his 
 wrists were terribly deformed and it was only by this 
 deformity, when he was killed fighting many years 
 afterward, that he was known to be Little Crow. 
 
 At last, however, after the patience of all the 
 white men had almost given out and they had 
 threatened over and over again to leave, sixty- 
 five chiefs and warriors signed the paper, Little 
 Crow proudly writing his name, the only one of 
 them all who knew how. 
 
 The terms of the Mendota treaty were about the 
 same as those of Traverse des Sioux except that 
 for these tribes was reserved what was later called 
 
^(> Our Minnesota 
 
 the Redwood Reservation, ten miles on either side 
 of the Minnesota River from a point near New Ulm 
 to the Yellow Medicine River. They promised to 
 move within two years though that part of the 
 treaty was not carried out. 
 
 When the Indians had at last signed they were 
 paid thirty thousand dollars which had been owed 
 them since the Treaty of 1837 and held back for 
 fear they would never sign this one if they had all 
 that money. 
 
 They all came into St. Paul and spent their 
 money right and left for all sorts of foolish things. 
 A great many of them bought dogs because no 
 Indian village is complete unless it has a large 
 number of very quarrelsome snapping dogs, who 
 are continually under foot, and make the coming 
 of a stranger known all over the village as well 
 as a disagreeable thing for the stranger. The In- 
 dians bought a great many horses at this time and 
 Reverend E. D. Neill, in his history, says that they 
 were no judge of horses but usually bought one 
 because they wanted some particular thing about 
 it. For instance, if an Indian wanted a long-tailed 
 horse, he bought the horse on account of the tail 
 and not because there was anything else about the 
 horse that made it worth while. If he wanted a 
 white horse, that was the only thing he looked for 
 and so the livery stable, the farmers and merchants 
 
Indian Treaties 77 
 
 generally sold off all their poor, old broken-down 
 nags, which the Indians serenely bought. This 
 childish trait is true of all Indians. The story 
 is told of an Indian village in Idaho where the 
 people had just been paid off for their land, where 
 one family had four baby carriages and all had at 
 least two, and one of the Indians, because he took a 
 fancy to it, bought a hearse and joyfully took his 
 whole family home in it. 
 
 After a few days of reckless buying and visit- 
 ing in St. Paul, the Indians went off to their 
 homes leaving most of their thirty thousand in the 
 city behind them, so of course the treaty was con- 
 sidered a good one by the people of St. Paul. 
 
 These treaties, which we have spoken of, had 
 to go to the Senate of the United States to be signed, 
 and there a few changes were made, but finally the 
 matter was ended and this is the way the Sioux 
 came to live on reservations. 
 
 But the Indians did not always keep their promise 
 of perpetual peace either in regard to one another 
 or the Whites, and there were many bitter fights 
 between the Sioux and the Chippewas. Only a 
 little while after the great treaty, when the Sioux 
 Indians were moving from Kaposia to their new 
 home on the Lower Reservation, near Fort Ridgely, 
 they were attacked by eight Chippewas. The 
 Sioux had almost all of them gone to their new 
 
78 Our Minnesota 
 
 home and this band was made up of a number of 
 older women and children with Little Crow leading 
 them. They were jogging along in a straggling 
 scattered column, some of the women walking with 
 packs on their backs, others riding in the wagons, 
 which were piled full of all sorts of odds and ends, 
 many of them useless but dear to the heart of the 
 Indian, who would not leave anything behind 
 whether he was ever going to use it again or not. 
 They had no thought of an enemy near when sud- 
 denly from the bushes by the road, where they had 
 been hiding and waiting for three days, their foe 
 burst upon them. They were in plain sight of Fort 
 Snelling and the soldiers rushed out to rescue them. 
 After taking one scalp, the Chippewas escaped and 
 only four of the eight warriors were caught and 
 brought back to the guard house at the Fort. 
 Little Crow insisted on revenge and in a few days 
 came back to Fort Snelling determined to get the 
 prisoners away, but the commandant would not 
 give them up, and promised that they should be 
 punivshed. However, they managed to escape later 
 and Little Crow never forgot it. Although he had 
 been a good friend to the white people up to this 
 time, he brooded over this trouble and later we 
 shall find that when the Indians declared war on 
 the settlers. Little Crow, instead of standing by 
 them, went with his own people. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FIRST WHITE MAN 
 
 Explorers 
 
 The first white people who ever came to this 
 country were French, who very early in the six- 
 teenth century came up the St. Lawrence River 
 and along the Great Lakes, and traded with the 
 Indians who used to bring their furs as far as 
 Quebec. Fond of exploring and hunting, they 
 traveled with the Indians and lived in their camps, 
 always along the streams and lakes and rivers, 
 for canoeing was by far the easiest way to travel. 
 Of course there were no roads, nor even trails, and 
 the first white people who came here had to fell 
 trees, hunt their food, and often sleep out in the 
 open, undergoing all sorts of hardships to find the 
 new land which was ever beyond them and was 
 always a land of promise. 
 
 Besides the explorers there were others who came 
 here to teach the Christian religion to the heathen 
 Indian, for no one did more to make it possible for 
 the Indian to be peaceful and for the White Man 
 
 79 
 
8o Our Minnesota 
 
 to live here, than the devoted priests who came 
 from France. So the chapel and the cross came to 
 the Indian camp together with the explorer and 
 trader. 
 
 The great picture in our State House by Edwin 
 Blashfield tells us this story. In the center is the 
 great Manitou and before him an Indian brave and 
 a squaw. The Indian brave with a scowl on his 
 face holds haughtily back from the splendid figure 
 of the Frenchman dressed in scarlet velvet, — a 
 group of trappers, hunters, and explorers, be- 
 hind him, pushing toward the Indian's canoe on 
 one side. Opposite, the squaw, among a heathen 
 people always bearing the burdens, holds out her 
 hands in appeal toward the tall figure of a gentle- 
 faced priest who holds above her head the cross. 
 Behind him press forward the figures of other 
 priests clad in sober gowns of gray and brown, and 
 with faces marked by earnestness and patience. 
 In the background rise the straight, tall, slender 
 pine trees. 
 
 Although the French claimed this land for more 
 than two hundred years, they made no lasting 
 settlements here, and so we have today no traces 
 of them as a people excepting in the places they 
 named and in the fact that they made the Indian 
 a little more friendly to the white people. 
 
 All the early stories of explorers west of Mon- 
 
The First White Man 8i 
 
 treal tell of two young men who went into the 
 wilds, far to the west, and there are accounts of 
 these same young men bringing great canoe-loads 
 of furs from beyond Lake Michigan. We did not 
 know positively who they were until in one of the 
 libraries in London, more than two hundred years 
 after their voyage, the diary of one of them was 
 found. It had been sold in London for waste paper 
 long before, and it was only in 1885 that the Prince 
 Society in Boston printed it. So you see we have 
 known positively only a few years that the first 
 white people who entered what is now Minnesota 
 were Radisson, a bold, dashing, adventurous 
 spirit, and his elder, milder, but a little more 
 businesslike brother-in-law, Groseilliers. Between 
 1654 and 1660 these two men went farther west 
 than any white man had ever gone, for they said 
 that they went as far as Hudson Bay. No per- 
 mission had been given them from the Governor of 
 Canada to make this trip and on their return to 
 Montreal he reproved them. In anger they went to 
 Boston, told about their trip to some merchants 
 who became interested, and this is the way that 
 Hudson Bay came to be controlled by the Eng- 
 lish instead of the French. However, Radisson 
 and Groseilliers quarreled with the English people, 
 went back to Canada, and made two trips into 
 the country which later became Minnesota. The 
 
 
S2 Our Minnesota 
 
 first time they entered at the southeast corner of 
 the State, not very far from where the city of 
 Winona is today, and went up the Mississippi River 
 as far as Prairie Island, between Red Wing and 
 Hastings, which they called the First Landing 
 Island. They spent a year with this place as head- 
 quarters, really captives of the Sioux, who took 
 them on their hunting trips, probably as far as 
 Mille Lac. This was in 1655-56. 
 
 The diary of Radisson is most interesting. He 
 tells about the buffalo, antelope, pelicans, and 
 shovel-nosed sturgeon, all of which were new to 
 him, for during the fourteen months that the two 
 men spent with this band, he seems to have traveled 
 with the Indians and enjoyed life immensely while 
 Groseilliers spent the time in getting corn and other 
 supplies ready for the journey back. At last, he 
 tells us, they have a great deal of beaver fur, which 
 the diary calls *' castor"; are ready for the long 
 trip and have persuaded five hundred Indians to 
 go back to Montreal with them, so that they might 
 be sure to get all the fur trade of this part of the 
 country. When they are all ready to leave, the 
 Indians hear that their enemies, the Hurons to 
 the east, are on the war path and refuse to go. 
 After urging, begging, and threatening the Sioux, 
 Radisson stands up in a great assembly of 
 eight hundred savage Indians and, pulling the 
 
The First White Man 83 
 
 beaver skin from the shoulders of one of them, 
 beats him with it, calls him a coward, and tells the 
 Indians that if they won't come with him, he and 
 Groseilliers will go alone. This bravery of his im- 
 presses the Indians, so that they all come with him, 
 and in this way came about the first trading ex- 
 pedition of this part of the world. It must have 
 been a splendid sight, this brigade of fifty canoes 
 bearing hundreds of savage Indians, and bringing 
 great loads of valuable beaver, as it voyaged toward 
 Quebec. 
 
 While Radisson was with the Sioux, he baptized 
 many children, and the Indians who came east 
 with him asked for presents and also for priests 
 to teach their children "the way to heaven. " 
 
 Within the next two years these two adventurers 
 made a journey along the northern shore of Lake 
 Superior, which Radisson describes, though, of 
 course, he often makes mistakes in geography. 
 Skirting the shore, he describes Isle Royale in 
 this way: **In the end of that point, that goeth 
 very farre, there is an isle, as I was told, all of 
 copper. This I have not scene. They say that 
 from the isle in a faire and calme wether, begin- 
 ning from sun rising to sun sett, they come to a 
 great island (Isle Royale), from whence they come 
 the next morning to firme land att the other 
 side." 
 
84 Our Minnesota 
 
 During this trip they gave knives to the Indians, 
 and from this we know that they probably traded 
 with the Sioux Indians around Knife Lake, for the 
 people who lived there were called Isanti, which 
 means knife. Radisson says of the council there: 
 "They are arrived, they satt downe. We made a 
 place for us more elevated, to be more att our ease & 
 to' appeare in more state. We borrowed their Calu- 
 met, saying that we are in their countrey , and that it 
 was not lawful! for us to carry anything out of our 
 countrey. That pipe is of a red stone, as bigge as 
 a fiste and as long as a hand. The small reede as 
 long as five foot, in breadth, and of the thicknesse 
 of a thumb. There is tyed to it the tayle of an 
 eagle all painted over with severall coulours and 
 open like a fan, or like that which makes a kind of 
 a wheele when he shuts; below the toppe of the 
 steeke is covered with feathers of ducks and other 
 birds that are of a fine collour. We tooke the tayle 
 of the eagle, and instead of it we hung 12 Iron bows 
 in the same manner as the feathers weare, and a 
 blade about it along the staffe, a hattchett planted 
 in the ground, and that calumet over it, and all our 
 armours about it uppon forks. Every one smoaked 
 his pipe of tobacco, nor they never goe without it. 
 During that while there was a great silence. We 
 prepared some powder that was litle wetted, and 
 the good powder was precious to us. Our Inter- 
 
The First White Man 85 
 
 preter told them in our name, 'Brethren, we have 
 accepted of your guifts.'" 
 
 This journey was a very hard one, for the 
 winter was severe, with heavy snow, and our 
 travelers almost starved to death. The diary tells 
 us a very sad tale of having to eat buffalo skins and 
 of living for a while almost entirely on soup made 
 from bittersweet. Five hundred of the people 
 with whom they camped died of starvation, but 
 in the Spring things were happier and two great 
 councils were held, in which the Indians promised 
 peace and friendship to the French. Our adven- 
 turers made a six weeks' visit to the friendly 
 Indian tribes, going across Minnesota as far as 
 the Red River Valley, where they made a treaty 
 and returned to Lake Superior, coming back from 
 their long journey with sixty canoes loaded with 
 furs, and what was even more important, the 
 friendship of the Indians. 
 
 Radisson tells us many interesting things in his 
 diary which gives a very vivid picture of his life, 
 for he talks a great deal about himself, and his 
 story is an exciting one to read, although we are 
 afraid sometimes he imagines things that never 
 happened. We read here for the first time about 
 blueberries and white fish, and how he hid ducks 
 in hollow trees to keep them from the eagles, how 
 he hated the food of the Indians until they gave 
 
86 Our Minnesota 
 
 him hulled corn, and how the Indians made pemmi- 
 can which could be kept and carried a long distance. 
 
 Many things which might have made his writing 
 more worth while he doesn't speak of, nor does he 
 mention the names of places which would have 
 helped very much in later explorations. We are 
 afraid that he kept these things to himself because 
 he didn't want other people to profit by his trip, 
 and so he didn't help the world nearly so much as 
 he might have, if he had been more generous about 
 his discoveries. But he will always be remembered 
 from the fact that he was one of the people who 
 founded the Hudson Bay Company, and that he 
 was the first white man to see Minnesota, though, 
 like Columbus, he never knew the importance of 
 his discoveries. 
 
 The next white person who came here was Daniel 
 Graysolon Du Luth, who explored all the country 
 between Lake Superior and Mille Lac which, you 
 remember, was the early home of the Sioux, and 
 out of which they were driven by the Ojibways. 
 He held a great council of the Indians near the 
 place where the city of Duluth is today, and in 
 1679 built a fort near Pigeon River, the place which 
 later was to become so important to the traders. 
 
 He was the first one to come to the Mississippi 
 River from Lake Superior, and coming down the 
 rivers went west as far as Mille Lac, on the way 
 
The First White Man 87 
 
 discovering Father Hennepin, who was a captive of 
 the Sioux. Du Luth was considered a very great 
 man by the Indians and won their affection and fear, 
 so he was able to rescue Hennepin, whom he took 
 with him as a guide, planting the flag with the lilies 
 of France farther west than it ever had been before. 
 
 He returned with Hennepin to Quebec, where he 
 reported many discoveries and where he tried to 
 have liquor forbidden to the Indians, for he felt that 
 it would do a great deal of harm, as it undoubtedly 
 did. 
 
 Just before this the Governor of Canada had 
 sent a man on an exploring trip farther south than 
 the ones we have been talking about. This man 
 was Robert Cavelier, commonly known as LaSalle, 
 a powerful, elegant figure in this new land, admired 
 by the Indians for his velvet and gold lace, and 
 feared by them as much, for he was the first one 
 whom the Indians had seen with so many helpers 
 who had ** spirit irons. " 
 
 With him was Hennepin, a Franciscan monk, of 
 the Recollect Order, who, though a Frenchman, had 
 lived many years in Canada. He was very anxious 
 to be a great explorer, for he was a natural adven- 
 turer, and tells us himself in his diary how he used 
 to listen behind doors to hear people talk of ad- 
 ventures, and that he had always wanted to go 
 into the wilds. He had already been a missionary 
 
88 Our Minnesota 
 
 among the Indians in western New York, so it was 
 natural that he should be chosen for this trip. 
 
 One hundred years before our independence the 
 little party, led by LaSalle, stopped at Niagara 
 River, where they worked for six months, build- 
 ing a boat which they towed to Lake Erie. On 
 their way west they visited Mackinaw, where 
 LaSalle, dressed in gold lace and scarlet, held a 
 council of Indians, whom he told of the glories of 
 France. From this place they sent back a vessel 
 loaded with thousands of dollars' worth of furs, but 
 it was never heard from again and was probably 
 lost in one of those gales which still make Lake 
 Erie dangerous. With four canoes LaSalle and his 
 party skirted the strange coasts of Lake Michigan, 
 camped on the wild shores, and at times almost 
 starved to death, once finding a buffalo mired in a 
 great marsh, just in time to save their lives, and at 
 another time reaching an Indian village, deserted 
 for the yearly hunt, but where they found some 
 Indian corn. When they arrived at Peoria in 
 Illinois, LaSalle ordered Hennepin to go up the 
 Mississippi River while he himself went south, 
 reaching, in 1682, the mouth of the Great River. 
 Hennepin was delighted with his new adventure 
 because he was sure that he could find a way to go 
 from the Mississippi to Japan or China through 
 "the frozen sea." These were the places that all 
 
The First White Man 89 
 
 the European people expected to find and thought 
 they had found on their trips to America. They 
 all thought that these countries were full of gold 
 and silver and precious jewels, and many of the 
 early explorers believed that all the rivers flowing 
 into the Mississippi from the west would take them 
 clear across the continent. 
 
 So in February, 1680, Hennepin started with his 
 party in a canoe and they had an easy time until 
 they came to a place where the floating ice kept 
 them for a whole month, so it was April before they 
 began their hard trip up the great river. They had 
 been given goods worth about two hundred and fifty 
 dollars for presents to the Indians. Hennepin him- 
 self received ten knives, twelve bodkins, a little 
 tobacco, two pounds of black and white glass beads, 
 and some needles, all things which the Indians 
 would prize. 
 
 There were in the one canoe Picard Du Gay and 
 Michel Ako who was the leader of the expedition, 
 and Hennepin who was its historian. When they 
 reached the southern border of Minnesota, after 
 a hard journey, they were taken captive by a 
 band of Sioux, who took them along on their 
 wanderings. Hennepin tells us a great many 
 stories of his captivity, especially of the hard time 
 he had trying to say his prayers, for the Indians 
 thought he was conjuring with Manitou against 
 
90 Our Minnesota 
 
 them. The whole Indian village had a great 
 powwow over the captives whom they almost de- 
 cided to kill, and spared only because they promised 
 to help them trade with the French. The Indians 
 at this time were all trappers and hunters and 
 thought that the furs, which they could get so 
 easily and any amount of which the French would 
 take, were perfectly useless, and that the trinkets 
 which they traded for, were worth a great deal. 
 They were very much impressed with the guns of 
 the white men, which they called Maza wakan, or 
 "spirit irons." They took Hennepin and his party 
 north, camped at Lake Pepin, and in nineteen days 
 came near where St. Paul now is. Today we can 
 take that trip in two hours. 
 
 After leaving the Mississippi River they went 
 over to Mille Lac where the captives were very 
 kindly treated and where Hennepin, who was worn 
 out and ached in every part of his body, was given 
 a steam bath. He was made to lie down on a bear 
 skin, and his feet and legs were rubbed with the 
 grease of wildcats; then the chiefs ''wept on his 
 head," which was the way in which the Sioux 
 showed their feelings, and after they had wept for a 
 quarter of an hour, they took him into a little 
 lodge, where they poured water on red-hot stones. 
 Hennepin says that he fainted from the heat and 
 thought he was going to die, but after he had 
 
The First White Man 91 
 
 been treated in this way several times, he felt much 
 better. He was covered with a robe made of ten 
 large beaver skins, trimmed with porcupine quills; 
 then the wives of the chiefs took care of him, 
 showing that he was adopted into their tribe. 
 
 He tells us a great many interesting things, how 
 the Indians wondered at his compass, whose needle 
 they thought he turned by conjuring, and wouldn't 
 touch an iron pot, which he carried, because it had 
 feet like a lion. He had to hang it in a tree before 
 anyone would come near his lodge. 
 
 He baptized many Indian babies and learned a 
 good deal about the country, although his geo- 
 graphy was pretty mixed, but you must remember 
 that he didn't have the beautiful maps that we all 
 have today. His great discovery was St. Anthony 
 Falls, which he describes as forty or fifty feet high 
 and he tells of an island in the very center, which 
 shows us that the water must have worn away the 
 rock for many feet back, as the island today is far 
 from the falls. In a tree nearby he engraved the 
 cross, and the arms of France, and he named the 
 beautiful cataract for his patron saint, Anthony 
 of Padua. We may imagine his surprise and joy 
 at seeing the majestic fall of water as it curls over 
 the rocky ledge and plunges into the Mississippi 
 River. It is impressive today, surrounded on all 
 sides by the city with its mills and factories with 
 
92 Our Minnesota 
 
 their ceaseless whir. What it must have been to 
 those tired travelers, where there were no sounds 
 but the roar of the water and the songs of the 
 birds, and nothing to detract from the green of the 
 woods and the white of the little Indian trail 
 glistening on one side! 
 
 When Du Luth found Father Hennepin, he was 
 really in slavery and was made to plant, seed, and 
 till the ground, which was considered humiliating 
 because it was woman's work. He had little to 
 eat, only smoked fish and wild rice, six times a 
 week. But after all, from what he says in his own 
 book, the Indians appear to have been fond of him 
 and to have treated him very well. 
 
 Father Hennepin published his travels and the 
 first time told many important things in that diary, 
 which the Indians thought was a spirit book. 
 Because he had made a sort of dictionary of the 
 Dakota language from talking with the Indian 
 children, the people thought that the book told 
 him what to say. The second time he published 
 his travels he imagined much, and was censured 
 by the King of France, because he didn't tell the 
 truth. Do you wonder when he saw so many 
 things which no white man had ever seen before 
 that he got them somewhat mixed? Hennepin 
 County is named for him, but the thing for which 
 he will be remembered always is that he was the 
 
The First White Man 93 
 
 first white man who saw and named the living 
 water of the great falls. 
 
 We shall find Nicholas Perrot more a trader than 
 explorer, but we should think of him among these 
 people, because he wrote the first state paper which 
 ever mentioned the land which was to be Minnesota. 
 In 1689 from Fort Saint Antoine, on the Wis- 
 consin side of Lake Pepin, he issued a proclamation 
 in which, in a lordly way, he took possession of all 
 the lands of the Dakotas. This was the claim on 
 this part of the world which France held until 1763. 
 
 With Perrot at this time, and also a signer of the 
 paper, was Pierre Le Sueur who made a canoe trip 
 up the Mississippi, and explored from Lake Pepin 
 to the mouth of the St. Croix River, finding caves 
 of bears and telling about rattlesnakes, which he 
 says have teeth like pikes, with a sack of poison 
 in each tooth. He met Indians here, who "wept 
 on his head" for a quarter of an hour, and with 
 whom he smoked a hatchet pipe. 
 
 In 1695 he came back and established a fort at 
 Prairie Island, a few miles below Hastings, in order 
 to keep peace between the Sioux and the Chippewas. 
 This is the same island which Radisson tells of 
 forty years before, and it is hard to realize that this 
 was long before anyone had discovered the mouth 
 of the Mississippi River. 
 
 Le Sueur discovered and explored the Minnesota 
 
94 Our Minnesota 
 
 River, which he called the St. Peter, possibly 
 naming it after himself or his patron saint, Saint 
 Pierre. Near the mouth of the Blue Earth River, 
 a few miles from Mankato, he thought he discovered 
 a great copper mine. The same year he went to 
 Montreal taking an O jib way chief and the first 
 Dakota chief who ever visited Canada. When 
 Frontenac, the great French governor, met these 
 Indians, Tioscate, the Dakota, dressed in full war 
 paint, wept on him and laid down before him an 
 otter skin and a beaver skin, begging him for 
 *' irons." Then he gave Frontenac twenty-two 
 arrows, one for each of the villages, which he 
 promised should trade with no one but the French. 
 
 Le Sueur was the greatest of all the French 
 explorers because he had more influence with the 
 Indians than any of the others, but most of all 
 because we may be sure that he tells us the truth, 
 and you know history that is not true is worth 
 nothing. Le Sueur helped to make an important 
 map which was a great help to those who came after 
 him and we shall hear of him later. 
 
 The first man who came from our own country, 
 even though it then belonged to England, was 
 Jonathan Carver, who was born in Connecticut. 
 They tried to make a doctor of him but he didn't 
 like it, and thought he would rather go exploring. By 
 this time the war between France and England was 
 
The First White Man 95 
 
 over and what is now the part of Minnesota east 
 of the Mississippi River had been won by England, 
 as the French had been made to give up their 
 claims, so Carver came into English territory when 
 he came to Minnesota. This was just ten years 
 before the Declaration of Independence, so it is an 
 easy date to remember, 1766. 
 
 Carver came through Michigan and Wisconsin 
 and up the river, of course in a canoe. He poled a 
 canoe into the St. Peter, now the Minnesota River, 
 as far as New Ulm, searching for the Northwest 
 Passage. He was the first one to notice the mounds, 
 which he was sure were ancient fortifications or 
 earthworks. He described the great cave named 
 for him at St. Paul, and said that it was covered 
 with curious signs all over the inside and he told 
 about a great many places which are now very well 
 known. You remember, he saw the Indian bones 
 buried in what is now Indian Mounds Park. He 
 made a trip to St. Anthony Falls, of which he 
 was the first person to make a sketch, which was 
 engraved later. 
 
 Carver used up the goods which he had brought 
 with him for presents to the Indians and for more 
 was obliged to travel as far as Grand Portage, the 
 oldest and most eastern settlement of Minnesota, 
 where he found that the traders had no goods to 
 spare, and he was obliged to return home. 
 
96 Our Minnesota 
 
 The first explorer from the United States was 
 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who came, you remember, 
 in 1805 to expel the English traders from our 
 country, and who went as far as Cass Lake, visit- 
 ing many posts and demanding from the Indians 
 and the English all their medals and flags. His 
 party had a very hard winter and when the ice 
 moved out the men celebrated with a dance. We 
 can understand how they felt at the thought of 
 home after all they had endured. 
 
 After this the United States Government thought 
 it was wise to build a fort in this country, and so 
 the war department ordered Major S. H. Long to look 
 for a place to locate the fort. He came up here in 
 18 1 7 and left Prairie du Chien in a six-oared skiff, 
 spending thirteen days on a trip as far as St. 
 Anthony Falls. He took breakfast one morning 
 at Carver's Cave, chose the beautiful spot where 
 Fort Snelling now stands, and camped near the 
 falls about where the University now is. Six years 
 later he made another trip for the United States 
 Government, which sent him with a party to 
 explore, make maps, study the geology, geography, 
 and plant and flower life of this region. This was 
 the first time that the United States Government 
 gained any information about our part of the 
 country. The party passed Winona and Red Wing, 
 which were Indian villages; stopped to see Red 
 
The First White Man 97 
 
 Rock, so venerated by the Indians, and described an 
 Indian cemetery, where Indian Mounds Park now is. 
 
 From their description we learn that Little Crow 
 at this time had moved the village Kaposia up 
 the river to about where the St. Paul railroad 
 yards are today. The party went up the Minnesota 
 River to Lake Traverse, crossed to the Red River 
 and went to Pembina, then with canoes they 
 traveled what today is the northern boundary of 
 Minnesota, taking six months for the trip, and 
 giving reports to the United States Government 
 on everything they found. 
 
 With Major Long was an Italian by the name of 
 Beltrami who had much to do with the discovery 
 of the Mississippi River, and so we shall read about 
 him when we talk about that. 
 
 The three people, whom we shall speak of next, 
 were not early explorers because they came long 
 after this region was settled, but they were ex- 
 plorers, just the same. 
 
 In 1835 two geologists named Featherstonhaugh 
 and Mather came to study the rocks and their 
 formation along the valley of the Minnesota River, 
 which they called Minnay-Sotar. They went from 
 Fort Snelling through the southwestern part of 
 Minnesota to Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse, 
 and gained very important knowledge for the 
 government. 
 
9^ Our Minnesota 
 
 The same year an artist by the name of George 
 Catlin came to Fort Snelling to make sketches of 
 the Indians. He made a great many wonderful 
 pictures, and later published a book illustrated 
 with his Indian pictures and landscapes, now in 
 the National Museum in Washington. He went up 
 and down the river three times, — in a canoe, in a 
 dugout, and in a steamboat, and traveled on horse- 
 back to the pipe stone quarries,, and with each trip 
 he was more enthusiastic about the place. 
 
 One of the greatest, as well as one of the last of 
 the explorers who came here before we were a 
 State, was Joseph N. Nicollet, a distinguished as- 
 tronomer. You must be careful not to confuse his 
 name with that of Jean Nicolet, who came to Canada 
 in 1618, and was the first white man who ever visited 
 Wisconsin. Joseph Nicollet was born in France, 
 which he left under a cloud, coming to the United 
 States poor and unfortunate, but with a wonderful 
 mind and a fine education, which made him a place 
 just as soon as he had a chance to show them. He 
 was so poor that he had to borrow instruments 
 from the United States Government when he first 
 came here, in 1835. He spent most of that winter 
 with Mr. Sibley at Mendota, and although he was 
 delicate and not used to the cold of our frontier 
 life, he worked hard all the time. 
 
 Sibley speaks of him as one of the most delightful 
 
The First White Man 99 
 
 men he ever met. He did such valuable work while 
 here, that he was engaged by the United States 
 to explore the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, 
 and he made a most wonderful map, which was a 
 great help to the government. While he was 
 surveying in the southern part of the State, he 
 passed a lake in Freeborn County, which he named 
 Albert Lea, from a man who was also a government 
 surveyor. Nicollet's map shows all the little rivers 
 which flow into the Mississippi and which he was 
 the first one to trace. Nicollet County as well as the 
 town is named for him. 
 
 MISSIONS 
 
 Side by side with the early traders and trappers 
 from France came another explorer, one who loved 
 the wilds, sought adventure, and endured uncom- 
 plainingly the hardships of frontier life. This was 
 the devoted priest, who looked for other things 
 than simple adventure and what it brought in its 
 train, for he spent strength, time, and life itself to 
 bring the cross to the Red Man. 
 
 You remember that in the dawn of our history, 
 Radisson told of baptizing children during his stay 
 on Prairie Island, and of the heathen Indians. The 
 story of a people knowing nothing of God touched 
 Ren6 Menard, a Jesuit priest at Quebec, who 
 
loo Our Minnesota 
 
 offered to go himself to the shores of Lake Superior 
 to convert the Indians. He was white-haired and 
 frail, but his spirit was strong and the idea of 
 danger and hardship was welcome to him. 
 
 The night before he left for the far West, he 
 wrote a letter which has come down to us, in which 
 he said he did not expect to return, but felt that his 
 life was well given if it took Christianity to the 
 heathen. The aged man landed on the shores of 
 Lake Superior with several Indians and a compan- 
 ion named Guerin. There they passed a terrible 
 winter, almost starving to death, their food part of 
 the time being broth made from a kind of snail 
 which they found on the shore, and sometimes of 
 a mixture of pounded fish bones and acorns. They 
 were on the verge of starvation when spring came, 
 bringing food in the shape of wild birds, and they 
 became strong enough to start out again to find 
 the people still farther west. 
 
 The two white men were deserted by their Indian 
 guides, and one day the old priest was lost in the 
 forest and no trace of him could be found, although 
 the loyal Guerin searched long and faithfully and 
 could not bear to give up the hope that he might 
 find him. Some time afterward his camp kettle 
 was found in a Sauk lodge and his robe and prayer 
 book were seen among the Dakotas, who thought 
 they were wakan. 
 
The First White Man loi 
 
 Claude Allouez followed the same hard path as 
 Menard, founding in 1 665 the ' ' Mission of the Holy 
 Spirit" at La Pointe on Madeline Island, one of a 
 group on the south shore of Lake Superior called 
 "The Apostles." He seems to have had a great 
 deal of influence over the Indian tribes who were 
 hostile to one another, and visited the many tribes 
 scattered all about that country, meeting the Sioux 
 at Fond du Lac in Minnesota at the mouth of the 
 St. Louis River near the spot where Duluth stands 
 today, and he longed to see the great river on whose 
 banks they lodged. He is the first to call it by its 
 Indian name Messipi. 
 
 Allouez had a hard time with his fierce parish- 
 ioners, and at one time exclaimed, ''Would that all 
 these nations loved God as they fear the French." 
 He became discouraged after spending several years 
 of hard work with so little to show for it, so in 
 1669 his place was taken by the famous Marquette, 
 who built many missions from Michigan westward. 
 The little church at La Pointe is still called by his 
 name and is the oldest monument of missionary 
 work in our north country, although it is not in 
 our own State. 
 
 Father Hennepin seems to have been a very 
 practical sort of missionary, teaching his captors 
 to plow and plant, taking care of sick children as 
 well as baptizing the little ones, mourning the loss 
 
102 Our Minnesota 
 
 of his portable altar and cassock and complaining 
 that he couldn't say his prayers in peace. 
 
 The Indians called the early Fathers "Black 
 Blankets, " and loved the vestments and forms of 
 Christianity, though it was very hard to teach 
 them much about brotherhood, for an Indian's 
 idea of revenge, or paying back an injury, is as 
 natural to him as breathing. 
 
 The first mission building on Minnesota soil 
 was put up in 1727 on the shore of Lake Pepin near 
 Frontenac and was called the "Mission of Saint 
 Michael the Archangel." In about twenty years 
 it was given up, as were many of the western 
 missions, and trading posts, because of the great 
 outbreak of the Sac and Fox Indians. 
 
 Afterward for years there was war between the 
 French and English, so it is very hard to know how 
 much the early missions did for the Indians for 
 almost all the traces we have of the early Fathers 
 are names of saints which they gave to so many of 
 our rivers and early settlements. 
 
 AMERICAN 
 
 The year after Fort Snelling was built Mrs. 
 Snelling and Mrs. Clark, the mother of Charlotte 
 Van Cleve, started a Sunday School in the base- 
 
The First White Man 103 
 
 ment of the officers' quarters for the children at the 
 Fort. 
 
 The first sermon that was ever preached in 
 English in the northwest was by Mr. Morse, the 
 father of the inventor of the telegraph, who was at 
 Mackinaw, and through him a boarding school was 
 started for all the Indian children in the Northwest 
 Territory. There were a garden, trades for the boys 
 and housework for the girls and many Indian 
 children were there, at one time over two hundred. 
 This was the school where a good many of the 
 people in the territory received the only education 
 they had. 
 
 In 1833 Mr. Boutwell (the same one who named 
 Lake Itasca) went to Leech Lake and founded the 
 first American mission west of the Mississippi living 
 there among the Pillager Indians, the fiercest of all 
 the tribes in the northwest. When he reached the 
 camp, all the men of the tribe had gone on their 
 yearly hunting trip and so he started work with 
 the women and children. The women were very 
 friendly and he had a good time with the children, 
 who at first ran if he looked at them, then began 
 shyly peeking into his tent and finally clustered 
 about him and became his firm friends. They all 
 wanted to learn to sing and to read. When the 
 braves returned from hunting, they came to listen 
 to him, a few of them laughing and annoying him, 
 
104 Our Minnesota 
 
 but most of them silent and interested. He lived 
 among these people for a long time, marrying a 
 Chippewa girl who became a Christian. 
 
 Between 1830 and 1849, when the territory was 
 organized, there were many missions established 
 for Indians and they were the only schools the 
 Indian children had. These, together with the 
 traders' settlements, were the beginning of civilized 
 life in this western country. 
 
 The missionaries did not preach so much as they 
 taught, singing with the children, telling them 
 stories, and teaching the women to wash and to 
 sew and the men to farm. 
 
 In 1834 two brothers named Pond came to Fort 
 Snelling and later moved to Lake Calhoun, where 
 there were a few lodges of Dakotas. The Pond 
 brothers taught and preached and started several 
 missions in the territory. 
 
 Samuel Pond was six feet tall and the Indians 
 thought that he was a great man for they let him 
 teach them to plow. His thirteen children grew up 
 among the Indians. The year after the Pond brothers 
 came, the Reverend Dr. Williamson, who was also 
 a doctor of medicine, with a band of helpers, among 
 them two teachers, came to this region. One of 
 them, Mr. Stevens, settled at Lake Harriet where 
 he started a school with six Indian children, all 
 Sioux, and later the school grew to twenty-five. 
 
The First White Man 105 
 
 He wrote several books, among them a speller, 
 with which Mr. Pond helped him. He settled 
 down among his people and was devoted to them. 
 He used to lead service at Fort Snelling and with 
 Dr. Williamson conducted the first communion 
 service ever held there. 
 
 Dr. Williamson started a mission at Lac qui 
 Parle where he translated a part of the Bible into 
 the Dakota language and where he was joined by- 
 Mr. Riggs who had been at the Lake Harriet 
 Mission since 1837. These missionaries with the 
 help of the Indians translated several books into 
 the Dakota language as well as writing the^text 
 books which were used in the mission schools. The 
 Dakota dictionary, which scholars still use, was 
 edited by Mr. Riggs. 
 
 At the earnest request of Little Crow, Dr. Wil- 
 liamson moved to his village at Kaposia where he 
 lived until going with the band when they went to 
 their reservation on the Minnesota River. After 
 the break-up of the Sioux band on account of the 
 massacre in 1862, Dr. Williamson was asked what 
 he would do when they were moved out of the 
 State and he said, ''Of course I shall follow my 
 people wherever they go," and he did go west with 
 the Indians and ministered to them for several 
 years. 
 
 At Lac qui Parle in 184 1 Mr. Riggs and Dr. 
 
io6 Our Minnesota 
 
 Williamson built a brick church with a steeple and 
 a bell, and this was the first church bell to sound 
 across the waters of the upper Mississippi. These 
 two men established^ mission at Traverse des Sioux 
 which lasted until 1854 when it was "overtaken by 
 the whites, " and together they lived near Yellow 
 Medicine where they had a large mission station. 
 There were here a boarding house for Indian chil- 
 dren, a school-house, a church with a steeple and 
 a bell, a wonderful place for the Indians who loved 
 novelties. 
 
 They believed that citizenship and religion should 
 go together and formed what was called the "Hazel- 
 wood Republic. " No one could be a member of it 
 who didn't obey certain rules. They had to cut 
 off their hair and wear white men's clothes and 
 were supposed to belong to the church, though 
 they didn't have to do this. The president of the 
 republic was "The Man Who Shoots Metal as He 
 Walks," and John Otherday was a member, both 
 of them the best friends of the white people in the 
 massacre of 1862, and they helped many people to 
 escape from the Indians. These Indians had 
 helped to rescue the women after the Spirit Lake 
 massacre in Iowa, and not one of the mission 
 Indians joined with their bands in the war. 
 
 The Indians were very hard to Christianize. 
 They had no idea of law or order. They didn't 
 
The First White Man 107 
 
 believe in work because they thought it belonged 
 to the^squaws, and the ** dignity of labor" meant 
 nothing to them. They didn't understand that 
 stealing was wrong, for they had everything in 
 common except their guns, their traps and their 
 blankets, and thought a religion a poor thing which 
 didn't practise the brotherhood it preached, for 
 the missionaries kept their own belongings and 
 punished those who took them away. It is likely 
 that very few of the Indians really understood what 
 Christianity meant. 
 
 But the children were taught the new religion 
 and when they grew up they were more peaceful, 
 lived better lives and helped others to do the same. 
 We can see this today on the Leech Lake Reserva- 
 tion, where the Blanket Indians, as the heathen 
 Indians are called, live in dirty, little, untidy one- 
 roomed houses and are barbarians even now, while 
 almost all the Christian Indians live in good frame 
 houses with several neat and tidy rooms, and with 
 little garden patches about them. They are self- 
 respecting and well-thought of. 
 
 The early missionaries left a great treasure in 
 their letters and diaries, which are the best histories 
 we have of early times here and without which we 
 should know much less of our early history. 
 
 In 1839 Bishop Loras came up to Fort Snelling, 
 which was a part of his great diocese, and arranged 
 
io8 Our Minnesota 
 
 to send a missionary priest and establish a church 
 as soon as possible. So when the river was open 
 the next spring, the Reverend Lucien Gal tier, 
 who had come from France two years before with 
 Bishop Loras, came up to take charge of this new 
 parish. It is said of Father Gal tier "that he had 
 the face of a Caesar and the heart of a Madonna." 
 He was a man who would have been widely known 
 if he had stayed in city life, yet to the people of 
 St. Paul he did gain fame, for not only did he 
 build the first church in that city, which was then a 
 little collection of straggling log houses, but he 
 also gave the name of the little log church to the 
 settlement, which before this had been called after 
 an Indian trader whose nickname was "Pig's Eye." 
 
 Father Galtier lived first at Mendota in the 
 house of Scott Campbell with whose family he 
 stayed for a month, when he found a room which he 
 used for church, parlor and kitchen, making a little 
 altar of rough boards, which was folded up and 
 covered, excepting during service. Over a year he 
 lived there in a house belonging to J. B. Fairbault, 
 his parish being six families and some of the soldiers 
 at the Fort. 
 
 When the settlers, driven away from Red River, 
 were moved off the reservation, they went to what 
 is now St. Paul and Father Galtier needed a 
 church, so that he might hold service for them. 
 
Father Galtier's Chapel of St. Paul. Built in 184 1 
 (By courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society) 
 
The First White Man 109 
 
 Two of the earliest comers, Vetal Guerin and 
 Benjamin Gervais each gave the church a piece of 
 his claim, on a spot between Cedar and Minnesota 
 streets and near the levee. Eight men helped to 
 build Father Galtier's little chapel in a grove of 
 oak trees, where are now business blocks with rail- 
 road trains constantly thundering by, and back of it 
 there was a tamarack swamp where, later, the 
 second cathedral was built. 
 
 After the place had been cleared the little church, 
 built of rough logs fastened with wooden pins, 
 was put up. The roof of bark-covered slabs, given 
 by a mill owner in Stillwater, was brought up the 
 river by steamboat and hauled up the hill by hand 
 ropes. The slabs were used for floor and benches, 
 and the chapel, when finished, was twenty-five 
 feet long, eighteen wide, and ten high. The only 
 way in which it differed from the other cabins was 
 that it had a little cross over the door. 
 
 It took but a few days to build, and it was dedi- 
 cated in November, 1841, Father Gal tier naming 
 it Saint Paul, because, he said, it was near to Saint 
 Peter, where his other parish was. 
 
 The first congregation was made up of a few 
 Swiss, a few French voyageurs and traders, a few 
 Irish adventurers and Sioux Indians. 
 
 When Father Galtier left this parish, after 
 four years of work, his place was filled by Father 
 
no Our Minnesota 
 
 Ravoux, a very earnest man and always busy, 
 converting many Indians. He was the only priest 
 in Minnesota until Bishop Cretin came in 1851. 
 The chapel was soon enlarged and Henry Rice gave 
 it a bell from the Argo, a steamer sunk in the river 
 in 1847. 
 
 In five months after Bishop Cretin arrived he 
 had begun a large brick building for the second 
 Cathedral and bishops' home, which he did not 
 live to see finished. When this building could be 
 used, the old chapel was taken as a school by the 
 pioneer nuns, the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who came 
 in 1 85 1, and lived in the log shanty which had been 
 the Bishop's home. 
 
 Their school had fourteen pupils in the beginning, 
 and the first holiday was spent in stuffing up the 
 holes between the logs, which let in the daylight as 
 well as the cold. 
 
 In 1853 Henry Rice gave the land to Bishop 
 Cretin for Saint Joseph's Hospital but it wasn't 
 finished when some of the boat hands brought 
 cholera to St. Paul, in 1854, and the old chapel was 
 then used for a hospital. 
 
 Afterward it was again used as a chapel until it 
 was no longer needed. It was taken down and the 
 logs moved to the grounds of Saint Joseph's 
 Academy, to be rebuilt and kept as a sacred relic, 
 but the men working on the place, not knowing 
 
The First White Man 
 
 III 
 
 what the logs were to be used for, burned them and 
 left nothing to show for the first cathedral, but 
 much to feel and much to think of. 
 
 This was a small beginning but that beginning 
 grew until today the great cathedral crowns the 
 hill in the capital city, which itself grew from the 
 "Upper Landing" on the Mississippi River. 
 
 Joe Rolette 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MINNESOTA, THE GOPHER STATE 
 
 The people of the United States have always 
 been fond of nicknames and almost every State in 
 the Union has one, often coming from some hap- 
 pening which has little to do with history and of 
 which few people know the origin. The destructive 
 little animal from which our State gets its name, is 
 very plentiful here and always has been, unfor- 
 tunately for the farmer. In the early days some- 
 one suggested that we should call Minnesota the 
 Beaver State, its near neighbors Michigan and Wis- 
 consin being the Wolverine and the Badger, but the 
 name was not popular. Although many people 
 objected to the word Gopher, thinking that it was 
 not dignified enough for the coming great State, in 
 which all the early settlers believed, it was used as a 
 campaign cartoon in 1857 and has stuck to us ever 
 since. However, we shall think of it only as sug- 
 gesting the nvunber of wild animals belonging in 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Of all the people who came into our State, 
 
 112 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 113 
 
 the trapper and fur trader were the most daring 
 and the most picturesque. The Indians always 
 lived here, the settlers came for homes, but the 
 explorers alone, most of them trappers and traders, 
 came for love of the wilds and of adventure. 
 Whether the owner of an outfit, a powerful com- 
 pany agent, a voyageur who handled the canoes or 
 a coureur des hois (a guide through the woods), 
 all faced the dangers of climate, of wild animals, of 
 starvation and of hostile Indians. 
 
 The diaries of these early adventurers, even when 
 they simply give dry entries of business details, 
 speak of many a romance, for there was not one of 
 them who did not meet danger and face death by 
 starvation, cold, or wild beasts day after day. 
 
 The French were the first people who came here 
 to get the furs which France, with her love of finery 
 and beautiful apparel, cared for more than any 
 other people; but the French came too, because 
 they were daring and gallant and fond of adventure. 
 Long before there were any other white people here, 
 Minnesota was dotted with trading posts and little 
 camps of which there remain no traces today, ex- 
 cepting a name or a story; or here and there a 
 neglected clearing. 
 
 Our old friends, Radisson and Groseilliers, were 
 the first traders who touched Lake Superior, com- 
 ing into what was later this State a century before 
 
 8 
 
114 Our Minnesota 
 
 the Revolutionary War, returning to Quebec with 
 boatloads of furs worth forty thousand dollars. 
 
 Du Luth, perhaps, built the first trading post at 
 the head of Lake Superior as early as 1679, and 
 was one of the traders who tried always to help the 
 Indians, hating to see whisky given to them. 
 
 Our friend, Nicholas Perrot, was sent west to pre- 
 vent the Indians from trading with the Hudson Bay 
 Company, which you remember was English. His 
 fort was on the east shore of Lake Pepin, but as 
 early as 1689 he built Fort Perrot on the Minnesota 
 side of the lake, and had a very large trade there, 
 for the Indians were fond of him and he had a good 
 influence over them. 
 
 Le Sueur's trading post on Prairie Island lasted 
 only a little while and his mines like a good many 
 others, didn't turn out well, so he gave up his 
 western venture. 
 
 In 1699 Louis XIV, the King of France, recalled 
 all the French traders to Lower Canada and the fur 
 trade almost died out during the long wars between 
 the French and the English but revived again when 
 England gained all the French land in 1763. 
 
 It was through Radisson and Groseilliers, you 
 remember, that the Hudson Bay Company was 
 formed, the powerful company, which at one time, 
 handled all of the fur trade of this continent. They 
 made a great deal of money, their field being north 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 115 
 
 to Hudson Bay and even farther, and they con- 
 trolled all the trade in the Northwest until after the 
 independence of the United States. In 1787 the 
 Northwest Company was formed with its center 
 at Montreal. This company gained control of all 
 the fur trade throughout Minnesota and westward. 
 
 In 1809 the American Fur Company was organ- 
 ized with John Jacob Astor at its head and it traded 
 in furs as far as the Pacific Ocean. In 181 6 the 
 United States forbade the English companies to 
 trade with the Indians within our border, you 
 remember, because we feared that they were teach- 
 ing the Indians bad habits which we didn't want 
 to encourage so John Jacob Astor bought all the 
 ** factories," as they were called, on our side of 
 the line, keeping, though, the traders and trappers 
 who knew the business. This made England and 
 the United States rivals in the fur trade. Five 
 other great companies were formed and spread all 
 over the north though the Hudson Bay Company 
 was still the greatest as well as the oldest, and 
 in 1 82 1 the Northwest Company united with it. 
 The companies gave licenses to only those whom 
 they pleased and lorded it over their domains like 
 kings, but now the law was made that no one 
 might trade with the Indians without a license from 
 the United States. 
 
 The traders without licenses were sent out of the 
 
ii6 Our Minnesota 
 
 country and the United States sent to Fort Snel- 
 ling an Indian agent, Major Taliaferro, who had 
 charge of this business. 
 
 So long as the Hudson Bay route was open only 
 two months out of the year, it was found easier to 
 ship the furs south from Pembina by way of the 
 Red River to Mendota and later to St. Paul 
 which became the second market in America, the 
 most important being St. Louis. The Red River 
 carts drawn by oxen were used for many years, re- 
 placing the dog trains on the overland trip, but it 
 was found that rivers went faster than the oxen 
 and so they were in turn given up. 
 
 St. Paul is still a center for pelts and hides, 
 but not as formerly, for the pelts of those wild and 
 rare animals which once made it one of the fur 
 markets of the world, and though in the north- 
 western part of the State there are still many 
 animals, and our forests still give protection to 
 wild life, the trapping is no longer a great business. 
 Men who like that kind of adventure have gone far 
 north and west to the wilds of Northwest Terri- 
 tory and Alaska. The cities of St. Paul and St. 
 Louis, which once gathered up all of the peltries 
 and settled the prices on them for the world, are 
 now only centers to sell from. 
 
 In 1826 there were men at seventeen forts or 
 factories licensed for fur trading in the Minnesota 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 117 
 
 country and in 1834 there were twenty-four men 
 who were allowed to deal in furs with the Indians. 
 The most important factory at that time was at 
 Mendota in charge first of Alexis Bailly, an agent of 
 the American Fur Company, but he was accused 
 of selling liquor to the Indians and was replaced in 
 1834 by Henry Hastings Sibley, a man who became 
 a leader in all the affairs of this part of the country. 
 
 Just as soon as the white man begins to make 
 homes and farms, he has to cut down the woods to 
 make a place for his home, as well as for material 
 to build it from, and then wild animals must go, 
 for city life and hunting never go together, as we 
 cannot trap animals or stealthily stalk them where 
 there is manufacturing nor where streets are cut 
 through and people passing by. Nor can canoes 
 silently glide by or jump the rapids, the people in 
 them looking for the game, which comes down to 
 drink, when we use those rapids for water power to 
 turn our mills or to move our cars. 
 
 Trapping made a strange sort of man. He spent 
 months alone in the wilds, quiet, fearless, hardy, 
 doing his work, which often required more than 
 ordinary human strength; sleeping out, sometimes 
 absolutely alone for months at a time. When he 
 returned to the settlement he was lazy, thriftless 
 and often lawless, but we must not forget how he 
 blazed the trail through the pathless forests and 
 
ii8 Our Minnesota 
 
 made possible settlements and homes ; so he should 
 stand out as a hero and one never to be forgotten, 
 for the fur trader was one of our state builders. 
 
 The furs which were very valuable and which 
 sold for high prices were traded with the Indians 
 for powder, rum, lead, firearms and tobacco, as 
 well as all sorts of ornaments and clothes, which the 
 Indians valued. The traders used no money but 
 instead the prices were all settled by the values of 
 the best beaver skin, which was called a "plus." 
 One beaver skin was traded to the Indians for as 
 much red paint as could be piled on the point of a 
 case knife. Ten beaver skins would buy a blanket, 
 twenty would buy a gun, and they often traded 
 six bales of goods, which cost two thousand dollars 
 for skins worth thirty-five thousand, so the com- 
 panies made vast fortunes. 
 
 The Indians who obtained the skins so easily had 
 no idea of their value and were perfectly satisfied 
 with the exchange. 
 
 The licensed traders lived at the center called 
 a factory and sent companies to less important 
 posts, which were called factories or posts. The 
 most important one in Minnesota before Fort Snel- 
 ling was built was at Grand Portage, which was the 
 center of a canoe route from Mackinaw along Lake 
 Superior, Lakes Rainy and Winnipeg, and reaching 
 as far up as Great Slave Lake, which even today is 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 119 
 
 in the wilds. As early as 1800 the canoe yard at 
 Grand Portage held a hundred canoes, seventy new- 
 ones built each year. Thirty-five great canoes 
 came in one day that year from Mackinaw, each 
 bringing from three to five tons of goods with several 
 voyageurs to each canoe. Several hundred white 
 men were constantly busy there and the company 
 employed seven hundred squaws to scrape and 
 clean the skins and pack the bundles of fur. The 
 people there had great balls and entertainments 
 with grand banquets twenty years before Fort 
 Snelling was built. 
 
 The clerks of the fur companies were scattered 
 at all the out-of-the-way places and sometimes had 
 to endure great hardships, often living for months 
 at a time on potatoes and salt. They sent out the 
 canoemen or voyageurs, a hardy, bold, polite, care- 
 less lot of men, many of them half-breeds who took 
 life lightly and easily, and danced and sang to the 
 swing of the paddles up and down the streams. 
 They carried the packs to the Indians and trappers, 
 who did the real work of getting the skins. There 
 are many romantic stories told of these men and 
 many of their songs have come down to us like 
 the one at the end of this chapter, songs which 
 they used to sing in their canoes or camps, and 
 which the northern forests and hundreds of streams 
 and lakes still seem to echo. 
 
120 Our Minnesota 
 
 The canoes of the voyageurs held ten men and 
 sixty-five packages of goods. These packages 
 usually weighed about ninety pounds, and besides 
 the things we mentioned held beads, blankets, cut- 
 lery ; calico and ribbons for the squaws, and trinkets 
 of no value, but for which the Indian would trade 
 almost anything. 
 
 The companies' stores were usually great wooden 
 sheds, piled high with all the things which the 
 Indians loved and everything needed for the 
 companies' men on their long voyages, or months 
 of life in out-of-the-way places. There were rows 
 of moccasins, shelves full of blankets, paddles, 
 tobacco, snowshoes ; and piled high, 'way up to the 
 roof at the end of a good season, the priceless furs 
 of all sorts of animals, some of them now entirely 
 extinct. Here were beaver, muskrat, mink with its 
 rich brown color, otter of delicate fawn, fisher, 
 marten, skunk, weasel or the much prized ermine. 
 Beside these we should find raccoon, lynx, wild cat, 
 black bear, fox, among them the silver fox worth 
 almost its weight in gold, and wolf as well as deer, 
 elk and buffalo. When the trappers came in and 
 the exchange of goods was made, the skins were 
 sorted and pressed into great bales, such as we see 
 now for baling paper and hay. 
 
 While the canoe-men and the trappers were far 
 away from other people risking their lives in getting 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 121 
 
 pelts, the companies' agents spent their time in 
 taking charge of the store, smoking, selling now and 
 then to those who came in, for you must know that 
 the traders' stores for many years formed the only 
 means of buying anything at the little settlements. 
 The traders sometimes couldn't write, and used to 
 keep their Indian credit books by signs of their own, 
 often drawing the pictures of the animals instead of 
 writing the name of the pelt. 
 
 Meanwhile the trappers were up early every 
 morning working hard all day carrying heavy 
 bags when they were obliged to make a portage, 
 packing their canoes on their backs and, coming 
 downstream, again carrying them unless they could 
 shoot the rapids, which it was their delight to 
 do. 
 
 The food used by the Indian and the trapper and 
 carried with them on all their long trails was 
 pemmican. To make it the meat of the buffalo is 
 stripped of the fat, shredded and boiled; a sack is 
 made of buffalo skin with the fur on the outside; 
 this is sewed up with thread made of sinews. A 
 hole is dug in the ground and the sack put into it, 
 filled with meat packed and pounded until it is 
 absolutely compact. The whole is covered and the 
 crevices filled in from a kettle of boiling buffalo fat 
 which fills in every space and preserves the meat. 
 This is considered the best nourishment possible 
 
122 Our Minnesota 
 
 for men and dogs, especially fitted to the northern 
 countries where it is often impossible to make a 
 fire. It is easily carried and a little of it goes a 
 long way. It was used by the fur companies in 
 every trapper's outfit. 
 
 There were before 1850 forty different kinds of 
 fur in Minnesota, and the trappers knew how to 
 catch each animal in the quickest and easiest way 
 and the least liable to injure the skin. Most of 
 the animals were taken in the winter when the fur 
 is best, and this made life hard indeed for the trap- 
 per who had to endure many hardships and was in 
 danger all the time from the unfriendly Indians as 
 well as from the wolves, which were a great peril 
 in Minnesota. The beavers who built dams across 
 the streams by felling great trees which they gnawed 
 through with their sharp little teeth, were taken by 
 letting out the water from the dam and then club- 
 bing the poor, little creatures to death. The 
 smaller animals like the mink, the otter, the raccoon 
 and the silver fox, as well as the real ermine were 
 taken by steel traps set underneath the snow and 
 baited with fishes' heads or birds or any fresh meat. 
 The deer, of course had to be tracked sometimes 
 for many days, as were also the caribou, moose 
 and the elk. If we had time it would be very in- 
 teresting to follow the hunter day by day through 
 the snow as he got up early in the morning to make 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 123 
 
 his round of the traps before any animal, hungry in 
 the shut-in weather, could steal his prizes from him. 
 We should work hard with him all day long and 
 often far into the night and lie down at last as he 
 did, going to sleep with the howl of the wolves in 
 our ears, surrounded by snow many feet high and 
 the thermometer 'way below zero. Sometimes our 
 trapper had dogs with him and brought his furs on 
 a sledge along the frozen lakes and streams; but 
 not often, as the dogs were hard to feed, so he must 
 wait until winter at last wore away, and the sap 
 began to run, and finally the ice in the streams 
 broke up. Then we should go with our voyage ur 
 to the birch trees, which he had marked the fall 
 before, until the time came when the bark would 
 slip easily away, and he would gash a great seam 
 in the tree and slip off the bark just as one would 
 slip off an old coat. Then he would drive stakes 
 in the ground just the shape and size of his canoe. 
 We should see him shape the canoe exactly as he 
 wanted it with a framework of peeled birch or cedar, 
 and with reindeer hide or the roots of the larch tree 
 for thread, sew the great rolls of bark firmly to the 
 gunnel. Then he would set birch or white cedar 
 strips for ribs, pitch the seams if they cracked and 
 when all was dried and ready, load it with the 
 precious furs and paddle down to the trading post, 
 where he would sit day after day with the other 
 
124 Our Minnesota 
 
 trappers, and tell tales of his wonderful adventures 
 during the lonely winter. 
 
 After years of this life the trapper almost always 
 married a squaw and settled down to a quiet life 
 with a little patch of garden. Here he brought up 
 his half-breed sons who were called "bois brule, " 
 which means "dark colored guides," and they often 
 followed trapping as their father had done. The 
 settlements at Gull Lake, Traverse des Sioux, Leech 
 Lake, Red Lake, Lac qui Parle, Little Rapids, 
 Fond du Lac and many other places were all made 
 by the early fur traders, and we shall see that the 
 first road we ever had in Minnesota was built 
 between Grand Portage and Fort William to carry 
 the heavy packs over the swamps of that country. 
 
 Minnesota was once the home of the buffalo, who 
 used to cover the prairies in great herds. They 
 were hunted in a wholesale manner. In the fall the 
 Indians and later the bois brule would round them 
 up gradually. The buffaloes at first quietly herded 
 closer and closer together until one or two, scenting 
 danger, would begin to paw the earth and give the 
 alarm by snorting. Then the herd would lift their 
 heads, curl their tails and stampede. The hunters 
 carrying their bullets in their mouths, rode fur- 
 iously in among them, lashing their horses and 
 shooting the buffaloes right and left. The dust rose 
 as though there were a tornado and the sound was 
 
Minnesota, the Gopher State 125 
 
 like thunder, people sitting in the camps hearing it 
 a mile away. Sometimes they killed thousands in 
 one hunt. 
 
 In 1840 Doctor Neill tells us of one day's hunt 
 when they brought in thirteen hundred and seventy 
 hides, and then the camp was busy drying the 
 tongues, curing the meat, and making pemmican. 
 The last buffalo hunt in Minnesota was long ago; 
 now the buffalo lives only in our parks. 
 
 THE VOYAGEUR 
 
 Ax* heem de nort' win' w'at he see 
 
 Of de Voyageur long ago, 
 An' he'll say to you w'at he say to me, 
 
 So lissen hees story well — 
 "I see de track of hees botte sau-vage 
 On many a hill an' long portage 
 Far far away from hees own vill-age 
 
 An' soun' of de parish bell — 
 
 "I never can play on de Hudson Bay 
 
 Or mountain dat lie between 
 But I meet heem singin' hees lonely way 
 
 De happies' man I know — 
 I cool hees face as he's sleepin' dere 
 Under de star of de Red Riviere, 
 An' off on de home of de great w'ite bear, 
 
 I'm seein' hees dog traineau. 
 
126 
 
 Our Minnesota 
 
 " De blaze of hees camp on de snow I see, 
 
 An' I lissen hees *En Roulant' 
 On de Ian' w'ere de reindeer travel free, 
 
 Ringin' out strong an' clear 
 
 Offen de grey wolf sit before 
 
 De light is come from hees open door, 
 
 An' caribou foller along de shore 
 
 De song of de Voyageur. 
 
 *'If he only kip goin' de red ceinture, 
 
 I'd see it upon de Pole. 
 Some mornin' I'm startin' upon de tour 
 
 For blowin' de worl' aroun' 
 
 But w'erever he sail an' w'erever he ride, 
 De trail is long an' de trail is wide, 
 An' city an' town on ev'ry side 
 
 Can tell of hees campin' groun'." 
 
 William Henry Drummond. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Early Days 
 
 fort snelling 
 
 On a high bluff at the point where the Missis- 
 sippi and Minnesota Rivers meet, with a view of 
 both valleys for miles, was built the first permanent 
 post in the Northwest, and for years Fort Snelling 
 was the most northwestern fort of the United 
 States. As long ago as 1805 when Pike camped on 
 the nearby island he chose this site, and not one 
 place in all the country around could have been so 
 satisfactory, for it commands the view in three 
 directions. The government thought it would be a 
 good thing to have a fort there because the English 
 were not keeping the treaty they had made with us. 
 In 1794 they promised to do nothing against the 
 United States if they were allowed to trade with 
 the Indians on our borders, but they never kept 
 the promise and during the War of 181 2 they stirred 
 up the Indians all the way from Michigan through 
 Minnesota, and there was all sorts of trouble. 
 
 127 
 
128 Our Minnesota 
 
 After the war, we had learned a lesson from this, 
 and the treaty at its close gave the English no per- 
 mission to trade or to settle. 
 
 There was no one to see that this treaty was 
 held to, and the English still kept up their "talks" 
 to the Indians and gave them English flags and all 
 sorts of presents. In the two years after the war 
 they gave almost one hundred thousand dollars' 
 worth of gifts, and in order to stop this, because it 
 kept the Indians uneas}^ forts were established at 
 Mackinaw, at the "Soo" and at what is now Fort 
 Snelling. 
 
 Our northern boundary had not been fully settled, 
 but if the British traders were in this country they 
 had to promise to be true to the United States and 
 give up England, or get out. 
 
 At this time Calhoun, the great statesman, was 
 Secretary of War and Monroe was President. 
 Calhoun sent Colonel Henry Leavenworth up the 
 Mississippi River with ninety-eight soldiers to 
 establish a fort. This was the first time the 
 Indians had ever seen the United States army, and 
 they called them Ikansanti or "long knives" on 
 account of their swords. The detachment made 
 a good deal of show coming up the river in fourteen 
 bateaux with twenty hired boatmen, two boats of 
 provisions, another one for Major Forsyth, the 
 special Indian Agent, and a barge for Colonel 
 
Early Days 129 
 
 Leavenworth, and of course the Indians were 
 mightily impressed as they passed their towns. 
 
 The Sioux had learned that their great American 
 Father was coming with presents, and Major 
 Forsyth's diary tells us that they sent begging 
 expeditions to almost every landing place. One 
 was commanded by young Red Wing, who said 
 that his heart was sad because of a raid by the 
 Chippewas, and he needed the comfort that only 
 presents could give. The one-eyed Wabasha led 
 another band but, although they stayed ten days 
 and begged all the time, Major Forsyth refused to 
 give them goods, telling them he was going farther 
 up the river and had to see many people on the 
 way. 
 
 The flotilla arrived at the mouth of the Minnesota 
 River, August 24, 1819 and lived on the boats until 
 their rough log cabins (the first fort) , were finished 
 and the women who were with them, were 
 glad enough to go into their cabins, plain as they 
 were. While the party had encamped at Prairie 
 du Chien, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark had been 
 born and was the first little child who ever lived 
 at the Fort. The new post was built on the flats 
 of the Minnesota River just below the present 
 town of Mendota and was called New Hope. 
 
 The soldiers were soon joined by another detach- 
 ment making altogether two hundred and eighteen 
 
130 Our Minnesota 
 
 men. Among these were the first martyrs of the 
 frontier, for that winter forty died of scurvy. This 
 disease was caused by the poor food and its lack 
 of variety and, although these men died and the 
 United States lost what was a large number of its 
 small army, it helped to teach us a lesson. The 
 whole world has learned this lesson since, that the 
 most important things for any army are good food 
 and clean surroundings, which are even more neces- 
 sary to troops living in a small space than to us in 
 towns or villages. 
 
 In the spring of 1820 the post was moved across 
 the Minnesota River nearer to its present site and 
 was again a cluster of log huts. This place was 
 called Camp Cold Water on account of a flowing 
 spring of pure water which was found there and 
 which for a long time furnished water to Fort 
 Snelling. 
 
 In August of the same year Colonel Leavenworth 
 was ordered southwest and turned over the com- 
 mand to his superior officer, Josiah Snelling, who 
 was in charge until 1827, and who finished the 
 Fort naming it St. Anthony. Colonel Snelling 
 established a government saw-mill in 1821 at Saint 
 Anthony Falls, where all the government lumber 
 and most of the furniture for the Fort were turned 
 out, the logs cut from Rum River. 
 
 The log houses of the first camp were used again 
 
Early Days 131 
 
 that winter and were made very comfortable with 
 plenty of army blankets and floor coverings of 
 buffalo skin. During this winter the first white 
 child was born in Minnesota, the daughter of the 
 commander, Colonel Snelling. She died the next 
 year and her little grave was the first in the 
 post cemetery. 
 
 While at Camp Cold Water the soldiers began 
 building the permanent fort nearer the bluff. A tree 
 marked with his name had been left on this spot 
 by Lieutenant Pike, and orders were given that it 
 should not be injured, but it was unfortunately 
 cut down by the soldiers while building the new 
 quarters. 
 
 All of the buildings of the new fort except the 
 barracks were of limestone quarried from the 
 place. Years later the post was surrounded by a 
 massive wall of the same stone, loop-holed so that 
 it might withstand a siege, and as the high bluff 
 protected it on two sides it was well fortified. 
 
 The soldiers soon began to farm and in 1824 had 
 a hundred acres of corn and wheat planted, and 
 although they had many failures in crops and 
 several hard winters to undergo, on the whole the 
 Fort grew and prospered. 
 
 General Winfield Scott, the great hero of the 
 Mexican War, visited the Fort in 1824 and many 
 entertainments were given in his honor. He was 
 
132 Our Minnesota 
 
 so pleased with the successful way in which things 
 had been done at the Fort, that he wrote to Wash- 
 ington, and asked that the name be changed to 
 Snelling, in honor of the man who had done so 
 much to make this frontier post a success, and of 
 course his request was granted. 
 
 The mail came to the Fort by a special messenger 
 from Prairie du Chien and, as late as 1826, during 
 the winter they had only one mail in five months, so 
 we should not consider that they were having a 
 really easy time. General Zachary Taylor was 
 commander at this post in 1828 and 1829 and 
 knowing the conditions well, he established a 
 regular mail route in 1832. 
 
 Many of the settlers, who came here very early, 
 took up claims, or tried to, around Fort Snelling 
 for protection, but these claims could not be al- 
 lowed, because no one but a soldier is allowed to 
 have a home on land given up to the army. These 
 squatters were obliged to move out, as we shall see 
 later, and this made a great deal of hard feeling. 
 
 After the Indian treaties of 1851, Franklin 
 Steele heard that the post was likely to be vacated 
 and, in 1857, he bought the land from the U. S. Gov- 
 ernment agreeing to pay ninety thousand dollars for 
 all the property, which was a very good bargain 
 for him and during the next year, the troops were 
 withdrawn and Fort Snelling was deserted, 
 
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 a 
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Early Days 133 
 
 and sheep were pastured on the reservation so it 
 looked for a while as though there never would be a 
 Fort Snelling again. When the Civil War broke 
 out the place was needed for camps and drill, but 
 Steele refused to sell his property though he rented 
 it to the government. All our regiments were re- 
 cruited there, and later the reservation was again 
 taken over by the government, though it was much 
 smaller than before, as only fifteen hundred acres 
 were reserved by the United States. When Gover- 
 nor Ramsey was Secretary of War in President 
 Hayes' Cabinet, he was able to make a great many 
 improvements at the Fort. 
 
 Fort Snelling has always been an important post 
 of the United States Army. Sometimes it has been 
 the headquarters of what was called the ''Depart- 
 ment of the Dakotas, " one of the great divisions 
 into which the United States was divided for mili- 
 tary affairs, though twice the headquarters have 
 been moved to St. Paul. In 191 3 the organiza- 
 tion of the army was all changed under President 
 Wilson and now Fort Snelling belongs to the "Cen- 
 tral Department" with headquarters at Chicago. 
 It has room for thousands of soldiers and might be 
 used as one of the greatest posts in the country 
 and a cavalry center, but for the past few years it 
 has been almost deserted, the troops being on 
 border duty. 
 
134 Our Minnesota 
 
 During the summer of 191 6 the state militia was 
 assembled at Snelling which was called "Camp 
 Bobleter." 
 
 In the early days Fort Snelling was the center of 
 all festivities for Mendota, St. Paul, and St. 
 Anthony Falls and the old settlers tell many stories 
 of dances at Fort Snelling, where they took all the 
 babies and little children, put them to bed at the 
 post and then carried them home in the early 
 morning after the fathers and mothers had danced 
 almost all night. 
 
 One early settler tells of driving from St. Paul 
 to Fort Snelling by way of the bridge at St. 
 Anthony and back again every night for four weeks, 
 because the ice was not thick enough to drive 
 across the Mississippi River, but too thick for the 
 old ferry to run and he wanted to see a young lady 
 who lived at Fort Snelling. 
 
 Around the Fort naturally clustered other settle- 
 ments for it was a protection from the Indians as 
 well as a boat landing. 
 
 Many distinguished people have visited at Snell- 
 ing among them, General Grant, Charles Sumner, 
 and General Sherman. 
 
 Many artists have painted Fort Snelling for it 
 is considered one of the most picturesque spots in 
 our State. Today the long rows of cavalry barns, 
 hospitals, wireless station, and miles of pave- 
 
Early Days 135 
 
 ments running through the grounds, past rows 
 of fine brick buildings, and bordered with stately- 
 trees seem far, far away from its beginning of log 
 huts less than a century ago. 
 
 OLD SETTLERS 
 
 In Minnesota the people who came here before 
 1850 are called "Old Settlers," that is, the people 
 who were here the year the territory was organized ; 
 and we call those who came here while we were a 
 territory and before we become a state, ** Pioneers. " 
 
 Those who came the year Minnesota Territory 
 was organized are " Forty-Niners. " There were 
 many at that time who were very important in all 
 the work that was done in the early days and one 
 of the things we have to be most thankful for is 
 the fine class of men who settled Minnesota. 
 
 Of course many of the traders were settlers too 
 and among the most valuable ones. In 1849 Mr. 
 Sibley still lived at Mendota and kept open house 
 like one of the old lords of the Middle Ages, only he 
 wasn't an old one, and was loved and respected by- 
 Indians and whites. 
 
 Another trader was Jean Baptiste Faribault who 
 came in 1803 from Canada and lived at different 
 trading posts until 1820 when he moved to Pike 
 Island, but he was moved out of the reservation 
 
136 Our Minnesota 
 
 with the other settlers, and built a home on the 
 edge of the river near Mendota. The river over- 
 flowed in the spring and carried off his house ; and 
 his family had to be taken away by boat. He was 
 not discouraged but started again, and built a 
 stone house still standing in Mendota where he 
 lived for many years, going to his trading post at 
 Little Rapids during the winter. A county was 
 named for him, and he died after living to be an old 
 man, in the home of his son Alexander for whom 
 the city of Faribault was named. 
 
 We should remember another trader too, Joseph 
 Renville, whom you have heard of before. He was 
 a bois hrule, born at Kaposia, his father taking him 
 to Canada to be educated. He came back to Min- 
 nesota and always cared more for the roaming, 
 outdoor Indian life than a settled home. He was 
 Pike's guide when he saw St. Anthony Falls and 
 through him was made United States interpreter for 
 the Sioux. The government always had^someone 
 to translate the talks between the Indians and the 
 white men, and a great deal depended on the inter- 
 preter, who could make things which were said ap- 
 pear friendly, or not, to the Indians, so we had to 
 have a man who could be trusted. He was the 
 guide of Major Long's party which explored the 
 Mississippi and Red River, and a great friend to 
 Doctor Williamson, the missionary, whom he helped 
 
Early Days 137 
 
 with his dictionary, besides translating a part of the 
 Bible into the Sioux language. He finally settled 
 down at Lac qui Parle where his was the only house 
 on the long journey to Pembina, at which travelers 
 might stop and always be sure of a welcome. He 
 married a Dakota wife who became an earnest 
 Christian. He was a great friend to the Indians 
 who trusted him entirely, and he taught them to 
 plant the first seed corn on the upper Minnesota. 
 
 Norman Kittson came to Minnesota when he was 
 sixteen and lived here until he was seventy-four. 
 He was a partner in the American Fur Company, 
 lived in Pembina for a while, and was the inven- 
 tor of the Red River carts. Later he was head 
 of the factory in St. Paul and in 1858 mayor of 
 that city. 
 
 John Stevens called the "Father of Minne- 
 apolis" spent much time in locating what he con- 
 sidered the best place along the river, and when the 
 government opened the land, took a claim on the 
 river bank, where he built his home. When his 
 claim was settled, part of his payment was that he 
 was to run a ferry at the Falls free to the govern- 
 ment. The settlement which grew around his claim 
 became the city of Minneapolis in whose affairs 
 Stevens was always prominent, for he laid out the 
 first street which he named Washington, and for 
 many years his house was the meeting point for 
 
138 Our Minnesota 
 
 all matters of importance on that side of the 
 river. 
 
 When Colonel Leavenworth came up the river 
 in 1 819, with him was a drummer boy fourteen 
 years old, named Joseph Renshaw Brown, who 
 had run away from home and who sounded the first 
 reveille in Minnesota. He seems to have been a 
 most live, wide-awake boy, interested in every- 
 thing about the country. He explored a great deal 
 about the Fort and up and down the river. In 
 1822, while on a three days' trip with Colonel 
 Snelling's son, he discovered Lake Minnetonka, al- 
 though it wasn't named for many 3^ears afterward. 
 
 He left the army when he was twenty years old 
 and was sutler's clerk at the post, later was em- 
 ployed by the American Fur Company, and after- 
 ward became one of the great leaders among our 
 early men. He ought to be called our ** builder 
 of towns." He settled on a farm at Gray Cloud 
 Island, laid out the town of Stillwater, had a trad- 
 ing post for the Indians at Taylor's Falls, which he 
 didn't have money enough to improve, and in 1839 
 built a log house, the first one in Stillwater, the 
 first town to be laid out, to which place he moved. 
 
 He built the first house in Hastings and the first 
 wagon road from Snelling to Prairie du Chien ; and 
 another one to Lac qui Parle and over both of these 
 roads he was the first to drive. He was Indian agent, 
 
1 
 
 Early Days 139 
 
 rafted the first logs down the St. Croix River, 
 and was the man who began the movement toward 
 separating our territory from Wisconsin, and giving 
 us one of our own. 
 
 Of the people who came here before we were a 
 territory there were man}' who did much for the 
 future, but above them all, three men stand out, as 
 the ones who did most. These are Sibley, Steele, 
 and Henry Rice, all young men when they came, 
 and all living to see the State when at the end of the 
 century it had come to be a power. 
 
 Henry Hastings Sibley, or Colonel Sibley or 
 General Sibley as he is thought of now, was only 
 twenty-three when he came here an agent of the 
 American Fur Company. He rode from Traverse 
 des Sioux on horseback and the great inducement 
 offered him by Ramsey Crooks, President of the 
 American Fur Company, was that there was good 
 fishing and hunting here. 
 
 Mendota was the center factory of Sibley's 
 domain, which extended north to Canada and west 
 to the Red River, a vast empire. He was always 
 on such friendly terms with the Indians, that he 
 was a great aid in making the treaties. His house 
 welcomed everyone of note who came into this 
 part of the country, and many famous people in 
 the early days were his guests. He was our first 
 delegate to Congress and very helpful in organiz- 
 
140 Our Minnesota 
 
 ing Minnesota as a territory, and was the first 
 governor of the State; led the troops against the 
 Indians and forced their surrender after the Sioux 
 Massacre. In fact he was a part of everything 
 that was worth while in the beginning of things. 
 He lived west all his life and knew everything 
 about western life. His manner was courteous and 
 "The Tall Pine Tree," as he was called by the 
 Indians was a well-known figure throughout Min- 
 nesota until late in the century, for he lived until 
 1 89 1. The town of Hastings was named for him 
 and also Sibley County, and he will be remembered 
 as long as these names last. 
 
 Franklin Steele, ''The First Citizen of St. 
 Anthony," who came here when he was twenty-five, 
 was sutler at Fort Snelling in 1838, the first great 
 business man in this part of the world, and the only 
 early one who was not a fur trader; as a partner 
 of Joseph Brown he entered a claim for all the land 
 around St. Anthony Falls including Nicollet 
 Island. He built the first mill outside of the re- 
 servation, the first bridge across the Mississippi, 
 was very helpful with Mr. Sibley in getting the 
 territory started, and always believed that this 
 was going to be a great State, risking everything 
 to carry out his belief. 
 
 He was generous in giving away land from the 
 vast tracts which he owned for, you remember, it 
 
Henry Mower Rice 
 
 Franklin Steele 
 (From the E. A. Bromley Collection) 
 
Early Days 141 
 
 was he who bought the original Fort Reservation. 
 He was very much interested in all the affairs of 
 the University and the great business ventures in 
 Minneapolis. He never held any public office, 
 but his name was given to Steele County and he 
 should be remembered as the man who established 
 Minnesota's lumber business. 
 
 Henry M. Rice, who came to Fort Snelling in 
 1839 at the age of 23, was at first post sutler, then 
 agent of the great fur company of St. Louis. He 
 was delegate to Congress, was senator, and had 
 much to do with the Indian treaties. He was the 
 first man who believed that wheat was going to be 
 a great product in this country. He helped to form 
 the State, and to get the railroad grants from Con- 
 gress which made their building a success; he 
 donated the first public park in Minnesota and 
 alwaj^s gave land to the public, to churches and to 
 charity. His tactful manner and wonderful way 
 of expressing himself, made him a good person to 
 send whenever the public wanted anything, for he 
 usually got what was wanted. 
 
 These three men, all coming here young, with a 
 future before them, saw this wild region organized 
 into a territory; helped to form the State and saw 
 that State grow until the close of the Old Century 
 or the dawn of the new. 
 
 Of the people who settled here in the early days, 
 
142 Our Minnesota 
 
 Governor Ramsey speaking of them when many 
 had become famous, said what perhaps was the 
 best thing that could be said of any people any- 
 where: "After all, the old settlers were honest if 
 nothing else." 
 
 PIONEER MINNESOTA 
 
 The very first people who came here for homes 
 were from a colony near Pembina way up north on 
 the Red River. They were Scotch, Irish, and Swiss 
 settlers, who had been brought over from Europe 
 by the Earl of Selkirk. They came at different 
 times between 1812-1821 and were very much 
 disappointed in the country, for they had many 
 bad times with the English traders, with bad 
 weather, poor crops over and over again, almost 
 starving to death and undergoing all sorts of 
 hardships. Hearing about our good land and 
 needing the protection of a fort, a few came in 
 1827 to Fort Snelling where they were allowed 
 by Colonel Snelling to settle on the west bank 
 of the Mississippi above the Fort. Year after 
 year more of these people came until by 1837 
 there were almost five hundred of them. They 
 talked French and were a thrifty, hard-working 
 people, though of course the Swiss who were clock- 
 makers couldn't work at their trade. They brought 
 
^ Early Days 143 
 
 cattle with them, built their homes, and raised 
 enough in their gardens for their own food. 
 
 After the Indian treaty of 1837 all the country 
 about the Fort was reserved for government use, 
 and when the settlers heard that there was danger 
 of losing the land on which they had worked so 
 hard, they sent letters to the President, told him 
 their story and begged him to let them stay where 
 they were, but in spite of all this they were ordered 
 off in 1839, and moved across the Mississippi, 
 where they built new homes, still on the Reserva- 
 tion land. The next year they were again ordered 
 to move but many of them refused to go and in 
 May, 1840, their houses were unroofed, their goods 
 moved out, and the buildings destroyed. It must 
 have been almost too sad to endure, after all they 
 had suffered, to again lose their homes, but with a 
 great deal of courage they moved farther down 
 the river and began life again. This was the 
 beginning of St. Paul although it wasn't called 
 by that name for some time. 
 
 Among these people was a Swiss watchmaker 
 named Perry, and Joseph Rondo as well as the 
 Gervais brothers and Vetal Guerin who helped 
 Father Gal tier to build the first chapel, for these 
 were the settlers whom the priest went over there 
 to minister to. 
 
 The only white man living near this place was 
 
144 Our Minnesota 
 
 Pierre Parrant who at first had a hut near Fountain 
 Cave, but later moved farther down the river, 
 selling his claim for ten dollars and settling about 
 where the Union Depot is today. 
 
 It is not pleasant to remember this founder of 
 what was to be the capital city of the state for he 
 sold liquor against the law, to the traders and 
 Indians, and because of his mean face with one 
 vicious looking eye, he was called "Pig's Eye." 
 Some of the men who had been sent from the Fort 
 for selling liquor to the Indians, came down the 
 river and settled near Parrant. 
 
 A man wrote a letter from this settlement, which 
 had no name, dating it from "Pig's Eye" and so it 
 came to be called that, until Father Galtier 
 begged that the place might be known by the same 
 name as his little chapel. When he married Vetal 
 Guerin, the banns were published in "Saint Paul," 
 and the name Pig's Eye was transferred to the 
 slough farther down the river. 
 
 All this time there were a good many people 
 connected with the fur factory at Mendota. This 
 was the largest settlement outside of the Fort, 
 and grew for some time, faster than any other along 
 the river. Many people believed that it would be 
 the capital of the future territory and it might have 
 been if the factor, Henry H. Sibley, had been 
 selfish, for he might easily have had it located there. 
 
Early Days 145 
 
 In 1842 Henry Jackson opened a general store 
 near the little settlement across the river from 
 Mendota. This store was built of tamarack poles, 
 and kept a little of everything needed by anyone 
 on the frontier from needles to shingles. In Sep- 
 tember of the next year he took a clerk and French 
 interpreter named August Larpenteur, who is now 
 ninet^T-- three years of age (191 6) and the oldest 
 resident of St. Paul. He is hale and hearty and 
 says of himself that he is "tough as a hickory 
 knot." When the land was opened, Larpenteur 
 took as his claim the land where the State House 
 and the two largest high schools of St. Paul are 
 today. 
 
 Because of Jackson's store where a post office 
 was started in 1846 the steamboats began landing 
 on the east side of the river and the place was 
 called ** Saint Paul's Landing. " 
 
 We must remember that the early missionaries 
 and traders were settlers too, and made centers for 
 settlement at many mission stations as well as at 
 the factories and traders' posts only we think of the 
 work they did instead of the men, which all of 
 them would rather have us do. We read of them 
 and many of our early settlers in other parts of our 
 history, for everybody who came here for a home, 
 of course had to do some kind of business. 
 
 Most of the white people lived in little settle- 
 10 
 
146 Our Minnesota 
 
 ments along the rivers; on the St. Croix some 
 lumbermen from Maine in 1839, built their homes 
 at Marine which was the first really American vil- 
 lage in Minnesota, and you remember that in 1843 
 Joseph Brown started the town of Stillwater which 
 he called Dakotah. This place many people ex- 
 pected would be our greatest city and here the con- 
 vention was held which started us on our way to 
 be a territory. 
 
 St. Anthony was begun in 1847, through Franklin 
 Steele's enterprise in building a saw-mill, the 
 foundation for the lumber business of Minne- 
 apolis. 
 
 During those early years the people endured 
 great hardships, coming as most of them did from 
 milder climates, for in 1826 the snow fell two or 
 three feet deep on the river, and they had terrible 
 blizzards which made it impossible to get about at 
 all, for you remember there were no roads, and in 
 the winter people walked, going from place to place 
 on snowshoes. 
 
 They were great walkers those days. One of the 
 early missionaries walked eighty miles in two days 
 and thought nothing of it, and another one made the 
 rounds ever}'- three weeks on foot from Fort Ripley 
 to Point Douglas a little village on the St. Croix. 
 In 1 829 the summer was so dry that the crops failed 
 and the water was so low in the Mississippi River 
 
Early Days 147 
 
 that the steamers couldn't get up the river for 
 many weeks and the Fort was using its last barrel 
 of flour when supplies came. 
 
 The mosquitoes were a great pest in early 
 times for they came early in the spring and stayed 
 all summer, causing real suffering among those 
 who had to do out-of-door work, and of course that 
 meant pretty nearly everybody, the travelers, the 
 trappers, the traders, cruisers and lumbermen. 
 The people who traveled on the water were some- 
 times obliged to land and make a smudge in order 
 to get along at all. 
 
 Reverend Joseph Hancock, who came here in '49 
 tells in his diary of stopping at an Indian village 
 on the west bank of the Mississippi, a few miles 
 above Lake Pepin. He had come to Buffalo by rail, 
 from Buffalo to Chicago by boat, then had driven 
 to Galena, Illinois, where he took the steamer up 
 the river. At this Indian village, which was Red 
 Wing's camp, he met Henry Rice, a well-known 
 friend of the Indians, who all gathered at the land- 
 ing and shook hands with him all around saying 
 "How!" He met at Fort Snelling the Pond 
 brothers who had already made a written language 
 and a First Reader for the Indians. 
 
 He makes us realize that we didn't become civil- 
 ized all at once. He says that the school, which he 
 started was not a "regular" one, as the Indian chil- 
 
148 Our Minnesota 
 
 dren came and went as they pleased, like young 
 foxes, and would recite a lesson and then think they 
 had enough of school, and go. As soon as the corn 
 began to get ripe they had to stay out of school 
 to chase the blackbirds away, and after it was 
 gathered everyone left and went to the woods. 
 
 About this time Bishop Kemper preached his 
 first sermon at St. Peter in the kitchen of an 
 unfinished shack. The congregation sat on the 
 floor and Mr. Flandrau said that to do honor to 
 the occasion he dressed up in his ''Sunday best" 
 moccasins embroidered with quills and feathers. 
 
 The only way in the winter to get to settlements 
 west of Wisconsin was the ice of the rivers until a 
 road was marked out in 1849, although hauling 
 supplies didn't begin until later. 
 
 On the road between St. Paul and St. An- 
 thony there were many bears and wolves, so 
 that traveling between the two places was not 
 altogether safe. Along the Minnesota River game 
 was very plentiful, Sibley keeping a record of 
 "seventeen hundred and ninety-eight ducks that he 
 killed in three years. 
 
 The only hotel north of St. Anthony was at 
 John Banfil's, where people used to stop on their 
 way to Fort Gaines, the early name for Fort 
 Ripley. Banfil's house was built in 1847 at Coon 
 Creek, and this place was always spoken of with 
 
Early Days 149 
 
 pleasure in the diaries of the eariy settlers for there 
 they were always sure of a good meal. 
 
 In the winter, the mail was carried at first by 
 Indian runners, later by dog sleds; and in summer 
 it came by the rivers and streams where canoes and 
 afterward steamboats were used until the railroads 
 came. In 1850 when the mail was only twenty-one 
 days behind time the people were all sure that 
 spring was coming early. 
 
 During all these years the white people in settle- 
 ments here and there, were troubled by the Indians 
 and many of them lost their lives. There were 
 terrible Indian wars between the Sioux and Chip- 
 pewas — each one making them worse enemies, 
 because every scalp taken had to be paid back. 
 It took much patience and bravery to adjust these 
 troubles, and Fort Snelling was constantly called 
 upon for help. The Indians gave everyone a 
 hard time, but the people were brave and hopeful. 
 They believed in the future, and year by year the 
 settlements grew until in 1848 a new outlook came 
 with the hope of our new government, though 
 frontier life even then was not easy. 
 
 The United States Government sells its land 
 to settlers at a very low price, often charging 
 only one dollar and a quarter an acre and the 
 first settlers who came here hoped to get their 
 property as cheap as possible. Most of them 
 
150 Our Minnesota 
 
 had taken up claims long before the land was 
 sold by the government but of course were only 
 "squatters." When the government was ready 
 to sell, and the first land office opened at 
 St. Croix Falls, in 1848, many outsiders, who 
 wanted the land not for homes but for speculation, 
 came flocking to Minnesota. The settlers were 
 very much worried for fear they would bid against 
 them and so they would have to pay high prices 
 for their homes. 
 
 There were three important places, Stillwater, 
 St. Anthony, and St. Paul, where the settlers 
 had made claims on this land and none of them 
 would bid against each other because they were 
 neighbors. John McKusick bid in the land for the 
 Stillwater people. Sibley, Larpenteur and Louis 
 Robert were the agents from St. Paul and when 
 the St. Paul lands were offered for sale, Sibley | 
 
 found himself surrounded by men who carried 
 heavy sticks and looked very forbidding. No one 
 bid against him and of course he paid only one 
 dollar and a quarter an acre for the land. 
 
 Two people from Cottage Grove did bid against 
 each other and had to give one dollar and thirty- 
 five cents an acre, which was the highest price 
 paid at the first land sale. Two of the speculators 
 went to Washington and complained that they 
 hadn't been allowed to bid on any land entered at 
 
Early Days 151 
 
 that time, and as it is against the law to prevent 
 anyone from bidding on government property 
 things looked serious for the settlers. Henry Rice 
 was sent to Washington to defend their case with 
 the result that they kept their property. Many 
 a dignified old gentleman in the State could have 
 told of the day when he carried a ''big stick" to 
 defend his head and his home. 
 
 This same year, 1848, Wisconsin became a State 
 and the part of Minnesota west of the St. Croix 
 and east of the Mississippi was "no man's land," 
 for the land west of the Mississippi River was 
 the territory of Iowa. The part of Wisconsin Ter- 
 ritory left out, sent as delegate to Congress, Sibley, 
 who was so well known and so well thought of by 
 both White and Indian. A great many people 
 wanted Henry Rice to go instead, and the first po- 
 litical meeting which was ever held in this region 
 met at Stillwater to vote on the matter. There 
 were sixty-one delegates at this meeting and the 
 places they were sent from, show us just where 
 there were settlements at that time, Stillwater, 
 St. x\nthony, St. Paul, Pokegama, Marine, Crow 
 Wing, Sauk Rapids, and Prescott, and a few other 
 less settled districts. 
 
 While Sibley was in Congress his great work 
 was the establishing of Minnesota Territory, and 
 he had a harder time to do this than we should 
 
152 Our Minnesota 
 
 think possible today, for the people who believed 
 in wslavery didn't want another free territory. 
 There was a great deal of debate, some very 
 bitter, though Sibley, who was helped greatly in 
 Washington by Rice and Steele, gained his object. 
 Many names were suggested for us, — Itasca, 
 Jackson, Chippewa, Washington, Minnesota, and 
 we wonder why the people from the eastern and 
 southern states cared so much what the territory 
 was called. We are thankful indeed that they 
 finally decided as they did and that Minnesota 
 Territory was established in 1849, its western boun- 
 dary the Missouri River. 
 
 The people at home were anxiously waiting to 
 hear the news from Washington and it seemed as 
 though spring would never come that year and the 
 ice go out of the river. At last on the ninth of 
 April over a month after the bill was passed, the 
 longed-for steamboat whistle was heard and in 
 spite of rain, thunder and lightning everybody 
 hurried down to meet the boat. You may be sure 
 that there was a joyful demonstration when they 
 learned that Minnesota was a territory and St. 
 Paul was its capital. 
 
 As soon as our territory was organized, President 
 Taylor appointed as governor Alexander Ramsey, 
 a young man from Pennsylvania, who arrived on 
 May 27, 1849. Ramsey, who came in this begin- 
 
Alexander Ramsey 
 (By courtesy of Mrs. Charles Eliot Fumess) 
 
Early Days 153 
 
 ning of Minnesota, is so important in everything 
 good in our Territory and in our State for the next 
 fifty years, that we cannot study our history with- 
 out stvidying him. He brought his young wife 
 with him and finding no house at St. Paul went 
 to Mendota, where he and Mrs. Ramsey stayed 
 with the Sibleys for a month, although it seemed to 
 them a very unusual thing to visit strangers. As 
 soon as a house could be put in order the Ramseys 
 moved across the river and their home from that 
 time on, was a center for political and social affairs. 
 One of the early visitors says that it was quite a 
 common thing to see Mrs. Ramsey entertaining 
 her lady friends on one side of the room while Mr. 
 Ramsey talked with his Indian guests on the other. 
 The new government was started in a log house 
 called Bass's Tavern, where the Council met, June 
 first. The room in which the first meeting was 
 held had a bed, two chairs, a trunk, a little mirror, 
 and a small washstand on which the governor wrote 
 his first proclamation. He ordered that a census 
 should be taken so that the people might elect 
 delegates, and assigned three judges in the terri- 
 tory, one to have charge of the district around the 
 capital, another everything south of the St. 
 Peter River west of the Mississippi and the third, 
 an unknown district beginning with the old gov- 
 ernment sawmill. 
 
154 Our Minnesota 
 
 The first territorial legislature had in it many 
 strong men who were famous in our history, or 
 became so. When the first legislature (or law-mak- 
 ing body) met in 1849 they had no public hall, so 
 had to meet in the hotel which was changed into a 
 public building by putting a United States flag 
 outside of it to show the seat of government. 
 
 The Central House, as the hotel was called, was 
 on the corner of Jackson and Bench Streets down 
 near the river in St. Paul. The law-making body 
 met in the dining-room and when the boarders 
 came home for dinner had to adjourn, carrying the 
 official papers in their pockets. 
 
 Some very fine laws were made just the same — 
 for these were days when Governor Ramsey did all 
 in his power to keep the land for schools untouched 
 so that today we have our fine schools and are 
 sure that children in the future always will have 
 them. The first legislature appropriated money 
 for a Historical Society and we shall see later how 
 much it amounted to. They decided to have a 
 capitol at St. Paul, a university at St. Anthony 
 (the old name for Minneapolis), and a prison 
 at Stillwater. 
 
 Just because we were a Territory there was no 
 great change in Minnesota except that we felt more 
 independent and had a name of our own. We were 
 more independent too, for now we made our laws 
 
Mississippi River Ferry at Fort Snelling, 1865 
 
 (From the E. A. Bromley Collection) 
 
 Central House Where the First Territorial Legislature Met in 
 1849. Burned in 1875 
 
Early Days 155 
 
 here, instead of away over in Wisconsin, and we 
 sent someone to Washington who looked out for our 
 affairs in Congress, although he had no vote. This 
 first delegate, as he was called, was H. H. Sibley, 
 and we could have chosen no one better to take 
 charge of our interests. 
 
 The year 1849 was a very important one. Many 
 people came and many houses sprang up, but still 
 there were Indians, still missions, still fur traders, 
 only there were more people who settled for homes 
 where they expected to live always instead of 
 merely for business which might not be lasting. 
 
 That year, John Stevens came up the river on 
 the steamer Doctor Franklin. He tells us that from 
 Prairie du Chien as far as Wabasha there was no 
 settlement on the Minnesota side. All the busi- 
 ness was the Indian trading; and Reed's Landing 
 was one of the most important places. Hastings, 
 which was then called Oliver's Grove, had a nimiber 
 of traders and the most important landing was 
 Kaposia, Little Crow's settlement. When he ar- 
 rived at ''The Landing" he described about forty 
 buildings in the new village. Stevens stopped at 
 the * 'place" of J. W. Bass, who kept boarders and 
 whose house later became the well-known Mer- 
 chant's Hotel which has always been a favorite 
 stopping place for the legislators. 
 
 After the first mill was built in Stillwater many 
 
156 Our Minnesota 
 
 people went there to settle, and this mill was a good 
 thing for everybody, because it sawed the lumber 
 for most of the early houses in the towns about, 
 among them the Central House, which was the 
 first real hotel in the State. 
 
 There were probably less than a thousand people 
 in the whole Territory early in 1849. When the 
 first census was taken that same year it showed 
 that almost four thousand people had come, for 
 the returns gave the number of people as 4680. 
 South of St. Paul there were only four or 
 five houses of white settlers, a few farmers at 
 out-of-the-way places, and the villages we have 
 already mentioned. St. Paul had at most two 
 hundred people, most of them French, Indians, or 
 half-breeds. 
 
 The general meeting place for the settlers was 
 around the stove in Henry Jackson's store, where 
 the post office was, and James Goodhue, who had 
 come over from Wisconsin to start a newspaper, 
 used to foretell a great future which most people 
 laughed at. This first newspaper office was not 
 much like a modern one, for in the corner a sitting 
 hen made her nest and Goodhue said that she was 
 the only money -making thing in the place. 
 
 The idea of a railroad ever coming here was called 
 foolish, for the people said it could be operated only 
 six months in the year on account of the snow, and 
 
Early Days 157 
 
 no white man could live in this country very long. 
 Once when a man said that he had made a trip from 
 Chicago to Fort Snelling in three days, the only 
 comment on his story by the newspaper was, 
 *'Thatwilldo!" 
 
 In 1 85 1 the description of a traveler is amusing. 
 He says: '*St. Paul is the largest town in the 
 territory, is situated on the left bank of the Mis- 
 sissippi River, eight miles below the falls and is 
 three hundred and twenty-seven miles from Galena, 
 Illinois. It has a population of over twelve hundred 
 inhabitants and is destined to become a large city. 
 
 "St. Anthony, at the falls, is situated on the 
 east bank of the river and is fast advancing in size 
 and importance. It has, as well as water power, a 
 healthy location and will doubtless in time be a 
 place of fashionable resort. " 
 
 But things were slowly changing, for while at 
 first there were many Indians and a few whites, 
 during this time of growth there were coming to be 
 many whites and not quite so many Indians; and 
 of course after the great Treaties of 1851 were 
 signed, and the Indians moved to their reservations, 
 there were soon many more whites. 
 
 The Indians though, used to wander back now 
 and then to their old haunts to pick berries and to 
 hunt game, especially buffalo, and though they 
 didn't say much, they liked to be around with 
 
158 Our Minnesota 
 
 people and to see what was going on, so they loved 
 to visit the towns. Once a whole tribe started back 
 to their old homes and the troops from Fort Snell- 
 ing had to drive them back to the reservation. 
 We know how sad they must have felt to lose the 
 lands they loved so well and which they felt still 
 belonged to them. 
 
 Before the Treaty of 1851 the land west of the 
 Mississippi River had been pathless prairie, and 
 though people here and there had built houses, 
 there were no large settlements because no one 
 could own the land. Now settlers came in a stream, 
 every boat was crowded, and towns grew up in a 
 single night like mushrooms, only they came to 
 stay. 
 
 You remember that John Stevens, " The Father of 
 Minneapolis," came in 1849, and in two years a 
 settlement began to grow up about his house, for 
 which, of course, people wanted a name. Goodhue, 
 the editor of the first St. Paul paper, said that 
 everything in Minnesota was named after a saint, and 
 so, as the names were almost all used up they ought 
 to call this one "All Saints." Though no one 
 liked it then, the name stuck for quite a while, as a 
 nickname will. Afterward they tried calling it Lo- 
 well, then Albion, and finally Charles Hoag thought 
 of Minnehapolis, spelled with an ''h," which name at 
 once pleased everybody and has been the name ever 
 
Early Days 159 
 
 since. We often hear people say "what's in a 
 name?", but perhaps there is a good deal, for the 
 little town began to grow and grew so fast that 
 before many years it had outstripped all the older 
 ones. As the fur trade grew less and the lumber and 
 wheat trades greater, and after the railroads came, it 
 wasn't so important to be the head of navigation, 
 and very much more important to have the great 
 water power, which was a cause, of course, for the 
 mills. 
 
 Minneapolis, and St. Anthony across the 
 river, were not made one city until 1872, long after 
 the great war that we shall hear about, and since 
 then St. Anthony has been called East Minneapolis. 
 
 When the territory began, there were only four 
 counties, but each year at the meeting of the legis- 
 lature more were added. In 1850 the mail went 
 once a week from St. Paul by way of Lake St. 
 Croix and La Crosse to Prairie du Chien in Wis- 
 consin, a distance of two hundred and seventy 
 miles ; once a week to St. Croix Falls by way of 
 Stillwater and Marine. Today mail goes between 
 all those places at least twice a day. Ice wagons 
 and milk and butcher carts appeared first in 
 that year and people felt that Minnesota was quite 
 grownup. In 1854 at the settlement where Red 
 Wing's band used to have their lodges, the first 
 meeting of Goodhue County was held on a lumber 
 
i6o Our Minnesota 
 
 pile in a vacant lot, and to show how much the 
 settlers expected a growth they planned a court 
 house to cost six hundred dollars, which was a 
 good deal of money in those days. 
 
 The next year the town of Hutchinson was 
 settled by a family of noted singers from New 
 Hampshire who were on their way to Kansas but 
 happening to meet a friend coming to Minnesota, 
 came here instead. 
 
 This was all less than sixty-five years ago and 
 when we see to what we have grown, it seems almost 
 a miracle. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE FORESTS 
 
 We often think of Minnesota as all prairie land 
 but when we study it, we find that fully two-thirds 
 of the State is forest and the only place where trees 
 did not once grow is Pipestone County in the 
 southwest. 
 
 Lying as it does, in the central part of North 
 America, Minnesota has all the trees which belong 
 to the Temperate Zone and many that belong to the 
 North, so it is blest with forests, and these forests, 
 as well as giving us the wild life, which we have 
 already studied, make it possible for us to have the 
 many lakes and streams which are our pride. 
 
 Wherever we go in northern and eastern Minne- 
 sota, we find the big woods, where are the trees 
 which have been as useful to us as they are beauti- 
 ful. These are largely in the north — white, red and 
 jack pines, black and white spruce, balsam and fir, 
 — all evergreens which are easily seen in the forest 
 in contrast to the trees which lose their leaves in 
 the fall. 
 
 IX i6i 
 
1 62 Our Minnesota 
 
 Along the streams and rivers and on the edges of 
 the lakes are water beech, paper or canoe birch, 
 which the Indians used, yellow birch, white oak, 
 and poplar of two kinds. 
 
 When we think of the woods, which have done 
 most in making us a state and in giving work and 
 homes to our people, we look always along the 
 valleys of the St. Croix and the Mississippi where 
 in early days were the most extensive white pine 
 forests in the world. Even now, although the 
 people who lived here early did not realize how the 
 lumbermen were wasting and destroying this wealth, 
 we have standing more white pine than any other 
 state in the Union. 
 
 This is the most valuable of all the soft woods 
 for it grows so tall and so large and so straight that 
 it makes the best lumber for man's use. Pine from 
 Minnesota has been floated down the rivers to 
 St. Louis and from there shipped to all parts of 
 the country. 
 
 Lumbering is the second thing which gives work 
 to people in a new country where there are woods 
 as in Minnesota, so when the trappers brought back 
 stories of great trees, the lumbermen soon started 
 out to explore them. 
 
 Soon after Fort Snelling was built a man from 
 Kentucky named Hardin Perkins asked the Indian 
 agent, Major Taliaferro, for a license to cut trees 
 
The Gift of the Forests 163 
 
 in the St. Croix valley. One of his partners was 
 Joe Rolette, whose son we shall hear of later. The 
 license was allowed and the lumbermen paid Hole- 
 in-the-Day, the Indian chief who claimed this 
 country, one thousand dollars a year for cutting 
 the logs. Colonel Snelling stopped this work 
 because he thought the Indian agent had no right 
 to give the license and so after the loss of a good 
 deal of money the work was given up. 
 
 In 1833 Frederick Ayer, a missionary near the 
 St. Croix River, which has given such untold 
 wealth in timber, advised people to cut the forests 
 there but no one followed his advice. In 1836 a 
 man from Galena, named Pitt, cut timber at 
 St. Croix Falls with the consent of the Chip- 
 pewas, who, you remember, thought they owned 
 that country. But the United States didn't 
 agree with them, nor did it give Mr. Pitt a right 
 to cut the timber. 
 
 The year 1837 was a great one in Minnesota. The 
 Indian treaties opened the land to settlers and for 
 the first time the lumberman's axe was heard in the 
 forest and the whir of the millwheel broke the 
 quiet along the streams. In this year Franklin 
 Steele of St. Anthony started up the St. Croix River 
 with Dr. Fitch, the first white men to look for 
 timber as a business, if we except Joseph Brown 
 (first on the spot as usual) who cut logs at Taylor's 
 
164 Our Minnesota 
 
 Falls and rafted them down the river earlier in the 
 same year. 
 
 Taking laborers with them they left Fort Snelling 
 in a birch-bark canoe filled with tools and food. 
 They floated down the Mississippi River to the 
 mouth of the St. Croix up which they paddled as 
 far as the beautiful park which nature made for us 
 and which the State has since adopted at Taylor's 
 Falls. 
 
 But it was not the beauty of the country that 
 this party of explorers was looking at, for they 
 found the great trees they were after and made a 
 logging camp at St. Croix Falls. The first logs 
 they cut were used to build cabins for the camp, from 
 which place they floated the logs down the river in 
 rafts. Where the river widened, they caught them 
 at what is called a boom, a long chain of logs 
 reaching across the river, fastened together end to 
 end and securely fixed to each bank. The logs 
 were at first floated down the St. Croix River to 
 southern mills, but before very long the lumbermen 
 here built sawmills and sawed their own lumber. In 
 1838 Peshick, an Indian chief, refused to have any 
 more trees cut saying, ''No money for land — logs 
 cannot go." He had not been paid for the land 
 ceded the year before but fortunately the treaty 
 was ratified in time to send the logs downstream. 
 
 In 1839 Steele went to St. Louis where he 
 
The Gift of the Forests 165 
 
 interested people in starting the St. Croix Falls 
 Lumber Company, bringing up everything that 
 was needed for a sawmill on the Palmyra, the 
 first steamboat on the St. Croix River. 
 
 The Indians were so terrified and excited at this 
 terrible creature puffing out volumes of smoke that 
 they hid behind the crags which rise high above the 
 river and began rolling stones down on the boat. 
 The captain blew his whistle which frightened them 
 so that they sprang from their hiding places and 
 ran away yelling and shrieking, leaving behind their 
 blankets and everything else they had with them. 
 
 The mill started at this time was the beginning 
 of lumbering which lasted many years. The water 
 power at St. Croix Falls today is used for electric 
 current. 
 
 The earlier lumbermen came for homes, and 
 many of the logs that were cut, were sawed up for 
 building these, but after the United States had 
 surveyed the land and the people located the for- 
 ests, they came to make money off the lumber. 
 
 In the last month of 1837 the first tree was cut 
 and the first cabin built which started the town of 
 Marine. David Hone and Lewis Judd, who came 
 in 1838 from Marine, Wisconsin, took up this claim 
 on the St. Croix River, and the next year per- 
 suaded thirteen people from their old home to join 
 them. They went to St. Louis where they started 
 
i66 Our Minnesota 
 
 up the river with everything necessary for milling 
 and farming, including oxen and cows. Mrs. 
 Hone was the only woman in the party and was the 
 first white woman on the western side of the St. 
 Croix valley. When the party arrived they found 
 that the claim had been "jumped" by two men to 
 whom they had to pay three hundred dollars before 
 they would give up the land. The mill, which they 
 built, cut the first lumber in that part of the valley 
 and did business for fifty years. It was owned later 
 by Lewis Judd, and Orange Walker who came first 
 as the company's clerk. The people at Marine 
 always raised enough food for their own use and 
 were very prosperous until the mill was burned in 
 1863. ' It was entirely destroyed as were almost 
 half of the early sawmills in Minnesota, for fire 
 has always been and still is, our worst enemy. 
 More of our woods have been burned than have 
 been cut and much of the money which was gained 
 by such hard work in the early days had to be used 
 to rebuild mills which were burned. 
 
 The first claim at Stillwater was made in 1843 
 by Jacob Fisher who took up a large amount of 
 land which hadn't been surveyed. His claim was 
 bought the next year by John McKusick and others, 
 who built the first sawmill on Lake St. Croix, 
 which mill did business almost sixty years, and was 
 the first frame building in the valley. 
 
The Gift of the Forests 167 
 
 Stillwater grew fast and was very important 
 because of the lumber industry, at one time having 
 twelve great mills running at once. The largest 
 company, owned by Schulenberg, in 1856 sold 
 its business to Hospes and Staples, and their 
 mill under the name of the Atwood mill in South 
 Stillwater, where Torinus also started a great 
 mill, was running until lately. The old "Red 
 Mill" for years was a landmark for many miles 
 around. 
 
 The first log boom was built in 1857 at Osceola 
 and was later moved down the river just above Still- 
 water where the Boom Company, consisting of all 
 the lumber firms doing business on the St. Croix 
 River, had its headquarters. Here the logs were 
 sorted out and counted, for every log is marked 
 with a letter or sign which belongs to its owner 
 alone, and we can see that the company had 
 some work when we realize that there were two 
 thousand different log marks among the owners. 
 The logs to be sawed at the Stillwater mills were 
 taken out here, the others shipped on. Martin 
 Mower was the head of the great Boom Company 
 and lived at Areola a few miles above the lumber 
 town. 
 
 In Stillwater lived many men who were impor- 
 tant in building up our State, great in lumber circles 
 all over the country and a number of them not 
 
i68 Our Minnesota 
 
 just lumbermen, as the names Hospes, Staples, 
 Hersey, Nelson, and Durant remind us. 
 
 Now the glory of Stillwater has largely passed 
 away: all the old mills have been burned or torn 
 down and instead of the busy bustling city thronged 
 with lumberjacks wearing lanigans or spiked boots, 
 it is important because there the State Prison is 
 located. 
 
 The towns of Stillwater, Lakeland, Marine, and 
 Point Douglas were all settled on account of the 
 logging, and flourished because there the companies 
 that were formed made their homes and set up 
 stores, many of them great barn-like buildings still 
 standing, from which supplies were sold to the 
 lumber camps back in the woods. 
 
 The first frame dwelHng in Minnesota was built 
 at Point Douglas which is now, as are many of 
 these towns along the rivers, much smaller than 
 it was many years ago, for as the trees were cut off, 
 the companies moved their headquarters from one 
 place to another. Here and there we see old saw- 
 mills which were left to decay in quiet and peace, 
 very different from the busy times when they 
 sawed up and shipped out carloads of lumber each 
 day. 
 
 The Mississippi River pine was first explored ten 
 years after that on the St. Croix and also under 
 Steele, whose explorer, Daniel Stanchfield, came, as 
 
The Gift of the Forests 169 
 
 most of otir lumbermen did, from the woods of Maine 
 as soon as they found that there was more work to 
 be done and more money to be made in the West. 
 
 This explorer tells us how astonished he was at 
 the immense tracts of white pine which he found 
 along the Mississippi River and especially stretch- 
 ing for fifty miles on both sides of the streams 
 along the Rum River, which flow into it. He had 
 almost given up hope of finding this sought-for 
 timber, when he climbed a tall tree for a last look 
 around. Here on all sides was a waving sea of green 
 — a wonderful forest of white pine. He could hardly 
 believe his eyes and had to hold on tight for a while, 
 he was so dizzy with joy. The company which 
 Mr. Steele had formed, had been afraid that there 
 might not be enough logs to keep a mill busy and 
 to make it pay at St. Anthony Falls, where, of 
 course, the water power made it a good place for a 
 mill, and Stanchfield writes, "I have found more 
 white pine than seventy mills could cut in seventy 
 years." Although it was true, the trouble was, 
 that they did not save the smaller trees, as they 
 should have, to wait until they grew, but cut 
 big and little. So this great treastire was used up 
 in less than seventy years although it took more than 
 seventy mills to cut it. 
 
 The immense forest along the Rum River, which 
 flows into the Mississippi just above Anoka, 
 
I70 Our Minnesota 
 
 supplied most of the lumber used in the building 
 of Minneapolis. The first log drive, in 1847, which 
 cost so much in time and strength and patient 
 labor (for it is the early people who have the 
 hardships), was all lost on account of high 
 water, but Steele was not at all discouraged 
 and went on doggedly, though on account of this 
 loss, the mill, which they had planned, had to 
 be built of hard wood cut from trees on Nicollet 
 Island. The first machinery, too, was lost in the 
 Erie Canal and they had to wait until another outfit 
 could be sent on. This was the first mill on the 
 Mississippi River except the government one, 
 which, you remember, was built to cut the logs for 
 the first fort at Snelling. 
 
 All through this country as the explorer went 
 farther west, the Indians had to be reckoned with 
 and at Aitkin, which was then a trading post. 
 Chief Hole-in-the-Day again forbade the cutting of 
 any trees unless he was paid for them. He asked fifty 
 cents a tree, a pony, five pairs of blankets, calico 
 and broadcloth and said that he also had great pine 
 woods up on Leech Lake, which he offered to show 
 them, so he was paid what he asked and the stately 
 pine trees began to come down. The lumbermen 
 still had more or less trouble with the Indians but 
 they usually got around them by tact and a few 
 presents. 
 
The Gift of the Forests 171 
 
 The dam was built at St. Anthony in 1848 
 when the mills began work in earnest and sawed 
 night and day, for numbers of immigrants began 
 coming here to live and the year the territory was 
 organized, they came in swarms. Almost all the 
 money brought here at this time was what the 
 United States paid to the Indians, and the stores 
 furnishing supplies to the lumbermen took their 
 pay in logs, which they did not get cash for until 
 the next year. But this lumber trade was worth 
 more than money for it built up great towns and 
 cities and is often called the ''gold mine of Minne- 
 sota." The first needs of lumbermen, as well as of 
 other people, are food and clothing and so stores 
 were built, and around the homes and the stores 
 and the mills the people clustered. 
 
 The pioneer woodsman like the trapper had a 
 very lonely life, for when he started out to cruise 
 or explore, for timber, he left behind him all 
 signs of civilized life, his friends, family, and his 
 comforts. He was always traveling, seldom spend- 
 ing two nights in a place. He had with him one 
 companion, sometimes an Indian, sometimes 
 another cruiser, an ax, a few things to eat, which 
 could not be shot nor found in the lakes ; his maps, 
 and surveying instruments and always a little 
 kettle and resin for pitching his birch canoe. 
 
 When he left the streams and the lakes he hunted 
 
172 Our Minnesota 
 
 through the pathless forest for good straight, clear 
 timber, meeting on the way deer, bear, lynx, porcu- 
 pine and that terror to the lonely man, hungry 
 wolves. Carrying his heavy pack, he climbed over 
 windfalls and uprooted trees, which the long winter 
 and the great winds and heavy rains had dislodged 
 and which make walking almost impossible. He 
 waded through swamps, fording little streams, 
 meeting only once in a while a lonely homesteader, 
 who was usually delighted to see someone and 
 offered him a bed and at least half of all the food 
 he had. Sometimes he didn't reach camp at all 
 and spent the night out, fighting mosquitoes and 
 flies. 
 
 One of the explorers tells us of being treed by 
 wolves all night on his way back to camp. He had 
 been able to climb a big tree, which the animals 
 couldn't gnaw through, and there he sat shivering 
 all night long nodding, but afraid to go to sleep 
 until when the morning light came, the wolves 
 slunk away as they always do, I suppose because 
 theirs are "deeds of darkness." 
 
 Another time one of the men had walked ahead 
 of the team, which was about a mile behind, when a 
 pack of wolves came crowding all through the trail 
 and on either side of him. He wavered a minute 
 then raised his ax, brandished it and rushed at 
 them. They gave way, but watched him until he 
 
The Gift of the Forests 173 
 
 was out of sight. He said that those minutes 
 seemed like years, for he knew that if he turned 
 and ran back, they would get him and by the time 
 the team came up he would have been nothing but 
 bones. 
 
 LOCATING UNITED STATES LAND 
 
 Many years ago in the early history of our 
 country, in fact soon after we became independent 
 from England, the government made a plan for 
 surveying its land and it has followed that plan 
 ever since, so that people, hunting for timber 
 lands or claims for homes or mining property, may 
 be able to describe just where the land is, for all 
 land in the beginning belongs to the United States 
 Government. 
 
 The United States surveyor, who first makes an 
 examination of the land, fixes by sight from a tree 
 or some convenient place, lines running parallel, 
 or in the same direction, six miles apart, north 
 and south as well as east and west. These lines 
 divide the country into squares six miles on each 
 side, and each square is called a township. The 
 townships are all divided into thirty-six square 
 sections, each section one mile on each side. Each of 
 the four corners of the township is marked by a 
 post squared at the upper end, and marked on the 
 
174 Our Minnesota 
 
 foiir sides with an iron which every surveyor 
 carries with him. Each mark, you see, faces a 
 different township. Then one tree in each corner, 
 called the hearing tree, is marked B. T. and all 
 these marks are put down in what are called "notes 
 of the surveyor"; so if all the posts are destroyed 
 and only one tree is left standing, the land may be 
 *' located." The section corners are marked the 
 same way and each section, which always contains 
 six hundred and forty acres, is divided by fours 
 until we get one hundred and sixty acres called a 
 ** quarter, " which the United States allows a 
 homesteader. The quarters, even, are divided into 
 *' forties," which are called "lots." 
 
 The cruiser or explorer goes through the land 
 and "locates" and lists the timber, which he wants 
 to buy, in "forties," because the government sells 
 nothing smaller than a forty. To find the good 
 timber and locate it, is the work which the explorer 
 has to do day after day. Then he "enters" the 
 land, which he wants, at the nearest United States 
 land office and his notes are compared with the 
 notes which the government surveyor made. 
 
 Sometimes two men locate the same land and 
 then there is a scramble to the land office to enter, 
 as the application for United States land is called. 
 Many hasty trips were made by cruisers in our State 
 who found traces of someone else exploring the same 
 
The Gift of the Forests 175 
 
 land. Sometimes this trace was only a smell of 
 tobacco smoke, sometimes a smouldering fire, and 
 one man tells of finding on the trail a dead pigeon, 
 still warm, dropped by a cruiser in his haste to get 
 away; then there was a rush to the land office, 
 through the woods, swamps and short-cuts. The 
 winner often had to swim rivers and drop into 
 ravines, going through great dangers, for anything 
 was better than losing the land. We always hear 
 from the winner for the other man never tells his 
 story about entering land, as this was always a 
 case of ''first come first served." 
 
 Often timber was stolen and claims were 
 *' jumped, " so whatever else he had to endure, the 
 lumhei explorer never had a tame life. Hard as it 
 all was, we very seldom hear of a man in the woods 
 who was ill, and no matter how glad one was to get 
 back to civilization, he was always just as glad to 
 go, when the United States advertised new lands 
 for sale, or the smell of the spring pine came to him. 
 
 Most of the early lumbermen were "Maineites," 
 as they were called, and brought with them the 
 same methods they used in Maine. The lumbering 
 was done in the winter, but early in July the 
 teamsters used to start out to cut hay and wood 
 for the winter, and the lumberjacks, who were 
 idle and loafed about town until this time, went to 
 build camp and to make logging roads. Some of 
 
176 Our Minnesota 
 
 these lumberjacks were Scotch and Irish, though 
 most of them in the early days were French 
 Canadians. 
 
 The logging roads, which they built, were 
 straight, about twelve feet wide, and had to be 
 smooth and hard because they hauled over them 
 whole trees, the branches trimmed off and the 
 bark cut away from the under side so that they 
 would slip easily on the snow. The ruts in the 
 roads were filled with water, which became hard, 
 smooth ice, making it easier to drag the sleds over 
 them. 
 
 After a big tree was chopped down, it was loaded 
 on a bobsled which was dragged by oxen or horses 
 to the top of the ridge where the slide was, and 
 started on its way down to the landing. There it 
 was cut into logs, marked, and hauled to the 
 water's edge. In the spring the drivers rolled it 
 into the water and it was floated down to the 
 boom. 
 
 Today in the camps the logs are sawed, where 
 they used to be chopped, and hauled on a tackle 
 made of two sleds with cross chains between. 
 These are drawn by oxen or horses and can carry 
 such heavy loads that the logs are often piled ten 
 feet high. In the large camps they use logging 
 railroads, which are taken up and put down in 
 different places as they need them. 
 
Firebreak in Koochiching County 
 (By courtesy of the State Forestry Departmentj 
 
The Gift of the Forests 177 
 
 The camps which were built years ago were 
 very simple but the men thought that they were 
 comfortable. They cut two large trees the length 
 they wanted their house, put them about twenty 
 feet apart, cut logs for ends, and floored the space 
 over well. The house, which had a steep roof 
 coming down on either side to the ground, was always 
 shingled. There was a hole in the center of the 
 roof for a great chimney made of round poles 
 calked. The fire was built in the middle of the 
 room right under the chimney, the fireplace made 
 of three stones at each side and over this was 
 hung a crane for kettles. The coals made a fine bed 
 for bread and for beans, always a part of the lumber- 
 men's meal. 
 
 Benches the length of the camp were put up near 
 the fireplace, and behind them the beds, which were 
 pine boughs piled high. The table was behind 
 the bench and in front of the door, and it was 
 always important that the lumbermen, who had 
 good appetites from their out-of-doors work, 
 should have this table well supplied. So you 
 always might be sure if you visited a camp, of a 
 welcome and a good meal. 
 
 Now the lumber camps have warm log houses 
 divided into several rooms, with many windows. 
 Instead of fireplaces they have modern ranges 
 and a lumber-camp cook is a high-priced person. 
 
178 Our Minnesota 
 
 but the meals probably taste no better than did 
 those of fifty years ago. 
 
 The great lumber camps of today have an army 
 of men, often fifty choppers and teamsters in one 
 lodge. The men have breakfast and supper in 
 camp and dinner is carried to them, sometimes two 
 miles away. The lumbermen , whatever their special 
 labor may be, have hard work each day but they 
 get good food and good pay, and the only objection 
 to the work is that it leaves them idle a good many 
 months in the year, which is bad for anyone. 
 
 The lumber trade was the great thing which 
 built up St. Anthony, and it and the flour mills 
 are what have made Minneapolis the great city 
 that it is today, for the records show that up to 
 1900 her mills had sawed two thirds of all the 
 lumber in Minnesota. Some of the names of her 
 famous lumbermen are as important now as they 
 were in the early days, for they helped to found a 
 city more enduring than the lumber trade or the 
 milling interests. The names of Morrison and 
 Pillsbury, Winston and Langdon will never be 
 forgotten in that city. 
 
 The land between Minneapolis and Duluth and 
 along the railroad lines north of Duluth, all of 
 which was covered with forests, has been cleared 
 since 1870. 
 
 After the trees had been cut along the St. 
 
The Gift of the Forests 179 
 
 Croix River, the lumbermen moved back to the 
 ridge west of the river and many companies were 
 started. The largest one now is controlled by what 
 are called the Weyerhaeuser interests, one of the 
 greatest lumbering companies in the world. 
 
 There were many small mills all up and down the 
 little rivers, but the important ones on the Mis- 
 sissippi were at Hastings, Red Wing and much 
 larger than these, one at Winona, where billions of 
 feet (lumber being always measured by feet), 
 were sawed. 
 
 Instead of telling a story of increasing greatness 
 and progress, we are sorry to say that in lumbering 
 we are not going forward but backward, for the 
 great days of this industry in the State are over. 
 We no longer rank first in the Union as we did in 
 1890, nor even fifth as we did later, for today 
 Minnesota stands twelfth in the lumber business. 
 Where we used to have one hundred and thirty- 
 three mills in the State running day and night, 
 there now are only twenty-seven, though we must 
 remember that a modern mill, because of new 
 machinery, can do ten times as much as one used 
 to do. 
 
 We have misused our great forests, for if we had 
 carefully cut only the large trees and had been 
 careful about ** slashings," as the refuse left by 
 cutting is called, we should have kept up our 
 
i8o Our Minnesota 
 
 lumbering for many years. "Slashings" and 
 carelessness, in general, have started many great 
 fires all over the State, which have destroyed much 
 wealth as well as the beauty which is one of the 
 things we should be careful to preserve. 
 
 As much lumber has been wasted as has come to 
 market and the great forest fires have destroyed 
 so much that now we use more than we grow. Our 
 State Forester, of whom we shall hear later, tells us 
 that by 1922 all the woods, in which we take such 
 pride, will be destroyed unless we are more careful. 
 
 Today the lumber mills and camps have moved 
 up to the north of the State with their center at 
 Duluth, whose first mill was put up in 1856. The 
 timber along the Kettle and Willow rivers is being 
 cut and this work made the towns of Cloquet, 
 Carleton and many others. 
 
 But strange to relate, the great woods along the 
 Vermilion and Mesabi ranges, when cut, disclosed 
 a vast treasure whose unfolding reads like a fairy 
 tale, for buried at their roots were found the 
 mighty iron fields which have given Minnesota a 
 fame and a wealth greater than her lumbering or 
 even than her farming. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WATCH US GROW 
 
 Several times in our history people have wanted 
 to change the capital from St. Paul to different 
 places in the State and in 1857, a law was passed 
 to remove it to St. Peter. 
 
 All laws then had to be passed by two bodies 
 called the House and the Council. The bill was 
 passed by both bodies and sent back to the 
 Council committee to write out or enroll. Now 
 the chairman of this committee having the bill 
 in charge was Joe Rolette, who was an Indian 
 trader and a driver of the Red River ox-carts. 
 He was a great friend of St. Paul and didn't 
 want the capital changed, so he didn't appear 
 with the bill when it was called for. He was sent 
 for again and again but no one could find him. 
 One report was that he had been seen with a dog 
 train on the way to Pembina where he lived; 
 another one was that he had been killed, but at any 
 rate he couldn't be found, and the people who 
 wanted the capital moved wouldn't adjourn until 
 
 181 
 
1 82 Our Minnesota 
 
 the bill was found. A copy of it was made but it 
 was decided that it wasn't correct and the Council 
 *'sat" (as they say) for five days, eating and sleep- 
 ing in the Council chamber waiting for Rolette. 
 They did not find him before it came time by law 
 to adjourn, and so the bill was lost. 
 
 It was found afterward that Rolette had 
 been hiding very comfortably at the Fuller House 
 all the time. He was well hated for this trick by 
 some people but just as well loved by others. 
 
 During territorial days so many people came 
 here, everybody was so prosperous and there was 
 so much money made, that people thought it was 
 always going to keep on that way, and spent too 
 much money and branched out too suddenly. 
 Everybody went into real estate business and 
 thought of nothing but land. One man visiting 
 here during this time said that the people thought 
 nothing, did nothing, ate nothing but land and 
 when they went to bed, they even talked about it 
 in their sleep. A good many expected to have 
 towns where they had made their different claims 
 and thought that all they had to do was to offer 
 land for sale and people would be glad enough to 
 get it. 
 
 One of these was Ignatius Donnelly, a prominent 
 lawyer, who laid out the town of Nininger in Dakota 
 County, built a great house and expected to see 
 
Watch Us Grow 183 
 
 it the center of his settlement. The land sold at 
 first and a little town grew up and flourished until 
 the hard times came when it was deserted and most 
 of the people went to Hastings. Donnelly's great, 
 lonely house still stands, a monimient of the great 
 "boom" days. Donnelly was famous as the 
 writer of many books, among them Atlantis the 
 story of a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Mr. Donnelly was a great orator, a regular 
 "spellbinder," and represented us in the Legis- 
 lature as well as in Congress several times. He 
 was called the "Sage of Nininger" and was one 
 of Minnesota's great men, but he never became rich 
 from his land, nor did anyone else at this time. 
 
 Suddenly in 1857, hard times came and no one 
 could sell anything. There was so little money in 
 the Territory during these hard times that store- 
 keepers used to give people tickets saying, * ' Good 
 for one dollar at my store," and these tickets were 
 made out for sums as small as twenty-five cents. 
 
 During this "panic" as it was called, people 
 who came here just to get rich quick, left in a hurry, 
 half of all St. Paul going in 1857, but the families 
 who had come for homes and believed in the 
 future were willing to bear something for the sake 
 of the State to be. 
 
 This trouble taught people a good lesson which 
 they did not forget, for instead of thinking only 
 
184 Our Minnesota 
 
 about the land and what they could sell it for, they 
 began to think about using the land itself. So 
 instead of speculating, people went to farming and 
 into business and as soon as the excitement of the 
 panic was over, everybody went to work. This 
 was the beginning of our real growth. 
 
 Now the year before this we had asked Congress 
 to make us a state, equal to all the others. You 
 see, there are a good many things, which a territory 
 cannot do; it can't elect its own governor, nor vote 
 for president, or most important of all, it can't 
 have people to represent it and to vote in Congress, 
 all of which things a state does, so a state has much 
 more power. 
 
 Henry Rice, who was our delegate in Congress in 
 1856 had charge of the important matter of our 
 statehood and to back him was Stephen Douglas, the 
 man who ran against Lincoln for office and debated 
 with him so many times. He was not a friend to 
 Lincoln but he was a good friend to Minnesota and 
 we needed him, for there were many who objected 
 to our coming into the Union at that time. The 
 people who wanted slavery didn't want another 
 free state and Minnesota was sure to give all her 
 votes against slavery as soon as she had a chance. 
 
 At last, after many disputes and much talk 
 Congress passed the "Enabling Act" which allowed 
 us to write a constitution for the government of 
 
Watch Us Grow 185 
 
 our State in its own affairs. There was a great 
 quarrel here at home about our constitution, 
 and the Democrats and RepubHcans (a new party 
 at this time) had different meetings and wrote two 
 constitutions, each insisting that it was the real 
 meeting, and had written the real constitution. 
 
 Finally, everybody saw that it wasn't sensible 
 to begin our State life with strife and bitter feeling, 
 so little by little they came together. The dele- 
 gates never met as one body but they made their 
 two constitutions exactly alike, so it made no 
 difference for which one the people of the State 
 voted. 
 
 We were in such a hiirry to get to work as a 
 state that we didn't wait for Congress to make us 
 one, but had our election for congressmen, state 
 ofificers, and governor in October, 1857, and this 
 first election was a most exciting one. 
 
 The Republicans wanted Ramsey for the first 
 state governor, and the Democrats wanted General 
 Sibley. They were both well known and both 
 popular, so the vote was very close. 
 
 Pembina belonged to Minnesota then, and it 
 took a long time to hear from there. The election 
 results were waited for anxiously, especially by the 
 Democrats, for the North was a ftir country, and 
 everybody there was sure to vote for Sibley. Joe 
 Rolette was to bring the returns and the Democrats 
 
i86 Our Minnesota 
 
 heard that the Republicans had sent a man to 
 catch him on the road down and steal the ballots. 
 So the Democrats sent a reckless half-breed rider 
 to overtake this messenger, giving him orders 
 not to spare his life nor the horse's life but to get 
 there before the other man did. Now, you know, 
 Pembina is four hundred miles from the capital 
 and it usually took some time to get there, but the 
 half-breed rode hard and very soon overtook and 
 passed the Republican messenger. The ballots 
 were taken from Rolette and brought back hidden 
 in the belt of a good Democrat who was afraid to 
 take them to St. Paul, so left them at Fort 
 Snelling on his way. A little later he drove 
 over to the Fort with a young lady and on the 
 way back gave her a bundle to carry. She 
 didn't know what it was, but it was brought safely 
 to the Capitol and the State voted Democratic. 
 
 Congress passed the bill admitting us as a state 
 with our present boundaries May ii, 1858, which 
 you must remember as the date of ^Minnesota's 
 birthday. 
 
 During this time the fur trade was passing away 
 because so many animals were killed and some of 
 them had almost disappeared from the State, so the 
 very first legislature tried to stop this slaughter and 
 passed game laws which have been added to 
 from time to time. These laws protect our valu- 
 
Watch Us Grow 187 
 
 able game so that it may not all be lost to the 
 
 children of the future. 
 
 This legislature made plans too for the State 
 Agricultural College showing that they foresaw 
 that in time we must stop depending on fur and 
 lumber, and begin to be farmers. It would have 
 been better for us, if everyone then had thought 
 that it would help to have the farmers trained, 
 because we should have had an easier time after- 
 ward. But people didn't understand this matter, 
 for in twenty years there was only one graduate 
 from this college. 
 
 In 1859, our State had a chance to vote the first 
 time for a president and of course helped to elect 
 President Lincoln. 
 
 It was now that we established a Bureau of 
 Immigration, which shows us how many foreigners 
 were coming here, many of them because of the 
 new homestead laws which Congress passed. Peo- 
 ple from all over Europe came in and progress 
 went on quickly. In i860 there were one hundred 
 and seventy thousand people in Minnesota and 
 in ten years there were almost three times as 
 many. 
 
 After the State was admitted to the Union it was 
 only a little while before the great Civil War broke 
 out and that stopped our progress for a time, as it 
 did the progress of all the states : because while war 
 
i88 Our Minnesota 
 
 is going on ^e can't do the same things that we 
 should if we were at peace. 
 
 E.amsey was the second governor who was 
 elected and was elected a second time. He spent 
 much time and thought on schools and did much 
 for them. 
 
 During his second term "he won the title of the 
 *' Great War Governor," and the next few years 
 were sad ones in the life of the whole United States, 
 especially Minnesota of all the northern states, 
 because of the great Sioux outbreak which came at 
 this time. But in spite of our troubles without and 
 within, we were never discouraged. The men who 
 had helped to defend the Union, came back as 
 citizens and went to work again in camp, in shop 
 and office, and progress went on. The Union was 
 safe, not one star was missing, and our own State 
 had made good. 
 
 In 1867 the last Red River cart came to St. 
 Paul with fur, but lumber, wheat, mills, and rail- 
 roads offered work to the thousands of emigrants 
 who came here from other countries for homes and 
 work. 
 
 In 1870 Duluth came to be a city and ever since 
 has been growing in wealth and importance. Situ- 
 ated at the head of the Great Lakes where "rails 
 and waters meet," it handles an immense trade. 
 The boats loaded with grain and ore go down the 
 
Watch Us Grow 189 
 
 great waterways to the East and come back with 
 coal for the Northwest. Duluth has grown in 
 beauty and public spirit as well as in wealth, and 
 because of this and her location at the head of the 
 lakes is called the "Zenith City." 
 
 THE STATE SEAL 
 
 The first territorial legislature had decided to 
 adopt what is called a seal. All state papers must 
 be signed with this seal which is cut in metal. The 
 first one which was made for us, pictured an Indian 
 family in front of their lodge, a canoe outside and a 
 white man visiting them. No one seemed to like 
 this very well and so General Sibley suggested 
 another one. This was a round seal with the Falls 
 of St. Anthony in the background and the rising 
 sun in the East. A farmer was plowing westward, 
 his gun and powder horn leaning against a stump, 
 while an Indian with a lance in his hand was riding 
 toward the East. The Latin motto which means 
 ** I want to see what is beyond, " was above, with the 
 date 1849, below. There was a mistake made 
 about the motto and people generally made fun 
 of this seal, calling it a scared white man watch- 
 ing a frightened Indian gallop out of sight. 
 
 After we became a State, the seal was changed 
 to the present one on the title page of our 
 
190 Our Minnesota 
 
 book which shows a white man plowing east- 
 ward, an Indian riding on horseback toward the 
 West, and as a background the setting sun and 
 the Falls of St. Anthony. UEtoile du Nordy 
 which means ''The Star of the North," is above, 
 and around the edge ''The Great Seal of the 
 State of Minnesota," with "1858" below. This seal 
 was used so much on important papers that in 
 1907 we had to have a new one made for the use 
 of the Secretary of State, the official who signs all 
 laws of Minnesota and stamps them with this 
 seal. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MINNESOTA 
 THE BREAD AND BUTTER STATE 
 
 I SUPPOSE we ought to say that the first farmers 
 in Minnesota were the Indians who gathered wild 
 rice and corn, though, of course, they didn't 
 plant the rice, and just scratched the ground for 
 the corn instead of plowing it. So they didn't 
 get very much of a crop. They had a queer way 
 of gathering the rice. You know it grows on the 
 edges of the little lakes in our State and all through 
 the swamps. Two Indians used to push a canoe in 
 among the stems of the rice, which grows very tall, 
 and then while one held the canoe, the other would 
 bend the tall stalks over and beat the heads until 
 the rice fell off into the canoe. Sometimes they would 
 get as many as thirty bushels in a day with one 
 canoe. The squaws would spread it on mats raised 
 on sticks above the fires until it was dried, next 
 they would dig a hole in the ground about the size 
 of a bushel basket, fill it full of rice and trample on 
 it until the husks came off. Then it was spread 
 
 191 
 
192 Our Minnesota 
 
 out on the ground and fanned with great pieces of 
 bark to get rid of the chaff. 
 
 All of the rice in early days used to taste and smell 
 of smoke and many old settlers didn't like it nearly 
 so well when it was prepared in a cleaner and better 
 way, because they missed the smoky taste. This 
 rice is very nourishing and today is considered a 
 great delicacy. It brings a high price in the East 
 as well as at home, and there are acres of it along 
 the edges of our lakes, not gathered except by the 
 birds. 
 
 When the White Man came here, you remember 
 the Indians used to raise little patches of squash 
 and potatoes, corn and tobacco. They were too 
 lazy to do any real farming. The United States 
 government sent agents among them to teach them 
 to farm and they usually began with turnips for 
 the crop looks so large that it encourages them to 
 try again. The first wheat grown in Minnesota 
 was in the Red River valley, way off on the north- 
 western border, where there is a strip of land from 
 ten to twenty miles wide and about three hundred 
 miles from north to south, which is still considered 
 the most fertile land in the world and is called the 
 *' World's Bread Basket. " 
 
 The Earl of Selkirk, you remember, bought a 
 vast tract of land in this valley from the Hudson 
 Bay Company in 1811, which was about the time 
 
The Bread and Butter State 193 
 
 the Countess of Sutherland in Scotland wanted 
 more land herself, and so she drove out a number of 
 Scotch people who had been her tenants. These 
 people came over to this country and settled down 
 in what was called the "Selkirk settlement." 
 There were some Irish and a number of Swiss 
 among these settlers. 
 
 Year after year these people were troubled by 
 the Indians and over and over again after almost 
 starving to death they were bothered by the fur 
 companies. The very same year that Fort Snell- 
 ing was established they raised a good crop and 
 were very happy over it, but just when it was 
 ready to harvest a swarm of locusts appeared so 
 dense that, as they flew, they hid the sun from 
 view and ate up everything in sight, not even 
 leaving a stalk nor a seed for the next year's 
 planting, so they didn't have any crop until 
 1820, when they did manage at last to raise a good 
 one. These were the people who later settled 
 around Fort Snelling, where they came for pro- 
 tection. 
 
 I wonder whether you can realize how hard it 
 was for the early people to try to do anything in 
 this wilderness, where they had none of the con- 
 veniences that the smallest farm or the poorest 
 farmer has today. They used a narrow iron plow 
 which dug just under the surface, often doing the 
 
 13 
 
194 Our Minnesota 
 
 plowing by hand and at most with one horse. If 
 there was enough for the blackbirds and the pigeons, 
 an early writer says, they sometimes managed to get 
 some wheat for themselves. 
 
 When they began raising grain on the Red River 
 they cut it by hand with little sickles and tied it 
 with small twigs. It was stored all winter and 
 cleaned by men, women and children, and by the 
 wind which blew through it. It was flailed on the 
 barn floors, and "winnowed," that is the grain 
 separated from the chaff, with a big fan made of 
 cloth stretched on a hoop and held tightly against 
 the chest while it was moved up and down with 
 both arms. 
 
 Sometime after the Selkirk settlement had a crop 
 they began to raise wheat here and there all over 
 Minnesota, but they didn't think that what was 
 called spring wheat (the kind that is planted in the 
 spring) was very good and because they didn't 
 know how to grind it to make good flour it really 
 didn't amount to very much. However by 1850 
 they raised wheat in small quantities all over the 
 settled part of the State, chiefly around Le Sueur 
 and St. Peter. 
 
 The story is told that, in 1853, when General Le- 
 Duc went to the World's Fair in New York to dem- 
 onstrate Minnesota crops, on his way East he had to 
 buy the wheat which he displayed. Three things 
 
Old Betz, the Berry Picker 
 
 " In Sunday Best." Pioneer Days 
 
 X 
 
The Bread and Butter State 195 
 
 made grain very important in our history; im- 
 proved machinery, roads and milHng. Labor saving 
 machinery came first, for our large farms could never 
 have been run by hand labor. There was no use in 
 sowing grain to rot in the field, for it wasn't pos- 
 sible to reap it. 
 
 Beginning with 1825, plows were improved 
 until the great gang-plow came, and in 1831, 
 Cyrus McCormick brought out a two-horse 
 reaper with which he cut six acres of oats in half a 
 day, as much as six men had done before. He 
 began manufacturing reapers and threshing ma- 
 chines in 1847, and since then farm machinery 
 has been improved year by year. 
 
 Today we have the complete harvester which 
 not only cuts and threshes the grain but puts it 
 into sacks. Instead of horses, these great machines 
 use power, and they don't seem like machines at all, 
 but rather like a great many himaan beings all in 
 one. 
 
 The second thing which helped farming was the 
 railroad. In the beginning our farmers had no 
 reason to raise more wheat than they could use 
 themselves, and in fact they didn't raise enough to 
 make all the bread they wanted. There were no 
 roads to take their grain, and if they lived on a 
 stream it was very hard to send it down even by 
 boat. If they lived off the stream it was impossible 
 
196 Our Minnesota 
 
 to get it anywhere, and we can see that now the 
 farmers would be better off if we had better roads, 
 for poor roads take more time than good ones, and 
 time is more valuable to the farmer than almost 
 anything else. 
 
 When the railroads were built to take the grain 
 to the markets beyond the Mississippi River or the 
 St. Croix or up to Winnipeg, it made farming on 
 a large scale possible, and so the great "bonanza 
 farms" were started. 
 
 On the great Dalrymple farm of two thousand acres 
 they raised fifty thousand bushels of wheat in 1869, 
 and it took a hundred men and a hundred horses to 
 harvest it. The Paxton farm in Redwood County 
 covered fifteen thousand acres, but in 1896 most of 
 these great farms were divided, as other crops 
 besides wheat came to be more profitable. 
 
 But perhaps the third improvement was the most 
 important after all, and that was learning how to 
 be better millers. Wheat isn't of very much use to 
 us until it is ground into flour. The first mill was 
 built at St. Anthony by the government to grind 
 the little wheat that was raised at first on gov- 
 ernment property at Fort Snelling. Before this, 
 people had used mortars like the Indians, and later, 
 had ground their grain between two stones by hand. 
 These hand mills were made a good deal like the 
 coffee mills in our kitchens today. Fifty years ago, 
 
The Bread and Butter State 197 
 
 there were a few horse mills, where the two stones 
 which ground the wheat were turned on one another 
 by a horse harnessed at the end of a long pole. 
 
 Then an improvement came in the shape of wind- 
 mills. Among the first ones in Minnesota were 
 those at Owatonna, St. Peter, and Mankato, and 
 in 1870 there were many big windmills in the State. 
 They are almost all gone today because the people 
 soon began to use water power. This is much 
 better for grinding the wheat because it can be 
 used so much longer in the year and is always on 
 hand, while the wind comes and goes, though of 
 course the early millers had to grind all their 
 wheat before the streams froze up, or wait until 
 the next spring. 
 
 Before Minnesota was a state there were flour 
 mills scattered over a large part of it. Lemuel 
 Bolles' mill at Afton, built in 1845, ground wheat 
 raised in 1853 at Grey Cloud Island. The first 
 one to ship flour to the eastern states was the 
 "Minnesota," the same year that we became a 
 state; it was owned by a milling company in 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 A Scotchman by the name of Archibald, living 
 on Cannon River, became famous during the 6o's 
 for making the best flour in the world. Eastern 
 people paid him a dollar a barrel more than any 
 one else could get. But he didn't tell people how 
 
198 Our Minnesota 
 
 he made his good flotir although he had many 
 visitors who tried to find out. 
 
 In 1870 Edward LaCroix went from Faribault 
 to Minneapolis with ideas about milling, which he 
 called the "new process. " The old way was to put 
 the millstones, which are round and very heavy, 
 close together and grind them very fast, which 
 crushed the wheat all at once. This made a 
 yellow flour which was sticky and didn't keep very 
 well. Now people had found out that the most 
 nourishing part of the wheat is just inside of the 
 outer shell. In the old way of grinding most of this 
 went off with the chaff or bran. The new process 
 grinds very slowly, and at first just cracks the wheat, 
 so that the outer shell is broken away and the 
 gluten, which is the nourishing part, is all kept. 
 But even milling it in this way, the wheat became 
 so hot that the flour wasn't very good and still did 
 not keep well. 
 
 It was from the Hungarians that we learned how 
 to use steel rollers, which grind very slowly and 
 little by little, the wheat going through many 
 different sets of rollers. After each grinding the 
 wheat is shaken and the flour sifted through cloth, 
 and when it has been ground over and over again 
 we have the fine white flour of today, which "looks 
 good enough to eat" and keeps very well for a long 
 time, and besides has in it all the nourishment of the 
 
The Bread and Butter State 199 
 
 wheat. The flour, which was ground by this new 
 process in Minneapolis, soon became well known 
 and people were willing to give two or more dollars 
 a barrel more for it than for any other. So the 
 great mills were built which turned out thousands 
 of barrels a day and sent flour to the hungry all 
 over the world. 
 
 Now, of course, just as soon as people found how 
 much money they could make on wheat they began 
 to come into Minnesota by the hundreds and thou- 
 sands, and for no other purpose than to raise wheat, 
 and this, of course, made our population largely 
 farmers. 
 
 But crops were not always good, even if land was 
 so fertile, and the farmers' troubles were many. 
 
 For many years grasshoppers had been a pest, 
 coming before 1820, and in territorial days 
 destroyed much, but between 1870 and 1877 they 
 were a scourge and the last two years entirely 
 destroyed the crops. They ate everything — ^the 
 bark on the trees, clothes on the lines, leather; and 
 every blade of green was eaten down to the ground 
 as soon as it appeared. People said they even ate 
 saddles and boots, in fact they ate up everything 
 but the machinery in the fields. 
 
 All sorts of plans to get rid of them were tried, 
 bounties offered and thousands of dollars paid for 
 dead grasshoppers. They were burned, they were 
 
200 Our Minnesota 
 
 tarred, but they came faster than they could be 
 killed for they came by the millions and would 
 disappear only to have others in great swarms take 
 their places. There was terrible suffering through- 
 out the State, and public aid was given to the suffer- 
 ing farmers. Pillsbury, who was governor in 1877, 
 did everything in his power to help, for the whole 
 State was aroused as everything depends on our 
 crops. 
 
 The grasshopper lays its eggs several inches 
 below the ground and they hatch out in the spring, 
 so in April, 1878, just at hatching time in answer 
 to many requests and petitions, the governor ap- 
 pointed a day of prayer that the State might be 
 delivered from another awful visitation. 
 
 Afterward Governor Pillsbury said, "And the 
 very next night it turned cold and froze every 
 grasshopper in the State stiff; froze 'em right all 
 solid, sir; well sir, that was over twenty years ago 
 and grasshoppers don't appear to have been bother- 
 ing us very much since. " 
 
 Even this wasn't the end of trouble, because a 
 little pest called the cinch bug killed the crops over 
 and over again. 
 
 Then people began to realize that they weren't 
 raising so much wheat as they used to. They had 
 worn out the land, for you know if you don't take 
 care of it, you can wear out land just as you can 
 
The Bread and Butter State 201 
 
 everything else. So the farmers in Minnesota 
 began to rotate their crops which means to put 
 different crops on the land. This leaves in the earth 
 what wheat takes out, but this did not leave all the 
 fertility that the land needed, so farmers all over 
 the State began to raise stock, as well as rotate 
 crops. Instead of losing money we find that it has 
 been a wonderful gain, not only do we get better 
 crops because we have cattle on .the land, but we 
 have learned not to put "all our eggs in one 
 basket." 
 
 While we used to think that Minnesota was not 
 only the best wheat place in the world, but was good 
 for wheat only, we found that in our great State we 
 can raise almost anything we want to, if we learn 
 how to do it in the best way. In almost every 
 county you will find wheat, oats and corn, which 
 last is coming to be a greater crop in Minnesota every 
 year. The com helps to feed the cattle which 
 bring us so much money and so much fame. 
 
 All sorts of vegetables and fruits may be grown 
 here, and we raise huge crops of all kinds of things. 
 You can raise not only the things you like best 
 to grow, but you can find out what is the best thing 
 to produce on your own land and raise that. 
 
 The potato belt of Minnesota, in that queer 
 angle between the Mississippi and the St. Croix 
 rivers, is coming to be well known. We grow a 
 
202 Our Minnesota 
 
 great deal of flaxseed too, and in the Twin Cities 
 make one-third of all the linseed oil of the whole 
 United States. 
 
 While the Red River valley is still the best place to 
 grow wheat and produces the wheat which gets the 
 highest price in the market, yet, where a few 
 years ago farmers sometimes had a yield of forty- 
 five bushels to an acre, today twenty bushels is a 
 large crop. 
 
 The Minnesota mills (the largest in Minneapolis) 
 grind one-third of all the flour of the world and send 
 out of the State ninety-seven out of every hun- 
 dred bushels, to our own country, to England, 
 to the West Indies, to Hong Kong, to Brazil, and 
 to Germany. 
 
 Distributed all over the State you find creameries, 
 which show how much the stock raising means to us. 
 In the last ten years we have taken prizes all over 
 the world for the best butter and the best cheese. 
 Minnesota butter is used in the United States' 
 Navy. 
 
 The Agricultural Society, started in territorial 
 days at the house of John Stevens, has held a fair 
 almost every year since for the display of Minnesota 
 products and for the education of her farmers. 
 This has come to be the most important annual 
 agricultural fair in the world; and is he!d on the 
 two hundred acres called the State Fair Grounds, 
 
The Bread and Butter State 203 
 
 where there are great display buildings, and every 
 September the people of the State, especially the 
 farmers, vie with one another to show their crops 
 and in fact everything else which is produced in 
 Minnesota. This rivalry has proved a great en- 
 couragement to business of all sorts. 
 
 Whether we have too much rain or not enough, 
 and no matter how discouraged the farmer is over 
 his prospects, we have come to expect that the 
 State Fair will show what it always does, a *' bimiper 
 crop. " 
 
 So you see, because we raise so much wheat and 
 make so much flour, and because we raise so much 
 stock and make so much butter and such good but- 
 ter, we could feed all the children in the United 
 States with bread and butter every day. Wouldn't 
 it be wonderful if we could do that, so that no one 
 of our children would ever be hungry any more? 
 Let us make up our minds that when we grow up 
 we are going to go on with this good work in Minne- 
 sota and learn how to use our land in the best way 
 possible so that it will always be said that we are 
 "The Bread and Butter State." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SAD STORY 
 WAR AGAINST SLAVERY 
 
 We have a very sad story to tell today. The 
 only one in the history of the United States that we 
 are really ashamed of, and yet it comes out so 
 splendidly in the end, that if we remember that, 
 instead of the beginning, we shall be still prouder 
 of our country. 
 
 Many years ago, when the first white people 
 came from Europe, those who settled in the South 
 where it was warm, found it very hard to raise 
 tobacco and cotton in such a hot climate, as they 
 had to do all the work themselves without machin- 
 ery. When they began to cultivate rice in the 
 damp, sticky, muggy everglades, they about made 
 up their minds that it was more work than it was 
 worth while. 
 
 Now as early as 1619, John Hawkins, an English- 
 man, had gone around Africa in a Dutch vessel 
 and had found there a number of men, who were 
 
 204 
 
0) F. D. Millet 
 
 Fourth Minnesota Entering Vicksburg 
 
 (By courtesy of the Secretary of State of Minnesota) 
 
The Sad Story 205 
 
 very little more than animals, not fierce and 
 independent like the Indians, but usually gentle 
 and obedient. These men were black and we call 
 them Negroes. 
 
 Hawkins thought, and too many people agreed 
 with him, that because these people looked differ- 
 ent from white men, they were different, and not 
 God's people at all, but created to be the servants 
 of the white men. So he began bringing shiploads 
 of them over to the settlers along the Atlantic 
 coast, where he sold them just as you would sell 
 any kind of goods. These negroes didn't learn 
 very quickly, and so they were willing to be slaves 
 and do all the work of the white men, and they 
 never realized themselves that it was all wrong. 
 Most of the white people didn't realize it either, 
 and so it was generally supposed that it was all 
 right to keep them slaves, and to make them do the 
 heavy work without any reward excepting food, 
 very poor clothing and very mean little houses. 
 
 In the North the people didn't need this kind 
 of work, because the things that they did, re- 
 quired brains as well as muscle, and besides that, 
 they were very independent and thought men and 
 women had a right to liberty, so they had few 
 slaves. 
 
 When we became free from England, and the 
 United States was born, of course we ought to have 
 
2o6 Our Minnesota 
 
 remembered that everybody in it should be free, 
 because we believed, or said we did, that they were 
 all equal; but we seemed to forget this, and so 
 slavery grew and flourished in the South until there 
 were more slaves than free people down there. 
 Gradually the people in the North wakened more 
 and more to see how wrong it all was, and began to 
 talk about freeing the slaves. But the Southern 
 States would give up anything, even their allegiance 
 to the flag, sooner than their slaves, because for 
 more than two hundred years they had thought 
 they couldn't get along without them. 
 
 Now there was no law in the United States to 
 say that slavery was wrong, but about the time 
 that the first settlers came to Minnesota, people all 
 over the United States began to think and talk a 
 great deal about it, until it came to be the most 
 important subject in our government. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, you all know, was a friend of 
 the slaves, but an enemy to slavery, and this was so 
 well known that when he was elected President 
 of the United States, South Carolina was afraid that 
 laws were going to be made in Congress against 
 slavery. So she made up her mind to leave the 
 Union and tried to seize Fort Sumter, where the 
 government kept its war supplies. When she 
 fired upon the flag she became a traitor and in a 
 short time ten other states joined her. The Presi- 
 
The Sad Story 207 
 
 dent and many people in the United States realized 
 then that there must be war in order to save the 
 Union. 
 
 President Lincoln asked for men to join the army 
 on the fourteenth day of April, 1861, and our gov- 
 ernor, Mr. Ramsey, was in Washington at that time. 
 Early in the morning he went to see Mr. Cameron, 
 the Secretary of War, and said, *'Good morning, 
 Mr. Cameron, I have the honor to offer to you, 
 one thousand men from the State of Minnesota, 
 who will volunteer their services to defend the 
 Union. " Doesn't that show how well he knew his 
 State that he was able, without even asking, to 
 know that at least that many men would go at 
 once to save the flag? And when you realize, that 
 of all the states in the Union, little Minnesota, only 
 three years old, was the very first to volunteer, it 
 will make you prouder of your State than ever, as 
 it ought to. 
 
 Mr. Cameron asked Governor Ramsey to put the 
 offer in writing, which he did, so our men went on 
 record as the first volunteer regiment in the United 
 States. The next day the Governor went to see 
 Lincoln whom he knew very well, and again made 
 his offer of troops to the President himself. He 
 telegraphed to St. Paul telling what he had done 
 and one thousand men did volunteer for service 
 for three months. Very few people believed that 
 
2o8 Our Minnesota 
 
 the war was going to last any longer, if as long as 
 that. 
 
 The first week after the war began, business 
 almost stopped. You could see the flag hung out 
 everywhere. People in Minnesota were deter- 
 mined that this flag was not to be disbarred nor 
 unstarred and they forgot their private troubles or 
 quarrels and thought only of the danger to the 
 Union. There were meetings held in St. Anthony, 
 Minneapolis, Red Wing, Winona and all over the 
 State. 
 
 While he was governor, Sibley had organized 
 the militia, which made part of the first regi- 
 ment of Minnesota. William Acker, who had 
 been Adjutant General of this state militia, was 
 captain of the first company of state volunteers and 
 this was the very first company which enlisted in 
 the whole Civil War. Josias King was the first 
 man to enlist in this company so he was the first 
 volunteer of the war. Captain Acker was wounded 
 at Bull Run and killed at the Battle of Shiloh. 
 The name Acker Post will always remind us of him. 
 
 Thirteen days after the first enlistment, ten com- 
 panies had been mustered in at Fort Snelling and 
 Governor Ramsey put Willis Gorman in command. 
 Colonel Gorman had been an officer in the Mexican 
 War and the soldiers thought at first that he was 
 terribly harsh, but after the raw recruits became a 
 
The Sad Story 209 
 
 little more used to discipline they appreciated him 
 and his training very highly. 
 
 More offered themselves than were needed for the 
 first regiment and in May the second regiment was 
 offered to the President. By this time Lincoln 
 realized that the war was going to last longer than 
 anyone at first thought and so all who offered to 
 go were asked to enlist for three years, or until 
 the end of the war. But this made little differ- 
 ence, for most of those who had offered their ser- 
 vices to their country were willing to stay as long 
 as they were needed and the places of those dis- 
 charged were soon filled. 
 
 Fort Snelling, during the days the troops were in 
 training, was a very busy place and they had all 
 sorts of celebrations where flags and swords were 
 given to the different companies. The ladies of 
 the State presented a flag to the First Regiment, 
 which formed in a hollow square in front of the 
 State House, and Mrs. Ramsey presented the flag 
 for which Colonel Gorman thanked the ladies. 
 
 That regiment must have been a very funny 
 sight in their uniforms of black felt hats, black 
 trousers and red flannel shirts. But on the twenty- 
 first of June when they had their last parade at the 
 Fort and the chaplain, the Rev. E. D. Neill, 
 offered prayer for their bravery and patience while 
 they were gone, and for their safe return, no one 
 14 
 
210 Our Minnesota 
 
 thought that there was anything queer about the 
 uniform. 
 
 The chaplain kept a diary which has given us 
 much of our history about the First Minnesota. 
 He stayed with them until 1862 when he was made 
 hospital chaplain of the United States Army and in 
 1864 left the army to be secretary to the President. 
 On the twenty-first of June, 1861, the First left Fort 
 Snelling on the steamboats, War Eagle and Northern 
 Belle f which took them to the Upper Landing in 
 St. Paul where they all left the boats and marched 
 to the Lower Landing. There they went on board 
 again and steamed down the river. The crowds 
 who had followed them to the levee, waved fare- 
 well quietly and bravely, but with heavy hearts 
 went back to their homes to wait their return. 
 The troops went by boat as far as Prairie du Chien 
 taking the railroad the rest of the way to join the 
 Army of the Potomac in defense of the city of 
 Washington. 
 
 This regiment was made up of no braver or better 
 men than the others from Minnesota, but because 
 it was the first it was more talked about all over the 
 country. 
 
 When they went through Chicago one of the 
 papers said: "Gallant Minnesota deserves high 
 credit for her noble sons and their appearance 
 yesterday. They have gotten in their make-up 
 
The Sad Story 211 
 
 that rare process of selection and culling from older 
 states which has thrown into the van of progress 
 the hardy lumberman and first settler of the wilds. 
 There are few regiments we have seen that can 
 compete in brawn and muscle with those from 
 Minnesota, used to the axe, the rifle, the oar and 
 setting pole, and these men in every way are 
 splendid material for soldiers. " 
 
 This First Minnesota became one of the most 
 famous regiments in the whole war. Their first 
 battle was Bull Run where they went against ten 
 times their number and one-fifth of all their men 
 were killed or wounded, but they never quailed nor 
 questioned an order and at the close of the battle 
 were praised for their fine behavior. 
 
 J. B. Irvine, who was visiting his brother-in-law, 
 was so excited by the way the}^ went into the battle 
 that he seized a musket and went to fighting in 
 citizen's clothes, capturing the Confederate officer 
 of highest rank who was taken. For his bravery 
 he received the rank of First Lieutenant and later 
 was appointed Captain in the regular army. 
 
 At Fair Oaks they hurried to the help of the 
 Army of the Potomac, and rushing over a new road 
 through a swamp, crossed a grapevine bridge, both 
 ends under water, coming on the scene just in time 
 to save defeat. One of them said that the crash 
 of the bullets at this battle sounded like the snap- 
 
212 Our Minnesota 
 
 ping of limbs in a gale, and that the leaves from 
 the trees fell in a shower on the officers' hats but 
 Gorman's brigade held the enemy here like a stone 
 wall. 
 
 The First camped on the very field where Corn- 
 wallis surrendered the British army to Washington 
 at the close of the Revolutionary War. They 
 were in many battles and always were noticed for 
 their courage. 
 
 Before November, 1861, two more regiments 
 were formed and called the Second and Third 
 Minnesota. 
 
 The Second regiment under Colonel Van Cleve 
 joined the Army of the Ohio, and in the great battle 
 of Chickamauga stood fast while the enemy 
 charged again and again and finally pushed them 
 back. General Thomas, the commander, was called 
 the *'Rock of Chickamauga" and the Minnesota 
 men stood fire as though they were rocks like their 
 chief. The commander said afterward: "It is a 
 noticeable fact that the Second Minnesota had 
 not a single man missing or a straggler during 
 the two days' engagement." 
 
 The Third Minnesota had a very sad time, for in 
 spite of the bravery of the men, their commander, 
 Colonel Lester, surrendered at Murfreesboro and 
 the officers were taken to Libby Prison where they 
 were kept until paroled. The enlisted men were 
 
The Sad Story 213 
 
 on their return home, sent against the Indians 
 where they had a chance to show their bravery in 
 the battle of Wood Lake. Later with the Fourth 
 they were at Vicksburg under the command of 
 Colonel C. C. Andrews, who was a real leader. 
 
 The Fourth Minnesota was formed under John 
 B. Sanborn of St. Paul, the first man to be put in 
 command who had not been in war before, but he 
 proved very soon that he was a born soldier and was 
 given command of a brigade. 
 
 Minnesota regiments were in most of the impor- 
 tant battles and engagements of the war and if we 
 might follow them they would lead us along a path 
 of honor. We may mention only a few instances of 
 the many where they covered themselves with 
 glory. The Second, Fourth and Fifth under Gen- 
 eral Hubbard, were at Corinth, where they filled 
 a gap in the ranks and after desperate fighting 
 drove the enemy out of the town. It is generally 
 said that the Fifth ''saved the day at Corinth." 
 The Third, Fourth and Fifth were at the long hard 
 siegp of Vicksburg, and the honor was given to the 
 Fourth with General Sanborn at its head to lead 
 the Union forces into Vicksburg, one of the great- 
 est strongholds of the South. The Fourth led 
 ** Sherman's army of sixty-five thousand men 
 in that grand review in Washington." 
 
 The Second and the Fourth were at Mission 
 
214 Our Minnesota 
 
 Ridge where the Second, under Colonel J. W. 
 Bishop, charged and, without orders, swarmed up a 
 hill and fought hand to hand with the enemy. 
 
 The Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Tenth were all in 
 the great battle before Nashville, where our men 
 hurled themselves again and again against the 
 enemy. Colonel Hubbard was knocked off his 
 horse by a ball and led his troops on foot right over 
 the bulwarks of the enemy. 
 
 ''Bracket's Battalion" served the longest of all 
 our troops, from 1861 to 1866, and they were in 
 both Civil and Indian wars. The last regiment 
 that we sent was too late for active service but it 
 did hard work in garrison duty which seems to give 
 but little glory. 
 
 The Second and Fourth took part in Sherman's 
 march to the sea, which one of our brave leaders 
 calls "the picnic through Georgia," and all that 
 was left of the First, saw action in the last cam- 
 paign which ended in the surrender of Lee and of 
 the South, and many of our soldiers took part "in 
 the grandest review ever seen in America." 
 
 Minnesota sent eleven regiments to the war 
 beside sharpshooters, light horse and skirmishers 
 and heavy artillery. We sent twenty-two thousand 
 and eighteen men, of whom two thousand five 
 hundred and thirty-nine died of wounds or disease 
 during the war and while they were in service. 
 
The Sad Story 215 
 
 The famous First Minnesota was in many en- 
 gagements, but the greatest was undoubtedly at 
 Gettysburg. While the awful battle was raging 
 General Hancock saw that the crest of a hill called 
 Cemetery Ridge was undefended, the rebels swarm- 
 ing toward it only a few minutes away. Looking 
 about he spied a little group of men near a battery. 
 **What regiment is that?" he asked. "The 
 First Minnesota," answered Colonel Colvill salut- 
 ing. ** Charge those lines," said the General, and 
 our men ran down the hill, poured shot into the 
 enemy and then charged them with their bayonets. 
 Lee's great army was brave, but the cold steel was 
 too much for anything hiunan to face, and the 
 forward lines were forced to retreat. It was a 
 wonderful victory but at a dreadful cost, for of the 
 two hundred and sixty-two men who went down 
 that hill only forty-seven came back unhurt. 
 
 Cemetery Ridge was saved and though two 
 hundred and fifteen were dead or wounded. Colonel 
 Colvill with this little body of men held back the 
 Confederate army until reinforcements came. They 
 lost more in that battle than in any other of modern 
 times, but they saved the day and did as much to 
 save the Union as any body of men during the war. 
 Colonel Colvill was wounded in this battle and 
 crippled for the rest of his life, but lived to be a 
 very old man. He came from Red Wing, where 
 
2i6 Our Minnesota 
 
 he lived, expecting to lead again on Flag Day, June 
 14, 1905, the few remaining heroes of Minnesota 
 in the Civil War, from the old State House to 
 the new which was just finished. Led for the half 
 mile between the two buildings, by the young vet- 
 erans of the Spanish American War, the old veter- 
 ans carried on their shoulders the battle- torn flags 
 which they had helped to save. On either side of 
 the street were the regular army troops from 
 Fort Snelling, who saluted as the old heroes went 
 by, tottering under the flags which once they 
 had carried so proudly and so sturdily. 
 
 But Colonel Colvill did not lead them this time, 
 for he had died two days before at Soldiers' Home, 
 the lovely place on the banks of the Mississippi 
 River near Minnehaha, where the old soldiers live 
 and spend a happy life in telling of all their grand 
 deeds and exploits when they fought in the Civil 
 War. 
 
 As the little company marched into the State 
 House, there in the great rotunda, under the dome, 
 lay all that was left of the brave old Colonel, and 
 they passed around his bier with the flags, before 
 they were put in the great glass cases where you 
 may see them today. It seems fitting that the old 
 man died just where and how he did, because it 
 reminded the whole State once more of what had 
 been done by our own heroes. 
 
Interior of Fort Ridgely. Built in 1856 
 
 View of Fort Ridgely 
 
 (From the E. A. Bromley Collection) 
 
The Sad Story 217 
 
 When you go to the State House and see the 
 tattered flags and in the Governor's room the six 
 great pictures showing our service in that war, 
 you will remember to be grateful not only that the 
 slaves were freed and the Union kept together and 
 that the flag didn't have to lose a single star or 
 stripe, but you will be thankful too, that you live 
 in the State you do. When you see the letters 
 "G. A. R. " you will remember how much Minne- 
 sota did in making up and in keeping together 
 the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 INDIAN OUTBREAKS 
 
 You remember that by the treaties of 1851, the 
 Indians who had sold their lands to the United 
 States had promised to go to the reservations which 
 were set aside for them on both sides of the Minne- 
 sota River. The Upper Sioux had their reservation 
 north of the Yellow Medicine, and the Lower Sioux 
 had theirs south of that river. Each reservation 
 had an agency witli an official in charge. The Lower 
 Agency was on the Minnesota, about six miles east 
 of the present town of Redwood Falls. The Upper 
 Agency was at the mouth of the Yellow Medicine. 
 At these agencies the Indians used to gather in the 
 early summer when it was time for the payment, 
 which they had been promised they were to have 
 
2i8 Our Minnesota 
 
 each year for fifty years. At other times they 
 did not keep within their bounds but scattered 
 all over the country, especially when they were 
 hunting deer and buffalo. 
 
 The agents and the Indians were very friendly, 
 a good deal like father and children; but, all the 
 same, three forts had been built, one at Fort 
 Ridgely, eighteen miles west of New Ulm, one at 
 Fort Ripley near the border of the Chippewa 
 country, and the third v/as Fort Abercrombie, 'way 
 up on the Red River near Breckenridge. These 
 forts were really only collections of frame and 
 stone buildings with no fortifications, though in 
 some instances there were block houses, with loop- 
 holes through which shots might be fired. 
 
 In 1857 a wild band of Sioux, whose chief was 
 Ink-Pa-Doo-Ta, and who did not belong to the 
 Agency Indians, but were outlaws from them and 
 much more savage and fierce, attacked a settlement 
 at Spirit Lake, on the northern border of Iowa, and 
 at Springfield in Minnesota, the present town of 
 Jackson. They killed forty-two settlers and carried 
 off four women. Two men traveled in the deep 
 snow, in the dead of winter, to the Lower Agency 
 to tell the story. There was no trail, so they wan- 
 dered over the trackless prairie for days and finally 
 arrived at the agency almost worn out. As soon 
 as the agent told Colonel Alexander, the officer in 
 
The Sad Story 219 
 
 command at the Fort, what had happened, he sent 
 some troops, on the hard journey to arrest the 
 Indians, but they had all escaped. The massacre 
 so enraged the people of the State that for some time 
 no Red Man's life was safe. 
 
 Charles E. Flandrau, who was the agent for the 
 Sioux, urged Little Crow to organize his people 
 to go after Ink-Pa-Doo-Ta's band and thus prove 
 to the Whites that they were enemies. 
 
 Little Crow labored night and day and traveled 
 many times the distance between the camps of the 
 upper and lower reservations until he had gotten 
 his braves together. They went after the murder- 
 ous Indians and killed and captured a few of them, 
 but the greater part escaped; and so there were at 
 large a band of the most dangerous red men that our 
 border ever knew. Many people, who have studied 
 the question, think that the Agency Indians lost 
 respect for us because the white men could not 
 capture the Ink-Pa-Doo-Ta band. 
 
 In 1858 another treaty was made with the Sioux 
 selling us the reservation lands north of the Minne- 
 sota River, a tract ten miles wide. This treaty 
 was made at Washington with only a few selected 
 chiefs, and the rest of the Indians thought that 
 they had not been treated fairly, although they were 
 paid twice as much for this land as for what they 
 gave up in 1851. 
 
220 Our Minnesota 
 
 Ever since the great treaty some of the Indians 
 had been getting less friendly to the Whites, more 
 suspicious of them and more disrespectful. There 
 were many reasons for this besides the two that we 
 have just talked about. The pagan Indians and 
 the Christian Indians did not always get along 
 very well. The money which they were to get early 
 every year was delayed in 1862. Their supplies 
 from the government had given out, and they 
 began to suspect that they had made a poor 
 bargain in giving away the lands and their 
 wonderful country for so little. No money could 
 make up to them for the loss of the region which 
 was once all theirs to roam in as they pleased. 
 The United States did not pay so much attention 
 to the Indians, and to the little barrier growing up 
 between them, as they might have, because this was 
 the time of our great Civil War. The Sioux well 
 knew that we had sent out of the State thousands of 
 our best fighters, and some people give this as a 
 reason for their outbreak at this time. 
 
 The Indians in little bands began to annoy the 
 settlers, by stealing cattle, coming to beg for food 
 at the scattered houses, and in the spring of 1862 
 they began to be disagreeable. Possibly some of 
 the traders told them that the "Great Father," the 
 President, was not winning battles in his war with 
 the Confederacy, and that the Union would not hold 
 
The Sad Story 221 
 
 much longer. The horses and dogs of the Upper 
 Sioux were all eaten, and as soon as the grass grew 
 long on the prairie they came to ask for their 
 payment. It hadn't come and they thought that 
 this was because the United States had used up all 
 its money and they never should get any more. 
 There were over six thousand of these "annuity'* 
 Indians and in July four thousand of them came to 
 Yellow Medicine to ask the agent for food. He gave 
 them a little and sent them home, but they broke 
 open the storehouse and stole some flour and pork. 
 Then he told them that he would give them all he 
 had, if they would promise to be good and go home. 
 They did go after he had divided all the rations, but 
 of course they felt that the agent had to do what 
 they wanted and so they grew more bold. The 
 traders, to whom the Indians always owed money, 
 nagged them and teased them until they began to 
 feel that it would be right for them to try to get 
 back their lands. But all seemed peaceful for a 
 time and the first trouble came suddenly on August 
 17, 1862, when a few young Indians got into a foolish 
 quarrel about some eggs, which they found on a 
 farm at Acton in Meeker County. The young men 
 taunted each other with being cowards and dared 
 each other, so just to show that they weren't 
 afraid, they killed five people at the house of a 
 settler, and then fled to their band, thirty-five 
 
222 Our Minnesota 
 
 miles away. Whether there had been a plan for 
 war or not, they did not expect to start the war 
 just then, but on hearing the story at once had a 
 "soldiers' lodge," and decided that they would kill 
 all the Whites in the valley. At this time in the 
 three forts along the frontier there were very few 
 soldiers, which of course the Indians knew. The 
 whole band scattered over the country for forty 
 miles, painted and armed, and the more blood they 
 shed the fiercer they became. A large number at- 
 tacked the Lower Agency and killed a trader and all 
 the settlers they could find, plundering the stores 
 and burning the buildings. A few people escaped 
 across the ferry and fled to Fort Ridgely, fourteen 
 miles away. Now began a general war against 
 the Whites in this region. Little Crow must have 
 suffered much at this time because he knew the 
 Whites so well and was their great friend, but he 
 had not been elected "chief speaker" that year and 
 when he was urged to join his people, thought that 
 he might get back some of his lost honors, so led the 
 band which started to attack Fort Ridgely and 
 New Ulm. 
 
 In the Upper Agency, which was to have been 
 massacred in the same manner as the Lower, 
 many escaped, warned of what was coming by the 
 Christian Indians. The president of the ** Hazel- 
 wood Republic" (you remember the "man who 
 
The Sad Story 223 
 
 shoots metal as he walks") helped the missionaries 
 and settlers. John Otherday took charge of a 
 party, sixty in all, missionaries and other Whites, 
 and never left them night or day on the perilovis 
 journey across the prairie until they were safe. 
 The Indians carried on a wholesale massacre of the 
 settlers in the Minnesota valley. In groups of five 
 or ten they would call at a house where they were 
 known, talk with the people, suddenly shoot the 
 men, plunder and burn the house, and go on to 
 the next one carrying the women and children as 
 captives. 
 
 The houses along the frontier and the little 
 settlements for one hundred and fifty miles were 
 burned, plundered and the people killed. The 
 horror of this raid so filled with terror the people 
 in the outlying settlements, that thousands left 
 their homes and, with nothing but what could be 
 carried with them, fled to safety. Almost all of 
 them went to Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, and St. 
 Paul where people opened their homes willingly, 
 sharing with them everything they had until the 
 cities were at last a great camp of refugees, who 
 told terrible stories of the horrors they had seen 
 and the suffering they had endured. It is said that 
 in thirty-six hours eight hundred people were 
 killed. 
 
 The news reached Fort Ridgely before noon the 
 
224 Our Minnesota 
 
 morning of the same day that the massacre started, 
 a wagon-load of people with a wounded man from 
 the Lower Agency coming in and telling what they 
 had suffered and what they had seen. Captain 
 Marsh of Fort Ridgely had less than a hundred 
 men, but he started at once with forty-six of them, 
 leaving the rest to defend the Fort, and marched 
 to the ferry over the river on his way to the Lower 
 Agency. He saw no Indians at first but noticed 
 that the water was muddy and some grass was 
 floating on the surface. Then the soldiers caught 
 sight of an Indian and some ponies, and before 
 the men could escape, more than half of them 
 were killed and the brave captain was drowned 
 trying to cross the river. Only fifteen got back to 
 Fort Ridgely alive. Among the killed was Peter 
 Quinn, an aged interpreter who had lived in the 
 country many years and had married an Indian 
 woman. 
 
 Lieutenant Sheehan with his company was on 
 the way to Fort Ripley when the word calling him 
 back reached him, and he returned and took com- 
 mand of the Fort with the Renville Rangers and 
 some men who had arrived with seventy thou- 
 sand dollars for the Indians. But alas! the pay- 
 ment came too late. The Fort had about one 
 hundred and eighty men in all and many people 
 from all about came there for refuge. 
 
The Sad Story 225 
 
 Just as soon as New Ulm heard about the trouble 
 from refugees the people sent over to St. Peter 
 where Judge Flandrau lived and asked him to come 
 and help them defend their city. Flandrau had 
 lived among the Sioux for a long time as agent 
 and was loved and respected by them, probably 
 more than any other man. He sent his family in 
 a wagon down to Fort Snelling, and gathering up all 
 the ammunition he could find, went to St. Peter 
 where he was elected captain of a hundred and 
 sixteen men. He sent scouts ahead in a buggy 
 toward New Ulm and followed, seizing on the way 
 all the guns, blacksmith supplies, bullets, and 
 everything else for defense that he could find. He 
 said that every man was furnished with a pocketful 
 of bullets and a gun. Men from Le Sueur and Swan 
 Lake joined the forces in New Ulm just in time to 
 help defend the town against a hundred Indians. 
 A good many houses in the town were built of 
 brick, and so could be fortified. After the first 
 battle, men from Mankato and South Bend joined 
 until they had three hundred poorly armed but 
 brave men, each equal to a good many savages. 
 Each day scouts were sent out to bring in people 
 whom they found hiding in swamps and marshes. 
 
 The city was hurriedly made into a fort, the 
 men organized into a regiment with Flandrau in 
 command, and for three days they waited, watch- 
 is 
 
226 Our Minnesota 
 
 ing fires coming nearer and nearer, each telling 
 of burning farm houses and haystacks. Then a 
 stack on one side of the river was fired and an- 
 swered by a fire on the other side, though not 
 an Indian was to be seen. Suddenly, without 
 warning, out on the broad prairie, appeared the 
 Sioux. They came forward slowly forming into 
 a great horseshoe, and when half a mile away 
 suddenly gave an ear-splitting yell and lashed their 
 ponies into a gallop. 
 
 Colonel Flandrau had drawn up his men outside 
 the town and they fought well, but the sight of the 
 yelling painted savages was so terrible that they 
 wavered and fell back, and sixty men were wounded 
 or killed within an hour and a half; but when they 
 rallied and returned the fire, the Indians were 
 repulsed. As the men fell back they fired from the 
 buildings and the battle was carried on right in 
 the streets of the town. One company, called the 
 Le Sueur Tigers, took possession of a great wind- 
 mill which they loopholed and barricaded with 
 sacks of wheat and flour, and they did good work 
 keeping the Indians in the west part of the town. 
 When you remember that there were twelve or 
 fifteen hundred women and children in New Ulm, 
 this fight becomes a very important one. 
 
 After the Indians had been forced from the 
 town Colonel Flandrau ordered all the men out 
 
The Sad Story 227 
 
 to burn the buildings on the edge of the town, and 
 with fifty only, he dashed out and drove back 
 seventy-five or a hundred Indians who retreated, 
 as they were afraid of the open. 
 
 The next day a sad procession of refugees in a 
 hundred and fifty-three wagons, which had been used 
 to barricade the town, left New Ulm for Mankato, 
 because food was scarce and the burned city was 
 not fit to live in, and besides there was danger of 
 another attack. 
 
 Today in the center of the town, where every 
 child may see it on the way to and from school, 
 is a relief of Colonel Flandrau on a monument which 
 tells how he saved the people and the city of New 
 Ulm. 
 
 Meanwhile Little Crow with his band had at- 
 tacked Fort Ridgely, which, you remember, was the 
 refuge of many people. Some of the half-breeds 
 who were with the forces at the Fort had deserted 
 and joined their own people, and when Captain 
 Sheehan in command, tried to use the cannon against 
 the Indians, he found that they had been spiked 
 with rags by these half-breeds. The attacks on 
 Fort Ridgely were fierce. In the first raid it was 
 attacked for three hours . During the next two days 
 the Indians came again, and on the third day Little 
 Crow seemed to have made up his mind that he 
 must capture the Fort. With eight hundred braves 
 
228 Our Minnesota 
 
 he fired from the ravines which make great seams in 
 the banks of the Minnesota River and which shielded 
 the Indians. This attack lasted for five hours, the 
 Indians trying to burn the buildings with fire ar- 
 rows, but the shells from the Fort broke again and 
 again in their midst and they finally withdrew. 
 
 News of the terrible Indian uprising reached 
 St. Paul on the second day after the outbreak 
 and Governor Ramsey, with his usual prompt- 
 ness, made plans at once for driving the Indians 
 back. He went to Mendota and asked Sibley 
 to take command of the State forces giving 
 to him the companies of . the regiments then 
 forming to go to the Civil War. Colonel Sibley 
 knew the Indians well, was very careful, and was 
 trusted by all who knew him. He reached St. 
 Peter on the second day and waited there until 
 he had fourteen hundred men under his command. 
 
 He had a great deal of trouble because supplies 
 were slow in coming, and the ammunition did not fit 
 the rifles, so time, which was more precious than 
 anything else, was lost, but the leader and the men 
 made up later for all these drawbacks. 
 
 When the forces arrived at St. Peter Sibley 
 led the relief at once to Fort Ridgely where the 
 people had suffered a siege of eight days. A few 
 days later he sent men out to the Lower Agency 
 to bury the dead and to see what they might of 
 
The Sad Story ^229 
 
 the Indians. They found no signs of life in Little 
 Crow's village nor along the way, and coming back 
 camped at Birch Coolie, on the open prairie, not 
 far from the ferry where Marsh and his men had 
 met death. Early the next morning from a ravine 
 on one side and a roll of the prairie on the other, 
 which hid them, the Indians opened fire and almost 
 at once killed most of the horses. The company were 
 completely surprised, but using the dead horses for 
 breastworks, fought a terrible battle for twenty- 
 four hours, when they were relieved by the whole 
 command under Colonel Sibley. The Indians were 
 routed, and fled. Of the little company rescued, 
 twenty-three were killed and forty-five badly 
 wounded and their tents so riddled with bullets 
 that they were all in tatters. 
 
 When he withdrew from the battle ground of 
 Birch Coolie, as this was called. Colonel Sibley 
 left a note in a split stick for Little Crow, telling 
 him that he would treat with him if he had any 
 proposition to make. After a few notes back and 
 forth, which were delivered by half-breeds, Colonel 
 Sibley started against the Indians. He camped at 
 Wood Lake where a terrible battle was fought. 
 There were about eight hundred on each side and 
 the Indians had the advantage of hiding in a ra- 
 vine, but were at last scattered by shot and shells, 
 and fled, Little Crow returning to his own camp 
 
230 Our Minnesota 
 
 with his followers. There had been trouble in the 
 Indian camp and those who had deserted Little 
 Crow put up their tepees on the Minnesota 
 River, their leader the Chief Wabasha, who had 
 with him over two hundred and fifty captives — one 
 man, the others all women and girls. 
 
 Colonel Sibley followed the Indians slowly be- 
 cause he did not want to risk a battle, and when he 
 reached their lodges he marched by with drums 
 beating and colors flying. He called the place op- 
 posite them, where he stopped, "Camp Release." 
 
 He did not hurry because there were so many 
 prisoners in the Indian camp that he was afraid 
 if he attacked them without warning they would 
 all be put to death as had been threatened. He 
 sent a letter under a white flag, saying that if the 
 prisoners were not returned safely, not one Indian 
 would be left alive, innocent or guilty, to tell the 
 story. After a long wait Wabasha surrendered, 
 and the white prisoners, who had been treated 
 very badly by the Indians, were returned. 
 
 Many Indian prisoners were taken ; three hundred 
 and three, tried for murder, were convicted, and 
 thirty-eight of these were hanged at Mankato, the 
 others pardoned by President Lincoln. The Indians 
 were driven to the west, their lands taken away 
 from them and no more money was paid to them. 
 This is the reason that there are no Sioux Indian 
 
Charles E. Flandrau 
 (By courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society) 
 
The Sad Story 231 
 
 reservations left in Minnesota, and that those who 
 live on our reservations now are all Chippewas. 
 
 Little Crow escaped to Dakota and the next year 
 came back to make another raid on the Whites. 
 He was shot while picking berries near Hutchinson, 
 thus ending his dramatic life. 
 
 At the same time as the Sioux outbreak, there 
 had been trouble on the Chippewa reservation, for 
 a man had been seized and two cattle stolen. The 
 settlers near Fort Ripley were panic-stricken and 
 fled to the fort where they remained for some time. 
 Among them was Father Gear, and Mrs. Abbe who 
 now lives in St. Paul. The Chippewas insisted that 
 there had never been any plan to join the Sioux, 
 though many people think otherwise. 
 
 For a time settlers did not come into Minnesota 
 as they had before and many of those who had 
 already taken up claims, returned to their early 
 homes. Sooner than we should think though, the 
 brave pioneers went back to their burned homes 
 and built again. When the hundreds of victims 
 had been buried, the grass again grew green over 
 the prairie and the grain grew up and covered the 
 scorched earth. Only in the memories of those 
 who can never forget it, lives the most horrible 
 Indian massacre that ever occurred in North 
 America. 
 
 Our State was saved to us by the gallant men who 
 
232 Our Minnesota 
 
 volunteered and some of whom gave up their lives 
 for it. Colonel Sibley was made Brigadier General 
 for his services in this war, and we should never 
 forget his name, and that of Flandrau, and of 
 those others whose work was none the less brave, 
 because we do not mention their names. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GETTING FROM PLACE TO PLACE 
 
 Everybody needs food, and when a number of 
 people live together it makes it necessary to go 
 from one place to another to get this food, so roads 
 are the most important thing in the history of a 
 people who progress. 
 
 The Indians in Minnesota would have starved, 
 you remember, if they hadn't gone from one place 
 to another as the seasons changed and the different 
 kinds of fruit ripened or the game came. We know 
 that long before the time of the Indians, whom 
 we have met, the early people went from place 
 to place because in the very old mounds in the 
 center of Minnesota, we find copper. No copper 
 is found nearer than Lake Superior, so they 
 must have traded with tribes in the north. Trade 
 after all is what keeps people going, and while 
 the uncivilized people seem simply to wander 
 idly from place to place, they are really in 
 search of food, whether they pick it wild or whether 
 they trade it for something else. 
 
 233 
 
234 Our Minnesota 
 
 The habit of going to a certain place season after 
 
 season in the early days made the trails, which were 
 then short-cuts from one place to another, and later 
 were used by the traders when they made their 
 regular routes. The waterways, of course, were 
 easier than trails, and the Indians threaded these 
 water paths in their birch canoes during the sum- 
 mer-time, though they had to pack, or carry, 
 heavy loads around the portages, which made 
 paths around the rapids. You remember how they 
 used to carry their own household goods, that is, 
 how the squaws used to carry them. 
 
 When the voyageurs packed for the traders they 
 had regular loads which were made up into eighty- 
 pound packages — ^flour, guns, tents, canoes, tea, and 
 pork. All of the supplies for thef actors would be piled 
 in these packages and each Indian would carry two. 
 They used for packing a strap of hide about nine 
 feet long and four inches wide, buckled or tied at 
 the ends to many narrower ones. These ends were 
 tied around a package which was raised on the 
 Indian's back, and the band slipped over the fore- 
 head, most of the weight coming just below the 
 waist. Then another package would be lifted on 
 top of this one, the body bent forward a little and 
 the Indian would start on a quick dog trot, which 
 he kept up as long as it was necessary. 
 
 The big canoes, which the traders used held ten 
 
Getting from Place to Place 235 
 
 voyageurs and about two tons of goods, so that each 
 man had several loads to carry on a portage. They 
 used to carry them about a third of a mile, drop 
 them on the ground and then go back for another 
 load, each one keeping his own packs separate all 
 the time. When the packages were all collected 
 they would have a little smoke, and all go on again 
 until the whole portage was covered. When the 
 streams froze, the voyageur became a coureur des 
 bois, or guide through the woods, carrying as light 
 packs as possible. Yet we must remember that 
 all the food and clothing, guns and ammunition, as 
 well as everything which they traded with the In- 
 dians had to be taken in this way to the most distant 
 posts. Often in the winter dog drags were used. 
 The drag which the dogs pulled was a rough sledge 
 with two crossed poles attached to it. These were 
 fastened over the shoulders, with hide underneath 
 to prevent chafing. The other ends dragged on the 
 ground and on these the pack was tied. The dogs 
 were harnessed tandem and the driver usually 
 walked, though now and then he would ride for a 
 short distance. 
 
 The pony drags were larger than the dog drags 
 and were used a great deal when the trails were 
 worn and the weather not too severe, for ponies 
 cannot stand so much hardship as dogs. The 
 traders in going long distances in the winter used 
 
236 Our Minnesota 
 
 sledges and dog trains which traveled from thirty 
 to forty miles a day. They were sometimes very 
 festive in appearance, the sledges decked with gay 
 trappings and the dogs with bells and jingling 
 harness. 
 
 In territorial days Norman Kittson and Joe Ro- 
 lette were elected to the legislature, and traveled all 
 the way from Pembina to the capital in carioles. 
 These carioles were drawn by handsome huskies or 
 Eskimo dogs and the whole outfit was gotten up in 
 the gayest fashion. They caused great excitement 
 when they arrived at St. Anthony and still more 
 when they drew up in St. Paul. 
 
 Blessed as we are in Minnesota with so many 
 lakes and streams, water was a natural way to 
 transport things in the summer. The first boat 
 with sails was brought up the Minnesota River by 
 Le Sueur when he came on his famous mining trip 
 in 1700, and the first boat load of freight was taken 
 by him down the St. Peter or Minnesota River 
 to the Mississippi and on to Biloxi. This was the 
 beginning of river commerce, even though the 
 freight turned out to be worthless. Jonathan 
 Carver sailed up the Minnesota River in 1 766 sure 
 that he had found a passage to India, which you 
 remember was the aim of all the early people. 
 
 One of the early boats on this river was a dugout 
 made from a huge cottonwood tree, twenty-five 
 
Getting from Place to Place 237 
 
 feet long and forty inches wide. This boat carried 
 five men and forty bushels of potatoes from Lac 
 qui Parle to Traverse des Sioux. 
 
 The great Mackinaw boats used for heavy loads, 
 were open keelboats from twenty to fifty feet long 
 and from four to ten feet wide. They carried from 
 two to eight tons and were pushed ahead with long 
 poles. A plank was laid on either side of the boat 
 and along this plank from three to five men walked 
 and poled, each jumping off when he came to the 
 end of the plank and beginning again in his 
 turn. 
 
 With the beginning of steamboats the more 
 simple boat was less important, but canoes and 
 rafts were used for short distances just the same. 
 
 The first steamboat, named the Virginia, came 
 up the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Fort 
 Snelling in 1823. The sight of the steam escaping 
 and the shriek of the whistle frightened the Indians 
 almost to death, because they thought it was an 
 evil manitou who had come to kill them all and 
 they called it Pata Wata which means "fire canoe." ^ 
 
 Before very long there were nine steamers run- 
 ning more or less regularly to Fort Snelling, and 
 when we became a Territory there were ninety trips 
 made each summer. But in nine years, when we 
 became a State, there were about one thousand 
 trips made every season and then the Mississippi 
 
238 Our Minnesota 
 
 River began to be settled all along its shores, as 
 the boats were running up and down often. 
 
 It was a great event when a steamer came, and 
 the first boat in the spring used to be eagerly 
 watched for, because it brought the long delayed 
 mail and supplies, as well as many passengers. 
 It was always a gala day in the river towns, and 
 there was general rejoicing when the ice went out 
 of the river and the business of the summer began. 
 
 Can you imagine what it was like to live in a 
 place where no train nor street car ever came 
 through, and where there were very few roads lead- 
 ing to very few places; and can you imagine what it 
 meant for the people in the river towns, and in 
 early days of course all the towns were on the rivers, 
 to hear the steamboat whistle and to see in the 
 distance a white wisp of smoke which said that the 
 outside world was drawing near? Then can you 
 see the rush to the landing, or the boat levee, to 
 hear the news from the outside world, and to get 
 newspapers and mail from friends far away? Can 
 you realize what it meant, when food was getting 
 short and when supplies in the few little stores were 
 low, to have that steamboat come, especially the first 
 one in the spring? Everybody came out to meet 
 it ; the officers, traders, men, women, children and 
 from the lodges all about, the Indians. 
 
 The steamers or packets used on the river were 
 
Getting from Place to Place 239 
 
 ** side wheelers " with no hull visible above the water; 
 the lower deck was used for freight while the upper 
 one had the cabins opening on a decorated balcony, 
 which ran all around the boat. They were very 
 frail-looking crafts and presented a gay appear- 
 ance, the shield over the great wheel gaudily painted 
 with the name in great letters. 
 
 The loading and unloading of one of these 
 steamers was most interesting, for everything was 
 carried by them from hats to horses. You must 
 remember that we manufactured nothing here in 
 those days and when the steamers made the re- 
 turn trip to St. Louis they carried the pelts 
 and hides and raw products and lumber from this 
 great wilderness in the north. Until 1870 steam- 
 boats were run now and then on what was called 
 the Upper Mississippi — that is, above Minneapolis, 
 and in 1859 a steamboat went from St. Cloud as 
 far as Pokegama Falls. 
 
 After the treaties of 1851 the steamboats ran 
 regularly up the Minnesota as far as Mankato; 
 a few to the Yellow Medicine Agency, four hun- 
 dred and forty-six miles from St. Paul, and 
 the supplies for the agencies were carried in this 
 way. 
 
 In 1850 there were some lively excursions on this 
 river, three different boats vying with one another 
 to see how far up each could go. The first went to 
 
240 Our Minnesota 
 
 Traverse des Sioux, about as far as St. Peter; 
 the second as far as Mankato, and the third 
 one reached the mouth of the Cottonwood River, 
 where is now the city of New Ulm. The people 
 on these excursions often had to go ashore be- 
 cause the boat stuck on sandbars, got its smoke- 
 stacks caught in the branches of the trees, and 
 frequently was laid up by the bank to cut a 
 supply of wood for the engine. Meanwhile the 
 passengers picnicked, danced on the grass, and 
 fought mosquitoes. They passed on the way many 
 Indian villages, where a few years later the river 
 banks were lined with the towns of white settlers 
 and a great trade carried on by the steamboats. 
 When these boats first ran up the Minnesota 
 River, the Indians, insisting that they were evil 
 spirits, came and demanded that they should 
 have kegs of yellow money to quiet the spirits 
 who were disturbed by the snorting of the *'fire 
 canoe." 
 
 Before the 'seventies the river overflowed its 
 banks every spring when the ice broke up, and 
 opposite Fort Snelling it was often one or two miles 
 wide and very deep, where now it is a narrow stream 
 only deep enough for little pleasure boats. 
 
 When the many towns were built and the forests 
 along the banks were cut down the river receded 
 and steamboat traveling became impossible. In 
 
Getting from Place to Place 241 
 
 1874 a boat went as far as Redwood Falls, the last 
 long trip that was ever taken. In 1876 there was a 
 freshet on the river and several boats ran as far as 
 Fort Ridgely, and in 1*397 Edwin Durant of Still- 
 water took a " stern wheeler, " one hundred and 
 seventy feet long, as far as St. Peter and Man- 
 kato, the very last trip that a large boat ever made 
 on the Minnesota River. 
 
 The steamboats on the St. Croix River and on 
 the Red River meant a great deal to the people 
 living on the east and west borders of our State 
 and made settlements there possible, and wheat- 
 raising and lumbering profitable, but of course 
 these rivers were never so important as the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Time-tables on the early steamboats were not 
 very reliable, and yet it is surprising that they made 
 as regular trips as they did when we realize the 
 mishaps they had and the troubles they met. 
 
 The waterways of course were not made by man 
 and were always there, but in our northern climate 
 the winter ice and snow stopped the trade. Freshets 
 made high water, and the summer drought made 
 low water dangerous, while floating logs were a 
 continual menace. 
 
 The great packet lines on the Mississippi River 
 in their turn gave way to the railroads which 
 carried freight and people much faster than even 
 
 x6 
 
242 Our Minnesota 
 
 the swiftly running water, though even now we 
 get our goods cheaper, because of these rivers for 
 if the railroads should charge too much, people 
 might again turn to the waterways. The names 
 Blakeley, Davidson and Rhodes are all connected 
 with the river steamers which did so much to 
 develop our State. 
 
 As we said the first roads which were not water- 
 ways were the portages around the rapids, but as 
 the settlements were made on these waterways at 
 some distance from one another a road had to be 
 made to connect them. The first one of this sort 
 was the corduroy road connecting Grand Portage 
 with Fort William, thirty-six miles away. It had 
 to be built of logs because there was so much swamp 
 land in this country that a regular trail was im- 
 possible. Away up in the northeastern part of the 
 State you may still see some of the old cedar logs 
 which are left from this first wagon road. 
 
 After settlements were made in Minnesota the 
 first road was the one from St. Paul to Mendota, 
 crossing the Mississippi and the Minnesota rivers 
 by ferries, big, flat-bottomed scows, pulled across 
 the river by ropes or cables fastened at either bank. 
 
 The next road connected St. Paul and St. 
 Anthony. In 1849 there was a daily stage line 
 started along this road in the summer only and it 
 was considered a good deal of a trip, as the road 
 
Getting from Place to Place 243 
 
 was rough, and in bad weather sometimes almost 
 impassable, while bears and wolves were often met. 
 Now we may take the trip in an automobile in 
 thirty-five minutes along the paved boulevard, 
 where we meet other people going and coming in 
 the same way every few seconds, while there are 
 four street-car lines connecting the two cities, with 
 cars running every five minutes. 
 
 Two years after the stage line was opened by 
 Amherst Willoughby and Simon Powers they 
 brought out the first Concord stages, flat-topped 
 sort of express wagons and painted bright red and 
 Lyman Benson and Pattison started an oppo- 
 sition line, which they painted bright yellow, and 
 there was bitter rivalry between the reds and the 
 yellows, each trying to make better service and 
 better prices for the people. In 1857 between Tra- 
 verse des Sioux and St. Paul there was a canvas- 
 topped stage, holding four people though six were 
 usually crowded into it. 
 
 In 1843 when Kittson began trade between 
 Pembina and St. Paul, there was no road and 
 the strangest and most curious wagon that ever 
 was seen was used for this trade. It was a two- 
 wheel cart made entirely of wood and buffalo hide, 
 no iron about it, everything fastened together with 
 wooden pegs. The spokes of the wheels, which 
 were five and a half feet across, were straight, and 
 
244 Our Minnesota 
 
 the rim was three or five inches wide. This cart 
 was attached by shafts to one or two oxen, har- 
 nessed one in front of the other. These carts were 
 suitable for a rough country as they would ride over 
 the swamps and sloughs. Sometimes horses were 
 used, but they were not so hardy nor so strong as 
 the oxen. 
 
 In the beginning, of course, there was no trail, but 
 the ox carts cut ruts so deep across the country 
 that they might plainly be seen for many years 
 after they stopped using them. One driver could 
 manage four carts, and as they went only about 
 fifteen miles a day, it was a long trip to cover the 
 distance of four hundred and fifty miles, taking 
 usually more than a month. At night the drivers 
 made a camp by arranging the carts in a circle 
 with the shafts pointing in, and the animals were 
 tethered at one end of the circle if it was a large one, 
 or just outside if there wasn't room within. This 
 made a very strong fort in case of attack by the 
 Indians. The ox trains carried loads of from eight 
 hundred to one thousand pounds of buffalo hides, 
 buffalo tongues, pemmican, furs and pelts of all 
 sorts. They took back tea, tobacco, hardware 
 and everything else which they needed for the 
 winter supply. 
 
 The route which the Red River traders took in 
 the beginning was along the west bank of the Red 
 
Getting from Place to Place 245 
 
 River as far as the ridge called Brown's Valley 
 between Lake Traverse and Big Stone Lake, then 
 across the prairie to about where St. Peter is, 
 at which place the train crossed the Minnesota 
 River, so the place came to be called Traverse 
 des Sioux. Later the route was changed and 
 the ox-carts crossed the Red River far in the 
 north, came to Crookston, and passed Detroit Lake 
 which the old traders called ''forty-four" because 
 this route was opened in that year. In 1844 there 
 were six carts and in 1857 more than five hundred. 
 There was no grease used on the wheels and the 
 screeching and creaking of the carts could be heard 
 at a long distance. When the long train was coming, 
 it is said that there was nothing like the deafening 
 din. 
 
 The arrival of the Red River ox carts, early in 
 July, was one of the great events of the year. The 
 whole population of St. Paul used to turn out to 
 see them come, and when they arrived on Sunday 
 the churches were dismissed because even if the 
 people had been willing to stay the minister couldn't 
 have been heard. 
 
 The half-breed drivers called bois brule camped 
 with their outfits on some one of the lakes near 
 St. Paul, and were objects of great interest. 
 The drivers of the trains wore blue coats with 
 hoods and bright brass buttons and often the gay 
 
246 Our Minnesota 
 
 sash of Pembina. The owners of the outfit often 
 started with horses and buggies long after the train 
 and caught up with them before they reached 
 St. Paul in time to take charge of the trade. 
 The bois brulS all swaggered about the town enjoy- 
 ing themselves and spending their money, to their 
 delight as well as the joy of the shopkeeper. 
 
 During the year 1866 this way of carrying was 
 stopped because steamboats had been started on 
 the rivers and because of fear of the Indians 
 after the great massacre. 
 
 The United States began building the first mili- 
 tary roads in Minnesota in 1853 and they were fin- 
 ished in 1857. One road ran along the Mississippi 
 River from the Mendota ferry to Point Douglas, 
 which place people expected would be a very live 
 city. One old settler who bought a piece of prop- 
 erty there wouldn't trade it for a lot in St. Paul 
 on which one of the biggest business blocks is 
 now located and, as he said himself, talking 
 about it afterwards, *'I have the Point Douglas 
 lot yet." 
 
 In 1853 the War Department also began build- 
 ing a road which ran along the Minnesota valley, 
 from Mendota; to Lac qui Parle. This was the first 
 road with bridges, which means the first road which 
 could be used in all sorts of weather. It was fin- 
 ished in 1857 and was an important connection 
 
Getting from Place to Place 247 
 
 between the steamboat trade on the Red River and 
 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 The year after we became a State, Burbank and 
 Captain Blakeley, the same one who was interested 
 in the steamboats, formed a company under the 
 name of the Minnesota Stage Company, though 
 before this there had been a winter line, as it was 
 called, which carried the mail to other parts of the 
 State, and in 1854-5 William Nettleton started a 
 line of stages to Superior, Wisconsin. These com- 
 panies were all bought up by the Minnesota Stage 
 Company which also took in the first express 
 company that ever did business in our State. Bur- 
 bank was called the "Father of Express" and was 
 the first expressman, for he carried the first express 
 package that ever came here, bringing it up from 
 Galena in his pocket. 
 
 In 1862 there were over thirteen hundred miles 
 of stage routes and three hundred more where 
 express was carried along pony routes. In 1865 
 the stage company was a big affair owning seven 
 hundred horses and keeping two hundred men busy 
 during the season. 
 
 Although settlements grew up all along these 
 stage roads and many people used them, traveling 
 over them was very tiresome. The places for meals 
 were few and far between and the passengers 
 usually carried their food with them in wicker 
 
248 Our Minnesota 
 
 baskets divided up into sections, something like the 
 picnic basket of today, and of course the food was 
 all cold. The stopping-places were far apart and 
 not very comfortable; snow and cold made travel 
 irregular; the towns where the horses were relayed 
 were not near enough to one another and the wear 
 and tear made the expense very great. But the 
 brave pioneers were willing to undergo hardships 
 for the sake of what they believed would be a re- 
 ward though very far in the future. 
 
 This was all changed when the steam horse, or as 
 the Indians called it, Ha-na-nee, "canoe over the 
 mountains," appeared. It didn't mind wind or 
 weather, and when the glittering rails made paths 
 across the prairies, through forests and over waste 
 lands, up hill and down dale — pathless before, 
 they called men to follow. Then the State began to 
 develop by leaps and bounds. Where one settler 
 came before the railroads, dozens and scores came 
 after. 
 
 There had been many railroads planned and 
 chartered before the State was admitted. In spite 
 of these charters no railroads were really built until 
 Congress gave what was called a ''grant of lands" to 
 the railroad companies. This meant that the roads 
 through certain districts had land given to them, 
 every section or every other section, sometimes on 
 one side of the track, sometimes on both. Of course 
 
Getting from Place to Place 249 
 
 this was a great inducement for making railroads, 
 because the land might be sold by the railroads 
 and in that way a good deal of money gained. 
 
 The first one actually built was the Minnesota 
 and Pacific Railroad which was chartered in 1857. 
 The fact that this road was actually built at that 
 time was largely due to the energy of Edmund Rice 
 who was its first president, and who by his under- 
 standing of people made it possible to get the 
 money necessary, at a time when the Nation was 
 waging its worst war. 
 
 In 1862 the first tracks were laid between St. 
 Paul and St. Anthony — a distance of ten miles. 
 The first train left St. Paul on July 2, 1862. The 
 engine pulling it, called the ''William Crooks," 
 still kept as a relic, was run by the engineer 
 Webster Gardner. There was great rejoicing 
 when the first trip to the town ten miles away 
 was made without accident. In 1871 the road 
 ran to Breckenridge which is two hundred and 
 seventeen miles away. A branch of this road called 
 the St. Paul and Chicago was begun in 1867 and 
 five years later trains ran as far as Winona. The 
 road borrowed money from England and this was 
 the first time since fur-trading days that any English 
 money was used here. 
 
 Edmund Rice, who went to England to get the 
 money for the railroad and was the father of rail- 
 
250 Our Minnesota 
 
 roading in Minnesota, had much to do with its 
 success. He was called the Chesterfield of Minne- 
 sota because of his pleasant manner and geniality 
 to everyone. He was able to get capital for the 
 railroads when most people would have failed, 
 because he knew just how to approach people and 
 always said just the right thing at the right time 
 and just the thing which was pleasant as well as 
 truthful. One of his friends met him in Washing- 
 ton when he was trying to get the railroad grant 
 through Congress, and said that when he saw Mr. 
 Rice talk to the ladies in Washington he knew there 
 was no question about the vote. He looked like 
 an Englishman and once when he and William 
 Banning were in London trying to get money for 
 the railroads, Banning was held by a street pro- 
 cession and had to wait a long time on the sidewalk. 
 Suddenly he saw the crowds give way and a herald 
 ordering the people back saying, ''make way for 
 Milord," and down the center of the street marched 
 Edmund Rice. 
 
 The second road to build was the Minneapolis 
 and Cedar Valley, which afterward was taken in by 
 the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. Its first 
 tracks were opened for business in 1865, the road 
 running from Mendota to Northfield, and later 
 from Minneapolis to Faribault. 
 
 In 1865 a road called the Minnesota Valley 
 
Getting from Place to Place 251 
 
 began its first line to Shakopee. This was united 
 in 1880 with the Omaha and was the beginning 
 of the Northwestern Line. When it was built 
 its route was along the Minnesota valley, and 
 because the river overflowed its banks from five 
 to fifteen feet, the railroad had to be built on a 
 height, so it follows the line of the bluffs for many- 
 miles. The first road to go north was the Lake 
 Superior and Mississippi Valley, of which Wil- 
 liam Banning was the president and in fact the 
 leader of the scheme. In 1870 the train went 
 up through the winding valleys and across the 
 many deep ravines, through the wild forests; over 
 the road built in spite of what had seemed in- 
 surmountable obstacles, and arrived in Duluth. 
 This road thus gained the object for which it was 
 built, to connect the Mississippi River with the 
 Great Lakes, or, as they said then, "to span the 
 overland spaces," which then began to be more 
 important than the river traffic. This road was 
 later called the St. Paul and Duluth, and for 
 many years was the only railroad of importance 
 entirely within our State. Today it is a part of 
 the Northern Pacific system. 
 
 The greatest land grant given to any of the 
 railroads starting from Minnesota was given to 
 the Northern Pacific which received from Congress 
 many sections on both sides of the track clear 
 
252 Our Minnesota 
 
 across the western part of the continent, and the 
 sale of these lands made the road very rich. This 
 charter, given in 1864, was signed by Abraham 
 Lincoln and the year the war broke out the road 
 had built a track as far as Moorhead. It gradually 
 extended beyond the State and was the first road 
 in the north to reach the Pacific Ocean, in 1883, 
 although all of the roads had this aim and most 
 of them had Pacific in their names. 
 
 In 1889 the Great Northern Railroad started on 
 its great plan of running through directly to the 
 Pacific. This road was a combination of the Mani- 
 toba and other railroads running in that direction 
 and was established in 1878 when the Dutch in- 
 terests were bought up. The scheme was so 
 immense that no one but a great mind could 
 have carried it through. This mind belonged to 
 the railroad giant James J. Hill, who had come 
 to St. Paul from Canada when he was seven- 
 teen years old, poor and without friends. Like 
 most boys he was a dreamer, only he dreamed 
 when he was awake and worked the dream 
 out. 
 
 This road made a new era in western railroad 
 building, and all through the system down to the 
 smallest detail was felt the influence of its president. 
 He changed grades, used steel instead of iron, 
 climbed over mountains, threw bridges over the 
 
Getting from Place to Place 253 
 
 rivers and gorges and tunneled far deep into the 
 earth. 
 
 With the coming of railroads and particularly 
 of this one, which tapped all the farming dis- 
 tricts, all the lumber districts, all the mining 
 districts, and with the use of our great water 
 power, came the rush of settlers — thousands of 
 people from our home country as well as from 
 foreign lands. Where there had been only small 
 towns, vast unoccupied prairies, dense forests with 
 here and there a settler's cabin; great cities began 
 to spring up and we can see today along the rail- 
 road line the result, not only in our own State but 
 in the Dakotas and Iowa as well. 
 
 Fifty years ago there wasn't a railroad in our 
 Minnesota, today there are thirty-eight systems, 
 nine thousand miles of track and almost sixty 
 thousands of people working on the railroads and 
 trains, coming in and going out from hundreds of 
 stations every hour of the day. 
 
 So the old times passed away, and instead of be- 
 ing pioneers in Minnesota, we became a modern peo- 
 ple with the frontier moving ever toward the West. 
 
 The Great Lake 
 
 During all this time we must not forget that Lake 
 Superior was used by people from the time when 
 
254 Our Minnesota 
 
 Radisson and Groseilliers, the first of all white men 
 on its waters, came along its north shore in their 
 birch canoes, and that Du Luth and other early 
 comers crossed it many times in their voyages 
 from the East. 
 
 In 1770 a barge rigged with sails, for the naviga- 
 tion of the lake, was on Lake Superior, and a few 
 years later a sloop was sailing there for work in the 
 mines. This proved a failure, but by 1800 there 
 were four or five sailboats which ran regularly 
 from Pine Point to Grand Portage. 
 
 In 1765 the English law required all the traders 
 to have a license, and Alexander Henry, the 
 grandfather of Norman Kittson, had the sole 
 right to trade on Lake Superior. His diary tells 
 of the trade which even then made Grand Portage 
 a city; the trading companies running regular 
 canoe lines which carried passengers as well as 
 freight from Mackinaw clear into the wilds of 
 Canada. 
 
 Before 1800 Grand Portage was the western end 
 of a canoe route which extended from Montreal 
 eighteen hundred miles away. The first time 
 that the United States flag was borne into Lake 
 Superior it was at the head of three great twelve- 
 oar barges with an outfit for dozens of people on 
 that long trip which Governor Cass took in 1826. 
 This must have been a grand procession as it 
 
Getting from Place to Place 255 
 
 rounded into the great lake whose southern shore 
 was to float that flag forever. 
 
 The traffic on Lake Superior has changed as 
 much as on the other roads, for the Great Lake 
 carries more freight than any railroad in the State 
 and the huge whalebacks, which look like their 
 names as they silently plunge through the deep 
 with the foaming water lashing over their backs, 
 carry very precious cargoes. These boats are mys- 
 terious looking, for it does seem as though they are 
 half -fish and half-animal. When you pass by one or 
 see one lying beside a dock receiving its immense 
 cargo of freight, it is almost fearsome and makes 
 you think of the Minotaur in the story of old Crete, 
 who swallowed whatever came near. 
 
 The immense Great Northern freight boats, four 
 hundred feet long, the largest freighters in the world, 
 carry each one as much as ten whole railroad trains. 
 We do indeed cast our bread upon the waters in 
 these great boats and they carry too, the ore from 
 the northern mines, coming back loaded largely 
 with coal, though as a matter of fact they carry 
 everything from diamonds to a grand piano. 
 They always go in pairs as though they were 
 alive and wanted company like sea gulls, one forg- 
 ing ahead with the engines continually throbbing 
 and doing all the work, while the other like a meek 
 and humble consort as it is called, goes behind, 
 
 / 
 
256 
 
 Our Minnesota 
 
 apparently not attached at all, and only by looking 
 closely can one see now and then above the water 
 when a wave recedes, the great cable which connects 
 them. 
 
 It's a long way from the little old single track 
 with its puffing, blustering locomotive of four wheels 
 hauling one car, to the palace train of today which 
 moves almost faster than the mind . of man. 
 "William Crooks" looks like a pigmy beside the 
 great mogul with its six driving wheels which pull 
 its heavy loads to the tops of the mountains and 
 across the distance from sea to sea. It's even a 
 longer way from the birch canoe of the Indian or 
 the Red River ox-cart to the modern railroad and 
 freighter of today. But we have traveled all that 
 road in less than a hundred years, and the road 
 means progress all the way. 
 
 Red River Ox-Cart 
 
THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 Onward rolls the Royal River, proudly sweeping 
 
 to the sea, 
 Dark and deep and grand, forever wrapt in myth 
 
 and mystery. 
 Now he laughs along the highlands, leaping o'er the 
 
 granite walls; 
 Now he sleeps among the islands, where the loon 
 
 her lover calls. 
 Still like some huge monster winding downward 
 
 through the prairied plains, 
 Seeking rest but never finding, till the tropic gulf he 
 
 gains. 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 Still, methinks, the dusky shadows of the days that 
 are no more. 
 
 Stalk around the lakes and meadows, haunting oft 
 the wonted shore : 
 
 And beside the mound where buried lies the dark- 
 eyed maid he loved. 
 
 Some tall warrior, wan and wearied, in the misty 
 moonlight moves. 
 
 See — he stands erect and lingers — stoic still, but 
 loth to go — 
 
 Clutching in his tawny fingers feathered shaft and 
 polished bow. 
 
 257 
 
258 Our Minnesota 
 
 thou dark, mysterious River, speak and tell thy 
 
 tales to me ; 
 Seal not up thy lips forever — veiled in mist and 
 mystery. 
 
 1 will sit and lowly listen at the phantom-haunted 
 
 falls 
 Where thy waters foam and glisten o*er the rugged, 
 
 rocky walls, 
 Till some spirit of the olden, mystic, weird, romantic 
 
 days 
 Shall emerge and pour her golden tales and legends 
 
 through my lays. 
 Then again the elk and bison on thy grassy bank 
 
 shall feed, 
 And along the low horizon shall the plumed hunter 
 
 speed ; 
 Then again on lake and river shall the silent birch 
 
 canoe 
 Bear the brave with bow and quiver on his way to 
 
 war or woo : 
 Then the beaver on the meadow shall rebuild his 
 
 broken wall, 
 And the gaunt wolf chase his shadow, and his mate 
 
 the panther call. 
 From the prairies and the regions where the pine- 
 plumed forest grows 
 Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and 
 
 their bows. Hanford L. Gordon. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FATHER OF WATERS AND TEN THOUSAND LAKES 
 
 As far back as we can learn of man he has used 
 the great rivers of the world. The streams and 
 lakes of Minnesota feed two rivers, and a third, — 
 the greatest of all in this hemisphere and the longest 
 in the world, with the streams which flow into it, 
 rises in our own State and flows through it almost 
 from north to south. When it leaves us it goes 
 down past all the central states of our country into 
 the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 What it must have been like ages ago, when, 
 alone in its splendor, it rolled all the way through 
 its hundreds of miles, with only the unbroken 
 forests and grassy meadows lying on either side, 
 the silence absolute except for the winds in the 
 trees, the songs of the birds and now and then a 
 wild animal coming down to drink! 
 
 How different it all is today! And yet, it was 
 only fifty years after Columbus first came to our 
 country, that a Spaniard named Hernando De 
 Soto, working from Florida through the untrodden 
 
 259 
 
26o Our Minnesota 
 
 wilds, came out at last upon the shores of the 
 mighty Mississippi. Before he could go back to 
 Europe to tell what he had seen, he died beside this 
 same great river, and was buried beneath its waves, 
 for his followers were afraid to leave his grave 
 where it might be seen, lest the Indians should find 
 out that they were without a leader. 
 
 So the southern part of the Mississippi River was 
 claimed by the Spanish, the middle and northern 
 part left alone to the Indians who loved it and who 
 lived along its edges, used its waters for getting 
 from place to place, and buried their dead on its 
 banks. 
 
 The early French explorers about Michigan and 
 Superior heard of a great river to the west, and 
 Jean Nicolet spoke in his writing of wanting to find 
 it. Radisson and Groseilliers had surely seen the 
 Mississippi because they talked of a "grand river, " 
 and we think that they journeyed from Knife Lake 
 near Mille Lac to the river near Minneapolis, in 
 1660. In their selfishness in not wanting other 
 explorers to take away the trade which they 
 hoped to get for themselves, they kept it a mystery 
 and gave us no idea of the river's location. 
 
 The early missionaries met Sioux Indians who 
 gave them *' marsh rye," the name they used for 
 wild rice, and they told of the "Father of Waters, " 
 which they called Messipi or Meschepe. 
 
The Father of Waters 261 
 
 While P^re Marquette was at La Pointe his 
 adventurous spirit was stirred with stories of a 
 great river where they used canoes with wings. 
 The book which the Jesuit Fathers wrote, speaks 
 of Indian tales of a river, greater and wider than the 
 St. Lawrence. The French of course knew the St. 
 Lawrence well, for on its shores were the settle- 
 ments of Montreal and Quebec, and they used it 
 as their main road for getting to the frontier. We 
 may be sure that many adventurers pined to go to 
 the shore of that river of mystery to see for them- 
 selves whether the Indian stories were true. 
 
 Pere Marquette, after he left his mission at La 
 Pointe must have asked Frontenac, the great 
 governor of Canada, to let him take up the work of 
 converting the heathen far away to the west. 
 Those early missionaries loved adventure and the 
 spice of danger and wild life which came with the 
 work, and it must have been a joy to them to live 
 the life they loved, at the same time doing the work 
 they loved just as well. 
 
 At any rate Marquette and Joliet were sent out 
 to find the great river, and crossing by the Fox 
 and Wisconsin route came to the shores of the 
 stream they were looking for, near Prairie du 
 Chien, on June 17, 1673. We give the date be- 
 cause it is so important, as that day was the first 
 one we know of when any white man had gazed on 
 
262 Our Minnesota 
 
 that river in the north. They went far enough 
 down the stream to be sure it was the one which 
 flows into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The gay figure of La Salle came next. Frontenac 
 found him in this country, when he came to be the 
 most important governor that France had ever 
 sent over here. He saw La Salle's love of adventure 
 and his fitness for it, sending him back to France to 
 get money and permission from the king to explore 
 and gain new land and fame for France. La Salle 
 came back to Canada with permission to explore 
 and also to pay all his expenses by trading. You 
 remember this journey of his with Father Hennepin 
 and his company, and how in 1680 they camped near 
 Peoria. 
 
 Then while Hennepin went up the Mississippi, La 
 Salle went down the river all the way to its mouth. 
 What a wonderful trip that must have been and 
 how amazed the voyagers when they passed the 
 mouth of the broad Ohio, coming in to swell the 
 Mississippi, which they were on, and from the west 
 to meet the Missouri, that no one dreamed came 
 from such a far northern land and which flowing 
 into it, makes the Mississippi the longest river in 
 the world. 
 
 This trip of La Salle's was much delayed but in 
 1682 he planted the banner of France at the mouth 
 of the mighty stream and claimed it all, from its 
 
The Father of Waters 263 
 
 unknown source to its many deltaed mouth, in the 
 name of his country. He put up a tall cross, also 
 a wooden post with the arms of France and under 
 them "Louis, the king of France and Navarre 
 reigns. " K Te Deum was sung and all the fol- 
 lowers shouted "Long live the king!" He named 
 the new land "Louisiane. " Seventeen years later 
 D' Iberville who founded New Orleans came across 
 the delta, Le Sueur coming with him. This was 
 the first time anyone had entered the river from 
 the gulf. 
 
 Meanwhile we must not forget that Hennepin was 
 on his way up the river, entering it at the mouth of 
 the Illinois, where he met the Sioux Indians 
 with whom he had such an interesting, but not 
 always happy stay. During this time he had the 
 first wonderful sight of St. Anthony Falls, making 
 new discoveries all the way up to the place where 
 the city of Minneapolis now stands. 
 
 At the same time another great adventurer was 
 north on Lake Superior. This was Du Luth, the 
 free-lance trader who the same spring that Hennepin 
 started up the river, went exploring with four 
 French and two Indian guides. He paddled up 
 the Bois Brule River, packed across to the St. 
 Croix down which he floated and found the Missis- 
 sippi where the two rivers meet at Point Douglas. 
 So you see from St. Anthony Falls to the Gulf of 
 
264 Our Minnesota 
 
 Mexico the great river had been discovered by 
 Frenchmen, and the whole distance traveled be- 
 tween 1680 and 1682. 
 
 Within the next few years Le Sueur, whom we 
 saw on the river with Perrot, took a canoe trip as 
 far north as Sandy Lake, which he thought was 
 the river's source. 
 
 For the next hundred years traders come and go 
 along the mighty stream which was so important 
 in settling the country. 
 
 The long war between France and England, you 
 remember, gave the east bank of the river to 
 England and the west bank to Spain, and when we 
 became independent of course the English land 
 came to us. During all this time, before and after 
 the United States was an independent country, 
 we had trouble on the Mississippi. You see this 
 was the only trade route we had, as there were no 
 wagon roads, no railroads, and no telegraphs, 
 everything being floated down the river on fiat- 
 boats. Our traders complained of duties which 
 they had to pay, of goods stolen and of being 
 arrested for no cause. This trouble was especially 
 at New Orleans. 
 
 While Washington was president he saw great 
 danger from enemies on the other side of the river 
 and when Spain later handed over the whole 
 country west of the Mississippi to France, it looked 
 
The Father of Waters 265 
 
 for a little while as though our trade might be 
 ruined and the Union itself broken up, because there 
 isn't very much use in owning one side of a river if 
 an enemy or an unfriendly power owns the other 
 side, for nothing is safe from one day to another. 
 
 So when Jefferson was president he asked Rob- 
 ert Livingston, our Minister to France, and James 
 Monroe to see what could be done about the 
 trouble at New Orleans and whether it was possible 
 to buy enough land at the mouth of the river to 
 unload our goods and take them across to the Gulf 
 of Mexico, for we had learned that the "right of 
 deposit" was not respected. 
 
 At this time Napoleon was hard up and was very 
 much afraid of England, so to settle the matter, 
 after a good deal of debate, he offered the whole of 
 Louisiana, saying that we might have all of it or 
 none of it. Spain objected, in fact a good many of 
 the people in the United States objected, but in 1803 
 we bought it just the same, for what people con- 
 sidered was an immense sum and which was really 
 less than three cents an acre. 
 
 This is the way we gained power over the whole 
 of the Mississippi River and from this time on, no 
 one could interfere with our commerce. Along the 
 banks of the Mississippi since then, have gathered 
 millions of people and down it ever float millions 
 of dollars' worth of goods. Canoes, flatboats and 
 
266 Our Minnesota 
 
 steamers have succeeded one another, and one by 
 one, bordering along its edges, ten great states have 
 been added to the Union. 
 
 We gained the ownership of most of our own State 
 in 1803 and one of our greatest historians has called 
 the river "the guardian and pledge of all the states 
 in the Union. " 
 
 Here in Minnesota we think that the Father of 
 Waters belongs to us especially, for we are not only 
 the head of navigation but the great river itself is 
 born here. There have been many bitter disputes, 
 as well as much interest over the question of just 
 where the river does rise. As early as Wash- 
 ington's time David Thompson, agent of the 
 Northwest Company, reached Turtle Lake in Bel- 
 trami County and was sure that he had discovered 
 the source of the river. 
 
 When all the land as far as the Mississippi was 
 added to Michigan Territory in 18 19, Governor 
 Cass was anxious to see the new country, so he 
 started out with a large exploring party, among 
 them Schoolcraft, a geologist, to whom he paid a 
 dollar and fifty cents a day, and who wrote the story 
 of the expedition. The party went as far as Red 
 Cedar Lake which they called Cass Lake in honor 
 of the Governor, returning to Michigan by the 
 Wisconsin and Fox rivers. 
 
 In 1823, the government sent Major Long with 
 
The Father of Waters 267 
 
 a party to explore the Minnesota River and the 
 northern boundary of the United States, and at 
 Fort Snelling an Italian, J. Constantine Beltrami, 
 joined the party, which worked its way along the 
 Minnesota and Red rivers to Pembina and re- 
 turned by way of our northern boundary, learning 
 much that was valuable about the country, all 
 of which was reported to the United States 
 Government. 
 
 The Italian gentleman, Beltrami, who had started 
 up with Major Long, wanted to be a great explorer 
 and to follow in the path of his countryman, Chris- 
 topher Columbus, so he had come to America to find 
 the true source of the Mississippi River, and met 
 Major Taliaferro who was coming to Fort Snell- 
 ing as Indian agent. The agent asked Beltrami to 
 come with him and they arrived on the first 
 steamer which ever came up the river, in 1823. 
 
 The Italian was evidently a peevish and critical 
 person and hard to get along with, for he left the 
 Long party at Pembina, and engaged some Indians 
 to take him over to the place where he thought he 
 would find what he was looking for, the source of 
 the great river. He had a very hard trip for his 
 guides deserted him, and he was obliged to travel 
 alone for many long days. 
 
 He tells how hard it was for him to paddle his 
 canoe and for weary miles he pulled it, wading in 
 
268 ^Our Minnesota 
 
 the river, and testing the depths each step with his 
 paddle. Finally he met an old Ojibway whom he 
 engaged to guide him on his trip. 
 
 After a long search he climbed, an elevation 
 where he said he saw lakes in all directions, and 
 streams flowing four ways. One little heart- 
 shaped lake he named Julia, and he was sure 
 that this was the source of the great river as it 
 had no outlet, and he thought that the water ran 
 under ground to both the Red and Mississippi 
 rivers. This was probably Turtle Lake. 
 
 He wrote the story of his journey after he re- 
 turned, and for some time it was thought that he 
 had discovered the head waters. During his 
 travels he wrote a number of letters to an Italian 
 Countess, and these are most interesting descrip- 
 tions of that part of the State through which he 
 went. The northern county, where is the greater 
 part of Red Lake, is named for him. 
 
 Henry Schoolcraft who was with Governor Cass in 
 1820, had never been sure that Cass Lake was the 
 real source, and being careful to get things right and 
 too polite to tell the rest of the party that he thought 
 they were wrong, he was always anxious to go 
 further in his search. He was Indian agent at the 
 **Soo" in 1832 when he was sent out to visit the 
 Indians west, to vaccinate them, and to cultivate 
 friendship with them generally. 
 
The Father of Waters 269 
 
 Lieutenant Allen was the military escort of this 
 party, one of whom was Bout well, the Leech Lake 
 missionary, and the guide was an Ojibway called 
 the Yellow Head, from whom a river has been 
 named. The party hadn't been told to look for the 
 source of the Mississippi but they went on a search 
 for it all the same, and found that beyond the lake 
 which Beltrami had seen was another, still higher, 
 which they decided was the source. They landed 
 on a beautiful island which they named for School- 
 craft, put up a flagstaff and for the first time the 
 stars and stripes flashed over the head of the great 
 river. 
 
 The party had noticed a little stream flowing 
 into Cass Lake from the west and exploring this, 
 found the lake which they were convinced was 
 *'the true source of the Mississippi." They 
 partially examined this lake and the shores around 
 it, and finding no inlet were satisfied. Schoolcraft, 
 anxious to have a fitting name for the source, was 
 puzzling over it and asked Bout well, who was a Latin 
 scholar, to suggest one ; so he wrote down " Veritas, " 
 which means truth, and ' ' caput, ' ' which means head. 
 Cutting off the head of one word and the tail of the 
 other, we have left "Itasca," which most people 
 think is from the Indian and surely is beautiful 
 enough to be. The Little Mississippi where it first 
 starts from this lake is twenty feet wide and two 
 
2JO Our Minnesota 
 
 feet deep, and doesn't look very much like the 
 great river farther south. 
 
 The famous astronomer, Nicollet, visited the 
 missionary Boutwell who was still living at Leech 
 Lake in 1836 and explored Lake Itasca. He found 
 five brooks leading into it and beyond them, two 
 small lakes which he called the "true source.'* 
 People still were not satisfied, many others claim- 
 ing that they had discovered the head of the 
 river, so in 1889 the Minnesota Historical Society 
 and the State Legislature sent J. V. Brower of 
 St. Cloud to settle the matter. After very 
 careful study his party found what was called the 
 ** greater reservoir" made up of many small 
 lakes. 
 
 Now before this, as long ago as 1804, William 
 Morrison, who with his brother, was a trader at 
 Grand Portage, had visited these lakes, and al- 
 though his discovery was not made public for many 
 years afterward, most people believe that he was 
 the first white man to see the source of the Mis- 
 sissippi. 
 
 He was asked about his trip and wrote a letter to 
 his brother, Allan Morrison, in 1856, telling him 
 that leaving Grand Portage, he had reached Leech 
 Lake in 1802. The next year he went by Red 
 Cedar or Cass Lake into what was later named 
 Itasca. He saw nothing which made him think 
 
" The Infant Mississippi," Itasca Park 
 (By courtesy of the Secretary of State of Minnesota) 
 
The Father of Waters 271 
 
 that any white man had been there before, and 
 visited the same place again in 1811 and 181 2, 
 finding five little streams that empty into the lake. 
 
 The little Mississippi when it first appears at the 
 very head water is only two feet wide and one foot 
 deep, but we still call Lake Itasca the source of our 
 river and this has been settled by law as the source. 
 Mr. Morrison was probably the first one to see the 
 lake and one of the lakes at the extreme head of 
 the source has been named for him, but School- 
 craft was the first man who knew that Itasca was 
 the head of the river, and is called the discoverer. 
 
 The country about Itasca is so rough that it is 
 hard to travel for the portages are very long, and 
 the woods are dense; the forests of pine — red, white 
 and jack pine, cedar, oak and willow, and there are 
 many swamps. It is no wonder that the little river 
 in its haste to get away from this lonely place, 
 doesn't know just which way to turn so it flows 
 northeast into, or making Irving and Bemidji 
 lakes, then goes east through Cass and the great 
 Winnibigoshish, where it starts on its long trip 
 south for twenty-five hundred and fifty- three miles. 
 It never stops but ceaselessly flows on, gaining 
 always in strength, widening out at Red Wing 
 into Lake Pepin, forty miles long; and leaves our 
 State at La Crescent, rolling on beyond, until 
 it is lost in the Gulf of Mexico. This is not an idle 
 
272 Our Minnesota 
 
 pleasure trip all the way for there are many places 
 where the Father of Waters is harnessed to help do 
 our work — at Grand Rapids, where the Pokegama 
 Falls make the current very swift, several places 
 in between, and at St. Anthony, where as much 
 work is done by the river to run the mills and give 
 power to the street-car system as could be done by 
 forty-eight thousand horses all harnessed together. 
 
 Minnesota might well be called the "Water 
 State" for not only does the great Mississippi flow 
 through the center like a water god attended on all 
 sides by tributaries which come from the thousands 
 of lakes within our borders, but you remember, our 
 State is almost surrounded by water besides. Only 
 on the southern border is there a long straight line 
 because it was made by man and is not the beauti- 
 ful natural boundary of blue river with a green 
 edge made by God. 
 
 On the north, the south shore of Lake of the 
 Woods and Rainy River as well as Rainy Lake 
 belong to us and those lakes south and east of 
 Rainy Lake are the most picturesque places you 
 can imagine. There are hundreds of these lakes 
 connected by little streams ending in Pigeon River, 
 which falls, just before it gets to Lake Superior, 
 one hundred and forty feet, bounding through a 
 narrow gorge in many foaming cascades. All the 
 way down the north shore of Lake Superior to 
 
The Father of Waters 273 
 
 Duluth there are cascades — at Tofte, at Temper- 
 ance River, at the Baptism and many other places, 
 making a scene of wonder and of beauty. 
 
 At International Falls on Rainy Lake, as much 
 power is used from the water as fifteen thousand 
 horses harnessed together could give, and this 
 power lights the city and runs a paper mill. The 
 St. Louis River, which flows into Lake Superior, 
 near Duluth, with its great fall of seventy feet in one 
 mile, is used too, at Cloquet for the mills there. 
 
 On the west the Red River of the North, which 
 rises in Lake Traverse, has been used for boats for 
 many years. You remember that in 1859 a steam- 
 boat went up the Mississippi River to Pokegama. 
 In the spring it was taken to pieces at Crow 
 Wing, and carried clear across the country by 
 wagons to the Red River. It was the first steam- 
 boat on that river, and the first trip down, in 
 charge of Captain Bell, had a queer time. The river 
 was full of boulders at Goose Rapids so the men 
 had to get out and dig holes just ahead of the 
 great rocks. Then the boat shoved the rocks into 
 the holes and passed over them. After that trouble 
 was over they stuck on a sand-bar and had to make 
 a dam before they could go any farther. This 
 dam was made by putting cotton-wood logs together 
 for a raft, then driving great stakes into the 
 river bottom and filling it with brush. Slowly the 
 
 z8 
 
274 Ou^" Minnesota 
 
 water rose and suddenly, without any warning, 
 the boat shot over the sand-bar and into deep 
 water. While the people were waiting, the food al- 
 most gave out and Captain Blakeley saved their 
 lives, or at least the pleasure of the trip, by ap- 
 pearing, it seemed from nowhere, with a pocket 
 full of fish-hooks and lines, which they put to 
 very good use. 
 
 The Minnesota "Skyey Water, " after which the 
 State is named, rises in Big Stone Lake, which our 
 western boundary is made to fit, and, you remember, 
 was first explored by Le Sueur on his famous mining 
 trip. Jonathan Carver spent the winter of 1766 
 on its banks near New Ulm, and Long and most 
 of our early explorers followed its winding way. 
 There were old trading posts on its banks at 
 Traverse des Sioux, Lac qui Parle, and Little 
 Rapids. We are told that the lakes, which feed 
 this and the other rivers on our west lie in the 
 channel of the outflow of the great Lake Agassiz, 
 once a glacier or great field of ice which covered 
 all that part of the State. The Ojibways call this 
 the ''River of the Green Leaf," perhaps on ac- 
 count of the beautiful trees which once bordered 
 its banks and were reflected in the water. 
 
 In 1 819 our friends the Selkirk settlers came down 
 on snow shoes from 'way up north near Winnipeg, 
 traveling a thousand miles to get seed wheat. 
 
The Father of Waters 275 
 
 They went back by this river in Mackinaw boats, 
 with both oars and sails, taking with them two 
 hundred bushels of wheat, one hundred of oats and 
 thirty bushels of peas. They dragged these heavy 
 boats over the portage at Brown's Valley between 
 Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse and floated 
 down home, for the Red River, you remember, 
 flows north all its length, but the Minnesota flows 
 southeast most of the way and turns northeast 
 at Mankato for the last part of its journey. 
 
 Our lakes in Minnesota were formed in many 
 different ways, some of them in the hollows, formed 
 by the old glacier; others from rivers widening out 
 or backing up ; and others still from springs beneath 
 the surface. Most of them are charming, sur- 
 rounded by woods or grassy meadows, their sur- 
 faces dotted with lilies, and the shores and bottoms 
 gleaming with carnelians and agates which look 
 like rare gems. 
 
 These lakes are of great value to us because they 
 keep the climate temperate, they give us an easy 
 as well as pleasant way of getting from place to 
 place ; and most important of all they give us good, 
 clear spring water throughout the State. 
 
 They also furnish homes for numbers of fish, 
 besides giving food and drink to the many kinds of 
 animals and birds in our woods. Nowhere else in 
 our country do we find so many lakes and the Lake 
 
276 Our Minnesota 
 
 Park Region, which spreads out like a fan in Otter- 
 tail and Becker Counties, is one of the lovely 
 places of the world; so we ought to feel very thank- 
 ful that our State has so much of this water, which 
 is necessary for all kinds of life, and that it is 
 beautiful as well. 
 
CHAPTER XV , 
 
 TROUBLOUS TIMES 
 
 We had our troubles in Minnesota during 
 the years of development. One of the sad things 
 which happened when everything seemed prosper- 
 ous was a terrible explosion in Minneapolis in 1878, 
 when the great Washburn Mill was absolutely 
 destroyed, although it was built of stone more 
 than two feet thick. Two other mills blew up and 
 three more were burned as a result of the explo- 
 sion which came from fire reaching the dust with 
 which the mills were filled. In this awful mis- 
 fortune eighteen men were killed and millions 
 of dollars' worth of property destroyed. 
 
 Another aJBfliction was tornadoes, or as we call 
 them cyclones, great wind storms which tear up 
 and destroy everything in their paths. They 
 usually come suddenly after a heavy muggy day of 
 heat. The sky gets dark and a dull cloud with 
 green, curling edges appears, turning sometimes to 
 copper color, then with a dull roar, like thousands of 
 angry beasts, the cyclone comes. 
 
 277 
 
278 Our Minnesota 
 
 Trees crash, rivers are scooped out of their 
 channels, houses are smashed to kindling wood, 
 birds are skinned; animals scattered far and wide, 
 and people are swept in the path of the monster 
 before they know what has happened. The 
 cyclones last only from three to ten minutes but 
 the destruction that they make takes many years 
 to repair. The windfalls in the forests of early 
 days tell the path of these storms, but the ruin 
 later is so much greater because of the towns and 
 people in the way. 
 
 In 1877, the little village of Cottage Grove was 
 visited by one of these storms and houses were 
 blown down and a lake, mud and water and all, 
 was blown to the top of a hill. 
 
 Four years afterward in Renville County eleven 
 people were killed and three towns destroyed. 
 New Ulm, which seemed to be fated, suffered again, 
 for two storms came together there and almost every 
 building was damaged and the cathedral ruined. A 
 few years later, 1883, a cyclone swept the southern 
 counties, destroyed the town of Elgin and lifted up a 
 railroad train, dropping it thirty feet from the track, 
 and of course injuring many people. The same 
 year, Rochester, the city which is a center for so 
 many activities, had a terrible cyclone which de- 
 stroyed three hundred houses, unroofed most of the 
 business buildings and killed thirty-five people. 
 
Troublous Times 279 
 
 The next year the St. Croix valley and afterward 
 St. Cloud were visited by terrible cyclones where 
 seventy people were killed. 
 
 But the worst storm came in 1890 when one 
 hundred young people coming home from an excur- 
 sion by boat on Lake Pepin were all drowned. 
 The boat was struck by the cyclone cloud suddenly, 
 and all the towns around the lakes were in mourning 
 for their sons and daughters. 
 
 In 1904 one of these great storms came down 
 the Mississippi River and struck St. Paul, de- 
 stroying trees, chimneys, houses, and flooding the 
 business district, with a loss of over a million 
 dollars. There were many more of these storms. 
 
 The most terrible calamity which has come 
 to our State since the Sioux massacre was the forest 
 fire of 1894. The summer had been very dry and 
 everything in the forests was like powder, ready to 
 go off at the touch of a spark. For days the air had 
 been heavy with smoke, and from the north, birds 
 had been flocking into the streets of Duluth and 
 the northern towns showing that there was trouble 
 in the woods. 
 
 The Great Northern passenger train which left 
 Duluth early in the afternoon, met fires in the 
 forest nov7 and then, and before it came to Hinckley 
 the air looked as though it were on fire, — a dull 
 dark red, like brick dust. Here and there, the trees 
 
28o Our Minnesota 
 
 looked like Christmas trees ablaze and sometimes 
 the fire jumped from one to the other. 
 
 The passengers were all relieved when they 
 arrived at Hinckley until they learned that there 
 was fire beyond at Pine City and the train could 
 go no further. 
 
 Suddenly like a flash, the town was on fire and 
 fairly melted before one's eyes, the fire not seeming 
 to be in any particular spot. There was a freight 
 train standing at the station and the conductor 
 coupled three box cars to the passenger train, 
 threw out some of the freight and baggage, put 
 on the freight engine and filled the whole train 
 with refugees. Five hundred and seventy-two 
 people started back toward Duluth, and through 
 the scene which many had thought unsafe an hour 
 before. 
 
 At Sandstone people refused to get on the train, 
 thinking that they were safer at home. That night 
 there wasn't a building left in the town and there 
 were many dead. When the train came to the long 
 trestle over Kettle River the bridge was on fire, 
 but there was nothing to do but go on so the 
 brave engineer went ahead as fast as possible, just 
 getting to firm ground as the burning bridge fell 
 behind the train into the deep ravine. Each little 
 town on the way was in danger and many of them 
 were wiped out, and when everyone thought that 
 
Troublous Times 281 
 
 the road was safe there was a big fire beside the 
 track at Superior. The train came back to Duluth 
 at midnight bringing with it most of what was left 
 of Hinckley. 
 
 Meanwhile the Northern Pacific train from 
 Duluth had been warned, a few miles before it 
 reached Hinckley, by over one hundred people who 
 had left the town. The train ran back to Skunk 
 Lake which it reached just in time. The passengers 
 fled before the flames into the lake and swamp 
 where they stayed for hours before relief came, 
 while the empty train on the track was burned up. 
 About two hundred were killed at Hinckley, and it 
 is supposed that about four hundred and fifty in 
 all lost their lives in this awful fire. 
 
 Duluth was turned into a great relief camp. 
 The people slept in the churches and public build- 
 ings until it was safe to return to their ruined towns 
 and build new homes. The State gave aid to the 
 people, as of course it should, giving lumber 
 for homes and helping in many other practical 
 ways. The towns were rebuilt and today only a 
 second growth of timber with here and there a 
 patch of evergreen, showing where the fire jumped, 
 is left to tell the dreadful story; but the lives that 
 were lost can never be replaced. 
 
 There have been forest fires since, the most 
 destructive ones along the Iron Range and the 
 
282 Our Minnesota 
 
 north shore of Lake Superior. In 1909 the towns 
 of Spooner and Baudette were wiped out in a fire 
 which lasted for days. Thirty lives were lost and 
 property worth two millions of dollars destroyed. 
 
 In 1898 there was a war between the United 
 States and Spain. We didn't like the way Spain 
 was treating Cuba to whom she had been very 
 cruel for many years, overtaxing her and waging 
 war against the Cuban people, who rebelled. 
 
 Many Americans owned property in Cuba in the 
 sugar fields and these were just about ruined. 
 Worst of all, one of our battleships, the Mai7ie, 
 which was sent down to protect our people and 
 property, was blown up in the harbor of Havana, 
 and everyone on board was killed. When we asked 
 for an explanation, Spain was very indifferent and 
 finally the war had to come. 
 
 Again as in the Civil War, Minnesota was the 
 first of all the states to offer troops and exactly 
 thirty-eight years to a day from the time that the 
 first regiment enlisted at Fort Snelling in 1861, the 
 Minnesota volunteers again enlisted in the United 
 States service. They were camped on the State 
 Fair Grounds, which were turned for the time into 
 Camp Ramsey. This was the twenty-ninth of 
 April, 1898. 
 
 The Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fif- 
 teenth regiments of Minnesota volunteers were 
 
Troublous Times 283 
 
 recruited here, the last not until July, 1898. The 
 Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth were sent to 
 the south but did not leave our country. They 
 lost a number through disease and were just as 
 patriotic as though they had gone to battle, which 
 of course they volunteered for. 
 
 The Thirteenth Regiment under the command of 
 Colonel Charles Mac C. Reeve was sent to the 
 Philippines and took part in the battle of Manila 
 Harbor where Admiral Dewey took the Spanish 
 fleet and was in active service all through the war, 
 returning home a year and a half after, covered 
 with glory. 
 
 It was strange that again at the same time that 
 we were at war, the Indians should make trouble 
 as they did in October, 1898. A number of the 
 Pillager band, the fiercest of all the Chippewas, 
 live on the Leech Lake Reservation and the "Bear 
 Islanders" live rather apart from the other Indians 
 and are heathen blanket Indians. They had gotten 
 into trouble before this, and the troops had been 
 sent against them but they had quickly submitted 
 at the sight of the United States soldiers. 
 
 In 1898 the trouble was more serious and was 
 the result of a good deal of hard feeling in re- 
 gard to cutting timber on reservation land. The 
 Bear Islanders refused to give up two of their band 
 who had been arrested and the troops from Fort 
 
284 Our Minnesota 
 
 Snelling were sent against them. It was thought 
 that they would give up easily, as they had be- 
 fore, and so not enough soldiers were sent and they 
 weren't afraid of the small number. They wouldn't 
 let the soldiers have the men they came for, and at 
 Sugar Point had a battle where six of our men were 
 killed and several wounded. The Indians, instead 
 of being severely punished when they were arrested, 
 were allowed to go free, and the people who lived 
 in that district were panic-stricken and didn't 
 think that their lives were safe, so for protection 
 some of the troops were left there for a while. 
 Since then the Indians have been quiet and have 
 made little trouble, but none of us can think that 
 they have much respect for the United States 
 troops when they weren't punished for making war 
 on them. 
 
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CHAPTER XVI 
 How THE State Cares for her Children 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 Long before there were any white people in 
 Minnesota, the education of the children who were 
 to be here some day was arranged for by what 
 we call the "Ordinance of 1787," which decided 
 that for all the children, who were ever coming 
 into any of the Northwest Territory, there should 
 be free labor, free religion, and education. 
 
 When the United States surveyed its new land, 
 you remember, it divided it all up into sections, 
 each one mile square. Now the western states 
 asked the United States to give them one section 
 out of every township to be used for education. Of 
 course that does not mean that they had to build a 
 schoolhouse on each section, though they often did, 
 for they usually took number sixteen, which is near 
 the middle of the township. This was a good place 
 to have a school, to vote and for public meetings 
 generally, but whether they used it for a school or 
 not the money was spent for education. 
 
 285 
 
286 Our Minnesota 
 
 When Minnesota came to be a territory, it asked 
 the United States for two sections out of every 
 township for schools, and so our public land, or the 
 sale of it, made us very rich. The United States 
 used to sell the land for one dollar and a quarter 
 an acre, which was very cheap, and so we decided 
 that we should not sell school lands for less than 
 five dollars an acre and that we should not sell them 
 all at once any way because, you see, the land might 
 go up in price. 
 
 Governor Ramsey insisted that the income from 
 these lands should always be for the use of the 
 schools, and that we should use only the interest or 
 income and never the money itself. Fortunately 
 the school lands which were covered with forests, 
 they did not sell in the early days though they 
 did sell trees from them. Wasn't it wonderful 
 that, after the timber was cut off of the northern 
 part of this State, they should find iron ore under- 
 neath the surface? In 1889, Minnesota passed 
 a law that this school land should not be sold for 
 fifty years but should be rented to the miners 
 and that the schools should get twenty-five cents 
 for every ton of iron ore mined, so now our State 
 has an income of many millions every year, and 
 this is called the School Fund. From one section 
 where the Hill Mine is we get more money for our 
 schools than Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa have 
 
Her Care for her Children 287 
 
 ever gotten or ever will get from all the lands given 
 to them for education. 
 
 All children of the State, whether they live in 
 crowded cities or far apart from one another, on 
 farms or in little settlements, separated from one 
 another, get an education paid for from this fund. 
 The law is that everybody between the ages of 
 five and twenty-one years old, who goes to school 
 forty days during the year, shall be counted in 
 giving out the State aid for schools. So you see 
 how important it is that you should not be ab- 
 sent from school excepting when you are sick 
 or are really needed at home, because it might be 
 that you would be absent so much that you would 
 not be counted. In that case your school would 
 teach you even if the State should not give the 
 money, and no one wants to be a burden. 
 
 Minnesota has made a law that every child under 
 sixteen years, or until he is ready for the high school, 
 must go to school, and our children begin to go 
 when they are six years old. 
 
 The first meeting of our territorial legislature 
 talked about education and decided that we should 
 have a superintendent of education, who was to get 
 one hundred dollars a year. The first superintend- 
 ent was the Reverend E. D. Neill, who, you re- 
 member, was the chaplain of the First Minnesota 
 Regiment as well as one of the first preachers in 
 
288 Our Minnesota 
 
 Minnesota and he did more than anyone else to 
 help our education in early days. 
 
 Ten families make a school district and the 
 story is told that years ago a man asked the county 
 to establish a school in his district because there 
 were ten children for whom there was no school- 
 house. They made him county superintendent 
 and when they went to visit the school, found that 
 the children were all his own children, his wife 
 was the teacher, and the schoolhouse was his own 
 house. This may be true or not, but it might 
 happen. 
 
 In 1849, when the territory began, besides the 
 missions which were kept up by the churches and 
 not by the State, there were three public schools in 
 Minnesota; one in Stillwater, one in St. Anthony, 
 and one, which was two years old, in St. Paul. 
 
 The first teacher besides the missionaries was 
 Miss Harriet Bishop, who looked like a real old- 
 fashioned schoolma'am. She wore a white lace 
 collar with a great big, round breastpin and had 
 three long curls of black hair falling over each 
 ear. She loved her pupils, who were all gathered 
 in the first schoolhouse which had been a black- 
 smith shop; a log cabin chinked with mud and 
 with pegs driven in between the logs for boards 
 to rest on. These boards were seats, desks and all 
 the furniture. There were sixteen children the 
 
Her Care for her Children 289 
 
 first year and Governor Ramsey said, telling about 
 his first visit to this school, that the white children 
 were few and far between. 
 
 In this schoolhouse they had the first public 
 school meeting in 1849 so you see that year is a 
 very important one to remember in Minnesota 
 history. Two years later there were three schools 
 in Ramsey County and four districts in Washing- 
 ton County but no schools. As early as 1849 there 
 was a United States Government school at Long 
 Prairie which had two large rooms and a hand bell 
 which much pleased the Indian children. The only 
 way that the teacher could keep the children was to 
 give them raisins at recess if they stayed that long. 
 So you see school lunches were begun in Minnesota 
 long before they were thought of in most places. 
 
 Just compare the early education with that of 
 today. Think of the beautiful schoolhouses you 
 have, with plenty of light, and heat, and books 
 which may be used by everyone ; and teachers who 
 are specially prepared to tell you all about the 
 things you want to know. 
 
 The * 'consolidated schools," where any farming 
 settlement may have a good, well-fitted building, 
 several teachers, a larger library and more oppor- 
 tunities than in a smaller school, were started in 
 Minnesota in 191 1 and aim to make better farmers. 
 The children drive long distances to go to one of 
 10 
 
290 Our Minnesota 
 
 these schools, and if our roads were better, as we 
 hope they soon will be, there would be a great 
 advantage in them. Though the people did not 
 care for them at first, there are now sixty-five coun- 
 ties in the State where the schools are consolidated. 
 These are mostly in the north because the people 
 in the south have been settled longer and are not 
 so ready to take up new ideas. 
 
 Early in our history Minnesota began to give 
 money for school libraries, if the schools started 
 them, and today, in every village or country settle- 
 ment there may be good books and pictures for 
 which the State pays half, and "traveling 
 libraries" loan books all over the State, free except- 
 ing for express. 
 
 It is wonderful to realize that, no matter how far 
 away from a great city we live, we may have a 
 chance to be educated and not have to leave home 
 for school as our fathers and mothers did. 
 
 There are many children who cannot go to regu- 
 lar schools because they are deaf or blind or cannot 
 learn quite so fast as the usual children, and who 
 need even more care than you who are able to run, 
 and play, and see and hear the wonderful things 
 all about you. The State takes care of these 
 children and teaches them in a school in Faribault, 
 where many are sent each year. They learn to be 
 useful and happy men and women because, of 
 
Her Care for her Children 291 
 
 course, the more you know, the more useful you 
 are; and the more you are able to do, the happier 
 you are. The deaf begin school at eight years, 
 the blind at six, and both go until they are 
 twenty-one. They learn the same things as other 
 children and many practical and useful trades be- 
 sides. The deaf are taught to use their eyes, so that 
 they may see what people say, instead of hearing 
 it and as no one is really dumb, they are taught to 
 talk. Think what it means to a child who has 
 never known what people were saying excepting 
 by signs, to understand speech, and what a joy it 
 must be to be able to speak! 
 
 What about the blind children? They are 
 taught to read by raised letters which they touch 
 with their fingers and they learn very quickly. 
 Besides regular studies they are taught to play and 
 sing as almost all blind people love music and they 
 make brooms, weave hammocks and do wonderful 
 bead work and sewing. 
 
 The State owns a great many books printed with 
 raised letters for the blind, because blind children 
 have to see with their fingers. If a child does not 
 go to school at Faribault, these books may be sent 
 to his home where he may read them and then send 
 them back to be used by other children. So you 
 see every blind child in the State may learn to read 
 free of charge. 
 
292 Our Minnesota 
 
 Other children who are crippled and cannot run 
 and play may be sent to the State Hospital in 
 St. Paul where, if possible, they are cured, and if 
 that may not be, they are taught to do things for 
 which walking about is not necessary. Near this 
 school there are twenty-three acres at Phalen Park 
 for playgrounds and here the children are out-of- 
 doors whenever it is possible. 
 
 Besides these children, there are others whose 
 minds are slow and who ought not to be in a reg- 
 ular school, because they can't learn quickly enough 
 to keep up with the class, and the class can't be 
 held back for them, so there is a special school in 
 Faribault for those who are called defective or 
 feeble-minded. 
 
 It seems queer that the newest state schools are 
 the high schools, which were not started until 1861, 
 but they grew very fast, and today there are more 
 than three hundred spread all over the State from 
 the north to the south. 
 
 Normal schools, where teachers learn to teach, 
 were started the year before the Civil War broke 
 out. The first one was started in i860 at Winona 
 and now we have four others, at Mankato, St. 
 Cloud, Moorhead, and Duluth. Most of our 
 teachers in all of our schools learned how to 
 teach at home, that is, in the home State. 
 
 When the first schools for children were started, 
 
Her Care for her Children 293 
 
 the people thought about a University too, and in 
 1 85 1 they asked the United States for two whole 
 townships for the University, and six years after- 
 ward they asked for four more. The State put up 
 a large university building which was empty for 
 eight years, except for a few private pupils, for the 
 Civil War broke out very soon and during the war 
 there were no students because everybody old 
 enough had gone to the front. 
 
 After the war was over they opened the Uni- 
 versity again. In 1867 there were thirty-one 
 pupils, none of them ready for college, though two 
 years later they had fourteen freshmen. Because 
 the war was so fresh in everybody's minds, they 
 planned to have all the students taught military 
 drill and that is the way we came to have the cadets 
 at the University. The first graduating class had 
 two members. That was in 1873. By 1900 there 
 were three thousand students in the University and 
 now there are about six thousand. 
 
 Very soon Minnesota realized that her people 
 were going to be farmers and so an Agricultural 
 School and College were started that they might 
 learn how to farm in the best and easiest way. 
 And this college has a great deal to do with the fact 
 that our farmers are better than most in the West. 
 
 Mr. John Pillsbury, whom you have met before 
 in our history, as governor, a great miller, and many 
 
294 Our Minnesota 
 
 other good things, is called the "Father of the 
 University" because for thirty-eight years, and 
 until he died in 1901, he seemed to live for the 
 University, and he did so much for it that it came 
 to be one of the first colleges of the country. 
 
 He left the great building which bears his name, 
 and on the campus, which is the University yard 
 and playground, is a great bronze statue of him in 
 memory of all he did for learning in our State. 
 
 Today there are sixteen schools at the University 
 and people may learn there how to be doctors, law- 
 yers, druggists and chemists; and more important 
 perhaps in our State, how to be farmers, miners, 
 engineers and electricians, for the State gives an 
 education to every boy or girl who cares enough to 
 go to Minneapolis and study for it. The teaching 
 there is free to all children of Minnesota, and more 
 than that, the University has been lately taken into 
 the homes of the people of the State by what is 
 called the ''University Extension," which gives 
 lectures and offers correspondence courses for 
 practical work all over the State. 
 
 There are many experimental farms in Minnesota, 
 and dairy stations, where people may learn what are 
 the best things to grow on any kind of soil, how to 
 feed their cattle, to make butter and cheese and to 
 get the most out of their farms. In this practical 
 way Minnesota is ahead of many older states. 
 
Her Care for her Children 295 
 
 The three great presidents of the University, 
 Dr. Folwell, who really started its work, Dr. 
 Northrup, who made it great, and Dr. Vincent, the 
 present president, who is trying to spread learning 
 into every nook and corner of Minnesota, are all 
 living and are all still trying in word and deed to 
 make the University helpful to everyone in 
 Minnesota. 
 
 In the last few years the people who have charge 
 of schools in the State, have realized that it is better 
 for us to learn how to use the things that we have 
 in Minnesota, than to learn the same sort of things 
 that they need in other places, which have been 
 settled so long that they have not room to farm, 
 to raise stock, or to mine. So in our schools we 
 are teaching more useful things all the time and 
 learning how to do well in school, what we have to 
 do as soon as school is over. We are learning that 
 what we read in books, ought to be just as useful 
 when the book is shut, as when the book is open. 
 That is one reason why every one of us ought to 
 know what there is in our own dear State to enjoy, 
 to use, and to develop so that in our hearts and in 
 our minds, as well as in our work, we may believe 
 in "Minnesota First." 
 
 In this way we are going to raise a crop of men 
 and women that is going to be better than all the 
 other crops that our fertile State can produce, 
 
296 Our Minnesota 
 
 because they are going to learn to use the State 
 and all its riches to the best purpose. 
 
 PROTECTION 
 
 When children are orphans, or their fathers and 
 mothers are not able to look after them, the State 
 acts as though it were father and mother giving 
 them a home and caring for them and bringing 
 them up, until they are able to take care of them- 
 selves and help to take care of others. This home 
 is at Owatonna and many children live there from 
 the time they are three years old until they are 
 fourteen. 
 
 The State cares for many people who are sick 
 and cures them when possible. Scattered over our 
 counties are camps for those who have tuber- 
 culosis, which is contagious and needs fresh air for 
 its cure, so the patients are taken to a camp where 
 their own families are not in danger of getting the 
 disease and where they may live out of doors most 
 of the time. 
 
 The people who are sick in their minds and 
 are not responsible for what they do, are looked 
 after in State hospitals or asylums at St. Peter, 
 Rochester, Fergus Falls, Red Wing, Anoka, Hast- 
 ings, and Willmar. 
 
Her Care for her Children 297 
 
 REFORM 
 
 When a boy or a girl does not behave and there 
 is danger that he will not become a good citizen, 
 unless he has special training, the State steps in and 
 gives this special training, sending the boys to Red 
 Wing, and the girls to Sauk Center, where they 
 are taught besides regular lessons, useful trades, and 
 where they learn self-respect so that they, too, may 
 become useful. 
 
 Many who never had a good start in life are here 
 given a chance to learn right from wrong, for most 
 people who break laws do so because they are 
 ignorant, not because they are bad. 
 
 Then there are two places where the State tries 
 to reform men and women who have broken the 
 laws, which have been made for us all. When 
 anyone between the ages of sixteen and thirty com- 
 mits a crime for the first time, he is sent to St. Cloud 
 for reform, and there he stays until the people in 
 authority think he may be trusted, learning all the 
 time something useful and interesting. 
 
 The people over thirty years and who have 
 committed more than one crime are sent to 
 prison at Stillwater. This prison was provided 
 for by the first territorial legislature in 1849 and 
 for many years had very few people in it but, 
 of course, as many more good people came, more 
 
298 Our Minnesota 
 
 who were not good came too; it has been neces- 
 sary from time to time to add to the prison 
 until in 1913 a new building was opened at 
 South Stillwater. The idea of this prison is to 
 make everybody feel that he has a chance in the 
 future. All the prisoners have plenty of light, 
 plenty of air, plenty of water and plenty of food, 
 for the people in charge believe that it is easier to 
 be good when you are clean and well fed, than when 
 you are dirty and hungry. Everybody in the 
 prison works all day long at a trade, most of them 
 in an immense twine factory, and all have a chance 
 to learn at a night school. There is a band com- 
 posed of prisoners and they have lectures and plays 
 and publish a paper. 
 
 The State spends much money on the prison, 
 because it hopes that in the future, after all that is 
 done for her people, we shall have fewer criminals, 
 for we shall all learn that when Minnesota does so 
 much for us, the least we can do to repay her is 
 to obey her laws. 
 
 SOLDIERS* HOME 
 
 On the banks of the Mississippi River near Minne- 
 haha Falls is a home for the people who have given 
 much to us and who are no longer able to take 
 care of themselves because they are frail and aged. 
 
Her Care for her Children 299 
 
 This is the Soldiers* Home where all the old 
 soldiers who fought in the Civil War or the Spanish 
 American War may find homes with rest and com- 
 fort so long as they live. Here the veterans spend 
 their days wandering up and down the beautiful 
 park, or around their camp fire in one of the build- 
 ings where they tell stories of the battles they fought 
 years ago. 
 
 We should all of us be very happy that we are 
 able to take care of the people who so nobly 
 defended us. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 The Treasures of the Earth 
 
 MINES 
 
 The first mining which was done in Minnesota 
 was by Le Sueur, to whom Louis XIV., the great 
 and powerful king of France, gave permission to 
 open all mines in his newly discovered country. 
 You remember he found near Mankato the blue 
 earth from which the river was named, and thinking 
 that he had discovered copper, with a great load 
 of this earth he sailed down to the mouth of the 
 Mississippi River in a felucca. This was the first 
 load of freight that ever went from Minnesota and 
 it had a long journey of twenty-three hundred miles 
 before it reached the Gulf. Before they left with 
 this venture after a great fortune, the French 
 "cached" their tools, and when it was found that 
 they had discovered nothing of value they never 
 came back. 
 
 Many people have tried since, to find just where 
 the first mine was opened, but although it is easy 
 
 300 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 301 
 
 enough to see the green earth and the blue earth 
 which the Indians used for paint, on the bank 
 of the river of the same name, no one has ever 
 found the tools which were left by the first miners, 
 nor the exact spot from which they took away 
 four thousand pounds of what they thought was 
 copper. 
 
 Isle Royale, which is a beautiful place off the 
 north shore of Lake Superior and only thirty miles 
 from the Minnesota shore, doesn't really belong to 
 our State, but to Michigan, which is eighty-seven 
 miles away, though we were once the same terri- 
 tory. Though our Indians never lived there, they 
 went there often, for we are quite sure that the 
 copper which they used was mined there, as over 
 a thousand pits and shafts were opened many years 
 before the White Man did any mining there. They 
 used to break the rocks with great hammers, which 
 had round stones for heads, and the copper freed 
 was almost pure instead of being mixed with other 
 things as most copper is. 
 
 Many years later several mines were opened on 
 this island and today we find along its one hundred 
 and fifty miles of shore the ruins of towns where 
 hundreds of people worked these copper mines. 
 Most of the bricks and all of the wood from the 
 houses and chimneys have been carried away by 
 campers, and today only the Finnish fishermen 
 
302 Our Minnesota 
 
 live there six months in the year and tourists for a 
 few weeks in the s\immer ; most of them not knowing 
 at all that the quiet shores were once inhabited by- 
 many people who hoped to make vast fortunes. So 
 nothing is left today of our earliest mining but cop- 
 per found among the Indian relics. 
 
 These mines were all given up because it cost too 
 much to take the ore which was of low grade to a 
 place where it could be smelted. The only thing 
 that was ever done with it was to send a huge piece 
 of copper to the Centennial Exposition in 1876^ 
 as an advertisement of the mines. 
 
 There was a gold excitement in Minnesota just 
 after the Civil War, for H. H. Eames found gold in 
 some of the rock in the northern part of the State. 
 A road seventy-five miles long was built from Du- 
 luth to Vermilion Lake, and the town of Winston 
 was started, but there wasn't enough gold to 
 amount to anything and ten years later only one 
 man was left in the place. Gold was found in small 
 quantities north of the Lake of the Woods too, 
 but there wasn't enough to pay to get it out, and 
 the real gold mines of Minnesota consist of her 
 forests, her wheat, and the other things which she 
 raises and which bring back a stream of gold 
 instead of sending it out. 
 
 Nicollet was sure that there were rich minerals 
 to be found here, but iron was not discovered in our 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 303 
 
 State until 1866 when it was located by Eames, the 
 State geologist. The first mines were located in 
 1 8 80 near Tower in the Vermilion Range (the French 
 name for the red jasper found here), and that mining 
 was done at this time was largely due to the efforts 
 of George Stone of Duluth, who for many years had 
 insisted that there was wealth in the north, and 
 had tried to get people interested in mining there. 
 He persuaded Charlemagne Tower, a rich Phila- 
 delphian, to invest money in his scheme and this 
 was the beginning of our great mining business. 
 
 Soon the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad con- 
 necting the mines with Two Harbors was built, 
 and in 1884 and 1886 the first ore was sent out from 
 Tower and Ely, then rough little villages on what 
 seemed the edge of nowhere. 
 
 The great iron deposits in the Mesabi Range, 
 which had been suspected for a long time, were 
 opened up in 1892 by the Merritt Brothers of Du- 
 luth, who have done much to develop our northern 
 counties. 
 
 Long before this, the Indians of the north had 
 insisted that there was iron in the northern 
 ranges. An Indian guide located a very rich vein 
 by taking some campers to the spot and proving 
 to his own satisfaction the deposit, by showing the 
 attraction of the earth for a willow twig in the 
 light of a full moon; and people traveling along 
 
304 Our Minnesota 
 
 the north shore of Lake Superior noticed that the 
 magnetism is great enough to unbalance their 
 watches. 
 
 The history of mining in our State reads like a 
 fairy story, for although it was begun only thirty 
 years ago, last year Minnesota mined two-thirds 
 of all the iron in the United States. Nowhere in 
 the world have so many towns sprung up suddenly, 
 as along the railroads which in the last ten years 
 have come into this district. Twenty years ago 
 the country was a wilderness, peopled by only a few 
 Indians, trappers and lumbermen. Today there 
 are eleven cities and dozens of little towns giving 
 work to hundreds of thousands of people. Virginia, 
 which was founded scarcely twenty years ago, is 
 now the fifth city in size in the State. Instead of 
 walking or going in on horseback to the mines, as 
 the prospectors had to do, you may go over the 
 road in any one of six palace trains a day, riding 
 in luxurious parlor or sleeping cars. 
 
 The iron in the Mesabi range is only fifty feet 
 or so from the surface, and in many places is of 
 such high grade that it is almost all pure iron. The 
 surface is "stripped,*' then the ore is loaded with 
 great steam shovels which scoop it from an open 
 pit and drop it into the cars which run right to 
 the mines. In some places power is obtained by 
 water and by electricity, very different mining from 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 305 
 
 the old way where the miners have to live under- 
 ground and never see the light of day excepting 
 for a few minutes in the morning and at evening. 
 
 The Mesabi mines which are the greatest in the 
 world form the ridge, which you remember, the 
 Indians used to call the Giant Range, as though to 
 foretell its future greatness. The State owns fifty 
 of these mines which were discovered on school 
 lands and so cannot be sold, but are leased instead, 
 and the schools get twenty-five cents a ton for all 
 the ore mined. 
 
 The last mines opened in Minnesota are in the 
 Cuyuna Range which runs through Aitkin and Crow 
 Wing counties. There is no iron on the surface, but 
 a party of explorers noticed that their compasses 
 acted strangely and sure enough, far down under 
 the rocks, they found the iron which attracted the 
 needle. These mines and those in the Vermilion 
 Range are worked by blasting out pits into which 
 shafts are sunk far below the ground, and the iron 
 instead of being pure is mixed with rock. 
 
 From the mines, the ore is run down to Two 
 Harbors or Duluth on Lake Superior and carried 
 directly to the greatest ore docks in the world, 
 where it is dumped into pockets. From these 
 pockets great chutes send it into the holds of the 
 huge steel vessels, big enough for a small town. 
 There are four hundred of these greatest freight 
 
 30 
 
3o6 Our Minnesota 
 
 boats in the world and each one carries thousands 
 of tons of ore to Cleveland, Toledo, and other lake 
 cities to be smelted. It is of course a waste not to 
 smelt and manufacture the iron at home and now 
 (191 6), an immense steel plant is running in Duluth. 
 It has cost millions of dollars to build and will 
 give work to thousands of people. 
 
 The life of a miner in these ** range towns'* 
 is very different from the usual frontier life, for 
 the labor is made easier by much machinery. 
 Many of the laborers own their own homes and they 
 have hospitals, theaters, good food and, above all, 
 very fine schools ; some of the best school buildings 
 in the State are in the mining district. 
 
 STONES 
 
 Besides the wonderful mines there are many 
 kinds of useful and beautiful stones in our Minne- 
 sota, as though Nature had said to herself: "When 
 the forests are gone my children will need something 
 to take the place of wood for their homes and busi- 
 ness, so I will tuck away these treasures for them 
 to find. '* And so she did, near enough to the 
 surface too, so they may be easily seen and taken 
 out. 
 
 All along the Minnesota River northeast to the 
 Lake of the Woods, and about Duluth are found 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 307 
 
 series of granite. The quarries at St. Cloud have 
 given us the gray stone of the State House founda- 
 tion, and many other buildings. At Sherburne and 
 Sauk Rapids we find a mixture of gray, red, and 
 white called Scotch granite; at Big Stone Lake, 
 the reddish gray of which the great Court House in 
 Minneapolis is built ; while from the Mesabi Range 
 came stone for the massive Auditorium Hotel in 
 Chicago. When we look at these buildings we 
 realize what people mean when they say as "en- 
 during as granite. " 
 
 There is much sandstone in the State too, and it 
 gives wonderful effects in its different colors. The 
 * ' white stone ' ' of Kasson is well known. That found 
 at Red Wing and Faribault is cream color, at 
 Kettle River, buff. There are many buildings of 
 sandstone all over the State. The first hotel in 
 Mendota was built of it, as are the piers of the 
 Fort Snelling bridge. 
 
 Limestone, which underlies a great part of the 
 State, is easy to quarry and was much used in early 
 days; for example, old buildings of Carleton College 
 at Northfield, and the schools at Faribault. It 
 seems to fit the landscape about it, in its dull grays 
 and yellows, and when it crumbles a little, looks as 
 though it had grown where it is, instead of being 
 put up by the hand of man. 
 
 The Kasota stone is dolomite, a sort of limestone 
 
3o8 Our Minnesota 
 
 of yellowish-pink, which when polished looks almost 
 like onyx. 
 
 Most wonderful of all these stones is the "red 
 jasper" as it is called; when in the rough, a 
 dull pink or red with little streaks or waves in it, 
 and when polished as beautiful as any marble. 
 This stone is mined at Luverne, New Ulm, and 
 near the city of Pipestone. 
 
 Much has been written of our '' Pipestone,** for 
 it is found nowhere else in the world, and all of the 
 early travelers were much impressed by it, George 
 Catlin, the artist, coming to Minnesota on purpose 
 to see it. His description of his visit in the early 
 days is very interesting: "For many miles we had 
 the Coteau des Prairies in view in the distance be- 
 fore us, which looked like a blue cloud settling down 
 in the horizon . . . and from the base of this 
 mound to its top there was not a tree or bush to be 
 seen in any direction and the ground everywhere 
 was covered with a green turf of grass about five 
 or six inches high ... on the very top of this 
 mound or ridge we found the far-famed quarries 
 or fountain of the Red Pipe, which is truly an 
 anomaly in nature. 
 
 " The principal and most striking feature of this 
 place is the perpendicular wall of cross-grained, 
 compact quartz of twenty-five and thirty feet in 
 elevation, running nearly north and south, with its 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 309 
 
 face to the west, showing a front of nearly two miles 
 in length, when it disappears at both ends by run- 
 ning under the prairie. At the base of this wall 
 there is a level prairie, in any and all parts of which 
 the Indians procure sufficient redstone for their 
 pipes, by digging through the soil and several 
 layers of redstone to the depth of four or five feet. 
 From the very numerous marks of ancient and 
 modem diggings, it would appear that this place 
 has been for many centuries resorted to for the 
 redstone, and from the great number of graves and 
 remains in its vicinity, it would seem that the 
 Indian tribes have long held this place in high 
 superstitious estimation, and also that it has been 
 the resort of different tribes who have made their 
 regular pilgrimages here to renew their pipes." 
 
 The stone you remember was "wakan," or 
 sacred to the Indians who believed that it was the 
 gift of the Thunder Bird. Calumets made from 
 this quarry have been found as far south as Georgia, 
 and the New York Museum has a very old pipe 
 which was found among the Senecas who probably 
 traded it with the Sioux. 
 
 The Indians called it "eyenskah" but when Mr. 
 Catlin took a piece east with him to have it exam- 
 ined, the name "catlinite" was given it, though 
 we usually speak of it as pipestone. When the 
 great Washington monument was built, Minnesota 
 
310 Our Minnesota 
 
 sent a slab of this stone to represent our State 
 in the shaft. 
 
 The Coteau des Prairies in Pipestone County 
 is a truly wonderful place and has been made 
 famous by Longfellow. 
 
 "On the Mountains of the Prairie, 
 On the great Red Pipestone Quarry, 
 Gitche Manito, the Mighty, 
 He the Master of Life, descending. 
 On the red crags of the quarry 
 Stood erect, and called the nations, 
 Called the tribes of men together. 
 From the red stone of the quarry 
 With his hands he broke a fragment 
 Moulded it into a pipe head , 
 Shaped and fashioned it with figures. " 
 
 Clay, too, is found in many parts of our State. 
 One of the greatest pottery factories in the United 
 States is at Red Wing, and at Mankato, cement, 
 tiles, and fire brick are made. There are slate 
 beds on the St. Louis River, and mineral paint 
 near Redwood Falls. 
 
 Along the shores of Lake Superior besides the 
 great corundum mines near Grand Marais there 
 are many wonderful stones which are used for 
 ornaments. Among these are the thomsonites, 
 
The Treasures of the Earth 311 
 
 queer mottled pink and green, and many kinds of 
 agate, the most beautiful of all perhaps a trans- 
 parent blue which takes a wonderful polish and 
 looks like sapphire, and amethyst quartz shading 
 from purple to violet. 
 
 There are in the rotunda of the new State House 
 eight great pillars twenty-four feet high, polished, 
 round, wonderful; four from Ortonville, cloudy, 
 mysterious-looking, almost like reddish smoke 
 turned to stone; four from Rockville, near St. 
 Cloud, gray, stately, impressive; each cut from a 
 single stone, truly symbols of the treasures which 
 lie beneath the surface of Minnesota. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Some Legacies 
 
 landmarks 
 
 As WQ look up and down our State today we 
 notice here and there things which remind us 
 of the early settlers and pioneers, who made it 
 easier for us to have the comforts and privileges 
 which are ours now, because they went through the 
 hardships of frontier life. 
 
 Away up on our northern boundary, where the 
 old trading post used to be, there is a part of the 
 old landing, and the French names, Fond du Lac, 
 Lac qui Parle and Traverse des Sioux remind us of 
 the fur trading of early days. At the last place, 
 besides the house where Flandrau lived at the time 
 of the Sioux massacre, is a great boulder, which the 
 St. Peter Chapter of Daughters of the American 
 Revolution have dedicated and inscribed, in 
 memory of the Treaty of 1851. 
 
 Wherever you find, here and there, along the 
 banks of the rivers in Minnesota, wide open spaces 
 
 312 
 
Henry Hastings Sibley 
 
 (From the E. A. Bromley Collection) 
 
 Sibley House. Built in 1835 
 
 (By courtesy of F. Bowen) 
 
Some Legacies 313 
 
 reaching up to the ridges, you may be sure that they 
 once were slides for logs, although you may not see 
 a sign of a pine tree or anything else reminding you 
 of early lumber camps; while at Marine, the big 
 empty stores in the midst of the charming quiet 
 little town, and on the heights the great houses of 
 Judd and Orange Walker, speak of the lumber 
 interests which once centered there. 
 
 On Lake St. Croix just above Stillwater, the forest 
 of piles, standing high out of the water, is all that is 
 left of the great boom, and the desolate places on 
 the hills of Stillwater are silent speakers of the 
 vanished homes of the old lumber kings. 
 
 In Blue Earth County, stand several of the 
 windmills, left in the march of progress from the 
 time when wheat was ground by the wind. 
 
 The names of the lakes about Minneapolis, were 
 many of them given by the people who lived first 
 at Fort Snelling. They took little pleasure trips 
 in their birch-bark canoes, exploring this wonderful 
 unknown land and naming the new discoveries they 
 made, calling Lake Harriet after Mrs. Leavenworth, 
 the wife of the first commander. At that time 
 Calhoun was Secretary of War, and also the 
 superior officer of all the army, so his name was 
 naturally given to one of the lakes, on the shore of 
 which is the tablet marking the spot where the 
 Pond brothers had their first mission for the 
 
314 Our Minnesota 
 
 Indians. Minnetonka, which means "big water," 
 was named by Governor Ramsey but of course 
 much later than the others. 
 
 What must have been the feelings of the pleasure 
 parties, when they left their canoes and following up 
 a little creek which flows into the river about two 
 miles above the Fort saw for the first time that 
 wonderful waterfall, which is now famed all over 
 the country! 
 
 Minnehaha was first called Little Falls, or 
 Brown's Falls, some people think for our friend 
 Joseph Brown, who with young Snelling may have 
 gone there on one of his exploring trips. But he 
 was only a drummer boy fourteen years old, and 
 at this time, the head of the army was Jacob Brown, 
 who seems much more likely to be the one for 
 whom the falls were named. We do not know what 
 white man first saw their beauty, nor just when the 
 name by which we know the falls was given, for the 
 Indians who knew the place well called all their falls 
 *'haha "which means laughing, and often "minne- 
 haha" or laughing water. At one time this name 
 was given to St. Anthony Falls and perhaps that 
 was why these falls were called "little haha. '* 
 In 1855 when Senator Charles Sumner visited our 
 State, he was taken by Governor Ramsey on a trip 
 to see the falls, and was so impressed that he told 
 Longfellow about their beauty and wonderful 
 
Some Legacies 315 
 
 setting. Longfellow wrote his Hiawatha after this 
 description, although he never saw the falls himself. 
 This poem made Minnesota, which was then not 
 well known, famous throughout the world and is 
 remarkable for the picture it gives of the Indian, 
 as well as for the story which we all love. 
 
 Four years before this, in 1851, Harper Brothers 
 sent Mr.Hesler, who had a picture gallery in Galena, 
 Illinois, up north to take a picture of the Missis- 
 sippi River. There were no photographs at that 
 time, but they took instead sun pictures, among 
 them one of Little Falls, which was given to a 
 relative of Longfellow who perhaps showed it to 
 him. Anyway the poem came out the very year 
 that Sumner told Longfellow the story and the 
 falls have been known since by the name, Minne- 
 haha, 
 
 *' the moonlight, starlight, firelight, 
 Brought the sunlight of his people, Minnehaha, 
 laughing water." 
 
 Today the banks on both sides of the little stream 
 which flows from Harriet and Calhoun are broad 
 walks. The stream is bridged, so we may get all 
 views of the lovely fall, the street cars whiz by every 
 few minutes, and thousands of visitors every day 
 throng the park on both sides of the stream. The 
 ravine is lined with the cages of many animals 
 
3i6 Our Minnesota 
 
 that once roamed wild over these very spots, and 
 in the railed-in spaces of many wild acres the deer 
 wander and try to hide from the curious; while the 
 buffaloes, once lords of the vast prairie, paw the 
 earth and gaze sullenly through the bars; but 
 the glen is still beautiful, the birds still sing and the 
 water still laughs on its way, reminding us of early 
 days and giving pleasure to thousands of people. 
 
 Below Pike Island, underneath the great group 
 of buildings belonging to the City and County 
 Hospital in St. Paul, on the river's edge, is 
 Fountain Cave near which was the home of the 
 first dweller in the capital city, who was forced 
 off the reservation grounds and sold his second 
 claim for ten dollars. Still farther down the 
 river and under Dayton's Bluff is the famous 
 Carver's Cave, which was lost for years and 
 only in 191 5 discovered again, after a search of 
 months. No one may go inside now, for it is 
 dangerous on account of a lake which reaches back 
 to an unknown distance, the depths of which are 
 black darkness and where the fish are all blind. 
 
 Of the three forts established in Minnesota, only 
 one is still in use by the government. At Fort 
 Ripley the last old block house was burned in 1882 
 and at Fort Ridgely there is but one building stand- 
 ing of those which protected the refugees in the 
 great massacre. 
 
Some Legacies 317 
 
 At Fort Snelling the outline of the fort made by 
 Nature is plain, but of the old stronghold only two 
 buildings are left, and the picturesque wall has all 
 been taken down. The old guard house was saved 
 from destruction a few years ago, though unfor- 
 tunately it has been somewhat changed by those in 
 command, who didn't realize how dear it is to the 
 people of Minnesota. The round building is still 
 loop-holed and the date 1820, cut in a slab of faced 
 stone, reminds us of the earliest building in this 
 part of the country. On the edge of the bluff 
 toward the Minnesota River still stands the lime- 
 stone bastion, whose timbers were whip-sawed by 
 the soldiers who were carpenters and stone masons 
 as well as defenders, for they did all the building 
 of the Fort as well as chopping the trees and quarry- 
 ing the stone from which it was built. Opposite 
 the Fort on the Mississippi side is the road which 
 led down to the ferry and the landing, used until 
 the first bridge was built across the river, while 
 on the Minnesota River the ferry still runs as in the 
 old days. 
 
 At the sleepy little town of Mendota is the best 
 preserved relic of old trading days as well as of the 
 early settlers in this part of the world — the old 
 Sibley mansion. It was built in 1835 of the lime- 
 stone which crops out all about it, the first stone 
 house, you remember, in the territory. It was 
 
3i8 Our Minnesota 
 
 used by Mr. Sibley of the American Fur Company 
 and was known as the Mendota Factory. The 
 Indians built it and the plaster was made from 
 clay and mud from the near-by river bank. They 
 had no lath so made rope of twisted grass and rushes 
 to hold the plaster together, and the plaster was 
 mixed with twigs and small sticks. The wood in 
 the house was all hewn by hand and instead of nails 
 was put together with wooden pegs; the stone walls 
 are two feet thick as though it were a fort. The 
 top story has a stairway outside and in winter, as 
 many as thirty Indians sometimes crawled up and 
 slept there, for they and General Sibley were 
 always great friends and he was loved and trusted 
 by all the Indians as few other traders were. This 
 house saw more history made inside its walls than 
 any other in Minnesota. Most of the business of 
 forming the territory was done here before our first 
 governor came. General Sibley lived in this house 
 until 1862, when it was sold to the parish of Men- 
 dota and used as a mission school. Later it was 
 deserted for many years and tramps used it for a 
 lodging place, chopping up the floors and a great 
 deal of the woodwork for firewood. 
 
 The Daughters of the American Revolution of 
 Minnesota asked Archbishop Ireland to give the 
 Sibley House to them so they might repair it and 
 preserve it as a relic of early days, and he and the 
 
Some Legacies 319 
 
 parish of Mendota generously did so. It has been 
 restored to almost its early dignit}^ a great deal of 
 the old furniture has been brought back to the house, 
 and the whole is a museum of Minnesota relics. 
 
 The old military road from Fort Snelling to Point 
 Douglas is still used and is called by its early name 
 for part of its distance. It goes from the ferry 
 landing on the Mississippi River along Seventh 
 Street, which used to be Fort Road in St. Paul, 
 past Kaposia, and Battle Coulee, the scene of a 
 great battle between the Sioux and the Chippewas, 
 through part of Newport township, and Cottage 
 Grove to Point Douglas. 
 
 In Minnehaha Park stands the house of John 
 Stevens, the first one built in Minneapolis and 
 moved here from the place where it stood on the 
 river, near the suspension bridge. It was hauled 
 from its old site by the school children of Minne- 
 apolis, with great ceremony, and put up in its 
 present place, that the children of the future 
 might see the seed from which the city grew. 
 This little house saw much of the early law-making 
 planned and it was visited by many famous people. 
 Here the first singing school was held and the first 
 meeting of the Agricultural Society. 
 
 There is nothing that we may see of the tiny 
 chapel of St. Paul, unfortunately; the oldest build- 
 ing in the Capital City is the little brick one 
 
320 Our Minnesota 
 
 on Rice Park now used as a garage. Its steeple is 
 gone and nothing is left to tell us that it was once 
 the First Methodist Church excepting that the 
 windows are the same as when it was built for a place 
 of worship. It was built in 1849 of the first brick 
 made in St. Paul at a yard on Summit Avenue. 
 
 There are many reminders of the Sioux mas- 
 sacre throughout the State. At Acton, in Meeker 
 County, a monument was put up by the citizens in 
 memory of those who were so cruelly murdered, and 
 the State erected one near Birch Coulee. On the 
 twenty-eighth anniversary of the siege of New Ulm, 
 the bronze shaft in memory of its defenders was 
 dedicated. On one side of this is a relief of Colonel 
 Flandrau, the defender of New Ulm, and it is one of 
 the things to remember that he, then Judge Flan- 
 drau, and Governor Ramsey were both present on 
 that day. In the park at Lake Shetek in Murray 
 County is a little log house which is a relic of the 
 massacre, and on the site of Camp Release on the 
 thirty-second anniversary of the Sioux surrender, 
 the State of Minnesota put up a monument. 
 
 Minnesota has dedicated monuments to the 
 memory of our heroes in the Civil War on the 
 battle-fields of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, 
 Chickamauga and Mission Ridge. In our own 
 State House in the niches prepared for them, 
 under the dome, are the great bronze statues 
 
Some Legacies 321 
 
 of General Sanborn, General Shields, Colonel 
 Colvill, and Colonel Wilkin ; while in the glass cases 
 below rest the tattered battle-flags. 
 
 These are all reminders of that great struggle, 
 but the best one is the Union flag, which ought to 
 make us resolve every time we see it "that these 
 dead shall not have died in vain." 
 
 GREAT MEN 
 
 Many of those called "forty-niners," who came 
 here in that year, were state builders as well as 
 state protectors, and we have seen some of them 
 in the work in which they became prominent. 
 
 The Reverend E. D. Neill was among these. 
 He was one of the first ministers in the territory; 
 chaplain of the first Minnesota regiment; first 
 Chancellor of the State University; first historian 
 of the State; and secretary to President Lincoln. 
 He was a great scholar and a friend to everything 
 good which came up in his lifetime, which was 
 long. 
 
 Joseph Wheelock, who came here a boy of nine- 
 teen, was later editor of the Pioneer Press in St. 
 Paul and for forty years made, and kept it, a news- 
 paper which was widely known and of great influ- 
 ence throughout the United States. 
 
 We should remember Charlotte Ouisconsin, the 
 ax 
 
322 Our Minnesota 
 
 daughter of Lieutenant Clark, who was born at 
 Prairie du Chien where the troops camped on their 
 way to Fort Snelling, the first white child in this 
 region. She lived at the Fort several years. Later 
 she was married to Horatio Van Cleve, who became 
 the colonel of the famous Second Minnesota in the 
 Civil War, and lived in Minneapolis until she was 
 eighty-eight years old, a woman of wide influence 
 and great charity. 
 
 In 1853, came Charles Eugene Flandrau, — ^Indian 
 agent and lawyer, the hero of the Sioux Massacre, 
 and judge of the State Supreme Court; whom the 
 Indians called " ahtay, " meaning father, and whom 
 the pioneers called the "plumed knight of early 
 days. " 
 
 Bishop Whipple, the apostle to the Indians, came 
 to the State in 1859 when there were more than 
 seventeen thousand Red Men here, most of them 
 heathen. He taught them, preached to them, 
 pleaded their cause in this country and in Europe, 
 and made them and their needs well known all over 
 the world. The Indians never had a better nor 
 truer friend and they called him " Straight Tongue,'* 
 because they knew that they could always depend 
 on him. He started church schools in Faribault, 
 where he lived for many years, and until he was an 
 aged man carried on his church and mission work, 
 a well-known figure all over the State. 
 
Some Legacies 323 
 
 Cushman K. Davis, whose work was broader than 
 even the State of Minnesota, was our youngest 
 governor, elected in 1873 when he was thirty-five 
 years old. He later became a leader in the United 
 States Senate and the head of the Foreign Relations 
 Committee, the most important one in the Senate, 
 especially in time of war; helped to make the treaty 
 which ended the war with Spain in 1898 and had 
 much to do with our getting the Hawaiian Islands. 
 Davis was a great Shakespeare scholar and would 
 have been a famous literary man if he had not been 
 a statesman. 
 
 Bom in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1838, John Ireland 
 came to Minnesota at the age of fourteen years and 
 later studied for the priesthood in France. He was 
 chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota and early became 
 well known in both church and state. He has 
 done more than anyone else for the temperance 
 cause in Minnesota, and perhaps as much as anyone 
 in years gone by, to urge immigrants to come here. 
 He was made Archbishop of St. Paul in 1888, and 
 is the patriarch priest of the Northwest. 
 
 Bom in the same year as Archbishop Ireland, 
 in the wilds of Canada, James J. Hill came to St. 
 Paul in 1856. At eighteen he was shipping clerk 
 for J. W. Bass & Company. At thirty-three he 
 went into partnership with Kittson as a trader. At 
 the age of forty he was a railroad president. The 
 
324 Our Minnesota 
 
 builder of the Great Northern Railway, his work 
 extends far beyond the State of Minnesota for he 
 " tapped" the wheat district and the farming lands 
 over all the Northwest. He did more than any 
 one man in the State for agriculture and saw 
 Minnesota first in wheat and many other things, 
 remembering the days when cranberries were the 
 only crop we sold. He died in 191 6. 
 
 John A. Johnson, the second Democrat that the 
 State elected after Governor Sibley, and the first 
 governor who was a native of Minnesota, was born 
 in St. Peter in 1861. He died in office in 1909, 
 and the State honored him and remembers him, as 
 the statue at the entrance of the State House 
 proves. It would be well if every Minnesota boy 
 and girl took to heart his advice when he became 
 governor : 
 
 "Let us strive to attain the highest ideals, and 
 reward the people who have reposed special con- 
 fidence in us, by honest effort which will make us 
 worthy of the honors conferred upon us. " 
 
 The list of our score of governors is a list of 
 honor, yet none has surpassed the first one who 
 came to Minnesota, Alexander Ramsey. Coming 
 in 1849, when he was only thirty-four years old, he 
 has been so much a part of the State that it is 
 impossible to think of one without the other, for the 
 State and the man grew together. He always 
 
Some Legacies 325 
 
 insisted that one of the first things which the 
 legislature should look after was the education of 
 the future and did much more than anyone else, 
 to see that our immense school lands were not 
 used for anything but the good of the schools. He 
 carried through the Indian treaties and w&.s our 
 great War Governor. He acted with the quickness 
 that was absolutely necessary at the time of the 
 awful massacre, choosing to lead the troops, because 
 he was the best man for the work, the man who 
 was always against him in politics. 
 
 He was our Senator twice and afterward Secretary 
 of War for President Hayes. He lived to see the 
 new century well started on its way and the future 
 of the State assured, for we did not lose him until 
 1903. His name was given to the county where 
 the capital is, as well as to one of our most beautiful 
 parks. It is impossible to think of any one thing 
 or any ten things which are most important that he 
 did not have something to do with, for he had some- 
 thing to do with everything that was important. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 At the very first meeting of the Territorial Legis- 
 lature in the old Central House a body was formed 
 which was very important to us. Most of the men 
 in Minnesota at that time were young, and were 
 looking forward to a long life. They had not 
 
326 Our Minnesota 
 
 proved as yet that this was a good place for a home, 
 but they showed that they had come here to stay 
 and that they expected a great State in the future. 
 
 They decided to tax themselves out of their slen- 
 der means, to establish the Minnesota Historical 
 Society, to collect and keep everything, which in 
 the future might help us to know the history of 
 our State. 
 
 From that day until now, the Society has col- 
 lected papers, reports, pictures, newspapers, relics, 
 everything and anything, really useful in the history 
 of Minnesota. The papers, which have been writ- 
 ten by the members, and the diaries, letters, and 
 newspapers of early days make the only beginnings 
 for the history which we have today. Reverend E. 
 D. Neill gave the first address in 1850, and in 1852 
 the society helped to publish the Dakota Dictionary. 
 
 The next year plans were made for a building 
 and the cornerstone was laid across the street from 
 the State House in the Capital City. There was a 
 grand procession and speech making but that is as 
 far as the building ever went until now (19 16) when 
 the handsome and fitting home near the new State 
 House is at last nearing completion. Up to this 
 time the Historical Society has always had a place 
 in the State House, where anyone, who is inter- 
 ested, may use the library or see the museum. 
 
 Our Historical Society is noted throughout the 
 
Some Legacies 327 
 
 United States for Its collection of newspapers, own- 
 ing a copy of almost every one that has ever been 
 published in Minnesota. It has a picture gallery, 
 with portraits of our State builders, and views of 
 noted places at various times in our history. The 
 museum is most interesting, and anyone who has 
 not seen it should visit it whenever it is possible. 
 Among the things that would interest you are : An 
 ancient Ojibway canoe, a wonderful collection of 
 arrowheads and other tools and weapons used by 
 the Indians, as well as the contents of the Indian 
 mounds, which have been opened. 
 
 From the mounds there are a great many skulls 
 and bones of Indians: stone hammers and arrow- 
 heads and many curious articles made of pipestone. 
 Some of the pipes are of unusual shapes and carved 
 and scratched with strange designs. 
 
 One of the rarest Indian relics is a hunting bag 
 made by the wife of Alexander Faribault. It is 
 about fifteen inches long and twelve inches wide, 
 most beautifully embroidered with beads and por- 
 cupine quills, and trimmed with red down, which 
 the Indians considered sacred. This down, which 
 was dyed with native berries, is as bright as though 
 it were new. 
 
 High on a shelf is a wooden box divided into 
 twenty pigeonholes, the first postoffice of the settle- 
 ment of St. Paul. 
 
328 Our Minnesota 
 
 -The first printing press which was ever brought to 
 the Territory is in the room where the newspapers 
 are kept on file, and here too is the first paper that 
 was ever printed in Minnesota. 
 
 There are two historic bells here, one which first 
 hung on a steamboat on the Mississippi River was 
 bought in 1848 for the school in Stillwater, the first 
 steeple bell in the Territory. The other is a hand 
 bell which was used in the Jackson house in 1842. 
 The Jackson house at Pig's Eye was made up of two 
 log buildings, each with a room below and a room 
 above and connected by a balcony. The dining- 
 room was downstairs in one house and over it the 
 family lived. In the other house the kitchen was 
 below and the boarders slept above. When Mrs. 
 Jackson rang this hand bell the town came to 
 dinner. 
 
 The men who made the State in early days and 
 who made it great, have written much of the history 
 in which they had so large a part, and have always 
 been interested in carrying forward the work of the 
 Historical Society which means more and more as 
 time goes on. 
 
 The old settlers and pioneers are fast passing 
 away, and soon no one will be left who remembers 
 the events of early Minnesota, so we should be 
 thankful that we have so much that is valuable in 
 this library and museum. 
 
Some Legacies 329 
 
 This is the University song, and it is so fine that 
 we all ought to learn it and sing it, on what the 
 University calls "The State Wide Campus," 
 which reaches from the North to the South, from 
 the East to the West, of Minnesota, and belongs to 
 all of us. 
 
mAIL! UINin&SOTA. 
 
 If aale bsr T. B. Rickardi 
 
 ^ I 
 
 ' S-=-*-^r — h r r 
 
 It 
 
 Hail to thee our col - lege 
 
 Min • ne - so - ta hail to thee I 
 
 £ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^^^i 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ t;- 
 
 fe;^ 
 
 -/--^^-^ 
 
 =3= 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 m 
 
 dear I 
 
 Thy light shall e - ver be 
 
 -I- 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^.:^: 
 
 dt 
 
 i 
 
 F^ 
 
 3|=* 
 
 ti: 
 
 Si: 
 
 »r=^ 
 
 ==!= 
 
 q^ 
 
 fe 
 
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 bea • con bright and 
 
 clear. 
 
 I I I 
 Thy sons and daugh-ters 
 
 at- 
 
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 It 
 
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 I.I . _ -^- -^ -^~ -t"^ 4^ •+— I I "5- 
 
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 -guar3'thy fame and adore thy name; Thou shall be their Norihera Star. 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 330 
 
Some Legacies 331 
 
 HAIL! MINNSSOTA. 
 
 1. 
 
 Minnesota, hail to thee. 
 
 Hail to thee our college dear; 
 Thy light shall ever be 
 
 A beacon bright and clear; 
 Thy sons and daughters true 
 
 Will proclaim thee near and far; 
 They will guard thy fame 
 
 And adore thy name; 
 Thou Shalt be their Northern Star. 
 
 — Truman Rickard, U. M. *04. 
 
 2. 
 
 Like the stream that bends to sea 
 
 Like the pine that seeks the blue; 
 Minnesota, still for thee 
 
 Thy sons are strong and true. 
 From their woods and waters fair; 
 
 From their prairies waving far. 
 At thy call they throng 
 
 With their shout and song 
 Hailing thee their Northern Star. 
 
 — Arthur Upson, U. M. *05- 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 Minnesota, the Star of the North 
 
 TODAY 
 
 The last few years of our history have been a 
 story of steady progress and as we look back to the 
 beginnings in Minnesota we see great changes 
 which the years have brought. The population has 
 increased from a handful of French, whom the In- 
 dians called Wa-she-cha or "White Man" to a hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand in 1857, to a little more than 
 a million and a half in 1900, until in 1 910 it was two 
 million seventy-five thousand seven hundred and 
 eight, made up of many nationalities. As we 
 said, the first people who came here were French, 
 many of whom married Indians, and their descend- 
 ants we find here and there throughout the State. 
 They are few in number but the French influence is 
 still shown in the names of places and in our State 
 motto. Many early settlers and pioneers came 
 from Wisconsin, Maine, other New England States, 
 Canada, and many were children of Ohio pioneers. 
 
 332 
 
state Capitol, St. Paul, Minnesota's State House 
 
 (By courtesy of the Secretary of State of Minnesota) 
 
The Star of the North 333 
 
 It is interesting to us to see what elements went 
 into the Minnesotan. Before i85o~the Scotch and 
 the Swiss made up a fairly good part of the popula- 
 tion. By the census of 1850 there were from two 
 to eighty-six of French, Swiss, Dutch, Swedes, Rus- 
 sians, Welsh, Scotch, Norwegians, Canadians, and 
 English. There was one each of Austrian, Belgian, 
 Dane, Italian, Spanish, and Prussian. There were 
 two hundred and seventy-one Irish and one hundred 
 and forty-one Germans. The Indians called the 
 Germans ea-scha-che, which means "bad talkers," 
 named of course because they were used to the 
 smooth-tongued French. 
 
 Today there are more people in Minnesota from 
 the Scandinavian peninsula than from any other 
 place, for thirty-six per cent, of all Minnesotans 
 are from the Scandinavian countries, the people 
 from Germany coming next with twenty-six per 
 cent. In 1850, Fredrika Bremer, the great Swedish 
 writer, visited Minneapolis, the forerunner of the 
 many to come later and now there are more Scan- 
 dinavians in that city than in any other in America, 
 in fact excepting in Stockholm, more than in any 
 city in the world. 
 
 Colonel Hans Mattson, a Swede, who visited 
 Europe, especially Germany, Sweden, and Norway 
 as agent for the railroad companies, induced many 
 immigrants to come here. In 1869, Congress was 
 
334 Our Minnesota 
 
 asked to send a minister to represent us in Sweden, 
 and General Andrews of St. Paul was our first 
 representative there. Many people who have done 
 much for the State came from the Scandinavian 
 countries. John Lind, who was governor and re- 
 presentative of the President in Mexico during the 
 late trouble, as well as President of the State Board 
 of Regents, was born in Sweden. Knute Nelson 
 who has been one of our Senators for twenty-one 
 years was also born in Sweden, and Governor 
 John A. Johnson, although born in Minnesota, 
 was of Swedish parentage. 
 
 The Scandinavians when they come to this 
 country always come for homes and to settle 
 down and be citizens, and no better people for 
 citizenship could come, because they so easily and 
 quickly are Americans. 
 
 Quite lately a number of Finns and Russians 
 have come to Minnesota, and since the mines have 
 been opened in the Vermilion and Mesabi districts 
 many people from southern Europe have come to 
 our State, among them Poles, Hungarians, Monte- 
 negrins, Greeks, and Italians. In some of the 
 range towns the people speak seventeen different 
 languages. 
 
 The schools and the common interests of home, 
 will soon make us all realize that we are now one 
 people. In a few years we shall all speak English, 
 
The Star of the North 335 
 
 and instead of anything European we shall be 
 Minnesotans and Americans. 
 
 We have seen Minnesota grow from four counties, 
 in 1849, the oldest and smallest Ramsey, until today 
 we have eighty-six, of which St. Louis County in 
 the north, is the largest. The newest ones are 
 Clear Water, which was cut off from Beltrami; 
 Koochiching, made from a part of Itasca; and Pen- 
 nington, which used to be part of Red Lake. 
 
 The southern counties are the best populated in 
 the State, which is natural as they are the oldest. 
 Those along the Red River are growing, but in the 
 north, where the iron mines are, the people are 
 flocking so fast that it almost seems as though the 
 towns grow up in a single night. 
 
 It is not quite a century since the first permanent 
 settlement took the place of the lodges of the 
 Indians, which were moved with the seasons, and 
 today the whole State is dotted with cities and 
 towns which change only to become larger. There 
 are now in Minnesota nineteen cities which have 
 more than five thousand people each. Minneapolis 
 the largest, has three hundred and one thousand 
 four hundred and eight, St. Paul two hundred 
 and fourteen thousand seven hundred and forty- 
 four, and Duluth seventy-eight thousand four 
 hundred and forty-six. The fifth city in size is 
 Virginia, in St. Louis County, with more than ten 
 
33^ Our Minnesota 
 
 thousand people, where only thirty years ago the 
 country was a wilderness. 
 
 In early days, the only money which came here 
 was paid to the Indians by the United States, while 
 now there are in the State more than three hundred 
 and thirty national banks. 
 
 You remember that the mail used to be carried 
 by Indian runners, who brought it to a few outlying 
 districts once in a while. Now mail comes to all 
 our settlements at least once a day, and there are 
 in Minnesota one thousand, three hundred and 
 twenty-three post offices. 
 
 There were two newspapers started in the terri- 
 tory in 1849. Today there are six hundred and 
 thirty-four in the State. 
 
 [_We have watched this region grow from a wild 
 country peopled only with savages, who had no 
 ideas of developing the gifts which generous nature 
 has given us so bountifully, to a centre of trade. 
 First, the fur trade which gave way to lumbering, 
 with the mills naturally following in its wake. 
 Today the greatest flour mills in the world are 
 grinding away the grain which covers what was a 
 short time ago thousands of acres of waste land. 
 
 In 1850, the only crop sent out of the State was a 
 few hundred barrels of cranberries, while in 191 5 
 we raised more than one hundred and thirty-three 
 millions of bushels of oats, and seventy-three 
 
The Star of the North 337 
 
 million, nine hundred thousand bushels of wheat, 
 besides our other crops. 
 
 The great iron mines, which were unknown 
 thirty years ago, now give the State in taxes one- 
 fifth of all it needs for its expenses, and send iron 
 all over the world. The great smelting plant in 
 Duluth now supplies us with steel and thousands 
 of people with work, while paper mills and oil mills 
 are immense industries. 
 
 We have seen the people begin to raise stock and 
 cattle "on a thousand hills," and now the stock 
 raising has made us a great manufacturing State, for 
 packing plants naturally come where the animals 
 are. Of course trade in leather and hides would cen- 
 ter in Minnesota, and the manufacturing of boots 
 and shoes, which is one of our great industries. 
 
 There are over one hundred thousand kinds of 
 things made in Minnesota, and among them all we 
 should remember to put bread and butter first, 
 for we produce each year enough to give every 
 person in the United States almost a bushel of 
 wheat and a pound of butter, to say nothing of a 
 piece of cheese. 
 
 We have seen the canoe and dog sledge pass 
 away and a network of railroads cover the State, 
 and now the problem of good roads is before us. 
 With the coming of the automobile and rural free 
 delivery we should have roads which will make it 
 
338 Our Minnesota 
 
 easy for everyone to get over the ground more 
 quickly and easily. Many people in the State are 
 interested in this problem and before long we hope 
 that Minnesota will be among the states with good 
 roads instead of being far behind in this respect. 
 
 AND TOMORROW 
 
 We are beginning to realize as Minnesota changes 
 from a state of wild nature, to a center of civiliza- 
 tion, that we ought to keep as much of "Minne- 
 sota, sky-ey water" as possible. 
 
 We have talked much of the beauty of our State, 
 though none too much. One of the great gifts 
 from those who thought of your future are the 
 regions set aside for keeping trees and wild animals 
 as nearly as possible in their native state. Almost 
 all of our cities and towns have spaces for breathing 
 places, for beauty spots, and for playgrounds be- 
 longing to everybody in the town ; and the State 
 for our pleasure has made four parks, which are 
 most unusual in their scenery. 
 
 For years J. V. Brower of St. Cloud worked 
 long and perseveringly to get the head waters of 
 the Mississippi River set aside, so that the forests 
 which were being cut off, might be kept and the 
 place preserved, for it is most interesting and 
 will be to future generations to see the source of 
 the river. 
 
The Star of the North 339 
 
 At last 1111891, the State gave for Itasca Park the 
 lands which belonged to Minnesota; later it bought 
 others which had been taken up and persuaded 
 Congress to give to the State all the public land in 
 that district on condition that it should be kept 
 forever as a park. This tract, a little more than 
 five by seven miles, is in Clearwater, Hubbard 
 and Becker counties, taking in Lake Itasca. 
 
 The State has built in the park a house called 
 Douglas Lodge where people may go to stay. Stu- 
 dents in the Forestry Department of the Univer- 
 sity, camp in the park each year to study the woods, 
 which are of great variety and very remarkable, 
 especially the white pine. There are many rare 
 wild flowers about the lakes and woods, among 
 them three kinds of the moccasin flower, which, of 
 course, ought to grow in our State park. There are 
 remains too, of Indian villages lived in ages ago 
 which are interesting to study. No one is allowed 
 to shoot within the park limits, and beaver and 
 deer are increasing there. 
 
 The Interstate Park at Taylors Falls is on one 
 side of the St. Croix River while Wisconsin has 
 a park on the opposite bank. In this way we are 
 preserving the picturesque falls and interesting 
 surroundings forever. This was the first inter- 
 state park in our country, and for many years was 
 a cherished plan of George Hazzard, who at last 
 
340 Our Minnesota 
 
 realized his dream, and he was made superintendent 
 in 1895. Minnesota owns one hundred and fifty- 
 acres here and the Wisconsin park on the other side 
 is much larger. The name of the river comes from 
 the French and means holy cross, while the word 
 "dalles" means slab or flagstone. At this place 
 the St. Croix River rushes between high bluffs mak- 
 ing a narrow gorge over which flow the foaming 
 cataracts. 
 
 This is a wonderful place not only for what is 
 left of its forest, but because when this State of 
 ours was made. Nature left distinct traces of the 
 great glacier or fields of ice, which once moved 
 down the river bed. The stone bluffs on either 
 side of the St. Croix River were carved by the 
 glacier into all sorts of queer shapes which show 
 just how the glacier worked, and here people who 
 are studying geology may learn a great deal. 
 There are natural bridges, arches, fascinating caves, 
 moss-covered rocks, and lovely little spots hollowed 
 out and filled in the spring with flowers. There 
 are pot holes, giant kettles, "devil's chair," 
 "glacier gardens," pulpits, caves, "the gopher," 
 and other forms whose names give us an idea of the 
 strange shapes the rocks take. The flowers and 
 plants are the most interesting growing on any 
 volcanic place east of the Rocky Mountains and 
 the superintendent is constantly planting more 
 
The Star of the North 341 
 
 and more flowers which grow in other parts of 
 Minnesota, so that in time every kind that grows 
 wild in the State may be seen here. This was once 
 the battle-field of the vSioux and Ojibways who 
 fought all along the valley and so many traces of 
 these battles were found that Governor Ramsey 
 called it a "place of skulls." 
 
 The Alexander Ramsey Park is near Redwood 
 Falls at the place where Ramsey Creek and the 
 Redwood River unite, making three cataracts all 
 different and near together. It is very unusual to 
 find anything like these falls in the midst of a great 
 prairie, for this is the place where there never were 
 any heavy woods or forests, and yet the water 
 plunges from a solid mass of rock into a ravine of 
 wild beauty with shrubs and trees which are found 
 nowhere else for many miles. This park is in the 
 midst of the reservation which was given to the 
 Indians by the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, 
 and is surrounded by many places of which we 
 have read, trading posts, an Indian church, the 
 remains of Fort Ridgely and is near to the monu- 
 ments which the State has erected in memory of 
 1862. 
 
 The newer parks are Minneopa near Mankato 
 and the Horace Austin State Park at Austin, 
 where there is much of historic interest as well as 
 natural beauty. 
 
342 Our Minnesota 
 
 We have seen how our forests have been wasted 
 and how much of wealth and beauty we have lost, 
 which can never be restored, though the parks and 
 reserves will help. What is called re-forestation or 
 making new forests where the old ones have been 
 cut off will help much more. The State has set 
 aside two Forest Reserves, one near Burntside Lake 
 in St. Louis County, the other, Pillsbury Forest, 
 near Cass Lake. In these forests the trees are 
 preserved and new ones set out in bare and waste 
 places. These forests and parks are all under the 
 care of the State Forestry Service which has charge 
 of fire prevention also, for fire is the worst foe of 
 this department. Millions of acres of young pine 
 and spruce are growing up where the old trees were 
 cut or burned. If we can keep these trees from 
 destructive fires, we shall always have great forests 
 and wood and paper at moderate cost. 
 
 The State Forester, Wm. T. Cox, and the sec- 
 retary. General C. C. Andrews, are devoting them- 
 selves to preserving the beauty and usefulness 
 of our forests, and the Forest Service is also 
 helping tourists and campers by cutting trails, 
 pointing out canoe routes, and posting signs. 
 The State established Arbor Day for the pur- 
 pose of re-forestation and in 1888 passed a law 
 that money should be paid from the State treasury 
 every year for " bounties " to people who plant trees. 
 
The Star of the North 343 
 
 Two dollars and a half an acre for six years is given 
 for trees planted and already people have earned 
 over six hundred thousand dollars in this way. It 
 would be so easy for all of you to have trees in your 
 school yard, too, for it makes the town you live in 
 and the school grounds more attractive, and it is 
 much pleasanter to go to school when the school- 
 house has a homelike setting. 
 
 There is nothing more interesting to watch all 
 the year through than the life of the trees. When 
 you come back to school in September, the shade 
 in the hot days and the green grass make the 
 beginning of work much easier; and the change of 
 color from green to red or yellow is a joy each 
 day. Then, when the falling leaves cover the side- 
 walks and rustle under your feet and the queer 
 autumn smell comes up, you begin to think of 
 the pleasures of winter. When the leaves are all 
 gone, the tracery of the gnarled branches makes a 
 charming picture against the sky, and if they are 
 covered with furry snow or glittering ice, they are 
 wonderful. 
 
 Suddenly one day in March you feel a difference 
 and the trees feel it too. There are no buds, nor 
 signs of them, but the bark looks different, and 
 instead of stiff twigs and branches, they wave a 
 little in the air, the color comes, — and then the 
 little buds begin to show. All the weeks of early 
 
344 Our Minnesota 
 
 spring they are different each day, the red of maple, 
 the furry gray pink of the oak, the greenish gray of 
 the elm, little by little turning to tender green 
 and then suddenly — summer and vacation are 
 here. 
 
 Since the very beginning of our State history, 
 laws have been made to preserve the wild animals 
 which were once so plentiful, though they were not 
 made soon enough to keep all of them. The 
 buffalo are all gone, the moose and caribou are 
 very few, deer are less plentiful than formerly, 
 and the fine fur-bearing animals are becoming 
 scarce. 
 
 People destroy game in many foolish ways, for 
 they trap mink in the summer, against the law and 
 when the fur isn't good; beaver just for curiosity, 
 and "pot hunters" wastefully kill much game. 
 Caribou may not be shot at all now, some of our 
 animals are being preserved in parks where they 
 are protected, and because of this the elk and deer 
 very lately have begun to come back. All the 
 wild animals possible should be put into parks 
 where they may be quiet and live their lives in the 
 wilds they love, so that in the future we may again 
 be one of the great fur states. 
 
 Lately people have begun to raise wild animals 
 for their fur. The skunk is raised on these fur 
 farms and is very easy to get and to take care of, 
 
The Star of the North 345 
 
 and there are several mink farms in Minnesota, a 
 large one at Pine River. 
 
 The most interesting of all these is, perhaps, a 
 ranch at Devil track Lake in Cook County, in the 
 northern part of Minnesota. This was a wonderful 
 place for fine fur, before the animals were driven 
 out, and the Robertson brothers are making a great 
 success of their farm. It takes a good deal of 
 knowledge to know just what kind of food to give 
 to each animal, and a great deal of patience to 
 learn their habits. The animals which live in that 
 section, — marten, beaver, otter, fisher, and black 
 fox are always in demand for their fur. They had 
 on this farm last year many animals, among them 
 fourteen pairs of silver fox, one of which sold for 
 twenty-five hundred dollars. There is a great 
 future in this direction in Minnesota, and it is as 
 interesting as anything could be. 
 
 In 1 90 1 the Game and Fish Commission was 
 established and laws were passed by people who 
 knew about the habits of game and fish, to prevent 
 their destruction. But in spite of these laws the 
 game birds have become fewer and fewer. 
 
 So many of them may be killed where no one 
 may see or ever know it, that we should learn 
 when they must not be shot or trapped. The 
 quail, "bobwhite," such a delightful bird, who 
 is friendly and loves to be near people, has be- 
 
346 Our Minnesota 
 
 come scarce because killed out of season by so 
 many people, and because food is scarce in the 
 winter. The passenger pigeons which used to be 
 so plentiful that swarms of them flew over this 
 State in great clouds, are all gone and many other 
 rare birds are getting scarce. We ought to have 
 more forests where no game may be shot ; we ought 
 never to use automatic guns, and besides this, peo- 
 ple who want to shoot game ought to pay a higher 
 license than now. 
 
 In the southern part of the State the birds are 
 disappearing. The little song birds are useful as 
 well as beautiful, for they eat up tons of insects 
 every year, and if they are not protected in time 
 we shall have fewer forests and fewer crops. The 
 ** friendly birds," meadow-larks, bluebirds, and 
 robins, followed the settlers to this part of the 
 country and are friends indeed, for they love to 
 be near people; while the shy beautiful thrushes 
 with their lovely songs will stay near if they feel 
 that they are protected. The birds that are ene- 
 mies to all other birds are the English sparrows 
 which are neither useful nor beautiful to look at 
 nor to hear, and to help to get rid of them is a duty 
 of every boy and girl. 
 
 We have lakes in plenty in Minnesota; surely we 
 have fish in plenty too. There are so many kinds 
 in our lakes that they are hardly to be counted, 
 
The Star of the North 347 
 
 some of them very delicate and almost all of them 
 good food. The Lake Superior whitefish and lake 
 trout are peculiar to the north and the Indians 
 used to live on them in the winter. The great 
 sturgeon in the rivers, the innumerable kinds of fish 
 good to eat and easy to catch in the lakes, and the 
 rare brook trout in our streams, are all protected 
 by law but are not increasing so fast as they should. 
 The State has established fish hatcheries ; at Glen- 
 wood, Deerwood, Detroit, and at Willow Brook near 
 the Indian Mounds on the river below St. Paul. 
 Pouring into the houses which are built for the 
 fish are many cold streams of the water which 
 they love, and here the eggs are hatched by the 
 millions, in just the right temperature to make the 
 best kind of fish. Outside the houses are numbers 
 of ponds with water running through them where 
 the fish live and lay their eggs. Excepting black 
 bass, most of the fish which live in our waters are 
 raised here, and a specialty is made of trout, con- 
 sidered the most delicate of all table fish. 
 
 There are many kinds of trout which have been 
 brought here from different parts of the United 
 States, from the Rangeley Lakes in Maine to the 
 Rockies; and the albino, a pure white trout raised 
 here is found nowhere else. The State plants 
 "fish fry" in different lakes and streams all over 
 Minnesota, and you should learn that it is a good 
 
34^ Our Minnesota 
 
 thing to cultivate fish as well as other things, for a 
 fish farm would be a paying investment and there 
 is so much water in the State that it should not 
 be expensive. 
 
 Minnesota has given so much to us, that we 
 ought to think every day of how we may serve her. 
 In our State, Nature has withheld nothing from us 
 and we should see that so far as possible, we take 
 care of the natural treasures which are ours. We 
 have talked a good deal about our crops, but after 
 all, the very best crop which Minnesota can raise 
 is citizens and it depends upon you to make this a 
 good one. 
 
 There are three things around which the associa- 
 tions of our State cluster. These are our State 
 fiag, our State flower, and our State House, usually 
 called the Capitol, where all the laws of Minnesota 
 are made. 
 
 THE STATE FLAG 
 
 We never had a State flag until 1893 when a com- 
 mittee of women was appointed to make a design. 
 This was about the same time that we adopted a 
 State flower, and the reason for both was that Min- 
 nesota might take her place with dignity at the Col- 
 umbian Exposition in Chicago, to celebrate the four 
 hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. 
 
The Star of the North 349 
 
 The beautiful flag adopted is of white silk, lined 
 with blue and edged with a heavy gold fringe. In 
 the center is the seal of the State and around it a 
 blue band on which is a wreath of moccasin flowers 
 entwined with red ribbon whose ends float across 
 the flag. On the ribbon at the top is the State 
 motto UEtoile du Nord (meaning "The Star 
 of the North") and on the left side "1819," the 
 date of the first permanent settlement at Fort 
 Snelling; on the right, the date ** 1893"; and above, 
 "1858." 
 
 In groups around the design are nineteen stars, 
 because Minnesota was the nineteenth state, after 
 the original ones, to be admitted, and in the flag 
 the north star is at the top. The whole flag is 
 mounted on a gilt standard and tied with gold cords. 
 On the top of this standard is a little brass gopher, 
 sitting erect and looking as if he understood what it 
 was all about. 
 
 The original flag is now in the governor's room 
 at the State House. It is embroidered in heavy 
 silk and is so beautiful that it makes us prouder 
 than ever that it belongs to us. 
 
 The first State flag carried by the Minnesota 
 troops in the Spanish- American War is also in the 
 State House, in a glass case, and although we are 
 proud of our record in both of the wars in which we 
 fought, we all hope that forever in the future, our 
 
350 Our Minnesota 
 
 flag will be carried forward in a peace movement 
 instead of war. 
 
 OUR STATE FLOWER 
 
 The women of Minnesota started the plan for a 
 flower as well as a flag for the State, as all countries 
 and most of the states have their own chosen flower. 
 
 There is the rose of England, the thistle of 
 Scotland, and the shamrock of Ireland. The 
 State botanist, Mr. McMillan, suggested several 
 flowers which grow among the thousands or more 
 in Minnesota; among them the Indian pink, the 
 aster, brown-eyed susan, wild rose and lady slipper. 
 These were all sent to the women's clubs to be 
 voted upon and they chose the la.dy slipper which 
 is called Venus shoe, Indian shoe and moccasin 
 flower. There are twenty-five kinds of this odd 
 little flower growing in our State, pink, yellow, large 
 and small, purple, and white with pink veins — all 
 of them beautiful. The one which was especially 
 chosen for us has a longer Latin name, Cypripedium 
 spectahile or showy moccasin flower. This is the 
 wonderful tall pink and white one, though any moc- 
 casin flower is generally considered our State flower. 
 
 Miss Helen Castle has painted a very perfect 
 picture of the State flower which you may see hang- 
 ing in the governor's room, in the State House, 
 a copy of which is on the first page of our book. 
 
The Star of the North 351 
 
 This flower easily adapts itself to decoration and 
 has been used a great deal. You remember it 
 twines around the seal in our State flag, and in the 
 State House the architect has put it into many- 
 designs, best seen at the top, which we call the 
 capital, of the pillars in the building inside and 
 out. 
 
 There was a sad but beautiful story told of the 
 beginning of the moccasin flower. The daughter of 
 a chief whose father died when she was a little girl, 
 grew up with her brothers and learned to shoot and 
 hunt and do all the things that the boys did. She 
 always wanted to go on hard trails and take long 
 trips into the woods, and because the other young 
 Indian girls didn't care so much for this, she often 
 had to go alone. One day she had gone farther 
 than usual into the deep forest and was overtaken 
 by one of those great fires which burn our woods 
 and cause so much sadness even today. Day after 
 day and week after week her heartbroken mother 
 and her brothers searched for her, but they never 
 saw a trace of the lost girl until the next year 
 when the mother found the curious flower which is 
 just like a little embroidered moccasin, and which 
 came up to show where she had fallen. From that 
 day until now these dainty moccasin flowers have 
 grown all through our woods, and remind us of the 
 Indian girl who was lost. They mean more to us 
 
352 Our Minnesota 
 
 than any other of all the unusual blossoms in the 
 State because we have adopted them as our own. 
 
 THE CAPITOL 
 
 From time to time people have wanted to change 
 the State House from St. Paul, and you remember 
 the fate of the first attempt in 1857. Again in 1869, 
 a bill was passed to move the capital to Kandiyohi 
 County where there were many acres of State lands, 
 and it would have been moved had not the governor 
 vetoed the bill, which means that he refused to 
 sign it. 
 
 A Capitol building was put up in 1853 but was 
 burned in 188 1 while the legislature was in session 
 and they met in the Market House in St. Paul until 
 what was considered a very grand new State House, 
 now called the "Old Capitol," was erected. We 
 soon outgrew this, though it is still used for many 
 of the State offices. 
 
 In 1 90 1 the question again came up for the last 
 time, and a new State House was provided for, 
 which settled the matter that it should stay where 
 it had always been. It is situated on a hill which 
 gives a wide view and where it may be seen for 
 miles in every direction. The approach which is 
 planned for the future will make it most dignified 
 and imposing in appearance. 
 
The Star of the North 353 
 
 The design was made by Cass Gilbert, a St. Paul 
 man, whose plan was taken as the best, although 
 forty others were offered. The building was be- 
 gun in 1896, the cornerstone laid in 1898 by Gov. 
 Ramsey who used a silver trowel, which was pre- 
 sented to him as a token of the love of the'.State. 
 It was most fitting that the man who, young, vig- 
 orous, full of hope for the future ; tall, straight, with 
 life before him, had laid the first cornerstone of our 
 State, by writing a proclamation in the little log 
 tavern almost half a century before, should now, 
 aged, white-haired and full of years which had been 
 given to the service of the State, be the one to ful- 
 fill the promise of one half a hundred years before 
 and lay the cornerstone of that great building, 
 which was to represent Minnesota in the future as 
 well as carry on the work of the past. 
 
 The exercises at this time were most impressive. 
 The oration was made by our greatest statesman, 
 Cushman K. Davis, and Charles W. Graves of 
 Duluth, one of the commissioners, gave an address 
 for them. Archbishop Ireland, who also had come 
 here a young man and who was now venerable and 
 full of years, made the prayer and Bishop Gilbert, 
 well loved by every one, both east and west, gave 
 the benediction. 
 
 The great building, which was finished in 1904, 
 covers more than a city block and is two hundred 
 
 23 
 
354 Our Minnesota 
 
 and twenty feet high. It cost about four millions 
 of dollars and the commissioners, who had it in 
 charge, were H. W. Lamberton of Winona, James 
 McHench of Fairmont, George DuToit of Chaska, 
 Channing Seabury of St. Paul, John DeLaittre 
 of Minneapolis, Charles Graves of Duluth, and 
 E. E. Coreliss of Fergus Falls, one chosen from each 
 district which sends a representative to Washington. 
 They served the State from 1893 until 1905 and were 
 so careful of the funds, which they had intrusted to 
 them, that not one word of blame or censure is 
 breathed against them, and the work was so well 
 done that we should always be grateful to these men. 
 
 The building so far as possible was made from 
 Minnesota products. The basement walls, steps 
 and terraces are from the heavy substantial St. 
 Cloud granite; the foundation, of Minnesota brick; 
 the dome, of Kettle River sandstone; the inside 
 walls, of cement made in the State. Many people 
 wanted the building itself of Minnesota stone, but 
 because of the style, which is Romanesque, Georg- 
 ian marble was used instead. The interior is lined 
 with Kasota stone polished. The great staircases, 
 which go up from the center, are the most imposing 
 feature of the building, the columns and balus- 
 trades of beautiful marbles from Italy and the 
 Greek Islands. 
 
 The great columns in the Senate Chamber are 
 
The Star of the North 355 
 
 marble from France. In the House and vSupreme 
 Court rooms the marble comes from Vermont and 
 the square panels around the rotunda are from old 
 convent quarries near Sienna. Some of the marble 
 is from the Nile River in Egypt and much of it 
 from different states in our own country. The 
 great skylight in the House is one of the most 
 beautiful in the country. 
 
 All of the pictures, which are many and fine, are 
 by American artists and tell stories of our history. 
 The entrance is surmounted by a huge figure 
 called a Quadriga, representing The Progress of the 
 State. It is the work of Daniel French and Ed- 
 ward Potter, American sculptors, and is of copper 
 gilded — and stands out, sparkling in the sunshine 
 or gleaming on dull days, as far as the eye can see. 
 From the lowest basement to the gilded top of the 
 great white dome, the State House of Minnesota is 
 majestic, and the more you study it the more im- 
 pressive it is, for everything about the building 
 tells a story of the great State it stands for. If 
 you look closely at the American flag which floats 
 above it, I am sure you will see that the thirty- 
 second star is just a little bit bigger, and just a little 
 bit whiter, and looks just a little more starry, than 
 any of the others, and it should, because it is the 
 North — the guiding star, and it is ours. 
 
356 
 
 Our Minnesota 
 
 THE GOVERNORS OF MINNESOTA 
 
 TERRITORIAL 
 
 Alexander Ramsey, Pennsylvania June i, 1849, to May 15, 
 
 1853 
 Willis A. Gorman, Indiana 
 
 Samuel Medary, Ohio 
 
 May 15, 1853, to April 
 
 23, 1857 
 April 23, i857,to May 24, 
 1858 
 
 STATE 
 
 Henry H. Sibley, St. Paul 
 Alexander Ramsey, St. Paul 
 Henry A. Swift, St. Peter 
 Stephen Miller, Worthington 
 
 May 24, 1858, to January 
 
 2, i860 
 January 2, i860, to July 
 
 10, 1863 
 July 10, 1863, to January 
 
 11, 1864 
 January 11, 1864, to Jan- 
 uary 8, 1866 
 
 William R. Marshall, St. Anthony January 8, 1866, to Jan- 
 uary 9, 1870 
 Horace Austin, St. Peter January 9, 1870, to Jan- 
 
 uary 7, 1874 
 
 January 7, 1874, to Jan- 
 uary 7, 1876 
 
 January 7, 1876, to Jan- 
 uary 10, 1882 
 
 January 10, 1882, to Jan- 
 uary 5, 1887 
 
 January 5, 1887, to Jan- 
 uary 9, 1889 
 
 January 9, 1889, to Jan- 
 uary 4, 1893 
 
 Cushman K. Davis, St. Paul 
 John S. Pillsbury, Minneapolis 
 Lucius F. Hubbard, Red Wing 
 A. R. McGill, St. Peter 
 William R. Merriam, St. Paul 
 
The Star of the North 357 
 
 Knute Nelson, Alexandria January 4, 1893, to Jan- 
 
 uary 31, 1895 
 
 David M. Clough, Minneapolis January 31, 1895, to Jan- 
 
 uary 2, 1899 
 
 John Lind, New Ulm January 2, 1899, to Jan- 
 
 uary 7, 1 901 
 
 Samuel R. Van Sant, Winona January 7, 1901, to Jan- 
 
 uary 4, 1905 
 
 John A. Johnson, St. Peter January 4, 1905, to Sep- 
 
 tember 21, 1909 
 
 Adolph O. Eberhart, Mankato September 21, 1909, to 
 
 January 5, 1915 
 
 Winfield S. Hammond, St. James January 5, 1915, to De- 
 cember 30, 191 5 
 
 J. A. A. Bumquist, St. Paul December 30, 1915- 
 
 DATES TO REMEMBER 
 
 1655-56 Radisson and Groseilliers — first white explorers. 
 
 1680 DuLuth reached Mississippi River. 
 
 1680 Hennepin discovered St. Anthony Falls. 
 
 1689 Perrot claimed Minnesota for France. 
 
 1700 LeSueur built fort on Blue Earth River. 
 
 1763 East of the Mississippi River, English — West of the 
 
 Mississippi River, Spanish. 
 1766-67 Carver visited St. Anthony Falls and "Carver's 
 
 Cave." 
 1783 West of the Mississippi River, United States. 
 
 1787 Ordinance of 1787. 
 
 1794 Northwest Fur Company in Minnesota. 
 
 1796 Ordinance of 1787 over all Northwest. 
 
 1803 Louisiana Purchase. 
 
 1803-04 WilHam Morrison visited source of the Mississippi 
 
 River. 
 
35^ Our Minnesota 
 
 1805 Pike's Treaty. 
 
 18 12 Selkirk's colony on the Red River. 
 
 1 8 19 First fort at Mendota, Colonel Leavenworth com- 
 
 mander, Major Taliaferro Indian agent. 
 
 1820 Fort Snelling built. 
 
 1823 First steamboat at Mendota. 
 
 1826 Red River colony settle near Fort Snelling. 
 
 1837 Indian treaties cede pine lands. 
 
 1838 Franklin Steele makes first "claim" at St. Anthony 
 
 — Pierre Parrant makes claim and builds on 
 
 site of St. Paul. 
 
 1 841 Saint Paul chapel — town named. 
 
 1843 Stillwater settled. 
 
 1849 Minnesota Territory organized. 
 
 1 85 1 Indian treaties for land west of the Mississippi. 
 
 1857 October thirteenth, State Constitution adopted. 
 . Ink-pa-doo-ta Massacre. 
 
 1858 May eleventh, State admitted. 
 
 186 1 Troops enlist at Fort Snelling. First Minnesota 
 
 leaves for war. 
 
 1862 Sioux Outbreak. First railroad in State. 
 1865 Minnesota regiments return. 
 
 1 88 1 State House burned. 
 
 1898 Cornerstone of new State House laid. 
 
 1905 Legislature met in new State House. 
 
 1908 Fiftieth anniversary of statehood. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbe, Mrs. A. F., 231 
 
 Acker, William, 208 
 
 Acton, 221, 320 
 
 Admission of State, 186 
 
 Agassiz, Lake, 274 
 
 Agate, 311 
 
 Agents, 218; Indian, 138, 268; 
 
 special Indian, 128 
 Agricultural Society, 202, 319 
 Agriculture, 187, 191-200 
 Aitkin, 170, 305 
 Ako, Michel, 89 
 Albert Lea, 99 
 Alexander, E. B., 218 
 Algonquins, 57 
 Allen, James, 269 
 AUouez, Claude, loi 
 Altitude, 2 
 American Fur Company, 115- 
 
 138 
 Andrews, C. C, 213, 333, 342 
 Animals in Minnesota, 345 
 "Armuity," 221 
 Anoka, 53, 169 
 Apostle Islands, loi 
 Arbor Day, 342 
 Arbutus, Legend of, 36 
 Archibald mills, 107 
 Areola, 167 
 Argo, no 
 Army of the Potomac, 210, 
 
 211 
 
 Army, United States, 128 
 Astor, John Jacob, 115 
 Atwood mill, 167 
 Ayer, Frederick, 163 
 
 B 
 
 Babbitt, Frances, 48 
 
 Bailly, Alexis, 71, 117 
 
 Banfil, John, 148 
 
 Banks, 336 
 
 Banning, Wm., 250, 251 
 
 Baptism River, 273 
 
 Barbecue, 55 
 
 Barr, J. W., 155 
 
 Bass' Tavern, 153 
 
 Bath, Indian steam, 90 
 
 Battle Coulie, 319 
 
 Baudette, 282 
 
 Bear Islanders, 283 
 
 Becker Co., 276 
 
 Bell, Edwin, 273 
 
 Beltrami, Constantine, 97, 
 
 267 
 
 County, 266 
 
 Bemidji, 53 
 
 Bible, Dakota, 105 
 
 Big Stone Lake, 54, 61, 97, 
 
 245, 274, 307 
 Birch Coulie, 229 
 Birds, 344, 346 
 Bishop, Mrs. Harriet, 288 
 Bishop, J. W., 214 
 Blakeley, Russell, 247, 274 
 
 359 
 
36o 
 
 Index 
 
 Blanket Indians, 107 
 Blashfield, Edward, 80 
 Blue Earth, 51; Co., 51; 
 
 River, 94 
 Bluestone, John, 30 
 Boats, 236, 254, 255, 275 
 Bobleter, Camp, 134 
 Bois brule, 136 
 Bois Brule River, 263 
 Bois des Sioux, 62 
 "Bonanza farms," 196 
 Boom, land, 182, 183; logging, 
 
 167 
 Boundaries, of Minnesota, 
 
 61-63; northern, 267 
 Bounties, 342 
 Boutwell, Rev. James, 103, 
 
 269 
 "Brackett's Battalion," 214 
 Breckenridge, 62, 218, 249 
 Bremer, Frederika, 333 
 Bridge, 246, 317; first, 140 
 British traders, 128 
 Brower, J. V., 270, 338 
 Brown, Joseph Renshaw, 138, 
 
 146, 163, 314 
 Brown's Falls, 314 
 Brown's Valley, 61, 244, 275 
 Buchanan, James, 186 
 Buffalo hunt, 124 
 Building, 240 
 
 Bull Run, battle of, 208, 211 
 Burbank, J. C, 247 
 Burntside Forest, 342 
 Butter, 202 
 
 Calhoun, John C, 128, 313 
 Calhoun, Lake, 104 
 Calumet, 52, 84, 309 
 
 Cameron, Simon, 207 
 Camp, Cold Water, 130; first 
 
 in Minnesota, 129; Release, 
 
 230, 320 
 Campbell, Scott, 108 
 Cannon River, 197 
 Canoe, 123 
 Canoe routes, 254 
 Capital, 181; removal bill, 
 
 181 
 Capitol, 320, 351 
 Carioles, 236 
 Carleton, 180 
 Carver, Jonathan, 48, 64, 94- 
 
 96, 236, 274 
 Carver's Cave, 64, 316 
 Cass, Lewis, 254, 266 
 Cass Lake, 96, 266, 342 
 Castle, Helen, 350 
 Cathedral of St. Paul, no, 
 
 III 
 Catlin, George, 98, 308 
 Catlinite, 309 
 Cattle, 337 
 Cavalier, Robert, 87 
 Caynna Range, 305 
 Cemetary Ridge, 215 
 Census, 332; first, 153; judges 
 
 of, i53;of 1850, 333 
 Central House, 154, 156 
 Chapel, Father Galtier's, 107 
 Chaska, 53 
 Cheese, 202 
 Chickamauga, 212 
 Chippewa, 12, 20, 218, 231 
 
 alsOf see Ojibways 
 Chippewa, Sioux battle with, 
 
 77 
 Chisago, 54 
 
 Church of St. Paul, 108 
 Churches, early, 148 
 Cinch bug, 200' 
 
Index 
 
 361 
 
 Civil War, 204-217, 220; 
 
 flags, 216 
 Claims, land, 174 
 Claim jimiping, 166, 175 
 Clark, Charlotte Ouisconsin, 
 
 102, 129, 322 
 Clark, Nathan, 322 
 Clay, 310 
 
 Clearwater Coimty, 54 
 Climate, 8 
 Cloquet, 180, 273 
 College, Agricultural, 187, 
 
 293 
 Colvillj Wm., 215, 321^ 
 Commissioner of Indian 
 
 Affairs, 70 
 Confederacy, 220 
 Constitution, State, 185 
 Congress, first delegate to, 
 
 139, 155 
 Congressmen, 185 
 Coon Creek, 148 
 Copper, 233, 301; Mine, 
 
 Le Sueur's, 94 
 Corduroy road, 242 
 Coreliss, E. D., 354 
 Corinth, 213 
 Com, Indian plant, 187 
 Comwallis, Lord Charles, 
 
 212 
 Coteau des Prairies, 308 
 Cottage Grove, 150, 288 
 Cottonwood River, 54, 240 
 Counties, formation of, 189 
 Coimties in Minnesota, 335 
 Coureur des hois, 113, 235 
 Court House, 307 
 Cox, Wm. T., 342 
 Creameries, 202 
 Cretin, Rev. Joseph, no 
 Crooks, Ramsey, 139 
 Crooks, Wm., 249, 256 
 
 Crops, 191-203, 336 
 Crow Wing, 54, 151, 305 
 Cruiser, timber, 174 
 Cuba, 282 
 Cyclones, 277 
 Cypripedium spectabikf 35 
 
 D 
 
 Dakota Bible, 105 
 
 Dictionary, 105, 326 
 
 language, 92 
 
 Dakotas, 11, 104, 146, 231, 
 
 253 
 
 Department of the, 133 
 
 Dalles of the St. Croix, 340 
 Dalrymple farm, 196 
 Dam, St. Anthony, 171 
 Dance of Thunder Bird, 71 
 Daughters of the American 
 
 Revolution, 312 
 Davis, Cushman K., 323, 353 
 Dayton's Bluff, 64, 316 
 DeLaittre, John, 354 
 De Soto, Hernando, 259 
 Development of Minnesota, 
 
 7, 336 
 Deviltrack Lake, 344 
 Dewey, George, 283 
 Dictionary, Dakota, 105 
 Discoverers, 79-99 
 Discovery of Mississippi 
 
 River, 89, 93, 260 
 Discovery of St. Anthony 
 
 Falls, 91 
 Dog, drags, 235; sleds, 149; 
 
 trains, 116 
 Dolomite, 307 
 Donnelly, Ignatius, 182 
 Douglas Lodge, 339 
 Douglas, Stephen, 184 
 Du Gay, Picard, 89 
 Dugout, 236 
 
362 
 
 Index 
 
 Du Luth, Daniel Graysolon, 
 
 86, 92, 114, 263, 306 
 Duluth, 188, 251, 281 
 Durant, E. W., 168 
 Du Toit, George, 353 
 
 E 
 
 Eagle Eye, 50 
 Eames, H. H., 302 
 Early claims, 145 
 Early crops, 142 
 "Early Days," 127-160 
 Early money, 171 
 Early schools, 147, 148 
 Early settlers, 142-160 
 Education, 285-296 
 Election of 1857, 185 
 Election returns, 185 
 Elgin, 278 
 Elk, 23 
 
 Ely, 303 
 
 Enabling Act, 184 
 
 English, claims on land, 56; 
 
 fur trade, 115; traders, 96 
 Experimental farms, 294 
 Explorers, 79-102; first white 
 
 81 
 Exports, 202 
 Express Company, 247 
 
 F 
 
 Factories, fur, 115, 118 
 
 Factors, 234 
 
 Fair Oaks, 211 
 
 Faribault, 198, 250, 290, 307 
 
 Faribault, Alexander, 136 
 
 Faribault, Jean. Baptiste, 1 08 , 
 
 135 
 Farmers, 191 
 Farming, 131, 187, 191-200 
 
 Farms, 294 
 
 "Father of Waters," 31, 259 
 Feather bonnet, 18 
 Featherstonhaugh, George, 
 
 W.,97 
 
 Ferry, 134, i37, 242, 317 
 First Minnesota Regiment, 
 
 208,210,215,295 
 Fish, 356; hatcheries, 75, 347 
 Fisher, Jacob, 166 
 Flag, 209; Civil War, 216; 
 
 removal of, 216; State, 
 
 348, 349 
 Flandrau, Chas. E., 148, 219, 
 
 225, 226, 227, 232, 312, 320, 
 
 322 
 Flaxseed, 202 
 Flint chips, 48 
 Flour, 199 
 
 Flour manufacture, 198 
 Flour mills, 178, 197 
 Flowers, 7 
 Flower, State, 351 
 Folwell, W. W., 295 
 Fond du Lac, 61, loi, 124, 
 
 312 
 Forest fires, 166, 180, 277- 
 
 282 
 Forest Reserve, 342 
 Forester, State, 180 
 Forestry Department, 339 
 Forests, 161-180, 338, 341 
 Forsyth, Thomas, 128, 129 
 Port Abercrombie, 218 
 Fort, first, 129 
 Fort Gaines, 148 
 Fort Perrot, 114 
 Fort Ridgely, 77, 218, 222, 
 
 223, 227, 241, 314, 316 
 Fort Ripley, 146, 148, 218, 
 
 231, 316 
 Fort St. Anthony, 130 
 
Index 
 
 363 
 
 Fort St. Antoine, 93 
 
 Fort Snelling, 65, 68, 78, 96, 
 
 127-135, 147, 149, 206, 
 
 209, 223, 317 
 Fort Sneliing, building of, 
 
 131 
 
 Fort Snelling, deserted, 132; 
 early mails, 132; early- 
 social life, 134; sold, 132; 
 squatters, 132; today, 134, 
 
 135 
 
 Fort William, 124, 242 
 
 "Forty-four" Lake, 245 
 Forty-niners, 135, 321 
 Fountain Cave, 144, 316 
 Fourth Minnesota Regiment, 
 
 213 
 Fox Indians, 54 
 Fox-Wisconsin route, 261 
 French and Indian Wars, 57 
 French claims on land, 56 
 French fur trade stopped, 114 
 French influence, 80-102 
 French settlements, 80-102 
 French traders, 1 13 
 Frontenac, 94 
 Frontiers, 252 
 Fuller House, 182 
 Fur farms, 344 
 Fur, forty kinds of, 122 
 Fur trade, 1 12-126; decline 
 
 of, 117; English, 115; 
 
 French stopped, 114 
 Fur traders, 82; English, 127 
 Fur trading, 312 
 Fur trading posts, 119 
 
 G 
 
 Galena, 147, 247, 315 
 Galtier, Rev. Lucius, 108, 143 
 
 Game, 5, 344, 345 
 
 Game laws, 186 
 
 Game and Fish Commission, 
 
 345 
 "G. A. R.,"2i7 
 Gear, Rev. Lucien, 231 
 Geography, 2-8 
 Gervais, Benjamin, 109 
 Gervais brothers, 143 
 Gettysburg, 215 
 Giant Range, 385 
 Gilbert, Cass, 353 
 Gitchi-Manitou, 52 
 Gold mining, 302 
 Goodhue, James, 156 
 Goodhue County, 159 
 Goose Rapids, 273 
 Gopher State, origin of name, 
 
 112 
 Gordon, Hanford L., 258 
 Gorman, Willis, 208, 212 
 Government survey, 97 
 Grand Marais, 310 
 Grand Portage, 95, 118, 119, 
 
 124, 242, 254, 270 
 Grand Rapids, 239 
 Granite, 307, 354 
 Grant, U. S., 134 
 Grants, railroad, 141 
 Grasshoppers, 199 
 Graves, Chas., 353 
 Great Lakes, 79, 188, 251, 
 
 253 
 
 Great Northern Railroad, 
 279 
 
 Grey Cloud Island, 138 
 
 Groseilliers, Sieur de (Men- 
 ard Chouart), 81-83, 254, 
 260 
 
 Guerin, 100 
 
 Guerin, Vetal, 109, 143 
 
 Gulf of Mexico, 259 
 
364 
 
 Index 
 
 H 
 
 "Haha,"3i4 
 
 "Hail! Minnesota," 329 
 
 Hancock, Rev. Joseph, 147 
 
 Hancock Winfield S., 215 
 
 Happy Hunting Grounds, 33 
 
 Harriet, Lake, 104, 315 
 
 Harvester, 195 
 
 Hastings, 61, 93, 138, 140, 
 
 179 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 204 
 Hayokah, 32 
 Hazel wood Republic, 106, 
 
 222 
 Hazzard, George, 339 
 Hennepin, Father Louis, Sy^ 
 
 89, 90, 92, 262, 263 
 Henry, Alexander, 254 
 Hesler, 315 
 Hiawatha, 41, 315 
 Hill, Jas. J., 252, 323 
 Hinckley fire, 279 
 Historical Society, Minn., 
 
 48, 154, 270, 325-328 
 Hole-in-the-Day, 69, 163, 170 
 Holy Spirit Mission, loi 
 Hone, David, 165 
 Hopkins, Rev. Robert, 32, 71 
 Hospes and Staples, 167, 168 
 Hospital, St. Joseph's, no; 
 
 State, 296 
 Hubbard, Lucius, 213 
 Hudson Bay, 81 
 Hudson Bay Co., 81, 86, 114 
 Hunting, 1 12-125 
 Hutchinson, 160, 231 
 
 lagoo, 41 
 
 Iberville, Sieur d', 263 
 
 Ikan-santi, 128 
 
 Immigration, 199; bureau of, 
 187 
 
 Im-ni-ja-ska, 53 
 
 Indian, agents, 268; captives, 
 230; cemetery, 97; council, 
 86-88; legends, 351; mas- 
 sacres, 217-232; Mounds 
 Park, 47; outbreaks, 217- 
 232, 283; payments, 217, 
 224; reservations, 157; 
 territory, 326; treaties, 
 see treaties; wars, 149 
 
 Indians, 12-27, 31-55. 76, 
 77, 91, 98, 106, 107, 165, 
 220, 230, 233; Chippewa, 
 see O jib ways; Pillager, 103; 
 Sioux, see Sioux. 
 
 Ink-Pa-Doo-Ta, 218 
 
 International Falls, 273 
 
 Interpreter, U. S., 133 
 
 Interstate Park, 339 
 
 Ireland, Rev. John, 318, 323, 
 
 353 
 Irish, 193 
 Iron fields, 180 
 Iron mines, 305, 337 
 Irvine, J. B., 211 
 Isanti, 84 
 
 Isle Royale, 83, 301 
 Itasca, Lake, 269 
 Itasca Park, 338, 339 
 
 Jackson, Henry, 145, 156 
 Jackson House, 328 
 Jackson, Minn., 218 
 Jasper, red, 308 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 60, 265 
 Jesuit Fathers, 261 
 John Otherday, 106 
 
Index 
 
 365 
 
 John^son, John A., 324, 334 
 Joliet, Louis, 261 
 Judd, Lewis, 165, 166, 313 
 Julia, Lake, 268 
 
 K 
 
 Kanabec, 54 
 
 Kandiyohi, 352 
 
 Kaposia, 51, 65, 75, 105, 319 
 
 Kasota, 51, 307 
 
 Kasson, 307 
 
 Kemper, Rev. Jackson, 148 
 
 Kettle River, 180, 280, 354 
 
 Kittson, Norman, 137, 243, 
 
 254, 323 
 Knife Lake, 84, 260 
 
 Lac qui Parle, 54, 105, 124, 
 137, 138, 237, 246, 274, 
 312 
 LaCroix, Edward, 198 
 LaCrosse, 16 
 Lady Slipper, 339, 351 
 Lake, Big Stone, 54, 61, 97, 
 245, 274, 275, 307; Cal- 
 houn, 104; Detroit, 245; 
 Erie, 88; "Forty-four," 
 245; Harriet, 3131 Leech, 
 20, 124, 283; Michigan, 88; 
 of the Woods, 62, 272, 302; 
 Pepin, 80, 93, 102, 279; 
 St. Croix, 313; Superior, 
 61, 62, 85, 233, 252, 346; 
 Traverse, 61, 97, 245, 273, 
 274, 275; Vermilion, 302 
 Lakeland, 168 
 Lake Park Region, 276 
 Lakes of Minnesota, 2, 275 
 Lamberton, H. W., 354 
 
 Land, 56, 63, 173; boom, 182; 
 office, 150; sale, 150; sur- 
 vey, 173, 174; trouble, 
 150, 151 
 
 Landing, The, 155, 173, 174 
 
 Lands, Grant of, 247, 248 
 
 Langdon, Robert B., 178 
 
 LaPointe, loi 
 
 Larpenteur, August, 145, 150 
 
 LaSalle, Robert Cavalier, 87, 
 88, 262 
 
 Laws, first, 154 
 
 Leaping Rock, 52 
 
 Leavenworth, Henry, 128- 
 130; Mrs., 313 
 
 LeDuc, Wm. G., 194 
 
 Leech Lake, 20, 124, 283 
 
 Legends, 351; Indian, 31-55 
 
 Lester, Henry C, 212 
 
 Le Sueur, 225 
 
 Le Sueur, Pierre, 93, 94, 263, 
 264, 300 
 
 Le Sueur's mines, 114 
 
 Le Sueur Tigers, 226 
 
 Libby Prison, 212 
 
 Libraries, school, 290 
 
 License, timber, 163 
 
 Limestone, 51, 307 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 184, 206, 
 252 
 
 Lind, John, 334 
 
 Little Crow, 74, 78, 97, 105, 
 219, 222, 227, 229, 231 
 
 Little Rapids, 124, 136, 274 
 
 Livingston, Robert, 265 
 
 Log drive, 176; first, 170 
 
 Logging, 175, 313 
 
 Loggmg roads, 175, 176 
 
 Long, Stephen S. H., 96, 136, 
 266 
 
 Longfellow, Henry, 314 
 
 Long Prairie, 289 
 
366 
 
 Index 
 
 Loras, Rev. Mathias, 107 
 Louis XIV, 114 
 Louisiana Purchase, 59, 265 
 Louisiana Territory, 59 
 Lower Landing, 210 
 Lower Sioux, 70, 74-78; 
 ' Agency, 217, 222, 224, 228; 
 
 reservation, 76, 77 
 Luke Lea, 70 
 Liunber, 179; camps, 175- 
 
 178; destruction of, 179, 
 
 180; trade, 178; waste, 179, 
 
 180 
 Lumbering, 161-180 
 Lumberjacks, 175 
 Lumbermen, 171 
 Luverne, 388 
 
 M 
 
 McCormick, Cyrus, 195 
 
 McHench, James, 354 
 
 McKusick, John, 150, 166 
 
 McLean, Nathaniel, 74 
 
 Machinery, 195 
 
 Mackinaw, 88, 103 
 
 Mackinaw boats, 237 
 
 Madelin Island, loi 
 
 Mah-ka-to, 51 
 
 Mahnomen, 54 
 
 Mahtomedi, 51 
 
 Maiden Rock, 50 
 
 Mail, early, 149; in 1850, 159 
 
 Maine, 282 
 
 Maize, 19 
 
 Manitou, 31, 80 
 
 Mankato, 51, 94, 197, 225, 
 227, 230, 240, 275, 300, 310 
 
 Manufactures, 337 
 
 Map, Le Sueur's, 94; Nicol- 
 let's, 99 
 
 Maple sugar, 25 
 
 Marine, 146, 151, 165, 168 
 
 Marquette, Pere Jacques, 261 
 Marsh, John S., 224, 229 
 Massacre, Indian, of 1862, 
 
 217-232 
 Mather, Wm. W., ()^ 
 Mattson, Hans, 333 
 Maza wakan, 90 
 Medicine man, 22, 34, 35 
 Meeker County, 221 
 Menard, Ren^, 99 
 Mendota, 50, 74, 98, 108, 
 
 116, 117,129,135,136,139, 
 
 144, 153; ferry, 246 
 Merchants' Hotel, 155 
 Merritt Brothers, 303 
 Mesabi, 53 
 
 Mesabi Range, 180, 303, 307 
 Meschipe, 260 
 Messipi, loi 
 
 Methodist Church, first, 320 
 Militia, State, 208 
 Mill, 195; explosion, 277; 
 
 first, 140; first in Stillwater, 
 
 155 
 
 Mille Lac, 12, 54, 82, 86, 260 
 
 Millers, 196 
 
 Milling, 195 
 
 Mills, 197, 202, 277 
 
 Mines, 286, 300, 307; corun- 
 dum, 310, 310; iron, 302- 
 306 
 
 Minnehaha Falls, 298, 314 
 
 Minneapolis, 51, 52, 158, 159, 
 197, 202, 223, 250, 307, 
 
 319, 333 
 Minnesota, boundaries, 61- 
 63; constitution, 185; de- 
 scription, 2-5; growth, 335; 
 Historical Society, 325- 
 328; Hymn, 329; in Civil 
 War, 204-217; name, i; 
 
Index 
 
 Z^l 
 
 Minnesota — Continued 
 
 regiments, in Civil War, 
 210-214; in Spanish- Amer- 
 ican War, 282; State, 184; 
 Territory, 60 
 
 Minnesota River, 65, 69, 240, 
 267, 274-275 
 
 Minnesota Valley, 251 
 
 Minnetonka, Lake, 138, 314 
 
 Mission, American, 103; Lake 
 Harriet, 105; of the Holy- 
 Spirit, loi; of Saint Mi- 
 chael the Archangel, 102; 
 schools, 104 
 
 Missionaries, French, 99-102 ; 
 American, 1 02-1 11 
 
 Mission Ridge, 213 
 
 Mississippi River, 162, 251, 
 259-271; source of, 269 
 
 Missouri River, 262 
 
 Moccasin Flower, 339, 351 
 
 Mondamin, 42 
 
 Monroe, James, 128, 265 
 
 Montreal, 81, 261 
 
 Monuments, Civil War, 320; 
 Sioux Massacre, 227, 320 
 
 Morrison, Allan, 270 
 
 Morrison, Dorilus, 178 
 
 Morrison, Wm., 270 
 
 Morse, Sam. F. B., 103 
 
 Mosquitoes, 147 
 
 Motto of State, 190 
 
 Mounds, Indian, 46 
 
 Mower, Martin, 167 
 
 Murfreesboro, 212 
 
 Museum, State Historical 
 Society, 327, 328 
 
 N 
 
 Names, Indian, 31-55 
 Nashville, battle of, 214 
 
 Nationalities in Minnesota, 
 332 
 
 Neill, Rev. E. D., 76, 209, 
 287, 321, 326 
 
 Nelson, C. N., 168 
 
 Nelson, Knute, 334 
 
 Nett Lake, 20 
 
 Nettleton, Wm., 247 
 
 New Hope, Camp, 129 
 
 New Orleans, 264 
 
 Newport, 319 
 
 Newspapers, 336 
 
 New Ukn, 95, 218, 222, 225, 
 240, 308 
 
 Niagara River, 88 
 
 Nicolet, Jean, 98, 260 
 
 Nicollet Island, 140 
 
 Nicollet, Joseph N., 98, 99, 
 270, 302 
 
 Nininger, 182 
 
 "No man's land," 151 
 
 North Star State, 355 
 
 Northern boundary of Min- 
 nesota, 272, 312 
 
 Northfield, 250 
 
 Northrup, Cyrus, 295 
 
 Northwest Fur Company, 
 
 115 
 
 Northwest Passage, 95 
 Northwest Territory, 59, 60, 
 103, 285 
 
 o 
 
 Oanktayhee, 32 
 Ohio River, 262 
 Ojibway, Indians, 12, 20, 34; 
 names, 53-55; reservation, 
 
 30 
 
 Old Bets, 30 
 
 Old settlers, 135-142 
 
 Oliver's Grove, 155 
 
368 
 
 Index 
 
 Ordinance of 1787, 59, 285 
 
 Ortonville, 311 
 
 Osceola, 167 
 
 Otherday, John, 106, 223 
 
 Ottertail County, 54, 276 
 
 Ouisconsin, Charlotte Clark 
 
 Van Cleve, 129, 321 
 Owatonna, 197, 296 
 Ox-carts, Red River, 181, 
 
 188, 243, 245, 256 
 Ox train, 243 
 
 Packets, 238 
 
 Paint, mineral, 310 
 
 Panic of 1857, 183 
 
 Park, first public, 141 ; Alex. 
 Ramsey, 341 ; Horace Aus- 
 tin, 344; Minnehaha, 319; 
 Minneopa, 341 
 
 Parks, State, 338-341 
 
 Parrant, Pierre, 144 
 
 Paxton farm, 196 
 
 Payments, Indian, 217 
 
 Pembina, 97, 116, 137, 181, 
 185, 267 
 
 Pemmican, 121 
 
 Peninsula, Northern, 62 
 
 Penitentiary, State, 297-298 
 
 Perkins, Hardin, 162 
 
 Perrot, Fort, 114 
 
 Perrot, Nicholas, 26, 1 14, 264 
 
 Perry, Abraham, 143 
 
 Peshick, 164 
 
 Pigeon River, 20, 62, 86, 272 
 
 Pig's Eye, 51, I44 
 
 Pike Island, 65, 135, 316 
 
 Pike, Montgomery Zebulon, 
 
 64, 96 
 Pike Treaty, 128 
 Pillager Indians, 103, 283 
 
 Pillsbury, John S., 178, 200, 
 
 243 
 
 Pillsbury Forest, 342 
 
 Pilot Knob, 50, 74 
 
 Pine, 162, 168, 169, 170 
 
 Pine City, 280 
 
 Pine Coulee, 319 
 
 Pine Point, 254 
 
 Pine River, 344 
 
 Pioneer Minnesota, 142, 160 
 
 Pioneers, 135, 248 
 
 Pipe of Peace, 73 
 
 Pipestone, 52, 308; quarries, 
 
 98 
 Plows, 195 
 Point Douglas, 61, 146, 168, 
 
 246, 263, 319 
 Pokegama, 181, 239, 272 
 Political meeting, first, 151 
 Pond brothers, 104, 147 
 Pond, Sam'l, 313 
 Pony drags, 235 
 Pony routes, 247 
 Population, 332, 335 
 Portages, 234, 242 
 Post offices, 327, 336 
 Pottery factories, 310 
 Pow-wow, 55, 67, 69, 71, 90 
 Prairie du Chien, 96, 129, 261 
 Prairie Island, 82, 93, 114 
 Prescott, 151 
 Prince Society, 81 
 Prison, State, 297 
 Progress, State, 336 
 
 Q 
 
 Quebec, 79, 261 
 R 
 
 Radisson, Pierre d'Esprit, 81- 
 86, 114, 251, 260 
 
Index 
 
 369 
 
 Railroads in Minnesota, 195, 
 248-253; Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee and St. Paul, 250; 
 Duluth and Iron Range, 
 303; grants, 141; Great 
 Northern, 252; Lake Su- 
 perior and Mississippi Val- 
 ley, 251; Minneapolis and 
 Cedar Valley, 250; Minne- 
 sota Valley, 250; Northern 
 Pacific, 251; Northwestern, 
 251; Omaha, 251; St. Paul 
 and Duluth, 251 
 Rainy Lake, 62, 272 
 Rainy River, 62, 267, 272 
 Ramsey, Alexander, 68, 70, 
 133, 142, 152, 153, 185, 
 188, 207, 228, 282, 286, 
 
 324, 352 
 Ravoux, Father Augustm, no 
 Reapers, 195 
 Recruits, 207 
 Red Cedar Lake, 266 
 Red Lake, 20, 54, 124 
 Red Mill, 167 
 Red Pipe, 308 
 Red River, 62, 218, 241, 245, 
 
 267, 273 
 Red River ox-carts, 137, 181, 
 
 188, 243, 256 
 Red River Valley, 85, 192, 
 
 202 
 Red Rock, 33, 61 
 Red Wing, 96, 129, 179, 215, 
 
 297, 307, 310 
 Red Wing's camp, 147 
 Redwood, 54 
 
 Redwood Falls, 217, 241, 310 
 Redwood Ferry, 224; battle 
 
 of, 224 
 Redwood reservation, 76 
 Reed's Landing, 155 
 
 Reese, Charles MacC, 283 
 Reformatories, 297 
 Regiments, Civil War, 214 
 Renville County, 278 
 Renville, Joseph, 136 
 "Renville Rangers," 224 
 Reservation, Chippewa, 20; 
 
 Leach Lake, 283; Lower 
 
 Sioux, 77; White Earth, 20 
 Reservation Indians, 220 
 Rhodes, Henry C, 242 
 Rice, Edmund, 249 
 Rice, Henry M., no, 139, 
 
 141, 147, 151, 184 
 Ridgely, see Fort 
 Riggs, Rev. S. R., 73 
 Ripley, see Fort 
 River commerce, 236 
 Rivers of Minnesota, 3 
 Roads, 146, 195, 337; first in 
 
 Minnesota, 127; logging, 
 
 175, 176; military, 246, 319; 
 
 U. S., 246; wagon, 138, 242 
 Robert, Louis, 150 
 Robertson brothers, 345 '■ 
 Robin, Legend of, 37 
 Rochester, 278 
 Rolette, Joe, 163, 181, 185, 
 
 236 
 Rondo, Joseph, 143 
 Roseau, 54 
 Rum River, 130, 169 
 
 St. Anthony, 146, 148, 150, 
 
 151, 157, 159. 171, 178 
 St. Anthony Falls, 91, 263 
 St. Anthony, Fort, 130 
 St. Cloud, 279, 297, 307, 311 
 St. Croix Falls, I163, 164, 
 
 165 
 
370 
 
 Index 
 
 St. Croix River, 60, 93, 162, 
 
 241 ; logging on, 139 
 St. Joseph's Academy, no 
 St. Joseph's Hospital, no 
 St. Lawrence River, 79, 261 
 St. Louis, 116 
 
 St. Louis River, 61, loi, 273 
 St. Paul, 65, 76, 77, 95, 116, 
 134, 150, 152, 156, 181, 
 183, 188, 197, 210, 223, 
 242, 288, 316, 319, 321, 
 323, 335» 351 ; beginning of, 
 143, 145, 153; landing, 145 
 St. Peter, 148, 181, 197, 240 
 St. Peter River, 94 
 Sac Indians, 84 
 Sanborn, John B., 213, 321 
 Sandstone, 280, 307 
 Sandy Lake, 124, 264 
 Sauk Center, 297 
 Sauk Indians, 54 
 Sauk Rapids, 181, 307 
 Saw-mills, 130, 166, 170, 179 
 Scalp dance, 18 
 Scarlet Dove, 51 
 School, fund, 286; lands, 285; 
 
 laws, 287; lunches, 289 
 Schools, 147, 148, 287-297; 
 agricultural, 293; consoli- 
 dated, 289; first, 103, 288; 
 Indian, 106, 107; mission, 
 104; normal, 292; State: 
 for blind, 290; crippled, 
 292; deaf, 290; indigent, 
 296; reform, 297; State 
 training, 296; U. S. Govt., 
 289 
 Schulenberg, Frederick, 167 
 Scott, Gen. Winfield, 131 
 Seabury, Channing, 353 
 Seal of Minnesota, 189 
 Selkirk, Earl of, 142, 192 
 
 "Selkirk Settlement," 192 
 Selkirk settlers, 142, 274 
 Settlements in Minnesota, 
 
 early, 57, 242; French, 80- 
 
 102 
 Settlers, early, 135-148, 316, 
 
 332; west of Mississippi, 
 
 158 
 Shadow Falls, 53 
 Shakopee, 30, 52, 251 
 Sheehan, Timothy J., 224, 227 
 Sherburne, 307 
 Sherman, William T., 134, 
 
 213; "March to the Sea," 
 
 214 
 Shetek, 320 
 Shields, James, 321 
 Shiloh, Battle of, 208 
 Shrubs in Minnesota, 7 
 Sibley, Henry Hastings, 98, 
 
 117,135,^139,144.150-153, 
 
 185, 228, 232, 318 
 Sibley House, 317-319 
 Sioux Indians, 11-19; bap- 
 tized, 83; battles with 
 Ojibways, 77, 319, 341; 
 driven from Minneapolis, 
 230; massacre, 188, 218- 
 232, 320; names, 54; out- 
 break, 188; reservation, 
 341; Upper and Lower 
 Bands, 70 
 Sissetons, 70 
 Sitting-in-a-row, 69 
 Sky-ey Water, i 
 Slashings, timber, 179, 180 
 Slate in Minnesota, 310 
 Slavery, 204, 206 
 Smelter, Duluth, 306 
 Snelling, Fort, see Fort 
 Snelling, Josiah, 130, 132, 
 142, 163 
 
Index 
 
 371 
 
 Soldiers* Home, 298 
 "Soldiers' Lodge," 222 
 Soto, Hernando de, 259 
 South Bend, 225 
 Spanish land claims, 58 
 Spanish- American War, 216 
 "Spirit iron," 90 
 Spirit Lake, 218 
 Springfield, 218 
 Squatters, 142, 143, 150 
 Squaw, work of, 80 
 Stage, early companies, 242, 
 
 243, 247; routes, 247 
 Stanchfield, Daniel, 168 
 Staples, Isaac, 167, 168 
 Star Family, Legend of, 39 
 State House, 80, 216, 217, 
 
 320, 351, 352 
 State of Minnesota, admitted, 
 186; capital, 181, 352; 
 Capitol, see State House; 
 constitution, 184.; fair, 
 202; first election, 185 
 fish hatcheries, 347; flag, 
 348; flower, 351; Forester, 
 342; mines, 305; motto, 
 190; officers, 185; organ- 
 ized, 184; parks, 338-341; 
 schools, see Schools; seal, 
 180 
 Steam bath, Indian, 90 
 Steamboats, 237-240, 273; 
 
 first on St. Croix, 165 
 Steele County, 141 
 Steele, Franklin, 132, 139, 
 
 140, 146, 163, 164, 168 
 Stevens, John, 104, 137, 155, 
 
 158, 319 
 Stillwater, 138, 146, 150, 151, 
 
 154, 166, 168, 297, 313 
 Stock raising, 337 
 Stone, George C, 303 
 
 Stones, building, 306-311 
 Stores, fur companies, 120 
 Sugar Point War, 283 
 Summer Maker, Legend of, 
 
 43 
 Sumner, Charles, 134, 314 
 Sunday School, first, 102 
 Superior, Lake, see Lakes 
 Survey, U. S. Land, 173 
 Swamper Caribou, 34 
 Swan Lake, 225 
 Swedes, 333 
 Swiss settlers, 142, 193, 274 
 
 Ta-kap-si-ka-pi, 16 
 Taku- Waken, 31 
 Taliaferro, Lawrence, 116, 
 
 257 
 Taxes, 337 
 
 Taylor, Zachary, 132; Presi- 
 dent, 152 
 Taylor's Falls, 138, 163, 339 
 Temperance River, 273 
 Tepees, Indian, 13, 55 
 Territory, Minnesota, 60, 61, 
 153-155; organization of, 
 151, 152; population, 156 
 Territory, Northwest, 59, 60 
 Territory, Wisconsin, 60 
 Thompson, David, 266 
 Thomsonites, 310 
 Threshing-machines, 195 
 Thunder Bird, 32, 71, 309 
 Thunder tracks, 33 
 Timber cutting, 176 
 Tofti, 273 
 Torinus, Louis, 167 
 Tornadoes, 277 
 Tower, 303 
 Tower, Charlemagne, 303 
 
372 
 
 Index 
 
 Towns, growth of, 240 
 
 Townships, 173 
 
 Trade, 336; fur, 112, 113, 126; 
 
 on Lake Superior, 255 
 Traders, Enghsh, 96, 128; fur, 
 
 234; licensed, 254 
 Trails, 79, 234 
 Transportation, 233-256 
 Trapper, 113 
 Traverse, Lake, see Lakes 
 Traverse des Sioux, 70, 106, 
 
 124, 237, 240, 245, 312 
 Treaties, Indian, 63-78 
 Treaty, Indian (of 1837), 
 
 143; (of 1851), 239, 312; 
 
 (of 1858), 219; pine lands, 
 
 170 
 Treaty of Ghent (18 14), 62; 
 
 of Paris (1763), 58; of 
 
 Paris (1783), 59; Pike's, 
 
 128 
 Trees of Minnesota, 6, 161, 
 
 162, 342, 343 
 Tuberculosis, Anti-, Camp, 
 
 296 
 Tullibees, 20 
 Turtle Lake, 266 
 Two Harbors, 303, 305 
 
 U 
 
 University of Minnesota, 96, 
 
 141, 293, 294 
 University Song, 331 
 Upper Agency, Sioux, 222 
 Upper Landing, in 
 Upper Sioux, 217, 221 
 Upper Sioux Reservation, 73 
 U. S., flag, 254; lands, 173 
 
 Van Cleve, Charlotte Ouis- 
 
 consm, 102, 129, 322 
 Van Cleve, Horatio, 212, 322 
 Vermilion Lake, 302 
 Vermilion Range, 180 
 Vicksburg, 213 
 Vincent, George E., 295 
 Volunteers, Minnesota, in 
 
 Civil War, 207-211, 214; 
 
 Spanish-American War, 
 
 282-284 
 "Voyageur, The," 125 
 Voyageurs, 119, 234 
 
 W 
 
 Wabasha, 53, 129, 230 
 
 Wahkeenyan, 32 
 
 Wahpetons, 70 
 
 Wakan, 309 
 
 Walker, Orange, 166, 313 
 
 Wampum, 14 
 
 Wanotah, 15 
 
 War, Civil, 187, 207-217; De- 
 partment, 246; flags, 216; 
 French and Indian, 57; 
 Governor, 188; of 1812, 
 62, 127; Revolutionary, 57; 
 Spanish-American, 282- 
 284; imiforms, 209 
 
 Washburn mill, 277 
 
 Washington, City of, 210 
 
 Washington, George, 57, 264 
 
 Washington monument, 309 
 
 Watab River, 53 
 
 Water Lily, Legend of, 35 
 
 Water power, 197 
 
 Waterways, 234 
 
 Weyerhaeuser interests, 179 
 
 "Whalebacks,"255 
 
 Wheat, 141, 193-199 
 
 Wheelock, Joseph A., 321 
 
 Whipple, Henry B., 322 
 
Index 
 
 373 
 
 Whitefish, 20, 85, 346 
 White child, first, at Fort 
 Snelling, 129; in Minnesota 
 
 Wild birds, 344 
 Wild rice, 260 
 Wilkin, Alexander, 341 
 Williamson, Rev. Thomas S., 
 
 75, 104, 105, 136 
 Willow River, 180 
 Winchell, N. H., 48 
 Wind-mills, 197, 313 
 Winona, 49, 82 y 96, 179, 249 
 Winston, 178, 302 
 Wisconsin, State of, 151; 
 
 Territory, 60 
 
 Wolves, 172 
 
 Wood Lake, 213, 229 
 
 Woodsman, pioneer, 171 
 
 Yellow Head, 269 
 
 Yellow Medicine Agency, 221, 
 
 239; reservation, 73, 106, 
 
 217 
 
 Zenith City, 189 
 Zumbro, 55 
 Zumbrota, 55