TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT
The triumph of the Democratic party in the elections of 1852 was notice
to all the appointive territorial officers of Minnesota that their days
were numbered. On May 15, 1853, Governor Ramsey gave place to the Hon.
Willis A. Gorman, and the Whig judges were succeeded by Messrs. William
H. Welch, Andrew G. Chatfield, and Moses G. Sherburne.
The appointment of governor was a disappointment to the friends of Mr.
Sibley, who felt that he had good right to aspire to the office. His
connection with the now discredited fur company, and his failure to
ally himself with the Democratic machine in Minnesota, left the
President free to bestow the appointment on some one who had done loyal
service in the late campaign. In this regard few were more deserving
than Colonel Gorman of Indiana. Born in 1816, he was admitted to the
bar at the age of twenty, and three years later became a member of the
legislature. At the outbreak of the Mexican War he raised and commanded
a battalion of riflemen and later a regiment of infantry. After that
war he served two years in Congress, and deserved well of his party.
His power upon the stump was enhanced by a graceful personality and a
voice of great melody and strength. The affairs of the territory had
already been organized and had fallen into an orderly routine, so that
Governor Gorman’s administration of four years was not marked by
notable executive acts. His messages abound in eloquent passages,
generally commendatory of worthy enterprises and objects. The
exigencies of politics and business presently put him and Mr. Sibley
into the same bed, and affiliated Mr. Ramsey to some degree with Mr.
Rice.
Legislative action was devoted mainly to provisions for the needs of a
rapidly swelling population and expanding settlements. New counties
were organized from year to year, and towns, cities, and villages were
incorporated in astonishing numbers. College and university charters
were distributed with liberal hand to aspiring municipalities. The
disposition of the government appropriation for territorial roads
occupied much time of the houses. The commissioners and surveyors
employed in laying out the roads, and the contractors who undertook the
construction, saw to it that no idle surpluses were left over.
Plank-road charters were numerous, but none were ever built. Railroad
incorporations occupy great space in the journals and statutes, perhaps
because they had been excepted out of the general law of 1851 for the
creation of corporations. Ferry privileges were much sought for.
The same conditions governed the activity of Mr. Rice, who took his
seat as delegate in Congress in December, 1853. Industrious,
persuasive, and soon influential, he promoted in many ways the
interests of the territory and his constituents, and by so doing
obtained a popularity hardly equaled in Minnesota history. He was
diligent in laboring for the extension of the land surveys and the
establishment of land offices. He secured the opening of post-offices
in the new villages. His influence contributed to the extension of the
preëmption system to unsurveyed lands, a change which virtually opened
all lands not Indian to settlement. Mr. Rice’s own personal qualities
were such as to give him wide acquaintance and influence, and these
were extended in no small degree by those of the charming Virginian
lady whom he had taken to wife. Standing for reëlection in the fall of
1855, he won by a handsome plurality over his Republican opponent,
William R. Marshall, and another Democratic candidate, David Olmstead,
supported by the friends of Mr. Sibley.
As the administration of Mr. Ramsey had been signalized by the opening
of many millions of acres of Indian lands to white men’s occupation in
southern Minnesota, so in Governor Gorman’s day great areas were opened
in the Chippeway country of northern Minnesota. It is probable that Mr.
Rice, more familiar with the Chippeways than any other public man, was
most influential of all in procuring the cessions.
The earliest explorers to the shores of Lake Superior had brought away
specimens of native copper and Indian reports of hidden metallic
treasure. In 1826 Governor Lewis Cass obtained, by a treaty made at
Fond du Lac with the Chippeways, the right of the whites to search for
metals and minerals in any part of their vast country. Although no
mining development took place, the belief persisted that there was
great metallic wealth in the upper lake region. The first cession in
the northwest was that of the Chippeways of Lake Superior in September,
1854, of the “triangle” north of the lake, extending westward to the
line of the St. Louis and Vermilion rivers, embracing nearly three
million acres. This great cession was followed by another still
greater, early in 1855. Nearly four hundred townships in the north
central part of the state were freed from Indian incumbrance. The two
cessions cover nearly one half of the area of the state. It was the
lumber interest which desired the acquisition of 1855. On the area
liberated stood large bodies of the finest pine forests of America. The
current belief was that they could never be exhausted. Of Chippeway
country there remained a trapezoidal block in the extreme northwest
corner of the state, which was not acquired by treaty until 1863.
In 1851, immediately after the conclusion of the Sioux treaties of
Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, Governor Ramsey made the long journey
from St. Paul to Pembina, and there made a treaty with the local
Chippeways for the cession of a great tract. This treaty went in with
the Sioux treaties for confirmation and had to be “sacrificed” to
secure favorable action by the Senate on them. What “interest” desired
the extinction of Indian titles upon such a remote and disconnected
area is not well known. Mr. Norman W. Kittson had operated there since
1843, for the American Fur Company. The ratified treaties mentioned
left the Chippeways, some ten thousand in number, concentrated on
reservations of moderate extent set apart in the ceded territory. These
they still occupy, generally in peace, depending largely on their
annuities for subsistence. Their progress in civilization and
Christianity has been sufficient to keep the missionaries and teachers
from giving up in despair. No body of ecclesiastics ever had a more
complete rule over a people than the medicine-men of the Chippeway
Indians.
* * * * *
An incident of the Chippeway treaty of 1854 must here have mention, at
the risk of tedium. As was usual, the half-breeds had to be conciliated
by a benefaction to prevent them from dissuading the Indians. It was
given them in the shape of an eighty-acre tract in fee simple to each
head of a family or single person over twenty-one years of age, of the
mixed bloods. This distribution was made and all beneficiaries, three
hundred and twelve in number, were satisfied, within two years. Ten
years after the negotiation of the treaty an accommodating commissioner
of Indian affairs, upon application through Delegate Rice, issued two
certificates for eighty-acre tracts to two members of a prominent
Minnesota family, mixed bloods of the Chippeways of Lake Superior, who
had never lived with those Indians. He also ruled that the grant
extended to Chippeway mixed bloods of any tribe wherever resident. To
prevent the oversight of any worthy beneficiaries under these rulings,
industrious gentlemen at once employed themselves in searching them out
and revealing their unsuspected good fortune. “Factories” were
established at La Pointe, Wisconsin, Washington, D. C., St. Paul, and
in the Red River country, and nearly twelve hundred were discovered.
Later examinations of the lists showed that in some cases both man and
wife had been reckoned as heads of families; and that the names of some
minors, of some Chippeway families with too little white blood to
fairly count as “breeds,” and of a few deceased persons had been
enrolled. The motive for this extraordinary diligence lay in the fact
that the certificates or “scrip” could be used for the location of pine
on unsurveyed lands, giving the holder the opportunity of ranging the
woods and selecting the most valuable. These certificates the
half-breeds were commonly willing to alienate for a small
consideration. That they were on their face absolutely unassignable,
and so good only in the hands of the beneficiary himself, was no
serious obstacle to the ingenious operators. Two powers of attorney,
one to locate, the other to sell, served as a virtual conveyance to the
speculating lumberman.
James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior in Lincoln’s second
administration, put a stop to this pretty game. But his successor, O.
H. Browning, yielded to the persuasions of interested parties, and on
July 11, 1868, reopened the doors to them. Within a few weeks a
prominent citizen filed 315 applications and received 310 pieces of
scrip. An investigating committee expressed the opinion that “probably
not one of these was valid.” They were good for 24,800 acres of pine.
The liberal secretary ruled that they might be located on any lands
ceded by the Chippeways by any treaty, and need not be selected on
those ceded at La Pointe in 1854. Applications continued to come in. In
the following year, 1869, Colonel Ely F. Parker, by birth a Seneca
Indian, was made commissioner of Indian affairs. Taking up the
applications, he rejected them all and gave notice that no more scrip
would issue under the treaty of 1854. Holders of certificates obtained
in the manner described were discouraged, but not cast down. They
prevailed on the Secretary of the Interior in 1870 to appoint a
gentleman of Minnesota a special agent to examine claims. Reporting
progress in March, 1871, that agent had found 135 persons entitled to
scrip.
Columbus Delano was Secretary of the Interior in the year last
mentioned. Assured that the subject of Chippeway half-breed scrip would
bear scrutinizing, he appointed the Neal commission. The report of that
commission brought the facts above related to the surface. Of the 135
claims reported valid by the late special agent they found two
legitimate. They approved eleven out of 495 others presented. The
commission also examined 116 “personal applications,” filed in the St.
Cloud land office, and these without exception were fraudulent. That
number of persons, belonging to a Red River train bivouacked at St.
Cloud, had been taken into the land office and steered through the
motions of applying for scrip. For this accommodating service they were
paid from fifteen to forty dollars apiece. The commission recommended
that no more Chippeway half-breed scrip under the treaty of 1854 should
be issued, unless by order of Congress, and that the persons who had
been guilty of subornation of perjury, forgery, and embezzlement should
be prosecuted.
This did not conclude the long drawn out matter. Pieces of scrip
accompanied with powers of attorney in blank had been freely bought and
sold for use in locating pine. These vouchers fell into the hands of
bankers, and represented considerable investments. It seemed a hardship
that these holders should suffer loss. On June 8, 1872, Congress passed
a bill with the innocent title “An act to quiet certain land titles.”
It provided that “innocent parties” holding Chippeway half-breed scrip
in good faith, for value, might purchase the corresponding lands at a
price to be fixed by the Secretary of the Interior, not less than one
dollar and a quarter an acre.
The Jones commission, appointed to ascertain the innocent holders,
reported thirteen individuals and firms entitled to the benefits of the
act, and approved 216 entries conveying 17,280 acres of the best pine
in Minnesota, worth eight to ten dollars an acre. As to the price to be
paid, the commissioners advised the department that it would be useless
to ask more than two dollars and a half an acre, for if put up at
auction, combinations of bidders would hold bids to that figure. The
commission vindicated the claimants from any participation in the
original frauds, but found that they had been much too careless in
their investments, and so had become victims of persons who had “got up
a scheme with wonderful prudence and caution.” These victims, thus
resorting to Congress for relief, were the sharpest pine land operators
ever known in Minnesota.
This recital may teach how and why liberal gratifications were always
desired for mixed bloods, when Indian treaties were negotiated.
A contemporaneous operation, similar in its results, took place with
the half-breeds of the Sioux nation. Account has already been made of a
gift of land which the Sioux were permitted to bestow on their
half-breeds in the treaty at Prairie du Chien in 1830. The tract
designated, roughly rectangular, long known as the “Wabashaw
reservation,” lay on the Mississippi, running down river from Red Wing
thirty-two miles, and back into the country fifteen miles. The treaty
provided that the President might in his discretion grant title to
parcels of one section in fee simple to individual breeds; and it was
the expectation of the able men who were working the scheme that they
would soon be in possession of extensive properties at slight outlay.
Agent Taliaferro, the incorruptible Sioux agent, revealed the plan in
so forceful a way that neither President Jackson nor any successor
would grant title to individuals. Failure to get possession of land was
followed by efforts to get money. The half-breeds had no desire to
settle on the reservation. In 1841 the unratified “Doty treaty” with
the Sioux included a sum of $200,000 to be paid the breeds for the
reservation, which they were to surrender. Again in 1849, when
Commissioners Ramsey and Chambers attempted to obtain a treaty of
cession of the Sioux, they only succeeded in securing an agreement of
the half-breeds to accept some such sum. The Senate refused to ratify.
A similar article was injected into the treaties of 1851, and this was
rejected by the Senate, to the disappointment of patient waiters.
The matter awaited the intervention of Delegate Rice, whose knowledge
and skill in Indian affairs had obtained him influence in Congress. On
July 17, 1854, a bill which had been introduced by him, providing for
the survey of the Wabashaw reservation in Minnesota, “and for other
purposes,” was approved. The “other purpose” was to give the President
authority to issue certificates or scrip to individual Sioux
half-breeds, under a _pro rata_ division of the tract. These
certificates might be located on any lands of the United States, not
reserved, unsurveyed lands included. In express terms the law forbade
the transfer or conveyance of the scrip. The tract was surveyed, and in
the course of two years 640 individual breeds were assigned 480 acres
each. Later 37 persons obtained each 360 acres; in all 320,880 acres
were disposed of. Very few of the beneficiaries settled on the
reservation. In many cases the scrip went to pay traders’ debts, and in
many others the beneficiaries got “dogs and cats” for it. White men who
had taken half-breed wives profited most. The size of some families is
remarkable.
The provision of law that no scrip could be transferred was evaded by
the same means as those employed in handling Chippeway half-breed
scrip. Two powers of attorney with the necessary affidavits worked a
transfer, which the courts sustained. Sioux half-breed scrip which
could be located on unsurveyed lands was soon in request, and served
the purposes of the well-informed. A batch of it went to California to
be located on forest and mineral lands. A moiety was used for the
acquisition of town sites in Minnesota in advance of surveys. Another
use involving some elasticity of conscience was the acquisition of pine
timber without the inconvenience of taking the lands with it. A plan of
“floating” scrip was worked out and prosecuted so habitually by men of
good report that no dishonor attached to it. The holder of scrip under
power of attorney would locate a piece, cut off the pine, and then
discover that he had not dealt wisely for his half-breed principal. He
would then obtain a cancellation of his location, place his scrip on
another piece, and repeat the process until the surveys were made. As
late as 1872 the commissioner of public lands issued a circular
condemning this practice in vigorous terms.
Soon after the unexampled development of the iron mines in the
“triangle” in the middle of the eighties, Sioux half-breed scrip was
used to obtain title to lands still unsurveyed in that region, likely
to be found iron-bearing. Mr. Vilas, Secretary of the Interior, and his
successor decided, in cases referred to them, that this scrip could not
pass title, the powers of attorney being but a means to evade the law
declaring the scrip to be non-transferable. A long series of
litigations followed, concluded by the Supreme Court decision of 1902
(183 U. S. 619), holding those powers of attorney to work a valid
conveyance. The title to many millions worth of mining property was
thus quieted.
It may here be noted that in 1855 the Winnebagoes, discontented with
their homes in the Long Prairie reservation, were glad to exchange it
for one of eighteen miles square, south and east of Mankato, whither
they removed in the same year. The new reservation being less than one
fourth the area of the old, a large addition was made to white man’s
country.
* * * * *
Of all the developments in the time of Governor Gorman none equaled in
importance the phenomenal increase of population. The census of 1850
showed a total of 6077 souls in the nine counties of the territory,
4577 of them in three counties. Pending the negotiation, amendment, and
ratification of the Sioux treaties of 1851 the accessions were small.
It was late in the season of 1853 when the bands of the upper and lower
Sioux were established on their reservations on the upper Minnesota.
Some adventurous prospectors had not waited for them to abandon their
villages on the Mississippi, but had staked out claims in their corn
and bean patches. There may have been 10,000 whites when the Indians
had departed.
In the early summer of 1854 the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was
built through to the Mississippi. The event was celebrated by a grand
excursion from Chicago to St. Paul and Fort Snelling. Five steamers
carried the party from Rock Island up the river. Among the guests were
statesmen, divines, college professors, and eminent men of affairs. At
the reception in St. Paul addresses were made by ex-President Fillmore
and George Bancroft the historian. This excursion, widely heralded,
gave notice that Minnesota was in steam communication for half the
year. That year saw the arrival of the advance guard of the host to
follow. The season of 1855 saw 50,000 people in the territory; that
number was doubled in 1856. The sales of public lands, which in 1854
had been but 314,715 acres, rose to 1,132,672 in the next year, and to
2,334,000 in 1856. These figures indicate that the people came to stay
and cultivate the soil. The Middle States sent the largest contingent,
next the Northwestern States, and then New England. The prairie lands,
if broken early, would yield a crop of sod corn the same year, and in
any case returned a bounteous harvest in the second year.
In a time incredibly short these pioneers, rudely housed and their
animals sheltered, were surrounded by all solid comforts. They lost no
time in starting their schools, churches, and other associations.
Minnesota was hardly ever missionary ground for white people.
The establishment of steam communication for the summer season made the
“territorians” of Minnesota feel the more keenly the isolation in the
long winters. Governor Gorman in his first message (January 11, 1854)
said: “To get out from here during the winter ... is far above and
beyond any other consideration to the people of Minnesota. To
accomplish this you must concentrate all the energies of the people on
one or two roads, and NO MORE for the present. I have but little doubt
that Congress will grant us land sufficient to unlock our ice-bound
home, if we confine our request to one point.” This wise counsel had
its effect on the legislature. On February 20 Joseph R. Brown
introduced into the council a bill to incorporate the “Minnesota and
Northwestern Railroad Company,” which was presently passed by that
body, but by no large majority. In the house lively opposition sprung
up, and dilatory proceedings delayed passage till the last night of the
session (March 3). Governor Gorman gave it a reluctant approval because
he had been allowed but sixty-five minutes before the expiration of the
session to examine its provisions. It is quite remarkable that a bill
of such importance, the talk of the town, had escaped his notice. The
act authorized the chartered company to build and operate a railroad
from the head of Lake Superior via St. Paul to Dubuque, Iowa, within a
specified term of years. The franchise was to be void unless the first
board of directors should be organized on or before the first day of
July following.
The real ground of opposition in the legislature, and of Governor
Gorman’s reluctance, lay in a provision, “that any lands granted to the
said territory to aid in the construction of said railroad shall be and
the same are hereby granted in fee simple, absolute, without further
act or deed,” to said company. There was ambiguity in the paragraph
relating to the northern terminus, leaving it in doubt whether that
might not be located outside of Minnesota. It was suspected that the
intention was to place it at Bayfield, Wisconsin, where influential
persons had made purchases of real estate. It remained to secure from
Congress the much needed and hoped for land grant. A bill to grant even
number sections of public lands for six sections in width on both sides
of the proposed railroad line, so drawn as to allow the grant to pass
to the company chartered by the Minnesota territorial legislature, was
introduced in the House on March 7. The Secretary of War, Jefferson
Davis, warmly recommended its passage because of the service the road
would render in transporting troops, munitions of war, and mail.
The proposition to grant a million acres and more to so remote and
thinly settled a territory at once aroused inquiry and opposition. The
policy of granting public lands for building railroads was still novel;
there were but three precedents, that of the Illinois Central grant of
1850 being the oldest. The measure, however, had its friends, and the
opponents were driven to the device of killing the bill by amendments.
And they succeeded. Presently came a revulsion. Members from the South
and West regretted that the railroad land grant policy had received so
rude a backset. There was no little sympathy for Minnesota, struggling
for an open road and a market. Another effort was resolved upon. Mr.
Sibley, then in Washington, drew a new bill identical in the main with
that which had been put to sleep, but so changed as to vest the grant
in the territory and leave its disposition to the next or a later
legislature. This bill was passed and approved on June 29.
The incorporators named in the Minnesota act creating the Minnesota and
Northwestern Railroad Company met in New York on July 1, on one day’s
notice, and “organized” by the election of a board of directors. The
board immediately elected the necessary officers and took the proper
resolutions for beginning their enterprise. On the 24th of July it was
charged on the floor of the House of Representatives at Washington that
the “Minnesota bill” had been mutilated after its passage by the House,
so that the Senate had really passed a differing bill. The effect of
the change (simply the word “and” written over an erasure of the word
“or”) had the effect to vest the lands granted in the Minnesota
corporation; just what Congress had intended not to do. An abortive
investigation followed, and the mutilated bill was repealed by a
section added to a private bill to increase a certain pension, pending
in the Senate, and awaiting third reading. This action was of course
disappointing to the railroad company and those friendly to it.
Delegate Rice was of opinion that the alteration of “or” to “and” was
purely verbal and immaterial, and eminent attorneys advised the company
that a grant having been made for sufficient considerations, it had
become an irrevocable contract. The pretended repeal, therefore, was
void. To test this question a case entitled The United States vs. The
Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company was brought before the
district court of Goodhue County, asking the award of damages for
certain oak trees felled on land belonging to the government. The
defense contended that no damages were done, because it had cut the
trees on land granted by Congress by the act of June 24, 1854. The
issue was, of course, the constitutionality of the repealing act. The
court held the act void, and the Supreme Court of the territory
sustained that judgment before the end of the year. This was very
encouraging to the company, but their joy was presently changed to
sorrow. When the Attorney-General of the United States learned from the
newspapers of this litigation, and of a suit brought in behalf of the
United States without his knowledge or authority, he removed the
accommodating district attorney from office (December 30, 1854), and
later discontinued the suit.
When the legislature of 1855 convened, on January 3, the company,
sustained by the Supreme Court of the territory, was in a position to
approach that body with confidence. Its affairs now entered more fully
than ever into territorial politics, and it is only on this account
that further notice of them is taken. Mr. Rice, supported by Mr.
Ramsey, a director of the company, championed the railroad cause.
Governor Gorman and Mr. Sibley led the opposition forces. The former in
his message denounced the “or” and “and” jugglery, and the latter, as
chairman of the judiciary committee of the lower house, framed a
damaging report which called for a memorial to Congress to annul the
charter of the company granted by the Minnesota legislature March 3,
1857. The memorial was not voted, but the national House of
Representatives by resolution of January 29 decided, for its part, to
annul. The Senate did not concur, and Delegate Rice was comforted. When
the news reached St. Paul on March 24 the whole town was illuminated.
The charter of the company provided that unless fifty miles of road
should be completed within one year the franchise should be forfeited.
An extension of time and certain modifications were necessary. A bill
granting these was passed by sufficient majorities. Governor Gorman
vetoed it in a message of great sharpness, closing with an insinuation
that the “money-king” had had more than his share of influence. The
houses by exact two thirds votes passed the bill over the executive
veto. Mr. Sibley and his friends had to content themselves with a
personal memorial to Congress, which his biographer declares to be
unequaled “for fearless and burning exposure of wrong and perfidy, in
the annals of any territory or state.” The company had been let to
live, but it was obliged to apply to the next legislature (1856) for a
further lease of life. This was accorded by good majorities in both
houses. Again Governor Gorman interposed his objections, declaring it
futile to extend the life of the corporation. A new bill, drawn in such
manner as to obviate the executive criticisms, was passed by a close
vote at the end of the session. The bill received the reluctant
approval of the governor. Three successive legislatures having
sustained the company’s charters, he acquiesced, with slight
confidence, however, in its professions.
The company now made a second resort to the courts to establish its
claim to the grant of June 29, 1854. One of its directors, having
bought of the United States a piece of land in Dakota County, brought
suit against the railroad company for trespass. The district and
supreme courts of the territory gave judgment for the defendant
company, holding that it had good title to the land grant and therefore
was not guilty of the alleged trespass. Before entry of judgment,
however, in the latter court, the case was removed to the United States
District Court; and this tribunal also found for the defendant. The
Supreme Court of the United States, on writ of error from below, in
December, 1861, disposed of the case by deciding (two justices
dissenting) that the act of Congress of June 29, 1854, vested in the
Territory of Minnesota no more than a naked trust or power, which could
be and was revoked by the repealing act. The territorial legislature
had exceeded its power in attempting to vest title in fee simple in the
railroad company.
* * * * *
It was in the period now in view that Minneapolis, which has become the
largest Minnesota city, had its beginning. The military reservation of
Fort Snelling as delimited by Major Plympton in 1839 comprised, as was
guessed, about 50,000 acres. The surveys made in later times show
nearly 35,000 acres. So soon as it became known that a treaty of
cession would be exacted from the Sioux, it was believed by the
neighboring residents that Fort Snelling would be abandoned and the
reservation opened for settlement. In 1849, when the first attempt was
made on the Sioux, Robert Smith of Alton, Illinois, a member of
Congress, having a “pull” at Washington, got leave of the War
Department to lease the government mill at the Falls of St. Anthony on
the west side. Later this concession ripened into a purchase of a
quarter section abutting on the cataract. In the next year John H.
Stevens, acting for himself and another, had similar leave granted to
occupy the river front above the Smith claim, on condition of operating
a ferry, free to government, at the falls. In the next year, 1851, a
number of citizens of St. Anthony, already a thriving village of some
six hundred people, thought it would be well to establish inchoate
claims on some of the beautiful terraces which lay in view from their
homes, beyond the river. They accordingly crossed over, staked out
quarter sections as well as possible in the absence of surveys, built
claim shanties, and had some plowing done. Still another year later,
1852, when in midsummer the Sioux treaties and amendments had been
ratified and it was evident that the Sioux must soon move towards the
sunset, and that the military reservation would be given up and opened
to settlement, there took place a wild rush of St. Anthony men across
the stream to seize on the coveted lands. It was not long till the
whole terrain of Minneapolis was covered with claims. The action of
Congress ordering a survey of the reserve expedited these irregular
preëmptions.
The expectations of the squatters were so far met that on August 26,
1852, Congress authorized the “reduction” of the reserve, and the
survey and sale of the excluded area. Two years passed before the
surveys were completed and the lands advertised for sale. It was not
desired that haste be made. On the completion of the surveyor’s work,
the squatters formed a so-called “Equal Rights and Impartial Protection
Claim Association of Hennepin County, M. T.,” the prime object of which
was to adjust the numerous tracts of claimants to the lines of survey.
This was effected by the action of an executive committee allowed to
use discretion and guaranteed support. There was a second use for this
organization. There was a considerable area east of the Mississippi
left outside the boundary of the reduced reserve. This had been offered
for sale in the usual subdivisions in September, 1854, at public
auction. There was but one bidder, and he was surrounded by interested
citizens who would have made it uncomfortable for any other person who
might thoughtlessly inject a superfluous bid and mar the harmony of the
occasion. The government got $1.25, the minimum price for wild lands,
for property worth easily ten times that sum, and nobody’s conscience
was strained. In anticipation of a public sale of the main portion of
the reserved lands on which Minneapolis has been built, the claim
association mentioned was prepared, by similar proceedings, to prevent
any speculators (others than themselves) from depriving them of their
rights by offering to pay value for the lands. But the plats were by
some unknown influence held back in Washington and the sale was
postponed. When Congress assembled in December, 1854, a strong
delegation of claimants appeared in Washington and secured further
postponement of the public sale. Delegate Rice took up their cause with
vigor and presently obtained the passage of an act granting preëmption
right to all who might comply with preëmption conditions. In the spring
of 1855 the fortunate claimants proved up, and the government received
$24,688.37 for 19,733.87 acres of land worth more than $200,000. There
is a tradition, lacking support by particular facts, that military
officers in the neighborhood profited by arrangements with squatters,
who agreed to divide spoils in consideration of being left undisturbed
on their claims. Citizens not having such arrangements were
discouraged, and in some cases driven off by force.
The nucleus of Minneapolis was well crystallized in 1855. The United
States land office was established, the first bridge over the
Mississippi in all its length was built, the first town plat surveyed,
and one hundred houses built. (In 1854 there were but twelve scattered
claim shanties.) Seventeen stores and artisans’ shops in many lines
sprang up. There was a hotel, a newspaper, and four organized churches.
Minneapolis existed under town government till 1867, and in 1872 was
united with St. Anthony, the latter city losing its historic name. The
name Minneapolis is a variant on Min-ne-ha-polis, proposed by Charles
Hoag. After this “reduction” of the Snelling reservation, its area
covered 7916 acres, as shown by later surveys.
The story of the clandestine sale of the whole by Buchanan’s secretary
of war in the spring of 1857, while abounding in incident, was too
slight in its results to call for complete narration. It is probably
not true that this sale was part of a scheme attributed to Floyd, to
squander the military resources of the North in anticipation of a
rebellion of the South. H. M. Rice interested himself in getting the
necessary legislation and orders for the sale. The whole tract was sold
for $90,000, of which one third was paid down. The purchaser defaulted
on the remainder, and the government resumed possession at the outbreak
of the Civil War. In 1872 the claims of the purchaser for his equity
and rentals were adjusted by a board of military officers, which
awarded him 6,394.80 acres, the government retaining 1,521.20 acres. It
has been found necessary to repurchase some of the alienated land for
the uses of the garrison.
In the winter of 1857 a bill to move the capital to St. Peter was
passed in both houses of the legislature. Joseph Rolette of Pembina,
chairman of the council committee on enrollment, absented himself with
the bill till after the close of the session. The speaker signed a
substituted copy, but the president of the council refused. Governor
Gorman approved, but the Supreme Court held that no law had been passed.