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[Illustration: LUCY LEAVENWORTH WILDER MORRIS
Originator of "Old Rail Fence Corners."]
OLD RAIL
FENCE CORNERS
THE A. B. C's. OF
Minnesota History
SECOND EDITION
AUTHENTIC INCIDENTS GLEANED FROM
The Old Settlers
By The Book Committee
1914
COPYRIGHTED 1914
BY
THE BOOK COMMITTEE
LUCY LEAVENWORTH WILDER MORRIS,
EDITOR
PUBLISHED BY
THE F. H. MCCULLOCH PRINTING @
AUSTIN, MINN.
In Memoriam
Mr. Eli Pettijohn
Mrs. Missouri Rose Pratt
Mr. James McMullen
Mrs. Samuel B. Dresser
Mr. William W. Ellison
Mr. Henry Favel
Major Benjamin Randall
Mrs. Duncan Kennedy
Major S. A. Buell
Mrs. Helen Horton
Mrs. Mary Massolt
Mrs. J. M. Paine
Mr. Chas. Watson
Mrs. C. W. Gress
[Illustration: Map of OLD TRAILS AND ROADS
COMPILED BY MR. GEORGE RALPH AND MRS. JAMES T. MORRIS]
Explanatory
How little we know about what we don't know!
During my search for a map of the Old Trails and Roads of Minnesota,
public libraries were thoroughly investigated, but no book or map could
be found showing these old highways. A few old maps in the Historical
Library bore snatches of them, but in their entirety they had
disappeared from books and maps, as well as from our state.
They might be the foundations for modern roads, but only the names of
those modern roads survived, so they were lost.
Months of this research work failed to resurrect them, although a map
was made from the fragmentary pieces on old maps, filled out by what the
pioneers who had traveled those roads could furnish. All old maps seemed
to have disappeared from the state.
"We had one of the new territory of Minnesota when it was admitted in
'49, but just threw it out when we cleaned house lately. I think it came
from Washington," said one dear old pioneer woman.
"What do you want of those old roads anyway," said another. "If you had
been over them as I have, you would know how much better these roads
are, and be glad they are gone."
It was hard to locate them from hearsay for when we asked "Did it go
through Alexandria," the answer was, "There was no town on it after
leaving St. Cloud, so I can't say just where it went, but we went to
Fort Garry and crossed the river at Georgetown."
Finally, after nearly a year's hard work, as we were on our way to the
Capitol to look over the first government surveys, Mr. George Ralph was
met, became interested, and drew part of these trails from the old plats
for this map.
When a surveyor goes into a new country to make a government survey, he
is required to place on that plat every trail, road or plowed
field--John Ryan, who worked in the forties was the only one we found
who always followed these directions. He would survey several townships,
and there would be the much-wanted road. Some other surveyor would do
the one below and there would be a break, but John would take hold again
a little further on and the trail could be joined from the direction
shown.
Later this map made was compared with old maps since destroyed at the
Army Building in St. Paul and found correct.
The three great routes for the Red River carts to St. Paul, the great
fur market, which used to come down by the hundreds from the Pembina and
Fort Garry country are shown. One through the Minnesota Valley; one
through the Sauk Valley, and the most used of all through the Crow Wing
Valley by way of Leaf Lake. They used to come to the head waters of the
Mississippi in 1808.[1] The Wabasha Prairie Road, called Winona Trail on
this map, was a very old one, as also were those leading to the sacred
Pipestone Quarries and the sacred Spirit Lake. There is a tradition that
there was a truce between all tribes when these trails were followed.
Mrs. J. T. M.
[Footnote 1: From Captain Alexander Henry's diary about the Red River
country in 1801, presented to Ottawa. He also says there were 1500 of
these carts there in 1808.]
The Book Committee
A sub-committee of the Old Trails and Historic Spots Committee,
Daughters of the American Revolution, Appointed by the Chairman.
Mrs. James T. Morris
Mrs. William J. Morehart
Mrs. E. C. Chatfield
Mrs. S. R. Van Sant
Miss Beatrice Longfellow
Miss Rita Kelly
Mrs. F. W. Little
Mrs. O. H. Shepley
Mrs. Alonzo Phillips
Mrs. Guy Maxwell
Miss Marion Moir
Mrs. E. A. Welch
Miss Ida Wing
Mrs. Mary E. Partridge
Mrs. Ell Torrance
Miss Stella Cole
Mrs. C. A. Bierman
Mrs. Chas. Keith
Miss Emily Brown
Mrs. G. C. Lyman
Mrs. A. B. Kaercher
Mrs. W. S. Woodbridge
Miss K. Maude Clum
The Reason
When I was a child my grandmother, Lucy Leavenworth Sherwood, used to
show us a little map drawn on the back of a cotillion invitation, by her
cousin Henry Leavenworth, the first officer at Fort Snelling. He was
there in 1819.
It was yellow with age, but showed Fort Snelling, Lake Harriette, named
for his wife, other lakes and two rivers. That yellow bundle of letters
read to us and the stories she told of this, her favorite cousin, as he
had told them to her never failed in breathless interest. Few of them
remain with me. The painted Indian in his canoe on the river, the Indian
runner, stand out vividly, but the valuable stories contained in those
old letters are gone. Nothing was ever a greater surprise than the loss
of those stories when I tried to recall them years later. The Bible with
the map and all those letters were burned when the home was destroyed by
fire.
These valuable data have disappeared. The knowledge that this was so,
made me listen with the greatest attention to stories told by the old
settlers and record them. All at once the realization came that they,
too, were fast disappearing, taking their stories with them. It was
impossible for me to get all these precious reminiscences before it was
too late. It must be done at once by a large number of interested women.
These were found in our committee who have gathered these data most
lovingly and financed this book. The proceeds are for patriotic work in
Minnesota as deemed best by the committee.
It is hoped that our first work will be the raising of a monument to the
Pioneer Women of our State. Those unsung heroines should not their
heroism be heralded while some still live?
We thank these dear friends who have made this little volume possible by
their warm interest. Every item in this book has been taken personally
from a pioneer.
Each one is a mesh in a priceless lace fabric, that fabric Minnesota
History.
If each mesh is not flawless, if age has weakened them, does not the
pattern remain?
LUCY LEAVENWORTH WILDER MORRIS.
OLD TRAILS CHAPTER
Minneapolis
LUCY LEAVENWORTH WILDER MORRIS
(Mrs. J. T. Morris)
Mr. Eli Pettijohn--1841.
Mr. Pettijohn, now ninety-five years old,[2] clear in memory,
patriarchial in looks, says:
[Footnote 2: All pioneers over ninety are so introduced as we feel that
no state can show so large a number who have the same mentality]
I came to what is now Minnesota, but was then a part of Wisconsin
Territory April sixteenth, 1841. I was on my way to work for the
Williamsons, missionaries, at Lac qui Parle. I landed from the large
steamer, the Alhambra, at the Fort Snelling landing. I climbed the steep
path that led up to the fort, circled the wall and came to the big gate.
A sentinel guarded it. He asked me if I wanted to enlist. I said, "No, I
want to see the fort, and find a boarding place." He invited me in. I
looked around this stone fort with much interest and could see Sibley
House and Faribault house across the Minnesota river at Mendota. There
were no large trees between the two points so these houses showed very
clearly. The ruins of part of the first fort which was of wood, were
still on the bluff about one block south of the new fort.
I asked where I could find a boarding place, and was directed to the St.
Louis house, near where the water tower now stands. Before proceeding
there, I stood and watched the Indians coming to the fort. I was told
they were from Black Dog's, Good Road's and Shakopee's villages. The
trail they followed was deeply worn. This seemed strange as they all
wore moccasins. Their painted faces looked very sinister to one who had
never before seen them, but later I learned to appreciate the worth of
these Indians, who as yet were unspoiled by the white man's fire water.
I was told that the St. Louis House had been built after the fort was,
by Mr. Baker, a trader, to accommodate people from the south, who wanted
to summer here. It was now deserted by its owners and any one of the
sparse settlers or traders would occupy it. He said a trader by the name
of Martin McLeod was living there and that Kittson, another trader,
lived at his trading post about fifty yards away from the house. There
was a good wagon road about where the road is now. My friend, for such
he later became, told me it led to the government mill at the Falls of
St. Anthony, but that it took longer to walk it than it did the Indian
trail that led along the bank of the Mississippi. So I took this as
advised. There were many Indians on the trail going and coming. All at
once I heard a great commotion ahead of me. Indians were running from
every direction. When I came to the place where they all were, I heard
lamentations and fierce imprecations. I saw the reason there. Two of
their warriors were lying dead and scalped, while clambering up the
opposite bank of the river, three of the Sioux's sworn enemies, three
Chippewas, could be seen. The slain were head men in the tribe. The guns
and arrows of the Sioux could not carry across the river, so they
escaped for the time being. I was afraid the Sioux vengeance would fall
on me, but it did not.
I soon came to the St. Louis house. While there, I saw Walter McLeod,
then a baby.
McLeod, the father, had fled from Canada at the time of one of the
rebellions, in company with others, but was the only one to survive a
terrible blizzard and reach Mendota. Mr. Sibley at once employed him as
he was well educated. When he was married later, he gave him some fine
mahogany furniture, from his own home, to set up housekeeping with.
While at the St. Louis House, I walked with a soldier along the Indian
trail that followed the river bank to the government mill at the Falls
of St. Anthony. On our way, we went down a deep ravine and crossed the
creek on a log. We could hear the roaring of falls and walked over to
see them. They were the most beautiful I had ever seen and were called
Brown's Falls, but General LeDuc in 1852 gave them the name Minnehaha. I
thought I had never seen anything quite so pretty looking as the river
and woods. The deer were everywhere and game of all kinds bountiful. The
soldier told me that no white man could settle here anywhere for ten
miles as it was all in the Fort Snelling reservation. That is why the
town of St. Anthony was built on the east side of the river instead of
on the west side and why there was no town on this side of the river for
many years after. We saw some Sioux tepees and met the Indians
constantly. They were a fine sturdy race, with fine features and smiling
faces. The soldier said they could be depended on and never broke a
promise. The old mill was on the river bank about where we used to take
the cars in the old Union Station. It was not then in use, as the rocks
had broken off, leaving it perhaps forty or fifty feet from the Falls. A
flume had to be constructed before it could again be used.
The Falls were a grand sight. We heard their roaring long before we
could see them and saw the spray sparkling in the sunlight. There was a
watchman living in a little hut and he gave us a nice meal. A few Sioux
wigwams were near.
On the other side, we could see smoke 'way up above where the suspension
bridge now is. He said some Frenchmen and half breeds lived there. The
place was called St. Anthony. We did not go over. He also said there
were many white people, French, Scotch and English living in the country
upon the Red River. Some were called Selkirk settlers. He did not know
why. He said Martin McLeod had been one of these.
We passed some squaws in a big dugout. It was thirty feet long. There
were fourteen of them in the boat.
There was no boat leaving the fort for some time so I went to Mendota,
crossing the Minnesota River in a canoe ferry. My business at Mendota
was to present a letter of introduction to Mr. Sibley, Manager of the
American Fur Trading Co., from the missionary board of Ohio and see how
I could reach Lac qui Parle. I arrived at Mr. Sibley's home just about
noon. He told me he had a boat leaving in two weeks and that I could go
on her. He said he had several of these boats plying to Traverse des
Sioux. He was a gentlemanly looking man and very pleasant spoken. With
the courtliness that always distinguished him, he asked me if I had
dined and being informed that I had not, invited me to do so; I replied,
"I am obliged to you sir." I was told that the furniture of massive
mahogany had been brought up the river by boat.
The table was waited upon by an Indian woman. The meal was bountiful. I
had a helping of meat, very juicy and fine flavored, much like
tenderloin of today, a strip of fat and a strip of lean. My host said,
"I suppose you know what this is?" I replied, "Yes, it is the finest
roast beef I have ever tasted." "No," said Mr. Sibley, "this is what we
call 'boss' of buffalo and is the hump on the back of a young male
buffalo." "Whatever it is, it is the best meat I have ever tasted," I
declared.
Some dried beef on a plate on the end of the table was also delicious.
Mr. Sibley again challenged me to tell what this was;--My reply being
"dried beef." "No," said Mr. Sibley, "This too, is something you have
never tasted before--it is boned dried beaver's tail. Over five thousand
of them, as well as the skins have been brought in here during the
year." There was also O'Donnell crackers and tea, but no bread. The tea,
I was told, had been brought hundreds of miles up the river.
I bade my host farewell, thanking him for his entertainment and thinking
I had never met a more courteous gentleman. Mr. Sibley, too, had told me
that the St. Louis house was the best place I could stay, so I returned
there.
For my journey down the river, I had brought with me a tarpaulin and a
few of my worldly goods. I hired a man with an ox-cart to take these to
the boat before dawn the day it was to leave, preparatory to my early
start at sunup. The boat was about sixty feet long and propelled only by
hand power, furnished by French half breeds who pushed it with long
poles from the front, running rapidly and then taking a fresh start to
push it again. These boats could make about twenty miles a day. They
almost reached Shakopee the first day. At ten o'clock the boat tied up
and breakfast was served. This was a very hot, thick soup made of peas
and pork which had been cooked all night over hot coals in a hole in the
ground, covered snugly over with earth. It had been wrapped in a heavy
tarpaulin and buffalo robe and when served was piping hot, as it came
from this first fireless cooker. Hardtack was served with this soup and
made a most satisfactory meal. The other meal consisted of bacon and
hardtack and at the end of the eighth day, had become quite monotonous.
Whenever these meals were prepared, the boat was tied to the bank.
The mosquitoes, even in the daytime were so terrible that it was almost
impossible to live. I looked forward to the time when we would tie up
for the night, with great apprehension on this account. However, the
clerk of the boat came to me and asked me if I had a mosquito net with
me and when I said, "No" invited me to sleep under his as he said it
would be unbearable without one. Just before they tied up for the night
the clerk came to me saying that he was sorry, but he had forgotten that
he had a wife in this village. I spent the night in misery under my
tarpaulin, almost eaten alive by the mosquitoes. The half breeds did
not seem to mind them at all. I again looked forward to a night under
the mosquito bar and was again told the same as the night before. During
the eight days which this journey consumed, I was only able once to
sleep a night under the friendly protection of this mosquito bar, as it
was always required for a wife.
When the boat tied up at Traverse des Sioux, Mr. Williamson met me. The
trader sent a man to invite the three white men to dine with him. The
invitation was accepted with great anticipation. The trader's house was
a log cabin. The furniture consisted of roughly hewn benches and a
table. An Indian woman brought in first a wooden bowl full of maple
sugar which she placed on one end of the table with bowls and wooden
spoons at the three places. We were all eyes when we saw these
preparations. Last, she brought in a large bowl of something which I
could see was snow-white and put that in the center of the table. All
were then told to draw up to the table and help themselves. The bright
anticipations vanished when the meal was seen to consist solely of
clabbered milk with black looking maple sugar.
Mr. Williamson left me at Traverse to go East. Before going he helped me
load all our supplies into the two Red River carts which he had brought.
There were six hundred pounds on each. The trail was very easy to follow
and I walked along by the side of the slow going oxen. By keeping up
until late, and getting up at daybreak, I made the trip in seven days.
For the first four days I was followed by a great gaunt shape that made
me uneasy. I knew if it was a dog it would have come nearer. I slept
under the cart the first night, but was conscious of its presence as the
cattle were restless. On the fourth day of its enforced company, I met a
little caravan of carts owned by a Frenchman who was with the half
breeds. I told him of my stealthy companion, and he sent some of the
half breeds after it with their bows and arrows. They followed it four
miles into a swamp and then lost it. They seemed suspicious about this
particular animal, and went after it half heartedly. The trader gave me
a piece of dough and told me if it came again to put this in meat and
drop it. He said "Kill him quick as one gun."
My sister, Mrs. Huggins, wife of the farmer at Lac qui Parle, was
overjoyed to see me. Think what it must have meant to a woman way off in
the wilderness in that early day to see anyone from civilization, let
alone her brother. I had not seen her in several years. They had a nice
little garden and quite a patch of wheat, which I was told was fine for
the climate. The seed came from the craw of a wild swan that they had
shot. It was supposed to have come from the Pembina country for those
people had wheat long before the missionaries came. It was always called
"Red River Wheat."
Pemmican, which I first tasted on this journey was made by boiling the
flesh of any edible animal, usually that of buffalo or deer, pounding it
fine and packing it tight into a sack made of the skin of a buffalo
calf, then melting the fat and filling all interstices. When sewed up,
it was absolutely air tight and would keep indefinitely. It was the most
nourishing food that has ever been prepared. For many years it was the
chief diet of all hunters, trappers, explorers and frontiersmen.
Pemmican was also made by drying the meat and pulverizing it. The bones
were then cracked and the marrow melted and poured into this. No white
man could ever make pemmican right. It took a half breed to do it.
The Red River people had cattle very early. The stock at the mission at
Lac qui Parle came from there.
I returned to Illinois in the summer of '43 and threshed. In the Fall I
returned and built a house for Gideon Pond. It was a wooden house where
their brick house now stands.
In 1844, I was building a mission building at Traverse. An Indian came
in one day and told me there was a very sick man about twenty miles
away at his camp. I went back with him and we brought the white man to
the mission. After he was better, he told me that he was one of six
drovers who had been bringing a herd of three hundred cattle from
Missouri to Fort Snelling. They had lost their compass and then the
trail and wandered along until they found a road near what is now Sauk
Center. There they met a band of Sioux. The Indians killed a cow and
when the drovers remonstrated, they killed one of them and stampeded the
cattle. The drovers all ran for their lives. Two of them managed to
elude the Indians, and took the road leading east. Our man was one, the
other was drowned while crossing the river on a log raft, the rest were
never found. Many of the cattle ran wild on the prairies. The Indians
used often to kill them and sell the meat to the whites. One of the
claims at Traverse de Sioux was for these cattle from the owners of the
herd.
Mrs. Missouri Rose Pratt--1843.
In 1842 my father was going to the Wisconsin pineries to work, so mother
and we children went along to keep house for him. We came from Dubuque
to Lake Pepin. Mr. Furnell, from the camp, had heard there were white
people coming so he came with an ox team down the tote road to meet us
and our baggage, and take us to camp. We found a large log house which
we thought most complete. We lived there that winter and Mr. Furnell and
some others boarded with us. A romance was started there.
The next Spring we took our household goods in a cabin built on a raft,
floated down to Nauvoo and sold the lumber to the Mormons. Joseph Smith
was a smart speaker, mother said, when she responded to the invitation
to hear the "Prophet of the Most High God" preach. The children of these
people were the raggedest I have ever seen. Mr. Furnell had his raft
lashed to ours and sold his lumber to them too.
We went to St. Paul on the Otter. Mr. Furnell went with us. When mother
saw "Pig's Eye" as St. Paul was then called, she did not like it at
all. She thought it was so much more lonesome than the pineries. She
begged to go back, but father loved a new country. On landing, we
climbed up a steep path. We found only six houses there. One was
Jackson's. He kept a store in part of it. In the kitchen he had three
barrels of liquor with spigots in them. The Jackson's were very kind and
allowed us to live in their warehouse which was about half way down the
bluff. We only slept there nights for we were afraid to cook in a place
with powder stored in it, the way that had, so we cooked outside.
My sister Caroline had light hair, very, very blue eyes and a lovely
complexion. The Indians were crazy about her. It was her fairness they
loved. She was engaged to Mr. Furnell and wore his ring. The Indian
braves used to ask her for this and for a lock of her hair to braid in
with theirs but of course, she would never let them have it. She was
afraid of them. The interpreter told her to be careful and never let
them get a lock of her hair for if they did and braided it in with
theirs, they would think she belonged to them. One day when she was
alone in the warehouse, an Indian came in his canoe and sat around
watching her. When he saw she was alone, he grabbed her and tried to cut
off some of her hair with his big knife. She eluded him by motioning to
cut it off herself, but instead, ran shrieking to father at Jackson's.
He came with a big cudgel but the Indian had gone in his canoe.
In the election of '43 in St. Paul, every man there got drunk even if
they had never drunk before and many of them had not. Early in the
evening, Mr. August Larpenteur came into Mrs. Jackson's kitchen to get a
drink of liquor. He was a very young man. She said, "August, where's the
other men?" just as he was turning the spigot in the barrel. He tried to
look up and tell her, but lost his balance and fell over backward while
the liquor ran over the floor. Then he laughed and laughed and told her
where they were.
We built a cabin a few miles out of town. Our nearest neighbors were the
DeNoyers who kept a halfway house in a three roomed log cabin. Their bar
was in the kitchen. Besides this, there was a scantily furnished sitting
room and bed room. Mrs. DeNoyer was a warm hearted Irish woman when she
had not been drinking, but her warm heart never had much chance to show.
They bought their liquors at Jackson's.
Our house was made from logs hewed flat with a broadax. My father was a
wonder at hewing. The ax was eight inches wide and had a crooked hickory
handle. Some men marked where they were to hew but father had such a
good eye that he could hew straight without a mark. The cracks were
filled with blue clay. For windows, we had "chinkins" of wood. Our bark
roof was made by laying one piece of bark over another, kind of like
shingles. Our floor was of puncheons. This was much better than the bark
floors, many people had.
I used to take much pleasure in watching and hearing the Red River carts
come squawking along. They were piled high with furs. The French half
breed drivers would slouch along by them. It seemed as if the small
rough coated oxen just wandered along the trail. Sometimes a cow would
be used. I once saw one of these cows with a buffalo calf. It seemed to
be hers. Was this the first Cataloo?
When I was nine years old my father sent me to the spring for a pail of
water. I was returning with it, hurrying along as father had just called
to me to come quick, when I was surrounded by a band of Sioux warriors
on their way to Shakopee to a scalp dance. They demanded the water but I
would not let them have it and kept snatching it away. It tickled them
very much to see that I was not afraid. They called to the chief, Little
Crow, and he too ordered me to give it to them, but I said, "No, my
father wants this, you can't have it." At this the chief laughed and
said, "Tonka Squaw" meaning brave woman and they left. They had on
everything fancy that an Indian could--paint and warbonnets and
feathers. They always wore every fancy thing they had to a dance, but in
actual war, they were unpainted and almost naked.
The first soldiers I saw in 1843 were from Fort Snelling. They had blue
uniforms with lots of brass buttons and a large blue cap with a leather
bridle that they used to wear over the top. Their caps were wide on top
and high. The soldiers used to come to DeNoyer's to dinner so as to have
a change. Mrs. DeNoyer was a good cook if she would stay sober long
enough.
We had splint bottom chairs made out of hickory and brooms made by
splitting it very fine too. These were all the brooms we had in '43. Our
hickory brooms were round but Mr. Furnell made a flat one for my sister.
Once when father was roofing our house, a storm was coming and he was
very anxious to get the shakes on before it came. We had had a bark roof
that was awful leaky. Some Indians came along on the other side of the
river and made motions that he should come and get them with his boat,
"The Red Rover." He sometimes ferried the soldiers over. As he did not
answer or get off the house, they fired several shots at him. The
bullets spattered all around him. He got down from the house and shot at
them several times. After that, my mother was always afraid that they
would come and shoot us when father was not home.
I have seen Indians run from Jackson's at sight of a soldier. They were
afraid of them always.
My father brought some beautiful pieces of red morocco to Minnesota and
the last piece of shoemaking he did, was to make that into little shoes
for me. They had low heels such as the children have today.
My sister was married the first day of January in '44. We lived on the
Main Road between St. Paul and St. Anthony. It just poured all day, so
that none of the guests could come to the wedding. Mr. Jackson did get
there on horseback to marry them, but Mrs. Jackson had to stay at home.
The bride, who was a beautiful girl, wore a delaine dress of light and
dark blue with a large white lace fichu. Her shoes were of blue cloth to
match and had six buttons. She wore white kid gloves and white
stockings. Her bonnet was flat with roses at the sides and a cape of
blue lute-string. The strings were the same. Wasn't she stylish for a
girl who was married New Years day in 1844?
The wedding dinner was fish, cranberry sauce and bread and butter.
One day a lot of Sioux Indians who were on their way to fight the
Chippewas borrowed my sister's washtub to mix the paint in for painting
them up. They got their colored clay from the Bad Lands. They were going
to have a dance.
Hole-in-the-Day used to stay all night with us. He always seemed to be a
friend of the whites. When the Indians first came to the house, they
used to smoke the peace pipe with us, but later, they never did.
Bears and wolves were very plentiful. We had an outdoor summer kitchen
where we kept a barrel of pork. One night a bear got in there and made
such an awful noise that we thought the Indians were on a rampage. We
often saw timber wolves about the house. They would come right up to the
door and often followed my father home.
A French woman by the name of Mrs. Traverse lived near us. She came from
Little Canada. Her husband bought some dried apples as a treat and she
served them just as they were. Poor thing! She was very young when her
baby came and she used to get wildly homesick. One day, she started to
walk to Little Canada carrying her baby. A cold rain came on and she was
drenched when she was only half way there. She took cold and died in a
few weeks from quick consumption. Strange how so many who had it east,
came here and were cured, while she got it here.
In the Spring when the wheat was sprouting, the wild ducks and geese
would light in the field and pull it all up. They would seize the little
sprouts and jerk the seeds up. They came by battalions. I have seen the
fields covered with them. They made a terrible noise when rising in the
air. I have seen the sun darkened by the countless myriads of pigeons
coming in the spring. They would be talking to each other, making ready
to build their nests. In the woods, nothing else could be heard.
We had one wild pair of almost unbroken steers and a yoke of old staid
oxen. The only way father could drive the steers was to tie ropes to
their horns and then jump in the wagon and let them go. They would run
for miles. I was always afraid of them. They were apt to stampede and
make trouble in finding them if there was a bad storm. One evening
father was away and a bad storm approached. I took the ropes and told
mother I was going to tie the oxen. She begged me not to, as she feared
they would hurt me. I had a scheme--I opened the front gate and as they
came through the partly opened gate, threw the ropes over them and
quickly tied them in the barn. The old oxen, I got in without any
trouble. I tied them and went to reach in behind one, to close the barn
door and bolt it. He was scared and kicked out, knocking me with his
shod hoof. I did not get my breath for a long time. The calk of the iron
shoe was left sticking in the barn door.
Some drovers stayed near us with a large drove of cattle in '45 or '46.
They were on their way to the Red River of the north country. We kept
the cattle in our yard and used to milk them. I picked out a cow for Mr.
Larpenteur to buy as I had milked them and knew which gave the richest
milk. He put her in a poorly fenced barnyard. She was homesick and
bellowed terribly. The herd started on and was gone two days when she
broke out and followed them and the Larpenteurs never saw her again.
They had paid thirty dollars for her.
I was very anxious to see the Falls of St. Anthony so in the summer of
1844, my brother borrowed an old Red River cart and an old horse from
Mr. Francis who lived in St. Anthony. He drove it over to our house in
the evening. The next day, Sunday, we put a board in for a seat and all
three climbed onto it. We drove over and saw the Falls which roared so
we could hear them a long way off and were high and grand. We did not
see a person either going or coming the six miles although we were on
what was called the Main Road.
The French people always kissed all the ladies on the cheek on New
Year's day, when they made calls.
In the early day, Irvine built a new house of red brick. A little boy,
Alfred Furnell, took a hatchet and went out to play. He got to hewing
things and finally hewed a piece about a foot long out of the corner of
that red brick house making it look very queer. His father asked him who
did it. Unlike George Washington, he could tell a lie and said, "A
little nigger boy did it." His father 'tended to the only little boy
that was near, regardless of color.
Once there was a Sunday school convention in St. Paul. When lunch was
called, Mr. Cressey, the minister, said, "Now, we will go out and have
refreshments provided by the young girls who will wait on us. May God
bless them, the young men catch them and the devil miss them."
They used to call my sister-in-law, "Sweet Adeline Pratt."
Mrs. Gideon Pond--1843, Ninety years old.
In 1843 in Lac qui Parle, we had a cow. We paid thirty dollars to the
Red River men for her. She had short legs and a shaggy black and white
coat. She was very gentle. She was supposed to have come from cattle
brought to Hudson Bay by the Hudson Bay traders.
In 1843 we visited the Falls of St. Anthony. There was only a little
mill there, with a hut for the soldier who guarded it. The Falls were
wonderful. I thought I had never seen anything more beautiful. The spray
caught the sun and the prismatic colors added to the scene. The roaring
could be heard a long way off.
We raised a short eared corn, that was very good and grew abundantly. I
have never seen any like it since. Our flour was sent to us from way
down the Mississippi. When we got it, it had been wet and was so mouldy
that we had to chop it out with an ax. It took so much saleratus to make
anything of it. We learned to like wild rice. It grew in the shallow
lakes. An Indian would take a canoe and pass along through the rice when
it was ripe shaking it into the boat until he had a boat full--then,
take it to the shore to dry.
I was out to dinner with Mr. Scofield and his wife who came in '49. It
was dark and stormy. Mrs. Scofield was first taken home and then Mr.
Scofield started for our home. We soon found we were lost and drove
aimlessly around for some time. We came to a rail fence. I said "Perhaps
I can find the way". I examined this fence carefully and saw that one of
the posts was broken, then said to Mr. Scofield, "I know just where we
are now. I noticed this broken post when I was going to meeting Sunday."
I soon piloted the expedition home.
In '43 when I was Mrs. Hopkins I was standing with Mrs. Riggs and Mrs.
Huggins on the steps of the St. Louis house. The Gideon Ponds were then
living in vacant rooms that anyone could occupy in this old hotel.
Little three year old Edward Pond was standing with us. He and the
little Riggs boy had new straw hats that we had bought of the sutler at
the Fort. The wind blew his hat off suddenly. We did not see where it
went but we did hear him cry. We could not find it in the tall grass.
Mrs. Riggs took her little boy and stood him in the same place and we
all watched. When the wind blew his hat off we went where it had blown
and sure enough, there lay the other little hat too. The Indians
standing around laughed long and loud at this strategy.
Captain Stephen Hanks--1844, Ninety-four years old.
Captain Hanks, now in his ninety-fifth year, hale, hearty, a great joker
and droll storyteller, as an own cousin of Abraham Lincoln should be,
says: In the spring of 1840, when a youth, I came north from Albany,
Illinois, with some cattle buyers and a drove of eighty cattle, for the
lumberjacks in the woods north of St. Croix Falls. We came up the east
bank of the river following roads already made. In the thick woods near
the Chippewa Falls, I found an elk's antlers that were the finest I ever
saw. I was six feet, and holding them up, they were just my height. The
spread was about the same. Of course, we camped out nights and I never
enjoyed meals more than those on that trip. The game was so delicious.
In our drove of cattle was a cow with a young calf. When we came to a
wide river, we swam all the cattle across, but that little calf would
not go. We tried every way that we knew of to make it, then thought we
would let it come over when it was ready. We rested there two days. The
mother acted wild and we tied her up. The morning we were going to
start, just as it was getting light, she broke away and swam the river.
The calf ran to meet her but the mother just stood in the water and
mooed. All at once, the calf took to the water and swam with the mother
to the other side where it made a hearty breakfast after its two days
fast. I thought I had never seen any animal quite so human as that cow
mother.
When we got to St. Croix Falls, I thought it was a metropolis, for it
was quite a little town. I was back and forth across the river on the
Minnesota side too. In 1843, I helped cut the logs, saw them, and later
raft them down the river to St. Louis. This was the first raft of logs
to go down the St. Croix river. Lumber rafts had gone before. Our mill
had five saws--four frame and one muley. A muley saw was a saw without a
frame. It took a good raftsman to get a raft over the Falls. It took
four St. Croix rafts to make one Mississippi raft. I got sixteen
dollars a month and found, working on a raft. I was raised to twenty
after a while and to two dollars a day when I could take charge.
In 1844 we had been up in the woods logging all winter on the Snake
River. The logs were all in Cross Lake in the boom waiting for a rain to
carry them down to the boom at St. Croix. There was a tremendous amount
of them, for the season before, the water had been so low that it was
impossible to get many out and we had an unusual supply just cut. One
day in May, there was a regular cloudburst. We had been late in getting
out the logs as the season was late. The Snake River over-ran its banks
and the lake filled so full that the boom burst and away went all those
logs with a mighty grinding, headed straight for the Gulf of Mexico.
They swept everything clean at the Falls. Took the millrace even. The
mill was pretty well broken up too. We found some of them on the banks
along and some floated in the lake. We recovered over half of them. We
built a boom just where Stillwater is today, in still water. Joe Brown
had a little house about a mile from there. There were the logs, and the
mill at St. Croix was useless. McCusick made a canal from a lake in back
and built a mill. The lumbermen came and soon there was a straggling
little village. I moved there myself one of the first.
I used to take rafts of lumber down the river and bring back a boat for
someone loaded with supplies. The first one I brought up was the Amulet
in 1846. She had no deck, was open just like a row boat. She had a stern
wheel.
In 1848, Wisconsin Territory was to be made a State. The people there
wanted to take all the land into the new state that was east of the Rum
River. We fellows in Stillwater and St. Paul wanted a territory of our
own. As we were the only two towns, we wanted the capitol of the new
territory for one and the penitentiary for the other. In the Spring--in
May, I think, I know it was so cold that we slept in heavy blankets,
the men from St. Paul sent for us and about forty of us fellows went
over. We slept that night in a little hotel on one of the lower bluffs.
It was a long building with a door in the middle. We slept on the floor,
rolled up in blankets. The next day, we talked over the questions before
mentioned and it was decided that we should vote against the boundary as
proposed and have a new territory and that St. Paul should have the
capital and we the penitentiary. This decision was ratified at the
convention in Stillwater, the last of August 1848.
The hottest time I ever had in a steamboat race was in May, 1857,
running the Galena from Galena to St. Paul. A prize had been offered,
free wharfage for the season, amounting to a thousand dollars, for the
boat that would get to St. Paul first that year. I was up at Lake Pepin
a week before the ice went out, waiting for that three foot ice to go.
It was dreadful aggravating. There was an open channel kind of along one
edge and the ice seemed to be all right back of it. There were twenty
boats all waiting there in Bogus Bay. I made a kind of harbor in the ice
by chopping out a place big enough for my boat and she set in there cozy
as could be. I anchored her to the ice too. The Nelson, a big boat from
Pittsburg was there with a big cargo, mostly of hardware--nails pretty
much. There were several steamers that had come from down the Ohio. When
the ice shut in, it cut the "Arcola" in two just as if it was a pair of
shears and she a paper boat. She sank at once. It shoved the "Falls of
St. Anthony" a good sized steamer way out of the water on the
niggerheads. The "Pioneer" sank. It broke the wheels of the "Nelson" and
another boat and put them out of commission. I stayed in my harbor until
morning, then steamed away up the little new channel. The "War Eagle"
locked us at the head of the lake and held on. I was at the wheel. When
we came to Sturgeon Bay, I took a cut in through the bar. I had found it
when I was rafting so I knew they did not know about it. That little
advantage gained the day for us. As it was, we burned several barrels of
resin and took every chance of meeting our Maker. We got to St. Paul at
two o'clock in the morning. Such a hullabaloo as there was--such a big
tar barrel fire. We could plainly see "Kaposia" six miles away.
Christmas the company sent me one hundred dollars which came in handy,
as I was just married.
Mr. Caleb Dorr--1847, Ninety years old.
I came to St. Anthony in 1847 and boarded at the messhouse at first.
Later I was boarding with the Godfrey's and trouble with the Indians was
always feared by the new arrivals. One night we heard a terrible
hullabaloo and Mrs. Godfrey called, "For the Lord's sake come down, the
Indians are here." All the boarders dashed out in scant costume, crying,
"The Indians are upon us," but it turned out to be only the first
charivari in St. Anthony given to Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Parker. Mrs.
Lucien Parker was a Miss Huse.
Mrs. Dorr was never afraid of the Indians, although they seemed very
ferocious to her with their painted faces, stolid looks and
speechlessness. One day she was frying a pan of doughnuts and had
finished about half of them when she glanced up to see seven big braves,
hideously painted, standing and watching her with what she thought was a
most malevolent look. She was all alone, with nobody even within calling
distance. One of the number looked especially ferocious and her terror
was increased by seeing him take up a knife and test it, feeling the
edge to see if it was sharp, always watching her with the same
malevolent look. Quaking with fear, she passed the doughnuts, first to
him. He put out his hand to take the whole pan, but she gave him a jab
in the stomach with her elbow and passed on to the next. This occasioned
great mirth among the rest of the Indians who all exclaimed, "Tonka
Squaw" and looked at her admiringly. When they had finished, they left
without trouble.
Once I was spending the evening at Burchineau's place when a number of
the Red River cart men were there. As they were part Indian and part
white, I looked down on them. One of them challenged me to see who could
dance the longest. I would not let him win on account of his color, so
danced until my teeth rattled and I saw stars. It seemed as if I was
dancing in my sleep, but I would not give up and jigged him down.
I remember a dance in the messhouse in '48 when there were ten white
girls who lived in St. Anthony there. They were wonderfully graceful
dancers--very agile and tireless. The principal round dance was a three
step waltz without the reverse. It was danced very rapidly. The French
four, danced in fours, facing, passing through, all around the room, was
most popular. The square dances were exceedingly vigorous, all jigging
on the corners and always taking fancy steps. We never went home until
morning, dancing all the time with the greatest vim. This mess house
stood between the river and the front door of the old Exposition
Building.
The Red River carts used to come down from Fort Garry loaded with furs.
There had been a white population in that part of the country and around
Pembina long before there was any settlement in what is now Minnesota.
The drivers were half breeds, sons of the traders and hunters. They
always looked more Indian than white. In the early days, in remote
places, where a white man lived with the Indians, his safety was assured
if he took an Indian woman for his wife. These cart drivers generally
wore buckskin clothes, tricked out so as to make them gay. They had
regular camping places from twelve to fifteen miles apart, as that was a
day's journey for these carts.
As there was not much to amuse us, we were always interested to see the
carts and their squawking was endured, as it could not be cured. It
could be heard three miles away. They came down the Main Road,
afterwards called the Anoka road.
The lumber to face the first dam in '47 came from Marine. There had been
a mill there since 1834, I believe.
We used to tap the maple trees in the forest on Nicollet Island. We had
to keep guard to see that the Chippewas did not steal the sap.
The messhouse where I boarded, was of timber. It was forty feet square.
It had eight or ten beds in one room.
Mrs. Mahlon Black--1848.
When I came to Stillwater in 1848, I thought I had got to the end of the
line. I came up on the Sentinel with Captain Steve Hanks. He was captain
of a raft boat then. It took ten days to come from Albany, Illinois.
There was nothing to parade over in those days. We took it as it come
and had happy lives. Stillwater was a tiny, struggling village under the
bluffs--just one street. A little later a few people built in the bluffs
and we would climb up the paths holding onto the hazelbrush to help us
up. Stillwater was headquarters for Minnesota lumbering then. We would
all gather together and in about two minutes would be having a good
time--playing cards or dancing. The mill boarding house had the largest
floor to dance on and we used to go there often. We used to waltz and
dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not wear any clothes to
speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no tight skirts like now.
You could take three or four steps inside our skirts and then not reach
the edge. One of the boys would fiddle awhile and then someone would
spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes they would dance and
fiddle too.
We would often see bears in the woods. They were very thick.
When we staged it to St. Paul down the old Government Road, we would go
down a deep ravine and up again before we really got started. We paid a
dollar each way. Once they charged me a dollar for my little girl
sitting in my lap. We used to pass Jack Morgan's.
Once we moved out on the Government Road, three miles from Morgan's. It
was a lonesome place. The Chippewas and Sioux were on the warpath as
usual. A large party of Sioux camped right by us. They were dressed for
what they were going after, a war dance, and were all painted and
feathered. They were looking in the windows always. It used to make me
sick to see their tracks where they had gone round and round the house.
My husband was on the survey most of the time so I was there alone with
my baby a great deal. One Sunday I was all alone when a lot of bucks
come in--I was so frightened I took my baby's little cradle and set it
on the table. She had curly hair and they would finger it and talk in
their lingo. When they left I took the baby and hailed the first team
going by and made them come and stay with me. It was the Cormacks from
St. Anthony. I made my husband move back to Stillwater the next day.
The Sioux killed a Chippewa father and mother and took the son, twelve
years old, captive. They had the scalp dance in Stillwater and had the
poor child in the center of the circle with his father's and mother's
gory scalps dangling from the pole above him. I never was so sorry for a
young one.
Old Doctor Carli was our doctor. Our bill was only one dollar for a
whole year. If he had not had money laid back, he could never have
lived.
Once in the winter, Mrs. Durant and I were going along, I was behind
her. The boys were coasting and went 'way out onto Lake St. Croix. They
struck me full tilt and set me right down in one of their laps and away
we went. I have always gone pell-mell all my life. If it comes good
luck, I take it--if bad luck, I take it. Mrs. Durant went right on
talking to me. Finally she looked around and I had disappeared. She was
astonished. Finally she saw me coming back on that sled drawn by the
boys and could not understand it. She only said, "Lucky it did not break
your legs," when I explained.
Mr. James McMullen--1849.