1854. It was built right on an Indian trail that paralleled the Red
River cart trail. You see that road out there? That is just where the
old Red River cart road went. That is Swan River and it went between us
and that. Our back door was right on their foot trail. You could step
out of our door onto it. There is a big flat rock on the river up about
four miles where the Chippewa and Sioux signed treaties to behave
themselves. After this they were killing each other before they got out
of town. You know our Indians were the Chippewas. They were woods
Indians. The prairies belonged to the Sioux. They had always been
enemies. Hole-in-the-Day was head chief here and a pretty good chief,
too. His tribe got suspicious of him; they thought he was two-faced, so
shot him, as they did his father before him. He had married a white
woman, so the real chief now is a white man. I think he was on the
square though. He used often to drop in for a piece of pie or anything
to eat. He is buried upon the bluff here.
Swan River Ferry was three miles from Little Falls. It was on the direct
road through Long Prairie to Fort Abercrombie. The Red River Cart Trail
crossed the Mississippi River at Belle Prairie. There was a mill at that
little place.
When the lumber jacks were driving logs they used to have their wamigans
tie up in the river just outside that front door.
The Indians were camped all around here. They used to fill their
moccasins with rabbit hair to take the place of stockings. Once I was
standing by the river and I saw a squaw come out with a new born baby.
She wasn't making any fuss over it. First she took it by the heels and
plunged it in the river; then by the head and soused it in that way.
Mrs. Salome was a squaw who had married a white man. Her husband went to
the war. I used to write her letters to him and she would sign them with
her cross. She became very fond of me. At the time of the outbreak she
said to me, "Kinnesagas?" meaning, "are you afraid?" I did not reply.
Then she said "If you are, I'll hide you." She made a wigwam by the side
of hers and wanted me to go into it with my children, but I would not.
I liked her, but I remembered how when the Indians had had a scalp
dance, I had seen her shake one of the scalps in her teeth. This was
after she had married a white man. I asked her if she did not like the
Indians better than the whites and she said in Chippewa, "If I do, why
do I not stay with them?"
At the beginning of the outbreak the Sioux were sending runners all the
time to get the Chippewas to join them. One of our men, William Nichols,
spoke the Indian language as well as English. He had lived with them
when he was a fur trader. He used to disguise himself as an Indian and
go to the councils, so we all knew just what was going on. Old Buffalo,
a chief, said, "If you go to war, I'll be a white man; I won't be an
Indian any more. I'll go away and stay by myself always." We knew at
once when they fully decided not to join the Sioux.
Finally I yielded to the entreaties of my friends and went down to St.
Cloud to stay with friends until the danger should be over. My husband
was in the war. One day someone coming from Little Falls said, "There's
someone living in your house." "Well," said I, "if anyone can, I can,"
so back I went. I found an old friend from further up the country there.
We joined forces and lived there until the war was over.
One day in war time I looked out of my window and could see Mr. Hall
milking his cow in the pasture. It had a rail fence around it. I could
see what he could not--some Indians sitting in one of the corners of the
fence stretching Sioux scalps over withes. When they finished, they got
up all at the same time, giving a blood curdling war-whoop. The cow
kicked over the milk and fled bellowing. I think that Mr. Hall made even
better time and he never even looked around.
The squaws would often have ear rings made of wire with three cornered
pieces of tin dangling all around their ears. It was not how good, but
how much, with them. How these Indians ever lived through a winter the
way they dressed, I don't see. They wore only leggings, shirts, breech
clouts and a blanket. Their legs were no barer than a Scotchman's
though. Our Indians used to tuck things in the bosom of their shirt, as
well as in their belts. They used to tuck butcher knives in their
leggings. If they were ever going to go on a tear and get drunk, when we
first came, they would always get my husband to take charge of all their
guns and knives.
When the squaws wore mourning, they were all painted black and always
slashed themselves with knives.
During the last of the fifties, we never had any money. It would not do
you any good if you had for if you took money to the store they would
just give you an order for more goods instead of the change. The Red
River carts used to camp in that little grove of trees over there. We
used to sell them supplies and they would give us English silver money.
Once we took some to the store and they were terribly surprised to see
money. They could not understand how we came by it. Thought we must have
hoarded it, but we told them that it came from the Red River drivers.
Mrs. William J. White--1854.
My husband, Mr. White, started for Lake Addie, Minnesota Territory, in
May, to join some friends and take up a claim. Mr. Hoag had named this
lake in honor of his daughter. The settlement, if you could call it
that, was called Grimshaw Settlement. It is now Brownton. He got up his
cabin and began clearing the land. He and his friends did their cooking
and only had two meals a day--breakfast at eight and dinner at three.
One hot day they had just cooked a big pan of apple sauce and set it out
to cool. Some Indians on their way to a war dance at Shakopee came
streaking along all painted up. First one and then another plunged his
fist in that apple sauce and stuck it down his throat. It must have
skinned them all the way down, but not one made a sound, only looked
hard when they saw the next one start in.
My husband wrote for me to come to him. I had no pilot, so could not
start at once. My boy fell and broke his arm and I thought he was badly
hurt inside so I wrote for father to come home. It generally took so
long for a letter to go through that when two weeks later I got a chance
to go with company, I started, thinking I could get there before the
letter would, as they were generally much longer in going than one could
travel. When I got on the Northern Belle, a fine boat, one of my
children was taken with croup. Dr. N----, a Universalist minister, got
off at Dubuque and bought medicine for me. This saved the child, but he
was sick all the way. We were stuck in Beef Slough for several days. I
never left the cabin as my child needed me, but some time during the
first day a boat from St. Paul was stuck there too, so near us that
passengers passed from one boat to the other all day. It was only when I
got to Hastings, where I had thought to meet my husband that I found he
had been on that other stranded boat. Later, I learned that he had spent
some time on my boat, but of course, did not know I was there. The
letter I had written him had gone straight, as a man who was going to
their settlement had taken charge of it from the first. I had to wait
six weeks in Hastings until he went clear to Pennsylvania and back.
Evangeline wasn't in it with me.
Finally he came and we went on to our new home. I thought I had never
seen such wonderful wild flowers. Mr. Grimshaw came after us with his
horses. We had supper at his house the night before we got to our home,
and I never tasted anything so good--pheasants browned so beautifully
and everything else to match. The most wonderful welcome, too, went with
that meal.
We passed fields just red with wild strawberries and in places where the
land had been cultivated and the grass was sort of low, they grew away
up and were large with big clusters, too. We did just revel in them.
They were much more spicy than any we had ever eaten. The wild grass
grew high as a man's head. When we came in sight of our home, I loved it
at once and so did the children. It was in the bend of a little stream
with stepping stones across. I knew at once that I had always wanted
stepping stones on my place. About two feet from the floor a beam had
been set in the whole length of the room. It was roped across and a
rough board separated it into two sections. These were our beds and with
feather beds and boughs, made a fine sleeping place. Wolves used to howl
all around at night but with the stock secure and the home closed up
tightly, we were happy. Our walls were plastered with mud and then
papered by me with paper that was six cents a roll back east. We made a
barrel chair and all kinds of home-made furniture out of packing boxes.
Our rooms looked so cozy. Father was a natural furniture maker, though
we never knew it before we came here.
Game was very plentiful and as we never had enough back home, we did not
soon tire of it. My husband once killed a goose and eleven young ones
with one shot.
The first year our garden was looking fine when the grasshoppers came in
such swarms that they obscured the sun. They swooped on everything in
the garden. There was no grain as the squirrels, black birds and gophers
had never tasted this delicacy before and followed the sower, taking it
as fast as it fell. We planted it three times and we had absolutely no
crop of any kind that first year.
We bought four horses later and had them for the summer's work. They
came from Illinois and were not used to the excessive cold of Minnesota.
That winter it was forty degrees below zero for many successive days. It
seems to me we have not had as much cold all this winter as we had in a
week then. Christmas time it was very cold. We wanted our mail so one of
the men rode one of the horses twelve miles to get it. When he arrived
there the horse was very sick. He was dosed up and was seemingly all
right. When the man wanted to start for home, he was warned that it
would be fatal to take a horse which had been dosed with all kinds of
hot stuff out in the terrible cold. He took the risk but the horse fell
dead just as he entered the yard. We lost two others in much the same
way that winter.
We then bought a yoke of young steers. They were very little broken and
the strongest animals I ever saw. Their names were Bright and Bill. Once
the whole family was going to a party at New Auburn, a kind of a city.
My husband had made an Indian wagon. He held them in the road while we
all got in. They started up with such a flourish that everything that
could not hold itself on, fell off. The road was full of things we
wanted with us. They ran on a keen jump for nine miles until we came to
the house where we were going. It was the first house we came to. When
they saw the barn, they must have thought it looked like home for they
ran in there and brought up against the barn with a bang. As soon as Mr.
White could, he jumped out and held them, but their fun was all gone and
they stood like lambs.
I never saw anything funnier than those steers and a huge snapping
turtle. They found him near the creek when they were feeding. They would
come right up to him (they always did everything in concert) then look
at him at close range. The turtle would thrust out his head and snap at
them; then they would snort wildly and plunge all over the prairie,
returning again and again to repeat the performance, which only ended
when the turtle disappeared in the brook.
Wolves were very fearless and fierce that winter. They ran in packs.
They would look in at our windows. Once we sent a hired boy six miles
for twenty-five pounds of pork for working men. When he was near home a
pack of wolves followed him, but he escaped by throwing the pork. Mr.
Pollock and Mr. White were followed in the same way.
Once one of our friends killed a steer. We were all anxious for
amusement so any pretext would bring on a party. All the neighbors had a
piece of the meat but we thought the friends who had killed the steer
should have a party and have roast beef for us all, so we sent word we
were all coming. Mrs. Noble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop
skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards
around. In these shirrings she run rattan--a good heavy piece so it
would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery
was all ready to put on. One of the neighbor's girls was to stay with
the children. The baby had been quite restless, so according to the
custom, I gave her a little laudanum to make her sleep. I did not
realize that it was old and so much stronger. Just before going, when I
was all dressed, I went to look at the baby. I did not like her looks,
so took her up to find her in a stupor. Needless to say there was no
party for us that night. It took us all to awaken her and keep her
awake. I never gave laudanum after that, though I always had before.
Mrs. Paulina Starkloff--1854.
My name was Paulina Lenschke. I was twelve years old when I came to
Minneapolis in 1854. We intended to stay in St. Paul but were told that
this was a better place, so came here and bought an acre and a half just
where the house now stands, Main Street N. E. The town then was mostly
northeast. The St. Charles hotel on Marshall Street, northeast, was just
below us and so were most of the stores. Morgan's foundry and Orth's
brewery were just on the other side of us. We paid $600.00 in gold for
the land and half of it was in my name, as my mother paid $350.00 that I
had made myself. I think I was probably the only twelve year old child
that came into the state with so much money earned by herself. It was
this way.
We went to Australia to dig gold in 1847. We drove an ox team into the
interior with other prospectors doing the same until we came to
diggings. The men would dig and then "cradle" the soil for the gold.
This cradle was just like a baby's cradle only it had a sieve in the
bottom. One man would have a very long handled dipper with which he
would dip water from a dug well. He only dipped and the other man
stirred with a stick and rocked. Most of the soil would wash out but
there would always be some "dumplings" caused by the clay hardening and
nothing but hard work would break them. The miners would take out the
gold which was always round, and dump these hard pieces. After a day's
work there would be quite a pile that was never touched by them. I would
take a can and knife and go from dump to dump gathering the gold in
these dumplings. One day my father went prospecting with a party of men
and was never seen again. After months of fruitless search my mother
took me and my little tin can of nuggets back to Germany. She sold them
for me for $350.00 in gold. Then we came to Minnesota and bought this
place.
The Red River carts used to be all day passing our house. They would
come squeaking along one after another. Sometimes the driver would take
his wife and children with him. These carts had no metal about them. One
man would have charge of several.
Mrs. Anna E. Balser--1855, Ninety-four years old.
I was the only girl in our family that ever worked, but when I was ten
years old I laid my plan to get myself out of my mother's tracks. She
had so much to do with her big family. I could cry when I think of it
now. So, when I was fourteen, my father, scared for me and holding back
every minute, took me to the city to learn the trade I had chosen. I was
through in six months and could do the heaviest work as well as the
finest. I wish you could see the fancy bosomed shirts I used to make
when I was fourteen! No one could beat me. I always had a pocketful of
money for I got two and six a day. That would be 38c now. I went from
house to house to work and always had the best room and lived on the fat
of the land. It was a great event when the tailoress came.
I came to Lakeland in 1855. The prairies around there looked like apple
orchards back home. The scrub oak grew just that way. I would bet
anything I could go and pick apples if I had not known. I had thought of
buying in Minneapolis, but my friends who owned Lakeland thought it was
going to be the city of Minnesota, so I bought here. I was a tailoress
and made a good living until the hard times came on. Money was plenty
one day. The next you could not get a "bit" even, anywhere. Then, after
that, I had to trade my work for anything I could get.
I brought a blue black silk dress with mutton leg sleeves among my
things when I come. It was the best wearing thing I ever see. Cheaper to
wear than calico because it would never wear out. I paid $1.00 a yard
for it. It was twenty-seven inches wide. It took twelve yards to make
the dress. For a wrap we wore a long shawl. I had one of white lace. We
got three yards of lace webbing and trimmed it with lace on the edge. Or
we would take one width of silk and finish that fancy on the edge. The
ruffles on everything was fluted. When you shirred them you would hold
them over the first and third finger passing under the second finger.
That would make large flutings. If you had an Italian iron you could do
it fast, but there wa'n't many so fortunate. An Italian iron was a tube
about as big as your finger on a standard. Two rods to fit this tube
come with it. You could put these heated, inside then run your silk
ruffle or whatever you were making over it and there was your flute
quick as a wink.
Mrs. Mary E. Dowling--1855.
As Miss Watson I came from Pennsylvania in 1855 and took a school to
teach back of Marine. I got $36.00 in gold a month and so was well paid.
Had from five to twenty-five children who came to learn and so behaved
well.
When I would walk through the woods I would sometimes see a bear
leisurely sagging around. When I did, my movements were not like his.
All kinds of wild animals were very plenty. The foxes were the cutest
little animals and so tame. They would seem to be laughing at you.
A band of Indians was encamped at a lake near. One brave all dressed in
his Sunday best used to come and sit in the kitchen day after day. He
used to talk to the men but never said a word to us. He could speak good
English. One day the chief came in and went for him. Said he had been
away from his tepee for days and his squaws wanted him. Like lightning
he crossed the room to where I was and said, "Me got Sioux squaw. Me got
Winnebago squaw. Me want white squaw. You go?" I was very earnest in
declining.
Mrs. Robert Anderson--1854.
I was the first white woman in Eden Prairie. I came in 1854 with my
husband and small children and settled there in one of the first log
houses built. We paid for our farm the first year, from the cranberries
which grew in a bog on our land and which we sold for $1.00 a bushel.
I had never seen Indians near to, and so was very much afraid of them.
One day a big hideously painted brave marched in, seated himself and
looked stolidly around without making a sound. His long knife was
sticking in his belt. I was overpowered with fright and for a few
moments could do nothing. My children, one two years old and the other a
baby, were asleep behind the curtain. Realizing that I could do nothing
for them and that his anger might be aroused if he saw me run away with
them, I fled precipitately in the direction where my husband was
working. I had run about a quarter of a mile when my mother heart told
me I might not be in time if I waited for my husband, so I turned and
fled back towards the cabin. Entering, I saw my little two year old boy
standing by the Indian's side playing with the things in his belt while
the Indian carefully held the baby in his arms. In his belt were a
tobacco pouch and pipe, two rabbits with their heads drawn through, two
prairie chickens hanging from it by their necks, a knife and a tomahawk.
His expression remained unchanged. I gave him bread and milk to eat and
ever after he was our friend, oftentimes coming and bringing the
children playthings and moccasins. When he left, he gave me the rabbits
and prairie chickens and afterwards often brought me game.
One day Mr. Anderson was at work in the field, a long distance from the
house. He was cutting grain with a scythe and told me he would just
about get that piece done if I would bring him his supper. I had never
been over on this knoll which was on the other side of a small hill from
the house. I got his supper ready, taking all the dishes and food in a
basket and carrying a teapot full of tea in my hand. I had to pass a
small cranberry bog and could see squaws at work picking berries. As I
came to a clump of trees, ten or twelve Indians with their faces as
usual hideously painted, the whole upper part of their bodies bare and
painted, rose from this clump of trees and looked at me. I waited for
nothing, but threw my basket and teapot and made for the house. As I got
to the top of the hill I looked back and could see the Indians feasting
on my husband's supper. Upon his return home to supper that evening, he
brought the dishes and the teapot with him.
We had been in Eden Prairie about six years and had never been to church
as there was no church near enough for us to attend. We heard there was
to be preaching at Bloomington, and determined to go. We had always been
church-going people and had felt the loss of services very keenly. We
had nothing but an ox team and thought this would not be appropriate to
go to church with, so, carrying my baby, I walked the six miles to
church and six miles back again. The next Sunday, however, we rode
nearly to church with the ox team, then hitched them in the woods and
went on foot the rest of the way.
Mr. Anderson was always a devoted friend of Mr. Pond, the missionary and
attended his church for many years. One of Mr. Anderson's sons took up a
claim in the northern part of the State. When Mr. Pond died, he came
down to the funeral. Upon his return, he saw a tepee pitched on the edge
of his farm and went over to see what it was there for and who was in
it. As he neared it, he heard talking in a monotone and stood listening,
wondering what it could mean. He pushed up the flap and saw Indians
engaged in prayer. He asked them who taught them to pray and they
replied "Grizzly Bear taught us." He told them Grizzly Bear, which was
the Indian name for Mr. Pond, was dead and would be seen no more. He
took from his pocketbook a little white flower which he had taken from
the casket, told them what it was and each one of them held it
reverently with much lamentation. This was twenty years after these
people had been taught by Grizzly Bear.
Mrs. Wilder--1854.
We settled on a farm near Morristown. There was an Indian village near.
We always used to play with those Sioux children and always found them
very fair in their play. We used to like to go in their tepees. There
was a depression in the middle for the fire. The smoke was supposed to
go out of the hole in the top of the tent. An Indian always had a smoky
smell. When they cooked game, they just drew it a little--never took off
the feathers much or cut the head or feet off.
Some of our Indians got into a fuss with a band from Faribault and one
of our Indians killed one of them. He brought a great knife that he had
done the killing with and gave it to my father all uncleaned as it was.
He said it was "seechy" knife, meaning bad. As they were still fighting,
my father took it just as it was and stuck it up in a crack above our
front door in our one room. Then he sent to Morristown for Mr. Morris
to straighten out the fight. He had lived among the Indians for a long
time and knew their language. He brought them to time. Later they came
and wanted the knife but my father would not give it to them.
Geese and ducks covered the lakes. Later we had the most wonderful
feather beds made from their feathers. We only used the small fluffy
ones, so they were as if they were made from down. Wild rice, one of the
Indians' principal articles of diet, when gathered was knocked into
their canoe. It was often unhulled. I have seen the Indians hull it.
They would dig a hole in the ground, line it with a buffalo skin, hair
side down, then turn the rice in this, jumping up and down on it with
their moccasined feet until it was hulled. I could never fancy it much
after I saw this.
We had great quantities of wild plums on our own place. Two trees grew
close together and were so much alike we always called them the twins.
Those trees had the most wonderful plums--as large as a small peach. We
used to peel them and serve them with cream. Nothing could have a finer
flavor.
Just before the outbreak, an Indian runner, whom none of us had ever
seen, went around to all the Sioux around there. Then with their ponies
loaded, the tepee poles dragging behind, for three days our Indians went
by our place on the old trail going west. Only a few of Bishop Whipple's
Christian Indians remained.
Mr. Warren Wakefield--1854.
My father came to Wayzata with his family, settling where the Sam Bowman
place now is. We had lived over a year in southern Minnesota. As the
hail took all our crops, we had lived on thin prairie chickens and
biscuits made of sprouted wheat. It would not make bread. The biscuits
were so elastic and soft that they could be stretched way out. These
were the first playthings that I can remember.
A trader came with cows, into the country where we were living, just
before the hail storm and as there was nothing to feed them on, my
father traded for some of them. He traded one of his pair of oxen for
forty acres of land in Wayzata and the other for corn to winter the
stock.