it, and throw fish or turtles from their bone hooks directly into this.
When they were cooked slightly, they would take them out and eat them
without salt, cracking the turtle shells on the rocks. The boys used to
hunt with their bows and arrows just as they did in later years. They
were always fair in their games.
My mother married Mr. Gibbs and moved to this farm on what was the
territorial road near the present Agricultural college. It was on the
direct Indian trail to the hunting grounds around Rice Lake.
The Indian warriors were always passing on it and always stopped to see
their old playmate. By this time they had guns and they would always
give them to mother to keep while they were in the house. The kitchen
floor would be covered with sleeping warriors. Mother knew all their
superstitions. One was that if a woman jumped over their feet they could
never run again. I can well remember my gay, light hearted mother
running and jumping over all their feet in succession as they lay asleep
in her kitchen and the way her eyes danced with mischief as she stood
jollying them in Sioux. We noticed that none of them lost any time in
finding out if they were bewitched.
Our Indians when they came to see mother wanted to do as she did. They
would sit up to the table and she would give them a plate and knife and
fork. This pleased them much. They would start with the food on their
plates but soon would have it all in their laps.
They were very dissatisfied with the way the whites were taking their
lands. The big treaty at Traverse de Sioux was especially distasteful to
them. They said their lands had been stolen from them. They were very
angry at my father because he put a rail fence across their trail and
would have killed him if it had not been for mother.
The last time these good friends came was in May, 1862. A large body of
them on horseback camped on the little knoll across from our house where
the dead tree now is. They were sullen and despondent. Well do I
remember the dramatic gestures of their chief as he eloquently related
their grievances. My mother followed every word he said for she knew how
differently they were situated from their former condition. When she
first knew them they owned all the country--the whites nothing. In these
few years the tables had been turned. Her heart bled for them, her
childhood's companions. He said his warriors could hardly be kept from
the warpath against the whites. That, so far, his counsel had prevailed,
but every time they had a council it was harder to control them. That
their hunting and fishing grounds were gone, the buffalo disappearing
and there was no food for the squaws and papooses. The Great White
Father had forgotten them, he knew, for their rations were long overdue
and there was hunger in the camp.
They slept that night in our kitchen, "Little beckoning boy" and the
other playmates. I can still see the sad look on my mother's face as she
went from one to the other giving each a big, hot breakfast and trying
to cheer them. She could see how they had been wronged. She stood and
watched them sadly as they mounted their ponies and vanished down the
old trail.
Lieut. Governor Gilman--1855.
The winter of '55 and '56 was thirty five degrees below zero two weeks
at a time and forty degrees below was usual.
I have often seen the Red River carts ford the river here. They crossed
at the foot of Sixth Street between where the two warehouses are now.
Mrs. Austin W. Farnsworth--1855.
We came to Dodge County in 1855. The first year we were hailed out and
we had to live on rutabagas and wild tea. We got some game too, but we
were some tired of our diet before things began to grow again. When that
hailstorm came we were all at a quilting bee. There was an old lady,
Mrs. Maxfield there, rubbing her hundred mark pretty close. She set in a
corner and was not scared though the oxen broke away and run home and we
had to hold the door to keep it from blowing in. We said, "Ain't you
afraid?" She answered, "No, I'm not, if I do go out, I don't want to die
howling."
The first time I worked out, when I was fourteen years old, I got 50c a
week. There was lots to do for there were twin babies. I used to get
awful homesick. I went home Saturdays and when I came over the hill
where I could see our cabin, I could have put my arms around it and
kissed it, I was that glad to see home.
Mr. Theodore Curtis--1855, Minneapolis.
When I was a little boy my father was building some scows down where the
Washington Avenue bridge now is at the boat landing. There were five or
six small sluiceways built up above the river leading from the platform
where the lumber from the mills was piled, down to where these scows
were. These sluices were used to float the lumber down to the scows. A
platform was built out over the river in a very early day and was, I
should say, three hundred feet wide and one thousand feet long. As the
lumber came from the mills it was piled in huge piles along this
platform. Each mill had its sluiceway but they were all side by side.
It was very popular to drive down on this platform and look at the
falls, whose roaring was a magnet to draw all to see them.
We boys used to play under this platform jumping from one support to
another and then finish up by running down the steps and cavorting
joyously under the falls. I used to get the drinking water for the
workmen from the springs that seeped out everywhere along near where my
father worked. Once he sent me to get water quickly. I had a little dog
with me and we unthinkingly stepped in the spring making the water
roily. Childlike, I never thought of going to another but played around
waiting for it to settle, then as usual took it on top of the
sluiceways. It seemed father thought I had been gone an hour and acted
accordingly. I shall always remember that whipping.
Mrs. Charles M. Godley--1856.
My father, Mr. Scrimgeour, came to Minneapolis in 1855 and built a small
home between First and Second Avenues North on Fourth Street. When my
mother arrived she cried when she saw where her home was to be and said
to her husband, as he was cutting the hazel brush from around the house,
"You told me I would not have to live in a wilderness if I came here."
Mr. Morgan lived across the street. He and my father decided to dig a
well together and put it in the street so that both families could use
it. My father said to Mr. Morgan, "Of course, there is a street surveyed
here, but the town will never grow to it, so the well will be alright
here."
Mr. Morgan was a great bookworm and not at all practical. If his horse
got out and was put in with other strays, he could never tell it, but
had to wait until everyone took theirs and then he would take what was
left.
There was a big sand hole at the corner of Second Avenue South and
Fourth Street where they had dug out sand. It was the great playground
for all the children, for it was thought the town would never grow there
and so it was a good place for a sand hole.
When I went to school I always followed an Indian trail that led from
Hoag's Lake to the government mill. It was bordered by hazel brush and
once in a while a scrub oak. I was much disturbed one night on my way
home, to find men digging a hole through my beloved trail. I hoped they
would be gone in the morning, but to my great disappointment they were
not, for they were digging the excavation for the Nicollet House. My
school was in an old store building at the falls and was taught by
Oliver Gray.
Dr. Barnard lived on the corner by our house. He was Indian agent and
very kind to the Indians. One night a number of them came in the rain.
Mr. Barnard tried to get them to sleep in the house. All refused. One
had a very bad cough so the doctor insisted on his coming in and gave
him a room with a bed. Shortly after, they heard a terrible noise with
an awful yell like a war-whoop. The Indian dashed down the stairs, out
of the house and away. The slats in the bed were found broken and the
bed was on the floor. Later, they found that he had started for bed from
the furthest side of the room, run with full force and plunged in and
through.
In 1857, when the panic came, all stores in Minneapolis failed and there
was not a penny in circulation. Everything was paid by order.
There was a small farmhouse where the Andrews Hotel now stands. Fourth
Street North, that led to it from our house, was full of stumps. We got
a quart of milk every night at this place. They never milked until very
late so it was dark. I used to go for it. My mother always gave me a six
quart pail so that after I had stumbled along over those stumps, the
bottom of the pail at least would be covered.
No one who was used to an eastern climate had any idea how to dress out
here when they first came. I wore hoops and a low necked waist just as
other little girls did. I can remember the discussion that took place
before a little merino sack was made for me. I don't remember whether I
was supposed to be showing the white feather if I surrendered to the
climate and covered my poor little bare neck or whether I would be too
out of style. I must have looked like a little picked chicken with goose
flesh all over me. Once before this costume was added to, by the little
sack, my mother sent me for a jug of vinegar down to Helen Street and
Washington Avenue South. I had on the same little hoops and only one
thickness of cotton underclothing under them. It must have been twenty
degrees below zero. I thought I would perish before I got there, but
childlike, never peeped. When I finally reached home, they had an awful
time thawing me out. The vinegar was frozen solid in the jug.
A boardwalk six blocks long was built from Bridge Square to Bassett's
Hall on First Street North. It was a regular sidewalk, not just two
boards laid lengthwise and held by crosspieces as the other sidewalks
were. Our dress parade always took place there. We would walk back and
forth untiringly, passing everybody we knew and we knew everybody in
town. Instead of taking a girl out driving or to the theatre, a young
man would ask, "Won't you go walking on the boardwalk?"
Lucy Morgan used to go to school with us when we first came. She had
long ringlets and always wore lownecked dresses, just as the rest of us
did, but her white neck never had any gooseflesh on it and she was the
only one who had curls.
We went to high school where the court house now stands. It was on a
little hill, so we always said we were climbing the "Hill of
Knowledge."
I can well remember the dazed look that came on my father's face when
for the first time, he realized that there were horses in town that he
did not know. The town had grown so that he could not keep pace with it.
Mr. Frank Slocum--1856.
When we drove from St. Paul to Cannon Falls in '56 we only saw one small
piece of fence on the way. A man by the name of Baker at Rich Valley in
Dakota County had this around his door yard. He had dug a trench and
thrown up a ridge of dirt. On top of this he had two cross pieces and a
rail on top. You call it a rail fence. We called it oftener "stake and
rider." We followed the regular road from St. Paul to Dubuque.
The original Indian trail which was afterward the stage road, started at
Red Wing and went through Cannon Falls, Staunton, Northfield, Dundas,
Cannon City to Faribault.
My father had a store in Cannon Falls. I was only thirteen and small for
my age but I used to serve. One day a big Indian came in when I was
alone and asked for buckshot. They were large and it did not take many
to weigh a pound. He picked a couple out and pretended to be examining
them. I weighed the pound and when I saw he did not put them back, I
took out two. You never saw an Indian laugh so hard in your life. You
always had to be careful when weighing things for Indians, for if you
got over the quantity and took some out they were always grouchy as they
thought you were cheating them.
The farmers used to come through our town on their way to Hastings with
their grain on their ox drawn wagons. They had a journey of two hundred
miles from Owatonna to Hastings and back. They would go in companies and
camp out on the way.
During the years of '56 and '57 many people could not write home as they
had no money to pay postage. Our business was all in trade.
In 1854 a man whom we all knew who lived up above Mankato took an Indian
canoe and paddled down the river to St. Paul. There he sold it for
enough money to pay his fare back on the boat. He was a man of
considerable conscience in his dealings with white men but when a man
was only "an injun" it had not caught up with him yet. Now for the
sequel: The man who bought it had it under the eaves of his house to
catch rain water. During a storm his window was darkened. He looked up
to see an Indian with his blanket held high to darken the window so he
could see in. The white man went out. The savage said, "My canoe. Want
him." The man would not give it up, but the Indian and his friends went
to the authorities and he had to. They had traced it all that long way.
We bought an elevated oven cook stove in St. Paul and it was in use
every day for fifty years. We brought Baker knock down chairs with us
and they have been in constant use for fifty-eight years--have never
been repaired and look as if they were good for one hundred years more.
We made coffee from potato chips, sliced very thin and browned in the
oven. Not such bad coffee, either.
Mrs. T. B. Walker--Minneapolis.
I remember going to market in the morning and seeing a wagon with all
the requisites for a home, drive up to a vacant lot. On the wagon were
lumber, furniture and a wife and baby. What more could be needed! When I
passed in the afternoon the rough house was up, the stove pipe through
the window sent out a cheery smoke and the woman sang about her
household tasks.
One morning I was at church in St. Anthony. The minister had just given
out the text when the squeaking of the Red River carts was faintly
heard. He hastily said, "To be discoursed on next Sunday," for nothing
but this noise could be heard when they were passing.
Mrs. Virginia Jones--1856.
I lived in St. Peter in 1856. The Sioux Indians were having a scalp
dance at Traverse. Their yelling could be plainly heard in St. Peter.
All of that town went over to see them dance. They had a pole decorated
with several scalps. These were stretched on hoops and painted red
inside. The Indians danced round and round this pole, jumping stiff
legged, screeching and gesticulating, while the tom-toms were pounded by
the squaws. I was frightened and wanted to leave, but could not as I had
been pushed near the front and the crowd was dense. Seeing my fear the
Indians seized me by the hands and drew me into their circle, making me
dance round and round the pole.
Some days later I started east to spend the summer with my mother.
Distances were long in those days as the trip was made by steamboat and
stage coach. I took one of the steamers which then ran regularly on the
Minnesota river, sorrowfully parting from my husband as I did not expect
to see him again until fall. That anguish was all wasted for we stuck on
a sand bank just below town and my husband came over in a boat and lived
on the steamer for nearly a week before we could get off the sandbar.
Mrs. Georgiana M. Way--1856.
We moved to Minnesota from Iowa. Came with a prairie schooner. The
country was very wild. We settled on a farm five miles south of Blue
Earth. We brought along a cow and a coop of chickens. The roads were
awfully rough. We would milk the cow, put the milk in a can and the
jarring that milk got as those oxen drew that wagon over the rough roads
gave us good butter the next day. Our first shack was not a dugout, but
the next thing to it. It was a log shed with sloping roof one way. We
had two windows of glass so did not feel so much like pioneers.
The rattlesnakes were very thick. We used to watch them drink from the
trough. They would lap the water with their tongues just as a dog does.
Many a one I have cut in two with the ax. They always ran but I was
slim in those days and could catch them.
We used prairie tea and it was good too. It grew on a little bush. For
coffee we browned beets and corn meal. Corn meal coffee was fine. I'd
like a cup this minute.
Once a family near us by the name of Bonetrigger lived for four days on
cottonwood buds or wood browse as it was called.
We drove forty-five miles to Mankato to get our first baby clothes. When
we got in our first crop of wheat, I used to stand in the door and watch
it wave as the wind blew over it and think I had never seen anything so
beautiful. Even the howling of the wolves around our cabin did not keep
us awake at at night. We were too tired and too used to them. The years
flew by. I had three children under five when my husband enlisted. I was
willing, but oh, so sad! He had only three days to help us before
joining his company. Our wood lot was near, so near I could hear the
sound of his ax as he cut down all the wood he could and cut it into
lengths for our winter fuel. You can imagine how the sound of that ax
made me feel, although I was willing he should go. When he was gone, I
used to put the children on the ox sled and bring a load of wood home.
Pretty heavy work for a woman who had never seen an ox until she was
married. I was brought up in New York City, but I did this work and
didn't make any fuss about it, either. I did all kinds of farm work in
those days for men's help wasn't to be had, they were all in the war.
When I needed flour, there was no man to take the wheat to mill. The
only one who could, wanted to charge $1.00 a day and I did not have it,
so I left my darlings with a neighbor, got him to hist the sacks aboard
for me, for says I, "I'm not Dutchy enough to lift a sack of grain," and
long before daylight I was beside those oxen on my way to the nearest
grist mill, fifteen miles away, knitting all the way. It was tough work,
but I got there. I engaged my lodging at the hotel and then went to the
mill. There were a number there, but they were all men. The miller, Mr.
Goodnow, said "It's take turns here, but I won't have it said that a
'soldier's widow' (as they called us) has to wait for men, so I'll grind
yours first and you can start for home at sunup, so you can get home by
dark; I want you to stay at our house tonight." After some demurring,
for I wan't no hand to stay where I couldn't pay, I accepted his most
kind invitation. In the morning, when he saw me start, after he had
loaded my sacks of flour on for me, he said, "Get the man living this
side of that big hill to put you down it." I said, "I came up alone,
alright." He said, "Woman, you had grain then, you could have saved it
if it fell off and your sacks broke, but now you have flour."
When my boy was three weeks old, I drove fourteen miles to a dance and
took in every dance all night and wasn't sick afterward either. Of
course, I took him along.
When I came to sell my oxen after my husband died in the army, no one
wanted to give me a fair price for them, because I was a woman, but Mr.
S. T. McKnight, who had a small general store in Blue Earth gave me what
was right and paid me $2.50 for the yoke besides.
We had company one Sunday when we first came and all we had to eat was a
batch of biscuits. They all said they was mighty good too and they never
had a better meal.
We all raised our own tobacco. I remember once our Probate Judge came
along and asked, "Have you any stalks I can chew?" It was hard to keep
chickens for the country was so full of foxes. Seed potatoes brought
$4.00 a bushel. We used to grate corn when it was in the dough grade and
make bread from that. It was fine.
In 1856 and 1857 money was scarcer than teeth in a fly. We never saw a
penny sometimes for a year at a time. Everything was trade.
Mrs. Duncan Kennedy--1856.
My father moved from Canada to Minnesota. He was urged to come by
friends who had gone before and wrote back that there was a wonderful
piece of land on a lake, but when we got there with an ox team after a
two days trip from St. Paul, our goods on a lumber wagon--we thought it
was a mudhole. We were used to the clear lakes of Canada and this one
was full of wild rice. It was near Nicollet Village. The road we took
from St. Paul went through Shakopee, Henderson and Le Seuer. They said
it was made on an old Indian trail.
The turnips grew so enormous on our virgin soil that we could hardly
believe they were turnips. They looked more like small pumpkins inverted
in the ground.
The wild flowers were wonderful too. In the fall, the prairies were gay
with the yellow and sad with the lavender bloom.
The first party we went to was a housewarming. We went about seven miles
with the ox team. I thought I would die laughing when I saw the girls go
to their dressing room. They went up a ladder on the outside. There were
two fiddlers and we danced all the old dances. Supper was served on a
work bench from victuals out of a wash tub. We didn't have hundred
dollar dresses, but we did have red cheeks from the fine clear air.
One day when I was alone at my father's, an Indian with feathers in his
headband and a painted face and breast came quickly into the house,
making no noise in his moccasined feet. He drew his hand across his
throat rapidly saying over and over, "Tetonka-te-tonka," at the same
time trying to drag me out. I was terrified as I thought he was going to
cut my throat. Fortunately my father happened to come in, and not
fearing the Indian whom he knew to be friendly, went with him and found
his best ox up to his neck in a slough. It seemed "Tetonka" meant big
animal and he was trying to show us that a big animal was up to his
neck in trouble.
Afterward, I married Mr. Duncan Kennedy and moved to Traverse. I papered
and painted the first house we owned there until it was perfect. I did
so love this, our first home, but my husband was a natural wanderer. One
day he came home announcing that he had sold our pretty home. We moved
into a two room log house on a section of land out near where my father
lived. The house was built so that a corner stood in each quarter
section and complied with the law that each owner of a quarter section
should have a home on it. It was built by the four Hemmenway brothers
and was always called "Connecticut" as they came from there.
My husband worked for Mr. Sibley and was gone much of the time buying
furs. Then he carried mail from Traverse to Fort Lincoln. Once in a
blizzard he came in all frozen up, but he had outdistanced his Indian
guide--you couldn't freeze him to stay--he was too much alive. He once
traveled the seventy-five miles from Traverse to St. Paul in one day. He
just took the Indian trot and kept it up until he got there. He always
took it on his travels. He could talk Sioux French and English with
equal facility. Mr. Cowen once said when my husband passed, "There goes
the most accomplished man in the State."
They used to tell this story about Mr. Cowen. He had cleared a man
accused of theft. Afterward he said to him, "I have cleared you this
time, but don't you ever do it again."
When the outbreak came, my husband was storekeeper at Yellow Medicine. A
half breed came running and told him to fly for his life, as the Indians
were killing all the whites. Mr. Kennedy could not believe this had
come, though they knew how ugly the Indians were. After seeing the smoke
from the burning houses, he got his young clerk, who had consumption,
out; locked the door, threw the key in the river; then carried the clerk
to the edge of the river and dropped him down the bank where the bushes
concealed him, and then followed him. The Indians came almost instantly
and pounded on the door he had just locked. He heard them say in Sioux
"He has gone to the barn to harness the mules." While they hunted there,
he fled for his life, keeping in the bushes and tall grass. All doubled
up, as he was obliged to be, he carried the clerk until they came to the
plundered warehouse, where a number of refugees were hiding. That night,
he started for the fort, arriving there while it was still dark.