the danger. My husband had a badly swollen ankle which he got while
crawling to the fort. Nevertheless, he was the first volunteer. Major
Randall said, "Take my horse; you can never get there without one," but
Mr. Kennedy said, "If the Indians hear the horse they will know the
difference between a shod horse and an Indian pony. I will go alone."
Dr. Miller tried to make him take half the brandy there was in the fort,
by saying grimly, "If you get through you will need it. If you don't we
won't need it." He started just before dawn taking the Indian crawl. He
had only gone a short distance when the mutilated body of a white man
interposed. This was so nauseating that he threw away the lunch he had
been given as he left the fort for he never expected to live to eat it.
He passed so near an Indian camp that he was challenged, but he answered
in Sioux in their gruff way and so satisfied them. When he came near
Nicollet village he crawled up a little hill and peered over. He saw two
Indians on one side and three on the other. He dropped back in the
grass. He looked for his ammunition and it was gone. He had only two
rounds in his gun. He said, "I thought if they have seen me there will
be two dead Indians and one white man." When he came to what had been
Nicollet Village, the camp fires that the Indians had left were still
burning. He reached St. Peter and gave the alarm.
Major S. A. Buell--1856.
Major Buell eighty-seven years old, whose memory is remarkable says:--I
came to Minnesota in 1856, settling in St. Peter and practicing law.
Early in 1856, Mr. Cowen, one of the brightest lawyers and finest men
Minnesota has ever known, came to Traverse de Sioux with his family, to
open a store. He soon became a warm friend of Judge Flandrau who urged
him to study law with him. He was made County Auditor and in his spare
time studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was much beloved by
all, a sparkling talker--his word as good as his bond. He had never been
well and as time went on, gradually grew weaker. His house was a little
more than a block from his office, but it soon became more than he could
do to walk that distance. On the common, half way between the two, was
the liberty pole. He had a seat made at this point and rested there.
When he was no more, the eyes of his old friends would grow misty when
they passed this hallowed spot.
Soon after I made the acquaintance of Judge Flandrau at Traverse de
Sioux there was a young man visiting him from Washington. The judge took
us both on our first prairie chicken hunt. We had no dog. On the upper
prairie back of the town going along a road, we disturbed an old prairie
hen that attempted to draw us away from her young. The Judge had
admonished us that we must never kill on the ground, always on the wing,
to be sportsmen. This hen scudded and skipped along a rod or two at a
time. Finally, he said, "Fellows, I can't stand this, I must shoot that
chicken, you won't tell if I do?" We pledged our word. He fired and
missed. After we got home, we told everybody for we said we had only
promised not to tell if he shot it. We never enjoyed this joke half as
much as he did. We always joked him about making tatting.
Flandrau, dearest of men, true as steel, decided in character, but
forgiving in heart, a warm friend--was one of the greatest men our state
has ever known. He was a tall, dark man, and very active. He had often
told me how he and Garvie, clerk for the Indian Trader at Traverse de
Sioux used to walk the seventy-five miles to St. Paul in two days. He
once walked 150 miles in three days to the land office at Winona.
In 1858 I built my own home in St. Peter and made my garden. The year
before I had gone into a clump of plums when they were fruiting and tied
white rags to the best. I had moved them into my garden and they were
doing fine. One day I took off my vest as I was working and hung it on
one of these trees. Suddenly my attention was attracted to the sky and I
never saw a more beautiful sight. A horde of grasshoppers were gently
alighting. Nothing more beautiful than the shimmering of the sun on
their thousands of gold-bronze wings could be imagined. They took
everything and then passed on leaving gardens looking as if they had
been burned. When I went for that vest, they had eaten it all but the
seams. It was the funniest sight--just a skeleton. Not a smitch of white
rags left on the trees, either.
We people who lived in Minnesota thought there was only one kind of wild
grape. A man by the name of Seeger who had been in Russia and was
connected with a wine house in Moscow came to St. Peter. In the
Minnesota valley were immense wild grape vines covering the tallest
trees. Here he found five distinct varieties of grapes and said one kind
would make a fine red wine--Burgundy. He told me how to make this wine
from grapes growing wild on my own farm. I made about ten gallons. When
it was a year old it was very heady.
Edward Eggleston belonged to a debating society in St. Peter and was on
the successful side in a debate, "Has Love a Language not Articulate."
He was a Methodist preacher here, but later had charge of a
Congregational church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He said when the Methodists
abolished itinerancy and mission work, he thought the most useful part
of the church was gone.
In my boyhood days at home, a little boy in the neighborhood had the
misfortune to drink some lye. Fortunately the doctor was near and using
a stomach pump saved his life for the time being. However, the child's
stomach could retain nothing. In a short time he was a skeleton indeed.
One day his father who carried him around constantly, happened to be by
the cow when she was being milked. The child asked for some milk and was
given it directly from the cow. Great was the father's astonishment when
the little lad retained it. Milk given him two minutes after milking was
at once ejected. The father had a pen made just outside his son's
bedroom window and the cow kept there, and here many times a day the cow
was milked and the milk instantly given. After several months the child
was restored to health.
One night in Minnesota just as I was going to sit down to supper my wife
told me that a man who had just passed told her that a child that lived
ten miles back in the country had drank lye some days before and was
expected to die, as he could retain nothing. Without waiting to eat my
supper I jumped on a horse and made the trip there in record speed. This
child followed the same formula and was saved.
It was easy for youngsters to get at lye for every house had a leach for
the making of soap. This lye was made by letting water drip over hard
wood ashes in a barrel. A cupful would be taken out and its strength
tried. If it would hold up an egg it was prime for soap. It was clear as
tea, if it was left in a cup it was easily mistaken for it.
During the days when New Ulm was expecting a second Indian attack and
the town was full of refugees, I was ordered to destroy some buildings
on the outskirts. I started with a hotel and opened all the straw ticks
that had been used for refugees beds and threw the contents all around.
I believed all the people had left but thought I would go in every room
and make sure of this. In one room I heard a queer noise and going to
the bed found a small baby that had been tomahawked. Its little head was
dented in two places. I took it with me and went out. Its grandmother
who owned the place came running frantically and took it from me. Its
father and mother had been killed and it had been brought in by the
refugees. In the hasty departure it had been overlooked, each one
supposing the other had taken it.
On the 25th day of August after the massacre of the 22nd, around New Ulm
and in that vicinity, a little boy who had saved himself from the
Indians by secreting himself in the grass of the swamps, came into New
Ulm and said there were twelve people alive and a number of bodies to be
buried sixteen miles from New Ulm. He said he had seen a man who was
driving a horse and wagon, shot and scalped, but could not tell what had
become of the woman and baby that were riding with him. The troops
marched to the place, having the boy as a guide, buried a number of
bodies and brought the twelve survivors to New Ulm. They could find no
trace of the woman and baby, although the father's body was found and
buried.
Later the troops marched to Mankato, stopping at an empty farm house
sixteen miles from New Ulm for the night. This farm house was on a small
prairie surrounded by higher land. The sentries were ordered to watch
the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians might
ambush the troops. It was a night when the rain fell spasmodically
alternating with moonlight. Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on
the horizon and watched it disappear in the grass, then appear and crawl
along a fence in his direction. He called, "Who goes there?" at the same
time cocking his gun ready to shoot. At the answer, "Winnebago" he
fired. At that moment there had been a little shower and his gun refused
to fire. Later he found that the cap had become attached to the hammer
and the powder must have been dampened by the shower. He dashed for the
figure to find a white woman and baby and was horrified to think that if
the gun had fired she would have been blown to pieces. This was woman
for whom they had looked in the swamp thirty miles away. He aroused the
troops, who took her in. She held out her baby whose hand was partly
shot away, but said nothing about herself. Later they found that she had
been shot through the back and the wound had had no dressing except when
she laid down in the streams. Her greatest fear had been that the baby
would cry, but during all those eight awful days and nights while she
lay hidden in the swamps or crawled on her way at night, this baby had
never made a sound. As soon as it became warm and was thoroughly fed, it
cried incessantly for twelve hours. The mother said that for three days
the Indians had pursued her with dogs, but she had managed to evade them
by criss-crossing through the streams. She had said "Winnebago" as she
thought she was approaching a Sioux camp and they were supposed to be
friendly to the Winnebagoes. She would then have welcomed captivity as
it seemed that the white people had left the earth and death was
inevitable.
In May 1857, eggs were selling in St. Peter for 6c a dozen, butter at 5c
per pound and full grown chickens at 75c a dozen as game was so
plentiful.
Mrs. Jane Sutherland--1856.[3]
[Footnote 3: A sister of Mrs. Duncan Kennedy.]
Mrs. Cowan came to Traverse in 1856 when it was almost nothing. At her
home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to
continue them here. She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town,
no matter what their situation in life, to come. My maiden name was Jane
Donnelly and she asked me to come and "Help pass things"--"assist"--as
you call it now. She had tea and biscuits. Flour and tea were both
scarce so she warned me not to give anyone more than one biscuit or one
cup of tea. This we rigidly adhered to. She had the only piano in our
part of the country and we all took great pride in it. I could sing and
play a little in the bosom of my family, but was most easily
embarrassed. Judge Flandrau was our great man. He dropped in, bringing
his tatting shuttle, and sat and made tatting as well as any woman.
Mrs. Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his
mind and keep it off from weighty matters. Mrs. Cowan insisted that I
should sing and play while he was there. I resisted as long as I could,
then was led still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin
piping, all the while covered with confusion. When I arose we both
looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes--just
kept right on tatting.
Finally Mrs. Cowan asked, "Don't you like music, Judge?" He looked up
with a far-away look in his eyes and said, "Yes, martial music in the
field." Then we knew he had never heard a thing, for, as Mrs. Cowan
explained to me as we were making a fresh pot of tea, "He is the kindest
man in the world. If he had noticed you were singing he would have said
something nice."
Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out
there to live. The first time I came into town was on a load of wild hay
drawn by my father's oxen. The man I later married saw me, a girl of
sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then. A few days
later he drove past our farm and saw me out in the corn field trying to
scare away the blackbirds. I was beating on a pan and whooping and
hollering. That finished him for he said he could see I had all the
requisites for a good wife, "Industry and noise."
During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the war, we were
repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety. This we were
loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock. We often saw
the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sometimes heard
shots. One day I was with my children at a neighbor's when a new alarm
was given by a courier. Without waiting for us to get any clothes or
tell my parents, the farmer hitched up and we fled to Fort Snelling. It
was two months before I ever saw my home or parents.
There were three grasshopper years when we never got any crops at
Middle Lake. When I say that, I mean just what I say; we got nothing.
The first time they came the crops were looking wonderful. Wheat fields
so green and corn way up. The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously
and this was the first year for ours. I went out to the garden about ten
o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans,
onions and lettuce that were simply luscious. The tomatoes were setting
and everything was as fine as could be. I felt so proud of it. The men
came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country
and the crops. While we were talking it gradually darkened. The men
hastily went out to see if anything should be brought in before the
storm. What a sight when we opened the door! The sky darkened by myriads
of grasshoppers and no green thing could be seen. Everything in that
lovely garden was gone. By the middle of the afternoon, when they left,
the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots
eaten. Not a leaf on the trees. My husband's coat lying outside was
riddled. Back of the house where they had flown against it they were
piled up four feet high. They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to
hatch and ruin the crops the following year. And enough the second for
the third, though we did everything. The last year the county offered a
bounty of three cents a bushel for them and my little boy, four years
old, caught enough with a net to buy himself a two dollar pair of boots.
You can perhaps get an idea how thick they were from that. The rail
fences used to look as if they were enormous and bronzed. The
grasshoppers absolutely covered them.
We lived only a short distance from my father's farm. One afternoon I
saw smoke coming from there and could hear explosions like that of
cannon. I caught our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their
home. We trusted the Indians and yet we did not. They were so different
from the whites. I thought they had attacked the family. I don't know
how I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went. When
I got there I saw my father and mother tearing a board fence down. A
swamp on the place was afire and the fire coming through that long swamp
grass very rapidly. The swamp had a number of large willows and when the
fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon. I
don't know why, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of
similar experiences. I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the
fence.
Governor Swift had paid me $5.00 to make him a buffalo coat. I had put
it all into "nigger blue" calico and had the dress on. When we went into
the house mother said, "What a shame you have spoiled your new dress." I
could see nothing wrong, but in the back there was a hole over twelve
inches square burned out.
Another time my husband was a short distance from the house putting up
wild hay. We had several fine stacks of it near the house in the
stubble. I happened to glance out and saw our neighbor's stacks burning
and the fire coming through the stubble for ours. I grabbed a blanket,
wet it soaking and dragging that and a great pail of water, made for the
stacks. I run that wet blanket around the stacks as fast as I could
several times. My husband came driving like mad with half a load of hay
on the rack and grabbed me but as the stubble was short that sopping
saved the stacks.
We had a German hired man that we paid $30 a month for six months. Crops
were plentiful and we hoped for a good price. No such good luck. Wheat
was 25c a bushel and oats 12-1/2. He hauled grain to market with our ox
team to pay himself and was nearly all winter getting his money. That
was before the war. We boarded him for nothing while he was doing it.
How little those who enjoy this state now think what is cost the makers
of it!
Mrs. Mary Robinson--1856.
We came to St. Anthony in 1856. Butter was 12-1/2c a pound; potatoes
15c a bushel and turnips, 10c. I have never seen finer vegetables. We
made our mince pies of potatoes soaked in vinegar instead of apples.
One of our neighbors was noted for her molasses sponge cake. If asked
for the recipe, she would give it as follows: "I take some molasses and
saleratus and flour and shortening, and some milk. How much? Oh, a
middling good sized piece, and enough milk to make it the right
thickness to bake good." Needless to say, she continued to be the only
molasses sponge cake maker.
Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder--1856.
Mr. Snyder and Mr. Pettit used to batch it in a cabin in Glencoe before
our marriage. In '56 we decided to move to Glencoe and live in this
place. We, together with Mr. Cook and Mr. McFarland were forty-eight
hours going the sixty miles. We stayed the first night at Carver and the
next night got to "Eight Mile Dutchman's." When we came to the cabin we
found the walls and ceiling covered with heavy cotton sheeting. My
mother had woven me a Gerton rag carpet which we had with us. The
stripes instead of running across, ran lengthwise. There was a wide
stripe of black and then many gaily colored stripes. When it was down on
the floor, it made everything cheerful. We had bought some furniture too
in Minneapolis so everything looked homelike. Later, six of us neighbor
women were invited into the country to spend the day. While we were gone
some of the neighbors said, "The mosquitoes must be awful at the
Snider's today--they have such a smudge." A little later, they saw the
house was in flames. In this fire, we lost money and notes together with
all our possessions. These notes were never paid, as we had no record so
we were left poor indeed. We were able to get boards for the sides of
our new house, but lived in it six weeks without a roof, doors or
windows. We had a few boards over the bed. There was only one hard rain
in all that time but the mosquitoes were awful. During this time, we
lived on King Phillip's corn, a large yellow kind. We pounded it in a
bag and made it into cakes and coffee. We had nothing to eat on the
cakes nor in the coffee and yet we were happy. My husband always kept
his gun by the bed during this time. One morning we awoke to see two
prairie chickens preening their feathers on the top of our house wall.
Father fired and killed both, one falling inside and the other outside.
Mrs. Colonel Stevens was our nearest neighbor. We just took a little
Indian trail to her house.
We had wild plums and little wild cherries with stems just like tame
cherries, on our farm. They helped out tremendously as they with
cranberries were our only fruit.
One morning twelve big braves came into my kitchen when I was getting
breakfast. They said nothing to me, just talked and laughed among
themselves; took out pipes and all smoked. They did not ask for anything
to eat. Finally they went away without trouble.
Indian Charlie, afterwards hung at Mankato, was often at the house and
became a great nuisance. He would follow me all over the house. I would
say, "Go sit down Charlie," at the same time looking at him
determinedly. He would stand and look and then go. He once found my
husband's gun and pointed it at me, but I said firmly, stamping my foot,
"Put it down Charlie," and very reluctantly he finally did. Then, I took
it until he left.
My husband enlisted, so in 1862 we moved to Fort Ridgely and lived in
one room. One day three squaws, one of whom was old Betts, came in to
sell moccasins. I asked her to make some for my baby and showed her a
piece of pork and some sugar I would give her for it. She brought them
later. We had eaten that piece of pork and I got another piece which was
larger but not the same, of course. When she saw it as not the same, she
said, "Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey squaw," and was very angry. I then gave
her the pork and two bowls of sugar instead of one and she went away.
Later I saw her in the next room where another family lived and said,
"Aunt Betts called me, Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey Squaw." Quick as a flash
she drew a long wicked looking knife from her belt and ran for me and it
was only by fleeing and locking my own door that I escaped. She was
never again allowed on the reservation. Later in the year, before the
massacre, I went home to Pennsylvania.
When we built on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Tenth Street, we could
plainly hear the roar of St. Anthony Falls. I used to follow an Indian
trail part of the way down town.
Mrs. Helen Horton--1856, Minneapolis.
When I came, things were pretty lonesome looking here. I found the young
people just as gay as they could be anywhere, however. The first party I
attended was a cotillion. I wore a black silk skirt, eighteen feet
around the bottom, with three flounces, over hoops too. A black velvet
basque pointed front and back, and cut very short on the sides gave a
great deal of style to the costume. My hair was brought low in front and
puffed over horsehair cushions at the sides. It stuck out five inches
from the sides of my head. We danced square dances mostly. We took ten
regular dancing steps forward and ten back and floated along just like a
thistledown--no clumping around like they do now. Just at this time, I
had a plaid silk too. It was green and brown broken plaid. The blocks
were nine inches across.
One evening we were to have a sociable. It was great fun playing games
and singing. They wanted me to make a cake. It was in the spring months
before the boats began to run and after the teams that brought supplies
had stopped. It was always a scarce time. I wanted some white sugar to
make a white cake as I knew a friend who was to make a pork and dried
apple cake, a dark cake, so I wanted the opposite kind. We went
everywhere but could find no sugar. I was so disappointed. Finally a
friend took his horse and cutter and in one of the houses we were able
to find a little. My cake was delicious. Did you ever make a pork apple
pie? You cut the pork so thin you can almost see through it. Cover the
bottom of a pie tin with it, then cut the apples up on top of this. Put
two thin crusts one on top of the other over this, then when cooked,
turn upside down in a dish and serve with hard sauce. This recipe is
over a hundred years old but nothing can beat it.
The first home we owned ourselves was at the corner of Ninth Street and
Nicollet Avenue. There was only one house in sight, that of Mr. Welles.
Our whole house was built from the proceeds of land warrants that my
husband had bought.
My father had a store at the corner of Helen St., and Washington Avenue.
To reach it from our home at Fourth Street and Second Avenue North, we
followed an Indian trail. There was generally a big cow with a bell to
turn out for somewhere on it.
Mrs. Mary Staring Smith--1856.
When we first came to live at Eden Prairie I thought I had never seen
anything so beautiful as that flowering prairie. In the morning we could
hear the clear call of the prairie chickens. I used to love to hear it.
There were great flocks of them and millions of passenger pigeons. Their
call of "pigie! pigie!" was very companionable on that lonely prairie.
Sometimes when they were flying to roost they would darken the sun,
there were such numbers of them. Geese and ducks were very numerous,
too. Black birds were so thick they were a menace to the growing crops.
I used to shoot them when I was twelve years old.
Once my father and uncle went deer hunting. They got into some poisonous
wild thing, perhaps poison ivy. My uncle's face was awful and father
nearly lost his sight. He was almost blind for seven years but finally
Dr. Daniels of St. Peter cured him.
Once during war time we could get no one to help us harvest. I cut one
hundred acres strapped to the seat as I was too small to stay there any
other way.