brought her up on the boat. My dog was an imported English setter. These
and an old pig were my only playmates. I used to love to dress my dog up
but when I found my old pig would let me tie my sunbonnet on her I much
preferred her. She looked so comical with that bonnet on lying out at
full length and grunting little comfortable grunts when I would scratch
her with a stick.
I never saw such a sad expression in the eye of any human being as I saw
in "Otherdays" the Sioux friend of the whites. It seemed as if he could
look ahead and see what was to be the fate of his people. Yes, I have
seen that expression once since. After the massacre when the Indians
were brought to Fort Snelling I saw a young squaw, a beauty, standing in
the door of her tepee with just that same look. It used to bring the
tears to my eyes to think of her.
There used to be a stone very sacred to the Indians on Alexander Gould's
place near us. It was red sandstone and set down in a hollow that they
had dug out. The Sioux owned it and never passed on the trail that led
by it without squatting in a circle facing it, smoking their pipes. I
have often stood near and watched them. I never heard them say a word.
They always left tobacco, beads and pipes on it. The Indian trails could
be seen worn deep like cattle paths.
At the time of the Indian outbreak the refugees came all day long on
their way to the fort. Such a sad procession of hopeless, terrified
women and children. Many were wounded and had seen their dear ones slain
as they fled to the corn fields or tall grass of the prairies. I can
never forget the expression of some of those poor creatures.
Mrs. Mary Massolt--1856.
I first lived at Taylor's Falls. I was only fourteen and spoke little
English as I had just come from France. Large bands of Indians used to
camp near us. They never molested anything. I took a great fancy to them
and used to spend hours in their camps. They were always so kind and
tried so hard to please me. When the braves were dressed up they always
painted their faces and the more they were dressed the more hideous they
made themselves. I would often stick feathers in their head bands, which
pleased them very much.
The storms were so terrible. We had never seen anything like them. One
crash after another and the lightning constant. Once I was sitting by a
little stove when the lightning came down the chimney. It knocked me one
way off the bench and moved the stove several feet without turning it
over.
Mrs. Anna Todd--1856.
We came to St. Anthony in '56 and lived in one of the Hudson Bay houses
on University Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. They were in a
very bad state of repair and had no well or any conveniences of any
kind. The chimneys would not draw and that in the kitchen was so bad
that Mr. Todd took out a pane of glass and ran the stovepipe through
that. Everybody had a water barrel by the fence which was filled with
river water by contract and in the winter they used melted snow and ice.
Mr. Todd built the first piers for the booms in the river. The hauling
was all done by team on the ice. The contract called for the completion
of these piers by April 15. The work took much more time than they had
figured on and Mr. Todd realized if the ice did not hold until the last
day allowed, he was a ruined man. There were many anxious days in the
"little fur house" as it was called, but the ice held and the money for
the contract was at once forthcoming. I remember those winters as much
colder and longer than they now are. They began in October and lasted
until May.
When we were coming from St. Paul to St. Anthony, just as we came to the
highest point, I looked all around and said "This is the most beautiful
country I have ever seen."
Where Mrs. Richard Chute lived in Minneapolis, the view was wonderfully
beautiful. Near there, was a house with the front door on the back side
so that the view could be seen better. Times were very, very hard in '57
and '58. We never saw any money and to our Yankee minds this was the
worst part of our new life. A friend had been staying with us for months
sharing what we had. One day he said to my husband, "I'm here and I'm
stranded, I can see no way to pay you anything, but I can give you an
old mare which I have up in the country." He finally induced Mr. Todd to
take her and almost immediately, we had a chance to swap her for an
Indian pony. A short time after, there was a call for ponies at the fort
and the pony was sold to the Government for $50.00 in gold. This seemed
like $1,000.00 would now.
The first time I saw an apple in Minnesota was in '58. A big spaniel had
come to us, probably lost by some party of homeseekers. After having him
a short time, we became very tired of him. One of the teamsters was
going to St. Paul, so we told him to take the dog and lose him. Better
than that, he swapped him for a barrel of apples with a man who had
brought them up the river as a speculation. The new owner was to take
the dog back down the river that day, but that dog was back almost as
soon as the teamster was. We used to joke and say we lived on that dog
all winter.
The early settlers brought slips of all kinds of houseplants which they
shared with all. The windows were gay with fuchias, geraniums, roses,
etc. Most everyone had a heliotrope too. All started slips under an
inverted tumbler to be ready for newcomers.
Mr. Edwin Clarke--1856.
On April 12, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, two days prior to his
assassination, signed my commission as United States Indian Agent for
the Chippewas of the Mississippi, Pillager and Lake Winnebagosish bands,
and the Indians of Red Lake and Pembina.
The Mississippi Bands, numbering about two thousand five hundred, were
principally located around Mille Lac, Gull and Sandy Lakes; the Pillager
and Winnebagosish bands, about two thousand, around Leach,
Winnebagosish, Cass and Ottertail Lakes; the Red Lake Bands, numbering
about fifteen hundred, were located about Red Lake and the Pembina Bands
about one thousand at Pembina and Turtle Mountain, Dakota.
At that time there were no white settlers in Minnesota north of Crow
Wing, Long Prairie and Ottertail Lake.
The Chippewa Indians were not migratory in their habits, living in their
birch-bark covered wigwams around the lakes, from which the fish and
wild rice furnished a goodly portion of their sustenance and where they
were convenient to wood and water. The hunting grounds, hundreds of
miles in extent, covering nearly one-half of the State, furnished moose,
deer and bear meat and the woods were full of rabbits, partridges,
ducks, wild geese and other small game. The Indians exchanged the furs
gathered each year, amounting to many thousand dollars in value, with
traders for traps, guns, clothing and other goods. Some of the Indians
raised good crops of corn and vegetables and they also made several
thousand pounds of maple sugar annually. They also gathered large
amounts of cranberries, blueberries and other wild fruit.
The Chippewa Indians had very few ponies, having no use for them, as it
was more convenient to use their birch bark canoes in traveling about
the lakes and rivers. At that time the Chippewas were capable of making
good living without the Government annuities, which consisted of a cash
payment to each man, woman and child of from $5.00 to $10.00 and about
an equal amount in value of flour, pork, tobacco, blankets, shawls,
linsey-woolsy, flannels, calico, gilling twine for fish nets, thread,
etc.
An Indian in full dress wore leggings, moccasins and shirt, all made by
the women from tanned deer skins, and trimmed with beads, over which he
threw his blanket, and with his gun over his arm and his long hair
braided and hanging down, and face streaked with paint, he presented
quite an imposing appearance. The young men occasionally supplemented
the above with a neat black frock coat.
The Indians during the time I was agent were friendly and it was only
upon a few occasions when whiskey had been smuggled in by some
unprincipled persons, that they had any quarrels among themselves.
The late Bishops Whipple and Knickerbocker were my traveling companions
at different times thru the Indian country, as were General Mitchell of
St. Cloud, Daniel Sinclair of Winona, Rev. F. A. Noble of Minneapolis,
Rev. Stewart of Sauk Center, Mr. Ferris of Philadelphia, Mr. Bartling of
Louisville, Doctors Barnard and Kennedy and others. The late Ennegahbow
(Rev. John Johnson) was appointed by me as farmer at Mille Lac upon the
request of Shawboshkung, the head chief.
Ma-dosa-go-onwind was head chief of the Red Lake Indians and
Hole-in-the-day head chief of the Mississippi bands at the time I was
agent.
Captain Isaac Moulton--1857, Minneapolis.
The middle of December 1857, it began to rain and rained for three days
as if the heavens had opened. The river was frozen and the sleighing had
been fine. After this rain there was a foot of water on the ice. I was
on my way to Fond du Lac, Wis. to get insurance on my store that had
burned. You can imagine what the roads leading from St. Paul to Hastings
were. It took us a whole day to make that twenty mile trip, four stage
loads of us.
I have often thought you dwellers in the Twin Cities nowadays give
little thought to the days when the stage coach was the essence of
elegance in travel. The four or six horses would start off with a
flourish. The music of the horn I have always thought most stirring. The
two rival companies vied with each other in stage effect. If one driver
had an especial flourish, the other tried to surpass him, and so it went
on. No automobile, no matter how high powered, can hold a candle to
those stage coaches in picturesque effect, for those horses were alive.
On this trip, I hired a man with two yearling steers to take my trunk
full of papers from the Zumbro River that we had crossed in a skiff, as
the bridge was out, to Minnieski where we could again take the stage.
Those steers ran and so did we eight men who were following them in
water up to our knees. We reached Minnieski about as fagged as any men
could be.
Mr. George A. Brackett--1857, Minneapolis.
Prior to the Indian outbreak, I had charge of the feeding of the troops,
comprising Stone's Division at Poolville, Md., with beef and other
supplies. In this Division were the First Minnesota, several New York
(including the celebrated Tammany Regulars) and Pennsylvania troops. I
continued in that service until the Sioux outbreak, when Franklin Steele
and myself were requested by General Sibley to go to Fort Ridgely and
aid in the commissary department, General Sibley being a brother-in-law
of Franklin Steele. I remained in this position until the close of the
Sibley campaign, other St. Paul and Minneapolis men being interested
with me in the furnishing of supplies.
Just after the battle of Birch Coolie, when General Sibley had assembled
at Fort Ridgely a large force to go up the Minnesota River against the
Indians, he sent Franklin Steele and myself to St. Peter to gather up
supplies for his command. We started in a spring wagon with two good
horses. A number of refugees from the fort went with us in Burbank's
stages and other conveyances. At that time Burbank was running a line of
stages from St. Paul to Fort Ridgely, stopping at intervening points.
Allen, the manager of the lines, was in Fort Ridgely. A few miles out
the cry was raised, "The Indians are in sight." Immediately the whole
party halted. Allen went over the bluff far enough to see down to the
bottoms of the river. Soon he returned very much frightened saying, "The
valley is full of Indians." This caused such a fright that
notwithstanding our protest, the whole party returned pell-mell to Fort
Ridgely, except Steele and myself. The party was so panic stricken that
Allen was nearly left. He had to jump on behind. We determined to go on.
A mile or so further on, we saw a man crawling through the grass. I said
to Steele, "There's your Indian," and drove up to him. It proved to be a
German who, in broken English said, "The Indians have stolen my cattle
and I am hunting for them." Driving a few miles further, we came to what
had been Lafayette, burned by the Indians days before. Some of the
houses were still smoking.
We stopped at the ruins of a house belonging to a half breed, Mrs. Bush,
and killed and ate two chickens with our other lunch. When the refugees
got back to the fort they reported to General Sibley that we had gone
on. He said we were reckless and sent George McLeod, Captain of the
Mounted Rangers, with fifty men to overtake us and bring us back.
However, we drove on so fast that McLeod got to St. Peter about the time
we did. There we bought out a bakery and set them to baking hard tack,
and purchased cattle and made other arrangements for the feeding of the
troops.
One day, before this, while I was at General Sibley's camp talking to
him, I saw someone coming toward the camp. I called General Sibley's
attention to it and he sent an officer to investigate. It proved to be a
friendly Indian who had stolen a widow and her children from the
hostiles and brought them to the fort. Her husband had been killed by
the Indians.
Mrs. C. A. Smith--1858.
In the spring of 1858 we came to St. Paul. We took a boat which plied
regularly between St. Paul and Minnesota river points, to Chaska. There
we left the boat and walked to Watertown where our new home was to be.
My father carried $2,000 in gold in inside pockets of a knitted jacket
which my mother had made him. With this money we paid for two quarter
sections of improved land and the whole family began to farm. We lived
just as we had in Sweden, as we were in a Swedish settlement. We were
Lutheran, so there were no parties. Going to church was our only
amusement.
The prairies were perfectly lovely with their wild flower setting. There
had been a fire two years before and great thickets of blackberry vines
had grown up. I never saw such blackberries. They were as large as the
first joint of a man's thumb. The flavor was wild and spicy. I never ate
anything so good. Cranberries by the hundreds of bushels grew in the
swamps. We could not begin to pick all the hazel nuts. We used to eat
turnips as we would an apple. They were so sweet, they were as good. We
made sun-dials on a clear spot of ground and could tell time perfectly
from them.
We children made dolls out of grass and flowers. I have never seen
prettier ones. We kept sheep and mother spun and wove blankets and
sheets. We had bolts and bolts of cloth that we made and brought with us
from Sweden. Here, we raised flax and prepared it for spinning, making
our own towels.
Nothing could be cozier than our cabin Christmas eve. We had brought
solid silver knives, forks and spoons. These hung from racks. Quantities
of copper and brass utensils burnished until they were like mirrors hung
in rows. In Sweden mother had woven curtains and bed coverings of red,
white and blue linen and these were always used on holidays. How glad we
were they were the national colors here! We covered a hoop with gay
colored paper and set little wooden candle holders that my father had
made all around it. This was suspended from the ceiling, all aglow with
dips. Then, as a last touch to the decorations, we filled our brass
candle sticks with real candles and set them in the windows as a
greeting to those living across the lake. A sheaf for the birds and all
was done.
The vegetables grew tremendous. We used to take turns in shelling corn
and grinding it, for bread, in a coffee mill. Mother would say, "If you
are hungry and want something to eat of course you will grind." We made
maple sugar and fine granulated sugar from that.
My sisters used to walk from Watertown to Minneapolis in one day,
thirty-seven miles, following an Indian trail and then were ready for a
good time in the evening. How many girls of today could walk that many
blocks?
The lake was full of the biggest fish imaginable. We used to catch them,
and dry and smoke them. They made a nice variety in our somewhat same
diet. We used to fish through the ice, too.
Major C. B. Heffelfinger--1858, Minneapolis.
Well I remember the St. Charles hotel as it was when I first boarded
there. The beds were upstairs in one room in two rows. Stages were
bringing loads of passengers to Minneapolis. They could find no
accommodations so no unoccupied bed was safe for its owners. Although my
roommate and I were supposed to have lodging and were paying for it, the
only safe way was for one to go to bed early before the stage came in
and repel all invaders until the other arrived. If the sentry slept at
his post the returning scout was often obliged to sleep on the floor, or
snuggle comfortably against a stranger sandwiched between them.
The strangers who arrived had made a stage coach journey from La Crosse
without change and spent two nights sitting erect in the coaches, and
were so tired that they went to bed with the chickens. On lucky nights
for us they were detained by some accident and got in when the chickens
were rising.
Nothing was ever stolen and many firm friendships were thus cemented.
Our pocketbooks were light, but our hearts were also. It was a
combination hard to beat.
1857 was the most stringent year in money that Minnesota has ever known.
There was absolutely no money and every store in the territory failed.
Everything was paid by order. Captain Isaac Moulton, now of La Crosse,
had a dry goods store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price
of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had
been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold.
The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My
God woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 in money."
Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick--1858, Minneapolis.
When I married, my husband had been batching it. In the winter his diet
was pork! pork! pork! Mrs. Birmingham, who helped him sometimes, said
she bet if all the hogs he ate were stood end to end, they would reach
to Fort Snelling.
We had a flock of wild geese that we crossed with tame ones. They were
the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they
were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I
would go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would
act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk.
When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as
soon as they saw the horse. They were handsome birds.
I used to go to my sister's. She had a boarding house on the East Side.
Her boarders were mill workers and "lathers." That is what we used to
call the river drivers. They always had a pike pole in their hand. It
looked like a lath from a distance, so they got the name of "lathers"
from this.
[Illustration: GROUP OF CONTRIBUTORS TAKEN AT A PARTY AT THE HOME OF
MRS. JAMES T. MORRIS, May 26, 1915
Upper row from left to right: Mrs. Robert Anderson, Mrs. James Pratt,
Mrs. John Brown, Mrs. Mary E. Partridge, Mrs. Anna Todd, Mrs. Martha
Gilpatrick, Mrs. Rufus Farnham, Mrs. Charles Godley, Mrs. Paulina
Starkloff.
Second row: Mrs. Elizabeth Clifford, Mrs. Stephen Rochette.
Lower row: Mrs. Mahlon Black. Mrs. Mary Schmidt, Mrs. Margaret Hern,
Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder, Miss Carrie Stratton, Mrs. Mary Weeks, Mrs.
Rebecca Plummer. Eleven of these ladies are over eighty-four years old
and Mrs. Weeks is ninety. All have wonderful memories.]
Mrs. Margaret Hern--1858.
My husband enlisted in the Fall of 1861. It was not a very easy thing
for him to do, for our farm was not yet very productive, our three
children were very young, one a tiny baby, and we had no ready money.
However, he felt that his country called him and when the recruiting
officer told him that all soldier's families would be welcome at the
post and that we could go there with him, he rented our farm to George
Wells and went on to Fort Ridgeley. We lived forty miles from there on
the Crow River, near Hutchinson.
We found that the officer had lied. We were not expected or wanted at
the fort. We finally made arrangements to stay by promising to board the
blacksmith in his quarters. His name was John Resoft. His rations and my
husband's supported us all. Mr. Hern was very handy about the house, as
he was a Maine Yankee and daily helped me with the work.
There was a great sameness about the life as there were only about a
hundred men stationed at the fort. Very few of them had their families
with them. The only women were Mrs. Mueller, wife of the doctor, Mrs.
Sweet, wife of the chaplain and their three children, Mrs. Edson, the
Captain's wife; Sargeant Jones' wife and three children; Mrs. Dunn and
their three children; Mrs. Snider and three children; Mrs. Mickel and
three children; Mrs. Randall, the sutler's wife, and myself and our
three children.
The winter passed monotonously. We used to have some fun with the
squaws. Once I was writing home to mother. I wanted a little lock of
Indian hair to show her how coarse an Indian's hair was. Old Betts
happened to come in just then, so I took my scissors and was going to
cut a little bit of her "raving locks." When she saw what I was going to
do she jumped away screaming and acting like a crazy woman. She never
came near that house again, but in the spring after my husband had gone
to the front and Mrs. Dunn and I had joined forces and gone to living in
another cabin, she stuck her head in our window to beg. I jumped and
grabbed a looking glass and held it before her to let her see how she
really did look. She was a sight. She had an old black silk hood I had
given her and her hair was straggling all over. When she saw the
reflection she was so mad she tried to break the glass.
Three weeks before the outbreak, the Sioux, our Indians had a war
dance back of the fort and claimed it was against the Chippewas. At
first we believed them, but when the half breed, Indian Charlie, came in
to borrow cooking utensils, he sat down and hung his head, as if under
the influence of liquor. He kept saying "Too bad! Too bad!"
Mrs. Dunn became suspicious and knowing I knew him well, as he had often
stopped at our cabin, said "Ask him what is too bad." He said, "Injins
kill white folks. Me like white folks. Me like Injins. Me have to fight.
Me don't want to." He seemed to feel broken-hearted. I did not believe
him and thought him drunk, but Mrs. Dunn said "You go over and tell
Sergeant Jones what he said." I did. Sergeant Jones said, "What
nonsense! They are only going to have their war dance. All of you white
people go over and see that dance."
We all went. The soldiers were all there. The Indians had two tom-toms,
and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously,
jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood
and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting
their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the
fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We
could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the
day learned that there was a soldier for everyone of us to snatch us
away if it was necessary to fire on the Indians.
On Monday morning, August eighteenth, 1862, at about ten o'clock, we saw
a great cloud of dust arising. Soon it resolved itself into teams,
people on horseback and on foot coming pell mell for the fort. They said
that Redwood Agency, twelve miles distant, had been attacked and the
Indians were killing all the white settlers.
As they were flying for their lives, they passed the sutler of the
Redwood store lying face downwards with a board on his back on which was
written, "Feed your own squaws and papooses grass."
He had trusted the Indians until he would do so no longer. Their
annuities were long, long overdue and they were starving. They appealed
to him again and again and pleaded for food for their starving families.
He finally told them to "Go eat grass." The settlers had seen the
consequence. They had passed seven dead, besides on the way.
This was only the beginning of a sad multitude of refugees, who, wounded
in every conceivable way, and nearly dead from terror, poured into the
fort.
Captain Marsh, as soon as he had heard the stories, called the soldiers
out on the parade ground and called for volunteers, who would go with
him to try and stop the awful carnage. Every soldier came forward.
Captain Marsh told them that he thought the sight of the soldiers would
cow them as it had so many times before. They at once departed, leaving
about thirty men with us.