did not last long. I know at that time my brother sent out $150 that I
had borrowed of Harry Lamberton. He sent this money by a man named David
Lyon from New York. He came to where I was boarding and left State Bank
money. The people where I was staying gave me the money that night when
I came home and told me about what it was for. I started for St. Peter
the next day to pay the debt and during the time the money was left and
when I arrived at St. Peter it had depreciated in value ten per cent and
it kept on going down until it was entirely valueless. Money was very
scarce at that time and times were hard. We had some gold and a little
silver.
In the year of 1859 we had the latest spring I ever experienced. We did
not do any farming of any kind until the first week in May and this made
it very late for small grain. We had a short season, but the wheat was
very good. We had an early frost that year about the third of September
and it killed everything. I saw killdeers frozen to death the third day
of that month. Corn was not ripe yet and was ruined. It would have been
quite a crop. It was dried up afterwards and shrunk, but was not good.
Oats and wheat however were good and it made better times.
The country was gradually developing. In the spring of 1860 we had an
early spring. The bees flew and made honey the seventeenth of March. We
commenced plowing on the sixteenth of March. I brought down potatoes
that spring and put them in an open shed and they did not freeze. This
summer was a very productive one. Wheat went as high as forty bushels to
the acre, No. 1. All crops were good.
The fall of 1860 was the time they held presidential election and
Lincoln was elected that fall. We had very many speakers here at Mankato
and excitement ran high. General Baker, Governor Ramsey, Wm. Windom,
afterwards Secretary of the Treasury and other prominent men spoke.
After the war commenced and the volunteers were called out, most of the
able bodied men joined the army. These men sent their pay home and
afterward business began to get better and conditions improved. Early in
August of 1862 Lincoln called for five hundred thousand men and those
men in this immediate vicinity who had not already joined, went to war,
leaving only those not able to join to protect their homes and property.
Mr. John A. Jones.
We were among the very earliest settlers in the vicinity of Mankato and
came from Wisconsin. I had come in April and pre-empted a claim at the
top of what is known as Pigeon Hill. Two other families came with us.
Traveling across country, we and our teams and live stock made quite a
procession. We had five yoke of oxen, several span of horses, and about
forty head of cattle, among them a number of milch cows. The wagons, in
which we rode and in which we carried our household goods were the real
"prairie schooner" of early days. We found our way by compass and made
our own road west, traveling over the soft earth in which deep ruts were
made by our wheels. The following teams were compelled to proceed with
care in order not to get stalled in the ruts made by the first wagons.
We made the trip in four weeks, fording all rivers and streams on the
way. At La Crosse we hired both ferries and took all day to cross.
During the difficult journey we averaged about twenty-two miles, some
of us walking all the time driving the large drove of cattle. No Indian
villages were passed although we met a number of friendly redskins. At
night we slept in the wagons and cooked our meals as all emigrants did.
We brought a large store of provisions and on Saturdays would set a
small stove up in the open and do our weekly bread baking. We passed
through eighteen miles of heavy timber beyond what is now Kasota, coming
out from the forest about three miles this side onto a very nice road.
We finally arrived at the homestead. We set our stove up in the yard by
a tree and lived in the shanty until our new log house was completed.
The shanty was covered with seven loads of hay to make it warm inside
and a quilt was hung over the door. Here we lived for two months,
suffering at times from rain penetrating. At one time a heavy cloud
burst nearly drowned us out.
The first winter in our new home was a severe one. For three weeks the
cold was very intense, and what was known as three "dog moons" at night
and three "dog suns" during the day heralded the cold weather, the moon
and sun being circled with these halos for the entire three weeks.
Provisions began to run low. The prices were very high and Mr. Jones
went to St. Paul to lay in a stock of provisions. Among other things he
brought home sixty barrels of flour and eight barrels of salt. The
superfine flour was $16 a barrel and the second grade $13. The
provisions were brought by boat to Kasota, where they were stranded in
the sand and were brought the rest of the way by team. There was also a
barrel of sugar and one of apples. Sugar in those days sold at the rate
of six pounds for $1.00.
The families used this flour until they raised their own wheat and after
that they used graham flour. The Jones' planted five acres to wheat the
following spring.
Mrs. Clark Keysor.
After my husband had enlisted and went to Fort Snelling, I was quite
timid about staying alone and got a neighbor girl to stay with me. The
third night I thought I might as well stay alone. That night a rap came
at the door. A neighbor was there and wanted to know if Mr. Keysor had a
gun. He said the Indians had broken out and they wanted to get all the
guns they could. Of course we were paralyzed with fear. From that on the
trouble began.
As soon as the rumor reached Fort Snelling my husband's company was sent
back. On the day they arrived I got a good dinner for them. I knew they
would be tired and when he arrived he looked worn and haggard, having
marched all the way from Fort Snelling to Mankato. We could not eat much
dinner, we were so excited. He left right away for the frontier. The
last thing he told me before he went away was, "Fight 'til you die,
never be taken prisoner."
The bluest day of all was one Sunday. Everyone who could get away was
packing up. Women and children were walking the streets and crying. They
expected the Sioux to start from Fort Ridgely to kill all the whites,
but when they got to Birch Coolie where the Winnebagoes were to join
them, the Indians found a barrel of whiskey there. They became
intoxicated and had a big fight, so they did not come to Mankato. That
was one time when whiskey served a good purpose.
One night not very long after the Indians broke out, there were four of
our neighbors' families came into our house, as they felt safer
together. There were twelve children in the house. About midnight we
heard the town bell begin to ring and one of the women got up and went
to the door to see what the trouble was. When she opened the door, she
saw a fire, which was Seward's Mill, but she cried out, "The Indians
have come, the town is all on fire." The children began screaming and we
were all nearly frightened to death but it proved it wasn't Indians at
all. Someone had set the mill on fire.
A few of the men who were left thought that we had better pack a few of
our best things and go to Leeche's old stone building for protection.
What few men there were could protect us better there than at different
homes. This old building was three stories high. Some women were sick,
some screaming. It was a scene of trouble and distress. It was the worst
bedlam I ever got into.
Mr. Hoatling was then our best friend and helped me get my things over
to this store building. We stayed one night. The cries of women in pain
and fright were unbearable, so the next day I went back home thinking I
would risk my chances there.
Judge Lorin Cray--1859.
While at St. Peter and in the early part of December, 1862 a few of us
learned, by grapevine telegraph, late one afternoon, that an effort was
to be made the following evening, by the citizens of Mankato, New Ulm
and vicinity, to kill the Indian prisoners, three hundred and more then
in camp at Mankato near the present site of Sibley Park. As no admission
fee was to be charged the select few determined to be present at the
entertainment. The headquarters of the blood-thirsty citizens was the
old Mankato House located where the National Citizens Bank now stands,
where liquid refreshments were being served liberally, without money and
without price.
I have never seen a correct history of this fiasco in print. A very
large crowd congregated there, and there seemed to be no great haste to
march on the Indian camp. Several times starts were made by a squad of
fifty or one hundred persons, who would proceed for a few hundred feet,
and then halt and return for more refreshments.
Finally at nearly midnight the supply of refreshments must have been
exhausted for the army moved. Several hundred citizens started south
along Front Street for the Indian camp, straggling for a distance of
several blocks. When the head of the column reached West Mankato it
halted until the rear came up, and while a rambling discussion was going
on as to what they should do and how they should do it, Capt. (since
governor) Austin with his company of cavalry, surrounded the whole squad
and ordered them to move on towards Colonel (since governor) Miller's
headquarters, right at the Indian camp. They seemed reluctant to go, and
refused to move. Capt. Austin ordered his men to close in, which they
did--crowding the citizens and yet they refused to move. Finally Capt.
Austin gave the command to "draw sabers" and when a hundred sabers came
out in one movement, the army again moved on Colonel Miller's
headquarters at the Indian camp.
The scene here was supremely ridiculous. Colonel Miller came out from
his tent and spoke kindly to the citizens and asked why they were
congregated in such large numbers. He finally ordered their release and
suggested that they go home which they hastened to do.
The next morning these Indians were removed, under guard of all the
troops in the city, to log barracks, which had been built for them on
Front Street diagonally across the street from where the Saulpaugh now
stands. The Indians remained in these barracks only about two weeks.
They had been there but a short time when the officer of the day, making
his morning inspection, which was very formal, thought that he saw a
hatchet or knife under the blanket of one of the Indians. Without a
change of countenance or a suspicious movement he proceeded with the
inspection until it was completed, and retired from the barracks, and at
once caused to be mustered around the barracks every soldier in the city
with loaded guns and fixed bayonets. Then with a squad of soldiers he
entered the barracks and searching every Indian, he secured a large
number of hatchets, knives, clubs and other weapons. These weapons, it
was learned had been gotten at the Winnebago agency about twelve miles
away by several squaws, who prepared food for these Indians and who were
allowed to go to the woods to gather wood for their fires. Immediately
after this discovery the Indians who were under sentence of death were
removed to a stone building near by where they were kept under heavy
guard. A few days after this incident, Dec. 26, 1862, my company came
from St. Peter to act as guard on one side of the scaffold at the
execution of the thirty-eight Indians who were then hanged on what is
now the southerly end of the grounds of the Chicago and Northwestern
freight depot, in Mankato. A granite monument now marks the place.
Captain Clark Keysor.
I served as first Lieutenant, Co. E, 9th Minnesota of the frontier
extending from Fort Ridgely through the settlement at Hutchinson, Long
Lake and Pipe Lake. At the latter place we built a sod fort and I was in
charge. Mounted couriers, usually three in number, traveling together,
reported daily at these forts. I was stationed along the frontier for
more than a year and we had many encounters with the Indians, and I soon
learned that a white man with the best rifle to be bought in those days
had a poor chance for his life when he had to contend with an Indian
with a double barrel shot gun.
The Indian, with one lightning like movement throws a hand full of mixed
powder and shot into his gun, loading both barrels at once and takes a
shot at his enemy before the white man can turn around, and when the
Indian is running to escape, he jumps first to this side and then to
that, never in a straight line, and it is an expert marksman, indeed,
who can hit him.
I worked on the Winnebago agency as carpenter and millwright and learned
to know the habits of the Indians very well. I learned to follow a trail
and later during the Indian trouble that knowledge came in very handy.
It is very easy for a white man to fall into the habits of the Indian,
but almost impossible to raise the Indian to the standard of the white
man. The head chief of the Winnebagoes was well known to me, and we
became fast friends. He was a friendly man to all the settlers, but I
knew the characteristics of the Indian well enough to trust none of
them. He never overcomes the cunning and trickery in his nature and I
learned to know that when he seemed most amiable and ingratiating was
the time to look out for some deviltry. The Indians were great gamblers,
the squaws especially. They would gamble away everything they owned,
stopping only at the short cotton skirt they wore.
"Crazy Jane" was an educated squaw and could talk as good English as any
of us. She was very peculiar and one of the funny things she did was to
ride her Indian pony, muffled up in a heavy wool blanket carrying a
parasol over her head. She had the habit of dropping in to visit the
wives of the settlers and would frequently; on these visits, wash her
stockings and put them on again without drying. One day when we were
living at the agency I came home and found my wife in a great fright.
Our little three year old girl was missing. She had looked everywhere
but could not find her. I ran to the agency buildings nearby, but no one
had seen her. They were digging a deep well near our house and I had not
dared to look there before, but now I must and after peering down into
the depths of the muddy water and not finding her, I looked up and saw
Crazy Jane coming towards me with a strange looking papoose on her back.
When she came nearer I found it was my child. I snatched the little girl
away from her. She said she was passing by and saw the child playing
outside the door and had carried her away on her back to her tepee,
where she had kept her for several hours but had meant no harm.
We were ordered to New Ulm after the outbreak. We found the place
deserted. The doors had been left unlocked and everyone had fled for
their lives. The desk and stamps from the postoffice were in the street
and all the stores were open. I put out scouting parties from there and
we stood guard all night. After two or three days a few came back to
claim their property. They had to prove their claim before I would allow
them to take charge again. Uncle "Tommy" Ireland came to us a few days
after we arrived there. He was the most distressed looking man I ever
saw in my life. He had been hiding in the swamps for seven days and
nights. He had lain in water in the deep grass. When we examined him, we
found seventeen bullet holes where he had been shot by the Indians. He
told me about falling in with Mrs. Eastlake and her three children.
They had all come from Lake Shetek. The settlement there comprised about
forty-five people. They had been attacked by the Indians under Lean Bear
and eight of his band, and the bands of White Lodge and Sleepy Eye,
although Sleepy Eye himself died before the massacre.
Many of the settlers knew the Indians quite well and had treated them
with great kindness. Mr. Ireland and his family were with the rest of
the settlers when they were overtaken by the Indians. Mrs. Ireland, Mr.
Eastlake and two of his children, were among the killed. Mrs. Eastlake
was severely wounded, and wandered for three days and nights on the
prairie searching for her two children, hoping they might have escaped
from the slough where the others met their death. Finally on the way to
New Ulm she overtook her old neighbor, Mr. Ireland, whom she supposed
killed, as she had last seen him in the slough pierced with bullets, but
he had revived and managed to crawl thus far, though in a sorry plight.
From him she received the first tidings from her two missing children.
Later on when she found her children, they were so worn by their
suffering she could hardly recognize them. The eldest boy, eleven years
old had carried his little brother, fifteen months old on his back for
fifty miles. All the baby had to eat was a little piece of cheese which
the older boy happened to have in his pocket. When within thirty miles
from New Ulm they found the deserted cabin of J. F. Brown in Brown
County, where Mrs. Eastlake and children, a Mrs. Hurd and her two
children, and Mr. Ireland lived for two weeks on raw corn, the only food
they could find. They dared not make a fire for fear the Indians would
see the smoke. Mr. Ireland had been so badly injured that he had not
been able to leave the cabin to get help, but finally was forced by the
extreme need of the women and children to start for New Ulm. He fell in
with a priest on the way, and together they came to our headquarters and
told their story. We started at four o'clock next morning, with a
company of soldiers and a wagon with a bed for the injured women. When
we reached the cabin the women were terribly frightened and thought it
was the Indians after them again. On our return to New Ulm we took a
different turn in the road. It was just as near and much safer. One of
our men, Joe Gilfillan had not had his horse saddled when the rest
started and when he came to the fork in the road, he took the one he had
come by and was killed by the Indians. Undoubtedly we would have met the
same fate had we taken that road as the Indians were on our trail and
were in ambush waiting for our return. However, we got safely back to
New Ulm and later Mrs. Eastlake and her children and Mr. Ireland came to
Mankato where they were cared for with the other refugees. The
sufferings and hardships endured by the older Eastlake boy soon carried
him to an untimely grave.
COLONIAL CHAPTER
Minneapolis
CARRIE SECOMBE CHATFIELD
(Mrs. E. C. Chatfield)
RUTH HALL VAN SANT
(Mrs. S. R. Van Sant)
Miss Carrie Stratton--1852.
My father was Levi W. Stratton who was born in Bradford, N. H., who came
to St. Croix valley in 1838, taking up a claim where Marine now stands.
He helped to build the old mill there, the ruins of which are still to
be found there. After two or three years he removed to Alton, Ill.,
where he remained for ten or twelve years marrying my mother there in
1842.
In 1852 he returned to Minnesota, coming up the river in the old "War
Eagle." His family consisted of my mother, myself and my four brothers
and sisters, the youngest an infant of six months.
We arrived at St. Paul on June 8. Being a child of but seven years, my
memory of the appearance of the town at that time, is very indistinct.
In fact the only clear remembrance of anything there, is of a large sign
upon a building directly across the street from the little inn or tavern
where we stopped for the night. It was "Minnesota Outfitting Company."
On account of our large family of little children, I had been put into
school when I was between two and three years of age and so was able to
read, write and spell, and I have a very vivid recollection of the three
long words of that sign.
We came from St. Paul to St. Anthony in the stage of the Willoughby
Company, which was the first stage line in Minnesota. The driver stopped
to water his horses at the famous old Des Noyer "Half Way House."
We stopped at the old St. Charles Hotel while the house my father had
engaged was made ready for us. It was the Calvin Tuttle home, which was
on the river bank at the foot of the University hill.
My father's previous residence in Minnesota had taught him to understand
and speak the Indian language and so the Indians were frequent visitors
at our house on one errand or another, generally, however to get
something to eat. The first time they came, my father was absent, and my
mother, never having seen any Indians before, was very much frightened.
Not being able to understand what they wanted, she imagined with a
mother's solicitude, that they wanted the baby, and being actually too
terrified to stand any longer, she took the baby and went into her room
and laid down upon the bed. After a while, either from intuition, or
from the motions the Indians made, it occurred to her to give them
something to eat, which was what they wanted and they then went
peaceably away. The rest of the children, like myself, did not appear to
be at all frightened, but instead, were very much entertained by the
novel sight of the Indians in their gay blankets and feathered head
dress. After that they were frequent visitors but always peaceable ones,
never committing any misdemeanor.
One of the earliest diversions I can remember was going up University
hill to the old Cheever tower and climbing to the top, in accordance to
the mandate at the bottom, to "Pay your Dime and Climb," to get the
magnificent view of the surrounding country, which included that of the
great falls in their pristine glory. I can remember too, like all the
others here who were children at that time, the stupendous roar of the
falls, which was constantly in our ears especially if we were awake at
night, when every other noise was stilled.
In the fall of that first year, I entered school, which was an academy
in a building on University Avenue opposite the present East High
School. This school was the nucleus of the State University and was
presided over by Mr. E. W. Merrill, who was afterward a Congregational
minister and home missionary.
After two or three years we moved into the home of the Rev. Mr. Seth
Barnes above Central Avenue, and between Main and Second streets. Here
my father cultivated a fine garden which included, besides corn, beans
and other usual vegetables, some fine sweet potatoes, which were quite a
novelty in the town at that time.
Mr. Irving A. Dunsmoor--1853.
In 1852 on account of poor health, my father resolved to come to
Minnesota and become a farmer, and in the fall of that year, he set out
with his family, consisting of my mother, myself and my three brothers.
We arrived at Galena, Ill., only to find that the last boat of the
season had gone up the river the day before. So my father left us there
for the winter and came up by the stage.
The end of his journey found him in the little town of Harmony, which
was afterwards changed to Richfield, and is now within the city limits
of Minneapolis.
Here he was able to buy for $100 a claim of two hundred and sixty acres,
with a house upon it, which was only partly finished, being, however
entirely enclosed. This particular claim attracted his attention on
account of the house, as his family was so soon to follow. It began at
what is now Fiftieth street and Lyndale Avenue and continued out Lyndale
three quarters of a mile. The house (with some addition) is still
standing on Lyndale Avenue between Fifty Third and Fifty Fourth streets.
Minnehaha creek ran through the farm and the land on the north side of
the creek (part of which is now in Washburn Park) was fine wooded land.
When the first boat came up the river in the spring it brought my mother
and us boys. My father had sent us word to come up to Fort Snelling on
the boat, but we had not received the message and so got off at St.
Paul and came up to St. Anthony by stage and got a team to take us to
our new home. We found it empty, as my father and an uncle who was also
here, had gone to the fort to meet us. As we went into one of the back
rooms, a very strange sight met our eyes. My father and uncle had set a
fish trap in the creek the night before and had poured the results of
their catch in a heap on the floor and there was such a quantity of fish
that it looked like a small haycock. This was done for a surprise for
us, and as such, was a great success, as we were only accustomed to the
very small fish that lived in the creek that ran through our home town
in Maine, and these long pickerel and large suckers were certainly a
novelty.
We salted them down and packed them in barrels and for a long time had
plenty of fish to eat, to sell and to give away.