begged for shelter for the night. My father knew that there was a band
of Sioux camped just across the river, in plain view of our house. So
father surmised that this was a spy from the Chippewas. But he gave him
permission to stay in the house, providing that he would not show
himself outside, for it would enrage the Sioux against us if they knew
we were harboring a Chippewa. The Indian promised, but very soon my
sister who was playing outside, saw him raise the window and aim his gun
across the river. She told my father, who went in and made him desist
and nailed up the window. When we went to bed that night father did not
take pains to lock the Indian in. After we were asleep he crept out and
slipped away, and before morning, the Chippewas descended upon the
sleeping Sioux and killed every one of them.
Christmas in those hard times did not mean to us little pioneer children
what it does now. There was no spare money with which to buy presents.
We always hung up our stockings, but got nothing in them but a little
cheap candy, and perhaps a few raisins. But one year, father determined
to give us and the other children of the village a little better
Christmas than usual. So he went out to his woods and cut enough fire
wood to exchange in St. Cloud for a barrel of apples. Then he divided
off one end of our sitting room with a sheet and arranged a puppet show
behind it. And with the village children in one end of the room eating
apples, and father in the other managing the puppets, we celebrated the
day in a very happy way.
Mrs. F. Hoefer of Mound was an old settler of Watertown, and gives some
interesting information of the prices of food-stuffs after the war, as
follows:
"Flour was $15 a barrel, wheat was $5 a bushel, potatoes were $2.50 a
bushel and calico was thirty-five cents a yard. My husband's salary for
that summer season was $5. During the winter months we had barley coffee
and pancakes, no bed clothes and no clothes for the children. Our bed
quilt was a bear skin. When my first child was six weeks old, I went out
washing, walking twelve miles to my work, washing all day and then
walking the twelve miles back home again."
Ex-Governor Samuel R. Van Sant--1857.
My father with his family moved to Illinois in 1837, coming on the
"Adventure," on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Like most of the early
pioneers he was poor and had to work. Tickets were sold at a less price
if the passenger would help to wood the boat; my father took advantage
of this proposition. On board as a passenger, was the old Indian Chief,
Black Hawk. He was much interested in my little sister and gave her a
very fine string of beads. The beads, or a part of them, are still in
our family.
My father took up a claim near Rock Island on the banks of the Rock
River. While there, the family suffered all the privations of early
settlers in a new country. Farming was new to him and he did not make a
great success of it. He was a ship builder by trade.
Once he took a load of pumpkins to town, some twelve or fourteen miles,
getting fifty cents for them. On his return he broke his wagon, costing
a dollar to repair it. He often said he never felt so poor in all his
life, although he lived to be ninety-two years of age. On another
occasion we were out of provisions. He made a trip to the old water
mill, a few miles distant, to get 50c worth of cornmeal, but the
proprietor would not trust him so he had to return home to get a half
dollar that had been laid by for a rainy day. He was thus forced to make
another trip to secure the purchase; by this time we children were good
and hungry.
On another occasion, after killing his hogs, he drove with them one
hundred miles to the lead mines at Galena, but the market was over
stocked so he proceeded to Platteville, Wisconsin, twenty or more miles
further, where he sold the pork for two and one-half cents per pound,
taking one half in store pay and the other half in a note. The note is
still unpaid. It required a week or more to make the trip.
I have always had a great fondness for the Mississippi River. I was born
on its banks and for more than forty years navigated its water. My first
dollar was spent to buy a small skiff. As soon as I was old enough, I
commenced running on the river. My first trip to St. Paul was in 1857. I
was a boy of thirteen. What progress since that time in our state!
The steamboat was a mighty factor in the settlement growth and
development of Minnesota. I feel safe in saying that during the palmy
days of steamboating, more than one thousand different steamers brought
emigrants, their household goods and stock to this commonwealth.
While there were regular lines of steamers, there were also many outside
boats which were termed "wild" boats. These boats would often secure a
full cargo on the Ohio River, or at St. Louis and come to St. Paul. If
water was at a good stage, large profits would result.
A story is told of the steamer, "Fire Canoe." (I will not mention the
captain's name.) The water was low and the boat got aground a good many
times causing much delay. For a meal or two, the passengers were without
meat but soon there seemed to be a plentiful supply of nice fresh
veal--one of the passengers who, with his family and stock of young
calves, was moving to Minnesota, complimented the captain highly upon
securing such fine meat, but after going to the lower deck and finding
some of his fine young stock missing, hunted up the Captain and said,
"Captain, if it is all the same to you, I would prefer to dispense with
meat for the rest of the trip for I will need that young stock when I
reach my claim."
There was always great strife to be the first boat to arrive at St. Paul
and many risks were taken by steamers to get through Lake Pepin before
the ice had really left the lake. Many steamers were crushed by the ice
in so doing. One advantage to the first boat was free wharfage the
balance of the season in every town and city along the river.
Two steamers hardly ever came in sight of each other without a race. We
owned and operated a good many boats. We had a fast one named the
"McDonald." I remember on one occasion my partner, Mr. Musser, a well
known lumberman of Muscatine, and wife were making a trip with us. We
had a very spirited race with another swift boat; after a long, hard
chase we passed her, but we had to trim boat and carry big steam to do
it. After it was over, Mr. Musser said to me, "If I were you, I would
not race any more. It is expensive, dangerous and hard on the boat." I
agreed that he was right and that we would not do so again. We had not
been in our berths long before another boat was overtaken and a race was
on. Mr. Musser arose, forgot his advice of a few hours previous, and
said, "Pass that boat and I will pay for the extra fuel." The boat was
passed, but no bill was presented for the extra fuel.
REBECCA PRESCOTT SHERMAN CHAPTER
Minneapolis
MISS RITA KELLEY
MISS BEATRICE LONGFELLOW
Mrs. Delilah Maxwell--1855.
We were married in Illinois, April 12, 1855 and in three days we
started. We went one hundred miles by team to the Mississippi river, put
our wagon and mules on a steamer, and came up. Every business place on
the west side of the river in Minneapolis was a rough boarding house and
a little ten-by-twelve grocery store. We camped there, cooked our
breakfast, and came on out to Maxwell's bay at Minnetonka. The bay was
named for my husband and his two brothers who came up the year before
and took claims.
It was the roughest trip you ever saw. The road was an Indian trail with
enough trees cut out on either side to let a wagon through and the
stumps were sticking up a foot or two high and first you were up and
then you were down over those stumps. It was the trail through Wayzata
and Long Lake, known as the Watertown road.
We built an elm shack, a log house with the logs standing up so the
Indians couldn't climb over them, and stripped bark off elm trees for a
roof. The mosquitoes were terrible bad--and deer flies too. The men had
to wear mosquito bar over their hats down to their waists when at work.
Mrs. Martha French lived on the Bestor place on Crystal Bay, the Burdon
claim. She and Mr. French had come the fall before in '54. We had a
short cut through the woods, a path about a mile long. They were our
nearest neighbors. They came over to our house one Sunday. The men were
going to Minneapolis on business, to see about their land and Mr.
Maxwell was to start, Tuesday. Mrs. French said "Why can't us women go
too, on a pleasure trip? I've been here pretty near two years and Mrs.
Maxwell has been here over a year. I think it's about time we went on a
pleasure trip."
Mr. French was a slow talking man and he drawled, "Well, you can go, but
it won't be much of a pleasure trip."
"I don't see why it wouldn't. You jest want to discourage us," Mrs.
French said and he said, "Oh, no-o! I don't want to discourage you."
I didn't want to go very bad. I had a kid five months old and the
mosquitoes were so bad. It was June and awfully hot. But Mrs. French
hadn't any children and insisted that we ought to go for a pleasure
trip. So I fixed up on Tuesday night and went over and stayed all night
so we could get an early start. My husband went on ahead and we were to
meet him Wednesday noon in Minneapolis, or St. Anthony.
Mr. French lined up old Bob and Jerry, their team of oxen and we got
started about sunrise. A mile from the house we came to a terrible steep
hill. We got up it all right and just as we started down Mrs. French
said, "Old Bob hasn't any tail, but Jerry has a lovely tail. He'll keep
the mosquitoes off all right."
Just then Jerry switched his tail around a young sapling and it came
off. It was wet with dew and it lapped tight, and we were going down
hill so fast something had to give way. It was the tail! Well we had an
awful time with that tail. There was only a stump left, less than a foot
long, and the ox like to bled to death. Mrs. French was afraid the
wolves would get Jerry's tail and kept worrying, and when we had gone
about a mile she made Mr. French go back and get it.
We started on again and went about a mile and a half till we came to
Tepee hill where the Long Lake cemetery is. It's a steep hill now, but
then it hadn't been worked any and it was just straight up and down. We
had boards across the wagon to sit on, and they slid off. Mr. and Mrs.
French got out, they wouldn't ride. But I had just got the baby to
sleep--she was awful hard to get to sleep and didn't sleep much--so I
said I'd ride. I sat down in the bottom of the wagon with her in my arms
and we started up. We got clear to the top and the tongue came out of
the wagon and down we went! I crouched over the baby and just thought my
time had come. Before we got clear to the bottom the wagon veered and
stopped on two wheels.
Mr. French came down and got us fixed up and we went on to where the
Parrish place is now and camped, ate our lunch and built a smudge. We
stayed about an hour and hooked up and started on again. Mr. Maxwell had
gone on expecting us at Minneapolis by this time and here we were about
three miles from home.
Mr. French was an awfully sleepy man. He could go to sleep any place. He
didn't have to lead the oxen. They couldn't get out of the road. We were
in the big woods all this way with just a road of stumps to go through.
Mr. French went to sleep and we hit a stump. He pitched forward, and I
raised up and caught him right by the pants. Busted a button or two--but
he'd broken his neck if he'd gone out. Mrs. French just sat there and
never offered to grab him.
Finally we got to Wayzata. We bought a pound of flour and got some rags
and bound up Jerry's tail. We stayed all night at Clay's and got up at 4
o'clock and started on.
It was awfully hot. We went on till we came to the big marsh the other
side of Wayzata. The lake came up farther then, and the marsh was filled
with water, and all covered round the edges with logs and tree stumps.
The oxen saw the water and made one lunge for it. They made down the
side of the hill over stumps and logs and never stopped till they were
in the water. Mr. French got out and took the ox chain and tied the
tongue on the back of the wagon and hauled us up again. I remarked to
Mrs. French, "I guess we will be killed yet!" "Oh," Mr. French said,
"This is just a pleasure trip."
Mrs. French wouldn't crack a smile, but I thought I'd die laughing. We
stopped at the six-mile house Thursday night. We had started at 4
o'clock in the morning and traveled till eight at night and gone about
seven miles.
We got up at four and started on again. We chugged along till towards
noon and we camped and ate our lunch and met my husband. He'd been to
Minneapolis, looked after his business and was on his way home.
"Why, what's the matter?" he said. "Oh, not much. Jerry pulled his tail
off," we said. "Oh," Mr. French said, "it's only a pleasure trip."
My husband was for going home, but I said, "Oh no, you won't go back.
I'm all wore out now with the baby. This is a pleasure trip and we want
you to have all the pleasure there is."
We got to St. Anthony at eight thirty, tired--oh, dear! We did some
shopping and came back with a big load; made six miles in the afternoon
and stopped at the six-mile house for the night.
Across Bassett's creek was a narrow, tamarack pole bridge. We might have
known there would be trouble but we never thought of it. Old Jerry seen
the water and made one lunge for it. One ox went over the edge of the
bridge and one went through, and there they hung across the beam. We
skedaddled out the backside of the wagon. "Well, Martha, I guess we will
be killed yet," I said. But Mrs. French never smiled. She took her
pleasures sadly.
The men took the pin out of the ox yokes and let the oxen down into the
water and they grazed while the men went on a half a mile to borrow an
ax and cut tamarack poles to fix the bridge. We stayed all night again
at Mr. Clay's and got up Sunday morning and started. When we got to
Tepee hill I said, "I'll walk down this hill. I rode up it."
The rest of them rode. I walked on through the woods to Mr. Barnes'
beyond Long Lake and got there just as supper was ready. They wanted me
to eat supper, but I said, "No, they are coming on in a few minutes.
I'll just take a cup of tea." I waited--and waited--and waited--for an
hour or so; and they didn't come. Finally I ate my supper and they came.
"Well, what in the world," I said, "is the matter?"
Well old Jerry had got in the creek at the bottom of Tepee hill, the
outlet of Long Lake into Minnetonka and they couldn't get him out. Mrs.
French was in the wagon and the mosquitoes like to ate her up.
We got to our place that night. It was Sunday night and we'd been gone
since Wednesday morning. We wanted the French's to stay all night, but
they said they couldn't think of it; they had to go. Their mother had a
girl staying with her and expected them back Thursday night and would be
scared to death wondering what had happened to them. So they left the
oxen and took the path through the woods. I started in to get supper for
my husband and I heard them hollering. I said, "They're lost. Go out and
yell as loud as you can and build a big fire." They got back to our
place all right and had to stay all night. Mrs. French followed me out
to the barn. "Don't it make you mad to hear of that pleasure trip?" she
said. The men couldn't get through talking about it. "Well, it makes me
mad," I said, "but I can't help laughing."
"Well," Mr. French yawned, "I believe this winds up the pleasure trip."
Mr. B. F. Shaver--1853.
My parents came from Lucerne Co., Pa., father in the fall of 1850 and
mother just two years later. She came to Rockford, Ill., by rail, then
to Galena by stage and up the Mississippi by boat. One of her traveling
companions was Miss Mary Miller, sister of Mrs. John H. Stevens. Mother
spent the first night in Minneapolis in the old Stevens house, at that
time the only residence on the west side of the river, about where the
Union Station was.
Two years before this father had learned of Lake Minnetonka and had
taken some pork and flour and a frying pan and started west to find the
lake, over somewhat the route of the Great Northern railroad track to
where Wayzata now is. He reached the site of Minnetonka Mills and
located a claim about where Groveland park on the Deephaven trolley line
is. This was some time before the government survey. He blazed out a
claim. Like the old lady in the Hoosier Schoolmaster, he believed "While
ye're gittin', git a plenty" for after the survey he found he had blazed
out seven hundred acres where he could pre-empt only a hundred and
sixty. He had been up the creek several times to the lake where there
was a beautiful pebbly beach. Once, while wandering back, he had come
upon this spot, he said, "Beautiful as a poet's dream." A forty acre
prairie right in the midst of dense woods covered with wild flowers and
prairie grass. He blazed out his claim right there.
On November 8, 1852, father and mother traveled from St. Anthony to
Minnetonka Mills with an ox team and sled on eight or ten inches of
snow. They kept boarders at Minnetonka Mills that winter and in March
moved to their claim. The house was not completed. There were no
windows, no outside door and no floor. The following August were born
twin boys, the first white children born in Hennepin county outside the
city limits of Minneapolis. Mother was the first pioneer woman of
Minnetonka township.
When we were about three weeks old mother's nearest neighbor, Mrs.
Robinson, who lived on a claim near the present site of Wayzata, came
over to assist her with the twins, as she was all worn out. It was a
hot, sultry night early in September and Mrs. Robinson made a bed on the
ground beside mother's and put us into it. She became very drowsy
towards morning and lay down on the ground beside us. She was aroused by
my brother stirring about and complaining and reaching over was
surprised to feel something like a paw of a large dog thrust through a
crack between the logs and pulling the baby towards the crack by its
hand. She got up quietly and moving aside the blanket that hung for a
door, stepped out around the corner of the house. At the crack was a
large wolf. It was frightened off at seeing her and ran into the woods.
Before mother came, in August, 1850, father and three others took a boat
at Minnetonka Mills with provisions and went up to Gray's Bay and
westward on Lake Minnetonka to explore the lake and get a definite idea
of its area and characteristics. They went through Hull's narrows and
explored the upper lake several days, landed at a point about at Zumbra
Heights and decided to carry their boat across to the Minnesota river
and row down to Fort Snelling. After wandering in the woods several days
they abandoned the boat and subsisted for days on basswood sprouts and
raspberries. They reached the Minnesota river directly north of
Shakopee, descended a bluff and found the shanty of a squaw man. The
squaw gave them some fat pork with gravy over it and mixed up dough
which she baked on a griddle. Father said he had been to many a fine
banquet but that was the best he ever had tasted.
Father, mother and some of the men from the sawmill were eating supper
one night by candle light, when there came a loud knocking at the door.
Father opened the door and an Indian in hunting regalia staggered into
the house, holding his sides and evidently in great pain. Mother did the
best she could for him, gave him pain killer and hot drinks and made him
a bed on the floor beside the kitchen stove, where after a time he fell
into deep sleep. About daylight several members of the tribe, including
his squaw, came in search of him and learned from the crew at the mill
that he had been cared for during the night. His squaw came into the
house, talked with him for a while and then with the other Indians
started east. They were gone about two hours, returning with the
carcass of a very fine deer. The Indian had started hunting the day
before and pursued a deer till almost night, finally bringing it down.
Having had nothing to eat since early morning he was ravenous and cut a
piece of steak from the deer and ate it raw. This made him desperately
sick and on his way back he had to stop at the mill. His squaw and the
other Indians proceeded to skin the deer at the house and the squaw
brought in the deer's kidneys to mother. This she thought very odd but a
few days later was informed by Martin McCloud, an interpreter, that the
gift of a deer's kidneys was one of the highest tokens of esteem that an
Indian could bestow. Afterwards the Indian and his squaw were very kind,
sending her fish and venison and the squaw presented her with some
beautiful bead work.
The cruelty of the male Indians always astounded mother. Once she sold
an Indian a sack of flour. He was to come for it the next day. At the
time appointed he came, bringing with him his squaw who had with her a
little papoose, and his mother, an aged woman. He brought an empty sack
along. Mother presumed he would empty a small portion of the flour into
this for his wife and mother to carry and he would shoulder the
remainder in the sack which contained the flour. He emptied about one
third of the flour into the sack which he had brought. This he put down
by the side of his mother. He took the papoose out of a broad strap
around the squaw's head hanging in a loop in the back and taking up the
remaining flour, put it in the strap on his wife's back, she stooping
over to receive the load. It was so heavy he had to help her straighten
up; she could not rise alone. Then he took the papoose and set it atop
the sack of flour. He then assisted his mother about getting her portion
of flour in her strap. His conduct provoked mother greatly and she told
him in decided terms that he should be ashamed of himself. At her
remarks he grinned and folding his arms complacently around his gun,
strutted off after the women muttering, "Me big Injun."
A curious trait about the Indians was that they wanted you to trust them
and have no suspicions about their honesty. When going away from the
house it was better not to lock it, but take a stick and lean it up
against the house outside, intimating to them that you were away; and
nothing would be molested. If the house was locked they were likely to
break in and steal something.
Not far from our house at Spirit Knob, now Breezy Point, Lake
Minnetonka, on a bold hill projecting out into the water was a stone
idol, a smoothly polished stone a little larger than a wooden water
pail. The Indians came regularly to worship this idol and make offerings
to their god. In very early times, probably not later than 1853, a
doctor from St. Louis, Mo., is said to have stolen this image and taken
it to St. Louis and put it in a museum. The Indians were very much
enraged at this and some people have assigned to this deed a motive for
many of the atrocities committed in 1862.
One winter day father was away teaming and was not expected home till
late in the evening. As night drew on mother and her little boys were
busy about the chores. In cold winter weather we did not use the
woodshed and kitchen, but the two large rooms only, having to come
through the two unused rooms to the main part of the house. We boys had
finished our work, hung up our caps and put away our mittens for the
night and mother was bringing in her last arm load of wood. She had
passed through three doors and turned around to shut the last one and
there, right behind her, stood a giant of an Indian. He seemed a foot
taller than her and she was two inches less than six feet. So quietly
had he followed her that she had no intimation of his presence. As she
confronted him he said, "Ho" in deep, guttural tones, and then laughed
at her fright.
He evidently wanted something, but could speak little or no English. He
peered about the house, looked in every corner and finally in order to
make us understand what he wanted, he took the ramrod out of his gun,
set it up on end on the table, put the index finger of his left hand on
top of the ramrod and made counter motions up and down the rod with his
right hand. Mother divined it was pole beans that he had seen growing
and she got him some and he went away satisfied.