braves, their squaws and papooses camped six miles west of our home.
Often several of them at a time came down to the settlement. We always
gave them food and never thought of being afraid of them. When they
broke camp they camped one night near our house. How well I remember
taking out a milk pan of doughnuts and passing them around. I wonder if
those doughnuts left an impression! Two miles from Winnebago we had to
ford the Blue Earth River. The banks were quite steep. One of our horses
was a high spirited full blood Morgan mare. She always made it a point
to kick when going down those banks, often coming down astride of the
tongue of the wagon. My brave mother was the driver that day. We reached
the bank. Carefully, with steady, dainty steps, head proudly raised, she
slowly took us down that steep bank and across the river bringing us
safely upon the other side. I say she, for so much depended upon her,
for her good mate was always gentle. Fully she seemed to realize the
situation and fully demonstrated her love, and realized the
responsibility placed upon her one mate. Just before entering Winnebago
we met a company of ten mounted men going to the help of the three men
we had left. They returned that day accompanied by father and his two
neighbors bringing their herds of stock. After being in Winnebago a few
days we received word that a company of fifty mounted men from Winona
were coming. They had enlisted for thirty days. They were called the
Winona Rangers. After a few days they came and we were escorted home by
them. They built a barracks in our settlement and guarded a portion of
that section of country for their enlisted term.
The Government sent the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin regiment to Winnebago
where barracks were built. Portions of companies were distributed
throughout the adjoining counties, a company of them taking the place of
the Winona Rangers when their time was up.
Owing to my mother's ill health we removed to Homer, where her brother
lived. Two hundred and fifty miles we went in our covered wagon, through
the cold and snow of November. My father had made the trip weeks before
and driven our stock down. In our wagon was stored what little we could
bring of our household goods, the rest was left. On Thanksgiving day of
1862 we reached my uncle's house in the neighborhood where we now live.
KEEWAYDIN CHAPTER
Minneapolis
MISS MARION MOIR
Mrs. Gideon Pond--1843.
On the twenty-third day of August, 1842, I was married to Robert
Hopkins. He was preparing to come to the Northwest as an assistant
missionary in the Dakota mission, and in March 1843, we started on our
long journey from Ohio to Fort Snelling, sent out by the American Board.
We came down the Ohio and up the Mississippi in a steamboat, stopping
off for Sabbath and had to wait a long time for a boat at Galena after
spending Sunday there. We reached Fort Snelling in May after a tedious
journey. From Fort Snelling we started up the Minnesota River in an open
boat propelled by oars. At night we camped on the banks and cooked our
supper. In the party were Mr. and Mrs. Steven Riggs and their two
children and his wife's brother. Dr. Riggs was just returning from the
east where he had had some books printed in the Dakota tongue.
We also had three men to row the boat. We suffered much from the myriads
of mosquitoes. We baked our bread each day. It was simply flour and salt
and water baked in a frying pan before a smoking camp fire. It was very
distasteful to me and I determined to have a loaf of light bread. I had
some home made yeast cakes in my luggage as bought yeast cakes were then
unknown. I soaked one of them in a pail of river water, stirred in some
flour and soon had some nice light yeast. I mixed a loaf of bread and
set it where the hot sun would keep it warm. At night it was ready to be
baked and I used a little Dutch oven which was on the boat to bake it
in. The oven was like a black iron kettle flat on the bottom and
standing on three little legs about three inches long. We placed coals
under the oven and a thick iron cover heavier than any you ever saw, we
heated in the fire and placed over the oven to bake the bread on the
top, while to bake it on the sides we turned the oven around. I
attending the baking of my bread with great solicitude and care.
While it was baking an Indian man came into the camp and sat down by the
fire. I paid no attention to him but attended to my loaf, just as I
would have done if he had not been there. Mrs. Riggs said, "You should
not have let that man see your bread." I said, "Why not," and she
answered, "He may come in the night and steal it," which I thought was
preposterous. In the morning I fried some bacon, made coffee, spread the
breakfast on the ground and went to get my bread and it was gone. So the
breakfast had to wait until I could mix some of the bread I disliked so
much and bake it. I remember well I thought "So this is the kind of
people I have come to live among."
At the point called Traverse de Sioux we left the river and made the
remainder of our journey nearly one hundred miles in wagons which had
been sent from the mission at Lac qui Parle to meet us. A new station
was to be started at Traverse and Mr. Riggs and two of the men remained
there to build houses for us.
We were four or five days going from Traverse to Lac qui Parle and had
many thrilling adventures. Dr. Riggs had been east a year and had taken
with him three young Indian men that they might see and learn something
of civilized life. They were returning with us on their way to their
homes. The last morning of our journey two of them proposed to go ahead
on foot and reach their friends, as they could go faster so, than in
wagons. The other, being sick, remained with us. We had an extra horse
and later he was told that he might ride on to meet his friends. After
some time he came tearing back. He excitedly told us that his only
brother had come to meet him and had been murdered by ambushed Ojibway
Indians.
We soon came to where the scalped and bleeding body lay, right across
the road. The men of our party carried the body gently to one side and
covered it with a canvas. In a short time we met large numbers of Indian
men armed and very much excited, in pursuit of those who had murdered
their neighbor and friend. I could not understand a word they said, but
their gestures and words were so fierce that I expected to be killed.
They fired at our team and one of the horses was so seriously injured
that we had to stop. Mrs. Riggs and I walked the rest of the journey,
five miles, she carrying her fifteen months old baby. This was July 4,
1843. My first baby was born on the 10th of the following September.
On this last five miles of our journey, Indian women came out to meet
us. Some of them had umbrellas and held them over us. They seemed to
know that this was a terrible adventure for us. One of them put her arms
around me and tried to help me on and was as kind as any white woman.
They offered to carry Mrs. Riggs' baby, but the little thing was afraid
of them and cried so that they could not. Mrs. Riggs kept saying over
and over again, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom."
The Indians seemed to me very poor, indeed. They had for many years
depended upon the buffalo but now these were growing very scarce and no
longer furnished a living for them. The Indian women each year planted
small patches of corn with only their hoes for plows. They raised only
small amounts and they had no store houses. Sometimes they buried their
supply of food for the coming spring in holes in the ground, but dared
not mark the place for fear of having their supplies stolen, so they
were not always able to find it when it was wanted. In the fall they
gathered wild rice which they threshed by flailing it in buffalo skins.
In the spring they made a little maple sugar. They were often very short
of food and suffered from hunger.
One day I cooked a squash, putting the parings in a swill pail. An old
Indian woman came in and made loud cries of dismay when she saw my
wastefulness, saying, "Why did you throw this away?" She then gathered
them carefully out of the pail and carried them home in her blanket to
cook. Pies that were set out on the window sill to cool disappeared
also.
This first winter was spent at Lac qui Parle, or Medeiadam,
(med-day-e-a-da) "The lake that speaks," in both tongues. I was told
that it was so named from a remarkable echo about the lake. I kept house
in a little room on the second floor of a log house. Dr. Williamson and
his family lived on the lower floor.
One day as I was alone sitting at my table writing, the door of my room
opened and a hideously painted Indian came in. His face, as nearly as I
can remember, was painted half red and half black with white streaks
across. A band around his head contained a number of large feathers,
indicating the number of enemies he had killed. He evidently hoped to
frighten me terribly. I determined I would try not to let him know how
frightened I was. I sat still at my table and kept on with my writing
and in a short time he went down stairs again. This Indian was the
famous Little Crow, the leader of the outbreak of 1862. Afterwards my
second husband, Mr. Pond, tried to teach Little Crow to read music and
he told me that he had double teeth all around. Little Crow learned to
sing and had a fine voice. He was a fine looking fellow without his
paint; tall, slender and strong looking.
In the spring of 1844, April 4, we started on our journey back to
Traverse de Sioux. We had a snow storm on the way but reached our new
home in peace and safety. This was a one room log cabin with a little
attic above. The Indians here were not quite as friendly as those at Lac
qui Parle and seemed to wish we had never come among them.
I had a class of all the little Indian girls that I could persuade to
come to school. Their parents seemed very much opposed to having their
children learn to read, sew, cook or anything else. I think they had an
idea that in some way we would be paid for our trouble in teaching them
and that it would be to their disadvantage when they sold their land. At
any rate only a few girls came to school. In order to make my task of
teaching them less unpleasant I provided basins, towels, soap and combs
and requested them to use them each day as they came in. Contrary to my
expectations they seemed to delight in these morning ablutions,
especially if I brought a mirror so they might see themselves.
One of these girls was an especial favorite of mine. She came quite
regularly and seemed interested in trying to learn all she could. She
was about fifteen years old. The girls had to walk about a mile through
the deep snow to reach the school. One day this favorite girl was
absent. I asked why she was not there, but the other girls did not know.
The next day again she was absent and the other girls told me the reason
was because she did not wish to marry a man who had bought her and had
three wives already. That day her parents went for food from a store of
provisions which they had, leaving her at home to care for the younger
children. While they were gone she committed suicide by hanging herself.
The Indian tents were heated by making a fire on the ground in the
center, the smoke partially escaping through a hole in the top. On each
side of this fire they drove a forked stick into the ground and laying a
pole across these sticks hung on it their utensils for cooking. To this
pole this poor Indian girl had tied a rope attached to a strap about her
neck and, the pole being low, had lifted her feet from the ground and
hanged herself rather than marry a man she did not love.
One day when I was alone in my house at Oiyuwega or Traverse de Sioux an
Indian man came softly in and sat down by the stove. I soon saw that he
was drunk, which frightened me a little. I said nothing to him except to
answer his questions because I did not wish to rouse his anger.
Presently he reached to the stove and lifted a griddle and I thought he
was going to strike me. The griddles on the cook stoves then, each had
its handle attached instead of having a separate handle. I slipped out
of the door and soon he went away. Later he came back and said, "They
tell me I was going to strike you the other day. I was drunk and that is
my reason. I would not have done it if I had been sober." I accepted his
apology, thinking it a good one for an unlearned Indian.
The treaty between the U. S. government and the Dakota Indians was made
in July of 1851. The commissioners of the government three in number,
came in June. Their chief was Luke Lee. There were no houses where the
white people could be entertained, so they camped in tents on the bluffs
of the Minnesota river near an old trading house, occupied at that time
by Mr. Le Blanc. The bluff was not an abrupt one, but formed a series of
terraces from the river to the summit. The camp was on one of these
terraces. There was a scarce fringe of trees along the river but from
there to the top and as far back as the eye could see, perhaps for two
miles back on the bluff, there was not a bush or tree.
A great many white men assembled, Gov. Ramsey, Gen. Sibley, Hon. H. M.
Rice, editors also from some of our newspapers, among them Mr. Goodhue
of the Pioneer Press, were there. Traders, too, came to collect debts
from the Indians when they should receive the pay for their land. Mr.
and Mrs. Richard Chute of St. Anthony came. Accidentally their tent had
been left behind and they found a boarding place with me. The Indians
were there in great numbers. Many of them were from the far west and
these were much more uncouth and savage looking than any who lived
around us. Some of their women wore no garment but the skin of animals
which formed a skirt reaching from a few inches above the waist to the
knee and hung from the shoulders by straps. The Indians pitched their
tents on different terraces of the bluff some little distance away from
the white people's camp.
Daily the Indians had their feasts, dances and games of different sorts.
They seemed a little afraid to treat, were afraid of being wronged and
were very cautious. The commissioners were very kind to them and treated
them with great respect. They prepared for a great celebration of the
Fourth of July. The mission families, Hopkins and Huggins, were invited
to be present. Mr. Hopkins was asked to make an address and lead in the
opening prayer. He rose early that fair beautiful morning and went, as
was his custom, for a bath in the river. I made haste to prepare
breakfast for my family of seven. My youngest child was seven weeks old
that day. But the father never came back and the body was found three
days later.
There were four white women at the place at that time, Mrs. Huggins, the
wife of the other missionary, Miss Amanda Wilson, a mission school
teacher, Mrs. Chute, a fair, beautiful young woman visitor and myself.
We were just a short distance from the old crossing called by the
Dakotas, Oiyuwega, (O-e-you-way-ga) and by the French Traverse de Sioux.
In September I went back to my mother in Ohio with my three little
children. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs were going east, too, for a visit, and
again I journeyed with them. As there was a large party of us and the
American board which paid our expenses was not wealthy, Mr. Riggs
thought we ought not to travel first class, so we went in the second
class coaches. The seats were hard, like benches. My daughter, Sadie,
then two and a half years old, was taken sick and cried and begged for
water but there was none. I was in the deepest distress at not being
able to give the poor sick little thing a drink. In the night the train
stopped somewhere for water and a young man whom I could not remember
ever having seen before got off and bought a cup of water for
twenty-five cents and gave it to the poor, sick baby. If I have thought
of that young man once I have thought hundreds, perhaps thousands of
times of him and wished that I could thank him again and tell him what a
beautiful thing he did.
I remained with my mother till I was married to Mr. Pond in April 1854.
Again this northwest became my home. The Indians had sold their land to
the government and been sent farther west. The country was filling up
with white settlers. Bloomington has been my home ever since.
When I came to Bloomington as a bride there were seven motherless
children of the first Mrs. Pond, the eldest being about fifteen years
old. I brought with me my three fatherless children, so our family
numbered twelve. Our home was a log house of six rooms. There were no
schools anywhere within our reach. Every morning our children and some
of our neighbor's gathered about our long kitchen table which was our
dining table as well, for their lessons taught by the mother or one of
the older children. There were no sewing machines to make the numerous
garments necessary for our family, no lamps, no kerosene. We made our
own candles as well as our own bread and butter and cheese and soap. Our
lives were as busy as lives could be.
In the summer of 1856 we made bricks on our own place with which we
built the house where I have lived ever since. Mr. McLeod was our
nearest neighbor. North of us I cannot remember that we had any nearer
than Minneapolis. Down toward Fort Snelling lived Mr. Quinn in a little
bit of a house.
One night Mr. Pond was at the Old Sibley House at Mendota when a number
of traders were there. During the evening as they told stories and made
merry, many of the traders told of the joys of sleeping out of doors
with nothing between them and the starry sky; how they never minded how
hard the bed was if they could only see the green trees around them and
the stars above. Mr. Pond, who also had had experience in outdoor
sleeping, said that he liked nature too, but he preferred to sleep, when
he could, with a roof over him and a good bed beneath him. After some
laughter and joking on the subject, the traders, one by one, stole out
and gathering up all the feather beds the house afforded, heaped them
upon the bed in the attic which Mr. Pond was to occupy, thinking that he
would at once see the joke and return their beds to them. Instead, he
climbed upon the mountain of feathers, laughing at the joke on his
would-be-tormentors and slept comfortably all night while they had to
spend the night on hard boards. He loved to tell this story of how the
laugh was on them.
Mrs. E. R. Pond--1843.
After the Indian outbreak the different tribes were broken up and
outside Indians called to the leadership. A little, wavy-haired Indian
named Flute was one of these. He had never learned to wear the white
man's foot gear. With a number of others he was taken to Washington. He
went as a chief and soon after his return came one day to my door. He
was a keen observer and, I knew, would have something interesting to
tell of his journey, so I was glad to ask him about it. He began by
saying that when he had seen the young Indians all dressed up in suits
of store clothes, especially in long boots, he thought, they must be
very comfortable. He was very glad when he reached Yankton, to put on a
suit of white man's clothes. He said all those who were going on the
trip were put into a car where there was not room to lie or sit down and
were in it for two nights. When he got off at Chicago he found his feet
and legs were very sore from his new boots. When he saw all the people
in Chicago he thought, "It seems very strange that Little Crow should be
such a fool as to think he could conquer the white man. Little Crow had
been to Washington and knew how many men 'Grandfather' (president) had."
He knew he had a great many soldiers but he also knew he was having a
big war.
"There were so many people in Chicago that I thought he must have
summoned the young men from all over the country that we might be
impressed by their number. And they were all in such a hurry. No one had
time to stop anywhere. We finally reached New York and were taken up,
up, in a building and allowed to stay there and rest several days. We
wondered a good deal what they would do in case of fire, but supposed
they never had any. We asked the interpreter about it. One evening there
was an unusual noise. It was always noisy, but this was everything
noise. Then the interpreter came and said, 'Come quick now and see how
grandfather fights fire.' We went downstairs quick and every man was
calling as loud as he could. All of a sudden we heard a great bell
ringing and there were a number of those little men with horses hitched
to something that looked like buffalo's paunch with entrails rolled
around it. They had a great many ladders and how they did it I don't
know, but they went to work like squirrels and climbed, one ladder above
another, until they reached the top. White men are wonderful. They ran
up just like squirrels and took the buffalo entrails with them. Threw
water, zip! Pretty soon, all dark! Fire gone!"
"We stayed in grandfather's country three or four weeks. Tobacco was
plenty, very strong, no good! We walked about in Washington a good deal.
One day we saw some red willow on little island. Little bridge led to
island. We thought we could cross over and get some red willow to go
with strong tobacco. Two or three went over to get it. After they began
to cut it one looked up and said, 'Why grandfather didn't want us to
come here,' and there were men with little sticks and they just made a
few motions and broke the bridge. Then we saw a boat coming. As soon as
it got through and the bridge was mended we thought we had better start
back, so we started over and pretty soon a train of cars was coming. We
couldn't go back, were afraid to stay on bridge, so dropped down and
held on to beam while train went by. Bridge shook dreadfully. We hurried
back and thought we would use white man's tobacco as it was."
All the while Flute was telling this story he was gesticulating with
motions appropriate to the story and often reiterating "Little Crow is a
fool," and crying, "Hey!"
Mrs. John Brown--1852.
The Sioux Indians did not often give a child to be brought up by white
people, but Jane Williamson--"Aunt Jane" took little Susan and David,
two very young Dakota children, to see what environment would do for the
Indian. Later they were placed in other families.
Little Susan, though a Sioux Indian, was dreadfully afraid of Indians
having always lived with the white people. One day in 1852 when all the
men about the two places were busy plowing the field back of our house,
Mrs. Whalen, with whom little Susan lived, felt nervous as a number of
Indians had been seen about, so she took little Susan and come to spend
the day with me, her nearest neighbor. The house was just a small
temporary board one. Little Susan asked for a piece of bread and butter
and went out and sat on the Indian mound by the house to eat it. Here
the Indians must have seen her, for soon after she went back into the
house, twenty Indians came into the yard and up to the open doorway--the
door not yet being hung. Twelve Indians filed in and filled the room. My
baby was in the cradle by the door. Little Susan, Mrs. Whalen and I were
also in the room. The braves began to ask questions about little Susan,
"Is she good squaw? We are Sioux and love little Sioux girl. We want to
shake hands with her." They passed her along, one handing her hand to
another, till the one nearest the door pushed her out. The Indians out
doors shot her through the arm and breast and she fell forward. I seized
my baby from the cradle and looking out the door, saw that five or six
of the Indians had their feet on little Susan's breast, scalping her. I
screamed for the men who were hidden from view by the trees between the
house and clearing. When they reached the house the Indians--Chippewas,
were gone. For months afterwards arrow heads and other things which they
had dropped in their flight were found about the place. One large bundle
was found in the yard. There is a stone in memory of little Susan in the
Bloomington cemetery.
Often as I came up the hill from the spring with water, an Indian would
softly cross the path in his moccasined feet and give me such a start
that I nearly dropped my pail of water. This spring is the one from
which the Minneapolis Automobile club, situated on the Minnesota river
draws its supply. Just a little west of the club house is the place
where little Susan was killed, also an Indian mound and the marks of an
old trail.
One day an Indian walked into my house and asked me for a whetstone. I
gave it, not daring to refuse him. He sat down and sharpened his knife,
feeling its edge and pointing often and looking significantly at me.
A Shakopee Indian once said to Mr. James Brown, keeper of the ferry,
"Our Pond's a good deal better man than your Pond. Your Pond preaches
for nothing, but our Pond preaches for nothing and gives a good deal to
the church."
Mr. Pond once met a Shakopee Indian on the trail and neither would turn
out for the other. They ran into each other "bump." Indian said "Ho."
Mr. Pond said, "Ho." Each continued on his way.
ROCHESTER CHAPTER
BELLE BOYNTON WELCH
(Mrs. E. A. Welch)
MISS IDA WING
Marion L. Dibble--1855.
After a tedious journey alternating between steam boats and railroad
cars, we arrived at Red Wing. Here father left us and went on foot to
his new home. Procuring a yoke of oxen from a kind neighbor, he returned
to Red Wing and brought us there. Our first work was to cover our bark
roof with sods taken from our future garden, and to build a stone
fireplace to warm our house and cook our food.
The country was wild prairie with some strips of timber along the
branches of Zumbro River, which ran about a mile east of our house,
along the banks of which river could be seen the remains of Indian
tepees and their paths crossed the country in all directions.
Game and fish were very plentiful. During our first winter, we had a
deer hung on every rafter on the north side of the house. Our supply of
meat for the first year or two depended upon our success as hunters and
fishermen.
Mr. M. G. Cobb--1857.