In 1856 three or four hundred Indians on their way to the annual
payment, camped in the woods between town and Cannon City. One evening
we went, in a body, to visit them and were entertained by dancing.
However, too much "fire water" caused some fear among the guests.
We had several courses of lectures during those early years. One year we
had as lecturers, Wendell Phillips, Douglas, Beecher, Tilton and
Emerson; following them came the Peake family, bell ringers and last of
all, a sleight of hand performer from Mankato, Mr. Wheeler, who
astonished his audience by swallowing a blunt sword twenty-two inches
long.
At another time we had a home-made "lecture course" in which Mr. Cole,
Mr. Batchelder, Judge Lowell, myself and others took part.
One of our first celebrations of the Fourth of July ended rather
disastrously. We had planned a burlesque procession in which everybody
was to take part. It started out fairly well. Dr. Jewett delivered an
oration and Frank Nutting sang a song called "The Unfortunate Man," but
the enthusiasm was shortly quenched by torrents of rain which in the end
literally drove most of the participants to drink.
After the panic of 1857-8, I was sitting idly one day in front of my
office on Main Street, as there was absolutely no law business. No other
man was in sight, and there hadn't been a dollar seen in the town in
months, except the "shin-plaster" issued by banks, which must be cashed
on the instant lest the bank in question should fail over night.
Suddenly I saw a stranger walking down the street, and as very few
strangers had come to town of late, I watched him idly. As he came up
he asked, "Young man, do you know of a good piece of land which can be
bought?" I spoke of a farm south of town of which I had charge, which
was for sale for $2100.00 or $12.50 an acre. He said, "I'll go and see
it." Two or three hours later as I still sat dreaming, as there was no
other business of any kind for any one to do, the man returned and after
asking about the title of the land which its owner had pre-empted, said
that he would think about it and went into the bank. Having made some
inquiries as to my responsibility, he shortly reappeared with a bundle
of greenbacks of small denominations and counted out the $2100.00. They
were the first government bank notes I had ever seen and such a sum of
money as had not been seen in Faribault in many months. My client then
said, "Now young man, you'll see that land worth $25.00 an acre some
day." Today it is part of the Weston farm and is valued at $150.00 an
acre and is the nicest farm in the county.
The first political machine in the State was organized in Faribault the
year Minnesota became a State. Five or six of us young men decided to
put a little new life into politics and we prepared a slate. It was five
or six against a hundred unorganized voters and we carried the caucus
and were all sent as delegates to the Convention. Here also our modern
method produced a revolution, but such a fight resulted that the
Convention split and some of them went over to vote the Democratic
ticket. However, we elected a fair proportion of our candidates and
defeated those who had been holding the offices by force of habit.
Mrs. Rodney A. Mott--1857.
We came to Faribault, I think, the nicest and easiest way. We drove from
Illinois in a covered immigrant wagon. At first we tried to find
lodgings at night, but the poor accommodations and the unwillingness to
take us in, led us at last to sleep in the wagon, and we came to prefer
that way. After we got away from the really settled country, everyone
welcomed us with open arms and gladly shared with us everything they
had.
We came up through Medford. I begged to stay there, but Mr. Mott
insisted on going to Faribault as they had planned. Our first house was
a little cabin on the site of the present cathedral and later we lived
in a house where the hay market now stands, but this was lost on a
mortgage during the hard times in 1857.
Mrs. Kate Davis Batchelder--1858.
As Kate Davis, a girl of ten, I came with my brother, a lad of eighteen
and a sister fourteen, from New York to Wisconsin. Our father was in
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where his business as a millwright had called
him, and it was thought best to have us go out to be with him. We came
in a wagon drawn by a team of spirited horses. We came over the thousand
miles between New York and Wisconsin, fording unfamiliar rivers,
stopping in strange cities, through prairie and forest, with only rough
wild roads at best, never doubting our ability to find our father at our
journey's end and perhaps because of that unquestioning faith, we did
find him. What a journey to remember. We camped in Chicago when it was
no larger than Faribault is now, on the spot near the Lake front where
the Congress Hotel now houses the most exclusive of Chicago's mob of
humanity. Milwaukee as we passed through it was a tiny hamlet.
When I went to visit my brother who had taken the farm on the east shore
of Cannon Lake, I made the trip to Hastings in a boat, and from there in
a wagon. As we were driving along, I saw coming towards us, three
figures which instinct told me were Indians. On coming nearer, I saw
each of them had scalps dripping with blood, hanging to his belt. They
reassured me by telling me they were only Indian scalps.
Mr. Berry, afterward a Judge on the Supreme Bench, started out on foot
from Janesville, Wisconsin with Mr. Batchelder and after prospecting
around and visiting St. Paul, Shakopee, Mankato, Cannon Falls and
Zumbrota, they finally walked in here. Fifty years afterwards Mr.
Batchelder went out to Cannon Lake and walked into town over the same
road that he had come over as a young man, and he said that while, of
course, the buildings had changed things somewhat, on the whole it
looked surprisingly as it had the first time he passed over it. Mr.
Berry and Mr. Batchelder opened a law office in a little one story frame
building in the back of which they slept. While coming into town, they
had met O. F. Perkins, who had opened a law office, and business not
being very brisk, he had turned a rather unskillful hand to raising
potatoes. At $2.50 a bushel he managed to do well enough and eked out
his scanty income from the law. It was while he was carrying the
potatoes to plant that he met Mr. Berry and Mr. Batchelder and having
become friends, they all, together with Mr. Randall and Mr. Perkins'
brother, started bachelor's hall back of Mr. Perkins' office, where they
took turns cooking and washing dishes. I have heard Mr. Batchelder say
that "hasty pudding" or what we call corn meal mush, was his specialty
and I believe, partly in recollection of those old days when lack of
materials as well as unskillful cooks compelled the frequent appearance
of this questionable dainty, partly perhaps, because he had learned to
like it, "hasty pudding" was served Monday on his table for all the
later years of his life.
During one winter I attended several dances in a rude hall whose walls
were lined with benches of rough boards with the result that my black
satin dress was so full of slivers that it took all my time to pick the
slivers out.
We always wore hoops and mine were of black whalebone, covered with
white cloth. One day, when at my brother's house, my hoop skirt had been
washed and was hanging to dry behind the stove and I was in the little
bedroom in the loft. My sister called to me that some young men were
coming to call and I was forced to come down the ladder from the loft,
to my great mortification without my hoops. There they hung in plain
sight all during that call.
At Cannon Lake, near my brother's cabin was a place where the Indians
had their war dances. One night after we had gone to bed in the little
loft over the one down stairs room, I was awakened by my brother's voice
in altercation with some Indians. It seemed the latch-string, the
primitive lock of the log cabin had been left out and these Indians came
in. They wanted my brother to hide them as they had quarreled with the
other Indians. This he refused to do and drove them out. The next
morning the tribe came by dragging the bodies of those two Indians. They
had been caught just after leaving the house. The bodies were tied over
poles with the heads, arms and legs trailing in the dust.
Mrs. John C. Turner.
The Nutting Hotel was the scene of many a dance when settlers came from
miles around to take part in quadrilles and reels to the music of
violin. We used to bring an extra gown so that after midnight we might
change to a fresh one, for these dances lasted till daylight.
When sliding down the hill where St. James School now stands, it was
rather exciting to be upset by barricades erected near the foot by
mischievous Indian boys, who greeted the accident with hoots of joy.
JOSIAH EDSON CHAPTER
Northfield
EMILY SARGENT BIERMAN
(Mrs. C. A. Bierman)
Mr. C. H. Watson--1855.
One hundred and fifty soldiers were sent out from Fort Ridgely in 1862
to bury those in the country around who had been massacred by the
Indians. I was acting as picket out of Fort Ridgely and was first to
hear the firing sixteen miles distant at Birch Coolie. It was the
Indians attacking the burial party. I notified those at the fort and a
party was sent out for relief. As they neared Birch Coolie they found
they were outnumbered by the savages and Lieut. Sheehan returned to Fort
Ridgely for the rest of the regiment. Then I accompanied them. They
finally came to the small band of soldiers, who had been attacked by the
Indians, to find twenty-three dead, and forty-five wounded out of the
one hundred and fifty-three men. The soldiers horses had been tied close
together to a rope to feed. There many of them had been shot, and being
so close together many were still standing, or had fallen down on their
knees--dead, but they served as a breast-work for the men. The
twenty-three soldiers were buried on the spot and the wounded taken to
Fort Ridgely.
I was also at Camp Release, under command of Gen. Sibley, where a great
many Indians were taken prisoners. These Indians had killed many whites,
and had some sixty women and children, prisoners. The soldiers managed
to secure the Indians' guns and then released the women and children,
finally taking the Indians prisoners, placing them in a log house, where
they were carefully guarded. These, together with others secured at
Yellow Medicine were chained together and taken to Mankato, where, in
December, thirty-eight were hanged.
The Old Trail afterward Stage Coach road, known as the
Hastings-Faribault Trail, passed through Northfield along what is now
Division Street. Going north it followed the Stanton road. At the
entrance of Mr. Olin's farm it passed along in front of the house--and
along through his pasture--east of the pond--on down onto Mr.
Alexander's land--following between two rows of trees, still standing,
and crossed the Cannon river just above where the Waterford dam now
stands. Thence along what is still known as the Hastings road. Through
Mr. Olin's pasture there is still about fifteen or twenty rods of the
Old Trail and road left.
Mrs. Augusta Prehn Bierman.
In the spring of '55 several of us German families, consisting of the
Prehn's, Bierman's, Drentlaws and Sumner's, came to Minnesota from a
settlement fifteen miles west of Chicago. We settled on claims near the
present city of Northfield. We were on the way eleven and one-half
weeks. We came by way of Joliet, forded the river at La Crosse and came
up here by way of Rochester and Kenyon. We carried enough provisions
with us to last most of the trip. We had some sixteen yoke of oxen, many
cows, calves, and six colts. We slept in the wagons and we baked bread
in iron kettles by burying them in hot ashes.
Our first home and the Prehn's was built in this way: We dug down in the
earth four feet, very much as we would today for a cellar, but into a
side hill. Above these four feet, logs were built up, plastered together
with mud. For a roof, logs and branches of trees were placed across the
side walls and then plastered together with mud.
Coming up through Kenyon we saw many Indians camping along the road. The
colts and oxen were deathly afraid of them and would turn way out of the
road when passing, keeping just as far away as possible.
Among the earliest marriages recorded in Rice county is that of William
Bierman and Augusta Prehn 1857.
Mrs. Ann Alexander.
My husband with his father and a brother, Jonas, came in '54 and took up
claims adjoining the present site of Northfield. They drove two ox teams
and brought cattle, a couple of sheep and some pigs.
My husband's parents kept boarders and had some sixteen or eighteen all
of the time and each day brought many extra from the stage coaches
plying between here and Hastings and here and St. Paul.
Every mouthful of food consumed that first year was brought from
Hastings, twenty-eight miles away, and it kept one man and an ox team on
the road all the time.
Pork was purchased by the barrel and it would seldom last a week.
By the following spring, '55, when I was married and came to Minnesota
some of the land had been broken, so small gardens were planted and
potatoes and other vegetables raised. I believe it was about the time of
the civil war that butter sold as low as 5c a pound and eggs 3c a dozen.
In these early days the Indians received annuities at Red Wing and on
their yearly pilgrimages they would often camp in this vicinity as long
as five or six weeks. The chiefs spent their time in hunting and
fishing. The west side of the river was then not settled at all and
there they had their camps. The squaws would come to the settler's
homes, set their papooses up against the side of the house and walk into
the house to beg. I have seen the large living room of mother's boarding
house lined with Indians, smoking one pipe--each man taking a few puffs
and then passing the pipe along. In those days the mosquitoes were very
thick and if anyone was out doors they would literally be eaten alive.
Mother's boarding house would be filled and people would be begging to
be allowed to come and sleep under the tables--anything to get in away
from the pests.
Mr. J. W. Huckins.
I enlisted from Minneapolis in Captain Strout's company which was sent
to guard the frontier at the time of the Indian outbreak. We went up the
Mississippi, then west to Litchfield, then to Glencoe and Hutchinson and
were finally at Acton, where the first blow fell. The place was
thirty-five miles northwest of the Lower Sioux agency, in Meeker county.
We soldiers found that our cartridges were not the right calibre. Some
of the men had personal rifles, and one was found who had a pair of
bullet molds of the right size. We took the bullets from the cartridges
and busied ourselves, making them over the right size, using the powder
and balls separately. During the engagement near Acton, the Indians
managed to completely surround the soldiers. The captain ordered his men
to dash through the Indian lines. The men ran for their lives, and those
on horseback were ordered, at point of guns, to wait for men on foot.
This sudden action took the Indians unawares and they were so surprised
they forgot to keep up the fire. Most of us effected an escape. Out of
sixty men but three were killed, though some twenty were wounded. We
fell back to Hutchinson where there was a stockade. The Indians were
getting quite fearless and would come in closer and closer to the
stockade. One man had a very rare, long range gun and killed an Indian
at the distance of a mile, after which the Indians kept a better
distance.
Mrs. C. W. Gress--1855.
We landed in St. Paul in April '55, making the trip in about three
weeks. We started on the boat, Minnesota Belle, but because of low water
our household effects had to be transferred at Davenport, Iowa, to a
small boat. There was a siege of cholera on the first boat, and two
bodies were taken ashore and buried in the sand.
During the time of transferring the baggage, I had to carry the money
for safe keeping. I made a wide belt with pockets of different lengths
suspended from it. Here, and in the pockets of my skirt was gold of all
denominations and some silver, of such weight that for three days I was
ill from carrying it. After spending a few days in St. Paul we moved to
Minnetonka Mills where we bought a relinquishment for $600 and paid $200
to prove up--making $800 for one hundred and sixty acres or $5 an acre;
that land fifty years later was well worth $100 an acre. For three years
we were eaten out by grasshoppers.
While here at Minnetonka Mills I often had Indians come to my house. On
one occasion I stood churning when an Indian stepped in and took the
dasher from me indicating that he wanted some of it. I was not afraid of
him and took the dasher from him and pushed him aside with my elbow. I
had just finished baking and so gave him a large slice of bread,
spreading it generously with butter. He dug the center out of the piece
crowding it into his mouth, throwing the crust on the hearth. This
angered me as my crust was soft and tender and I picked up a broom and
started toward him yelling "puck-a-chee" (get out) and he rushed for the
door and disappeared.
We then concluded, after such bad luck with our crops, we would move
back to St. Paul, where Mr. Gress could work at his trade, that of a
shoemaker.
Mr. Gress would bring home work at night when I would assist him. We
made a very high, cloth, buttoned shoe, called a snow shoe. I would
close the seams, front and back, all by hand, as we had no machine; open
seams and back, stitch down flat, and would bind the tops and laps and
make fifteen or twenty buttonholes, for 50c a pair. The soles would then
be put on in the shop. For slippers I received 15c for closing and
binding the same way. During the war I made shirts and haver-sacks for
the soldiers. The shirts were dark blue wool and were well made and
finished. I broke the record one day when I made six of these garments
and took care of four small children.
Mr. Alvin M. Olin--1855.
We came to Minnesota in 1855. We brought with us four yoke of oxen,
thirty-five head of cattle and three hogs. We, with a family of three
sons and a daughter, were four weeks on the way. We crossed the river on
a ferry at Prairie du Chien and came up through Rochester and Cannon
Falls and camped at Stanton while I went to a claim near Kenyon, that I
had taken up the fall before, to find it had been jumped so I came on to
Northfield and took up a claim on the Cannon River. We had with us two
covered wagons--known as prairie schooners. In these we had our
provisions, composed of flour, smoked meats and a barrel of crackers. We
also had our furniture, chairs and chests and two rocking chairs for the
mother and daughter. Here all of their leisure time, while on the move,
was spent industriously applying their knitting needles, meanwhile
singing to themselves to the accompaniment of the thud, thud of the
oxen.
Each day was opened with the family prayer, after which we had the
morning meal and then the boys took turns starting on ahead with the
pigs, this extra time being needed because of the pigs' obstinacy. One
morning the boys found they had started back in the same direction from
which they had come and had traveled six miles before they found it out.
We purchased a barrel of crackers in Milwaukee and our noonday meal
consisted of crackers and milk, and as milk soured, we fed it to the
hogs. Butter was made on the way, and bread and biscuits were baked in a
kettle.
When we staked out our claim, we laid a floor and placed a tent over it
where we lived till logs could be procured. These we got on the west
side of the river, then government land. For shingles we drove to Trim
Mill ten or twelve miles the other side of Prescott, Wis. At one time
that summer two hundred Indians were camped near our farm for two days
on their way to St. Paul.
Mrs. Pauline Hagen.
I was four years old when my parents settled in Hastings. Mother was
obliged to return to Wisconsin to see about our goods which were delayed
in coming, and father wintered here and took care of us three small
children. Our house had no floor and very little furniture, and this
hand-made, save for a small sheet iron stove through the cracks of which
the fire could be plainly seen.
At bed time father placed us in sacks, firmly tied around our little
bodies, and put us on straw beds on the ground and then covered us with
straw for warmth. We had no other covering. Our food that first winter
consisted mostly of corn meal, made up, in a variety of ways. But mother
on her arrival in the spring with our lost household goods, found her
family fat and rugged and none the worse for the severe winter of
'55-'56.
Mrs. Catherine Meade.
We were at Fort Ridgely at the time of the outbreak. At the fort were
gathered all the women and children of the settlers for protection. We
could hear the Indian war whoops in the distance. The confusion was
terrible and twelve of the women were prematurely confined during the
first twenty-four hours. I helped Dr. Miller, post surgeon, and for
forty-eight hours I had no sleep and hardly time to eat. Finally,
completely exhausted I fell asleep on the floor, with my little daughter
by my side. When aroused by my husband, saying "The Indians are near at
hand," I declared I might as well die one place as another. I could not
go on and remained where I was. The alarm was a false one and we were
all saved.
One woman by the name of Jones told me she took part of her children
into the stockade and returned for the rest. She found herself
confronted by two stalwart Indians. She rushed into a small closet, and
bracing herself between the wall and the door kept it closed in this way
until help came. She was nearly exhausted and gave birth to a child
before morning.
Another woman told me that instead of going into the stockade she fled
with her two children into a corn field, pursued by an Indian. He lost
track of her and as one child started to scream she almost smothered it
in her effort to conceal their hiding place. The Indian after half an
hour gave up the search.
The stockade at Fort Ridgely had four entrances--one at each corner, at
which a cannon was placed. There was but one man who could load the
cannon, Sargeant Frantzkey, and as he had only unskilled help he was
kept very busy running back and forth between the four guns. Ammunition
was scarce and we had to use everything; nails, screws, sharp pieces of
iron and steel were saved and the cannons loaded with this mixture
called Sharp Nails. This was considered much more deadly than cannon
balls, for when fired, it would scatter and fly in all directions.
The block house--where the ammunition was stored--was located outside
the garrison and stockade, as a protection from fire. The only way to
replenish the supply was to make a trip to the block house. So a guard
was stationed at each end, and one man ran as fast as he could, secured
a supply and ran back, of course at the risk of his life. The women also
helped secure this ammunition, filling their aprons, while men filled
gunny sacks.
After the first fight, when the excitement had calmed down, the women
busied themselves making bullets and were obliged to remain until help
came from St. Paul--nearly two weeks.
GREYSOLON DU LHUT CHAPTER
Duluth
MARIE ROBERTSON KEITH
(Mrs. Chas. Keith)
Mr. Glass--1848.
I came to Minnesota in 1848 and was later purveyor to the Indians. An
Indian trail extended from Fond du Lac to St. Paul. It ran from Fond du
Lac by trail to Knife Falls, Knife Falls by canoe on St. Louis river to
Cloquet, from there to Hoodwood, from there to Sandy Lake, portage from
there to Grand Rapids, from Grand Rapids by way of the Mississippi river
to St. Paul.
Mr. John W. Goulding of Princeton.
My first knowledge of Indians was when I was about ten years of age. We
lived on Rum river about three miles above St. Francis, where a canoe
load of Indians landed and camped near us. Mo-zo-man-e who was then a
chief, was said to be sick and his squaw came to our house asking by
signs for pills, of which my sister gave her a box. She was afterward
afraid that the Indian would take the entire box at one dose and we
would be killed in consequence. The taking of the whole box at one dose
was probably the fact, as the empty box was at once returned and the
patient reported to be cured, but no evil results came to us.