USA > Iowa > Woodbury County > Sioux City > Past and present of Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa > Part 62
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On July 2, just above the mouth of the Kan- sas river they saw an old abandoned French fort with remains of chimneys and outline of fortification, and they could get no account of when the fort had been occupied.
On July 9 they came to some French cabins where some of the members had camped the year before.
And July 14, passed a small factory (trad- ing post ) where a Frenchman from St. Louis traded two years before. On arriving at the mouth of the Platte river they speak of one of their Frenchmen having spent two years upon it and giving some description of it. And in giving a description of some of the Indian
tribes west of the river say that Bourgemont visited the Indians on the Kansas river in 1724.
And July 31 they held a conference with the Indians at what they named Council Bluffs, and there was a Frenchman living with them, and on the Nebraska side, above where Omaha is, was a trading house where one of the party passed two years trading with the Mahas (Omahas).
On August 8 they came to a river called by the Indians "Eaneahwadepon," or Stone river, and by the French "Petite Riviere des Sioux," or Little Sioux, and say that their Mr. Durion, who had been to the source of it and knows the adjoining country, says that it rises within about nine miles of the Des Moines river, and within fifteen leagues of that river it passes through a large lake nearly sixty miles in circumference, and divided into two parts by rocks which ap- proach each other very closely, and known by the name of Lac d'Esprit, and is within four days march of the Mahas. So, though the ac- count is somewhat exaggerated, Mr. Durion had probably passed up the Little Sioux through our country, the first known traveler there.
On August 13, fourteeen miles below the mouth of Omaha creek, opposite our county, they came to a spot where a Mr. Mackey had a trading establishment in 1795 and 1796 which he called Ft. Charles.
On August 20, 1804, after burying Sergeant Chas. Floyd, marking his grave with a cedar post, they camped at the mouth of the Floyd, which they then named, and the next day passed the mouth of Perry creek and came to the Big Sioux river, with which their Mr. Durion was well acquainted, and describes it and its source, and speaks of the Falls and the Split Rock river, and of the pipestone quarries as sacred neutral ground.
In their journey on up the Missouri to where they wintered at the Mandan villages and a short distance above they frequently met white men and trading posts, some substantially built
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with stockades, and speak of what these French- men said was the condition twenty years be- fore. One Frenchman they met had just come down the Cheyenne from the Black Mountains (Hills).
When they start on their journey in the spring of 1805 on up the river, when at the mouth of the Little Missouri river below the Yellowstone, they speak of it as the limit beyond which white men have never before gone, though the Yellowstone itself was well known from the reports of the Indians.
It is noticeable that up to this point in their journey all the principal streams had already been named, and Lewis and Clark refer to them by these names, mostly of course with French spelling of Indian names, though others original French, and Lewis and Clark only named a few smaller ones, as the Floyd, but above the Little Missouri, they named for themselves all streams.
The large keel boat fifty-five feet long, which was the great conveyance of the expedition, was undoubtedly the first keel bottom boat ever taken up the river as far as Woodbury county, as farther up the Indians are spoken of as never having seen one before, and it is most likely there was very little navigation going up the river; the trappers and hunters mostly going up on foot or with horses, and coming down with the furs and tallow on flat boats constructed at the starting points.
These traders and trappers passing up and down the river no doubt had visited our country many times and many years before the United States acquired the country from France, and this physically would seem to have been a fa- vorable location for a trading post, but no signs of such a structure are found; probably it was too near the border line between the Sioux and other tribes to be a safe and profitable place for one.
After the burial of Sergeant Floyd on the bluff near Sioux City his grave became a land- mark, and was spoken of by travelers.
May 11, 1811, the Overland Astorian cx- pedition under W. P. Hunt passed on its way up the river. Mr. Bradbury and Thomas Nut- tall, botanists, were in the party, and the same year, May 19, 1811, Henry W. Brackenridge and Manuel Lisa, the fur trader, going up in a keel boat, stopped at Floyd's grave, and Mr. Brackenridge noted the fact in his journal that they camped near, and speaks of the grave as being marked by a cross.
The first steamer to reach St. Louis from below was August 2, 1817.
In 1819 the steamer Western Engineer came up the Missouri river to Council Bluffs, Ne- braska, just above Omaha.
In 1832 George Catlin, the great Indian painter and writer, came up the river in a steamer and passed this county, and came down in a canoe and made a sketch of Floyd's Bluff published in his book, and writes an extended account of the same. The cut of the bluff is easily recognized. His large sized painting of the seene no doubt is owned by some one to whom a portion of Catlin's pictures were sold.
John N. Nicollet, scientist, discoverer of the source of the Mississippi, ascended the Mis- souri river in 1839, and some time in May they stopped at the foot of Floyd's bluff, and he writes that his men replaced the signal at the grave blown down by the winds. The orig- inal cedar post at the grave was probably re- placed by one or more posts before the re- burial in 1857, as Mr. A. M. Holman has a piece of the part of the post then remaining, and it is of oak.
Nicollet marked Floyd's grave and river on the map that he made, and he speaks of his steamer being compelled to take shelter from a storm in the Tehan-kas-an-data or Sioux river.
Audobon, May 13, 1843, came up the Mis- souri river on a steamer, and on that evening was at the burial ground below where Floyd was buried, and entered the mouth of the Big Sioux river, and saw Indian canoe frames on bent sticks over which buffalo hides were
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stretched; evidently the birch bark canoe was not used here, as there were no birch trees in this region.
Probably the first steamboat to pass Wood- bury county up the Missouri river was the Yellowstone, built expressly for navigation on the upper river to save the long delay occa- sioned by the use of the keel and flat boats.
This boat left St. Louis in the spring of 1831 loaded with goods; it was a season of low water and passed our county safely, but at the mouth of the Niobrara encountered sand bars, and sent up to Fort Tecumsch (Pierre) for boats to take part of the freight, after which it got as far up as this trading fort, and then returned to St. Louis. The next year, 1832, this steamer, the Yellowstone, made a successful trip to the upper river, having on board this trip the painter Catlin.
This success in navigation was the opening of a new era in the development of our part of the northwest, and attracted much atten- tion all over the United States; and thereafter visitors were more frequent, though it was a long time before this was regarded as a pos- sible country for settlers, the fur trade was what was chiefly thought of. The American Fur Company thereafter sent up one or more boats every year.
The migration of the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, through Iowa, crossing the Missouri at Kanesville, now Council Bluffs, on the way to their final settlement at Salt Lake City, was the first opening of western Iowa to white set- tlement, and it developed an immense steam- boat traffic for freight up the river from below as far as Council Bluffs and from there by wagon train to Salt Lake. The later California gold discovery made overland travel a great feature and the Mormon overland trail from Council Bluffs was much used and our locality was so near that it began to be known.
In 1847 Captain Jos. La Berge took his wife with him in the steamer Martha on her trip up the river and so far as known she was the
first white woman that went above Council Bluffs, and her advent among the Indians caused great excitement. The squaws flocked to see her. We have no record that she stopped within the limits of our county.
After Iowa became a state and there was a prospect that the title or claim of the Indians would be extinguished and the land surveyed and the people who might come here be rea- sonably safe from Indians, this region began to attract attention from various sources.
The Mormons and other travelers and set- tlers about Kanesville could explore it most readily. The people in the near and far east who had the western fever were looking at the west for a home. And still another class was the French trapper and trader. These men had been up and down the Missouri by boat and on foot and knew the country well. Many of them had married squaws, and began to think of settling in Iowa, where they could own land, which they could not do west of the Missouri and Sioux rivers, which was all Indian country and they were never really safe there.
Charles Larpenteur, an old Indian trader who settled near the mouth of the Little Sioux river with his squaw wife in 1851, speaks in his journal of spending the summer of 1850 at Ver- million trading post in charge for the Fur Company and narrates, "That it was no place to settle, as too exposed to hostile Indians who robbed me of all my corn as well as that of the half-breeds who were settled near the post ; they were obliged to abandon their places and most of them went to settle at Sargeants Bluffs."
Causes like this led no doubt to the French settlements in our county at places from up the Big Sioux river down to below the present town of Sargeant Bluffs.
In the spring of 1851, Larpenteur came down the Missouri from Vermillion in a Mackinaw, then on its way to St. Louis, and got off at Sargeant Bluffs, and had to remain there
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fifteen days, as the bottom lands from there to the Little Sioux were flooded and impassable and little dry land was to be seen. There were settlers enough at Sargeant Bluffs, so he bought from them four ponies and two French carts. At that time there were no settlements between Sargeant Bluffs and Little Sioux, a distance of about fifty miles.
Larpenteur had with him his wife and chil- dren, and the hardships of that journey were great ; the carts mired and were abandoned, and horse travailles poles were substituted ; before he finished the journey had to go on with part only and came back for the rest; fortunately meeting Theophile Bruguier with a wagon and a four-ox team on his way from his place at the mouth of the Big Sioux, pre- sumably going to Council Bluffs. They were old acquaintances in the up river fur trade, and the meeting a fortunate one.
Larpenteur's aceount of Bruguier's response to his plea for aid will refresh the recollection of those who have heard the loud hearty sound of his voice. He said, "Hello, Larpenteur, what in the devil are you doing here ? You're in a pretty fix ain't you ? Well, you put some of your stuff in my wagon; bet you I see you through."
There had been for many years a track or trail from where Council Bluffs now is, up the Missouri valley about where the railroad track now runs, to the present Sargeant Bluffs, and to Floyd's grave and down the ravine, north of the grave to the river bank and crossing the Floyd above its month and over Perry creek, above where the West Seventh street bridge now is, between Ninth and Tenth streets, and west near where the Riverside street car line runs, till it starts up the hill to the ent from which point the trail went farther northwest till it came into the Sioux valley, crossing that stream near where the present bridge is. It may have originally been an Indian trail, but was followed by the whites in their expeditions.
The settlement by the French and half
breeds in the region about Sioux City and Sar- geant Bluffs requires special attention, as it was probably the first and the most numerous.
Many were here before the United States surveyed the land, and many of them were ready to enter it as soon as it was possible after the survey.
The early entries had to be made at the Council Bluffs United States Land Office, as one was not established in Sioux City till the fall of 1855.
Theophile Bruguier was probably the earliest French settler, and certainly the most promi- nent and influential one. He was born in Canada, August 31, 1813, his father being of French and his mother of English descent. IIis language was French, but he had many of the traits of the Englishman. He had received a good education and he told his confidential friends that the reason of his leaving Canada was a disappointment in a love affair, and that he treasured the memory of his Canadian sweet- heart, and to his death kept sacredly a letter she had written to him many years after he eame to this country. He came up the river first in 1835, and continued to trade with the Indians for the American Fur Company and himself till he settled at the mouth of the Big Sioux in 1849, and in fact for many years after that. He was a large, powerful man, though not tall, with a voice like a trumpet, which he never could subdue. He had had charge of several trading posts and was a fear- less leader and fighter. He married three daughters of War Eagle, probably while he was trader at Fort Vermillion. It is said it was a custom among those Indians that if a man took for his wife one daughter in the family, he was entitled to have all the other girls for wives also; but in this ease Bruguier had too many, as August Traversie, another early settler, got one of these wives away from him, and he gave another to his partner, Henry Ayotte. War Eagle was an influential chief and no doubt Brugnier's alliance with so prominent a family
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gave him great prestige with the Indians. As Bruguier's family grew he began to think of settling down, and he narrated in after years how he came to select his home at the mouth of the Big Sioux.
One night when living up the Missouri river he was restless and could not sleep, so he went up on a bluff and laid down and fell into a light slumber and dreamed he saw a locality on a stream near a big river with bluffs and trees which he had never seen before, but when he awakened he had a perfect mental picture of the scene, and it so much impressed him that he told old War Eagle about his dream and the peculiar features of the landscape, and the old chief at once recognized the locality fromn the description as the spot next above the mouth of the Big Sioux river in the locality about where the Riverside trolley line crosses the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad track, where the old Bruguier house still stands. At that time the mouth of the Big Sioux was much further east than now, nearer Prospec' Hill, and the Missouri ran south through what is Crystal Lake, near South Sioux City. So that Bruguier in his steamboat travels up the river had not had an opportunity to see the exact spot he dreamed of, or if he had seen bad forgotten it. He decided to take up his abode at this spot and in due time located there in 1849, using for his cultivated ground the clear space where the fair ground is located, and he owned later all of what is now Riverside Park. For many years Bruguier's place was a sort of headquarters for the French and Indians, and the latter had their camps about there.
Some further reference to old War Eagle will be found later in this sketch in the ac- count of the "Angie war," so-called, but we will add here that his name in the Indian lan- guage was Hu-yan-e-ka, meaning War Eagle, and he was always friendly with the whites and had since a young man lived at or near the French trading forts on the Missouri river. After his appointment as chief to sueceed I it-
tle Dish (Pte-yu-te-sui), a Yankton Sioux, he was recognized by the United States Agent, Major Pilcher, which confirmed his authority and augmented his influence. At one time after 1830 he had been employed as a pilot on the upper Mississippi, as originally he was a Min- nesota Indian. It was his following of Indians that made their headquarters at Bruguier's place at Riverside Park after the latter settled there; and the name of the "Council Oak," given to that gnarled old tree, is no doubt based on the traditions of War Eagle's en- campment. War Eagle died in the fall of 1851 and was buried on the high bluff at the mouth of the Sioux, beside his two daughters, wives of Bruguier, and where a number of other graves of whites and Indians are found.
Bruguier lived on this farm for about thirty years and then moved onto his large ferin near Salix, where he died a wealthy and respected farmer.
We will give here a brief account of the names and settlement of many of the early French down to a time after the founding of Sioux City, as it is difficult to tell just what year each came; they seemed to have followed their fellow countrymen and some were among the first to enter land after it was surveyed. There is no definite record as to how long they had lived on this land before they got title to it. Larpenteur in his journal speaks of a set- tlement at Sargeants Bluff in 1850 and 1851. This name applying to Sargeant Floyd's Bluff, where Wm. Thompson then lived. It seems certain that some of these Frenchmen who en- tered land in 1854 had been living there for two or three years.
August Traversie, who had been on the up- per river from about 1832 with the American Fur Company, settled in this county in 1850 or 1851. He was a cousin of Joseph Leonnais, who came in 1852, and he says Traversie set- tled here a year or two before he did. Tra- versie settled on the southeast quarter of sec- tion 12, township 88, range 48, about a mile
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below Floyd's grave, and entered this land July 24, 1854. His house, a double log one, was more commodious than some of the others, and was on the line of travel and headquarters for French, Indians, and half breeds, and in a measure his place was a camping ground for the migratory Indians, in some sense hostile to War Eagle's camp at the month of the Big Sioux; he had stolen away Bruguier's eldest wife. Many a dance, frolie and fight took place at Traversie's, some of which we shall recount later.
Francis Bercier or Bercia settled just below Traversie on the northeast quarter of section 13. His wife's name was Mary. They were married May 24, 1854, by County Judge Townley. She may have been a half breed, her father, Francis La Charite, sometimes spelled LaSharite, was a very old man, over 80 years old, who lived with his son-in-law and was an active old fellow, fond of the dance and flowing bowl and attended all the frolics. It is pos- sible that this Bercier is the one of that name spoken of by Captain Joseph La Berge the old Missouri river eaptain in his memoirs, written by Captain H. M. Chittenden
In April, 1834, LaBerge and Bercier with a large party were sent in pursuit of some Sionx who had stolen a bunch of horses from the Pawnees. They overtook the Sioux on the Elk- horn river in Nebraska, killed eleven of them and recaptured the horses. This same Bercier went up the Missouri with Captain Joseph La- Berge in 1865, and was killed by the Black- feet Indians on the Teton river near Fort Ben- ton, Montana. He had left Sioux City long before that and like many of the other early French had probably gone back to his early hannts.
Stephen Deroie entered the south half of sec- tion 13, July 25, 1854, just below Bereier's. This man went by the name of Stephen Devoy, and sometimes Stephen DeRoi. He spoke English well, but his name, like many of these early Frenchmen, who could not read and write,
was spelled by whatever American who hap- pened to write it according to sound, and it is sometimes hard to identify the names of many of these men. Devoie was a son-in-law of LaCharite. His wife's name was Lisette. He probably came in 1851 or 1852; he sold out and went to Rulo, Nebraska, where he died.
Charles Rulo (Rouleaux) entered the north- east quarter of northeast quarter and lots one and two in section 24, September 14, 1854. This was next south of Devoie's land and he had probably had a claim on it for two or three years before that. IIe married Amelia Menard, a sister of the wife of Joseph Leon- mais. Probably sneh marriage was according to Indian custom before or about the time of the county organization, before there was any county judge or public officer to grant license, as there is no record of it, and she was a single woman at the time William Thompson killed the United States Indian Agent Norwood; as it was over attentions to this Amelia Menard at a dance at LaCharite's home that the quarrel and affray occurred.
There was a dark complexioned Frenchman whose name I can not learn living near the north end of Brower lake, below Sargeant Bluffs, who had a Blackfoot squaw for a wife. They were living there in 1855 and may have been there for several years. They had a good looking daughter who later married a Ken- tuekian named Samuels. Two or three years later, at a time when the Sionx and Blackfoot Indians were at war, a small party of Sioux came down to this Frenchman's house and mur- dered his squaw wife merely because she was a Blackfoot. They did not offer to harm any- one else.
John Brazo, a colored man with his wife, a daughter of Henry Angie, a part blood In- dian, was camped in the fall of 1854 near Townsley's, under the bluff east of Traversie's. John Brazo was a famons character for many years in this vicinity and in fact all the way
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up the Missouri river. It was his favorite boast that he was the first white man that ever came into the upper Indian country. He was born about 1798, and when young had gone up the Missouri river and was well known at the American Fur Company posts, where he was employed. He was of small stature, strong, brave and intelligent. He spoke English, French, Sioux and other Indian languages.
Brazo was lame, having one heel partly shot away. He told how this occurred. He was at St. Louis, lying stretched out in the sun on the steamboat landing with a lot of other ne- groes, when a steamboat approached and he heard some one on the boat speak to another man and at once Mike Fink, a noted outlaw, and desperado, raised his rifle and shot Brazo in the heel just for fun.
Brazo was an expert with the violin and was a favorite on that account. He was at Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone in 1836, and was often employed to flog men at the flagstaff for misdemeanor. That year a Frenchman, Bourbonnais, had a quarrel with Kenneth Mckenzie in charge of the fort, and lay in wait outside for several days to get a shot at Mckenzie. This getting monotonous, MeKenzie sent for Brazo and asked him if he had plenty of nerve to shoot Bourbonnais if told to, and would he do it. He responded "Yes, sir, plenty, and I am ready at any time."
And being ordered to shoot, Brazo took his rifle at early daylight and stationed himself at one of the bastions of the fort and soon reported that he had shot his man, which proved to be true, the bullet going through him above the right breast, but the wound was not mortal. He was a good shot and a successful hunter. It was told of him that in the smallpox epi- demic at Fort Union, the nearby Fort Williams was used as a hospital, and many died every day and Brazo was the sexton and wheeled out the dead on his barrow and dumped them on the bushes and one morning he reported he had
only three, but would have a full load tomor- row.
Christmas, 1838, at the fort one of the em- ployees killed another in a drunken brawl, and shortly after the murderer was tried before an improvised judge and jury, and convicted and sentenced to death, but their authority to exe- cute this sentence was doubted, so it was changed to thirty-nine lashes and Brazo ap- pointed to carry out the sentence; which he performed with such zeal that had he not been repeatedly cautioned and made to moderate his blows, the original sentence of death might have been carried into effect, as the result of these lashes with the large ox whip.
After living several years around Sioux City he went back up the Missouri river and was with the American Fur Company and its suc- cessor for many years, and in 1868 was at Fort Berthold and was discharged by reason of the men he had been working for selling out. He was old, feeble and rheumatic. The Indians gave him shelter. An army surgeon, Dr. Mat- thews, who had known him heard of his con- dition and had him brought to Fort Stevenson a few miles off and provided for him, and one morning he was found kneeling beside his bed dead. He was then about seventy years old. His wife is still living at one of the Indian agencies.
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