USA > Minnesota > Ramsey County > St Paul > A history of the city of Saint Paul, and of the county of Ramsey, Minnesota > Part 6
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Of "old man" CHORETTE, I have been able to learn little that is reliable. He was a Canadian, lived at Red River some time, and settled near Fort Snelling the same year as RONDO, TURPIN and others. He has probably been dead some years. I have been informed that he has children living in this vicin- ity, but have been unable to find them.
FRONCHET, or DESIRE, was a native of France, and, proba- bly, at the time mentioned, was 50 years of age, as he always boasted of having been a soldier of NAPOLEON, and probably was. He had also served in the United States army, at Fort Snelling latterly, and (Mrs. JAMES PATTEN thinks) was dis- charged there. The explorer and scientist, J. N. NICOLLET, while at Mendota, in 1836, preparing to go toward the Upper Mississippi on his expedition, employed DESIRE, then attached to the garrison, as an attendant. He speaks of him in his work as follows: "Having received good testimonials of his character, I accepted his offer, and have nothing but praise to bestow on his activity, patience, and the cheerfulness which he manifested even in the midst of some trying circumstances to which we were exposed." DESIRE; having spent most of his life in the army, was unfitted, at his age, when he left the army, for any very active pursuits, while his intemperate habits also brought on him repeated troubles. He made a settlement east of the Mississippi, where he led a lonely life for some time, but was, in 1840, expelled from the Reserve with other set- tlers. In 1842, he came to Saint Paul, and secured employ -. ment from Sergt. RICHARD W. MORTIMER, who had just
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settled there, and J. R. IRVINE and others. DESIRE could not work much, but did such light labor as was necessary, inter- spersing it with fearful sprees, lasting sometimes two weeks, in which he would roll on the ground anywhere, helpless and insensible. He came near freezing to death several times in these debauches, but was always cared for by his acquaint- ances, who liked him very much, as he was a kind-hearted, good-humored and vivacious companion. DESIRE lived at Saint Paul some two years, and then went to Elk River, into which he fell during one of his sprees, and was drowned.
DONALD McDONALD was born in Canada, in 1803, of Scotch parents. At the age of 15 years he left Canada, with Captain MILES MONTGOMERY, and went to Hudson's Bay. He was, for some years, in the employ of the American Fur Company, and traveled very extensively over the Northwest. He put up (he says) the third house on the east side of the Mississippi. Subsequently he claimed the land where the Half-Way House now is. This land, he says, he sold to DENOYER, " for a bar- rel of whisky and two Indian guns." He subsequently went to Crow Wing, where he married a half-breed, and had a numer- ous family.
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The History of the City of Saint Paul,
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SAINT PAUL.
PIERRE PARRANT, OR "OLD PIG'S EYE"-SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OLD COON-HE MAKES THE FIRST CLAIM IN SAINT PAUL-ABRAHAM PERRY AND THE GERVAIS BROTHERS FOLLOW-PHELAN AND HAYS, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THEM-THE INDIANS SHOOT PERRY'S CATTLE-RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY-A MYSTERI- OUS CHARACTER-PARRANT MORTGAGES HIS CLAIM.
T HE long winter wore to a close, and the spring of 1838 had thawed away its snow and ice. The treaty had been made, and that it would be ratified, there was no reason- able doubt. Why not anticipate the latter form, by making claims in advance? The thought was inspiring. Some of the pine-fringed streams along the Saint Croix, already resounded to the lumberman's axe. At Fort Snelling and Mendota were a number of keen fellows, looking eagerly on, and waiting for a good chance to seize on some of the rich territory so soon to be open to the impatient speculator. Among them was one
PIERRE PARRANT,
a Canadian voyageur, who chanced to be, at the time, hanging around Mendota, waiting for something to turn up. PARRANT had lived some time at Sault Ste. Marie, then at Saint Louis, where he had been in the employ of MCKENZIE and CHOU- TEAU, and afterwards at Prairie du Chien. He came to Men- dota in 1832. It must be related, that he bore not the most enviable character. . It was hinted that he left Sault Ste. Marie on account of some irregularities of conduct that were distaste- ful to the good people there. Maj. TALIAFERRO, the Indian Agent, appeared to estimate his character somewhat low. In one place in his journal, under date of August 23d, 1835, he writes : " Ordered PIERRE PARRANT, a foreigner, prohibited from the trade, not to enter the Indian country in any capacity."
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PARRANT seems, in defiance of this order, to have entered the Indian country, for Maj. TALIAFERRO again writes, on October 12th, that it was reported that he had done so- and adds that, if found true, "a military force would be sent after him, and he would be sent to Prairie du Chien." PAR- RANT's personal appearance may have somewhat favored the estimate of his character. He was a coarse, ill-looking, low- browed fellow, with only one eye, and that a sinister-looking one. He spoke execrable English. His habits were intem- perate and licentious, and, at the date we speak of, he was past the meridian of life-probably sixty years of age.
Such was the man on whom Fortune, with that blind fatuity that seems to characterize the jade, thrust the honor of being the founder of our good city ! Our pride almost revolts at the chronicling of such a humiliation, and leads us to wish that it were on one worthier and nobler that such a distinction had fallen. But history is inexorable, and we must record facts as they are.
'PARRANT kept his one eye open to the main chance, it would seem, and, after surveying the situation of things with his optic, he concluded not to wait the ratification of the treaty, but to seize on some good spot in advance. For certain rea- sons, he desired to get as near the fort and to Mendota as pos- sible, while getting just outside the lines of the Reserve, as far as they could be ascertained. These reasons were, that he could sell whisky to the soldiers and Indians undisturbed by the authorities at the fort, who had been greatly annoyed at the surreptitious sale of liquor to those two classes, by some un- principled traders and hangers-on around Fort Snelling, and were endeavoring to break up the traffic as far as possible. Hence, he selected, as the most eligible spot for such a busi- ness, the mouth of the creek which flows out of "Fountain Cave," in upper town. PARRANT wisely judged of the con- venience of the place to his customers. It was near the river, where the Indians and others could paddle to his very door, and then, too, he could get his supplies, easily, and, if neces- sary, dilute the article profitably, by a judicious admixture of the unfailing stream flowing out of the cave. Here, in the coolie,
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a secluded and lonely gorge in the river bank, PARRANT, about the first of June, in the year of our Lord 1838, began erecting his hovel. He, the immortal parent of our saintly city, and of the noble army of whisky-sellers who have thriven since that day-it, the first habitation, the first business house, of our Christian metropolis of to-day ! Thus was our city " founded" -by a pig-eyed retailer of whisky. The location of the future Capital of Minnesota was determined, not by the commanding and picturesque bluffs, a noble and inspiring site whereon to build a city-not by the great river flowing so majestically in front of it, suggestive of commerce and trade-but solely as a convenient spot to sell whisky, without the pale of law !
ANOTHER SETTLER-ABRAHAM PERRY.
Almost simultaneously with the advent of PARRANT, came another settler-ABRAHAM PERRY, (or PERRET,) and family, having been compelled to leave the Reserve on the west side, as referred to a few pages back.
ABRAHAM PERRY was born in Switzerland, about the year 1780, and was brought up as a watchmaker. He married in 'Switzerland, and three children were born to him there. About the year 1820, he, with a considerable number of his fellow countrymen, were induced to emigrate to the Red River Colony, by one of Lord SELKIRK's agents. "Their occupa- tions had been mechanical, (says NEILL,) chiefly that of clock- making, and they were not adapted for the stern work of found- ing a colony in the interior of North America. From year to year their spirits drooped, and when the Switzers' song of home was sung, they could not keep back their tears." Re- peated calamities oppressed the colony-untimely frosts, grass- hoppers and other causes despoiled their harvests, and finally the great flood of 1826 gave the finishing blow to their hopes. A large number of the Swiss determined to emigrate to the United States. It was reported that they would be kindly re- ceived at Fort Snelling, and allowed to settle there, and, in 1827, a number of families came to that point, ABRAHAM PERRY among them. The kind-hearted SNELLING allowed such as wished to locate near the fort. PERRY, who had brought with
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him a number of cattle, located a mile or two above the fort, near "Cold Spring," built a cabin, opened a farm, and was soon prosperously fixed. Two children had been born to him at Red River, and, during his residence at Fort Snelling, two more, making six daughters and one son in all. Meantime, two of his oldest daughters were married. In the spring of 1838, as referred to before, Maj. PLYMPTON drove all the set- tlers off the west side of the Reserve, PERRY among them. This was a cruel blow to PERRY, who had just begun to be comfortably fixed, and was .now in the evening of his days, with quite a family dependent upon him. But, driving his flocks before him, like ABRAHAM of old, he journeyed across the river, looking for a new home. Wishing, like PARRANT, to get just without the bounds of the Reserve-which he was informed by Maj. PLYMPTON intersected the Mississippi at Fountain Cave-he made a claim just below that of PARRANT, on the beautiful stream which flows across the road there, and erected a habitation about where the City Hospital now stands. His herd* was soon grazing on the luxuriant meadow grass about him, giving new hopes that perhaps at last he might pass the evening of life in peace.
But even this hope was destined to prove delusive ere long, as we shall see a few pages subsequently. In fact, scarcely was PERRY's new roof-tree reared, when the Sioux appeared and threateningly ordered them to leave. It seems that, al- though the Indians had bartered away their lands, they still looked with a jealous eye upon them; and were loth to see the stranger and the pale-face occupy them and prosper. PERRY · gave them no satisfaction, however, and, on June 9, a party of the Kaposia band, probably headed by Wa-kin-yan-ton-ka, or BIG THUNDER, (LITTLE CROW's father,) went to Fort Snel- ling, and complained to Maj. TALIAFERRO, Indian Agent, about PERRY and PARRANT settling on their lands, before the treaty had been ratified, and they received any consideration.
Nothing was done at that time concerning the alleged intru-
* Col. JOHN H. STEVENS, in the address before quoted, says : "PERRY at one time owned more cattle than all the rest of the inhabitants of what is now Minnesota, if we except Mr. RENVILLE."
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sion, as a steamer arrived just then, on which came a passen- ger, who reported to have heard that the treaty was ratified. A little premature, however. But at all events, PARRANT was suffered to sell whisky, and PERRY to herd his flocks, undis- turbed.
Not undisturbed either, for a few weeks subsequently, viz. : on October 18, Maj. TALIAFERRO writes in his journal, that Mrs. PERRY and CHARLES PERRY, her son, came to the fort and complained that the Indians had killed three of her cattle, and wounded a fourth. This was sometime after the ratifica- tion of the treaty, too, and that fact must have been known to them. But I am of the opinion that PARRANT's whisky must have caused this latter outrage, more than any other cause. Perhaps Maj. TALIAFERRO took this view of it, too, for he merely adds in his journal : "They (the Sioux) will have to pay $200 for the affair out of their next year's annuity."
THE TREATY RATIFIED.
While these events were progressing, however, the treaty of September 29, 1837, was slowly passing through the Sen- ate. On June 15, a final vote was reached on it, and it was ratified. Just one month later, (news traveled slow those days,) the steamer Palmyra landed at Fort Snelling, with the glad news. It produced some excitement among those who had been waiting so long to make claims, and they at once started off to seize on eligible points, which had already been picked out by covetous eyes.
N. W. KITTSON states that the boat arrived in the evening, and, after dark the same night, he, FRANKLIN STEELE and AN- GUS M. ANDERSON, started off to make a claim at Saint Anthony Falls. JOSEPH R. BROWN left at the same time for the Saint Croix, where he drove the stakes of a new town.
THE GERVAIS BROTHERS SETTLE HERE.
On the 13th day of July, 1838, BENJAMIN GERVAIS and PIERRE GERVAIS, made claims near ABRAHAM PERRY, and proceeded to erect habitations. The GERVAIS brothers were Red River refugees.
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BENJAMIN GERVAIS was born at Riviere du Loup, Canada, July 15, 1786. About the year 1803, he went to Red River, in company with several Canadian families, who settled there. GERVAIS did not himself settle there that year, but made trading voyages back and forth to Canada until the year 1812, when he took up his residence there, and was in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company for several years. On September 29, 1823, he was married at Fort Garry, by Bishop PROVENCHER, to Miss GENEVIEVE LARANS, a native of Berthier, Canada, and went to farming at a place called La Pointe, about a mile and a half below Fort Garry. Their story is that of all the Red River refugees-the floods, grasshoppers, untimely frosts, hard winters, &c., drove them away to a more habitable region, and, in 1827, Mr. GERVAIS, with his wife and three children, proceeded to Fort Snelling, near which they settled.
On being turned away from the Reserve, Mr. GERVAIS pro- ceeded to the neighborhood of Mr. PERRY, and made a claim a little below that settler, running from the river to the bluff. Having one or two stout boys, born during his residence on Red River, he proceeded to make a clearing, and soon had quite a farm in operation.
PIERRE GERVAIS was 17 years younger than his brother. He, too, had lived at Red River several years, and came from there to Mendota in 1826, where he entered the service of the American Fur Company. He made a claim near BENJAMIN GERVAIS, which occupied about what is now known as " Leech's Addition."
ANOTHER PRONUNCIAMENTO FROM MAJOR PLYMPTON.
Though the above settlers thought that they were, beyond any doubt, settling outside the bounds of the Reservation, as far as they were understood at that time, it is possible that the authorities at the fort took a different view of it, and regarded it as an intrusion on the sacred domain of the Government. On July 26, 1838, Maj. PLYMPTON issued an order forbidding " all persons, not attached to the military, from erecting any building or buildings, fence or fences, or cutting timber for any but for public use, within said line, which has been sur-
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veyed and forwarded to the War Department, subject to the final decision thereof," &c.
Whether this order was called out by the fact of PERRY, the GERVAIS families and others settling within the imaginary lines of PLYMPTON's Reserve, or not, it is not absolutely known. It is quite probable he did refer to those squatters, however, as in the letter accompanying a copy of the order to the War De- partment, he says :
" HEADQUARTERS FORT SNELLING, July 30, 1838.
"SIR: I take the liberty to enclose to you herewith a copy of an order which I deemed necessary to publish to protect the land which has been marked out as a military reservation at this post, against en- croachments, which were every day forcing themselves upon my notice.
" Without interfering with the property of any individual, I shall strictly enforce my order till the pleasure of the Department shall be known upon the subject, presuming that my duty to the public and the spirit of my instructions call for such a course.
"My order must, as a matter of right, more particularly allude to persons urging themselves within the line at this time, than to those who I found, on my arrival here last summer, settled down near the fort. The authority for these settlements being made, I have to pre- · sume, is to be found or is known at the Department, although I have not been successful in finding any record of it in the office of this post.
"The character and extent of these settlements and improvements was given in my communication of the 19th October, 1837.
" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, "J. PLYMPTON,
" Major United States Army, Commanding Post.
" ADJUTANT GENERAL U. S. A., Washington, District of Columbia."
About the same date that the news of the ratification of the treaty was received at Fort Snelling, and shortly after, three soldiers were discharged from the Fifth Regiment, named ED- WARD PHELAN, JOHN HAYS and WILLIAM EVANS, all three natives of Ireland. They resolved to make claims in the newly ceded tract, and, finding some settlers along the river below the cave, fixed on this locality as the most likely one for their purpose.
EDWARD PHELAN
was the youngest of the three. He was a man of splendid physique, over six feet in height, muscular and active. He
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bore not the most enviable character. He is reported to have been immoral, cruel, revengeful and unscrupulous. By his own boasting, he had led a lawless and criminal life before entering the army, and was one whom most civil and well- disposed persons avoided as a dangerous person. His future career will show that this estimate of his character was well founded.
Since the foregoing was written, I have, by the courtesy of the Adjutant General U. S. A., been supplied with the follow- ing " descriptive list" of PHELAN, from the records of the War Office :
" WASHINGTON, D. C., Oct. 20, 1875.
" SIR : In reply to your letter of the 7th instant, I respectfully inform you, that, upon an examination of the official records, it appears that Edward Felyn enlisted June 8, 1835, at New York City, for three years, and was assigned to Company E, Fifth Infantry, and discharged June 8, 1838, by reason of expiration of service, at Fort Snelling, Wis- consin Territory, a private. He was twenty-four years of age when en- listed, had gray eyes, brown hair, fair complexion, and was six feet two and one-half inches high; born in Londonderry, Ireland, and by occupation a laborer.
"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"S. N. BENJAMIN, " Assistant Adjutant General."
WILLIAM EVANS
was a fellow countryman of PHELAN's, and near the same age. He selected for his claim a spot on Dayton's Bluff, near the Dayton Mansion, and lived there a dozen or more years. He subsequently moved to what is now Washington county, and is said to be a farmer in that locality at present-but I have been unable, after several efforts, to get his address, or to secure any information from him.
SERGEANT JOHN HAYS.
Serving in Company E, Fifth Regiment, was Sergeant JOHN HAYS, also a native of Ireland, who, at the time PHELAN and EVANS made their claims, was expecting his discharge in a few months, and wished to settle near his old comrades. He, therefore, made an arrangement with PHELAN, that the latter
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was to make for him (HAYS) a claim alongside his own, and hold it until his discharge, and agreeing that he would furnish for PHELAN some money which the latter was to use in erect- ing a cabin, &c., which they would jointly occupy, when he came out of the army. HAYS was a man of exactly the oppo- site characteristics as the ruffianly PHELAN. He was of middle age at the time we write-his hair somewhat bleached with two or three terms' service in the army. He was something of a martinet in discipline, precise and exact in his dress, bearing and actions, gained by his long military service. His form was spare but erect, and he had a dignified and respectable bearing, that impressed everybody who met him, favorably. Every one of the earliest settlers of Saint Paul who knew JOHN HAYS, speaks of him with unqualified praise, as an honest, good, courteous and clever old gentleman. He was unmar- ried, and, during his service in the army, had saved his pay, which, at the time of his discharge, amounted to a considera- ble sum. The records of the War Department give the " de- scriptive list" of HAYS, when he re-enlisted in 1836, as follows :
"JOHN HAYS, age 37 years, born in Waterford, Ireland; occupation, a laborer; blue eyes, light hair, light complexion, height five feet eight and three-fourths inches. Re-enlisted in Company E, Fifth In- fantry, April 25, 1836, for three years; discharged at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, April 25, 1839, by reason of expiration of service, a sergeant."
His age, when discharged, would, if the above figures are correct, be about forty, but he is spoken of by all who knew him, as being much older than that, and probably was, as for good reasons he might have understated his age when muster- ed in.
PHELAN MAKES A CLAIM.
As remarked above, these three soldiers resolved to make claims in this vicinity. PHELAN was the first to secure his discharge, and, after prospecting hereabouts, selected as a claim a tract of ground fronting on the river, running back to the bluff, and bounded (approximately) by what is now Eagle and Third streets on the west, and Saint Peter street on the east. On the side of the bluff, under Third street-about where the
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soap factory now stands-he built a log house, a mere hovel, it is described, to "live" in for the present.
At request of HAYS, as before stated, PHELAN selected for him*, a claim adjoining his own on the east, fronting on the river, and running back to the bluffs, extending probably from what is now Saint Peter street, down to somewhere near the present Minnesota street. He was to hold this claim for HAYS-according to the agreement with H .- until the latter got his discharge, the subsequent spring, and thereafter HAYS was to live with him in the hovel under the hill.
A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER.
Sometime during the summer or fall of 1838, a stranger " turned up," from no one knew where, and built a cabin on the bank near where Lindeke's mill now is-between that and the gas works. Nothing more was known concerning him than that his name was "JOHNSON." Where he came from, his past life, his object in settling in such an out-of-the-way place, were all wrapped in a profound and embarrassing mys- tery, that baffled the most curious scrutiny of the suspicious settlers hereabout. A woman was living with him, presumed to be his wife, and she had a young child. What deepened the mystery, in the eyes of the plain, simple inhabitants of that primeval period, was the fact that "JOHNSON" and his wife had evidently moved in society of a kind much superior, in a social, or fashionable point of view, to that which would usually be found in the claim shanties of the frontier at that period. Their manners were elegant and refined, and they dressed in expensive and fashionable clothing. In fact, it was not so much the reserved and secluded manners of JOHNSON that first attracted suspicion against him, as his fine clothes ! We almost shrink from recording the fact that, at one period of our history, to be well dressed was to become an object of suspicion. That is sadly changed now, to an opposite extreme. One needs
* VETAL GUERIN, who gave me very minutely his reminiscences of early days, thought that the claims were owned in the opposite way, i. e., that the upper one PHE- LAN intended for HAYS, and the lower one he meant to be his own. The other settlers, . however, give the account of it as I have recorded it above.
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only a skillful tailor to enable him to become the pet of quite a numerous circle of persons who ought to know better, but who find out, after being repeatedly victimized, that good char- acter and good clothes are not inseparable. No such nice dis- tinctions troubled the men and women of 1838, however. But when they saw a man threading our springy bogs or thorny thickets in patent leather gaiters and broadcloth clothes and silk hat, it must be confessed that there was some ground for being a little shy of him. The most charitable would have admitted that he had at least eloped with some other man's wife, and came to this secluded region to avoid notice. But there were others who suspected a still more heinous offense. He could not, they thought, support all this style without labor, unless he had robbed some one down below, and fled with the ill-gotten booty, or else was a counterfeiter. The last suspicion gained the most prevalence, and was strengthened by an inci- dent that occurred the following spring, probably. One cold, dark, stormy night, when a perfect tempest was raging, one of the settlers, who had been down the river, to Pig's Eye, probably, arrived at JOHNSON's cabin, cold, weary, wet and hungry, and asked permission to remain all night and get some food, as he did not feel able to get the rest of his way home in the storm and darkness. Strange to say, this request was re- · fused ; in fact, he avers that JOHNSON would not even open the door for him. This, taken in connection with the other sus- picious circumstances, was, to the settlers hereabouts, proof strong as words of holy writ that JOHNSON must be a counter- feiter. The settlers at last hinted to him their suspicions, and added a threat that "the authorities at the fort," a class every- body seemed to stand in awe of, were going to arrest him. Whether JOHNSON had been guilty of any wrong or not, will never be known, but this last information seemed to make him uneasy. He hastily sold his claim to JAMES R. CLEWETT, and decamped down the river.
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