USA > Minnesota > Rock County > An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota > Part 34
USA > Minnesota > Pipestone County > An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota > Part 34
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121
3Regarding the creation of the world and man the traditions are far from uniform. The following was current among the Sioux of the upper Missouri and was reported by George Catlin:
"Before the creation of man. the Great Spirit (whose tracks are vet to be seen on the stones at the quarry, in the form of tracks of a large bird) used to slay the buffalo and eat them on the ledge of the red rocks, on the top of the Coteau des Prairies, and. their blood, running on to the rocks, turned them red One day
Louis, on this subject, and he told me ex- plicitly, and authorized me to say it to the world, that every tribe on the Missouri told him they had been to this place, and that the Great Spirit kept the peace amongst his red children on that ground where they smoked with their enemies.
The thousands of inscriptions and paint- ings on the rocks at this place, as well as the ancient diggings for the pipestone, wilt afford amusement for the world who will visit it, without furnishing the least data, I should think, of the time at which these excavations commenced, or of a period at which the Sioux assumed the exclusive right to it.
To one who knows the Indian's cus- toms, superstitions and beliefs, it does not appear strange that the Pipestone quarry should be vested with all manner of legends. Here was one spot held in reverence by all the nations. The blood- red stone, the large granite boulders, every tree and shrub even. became an object of veneration, Here for centuries past the warlike tribes had gathered and smoked the calumet and dug the pipestone in peace, some of the excavations being so old that no one has an idea of their age. Here the prairies had been dotted with thousands of wigwams, and tens of thou- sands of savages had visited the site since first the flight of years began. Relies of camps are indicated by stones placed in circles, laid so long ago that The slow ao- cumulations of centuries have almost bur- ied them beneath The surface. This was the aborigine's religious, social and polit- ical center of the universe, and his leg- ends concerning it are wonderful and nu- morous. Here, in the most remarkable manner, was born the Indian race. Here. too, happened the mysterious birth of the red pipe.3
when a large snake had crawled into the nest of the hird to eat her eggs, one of the eggs hatched out in a clap of thunder, and the Great Spirit, catching hold of a piece of the pipestone to throw at the snake, moulded it into a man. This man's feet grew fast in the ground, where he stood for many ages, like a great tree, and therefore he grew very old: he was older than a hundred men at the present dav; and at last another tree grew up by the side of him. when a large snake ate them both off at the roots, and they wandered off
248
ILISTORY OF PIPESTONE COUNTY.
Indian tradition is not history, and not until the nineteenth century does the white man's knowledge of the quarries and Pipestone county begin.4 We have learned that prior to that century a few explorers and voyageurs had visited the Minnesota river, but none had ventured so far from the broken paths as Pipestone county, so far as any records show. In 1823 a scien-
together; from these have sprung all the people that now inhabit the earth."
The legend concerning the birth of the prace- pipe is reported by Mr. Catlin as follows. That Longfellow utilized the legend reported hy Catlin in his "Hiawatha" seems to be cer- tain from the wording of this tradition:
"The Great Spirit at an ancient period here called the Indian nations together, and, stand- ing on the precipice of the red pipestone rock. broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the north, the south, the east. the west, told them that this stone was red- that it was their flesh-that it belonged to them all, and that the war-club and sealping-knife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud. and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there vet ('Tso-mee-cos-tee and Tso-me-cos-te-won-der). answering to the invocations of the high priests or medieine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.
"Near this spot. also, on a high mound. is the Thunder's nest (mid-du-Tonnere), where a very small bird sits npon her eggs during fair Weather. and the skies are rent with the holts of thunder at the approach of a storm, which is occasioned by the hatching of her brood! This hird is eternal and ineanahle of reuro- dueing her own species; she has often been seen by the medicine-men. and is shout as large as the end of the little finger. Her mate is a serpent, whose fiery tongue destroys the young ones as they are hatched and the fiery noise darts through the skies."
Another version of this legend is published in Mrs. Abbie Gardner-Sharp's "History of the Spirit Lake Massacre." When a girl Miss Gard- ner was taken prisoner by the Sioux and was with the Indians several months. during which time they visited the Pipestone quarry. She had an excellent opportunity to learn the ing- ends of the Inihans, but her version. which fol- lows. is largely in the language of Catlin. who ascribed the legend to the Sioux who resided in the vicinity of the quarry and on the upper Mississippi:
"Many years ago the Great Spirit, whose tracks in the form of those of a large bird are yet to be seen upon the rocks, descending from the heavens, stond noon the cliff at the Red Pipestone. A stream issued from beneath his feet. which. falling down the cliff. passed away in the plain below. while near him, on an elevation, was the Thunder's nest. in which a small bird still sits upon her eggs, the hatch- ing of every one of which causes a clap of thunder. Ile broke a piece from the ledge and formed it into a huge pine and smoked it. the smoke rising In a vast cloud so high that it could be seen throughout the earth and hecame the signal to all the tribes of men to assemble at the spot from whener it issued and listen to the words of the Great Spirit. They came in vast numbers and filled the plain below him. He blew the smoke over them all and told them that the stone was human flesh. the flesh of their ancestors, who were created
tific expedition under the command of Major Stephen II. Long, of the United States army, passed up the Minnesota riv- er. but its investigations did not extend to the quarry or to Pipestone county. A valuable report of the expedition. written chiefly by the party's geologist. Prof. Wil- liam 11. Keating, was published in 1825. It contained the earliest definite deserip-
upon this spot; that the pipe he had made from it was the symbol of peace; that although they should be at war. they must ever after meet upon this ground in peace and as friends, for it belonged to them all; they must make their calumets from the soft stone and smoke them in their councils and whenever they wished to appease him or obtain his favor. Having said this, he disappeared in the cloud which the last whiff of the pipe had eaused, when a great fire rushed over the surface and melted the rocks, and at the same time two squaws passed through the fire to their places beneath the two medicine rocks, where they remain to this day as guardian spirits of the place and must be propitiated by any one wishing to oh- tain the pipestone before it can be taken away."
Another very interesting legend in which the Pipestone quarry figures was told George Cat- lin in 1833 by a distinguished Knisteneanx on the upper Missouri. The Indian told of hav- ing visited the quarry and described the place. He said:
"In the time of a great freshet, which took place many centuries ago and destroyed all the nations of the earth, all the tribes of the red men assembled on the Coteau des Prairies to get out of the way of the waters. After they had all gathered here from all parts. the waters continued to rise until at length it cov- ered them all in a mass, and their flesh was ronverted into red pipestone. Therefore, it has always been considered neutral ground -it he- Ionged to all tribes alike, and all were al- lowed to get it and smoke it together. While they were all drowning in a mass, a Young woman, K-wap-tah-w (a virgin) conght hold of the font of a very large bird that was flying over and was carried to the ton of a high rliff. not far off. that was above the water. Here she had twins, and their father was the war eagle, and her children have since peopled the earth. The pipestone, which is the flesh of their ancestors, is smoked by them as the sym- bol of nence, and the eagle's quill decorates the head of the brave."
The "Three Maidens." the great granite bould - ers which lie close to the quarry and which are to this day worshipped by the Indians, have been made the scene of an interesting story hy the Indians According to them, many cen- torios ago all the Indian tribes of the earth as- sembled in the valley of the pipestone and en- gaged in deadly conflict to avenge the supposed wrongs in their respective tribes. The battle lasted many days, and the blood flowing over the valley gave its color to the rocks. Finally there were only two survivors, each a leading Chieftain, of all who composed the Indian race. These brained each other with their tomahawks and the race would have been extinet had not three Indian maidens hid beneath three huse roeks of the valley and lived to perpetuate their race.
'An interview obtained in 1879 hy Charles H. Bennett from Strike-the-Ree, the head chief of the Yanktons. and Fat Mandan. a sub-chief. furnishes a little information of conditions at the quarry in the early years of the nineteenth century. Strike-the-Rep. who was then an okl man. said that one of this first recollections as a child was of having been brought to the Pipe-
249
HISTORY OF PIPESTONE COUNTY.
tion of the Coleau des Prairies, the great elevated prairie country extending from Lake Traverse in a southwesterly direction into lowa and embracing Pipestone county.5 Another explorer and author was in the region in 1835, but did not ex- tend his explorations to Pipestone county. This was George W. Featherstonhaugh, an English geologist, temporarily employed by the United States bureau of topo- graphical engineers. He traveled by canoe up the Minnesota river and ascended the northern part of the Coteau. The geolog- ical report of the expedition was published by order of the senate in 1836, and in 184% Featherstonhangh issued in London a popular narrative of the journey, enli- tled "A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor."
We now approach the time when the first white man visited the famous Pipe- stone quarry and first sel foot on the soil of Pipestone county. Up to the year 1837 there is no record of any while man hay- ing had the courage to venture upon the sacred spot. The country was overrun with the savage Sioux, who guarded zeal- ously the place where they believed their race originated. The Sioux at this time
stone quarry by his father, who then lived with the Yanktons on the upper Jim river, in Dakota. A few years later the tribe moved to near the mouth of Jim river where it empties into the Missouri river. About the year 1819 five hun- dred lodges or families of the Yanktons visited the quarry and spent three months digging pipestone, which was a tedions job with only the stone implements they had. The old chief said that during this visit he was married to the first of his four wives with much pomp and ceremony. Fat Mandan was a boy five years old, but stated that he remembered the visit distinctly. He said that his grandfather frequently spent the winters at the quarry and that there was a large grove there and that the edge of the cliff was much more regular and sharp and seemed higher than at the time of the interview.
"This elevated stretch of country, forming the watershed between the Minnesota and Missouri river systems, was the wonder of all the carly explorers. It was referred to by the very ear- liest white men to Minnesota, being discernible for great distances, and was named hy the French voyageurs and fur traders of the preced- Ing century. The Pinestone quarries are situated on the highest point of the divide. The Coteau was sometimes called a mountain, and Longfel- low's "On the mountains of the prairie" was derived from the descriptions of the explorers,
maintained the exclusive right lo the quar- ry and received handsome revenues from traffic in the sacred stone with the other Indian tribes ; they regarded with enmity any of the explorers who even hinted at a visil, and all the early travelers gave the spot a wide berth. The first white man of record to enter Pipestone county was George Catlin."
George Callin was the greatest Indian delineator of the country. Prior to his visit to the Pipestone quarry he had been among almost every tribe of aborigines in America. In almost every country he had found the red pipes and heard de- scriptions and legends of the country from which the red material came. He formed an irresistible determination to visit the spot from which it came. When al Fort Snelling in 1835 on one of his tours to the northwest, he laid plans for a trip to the quarry, but hearing of the government expedition under Mr. Featherstonhangh to explore the Coleau des Prairies, he abandoned The project. Learning subso- quently that that gentleman did not visit the quarry, in 1837 he made the trip from New York city, "a distance of 2100 miles, for which purpose I devoted eight
"('oncerning the possibility that white men might have been at the quarry before Catlin. Hon. Warren Upham. secretary of the Minne- sota Historical society, in a paper on the early explorations at the Pipestone quarry, said: ". During the next hundred years of exten- sion of the fur trade by the French throughout the northwest, previous to the cession of Now France to England in 1763. doubtless some of the adventurous traders, crossing the great prairie region with roving bands of Indians. saw their quarrying of the pipestone; but I am unable to cite any record of white ex- plorers coming to this place until a consider- ably more recent time, about seventy years ago."
General H. H Siblev. in a letter to the Minnesota territorial legislature, written in Sep- tember. 1849, objected to the name catlinite for the red pipestone. because it was apparently given in honor of George Catlin on the assump- tion that he was the first man who had visited the region. An extract from Mr. Sibley's let- ter is as follows: whereas it is no-
torions that many whites had been there and examined the Quarry long before he come to the country. This designation. therefore. is clearly improper and uniust. The Siouy term for the stone is E-van-shah by which I (on- prive it should be known and classified." Mr. Sibley did not name an earlier visitor to the quarry, and I have never heard one named.
250
HISTORY OF PIPESTONE COUNTY.
months. traveling at considerable expense. and for part of the way with much fa- tigue and exhaustion." Of the thousands who have visited the sacred land of the Indians, the first was so much interested in the spot that he traveled half way
across the continent, the journey being at- lended not only "with much fatigue and exhaustion," but also with the danger of having his scalp lifted on several occa- sions.
CHAPTER XVIII.
--
-
EXPLORATION-1837-1872.
G EORGE Catlin organized his ex- pedition at the falls of St. An- thony and set out on horseback. following the usual route up the Minne- sota river on the south side. He was ac- companied only by Robert Serril Wood. "a young gentleman from England of fine taste and education," and an Indian guide. O-kup-kee by name. At Traverse des Sioux. near the present site of St. Peter, Mr. Catlin and his companion halt- ed at the cabin of an Indian trader, and there received the first warning of trouble from the Indians. The incident is ro- lated by Mr. Catlin :1
On our way to this place, my English companion and myself were arrested by a rascally band of the Sioux and held in dur- ance vile for having dared to approach the sacred fountain of the pipe! While we had halted at the trading-hut of LeBlanc, at a place called Traverse des Sioux, on the St. Peters [Minnesota] river, and about 150 miles from the Red Pipe, a murky clond of dark visaged warriors and braves com- menced gathering around the house, closing and cramming all its avenues, when one be- gan his agitated and insulting harangue to us, announcing to us in the preamble that we were prisoners and could not go ahead. About twenty of them spoke in turn, and we were doomed to sit nearly the whole after- noon, without being allowed to speak a word in our behalf, until they had all got through. We were compelled to keep our seats like culprits and hold our tongues until all had brandished their fists in our faces and vented all the threats and invective which could flow from Indian malice, grounded on
the presumption that we had come to tres- pass on their dearest privilege-their re- ligion.
During this scene, the son of Monsr. Le- Blanc was standng by, and, seeing this man threatening me so hard by putting his fist near my face, he several times stepped up to him and told him to stand back a re- spectful distance, or that he would knock him down. After their speaking was done, I made a few remarks, stating that we should go ahead.
LeBlanc told us that these were the most disorderly and treacherous part of the Sioux nation, and that they had repeatedly threat- ened his life, and that he expected they would take it. He advised us to go back as they ordered; but we heeded not his advice.
There was some allowance to be made and some excuse, surely, for the rashness of these poor fellows, and we felt disposed to pity, rather than resent, though their un- pardonable stubborness excited us almost to desperation. Their superstition was sen- sibly touched, for we were persisting, in the most pre-emptory terms, in the deter- mination to visit this, their greatest medi- cine (mystery) place, where, it seems, they had resolved no white man should ever be allowed to go. They took us to be "offi- eers sent by the government to see what this place was worth," etc. "As this red stone was a part of their flesh, it would be sacrilegious for white man to touch or take it away-a hole would be made in their flesh, and the blood could never be made to stop running." My companion and my- self were here in a fix, one that demanded the use of every energy we had about us; astounded at so unexpected a rebuff, and more than ever excited to go ahead and see what was to be seen at this strange place, in this emergeney we mutually agreed to go forward, even if it should be at the hazard of our lives.
'See "North American Indians," volume two, by George Catlin.
251
252
HISTORY OF PIPESTONE COUNTY.
The determined men saddled their horses and rode off through the midst of the scowling savages, without molestation. They crossed the river at Traverse des Sioux, proceeded in a westerly direction, and crossed the Minnesota to the south bank near the mouth of the Waraju ( Cot- tonwood ), close to the present city of New Ulm. Thence they left the river and jour- neyed "a little north of west" for the Co- teau des Prairies. On the journey the ex- plorers passed through several Indian vil- lages, at several of which they were noti- fied that they must go back; but. un- daunted. they continued their journey. Catlin states in one place that he traveled one hundred miles or more from the mouth of the Cottonwood. and in another place "for a distance of one hundred and twenty or thirty miles" before reaching the base of the Coteau, when he was still "forty or fifty miles from the Pipestone quarry." In either case he overestimated the distance. He declared this part of his journey was over one of the most beautiful prairie countries in the world .?
At the base of the Coteau, Catlin came upon a trading house of the American Fur company, in charge of Monsieur La Framboise, whom Mr. Catlin referred to as an old acquaintance. This point, said to have been forty or fifty miles from the quarry, was probably in Lyon county, cast of the Redwood river? From the trading post the intrepid travelers journeyed io the quarry, guided by their Indian. Catlin described the land as a series of swells or terraces, gently rising one above the other. There was not a irce or bush to be seen in any direction, and the ground every- where was covered with a green turf of
""This tract of country, as well as that along the St. Peters [ Minnesota] river, is mostly cov- ered with the richest soit and furnishes an abundance of good water, which feeds from a thousand living springs. For many miles we had the Coteau in view in the distance be- fore us, which looked like a blue cloud set- fling down in the horizon, and we were Staree- ly sensible of the fact when we had arrived at its base, from the graceful and almost im-
grass, five or six inches high. On the very top of the mound Catlin and Wood found their far-famed quarry. Catlin wrote upon his arrival :
and, having arrived upon this interesting ground. have found it quite equal in inter- est and beauty to our sanguine expeeta- tions, abundantly repaying us for all our trouble in traveling to it."
The first white man in Pipestone coun- ty grew eloquent as he viewed the wonders spread out before him. In his charming style, writing on the spot which he had made a journey of 2400 miles to reach, Mr. Catlin described the formations, told of the traditions and legends of the In- dians and his adventures on the trip. 1 quote at length from Mr. Catlin's "North American Indians:"
My excellent and esteemed fellow-traveler, like a true Englishman, has untiringly stuek by me through all difficulties, passing the countries above mentioned, and also the up- per Mississippi, the St. Peters, and the overland ronte to our present encampment on this splendid plateau of the western world. Thus far have 1 strolled, within the space of a few weeks, for the purpose of reaching classic ground.
Be not amazed if 1 have sought, in this distant realm, the Indian Muse, for here she dwells, and here she must be invoked-nor be offended if my narratives from this mo- ment savor or appear like romance.
If I can catch the inspiration, I may sing (or yell) a few epistles from this famed ground before I leave it; or at least { will prose a few of its leading character- istics and mysterious legends. This place is great (not in history, for there is none of it, but) in traditions and stories, of which this western world is full and rich. .
Such are a few of the stories of this far famed land, which of itself, in its beauty and loveliness, without the aid of tradi- tionary fame, would be appropriately de- nominated a paradise. Whether it has been an Indian Eden or not, or whether the thun- derbolts of an Indian Jupiter are actually
perceptible swells with which it commences its elevation above the country around it."- "North American Indians," by George Catlin.
3A Joseph La Framboise was living in Yellow Medicine county so early as 1835. When the first permanent settlers of Lyon county came in the sixties they bought claims from Joseph and Alexander La Framboise.
.
253
HISTORY OF PIPESTONE COUNTY.
forged here, it is nevertheless a place re- nowned in Indian heraldry and chronicle, as explanatory of many of my anecdotes and traditionary superstitions of Indian history, which I have given, and am giving, to the world.
With my excellent companion, 1 encamped on, and am writing from, the very rock where "the Great Spirit stood when he consecrated the pipe of peace, by moulding it from the rock, and smoking it over the congregated nations that were assembled about him."
Lifted up on this stately mound, whose top is fanned with air as light to breathe as nitrous oxide gas, and bivouacked on its very ridge (where naught on earth is seen in distance save the thousand treeless, bush- less, weedless hills of grass and vivid green, which all around me vanish into the infinity of blue and azure), stretched on our bear- skins, my fellow-traveler, Mr. Wood, and myself have lain and contemplated the splendid orrery of the heavens. With sad delight, that shook me with a terror, have l watched the swollen sun shoving down (too fast for time) upon the mystic horizon, whose line was lost except as it was marked in blue across the blood-red disc. Thus have we lain night after night (two congenial spirits who could draw pleasure from sub- lime contemplation) and descanted on our own insignificance; we have closely drawn our buffalo robes about us, talked of the ills of life-of friends we had lost-of proj- ects that had failed-and of the painful steps that we had to retrace to reach our own dear native lands again. We have sighed in the melancholy of twilight, when the busy winds were breathing their last, when the chill of sable night was hovering about us, and naught of noise was heard but the silver tones of the howling wolf and the subterraneous whistle of the busy gophers that were ploughing and vaulting the earth beneath us. Thus have we seen wheeled down in the west the glories of the day, and at the next moment, in the east, beheld her silver majesty jutting up above the horizon, with splendor in her face that seemed again to fill the world with joy and gladness. We have seen here, too, in all its sublimity, the blackening thunder- storm, the lightning's glare, and stood amidst the jarring thunderbolts that tore and hroke in awful rage about us, as they rolled over the smooth surface, with naught but empty air to vent their vengeance on. There is a sublime grandeur in these scenes as they are presented here, which must be seen and felt to be understood. There is a majesty in the very ground we tread upon, that inspires with awe and reverence; and he must have the soul of a brute, who could gallop his horse for a whole day over swells and terraces of green that rise con- tinually ahead and tantalize (where hills peep over hills, and Alps on Alps arise),
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.