Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190

USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 11

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THE TREATY OF PRAIRIE DU CHIEN.

August 19, 1825, the great treaty of Prairie du Chien was held. Govs. Wm. Clark and Lewis Cass repre- sented the United States and the Indian participants were chiefs from the Sioux, Chippeways, Winneba- goes, Menomonies, Sacs and Foxes, Ioways, and Ottawas. The most important feature of the treaty, so far as Minnesota history is concerned, was that Little Crow's band and all other Sioux were com- pelled to remove permanently from the east side to the west side of the Mississippi. Little Crow soon removed his village from Dayton's Bluff and Pig's Eye, St. Paul, to Kaposia, where Swift & Co.'s pack- ing house now stands, at South St. Paul

INFREQUENT MAILS.

Except in summer seasons, in early times the mail for Fort Snelling was carried by soldiers or "coureurs

du bois" to and from Prairie du Chien, and between that point and the outside world it was conveyed in sleighs. January 26, 1826, Lieuts. Baxley and Russell, of the Fort Snelling garrison, returned from fur- lough, bringing with them the first mail that had been received for five months.

A BLIZZARD CAUSES CANNIBALISM.

In February and March deep snows fell, blizzards prevailed, and the Indians suffered greatly. Thirty lodges of Sissetons, men, women, and children, were caught in a blizzard on the Pomme de Terre River, and then cut off by the deep snow. Nearly all the members of the party perished; the survivors existed only by cannibalism. One woman named Plenty of Blankets ate her young child. She was brought to Fort Snelling helplessly and hopelessly insane, but with a craving for human flesh. She begged Capt. Jouett to let her kill and eat his servant girl, saying she was "fat and good." A few days later she jumped from the high bluff in front of the fort into the river and drowned herself; the body was recovered and decently buried.

MEETINGS ON THE "FIELD OF HONOR."

In the summer of 1826 there were two duels between officers of the garrison. Dueling was not uncommon. Col. Snelling encouraged it. When drunk he would swagger about and offer to waive his rank and fight with any of his officers, even his subalterns. Capt. Martin Scott was badly wounded in one of the en- counters in 1826, but he mortally hurt his antagonist.

SOCIAL LIFE AT THE FORT.

Nearly all of the officers of the Fifth Infantry at Fort Snelling between 1823 and 1827 were married. The ranking officials were Col. Snelling, Surgeon Mc- Mahon, Maj. Hamilton, Maj. Clark, Captain after- wards Major, Joseph Plympton, and Captains Cruger, Denny and Wilcox. Lieutenants Platt Green, Melanc- thon Smith, and R. A. McCabe were married, and a child of each of the first two was buried in the Fort cemetery. The ladies were all accomplished and of good families and the society was excellent. They had numerous social gatherings, and even entertain- ments. The wife of Capt. Plympton brought the first piano to Fort Snelling and Minnesota, in 1826. A favorite diversion was horseback riding. There were several good horses owned in the garrison and a gallop up and back to the Falls was frequently indulged in. Married ladies were generally accom- panied on these occasions by gentlemen other than their husbands. Mrs. Snelling was an accomplished horsewoman and her escort was usually Capt. Martin Scott .* He was a splendid rider, and as Lieutenant

* Capt. Scott was a Vermonter and a famous shot with a hunting rifle. He was the hero of the ridiculous story con- necting his name with a treed raccoon which he was about to shoot. "Don't shoot, Capt. Scott,"' it is alleged the coon cried; "don't shoot; save your powder. I'll come down and you can kill me with a club. You'll be sure to hit me if you shoot, and I don't want my hide spoiled."

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Colonel he was leading his regiment on horsebaek at the battle of Molino del Rey, (near the city of Mexico) during the Mexican War, when a sharpshooter's bullet pierced his heart and he died gallantly.

FIRST MARRIAGES.

The first marriage service in Minnesota, wherein a clergyman officiated was performed by Rev. Dr. Thos. S. Williamson, the missionary, in the summer of 1835. The contracting parties were Lieut. Edmund A. Ogden and Miss Cordelia Loomis, daughter of the then Captain (afterwards Lieutenant Colonel) Gus- tavus Loomis. The bride had been a former sweet- heart of the young trader, Henry H. Sibley, and according to letters found among the Sibley papers she never forgot her old love.

The first marriage at the Fort occurred in August, 1820. The contracting parties were Adjutant Platt R. Green and the young daughter of Capt. and Mrs. George Gooding. Perhaps Maj. Taliaferro performed the service in his official capacity of Indian Agent, which gave him certain magisterial powers. He sub- sequently performed marriages between white persons and between whites and Indians and mixed bloods

EARLY STEAMBOATS AT THE FORT.

Up to May, 1826, the following named steamboats had arrived at the Fort: Virginia, May 10, 1823; Neville, in 1824; Rufus Putnam, April 2, and May 2, 1825; Mandan and Indian, later in the year 1826; Lawrence, May 2, 1826; Scioto, Eelipsc, Josephine, Fulton, Red Rover, Black Rover, Warrior, Enter- prise, and Volant, at various dates in 1825 and 1826.

IMMIGRANTS FROM RED RIVER.

In 1821, disheartened by the misfortunes and priva- tions they had endured in that locality, five Swiss families abandoned Lord Selkirk's Colony, on the Red River, in Canada, south of Winnipeg, and made their way to Fort Snelling. They were kindly received by Col. Snelling and permitted to settle on the mili- tary reservation. In 1822 the grasshoppers destroyed the crops of Selkirk's colonists, and the following year other Swiss families left the inhospitable country and came to Fort Snelling. Some went on to Prairie du Chien, to Galena, to St. Louis, and even as far as to Vevay, Indiana.

After a great flood in 1826 more families, chiefly French-Swiss came. Among the heads of these fami- lies were Abraham Perret (or Perry) Joseph Rondo, Pierre and Benjamin Gervais, Louis Massic, and others, who were among the first settlers and citizens of St. Paul. July 25, 1831, twenty more families of the unfortunate Red River colonists came to the Fort ; they had been told that the United States would give them land near the post, and farming implements and provisions to last them until they could raise a crop. These refugees were settled on the level lands a little north and west of Fort Snelling and if they had been allowed to remain in that loeality a mighty city, in

compact and developed form, would have been built between the Falls and the Minnesota River-and there never would have been a St. Paul.

THE INDIAN COLONY OF EATONVILLE.

Indian Agent Taliaferro encouraged Cloud Man to farm at Lake Calhoun by establishing a sort of Indian colony there and furnishing its members with seed, implements, and in time with two-horse plowing out- fits. It was difficult to plow and break up the virgin tough prairie sod, however, for the plows were frail, cast-iron affairs which would break easily and when broken could not be mended. So the Indian women often dug up the stubborn sod the first year, and after that the soil could be plowed very easily. Maj. Taliaferro called the colony Eatonville, in honor of the then President Jackson's Secretary of War, Hon. John HI. Eaton. The colony was established in 1829 with twelve families, and Peter Quinn, a Red River refugee, was the first instruetor. He was sueeecded the following year by Philander Prescott. In 1832 the colony had increased to 125 Indians, men and women, and great cornfields were planted about Lake Calhoun and over a great part of what is now the southern part of the city. During the Sioux Outbreak of 1862 the Indians killed both Prescott and Quinn, each of whom had an Indian wife. They eut off Pres- cott's head and stuck it on a pole, and they piereed Quinn's body with a dozen arrows at the battle of Red- wood Ferry.

ADVENT OF THE POND BROTHERS.

In 1834 the Pond brothers, Gideon H. and Samuel W. Pond, came to the Fort directly from Galena, although they were Connecticut men. They came as volunteer Christian missionaries to labor for the con- version of the Minnesota Indians. They were not licensed ministers, nor were they sent by any church or society. They were almost "without scrip or purse," but simply religious enthusiasts, who believed they had a heaven-inspired mission, which they must fulfill at all hazards. They endured all sorts of hard- ship and privation, and, although they did not make very many converts among the Indians, they labored steadfastly and unselfishly and did much good in other ways. These worthy and good men passed the rest of their lives in Minnesota engaged in the work to which they had eonsecrated themselves, and died near the principal field of their labors near Minne- apolis, some years ago .*

THE FIRST RESIDENCE IN MINNEAPOLIS.

When the Ponds first came to Fort Snelling Agent Taliaferro sent them out to his Indian colony on Lake Calhoun. That summer (1834) they built a log cabin, 12 by 16 feet in area and eight fect high, on a site a little east of the lake and where afterward the Pavilion Hotel stood. Unless the little rude hut connected with the Government Mill at the Falls is considered a dwell-

* See S. W. Pond's book, "Two Volunteer Missionaries " and other Minnesota histories.

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

ing house, the cabin of the Pond brothers was the first white man's residence built on the present site of Minneapolis; at any rate it was the second structure erected. It was certainly a residence, for here the brothers kept bachelors' hall and cooked, ate, slept, and passed their leisure time, while the hut at the mill was only occupied by soldiers temporarily detailed to work the mill.

It is but fair to state that the Pond brothers' humble hut was the actual home of the first actual citizen settlers in Hennepin County and on the present area of Minneapolis; the people of the fort were neither settlers nor citizens in the proper sense of these terms. The cabin was also the first mission house, the first house of divine worship, and strictly speaking it was the first school room; the school teacher Baker, who came to Fort Snelling in 1824, taught only the officers' children in their own homes.

H. H. SIBLEY COMES TO MENDOTA.

In 1834, also, came to Fort Snelling-or to the American Fur Company's trading post at Mendota- the accomplished Henry Hastings Sibley, who became so prominent and distinguished in Minnesota history. He came as chief factor of the Fur Company, suc- ceeding the talented and gifted Alexis Bailly, a French and Ottawa mixed blood, educated and accomplished, polished as a courtier, but as sharp as a hawk. He wrote and spoke French as well as Talleyrand; but he seemed to enjoy life in Minnesota as much because he could torment Agent Taliaferro to the verge of distraction as for any other reason. After being deposed as the chief factor of the Fur Company, he was employed for years as a trader under it.

DRED SCOTT AT FORT SNELLING.

Major Lawrence Taliaferro (commonly pronounced Tolliver), the Indian Agent, was not then connected with the regular army, although he had been a lieu- tenant. He had his military title of Major by virtue of his office as Indian Agent, for in Minnesota Indian agents were always called "Major," and Indian Superintendents "Colonel," no matter if they had never smelled powder. Maj. Taliaferro was from Fredericksburg, Va., and was a slave owner.

In his "Autobiography" (Vol. 6, Hist. Socy. Coll.), the Major says that he was accustomed to hire his slaves to the officers of the garrison, because he had no use for them himself. In his journal, as quoted by Neill, he says that in 1831 Capt. Plympton wanted to purchase his negro girl Eliza, but he would not sell her "because," he says, "it was my intention to frec all my slaves ultimately." He, however, afterward sold a black man to Capt. Gale and one of his slave girls, Harriet Robinson, to Dr. John Emerson, the post surgeon. And thereby hangs a tale.

Maj. Taliaferro brought the girl Harriet to the Fort in 1835. Dr. Emerson, who had come to the Fort from service at Rock Island, had a black man named Dred Scott, that he had purchased from the Scott family at St. Louis. In 1836 Dr. Emerson pur-

chased Harriet from Maj. Taliaferro and married her to his man Dred. The couple had two children, one born at Fort Snelling and one on the steamboat Gipsy while her mother was accompanying her mistress to St. Louis. In 1838 Surgeon Emerson was transferred back to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, and took his negroes with him. Dr. Emerson died in 1843 and the negroes were inherited by his wife, Mrs. Irene Emerson. Nine years later arose the famous Dred Scott case which was so much talked about in the country from 1857 to 1861.

In 1852, instigated by certain prominent anti- slavery people of St. Louis, Dred Scott was made to appear against his mistress as a suitor for his free- dom in a district court of that city. He claimed that he and his family were entitled to their freedom be- cause he had lived in two free districts, viz. : at Rock Island, Ill., and Ft. Snelling, then in Iowa Territory, in both of which places slavery was prohibited ; that by virtue of being taken to such free soil (not running away to it) he became free, and once free he must be always frec.

The St. Louis district judge, himself a slave owner, said that all such suits as Dred's should be decided if possible on the side of freedom, and virtually gave him his free papers. The Supreme Court of Mis- souri, however, (two judges to one), reversed this decision and, as it were, remanded Dred and his family back to slavery. Mrs. Emerson then sold Scott and Harriet to a man named Sandford, a wealthy resident of New York City, but who kept his negroes in St. Louis. In 1853 the anti-slavery people of St. Louis again had Dred Scott suing for his freedom, this time against Sandford and in the U. S. Circuit Court. In May, 1854, that court rendered a decrec that Scott and his family "are negro slaves, the lawful prop- erty of the defendant," John F. A. Sandford. Scott's attorneys appealed the decision by a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States. In March, 1857, that Court directed the Circuit Court to dis- miss the case, saying that Dred Scott was a slave and not a citizen and had no right to sue and no standing in court ; that he did not become free by reason of his four years' residence on free soil. Col. Sandford, Scott's owner was prominently connected with the Chouteau Fur Company of St. Louis and well known on the Missouri River, although his residence was in New York; he was also well known to the traders of Minnesota.

But in the meantime Sandford had died and the slaves had descended to certain of his heirs, the family of a Republican member of Congress from Massa- chusetts! This family hired out the negroes for some time in St. Louis, but finally sold them to certain philanthropic people that wished to set them free. These people conveyed them to Taylor Blow, a drug- gist of St. Louis, who emancipated them May 26, 1857, two months after the U. S. Supreme Court had consigned them to slavery during their life time. (See Scott vs. Emerson, 19 Howard, p. 393; Nic. & Hay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. 2, Chap. 5 and also foot- note p. 81, Minn. in Three Cents., Vol. 2.)

A few old citizens who were youths in 1835-38, and

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

who have died recently, remembered Dred Scott and Harriet when they were at Fort Snelling. Win. L. Quinn, the noted half-blood seout, son of Peter Quinn, who lived near the fort, often said that Dred and his wife were apparently of pure African blood, jet black and shiny; that they were mildly disposed, in- offensive people, but of a low order of intelligence and did not like the Indians. Dred was fond of hunting and quite sueeessful as a deer-stalker.

The only resident of Minnesota that was a slave owner was Alexis Bailly, who purchased a black woman (Neill says a man) from Maj. Garland, and used her as a house servant and as a maid for his mixed blood Indian wife, the daughter of John B. and Pelagie Faribault. At first the Sioux were greatly diverted by the negroes. They ealled the black people "blaek Frenehmen," (Wahseehon Sappa) fol- lowed them about, felt their woolly heads, and then laughed heartily. Another negro slave, James Thomp- son, was purehased by the missionaries at Kaposia from a Fort Snelling offieer. IIe had an Indian wife and had acquired the Sioux language, and the mission people wanted him for an interpreter. Of course they set him free. He seemed to be a devout Chris- tian, but soon fell from grace and went wrong. After a time he fell baek again, then fell out again and sold whisky, and finally beeame a Methodist and died in hope of eternal happiness.

GEN. ZACHARY TAYLOR AT FORT SNELLING.

The first commanders of Fort Snelling were Lieut. Col. IIenry Leavenworth from September, 1819, to June, 1821; Col. Josiah Snelling, from June, 1821, to May, 1825; Capt. Thomas Hamilton, in May and June, 1825, and then Lieut. Col. Willoughby Morgan to Deeember, 1825; Col. Snelling again until Novem- ber, 1827, and then Maj. J. H. Vose, to May 24, 1828. All these officers were of the Fifth Infantry. Then eame Lieut. Col. Zachary Taylor, of the First Infantry, who commanded from May, 1828, to July 12, 1829, or fourteen months.

In after years, when he had beeome so distinguished as a fighting general and had been elected President of the United States, the Lieut. Colonel commanding Fort Snelling in 1828-29 was again eonneeted with the history of Minnesota. Among his very first duties after he beeame President was the appointment of the officials for the then new Territory, now the North Star State. He appointed Alexander Ramsey the first Governor, Chas. K. Smith the first Secretary, etc. To Delegate H. H. Sibley President Taylor expressed his regret that he had not been permitted to sign the bill ereating Minnesota Territory, because he had been eonneeted with its early history and believed it would become a great State. "Your winters are long and eold," said the President to the Delegate; "I know, for I spent one there. But your climate is exceedingly braeing and probably the healthiest in the Union. With proper eare good erops ean be raised there, for I have seen them growing-as good wheat as I ever saw-and we raised very fine vegetables of all kinds at the Fort. Then you have vast forests of

lumber which alone will make your State great, and St. Anthony Falls is probably the greatest water power in the world."

While at Fort Snelling Gen. Taylor had with him his wife, his four daughters, and his three-year-old son, Richard, who became a distinguished Confederate general. One of the daughters, Sarah Knox, familiarly ealled "Knox," married Jefferson Davis, a few years later, at the home of her aunt, a few miles in the rear of Louisville, Ky. It is often said that the mar- riage was the result of an elopement, but it was not even elandestine; a number of her near relatives were present, although her father had refused his eonsent. She died three months later.

INDIAN FIGHTS AND TRAGEDIES NEAR MINNEAPOLIS.

Perhaps the most noted ineidents of early history which oeeurred in the near vieinity of Minneapolis between 1820 and 1840 were eertain hostile eneounters between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians wherein many lives were lost. So many of these affairs oeeurred throughout the State that their enumeration and deseription at this late day would be most diffi- eult. Some of them were rather formidable, but none of them were of any more consequenee and influenee on the interests of the country than fights between paeks of wolves.

On a night in May, 1827, some Chippewa Indians, under the old Flat Mouth, were asleep in their camp in front of Maj. Taliaferro's ageney house and under the guns of Fort Snelling. Nine Sioux from Pene- ehon's village, with guns and tomahawks, crept up in the darkness and fired into the sleeping Chippewas, killing four and wounding eight. Within two days Col. Snelling forced four of the Sioux that had fired so cowardly and eruelly upon sleeping men, women, and children to run the gauntlet before the guns of the Chippewas. All ran gallantly, but all were shot down and killed before they had proceeded a hundred yards. The Chippewas rubbed their hands in the bloody wounds of their dead enemies and then licked their fingers with great relish. After scalping and mutilating the bodies they piteled them over the bluff.

BATTLES AT RUM RIVER AND STILLWATER.

In July, 1839, there was a stirring, tragie, and alto- gether a most remarkable affair between the two Min- nesota tribes in the perpetuation of their feud. Pre- liminary to this ineident, which in effeet was a great dual tragedy, several hundred Chippewas eame down from their country to Fort Snelling with the mistaken idea that they were to receive some money under the treaty of 1837. They eame in two columns. Hole-in- the-Day led the Pillager Band and the Mille Laes down the Mississippi in eanoes to St. Anthony's Falls, where they eneamped. The St. Croix Chippewas eame down that river from Pokegama to Stillwater in eanoes and then marehed across the country to Fort Snelling. and eneamped a mile or so north of the fort, near Cloud Man's band at Lake Calhoun.

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

All the Sioux bands in the neighborhood came for- ward and greeted their old time enemies very eor- dially, and they and the U. S. authorities entertained them most bountifully and hospitably. Hole-in-the- Day's Indians came down to Lake Calhoun and joined in the feasting and the fraternizing. Everybody said the tomahawk was buried forever and henceforth there would be profound peace between Chippewa and Sioux. This most exemplary condition lasted four days, and then the Chippewas set out to return to their homes, each column taking the route over which it had come. By special invitation the Pokegama Chippewas went first to Little Crow's Kaposia village (now South St. Paul) and spent some hours in friendly visit and then went on to Stillwater.

But two young men of Hole-in-the-Day's contingent had "bad hearts" all this time. They were from Mille Lacs and claimed that the Sioux had killed their father the year before. When their party set out to return home they remained behind. The next morning, well armed, they slipped down to near Cloud Man's village and hid themselves on the south- eastern side of Lake Harriet, in the tall grass, by a path that ran on the east side of the lake and then on to a great body of timber, a wild pigeon grove, on the Minnesota.

Just after daylight on the morning of July 2. an Indian whose proper name was Hku-pah Choki Mah- zah, or Middle Iron Wing, came along the path where the Chippewas were ambushed. He was on his way to the pigeon roost to kill pigeons before carly morning came, when they would fly away, returning at dark. He had a boy of 12 * with him and each had a gun. He was often called the Badger, and this is the name given him in some histories. He was a son-in-law of Chief Cloud Man and a nephew of Zitkahda Doota, (or Red Bird) the "medicine man" of the band, but who in this instance became its head soldier.

In the tall grass and weeds lay the two Chippewas, every musele strained and tense and their eyes gleam- ing with excitement and hate, like tigers in a jungle about to leap upon their prey. When the Badger came up within easy gunshot they fired at the same instant and both bullets struck him, killing him in- stantly. They rushed forward and took his sealp and then slunk away through the tall grass towards Minnehaha, or the "Little Falls," as they were often called. The boy had thrown himself in the grass be- side the path and was lying still. The Indians said they saw him, but forbore to kill him. As soon as they had gone the lad sprang up and ran baek to the village, crying with all his might, “Hkah-hkah Ton- wan ! Hkah-hkah-Tonwan !" ** or, "the Chippewas ! the Chippewas!"

The boy's soprano screams rang like silver fire-bells and were heard at the mission house as soon as at the

Indian tepees. The Pond brothers were at the side of the murdered warrior as soon as his comrades were, and it is from Saml. W. Pond's printed record (see "Two Missionaries") that we get the details of the murder and of the terrible events that followed. The body of the Badger was borne back to the village, where, as it were, it lay in state.

A crowd soon gathered about the scalpless, bloody corpse. Red Bird bent over it and kissed it, though the blood was yet oozing. Then he removed from the body the ornaments which had bedecked it, and, holding them up where all eould see, he solemnly swore: "I will avenge you, O, my nephew, though . I too am killed!" Turning to the assembled warriors he demanded that they too avenge their comrade, and they fairly yelled that they would.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190