Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 25

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 25

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By the 1st of January, 1852, quite a number of claims had been made on the Fort Snelling reserve, long before the Senate had ratified the Indian treaties or the reserve itself had been reduced so as to allow of such settlements. Lieut. Col. Francis Lec, of the 6th U. S. Infantry, commanding at Fort Snelling, wrote to Washington for instructions. He was directed to at once evict and expel the intruders, destroy their habitations and improvements, and sternly forbid a repetition of the trespass, under a threat of condign and severe punishment. The St. Anthony Express of February 21, 1852, gave the sequel :

"The cabins erected on the Reserve, we notice, have all been razed to the ground, except those whosc own- ers had obtained permits. Had not meetings been called and so much opposition manifested on the part of a few to permits from officers, we think that nobody would have been disturbed, even those without per- mits. We have some dogs in the manger which. not being able to enjoy themselves, are determined that no one else shall. Congress will probably act on the matter soon and stop all contention."

Some of the lumber and timbers of the buildings destroyed by the soldiers under the orders of Col. Lee were thrown into the Mississippi. The material

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

of the claim house of Daniel Stanchfield was thus dis- posed of. The soldiers did all the work of ejection and dismantling, but were not willing instruments of the law in this case.

Also in February, abont the time the claim houses were being destroyed, Philander Prescott, agent of the Indian Department at Fort Snelling, was sent out through the country west of the Falls to warn off certain parties that were entting timber on the for- bidden lands and hanling it to the mills. They were ordered to desist their operations at once, and not to renew them, or even to visit the lands on the west side, without special permission.

THE FIRST SETTLER ON THE MINNEAPOLIS SIDE.

Mr. Bean and the other millers in charge of the old Government Mill on the west side of the river can- not properly be considered the first permanent set- tlers of Minneapolis proper. They were not "set- tlers" at all in the true meaning of the term; they were merely denizens or tenants at will-that is, at the will of the landlord, who then was Uncle Sam ; he could remove them whenever he wanted to, or they could remove themselves at their own pleasure.

By and by the Mill came to have a renter and sub- tenants. A dozen or more years previously Secretary of War Poinsett had decided that the Mill was Govern. ment property, but located on Indian land, and only to be used in aid of the military, and hence was not subject to purchase, to occupation. or to control by citizens. In May, 1849. Hon. Robert Smith, a member of Congress from the Alton, Illinois, district, obtained Governmental lease and license to occupy the old Mill by himself or by his tenant. The Sibley papers show that Henry M. Rice was an unrecorded partner of Smith's in this lease, and that at Rice's instance a strong but ineffectual effort was made to get Sibley to become a third partner. The present writer cannot state with certainty who all of Smith and Rice's ten- ants were, if they exceeded three, namely, Bean, Dyer, and Tuttle, but only one of them (Tuttle) was prop- erly speaking a settler or citizen of Minneapolis.

But there was one settler on the original site of Min- neapolis who came before the Indian title was extin gnished, and who came to stay, and stayed. This was John Harrington Stevens, born in Canada, of Ameri- can parentage, in 1820, who had served as captain and quartermaster in the Mexican War, who came to Min- nesota early in 1849, and whose name has become a household word in Minneapolis. In May, 1849, Mr. Stevens entered the employ of Franklin Steele, as a clerk ; but in a short time he became Steele's business agent, his factotum, his major domo, his confidante, and altogether his close intimate.

STEVENS ACTS FOR HIMSELF AND FOR FRANK STEELE.

Now, when Rice and Smith had secured a lease of the Government Mill, Mr. Steele thought their claim a menace to his mill interests. Of course he intended from the first to secure land on the west bank con- fronting the Falls, as he had secured a good broad

foothold on the cast bank. He determined to head off any further approach of Rice and Smith toward the west end of the Falls, planning to secure that site for himself. The land was not then subject to entry, but in time it would be. It was, however, subject to occupation, as Rice and Smith had demonstrated in leasing the old Mill.

"Who does by another does by himself," is an old maxim of law and equity. If Steele could put his confidential agent, Stevens, on a tract of land immedi- ately above the old Mill, the occupation would raise a barrier to an approach toward the land directly at the Falls which Rice and Smith could not cross. In a little time Stevens was properly placed, and in his book he tells us how :

"June 10, 1849, Mr. Steele asked me to accompany him on a little trip from Fort Snelling to St. Anthony Falls. I was then his chief book-keeper in his count- ing room at the Fort. On our way up Mr. Steele said that in a year or two the Fort Snelling reserva- tion would be reduced in size; that many valuable claims could be secured on the lands which would be left out by the reduction by securing permission from the Secretary of War to immediately go upon them ; that he wanted me to at once secure the claim immedi- ately above the Government Mill, then controlled by Hon. Robert Smith, and he thought there would not be much difficulty in securing the desired permission from the Secretary of War, then Hon. Wm. L. Marcy."

The Secretary had been very determined that there should be no occupation of the reserve by would-be settlers, but a way was found to whip him around the stump. Steele found it. The Secretary accorded the permission, upon the request of Steele, Sibley, and Lieut .- Col. Gustavus Loomis, the old Puritan com- mander of Fort Snelling and superintendent of the reserve. To justify the license a laudable subterfuge was resorted to. Stevens was to be allowed to live on the west bank of the river on condition that he constrnet and maintain a ferry across the river from his habitation to St. Anthony; and he was to trans- port on his ferry, free of all charge whatsoever, all officers and soldiers of the army and all other agents of the Government, including teamsters with their teams, wagons, and their loads, etc. At that date the road from Fort Snelling to Fort Gaines (Fort Ripley) was that from St. Paul to the upper fort, which ran on the east side of the river, via St. Anthony, etc.

It was really a convenience to the authorities and garrisons of the two posts to have a ferry at St. Anthony, in order to facilitate communication between them. Stevens had to give a bond of $500, secured by Steele, that he would faithfully comply with the conditions of his license. There was but little work for him to do to pay for his privilege at first, for the mili- tary representatives seldom wished to cross, but when passage was wanted it was "wanted bad."

The assertion that Stevens desired the claim in order to operate a ferry was an innocent fiction, designed to chase Secretary Marcy's order from its firm position in front of the stump to a place behind it. At first Stevens virtually held the claim in trust for Frank Steele, so that Rice and Smith and anybody

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

else but Steele might not secure the mill-sites at the west end of the Falls. It was known that in a few years the west side would be open to settlement and that Stevens could then perfect the title in fee, when the mill-sites would be under the control of the Steele interests.

Stevens had been only a month in the Territory when he received permission to settle on the west bank of the river and construct a home there. He was a clerk for Steele at Fort Snelling at the time, and was unmarried; but, acting for his employer, for whom he had conceived a great liking, he readily con- sented to have his home, and claim it as such, in a not very inviting situation. He at once began opera- tions on his claim, although he was rather busy with his duties as clerk for Steele at Fort Snelling and about other business for him at St. Anthony. He tells us that, "on the bank of the river, just above the rapids, I commenced building my humble house, to which when finished, I brought my wife, as a bride, and in it my first children were born, the eldest being the first-born white child in Minneapolis proper."

STEVENS AND HIS YOUNG WIFE COMPLETE AND OCCUPY THEIR HOME.

Stevens did not complete his house for more than a year; it was finished and first occupied August 6, 1850. It was a frame building, of lumber sawed by Steele's mill. and probably furnished by him, was a story and a half in height, with a wing of one story. The structure stood on the west bank, quite near the water and only twenty feet above it. on a bench or terrace of land which was several feet below the gen- eral level of the land farther back from the river: from 200 yards to the rear of the house only its roof and attic could be seen.

At Rockford. Illinois. May 10, 1850, Stevens had married Miss Frances H. Miller. Immediately after the wedding the couple started for St. Anthony Falls. and May 16 arrived at St. Paul and Fort Snelling. They intended residing temporarily in the Fort, where Mr. Stevens's work was, but a few days after his return he was sent to Iowa to assist the soldiers in removing the Sac and Fox Indians from their former lands in that State, and during his absence Mrs. Ste- vens was the guest of Mrs. Jacob W. Bass, the land- lady of the little log hotel at St. Paul. As her husband was returning, Mrs. Stevens met him at Mus- catine, Iowa, and from thence they returned by steam- boat to Minnesota, and, as has been stated. moved into their new house at the Falls on the 6th of August. The Stevens family was the second white household to reside at the west end of the Falls: Mr. Bean's, that occupied the old Government Mill buildings, was the first.

THE FIRST DAIRY HERD AT MINNEAPOLIS. .

At Muscatine Mr. Stevens bought a small herd of five milch cows at $7 per head; and they were good cows at that. He brought them to Fort Snelling for $4 apiece, and thus they cost him $11 each "laid

down" at the Falls. This was the first dairy herd to graze on what afterward became the site of Minneap- olis proper. Previously, however, several families in St. Anthony each had a cow, and there was plenty of live stock, including good grade bulls, down St. Paul way. Stevens claims : "This was undoubtedly the first herd of cows cver introduced on the west bank of the Falls, aside from those used by the troops at Fort Snelling.'

Stevens had determined to operate a small farm on his claim. His situation was not altogether what he desired, but he made the best of it. The only means of communication with St. Anthony was in a small skiff propelled by two pairs of oars, and the water route was above the Falls, and above Nicollet Island. where the current was so strong that it was fortunate · when a landing was made at any considerable distance above the terrible rapids. Captain John Tapper was the ferryman and chief oarsman. but his strong arms had to be re-enforced by those of another brawny boatman in order to carry the laden boat safely athwart the strong current. The Captain made his home a great part of the time at the Stevens house. In the warm seasons the mosquitoes came in great ravenous clouds and made life a burden for the house- hold ; bars and screens afforded but little protection against them. Luckily, owing to the pure and salubrious climate, there was no poison in their stings. no malarial germs or typhus bacilli which they could transfer to the human system.

FIRST STEPS TOWARD CULTIVATING THE SOIL.

Immediately upon occupying his new house Mr. Stevens set about preparing the adjoining land on the flat near him for cultivation. It was covered largely with jungles of black jack-oak trees and saplings, thickly stuck with seraggy and bristling limbs and branches, and John Tapper was given charge of the work of clearing these impediments off the land and getting it ready for the plow. The land bordered o11 the river, running back 80 rods from the bank, "and extending about half way up to Bassett's Creek."

Tapper hired a bunch of expert axmen and they soon cleared the land. The trees were cut down, the brush piled, the stumps and main roots grubbed up, and after saving a lot of firewood and fence-poles, the tree-trunks, brush, and grubs were piled together and burned. Next spring, when plowing began, the plow moved easily through the rich, mellow soil, as easily penetrated as an ash-heap. The work of clearing the land and preparing it for the plow had been trouble- some and expensive; but it had to be done. Stevens had plenty of prairie land which had no timber upon it and required no clearing. But it had something more formidable to the plow and the plowman. It had a tough, thick sod which could not be cut and broken and turned under by any plow then in vogue. At that date the plows commonly in use had wooden frames and cast-iron points and mold-boards. The iron was usually inferior, brittle, and easily snapped and shattered by a strong root or stubborn piece of sod.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

This was one reason why the prairie lands were not first cultivated instead of the timber lands. The sod was from four to six inches thick and composed of roots and fibers cemented with well packed earth. The ordinary plows would not turn it or even cut it. The Indian women had to cut it with hoes, and even axes, before they could plant their gardens and corn- fields. When the timber tracts were cleared and grubbed of their stumps and roots, the loose, loamy soil was half plowed; it was easy to finish the re- mainder with any sort of a plow.

In time, wrought-iron and steel-pointed plow-points superseded the cast iron; and then, when the prairie lands had been pastured and big weeds kept down for a few years, the roots in the sod rotted and the soil was easily broken. Occasionally in the early settle- ment of the country the local blacksmiths hammered out wrought-iron, steel-pointed plow-sharcs which were fastened to large strong frames, forming a huge machine which, when drawn by two or three yoke of oxen, would cut and turn prairie sod quite readily, making great wide furrows, and laying and folding back the sod very regularly. The up-turned sod had to lie under the sun and rains for a year or more before its roots rotted so that it could be easily pul- verized by cross-plowing and rendered into seed-beds.

Colonel Stevens tells us that the crops produced on his land were very heavy and excellent in every way. They were a great advertisement for Minnesota and its soil. There were hosts of visitors from other States to Fort Snelling and the much noted St. An- thony Falls, and every visitor saw Stevens's fine corn- fields, his fruitful gardens, and his fat cattle, and went back home telling every one he saw that Minne- sota was well adapted to white occupation and des- tined to become a magnificent commonwealth. Stevens says: "The yields that were produced on this land in after years were so heavy that it cn- couraged immigrants who saw the fields to settle in the Territory.

CHARLES MOUSSEAU PRECEDES STEVENS.

But while Colonel Stevens was fairly the first per- manent white settler on the original site of Minne- apolis west of the river, he was not the first on the present site. Some three years before his settlement, Charles Mousseau came to the site of the old mission of the Pond brothers, on the southeast shore of Lake Calhoun, and took up his residence as a permanent inhabitant. He also laid claim to 160 acres of the land on which his house stood, saying that he would perfect title to it as soon as the Indian claim was ex- tinguished and the Snelling reserve opened to white settlement, and meanwhile all designing persons were requested to notice that he had claims which must be respected ! It is believed that at first Mousseau lived in the old Pond mission house, and a portion of his claim is now included in Lakeview Cemetery. Near his house at one time was the cabin of old Chief Cloud Man (Makh-pe-ah We-chash-tay), the good old chief of the Lake Calhoun band of Sioux.

Charles Mousseau was born in Canada, in 1807.

His ancestry, of course, was French. In 1827 he came to Mendota and entered the employ of the Fur Com- pany as a voyageur. In February, 1836, he married at Fort Snelling, Fanny Perry, the daughter of Abram Perry (or Perret), the old French-Swiss watchmaker. The marriage ceremony was performed by Indian Agent Taliaferro, and in 1839 confirmed by Bishop Loras, of Dubuque, while on his first visit to Minnesota. In the latter year Mousseau became the first white settler on the crest of what is now Dayton's Bluff, in St. Paul. In 1848 he sold his St. Paul claim to Eben Weld and having obtained permission of the military authorities, removed to the elaim at Lake Calhoun. He lived in Minneapolis the rest of his life, and out of twelve children born to him he raised nine to maturity ; some of his descendants are yet in Minneapolis. In February, 1852, he gained some local notoriety by killing a 700-pound black bear after a bloody and exciting fight with the monster near the shore of Lake Calhoun. His little daughter, Sophia, whose death was chronicled by the St. Anthony Ex- press in July, 1850, was probably the first white per- son to die within the present limits of Minneapolis west of the river.

OTHER PIONEER RESIDENTS ON THE WEST SIDE.

When Stevens moved into his new house at the Falls he was alone in his glory, as the only white set- tler on what became the original site of the city. This was in August, 1850. A year previously, when Rob- ert Smith and Henry M. Rice leased the old Govern- ment Mill, they placed a bachelor named Ambrose Dyer, of Oneida County, New York, in charge of the building, and he occupied it for some monthis as a bachelor's hall, and then, disappointed and dissatis- fied, he went elsewhere. The Stevens household and home were practically without near neighbors until April 25, 1851, when Calvin A. Tuttle crossed his family over from St. Anthony and occupied the Mill buildings. Thus the number of families in Minne- apolis proper had increased 100 per cent in less than a year-from one to two!

According to Hudson's History, John P. Miller, in August, 1851, secured the second claim at the Falls, also under a permit from the Secretary of War. Ou this claim, which was 160 acres in extent, Miller built a good house and made other permanent improve- ments. Not long after Stevens made his claim Rev. Ezekiel G. Gear, the post chaplain at Fort Snelling. laid claim to a tract of land on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun, near Mousseau's. Permission to file this claim was given by the military, but it does not appear that any improvements were made upon it for some time. As to other pioneer claims, Hudson (p. 34) says :

"Dr. Hezekiah Fletcher, John Jackins, Isaac Brown, Warren Bristol, Allen Harmon and Dr. Al- fred E. Ames made elaims during 1851, and were soon followed by Edward Murphy, Anson Northrup. Charles Hoag, Martin Layman. John G. Lennon. Benj. B. Parker, Sweet W. Case. Edgar Folsom, Hiram Van Nest, Robert Blaisdell, and others, all of whom

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

secured permits from the military authorities. Prom- inent claim-holders just outside the military reserva- tion were Joel B. Bassett, Wm. Byrnes, Chas. W. Christmas, Waterman Stinson, Stephen Pratt, and Rufus Pratt, all of whom took up and in what is now North Minneapolis."

Nearly all of these were citizens of St. Anthony. They crossed the river and made claims on the west side, as anchors to windward. Everybody was saying that there would soon be a town on the west side, and if this should be at the expense of St. Anthony it was well to have a means of covering and balancing any loss that might thereby be sustained. It was well enough to own property in both towns.

Dr. Fletcher's claim was considered "far back in the country." He built a small house on a site now on Portland Avenue, between Fourteenth and Fif- teenth Streets. In two years he sold to John L. Tenny, who, in 1854, sold to Daniel Elliott; subsequently the tract became J. S. and Wyman Elliott's Addition. The Doctor sold his claim for $1,200, which was con- sidered a good price. He resided in Minneapolis for some years, was elected to the Legislature of 1854, and appointed Register of the U. S. Land Office in 1863. He died in California several years ago, still owning Minneapolis realty.

After Dr. Fletcher the next claimant was John Jenkins, a Maineite, who had, before coming to St. Anthony, been a lumberman over on the St. Croix. His claim was immediately in the rear of Stevens's, and his house stood where afterwards the Syndicate Block was built; he did not finally pre-empt his land until 1855, but in the meanwhile nobody attempted to "jump" his claim.

Isaac Brown, another Maineite, bought a part of Jackins's claim and built a big house on the site of Sixth Street and Third Avenue South. In October, 1852, he was elected the first sheriff of Hennepin County. He and Jackins surveyed their land into blocks and lots in 1855. Jackins became a Minne- apolis merchant, but finally removed to California.

Warren Bristol came over late in 1851, took a claim of 160 acres adjoining Dr. Fletcher's claim on the west, built a house on it the following winter, and became the first lawyer on the west side. The site of his house was subsequently that of the high school, on Fourth Avenue South, between Grant and Eleventh Streets. But the first lawyer did not remain long in primitive Minneapolis, though he was the first district attorney for Hennepin County. Official honors had no special charms for him, and before his land came fairly into market he had the imperfect judgment and incorrect taste to exchange it for St. Paul realty. Subsequently he settled at Red Wing and was Repre- sentative and Senator from Goodhue County. Presi- dent Grant commissioned him a Judge of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court and he held the position for several years. So much for the first lawyer to reside in Minneapolis.

Late in the fall of 1851 Allen Harmon came over from St. Anthony. Stevens considered him "a man of great worth" and says, "we were pleased to have him for a neighbor." His claim was some distance

back from the river and he resided upon it until his death, in about 1884. The First Baptist Church building, the Atheneum Library, and other promi- nent buildings were subsequently erected on the old Harmon claim.

Dr. Alfred E. Ames, from Roscoe, Illinois, made claim to the land on which were afterwards built the courthouse and jail. The claim was made by permis- sion of Capt. A. D. Nelson, then in command at Fort Snelling, in October, 1851, but the doctor was then in practice with Dr. Murphy at St. Anthony and did not occupy it until in the spring of 1852. The Har- mon and Ames claims were the last made in 1851.

FIRST ORGANIZATION OF HENNEPIN COUNTY.

In the latter part of 1851 the project of organizing a new county on the west side of the river, to include the western shore at the Falls, was agitated by the settlers of the region. The leaders of the movement were mainly interested in having the county seat of the new county at the new settlement springing up at the Falls. Since 1849 the district across the river from St. Anthony was a part of Dahkotah County, with the county seat at Mendota. The destiny of the country was fast being accomplished and a great change in the political organization was necessary.

Nobody was opposed to the change and there was practically nothing in the way. The Indian treaties had been made and were awaiting confirmation, which was certain to come. Immigration was pouring in and claims were being rapidly made in advance of the Government's surveys of the land and the opening of land offices. The west side needed a county govern- ment of its own, and the need would be rapidly in- tensified. A tentative effort was made in the Legis- lature of 1851 to create the new political division, but it was found to be premature. Conditions were, how- ever, befitting in the winter of 1852.

As has been stated, the members of the Legislature from the district (Dahkotah County) embracing Men- dota, Fort Snelling, and the west side of the Falls- and which extended westward to the Missouri River -were Martin McLeod, of Lac qui Parle, in the Coun- cil and Alexander Faribault, of Mendota, and Benj. H. Randall, of Fort Snelling, in the House of Repre- sentatives. Faribault lived then at Mendota and was opposed to the new county ; but Randall, of Fort Snell- ing, favored it. It was believed that Faribault's opposition would prevent favorable action in 1851, and so the matter was postponed to the Legislature of 1852, of which it was thought best that he should not. be a member.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 25

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