USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 6
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According to the sworn testimony of Michael Brishois (as reported in Vol. 2, Wis. Hist. Coll., p. 130), Captain Graham, James Aird, Brisbois himself, and others were traders in the Sioux country on the Minnesota in 1781. If the Captain had been born in 1766, he would have been in 1781 but 15, or too young for an Indian trader. Judge Lockwood, who was a trader at Prairie du Chien and also on the upper Minnesota, in 1816, says Graham was in the country about 1786 or 1787 (as is noted in Vol. 9, Wis. Hist. Coll., p. 467), and it is certain that he was at Men- dota, the mouth of the Minnesota River, in December, 1802, for at that date he was one of the witnesses to the will of Archibald Campbell, a prominent trader, who was killed in a duel, and his will recorded at Mackinaw.
Near Mendota Captain Graham married a mixed- blood Sioux woman, a granddaughter of a noted Frenchman of the earliest times named Penichon, who
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was at first a trader among the Sioux but became chief of one of their small sub-bands. Succeeding him in the chieftainship was his son, whose Indian name was Nah-zhin Okanko, or Stops Suddenly, but who was generally ealled Son of Peniehon; he was one of the signers of Lieutenant Pike's treaty with the Sioux at Mendota in 1805. The true name Peniehon is vari- ously misspelled. His band was in time presided over by Chief Black Dog, and its last chief was Mankato.
During the war between the United States and Great Britain (1812-15) Graham became first a lieu- tenant and then a captain in the British military service, and was very active against the Americans. Ile had a command of Sioux Indians in northern Ohio and participated with his warriors in the battles of Maumee and in the unsuccessful assault on Fort Stevenson. Ile assisted in the capture of Prairie du Chien in July, 1814, and in the following September went down to the Rock Island, with 30 Indians and three small cannon, and utterly defeated and drove back down the river a force of 400 Americans under Colonel Zachary Taylor (afterwards President), who had a rather strong fleet of armed boats and was coming up to recapture Prairie du Chien. Graham was but a lieutenant at the time, but for this exploit was made a captain.
After the war Captain Graham remained in the Northwest and became a naturalized eitizen of the United States. He was as faithful thereafter to his adopted country as he had been to British King George. He became an Indian trader in Minnesota, and a prominent one, and his operations ranged over the extent of country between Pembina and the Cana- dian border on the north and the latitude of Prairie du Chien. In 1819, when the erop failed in the Selkirk Colony, and the people on the lower Red River were starving, Captain Graham and another trader, named William Laidlaw (or Laidlow), went from Pembina to Prairie du Chien and brought back to the suffering eolony three big boat loads of wheat and oats and 30 bushels of peas, which furnished plenty of seed for planting and quite a stoek for eating.
How the supplies and the boats were transported from the head of navigation on the Minnesota over to the Red River ean only be conjectured. (Seo Neill's Ilist. of Min.)
Captain Graham had by his marriage four intel- leetnal, fairly accomplished, and altogether worthy daughters, who married four prominent Minneso- tians, viz .: Alexander Faribault, Joseph Buisson, Oliver Cratte, and James Wells. The son was Alexander Graham, who also beeame prominent in Minnesota. Some of the Captain's grandehildren have long lived in Minnesota and at Devil's Lake, North Dakota, and are well known as honorable and useful members of society.
Captain Graham died at Mendota, Minn., at the residenee of his son-in-law, Alexander Faribault, December 5, 1847, aged between 81 and 87. Ilis wife, whose Indian name was Hahzah-hota-win, or Gray Huckleberry woman, also died at Mendota, March 2, 1848.
DAVID THOMPSON IIERE IN 1798 AND FINDS JEAN
CADOTTE.
We know for certain that Captain Graham was not the only trader at East Grand Forks at an early day. David Thompson, the explorer, astronomer, eartogra- pher, and general investigator before mentioned, vis- ited the Forks in March, 1798, and found there Jean Baptiste Cadot, engaged in the Indian trade. Dr. Bryee (Hist. H. B. Co., p. 138) suggests that this was the son of the Cadot (or Cadotte), the veteran master of the Sault Ste. Marie, who for a long time refused to acknowledge the English sovereignty of the country but remained faithful in his allegiance to his "beau- tiful Franee."
Thompson particularly notes in his journal the establishment of Monsieur Cadotte at the Forks, where he remained a few days. Then he determined to find the true source of the Mississippi, which had long been an objeet of interest to geographers and explorers. This, too, had been one of the duties laid upon him by his employers, the officers of the Northwest Company.
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For it must be understood that, although Thompson had originally entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, he had disagreed with its authorities as to what he should do, had withdrawn from its employ, and had, in 1795, entered the service of its strenuous rival, the Northwest Company, which had been organ- ized in 1783-84. His position was that of chief sur- veyor and astronomer.
Making a detour from Grand Forks, in order to avoid the iee then in the Red Lake River, Thompson struek the upper banks of that river and followed the banks until he reached Red Lake. Leaving this lake, he made a portage to the south some 12 or 15 miles and eame to Turtle Lake (in what is now the southern portion of Beltrami County), and this lake he eon- sidered to be the source of the Mississippi; but of course he was mistaken, for 40 years later Schooleraft determined that Lake Itasea (in the southern eorner of Clearwater County ), some 35 miles to the southwest of Turtle Lake, is the true source of the great Father of Waters. But in early days many geographical mistakes were made. Thus when the treaty between the United States and Great Britain was made, in 1783, following the elose of the War of the Revolution, the Turtle Lake visited by Thompson was thought to be farther north than the northwestern angle of the Lake of the Woods.
After leaving Turtle Lake, Thompson visited Red Cedar Lake and Sand Lake, in the direction of Lake Superior, and at length reached the Northwest Com- pany's trading post near the mouth of the St. Louis River and the Fond du Lae. On the Sand Lake River he found a trading post of his Company. Indeed about this time posts of the Northwest Company fairly dotted the country now comprising the northern por- tion of Minnesota. Singularly enough, however, when Thompson, in March, 1798, eame to the present site of Winnipeg there was no trading post or other white habitation there. The Verendrye post of Fort Maure- pas, built 70 years before, and succeeding white men's establishments had all disappeared.
TIIE NORTHWEST COMPANY FORMED.
The profitable operations of the Hudson's Bay Company excited the envy and eupidity of certain in- dependent traders who in 1783 and 1784 organized a rival corporation which they ealled the Northwest Company. The leading members of the Company were Simon MeTavish, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, Peter Pond, and William MeGillivray. Peter Pond was a Connecticut man but an early trader in the Northwest. At one time he had a post near the mouth of the Minnesota River. Ile was of an impetuous, violent disposition and killed at least two other traders in quarrels over business matters. The Northwest Company entered with great energy upon its enter- prises and soon had more trading posts in Manitoba and northern Minnesota than the Hudson's Bay Com- pany.
Then, in 1795, the New Northwest Company, com- monly ealled the XY Company, was formed, with Alexander Mackenzie as the leading spirit. This be- eame a strong corporation and a formidable rival of both the Northwest and the Hudson's Bay organiza- tions. But in 1804-5 it was merged with the North- west Company under the old name. This Company now drove out, practically speaking, nearly all the Hudson's Bay traders from lower Manitoba and north- ern Minnesota. When Lieut. Pike came up, in 1805, he found Northwest Company trading houses on the upper Mississippi at the mouth of the Red Cedar, at Sandy Lake, at the month of the Prairie River and below Pokegama Falls, on Upper Red Cedar Lake, and the main establishment at Leech Lake, with Hugh Me- Gillis as the general agent or chief factor. IIe noted that there were numerous other posts to the north and northwest of Leech Lake. All of these establishments were flying the British flag in token of their allegianee to Great Britain, notwithstanding the scenes of their operations had been American soil, fairly won by the War for Independence, ever since the treaty of 1783. Lieut. Pike made all the traders with whom he eame in eontaet haul down the Union Jack and run up the
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
stars and stripes and Chief Factor MeGillis promised to send word to all the other traders in the country that they must do the same.
Seven years after Pike's visit eame the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States, and then, of course, the stars and stripes came down from the trading honses. Practically every British trader was an emissary for King George. Robert Dickson, a factor of the Northwest Company, reernited a num- ber of Indians in Minnesota and led them into the British service. They served against the Americans on the upper Mississippi, in Michigan, and in northern Ohio. After the close of the war, in 1815, they re- snmed their trading operations in Minnesota. They were openly defiant of the authority of the United States, kept up their British flags, held frequent eoun- cils with the Indians, distributed British medals among them, and whispered to them that another time was coming when their great English father would need their services in a war against the Americans! A few American traders had ventured up into the country, but the British traders conspired against them and drove them ont. They controlled the trade from Win- nipeg to as far south as the lower Des Moines River and constituted a formidable menaee to Ameriean in- terests.
Upon the complaints of the American traders Con- gress enaeted that none but full American citizens should have lieenses as fur traders. The British fae- tors evaded this restriction by having some humble employee in their service who was an American take ont the lieense in his name and then they conducted the business as theretofore. Finally the Executive Department of the Government acted. In 1819 the Seeretary of War, John C. Calhoun, of South Caro- lina, determined that the laws and authority of the United States should be respected. He ordered mili- tary posts established on the northern and northwest- ern frontiers, and that these posts should be supplied with sufficient garrisons to bring the defiant British trading malefactors to terms and to enforce the United States laws in those regions. Posts were established at
the mouth of the St. Peter's River, now Fort Snelling; at Council Bluff's, on the Missouri ; at the month of the Yellowstone, on the upper Missouri, and at the "Falls of St. Mary's," now commonly called Sault Ste. Marie.
Not long after the U. S. troops came up and built Fort Snelling the Northwest Company began to lose business in this region. Fort Snelling was built and properly garrisoned in 1819-20, and in March, 1821, the great Northwest Company virtually surrendered the field and was absorbed by the Hudson's Bay Com- pany under the latter's name.
The strife and warfare between the Northwest and the Hudson's Bay Companies, involving attacks against the members of the Selkirk Settlement, on the Red River, in 1815 and 1816, the actual fighting of lit- tle battles-in one of which Governor Semple, of the Hudson's Bay Company was killed-the slaying of perhaps 50 other men, ete., need not be more than ad- verted to here.
What is of importanee in a history of Polk County is that it was the traders of the Northwest Company that were within what is now that county between 1790 and 1820. Just where they all were. and who they were, cannot now and here be stated. David Thompson found Jean Baptiste Cadotte with a trad- ing post at East Grand Forks, in Mareh, 1798, and we know that Dunean Graham was here in this period. There was no trading post then at the Red Lake, but traders came and went, and they may have been at the big lake the year before or the year after. That the traders of the Northwest Company were seattered along the upper Red River and along the Minnesota from its sonree to its mouth from 1790 to 1820 is a faet well established.
THE COLUMBIA FUR COMPANY.
The Hudson's Bay and the Northwest Fur Com- panies consolidated in Mareh, 1821, and the follow- ing year a number of their former traders that had done business for them in the Red River and upper Minnesota region eoneluded to form a new Company to
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
operate in the Minnesota country and did so. The in- corporators were Joseph Renville, Thomas Jeffries, Kenneth MeKenzie, Wm. Laidlaw, and perhaps Dun- can Graham, and one or two others. They named the new organization the Columbia Fur Company. Its central establishment was the post on Lake Traverse. All of their posts were licensed by the U. S. Indian agent at Fort Snelling.
When, in July, 1823, Maj. Long's exploring expedi- tion reached Lake Traverse on its way down the Red River, it found an important post of the Columbia Company in charge of Mr. Jeffries and others. (Keat- ing's "Narrative," p. 444 et seq.) The village of the Sioux chief Wahnatah, the Charger, was near by and the expedition spent some days in the neighborhood.
By the year 1825 the Columbia Company had a number of licensed trading posts in Minnesota. These posts were called by the pretentious name of "Forts," and were as follows: Fort Adams, at Lae qui Parle ; Fort Washington, at Lake Traverse; Fort Union, at Traverse des Sioux; Fort Barbour, Falls of the St. Croix; Fort Bolivar, at Leaf Lake; Fort Confedera- tion, on the Des Moines River, where the eity of Des Moines now stands.
THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY.
In 1808 John Jacob Astor founded the great busi- ness organization known as the American Fur Com- pany. He was its President until in 1834, when he
was sueceeded by Ramsay Crooks, father of Col. Wil- liam Crooks, for whom Crookston was named. After 1822 this company had absorbed or swallowed up its smaller rivals and was conducted in the country east of the Missouri by what were termed its Northern and Western Departments. The Northern Department em- braced the region of the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi and was eondueted by Ramsay Crooks, whose headquarters were in New York, but who spent much time at Mackinaw and at other of his trading posts in the Northwest. Pierre Chouteau, Jr., of St. Louis, superintended the Western Department, com- prising, at first, the Missouri River country and the Rocky Mountains. Later Chouteau & Company pur- chased the Western Department, including the eoun- try west of the Mississippi. In Minnesota the chief post or "factory" of the company was at Fort Snel- ling, and Gen. H. H. Sibley was the "ehief faetor" for many years.
In 1825 the American Company had a post at Red Lake ealled Fort Pike. Other of its posts in the Min- nesota country were at the "upper sand hills," on the Cheyenne; at Crow Wing, on the Mississippi; at Lit- tle Rapids (Carver), on the Minnesota ; at Leecli Lake, Devil's Lake, below Big Stone Lake, Sandy Lake, and at the Forks of the Red Cedar River. It is unfortu- nate that the names of the traders at these posts have not been preserved.
CHAPTER V.
EARLY AMERICAN EXPLORATIONS IN RED RIVER VALLEY.
MAJOR LONG'S EXPEDITION IN 1823-ITS HISTORIAN DESCRIBES RED LAKE RIVER AS THE "RED FORK" AND NOTES THE SALT DEPOSITS OF THE REGION-COUNT BELTRAMI, OF ITALY, ACCOMPANIES THE MAJ. LONG EXPEDITION, DESCRIBES THIE COUNTRY, AND CALLS THE RED "THE BLOODY RIVER" -THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT AND ITS CONNECTION WITHI THE HISTORY OF POLK COUNTY-SELKIRK COLONISTS WERE THE COUNTY'S FIRST WHITE RESIDENTS-THE AREA OF THE PRESENT COUNTY FIRST PURCHASED OF THE INDIANS BY LORD SELKIRK-CAPT. JOIN POPE, IN 1850, RECORDED THE FACT THAT THE COLONISTS CAME TO EAST GRAND FORKS BETWEEN 1814 AND 1820-A FEW OF THEIR NAMES.
MAJOR LONG'S EXPEDITION OF 1823.
In the spring, summer, and fall of 1823, pursuant to orders from the War Department, a miscellaneous expedition, under the command of Maj. Stephen II. Long, with a corps of seientists for observations of a general character, went from Washington to and through a considerable portion of the Northwest, in- cluding the Red River Valley and a great deal of northern Minnesota. Coming into the Minnesota country in July, the expedition passed from Fort Snelling up the Minnesota Valley to Lake Winnipeg (then ealled Winnipeek) thenee up the Winnipeg River to the Lake of the Woods and thenee eastward along the Canadian boundary to Lake Superior. A very interesting and valuable history of the expedition was written by Prof. Wm. II. Keating, its geologist, recorder, and historian.
The expedition left Fort Snelling for the aseent of the Minnesota in the latter part of July, 1823, and comprised two small parties, one on horseback riding along the shores, and the other up the river in boats. Lake Traverse was reached July 23, and here three days were spent with the authorities of the Columbia Fur Company, at their main post. They struck the Red Lake River a few miles from its mouth, and found
their position to be latitude 47 degrees, 47 minutes, and 25 seconds north, and longitude 96 degrees, 53 minutes, and 45 seconds west. Keating ealls the river "the Red Fork of Red River," and says that where the party forded it the width was forty yards. Its banks were steep, and the earts were erossed with diffienlty ; its bed was sandy and its enrrent very rapid. The party went along the east bank of the river to Pembina, which was reached August 5. The village-or rather settlement-of Pembina had then a population of 350, most of whom were Metis, or half bloods, and who lived in 60 log honses or eabins, near- ly all of which stood on the west bank, adjacent to a former fort of the Iludson's Bay Company, which had been recently abandoned.
It will be borne in mind that the Hudson's Bay Company originally claimed the country of the Red River Valley as far up as the "Red Fork," or Red Lake River. In 1812 the Company granted to Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, for his eolony, the country of the Valley, ineluding both banks of the Red River, "up to the Red or Great Fork," assuming ownership and control to that extent. But when, after the War of 1812, the international boundary line was estab- lished, as a result of the successful issue in 1781 of their War for Independence, the Americans acquired
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
the country far down the Red River, including the site of the Pembina Settlement.
Kcating notes that in the spring of 1823, a few months before Maj. Long's arrival, the astronomers of the Hudson's Bay Company had made observa- tions which had led them to suspect that the Pem- bina settlement was south, and not north, of the boundary line. They, therefore, removed "Fort Pem- bina" down the river to Fort Douglas, at the mouth of the Assiniboine River. Keating records that Fort Pembina was 120 miles by water up the river from the Assiniboine, "and near the mouth of a small stream named by the Chippewas the Anepeminansepe, from a small red berry termed by them anepeminan, which name has been corrupted into Pembina. The theme of the word is anepin, meaning summer, and minan, meaning berry, while sepe means river or creek." The berry is identified as the high bush cran- berry ; scientific name, viburnum oxycocens. Many writers say that the discovery of the fact of their illegal location and the removal from Pembina to Fort Douglas occurred in 1820 or 1821; but Keating was there in August, 1823, and says that these events oc- curred the previous spring.
Describing the rivers and other natural features of the Polk County region, Prof. Keating writes :
"The Red Fork, which by the Indians is consid- ered the main branch of the Red River, takes its name from the Red Lake, in which it rises. Both are said to be translations of the term bloody, used by the In- dians, and which is doubtless derived from some slaughter committed in that vicinity, and not (as is the case with many other rivers which have the same appellation) from the color of their beds .*
"In times of flood the Red Fork is navigable for barges throughout its length to Red Lake, a distance of 120 miles; in ordinary stages of water, canoes can ascend to its source. This is the most important trib- utary of the Red River, containing an equal quan- tity of water with the main stream above the Grand Fork. Mr. [Thomas] Jeffries [of the Columbia Fur Company, and guide to the expedition] informed us that the Red Lake has, at the western part of the main lake, the form of a crescent, with its back to the southwest.
"The general course of the Red Fork from this lake is northwest. It receives a few small tributaries, the most important of which are the Clear River, enter- ing about 30 miles from its mouth, on the southwest side, and Thief River, entering it from the northeast. The woods along Red Fork are very thick and extend to about half a mile on either side. Hazelnuts were very abundant and nearly ripe at that time [ August 2].
"Below the junction of the Red Fork with the main stream, the Red River was observed to be about 40 yards wide and its current was about one knot an hour. The bed of Swamp or Marsh River was dry. At the confluence of the two branches of Two Rivers there is a considerable salt spring. There * * are doubtless in this country a great many salt springs, especially below the Red Fork; we saw none, but we were informed that fine springs exist on Big and Lit- tle Saline Rivers, on the Two Rivers, and in other places, where the salt is found in white efflorescences, so as to be annually collected there by the colonists of Pembina. And yet, notwithstanding its abundance in the country, and the ease with which it can be gath- ered, the price of this article is from $4 to $6 per bar- rel of 80 pounds. One of the residents on the river cleared $500 in one winter by the salt which he col- lected. Probably by boring to a small depth abun- dant springs would be found.'
Recent investigations show that salt exists in in- calculable quantities in Kittson, Marshall, and the northern part of Polk Counties, and at no very con- siderable depth from the surface. Time alone can de- termine whether or not this great resource will ever be developed.
COUNT BELTRAMI VISITS RED RIVER AND RED LAKE.
There accompanied Maj. Long's expedition from Fort Snelling (or Fort St. Anthony) to Pembina, an Italian gentleman named Giacomo Costantino Bel- trami. He had come to America on a journey of ad- venture under the patronage of an Italian countess; his elaborate published account of his "Pilgrimage in Europe and America," etc., is mainly a series of de- scriptive letters addressed to this lady. Anglicized, his name would be James Constantine Beltrami and on the title pages of his books it is given as J. C. Bel- trami.
The accomplished but eccentric Italian joined the Long expedition as a guest, but his relations with the
" But La France, the first visitor, says the lake was named for the color of the sands on its shores.
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COMPENDIUM OF IHISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
party were unpleasant almost from the start at Fort Snelling. When Pembina was reached, there was an open rupture and he left the party to complete his "pilgrimage" by himself and on his own account. Leaving Pembina (which he calls "Pembenar") Bel- trami set out, with two Chippewas and a half-breed interpreter, and traveled southeastwardly to the june- tion of the Thief and the Red Lake Rivers, and thence his journey was by canoes up the latter river to Red Lake. He calls the Thief River "the Robbers' River" and gives the name "Bloody River" to both the Red Lake and the Red Rivers. He considered the former the principal branch of the latter, which in one place (Pilgrimage, Vol. 2, p. 400) he mentions as "the Red River, or, more properly speaking, the Bloody River." But he does not eall Red Lake "the Bloody Lake."
After a number of perils and privations Count Beltrami finally reached Cass Lake and Leech Lake, and then went down the Mississippi in a canoe to Fort Snelling, and thenee to New Orleans, etc. En route, on Thief River, the Sioux fired on his party, severely wounding one of his Chippewas. The next day both Indians and the half-breed deserted him and took a short ronte to Red Lake. For four days the Count waded np Red Lake River, towing his canoe, in which was his baggage; once the canoe upset, throwing everything into the water. On the evening of the fourth day he met some Chippewas, and one of them assisted him in paddling his eanoe to Red Lake after two days of hard work. He skirted a great deal of the shores of the main Red Lake and finally made a portage from the south shore to waters which eventu- ally led him into Mud Lake, which he said the Indians called the "Puposky-Weza-Kanyaguen," or End of the Shaking Lands. The chief of the Red Lake Chip- pewas was called Big Rabbit, and on the north shore was another band of some 300 souls whose chief was the Big Elk.
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