USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 7
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THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT AND POLK COUNTY.
Reference has been made to the settlement by Scotch, Swiss, and French Canadian Colonists of the
district obtained in 1881 by Lord Selkirk from the Hudson's Bay Company and which was on the lower Red River. It was called generally the Selkirk Set- tlement, and sometimes referred to as the Red River Settlement. The first colonists came from Scotland in the fall of 1812 and located at the mouth of the Assiniboine, near the present site of Winnipeg.
The Selkirk Settlement is definitely and in some respects rather prominently connceted with the his- tory of Minnesota, and especially with that of the Red River Valley. The first permanent settlers and residents of the State, and of that part of the Valley within the State, were refugees and fugitives from the Selkirk Settlement, or Red River Colony. They had been driven out by grasshoppers, floods, drouths, and other calamitous visitations and they sought safety to the southward, where they believed conditions were better. By the year 1840 nearly 700 Red River ref- ugees had come to Fort Snelling and many of them had made permanent settlements about St. Paul and elsewhere in Minnesota. (Minn. in Three Cents., Vol. 2, p. 76.)
And so, too, regarding the first white settlers in the Polk County distriet of the Red River Valley. They too came from the Red River Settlement. Only a few of these were farmers, however. They were traders, but had eabins along the Red, and perhaps on the Red Lake River, and doubtless they cultivated gardens and small tracts of grain. There was also consid- erable corn raising in the country in early days, more perhaps, in proportion to other erops, than there is now. In 1826 the Chippewas of Red River were rais- ing plenty of eorn, potatoes, and turnips. In 1832, when Schoolcraft and Boutwell were on their famous expedition to Lake Itasca, they stopped, in the first week of July, at the trading post at Sandy Lake. In his journal (Minn. Hist. Socy. Coll., Vol. 1, p. 158) Boutwell writes :
Corn for this post is mostly obtained at Red Lake, from the Indians, who there cultivate it to a consid- erable extent. The trader tells me that he bought 105 hushels from that place this spring, and that it is not a rare matter to meet a squaw who has this quantity to sell.
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On page 168 (ibid.) Boutwell refers to corn raising by the Indians at the Red Cedar Lake and says: "They originally obtained the corn, which they have cultivated here for many years, from Red River."
The History of the Minnesota Agricultural Society (p. 11) says that at intervals between 1827 and 1838 the quartermasters at Fort Snelling bought corn from the northern Chippewas, and that in many instances the Indian women had carried the grain on their backs from their granaries to the shipping points on the upper Mississippi.
So that it is quite probable that the early settlers in the Polk County region raised corn, notwithstanding the difficulties of its cultivation, when it was subject to the injurious attacks of blackbirds, wild pigeons, and grasshoppers from its planting to its harvesting. The Selkirkers, in their settlement at Pembina, had these pests and other obstacles to contend against in their agricultural operations, and this was why so many of them left the country for the lower Minne- sota districts, and other more favored regions. Some of the Red River refugees went as far as to Indiana.
SELKIRK'S COLONISTS FIRST POLK COUNTY SETTLERS.
The fact is not generally remembered that many of the early members of Lord Selkirk's Colony settled in what is now Polk County prior to 1820, under the mistake that they were locating on British territory. They were quite excusable. They knew but very little about the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions, as established after the War of the Revolution by the treaty of Paris, in 1783. As has been previously stated, the charter given the Hudson's Bay Company by King Charles granted the Red River Valley to the company-at least as far south as to the Sioux Wood River. In 1811, when Lord Selkirk purchased the land for his colony from the company, the deed gave (in part) the boundaries of the grant as extending from the Assiniboine River "due south from that to the height of land which separates the waters which run into Hudson's Bay
from those of the Missouri and the Mississippi." (Ross's R. R. Settlement, p. 9.)
The "height of land" mentioned is equivalent to the watershed between Lake Traverse and the mouth of the Sioux Wood, in Traverse County, Minnesota, and Roberts County, South Dakota. This is more than 200 miles south of the 49th parallel, or the boundary line between Canada and the United States, and of course the Hudson's Bay Company had no right to dispose of any land on American soil or below the boundary. But it seems that neither Lord Selkirk nor any one else in that quarter of Canada knew (and perhaps did not care) anything about the interna- tional boundary.
Selkirk (or Lord Thomas Douglas) was apparently innocent. He had paid a good round sum for the land of his proposed colony and he was determined to have a perfect title to it. He recognized the title of the Cree and Chippewa Indians to the country and he was bound to extinguish it so that there should be no cloud upon his own. So, at "the Forks of Red River," July 18, 1817, he made a treaty with certain chiefs and warriors of the tribes mentioned by which they ceded to him their claim to the territory described as follows :
All that tract of land, adjacent to Red River and Assiniboine River, beginning at the mouth of the Red River and * extending along the same as far as the Great Forks, at the mouth of the Red Lake River, and along Assiniboine River as far as Muskrat River- otherwise called Riviere des Champignons, [the River of Mushrooms] and extending to the distance of six miles from Fort Douglas, [near Winnipeg] and like- wise from Fort Daer, [at Pembina] and * also from the Great Forks and certain other parts extending in breadth to the distance of two English statute miles back from the banks of the said rivers, on each side, together with all the appurtenances whatsoever of the said tract of land, to have and to hold," etc.
The consideration given the Indians was 200 pounds of tobacco, 100 pounds to each tribe, for the entire grant amounting to about 110,000 square miles. (Bryce's H. B. Co., p. 207; but his "Romantic Settle- ment of Selkirk's Colonists," p. 42, says 116,000
* The italicizing is by the compiler.
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
square miles.) What Selkirk paid the Hudson's Bay Company is not certainly known; it is stated at $50,000, $125,000, $500,000, ete .* The treaty was signed by Selkirk and by Chiefs the Sounder, Blaek Blanket, Big Ears, and Black Man, the first two of the Crees.
As stated, the land eeded extended two miles on either side of the Red River from its mouth practically to Lake Traverse. It particularly ineluded the eoun- try comprising the west two miles of Polk County. The Selkirk colonists eame to the Red River first in 1812, loeating near its mouth. Soon after, when the French Canadians had joined the Colony, many of them, Scotch and French, eame up the river and set- tled at various points. A good many were on the Red Lake River, "some leagues from the Great Forks." (Ross) John MeIntyre is recorded as dying at la Grande Fourche in 1817. The list of these set- tlers has been lost so far as the present writer knows. But former writers have established the facts of the settlement. In his official report of his expedition, Capt. John Pope states :
The settlements along the Red River of the North were made first about the year 1812 by a colony of Seoteh, English, and Canadian French, who were loeated upon a grant of land made by the Hudson's Bay Company to Lord Selkirk, t extending along both sides of the Red River to about the porallel of 47 de- grees north latitude. It was supposed at the time that the grant was contained in the possessions of the English, and t the settlements were therefore made near the mouth of Red Lake River, or what is now called "La Grande Fourche," on the "Great Fork of Red River."
Large numbers of Indians were soon attraeted to the settlements by the presence of so many strange people and the display of so many tempting artieles of traffie ; moreover many of the colony were at onee induced to take to themselves Indian wives, and in a few years the half bloods that resulted from these connections amounted to several thousands. It was not until about 1820 when it was aseertained that these settlements had been made within the territories of the United States. It then beeame necessary for the traders that had settled among the people, and who belonged to the English trading companies, to remove their stores to points within the British pos- sessions, and they foreed all the peoples who had by this time become dependent upon them for goods and supplies, to break up their settlements and remove to points lower down or north on the Red River. They now [1850] extend along both banks of the river from the northern frontier of the United States northward to the entrance of the river into Lake Winnipeg, in latitude 51 north. (See Pope's Report to Seey. of War, Senate Ex. Doc., p. 30, No. 42, in 31st Cong. 1st Session.)
A FEW OF THE FIRST WHITE RESIDENTS.
Not many names ean now be given of the Selkirk Colonists that settled on the Red River in or near what is now Polk County. Bryce's "History of Lord Sel- kirk's Colonists" (p. 167) mentions a French family that afterwards was in the Colony as having been at "the Forks of Red River" as early as in 1811. The name of this family was Lajimoniere. In 1815 the family had joined the main colony and Mr. Lajimon- iere distinguished himself by carrying a paeket of letters for Lord Selkirk from Red River to Montreal.
Another former member of the Selkirk Colony was Charles Bottineau (father of the noted mixed blood Pierre Bottinean, who was prominently identified with Minnesota history), who became a fur trader and lived for a considerable time near the present site of East Grand Forks. He had been a hunter for Alex- ander Henry, at Pembina, in 1803, later a partner with Charles Grant, at St. Joseph, and joined the Colony several years later. In 182-, he had "a hun- dred acres in erop." (N. D. Hist. Coll., Vol. 1, p. 304; Ross's Red River Valley, 176.) Some time after this he became a trader in the Grand Forks region. It is commonly stated that his noted son, Pierre, was
* Lord Selkirk died, broken in heart and fortune, in 1820, and in 1836 his heirs sold back to the Hudson's Bay Company the territory of his Colony for 84,111 English pounds sterling, or about $408,000. (See Justin Winsors Crit. Hist. of Amer., Vol. 8, p. 61.) His was a noble character. He was a real phil- anthropist and the most generous and disinterested man in the history of American colonization, but died a victim to the predatory selfishness of other men, that were his business rivals. It is not well known that in 1818 he went by land from Pem- bina to the mouth of the St. Peters (now the site of Mendota and Fort Snelling), and thence by river to St. Louis, Cairo, Louisville, Pittsburg, and thence overland to New York, where he took ship for Europe. He never saw America afterward. t The italicizing is by the compiler.
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
born in the Red River Settlement, in Manitoba; but surviving members of his family state that the historic old guide, scout, pioneer, town builder, etc., was born, in 1810, at the trading post of his father, at Bear Point, on Turtle River, 12 miles northwest of Grand Forks, and in North Dakota. His last years were spent on the Red Lake River, and he died at Red Lake Falls in July, 1895.
Donald McKay and Alexander McBetli, both Scotch- men, were two other Selkirkers who engaged in trade in 1821 at "the Great Forks" and on the "Red Fork."
Joseph LaBissoniere was a French Canadian with a half-blood Chippewa wife, who left the Selkirk Col-
ony and about 1830, was a trader on the lower Red Lake River. Prior to that time he had been a North- west Company trader at "La Grande Fourche," or the Great Fork, and had also been on Turtle River, a few miles to the westward. His son, Isaac LaBisson- iere, was born at his father's post in North Dakota in 1823, and died in St. Paul, in June, 1910. The fam- ily removed to St. Paul in 1837 and Joseph and Isaac helped build the little log Catholic church at St. Paul in 1841. The church was called St. Paul's and the city took its name from it. This was the first Chris- tion Church building erected in Minnesota.
CHAPTER VI. CHIEF IIISTORIC FEATURES OF EARLY TIMES.
THE OLD RED RIVER CARTS AND THEIR TRAILS-NORMAN KITTSON'S FIRST TRAIL ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE RED RIVER THROUGH POLK COUNTY-ITS HISTORY AND LOCATION, AS MAPPED BY CAPT. POPE AND DESCRIBED BY OTHERS WHO TRAVELED THE ROUTE-IT CROSSED THE RED LAKE RIVER WEST OF FISHER-WAS THE TREATY OF 1863 HELD AT THE PROPER CROSSING ?- THE GOVERNMENT EXPEDITION UNDER MAJOR WOODS AND CAPTAIN POPE TO PEMBINA IN 1849-IT FOLLOWED THE OLD KITTSON TRAIL AND CROSSED THE RED LAKE RIVER AT THE OLD CROSSING, WEST OF FISHER-THEY DESCRIBED THE COUNTRY NOW THE WEST SIDE OF POLK COUNTY AS GOOD FOR WIIEAT BUT NOT PROMISING FOR CORN-THIE TREATIES WHICH BOUGHIT THE LAND FROM THE IN- DIANS-THIE "OLD CROSSING" TREATY HELD AT THE NEW CROSSING OF RED LAKE RIVER.
THE RED RIVER CARTS AND THEIR OVERLAND COMMERCE.
Reference has been made to the passage, in former times, through what is now Polk County, of trains of two-wheeled vehicles called the Red River carts. These carts were originally built wholly of wood and raw- hide, not a particle of metal being used in their con- struction. The wheels were large and clumsy, being sometimes five feet in diameter and three inches thick. The felloes were fastened together by tongues of wood, and pressure in the revolutions of the wheel assisted in keeping them from falling apart. The hubs were thick and strong, the axles were all wood, and even the linch-pins were wooden. A light box frame, tightened by wooden pegs, was fastened, also by pegs, to and poised upon the axle. The common price of such a cart was, in Manitoba, two pounds; in Minnesota, ten dollars.
Each cart was generally drawn by a single ox, and sometimes by a tough, strong Indian pony, or "ca- ynse." The animal was hitched between shafts, and its harness was made of roughly tanned ox hide or buffalo hide. This leather was called by the Red River Metis, or mixed bloods, "shagganappi," and the horse that drew the cart was called a "shagga-
nappi pony." A loaded cart generally contained about 500 pounds weight. A good pony could often draw such a load 50 miles a day, but a slow, plod- ding ox could not compass more than 20 miles in that time. The axles of the cart were not greased or lubri- cated in any way, and the wheels turned with a dread- ful squeaking and screeching which could be heard on the open prairie for more than a mile.
The carts generally moved in trains. Ten carts con- stituted a "brigade," in charge of three men. Five or six or more brigades made up a train, which was in charge of a guide or leader, who assumed much an- thority. He was on horseback, rode backward and for- ward along the line, yelling at the drivers and those in charge of the extra oxen or ponies, and marshaling his forces in pomp, flourish, and style. He had to be an intelligent man, for the stopping places for the night, where there were plenty of grass and water; the time of halting and starting; the disciplining of the crews, and all the other details of the successful management of a considerable caravan were all under his charge and responsibility. The history of these Red River cart trains which often might be likened to ancient Midianitish caravans, may be briefly sketched.
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIY OF POLK COUNTY
Prior to 1844 the import of goods to and the export of furs from the Red River Colony and the trading posts in that quarter were made through the circuit- ous, difficult, and uncertain Hudson's Bay route. This route was open and navigable practically only two months in the year and was beset with difficul- ties at all times. In 1843 Norman W. Kittson (for whom both Norman and Kittson Counties were named) established a trading post of the American Fur Company at Pembina. The first season he se- cured about $2,000 worth of furs and buffalo robes, but there was the greatest difficulties in the way of sending them to market. He had to deliver them at Mendota (Fort Snelling), the headquarters of the Minnesota division of the Company, and formerly the way of transporting furs from the upper Red River posts to the "factory" at Mendota was up the Red to and through Lake Traverse, then by portage to Big Stone Lake, and thence down the Minnesota. But this method of transportation involved much hard work and its success depended largely upon the proper stage of water in the rivers.
After due deliberation Kittson procured six of the rude carts which have been referred to, loaded his furs, and in the spring of 1844, set out for Mendota, which he reached after a toilsome and expensive jour- ney. Presumably he had six or eight men with him. The route he followed was that which had been taken by the Red River refugees when they had left the Selkirk Settlement for Fort Snelling; it ran along the west side of the Red River to Lake Traverse, then crossed into what is now Minnesota, thence ran to Traverse des Sioux, near St. Peter, and on down the Minnesota Valley to Mendota, or what was then com- monly called the St. Peter's.
THE OLD RED RIVER CART TRAIL.
Mr. Kittson's first ventures in cart transportation were failures. On the first trip he lost $600; and on his journeys the two following years he laeked over $1,000 in coming out even. But he was of stubborn Seotch courage and believed in his scheme and fol-
lowed it up and in time a great success crowned his efforts. He soon realized that he had made mistakes and he corrected them. First, he changed his route. He crossed the Red River near Pembina and went down the east side of the river to near the mouth of the Otter Tail; then he struck across by way of Otter Tail Lake to Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi, near St. Cloud, and then it was an easy march down to Fort Snelling and Mendota. His earts, too, brought baek goods and supplies for the use of his patrons and for the people of Pembina generally. The trail from Pembina down to the Otter Tail was always a few miles east of the river.
The new route crossed the Red Lake River near and west of Fisher. This passage way was long known as "the Old Crossing of the Red Lake River." It erossed Sand Hill River near Beltrami. It passed through the western part of Polk County from north to south a distance of about 50 miles. This was called the "western route," to distinguish it from others. It was also called the Kittson Trail, the Half Breed Trail, and the Crow Wing Trail. One reason for its selec- tion by Mr. Kittson, in addition to the fact that it was most direct, was that it avoided the route by Big Stone Lake and Traverse des Sioux, the country of the Sioux Indians, who were in a chronic state of deadly hos- tility against the Chippewas, including Kittson's mixed-blood cart drivers. The latter were whole- somely in fear of their old enemies and struck against being employed among them. In time the upper Red River traders, who did business with the Sioux sent their trains down the Minnesota Valley and brought back goods and supplies.
This route was selected by Wm. Hallett, a noted scout and trader of the region acting for Mr. Kitt- son. For a long time it served its purpose well. Maj. Woods and Lieut. Castor, with the dragoons of Capt. Pope's party, came over it in August and September, 1850. Capt. Pope shows it on his map accompanying his official report, and the map shows where Maj. Woods and the dragoons encamped every night. It crossed the Red Lake River apparently seven miles
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
from the mouth. The map also shows the trail on the Dakota side which the party followed in going up, but lays down no other trails in the lower Red River than it and the one mentioned as on the east side. The latter is labeled by Capt. Pope as "the Half Breed Trail." In his report Major Woods says as to the route he and the dragoons followed on the return from Pembina :
The route we followed is well known and traveled every summer by large "trains" of earts from the Red River settlements. *
* * We left Pembina on the afternoon of the 26th of August on our return, and had for about 15 miles the same difficulties to con- tend with that we encountered going out; but at this point the prairie began to improve. There had evi- dently not been so much rain as at Pembina, and 25 or 30 miles farther on the roads became good and we traveled without any serious interruptions, averaging more than twenty miles a day until we reached Fort Snelling the 18th of September, 1849. We made the distance from Pembina to Fort Snelling, coming down, 471 measured miles, in 231/2 days. We were 57 days going up. (Wood's Report, p. 21; Exee. Doc. No. 51, 31st Cong., 1st Sess.)
We have other evidence that the old Kittsou Trail was identical with the "western trail," the "old Crow Wing Trail," and the "Half Breed Trail" mapped by Capt. Pope. In 1859 the late Capt. Rus- sell Blakeley and others, who were engaged in open- ing the Red River to commerce, went from George- town by way of this trail to Pembina. In Vol. 8 of the Minn. Hist. Soey. Collections, p. 55, Capt. Blake- ley says :
* * We resumed our journey hy way of the old Kittson trail, the location of which can be found on the map of Capt. John Pope, in his report of the topographical survey of the Territory, in 1849.
Other early and reliable authorities confirm the statement of Capt. Blakeley, that the line marked by Capt. Pope as the "Half Breed Trail," and which ran only a few miles east of Red River, was identical with the old "Kittson Trail," opened by Wm. Hallett in 1844. But this trail was at least partially aban- doned in about 1858 (or perhaps in 1860) and wholly disused after the Civil war.
When it was first followed, it was used only in the early spring, in August, and in the late fall. At sueh times the ground was frozen in the spring and fall and dry in the late summer, and could be easily traversed ; at other times the muddy and swampy conditions of the Red River bottoms rendered this route impassable. In April, before the ground had thawed, the earts eame down with the furs of the winter's hunt, and soon returned with supplies. In the late fall they eame down en route to St. Paul for the trader's win- ter supplies. Maj. Woods and his dragoons eame down late in August and the first part of September, when the rains were over, and the major says that 15 miles from Pembina the road was good. He had sev- eral wagons, in which his provisions and baggage were transported, and they were easily hauled along.
Manton Marble, a noted Ameriean journalist, for a long time editor of the New York World, made with a party, a tour of Minnesota and the northern part of North Dakota in the summer and early fall of 1858. He went down the river from Georgetown to Pembina on the west or Dakota side, but returned via the old Kittson (or Pope) trail, on the Minnesota. Appar- ently he crossed the Red Lake River near where Fisher now is. In the February, 1861, number of Harper's Magazine he presents a deseriptive illustrated sketeh of the crossing of the little river by his party ; he both wrote and illustrated the article, for he was a good artist and an aecomplished penman. He made a fine sketeh of where his party erossed the Red Lake, and this sketeh elearly shows a scene resembling the topography near Fisher, with no boulders or other features such as are seen near Huot, but with heavy timber, high banks, ete. In deseribing the situation, Mr. Marble wrote :
Red Lake River is the largest of the tributaries of the Red River, excepting only the Assiniboine. * * It is itself the main stream. We came to its banks one afternoon at the spot figured in the sketch here given, dined, and then attempted the passage. The water was high and the river wide. By wading it on horseback, we soon found the easiest spot to eross. It was necessary to enter the stream from a projeeting spot of land, make head against its eur-
THE OLD CROSSING OF RED LAKE RIVER, NEAR FISHER, IN 1858 From a sketch made by Manton Marble in the summer of 1858 and printed in Harper's Magazine for January, 1861.
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
rent for a few rods, then turn where the deep chan- nel was narrowest, wade through it, and keep on a long shallow bar to the opposite shore. The force of the current in the deepest part was more than any but a strong man could stand against; and, to wade, even over the shallow bar, was like forcing one's legs through dry sand.
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