USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 8
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The party had great trouble in getting their cart, with the provisions and baggage on it, across the stream. The water was too deep to haul the stuff in the cart, and so the latter was floated across and the provisions and baggage carried over on the men's shoulders. This was on September 23 (1858), when the trail was dry but the Red Lake River was at a good stage where the crossing was made. Apparently, under the conditions stated, this erossing was near Fisher .*
In the early years of the decade of 1850-say, in about 1855-the Red River cart trade had increased to such proportions that trips had to be made at all seasons of the year, except in very cold weather. The old Kittson trail, on the east side of and only a few miles from the Red River, was practically im- passable during many months, by reason of watery, muddy, and swampy condition. At the breaking up of the river in the spring it overflowed its banks and sometimes its swollen current was more than a mile wide. On such occasions several weeks of clear and warm weather were required for the waters to sub- side and the mud to dry so that the carts could pass down the valley.
Supplies were demanded by the traders at all sea- sons, and in almost every month, and Kittson and his chief lieutenant, Joe Rolette, were forced to procure them from Fort Snelling and St. Paul, the headquar-
ters of the Chouteau Company with which they were allied. A new route for the cart trains which should be traversable at almost any time of the year was demanded-and secured. Just who established it, or first passed over it, cannot now be stated. Nor can it be said with certainty when it was established. But upon its definite location it ran eastward for some distance until it crossed the valley and then went up on the permanent dry land and then went soutlı- ward until after it had crossed the Red Lake, the Sand Ilill, and other rivers to Detroit Lake, etc. Lieutenant Governor John Schultz, of Manitoba, went over this trail in 1860, and (in his pamphlet on "the Crow Wing Trail," in the Collections of the Manitoba His- torical Society for 1904) he says that it "went from Pembina aeross to the country eastward." He de- seribes this country as "of fine gravel ridges, running north and south, with willow and balsam poplar trees." It was said to extend from Snake to Sand Hill River, when another sort of country was entered upon. It then went successively to Detroit, Rush, and Otter Tail Lakes, thence eastward, along the Leaf River, to the Crow Wing River, and thence down the latter to Crow Wing.
This new route could not have been the "old" Crow Wing Trail, except in part. There seems to have been no map made of it until in 1865. It was called the "Crow Wing Trail," but not the "Old" trail of that name for many years afterward. It was called, at least in later years, by Polk County people the "Pembina Trail." It crossed the Red Lake River near where is now situated the village of Hnot, in the southwest corner of Red Lake County, whereas the "old" trail crossed near the site of Fisher. From the upper or Huot crossing, the new trail passed through the central part of Polk County southward about 26 miles, and is now part of a judicial highway. It crossed the Sand Hill River near Fertile, while the old trail erossed near the site of Beltrami.
In addition to the two trails here mentioned, Gov- ernor Schultz, in the pamphlet heretofore mentioned. says that in 1860, when he explored the country, there
" Too late for inserting in the proper place, Hon. Win. Watts writes to the compiler: "There was an old trail that erossed Red Lake River about a mile west of Fisher; but in the seventies, when settlers first eame this way, the survivors said that this trail did not seem to have been much traveled. In this respect, they said, it was in very marked contrast to what was known as the Pembina Trail, which crossed Red Lake River near Huot." Of course, as the trail had been abandoned for at least ten years and had never been graded or otherwise improved, it soon fell into deeay and obliteration, and to the settlers from 1878 to 1880 did present the appearance of infre- quent use .- Compiler.
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were three others in this region, viz. : (1) The military, stage, and early Red River steamboat route, from St. Paul to Breckenridge and Georgetown, and then down the Red River to Fort Garry. (2) The Breek- enridge Flats route, which skirted the west bank of the Red River from Pembina to the junction of the Sioux Wood and the Red, erossing the latter either at Georgetown or Fort Abererombie (McCauleyville), and then across the Breckenridge Flats to Otter Tail Ford, and entered the rolling, lake-dotted country in- tervening between that ford and St. Cloud. (3) The mail-carriers, dog-train route, used only during the winter months. It crossed the Red River at Pembina, passed on to Red Lake, which it erossed on the iee; then from this big lake it went south, over the ice of many other lakes, to and aeross Leeeh Lake; then, by way of sundry other lakes, all of which were erossed on the iee, to Crow Wing; thence down the Missis- sippi to Fort Ripley, Sank Rapids, and St. Anthony to St. Paul. Of the "old" Crow Wing trail, Gov. Schultz says :
It was opened in 1844 by Wm. Hallett for the trader, Norman Kittson, whose trains having been attacked by the Sioux when on their way to St. Paul via Lake Traverse and Traverse des Sioux, sought safety by thereafter taking the new route. Many miles of this trail had to be eut through the Big Woods country.
As stated, in 1844, when the first eart train was composed of six earts, it carried $2,000 worth of furs. In 1850 the carts brought down to St. Paul $15,000 worth and carried back $10,000 worth of goods. In 1851 there eame to St. Paul 102 earts, but in 1857 there eame about 500. In 1858 there were 612 and nearly all were from the Red River Valley. When St. Paul was laid out, in 1849, the destination of the earts and their loads was changed from Men- dota to St. Paul, which had been made the capital of the new Minnesota Territory, and then had stores and shops and a big warehouse built by the Fur Com- pany, which then belonged to Pierre Chouteau, Jr., & Company, of St. Louis. In 1859 the steamer Anson Northup was running on the Red River between
Georgetown and Fort Garry and it carried tons of furs for the Red River traders as far as to its southern terminus. Not all of the Polk County traders patron- ized the eart lines, for some of them were in the Hud- son's Bay Company's service and were forced to ship their furs to the markets of the world by the way of Hudson's Bay.
In 1858 the value of furs received at St. Paul from all sourees was $161,022, but in 1863, when the Sioux in Dakota were hostile, the value increased to $250,- 000 and half of the amount received came from the Red River Valley. (See Williams' Hist. of St. Paul, pp. 304 et seq.) The trade was of great advantage to St. Paul. Nearly all of the money paid for the furs on their arrival in St. Paul would be spent in the town, and the supply of circulating medium would be, at least for a time, abundant and of great value. And there was a valuable feature about this medium. The Red River men sold and bought for eoin only, gold and silver, nearly all of American coinage, with occasionally English sovereigns which were in demand on Red River.
It is much to be regretted that we cannot now pre- sent the names of the traders then living in what is now Polk County that were interested in the Red River eart trains. One fact may be derived from this circumstance-they did not grow rich from the trade or famous in any way. There is a great deal of misinformation extant concerning the profits made by the Minnesota fur traders from their transactions. It has been often asserted that they swindled the "poor Indians" shamefully out of their skins and pelts and made enormous profits. And yet only three or four of the old Minnesota traders grew wealthy. We well know who these men were. Norman W. Kitt- son was one, Henry M. Rice, Gov. H. H. Sibley, and Louis Robert were the others that made respectable aeeumulations. Yet these men made but very little comparatively out of the fur business. By far the greater part of their holdings came from their profits in real estate transactions. They bought Minnesota
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
lands when they were cheap and afterwards sold them at handsome profits.
MAJOR WOOD'S AND CAPTAIN JOHN POPE'S EXPEDITION TO PEMBINA IN 1849.
In the summer of 1849 an expedition, half military and half investigatory, went from Fort Snelling to Pembina, made a thorough examination and a report thereon upon the intervening country, and gave to the world much information. The expedition was composed of about 50 men, nearly all in the military service. The commander was Major Samuel Woods, of the Sixth U. S. Infantry (from Fort Snelling), and under him were Second Lieut. A. D. Nelson, who was the expedition's quartermaster and commissary ; Brevet-Capt. John Pope, of the U. S. Topographieal Engineers, who had been directed to make a thorough survey of the country, and Lieutenants J. W. T. Gardi- ner and T. F. Castor, who were in direet command of 40 men of Company D of the First Regiment of the U. S. Dragoons, acting as escort. There were also Dr. Craig, a surgeon, and Basil Beaulieu, the guide, with some other civilians connected with the ex- pedition.
The chief object of the expedition was to select the site for two or more forts, to be built so as best to protect the country from the Hudson's Bay Com- pany's traders (who were coming upon Minnesota Territory and appropriating the fur trade, mainly by selling and giving whiskey to the Indians), and to put a stop to the bad practices of Hudson's Bay em- ployes, who were wont to raid upon northern Min- nesota and North Dakota soil and kill off the buf- faloes by thousands.
The expedition took what was ealled "the middle route to Red River," and which left the Mississippi at Sauk Rapids, 76 miles above the month of the Min- nesota, and intersected the Red River near its most southern point, at the mouth of the Bois des Sioux, or Sioux Wood River. It erossed the Red about ten miles north of the Sioux Wood and then pursued a route down and parallel with the river, on the
Dakota or west side, to Pembina. Returning Capt. Pope and a small party came in canoes up the Red River from Pembina to the Otter Tail River, thence up that river to Otter Tail Lake, then through that and other lakes and streams and by a portage to the Crow Wing River, down it to the Mississippi, and thence to St. Anthony's Falls and Fort Snelling.
Going up, the party left Sauk Rapids June 16 and arrived at Pembina August 1. The trip was without special ineident save that the mosquitoes were extra- ordinarily voracious and annoying, that numerous severe electrical storms were encountered, especially at Lightning Lake, and that travel was toilsome. At the Rabbit River the party met 25 Red River carts from Pembina, in charge of a member of the Selkirk Colony, laden with furs and pemmican, and on the way to the market at "St. Paul's," as the place was then called. Ten miles further north they met 65 more carts, similarly laden and with the same desti- nation and in charge of Norman W. Kittson, the trader at Pembina, and to whom all the furs men- tioned belonged.
On the return trip Maj. Woods and Lieut. Castor, with the dragoons, passed through what is now Polk County from north to south. In his report Maj. Woods describes the country north and south of the Red Lake River as "naturally fine and fertile" and adapted to agricultural purposes, although perhaps "too far north for corn of the present varieties." Capt. Pope stopped at the mouth of the Red Lake River and computed the latitude to be 47 degrees, 48 minutes, and 8 seconds north. He too was of opinion, "that the climate of the Valley of the Red River would be too severe and the seasons too short for the successful cultivation of corn, but all other grains would be produced most abundantly." The Captain further said that the only valid objection to the Val- ley as a wheat country was its distance from mar- ket; but, to remove this obstacle, he recommended that Congress make grants of land in aid of the con- struction of railroads from the head of navigation on the Red River eastward to Lake Superior and
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from the same head "to the Mississippi below the Falls of St. Anthony." He referred to the extensive wild rice fields in the Red Lake River region, and thought that large quantities of rice and maple sugar produced here might profitably be sent to market over these roads when they should be constructed.
At the time of Maj. Wood's and Capt. Pope's ex- pedition the Territory of Minnesota had been re- eently organized. It embraced all the country lying to the north and west of Iowa and Wisconsin, eon- taining about 160,000 square miles. Capt. Pope noted that of this great expanse, the country lying west of the valleys of the St. Peter's (Minnesota) and the Red River, "is still unexplored." The two officers reported that the head of navigation of the Red River was in the vicinity of the mouth of the Sionx Wood River. At the latter point they recom- mended the establishment of a military post; but when Fort Abercrombie was built, some nine years later, it was established several miles to the north- ward, on the Dakota side, nearly opposite MeCauley- ville. They also recommended that a post be estab- lished at Pembina and this was afterward done.
During the Civil War, Capt. John Pope became a major general in the Union Army; but after his dis- astrous defeat at Second Bull Run he was sent to the Northwest to condnet the military operations against the Sioux Indians during the great outbreak of 1862.
HOW POLK COUNTY WAS OBTAINED FROM THE INDIANS.
The region in which Polk County is situated was, upon the advent of civilization in this quarter, and for a long time thereafter, eoneeded to belong to the Chippewa (or Ojibway) tribe of Indians. The Polk County country was obtained by treaties made with them at different times by the United States author- ities.
The first treaty for the eession of the country was made by the old Pillager Band of Chippewas with Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey, who was accompanied by ten other civilians, at Pembina, in
the early autumn of 1851. Gov. Ramsey and party, with a military escort of 25 dragoons from Fort Snelling, left St. Paul August 18 and returned October 28. By this Pembina treaty the Chippewas ceded to the United States a traet on the lower Red River 150 miles in length by 65 miles in width, and which was fairly divided from north to south by that river. The northern boundary of the cession was the 49th parallel of latitude and the southern boundary was Goose River on the west side and Buffalo River on the east side of the Red River. The Government was to pay the Indians $30,000 cash in hand, and $10,000 a year for twenty years as the purchase price. But the U. S. Senate refused to confirm this treaty and therefore it never went into effect, to the great disappointment of both the Pembina settlers and the Pillager Chippewas. (Minn. in Three Cents. Vol. 2, p. 325.)
THE TREATY OF "THE OLD CROSSING OF THE RED LAKE RIVER."
Not until in 1863 did Congress order another treaty with the northwestern Minnesota Chippewas. This treaty was ordered held "at the old erossing of the Red Lake River." The probabilities all are that Congress meant the site of the treaty to be the cross- ing of the old Kittson Trail, the trail mapped by Capt. Pope, since that was the first Red River eart trail, the old trail of 1844. This erossing was near the present site of Fisher, perhaps a little to the west- ward. There being in 1863 two erossings of the Red Lake River, Congress . particularly designated the "old" erossing as the couneil ground.
Yet the treaty was not held at the "old" erossing, but at the crossing of the new trail, up near the site of Huot, in Red Lake County. At the time that was the crossing best known, and probably this was the reason for its use. June 8, 1914, the people of the country celebrated the event by a large meeting at which appropriate exercises were held and an endur- ing monument placed in position. There is no ques- tion that this is the place where the treaty was held,
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
since it must be presumed that the participants in the celebration knew the facts and what they were doing. A soldier, Benjamin Dolbee, of the Mounted Rangers, who was present at the treaty was also pres- ent at the celebration. The preamble to the treaty says it was made at the "old crossing," but it eer- tainly seems that this is a mistake.
At all events, on October 2, 1863, while war with the Sioux to the westward was yet being waged, the treaty was concluded. The Government commission- ers were the then Senator Alexander Ramsey and Ashley C. Morrill, representing the Government, and the Chiefs and lead men of the Pembina and Red Lake bands of Chippewas for the ecssion of a large tract of country containing Polk County. The boundaries of the country so acquired were these :
Commencing at the intersection of the international boundary with the Lake of the Woods; thence, in a southwesterly direction, to the head of Thief River; thence down Thief River to its mouth; thence south- easterly, in a direct line, toward the head of Wild Rice River to the boundary of a former cession (1855) by certain bands of Chippewas; thenee along the boundary of said cession of 1855 to the mouth of the Wild Rice; thence up the channel of the Red River to the mouth of the Sheyenne; thence up the Shey- enne to Stump Lake ["Place of Stumps," otherwise called Lake Chicot], near the eastern extremity of Devil's Lake; thence north to the international bound- ary and thence eastward to the place of beginning.
Thus the territory acquired embraced practically all of the Red River Valley in Minnesota and Dakota, except a small portion previously ceded, and was estimated to contain 11,000,000 acres. The treaty, with certain amendments, was ratified by the Senate March 1, 1864, the Indians assented to the amend- ments in April following, and President Lincoln con- firmed it May 5.
As finally confirmed, the treaty provided that the Indians should receive for their lands ceded as above $10,000 annually to the Red Lake band and $5,000 to the Pembina band, to be distributed equally per
capita among the members of the band. The Govern- ment also agreed to expend annually, for fifteen years $8,000 for the Red Lake band and $4,000 for the Pembina band in the purchase of fishnet twine, dress goods, blankets, provisions, farming tools, etc. The Government also agreed to furnish each band for fifteen years with a blacksmith, a physician, a miller, and a farmer, as also $1,500 worth of steel and iron and other articles for blacksmithing purposes and $1,000 for carpentering.
The treaty made by Ramsey and Morrill, at the "Old Crossing of the Red Lake River," in 1863, pro- vided that the Chippewa contracting parties should "not be held liable to punishment for past offenses." This elause referred to an incident which occurred at the "Old Crossing" of the Red Lake River the previous year, and which may here be described.
The treaty of 1863 with the Chippewas was origi- nally ordered and planned to be held in August, 1862. In his report of Indian affairs in Minnesota for that year Superintendent Clark W. Thompson, says that the Chippewas of Red Lake and Pembina were noti- fied to "collect at the mouth of the Red Lake River (italics compiler's), on the 25th of August, 1862." There they were to meet the commissioners appointed by the Government for their lands and the right of navigation of the Red River of the North. "The In- dians assembled at or near the point designated" (italies compiler's), says Superintendent Thompson, "but the Commissioners were unable to meet them." They had started up from St. Paul and reached St. Cloud on the 19th of August, and the next day re- ceived the news of the great Sioux uprising of that season, and also learned that Chief Hole-in-the-Day and some other Chippewas were acting menacingly and threateningly. The commissioners therefore feared to go farther up into the Indian country at the time, and turned back to St. Paul.
The Indians waited until they had consumed all the provisions they had with them, and all they could pro- cure in the vicinity. Mr. Kittson was then passing through towards Pembina with about $25,000 worth
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
of goods, a portion of which belonged to British sub- jeets, agents of the Hudson's Bay Company. Some of the goods consisted of flour, canned goods, ete., and the hungry Indians at onee seized them and every- thing else eatable, and finally took of the stores any- thing and everything they wanted. They said to Kitt- son that they knew he was their friend, but that for a long time he and other traders had traveled through the Indian country without paying anything for the privilege and they were determined that the white men should no longer use their trails as thoroughfares, unless the owners of the country, the Chippewa In- dians, should be paid for the trespass. They said they would take and use the goods before them as a part payment for what was due them. They finally prom- ised that if the United States would make a treaty with them, either that or the following year, they would consent to pay for them out of any sum prom- ised them in the treaty for their lands. This promise they kept when the treaty was made.
The "Old Crossing" treaty provided that $100,000 should be appropriated to the Indians to "make eom- pensation to said injured parties [the traders that owned the seized goods] for the depredations com- mitted upon them." Some of the goods, while they were transported by Kittson's carts, really belonged to Hudson's Bay traders about Pembina.
A subsequent treaty, made at Washington in April, 1864, by Clark W. Thompson and Ashley C. Morrill, as representatives of the Government, and the chiefs, head men, and principal warriors of the Red Lake and Pembina bands of Chippewas, amended the pro- vision in the "Old Crossing" treaty above quoted. The amendment provided that $25,000 of the $100,000 mentioned in the first treaty should be paid to the chiefs of the bands to enable them to purchase pro- visions and clothing to be used as "presents to their people upon their return to their homes." Of this $25,000 there was to be $5,000 expended for the ben- efit of the head chief, May-dwa-gwa-no-nind. From the $75,000 remaining, the injured traders and the steamboat people were to be paid, and then if any
further sum remained it was to be paid for the debts of the Indians which had accrued since January 1, 1859.
Serip for 160 acres of the land ceded by the treaty was, by the Old Crossing treaty, to be issued to every mixed blood of the bands "who has adopted the habits and eustoms of civilized life and is a citizen of the United States;" but this restriction as to eiti- zenship, ete., was stricken out by the Washington treaty, so that any mixed blood, whether civilized or not, was entitled to scrip for 160 acres of the ceded land as a homestead; but if they accepted the serip and located it, then it was to be "accepted by said mixed bloods in lieu of all future claims for annui- ties. "
There was to be set apart from the tract ceded a reservation of 640 aeres near the mouth of the Thief River for Moose Dung, a chief of the Red Lakers, and a like reservation of 640 aeres on the north side of the Pembina River, for Red Bear, a chief of the Pembina band. In recent years an extensive saw- mill was built on the Moose Dung tract and there was much litigation connected with the acquirement of the site. Article 6 of the "Old Crossing" treaty reads :
The laws of the United States now in force, or that may hereafter be enacted, prohibiting the intro- duetion and sale of spirituous liquors in the Indian country, shall be in full foree and effeet throughout the country hereby ceded, until otherwise directed by Congress or the President of the United States.
This provision was not disturbed by the Washing- ton treaty made by Thompson and Morrill, and pro- hibitionists have elaimed that under it no liquors ean be sold on the great expanse of country mentioned in the treaty. It will be noted, however, that the temperanee provision quoted makes no reference what- ever to beer or any other malt liquors, nor to wines.
Clark W. Thompson, who signed the treaty at Washington, was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northwest. For a number of years he lived at Wells, in Faribault County, and was prominent in Minnesota affairs.
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