USA > Minnesota > Concise history of the state of Minnesota > Part 11
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The fourth Legislative Assembly convened on the fifth of January, 1853, in the two story brick edifice at the corner of Third and Minnesota streets. The Council chose Martin McLeod as presiding officer, and the House Dr. David Day, Speaker. Governor Ramsey's message was an interesting document.
The Baldwin school, now known as Macalester College, was incorporated at this session of the legislature, and was opened the following June.
On the ninth of April, a party of Ojibways killed a Dakotah, at the village of Shokpay. A war party, from Kaposia, then proceeded up the valley of the St. Croix, and killed an Ojibway. On the morning of the twenty- seventh, a band of Ojibway warriors, naked, decked, and fiercely gesticulating, might have been seen in the busi- est street of the capital, in search of their enemies. Just at that time a small party of women, and one man, who had lost a leg in the battle of Stillwater, arrived in a canoe from Kaposia, at the Jackson street landing. Per- ceiving the Ojibways, they retreated to the building then known as the "Pioneer" office, and the Ojibways dis- charging a volley through the windows, wounded a Da- kotah woman who soon died. For a short time, the infant capital presented a sight similar to that witnessed
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
in ancient days in Hadley or Deerfield, the then frontier towns of Massachusetts. Messengers were despatched to Fort Snelling for the dragoons, and a party of citizens mounted on horseback, were quickly in pursuit of those who with so much boldness had sought the streets of St. Paul, as a place to avenge their wrongs. The dragoons soon followed, with Indian guides scenting the track of the Ojibways like bloodhounds. The next day they dis- covered the transgressors, near the Falls of St. Croix. The Ojibways manifesting what was supposed to be an insolent spirit, the order was given by the lieutenant in command, to fire, and he whose scalp was afterwards daguerreotyped, and which was engraved for Graham's Magazine, wallowed in gore.
During the summer, the passenger, as he stood on the hurricane deck of any of the steamboats, might have seen, on a scaffold on the bluffs in the rear of Kaposia, a square box covered with a coarsely fringed red cloth. Above it was suspended a piece of the Ojibway's scalp, whose death had caused the affray in the streets of St. Paul. Within, was the body of the woman who had been shot in the "Pioneer" building, while seeking refuge. A scalp suspended over the corpse is supposed to be a consolation to the soul, and a great protection in the journey to the spirit land.
On the accession of Pierce to the Presidency of the United States, the officers appointed under the Taylor and Fillmore administrations were removed, and the following gentlemen substituted. Governor, W. A. Gor- man of Indiana; Secretary, J. T. Rosser, of Virginia; Chief Justice, W. H. Welch, of Minnesota; Associates, Moses Sherburne, of Maine, and A. G. Chatfield, of Wisconsin. One of the first official acts of the second
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H. M. RICE DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
Governor, was the making of a treaty with the Winnebago Indians at Watab, Benton county, for an exchange of country.
On the twenty-ninth of June, D. A. Robertson, who by his enthusiasm and earnest advocacy of its princi- ples had done much to organize the Democratic party of Minnesota, retired from the editorial chair and was suc- ceeded by David Olmsted.
At the election held in October, Henry M. Rice and Alexander Wilkin were candidates for delegate to Con- gress. The former was elected by a decisive majority.
The fifth session of the legislature was commenced in the building just completed as the Capitol, on Janua- ry fourth, IS54. The President of the Council was S. B. Olinstead, and the Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives was N. C. D. Taylor.
Governor Gorman delivered his first annual message on the tenth, and as his predecessor, urged the import- ance of railway communications, and dwelt upon the necessity of fostering the interests of education, and of the lumbermen.
The exciting bill of the session was the act incorpora- ting the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Compa- ny, introduced by Joseph R. Brown. It was passed after the hour of midnight on the last day of the session. Contrary to the expectation of his friends, the Governor signed the bill.
On the afternoon of December twenty-seventh, the first public execution in Minnesota, in accordance with the forms of law, took place. Yu-ha-zee, the Dakotah who had been convicted in November, 1852, for the murder of a German woman, above Shokpay, was the individual. The scaffold .was erected on the prairie,
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
near the corner of Western and Dayton Avenues, St. Paul. About two o'clock, the prisoner, dressed in a white shroud, left the old log prison, near the court house, and entered a carriage with the officers of the law. Being assisted up the steps that led to the scaf- fold, he made a few remarks in his own language, and was then executed. Numerous ladies sent in a petition to the governor, asking the pardon of the Indian, to which that officer in declining made an appropriate reply.
The sixth session of the legislature convened on the third of January, 1855. W. P. Murray was elected President of the Council, and James S. Norris Speaker of the House.
About the last of January, the two houses adjourned one day, to attend the exercises occasioned by the open- ing of the first bridge of any kind, over the mighty Mississippi, from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. It was at the Falls of Saint Anthony, and made of wire, and at the time of its opening, the patent for the land on which the west piers were built, had not been issued from the Land Office, a striking evidence of the rapidity with which the city of Minneapolis, which now sur- rounds the Falls, has developed.
On the twenty-ninth of March, a convention was held at Saint Anthony, which led to the formation of the Re- publican party of Minnesota. This body took measures for the holding of a territorial convention at St. Paul, which convened on the twenty-fifth of July, and William R. Marshall was nominated as delegate to Congress. Shortly after the friends of Mr. Sibley nominated Da- vid Olmsted and Henry M. Rice, the former delegate
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RELICS OF SIR J. FRANKLIN.
was also a candidate. The contest was animated, and resulted in the election of Mr. Rice.
About noon of December twelfth, 1855, a four-horse vehicle was seen rapidly driving through St. Paul, and deep was the interest when it was announced that one of the Arctic exploring party, Mr. James Stewart, was on his way to Canada with relies of the world-renowned and world-mourned Sir John Franklin. Gathering to- gether the precious fragments found on Montreal Is- land and vicinity, the party had left the region of ice- bergs on the ninth of August, and after a continued land journey from that time, had reached the city.
The seventh sesion of the Legislative Assembly was begun on the second of January, 1856, and John B. Brisbin was elected President of the Council, and Charles Gardner, Speaker of the House.
This year was comparatively devoid of interest. The citizens of the territory were busily engaged in making claims in newly organized counties, and in enlarging the area of civilization.
On the twelfth of June, several Ojibways entered the farm house of Mr. Whallon, who resided in Hennepin county, on the banks of the Minnesota, a mile below the Bloomington ferry. The wife of the farmer, a friend, and three children, besides a little Dakota girl, who had been brought up in the mission-house at Kapo- sia, and so changed in manners that her origin was scarcely perceptible, were sitting in the room when the Indians came in. Instantly seizing the little Indian maiden, they threw her out of the door, killed and scalped her, and fled before the men who were near by, in the field, could reach the house.
During the spring and early summer of 1857, the pub-
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
lic mind was indignant at an atrocity perpetrated in the extreme south-western frontier of Minnesota, the recital of which caused the blood to curdle, and the mind to revert to the border scenes of the past century. In the north-western corner of Iowa, a few miles from the Min- nesota boundary, there is a lake known as Spirit Lake. In the spring of 1856, persons from Red Wing had vis- ited this place and determined to lay off a town. In the winter of 1857, there were six or seven log cabins on the border of the lake. About fifteen or twenty miles north, in Minnesota, there was also a small place called Spring- field.
For several years, Inkpadootah, a Wahpaykootay Dakotah, had been roving with a few outlaws, being driven away from their own people by internal difficul- ties. These Indians were hunting in north-western Iowa, when one was bitten by a white man's dog, which he killed. The whites then proceeded to the Indian camp and disarmed them, but they soon supplied themselves again. After this, they arrived on Sunday, the eighth of March, at Spirit Lake. They proceeded to a cabin, where only men dwelt, and asked for beef. Understand- ing, as they assert, that they had permission to kill one of the cattle, they did so, and commenced cutting it up, when one of the white men came out and knocked down the Dakotah. For this act the settler was shot, and another one coming out of the cabin, he was also killed. Surrounding the house, the Indians now fired the thatched roof, and as the men ran out all were killed, making the whole number eleven.
About the same time, the Indians went to the house of a frontiersman, by the name of Gardner, and demand- ed food, and all the food in the house was given to them.
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INKPADOOTAH MASSACRE.
The son-in-law and another man left to go and see if all was right at the neighboring cabin, but they never came back. Toward night, excited by the blood they had been spilling through the day, they came back again to Mr Gardner's house, and soon killed him, and despatch- ing his wife, and two daughters, and grandchildren, car- ried off Abby, the surviving daughter. The next day they continued their fiendish work, and brought into camp Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. Noble. That day a man by the name of Markham visited the house of Gardner and saw the dead bodies. Secreting himself till night, he came to the Springfield settlement in Minnesota, and reported what he had seen. Three miles above the Thatcher family on the lake, there lived a Mr. Marble.
On Thursday, the twelfth of March, an Indian, who had been on friendly terms with Marble's family, called at his house, and ( as near as Mrs. Marble, with her im- perfect knowledge of the language, could make out) told them that the white people below them on the Lake had been nippoed ( killed) a day or two previously. This aroused the suspicion of the Marbles, and none the less that the great depth of the snow made it almost impos- sible to get out and ascertain the truth of the story. The next day ( the thirteenth ), quite early in the fore- noon, four Indians came to Marble's house and were ad- mitted. Their demeanor was so friendly as to disarm all suspicion. They proposed to swap rifles with Mar- ble and the terms were soon agreed upon.
After the swap, the chief suggested that they should go out on the lake and shoot at a mark. Marble assent- ed. After a few discharges they turned to come in the direction of the house, when the savages allowed Mar- ble to go a few paces ahead, and immediately shot him
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
down. Mrs. Marble, who was looking out of the cabin, saw her husband fall, and immediately ran to him. The Indians seized her and told her that they would not kill her, but would take her with them.
They carried her in triumph to the camp, whither they had previously taken three other white women, Mrs. Noble, Mrs. Thatcher, and Miss Gardner.
Inkpadootah and party now proceeded to Springfield, where they slaughtered the whole settlement, about the twenty-seventh of March. When the United States troops, arrived from Fort Ridgely, they buried two bodies, and the volunteers from Iowa buried twenty- nine others. Besides these, others were missing. The outlaws, perceiving that the soldiers were in pursuit, made their escape. The four captive women were forced by day to carry heavy burdens through deep snow, and at night-fall they were made to cut wood and set up the tent, and, after dark, to be subject to the indignities that suggested themselves to the savages. When food began to fail, the white women subsisted on bones and feathers.
Mrs. Thatcher was in poor health in consequence of the recent birth of a child, and she became burdensome. Arriving at the Big Sioux river, the Indians made a bridge by felling a tree on each side of the river bank. Mrs. Thatcher attempted to cross, but failed, and, in despair, refused to try again. One of the men took her by the hand, as if to help her, and, when about midway, pushed her into the stream. She swam to the shore, and they pushed her off, and then fired at her as if she was a target, until life was extinct. Dr. Williamson wrote:
"In the early spring, it was next to impossible to make any considerable efforts for their rescue; and it
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CAPTIVE WOMAN RESCUED.
was not known what direction the captors had taken. Time passed on. Two military expeditions reached the place where the massacre took place, but did nothing except bury the slain. Early in the month of May, two young men from Lac qui Parle, who had been taught by the mission to read and write, whose mother is a mem- ber of our church, 1 while on their spring hunt, found themselves in the neighborhood of Inkpadootah and his party. Having heard that they held some American women in captivity, the two brothers visited the camp -though this was at some risk of their lives, since Inkpdaootah's hand was now against every man,-and found the outlaws, and succeeded in bargaining for Mrs. Marble, whom they first took to their mother's tent," and then brought her to a trading-house at Lac qui Parle, when she was visited by those connected with the mis- sion at Hazelwood, and clothed once more in civilized costume. On her arrival at the hotel at St. Paul, the citizens welcomed her, and presented her with a thous- and dollars. The desire to rescue the two surviving, white women now became intense.
One night a good Indian, named Paul by the whites, an elder of the mission church, came into the mission- house and said :-
"If the white chief tells me to go, I will go." "I tell you to go," replied Mr. Flandrau. then Dakotah Agent. With two companies he started next day, with a wagon and two horses, and valuable presents. After a diligent search the outlaws were found on the James river with a band of Yanktons."
A few days before Mrs. Noble had been murdered, a Yankton, who had lost his legs by disease, had purchased
1 Letter of Dr. Williamson.
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
the two women. One night Mrs. Noble was ordered to go out, and be subject to the wishes of the party. She refusing to go, a son of Inkpadootah dragged her out by the hair and killed her. The next morning a Dakotah woman took Miss Gardner, the sole surviving captive to see the corpse, which had been horribly treated after death.
Paul, by his perseverance and large presents, at lengthi redeemed the captive. and she was brought to the mis- sion-house, and from thence she visited St. Paul, and was restored to her sister in Iowa.
For some days previous to the first of July it had been reported that one of Inkpadootahi's sons was in a camp on the Yellow Medicine river. A message was sent to the agent, Flandran, who, with a detachment of soldiers from Fort Ridgely, and some Indian guides, soon ar- rived and surrounded the lodges. The alarm being giv- en, Inkpadootalı's son, said to have been the murderer of Mrs. Noble, ran from his lodge followed by his wife. He concealed himself for a short period in the brush by the water, but was soon ferreted out and shot by United States soldiers.
The eighth Legislative Assembly convened at the cap- itol on the seventh of January, 1857, and J. B. Brisbin was elected President of the Council, and J. W. Furber, Speaker of the house.
On the twenty-third of February, 1857, and act passed the United States Senate, to authorize the people of Minnesota to form a constitution, preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original states.
Governor Gorman called a special session of the leg- islature, to take into consideration measures that would
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CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
give efficiency to the act. The extra session convened on the twenty-seventh, and a message was transmitted by Samuel Medary, who had been appointed governor in place of W. A. Gorman, whose term of office had ex- pired. The extra session adjourned on the twenty-third of May; and in accordance with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, an election was held on the first Monday of June, for delegates to a convention which was to assemble at the capitol on the second Monday in July. The election resulted, as was thought, in giving a majority of delegates to the Republican party.
At midnight previous to the day fixed for the meeting of the convention, the Republicans proceeded to the capitol, because the enabling act had not fixed at what hour on the second Monday the convention should as- semble, and fearing that the Democratic delegates might anticipate them, and elect the officers of the body. A little before 12 a. m., on Monday, the secretary of the territory entered the speaker's rostrum, and began to call the body to order. and at the same time a delegate, J. W. North, who had in his possession a written request from the majority of the delegates present, proceeded to do the same thing. The secretary of the territory put a motion to adjourn, and the Democratic members present voting in the affirmative, they left the hall. The Repub- licans, feeling that they were in the majority, remained, and in due time organized, and proceeded with the busi- ness specified in the enabling act, to form a constitution and take all necessary steps for the establishment of a state goverment, in conformity with the Federal Con- stitution, subject to the approval and ratification of the people of the proposed state.
After several days the Democratic wing also organized
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
in the Senate chamber at the capitol, and, claiming to be the true body, also proceeded to form a constitution. Both parties were remarkably orderly and intelligent, and everything was marked by perfect decorum. After they had been in session some weeks, moderate counsels prevailed, and a committee of conference was appointed from each body, which resulted in both adopting the constitution framed by the Democratic wing, on the twenty-ninth of August. According to the provision of the constitution an election was held for state officers and the adoption of the constitution, on the second Tuesday, the thirteenth of October. The constitution was adopted by almost a unanimous vote. It provided that the territorial officers should retain their offices until the state was admitted into the Union, not antici- pating the long delay which was experienced.
The first session of the state legislature commenced on the first Wednesday of December, at the capitol, in the city of Saint Paul; and during the month elected Henry M. Rice and James Shields as their Representa- tives in the United States Senate.
On the twenty-ninth of January, 1858, Mr. Douglas submitted a bill to the United States Senate, for the ad- mission of Minnesota into the Union. On the first of February, a discussion arose on the bill, in which Sena- tors Douglas, Wilson, Gwin, Hale, Mason, Green, Brown, and Crittenden participated. Brown, of Mississippi, was opposed to the admission of Minnesota, until the Kansas question was settled. Mr. Crittenden, as a Southern man, could not endorse all that was said by the Senator from Mississippi; and his words of wisdom and moderation during this day's discussion, were wor- thy of remembrance. On April the seventh, the bill
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MINNESOTA BECOMES A STATE.
passed the Senate with only three dissenting votes; and in a short time the House of Representatives concurred, and on May the eleventh, the President approved, and Minnesota was fully recognized as one of the United States of America.
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF STATE GOVERNMENT.
The transition of Minnesota, from Territorial depend- ency, to the position of an organized and self-support- ing Commonwealth, equal in dignity and privilege with the then thirty-one United States of America, occurred under adverse circumstances.
The great commercial cities of the Atlantic coast were suffering from financial embarrassment, and the strin- gency of the money market seriously cramped those who had hoped to develop the resources of a fertile and healthful State, by the aid of borrowed capital.
The exigencies of the pioneer settlers were such, that they were ready to lend a willing ear to any one who would present plans, ostensibly for the relief of a com- munity that was literally without money.
By an act of Congress approved March fifth, 1857, lands had been granted to the territory amounting to 4,500,000 acres, for the construction of a system of rail- ways.
Immediately a number of shrewd and energetic men combined to procure the control of the land grant, and during an extra session of the Legislature an act was passed on May twenty-second, 1857, giving the entire Congressional grant to certain chartered railroad com- panies.
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STATE RAIL ROAD BONDS.
A few months only elapsed, before the citizens dis- covered that those who obtained the lands had neither the money nor the credit to carry on these great internal improvements. In the winter of 1858 the Legislature again listened to the siren voices of the railway corpora- tions, until their words to some members seemed like "apples of gold in pictures of silver," and another act was passed, submitting to the people an amendment to the Constitution, which provided for the loan of the public credit to the land-grant railroad companies to the amount of $5,000,000, upon condition that a certain amount of labor on the projected roads was performed. The time specified in the act for the voting of the peo- ple upon the amendment was April fifteenth.
Some of the more prudent of the citizens saw in this measure a "a cloud no larger than a man's hand" which would lead to a terrific storm, and a large public meet- ing was convened at the Capitol and addressed by Ex- Governor Gorman, D. A. Robertson, William R. Mar- shall, and others, deprecating the engrafting of such a peculiar amendment upon the Constitution; but the people would not listen, their hopes and happiness seemed to be bound up in railway corporations, and on the appointed day of election 25,023 votes were cast in favor of, while only 6,733 were deposited against, the amendment.
The good sense of the people soon led them to amend this article, and on November sixth, 1860, the section was made to read as follows:
"The credit of the State shall never be given or loaned in aid of any individual, association or corporation; nor shall there be any further issue of bonds denominated Minnesota State Railroad Bonds, under what purport to
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
be an amendment to section ten (10) of article nine (9) of the Constitution, adopted April fifteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, which is hereby expunged from the Constitution, saving, excepting and reserving to the State, nevertheless, all rights, remedies, and forfeitures accruing under said amendment."
The first State Legislature had assembled on Decem- ber second, 1857, before the formal admission of Minne- sota into the Union, and on March twenty-fifth, 1858, adjourned until June second, when it again met.
Hon. H. H. Sibley, who had been declared Governor after the election of the previous October, on the next day delivered his inaugural address.
His term of office was arduous, growing out of the peculiar position of the State in consequence of her loan of credit to the railway corporations. On August fourth 185S, he expressed his determination not to deliver any State bonds to the railway companies, unless they would give first mortgage bonds with priority of lien upon their lands, roads, and franchise in favor of the State. One of the companies applied for a mandamus from the Supreme Court of the State, to compel the issue of the bonds without the restriction of the Governor.
In November the court, Judge Flandrau dissenting, ordered the Governor to issue State bonds as soon as the company delivered their first mortgage bonds, as pro- vided by the Constitution.
But as was to be expected, bonds put forth under such peculiar circumstances were not sought after by capitalists. After over $2,000,000 of bonds had been is- sued, not an iron rail had been laid, and only about 250 miles of grading were completed. In his annual mes-
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