USA > Minnesota > Concise history of the state of Minnesota > Part 2
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On the 8th of May, 1689, at Post St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin. in the presence of a Jesuit missionary, Joseph J. Marest; a trader at the mouth of the Wisconsin named Boisguillot, Pierre Le Sueur, and several other Frenehmen, the country of the St. Pierre or Minnesota River, and St. Croix River, named after a Frenchman drowned in its waters, was taken possession of by Perrot, in the name of the King of France. In his report, the Minnesota River is, for the first time, called the Saint Pierre, in compliment
19
FRANQUELIN'S MAP.
probably to the baptismal name of his associate, who was its discoverer, Pierre Le Sueur. It is quite remark- able that both La Salle and Hennepin, in their account of the trading expedition under Accault, should have omitted to mention this important tributary of the Miss- issippi. The river which now forms the boundary be- tween the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, was also first designated St. Croix, in memory of a voyageur who lost his life in its waters. In 1689, the " Menchokatonx" (M'daywahkawntwons ) and "Songesquitons" (Sisse- tons) were living in the Mille Lacs region, and the " Mantanton" Sioux as near the mouth of the St. Pierre, or Minnesota River.
A map drawn in 16SS, by the engineer Franque- lin, was an advance in geographical accuracy. On the west side of the Mississippi is represented River " Raisins", perhaps the Embarrass; the " Jaune" (Yellow ) River, now Vermillion, and the " Mascoutens Nadonescionx", now the Minnesota River. Upon the east side, just above the mouth of the Wisconsin, appears Fort St. Nicolas, then the " Noire" now Black River, above which is the "butte" where Perrot wintered, now Trempeleau. At the entrance of Lake Pepin is marked "R. des Sauteurs" now Chippewa River, and a short distance above is Fort St. Antoine. The river called by Perrot, St. Croix, is named " Magdelaine;" Rum River is "Riviere des Francois, ou des Sioux." Mille Lacs is " Lac de Buade", around which are the " Issatis" (Isanti) Sioux, and west of these the Tintons (Teton ) Sioux; while east of them are marked the San- gatskitons ( Sissetons ) and " Houetpatons." The upper St. Croix Lake is " Lac de la Providence," and at the portage to the Bois Brule River is "Fort St. Croix."
20
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
The western extremity of Lake Superior is well delin- eated, showing "Isle St. Michel," or "Detour", at the head of " Chagaoumegon" Bay, "Peouabic" now Iron River, "R. du Fond du Lac", the present St. Louis River, " R. des Groiselliers," the Pigeon River, then the "Kamanistigouian1 on les Trois Rivieres."
In the autumn of 1659, Frontenac returned to Quebec from France, having, for the second time, been appointed Governor, and the next spring, Perrot being in Canada, was ordered to guide Sieur de Louvigny La Porte, a half-pay captain, to Mackinaw, as commandant of the post. After performing this duty he went to Green Bay, and a party of Miamis met him there, and begged him to visit the lead mine region of the Mississippi River, below the mouth of the Wisconsin. After ascend- ing to his old post on Lake Pepin, he went to the lead mines, and found the ore abundant. La Potherie men- tions that "the lead was hard to work because it was between rocks, which required blowing up, but that it had very little dross and was easily melted." Penicaut, who ascended the Mississippi in 1700, wrote that twenty leagues below the Wisconsin, on both sides of the Miss- issippi, were mines of lead called "Nicholas Perrot's", and Del'Isle's Map of 1703 indicates them, in the vieinity of the modern towns of Galena and Dubuque.
Pierre Le Sueur was the son of a Frenchman from Artois, and in 1659, was born in Canada. After leaving Fort Saint Antoine, on Lake Pepin, he went to Montreal, and, on the 29th of March, 1690, married Marguerite Messier, whose mother, Anna Lemoyne, was the aunt of Pierre Lemoyne, the Sieur D'Iberville, the first Gov-
1 The place where a river divides into several branches modern. Ojibways cal Ningitawitigweia.
21
PIERRE LE SUEUR.
ernor of Louisiana. After his marriage he was sent to La Pointe of Lake Superior. In a dispatch to the French government, of the events in Canada, in 1693, occurs the following: "Le Sueur, another voyageur is to remain at Chagouamigon [La Pointe ] to endeavour to maintain the peace lately concluded between the Sault- eurs [Ojibways ] and Sioux. This is of the greatest consequence, as it is now, the sole pass by which access can be had to the latter nation, whose trade is very profit- able; the country to the south, being occupied by the Foxes and Maskoutens who several times hindered the French on the ground, that they were carrying ammuni- tion to the Sioux, their ancient enemies." About the year 1694, he had descended the Saint Croix river, and on a prairie island, nearly nine miles below its mouth, in the Mississippi, erected a trading post. Penicaut, who passed the place, in 1700, wrote in his journal: "At the extremity of the lake [Pepin ] you come to the Isle Pelee, so called because there are no trees on it. It is on this island, that the French, from Canada, established their fort, and storehouse, and they also winter here, because game is very abundant. In the month of Sep- tember, they bring their store of meat, obtained by hunting, and after having skinned, and cleaned it, hang it upon a crib of raised scaffolding in order that the extreme cold, which lasts from September to March, may preserve it from spoiling. During the whole win- ter they do not go out, except for water, when they have to break the ice, every day, and the cabin is generally built upon the bank, so as not to have far to go. When spring arrives, the savages come to the island, bringing their merchandise."
On the 15th of July, 1695, Le Sueur arrived at Mon-
3
22
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
treal, with some Ojibways from Point Chagouamigon, and a Sioux Chief, with a woman, the first of that nation who had been so far toward the east. Teeoskahtay, this chief of the Sioux, was forty years of age, and remained for several months. During the winter he was sick, and baptized. After an illness of thirty-three days, on the third of February, 1696, he died, at Le Sueur's home, in Montreal. Le Sueur did not immediately return to Minnesota, but went to France, to induce certain per- sons in Paris to assist in working some mines, which he alleged, he had discovered. His wife's first cousin, D'Iberville was made Governor of Louisiana while he · was there, and by order of the King, on August 26th, 1699, he was permitted to go in the same ship with the Governor, with some laborers and an equipment for two canoes to work the mines of green earth in the valley of the Minnesota River.
On the 19th of February, 1700, by a portage from Lake Pontchartrain, he came to the Mississippi river, and began to prepare for his ascent to the Minnesota river. On the first of September with about twenty-eight men, he came to the Wisconsin river, 1 where, in 1685, he had been with Perrot .? Ascending beyond this stream, above Black River, a beautiful prairie was reached, surrounded by lofty hills, which was named "Prairie aux Ailes," and just beyond on the opposite shore they were im-' pressed by another prairie called "Prairie des Paqui- lanets." On the 14th of September, they came to the
1. D'Iberville mentions that at this time. there were one hundred Miami, Indians left at "Quisconsin on the Mississippi," Fort St. Nicholas. the rest hav- ing gone to Chicago, on account of the beaver.
2. Count Pontchartrain, during the summer of the year 1702, when Le Sueur was again in Paris, wrote to the Intendant of Canada: "One need not be sur- prised if M. D'Iberville proposes the appointment of Le Suenr to go among the tribes, he having married his first con-in, and one of the most active, from Canada, in the trade of the woods, having been engaged therein, fourteen years.
23
FORT L'HUILLIER ERECTED.
"Hiambouxecate" river, now Cannon, which the Sioux called Inyanbosndata, because the rocks, at the mouth of the stream, stand perpendicular. The next day, the river St. Croix was passed.
By the 19th, the Minnesota river was entered, ascend- ing which, about the first of October, the expedition came to the "Riviere Verte," called Mahkahto, 1 by the Sioux, now the Blue Earth. Going up this stream a league, Le Sueur resolved to build a fort upon a wooded point, which displeased the bands of the Sioux, east of the Mississippi, who wished a post at the junction of the Min- nesota and Mississippi river. The fort was finished on the fourteenth, and called Fort L'Huillier, after a friend of Le Sueur, in Paris, who in 1696 had analyzed some of the green earth. Some Canadians, one of whom was a former acquaintance of Le Sueur, named D'Eraque. came to the Fort, who had been robbed by some of the eastern Sioux, of the Mdaywahkawntwan band, and no further intercourse was had with the Sioux until they rendered satisfaction for robbing the Frenchman, from Canada. On the 25th of October digging was begun at the mine of green earth, three-fourths of a league from the post and accessible by canoes.
On the 26th of November, some Mantantons, and Oujalespoitons of the eastern Sioux came to the fort, and one of their chief men, Ouacantapai, begged Le Sueur to come to his lodge, as they were relatives of Tioscate (Teeoskahtay) the chief, who in 1696, had died at Le Sueur's house, in Montreal. The next day he assembled the principal Indians of each band, at the fort, and gave reasons why he had there built the post.
1. Mah-ka to yuzapi wakpa, of the Dakota or Sioux language, means river where the green, or blue earth is obtained.
24
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
On the 1st of December, the Mantanton Sioux invited him to a great feast, and Wahkantapay in a speech expressed the desire of his people to live on friendly terms with the French.
On the 12th of December, a large number of Mende- onacantons from east of the Mississippi, with their chiefs arrived with four hundred pounds of beaver skins, as a satisfaction for the robbing of D'Eraque and his companions. In the beginning of May, 1701, Le Sueur, leaving the post in charge of D'Eraque and twelve Frenchmen, with his felucca or shallop filled with green earth and three canoes of peltries, began his voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. D'Eraque, in the spring of 1703, was attacked by the Foxes and Mascoutens, and three of his men were killed, which rendered it necessary for him also to return to the Gulf of Mexico. About the same time Boudor, a Montreal merchant, with twenty or thirty thousand pounds of goods, on his way to join Le Sueur, was robbed by the Sacs and Foxes.
D'Iberville and Le Sueur were in France, in 1702, and the great cartographer De Lisle, from information given by them, in 1703, issued a map of Canada and the Mis- sissippi river, but from year to year the copper plate was corrected. All impressions bearing his title as "Premier Geographe du Roy," First Geographer of the King, although retaining the date 1703, were issued, after the 25th of August, 1718, when he received the appointment of Royal Geographer. An inspection of a section of this map shows, that Lake Pepin has been erroneously drawn, and Le Sueur's fort placed below, instead of above the lake.
CHART OF CANADA.
25
CARTE DU CANADA ou de la NOUVELLE FRANCE. Par Guillaume DE L'ISLE or l'Amitenue Regalo des Sciences et Premier Bengraphe da Rey.
BAYE D'HUDSON
APARIS avec Budije de sa Majesté pour 4 ans 1703.
Fe Bor
Bou
Lax S!Therese
de
L.OES CHRISTINAUX
L. les
A'ssenipoils
Alemipigon
D Mississoradan
Rivini 5
OU L. BUADE
LAC
SUPERIEUR
LACCHURON
L. des Tintons
MICHIGANE
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PorteGe
SILINDIS
€
H:ne dt
Eileragout
LAC
F'S Leais aPris
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Faut de S! Antoine de Pade
Lusoúri.
F. der Rewards
& der; Moingond
26
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
Some years after Le Sueur left Minnesota. De Charle- ville, a relative of Governor Bienville of Louisiana. with two Canadians. and two Indians. in a birel bark canoe visited the Falls of St. Anthony, which he de- scribed as caused by the river flowing over a flat rock, making a fall of eight or ten teet.
By the treaty of Utrecht, the French relinquished all their posts on Hudson's Bay, and to prevent the Indians carrying their peltries to the English. they determicel to establish a line of posts on the chain of lakes which form the northern boundary of Minnesota.
Lt. Robertel de la Noue. in 1717. with eight cances. proceeded to Kaministiquoya. at the extremity of Lake Superior, to acquire the necessary information. CLar- levoix, afterward the historian of New France. in 1721. was sent by the French government to report on the condition of the Canadians, and upon his return he sug- gested that an attempt should be made to find a route to the Pacific Ocean, through the country of the Sions. and the next year it was decided to build a new post on Lake Pepin. which was not accomplished for several years. because in 1723 seven Frenchmen, on their way to Louisiana. had been killed by some roving Sions.
In June. 1727, however, an expedition left Montreal for that purpose, of which Rene Boucher. the Sieur de la Perriere was the comman ler. On the 17th of Sep tember he stopped at a low point, about the millle of the shore of Lake Pepin. and in four days his men Lad commenced three log buildings in a plat one hun Ired feet square. guardled by piekets twelve feet in length. with two bastions. The post was named Beauharnois. Among those who accompanied him were his brother Jean, the Sieur Montbrun, his nephew Jemeraye. an l
27
FORT BEAUHARNOIS, LAKE PEPIN.
two Jesuit missionaries, Du Gonor and Louis Ignatius Guignas. During the winter no Indians visited the post, except some of the Prairie Sioux, about the last of Feb- ruary. Owing to very high water, about the middle of April, the French were obliged to leave the fort, and for two weeks camped on higher ground. In the spring Du Gonor left for Canada, and early in the next October, the fort having been left in charge of Sieur de la Jemer- aye, the Sieur de Boucherville, Montbrun, the Jesuit Guignas, and eight other Frenchmen departed for Mon- treal, by way of the Illinois river, and on the 12th of the month, twenty-two leagues above that stream, were cap- tured by a party of Kickapoos and Maskoutens. It was the intention of the Indians to surrender the prisoners to the Fox tribe, but the night before the delivery, the Sieur de Montbrun, his brother, and another Canadian escaped. Montbrun left his brother sick and hastened to Montreal. The Sieur de la Jemeraye did not stay long at Fort Beauharnois. The Sieur de Boucherville and Guignas remained prisoners for more than six months, but at length purchased their release,1 and in June, 1729, reached Detroit.
Pierre Gualtier Varennes, the Sieur Verandrie, ? when forty-three years of age, in 1727, was placed in charge of the post north of Lake Superior at Lake Nepigon, and happened to be at Mackinaw in the spring of 1728, when the Jesuit Du Gonor was on his way to Montreal, and learned from him that Father Guignas continued firm in the belief that a route could be found to the Western Ocean. By request of Verandrie, Du Gonor carried a letter to Governor Beauharnois, in which it
1. A list of the goods given is printed on pages $52-554, 5th edition, 1-23, of Neill's large History of Minnesota.
2. The name is spelled variously, The mode the most easily pronounced by the English reader chosen.
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
. was mentioned that Pacco, a chief at Lake Nepigon, had, while on a war party, found a great lake with three out- lets, one flowing to the English, at Hudson's Bay, the second southward toward the Mississippi, and the third, in the direction of the setting sun. In another letter he wrote that Ochaka, an Indian of Lake Nepigon, had drawn a rude map and was ready to guide an expedition west of Lake Superior, either by the Kamanistigoya or the Saint Louis river. As the result of this informa- tion, in 1731, fifty persons left Montreal, under three sons of Verandrie, and his nephew Sieur de la Jemerave, not long returned from Fort Beauharnois, on the shores of Lake Pepin. Arriving at Grand Portage, the western extremity of Lake Superior, and guided by the experi- enced Jemeraye, the party shortly ascended the Groseill- iers, now Pigeon River, and during the autumn reached Rainy Lake, and near Rainy Lake River erected a post called Fort St. Pierre, the baptismal name of Verandrie. The next year an advance was made to the Lake of the Woods, and on its western shore was erected a fort, in compliment to Charles Beauharnois, the Governor of Canada, named Fort St. Charles. In the year 1734, near the entrance of Lake Winnipeg, was established Fort Maurepas, and here for a time exploration ceased. owing to the exhaustion of supplies. During the month of June, 1736, twenty-one members of the expedition were encamped upon an island in the Lake of the Woods, and surprised by a band of hostile Sioux. and all killed. Among the slain were one of Verandrie's sons, also a priest named Ouneau' who was the spiritual adviser of the party.
1. Perhaps intended for Guymoneau, a priest who as early as 1722 was in the country of the Ottawas.
First Map of Country west of Lake Superior, suggested by Indian Ochagach.
Figure 1.
Échelle were le las . Zeamamissen et celui des Bois.
Jects
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1
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Lee Long
Lac
Foils
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Superieur
Prairies
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. Coli me so fias lo queche per
30
to
Carte tracie par le Sauvage Ochagach et autres. la quelle a donné lieu aus découvertes das Officiers Francis représentées dans la Carte cy après.
Fort kumanestigoute
100 2:0
Fleure de louer
Lacrecamamisuen
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If hills por la Rivière 20
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Sioux
Montagnes de pierres
5. Juan
29
ROCKY MOUNTAINS DISCOVERED.
Subsequently a post was erected at the mouth of the Assineboine, and Red River of the North, which was abandoned, because of the establishment, in 1738, of Fort La Reine on the banks of the Assineboine River.
The eldest son of Verandrie, and one of his brothers. on the twenty-ninth of April. 1742, left the Lake of the Woods, and by way of the Assineboine, and Mouse, reached the Missouri River, which they ascended as far as the great Falls. Pursuing their journey they found, thirty leagues distant, the "gorges " or gates of the Rocky Mountains. On the first of January, 1743, they saw the mountains at a distance, and on the twelfth day, the Chevalier Verandrie ascended them. On the nineteenth of March the brothers returned to the upper Missouri River, and in the country of the Petite Cerise Indians they placed, upon a hill, a leaden plate with the arms of France, and raised a monument of stones, which they called Beauharnois. Upon the second of July they returned to the Lake of the Woods.
During the year 1736, Jacques Legardeur St. Pierre, 1 a descendant of Nicolet, who, as early as 1634. had ex- plored the Green Bay region, was in command of the post upon the sandy point jutting into Lake Pepin, but in consequence of the massacre of the French upon the island in the Lake of the Woods, this post for a time was abandoned. In the summer of 1743, a deputation of Sious came to Quebec to ask that trade might be re- sumed with them. During the winter of 1745-6, De Lusignan visited the Sioux, and their chiefs brought to him nineteen young men who had killed three French- men, and four chiefs returned with him to Canada to solicit pardon for the hostility shown their tribe.
1. Capt. St. Pierre, born in 1701, was the son of Paul Legardeur, the Sieur St. Pierre, who in 171> re-established the post at Chagouamigon, and in 1733 died.
30
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
In 1749, Captain St. Pierre was in command at Mack- inaw, and his brother, Louis Legardeur, the Chevalier de Repentigny, was the next officer in rank. In 1752 he was at Fort La Reine, on the Assineboine River, and then was recalled and sent to the forests of north-west- ern Pennsylvania, and had been at his post, on French Creek, but a short time, when he received a visit from George Washington, bearing a letter of complaint from Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia. In a battle with the English, in 1755, near the head of Lake George, he was killed.
31
ENGLISH AT GREEN BAY.
CHAPTER SECOND.
OCCUPATION BY THE BRITISH.
The French garrison at Niagara, early in the morning of July 25th, 1759, surrendered to the British troops under Sir William Johnson, and by the 9th of Septem- ber the flag of England was flying from the heights of Quebec, and the next year Governor Vaudreuil yielded, by articles of capitulation, the whole of Canada to Gen- eral Amherst, the British commander.
Immediate steps were taken to secure the trade and friendship of the Indian tribes west of Lake Michigan. On the 12th of October, 1761, Ensign, afterwards Lt. James Gorrell, of the Sixteenth Royal American regiment, a native of Maryland, arrived at Green Bay with a few soldiers, and established Fort Edward Au- gustus, in place of the old French post, which had been in ruins for several years.
Sir William Johnson in his journal wrote: "I counted out and delivered to Mr. Croghan some silver works, viz: One hundred and fifty ear bobs, two hundred brooches or breast buckles, and ninety large crosses, 1 all of silver, to send to Ensign Gorell, posted at La Bay
1. Silver crosses were articles of trade with all of the Indian tribes. In Matthew Clarkson's diary in 4th volume of Schoolcraft's "Hist. and Stat. Con- dition of Indian Tribes," is the following entry: "Account of silver truck Capt. Long left with me on the 2 th of February, 1767. the day when he went from the Kaskaskias: 174small crosses, -t nose crosses 33 long drop nose and par bobs, 126 small brooches, 3> large brooches, W rings, 2 wide wristbands. 6 narrow seal- loped wristbands, 3 narrow plain, four half moon gorgets, 3 large, 6 full moon, 9 hair plates, 17 hair bobs."
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
on Lake Michigan, in order to purchase therewith some curious skins and furs for General Amherst and my- self.
Gorrell was an efficient officer, and in the autumn of 1762 permitted Pennesha, or Penneshon, a French trader, to visit the valley of the Minnesota River, although it was then beyond British jurisdiction, being in the Louisiana Territory, which in 1763, the French ceded to Spain.
Jonathan Carver, born in 1732, a native of Connecti- cut, when fifteen years of age lost his father, and when only eighteen was an Ensign in a company of provincial troops. In the year 1757, he was a captain under Colonel Williams, at Lake George, against the French, and re- mained in the army until 1763, when peace was declared. In June, 1766, he left Boston, and on the eighteenth of September arrived at Green Bay, Wisconsin, and found the English post abandoned. On the first of November he reached Lake Pepin, and on a sandy point, on the west shore, observed the remains of the French post which had been in command of Captain Legardeur St. Pierre. Near the St. Croix river he met some of the eastern Sioux, whose bands he mentions, as the Nehogatawonahs, Mawtawbauntowahs and Shashweentowahs. Reaching the hills now included within the city of St. Paul, he visited the cave below Trout Brook, where the Sioux often as- sembled and over which they placed their dead on scaf- folds, and subsequently buried their bones. On the seventeenth of November he was at the Falls of St. Anthony, of which he wrote:
" In the middle of the Falls stands a small island, about forty feet broad, and somewhat longer, on which grow a few cragged hemlock and spruce trees, and
-
33
CARVER'S DESCRIPTION OF ST. ANTHONY FALLS.
about half way between this island and the eastern shore is a rock lying at the very edge of the falls, in an oblique position, that appeared to be about five or six feet broad and thirty or forty long. At a little distance below the falls stands a small island of about an acre and a half, on which grow a great number of oaks."
Returning from the Falls of Saint Anthony, he ascended the Minnesota River, and many have been as far as the Blue Earth River. He mentioned that the sources of the Minnesota are only a mile distant from the sources of a river whose waters flow into Hud- son's Bay. After remaining during the winter among the Sioux, he returned to the cave,1 which was in the eastern suburbs of Saint Paul. where a party of Sioux had brought their dead for burial, and gives the follow- ing as the address delivered over the remains of a deceased warrior, and although Carver is largely indebted to his imagination, it is a happy imitation.
"You still sit among us. brother: your person retains its usual resemblance. and continues similar to ours. without any visible deficiency. except it has lost the power of action! But whither is that breath flown. which a few hours ago sent up smoke to the Great Spirit? Why are those lips silent that lately delivered to us expressions and pleasing language? Why are those feet motionless that a short time ago were fleeter than the deer on yonder moun-
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