USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Dayton > History of Anoka County and the towns of Champlin and Dayton in Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 2
USA > Minnesota > Anoka County > History of Anoka County and the towns of Champlin and Dayton in Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 2
USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Champlin > History of Anoka County and the towns of Champlin and Dayton in Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 2
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CHAPTER II.
CARVER AND PIKE.
The Northwest was now opened to English explorers and traders. The treaty of peace was signed in 1763, and three years later Captain Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut, who had been in the provincial army, started on an exploring tour to the upper Mississippi. He followed the usual canoe route by way of Green Bay and the Fox river and thence by portage to the Wisconsin river. AA few miles above the junction of the Wisconsin river with the Mississippi the Indian tribe of Foxes had built a considerable town, to which the French had already given the name of Prairie du Chien.
From this place Carver proceeded up the Mississippi in a canoe. He was accompanied by a Canadian trader and a Mohawk Indian. November 17th, 1766, the party had reached St. Anthony falls. Carver says :
"As the season was so advanced, and the weather extremely cold, I was not able to make so many ob- servations on these parts as I otherwise should have done. It might however, perhaps, be necessary to ob- serve, that in a little tour I made about the Falls, after travelling fourteen miles, by the side of the Mississippi. I came to a river nearly twenty yards wide, which ran from the north-east, called Rum river."
Carver undoubtedly translated the Chippeway name. It can hardly have been "called Rum river" by any
14
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
others than the Indians, as Carver states that no one but himself and Hennepin had ever explored the Mis- sissippi as far north as the mouth of the "St. Francis" river. The Chippeway name for the river is usually written Isko de Wabo, but the pronunciation as pre- served by white settlers sounds more like Skoot-a-wau'- boo, and its meaning is broader than Carver's transla- tion would indicate, viz. : liquor ; broth ; or any beverage. However, Carver's name has persistently stuck to the stream, notwithstanding some determined efforts to change it.
The weather being cold, Carver mistook a stream or lake some forty miles further north for the river which Hennepin had named St. Francis. He also says that he explored the St. Pierre [Minnesota] river to a distance of two hundred miles above its mouth.
Carver conceived a plan for some extensive trading operations. He expected to build a fort on Lake Pepin and thought he might be able to reach a branch of the Missouri river by following the Minnesota river to its source, and thence by portage get into the "Oregon" or some stream which flowed into the Pacific ocean. He went to England in search of financial assistance, but before the necessary funds could be raised the whole plan was overthrown by the news that a battle had been fought at Lexington and that the American col- onies were ablaze with revolt.
In 1803 the province of Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France. That part of Min- nesota west of the Mississippi river was a part of that province. President Jefferson determined to send an expedition up the Mississippi. The man selected for
-
15
CARVER AND PIKE.
chief of the party was a young lieutenant named Zeb- ulon M. Pike. September 21st, 1805, Pike had reached the present site of St. Paul. Two days later he had a conference with the Sioux, at their village near Men- dota, and received from them a grant of a large tract of land for military purposes, including the present Fort Snelling reservation and extending above St. Anthony falls.
He then procured a barge from a trader on the Min- nesota river. His men were two days dragging the barge around St. Anthony falls, but it was finally launched in the river above. September 30th he camped on Nicollet or Hennepin island, and preparations were made for a trip up the river. Many of the streams and lakes which he visited in the wilderness were already known by the names which they still bear. Pike makes no mention of Rum river on the upward trip, but October 4th he says he was opposite the mouth of Crow river. where he found a canoe cut to pieces with tomahawks and with paddles broken, and concluded that there had been a fight between Sioux and Chippeways.
Pike erected a block house near Swan river in what is now Morrison county, at which he left his barge and part of his baggage in charge of a sergeant and a squad of men. In December he pushed on with sleds to the Indian villages on the northern lakes.
During the century and a quarter which had elapsed since the visit of Du Luth there had been a considerable change in the location of the Indian tribes. In Du Luth's time the Chippeways dwelt around the shores of Lake Superior and eastward. The northern lakes from Sandy lake and Mille Lacs to Leach and Cass lakes and prob- ably to Red lake, were the home of the Sioux. North of
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HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
them were the Assiniboines. The French traders who followed Groselliers and Du Luth on Lake Superior taught the Chippeways the use of the white man's weap- ons, and when a sprinkling of the latter had procured guns, they fell on their Sioux neighbors and fiercely renewed that deadly feud which kept the two nations in almost constant war until the wave of white settlement swept between and around them and put an end to the conflict. Armed for the most part with the ancient bows and arrows, the Isantis and the other Sioux tribes in the region of the "thousand lakes" were unable to cope with the invaders, and retreated to the southward, and a considerable body of them are said to have established themselves on Rice creek in what is now the town of Fridley and thence eastward toward the St. Croix river. In what is now Centreville and Columbus and in Chi- sago, Washington and north Ramsey counties they found rice lakes similar to those in the region from which they had retreated.
The loss of the "thousand lake" region was a serious blow to the Dakota tribes. The importance of the rice lakes in the Indian economy was well expressed at a much later time by a Chippeway orator who was urged to sign an agreement for the removal of his tribe from one of the northern lakes to the White Earth reserva- sion.
This lake, he said in substance, is our pantry. It supplies us with rice, and also with fish. It is the home of the ducks and the geese, which eat the rice which we are unable to gather. It is the home of the musk rats, which furnish us with furs, and, if meat is scarce, with food. And then dropping into a characteristic train, of thought, he continued :
17
CARVER AND PIKE.
"I shall not go to White Earth. Not unless the white men can move the lake down there. And if they should try that I am sure they would spill the water all out. I will never sign the agreement."
At the time of Pike's visit the Mille Lacs region was all included in the Chippeway country. At a later period the Sioux passed still farther southward, occupying the valley of the Minnesota river. Pike found Sioux as far north as his block house near Swan river. Sioux would not have been likely to venture into that region in 1845. After the middle of the century Sioux were seldom found east of the Mississippi.
During the winter Pike had conferences with the Chippeways, who promised to accede to his requests, one of which was that they should make peace with the Sioux. In the spring (1806) Pike started on his return trip down the river. The principal trader on the Mis- sissippi above St. Anthony falls at this time was Rob- ert Dickson. April 10th Pike sailed past the mouth of Rum river at seven o'clock in the morning and an hour later found one of Colonel Dickson's clerks with a band of six or seven lodges of Fol Avoins (a branch of the Chippeway tribe), who had passed the winter on Rum river.
In 1813 a colony sent out by Lord Selkirk and con- sisting at first mostly of Scotch immigrants, settled on Red river just north of the American boundary line. The Northwest Company, which at that time was the prin- cipal trading company in that region, became alarmed at the prospect of competition in the trade with the Indians, and made desperate attempts to break up the colony. When other means of getting rid of the new comers failed several of them were killed. and the rest so har-
18
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
ried that they agreed to leave the country. But most of the colonists afterward returned, and were joined later by some Swiss immigrants who had been induced by Lord Selkirk's agent to try their fortunes in the far west.
In 1818 the land east of the Mississippi and north of the new state of Illinois was included in the territory of Michigan, and in October of that year Governor Lewis Cass by proclamation fixed the boundaries of the immense county of Crawford, which contained a consid- erable portion of the present states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The county seat was at Prairie du Chien, at which point there was a fort called Fort Crawford. The next year Colonel Leavenworth of the United States army was ordered to garrison Fort Crawford and then to proceed to the mouth of the St. Peters (Minnesota ) river, and there construct a fort on the land secured from the Indians by Lieutenant Pike. The new fort was at first called Fort St. Anthony, but the name was after- ward changed to Fort Snelling in honor of Colonel Snell- ing, who was for some years its commandant.
In 1821 soldiers from the temporary barracks near Mendota cut pine logs on Stanchfield brook about a mile above its mouth in the present county of Isanti, which were floated down the Rum and Mississippi rivers and over St. Anthony falls, and used in the construction of the buildings at the fort. About the same time a government mill was constructed on the west side of St. Anthony falls, but was not completed in time to assist in cutting the lumber for the fort. In 1823 this mill was fitted up with a run of stone for grinding corn and wheat.
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THE BATTLE OF RUM RIVER.
In 1820 Governor Cass set out with a party of about forty persons to make some explorations in the western part of his territory. He proceeded by boat to the west end of Lake Superior and thence by canoes to Sandy lake. July 21st the party reached a lake which was at that time supposed to be the source of the Mississippi, and which was named Cass lake in honor of the dis- tinguished visitor. Descending the Mississippi, the 28th of July was spent in a buffalo hunt between Little Falls and Elk river.
THE BATTLE OF RUM RIVER.
In the spring of 1839 some eight hundred Chippe- ways assembled at Fort Snelling. Believing that they were to receive their annuities at that point, the men had brought their wives and children with them. Find- ing that the annuities were not forthcoming, they made preparations to return home. Meanwhile the Sioux liv- ing in the vicinity of the fort visited the Chippeway camp, and were hospitably received and invited to par- ticipate in the feasting, drinking and dancing going on, which invitation was accepted. July first the two tribes smoked the peace pipe and the Chippeways began their homeward journey, some ascending the Mississippi river and some going by way of the St. Croix. Among the Chippeways were two young men whose father had been murdered by some Sioux near the fort the previous year, and they took advantage of the opportunity to visit and weep over their father's grave. The thoughts of their murdered parent kindled a desire for vengeance, and on the night of July Ist they placed themselves in am- bush on a trail which led past Lake Harriet. Early
20
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
the next morning they shot and scalped a Sioux known as "Badger." The friends of the victim soon heard of the occurrence and brought the body home, wrapped in a blanket. Yeetkadootah, a relative of the dead man, removed the ornaments from the corpse, kissed it, and said he would die for it. His appeals for revenge roused the war spirit, and in a very short time he found himself at the head of a party eager for the fray, each member of which bound himself to take no captives, but to kill all whom his weapons might reach. The warriors crossed the Mississippi at Fort Snelling and followed the trail of one of the Chippeway bands up that river on the east side to Rum river, which they reached on the third day of July. The Chippeways were not expecting any trouble. They probably had not even heard of the mur- der, which had been committed after their departure from the fort. Their camp was pitched northwest of Round lake on ground now occupied by the farm upon which Andrew J. Smith lived many years.
Here, within sight of the mound which told of the people who had lived beside the beautiful lake centuries before, occurred one of the bloodiest battles that marks the long feud between the Sioux and Chippeway tribes. The fight took place before sunrise on the fourth of July, and the appearance of the ground when first seen by white men would seem to indicate that the Chippe- ways were surprised in their sleep, and that many of them were butchered where they lay. Those who were able to grasp their weapons made a desperate resistance, but succumbed to overwhelming numbers. Yeetkadoo- tah galloped on horseback to a wounded Chippeway and dismounted to take his scalp, but the injured warrior
21
THE BATTLE OF RUM RIVER.
summoned all his remaining strength and succeeded in shooting the Sioux leader through the neck.
It is related that during the stay of the Chippeway band at Fort Snelling a young Sioux brave had been enamoured with a Chippeway maiden, and that in the midst of the battle he found his arm upraised to slay her to whom he had paid his devotions. She begged to be his captive, but he had taken an oath to take no captives. He pressed forward to avoid the harsh alter- native, and in a moment the girl's head was cleft by the tomahawk of one behind him. About ninety Chip- peways were killed and wounded in this battle.
Daniel Stanchfield, the pioneer lumberman, accident- ally discovered the battle field while exploring for a road up Rum river in September, 1847. The skeletons were somewhat blackened by prairie fires and most of them lay in little groups, where hand to hand encoun- ters seem to have taken place. Mr. Stanchfield gathered forty or fifty skulls and piled them up in the form of a pyramid.
Silas C. Robbins went over the ground in the sum- mer of 1856. Many blackened bones were still visible, and Mr, Robbins found one complete skeleton of a war- rior with the head still resting upon the arm. Beside the skeleton lay the gun (an old flint lock) the charred rem- nant of a paddle, a knife, and the remains of a bead sack about a foot square, containing a bullet mold, a few three-cornered arrow heads, a pair of scissors, a big iron spoon and an extra flint for the gun. Mr. Rob- bins took the gun home, had it remodeled for percus- sion caps and the half burned stock renewed, and it did excellent service in after years.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST HOUSE.
Early residents of Anoka remember a log house which stood on the east side of Rum river near its mouth. Several cellars are still visible near the spot where it stood. This was the first house built in Anoka county. It was built in the fall of 1844 for an Indian trading post, by direction of Wililam Aitkin, who had been for many years a trader of the upper Mississippi and who at that time had his headquarters at Sandy lake. The building was constructed by a French trader named Joseph Belanger, assisted by George Cournoyer, Pierre Crevier, Joseph Brunet and Maxime Maxwell. The men cut the logs on the point between the two rivers and car- ried them on their shoulders to the place where the house was to be built. The house was divided by a partition. one room being designed for a living room and the other to be used as a store room for the goods. In October Mr. Aitkin came to inspect the new post, and left his clerk, Mr. Crebassa in charge of the stock of goods, which had been procured from H. H. Sibley's trading post at Mendota.
Neighbors were few and far between in those days. The nearest house on the north was probably Allan Morrison's trading post at Crow Wing. Back from the Mississippi the country had not yet been explored. Aside
24
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
from the Indian traders and the soldiers at Fort Snell- ing, there were very few white people within the pres- ent limits of Minnesota in 1844. There were a few white settlers in the valley of the St. Croix river, and a few around Mendota and the fort. There were two claim shanties on the east side of St. Anthony falls and no other building near except the ruin of the old gov- ernment mill on the west side. On the present site of St. Paul were two or three log shanties, whose occu- pants were principally engaged in selling whiskey to the Indians.
Mr. Belanger and his four assistants made the Rum river post their headquarters during the winter. The work was very hard. The men carried the goods out on their backs in great packs held in place by a strap passing around the forehead. A man was expected to carry two "pieces" (240 pounds), and his load must be at an appointed spot before daylight the next morning. Some "pieces" were more difficult to carry than others. For instance, a keg of powder in a "piece" would be likely to render it very unwieldy. If a man found it impossible to carry more than one "piece," he would have to make another trip during the night with the second one, in order to be ready for the next day's jour- ney in the morning. Two men always traveled together for safety, and the fifth man stayed with the clerk at the post. In this way a large section of country was cov- ered, the men trading sometimes as far away as Mille Lacs. The boundary line between the Sioux and Chip- peways had been fixed by treaty at "Choking creek," (wherever that may be), one day's marchi north of the mouth of Rum river, running thence westward to the Mississippi at the mouth of the Watab river a few miles
25
THE FIRST HOUSE.
above Sauk Rapids, and eastward to the St. Croix and thence to the Chippewa river in Wisconsin. But the Indians paid no attention whatever to these boundary lines. For all practical purposes Anoka county was then Chippeway country, later becoming a sort of neutral ground, in which members of neither tribe dared remain for any length of time unless on the war path. Con- sequently wild game congregated within its limits, and the earliest white settlers found it an unexcelled hunt- ing ground. Sioux territory could hardly be said to extend farther north than the Minnesota valley, and Sioux seldom crossed Crow river. The trading was, therefore, almost entirely with Chippeways. If the trad- ers came to a teepee whose owner was absent, this fact was not necessarily permitted to interfere with commer- cial operations. The scale of exchange was pretty well es- tablished-so much powder and shot and lead for so many furs of a certain kind-and the owner on his return would be perfectly satisfied to find his pelts gone and the proper proportion of ammunition left in their stead. The trading post itself was often surrounded by tepees, numbering from half a dozen to twenty or more, whose owners had come in to trade.
In the spring the trading post was abandoned for the time being, but during the next winter was again oc- cupied by Mr. Belanger and his associates, trading as before in the interest of Mr. Aitkin. The second winter a shanty was erected on the bank of Rum river near the place where the railroad bridges now cross it. This was used by the men as a temporary stopping place on long excursions. No goods were ever stored here. After the second winter Mr. Aitkin gave up his Rum river enter-
26
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
prise, and the men repaired to Mendota in the spring, where they were paid off and discharged.
Joseph Belanger, who built the first house in Anoka county, and who may in a certain sense be called its first settler, was born at St. Michel d'Yamaska, Province of Quebec, June 10th, 1813. In 1836 he joined a party of ninety-three inen, who were going west in the service of the American Fur Co. Norman W. Kittson, then fifteen or sixteen years of age, also formed one of the party.
The means of transportation were but little improved since the time of the expeditions of La Salle and Hen- nepin, and the party made the journey to the Mississippi in canoes over the route which Father Hennepin had taken on his return trip. The canoes crept along the shores of Lake Ontario to the Niagara river, and a portage was made around the falls. Having entered Lake Erie, persistent paddling day after day brought the voyageurs to the Detroit river, through which they passed to Lake St. Clair, and through the St. Clair river and Lake Huron to Mackinaw strait. At this point three men deserted. The others kept on down Lake Michigan, through Green Bay and up the Fox river to Fort Winnebago, where another portatge was made to the Wisconsin river, after which the canoes floated without much effort on the part of their occupants down to the Mississippi.
At Prairie du Chien the traders drew lots for sta- tions and Mr. Belanger drew a station on Lake Superior. One of the men who had drawn a ticket for the Yellow- stone river was greatly disheartened at the idea of being sent into that remote and almost unexplored region, and when the young and venturesome Belanger offered to
JOSEPH BELANGER. First white resident of Anoka county
28
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
trade tickets with him, he gladly consented to turn over the two suits of clothes allowed him by the company as a partial consideration for the exchange. After two years in the wilderness of the far West Mr. Belanger re- turned to the Mississippi river. In 1842, when the Amer- ican Fur Company failed, he was in Prairie du Chien. The traders who had lost their hard-earned wages wanted to kill Joseph Rolette, who was then the company's agent at that point, and Rolette concealed himself for more than two months on an island in the river, where Mr. Belanger occasionally took food to him secretly. After his engagement with Mr. Aitkin at the Rum river trading post Mr. Belanger crossed into what is now Wis- consin, and built the first house in Chippewa Falls. Later he engaged in rafting lumber from Stillwater to St. Louis, and then acted as a steamboat pilot on the Mis- sissippi river for some twelve years. Mr. Belanger was a continuous resident of Minnesota from 1856 until the time of his death. He was a man without education, except such as comes from contact with the frontier. The portrait shown in this volume is from a photograph taken in 1900, at the age of eighty-seven. When seen by the writer in that year his eyesight had begun to fail. It seemed pathetic that the intrepid trader who had found his way through trackless wilds swarming with hostile Indians to the Yellowstone valley in 1837, should be unable to find his way about the streets of St. Paul without a guide.
In 1846 Peter and Francis Patoille repaired the old trading post at Rum river and began trading with the Indians. Just how long they remained is uncertain.
Thomas A. Holmes was the next trader to try his fortune at the mouth of Rum river. He came there
29
THE FIRST HOUSE.
in the spring of 1847. It is possible that the old Be- langer house had been destroyed by this time and that Holmes erected a new log house on the same site, but it is more likely that he repaired and enlarged the build- ing which was already there, crecting a wing on each side, which gave him quite a commodious residence. Late in the summer Aaron Betts and wife lived in the house with Holmes. The same year John Banfil made a claim on Rice creek and kept a tavern for the accom- modation of travelers. William Noot located just below King's island (known then as the "big island") during the summer of 1847, and living with him was a German count who had fled from the old country for political reasons. During this year also Franklin Steele, who had acquired the water power on the east side of St. An- thony falls partly by preemption and partly by purchase, decided to build a dam and saw mill at that point. Caleb D. Dorr, who was then one of the half dozen residents of St. Anthony village, went up the Mississippi to pro- cure timber to be used in constructing the dam, and on the first day of September Daniel Stanchfield started with a crew of men from St. Anthony to go up Rum river for a like purpose. While exploring for a suit- able road up Rum river. Mr. Stanchfield came upon the Indian battle field of 1839, as already stated. He cut the logs in what is now Isanti county about a mile above the mouth of the stream which has since been known as Stanchfield brook. Mr. Stanchfield got his logs to the mouth of Rum river the first week in November. Mr. Dorr cut his timber on the Mississippi about three miles below Little Falls, and got back to Rum river on the same day that Mr. Stanchfield arrived there. William A. Cheever also stopped at the Rum
30
HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY.
river post that night. Anchor ice had begun to run in the Mississippi, and during the night snow began to fall. Suddenly the whole party were roused by the breaking of Stanchfield's boom, and rushed out in time to see the logs whirling and grinding against each other in a mad race for the open Mississippi.
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