History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 16

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Minnesota > Fillmore County > History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota > Part 16

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER XVI.

FORT SNELLING DURING ITS OCCUPANCY BY COMPANIES OF THE FIFTH REGIMENT U. S. INFANTRY. A. D. 1819, TO A. D. 1827.

Orders for military occupation of Upper Mississippi-Leavenworth and Forsyth at Prairie du Chien-Birth in Camp-Troops arrive at Mendota-Cantonment Established-Wheat carried to Pembina-Notice of Devotion, Prescott, and Major Taliaferro-Camp Cold Water Established- Col. Snelling takes command -Impressive Scene-Officers in 1820-Condition of the Fort in 1821-Saint Anthony Mill-Alexis Bailly takes cattle to Pembina-Notice of Beltrami- Arrival of first Steamboat -- Major Long's Expedition to Northern Boundary- Beltrami visits the northern sources of the Mississippi- First four mill-First Sunday School-Great flood in 1826. African slaves at the Fort-Steamboat Arrivals-Duels-Notice of William Joseph Snelling-Indian fight at the Fort- Attack upon keel boats-(ieneral Gaines' report-Removal of Fifth Regiment -- Death of Colonel Snelling.

The rumor that Lord Selkirk was founding & colony on the borders of the United States, and that the British trading companies within the boundaries of what became the territory of Min- nesota, convinced the authorities at Washington of the importance of a military occupation of the valley of the Upper Mississippi.

By direction of Major General Brown, the fol- lowing order, on the tenth of February, 1819, was issued :

" Major General Macomb, commander of the Fifth Military department, will without delay, concentrate at Detroit the Fifth Regiment of In- fantry, excepting the recruits otherwise directed by the general order herewith transmitted. As soon as the navigation of the lakes will admit, he will cause the regiment to be transported to Fort Howard; from thence, by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, to Prairie du Chien, and, after detaching a sufficient number of companies to garrison Forts Crawford and Armstrong, the remainder will proceed to the mouth of the River St. Peter's, where they will establish a post, at which the headquarters of the regiment will be located. The regiment, previous to its depar- ture, will receive the necessary supplies of cloth- ing, provisions, arms, and ammunition. Imme- diate application will be made to Brigadier Gen- eral Jesup, Quartermaster General, for funds necessary to execute the movements required by this order."

On the thirteenth of April, this additional order was issued, at Detroit :

"The season having now arrived when the lakes may be navigated with safety, a detach- ment of the Fifth Regiment, to consist of Major Marston's and Captain Fowle's companies, under the command of Major Muhlenburg, will proceed to Green Bay. Surgeon's Mate, R. M. Byrne, of the Fifth Regiment, will accompany the detach- ment. The Assistant Deputy Quartermaster General will furnish the necessary transport, and will send by the same opportunity two hundred barrels of provisions, which he will draw from the contractor at this post. The provisions must be examined and inspected, and properly put up for transportation. Colonel Leavenworth will, with- out delay, prepare his regiment to move to the post on the Mississippi, agreeable to the Divi- sion order of the tenth of February. The Assist- ant Deputy Quartermaster General will furnish the necessary transportation, to be ready by the first of May next. The Colonel will make requi- sition for such stores, ammunition, tools and implements as may be required, and he be able to take with him on the expedition. Particular in- structions will be given to the Colonel, explaining the objects of his expedition."

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1819.

On Wednesday, the last day of June, Col. Leav- enworth and troops arrived from Green Bay, at Prairie du Chien. Scarcely had they reached this point when Charlotte Seymour, the wife of Lt. Nathan Clark, a native of Hartford, Ct., gave birth to a daughter, whose first baptismal name was Charlotte, after her mother, and the second Ouisconsin, given by the officers in view of the fact that she was born at the junction of that stream with the Mississippi.

In time Charlotte Ouisconsin married a young Lieutenant, a native of Princeton, New Jersey, and a graduate of West Point, and still resides with her husband, General H. P. Van Cleve, in

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COL. LEAVENWORTH ARRIVES AT MENDOTA

the city of Minneapolis, living to do good as she has opportunity.

In June, under instructions from the War Department, Major Thomas Forsyth, connected with the office of Indian affairs, left St. Louis with two thousand dollars worth of goods to be distributed among the Sioux Indians, in accor- dance with the agreement of 1805, already re- ferred to, by the late General Pike.

About nine o'clock of the morning of the fifth of July, he joined Leavenworth and his command at Prairie du Chien. Some time was occupied by Leavenworth awaiting the arrival of ordnance, provisions and recruits, but on Sunday morning, the eighth of August, about eight o'clock, the expedition set out for the point now known as Mendota. The flotilla was quite imposing ; there were the Colonel's barge, fourteen batteaux with ninety-eight soldiers and officers, two large canal or Mackinaw boats, filled with various stores, and Forsyth' keel boat, containing goods and pres- ents for the Indians. On the twenty-third of August, Forsyth reached the mouth of the Min- nesota with his boat, and the next morning Col. Leavenworth arrived, and selecting a place at Mendota, near the present railroad bridge, he ordered the soldiers to cut down trees and make a clearing. On the next Saturday Col. Leaven- worth, Major Vose, Surgeon Purcell, Lieutenant Clark and the wife of Captain Gooding ivited the Falls of Saint Anthony with Forsyth, in his keel boat.

Early in September two more boats and a bat- teaux, with officers and one hundred and twenty recruits, arrived.

During the winter of 1820, Laidlow and others, in behalf of Lord Selkirk's Scotch settlers at Pembina, whose crops had been destroyed by grasshoppers, passed the Cantonment, on their way to Prairie du Chien, to purchase wheat. Upon the fifteenth of April they began their return with their Mackinaw boats, each loaded with two hundred bushels of wheat, one hundred of oats, and thirty of peas, and reached the mouth of the Minnesota early in May. Ascending this stream to Big Stone Lake, the boats were drawn on rollers a mile and a half to Lake Traverse, and on the third of June arrived at Pembina and cheered the desponding and needy settlers of the Selkirk colony.

The first sutler of the post was a Mr. Devotion. He brought with him a young man named Phi- lander Prescott, who was born in 1801, at Phelps- town, Ontario county, New York. At first they stopped at Mud HIen Island, in the Mississippi below the mouth of the St. Croix River. Coming up late in the year 1819, at the site of the pres- ent town of Hastings they found a keel-boat loaded with supplies for the cantonment, in charge of Lieut. Oliver, detained by the ice.

Amid all the changes of the troops, Mr. Pres- cott remained nearly all his life in the vicinity of the post, to which he came when a mere lad, and was at length killed in the Sioux Massacre.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1820 -

In the spring of 1820, Jean Baptiste Faribault brought up Leavenworth's horses from Prairie du Chien.

The first Indian Agent at the post was a former army officer, Lawrence Taliaferro, pronounced Toliver. As he had the confidence of the Gov- ernment for twenty-one successive years, he is deserving of notice.

His family was of Italian origin, and among the early settlers of Virginia. IIe was born in 1794, in King William county in that State, and when, in 1812, war was declared against Great Britain, with four brothers, he entered the army, and was commissioned as Lieutenant of the Thirty-fifth Infantry. He behaved gallantly at Fort Erie and Sackett's Harbor, and after peace was declared, he was retained as a First Lieuten- ant of the Third Infantry. In 1816 he was sta- tioned at Fort Dearborn, now the site of Chicago. While on a furlough, he called one day upon President Monroe, who told him that a fort would be built near the Falls of Saint Anthony, and an Indian Agency established, to which he offered to appoint him. His commission was dated March 27th, 1819, and he proceeded in due time to his post.

On the fifth day of May, 1820, Leavenworth left his winter quarters at Mendota, crossed the stream and made a summer camp near the present military grave yard, which in consequence of a fine spring has been called "Camp Cold Water." The Indian agency, under Taliaferro, remained for a time at the old cantonment.

The commanding officer established a fine

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

garden in the bottom lands of the Minnesota, and on the fifteenth of June the earliest garden peas were eaten. The first distinguished visitors at the new encampment were Governor Lewis Cass, of Michigan, and Henry Schoolcraft, who arrived in July, by way of Lake Superior and Sandy Lake.

The relations between Col. Leavenworth and Indian Agent Taliaferro were not entirely har- monious, growing out of a disagreement of views relative to the treatment of the Indians, and on the day of the arrival of Governor Cass, Te !- iaferro writes to Leavenworth :

" As it is now understood that I am agent for Indian affairs in this country, and you are about to leave the upper Mississippi, in all probability in the course of a month or two, I beg leave to suggest, for the sake of a general understanding with the Indian tribes in this country, that any medals, you may possess, would by being turned over to me, cease to be a topic of remark among the different Indian tribes under my direction. I will pass to you any voucher that may be re- quired, and I beg leave to observe that any pro- gress in influence is much impeded in conse- quence of this frequent intercourse with the gar- rison."

In a few days, the disastrous effect of Indians mingling with the soldiers was exhibited. On the third of August, the agent wrote to Leaven- worth:

" His Excellency Governor Cass during his visit to this post remarked to me that the Indians in this quarter were spoiled, and at the same time said they should not be permitted to enter the camp. An unpleasant affair has lately taken place ; I mean the stabbing of the old chief Mahgossau by his comrade. This was caused, doubtless, by an anxiety to obtain the chief's whiskey. I beg, therefore, that no whiskey whatever be given to any Indians, unless it be through their proper agent. While an overplus of whiskey thwarts the benificent and humane policy of the government, it entails misery upon the Indians, and endangers their lives."

A few days after this note was written Josiah Snelling, who had been recently promoted to the Colonelcy of the Fifth Regiment, arrived with his family, relieved Leavenworth, and infused new life and energy. A little while before his

arrival, the daughter of Captain Gooding was married to Lieutenant Green, the Adjutant of the regiment, the first marriage of white persons in Minnesota. Mrs. Snelling, a few days after her arrival, gave birth to a daughter, the first white child born in Minnesota, and after a brief existence of thirteen months, she died and was the first interred in the military grave yard, and for years the stone which marked its resting place, was visible.

The earliest manuscript in Minnesota, written at the Cantonment, is dated October 4, 1820, and is in the handwriting of Colonel Snelling. It reads : " In justice to Lawrence Taliaferro, Esq., Indian Agent at this post, we, the undersigned, officers of the Fifth Regiment here stationed, have presented him this paper, as a token, not only of our individual respect and esteem, but as an entire approval of his conduct and deportment as a public agent in this quarter. Given at St. Peter, this 4th day of October, 1820.

J. SNELLING, N. CLARK,

Col. 5th Inf. Lieutenant.

Jos. HARE,

S. BURBANK, Br. Major. Lieutenant.

DAVID PERRY, Captain. Surgeon,

ED. PURCELL,

D. GOODING,

P. R. GREEN,

Brevet Captain. Lieut. and Adjt.

W. G. CAMP,

J. PLYMPTON, Lieutenant. Lt. and Q. M.

R. A. MCCABE, Lieutenant.

H. WILKINS, Lieutenant."

During the summer of 1820, a party of the Sisseton Sioux killed on the Missouri, Isadore Poupon, a half-breed, and Joseph Andrews, a Canadian engaged in the fur trade. The Indian Agent, through Colin Campbell, as interpreter, notified the Sissetons that trade would cease with them, until the murderers were delivered. At a council held at Big Stone Lake, one of the murderers, and the aged father of another, agreed to surrender themselves to the commanding officer.

On the twelfth of November, accompanied by their friends, they approached the encampment in solemn procession, and marched to the centre of the parade. First appeared a Sisseton bear- ing a British flag ; then the murderer and the de- voted father of another, their arms pinioned, and

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ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.

large wooden splinters thrust through the flesh above the elbows indicating their contempt for pain and death ; in the rear followed friends and relatives, with them chanting the death dirge. Having arrived in front of the guard, fire was kindled, and the British flag burned; then the murderer delivered up his medal, and both prison- ers were surrounded. Col. Snelling detained the old chief, while the murderer was sent to St. Louis for trial.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1821.

Col. Snelling built the fort in the shape of a lozenge, in view of the projection between the two rivers. The first row of barracks was of hewn logs, obtained from the pine forests of Rum River, but the other buildings were of stone. Mrs. Van Cleve, the daughter of Lieutenant, afterwards Captain Clark, writes :

" In 1821 the fort, although not complete, was fit for occupancy. My father had assigned to him the quarters next beyond the steps leading to the Commissary's stores, and during the year my little sister Juliet was born there. At a later period my father and Major Garland obtained permission to build more commodious quarters outside the walls, and the result was the two stone houses afterwards occupied by the Indian Agent and interpreter, lately destroyed."

Early in August, a young and intelligent mixed blood, Alexis Bailly, in after years a member of the legislature of Minnesota, left the cantonment with the first drove of cattle for the Selkirk Set- tlement, and the next winter returned with Col. Robert Dickson and Messrs. Laidlow and Mac- kenzie.

The next month, a party of Sissetons visited the Indian Agent, and told him that they had started with another of the murderers, to which reference has been made, but that on the way he had, through fear of being hung, killed himself.

This fall, a mill was constructed for the use of the garrison, on the west side of St. Anthony Falls, under the supervision of Lieutenant McCabe. During the fall, George Gooding, Captain by brevet, resigned, and became Sutler at Prairie du Chien. He was a native of Massachusetts, and entered the army as ensign in 1808. In 1810 he became a Second Lieutenant, and the next year was wounded at Tippecanoe.

In the middle of October, there embarked on the keel-boat " Saucy Jack," for Prairie du Chien, Col. Snelling, Lieut. Baxley, Major Taliaferro, and Mrs. Gooding.

EVENTS OF 1822 AND 1823.

Early in January, 1822, there came to the Fort from the Red River of the North, Col. Robert Dickson, Laidlow, a Scotch farmer, the superin- tendent of Lord Selkirk's experimental farm, and one Mackenzie, on their way to Prairie du Chien. Dickson returned with a drove of cattle, but owing to the hostility of the Sioux his cattle were scattered, and never reached Pembina.

During the winter of 1823, Agent Taliaferro was in Washington. While returning in March, he was at a hotel in Pittsburg, when he received a note signed G. C. Beltrami, who was an Italian exile, asking permission to accompany him to the Indian territory. IIe was tall and commanding in appearance, and gentlemanly in bearing, and Taliaferro was so forcibly impressed as to accede to the request. After reaching St. Louis they embarked on the first steamboat for the Upper Mississippi.

It was named the Virginia, and was built in Pittsburg, twenty-two feet in width, and one hundred and eighteen feet in length, in charge of a Captain Crawford. It reached the Fort on the tenth of May, and was saluted by the discharge of cannon. Among the passengers, besides the Agent and the Italian, were Major Biddle, Lieut. Russell, and others.

The arrival of the Virginia is an era in the history of the Dahkotah nation, and will proba- bly be transmitted to their posterity as long as they exist as a people. They say their sacred men, the night before, dreamed of seeing some monster of the waters, which frightened them very much,

As the boat neared the shore, men, women, and children beheld with silent astonishment, supposing that it was some enormous water-spirit, coughing, puffing out hot breath, and splashing water in every direction. When it touched the landing their fears prevailed, and they retreated some distance; but when the blowing off of steam commenced they were completely un- nerved : mothers forgetting their children, with streaming hair, sought hiding-places ; chiefs, re-

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

nouncing their stoicism, scampered away like affrighted animals.

The peace agreement beteen the Ojibways and Dahkotahs, made through the influence of Gov- ernor Cass, was of brief duration, the latter be- ing the first to violate the provisions.

On the fourth of June, Taliaferro, the Indian agent among the Dahkotahs, took advantage of' the presence of a large number of Ojibways to renew the agreement for the cessation of hostili- ties. The council hall of the agent was a large room of logs, in which waved conspicuously the flag of the United States, surrounded by British colors and medals that had been delivered up from time to time by Indian chiefs.

Among the Dahkotah chiefs present were Wapashaw, Little Crow, and Penneshaw; of the Ojibways there were Kendouswa, Moshomene, and Pasheskonoepe. After mutual accusations and excuses concerning the infraction of the pre- vious treaty, the Dahkotahs lighted the calumet, they having been the first to infringe upon the agreement of 1820. After smoking and passing the pipe of peace to the Ojibways, who passed through the same formalities, they all shook hands as a pledge of renewed amity.

The morning after the council, Flat Mouth, the distinguished Ojibway . chief, arrived, who had left his lodge vowing that he would never be at peace with the Dahkotahs. As he stepped from his canoe, Penneshaw held out his hand, but was repulsed with scorn. The Dahkotah warrior immediately gave the alarm, and in a moment runners were on their way to the neighboring villages to raise a war party.

On the sixth of June, the Dahkotahs had assem- bled, stripped for a fight, and surrounded the Ojibways. The latter, fearing the worst, con- cealed their women and children behind the old barracks which had been used by the troops while the fort was being erected. At the solicitation of the agent and commander of the fort, the Dahko- tahs desisted trom an attack and retired.

On the seventh, the Ojibways left for their homes; but, in a few hours, while they were making a portage at Falls of St. Anthony, they were again approached by the Dahkotahs, who would have attacked them, if a detachment of troops had not arrived from the fort.

A rumor reaching Penneshaw's village that he

had been killed at the falls, his mother seized an Ojibway maiden, who had been a captive from infancy, and, with a tomahawk, cut her in two. Upon the return of the son in safety he was much gratified at what he considered the prowess of his parent.

On the third of July, 1823, Major Long, of the engineers, arrived at the fort in command of an ·expedition to explore the Minnesota River, and the region along the northern boundary line of the United States. Beltrami, at the request of Col. Snelling, was permitted to be of the party, and Major Taliaferro kindly gave him a horse and equipments.

The relations of the Italian to Major Long were not pleasant, and at Pembina Beltrami left the expedition, and with a " bois brule ", and two Ojibways proceeded and discovered the northern sources of the Mississippi, and suggested where the western sources would be found ; which was verified by Schoolcraft nine years later. About the second week in September Beltrami returned to the fort by way of the Mississippi, escorted by forty or fifty Ojibways, and on the 25th departed for New Orleans, where he published his discov- eries in the French language.

The mill which was constructed in 1821, for sawing lumber, at the Falls of St. Anthony, stood upon the site of the Holmes and Sidle Mill, in Minneapolis, and in 1823 was fitted up for grind- ing flour. The following extracts from corres- pondence addressed to Lieut. Clark, Commissary at Fort Snelling, will be read with interest.

Under the date of August 5th, 1823, General Gibson writes : "From a letter addressed by Col. Snelling to the Quartermaster General, dated the 2d of April, I learn that a large quan- tity of wheat would be raised this summer. The assistant Commissary of Subsistence at St. Louis has been instructed to forward sickles and a pair of millstones to St. Peters. If any flour is manu- factured from the wheat raised, be pleased to let me know as early as practicable, that I may deduct the quantity manufactured at the post from the quantity advertised to be contracted for."

In another letter, General Gibson writes : " Below you will find the amount charged on the books against the garrison at Ft. St. Anthony, for certain articles, and forwarded for the use of the troops at that post, which you will deduct

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FIRST FLOUR MILL IN MINNESOTA.

from the payments to be made for flour raised and turned over to you for issue :

One pair buhr millstones. $250 11

337 pounds plaster of Paris 20 22

Two dozen sickles 18 00

Total. $288 33 Upon the 19th of January, 1824, the General writes: "The mode suggested by Col. Snelling, of fixing the price to be paid to the troops for the flour furnished by them is deemed equitable and just. You will accordingly pay for the flour $3.33 per barrel."

Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve, now the oldest person living who was connected with the can- tonment in 1819, in a paper read before the De- partment of American History of the Minnesota Historical Society in January, 1880, wrote :

" In 1823, Mrs. Snelling and my mother estab- lished the first Sunday School in the Northwest. It was held in the basement of the commanding officer's quarters, and was productive of much good, Many of the soldiers, with their families, attended. Joe. Brown, since so well know in this country, then a drummer boy, was one of the pupils. A Bible class, for the officers and their wives, was formed, and all became so inter- ested in the history of the patriarchs, that it fur- nished topics of conversation for the week. One day after the Sunday School lesson on the death of Moses, a member of the class meeting my mother on the parade, after exchanging the usual greet- ings, said, in saddened tones, 'But don't you feel sorry that Moses is dead ?'

Early in the spring of 1824, the Tully boys were rescued from the Sioux and brought to the fort. They were children of one of the settlers of Lord Selkirk's colony, and with their parents and others, were on their way from Red River Valley to settle near Fort Snelling.

The party was attacked by Indians, and the parents of these children murdered, and the boys captured. Through the influence of Col. Snell- ing the children were ransomed and brought to the fort. Col. Snelling took John and my father Andrew, the younger of the two. Everyone became interested in the orphans, and we loved Andrew as if he had been our own lit- tle brother. John died some two years after his arrival at the fort, and Mrs. Snelling asked me

when I last saw her if a tomb stone had been placed at his grave, she as requested, during a visit to the old home some years ago. She said she received a promise that it should be done, and seemed quite disappointed when I told her it had not been attended to."

Andrew Tully, after being educated at an Orphan Asylum in New York City, became a carriage maker, and died a few years ago in that vicinity.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR A. D. 1824.

In the year 1824 the Fort was visited by Gen. Scott, on a tour of inspection, and at his sug- gestion, its name was changed from Fort St. Anthony to Fort Snelling. The following is an extract from his report to the War Department :

" This work, of which the War Department is in possession of a plan, reflects the highest credit on Col. Snelling, his officers and men. The de- fenses, and for the most part, the public store- houses, shops and quarters being constructed of stone, the whole is likely to endure as long as the post shall remain a frontier one. The cost of erection to the government has been the amount paid for tools and iron, and the per diem paid to soldiers employed as mechanics. I wish to suggest to the General in Chief, and through him to the War Department, the propriety of calling this work Fort Snelling, as a just compliment to the meritorious officer under whom it has been erected. The present name, (Fort St. An- thony), is foreign to all our associations, and is, besides, geographically incorrect, as the work stands at the junction of the Mississippi and St. Peter's [ Minnesota ] Rivers, eight miles be- low the great falls of the Mississippi, called after St. Anthony."

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History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 16

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: