History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 46

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

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The number condemned was forty, but one died before the day fixed for the execution, and one, Henry Milord, a half breed, had his sentence com- muted to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary; so that thirty-eight only were hung.

On the 16th of February, 1863, the treaties be- fore that time existing between the United States and these annuity Indians were abrogated and an- nulled, and all lands and rights of occupancy within the state of Minnesota, and all annuities and claims then existing in favor of said Indians ware declared forfeited to the United States.

These Indians, in the language of the act, had, in the year 1862, "made unprovoked aggression and most savage war upon the United States, and

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REMOVAL OF INDIANS.

massacred a large number of men, women and children within the state of Minnesota;" and as in this war and massacre they had "destroyed and damaged a large amount of property, and thereby forfeited all just claims" to their "monies and an- nuities to the United States," the act provides that "two-thirds of the balance remaining unexpended" of their annuities for the fiscal year, not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars, and the further sum of one hundred thousand dollars, being two-thirds of the annuities becoming due, and payable during the next fiscal year, should be appropriated and paid over to three commissioners appointed by the President, to be by them apportioned among the heads of families, or their survivors, who suffered damage by the depredations of said Indians, or the troops of the United States in the war against them, not exceeding the sum of two hundred dol- lars to any one family, nor more than actual dam- age sustained. All claims for damages were re- quired, by the act, to be presented at certain times, and according to the rules prescribed by the commissioners, who should hold their first ses- sion at St. Peter, in the state of Minnesota, on or before the first Monday of April, and make and return their finding, and all the papers re- lating thereto, on or before the first Monday in December, 1863.

The President appointed for this duty, and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the Hons. Albert S. White, of the state of Indiana, Eli R. Chase, of Wisconsin, and Cyrus Aldrich, of Minnesota.

The duties of this board were so vigorously prosecuted, that, by the 1st of November following their appointment, some twenty thousand sheets of legal cap paper had been consumed in reducing to writing the testimony under the law requiring the commissioners to report the testimony in wri- ting, and. proper decisions made requisite to the payment el the two hundred dollars to that class of sufferu/# designated by the act of Congress. Such dispatch in Government agents gives abund- ant evidence of national vigor and integrity.

It www, no doubt, the object of this act of Con- grese to make such an appropriation as would re- lievo the sufferings of those who had lost all pres- en' racans of support, and for the further purpose of nacertaining the whole amount of claims for darnges as a necessary prerequisite to future leg- ielation. Regarded in this light, the act is one of wisk'iom and economy.

On the 21st of February following the annulling of the treaty with the Sioux above named, Con- gress passed "An act for the removal of the Win- nebago Indians, and the sale of their reservation in Minnesota for their benefit." The money aris- ing from the sale of their lands, after paving their indebtedness, is to be paid into the treasury of the United States, and expended, as the same is received, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, in necessary improvements upon their new reservation. The lands in the new reservation are to be allotted in severalty, not exceeding eighty acres to each head of a family, except to the chiefs, to whom larger allottments may be made, to be vested by patent in the Indian and his heirs, with- out the right of alienation.

These several acts of the General Government moderated to some extent the demand of the peo- ple for the execution of the condemned Sioux yet in the military prison at Mankato awaiting the final decision of the President. The removal of the Indians from the borders of Minnesota, and the opening up for settlement of over a million of acres of superior land, was a prospective ben- efit to the State of immense value, both in its do- mestic quiet and its rapid advancement in material wealth.

In pursuance of the acts of Congress, on the 22d of April, and for the purpose of carrying them into execution, the condemned Indians were first taken from the State, on board the steamboat Favorite, carried down the Mississippi, and con- fined at Davenport, in the state of Iowa, where they remained, with only such privileges as are allowed to convicts in the penitentiary.

On the 4th of May, A. D. 1863, at six o'clock in the afternoon, certain others of the Sioux Indians, squaws and pappooses, in all about seventeen hun- dred, left Fort Snelling, on board the steamboat Davenport, for their new reservation on the Upper Missouri, above Fort Randall, accompanied by a strong guard of soldiers, and attended by certain of the missionaries and employes, the whole being under the general direction of Superintendent Clark W. Thompson. By these two shipments, some two thousand Sioux had been taken from the State and removed far from the borders of Minne- sota. The expedition of 1863, fitted out against the scattered bands of the Sioux yet remaining on the borders of the State, or still further removed into the D.ikota Territory, gave to the border set- tlements some assurance of protection and security

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HISTORY OF THE SIOUX MASSACRE.

against any further disturbance from these partic- ular bands of Indians.

DEATH OF LITTLE CROW.

On Friday evening, July 3, 1863, Mr. Lampson and his son Chauncey, while traveling along the road, about six miles north of Hutchinson, discov- ered two Indians in a little prairie opening in the woods, interspersed with clumps of bushes and vines and a few scattering poplars, picking berries. These two Indians were Little Crow and his son Wowinapa.

STATEMENT BY HIS SON.

"I am the son of Little Crow; my name is Wo- winapa; I am sixteen years old; my father had two wives before he took my mother; the first one had one son, the second one a son and daughter; the third wife was my mother. After taking my mother he put away the first two; he had seven children by my mother-six are dead; I am the only one living now; the fourth wife had four children born; do not know whether any died or not; two were boys and three were girls; the fifth wife had five children-three of them are dead, two are living; the sixth wife had three children; all of them are dead; the oldest was a boy, the o'her two were girls; the last four wives were sisters.

"Father went to St. Joseph last spring. When we were coming back he said he could not fight the white men, but would go below and steal horses from them, and give them to his children, so that they could be comfortable, and then he would go. away off.

"Father also told me that he was getting old, and wanted me to go with him to carry his bun- dles. He left his wives and his other children ba- hind. There were sixteen men and one squaw in the party that went below with us. We had no horses, but walked all the way down to the settle- ments. Father and I were picking red-berries, near Scattered Lake, at the time he was shot. It was near night. He was hit the first time in the side, just above the hip. His gun and mine were lying on the ground. He took up my gun and fired it first, and then fired his own. He was shot the second time when he was firing his own gun. The ball struck the stock of his gun, and then hit him in the side, near the shoulder. This was the shot that killed him. He told me that he was killed, and asked me for water, which I gave him. He died immediately after. When I heard the

first shot fired I laid down, and the man did not see me before father was killed.

"A short time before father was killed an Indian named Hiuka, who married the daughter of my father's second wife, came to him. He had a horse with him-also a gray-colored coat that he had taken from a man that he had killed to the north of where father was killed. He gave the coat to father, telling him he might need it when it rained, as he had no coat with him. Hiuka said he had a horse now, and was going back to the Indian country.

"The Indians that went down with us separated. Eight of them and the squaw went north; the other eight went further down. I have not seen any of them since. After father was killed I took both guns and the ammunition and started to go to Devil's Lake, where I expected to find some of my friends. When I got to Beaver creek I saw the tracks of two Indians, and at Standing Buffalo's village saw where the eight Indians that had gone north had crossed.

"I carried both guns as far as the Sheyenne river, where I saw two men. I was scared, and threw my gun and the ammunition down. After that I traveled only in the night; and, as I had no ammunition to kill anything to eat, I had not strength enough to travel fast. I went on until I arrived near Devil's Lake, when I staid in one place three days, being so weak and hungry that I could go no further. I had picked up a cartridge near Big Stone Lake, which I still had with me, and loaded father's gun with it, cutting the ball into slugs. With this charge I shot a wolf, ate some of it, which gave me strength to travel, and went on up the lake until the day I was captured, which was twenty-six days from the day my father was killed."

Here ends this wonderful episode in our contact with the Indian race in Minnesota. It commenced with Little Crow, in this instance, and it is proper that it should end with his inglorious lite. With the best means for becoming an exponent of In- dian civilization on this continent, he has driven the missionaries from his people and become a standing example of the assertion: "Once an In- dian always an Indian."

Little Crow has indeed given emphasis to the aphorism of Ferdousi, "For that which is unclean by nature, thou cans't entertain no hope; no wash- ing will make the gypsy white."

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HISTORY OF FILLMORE COUNTY.

257

HISTORY

FILLMORE COUNTY.

CHAPTER XLIV.

BOUNDARIES-TOPOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEA- TURES -LOCATION OF TOWNSHIPS-GEOLOGICAL.

Fillmore county is on the southern border of the state of Minnesota, the second from the Mis- sissippi River. Olmsted and Winona counties are contiguous on the north, Houston county on the east, Iowa State on the south, and Mower county on the west. It has twenty-four townships coinci- dent with the government survey, and in the po- litical organization of the several towns the origi- nal bounds have been preserved, except in a few cases which will be noticed in the sketch of the towns where the variations occur.

The county of Fillmore was created on the 5th of March, 1853. Its area was much larger then than now, the present boundaries being established in 1855.

The county seat was at first at Chatfield, in 1855, it was removed to Carimona, and in 1856, a vote of the people established it permanently in Preston where good substantial county buildings bave since been erected.

The county lies between the forty-third and forty-fifth parallel of north latitude, and between ranges seven and fourteen west and townships one hundred and one and one hundred and five north. The principal river is the Root River which comes into the county from the west about six miles from the northern boundary, and meandering toward the east crosses the line about three miles south of the northeast corner. It has several branches coming in at various points, the largest of which is the south branch which vies with the

main branch as to size, and arises outside of the county on the west and unites in the northeast part of Carrolton with the main stream. This branch also bas has other branches quite important coming generally from the south. The South Fork of the Root River which becomes an import- ant stream in Houston county, arises in the southern central part of this county and leaves it near the center of the eastern boundary.

The various rivers and the topographical fea- tures are more fully described in the geological sketch and in the separate township delineations.

The county is four townships wide from north to south, ort wenty-four miles, and six from east to west, or thirty-six miles; its area being about 864 square miles, or 553,081.77 acres. It has very few acres not suitable for tillage, and unlike many other counties to the north and west, it is a lake- less region.

Preston is the county seat, and the geographi- cal center of the county is but a few blocks from the Court House, as the village is in the northwest corner of the township of the same name and touches the corner of three other towns.

The other principal villages in the county are Lanesboro, Spring Valley, Chatfield, and Rush- ford, and there are several other villages of more or less importance as elements of future growth which are described in the township histories. The names and location of the several towns in the county will be, here given . with brief mention of their surface peculiarities, beginning in the northeast corner, on the plan of the government numbering of sections.

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HISTORY OF FILLMORE COUNTY.

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RUSHFORD .- Root River crosses the central part of the town, in a valley several hundred feet be- low the level of the surrounding country. The prairie land is along the bottom land of the Root River, which is inclined to be marshy.

ARENDAHL .- The Root River goes through the southeast corner. A belt of timber skirts along the northern boundary, and on the east unites with the timber belt of the river. About one-half of the whole town is timbered. There is prairie in the northwest and center.

PILOT MOUND .-- The Root River crosses it in a southeasterly direction and lays in a deep valley with abrupt rock-bound bluffs several hundred feet high. The greatest part of the town is wooded, but in the northeastern part, and also in the northwestern, there are prairie tracts.

CHATFIELD .- This township is bi-sected by the Root River, which runs from west to east. The north branch of the Root River, with its several tributaries, has a rough and rocky character of surface in their vicinity, and there is but little prairie, though there are openings that are with- out timber.

JORDAN .- This town is well covered with heavy timber, the principal prairie region being in the northwestern corner. The Root River runs through the southeastern corner, and also touches at two points in the southwestern corner of the town.

SUMNER .- The Brook Kedron runs southeast through this township to enter Root River, which, under the name "Bear Creek," meanders along the southern border. The southeastern part of the town is wooded, but most of it is flat prairie.

SPRING VALLEY .- This is the first township of the second tier, on the west. It has Bear Creek along the northern border, and Middle Creek and Deer Creek, which, uniting in Fillmore, the next town east, go to help form Root River. There is a belt of prairie covering the southern tier of sec- tions, and the rest is more or less heavily timbered.

FILLMORE .- West of the middle branch of Root River there is a region of heavy timber. The rest of the town is prairie, interspersed with thick- ets and patches of oak brush and aspen. Three branches of the Root River unite in the north- western part of the town.

FOUNTAIN .- Watson's Creek, passing through toward the east, causes considerable diversity of surface. It has quite heavy timber along the streams, and small patches scattered over the

whole area. Numerous "sink holes," as they are called, are found.

CARBOLTON .-- The valley of the south branch of the Root River runs through the town from the southwest corner to near the middle of the eastern boundary, and is quite rough, but not everywhere wooded. In the northern part there is some prairie, with quite heavy timber in the northwest.

HOLT .- The Root River, with its characteristic bluffs, crosses the northwest part. In the south- east there is prairie, and also some wet prairie be- tween the bluffs, but with these exceptions the town is wooded.

NORWAY .- There is a prairie belt entering the town from the south and west, which forms the divide between the tributaries to the South Fork of the Root River and that stream itself; this be- comes narrow in the center, but expands toward the northeast. It is somewhat broken by bluffs along the little creeks.

PREBLE .- This township is crossed in a north- easterly direction by the South Fork of the Root River, and, with its tributaries, introduces a great diversity of surface. There is a limited prairie patch in the southeast corner.

AMHERST .- The South Fork runs through the southern part of this town, and a large portion is prairie, broken with patches of thicket and heavier timber.

PRESTON .- The south branch of the Root River that sweeps into town at the village, flows around to leave it two miles away. It carries a deeply eroded valley, that gives a marked diversity of surface, with frequent changes from prairie to tim- ber and thicket.

CARIMONA .- The northern part of the town car- ries, from east to west, the south branch of the Root River. Much of the township is covered with sparse timber with patches of heavy timber, and the "sink holes" are numerous.

FORESTVILLE .- This has the same south branch cutting it across below the center from west to east. The central part has timber. In the north- west and in the south are tracts of prairie. It also has "sink holes."

BLOOMFIELD .- The south branch passes through this township south of the center. It has an irregular area of timber and oak brush in the east- ern and central parts and spreading northward from the valley; but about two-thirds of the whole is prairie with a few sloughs in the eastern part.

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GEOLOGICAL.

BEAVER .- Slough Creek runs across the town from the northwest corner to the center of the southern boundary, and a strip of timber goes with it. Most of the rest is prairie, with several north and south sloughs.

YORK .- This has no large rivers. A track of wool and thicket crosses its territory north and south about two miles wide, east of the center. The remainder is prairie.

BRISTOL .- This town is made up of prairie and thickets. The prairie crosses it from east to west widening to almost five miles on the west.

HARMONY .- This town is well wooded, with prairie in the center portion.

CANTON .- This is mostly wooded, except in the northeastern and southern portions, and a small area in the west.

NEWBURG .- This town is mostly prairie, in the northwest corner near the river is a broken wooded tract. Small timber is also found in the central and southwestern portion, as well as in the north- east.

This gives a general idea of the external make- up of the several towns in the county.

In the first political organization of the towns on the 11th of May, 1858, the town of Canton was called Elyria, and the towns of Holt and Norway were in one corporation called Douglass. The town of Rushford also embraced that of Arendahl. In other regards the towns remain as at first instituted.

GEOLOGY.

This account of the geology and natural history of the county, is taken from the admirable report of the survey by Prof. N. H. Winchell, State geo- logist, who has a world-wide reputation as a scientific worker and writer, and it is commended to the careful perusal of the readers of this volume, as a knowledge of what we have under our feet is most valuable in an economic as well as in other regards.

NATURAL DRAINAGE. - Root River, with its trib- utaries, drains nearly the whole of the county. The Upper Iowa River, which enters the county in Beaver and Bristol townships, receives a few small streams from the southern tier of townships. Root River, flowing toword the east, spreads out its tributaries north and south, like the rays of a fan, crossing the entire county, from west to east. Many of the branches of the Root River rise in the counties next west and north of Fillmore

county, in a tract of country covered with north- ern drift. After entering Fillmore county, they soon enter canon-like valleys, and the drift be- comes much lighter. They then converge toward the main valley, following deeply cut rocky val- leys. and leave the county in one volume at Rush- ford, in the northeastern corner of the county. These streams furnish frequent water power priv- ileges, and a number of them have been improved in the erection of mills, which are scattered throughout the county and are elsewhere de- scribed.

At the Tunnel Mills, section thirty-four, Sum- ner, advantage has been taken of the winding course of Bear Creek. The creek is enclosed on both sides by high rocky walls. A tunnel has been cut through the narrow neck, excavated in. the rock, admitting the water, which falls again into the river on section thirty-four, producing a fall of 25 feet in 600 feet. The cut in the rock is 600 feet long, for the tunnel, and 100 feet for the tail-race. At G. Weisbeck's Mill, a similar oppor- tunity is offered. This is on section eleven, Spring Valley. By a tunnel of 70 feet, through the "Hog's Back," a fall of 17 feet 10 inches may be secured; and at the lime-kilu of Mr. J. H. Hall, near Weisbeck's, a tunnel of 125 feet will furnish a power of 20 feet. About 20 rods from Weis- beck's, a tunnel of 450 feet will afford 64 feet head of water. The rock is limestone, in horizontal bedding.

SURFACE FEATURES .--- That portion of the coun- ty which is covered with a thick deposit of foreign drift presents the usual monotony of surface, char- acteristic of the drift latitudes. This includes the most of the westeru range of townships across the western end of the county, and some portions of the next range east. There are, however, even within the drift area, a number of narrow, deeply cut valleys, with precipitous, rocky bluffs, having very much the nature of canons, like those of the driftless territories of the west. Toward the east these deeply cut valleys are more numerous. All little streams, and a great many narrow valleys that have no running water in them, have high, rocky bluffs along their whole course. These val- leys and streams, constituting the drainage system of the county, converge toward the valley of Root River. The valley of this stream, with its princi- pal tributaries, presents some of the most remark- able and instructive phenomena of erosion to be found in the State. It passes nearly at right

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HISTORY OF FILLMORE COUNTY.

angles across the strike of the formations. These are alternating limestones and sandstones, with an occasional bed of soft shale. The Trenton lime- stone, underlaid by the easily eroded St. Peter sandstone, the same as at the Falls of St. Anthony, although about a hundred and sixty feet in thick- ness, is eaten into by the retroaction of the water as it plunges over the falls at the point where the streams cross the line of its superposition over the St. Peter, until they have each excavated in the Trenton a deep channel from fifteen to thirty miles in extent. Through the line of strike of the St. Peter these valleys are widened out, the surface of the low ground within the bluffs being usually one of rich meadow with undulating surface, from one to two hundred feet below the general ·level. The Lower Magnesia Formation is entered upon by the streams while they are as yet a good many miles within the general area of the Tren- ton. As this formation consists of three members, (two limestones, separated by a sandstone thirty feet in thickness,) it repeats the succession of phe- nomena witnessed in the erosion of the Trenton and St. Peter. As the water leaves the Shakopee limestone and enters upon the Jordan sandstone, it passes over a series of rapids or a fall of several feet perpendicular, which falls or rapids undergo a process of recession under the same causes as pro- duce the recession of the Trenton-St. Peter falls. Again, when the stream passes from the St. Law- rence limestone upon the St. Croix sandstone the same conjunction of circumstances causes another rapid or waterfall. Thus by a series of steps, more or less evident, the branches of the Root River descend from the area of the Galena lime- stone to the St. Croix sandstone. The valleys widen in the sandstone areas, and become abruptly narrow in the limestone belts. In passing down a stream, within a sandstone area, where the valley is perhaps half a mile wide, with tilled farms in the bottom land, the high bluffs being remote from the stream, the first indication of an ap- proaching change in the formation is the rise of a terrace along the immediate river bank, with an occasional exposure of lime rock facing the water. This terrace, which becomes almost continuously rocky, rises slowly till it exposes the full thick- ness of the rock which causes it. On the other hand, the first evidence of a change from lime- stone to sandstone, visible in descending the stream, is the occurrence of a waterfall or rapid. Such changes produce water-powers, many of

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History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 46

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

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