History of Fillmore County, Minnesota (Volume 1), Part 7

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1912
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 726

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These boundaries were accepted without change and are the boundaries of the state at the present time. The state was admitted May 11, 1858.

It will therefore be seen that the territorial claim of title to Fillmore county was first embraced in the papal grant to Spain, May 4, 1493. It was subsequently included in the indefinite claims made by Spain to lands north and northwest of her settlements in Mexico, Florida and the West Indies; by the English to lands west of their Atlantic coast settlements, and by the French to lands south, west and southwest of their Canadian settlements. The first definite claim to territory now embracing Fillmore county was made by La Salle at the mouth of the Mississippi, March 8, 1682, in the name of the king of France, and the second (still more definite) by Perrot near the present site of Trempealeau, Wis., May 8, 1689. This was also a French claim. France remained in tacit authority until February 10, 1763, when, upon England's acknowledging the French authority to lands west of the Missis- sippi, France, by a previous secret agreement, turned her author- ity over to Spain. October 1, 1800, Spain ceded the tract to France, but France did not take formal possession until Novem- ber 30, 1803, and almost immediately, December 20, 1803, turned it over to the United States, the Americans having purchased it from Napoleon April 30 of that year.

March 26, 1804, the area that is now Fillmore county was included in Louisiana district as a part of Indiana and so remained until March 3, 1805. From March 3, 1805, to June 4, 1812, it was a part of Louisiana territory. From June 4, 1812, until August 10, 1820, it was a part of Missouri territory. From August 10, 1821, until June 28, 1834, it was outside the pale of all organized government, except that congress had general juris- diction. From June 28, 1834, to April 20, 1836, it was a part of Michigan territory. From April 20, 1836, to June 12, 1838, it was a part of Wisconsin territory. From June 12, 1838, to December

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HISTORY OF FILLMORE COUNTY

28, 1846, it was a part of the territory of Iowa and was included in the boundaries at first proposed for the state of Iowa. From December 28, 1846, to March 3, 1849, it was again without terri- torial affiliation. From March 3, 1849, to May 11, 1858, it was a part of Minnesota territory, and on the latter date became an integral part of that sovereign state.

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CHAPTER V. EARLY EXPLORATION.

No Evidence That Earliest Explorers Reached Fillmore County- Interesting Speculation as to Whether La Hontan Meant His "Long River" as an Exaggeration of the Root River-Albert Miller Lea and the United States Dragoons Cross Fillmore County-Early Maps of the Root River-Early Surveys.

From time immemorial until the Indians relinquished their rights, the territory now embraced in Fillmore county was the hunting ground of the Red Men. As there were, in the days of the early explorers, no recorded permanent Indian villages here ; and little of vital geographic interest in the sweep of country now embraced in southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa; none of the earlier adventurers, so far as we know, visited Fill- more county. Hennepin with his two companions, Pickard du Guy (Auguelle) and Michael Accault (Ako), who explored the upper Mississippi in 1680; Perrot, who had trading posts about Lake Pepin as early as 1685; LeSueur, who built a fort near Red Wing on Prairie Island in 1695, and one near Mankato in 1700; Jonathan Carver, who ascended the upper Mississippi in 1766; Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, who explored the upper Mississippi in 1805-06; Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who in 1819 established at Mendota in what is now Dakota county, the fort which was afterwards moved across the Minnesota river and became Fort Snelling; Major Stephen H. Long, who explored the upper Missis- sippi in 1817 and 1823; Governor Lewis Cass, who in 1820 explored the principal sources of the Mississippi and then descended the river; William Morrison, who visited Lake Itasca in the winter of 1803-04, and is usually credited as the discoverer of the source of the Mississippi; Henry R. Schoolcraft, who in 1832 explored northern Minnesota; George Featherstone, who made a geological survey of the Minnesota valley in 1835; George Catlin, who made a faithful study of the Indians of Minnesota ; Jean Nicollet, whose activities in the thirties and forties contributed much to Minne- sota geography, and David Dale Owen, who explored large por- tions of the state in 1847, '48, '49 and '50, and whose names are honored as the early explorers of Minnesota, all failed, so far as we know, to make Fillmore county a visit.

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It is possible that missionaries, renegades, traders or hunters visited this region, in the days of the early exploration, but of this, historians have no record or knowledge, although those who enjoy speculation and conjecture think it quite possible the Frenchmen from the posts of Perrot on Lake Pepin, the stockades at Frontenac, or the forts at Prairie Island and Mankato may have come here after game. The mouth and the lower course of the Root river (then called the Kicapous river) were mapped as early as 1703, and as the outlet of this stream into the Mississippi was remarkable in that it was filled with rushes and flowed with almost no current, it is not unlikely that many explorers sailed up Root river, but whether any reached Fillmore county, no one at present knows.

The suggestion by N. H. Winchell, that La Hontan's "Long River" may be simply an exaggeration of the Root river is most interesting. La Hontan is now entirely discredited by historians. Whether the writings of this adventurer are purely fiction, writ- ten after a talk with explorers and a perusal of old maps, or whether the superstructure of marvelous adventures and amazing experiences is built on a skeleton of actual journeys by La Hontan has never been decided.

The "Travels" of Baron La Hontan appeared in 1703, both at London and at Hague, and were as salable and readable as those of Hennepin, which were on the counters of booksellers at the same time. La Hontan, a Gascon by birth, and in style of writing, when about seventeen years of age, arrived in Canada, in 1683, as a private soldier, and was with Governor De la Barre in his expedition of 1684, toward Niagara, and was also in the battle near Rochester, New York, in 1687, at which De Luth and Perrot, explorers of Minnesota, were present. In 1688 he appears to have been sent to Fort St. Joseph, which was built by De Luth, on the St. Clare river, near the site of Fort Gratiot, Michigan. It is pos- sible that he may have accompanied Perrot to Lake Pepin, who came about this time to reoccupy his old post.

In his "Travels" La Hontan alleged that on October 23, 1688, after a trip from the Great Lakes across a part of what is now Wisconsin, and down the Wisconsin valley he reached the Mis- sissippi river, and, ascending, on November 3 he entered into a river, a tributary from the west, that was almost without a cur- rent, and at its mouth filled with rushes. He then describes a journey of 500 miles up this stream. He declares he found upon its banks three great nations, the Eokoros, Esanapes, and Gnacsi- tares (the Mozeemlek being to the westward), and because he ascended it for sixty days, he named it Long river. For years his wondrous story was believed, and geographers hastened to trace it upon their maps. But in time the voyage up the Long

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river was discovered to be a fabrication. There is extant a letter of Bobe, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, dated Ver- sailles, March 15, 1716, and addressed to De L'Isle, the geographer of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, which exposes the deception. He writes: "It seems to me that you might give the name of Bourbonia to these vast countries which are between the Missouri, Mississippi, and the Western ocean. Would it not be well to efface that great river which La Hontan says he discovered ? All the Canadians, and even the governor general, have told me that this river is unknown, If it existed, the French, who are on the Illinois, and at Ouabache, would know of it. The last volume of the 'Lettres Edifiantes' of the Jesuits, in which there is a very fine relation of the Illinois country, does not speak of it, any more than the letters which I received this year, which tell wonders of the beauty and goodness of the country. They send me some quite pretty work, made by the wife of one of the principal chiefs. They tell me, that among the Scioux, of the Mississippi, there are always Frenchmen trading; that the course of the Mississippi is from north to west, and from west to south; that it is known that toward the source of the Mississippi there is a river in the high- lands that leads to the western ocean; that the Indians say that they have seen bearded men with caps, who gather gold-dust on the seashore, but that it is very far from this country, and that they pass through many nations unknown to the French. I have a memoir of La Motte Cadillac, formerly governor of Missili- mackinack, who says that if St. Peters (Minnesota) river is ascended to its source they will, according to all appearance, find in the highland another river leading to the Western ocean. For the last two years I have tormented exceedingly the governor- general, M. Raudot, and M. Duche, to move them to discover this ocean. If I succeed, as I hope, we shall hear tidings before three years, and I shall have the pleasure and consolation of having rendered a good service to geography, to religion and to the state."

Charlevoix, in his History of New France, alluding to La Hon- tan's voyage, writes: "The voyage up the Long river is as fabu- lous as the Island of Barrataria, of which Sancho Panza was governor. Nevertheless, in France and elsewhere, most people have received these memoirs as the fruits of the travels of a gen- tleman who wrote badly, although quite lightly, and who had no religion, but who described pretty sincerely what he had seen. The consequence is that the compilers of historical and geo- graphical dictionaries have almost always followed and cited them in preference to more faithful records."

Even in modern times, Nicollet, employed by the United States to explore the upper Mississippi, has the following in his report:

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"Having procured a copy of La Hontan's book, in which there is a roughly made map of his Long river, I was struck with the resemblance of its course as laid down with that of Cannon river, which I had previously sketched in my own field-book. I soon convinced myself that the principal statements of the baron in reference to the country and the few details he gives of the physical character of the river, coincide remarkably with what I had laid down as belonging to Cannon river. Then the lakes and swamps corresponded; traces of Indian villages mentioned by him might be found by a growth of wild grass that propagates itself around all old Indian settlements."

N. H. Winchell in his "Aborigines of Minnesota" says: "It (the Long river of La Hontan) comes nearest to the region of the Root river. The Mozeemlek are far west on a river that flows west, separated from the sources of the Long river by a mountain range. In the Journal (Travels), La Hontan says he entered the mouth of Long river November 3 (1688) and that on the ninth he reached the villages of the Eokoros (that is, after six days' travel) ; therefore the Eokoros were likely to be Iowas. They were then at war with the Esanapes, sixty leagues (180 miles) higher up the river. They had 20,000 warriors, which number was greater before the war which they had waged with the Nadouesses (Sioux), the Pinamoha, and the Esanapes. They lived in long huts, round at the top, made of reeds and bullrushes, interlaced and cemented with a sort of 'fat-earth' (that is, clay).

"The Esanapes were very numerous and powerful. The vil- lage was large and like a city, the houses almost like ovens, but large and high, and constructed as above described. The Gnacsi- tares were not acquainted with the peace pipe. The Long river had 'little trouts' which they fished out for food."

Prof. Winchell further writes: "After having read attentively the narrative of La Hontan, and examined his map accompanying it, I reached the following conclusions :

"1. He entered the Root river in Houston county, Minnesota, that being the only stream with rushes (reeds) at its mouth, and also large and long enough to give basis to his story, and having trout; though I do not feel satisfied that he entered any stream at all.

"2. There is a naturalness in the yarn, in its general course and in its details, that almost preclude disputing its truthfulness- except what he says about the Mozeemlek slaves-which con- vinces me either that he is trying to sketch a veritable trip up the Long river or is an adept at mixing fact and fiction, making the whole to appear fact.

"3. All that he says, and the map which he draws of the Gnacsitares and the Mozeemlek, seems to me to be largely ficti-

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tious, or having for a basis of fact only some general and crude statements of the natives, and could have been framed in with imaginary fiction by any unscrupulous reporter who cared not for the truth, and expected that his lies would not be detected, at least not until after his death, but was determined to weave a wonderful and book-selling yarn.

"4. He could not have been beyond the limits of Minnesota, and so far as his facts are amenable to geographic verification, they are limited to Minnesota. They can be verified in that area. He had a compass and an 'astrolabe,' and he makes a map that shows a stream nearly direct from the west. He shows many islands, but the Root river is almost free from islands, and does not issue from a lake. Its distances are enormously too great and cannot be condensed into the limits of Root river.

"5. The names given the Indian tribes are probably invented, or manufactured by the adventurer in some such manner as Schoolcraft obtained 'Itasca,' but from the natives' dialects instead of from Latin.

"6. This fictitious character being forced upon the reader by the pursual of his Long river trip, is necessarily extended, though with much regret on the part of the student of early northwest- ern travels, to his trip down the Mississippi, up the Missouri to Osages, and to the Arkansas, and hence to the whole book. In short, the reader is more than once compelled to doubt the state- ments made as to the lives and customs of the 'savages,' and hence to class the work as a tissue of falsehood, strung on so much fact as the author could command from his knowledge of the country."

The first visit by white men to the present area of Fillmore county, of which any record is found, was made in July, 1835, by Companies B, H, and I, of the First United States Dragoons, under the command of Lieut .- Col. Stephen W. Kearney, the topographer of the expedition being Lieut. Albert Miller Lea.

The Dragoons, created by congress in March, 1833, and organ- ized for the more perfect defense of the frontier, were a fine body of men who had been enlisted from nearly every state in the Union in the summer months of 1833. The commanding officer of this regiment of ten companies was Col. Henry Dodge, a most valiant soldier.

The trip, which has so much interest to the people of Fill- more county, was a march of 1,100 miles by Companies B, H, and I, under Lieut .- Col. Stephen W. Kearney. On June 7, 1835, this detachment left Fort Des Moines and marched between the Des Moines and Skunk rivers to near the mouth of the Boone river. Then taking a northeasterly course across Iowa, they entered what is now Minnesota, crossed Mower and Fillmore

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counties, and reached Wabashaw's village on the Mississippi at practically the present site of Winona. After remaining there about a week, the companies marched somewhat to the south of westwardly, through a part of southern Minnesota, then turned southward, and entering Iowa in what is now Kossuth county, reaching the Des Moines river safely. After crossing the river, they descended it on the lower side and reached Fort Des Moines on August 19, 1835, without the loss of a single horse or man. Lieut. Albert Miller Lea, attached to Company I, of the expedi- tion, was the official topographer, and in his honor Nicollet after- wards named a previously undesignated lake which the expedition passed in the present Freeborn county.

Lea's book, "Notes on Wisconsin Territory," was published in 1836 by Henry S. Tanner, of Philadelphia. It contains fifty-three pages and a map of the Iowa region. This work is an excellent description of that part of the original territory of Wisconsin lying west of the Mississippi river. It was this region that the book christened the "Iowa District." The map shows the route of the Dragoons and is an indispensable aid in correlating the Dragoon's track with modern Iowa and southern Minnesota geography.

In a letter from Corsicana, Tex., June 7, 1877, Lea wrote to the editor of the Freeborn county "Standard," at Albert, Lea as follows :

"June 7, 1835, a detachment of the First Regiment U. S. Dragoons left their winter quarters at the head of the lower rapids of the Mississippi (where now stands the village of Mont- rose) under orders to show themselves to the Sioux Indians in the region west of Lake Pepin.

"After organization at Jefferson Branch, twelve miles below St. Louis, the whole regiment, under Col. Henry Dodge, made a campaign to the Pawnee towns on the upper Red river in the summer of 1834, and in the autumn returned to Fort Gibson, where the command was divided, headquarters going to Fort Leavenworth, and three companies, under Lieut .- Col. S. W. Kear- ney, going to some log huts prepared for them on the west bank of the Mississippi, styled in order 'Fort Des Moines.' The cap- tains of these companies were H. V. Sumner, Nathan Boone and Jesse Brown. Men and horses were in a pitiable condition on arrival. The writer joined the command about the first of Novem- ber, and first entered duty with troops on actual service; and during the winter was sent to bring up the convalescents of the sick left at Fort Gibson. Recruits of men and horses made up the command so that 164 all told were mustered for the expedition, which was started as soon as the grass would feed the horses. Our outfit was meagre enough, and is noteworthy only as con-

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trasting with the full equipment of the expeditions of latter days. Captain Sumner being absent, his company was officered entirely by Second Lieut. H. S. Turner, now a respected citizen of St. Louis. Captain Boone, the youngest son of Daniel Boone, having been on detached service, had his company prepared for the cam- paign by the care of Lieutenant Lea, who had been especially assigned to that duty, but he took command on the march, and was especially valuable for his knowledge of woodcraft, and as guide. Captain Brown, being detached, his company was in the sole charge of Lieutenant Lea, who acted as ordnance officer.

"Five wagons drawn by four mules each, with pack horses, furnished us transportation, and we had some beef cattle on foot. Lieutenant-Colonel Kearney commanded in person, Lieut. J. H. Burgwin was surgeon. The prairie was still very wet, our teams were bad, most of our men unskilled, and we had a hard time for some weeks. But soon strawberries began to ripen, and we had them in superabundance for several weeks, the season advancing with us in our northward march.

"Our route lay along the divide between the Mississippi and the Des Moines. The country was then wholly uninhabited, save by a few Indians. A narrow strip along the lower Iowa was opened to settlers by a treaty made at Rock Island the previous year. A few Indians joined us as hunters and interpreters. At the head of the small river that joins the Mississippi below Bur- lington, we saw a few buffalo and killed one near a small lake, the head of that stream, and noted down as 'Swan Lake.' As there were no topographic officers with the command, and as the writer had been some years on duty, he undertook, without orders, to make a rude survey and sketch of the country traversed by using a pocket compass, a watch, and a sketch book, the distance being computed by time and rate of marching. Streams and places were named on this sketch, and most of them traversed still bear the names thus assigned.

"On the waters of the Iowa, we again found buffalos, killed some, and caught a calf, which ran through the column on the march, fell into a dry creek bed and was caught by the hand of one of my men. These two small herds were the only buffalos seen by our command during the whole march. Desiring to visit Wabashaw's band, the officers directed our course toward Lake Pepin, and about the first of July we encamped on a small rivulet which empties into a river that enters the Mississippi four miles away, just below Lake Pepin. This river, from the obstructing drift in it was dubbed 'Embarrassed River,' in usage of French travelers with whom I had previously associated in a survey of Lake Harm. This name, I understand, has been gradually changed into 'Zumbro,' and the facts are cited here as a curious

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illustration of the changes induced in names of place, through translations and varied spellings in different languages. On this little rivulet we remained three days, and during that time our whole force of 164 men had as much speckled trout as we desired, taken from that single brook only a step wide. One of my men took 130 in four hours with an improvised line and hook.

"Early in July we moved camp to the bank of the Mississippi below the lake in sight of Wabashaw's village, which we visited, and there found burials in elevation on trees and scaffolds. We were in view of the 'Montaique qui Trempealeau,' on the east side of the lake. Whilst at this camp we were aroused by a pass- ing steamboat, a rare occurrence at that date, having aboard Maj. Gen. Robert Peterson, of Philadelphia, at whose house I had met President Jackson two years before. Ifere also Captain Brown joined us and took command of his company. Wabashaw's people were scattered in hunting and fishing. But the old chief, with a few attendants, visited the commissioned officers, and expressed his gratification by an invitation to a dog feast, which was declined, as were also other honors, more distinguished than delicate.

"From this camp we bore westward and eventually reached Fort Des Moines in safety.

"A map of the country from the Missouri line to St. Peter, and from the Mississippi to the Missouri river was made out from such scant materials as I had, including a minute plot of the wanderings made during the summer, and it was sent to the adjutant general. The next spring, having resigned my com- mission in the army, I obtained a copy of this map, wrote out a description of the country embraced, and had it published by H. S. Tanner, of Philadelphia, under the title of 'Notes on the Iowa District of Wisconsin Territory.' The name of 'Iowa' was thus first applied to that region, and afterward adopted by con- gress in organizing the 'Territory of Iowa.'"

EARLY MAPS.

The first appearance of the Root river on any map was in 1703, when the published map of Guilliaume De L'Isle showed the course of the "R. des Kicapous," flowing into the Mississippi from the west. This water, which historians have identified as the Root river, is sketched as a large stream, and is continued westward by a dotted line to a supposed union with the "Riviere Longe," of La Hontan. This fictitious "River Long," of La Hon- tan, is made to be a westward continuation of the Des Moines river with a conjectural connection with the "Kicapous," which as just stated has been identified as the Root river.

La Hontan's map appeared in 1704. As his works are now

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believed to have been fiction, and his map merely a garbled copy of previous maps, it is not a matter of vital import whether or not he intended that his "River Long" should be merely an exag- geration of the Root river. As before stated, N. H. Winchell believes that the Root river flows into the Mississippi at about the place where La Hontan describes the mouth of his Long river. Nicollet believed La Hontan's river to be the Cannon, while De L'Isle drew it as a western extension of the Des Moines.

Sheet Number 5, of Popple's Atlas of the British Empire in America, published in 1733, shows the River Quicapon, which is probably intended to be the stream now called Root river.

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History of Fillmore County, Minnesota (Volume 1), Part 7

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Number of Pages: 726

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1912
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 726