History of Goodhue County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1264

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HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

for obvious reasons. Nothing but the scrip from the general land office would avail in filing an entry upon any portion of this land. Speculators saw their opportunity and began to take up the land by "'laying the serip," as the act was called, in the land office. The choicest locations were already occupied by settlers, and those who held serip could enter the lands these settlers had chosen, in many cases where extensive improvements had been made, the soil broken, crops raised, and buildings and fences erected. The actual settlers had the sympathy of all the surrounding population, but holders of the scrip had the legal advantage of the situation, and commenced to obtain titles to farms already improved. This caused the settlers to rally in self-defense. Red Wing, in particular, was a scene of excite- ment, for here was located the land office, and the eastern part of the township was included in this troublesome traet. Meetings were held by the actual settlers and counsel taken as to methods of procedure. They assessed upon themselves a tax, raised money, and sent one man to Washington to demand justice, as they called it. in their behalf. They secured from the land office correct copies of plats of all the townships and fractional townships included within the traet. and upon whatever quarter- section a settler had made his improvements, that quarter-section was definitely marked. Holders of serip were publicly warned against filing upon such land. At a meeting of those interested in the cause of the settlers, which was held at the Kelley House m Red Wing, March 17. 1856, a vigilance committee was chosen to prevent any more serip being laid upon land already occu- pied. This committee was empowered to demand that in every ease where serip had been laid on the land of actual settlers said serip should immediately be raised. This committee was composed of twenty-one members. They were men of dauntless courage and muscular power, and devoted their whole time and energy to the work appointed until it was accomplished. Two of them stood as sentinels at the land office, armed with loaded revolvers. constantly watching every transaction therein, being relieved by another two at stated times. In the meantime the majority of the committee were acting as detectives, arresting and bringing to trial those who had offended, the trial not being before a court of justice, but before the committee. There was at that time no court house and no jail, and the lawyers knew that the serip holders were acting within their legal rights. The kind of justice meted out is shown by the following case, related by the Rev. J. W. Ilancock :

"A former Indian trader lived on Lake Pepin. He had been a member of the territorial legislature, was a man of some notoriety, whose well known character has procured for him the

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

title of 'Bully.' He had succeeded in 'laying' some half-breed serip upon land occupied by a settler. The committee watched his movements, knowing that his family was entitled to a large amount of serip, and waited for his next visit to the land office, which was not many days after. He came as far as the door of the land office, when he was taken into the custody of a strong guard of armed men, whose leader commanded him to march into the office forthwith and raise the entry he had made upon a settler's land by serip. He utterly refused to comply with this demand and defied the committee to compel him to do so. Meantime preparations were made for his trial and its conse- quenees. Witnesses were summoned and he was convicted of refusing to obey the mandate of the committee. He was then escorted down to the river, which was still covered with ice, although it was near the close of March. Very near the middle of the stream a hole had been out big enough to put a good sized man into. He was there told to take his choice either to go immediately to the land office, and in the presence of the members of the committee, raise that entry of serip or be put down through the ice. He looked into the faces of those determined men a moment, and made up his mind to go and do as they had ordered in relation to the scrip."

There were several cases of this kind, disposed of by threats, but it is said that no personal injury was inflicted on anyone A few weeks later a decision from the land office at Washington obviated the need of such a committee. By this decision. those who had settled upon a tract and made improvements thereon had the preemption and homestead rights, the same as on other government lands. The same decision granted to the holders of half-breed serip the privilege of laying the same upon any other government land not previously claimed by an actual settler. All the vacant land on the half-breed traet was taken very soon after this decision, the situation near the river enhane- ing its value. The disadvantage of a distance of a few miles from market was considered a great drawback in those days, before the advent of the railroads. Few or none of the mixed bloods ever cared to settle on the land thus set apart for them. Occa- sionally, a decade or so afterward, there was an echo of this half-breed affair, when some half-blood whose guardian had sold his (the half-breed's) scrip rights would, upon attaining his majority. demand of the settler on the property that he, too, he paid. In most cases these demands were complied with, the farmers. whose land had greatly enhanced in valne, deeming it wiser to pay a small sum than to undergo the expense of a lawsuit.

Thus passed the last vestige of Indian title to the rich valleys

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

and plains of this county, which was once, and for countless generations, a camping and hunting ground of the red men.

Any account of the relations between the Indians and Good- hue county whites would be incomplete without mention of the Spirit Lake massacre. The Sioux of Red Wing's village used to boast that although they had killed the Chippewas whenever they had found any, they nor any of their tribe had ever killed a white person. But this was in 1850 that they so proudly made their boast of their peaceable inclination toward the whites. In the spring of 1856 Red Wing enterprise fitted out a company of men consisting of G. W. Granger, Barton Snyder and Isaac Harriett, and sent them down to Spirit lake to select land claims and found a town. In the fall of 1856 there were seven cabins around the lake, all of which were occupied. The occupants were a man named Thatcher and family, Marble and family, Judge Howe and family. Mattox and family, and Isaae Harriett, Barton Snyder and G. W. Granger. the three last named oeeupy- ing one cabin and keeping "bachelor's hall."

For some years previous to this, a few Dakota Indians and outlaws, under the lead of an excommunicated Dakota Indian named Inkpadootah, had been roving through that part of Iowa. They had been driven away from their own people and were a band unto themselves-insolent, devilish. murderous wretches; and on Sunday. March 8, 1856, they came to Spirit Lake, and almost immediately commenced their hellish work. Mr. Neill says they proceeded to a cabin occupied only by men. and asked for beef. Understanding, as they afterward asserted, that they received permission to kill one of the cattle, they did so. and com- meneed cutting it up, when one of the white men went out and knocked the Dakota down. In retaliation the white man was shot and killed, and, surrounding the house, the Indians set fire to the thatched roof and killed the occupants as they attempted to escape from the burning building-eleven in all.

Other authorities say there was no beef demanded by the Indians, no beef killed, and that Inkpadootah was not assaulted by any of the white men, but that the attack was instigated solely and simply by Indian treachery and thirst for blood. This ver- sion of the affair is maintained by Isaac Lauver, W. W. DeKay, George Huntington and a Mr. Patten, who went down to Spirit Lake from Red Wing about the 31st of March, as soon as they heard of the massacre, to bury the remains of the murdered victims and look after the elaim interests.

At about the same time the murdering wretches went to a cabin occupied by a man named Gardner and his family, and asked for something to eat. Everything in the house was given them. While they were disposing of Gardner's hospitality, his

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

son-in-law and another man who was there went out to see if everything was right at the neighboring cabin-the one just mentioned as being set on fire. It was their last mission, for some of the Indians were in ambush, and shot and killed them also. The Indians left Gardner's after securing all the food the cabin contained, but returned in the latter part of the after- noon and killed Gardner, his wife, two daughters and his grand- children, and carried away as a prisoner one other. named Abbey. That night or the next morning they visited the homes of Noble and Thatcher. who had settled there, and carried Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher prisoners to their camp. On Monday a man named Markham went to Gardner's on some errand, and found the murdered bodies of the entire family. Markham hid himself until darkness came on, and then went to Springfield and reported the murder.

The following Thursday, March 12, an Indian called at Marble's eabin, three miles above Thatcher's, and told her that the white people down the lake had been nipped (killed) a day or two before. This intelligence alarmed the Marbles, the more so as the great depth of snow then on the ground had prevented communication with the settlement below for some days; but, fearing the worst, it was impossible for the Marble family to inaugurate any measures for flight, or other means of safety. The next morning, Friday, the 13th, four Indians, with friendly bearing, came to Marble's and bantered him to trade rifles. The trade was made, after which they prevailed on Marble to go out on the lake and shoot at a mark. After a few shots they turned in the direction of the house, and managing to get Marble in advance of them. the Indians shot him, and he fell dead in his tracks. Mrs. Marble, who had been watching the maneuvering of the fiends, saw her husband fall, and ran to him, when the bloody wretehes seized her and told her they would not kill her, but that they would take her with them, and she was earried to the camp, where they had previously taken Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher and Miss Gardner.

Inkpadootah and his followers next went to Springfield, where, a week or two later, they butchered the entire settlement. The alarm was sent to Fort Ridgely, and a detachment of soldiers was sent out in pursuit. They found and buried two bodies, and the Iowans, who had volunteered and started out to avenge the murders and ontrages as soon as they heard of their perpetration, found and buried twenty-nine others. Besides these thirty-one bodies that were found and buried, others were still missing.

Learning that soldiers were in pursuit of them, the outlaws made haste to leave the vicinity of their depredations, carrying the four women along with them. They were forced to carry

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

heavy burdens by day, and to cut wood, build fires and do other camp duty when night came. In consequence of poor health and recent childbirth, Mrs. Thatcher became burdensome, and at Big Sioux river, when attempting to cross on the trunks of trees fallen from the opposite banks, she was pushed off into the deep, cold water by one of the Indians. She swam to the shore, when they pushed her back into the current, and then shot at ·her, as if she were a target, until life was extinct.

In May two men from Lac qui Parle, who had been taught to read and write, while on their spring hunt found themselves in the neighborhood of Inkpadootah and his party. Having heard that they held some American women in captivity, the two brothers visited the camp, though this was at some risk of their own lives, since Inkpadootah's hand was now against every man, and found the outlaws and succeeded in bargaining for Mrs. Marble, whom they conveyed to their mother's mission and reclothed in civilized costume. From thence she was con- veyed to St. Paul, where the citizens welcomed her and made up a purse of $1,000, with which she was presented.

The rescue of the other two women was now resolved upon, and Flandrau, the Dakota agent, commissioned a "good Indian" named Paul by the whites to accomplish their redemption. He was fitted out with a wagon, two horses and some valuable presents, and started on his mission. He found Inkpadootah and his iniquitous cut-throats with a band of Yanktons on the James river. Only Miss Gardner was living. Mrs. Noble had been murdered a few nights before. She had been ordered to go out and be subject to the wishes of the party, and refusing to go, a son of Inkpadootah dragged her out by the hair of her head and killed her. The next morning a Dakota woman took Miss Gardner out to see the corpse, which had been horribly treated after death. By perseverance and large presents, Paul succeeded in redeeming Miss Gardner, and she was taken to the mission house. From there she was taken to St. Paul, from whence she was sent to her sister in Iowa.

The same year, about the last of June or first of July, Ink- padootah's son, said to have been the murderer of Mrs. Noble, was killed while seeking to escape arrest for that cruel butchery. Reports became current that he was in camp on Yellow Medicine river. Flandrau and a detachment of soldiers from Fort Ridgely, acompanied by some Indian guides, started for the eamp to arrest him. As they approached the camp the alarm was given and the murderer ran from his lodge and concealed himself in the brush near the river, but was soon uncovered and shot by United States soldiers. The rest of the gang managed to escape, and are said to have taken refuge beyond the Missouri river.

HISTORY OF GOODIIUE COUNTY

The Red Wing party who went down to Spirit Lake to bury the dead, etc., as already mentioned, found the remains of Granger by the side of the cabin he occupied in common with Snyder and Harriett. Granger had first been shot, and then his head out off from above the mouth and ears with a broadaxe. The remains of Harriett and Snyder were found about forty rods distant, with several bullet holes through their bodies. The presumption was they had started out to defend one of the other cabins and that they were shot and killed where their bodies were found.

Aside from the scare, which was general up and down the state, the people of Goodhne county did not suffer during the outbreak of 1862. although a number of men from the county participated in General Sibley's expedition against the murderers.

Judge Eli T. Wilder, whose name will always stand for that which was sturdy and good in pioneer life, was born in Hart- land. Conn .. November 27, 1813. There he spent his early boy- hood. and attended the district schools. In 1837, at the age of nineteen, he moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, later going to Paynes- ville, in the same state, where he commenced the practice of law. In the early fifties he was elected judge of the court of common pleas of that district, a position he filled faithfully and honor- ably. In 1855 he started a real estate office in Dubuque, Iowa, with offices in several adjoining villages and town. It was in 1856 that he took up his home in Red Wing. Arriving here, he continued the land business and again took up the prac- tice of law. In this profession he associated himself with Judge W. A. Williston, the firm name being Wilder and Williston. He was one of the first members of Christ church, of Red Wing, presented that church with a beautiful altar, and devoted the latter years of his life largely to church work. He was one of the first wardens and continued in that position until the time of his death. At one time Judge Wilder was persuaded to run for congress on the Democratic ticket. to which party he paid his political allegianee. He died at his home here. June 3, 1904. Judge Wilder was first married to Julia W. Wakefield, of Con- nectient. who died in 1866. In 1868. at Waterloo, N. Y., he was married to Larissa Kendig, who survived him. At the time of his death it was said of him: "Judge Wilder was an ideal eiti- zen, honest and upright in all his dealings, and always taking a deep interest in the welfare and progress of the city."

HON. E. T. WILDER

THE NEW YOR. PUBLIC LI.

TILDEN FONINI 4

GOODHUE COUNTY COURT HOUSE

CHAPTER IX.

BEGINNING OF THE COUNTY.

Boundary Lines Given-First Election-"Judge" Young and His Ballot Box-Imported Voters-County Officers Appointed- First Session of Board-Court House Resolution-School Districts-A Few Early Sessions-Court House Contract- 1849-1858.

The first legislature of the new territory met at St. Paul, September 3, 1849. and adjourned November 1 of the same year. This legislature at once set about performing the highly impor- tant work of dividing the territory into counties. Those created at that time were Washington, Ramsey, Benton, Itaska, Wabasha, Dakota, Cass and Pembina. The land designated as comprising the first three counties named had been ceded to the United States by the Indians, who still remained in practical possession of the rest of the territory. It was therefore declared in the act that the other named counties were organized for the purpose of the appointment of justices of the peace, constables, and such other judicial officers as might be specially provided for. The county of Wabasha, as defined by that legislature, included all that part of the territory lying east of a line running due south from Pine Bend, on the Mississippi river, to the Iowa line, which tract has since been divided into eight counties, namely, Wa- basha, Winona, Olmsted, Fillmore, Houston, Mower, Dodge and Goodhue. March 5, 1853, when the present counties of Dakota and Goodhue were set off. the boundaries were rather vaguely and indefinitely outlined, on account of the absence of United States surveys. Goodhue county was then bounded as follows : Beginning at the southeast corner of Dakota county, thence due southeast on a line twenty-five miles, thence on a due line to Lake Pepin, at a point on said lake seven miles below Sand Point, thence up the middle of said lake and the Mississippi river to the boundary line of Dakota county, thence along the line of said county to the place of beginning. These boundaries were modified by subsequent legislation, February 23, 1854, and made to conform with the United States survey. The county of

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

Goodhue was attached to Wabasha for judicial purposes, and the legislature further enacted that at any general election after March, 1853, the county of Goodhue might be organized for all county purposes, provided that at the election there should be not less than fifty legal votes cast. . The law under which the county was organized authorized the governor to appoint all county officers until the next general election thereafter. The first Tuesday in October was named as the day for general election, and as the only two questions upon which the people of the county could vote were for the location of the county seat and for a representative to the territorial legislature, party feeling did not run very high. There was. however, a necessity for calling out the fifty voters required by the legislative act which created the county. Wacoota and Red Wing at once became rivals for the location of the county seat. It was at that time supposed that Wacoota was designed to become a great city, and the lumbermen who had made it their headquarters were anxious to have the county seat located there. The people of Red Wing. just as confident in the future of their village, were just as anxious as were their brethren down the river. A discussion of "ways and means" by the citizens of Red Wing resulted in the hiring of some twenty unmarried men from St. Paul. These young men were at once set at work at various occupations. The law required six months' residence in the ter- ritory, but ten days in the precinct gave to a citizen of the terri- tory the right to vote. These young men being already citizens of the territory, it can easily be seen that ten days' employment in Red Wing duly qualified them to become voters in the new county. The fateful first Tuesday in October, 1853, duly arrived. and great preparations were made for the election. There being no one in Red Wing at that time qualified to administer the oath of office to the judges of election, one Benjamin Young, a French half-blood, who had been selected as one of the judges, journeyed to Point Douglass and found a justice who administered the legally required oath. Thus equipped with the dignity of the law, "Judge" Young returned fully prepared to act and to qualify the others to act. It was found that there was no ballot box, and Young, having already covered himself with immortal glory as the first judge of election in Goodhue county, proved equal to the second emergency and provided for the deficiency an empty tea chest. A conspicuous feature of the decorations on this chest was a dove of peace with red wings-surely a fitting emblem for the village in which the election was held. The statutes of the state of Wisconsin were used as the authority as to the manner of conducting the election, and "Judge" Young proved fully appreciative of the solemnity of the occasion:

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

He guarded the purity of the ballot box with great caution, and was more than particular in regard to any votes which favored Wacoota as the county seat. At that time a number of men were employed in cutting wood for steamboats at various points up and down the river. They lived in their respective wood yards, and as the line between the state of Wisconsin and the territory of Minnesota was not clearly understood by the judges, it seemed necessary for them to challenge every woodchopper and oblige him to swear in his vote. This perhaps seemed all the more necessary by reason of the fact that these lumbermen were more or less connected in a business way with the lumbermen at. Wacoota and were likely to favor that place as county seat. Men in citizens' dress, on the other hand, were more likely to favor Red Wing, and of course to the Red Wing judges the honor and qualifications of these gentlemen were above suspicion. James Wells, who lived on the border of Lake Pepin, was the candidate for the legislature. Having no opposing candidate, he was elected. He was not an educated man, and the pre-elec- tion speech which he made in Red Wing is said to have been very rare and racy, but unfortunately no notes remain to give the present generation an inkling of what was the subject-matter of that first political speech delivered in Goodhne county. The necessary fifty votes were cast, and Red Wing, receiving a ma- jority, became the county seat. In the spring of the following year Governor Ramsey appointed county officers, as follows: Sheriff. P. S. Fish : treasurer, Calvin Potter; register of deeds, J. W. Hancock; district attorney, Charles Gardner; clerk of district court. P. Sandford; justice of the peace, James Akers; county commissioners, William Lauver, II. L. Bevans, Rezin Spates.

The first session of the board of county commissioners was held at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of June 16, 1854, on a pile of lumber at what is now the intersection of Main and Bush streets, in the city of Red Wing. H. L. Bevans was chosen as chairman of the board and Joseph W. Hancock, register of decds, was ex-officio clerk of the board. But little business was trans- acted. L. Bates, John Day and M. Sorin were named as assessors and the following districts were assigned them: The northern district, including that portion of the county between the north- ern boundary and Hay creek, was assigned as Mr. Bates' district. The middle district, including that portion of the county between Hay creek and Bullard's creek, was assigned as Mr. Day's dis- triet. The southern district, including that portion of the county not included in the other two districts, and the whole of Wabasha county, was assigned as Sorin's district.

The next meeting was held June 28, and several bills were

100

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY

presented, as follows: W. S. Combs, blank books, $23.85; Leman Bates, assessor, $6; John Day, assessor, $16; total, $45.85. The returns made by the assessors showed the assessed valuation of taxable property in the first and second districts to be $63,305. The estimated expenses of the county for the year 1854 were $554.09, and it was ordered that a tax of one per cent be raised on the assessment to meet the same. Charles Spates was ap- pointed road supervisor of road district No. 1, which extended east to the west side of Hay creek and embraced all the north- western portion of the county from that line. T. J. Smith was appointed supervisor of road district No. 2, which extended from the west side of Hay creek to Bullard's creek, embracing the middle portion of the county. Charles Reed was appointed super- visor of road district No. 3, embracing all the southern portion of the county from the line of Bullard's creek. William Free- born, P. Sandford and Leman Bates were appointed judges of election in the Red Wing precinct, and Alexis Bailey, Charles Reed and F. S. Richardson in the Wabasha precinct, Wabasha having attached to this county for judicial purposes.

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History of Goodhue County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago, H.C. Cooper Number of Pages: 1264

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1264