USA > Minnesota > Goodhue County > History of Goodhue county, including a sketch of the territory and state of Minnesota > Part 8
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It has been made a subject of frequent remark, that the settlement of Minnesota has been singularly free from the disorders and deeds of violence which have almost invariably accompanied the same process in other Western Territories and States. Crimes of magnitude, espe- cially such as involved the destruction of human life, have been so rarely committed, that the whole record of Minnesota in that respect, may be advantageously compared with that of any State in the Union. I attribute this, mainly, to the fact that Minnesota, California and Ore- gon were settled simultaneously, and that the gold fields of the Pacific attracted thither a host of reckless adventurers, who would otherwise have found a home among us. Thus while that class emigrated to the other side of the stony mountains, in pursuit of the precious metals, the men who had it in view to gain a subsistence by honest labor, sought the fertile prairies of Minnesota with their families. It is hardly necessary to mention that while our population is many thousands less than it would have been, but for the attractions referred to in another quarter, the State has been vastly benefitted by remaining free from the presence of a large number of that description of persons who are popularly said to " live by their wits." The infusion of such an element into our population would have resulted in a rehearsal on an extensive scale of those scenes of sanguinary violence which have disgraced the early history of so many of the border States.
PIONEER CIIARACTER-FALSE OPINIONS.
If there is any one class more than another that deserves the grateful remembrance and homage of the American people, it is the pioneers
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-the men and women who go ahead to spy out the land and mark the way for the possession and occupancy of the savage wilds of our front- ier domain by the sons and daughters of civilization. As a rule, the Pioneers are bold, fearless, industrious, enterprising, self-reliant and determined. They may not always be educated men and women, as the phrase goes,-they may not be learned in the lore of the books,-but they possess an intuitive knowledge, a native sense, that renders them the equals, sometimes the superiors, of those of their fellows who were educated within and graduated from seminaries and colleges. And yet it has happened that men of culture, from some cause or other, chose to abandon the busy haunts and thronged marts of civilization, to seek homes in the midst of frontier wilds. But, whether learned or not, there is a certain grandeur and nobleness of character about frontiers- men-the advance guards of a higher order of civilization-that com- mands respect, admiration and honor. Building their homes in the midst of Indians, where they are untrammeled and unfettered by the conventionalities of refined society, the maturity of their manhood and womanhood is reached under nature's teachings. Beyond the reach and the influence of the deceptions, the hypocrisies and the false assumptions incident to the corrupted condition of modern civilization, their characters remain untainted by tricks of dishonesty, and they develop into true nobleness of thought, of purpose and of action.
" As a class," writes one of Minnesota's most respected and honored citizens, " the Pioneers of Minnesota were far superior in morality, education and intelligence to the pioneers of most of the other territo- ries, and they left a favorable impress upon the character of the State. `They were by no means free from the vices and frailties of poor human- ity ; but, on the other hand, they were, for the most part, distinguished for charity to the poor and friendless, hospitable even to a fault, and enthusiastically devoted to the interests and the prosperity of our beau- tiful Minnesota. Although, generally speaking, men of limited educa- tion, there were exceptions to this rule, individuals being found among them of respectable literary attainments. And they were, for the most part, religiously inclined. Men who, like Cooper's " Leatherstocking," are brought face to face with Nature in her deepest solitudes, are led naturally to the worship of that Great Being whose hand alone could have created the vast expanse of wood and prairie, mountain, lake and river which spread themselves daily, in endless extent and variety, before their eyes. They were not particularly given to respect law, especially when it favored speculators at the expense of the settler. At the land sales at the Falls of St. Croix, in 1848, when the site of the 6
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present city of St. Paul, and the tracts adjacent thereto on the east side of the Mississippi, were exposed to public sale, Gen. H. H. Sibley was selected by the actual settlers to bid off portions of the land for them, and when the hour for business had arrived, his seat was invariably surrounded by men with huge bludgeons. What was meant by the proceeding Gen. Sibley could only surmise, but he says he would not have envied the fate of the individual who would have ventured to bid against him."
An opinion prevails among some people in the old settled parts of the country, that pioneers are rude and boorish, and that because of their isolation and surroundings, they become ignorant "Know-nothings," and easy victims to the wiles and intrigues of those speculatively inclined. The belief is not founded in fact, nor will it stand the test of trial, unless to be defeated. It is true that isolation and long absences from the circles of society may render their movements a little awk- ward in fashionable drawing-rooms; they may not be as polished in their manners as those who never left the shadows of colleges and tailor shops, but there is a genuine hospitality and courtliness about them that always commands respect. The charge of ignorance is equally ground- less, as is shown in the fact that some of the ablest, as well as the most honest representatives in the national legislature, graduated from pioneer huts. No better illustration of this position can be offered, and in fact no better argument is needed, than in the case of H. H. Sibley, the first delegate to Congress from the Minnesota Territory. Mr. Sibley came to the country in November, 1834, long before there was any other people than a few French traders, half-breed voyageurs and Indians to be seen. After a continued residence of fourteen years in the midst of such surroundings, he was sent to Washington to represent the interests of the embryo territory among the learned men of the nation. No Senator, no Representative, no matter from what constituency, ever made a prouder record or commanded more solid respect from the assembled Solons of the American Republic than Mr. Sibley. His speech before the Committee on Elections of the House of Representa- tives, December 22, 1848, which is published elsewhere, was one of the most forcible and convincing arguments ever presented to that body. The subject of the speech-the cause of it, as the reader will see, was a singular one, almost if not entirely without precedent ; but it was so ably and carefully presented, that the right of his admission to a seat in the House as a delegate from the residum of Wisconsin Territory, ( ¿. e., that part of the old Territory of Wisconsin which had been struck off and left without even a provisional government when the boundary
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lines of the State of Wisconsin were established,) was recognized. That victory was the beginning of Minnesota's glory-the first step towards her proud grandeur as a sovereign and independent State of the American Union.
Mr. Sibley has related that when his credentials as delegate were presented by Hon. James Wilson, of New Hampshire, to the House of Representatives, some curiosity was manifested by the members to see what kind of a person had been selected to represent the distant and wild territory claiming representation in Congress. He was told by a New England member, with whom he subsequently became quite inti- mate, that there was some disappointment felt when he made his appearance, for it was expected that the delegate from this remote region would make his debut, if not in full Indian costume, at least with some peculiarities of dress and manners characteristic of the rude and semi-civilized people who had sent him to the capitol. They were disappointed, for instead of a rude, unlettered backwoodsman, they found Mr. Sibley would compare favorably with the members of that body in every particular.
The imputation that a pioneer people fall easy victims to adventurers and speculators is an idle one. As a class, they are keen, shrewd men, of quick perceptions and ready ken, and those who imagine them to be fools or dolts in maintaining their rights and " holding their own" in making bargains-buying and selling-are sadly at fault.
The following anecdote, for the first time in print, is given in illus- tration, the circumstances of which were well known to the writer.
A good many years ago, Ewing, a fur merchant, who operated throughout all this region of country, and whose home was at Fort Wayne, Indiana, became interested in the son of one of the early settlers of Whitley county in that State, named Miner, and commis- sioned him to buy furs in his immediate neighborhood. Young Miner was very apt, and took readily to the business. Ewing was so well pleased with his protege that as he grew in years and experience he gave him enlarged territory. Prosperity attended all his transactions and at last he was taken into the full confidence of his employer, and entrusted with the entire management of certain branches of the busi- ness. While thus employed Miner grew to manhood. He had been careful of his earnings, and prudently invested his savings in property in the "City of Spires," and at last married, and came to be acknow- ledged as one of the most prosperous and promising business men of the community. When the St. Paul fever of speculation was at its height, Miner fell a victim to it, and expressed a determination to con-
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vert his property into money, and remove to the capital of the new territory, assigning as a reason, that as the country was new and settled with a people who always kept in advance of civilization, they knew nothing about the " tricks of trade," and that they had no money upon which to speculate if they did. To use his own words, "They were ignorant, foolish pioneers, and easily hoodwinked. With what money I can carry with me, I can go up there and in a very short time double it by trading with them. A little money will do a great deal with that class of men, the most of whom never had a hundred dollars at one time in their lives." His friends sought to dissuade him from his pur- pose, but in vain. He converted his property into money, and started for St. Paul with about twenty thousands dollars. In a little more than a year from the time he left, his old friends were surprised to see Miner back in the streets of Fort Wayne, looking somewhat seedy in dress and careworn in features. "Hello, Miner; back again, eh? How's Saint Paul ?" was the greetings that came from his old associates. "Sh," was the reply that came from his lips, with upraised arm and extended finger ; " come and take a drink and say no more about St. Paul. You were right when you told me I would find as sharp traders up there as could be found anywhere in the country, but I didn't believe you. I expected to find them a lot of d-d fools who didn't know anything, but I hadn't been there six months until I discovered that I was the only d-d fool among them. In less than nine months they had me completely surrounded, and in a year they euchered me out of every cent I had in the world. I concluded the best thing I could do was to come back home and make a new start among the people I knew. They were pretty good fellows, though, after all, for they gave me money enough to pay my way back, and here I am ' dead broke.' No more trading among Minnesota pioneers for me."
And such was the fact. The pioneers were too shrewed, and drove closer bargains than Miner expected, and within a year after his arrival at St. Paul, his savings of years had been gathered into other hands, and he returned home a much wiser man in regard to the character and shrewdness of pioneer settlers.
PERSONAL SKETCHES OF REPRESENTATIVE PIONEERS.
JOSEPH R. BROWN.
The subject of this sketch was one of the most prominent and influen- tial pioneers of the Minnesota country. He was born in Hartford
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county, Maryland, January 5, 1805. Soon after his birth, his father, who was a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, removed to Pennsylvania, and settled on a farm near Lancaster. At the age of fourteen years Joseph was apprenticed to a printer in Lancaster, but his master proved to be a harsh and somewhat cruel man, and after a few months service young Brown ran away and joined the army, and came to what is now Minnesota, as a drummer boy with the detach- ment of troops that commenced the erection of Fort Snelling in 1819.
Some authorities say he was discharged from military service in 1825; others in 1828. But whatever the date may have been, he made Minnesota his permanent home until his death, which occurred in New York, November 9th, 1870.
After his discharge he made his home at Mendota, St. Croix and other points, as best suited his trade with the Indians and lumbering operations. "His energy, industry and ability," says a paper read before the Minnesota Editorial Association in 1871, " made him a prom- inent character on the frontier, and no man in the Northwest was better known. He acquired a very perfect acquaintance with the Dakota tongue, and attained an influence among that nation (being allied to them by marriage,) which continued unabated to his death. He held, at different times during his life, a number of civil offices, which he filled with credit and ability. In 1838 he was appointed a justice of the peace by Governor Dodge, of Wisconsin, and for several years had his office at his trading post, at Grey Cloud, about twelve miles below Saint Paul. He was elected a member of the Wisconsin Legislature from St. Croix county in 1840, 1841 and 1842, taking a prominent part in those sessions. He was also a leading member of the famous Still- water convention of citizens, held in August, 1848, to take steps to secure a territorial organization for what is now Minnesota. He was Secretary of the Territorial Council of 1848 and 1851, and Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1853, a member of the Council in 1854 and '55, and of the House in 1857, and Territorial Printer in 1853 and 1854. He was also a member from Sibley county in the Con- stitutional Convention (" Democratic Wing") of 1857, and took a very prominent part in the formation of our present State constitution. He was likewise one of the Commissioners named in that instrument to canvass the vote on its adoption, and of the State officers elected under it. He shaped much of the legislation of the early territorial days, and chiefly dictated the policy of his party, of whose conventions he was always a prominent member.
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" But it is as a journalist and publisher I* desire principally to speak of him here. His first regular entrance into the printing business in Minnesota, was in the year 1852, though he had before written considerable for the press. Shortly after the death of JAMES M. GOODHUE, which occurred in August of that year, Major Brown purchased the ' Minnesota Pioneer,' and edited and published it under his own name for nearly two years. In the spring of 1854 he transferred the establishment to Col. E. S. Goodrich. During the period of his connection with the paper, he established a reputation as one of the most sagacious, successful and able political editors in the Territory, and as a sharp, interesting and sensible writer.
" In 1857 he established at Henderson, which town had been founded and laid out by him a short time before, a journal called the ' Henderson Democrat,' which soon became a prominent political organ, and was continued with much ability and success until 1860 or 1861."
J. A. Wheelock, noticing the death of Major Brown, in the St. Paul Press, under date of November 12, 1870, paid the following tribute to his memory :
" As early as 1831, Jo. BROWN, as he was then called, and has ever since been fami- liarly called, had an Indian trading post at Land's End, on the Minnesota River, about a mile above Fort Snelling. In 1833-4 he had established his trading post at Oliver's Grove, at the mouth of the St. Croix. At that time the only inhabitants in the country, outside the fort, were Indians, except a few traders at Mendota and elsewhere. Brown was still engaged in the Indian trade when the speculative mania of 1837 set in, and dis- tant as this portion of what was then Wisconsin was from its scenes, some pulsation of it reached these remote solitudes. Brown was about the only man among the Indian traders of that time with sagacity enough to distinguish, in the wild hubbub of this movement of speculation and emigration, the march of that great westward develop - ment which was soon to take in the then remote wilderness of the Upper Mississippi. He at once set about, as soon as the Indian title was extinguished, to seize what seemed to him to be the salient points of the regions hereabout. He first settled in 1838 at Gray Cloud Island, fifteen miles below St. Paul, where he had a trading post and farm. Two years afterward he formed the first settlement, or laid out the first town site, at the head of Lake St. Croix, about a mile above the present site of Stillwater, and which he called Dahkotah, and about the same time he, with James R. Clewett, bought the first claim made in St. Paul, from a discharged soldier. This claim embraced what is now Kittson's addition, and was bought for $150. At this time Brown, whose operations were extensive, owned an interest in a trading house on the Fort Snelling Reservation, on this side of the Mississippi, which, on September 13, 1838, was destroyed by a party of Sioux.
" Major Brown was not only the pioneer town builder of Minnesota, but the pioneer lumberman, being the first to raft lumber down the St. Croix. In 1841 he was elected as representative of Crawford county, Wisconsin, which had been extended over the delta of country between the St. Croix and Mississippi. Here he succeeded in getting an act passed organizing St. Croix county, with his town-Dahkotah-as its county - seat. A judge of the district arrived one day at this county-seat to hold court, but find- ing that it consisted of a single claim cabin, he seems to have resigned the judicial office for this locality to Jo. Brown, who already absorbed all the other functions of govern- ment in the county of St. Croix.
" It may as well be said here that Brown, like many of the old Indian traders, had married a Sioux woman, by whom he had a numerous family, and it was perhaps this circumstance, as well as the associations of his early life, that attached him so strongly
* J. F. Williams.
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to the Indians. Fitted by his abilities and character for any position or any career in the new centers of civilization which had sprung up around him, we find him at short intervals always going back to the Indians, as agent or trader, or in some such capacity. He was, however, always planning new enterprises,-and this haunter of Indiau camps, this half Bedouin, was the founder of more embryo cities, than any other half a dozen men in the State, and the planner of more schemes for its development than any other. He had a force, originality and genius of invention in him which was always propelling him in new paths. Among his inventions was his steam traction motor, or steam wagon.
" Joseph R. Brown, though not free from guile, was, in the main, an honest man. He was possessed of a cheerful and happy temper, a bon-homme which nothing could ruffle. No taint of malice or spite or spleen, lurked in his robust, warm and healthy blood. If his mental powers had been disciplined to the routine of some profession or regular occupation; if he had not been dragged down to the slip-shod, half-vagabond associations and habits of his frontier life, from the high career for which he was formed, he would have been one of the foremost men of his day.
" A drummer-boy, soldier, Indian trader, lumberman, pioneer, speculator, founder of cities, legislator, politician, editor, inventor, his career, though it had hardly com- menced till half his life had been wasted in the obscure solitudes of this far northwestern wilderness-has been a very remarkable and characteristic one, not so much for what he has achieved, as for the extraordinary versatility and capacity which he has displayed in every new situation."
Another writer,* and intimate acquaintance of Major Brown, spoke of him as follows :
"Joseph R. Brown was a great man in many of the best senses of that term, and never a common man in any sense. Without education, according to its scholarly significance, he yet knew much of all that scholars kuow, and more of that of which they are ignorant."
Major Brown, it may be truthfully stated, was the first pioneer of the Minnesota country. He came here as a boy, and grew to manhood in the uncivilized wilds. When civilization claimed the country, Joseph R. Brown was here, and from the time the first white settlers came to found homes on the beautiful prairies until the day of his death, he took a prominent part in all public movements, and grew in influence with the expanding growth of the territory and State. So much interest did Major Brown take in public affairs, and so much importance was attached to his presence and advice upon public measures, that from the organization of the territory until the State was fairly in working order, he was rarely or never absent from a general convention of his party, or from a legislative session. And it is said that nearly all the import- ant legislation which forms the basis of the present code of Minnesota bears the impress of his mind. This is especially so in respect to those features which are novel to our system, and are stamped with liberality, progress, and reform. It would surprise any one not familiar with the subject, to contrast the code of Minnesota with that of any leading
* Col. E. S. Goodrich.
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Eastern State, and observe the superiority of our system in every liberal, humanitarian aspect. The centers of population, wealth, refinement and culture, which are shackled by precedent and tradition, are not the sources of ameliorating laws ; these spring from the freer, fresher, more generous life of new communities. The mass of this liberal legislation, if it did not owe its paternity to Major Brown, had always in him a hearty and efficient advocate; and his labors therein entitle him to honorable memory.
H. H. SIBLEY.
This representative pioneer citizen was born in Detroit, Michigan, on the 20th day of February, 1811. His father was a native of Massachu- setts, but removed to Michigan at a very early period in the history of the lake region, and was a member of the first Legislative Assembly of the Northwestern Territory, which met at Cincinnati. Subsequently he was elected as delegate to Congress, and was afterwards a member of the Supreme Court of Michigan.
Mr. Sibley came into the world in the midst of troublous times. The Northwest was in the throes of agitation and excitement consequent upon the savage warfare that desolated that region, the siege and sur- render of Detroit, and the hardships experienced by the white inhabit- ants of that region from 1810 to 1815, in all of which the Sibley family bore a full share. It would almost seem that the subject of this sketch was launched into a career destined from the start to be one of adven- ture and stirring incidents, repeating the eventful pioneer life of his ancestors. "Thus hereditarily predisposed ( to quote from the Minnesota Historical Collections) as it might be said, to a life of close contact with the strange and romantic elements that have always given such a charm to frontier life in the eyes of the courageous and active, his innate disposition received a still further bent from the very condition of society in his boyhood. It was passed in a region favorable for field sports, and the hardy exploits of the hunter and sailor, where every inhabitant was a fireside bard, reciting those wonderful epics of 'hair- breadth 'scapes,' and accidents by ' flood and field,' perils and feats of the half mythical heroes of the frontier, legends full of poetry and romance, that seem never to weary the listener.
" Young Sibley received an academical education in his boyhood, and subsequently enjoyed two years' private tuition in the classics. His father had destined him for the profession of the law, and at about the age of sixteen he commenced its study in his father's office," but abandoned it for a more active life at the end of one year, and in 1829
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