History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 19

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547

USA > Minnesota > Houston County > History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota > Part 19

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The Presbyterian and Congregational Churches, through their joint Missionary Society, appointed the following persons to labor in Minnesota : Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M. D., missionary and physician ; Rev. J. D. Stevens, missionary ; Alexander Huggins, farmer ; and their wives ; Miss Sarah Poage, and Lucy Stevens, teachers; who were prevented during the year 1834, by the state of navigation, from entering upon their work.

During the winter of 1834-35, a pious officer of the army exercised a good influence on his fellow officers and soldiers under his command. In the absence of a chaplain of ordained minis- ter, he, like General Havelock, of the British army in India, was accustomed not only to drill the soldiers, but to meet them in bis own quar- ters, and reason with them' "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come."

In the month of May, 1835, Dr. Williamson and mission band arrived at Fort Snelling, and

Digitized by Google

108

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

were hospitably received by the officers of the garrison, the Indian Agent, and Mr. Sibley, Agent of the Company at Mendota, who had been in the country a few months.

On the twenty-seventh of this month the Rev. Dr. Williamson united in marriage at the Fort Lieutenant Edward A. Ogden to Eliza Edna, the daughter of Captain G. A. Loomis, the first marriage service in which a clergyman officiated in the present State of Minnesota.

On the eleventh of June a meeting was held at the Fort to organize a Presbyterian Church, sixteen persons who had been communicants, and six who made a profession of faith, one of whom was Lieutenant Ogden, were enrolled as members.

Four elders were elected, among whom were Capt. Gustavus Loomis and Samuel W. Pond. The next day a lecture preparatory to administer- ing the communion, was delivered, and on Sun- day, the 14th, the first organized church in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi assembled for the first time in one of the Company rooms of the Fort. The services in the morning were conducted by Dr. Williamson. The afternoon service com- menced at 2 o'clock. The sermon of Mr. Stevens was upon a most appropriate text, 1st Peter, ii:25 ; "For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." After the discourse, the sacrament of the Lord's supper was administered.

At a meeting of the Session on the thirty-first of July, Rev. J. D. Stevens, missionary, was in- vited to preach to the church, "so long as the duties of his mission will permit, and also to pre- side at all the meetings of the Session." Captain Gustavus Loomis was elected Stated Clerk of the Session, and they resolved to observe the monthly concert of prayer on the first Monday of each month, for the conversion of the world.

Two points were selected by the missionaries as proper spheres of labor. Mr. Stevens and family proceeded to Lake Harriet, and Dr. Wil- liamson and family, in June, proceeded to Lac qui Parle.

As there had never been a chaplain at Fort Snelling, the Rev. J. D. Stevens, the missionary at Lake Harriet, preached on Sundays to the Presbyterian church, there, recently organized.

Writing on January twenty-seventh, 1836, he says, in relation to his field of labor :

"Yesterday a portion of this band of Indians, who had been some time absent from this village, returned. One of the number (a woman) was informed that a brother of hers had died during her absence. He was not at this village, but with another band, and the information had just reached here. In the evening they set up a most piteous crying, or rather wailing, which con- tinued, with some little cessations, during the night. The sister of the deceased brother would repeat, times without number, words which may be thus translated into English : 'Come, my brother, I shall see you no more for ever.' The night was extremely cold, the thermometer standing from ten to twenty below zero. About sunrise, next morning, preparation was made for performing the ceremony of cutting their flesh, in order to give relief to their grief of mind. The snow was removed from the frozen ground over about as large a space as would be required to place a small Indian lodge or wigwam. In the centre a very small fire was kindled up, not to give warmth, apparently, but to cause a smoke. The sister of the deceased, who was the chief mourner. came out of her lodge followed by three other women, who repaired to the place prepared. They were all barefooted, and nearly naked. Here they set up a most bitter lamenta- tion and crying, mingling their wailings with the words before mentioned. The principal mourner commenced gashing or cutting her ankles and legs up to the knees with a sharp stone, until her legs were covered with gore and flowing blood ; then in like manner her arms, shoulders, and breast. The others cut themselves in the same way, but not so severely. On this poor infatuated woman I presume there were more than a hun- dred long deep gashes in the flesh. I saw the operation, and the blood instantly followed the instrument, and flowed down upon the flesh. She appeared frantic with grief. Through the pain of her wounds, the loss of blood, exhaustion of strength by fasting, loud and long-continued and bitter groans, or the extreme cold upon her al- most naked and lacerated body, she soon sunk upon the frozen ground, shaking as with a violent fit of the ague, and writhing in apparent agony. 'Surely,' I exclaimed, as I beheld the bloody

Digitized by Google

---

109

A ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY.

scene, 'the tender mercies of the heathen are cruelty l'

" The little church at the fort begins to mani- fest something of a missionary spirit Their con- tributions are considerable for so small a number. I hope they will not only be willing to contribute liberally of their substance, but will give them- selves, at least some of them, to the missionary work.

" The surgeon of the military post, Dr. Jarvis, has been very assiduous in his attentions to us in our sickness, and has very generously made a do- nation to our board of twenty-five dollars, being the amount of his medical services in our family.

"On the nineteenth instant we commenced a school with six full Indian children, at least so in all their habits, dress, etc .; not one could speak a word of any language but Sioux. The school has since increased to the number of twenty-five. I am now collecting and arranging words for a dic- tionary. Mr. Pond is assiduously employed in preparing a small spelling-book, which we may forward next mail for printing.

On the fifteenth of September, 1836, a Presby- terian church was organized at Lac-qui-Parle, a branch of that in and near Fort Snelling, and Joseph Renville, a mixed blood of great influ- ence, became a communicant. He had been trained in Canada by a Roman Catholic priest, but claimed the right of private judgment. Mr. Renville's wife was the first pure Dahkotah of whom we have any record that ever joined the Church of Christ. This church has never become extinct, although its members have been neces- sarily nomadic. After the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, it was removed to Hazlewood. Driven from thence by the outbreak of 1862, it has be- came the parent of other churches, in the valley of the upper Missouri, over one of which John Renville, a descendant of the elder at Lac-qui- Parle, is the pastor.

ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION ATTEMPTED.

Father Ravoux, recently from France, a sin- cere and earnest priest of the Church of Rome, came to Mendota in the autumn of 1841, and after a brief sojourn with the Rev. L. Galtier, who had erected Saint Paul's chapel, which has given the name of Saint Paul to the capital of Minnesota, he ascended the Minnesota River, and visited Lac-qui-Parle.

Bishop Loras, of Dubuque, wrote the next year of his visit as follows : "Our young missionary, M. Ravoux, passed the winter on the banks of Lac-qui-Parle, without any other support than Providence, without any other means of conver- sion than a burning zeal, he has wrought in the space of six months, a happy revolution among the Sioux. From the time of his arrival he has been occupied night and day in the study of their language. * * When he instructs the savages, he speaks to them with so much fire whilst showing them a large copper crucifix which he carries on his breast, that he makes the strong- est impression upon them."

The impression, however was evanescent, and he soon retired from the field, and no more efforts were made in this direction by the Church of Rome. This young Mr. Ravoux is now the highly respected vicar of the Roman Catholic diocese of Minnesota, and justly esteemed for his simplicity and unobtrusiveness.

CHIPPEWAY MISSIONS AT POKEGUMA.

Pokeguma is one of the " Mille Lacs," or thou- sand beautiful lakes for which Minnesota is re- markable. It is about four or five miles in extent, and a mile or more in width.

This lake is situated on Snake River, about twenty miles above the junction of that stream with the St. Croix.

In the year 1836, missionaries came to reside among the Ojibways and Pokeguma, to promote their temporal and spiritual welfare. Their mis- sion house was built on the east side of the lake ; but the Indian village was on an island not far from the shore.

In a letter written in 1887, we find the fol- lowing : "The young women and girls now make, mend, wash, and iron after our man- ner. The men have learned to build log houses, drive team, plough, hoe, and handle an American axe with some skill in cutting large trees, the size of which, two years ago, would have afforded them a sufficient reason why they should not med- dle with them."

In May, 1841, Jeremiah Russell, who was In- dian farmer, sent two Chippeways, accompanied by Elam Greeley, of Stillwater, to the Falls of Saint Croix for supplies. On Saturday, the fifteenth of the month they arrived there, and

Digitized by Google

110

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

the next day a steamboat came up with the goods. The captain said a war party of Sioux, headed by Little Crow, was advancing, and the two Chippeways prepared to go back and were their friends.

They had hardly left the Falls, on their re- turn, before they saw a party of Dahkotahs. The sentinel of the enemy had not noticed the ap- proach of the young men. In the twinkling of an eye, these two young Ojibways raised their guns, fired, and killed two of Little Crow's sons. The discharge of the guns revealed to a sentinel, that an enemy was near, and as the Ojibways were retreating, he fired, and mortally wounded one of the two.

According to custom, the corpses of the chief's sons were dressed, and then set up with their faces towards the country of their ancient ene- mies. The wounded Ojibway was horribly mangled by the infuriated party, and his limbs strewn about in every direction. His scalped head was placed in a kettle, and suspended in front of the two Dahkotah corpses.

Little Crow, disheartened by the loss of his two boys, returned with his party to Kaposia. But other parties were in the field.

It was not till Friday, the twenty-first of May, that the death of one of the young Ojibways sent by Mr. Russell, to the Falls of Saint Croix, was known at Pokeguma.

Mr. Russell on the next Sunday, accompanied by Captain William Holcomb and a half-breed, went to the mission station to attend a religious service, and while crossing the lake in returning, the half-breed said that it was rumored that the Sioux were approaching. On Monday, the twen- ty-fourth, three young men left in a canoe to go to the west shore of the lake, and from thence to Mille Lacs, to give intelligence to the Ojibways there, of the skirmish that had already occurred. They took with them two Indian girls, about twelve years of age, who were pupils of the mis- sion school, for the purpose of bringing the canoe back to the island. Just as the three were land- ing, twenty or thirty Dahkotah warriors, with a war whoop emerged from their concealment be- hind the trees, and fired into the canoe. The young men instantly sprang into the water, which

was shallow, returned the fire, and ran into the woods, escaping without material injury.

The little girls, in their fright, waded into the lake; but were pursued. Their parents upon the island, heard the death cries of their children. Some of the Indians around the mission-house jumped into their canoes and gained the island. Others went into some fortified log huts. The attack upon the canoe, it was afterwards learned, was premature. The party upon that side of the lake were ordered not to fire, until the party stationed in the woods near the mission began.

There were in all one hundred and eleven Dahkotah warriors, and all the fight was in the vicinity of the mission-house, and the Ojibways mostly engaged in it were those who had been under religious instruction. The rest were upon the island.

The fathers of the murdered girls, burning for revenge, left the island in a canoe, and drawing it up on the shore, hid behind it, and fired upon the Dahkotahs and killed one. The Dahkotahs advancing upon them, they were obliged to escape. The canoe was now launched. One lay on his back in the bottom; the other plunged into the water, and, holding the canoe with one hand, and swimming with the other, he towed his friend out of danger. The Dahkotahs, in- furiated at their escape, fired volley after volley at the swimmer, but he escaped the balls by putting his head under water whenever he saw them take aim, and waiting till he heard the discharge, he would then look up and breathe.

After a fight of two hours, the Dahkotahs re- treated, with a loss of two men. At the request of the parents, Mr. E. F. Ely, from whose notes the writer has obtained these facts, be- ing at that time a teacher at the mission, went across the lake, with two of his friends, to gather the remains of his murdered pupils. He found the corpses on the shore. The heads cut off and scalped, with a tomahawk buried in the brains of each, were set up in the sand near the bodies. The bodies were pierced in the breast, and the right arm of one was taken away. Re- moving the tomahawks, the bodies were brought back to the island, and in the afternoon were buried in accordance with the simple but solemn rites of the Church of Christ, by members of the mission.

Digitized by Google

111

SIOUX MISSIONARIES BEFORE THE TREATIES.

The sequel to this story is soon told. The In- dians of Pokeguma, after the fight, deserted their village, and went to reside with their countrymen near Lake Superior.

In July of the following year, 1842, a war party was formed at Fond du Lac, about forty in num- ber, and proceeded towards the Dahkotah country. Sneaking, as none but Indians can, they arrived unnoticed at the little settlement below Saint Paul, commonly called "Pig's Eye," which is opposite to what was Kaposia, or Little Crow's village. Finding an Indian woman at work in the garden of her husband, a Canadian, by the name of Gamelle, they killed her; also another woman, with her infant, whose head was cut off. The Dahkotahs, on the opposite side, were mostly intoxicated ; and, flying across in their canoes but half prepared, they were worsted in the en- counter. They lost thirteen warriors, and one of their number, known as the Dancer, the Ojib- ways are said to have skinned.

Soon after this the Chippeway missions of the St. Croix Valley were abandoned.

In a little while Rev. Mr. Boutwell removed to the vicinity of Stillwater, and the missionaries, Ayer and Spencer, went to Red Lake and other points in Minnesota.

In 1853 the Rev. Sherman Hall left the Indians and became pastor of a Congregational church at Sauk Rapids, where he recently died.

METHODIST MISSIONS.

In 1837 the Rev. A. Brunson commenced a Methodist mission at Kaposia, about four miles below, and opposite Saint Paul. It was afterwards removed across the river to Red Rock. He was assisted by the Rev. Thomas W. Pope, and the latter was succeeded by the Rev. J. Holton.

The Rev. Mr. Spates and others also labored for a brief period among the Ojibways.

PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONS CONTINUED.

At the stations the Dahkotah language was dil- igently studied. Rev. S. W. Pond had prepared a dictionary of three thousand words, and also a small grammar. The Rev. S. R. Riggs, who joined the mission in 1837, in a letter dated February 24, 1841, writes : "Last summer after returning from Fort Snelling, I spent five weeks in copying again the Sioux vocabulary which we had collected and arranged at this sta-

tion. It contained then about 5500 words, not including the various forms of the verbs. Since that time, the words collected by Dr. Williamson and myself, have, I presume, increased the num- ber to six thousand. *

* * * In this con- nection, I may mention that during the winter of 1839-40, Mrs. Riggs, with some assistance, wrote an English and Sioux vocabulary containing about three thousand words. One of Mr. Ren- ville's sons and three of his daughters are en- gaged in copying. In committing the grammati- cal principles of the language to writing, we have done something at this station, but more has been done by Mr. S. W. Pond."

Steadily the number of Indian missionaries increased, and in 1851, before the lands of the Dahkotahs west of the Mississippi were ceded to the whites, they were disposed as follows by the Dahkotah Presbytery.

Lac-qui-parle, Rev. S. R. Riggs, Rev. M. N. Adams, Missionaries, Jonas Pettijohn, Mrs. Fanny Pettijohn, Mrs. Mary Ann Riggs, Mrs. Mary A. M. Adams, Miss Sarah Rankin, As- sistants.

Traverse des Sioux, Rev. Robert Hopkins, Mis- sionary; Mrs. Agnes Hopkins, Alexander G. Huggins, Mrs. Lydia P. Huggins, Assistants.

Shakpay, or Shokpay, Rev. Samuel W. Pond, Missionary; Mrs. Sarah P. Pond, Assistant.

Oak Grove, Rev. Gideon H. Pond and wife.

Kaposia, Rev. Thomas Williamson, M. D., Missionary and Physician; Mrs. Margaret P. Williamson, Miss Jane S. Williamson, Assistants.

Red Wing, Rev. John F. Aiton, Rev. Joseph W. Hancock, Missionaries; Mrs. Nancy H. Aiton, Mrs. Hancock, Assistants.

The Rev. Daniel Gavin, the Swiss Presbyte- rian Missionary, spent the winter of 1839 in Lac- qui-Parle and was afterwards married to a niece of the Rev. J. D. Stevens, of the Lake Harriet Mission. Mr. Stevens became the farmer and teacher of the Wapashaw band, and the first white man who lived where the city of Winona has been built. Another missionary from Switz- erland, the Rev. Mr. Denton, married a Miss Skinner, formerly of the Mackinaw mission. During a portion of the year 1839 these Swiss missionaries lived with the American mission- aries at camp Cold Water near Fort Snelling, but their chief field of labor was at Red Wing.

Digitized by Google

112

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA ..

CHAPTER X K.

TREAD OF PIONEERS IN THE SAINT CROIX VALLEY AND ELSEWHERE.

Origin of the name Saint Croix-Du Luth, first Explorer-French Post on the St. Croix-Pitt, an early pioneer-Early settlers at Saint Croix Falls-First women there-Marine Settlement-Joseph B. Brown's town site-Saint Croix County organized-Proprietors of Stillwater-A dead Negro woman-Pig's Eye, origin of name-Rise of Saint Paul-Dr. Williamson secures first school teacher for Saint Paul-Description of first school room-Saint Croix County re-organised -Rev. W. T. Boutwell, pioneer clergyman.

The Saint Croix river, according to Le Sueur, named after a Frenchman who was drowned at its mouth, was one of the earliest throughfares from Lake Superior to the Mississippi. The first white man who directed canoes upon its waters was Du Luth, who had in 1679 explored Minne- sota. He thus describes his tour in a letter, first published by Harrisse : " In June, 1680, not be- ing satisfied, with having made my discovery by land, I took two canoes, with an Indian who was my interpreter, and four Frenchmen, to seek means to make it by water. With this view I entered a river which empties eight leagues from the extremity of Lake Superior, on the south side, where, after having cut some trees and broken about a hundred beaver dams, I reached the upper waters of the said river, and then I made a portage of half a league to reach a lake, the outlet of which fell into a very fine river, which took me down into the Mississippi. There I learned from eight cabins of Nadouecioux that the Rev. Father Louis Hennepin, Recollect, now at the convent of Saint Germain, with two other Frenchmen had been robbed, and carried off as slaves for more than three hundred leagues by the Nadouecioux themselves."

He then relates how he left two Frenchmen with his goods, and went with his interpreter and two Frenchmen in a canoe down the Mississippi, and after two days and two nights, found Henne- pin, Accault and Augelle. He told Hennepin that he must return with him through the country of the Fox tribe, and writes : "I preferred to re- trace my steps, manifesting to them [the Sioux] the just indignation I felt against them, rather than to remain after the violence they had done

to the Rev. Father and the other two Frenchmen with him, whom I put in my canoes and brought them to Michilimackinack."

After this, the Saint Croix river became a chan- nel for commerce, and Bellin writes, that before 1755, the French had erected a fort forty leagues from its mouth and twenty from Lake Superior.

The pine forests between the Saint Croix and Minnesota had been for several years a tempta- tion to energetic men. As early as November, 1836, a Mr. Pitt went with a boat and a party of men to the Falls of Saint Croix to cut pine tim- ber, with the consent of the Chippeways but the dissent-of the United States authorities.

In 1837 while the treaty was being made by Com- missioners Dodge and Smith at Fort Snelling, on one Sunday Franklin Steele, Dr. Fitch, Jeremiah Russell, and a Mr. Maginnis left Fort Snelling for the Falls of Saint Croix in a birch bark canoe paddled by eight men, and reached that point about noon on Monday aud commenced a log cabin. Steele and Maginnis remained here, while the others, dividing into two parties, one under Fitch, and the other under Russell, search- ed for pine land. The first stopped at Sun Rise, while Russel went on to the Snake River. About the same time Robbinet and Jesse B. Taylor came to the Falls in the interest of B. F. Baker who had a stone trading house near Fort Snelling, since destroyed by fire. On the fifteenth of July, 1838, the Palmyra, Capt. Holland, arrived at the Fort, with the official notice of the ratifica- tion of the treaties ceding the lands between the Saint Croix and Mississippi.

She had on board C. A. Tuttle, L. W. Stratton and others, with the machinery for the projected mills of the Northwest Lumber Company at the Falls of Saint Croix, and reached that point on the seventeenth, the first steamboat to disturb the waters above Lake Saint Croix. The steamer Gypsy came to the fort on the twenty-first of

Digitized by Google

113

WOMEN IN THE VALLEY OF THE SAINT CROIX.

October, with goods for the Chippeways, and was chartered for four hundred and fifty dollars, to carry them up to the Falls of Saint Croix. In passing through the lake, the boat grounded near a projected town called Stambaughville, after S. C. Stambaugh, the sutler at the fort. On the afternoon of the 26th, the goods were landed, as stipulated.

The agent of the Improvement Company at the falls was Washington Libbey, who left in the fall of 1838, and was succeeded by Jeremiah Russell, Stratton acting as millwright in place of Calvin Tuttle. On the twelfth of December, Russell and Stratton walked down the river, cut the first tree and built a cabin at Marine, and sold their claim.

The first women at the Falls of Saint Croix were a Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Sackett, and the daughter of a Mr. Young. During the winter of 1838-9, Jere- miah Russell married a daughter of a respectable and gentlemanly trader, Charles H. Oakes.

Among the first preachers were the Rev. W. T. Boutwell and Mr. Seymour, of the Chippeway Mission at Pokeguma. The Rev. A. Brunson, of Prairie du Chien, who visited this region in 1838, wrote that at the mouth of Snake River he found Franklin Steele, with twenty-five or thirty men, cutting timber for a mill, and when he offered to preach Mr. Steele gave a cordial assent.

On the sixteenth of August, Mr. Steele, Living- ston, and others, left the Falls of Saint Croix in a barge, and went around to Fort Snelling.

The steamboat Fayette about the middle of May, 1839, landed sutlers' stores at Fort Snell- ing and then proceeded with several persons of intelligence to the Saint Croix river, who settled at Marine.

The place was called after Marine in Madison county, Illinois, where the company, consisting of Judd, Hone and others, was formed to build a saw mill in the Saint Croix Valley. The mill at Marine commenced to saw lumber, on August 24, 1839, the first in Minnesota.

Joseph R. Brown, who since 1888, had lived at Chan Wakan, on the west side of Grey Cloud Island, this year made a claim near the upper end of the city of Stillwater, which he called Dahkotah, and was the first to raft lumber down the Saint Croix, as well as the first to represent the citizens of the valley in the legislature of Wisconsin.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 19

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 547

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547