USA > Minnesota > Morrison County > History of Morrison and Todd counties, Minnesota, their people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 3
USA > Minnesota > Todd County > History of Morrison and Todd counties, Minnesota, their people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 3
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Through the exertions of the first secretary of the territory, C. K. Smith, the Historical Society of Minnesota was formed and incorporated at the very opening session of the Territorial Legislature.
AN INTERESTING EVENT.
On the evening of New Year's day, at Ft. Snelling. there was an assem- blage which is only seen in the outposts of civilization. Outside the wall, in one of the stone edifices belonging to the United States, there resided a gen- tleman who had dwelt in Minnesota since the year 1819, and who for many
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years had been in the employ of the government as Indian interpreter. In his youth he had been a member of the Columbia Fur Company and, con- forming to the habits of traders, had purchased a Dakotah wife who was wholly ignorant of the English language. As a family of children gathered around him, he recognized the relation of husband and father and consci- entiously discharged his duties as parent. His daughter, at a proper age, was sent to a boarding school of some celebrity, and on the night referred to was married to an intelligent young American farmer. Among the guests pres- ent were the officers of the garrison in full dress uniform, with their wives, the United States agent for the Dahkotahs, and family, the bois brules of the neighborhood, and the Indian relatives of the mother. The mother did not make her appearance, but, as the minister proceeded with the ceremony, the Dahkotah relatives, wrapped in their gay blankets, gathered in the hall and looked in through the door. This marriage feast was worthy of the occasion. In consequence of the numbers, the officers and those of European extraction partook first; then the bois brules of Ojibway and Dahkotah descent, and then the native Americans, who did ample justice to the plenti- ful supply spread before them.
NOTEWORTHY FIRST EVENTS.
Governor Ramsey and Hon. H. H. Sibley, at Washington, in the winter (January) of 1850, devised a seal for the territory of Minnesota. The design was a representation of St. Anthony falls in the distance; an immi- grant plowing the land on the borders of the Indian country, full of hope and looking forward to the possession of the hunting grounds beyond ; an Indian amazed at the sight of the plow, and fleeing toward the setting sun.
The summer of 1850 was the commencement of navigation of the Min- nesota river by steamboats. With the exception of a steamer that made pleasure trips as far as Shokpay, in 1841, no large vessels had ever dis- turbed the waters of this river. In June of 1850 the "Anthony Wayne," which a few weeks before had ascended to the falls of St. Anthony, made a trip. On July 18 it made another trip, going almost to Mahkahto. The "Nominee," also, navigated the Minnesota river that season.
The first proclamation for Thanksgiving day in Minnesota was issued in the autumn of 1850 by the governor, and the 26th day of December was the day appointed and generally observed.
In 1851 the penitentiary was located by the Legislature at Stillwater,
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which greatly displeased some of the citizens at St. Paul. By the efforts of J. W. North the University of Minnesota was established at or near the falls of St. Anthony. By the provisions of the state Constitution it is now called the State University.
The first newspaper published above St. Paul was at St. Anthony, and was known as the St. Anthony Express, which made its appearance in April, 1851.
The most important event of 1851 in Minnesota was the treaty with the Dakotahs, by which the west side of the Mississippi and the valley of the Minnesota river were opened to the hardy immigrant. This treaty was held for the upper bands at Traverse des Sioux. The commission arrived there the last days of June, but were obliged to wait many days for the congre- gating of the several tribes of Indians interested. The treaty was finally concluded on July 23, 1851, after the usual speeches, feastings, etc. The pipe having been smoked by Commissioners Lea and Ramsey, it was passed to the chiefs. The paper containing the treaty was then read in English and translated into the Dakotah by Rev. S. R. Riggs, Presbyterian mission- ary among the Indian people. This finished, the chiefs came up to the secretary's table and touched the pen ; the white men present then witnessed the document. and nothing remained but the document's ratification by the United States Senate to open that vast country for the residence of white settlers.
During the first week in August, 1851, a treaty was also concluded beneath an oak bower on Pilot Knob, Mendota, with the M'dewakantonwan and Wahpaykootay bands of the Dakotahs. About sixty of the chiefs and principal men touched the pen, and Little Crow, who had been in the mis- sion school at Lac qui Parle, signed his own name. Before they separated, Colonel Lea and Governor Ramsey gave them a few words of advice on various subjects connected with their future welfare, but especially upon the subject of education and temperance. The treaty was interpreted to them by Rev. G. H. Pond, a gentleman who was conceded to be a most cor- rect speaker of the Dakotah language.
The day after the treaty, these lower bands received thirty thousand dollars, which, by the treaty of 1837, was set apart for education; but, by the misrepresentations of interested half-breeds, the Indians were made to believe that it ought to be given to them to be employed as they pleased. The next week, with their sacks filled with money, they thronged the streets of St. Paul, purchasing whatever pleased their fancy.
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
EVENTS OF 1852 AND 1853.
During the summer of 1852, Elijah Terry, a young man who had left St. Paul the previous March and gone to Pembina, to act as a teacher to the mixed-bloods in that vicinity, was murdered under distressing circum- stances. With a bois brule, he had started to the woods on the morning of his death, to hew timber. While there he was fired upon by a small party of Dakotahs; a ball broke his arm and he was pierced with arrows. His scalp was wrenched from his head, and was afterward seen among Sisseton Dakotahs, near Big Stone lake. At the November term of the United States district court, of Ramsey county, a Dakotah, named Yu-ha-zee, was tried for the murder of a German woman. With others, she was traveling above Shokpay, when they met a party of Indians, of whom the prisoner was one, who gathered about the wagon and were much excited. The prisoner punched the woman with his gun and, being threatened by one of the party, loaded and fired, killing the woman and wounding one of the men. On the day of the trial he was escorted from Ft. Snelling by a company of mounted dragoons in full dress. It was an impressive scene to witness the poor Indian in his blanket, in a buggy, with a civil officer, surrounded with all the pomp and circumstance of war. The jury found him guilty. On being asked if he had anything to say why death sentence should not be passed, he replied, through the interpreter, that the band to which he belonged would remit their annuities if he could be released. To this Judge Hayner replied that he had no authority to release him, and, ordering him to arise, he, after some impressive remarks, pronounced the first sentence of death ever delivered by a judicial officer in Minnesota. The prisoner trembled when the judge spoke and was a piteous spectacle. At that time, by the statutes of Minnesota, one convicted of murder could not be executed for twelve months, and he was confined until the governor of the territory should by warrant order his execution.
On April 9, 1853, a party of Ojibways killed a Dakotah at the village of Shokpay. A war party from Kaposia then proceeded up the valley of the St. Croix and killed an Ojibway. On the 27th of the same month a band of Ojibway warriors, naked, decked, and fiercely gesticulating, made their appearance on the busiest street of the capital, in search of their ene- mies. Just at that time a small party of women, and one man, who had lost his leg in the battle of Stillwater, arrived in a canoe from Kaposia, at the Jackson street landing. Perceiving the Ojibways, they retreated to the
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building then known as the Pioneer office, and the Ojibways discharged a volley through the windows, wounded a Dakotah woman, who soon died. For a short time, the new capital city presented a sight similar to that wit- nessed in earlier days in Hadley and Deerfield, Massachusetts. Messen- gers were dispatched to Ft. Snelling for the dragoons and a party of citi- zens, mounted on horseback, were quickly in pursuit of those who, with such boldness, had sought the streets of St. Paul as a place to avenge their wrongs. The dragoons soon followed, with Indian guides scenting the track of the Ojibways, like bloodhounds. The next day they discovered the transgressors, near the falls of St. Croix. The Ojibways manifesting what was supposed to be an insolent spirit, the order was given by the lieutenant in command to fire, and he whose scalp was afterwards daguerrotyped and engraved for Graham's Magasine, paid the penalty for his misdeeds.
During the summer a passenger, as he stood on the hurricane deck of any of the steamboats, might have seen, on a scaffold on the bluffs in the rear of Kaposia, a square box covered with red cloth. Above it was sus- pended a piece of the scalp of the Ojibway whose death had caused the affray in the streets of St. Paul. Within was the body of the woman who had been shot in the Pioneer building, while seeking refuge. A scalp sus- pended over the corpse is supposed to be consolation to the soul and a great protection in the journey to the spirit land.
On the accession of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency of the United States the officers appointed under the Taylor and Fillmore administrations were removed, and the following appointed in their places: Governor, W. A. Gorman, of Indiana: secretary, J. T. Rosser, of Virginia; chief jus- tice, W. H. Welch, of Minnesota; associates, Moses Sherburne, of Maine, and A. G. Chatfield, of Wisconsin. One of the first official acts of the sec- ond governor was the making of a treaty with the Winnebago Indians at Watab, Benton county, for an exchange of country.
EVENTS JUST PRIOR TO MINNESOTA'S ADMISSION AS A STATE.
The fifth session of the Territorial Legislature convened in the build- ing just completed as the state capitol, January 4, 1854. The president of the council was S. B. Olmstead and the speaker of the House was N. C. D. Taylor.
The most exciting event of this session was the passage of the act incorporating the Minnesota & Northwestern Railroad Company. It was
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passed after the hour of midnight on the last day of the session, and con- trary to the expectation of the people, it was signed by the governor and became a law.
On December 27, 1854, the first public execution in Minnesota took place, that of Yu-ha-zee, the Indian who had killed the woman previously referred to. The scaffold was erected on the open space between an inn called the Franklin house and the rear of J. W. Selby's enclosure in St. Paul. About two o'clock, the prisoner, dressed in a white shroud, left the old log prison, near the court house, and entered a carriage with the officers of the law. Being assisted up the steps that led to the scaffold, he made a few remarks in his own language, and was then executed. Numerous ladies sent in a petition to the governor, asking the pardon of the Indian, to which that officer, in declining, made an appropriate reply.
The Legislature, in the winter of 1855, adjourned one day, to attend the exercises occasioned by the opening of the first bridge of its kind over the Mississippi river. It was the well-remembered wire suspension bridge at St. Anthony falls. At the date of its opening to the public the land on the west shore of the stream had not yet been patented by the government, which shows the reader how wonderfully the Twin Cities have grown in so short a period of time.
THE YEARS 1856-57.
On June 12, 1856, several Ojibways entered the farm house of a Mr. Whallon, of Hennepin county, on the banks of the Minnesota river, a mile below the Bloomington ferry. The wife of the farmer, a friend and three children, besides a little Dakotah girl, who had been brought up in a mis- sion house at Kaposia, and so changed in manners that her origin was scarcely perceptible, were sitting in the room when the Indians came in. Instantly seizing the little Indian maiden, they threw her out of the door, killed and scalped her, and fled before the men in the field nearby could reach the house.
During the session of the Legislature in 1857 the chief issue was the grant of lands for railroad purposes. Also a bill calling for the removal of the state capital from St. Paul to St. Peter caused much stir and no little excitement. After a long and heated contest, the decision was finally reached that St. Paul should be the permanent seat of state government, since which date no effort has been made to change the capital of Minne- - sota.
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
On February 23, 1857, an act passed the United States Senate to authorize the people of Minnesota to form a constitution preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original states.
On January 29, 1858, Senator Douglas, of the United States Senate, submitted the bill for the admission of Minnesota territory as a state into the Union. On February I a discussion arose on the bill, in which Senators Douglas, Wilson, Gwin, Hale, Mason, Green, Brown and Crittenden par- ticipated. Brown, of Mississippi, was opposed to the admission of Minne- sota until the question was settled about Kansas. Mr. Crittenden, a Southern man, could not endorse all that was said by the senator from Mississippi, and his words of wisdom and moderation are worthy of historic mention. On April 7, 1858, the bill finally passed the Senate, with only three dis- senting votes, and in a short time the House of Representatives concurred; on May 11 the President approved the bill, and Minnesota was fully recog- nized as one of the United States of America.
CHAPTER II.
GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES.
In 1888, State Geologist Winchell and Warren Upham made a survey of the topography and geology of the part of Minnesota embracing Morri- son county and their research was published in a large volume by the author- ity of the commonwealth. Professor Upham, now at the head of one of the departments of the State Historical Society at St. Paul, made the sur- vey in both Morrison and Todd counties, and from this exhaustive work the author has largely drawn for the material found within this chapter, which serves for both counties, in a way, with certain variations, owing to the locality treated upon.
Morrison county is about forty miles long from west to east, and its greatest width, on its western boundary, is thirty-nine and a half miles, but east of the Mississippi river its width is only twenty-three miles. Morrison county's area is 1,154.82 square miles, or 739,088.97 acres, of which 8,171.77 acres are covered by water.
SURFACE FEATURES.
The Mississippi river flows south from Crow Wing county, dividing the domain of Morrison into two sections, of almost equal parts. From ยท its eastern portion comes in several tributaries, such as Rabbit river, Sand creek, Noka Sebe (commonly called Nokasippi) river, Fletcher creek and Platte river. Platte, the largest stream, has its source in Platte lakes, on the northern county line, and flows thirty miles southwesterly into the Mis- sissippi in Benton county. Skunk river is an important tributary of the Platte from the east. From the west, the affluents of the Mississippi are the Crow Wing river, which forms a part of the northern boundary of Morrison county, the Little Elk river, Pike creek, Swan river, Little Two rivers, the main Two Rivers and Skunk brook.
Lake Alexander and Fish Trap lake, in northwestern Morrison
.
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
county, are the sources of the Fish Trap brook, which flows over into Todd county. The east borders of these counties from Mille Lacs south- ward belong to the basin of Rum river, which is a tributary of the Missis- sippi at Anoka.
LAKES.
Platte lakes, above mentioned, and others in their vicinity, are about all the lakes within Morrison county. The most noteworthy lakes of the county, perhaps, may be considered Rice lakes, the Southern Platte and Fish lake, lying between Little Falls and Rich Prairie. In western Morri- son county only a few small lakelets occur south of Lake Alexander, Fish Trap and Shaminaeu lakes, with others of a small size, make up the inter- esting group in the northwest part of the county, beautiful for their hilly shores, numerous points, bays and islands, and abounding in fish and water- fowl, while deer and other game live in the surrounding forests.
TOPOGRAPHY.
Morrison and Crow Wing counties present about the same topography. A rough, hilly belt of morainic drift, chiefly till, with scanty kame-like deposits of gravel and sand, borders the west side of Morrison county- especially is this seen in Elmdale, Culdrum and the south half of Parker township. North from the south fork of Little Elk river it reaches two or three miles into Morrison county, in the northwest part of Parker township, as well as the next township to the northward. It then turns eastward in a strip two miles south of Fish Trap lake and Lake Alexan- der, above which these morainic hills rise from one to one hundred and fifty feet in height. Its highest portions rise more than one hundred feet above Lake Alexander, or two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the Crow Wing and Mississippi rivers.
Green Prairie, adjoining the Mississippi, and most of the tract west to Fish lake. is flat or only slightly undulating. From the west end of Fish lake are kames or knolls, small plateaus and short ridges of gravel and sand, having cobbles up to one foot in diameter, but no larger bowl- ders, rising thirty to fifty feet above the smoothly undulating gravel and sand on each side, extending three miles west, with a width of about one mile.
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
Southward from the morainic area and this tract of modified drift, most of the southwestern part of Morrison county is moderately undulat- ing, rising in gentle swells twenty to forty feet above the water courses. In southeastern Elmdale, south of the north branch of Two rivers and Little Two rivers, a belt of level till is found, continuing over into Stearns county.
East of the Mississippi river, a morainic belt from one to three miles wide extends from north to south through Mooreville, Belle Prairie and Little Falls, nearly parallel with the Mississippi river, from which it is sep- arated by a plain modified drift, one to three miles wide and from twenty- five to fifty feet above the river. Where this belt crosses the roadway from Little Falls to Rich Prairie it attains its greatest height, and its material is almost wholly till or bowlder-clay. The same modified drift forms Hole- in-the Day's bluff, a notable conical hill, forty feet above the average height of the range and about one hundred and fifty feet above the Mississippi river, situated in the south edge of Belle Prairie, one and one-half miles northeast of Little Falls.
ALTITUDES.
Little Falls is 1,115 feet above sea level. Summit cut, seventeen miles from Little Falls, is 1,192 feet.
The descent of the Mississippi river within the limits of Morrison county is about one hundred and fifty-nine feet. Crow Wing river, at Mot- ley, is 1,206 feet above sea level, descending nearly sixty feet thence to its mouth. Lake Alexander is 1,275 feet above sea level.
The highest land in Morrison county consists of morainic hills in the vicinity of Lake Alexander; the tops are about 1,400 feet above sea level and its lowest land is the shores of the Mississippi river in Two Rivers township, 1,029 feet. The mean elevation of the county is about 1,220 feet. By townships, the sea level runs approximately thus: Township No. 42, range 28, 1,275 feet ; township 41, range 28, 1,300; township 40, range 28, 1,275 : Morrill. 1,225 ; township 42, range 29, 1,260; township 41, range 29. 1,275; Ripley, 1,260; Pierz, 1,220; Buckman, 1,180; Belle Prairie, 1,230; Pike Creek, 1,170; Little Falls, 1,160; Bellevue, 1, 100; Motley, 1,275; Swan River, 1,140; Two Rivers, 1, 100; Parker, 1,260; Culdrum, 1,240, and Elmdale, 1,200.
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
SOIL AND TIMBER.
The bowkler-clay or till is good farming land, except limited portions of the morainic belts, which are too hilly and stony for cultivation, and such lands are valuable for pasture purposes. The soils of gravel and sand belonging to the modified drift have less fertility and are more quickly exhausted by cropping ; but from Motley to Crow Wing, and thence south through Morrison county, they are fairly productive, and have to a large extent been brought under cultivation successfully, because they were prai- rie, or only covered by brush and small trees, so that the land was easily prepared for the plow.
Heavy timber covers the areas of the till and some portions of the modified drift. On the latter, Jack pines, red or Norway pines, black and burr oaks, aspen and other species grow. Much jack pine also grows on a belt next east of the morainic belt in Crow Wing, Mooreville, Belle Prairie and Little Falls, and much red pine is found on the tract of modified drift in Green Prairie north of the Little Elk river.
The general southwestern limit of the pines, spruce and fir, crosses Buckman township, Bellevue and the south part of Swan River, thence con- tinuing northwestward through Culdrum into Todd county. Much white pine has been cut, and much remained in Parker township and northward in Green Prairie and Motley, about the head of West branch of Rum river, on Hillman brook, and the upper portions of Skunk, Platte and Nokasippi rivers.
Among the many species of tree and shrub growth of this county there may be named, as common, the white pine, white, burr and black oaks, ironwood, white, red and rock elms, hackberry, basswood, sugar and soft maple, box elder, black and green ash, canoe and yellow birch, poplars, but- ternut, bitter hickory, wild plum, red and black cherry and Juneberry. Of the shrubs are the hazelnut, prickly ash, choke cherry, red and black rasp- berry, high blackberry, wild rose, thorn, prickly and smooth gooseberry, black currant, wolfberry, staghorn and smooth sumach, frost grape, Vir- ginia creepers, climbing bittersweet, New Jersey tea or red-root, honey- suckle and arrowwood, the high-bush cranberry, alder and willows. Tama- rack is plentiful in the swamps. Red cedar rarely occurs on bluffy shores of rivers and lakes.
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FISH TRAP LAKE, MORRISON COUNTY
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MORRISON AND TODD COUNTIES, MINNESOTA.
PRAIRIES.
Prairies of grass, with scarcely any shrubbery or plants, occupied orig- inally a considerable part of the modified drift plain bordering the east side of the Mississippi river, southward through Belle Prairie and part of Little Falls; also a tract of two or three square miles in the southwest part of Bellevue, and another, three miles long from north to south and a mile wide, in Crow Wing. Green Prairie, three miles long from north to south and a mile wide; North Prairie, in Two Rivers, and Rich Prairie, which is about four miles wide and reaches eleven or twelve miles from the middle of Pierz, south through the west part of Buckman and the cast edge of Bellevue, continuing on into Benton county. These are mostly "brush prai- rie," having much hazel and oak brush, prairie willow, red root and sand cherry.
GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.
In Morrison county many outcrops of bed-rocks occur. East of the Mississippi river the prevailing types are granite, cyanite and gneiss. Along the river and farther west they are slate, staurolite-bearing mica, schist and dioryte.
Of the geological formation at and near Granite City, in part of sec- tion 21, township 41, range 29, on the northwest side of Skunk river, it may be stated that that is where the steam saw-mill and a considerable town existed during several years next preceding the Indian outbreak of 1862. Its buildings remained empty from that date on and were gradually removed or decayed into ruins. The nearest farming immigrants after that time settled a half-mile down the river. The rock outcropping at Granite City, from which the name was derived, is coarse gray gneiss, containing much black mica. Its strike is from northeast to southwest, and its dip is ver- tical, or within a few degrees of it. This rock forms numerous bare hill- ocks and ridges, ten to thirty feet above Skunk river, for a fourth of a mile along its northwestern side, and in less amount on its southeast side. It is also seen on the southeast side in an exposure of a few acres, rising ten to twenty feet above the river at a fourth of a mile farther to the east. Here the Skunk river is from ten to twenty feet wide, and flows in a mean- dering course among the ledges.
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