History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Mitchell, William Bell, 1843-
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : H. S. Cooper
Number of Pages: 964

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St. Joseph. In the N. E. 1/4 of section 26 of this township, nearly four miles northeast from Rockville, massive, coarse-grained, gray syenite or granite, closely like that of Roekville, is exposed. It forms a rounded outerop some twenty rods broad, rising ten feet above the general level, its height above the Sauk river, three-fourths of a mile to the northwest, being about 35 feet. This ledge has few joints, one space fifty feet square being without a seam.

One and a half miles west-southwest from the last, an exposure of rock is reported in section 27, at the east side of the Sank river, above which it is said to rise five to ten feet, covering an aere or more.

St. Augusta. Granite, containing flesh-colored feldspar and black mica, is exposed near the middle of section 19, St. Augusta, about a fourth of a mile west of Luxemburg postoffice and St. Wendel's church. This is four miles east-southeast from Roekwell and eight miles south-southwest from St. Cloud. It lies on the west side of slough, above which it rises 15 to 20 feet, its extent being about twenty rods. It is divided by joints three to fifteen feet apart ; the course of their principal system, nearly vertical, is from northwest to southeast.

St. Cloud. This township has many exposures of these roeks, principally syenite.

In the N. E. 1/4 of section 32 a reddish gray syenite or granite, and in the N. W. 14 of section 33 a very dark syenite, containing a large proportion of hornblende, form quite extensive outerops, in each case covering an area equal to a quarter of a mile square. An eighth of a mile west of the road, these rounded hilloeks of roek rise 20 to 25 feet above the general level; and close east of the road and for an eighth of a mile or more from it, their height is five to ten feet. About forty rods farther north, the road goes by ledges of syenite nearly like that of the quarry at Sauk Rapids. These are probably in the southeast corner of section 29; they lie elose west of the road, above which they rise 15 to 20 feet. The next two miles to the north and north- west have abundant outerops of gray and reddish syenite, of which the follow- ing is a list in part.

On the land of Jacob Streitz, in the N. W. 1/4 of the N. E. 1/4 of section 28, considerable quarrying has been done, forty cords or more of the stone having been sold for masonry in St. Paul. This is an excellent gray syenite, rising about ten feet above the general surface, well adapted for supplying dimension stone. It is near the eastern side of this traet of abundant ledges; and the

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

hills one to one and a half miles east and northeast, rising 50 to 75 feet higher and 125 to 150 feet above the Mississippi river, are morainic drift.

A quarter of a mile west of the last, in the N. 1/2 of the N. W. 1/4 of section 28, ledges of the same rock as the last cover two or three acres, rising about five feet above the general level of the surrounding modified drift. Some quarrying has also been done here.

On land of Ferdinand Hartmann, in the north edge of the N. E. 1/4 of section 29, he has quarried during several years, in two low outcrops of syenite, selling the stone for $8 per cord at St. Cloud. The southwestern outcrop, six rods square, is a somewhat coarse-grained, reddish syenite, divided by joints from one to eight feet apart. The other ledge, fifteen rods north-northeast from the last, is about ten rods long from west to east by six rods wide. This is mainly red syenite like the former, but includes a large mass, occupying an area about four rods square, of finer-grained, bright gray syenite, containing occasional scales of black mica. At its border a gradual change of color takes place from the gray to the red.

An area of several acres of reddish syenite, like that of the last localities, begins thirty or forty rods northwesterly from the last, and reaches a sixth of a mile or more northward. This is on the S. W. 1/4 of section 20. It rises in rounded hills and knolls 30 to 50 feet above the lowland eastward.

About forty rods northwest from the last, in the N. W. 1/4 of the S. W. 1/4 of this section 20, gray syenite forms a hill which covers six or eight acres and rises 50 feet above the general surface. It is smoothly glaciated, but retains no clear striae. This rock has few joints, sometimes none for an extent of thirty feet. Here and upon many of the ledges of this region a scale of rock, a fourth to a half of an inch thick, has become separated, or is easily separable from the surface by weathering. In some places this might be attributed to forest or prairie fires, which seem often to have produced such scaling; but here it is notably exhibited on bare ledges six rods or more in extent.

Within a mile westerly are many lower outcrops of this syenite, rising 10 to 20 feet above the average of the vicinity. Good locations for quarrying are reported on the S. E. 1/4 of section 19, and in the west half of this section.

The red syenite continues from the ledges in sections 29 and 20 to the N. W. 14 of the S. W. 1/4 of section 17, where excellent quarrying stone is found. A few years ago a block of this red syenite was obtained for a monu- ment pedestal, which had been sought but could not be supplied (so reported) from the famous quarries of similar stone at Aberdeen, Scotland. The size of this block was 7 feet square by 21/2 feet high, its weight being ten tons. It was cut and polished in St. Cloud, and was sold in Chicago for about $800. This quarry has been operated by the St. Cloud Granite Manufacturing Co., L. A. Evans, agent.

Excellent localities for quarrying the same red syenite also occur within a half mile west and southwest from the last, in the S. E. 1/4 of section 18 and in the N. W. 1/4 of section 19. Some of these localities also yield gray syenite and that which is gray, tinted reddish.

Syenite outcrops in the N. W. 1/4 of section 17, at the northwest side of the road. Its extent is about fifteen by ten rods, and its height is some

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

twenty feet above the adjoining lowlands and river, an eighth of a mile west, and eight feet above the road. This ledge exhibits some marks of water- wearing. A system of nearly vertical joints crosses it from north to south, varying from six inches to four feet apart; and other, less conspicuous and less numerous, extend from east to west.

The only exposure of rock beside the Mississippi river in this county below the St. Cloud bridge, is about a half mile south of the State normal school. It is a coarse gray syenite, with joints ten to twenty feet apart, and forms small ledges five to ten feet above the river.

Fifteen to twenty rods south from the west end of the Sauk Rapids bridge, is a ledge of porphyritic, gray syenite, consisting mostly of feldspar, with about a fourth part of quartz, and including some hornblende and rare grains of mica. It rises some five feet above the river, and is traversed by nearly vertical joints one to eight feet apart. It has been slightly quarried.

Le Sauk. In this township, situated next north of St. Cloud, these crystal- line rocks are exposed upon the lowest mile of Watab river, and at several places within three miles thence north-northwest. The gristmill and its dam, owned by J. B. Sartell & Sons, on the Watab river about a third of a mile above its mouth, are founded on gray syenite. This is exposed to view only on the south side of the river, under the foundation of the north side of the mill, rising a few feet above the water of the flume below the dam. It was quarried for this mill, and is a desirable building stone.

Mr. Sartell owns another quarry a half mile northwest from this mill, covering several acres and rising twenty feet above the general level. It is in or near the S. E. 1/4 of section 17. This has a more reddish tint. Quarry- ing has been done here more or less during the past years, perhaps yielding quarried stone to the value of $1,000 in all, only for use in this vicinity.

A third of a mile east of the last, in the south part of section 16, is another outcrop of rock, similar to that at the grist mill. This covers about two acres. It has a low smoothed surface, not much above the general level.

Another ledge of similar syenite or granite is seen at the west side of the road, east of the north part of Clark lake, in the south half of section 8. This also covers ten acres or more, its hicight being about ten feet.

On or near the east line of section 9, a rock-outcrop, said to be coarse- grained and of iron-rusty color, covers several acres and rises some fifty feet above the Mississippi river, which is ten or twenty rods farther east.

Reddish fine-grained syenite has been somewhat quarried for local use, in or near the N. E. 1/4 of the N. E. 14 of section 7. Farther northwest, near the centre of section 6, similar rock has outcrops at many places along a dis- tance of about half a mile from east to west, not extending into St. Wendel township.

Brockway. A medium-grained, gray granite or syenite, containing garnets a fourth of an inch in diameter, is exposed on the N. W. 1/4 of section 33, in the southeast part of Brockway, about a quarter of a mile west from the road. It shows only a smooth flat surface, ten by fifteen feet in extent, not rising above the general level.

Rock is also reported to occur in the west shore of the Mississippi river,

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

about fifteen rods south from the northeast corner of this section 33. The rock is exposed also in the east bank and in the channel of the river, but its outcrops rise only two or three feet above extreme low water. This is about a mile north of the high hills of rock at the east side of the river Watab.

CHAPTER II.

BEFORE THE WHITES CAME.

Nature's Paradise-Earliest Human Inhabitants-Era of the Eskimo-Reign of the Indian-Prehistoric Indians-Indian Tribes-Dakotas-Ojibways- Ojibway-Dakota Conflict-Social Organization of the Ojibway-Origin of the Names Sauk and Osakis in This Region-Winnebagoes-Life of the Indian-By P. M. Magnusson. .

Scientists tell us that in the glacial period this region was covered by the great ice sheet and then uncovered, not only once but several times. When for the last time the glacier receded, it left behind what became in a few years a wonderfully diversified and beautiful region. The realm of Stearns was and yet is where civilization has not changed it, stretches of gently rolling prairies in summer covered with grass and spangled with flowers; park-like oak openings, verdant swells of land studded with a sparse growth of oaks; dense forests of maple, oak, elm, linden and birch; poplar thickets and tamarack swamps, where every tree is of the same age and stands straight, even and orderly like a well disciplined army; jungles of underbrush of hazel and dwarf beech, dwarf hickory, ironwood, alder, kinnikinic, as well as young trees of larger species, forming in some places almost as inpenetrable a mass as the famous jungles of the Amazon; and finally even in Stearns, here and there a little guard of conifers, mainly white pine, outposts of magnificent forests of evergreens to the northeast. And this varied landscape was flecked and ribboned and jeweled by many a stream of water and by the matchless blue and silver lakes of Minnesota. These waters, woods, and prairies fairly quivered with animal life. The most notable early animal was the mammoth. From remains found lic seems to have been plentiful in Minnesota. Later the leader in animal life was the American bison, generally known as the buffalo.

A country so bountiful and inviting to man, whether primitive or civilized, would remain uninhabited only while undiscovered. J. V. Brower, the dis- tinguished Minnesota archeologist, concludes from the finds he made of quartz artifacts near Little Falls, that man followed very close on the heels of the receding glacier.

Most scholars are of the opinion that in all probability the first inhab- itants of the northern part of the United States were, or were closely related to, the Eskimo. While the data are very meager they all point that way. The Eskimos seem to have remained on the Atlantic seaboard as late as the arrival of the Scandinavian discoverers of the eleventh century, for their description of the aboringines whom they call "skrälingar" (a term of contempt about

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

equivalent to "runts") is much more consonant with the assumption that these were Eskimos than Indians.

So we shall probably be right if we picture to ourselves the first Stearnites as a small yellowish-brown skin-clad race, slipping around nimbly and quietly in our woods and dells, subsisting mainly on fish, but also partly on the chase. Their homes were doubtless of the simplest description and their culture not above absolute savagery. Why did the Eskimo leave Minnesota and all temperate America and withdraw to the frozen fringe of the Arctic ocean ? It can scarcely be maintained that he did it from free choice. Doubtless the stronger and fiercer Indian elbowed him out of this land of plenty, and to save himself and his babies from the ruthless war club and scalping knife of the treacherous red man the peace loving little yellow man withdrew to the barren but friendly shores of the Arctic seas.

REIGN OF THE INDIAN.

Prehistoric Indians. When the white man first saw Minnesota, the region of Stearns was inhabited by the Dakotas or Sioux. But there is evidence that these had had Indian predecessors. From this we may quite confidently con- clude that preceding the Dakotas there had inhabited Minnesota for long ages past several tribes of Indians, probably of Algonquin stock.

Indian Tribes. The archeology and anthropology of the American Indian is still in its infancy. But a few fundamental facts stand ont in bold relief. We are told by scientists that man is of great antiquity in America; and that though the aborigines' blood is doubtless mixed with later arrivals in many localities and tribes, still, barring the Eskimo, the fundamental race character- istics are the same from Hudson Bay to Patagonia. Hence a common American ancestry of great antiquity must be predicated of the whole Indian race.

Draw a line east and west through the southern boundary of Virginia. Except for the northwest corner of British America, the red men in the territory north of this line and east of the Rocky mountains, including the larger part of the United States and British America, are and have been for centuries almost exclusively of just three linguistic stocks : Iroquoian, Sionan, and Algonquian. The one reason for classing these Indians into three ethnic stocks is that the vocabularies of their languages do not seem to have a common origin. Otherwise these Indians are so familiar physically and psychically that even an expert will at times find it hard to tell from appear- ance to which stock an individual belongs. These three stocks are in mental, moral, and physical endowment the peers of any American aborigines, though in culture they were far behind the Peruvians, Mexicans, and the nations in the southwestern United States. But their native culture is not so insignificant as is the popular impression. Except the western bands who subsisted on the buffalo, they practiced agriculture; and in many, if not in most tribes, the products of the chase and fishing supplied less than half their sustenance ; their moccasins,, tanned skin clothing, bows and arrows, canoes, pottery and personal ornaments evinced a great amount of skill and not a little artistic taste. Their houses were not always the conical tipi of bark or skins, but

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

were often very durable and comparatively comfortable and constructed of timber or earth or even stone.

The Dakotas. As to how these stocks came originally into this territory, there is no certain knowledge but much uncertain speculation. Here we shall be content to start with the relatively late and tolerably probable event of their living together, in the eastern part of the United States some five centuries ago. Algonquians lived on the Atlantic slope, the Iroquois perhaps south of Lake Erie and Ontario, and the Siouans in the upper Ohio valley. Of the Siouan peoples we are interested in the main division of the Sioux, more properly the Dakota. Probably because of the pressure of the fierce and well organized Iroquois, the Sioux, perhaps about 1400 A. D., began slowly to descend the Ohio valley. Kentucky and the adjacent parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were certainly at that time a primitive man's paradise, and the anabasis begun under compulsion was enthusiastically continued from choice. They reached the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Prob- ably here they first encountered the buffalo, or bison, in large numbers. The spirit of adventure and the pressure of an increasing population sent large bands up the Mississippi. When the Missouri was reached no doubt some followed that stream. Those who kept to the Mississippi were rewarded as

they ascended the stream by coming into what was from the viewpoint of primitive man a richer country. Coming up into Minnesota a forest region was encountered soon after passing through beautiful Lake Pepin. Soon a "wakan," a spiritual mystery, blocked the way of the Dakota canoes. St. Anthony Falls, of which now scarce a remnant is left, thundered over its ledge among the leafy boskage of banks and islands. Slowly but surely up the stream pushed the Dakotas. Rum river was reached, and its friendly banks were doubtless for many seasons dotted with the Dakotas' tipis. But when the hunter-explorer's eyes first rested on the wide expanse of Mille Lacs, he rightly felt he had found a primitive paradisc. M'dewakan, the lake of spiritual spell, soon became the site of perhaps the largest parmanent encampment or "city" of the Dakotas. The territory of Stearns was not overlooked by the spreading Dakotas. Whoever were their human predeces- sors, they fled before their presence to the north and west. Thus the skin or bark canoes of the Dakotas were soon the only watercrafts on our lakes and streams, and their owners were the only hunters on our soil.

Stearns county lies in the western half of what was the most glorious hunting region in the world. In a zone extending north-northwest we have a series of beautiful lakes. The most southerly is the M'dewakan of the Dakotas, Mille Lacs, some twenty miles long, then Gull, Pelican, and White- fish lakes, each from eight to twelve miles long, magnificent sheets of water, small only in comparison with such giants as Leech lake, which comes next in the series. This body of water has as close neighbors, Cass, Winibigoshish, and Bemidji, lesser but still very large lakes. Continuing in the same direc- tion, we come to Red lake, the largest body of fresh water entirely in the United States. Some eighty miles further north we find the largest lake of the series, the Lake of the Woods. This zone is two or three hundred miles long and was, and to a great extent yet is, a magnificent natural park and

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

game preserve. Well watered and with every variety of surface, spangled with lakes and covered with forests of all kinds and combinations possible in this climate, with here and there a prairie thrown in for good measure, this indeed was the land of Seek-no-Further for the Indian. Of this region Stearns formed a part and a favored part.

In this empire of forest, lake and streams, the Dakotas learned to be forest dwellers. Let us picture the life of the Dakotas in Stearns as it was, say at the time when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. The Dakotas dressed in skins and furs, tanned and prepared by the sqnaws, and sewed with bone needle and sinew thread. He lived then in the Stone Age. His arrow heads, axes, knifes and kelts were made of stone, preferably flint or quartz. His house in summer was the familiar tipi, and sometimes this was all he had even in winter. But more substantial houses of wood, stone and earth were not unknown. Such were often built for several families.

The social structure of the Dakotas was the primitive tribal one, but of the simplest variety. Though many Siouan tribes have an elaborate tribal system, as for example the Omaha, the Dakota lived in bands of the loosest description. Chieftainship devolved on him who could grasp it. Marriage was prohibited only within close blood relationships. No totem system or true clan system obtained. War parties were made up by ambitious individ- nals very much the same as hunting parties are among us.

The religious cult and cosmic notions of the Dakotas were essentially the same as those of other primitive people. They explained all strange, mysterious, powerful, beneficent or malevolent beings, objects, or events, by assuming that a spirit lived and expressed himself in each of them. Every lake, waterfall, tree, animal, cloud or cliff that excited their wonder, admira- tion, fear or awe, was "wakan," a term that can scarcely be translated by any one English word. It means mysterious, elfish, bewitched, spirit-possessed, having supernatural powers. These spirits-in-things were conceived half as personal and half as impersonal. Like all primitive men they believed that these spirits could be controlled by magic. Some spoken formula, some sym- bolic ceremony, some charm or amulet was supposed to ward off evil influences or even secure active cooperation of spirit powers.

The Ojibways. By far the most numerous of the Indian stocks referred to is, and was, the Algonquian. It occupied the Atlantic slope long before the coming of Columbus. When the French came to Canada they found these Indians in possession of the St. Lawrence up to Lake Ontario and of an indefinite region north of the Great Lakes. For centuries the Algonquian Indians worked their way westward, following the Great Lakes. The van- guard of the Algonquian host was the large and gifted tribes known as the Chippewas or Ojibways. Many were the sanguinary conflicts they had with the Iroquois, the "Nadowe," or "Adders," who possessed the south shore of Lake Erie and other regions. Farther west they came in contact with the Dakotas, whom they called the "Nadoweisiv" (the French wrote it Nadowes- sioux, from the last syllable of which we have Sioux) or "Little Adders," and some other Indian tribes, both Siouan and Algonquian, like the Sauks, Foxes, and Winnebagoes. Some three centuries ago we find them in full con-

HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY

trol of both the south and north shore of Lake Superior. This is a region rich in fur bearing animals, and very early in the seventeenth century the Indian hunter of the Great Lakes and the white fur trader discovered each other, and maintained ever afterwards a continuous trade relation. Fire arms, the iron kettle, the knife and hatchet of steel, and the blanket and calico were added from the white man's production to the red man's possessions.

Early in the eighteenth century, so scholars believe, the Ojibways were in possession of even the western shores of Lake Superior, and hunted as far west as the St. Louis river could serve them as a highway. The Dakotas were in possession of the wonderful lake-and-river region we have described. The highway of this region was the Mississippi. Where the Mississippi in its great swing eastward comes nearest to Lake Superior we find just east of the river a beautiful lake, called from its sandy beach, Sandy lake. The Savanna river empties into this lake, and from this river to the East Savanna river which empties into the St. Louis river, is the portage between the Mississippi and the Great lakes; and at Sandy lake, according to tradition, the two powerful tribes, the Dakota and the Ojibway, first met.

The Ojibway-Dakota Conflict. It was a case of, not love, but hate and war at first sight. Though the boundless forest could easily have supported them both, grasping human nature would not permit peace. Still, we must not imagine that the war was uninterrupted. Periods of. peace, or rather, truce abounded. The two tribes often hunted and gathered rice together. Yes, they even intermarried. But whenever a member of one tribe injured or killed a person belonging to the other, the tribal feud law, common among primitive peoples, and not extinct among the "mountain whites" of our own day and nation, demanded that the injured man's family and tribe take vengeance on the offender's kin. Thus two rival tribes found almost constant cause for war, as there was no lack of degenerate or careless people whose deeds of violence or guile must be revenged, in addition to tribal jealousy and rivalry over possession of hunting grounds.

The Ojibways were the stronger. Slowly but surely they expelled the Dakotas from the great hunting zone of Minnesota. The great Dakota "city" at Mille Lacs fell into the hands of the Ojibway. J. V. Brower thinks the date was about 1750. All of the Mississippi region above Brainerd was in the hands of the Ojibways. Still they pressed southward. Stearns was for over a century in the frontier between the Dakotas and the Ojibways. An attempt was made by the treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825 to stop the age- long feud between the Dakota and the Ojibway, and the United States, acting as a friendly conciliating and arbitrating power, got the hostile tribes to agree to a division of their territory. This "international" boundary line ran diagonally across Minnesota from the neighborhood of Marine, a few miles south of Tailors Falls on the St. Croix, in an irregular line to Georgetown on the Red river, the general direction being northwest. The portion of the boundary between the Dakota and the Ojibway, extending from Chippewa river to Otter tail lake, was surveyed in 1835 by S. A. Bean. The line enters Stearns where the Watab empties into the Mississippi, and according to treaty, follows this stream to its source; but by this surveyor, according to Winchell

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History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Mitchell, William Bell, 1843- Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago : H. S. Cooper Number of Pages: 964

Author: Mitchell, William Bell, 1843-
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : H. S. Cooper
Number of Pages: 964