History of Wabasha County, Minnesota, Part 5

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1222

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Several of the prominent early families of Wabasha and vicinity were related to Wabasha III by marriage and descent. It is in honor of this chief that Wabasha County is named. The neighboring county of Winona was named for his sister or cousin, Wee-no-nah, wife of Mock-ah-pe-ah-ket-ah-pah.

The land in Wabasha County and the vicinity came into possession of the whites through a series of treaties made between the United States Govern- ment and the Indians. The Prairie du Chien Treaty of 1825 fixed certain boun- daries between a number of the tribes of the upper Mississippi. The treaty confirmed the Dakota (Sioux) in the possession of vast tracts west of the Mis- sissippi, as well as to certain lands east of it. Wabasha County and the lands opposite in Wisconsin were thus definitely acknowledged by the whites and the neighboring bands of Indians as being under the sovereignty of the Dakota, with Chief Wabasha as reigning potentate.

The Prairie du Chien treaty of 1830 provided for the relinquishment by the Sioux of all claim to land in northwestern Missouri and western Iowa, espe- cially the country of the Des Moines River Valley. A tract of land in the present Goodhue, Wabasha and Winona counties was set aside for the mixed bloods. A neutral strip taking in a portion of southeastern Minnesota was also established. By the Treaty of Washington, 1837, the Dakota relinquished all their lands east of the Mississippi, and the islands therein, so the Wabasha County islands and the lands across the river in Wisconsin passed from the Indians to the whites.

All the land in this part of Minnesota was relinquished by the Dakota Indians by the treaty made with the upper bands, signed at Traverse des Sioux, July 22, 1851, and with the lower bands signed at Mendota, August 5, 1851. At both places a feature of the gathering was a large brush arbor erected by Alexis Bailly, an early Wabasha trader.

HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

Wabasha, from whom the county is named, opposed the Treaty of Mendota, but seeing the futility of opposition, and realizing that the Indans by refusing to give up their land would subject themselves to extermination by the whites, he was the second to sign.

The written copies of the Traverse des Sioux and the Mendota treaties, duly signed and attested, were forwarded to Washington to be acted upon by the senate at the ensuing session of congress. An unreasonably long delay resulted. Final action was not had until the following summer, when, on July 23, 1852, the senate ratified both treaties with important amendments. The provisions for reservations on the upper Minnesota for both the upper and lower bands were stricken out, and substitutes adopted, agreeing to pay 10 cents an acre for both reservations, and authorizing the president, with the assent of the Indians, to cause to be set apart other reservations, which were to be within the limits of the original great cession. The provision to pay $150,000 to the half- bloods of the lower bands was also stricken out. The treaties, with the changes, came back to the Indians for final ratification and agreement to the alterations. The chiefs of the lower bands at first objected very strenuously, but finally, on Saturday, September 4, 1852, at Governor Alexander Ramsey's residence in St. Paul, they signed the amended articles, and the following Monday the chiefs and head men of the upper bands affixed their marks. As amended, the treaties were proclaimed by President Fillmore, February 24, 1853. The Indians were allowed to remain in their old villages, or, if they preferred, to occupy their reservations as originally designated until the president selected their new homes. That selection was never made, and the original reservations were finally allowed them, Congress, on July 31, 1854, having passed an act by which the original reservation provisions remained in force. The removal of the lower Indians to their designated reservation above Redwood Falls on the Minnesota River, began in 1853, but was intermittent, interrupted, and extended over a period of several years. The Indians went up in detachments, as they felt inclined. After living on the reservation for some time, some of them returned to their old hunting grounds, where they lived continuously for some time, visiting their reservation and agency only at the time of the payment of their annuities. During this period they ranged Wabasha County, especially the valley of the Zumbro. Finally, by the offer of cabins to live in, or other substantial inducements, nearly all of them were induced to settle on the Red- wood Reserve, so that in 1862, at the time of the outbreak, less than twenty families of the Medawakantons and Wahpakootas were living off their reser- vation.

Wabasha County thus passed entirely from the hands of the Indians, and since that date but few have been seen in the county, though some few lived out long lives in the vicinity of Wabasha, became famous local characters, and here ended their days.

As already mentioned, the Prairie du Chien treaty of 1830 set aside a "Half Breed Tract" in the following language :

"The Sioux bands in council have earnestly solicited that they might have permission to bestow upon the half-breeds of their nation the tract of land within the following limits, to-wit: Beginning at the place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing chief, and running back fifteen miles ; thence, in a parallel line with Lake Pepin and the Mississippi, about 32 miles, to a point opposite Beef, or O'Boeuf, River; thence fifteen miles to the Grand Encampment opposite the river aforesaid; the United States agree to suffer said half-breeds to occupy said tract of country ; they holding by the same title, and in the same manner that other Indian titles are held."

The boundary line of this tract, as indicated on modern maps, starts at Red Wing, extends southwest fifteen miles, turns southeast, enters Wabasha County in section 18, Town 110, Range 14 (Chester Township), and runs southwest through Chester Township, Zumbro Falls village, Hyde Park, Oakwood and

HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

Plainview townships, to a point in the upper part of section 24, Town 108, Range 11 (Plainview Township) ; thence northwest through Plainview Town- ship, Wabasha County, Whitewater Township, Winona County, and Watopa and Greenfield townships, Wabasha County, to a point on the Mississippi River in section 18, Town 110, Range 9 (Greenfield Township), the other boundary being the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin. It thus included in Wabasha County the entire townships of Mount Pleasant, Gillford, Lake, West Albany, Pepin, Glas- gow, and Wabasha; and parts of the townships of Chester, Hyde Park, Oak- wood, Plainview, Watopa and Greenfield. The townships not included, either in whole or a part, were Mazeppa, Zumbro, Elgin and Minneiska. An exact drawing of the southeast boundary line, however, would place it about two miles farther northwest, as a point "opposite Boeuf River" would be in section 2, Greenfield Township, and it would thence extend southwest through that township, through the northwest corner of Watopa, the southeast corner of Highland, and into Plainview Township to a point in the lower part of sec- tion 10.

This "Half-Breed Tract," the reservation of which was doubtless made through the influence of the Indian traders and those in their employ who had married Indian women, subsequently was the cause of much trouble which delayed the permanent settlement of the lands involved.

A provision was made in the treaty of August 5, 1851, arranging for the purchase of the tract by the Government for $150,000. This clause, however, was stricken out by the United States senate. Later a list of the half-breeds, mostly the children of the traders, was made out, and script issued entitling each to a certain number of acres, the location within the tract to be chosen by the holder.

When General Shields brought the script to Minnesota for distribution, a great portion of it passed into the hands of parents or guardians of children, and from them it passed into the hands of speculators.

About this time there were probably two hundred families of whites settled upon the agricultural portions of this tract, some in what is now Goodhue County and some in what is now Wabasha County. Some of these people had settled in the tract in ignorance of its limits, or of the fact that its status was different from that of the other government lands. Others knew of the pro- vision of the 1851 treaty, purchasing the lands, without knowing the further fact that the clause had been rejected by the Senate; others were adventurous and were willing to take their chances even though they knew their settlement was illegal; other more cautious ones secured quit-claim deeds from individual half-breeds or permission from the Indian relatives of the half-breeds. These quit claims and these permissions were of course valueless, as the half-breeds had no rights except that embodied in the script and could transfer such rights only by transferring the actual possession of the script. Nothing but this scrip would avail in filing on any portion of the land.

The actual settlers had naturally taken up the choicest portions, and in many cases had made somewhat extensive improvements. The soil had been broken, crops raised, and buildings and fences erected by people who were in reality only squatters without legal rights. When strangers who had pur- chased script from the speculators attempted to take up these improved claims and oust the squatters, the trouble began, and those who were actually in pos- session effected an organzation and resorted to extreme measures to avoid

being dispossessed. These actual settlers had the sympathy of all the sur- rounding population, but holders of the scrip had the legal advantage of the situation, and commenced to obtain titles to farms already improved. Red Wing, where the land office was located, at once became a scene of excitement. Meetings were held by the actual settlers and counsel taken as to methods of procedure. They assessed upon themselves a tax, and sent one man to Wash- ington to demand justice, as they called it, in their behalf. They secured from

HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

the land office correct copies of plats of all the townships and fractional town- ships included within the tract, and every quarter-section upon which a settler had made improvements was definitely marked. Holders of scrip were publicly warned against filing upon such land. At a meeting of those interested in the cause of the settlers, which was held at the Kelly House in Red Wing, March 17, 1856, a vigilance committee of 21 members was chosen to prevent any more scrip being laid upon land already occupied. This committee was empowered to demand that in every case where scrip had been laid on the land of actual settlers, said scrip should immediately be raised. The members of the com- mittee were men of dauntless courage and muscular power, and devoted their whole time and energy to the work until it was accomplished. Two of them stood as sentinels at the land office armed with loaded revolvers, constantly watching every transaction therein, being relieved by another two at stated times. In the meanwhile the majority of the committee were acting as detec- tives, arresting and bringing to trial those who had offended, the trial not being before a court of justice, but before the committee. There was at that time no courthouse and no jail, and the lawyers knew that the scrip holders were acting within their legal rights. The holders, however, were threatened and intimidated by the committee and through fear compelled to raise the scrip, though there is no record of any personal injury being inflicted on anyone. That such would have been inflicted in case of continued resistance there is little doubt, as one man was led to a hole cut through the ice in the river, and given his choice either to raise his entry of scrip or be put through the hole, and though he was a man of strength and courage, he found it prudent to submit. There were other cases of the same kind. The excuse for these extreme meas- ures was soon after removed by a decision from the land office at Washington, whereby those who had settled on a tract of this land and made improvements thereon, had the pre-emption and homestead rights the same as on other gov- ernment lands. The same decision granted to the holders of half-breed scrip the privilege of laying the same upon any other Government land not previously claimed by an actual settler. All the vacant land on the half-breed tract was taken very soon after this decision, the situation near the river enhancing its value. The disadvantage of a few miles from market was considered a great drawback in those days, before the advent of railroads. Few or none of the mixed bloods ever cared to settle on the agricultural land thus set apart for them. Occasionally, a decade or two afterward, there was an echo of the half- breed affair, when some half-blood whose guardian has sold his (the half- breed's) scrip rights, would, upon attaining his majority, demand of the settler on the property that he, too, be paid. In most cases these demands were com- plied with, the farmers, whose lands had greatly enhanced in value, deeming it wiser to pay a small sum than to undergo the expense of a lawsuit. Thus passed the last vestige of Indian title to the rich valleys and plains of this county, which was once, and for countless generations, a camping and hunting ground of the red men.

The existence of this half-breed tract accounts in a measure for the present flourishing village of Plainview, as the village of Greenwood, which once bid fair to be the metropolis of southern Wabasha County, was within the tract, and titles for awhile were consequently uncertain.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY EXPLORERS.

The first civilized men1 to gaze upon the picturesque scenery in this vicinity were probably Father Louis Hennepin,2 a priest of the order of Recollects of St. Francis, and his two companions, Antoine du Gay Auguel, known from his birthplace as "le Picard," and Michel Accault. They were sent out by Robert Cavelier de La Salle, from Fort Crevecoeur, near Lake Peoria, Illinois, Febru- ary 28, 1680. They were on their way up the Mississippi when they were cap- tured by a band of Sioux warriors on the warpath against the Illinois and Miami nations. These Sioux took the white men to the Mille Lacs region in northern Minnesota. Hennepin speaks of the Black River (R. Noire) and declares that the Sioux called the stream Cha-be-de-ba or Cha-ba-ou-de-ba. He mentions the Buffalo River (R. de Boeufs), which he said was full of turtles, and which he ascended for several leagues. It is believed that in reality he ascended Beef Slough, which was at that time possibly the main channel of the Chippewa River.3 He does not mention any other river which would cor- respond with the Chippewa of the present day. He says that the mouth of the R. de Boeufs was as wide as that of the Illinois.

The party slept one night at the point of Lake Pepin. Hennepin named the lake, Lac des Pleurs, the Lake of the Tears, because of the excessive weep- and lamentations of some of the Indians in the party. The chief, Aquipaguetin, had lost a son, killed by hostile Indians in the Illinois country. It was cus- tomary when a member of the tribe had met death by violence, to kill an enemy in revenge, whether the enemy was guilty of the death or not, and Hennepin declares that this ostentatious show of grief over the killing of the young prince was for the purpose of inducing some of the frendly Indians to consent to the death of one or more of the whites to console the tribe for the loss of the chief's son. This is the first European mention of Lake Pepin.

After spending some time in the Mille Lacs region, Hennepin and Auguel, leaving Accault as a hostage, were taken down the Mississippi by the Indians looking for supplies which La Salle was to have sent to the mouth of the Wis- consin. On their way down the river, guarded by a chief Quasicoude (Wacoota) and a company of Indians, Hennepin and Auguel came to St. Anthony Falls (near Minneapolis), which Hennepin named. They continued down the river and again passed what is now Wabasha County. July 11, 1680, while hunting for the mouth of the Wisconsin River, the party was overtaken by more Indians, headed by Aquipaguetin, a Sioux chief who had taken Hennepin into his family as an adopted son. Some time was spent in hunting in the region between the Chippewa River and the Wisconsin River. In these wanderings, Accault and his guards joined the party and were left for a while at the mouth of the Chippewa (or possibly at the mouth of Beef Slough). Here and on various islands the squaws hid meat. Then the party descended the river and hunted over the prairies further south. July 25, 1680, while again ascending the river, the party encountered Du Luth and a body guard of French soldiers.4 Daniel Greysolon, better known as the Sieur Du Luth (variously rendered), had started out from Montreal on September 1, 1678, explored the Lake Superior region and the ter- ritory westward, met the Sioux in the Mille Lacs region, and on July 2, 1679, set up the standard of New France at their village. He returned to Lake Superior from that lake the next summer, ascended the Brule River, made the portage to the St. Croix and was on his way down the Mississippi when he learned that Hennepin and his two companions were in slavery among the

HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

Sioux.5 Hastening to the rescue, Du Luth journeyed down the Mississippi with an Indian and two Frenchmen, and after a canoe trip of two days and two nights, overtock Hennepn and about 1,000 Indians. This meeting probably took place near Trempealeau Mountain or possibly somewhat further south. Du Luth fearlessly took Hennepin in his own canoe and started up the river to the Mille Lacs region, which they reached August 14, 1680. There, at a council he upbraided the Indians in scathing terms. He told them that Hennepin was his brother; he denounced them for making Hennepin and the two companions slaves and taking away Hennepin's priestly clothes; he taunted them after receiving his peace offerings, and being associated with Frenchmen for a year, they should have kidnaped other Frenchmen on their way to make them a friendly visit. As a climax Du Luth returned the peace calumets which the Indians gave him. The savages began to make excuses, but this did not deter Du Luth from his resolution to take Hennepin away. Hennepin himself was rebuked by Du Luth for suffering insult without resentment, as such conduct lowered the prestige of the French. Toward the end of September, Du Luth, Hennepin, and their party once more descended the Mississippi River and reached Canada by way of the Wisconsin River, the Portage, the Fox River and Green Bay. Thus, in the fall of 1680, Hennepin and Du Luth and their com- panions beheld for the last time the picturesque surroundings of this region.

Hennepin's account of his adventures contain many interesting descrip- tions of life on this portion of the Mississppi in that far-distant time. One day the Indians in the party captured and killed a deer while it was swimming across the Mississippi. But the weather was so hot the flesh spoiled in a few hours. Thus left without food, the Indians caught a few turtles, but the cap- ture was difficult, Hennepin says, because the turtles would plunge into the water and evade capture. They caught but four fish and were very thankful whenever they could secure a Buffalo fish dropped by an eagle. Hennepin was particularly interested in the peculiar appearance of the shovelnose sturgeon. He saw one which an otter caught, and Auguel declared it reminded him of a devil in the paws of an animal. But after frightening the otter away, they ate the fish and found it very good.

Another early explorer of the upper Mississippi region, who for some time maintained a habitation in this region, was Nicholas Perrot, who for some twenty years was a trader in the Northwest for the French.6 Perrot arrived at Green Bay, where he was already well known, in the late summer of the year 1685. He found the Indians restless and inclined to intertribal warfare, so that. some time spent in their pacification. It was later than he had planned, there- fore, when he set out for the country of the Sioux, where he hoped to secure a great harvest of valuable furs. After crossing the Wisconsin portage, and proceeding down that river to its mouth, he turned his little fleet of canoes boldly upstream; but as the weather was growing cold and traveling difficult, they "found a place where there was timber, which served them for building a fort, and they took up their quarters at the foot of a mountain, behind which was a great prairie abounding in wild beasts."" To one familiar with the topography of this section, the description of the site of Perrot's wintering quarters in 1685-86 is very clearly that of the Trempealeau Bluffs, because these are the only bluffs near the rver having a large, low prairie in their rear, and Trempealeau Mountain, moreover, is a well-known landmark on the upper Mississippi.

Just when Perrot left his wintering place at Trempealeau, and built St. Antoine, further up the stream, is not certain, but it was probably during the summer of 1687. He was continuously in the upper Mississippi region until the spring of 1687, when he was ordered to proceed eastward with allies and join the French in a war against certain Indians of New York State. In the mean- time he had amassed a stock of furs worth 40,000 livres. In his absence on the warpath these were left at the mission house at Green Bay, which was. burned by hostile Indians, with the loss of all his peltry.

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

In the autumn of 1687 he set out once more for the Northwest to retrieve his ruined fortunes. After the ice had begun to form on the Fox River, he passed down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi and ascended the Mississippi to this region. Whether he then occuped the old wintering place at Trempealeau or Fort St. Antoine further up is not clear. At Fort St. Antoine, on May 8, 1689, he took possession of the Sioux country in the name of the King of France, annexing the Minnesota and St. Croix River district and all headwaters of the Mississippi.“

While modern historical scholarship is convinced that Perrot's wintering quarters of 1685-86 were near the modern Trempealeau, the exact location of Fort St. Antoine cannot now be determined.10 The Franquelin map11 of 1688 shows the fort as located just above the mouth of the Chippewa on the Wis- consin side. But at that time the Chippewa River may have flowed through the present channel of Beef Slough and mouthed with the Beef (Buffalo) River on the Wisconsin side above Alma. In modern times ruins have been discovered in section 23, Township 23, Range 15 (Stockholm Township, Pepin County, Wisconsin), a little above the present Chippewa River; and in Section 21, Town- ship 23, Range 13 (Nelson Township, Buffalo County), just above the mouth of Beef Slough, either of which may have been left by Perrot. If the last named is the correct location, then it may be surmised that the Indians who came to hear the famous proclamation of Perrot in 1689, gathered across the river from the fort, at the Grand Encampment, near Tepeeota Point, in Greenfield Town- ship, Wabasha County. Later explorers, however, quite definitely place Perrot's fort on the east shores of Lake Pepin, and thus considerably above the Grand Encampment, though the exact limits of the Lake Pepin of those days is not now to be determined, there being considerable evidence that it then extended further north and further south than at present. Ruins have been discovered at Tepeeota itself and within the city limits of Wabasha, which unauthenticated traditions have also ascribed to Perrot, but which were probably of different origin. Added interest is given the ruins at Tepeeota by the fact that the De L'Isle map of 1700, shows "Fort de Bon Secours ("Good Help") below Lake Pepin, nearly opposite the mouth of the R. des Boeufs (Chippewa or Buffalo River).

One of the witnesses of the French proces-verbal, or proclamation, issued at Fort St. Antoine, taking possession of this region in the name of the King of France, was Pierre Charles le Sueur, an explorer and trader, whose work added to the knowledge given to the world by Perrot. In 1695 le Sueur built a fort on Pelee Island (a short distance above Red Wing), which was maintained about four years, during his own absence in France. He later returned and conducted an expedition in search of copper in the Blue Earth country, Minne- sota, in 1700. In ascending the Mississippi from its mouth, he found that the remains of a fort, possibly Fort St. Antoine, on Lake Pepin, and his own island fort above Red Wing, were plainly to be seen.12 He passed Wabasha County on his upward journey between September 10 and September 14, 1700. The Red (Black) River, the Raisin (probably the Zumbro or Whitewater) the River Paquitanettes (possibly the Buffalo), the River Bon Secours (Chippewa), and Lake Bon Secours (Pepin) are mentioned in the account of the voyage. The Chippewa is described as a large and beautiful river, abounding in great num- bers of buffalo, elk, bear and deer.

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History of Wabasha County, Minnesota, Part 5

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper Number of Pages: 1222

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1222