USA > Minnesota > Wright County > History of Wright County, Minnesota > Part 18
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August 26, Lient .- Gov. Ignatius Donnelly, writing to Gov. Al- exander Ramsey, from St. Peter, said :
"You can hardly conceive the panic existing along the valley. In Belle Plaine I found 60 people crowded. In this place leading citizens assure me that there are between 3.000 and 4,000 refugees. On the road between New Ulm and Mankato are over 2,000; Man- kato is also crowded. The people here are in a state of panic. They fear to see our forces leave. Although we may agree that mueh of this dread is without foundation, nevertheless it is pro- ducing disastrous consequences to the state. The people will continue to pour down the valley, carrying consternation wher- ever they go, their property in the meantime abandoned and going to ruin."
Minnesota Aroused-Troops Dispatched. When William J. Sturgis, bearer of dispatches from Fort Ridgley to Governor Ram- sey, reached him at Fort Snelling on the afternoon of August 19, the government at once placed ex-Governor Henry H. Sibley, with the rank of colonel, in command of the forces to operate against the Indians. Just at this time, in response to President Lincoln's call for 600,000 volunteers, there was a great rush of Minne- sotans to Fort Snelling, so that there was no lack of men, but there was an almost entire want of arms and equipment. This caused some delay, but Colonel Sibley reached St. Peter on the twenty-second. Here he was delayed until the twenty-sixth and reached Fort Ridgley August 28. A company of his cavalry arrived at the fort the day previous, to the great joy of garrison and refugee settlers.
Birch Coulie Disaster. August 31, General Sibley, then en- camped at Fort Ridgley with his entire command, dispatched a force of some 150 men, under the command of Maj. Joseph R.
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Brown, to the Lower Ageney, with instructions to bury the dead of Captain Marsh's command and the remains of all settlers found. No signs of Indians were seen at the agency, which they visited on September 1. That evening they encamped near Birch Conlie, about 200 yards from the timber. This was a fatal mis- take, as subsequent events proved. At early dawn the Sioux, who had surrounded the camp, were discovered by a sentinel, who fired. Instantly there came a deadly roar from hundreds of Indian guns all around the eamp. The soldiers sprang to their feet, and in a few minutes thirty were shot down. Thereafter all hugged the ground. The horses to the number of 87 were soon killed, and furnished a slight protection to the men, who dug pits with spades and bayonets. General Sibley sent a force of 240 men to their relief, and on the same day followed with his entire command. On the forenoon of September 3, they reached the Coulie and the Indians retreated. Twenty-eight whites were killed and sixty wounded. The condition of the wounded and indeed the entire foree was terrible. They had been some forty hours without water, under a hot sun, surrounded by bloodthirsty, howling savages. The dead were buried and the wounded taken to Fort Ridgley.
In Northwestern Settlements. After the battle of Birch Coulie, many small war parties of Indians started for the settle- ments to the Northwest, burning houses, killing settlers and spreading terror throughout that region. There were minor bat- tles at Forest City, Acton, Hutchinson and other places. Stock- ades were built at various points. The wife and two children of a settler, a mile from Richmond, were killed on September 22. Paynesville was abandoned and all but two houses burned. The. most severe fighting with the Indians in the northwestern settle- ments was at Forest City, Aeton and Hutchinson, on September 3 and 4. Prior to the battle at Birch Coulie, Little Crow, with 110 warriors, started on a raid to the Big Woods country. They encountered a company of some 60 whites under Captain Stront, between Glencoe and Aeton, and a furious fight ensued, Strout's foree finally reaching Hutchinson, with a loss of five killed and seventeen wounded. Next day Hutchinson and Forest City, where stockades had been erected, were attacked, but the Indians finally retired without much loss on either side, the Indians, how- ever, burning many houses, driving off horses and eattle, and carrying away a great deal of personal property.
Twenty-two whites were killed in Kandiyohi and Swift eoun- ties by war parties of Sioux. Unimportant attacks were made upon Fort Abercrombie on September 3, 6, 26 and 29, in which a few whites were killed.
Anxiety as to Chippewas. There was great anxiety as to the Chippewas. Rumors were rife that Hole-in-the-Day, the head
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chief, had smoked the pipe of peace with his hereditary enemies, the Sioux, and would join them in a war against the whites. There was good ground for these apprehensions, but by wise council and advice, Hole-in-the-Day and his Chippewas remained passive.
Want of Supplies Delays Movements. General Sibley was greatly delayed in his movements against the Indians by insuffi- cieney of supplies, want of cavalry and proper supply trains. Early in September he moved forward and on September 23, at Wood Lake, engaged in a spirited battle with 500 Indians, de- feating them with considerable loss. On the twenty-sixth, Gen- eral Sibley moved forward to the Indian camps. Little Crow and his followers had hastily retreated after the battle at Wood Lake and left the state. Several bands of friendly Indians re- mained and through their action in guarding the captives they were saved and released, in all 91 whites and 150 half-breeds. The women of the latter had been subjected to the same indig- nities as the white women.
General Sibley proceeded to arrest all Indians suspected of murder. abuse of women and other outrages. Eventually 425 were tried by a military commission, 303 being sentenced to death and 18 to imprisonment. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but 39. One of the 39 proved an alibi and was released. Thirty-eight were hanged at Mankato December 26, 1862.
Sioux Driven from State. The Battle of Wood Lake ended the campaign against the Sioux for that year. Small war parties occasionally raided the settlements, creating "scares" and excite- ment, but the main body of Indians left the state for Dakota. Little Crow and a son returned in 1863, and on July 3 was killed near Hutchinson by a farmer named Nathan Lamson. In 1863 and 1864 expeditions against the Indians drove them across the Missouri river, defeating them in several battles. Thus Minne- sota was forever freed from danger from the Sioux.
In November, 1862, three months after the outbreak, Indian Agent Thomas J. Galbraith prepared a statement giving the mim- ber of whites killed as 738. Historians Heard and Flandran placed the killed at over 1,000.
Wright county suffered severely during the uprising, for, though the Indians themselves brought harm to but one family, the people were swept by a panie of fright that left its effeet for many years thereafter.
Angst 20, 1862, soon after the departure of Company E. Eighth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, for Ft. Snelling, word came of the terrible revenge that was being taken by the de- franded Sioux at Acton, Yellow Medicine and elsewhere.
Added to the authentie reports of murders came rumors of
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widespread pillage, rapine and massacre. Every settler believed that the region just to the west of him was swarming with the infuriated red warriors. The people along the Mississippi and Crow rivers were told that Waverly had been burned and that Buffalo was running red with blood. In the central part of the county, the western portions were supposed to be the scenes of carnage and ruin, while the people in these western portions in turn received news that every family in Meeker county had been wiped ont.
Then the exodus began. From every direction the pioneers started for St. Paul, Minneapolis, Ft. Snelling and St. Anthony, leaving their crops and sometimes their live stock, and taking only such household effeets as could be hastily gathered together. In the face of impending and horrible death, material possessions were considered of little importance.
In a short time searcely a family was left in the Big Woods. Here and there a man braver than the rest stayed behind his wife and ehildren, but such men spent their time in scouting in the timbers, going for days at a time without food, often not daring to look after their stock or crops, and sometimes afraid even to go near their own cabins.
The Indian scare in Wright county was greater than in any other portion of the state except in parts of Hennepin and Carver counties-in fact, much worse than it was in the regions where hundreds of people were killed. In the Big Woods there was panic, nnenrbed, and the words and admonitions of a few cooler and wiser citizens availed nothing. The clearings about the cabins were small; unlike the people who lived in the prairie country, the pioneer in the Big Woods could command a view of the landscape for only a few rods from his home. The Indians, had they so desired, conld have crept upon the isolated claims entirely unseen until making their last dash from the dark for- ests. The placing of sufficient guards around each home to pre- vent the Indians from approaching unawares was out of the question, and the people could think of nothing but flight.
During the first maddened rush, measures were taken to stay the throng at Buffalo, but without avail. For a few days similar attempts in other places were no more successful. But after a while reason asserted itself, and stands were made at Monticello, Clearwater and Rockford. Stoekades were erected at various points and an effort made to accommodate all who desired to find shelter. Every shop, honse, store, shed and barn was filled with families from the western part of the county. Military law was established, and the men and boys took their turn as guards. The state sent np some ammunition, and some muskets, which at the time were received as a welcome protection, but whose elumsy proportions were later a source of much amusement.
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In time the excitement subsided, a sense of seenrity asserted itself, and people went back to the places they had deserted. Many, however, had left permanently. Probably fully a third of the entire population never again came to the county. Some went to their former homes in the older states, some settled in the cities in this state, some took np pioneer life in communities far removed from danger of Indian raids. When the undaunted ones who determined to remain in the county returned to their homes in the fall of 1862 their claims were the scenes of desolation. No Indians had ravaged the land, but the unharvested erops were ruined, domestic animals had run wild or disappeared, and a season of vaeaney had set its hand upon the interior of the cabins.
In the spring of 1863 a few more settlers returned, some new families moved in, a period of peace ensued, and the people were looking for the elose of the Civil war to again bring prosperity and happiness. Then, on Jime 30, eame the news of the Dustin massaere. The exodus was worse than that of the previous year. In the words of one old settler :
"The whole population started at once, and it seemed for a time that nothing could stop the rush. The roads to St. Paul and Minneapolis were filled with a motley procession of human beings, interspersed with cattle, horses, sheep, swine and poultry, all in one seething mass, hurrying or actually running, all anxious to reach a place of safety. Rumors had sent them forth the pre- vious year, this time five Indians had actually been seen, murder had actually been committed, and thousands of persons were in flight."
In a few days reason returned. The exodus was again stopped at Monticello, Clearwater and Rockford, forts and stockades were erected in various places, and preparations for defense took the place of fleeing terror. But as before, the people returned to their cabins to find their erops ruined, and their prospects for a future happy and prosperous home blasted. Facing a hard winter with no provisions, many were forced to leave the county forever.
And thus, depopulated first by the grasshopper ravages of 1856-57, next by the financial inability of the pioneers to pur- chase their claims when the land was put in the market in 1859, and finally by the Indian scare and its consequent desolation, Wright county and its widely separated families, awaited the return of the soldiers and the dawn of prosperity.
The Dustin Massacre. Four members of a Wright county family fell victims of the fury of the Sioux during the Indian uprising, and the story will ever live in the annals of Wright county events. So long as an old settler remains the tale will be told by evening firesides, and to younger generations for decades to come it will typify the dangers which their forebears braved
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in order that Wright county might be reclaimed from the wilderness.
Among the early settlers of Marysville were the members of the Dustin family, who arrived in 1857. In the household were Mrs. Jennette Dustin, a widow, and six children, Amos, Nathan M .. Timothy, Dallas, Mrs. Ammon D. Kingsley and Belle. They established their home in section 24, township 119, range 26, and experienced the usual vicissitudes of pioneer life. They were friendly with the Indians, and did considerable trading with the braves of Medicine Bottle's band, who in 1858 or 1859 spent nearly all the winter near them on the north fork of the Crow river.
In 1863, the Dustins determined to change their location. Ac- cordingly they sold their farm to David Beatle, and the sons went to Moores' prairie, now Stockholm, and took a elaim in the southern part of the town near Collinwood. Amos then went back to Marysville after the rest of the family.
June 29, the party set out for their new home. They had a yoke of oxen, a wagon, and the household goods, and on top of the load were seated Mrs. Jennette Dustin, aged fifty-four years, her son, Amos Dustin, aged about thirty, his wife, Mrs. Kate Miller Dustin, aged twenty-four, and their three children, Almeda, six, Robert, four, and Leon, two.
They went by way of Waverly, and about noon stopped at the home of Aaron E. Cochran, on the northwest quarter of sec- tion 2, in what is now the town of Victor. Then they traveled west on the old Moores prairie road, which ran south of Smith lake. Late in the afternoon, when they were about two and a half miles west of what is now the village of Howard Lake, and near the cast end of Smith lake, they encountered five Indians, in black war paint. They had no blankets, and to the terrified family appeared to be wearing black, shiny, tight, rubber coats. It is possible that the Indians had somewhere plundered the coats, but it is more likely that their black breech clothes and their painted black bodies gave them the appearance of being clothed in rubber. They were armed with bows and arrows, war clubs and knives, but had no fire arms.
The marauders ranged along either side of the wagon, and the startled oxen ran the vehicle into a fallen tree, broke the wagon, and thus liberated, plunged into the forest. The fright- ened family made no effective resistance, though it is said that Amos Dustin had a loaded gun leaning against the seat in front of him.
Then the arrows began to fly. Pierced through and through, Amos Dustin fell over, insensible; horrible wounds from a war club completed the murderous work, and the man dropped dead to the bottom of the wagon, his stiffening body protecting the
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daughter, Ahneda, who found shelter beneath him. In the mean- time others of the war party had wrought their unholy will on the old lady, whose vigorous self-defense with a eane availed nothing. They cut off her hands, her nose and her lips, tore ont her heart and flourished it as a trophy, then shot her quivering body full of arrows. The frightened shriek of Robert, the four- Years-old boy, had been stifled with an arrow that passed com- pletely through him, leaving his life blood to flow over the uneon- seious form of his father, and the terrified sister who lay beneath.
Mrs. Kate Dustin, with her husband and little boy dead, and with what was onee her mother-in-law a shapeless horror, shrieked aloud her terror, and an arrow piereed her back, the head pro- jeeting about half an ineh below her breast bone, where it re- mained. Another arrow penetrated her shoulder. Then she was taken from the wagon and severely beaten.
The Indians having for a time satisfied their blood-lust, tossed Leon, aged two, into a thieket, and started phindering the wagon. They took the bed elothing, provisions, trinkets and a bed tiek, which they first emptied of feathers. Then they departed.
Sustained by that never-daunted courage of the pioneer mother, Mrs. Kate Dustin pulled her blood-stained daughter from under the body of Amos Dustin, pieked up her baby from the thicket, and started baek toward Cochran's. Sorely wounded and bruised, an arrow still piereing her body, blinded by blood and mosquitoes, intense agony shaking her frame, she stumbled on, carrying one child part of the time and guiding the other. In the gathering darkness she lost the road, and after wandering about nearly till sunrise, she committed her children to the eare of Ileaven and lay down to die.
The oxen returned to Cochran's before nightfall. Supposing, as he afterward said, that the oxen had been turned out to feed and had run away, Cochran paid little attention to the matter. At Waverly, the next morning, he happened to mention the inei- dent to Ilenry Lammers and to A. D. Kingsley, the latter of whom was married to one of the Dustin daughters.
As the hours passed it was suggested that an investigation be made. The two men accordingly took dinner with Coehran, and about 2 o'clock in the afternoon started out on their search for the Dustins. The idea of Indians had been suggested, and the men proceeded cautiously.
In the meantime the suffering Mrs. Dustin, having with the sunrise partly regained consciousness, lay sweltering in the heat, the prey to sueh agony of mind and body as few people ever experience.
The Indians, possibly, were still in the neighborhood. About a mile west of what is now the village of Howard Lake, the atten- tion of the three men was attraeted to an open space under a
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large oak, where the bent grass, still springing to an upright position, apparently showed that several persons had recently been sitting on the ground with their back to the trunk. Cochran interpreted this to mean that the Indians had just passed, the others suggested that hunters or travelers might have been there, or that some wild animal might have taken a nap there. A few minutes later, the men discovered in the rain-washed sand of the road what they believed to be the track of a moecasined foot.
There the three stood a short time in silence, fearing that from each thicket an nnseen rifle might be pointed at their hearts. While thus they halted, there came a low moaning sob to their ears. The men were inclined to believe that it was a sound made by the Indians to decoy them into the bushes that surrounded a neighboring thicket. Cochran was convinced that the wail was a genuine voice of distress, and cautiously advanced toward the meadow. The other two, after going up the road a few rods and again listening, came to the same conclusion, and joined Cochran in his quest. Soon they sighted the two Dustin children running about in the tall grass a few rods from the timber. The suspicion arose that the Indians had placed the youngsters there as a decoy. But after another cautious wait, no Indians appearing, the men started toward the children.
On their wary way around the meadow, Mr. Coehran encoun- tered the almost unconseious form of Mrs. Kate Dustin. She was unable to move, and could do no more than gasp: "They are all killed in the wagon by the Indians." Cochran and Lammers carried her to the roadside, and as soon as Kingsley could get his wagon and oxen, she and the children were taken to Coch- ran's home, where she received the tenderest care until her death on the morning of July 3.
As soon as Mrs. Dustin was cared for, a general alarm was sent out. One man was sent to Watertown. Another went to Rock- ford to give the alarm and secure the services of a physician. Aaron E. Cochran and A. G. Sexton started for Moores' Prairie by way of Cokato Mills, to notify the settlers that the Indians were on the war path in the Big Woods. One of the first men to hear of the affair was D. C. Kreidler, whose account of the massacre appears in this work in the chapter entitled "Incidents and Events."
The messenger reached Rockford at midnight, and at sunrise the party was ready to start for Smith Lake. An old settler has said that in this party were: John Knights, G. F. Ames, Dr. J. S. Richardson, John Woodward, Miner W. Shultes, Wesley Powers, Jason Edgar, J. R. Ames, N. D. Sperry, William Ruther- ford, Martin Bisky, Sr., Moses Ripley and others. At Waverly they met the people from Watertown. On arriving at the place of the massacre the men placed the dead bodies in rudely con-
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strneted easkets, and laid them to rest at Waverly. Mrs. Kate Dustin was later buried beside the others.
G. F. Ames went to Moores' Prairie and assisted in moving the settlers to Rockford. Then began the frightened rush that left that part of the county deserted for many months.
The identity of the slayers was never known. It was evident that a number of Indians had camped for several days at a spot about three-quarters of a mile south of where the massaere took place. The settlers decided that there were fourteen in the band. No sooner had this number been decided upon, than stories of fourteen Indians having been seen began to come from various localities. Of the five Indians who had attacked the Dustins, one had not participated in the orgie, but had appeared to be a chief. The dread name of Little Crow flew from lip to lip, and there are many who still believe that Little Crow was present at this massacre. His band is declared by several historians to have been not far from this general vicinity about the time that the crime was committed. But there are some who maintain that Little Crow was far away when the Dustins were killed. Others have declared the guilty chief was Medicine Bottle, and have purported to give his exact route after leaving this county. As a matter of fact, several marauding bands were still at large ; the dying, half-erazed woman and the terrified children could give no adequate description of the five painted savages who descended upon them, and any attempt to fix the responsibility or to tell whence the Indians came or where they went is largely in the realm of speculation.
The little boy and little girl who escaped the massacre became respected citizens of Minneapolis. Other members of the family were widely scattered, some remaining in Wright county and some going elsewhere.
Indian Agent Takes Own Life. In relating his experience as a government surveyor in Minnesota for the Minnesota Historieal Society, Nathan Butler told of the following incident :
"In 1862, I hired ont with George B. Wright and Isaac A. Banker to go on a survey on Pine river, north of where Brainerd now is. The night we camped opposite Clearwater we heard that the Indians had killed Jones and Baker at Acton in the west part of Meeker county. Between Sauk Rapids and Watab we met the Ojibway Indian Agent, Walker, with his family leaving the coun- try. Ile left his wife at St. Cloud, telling her he was going out on business. As he did not return, she secured a conveyanee at the stage office and went to St. Anthony Falls, which was their home. Mr. Walker had not been heard from there. Ile was found dead opposite Monticello, with a bullet hole through his head. His saddle horse was found grazing near by, with his saddle on. Walker had gone onto the ferry boat, cast off the
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lashings, and ferried himself aeross the Mississippi river. The ferryman hailed him and asked him to return, promising that he would set him over, but he refused, saying that there were three hundred Indians after him and he was afraid of them. He had evidently beeome insane and therefore shot himself."
An Indian Killed. One Indian is believed to have been killed in Wright county during the Sioux uprising. Small bands prob- ably passed through the county in addition to the one which murdered the Dustins, but they kept to the trails and did not burn the cabins or devastate the erops, and with one or two ex- ceptions had no eneounters with the scouts or settlers.
After the Dustin massaere, troops were seattered throughont this region. Sixteen members of Company I, Eighth Volunteer Infantry, were stationed at the Holmes house in Albion township, with Andrew Hart as seout and guide. One morning in the latter part of July, the Holmes brothers and all but two of the soldiers started for Monticello, where a danee was to be held. After they were gone, Mr. Hart set out on an expedition along the old Indian trail to Lake Swartout. This trail was mneh used as a main route of travel. After reaching the ontlet of the lake, Hart started hunting for bee trees. Then a floek of dneks alighted in the lake, and Hart fired at them, killing two from a shelter he had found among some ridges of sand. After reloading his gun and while waiting for the dueks to float to shore, a noise attraeted his attention, and looking back along the trail he saw three In- dians approaching, a few rods distant. From his concealed posi- tion, he took deliberate aim with his double-barreled gun, and pulled the trigger of the rifle barrel. But the eap alone exploded. Then he pulled the trigger of the other barrel, which he had loaded with buekshot, and, aeeording to Hart's version of the affair, the foremost Indian fell dead. The other two Indians fired at Hart, but he was already fleeing in a zig-zag course toward a group of trees in the middle of a meadow. There he eonld eom- mand the approach on all sides. An hour later, Hart ventured forth, and after reaching the Holmes house, where two of the soldiers were waiting, he sent one of them after the Hohnes brothers and the other fourteen soldiers. About this time five seouts arrived from Stearns county. They stated that the Indians were aceused of stealing two horses and a eolt near Fair Haven, from which place the seonts had followed the trail.
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