USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Personal recollections of Minnesota and its people : and early history of Minneapolis > Part 34
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Saturday, 26th .- Dr. W. returned to-day from his visit to Big Stone Lake with Mons. Nicollet.
Twenty-sixth .- This afternoon I had some conversation with Kayan Hotanka, who is strongly of the opinion that their religion and that of the Bible are the same, and that he has been a Christian twenty years. Deluded man ! Can these dry bones live ?
Wednesday, 17th .- The Indians are making the valley ring with their yells at scalp-dance, but I hope their time is now short, as they will bury the scalp as soon as the leaves are all fallen off.
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Lac-qui-parle, February, 1839 .- Heard that Cunagi was left thirty-five miles northeast of here to die of hunger, by her mother. A few days later heard that Intpa left his mother and aunt ten days away to die of hunger because they were unable to walk.
AT LAKE HARRIET (NOW IN HENNEPIN COUNTY) IN 1839.
July 1839 .- Sioux killed sixty Chippewas at Rum river. Names of Indians who raised corn at Lake Calhoun, and amounts raised by each : Canpuha, 100 bushels ; Xarirota, 50 bushels ; Hoxidan-sapa, 50 bushels ; Ho-waxte, 20 bushels,. Karboca, 240 bushels ; Ohin,-paduta, 440 bushels. In all, 1,300 bushels.
Sunday, January 13th, 1840 .- To-day talked myself tired with some Indians who came after corn, and was able to tell them what I thought, so that they might, if they would, understand what they must do to be saved. One said, as they frequently do, that if the Dakotas could hear these things they would think of them ;" another said, "Nobody would think even though they might hear." At their request we sung two or three hymns in their language. They then said, " Now if you would give us a good supper then we should like it." They are sensual, and only God can make them spiritual.
In 1841 the Indians sell their land for $555,000.
February 10, 1844 .- The ninth coffin I have made since October. In March the Indians were all convinced it was April, and near the close of the month the mercury fell to three degrees below zero. The lowest of the winter was ten below. April 1st, heard that an Indian perished with cold.
In .1847 some of the Indians had a drunken frolic, and one bit off the nose of another, which some say he swallowed, and others that they found it near the house the next day. The son of the one who lost his nose shot the one who bit it off in the face with shot, but probably did not hurt him very much. I am acquainted with some who have had their fingers and thumbs bitten off on such occasions. Fine sport, but it some- times causes unpleasant feelings among them, but that is more than overbalanced by affording an interesting subject of conversation.
The Indians have had high times to-day. 1 am more and more confirmed in the opinion that as a general thing they
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are extremely glad when one is killed by an enemy. A great parade is always made at the burial. To-day has been pecu- liarly interesting. What made it highly so, they killed a beef weighing between 800 and 900 pounds, and have eaten most of it. In addition to beef they had a keg of whisky, which would greatly enhance the interest of an event in itself inter- esting. Those who have killed an enemy were permitted to sit together and one by one relate their stories and have it pictured on a great long board previously procured and planed for the purpose. This afternoon a neighboring Indian brought a keg of the stuff to our village and invited the chief and chief soldier to drink. The invitation was refused, which so angered them them that now about sunset they are about killing Marpi-wicaxta, and are running about the village and howling. The women and children all fled and hid. I con- clude no one was killed, as they are all quiet and no coffin is wanted.
An affair came off this afternoon, not a very uncommon occurrence among the Indians. Karboka's daughter got into a quarrel with her little brother, and as her father could not stop her without, he whipped her. The girl being very angry came over to the hill by our house, where the dead are laid upon a scaffold, to bewail her misfortune. Her grandmother, hearing her from the field where she was picking corn, left her work and came over to see what was the matter with her granddaughter. Like all good grannies, on hearing from the girl that her father had punished her, she became enraged, and in revenge hung herself by a portage collar to the scaf- fold on which the corpses lie. The little girl, seeing her sympathetic grandmother in such a predicament, was so ter- rified that she set up such a screaming that it called us out. It was in sight of our door. Jane was first on the ground and had the old woman loosed before we arrived. Even with their views of futurity, the old woman acted a very foolish part, for when one hangs herself, as a punishment for the act she will have to drag through eternity that which they hang themselves to and be driven about by others. Now the old woman would have had the whole scaffold, which would have made her a severe load. She is the same woman who over- came her husband a short time ago.
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OF MINNEOSTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
Another man's nose gone ! At Little Crow's village after they had drank themselves to the brave point one of the sons of the chief showed himself to be a man by biting off the nose of another man. It is thought that it will lead to murder, as the sufferer has declared himself ready to die-an expressive way of making known their intention to revenge an injury by taking life.
May 13th, 1850 .- Last week the Indians renewed their threats against those who are disposed to come to our religious meetings ; the fact that two or three women who have never before attended have been attracted to us a few Sabbaths of late is the occasion of it. The great men appear to fear that if they let them alone all the common people will go away and believe on Jesus. It is reported that Red Boy said that whereas the missionaries were getting away all the money, the clothes should be torn from all who came to our meetings on the Sabbath.
Nov. 4th, 1850 .- Went to St. Paul with a manuscript copy of the Dakota Friend, and put it into the hands of the printer. It has been with great reluctance that I have attempted the work of editing this little paper. It has been laid upon me by the missionaries under God. If I must perform this ser- vice ; if it is the will of God that I should ; He will enable me to do it ; without his assistance I cannot succeed. Lord I look to thee for strength as my day shall be, and may thy rich blessing attend this enterprise. O give wisdom and dis- cretion that I may conduct this difficult and responsible work in thy fear and to thy glory. What am I that I should per- form such a service.
November 27th .- Started early for St. Paul and returned in the evening fasting. On my way home met Gov. Ramsey, . who kindly invited me hereafter in my visits to St. Paul to stop at his house and have my horse put in his stable. Last week I fastened a bundle of hay on behind me for the poor beast, which had to stand the whole day and wait for me. It is no hardship to fast myself. It was with great anxiety that I waited to see the first number of the Dakota Friend. It made a more creditable appearance than was anticipated, and yet there was sufficient in it to mortify me. The blun- ders of the compositor added to my own inexperience.
CHAPTER LI.
The Old Settlers at the Falls of St. Anthony, and Pioneers: of Hennepin county, who were here before the first of Janu- ary, 1853, formed an Association in 1867, for the preservation of a record of the incidents of their early settlement, and for the purpose of cherishing and perpetuating the friendships. formed in pioneer days. The articles of association were signed by Isaac Atwater, Joseph Canney, William Hanson, B. B. Meeker, L. N. Parker, J. B. Bassett, R. P. Russell, Edwin Hedderly, Samuel Stanchfield, James Hoffman, James Sully, Waterman Stinson, Alvin Stone, Isaac E. Lane, Alonzo Leaming Sr., James Shaver, William P. Day, James A. Len- non, William Dickie, John Wensinger, Samuel Stough, Cal- vin Church, Charles Hoag, Allen Harmon, S. W. Case, Edward Murphy, Thomas Chambers, A. E. Ames, John H. Stevens, A. K. Hartwell, Anson Northrup, A. D. Foster, W. A. Rowell, Emery Worthingham, Calvin A. Tuttle, W. G. Moffett, L. W. Stratton, F. C. Coolbaugh, J. P. Miller, Geo. E. Huy, Geo. W. Chowen, Isaac I. Lewis, Pierre Bottineau, John B. Bottineau, and Edgar Folsom.
At the first banquet about two hundred signed the roll, giving the date of their arrival. At this meeting, (twenty- two years ago) Dr. A. E. Ames said : " When General Grant "paid a visit to this city, not long since, he remarked that the "Falls of St. Anthony was the great workshop of the North- " west. I have no doubt this great workshop, in a few years " will contain fifty thousand inhabitants, and there are some "in this room who will live to see it contain one hundred. "thousand industrious citizens."
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
John H. Stevens delivered the first annual address. The second annual address was delivered by Isaac Atwater in 1868. In it he said : "It is given to but few in a lifetime to see " what has been revealed to us in less than a score of years. " If to others has been granted the reaping of the full harvest, "to us has been vouchsafed the first, and perhaps noblest "duty, of sowing the seeds, and the exceeding pleasure of "watching the early growth and increasing luxuriance of " judicious plantings."
Referring to those races which preceded the old settlers in the occupation of this soil, Judge Atwater related an incident : " It was in May, 1851. The day was warm and bright, the grass already green and luxuriant, and many prairie flowers in bloom, and it seemed one could hardly desire a more lovely prospect, from the bluffs just below the old stone mill on this side of the river. As I came in sight of the falls I observed six Dakota warriors standing on the bank gazing intently at the rapids. Four of them had firearms, and two bows and arrows. How long they may have been there I know not, but I watched them for more than an hour, scarcely changing their position, but ever gazing earnestly on the beautiful cataract, and also doubtless on the few buildings that were to be seen on the other side of the river. I then passed on by them, and observed that one of their number was evidently very old. I again passed on the bluff this side of the falls and watched them an half hour longer until they started slowly down the stream. At the foot of the bluff near where is now the lower end of the canal, they turned and looked upon the falls some minutes, and again still longer when they reached the top of the bluff, and then slowly turned their faces toward the setting sun and departed. More of them I do not know ; but who can doubt but that they were taking their last inexpressibly sad farewell of their lovely and loved laughing waters, which they saw were to fall into the hands of the pale-faces. That the Indians are capable of appreciating the beauties of nature cannot be doubted, and to see this glorious heritage of their fathers slipping from their grasp by a stern, irrevokable fate, must fill their breasts with poignant anguish."
Of one of the old settlers, Pierre Bottineau, whose life has perhaps been more full of thrilling adventure and romantic
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interest than that of any other individual save the renowned Kit Carson, the speaker, in the same address, said : “ Born " half a century since, within the limits of Dakota Territory, "spending his whole life on the frontier, speaking with fluency " five different languages, familiar with the habits and customs "of several different tribes of Indians, renowned as a guide, " hunter and voyageur, intimately acquainted with the whole "vast country north and west of us to the Rocky mountains, " and once the owner of the soil where a portion of the city of "St. Anthony now stands, his life affords the richest material "for the pen of the biographer, and merits a place in our rec- " ords, and even a wider publicity than it would there obtain."
The third annual address was delivered by Charles Hoag, the fourth by R. M. Johnson, and the fifth by William R. Marshall. The last named gentleman, in 1871, said : “ Almost a quarter of a century ago, I stood on the banks of the grand old river, and in hearing of the great falls. On a beautiful September day I followed the winding trail from the little French settlement that clustered around Father Galtiers' log church which gave the name of St. Paul to the the present city-across the beautiful prairie and over the wooded hills, to what my French guide called San Antoine. And when with weary feet I stood at last, in the afternoon of that day, on the brink of the falls, I saw them in all their beauty and grandeur, unmarred by the hand of man-in such beauty of nature as no one has seen them in the last twenty-two years.
" The falls were then almost perpendicular ; that of the main channel many hundred feet lower down than the present falls. Spirit island, now almost wasted away, was then a considerable wood-crowned island, just a little below the main falls. Cataract and Nicollet islands were densely wooded. The smooth river gliding over its sloping bed of limestone from near midway of the upper island, plunged over the bro- ken edge of its rocky bed much nearer the lower end of Cataract island, on both sides, than it does now.
"Save the old government mill on the west side, so small as to be half hidden among the rocks and trees of the river bank, there was only the habitation that belonged to it. A little further back there was only a state of nature on that side.
" On this, the St. Anthony side of the river, there was an
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
old log house opposite the falls, by which Mr. Steele held his claim to the lands, with a little field of corn attached covering a few acres of the plateau where Captain Rollin's house and the Tremont house now stand. A log house was then being built under the hill above the present mill, to be used for the men who were soon to commence work putting in the mill. dam. These, with Pierre Bottineau's house on the bank above the head of Nicollet island, Calvin A. Tuttle's claim shanty near the brook this side of the State University, and two or three French squatters' cabins, were all that marked the presence of man on the east bank of the Mississippi.
As the light of the fast declining sun of that autumn day bathed the tops of the trees and the summits of the gentle hills, and as the plunging, seething, deafening falls sent up the mist and set its rainbow arching the same, I was filled with a sense of the beautiful, and somewhat of the awe- inspiring, in nature, such as I have rarely since experienced."
ADDRESS BY REV. E. D. NEILL.
In 1872, Rev. E. D. Neill delivered the sixth annual address, which contained : "Whenever we witness growth, we desire to know something of what was in the beginning. In all ages men have looked back with reverence to the origin of things, and have loved to compare the time that was with the present hour-the then with the now. To gratify this desire the Hebrew lawgiver, Moses, was inspired to write the opening sentences of the earliest historical record, which the old Greek lawgivers pronounced sublime.
The patriot is always refreshed by tracing the successive stages of the development of national life and power ; and so the dwellers of particular neighborhoods are strengthened by coming together and remembering the days of old.
In this new city of the upper Mississippi, Neapolis, as the ancient Greeks would have termed it in their beautiful and flexible language, we are forcibly reminded of growth. It is difficult to realize that a busy population of twenty thousand occupy the ground that so many of us remember as the land of the Dakotas and an uncultivated prairie.
Imlay, a British subject, visited the valley of the Mississippi before the close of the last century, while Congress held its session in Philadelphia, and in his book upon the Western
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Territory, published in London in 1797, he wrote that he thought it was rather puerile in the United States to think of making their seat of government upon the Potomac ; and at that early date expressed the opinion that in the course of a century the vicinity of the Falls of St. Anthony ought to be the permanent seat of government.
I can but feel that it would be injurious to the dignity of the American citizens ever to abandon the magnificent capitol at Washington, whose lofty dome was being completed while a vast army of insurgents were camped on adjacent hillsides, and whose solidity and simple adornments are typi- cal of a Republic whose President is elected from the people ; and yet when I witness the city that has developed at the Falls of St. Anthony, within the last ten years, and consider the population that must follow the line of the Northern Pacific railway for the next twenty-five years, I am inclined to believe that Mr. Imlay's prediction may prove true, and that before A. D. 1900 the center of population of the Ameri- can Republic may be in the Northwest, and perhaps, as the Hon. W. H. Seward said, in his Minnesota address, 'The ultimato seat of government on this great continent will be found somewhere not very far from the head of navigation of the Mississippi river.
On the 15th of August, 1829, Agent Taliaferro established an Indian agricultural school at Lake Calhoun, which he named Eatonville after the Secretary of War, whose wife caused so much disturbance in Washington social circles during the days of President Jackson. The surgeon of the Fort in 1829 was a young man, a native of Rhode Island, Dr. R. C. Wood, and while there he went down to the garrison at Prairie du Chien, and married the eldest daughter of Zachary Taylor, the officer in command at that post. In an open boat he returned to Fort Snelling with his youthful bride. How wonderful the changes witnessed by that family in forty years ! The father of the bride became President of the United States and lived long enough to see the clouds of rebellion gathering in the South, and to abhor the plotters for disunion ; while Jefferson Davis, a son-in-law of General Taylor, became the President of the so-called confederate states. Dr. Wood proved true to the government, and during the war was
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
assistant surgeon general of the United States army ; but his son followed the South, and was the commander of that noted rebel privateer, the Tallahassee.
Among the few slaves ever brought within the limits of Minnesota several belonged to Major Taliaferro. Under date of the 26th of May of the same year, we find in his journal this entry : 'Captain Plympton wishes to purchase my servant girl. I informed him that it was my intention to give her freedom after a limited time, but that Mrs. Plympton could keep her for two years, or perhaps three.
In 1836 Dred Scott, whose name has become historic, came to Fort Snelling with his master, Surgeon Emerson, and fell in love with Taliaferro's slave girl, Harriet, and in due time the marriage agreement was made in the Major's presence, and was duly certified by him as a justice of the peace. Two years after this Mr. Emerson left the Fort, taking with him Dred Scott and his wife, and while descending the river on the steamboat Gipsey the wife gave birth to her first born. The decision of Chief Justice Taney relative to the right of Dred Scott as a citizen led, as we all know, to acrimonious discussions between the friends of freedom and slavery, and was one of the causes that led to the fratricidal war which wiped out with much precious blood the 'sable spot' upon the escutchion of American liberty, to which Moore in one of his poems tauntingly alludes.
The earliest marriages in Hennepin county were declared in accordance with the forms of the civil law, before Lawrence Taliaferro, as justice of the peace. On July 3, 1835, Hippo- lite Provost was married to Margaret Brunell, and on the 29th of the same month a Mr. Godfrey married Sophia Perry. In February, 1836, Charles Musseau was married to Fanny, the daughter of Abraham Perry, a Swiss emigrant who came from the Hudson Bay Territory in 1827, and settled at first between the Fort and Minnehaha, and afterwards when the military reservation was defined, built a log house in what is now a suburb of St. Paul. On September 12th, 1846, at the house of Oliver Crattle, near the Fort, James Wells, who subsequently was a member of the territorial legislature, and was killed in the late Sioux massacre, was married to Jane, daughter of Duncan Graham, and on the 29th of November, at the quar-
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ters of Captain Barker, Alpheus R. French, the errly saddler of St. Paul, was married to Mary Henry. One of the first ecclesiastical ceremonies in the county took place at Lake Harriet in 1839, when the Rev. Mr. Gavin was married to Miss Stevens, a teacher in the mission school at that point."
ADDRESS BY GIDEON H. POND.
In 1873 Gideon H. Pond delivered an address at an Old Settlers' picnic on the banks of Lake Harriet, in which rem- iniscent discourse he dwelt upon his pioneer experience of savage life in what is now Hennepin county. It is now, 1889, just sixty years since Major Taliaferro established an Indian agricultural school at Lake Calhoun. This great northwest- ern territory, with its rivers, lakes, and plains, stretching out · to the east, west, north, and south, was a seemingly " intermin- "able extent of earth, naked and empty of all traces of civil- "ized life, (with few exceptions, ) the abode only of savage " beasts, wild fowl, and savage, pagan man. Little clusters of "smoky wigwams along the rivers and around the lakes, con- " tained the rude inhabitants of all the region."
On a July day in 1839, now just half a century ago, at Lake Harriet, Mr. Pond says there was " a cluster of summer huts, " constructed of small poles and barks of trees, the summer " home of four or five hundred savage souls, surrounded by " their gardens of corn and squashes. It was an Indian vil- "lage. The five hundred had swarmed out into and around " the shores of the lakes. Men, women and children were " all engaged in hunting, chopping, fishing, swimming, play- " ing, singing, yelling, whooping, and wailing. The air was " full of all sorts of savage sounds, frightful to one unaccus- " tomed to them. The clamor and clatter on all sides made "me feel that I was in the midst of barbarism. And I was. "Suddenly, like a peal of thunder when no cloud is visible, "here, there, everywhere, awoke the startling alarm whoop, ""'Hoo, hoo, hoo!' Blankets were thrown in the air, men, "women and children ran- they ran for life. Terror sat on "every face-mothers grasped their little ones. All around "was crying, wailing, shrieking, storming and scolding. Men " vowed vengeance, whooped defiance, and dropped bullets "into their gun-barrels. The excitement was intense and "universal. The Chippewas ! The Chippewas have surrounded
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
"us-we shall all be butchered ! Rupacokamaza is killed ! " Ah, yes ! just across there, on the other bank of Lake Harriet-there he lies, all bloody, the soul is gone from the body, escaping through that bullet hole, the scalp is torn from the head. A crowd has gathered, and every heart is hot with wrath. Ah, me ! what wailing! what imprecation ! The dead one is the son-in-law of the chief, and nephew to the medicine man, Redbird. Every warrior, young and old, utters his determined vow of vengeance as Redbird stoops to press his lips on the yet warm, bleeding corpse, cursing the enemy in the name of the gods. Now see the runners scud in all directions. In an hour or two the warriors begin to arrive, painted, moccasined, victualed, and armed for the war path. Indian warriors are all minute men. Come with me to St. Anthony Falls. Here is the unspoiled river, rushing unhin- dered down his rocky bed-naught else. We will stand on the rocky bluff. Now come the avengers of blood ! They · come from Shakopee, from Eaglehead, from Goodroad, from Badhail and from Blackdog. All the hot afternoon of this July day they cross and recross their canoes over the bosom of the river at the head of the island. The sun is just ready to sink, as we look at the long row of warriors, seated on the east bank. That tall form, dressed not much unlike Adam before the fall, save war paint, at the head of the line, is Red- bird. One long wail goes up from three or four hundred savage throats, as Redbird utters his imprecatory prayer to the gods. He presents to them the pipe of war, and it goes down the ranks, as he follows it, laying his hands on the head of each, binding him by all that is sacred in human relation- ships and religion, to strike for the gods, and for Redbird.
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