USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Personal recollections of Minnesota and its people : and early history of Minneapolis > Part 5
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
improvement. Wilson was a man of ability, but some strange misfortune befell him in his early days, which clouded his whole life.
A SQUAW-MAN.
Wilson's only son became a squaw man, whose services were in great demand as a violinist during the winter. He became dissipated, married an Indian woman, and adopted all the Indian habits-breech-clout, blanket and all ! The last that I saw of him was in the valley of the Minnesota, moving with Good Road's band, to which tribe his wife belonged, up the river. He had one of his little pappooses on his back, trudging along, and relieving, for the time being, the mother of some of her many burdens. Poor Wilson !
DEATH OF AN UNKNOWN MAN-HIS SECRET UNREVEALED.
About the time of Charles Wilson's death, an eastern man was taken sick at Mr. Prescott's. Everything possible was done for him. Dr. McLaren, the surgeon at the Fort, was in constant attendance, but his patient only lived for a few days. Every effort was made to find out where his friends lived, but without success. Far from home and relatives, he died among strangers, but they were friendly and gave him a Christian burial out at the citizens' cemetery on Morgan's Bluff. His secret as to his identity was sealed with his expiring breath beyond the penetration of mortal man.
DEPENDENCE UPON THE LOWER COUNTRY.
The steamers during the fall of 1849 were taxed to their utmost capacity in handling the large amount of freight nec- essary to be brought into the new territory for the use of the old as well as the new settlers. It should be remembered that at that time Minnesota was not producing agricultural products. With the exception of what was raised by the little colony of farmers who resided in Washington county, everything consumed by the people had to be brought up the river from Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Eventhe grain nec- essary to be fed to the horses was secured in the lower country. Vast quantities of provisions were imported into the territory.
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Whole cargoes of flour and pork were shipped from Galena, St. Louis, Quincy, Hannibal, and Dubuque. Sugar, tea, coffee, and molasses-the luxuries of life-were brought in less quantities. Whisky was deemed almost a necessity.
The territory was almost completely drained of money to pay the freight bills due to the steamboats. It was a real relief to the merchants when the smoke of the last steamer of the season disappeared down stream, as their purses could only be replenished after navigation closed.
During the month of June several of the missionaries among the Dakotas gathered at the St. Peter agency at Fort Snelling. It was at this meeting that I first became acquainted with Dr. Stephen R. Riggs and Rev. Moses N. Adams. I had met Rev. Gideon H. Pond a few days previous to the general attendance at the agency. His brother, Rev. Samuel W. Pond, preached the annual sermon in Mr. Prescott's house on Sun- day. Major Murphy, the Indian agent, pronounced it the best religious discourse he ever heard-not the most learned, but for the occasion the most appropriate.
· June also brought most of the Indian traders to Fort Snel- Jing and Mendota. Among them were Hon. Martin McLeod, Hon. N. W. Kittson, and Hon. Joseph R. Brown-though the last named was at that time more engaged in the lumber trade.
There were many old settlers and pioneers in the vicinity of Fort Snelling and Mendota. Some of them were men of great merit : such as Hon. Samuel J. Findley, Peter Quinn, John B. Faribault who was a Canadian of French descent, Hazen Moores who was an Indian farmer for Black Dog's village, Francis Gammel who was the ferryman at St. Peter river, Victor Chatel the blacksmith for the Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet band of Indians, and Hypolite Dupuy who was Governor Sibley's bookkeeper. Many of these were in the employ of the Fur company and the Indian department. A venerable man by the name of Edwards, and his wife who was a mixed blood of Indian, negro, and white, were employed at the agency, the latter being Major Murphy's housekeeper. Among the men at Mendota at that time, of great influence, was Rev. A. Ravoux, pastor of the Catholic church at that place. Father Ravoux came to this country at an early day and labored on the Minnesota river at Chaska for the good of the Indians.
CHAPTER X.
GAME IN THE EARLY DAYS.
Game was plenty in those early times in Minnesota. Indians were plenty too ; but some way the more Indians the more game. At the proper season of the year elk- buffalo- and bear-steaks, could be obtained at very reasonable rates, while there seemed no end of wild geese and ducks in the fall and spring. Prairie-chickens were abundant, but there were few quails. Mr. Steele tried the experiment of introducing quails into the country. He had a large number of them brought up the river in the fall. They were taken out to Morgan's bluff, some two miles from the Fort, and given their liberty. At the same time he deposited wheat, oats, and corn, in the immediate vicinity, so that they would not suffer for the want of food. The birds seemed to go through the first winter in good condition, but in the spring of the second year there were none left ; they all perished during the extreme cold winter months. As there was no grain raised in the country it was thought by many that they starved to death ; but it was evidently too cold for them. Probably if there had been grain-stacks or fields of cornstalks in the neighborhood, for them to winter in-which would have afforded not only protection, but food-the result might have been different. Yet since the country has become so thickly settled, and every protection has been afforded them, quails have never become plenty. The Indians claimed they never would become numerous, because of the extreme cold.
Partridges were found in great abundance in the wooded and brush lands. The wild pigeons were the most numerous
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PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
of all birds. The sky would for days, at certain hours, be almost obscured by them. For several years they were taken in great numbers in nets. Strange to say, they have almost disappeared from their old visiting-places. They do not now even fly over the state. It is singular what has become of them.
Fish then, as now, were caught in great numbers. The New England speckled trout sported in many of the clear streams in southern Minnesota.
Most of the large game disappeared with the departure of the Indians. It was by no means a difficult task, in the early fifties, to obtain all the meat necessary for one's household, from the fruits of the chase. Wild bees, too, were abundant in the portion of the country known as the " big woods" ; but with the disappearance of the shadow of the tall oak, the wild, busy bee is a thing of the past.
Most of the valuable fur-bearing animals-the great staple of pre-territorial times-are gone too. A family of otter had a real nice home in what is now known as Bassett's creek, where Fourth street crosses it in this city, when I lived alone on the bank of the river where the Union depot is built. In fact they were resident there some years afterwards. The cowardly wolves, but in greatly reduced numbers, still remain. They appear to be too mean to follow the Indian. The bear is still found, but not one where there were ten forty years ago.
There are many more birds here now than there were in those days. The meadow-lark, the bobolink, the blue-bird, the robin, and several other feathered songsters, followed the whites to their new home ; while the eagle went with the red-men ; yet the owls and hawks, in limited numbers, are here yet. The black-bird is an emigrant, following the pio- neer, sharing and devouring the seed that is sown and the grain that is raised. It is pretty well demonstrated that all the desirable birds-in this part of the northwest, at least- if we except those of migratory habits-are fond of frequent- ing the haunts of civilized man. While many varieties are found in unsettled portions of the continent, our favorites, such as robins and blue-birds, are partial to the homes and surroundings of white men.
S.W. POND.
S. R. RIGGS.IN 1852
G.H.POND.
MRS.M.L.RIGGS.
1880
Es Eng ONY
THO.S.WILLIAMSON.
W.T. BOUTWELL.
THE EARLY MISSIONARIES TO THE INDIANS IN MINNESOTA.
CHAPTER XI.
MISSIONARY GIDEON HOLLISTER POND.
Frequently on Sundays, in 1849, after the morning service in the little chapel at Fort Snelling, Colonel Loomis would suggest that we go, so soon as we had lunched, to the Oak Grove mission, and listen to the usually excellent afternoon sermon by Rev. G. H. Pond. The colder the weather the more anxious the colonel would be to make the trip. The distance was at least ten miles on the ice. He would not have a driver, nor use on such occasions a team belonging to the government, but had his own sleigh and drove his own horses. In the forenoon Mr. Pond usually preached to the Indians in their own language, and in the afternoon to the whites who, besides his own family, were mostly employed in the interest of the Indians. These meet- ings were held in Mr. Pond's parlors. It mattered not if there were half-a-dozen present or a full house-he preached in the same earnest manner for the welfare of his fellow-men.
Rev. G. H. Pond was born in Connecticut, in 1810. He came to the land of the Dakotas, with his elder brother Sam- uel W. Pond, in 1834, and located at Lake Calhoun, where they built a log cabin on the margin of the lake and com- menced farming among the Indians. The Indian agent, Major Taliaferro, resident at Fort Snelling, had already made some effort toward civilizing the red men. Forty-three years afterwards, on the occasion of the completion of a hotel at the lake, on the same site of the log cabin, Mr. Pond told the story of his settlement, presenting a graphic picture of the pioneer days in that locality. He says : "The old structure
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" was of oak logs, carefully peeled. The peeling was a mistake. "Twelve feet by sixteen, and eight feet high, were the dimen- "sions of the edifice. Straight poles from the tamarack grove "west of the lake formed the timbers of the roof, and the "roof itself was of the bark of trees which grew on the bank " of what is now called 'Bassett's creek', fastened with strings "of the inner bark of the bass-wood. A partition of small "logs divided the house into two rooms, and split logs fur- "nished material for the floor. The ceiling was of slabs from " the old government sawmill, through the kindness of Major "Bliss, who was in command of Fort Snelling. The door "was made of boards split from a log with an axe, having "wooden hinges and fastenings, and was locked by pulling in "the latch-string. The single window was the gift of the " kind-hearted Major Lawrence Taliaferro, United States "Indian agent. The cash cost of the building was one shil- "ling, New York currency, for nails used in and about the "door. The 'formal opening' exercises consisted in reading "a section from the old book by the name of Bible, and prayer " to Him who was its acknowledged author. The 'banquet' "consisted of mussels from the lake, flour and water. The "ground was selected by the Indian chief of the Lake Calhoun "band of Dakotas, Man-of-the-sky, by which he showed good "taste. The reason he gave for the selection was that 'from "that point the loons would be visible on the lake'. The old "chief and his pagan people had their homes on the surface "of that ground in the bosom of which now sleep the bodies "of deceased Christians from the city of Minneapolis, the " Lakewood cemetery, over which these old eyes have witnessed, "dangling in the night breeze, many a Chippeway scalp, in "the midst of horrid chants, yells, and wails, widely contrast- "ing with the present stillness of that quiet home of those "'who sleep the years away'. That hut was the home of the "first citizen settlers of Hennepin county, perhaps of Minne- "sota, the first school-room, the first house for divine worship, " and the first mission station among the Dakota Indians."
Mr. Pond was an ardent student of Indian character, and probably came the nearest of any of the missionaries to talk- ing like a Dakota, and knowing how an Indian felt. His desire to experience the life of an Indian led him, in 1838, to
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join a half dozen Indian families from Lac-qui-parle for a hunt on the upper Chippewa river. The occasion of their departure was when the ducks began to fly northward. On the way they experienced a cold rain and a flood. The win- dows of heaven were opened for the rain to descend as, seemingly, they had never been opened before since the deluge. The ducks disappeared and there was a famine in camp. The half dozen tepees divided. One division was visited by the Ojibway chief, Hole-in-the-Day with ten of his treacher- ous braves. They smoked the pipe of peace, and the visitors were royally entertained and feasted on two of the dogs belonging to their hosts, though the entertainers themselves were starving. The Chippeways arose in the night and cow- ardly and treacherously killed their Dakota hosts (three men and ten women and children). Only one woman and one boy escaped. Mr. Pond did not happen to be with the entertain- ing party. He helped bury the eleven mangled bodies, breakfasted on muskrat, and started alone, on foot, in haste, for the mission at Lac-qui-parle. At night he slept without fire or supper. Enriched by two weeks' experience in Indian savage life, he was rejoiced to be at home with his scalp and his family. In other words-those of one of his brother missionaries-" Mr. Pond, as God would have it, was not then with those three tents, and so he escaped."
Mr. Pond was over six feet in hight, was twice married, and was the father of thirteen children. He was for twenty years pastor of the church at Bloomington, in Hennepin county. He died in 1878, and was buried in his own parish, where he had so long, faithfully and acceptably labored.
MISSIONARY SAMUEL W. POND.
Among the missionaries who visited the St. Peter agency at Fort Snelling in 1849, there was no one who attracted more attention, and was more respected, than the pioneer in the good work, Rev. Samuel W. Pond. He is a native of Connecticut. He was twenty-three years of age, and his brother Gideon twenty-one, when they joined the Congrega- tional church of their native town, and became impressed with the idea that their lives should be devoted to the good of
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their fellow-men. How nobly the venerable Samuel W. Pond, whose age is away along among the eighties, has carried out those early intentions ! Every effort of his long life has been in the interest of mankind. It made no difference whether those who required his aid were white, black, or red men ; all had souls and the same Creator. He determined to go forth and labor where his services would most benefit the world. He thought his labors would be crowned with greater success outside of New England where there were fewer laborers in the field. The far west was selected as a field for work.
Mr. Pond left home in the spring of 1832, and after a tedi- ous journey arrived at Galena, Illinois, suffering from sick- ness. He made a tour through Illinois, on horseback, with Rev. Aratus Kent, then pastor of the Presbyterian church in Galena. During this journey he saw many Winnebagoes, which first turned his attention to the Indians. While he was engaged in missionary work in Galena, he made the acquaintance of a man who had resided in the extreme north- west, and who gave him an account of the Dakotas. He determined to labor for the good of this people, and accord- ingly communicated with his brother, who accepted his invitation to join him, in the spring of 1834, when they would visit the Minnesota Indians.
While at Galena Mr. Pond was fortunate in his intimacy with Mr. Kent, who was also a native of Connecticut. Mr. Kent arrived at Galena in 1829, and from that time to his death in 1869 was an earnest and faithful minister of the gospel. His labors in an early day extended to Minnesota, and he had many friends among the pioneers of this state. Mr. Gideon H. Pond joined his brother at Galena, and the two left that place, on a steamboat, for the land of the Dakotas, landing at Fort Snelling on the 6th of May, 1834. At Prairie du Chien they called on Rev. David Lowry, the ancient and devoted missionary among the Winnebagoes, and at one time a resident of Minnesota. Mr. Lowry, like Mr. Kent and almost every one else, thought the mission of the Messrs. Pond would be a failure. Even the zealous and hopeful junior brother was led to exclaim, "We are engaging in a serious enterprise."
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Mr. S. H. Pond, gives an account of his commencement to learn the Dakota language. From a white man who knew a little of the language he found out how to ask in Dakota, " What do you call this ?" He wrote this down, and then approaching a Dakota who was standing by a pile of iron, he asked its name. He promptly replied. "I have always had a relish for studying languages," says Mr. Pond, and "in "times of leisure it has been my recreation, and I have often "rejoiced at the discovery of some important grammatical " rule, or the signification of some obscure word or sentence, " but no other acquisition of that kind ever afforded me so "much pleasure as it did then to be able to say in Dakota, "'What do you call this?' I had a key now to the Dakota " names of visible objects, and it did not rust in my hands for " want of use. I began the study of the language there on "the bank of the Mississippi, without an interpreter, and "my brother and I made the first collection of words for the " future dictionary."
At Prairie du Chien, Rev. Mr. Lowry did not hesitate to say to the brothers that they "were engaged in a very foolish and hopeless undertaking". They said little to him in reply, not being in the habit of arguing the case with those who were trying to discourage them. From Rev. W. T. Boutwell, who was stationed among the Pillagers (properly so named by the traders ) at Leech Lake, they received the first words of encouragement. Mr. Boutwell made a heroic effort to hold that dangerous outpost, but was finally compelled to abandon it.
At Fort Snelling Mr. Pond was informed that the Kaposia band, just below St. Paul, wanted plowing done, and had a plow and oxen, but could not use them, so he volunteered to go down and help them. The Indians took down the plow in a canoe and he drove down the oxen. Mr. Pond says : "At "Kaposia the chief was Big Thunder, the father of Taoyate- " duta (called by the whites, but erroneously, Little Crow), "and the chief soldier was Big Iron. These two held the "plow alternately while I drove the oxen. I suppose they " were the first Dakotas who ever held a plow. The dogs or "Indians stole my provisions the first night I was there, and "I did not fare sumptuously every day, for food was scarce "and not very palateable."
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Returning to Fort Snelling, and encouraged by Major Bliss, then in command, and Indian agent Talliaferro, the brothers located at Lake Calhoun, where they plowed for the Indians and erected a log house, meanwhile occupying a tem- porary shelter in the woods, where they were surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes. Mr. S. W. Pond says : "From the "time of our arrival we considered the acquisition of the " Dakota language of paramount importance. We were ever "on the alert to catch some new word or phrase from the "mouths of the Indians. We contrived the alphabet the "first summer we were here, and our house was completed " and the language reduced to writing about the same time ; " but the house was to stand but five years, while the alpha- " bet will be used so long as the Dakota language is written. "We had not been in our new home long before a young man "inquired whether Dakotas could learn to read, and expressed "a desire to learn. We taught him the letters, and how to "use them in the formation of words, and he learned in a few "weeks to write letters that we could understand, and was, . "doubtless, the first Dakota who learned to read and write."
The brothers learned the grammatical structure of the lan- guage as children learn their mother tongue. Interpreters could not help them. One of the latter when asked about the verb replied, "If you can find a verb in Dakota you are a smart man !" Another when questioned as to how the Dakotas formed the future tense said, " The Dakotas have no future tense !" The future tense, and many rules of gram- mar, were learned without their help. "It is one thing to learn a word or rule in print or in writing, and quite another thing to catch it from the mouth of an Indian."
Mr. Pond hunted with the Indians a month, but the lan- guage was the game he was hunting for, and he "was as eager in the pursuit of that as the Indians were of deer". Not one of the fifty men who accompanied him is alive to-day.
Mr. Pond says that before the treaty with the Indians they would assist in plowing, but afterwards not one of them would touch a plow. Their seeming prosperity was ruinous. When the brothers came here they found the Indians, as a general rule, "an industrious, energetic people." Under the
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
treaty the older Indians gradually lost their former habits of industry, and a new generation grew up of insolent, reckless fellows, who spent their lives in idleness and dissipation. As they " never regretted coming among the Dakotas" when they did, so they "never regretted leaving them" when they did. For nearly twenty years they devoted their lives to the Dakotas, "and it was not without the greatest reluctance and a feeling of bitter disappointment" that they "came to the conclusion" that they "must leave them".
For over half a century-nearly three-score years-one of those earliest missionaries has lived in Minnesota, and is yet here, erect in stature, standing over six feet, and his mental faculties are vigorous. He resides in almost the primitive simplicity of the early days, from choice, in his own house, on the banks of the Minnesota river. His voice is clear, his eyes are bright, and his limbs are vigorous. The lumber of his house he brought with oxen, on the ice of the Mississippi river, from Point Douglas to Fort Snelling, at which last-named place it was framed, and thence transported by barge on the Minnesota river to its present location. The footsteps of time have brought to this generation few more in- teresting personages than Samuel W. Pond, who is one of the first missionaries to the Dakotas, who made the first collec- tion of words for the Dakota dictionary, who first taught a Dakota to read and write, wrote the first school-lessons in their language for the Dakota children, and translated portions of the Bible into Dakota. He first taught the Dakotas to plow. The alphabet he arranged for them, and his translations for their use, no college graduate is able to improve, for there is reliable testimony that the Indians understand them better than any others.
MISSIONARY STEPHEN R. RIGGS.
Dr. Riggs was not a frequent visitor at the St. Peter agency during 1849, but his presence was always desired. At that period, and for many years before and after, his labor with the Indians was at Lac-qui-parle, the home of the classic Martin McLeod. Dr. Riggs was a native of Ohio. He came to Minnesota in 1837, and from that date to the breaking out
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of the Indian war, August 1862, he was one of the most active, zealous, and prominent missionaries in the country. He was not only active in the field but, with the aid of S. W. and G. H. Pond and Dr. Williamson, rendered to the Dakotas services which were indispensable in editing, compiling, com- posing, and publishing books in their language which were the foundation of success in the propagation of the gospel among them, and the key to their civilization and Christiani- zation. He was respected by the Indians, and there is no doubt but that he accomplished a good work in their behalf ; though for that matter all the missionaries did-but the mass of the Dakotas would never acknowledge it.
Dr. Riggs' mission was made less difficult in the beginning in consequence of the primitive missionaries-the two Ponds and Dr. Williamson-having prepared the way for him and those who followed in the missionary field. He wielded an able, useful, instructive, classic pen. His taste was literary. He was a prolific publisher. His wife was an able woman- perhaps not more so than the wives of the other missionaries- · but her advantages for an education in early life, in her New England home, had been of a superior character. A large family of interesting children gathered around the hearth- stone of the mission house, some of whom, since reaching maturity, have followed the holy calling of their parents, and are now missionaries in different parts of the world.
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