USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Personal recollections of Minnesota and its people : and early history of Minneapolis > Part 6
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When we consider the privations, hardships, difficulties, and sufferings encountered and surmounted, by these primi- tive men and their families, in their earnest labors for the thankless Sioux, we are led to conclude that had those things occurred in Africa, or Asia, their deeds would have been sounded throughout the republic. But as their work was on American soil it escaped the attention of the people and was considered a local matter of little moment. It is curious to peruse the record of the great privations and sufferings of those early missionaries-from cold, and hunger, and well- grounded fear of the Indians - interspersed with rejoic- ings "at the manifestations of the Lord's loving kindness and tender mercies undiminished" towards them! Dur- ing the whole of Dr. Riggs' life, after reaching the mission
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
REV. A. RAVOUX.
fields of Minnesota, his great interest in his work never ceased.
Another welcome visitor to the agency during 1849 was the Rev. Augustin Ravoux, so long the vicar-general of St. Paul. Mr. Ravoux reached the upper country in 1841. He is a native of France, came to this country in 1838, and was for some time engaged in missionary work at Prairie du Chien. After his arrival in this territory he visited Traverse des Sioux, and commenced the study of the Indian language, in which he soon became proficient. Meantime he preached to the savages by interpreters. His labor was not confined to Traverse, but he visited La Framboise's trading post at Little Rock, and eventually proceeded up the St. Peter river as far as Lac-qui-parle, the seat of the Protestant mission under Dr. Williamson and Dr. Riggs. From Traverse he returned to Mendota and taught the catechism in the Indian language to some of the half-breed families. He established a mission at Little Prairie, now Chaska. While at the latter place he wrote several religious books in the Dakota language. In 1843 appeared a volume entitled Wakantanka ti Cancu, (Path to the House of God, ) of which he was the author.
Mr. Ravoux made many converts to Christianity among the wild Indians. No man was held in higher respect by the the whole community. A devoted and faithful pastor, a kind friend to the poor, he was always engaged in some act of philanthropy. He ministered to those of all denominations and all classes alike by deeds of kindness. The private soldiers in the garrison received the same kind attention that was given to the officers in their quarters. The improvident half-breeds-and there were many of them in those days-who rarely looked out for the morrow, were frequently relieved from distress by his generous efforts. He has lived an event- ful and useful life. Most of those with whom he was so intimately associated forty years ago have passed away, but the seed sown by him in those early days has brought forth noble fruit. . There is not an old settler in the land but has a fond recollection of this excellent missionary.
REV. DR. THOMAS WILLIAMSON.
Dr. Williamson was consulted more than any other man by
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the Indian agency in 1849, if we except the Ponds. He was born in South Carolina, in 1800. Five years later his parents moved to Ohio, and when seventeen years old young William- son graduated at Jefferson college, Pennsylvania. In 1827 he married Miss Mary Poage, and came to Minnesota on a tour of observation in 1834, and with his family in May 1835. Besides his wife and infant daughter, he was accompanied by his wife's sister, Miss Mary Poage, afterwards Mrs. G. H. Pond, and by Mr. Alexander G. Huggins and family. Soon afterward they proceeded to Lac-qui-parle. In this company were the first white women who ever ascended the Minnesota.
Having labored eleven years at Lać-qui-parle and built up a church of forty members, he left the station in charge of Dr. Riggs and removed to Kaposia, five miles below St. Paul, where he remained six years, when he removed to Yellow Medicine. The outbreak of 1862 scattered the churches, but Dr. Williamson had the consolation of knowing that all the Christian Indians continued, at the risk of their own lives, steadfast friends of the whites, and that they succeeded in saving more than their own number of white people.
Dr. Williamson had not one enemy, and those who differed with him in his estimate of the Indian character respected him for his integrity. His belief that no member of the Presbyterian churches had taken part in the massacre, though contrary to general opinion, is confirmed by the most thor- ough investigation.
Dr. Williamson died at his residence, in St. Peter, Minne- sota, June 24, 1877, in the eightieth year of his life. He labored for twenty-seven years among the Dakotas, and for thirty-six years was a missionary of the American Board.
The above-named are all the missionaries I met at the St. Peter agency in 1849, except Rev. M. N. Adams, who was stationed at Lac-qui-parle. He is now at the Sisseton agency in Dakota. We shall take occasion to speak of his good work, at a later period.
CHAPTER XII.
WILD FOOD IN MINNESOTA.
When Philander Prescott came to the upper country, in 1819, the natives depended much on the wild product of the country for food ; and to some extent it was used when I arrived in Minnesota in 1849. In most instances it was easily gathered, and I found, while among the Indians in an early day, that even a white man would soon become fond of the wild sweet-potato and one or two other varieties of the wild tubers the squaws served up to us in their tepees.
According to Mr. Prescott the most prominent varieties of wild product used by the Indians were the mendo or wild sweet-potato, tip-sui-ah or wild prairie-turnip, pang-he or artichoke, omen-e-chah or wild bean, psui-chin-chah or swamp potato, pesich-ah towahapa or wild rice.
The wild sweet potato is found throughout the valleys of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and other streams in the central part of Minnesota. It grows about the bases of bluffs, in rather moist, soft, rich ground. The plant resembles the sweet-potato, and the root is similar in growth and taste. In a letter to Hon. Thomas Ewbank, dated November 10, 1849, Mr. Prescott says, "It does not grow so large nor so long as the cultivated sweet-potato, but I should have thought it the same were it not that the wild potato is not affected by the frost." The Indians simply boiled them in water when pre- paring them for the table. I intended to have made experi- ments in the cultivation of the mendo, believing it would bear cultivation, and perhaps when perfected a new variety of
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sweet-potato of great value would be added to our products. I regret my negligence in this matter.
The wild prairie-turnip grows on the high native prairies, in size from a small hen's egg to that of a goose egg, and of the same form. They have a thick black or brown bark, but. are nearly pure white inside, with very little moisture. They grow about six or eight inches below the surface, and the Indian women would dig them with a sharp-pointed stick forced into the ground and used as a lever. They were boiled. by the Indians and used in the same manner as we use our turnips. They were frequently split open and dried for winter use by the squaws. When dried they resembled chalk. Mr. Prescott thought that when thus dried they could' be ground into flour, and that they would make very palatable bread.
The artichoke grows where the land is rich, near fallen or decayed timber. It was only used for food when the Indians were very hungry. The wild bean was found in all parts of the valleys where the land was moist and rich. In regard to this plant Mr. Prescott says : "It is of the size of a large bean, with a rich and very pleasant flavor. When used in a stew I have thought them superior to any garden vegetable that I have ever tasted." The Indians are very fond of them, and pigeons get fat on them in the spring. The plant is a slender vine, from two to four feet in hight, with small pods two to three inches long, containing from three to five beans. The pod dries and opens, the beans fall to the ground, and in the spring take root and grow again. There is no question, in my opinion, but what this plant could be successfully cultivated.
The swamp-potato was found-and I suppose it is so to this day-in water and mud about three feet deep. The leaf is as large as the cabbage leaf. The stem has but one leaf, which has, as it were, two horns or points. The root is obtained by the Indian women ; they wade in the water and gather the roots. It is of oblong shape, of a whitish yellow, with a few black rings around it, is of a slightly pungent taste, and not. disagreeable when eaten with salt or meat.
The psui-chah I believe to be of the same family as the
.
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
last, but the tuber is not so large. The stem and leaf are similar, but it grows in deeper water. The Indians are very fond of it. Both of these tubers are found in large quantities in the muskrat lodges, stored by them for winter use. It is not saying too much to call them a luxury.
The ta-wah-pah is another tuber, or rather a root, that the Indians esteem highly as food. Like the two preceding, it is a water product. The stem, leaf, and a yellow flower, are like the pond lily. It is found in the lakes, in water and mud from four to five feet deep. The Indian women used to gather it in large quantities. The root is from one to two feet in length, and is very porous, having as many as six or eight cells running the whole length of the root. It is slightly sweet and glutinous. The Indians generally boiled it with wild fowl, but often roasted it in the absence of wild game. All these roots were preserved by the Indians for winter use by boiling them and then drying them over the fire or in the sun.
The greatest product of all was the wild rice, at least as an article of food, which the Indians themselves gathered instead of the women. They used it in all their great feasts. It was found-and I suppose it is to this day-in lakes and streams where the water and mud is from three to four feet deep up to ten or fifteen. The rice harvest was a short one, being of only a week's duration. When ripe the slightest touch shakes it off. A strong wind scatters it in the water. The Indians obtained it by paddling a canoe among the rice when, with a hooked stick, they drew the stalks over the canoe and whipped off the grains. They continued to push the canoe on and whipped off the rice until the canoe was full, then carried the cargo to the shore, unloaded, and filled again until the season was ended. The rice is dried on a scaffold covered with reed- grass, under which a slow fire is kept burning. It is of a dark color, and many of the pioneers prefer it to the Carolina rice. I never did.
I do not give the botanical names of these products, prefer- ing to let them remain in their own native Dakota, just as Mr. Prescott left them so many years ago.
CHAPTER XIII.
TRAVEL AND AMUSEMENT IN THE FALL AND WINTER OF '49-'50.
The winter of 1850 was a quiet one at Fort Snelling, as well as throughout the whole northwest. December set in cold, and deep snow fell in all portions of the territory. Early in the winter news came that good Major Murphy had been removed from the Sioux agency and Major N. McLean, a brother of Hon. John McLean a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, had been appointed in his stead. Major McLean was an editor, which profession he had followed since his advent into the territory. At that time it was no small undertaking to pack up and make a journey of several hun- dred miles in mid-winter on sledges (as this dismissal com- pelled Major Murphy to do) to Galena, the nearest available point of easy transit to other parts of the world ; and even then only Frink & Walker's or John D. Winter's stages were the vehicles of travel ; which were not so bad in the winter, but in summer sometimes passengers had to bear squatter rails on their shoulders so that sloughs could be successfully traversed.
The winter months were greatly enjoyed by the primitive people, and were something of a novelty to the new-comers. As a large number of them were of Canadian-French origin they followed in the footsteps of their ancestors and observed the beginning of winter by a continued series of dancing- parties, in which they were joined by those representing all nationalities, and by none with more zest than by those of mixed blood. Many of the latter, it was said at the time, were beautiful dancers ; and they were certainly fond of that
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
amusement. The winters in the early days were seasons of mirth.
A VISIT TO THE TRADING POSTS.
With Samuel J. Findley I started in January on a journey from Fort Snelling by way of the St. Croix Falls to the Lake Superior region. The object was to visit the distant trading posts where Mr. Steele was interested in purchasing fur. Mr. Findley could speak the French and Indian languages fluently, and from his long residence in the north (he was a native of Prairie du Chien) was familiar with the country and could follow a trail or make his way through the deep forests and reach any point in the woods with as much cer- tainty as an Indian. With plenty of blankets, buffalo-robes and provisions, we started out in the midst of a snow-storm, with a double train, by way of St. Paul and Stillwater, for the upper country. After a hard battle all day with the snow- drifts, we only reached the half-way house between St. Paul and Stillwater. This house had for a landlord John Morgan, an old settler, a warm-hearted, hospitable man, who made us comfortable after the tedious day's journey. The next morn- ing dawned with increased violence to the storm. It was terrific, but during a lull in the early forenoon we started out and made the seven miles to Stillwater just as darkness approached. We put up at the Stillwater House, a small but convenient place of entertainment. At that time Stillwater had not much need of a hotel, though during the active move- ment of lumber the embryo city was lively. Then old settlers had (as they have now) a great liking for the place.
PIONEERS OF STILLWATER.
Stillwater was the first home of many of the pioneers. The first courts were held there. Calvin F. Leach, Elias Mckean, Joseph R. Brown, Governor William Holcombe, John Mc- Kusick, Socrates Nelson, Samuel Berkleo, David B. Loomis, M. S. Wilkinson, Sylvanus Trask, John D. Ludden, Henry F. Setzer, Jesse Taylor, Elam Greeley, Albert Stimson, Wm. Willim, the Mower brothers, and many other good and true men and patriots, located there. But our Fathers ! Where are they ! May the people of that flourishing city, for all
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time to come, walk the same road traveled by these men. It will lead them to the meadow-lands whose dews are the sweet balsams of eternity !
The storm still raged. In these times it would be known as a blizzard. This being my first introduction to a storm of this character I was inclined to think that farmers in this climate could never do any out-door work in tlie winter, and that the stock would all freeze. I found these opinions erroneous. Mr. Steele and I had a great many men at work for us during the winter, and but few days were lost from inclemency of the weather ; and in after years I win- tered hundreds head of stock and never lost one through the influence of the storm.
Of course there was no visible track up the river from Still- water to St. Croix Falls, and we had to pick our way up the frozen stream the best we could. Under the most favorable conditions there is not much pleasure or romance in traveling on sledges in winter in Minnesota, and less when the air is full of such fine particles of snow that when driven by a strong wind the sting is about equal to being pelted with nettles.
I had about made up my mind that I had enough of the life of a voyageur, when just as night had set in we discov- ered in the twilight a building near by, which proved to be Orange Walker's mill at Marine, on the left bank of the St. Croix. After considerable difficulty we found the road lead- ing up the bluff, and were soon resting comfortably in a fine hotel, for those times. We had passed the Arcola mills of the Mower boys, some miles down the river, in the snow- storm without knowing it.
LUMBER BUSINESS ON THE ST. CROIX.
The Marine colony, an ancient settlement, was at first com- posed mostly of people from Marine, Illinois. The principal business firm is known as Judd, Walker & Co. This house employs a great many men in the lumber trade. The men are sent into the pineries bordering on the St. Croix and its . tributaries. They cut the logs during the winter, bank them on the streams, and in spring they are floated down the river,
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
gathered into a boom at Marine, sawed into lumber, and rafted down the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis and other markets.
The next day was clear ; not a vestige of the storm was left, except the huge snow-drifts. Off early in the morning, we passed Osceola, a lumber precinct, and reached the east banks of the Falls of St. Croix, now called Taylor's Falls, and gathered up some furs, and were invited by a trader named Samuels to attend a gathering in his bowling-alley that even- ing at early candle-light.
FRONTIER DANCING-PARTY.
We responded at the proper time, and found many Indian maidens dressed in blue calico gowns, and several whites and half-breeds, enjoying a dance. Everything was orderly, and conducted with as much propriety as such occasions are in the old-settled portions of the east. Samuels, whose wife was a full-blooded squaw, managed to secure the attendance of the Chippewa maidens who were camped in the immediate vicinity of the falls. The men who were employed in the lumber camps, mostly from the east, seemed to require some form of amusement, and Samuels got up this novel method of supplying it.
The young Chippewa girls were well-behaved, modest and diffident, but like many of their white sisters, enjoyed dancing. Everything was conducted on the strictest line of temperance, the men treating the maidens respectfully. At midnight a fine supper was served, after which the dancing was continued until daylight, when the men quietly retired to their boarding- places, and the girls donned their blankets and went to their wigwams. They were accompanied to the ball by some male or female relative. Samuels said that at first the red male admirers of the girls rather objected to their attendance, as did their parents in some instances, but as a general rule the objectors were present at the supper, and being the recipients of a bountiful supply of delicacies, free, their objections were waived. All communication between the couples on the floor, or at the banquet-table, was through an interpreter, as the girls could not speak English nor the boys Chippewa.
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Many beautiful cottages had been built, even at this early day, around that portion of the Falls of St. Croix in Wisconsin, while the Minnesota side exhibited much enterprise. Hon. W. H. C. Folsom was a resident of the little hamlet. He had in 1846, with Martin Mower and Joseph Brewster, been interested in building a saw-mill at Arcola.
AN EXILE FRONTIERSMAN.
After a day or two at the falls we started northward, and for the first few miles found an excellent road, made by the teams of those engaged in the lumber trade. On a branch of one of the numerous streams-the Sunrise-was an aged man named Thomas Connor, who had a squaw for a wife. He had a few goods for sale to the Indians, and entertained the voyageurs and trappers and the few wanderers who traversed the wild country. He had long been a resident in the wilderness, seldom visiting civilization. A man of good habits and good education, above the average in point of ability, it seemed strange he should lead such a life. No one was acquainted with his previous history, further than that he had resided in the vicinity for long years, nor could any one understand why he elected to become an exile in the upper valley of the St. Croix. On expressing surprise to a missionary that a man of such intelligence should bury himself in such a manner, he replied, "Oh, the woods and the country bordering on Lake Superior are full of just such men." In some instances they had been unfortunate in business in the east. Some had lost their good name and fled into the extreme western forest to brood over their sorrow. Others had committed a crime and had sought the isolated places for safety. Few had sought the lonesome wilds from love of it. They can scarcely be called hermits, because they are prone to associate with the Indians. Many of them had squaws for wives, who generally cultivated a little garden, while in nearly every instance the men traded more or less with the Indians. It is true their outfits were small, but they were well-selected ; and in those days it did not require a great stock of vermillion, ochre, and other kinds of paint, glass-beads, red and blue calico, with a few Mackinaw blankets, powder, lead, shot, tobacco and a gun
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OF MINNESOTA AND ITS PEOPLE.
or two, to make a respectable stock of goods for a kind of guerrilla traffic with the Indians. In order to be a regular trader in the Indian country a license from the Indian author- ities was necessary, but frequently men with Indian wives did not observe the existing laws. Mr. Connor was a favorite with the lumbermen on the streams north of his locality, because he always had good fires to camp by in the winter, and set an excellent table, and could entertain his guests with interesting reminiscences of his sojourn in the valley of the St. Croix. He passed away many years ago, as have all his contemporaries who followed the same mode of life.
A PHENOMENAL WINTER.
From Mr. Connor's place we followed the trail to Elam Greeley's logging camp at Snake river, which was not far from the present site of Pine City. Mr. Greeley was one of the primitive lumbermen on the St. Croix. He informed me that two or three winters previously, in company with a Mr. Blake, from Winnebago county, Illinois, and another person, he was engaged in logging on the Sunrise. They never banked a log on the river during the whole winter in conse- quence of the total absence of snow! He had kept his crew in the woods, hoping against hope, all ready for work when the snow should come, but it did not come at any one time during the whole winter sufficient to whiten the ground, and as a consequence the firm had large outgoes with no income. This was probably the only winter of the kind known in Minnesota.
From Mr. Greeley's camp we made our way to the small trading-post of Louis Jarvis, a French Canadian, whose place of business was on the banks of Pokegema Lake. From him we secured a superior lot of furs, principally marten. Mr. Jarvis was married to an intelligent half-breed girl. In ear- lier years a voyageur, he had saved some money while follow- ing that hard life, which he invested in the Indian trade, married the pretty Nancy Laprairie, and settled near the mission grounds on the beautiful lake, and made an uncertain livelihood in selling paint and beads to the Indians. Poor Jarvis ! The hardships he endured on plains, in the forest,
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and swinging the oars in the rivers and lakes, during his engagement with the fur company, destroyed his health, and he lived only a few months after going into business for himself.
THE OLD INDIAN MISSION GROUNDS.
At the time of my visit to the lake the old mission had been removed to other parts of the wilderness. The labor of the missionaries in the neighborhood was closed, but their good deeds followed them, though many of the Indians once so numerous around the lake had, in consequence of the incessant hostility of the Dakotas, abandoned the scenes of their early home and gone to reside with their kith and kin northward almost to the shore of Lake Superior. There were many brave warriors in the band, but they were liable to be caught by Dakotas in ambush, and worsted in battle. A few half-breeds remained, mostly of the Laprairie family blood, who delighted in war; but the few full-bloods who remained adopted the habits of the whites and tilled the soil to a considerable extent. It is seldom, however, that an Indian is either a good economist or a good farmer, though there are exceptions, but not many. .
SNOW-SHOES.
In visiting these small trading-posts and hunters' camps I found that snow-shoes were necessary when outside the paths made by lumbermen. To a novice they are unpleasant and uncomfortable, and to get on one's feet in the deep snow, after being tripped up by a misstep, is no slight task. After one has served an apprenticeship in wearing them he can travel with ease and speed. I am not sure but a man well- versed in the mysteries of traveling over the snow with snow- shoes can make as many miles per day on them as he can without them and with boots on a hard-beaten path. ,Espe- cially is this so when there is a slight crust on the surface of the snow. There is considerable romance in wearing snow- shoes so long as the straps which are wound around the feet and attached to the snow-shoes do not gall the feet.
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