USA > Minnesota > Faribault County > The history of Faribault County, Minnesota : from its first settlement to the close of the year 1879 : the story of the pioneers > Part 3
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Considerable attention has been paid to the cultivation of tame fruits. At an early day it was thought by some, that the climate was too severe to raise any fruits here with success, but this like many another absurd notion has been abandoned. Nature itself indicates that many varieties of fruit may be cultivated here as well as else . where. Among the wild fruit growing in abundance are crab apples, grapes, plums, cherries, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries. Tame fruits are now raised throughout the county. Among the varieties of apples most generally successful, besides numerous seedlings, are the Duchess of Oldenburg. Red Astrachan, Fameuse. Golden Russets, Fall Stripe, or Saxton, Haas, Tetofski, Wealthy, Sweet Pear apple and Tallmou Sweet.
Several varieties of plums, pears and cherries, the Siberian crab, transcendent, hyslop and various seedlings, prove success- ful, and the small fruits such as currants, gooseberries, straw- berries, raspberries and grapes are raised in great abundance, and in wonderful perfection.
The varieties of fish and game of this region are treated of fur- ther along in this book, but a word must be said of the birds: yes the birds. Who would live in a country where there are no birds? They are indeed a part of the great economy of nature for man's blessing. They have followed us up to this new land. From early
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
spring, until late in the fall, the woods and groves are vocal with the notes of these airy choristers; and some remain with us during the winter. The robin, cat-bird, wren, blue-jay, martin, swallow, tom-tit, yellow birds, blue birds, sapsuckers, red birds, doves, hum- ming birds and the chickadee, come about our houses, build their nests, rear their broods aud sing their summer songs. But we have many others not so friendly-the black bird, pigeon, woodpecker, the lark, king birds, owls, snow bunting, thrush, hawks, crows and the other varieties that are sought as game, and mentioned else- where. They are all welcome here, for they all have a useful pur- pose to fulfill.
The natural scenery of this county is not such as is usually des- ignated as grand or striking, but it is picturesque and beautiful. The wide-spreading prairies dotted over with oak openings and green groves-the distant meandering lines of dark blue timber, bordering the streams-the silvery lakes glittering in the sun; deep, dark old forest glens and nooks; green hills and quiet vales, and the luxuriant and bright green foliage and vegetation, and the wealth of wild flowers, all through the spring and summer and the no less bright and manifold colored leaves of autumn, all viewed in the pure, bright atmosphere, must delight the eye of the most fastidious admirers of the beautiful in nature. Neither the poet nor the painter, here need hunger or thirst.
And now, after this introductory chapter, in which it has been attempted to describe, briefly, the splendid territory-the arena- within whose boundaries the events to be recorded have occurred, we may enter upon the history proper of the county.
PART FIRST.
THE ANNALS OF FARIBAULT COUNTY,
MINNESOTA.
CHAPTER I.
ANNO DOMINI, 1855.
" Spirit of Memory! Thou that hast garnered up the joys and tears, And all the human spoil of buried years, We bow to thee: O, lift the vail and bid the past appear."-Anon.
The history of this county properly begins with the events of the year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-five. It was in that year the county was named, its boundaries defined and its first settlement made by civilized men. But the present occupants of the soil were preceded by other races and it is a matter of profound interest to learn what is now known of them.
At least two races of men, wholly different in origin, language, religion, habits and customs from each other and from our own race, have appeared here and each performed its part, in a great drama of national, or tribal and individual life, through unknown cen- turies and at last retired, the curtain, thick and dark, falling upon' scenes and hiding them forever.
In the eloquent words of Senator Ramsey, it is truthfully said that, "Not a foot of ground that we tread but has been trodden by nations before us. Tribes of men have marched their armies over the sites of our towns and fields; fierce battles have been fought where churches now rear their spires; our plow-shares turn furrows amidst the graves of buried races and our children play
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HISTORY OF
where perhaps generations of children have played, centuries before them."
When will the drama end and the curtain drop upon the higher and grander scenes being enacted here by the present race? Never! exelaims the hopeful and confident. Yet, who in the light of all past human history, may answer thus ? But who were our prede- cessors here ? What manner of men were they ? What of their deeds and destiny ?
THE MOUND BUILDERS.
No mounds, or tumuli, have yet been discovered within the limits of this county to indicate that the mysterious and lost race of of the Mound Builders ever existed here, but several small copper implements and articles of pottery, such as is usually believed to be the remains of that forgotten race, have been found. and at some distance south of us, in the state of Iowa, and in several of the counties on the east, north and west of this, their undoubted works exist; from all of which it may be confidently inferred, that they knew and probably inhabited, this intervening territory.
It may reasonably be expected that still more conclusive evi- dences will yet be discovered. in, or near, this county, that they once existed here.
They were a pre-historic race and but little is now known of them. Almost all memorials of them have perished from the earth. Even their true name, as a race, or people, is lost and they are now known and named only from the great and curious mounds, extend- ing through the Mississippi valley from the Great Lakes to the gulf, which were the works of their hands.
From what remains of them-these mounds-their contents and other evidences, it may fairly be determined that this "Ancient population was numerous and widely spread, as shown from the number and magnitude of their works and the extensive range of their occurrence." That they were not nomadic, but lived in vil- lages and settlements. generally near great rivers and their tribu- taries. They were far in advance of the American Indian in their knowledge of arts and iu civilization. They were agriculturists and wore clothing of woven cloth and had comfortable dwellings. They had a variety of articles of food, of which fish was the principal one. They were industrious, even very laborious, and possessed consid- erable mechanical and artistic skill. They had some knowledge of the arts of war and of the construction of fortifications.
They manufactured beautiful vases and other articles of pot- tery, and they could model clay into a variety of objects, such as birds, quadrupeds and the human face.
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
They used sun-dried bricks. They mined for copper aud other precious ores. They had a definite . standard of measurement and they had tools of copper, silver and stone. They had axes, chisels, knives, mauls, hammers, crucibles, spear-points, slates and cups, beads and bracelets, all well finished.
Though they cultivated the soil, it appears that they had no horses, oxen or carts.
They had a system of hieroglyphic, or picture-writing, but un- intelligible now, and knew something of practical surveying. They had commercial relatious with some now unknown aud distant nations. They made toys for their children and had some articles of fine workmanship, for the adornment of their persons and the embelishment of their homes and temples. They had a sense of the humorous, as appears from the caricatures and grotesque figures they sketched on vases and other articles.
They had a peculiar art, that of building mounds of earth, some of which were of vast size and of considerable height; some were circular, others square and others were circular enclosures. Some of their mounds, made on the level ground, were in the shape of animals, birds, bows, arrows and human figures. Some represented elephants, or mammoths, the turtle and immense serpents, and some the hide of some animal stretched on the ground. In some locali- ties these mounds and figures occupied as much as twenty acres of ground. It is supposed that some of these curious shaped earth- works, were used as fortifications. others as burial places of the distinguished dead, and others as places of sacrifice aud religious worship.
The mounds built by the Indians, are quite different from those of the Mound-builders. It is a curious fact that the skulls found in the mounds of the Mound-builders, are of a shape entirely different from those that characterize the Indian, and the shin-bones resur- rected from the same place, singularly flat, a peculiarity not noticed in the bones of any other tribe or race of people.
The Mound-builders had a system of religion-they were sun- worshippers and believed in immortality and had many sacred places and temples for religious worship. And here our summary must end. They have passed away into the deep darkness aud voiceless silence of the long past centuries. From wheuce they came, who they were and whether, as has been said, they "Migrated to remote lands under the combined attractions of a more fertile soil aud more genial climate, or whether they disappeared beneath the victorious arms of an alien race, or were swept out of existence by some direful epidemic, or universal famine, are questions probably be- yond the power of human investigation to answer." It seems prob-
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HISTORY OF
able that they disappeared because, as the poet Bryant has graphi- cally said-
"The red man came,
The roaming hunter-tribes, warlike and flerce, And the Mound-builders vanished from the earth."
Some late investigators have, however, claimed with much as- surance, that the Mound builders were not a race, or people, separ- ate, or distinct from the Indian, but were, in fact, the ancestors of the Indians, who have degenerated. If so, the degeneration must have been very great indeed. At all events, the differences in the character and civilization of the Mound-builders and those of the Indians, were so great that, practically, they may well be deemed different races of men.
But the day may come, probably will, when the pyramids of Egypt, the ancient ruined cities of the East and America and these mounds shall give up their secrets. Yea, the deep, deep sea shall some day surrender up the story of the lost Atlantis, even the story of the lost Lemuria.
THE RED MEN.
The occupants of this region of country at the time of, and probably for many centuries prior, to the advent of the white man, were certain bands of the Indian nation, known as the Sioux or Dakotas. The Dakotas were among the most populous, warlike and powerful of the many savage nations which have inhabited the western continent.
They occupied a vast territory, including nearly all of Minne- sota. the Dakotas and a region of country west of the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, and northward to the British Possessions. This great nation was divided into many tribes, four of which occu- pied nearly all of the country now comprising the state of Minne. sota. These tribes were named the Medawakonton, Wapeton, Wap- ekuta and Sisseton Sioux, and each of them had its own hereditary chief. Each of these tribes was sub divided into bands, each band having also its chief, and all these various bands had their own sep- arate territory, or hunting grounds, but their claims of territory were often indefinite and conflicting. They are a confederate nation. It appears from a consultation of the best authorities on the subject, that the territory on the head-waters of the Blue Earth river and adjacent on the west, was anciently claimed by the Wapa- kutas. or Leaf-Shooters and the Sissetons. In the year 1700, when M. Le Sueur erected a rude fort, near the mouth of the Blue Earth river, referred to elsewhere in this work, this country was in pos- session of bands of the "Sioux of the west," known as the Ayavois (lowas) and Otoctatas (Ottoes). But little is known of any of these
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
people and there is much confusion, some contradiction and a great deal of uncertainty in the very meagre records of the aboriginal in - habitants. Of the origin of the American Indian, as little is known as that of the Mound builders.
The Dakotas have ever been a barbarous and nomadic race. As to their physical characteristics, they are of a red copper color, variously shaded. The men are of middle stature, large boned and well made, eyes black, half closed and lodged in deep sockets; high cheek-bones, nose more or less aquiline, mouth large, lips rather thick and the hair of the head black, straight and coarse. In many tribes they pluck out all the hair of the beard. The general expres- sion of the countenance is gloomy; stolid and severe. The women are usually short in stature and have broad, homely features and low foreheads, and while they sometimes have an expression of mildness and pleasantness, beauty is rare among them, They are the slaves and drudges of their race. Both the men and women are great lovers of ornaments, and are usually loaded with beads, rings, bangles and tinkling gewgaws.
The Indian has a fair understanding, a quick apprehension, a retentive memory and very acute senses and assumes a peculiar air of profound indifference, in his general appearance and actions.
President Sparkes, of Harvard, says: "With a strength of character and a reach of intellect unknown in any other race of absolute savages, the Indian united many traits, some of them hon- orable and some degrading to humanity, which made him formidable in his enmity, faithless in his friendship, and at all times a danger- ous neighbor; cruel, implacable, treacherous, yet not without a few of the better qualities of the heart and the head; a being of con- trasts, violent in his passions, hasty in his anger, fixed in his revenge, yet cool in counsel, seldom betraying his plighted honor. hospitable, sometimes generous. A few names have stood out among them, which, with the culture of civilization, might have been shining stars on the lists of recorded fame."
The Indians of this region are strangers to letters and wholly untutored. They know but little of the simplest arts and nothing of science, and leave behind them no records, monuments, or other memorials, except traditions of bloody deeds and some of their names given to states, mountains, rivers and localities. They are polytheists and their religion is a strange medley of superstitious incantations and sorceries, but yet has some redeeming, though crude, central ideas.
Speaking generally of their religion, the wild Indians believe in a good God, known as the Great Spirit, and a bad God. both equal in power. They have, also, some minor Gods. They think the good God wants no thanks or prayers, but the bad one they hate
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HISTORY OF
and fear, bribe and entreat. They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that their final destiny is the "Happy Hunting Grounds." They also believe in the existence of spiritual beings that are neither good or bad.
But these Indians are devoid of any moral sense, or sense of moral obligation, or accountability, as connected with their religion. They have no code of morals. Their ideas of right and wrong are very shadowy and there are many differing shades. in their relig- ious beliefs.
Their clothing is made of dressed skins and, since their ac. quaintance with the white man, cheap cloth and woolen blankets. and their dwellings are rude, temporary shelters, made of skins and bark, called wigwams, or teepes, and are moved from place to place.
They live by the chase and on wild rice and fish, and they also plant a little corn and raise a few potatoes, but they are much more skillful in planting a knife in a foe's back and in raising scalps. They are indolent and provide only for to-day. The men think labor degrading and hence the women do all the work. The war- path and the chase are the occupations of the men and when en- gaged in these, they are active, persevering and untiring. The phrase, "poverty, hunger and dirt." describes their normal condi- tion. The attempts to civilize and christianize these Indians have proved an almost wasted labor. Yet of late years some little suc- cess has crowned these beneficent efforts.
The Dakotas like most other Indian peoples, delight in deeds of cunning, treachery and blood, but there have been a few notable individual exceptions. It really seems that "the only hope for the Indian is to educate him, make him a citizen with a citizens rights and responsibilities and absorb him into the body politic." Re- cognizing and treating with the Indian tribes within our jurisdic- tion, as separate nations from ours, they remaining subject to their own barbarous laws and customs, must always prove a failure, in all attempts to civilize them. Of those who inhabited this land in the long ago. there is dimly shadowed in old and wild traditions, recounted by the early trappers and voyageurs, visions of wild orgies and deeds of such darkness, indecency and cruelty, that they may not be written and of which "it is more blessed to be ignor- ant." We may know, however, that here in our own county have been heard the twang of the bow and the sharp crack of the rifle and the wild war-hoop of this wily savage-that here they lived for centuries, hunting over our prairies and fishing in the lakes and rivers and that this soil has witnessed the advance and retreat and drank the blood of many contending foes, and
"Here too that eloquence was heard Around the council, light. Which made the sturdy warrior bold And norved him for the light."
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
But wasted by incessant wars, starved by famines, swept by pestilences, poisoned and demoralized by drunkenness, eaten up by loathsome diseases-always the helpless pray of greedy plunders -- decimated to mere remnants and these forced to retire, bearing the burdens of great wrongs suffered, as well as done by them and chanting their weird dirges, so suggestive of the dark and hopeless future of their race, they are "moving on," toward the setting sun and final extinction.
Upon no subject-race, except that of the Negro, perhaps, have ever been imposed such shames and frauds and wrongs, since the world began, as have been heaped upon the American Indian, and on the other hand, no oppressed race has ever struck back with such fiendish and persistent malignity as his, and in this matter of our dealings with the Indians, if God be just and man be immortal, and if all wrongs done by individuals and nations, must be righted, certainly, there is an awful day of reckoning coming sometime and somewhere, for somebody.
But we must proceed, another and a mightier race is advancing to occupy the vacant lands.
"I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea."
THE NATION.
Let us look about us for a moment. Casting an eye over the national field, we find that in 1855, Franklin Pierce was President of the United States. The nation then had a population of about 27,000,000 of people. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had restricted slavery, within certain limits, had been repealed and the Compromise of 1850, which, with other provisions, imbodied the odious Fugitive Slave Law, had practically proved a failure in the North, and the contest in regard to slave, or free territory, a feature of the"Irrepresible Conflict," was the great absorbing national ques- tion of the times, and finally led to civil war in Kansas, which raged for nearly three years. Stephen A. Douglass was then promulgat- ing the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignity." The old Whig party had become extinct and its former adherents in the North, uniting with all the parties and factions opposed to the extension of slavery into the territories, was rapidly forming the great Republicau party preparatory to the presidential contest of the next year.
MINNESOTA.
Turning our attention to Minnesota, it will be observed that a great tide of immigration had for several years been setting toward this territory, most of the new-comers locating in the eastern and
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HISTORY OF
and central counties, and the territory was enjoying an era of great prosperity. Willis A. Gorman was then governor of the territory, and Henry M. Rice was our delegate in Congress.
On the third day of January, 1855, the sixth territorial legis. lature assembled at St. Paul. An important part of the business of the session was that of carving out of the grand domain of the terri- tory, many new counties.
THE COUNTY.
On the twentieth day of February, an act was passed entitled "An Act to Define the Boundaries of Certain Counties." By section six of said act, it is enacted, "That so much territory as is embraced in the following boundaries, be and the same is hereby established as the county of Faribault: beginning at the southwest corner of township one hundred and one (101) north, range twenty-three (23) west, running thence west on the boundary line between the territory of Minnesota and the state of Iowa, thirty six miles to the township line, between ranges twenty nine (29) and thirty (30) west; thence north on said township line twenty-four miles to the township line, be- tween one hundred and four (104) and one hundred and five (105) north; thence east on said line thirty-six (36) miles to the township line between range twenty-three and twenty-four west; thence sontlì on said township line twenty-four (24) miles to the place of be- ginning."
An apportionment of the territory was made at the same session of the legislature, for legislative purposes. District number ten (10), was composed of the counties of Le Sueur, Steele, Faribault, Blue Earth, Brown, Nicollet, Sibley, Pierce and Renville, and was entitled to one councilman and three representatives.
THE NAME OF THE COUNTY.
The couniy of Faribault was so named in honor of Jean Baptiste Faribault. Gen. Henry H. Sibley, a gentleman of distinguished char- acter and abilities, and as well acquainted with the early history of the State, its prominent men and public affairs, as any other person in the State, and a member of the legislature, at the above session, in a letter answering an inquiry on this subject, says:
ST. PAUL, MINN., May 13, 1872.
J. A. KIESTER, ESQ.,
Dear Sir: 1 have your favor of the 9th inst., and in reply beg leave to state, that while I have no positive information on that point, my strong im- pression Is, that your county was named for Jean B. Faribault, he having been one of the oldest of our pioneers, and reference to that fact being the basis upon which some of our counties were designated. You are right in the state- ment that the city of Faribault was named for his son, Alexander Faribault, who was the founder of the town and still resides there. I think you will not go wrong in assuming that Faribault County was named for the senior of that name.
Very truly yours,
HI. H. SIBLEY.
J. B. FARIBAULT.
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
In reply to a letter subsequently addressed to J. F. Williams, Esq., the courteous and efficient Secretary of the Minnesota Histori- cal Society, the following answer was received:
ST. PAUL., Dec. 26, 1872.
J. A. KIESTER, EsQ.,
My Dear Sir: I am still unable to ascertain anything definite, or satis- factory, relative to the naming of Faribault County. I have talked with sev- eral who (I thought) ought to know, but strange to say, they cannot tell any more than we can. I have written to others with even less success. * * * What I can learn, however, leads me to conclude that Faribault County was named for Jean Baptiste Faribault. It would seem natural, reasoning ou gen- eral principles, that it should have been named for him. He was one of the very earliest pioneers of Minnesota. * *
* He was a man of fine education, good abilities, considerable means and great influence, both among whites and Indians, at an early day. If, as was done frequently, counties were named after pioneers and early explorers, he would be the one selected. I am per- fectly satisfied as much as if I knew it, that Faribault County was named for Jean Baptiste Faribault.
I remain yours truly, J. F. WILLIAMS.
And who was
JEAN BAPTISTE FARIBAULT?
We find the following brief notice of him in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, vol. 1. "He was the son of Bar- tholomew Faribault, who was born in Paris, France, and who be- came an eminent jurist in that country, but emigrated in 1754, to Canada, and held office there until the downfall of the French dominion in America.
"His son, the subject of this sketch, was born in Canada. At the age of 17 he entered on mercantile pursuits, at Quebec, and re- mained until 1796, when he yielded to his adventurous and active disposition and entered the Indian trade, engaging in John Jacob Astor's "North-Western Fur Company," as an agent. He was sent to Mackinac first, and soon after came to the upper Mississippi river, and after a brief stay at a post near the mouth of Des Moines river, became a resident of what is now Minnesota. He carried on a trade with the Indians for about half a century, the last forty years on his own account. He married in 1814 a half-breed daugh- ter of Major Hanse, then superintendent of Indian affairs. Mr. Far- ibault espoused the cause of the United States, during the war of 1812, and lost many thousand dollars thereby, as well as narrowly escaping with his life on several occasions. He labored all his life to benefit the red man, teach him agriculture and the arts of indus- try, and how to protect his interests. He had an unbounded influ- ence over many of them; his advice was never disregarded. He was prominent at all the treaties and councils and rendered the United States many valuable services."
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