The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr.
Number of Pages: 658

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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

tory of Minnesota. As a matter of fact, indeed, Sibley, living at Mendota, had ceased to be a citizen of the territory of Wis- consin in 1838, when Iowa territory was created, and was a resident of the part of Iowa territory which the organization of the state of Iowa had left without a government, rather than of that territory in question (between the Mississippi and the St. Croix) which the admission of Wisconsin as a state had left with- out a government. Sibley was, however, after much opposition, admitted to congress and given a seat January 15, 1849, but not without much discussion as to whether excluded territory was entitled to continued political existence and representation, after a state has been created out of part of a territory.

Mr. Sibley devoted himself assiduously to securing the passage in the United States senate of the bill for the creation of the ter- ritory of Minnesota which had been introduced at the previous session and met with gratifying success. His efforts in the house of representatives were less satisfactory, political questions enter- ing largely into the matter, and it was not until March 3, 1849, the very last day of the session-and then only through the strenuous work of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, that he suc- ceeded in securing the passage of the bill. This was finally done under suspension of the rules, the previous opposition having been unexpectedly withdrawn.

As passed the act read as follows: "Be it enacted, That from and after the passage of this act, all that part of the territory of the United States which lies within the following limits, to-wit: Beginning in the Mississippi river at a point where the line of 43º and 30' of north latitude crosses the same, thence running due west on said line, which is the northern boundary of the state of Iowa, to the northwest corner of the said state of Iowa; thence southerly along the western boundary of said state to the point where said boundary strikes the Mis- souri river; thence up the middle of the main channel of the Missouri river to the mouth of the White Earth river; thence up the middle of the main channel of the White Earth river to the boundary line between the possessions of the United States and Great Britain; thence east and south of east along the boun- dary line and between the possession of the United States and Great Britain to Lake Superior; thence in a straight line to the northernmost point of the state of Wisconsin, in Lake Superior ; thence along the western boundary of the state of Wisconsin to the Mississippi river; thence down the main channel of said river to the place of beginning, and the same is hereby erected into a temporary government by the name of the territory of Minnesota."

This being before the days of railroads and telegraphs in the West, the good news did not reach St. Paul until thirty-seven

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

days afterwards, when it was brought by the first steamer com- ing from the lower river.

At the time of the organization of Minnesota as a territory the country was described as being "little more than a wilder- ness." That which lay west of the Mississippi river, from the Iowa line to Lake Itasca, had not yet been ceded by the Indians and was unoccupied by the whites save in a very few instances. On the east side, in this more immediate vicinity, were trading posts with the cabins of a few employes at Sauk Rapids and Crow Wing. Away up at Pembina was the largest town or settle- ment within the boundaries of the new territory, where were nearly a thousand people, a large majority of whom were "Metis" or mixed bloods, French Crees or French Chippewas.

In "Minnesota in Three Centuries" attention is called to the fact that at this time the east side of the Mississippi, as far north as Crow Wing, was being settled here and there by people who had come to the country when it had been announced that the territory was organized. The settlers were almost entirely from the Northern States, many being from New England. The fact that the state which would succeed the territory would be a free state, without slavery in any form, made it certain that the first settlers would be non-slaveholders, with but few people from the Southern States interested or in sympathy with South- ern ideas.

The people of the territory of Minnesota were not long con- tent with a territorial government. In the words of A. N. Winchell, "December 24, 1856, the delegate from the territory of Minnesota introduced a bill to authorize the people of that territory to form a constitution and state government. The bill limited the proposed state on the west by the Red River of the North and the Big Sioux river. It was referred to the com- mittee on territories, of which Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, was then chairman. January 31, 1867, the chairman reported a sub- stitute, which differed from the original bill in no essential re- spect except in regard to the western boundary. The change there consisted in adopting a line through Traverse and Big Stone lakes, due south from the latter to the Iowa line. The altered boundary cut off a narrow strip of territory, estimated by Mr. Grow to contain between five and six hundred square miles. Today the strip contains such towns as Sioux Falls, Watertown and Brookings. The substitute had a stormy voyage through congress, especially in the senate, but finally completed the trip on February 25, 1857."

The enabling act, as passed and approved February 26, 1857, defined the boundaries of Minnesota as follows: "Be it enacted . . That the inhabitants of that portion of the territory of Minnesota which is embraced within the following limits, to-wit :

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

Beginning at the point in the center of the main channel of the Red River of the North, where the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions crosses the same; thence up the main channel of said river to that of Bois des Sioux river; thence (up) the main channel of said river to Lake Travers; then up the center of said lake to the southern extrem- ity thereof; thence in a direct line to the head of Big Stone lake; thence through its center to its outlet; thence by a due south line to the north line of the state of Iowa; thence east along the north- ern boundary of said state to the main channel of the Mississippi river; thence up the main channel of said river and following the boundary line of the state of Wisconsin, until the same inter- sects the St. Louis river; thence down said river to and through Lake Superior, on the boundary line of Wisconsin and Michi- gan, until it intersects the dividing line between the United States and the British possessions; thence up Pigeon river and following said dividing line to the place of beginning; be and the same are thereby authorized to form for themselves a consti- tution and state government, by the name of the state of Min- nesota, and to come into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, according to the federal constitution."

These boundaries were accepted without change and are the boundaries of the state at the present time. The state was ad- mitted May 11, 1858.

Authority and Authorship. The principal portions of this article were compiled by Hon. Francis M. Crosby and the editor of this work, from the sources mentioned in the text, and also from the United States Statutes at Large, and the "Charters and Constitutions of the United States," for publication in the "His- tory of Dakota and Goodhue Counties," H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co., 1910. To this has been added material compiled from various sources by Return I. Holcombe, for "Minnesota in Three Cen- turies."

CHAPTER VII.

EXPLORERS, TRADERS, MISSIONARIES.

The French explorers from the settlements in Canada and about the Great Lakes gradually began to penetrate toward Min- nesota. At various times traders, adventurers and priests disap- peared from these settlements. What deaths they met or what experiences they underwent will never be known. What places they visited in the wilderness of the upper Mississippi is lost to human knowledge. With the seventeenth century, however, the area that is now Minnesota began to be known to the civilized

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

world. But it was not until the closing months of that century that any recorded exploration was made of the Minnesota river.

To understand Pierre Charles Le Sueur's trip up a portion of that river in the fall of 1700 it is necessary that a few of the earlier Mississippi river explorers should be considered.

Grosseiliers and Radisson. The meager accounts which these two explorers have left of their two expeditions which are sup- posed to have penetrated into Minnesota, are capable of more than one interpretation. Dr. Warren Upham believes that Gros- seilliers and Radisson, the first known white explorers of Minne- sota, entered it near the southeast corner, and proceeded up the Mississippi through Lake Pepin to Prairie Island, just above Red Wing. Here the French explorers and the Indians that ac- companied them, together with other Indians, spent the year 1655-1656. Thus when Cromwell ruled Great Britain and Ire- land, when the Puritan theocracy was at the height of its glory in New England, and when the great emigration of Cavaliers was still going on to Virginia, Minnesota saw its first white man -unless indeed the Scandinavians visited this region centuries before, as the Kensington Stone avers.

About New Years, 1660, if we may trust Radisson's narra- tion and its interpretation, our "two Frenchmen" are again in Minnesota. Traveling with a big band of Indians, they passed a severe January and February, with attendant famine, prob- ably (according to Prof. Winchell) at Knife lake, Kanabec coun- ty. According to Hon. J. V. Brower (in his monograph "Kathio," 1901) the lake was called Knife lake and the Dakota tribe of this region the Knife tribe (Issanti) because early that spring deputations of Dakotas came to the encampment and here for the first time procured steel knives from the white men and from the Indian band that was with them. Until this time the Stone Age had ruled supreme in the realm of Renville, but now we may well suppose that within a short time many an enter- prising brave cherished as his most precious possession one of these magic knives that cut like a stroke of lightning. Very soon after meeting these Dakotas at Knife lake, Grosseilliers and Radisson went to the great Dakota village at Mille Lacs, and were there received with every mark of friendship and respect.

Now follows the story of a seven days' trip to the prairie home of the "nation of the Boefe" (buffalo), that is to say, the Dakotas living farther west and south. This story seems likely to be fiction, but if it is true, there is a fair chance that it was to the region between the Big Bend of the Mississippi river and the prairie region of the Minnesota valley. This was possibly the nearest and most accessible buffalo country from Mille Lacs. So it is possible that these two Frenchmen were the first white men to approach Renville county. But the supposition favored

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

by Winchell is that they went due south. However that may be, it is certain that with Grosseilliers and Radisson the first glim- mer of European civilization reached Redwood county.

Hennepin and Du Luth. Robert Cavelier, better known in history as the Sieur de la Salle, who had built a fort near Lake Peoria, Illinois, decided in February, 1680, to send from there an expedition up the Mississippi. For this task he selected three of his associates. Accordingly, on February 29, 1680, Father Hen- nepin, with two companions, Picard du Gay (Anthony Auguelle) and Michael Accault (also rendered d'Accault, Ako, d'Ako and Dacan), the latter of whom was in military command of the party, set out in a canoe. They paddled down the Illinois to its mouth, where they were detained by floating ice in the Mis- sissippi until March 12. On the afternoon of April 11, while on their way up the Mississippi, they were met by a band of Sioux on the warpath against the Illinois and Miami nation. Being informed, however, that the Miamis had crossed the river. and were beyond their reach, the Indians turned northward, taking the Frenchmen with them as captives. The journey up the river occupied nineteen days.

At the end of the nineteen days, the party landed near the present site of St. Paul, and then continued by land five days until they reached the Mille Lacs region. There Aquipaguetin, the chief, who had previously been unfriendly to a certain extent, adopted Hennepin in place of the son he had lost. The other two Frenchmen were adopted by other families. After several months in the Mille Lacs region, Hennepin and Pickard were given per- mission in July, 1680, to go down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wisconsin, where they expected that La Salle would send them supplies.

On their southward journey, accompanied by a Sioux chief, Quasicoude (Wacoota) and a band of Indians, the Frenchmen descended the Rum river, and camped on an eminence opposite what is now the city of Anoka. Accault was left as a hostage. Continuing down the river with the Indians, Hennepin and Pick- ard came to St. Anthony Falls, which Hennepin named in honor of his patron saint. On July 11, 1680, while hunting for the mouth of the Wisconsin river, the party was overtaken by Hen- nepin's savage adopted father, Aquipaguetin, with ten warriors. The two Frenchmen and the Indians then spent some time in the vicinity of Winona, hiding their meat near the mouth of the Chippewa, and then hunting on the prairies further down the river, the old men of the tribe watching on the river bluffs for enemies while the warriors killed buffaloes.

July 25, 1680, the party encountered Daniel Graysolon, Du Luth and five French soldiers. There is some doubt about the exact spot where this meeting took place, but it was probably

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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

near the southeast corner of Minnesota, or possibly a little further south. After the meeting, the eight white men, accompanied by the Indians, went up the river. Du Luth had been exploring the country of the Sioux and the Assiniboines, west of Lake Superior, for two years, and had secured the friendship of these very Indians who had captured Hennepin. Consequently, when he learned what had happened since he last saw them, he rebuked them for their treatment of the priest, saying that Hennepin was his brother. The party reached the Issanti villages (the Mille Laes region) August 14, 1680. No mention is made of the route which they took.

Toward the end of September the Frenchmen left the Indians to return to the French settlements. A chart of the route was given them by Quasicoude, the great chief. The eight Frenchmen then set out. Hennepin gives the number as eight, though it would seem that the number was nine, for Hennepin and Pickard had met Du Luth with five soldiers, and when reaching the Issanti villages they must have been rejoined by Accault, though pos- sibly the last named stayed with the Indians and pursued his explorations. The party passed down the Rum river in the fall of 1860, and started the descent of the Mississippi. After reach- ing the Wisconsin they went up that river to the portage, thence up the Fox river, thence to Green Bay, and thence to the settle- ments in Canada.

Accault, one of Hennepin's companions, had been left with the Indians near the present site of Anoka, when Hennepin and Arguille took the memorable down-the-river trip on which they met Du Luth. Accault took many journeys with the Indians, even visiting the Itasca region, and it is not improbable that he may have been taken to the region which lies north of the upper Minnesota river and southwest of the Big Bend of the Missis- sippi river.

Le Sueur. From 1681 to 1699, Nicolas Perrot made numer- ous trips to the country of the upper Mississippi river. Several of his posts were located in the vicinity of the lower end of Lake Pepin, which is an enlargement of the Mississippi river extending generally speaking from a short distance above Winona to a short distance below Red Wing. One of these expeditions was prob- ably that of Charville and Pierre Charles Le Sueur, taken up the Mississippi above the Falls of St. Anthony, about 1690. They probably went as far as the outlet of Sandy Lake.

Le Sueur wrote an account of this trip to refute certain ficti- tious narrations by Mathien Sagean. Of this, in his excellent and monumental work, "Minnesota in Three Centuries," in Vol. I, pp. 253-4, Dr. Warren Upham says: "Brower and Hill come to the conclusion that on the Mississippi at the outlet of sandy lake, a village of Sioux doubtless then existed, as it has also been dur-

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

ing the last century or longer the site of an Ojibway village. The estimates noted, that the distance traveled above the Falls of St. Anthony was about a hundred French leagues, and that an equal distance of the river's course still separated the voyageurs from its sources, agree very closely with the accurate measure- ments now made by exact surveys, if Le Sueur's journey ended at Sandy lake.

"Very probably Charleville, whose narration of a similar early expedition of a hundred leagues on the part of the Missis- sippi above these falls is preserved by Du Pratz in his 'History of Louisiana,' was a companion of Le Sueur, so that the two accounts relate to the same canoe trip. Charleville said that he was ac- companied by two Canadian Frenchmen and two Indians; and it is remarkable that Charleville, like Le Sueur, was a relative of the brothers Iberville and Bienville, who afterwards were governors of Louisiana." As in Le Sueur's description of the sources of the great river, Charleville also states that the Indians spoke of the Mississippi as having many sources.

In the spring of 1695 Le Sueur and his followers erected a trading post or fort on Isle Pelee, now Prairie Island, just above Red Wing. Early in the summer of 1695 he returned to Mon- treal with some Indians, among whom was a Sioux chief named Tioscate, the latter being the first Sioux chief to visit Canada. Tioscate died while in Montreal.

In his journeys to the Northwest, Le Sueur received reports from the Indians which led him to believe that copper was to be found near the place where the Minnesota river turns from its southwest to its northeast course. Therefore he received a com- mission to examine this mine and obtain from it some ores. In April, 1700, he set out with a party of men from the lower Mis- sissippi settlements in a sailing and rowing vessel and two canoes. September 19 he reached the mouth of the Minnesota, and on the last day of the month, having reached the mouth of the Blue Earth river near the present site of the city of Mankato, he ascended that river about a league, and erected a fort which he named Fort L'Huillier, named for a prominent officer in the service of the King of France. A short distance from the fort they located their "mine." They spent the ensuing winter at this fort, and in the spring of 1701 Le Sueur started down the river with a part of his followers and with a load of green earth which he believed to be copper. In due time he reached the Gulf of Mexico. The party whom he had left at the garrison on the Blue Earth followed him down the river at a later date. The fact that seven French traders who had been stripped naked by the Sioux, took refuge in Le Sueur's fort on the Blue Earth, and the further fact that those whom he left at the fort, encountered while going down the Mississippi a party of thirty-six Frenchmen

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

from Canada at the mouth of the Wisconsin, shows that aside from the explorers recorded in history, various Frenchmen, now unknown, penetrated the upper Mississippi region from time to time even at that early day.

The data secured by Le Sueur were used in the preparation of a map of the Northwest country by William De L'isle, royal geographer of France, in 1703. Several of the larger and more important physical features of southwestern Minnesota were more or less accurately located. The Minnesota river appeared upon this map, being labeled R. St. Pierre, or Mini-Sota. Its course is somewhat accurately drawn. The Des Moines river also has a place on the map, being marked Des Moines, or le Moingona R., and its source was definitely located. There is nothing in the writings of Le Sueur, however, to lead to the belief that he extended his exploration much farther up the Minnesota river than the mouth of the Blue Earth.

Lahontan. Early historians have endeavored to identify the "Long River" of Lahontan with the Minnesota river of the pres- ent day. In case this identification were correct then a French- man sighted the fair area of Renville county only three years after Hennepin made his memorable voyage up the Mississippi. Modern historians, however, entirely discredit the writings of this adventurer.

Baron de Lahontan is now regarded as the Baron Munchausen of America. His explorations and journeys to the upper Missis- sippi region were probably entirely fictitious and "Long River" merely a creation of his own imagination.

Lahontan was born in France in 1666, and as a soldier of the French empire came to America in 1683 as a boy of seventeen years. The next ten years he spent in various parts of Canada, and there doubtless heard the stories upon which he based his pretended journeys. In 1693 he deserted his post of duty in New Foundland and thereafter until his death, probably in 1715, he spent his life as an exile, homeless and friendless, in Holland, Denmark, Spain, the German provinces and England.

In 1703 at The Hague in Netherlands, Lahontan had narra- tives of his pretended travels published in three volumes, written in his native French language. Later in the same year a revised edition of the work, entitled "New Voyages to North America," was issued in London. At present there are several other English and French editions. A translation was made into German in 1711 and into the language of Holland in 1739. In this publica- tion Lahontan pretended to have ascended the Missisippi river and to have discovered a tributary called "Long River" flowing into this river from the west. He gives in detail his many adven- tures on this "Long River." Before he was discredited historians had many arguments as to whether Lahontan ascended the Root

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

river or the Minnesota river, but we now know that he was never within many hundred miles of either.

Carver. During the next sixty-six years after Le Sueur vis- ited the Minnesota river country no white man was in South- western Minnesota, so far as we know. Then, in November, 1766, Jonathan Carver ascended the Minnesota. Carver was a Con- necticut Yankee and explored the upper Mississippi in the inter- ests of the British government.

Of his trip to this point Carver wrote: "On the twenty-fifth of November, 1766, I returned to my canoe, which I had left at the mouth of the River St. Pierre (Minnesota), and here I parted with regret from my young friend, the prince of the Winne- bagoes. The river being clear of ice by reason of its southern situation, I found nothing to obstruct my passage. On the twenty- eighth, being advanced about forty miles, I arrived at a small branch that fell into it from the north, to which, as it had no name that I could distinguish it by, I gave my own, and the reader will find it in the plan of my travels denominated Carver's river. About forty miles higher up I came to the forks of the Verd (Blue Earth) and Red Marble (Watonwan) rivers, which join at some little distance before they enter the St. Pierre.

"The River St. Pierre at its junction with the Mississippi is about a hundred yards broad and continues that breadth nearly all the way I sailed upon it. It has a great depth of water and in some places runs very swiftly. About fifteen miles from its mouth are some rapids and much higher up are many others.

"I proceeded up this river about 200 miles, to the country of the Nadowessies (Sioux) of the plains, which lies a little above the fork formed by the Verd and Red Marble rivers just men- tioned, where a branch from the south (the Cottonwood) nearly joins the Messorie (Missouri) river." (The sources of the Cot- tonwood river are near those of Rock river, the latter being a tributary of the Missouri.)

On the seventh of December he arrived at the most westerly limit of his travels, and as he could proceed no further that season, spent the winter, a period of seven months, among a band of Nadowessies (Sioux), encamped near what is now New Ulm. In his map he draws three tepees opposite the present city of New Ulm on the north side of the Minnesota river and makes the statement, "About here the Author winter'd in 1766." In his hunting and exploration he doubtless penetrated Redwood county. He says he learned the Sioux language so as to converse with them intelligibly, and was treated by them with great hos- pitality. In the spring he returned to the mouth of the Minnesota.

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The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr. Number of Pages: 658

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr.
Number of Pages: 658