USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume II > Part 29
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I was then a girl of fourteen and my brother August was ten years of age. We walked the entire distance, driving the stock and picking flowers by the wayside, and when we were tired we would stop and rest and let the cattle rat. Our dear mother wonldl cook the meal and spread the cloth on the grass, and we would all sit around and enjoy the meal more perhaps than the king in his palace eating from golden plates and drinking from crystal glasses. The land which my father settled on was in the wilderness of the Minnesota river bottomlands and the grass was tall and coarse, and the cattle did not like it, but there was no other. My father chose this place because there was timber there, and the first thing the men did was to hew down some trees and peel the bark off of them. They then built a log cabin of two rooms, and, as at first we had no doors, they put blankets at the openings, and covered the roof with grass and bark. After a few weeks, when father went to New Ulm to do some trading, he bought some doors and windows and also shingles. I accompanied him to do some shopping for my mother and sister. It took us four days to go and come back, it being about forty miles from where we lived and traveling with oxen was very slow. After we had some doors and windows in our cabin we lived quite comfortably. The men started to break up the land and cut some hay on father's place, and as both Mr. Walz and Mr. Frass had taken a elaim up on the prairie they all went up there to break the land, and all were happy and contented, but it was not to be for long.
By this time the Indians had started to become troublesome. They would come in parties of six to eight and beg for something to eat, for they were always hungry. Our family was a large one and mother could not give them very much, but I remember she always gave them bread. However, it was meat they wanted, and that we did not have very much of ourselves. There was another great pest that bothered us greatly. Our cabin was built about forty feet from the timber that I spoke of, and in this tim- ber there were thousands and thousands of wild pigeons, keeping up a constant eooing from the break of dawn until nightfall. I do not know what has beeome of them, for they seem to be all gone. I think they left when the country became more settled.
رجب
MRS. MARY E. SCHWANDT SCHMIDT
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ARTOR LDEN
MANDA TIONS
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My parents had been on their farm about two months when that most terrible day, the eighteenth of August, came. Out of eight persons there was only one left to tell the story. At noon when the family were just about to eat the noon meal, a party of Sioux Indians came and soon all was over. August, ten years old, was struck on the head with a tomahawk and was left as dead. In the night he revived and crawled into the tall grass and reached the fort. He still has the sear on his head. He now lives in British Columbia, at Vancouver.
About three weeks before the outbreak Legrand Davis eame to our house and wanted to know if I would go over the river to Joseph B. Reynolds, who kept a stopping place. lle wanted a little girl to run errands, dust and so forth, and as they were going to start a school for the Indians I could go to this school at the same time. I needed more schooling and thought this a good chance to acquire it. Mother did not like me to go, but Mr. Davis promised to bring me back in two or three weeks, so she reluctantly gave her consent. Little did I think that it was the last time I would see her dear face on this earth. The Rey- nolds's treated me very kindly, more like their own child than a servant. and I liked to live there. After I had lost my parents they wished to adopt me, but I went to live with an unele in Wiseonsin, who also took my brother August. The eighteenth of August came on a Monday. We had just had our breakfast at the Reynolds's and Mary Anderson was just putting on the wash boiler preparing to do the week's washing. Suddenly John Mooer, a half-breed, came running in and said we shoukl all get away as fast as we could, for the Indians had broken out and were killing all the settlers as fast as they could. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds got into a buggy and drove off, and Mattie Williams, Mary Anderson and myself got into a Inmber wagon with three men that had stopped over night at the house. The team belonged to Mr. Patoile, a Frenchman, who hanled goods for the govern- ment from one ageney to another. The wagon was filled with things they wanted to save, so we started, Mr. Patoile driving the team. We drove from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, and were about eight miles west of New Ulm when we met a party of Indians. We all jumped from the wagon and ran, but we did not run very far before they were upon us, dragging us back. By that time they had killed all the men and some were sealping them. Mary Anderson was shot through the abdomen and died on the fourth day after the shooting. My. clothes were riddled by the bullets, but none harmed me. A skirt which I wore has seven holes shot through it and is now in the possession of the D. A. R. at their museum at the Sibley house, Mendota. This skirt was made of heavy muslin and was part of the cover of our wagon when we settled in Renville county.
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When we came back to the wagon the Indians had already broken open all the trunks and were dividing the contents. They had with them about twelve other wagons and a great number of horses. The wagons were loaded with plunder of all kinds which they had stolen from the settlers. They ordered us into the wagons and started back to the agency. It was about ten o'clock by the time that we reached Waconta's home. It was very dark and there was a tallow candle burning. The house was swarming with Indians. Wacouta chased them out and told us to hide up in the loft and he would bring us water and food in the morning, and we were np there three days and two nights. The wounded girl eried for water, for she had a raging fever. During the second night Mattie Williams and I crawled down and went to a corn field, getting some green corn with which we tried to quench her thirst. On the third night we were told to come down, and were taken to Little Crow's village. Mary Anderson died during the night. Mattie Williams' captor took her to his tepee, where he lived with his squaw, and as my captor had no tepee he said he would kill me to be rid of me. When Snana, one of the Indian squaws heard this, she came and looked me over carefully and went away, returning in a short time leading an Indian pony, which she gave my captor, and then took me by the hand and brought me to her tepee. I was adopted into the tribe and had to call her mamma, and she dressed me in Indian clothing and made pretty moccasins for me. She wrapped mne in a snow-white blanket, which was, of course, stolen, but it did not stay white very long. Snana was married to Good Thunder and had two papooses. I had to take care of the baby papoose. I always tried to do all she told me and to please her in all things. There was a bond of sympathy between us because she had just lost her oldest daughter.
After seven weeks of captivity I was released at Camp Release by General Sibley and his army, with the rest of the white prisoners, and as that occasion has been written up so many times I will not mention it here. Mattie Williams was a nieee of Mr. Reynolds and was visiting from Ohio. She was highly edu- cated and had a beautiful character. Mary Anderson was a pretty Swedish girl and was to have been married soon to a young man from Shakopee. I was only a plain little German girl who did not know much at all at that time. My Indian mother parted from me at Camp Release and we did not meet again for thirty-two years, but have met many times later, and I received many nice letters from her. She loved me very much. and I have always felt a gratitude towards her which I could not express in words, for she saved me from a terrible fate when she bonght me from my captor with her only pony .- By Mrs. Mary Emilia Sebwandt Schmidt.
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Mary Emilia Schwandt was born in the District of Branden- burg. near Berlin, Germany, in March, 1848, daughter of John and Christina Schwandt. In 1858, when she was ten years of age, the family came to America, and after a brief stay in Canada, located near Ripon, Wis., where they lived about four years. h 1862 they came to Minnesota in two wagons drawn by oxen. journeying up the beautiful Minnesota valley and settling above the mouth of Beaver creek, near Middle ereek in what is now the town of Flora. There John Schwandt took up a claim, and built a log house which he covered with a good strong thatched roof made from the tall. tough, dry grass of the Minnesota bottoms. His land was all in the valley or bottom. extending from the bluff to the river. At that time the family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Schwandt, a daughter Caroline, aged 19, her husband, John Walz; a daughter, Mary Emilia, aged 14, and three sons, Angust, aged 10: Frederick, aged 6: Christian, aged 4. John Frass, a young man lived with them. John Walz had selected a claim and was preparing to move to it the next fall.
Experiences of Charles Lammers. In May, 1862, I came from the city of Cincinnati with my father and mother and brother, Fred. Father homesteaded in the northwest quarter of section 19, township of Flora. Renville county, and at once went to work and built a log house, part of which is still standing. After pro- viding for his family the best he could he went to Fort Ridgley to make hay for the government to earn a few dollars. On August 18. 1862. father came home to take his family down to Fort Ridgley. After we were well started on our way to the fort with other neighbors and a number of oxen teams, etc., the In- dians overtook us and made us turn back for a distance of five or six miles.
Then the Indians stopped us and demanded something to eat. which the whites gladly prepared for them after hinch. Then the Indians commenced to kill the white men just as fast as they could and also many of the women and children. My father was one of those murdered. Mother was in a delicate condition at this time and that. no doubt, saved her life. So mother. brother Fred and myself were taken prisoners by the Indians. There were also others that were taken prisoners, some of them that I know like August Gluth and Louis Kitzman, boys about twelve and thirteen years old, who were a very good help to mother for a while, but the grub got very scarce and the two boys took French leave at night and after several nights' travel landed at Fort Ridgley. The Indians took a fancy to my brother Fred. who was a boy about seven years old and full of life and energy, so they painted him like an Indian boy and gave him a blanket to roll up in, but they did not care for me. for I was too noisy for them and of no use to them and too hungry, because there
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was nothing to eat for a kid of my age. One day mother was sent down to the slough to get some water and then the Indians grabbed me by the neck and threw me in the fire; only the quick and daring moves of brother Fred saved me from burning to death. After about six weeks of Indian life and grub we came to our liberty at Camp Release, near where Montevideo is now located. In 1864 mother was married to George Rieke, who is one of the oldest homesteaders in the township of Cairo, Renville county. Ile was also one of the gallant defenders at Fort Ridge- Ix during the entire outbreak. After 1864 we came to live on Mr. Rieke's farm, which is located at the outlet of Mud lake, in Cairo township, and a very beautiful place. The first work that I did of any importance was to herd sheep and fight wolves. Father had about 200 head of sheep and we boys were to herd them. One day two wolves and one dog came in our flock and killed thirteen sheep, another time nine, and still another time three. The wolves did not kill the shepherd for they knew that he was not good mutton. Father had built a large log stable for the sheep and almost every night the wolves would try to get in at the sheep. Some of the logs in the barn were gnawed half through by the wolves. In the fall of the year the weather was almost suffocating on account of prairie fire smoke. When the whole northwest prairies were on fire sometimes it would take two or three weeks before the fire would reach our place although we were protected by Mnd lake north of our place. In 1864 the first grasshoppers came to this county, but there wasn't much for them to destroy so they left in 1865 for parts unknown. From that time on this county was settled up very fast. In 1873 on Jannary 6, we had one of the worst snow storms and Lean remember many people and animals were frozen to death during the three-day storm. In 1874 another lot of grasshoppers came to visit us. By this time the county was bet- ter settled than it was in 1864, so they stayed until 1877, and then left for parts unknown. Many new settlers left this county at that time and disposed of their land for little or nothing. By this time the people all thought that all this county was good for was the Indians and grasshoppers but since 1878 this county has been very prosperous and by this time Renville county looks different and is one of the best counties in the state.
German Settlement Wiped Out. Stretching from the valley of Middle creek to the valley of the Sacred Heart, mostly in what is now Flora township, many Germans settled along the Minnesota bottoms prior to the uprising. Early on the morning of August 18, 1862. nearly all of these settlers gathered at the home of John Meyer. Very soon after they had assembled here. some fifty Indians, led by Shakopee, appeared in sight. The people all fled. except Meyer and his family, going into the
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grass and bushes. Peter Bjorkman ran toward his own house. Shakopee, whom he knew, saw him, and exclaimed, "There is Bjorkman ; kill him!" but, keeping the building between him and the savages, he plunged into a slough and concealed himself, even removing his shirt, fearing it might be the means of re- vealing his whereabouts to the lurking savages. Here he lay from early morning until the darkness of night enabled him to leave with safety-suffering unutterable torments, mosquitoes literally swarming upon his naked person, and the hot sun scoreh- ing him to the bone.
They immediately attacked the house of Meyer, killing his wife and all his children. Seeing his family butchered, and hav- ing no means of defense, Meyer effeeted his eseape, and reached Fort Ridgely. In the meantime the affrighted people had got together again at the Sitzton home, near Bjorkman's, to the number of about thirty men, women and children. In the after- noon the savages returned to the house of Sitzton, killing every person there but one woman, Mrs. Wilhelmina Eindenfield, and her child. These were captured, and afterward found at Camp Release, but the husband and father was among the slain. From his place of concealment Mr. Bjorkman witnessed this attack and wholesale massacre of almost an entire neighborhood. After dark he came out of the slough, and, going to his house, obtained some food and a bundle of clothing, as his house was not yet plundered : fed his dog and calf, and went over to the house of Meyer : here he found the windows all broken in, but did not enter the house. Ile then went to the house of Sitzton ; his nerves were not equal to the task of entering that charnel-house of death. As he passed the yard, he turned out some eattle that the Indians had not taken away, and hastened toward Fort Ridgely. On the road he overtook a woman and two children, one an infant of six months, the wife and children of John Satean, who had been killed. Bjorkman took one of the chil- dren in his arms, and these companions in misfortune and suffer- ing hurried on together. Mrs. Satean was nearly naked, and without either shoes or stockings. The rough prairie grass lacer- ated her naked feet and limbs terribly, and she was about giving out in despair. Bjorkman took from his bundle a shirt, and tearing it in parts, she wound it about her feet, and pro- ceeded.
At daylight they came in sight of the house of Magner, eight miles above the fort. Here they saw some eight or ten Indians, and, turning aside from the road, dropped down into the grass, where they remained until noon, when the Indians disappeared. They again moved toward the fort, but slowly and cautiously, as they did not reach it until about midnight. Upon reaching the fort Mrs. Sateau found two sons, aged ten and twelve years re-
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speetively, who had effected their escape and reached there before her.
Mrs. Hayden's Escape. Patrick Hayden and his family lived about one and a half miles from the home of J. W. Earle, near Beaver creek. The widow, Mrs. Mary Hayden, alter the Out- break, told the following story :
On the morning of August 18. Mr. Hayden started to go over to the house of J. B. Reynolds, at the Redwood river, on the res- ervation, and met Thomas Robinson, a half-breed, who told him to go home, get his family, and leave as soon as possible. for the Indians were eoming over to kill all the whites. He came imme- diately home, and we commeneed to make preparations to leave, but in a few minutes we saw some three or four Indians coming on horseback. We then went over to the house of a neighbor, Benedict Enne, and found them all ready to leave. I started off with Enne's people, and my husband went back home, still think- ing the Indians would not kill any one, and intending to give them some food if they wanted it. I never saw him again.
We had gone about four miles, when we saw a man lying dead in the road and his faithful dog watching by his side.
We drove on till we came to the house of David Faribault, at the foot of the hill. about one and a half miles from the Ageney ferry. When we got here two Indians came out of Faribault's house, and stopping the teams, shot Mr. Zimmerman, who was driving, and his two boys. I sprang out of the wagon, and. with my child, one year old, in my arms, ran into the bushes, and went up the hill toward the fort. When I came near the house of Mr. Magner, I saw Indians throwing furniture out of the door, and I went down into the bushes again, on the lower side of the road, and stayed there until sundown.
While I lay here concealed. I saw the Indians taking the roof off the warehouse, and saw the buildings burning at the Agency. I also heard the firing during the battle at the ferry. when Marsh and his men were killed.
1 then went up near the fort road, and sitting down under a tree, waited till dark, and then started for Fort Ridgely. carry- ing my child all the way. I arrived at the fort at about I o'clock a. m. The distance from our place to Ridgely was seventeen miles.
On Tuesday morning I saw JJohn Magner, who told me that, when the soldiers went up to the Agency the day before, he saw my husband lying in the road. near David Faribault's house, dead. John Ilayden, his brother, who lived with us, was found dead near La Croix creek. They had got up the oxen. and were bringing the family of Mr. Eisenrich to the fort. when they were overtaken by Indians. Eisenrich was killed and his wife and five children were taken prisoners.
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Mrs. Zimmerman, who was blind, and her remaining children, and Mrs. Enne and her children, five in number, were captured and taken to the house of David Faribault, where they were kept till night, the savages torturing them by telling them that they were going to fasten them in the house and burn them alive, but for some inexplicable reason let them go, and they, too, reached the fort in safety. Mr. Eune, who with one of his boys, eleven years old, remained behind to drive in his cattle, was met by them on the road and killed. The boy was captured, and, with the other prisoners, recovered at Camp Release.
The neighborhoods in the vicinity of La Croix creek, and be- tween that and Fort Ridgely, were visited on Monday forenoon, and the people either massacred, driven away or made prisoners. Edward Magner, living eight miles above the fort, was killed. His wife and children had gone to the fort. He had returned to look after his cattle when he was shot. Patrick Kelly and David O'Connor, both single men, were killed near Magner's.
Horan's Tale. The Horan family lived in what is now Ren- ville county, on the Fort Ridgely road, four miles below the Lower Agency. Kearn Horan, after the outbreak, made the following statement :
On August 18, Patrick Horan, my brother, came early from the Agency and told us that the Indians were murdering the whites. He had escaped alone and crossed the ferry, and with some Frenehmen was on his way to the fort. My brothers and William and Thomas Smith went with me. We saw Indians in the road rear Magner's. Thomas Smith went to them, thinking they were white men, and I saw them kill him. We then turned to flee, and saw men escaping with teams along the road. All fled towards the fort together, the Indians firing upon us as we ran. The teams were oxen, and the Indians were gaining upon us, when one of the men in his excitement dropped his gun. The savages came up to it and picked it up. All stopped to examine it, and the men in the wagons whipped the oxen into a run. This delay enabled us to elude them.
As we passed the house of Ole Sampson, Mrs. Sampson was crying at the door for help. Her three children were with her. We told her to go into the bush and hide, for we could not help her. We ran into a ravine and hid in the grass. After the In- dians had hunted some time for us, they came along the side of the ravine, and called to us in good English, saying, "Come out, boys; what are you afraid of? We don't want to hurt you." After they left us we erawled ont and made our way to the fort, where we arrived at about 4 o'clock p. m. My family had gone there before me. Mrs. Sampson did not go to the bush, but hid in the wagon from which they had recently come from Waseca county. It was what we call a prairie schooner, covered with
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cloth, a genuine emigrant wagon. They took her babe from her, and throwing it down upon the grass, put hay under the wagon, set fire to it and went away. Mrs. Sampson got out of the wagon, badly burned, and taking her infant from the ground made her way to the fort. Two of her children were burned to death in the wagon. Mr. Sampson had been previously killed about eighty rods from the house.
At Birch Cooley. In the neighborhood of La Croix creek, or Birch Coolie. Peter Perean, Frederick Clansen, Mr. Piguar, Andrew Bahlke, Henry Keartner, Charles Clausen and Mrs. Wil- liam Vitt, and several others were killed. Mrs. Maria Frorip, an aged German woman, was wounded four different times with small shot. but escaped to the fort. The wife of Henry Keartner also escaped and reached the fort. The wife and child of a Mr. Cardenelle were taken prisoners, as were also the wife and child of Frederick Clausen. Carl Witt came into Fort Ridgely, but not until he had, with his own hands, buried his murdered wife and also a Mr. Piguar.
On the Sacred Heart. A flourishing German settlement had sprung up near Patterson's Rapids, on the Sacred Heart. twelve miles below Yellow Medieine.
Word came to this neighborhood abont sundown of the eighteenth, that the Indians were murdering the whites. This news was brought to them by two men who had started from the Lower Agency, and had seen the lifeless and mutilated re- mains of the murdered vietims lying upon the road and in their plundered dwellings towards Beaver creek. The whole neigh- borhood, with the exception of one family, that of Mr. Schwandt, soon assembled at the house of Paul Kitzman, with their oxen and wagons, and prepared to start for Fort Ridgely.
A messenger was sent to the house of Schwandt but the In- dian rifle and the tomahawk had done their fearful work. Of all that family but two survived; one a boy. August, who wit- nessed the awful scene of butchery, and he then went on his way, covered with blood, towards Fort Ridgely. The other. a young girl. of about seventeen years of age, then residing at Redwood, was captured. Her story is toll elsewhere.
The party at Kitzman's started in the evening to make their escape, going so as to avoid the settlements and the traveled roads. striking across the country toward the head of Beaver creek.
They traveled this way all night, and in the morning changed their conrse towards Fort Ridgely. They continued in this direc- tion until the sun was some two hours high, when they were met by eight Sioux Indians, who told them that the murders were committed by Chippewas, and that they had come over to pro- teet them and punish the murderers: and thus induced them to
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