Compendium history and biography of North Dakota; a history of early settlement, political history, and biography; reminiscences of pioneer life, Part 10

Author:
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: Chicago, G.A.Ogle
Number of Pages: 1432

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The following year the calamity was worse and more complete, if that were possible. Ross, in his account of this plague, says: "They were produced in masses, two, three and four inches in depth. The water was infected by them. Along the river they were to be found in heaps like sea-weed, and might be shoveled with a spade. Every vegetable substance was either eaten up or stripped to the bare stalks; the leaves of the bushes and the bark of the trees shared the same fate, and the grain vanished as fast as it appeared above the ground.

Even fires, if kindled out of doors, were immedi- ately extinguished by them."

Desolation reigned supreme. "The land was as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind then a desolate wilderness. Nothing did escape them." They ran upon the walls of the houses, they invaded the homes of the settlers, and every- thing that was edible they devoured. As winter again came down upon them these poor colonists, with aching hearts and bewildered heads, were again compelled to depend upon hunting to sus- tain themselves and their families from starvation. This was a mode of life at variance with their rear- ing and repugnant to their finer feelings. The vagabond life of the hunter had no charms for them.

As everything had gone into the maw of the voracious grasshopper, they were entirely out of grain and knew not where to look for seed for the coming springtime. In the winter of 1819-20 a delegation of the colonists pushed their way through the snows and cold, at imminent risk and great bodily hardship, across the prairies and through the forests of northern Minnesota to Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi, to purchase seed wheat. This was a trip of seven or eight hundred miles in a climate not remarkable for its mildness, and the men were but thinly clad. They, however, suc- ceeded in reaching their destination. In the spring they were ready to return. On the 15th of April, with three Mackinaw boats or batteaux, manned by six hands each, laden with two hundred bushels of wheat, one hundred bushels of oats and thirty bushels of peas, they set out. The expedition was under the command and guidance of Messrs. Gra- ham and Laidlaw. They were detained by the ice in Lake Pepin, on the Mississippi, which had not gone out as yet, but on the 3d of May the passage was open and the boats passed through. Up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Minnesota river and thence up the latter to its headwaters they pushed their way with toil. The road was long and wearisome, the labor great, but they persisted faithfully. Finally they emerged into the waters of Big Stone lake. Pushing their way through this they reached its northwest shore. Here a portage of a mile and a half of land separated them from Lake Traverse. Putting improvised wooden rollers under their boats, they, at the expense of infinite toil, pushed them across the divide and again launched them with the proper element. Descending the Sioux Wood river over to its junction with the

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

Red river of the North, they had the latter water- way for the balance of their journey. The party reached Pembina June 3. The trip performed by these boats is worthy of mention, as it is the only instance of heavy articles being transported from Prairie du Chien to the Red river settlements entirely by water, with the exception of the portage mentioned above. The cost of this expedition, about six thousand dollars, was borne by Lord Selkirk. In 1820 some Swiss were induced to leave their native home, by agents of the Earl of Selkirk, and come to his colony. Many of these, on reaching Fort Snelling, discouraged and dis- heartened at the misrepresentations that had brought them from their mountain homes, would go no farther, but settled in the region where now stands St. Paul. The rest went on to Pembina. In 1823 Major S. H. Long, who visited the settle- ment at Pembina, as elsewhere related, found it to consist of some sixty log cabins, and contained a population of about three hundred and fifty peo- ple. Most of these were half-breeds. The re- mainder of the people were Scotch and Swiss, who did not strike the members of the expedition as people well qualified for settlers upon the rugged frontier. Most of the Swiss were old soldiers whose days of usefulness in their trade were over, and were unfitted by their training for agricultural pursuits. The Scotch were thrifty and industrious, but Mr. Keating thought that the half bloods were useless as farmers.

One of the objects of Major Long's expedition was the location of the international boundary line, and when this was finally determined it was found that Fort Daer, or Pembina, was built upon soil within the jurisdiction of the United States. It was, therefore, dismantled and removed to the Can- adian side of the border. This terminated the con- nection of that part of the northwest with the Earl of Selkirk and his schemes, as most of the Sel- kirkers, as they were called, still loyal to their patron, removed to the vicinity of Fort Garry, now Winnipeg. Of their presence around Pembina naught remains. Even their burial place, if any existed there, is unknown. Some debris turned up by the plow from time to time, an old cellar or two or half rotten timbers here and there, are all that would show their occupancy. The tale of their trials and tribulations are all that we have to show for the struggle they made against adverse fate. A few of the Selkirkers, however, remained upon our soil, adapting themselves to their new country, for,

when the United States sent a force to rebuild Fort Pembina in 1870, they found a few descendants of the Selkirk settlers still living there.

Among other prominent figures in the his- tory of the early part of the century was one by the name of Fisher, an agent of the Hud- son's Bay Company. For years prior to 1815 he was stationed at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 1824 he located on the shores of Lake Traverse, at the headwaters of the Red river of the North, and engaged in fur trading. He remained there until 1826. His daughter married Joseph Rollette, the elder, but was afterward divorced and married Hercules L. Dousman, for many years a leading and influential citizen of Prairie du Chien.

As time in its course neared the middle of the century, communication between the Red river val- ley and the outside world became all the more fre- quent. Cart routes leading to the head of navi- gation on the Mississippi began to be established by traders who, independent of the fur companies, began to locate at Pembina and other points. Mendota, near Fort Snelling, became the objective point of the Red river cart trails through Minne- sota for many years before St. Paul was founded.

The aristocracy of the plains in those times con- sisted of the officers, traders and clerks at the posts, and the buffalo hunters. While the Selkirk colo- nists generally dressed in homespun clothing, and lived plainly, the men at the posts had every luxury that they could procure, including a stock of the finest liquors. The importation of some of the finer products of civilized life gradually became more common, even to silk dresses for the women of the posts. In dress, the trappers and voyageurs aud some other of the employes of the fur com- panies used a common sort of cloth that was im- ported, gray suits being much worn by them. With these classes there was also some admixture of vestments, made from the skins of animals, especially buckskin, and suits of this character were worn much by the half-breeds. Of the smaller kinds of fur-bearing animals the country at that period produced quite a variety.

During each recurring summer ensued the an- nual buffalo hunt, the chief event of the year. The bison was a migratory animal and in winter ranged southward to northern Texas. The increasing warmth of spring, which in that latitude ensues early, urged these animals to take to their north- wardly leading trails, and they migrated in vast herds. The hunting parties of the Northwest

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

assembled at some appointed place between June 8 and 18. Sometimes as many as a thousand or more persons took part in these hunts, their cara- vans sometimes consisting of as many as six hun- dred carts. The hunters were accompanied by their women and children. They were mainly half- breeds, with some Indians and occasionally a few whites. Bands from some of the posts in Mani- toba also joined them. Scouts were first sent out to locate the herds, and on their return, the leaders having heard their reports, they determined from them the direction of the march to the prairies. The bison, like other wild animals, instinctively avoided all localities inhabited by man. The buffalo ranges of the Northwest were along the Cheyenne, the Mouse, the neighborhood of the Turtle mount- ains, and the upper portion of the Red river val- ley. Reaching any of these ranges, the hunters attacked the herds on horseback, using long stocked guns with flint lock fire, and slew these animals in large numbers. The remainder of the herd stampeded away with a loud noise, raising a great cloud of dust. The men skinned the animals for their hides, and the women assisted in cutting up the meat and loading it into the carts for trans- portation to camp, where it was cut into strips and dried for winter's use, and for making pemmican. The tongues of the buffalo were considered a choice part of these animals. The hides were brought to the post for shipment with other peltries.

The guns used in the Northwest were made in England especially for purposes connected with the fur trading business. They were imported by way of York factory and exchanging at the posts for peltries at certain values. They continued to have flint locks long after the percussion cap had come into general use, on account of the great distance to the points at which the latter might be obtained. If an Indian or other hunter got out of his supply of percussion caps, on the supposition that he used them, it might be a hundred or more miles from the nearest post, a percussion lock gun would be of no use, while the flint-lock gun was serviceable at any time.

There were some salt springs in the country that were utilized to some extent by the Selkirk colonists and the fur companies, on account of the . expense of importing salt. "Considerable quanti- ties," says Warren Upham, "were yearly made by the evaporation of the water of salt springs. One of these springs from which much salt was made for the Hudson's Bay Company is situated in the

channel of the south branch of Two Rivers, about one and one-half miles above its junction with the north branch and some six miles west of Hallock. It is exposed only when the river runs low, and in such portion of the summer the work of salt-mak- ing was done."

Just after the last war with Great Britain, in about 1815, Captain Duncan Graham, a Scotchman, settled in what was subsequently called Graham's Island, in Devil's lake, or Lake Minnewaukan. There he erected a trading post and remained for a number of years. Augustus Rock, a French- Canadian, established a trading post, also, on an island in the same lake, probably about 1819 or 1820, and made it his home for some years. Rock Island is named after him.

FUR COMPANIES.

For years the fur trading business had been in the hands of various rival companies, who were united in but one thing, to keep the business to themselves and to drive out all intruders. Among these were the famous Hudson's Bay Company, the Northwest Company, American Fur Company, Missouri Fur Company, X. Y. Fur Company and others. The Columbia Fur Company was organ- ized in 1822, by parties formerly in the employe of the older organizations. The Rocky Mount- ain Fur Company was organized in 1826, and sent agents up the Missouri river. In 1832 the American Fur Company, of which John In 1832 the American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor, the founder of the present Astor family, was the originator, became the leading one in the northwest, and through them the fur trading business took on a more permanent form. About 1840 independent traders began to establish then- selves at various points throughout the Red River valley and elsewhere.

THE ROLETTES.

One of the best known employes of the Amer- ican Fur Company in those early days was Jean Joseph Rolette, most always called Joe Rolette, the elder. He was a French-Canadian of the province of Quebec, who had been educated, it is believed, for the priesthood, but the bold, adventurous spirit within him drew him into the ranks of the coureur des bois, who roamed the lakes, woods and rivers of Canada and the United States. His native

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

ability and the advantages of superior education soon placed him in the foremost ranks and he soon became a successful trader. He was a captain in the British service during the last war with Great Britain, and helped take Prairie du Chien. He married a Miss Fisher, who became the mother of Joseph Roulette, Jr., but was afterward divorced from her. He died, after having been one of the most noted of traders, in poverty.

Joseph Rolette, Jr., his son, was probably the best known of all the traders of the great North- western territory in that day. Taken by relatives of his mother to New York, he was reared and educated where he had the best of advantages. As he grew to manhood the spirit of adventure, born in him, came out, and he determined to join the band of bold spirits upon the northern frontier. Enthusiastic, bold, witty, well educated and shrewd beyond his years, he was well fitted for border life. He came west and took service with a company which had been formed in 1834, of which Henry H. Sibley, Ramsey Crooks, H. L. Dousman and Jean Joseph Rolette were partners. By them he was sent to the Red river valley and he made his appearance there in 1840-41. He rebuilt the post at Pembina. At the time he was but twenty-one or two years of age. For a young man of that time in life to take charge of a reckless crew of voya- geurs, build and defend the fort, employ and con- trol the half-breeds upon whom the greater part of the actual labor fell, successfully deal with the friendly Indians and combat those that were hos- tile, to cure, pack and ship large quantities of furs, keep account of all his transactions and show a profit on each season's work, shows he was a young man of no common mettle. Young Rolette started his first line of carts between Pembina and St. Paul. This scheme was evolved in his brain and put into execution in 1842, and in it a Mr. Fisher, his mother's brother, was a partner. In 1843 the well- known Norman W. Kittson, a native of Canada, born March 5, 1814, came to Pembina and took charge of the post, from which time, as the business had developed largely, Joseph Rolette served as his chief lieutenant. Commodore Kittson saw that Rolette's idea of a regular cart line to St. Paul was an excellent one, and immediately inaugurated an- other. This mode of transport and traffic grew to an immense size, some years reaching the unpre- cedented figure of six or seven thousand carts employed. Other posts were, about this time, established at St. Joseph (Hair Hills) now Wal-

halla, at Devil's lake, and in the Turtle mount- ains. In 1844 a mail station was established at the Pembina posts by Norman W. Kittson, and it is be- lieved he was appointed the first postmaster.

DERIVATION OF THE NAME PEMBINA.

It is recorded that Kittson gave the name of this post that it bears to-day, Pembina. According to Mr. Keating, the historian of Long's expedition, quoted elsewhere, this word is an abbreviation or corruption of the Ojibway word, Anepeminansippi, or the river of the red berry. This was the name given to the river bý the Indians on account of the red berry, the viburnim exycoccos of the botan- ists, that grew in such luxuriant abundance along both banks.

In an article in the Record, a well-edited maga- zine published at Fargo in the interest of old set- tlers and historical events, exception is taken to this derivation. The paragraph is here quoted in full :

"In Neill's history of Minnesota it is stated that Pembina county takes its name from the high bush cranberry, called by the Ojibways Anepeminan. This writer investigated the origin of the word Pembina some years ago, especially among those familiar with the Indian language, and reached the conclusion that it came from a combination of Pemmican and the Latin word 'bena,' meaning 'blessed bread.' Senator Bogy made exhaustive research when the bill for the creation of Pembina territory was before the senate, and succeeded in defeating the use of that name on the ground that it had neither local or historical significance. It was his opinion that if it meant anything it was "sanctified bread." Fred Girard, who lived forty years among the Indians, states that the Indians and breeds would assemble at stated times at St. Joseph for the administration of the Holy Euch- arist, designating the event as 'Pembina.' The Record believes Neill wrong. Dr. Neill gives the significance of the name Dakota as 'allied tribes,' but Girard says 'a land of plenty,' or 'many peo- ple,' is better. 'Sota,' always meaning plenty in the language of the Sioux, 'Minnesota' means many waters, instead of 'smoky water" 'clear water,' or 'sky tinted water,' as claimed by Neill." By another authority the word Pembina is given as the shortening of the Ojibway words Nepin, or summer, and Minan berry, after the high-bush cranberry.

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

Troubles at all times kept Joseph Rolette, Jr., busy at his posts, trouble with all kinds of people, civilized and savage. In 1847 some rival traders set up a post not over two miles from Rolette's, and as they were ready to pay in whisky for furs, a practice not allowed by our government, they had the advantage of him. Others had suffered in the same way, and as the government failed to protect him Rolette detehmined to take the matter into his own hands. He gathered a few of his most plucky men and, with them, marched over the line, threw out their goods upon the ground, burned down the buildings and bade the owners leave that part of the country, which they immediately did. In 1851 Joseph Rolette was elected a member of the Min- nesota legislature, and was re-elected in 1853, 1855 and 1857. On the outbreak of the Civil war he tried to get a commission in the Union army, but failed, and at the close of hostilities he had lost most of his little fortune and much of his former health. He died May 16, 1871. He, in 1845, mar- ried Angelie Jerome, a lady of half Chippewa blood, and was the father of eleven children, some of whom are now residents of the state.

MISSION OF ST. JOSEPH.

But to return to the earlier times, it is recorded that in 1840 Rev. G. A. Bellecourt, who had for some nine years been doing missionary work among the natives north of the border, built a church just north of the present site of Pembina, near the junction of the Red and Pembina rivers. Father Bellecourt, a devout and pious member of the Ro- man Catholic priesthood, was a native of Canada, and gave most of his life to work among the In- dians and the bois brules of the Northwest. He wrote a dictionary and grammar of the Indian tongue. He was missionary apostolic and vicar- general of Bishop Cretin in 1853. He was well and favorably known to all and well beloved by both reds and whites of that region. He died in Memramcook, Iles de la Madeline, Canada, in 1874. In 1845 this good and pious missionary pushed out into what was for many years called the Hair Hills, about thirty miles west of the Red river, just where the Pembina river breaks from the more ele- vated land called the Pembina mountains, and there built a chapel, which was dedicated to St. Joseph. Later a convent sprang up there, and there Father Bellecourt erected a mill. This was the first mill west of St. Paul, on American ground.

EARLY PERMANENT SETTLEMENT,

Most of the people in this locality, all this time, were not settlers in the sense that we use the word to-day; they came, for the most part, as agents or employes of the fur traders, and their stay was generally, precarious and uncertain. They did not attempt to cultivate the soil, for, with the exception of small vegetable gardens at the posts, the land was entirely untilled. They took up no land with the intent to settle down to develop it; they were hunters and trappers only. But the time was com- ing when this was to change, when the day of the hunter and trapper was to pass; when the land that then lay in idleness and covered with the luxuriant growth of nature should be trained and tamed to the uses of civilized man; when the farm and the cottage of the husbandman was to take the place of the hunting ground and the cabin of the trapper or the teepee of the red man.

The pioneer of the pioneers in the Red river valley, and in the state of North Dakota, was Charles Cavileer, who came to this point in 1851, as United States collector of customs. A sketch of Mr. Cavileer will be found in another department of this work.

The next to make a settlement in what is now North Dakota was William H. Moorhead, a man of sterling virtues and excellent qualities. Of him, it is justly said that a history of the state without mentioning his many services in the development of the land would be incomplete and lame. He was a man, every inch of him, faithful to friends, for- giving to his enemies if they deserved it, but re- lentless to the evil doer. He practiced the famous law of the Brahmin, "Love thy friend; do justice to thine enemy."

William H. Moorhead was a native of Freeport. Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, born September 20, 1832. In the schools of Pittsburg and its sis- ter city, Allegheny, he was reared and educated, and there grew to early manhood. In the spring of 1852 he left his home in the Keystone state and sought in the wild northwest a wider field for his efforts, a place for him to expand. About the first of May of that year he arrived at St. Paul, Minne- sota, and at that place remained some two years, working at his trade, that of a carpenter. The summer of 1854 and the ensuing winter were spent by him at Sauk Rapids trading with the Indians. In the spring of 1855 he returned to St. Paul and formed a company to lay out town sites in northern

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

Minnesota, a favorite speculation of those days. This syndicate consisted of Messrs. Moorhead, Hoffman, Hutchinson, Kellogg, Horn, Charles and Traill. All were residents of St. Paul at the time. William Moorhead, Joseph Charles and J. K. Hoff- man formed the active part of the concern and started out to find the town sites. With the sur- veyor they went by canoe up the Mississippi and Crow Wing rivers to Leaf river, and by the latter to Leaf Lake. A portage of three or four miles brought them to Otter Tail lake, and at the outlet of this they surveyed and laid out a town. This they called Otter Tail City. About forty miles down the river they laid out another, to which they gave the name of Merriam. On returning to St. Paul they found that lots of this description were a drug upon the market, too many had them for sale all through the west, and the Eastern speculator was growing timorous. Although the syndicate men- tioned above held their property as worth $150,- 000, they wanted for the common necessaries of life, and Mr. Moorhead is said to have paid his winter's board bill with a share of stock in the enterprise. In the spring, the bubble having burst, the financial panic of the year 1857 having set in, Mr. Moorehead was without anything to do .. He finally engaged with Joseph Rolette and James Mc- Fetridge, who were in St. Paul, to erect the new buildings at the mouth of the Pembina river, which they intended to build. They arrived at their point of destination August 1, 1857. Mr. Moorhead com- pleted the buildings and then entered the store as clerk and remained until February, 1858. He made trips to St. Paul for supplies and made successful hunting expeditions in the valley until the following fall. He then sought the Chippewas, at Lake of the Woods and Lake Rosa, and was rewarded by a heavy trade in furs. He had now embarked as an independent fur trader, and that winter made a trip to the west, to the Turtle mountains. He was very successful in all his endeavors. In 1861 he removed to what is now Walhalla, then St. Jos- eph, he engaged in trade with the Indians. He resided there when the Indian massacre of 1863 broke out in Minnesota. He was on good terms with the savages, but as he would not sell them ammunition, he thought it best to move, so went to Devil's lake, where he and some hundred families of Indians and half-breeds spent the summer of that eventful year and the following winter. The spring following he returned to his place at the foot of the Pembina mountains. In May of that year the

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Compendium history and biography of North Dakota; a history of early settlement, political history, and biography; reminiscences of pioneer life, Part 10

Author: Publication date: 1900 Publisher: Chicago, G.A.Ogle Number of Pages: 1432

Author:
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: Chicago, G.A.Ogle
Number of Pages: 1432