Compendium history and biography of North Dakota; a history of early settlement, political history, and biography; reminiscences of pioneer life, Part 12

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

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In the meantime, with the advent of railroads, came settlers to other parts of the state. Among the pioneers of what is now Barnes county, was D. D. McFadgen. He was a native of Argyleshire, Scotland, who came to Canada in boyhood. In 1870 he entered the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad, then just in the process of construction. At the second crossing of the Cheyenne river he left the railroad crew, and at what is now Valley City, set up a tent, and with his partner, Richard McKin- non, opened a boarding house for the railroad hands. As the winter drew on the partners removed to the section house, just built, and continued their busi- ness, At the termination of his labors in this place Mr. McFadgen took up a claim and commenced farming. But few settlers came his way until 1877, when the tide of emigration that swept into North Dakota carried some thither. Mr. McFadgen was very prominent in his county and served as sheriff for many years.

The first settlers in Stutsman county, in the val- ley of the Dakota or James river, were Thomas Col- lins, J. B. Colby, J. F. Turner and Richard Blan- chard. The two latter remained but a short time, but Messrs. Collins and Colby took up claims on the river. This was in November, 1871, and they spent the winter there. The next settler was A. W. Kelly. He came into the territory in July, 1864, with Major Clonney, of the Thirtieth Wisconsin In- fantry, who brought a body of men to build Fort Wadsworth. In the following year he returned to St. Paul. In August, 1867, he located close to Fort Totten, at Devil's lake, where he erected a saw mill. This he operated from September 20, 1867, until the 23rd of the following December. In the spring he went to St. Paul from which he returned in a few months with a herd of cows. With these he started a dairy. In company with B. W. Smith and C. G. Lewis, he had a contract to furnish the government post both hay and cord wood. Indians and half breeds cut the wood, the women and squaws hauled it with ponies and in Red river carts. Mr. Kelley lived at Fort Totten until 1872, when he re- moved to Jamestown. While at the fort, in addition to his other business, he ran a store from 1868 to 1870. In 1872 he removed to what is now Stuts- man county, taking a claim on section 26. The same year he started the first bakery in the new town which had sprung up on the Pipestem river. In November he opened one of the first stores in that part of the country, and continued in mercantile business until 1879. He was prominent in the or-

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ganization of the county, and was chairman of its first board of commissioners.

Shortly after the arrival of Mr. Kelley George W. Vennum and Alexander McKechnie made their appearance in the same neighborhood and took up claims. About the same time that part of the fu- ture state secured accessions in the persons of H. C. Miller, P. Moran, Frank C. Myrick and others.

On the approach of the Northern Pacific Rail- raod to the James river, 1872, there sprang up on the west bank of that stream a tent village. Hill & Macnider are supposed to be the first to enter into mercantile transactions at that point. They after- wards removed to Bismarck. Clark & Bill and A. W. Kelley were also among the merchants. Ven- 11m & McKechnie kept hotel in a large tent. Ir. the autumn of the same year the railroad company established their depot on the east side ot the river and the business and all of the village removed to that side. The failure of Jay Cooke and the sub- sequent embarrassment of the railroad militated against the growth of the town for some years. The first building put up in the city of Jamestown, on its present site, was erected by Miller. J. W. Goodrich was also a settler of 1872 in the rising village.

William H. Mercer, a native of Center county, Pennsylvania, came to the Missouri river, in what is now Burleigh county, in October, 1869, and en- gaged in hunting and trapping. About the same time Joseph H. Taylor, who was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, came to the neighborhood of what was known as the Painted woods, near where the village of that name now stands. He also spent the winter in hunting, fishing and trapping. He had come to the territory in 1865 and had published the Dakota Democrat, at Yankton, for a few months. Some others, among them Joseph Miller and Henry Suttle, were living along the banks of the "Big Muddy" engaged in cutting fire wood to sell to the steamboats that plied those waters. In the spring of 1872, with others who came to this part of the territory, was Joseph Dietrich, who had come into the territory in 1869 and had hunted, fished and trapped through this region. He found a home in what is now Burleigh county, and for a year held down the townsite . of Burleigh City. He was a native of New York, born November 30, 1846, but reared in Wisconsin. He has remarked that of the eleven men who had come into Dakota with him eight had been killed by the Indians. In May, 1872, Samuel Townsend made the first entry of land

in this portion of the state, filing upon a quarter-sec- tion now within the city limits of the city of Bis- marck. H. P. Bogue located on a claim in Bur- leigh county about the same time.

In May, 1872, a party consisting of George W. Sweet, attorney for the Lake Superior & Puget Sound Land Company,, Thomas H. Canfield, one of the directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- pany, General Rosser, chief engineer of that road, William Woods, John J. Jackman and E. H. Bly made a trip from Fargo to the bank of the Missouri river for the purpose of deciding upon the site of a town upon the shores of that stream. To this it was intended to give the name of Edwinton. Mr. Jackman kept close watch and foreseeing the point that would be chosen for the railroad to cross the "Big Muddy," in company with Col. John H. Rich- ards, Major William Woods, George Sandborn and others filed upon the land adjacent to the river. By thus doing they forced the land company back upon sections 3, 4 and 33, upon which the city was originally laid out. Mr. Jackman was a native of Massachusetts who had located at St. Paul the pre- vious year. He was one of the pioneer farmers of Burleigh county and raised the first wheat and oats in that sub-division of the state of North Dakota.

In 1872 it became obvious to the management of the land company that foreign capital must be induced to take hold of the enterprise. As a con- plimentary overture to Germany, the name of this new town site was changed to Bismarck, in honor of Prince Otto Von Bismarck, the German chancellor A map of the road was sent to Germany, and the Prince responded to the high honor paid him, in an autograph letter which is now among the choicest treasures of the company in its archives at New York.

The original settlement of the town was a com- plication of conflicts, from the day Col. Sweet and his party arrived to found the town of Edwinton, until Edmund Hackett was declared mayor of Bis- marck, five years later. Disappointed in his origi- mal intention, which was to locate the town on the river bank, Col. Sweet fell back a mile and secured sections 4 and 33. Then the struggle was renewed. Claims . were filed by the party, headed by Col. Sweet, and counter-claims by the party represented by J. J. Jackman. Outside parties, deeming their rights equal to any yet presented, also settled, and when the time came for proving up, contests were so plenty and the contestants' claims so evenly bal- anced that a compromise was effected upon this

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basis: The town was laid out by J. E. Turner, an engineer in charge of the townsite work of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, and the terri- torial legislature then gave a deed in trust to Ed- mund Hackett, whom it appointed mayor of the newly chartered city of Bismarck. Under this trust deed Mr. Hackett was to apportion the lots among the original settlers in the following amounts : Ed- mund Hackett, $800 in money and two blocks of lots ; J. W. Proctor, two blocks of lots, and each cit- izen who had made any improvement on his lot, the lot occupied by him, upon payment of a nominal val- uation of from Șio to $15. This compromise was fully effected and title given to the land until 1877.

The upbuilding of a western city, almost with- out exception, commences with a canvas tent, which is occupied as a saloon. In this Bismarck started on one higher step-her first building was a tent, but it was occupied as a store.

In May, 1872, W. B. Shaw, of the firm of Shaw & Cathcart, arrived in Bismarck and opened a gen- eral merchandise store in a tent between Third and Fourth streets. They were, however, followed in a day or two by a saloon, which was built by James A. Emmons. Shortly afterward, R. R. Marsh built the Capital hotel. This was quite a pretentious building for that day and age, it being one hundred and forty feet long by twenty-two wide, and two

stories in height. Following these, buildings and tents were rapidly erected, until the little frontier settlement presented a busy aspect. In its early day Bismarck's reputation for morality was below par. Its close proximity to the land of the roving, free-hearted, dare-devil cow-boy made it a popular resort for that class of western citizens, and the usual reign of lawlessness prevailed. Gambling and dissipation led to quarrels that were often set- tled by the bullet. All this in time passed away and the infant city grew, and as it increased in age and size the roughest element went on westward and peace and order became the rule. Thus Bismarck took her place in the ranks of the orderly cities of the state, and to-day is one of the best in the young state.

But whygo on ; after the revival ofbusiness that suffered in that direful crisis of the year 1873, the tide of emigration poured into North Dakota and the country fast filled up. New settlements were formed, new communities founded and new farms and ranches opened. The population of the north- ern part of Dakota rapidly increased, and at the time of the division of the territory and the admission of North Dakota into the ranks of the glorious sister- hood of states that make up our noble country it had a population of over 175,000.

CHAPTER VI. or

THE SIOUX MASSACRE OF 1862.

The terrible uprising of the Dacotah Indians in the summer of 1862, and consequent death of seven or eight hundred defenseless settlers of Minnesota and the Dakotas, furnishes one of the dark spots in our later day history. Reaching from the Iowa line north to the international boundary line, and from the central part of Minnesota west as far as the white settlers could be found, massacre and de- vastation spread. All in the northwest, north of the state of Iowa, were involved. This extended area had a population at that time exceeding fifty thousand, all engaged in laying the foundations of their fortunes and the growth, development and prosperity of their states. The causes which led to this outbreak were complicated, and considerable difference of opinion exists to-day as to what was the real reason of the apparently unprovoked onslaught upon a defenseless people.

To go back to the first cause, it may be said that by the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, July 23, 1851, between the United States and the Sissiton- wans or Sissitons and the Wahpetonwans, $275,- 000 were to be paid their chiefs and the further sum of $30,000 was to be expended for the tribes' benefit in Indian improvements. By the treaty of Mendota, dated August 5, of the same year, the

M'dewakantonwan and the Wahpekutewan Sioux were to receive the sum of $200,000, to be paid to their chiefs and for an improvement fund of $30,- 000. These several sums, amounting in all to $555,000, these Indians claimed was never paid except in some trifling sums expended in improve- ments on the reservation. Thievery was then rife among the Indian agents and political employes of the Indian bureau, and no doubt there was much that was true in these claims of the savages. The Indians grew more and more dissatisfied and freely expressed themselves in council and to the agents. In 1867 the Indian department at Washington sent out Major Kintzing Prichette, a man of large ex- perience and unsullied integrity, to investigate the cause of the ill feeling. In his report, made to the department the same year, the Major says: "The complaint that runs through all their councils points to the imperfect performance or non-fulfillment of treaty stipulations. Whether these are well or ill founded it is not my premise to discuss. That such a belief prevails among them, impairing their con- fidence and good faith in the government, cannot be questioned."

In one of these councils, Jagmani, a chief, said : "The Indians sold their lands at Traverse des

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Sioux. I say what we are told. For fifty years they were to be paid $50,000 each year. We were, also, promised $30,000, and that we have not seen." Another chief said that the treaty of Traverse des Sioux $275,000 were to be paid to them when they came upon their reservation; they desired to know what had become of it. Every white man knows that they have been five years upon their reservation, and yet we have heard nothing of it."

As the fact of this dissatisfaction existed so plainly, the government was forced to appoint Judge Young to investigate the charges that had been brought against Alexander Ramsey, then gov- ernor of the territory of Minnesota, who was then acting, ex-officio, as superintendent of Indian affairs for that locality.

In making a report upon the matter, later, Judge Young makes the following statement :

"The governor is next charged with having paid over the greater part of the money, appro- priated under the fourth article of the treaty of July 23 and August 5, 1851, to one Hugh Tyler, for payment or distribution to the traders and half- breeds, contrary to the wishes and remonstrances of the Indians, and in violation of law and the stipu- lations contained in the treaties ; and also in viola- tion of his own solemn pledges, personally made to them in regard to said payments.

"Of $275,000 stipulated to be paid under the first clause of the fourth article of the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, of July 24, 1851, the sum of $250,000 was delivered over to Hugh Tyler, by the governor, for distribution among the traders and half-breeds, according to the arrangement made by the schedule of the Traders' Paper, dated at Traverse des Sioux, July 23, 1851."

More to the same effect was reported, but the concluding words of the report are significant :

"This (the payment to traders and others not the Indians) has been shown to have been con- trary to the wishes and remonstrances of a large majority of the Indians. It is, also, in violation of the treaty stipulations and the law making the appropriation under them."

These several sums of money were to be paid to these Indians in open council, and soon after they were on their reservation provided for them by the treaties. In these matters the report shows they were not consulted at all, in open council ; but on the contrary, that arbitrary divisions and dis- tributions were made of the entire fund, and their right denied to direct the manner in which they

should be appropriated. The money had evidently disappeared between the government treasury and the Indians. It was also stated in the report that this Hugh Tyler had deducted the large sum of $55,000 as brokerage, and those of the traders and half-breeds who objected were told that they could take what was offered them or they would get nothing. The senate of the United States examined these charges, but, for political reasons, the charges were not sustained. Naturally the Indians were not satisfied with their treatment by the accredited agents of the government, and this rankled in their breasts.

Another cause for irritation among these In- dians grew out of the massacre of 1857 at Spirit Lake, Iowa. Inkpaduta, Scarlet Point, was an out- law of the Wapakuta, who had been driven from his tribe for the murder of one of their number, and led a roving life around the headwaters of the Des Moines river. He had gradually gathered around him a little band as bad as himself, and they were in trouble nearly all the time, cither with red or white men. At that time there was a small settlement at Okiboji, or Spirit Lake, Iowa, and in that vicinity did these desperadoes hang out alle the winter of 1856-7. Inkpaduta was connected with several bands of Ammuty Sioux and similar relations with other bands existed among his fol- lowers, these ties extending even to the Ihank- wannas or Yanktonnais, west of the James, and even to the Missouri river. The settlers became tired of the depredations of the band and finally, finding themselves strong enough, took their arms away from the Indians. Getting other guns, they returned to the settlement at Spirit Lake and mas- sacred nearly all the people thereabouts, number- ing about forty, and carried off as captive four women, two of whom they afterward killed and the other two were rescued after a time through the aid of friendly Indians. The government required that the Sioux deliver up to them for punishment these outlaws, and, to enforce the demands, with- held the annuity. Considerable opposition was manifested, and bad blood over this, so in a sullen fit Little Crow pursued Inkpaduta and his follow- ers with a number of Indians, and in an engage- ment killed three of the band, wounded another and took prisoners two women and a child. They then returned home, saying that they had done enough. The government, although otherwise advised, condoned the matter and paid the annuity due, without insisting upon the surrender of the

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whole band. Thus Inkpaduta escaped the pun- ishment which he richly deserved.

The action of the government in resuming the payment of the annuity after having said they would not until the band of outlaws were delivered up, was construed by the Indians as cowardice, or weak- ness. The result was that the Indians grew more insolent and unmanageable than ever. Their lead- ers here found the capital out of which they could manufacture the tales at council fires and stir up the bad impulses of naturally savage instincts. Little Crow, a prominent chief, was a deeper thinker than his tribesmen. In fact, as one writer phrases it, "He was the Napoleon of his people. For deep cunning and unusual foresight, he takes a front rank among the noted Indian leaders of this country. With the patience of his race, he now laid a deep scheme for the extermination of the entire white race west of the Mississippi."

Major Galbraith, Sioux agent at the time, says, after enumerating various causes that helped to swell the enmity in the bosom of the savages, "that they (the Indians) knew that the government was at war, and seeing the illustrated papers at all the posts and trading places, could see that the tide of battle was setting against the 'Great Father.'"

The Major further adds :

"Grievances such as have been related, and numberless others akin to them, were spoken of, recited and chanted at their councils, dances and feasts, to such an extent that, in their excitement, in June, 1862, a secret organization known as the 'Soldiers' Lodge,' was founded by the young braves of the Lower Sioux, with the object, as far as I was able to learn through spies and informers, of preventing the traders from going to the pay-table, as had been their custom. Since the outbreak I have become satisfied that the real object of this lodge was to adopt measures to clean out all the white people at the end of the payment."

In this Soldiers' Lodge, then at the Yellow Medicine agency, near Mankato, Minnesota, in the brain of a savage, was concocted a scheme for the utter extermination of the intruding race, that for diplomacy, forecast and judgment were worthy of a Napoleon or Toussaint L'Overture. He felt that only acting as a whole could the Indians accom- plish all they wished, and holding back his own particular followers, without allowing their zeal to cool, Little Crow made overtures to the surround- ing bands of Sioux even "as far north as Leech lake, and it is believed made efforts to enlist in his

scheme the hereditary enemies of the Sioux, the Chippewas." "Let us wait," he said, "until the white men have gathered in all their crops and have laid in their winter stores, then we will kill them all and have their property." Since the con- federacy, presided over by Tecumseh and the Prophet, never has there been so well laid a plot against the white people. And all the time the settlers, with their eyes closed to the danger, never dreamed of the devilish scheme of this red skingen- eral and diplomat. The plot was for a simultane- ous rising of the Indians upon a given signal, and was to result in a total wiping out of the set- tlers, and, but for the impatience and hasty action of a few irresponsible braves, the loss of life would have been thousands instead of hundreds.

One lovely Sunday, August 17, 1862, four In- dians from the Yellow Medicine agency, who had been on the trail of a Chippewa, the murderer of one of their tribe, after an unsuccessful pursuit, reached, on their return, the cabin of a man by the name of Robinson Jones, in the Big Woods of Min- nesota, in what is now the town of Acton, Meeker county. This man was a sort of trader in a small way, and is supposed to have carried on an illicit trade in liquors with the Indians. His family consisted of himself, wife, an adopted child and a young girl. The Indians sauntered up to the cabin and, after some palaver, demanded drink, which they obtained. They demanded more, which they, it is supposed, were, for some reason, refused, and finally went away into the leafy shades of the forest that surrounded the place. Jones and his wife shortly after left for the house of Mrs. Jones' son by a former marriage, Howard Baker, who lived about half a mile distant. At Baker's cabin they found one Viranus Webster and his wife. These young people were journeying further west in search of a home, and had stopped to rest. Claiming hospitality of the young Mr. Baker, it was accorded with free will, and the two families fraternized in the true spirit of the western pio- neer. Shortly after Jones and his wife arrived there, the men folks, who were sitting around out- side the house, saw three Indians, gun in hand, approach. On their coming up to the little group of white men the usual salutations took place. After a little time the proposition was made that they all shoot at a mark, and the guns of the party were brought out. The victory in this case, as is nearly always the case when marksmanship be- tween whites and redskins is a question, was with

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the settlers. This seemed to nettle the Indians. Propositions to trade guns between a red and white man now ensued. In the meantime the Indians loaded their guns while the white men stood around with empty weapons. Suddenly, without warning, one of the Indians raised his gun and fired at Jones, mortally wounding him. Webster was killed by another. Mrs. Howard Baker, hearing the firing, came to the door with her infant in her arms, and upon her appearance one of the savages raised his gun to shoot her, but her husband, with the chivalry of a knight of old, threw himself in front of the rifle, and, receiving the discharge, fell dead. The women retreated into the house. The young wife, inadvertently, stepped into an opening and fell into the cellar and thus saved her life. Mrs. Jones was also shot by one of the red fiends. These latter soon left the vicinity to spread the news, stopping on their way at the Jones cabin and killing the girl left there. They shortly after stole a team of horses and wagon and made their way south.

When the news reached the red skins at the agency, which it did long before the whites had an inkling of it, it created a sensation. The gauntlet had been thrown, war had been declared, and they must go forward or give up their plans. The Sol- diers' Lodge was at once convened. The war spirit of the younger members was for an immediate rising. In vain Little Crow and his friends, the elders of the tribes, plead for delay, urging the want of time to perfect their plans, and to send the token of war to the other tribes. No, war and at once was the wish of the majority, and war it was. At early dawn the meeting broke up and the mas- sacre of the whites began. At the agency blood was shed and all the red fiends started off on the warpath to slay the whites.

The story of the massacre has been written time and time again and by abler hands, and need not be here retold, except as to its connection with the annals of what is now the promising state of North Dakota. Fortunately, the tide of emigration had not reached this part of the country to any great extent, and hence the loss of life among the set- tlers was not very great.

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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 12

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