Compendium history and biography of North Dakota; a history of early settlement, political history, and biography; reminiscences of pioneer life, Part 4

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

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Building stone of various kinds are found in the Turtle Mountain district, and boulders, remnants of the glacial period, are plentifully scattered over North Dakota.

The commissioner of immigration in 1887, says in his official report for that year:

"The discovery of valuable minerals has been announced from the Turtle Mountains, but coal, iron and oil are known to exist in quantities. A geological survey of the state would no doubt re- veal wealth of which we now have no knowledge.

"Clays for brick making, pottery, etc., abound. At Dickinson, Stark county, an excellent cream- colored brick is made." The brick used in the state capitol at Bismarck is a native product, made from Dakota clay.

Natural gas in considerable quantities has been discovered at various places throughout both the Dakotas. The commissioner of immigration, in his compilation for 1887, says of this subject :

"Within the past year natural gas was found while sinking an artesian well at Jamestown, Stuts- man county. The flow was sufficiently strong to force the gas through 1,300 feet of pipe filled with water to the surface of the ground, where, when lighted, it burned brightly with a flame over a foot in height. This seems to settle the question of the existence of a strong veni of natural gas underlying the James river valley. A syndicate of the most influential and wealthy citizens of Jamestown have organized a stock company with the determination of prosecuting the work of developing natural gas to a profitable end.

"In sinking wells in the oil fields to the west of the Black Hills a considerable flow of natural gas has always been encountered, though no attempt at a systematic investigation has ever been made.

"It would seem then that there is no founda- tion for reasonable doubt of the existence of large bodies of natural gas underlying the Missouri, James and Red river valleys."

The following conclusions by leading scientists

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as to where natural gas is liable to be found, are of interest. Professor Leslie, of Pennsylvania, says :

"Where the rock formations lie approximately horizontal and have remained nearly undisturbed over extensive areas, there is always a chance of finding gas (if not oil) at some depth beneath the surface, determined by the particular formation which appears at the surface. And, wherever rock oil has been found, there and in the surrounding region rock gas is sure to exist."

Professor Orton, state geologist of Ohio, in an elaborate report upon petroleum and inflammable gas, says that there is nothing to establish a ruls that natural burning gas can be found only in the neigh- borhood of deposits of petroleum, and he cites the wells of Indiana, located entirely without the oil belt. Professor Orton lays down a rule of three con- tions needful to the formation of a natural reser- voir containing gas, viz .: A range of highly porous rock, through which the gas traverses, as through pipes; a large fissure into which it flows, and a cap, or lid of impervious rock or clay, which will prevent its escape from the reservoir. The Trenton, Berean and Magnesian limestone forma- tions have furnished the first two conditions in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Other rocks may furnishı it for other regions. The cap, or lid, is sometimes of shale, sometimes of dense, impervi- ous limestone. The professor disproves the theory that natural gas is the product of the natural dis- tillation of petroleum, but insists that the forces which make natural gas are at work universally, and therefore natural gas can be found almost everywhere."

So far the discoveries of natural gas in the state have been purely the result of accident, dig- ging wells for water being the principal means, except for an experiment at Fargo, where a sys- tematic effort to that end was made.

Surface indications of mica are found along the streams and in the hills very generally through- out the state, although the quality and quantity of the hidden deposits remain practically undemon- strated.

SOIL.

The soil of North Dakota presents considera- ble diversity, although generally of a high degree

of fertility. In the famous Red river valley, claimed to be the garden spot of the north, it is a black alluvial mould. The valley, a broad, level plain from fifty to sixty miles wide, high enough above the river to prevent overflow, is still bottom land as far as the deposit of the soil is concerned. It is understood that it was anciently the bed of lake, and connected with Lake Winnipeg, and probably Hudson's bay. This richest of soil pro- duces the celebrated "No. I hard" wheat and the valley is evidently a farmer's paradise. In tlie bal- ance of the state the soil is the ordinary black prairie mould, full of organic matter, produced by the decay of vegetable material for centuries and exposure to the elements since the inception of the post-Tertiary period. This varies in composition, thickness and value in various localities, but in nearly, if not quite all, most fertile and most abundant. Its thickness above the sub-soil varies from two feet to twenty.

RAILROADS.

North Dakota for a new country is well sup- plied with means of transportation. The North- ern. Pacific Railroad spans it from east to west, touching such points as Fargo, Jamestown, Bis- marck and many others. The Great Northern, for- merly, the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, also crosses the state from east to west, crossing the Red river of the North at Grand Forks, passing Devil's Lake and through many prominent cities and villages in the northern part of the state. This railroad has several branches, northerly and southerly from the main trunks, tapping the more thickly settled portions of the state. The Northern Pacific Railroad also has a number of lateral branches. The Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste Marie railroad crosses the state of North Da- kota diagonally from southeast to northwest, the northernmost station being Portal, close to the in- ternational boundary line. It, also, has a branch in the southeastern part of the state. Tlie Chicago & Northwestern Railroad has a short amount of trackage, also, within the state. A full detail of these various roads with their history is included in this work under the head of railroads, to which the reader is referred.

CHAPTER II.

DISCOVERY AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE PROVINCE OF LOUISIANA; EARLY EXPLORERS; PURCHASE BY THE UNITED STATES; DIVISION INTO STATES AND TERRITORIES; BIRTH OF DAKOTA.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century the ter- ritory now embraced in the state of North Dakota formed a part of the province of Louisiana, then be- longing to Spain. At the close of the Revolution- ary war the United States was bounded on the west by the Mississippi river from its course south to the thirty-first parallel of north latitude. This lat- ter formed the boundary between the States and the Spanish provinces of Florida. It is related that in 1542, Ferdinand De Soto, with a band of Spanish adventurers, under commission from the king of his native land, discovered the Mississippi at the mouth of the Ouachita river. After the sudden death of their leader, in May of that year, his fol- lowers, after burying his body in the river, built a small vessel, and in July, 1543, descended the Mis- sissippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the mouth of this mighty river was discovered one hundred and thirty years prior to the discovery of its upper valley by the French missionary priests.

By virtue of this and the conquest of Florida, Spain claimed the country bordering on the Mis- sissippi and the Gulf of Mexico but made no at- tempt to colonize it permanently. At that time it was understood by the various European states

that the discovery and occupation of any part of the New World made a title to the country. Al- though thus taken possession of by Spain, the fail- ure of that power to consummate its discovery by planting colonies or settlements, made their title void, and the country was left to be re-discovered and taken possession of by other powers.

Early in the seventeenth century the religious zeal of the French missionary priests led them to penetrate from Quebec, the vast forests and plains of the west and southwest of the French possessions in North America. Along the river of St. Law- rence, through the chain of Great Lakes to the Mississippi pushed their way, establishing mis- sions and endeavoring to win the Indians to the true faith. This movement began in 1611 when Father La Caron, a Franciscan friar, the friend and companion of Champlain, the father of the French settlements in Canada, made a journey to the rivers of Lake Huron on foot and by pad- dling a birch bark canoe. In 1632, on the estab- lishment of the government of New France, un- der the charter of Louis XIII and his great prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu, the work of converting the heathen Indians passed from the Order of St.

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Francis to that of Loyola, the famed Jesuits. Burning with pious zeal and animated with a spirit of self-sacrifice rarely, if ever, paralleled in the history of missionary work, these latter, simple priests, penetrated the wilds of the Canadian fron- tier and through toil and pain, often to martyrdom, carried the cross to the remote tribes of the Mis- sissippi and its tributaries. Bancroft the histor- ian says: "The history of their labors is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in the an- nals of French America ;not a cape was turned, nor a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way."

In 1634, the Jesuits, Brebeuf and Daniels, fol- lowed by Lallemand, made a journey into the far west. Joining a party of Huron Indians who had been in Quebec and who were returning to their homes, they pushed their way enduring without complaint untold fatigues and sufferings, by lake, river and forests. They penetrated to the heart of the Huron wilderness. Near the shores of Lake Iro- quois, was raised the first house of the Society of Jesus in all that region and soon two villages named St. Louis and St. Ignatius sprang up amid the forests that were the homes of the savage, The mission of Brebeuf gave to the world its first knowledge of the water courses of the St. Law- rence valley. From a map published in France in 1660, it is shown that these pious priests had explored the country from the waters of the Niag- ara to the head of Lake Superior, and had heard or seen the shores of Lake Michigan.

As early as 1635, Jean Nicolet, who had been one of Champlain's interpreters, and who had come to Canada from his native France in 1618, reached the western shores of Lake Michigan. In the sum- mer of 1634 he ascended the St. Lawrence with a party of Hurons and during the following winter traded with the Indians at what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 1635 he returned to Canada. He was married at Quebec, October 7, 1637, and lived at Three Rivers until 1642, when he died. Of him it is said in a letter written in 1640, that he had penetrated the farthest into these distant countries, and if he had proceeded "three days more on a great river which flows from that lake (Green Bay) he would have found the sea," for such was a common belief in those days.

The hostility of the Iroquois or Five Nations, a fierce and bloodthirsty confederation of savages, prevented the journey of Raymbault and Picard to the west in 1640, but the following year, at the Great Feast of the Dead, held by the Algonquins,

at Lake Nipising, the Jesuits were invited to visit the land of the Ojibway or Chippewa Indians at what is now Sault Sainte Marie. Accordingly Sep- tember 17, 1641, Fathers Raymbault and Jogues left the Bay of Penetanguishene in a bark canoe for the rendezvous, where, after a passage of sev- teen days, they met two thousand Indians who had assembled to meet them.

At this meeting the worthy fathers learned of many as yet unheard-of savage tribes and nations. This was the first mention of the Dakotahs, called in the Ojibway tongue Nadouechiouec, or Nadou- essioux. The latter name, abbreviated by the French, forms the present name of these fierce no- mads of the north, Sioux. Thus it is truly said that "the French were looking toward the homes of the Sioux, in the Great Valley of the Mississippi, five years before the New England Eliot had addressed the tribes of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston Harbor. In the ardor of his enthusiasm for discovery Raymbault expected to reach the Pa- cific Ocean, then supposed to be but a few hundred miles west of the Mississippi. However he was laid low by the hand of death, his sickness being brought on by hardships, dying in 1642.

In August, 1654, two fur traders joined a band of Ottawas and ventured upon a long voyage into the far west. In two years they returned with some fifty canoes and two hundred and fifty natives. They described the vast lakes and rivers of the west and the tribes whose homes stretched away to the northern sea, and spoke of the Sioux who dwelt beyond Lake Superior, and who wanted to trade with the white people. About this time two French adventurers made trips through the north- western wilderness. These were Medard Chouart known as Sieur Grosseliers and Pierre D' Esprit, called Sieur Radisson. These two arrived at Chagoumikon, on the bay of the same name, in Wisconsin, not far from where the city of Bayfield now stands. From there they journeyed north and west and passed and passed the winter of 1659-60 among the Dakotahs.

In 1660, the superior of the Jesuits at Quebec, learning of the many savage tribes to the west of the mission, and burning with zeal for the ad- vancement of the cause of Christ and the conver- sion of the heathen, sent Father Rene Menard, as an apostle among the red men. "His hair whitened by age, his mind ripened by long experience, and acquainted with the peculiarities of the Indian character, he seemed the man for the mission."

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

The night previous to his departure sleep deserted the eyes of the venerable priest. He knew that he was going into the land of a savage, ruthless bar- barian, and he thought of his friends. Two hours past midnight, during his lonesome vigil, he penned a letter, the pious simplicity of which embalms it in the hearts of all. Early in the morning of the 28th of August, 1660, he, in company with a half a dozen other white men, departed from Three Rivers. October 15th he arrived at a bay on Lake Superior, to which he gave the name of Ste. Ther- esa, its discovery occurring on her fete day. They remained here all winter, hard pressed for want of food, being driven to all sorts of shifts to avoid starvation. At last, having received an invitation to visit them from the Hurons and Ottawas, Father Menard started for their villages, at the Isle of St. Michael. In some way he wandered from his guide, and perished in some unknown manner. Relics of him were found in Sac and Sioux villages many years afterwards but no tale of how he died or where came to the waiting ears of his friends.

In the summer of 1663, the mournful news of the death of Father Menard reached Quebec. His successor was soon found, for the impassive obed- ience of the Order of Loyola brooked no opposi- tion to the command of a superior. Father Claude Allouez was chosen to carry the cross to these heathens and to follow in the footsteps of Father Menard. Impatiently waiting for the chance to pro- ceed to hiswork, he was unable to find conveyance until the summer of 1665 when, in company with six of his own race and color and four hundred sav- ages, he started. He built a mission at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, where he taught the simple na- tives his religion, and took up his work among them. While here he was the first to hear the name of a mighty river, the rival of the St. Law- rence, that flowed to the west of his station to which the Indians gave the name of Messipi.

September 13, 1669, Father Allouez having grown discouraged and gone to pastures new, the renowned Father Marquette arrived at La Pointe to take his place.

The purpose of discovering the Mississippi, about which the nations of Indians had told so much, seemed to have originated with Father Mar- quette in the same year of his reaching the mission of the Holy Ghost, at La Pointe. The year pre- vious, he and Father Claude Dablon had estab- lished the Mission of St. Mary's within what is

now Michigan. Circumstances about this time were favorable to a voyage of discovery among the In- tion. The protection afforded to the Algonquins or the west by the commerce with New France as Canada was then called, which had grown up, had confirmed their attachment, and created a po- litical interest which extended to France and to Colbert, the able financier of Louis XIV, and that monarch himself. The Intendent, Talon, deter- mined to extend the power of France to the utmost borders of Canada, and for this purpose Nicholas Perrot was dispatched to the west as an emissary. The latter proposed a congress or convention of Indian nations at St. Mary's Mission, and the in- vitation to attend extended to all both far and near. Perrot arrived and in May, 1671, there assembled at the falls of St. Mary, a great gathering of In- dians from all parts of the northwest. From the head waters of the St. Lawrence and the Missis- sippi, from the great lakes and the prairies beyond, and from the valley of the Red river of the North, they came, and it was announced that there should be peace, and that they were all under the protec- tion of France.

In the same year Pere, or Father Marquette, gathered the remains. of one branch of the Hurons at Point St. Ignace, which establishment was long considered the key to the West. The countries south of this had been explored by Fathers Allouez and Dablon, who had borne the cross through west- ern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, visiting all the tribes of those localities.

The grand enterprise of the discovering of the Mississippi river was now on hand. May 13, 1673, Marquette and Joliet with five Frenchmen from Canada, set out from the mission on their daring and adventurous enterprise of exploring the coun- try and finding out about the strange people of the unknown West. The Indians gathered to witness their departure, and, astonished at their temerity, attempt- ed to dissuade them from attempting it. They al- leged that the Indians of the Mississippi were a savage and cruel race, and that the river was the abode of all sorts of monsters and demons that were sure to destroy any one who dared to move upon the waters. Of course these tales did not terrify Mar- quette or Joliet, and these bold spirits, one led on by religious zeal, the other by pure spirit of adventure, parted from their friends and started on their trip.

By the way of Green Bay they entered the Fox river which they ascended till they came to a village of the Miamis and Kickapoos, the extreme point

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

to which the explorations of the French had, as yet, extended. Here Marquette was delighted to find "a beautiful cross planted in the middle of the town, ornamented with white skins, red girdles, and bows and arrows, which those good people had offered to the Great Manitou, or God, to thank hin for the pity he had bestowed on them during the winter, in having given them an abundant chase."

On assembling the chiefs and medicine men of the village, Marquette made them a speech telling them that Joliet had been sent by the Governor of Canada to discover new countries, and himself by God to spread the light of the Gospel. He added that he feared not death or exposure to which he expected to be called on to endure. From here, under the guidance of two Miami Indians, the ex- pedition departed to cross the portage that separated the Fox and the Wisconsin rivers. On reaching the latter stream the guides left them and they pushed their way down the rapid waters of the Wisconsin to its mouth, reaching the Mississippi early in June, 1673. They sailed down the river until they reached the mouth of the Illinois. Up this latter stream they paddled their way through a virgin land, encountering many privations. In time they reached the forks of the Kankakee and Desplaines, and fol- lowing the latter reached the Chicago river and Lake Michigan.

The rediscovery of the lower Mississippi re- mained for the gallant, daring and indefatigable LaSalle, to whose labors, privations and enterprise the French settlements in the Mississippi valley were so largely indebted. LaSalle was a poor man, for having relinquished his patrimony on entering the Society of Jesus, on his honorable retirement from that order had nothing. In 1667, having in the meantime crossed the seas to the New World in search of fortune, he appeared as a fur-trader, near what is now the city of Montreal. His business led him to explore both Lakes Ontario and Erie. Full of enthusiasm for discovery and the colonization of the west, he returned to his native land in search of help and authority. He received the title of Chevalier, and considerable grants of land in Can- ada. He returned in 1678 and the same year con- veyed a party from Fort Frontenac (now King- ston, Canada), to the neighborhood of Niagara Falls, in a vessel of ten tons. This was the first craft that ever sailed up the Niagara river. In 1679 he launched a vessel of some seventy tons burden. On the 7th of August, amid salvos of artillery, the chants of a Te Deum, and the plaudits of the people

and Indians, he sailed from the little harbor. He passed through Lake Erie and through the Detroit river into Lake Huron. Onward through the straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan his little vessel ploughed its way, being the first sail craft on its blue waters. Coasting down its western coast, LaSalle, in his vessel Griffin, came to anchor at Green Bay. He had named his little ship in honor of the coat of arms of his patron, Frontenac, Governor of Canada. It was LaSalle's intention to utilize his vessel in a regular commerce with the Indians, but he was doomed to disappointment. Having loaded the Griffin with furs and peltries he ordered her crew to return with her to the Niagara river. He journeyed down to the head of Lake Michigan, and passing up the St. Joseph river, discovered a portage over swamps and logs to the Kankakee. He followed the latter river to the Illi- nois, and the last named stream as far as where Peoria now stands. Misfortunes now accumulated on the head of LaSalle. His vessel was wrecked on its voyage down the lakes and its stores of furs and pelts totally lost, and the expected stores, upon which he had depended to found and keep his col- ony did not come. The men that were with him grew discontented and almost deserted him. Like a man, and a brave and energetic one, he went to work to carry out the object which he had come so far to do. He built a fort just below Lake Peo- ria, to which he gave the appropriate name of Crevecœur, Broken Heart. He sent Father Hen- nepin on his well known voyage up the Mississippi, an expedition upon which the father was' the first European to gaze upon the upper river and the falls of St. Anthony. LaSalle set his men to work to build a barge or boat in which to descend the river, but as sails and cordage were necessary he determined to make the journey back to Canada on foot, in the depth of winter, and with no food or drink except what the chase or the creeks and streams could supply. Accordingly, leaving all his companions, except three, he started on this almost unparalleled journey. He accomplished his mis- sion, but on returning to the fort which he had built, he found Tonti, whom he had left in com- mand, and who he had ordered to build a new fort on the bluff, had, on being assaulted by a band of Indians, fled to a village of the Pottawattomies on Lake Michigan. After wasting some time in a fruitless search for his men, LaSalle finally started on his long voyage down the Illinois and the Missis- sippi to the Gulf of Mexico. April 9, 1682, he took

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

possession of the whole country watered by the great river from its source to its mouth, in the name of the King of France, Louis XIV.

Thus was the Mississippi, in its lower course, re- discovered and taken possession of as French terri- tory. LaSalle called the vast empire which he had thus added to the French colony, Louisiana, in honor of the King, and the great river Colbert, after the minister of finance of his native land, at that time one of the foremost men of Europe. He erected a column and a cross near the mouth of the river bearing a leaden plate with the inscription :

"Louis the Great, King of France and Navarre, Reigning April 9, 1682."

He found the three channels of the delta whereby the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and in May, 1683, returned to France to make re- port of his discovery. In 1685 he came once more from the latter country with a fleet and emigrants to colonize the country he had just discovered. Owing to the flat, level country, where land mingled with the water in marsh and swamp that spread for so many miles along the north coast of the Gulf, he was unable to find the mouth of the river. After beating about for some time in the search, he was finally abandoned by Beaujeau, who commanded a part of the fleet, who returned to France. With his store ship and two hundred and thirty emigrants LaSalle was driven ashore and wrecked in Mata- gorda bay, in what is now the state of Texas. La- Salle hastily constructed a fort of the scattered timbers of the vessel, and formed a colony to which he gave the name of St. Louis. This settlement, made as by an accident, made Texas a part of Louisiana.

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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 4

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