USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 26
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At the doorway of his wigwam Sat the ancient arrow-maker, In the land of the Dakotas, Making arrowheads of jasper, Arrowheads of chalcedony, At his side, in her beauty,
Sat the lovely Minnehaha, Sat his daughter, Laughing Water.
-Henry W. Longfellow.
IN THE LAND OF THE DAKOTAS
Beginning with the treaties of 1825 by the Indians on the upper Missouri River and the establishment of the organized fur trade on that stream and its tributaries, events rapidly followed, tending to confirm the Indian fears that their hunting grounds would soon be taken from them, and to stir them to fierce resistance. The Dakotas were contemplating encroachments on their weaker western neighbors, when they beheld a wave of white settlement coming from the West as well as from the South and East, crowding toward the very heart of the Sioux country.
In 1832 Fort Pierre had become the head of the fur trade on the upper Missouri, and steamboats had begun making regular trips to that point and beyond.
In 1838 Jean Nicholas Nicollet, assisted by Second Lieut. John Charles Fremont of the United States Topographical Engineers, appointed for that purpose by President Martin Van Buren, came to Fort Pierre on the steamer Vol. 1-14
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Antelope for exploration. Leaving the Missouri River at the mouth of the James, or Dakota River, they extended their explorations to the Devils Lake region, returning East via St. Paul.
It was while in Washington preparing his report that Lieutenant Fremont made the acquaintance of his future wife, Jessie Benton, daughter of Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, which ripened into affection and resulted in an elopement, and an assignment of Fremont for exploration in Iowa, followed by pathfinding in the Rocky Mountains in 1842-44. Fremont came to be known as the Great Pathfinder, and, in 1856, was the first republican candidate for President of the United States, and later a distinguished major general in the Civil war. It will be noticed that the foundation of his fame and that of his love for the beautiful daughter of Senator Benton were laid in the land of the Dakotas-the land of the arrow-maker's daughter, Minnehaha.
Overland immigration to Oregon commenced in 1841. In 1847 Utah was occupied by the Mormons, and for the protection of immigrants and others passing over the country, and of the frontier settlements, military posts, as they had been projected, were established, followed by the creation of new territories and the admission of new states. In February, 1848, gold was discovered in a mill-race at Coloma, Cal., by James W. Marshall, a native of New Jersey; who had just finished building a sawmill, by Indian labor, for Col. John A. Sutter, a Swiss, who resided at a fort near Sacramento. The gold was in the form of a long, irregular pumpkin seed and was tested at Monterey. The first few months Marshall employed about one hundred Indians from Monterey to wash out gold at Webber Creek, six miles from Coloma. There were then only three white men in that region, but the discovery of gold turned the tide of immigra- tion in that direction.
Fort Kearney was built in 1848, and the trading post on the north fork of the Platte known as Fort Kearney was purchased in 1849 and converted into a military post, bearing the name of Fort Laramie.
THE OLD HAND-PRESS
As early as 1843 a printing outfit was brought to Lancaster, Grant County, Wis., for the first weekly paper of that lead-mining region. It was subse- quently owned by James M. Goodhue, a talented and progressive editor, who, being ambitious for a larger field, closed his office and removed to St. Paul in the autumn of 1848. On the same steamer with him was a young man from the same village, named John B. Callis, who helped Goodhue unload his freight upon the river bank at the Village of St. Paul.
Fifty-eight years later, September 6, 1906, Gen. John B. Callis, the noted colonel of the Seventh Wisconsin Infantry of the Iron Brigade, rested on his crutches in the splendid office of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press during the Grand Army encampment for that year, and narrated to reporters how he had brought the first font of type and the first press into the town, with "Jim" Goodhue, famous in its development.
It is not well known how many poor pioneer printers of the Northwest had inherited that little machine, to print "final proof" sheets in far-away frontier townsites. It met its fate at Sioux Falls and was buried and forgotten among
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the scrap-iron. Later still it became known to Senator Richard F. Pettigrew that at the back door of a humble house of his home city was the platen of the much-traveled old press, serving in the useful capacity of a door-step. The senator bought it and gave it an honorable place among historic relics of the Northwest territories in the State Historical Society.
THE FIRST DAKOTA PRINTING PRESS
The first printing press in Dakota was purchased at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1848, and was the gift of Oberlin College students to Rev. Alonzo Barnard, a Presbyterian missionary, about to be stationed at St. Joseph, now Walhalla, N. D. It was brought up the Mississippi in the summer of 1849, from Cass Lake in canoes down the Red Lake and Red River to Pembina, and from there trans- ferred to St. Joseph, in a Red River cart, and thence to Fort Garry, now Winnipeg, where it was used by Dr. Schultz in printing the Northwester, the first newspaper published on the Red River.
THE FIRST DAKOTA NEWSPAPER
July 2, 1859, Samuel J. Albright established the Dakota Democrat at Sioux Falls City, the first newspaper published within the limits of Dakota Territory. Mr. Albright had been connected with the Free Press at St. Paul. At the date of the issue of the Sioux Falls Democrat there were less than two score of people at Sioux Falls City. The publication was suspended in March, 1860, during the absence of Mr. Albright, until December, 1860, when it was revived as the Western Independent, and was published occasionally thereafter until March, 1861, by J. W. Stewart. According to the record given above, Mr. Albright's was not the first printing press in Dakota. The Dakota Republican, the first permanent newspaper in Dakota, was established by J. Elwood Clark and James Bedell September 6, 1861.
THE TREATY OF 1851
Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. The plains west of the Missouri River were occupied by Indian Tribes claiming them under undefined hereditary rights, or by the power of might. The Laramie treaty of 1851 defined the boundaries of their several claims. The Mendota treaties of 1851 ceded Indian lands lying on and extending to the western boundary of Minnesota Territory. These treaties were made without the consent of the masses of the tribes and were not accepted by them. There were bad hearts and hot blood among the Indians.
Fort Riley in Kansas and Fort Ridgeley in Minnesota, the main reliance of the settlers of Dakota in 1862, as related in Chapter XIII, were built in 1852.
THE MASSACRE OF LIEUTENANT GRATTAN AND HIS MEN
In June, 1853, two young Indians fired their guns into the air, in the vicinity of a frontier military post, contrary to military regulations, lest alarm be created
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among passing immigrants or others having a right to be in the Indian country limit. Henry B. Flemming, then stationed at Fort Laramie, was sent to the Indian village with a detail of soldiers and demanded the surrender of the two young men. The Indians failing to comply with his demand, he ordered his men to fire on the Indians, killing three and wounding several others, and seized two young braves whom he carried away for punishment. Indian depredations followed as a natural result.
August 19, 1854, Lieutenant John L. Grattan of the Sixth United States Infantry, who was placed in command of a detail of seventeen men, which he had increased by unauthorized volunteers to thirty-one, went to the Indian village of Singing Bear, and demanded the surrender of the Indians who had committed. this alleged depredation. There were upwards of a thousand Indians in the camp awaiting the payment of their annuities and preparing for their autumn hunt. Singing Bear, who was friendly to the whites, asked for time, which was denied, and Lieutenant Grattan ordered his men to fire. Singing Bear fell mortally wounded, and though he pleaded with his men not to retaliate, in less than five minutes Lieutenant Grattan and his thirty-one men lay dead, sacrificed to the fury of the Indians led by Little Thunder, father of Spotted Tail, who succeeded Sing- ing Bear in command of the camp. Their vengeance fell like a bolt from heaven- not a man from the command of the indiscreet young officer escaped.
The Indians then formed into small bands, and many immigrants and others suffered the loss of life or property as the result of Lieutenant Grattan's rash act.
TIIE VERMILION SETTLEMENT
Nebraska Territory was organized in 1854. At Vermilion, S. D., on the border of Nebraska, Robert Dickson, and subsequently the American Fur Com- pany, established trading posts, as related in Chapter XI, and Capt. Henry Vanderburg of the Leavenworth Punitive Expedition of 1823, settled there in 1855. Alexander C. Young, who came to Fort Pierre in 1834, retired from the fur trade and settled on a ranch near Vermilion at the same time, and Henry Kennerly in 1859. In this year a Norwegian colony located here, among them Ole Olson, Henry Severson and Syvert H. Myron, and James McHenry erected a store building, the first permanent improvement in the village. George Brown, Parker N. Brown, Marcellus Lathrop, Miner Robinson, Ole Bottolfson and about a dozen other settlers came that year. Mrs. Lathrop and Mrs. George Brown were the first white women to settle in Clay County. Hon. Andrew J. Harlan and a number of others came in 1861.
Notable events in the history of the territory were the first wedding ceremony, which took place at Vermilion in 1860, when Jacob Deuel-for whom Deuel County, South Dakota, was named-and Miss Robinson were married; the first Methodist service, 1860, conducted by the Rev. S. F. Ingham, who reached that village October 13, 1860; the Presbyterian Church, built in 1861, claimed to have been the first church edifice erected in South Dakota, known as Father Martin's Church, Rev. Charles D. Martin, pastor, where was held the first religious meeting and where was installed the first church bell aside from the one by Father Belcourt at St. Joseph ; the first term of court in Dakota, Judge Lorenzo P. Williston presiding, convened at Vermilion the first Monday in August, 1861.
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HARNEY'S EXPEDITION
Growing out of the Grattan massacre, the Harney expedition was authorized March 23, 1855, and sent to punish the Indians. Four companies of the Second United States Infantry, then stationed at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and two stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., were ordered to proceed to Fort Pierre and establish a military post at that point. The expedition was to consist of about a thousand officers and men, some being then stationed at Forts Laramie and Kearney, Neb., and others to be assembled at points designated.
For the transportation of troops, equipment and supplies the Government purchased the steamers "William Baird" and "Grey Cloud" and chartered others. Supply depots were established at Forts Laramie, Kearney and Pierre.
FORT PIERRE AS A MILITARY POST
The purchase and occupation of Fort Pierre as a military post in 1855 was really the beginning of the occupation of the Dakotas for other than trading purposes, excepting an occasional settler identified with the Indians in some manner.
For the supply depot at Fort Pierre, Quartermaster General Thomas S. Jessup negotiated for the purchase of the trading post at that point, through Honore Picotte, representing Pierre Choteau, Jr., & Company, on behalf of the American Fur Company, the delivery being made by Maj. Charles E. Galpin on behalf of said company. The purchase price was $45,000. The contract called for delivery June 1, 1855, and with such delivery Fort Pierre ceased to be a trading post and became a military establishment.
The buildings at Fort Pierre numbered twenty, within a stockade inclosing about two acres. They included a store building, a 100 by 24-foot warehouse, quarters for the employes, sawmill, shops for the blacksmith, carpenter and saddler, stables and powder-house, the latter of concrete and the others of logs.
July 7, 1855, the Arabia arrived with Company G, Second United States Infantry, numbering 100 officers and men. The Grey Cloud followed with Company A, eighty-two men, and the William Baird with Company I, fifty-four men, under command of Capt. Henry W. Wessels. Maj. R. Montgomery, the regimental commander, and the first commander of the post, arrived the next week with Paymaster Maj. Augustus W. Gaines, Capt. Parmea T. Turnley, Assistant Quartermaster Capt. Marcus D. Simpson, Assistant Commissary of Subsistence Capt. Thomas C. Madison, assistant surgeon, and Lieutenant Gouv- erneur K. Warren of the Topographical Engineers. August 2d, Capt. Nathaniel Lyon arrived on the Clara with thirty-seven men of Company C and thirty-five of Company B. Capt. William M. Gardner arrived on the Genoa August 19th with eighty-two officers and men. Captain Lyon, six years later a distinguished brigadier-general in the Civil war, was killed at Wilson Creek August 10, 1861, and Lieutenant Warren became a major general of distinction in the same war.
Captains Charles S. Lovell and Alfred Sully, with Companies A and F, marched overland from Fort Ridgeley, Minn. Captain Sully, in 1861, was colonel of the First Minnesota, and afterwards brigadier general in command of the Sully expedition of 1863-64, which fought several battles on Dakota soil. Fort Sully was named for him.
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THE BATTLE OF BLUE WATER OR ASH HOLLOW
Being ready for the campaign, the expedition marched into the Sioux country. September 3, 1855, Little Thunder, an unusually stalwart and intelligent Indian, and his band, were at the mouth of a broad canyon on the north fork of the Platte River, engaged in their annual autumn hunt-preparing their winter supply of food. Their women and children were with them; grazing for their horses was good, and there was plenty of fuel for the care of the meat ; buffalo, deer and elk were abundant. It was an ideal hunting ground, and it was evident they feared no attack and anticipated none. But Brig .- Gen. William S. Harney, according to the purpose for which he was sent into that country, attacked them with Companies E and K, Second Dragoons ; G, Fourth Artillery ; A, E, H, I and K, Sixth Infantry and E, Tenth Infantry, without warning. Harney's loss was five. The Indian loss was eighty-six killed and seventy wounded, among them many women and children. But this was the only battle of the campaign. The Indians sued for peace and a treaty of peace followed.
AFTER THE BATTLE
General Harney's command returned to the several supply points, and General Harney to the work of establishing a permanent military post on the Missouri River.
Fort Pierre was not a suitable place in his opinion, owing to lack of timber and meadow for a permanent military post. Lieutenant Warren surveyed 270 square miles on the proposed military reservation, finding but 10,000 acres of meadow and timber land. Accordingly another point was selected and the force at Fort Pierre was distributed in the main to other points for the winter.
Captains Lovell and Sully with their companies remained at Fort Pierre. Captain Wessels established a winter camp five miles above Fort Pierre, on the east side of the river. Captain Gardner, Camp Miller, eighteen miles above on the east side; Captain Cady, Camp Bacon, ten miles above Fort Pierre; Captain Howe, Camp Canfield, between the White and Niobrara rivers.
Fort Lookout, opposite Chamberlain, had become an important trading post, and was ambitious to become the permanent military post. The headquarters was at this point under Capt. Nathaniel Lyon.
After the battle with Harney's command Spotted Tail and two young braves from his father's camp came to the fort, in full regalia, and offered their lives to save their tribe from further punishment.
Fort Pierre was abandoned in May, 1857, as a military post, though its occu- pation was continued by Captains Sully and Lovell until 1858, when they returned overland to Fort Ridgeley. Captains Albemarle Cady and Marshall S. Howe were among the officers of that period at Fort Pierre.
After the sale of Fort Pierre for a military post, a trading post was established four miles above Fort Pierre by Joseph La Frambois, known as Fort La Frambois. It was here that the Indian chief Bear Rib, as narrated in Chapter XII, was murdered May 27, 1862, by men of his tribe, for receiving annuities intended for Indians who had refused to receive them, fearing that it involved the sale of their land, which many of the Indians were determined not to permit.
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FIRST ORGANIZED SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH DAKOTA
That portion of South Dakota east of the Big Sioux, ceded by the Mendota treaty of 1851, left in unorganized territory by the admission of Minnesota in May, 1858, was organized by the last Territorial Legislature of Minnesota as Big Sioux and Midway counties, Sioux Falls being the county seat of the former and Medary of the latter. Flandrau, or Flandreau, as it came to be officially known, was the county seat of Rock County, also created by the Minnesota Legislature.
William Wallace Kingsbury, the last territorial delegate in Congress from the Territory of Minnesota, continued to draw his pay as a delegate from Minnesota until the end of his term, March 3, 1859, and to be entitled to a seat in Congress as such. He resided at Endion, Minn. He came from Towanda, Pa., and died at Tarpon, Fla., April 17, 1892.
FOUNDING OF SIOUX FALLS
In Jean N. Nicollet's report of his explorations, published under the title of "Nicollet's Travels in the Northwest in 1839," he gave a graphic description of Sioux Falls which attracted the attention to that region of Dr. J. M. Staples of Dubuque, Iowa, who organized a company consisting of himself, Mayor Hether- ington of that city, Dennis Mahoney (afterwards editor of the Dubuque Herald), Austin Adams, George P. Waldron, William Tripp, Wilmot W. Brookings and Dr. J. L. Philips known as the Western Townsite Company of Dubuque, Iowa.
In October, 1856, Ezra Millard, then of Sioux City, Iowa, later of Omaha, Neb., and David M. Mills, representing this company, went to Sioux Falls for the purpose of locating a townsite at that point, but their first sight of the falls was interrupted by a party of Sioux Indians, who angrily turned them away and ordered them to stay not beyond the rising of the morning sun. The Indians appeared to be in possession and in earnest, and so they went; but Mr. Mills returned a few weeks later, built a house, staked a claim, and held his ground until the next spring, when he was joined by Jesse T. Jarrett, Barclay Jarrett, John McClellan, James Farrell and Halvor Olsen. Jesse Jarrett was in charge of the party and located for the Western Townsite Company 320 acres, described as the NW 1/4 Sec. 9 and NE 1/4 Sec. 16, T. 101, N., R. 40 W., 5th P.M., naming their location Sioux Falls.
In June, 1857, the Dakota Land Company was organized at St. Paul for the purpose of colonizing that portion of the lands ceded in 1851 at Mendota, not included in the pending bill for the admission of Minnesota, which would be left as unorganized territory if the bill passed.
Judge Charles E. Flandrau of St. Paul, Jefferson P. Kidder, Alpheus G. Fuller, Joseph E. Gay, Samuel J. Albright, Baron Freidenreich, James M. Allen, Franklin J. Dewitt, Byron M. Smith, Colonel William H. Noble and others were associated in this enterprise. Colonel Noble had laid out and worked a road across the unsurveyed country. The purpose of the company was to acquire desirable lands for settlement and townsite purposes and to lay the foundation for a new territory.
The following members of the company, or its employes, left St. Paul early
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in June, 1857, going by steamboat on the Minnesota River to the most available point, and thence overland to the Big Sioux, viz .: Franklin J. Dewitt, Alpheus G. Fuller, Samuel A. Medary, Jr., J. K. Brown, Col. William H. Noble, B. F. Brown, James L. Fiske, Artemas Gale, James M. Allen, William Settley, Byron M. Smith, A. J. Kilgore and Arnold Merrill. On leaving the Minnesota River they divided into three parties.
Alpheus G. Fuller, Byron M. Smith, Col. William H. Noble, Artemas Gale, ยท James M. Allen, A. J. Kilgore and James L. Fiske reached Sioux Falls about June 20th and found the Dubuque party mentioned above had preceded them. They were warmly welcomed, however.
DAKOTA CHRISTENED
The St. Paul party organized, located 320 acres by land scrip, voted that the new territory they came to found should be called Dakota, and that Sioux Falls City should be its capital.
The party headed by Dewitt located at Flandrau, in the unorganized county of Rock, and the one headed by Medary located at Medary in Midway County. Sioux Falls was to be the initial point for their operations.
The Sioux Falls contingent left James McBride and James L. Fiske to repre- sent them, and the Dubuque party Jesse Jarrett, Barclay Jarrett, John McClellan, James Farwell and Halvor Olsen in charge of their interests.
In July, 1857, the Indians became very threatening and some of the party left on that account.
August 23, 1857, Jesse T. Jarrett, John McClellan, Dr. J. L. Phillips, Wilmot W. Brookings, David M. Mills, A. J. Kilgore, S. B. Atwood, Smith Kinsey, James Callahan and Mr. Godfrey returned, armed and provisioned to hold the ground selected. They brought a saw mill and other equipment. Mr. Brookings was appointed superintendent. Later James M. Allen, William Little, James W. Evans, James L. Fiske and James McBride arrived and erected several buildings, including a store and three dwelling-houses.
That fall James M. Allen, William Little, James W. Evans, James L. Fiske, James McBride, James McCall and C. Merrill of the St. Paul colony arrived.
In 1858 John Goodwin and wife, Charles S. White and daughter Ella, and Amos Duley and wife came. The latter later returned to Lake Shetek, Minn., where Mr. Duley was killed, and his wife and daughter made captive in the Sioux uprising of 1862. They were ransomed by Maj. Charles E. Galpin, acting for Dakota settlers. William Stevens, Samuel Masters, Henry Masters, J. B. Greenway, George P. Waldron and Margaret Callahan, who later wedded J. B. Barnes, Joseph B. Amidon and family, John Lawrence, Berne C. Fowler, J. B. Barnes, John Rouse, James W. Lynch, Jefferson P. Kidder, Samuel F. Brown and N. F. Brown were settlers that year, and Alpheus G. Fuller returned from Washington, having been unsuccessful in securing recognition by Congress as a delegate for the proposed new territory, to which position he had been appointed by the county commissioners of Big Sioux County.
The Minnesota Legislature had created the counties of Pembina, Rock, Big Sioux and Midway, and when admitted as a State, portions of Pembina and Rock, and all of the Big Sioux and Midway were left in unorganized territory.
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BIG SIOUX COUNTY ORGANIZED
This county was organized by Governor Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota, by the appointment of William Little, James McBride and A. L. Kilgore county commissioners, James M. Allen register of deeds, James W. Evans sheriff, James L. Fiske judge of probate, Wilmot W. Brookings district attorney, Dr. J. L. Phillips and James McCall justices of the peace. The Dakota Legislature of 1862 changed the name of the county to Minnehaha, and confirmed the acts of the officers after the admission of Minnesota.
TOWNSITES ON THE SIOUX
Townsites were also located by the Dakota Land Company at Flandrau, Rock County (now Flandrau, Moody County), at Medary, Midway County, fifteen miles north of Flandrau on the Big Sioux, where the Government trail crossed that stream; at Renshaw, twenty miles north of Medary, and at Eminja, in Vermilion County, and Commerce City at the great bend of the Big Sioux, half way between Sioux Falls and the Missouri River.
There were about a dozen settlers at Medary, but in 1858 they were driven out by the Indians. Flandrau was also abandoned, and an attempt was made to drive out the settlers at Sioux Falls, which did not succeed until the uprising of the Indians in 1862, when Joseph B. Amidon and his son William were killed by the Indians and Sioux Falls became depopulated for nearly six years. After the settlers left, the Indians burned the village. Wilmot W. Brookings, George P. Waldron and family, Berne C. Fowler and wife, James W. Evans, Barclay Jarrett, Charles S. White and family, William Stevens, Mrs. Amidon and family and John McClellan went to Yankton; Amos Shaw went to Vermilion; Dr. J. L. Phillips and Henry Masters and wife returned to Dubuque, Iowa. There was another person there named Foster, who was with the Yankton party, which was aided by Lieut. James A. Bacon of Company A, Dakota Cavalry, to make good their escape. This company, consisting of forty-one men, was encamped at Sioux Falls when the Indians attacked.
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