USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 3
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In the meantime the 6th Iowa with the artillery and General Sully arrived upon the scene. The 6th moved eastward so as to prevent the Indians from escaping to the north and House's battalion also operated on that flank while General Sully with his escort and one battalion of the 6th Iowa pushed through the center.
In this drive through the practically deserted village Sully's men collect- ed a number of prisoners, among them Little Soldier and his band. As this Indian had always been on friendly terms with the whites the capture does not seem to have been very important, it is probable that Little Soldier and the others who were taken at this time were more than willing to be captured rather than be pursued by the cavalry and treated as escaping hostiles. It is doubtful if very many guilty Indians were taken by the soldiers as there were several hours during the afternoon when it was entirely possible for those to escape who wished to do so. There can be little doubt that the Indians knew that Sully's entire outfit was close at hand and would
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
have to be reckoned with. They were too experienced in frontier affairs to have failed to have information of the movements of a body of troops as large as Sully's brigade. When the battle started and the Indians were forced to fight no doubt the first to escape were those who had most to answer for, although there is every indication that only a small part of the entire camp had been guilty of participating in the Minnesota uprising. The Indians in this camp were from nearly all the Dacota bands and even in- cluded some of the Tetons, who had nothing to do with the Minnesota trouble, but when they were cornered in the ravine east of the White Stone monument, they fought in self defence and guilty and innocent suffer- ed together.
House with his battalion, supported by the 6th Iowa pushed east along the north side of the retreating Indians. They seem to have gone too far in their efforts to head off the retreat and allowed many to escape to the north behind them. This movement so far to the east also had another unfortunate result in that it placed them almost in front of the 2nd Nebraska, which resulted in many casualties by these troops firing into each other in the confusion and gathering darkness. Col. Furnas says in his official report, "At this juncture I became convinced that House's battalion, mistaking my command in the darkness for Indians, were firing into it. I therefore ordered my men to fall back out of the range of House's guns and mount their horses as the Indians were now in a rout and fleeing."
With the settling of darkness over the field most of the troops bivouacked in the place where night found them, and the wounded were collected as far as possible. Most of the Indians made their escape for the short period of daylight which was left when the army reached the Indian camp that after- noon left little time for a battle and it had not progressed long when night in- terrupted operations. There were many pitiable scenes as there always are during and after a battle. Children lost from their Indian parents some being tied to travois and strapped to dogs, wounded people on both sides, crippled animals suffering in silence, wrecked weapons and equipment among the dead whites and Indians.
On the morning of the 4th detachments were sent out in all directions to try to overtake the Indians but they were scattered and gone and few were taken, about one hundred thirty all told, many of these being women and children. An old soldier who was in the battle tells of the children being hauled away in army wagons after the battle, and fed by breaking a box of hardtack open and dumping it into the wagon box. No one knows their ultimate fate or whether or not they ever were released and found their people again. The dead soldiers were collected and buried on a hill about a quarter of a mile north of where the monument now stands but wild animals or possible hostile Indians dug into them and scattered the bones about before they were finally placed in their present position about the monument.
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Evidently not much time was spent in burying the dead Indians for their bones were still scattered about when the earliest settler visited the place. Thomas Shimmin tells of finding many articles of camp equipment on the grounds in the early days before it had been disturbed by curious people who probably did not even know that a battle had been fought there. Great quantities of dried meat and pemmican were collected by the soldiers and burned along with robes, furs, tipi poles and all the other combustible property of the Indians which they had abandoned in their flight. Sully estimates the meat burned at 250 tons. On the 4th the wagon trains and reserve battalions were brought east to White Stone Hill from camp 33 where they had been since the afternoon before. Animals were rested, supplies issued, Indian property destroyed and scouting parties combed the country for Indians but did not find many.
That the Indians were not entirely cowed by their defeat is shown by a sharp skirmish which occured about five miles northeast of the battlefield between a detachment of twenty-five men under Lt. Hall and a war party of three hundred Indians. Lt. Hall says in his official report: "In compliance with order from Brigadier General Sully, commanding Indian expedition, I proceeded, on the morning of September 5th, 1863, with twelve men of the 2nd Nebraska Cavalry and fifteen men from the 6th Iowa Cavalry under my command on a scout in search of Surgeon Bowen, Sergt. Newcomb and eight others missing from the 2nd Nebraska Cavalry, after the battle of White Stone Hill on 3rd instant.
"I proceeded in a northeasterly direction from the battlefield, and when five miles distant therefrom, I was attacked by a party of some three hundred Indians and, seeing that I could not successfully resist their attack, I re- treated slowly, returning the enemy's fire until my command was so closely pressed by the enemy that the men increased the rapidity of their retreat without orders.
"I attempted to halt them several times, but unsuccessfully. The enemy all the time pressed closely on my rear and also endeavored to cut off my retreat to the camp, from which I had started in the morning, and which I reached with what remained of my command about twelve m. that day, the enemy pursuing to within four miles of the camp.
"The casualties on this scout were six men and four horses killed. Sergeant Blair, Co. K, 2nd Nebraska Cavalry, Sergeant Rogers, Sergeant S. Smith, and Sergeant Isaac L. Winget of the 6th Iowa Cavalry, assisted me in my efforts to control the men and check their hasty retreat.
"I discovered no trace of the missing of whom I was in search, who, however, returned to camp a short time after my return and on the same day.
"The men under my command succeeded, while retreating, in killing six Indians and four ponies and wounding many others, the number not known."
Another incident which seems to have ground for belief is the one
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
related by Wm. V. Wade, a pioneer who crossed from Ft. Wadsworth to Ft. Yates in 1872 and who still lives at Shields in Grant county. Mr. Wade has been among the Indians for fifty years and has had many opportunities for getting their stories.
When Mr. Wade was at Ft. Yates in 1875 the well known Sioux, Rain in the Face was arrested by the soldiers and taken to Ft. Lincoln for trial.
Before leaving Ft. Yates there was considerable excitement over the arrest and among others who urged the Indians to resist and rescue "Rain in the Face", was an Indian woman, a sister of the old chief Two Bears. This woman upbraided the warriors in Mr. Wade's hearing and said, "Go and fight those soldiers, don't let them take "Rain in the Face" away to prison; you men are not warriors any more, you are no better than a lot of old squaws." She went on and related what she had done personally and told how after the battle at White Stone Hill some of the Indians had gone to Mud creek now called Elm River; the soldiers followed, she hid in some brush near the creek. A soldier on a horse came near and dismounted to get a drink. As he lay down to drink she stole up and drove a knife in his back. He died. She hid again. Another soldier came, his horse mired in the mud and fell, pinning the rider under him and she killed him too. Mr. Wade tells me that he has heard this story from other Indians also and believes it to be true.
On the morning of the 6th of September Sully started back for his base at the mouth of the little Cheyenne river in South Dakota where he arrived on September 11th. His course from the White Stone was in a southwesterly direction but he does not give distances traveled or other details so it is impossible to locate it exactly. The Indians made the best of a hard situation and most of them were found the next year on the west side of the Missouri where Sully met them at Killdeer mountain and again defeated them. They never again met the soldiers in battle east of the Missouri.
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEGINNINGS OF DICKEY COUNTY.
[Files of the old newspapers have been consulted, and interviews with some of the pioneers, with records in the Court House, form the basis of this chapter. The Act of the Territorial Legislature creating the new County can be found in Laws of Dakota, 1881, Chapter 40, Section 1.]
F
OR several years after the events of 1863 and the expeditions of Captain Fisk there seems to be very little account of visits of white men'to Dickey County. In the early seventies the Northern Pacific Railway had reached Bismarck and the Missouri river route was being used so there was little call for overland expeditions through this part of the territory. The Indians that were left here were not disposed to cause trouble, the more hostile ones being farther west.
There must have been occasional visits, as the range lines and the town- ship lines of the government survey were run through this region by 1870. In 1872 the county of LaMoure was formed but there was no attempt to establish local government as settlement had not begun.
The first attempt at any organization of the region in which Dickey county lies was made when the territory of Minnesota was made to include that part of the territory east of the Missouri and White Earth rivers. At that time the county of Wahnatah was created as one of Minnesota's nine counties. This included what is now Dickey county and much other territory in Dakota. But Wahnatah county was never organized, and in 1851 Pembina county was made to include all eastern North Dakota and a part of South Dakota east of the Missouri river. At the admission of Minnesota as a state all eastern Dakota was left without a government for three years.
When the territory of Dakota was created a new division of counties was made, and all the northern part of the territory was included in Buffalo county. By a law of 1870 Pembina county was created to include the territory between the Red River and the Ninth Guide meridian, a part of which is now the western boundary of this county, as far south as the forty-sixth parallel of North Latitude. That part of Dickey county south of the forty-sixth parallel was in Hansen county. In 1872 the county of LaMoure was created. This county was to extend south to the line between townships 129 and 130, but was to exercise full jurisdiction as far south as the forty-sixth parallel. The strip of land from the forty-sixth parallel to the Seventh Standard parallel of the government survey seems to have been overlooked in that part lying south of LaMoure county, as Beadle county
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
south of the Seventh Standard parallel did not seem to include this strip while McPherson county did include the strip south of the county known as Logan.
On March 7th, 1881, the county of Dickey was created by act of the territorial legislature. This county was given the territory between the seventh and eighth standard parallels and from the line between ranges 58 and 59 to the line between ranges 66 and 67. This took twenty-one town- ships from LaMoure county and three from Ransom county, and included a strip on each side of the forty-sixth parallel that had not been difinitely in- cluded in any county for some time. The boundaries given the county in 1881 have remained unchanged, and Dickey is one of the very few counties that have not changed boundaries at some time in their history.
At the time the new county was created there were no settlers within its borders, but the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway had laid its tracks up into this territory for about seven miles. In the late fall of 1881 four men, having made up their minds that a town was going to be located about where Ellendale stands, filed on the four quarters known later as the "center of Ellendale" and put in a part of the winter of 1881 and 1882 in their claim shanties. This was not at the end of the rails, and thinking that the town would be located where the rails stopped a Mrs. Bishop from Fargo came out and filed on the south-east quarter of Section 29, township 130 of range 63. The town was located on the southeast quarter of Section 12 in township 129, so Mrs. Bishop came to the new town and kept a hotel, said to have been a very good one.
There were several people in the county in 1881 besides the construction crew of the railroad. Some of the visitors came up to the end of the rails to look the new country over, among these being Mr. Thomas Shimmin. Mr. Nels Knudson who afterwards located on the northwest quarter of section 14, 132-61, looked over his future homestead in that year.
In 1882 there was a great incoming of settlers. Eastern papers had told of homestead opportunities in the new territory. The Indian scare was over, soldiers in the recent Civil War could get scrip entitling them to entry on government land and the years in service could be counted off of the residence required. Many took advantage of this offer; others sold their scrip to let someone else have their right. Some adventurous spirits had settled in the new country and had sent the news back to their old neighbors. Settlers had worked out from Jamestown, a new town on the main line of the Northern Pacific railway, to make a few scattered settlements to the south of that city. There had been great numbers of new towns located on the extension of the Milwaukee railroad. Columbia on the James River was a thriving business town and the county seat of the new Brown county. Aberdeen, at the point where the line to the new country north of the main line branched off, was already a promising settlement, and the open home- stead land was being taken so rapidly that the new comers had to go back
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
farther for good land.
Dickey County had been created by act of the Territorial Legislature on March 7th, 1881. With settlers coming in the early part of 1882 there was need of county organization, not so much for the purpose of keep- ing order and for the restraint of the lawless as to accommodate the people who were establishing homesteads and for the conduct of the business that was naturally arising. For the purpose of organizing the county, Governor Ordway came to Ellendale on July 1st, 1882 and appointed Q. C. Olin, A. H. Whitney and H. E. Geschke as County Commissioners. This board held their first meeting on August 18th, 1882, and appointed the following officers for the new county; M. N. Chamberlain, County Clerk and Register of Deeds; George Kreis, Treasurer; W. H. Becker, County Attorney; H. J. Van Meter, Sheriff; J. L. Stephenson, County Assessor; Miss E. F. Arnold, Superintendent of Schools; J. E. Brown, Surveyor; Dr. W. F. Duncan, Coroner; J. A. Scott and W. A. Caldwell, Justices of the Peace.
Ellendale was chosen for the county seat temporarily. The question of which town should be the permanent county seat was submitted to the voters in the election of November 7th, 1882. Keystone wanted to be the county seat and made a lively fight for this distinction, especially urging its central location as well as other advantages, but Ellendale won by a vote of 162 to 62 for Keystone.
The naming of Dickey county is a historical matter that is not clear. There are those who claim it was named for Alfred Dickey, a prominent resident of Jamestown and the first Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota. He was a man well worthy of having a county named for him, but there is also a persistent belief that the county was named for a Mr. Dickey who was connected with the engineering staff of the Milwaukee Railroad. It will be an interesting question for investigation by some future historian of our county. It is quite generally agreed that the city of Ellendale was named for the wife of a prominent railroad man who was connected with the Mil- waukee road by the name of Dale. Mrs. Dale was Helen or Ellen so the new town was christened Ellendale.
This new town had the advantage of being on a railroad and was the first town to enjoy this distinction in all the region west of Wahpeton and south of the main line of the Northern Pacific through Jamestown. Many of the settlers in the central and western parts of the county came by way of Ellendale and for several years it was the central trading point for a large territory. People came for lumber for their homestead buildings from as far away as Grand Rapids. The stage lines from Ellendale made it a convenient point for travelers and homesteaders. Most of the new comers filed on land, but a number of towns were established. Those who were located in these towns were for the most part holding down a claim nearby.
In the greater part of the county the land had not been surveyed further than to run the range lines and the township lines. In order to get his loca-
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
tion the settler in many cases had to find the township corner and do the best he could to measure off the correct distances to the land he wished to locate. Surveyors were at work in the county and sometimes the squatter could get his township surveyed enough to know his location, and so well did the surveyors work that much of the county was surveyed by the end of the first year. Mr. Thomas F. Marshall, later a resident of Oakes and Congressman from North Dakota had charge of much of the surveying for the government. Mr. Souel, later of Cogswell, was Mr. Marshall's assistant, as was also Mr. D. E. Geer, one of the earliest settlers of Ellendale.
In running the preliminary surveys the Milwaukee railroad had set two lines of stakes beyond the end of the rails. By following the line of stakes to the north the town of Keystone was located by Pennsylvania people. A group of Michigan people followed out the line of stakes to the northwest and located the Merricourt community. Rivers furnished guiding lines and a number of groups came up the James river from Columbia. Port Emma on the fish-hook bend of the James was founded by J. W. Bush from Canada. Ludden was located on the east side and across the bend, later to be moved a mile and a half east to be on the Northwestern Railway. Further up the river the new town of Hudson was located by some people who were ac- quainted with the river of that name in New York state. A scholarly gentleman acquired some land holdings lower down on the west side and named his town from himself, Eaton. For a time steamboats came up the river from Columbia and brought in settlers goods and provisions by this means of transportation. Yorktown was established in township 131, range 61 by a group of settlers from New York state. Others were looking for pasture land with good water. These went west from Ellendale into the hill country and settled a wide domain in southwestern Dickey county, but did not establish a town site.
A great many people had friends here or came with a group of people from their old neighborhood, but many of the first settlers came out to the end of the railroad as the most convenient point from which to make inspec- tion of land. Very soon the better selections were taken near the towns and one was at a loss as to where it were best to look for a homestead. There were professional locaters who had a fixed price for showing the new comer where to find land. Many times a locater would put up some mark to in- dicate that land had been taken when he was only keeping it for some would- be settler who would pay him a good price for finding the best location. This practice was especially successful with the people of foreign nationality who were not acquainted with the language and ways of the American promoter. Frequently the locater met a man who was too well informed to be easily deceived. A story of one of the pioneers who came into the territory by way of Fargo will illustrate the process followed by many of the homesteaders.
Mr. E. F. Stevens, a college boy in New York State, had to give up school and in fact. all reading for a year on account of having strained the
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Thomas F. Marshall
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
optic nerve so that he could not read. About this time he began to hear of the wonderful free land to be had in the west, but more for the adventure than anything else he decided to go. He was the first one in his neighbor hood to leave for this unknown region and really intended to stay but a year. In Iowa he met a Mr. Richard Fallon, who came with him to Dakota territory in the spring of 1882. They decided to take land and arriving in Fargo about March 8th found the weather registering a temperature of about thirty-five degrees below zero. Mr. Stevens had given away his over- coat thinking he would need it no more that season, and as he had no gloves with him he shifted his suitcase from hand to hand rather rapidly on his way to the hotel.
They found Fargo filled with transients, land locaters, speculators and boomers of all sorts. They talked with some of the land locaters, men who made a business of examining vacant government land and guiding settlers to these tracts for a consideration. The particular locater who advised them suggested that they take land south of where Independence now is in LaMoure County, land which was later found to be in the sand hills. Mr. Stevens was a little wary and suggested that if they found the land to be poor stuff he would return to Fargo and mop the earth with the locater. He immediately ceased urging that location and suggested land between Bear Creek and the James River in township 132, range 59. Mr. Stevens took a homestead on the southwest of section 8 in that township, where he still lives, and a tree claim on the northwest of section 20, while Mr. Fallon took the east half of section 18.
The filing was made at the Fargo land office about March 9th, and during that spring the two friends worked on the Cass farm in the Red River Valley. They started for their claims around the first of July going by rail to Jamestown, and then traveled on foot down the valley to Grand Rapids, which was then a small settlement. But few settlers were passed on the way and since they reached the town on the evening of the third they decided to celebrate the Fourth there. The principal event of the day was a con- ference between the Grand Rapids people and a delegation of railroad officials. The local people offered to raise $50,000 to have the Southwestern built through there but the consideration was not enough of an inducement so the line eventually went through LaMoure.
The early morning of the fifth found the two travelers on their way walking in the direction of their claims. There were no roads but the location was determined from the section corner posts and mounds placed by the government surveyors. All went well until the border of Dickey county was reached. Here the wooden corner posts ceased and locations were marked by notches on stones in terms unfamiliar to the men. They were unable to find anyone to help them out so about 6 P. M. they started back for Grand Rapids. A thunder storm came up and they were miles from shelter of any kind, but luckily found a vacant claim shanty without
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
door or window. By aid of the lightning flashes they took off a loose board and managed to get inside where they spent the night. Day break found them hungry, tired, thirsty and well-bitten by mosquitoes. Here Mr. Stevens dug the first well in LaMoure County, for by means of his jacknife he made a hole in the sod which filled with rain water and thus enabled them to drink. They finally arrived in Grand Rapids and ate the first meal they had had since the morning before, having walked a distance of fifty miles between meals.
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