USA > South Dakota > A brief history of South Dakota > Part 6
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drove the settlers away, and destroyed the improvements made there. The settlers at Sioux Falls, learning of this, hastily fortified themselves, making a really strong post which they called Fort Sod. Mrs. Goodwin, the first white woman to settle in Dakota, had arrived a few days before, and she made a flag to float over the fort, out of all of the old flannel shirts to be found in the settlement. Most of the movable property was taken inside the fort and there the settlers were confined for six weeks, until their provisions were almost exhausted and they were reduced to the severest straits, when Major De Witt ar- rived with supplies. Really they were in little danger. Smutty Bear moved down into the vicinity of Sioux Falls, and, finding the settlers so thoroughly fortified, went away to the James River without molesting them or even opening communication with them. But the settlers did not know this, and there were too few of them to venture out to find out what the situation really was.
The next summer the promoters, still hopeful, established a newspaper called the Dakota Democrat, of which Samuel J. Albright was the editor, and which they con- tinued to publish for two or three years. In the very first issue of this paper is printed a poem by Governor Henry Masters, entitled "The Sioux River at Sioux Falls." The first verse reads : -
Thou glidest gently, O thou winding stream, Mirroring the beauty of thy flowery banks, Now yielding to our souls elysian dreams,
For which we offer thee our heartfelt thanks.
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A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED
The high hopes of these people are revealed in the following extracts from the report of the Dakota Land Company for 1859. After describing in detail its several town sites, "Renshaw, at the mouth of the upper Percee; Medary, the county seat of Midway County; Flandreau, the county seat of Rock County; Sioux Falls City, estab- lished seat of government of Big Sioux County and the recognized capital of the territory, at the falls of the Big Sioux, the head of navigation on that river, and terminus of the transit railroad west; Eminija, county seat of Ver- milion County, at the mouth of the Split Rock River and Pipestone Creek, on the Big Sioux, thirteen miles below the Falls, and at the more practicable head of navigation for large steamers; Commerce City, situated at the great bend of the Sioux on the Dakota side, halfway between Sioux Falls City and the Missouri, coal and timber plenty, at a point to which steamers of any class may ply at any stage of water," the report goes on to say that their men "have planted the flag of the Dakota Land Company on each valuable site from the mouth of the Sioux to old Fort Lookout on the Missouri, and on the James, Vermil- ion, and Wanari rivers. There are more than two thou- sand miles of navigable waters bordering and within the ceded portions of Dakota and this company has already secured the most desirable centers for trade and com- merce and governmental organization on all these rivers."
A new election was held in the fall of 1859, and Judge Jefferson P. Kidder was sent to Congress as territorial delegate. A new legislature was chosen and Judge W. W. Brookings was made governor. But a change now
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came with which these heroic boomers had not reckoned and which was destined to bring all their plans to naught. The new Republican party was rising into power. Abra- ham Lincoln had won national fame and in the spring of 1861 was to become President of the United States. The influence of the Dakota Land Company in Congress was gone. Every condition upon which they had so surely, and with good reason, counted for the success of their enterprise was changed, and when Dakota terri- tory was finally organized, the management of its affairs fell into entirely different hands, the capital was located at Yankton, the public printing and the Indian contracts were controlled by Republicans, and all the rosy-tinted dreams of wealth and power which had inspired the Da- kota Land Company vanished into thin air. The settle- ment at Sioux Falls dwindled away and finally, as we shall learn, was wholly abandoned.
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CHAPTER XIX
PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
IN April, 1858, the Yankton Sioux Indians, who claimed all the land between the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers, as far north as Pierre and Lake Kampeska, made a treaty with the whites, by which they gave up all their lands except four hundred thousand acres in what is now Charles Mix County. This treaty, made by the head men of the Yanktons, was not very popular with the rank and file of the tribe. Struck by the Ree, the boy who was born when Lewis and Clark were at Yankton in 1804, and whom Captain Lewis clothed in the American flag, stood firmly for the treaty, but Smutty Bear, an older man, was strongly opposed to it, and the Yanktons were divided into two parties who were almost at the point of civil war over its ratification.
The time came on the Ioth of July, 1859, when the government expected the Yanktons to give up their lands and remove to the reservation. The entire tribe was assembled at Yankton and were in most earnest delibera- tion over the treaty. Struck by the Ree, with his party, favored going at once to the new home, but old Smutty Bear harangued his people about the graves of their kin- dred and the hunting grounds of their fathers, and his
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views made a deep impression on the tribe. Finally when Old Strike, as the whites called Struck by the Ree, was breaking camp to start for the reservation, Smutty Bear sent his young men on horseback in a wild chase about the friendly camp, intended to intimidate the men and frighten the women and chil- dren and prevent them from moving.
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STRUCK BY THE REE
At that instant a steamboat, coming up river, bellowed at the landing, and with a childlike simplicity which Indians always showed when any- thing aroused their curiosity, the entire tribe forgot about their troubles and raced off to the landing. It was the
steamboat Wayfarer bringing to them their new agent, Mr. Redfield, and a cargo of provisions for their supply. Agent Redfield made a speech in which he told them that he was going to proceed up the river until he had found a proper site for the location of their new agency, on the tract of land they had reserved for their own use, and that as soon as he arrived there he would make for them a grand
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feast, to which they were all invited. The steamer then set off upstream and the Yankton nation, like a pack of delighted children, crowded and hustled one another along the bank, eager to see who would first reach the place on the reservation where the feast was to be spread. Whites and Indians alike deemed this a sufficient ratifi- cation of the treaty, and there never was any more trouble about it.
After the treaty had been signed in 1858, supposing that it would be ratified very soon, many settlers gathered along the banks of the Missouri, on the Nebraska side of the stream, waiting to come over and occupy the rich Dakota lands as soon as they could legally do so. Month after month they waited until this tenth day of July, 1859, when the departure of the Indians for the reservation was quickly reported among them, and that day hundreds of them came over, beginning the settlements at Yankton, Bon Homme, Meckling, and Vermilion.
Some of these settlers had reached the Dakota land by steamboats upon the Missouri River, but generally they had come with ox teams and covered wagons which they called " prairie schooners." As there was plenty of tim- ber along the rivers, they built their first homes of hewn logs. Some of the houses whose foundations were laid on that tenth day of July, 1859, are still standing. Some breaking was done, but it was too late in the season to grow any crops that year. The town sites at Bon Homme, Yankton, and Vermilion were entered upon by adven- turous men with large dreams of town building, but in the fertile bottom lands between the James and
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Vermilion rivers many farmers settled, who had no more ambitious plans than to build for themselves and their families permanent farm homes, and most of them with their children still occupy the homesteads they took upon that day, or sleep peacefully in the little church- yards near by.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE JAMES
So it was that a settlement in opposition to that upon the Sioux River was planted in the Missouri valley, so different in every way that there were scarcely any lines of likeness between them. The one was moved by dreams of power and wealth, without labor, the other sought only homes where a livelihood might be secured by honest toil. It is hardly necessary to say that while the former sadly failed, the latter, overcoming every obstacle, became the permanent and prosperous motherland of the future state.
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CHAPTER XX
THE NEW TERRITORY IS BORN
ON the second day of March, 1861, Dakota territory was born. It included the area now occupied by North Dakota and South Dakota, and extended westward to the Rocky Mountains. One of the last official acts of James Buchanan, President of the United States, was to sign the bill creating it a free territory. And among the first acts of Abraham Lincoln as President, was to appoint his old neighbor and family physician, Dr. William Jayne, of Springfield, Illinois, first governor of Dakota territory.
It rested with the governor to determine what point in the territory should be temporary capital until such time as the legislature should select a permanent seat of government; therefore there was great rivalry among the little towns in Dakota territory to secure the favor of the new governor. In due time Governor Jayne met the other territorial officers in Chicago, and together they journeyed out to Dakota. It was reported, by a swift messenger, that Governor Jayne was driving out from Sioux City to look over the Dakota towns before he de- termined upon the temporary seat of government, and the enterprising town of Vermilion energetically prepared a great banquet in his honor.
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Presently a carriage containing two well-dressed gentle- men was seen approaching the village from the east, and a committee of citizens went out to meet it and welcome the new governor; the two men were invited to accompany the committee forthwith to the banquet hall. There they partook of a fine dinner, and several hours were spent in speechmaking.
The guest of honor thanked the people sincerely for the courtesy, spoke of his good impressions of the com- munity, and declared his intention to settle among them. This declaration was greeted with hearty cheers, but at that moment three or four carriages containing a large party of well-to-do people drove through the village, stopping only for a moment, and then driving on toward Yankton. Some one brought word into the banquet hall that Gov- ernor Jayne and his party had gone through to Yankton without giving Vermilion an opportunity to show him honor. Then the chairman turned to the guest at the banquet and asked him his name. He said it was G. B. Bigelow, and he was much surprised to know that he had been mistaken for the new governor of the territory, sup- posing that he had met only the usual hearty welcome which the new towns of the West held out to intending settlers. Sorely as were the people of Vermilion disap- pointed, their sense of humor was too great to permit them to mourn long over the laughable mistake. "Governor" Bigelow lived with them for many years and in the full- ness of a ripe old age died among them, respected by every one; but Yankton became the temporary and the perma- nent capital of Dakota territory.
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After setting up his headquarters at Yankton, Governor Jayne had a census taken, which showed 2402 white people in Dakota territory; and called an election for the choice of a delegate to Congress and members of a legis- lature. Then he returned to his home in Illinois to remain until the following year. Captain John Blair Smith Todd, recently resigned from the United States Army, was elected delegate to Con- gress. The Weekly Dakotian, which still survives as the Press and DakotanA Gazette, was estab- lished at Yankton on the 6th of June, 1861, and the Ver- milion Republican was established in July of that year.
By proclamation Governor Jayne called the legisla- ture to convene CAPTAIN J. B. S. TODD at Yankton on March 17 (St. Patrick's day), 1862, and he returned to Dakota in time for that event. There were nine members of the council and thirteen mem- bers of the house, and seldom has a more remarkable body of men been gathered together. This territorial legislature was at once named "the Pony Congress"
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and is so known to this day. The members were mostly young men, many of them possessing great ability, and well educated; but they represented, too, the careless, carefree, happy-go-lucky life of the frontier.
The location of the capital was the matter of most im- portance. Bon Homme, Yankton, and Vermilion were all candidates for that honor. The Yankton men, shrewd politicians that they were, before the organization of the legislature offered to John H. Shober, of Bon Homme, the presidency of the council and to George M. Pinney, of Bon Homme, the speakership of the House, in considera- tion of which Pinney and Shober were to give up the am- bitions of Bon Homme to be the capital and were to support Yankton for that honor, while the territorial penitentiary was to be located at Bon Homme. Upon this understanding both houses of the legislature were organized. James Somers, a noted desperado of the Dakota frontier, was made sergeant-at-arms of the House.
When the people of Bon Homme learned of the trade by which their prospects for the location of the territorial capital had been defeated, they brought such pressure to bear upon Speaker Pinney that, when the bill came up for final passage in the House, having first gone through the Council all right, Pinney left the speaker's chair and moved to substitute Bon Homme for Yankton in the bill. This motion was defeated; he then moved to substitute Vermilion for Yankton, and the motion prevailed.
When Pinney was elected speaker, he had agreed in writing to support Yankton for capital; his perfidy
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filled the Yanktonians with righteous indignation, and they therefore sought the best means to humiliate him. At the suggestion of some of the citizens, Sergeant-at-arms Jim Somers agreed, at the following session, when the bill was to come up for reconsideration, to take the speaker forcibly from his chair and throw him through the window, out of the legislative hall. Somebody talked about the conspiracy, news of the plan came to Pinney's ears, and he appealed to the governor for protection. Company A of the Dakota cavalry had recently been organized and was stationed in town, and the governor promptly ordered a squad of soldiers to go into the hall and protect the speaker in the discharge of his duty. Having thus obstructed the conspirators' plan for revenge, Pinney sat through the session of the day, but the opposition to him was so great that he was compelled to resign.
Jim Somers, however, could not be kept out of his fun. That evening Speaker Pinney stepped into a saloon on Broadway. Somers and a party of his cronies were stand- ing at the bar. As Pinney approached the bar Somers caught him in his arms, carried him across the hall to a closed window, and threw him out. The speaker carried the sash with him and alighted on the ground outside, wearing the sash about his neck.
A new speaker was elected, the bill was re-amended to make Yankton the capital, and was thus passed, Ver- milion's ambition being pacified by the location of the territorial university at that town. Despite the apparent recklessness of the members of the Pony Congress, that body passed an extensive code of wise laws, most of which
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SECOND SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE DAKOTAS, AT VERMILION, 1864
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are still upon the statutes of the states of South Dakota and North Dakota.
It was the middle of May before the Pony Congress adjourned, and the closing scenes beggared everything in the way of coarse fun and horseplay which has char- acterized the many succeeding sessions. The weather was fine, and for three days and nights before the end the members indulged in a continuous open-air carousal. One of the incidents of those jocund days is thus de- scribed by Hon. Moses K. Armstrong, who was a member of the house of representatives: "I happened to cross the street one morning at the peep of day and there I be- held, beside a smoldering camp fire, two lusty legislators, Malony and McBride, holding a kicking cow by the horns, and a third, John Stanage, pulling his full weight at the cow's tail. On either side of the heifer sat Councilmen Bramble and Stutsman, with pails in hand, making sor- rowful but vain attempts at teasing milk enough from the quadruped to make their final pitcher of eggnog. Off on one side sprawled the corpulent Representative Don- aldson, convulsed with laughter, and in front of the scene stood the eloquent lawmaker Boyle (afterward justice of the Supreme Court) with hat, coat, and boots off, mak- ing a military speech, and imploring the cow to give down in behalf of her country."
CHAPTER XXI
THE WAR OF THE OUTBREAK
SOUTH DAKOTA had little part in the Civil War. Early in 1862 Company A of the Dakota cavalry was recruited with the intention of tendering its services to the Presi- dent for service in the South, but it was deemed wise by the war department to hold it in Dakota for the protection of the settlements. Captain Todd, while serving in Con- gress, was appointed brigadier general by President Lin- coln, and served with credit in the Missouri campaigns.
The midsummer of the year 1862 came on with a boun- tiful harvest, and every prospect was most pleasing in the young settlements along the Missouri and on the Sioux. New settlers had come to them, new homes were springing up on every hand, the flocks were thriving, and every one indulged in rosy dreams of a bright and prosperous future; when suddenly out of the clear sky came the news of the awful outbreak and massacre by the Santee Sioux on the Minnesota. Instantly the bright prospect was changed to one of gloom. Almost with the first news of the outbreak came a straggling band of savages, who found Judge Joseph B. Amidon and his son in a hayfield at Sioux Falls and ruthlessly murdered them. Terror- stricken, the settlers left their homes, their ungathered
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crops, their cattle, swine, and poultry, and in white-faced, panting panic flew for their lives.
Governor Jayne sent a detachment of soldiers to con- duct the settlers of Sioux Falls to Yankton, leaving all of their property unprotected, to be immediately stolen, wrecked, and burned by the savages; and so ended the ambitious dreams of the empire builders who had settled upon the Big Sioux. They wholly abandoned the place and several years elapsed before there was any further settlement at Sioux Falls.
The settlers at Bon Homme and Yankton gathered at the capital, where a strong stockade was built for their protection ; but the country from the James River to the Sioux was wholly depopulated. To increase the terror of the little handful of pioneers who remained, the report came that the Yanktons, under the lead of the unruly chief Mad Bull, had broken away from the influence of Struck by the Ree and were about to join in the massacre. Governor Jayne called every able-bodied man in the ter- ritory to arms, and under the lead of the citizens of Yankton, commanded by Captain Frank Ziebach, and Company A of the Dakota Cavalry, which had been organized the previous spring with Nelson Miner as captain, a good military organization was effected, and peace, security, and order were restored. Struck by the Ree asserted his loyalty and Americanism over his tribe, held the restless young men to his standard, and protected the settlements from the hostile tribes from up the river as well as from the straggling Santees. In a few weeks confidence was restored and the settlers returned to their
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homes. Except the killing of Judge Amidon and his son there were no fatalities among the settlers of Dakota, but the fear of destruction was well founded and the panic and flight justified.
During the outbreak in Minnesota, a small settlement of about fifty persons on Shetak Lake, in what is now Murray County, was attacked and destroyed by a band of Indians under a chief named White Lodge, who took captive two women, Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Duly, and seven children. These captives were carried through South and North Buffalo Hunter Dakota to the Mis- 4Galpin Discovers Captives NORTH DAKOTA SOUTH DAKOTA souri River, where they were Cut-heads dis-
Captives Rescued. Nov, 19,1862
Minnesota Bone Necklace's Camp R Yanktonais covered the follow- Earth Lodges ing November by Big Sioux R. Chanopa James Upper RESCUERS TRAIL OF Primeau'e Store LET. PIERRE Agency Major Charles E. White Lodge's MINN. Missouri Home Camp Galpin, who was TRAIL OF LA PLANT & OUPRE SO, DAKOTAS Lake Shetak - R. where Captives were taken, Aug.20,1862 MINNESOTA R 10WA coming down the river with a small FT. RANDALL party of miners in Yankton a Mackinaw boat.1 When at the mouth TRAIL OF THE SHETAK CAPTIVES of Beaver Creek in southern North Dakota, Galpin saw an Indian camp on the shore, and the warriors were making friendly motions to him to land. He drew up to the band, when
1 A large but cheap boat intended for only a single trip down the river. They had long been in use among the fur traders of America, and were usually fastened together with wooden pins, no metal being used in their construction.
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Galpin's sharp-eyed wife, an Indian woman, discovered armed Indians skulking in the underbrush, and she gave the alarm in time. Her husband cut the painter by which he had tied the boat, with a single blow of the hatchet, and received a fusillade of bullets from the bank without damage. While the boat was still within hearing, a white woman ran down to the river bank and informed the boatmen that there were a party of white captives in the Indian camp. Galpin spread this news as he passed down the river.
The first point that Galpin reached, where he could give information, was Fort Pierre, where there was a trading store. There he found a party of young Indians, eleven in number, under the leadership of a mixed-blood Indian named Martin Charger, grandson of Captain Meriwether Lewis the explorer, who were known to their people as the crazy band, or fool soldier band, be- cause they had taken an oath to help the whites at any cost to themselves. This band immediately set out on their ponies to reach the hostile camp up the river, and, if possible, effect the rescue of the captives. Their names were Martin Charger, Kills Game and Comes Back, Four Bear, Mad Bear, Pretty Bear, Sitting Bear, Swift Bird, One Rib, Strikes Fire, Red Dog, and Charging Dog. Before starting they had traded their furs to the trader for sugar and other Indian delicacies. They crossed the river at Pierre, going north on the east side. The second day they found a party of Yanktonais encamped at the mouth of Swan Creek, and were joined in their enterprise by two Yanktonais, Don't Know How and Fast Walker.
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They found that White Lodge's hostile camp had been moved down the river and was then located in the fine timber on the east bank of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of Grand River, in what is now Walworth County, South Dakota. They pitched their tepees near the hostile camp and at once entered into negotiations for the rescue of the captives. White Lodge was not disposed to give them up, -absolutely refused to do so upon any terms; but the boys were persistent, offered to trade their horses and other property for them, and after much parleying, bullying, and jockeying, with threats of bringing their people, the Tetons, and soldiers to destroy White Lodge and his band, they succeeded in purchasing the captives, trading for them everything they possessed except two guns and their tepee.
The weather was severe. It was about the 20th of November, snow was falling, and the captives were brought out to them literally naked. White Lodge himself never consented to the trade, but the majority of his warriors took the responsibility in their own hands, against his will, and the old man threatened to undertake the recovery of his captives. The boys pitched their little tepee in the willows on the river bank a mile or two below the hostile camp, wrapped the captives in their blankets, and them- selves tramped around the tepee in the storm to keep from freezing, and to guard their captives from the threat- ened attack of White Lodge.
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