History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 149

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198

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General: I have your letter of May 22d, with the enclosures, relating to an expedition getting up at Yankton for the Black Hills. I agree with you perfectly that we are not in a position to permit an invasion of that region, for no sooner would a settlement be inaugurated, than an appeal would come for protection. Now there is no other section of country in which the Sioux can take refuge except in that which Mr. Smith proposes to explore. You may, therefore, forbid all white people going there at present, and warn all who go in spite of your prohibtion, that the United States will not protect them now, or until public notice is given that the Indian title is extinguished.

WV. T. SHERMAN, Lieutenant-General Commanding.

To ALFRED H. TERRY, Brevet Major General, U. S. A., St. Paul, Minn.

Headquarters Department of Dakota. St. Paul, Minn., June Ist, 1867.

To His Excellency, A. J. FAULK, Governor of Dakota Territory.

Sir: I have the honor to forward to you, enclosed, a copy of a letter from Lieutenant- General Sherman, to me, and to request you to bring it to the attention of the parties at Yankton, who are engaged in organizing for the exploration and settlement of the Black llills. ] respectfully suggest to your excellency that a proceeding more inimical to the safety of the inhabitants of Eastern Dakota, could hardly be devised. The Sioux place the highest value upon the region of country in question. They look upon it as their last refuge from starvation. When all other sources of food fail them they can there find game. They have repeatedly announced their determination to repel by force any attempt to take possession of it. It is unceded Indian territory, and although I am not so familiar with the law affecting such territory as to have a fixed opinion on the matter, I have supposed that whites have no legal right to enter upon and occupy it. The proposed expedition will, I feel sure, seriously complicate existing difficulties, and bring on hostilities which will be likely to extend to the settled portions of the territory. The expeditionary party may be able to protect themselves, although of this I think there is some doubt. but that it will be practicable to commence settlement there until some arrangement is effected with the Indians, 1 do not believe. No military protection can be given at present. nor will it be given until settlement is authorized by the extinguishment of the Indian title.

I address you on the subject because I know you must be interested in the safety of the people of the territory, and also as the readiest means of conveying to the persons engaged in organizing the proposed expedition a warning that the military authorities will not protect them in an invasion of land still held unceded by the Indian tribes.

Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ALFRED H. TERRY, Brevet Major-General, U. S. A., Commanding.

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The expedition was not absolutely forbidden, but the position of the military authorities put the exploring enterprise in the light of an unlawful marauding expedition-a sort of piratical excursion which did not meet the favor of the members, and after a week or more of discussion, the larger part of the members resolved to disband and abandon the project.

This result was very gratifying to the army officials, who felt that they would have been required to halt the expedition whenever it invaded the Indian country, a duty not altogether agreeable when enforced against respectable citizens of the Government, though this was not suggested in the letters given.

While the members of the association did not feel that the Indians would make any formidable opposition, they were convinced that the expedition would be regarded with such disfavor by the Government authorities, that it would be unable to accomplish any commendable or praiseworthy purpose, and would probably terminate in failure.

Mr. Smith made no further effort to explore the country, but a number of the party who came in from the East, remained in the territory, anticipating a favor- able turn in the treaties proposed, that would enable them to carry out their plans.

In support of the statement made that the Government authorities had promised an escort of military to the expedition, the following brief correspond- ence is given, which shows that contrary counsels existed in the war department. Edwin M. Stanton was then secretary of war, and it would appear that he had overruled or countermanded the warning proclamations of Generals Sherman and Terry. Dr. W. A. Burleigh was then delegate to Congress. Correspondence follows :

War Department, Ordnance Office, Washington, D. C., June toth, 1867.

HON. W. A. BURLEIGH, Yankton, Dakota Territory.

Sir : In confirmation of the telegram to you of this date, I have now to inform you that in pursuance of instructions from the secretary of war, endorsed on your letter to him of the 29th ult., General Augur has this day been requested to cause two mountain howitzers, with implements complete, and 200 rounds of ammunition-one-half canister and the other shetts-to such person as you may designate, and who will receipt for the property, and you are requested to correspond with the generat, or with Major Edie, the ordnance officer at Omaha, in case of General Augur's absence.

Respectfully, your obedient servant, A. B. DYER.

Brevet Major-General, Chief of Ordnance.

Headquarters Department of the Platte. Office Chief Ordnance Officer, Omaha, Neb, June tith, 1867.

HON. W. A. BURLEIGH, Yankton, Dakota Territory. Sir : The secretary of war having directed the issue of two mountain howitzers, and 200 rounds of ammunition for same, to a party of citizens organizing at your place for the exploration of the Black Hills of Dakota. 1 am directed to have the issue made at Fort Randalt, and communicate with you on the subject. The commanding officer of tha! post has been directed to furnish you or any one you may designate, with the guns and ammunition. Be pleased to communicate with him on the subject.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant. JOHN R. EnIt.

Captain and Brevet Major Ordnance Corps.

This incident of Smith's expedition had caused some confusion in the councils of the war department, but the matter was quieted by yielding to the views of the generals in charge of the western military districts, who were apprehensive of serious trouble with the Indians following any white invasion of that country at the time, whether supported by the army or furnishing their own protection

The following copy of a letter from Gen. John Pope, then commanding the Department of the Missouri, relates to a matter showing that the Government had designed opening the Black Hills region prior to the making of the Sherman Laramie treaty of 1868:

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Headquarters Department of the Missouri, St. Louis, March 8, 1866.

To the Governor of Dakota Territory.

Sir: I have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of a memorial from the Legisla- ture of Dakota Territory, asking the secretary of war to establish a military post on the north base of the Black Hills in that territory.

Whilst your letter transmitting this memorial to me does not invite a reply, I think it not improper to inform you that last year all preparations were made to establish the post referred to, but a panic in Minnesota forced me to divert the forces designed for its estab- lishment to another part of the country.

It is my purpose as soon as the season opens to place as large a military post as the force at my command enables me so to do, on or near the upper waters of the Big Cheyenne, at the northern base of the Black Hills, with a view to open that country to explorers, and to constitute one of the posts on the route via Powder River and the Big Horn Mountains, to Montana. The post will be established as early as practicable in the spring.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, JOHN POPE,

Major General Commanding.

HAYDEN'S BLACK HILLS REPORT

Dr. F. V. Hayden, the eminent scientist, who fifty years ago, was professor of geology in the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, and was also connected with the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, paid Dakota a visit in August, 1866. He proceeded to Fort Randall. where he obtained a few troops for a body guard and companions, and then made an excursion to the Bad Lands and Black Hills of Western Dakota. He returned in October, following, having been very success- ful, and halting a few days at the capital, was prevailed on, by Governor Faulk, an enthusiastic believer in Dakota's marvelous natural riches and wonders, to deliver an address, giving an outline of his observations and discoveries during the summer. A synopsis of the address is given herewith, for even at this late day, when so much has been learned of the country he visited, now inhabited by thousands of intelligent people, with their cities, churches, colleges and railways, to say little of their world famous gold mines, his story will be found as enter- taining and instructive as it did when he told it to a gathering of charmed pioneers, in the capitol building at Yankton, nearly fifty years ago. At that time the people of this outpost and this border land of civilization, were beginning to feel an interest in the Black Hills, while the business men of Yankton particn- larly were anticipating great benefits from that region, when it should be opened up, because of their proximity, which seemed to give them a favorable advantage as the outfitting and starting point for emigration. It was not at that time known that there would be any interdiction of this emigration by the general Govern- ment, which had, at least tacitly, consented to the occupation of the Salmon River and other sections in Montana and Idaho, by thousands of gold seekers.

The meeting at Yankton was held on the evening of Thursday, October 6th. Governor Faulk presided and M. K. Armstrong was the secretary, the meeting being held under the auspices of the Dakota Historical Society. Professor Hay- den proceeded in substance, as follows :

In 1853 I made my first tour of exploration in the Northwestern territory, in connec- tion with the military expedition under General Harney. Nebraska was then a wilderness, with no permanent white settlements above Fort Leavenworth. I made the scientific explorations under Lieutenant Warren, in 1856-7, and under Captain Reynolds, in 1859-60. These explorations extended through the Platte River country, the region of the Black Hilts and Bad Lands, and the great valleys of the upper Missouri and Yetlowstone, com- prising nearly nine years of scientific research in the territory of the Northwest.

Ny present brief journey to the Black Hills country was prosecuted for the purpose of coffeeting shelts and fossils from the shore of that ancient ocean, which tong ago, in by- gone ages, rolled through the upper regions of Dakota, with its tower confines ranging from the Black Hilts to the great bend of the Missouri River above the Crow Creek Agency. I have returned with seventeen large boxes of choice collections. Leaving Fort Randall on the 2d of August, with two teams, four camp men and five soldiers, and an Indian guide, I proceeded up the Niobrara River and crossed over to White River at a point about two

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hundred miles from Laramie. The Niobrara River rises near the foot of Raw H de Butte. which is a spur or distant outburst of the Rocky Mountains. The Niabrara is one of the least valuable rivers in Dakota [at this time the Niobrara River, from its mouth to its june- tion with the Keha Paha, formed a portion of the southern boundary of Dakota], having a shifting channel with quicksand bottoms and falling shores. The country is in some places relieved with a scrubby growth of dwarf pines, while the strong winds which sweep over the country furrow out the dry plains and pile up the sand in heaps and ridges, called the "Sand Hills." But even these dry arid hills are the occasional resort of the buffalo, embracing as they do narrow valleys of good bunch grass and spurs of timber.

The Bad Lands, which I entered on White River, are not entirely destitute of vegeta- tion, as generally supposed, but are about two thirds covered with grass. White River. which rises near the source of the Niobrara, is very thick and muddy. with a sort of lime held in solution coming from the Bad Lands. This stream is quite large near its source, with numerous fine springs and wooded brooks making into the river, its Indian name being the "Flesh Colored River." The White River Valley is one of the most beautiful in the West, having an abundance of wood and grass, and is a favorite planting ground of the Indians. Beyond the White River is the Big Sheyenne, with the Black Hills clasped between its two arms or forks. These celebrated hills are a distant ontburst of the Rocky Mountains, and are at their base about four thousand feet above the level of the sea, while some of the highest peaks, such as llarney's and Bear's Peak, are 7,500 feet above the sea. This upheaval of hills is about eighty miles in length by forty in width, lying southeast and northwest.

The Sheyenne River is no larger at its mouth than just below the forks. 100 miles further west, which is occasioned by the thirsty dryness of the air and climate, which drinks off or absorbs the rivers of the plains.

From one-third to one-half of the Black Hills are covered with an abundant growth of young, thrifty pines, many trees from three to four feet in diameter, and from eighty to one hundred feet without a limb. The hills are abundantly watered by small streams of pure cold water, running through small, beautiful valleys of inexhaustible fertility. Rain showers are very frequent in the vicinity of the hills. Spring is much carlier in the Black Ilills than in Southern Dakota. On the oth of March. 1855, 1 went from Fort Pierre to Bear's Peak and found a flower in bloom on the sunny hillside, and herds of antelope quietly grazing like flocks of sheep. The Indians said "Young Spring was born." Six months crops can be grown in the Black Hills. From the characteristics of the climate. I believe that grasshoppers will never carry their devastations into that region. The isothermal line brings the Black Hills climate on an equal temperature with that of the plains six degrees further south. The Black Hills form an anti-elinal axis or an upheaved isolated layer of the great Rocky Mountain chain. A syn-clinal axis is formed by the sinking of the earth's crust. The Black Hills were lifted up by the heat of the earth seeking vent. The great plains rise one foot to the mile in approaching these hills, but near their base their ascent is twenty feet to the mile. In the formation of these hills, as in all mountain ranges, the unstratified rock are heaved up in a broken and confused mass from below, and are destitute of all traces of animal life. Intermingled with these rocks and in the layers above, are tound the gold bearing formations which are developed in the Black Hills. Little particles or grains of gold can be found in almost any little stream in the vicinity of these hills. B t gold is not always found in paying quantities where "color" is raised. While there is every indication of rich gold deposits in these hills, my explorations have been more for the pur- pose of collecting old fossil remains than glittering dust.

Above the primary or unstratified rocks come the stratified formations, lifted up an ! broken in the Black Hills like the layers of an omon, the first of which is the Silurian or gold hearing rocks. Next comes the carboniferons or coal measures. We are here on the west rim of the great coal basin. No coal need be looked for in this vicinity except at great depth. The triassic or red beds are next found in the Black Hills Thes Lave all been burned at some distant period and contain no fossils. This is a connecting link in the great geological chain of the globe, and was first found on this continent in the Black Hills. and was added to that of England. Gypsum beds are found in the Black Hills fitts feet in thickness, and will yet prove of value to the people of the Northwest. The furassic rocks are also there and form a distinct phase of the geological world. It contains a new form of life, a new species of fossils, but contains no mineral. One species of hte never passes from one formation to another. Each formation is in itself a new world of hie a new leaf in the geological age and history of the globe. Now appears the cretaceous of chalk period, which is better represented in the chalk bluffs of the upper Missouri River than anywhere in North America. Next comes the tertiary period. The Rocky Mountains and Black Hills raised their watery heads from the great ancient ocean of the Northwest The waters began to recede, the dry lands appeared. and the great Missouri River Le !!! to wind its devious course from the mountains to the gulf This was the end of com and the beginning of land in the Northwestern territories. As the briny sea dried no receded, the waters formed into bays or estuaries Nearly all of upper Dakota home fresh water lake, and now forms a great lignite or coal basin, formed by the . lmentemi leaves and trees of great forests which were drifted in and settled in the bel f drying lakes. This coal is yet new, and is called in England "brown coal," and mel ter fol

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A vast forest once covered all of Dakota, equal to the giant forests of Brazil. Palm is found only within the tropics in the present age of the world, but I have found a palm leaf impression in the Yellowstone, sixty-four inches long. What a wonderful history of the world's ages is here traced in the rocks and valleys of your own territory! The written history of France or Mexico is not half so reliable as the world's manuscripts received impressed in the plains of the Northwest. Think what vast forests must have formed these lignite beds-eight feet of wood forming one of coal.

During that period many extinct species of animals roamed through your territory. The animal kingdom was intermingled-no distinct families. There are eight different species of horse and one small "dog horse," and several kinds of camel. There was one kind of elephant one-third larger than any now living; a large species of mastodon, turtle, sea-horse, etc. Text-books in all our Eastern colleges now contain plates and lessons on the wonderful races of extinct animals that once inhabited your territory. This should be called the Old World instead of the New. Asia and Europe are two geological periods behind our own New World of the West, and while you as citizens of Dakota are residing upon the shores of this ancient ocean, may you succeed in building up a young state that will sparkle in the galaxy of the Union.

Speaking informally, the professor said that his profession called him to visit the abodes of antiquities, to search after the fossilized remains of departed ages. Wherever the field that possessed relics of the ages past, there it was his duty and delight to journey and study his lessons of this world's formation from the book of Nature, indelibly and plainly written by the finger of departed time. Dakota possessed such a field. The Bad Lands and Black Hills of Dakota con- tained treasures of as great value to the geological student as were possessed by any known region on the habitable globe, and the day would come when the "spectacled antiquarian" of Germany, and students from all portions of Europe, would make an annual pilgrimage to the Bad Lands of Dakota. The professor alluded to the inexhaustible forests of pine in the Black Hills, and said the Big Sheyenne River with its branches provided a reliable channel for the transporta- tion of this timber to the settlements on the Missouri River.

The following sketch was written by another valid authority, and forms a fitting supplement to the valuable address of Doctor Hayden, then recognized as the highest authority in matters pertaining to those regions of the Rocky Moun- tains which he had explored and studied :

The geological formation of the Black Hills and Bad Lands is a subject that should excite the profound interest of the people of the country, and especially those of Dakota. The Mauvaise Terre or Bad Lands is a name given to a strange belt of country running along the eastern base of the Black Hills, nearly due north to the Yellowstone River. They cover an area of about two hundred miles in length by from fifteen to thirty miles in width, but are not continuous. Peaks of the Black Hills have been ascended to the height of 7,500 feet above the sea level, while the long deep basin of the Bad Lands, at the foot of the hills, is sunken in many places to a depth of 1,000 feet helow the level of the surrounding plains. Peaks and castellated towers of every conceivable shape, size and color arise from the bed of the Bad Lands to a level with the adjacent prairie. Coal seams, many feet in thickness, are found shelving from the sides of these elevations, while the great floor of the basin is covered with a light porous soil, composed apparently of a combination of ashes, cinders, and dust. Specimens of petrified lizards, turtles, fern leaves, and the trunks of fallen trees with the stumps of the same, sixteen feet in diameter, standing where they grew, have been found there by General Harney, Lieutenant Warren, General Sully, Pro- fessor Hayden, and others.

The adjacent Black Hills, which are covered by pine forests, are composed of the same formations of stratified rocks as are found in the gold bearing gulches of the Wind River Mountains, situated about two hundred miles further west, in which coal oil springs have been discovered where petroleum issues in large quantities from the fissures of the rocks.

The most learned of modern geologists agree in their conclusions that the oil bearing strata of rock are to be found most abundant in the Devonian system of the earth. Some very good authorities claim that they have traced the real source of petroleum or rock oil down deep into the old Silurian systems. The upper and lower Silurian systems are de- posited immediately below the Devonian formation, and the great coal deposits are met with in all countries next above the Devonian series.

This system is known in geology as the period in the earth's formation which cor- responds with the third day of creation in the Book of Genesis, when the Creator first caused vegetation to appear on the earth, when He said: "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself."

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Lecoute, one of the first of modern geologists, says :

It is now universally admitted among geologists that coal is entirely of vegetable origin. The same anthor states that during the deposition of the Devonian system, and previous lo the coal period, there lived none but aquatic animals of low order; but that all things, air and earth, were prepared, by heat and moisture, to produce the astonishing luxuriance of the vegetation of that period. A seam of coal is overlaid by black slate and underlaid by fire clay. In the black slate were found the finest impressions of leaves and other tender parts of trees; in the fire clay which underlies the coal seams are found in the greatest abundance the roots of plants, and not unfrequently the stumps of trees with the roots attached precisely as they grew. And what is still more remarkable and significant, trunks of trees are not nnfrequently found almost entire, standing erect, with their roots still in the fire clay, their trunks passing through the coal seam, and far into the overlying strata of shale and limestone.

Parties who accompanied the expedition of General Sully in 1864. noted this resemblance of this description of natural coal measures to that of the Bad Lands on the Little Missouri River. It has been asserted by distinguished geologists that the basin of the Bad Lands is the ancient bed of a great coal field. the upper seam of which has been burned out by self-ignited fires, and the same layer underlies all the territory between the Missouri and the Yellowstone. In the early part of the last century the trapper and Indians told of the region of the Bad Lands being on fire, emitting an offensive smoke and the sound of rumbling thunder from the earth. These phenomena were mentioned by Lewis & Clark in 1805, and Hunt and Mckenzie in 1811.

Humboldt accounted for this by attributing the cause to an escape of hydrogen from subterranean beds of burning coal. Parker, who crossed that region in 1835, says :

The Thunder Spirits appear to have closed their labors. In passing the Black Hills we heard none of those successive reports resembling the discharge of several pieces of artil- lery, mentioned by some authors.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 149

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920 Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1198

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198