History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 23

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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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The first trading post in this section of the Northwest built for traffic with the Yankton Indians was built at the mouth of Emanuel Creek in what is now Bon Homme County, by Emanuel Disaul, a French-Canadian, for whom the creek was named. He was for a long time the solitary white occupant of the country, and the date of the settlement is set down at about 1815. He treated the Indians honorably and won their confidence and friendship. He was never mo- lested. He finally removed, but where to or the date of his leaving can not be ascertained.

Maj. Robert Dollard, of Scotland, had been to some pains to collect the tra- ditional history of Bon Homme County. In an address delivered at Olivet a few years ago he said :

Bon Homme Island in the Missouri River received its name from a young man who was captured by the Indians about 1830, and who, after his release from captivity which was given him because of his good qualities, located on the island and lived there the remainder of his life ; he died abont 1848. He subsisted by hunting, wild turkeys and buffalo, supplying the fur traders who called upon him in their boats, with robes and turkey meat. He was known to the Indians as well as whites as a good man because of his many acts of kindness to the savage as well as civilized people. It is related of him that between 1838 and 18440 he saved the lives of a number of white men who were prospecting for coal along the bluffs on the Nebraska side of the river where a thousand savage Indians hell them im- prisoned in the Devil's Nest. He was famous for his hospitality. He was called "The Good Man," in English : "Bon Homme" in French, and "Washta Pale Face" in Indian. The county takes its name from the island in the river along its southern border.

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This explanation of the origin of the name "Bon Homme," while commenda- ble. must be incorrect as to the matter of time, as Lewis and Clark, a quarter of a century carlier, speak of Bon Homme Island. Mr. Dollard's tradition probably relates to an incident of much carlier date than he gives it.

The first settlement of importance in Bon Homme County was made by a small colony, nearly all young men, from Mantorville, Dodge County. Minnesota. This company started for the gokl fields of Colorado, Pike's Peak, in 1858, and struck the Missouri River at Sioux City, where they crossed the stream and con- tinued their journey along the south bank of the river to Bon Homme Island. Here they halted, having been favorably impressed with the beauty and appar- ent fertility of the land on the Dakota side. They finally resolved to investigate. and for this purpose constructed a large canoe from a cottonwood log, and two or three of the leaders crossed to the Dakota side and landed at the future site of the Village of Bon Homme. The "lay of the land," the deep, rich soil, the heavy growth of grass, all justified their first impression and the result was that the trip to Pike's Peak was abandoned, and they decided to locate at Bon Homme. They crossed their people and their effects in the Gentle Annie, the name given to the cottonwood canoe, swimming their animals. The first necessary work of providing suitable shelter for their people was set about with no delay, and soon comfortable log buiklings were erected for habitations, and a townsite located and a townsite cabin constructed. This company was led by John 11. Shober, a lawyer, a man of energy and ability, and it was made up of John Remme, Edward and Daniel Gifford. Fred Carman, John Mantle, John Tallmann, Thomas J. Tate, W. W. Warford. George Falkingberg. Lewis Jones ( colored ), Aaron Hammond. wife and one child, Reuben Wallace and 11. D. Stager,

Another party came from Dodge County, Minnesota, under Mr. Shober's leadership, who had returned for them, that also settled in Bon Homme County, and arrived there on the 12th of November, 1859, consisting of thirteen wagons and considerable loose stock. This party was made up of C. G. Irish and family. who, I think, left Dakota in the spring of 1881; John Butterfield, who returned to Minnesota ; Jonathan Brown and family, the family returned to Minnesota, Mr. Brown died in Meade County a few years ago; Francis Rounds, who died at Yankton in too1; Cordelia Rounds, now Mrs. W. T. Williams, Shawnee, Okla- homa ; and George T. Rounds, Stoneville, South Dakota. Joseph and Charles Stager left in 1865, and Nathan MeDaniels and family. C. E. Rowley and Laban 11. Litchfield arrived in Bon Homme on the 20th of December, 1859. Mr. Mc- Daniels died in Meade County a few years ago ; his widow and three sons, Daniel. George and Joseph, live in Meade County. The rest of the family is scattered and some dead.

A frontiersman of some repute named William M. Armour located in what is now Bon Homme County, near Choteau Creek, in 1858, and in the same fall or the following spring went out to the newly discovered Pike's Peak gold fields.

George L. Tackett, an early settler of Sioux City and the first sheriff of Wood- bury County, of which Sioux City is the capital, removed to the western border of Bon Homme County in 1859, and built a very large and substantial log build- ing for hotel purposes. It was bullet proof and "Tackett's Station" became a famous stopping place for military men, freighters and frontiersmen.

Daniel P. Bradford and son Henry arrived in Bon Homme from Fort Lara- mie. Wyoming, on the 2d day of January, 1860; his family was then in Sioux City and came to Bon Homme the following spring. Miss Emma Bradford taught school during the summer of 1860. in a log schoolhouse at Bon Homme built by Shober, Warford and others. The school consisted of nine pupils, namely : John, Ira and Melissa Brown, Anna Bradford. Anna. Mary and George MeDaniels. George and Delia Rounds. It was the first schoolhouse built in Dakota and claims to have been the first school taught in the territory.

The school building was a log structure 14x15 feet on the ground. It had no floor other than the prairie soil, one window, six panes, 8x10, plastered with

THOMAS H. BENTON

United States senator from Missouri for thirty years

GENERAL W. S. HARNEY In command of first military expedition to Dakota, 1>55

MONUMENT ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN DAROTA TERRITORY, LOCATED AT BON HOMME

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ordinary frontier plaster. The desks were made from the lumber in a discarded wagon box, and the seats were three-legged stools. But it served every purpose, was really an ornament to the little settlement and its settlers who had shown such a commendable interest in hastening the beginning of educational facilities.

In the fall of 1858 the Bon Homme settlement met with a serious reverse, re- sulting in its few pioneers being driven from their primitive abodes and com- pelled to remove across the Missouri River into the Territory of Nebraska. Mention has already been made of the edict sent out by the Department of the Interior warning all trespassers to remove forthwith from Dakota, and following this came the order to the military commander at Fort Randall to use his troops for the purpose of effectually executing the order. Accordingly, Captain Lovell, with a company of infantry, came down from the fort and summarily ejected the trespassers. These trespassers included all white settlers who were in Da- kota without authority of law, and this authority covered only the military peo- ple, the officers and employes of the Indian agent at Yankton agency, and those white men who had obtained Yankton Indian wives and were living in the terri- tory, and the officers and employes of the licensed traders, who at this time were Frost, Todd & Company. The Bon Homme settlement was about the first point where the soldiers encountered the proscribed class, and they literally drove them

down the bank of the river and across the stream, at the same time applying the torch to their cabins and improvements, and that material that would not readily burn was dragged down and thrown into the river. The work of destruction was made complete. The refugee colony was made up of W. W. Warford, a half-brother of George T. Rounds, John Mantle, Fred Carmine, John Talman, William Young, Aaron Hammond, his wife and one child. Daniel Gifford. Ed- ward Gifford and George Falkingberg. Mrs. Hammond was the first white woman to settle at Bon Homme. The colony built a log house on the Nebraska side and lived there until the early spring of 1859, when they again removed to Bon Homme, and rebuilt their cabins near the site of those destroyed.

The writer has much of this information from George T. Rounds, one of the party who reached Bon Homme from Mantorville in 1859. As to what became of this party later in life, Mr. Rounds says:

Mr. Shober remained at Bon Homme until 1805, when he went to Helena. Mont. John Renne went to Colorado in 1860; do not know what became of him. Fred Carman, John Mantle and some others went to Colorado. Edward Gifford went to Colorado m 1805 and was killed by an accident in the mines. John Tallaman enlisted in Company A. First Dakota Cavalry, and was frozen to death in the timber near Vermillion during his term of service T. J. Tate is at the soldiers' home. Hot Springs, this state. George Falkinghurg has a cattle ranch in the southern Black Hills country. W. W. Warford died at Bon Homme in 1862. Lewis Jones was killed in Yankton by Burns Smith, about 1860. Mr. Hammond and wife had a child born in 1860, supposed to be the first white child born in the territory. They afterwards moved to lowa.

Mr. D. P. Bradford died in Bon Homme. Miss Emma Bradford became Mrs. John Swobe and resides at llartington, Neb. Mrs. John Kountz, widow of Samuel Grant and eldest daughter of Mr. Bradford, resides in Pittsburg, and the youngest daughter. Anna, who is married, lives in Scotland. There are a good many whom I have lost track of that came in during the first two years, as the most of the settlers left during the Indian troubles of 1862, Mr. McDaniels and family, D. P. Bradford and family, and Francis Rounds and family being the only families that returned to Bon Homme County from the fortifications around the old sh Hotel at Yankton, at the close of the Indian raid in September, 1802. George M. Pinney came in the spring of 1891, and Charles N. Cooper and Richard M. John son laid out the Town of Springfield in 1861. Mr. Johnson is still living in Leid, Lawrence County. These facts have been mainly secured from George T. Rounds, who with his mother was one of the Bon Homme pioneers. Regarding the fortifications on or near Ben Ilomme Island, Mr. Rounds says there were marks of a fortification near the heal of the island consisting of an embankment which covered about five acres; also on a small eles. tion near the fortification was a place marked as the grave of the man called "Bon Homme." llis real name 1 cannot remember. A Frenchman by the name of John McBride told me that he was one of the party who buried him. Mr. McBride is now dead. I had letters of enquiry in regard to his burial from relations who lived in St. Joseph, Mo. In the last twenty years the river has completely cut away the upper end of the island, so it is doubtful if there remains any trace of the okl fort. Hugh Fraley and his son Benton Fraky came

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to Bon Homme in the spring of 1801. There was a Miss Gifford ( Charlotte), I think, who taught school in Yankton during the spring of 1862. My recollection is that Charles T. McCoy came to Bon Homme in 1807 from Olmstead County, Minn.

CHARLES P. BOOGE NOMINATED

The first formal political movement in Bon Homme County was a mass convention hekl in 1861, when the following proceedings were had :

Pursuant to a call, the electors of Bon Homme district met in mass conven- tion in Bon Homme, September 5. 1861. for the purpose of nominating one coun- cilman and two members of the Assembly.

The convention was called to order by D. C. Gross, chairman of the conven- tion. W. W. Warford was chosen secretary, after which a motion was made by Moses Ilerrick that the convention proceed to nominate by acclamation. Carried.

The following persons were then nominated without a dissenting vote: For Council, John H1. Shober: for representatives, George M. Pinney and Reuben Wallace. After which the following resolutions were introduced and unani- mously adopted :

Resolved, That we recognize Charles P. Booge as a representative man of the people, one of the first settlers of the Territory, and has ever had at heart the best interests of the people of Dakota Territory, and if elected to Congress we have every confidence he will fulfill any pledge made in his Platform.

Resolved. That we, the electors of Bon Homme District, in Mass Convention assembled, do hereby pledge our undivided support to the nominees of this Convention and to Charles 1'. Booge for delegate to Congress. D. C. GROSS, Chairman.

W. W. WARFORD, Secretary.

Bon Homme embraced the Fifth Council District and the Seventh Representa- tive District, under the governor's proclamation of 1861, and at the election in September elected John H. Shober, councilman, by fifty-two votes, no opposi- tion ; and for representative chose George M. Pinney, by fifty-three votes, and Reuben Wallace, by fifty-one votes.

At the session of the Legislature in 1864-65 a bill was passed through both houses of the Legislative Assembly, late in the session, changing the name of Bon llonime County to Jefferson ; Charles Mix to Franklin ; and Todd to Jackson ; but it did not reach the governor until the last day of the session. It was not approved and the old names have been retained and will be to the end of time.

The original Town of Bon Homme was laid out in the summer of 1860 by a company composed of John H. Shober, Reuben Wallace and Moses Herrick. The last named built a hotel building and opened a public house. This was the first structure erected on the townsite after the town was surveyed. The Town of Wanari, about eight miles west of Bon Homme, was laid out at the same time by a company made up of R. M. Johnson, Henry Hartsough and C. N. Cooper. Both these towns were incorporated by the first Legislature, which convened in 1862, and the name "Wanari" was changed to Springfield.

The treaty of cession between the Yankton Indians and the Government pro- vided that certain Indians and half-breeds should be given a tract of land at any point they might select from the ceded lands not otherwise reserved. Under this provision of the treaty Zephyer Rencontre, a Yankton half-breed, took up a 640-acre tract adjoining and probably including the Shober town- site at Bon Homme. A large tract of this he sold a few years later to Dr. W. . A. Burleigh and Gov. A. J. Faulk, who laid out a townsite which was after- ward incorporated. It was already the county seat by act of the Legislature; was also the seat of the United States Court, and had a postoffice with Mrs. Francis Rounds as postmistress. Its first hotel keeper was Moses Herrick, who afterwards moved to Yankton, thence to Vermillion.

A number of stores were built, a blacksmith shop and dwellings, until quite a village had sprung up. The land surrounding for several miles (five or

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six) was all taken by settlers and much of it already producing sod corn, oats and potatoes. The village began to decline later, but was not entirely abandoned as a town until 1885, when the county seat was removed to Tyndall. It was cut off from all railway facilities, and a number of other towns had grown up in the county and had taken away its trade.

The early settlement of Bon Homme County was greatly retarded because of the proximity of the Yankton Indian reservation, which joined it on the west. But as a matter of fact the county was singularly exempt from Indian raids and depredations. It is not intended in this sketch to give any facts later than 1861 : but as appropriate to this subject of settlement, will state that in the widespread Indian excitement of August and September, 1862, known as the Little Crow out- break. the county was entirely abandoned by its white settlers, who came to Yankton, and when the alarm had subsided there were but three families who re- turned to their claims.

CHAPTER XV FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENTS ON THE MISSOURI SLOPE IN DAKOTA

(Continued )

THIE VERMILLION VALLEY-SPIRIT MOUND FORT VERMILLION-A MORMON COLONY -DICKSON'S POST-ALECK C'S POINT-KENNERLY AND VAN METER ESTABLISIL A FERRY-FIRST SETTLERS AT VERMILLION-IMPROVEMENT-FIRST LUTHERAN RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION-FIRST SCHOOL-FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL-THE DAKOTA REPUBLICAN-FIRST TERM OF COURT-TEXT OF THE VANKTON TREATY.

In the journal of the Lewis and Clark expediton is found the first his- torical mention of a conspicuous landmark in South Dakota, that of Spirit Mound, Clay County, and the reader is referred to the first chapters in this book for the description of the mound given by Captain Lewis, who personally visited and measured it. We have in this visit the first introduction of white men to the Valley of the Vermillion, of date, 1804. The explorers, however, called the river the Whitestone and again Redstone.

Fort Vermillion was undoubtedly the first improvement made by white men in what is now Clay County. This was a trading post built by the Ameri- can Fur Company of St. Louis about the year 1830, and stood on the bank of the Missouri River, about two and a half miles below the present Village of Burbank. Its site was dimly discernible in 1859, when this territory was thrown open to settlement, but since then the ground it covered has been swallowed up by the Missouri River, with hundreds of acres of adjoining soil, which has cut away the banks of the stream with its swift current. Andu- bon, the ornithologist, visited the fort in 1843 and described it as a square, strongly built, and without portholes. Larpenteur, a fur trader of many years experience and a historian, was in charge of the fort as late as 1850. It was abandoned in 1854. In August, 1844, a colony of Mormons, numbering ninety persons, with thirty wagons, left Hancock County, Illinois, to explore the Rocky Mountain country and select a new location for their church. They spent the winter following at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and in that fall they reached Fort Vermillion and spent the winter of 1845-46 at and near the trading post. The next spring they marched up the Missouri, passing near "Strike-the-Rees" camp (Yankton), crossed the Missouri at the month of the Niobrara Valley and reached Great Salt Lake about the first of August the latter year.

The Columbia Fur Company also built a trading post about the same time some two miles east of the present City of Gayville. on the bank of the river. The post is supposed to have stood very near the present farm of Mrs. S. C. Fargo. It was a small affair and was called Dickson's Post, named for Joseph Dickson. an okl trader, who had been in the country since 1804. It survived for a few years only, the American absorbing the company that built it.

Alexander C. Young came to Dakota in 1834, or rather to old Fort Pierre, then a new trading post of the American Fur Company of St. Louis, and was in the employ of that company; he frequently associated with William Sublette

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JUDGE JEFFERSON P. KIDDER, 1565

Delegate to Congress from 1875 to 1879. Judge of the U. S. District Court, first Dakota district from 1865 to 1875 and from 1879 to 1883. Died in office.

JUDGE WILMOT W. BROOKINGS

Pioneer of Sioux Falls, 1857. Later legislator, U. S. District Court Judge, and a leader in politics.

SAMUEL J. ALBRIGHT Provisional governor 1-59 at Sioux Falls

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and Henry Vanderburg, two quite famous frontiersmen. He followed trading and traffic until about the time of Harney's expediton to Fort Pierre in 1855. when he abandoned trapping and settled near the Vermillion, or old Fort Ver- million, with his Indian family, he having taken a wife from the Yankton tribe. lle built a dwelling at or near the present Village of Burbank, in 1855, and his place was known among the early settlers as "Aleck C's Point." In 1857 Charles V. Cordier joined the Young settlement, which was the first in what is now Clay County. Cordier residing there a number of years, and finally died there: but the year of his death cannot be stated. Young removed to the Yankton Indian Reservation about the time the Indians removed from Yankton, or the year succeeding, and abandoned his possessions at "Aleck C's Point." He there renewed his relations with the tribe. In the year 1858. Frost. Todd & Company built the cabin known as the "trading post" near the mouth of the Vermillion River, and Henry Kennerly, of St. Louis, a young man about twenty-four years of age, resided there and was the agent of the company up to the time when the country was opened to settlement in 1859. It does not appear that the company kept any goods at this place for the purpose of traffic with the Indians or whites, and the impression among the settlers was that the main object of erecting the cabin was to secure the location for town- site purposes. When the territory was thrown open to settlement, Frost, Todd & Company made claim to two quarter sections, embracing a large part of the old Vermillion townsite, but their right was contested by settlers and the company was defeated, not being able to establish title to any portion of their claim.

A rope ferry was put in across the Vermillion in 1857, before the trader's cabin was built. It was known as Van Meter's ferry and was located at the "trading post." A. C. Van Meter lived at the cabin part of the time. He also carried the mail from Sioux City to Fort Randall at that time; but he called the Vermillion cabin his home, and claimed a tract of land at that point. Ilis wife was a half-breed Yankton, a very intelligent woman, and an excellent wife and mother, as many white people among the carly settlers could testify. It is conceded by Clay County's pioneers, though it would appear from the best evidence now obtainable, that Kennerly and Van Meter were at least con- temporaries. An old shack of a building perched on a side hill not far from the trader's cabin had been abandoned before the settlers came in 1858, and this rude structure is thought to have been erected by Van Meter some time anterior to the building of the trading post, with the view of making claim to the land when it was opened to settlement, and a few years later Van Meter's Addition to Vermillion appeared among the recorded town plats in that county.

Following Kennerly and Van Meter, a small company of Norwegians came into the Vermillion and Missouri valleys in the early summer of 1859. These were Ole Olson, father of the first white child born in Dakota, and Halvor Swenson, with their families, who came from North Bend, Nebraska. and took up land not far from the present Village of Meckling. These may have been the first farmers to settle in the Vermillion or Missouri Valley in that section. Mr. Hans Myron, then a boy of twelve years, now of Gayville, was in company with these people, though his father, Syvert H. Myron, with the remainder of his family, arrived a few days later.

James MeHenry, of Nebraska, moved across the Missouri to Vermillion in 1850, built a store building and became the first merchant. About August 1. 1859, George and Parker V. Brown, brothers, and Marcellus Lathrop, all from or near Ponca, Nebraska, moved across the Missouri and settled in Vermillion. and a little later the colony was increased by the arrival of Miner Robinson and his family and John Listrop. Mrs. George Brown and Mrs. Marcellus Lathrop were the first white women who settled in what is now Clay County. George Brown, mentioned above, was the father of the first wife of Hon. D T. Bramble, who died at Ponca prior to Mr. Bramble's removal to Yankton. Parker

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Brown was known by the name of Deacon, but this nanie was a misnomer, for he was reputed to be the most proficient in profanity of any man in the settlement. The Brown brothers built a log structure near the old trading post, which was afterwards bought by Captain Miner and used as a hotel. The Browns remained in this new location but a year or two. The moccasin tracks were fading out ; they felt the restraint of so much civilization and removed early in the fall to a beautiful and sightly location ten miles west of Yankton, where they erected a comfortable and rather commodious log hotel building and prepared to entertain the traveling public. They called the new location Lakeport because of a number of romantic sheets of water that environed their new home and gave to the atmosphere the odor of a fresh water watering place. These were not all permanent lakes and their number has since been materially decreased.

In the year of 1859 there was quite a large increase of settlers in the Ver- million Valley and at Vermillion. A large increase at that time was not an overwhelming number, but the immigration of that year brought in a number of men of the most substantial and resolute character.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 23

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