History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 24

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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Among the new comers were Aslak Iverson, Ole Bottolfson, a born leader, John Aalseth, August Bruger, Alexander Lancrease, John Gidross, Miles R. Hall, Franklin Taylor, L. E. Phelps, Chris Larson, Lewis Larson, Cornelius Andrews and Nelson Cusick, nearly all farmers.

Mr. W. W. Benedict, late a resident of Springfield, Bon Homme County, left Minnesota as early as 1854, and with a prairie schooner crossed the plains to Nebraska and finally settled at North Bend, a small village on the Nebraska shore just above Vermillion. Here he remained until March, 1860, when he crossed the Missouri and took a preemption on the Missouri bottom near Ver- million. The Vermillion settlement made numerous accessions during 1860, among the new comers being John W. Boyle, Henry D. Betts, Jacob A. Jacobson, Bligh E. Wood, Nelson Miner, A. W. Puett, S. B. Mulholland, who built the first hotel on the site that was afterwards used for the St. Nicholas. Jacob Deuel and Hugh Compton came in February and built and operated a sawmill near the west bank of the Vermillion River in a heavy timber bordering the Missouri.

The first child born in Vermillion was Viola Van Metre, daughter of the old pioneer, A. C. Van Metre. The birth occurred in 1859. The first white child born in Dakota was Ole Olson, of Meckling, then called Lincoln. He was born in 1861. This statement is generally accepted as correct, but John and Mary Stanage, children of Hon. John Stanage, whose widow still resides in Yankton County, were born at Fort Pierre, and two of General Todd's children were born at Fort Randall, prior to 1861, and later than 1856. The first death in Vermillion or in that vicinity was that of Judge J. A. Denton, which occurred in Decem- ber. 1859.

George and Parker Brown, with Marcellus Lathrop, settled at Vermillion in July or August, 1859, being the first settlers on the townsite after the territory was opened for settlement. They came from near Ponca, Nebraska, where they had been among the earliest settlers of Dixon County. They erected a building near the log cabin known as the trading post. This building was bought by Cap- tain Miner soon after he came to Vermillion and used as a hotel, known as the Miner llouse.

In the year 1861 the population of Vermillion and its surrounding country was further increased by the arrival of Hon. A. J. Harlan, an ex-member of Congress from Indiana : William Shriner, G. B. Bigelow, N. V. Ross, Henry S. Kelley, A. J. Bell and E. M. Bond. The little Presbyterian Church, known as Father Martin's Church, was built at Vermillion in August, 1860 It was the first church edifice erected in Dakota, and was a log structure. Prior to this and as early as March, 1860, Rev. Charles D. Martin, who was called Father Martin, held religious services in the village. At the time the church building was erected a religious organization was perfected, presumed to be Presbyterian,

WILLIAM SHRINER Came to Vermillion in Spring of 1861

JESSE SHRINER Came to Vermillion in 1861

HORACE I. AUSTIN, 1860

N. V. ROSS

FRANKLIN TAYLOR Pioneer of Vermillion. Came to Dakota in 1$59

JOHN L. JOLLEY, 1565 Lawyer and legislator

CLAY COUNTY PIONEERS

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and in September following a Sunday school was organized. A bell for the church was also procured by Father Martin, and Vermillion claimed to be the locality of the first religious meeting directed by a minister of the gospel within the territory ; it also claims to have built the first structure for church purposes exclusively; also to have had the first bell to call its people to divine worship and holy thoughts ; also to have organized the first Sunday school in the territory. The church building was torn down in September, 1862, and its logs used in erecting a fortification on the bank of the river, as a defense against the hostile Indians. The first school was taught in this church building near the close of 1860 by the first physician, Dr. James Caulkins, and it has been claimed to be the first school taught in Dakota, but that claim has been abandoned in favor of Bon Ilomme. On the 22d of October, 1860, Jacob Deuel and Miss Robinson were the principals in the first marriage celebrated in Vermillion, which was solemnized by Rev. C. D. Martin. The Dakota Republican, Vermillion's first newspaper, was founded by T. Elwood Clark and James Bedell, and the first number was issued September 6, 1861.

The term of court held at Vermillion the first Monday in August, 1861, was the first term of court held in the territory. Judge Williston presided, and A. F. Eckles was the clerk. A grand jury was impaneled which investigated some offenses for cutting timber on Government land, but found no indictments. Franklin Taylor was clerk of the court.

THE PIONEER METHODIST CHURCH

Rev. S. W. Ingham was appointed to the Dakota Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church by the lowa Conference, in the fall of 1860, and reached Ver- million on the 12th day of October, coming in on horseback. At that time there were few Methodists among the settlers, and not one was discovered at Ver- million, though the settlers turned out Sunday morning to listen to the message of the young divine who had come so far on horseback to cheer and enlighten them. Services were held in the Mulholland Hotel dining room.

The following Sunday Mr. Ingham was in Yankton, and there he was more fortunate in finding members of his denomination, but did not have as large a congregation in the morning as that which greeted him at Vermillion. He found at Yankton two of his church people in William Thompson, the carpenter who came in with Moses K. Armstrong from Minnesota in 1859, and Mr. Huston, who was styled by the old settlers as the "Old Yank." At the morning service four men and two women attended-a steamboat having arrived in port which proved a superior attraction. In the evening he held services at General Todd's town office, which was a frame building and something of a rarity. It was located on the corner of Broadway and Second streets, southwest, where he had a congregation numbering twenty-five.

Mr. Ingham went from Yankton to Bon Homme, where he performed a marriage ceremony, uniting Samuel Grant, a printer-farmer, and Miss Anne Bradford, the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel W. Bradford. He found two Methodists in Bon Homme, Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel McDaniels, but he re- ceived a hearty welcome, and the entire settlement turned out to hear him preach. These were the first Methodist services held in Dakota, and in the year preceding the organization of the territory. The person reporting these inci- dents mentioned the singing at the different meetings. It was fairly melodious and indicated that our carly inhabitants were more or less familiar with gospel hymns.

The following statement, which shows probably the date of the first assem- bling of Methodists for organization in the territory, was written in their records by Rev. J. 1 .. Payne, who succeeded Mr. Ingham in the fall of 1862 and resided on Brule Creek, in Cole County :

The class of Yankton, D. T., was formed on Thursday evening, January 1, 1863, at the home of Bro. Bligh FF. Wood, where the friends of religion had assembled for prayer. Seven Fol. 11

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joined that evening and two more the next day. As far as can be ascertained this is the furthest up the Valley of the Missouri of any religions society yet organized.

J. L. PAYNE, Pastor, 1862, p. 3.

Names of first members-Bligh F. Wood, Harrict or Hamet P. W. Wood, J. Whit- feld Davis, Ann Matthiesen, William Thompson, James E. Witherspoon, L. Z. Torspeich, Rhoda Gifford, Jacob Kyler.

The earliest Norwegian settlers came in from Nebraska and settled on the Vermillion bottom between the James and Vermillion rivers. This was in the summer of 1850, when Ole Olson and Halvor Iverson and Syfert H. Myron, with their families, took claims near the old Lincoln stage station, about three miles east of the Yankton County line. Hans Myron, now a prominent citizen of Gayville, was then a young lad and the only boy in the settlement. In 1860 in the spring, another small colony, headed by Ole Sampson, accompanied by his twelve-year-old brother, Louis Sampson, with Ole Bottolfson, John Aalseth and Aslak Iverson, Halvor Brydelson, Halvor Anderson and Peter Anderson, also from near North Bend, Nebraska, moved across the river and nearly all of them took land in the neighborhood of a locality called The Lakes, near the present thriving Village of Gayville, in Yankton County. Bottolfson and pos- sibly some others, however, went further east and settled near the Vermillion River. Still another settlement was made about six miles north of Gayville on Clay Creek, or on a small tributary called Plum Creek, from the abundance of wild plums that grew along its banks. Nearly all these people were Lutherans, and it was a custom among them to meet at some one of the settlers' cabins on the Lord's day and hold religious services by reading the Scriptures, singing hymns and listening to short addresses. The first ordained clergyman to visit these settlers was Rev. Abraham Jacobson. in the fall of 1861, who came out with a body of Norwegian immigrants from lowa and remained several months, holding frequent services. He officiated at two weddings during his stay and bap- tized a number. Mr. Jacobson had not come with any intention of locating, but more as a matter of' recreation, and during the winter he returned home. The first Lutheran Church to be established was organized at the home of Jacob Jacobson, not far from the present Town of Meckling. It was called the "Nor- wegian Lutheran Congregation of Dakota Territory." This was in January, 1864, and resulted in securing the services of a Chicago divine, Rev. J. Krohn, who came out the following fall, and entered actively into the work of organizing the field. The officers of his Congregational society were Ole Sampson, Helge Mathia- son, Peter Nilson, Aslak Iverson and Lars Olson Fannestol, and his parish in- cluded the entire country west of the Big Sioux and east of the James River. Reverend Krohn baptized a large number of children and held services throughout the field during the winter, but returned to Chicago in the spring of 1865. An- other visit was made by him after harvest, when he held divine services at the home of llon. Torger Nelson near Mission Hill, who had taken land there the year before. The first settled pastor was the Rev. Emil Christenson, of St. Lonis, who came up in 1867 in answer to a call that had been given him by a body of Lutherans who had hell a meeting in February of that year at Syvert Myron's residence. Mr. Christenson divided his large and widely scattered con- gregation into three districts, named Brule Creek, Bergen and Vangen. The Vangen district included Mission Hill. and here the first Lutheran Church edifice was erected in 1869, and the Bergen Church a year later. These were the first Lutheran churches in the territory. Mr. Christenson proved to be an industrious, as well as an able clergyman, and in addition to attending thoroughly to his own field, he laid the foundations for the churches in Lincoln, Minnehaha, Moody and Brookings counties, and when the Black Hills emigration aroused the coun- try in 1876 he felt that he could do better or more profitable work in that and other mountainous countries then being occupied, and much to the regret of his people, resigned and removed. Ile finally settled in Washington and Oregon, doing valiant work in the Master's service.

ADELPHI HOTEL.

ADELPEI HO.L.

First Public School of Yankton

First house in Yankton, northeast corner of Third and Walnut street-

Adelphi Hotel. Vermillion, in 1-20 Two views of Broadway in Yankton, Capital of Dakota, 1967 EARLY SCENES IN YANKTON AND VERMILLION

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The first Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church edifice in the Territory of Dakota was built in Yankton County about two miles east of the modern and sightly Village of Mission Ilill. The time of its erection was 1809-70. For ten years prior to this date, or since 1859, the Norwegians of Yankton and Clay counties who resided on the Missouri bottom had held religious services at the private homes of the farmers, and as early as 1861 a young clergyman named Abraham Jacobson, of their denomination, came out from lowa and lived for a time in the settlements, preaching and baptizing. Among the very earliest Nor- wegian settlers in that section were Halvor Swenson and Ole Oleson, Sr., who became the father of the first white child born under the Dakota sky after the Yankton treaty and cession in 1859. Hans Myron, a young lad, came with these people, who arrived in midsummer, 1859. A week or two later Syvert 11. Myron, the father of young Hans, arrived and took up a claim about midway between the Vermillion and James rivers. The following spring ( 1860) a colony of Norwegians, led by Ole Sampson, crossed the Missouri River from near St. Helena, Nebraska, and formed the Lake Settlement, which is near and possibly partly within the thriving City of Gayville. With Mr. Sampson were Ole Bot- tolfson, Aslak Iverson and John Alseth. A large number of Norwegian settlers came in during the years 1862-63-64. Torger Nelson made the first settlement on the highland north of the James River ferry in 1864, and it was in this year that efforts were first made to organize for the building of a Lutheran Church edifice. \ minister from Chicago. Rev. J. Krohn, was sent out in the fall and remained a short time, baptizing forty-five children at one service near Ver- million. On October 8, 1864. a meeting was held at the home of Anders Ulven, near Vermillion, and the "Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of Dakota Territory" was organized and the following elected trustees: Helge Mat- thiason, Aslak Iverson, Ole Sampson, Peter Nilson and Lars Oleson Fanestol. This organization included about all the country embraced in the Missouri bot- tom from the Big Sioux to James River. In 1865 Reverend Krohn, who had re- turned to Chicago, came out again and held services at the home of Torger Nelson in Yankton County. In 1866 a minister was called, the Rev. Emil Christensen, of St. Louis. He came up in August, 1867, and went at his work with great energy and intelligence. The congregation grew and prospered. and soon became so large as to be unwieldy. It was then divided into Vaughn, Clay Creek. Lodi. Brule Creek and Bergen. Brule Creek soon formed an independent church. The Vaughn district embraced eastern Yankton County and in 1870 erected a church edifice east of Mission Hill at a considerable cost, the building material having to be hauled by wagon from Yankton and Sioux City. Rev. Mr. Christensen re- mained the pastor until 1876, and built up a strong and permanent congregation, extending his labors into other sections of the territory. In the year named he accepted a call as missionary to the Pacific coast, and removed to Washington or Oregon.

Capt. Nelson Miner opened the Dakota House in Vermillion in the spring of 1861, but a few months later entered the service of the United States as captain of Company A, Dakota Cavalry.

Franklin Taylor, who up to a few years ago was the only survivor of the handful of earliest pioneers that occupied what is now Clay County, is a native southerner, having been born in North Carolina, August 3, 1827. lle is still living on his pioneer claim near Vermillion which he has entitled "Wayside Farm." Mr. Taylor was the first register of deeds of Clay County, and a member of the Territorial legislatures of 1863-64, 1865-66, and again in 1874-75. Ile had always been an old-time democrat, popular with all classes, and an exemplary and useful citizen.

Vermillion was the Second Council District under the governor's proclamation of 1861 and elected John W. Boyle and H. D. Betts to the Council. The vote stood : Boyle, 30: Betts, 34; Nelson Miner, 25; Miles Hall, 12.

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Vermillion also constituted the Fourth Representative District, electing Ly- man Burgess and A. W. Puett representatives. The vote stood: Burgess, 44; Puett, 32; Hans Gtinderson, 24.

West Vermillion was a separate political division, being the Third Council and the Fifth Representative districts. Jacob Dettel was the only candidate for the Council, and received 43 votes. For the House of Representatives, Jacob A. Jacobson received 41 votes; Bligh E. Wood, 27; Christian Lawson, 12; and Ole Bottolson, 4.

The following letter from a well-known gentleman of Madison, this state, will explain conditions at Yankton and vicinity in the summer of 1858:

Madison, S. D., June 17, 1905.

Hon. George W. Kingsbury, Yankton, S. D.

Dear Sir-Your kind letter of the 3rd inst. has been lying on my desk since its receipt, while 1 have been hoping to find time to dust off my memory and bring to view some of the events connected with my early trip to Dakota. It was a sort of a "wild goose chase" anyway. ] was but a green boy, having only one year before come from my father's home in New Hampshire to seek my fortune in the then almost unknown "out West." The opening of the Territory of Dakota for settlement was expected early in 1858, and in company with two young men, 1. Todd and F. Joss, on the 5th of May, 1858, we took passage on the Minnesota Bell, at Red Wing, Minn., bound for St. Lonis. At St. Louis we found the American Fur Company's boat Spread Eagle nearly ready to start on her annual trip for Fort Benton. We took passage on her to Sioux City, starting out on the 15th of May. Among the passengers was one Charles Chouteau (don't know as that is spelled right), of the fur company, Charles Picotte, well known later in Yankton, and eight or ten Indians, among whom was Mad Bull and Strike the Ree, if I remember correctly, also a French- man, Boyer ( or Brughier), who had a shack near the mouth of the Big Sioux and I think owned considerable land in and near Sioux City. [The Indians were returning from a treaty-making embassage, having been to Washington and treated for the sale of the Yankton Indian lands in the new Territory of Dakota that was not then organized.] We were on the river between St. Louis and Sioux City nine days, a tedious trip with a mixed cargo. Sometimes we would make headway up stream, sometimes stick for hours on a sand bar and usually tied up at night. This was the regular program with but little varia- tion, except as would sometimes occur a flow of too much whiskey in the cabin, a flash of diamonds and the shuffle of the gambler's cards. The towns along the river from St. Louis up gave little promise of what they are today. Kansas City seems only a few straggling nigger huts; Omaha with its white "State House" on the hill was considered the "castle in Spain" of some crack brained enthusiast. Our party left the boat at Sioux City where we found some two or three hundred people, two hotels, a city with a New Hampshire Yankee, Colonel Means, its mayor. After spending several days around the city, strolling along the bluffs of the Big Sioux overlooking the promised land of the Dakotas, we decided to still go west, bought a pack mule, crossed the Big Muddy and took the trail up the western bank of the river. We passed the town site of Logan (since washed away, I think ). St. Johns, Ponca, and made a stop of several weeks at St. James, in Cedar County, Nebraska. From this point we took observations of the situation, making several trips across the river to the Dakota side, and waited impatiently for the country to be opened for settlers.

On July 6th we went up the river to what the boys called "Strike the Ree's Camp" on the river, just opposite Yankton. Here we found several white men who had claims in view around the Yankton town site and who were waiting as we were for a chance to squat on the land. We crossed the river in a dugout and stayed that night in a log house, the only building in Yankton. The next day we strolled over the hills nearest the log house and ventured to cross the Jim to some Indian tepees where we found dogs and squaws, the latter busy drying buffalo meat. The only unexplained thing we discovered on this trip was a pole stuck in the ground on the ridge between the town and the Jim with a little sack of tobacco suspended from it. What this meant I never knew.

I think there were some twenty men at this time interested in claims at Yankton, but 1 am unable to give any names. It was not thought quite safe to remain on the Dakota side of the river, but these boys with their big cottonwood dugout for a ferry were anxiously waiting for Uncle Sam to give them permission to add another state to the Union. I know not the history of any of these boys, but I hope you will be able to bring some of it to light. That they were of good stuff goes without saying, but ] doubt much if their reward was commensurate to their risk and privations endured.

When it became generally known that the country would not be opened for settlement. our party concluded to return to Minnesota. We bought four oxen, a covered wagon, and made our return trip overland to Red Wing, travelling nineteen days, passing through the counties of Woodbury, Cherokee. Clay, Dickinson, where we visited the scene of the Spirit Lake massacre, which occurred in February, 1857. Thence we went through Brown, Fari- bault, Waseca, Steele, Rice and Goodhue counties, some days swimming our oxen, and

BAPTIST CHURCH AND OLD LOG SCHOOLHOUSE, VERMILLION, 1860

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floating our prairie schooner across the swollen streams not less than three times and going to camp at night without a dry thread to our backs.

This was my second year's experience out West and it seemed to work no bad results, but, friend Kingsbury, you and I were younger in 1858 than we are now, Yours truly,

HI. P. SMITH.

In August, 1858, Joseph R. Hanson, Horace T. Bailey, John Patterson, Ker- win Wilson, and Henry and Myron Balcom reached a point opposite Yankton called Green Island. They had come from Minnesota looking for a location, and learning of the opening of the Dakota country, had resolved to get in carly and secure favorable locations. As the treaty was not in effect when they reached Green Island, not having been ratified by the Senate, the Hanson party was not permitted to locate on the Dakota side of the Missouri, and remained in Nebraska, where some of the men took up land. They visited the whites on the Yankton side occasionally and found the two cabins of Holman and Frost, Todd & Co., which were the only structures on the townsite.

Some time in September the Indians made a second attack on Holman's cabin and tore it down while he and his men were across the river, and the following day a detachment of troops from Fort Randall, under Major Lovell, reached the place, intending to destroy the structure, having been so ordered by the war de- partment. Lovell ordered Holman and his men to leave the territory, it being an Indian country. Holman made no resistance, but withdrew with his men to Nebraska, and shortly after abandoned the projected settlement, returned to Ser- geant Bluffs, going out to Pike's Peak gold fields a year later.

The Hanson party made no attempt to settle in Dakota during 1858, but re- mained at Green Island with Saby Strahm, and provisions being limited, sub- sisted through the following winter on Mr. Strahm's corn and potatoes and Mis- souri River catfish.

In the early years the frontiers were infested by small bands of roving Indians, whose principal purpose was the purloining of horses and cattle from the settlers. The Nebraska settlers opposite Yankton were obliged to keep a continuous watch and guard over their oxen and horses to prevent them from being run off by some one of the pillaging bands who would resort to violent and deadly measures only as a last resort. In Hanson's Nebraska party was a man named Hank Bal- com, who had exhausted all of his resources in getting to Green Island and who had worn his only suit of clothes until it was a mass of strings and ribbons, ver- itably threadbare. He had but one good eye and the sightless ball of the other was a frightful object ; it was usually open, giving to his face an unnatural and very forbidding appearance. Around his waist he wore a rope for the purpose of confining the strings and ribbons into which his raiment had been worn. Ilis hair was black and very long and had been a stranger for months to comb and brush. His head was surmounted by a slouch hat that had parted company with its crown, and a portion of his long hair protruded through the opening and lent a frightful feature to the man in perfect harmony with his other apparel. Taken as an entirety he was a person that a law-abiding citizen would not care to meet in an uninhabited country. He was abroad one day and wandered into a patch of wild rose bushes, where he gathered and ate the wild rosebuds. These were very palatable and at the same time served to eke out the very narrow rations to which the party had become reduced. As he stepped out of the patch of bushes into the narrow trail that led up on the highland bordering Green Island he confronted a band of mounted Indians, ten or twelve in number, who had come in on a depre- dating excursion. Balcom was terribly surprised, but his surprise was nothing compared to the terror which suddenly seized upon the Indians, who looked upon him as an unearthly being, and the chief, who was in the lead on the trail, agi- tated and terror-stricken, gave vent to his alarm in a loud "Whoof." wheeled his horse and fled at a racing gallop back along the trail, followed by the band, who kept up their rapid pace until lost to view. Balcom returned to the cabin and

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 24

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