History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 25

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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related the incident, which satisfied his companions that he could be of valuable service in affording protection from these thieving marauders. These terrified redmen never visited Green Island again during the stay of the Hanson colony, and spread a report among the Indians that the place was haunted by the evil spirit : that they had seen him and described to their superstitious hearers the weird and awful appearance of this frightful incarnation.

In October, 1858, Enos Stutsman, of Sioux City, the first lawyer, Frank Chapel, also of Sioux City, and J. S. Presho, of New York, reached Strike the Rees camp. Stutsman and Chapel were connected with the Upper Missouri Land Company as directors, and Presho was an employe of the traders; David Fisher, a blacksmith, and the first of that craft, also came in and opened a shop, also Lytle M. Griffith, the first carpenter, equal to the best that have followed him even to the present day. Frost, Todd & Co. had selected their 160-acre trading post tract fronting on the river and adjoining Picotte on the west, and this became the original townsite of Yankton. At this time 1858, October, James M. Stone selected his claim adjoining Picotte on the east and David Fisher squatted on a quarter north of Stone's. Presho, Stutsman, and Griffith took claims west of the townsite and adjoining it. There was a feeling amounting to certainty, that the Senate would ratify the treaty at the approaching session of Congress and then the lands would be thrown open to settlement and pre-emption. These early claim takers understood that the selection of claims gave them no legal right to the land, and in order to secure possession until the ratification of the treaty, they banded together as "squatters." calling their organization the "Yankton Claim Club," and mutually agreed to protect the members from claim jumpers. Mr. Stone's claim is now the "Stone farm" and the State Fair Grounds were located on one of the subdivisions of the Fisher claim. Stutman's claim was afterwards platted as an addition to the city and called "West Yankton." Hanson had also selected a claim south of Stone's which he occupied in 1859 after the ratification of the treaty.

In November, 1858, a party of business men made a trip from Sioux City to Smutty Bear's camp, inviting a young Sioux City lad named Marcus M. Par- mer, to accompany them. Mark was then twelve years old and fond of novelty and exciting adventure, and he accepted the invitation. The business gentlemen were partners of the firm of Frost, Todd & Co., named Edward Atkinson and Lewis II. Kennerly. The party had its own conveyance and as game was plenti- ful, they took along their guns and a liberal supply of ammunition. They left Sioux City early in the morning and were ferried across the Big Sioux River by Paul Pacquette, proprietor of the famous Pacquette Ferry which figured liberally in the annals of carly Dakota. Paul was a French Canadian and a popular man. On the 14th of September previous he had been married to Miss Roselle San- quemette at the residence of the bride's parents on the Big Sioux, Judge John P. Allison, a Sioux City justice, performing the ceremony. Paul was in the midst of his honeymoon, when young Parmer and party came up, but he gave prompt attention to his business.

Ilerds of buffalo and antelope grazed and fattened on the nutritious prairie grasses of the Dakota plains; mink and beaver abounded along the streams and furnished profitable employment to scores of whites, French Canadians mostly. who had intermarried with the Yanktons; while water fowl literally swarmed in the lakes, sloughs and streams during the season of fall and spring. This was truly a hunter's paradise. The Sioux City party of which young Parmer was a delighted and enthusiastic member, drove along the military trail made by the freighters carrying supplies to Fort Randall, stopping now and then to test the accuracy of their markmanship on the wild fowl which were abundant, and to quench their thirst at the little watering places which the Government expedi- tions had dug along the way. The party reached the east bank of the Vermillion River near the present bridge about nightfall, where they were hospitably enter- tained by a young man named Henry Kennerly, a brother of one of the party of

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traders. Kennerly had for companions at that time Arthur C. Van Meter and Van's Indian wife. They occupied a small new cabin, designed for a trading post for Frost, Todd & Co. Young Parmer mentions that they had passed three or four cabins during the day but he does not recall that there was any sign of habitation at the point where the old City of Vermillion was built a year later and was washed away during the flood of '81.

The following morning the party was ferried across the Vermillion in a flat boat, and reached Jim River about HI o'clock without seeing a vestige of human habitation. On the east bank of the Jim they came upon the ferry house occu- pied by James M. Stone. This ferry house was situated very near the present wagon bridge. Stone ferried the party across and they drove on to the pro- posed new townsite reaching there about noon, and dined at the trading post with Mr. Fiske. This was a large double cabin and Parmer thinks there were two other cabins in the same vicinity. There were about one thousand five hundred or two thousand Indians camped on the banks of the Missouri, overlooking the river at the time of this visit. After dinner the party drove up the Smutty Bear Valley about a mile and a half to Major Lyman's cabin where they had supper, remained over night with Lyman and started on their return to Sioux City after breakfast the next day. Flour was selling at 10 cents a pound at that time, purchasable at the trading post.

In the fall of 1858 a party of Sioux City hunters made up of John Currier, William Treadway, Martin Nelson, Isaac Reynolds, Silas Marr, Robert Williams, James Buchanan and Louis Kennerly came out with a complete hunting and camping outfit and went over on the James River to hunt buffalo, which were very abundant. Their hunting grounds lay in the vicinity of Walshtown and from there east to the Vermillion. They found hundreds of buffalo besides antelope, grazing on the prairies, and enjoyed a royal hunt for three days. Every man in the party slew his buffalo, most of them took several, and returned to Sioux City burdened with hides and choice cuts of buffalo meat. The hides were tanned and each member of the party had a coat and a robe made for his own use.

BIG SIOUX AND ELK POINT SETTLEMENT

On the 12th day of October, 1835, Theophile Brughier left his home in Canada, and on the 14th of the same month he left Montreal for St. Louis. He arrived in St. Louis on the 15th of November, and on the 19th set out for Old Fort Pierre, where he arrived on the 13th of January, 1836. He lived with the Indians in the vicinity of Old Fort Pierre for nearly fourteen years; married a Dakota woman of the family of a chief, and came down the Missouri and located near the mouth of the Big Sioux River on the Iowa side, on the 15th of May, 1849. Mr. Brughier received his first contract from the Government in 1855, for furnishing supplies to the Sioux, and was also granted a license to trade with the Indians on the Missouri at the mouth of the Big Sioux. Thereafter he con- ducted a very profitable mercantile and freight carrying enterprise which in the course of time brought him a large fortune.

A settlement comprising a number of families of white men who had married into the Yankton tribe had been made at Big Sioux Point on the Dakota side of the river about the time of Brughier's coming to that vicinity where he established his trading house. John McBride and Christopher Maloney, who became mem- bers of the first Legislature, belonged to this settlement. Also James Somers, Antoine Fleury, AAdolph Mason, Robear Primeaup, Archie and Gustav Christy and Joseph La Plant. La Plant claimed to have settled there in 1840 and was regarded as the first white settler in Cole or Union County.

Paul Paquette located in the Big Sioux River in 1851, and operated a Rope Ferry on the Sioux City and Fort Randall Wagon Road in 1856 and later, near where the present wagon bridge is located. Paquette resided on the Iowa side. It is probable that the ferry enterprise grew out of the demand for improved cross- ing facilities created by the establishment of Fort Randall. Austin Cole is cred-

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ited with having been one of the first white settlers. He was a resident of Sioux City in 1857, but was frequently at Pacquette's Ferry, and no doubt had his land selected and occupied soon after the ratification of the treaty, as he himself claimed in 1850. The county was first named Cole County, and he represented that district in the first and second Legislative Council. Colonel Carson had a ranch on the west bank of the Sioux as early as February, 1859, and a Frechman named Lefleur lived with him. Eli B. Wixson, of Sioux City, came into the county July 22, 1859, and selected land and built a commodious log cabin at a place which he named Elk Point, where he opened and kept the first hotel and traded with the Indians who were trapping on the Big Sioux and tributaries.

Explaining why he came to select that location and how it came to be named Elk Point, Mr. Wixson relates :

In the spring of 1856-57 we had very high water. From a point northwest of Sioux City, on the bluff, one could behold a vast body of water covering nearly all the land in sight on the Dakota side of the Big Sioux. When the water subsided my brother, the doctor, and myself, with a third party, made a prospecting trip through the land that had been submerged, and we discovered that the locality where Elk Point is located had passed through the flood and remained above water. This, and the distance from Sioux City, were strong arguments in favor of locating here. The name of the place was given by the Indians long before the whites came in, and was derived from the fact that it was a runway for clk between two points of timber, one on the Sioux and the other on the Missouri.

SPECIAL INDIAN AGENTS-WHITE TRESPASSERS

Alexander H. Redfield, of Detroit, Michigan, was appointed United States agent for the Upper Missouri Indians in 1857. The Dakota Indians had no agencies at that time and were accustomed to meet the agent, who traveled by steamboat at some designated point on the river and receive the gifts and annui- ties sent to them by the "Great Father." There were a number of places on the river where the Indians would gather for this purpose. Yankton was one such point and Fort Pierre was one, and there were others beyond Pierre, extending all the way to Yankton. There were also some annuities paid under the Leavenworth and Harney treaties. Such a distribution was made at Yankton during the sum- mer of '57 and the fall of '58 when there were assembled here about six hundred lodges. estimated to average three persons to a lodge. These were the Indians scen by young Parmer.

Quite a number of emigrants came in 1858, some with prairie schooners and a good outfit of household goods, farm implements and domestic animals, and others came afoot, just a good pair of stout legs supporting a healthy body. New cabins began to dot the bottom lands here and there from the Big Sioux to Eman- uel Creek. The Indians viewed this trespass with much disfavor and the licensed traders were also displeased; but for a time there was nothing done beyond a mild protest and a notice given to the intruders that they were trespassing and would not be permitted to remain. These mild remonstrances were not sufficient to stop the encroachments, nor cause any abandonment by those who had made settlements, and finally resort was had to an appeal to the Government represent- ing that the evil had grown to such proportions that there was imminent danger of a bloody collision between the new comers and the Indians. The result was that the military authorities at Fort Randall received orders to eject all settlers who were in the territory without legal authority and cause the destruction of their improvements. The exceptions inchided only the persons in the employ of Frost. Todd & Company, licensed traders, and the cabins built for this firm, and the whites connected with the Indians by marriage. Agent Redfield was deputized to accompany the troops and point out the trespassers and their illicit improve- ments. Late in August. 1858, Captain Lovell, with his command, consisting of Company I. second regular infantry, started out from Fort Randall and began the work of destruction and ejectment. Near Bon Homme a large family named Young was found housed in a new cabin. They were driven out and compelled

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to cross the river into Nebraska, while the soldiers put the torch to the cabin. The logs being green refused to burn, and they were torn down and plunged into the river and left to float down stream. The people who were driven out were highly indignant. There were two families and the female members were with some difficulty restrained from pelting the soldiers with cobble stones. They up- braided the Government for permitting the outrage, stigmatizing it as a hypocriti- cal fraud for preventing the white people from occupying a country that the Indians didn't need, and didn't use and didn't know enough to use. The soldiers, notwithstanding, continued their desolating march down stream. At Yankton they found that the Indians had preceded them in the destruction of one or two cabins which had been burned the day previous to their arrival. One of these was Hohnan's. The troops went on to the Vermillion Valley where the agent dismissed them, having extirpated every vestige of the habitations of the new comers and driven them out of the country. They were not numerous, however. Mr. Henry Bradley, late of Yankton County, was one of the young soldiers in Lovell's command.

The Yankton Treaty of Cession was not ratified until February, 1859, but its provisions would seem to be of service in understanding the movements of parties and conditions in 1858, and as it had already been made and was ratified with- out change, it is here given in full :

THE YANKTON TREATY

Treaty with the Yankton Sioux Indians made on the 19th day of April, A. D. 1858. Ratified by the U. S. Senate February 17th, 1859.

Articles of Agreement and Convention made and concluded at the City of Washington this 19th day of April, A. D. One thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, by Charles E. Mix, Commissioner on the part of the United States and the following named Chiefs and Delegates of the Yankton Tribe of Sioux or Dakota Indians, Viz :

Artiele I. The said chiefs and delegates of the said Tribe of Indians do hereby cede and relinquish to the United States all the lands now owned, possessed or claimed by them, wherever situated, except four hundred thousand acres thereof, situated and described as follows, to-wit: Beginning at the mouth of the Naw-izi-wa-koo-pah or Choteau River, and extending up the Missouri River thirty miles, then due north to a point 1 thence easterly to a point on said Choteau River, thence down said river to the place of beginning ; so as to include the said quantity of four hundred thousand acres. They also hereby relinquish and abandon all claims or complaints about or growing out of any and all treaties heretofore made by them to other Indians, except their annuity rights under the Treaty of Laramie, of September 17, A. D. 1857.

Article II. The land so ceded and relinquished by said chiefs and delegates of the said Tribes of Yanktons, is and shall be known and described as follows, to-wit: Beginning at the mouth of the Te-han-kas-an-da-ta or Calumet or Big Sioux River; thence up the Missouri River to the mouth of the Pa-hah-wa-kah or East Medicine Knoll River; thence up said river to its head; thence in a direction to the head of the main fork of the Wau- dush-kah-for or Snake River; thence down said river to its junction with the Tchau-sau-sau or Jaques or James River; thence in a direct line to the northern line of Lake Kampeska ; thence along the northern shore of said lake and its outlet to the junction of said outlet with the said Big Sioux River; thence down said Big Sioux River to its junction with the Missouri River. And they also cede to the United States all their right and title to and in all the islands in the Missouri River from the mouth of the Big Sionx River to the mouth of the said Medicine Knoll River. The said chiefs and delegates hereby stipulate and agree that all the lands within the said Jimits are their own, and that they have full and exclusive right to cede and relinquish the same to the United States.

Article III. The said chiefs and delegates hereby further stipulate and agree that the United States may construct and use such roads as hereafter may be necessary across their said reservation by the consent and permission of the Secretary of the Interior, and by

1 This "point" was about eighteen miles "due north from the starting point on the Mis- souri River but does not appear to have been marked. There is no natural object near that would define it and presumably the blank was left and reliance placed on the concluding words "so as to include 400,000 acres."

The reader will note that the next direction was sontheasterly to Choteau Creek. The selection was probably defined after the treaty was ratified, for the Indians did not know positively that they would make the treaty when they went to Washington where the treaty was drawn.

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first paying the said Indians all damages, and the fair value shall be ascertained and de- termined as the said Secretary of the Interior may direct. And the said Yanktons hereby agree to remove and settle and reside on said reservation within one year from this date, and until they do remove (if within said year), the United States guarantees them in the quiet and undisturbed possession of their present settlements.

Article IV. In consideration of the foregoing cession, relinquishment and agreement, the United States do hereby agree and stipulate as follows, to-wit: First. To protect the said Yanktons in the quiet and peaceable possession of the said tract of 400,000 acres of land, so reserved for their future homes, and also their persons thereon during good behavior on their part. Second, To pay for them or expend for their benefit, the sum of $65,000 per annum for the period of ten years, commencing with the year in which they shall remove to and settle and reside upon their said reservation ; $40,000 per annum for and during ten years thereafter ; $25,000 per annum for and during ten years thereafter; and $15,000 per annum for and during twenty years thereafter; making one million six hundred thousand dollars in annuities in the period of fifty years, of which sum the President of the United States shall, from time to time, determine what proportion shall be paid to said Indians in cash, and what portion shall be expended for their benefit, and also in what manner and for what objects, such expenditures shall be paid, due regard being had in making such determination to the best interests of said Indians. He shall likewise exercise the power to make such provision out of such sum as he may deem to be necessary and proper for the support and comfort of the aged or infirm, and helpless orphans, of the said Indians. In case of any material decrease of the said Indians in number, the said amounts may, in the discretion of the President of the United States, be reduced and diminished in proportion thereto, or they may, in the discretion of the President of the United States, be discontinued entirely, should said Indians fail to make reasonable and satisfactory effort to advance and improve their condition, in which case, such other provision shall be made for them as the President and Congress may judge to be suitable and proper. Third. In addition to the foregoing sum of one million and six hundred thousand dollars, as annuities, to be paid to, or expended for the benefit of said Indians, during the period of fifty years, as before stated, the United States hereby stipulate and agree to expend for their benefit, the sum of fifty thousand dollars more, to-wit : $25,000 in maintaining and subsisting the said Indians during the first year after their removal to and permanent settlement upon their said reservation, in the purchase of stock, agricultural implements, or other implements of a beneficial char- acter, and in breaking up and fencing land, in the erection of houses, store houses or other needful buildings, or in making such other improvements as may be necessary for their comfort and welfare. Fourth. To expend ten thousand dollars to build a school house, or school houses, and to establish and maintain one or more Normal labor schools (as far as the sum will go) for the education and training of the children of said Indians in letters, agriculture and mechanic arts, and house-wifery, which school or schools shall be managed and conducted in such manner as the Secretary of the Interior shall direct. The said Indians merely stipulating to keep constantly thereat, during at least nine months of the year, all the children between the ages of seven and eighteen years; and if any of the parents or those having the care of children, shall refuse to send them to school, such parts of their annuities as the Secretary of the Interior may direct shall be withheld from them and applied as he may deem just and proper. And such further sum in addition to the said ten thousand dollars, as shall be deemed necessary and proper by the President of the United States, shall be reserved and taken from their said annuities and applied annually, during the pleasure of the President, to the support of said schools and to furnish said Indians with assistance and aid and instruction in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, including the working of the mills hereafter mentioned, as the Secretary of the Interior may consider necessary and advantageous for said Indians ; and all instruction in reading shall be in the English language. And the said Indians hereby stipulate to furnish, from amongst themselves, the number of young men that may be required as apprentices in the mills and in the mechanics shops, and at least three persons to work constantly with each white laborer, employed for them in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, it being understood that such white laborers and assistants as may be so employed, are thus employed more for the instruction of the said scholars, than merely to work for their benefit; and that the laborers so to be furnished by the said Indians may be allowed a fair and just compensation for their services, and to be paid out of the shares of annuity of such Indians as are able to work, but refuse to do so. And whenever the President of the United States shall become satisfied of a failure on the part of the said Indians to fulfill the aforesaid stipulation, he may at his discretion, discon- tinue the allowance and expenditure so provided and set aside for said scholar or schools, and said assistance and instruction. Fifth. To provide the said Indians with a mill suitable for grinding grain and sawing timber, one or more mechanics shops with the necessary tools for the same, and dwelling houses for an interpreter, miller, engineer for the mill (if one is necessary), a farmer and the mechanics that may be employed for their benefit, and to expend therefor a sum not exceeding $15,000.

Article V. Said Indians further stipulate and bind themselves to prevent any of the members of their tribe from destroying or injuring any of the said houses, shops, mills, machinery, stock, farming utensils, or any other thing furnished them by the Government, and in case of any such destruction or injury of any of the things so furnished, or their

JUDSON LA MOURE

Pioneer of Union County, 1860. Leg- islator from Pembina County later

C. T. HOLMAN, 185> Built first cabin at Yankton

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being carried off by any member or members of the tribe, the value of the same shall be deducted from their general annuity; and whenever the Secretary of the Interior shall be satisfied that said Indians have become sufficiently confirmed in habits of industry, and advanced in the acquisition of a practical knowledge of agriculture and the mechanic arts to provide for themselves, he may at his discretion cause to be turned over to them all of the said houses and other property furnished them by the United States, and dispense with the services of any or all of the persons hereinbefore stipulated to be employed for their benefit, assistance and instruction.

Article VI. It is hereby agreed and understood that the chiefs and head men of the tribe may, in their discretion, in open council, authorize to be paid out of their said annuities, such sum or sums as may be found necessary or proper, not exceeding in the aggregate $150,000, to satisfy their just debts and obligations, and to provide for such of their half breed relations as do not live with them, or draw any part of said annuities of said Indians ; Provided, however, that their said determination shall be approved by their agent for the time being and the said payments be authorized by the Secretary of the Interior; Provided also, That there shall not be so paid out of their said annuities, in any one year, a sum exceeding $15.000.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 25

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