History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 85

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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All that portion of the Territory of Dakota embraced within the following described boundaries shall be known as the County of Lincoln, to wit: Commencing at a point on the Big Sioux River at the northeast corner of Union County, it being the northeast corner of township 95 north; thence west to the southwest corner of township 96, north of range 53 west; thence north to the northwest corner of township 100, north of range 53 west ; thence east to the Big Sioux River; thence down and along the course of said river to the place of beginning. The county seat of said county to be at Canton, on the southeast quar- ter of the southeast quarter of section 14, township 98, north of range 49 west. And that until the next ensuing general election the following named persons be appointed officers of said county, to wit :

County commissioners, Augustus J. Linderman, H. P. Hyde and Benjamin Hill ; sheriff. C. 11. Smith or South; probate judge and county treasurer, J. Q. Fitzgerald; register of deeds, William Hill; justices of the peace, W. Hyde and W. S. Smith; constable, James Weekly ; coroner, Joseph Weekly.

And that the said officers be empowered to discharge all the duties pertaining to their several offices; Provided, that the said County of Lincoln shall remain, as now, attached to Union County for representative and judicial purposes.

This act was approved December 30, 1867.

Concerning the pioneers, a settlement had been made on the future site of Canion as early as 1864, by H. P. Hyde and his son Henry, who built a cabin but did not remain, probably leaving their exposed situation during the Little Crow Indian hostilities of 1862. During the intervening four or five years, during which the Big Sioux Valley appears to have been avoided by immigra- tion, there was considerable travel through the county, particularly after the establishment of Fort Dakota at Sioux Falls ; but the first permanent settlements are claimed lo have been made in 1866, by A. B. Wheelock and others near the point later known as Eden, and by T. M. and John Sargent, A. J. Linder- man and others, between what was called the Big Timber and Canton. Follow- ing these came a large number of German and Norwegian farmers. At Canton (then called Lincoln ) and vicinity the first settlers came in 1867, J. Q. Fitz- gerald, William Hyde, Josiah Weekly and W. S. Smith, with their wives and children, being the first. William M. Cuppett also came during the same year. These parties all took claims, and the following spring were joined by George T. Rea, John .A. Hewitt and others. A number of the claims taken at this time covered a portion of the future townsite of Canton. There was no small con- tention over the precise locality where the county seat should be localed, and while all were agreed that it should be at Canton, the question, as the matter first to be settled, was as to the townsite. This was finally arranged by a compromise of the claim holders directly interested, who joined together and entered a tract of 160 acres as a townsite under the federal townsite law. These parties were William M. Cuppett, Thomas Sargent, Fred Reidle, W. S. Smith, John N. Hewitt and George T. Rea.

Strolling bands of professedly friendly Indians annoyed these early set- tlers, more by their presence in the vicinity than by any depredations committed.

The Indians had never entirely abandoned that portion of the Sioux Valley or that to the north, and as no whites had settled in the country during the Indian troubles of 1862 and later, the red men had been unnoticed and pursued their fishing and trapping unmolested. As the whites came in the Indians were required to withdraw and remain on their reservations. The apprehension of danger from this source was, however, sufficiently deep-seated to lead the first mercantile firm of Canton-Cuppett, Rea & Hewill-to erect their store build- ing. in 1868, in the form of a fort, sufficiently large to accommodate their busi- ness and provide accommodations for thirty or forty people then in the county. No Indians troubled them, though the store-fort undoubtedly assisted in keep- ing the peace. The Indians of that day had great respect for a fort of any kind. and seldom molested one. The fact that there was a military post at Sioux Falls was, as is usually the case, an encouragement for Indians to domicile in

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the neighborhood, if disposed to be friendly, as they usually were under such circumstances. Frontier post authorities usually treated strolling Indians gener- ously in times of comparative peace, and they were partially subsisted by occa- sional donations of hardtack and bacon from the forts' abundant store whenever they applied.

It was claimed that there was hardly an acre of land in Lincoln County that could not be cultivated with profit. The first postoffice was opened at Canton in July, and Benjamin Hill was the postmaster. A clergyman from Beloit, lowa, the town on the east bank of the Sioux, opposite Canton, per- formed the first marriage ceremony in the county on the 13th of October, 1868. when Jon Hanson and Miss Siren Louise Bille were married. An infant son of Mr. Jacob Sorter died in October, which was the first death in the county. Benjamin Hill opened a hotel in Canton in the summer of 1868, which was the first. In the early part of 1868 about twenty families of Scandinavians came in from lowa and took up land, and built a church the same year costing about eight hundred dollars. A. B. Wheelock, Daniel McLaren and William Craig settled south of Canton, near Eden.

Minnehaha and Lincoln counties, with Brookings and Deuel counties, con- stituted the Ninth Representative District by the apportionment act of 1867-68. and a convention was held at the Town of Canton, in Lincoln County, Septem- ber 12, 1868, for the purpose of nominating a candidate for this office. It was a republican convention and was held at the store of William M. Cuppett & Co. The convention was called to order by J. Q. Fitzgerald, of Lincoln. John Nelson, of Minnehaha, was elected president, and William M. Cuppett, secre- tary of the convention. J. Q. Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, was nominated for repre- sentative, when the dual county convention adjourned and the delegates from Lincoln met and nominated the following candidates for county offices: Regis- ter of deeds, William M. Cuppett ; sheriff, Charles A. South; probate judge, S. C. Lashley; attorney, F. Qua; coroner, Isaac Newton ; superintendent of schools, George T. Rea; county commissioners, C. Sogn, Thomas M. Sargent, William Peters; surveyor, B. F. Hill; justices of the peace, T. Brindleson, B. F. McVay ; constables, Jacob Holter, Henry Hyde. At the election held in October following, there were sixteen votes polled in Lincoln County, and fourteen in Minnehaha. Fitzgerald was elected representative, and the ticket for county officers of Lincoln County, named above, was unanimously chosen.

The principal streams in the county are Beaver Creek and its two branches, the South Branch and the Little Beaver, while the parent stream, entering the county near the northwest corner and coursing entirely across it, finds an outlet in the Big Sioux a few miles below Canton. Saddle Creek is also an excellent stream which rises near the eastern border and joins with Long Creek in the western part of the county. Pattee and Lincoln creeks are also two consider- able streams. It is claimed that there is barely an acre of land in the county that cannot be successfully cultivated, but this statement may be confidently made concerning more than nine-tenths of the territory, with the exception of the limited mountainous and valuable mineral portions.

The first newspaper to be established in the county was the Sioux Valley News, by R. H. Miller, with material furnished from the Union and Dakotian office in Yankton. Mr. Miller was soon succeeded by Mr. Arthur L.inn. of Yankton, who had been publishing the Union and Dakotian at Yankton prior to its consolidation with the Yankton Press.

The Town of Canton had become a business village in 1871. Goetz & Thorson, W. E. Givens and Lashley & Russell were merchants; Mr. Crane. lumberman; Carpenter & Nelson, grist mill; Mr. Guteknust, boot and shoe dealer ; John H. Holsey, department store : Mr. Garrettson, merchant ; William M. Cuppett. postmaster; John Falde, real estate dealer; Simon Myers, black- smith : Frank A. Van Vlaett, North Star Hotel, and 1. N. Martin, Martin House. Physician, Dr. J. C. Reynolds, and school teacher, O. E. Rea.

CHAPTER XLII FIVE CANDIDATES FOR DELEGATE 1868

JOHNSON VERSUS CONGRESS, THE ISSUE-GENERAL GRANT NOMINATED BY THIE CON- GRESS PARTY-HORATIO SEYMOUR NAMED BY THE DEMOCRATS-THIE PROCEDURE OF RECONSTRUCTING THE SECEDED STATES-JEFFERSON DAVIS RELEASED ON BAIL- IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOIINSON-THE TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL-POLITICS IN DAKOTA-FIVE CANDIDATES FOR DELEGATE TO CONGRESS-SOLOMON L. SPINK ELECTED-DEMOCRATS ADOPT THEIR HISTORICAL NAME IN DAKOTA-GRANT AND COLFAX WIN-FIRST DEMOCRATIC NEWSPAPER-GEORGE BROWN A PIONEER STEAMBOAT MAN-BUFFALO DIMINISHING-GEORGE M. PINNEY KILLS EX-GOV- ERNOR BEALL IN MONTANA-ORIGIN OF DECORATION DAY-A REMARKABLE STORM IN MAY.

The year 1868 brought with it one of the most important and exciting political campaigns the country had ever experienced. The question of the reconstruction of the rebellions states that had passed ordinances of secession and cast their lot with the Southern Confederacy, was the great issue. President Johnson's policy was sustained by the democratic party and included the leading ex-confederates, though the political disabilities of the latter class had not as yet been restored to them and hence they were not voters, and the great majority of the white popula- tion of the South also adhered to Johnson.

The congressional policy, which was now openly supported by the republican party, was very popular all through the northern states. The difference in these two policies was one that men might be expected to differ upon, though the result of the war had forever, and negatively, settled the question of secession. It had been held by the Federal Government all through the war that a state had no power to secede-that such an act was not only clearly unconstitutional, but if acquiesced in by the Federal Government would destroy the Union-in short. that the Union was already dissolved if these states had a lawful and constitutional right to secede. Johnson's policy took the ground that the seceding states had not been out of the Union. That their people had appealed to the arbitrament of arms and had been defeated and had surrendered, and were again citizens of the United States and citizens of their several states, or could be made so by a proclamation of amnesty-that they might be punished for treason in levying war against the United States ; but the number of the offenders was so vast that to pass upon their offenses by the courts was out of the question, nor was it demanded by the loyal people of the country except in the case of some of the leaders and fomenters of the secession movement ; for it was well understood that secession had not been heartily supported by the people of the South before the war. Those who had held civil positions under the Confederate Government and those who had voluntarily borne arms in its behalf, were disfranchised, or rather had forfeited their citizenship. and required the restorative effect of an amnesty law or proclamation of the president to restore them to citizenship. President Johnson had favored this amnesty on the ground that these white people of the South were better qualified at that time for citizenship than the millions of colored men who had just been emancipated

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from slavery. It was claimed that the president was carrying out the policy which Lincoln had decided upon, and what gave important support to this claim was the fact that Secretary of State Seward, who was Lincoln's closest advisor, remained at the head of Johnson's cabinet and was a supporter of his restoration policy. Mr. Johnson's plan was to reclothe the white people of the South, save a number who had held high and influential positions in the Confederacy, with citizenship, and have them, with the blacks, go at it and restore the state governments, which at this time were under martial law and governed by army officers. The Johnson plan was to "restore"-the congressional plan to "reconstruct."

The congressional policy assumed that the acts of secession and the war had deprived the secessionists of all their civil rights under the Federal Constitution, and had destroyed the constitutions and civil governments of the seceding states, but that the soil of the states-the territory, had not been affected by the treason of the people and had all along been within the Union and under the jurisdiction of the United States Government. Congress proposed that all who had voluntarily borne arms against the United States and all officers of the Confederate civil service should be excluded from the franchise in the initial work of reconstruction.

The millions of emancipated slaves, who constituted a large proportion of the people of the South, and whose transformation from the condition of chattel slavery to that of freemen and citizens, had introduced a new and most momentous problem into this question of reconstruction or restoration. The slaves had been friendly to the Federal Government all through the war. A number of negro regi- ments had been enlisted in the Union army, composed largely of escaped slaves, who rendered good service. The negroes recognized that the war meant everything to them, though nothing definite looking to their emancipation had been consid- ered by the Federal Government for more than two years after the war broke out. The first decisive step in this direction was taken by Benjamin F. Butler, major general, who declared that escaped slaves coming into the Union lines were "con- traband of war," and were confiscated : but as the United States couldn't hold them as slaves they became freemen.

Mr. Johnson's policy, it was claimed, would have surrendered to the forces of the Rebellion the power to practically re-enslave the great body of negroes through state legislation. Congress had resolved to protect them and as a first step gave them the ballot, and also by authority of the loyal states, amended the National Con- stitution prohibiting any state from denying the elective franchise to any person on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. The Constitution was further amended prohibiting any state from assuming or paying any portion of the debts contracted by the Confederacy-or any state for carrying on the war. Both houses of Congress being republican by more than two-thirds, that body had no difficulty in enacting any law demanded, as the president's veto was easily disposed of by the two-thirds majority. Military governors were appointed in the seceded states by the Federal Government, who were required and authorized to organize the machinery of state governments. They proceeded in this work somewhat ou the plan pursued by the first governor of Dakota Territory, by issuing proclama- tions, calling elections for the election of members of the Legislature, state and county officers, designating those who were entitled to vote and hold office. These Legislatures, when assembled, were required to ratify the constitutional amend- ments. In some of the states conventions were called for the purpose of framing new constitutions that would conform to the changed conditions, while in many cases the old constitutions were reframed ; and these constitutions were submitted to Congress and the state formally admitted into the Union just as is the case with new states. Congress also passed what was called amnesty acts, relieving the whites from their political disabilities. First the amnested class applied to the subordinate employees of the Confederate Government and the private soldiers ; then a little later followed an act relieving a class of commissioned officers below a certain grade, and still later, when the great mass of whites had thus been relieved, an act was passed that provided for the relief of the leading civil officers, including con-

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gressmen, foreign ministers, and army officers, including the rank of colonel and above, upon their making petition to be reinstated in their political privileges and taking the oath of allegiance. Thus all who had been connected with the Rebellion in any capacity, to overthrow and disrupt the Federal Union, were finally restored to citizenship, except a very few, including Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. It was expected that he would be tried for treason. He was in- dicted and arraigned before the United States Court for the Northern District of Virginia, but through the influence of leading republicans and old-time abolitionists who had been his inveterate enemies for a lifetime, he was admitted to bail in the sum of $100,000, Horace Greeley, the renowned anti-slave leader, and founder of the New York Tribune, being one of his bondsmen. This ended the matter. The case was never called for trial.

The presidential campaign was contested by the champions of these two methods of reconstruction. It was evident long before the time for holding the national conventions that the republicans would nominate for President General Grant the foremost military character of the Civil war. This sentiment was universal among republicans and was sustained by thousands of democrats who had served in the Union armies. Before the war Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Logan and Thomas, and Secretary of War Stanton, were leaders in the democratic party, so far as they took any part in politics; and it was claimed, and was probably true, that nearly or quite one-half of the soldiers of the Union army had been supporters of the democratic party.

In the Territory of Dakota the political sentiment was similar to that which prevailed throughout the North. All the republicans and many old-time demo- crats favored' Grant for President, but there was a serious division in the territorial republican party in regard to the nominee for delegate to Congress, which officer was to be elected this year to succeed Dr. W. A. Burleigh, who had been triumphantly elected in 1866, as a Johnson republican, but who was now a candidate for the nomination at the hands of the straight, or congressional, re- publicans, the democrats having taken over all there was of Johnson republican- ism. In addition to Burleigh, Hon. S. L. Spink, secretary of the territory, was the foremost republican candidate, and Judge J. P. Kidder was also in the field as a republican, but before the campaign ended these were running, with the addition of General Todd, and Toohey, of Wyoming.

The democrats had not carly in the year become united on any candidate for President, and not until their national convention met did they decide upon nominating Horatio Seymour, of New York. Many of them supported Johnson, but there was entirely lacking the enthusiasm that foreboded success under the President's leadership.

In our territory the sentiment of the democrats was generally favorable to J. B. S. Todd as their candidate for delegate.

POLITICAL CONVENTIONS, 1868

The following official call for a national republican convention was issued in December, 1867:

The undersigned, constituting the national republican committee, designated by the con- vention held at Baltimore on the 7th of June. 1864, do appoint that a national convention of the union republican party be held at the City of Chicago, Illinois, on Wednesday, the 20th dlay of May, 1868, at 12 o'clock M., for the purpose of nominating candidates for the offices of President and vice president of the United States. Each state in the United States is authorized to be represented in the convention by the number of delegates equal to twice the number of senators and representatives to which such state is entitled in the National Congress. We invite the cooperation of all citizens who rejoice that our great Civil war has happily terminated in the discomfiture of rebellion, who would hold fast the unity and integrity of the republic, and maintain its paramount right to defend to the utmost its own existence, whether imperiled by secret conspiracy or armed force; of all friends of an economical administration of the public expenditure; of the complete extirpation of the

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principles and policy of slavery ; of the speedy reorganization of those states whose govern- ments were destroyed by the Rebellion, and their permanent restoration to their proper practical relations with the United States in accordance with the true principles of republi- can government.

Signed by Marcus L. Ward, of New Jersey, chairman; John D. Jefrees, of Indiana, secretary ; John R. Clark, New Hampshire; Samuel T. Ilussey, Maine; A. B. Gardine, Ver- mont; Wm. Clafflin, Massachusetts; Samuel A. Purviance, Pennsylvania; J. S. Fowler. Tennessee; B. C. Cook. Illinois; Marsh Giddings, Michigan; D. B. Stubbs, Iowa; A. W. Campbell, West Virginia; H. W. Hoffman, Maryland; N. B. Smithers, Delaware; W. J. Corning, Virginia; S. II. Boyd, Missouri; C. L. Robinson, Florida; S. Judd, Wisconsin ; Horace Greeley, New York; H. A. Starkweather, Connecticut: R. B. Cowen, Ohio; Thomas Simpson, Minnesota; Newton Edmunds. Dakota; D. S. Goodloe, North Carolina; Thomas G. Turner. Rhode Island; Samuel N. Crawford, Kansas; S. J. Bowen, District of Columbia, and J. P. Chaffee, of Colorado.

IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON

The national events of the year 1868 were the presidential election and the impeachment of President Johnson, and because both events had an important bearing on the interests of Dakota, a brief sketch of the impeachment is here inserted. The differences between the President and Congress, growing out of the restoration of the southern states, had grown so acute and exasperating that Congress had by various enactments curtailed the power of the President when- ever it became necessary to promote the reconstruction policy pursued hy that body, at the same time keeping within constitutional limits. The office of secretary of war had been the most important of all the cabinet positions from the out- break of the Rebellion, and was so considered at this time, especially by the President, when the questions and problems arising from reconstruction were in course of adjustment, as Congress was using the army to further its plans, and so far as possible check the unfriendly interference of the President. The various enactments of Congress pertaining to reconstruction, as a rule, met with President Johnson's veto, but the two-thirds majority of Congress easily over- came this impediment and enabled that body to pass such measures as were necessary to the furtherance of their policy of reconstruction.

Among the special acts found necessary was an act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices, which provided that the members of Mr. Johnson's cabinet should not be removed from office until their successors had been appointed and confirmed by the Senate. The position of secretary of war had been held by Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, of Pennsylvania, for a number of years, and although originally a democrat, Stanton had become a republican at the breaking out of the war, was Lincoln's "Great War Secretary," and favored the congressional plan of reconstruction. He was Mr. Lincoln's right-hand during the war. He was an able lawyer and a statesman, and very thorough and fearless in the dis- charge of his official duties. Mr. Johnson found him a thorn in his side and was determined to get him out of his cabinet, but the tenure of office act stood in the way. If he appointed a successor the Senate would refuse to confirm, and Mr. Stanton would be left in authority. The President finally hit upon an expedient that promised to relieve him of his obnoxious minister, and at the same time keep within the tenure of office law. Ile formally removed Mr. Stanton and assigned Adj. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas to be secretary of war ad in- terim, and directed General Thomas to take charge of the War Department. The President sent a communication to the Senate notifying that body of his action, and General Thomas called at the office of Secretary of War Stanton, presented his commission to the secretary, and retired. The Senate considered the communication of the President in executive session and answered it by adopting the following resolution :

Resolved, That under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the President has no power to remove the secretary of war and designite any other officer to perform the duties of that office.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 85

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