USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 33
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June 3. Eight hundred Norwegians are enroute between Chicago and Sioux City, bound for Dakota. Brink & Sales' steamboat blew up near Vermil- iion last week.
Claims are being rapidly taken above Blooming- dale and about Canton in Lincoln county.
Governor Burbank has assurances that there will be no Indian troubles in Dakota this year.
A. W. Pratt, of Vermillion, is in the city.
F. J. DeWitt, sutler and Indian trader at Fort Thompson, is in town.
June 8. C. H. True, editor of the Vermillion Republican, and Gen. W. H. H. Beadle, surveyor gen- eral of Dakota, arrived here from their homes on Sunday and on Wednesday left for the east. We found these gentlemen to be the living embodiments and ideal representatives of western men; courteous, independent, well posted and with an unflinching super-abundance of confidence in the future growth and development of the country which they represent. The General informed us that the government land is being settled up rapidly by farmers and others who design making permanent homes.
June 15. We learn from parties just returned from up the river that settlements now extend fifty miles above Fort Dakota.
Several correspondents from Elk Point, Vermil- lion and Yankton discuss the unparalleled growth and prosperity of the territory.
Hon. George H. Hand has been ousted from the office of Attorney General of Dakota.
Judge Boyles of Dakota has gone to Washington to see Grant about continuing in office. .
July 4. There is a rush of immigration to the Fort Dakota Reservation.
July 14. Crops in Dakota are in excellent condi- tion. Vegetation is the most luxuriant ever wit- nessed, even in Dakota.
Beginning with the following year, newspaper files of Dakota papers are accessible and the accuracy of reported events can be to a large degree checked by the contemporaneous record of the press.
Charles Collins, the proprietor of the Sioux City Times, an Irishman of the most undaunted courage and energy, not always practically ap- plied, but possessed with an enthusiasm which never recognized defeat, had established a paper city on the Missouri opposite the mouth of White river in the present Brule county, which he called Brule City. True to his native temperament, his views enlarged as he progressed and he deter- mined to establish there a colony for the op- pressed Irish from every section. His plan em- braced the foundation of an Irish-American em- pire. He proposed to organize in different parts
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of the country colonies of Irish-Americans who should come to Dakota and homestead the lands east of the Missouri, "so that when England's difficulty and Ireland's opportunity came a patriotic army of Irish-Americans could be at once and without interference thrown into the British dominions, and wipe out root and branch the English oppressors from the American con- tinent." He quietly secured the endorsement of his scheme by the Fenian convention of 1869 and got a charter from congress, naming as incor-
porators among others A. T. Stewart, Jim Fiske, Ben Butler and Wendall Phillips. A committee was appointed to visit Dakota and report upon the feasibility of the location. They came out, but, being tenderfeet, saw nothing of merit in the scheme and a majority reported against it and it collapsed. Collins, however, held on to the scheme for years. He removed to Brule City, which he for a time called Limerick, and estab- lished a newspaper there. Nothing, however, came of the enterprise.
CHAPTER XLII
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1870.
The year of 1870 was one of unusual prog- ress and prosperity in the territory. Immigra- tion swarmed in and crops were very good in- deed. The census, taken as of June Ist, that year, showed a total population of fourteen thousand one hundred eighty-one souls, in addition to the large Indian population. The building improve- ments made in the city of Yankton were estimated at two hundred thousand dollars. Vermillion, Elk Point, Springfield, Sioux Falls, Canton and Dell Rapids made a corresponding growth. Not- withstanding the general prosperity, the year was given up almost wholly to politics.
The straight-out Republicans felt that Mr. Spink, who had served acceptably as delegate to congress, was entitled to a re-election. Colonel Moody was talked of for the position, but does not appear to have been especially ambitious and his interests were allied with those of delegate Spink. Dr. Burleigh, as ever, had an ardent fol- lowing, though his political integrity was ques- tioned by reason of the Democratic endorsement he had received two years previous, and his record as a Johnson Republican.
The Union and Dakotaian, then under the control of Arthur Linn, was an ardent supporter of Dr. Burleigh. The Dakota Republican, pub- lished at Vermillion, and the Elk Point Courier gave their adherence to delegate Spink. It was considered absolutely essential that there should be a good straight-out Republican newspaper at the territorial capital and on the Ioth of August the Yankton Press appeared, with George H.
Hand as editor; the publishers were George W. Kingsbury and J. M. Stone. The Press threw itself with all the force of its able editor into the fight in behalf of delegate Spink, giving Col- onel Moody, who was Hand's business partner, secondary consideration.
It is worth while to consider the character of the newspapers of that date. From every point of view, except possibly for the heat of their ex- pressions, they were highly creditable to the com- inunity in which they were published. In fact it is a matter of astonishment that papers so ably edited and containing such a variety of informa- tion and news and so well printed could have been produced in the sparsely settled territory of so many years ago. There never has been, in Dakota, more forceful editorial writing than in those days, but they were partisan almost beyond belief. Nothing was too hideous or too ridicu- lous to charge to a political opponent. Dr. Bur- leigh, who had been a lifelong abolitionist, was charged with having declared in a public speech that "the American people will yet regret the abolition of slavery." To have charged him with murder or larceny would have been much less hideous in that day, but be assured that his friends did not fail to charge him with larceny. It was claimed that he stole an ox of Mr. Den- man and gave it to Peter Swenson, of Clay county, in consideration of the political support of the latter. Swenson, it was said, killed the ox and hung its hide over the fence, when Denman came along looking for his property, identified
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the hide and compelled the thrifty Swede to pay him its value. Such statements as these were freely current and were openly published in the newspapers, and of course had as little founda- tion in fact as had the Colonel Moody sheep story which was as freely exploited. When Colonel Moody would go out to make a political speech his enemies would stand outside of the hall and bleat in chorus. It does not appear from the prints that any crime was imputed to Colonel Spink, though he was openly abused on general principles.
The nominating convention was held in Ver- million on September 6th. There were the ustal number of contests on the face of the re- turns. Burleigh controlled the convention. The straight Republicans thereupon withdrew from the convention and placed Spink in nomination, which placed them in the position of bolters, Bur- leigh taking the nomination from the convention proper. Four days later the Democratic con- vention convened at Yankton and refusing a proposition to again endorse Dr. Burleigh, nomi- nated Moses K. Armstrong as a straight Demo- cratic candidate. About thirty days ensued be- fore the election took place, and never has a more vigorous campaign been waged upon Dakota soil or elsewhere. Armstrong boasts to have spent one thousand dollars a day and Dr. Burleigh's expenditures, first and last, must have been fully equal to Armstrong's. Burleigh established markets in all of the principal towns where he advertised to buy and did buy all that the farmers had to sell, at advanced prices. It mattered not what they brought in, the genial Doctor was ready to pay a good round price for it. The papers were full of vote buying, vote stealing and general corruption charges and the vitupera- tion was not confined to the candidates, but every- body, whether a candidate or canvassing or not, came in for a full share of the abuse. Colonel Moody and General Beadle appear to have been the leading speakers and most active in the con- duct of the campaign of the interested candidates. As might have been expected, the election re- sulted in giving a plurality to Armstrong, Bur- leigh being second. Contests against Armstrong were instituted by both Burleigh and Spink,
though the latter did not prosecute his claim, but Armstrong was sustained by the house of rep- resentatives and held the seat. The Republicans, however, elected a majority of the legislature and organized both houses.
On November 2d George H. Hand retired from the editorship of the Press, to which place he had come simply to meet the exigencies of the campaign, and Messrs. Kingsbury and Stone con- tinned the publication.
On November 29th the telegraph reached Yankton, being the first line to enter the ter- ritory, its construction from Sioux City to Yank- ton having occupied but a very brief period of time.
The legislature convened on the 25th of De- cember and organized by the election of Emory Morris and George T. Rea as president and sec- retary of the council and George H. Hand and George I. Foster as speaker and chief clerk of the house. Dr. Joseph Ward makes his first ap- pearance in Dakota in a public way as chaplain of this legislature. There is nothing in the record of the legislature that indicates that any par- ticular factional feeling actuated its conduct and in fact there is nothing noteworthy about the session. The most notable business of legislation was the passing of a bill fixing the qualifications of physicians, the first law of the kind enacted in Dakota territory.
Governor Burbank's message contained little beside the usual common generalities character- istic of the times and such papers of those days, except a proposition to regulate the furnishing of Indian supplies for the various agencies within the territory for the benefit of the people of the territory. He thought that Dakota could furnish all of the grain and live stock necessary for the purpose and thus create a good home market.
During the month of December the Brules and Poncas got into a quarrel among themselves which resulted in a scrimmage in which three of the Brules were killed. They showed no hostility to the whites and the military was not involved in the trouble. After this fight they seem to have settled down, with no other disturbances, for the winter.
CHAPTER XLIII
RAILWAY AGITATION OF 1871.
The year 1871 opened up with great excite- ment over the prospective building of a railroad into Dakota territory. It is somewhat amusing at this late day to read some of the various argu- ments put forth at that date to prove that the coming of railroads would be advantageous to the territory. The agitation led to a proposition from the Dakota Southern Railway Company to build from Sioux City to Yankton providing cer- tain bonuses were granted them by Union, Clay and Yankton counties. There was no authority in law for voting bonds to aid railroads and the agitation culminated in a proclamation, issued on March 30, 1871, by George A. Bachelder, sec- retary and acting governor, calling a special ses- sion of the legislature to meet on April 18th to take action to provide the territory with railroad facilities. This proclamation was issued upon a petition signed by Nathan Adams, S. L. Spink, J. M. Stone, W. W. Brookings, J. Shaw Gre- gory and George W. Kingsbury, who were the directors of the Dakota Southern Railway. Gov- ernor Burbank was at that time absent from the territory, but when he returned, two or three days later, he at once telegraphed to Hamilton Fish, secretary of the interior, asking him if such a special session was authorized and could be legally held. The legislature convened in special session on April 18th. Within an hour or two after its assemblage a telegraphic dispatch was received from the secretary of the interior, Ham- ilton Fish, which stated that the attorney gen-
eral held such session was authorized. The legis- lature remained in session from Tuesday until Friday and passed a conservative bill authorizing counties to vote aid to railroads. Just as they had completed the session a corrected dispatch was handed to the governor from Fish saying that the attorney general held such a session was unauthorized. An uproar followed and the pro- moters of the railroad were accused of having manipulated the first dispatch. Investigation proved, however, that the mistake was made by a telegraph agent at Missouri Valley, Iowa, where in transferring the dispatch to the Yank- ton line he had omitted the letters "un." Not- withstanding the illegality of the action of the legislature, the railroad promoters proceeded under the assumed authority of the act passed, trusting in congress to legalize the action, and elections were called in each of the counties to vote the required aid. Union and Clay county were each asked for sixty thousand dollars and Yankton county for the vast sum of two hundred thousand dollars, but in consideration of this aid Yankton was to have division headquarters and the shops of the company. The campaign for the bonds was vigorously pushed throughout the summer. The papers talked of little else and all sorts of rumors were afloat about the prospect for the immediate completion of the railroad. On October 3d Judge Brookings telegraphed from Sioux City, "We shall have a railroad in Yank- ton in twelve months." His declaration was pro-
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phetic. The election was held in Yankton county early in September and the two hundred thousand dollars of bonds were almost unanimously voted, but Vermillion voted down the proposition to issue sixty thousand dollars worth of bonds in aid of the railroad by a vote of six hundred one to one hundred sixty-eight. Union county ap- pears to have voted no aid, but the citizens of Elk Point did make up a fund in aid of the rail- road.
T. M. Wilkins, secretary of the territory, to succeed S. L. Spink, never was able to stand pros- perity and it became necessary to remove him from office after about one year of service. He was succeeded by George A. Batchelder, a son- in-law of Hannibal Hamlin, and it is the uniform testimony of all of the citizens of Yankton that Mrs. Batchelder was a most excellent lady.
General Beadle had been a supporter of Dr. Burleigh in the campaign of 1870 and after Moses K. Armstrong took his seat as a dele- gate in congress Beadle was removed and Lott Bayless, of Pennsylvania, was appointed to suc- ceed him.
Crops this season were excellent, immigra- tion very satisfactory, and everyone was hopeful.
On Thursday, August 13, 1871, Judge Brookings, in the district court, sentenced Emiel Gallino to be hung on November 7th for the murder of a half-breed named Brogue, at Pease Island on June 7th. This was the first capital sentence ever passed in Dakota and was after- wards commuted on the 6th of September of that year.
James Newinan was mysteriously drowned in the Missouri river at Yankton, probably mur- dered for a sum of money which he had in his possession, the first crime of this nature which had occurred in that community.
On the 20th1 of September Mrs. Batchelder was visited by her renowned father and the visit was made an event in the social history of the territory. A reception was tendered him, to which there was an extraordinary attendance, all vieing with each other to do- honor to the dis- tinguished visitor.
On September 20, 1871, there appeared in the Yankton Press a leading editorial written by George W. Kingsbury, suggesting the possibility of securing artesian water by boring at Yankton. At that time artesian wells were being ex- tensively experimented with all over the United States and Mr. Kingsbury only could suggest that if artesian water could be obtained else- where it might be obtained there and it was worth while to make the experiment. This was the first artesian well suggestion made in Dakota ter- ritory and after that time the press had a good deal to say on the subject. It probably may be safely assumed that Mr. Kingsbury is entitled to the credit of being the first agitator for artesian water.
A rather remarkable cause of excitement oc- curred this season. Some one picked up in the glacial drift near Maxwell's mills on the James river, about thirty miles north of Yankton, a brilliant. Soon after several garnets were found, which led to the conclusion that the James river valley was a vast diamond field. The eastern papers talked with the ordinary exaggeration about it and several expeditions visited the valley for the purpose of exploring the extent and worth of the diamond district. It may as well be stated here as elsewhere that the entire glacial area of eastern Dakota and particularly in the terminal moraines all yield more or less of gold and precious stones. Both gold and precious stones have been found in small quantities at very many points, but nowhere in a quantity to justify work- ing. The fact is the drift was brought here from a long distance over auriferous sections and con- sequently only small quantities of the precious metals were carried along with the ice. It is not to be expected that anywhere the prairie can contain the precious stones in sufficient quantities to justify working.
In the fall of 1871 a prairie fire burned out a great many citizens north and west of Yankton. It was particularly hard on the Bohemian settlers who came in 1869 and '70 and who had not yet become sufficiently advanced in their new homes to be fortified against such a calamity. It was re-
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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.
ported that the fire was set by a party of young Yankton Indians who were hunting in the vicinity. When this report came to old Strike- the-Ree at the Yankton agency he was deeply grieved to learn that his people were held re- sponsible for the calamity which had befallen his white neighbors. He called a council of the head men and after questioning all of the young men who had been away from home he became con- vinced that his people had not set the fire ; how- ever he was extremely anxious to show his good will, so he gathered up from among the Yank- tons a purse of one hundred dollars and carried the same to agent Webster, saying that he had come to deny that the Yanktons were the ones who had set fire to the prairies. "But," he con- tinued, "I am sorry that anyone should suffer and so I wish for my tribe to have something sent to relieve them. I am clothed and have something to eat. I want the money sent that they may have food and to show that I feel for them. The Yanktons wish to be good neigh- bors." And he wished the agent to receive the inoney he had brought and have it expended for the benefit of the fire sufferers. This unexpected generosity of the Indians was characteristic of old Strike and his memory is entitled to the re- spect and reverence of all of the people of South Dakota. He never failed them in time of need.
On November 25th a terrible blizzard, coming almost out of the clear sky, overwhelmed the northwest. It entailed great suffering and some loss of life, but the Dakota settlers suffered less from it than did their neighbors in Minnesota.
There 'was no legislature and very little of politics in this year. The railroad question oc- cupied almost the entire attention of the public.
At this date there were five Indian agencies within South Dakota. The Yankton agency was uncler the charge of Major S. D. Webster. The several drouths and grasshopper years preceding 1870 had discouraged the Indians in agriculture, but Major Webster encouraged them to under- take farming and agriculture this year, which they carried on with reasonable success, harvest- ing about nine thousand bushels of wheat besides
their other crops. There were three schools on this reservation, with three hundred sixty-six regular attendants.
The Crow Creek agency, where were as- sembled the lower Yanktonaise, and also the lower Brule agency, directly across the river from it, were under the control of Dr. Henry F. Liv- ingston. There were about one thousand of the Yanktonaise and fifteen hundred of the Brule. They were at that time little inclined to agri- cultural work and in fact the results of their efforts in that behalf were not such as to en- courage them to much exertion. The Indians, particularly the Brules, were intractable and un- ruly and required the presence of a military force to keep them in order.
The Grand River agency was under the direction of J. C. O'Connor. They seem to have been well disposed during this season and, under the lead of the well-known John Grass, did some farming, growing two hundred acres of corn, squash and pumpkins which yielded a most abundant crop. A few soldiers only were re- quired to preserve order.
On the Ist of June that year the Whetstone agency was removed from the mouth of the Whetstone creek, adjacent to the Fort Randall military reservation, back onto the Big White Clay creek, farther up the White river. This re- moval was made at the request of Spotted Tail to enable him to better protect his Indians from the extensive liquor traffic carried on along the Mis- souri river. They had but one school, which was under the auspices of the Episcopal church.
The Cheyenne River agency, under Theo. M. Koues, was the home of the Two Kettles and a portion of the Minneconjou. They seem to have given but little trouble and were reasonably in- dustrious, producing a good crop of corn and cutting a good deal of hay. There were six thousand Indians tributary to this agency, but some of them roved back on Cherry creek and never came in to the agency. The agent recommended to the department that his agency he removed from the Cheyenne down to Peoria Bottom, near Pierre.
HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.
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The Sisseton agency was under the control of Dr. J. W. Daniels and he reports them well be- haved, industrious and reasonably prosperous. They raised seven hundred twenty acres of wheat that year. The Good Will school was in its first year under the charge of Prof. Wyllys K. Morris, a member of the Riggs family, and father of the well-known Harry S. Morris, of
Sisseton, and was a success from the beginning. In addition to these agencies mentioned within the state, the Red Cloud agency, located at Fort Crawford, Nebraska, was a rendezvous for a large number of South Dakota Indians. Everywhere the Indians were inclined to accept the treaty of 1868 as final and to abide by its provisions.
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CHAPTER XLIV
SOME DEVELOPMENTS OF 1872.
The year of 1872 is in many respects a notable one in the history of Dakota territory. It is the year of the first railway ; the year of the com- ing of the Hollanders; the year of the earth- quake : the year of the founding of the first col- lege, and the year of the great Moody-Brook- ings contest.
This remarkable year opened with the death, on January 5th, of Gen. John Blair Smith Todd, first delegate in congress and for several years the territory's most prominent citizen.
On February 8th the President removed G. A. Batchellor, secretary of Dakota, and appointed to the positio.1 Gen. E. S. McCook, a member of the celebrated "Fighting McCook" family. General McCook arrived at the capitol on March 8th and next day assumed the office.
In April of this year the postoffice was es- tablished at Scotland, indicating the spread of population back into the interior, naturally of course keeping near the James river.
Congress had legalized the railway bond act which was passed at the special session of the previous year and railway construction from Sioux City was undertaken early in the season. The settlers were also deeply interested to learn that the Winona & St. Peter Railway was push- ing into the territory, with Lake Kampeska as its objective point, and hopes for a general boom which would at once convert the great prairie wastes into a prosperous commonwealth were indulged. Little could the hopeful settlers of that day anticipate the plan of Providence to test and
sift the people who were to become the stock from which the permanent population was to spring, by the soul-trying wager of fire, frost, flood and drought, which should save to the state only those whom the most unpropitious con- ditions could not daunt. It was God's plan that Dakota should not be peopled by any race of weaklings, and with lash of hail and sting of blizzard and bite of blistering drought he drove out the fair weather faint hearts, preserving his splendid inheritance in the new land for the men and women with iron in their blood who had the courage and persistence to stick it out until Providence in its own good time gave them their reward.
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