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DEPOSITED BY THE

LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY

amerfcan Commontoealti^jj

MINNESOTA

MINNESOTA
TO Ar'f!0]\rPAN'\' —
W.W. FOLWELL'S
MINNESOTA in AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS
Compiled by the author, 1908.
SC.\L1. OF MiLEa

American CommontoeaUIjjSi

MINNESOTA
THE NORTH STAR STATE
BT
WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL

"^feu

BOSTON AND NEW TORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
(Cfie StibcT^tbe }^w^f Cambtibge
1908

COPYRIGHT igoS BY WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Putlished Octoher iqoS

PREFACE
If this compend of Minnesota history shall be
found a desirable addition to those already before
the publio, it will be due to the good fortune of
the writer in reaching original sources of informa
tion not accessible to his predecessors.
The most important of them are : the papers of
Governor Alexander Ramsey, in the possession of
his daughter, Mrs. Marion R. Furness ; the letter-
books and papers of General H. H. Sibley, pre
served in the library of the Minnesota Historical
Society ; some hundreds of letters saved by Colonel
John H. Stevens, and deposited by him in the same
library; the papers of Ignatius Donnelly, in the
hands of his family ; the great collection of Green
Bay and Prairie du Chien papers belonging to
the Wisconsin Historical Society ; the remarkable
group of early French documents owned by the
Chicago Historical Society ; and finaUy, the price
less collection of Minnesota newspapers preserved
by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Grateful acknowledgments are offered to many
citizens who have given information out of their
own knowledge, or have directed the writer to other
sources. Among "old Territorians" who have ren-

vi PREFACE
dered invaluable aid must be named Simeon P.
Folsom, John A. Ludden, Joseph W. Wheelock,
Benjamin H. RandaU, A. L. Larpenteur, A. W.
Daniels, John Tapper, and William Pitt Murray.
The last nam6d has put me under the heaviest
obligation.
W. W. F.
Untvbbsitt op Minnebota,
MuTNEAPOLis, MiMN., June 1, 1908.

CONTENTS

OHAFTEB

rAOE

I.

The French Period ....

1

II.

The English Dominion .

29

III.

Minnesota West Annexed

. 42

IV.

Fort Snelling Established

64

V.

Explorations and Settlements

. 70

VL

The Territory Organized .

86

VII.

Territorial Development

. 108

VIIL

Transition to Statehood

133

IX.

The Struggle for Railroads

. 159

X.

Arming for the Crvn, War

178

XI.

The Outbreak op the Sioux .

. 190

XII.

The Sioux War ....

205

XIII.

Sequel to the Indian War .

. 222

XIV.

Honors of War ....

240

XV.

Revival 

. 254

XVI.

Storm and Stress

267

XVII.

Clearing Up 

. 304

XVIII.

Fair Weather ....

333

XIX.

A Chronicle of Recent Events .

. 340

Index 

367

Mm:N^E80TA

CHAPTER I
THE FRENCH PERIOD
The word Minnesota was the Dakota name for that
considerable tributary of the Mississippi which, issu
ing from Big Stone Lake, flows southeastward to
Mankato, turns there at a right angle, and runs
on to Fort Snelling, where it empties into the
great river. It is a compound of " mini," water,
and " sota," gray-blue or sky-colored. The name
was given to the territory as established by act of
Congress of March 3, 1849, and was retained by
the state with her diminished area.
If one should travel in the extension of the jog
in the north boundary, west of the Lake of the
Woods, due south, he could hardly miss Lake
Itasca. If then he should embark and follow the
great river to the Iowa line, his course would have
divided the state into two portions, not very un
equal in extent. The political history of the two
parts is sufficiently diverse to warrant a distinction
between Minnesota East and Minnesota West.

2 MINNESOTA
England never owned west of the river, Spain
gained no foothold east of it. France, owning on
both sides, yielded Minnesota East to England in
1763, and sold Minnesota West to the United
States in 1803. Up to the former date, the whole
area was part of New France and had no separate
history. Although the French dominion existed for more
than two hundred years, it is not important for the
present compendious work that an elaborate ac
count be made of their explorations and commerce.
They made no permanent settlement on Minnesota
soil. No institution, nor monument, nor tradition,
even, has survived to determine or affect the life of
the commonwealth. It will be sufficient to summa
rize from an abounding literature the successive
stages of the French advance from the Atlantic to
the Mississippi, their late and brief efforts to estab
lish trade and missions in the upper valley, and the
circumstances which led to their expulsion from
the American continent.
It is now well known that in the first decade of
the sixteenth century Norman and Breton fisher
men were taking cod in Newfoundland waters, and
it is reasonably surmised that they had been so en
gaged before the Cabots, under English colors, had
coasted from Labrador towards Cape Cod in 1497.
The French authorities, occupied with wars, foreign
and domestic, were unable to participate with Spain,
England, and Portugal in pioneer explorations be-

THE FRENCH PERIOD 3
yond seas. It was not tiU 1534 that Francis I, a
brilliant and ambitious monarch, dispatched Jacques
Cartier, a daring navigator, to explore lands and
waters reported of by French fishermen, and, if
possible, to discover the long-sought passage to
Cathay. In the summer of that year Cartier made
the circuit of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and re
turned to France disappointed of his main purpose.
His neglect to enter the great river fiowing into
the gulf is unexplained. At two convenient places
he went ashore to set up ceremonial crosses and
proclaim the dominion of his king. In the follow
ing year (1535), on a second expedition he ascended
the St. Lawrence River to the Huron village Hoche-
laga, on or near the site of Montreal. He wintered
in a fort built near Quebec, where one fourth of
his crew died of scurvy. In May, 1536, after set
ting up another cross with a Latin inscription de
claring the royal possession, he sailed away for
home. Five years later (1541) Cartier participated
in still another expedition, which, prosecuted into
a third year, resulted disastrously. The king had
spent much money, but the passage to China had
not been found, no mines had been discovered, no
colony had been planted, no heathen converted.
Throughout the remainder of the sixteenth cen
tury the French kings were too much engrossed in
great religious wars, fierce and bloody beyond be
lief but for existing proofs, to give thought or
effort to extending their dominion in the New

4 MINNESOTA
World. The treaty of Vervins with Spain and the
Edict of Nantes, both occurring in 1598, gave
France an interval of peace within and without.
Henry IV (" Henry of Navarre ") at once turned
his eyes to the coasts of America, on which as yet
no Europeans had made any permanent settle
ments. His activity took the form of patronizing a
series of trading voyages. On one of these, which
sailed in 1603, ^e sent Samuel Champlain, then
about thirty-five years of age, a gallant soldier
and an experienced navigator. He had already
visited the West Indies and the Isthmus of Darien,
and in his journal of the voyage had foreshadowed
the Panama Canal. He was now particularly
charged with reporting on explorations and dis
coveries. On this voyage Champlain ascended the
St. Lawrence to Montreal and vainly attempted to
surmount the Lachine Rapids. On the return of
the expedition in September of the same year,
Champlain laid before the king a report and map.
They gave such satisfaction as to lead to a similar
appointment on an expedition sent out the follow
ing year. For three years Champlain was occupied
in exploring and charting the coasts of Nova Scotia
and New England, a thousand miles or thereabout.
In 1608 he went out in the capacity of lieutenant-
governor of New France, a post occupied for the
remaining twenty-seven years of his life, with the
exception of a brief interval. On July 3 he staked
out the first plat of Quebec. His trifling official

THE FRENCH PERIOD 5
engagements left him ample leisure to prosecute
those explorations on which his heart was set ; chief
of them the road to China.
In 1609, to gain assistance of the Indians in his
neighborhood, he joined them in a war-party to the
head of the lake to which he then gave his name.
A single volley from the muskets of himself and
two other Frenchmen put the Iroquois, as yet un
provided with firearms, to headlong rout. Six years
later he led a large force of Hurons from their
homes in upper Canada between Lake Simcoe and
Georgian Bay, across Lake Ontario, to be defeated
by the well-fortified Iroquois. The notes of his
expedition added the Ottawa River, Lake, Nipis-
sing, the French River, Lake Huron, and Lake
Ontario to his map. Could Champlain have fore
seen the disasters to follow for New France and the
Huron nation, he would not have made the Iroquois
his and their implacable enemy. He made no fur
ther journeys westward in person, but adopted a
plan of sending out young men, whom he had put
to school among native tribes, to learn their lan
guages and gather their traditions and surmises as
to regions yet unvisited. One of them, Etienne
Brule, who had been his interpreter on the second
expedition against the Iroquois, and detached be
fore the battle on an embassy to an Indian tribe,
did not return till after three years of extensive
wanderings. He showed a chunk of copper which he
declared he had brought from the shore of a great

6 MINNESOTA
lake far to the west, nine days' journey in length,
which discharged over a waterfall into Lake Huron.
In 1684 another of Champlain's apprentices, Jean
Nicollet by name, passed through the Straits of
Mackinaw and penetrated to the head of Green Bay
and possibly farther. He may have been at the
Sault Sainte Marie. So confident was he of reach
ing China that he took with him a gorgeous manda
rin's robe of damask to wear at his court reception.
Attired in it he addressed the gaping Winnebagoes,
putting a climax on his peroration by firing his
pistols. Champlain's map of 1632 showed his con
jectured Lake Michigan north of Lake Huron.
Nicollet gave it its proper location.
Champlain's stormy career closed at Christmas,
1635. The honorable title of "Father of New
France" rightly belongs to him, in spite of the fact
that in none of his great plans had he achieved
success. He had not found the road to the Indies,
the savages remained in the power of the devil, and
no self-supporting settlement had been planted.
Quebec's population did not exceed two hundred,
soldiers, priests, fur-traders and their dependents.
There was but one settler cultivating the soil.
Exploration languished after Champlain's death,
and for a generation was only incidentaUy prose
cuted by missionaries and traders. In 1641 two
Jesuit fathers, Jogues and Raymbault, traveled to
the Sault Sainte Marie, and gave the first reliable
account of the great lake.

THE FRENCH PERIOD 7
From the earliest lodgments of white men on the
St. Lawrence the fur-trade assumed an importance
far greater than the primitive fisheries. In the sev
enteenth century the fashion of fur-wearing spread
widely among the wealthier people of Europe. The
beaver hat had superseded the Milan bonnet. No
furs were in greater request than those gathered in
the Canadian forests. A chief reason for the long
delay of cultivation in the French settlements was
the profit to be won by ranging for furs. Montreal,
founded in 1642 as a mission station, not long after
became, by reason of its location at the mouth of
the Ottawa, the entrepot of the western trade. The
business took on a simple and effective organiza
tion. Responsible merchants provided the outfit, a
canoe, guns, powder and lead, hulled corn and tal
low for subsistence, and an assortment of cheap
and tawdry merchandise. Late in the summer the
" coureurs des bois " set out for the wilderness.
Those bound for the west traveled by the Ottawa
route in large companies, for better defense against
skulking Iroquois. On reaching Lake Huron, they
broke up, each crew departing to its favorite haunts.
The chances for large profits naturally attracted
to this primitive commerce some men of talent and
ambition. In 1656 two such came down to Mont
real piloting a flotilla of fifty Ottawa canoes deeply
laden with precious furs. They had been absent
for two years, had traveled five hundred leagues
from home, and had heard of various nations,

8 MINNESOTA
among them the " Nadouesiouek." The author of
the Jesuit Relation for the year speaks of them as
" two young Frenchmen, full of courage," and as
the " two young pilgrims," but suppresses their
names. Again, in 1660 two Frenchmen reach Mont
real from the upper countries, with three hundred
Algonquins in sixty canoes loaded with furs worth
140,000. The Journal of the Jesuit fathers gives
the name of one of them as of a person of conse
quence, Des GroseiUiers ; and says of him, " Des
Grosillers wintered with the nation of the Ox . . .
they are sedentery Nadwesseronons."
The two Frenchmen of 1660 are now believed
to have been Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseil
liers, and Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur de Radisson, both
best known by their titles. The latter was the
younger man, and brother to GroseiUiers' second
wife.' In 1885 the Prince Society of Boston printed
250 copies of the " Voyages of Peter Esprit Radis
son," written by him in English. The manuscript
had lain in the Bodleian Library of Oxford Uni
versity for nearly two hundred years. No doubt
has been raised as to its authenticity. While the
accounts of the different voyages are not free from
exaggerations, not to say outright fabrications, the
reader will be satisfied that the writer in the main
told a true story of the wanderings and transactions
of himself and comrade. These two men a few
years later went over to the English and became
the promoters of the Hudson's Bay Company.

THE FRENCH PERIOD 9
If Radisson's story be true, he and Groseilliers
were the first white men to tread the soil of Minne
sota. As he tells it, the two left Montreal in the
month of August (1658), and after much trouble
with the "Iroquoits" along the Ottawa, reached
the Sault Sainte Marie, where they " made good
cheare " of whitefish. Embarking late in the same
season, they went along " the most delightful and
wonderous coasts " of Lake Superior, passed the
Pictured Rocks, portaged over Keweenaw Point,
and made their way to the head of Chequamegon
Bay. Here they built a "fort" of stakes in two
days, which was much admired by the wild men.
Having cached a part of their goods, they pro
ceeded inland to a Huron village on a lake believed
to be Lake Courte Oreille, in Sawyer County, Wis
consin, where they were received with great cere
mony. At the first snowfall the people departed
for their winter hunt, and appointed a rendezvous
after two months and a half. Before leaving the
village the Frenchmen sent messengers "to all
manner of persons and nations," inviting them to
a feast at which presents would be distributed. The
best guess locates this rendezvous on or near Knife
Lake, in Kanabec County, Minnesota. That was
then Sioux country, and the people thereabout
were long after known as Isantis or Knife Sioux,
probably because they got their first steel knives
from these Frenchman. While at their rendez
vous eight "ambassadors from the nation of the

10 MINNESOTA
Beefe" (i. e. Buffalo, of course) came to give
notice that a great number of their people would
assemble for the coming feast. They brought a cal
umet " of red stone as big as a fist and as long as
a hand." Each ambassador was attended by two
wives carrying wild rice and Indian corn as a pre
sent. For the feast a great concourse of Algonquin
tribes gathered and prepared a " fort " six hundred
paces square, obviously a mere corral of poles and
brush. A " foreguard " of thirty young Sioux,
" aU proper men," heralded the coming of the eld
ers of their village, who arrived next day "with
incredible pomp." Grand councils were held, fol
lowed by feasting, dancing, mimic battles, and
games of many sorts, including the greased pole.
As described, this was no casual assemblage, but
a great and extraordinary convocation. It lasted a
fortnight. The two Frenchmen now made seven small jour
neys "to return the visit of the Sioux, and found
themselves in a town of gre.at cabins covered with
skins and mats, in a country without wood and
where corn was grown." The account of this six
weeks' trip is brief and indefinite. The conjecture
that Groseilliers and Radisson traveled a hundred
and fifty miles, more or less, into the prairie region
west of the Mississippi, either by way of the Minne
sota or the Crow Wing rivers, has slight support.
The account may have been invented from infor
mation obtained of the Sioux at the convocation.

THE FRENCH PERIOD 11
In the early spring of 1660 the two adventurers
returned to Chequamegon Bay, whence they con
tinued to Montreal without notable incident. In
his narrative Radisson injects after the return from
the nation of the Beefe a story of an excursion to
Hudson's Bay, occupying a year, which is probably
fictitious. The time occupied by the whole journey
is well known and could not have included a trip
to the " Bay of the North." Still, it is reasonably
certain that Groseilliers and Radisson were in
Minnesota twenty years before Duluth.
The reader will have already inquired whether
the two young Frenchmen of 1654-56, unnamed,
might not have been the same with these of 1658—
60. This inquiry was frequently made before the
discovery of Radisson's narrative. The question
was settled by that document. Radisson gives a
separate and circumstantial account of a three
years' journey of trade and exploration to the west
taken by himself and his brother-in-law in 1654.
Leaving Montreal in the summer of that year,
Groseilliers and Radisson, as the story runs, taking
the usual Ottawa River route, reached the Straits
of Mackinaw in the early fall. They passed the
winter about Green Bay, Wisconsin. The foUow
ing summer they coasted Lake Michigan and pro
ceeded southward through a country "incomparable,
though mighty hot," to the shores of a great sea.
They found "a barril broken, as they use in
Spaine." They passed the summer on "the shore

12 MINNESOTA
of the Great sea." Returning to the north, they
spent a winter with the Ottawas on the upper
Michigan peninsula. As the excursion to Hudson's
Bay already mentioned was a fiction, so is this to
the Gulf of Mexico. The traders could not have
been absent from the French settlement more than
two years. It is in the early spring of 1655, there
fore, that we find them setting out from their
winter quarters to countries more remote. The
essence of Radisson's text is as foUows : " We . . .
thwarted a land of allmost fifty leagues. . . . We
arrived, some 150 of us men and women, to a
river-side, where we stayed 3 weeks making boats.
. . . We went up ye river 8 days till we came to a
nation called . . . the Scratchers. There we gott
some Indian meale and corne . . . which lasted
us till we came to the first landing Isle. There we
weare well received againe."
Upon this indefinite passage has been put the
foUowing interpretation. The land journey of fifty
leagues (about one hundred and forty miles) took
the traders to the east bank of the Mississippi near
the southeast corner of Minnesota, where they
built boats; the nation who furnished provisions
resided about the site of Winona, and the " first
landing Isle" was Prairie Island, between Red
Wing and Hastings. If this interpretation shall
at length be confirmed, Groseilliers and Radisson
were in Minnesota twenty-four years before Du
luth. Subsequent passages of the narrative lend it
some support.

THE FRENCH PERIOD 13
These able and enterprising characters deserve,
however, not the least degree of credit as explorers.
If they saw the Mississippi and in the later voyage
penetrated beyond the Big Woods, they studiously
concealed their knowledge. They left no maps, and
for no assignable reason suppressed a discovery
which would have given them a world-wide fame.
When Cardinal Mazarin died, in 1661, Louis
XIV, then twenty-two years of age, stepped on to
the stage, "every inch a king." He wiUingly lis
tened to the suggestion of Colbert, his new min
ister, that it was time for France to f oUow English
example and establish a colonial system for profit
and glory. The Company of New France, pro
moted by Richelieu, which for nearly forty years
had governed Canada, were quite content to sur
render their franchises. In 1663 the colony was
made a royal province. Associated with the gov
ernor a so-called " intendant of justice and finance"
was provided in the new administration. The first
incumbent was Jean Baptiste Talon, a man of
brains, energy, and ambition. He was no sooner
on the ground than he began to conceive great
projects for extending the French dominion, ex
panding commerce, and fostering settlements.
Colbert, although he sympathized, was obliged to
restrain him and suggest that " the King would
never depopulate France to people Canada."
Rumors were multiplying of great openings for

14 MINNESOTA
trade and missions along and beyond the great
lakes. Talon was keen to foUow up and verify them.
In 1665 the Jesuit Father Claude Allouez estab
lished a mission at La Pointe on Chequamegon
Bay. Upon an excursion to the head of the lake
(Superior) he saw some of the Nadouessiouek
(Sioux) Indians, dwellers toward the great River
Mississippi, in a country of prairies. They gave
him some " marsh rye," as he caUed their wild rice.
Four years later Father Jacques Marquette
succeeded Allouez in that mission. He also heard
stories of a great river flowing to a sea, on which
canoes with wings might be seen. The Jesuit Rela
tion of 1670-71 gives reports from Indians of a
great river whieh " for more than three hundred
leagues from its mouth is wider than the St. Law
rence at Quebec ; " and people dwelling near its
mouth "have houses on the water and cut down
trees with large knives." In the summer of 1669,
Louis Joliet, whom Talon had sent to Lake Su
perior to search for copper, returned, and it was
then, probably on his suggestion, that Talon re
solved that it was time for the French to plant a
military station at the Sault Sainte Marie, a point
of notable strategic importance. He determined
also to make an impression of French power on the
Indians of the West. In the following year he dis
patched Nicholas Perrot, of whom we are to hear
later, to summon the Pottawattamies, the Winne
bagoes, and other accessible nations to a grand

THE FRENCH PERIOD 15
convocation at the Sault Sainte Marie in the spring
of 1671. To represent the government, Simon
Fran9ois Daumont, Sieur de St. Lusson, was com
missioned and took his journey in October, 1670.
On the 14th of June, 1671, the appointed day,
the council was held. Fourteen Indian nations were
represented. Among the French present were Joliet,
Father Allouez, and Perrot. The central act was
the proclamation by St. Lusson of King Louis's do
minion over " lakes Huron and Superior, ... all
countries, rivers, lakes and streams, contiguous and
adjacent thereto, with those that have been dis
covered, and those which may be discovered here
after, . . . bounded by the seas of the north, west,
and south." This modest claim covered perhaps
nine tenths of North America. As usual, a big
wooden cross was erected and blest. A metallic
plate bearing the king's arms was nailed up, and a
" proces-verbal " drawn, and signed. In that day
such a proclamation gave title to barbarian lands
until annulled in battle by land or sea. Father
Allouez made a speech, which has been preserved,
describing the power and glory of the French king
in extravagant terms.
Talon could not rest. He was on fire to unlock
the secret of the great river and extend the French
dominion to the unknown sea into which it might
empty. In 1672, with the approval of Colbert, he
planned an expedition to penetrate the region in
which it was supposed to flow. Joliet was chosen

16 MINNESOTA
to lead, and at the end of the year he was at
Mackinaw. It was probably no accident that Pere
Marquette had just been transferred from La
Pointe to that station. But the enthusiastic intend
ant was to close his Canadian career. In the very
same year Count Frontenac, the greatest figure in
Canadian history, came over to be governor. He
was already past fifty, had seen many campaigns,
and had wasted his fortune at court. He, too, had
ideas, and an ambition to do great things for Canada
and France. There was not room enough in the
province for two such men as Talon and he. The
intendant obtained his recall, and disappeared from
the scene.
Frontenac at once adopted Talon's scheme, and
gave Joliet leave to go. Accompanied by Marquette
he struck the great river at Prairie du Chien, June
17, 1673, and then followed its flow far enough to
satisfy himself that it ran to the Mexican gulf.
Joliet's great map has a truly modern aspect. The
importance of this disco-very of the Mississippi
for the present purpose is, that it was by way of
the great river that the French, with a notable ex
ception, pushed their way into Minnesota.
A company of Canadian merchants resolved to
attempt an opening of trade about and beyond the
head of Lake Superior, and selected as their agent
Daniel Greyloson, the Sieur Duluth, a man of
ability and enterprise. He evidently received some
kind of public character from Frontenac, whose

THE FRENCH PERIOD 17
enemies insinuated that he was to be a sharer in
profits. In the spring of 1679 Duluth penetrated
to the shores of Mille Lacs, and in a great Sioux
viUage which he understood to be called "Kathio,"
on July 2 he planted the king's arms and took pos
session in the royal name. Duluth, therefore, was
the first white man in Minnesota not ashamed to
report and record the fact. In the same season he
retraced his steps to the head of the lake, and
passed down the north shore to Pigeon River, which
forms part of the Canadian boundary. There,
on the left bank of that river, he built a trading
post, on the site afterwards occupied by Fort
William. The next dash into the territory of the North
Star State was directed by one who has been called
the most picturesque figure in American history,
R^n^ Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle. At the
age of twenty-three he broke away from the Jesuits
with whom he was in training, and set sail for
Canada with four hundred francs in his pocket, in
the year 1663. When Frontenac came, nine years
later, he found in young La Salle a man after his
own heart, and sent him to Prance in 1674 to secure
royal support for further explorations. Such sup
port, then withheld, was vouchsafed four years
later, when La Salle was again in Paris on the
same errand. By a royal patent signed May 12,
1678, La Salle was authorized to extend the scope
of Joliet's exploration to the Gulf of Mexico and

18 MINNESOTA
to pay his expenses by trade, provided he kept off
the preserves of the Montreal traders.
With the king's patent in hand, it was easy to at
tract capital and enUst volunteers. Early in the fall
of the same year. La Salle was back in Canada with
his men and outfit, and soon set out for the west.
After battling with a series of delays and discourage
ments which need not be narrated, the undaunted
leader established himself in a fort built on the east
bank of the Illinois River, near Peoria, Illinois, in
the winter of 1680. There is no record that La SaUe
had been authorized to explore the upper Missis
sippi, but he was not the man to lose a good op
portunity for lack of technical instructions. To
lead an exploring party up that stream he chose
Michael Accault, an experienced voyageur, " pru
dent, brave, and cool," and gave him two associates :
Antoine Auguelle, called the Picard du Gay, was
one ; the other was the now famous Father Louis
Hennepin, a Franciscan friar of the RecoUet branch,
who came over in the same ship with La SaUe in
1678. He had wandered in many lands, knew some
Indian dialects, and shared La SaUe's passion for
adventure. In a bark canoe laden with their arms, personal
belongings, and some packs of merchandise which
served for money between whites and Indians, the
little party set out, after priestly benediction, on
February 28, 1680. They dropped down the Illinois
to its mouth, and took their toilsome way against

THE FRENCH PERIOD 19
the current of the Mississippi. On April 11, when
near the southern line of Minnesota, they encoun
tered a fleet of thirty-three canoes carrying a war-
party intent on mischief to certain Illinois tribes.
The savages frightened but did not harm the
Frenchmen. Accault was able to inform them that
the Illinois Indians had crossed the river to hunt.
They therefore turned homewards, taking the ex
plorers with them. At the end of the month the
flotilla rounded up, as is believed, at the mouth of
Phalen's Creek, at St. Paul. Here they abandoned
their canoes and set out overland by a trail which
would naturally follow the divide between the waters
of the Mississippi and the St. Croix, for their vil
lages on MiUe Lacs. On May 5 they arrived, and
the Frenchmen, compelled to sell their effects to
their captors, were sent to separate villages. The
friar lost his portable altar and brocade vestments ;
otherwise they were not unkindly treated. Some
weeks passed, when Hennepin and Auguelle were
allowed to take a canoe and start for the mouth of
the Wisconsin, where La Salle promised to send
supplies. Accault preferred to join a great hunting
party that was about setting out. Hennepin and
his comrade left the hunters at the mouth of Rum
River, and paddling with the current soon found
themselves at the falls called by the Dakotas
Mi-ni-i-ha-ha, the rushing water, then first seen
by white men, to which he gave the name of his
patron saint, Anthony of Padua. His description

20 MINNESOTA
of the cataract and surroundings is reasonably ac
curate, although he greatly exaggerated its height.
No rival has claimed the credit of their discovery.
Passing on down the river, they met an Indian who
informed them that the hunting party was not far
away, on some tributary. They abandoned their
lonesome journey and joined the hunters, who, the
hunt over, were about returning to their villages.
We left Duluth in his fort at the mouth of
Pigeon River in the fall of 1679. He wintered
there, and, as he relates, dissatisfied with his dis
coveries of the previous summer, resolved on a new
adventure. When the season of 1680 opened he set
out with four Frenchmen and two Indian guides,
ascended the Bois Brule River, portaged over to
the head of the St. Croix, and fdllowed that down
to Point Douglass, where he doubtless recognized
the great river. Here he learned that but a short
time before two Frenchmen had passed down in a
canoe. He instantly followed, and after forty-
eight hours of lively paddling met the Sioux hunt
ers and with them Accault, Auguelle, and Henne
pin. All the French now traveled with the Indians
to their villages on Mille Lacs, this time up the
Mississippi and Rum rivers. The season was now
far advanced and Duluth was obliged to give up
his project of a journey to " the ocean of the west,"
which he believed to be not more than twenty days'
march distant. Furnished with a rude but truthful
map sketched by one of the Sioux chiefs, and pro-

THE FRENCH PERIOD 21
mising the Indians to return to trade, the eight
white men took their departure for home by Prai
rie du Chien and Green Bay. Hennepin returned
to France and in 1682 published his " Description
of Louisiana." He knew how to tell an interesting
story, and stuck as close to the truth as most annal
ists of his day. He assumed to have been the leader
of the exploring party. Fifteen years later there
was published in HoUand a book under the title of
" A New Discovery of a Great Country." It con
tained all the matter of Hennepin's " Description,"
and some one hundred and fifty pages more. These
interpolated into the original story a journey of
more than three thousand miles in thirty days, from
the mouth of the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico and
back, before ascending the Mississippi. If Henne
pin himself wrote the injected pages, he was the
shameless liar which he has been frequently de
clared to be. There is room, however, for the
suggestion that the added pages were the work of
some literary hack employed by dishonest publish
ers to give the book the appearance of a new one ;
but a good degree of charity is necessary to enter
tain this theory, as there is no record of any dis
avowal by Hennepin. Granting Hennepin to have
been the leader, it must be remembered he was an
agent of La Salle. La Salle's foresight and enter
prise sent him to the land of the Dakotas and to
the FaUs of St. Anthony.
It was not tiU the winter of 1682 that La SaUe

22 MINNESOTA
was able to embark from his fort at Peoria. Sixty
days of easy canoe navigation brought him to one of
the islands at the mouth of the Mississippi. There
in the month of April, under his royal patent, he set
up a cross and proclaimed the sovereignty of Louis
le Grand over the whole valley of the great river
and all its tributaries. On the " procfes-verbal " of
that transaction rests every land title in Minnesota.
Duluth and La SaUe by means of Accault's re
ports revealed to Count Frontenac the magnificence
of the upper Mississippi region, and Father Henne
pin's book, dedicated to the king, seems to have
inspired Louis XIV with a desire to occupy and
possess that goodly land. In 1686 the able and
experienced Nicholas Perrot, who had been ap
pointed commandant of the west with orders to
make an establishment there, built a fort on the
east bank of Lake Pepin, and called it Fort St.
Antoine. The site has been clearly identified about
two miles below the " Burlington " railroad station
of Stockholm, Pepin County, Wisconsin. Sum
moned the following year to lead a contingent of
voyageurs and savages in the campaign against
the Iroquois in the Genesee valley of western New
York, he did not return to Fort St. Antoine till
late in 1688. To satisfy any lingering doubts about
the legitimate sovereignty of those parts, he made
formal proclamation of his king's lordship over all
the countries and rivers he had seen and would see.
Perrot was too useful a man to be left in the wil-

THE FRENCH PERIOD 23
derness, and was presently ordered on other ser
vice and his fort left empty.
Another attempt at settlement on the upper
Mississippi was made by a Canadian, Pierre Le
Sueur, an associate of Perrot, who in 1694 estab
lished a trading post on Prairie Island in the Mis
sissippi, about nine miles below Hastings, the same
on which Groseilliers and Radisson are imagined to
have camped in 1655. Le Sueur stayed over one
winter in the west, and returned to Montreal to
discover to Frontenac a new project. He had lo
cated a copper mine. He hastened to Paris to ob
tain the king's license, then necessary for mining
operations. After a struggle of two years he got his
permit and started for Canada. The English caught
him and held him a prisoner for some months.
Returning to France, he found his license canceled,
because of a resolution of the government to aban
don all trade west of Mackinaw. At length Le
Sueur was excepted from the rule and his license
renewed. In 1699 he sailed with the expedition of
D'Iberville, which was to make and did make the
first settlement out of which New Orleans grew.
In the midsummer foUowing he made his way
with a sailboat and two canoes up the Mississippi,
reaching Fort SneUing September 19. He doubt
less knew where he was going, for without delay he
turned into the Minnesota River, which he followed
to the mouth of the Mah-ka-to or Blue Earth. A
short distance above, the latter stream receives

24 MINNESOTA
the Le Sueur. At their junction he built a fort to
which he gave the name of a treasury official of
Paris who had supported him, " Fort L'Huillier."
The spot has been identified by a local archaeolo
gist. He was obliged to pacify with presents the
Sioux who were displeased because he did not
build at the mouth of the Minnesota. His company
passed a comfortable winter, but before it was over
they had to come down to buffalo beef without
salt. Some of them could put away six pounds
along with four bowls of broth daily. In the spring
Le Sueur departed for Biloxi, with his shallop
loaded with bluish green earth taken from a bluff
near his fort. He never saw Minnesota again, and
no later explorer has rediscovered his mine. The
state geologist has not found the least trace of
copper in the region.
The last decade of the seventeenth century was
one of discouragement for old France and new.
Louis XIV, decrepit and bankrupt, dominated by
Madame Maintenon and a group of ecclesiastics,
had, by revoking the Edict of Nantes in 1685,
driven three hundred thousand and more of the
most industrious and skillful artisans and trades
men of France into exile. The dragonades, counte
nanced even by such men as Fenelon and Bossuet,
had spread ruin throughout whole provinces.
Foreign wars along with domestic convulsions had
almost beggared the kingdom.
Frontenac had died in office in 1689, and Cana-

THE FRENCH PERIOD 25
dian affairs, fallen into less capable hands, were
languishing. There was lack of men and money to
protect the northwest trade. It needed protection.
T-he English, holding the Iroquois in alliance, had
pushed their trade into the Ohio valley and the
lower peninsula of Michigan. The Sacs and. Foxes
of the Illinois country, old allies of the French, had
broken away, ahd closed all the roads from the
lakes to the Mississippi unless that of the St. Croix.
For these reasons the Canadian government had
in 1699 withdrawn the garrison from Mackinaw,
abandoned all ports farther west, and ordered the
concentration of Indian trade at Montreal. It was
not till after the war of the Spanish Succession
was closed by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, that
any thought could be taken for the revival of trade
and missions in the Mississippi valley. England
might at that time have stripped France of all her
transatlantic holdings, but contented herself with
Newfoundland and the posts on Hudson's Bay.
In 1714 the French garrison was reestablished at
Mackinaw, which remained the headquarters of
trade with the Algonquins of the northwest till far
into the nineteenth century. Three years later Du-
luth's old fort on Pigeon River was reoccupied, to
become a great entrepot of trade with the inland
natives; a year later still La Pointe received a
small garrison.
Ten years passed before the effort to plant
French trade and missions was renewed on the

26 MINNESOTA
upper Mississippi. Charlevoix, the historian of New
France, was over in 1720 and traveled by way of
Mackinaw and Green Bay to New Orleans. By his
advice the French government resolved to plant an
establishment in the country of the Sioux, as a
centre of trade and mission work, and as a point
of departure for expeditions to gain the shores of
the western sea. The hostile Sacs and Foxes having
been placated, an expedition was planned with all
the care which long experience could suggest. For
leader was chosen R6n^ Boucher, Sieur de la Per-
riere, the same who in 1708 had headed the raiding
party which descended on Haverhill, thirty-two
miles north of Boston, where his Indians butchered
thirty or forty of the English. Two Jesuit fathers,
Guinas and De Gonor, attached themselves to the
expedition, and asked for a supply of astronomical
instruments. In June, 1727, the expedition set
out from Montreal and took the then main trav
eled road by way of Mackinaw and Green Bay. A
letter of De Gonor, which has been preserved,
gives an interesting account of the journey.
On September 17, 1727, at noon. La Perri^re
beached his canoes on a low point of land on the
west shore of Lake Pepin, near the steamboat
landing at Frontenac. Putting his men to work
with axes, he had them all comfortably housed by
the end of October. There were three log build
ings, each 16 feet wide ; one 30, a second 38, and
the third 25 feet long. Surrounding them was a

THE FRENCH PERIOD 27
stockade of three trunks 12 feet out of ground, 100
feet square, " with two good bastions." The fort
was named " Beauharnois " after the governor-gen
eral of Canada. To the first mission on Minne
sota soil the priests gave the title, "Mission of
St. Michael the Archangel." On November 4 the
company celebrated the birthday of the governor,
but were obliged by the state of the weather to
postpone to the night of the 14th the crowning
event of their programme. They then set off " some
very fine rockets." When the visiting Indians saw
the stars falling from heaven, the women and chil
dren took to the woods, while the men begged for
an end of such marvelous medicine. The Sioux were
not disposed to be hospitable, and the good beha
vior of the Sacs and Foxes could not be counted on.
In the foUowing season La Perriere departed with
the Jesuits and eight other Frenchmen for Mont
real. The post was held, and occupied off and on
for twenty years or more. No settlement was made
about it, no permanent mission work was estab
lished, and no expedition towards the Pacific was
undertaken. The Indians were unreliable, the
French had other interests to attend to, and, con
trary to expectation, game was scarce in the region.
One of the successors of La Perriere in command
of Fort Beauharnois was Captain Legardeur Saint
Pierre, the same officer who in 1753 at his post on
French Creek, not far from Pittsburg, was waited
on by young Mr. Washington, bearing Governor

28 MINNESOTA
Dinwiddle's invitation to the French to get out of
Virginian territory.
Another French adventure, although of slight
import to Minnesota, deserves mention. The Sieur
de la Verendrye, commanding the French post on
Lake Nipigon, fell in with the Jesuit Guinas, who
went out with La Perriere in 1727, and was in
flamed by him with a desire to find the western
ocean. At his own post he had found an Indian,
Ochaga by name, who sketched for him an almost
continuous water route thither ; another offered to
be his guide. He hastened' to Montreal, secured
the assent of the governor-general, Beauharnois,
and in 1731 dispatched his advance party. It
reached the foot of Rainy Lake that year, and
there built a fort on the Canadian side. The next
year the expedition made its way to the southwest
margin of the Lake of the Woods and there built
Fort Charles, giving it the Christian name of the
governor-general. Whether this fort was on Min
nesota soil is undecided.
So ardent was Verendrye's passion for the glory
of discovering the way to the western sea that,
encouraged by the Canadian authorities, he kept
up the quest for more than ten years longer. On
January 12, 1743, the Chevalier Verendrye, as re
lated, climbed one of the foothills of the Shining
or Rocky Mountains, and gave it over. Sixty years
later Lewis and Clark passed that barrier and won
their way to the Pacific.

CHAPTER II
the ENGLISH DOMINION
If the French failed to establish any permanent
settlement in Minnesota, it was not wholly because
their passion for trade discouraged home-building
and cultivation; they had interests elsewhere in
America more important than those of the north
west. La Salle's proclamation of 1682 asserted
dominion of the whole region drained by the Mis
sissippi and its tributaries. For a time the Ohio
was regarded as the main river and the upper
Mississippi as an affluent. Before the close of the
seventeenth century both French and English were
awake to the beauty and richness of the Ohio valley
and the Illinois country. The building of a fort by
Cadillac at Detroit in 1701 was the first act on the
part of the French to maintain their claim of sov
ereignty. In the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, the Eng
lish, with a long look ahead, secured the concession
that the Iroquois were the " subjects " of England.
In a series of negotiations culminating in a treaty
at Lancaster, Pa., the Iroquois ceded to the Eng
lish all their lands west of the AUeghanies and
south of the great lakes. On this cession the English
put the liberal construction that the Iroquois were

30 MINNESOTA
owners of all territory over which they had ex
tended their victorious forays, and which they had
good right to convey. In 1748 the Ohio Company,
formed in Virginia, sent Christopher Gist to ex
plore the Ohio valley. The next year a governor of
Canada sent an expedition down the Ohio to con
ciliate the Indians and to bury leaden plates at
chosen points, asserting the dorainion of France.
A line of fortified posts was stretched by the French
from Quebec to Fort Charles below St. Louis, on
the Mississippi.
When in 1754 a French battalion drove off the
party of English backwoodsmen who had begun
the erection of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, and
proceeded to build Fort Duquesne, the French
and Indian War began. The course of this strug
gle, exceeding by far in point of magnitude the
war of the Revolution, cannot here be foUowed.
At the close of the campaign of 1757 the French
seemed triumphant. In the year following they lost
Fort Duquesne, in 1759 Quebec, and in 1760
Montreal. The power of the French in North
America was broken. Historians of Canada still
name the epoch that of " the Conquest."
The diplomatic settlement of this contest awaited
the outcome of a great war raging in Europe, the
so-called Seven Years' War of Frederick the Great
against Austria, Russia, and France. England was
early drawn into the support of the Prussian mon
arch, and supplied his military chest and sent an

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 31
army to the continent. France presumptuously
aspired to wrest the empire of the seas from Brit
ain, with the result that her navies were sunk or
battered to useless wrecks. In a separate treaty
signed at Paris, February 10, 1763, France sur
rendered to England all her possessions and claims
east of the Mississippi except the city of New
Orleans and the island embracing it. The British
government, however, was none too desirous to ac
cept this cession. It was a matter of lively debate
in tne ministry whether it would not be the better
policy to leave Canada to the French and strip her
of her West Indian possessions. That course might
have been adopted, but for the influence exerted by
Benjamin Franklin's famous "Canada Pamphlet,"
which is still " interesting reading." Franklin was
in England while the question was pending, and
published his views in answer to " Remarks "
ascribed to Edmund Burke.
It may be well to note here that in the year
preceding the treaty of Paris (1762) France had
taken the precaution to assign to Spain, by a secret
treaty, all her North American possessions west of
the Mississippi, and thus put them out of the reach
of England.
It was the 8th of September, 1760, when the
capitulation of Montreal -was signed, turning all
Canada over to the British. Five days later
Amherst, the victorious commander, dispatched
Major Robert Hayes with two hundred rangers to

32 MINNESOTA
take possession of the western posts. Expected
opposition at Detroit was uot offered, and that
important strategic point was occupied on Novem
ber 29. The season was then too late for further
movements, and more than a year passed before
garrisons were established at Mackinaw and Green
Bay. The British were none too welcome among the
savages, long accustomed to French dealings and
alliances. But French influence was not what it had
formerly been. During the long struggle for the
mastery of the continent the Indian trade haa lan
guished, and in remoter regions the savages had
reverted to their ancient ways and standards of
living. The trade revived, however, under British
rule, which brought peace and protection. In 1762
the British commandant gave a permit to a French
man named Pinchon to trade on the Minnesota
River, then in Spanish territory. Four years later
the old post on Pigeon River was revived and
trade was reopened in northern Minnesota. Prairie
du Chien became in the course of a decade a vU
lage of some three hundred families, mostly French
half-breeds, and remained a supply station for the
Indian trade of southern and central Minnesota
till far into the nineteenth century.
The British authorities in Canada indulged no
romantic passion to discover the south or western
sea, and were indifferent for a time to the develop
ment and protection of trade in the northwest.
This fact lends brilliance to the adventures of a

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 33
single American born subject who in 1766 set out
alone for the wilderness, resolved to cross the
Rocky Mountains, descend to the western ocean,
and cross the Straits of Anion to Cathay. Such
was the bold enterprise of Jonathan Carver of
Canterbury, Connecticut, at thirty-four years of
age. He was not unlettered, for he had studied
medicine; and he was not inexperienced, for he
had served with some distinction as a line officer
in a colonial regiment in the French and Indian
War. Departing from Boston in June (1766), he
traveled the usual way by the lakes to Mackinaw,
where he found that versatile Irish gentleman,
Major Robert Rogers, his comrade in arms, in
command. There is a tradition, needing confirma^
tion, that this officer "grub-staked" Carver for
trade with the Sioux and possible operations in
land. However, he left Mackinaw in September
supplied with credits on traders for the goods
serving for money with Indians, and taking the
Fox- Wisconsin route, found himself at the Falls of
St. Anthony on the 17th of November. Although
he estimated the descent of the cataract at thirty
feet, it impressed him only as the striking feature
of a beautiful landscape. "On the whole," says
he, " when the Falls are included, ... a more
pleasing and picturesque view, I believe, cannot
be found throughout the universe." After a short
excursion above the falls. Carver took his way up
the Minnesota, as he estimated, two hundred miles.

34 MINNESOTA
He passed the winter with a band of Sioux Indians
which he fails to name, and in a place he does not
describe, and in the spring came down to St. Paul
with a party of three hundred, bringing the remains
of their dead to be deposited in the weU-known
" Indian mounds " on Dayton's Bluff. The cave in
the white sand rock entered by him on his upward
journey, and which bore his name till obliterated
by railroad cuttings, was nearly beneath the In
dian mounds. His report of a funeral oration de
livered here by one of the chiefs so impressed the
German poet Schiller that he wrote his " Song of
the Nadowessee Chief," which Goethe praised as
one of his best. Two very distinguished English
men, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and Sir John
Herschel, made metrical translations of this poem
in the fashion of their time.
This journey was but a preliminary one to find
and explore the Minnesota valley and acquaint
Carver with the tribes dwelling there and their
languages. He had conceived that a short march
from the head of that river would take him to the
Missouri. This he would ascend to its sources in
the mountains, and crossing over these he would
float down the Oregon to the ocean. Major Rogers,
as he relates, had engaged to send him supplies to
the Falls of St. Anthbny. Receiving none. Car
ver hastened down to Prairie du Chien, to be again
disappointed. Resolved on prosecuting his great adventure, he

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 35
decided to apply to the traders at Pigeon River for
the necessary merchandise. Paddling back up the
Mississippi, he took the St. Croix route to Lake
Superior, and coasted along the north shore to that
post, only to find, after many hundred miles of
laborious travel, that the traders had no goods to
spare him. He could do nothing but return to his
home. In 1768 he went to England, hoping to in
terest the government in his project, and in the
following year published his book of travels. It
is now known that little if any of it was his own
composition. His account of the customs of the
Indians was pieced together from Charlevoix and
Lahontan. But the work of his editor, a certain
Dr. Littsom, was so well done that "Carver's
Travels" have been more widely read than the
original works drawn upon.
There is very doubtful testimony to the effect
that in 1774 the king made Carver a present of
£1373 13s. 8d., and ordered the dispatch of a pub
lic vessel to carry him and a party of one hundred
and fifty men by way of New Orleans to the upper
Mississippi, to take possession of certain lands.
The Revolutionary War breaking out, the expedi
tion was abandoned.
Carver died in poverty in England in 1780, and
might be dismissed but for a sequel which lingers
in Minnesota to the present time. After his death
there was brought to day a deed purporting to
have been signed by two Indian chiefs, "at the

36 MINNESOTA
great cave," May 1, 1767, conveying to their "good
brother Jonathan" a tract of land lying on the
east side of the Mississippi one hundred miles wide,
running from the Falls of St. Anthony down to
the mouth of the Chippeway, embracing nearly
two million acres. A married daughter, by his
English wife, and her husband bargained their
alleged interest to a London company for ten per
cent, of the realized profits, but that company
soon abandoned their venture. Carver left be
hind him an American family, a widow, two
sons, and five daughters. In 1806 one Samuel
Peters, an Episcopal clergyman of Vermont, repre
sented in a petition to Congress that he had
acquired the rights of these heirs to the Car
ver purchase, and prayed to have it confirmed to
him. This Peters claim was kept before Congress
for seventeen years. In 1822 the Mississippi Land
Company was organized in New York to prosecute
it. They seem to have been taken seriously, for in
the next year a Senate committee, in a report of
January 23, advised the rejection of the claim as
utterly without merit. But it has been repeatedly
renewed, and doubtless at the present time there
are worthy people dreaming of pleasures and pal
aces when they come into their rights.
For the first three years following the Conquest
all Canada remained under military rule. In 1763
George III by proclamation established four pro
vinces with separate governments, but the great

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 37
northwest region was included in none of these.
That remained as crown land, reserved for the use
of the Indians under royal protection. All squat
ters were ordered to depart and all persons were
forbidden to attempt purchases of land from the
Indians. This prohibition alone was fatal to Car
ver's claim. The United States could not possibly
confirm a purchase impossible under English law.
It was the express design of the British government
to prevent the thirteen colonies from gaining ground
to the west, and " leave the savages to enjoy their
deserts in quiet."
In 1774, about the time when Parliament was
extending its novel sway over the American colo
nies, the " Quebec act " was passed. This act ex
tended the Province of Quebec to the Mississippi
and gave to Minnesota East its first written con
stitution. This provided for a government by a
governor and an appointed legislative council, but
it was never actually effective west of Lake Mich
igan. Under the definitive treaty of peace between
Great Britain and the United States, the dominion
of the former over Minnesota East ceased, but that
of the United States government did not immedi
ately supervene. Virginia under her charter of 1609
had claimed the whole Northwest, and her army,
commanded by General George Rogers Clark, had
in 1779 established her power in the Illinois coun
try. Three years later the county of Illinois was

38 MINNESOTA
created and an executive appointed by Governor
Patrick Henry. The act of Congress of March 1,
1784, accepting the cession of her northwestern
lands, amounting to a concession of colorable title,
ended Virginia's technical government in Minne
sota East. From that date to the passage of the
Ordinance of 1787 (July 13) this region remained
unorganized Indian country. This great ordinance
made it part of "the Northwest Territory" and
gave it a written constitution. But this was nuga
tory for the reason that although Great Britain
had in form surrendered the territory in the treaty
of 1783, she continued her occupation for thirteen
years longer. Her pretext for maintaining her gar
risons at Detroit, Mackinaw, Green Bay, and else
where was the failure of the United States to
prevent the states from confiscating the estates of
loyaUsts and hindering English creditors from col
lecting their debts in fuU sterling value, as pro
vided in the treaty. The actual reason was an
expectation, or hope, that affairs would take such a
turn that the whole or the greater part of the Ohio-
Illinois country might revert to England. A new
British fort was built on the Maumee River in
northwestern Ohio in 1794. The surrender of this
to General Anthony Wayne after the battle of
FaUen Timbers, in August of that year, has been
regarded as the last act in the war of the Revolution.
By the Jay treaty it was agreed that the western
posts should be given up to the United States, and

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 39
on or about the 12th of July, 1796, the British
commanders hauled down their flags and marched
out their garrisons.
There was a powerful interest which had encour
aged the British authorities to hold their grip on the
Northwest. The revival of the fur-trade after the
Conquest was tardy, but soon after Carver's time
a notable development took place. Another Con
necticut Yankee, Peter Pond by name, in 1774
established a trading post at Traverse des Sioux
on the Minnesota. On a map left by him it is
marked "Fort Pond." The trade west of the lakes,
however, early fell into the hands of adventurous
Scotchmen of Montreal, among whom competition
became so sharp as to lead to what would have
been called, a hundred years later, a "trust" or
"combine." An informal agreement between the
principal traders at Montreal ripened, in 1787,
into "The Northwest Company," with headquar
ters in that city. This company promptly and
effectually organized the northwestern fur-trade.
It established a hierarchy of posts and stations,
and introduced a quasi-military administration of
the employees. It wisely took into its service the
old French and half-breed " engages and voya
geurs," and rewarded them so liberally as to win
them from illicit traffic. For forty years the North
west Company was the ruling power west of the
lakes, although it had not, as had the Hudson's
Bay Company, its model, any authorized political

40 MINNESOTA
functions. Its policy and discipline served in place
of laws and police.
The greater distributing and collecting ports
were Detroit, Mackinaw, and Fort William ; and
next in importance were such places as La Pointe,
Fond du Lac, and Prairie du Chien, from which
the trade of the upper Mississippi was managed.
Fond du Lac, near the mouth of the St. Louis
River, at the head of Lake Superior, was the gate
way to an immense region abounding in the finest
peltries and occupied by a large Chippeway popu
lation, eager to buy the white man's guns and am
munition, knives, kettles, tobacco, and, most dearly
prized of aU, his deadly fire-water. From Fond du
Lac there was a canoe route to the lakes which are
the proximate sources of the great river. It led up
the St. Louis River to the mouth of the East Sa
vanna near the Floodwood railroad station. From
the head of the East Savanna a short portage led
to the West Savanna, an affluent of Prairie River
which empties into Sandy Lake, near the south
west corner of Aitkin County. That water covers
near half a township and discharges by a short
outlet into the Mississippi, some twenty-five miles
above the village and railroad station of Aitkin.
Here in 1794 the Sandy Lake post of the North
west Company was built. There was a stockade
one hundred feet square, of hevni logs one foot
square, and thirteen feet out of ground. Within
were the necessary buildings, and without, fenced

THE ENGLISH DOMINION 41
in, a considerable garden. From Sandy Lake radi
ated numerous " jackknife posts," where the bush
rangers wintered and swapped gewgaws for pelts.
For many years Sandy Lake was the most impor
tant point in Minnesota, the chief factor there the
big man of the Chippeway country.

CHAPTER III
MINNESOTA 'W^EST ANNEXED
The reader is asked to recall the cession by France,
in 1762, of her American territory west of the Mis
sissippi to Spain. The French population of Lou
isiana, resenting this arbitrary transfer, drove out
the Spanish governor who came in 1766, and organ
ized for a free state under French protection. In
1769 a Spanish fleet of twenty-four sail, bringing an
army of twenty-six hundred men and fifty cannon,
under the command of a forceful captain-general,
securely established the power of Spain. The laws
of Castile, derived from the civil code of Rome,
were put in force, and they continue in force to
the present day. By a line about on the latitude of
Memphis a province of Upper Louisiana was set
apart and placed under the control of a lieutenant-
governor residing at St. Louis. Minnesota West
was of course a part of this jurisdiction.
In the last years of the eighteenth ceutury Na
poleon Bonaparte was absolute in France, although
not yet crowned emperor. Among the schemes with
which his imagination was busied was one to estab
lish another new France on the western continent.
Louisiana had been a costly dependency for Spain,

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 43
and it was only by a reluctant but timely conces
sion of the right of navigation and deposit that an
armed descent of Americans from the Ohio valley
on New Orleans had been averted. That would
have put an end to Spanish rule. Spain wiUingly
retroceded to France for a nominal consideration,
by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, March 13,
1801. Already Napoleon had formed a definite
plan and begun preparations to send 25,000 vet
eran soldiers to Louisiana, under convoy of a pow
erful fleet. His secret could not be kept, and
England made ready to attack the expedition at
sea. Napoleon had reason to expect that she would
descend on New Orleans herself, and take posses
sion of the province. While he was in this frame
of mind the American minister, under instructions,
expressed the desire of his government to buy the
city and island of New Orleans and thus make the
Mississippi the international boundary to its mouth.
To his surprise Napoleon offered to sell the whole
province, spite of his agreement with Spain never
to cede to any other power. The Louisiana pur
chase was consummated by treaty April 30, 1803.
Meantime the province had remained in the posses
sion of Spain, and it was not till November 30
that she turned New Orleans over to the French.
Twenty days later the United States came into
possession. The upper province of Louisiana was
held but one day by a French commissary, who on
March 10, 1804, at St. Louis, conveyed it to the

44 MINNESOTA
United States. The cost to the government was
three and six tenths cents per acre.
The actual surrender of Upper Louisiana in
1804 added geographicaUy Minnesota West, in
cluded in that province, to Minnesota East, then
part of Crawford County, Indiana. The whole re
gion was still occupied by aborigines, and a genera
tion was to pass before any of it became white man's
country. Two great nations divided the territory,
the Chippeways, of Algonquin stock, occupying the
north and east; the Sioux or Dakotas the south
and west. Both were immigrant from early eastern
habitats, the Chippeways moving north of the lakes
(Lake Superior split the stream), the Sioux south
of the same. When first seen by white men, the
latter held the country about the sources of the
Mississippi, the head of Lake Superior, and to
the St. Croix. The Chippeways were first to obtain
guns from the white man, aud began at once to
push the Sioux before them. In Hennepin's time
(1680) the principal villages of the Sioux were in
the Mille Lacs region. By the close of the Revolu
tionary War the Chippeways had driven them south
of the Crow Wing and west of the Mississippi,
leaving them only a precarious hold on the mar
gin of their old hunting grounds. From their earli
est encounters the two nations had been unremitting
foes. But for occasional truces they were always at
war ; and this perennial feud did not cease till the
government in 1863 moved the Sioux beyond the

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 45
Missouri, out of the reach of the Chippeways.
The two nations possessed in common the well-
known characteristics of the red man, physical,
mental, and social, but a difference of environ
ment had established marked peculiarities. The
Chippeways were men of the forest and stream ;
their women gathered wild rice, excellent for food.
The Sioux, men of the prairie, were the taUer and
more agile, but the Chippeways outmatched them
for strength and endurance.
Both peoples had already been profoundly affected
by contact with white men. If the missionary had
not broken the power of the medicine-man and con
verted them to the true faith, the trader had revo
lutionized their whole manner of life. He had given
the Indian the gun for his bow and arrows, axes
and knives of steel for those of stone, and the iron
kettle for the earthen pot. The Mackinaw blanket
and the trader's strouds had replaced garments
made from skins, and ornaments of shell and
feathers had given way to those of metal and
glass. Before the trader the Indian had hunted for sub
sistence, content when he had supplied his*family
and dependents with food and clothing. The trader
made him a pot-hunter, killing mostly for the skins
alone. Game animals became scarce about the vil
lages, and hunting expeditions had to be made to
distant grounds, where the enemies' parties would
be met and fought. The Indian had become a vassal

46 MINNESOTA
to the trader, who outfitted him for the hunt, and
at its end took his furs in payment at rates little
understood by the man who did not know that the
white metal was worth more than the red. If any
thing remained from the Indian's pack it was very
likely to be forthwith spent for the highly diluted
whiskey of the trader. The Indian's fondness for
spirits and their effects was at least equal to the
white man's, and he had not become immune from
immemorial indulgence. The resulting crime and
misery are beyond description, — conception, al
most. And the trader's excuse was that the Indians
would not trade if whiskey was not furnished, and
that it was absurd for one to refuse it when all
the rest were selling. Along with the white man
came his epidemic diseases. Smallpox and measles
depopulated villages and almost extinguished tribes.
A nameless contagion was only less deadly. Un
bridled commerce with the women multiplied half-
breeds, possessing frequently all of the vices and
few of the virtues of both races. The half-breed
was always a misfit, because he could assume by
turns the character of white or red, according to
convenience and profit.
All the Minnesota Indians were clients of the
Northwest Company, unless where along the north
ern border the agents of the Hudson's Bay Com
pany were drawing off the trade by abundant
whiskey. This competition at length brought the
two companies to open war.

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 47
Long before he became president, Jefferson was
curious to unlock the secret of' the unknown west
and learn the road to the Pacific. It was not till
the early winter of 1803, however, that he was able
to persuade Congress to make a small appropria
tion for a military expedition of discovery, and then
under color of "extending the external commerce
of the United States." And more than a year passed
before the expedition of Lewis and Clark set out
from St. Louis May 4, 1804.
A similar expedition on a smaller scale left St.
Louis September 21, 1805, to discover the source
of the Mississippi. It was led by First Lieutenant
Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the First Infantry,
a native of New Jersey, then twenty-six years of
age. " He was five feet eight inches tall ; eyes blue ;
hair light ; abstemious, temperate, and unremitting
in duty." If there could 'have been doubt of his
fitness for the enterprise, the sequel fully justified
his selection. His instructions were carefully drawn
to keep him and his errand within constitutional
limits. The first entry of his journal reads, " Sailed
from my encampment, near St. Louis, at 4 o'clock,
p. M., on Friday the 9th of August, 1805 : with one
sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen privates, in
a keel boat, 70 feet long, provisioned for four
months." On the 21st of September Pike reached
the mouth of the Minnesota, and "encamped on
the northeast point of the big island," which still
bears his name. The next day Little Crow, grand-

48 MINNESOTA
father of the chief of the same name who led the
outbreak of 1862, came with his band of one hun
dred and fifty warriors. On the third day a council
was held under the shelter of the sails, on the
beach. In his speech Pike let the Indians know
that their Great Father no longer lived beyond the
great salt water, and that the Canadian traders
who tried to keep them in ignorance of American
independence were "bad birds " ; that traders were
forbidden to sell rum, and the Indians ought to
cooperate in preventing them ; and that the Sioux
and Chippeways ought to live in peace together.
In particular he asked that they aUow the United
States to select two tracts of land, one at the mouth
of the St. Croix, the other above the mouth of the
Minnesota. On these the Great Father would estab
lish military posts, and public trading factories,
where Indians could get goods cheaper than from
the traders.
The well-advised officer had already crossed the
hands of the two head chiefs. He closed his speech
with a reference to their "father's tobacco and some
other trifling things " as evidence of good will, and
promised some liquor " to clear their throats." The
chiefs saw no need of their signing any paper, but
did it to please the generous orator. The " treaty "
is a curiosity in diplomacy. The first article grants,
what the United States already possessed, " full
sovereignty and power " over two tracts of land :
one of nine miles square at the mouth of the St.

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 49
Croix ; the other " from below the confluence of the
Mississippi and St. Peter's (Minnesota) up the
Mississippi to include the Falls of St. Anthony,
extending nine miles on each side of the river."
Pike estimated the area of the latter grant to be
about one hundred thousand acres and the value to
be ,1200,000; The second article provides that "the
United States shaU pay . . . dollars." The final
article permits the Sioux to retain the only right
they could legally convey, that of occupancy for
hunting and their other accustomed uses.
Five days were passed at the Falls of St. An
thony, partly because of the sickness of some of the
men. Pike took measurements and made a map.
He found the depth of the fall to be sixteen and a
half feet. The portage on the east bank was two
hundred and sixty rods. The navigation of the river
above proved so difficult that it was not till the
16th of October that the party reached the mouth
of the Swan River. It was the expectation of his
general and of Pike himself that the march to the
source of the Mississippi and back would certainly
be finished before the close of the season. By the
time he was ready to leave the falls, September
30, it was evident that the journey could not be
accomplished in any such period. Resolved to pro
secute it, and not go back defeated, he formed the
plan to push on to the mouth of the Crow Wing,
put his stores and part of his men under cover,
and go forward on foot to his destination. On the

50 MINNESOTA
way up river he had a foretaste of the hardships
which awaited him. As he says, he " literally per
formed the duties of astronomer, surveyor, com
manding officer, clerk,, spy, and guide." Finding it
impossible to force his boats through the rapids
below Little Falls, he selected a favorable site be
low the junction of the Swan with the Mississippi
(the spot has been clearly identified), where he
built, in the course of a week, two blockhouses, and
in them bestowed his baggage and provisions. Here
he remained till December 10, occupied with hunt
ing, chopping out " peroques," and building bob
sleds. It took thirty-four days to reach Sandy Lake,
where the party met with generous hospitality at
the post of the Northwest Company. A week was
passed here in which the men replaced their sleds
with the traineaux de glace, or toboggans, used by
the voyageurs. On February 1 the leader, marching
in advance, reached the establishment of the North
west Company on the western margin of Leech
Lake, and highly relished a "good dish of coffee,
biscuit, butter, and cheese for supper." Pike had
now accomplished his voyage by reaching the main
source of the Mississippi. Seventeen days were
passed here, including three devoted to an excur
sion on snowshoes to Cass Lake, then known as
Upper Red Cedar Lake. He now believed himself
to have reached the " upper source of the Missis
sippi," but wasted not a word of rhetoric on the
achievement. While resting at Leech Lake Lieu-

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 51
tenant Pike wrote out for the eye of Mr. Hugh
McGillis, director of the Fond du Lac department
of the Northwest Company, there present, a formal
demand that he should smuggle no more British
goods into the country, haul down the British flag
at all his posts, give no more fiags or medals to
Indians, and hold no political intercourse with
them. Mr. McGillis in a communication equally
formal promised to do aU those things. Pike esti
mated that the government was losing some 126,000
a year of unpaid customs. The two functionaries
parted with mutual expressions of regard, and the
genial lieutenant started off home with a cariole
and dog team worth f 200 presented by the gracious
factor. Before his departure, however, he had his
riflemen shoot down the English jack flying over
the post. The return journey, ending April 30,
1806, cannot be followed. On the 10th of the month
the expedition passed around the Falls of St. An
thony, and the journal records, " The appearance
of the Falls was much more tremendous than when
we ascended." The ice was floating all day. The
leader congratulated himself on having accom
plished every wish, without the loss of a man.
" Ours was the first canoe," he says, " that ever
crossed this portage." In that belief he was con
tent. Pike's journal was not published till 1810,
and it included his account of an expedition to the
sources of the Arkansas, and an enforced tour in
New Spain. It had but slight effect on the author-

62 MINNESOTA
ities at Washington, and still less on the public.
The War of 1812 was brewing and there was little
concern about this remote wilderness. The effect
of Pike's dramatic incursion, and his fine speeches
to the Sioux and Chippeways soon wore off, the
British flag went up over the old trading posts of
Minnesota and W^isconsin, and the Northwest Com
pany resumed its accustomed control over the In
dians. It is not likely that many of their goods
paid the duties at Mackinaw. When the war broke
out the British-American authorities used all need
ful means in the way of presents and promises to
hold the attachment of the nations. Some of the
principal agents of the Northwest Company were
actually commissioned in the British service and
collected considerable bodies of Indians and half-
breeds for the western operations. The news of the
end of the war was slow in reaching these allies,
and it was not till May 24, 1815, that the British
captain commanding at Prairie du Chien, having
received his orders, hauled down his flag and
marched away with his garrison for Green Bay
and Montreal. The treaty of Ghent had been con
cluded eight months and some days before. A
serious proposition made by the British plenipoten
tiaries for negotiating that treaty proves that the
British had cherished the hope that they might re
tain the great Northwest under their virtual domin
ion. The proposition was that the two powers
should agree that the territory north and west of

MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED 63
the "Greenville line of 1796," roughly a zigzag
from Cleveland to Cincinnati, should remain as a
permanent barrier between their boundaries. Both
parties were to be prohibited from buying land of
the Indians, who were thus to be left in actual oc
cupation. The British would continue to control
their trade and hold their accustomed aUegiance.
The American commissioners refused of course to
entertain the proposal.

CHAPTER IV
FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED
Readers of Irving's " Astoria " know how a young
German, coming to America in the last year of the
Revolution, by accident learned of the possible
profits to be won in the fur-trade, and how he pre
sently embarked in it. -In the course of twenty-five
years he made a miUion dollars, a colossal private
fortune for that day. In 1809 he obtained from the
New York legislature a charter, and organized
the American Fur Company. The war suspended
the development of its plans. In 1816 Mr. John
Jacob Astor had little difficulty in securing an act
of Congress restricting Indian trade to American
citizens. This patriotic statute was intended to put
the Northwest Company out of business on Amer
ican territory. It did, and that company sold out
to Mr. Astor all its posts and outfits south of the
Canadian boundary at prices satisfactory to the
purchaser. In 1821 the Northwest Company was
merged into the Hudson's Bay Company.
The American Fur Company adopted the policy
of filling its leading positions with young Amer
icans of good education and enterprise, and taking
over the old engages and voyageurs, inured to the

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 65
service and useless for any other. These old cam
paigners easily won over the Indians to the new
company and taught them to look to a Great Fa
ther at Washington. The chief western stations for
the trade of the upper Mississippi were Mackinaw
and Prairie du Chien. There was now an " inter
est " which desired the development of the upper
country ; and it lost no time in moving on the gov
ernment. In the year last mentioned (1816) four
companies of United States infantry were sent
to Prairie du Chien, where they at once built Fort
Crawford. In the next year. Pike's reports having
apparently been forgotten. Major Stephen H. Long
of the Engineers traveled to Fort SneUing and in
his report gave a conditional approval to Pike's
selection of a site for a fort ; but it was not till the
winter of 1819 that the government was moved to
establish a military post at the junction of the St.
Peter's with the Mississippi. Lieutenant-Colonel
Henry Leavenworth was ordered February 10 to
proceed from Detroit, Michigan, to that point with
a detachment of the Fifth Infantry.
Taking the Fox-Wisconsin route, his party of
eighty-two persons reached Prairie du Chien July
1. " Scarcely an hour " after his arrival this num
ber was increased by the birth of Charlotte Ouis
consin (Clarke) Van Cleve, long known to all
Minnesotians, whose life was not ended till 1907.
The command arrived at Mendota August 23
and was at once put to building the log houses of

56 MINNESOTA
a cantonment. The site was near the present ferry
and the hamlet of Mendota, where a sharp eye may
still note traces of foundations. In September a
reinforcement of one hundred and twenty arrived.
In the spring of 1820 the companies were put into
camp above the fort, near the great spring known
to all early settlers. It was named Camp Coldwa-
ter. In July the command passed to Colonel Jo
seph Snelling, who held it till near the time of his
death in 1828. A daughter born in his family a
short time after their arrival was the first white
child born in Minnesota.
Colonel Snelling at once began the erection of a
fort, which, however, was not ready for occupation
till October, 1822. It was a wooden construction,
for which the logs were cut on the Rum River. In
1821 a rude sawmill was built at " the Falls "
which converted the logs into lumber. This was of
course the first sawmill in Minnesota. Two years
later a " run of buhrs " was put in, and a first flour
mill established. Colonel Snelling named his work
" Fort Saint Anthony," but in 1824, upon recom
mendation of Major-General Winfield Scott, after
a visit to the place, that name was changed to
" Fort Snelling," in recognition of the enterprise
and efficiency of its builder.
The reader must not be aUowed to fear that
the government was trespassing on Indian ground
when building Fort Snelling. Pike had bargained
for the site in 1805, but the government for four-

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 57
teen years neither took possession nor tendered
payment. The Senate on ratifying the treaty filled
the blank in article II by inserting $2000, and
Congress in 1819 made an appropriation of that
amount. In anticipation of the dispatch of a de
tachment of troops. Major Forsyth was ordered to
transport f 2000 worth of goods to the Sioux coun
try and deliver thera in payment for the lands
ceded to Pike. It chanced that his boats arrived
at Prairie du Chien in time to make the further
ascent of the river in company with the command
of Colonel Leavenworth. The payment was happily
managed. On his way up river Major Forsyth
called at the villages of Wabashaw, Red Wing,
and Little Crow, and gave each of those chiefs a
present of blankets, tobacco, powder, or other
goods. On arrival at destination similar presents
were made to five other chiefs, whose villages were
not distant. In each case the major records that
he had to give a little whiskey. The United States
could afford such generosity.
A period of thirty years intervened between the
arrival of Colonel Leavenworth's battalion at Fort
Snelling in 1819, and the establishment of the
Territory of Minnesota. The events of the period
are too slightly related to the subsequent history
of the state to call for minute narration in the way
of annals, and may preferably be grouped under a
few heads for compendious treatment.
When Colonel Leavenworth was starting from

68 MINNESOTA
Detroit, Michigan, he was intrusted by the gov
ernor of the Territory of Michigan with blank
commissions for appointive county officers for
Crawford County, included in that territory. This
duty was performed at Prairie du Chien, and jus
tice was established in Minnesota East. That re
gion had previously been successively within the
jurisdiction of the Northwest, Indiana, Michigan,
and Illinois territories. Minnesota West at the
same time was part of Missouri Territory, and pre
vious to 1812 had been in the Territory of Louisi
ana. There was, however, slight occasion for the
exercise of civil or judicial functions in the upper
Mississippi -country.
The American Fur Company had succeeded not
merely to the business of the " old Northwest Com
pany," but to its quasi-political control. The chief
factor at Mendota, and his subordinate traders at
the more important trading places, exercised a
control over the Indians and half-breeds which
government officials, civil and military, vainly en
deavored to win from them. The few whites in the
region, aside from the garrison of the fort, were
at the first traders' employees ; later a handful of
missionaries acceded, and still later an advance
guard of settlers, mostly lumbermen and Selkirk
refugees. The dominance of the fur company and
its principal agents was in great pa^t due, as al
ready suggested, to a policy inherited from the
Northwest Company of retaining in service the old

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 59
French and half-breed voyageurs, and fiUing the
clerical and managing places with young Ameri
cans of ability and enterprise. Such men would
have been leaders anywhere. The chief factor at
Mendota was the great man of the Sioux country ;
his colleague at Fond du Lac held a like relation
in the country of the Chippeways. They furnished
their licensed traders with their outfits, assigned
them their respective districts, served as their
bankers, and exercised over them an interested
supervision. The fidelity of these subordinates was
such as to form them into an effective combina
tion, which after a few futile attempts at competi
tion gave the American Fur Company a complete
monopoly. The one name to be brought forward as repre
sentative of the American Fur Company, and what
was good in it, is that of Henry Hastings Sibley,
who came to Mendota in November, 1834, as part
ner and chief factor. He had been preceded by
other traders of inferior rank and consideration.
Although but twenty-three years of age, he had
already served an apprenticeship of five years at
Mackinaw, the western headquarters of the Fur
Company. He was born in Detroit, Michigan,
where his parents, having removed from Sutton,
Massachusetts, had settled before the close of the
eighteenth century. The father. Judge Solomon
Sibley, was a notable character in Michigan for a
long lifetime. The boy received a good " academy"

60 MINNESOTA
education, had two years of classical language
study under private tuition, and pursued the study
of law. This early training equipped him with a
correct and graceful English style of expression,
which in later life he was fond of practicing in
manuscript of singular beauty. The boy's heart
was in the wilderness and on the wave. Tall, hand
some of face, and lithe of limb, he early became
expert with the rifle, the bridle, and the oar. So
fleet and tireless was he on foot that the Sioux
named him Wa-zi-o-ma-ni, Walker-in-the-pines.
His grave and ceremonious manner was well cal
culated to gain the respect of the Indians, fond as
they were of etiquette. Within two years after his
arrival at his post he built and occupied a large
stone house at Mendota, in which, especially after
his marriage a few years later, he maintained a
generous and elegant hospitality. The building
still stands in a dilapidated condition. For many
years Mr. Sibley, as justice of the peace, exercised
jurisdiction over a territory of imperial extent, and
was believed by his simple-minded clients, the
voyageurs, to hold the power of life and death.
As the trusted adviser of the Indian agent and the
military commander, he steered them past many a
difficult emergency.
With the extension of the Indian trade under
the protection of a military garrison, it was to be
expected that an Indian agency would be estab
lished at a point so prominent and convenient as

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 61
Fort Snelling. As the first agent. Lieutenant
Lawrence Taliaferro, of the Third United States
Infantry, was personally selected by President
Monroe. He was a member of a well-known Vir
ginia family of Italian extraction, and had given
evidence in the service of capacity and enterprise.
His appointment was dated March 27, 1819. His
age was twenty-five. For twenty years he held his
position, at times against powerful opposition, ever
a true friend of the Indian, a terror to illicit
whiskey seUers, and never the tool of the Ameri
can Fur Company.
It was the desire of the government to put an
end to the ancient warfare between the two great
tribes of Minnesota Indians. Pike in 1806 had
induced some of their chiefs to smoke the calumet.
In 1820 Governor Cass repeated the operation
with the result of burning much good tobacco.
Agent Taliaferro conceived a plan for keeping
the peace between the Sioux and the Chippeways,
which was to survey and stake out a partition line
between their countries. In 1824, by permission of
President Monroe, he took a delegation of Sioux,
Chippeways, and Menominees to Washington,
where an arrangement was made for a " grand
convocation " of all the northwestern nations, to
be held in the summer of 1825 at Prairie du Chien.
That convocation was held, with many spectacular
incidents, and a variety of adjustments were con
summated. In particular it was agreed between

62 MINNESOTA
the Sioux and Chippeway nations that their lands
should be separated by a line to be drawn and
marked by the white man's science. That line,
when tardily staked out ten years later, started
from a point in the Red River of the North near
Georgetown, passed east of Fergus Falls and west
of Alexandria, crossed the Mississippi between St.
Cloud and Sauk Rapids, and went on in a general
southeast direction to the St. Croix, which it struck
not far from Marine. The savages paid little re
spect to this air line, but went on with their accus
tomed raids. Within a year there was a bloody
encounter in sight of the agent's office. A single
example of these savage frays may be given to
illustrate their recurrence in series.
In April, 1838, a party of Sioux hunting in the
valley of the Chippeway River (of Minnesota) left
a party of three lodges in camp near Benson, Swift
County. Hole-in-the-day, the Chippeway chief from
Gull River, with nine followers, came upon this
camp, and professing himself peaceable was hospit
ably treated. In the night following he and his
men rose silently, and upon a given signal shot
eleven of the Sioux to death. One woman and a
wounded boy escaped.
In August of the same year Hole-in-the-day,
with a small party, was at Fort Snelling. His ar
rival becoming known to neighboring Sioux, two
or three relatives of the victims of the April
slaughter waylaid him near the Baker trading-

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 63
house, and opened fire. Hole-in-the-day escaped,
but the warrior with whom he had changed clothes
was killed.
In June of the following year a large party of
Chippeways from the upper Mississippi, from Mille
Lacs and the St. Croix valley, assembled at Fort
Snelling. For some days they were feasted and
entertained by the resident Sioux, and agent Talia
ferro got them started homewards. Two Chippeway
warriors, related to the tribesmen killed by the
Sioux the previous summer, remained behind, and
went into hiding near the large Sioux village on
Lake Calhoun. At daybreak, Nika (the badger), a
warrior much respected, was shot in his tracks as
he was going out to hunt, and the assassins made
their escape. As the Sioux could easily surmise
that they belonged to Hole-in-the-day's band, they
decided not to retaliate on it, because they would
be watched for. Two war-parties were immediately
formed, the one to follow the Mille Lacs band, the
other that from the St. Croix. It was lawful to re
taliate on any Chippeways. The Mille Lacs Indians
were overtaken in their bivouacs on the Rum River
at daylight on July 4. Waiting until the hunters
had gone forward, the Sioux fired on the women,
children, and old men, and harvested some seventy
scalps, but they lost more warriors in the action
than the Chippeways. The war-dance of the exult
ing Sioux went on for a month on the site of Lake-
wood Cemetery in MinneapoUs. Little Crow and

64 MmNESOTA
his Kaposia band gave their attention to the St.
Croix Chippeways, who returned, as they had come,
by canoe down the Mississippi and up the St. Croix.
Little Crow marched overland and got into posi
tion at Stillwater, where he lay in ambush for the
retreating foe, who he knew would bivouac on the
low ground near the site of the Minnesota state
prison. A daybreak assault killed twenty-five of the
Chippeways, but they made so good a defense that
the Sioux were glad to retire. The mortality in the
so-called " battles " of Rum River and Stillwater
was exceptionally great.
In the middle of the period now in view, a new
influence, not heartily welcomed by the traders,
came over the Minnesota Indians, — that of the
missionaries, mostly Protestant. The first efforts
at evangelization were made for the Chippeways
and probably at the instance of Robert Stuart, the
principal agent of the American Fur Company at
Mackinaw, an ardent Scotch Presbyterian. In 1823
a boarding-school was opened at that place and
flourished for some years. In 1830 a mission was
opened at La Pointe, Wisconsin, on the spot occu
pied by the Jesuit fathers one hundred and fifty
years before. From this place as a centre mission
work was extended into Minnesota. In 1833 the
Rev. W. T. Boutwell proceeded to Leech Lake,
built a log cabin, and began work. The Rev. Fred
erick Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, on the
Wisconsin side of the St. Croix, and the Rev. E. E.

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 65
Ely began teaching at Sandy Lake. Three years
later all of these were removed for more concen
trated, cooperative effort to Lake Pokegama in Pine
County. This mission was carried on with much
promise for five years, when it was interrupted by
a descent of a large war-party of Sioux led by
Little Crow. Among the killed were two young
girls, pupils of the mission school. The Chippeways
abandoned the place for homes farther from the
danger line, and this mission came to an end. The
Chippeways had their revenge a year later (1842),
when they came down to the near neighborhood of
St. Paul and got in the so-called battle of Kaposia
the scalps of thirteen Sioux warriors, two women,
and a child.
The missions to the Sioux were begun in the
spring of 1834 by two young laymen from Con
necticut, who appeared at Fort Snelling without
credentials from any synod or conference, but
with abundant faith and zeal. They were brothers,
Samuel William and Godwin HoUister Pond, then
twenty-six and twenty-four years of age respect
ively. Although they had entered the Indian coun
try without leave or license, they secured at once
the confidence of Agent Taliaferro and Major
Bliss, commander of Fort SneUing. With their
own hands they built a log cabin on the east shore
of Lake Calhoun, on the edge of Cloudman's vil
lage. That chief selected the site. Established in
this " comfortable home," they devoted themselves

66 MINNESOTA
to learning the Dakota language. Within a few
weeks they adapted the Roman letters to that
language with such skill that the " Pond alphabet "
has with slight modification been ever since used
in writing and printing it. A Dakota child can be
gin to read as soon as it has " learned its letters."
The zealous brothers made the first collections for
the dictionary, later enlarged by others, prepared
a spelling-book, and formulated a rude grammar.
Mr. Sibley, who came in the fall of the same year,
became a warm friend of the Ponds.
The next missionary effort was by appointees of
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, best known by the short title "American
Board." These were the Rev. Thomas S. WiUiam
son, missionary and physician ; the Rev. Jedediah
D. Stevens, missionary ; Alexander Huggins, farmer ;
their wives, and two lady teachers. These arrived
at Fort Snelling in May, 1835. Mr. Stevens, who
had made a tour of exploration in the country six
years before, at once established himself on the
northwest margin of Lake Harriet, now in the
city of Minneapolis. He built two considerable log
houses near the site of the street raUroad station,
in one of which he opened a school. The nucleus
was a number of half-breed daughters of traders
and military men, some of whom became highly
respected Minnesota women. This school, however,
was not the first in Minnesota, if the collection of
Indian boys and men gathered by Major Taliaferro

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 67
on the east bank of Lake Calhoun in 1829, and
put to learning the art and mystery of agriculture,
may be called a school. Philander Prescott was the
teacher, and his pupils numbered twelve ; the next
year he had one hundred and twenty-five " different
scholars." Within a few days after the arrival of
these missionaries a Presbyterian church was organ
ized at Fort Snelling, June 11, the first in Minne
sota, with the Rev. Mr. Stevens in charge.
The American Fur Company had an important
stockaded post on Lac qui Parle in Chippeway
County. The trader there was Joseph Renville,
who had been captain in the British frontier ser-
'vice in the War of 1812. He had married a woman
of the Sioux by Christian rite, and had a large
family growing up. Although Catholic by birth
and education, he invited Dr. Williamson to corae
and establish his mission uear him, so that his
children might be taught. The mission at Lac qui
Parle was thus promptly opened. Dr. Williamson
has recorded that this school, begun in his house
in July, was the first in Minnesota outside of Fort
Snelling. It was continued for many years by his
sister. Miss Jane Williamson, who perhaps ren
dered more lasting service than any of the noble
band to which she belonged. After some two years'
study of the Dakota language Dr. Williamson set
about what became his life work, the translation of
the Holy Scriptures into that tongue. The Rev.
Stephen Return Riggs joined the Lac qui Parle

68 MINNESOTA
mission in 1837, after having studied the Dakota
under Samuel Pond. He soon became expert, pre
pared text-books for the schools, and later edited
the Dakota dictionary and grammar, to which aU
the Sioux missionaries contributed. Mission work
begun in 1837 at Kaposia (now South St. Paul)
by Methodist preachers, and at Red Wing in 1839
by Swiss Presbyterian evangelists, however praise
worthy for intention, was too early abandoned to
have permanent results. Equally transient was the
ministration of the Catholic father Ravoux, at Lac
qui Parle and Chaska, in 1842. The missions
of the American Board to the Minnesota Sioux
were maintained until that nation was removed to
the Missouri in 1863. The results were sufficient
to encourage persistence, in hope of future success,
but the great body of the Indians was not affected.
For a time this was due to suspicion on the part
of the Indians of the sincerity of the missionaries.
They could understand the soldier and the trader,
but the missionary was a puzzle. He had nothing
to sell, he asked no pay for teaching the children,
caring for the sick, or preaching the word. Why
he should teach a religion of brotherhood, and still
keep to himself his household stuff, his little store
of food, and his domestic animals, was beyond
the comprehension of savages accustomed to com
munistic life. A greater obstacle lay in the fact
that the missionary had first to break down faith
in an ancient religion, and the dominance of a body

FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED 69
of medicine -men who maintained their cult by
a ceremonial interwoven with the whole life and
habits of the people. Not less obstructive was the
example of most white men known to the Indians,
— greedy, dissolute, and licentious.

CHAPTER V
EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS
To discover the true source of any of the great
rivers of the world, that is, that one of all sources
which measured along the axis of its channel is
farthest from its mouth, has ever been an allur
ing problem to the exploring geographer. David
Thompson, geographer of the Northwest Company,
in the course of a journey of exploration lasting a
year and extending to the Missouri River, on April
23, 1798, reached Turtle Lake, four miles nortli
of Lake Bemidji, and believed himself the discov
erer of the true source of the Mississippi. Lieu
tenant Pike was confident that when on the 12th
day of February, 1806, he reached the upper Red
Cedar (Cass) Lake he was at the "upper source
of the Mississippi." These claims were either not
known or not trusted, and a series of expeditions
to reach the " true source " of the Mississippi was
begun, soon after the military occupation in 1819.
Lewis Cass, known best in American history by
his national employments as senator, cabinet offi
cer, and foreign minister, had cut such a figure as
colonel of an Ohio regiment and brigadier-general
in the W^ar of 1812 that the President made him

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 71
governor of the Territory of Michigan ; an office
which he held for seventeen years. That territory
in 1819 was extended to the Mississippi River. Its
governor was naturally curious to see something of
this immense addition to his jurisdiction and the
great river forming its western bound. He sought
and obtained leave to conduct an expedition. An
engineer officer. Captain Douglass, was ordered
to join it, and Governor Cass employed Henry
R. Schoolcraft, of whom we are to hear later, as
mineralogist at one dollar and a half a day. Leav
ing Detroit late in May, 1820, with ten Indians
and seven soldiers, in three birch -bark canoes,
Cass was at the American Fur Company's post at
Fond du Lac (of Superior) on the 6th of July.
He ascended the St. Louis River and took the
Savanna portage to Sandy Lake. With a reduced
party he pushed up stream through Lake Winne-
bigoshish to that upper Red Cedar Lake which
Pike had seen fourteen years before. Assured that
this was the true source of the Mississippi, he
ended his journey. Mr. Schoolcraft doubted, but
he was too polite to differ openly with his chief.
Captain Douglass on his map gave the lake the
name " Cassina," which, shorn of two superfluous
syllables, has remained in use. Mr. Schoolcraft
vnrote a narrative of the expedition which is very
pleasant reading. The return journey, beginning
July 22, was down the Mississippi to Prairie du
Chien and thence to Green Bay by the Fox-Wis-

72 MINNESOTA
consin portage. At Fort Snelling the party were
feasted with fresh vegetables from the post garden.
At the Sioux agency, then on the Mendota side of
the Minnesota, some chiefs of the Sioux and Chip
peways were got together in council and a reluc
tant consent was obtained to cease from troubling
one another. The high contracting parties were
content to gratify the white man, but they under
stood the farcical nature of the convention. Gov
ernor Cass reported the cost of the expedition at
$6156.40^. It seems proper to interpolate here some account
of the expedition conducted by Major Stephen H.
Long of the topographical engineers of the army,
in 1823, to the vaUeys of the Minnesota and Red
rivers. Six years before, that officer had made an
uneventful journey to St. Anthony's Falls, of which
he left a graphic and appreciative description. His
party, escorted by a detail of soldiers, left Fort
SneUing on July 9 with Joseph Renville as inter
preter and guide. At Traverse des Sioux, Long
abandoned his canoes and set out overland by the
well-worn trail for Lake Traverse, where he was
welcomed at the headquarters of the Columbia
Fur Company. On August 2 Long reached Pem
bina, where he established a monument to mark
a point astronomically determined in the interna
tional boundary. His instructions had been to
strike east from Pembina and trace the boundary
to the Lake of the Woods. This he found to be

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 73
impracticable. Putting his people into bark canoes,
he descended the Red River past Fort Garry to
Lake Winnipeg, traversed the south arm of that
water, and ascended the Winnipeg River to Rat
Portage on the Lake of the Woods.
The homeward journey by the old Dawson route
to Lake Superior, along the north shore to the
Sault Sainte Marie and thence by the lower lakes
and the Erie Canal, was rapidly made without nota
ble incident. Professor William H. Keating of the
University of Pennsylvania, who was geologist of
the expedition, published a narrative abounding in
varied and interesting knowledge. It wUl ever re
main indispensable to the historian of the period
and region.
Major Long had been accompanied from Fort
Snelling to Pembina by an Italian gentleman of a
romantic and enterprising nature, Giacomo Con
stantino Beltrami by name. Little is known of his
early life beyond the facts that he had held mili
tary and civil appointments, and had, for reasons
not revealed, found it desirable to absent himself
from Italy. He came to America full of zeal to be
the discoverer of the true source of the Mississippi,
and thus place himself in the company of great
Italian explorers. Agent Taliaferro came upon
him in Pittsburg and offered to further his am
bition. They reached Fort Snelling on the 10th
of May, 1823, by the steamboat Virginia, the first
steam vessel to reach that post. The crowd of won-

74 MINNESOTA
dering Indians gathered on the levee were suffi
ciently impressed by the bulk of the white man's
fire canoe; but the scream of her steam whistle,
opportunely let out, sent them scampering far off
on the prairie.
When Beltrami at Pembina found Major Long
pointing his canoes down the Red River, he de
tached himself, and with a slender outfit and uncer
tain guides struck out to the southeast, where he
expected to find the object of his journey. After a
few days of hardship he reached the south shore
of Red Lake, and there he found a " bois-brule "
who guided him up a tributary then called Bloody
River. It is marked "Mud Creek" on modern
maps. A short portage brought him to a small,
heart-shaped lake, to which he gave the name
"Lake Julia," in memory of a deceased friend.
Here on the 28th of August he reports himself as
resting at the most southern source of the Red
River and the most northern source of the Missis
sippi. He found no visible outlet to his lakelet and
fancied that its seepage was indifferently the true
source of the two rivers. His. dream fulfiUed and
his ambition satisfied, he made all possible haste
to Fort Snelling. He proceeded to New Orleans
and in the next year (1824) pubUshed in French
his " Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi."
An English version appeared under the title " A
Pilgrimage in Europe and America." Lake Julia
is StiU on the map, lying some two miles north of

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 75
Turtle Lake, which David Thompson had charted
twenty-five years before. The Minnesota geologists
found no connection between it and Mississippi
waters. It is noteworty that Beltrami placed on
his map a " Lac la Biche " as the " western source
of the Mississippi," which later explorers identified
as approximately the true source. This knowledge
he may have obtained from the intelligent guide,
whom he praises highly, but whose name he neg
lected to report.
It has been mentioned that Henry R. School
craft, mineralogist of Cass's expedition in 1820,
was by no means satisfied that Cass Lake was the
true source of the great river. Appointed Indian
agent of the Chippeways, he resided for many
years at the Sault Sainte Marie, longing for
another plunge into the wilderness of the upper
Mississippi. It was not until 1832 that the War
Department, deferring to Governor Cass, was con
tent to give him leave, and then by indirection
only. The instructions given Mr. Schoolcraft were
to proceed to the country at the head of the Mis
sissippi, to visit as many Indians as circumstances
might permit, to establish permanent peace among
thera, to look after the Indian trade and in particu
lar the trespasses of Hudson's Bay traders, to vac
cinate Indians as many as possible, and to gather
statistics. He had no commission to explore. An
officer of the army. Lieutenant James Allen, with
a small detachment of soldiers, was ordered to be

76 MINNESOTA
his escort. Traveling by way of Fond du Lac and
the Savanna portage, Schoolcraft's party was at
Cass Lake on July 10. The same day his guide
Ozawindib (the YeUowhead) collected five small
canoes and made all needful preparations for the
further journey, which began the morning after.
The YeUowhead led the party up to and across
Lake Bemidji, and from its southern limb up an
east fork now mapped as the YeUowhead River, to
a lakelet at its head. A six-mile portage to the
west brought Schoolcraft, about two o'clock p. m.,
on the 13th of July, to a body of transparent water,
which his guide assured him was the true source.
In expectation of that moment the ardent explorer
had cogitated on a suitable name. The missionary
Boutwell, already mentioned, was a member of his
party, having joined it to spy out the land for
evangelical work. When asked by Mr. Schoolcraft
the Latin for " true source," the reverend gentle
man could only remember that the Latin for truth
was Veritas, and for head caput ; and he obligingly
wrote the two words on a slip of paper. The leader
cut off the head of the former and the tail of the
latter, and joining the remaining syllables made
the word " Itasca," as beautiful an Indian name
as could be desired. On the island, bearing still
his name, Mr. Schoolcraft erected a flagstaff and
flew the American colors. Lieutenant AUen in his
report uses the French name Lac la Biche, the
same communicated to Beltrami. How much atten-

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 77
tion the explorer gave to gathering statistics, vac
cinating Indians, pacifying the Indians, and the
like, may be inferred from the proraptness with
which he set out fOr home the very same day, and
the speed of his journey. Taking an unused canoe
route via Leech Lake and the headwaters of the
Crow Wing, he was at Fort Snelling on the 24th
of July. Leaving his escort, without a guide he
hastened with all possible celerity by the St. Croix-
Brule route to " the Sault." In his report to the
War Department, dated December 3, 1832, he
makes not the slightest reference to his excursion
from Cass Lake to Itasca. His published narrative,
however, shows no such gap. He had no orders to
discover anything.
What fortune or misfortune brought the French
astronomer, Jos. N. Nicollet, to this country early
in the thirties is not well known. Like Beltrami,
he had the fever for exploration and discovery. In
the midsummer of 1836 this gentleman went from
Fort SneUing up to Leech Lake, where he was
sheltered by the missionary Boutwell. Here he
found guides who took him by a new route out of
the west arm of Leech Lake to Lake Itasca at the '
point reached by Schoolcraft. He made camp on
Schoolcraft's Island and proceeded to take its lati
tude, longitude, and height above sea. So far he
was merely confirming the work of Schoolcraft
and Allen. Selecting the largest of three tributary
inlets, he traced it three miles through two lakelets

78 MINNESOTA
to a third, from which he found " the infant Missis
sippi flowing with a breadth of a foot and a half,
and a depth of one foot." In the years 1889 and
1891 J. V. Brower, commissioned by the Minne
sota Historical Society and the governor of Min
nesota, devoted many months to a careful examina
tion of the region above (south of) Itasca Lake.
The result was the confirmation of Nicollet's work,
with a further discovery of an " ultimate bowl " in
the highlands (Hauteurs des Terres) from which
NicoUet's lakes were fed. And then the long quest
came to an end.
The first white settlers in Minnesota, or rather
squatters, for the region was not open to settle
ment for nearly twenty years after the military
occupation, came from an unexpected quarter. A
Scotch nobleman, the Earl of Selkirk, of a romantic
turn, formed a scheme for relieving congested Eu
ropean districts by planting colonies abroad, and
in Canada preferably to the United States. He
bought of the Hudson's Bay Company a tract of
something over 100,000 square miles, south and west
of Lake Winnipeg, and in 1812 sent over a small
party of Highlanders and a few Irish. Later addi
tions were made to the colony, among them two hun
dred Scotch in 1815. What with the persecutions
of the bois-brul^s, of the Northwest Company, the
destruction of crops by rats, grasshoppers, early
frosts, and high water, the colonists led a stormy

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 79
and precarious life for some years ; but they sur
vived. In 1821 came a party of one hundred and
fifty or more Swiss clockmakers, wiled from their
homes by the seductive aUurements of an ingenious
agent. When the deluded people reached Fort Doug
lass and Pembina they found things far different
from their expectations. Five families at once took
the trail for the American fort. Two years later
thirteen more families followed. In 1826, after a
devouring flood in the Red River, two hundred and
forty-three persons, Swiss and others, left Pembina
for the south. In following years the migration
continued, and by 1836 nearly five hundred had
come over the border. The greater number of them
journeyed on to the French settlements down the
river in Illinois and Missouri, but many preferred to
tarry on the Fort SneUing reservation. The mili
tary gave them protection, allowed them to pasture
their cattle and cut grass on the bottoms, and to
fence in and cultivate considerable farms.
The reports of the military, the open secrets of
the American Fur Company, the revelations of ex
plorers, and later the correspondence of mission
aries, at length made the upper Mississippi valley
known as a land of promise. Travelers from Fort
SneUing to " the head of the lake " by the old St.
Croix canoe route had disclosed the existence of
magnificent bodies of pine timber. A market for
pine lumber had been opened about the Galena

80 MINNESOTA
and Dubuque lead mines and the prairie regions
abutting on the river. The voracious lumbermen
of Wisconsin, mostly emigrants from Maine, were
fierce to get their axes into this pine. As early as
1822 a sawraill had been built on the Chippeway
River near Menominee, and the stumpage bought
of Wabashaw, chief of the lower Sioux, for one
thousand dollars a year in goods. But there was
no white man's country in Minnesota, except the
Fort Snelling tract bought by Pike in 1805 and
paid for in 1819, and that was not open to settle
ment, unless by tolerance of the military. The time
came for extending the area of settlement and cul
tivation, and that was effected by two Indian trea
ties made in 1837. By a treaty with the lower Sioux
the United States acquired all their lands east of
the Mississippi up to the Sioux-Chippeway parti
tion line of 1825. The consideration was a half
miUion dollars ; but two hundred thousand dollars
went to the traders and half-breeds in nearly equal
sums. That was the price paid by the government
for the use of their influence with the Indians. The
Chippeways sold east of the Mississippi from the
partition line up to the line running a little north
of east from the mouth of the Crow Wing River.
The delta between the Mississippi and the St.
Croix up to the Crow Wing line was thus opened
to settlement on the ratification of the treaties, on
June 15, 1838. When the tidings of the ratifica
tion reached Fort Snelling a month later, the grass

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 81
did not grow under the feet of waiting citizens,
who had made notes of good locations. A claim
abutting on the Falls of St. Anthony, on the east
bank, was staked out before daylight of the foUow
ing morning, and the falls of the. St. Croix were pre
empted before sunset, all in accordance with law
and custom.
The first collection of people in Minnesota, aside
from the garrison of Fort Snelling, was the little
haralet of Mendota, inhabited by French, half-
breeds, and their Indian wives and children. At
times its numbers were sweUed by traders from out
posts coming in to headquarters to bring their furs
and obtain supplies. Mendota is a French hamlet
to-day. The first American settlement was made at
Marine, on the St. Croix, early in 1839, where a saw
mill was put into operation August 24. In the year
following, on a claim previously made, Joseph R.
Brown laid out the town site of Dakotah on land
now forming a part of Stillwater. This city was
not laid out till 1843, wheri settlement was begun
in full confidence that StiUwater was to be the great
city of the region. Its progress for a few years
seemed to justify that expectation. Later many of
its people migrated to the new towns on the Mis
sissippi. In the year of the treaties (1837) the
officer commanding at Fort SneUing had a survey
made, to carve out of the Pike tract of nine by
eighteen miles the land to be held by the govern
ment for military use. The bounds included prac-

82 MINNESOTA
tically all of Reserve Township of Ramsay County,
the east line passing through the " Seven Corners "
of St. Paul. Because of growing scarcity of tim
ber, and alleged trespasses of the squatters. Major
Plympton in the spring of 1838 ordered all those
settled on the main reserve west of the Missis
sippi to move over to the east side. A very few had
sufficient foresight to place themselves beyond the
military lines, — among them one Pierre Parrant,
a Canadian voyageur, who, not waiting for the
ratification, built a whiskey shanty near the issue
of the streamlet from Fountain Cave, in upper
St. Paul, thus becoming the first inhabitant of that
city. The evicted Swiss mostly settled on ground
within easy reach of the fort, and there built their
cabins anew. They were, however, not long aUowed
that indulgence. Their number was reinforced by
a few voyageurs, discharged soldiers, and perhaps
some other whites. Among the whites were a few
who opened grog-shops at which the custom of the
soldiers was very welcome. These places became so
intolerable that the commandant begged the War
Department to require all squatters to get off the
reservation. His recommendation was adopted, and
on the 6th of May, 1840, a deputy United States
marshal, supported by a detachment of soldiers,
drove them all over the lines and destroyed their
cabins. What did they do but reestablish them
selves just beyond the line, about Parrant's claim ?
French fashion, they grouped their cabins and

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 83
formed a Uttle French viUage, the nucleus of the
capital city of Minnesota. A memorial of the evicted
Swiss to Congress for indemnity for loss of im
provements on land they had been suffered to
occupy and cultivate, and for the destruction of
their shelters, was ignored.
At all the trading stations of the American Fur
Company there was a group of employees and
hangers-on. At Mendota, the headquarters, the
number was greater than elsewhere. In 1837 there
were twenty-five such. When in July, 1839, Bishop
Loras of Dubuque made a visitation there, he
found one hundred and eighty-five Catholics gath
ered in to approach the sacraments of the church.
In May of the following year the Rev. Lucius Gal
tier, sent up on an hour's notice from Dubuque,
reached Mendota to begin a mission there. He
naturally took under his care the Catholic families
just then getting themselves under cover on the
hillsides nearly opposite. Noveraber 1, 1841, he
blessed a little log chapel the people had built
under his direction, and dedicated "the new basil
ica" to St. Paul, "the apostle of the nations." The
narae " St. Paul's landing," for a tirae used, gave
way to the raore convenient St. Paul's and, later,
to " St. Paul." PSre Galtier, however, remained at
the more considerable Mendota till called to other
duty in 1844. Father Ravoux, succeeding him,
divided his time between the- two hamlets till 1849.
Up to 1845 St. Paul was a straggling French

84 MINNESOTA
village of some thirty families, a floating popula
tion of voyageurs and workmen, to which two or
three independent traders had joined themselves.
In the next years Americans arrived in increasing
numbers. In 1846 a post-office was established,
and in the year after a regular line of steamboats
began to ply down river in the season.
The city at the falls was later in getting its start.
The lucky citizen who preempted the land abreast
of the falls on the left bank of the Mississippi did
not lay out his town site of St. Anthony's Falls
till late in 1847. A sawmill built that year went
into operation the next, and the manufacture of
lumber has since remained a leading industry. At
Pembina, in the extreme northwest corner of Min
nesota, was an aggregation of French half-breeds
of some hundreds. The rural population of the
whole region well into the fifties was very sparse.
A few farms had been opened along the St. Croix
in Washington County. The principal part of the
subsistence for man and beast was brought up from
below in steamboats.
When Iowa Territory was organized in 1838,
Wisconsin Territory was restricted on the west to
the line of the Mississippi. Minnesota East then
formed part of Crawford County of the latter terri
tory. In the same year the governor of W^isconsin
appointed as justice of the peace for that county
a man who was to play a conspicuous part in
Minnesota affairs. Joseph Renshaw Brown came

EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS 85
to Minnesota as a drummer-boy of fourteen with
the Fifth Infantry in 1819. Honorably discharged
from that command sorae six or seven years later,
he went into the Indian trade at different posts, at
some of which he opened farms. He appreciated, as
perhaps no other man in the region did so clearly,
the possibilities of the future, and was fitted by
nature, education, and experience to lead. In 1840
he was elected a member of the Wisconsin terri
torial legislature from St. Croix County, a new
jurisdiction separated from Crawford County by
a meridian through the mouth of the Porcupine
River, a small affluent of Lake Pepin. The county
seat was of course Mr. Brown's town of Dakotah,
already mentioned. There is reason to surmise a
disappointed expectation that this town might be
come the capital of a state. In 1836 Congress
passed an enabling act in the usual form for the
promotion of Wisconsin to statehood. About the
same time the Wisconsin delegate introduced a
bill to establish the Territory of Minnesota. It was
understood that Mr. Sibley would be the first gov
ernor and that Mr. Brown would not be neglected.
The bill passed the House and reached its third
reading in the Senate, when it was tabled on the
suggestion of an eastern senator that the popula
tion was far too scanty to warrant a territorial
organization.

CHAPTER VI
THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED
On May 29, 1848, Wisconsin was admitted to the
Union as a state, with her western boundary fixed
where it has since remained, on the St. Croix River
line, Congress having refused to extend W^iscon-
sin's area to the Rum River line. The delta between
the St. Croix and the Mississippi was politically left
in the air. In the earlier correspondence and per
sonal conferences of Minnesotians the only thought
was of obtaining from Congress the establishment
of a new territory. On August 4 a caU signed by
eighteen prominent residents of the wished-for ter
ritory was issued, for a convention to be held at
StUlwater on the 26th. Sixty -one delegates ap
peared and took part in what has since been known
as "the Stillwater Convention " of 1848. The pro
ceedings resulted in two memorials, one to the Presi
dent, the other to Congress, both praying for the
organization of a new territory ; in corresponding
resolutions ; in the raising of a committee to prose
cute the purposes of the convention ; and in the elec
tion of Henry H. Sibley as a " delegate " to pro
ceed to Washington and urge immediate action.
The late governor of Wisconsin Territory, Hon.

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 87
Henry Dodge, had been elected United States sen
ator. The secretary of the territory had been Mr.
John Catlin. A letter written by him August 22
was read before the Stillwater convention. It em
bodied the suggestion that the Territory of Wis
consin might be considered as surviving in the
excluded area. He transmitted a letter from James
Buchanan, Secretary of State, expressing the opin
ion that the laws of Wisconsin Territory were still
in force therein, and that judges of probate, sheriffs,
justices of the peace, and constables might lawfuUy
exercise their offices. Such being the case, what
was there to hinder him, Mr. Catlin, from assuming
the position of acting-governor of Wisconsin Ter
ritory, and performing the proper duties ? In par
ticular, why might he not appoint an election for
the choice of a delegate to Congress in a regular
manner, if a vacancy should occur ? His judgment
was that a delegate elected "under color of law"
would not be denied a seat. This scheme, which
seems to have made no impression on the Stillwater
convention, was rapidly incubated after its disper
sion. Mr. Catlin took up a constructive residence
at Stillwater. John H. Tweedy, delegate from
Wisconsin Territory to the Thirtieth Congress,
obligingly put in his resignation. Thereupon Act
ing-Governor Catlin issued a call for an election of
a delegate to be held on the 30th of October. The
result was the choice of Mr. Sibley against a slight
and ineffective opposition.

88 MINNESOTA
The delegate-elect presented himself at the door
of the national House of Representatives at the
opening of the second session of the Thirtieth Con
gress. His credentials had the usual reference to
the committee on elections. Mr. Sibley's argument
was ingenious and exhaustive, and it proved effect
ive, for the committee absorbed its substance into
their favorable report. On January 15, 1849, the
House by a vote of 124 to 62 accorded Mr. Sibley
his seat as delegate from Wisconsin. The same
House refused, however, to make any appropriation
for the expenses of a territory existing by virtue of
mere geographical exclusion. A bill for the estab
lishment of the Territory of Minnesota had been
introduced into the Senate in the previous session.
It was identical with that which had been strangled
on the last day of the Twenty -ninth Congress. Mr.
Sibley properly devoted himself to advancing the
progress of the biU. It was promptly passed by the
Senate, but it lagged in the House. The Whig ma
jority had no consuming desire to favor a beginning
likely to result in a Democratic delegation frora a
new state. They therefore clapped on an amend
ment, to which the Senate could not possibly agree,
that the act should take effect March 10, six days
after the expiry of President Polk's term of office.
The end of the session was but four days away. A
House bill for the establishment of a Department
of the Interior was still pending in the Senate. It
provided for a goodly number of officials to be

XiiJi; TEKKITORY ORGANIZED 89
named by the incoming Whig President. Senator
Douglas, acting for colleagues, authorized Mr. Sib
ley to give out to his Whig opponents that the
Senate would be better disposed to passing their
interior department measure if they should find it
agreeable to recede from their offensive amend
ment to the Minnesota bill. On the last day of the
session Mr. Sibley had the pleasure of seeing his
bill pass, under suspension of the rules, without
opposition. No one was so much surprised at the
outcome as Mr. Sibley himself. It took thirty-seven
days for the good news to reach St. Paul by the
first steamer of the season from below. The bound
aries of the new territory were those of the state
later admitted, except that the west line was ptished
out to the Missouri River, thus including an area
of some 166,000 square miles. The governorship
fell to Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania, then
thirty-four years of age, who deserved weU of his
party in its late carapaign and had done some ex
ceUent service as a member of the Twenty-eighth
and Twenty-ninth Congresses. He had been well
educated in the best school, that of a life of indus
try and aspiration. Clear-headed, cautious, patient,
he knew how to anticipate the courses of things
and to plan for the probabilities of the future. He
identified himself from the first with his new terri
tory, and remained to the end of his long life, in
1903, a steadfast, loyal Minnesotian.
On May 27, in a small bedroom in Bass's log

90 MINNESOTA
tavern on the site of the Merchant's Hotel in St.
Paul, Mr. Ramsey wrote out on a little unpainted
washstand his proclamation declaring the territory
duly established. On June 11 he announced the
division of his immense jurisdiction into three pro
visional counties, assigning to each one of the three
judges, Goodrich, Sherburne, and Meeker, who had
been appointed by the President. At the same
time he directed the sheriff of St. Croix County to
make a census of the population. The reported
total did not measure up to the conjectures of
hopeful citizens. After counting the 317 soldiers
at " the Fort," all the attaches of the trading posts,
637 dwellers at Perabina and 66 on the Missouri
Riveri the footing stood at 4780 souls.
Pursuant to the organic act Governor Ramsey
by proclamation of July 7 divided the territory into
seven council districts, and ordered an election for
August 1. The first territorial legislature that day
elected, consisting of nine councilors and eighteen
representatives, met at St. Paul, September 4. The
organic act having provided that the laws in force
in the late Territory of Wisconsin should remain
in operation until altered or repealed by the Min
nesota territorial legislature, this inexperienced
body was not heavily burdened. The most notable
enactment was that for the establishment of a sys
tem of free schools for all children and youth of
the territory, introduced by Martin McLeod, but
probably drawn up by the Rev. Edward Duffield

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 91
NeiU, 'the well-known historian of Minnesota. A
bill passed October 20, incorporating the Min
nesota Historical Society, was doubtless from the
same hand. Governor Ramsey's message of 1849
was much extended by an account of the Indian
tribes of the territory, prepared for him by Dr.
Thomas Foster.
There was no legislative session in 1850. The
statutes of 1851 embrace but few of notable impor
tance. After a long and bitter struggle the capital,
temporarily placed by the organic act at St. Paul,
was permanently located in that town. To secure
the majority vote it was necessary to concede to
Stillwater the state prison and to St. Anthony
the university. The evidence of a formal " tripar
tite agreement " to this arrangement is lacking,
but it is probable that an understanding or ex
pectation influenced the voting. The diligence with
which a body composed largely of fur-traders and
lumbermen overhauled a revision of the territorial
laws, prepared by a comraittee of lawyers, bears
testimony to a zeal for duty. The result was the
well-known " Code of 1851." It embodied substan
tially the New York code of procedure. The gen
eral incorporation law did not include railroad
corporations. An act of 1852 prohibiting the
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors was
submitted to a vote of the electors and ratified by
a vote of 853 to 662. Before the year was out the
supreme court of the territory, on an appeal from

92 MINNESOTA
below, ruled the act to be unconstitutional ion the
ground that the organic law having vested all legis
lative power in the legislative bodies, the referen
dum was inoperative. In 1853 equity procedure
was conformed to that of civil actions.
The dominating feature of Governor Ramsey's
territorial governorship was the extinguishment of
the Indian title of occupancy to all the lands of
the Sioux in Minnesota, except the small reserva
tions. No time was lost by interested parties in
impressing on Mr. Ramsey the importance of in
creasing the area of settlement in his territory.
Land speculators and lumbermen desired an en
largement of their spheres of operation. The Indian
traders, who in pre'vious years would have opposed
a treaty of cession, were at this time, under changed
circumstances, eager. The hunting.;9f wild animals
for their pelts had greatly reduced their numbers,
so that the trade had dwindled. The prospect of
profits in land speculation appeared likely to ex
ceed those of Indian trading. The traders also were
of opinion that it was about time for a substantial
liquidation of Indian debts due them. The half-
breeds and squaw raen had, as we shall see, a strong
desire for a treaty. Moved by what seemed a gen
eral demand, Governor Ramsay recommended to
the first territorial legislature that they memorialize
Congress to provide for a treaty of cession with the
Sioux- That body promptly complied. The com-

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 93
missioner of Indian affairs had meantime been in
terested to such a degree that he arranged for a
treaty, and to pay the expenses out of funds already
at his disposal. He appointed as commissioners to
conduct the negotiation Governor Ramsey, being
already superintendent ex-officio of Indian affairs
in his territory, and the Hon. John Chambers of
Iowa, and furnished them a body of instructions,
which served more than the immediate purpose.
He restricted their expenditure for presents to
f 6000. The Sioux were summoned by runners to
come in to council in October. The commissioner
of Indian affairs was precipitate. The traders were
not quite ready, and there were prominent citizens
in St. Paul who feared that a big cession of Indian
lands west of the river might give Mendota a dan
gerous precedence. But few of the Sioux came in,
and they were unwilling to treat. The effort aborted.
Its success might have secured for Governor Ram
sey political rewards for which he had to wait. The
Indian appropriation bill of 1850, carrying f 15,000
for the expenses of treating, was not approved till
September 30. The season was too late for the
assemblage of the Indians, widely scattered on
their fall hunts. Then ensued a contention, last
ing many months, over the appointment of a col
league to Governor Ramsey for the negotiation of
the treaty. At one time it appeared that a trading
interest adverse to the American Fur Company
had virtually succeeded in securing the appoint-

94 MINNESOTA
ment of a gentleman from Indiana on whom it could
depend. To dispose of this and other aspirants,
an amendment was tacked on to the proper para
graph of the Indian appropriation bill of the ses
sion, providing that commissioners making Indian
treaties should thereafter be selected frora officials
of the Indian Bureau, to serve without extra com
pensation. The contemplated treaty with the Sioux
involving a cession of many millions of acres and
large disbursements for a long time, the commis
sioner of Indian affairs, the Hon. Luke Lea of
Mississippi, resol v«d to act in person.
The Minnesota Sioux comprised four of the seven
tribes of the nation, and were themselves geogra
phically divided into "upper" and "lower" Sioux.
The two upper tribes were the Sissetons and Wah-
p^tons. The former had their villages on lakes Big
Stone and Traverse, the latter on the upper reaches
of the Minnesota River, with some sandwiching of
bands. The lower Sioux were the Medawakantons
and the Wah-pe-ku-tes : the villages of the former
were strung along the west bank of the Mississippi
from Winona to Fort Snelling and on up the Min
nesota to Belle Plaine. The Wah-p^-ku-tes dwelt
on the headwaters of the Cannon River, in what
Nicollet called his " Undine region." As they were
averse, like all barbarians, to having -their numbers
counted, the Indian Bureau up to the time when
all became " annuity Indians " could only guess at
the population. Eight thousand was the general

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 95
estimate at the middle of the century. Each tribe
was subdivided into bands of unequal numbers,
each under its own chief. The bands of each tribe
recognized one of the older and most capable chiefs
as their head chief. Wabashaw was head chief of
the Medawakantons. The instructions of 1849, al
ready mentioned, charged the commissioners to
make but one treaty, advised them to promise no
money payments, and forbade them to provide for
debts due by Indians to the traders. The reader
can surmise why no Indians came to treat.
The new commissioner of Indian affairs did not
of course have to instruct himself, and he appears
to have relaxed the conditions imposed by his pre
decessor. At any rate, he soon found out that if
he wished to make a treaty it would be necessary
for him to pay some money, and to arrange for the
payment of traders' claims. Because of a diversity
of these clairas against the upper and the lower
Sioux it was desired that separate treaties be made.
This was conceded. Because the upper tribes were
thought to be less opposed to a treaty and a cession,
it was decided to begin with them ; and those In
dians were summoned to counoil on July 1 at Tra
verse des Sioux. The commissioners and their party
found on their arrival none but those there resident.
It was not till the 18th that enough of the upper
bands had corae in to warrant negotiation. Mean
time the disinclination of the Indians had been
mitigated by the rations of pork, beef, and flour

96 MINNESOTA
dispensed by the commissary, and presents to re
luctant chiefs. On July 23 the treaty was signed
in duplicate. As the chiefs left the table they were
"pulled by the blanket" and steered to another,
where they touched the pen to a third document,
which later became notorious under the name of
"the traders' paper." The upper Sioux by this
treaty sold to the United States all their lands in
Minnesota for $1,665,000, except a reservation
twenty miles wide straddling the Minnesota River,
from Lake Traverse down to the Yellow Medicine
River. The principal consideration was an annual
payment of 168,000 for fifty years, of which $40,000
was to be cash. The United States also engaged to
expend 130,000 for schools, mills, blacksmith shops,
and like beneficial purposes, to remove the Indians
to their new homes, and to provide them with sub
sistence for one year. A residue of $210,000 was
to be paid to the chiefs ia^such manner as they
should thereafter in open^ council request, to en
able them " to settle their affairs and comply •with
their present engagements " ; in plain English, to
pay the claims of the traders. The traders' paper
amounted to an assignment in blank of this whole
sum. The schedule of claims was not attached to the
paper till the next day. On the question whether
the chiefs who signed knew what they were doing,
the evidence is conflicting. On August 5 a second
treaty, ceding the same lands, was signed at Men
dota. The reservation for the lower bands was also

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 97
on the Minnesota River, extending from the upper
reserve down to the neighborhood of New Ulm.
Each of the two tribes agreed to pay traders'
claims to the amount of $90,000. The lower Sioux
were encouraged to conclude the bargain by a
promise that |30,000 out of a $50,000 "educa
tion " fund provided for in the treaty of 1837 and
never paid, but allowed to accumulate, should be
distributed, so soon as the treaty should be signed.
The money was paid, and within a week it was in
the hands of St. Paul merchants and whiskey sell
ers; $10,000 or thereabout went for horses. The
commissioners congratulated themselves and the
country on this magnificent purchase of a region
larger than New York, at a cost of the " sum paid
in hand." The annual payments promised would,
they figured, be equaled by the interest from the
lands. The treaties awaited the action of the Senate.
Before that body convened in the December follow
ing, representations were made to the authorities
at Washington that a " stupendous fraud " had
been practiced on the Sioux. The upper Sioux, in
spired by a trader attached to an interest adverse
to the American Fur Company, which had not ob
tained recognition for its claims, were much excited.
In December twenty-one chiefs resorted to St.
Paul, where they represented to Agent McLean
and Governor Ramsey that their signatures to the
traders' paper were obtained by fraud and deceit.

98 MINNESOTA
They declared that their bands owed no such sums
of money, but were willing to pay what sums a fair
examination of the claims might prove to be just.
The agent promised to report their protest and de
mands to his superiors, which he did. Governor
Ramsey had only to assure the chiefs that as treaty
commissioner he had nothing to do with traders'
claims. The money would be paid to their chiefs
and braves, and it was for them to dispose of it as
they thought proper. When the treaties were laid
before the Senate in February, 1852, opposition to
ratification at once sprang up, and long delay en
sued. It was not any allegations of fraud and
deceit which formed the ground of this opposition.
It came from Southern senators not willing to ex
tend the area of settlement to the north, on which
to build another free state. It was not till June 23
that ratification was voted by a slender majority,
and that not till after amendments were made,
which opponents believed the Sioux would never
agree to. In particular the senators cut out the
paragraphs providing for the two reservations, and
substituted a provision that the President should
select new homes for the Minnesota Sioux outside
the ceded territory.
In August Governor Ramsey was authorized to
obtain the consent of the Indians to the amend
ments. This was effected through persons infiu
ential among them and without calling general
councils of the tribes. The consent of the upper

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 99
Sioux, however, was not secured till after the exe
cution of a power of attorney to Governor Ramsey,
which they were aUowed to believe "broke" all
former papers, that of the traders in particular.
The money appropriated for the immediate pay
ments became available so soon as the Sioux chiefs
had signed their ratifications, and Governor Ram
sey was designated as disbursing agent and given
a credit on the treasury for $593,000. The pay
ments did not begin tiU November, and then with
the lower Sioux. The Wah-p^-ku-te chiefs gave no
trouble, but signed their joint receipt for $90,000
of " hand money," and a power of attorney to Mr.
Sibley to receive the money and distribute it to
their licensed traders. The seven Medawakanton
chiefs would not sign receipts till after they had
been encouraged by the distribution of $20,000 in
equal sums, deducted from the amount of traders'
claims. Some minor enticements contributed. At
"The Traverse," a fortnight later, "a very evil
and turbulent spirit" was manifest. The chiefs
demanded the money " for settling their affairs "
to be paid to them. They would then decide " in
open council" how it should be distributed. Mr.
Ramsey was firra, and held them to the terms of
the traders' paper, which he considered an irrevo
cable contract. The local Sissetons were so riotous
that a company of troops had to be summoned from
Fort Snelling to keep them in order. After much
delay and no little effort he was able to obtain

100 MINNESOTA
twelve signatures to a receipt for the money to go
to traders, but only two of the names were those
of old and well-recognized chiefs, and only one that
of a signer of the treaty of 1851. The moneys thus
secured to the traders, and some moderate gratifica
tions to the half-breeds, were, with the exception
of the $90,000 paid the Wah-p6-ku-tes, deUvered
by Governor Ramsey to one Hugh Tyler, a citizen
of Pennsylvania holding powers of attorney. This
gentleman distributed according to the schedules
of the traders' papers, retaining by their consent
the sum of $55,250, about thirteen and one half
per cent., as compensation for his services in secur
ing the ratification of the treaties and for other
purposes. Political enemies of Governor Ramsey, and par
ties dissatisfied with the distribution of moneys
under the treaties, laid formal charges and specifi
cations against him before the Senate at the next
session, in 1853. Upon the request of that body
the President undertook an investigation and ap
pointed two Democratic commissioners. Their re
port, covering, with testimony and exhibits, 431
octavo pages, was submitted to the Senate in 1854.
It was on the whole moderate and even charitable
in tone, but conveyed a censure for allowing the
Indians to deceive themselves, for not paying
strictly in accordance with the terms of the trea
ties, for use of oppressive measures in securing
the receipts of the chiefs, and for allowing Hugh

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 101
Tyler a percentage not " necessary for any reason
able or legitimate purpose." The testimony dis
closed that some amount of this money had been
used as a "secret service fund" to expedite the
business. As to the use of money to infiuence offi
cials, the principal witness for the defense declared
that none had gone or would go into the hands of
Governor Ramsey, but that as to other officers, he
declined to answer. The labored argument of his
lawyers served only to darken counsel, when com
pared with Governor Ramsey's clear and frank
explanation, filed before the investigation was
begun. The report went to the Senate committee on
Indian affairs, a Democratic comraittee of a Demo
cratic Senate. On February 24, 1854, they reported
that after a careful examination of aU the testimony
the conduct of Governor Ramsey was not only free
from blame, but highly comraendable and meri
torious. Thereupon the committee was discharged
frora further consideration.
The gist of the matter is, that a trejity of cession
was much desired by the people of the territory,
and intensely by politicians and speculators. It
could not have been long delayed. No treaty could
be made with these Indians without the active aid
and intervention of the traders and half-breeds.
Such aid could be had only by paying for it. The
device of aUowing Indians to stipulate in treaties
for the payment to traders of debts due them from

102 MINNESOTA
individual Indians, as if they were tribal obUga
tions, had long been practiced. But for the machi
nations of disgruntled parties desirous of being
taken into the happy circle of beneficiaries, the
scheme might have been worked as quietly and
comfortably as usual. An old interpreter says of
these treaties that " they were fair as any Indian
treaties." Having undertaken to see that the traders
and half-breeds should not go unrewarded for their
indispensable services. Governor Rarasey stood by
them to the end. The sums paid them were no
robbery of the Indians. But for the fact that the
treaties of 1851 were the beginning of troubles to
be later treated of, they need not have taken so
much of the reader's time.
A few days after Governor Ramsey took up his
residence in St. Paul, another citizen established
himself in that city of promise. His ambition was
not confined to sharing in the unearned increment
of a rapidly growing capital city; he wished also
to take a part in public affairs. Henry M. Rice,
born in 1816 in Vermont, emigrated to Michigan
at the age of nineteen, equipped with an academy
education and two years of law studies. He came on
to Minnesota in 1839, and was employed presently
by the Chouteaus of St. Louis, who took over the
business of the American Fur Company, to manage
their Winnebago and Chippeway trade from Prairie
du Chien. In 1847 he became a partner in the

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 103
business and reraoved to Mendota, a place much
too strait for two such men as himself and Mr.
Sibley. Established in St. Paul, Mr. Rice threw
himself into every movement and enterprise pro
jected for the development of the town. He
generously shared his gains with the public. His
personal qualities were such that he could not help
desiring public employment and obtaining great
success in it. His manners were so gracious and
yet not patronizing, that he made friends with all
sorts and conditions of men. He divined with an
unerring instinct the motives of men and parties,
and knew when and how by appropriate suggestion
to let them apparently move themselves towards
his desired ends. An early example of Mr. Rice's
influence and success may be found in a contract
which he obtained in 1850 for collecting vagrant
Winnebagoes and returning them to their reserva
tions. The Winnebagoes were a powerful Wiscon
sin tribe when the white man came, and long after.
The government persuaded them to vacate first
their mineral lands and later all their lands in
Wisconsin, and move to the so-caUed " neutral
ground " in Iowa. This was a strip of territory
sorae twenty miles wide, starting from the north
east corner of Iowa and running south of west to
the Des Moines River. The generous presents and
annuities required to effect the sale and removal
were the ruin of the Winnebagoes. They becarae
idle, dissolute, mischievous. The white settlers

104 MINNESOTA
could noi; endure them, and the Indians themselves
tired of their confinement to a narrow area. Accord
ingly in 1846 a treaty was effected for the exchange
of the neutral ground for a reservation of eight
hundred thousand acres in Northern Minnesota. A
tract lying between the Watab and Long Prairie
rivers, west of the Mississippi, was obtained from
the Chippeways for this purpose.
In the summer of 1848, with the help of traders
and the military, the Winnebagoes, by this time sick
of their bargain, were put on the road for their
new home. Some did not start, others fell out by
the way, but a majority of the twenty-five hundred
souls were landed at Long Prairie. They liked the
new home even less than they expected, and soon
began to desert and scatter ; some to encamp along
the upper Mississippi, some to the neutral ground,
others to their ancient country in Wisconsin ; and
a few are said to have wandered off to the Mis
souri. Wherever they went they were unwelcome,
and the Indian office was flooded with complaints
of their depredations and trespasses. Mr. Rice had
traded with the Winnebagoes and had so attached
them to himself that they had made him their sole
commissioner to choose their new Minnesota home.
His aid had been caUed in to persuade them to
move. To him now the Whig commissioner of In
dian affairs resorted to round up the vagrant In
dians and corral them on their proper reservation.
He agreed to pay Mr. Rice seventy dollars per

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 106
head for the service. Meantime Governor Ramsey
and Agent Fletcher were occupied with collecting
the Indians below, and preparing to transport or
march them northward without material expense
to the government. Delegate Sibley was supposed
to be the proper territorial organ at the seat of
government. The feelings of these gentlemen may
be imagined when they learned that the " infamous
Rice contract," of which they had not had the least
knowledge or suspicion, had been concluded, and
Mr. Rice's agents were on the road. In vain did
Governor Ramsey inform the commissioner that he
had several hundred ready to march; in vain was
Delegate Sibley's " official protest " against a secret,
unconscionable, insulting proceeding. A House
committee of investigation exonerated the commis
sioner, but he took early occasion to resign his
office. The point of interest to the Minnesota cit
izen was not the alleged excessive cost to the gov
ernment, or the comfort of the Winnebagoes. He
was concerned to know who had the greatest pull at
Washington, and it appeared to him at the close that
a certain private citizen of St. Paul, a Democrat,
and not the Whig governor nor the Democratic
delegate, was the man to " swing things " there.
In the fall of the same year (1850) came the
regular election for delegate to succeed Mr. Sibley
upon the expiration of his term. Mr. Rice, who
had contested Mr. Sibley's election in 1848 as dele
gate from Wisconsin, — with little vigor, however,

106 MINNESOTA
— was too prudent to come out against one who
had brought home the organic act, and made no
opposition to Mr. Sibley's unanimous election as
delegate to the Thirty-first Congress, although he
organized the democracy of the territory as if for
a candidacy. Nor did he personally aspire to the
office when Mr. Sibley's first term was to expire.
To defeat that gentleman he virtuaUy dictated the
Whig nominee, who had been useful in securing
the Winnebago contract, and persuaded the regular
Democratic nominee to retire on the eve of election
in favor of the Whig candidate.
Mr. Siblej', although a Jeffersonian Democrat
dyed in the wool, ran as a people's candidate. The
total vote was 1208 ; a transfer of 46 votes would
have elected the Whig candidate. The account of
historians, surviving citizens, and the newspapers
of the day concur in pronouncing this political cam
paign the bitterest and most intensely personal
ever known in Minnesota. Mr. Sibley's opponents
attacked him as the representative and tool of the
American Fur Company, an ancient, shameless, in
tolerable monopoly. Party lines broke down, and
the issue became " Fur versus Anti-Fur."
Mr. Sibley served through the Thirty-first and
Thirty-second Congresses with admirable efficiency.
At one time objection was made against his active
participation in general legislation, and the sug
gestion made that a delegate should confine him
self to matters concerning his territory. Mr. Sibley

THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED 107
replied that Minnesota was part of the United
StJites, and that whatever concerned them concerned
her, and claimed for her delegate the right to be
heard, and all the more because he bad no vote.
TBie raatter was dropped. He had little difficulty
in obtaining for Minnesota the needful appropria-
ticms for her government expenses, roads, and pub
lic buildings, and the reservation in 1851 of two
s&ctions in each township for common schools, and
of two townships of land for the endowment of a,
university. His most conspicuous act, in the highest
dtigree creditable to him, although barren of results,
. w.as his effort to secure the passage of his bill to
ejctend the laws of the land over the Indians. His
speech of August 2, 1850, in which be denounced
the rascality of the white man's dealings with the
natives, the absurdity of treating with them as
separate nations, and their need of the protection
of the law, is a splendid testimony to the intelli
gence and wisdom of the man who doubtless knew
D lore about Indian affairs than any other man on
the floor. He spoke to deaf ears. The govemment
trent on sowing to the wind, to reap the whirlwind.
Mr. Sibley was permitted to return to private
] ife at the close of his second term and devote him-
ijelf to closing up his relations with the American
,'Fur Corapany, of which he had remained the head.
.Mr. Rice was selected to succeed him by a three
fourths majority vote over Alexander Wilkin, his
Whig opponent.

CHAPTER VII
TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT
The triumph of the Democratic party in the eldp-
tions of 1852 was notice to all the appointive ter
ritorial officers of Minnesota that their days weie ¦
numbered. On May 15, 1853, Governor Ramsey
gave place to the Hon. Willis A. Gorman, and tee
Whig judges were succeeded by Messrs. Willia^
H. Welch, Andrew G. Chatfield, and Moses (}>
Sherburne. The appointment of governor was a disappoini-
ment to the friends of Mr. Sibley, who felt that he
had good right to aspire to the office. His connec
tion with the now discredited fur company, and hik
failure to ally himself with the Democratic machint
in Minnesota, left the President free to bestow thi
appointment on sorae one who had done loyal serl
vice in the late carapaign. In this regard few wer«
more deserving than Colonel Gorman of Indiana!
Born in 1816, he was admitted to the bar at tha
age of twenty, and three years later becarae a
member of the legislature. At the outbreak of the
Mexican War he raised and commanded a battalion
of riflemen and later a regiment of infantry. After
that war he served two years in Congress, and de-1

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 109
served well of his party. His power upon the stump
¦was enhanced by a graceful personality and a voice
of ffreat melody and strength. The affairs of the
territory had already been organized and had faUen
into an orderly routine, so that Governor Gorman's
administration of four years was not marked by
notable executive acts. His messages abound in
eloquent passages, generaUy commendatory of
worthy enterprises and objects. The exigencies of
politics and business presently put him and Mr.
Sibley into the same bed, and affiliated Mr. Ram
sey to some degree with Mr. Rice.
Legislative action was devoted mainly to pro
visions for the needs of a rapidly swelling popula
tion and expanding settlements. New counties were
organized from year to year, and towns, cities, and
villages were incorporated in astonishing numbers.
College and university charters were distributed
with liberal hand to aspiring municipalities. The
disposition of the government appropriation for
territorial roads occupied much time of the houses.
The coraraissioners and surveyors employed in
laying out the roads, and the contractors who un
dertook the construction, saw to it that no idle
surpluses were left over. Plank-road charters were
numerous, but none were ever built. Railroad in
corporations occupy great space in the journals
and statutes, perhaps because they had been ex
cepted out of the general law of 1851 for the crea-

110 MINNESOTA
tion of corporations. Ferry privileges were mnch
sought for.
The same conditions governed the activity of
Mr. Rice, who took his seat as delegate in CongTcss
in December, 1853. Industrious, persuasive, and
soon influential, he promoted in many ways th©
interests of the territory and his constituents, and
by so doing obtained a popularity hardly equaled
in Minnesota history. He was diligent in laboring
for the extension of the land surveys and the estab
lishment of land offices. He secured the opening
of post-offices in the new viUages. His influence
contributed to the extension of the preemption
system to unsurveyed lands, a change whicli vir
tually opened all lands not Indian to settlement.
Mr. Rice's own personal qualities were such as to
give him wide acquaintance and influence, and
these were extended in no small degree by those
of the charraing Virginian lady whom he had taken
to wife. Standing for reelection in the fall of 1855,
he won by a handsome plurality over his Rspubli-
can opponent, William R. Marshall, and another
Democratic candidate, David Olmstead, supported
by the friends of Mr. Sibley.
As the administration of Mr. Ramsey had been
signalized by the opening of raany raillions of acres
of Indian lands to white men's occupation in south
ern Minnesota, so in Governor Gorman's day great
areas were opened in the Chippeway country of
northern Minnesota. It is probable that Mr. Rice,

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 111
more familiar with the Chippeways than any other
public man, was most influential of all in procuring
the cessions.
The earliest explorers to the shores of Lake Su
perior had brought away specimens of native copper
and Indian reports of hidden raetallic treasure. In
1826 Governor Lewis Cass obtained, by a treaty
made at Fond du Lac with the Chippeways, the
right of the whites to search for metals and min
erals in any part of their vast country. Although
no mining development took place, the belief per
sisted that there was great metallic wealth in the
upper lake region. The first cession in the north
west was that of the Chippeways of Lake Superior
in September, 1854, of the "triangle " north of the
lake, extending westward to the line of the St.
Louis and Vermilion rivers, embracing nearly three
mUlion acres. This great cession was followed by
another still greater, early in 1855. Nearly four
hundred townships in the north central part of the
state were freed from Indian incumbrance. The
two cessions cover nearly one half of the area of
the state. It was the luraber interest which desired
the acquisition of 1855. On the area liberated
stood large bodies of the finest pine forests of
America. The current belief was that they could
never be exhausted. Of Chippeway country there
remained a trapezoidal block in the extreme north
west corner of the state, which was acquired by
treaty in 1863.

112 MINNESOTA
In 1851, immediately after the conclusion of the
Sioux treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota,
Governor Ramsey made the long journey from St.
Paul to Pembina, and there made a treaty with
the local Chippeways for the cession of a great
tract. This treaty went in with the Sioux treaties
for confirraation and had to be " sacrificed " to
secure favorable action by the Senate on them.
What " interest " desired the extinction of Indian
titles upon such a remote and disconnected area
is not well known. Mr. Norman W. Kittson had
operated there since 1843, for the American Fur
Company. The ratified treaties mentioned left the
Chippeways, some ten thousand in number, concen
trated on reservations of moderate extent set apart
in the ceded territory. These they still occupy, gen
erally in peace, depending largely on their annui
ties for subsistence. Their progress in civilization
and Christianity has been sufficient to keep the
missionaries and teachers from giving up in despair.
No body of ecclesiastics ever had a more complete
rule over a people than the medicine-men of the
Chippeway Indians.
An incident of the Chippeway treaty of 1854
must here have mention, at the risk of tedium. As
was usual, the half-breeds had to be conciliated
by a benefaction to prevent them from dissuading
the Indians. It was given thera in the shape of
an eighty-acre tract in fee simple to each head of

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 113
a family or single person over twenty-one years
of age, of the mixed bloods. This distribution was
made- and all beneficiaries, three hundred and
twelve in number, were satisfied, within two years.
Ten years after the negotiation of the treaty an
accomraodating commissioner of Indian affairs,
upon application through Delegate Rice, issued two
certificates for eighty-acre tracts to two members
of a prominent Minnesota family, mixed bloods of
the Chippeways of Lake Superior, who had never
lived with those Indians. He also ruled that the
grant extended to Chippeway mixed bloods of any
tribe wherever resident. To prevent the oversight
of any worthy beneficiaries under these rulings, in
dustrious gentlemen at once employed themselves
iu searching them out and revealing their unsus
pected good fortune. " Factories " were established
at La Pointe, Wisconsin, Washington, D. C, St.
Paul, and in the Red River country, and nearly
twelve hundred were discovered. Later exaraina-
tions of the lists showed that in some cases both
man and wife had been reckoned as heads of fami
lies ; and that the names of some minors, of some
Chippeway families with too little white blood to
fairly count as "breeds," and of a few deceased
persons had been enrolled. The motive for this
extraordinary dUigence lay in the fact that the
certificates or " scrip " could be used for the loca
tion of pine on unsurveyed lands, giving the holder
the opportunity of ranging the woods and select-

114 MINNESOTA
ing the most valuable. These certificates the half-
breeds were commonly willing to alienate for a
small consideration. That they were on their face
absolutely unassignable, and so good only in the
hands of the beneficiary hiraself, was no serious ob
stacle to the ingenious operators. Two powers of at
torney, one to locate, the other to sell, served as a
virtual conveyance to the speculating luraberman.
James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior in Lin
coln's second administration, put a stop to this
pretty game. But his successor, O. H. Browning,
yielded to the persuasions of interested parties,
and on July 11, 1868, reopened the doors to them.
Within a few weeks a prominent citizen filed 315
applications and received 310 pieces of scrip. An
investigating committee expressed the opinion that
"probably not one of these was valid." They were
good for 24,800 acres of pine. The liberal secretary
ruled that they might be located on any lands ceded
by the Chippeways by any treaty, and need not be
selected on those ceded at La Pointe in 1854. Appli
cations continued to come in. In the following year,
1869, Colonel Ely F. Parker, by birth a Seneca
Indian, was made commissioner of Indian affairs.
Taking up the applications, he rejected thera all
and gave notice that no more scrip would issue
under the treaty of 1854. Holders of certificates
obtained in the manner described were discouraged,
but not cast down. They prevailed on the Secretary
of the Interior in 1870 to appoint a gentleman of

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 115
Minnesota a special agent to examine claims. Re
porting progress in March, 1871, that agent had
found 135 persons entitled to scrip.
Columbus Delano was Secretary of the Interior
in the year last mentioned. Assured that the sub
ject of Chippeway half-breed scrip would bear scru
tinizing, he appointed the Neal commission. The
report of that commission brought the facts above
related to the surface. Of the 135 clairas reported
valid by the late special agent they found two legit
iraate. They approved eleven out of 495 others
presented. The commission also examined 116 " per
sonal applications," filed in the St. Cloud land office,
and these without exception were fraudulent. That
number of persons, belonging to a Red River train
bivouacked at St. Cloud, had been taken into the
land office and steered through the motions of ap
plying for scrip. For this accommodating service
they were paid from fifteen to forty dollars apiece.
The commission recommended that no more Chip
peway half-breed scrip under the treaty of 1854
should be issued, unless by order of Congress, and
that the persons who had been guilty of suborna
tion of perjury, forgery, and embezzlement should
be prosecuted.
This did not conclude the long drawn out matter.
Pieces of scrip accompanied with powers of attorney
in blank had been freely bought and sold for use in
locating pine. These vouchers fell into the hands
of bankers, and represented considerable invest-

116 MINNESOTA
ments. It seemed a hardship that these holders
should suffer loss. On June 8, 1872, Congress
passed a bill with the innocent title " An act to
quiet certain land titles." It provided that " inno
cent parties " holding Chippeway half-breed scrip
in good faith, for value, might purchase the corre
sponding lands at a price to be fixed by the Secre
tary of the Interior, not less than one dollar and a
quarter an acre.
The Jones commission, appointed to ascertain
the innocent holders, reported thirteen individuals
and firms entitled to the benefits of the act, and
approved 216 entries conveying 17,280 acres of the
best pine in Minnesota, worth eight to ten dollars
an acre. As to the price to be paid, the commis
sioners advised the department that it would be
useless to ask more than two doUars and a half an
acre, for if put up at auction, combinations of bid
ders would hold bids to that figure. The commis
sion vindicated the claimants from any participation
in the original frauds, but found that they had been
much too careless in their investments, and so had
become victims of persons who had "got up a
scheme with wonderful prudence^ and caution."
These victiras, thus resorting to Congress for relief,
were the sharpest pine land operators ever known
in Minnesota.
This recital may teach how and why liberal grati
fications were always desired for mixed bloods, when
Indian treaties were negotiated.

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 117
A contemporaneous operation, similar in its re
sults, took place with the half-breeds of the Sioux
nation. Account has already been made of a gift
of land which the Sioux were permitted to bestow
on their half-breeds in the treaty at Prairie du
Chien in 1830. The tract designated, roughly rec
tangular, long known as the " Wabashaw reserva
tion," lay on the Mississippi, running down river
from Red Wing thirty-two miles, and back into the
country fifteen miles. The treaty provided that the
President might in his discretion grant title to par
cels of one section in fee simple to individual breeds ;
and it was the expectation of the able men who
were working the scheme that they would soon be
in possession of extensive properties at slight outlay.
Agent Taliaferro, the incorruptible Sioux agent,
revealed the plan in so forceful a way that neither
President Jackson nor any successor would grant
title to individuals. Failure to get possession of land
was followed by efforts to get money. The half-^
breeds had no desire to settle on the reservation. In
1841 the unratified " Doty treaty" with the Sioux
included a sum of $200,000 to be paid the breeds
for the reservation, which they were to surrender.
Again in 1849, when Commissioners Ramsey and
Chambers attempted to' pbtain a treaty of cession
of the Sioux, they only succeeded in securing an
agreement of the half-breeds to accept some such
sum. The Senate refused to ratify. A similar arti
cle was injected into the treaties of 1851, and this

118 MINNESOTA
was rejected by the Senate, to the disappointment
of patient waiters.
The matter awaited the intervention of Delegate
Rice, whose knowledge and skill in Indian affairs
had obtained him influence in Congress. On July
17, 1854, a bill which had been introduced by him,
providing for the survey of the Wabashaw reserva
tion in Minnesota, " and for other purposes," was
approved. The " other purpose " was to give the
President authority to issue certificates or scrip
to individual Sioux half-breeds, under a pro rata
division of the tract. These certificates might be
located on any lands of the United States, not
reserved, unsurveyed lands included. In express
terms the law forbade the transfer or conveyance
of the scrip. The tract was surveyed, and in the
course of two years 640 individual breeds were
assigned 480 acres each. Later 37 persons obtained
each 360 acres ; in all 320,880 acres were disposed
of. Very few of the beneficiaries settled on the
reservation. In many cases the scrip went to pay
traders' debts, and in many others the beneficiaries
got " dogs and cats " for it. White men who had
taken half-breed wives profited most. The size of
some families is remarkable.
The provision of law fhat no scrip could be
transferred was evaded by the same means as those
employed in handling Chippeway half-breed scrip.
Two powers of attorney with the necessary affi
davits worked a transfer, which the courts sus-

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 119
tained. Sioux half-breed scrip which could be
located on unsurveyed lands was soon in request,
and served the purposes of the well-informed. A
batch of it went to California to be located on
forest and raineral lands. A moiety was used for
the acquisition of town sites in Minnesota in ad
vance of surveys. Another use involving some
elasticity of conscience was the acquisition of pine
timber without the inconvenience of taking the
lands with it. A plan of " fioating " scrip was
worked out and prosecuted so habituaUy by men
of good report that no dishonor attached to it.
The holder of scrip under power of attorney would
locate a piece, cut off the pine, and then discover
that he had not dealt wisely for his half-breed
principal. He would then obtain a cancellation of
his location, place his scrip on another piece, and
repeat the process until the surveys were made. As
late as 1872 the commissioner of public lands issued
a circular condemning this practice in vigorous
terms. Soon after the unexampled development of the
iron mines in the " triangle " in the middle of the
eighties, Sioux half-breed scrip was used to obtain
title to lands still unsurveyed in that region, likely
to be found iron-bearing. Mr. Vilas, Secretary of
the Interior, and his successor decided, in cases
referred to them, that this scrip could not pass
title, the powers of attorney being but a means to
evade the law declaring the scrip to be non-trans-

120 MINNESOTA
ferable. A long series of litigations followed, con
cluded by the Suprerae Court decision of 1902
(183 U. S. 619), holding those powers of attorney
to work a valid conveyance. The title to many mil
lions worth of mining property was thus quieted.
It may here be noted that in 1855 the Winne
bagoes, discontented with their homes in the Long
Prairie reservation, were glad to exchange it for
one of eighteen miles square, south and east of
Mankato, whither they removed in the same year.
The new reservation being less than one fourth the
area of the old, a large addition was made to white
man's country.
Of all the developments in the time of Governor
Gorman none equaled in importance the phenom
enal increase of population. The census of 1850
showed a total of 6077 souls in the nine counties
of the territory, 4577 of them in three counties.
Pending the negotiation, amendment, and ratifica
tion of the Sioux treaties of 1851 the accessions
were small.
It was late in the season of 1853 when the bands
of the upper and lower Sioux were established on
their reservations on the upper Minnesota. Some
adventurous prospectors had not waited for thera
to abandon their viUages on the Mississippi, but
had staked out clairas in their corn and bean
patches. There may have been 10,000 whites when
the Indians had departed.

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 121
In the early sumraer of 1854 the Rock Island
and Pacific Railroad was built through to the Mis
sissippi. The event was celebrated by a grand ex
cursion from Chicago to St. Paul and Fort Snelling.
Five steamers carried the party from Rock Island
up the river. Among the guests were statesraen,
divines, college professors, and eminent men of
affairs. At the reception in St. Paul addresses
were made by ex-President Fillmore and George
Bancroft the historian. This excursion, widely her
alded, gave notice that Minnesota was in steam
communication for half the year. That year saw
the arrival of the advance guard of the host to
follow. The season of 1855 saw 50,000 people in
the territory ; that number was doubled in 1856.
The sales of public lands, which in 1854 had
been but 314,715 acres, rose to 1,132,672 in the
next year, and to 2,334,000 in 1856. These figures
indicate that the people came to stay and cultivate
the soil. The Middle States sent the largest contin
gent, next the Northwestern States, and then New
England. The prairie lands, if broken early, would
yield a crop of sod corn the same year, and in any
case returned a bounteous harvest in the second year.
In a time incredibly short these pioneers, rudely
housed and their animals sheltered, were surrounded
by all solid comforts. They lost no time in starting
their schools, churches, and other associations.
Minnesota was hardly ever missionary ground for
white people.

122 MINNESOTA
The establishment of steam communication for the
summer season made the " territorians " of Minne
sota feel the more keenly the isolation in the long
winters. Governor Gorman in his first message
(January 11, 1854) said: "To get out from here
during the winter ... is far above and beyond
any other consideration to the people of Minnesota.
To accomplish this you must concentrate all the
energies of the people on one or two roads, and NO
MORE for the present. I have but little doubt that
Congress will grant us land sufficient to unlock our
ice-bound home, if we confine our request to one
point." This wise counsel had its effect on the legis
lature. On February 20 Joseph R. Brown intro
duced into the council a bill to incorporate the
" Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company,"
which was presently passed by that body, but by
no large majority. In the house lively opposition
sprung up, and dilatory proceedings delayed pas
sage till the last night of the session (March 3).
Governor Gorman gave it a reluctant approval be
cause he had been allowed but sixty-five minutes
before the expiration of the session to examine its
provisions. It is quite remarkable that a biU of
such importance, the talk of the town, had escaped
his notice. The act authorized the chartered com
pany to build and operate a railroad from the head
of Lake Superior via St. Paul to Dubuque, Iowa,
within a specffied term of years. The franchise was
to be void unless the first board of directors should

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 123
be organized on or before the first day of July fol
lowing. The real ground of opposition in the legislature,
and of Governor Gorman's reluctance, lay in a
provision, " that any lands granted to the said ter
ritory to aid in the construction of said railroad
shall be and the sarae are hereby granted in fee
simple, absolute, without further act or deed," to
said company. There was ambiguity in the para
graph relating to the northern terminus, leaving it
in doubt whether that might not be located outside
of Minnesota. It was suspected that the intention
was to place it at Bayfield, Wisconsin, where infiu
ential persons had made purchases of real estate. It
remained to secure from Congress the much needed
and hoped for land grant. A bill to grant even
number sections of public lands for six sections in
width on both sides of the proposed railroad line,
so drawn as to allow the grant to pass to the com
pany chartered by the Minnesota territorial legis
lature, was introduced in the House on March 7.
The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, warmly
recommended its passage because of the service the
road would render in transporting troops, muni
tions of war, and mail.
The proposition to grant a miUion acres and
more to so remote and thinly settled a territory at
once aroused inquiry and opposition. The policy of
granting public lands for building railroads was
stiU novel ; there were but three precedents, that

124 MINNESOTA
of the lUinois Central grant of 1850 being the old
est. The measure, however, had its friends, and
the opponents were driven to the device of kiUing
the bill by amendments. And they succeeded.
Presently came a revulsion. Members from the
South and West regretted that the railroad land
grant policy had received so rude a backset. There
was no little sympathy for Minnesota, struggling
for an open road and a market. Another effort
was resolved upon. Mr. Sibley, then in Washing
ton, drew a new bill identical in the main with that
which had been put to sleep, but so changed as to
vest the grant in the territory and leave its dispo
sition to the next or a later legislature. This biU
was passed and approved on June 29.
The incorporators naraed in the Minnesota act
creating the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad
Corapany met in New York on July 1, on one
day's notice, and "organized" by the election of a
board of directors. The board immediately elected
the necessary officers and took the proper resolu
tions for beginning their enterprise. On the 24th
of July it was charged on the floor of the House of
Representatives at Washington that the "Minne
sota bill " had been mutilated after its passage by
the House, so that the Senate had really passed a
differing bill. The effect of the change (simply the
word "and" written over an erasure of the word
" or ") had the effeet to vest the lands granted in
the Minnesota corporation ; just what Congress had

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 125
Intended not to do. An abortive investigation fol
lowed, and the mutilated bill was repealed by a
section added to a private bill to increase a certain
pension, pending in the Senate, and awaiting third
reading. This action was of course disappointing to
the railroad company and those friendly to it. Dele
gate Rice was of opinion that the alteration of " or"
to " and " was purely verbal and immaterial, and
eminent attorneys advised the company that a
grant having been made for sufficient consider
ations, it had become an irrevocable contract. The
pretended repeal, therefore, was void. To test this
question a case entitled The United States vs. The
Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Corapany
was brought before the district court of Goodhue
County, asking the award of damages for certain
oak trees felled on land belonging to the govern
ment. The defense contended that no damages were
Jone, because it had cut the trees on land granted
by Congress by the act of June 24, 1854. The
Issue was, of course, the constitutionality of the
repealing act. The court held the act void, and the
Supreme Court of the territory sustained that judg
ment before the end of the year. This was very
jncouraging to the company, but their joy was pre
sently changed to sorrow. When the Attorney-
jreneral of the United States learned from the
lewspapers of this litigation, and of a suit brought
n behalf of the United States without his know-
edge or authority, he removed the accommodating

126 MINNESOTA
district attorney from office (December 30, 1854),
and later discontinued the suit.
When the legislature of 1855 convened, on Janu
ary 3, the company, sustained by the Supreme
Court of the territory, was in a position to approach
that body with confidence. Its affairs now entered
more fully than ever into territorial politics, and it
is only on this account that further notice of them
is taken. Mr. Rice, supported by Mr. Ramsey, a
director of the company, championed the railroad
cause. Governor Gorman and Mr. Sibley led the
opposition forces. The former in his message de
nounced the "or" and "and" jugglery, and the
latter, as chairman of the judiciary committee of
the lower house, framed a damaging report which
called for a memorial to Congress to annul the
charter of the company granted by the Minnesota
legislature March 3, 1857. The meraorial was not
voted, but the national House of Representatives
by resolution of January 29 decided, for its part,
to annul. The Senate did not concur, and Delegate
Rice was comforted. When the news reached St.
"Paul on March 24 the whole town was illuminated.
The charter of the company provided that unless
fifty miles of road should be completed within one
year the franchise should be forfeited. An exten
sion of time and certain modifications were neces
sary. A bill granting these was passed by sufficient
majorities. Governor Gorman vetoed it in a mes
sage of great sharpness, closing with an insinuation

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 127
that the "money-king" had had more than his
share of infiuence. The houses by exact two thirds
votes passed the bill over the executive veto. Mr.
Sibley and his friends had to content themselves
with a personal memorial to Congress, which his
biographer declares to be unequaled " for fearless
and burning exposure of wrong and perfidy, in the
annals of any territory or state." The company had
been let to live, but it was obliged to apply to the
next legislature (1856) for a further lease of life.
This was accorded by good majorities in both
houses. Again Governor Gorman interposed his ob
jections, declaring it futile to extend the life of the
corporation. A new biU, drawn in such manner as
to obviate the executive criticisms, was passed by
a close vote at the end of the session. The bill
received the reluctant approval of the governor.
Three successive legislatures having sustained the
company's charters, he acquiesced, with slight con
fidence, however, in its professions.
The company now made a second resort to the
courts to establish its claim to the grant of June
29, 1854. One of its directors, having bought of the
United States a piece of land in Dakota County,
brought suit against the railroad company for tres
pass. The district and supreme courts of the terri
tory gave judgment for the defendant company,
holding that it had good title to the land grant and
therefore was not guilty of the alleged trespass.
Before entry of judgraent, however, in the latter

128 MINNESOTA
court, the case was removed to the United States
District Court ; and this tribunal also found for the
defendant. The Supreme Court of the United
States, on writ of error from below, in December,
1861, disposed of the case by deciding (two justices
dissenting) that the act of Congress of June 29,
1854, vested in the Territory of Minnesota no raore
than a naked trust or power, which could be and
was revoked by the repealing act. The territorial
legislature had exceeded its power in attempting to
vest title in fee simple in the railroad company.
It was in the period now in view that Minneapo
lis, 'Which has become the largest Minnesota city,
had its beginning. The military reservation of Fort
SneUing as delimited by Major Plympton in 1839
comprised, as was guessed, about 50,000 acres. The
surveys made in later times show nearly 35,000
acres. So soon as it became known that a treaty of
cession would be exacted from the Sioux, it was
believed by the neighboring residents that Fort
SneUing would be abandoned and the reservation
opened for settlement. In 1849, when the first at
tempt was made on the Sioux, Robert Smith of
Alton, lUinois, a member of Congress, having a
" pull " at Washington, got leave of the War De
partraent to lease the government mill at the Falls
of St. Anthony on the west side. Later this con
cession ripened into a purchase of a quarter section
abutting on the cataract. In the next year John H.

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 129
Stevens, acting for himself and another, had sim
ilar leave granted to occupy the river front above
the Smith claim, on condition of operating a ferry,
free to government, at the falls. In the next year,
1851, a number of citizens of St. Anthony, already
a thriving village of some six hundred people,
thought it would be well to establish inchoate
claims on some of the beautiful terraces which lay
in view frora their homes, beyond the river. They
accordingly crossed over, staked out quarter sec
tions as well as possible in the absence of surveys,
built claira shanties, and had sorae plowing done.
Still another year later, 1852, when in midsum
mer the Sioux treaties and amendments had been
ratified and it was evident that the Sioux must soon
move towards the sunset, and that the military
reservation would be given up and opened to settle
ment, there took place a wild rush of St. Anthony
men across the stream to seize on the coveted lands.
It was not long till the whole terrain of Minneapolis
was covered with clairas. The action of Congress
ordering a survey of the reserve expedited these
irregular preemptions.
The expectations of the squatters were so far met
that on August 26, 1852, Congress authorized the
"reduction" of the reserve, and the survey and
sale of the excluded area. Two years passed before
the surveys were completed and the lands adver
tised for sale. It was not desired that haste be
made. On the completion of the surveyor's work,

130 MINNESOTA
the squatters formed a so-called "Equal Rights
and Impartial Protection Claira Association of
Hennepin County, M. T.," the prime object of
which was to adjust the numerous tracts of claim
ants to the lines of survey. This was effected by
the action of an executive committee allowed to
use discretion and guaranteed support. There was
a second use for this organization. There was a con
siderable area east of the Mississippi left outside
the boundary of the reduced reserve. This had been
offered for sale in the usual subdivisions in Sep
tember, 1854, at public auction. There was but
one bidder, and he was surrounded by interested
citizens who would have made it uncomfortable for
any other person who might thoughtlessly inject a
superfluous bid and mar the harmony of the occa
sion. The government got $1.25, the minimum
price for wild lands, for property worth.'easily ten
tiraes that sum, and nobody's conscience was
strained. In anticipation of a public sale of the
main portion of the reserved lands on which Min
neapolis has been built, the claim association men
tioned was prepared, by similar proceedings, to
prevent any speculators (others than themselves)
from depriving them of their rights by offering to
pay value for the lands. But the plats were by some
unknown influence held back in Washington and
the sale was postponed. When Congress assembled
in December, 1854, a strong delegation of claim
ants appeared in Washington and secured further

TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 131
postponement of the public sale. Delegate Rice
took up their cause with vigor and presently ob
tained the passage of an act granting preemption
right to all who might comply with preemption
conditions. In the spring of 1855 the fortunate
claimants proved up, and the government received
$24,688.37 for 19,733.87 acres of land worth
more than $200,000. There is a tradition, lacking
support by particular facts, that military officers
in the neighborhood profited by arrangements with
squatters, who agreed to divide spoils in considera
tion of being left undisturbed on their claims.
Citizens not having such arrangements were dis
couraged, and in some cases driven off by force.
The nucleus of Minneapolis was well crystallized
in 1855. The United States land office was estab
lished, the first bridge over the Mississippi in all
its leng;th was built, the first town plat surveyed,
and one hundred houses built. (In 1854 there were
but twelve scattered claim shanties.) Seventeen
stores and artisans' shops in many lines sprang up.
There was a hotel, a newspaper, and four organ
ized churches. Minneapolis existed under town
government till 1867, and in 1872 was united with
St. Anthony, the latter city losing its historie
name. The name Minneapolis is a variant on
Min-ne-ha-polis, proposed by Charles Hoag. After
this "reduction" of the SneUing reservation, its
area covered 7916 acres, as shown by later surveys.
The story of the clandestine sale of the whole

132 MINNESOTA
by Buchanan's secretary of war in the spring of
1857, while abounding in incident, was too slight
in its results to call for complete narration. It is
probably not true that this sale was part of a
scheme attributed to Floyd, to squander the mili
tary resources of the North in anticipation, of a
rebeUion of the South. H. M. Rice interested him
self in getting the necessary legislation and orders
for the sale. The whole tract was sold for $90,000,
of which one third was paid dowu. The purchaser
defaulted on the remainder, and the government
resumed possession at the outbreak of the Civil
War. In 1872 the claims of the purchaser for his
equity and rentals were adjusted by a board of
military officers, which awarded him 6,394.80 acres,
the govemment retaining 1,621.20 acres. It has
been found necessary to repurchase some of the
alienated land for the uses of the garrison.
In the winter of 1857 a biU to move the capital
to St. Peter was passed in both houses of the legis
lature. Joseph Rolette of Pembina, chairman of
the council committee on enrollment, absented him
self with the bill till after the close of the session.
The speaker signed a substituted copy, but the pre
sident of the council refused. Governor Gorman
approved, but the Supreme Court held that no law
had been passed.

CHAPTER VIII
TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD
In his message of January, 1853, Governor Ram
sey had prophesied a population of more than half
a million in ten years. Governor Gorman, in a
message three years later, figuring on an increase
of 114 per cent, in the previous year, advised the
legislature that they might expect a population of
343,000 in two years, and 750,000 one year later.
In the course of that year the newspapers began
to discuss the question of statehood, and when the
legislature of 1857 assembled, Governor Gorman's
proposition to call a convention without awaiting
the initiative of Congress received early considera
tion. A bill to provide for a census and a constitu
tional convention was passed by large majorities in
both houses, but seems to have been lost by the
enrolling committee of the council, and was not
presented for executive approval. Pending action
on this biU the houses passed a memorial to Con
gress praying for an enabling act. Delegate Rice,
much too enterprising a politician to neglect his
duty to constituents desirous of statehood, early in
the session of 1857 had introduced a biU to enable
the people of Minnesota to organize as a state and

134 MINNESOTA
come into the Union. Besides a little pleasantry
about the formation of a sixth state in part out of
the old Northwest Territory, while the ordinance
of 1787 had provided for five only, there was no
opposition to the bill in the House. It found, how
ever, a hard road to travel iri the Senate. The
ostensible ground of opposition was that the biU
allowed white inhabitants of the territory, aliens
and all, to vote for delegates to the convention. An
amendment to confine the suffrage to citizens of
the United States prevailed by a close vote on a
late day in February. In this amendment it was
known the House would not concur, and the oppo
sition were content. A reconsideration was obtained,
however, by the friends of the bill, and a long de
bate followed, in the course of which the actual
ground of opposition was revealed. The " equi
librium of the Senate " was threatened, and might
be destroyed by the senators the new state should
elect. Regret was expressed that Iowa and Wis
consin had been admitted as states, and one senator
revived a letter of Gouverneur Morris in which that
statesman denied the right of Congress to admit
new states on territory acquired after the adoption
of the constitution.
The alien suffrage amendment, however, was
rescinded, and the biU as it came from the House
passed by a vote of 31 to 22 ; every negative vote
came frora south of Mason and Dixon's line. It
may be conjectured that the object of the Minne-

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 135
sota legislature in nursing along its bill to form a
state government without an enabling act of Con
gress was to let Congress know that its action was
not indispensable.
The enabling act as passed February 26, 1857,
was in the form which had become traditional, and
embodied the usual grants of public lands for
schools, a university, and public buildings. The
boundaries of the proposed state were those of
the territory except that on the west, which was
drawn in from the Missouri River to the line of
the Red, thus reducing the area about one half.
Revised computations give Minnesota 84,287 square
miles, or about 54,000,000 acres.
The act provided for an election of delegates to
a convention on the first Monday in June, under
the existing election laws of the territory. An am
biguous clause authorizing the election of " two
delegates for each representative," according to the
apportionment for representatives to the territorial
legislature, ignoring councilors as such, became
the occasion of trouble. The Minnesota legislature,
in an act of May 23, appropriating $30,000 for the
expenses of the convention, provided that each
council district should have two delegates, and each
representative district also two. The number of
delegates was thus fixed at 108, instead of 68.
Governor Gorman on April 27 called a special
session of the legislature to take any necessary
action regarding the coming convention, and to

136 MINNESOTA
dispose of a railroad land grant which Congress
had made. This will engage attention later. Gov
ernor Gorman, however, did not officially survive
to cooperate in the making of the state constitu
tion. Mr. Rice, warmly attached to President Bu
chanan, who had come into office in March, would,
it was well known, secure Governor Gorman's early
retirement to private life. They had not been of
much comfort to one another in railroad and other
matters. Governor Gorman resigned, and was suc
ceeded by the Hon. Samuel Medary of Ohio, who
had done good party service through his newspaper
and otherwise. He was a gentleman of excellent
character, but remained in Minnesota too short a
time to identify or even acquaint himself with her
people and interests.
The Whigs had never been strong in the terri
tory, nor well organized. The " Moccasin Demo
cracy" had become habituated to control, and
expected indefinite enjoyment of official emolu
ments. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill
by Congress on May 26, 1854, rudely disturbed this
pleasant dream. A new party of protest against the
introduction and maintenance of African slavery
in the territories, under active national protection,
sprang into being. A Republican convention met
in St. Paul, July 28, 1855, adopted a platform, and
norainated candidates for territorial offices. It also
nominated the leader of the movement, William
R. MarshaU, to succeed Mr. Rice as delegate to

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 137
Congress. Mr. Rice had too many electors person
ally attached to himself to be beaten. It has been
thought, however, that Marshall might have won
but for a " prohibition " plank in the platform,
which lost him the German vote. At the election of
1856 the Republicans obtained a working majority
in the lower house of the legislature to meet in the
foUowing winter. As the day drew on for the election
of delegates to the convention both parties were
anxious about the result. The Democrats held on
to the hope of recovering control; the Republicans
were none too confident that they could hold their
slight balance of power. The issue was declared by
the leading Democratic newspaper to be " White
Supremacy versus Nigger Equality." The vote was
unexpectedly light, and the results were not clearly
decisive. In a few districts " councilor " delegates
had been distinguished on the ballots from " repre
sentative " delegates ; in most cases they had not.
In the St. Anthony district the canvassing officer
gave certificates of election to Republican candi
dates who had received fewer votes than the Dem
ocratic, on the ground that the Democratic ballots
had not distinguished the nominees for councilor
and representative delegates.
The control of the convention would, it was
maintained, depend on the action of the comraittee
on credentials to be appointed by the presiding offi
cer. To capture the " organization " became the
object of each of the nearly balanced parties. It

138 MINNESOTA
chanced that the enabling act had not specified the
hour for the assemblage of the convention. The ex
cited and suspicious leaders were unable to agree
informally. To make sure of being on hand the
Republican delegates repaired to the capitol late
on the Sunday night preceding the first Monday
in June, and remained there, as one of them
phrased it, " to watch and pray for the Democratic
brethren." These did not appear till a few moments
before twelve o'clock noon of the appointed day.
Immediately upon their entrance in a body into
the representatives' hall Charles R. Chase, secre
tary of the territory and a delegate, proceeded to
the speaker's desk and called to order. At the same
moment John W. North, a Republican delegate,
designated by his colleagues, called to order. A
motion to adjourn was made by Colonel Gorman,
and the question was taken by Chase, who declared
it carried. The Democrats left the haU to the Re
publicans, who proceeded to organize the conven
tion. Fifty-six delegates presented credentials in
proper form and took their oaths to support the
constitution of the United States.
At noon of Tuesday the Democratic delegates
assembled about the door of the hall, and, finding
it occupied by citizens who refused to give them
place, met in the adjacent council chamber and
proceeded to organize the convention. Henry H.
Sibley was made chairman, on motion of Joseph
R. Brown, and later became president of the body.

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 139
From that day till the close of their labors, August
28, the two conventions sat apart. St. Anthony
was represented by six delegates in each, so that
the whole number participating was one hundred
and fourteen. Their proceedings, published in
separate volumes, show a commendable diligence
in business. An undue amount of time was given
to oratory in defense of the legitimacy of the re
spective moieties.
As the delegates had for examples the constitu
tions of all the states carved out of the Northwest
Territory, and in particular of the very recent ones
of Wisconsin and Iowa, the task of framing the
various articles was not burdensome. Most of them
were adopted, with little or no debate, as reported
from the standing committees. The Republicans
refused by a two-thirds vote to tolerate negro suf
frage. A proposition to submit to Congress the
division of the existing territory by an east and
west line on the latitude of 45° 15' or 45° 30' was
much discussed in both bodies. It was so much
favored by the Republicans that a change of three
votes would have given it a majority. The Demo
crats, attached to St. Paul and strong in the north
ern counties, gave the scheme slight support.
The absurdity of the situation was apparent, but
pride restrained both bodies from taking a first
move towards coalescence. At length on the 8th
of August Judge Sherburne, a meraber of the
Democratic convention, highly respected by Re-

140 MINNESOTA
publicans as well, proposed the appointment of
conferees to report a plan of union. The venerable
jurist saw his resolution indefinitely postponed,
after a debate abounding in heroic rhetoric. Two
days after, the Republicans passed a preamble and
resolutions in the exact terms of those of Judge
Sherburne and sent them to President Sibley. A
select committee, headed by Gorman, advised that
no communication could be entertained which ques
tioned the legal status of the Democratio body.
The report was unanimously adopted.
By this time the Republican delegates had found
themselves at a certain disadvantage, from which
relief was to many very desirable. The Democratic
treasurer of the territory had refused to honor their
pay accounts, and they were serving the pubUc at
their own expense. Doubtless from extraneous
overtures made by them, the two bodies on the
morning of August 18 adopted resolutions to ap
point conferees. These were imraediately named and
began their duties. By this time all the necessary
articles had been drafted, and as both bodies had
drawn from the same sources the conference com
mittee had an easy task. Those wrought out by the
Democratic delegates, who were the older and
more experienced men, were chiefly adopted. WTien
Judge Sherburne on August 27 laid before the
Democratic convention the report of the conferees,
with the comforting assurance that it was composed
of the Democratic material "almost altogether,"

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 141
the chair was obliged to exercise no little firmness
to restrain a turbulent opposition. A test vote
showed a majority of more than three fourths for
adoption. The final vote went over.
The next morning, August 28, both bodies agreed
to the report without amendment. There was some
resistance in the Republican end, but it gave way
when a leader assured the dissentients that they
had a dose to swallow, and they might as well shut
their eyes and open their mouths and take it. Two
copies were made of the one constitution thus
agreed to, one of which was signed by the officers
and merabers of each body respectively. The Re
publican manuscript remains in the state archives.
Joseph R. Brown expressed the opinion that the
split into two bodies had been economical. Had
the convention met in one body, the orators by
their revilings and vituperations would have pro
longed the session till the end of the year and the
expenses would have been doubled. Spite of the
generous endeavor of this delegate, the Democrats
refused to agree that the Republicans should draw
their pay. A subsequent legislature provided for
them. Both parties were quite content with the
constitution ; the Democrats for what they had con
served, the Republicans for germs of future devel
opment. The boom period which culminated in 1857 was
nowhere more exuberant than in Minnesota. The

142 MINNESOTA
sweUing tide of population of the previous two
years had brought in a body of speculators who
presently gorged themselves 'with the unearned
increments of land and town lot values. The whole
population caught the fever and bought for the
expected rise. The country people found ready sale
for produce in the growing towns, and the mer
chants profited by their prosperity. The resulting
elation and extravagance were at no time more
abounding than in the closing days of the consti
tutional convention.
It was the 24th of August when the failure of
the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company of
New York precipitated the liquidation of incredibly
multiplied credits in the East. A week later the
tardy mails brought the news to St. Paul, and
nowhere in the country did the panic strike with
greater violence. The little money, real and pro
missory, sank out of sight. Deposits ceasing, the
banks suspended. Eastern exchange rose to ten
per cent. Assignments, foreclosures, attachments,
and executions made law practice the only profit
able pursuit. The horde of speculators who had
infested the towns and villages abandoned their
holdings and made their escape. According to
J. Fletcher WiUiams, the lamented historian of St.
Paul, that city lost fifty per cent, of its population.
From the crest of a high wave of fancied opulence,
the new state was thus suddenly plunged into a
deep trough of adversity and despondence ; and it

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 143
was a long day till she rose to the level of normal
prosperity. The keenest of all disappointments was the post
ponement of railroad building. A score or more
of chartered companies could not borrow enough
ready cash to pay for their surveys. A generous
congressional act of 1857, engineered by Delegate
Rice, had made the Minnesotians of all classes
joyous. That act bestowed on the territory and
expectant state a grant of public lands equal to
nearly a ninth of its whole area, to aid in the
building of railroads. It is probable that this bene
faction was all the more wiUingly bestowed because
the territory had three years before been deprived
of a noble grant by no fault of her own. The act
did not convey the lands to the state, but made the
state a trustee for four different railroad " inter
ests " aspiring each to build its portion of a system
of roads coextensive with the state.
The legislature of 1857, in the extra session
already mentioned, accepted the trust created by
the congressional grant, recognized the four com
panies to construct each its part of the systera, "and
pledged to each its allotted lands as they should be
earned by the corapletion of successive twenty-mile
stretches of road. With a bird in the bush the
Minnesota people were childishly happy. They
saw a thousand miles of railway as good as built,
spreading population far and wide and carrying
the produce of an empire to waiting markets.

144 MINNESOTA
It was a good fortune for the territory that the
organic law gave it no power to run in debt. It
was equaUy unfortunate that a corporation created
by it could and did run in debt. In the same Feb
ruary of 1851 in which Delegate Sibley secured
from Congress the reservation of the two town
ships of land to endow a university, the Minnesota
legislature created the University of Minnesota, to
be located at or near St. Anthony's Falls. The act
provided for a board of twelve regents to be
elected by the legislature in joint session, in classes
for six-year terms. The gentlemen immediately
elected, among thera Sibley, Ramsey, Rice, North,
and Marshall, commanded, as they deserved, the
confidence of the people. The board organized on
the last day of May, 1851, and resolved to open a
preparatory department as soon as possible. One
of their number, Franklin Steele, gave a bunch of
lots in St. Anthony's Falls near the site of the
weU-known Winslow Hotel, later occupied by
the Northwestern Industrial Exposition building;
others subscribed money; and a few books were
thrown in to be the nucleus of the library. In a
wooden building 30 by 50 feet, two stories and a
basement, the preparatory school was opened on
November 26. It continued a useful existence till
the close of 1854. By this time tbe regents, among
whom there had been changes of personnel, became
desirous to open the " university proper." In that
year they had located through competent experts

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 145
several thousand acres of the lands reserved by
Congress on the best pine in the StiUwater dis
trict. The lands they could not sell, but they
did despoil them by seUing the " stumpage," and
used the money as collected for university pur
poses. They bought the heart of the present cam
pus, twenty-five acres, more or less, for $6000,
paying cash $1000 and giving their notes for the
remainder. The stumpage receipts were too small
and came in too slowly to warrant large expendi
tures for development. On February 28, 1856,
the legislature authorized the regents to borrow
$15,000 on twelve per cent, bonds secured by mort
gage on the campus ; $5000 to pay the balance
due on the campus, $10,000 for a building. In
August of the same year the board, much deterio
rated by a late election, voted by a majority of one
to close a contract for a building to cost $49,000,
to be completed within eighteen months. When a
year later, almost to a day, the panic struck, the
building was nearly complete and large sums were
due the contractors. The sales of pine stopped and
coUections for previous sales ceased. The concern
was bankrupt and so remained for nearly a decade.
A paragraph of the state constitution, retained
against no slight opposition, confirmed the location
of the university and devolved all university lands
and endowments then existing or to be thereafter
granted on the " University of Minnesota."

146 MINNESOTA
The closing year of Minnesota's territorial ex
istence was diversified by an Indian butchery,
horrible indeed in its immediate incidents, but es
pecially noteworthy for its contribution to later
atrocities. For many years a renegade band of the
Wah-p^-ku-te tribe of the Sioux had wandered
in the Missouri valley under the leading of one
Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point). In the spring of 1857
these Indians were hunting in northwestern Iowa,
and on March 6 or 7 fell upon the little settlement
of Spirit Lake in Henderson County, murdered
some forty persons, as estiraated, and carried four
women into captivity. Marching on the little ham
let of Springfield, some fifteen miles to the north,
in Martin County, Minnesota, they found but few
victims, because a refugee from Spirit Lake had
arrived before them. The news of these outrages
did not reach Agent Flandrau at the Lower Sioux
agency till the 18th. Upon his requisition. Captain
Alexander Bee, commanding the little garrison at
Fort Ridgely, with his company of infantry, led a
lively but fruitless pursuit of Inkpaduta, who had
gone off to the Missouri. It was well understood
that so long as the miscreant held the four women,
no punishment could be infiicted on him. In May
two young annuity Sioux, who had been hunting
westward, brought one of the women (Mrs. Markle)
into the agency. They had bought her with their
horses and guns, and asked $500 each as reward,
which Agent Flandrau and Missionary Riggs paid,

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 147
half in cash and half in a promissory bond of ex
traordinary character which the traders cashed.
This generosity had its intended effect to call out
volunteers for the rescue of the other captives.
Two capable Christian Sioux were selected, fur
nished with transportation and plenty of Indian
goods and sent out. After six days' march they
came upon the dead body of one of the women,
and presently learned that another had been put
to death. In a camp of Yanktons they found the
fourth, Miss Gardiner, and bought her for two
horses, seven blankets, two kegs of powder, a box
of tobacco, and some trinkets. Only one half of
the $10,000 appropriated by the Minnesota legis
lature was needed to cover the cost of these rescues.
The Indian authorities, local and national, now
resolved to visit Inkpaduta with just punishment,
and decided upon the plan of enlisting volunteers
among the annuity Sioux to pursue and capture
the scoundrel and his band. Few or none offered
themselves. Summer came on and 5000 Indians
had gathered about the agencies for the annual
payment. A number of councils were held, in the
course of which the agent threatened to withhold
the payments until Inkpaduta had been brought
in. This threat had some effect, but presents of
blankets and provisions had more. At length, on
the 22d of July, an expedition of 106 Indians and
four half-breeds was started for the James River
country. It returned August 3, bringing two women

148 MINNESOTA
and a child as prisoners, but no Inkpaduta. In vain
did Major Cullen, superintendent of Indian affairs
for the territory, who had come to the Sioux agen
cies, insist that Inkpaduta should be brought in,
and by the Indians themselves, and declare that
there would be no payment of money, goods, or pro
visions till the murderers should be in his hands.
The Sioux, although by this time on the verge of
starvation, would* not stir. They were sullen and
defiant. A special agent sent from Washington
advised the superintendent to make believe that
the Indians had done all they could, and might
therefore be paid off. It was late in September
when the Indians got their money and goods and
marched off to their fall hunts. They had had their
way with the agents of the Great Father, and sus
pected that he was not so powerful as they had been
told he was. He had not been able to run down
Inkpaduta and his little band. What could he do
against the great Sioux nation of many thousands ?
The new constitution of Minnesota closed with a
supplementary " schedule " of provisions temporary
in nature. All territorial rights, actions, laws, prose
cutions, and judgments were to remain in force until
proper action under state -authority. AU territorial
officers were to continue their duties until super
seded by state authority. A referendum of the con
stitution was ordered for October 13 (1857), at
which tirae all the officers designated by the con-

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 149
stitution were to be elected under the existing terri
torial election law. Every free white male inhabitant
of full age, who should have resided in the state for
ten days before the election, was authorized to vote.
Section four of the enabling act required the United
States marshal, so soon as the convention should
have decided in favor of statehood and admission,
to take a census of the population. This was not
completed during the life (forty-two days) of the
convention. It being, therefore, impracticable to
divide the state into congressional districts, it was
made a single district. In the belief that the popu
lation must be near 250,000, provision was made
for electing three representatives in Congress. The
completed census yielded the disappointingly small
total of 150,037. Governor Medary and two dele
gates were made a canvassing board.
While the constitution was acceptable to all, the
two parties put forth all possible effort to capture
the offices. The canvass showed the vote on the
ratification of the constitution to be : Yeas, 36,240;
nays, 700. The Democrats obtained a majority of
the legislators and nearly all the state and national
officers. The candidates for the governorship were
Sibley and Ramsey, the former winning by the
slender majority of 240 in a total of 35,340. The
claim was made that this majority was obtained by
irregularities in making the returns, but there was
no contest.
The schedule had fixed the early date of Decem-

150 MINNESOTA
ber 3 for the asserablage of the legislature, in the
expectation shared by all that within a few days
thereafter Congress would admit the new state to
the Union, and her senators and representatives
elect to their seats. A half year, however, was to
run by during which Minnesota, as described by
Governor Sibley, hung like the coffin of the prophet
of Islam between the heavens and the earth. The
legislature met, December 2, 1857, and in joint
convention, by the close vote of 59 to 49, decided
to recognize Mr. Medary as " governor." In his
message he recognized the body as a state legisla
ture. Still there was doubt about the legal status
of the houses, and there was little desire to under
take business which might turn out to be illegiti
mate. The Republican members entered fofmal
protests against any legislation. There was, how
ever, one bit of business which the Democratic
majority felt could not be postponed ; and that was
the election of two United States senators. That
was virtually settled in caucus. Henry M. Rice, as
everybody expected, was nominated without oppo
sition. The second place, for the short term, went,
after several ballotings, to General James Shields,
who was a newcomer and little known in Minne
sota. He had served with distinction in the Mexi
can War, filled many offices in his former state of
Illinois, and served a term in the Senate of the
United States. It was a bitter pill for such Demo
cratic wheel-horses as Sibley, Brown, and Gorman

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 151
to swallow. Franklin Steele never forgave Rice for
failing, as he claimed, to throw the election to hira.
Shields was everybody's second choice, and the ex
pectation was that his personal influence in Wash
ington would procure many good things for the
state. President Buchanan, for reasons not apparent,
did not transmit the Minnesota constitution — the
Democratic version — to the Senate till near the
middle of January, 1858. A fortnight later the biU
to admit was reported from the committee on terri
tories. The same kind of opposition now broke out
as had impeded the progress of the Minnesota en
abling act a twelvemonth before. Southern sena
tors were loath to see a new Northern state come
in, even with a Democratic delegation awaiting
admission to both houses. They were also technical
and persistent about holding to the traditional cus
tom of admitting states alternately slave and free.
It was the turn for a slave state to come in, and
Kansas with her infamous "Lecompton" slave con
stitution was knocking at the door. To give the
right of way to the " English bill " admitting Kan
sas, dilatory measures were successfully resorted
to. A debate covering twenty-three pages of the
" Congressional Globe " took place on the question
whether the Senate would consider the Minnesota
bill. That having been agreed to on the 24th of
March, days of tedious wrangling followed upon

162 MINNESOTA
objections raised by opponents. The election, it
was argued, was void for frauds committed ; aliens
had been allowed to vote ; ihe still incompleted
census was farcical; some assistant marshals had
destroyed the returns they should have given in ;
in some instances there was not one tenth as many
people found in precincts as had voted. The right
of the state to three, two, or even any representa
tive in Congress was questioned. Minnesota was
still a territory, and territories had no right to
representation in the Senate or in the House, except
by a delegate having no vote. There had been no
legal convention, it was said, and no legitimate
constitution had been adopted by the people. The
debate went on till April 8, when, the English bill
adraitting Kansas having been put through the
Senate, the opposition ceased and the Minnesota
bill passed with but three dissenting votes out of
fifty-two. The palaver occupies nearly one hundred
pages of the " Globe." The bill now went to the
House, and there the English bill stood in its way
till the 4th of May. The pro-slavery opposition at
once showed itself under cover of the same objec
tions which had been so tediously debated in the
Senate. There had been no proper convention, the
election was void for frauds, the territorial legisla
ture in session was presuming to act as a state
legislature, and the like. In the course of a wrangle
on the matter of alien voting, a Missouri member
in a heated moment revealed the actual ground of

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 163
the opposition. He said, " I warn gentlemen of the
South of the consequences. . . . The whole terri
tories of the Union are rapidly filling up with
foreigners. The great body of them are opposed
to slavery. Mark my words ; if you do it, another
slave state will never be formed out of the terri
tories of this Union." There was also an attack on
the bill from an unexpected quarter. John Sher
man of Ohio introduced a substitute, annuUing all
proceedings so far had, and providing for a new
convention in Minnesota. In his speech he declared
there had been no convention, but only two mobs.
The number of delegates had been unlawfully
raised from 68 to 108. AU proceedings under the
enabling act, including the election of October 13,
were void. A printed letter was circulated among
Republican senators and representatives from which
Mr. Sherman had evidently derived his aUegations.
This document came from a Minnesota Republican
source and evidenced the desire for an entire new
deal. There was ground for hope that in new elec
tions the Republican party might overcome the
slight Democratic pluralities. This move on the
political chessboard had the effect to rally Demo
cratic support to the pending bill for admission
of Minnesota with her waiting delegation. A new
election might change its complexion. On May 11
the bill was passed by the vote of 157 to 38. The
next day it received the presidential approval, and
Messrs. Rice and Shields, who had been living

154 MINNESOTA
since December at their own charges, were sworn
as senators.
The Senate bill, concurred in by the House,
allowed Minnesota but two representatives. Three
had been elected and had been waiting for five
months to be seated. To eliminate one of these,
lots were drawn, and George L. Becker, the best
man of the three, was thrown out. The two who
had drawn the long straws filed their credentials,
and the House committee on elections informed
the House that they had no knowledge of a third
representative-elect from Minnesota. Two days of
ineffective contention over the legitimacy of the
elections of the lucky two, Messrs. William W.
Phelps and James M. Cavanaugh, followed. The
vote to admit stood 127 to 63. The records of de
bates and proceedings cover 225 columns of the
"Globe," of 1000 words each or thereabout.
During the months the Minnesota representa
tives had been on the anxious bench, the delegate,
W. W^. Kingsbury, who had been elected on Mr.
Rice's proraotion to the Senate, had been comfort
ably occupying his seat in the House. When
Messrs. Phelps and Cavanaugh were sworn in, Mr.
Kingsbury did not vacate his seat, but claimed the
right to represent that part of the Territory of
Minnesota west of the Red River line excluded
from the state. The Democratic majority of the
committee on elections strongly recommended that
the claim be allowed, the Republicans dissenting.

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 155
The House decided that the portion of Minnesota
excluded from the state was a district without gov
ernment, and not entitled to representation in Con
gress. The admission of Minnesota wrought the
dissolution of the territory, a decision exactly in
the teeth- of that by which Mr. Sibley had been
recognized as a delegate from the rump of Wis
consin Territory in 1848.
So soon as Governor Medary had approved the
bill for the election of senators he took his de
parture and devolved the executive upon Charles
L. Chase, the secretary of the territory. Till the
middle of winter the legislative bodies of 1857-58
were so uncertain about their legal status that they
were chary of multiplying statutes. Then there was
a change of opinion, and the members were encour
aged to believe themselves true state legislators.
Their confidence so stiffened that on the 1st of
March they voted to' submit to the electors an
amendraent to the constitution authorizing the
state officers-elect to qualify on May 1, whether
Congress should have admitted the state or not;
and appointed April 15 proximo as the day for the
election. It is probably true that railroad interests
had to do with this change of heart. As already
related, the four companies to which the great con
gressional land grant had been made over by the
previous legislature had not been able to borrow a
dollar by hypothecation of their inchoate proper-

156 MINNESOTA
ties. There were examples of state assistance in
railroad building under like circumstances, by way
of lending state credit. The Minnesota companies
now asked the legislature for like aid. That body
was wiUing enough, but there stood in the consti
tution adopted, but yet awaiting approval by Con
gress, a section forbidding in terms the loan of the
credit of the state in aid of any individual, associa
tion, or corporation. But the constitution was still
in the green tree ; why not amend it for so worthy
a purpose ? Accordingly, the accommodating houses
presently submitted a second amendment to the
electors, to be voted on at the same time as the
former. This amendraent added to the section for
bidding the loan of the state's credit an exception,
aUowing such loan for the purpose of facilitating
railroad construction, to the amount of five miUion
doUars. Such was the beginning of the " five mil
lion loan " transaction, which was not closed till
near the end of the century, and then in a manner
not clearly honorable to the state. The two amend
ments were passed upon by the electors on the day
appointed (AprU 15). That authorizing the state
officers elect to enter upon their duties on May 1
received an " imposing majority," the figures of
which have not been found. The officers elect,
however, wisely took no advantage of this provi
sion, but awaited the admission of the state. The
"¦five million loan" amendment was carried by
the overwhelming majority of 25,023 to 6733. It

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD 167
was only, as alleged, a "loan of credit." In no
conceivable event, the people were assured, could
they be taxed to pay in cash the debt nominated
in the bonds to be issued.
On May 13 the raail or a private hand brought
from La Crosse, Wisconsin, the telegraphic news
of the admission of the state to the Union on the
previous day. The documentary evidence carae
some days later, and on the 24th the state officers
elected in October, 1857, took their oaths and pro
ceeded to their duties. It lacked one week of nine
years since Governor Rarasey proclairaed the be
ginning of the territorial government.
Three days after the state officers took up their
duties there took place within an easy day's drive
of the capital the last serious encounter of the
Sioux and Chippeways on Minnesota soil. The
lower Sioux, who late in 1853 reluctantly retired
to their reservations on the upper Minnesota, were
wont to return in summer weather in straggling
companies to their old homes. They were generally
harmless, and the merchants got a little profit on
their trade. Shakopee and his band of one hundred
and fifty had early in the summer of 1858 come
down and gone into carap near the town which
bears his name. One of his braves, fishing in the
river (the Minnesota) at an early hour, was fired
upon. Shakopee's men instantly recognized the
sound as coming from a Chippeway gun. They
gathered at Murphy's Ferry and, presuming that

158 MINNESOTA
the hostile shot came from one of some very small
party, they let their women put thirty or forty of
them across. They did not suspect that back on
the timbered bluff a mile distant there lay in hid
ing one hundred and fifty or more Chippeway
warriors who had sneaked down from Mille Lacs
through the big woods east of Minnetonka. They
were wary, however, and placed themselves in
ambush in a narrow space between two lakelets.
The Chippeways, out for scalps, with a boldness
unusual among Indians, charged down from the
bluff twice or more, without dislodging the Sioux.
The day was not old when they gave up the effort
and departed in haste for their homes, carrying
their wounded and perhaps some dead. Four of
their corpses were left to the cruel mercies of the
Sioux, who scalped, beheaded, and otherwise muti
lated them. Such was the so-caUed "Battle of
Shakopee," May 27, 1858.

CHAPTER IX
THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS
On the 2d of June, 1858, the legislature, which
had adjourned March 25, reassembled and listened
to Governor Sibley's inaugural address. He chal
lenged investigation into the legality of his election,
declaring that he would scorn to hold the position
for a single hour if not legally chosen. He com
mended the schools and the university to the
special care of the legislature, exhorting them to
regard the donations of public lands to them as
sacred. He advised the organization of the militia
to the end that the state might protect herself from
possible Indian outrages like that of Inkpaduta the
year before. He warned the legislature to be care
ful in their action in regard to banks, which he
declared to be a " necessary evil." He deprecated
the undue extension of federal interference in the
affairs of the states, and, as might be expected from
a friend and admirer of Mr. Douglas, pronounced
in favor of squatter sovereignty in the territories.
He took occasion to record his objection to frequent
and trivial amendments to the state constitution,
which should "ever remain beyond the reach of
temporary and feverish excitement." In no doubt-

160 MINNESOTA
ful terms did the new executive give notice to the
land grant railroad companies that he should hold
them to a strict but reasonable conformity with
their obligations. In this adjourned session the
legislative bodies had no doubt about their true
character as state organs. The senate had its con
stitutional president in the lieutenant-governor,
William Holcombe, and there was a state governor
to approve the acts of the houses. In the session,
which lasted till August 12, a large body of stat
utes were enacted, many of them amendatory of
territorial laws to suit new conditions. This legis
lature deserves praise for its diligence and appre
ciation of the needs of a growing state. Responding
to the counsel of Governor Sibley, an elaborate
militia law was passed. A provision for the organ
ization of volunteer companies proved three years
later to have been wisely planned. The cautions of
the executive led the legislature to replace a bank
ing act of many sections, passed by the same body
in the previous March, by another more carefully
drawn. Educational objects were not neglected.
An agricultural college was established at Glencoe,
a normal school at Winona, and the unlucky board
of regents of the university were authorized to
borrow $40,000 on twelve per cent, bonds. As if
distrusting either the good faith or the ability of
the four land grant railroad companies, the legis
lature placed on the statute book a stringent act
instructing the governor how to proceed in case of

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 161
default by any of them. The hopes of the people
of Minnesota in this summer were centred on these
land grant railroads. The panic of the previous
year had impoverished many of the well-to-do, and
left laborers and artisans without employment.
Fortunately there was no lack of bread and meat
at low prices, because they could not be got to out
side markets. Money was scarce and " business "
sluggish in the extrerae. But there was hope. The
building of the railroads would scatter large sums
of money, immigrants would flow in, and the good
times of '56 would return.
The act of the Minnesota legislature of May 22,
1857, accepting the congressional land grant of
March 5, provided, as anticipated by Congress,
for the distribution of the lands to these four cor
porations : —
First, the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad
Company, for building a main line from StiU
water through St. Anthony to Breckenridge and a
" branch " from St. Anthony to St. Vincent.
Second, the Transit Railroad Corapany, to build
from Winona by way of St. Peter to the Big Sioux
River north of 45 degrees north latitude.
Third, the Root River and Southern Minnesota
Railroad Company, for two lines; one from La
Crescent to a junction with the Transit at Roches
ter ; the other from St. Paul and St. Anthony via
Minneapolis, up the Minnesota River, to Mankato
and on to the mouth of the Big Sioux.

162 MINNESOTA
Fourth, the Minneapolis and Cedar Valley Rail
road Company, for a line from Minneapolis by way
of Mendota and Faribault to a point on the south
line of the state, west of range 13.
The lands were to inure to the companies in
installments of 120 sections, upon the completion
of twenty-mile stretches of road for the ruuning of
regular trains. The constitutional amendment of
April 15, 1858, had for a particular object the en
abUng of the companies to get each its first twenty
miles built and receive its 120 sections (76,800
acres). The sale or hypothecation of this land
would build an additional stretch, and so on. To
make it the easier for the companies so to build,
the amendment provided that when any ten-mile
stretch should have been graded and made ready
for ties and track, the company should receive
$100,000 in the seven per cent, special Minnesota
state railroad bonds authorized ; and, when any ten-
mile stretch so graded should be complete with
rails and roUing stock, an additional like sum in
bonds. Now these bonds were by no means a bonus ;
they were to be a "loan of credit," according to
the favorite phrase of the day. The companies on
receiving them were obligated to pay the interest
as it should accrue, and to redeem the principal
when due. The most rigorous provisions were made
in the amendment itself to secure these liquidations.
The companies were required to pledge the net
earnings of their several lines, to convey to the state

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 163
by deed of trust the first 240 acres of land eamed
by construction, and to transfer to the state an
amount off their own company bonds equal to that
of the special state bonds deUvered. These com
pany bonds were to be secured by mortgages on
all the properties and franchises of the companies.
Human ingenuity, it was fancied, could exact no
sounder guarantees. WhUe the legislature was stUl
in session in the midsumraer of 1858, the corapanies
let their contracts, and the dirt began to fiy in a
manner very cheering to citizens living along the
surveyed Unes, who boarded the hands and fur
nished forage, timber, and other supplies.
But there was trouble with the finances from
the start. On August 4 Governor Sibley gave
warning (why should it have been needed?) to the
companies that he should hold them to a strict
compliance with the obligations they had assumed.
In particular he demanded that when they came to
exchange their company bonds for the special state
bonds they must secure to the state a prior lien on
their properties and franchises. The companies
balked at this, and by their attorneys applied to
the supreme court of the state for a mandamus
requiring the governor to issue them bonds without
such priority. To obtain a construction of the law
Governor Sibley waived objection to being governed
by the court in a matter within his own official
discretion. The mandamus issued. The text of the
amendment of April 15 showed no requirement of

164 MINNESOTA
priority, and the legislative journals show that
efforts to inject such requirement had been vain.
The state railroad bonds, issued to the companies
as they severaUy corapleted their ten-mile stretches
of grading, when placed upon the market did not
go off like hot cakes. In form they were bonds of
Minnesota acknowledging to owe and promising
to pay dollars, signed, countersigned, and sealed
like other bonds. The faith and credit of the state
were pledged in the constitutional amendment to
the payment of the interest and redemption of the
principal. But the people understood that all this
was mere form ; the railroad companies, not the
state, were to pay. The newspapers industriously
circulated this idea. Sixty-seven members of the
legislature who had voted for the issue of the bonds
signed a published declaration that none of them
would ever vote for a tax to pay them. When
offered in the New York market they were not
wanted, unless by speculative operators at a fig
ure warranting risk. Governor Sibley's personal
representations in Wall Street did not increase con
fidence. He attributed his failure to factious inter
ference of citizens and Republican newspapers.
Construction was resumed with the season of
1859 by contractors wiUing and able to take bonds
in pay, but by midsummer this plan ceased to work.
One firm in July was obliged to put up $30,000
to raise $8000 in cash. Railroad building ceased,
and Minnesota sat in ashes. The surprise and ex-

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 165
asperation of the people can easily be imagined.
The companies had not followed the course expected
of thera to complete and put in operation succes
sive ten-mile stretches, but preferred to push the
grading for many such stretches and postpone
track-laying and other work of completion. This
aroused a suspicion that they did not intend to
complete any sections, but to secure their $10,000
per raile, a sum far in excess of the actual cost,
and quit. This suspicion was intensified by rumors
that the grading had been confined to discontin
uous earthwork alone, on the level prairie where it
could be cheaply done. These rumors had but slight
foundation, but they were accepted as true and to
this day there are those who believe them. When
the legislature of 1860 met (there was no session
in 1859), Governor Sibley in his retiring mes
sage informed that body that the four companies
had graded 239.36 miles, and had received 2275
pne thousand-dollar special state bonds in exchange
for an equal amount of company bonds.
The legislature of 1858 has enough to answer for
in proposing to the people the consummate folly
of offering to sell bonds which they never meant to
pay. Of the final act of their session (August 12)
it cannot be charitably recorded that it was one of
mere folly. As the end of their labors drew nigh
in the dog days, it became known that there would
be a residue of some $10,000 of money appropriated
by Congress for territorial expenses. It seemed a

166 MINNESOTA
pity not to keep that money in Minnesota. After
a variety of proposals consuming much time had
failed to receive concurrence, the two houses agreed
to a compromise by which $6000 was appropriated
for stationery and $3500 for postage, the members
to share equally. Governor Sibley was obliged to
give his official sanction to this division, because
it was impossible in the last hour of the session
to veto the general appropriation bill in which
these items had place, but be took occasion to say
that he gave a most reluctant consent to the grab.
The banking act passed by the legislature of
1858, on July 26, provided for the issue of circu
lating notes secured by deposits of public stocks of
the United States, or of any state, up to ninety per
cent, of the average value of such stock for six
months in the New York market. On one of the
last days of the session an amending act was passed
injecting into the proper section of the bank act
the words " or the State of Minnesota at their cur
rent value." The intended operation of the clause
was that bank-notes might be issued on the security
of the special railroad bonds. To obtain a favorable
rating by the state auditor a clique of operators
traded among themselves in the bonds, in New York
city, until they felt warranted in submitting affida
vits that their value as ascertained in that market
was ninety-five cents on the dollar. The auditor of
the state thereupon issued some $600,000 in notes
to fifteen banks depositing the special railroad

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 167
bonds. On January 1, 1861, he was obliged to
report that seven of them had failed, and that he
had sold their bonds. In one case he got seventy
cents ; in six others, prices ranging from thirty-
five cents down to sixteen and a quarter cents.
The Sioux chiefs were so much excited with the
money elements of their treaties of 1851 that they
probably did not know what they were about when,
in the summer of 1852, they assented to that amend
ment proposed by the Senate canceling the reserva
tion of homes for the tribes on the upper Minnesota
and authorizing the President to remove them from
the ceded territory. It was, however, deemed best
to move the people on to the designated areas, and
they were so moved in the season of 1853. It soon
came to their knowledge that they were only tem
porarily encamped there, and must presently move
on to some unknown country. Their sorrow and
exasperation were intense, and did not abate until
they were assured in the following suramer that the
Great Father, as authorized by Congress, would
permit them to remain where they were. They did
remain in the sense of maintaining their principal
villages on the reserve, but they constantly wan
dered in bands either toward their old homes or
out on the prairies to the west, where buffalo still
fed in countless herds. Their agents were much
occupied in recalling these vagrants and in chasing
the white whiskey sellers who infested the bounda-

168 MINNESOTA
ries of the reserve. In 1857 Joseph R. Brown, that
notable character whose career intersects the line
of our narrative at many points, was appointed
Sioux agent. As he was the father of many chil
dren born of his Sisseton wife, and had lived and
traded among the Sioux for many years, he pos
sessed an infiuence and a knowledge of Indian
character equaled by few. He had no belief that
the Indian' could be transformed by religion or
education in the twinkling of an eye into a fully
civilized man, but he knew that he could be induced
to take on the beginnings of civilization. His sim
ple plan was to get the savages to live in houses,
adopt white man's dress, and do a little planting.
In two years he had two hundred men, mostly heads
of families, located on eighty-acre farms. They had
disused the blanket, put on white man's clothes,
and, most notable of all, had had their hair cut short.
His " farraer Indians " numbered seven hundred.
This was not a large proportion of the seven thou
sand " annuity Sioux," but the northern superin
tendent of Indian affairs prophesied that in three
years the " farmer Indians " would outnumber the
" blanket Indians." The farmers, he reported, had
given up their feasts and dances and were living as
a " law-abiding, quiet, and sober people." In this
reform Agent Brown was assisted by the mission
aries, under the leadership of Drs. WiUiamson and
Riggs, who had foUowed the Sioux to their reserva
tions. The former had organized a society of arabi-

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 169
tious young Sioux, under the title of the " Hazlewood
republic," the object of which was to encourage
respect for law and to teach the art of government.
On the accession of the Republicans to power at
the seat of government in 1861, Agent Brown's
place was needed to reward a laborer in the Repub
lican vineyard, utterly inexperienced in the duties.
It is perfectly safe to say that had Brown been left
alone there would have been no " Sioux outbreak."
When the treaties of cession were negotiated in
1851, the proposed reservations seemed very far
away and very ample. The Sioux had hardly got
settled before the white raan appeared with his
whiskey jug and began taking up preemptions on
the neighboring lands. It did not take these adven
turers long to discover that the Indians had more
land than they needed. Moved by their representa
tions the Minnesota legislature of 1858 adopted a
joint resolution instructing her delegation in Con
gress to secure the reduction of the reservation and
the opening of the excluded areas to settlement. In
the summer of that year delegations of chiefs of the
upper and lower tribes were taken to Washington,
where they were induced to consent, in separate
treaties, to the sale to the government of all their
lands (some eight hundred thousand acres) on the
left (northeast) side of the Minnesota River.
At the close of the state campaign of 1859 Alex
ander Ramsey came to his own. He was elected

170 MINNESOTA
governor by a majority which no one could ques
tion. At the same time the office of lieutenant-
governor feU to Ignatius DonneUy, who for forty
years was to be a conspicuous figure in Minnesota
politics. This young gentleman had come to Min
nesota from his home in Philadelphia in 1856, at
the age of twenty-four. He had won no little ap
plause in his native city by some public addresses,
a volume of juvenile poeras not without promise,
and a number of published essays. Breaking out
of the Democratic fold along with very many
young men of the day, he threw himself heart and
soul into the Republican cause. There was no man
of his time, certainly not in Minnesota, who could
more completely enchain an audience of citizens
than Ignatius Donnelly. A speech in the Republi
can convention of 1859 won him an unexpected
nomination, and his election followed. The inau
gural message of Governor Ramsey to the Republi
can legislature which came in with hira is a notable
docuraent. The persistence of hard times moved
him to cut his own salary from $2500 to $1500 and
to recommend corresponding reductions in those
of state officials. By these and other retrenchments
adopted by the legislature, the expenses of the state
government were reduced by 49.3 per cent. Re
minding the houses of the fact that the general
government had already bestowed twelve millions
of acres of public land and more (an area equal to
that of Holland or Belgium), he exhorted them to

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 171
the greatest diligence and fidelity in execution of
their trust. In particular he urged that the school
lands be safeguarded against premature sale, and
that aU purchase-money coming in from these
should be paid into the state treasury to form a
perpetual endowment. While his particular scheme
was not adopted in detail, his principle was. A sur
viving contemporary opposed to him in politics has
declared that had not Governor Ramsey stood like
a rock against multifarious schemes for dissipating
the school lands, Minnesota would not have a dol
lar of school fund to-day. That fund now amounts
to nearly $20,000,000 and will be greatly increased
in the future. For this great service the name of
Alexander Ramsey should be remembered in Min
nesota as long as the state survives.
The incoming legislature had for its most excit
ing duty that of electing a United States senator
in the room of General James Shields, who had
two years before drawn the short term. The choice
fell on Morton S. Wilkinson of Stillwater, the
pioneer attorney of that place. He had cooperated
in organizing Republicanism in the territory and
had attracted the attention of leaders outside,
among them Seward and Lincoln.
This election disposed of, the houses addressed
themselves to railroad matters. The state had
turned out $2,275,000 of her " special " bonds, and
had for them not a mile of railroad, but only some

172 MINNESOTA
two hundred and forty miles of rather slovenly
graded road-bed. Governor Ramsey, with the
strong comraon sense which never failed hira, urged
the legislature to settle the business at once.
Though he had a favorite plan, his concern was
not for his own plan, but for any kind of a settle
ment. He warned the legislature that if the vexed
question were not settled it would confuse politics
and invite corruption. The bonds would be bought
up for a song by speculators who would subsidize
newspapers, shout repudiation, and pound on the
doors of the legislature till that body would be
forced by their sheer importunity to satisfy them.
But that legislature had come frora an exasperated
people who believed in their hearts that the rail
road corapanies, and politicians in league with
them, had deceived and cheated them. They had
never promised, in fact, to pay those bonds, and
thp takers of them knew that, and were estopped
from demanding redemption out of the pockets of
the people. The houses appointed a joint commit
tee of sixteen on railroad grants and bonds. Six
different reports came in from detachments of this
committee. One member. Senator Mackubin of St.
Paul, alone proposed the full payment of the bonds.
The legislative bodies were as much divided as
were their committeemen. All they could agree to
after days of discussion was to hang the whole pro
ceeding up by raeans of two constitutional amend
ments to be submitted to the electors. One of

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 173
these was to expunge from the state constitution
the amendment of April 15, 1858, authorizing the
"five million loan"; the other, providing for a
referendum to the electors of any law for paying
off the outstanding special railroad bonds. The
vote on the expunging amendment, on Novem
ber 6, 1860, was: Yes, 19,308; no, 710. The vote
on the other amendment differed but little. The
ostrich had buried his head and eyes in the sand.
The land grant companies having completely de
faulted in all their engagements, there remained
for the governor to proceed as required by law to
recover to the state the public lands conditionally
made over to them. Foreclosure proceedings cul
minated in the sale to the state of all the franchises,
rights of way, property, and privileges of each com
pany for the sum of one thousand dollars. As the
electors had by a constitutional amendment de
clared that the special railroad bonds were no
obligations of the state, she was apparently the
gainer by the rights of way and the grading done
by the companies, but in fact the state was never
more than a trustee of the lands. The loss of their
properties did not, of course, work a dissolution of
the railroad charters, and the companies, or their
ghosts, still existed. When the legislature of 1861
was in session they had sufficient influence to per
suade that body to give them another lease of life.
They had gone down in the common ruin after
brave efforts to execute their contracts. By sepa-

174 MINNESOTA
rate acts passed March 4, the state released and
restored to the four companies severaUy all their
forfeited properties and assets, free from all claims
and liens by the state, — this on certain conditions
which did not seem hard. Each company was obli
gated to deposit a guarantee fund of ' ten thousand
dollars, to begin building immediately, and to have
ten miles of road in full operation by the end of the
calendar year, and certain stipulated mileages in
years foUowing. In these Kalends of March there was
no expectation that before the grass should be green
on the Minnesota prairies a war cloud would have
settled over them. It was no time to build raUroads
on borrowed money. One of the companies, the
Minnesota and Pacific (germ of the Great North
ern Railway), made its cash deposit and began
work. Late in the season it ran the single locomo
tive, the William Crooks, which it had purchased,
over the fourteen hundred feet of track laid from
the St. Paul levee to a storage shed. Its ten thou
sand dollars were forfeit. All the companies having
defaulted, the lands, rights of way, and properties
reverted to the state.
The desire of the people for railroads did not
and could not abate, and there were still adven
turous persons willing to risk money for the great
prizes lying in the land grants. In the winter of
1862 four new companies were organized, and to
them the legislature turned over the grants and
rights of way on liberal conditions. The St. Paul

THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS 175
and Pacific Company succeeding to the Minnesota
and Pacific, built from St. Paul to St. Anthony,
and on October 14 advertised for regular business.
In 1863 two corapanies built forty-six and one half
miles, and in 1864 three built forty-three and one
half miles. Meantime the special raUroad bonds
remained in the limbo to which the constitutional
amendments of 1860 had relegated them.
Other acts of the legislature of 1860 of less im
portance, but still notable, were : One changing
the existing system of county governraent by
boards of supervisors, elected from the towns, to
one of county commissioners, to be elected from
districts; another providing for the registration
of voters in all precincts; a third replacing the
elective board of twelve regents created by terri
torial law with one of five to be appointed by the
governor and confirmed by the senate. The new
board succeeded to a melancholy task.
The people of Minnesota had moderated their
expectations of an abounding population, but they
were still greatly disappointed when the census of
1860 footed up but 170,023 inhabitants, including
2369 Indians. The native born were 113,295, the
foreign born 58,278. The great Scandinavian in
flux had hardly begun. Of the whole number of
persons engaged in gainful occupations, 53,426, the
farmers were 27,921, dwelling mostly in the river
counties and those immediately in the rear. With

176 , MINNESOTA
her population so widely spread out on the land
and that in its virgin fertility, Minnesota was not
really poor, in spite of business stagnation, of a high
interest rate (two per cent a raonth), and of iso
lation from outside markets for half the year. This
isolation was, however, mitigated by the comple
tion of a line of telegraph to the cities at the head
of navigation, so that " through " dispatches were
regularly received in October, 1862. The office in
St. Anthony was closed after a few months, and
the business men of Minneapolis were obliged to
subsidize that of their city.
The conflict in national politics in 1860 was a
hot and lively one, not merely between the two
great parties, but within the separate ranks. The
Democrats had not been so long out of power as
to despair of a return. The Republicans had just
begun to taste the sweets of office and its emolu
ments, and were fierce for more. The aspirants
Vere inconveniently numerous and eager. In the
caucuses and conventions they competed with al
most brutal ardor for norainations, equivalent, in
their happy anticipations, to elections. No sooner
had the October elections resulted in a Republican
triumph than aspirants for federal employment
began weaving the combinations which should cap
ture the Minnesota appointments. The friends of
Governor Ramsey formed into one camp ; the
"land office clique " into another. The latter gained
a temporary advantage, but did not succeed in their

THE STRUGGLE POR RAILROADS 177
ultimate purpose of placing one of their number in
the United States Senate when the next vacancy
occurred. They also failed to get Governor Ram
sey, his own logical successor, out of the way by a
promotion to the headship of the Interior Depart
ment. The Minnesota Democracy had been steadfast
adherents to Senator Douglas, who had earned
their support. The delegation to the Charleston
convention of 1860, though not instructed, was
presumed to be solid for the Illinois statesman.
When Senator Rice and another separated and
stood by Breckinridge, there were accusations of
treason, bribery, and all the crimes in the political
calendar. It ought to have been foreseen that Mr.
Rice by temperament and interest would be at
tached to the conservative wing of the Democracy.
As the time for the state election of 1861 drew
on, it was so apparent that Messrs. Ramsey and
DonneUy would succeed theraselves as governor
and lieutenant-governor that only the slightest ac
tivity was manifested in the campaign. The total
vote for governor on October 8 was 8048, of which
Ramsey received 6997.

CHAPTER X
ARMING FOR THE ClYllu WAB
Governor Alexander Ramsey was in Washing
ton on April 14, 1861, the day the Confederate
colors were flown over the ruins of Fort Sumter in
Charleston harbor. The attack on that work was
an avowed act of war. Early that Sunday morn
ing he hastened to the War Departraent to make
a tender of one thousand Minnesota men for the
national cause. The offer was put in writing at
the request of Secretary Cameron, who was on the
point of waiting on the President. Minnesota's ten
der of a regiment was doubtless the first recorded.
It was so promptly accepted that on the next day
Governor Ramsey could so telegraph to St. Paul.
On the 16th Lieutenant-Governor Donnelly issued
the executive proclamation calling for volunteers
to form a regiment of infantry to serve for three
months. The principal effect of Governor Sibley's
ambitious militia organization already mentioned
had been to stiraulate the organization of inde
pendent volunteer companies in the larger towns
and cities. These companies were the convenient
nuclei of those which filled up the regiment. The
arms of those independent companies were some-

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 179
what irregularly appropriated. Thirteen days after
the proclamation,on April 29, ten companies nearly
full were mustered into the service of the United
States at Fort SneUing. Governor Ramsey, who
was present at the muster, announced his appoint
ments of field officers. Willis A. Gorman, former
territorial governor, a regimental officer in the
Mexican War, he placed in command. The vigor
with which this experienced colonel established and
enforced military routine was a surprise to his raw
soldiery. They learned later the value of his dis
cipline, which at the first they were disposed to be
restive under. Early in -May the state furnished
black felt hats and black trousers. These, with the
red shirts previously supplied, constituted their
uniform. Drilling went vigorously on, diversified
with sword and flag presentations and some feast
ing in the neighboring cities.
Some days after the rauster, the War Depart
ment decided to accept no more regiments for three
months, and gave to the men of the First Minne
sota the option of enlisting for three years or taking
their discharges. A considerable number, many of
whom had been more patriotic than judicious, chose
the latter alternative, but their places were imme
diately supplied, and a fuU regiment was mus
tered in for three years.
In the early morning of June 22 the regiment
was paraded for the last time at Fort SneUing.
Chaplain Edward D. Neill offered prayer, made an

180 MINNESOTA
address, and gave the Hebrew benediction, "The
Lord bless you and keep you," etc. This over, the
command embarked for Prairie du Chien, whence
it proceeded by rail to Washington. On July 3 it
was put into camp near Alexandria and attached
to Franklin's brigade of Heintzelman's division of
McDowell's army. At the battle of Bull Run the
First Minnesota was sent forward alone in support
of Rickett's battery to attack the position held by
Jackson's brigade without a single skirmisher in
advance. The battery had barely unlimbered when
all its horses were kiUed and cannoneers dis
persed. The First Minnesota held its ground until
forty-two men were killed and one hundred and
eight wounded, the heaviest loss suffered by any
regiment on the Union side. Thirty were miss
ing, mostly prisoners, among whom were Surgeon
Stewart and his assistant, Le Boutillier, who re
mained on the field attending the wounded. The
regiment did not leave the field till ordered off, and
marched " in perfect order " to CentreviUe. From
that point to Alexandria its ranks were broken by
the rabble of men and vehicles which thronged the
road. In a compendious work it is impossible to
follow in detail the career of this splendid regi
ment and those later sent out from Minnesota. It
shared honorably in the operations of the Army of
the Potomac in the season of 1862. At Antietam,
holding its ground after both flanks had been un
covered, the First lost one hundred and forty-seven

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 181
in killed and wounded. The company of Minnesota
sharpshooters (the Second), added to the regiment
after the battle of Fair Oaks, had twenty out of
its forty-two men present shot down in that action.
After the organization of the First Regiment out
of existing state militia, other militia corapanies
remained over, equally desirous for a part in the
war for the Union. When Governor Ramsey called
for a second regiment on the 14th of June, 1861,
the response was imraediate. Before the end of
July the Second Minnesota Infantry had been mus
tered in at Fort Snelling, uniformed and supplied.
It received as commander Colonel Horatio P. Van
Cleve, a graduate of the United States Military
Academy, who had resigned from the regular army
after some years of service. On October 14 the
regiment left Fort Snelling, without patriotic ex
ercises, for Louisville, Kentucky, where it joined
BueU's army. At MiU Springs it behaved with
coolness and gaUantry, suffering a loss of twelve
killed and thirty-three wounded. The whole re
maining season of 1862 was occupied with labo
rious marches between the Ohio and Tennessee
rivers, .with occasional minor engagements. It was
present at Shiloh, Corinth, and PerrysvUle, where
its losses were nominal.
The Third Minnesota Infantry was called for
on September 18, before the Second had gone to
the front. The companies were promptly recruited
by aspirants to commissions, and the organization

182 MINNESOTA
was complete by the middle of November. For its
colonel Governor Ramsey selected Henry A. Lester
of Winona, who had made a creditable record as a
captain in the First Regiment. In a few months he
brought the coramand to a high state of discipline,
and by his personal qualities gained the complete
confidence of officers and men. In AprU, 1862,
the regiment was sent to Murfreesboro', Tennessee,
a point of some strategic importance, thirty miles
southeast of Nashville, and was there in July when
the Confederate cavalry leader Forrest was raiding
thereabout to delay the movements of BueU. The
covering force was a small brigade in two separate
encampments. A Michigan infantry battalion of
five companies and two cavalry troops were sta
tioned to the east of the town, the Third Minne
sota about a mile and a half northwest on the
NashviUe pike. No intrenchments seem to have
been constructed. At an early hour of July 13
Forrest's advance brushed away the cavalry out
posts, captured the brigade commander in his
quarters in the village, and fiercely attacked the
Michigan men. It was not till noon, however, that
he was able with his main force of more than one
thousand men to compel their surrender. At the
sound of the firing. Colonel Lester got his com
mand under arms and placed them in a good posi
tion for defense not far frora his camp, and there
he held his men while the forenoon wore away
with the sound of battle in his ears and the smoke

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 183
rising from the burning warehouses in the town.
The barest show of attack was made on his front,
but Forrest in person led a considerable party
around his flank to attack his camp, defended by
Corporal Charles H. Green with twenty tearasters,
convalescents, and cooks. It took three charges,
Forrest leading the last, to rout and capture the
little band. The gaUant corporal died the same
day, of his wounds. Soon after one o'clock p. m.
the adjutant of the Michigan battalion came out
from the town under flag of truce and safeguard
to summon Colonel Lester to the presence of his
colonel. In the interview which succeeded, the sur
render of the Minnesota regiment was recoraraended.
Returning to his comraand, Lester summoned his
officers to a council. On an open vote the majority
was for fighting. Two company commanders then
left the council. The colonel, not content with the
open vote, proposed a ballot. The result was five
to surrender, three to fight. In the minority were
Lieutenant-Colonel Griggs and Captain C. C. An
drews, both of whom became regimental comraand
ers. It may be said in mitigation of the action of
some of the company commanders voting for sur
render, that as they held their offices by election
they felt bound to act in a representative capacity
and not according to their own judgment. The
end of it was the unconditional surrender of the
Third Minnesota without having been seriously
attacked. The enlisted men were paroled and sent

184 MINNESOTA
to Benton Barracks, St. Louis. The officers were
paroled at Richmond after three months. On
December 1 President Lincoln discharged dishon
orably all those who had voted for the surrender.
The Fourth Minnesota regiment was called at
the same time as the Third, but for service on the
Indian frontier. The muster began October 2, and
was complete before the close of the year. For
colonel Governor Ramsey chose John A. Sanborn,
his adjutant-general, as yet inexperienced in war
fare, but his appointment was later abundantly jus
tified. Two companies were sent to Fort Ridgely
and two to Abercrombie to overawe the restive
Sioux. A fifth company went to Fort Ripley
to insure the good behavior of the Chippeways.
The remaining five companies spent the winter of
1862 at Fort Snelling, where they were thoroughly
instructed. On AprU 20, 1862, the Fourth Regi
ment, its absent corapanies having been recaUed to
Fort Snelling, embarked for the South. It reached
Halleck's army in May in front of Corinth, Missis
sippi, in time to partake in the siege which the
enemy terminated by a timely evacuation. After
some months of inaction, during which one third
of its men got into the hospital, the regiment par
ticipated gallantly in the affair at luka on Septem
ber 18, losing three killed and forty-four wounded.
At the battle of Corinth, October 3 and 4, the
Fourth was actively engaged, with the surprisingly
small loss of two killed and ten wounded.

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 185
The muster of the Fifth Minnesota began De
cember 19, 1861, and was completed on the 29th
of March foUowing. Three companies were sent to
the frontier forts to relieve companies of the
Fourth called in. To encourage recruiting Gov
ernor Ramsey proposed to appoint to the field and
staff positions such gentleraen as the line officers
should norainate to him. For colonel their choice
fell on a gentleman, German born, who had seen
service in the Prussian army. The experience of a
few months proved to him and his friends that a
mistake had been made. Lieutenant-Colonel Lu
cius F. Hubbard, afterwards governor of Minne
sota, succeeded and held command untU assigned
to a brigade. Leaving behind the three companies
on duty in the frontier forts, the regiment went
south in May, 1862, in time to participate in the
operations which resulted in the occupation of
Corinth, Mississippi. The sumraer was passed in
quiet, diversified by the affairs at Farmington and
luka. When Price and Van Dorn undertook, on
October 3, to dislodge Rosecrans from his in
trenched position at Corinth, it fell to the Fifth
Minnesota to take a most honorable part in their
repulse. Recalled late that night from outpost
duty, the men bivouacked in a street of the town.
In the forenoon of the 4th, after a furious bom
bardment, the Confederates assaulted and pushed
a column of attack through the Union line near its
right. Colonel Hubbard saw the impending danger.

186 MINNESOTA
and without waiting for orders threw his regiment
on the flank of the Confederate column, broke it
into fragments, and drove it back in coraplete dis
order. The batteries temporarily lost to the enemy
he retook, and restored the shattered battle line.
Such is the willing testimony of Rosecrans him
self. Survivors of the Fifth delight to recall the
gallant and fearless behavior of their young Catho
lic chaplain on that field. He is now the Most
Reverend John Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul,
known everywhere for splendid services in church
and state.
In addition to the five infantry regiments re
cruited under the calls of 1862, five minor organ
izations were formed, one of which, the Second
Company of Minnesota sharpshooters, has been
mentioned. The First Sharpshooters were mustered
in at Fort SneUing, October 5, 1861, and sent to
W^ashington to become Company A of the Second
Regiment of United States Sharpshooters. That
command participated in the battles of second Bull .
Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, doing effective
work with its Sharps rifles. The Minnesota com
pany had ten wounded at Antietam.
Brackett's Cavalry Battalion of three companies,
to which a fourth was added January 1, 1864, was
recruited in the fall months of 1861, and remained
in service till May, 1866. The command, by ser
vices appropriate to its arm, contributed not a lit
tle to the victories of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 187
Corinth. It accompanied Sully's Indian expedition
to the upper Missouri in 1864, and took part in
the battle of KiUdeer Mountain. Stationed on the
right of the line, the battalion checked a fierce flank
attack, which it followed with a gallant counter
charge, inflicting heavy loss on the savages.
The First Battery of Light ArtiUery was mus
tered in at Fort Snelling, November 21, 1861, and
sent south in midwinter to join Sherman's division
at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. In the battle of
Shiloh, April 6, 1862, this battery, forced back
with Prentiss's routed division, united in the heroic
stand at the point known as " the hornet's nest,"
which held back the enemy's advance till Grant's
disordered regiments could be formed for final and
effective defense. Captain Emil Munch had his
horse shot under him and was severely wounded.
The Second Light Battery was not accepted till
March 21, 1862. Its commander. Captain William
A. Hotchkiss, had seen service as an artilleryman
in the Mexican War. At PerrysvUle and Stone
River this command played a gaUant part, fortu
nately with sraall loss.
The passage of the enrollment aet of April 16,
1862, indicated an expectation that to reestablish
the authority of the government over all its terri
tory, an increase of the army would be necessary,
and that the raising of new troops might not be left
to the pleasure or convenience of the states. On
the day of McClellan's escape to the James River

188 MINNESOTA
(July 2) President Lincohi called for 800,000
volunteers. Minnesota's quota was 5362. On
August 4 this call was followed by an order for
drafting 300,000 men from the loyal states. Volun
teering, which for some months had gone but
languidly forward, revived. Public meetings were
held in all the towns; bounties were offered by
citizens and municipal bodies ; splendid examples
of patriotic sacrifices were set by men who could
ill afford them, and could iU be spared by the com
munities. The actual recruiting was mainly done
by gentlemen who were promised commissions in
consideration of their services. The distribution of
the quotas to counties and towns really set the
whole people at work, with the result that before
the harvest was over five new regiraents, the Sixth,
Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth, were substan
tially filled. However, it was not till November 19
that the announcement could be made that every
local quota had been filled and that aU danger of
the draft, from time to time deferred, was averted.
The immediate employment of all these regiments
was, as we are to see, far different from the expec
tations of the recruits. The appointments to the
field and staff' positions were no easy task for Gov
ernor Rarasey. It was well known that he would de
sire the legislature of 1863 to elect him to succeed
the Hon. Henry M. Rice as United States senator,
and that another aspirant was at least equaUy de
sirous. His personal admirers urged him to distrib-

ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR 189
ute the miUtary " plums " in a way helpful to his
political success. His political opponents were pro
phesying that he would certainly do so, and charged
him with selfishness, heartlessness, and disregard
of experience. To the head of one regiment he ap
pointed WiUiam Crooks, an experienced civil engi
neer, who had been two years at West Point and
was his political opponent. For three other regi
ments he took Lieutenant-Colonels MiUer, Wilkin,
and Thomas from the First, Second, and Fourth
Minnesota regiments respectively.

CHAPTER XI
the outbreak of the SIOUX
While the whole people of Minnesota were striv
ing night and day to fill up the new regiments with
volunteers to reinforce the national armies, there
was trouble brewing within their own boundaries.
The reader will have observed that small garrisons
had been and were still maintained on the Indian
frontiers. There was one at Fort Ripley, below
Crow Wing, to protect the Chippeway agency ;
there were two on the borders of the Sioux reserva
tions. Of these one occupied Fort Ridgely, situated
on the north bank of the Minnesota River in the
extrerae northwest corner of Nicollet County. It
was begun in 1853 when the lower Sioux were
arriving on their reservation. The garrison had for
its purpose the support of the authority of the gov
ernment agents thereon. Another post had pre
viously been established on the west bank of the
Red River, some fifteen miles north of Brecken
ridge, chiefly for the purpose of protecting the Red
River trade, carried in hundreds of single ox carts,
frora depredations of both Sioux and Chippeways,
whose hunting parties waylaid not only one an
other, but the white man's caravans. Fort Aber-

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 191
crombie, although at some distance from the upper
reserve, was near enough to keep the upper Sioux
aware of the Great Father's power. Although called
forts, no one of the three was in any sense a strong
place. Each consisted of a group of detached build
ings standing on the open prairie. The lapse of
years in quiet seemed to justify the assumption that
it would be a useless thing to form a proper inclosure
and fortify it.
The Minnesota Sioux betook themselves to the
reserves designated in the treaties of 1851 in no
comfortable frame of mind. They believed that
they had been obliged to abandon their ancient
homes for an inadequate compensation, and that
government agents had conspired with the traders
and half-breeds to cheat them of money promised to
be paid to their chiefs. Two years passed before they
were assured by act of Congress that they would
be allowed to remain in Minnesota and not sent to
sorae far-off unknown country. The treaty commis
sioners of 1851 congratulated the government on
the establishment of a policy of " concentration,"
under which the Indian would be induced to aban
don the chase and get his living from the soil. The
Pond brothers, foreseeing that this policy was pre
mature, decided not to follow the tribes among
whom they had labored to the reservations. Con
centration of wild Indians averse to cultivation
only gave opportunity for unceasing grumbling in
council over the general rascality of the white man,

192 MINNESOTA
the tyranny of the agent, the immorality of his
employees, the extortions of the traders, and the
imbecility of the missionaries, who worked for
nothing. In the buffalo season these Sioux swarmed out
into the Missouri valley to make boot upon the still
countless herds. At times some wandered back to
their old homes below. The reservations, while ample
in area for eight thousand Indians, were in shape
ridiculously ill-adapted for concentration. Origi
nally they formed a " shoestring " one hundred and
fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. That width
had been reduced by the treaties of 1858 to ten
miles. There was no privacy for the Indian. An
easy morning walk took him to the boundary, where
the accommodating white man met him with a keg
of illicit whiskey. This opportunity for "business"
doubtless had no little effect in attracting settlers
to the lands fronting on the reservations. The citi
zens of Brown County in 1859 publicly denounced
the criminal practice, and the county commissioners
offered a reward of twenty-five dollars for evidence
leading to conviction in any prosecution. While
generally harmless, the Indians annoyed the set
tlers by untimely visits for food, and occasional
thefts of horses and cattle.
The treaties of 1858, already mentioned, ceding
those parts of the two reservations lying north of
the Minnesota River, were negotiated with a few
selected chiefs carried to Washington so that they

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 193
might not be restrained by the discussions of the
braves in council. This was a source of suspicion,
which turned out to be well grounded. The consid
eration for the ceded lands was in part additions to
annuities, in part moneys to be paid as the chiefs
in open council should direct. There was long delay
in securing the ratification of the treaties by the
Senate, and necessary anciUary legislation from
Congress. Three years passed before the final pay
ments. The lower Sioux found but $880.58 com
ing to them from their "hand money," instead of
$40,000. The consent of the chiefs to this division
of moneys to traders and others was obtained in a
surreptitious, not to say dishonest, manner. The
upper Sioux were sufficiently, but not so exten
sively, plundered. From the time of their removal
to the reservations up to the opening of the Civil
War, the annuity Sioux were nursing their wrath
against the deceitful and greedy white man. At
the same time they were becoming distrustful of
the power of which he boasted. When the Great
Father had no cavalry to chase Inkpaduta, but was
obliged to hire Indians to make that fruitless pur
suit, the Sioux inferred that while he had a great
multitude of people he could not make soldiers of
them. A veteran missionary recorded the opinion
that the failure of the government to pursue and
capture Inkpaduta was the " primary cause " of the
uprising which came five years later.
The exchange of the garrisons of regular troops

194 MINNESOTA
at the forts for raw volunteers was to the Sioux a
sign that the Great Father was in trouble, and the
dispatch of raw men to help defend his country
confirmed this view. Through the traders and half-
breeds the Indians were kept informed of the
repulses suffered by his warriors at Bull Run,
BaU's Bluff, and elsewhere. Nowhere could gossip
spread more speedily than in an Indian village,
where gossip was the business of the braves when
in camp. It is in evidence that the strong " Copper
head " element among the traders and half-breeds
did not conceal their satisfaction over the defeat
of loyal troops and their belief that the Great
Father was going to be " cleaned out."
The winter of 1861-62 was unusually severe.
When spring opened food was scarce in all the
villages. The Sissetons had eaten all their horses
and dogs. The farmer Indians had in the previous
sumraer been so badgered by the unregenerate of
their own bands, and by the visiting Yanktonnais
of the plains, that their industry had relaxed, and
they had but little food to spare. The " payment "
was accordingly looked to with unusual eagerness.
According to custom it should come as soon as the
grass of the prairies should be fit for pasture.
Spring ripened into summer, but the agents' run
ners did not bring the welcome summons to the
villages. The upper Sioux, tired of waiting, came
in to the agency at Yellow Medicine in the middle
of July to the nuraber of four thousand, and with

THE OUTBREAK OP THE SIOUX 195
thera carae one thousand Yanktonnais, literally on
the edge of starvation. The agent supplied some
flour, pork, lard, and sugar and told them to go
home. He would call them when he was ready.
But the savages did not depart. In a fortnight
they had consumed the rations and were again
hungry. The agent declining to furnish more, an
armed mob of several hundred warriors surrounded
the governraent storehouse, surprised the little
guard of infantry, broke the locks and bolts, and
carried off one hundred sacks of flour. Making a
virtue of necessity, the agent, after a talk in coun
cil, agreed to issue all the provisions and annuity
goods, on condition that the Indians would depart
and stay away till called. Trouble with the upper
Sioux was thus tided over, but their respect for the
Great Father's power was not increased by the
forced compliance of his agent.
There was less want of food in the villages of
the lower Sioux, but there was enough to cause
distress and desire for an early payment. The
agent had no advices. He could give no reasons for
the delay of the money. The traders assumed to
know more than he, and with a fatal blindness
teased the Indians with suggestions that the Great
Father had spent all his money and had none left
for his red children. As the Indians were heavily
in debt to them, they began refusing further credits.
Among the rumored reasons for the delay of the
money, the one most accepted was that the govern-

196 MINNESOTA
ment officials were allowing friends to use it in
speculations on supply contracts. The fact was that
the Indian appropriation of 1862 was not passed
in Congress till July 5. The gold was drawn from
the treasury on August 11, and was at once dis
patched to the west. It was brought to Fort Ridgely
at noon on August 18.
The lower Sioux did not assemble and raid the
warehouses, but resorted to a less riotous proced
ure. On the warpath or the hunt it was Indian law
that a kind of provost guard composed of active
warriors should maintain order on the march and
in bivouac. It was called the Ti-yo-ti-pi, or " Sol
diers' lodge," had a large discretion, and exacted
instant obedience. A raodified soldiers' lodge was
now set up (June, 1862) on the lower agency,
attended by one hundred and fifty warriors. In its
frequent councils all the grievances of the past and
present were rehearsed, and schemes for redress
broached and discussed. Evidence is wanting to
support the assertions of contemporaries that in
this soldiers' lodge there was concocted a definite
scheme of murder arid pillage to be carried out
later. Possibly some braves, more patriotic than
judicious, pictured the consequences to the cowardly
white man if the great Sioux nation should launch
its hosts against his undefended farms and villages.
But the oratory of the lodge fed fat the ancient
grudge of the red men and added to their chronic
exasperation. The dog days drew on, but there was

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 197
no Outward sign of insurrection. Although he felt
that the Indians were in an evil and turbulent
state. Agent Galbraith did not think it injudicious
for him to leave his people in charge of his assist
ants and go off to New Ulm with a batch of forty-
nine volunteers for the army on the afternoon of
August 15. The same day he had passed through
some of the villages and had conferred with Little
Crow about the brick house he was to build for
that chief. Two days after that. Crow attended
morning services in the Episcopal mission chapel,
and gave no sign of excitement or enmity.
But for an unforeseen incident the peace might
have lasted another day, and lasting that other day,
on which the annuity gold arrived, might not have
been broken by the bloodiest Indian war of the
American continent. On Sunday, August 17, 1862,
a party of Sioux from Rice Creek were hunting in
Meeker County for deer, and, if chance should
offer, for Chippeway scalps. Early in the afternoon,
in Acton Township, Meeker County, a detachment
of these hunters, four or more in number, coming to
a settler's cabin, where three families were assem
bled, wantonly murdered five out of eleven persons.
The motive for this crime is not easy to conjecture.
The houses were not plundered nor fired. The evi
dence that the savages were drunk has not been
found. There may be some value in the story that
the first shot was fired by a young man who, having
been twitted by his companions with cowardice.

198 MINNESOTA
wished to show them that he dared shoot a white
man. Seizing a team and wagon of a neighboring
farmer, the scoundrels drove furiously to Shakopee's
village, some ten miles above the lower agency.
Upon their arrival late at night a council of war
riors was called. The high connections of the
murderers did not relish the idea of turning thera
over to white man's justice to suffer a death signally
ignominious to Indians. There was but one alter
native, to treat the kiUing of the afternoon as an
act of war, and call the nation to arms. After an
outburst of patriotic eloquence this course was
resolved on, and as soon as the braves could arm
and mount, they raoved toward the agency under
the lead of Shakopee, who was no lover of the
whites. The party arrived at Little Crow's village,
two miles above the lower agency, at daybreak, and
arousing that chief from sleep, explained the situa
tion. Little Crow was the fifth Medawakanton chief
who had borne that name, given in French (Le
Petit Corbeau) to an ancestor who wore on his
shoulders the skin and feathers of a crow. Although
in temporary disgrace for connivance in the extor
tions of the traders under the treaties of 1858,
he was still the most experienced, virile, and elo
quent of the chiefs. White men who knew him still
praise his good sense and kindness of heart in
ordinary relations. It seems to be true that in the

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 199
soldiers' lodge he had counseled against anything
like war on the white man, whose resources his
journeys to Washington had revealed to hira. But
Little Crow was a heathen Indian. The dogs of war
were loose, and the leadership was his if he would
have it. He could recover his lost prestige, and
show his people that he was as brave in war as he
was eloquent in council. Vanity and ambition tri
umphed. "It must come," he said. "Now is as good
a time as any. I am with you. Let us kill the traders
and divide their goods." By seven o'clock Little
Crow had possibly two hundred warriors, armed
and painted, surrounding the agency, with small
parties distributed about the warehouses and dwell
ings. Upon signal, fire was opened on all the whites
in sight. Five feU dead and many others were
wounded. Fortunately the eagerness of the savages
to loot the stores distracted them from killing, and
gave opportunity for the survivors to gain the cover
of the thickets in the river-bottom. So soon as the
plunder of the traders' goods was done, small parties
of warriors were detached to raid the neighboring
farms and settlements. These, on that day and the
next, spread themselves over the parts of Brown
and Nicollet counties next to the river. The white
men encountered were mostly killed, and the wo
men taken captive with their children ; but some of
these were butchered when they delayed the march.
The dwellings and grain stacks were fired, the farm
wagons seized and loaded with pluijder were driven

200 MINNESOTA
into Little Crow's village. By ten o'clock in the
forenoon refugees from the lower agency had
reached Fort Ridgely. That work was garrisoned by
Company B of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, com
manded by Captain John S. Marsh, who had been
promoted out of a Wisconsin regiment which he had
joined because too late to be enlisted in the First
Minnesota. His first act was to send a mounted
man to overtake and recall Lieutenant Timothy I.
Sheehan, who had at an earlier hour marched for
Fort Ripley with a detachment of C Company of
the same regiraent. Putting forty-six of his men
in wagons, mounting himself and his interpreter,
Peter Quinn, he took the road to the agency. Six
miles out from the fort he came to burning houses
and mutUated corpses by the roadside. Refugees
warned him that there was trouble ahead. Pushing
on, he reached the ferry abreast of the agency, and
formed his men in line in readiness to cross. A
signal shot rang out and a voUey of bullets laid
several of the soldiers low. A moment later another
voUey came frora Indians concealed on the right of
the road by which the detachment had arrived.
After a brief contest, in which half of his men had
fallen. Marsh led the remnant to the cover of the
thicket on his left. Observing a body of Indians
moving to intercept his party, he decided to cross
the river, supposing it to be fordable at that point.
Wading into deep water he was drowned, in spite
of the efforts of three brave men to rescue hira.

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 201
This was the " Battle of Redwood Ferry." Twenty-
three soldiers were killed and five wounded. Cap
tain Marsh had been drowned, and Interpreter
Quinn's body had been riddled with bullets at the
first fire. The survivors straggled into Fort Ridgely
in the course of the following night.
Tuesday the 19th was occupied by the savages
in other and more distant raids for robbery and
slaughter. In the afternoon a demonstration by a
body of one hundred and fifty Indians, more or
less, was raade on New Ulm. This was successfully
resisted by the organized townsmen commanded by
Captain Jacob Nix. One young woman was killed
by a random shot, and a few other persons, includ
ing Captain Nix, were wounded. A few buildings
were fired. Later in the afternoon, in the evening,
and in the night, help came from St. Peter, Man
kato, and other towns.
The " outbreak " was begun and mainly carried
on by the lower tribes, the Medawakantons and
Wah-pe-ku-tes, in spite of the fact that the Acton
murders were done by members of an upper band.
It was late in the afternoon of Monday the 18th
when the upper Indians, the Sissetons and Wahpe-
tons, hearing of the news, went into council on a
hill near the Yellow Medicine agency, twenty-five
miles distant northwest of the scene of the morning
carnage. John Other Day, a Christian Indian, and
Joseph La Framboise, a half-breed, informed the
white people resident at and about the agency.

202 MINNESOTA
already wondering over the mysterious council, of
the outbreak below and coUected them, to the num
ber of sixty-two, in the government stone ware
house. There they passed an anxious night. After mid
night a trader's employee carae in mortally wounded.
At daylight a bookkeeper of another was killed and
a clerk painfully wounded. The upper Indians were
keener for plunder than for blood. Collecting wag
ons for the women and children and the wounded,
the party left their shelter, forded the river, and
under the faithful guidance of Other Day made
their way across country to Hutchinson. Friendly
warning given late on Monday to the raissionaries,
Williamson and Riggs, residing a few miles above
the agency, enabled them to escape with their fami
lies and assistants, forty-five in number, to safe
hiding iu the river-bottom, from which they began
the next day their journey to Henderson.
Sporadic killing, plunder, and devastation in the
regions adjacent to the agencies mostly ceased by
Tuesday night. Small parties of savages, however,
escaping from the control of the chiefs, spread
themselves to distant settlements to revel in car
nage and fire. Within a week there were murder
and piUage in Meeker County, forty miles to the
northwest of the agencies, in Murray County, fifty
miles to the southwest. Two persons were killed at
Sioux Falls, one hundred miles away, and four near
Breckenridge, one hundred and sixty miles as the'

THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX 203
crow files. Fort Ridgely, Hutchinson, Forest Citj^,
Glencoe, and even St. Peter were threatened, but
not attacked.
These forays had their natural and intended
effect. As the tidings of Indian butchery spread,
the settlers loaded what furniture and provisions
they could in their wagons, and driving their stock
before them, raade their way to the " river towns."
An area two hundred miles long from north to south
and fifty miles in breadth was depopulated, while
the harvest awaited the reapers. Their fiight was
all the more precipitate because of rumors that the
Winnebagoes had broken out along with the Sioux,
and that the Chippeways were to close in from the
north. No small number of persons went back to
their former homes in other states. The occasional
appearance of sraall parties of Indians out for cat
tle-stealing and other robberies for a month after
the outbreak justified all the fears of the fugitives.
On Septeraber 22 two children were killed within
fifteen miles of St. Cloud, and the little village of
Paynesville was fired. A small number of persons
ignorant of the country, and not way-wise, wandered
about for weeks before finding settlements. Hun
dreds of settlers in the Missouri valley went to
Sioux City and other towns.
To what extent the upper Indians participated
in these raids and in the several battles it is diffi
cult to determine. They were quite as rauch exas
perated and were more turbulent than the lower

204 MINNESOTA
bands. That some of their leading chiefs and braves
sympathized is known to be a fact, and it cannot
be doubted that many individual members partici
pated in the murders and the war which ensued.

CHAPTER XII
the SIOUX ¦WAR
It was not till Wednesday the 20th that Little
Crow could muster and hold together a body of
warriors sufficient to undertake regular warfare
and carry out a well-laid plan to capture Fort
Ridgely. He was aware, of course, that its little
garrison had lost its comraander and fuUy half of
its men. He probably did not know of the arrival
of two reinforcements : one, Sheehan's detachment
recalled by Captain Marsh before beginning his
fatal march ; the other, the party of recruits, en
listed at the agencies and taken by Agent Galbraith
as far as St. Peter. They took and kept the name
of " Renville Rangers." The information brought
to Agent Galbraith at St. Peter on the evening of
the outbreak indicated Fort Ridgely as the point
where his recruits would be most needed. He had
therefore led them thither at daylight of Tuesday,
armed with some Harper's Ferry muskets belonging
to a local militia company. He had to give bonds
to the exacting custodian. What with these troops
and with male refugees from the agencies and the
surrounding farms. Lieutenant Sheehan, the rank
ing officer, had not more than one hundred and

206 MINNESOTA
eighty combatants. Upon the withdrawal of the
regular garrison the year before, six pieces of artil
lery of various patterns had been left behind with
Ordnance-Sergeant John Jones in charge. Of this
the Indians may not have been informed. The so-
called fort consisted of buildings grouped on the
sides of a square of three hundred feet, one of them
of stone. Outside were small log houses for civilian
employees, stables, and stacks of hay and grain.
The site was on the bluff separated from the- river
(Minnesota) by a bottom a half mile in width.
Ravines of erosion cut the hillside into excellent
places of approach and cover.
Without warning, at one o'clock on Wednesday
afternoon a volley was poured into the central in
closure. Two soldiers fell, one dead, the other badly
wounded. One citizen was killed soon after. The
fire was returned from such points of advantage as
the structures afforded. Sergeant Jones had already
made up three gun detachments, partly from citi
zens who had seen service and partly from soldiers
whom he had instructed. It was not long before he
had his guns in action, to the great surprise of Little
Crow, who presently drew off his men. Thursday
was a day of rain, and seems to have been spent by
the Sioux chiefs in consultation and in preparing
for a stronger assault. The time was well spent by
the besieged in fitting ammunition, building barri
cades of cordwood, covering roofs with earth, and
other practicable strengthening of defenses.

THE SIOUX WAR 207
At one o'clock p. m. of Friday, Little Crow de
livered his main attack, with a force largely in
creased, on the south and west of the post. From
the cover of ravines he kept up a lively fire till late
in the day. His last move, unusual in Indian war
fare, was that of massing a body of warriors in a
ravine running up toward the southwest angle of
the inclosure, for a charge on the garrison. Ser
geant Jones thereupon had his twenty-four pound
cannon pointed down that " coolie," and landed a
single shell which sent Crow's warriors fiying off
the field. In the two half days' fighting there had
been three persons killed and thirteen wounded
within the post.
As refugees, raany wounded, came pouring in to
New Ulm on Monday, the need of outside help was
felt and no second thought was necessary to suggest
the one man to whom the townsmen should appeal.
Charles Eugene Flandrau, for many years resident
at old Traverse des Sioux, who had been Sioux
agent, member of the constitutional convention,
and a judge of the state supreme court, was the
best known man all up and down the Minnesota
valley. His name was a-household word. At four
o'clock on Tuesday morning a messenger brought
him the summons of the people of New Ulm. Rid
ing into St. Peter he found the citizens awake and
alert, but without organization. In a public meet
ing in the courthouse he was elected captain of the
relieving party to be formed. About noon a de-

208 MINNESOTA
tachment of eighteen mounted men was put upon
the road, which arrived in New Ulm in time to
reassure the citizens after their repulse of the In
dians. Early in the afternoon Flandrau's company
marched and was sweUed to one hundred and
twenty-five men by acccessions along the route.
It was late in the evening when he arrived. Early
on Wednesday morning Captain Bierbauer arrived
from Mankato with one hundred men, and other
squads carae in that day.
In a pubUc meeting Captain Flandrau was pro
moted to colonel, and proceeded with dispatch and
excellent judgment to forra a staff, to organize the
fighting force, and 'to fortify a central stronghold
for non-combatants. Choosing three blocks of the
main street, he threw up barricades across the ends
and connected the rear walls of abutting buildings
with buUet-proof constructions, and loopholed the
walls of the brick buildings. On Thursday parties
were sent out to the neighboring hamlets and farms
to bury the dead and bring in the wounded.
No Indians appeared on that day or the next.
Early on Saturday (August 23) the smoke of
scattered fires was seen off to the northeast be
yond the Minnesota. Had Little Crow captured
the fort, and were his warriors burning the farm
steads? To ascertain. Colonel Flandrau sent over
a detachment of seventy-five men, which soon en
countered a fire from its left front and was obliged
to retreat to the southeast to meet reinforcements

THE SIOUX WAR 209
expected from that quarter. Crow's real attack
came from the northwest, over the terraced plain
stretching along the river above the town. Flan
drau had left some three hundred and fifty men,
ill-armed and undisciplined. When aware of the
approach of the Indians, he moved them out and
posted them upon the slope of one of the terraces,
with a line of skirmishers to the front. At eight
o'clock Crow's warriors in a long line with flanks
curved forward moved on in silence till within
about a half mile of the line of defenders. Then
raising such a shout as only savages can, they
broke into a run, firing as they ran. The skirmish
ers fell back in alarm, and the whole line, spite of
the exhortations, polite and other, of Flandrau and
his officers, retreated to the barricades. The Sioux
did not follow in, but stopped and sought cover in
the emptied outer buildings of the town.
The fire returned from the barricades discour
aged the Sioux from atterapting an assault. Late
in the afternoon a demonstration was made be
low the town by a party, some of which wore
white raen's clothes. Thus misled, the brave Cap
tain Dodd, second in command, unduly exposed
himself and was shot to death. Other weak at
tempts were made by the persistent Indian leader,
which came to naught. Ten of the defenders were
killed and fifty wounded. Flandrau estimated the
attacking force to be six hundred and fifty in nura
ber. Expecting a renewal of the fight on the fol-

210 MINNESOTA
lowing morning. Colonel Flandrau ordered the
destruction of all buildings outside his fortifica
tion. Including those burned by the Indians, one
hundred and ninety were destroyed. Indians rarely
fight by night ; and on Sunday morning they sent
in a few long range shots, and the " Battle of New
Ulm" was over.
Nearly two thousand people had been confined
in the narrow fortified space. The women and
children had been huddled in the cellars. Food
was failing and sickness breaking out. Their homes
destroyed, it was resolved to move the whole popu
lation to Mankato, thirty miles distant. On Mon
day morning they took the road; the women, chil
dren, and wounded on wheels, the men and boys
on foot, escorted by the extemporized army. The
column reached its destination late at night, and
the refugees met with a generous reception. The
next day, August 26, Colonel Flandrau's force
dissolved. Little Crow had staked everything on his attack
on New Ulm. Had he captured the place, and dis
persed its defenders, Mankato, St. Peter, Le Sueur,
and all the towns in the valley would have been
abandoned, and the Sioux would have resumed pos
session of the fairest part of their ancient country.
The Indian commander understood that after this
failure there was little hope of success in any
offensive movement unless better supported by the
upper bands. He therefore broke up his camp be-

THE SIOUX WAR 211
low the Redwood and reestablished it behind the
Yellow Medicine. His men burned the buildings
at the upper agency, and the mission houses.
The Minnesota legislature in the extra session
of 1862 authorized an official count of the victiras
of the Sioux raassacre, but as no citizens could be
induced to undertake the service for a per diera of
three dollars in paper money, no such reckoning
was raade. The estimates vary from 500 to 1500.
That of Agent Galbraith, made with deliberation,
may be accepted : In Renville County, 221 ; in
Brown, 204 ; in other Minnesota counties, 187 ; in
Dakota Territory, 42 ; total, 654. His estimate of
government property losses is : On the upper re
serve, $425,000 ; on the lower reserve, $500,000.
When Governor Ramsey got the tidings of the
outbreak of the Sioux in the afternoon of Tuesday,
August 19, his knowledge of Indians made it unne
cessary to deliberate upon the measures that must
be taken, or upon the choice of a proper person
to have the command. For that duty he instantly
selected his old political opponent, Henry Hastings
Sibley, whom he commissioned as colonel and com
mander of the Indian expedition. Mr. Sibley had
maintained his robust and athletic constitution ; he
knew the whole region of operations, spoke French
and Dakota, understood Indian nature, and was
acquainted with all the leading men of the Sioux
nation.

212 MINNESOTA
Early the next morning Colonel Sibley left Fort
SneUing by stearaer, with four companies of the
Sixth Minnesota Infantry. At Shakopee he was
obliged to disembark. It was not till late on Friday,
August 22, that he reached St. Peter, which was
to be his base of operation. Here Jack Frazer, who
had escaped from Fort Ridgely, brought hira the
inforraation that the whole body of Sioux chiefs and
braves, probably two thousand in number, were on
the warpath. His four hundred raw infantry men
would be no match for them, the more because the
Austrian rifles furnished them at Fort SneUing
were unfit for use. Sending down to Governor
Ramsay for reinforcements, with suitable arms
and ammunition. Colonel Sibley devoted himself
to impressing teams, pro'visions, and forage, and
making other preparations for his campaign. Gov
ernor Ramsay in a proclamation issued'on the 21st
called on the militia of the Minnesota valley and
frontier counties to arm and mount and join Sib
ley's expedition with a few days' subsistence. Com
panies from the vaUey towns, from MinneapoUs,
Faribault, and elsewhere reported. The remaining
corapanies of the Sixth carae up with Springfield
rifles. On the morning of the 26 th the expedition
marched for Fort Ridgely. An advance party of
mounted men reached the post on the following
day, to the joy and relief of the long iraprisoned
garrison. The raain body came up on the 28th and
made an intrenched camp outside the fort. To

THE SIOUX WAR 213
protect the column from rear attack around its
left flank. Governor Ramsey appointed Judge
Flandrau colonel, and authorized him to coUect
and dispose the militia companies coming in from
the southeastern counties. He presently formed a
line of posts from New Ulm and Mankato up the
valley of the Blue Earth and on to the Iowa line.
Yielding to the prayers of refugees in Fort
Ridgely, whose relatives were lying unburied about
the ruins of their horaes or along the roadsides.
Colonel Sibley decided to send out a burial party
which should also serve as a corps of observation.
It marched on the morning of August 31 under the
direction of Major Joseph R. Brown, whom Colonel
Sibley had attached to his staff. His party was
made up of Captain H. P. Grant's company of the
Sixth Infantry, fifty mounted men under Captain
Joseph Anderson, a fatigue detail of twenty, and
seventeen teamsters. The column moved slowly,
halting to bury sixteen bodies on the agency road,
and at nightfall bivouacked on the bottom near the
Redwood Ferry. In the morning Major Brown with
the mounted men crossed the Minnesota and scouted
through the villages above the agency, to find them
deserted. The infantry force buried some twenty
bodies of Captain Marsh's men, moved up the north
side, struck across the prairie to the head of Birch
Coulie, and went into camp on a singularly ill-
chosen spot, at which Major Brown arrived at sun
set. The wagons were packed in open order, and

214 MINNESOTA
the animals were tied to picket ropes stretched be
tween them. Within the circle so formed the party
went early to sleep, some in Sibley tents, but most
under the open sky. At daybreak they were awak
ened by a blood-curdling yell and a voUey of bullets
apparently from aU quarters and at short range.
Captain Anderson, who had seen service in the
Mexican War, ordered his men to lie low and fire
at wiU. The infantry comraander, after a vain effort
to forra his men in line, gave a like judicious order.
The savages maintained a murderous fire for an
hour, at the end of which ten of Brown's men were
killed and forty more wounded, hiraself included.
Desultory firing continued throughout the day, in
the lulls of which possible arrangeraents for de
fense were made. The bodies of over ninety horses'
were strung along, and earth, dug up with three
spades and one shovel, and with sabres, bayonets,
pocket-knives, and tin plates, was heaped over them.
The pits thus formed served as good cover for the
men who were prudent. At two in the afternoon
the boom of a cannon from the eastward gave notice
of approaching relief, but night fell and it did not
come. The sound of the morning's battle was heard
at Sibley's outposts, fifteen miles away. With all
possible dispatch he sent a relieving party consist
ing of three companies of the Sixth Infantry, fifty
raounted "Rangers," and a section of artillery, and
gave the command to Colonel Samuel McPhail of
Houston County. The party crossed the east branch

THE SIOUX WAR 215
of Birch Coulie and came within sight of Brown's
camp, but the prudent commander did not think it
wise to risk his men in a battle. He therefore re
crossed the branch, took up a safe position for the
night, and sent Lieutenant Sheehan back to Sibley
for reinforcements. He reached the fort unharmed,
but his horse fell dead soon after from gunshot
wounds. By daylight Colonel Sibley reached Mc-
Phail's bivouac with the remaining companies of
the Sixth and five companies of the Seventh, which
had arrived the day before. The Sioux, seeing them
selves outnumbered, made but feeble resistance to
his advance and rapidly left the neighborhood.
When Colonel Sibley rode into the impounded
camp thirteen men lay dead, three more were soon
to die, forty-five were severely wounded, and others
had received abrasions. For more than twenty-four
hours the raen had lain without water, and they
were worn with their ceaseless watch. The " Battle
of Birch Coulie " has been coraraeraorated by a
monument erected at the expense of the state, in
regard to which an unfortunate controversy has
raged. Through raisinforraation the coraraissioners
accredited the coramand of the expedition to an
other than Major Joseph R. Brown. To one looking
back after the lapse of a generation it would seem
that no one would care to be credited with the
leadership of the disastrous affair. Colonel Sibley
had given the most precise and emphatic directions
to guard against surprise and ambush.

216 MINNESOTA
Colonel Sibley now had a double problem before
him. He must overtake and destroy the Indian
forces, and that without giving their commander
occasion to slaughter the three hundred prisoners in
his possession. It was rumored, probably by Little
Crow's instigation, that if attacked he would put
these prisoners between his men and the whites. A
policy of caution and delay was therefore desirable.
It was also necessary for the reason that the cora
mand at Fort Ridgely was in no way prepared for
war. The men were not yet clothed, the supply of
food was insufficient and precarious, and ammu
nition had not yet been provided in sufficient
quantity. The mounted citizens who had rallied so promptly
on Governor Ramsey's call began to disappear as
soon as there was "a prospect of meeting the red
skins." In the middle of the month (September 14)
Sibley reported to Governor Ramsey that he had
but twenty-eight of that " description of force," and
would not be surprised at a stampede among them.
Elsewhere he speaks of it as "base desertion."
These men returning to their homes were able to
correct a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with
Colonel Sibley for needless delay in chasing Little
Crow to his lair. Some newspapers threw out the
vile insinuation that he did not pursue and destroy
the Indians because he had so many friends among
thera. On the Birch Coulie battlefield Colonel Sibley

THE SIOUX WAR 217
left in a split stick this writing for Little Crow :
" If Little Crow has any proposition to make, let
him send a half-breed to me, and he sball be pro
tected in and out of camp." To this the chief re
plied in a diplomatic note in which he complained
of the agent and the traders, and asked to have
Governor Ramsay informed of their ill-doings. He
closed it with an adroit reference to the great many
prisoners, women and children, in his hands, as if
to suggest that Colonel Sibley might desire to
make hira a proposition. Sibley sent back the
curt message : " Return me the prisoners, and I
will talk with you like a man." On September 12
Little Crow sent in another letter, in which he
harped upon his prisoners, covertly intimating that
he would surrender them on guaranty of immunity
for himself and associates. He appealed to Colonel
Sibley as an old friend to suggest a way to make
peace. The messenger who brought this letter brought
also, unknown to Crow, another frora Wabashaw,
head chief of the lower Sioux, to say that, if Colo
nel Sibley would appoint a safe and proper place,
he and his friends opposed to Little Crow and the
war would corae in and bring as many of the pris
oners as they could assemble. With this leaven
working in the Indian camp. Colonel Sibley could
well afford to wait for reinforcements, subsistence,
and ammunition, his troops in the mean time being
drilled by their officers. Despite the insufficiency

218 MINNESOTA
of all these, he issued his order for an advance into
the Indian country on September 14. A violent
rainstorra set in that day, and it was not tiU the
19th that he was able to ferry his little army across
the Minnesota. It had been reinforced by two
hundred and seventy enlisted men of the Third
Minnesota, paroled after the surrender of Mur
freesboro' and sent home to assist in the Indian
war. The cavalry force consisted of twenty-five
troopers. Three days of easy marching brought the
command to a point on the government road be
tween the agencies about three miles south of the
YeUow Medicine, where it went into camp behind
a small lake and a stream issuing from it, which
curving southward emptied into the Minnesota.
Little Crow's camp had been opposite the mouth of
the Chippewa River since the 10th of September.
In the councils there held the leader made the best
use of his oratorical gift. He fiattered, he implored,
he bullied ; at length he got the chiefs to consent to
a stand against the white man's army. How many
of the upper chiefs and their men he prevailed
upon to join him is a matter of dispute, but it is
certain that some of both did.
In the afternoon of the 22d Crow's army of
some seven hundred and fifty warriors left their
camps and marched down to the Yellow Medicine.
In the following night they were arranged prin
cipaUy in a line on the east of the road, between
the river and Sibley's camp. A party was placed in

THE SIOUX WAR 219
the ravine through which flowed the outlet of the
little lake mentioned, and stiU another west of the
road, behind a hillock on the prairie. On that Lit
tle Crow took his stand. Day dawned, and not an
Indian was in sight ; all were hid in the timber or
tall grass of the prairie. It was Crow's expectation
that Sibley would take the road, and that he would
not have flankers far out from his column. When
his advance should be near the Yellow Medicine
and abreast of the Indian right it was to be attacked
in flank, the party concealed in the coolie would
close in on the rear, and that behind the hiUock
would give the finishing blow. All that might
have happened, but for an accident. Sorae raen
of the Third Minnesota left the camp with teams
to bring in potatoes from the gardens about the
upper agency. They passed so near the Indian
line that the warriors could not be restrained frora
firing. One man was killed and others wounded.
Major Welch, commanding the Third, got his men
into line, and without orders took them forward on
the double-quick and precipitated the fight. Al
though forced to retire from an advanced position,
he held the centre firmly. Lieutenant-Colonel Wil
liam R. Marshall led the companies of the Seventh
into the ravine and cleared it. A detachment of the
Sixth dispersed a party attempting to turn its left.
The battery of Captain Hendricks, advantageously
posted, swept the field generally. After two hours
of desultory firing the Sioux warriors disappeared

220 > MINNESOTA
behind the Yellow Medicine, and the "Battle of
Wood Lake " was over. Only four white soldiers
were killed outright, and thirty-three severely
wounded. The Sioux left sixteen dead on the field,
all of whom were scalped by savages under white
skins. Colonel Sibley, in an order published the
foUowing day, expressed his extreme mortification,
and threatened severe punishment for any repeti
tion of the brutality. Colonel Sibley's advices from
the Indian camps were such as to convince him
that a precipitate march on them might bring on
a slaughter of the white prisoners. To give time for
the friendly element to obtain possession of them he
tarried a day below the Yellow Medicine, and took
two days of easy marching to reach those camps
opposite the mouth of the Chippewa River. His
judgment was fuUy justified. Little Crow returned
from the battle, upbraided his chiefs for cowardice
and stupidity, took his family and a small body of
adherents and departed for the distant northwest.
Other hostile chiefs foUowed his example. There
were others still who had been engaged in the mur
ders and battles who thought it best to go over to
the friendly camp and take their chances of being
treated as prisoners of war. Colonel Sibley had
found a camp of 150 lodges which the friendlies
had fortified against the hostiles, who on their dis
persion had sent over to it the greater number of
their captives; 91 whites and 150 breeds were
turned over to him on the afternoon of September

THE SIOUX WAR 221
26. The total number was presently increased to
269, 107 whites and 162 mixed bloods. A few had
been humanely treated through the interposition
of Christian Indians, but the experiences of many
may be left to the imagination of the reader

CHAPTER XIII
sequel to the INDIAN 'WAR
A -WEEK after the Wood Lake affair the President
appointed Colonel Sibley a brigadier-general. His
confirmation by the Senate was long delayed, but
he exercised the command of that rank from the
date of appointment. Up to the time of leaving
Fort Ridgely for the upper country Colonel Sibley
had been carrying on a state war. On the 6th of
Septeraber Governor Ramsey sent this peremptory
telegram to the President : " These Indian outrages
continue. . . . This is not our war. It is a national
war. Answer me at once. More than five hundred
whites have been murdered." That very day the
Secretary of War ordered Major-General John
Pope to take command of the Department of the
Northwest. That officer had seen service in the In
dian eountry and was at the time not otherwise
employed. His first order to Colonel Sibley was
received September 19, the day of his departure
from Fort Ridgely. It raade no change in the dis
positions of the subordinate coraraander, but urged
him to push forward, and promised all the support
he could control. General Pope, persuaded that
Sibley had some twenty-six hundred Sioux warriors

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 223
in his front, made requisitions for troops and sup
plies on a scale which called out a rebuke frora the
secretary. His demand for mounted troops rather
than infantry was reasonable. His stay in the de
partment was brief, and at its close Brigadier-Gen
eral Sibley was put in command of a distinct dis
trict of Minnesota. That Sibley was thus promoted
and assigned was possibly due to a remonstrance
addressed by Pope to Halleck against the appoint
ment of Senator Henry M. Rice as major-general
to be assigned to the department. It is remarkable
that Sibley, writing to his wife, expressed his pre
ference for Rice, if any stranger was to be placed
over him. It was not till after the close of the cam
paign that the Sixth and Seventh regiments were
mustered into the service of the United States.
The line of forts raaintained by Colonel Flandrau
frora the big bend of the Minnesota southward
effectively protected Sibley's left ; and it restrained
the Winnebagoes from breaking out of their re
serve, if they had any such intention, which was
very doubtful, although so believed at the time. The
right flank of the expedition was not for some time
protected. Here were two dangers. Fort Aber
crombie had been occupied since spring by Com
pany D of the Fifth Minnesota, under comraand of
Captain John Van der Horck. A newspaper clip
ping received on August 20 gave hira warning of
the outbreak of the lower Sioux. He immediately
called in his outpost and the few settlers of the Red

224 MINNESOTA
River valley, proceeded to surround the separate
buildings which formed the post with breastworks,
and placed three howitzers in the salients. On the
last day of the month but one a party of Indians
stampeded a herd of stock which had been sent out
in anticipation of a treaty with the Red Lake and
Pembina Chippeways. On September 3 an Indian
force, considerable in number, appeared about the
post and maintained a desultory fire for some hours.
On the 6th a still larger force made a determined
but vain attack, charging with boldness unusual for
Indians, first one quarter of the inclosure and then
another. The command suffered a loss of two killed
and three wounded in the two days' actions. The
Indians were not driven from the neighborhood till
September 23, when Captain Emil Burger arrived
from below with a relieving force of five hundred
men. The mooted question whether these attacks
at Abercrombie were made by upper Sioux, lower
Sioux, Yanktonnais, or by a mixture of aU these,
has not been conclusively answered. The capture
of this post would have exposed a wide territory
to Indian slaughter and depredation.
A disturbance of the habitual quiet of the Chippe
ways of northern Minnesota gave countenance to a
rumor which spread throughout the state, that those
Indians were about making common cause with
their ancient foes against the white man, equally
hated. On the very day of the Sioux outbreak the
Pillagers seized seven whites, mostly traders, at

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 225
Leech Lake, and the Gull Lake Chippeways drove
some horses and cattle from the agency on the
Crow Wing River. The acts and threats made
against his safety so alarmed the agent, Lucius C.
Walker, that he fled the Indian country for his
horae, and, probably in a state of temporary insan
ity, took his life, by means of a loaded pistol, near
Monticello. Hole-in-the-day, the head chief of the
Chippeways of the Mississippi, called an assemblage
of braves, and a few hundred gathered. A trust
worthy person, the missionary Eraraegabowgh, re
ported that this chief had declared in council that
a league had been made with the Sioux. The
Chippeway braves, however, had no desire to take
the warpath, and dispersed to their homes. These
transactions, reported in the St. Paul newspapers,
naturally excited alarm. Three companies of in
fantry were sent to Fort Ripley, martial law was
declared af that post, and the settlers were notified
to come in for protection. When the legislature as
sembled in extra session on September 9, Governor
Ramsey called their attention to the Chippeway
ruction. Unconcerned about constitutional restric
tions, that body appointed a board of commissioners
to proceed to the Indian country to adjust the dif
ficulties. Although the Chippeways had dispersed
and the excitement had disappeared, the plenipo
tentiaries had the chiefs assembled in council, and
negotiated with them a treaty which was solemnly
signed and sealed. This agreement bound the high

226 MINNESOTA
contracting powers to eternal peace, to an arbitra
tion of all existing differences, and exempted the
Chippeways from payment of damages for the ex
penses they had put the government to by their late
misbehavior. The legislature memorialized the Pre
sident to carry out these provisions. In evidence of
full restoration of peace fifty Chippeway chiefs and
braves came down to St. Paul to offer their services
in punishing the Sioux. It would have given them
great pleasure to take Sioux scalps in so lawful a
manner. Had it been possible to furnish General Sibley
with a sufficient cavalry force, it would have been
feasible for him, after the battle of Wood Lake,
to overtake and impound the greater nuraber of
Indians concerned in their disastrous campaign.
Infantry expeditions sent out to Lac qui Parle, to
Goose Nest Lake, and elsewhere, brought in a few
hundred people. More came in response to a pro
clamation distributed by runners. Bands which had
squandered their plunder and wasted their food
had no other resource. In the course of a few days
nearly two thousand Indians were under guard,
the greater part being women and children. Sorae
five thousand or raore were at large. The disposi
tion of those in hand now occupied the attention
of the authorities. Major-General Pope in a dis
patch of September 28 probably voiced the senti
ment of the great majority of the white people of

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 227
the Northwest. "Make no treaty with the In
dians," he wrote Sibley; "the horrible massacre
and outrages call for punishment beyond huraan
power to infiict. It is my purpose to exterrainate
the Sioux, if I have the power to do so." General
Sibley was too huraane and judicious to give serious
regard to so insane a proposal. He had already
appointed a comraittee of inquiry to ascertain what
Indians under his guard had probably been guilty
of murder and outrage. The Rev. Dr. Riggs, who
held the place of chaplain on the staff of Sibley,
gave such valuable assistance that Heard, the con
teraporary historian, declares him to have been a
virtual grand jury. Sixteen Indians were at once
picked out by the sifting coramittee and duly
arraigned before a military comraission of five
officers. Additional arrests were raade from day to
day, and by October 7 General Sibley was able to
report that he had twenty under sentence of death,
and that he should probably approve the sentences
and hang the villains, despite some doubt as to the
extent of his powers and the formal correctness of
the trials. This moderate number of convictions
evidently did not satisfy the superior authority,
which called for arrests and trials on a greater
scale. On the night of October 11 Sibley placed
81 warriors in irons at Camp Release and ordered
a similar " purging " at Yellow Medicine, where
he had sent 1250 of his prisoners to subsist on the
corn and potatoes of the Indian gardens. By a

228 MINNESOTA
"piece of justifiable strategy" 236 men were
" fixed " in the same way. The military commis
sion now had abundance of material and applied
themselves diligently to duty. They completed it on
November 5, having tried 425 prisoners, of whom
they found 321 guilty and sentenced 303 of them
to death. The proceedings of the military commis
sion, approved by General Sibley, were forwarded
to the departraent comraander. That officer in
forraed Governor Ramsey with unconcealed satis
faction that the sentences would all be executed
unless forbidden by the President. The trials com
pleted. General Sibley sent the principal body of
his Indian prisoners, 1648 in number, under guard
to Fort Snelling. The interpreter accompanying
the column relates that as it passed through Hen
derson the prisoners were assaulted with arms
and missiles. One infant died frora its injuries
and was "buried" Indian fashion in the crotch
of a roadside tree. On November 9 the troops
with the convicted prisoners were marched to
South Bend, a western suburb of Mankato. As
the column was passing through New Ulm a crowd
of exasperated citizens of both sexes showered
brickbats and other missiles on the prisoners in
such profusion that a. bayonet charge was necessary
to restrain thera. Fifteen or twenty men were ar
rested, but after a march of twelve miles were
reprimanded and allowed to take a walk to their
homes. General Sibley turned over the coramand

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 229
to Colonel Miller of the Seventh Infantry and pro
ceeded to St. Paul, to take up his duty as district
commander. The action of the military commission met with
general approval throughout the state. Citizens of
St. Paul in public meeting demanded that the gov
ernment authorities, as the chosen instruments of
divine vengeance, should so execute their duty that
the friends and relatives of the victims should not
be compelled to take vengeance into their own
hands. General Pope advised President Lincoln
that unless all the executions were made, an indis
criminate massacre of aU the Indian prisoners,
innocent and guilty, would take place. Governor
Ramsey also expressed the same opinion to the
President. The Minnesota delegation in Congress,
Senator Rice not signing, protested against the
convicts being considered prisoners of war, and
declared that the outraged citizens of Minnesota
would dispose of the wretches without law, if they
should not be executed according to law. On the
other hand, there went to the President appeals
and protests against a horrible wholesale execution,
from merabers of the Friends Society and various
humanitarian organizations. So far as known there
was but one public man in Minnesota whose judg
ment was not subjugated by the passion of the hour.
He was Henry Benjamin Whipple, bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, who three years be-

230 MINNESOTA
fore the Sioux outbreak had come to the' state.
Immediately after his arrival his attention was
called to the red men of his diocese, and it was
not long before he had fathomed the iniquities of
the traditional Indian system. In March, 1862,
he addressed an open letter to President Lincoln,
summarizing those iniquities, and insisting on giv
ing the Indian a government of law, administered
by agents chosen for fitness and not for political
service. A calm and clear statement of the policy
and the train of events which had led to the out
break of the Sioux, published in the St. Paul news
papers, brought about the bishop a whirlwind of
denunciation which would have taken an ordinary
man off his feet. Bishop Whipple never budged
an inch. His personal representations to the Pre
sident no doubt had their effect in the action which
followed. On the day when General Pope was
hopefully awaiting the President's permission to
execute the whole batch of the condemned, he re
ceived a telegraphic order from Lincoln to send
hira the record of the trials. This the President
put into the hands of two men on whom he relied.
They reported that forty of the convicts only had
comraitted murders of unarmed citizens. Of this
number, two only were guilty of outrages on women.
On Deceraber 6, 1862, President Lincoln wrote out
and signed with his own hand his order for the
execution of thirty-eight, directing the remainder
to be safely held, subject to further orders. One

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 231
of the forty had been allowed a commutation to
ten years' iraprisonraent, another a reprieve. The
condemned were separated from their comrades
and closely confined in irons in a stone building
on the raain street of Mankato. All but two were
baptized, thirty-two by the Catholic father Ravoux.
On December 26, 1862, the execution took place in
presence of a great crowd. Some years after, the
Rev. Mr. Riggs publicly stated that mistakes were
made in the separation of the condemned from the
body of convicts, 'but not intentionally.' The
bodies were buried, but not to stay underground.
Many, if not all, were distributed among members
of the raedical profession, to be used in the cause
of science. The excitement of the people soon
abated, and the opinion at length prevailed that
the crimes of the Indians had been sufficiently
atoned. Some of the survivors might have pre
ferred the fate of those who suffered at Mankato.
The announcement that the War Department
would withdraw some of the Minnesota regiments
after the close of Sibley's campaign met with such
loud and repeated protests that the order, if issued,
was revoked. The three companies of the Fifth,
however, joined their regiment in the South at the
close of the year, and the Third followed in Janu
ary, 1863. The remaining infantry regiments. Sev
enth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and the regiment of
twelve companies of Mounted Rangers raised in
the faU of 1862, were so disposed as to form a sure

232 MINNESOTA
cordon of defense against possible raids by hostile
Indians on the settlements.
When Congress assembled in Deceraber, 1862,
there was little opposition to drastic propositions
regarding the Sioux Indians. Acts were passed for
abrogating aU treaties, forfeiting all lands, annull
ing aU annuities ; for the iraraediate relief of citi
zens of Minnesota from Indian ravages to be paid
out of moneys of the Sioux ; for reimbursing Min
nesota for the costs of the campaign against the
Sioux up to the time (Septeraber 5) when the War
Departraent assumed charge ; for the removal from
Minnesota of all the Winnebagoes and Sioux; and
for the survey and sale of their reservations. All
these provisions were rigorously executed. The
state's Indian war expenses were ascertained to
be $250,507.06, and that sum was allowed in a
settlement of accounts. The commissioners ap
pointed to award relief and damages reported that
out of $200,000 allowed for immediate relief they
had paid $184,392 to 1380 claimants. As damages
they awarded $1,170,374 to 2635 claimants. Their
awards were liberal, and attorneys for beneficiaries
were well compensated.
The removal of the Indians from Minnesota be
gan in April, 1863, with the transportation of the
convicts to Fort McClellan in East Davenport,
Iowa. They had been kept under guard at South
Bend during the winter, where a remarkable work
of grace took place among them under the minis-

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 233
tration of the veteran missionary Williamson and
liis devoted sister " Aunt Jane." On February 1,
1863, three hundred were baptized by that evan
gelist aided by the Rev. Gideon H. Pond. The
conduct of these convicts in prison at Davenport
was in all respects praiseworthy. They were or
derly, and for Indians industrious, and took much
corafort in their religious meetings. Dr. Williamson
remained with thera two years. In 1864 President
Lincoln pardoned seventy-five and sent them west
to their people. Two years later the two hun
dred and forty-seven survivors were liberated. One
third of the whole number comraitted died in
prison. The uncondemned Sioux prisoners raarched to
Fort Snelling in November, 1862, were kept in a
guarded camp till May, when they were transported
to a chosen reservation on Crow Creek on the Mis
souri, some sixty miles below Pierre. The land was
so barren and the seasons so unfavorable that the
government was obliged to feed them for three
years, when they were moved to the Niobrara re
servation in Nebraska, where they have remained.
A small remnant of some twenty-five families of
friendlies, many of them Christians, were suffered
to reraain in Minnesota, because they could not
safely live among the heathen people. A small
donation of $7500 was made to them by Congress
in 1865, the distribution being intrusted to General
Sibley and Bishop Whipple. A handful stiU sur-

234 MINNESOTA
vive. The Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioui", who had
removed themselves from Minnesota after the bat
tle of Wood Lake, had no fixed home till 1867,
when Congress settled them on two reservations
in Dakota Territory : one west of and adjoining
Lake Traverse, the other around Devil's Lake.
As for the Sioux who had escaped from Sibley
after Wood Lake, and others living on the Mis
souri regarded as dangerous, there was no other
thought than that they must be foUowed, and, if
not exterminated, so punished and scattered that
they could never again lift a finger against their
beneficent guardian, the white man. General Pope
at Milwaukee still commanding the department
of the Northwest, early in the winter of 1863 de
vised a plan for a campaign which was to have
such results. Two columns were to penetrate the
Indian country between the Minnesota line and
the Missouri : one, of cavalry, to move from Fort
Randall directly up the Missouri ; the other, from
the upper Minnesota, under the coramand of Brig
adier-General Sibley; both to move so soon as
the buffalo grass should be high enough for pas
ture. Sibley's expedition rendezvoused at Camp
Pope in the angle of the Minnesota and Redwood
rivers. He had 3200 infantry, including the Sixth,
Seventh, and Tenth Minnesota, the Minnesota
Mounted Rangers 500 strong, 120 artillerymen,
170 scouts headed by Major Joseph R. Brown ; in

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 235
all somJ^4200 men. Leaving Camp Pope June 16,
the expedition marched up the Minnesota to and
past Big Stone Lake, and then struck across to the
valley of the Cheyenne, which it followed to within
two or three days' march of Devil's Lake. Here
Sibley got word of a body of Indians off to his left.
Leaving one third of his force in a fortified camp,
he turned to the southwest, crossed the Jaraes
River, and in Burleigh County, North Dakota, on
July 24, came upon a body of Indians, perhaps
two thousand in nuraber.
A colloquy between outposts was taking place,
to which Dr. Josiah S. Weiser, surgeon of the
First Mounted Rangers, rode up. A young savage,
after a show of friendship, treacherously shot him
dead. This was the signal for attack. The Sioux,
not being on the warpath, were not prepared for
battle. Their warriors raade the best rear-guard
defense they could, to gain time for their women
and children to escape. The pursuit by the cavalry
lasted till nearly dark. A great quantity of buffalo
skins, dried meat and tallow, and camp furniture
was gathered and burned. In this " Battle of Big
Mound" three of Sibley's men were wounded.
Of the eighty Sioux killed and wounded, twenty-
one were scalped. Two days later a similar engage
ment, called the " Battle of Dead Buffalo Lake,"
took place, with a similar result. The nine Indians
killed were scalped, to the disgust of the com
mander. On July 28 still another affair of the same

236 MINNESOTA
character occurred, in whieh the Indiaift made a
more spirited but unsuccessful resistance to gain
time for their people to set themselves across the
Missouri, near the banks of which the fight was
•going on. They lost ten killed, the whites none.
The escape of the Sioux beyond the Missouri was
due to the failure of the column sent up that river to
cooperate in their capture. General Alfred Sully's
cavalry did not arrive, and having no tidings of
it, Sibley began his homeward march on August 3.
The expedition returned to Fort Snelling on Sep
tember 13, having marched 1039| miles. On the
outward journey the commander suffered a severe
injury from the fall of his horse, and, far worse,
received news of the death of two young chil
dren. His diary reflects his deep and natural
sorrow. The movement of General Sully resulted in over
taking the Sioux who had recrossed the Missouri
and were hunting p Dickey County, North Da
kota. His attack upon thera at W^hite Stone Hill,
resulting in considerable slaughter and destruction
of immense booty, cannot be here related. The
results of the operation of 1863 against the Sioux
were negative. Nor were those of the following
year much more effective. In this campaign Gen
eral Sully led an expedition from Fort Rice on the
Missouri to Fort Union on the Yellowstone, the
whole march covering 1625 miles. His column in
cluded a Minnesota brigade made up of six com-

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 237
panies of the Eighth mounted on Indian ponies,
the Second Minnesota cavalry, a new regiment
recruited to take the place of the First Mounted
Rangers, two sections of the Third Minnesota Bat
tery of Light Artillery, and a company of scouts.
Brackett's battalion of three companies of Minne
sota cavalry was attached to another brigade. On
July 28 the considerable battle of KiUdeer Moun
tain on the Little Missouri River took place. Count
less herds of buffalo were met with on this march.
As long as these survived, and the Indians could
supply themselves with horses and amraunition,
no white man's army could surround and destroy
them. To disabuse the reader of the possible impression
that the people of Minnesota were more frightened
than they had reason to be, he is asked to recur to
the season of 1863. To guard the frontier frora at
tacks of raarauding parties of Indians, General Sib
ley left in the state the Eighth Infantry, which had
already been distributed in a line of posts to cover
the settlements. Despite its vigilant patrols, parties
of savages broke through at various points. In April
there were three murders in Watonwan County,
household goods and provisions were seized, and
cattle and horses run off. In June a squad of Com
pany A of the Eighth chased a horse-stealing gang
out of Meeker County, one of whom shot Captain
John S. Cody, causing instant death. In the course
of the summer the Eighth Minnesota lost more men

238 MINNESOTA V
killed and wounded than Sibley's troops in all his
battles. On the 29th of June the most atrocious
murder of the season was comraitted within thirty
miles of Minneapolis, near Watertown, Carver
County. Amos Dustin, traveling by wagon with
his family, was waylaid, and he and his aged mo
ther instantly shot to death by arrows. His wife
and one child were fearfully wounded. A girl of
six, hiding under a seat, was not discovered. Her
clothing was soaked with her father's blood. To aid
the troops in protecting life and property. Governor
Swift organized a company of volunteer scouts and
put them under the command of Captain James
Sturgis of Wright County. In addition to their
proraised pay, the sum of one hundred dollars was
offered to any scout bringing in a Sioux scalp. This
command scouted the big woods from Sauk Center
to the Minnesota River so effectively that people
who had abandoned their homes and farms took
heart and ventured back.
On the 3d of July, 1863, a citizen of Hutchinson,
Nathan Sampson, was hunting some five miles to
the north of that village, accompanied by his son
Chauncey. Espying an Indian picking berries, he
fired. Though wounded, the Indian returned the
fire, and hit Mr. Sampson in the left shoulder.
A shot frora the young man's rifle proved fatal to
the savage. That Indian was believed to be Little
Crow, and a certain deformity of the wrists from
a gunshot in early life was probably sufficient evi-

SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR 239
dence of his identity. A half-starved Indian boy
was picked up by a detachment of Sibley's army in
North Dakota on July 28, who gave his name as
Wo-i-non-pa ; he said that he was a son of Little
Crow, and that he was with his father when he was
killed. The errand of the chief, according to the
boy, was to capture horses enough to mount the
sraall reranant of his warriors and ride away to
Canada. The Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth regiments were
dispatched to the South in the fall of 1863 ; the
Sixth and Eighth being held till the following sea
son to keep watch and ward against possible and
much-feared savage forays.

CHAPTER XIV
honors of war
The reader who desires to follow the marches and
battles of the Minnesota regiments and battalions
is advised to resort to the two large octavos pub
lished by the state in 1891. It would, however, be
unjust to him and to Minnesota not to give sorae
account, even in a compend of her history, of cer
tain splendid passages in the careers of some of
them favored above others in opportunity.
Marching with Gibbon's Division of the Second
(Hancock's) Army Corps, the First Minnesota ar
rived on the field of Gettysburg early in the morn
ing of July 2, 1863, and was placed in reserve near
general headquarters. Company L (sharpshooters)
was sent to support a battery and did not rejoin
till after the battle. In the afternoon a staff officer
came and led the coramand off to the south, along
the well-known crest on which Sickles's men had
formed and from which they had made their ill-
advised advance. On a salient of the ridge near
the middle of Sickles's original formation the regi
ment was placed in support of a regular battery.
Company F was sent out to skirmish toward the
left front, and Corapany C was absent on provost

HONORS OF WAR 241
guard duty. Eight corapanies were in line, with
two hundred and sixty-two officers and raen. From
their position they watched at leisure the vain
struggles of Sickles's brigades, exposed to enfilad
ing fires. Near sundown the shattered battalions
straggled to the rear, passing through the ranks
of the Minnesota regiment. They were followed
by Anderson's division of A. P. Hill's Confederate
corps, moving with rapid pace to what seemed cer
tain victory. Sickles was severely wounded and
Hancock had command.
He had ordered reserve troops to man the unde
fended crest, but they did not arrive. The Confed
erate line was striding on, and in ten minutes
would swarm over the ridge. It was not more than
four hundred yards away when Hancock espied the
little bunch of men in blue near the battery.
Riding up to Colonel William Colville at his post
near the centre, he asked, "What regiment is
this?" "The First Minnesota," was the reply.
" Charge those lines," ordered the corps com
mander, pointing to the rebel front. Without delay
ColviUe put his line in motion, down the slope of
an old pasture field at the bottom of which was a
dried up ditch or "run." It moved at the double-
quick till near the foot of the slope, when Colville
ordered, " Charge bayonets ! " On a full run, the
Minnesota men struck the Confederates as they
were reforming on the hither side of the run. The
shock halted them and the fire poured in gave them

242 MINNESOTA
good reason for no further acquaintance with the
men in blue. They sought cover behind an accom
modating swell of land and retired from the field.
Brigadier-General Wilcox of the Confederate army
in his report says : " A line of infantry descended
the slope in our front at double-quick. Without
support my men were withdrawn to prevent their
entire destruction or capture."
Of the men who joined in that fatal but neces
sary charge but forty-seven answered to roll-call at
retreat ; two hundred and fifteen lay dead, dying,
or wounded. A high authority declares this to be
the heaviest loss known in the records of raodern
war. But that charge saved Ceraetery Ridge, and
in all probability the Gettysburg field.
" The Second Minnesota Veteran Volunteer In
fantry occupied this position, Sunday, Septeraber
26, 1863, from 2:30 p. m. to 7:30 p. M." Such is
the inscription on the monument of bronze and
granite erected at the state's expense on the " Snod
grass ridge " in the National Park at Chickamauga,
Tennessee. It marks the spot occupied by that regi
ment as part of the force with which Thoraas,
"The Rock of Chickamauga," held at bay Long-
street's elated divisions, while Rosecrans's army,
broken and shattered, was in disorderly retreat on
Chattanooga. • The Second lost 35 killed and 113
wounded out of a total for duty of 384 ; not a
single man was missing.
Under a new commander the Union armies con-

HONORS OF WAR 243
centrated at Chattanooga were soon to recover the
ground and prestige lost by his brave but unfortu
nate predecessor. Grant, sending Hooker to occupy
Lookout Mountain on his right and Sherman to
the left to double up Bragg's extended line, placed
the army of the Cumberland in his centre under
Thomas. A rumor spread up and down the lines of
that army that it was merely paraded to amuse the
enemy while Hooker and Sherman should show
it how to fight. At three o'clock in the afternoon
of November 24 the centre moved forward to the
base of Missionary Ridge. After a short pause here
the whole Une, as it is told, without orders, broke
out and swarmed up the hillside and over the ene
my's intrenchments in the face of a galling fire
of artillery and musketry.
The Second Minnesota, led by Lieutenant-Colo
nel (afterwards Brigadier-General) J. W. Bishop,
deployed as skirmishers, led its brigade to the foot
of the ridge, where it joined in the scramble for
the crest. It lost eight raen killed and thirty-one
wounded. Six out of seven raembers of the color
guard fell.
The Third Minnesota, after participating in the
" Arkansas Expedition " which resulted in the oc
cupation of Little Rock, remained thereabout till
the close of its term. Among the numerous affairs
in whieh it was engaged was one which is rightly
dignified as " the battle of Fitzhugh's woods." The
commander, Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-Gen-

244 MINNESOTA
eral) C. C. Andrews here displayed a tactical
ability worthy of a wider field. The regiment suf
fered greatly from malarial disease.
It was not the fortune of the Fourth Minnesota to
be decimated in any one engagement. Its heaviest
loss, thirteen killed and thirty-one wounded, was in
its participation in the heroic defense of the post
at Altoona, Georgia, when a force numbering less
than two thousand stood off repeated charges of a
Confederate division of seven thousand. Several
raen of the Fourth whose term of enlistment had
expired shared in the battle, and of them some were
numbered with the dead.
The gallant behavior of the men of the Fifth
Minnesota and Colonel Hubbard's instant percep
tion of the proper line of action at Corinth on Oc
tober 4, 1862, have already been related. It was the
fortune of this command, together with the Seventh,
Ninth, and Tenth Minnesota Infantry regiments,
to share in the glory of the battle which destroyed
the Confederate power in the Mississippi vaUey.
Thomas, commanding at Nashville, Tennessee,
on December 15, 1863, delivered a blow on Hood's
left wing which caused that commander to retire
to a position on a range of hills two miles to the
south, admirably chosen, and capable of effective
intrenchment. The attempt made soon after noon
of the 16th to crush the right of Hood's army
on Overton Hill had no result but the loss of many
brave men. McArthur's division was then ordered

HONORS OF WAR 245
to assault the Confederate left, strongly posted be
hind a breastwork revetted by a stone wall. The
first brigade was put iu motion as if to make the
principal charge. The Minnesota regiments were
in the front line of the second and third brigades,
comraanded respectively by Hubbard and Marshall.
Observing the raovement, these commanders at once
ordered their brigades forward, and away they went
over a muddy cornfield, up a slope covered with
boulders and obstructed by stone walls, ditches,
and rail fences. Without halt or interruption, under
a heavy front and cross fire, the lines pressed on,
and stormed over the enemy's intrenchment, captur
ing the defenders, with guns and colors. A general
charge of the whole line now put the entire Con
federate army to rout and ended the war in the
West. The Minnesota regiments suffered a loss of three
hundred in the charge. Jennison, lieutenant-colonel
commanding the Tenth, received a severe wound, as
he led his battalion over the works. Hubbard had
three horses shot under him, and was wounded.
The colors of the Fifth were three times shot down.
Captain Sheehan (hero of Fort Ridgely) picked
them up and saw them planted on the stone wall.
Marshall and Hubbard were both brevetted as
brigadiers, and both afterwards became governors
of Minnesota.
The Sixth Minnesota, occupied in the Indian
war, was not sent south tUl July, 1864, when it took

246 MINNESOTA
station at Helena, Arkansas. Here malarial poison,
far more fatal than the gun-fire of the enemy,
attacked officers and men. During the four and one
half months of its service here, six hundred men of
this regiment were sent to the Northem hospitals.
On August 7 there were but seven officers and one
hundred and seventy-eight men for duty. By the
time the sick had recovered, the war was substan
tially over. But their division commander at the
capture of Fort Blakely, AprU 9, 1865, thanked in
orders the brave officers and men for their gallantry
in the daring charge to which the faU of the fort
was due.
The First Minnesota was the only one which
served its whole term east of the AUeghanies. The
Fourth and Eighth reached salt water in the last
months of the war. All the other Minnesota troops
remained in the West.
It was not easy for Minnesota to respond to the
calls of the nation for recruits in the last years
of the war. Some 2700 volunteers were sent to fill
the ranks of the old regiments, but these were not
enough. The draft enforced in May and September,
1864, was, as elsewhere, a farce: 14,274 names
were listed; the exemptions left 2768 liable for
service ; 2497 failed to report, and two deserted.
The remaining nuraber of 269, increased by 282
substitutes, in all 551, were mustered into service.
There remained the resource of raising additional
regiments not likely to be exposed in deadly battle.

HONORS OF WAR 247
By promises of coramissions to gentlemen who should
recruit the companies, two strong regiments were
raised : the Eleventh Infantry, 1000 strong, and
the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery, 1760 officers
and men. These comraands were sent to Tennessee
late in 1864, where they relieved veteran troops for
active service.
By the month of September, 1865, all the Min
nesota troops had been mustered out except one
battery and three cavalry battalions engaged on the
Indian frontier. The whole number of raen fur
nished by Minnesota was 22,016.' Only the people
who lived through that war period can fully appre
ciate the sacrifices and privations undergone.
The two conflicts, — the Civil War and the In
dian war, — occupying the minds of the people of
Minnesota for four years, naturally overshadowed
all other interests. The Democratio party long in
control of her public affairs, depleted by the de
sertion of thousands of young men to the ranks
of the more obtrusively patriotic Republican or
ganization, was left so reduced in numbers as to be
powerless in state and national politics. The re
election of Governor Ramsey in the fall of 1861
was a foregone conclusion. If the Republicans were
relieved from competition with a powerful opposi
tion they found plenty of it between the factions
which arose in their own camp. At the first, how
ever, they were none too sure of carrying a suffi-

248 MINNESOTA
cient number of election precincts and therefore felt
justified in resorting to a procedure never antici
pated by the framers of the state constitution. The
legislature in the special session of September,
1862, by a statute duly approved, provided against
the disfranchisement of those citizens who at the
time of election should be absent in the military
service. The plan adopted was that of sending com
missioners to the camps to open polls and receive
the ballots of soldiers who were, or claimed to be,
qualified electors. These ballots they sealed up
and transmitted by mail to the judges of election
at the respective residences of the absentee voters.
The scheme ¦was carried out with the expected re
sult of sufficient Republican majorities. William
Windom was easily reelected representative in the
first congressional district, and Ignatius Donnelly,
the lieutenant-governor, got his first election in the
second. The state was not yet entitled to more thau
two representatives. Much greater interest, how
ever, centred in the election of a legislature for
1863, which would have before it the choice of a
United States senator to succeed Henry M. Rice,
whose term was to expire. Governor Ramsey was
the logical candidate, and he did not affect indif
ference to the promotion. The other principal aspi
rant was Cyrus Aidrich of Minneapolis, who had
been representing the second district in Congress
in a very acceptable manner. Mr. Aldrich's legis
lative experience in Minnesota and another state

HONORS OF WAR 249
warranted his friends in promoting his candidacy.
These formed a body which in a later day would
have been designated as " stalwart " Republicans ;
they were dissatisfied with the alleged inertia of
Lincoln's administration, and desired the libera
tion of the Southern slaves and the prosecution of
the war with greater energy. Mr. Ramsey, by his
nature conservative, stood by the adrainistration.
The first trial of strength came off in the Repub
lican legislative caucus held immediately after
organization, early in January, 1863. The nuraber
of votes was forty-six, and twenty-four votes were
necessary to the choice. On the first baUoting Mr.
Ramsey received but nineteen votes, and then
twenty votes for nineteen successive ballotings.
Fortunately " the field " was rigidly divided. On
the twenty-fourth baUoting, twenty-three votes were
cast for Ramsey, and the caucus adjourned with
little expectation of further changes. A final trial,
however, gave twenty-six votes and assured the elec
tion of Governor Ramsey by the houses in joint
convention on January 14.
Although his senatorial term began March 4, 1863,
Governor Ramsey remained in office till July, when
he retired to attend an extra session (of the Senate).
Lieutenant-Governor Donnelly had resigned at the
close of the legislative session of 1863, and the state
senate had elected as their president pro tempore,
the Hon. Henry A. Swift of St. Peter. Under con
stitutional provision Mr. Swift became lieutenant-

250 MINNESOTA
governor in roora of Mr. DonneUy, and on July 10
(1863) governor, in the place of Mr. Ramsey.
Governor Swift held the office for the remaining
six months of Ramsey's term, making no effort to
succeed hiraself. Conteraporaries speak of him as
a man of singularly araiable character, prefer
ring a quiet life among his neighbors to the excite
ments of the capital. He was succeeded iu office by
General Stephen Miller, a native of Pennsylvania,
who came to the state in 1858 and made his horae
in St. Cloud. He had been an ardent supporter of
Mr. Ramsey, who was not indifferent to his claims
upon him. U^on the organization of the First Min
nesota Infantry Mr. Miller received the appoint
ment of lieutenant-colonel. He devoted himself
with such fidelity to military studies and exercises
that he soon became sufficiently expert, and at Bull
Run, Fair Oaks, and other engagements proved
beyond question his personal courage. Such was
his modesty, however, that when the colonelcy of
the First became vacant, a first, second, and even
third time he preferred to have it filled by experi
enced regular officers. After the Seventh Regi
ment was formed Governor Ramsey was pleased
to make him its colonel. When General Sibley
in the late fall of 1862 left the front to assurae
coramand of his district he devolved imraediate
command on Colonel Miller. During the general's
absence in the campaign to the Missouri in 1863
Colonel MiUer remained at St. Paul in command

HONORS OP WAR 261
of the district. Nominated and elected as governor
in the fall of that year and honored with the brevet
rank of brigadier-general. Colonel MiUer resigned
to take up his civil duties. In the first year of his
service he was chiefly employed in filling up the
state's quota in the arraies of the Union ; and he
was so much grieved and disgusted with the be
havior of those drafted men who did not report for
duty that he seriously recommended that the con
stitution be so amended as to visit any such " base
and cowardly conduct " in the future with disfran
chisement and confiscation.
While the governorship of Minnesota has frora
the beginning been regarded as a most honorable
position, the chief prize to be won in her political
battles has been the United States senatorship.
Around this the successive contests have been hot
and fierce. One of these occurred in the winter of
1865. Senator Morton A. Wilkinson had cut no
inconsiderable figure at the seat of government,
and had so won the confidence of President Lincoln
that he wrote an open letter recommending a re
election. Mr. Wilkinson, however, had not retained
to a sufficient degree the allegiance of Republican
leaders at home. It was alleged that he had allowed
his colleague. Senator Rice, to obtain an undue
share of good things. Whether true or not, this
was an unpardonable offense, and Mr. Wilkinson's
friends found themselves, after many ballotings in
caucus, in a hopeless minority. In the field against

252 MINNESOTA
him was Mr. Rice, and there is a tradition that the
nomination might have fallen to him had he been
willing to exchange the colors of War Democrat
for those of Republican. He had been loyal and
ardent in support of the Union cause.
As the result of repeated ballotings, and a cora
bination difficult of analysis, the noraination fell
to Daniel A. Norton of Winona, who had gained
some distinction as a member of the state senate.
When President Andrew Johnson went over to the
opposition fold, Mr. Norton followed him. His
career was necessarily obscure, and he died in office
in 1870.
In spite of the absence of a large proportion of
her men of working age and capacity in the armies ;
in spite of the Indian ravages of 1862 and the fears
of others which happily did not come; in spite of
the tardy extension of railroads, the war period was
one of advance for Minnesota. Her population of
172,023 in 1860 arose, according to the state cen
sus of 1865, to 250,099, an increase of forty-five
per cent. The accessions were greatest in the river
counties, and next in those lying immediately be
yond. High prices for farm produce in paper
money enabled the farraers to wipe out their debts
and improve their homes.
The homestead act of 1862 contributed not a
little to the extension of settlements in the state.
The original bill for that act, passed in 1860 after
bitter opposition from Southern senators and repre-

HONORS OF WAR 253
sentatives, had been vetoed by President Buchanan
on the ground that the government had no power
under the constitution to give away property of the
people held by it in trust. Cyrus Aidrich, one of
Minnesota's raembers, introduced and actively sup
ported the later bill, which became law on February
28, 1862, and took effect January 8, 1863. In the
three years following, 9529 homestead entries were
made in Minnesota, thirty-six per cent, of the whole
number. There can be no question that the opera
tion of the homestead act was beneficial so long as
confined to arable lands. The use made of its pro
visions in later years to obtain possession of timber
and mineral lands by processes moraUy, if not tech
nically, criminal, depriving the nation and states of
untold millions of value, gives room for regret that
President Buchanan's judgment had not governed
his successor.

CHAPTER XV
REVIVAL
It was to be expected that, upon the anticipated
retirement of Governor Miller, the raost prominent
among the founders of the Republican party in
Minnesota, General William R. Marshall, who
had added a highly honorable military career to his
civil record, would be called to succeed. And he
was ; but not without opposition from other gentle
men who had also distinguished themselves in both
civil and railitary duties. It took twenty-two ballot
ings in the Republican convention to secure his
noraination. At the polls he met that veteran of
Democracy, the Hon. Henry M. Rice, whose popu
larity, especially among " old Territorians," was so
great as to reduce his majority to less than 3500 in
a total of 31,000 votes. He took office in January,
1866, and so commended himself by a judicious
practical administration that his reelection in the
fall of the following year was but formally con
tested. Mr. Rice closed his political career with
the campaign of 1865, which he survived for a
quarter of a century.
Marshall's double term was a period of recovery
and repair after the exhaustion of the wars ; and

REVIVAL 255
it was something more. Neither the people severally
nor the state were heavily burdened with debt, and
there was work for all and good prices for produce.
Railroad building was continued on a scale of a few
more than one hundred miles a year. In 1867 the
line now known as the Iowa and Minnesota Divi
sion of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail
road, begun at both ends, was corapleted, and trains
were put on frora the Falls of St. Anthony to
Prairie du Chien, whence rail connection eastward
already existed. Minnesota was now in the great
world all the year round. No important terminals
were reached by additions to other lines, although
seven hundred and sixty-six miles had been con
structed by the close of the decade.
The development of the common schools of Min
nesota was tardy. The act of 1851, providing for
a state system, created the office of superintendent
of public instruction, but attached only a nominal
salary to it. Four persons were appointed in as
many years, whose duties seera to have been con
fined to making formal annual reports. From 1856
to 1860 the office was virtually, if not technically,
vacant. The legislature of 1860 devolved the duties
upon the titular chancellor of the university, the
Rev. Edward Duffield Neill, who held it till AprU
29, 1861, when he resigned to take the chaplaincy
of the First Minnesota Infantry, leaving the office
to a competitor for that position. In the legislative
session of 1862 the school laws were revised and

256 MINNESOTA
the secretary of state was made ex-officio state su
perintendent. This absurd arrangement continued
for five years, against the advice of the two gentle
men who held the double office.
Governor Marshall informed the legislature of
1867 that the children of school age in the state
were over a hundred thousand, and that the school
fund had grown to nearly a raillion and a half.
Upon his earnest recoraraendation the office of state
superintendent was reestablished, with a salary
more than nominal, but inadequate. He appointed
Mark H. Dunnell of Owatonna, a young lawyer
who had been successful as a teacher in his native
state of Maine.
Mr. Dunnell threw himself into his duties with
great enthusiasm and industry. He gathered the
teachers into " institutes " for pedagogical instruc
tion and raised the standard of qualification for
certificates. A state teachers' association was or
ganized to stimulate pride in the teaching profes
sion and provide for interchange of ideas and ex
periences. It is notable that Mr. DunneU as late
as 1869 thought it necessary to argue in behalf of
a public school system free from religious dogma
or discipline. The organization of high schools in
the leading towns had already discouraged the
proprietors of numerous denominational acaderaies
and seminaries desirous of holding the secondary
field. In 1858 a bill had been worked through the first

REVIVAL 257
state legislature to establish three normal schools,
one at Winona as soon as practicable after pas
sage, the others at times to be later determined.
This bill was fathered by Dr. John W. Ford of
Winona, an enthusiast in the cause of professional
education for teachers. So little was known in the
longitude of Minnesota of what a " normal school "
might be, that it is not strange that the friends of
the bill got more credit in the newspapers and
among the people for securing a state institution
for each of three towns than for zeal in the cause
of education. Six years passed before a beginning
was made in the first state normal school at Winona,
under the charge of WiUiam F. Phelps, an Oswego
graduate. No man less confident of the righteous
ness of his cause, nor less willing to fight a bitter
opposition, could have built up a school for teach
ers which has served as model for many others in
Minnesota and other states. The second state nor
mal school was opened in Mankato in 1868 ; the
third in St. Cloud in the next year.
The " wing and extension " of the great building
planned for the territorial regents of the university
in 1856, and built in that year and the next, stood
empty for ten years, except that at different times
private teachers were allowed to hold their classes
in some of the rooms. The legislature of 1858 au
thorized the regents to borrow $40,000 and issue
ten per cent, bonds in evidence of debt. These se
curities were negotiated in New York after great

268 MINNESOTA
effort and at a ruinous discount. The claim was
later made that they could not have been disposed
of at all had they not been improperly represented
to be virtuaUy bonds of the state. The proceeds
released the regents from obligations which they
had personally assumed and satisfied a portion of
the creditors.
The Republican legislature of 1860 thought it
tirae to oust the " old Democratic board " and in
stall a new administration. The new " state board,"
consisting of three members ex-officiis and five ap
pointed, had nothing to report to the next session
but a debt of $93,500, including $8000 of over
due interest. Their recoraraendation was that the
land grant be turned over to the creditors, the
campus and building being retained. An act of
Congress of March 2, 1861, donating to the state
the university lands " reserved " for the territorial
university, rendered such action feasible.
Governor Rarasey could make no other sugges
tion to the legislature of 1862, and that body con
ferred the desired authority. In 1862 wild lands
were a drug in the market. " Pine " would not go
at four dollars an acre. The regents reported to
the legislature of 1863 that the creditors were not
disposed to accept " equitable terms." That legis
lature did not formally dissolve the corporation,
but ordered the regents to turn over to the state
auditor, as state land commissioner, all the lands,
buildings, and appurtenances. This was accord-

REVIVAL 269
ingly done, and the University of Minnesota ex
isted only in supposition.
After the midsummer of 1863 matters were
looking up in Minnesota. The victories of Vicks
burg and Gettysburg gave hope of an early return
of peace. Money was plentiful and prices were
rising. Notwithstanding the homestead law, there
was a market for well-situated public land. John
S. PiUsbury of St. Anthony had been appointed
to a vacancy in the board of regents in November
of that year, and immediately applied his remark
able business talent to the university affairs. His
conclusions were embodied in a bill introduced
into the state senate of 1864, of which he was a
member. Enacted into law March 4, the bill cre
ated a special board of three regents: John S.
Pillsbury, Orlando C. Merriman, a lawyer of St.
Anthony, and John Nicols, a merchant of St. Paul,
also a state senator. This board was authorized to
sell land to the amount of twelve thousand acres
and use the proceeds in "extricating" the institu
tion. Taking advantage of a time of general liqui
dation and scaling down, they bought in claims of
many creditors at thirty-three per cent, of their
face. The bondholders, satisfied at length that they
had no recourse upon the state, moderated their
demands and consented to "equitable terms" of
adjustment. In this way a " great state " redeemed
the bonds it had authorized by law, and canceled
a body of debts pronounced by the regents of 1860
to be " honestly due."

260 MINNESOTA
It took two years to accomplish this " extrica
tion," so that the legislature of 1867 was ready to
make a small appropriation to renovate the build
ing and open " a grammar and normal depart
ment." It was not until October 7 of that year
that the doors were opened, and thirty-one boys,
and girls were enrolled in the first terra. The
school being of academy grade, no objection was
made to the admission of girls, but there was no
intention to settle then the question of coeducation
in the university. It was, however, thus settled.
The special board, having accomplished its pur
poses to the satisfaction of all concerned, recom
mended to the legislature of 1868 the transfer of
control to a permanent board of regents. The act
of February 18, 1868, passed in pursuance of this
counsel, is the charter of the university, and has
not been materially modified. The new board ap
pointed by the governor 'with the consent of the
senate properly contained the names of PiUsbury,
Nicols, and Merriman. At the close of the school
year of 1869 the regents resolved to open the
"College of Science, Literature, and the Arts,"
as the statute ambitiously named the academic
department. Although there were but fourteen
provisional freshmen and a hundred and fifty pre
paratory students, a president, eight professors,
and one instructor were elected. The faculty thus
constituted organized in September, and took up
the work before them, mostly that of a fitting
school.

REVIVAL 261
The title of the charter of February 18, 1868,
contained the clause, " and to establish an agricul
tural coUege therein." The original act of 1851
creating the university naraed as one of its five
departments that of agriculture, but, on March 10,
1858, a separate " state agricultural college " was
established and located at Glencoe in McLeod
County. Minnesota's share of the so-called Morrill
land grant of 1862 for the benefit of colleges of
agriculture and the mechanic arts was 120,000
acres. By an act approved March 2, 1865, the
proceeds of this grant were applied and appropri
ated to the said agricultural college of Minnesota.
What infiuences or interests prevailed to induce
the people of McLeod County to consent to the
merger of their institution with the university are
not weU known, but the legislature of 1868 decided
on that policy, and inviolably appropriated the
income of the Morrill land grant to the united
institutions. The friends of the university were, of
course, gratified over the return to the scheme of
the original creative act of 1851 and the concen
tration of the state's resources for the higher edu
cation. Governor Marshall had the satisfaction of
seeing the University of Minnesota, in which he
had been deeply interested from its statutory crea
tion, at length fairly launched on a career of pro
mise which he lived to see fulfiUed. He had also
the gratification of seeing the color line removed
from the state constitution by the adoption, at the

262 MINNESOTA
election of 1868, of an amendment expunging the
word " white " out of the article on the elective
franchise. A much needed revision of the laws of
the state went into effect about the same time.
Ignatius DonneUy, who had been elected to Con
gress in 1862, had been accorded two reelections.
His diligence in business and readiness in debate
had gained hira influence in the House, and his
carapaign speeches had increased his popularity at
home. To all appearance he was certain of a third
reelection in the fall of 1868, and among his ad
mirers were those who suggested that the state
and country would profit by his promotion to the
Senate. Such propositions were not relished by
the friends of Senator Ramsey, whose first term
would be expiring in the following winter. Elim
ination of Mr. DonneUy thereupon became to them
a desirable political object. It might not have been
attained but for an error of Mr. Donnelly himself
in a moment of perhaps excusable exasperation.
In the winter of 1868, in a letter to a constitu
ent explaining why he had not pushed a certain
railroad land grant bill, Mr. Donnelly stated that
E. B. Washburne, member of Congress from lUinois,
had repeatedly hindered his efforts to secure legis
lation for his state. Mr. Washburne replied through
a St. Paul newspaper, April 10, 1868, attacking Mr.
Donnelly's personal character, and declaring him
cowardly and mendacious. He represented him also

REVIVAL 263
as " whining like a schoolboy " over his disappoint
ments. Thus assailed, Mr. Donnelly, on May 2,
made on the floor of the House a consummate dis
play of those powers of ridicule and invective of
which he was master. Tolerated by the House be
cause of its enjoyment of the play of rhetorical
lightning, and perhaps because of a feeling that
the speaker's indignation had some just ground,
the Minnesota member descended into an utterly
indefensible tirade. It has ever since been tradi
tional in Minnesota that that speech " cooked Don
nelly's goose."
Washburne could only say in wrath that he
would "make no reply to a member covered all
over with crime .and infamy, a man whose record is
stained with every fraud, a man who has proved
false alike to his friends, his constituents, his coun
try, his religion, and his God." Both gentlemen
apologized for using unparliamentary language, and
the special committee of the House reported that
as neither had made charges affecting the action of
the other as a representative, they might be left to
settle personal difficulties outside. On his return
to Minnesota after the close of the session, Mr.
Donnelly gave expression to his sentiments towards
the Washburn family in a series of speeches in
which his peculiar gifts were displayed in the high
est degree.
The friends of Senator Ramsey selected for their
support, as successor to Mr. DonneUy, William D.

264 MINNESOTA
Washburn, a younger brother of the represent
ative frora Illinois just mentioned, who had won
for himself a place in their esteem for ability and
character. When the hour for the convention came,
Mr. Donnelly's supporters " bolted," and in a sep
arate body put their idol in nomination. Seeing
the regular convention so largely depleted, Mr.
Washburn withdrew after the first ballot. Gen
eral Lucius F. Hubbard also declined the honor of
a candidacy; and it was only after assurances of
active and substantial support that General C. C.
Andrews was persuaded to enter the lists. The
Deraocrats saw their opportunity in this split in
the Republican ranks, and put in nomination and
elected Eugene M. Wilson of Minneapolis, a gen
tleman whose character and services entitled him
to their support. He served to the general satisfac
tion in the Forty-first Congress.
Mr. Donnelly now came out openly as a candi
date for the senatorship, and he had reason to
expect an election. On the eve of the Republican
caucus, however, his muster roll contained but
twenty-six names of those who could be depended
on. Twenty-eight votes were necessary to nominate.
Failing to secure absolute pledges of the two lack
ing votes, Mr. Donnelly advised his friends to give
their support to Morton S. Wilkinson, who was
willing to serve another terra in the Senate. His
hope was to give Mr. Ramsey a rest from senatorial
labors. In that he was disappointed. Mr. Ramsey's

REVIVAL 265
friends secured the adoption of a resolution to dis
pense with informal baUoting, thus revealing their
strength, but they were only able to give him the
exact number of votes (twenty-eight) necessary to
a choice. The election followed as a matter of
course, and Mr. Ramsey continued in a senatorial
career creditable to himself and serviceable to the
state and nation. Mr. DonneUy did not at once re
nounce the colors of the Republican party, but he
was ever after a free lance in politics. He was
repeatedly elected to the state legislature.
In the fall of 1869 an effort was made to give
Mr. Donnelly the regular nomination for the gov
ernorship. This was not opposed by the Ramsay
leaders, who were willing to bring back into the
fold so dangerous a rival. That effort, however,
had but slight recognition in the nominating con
vention, which chose for the party candidate a
gentleman as yet not widely known in state poli
tics, the Hon. Horace Austin of St. Peter.
The removal of the state capital from St. Paul,
which would have been accoraplished in 1857 but
for the high-handed exploit of Councilor Rolette,
though frequently broached informally, was not
seriously takeu up by any legislature till 1869. A
bill for removal to Kandiyohi County, on to land
belonging to the state, was passed through both
houses so easily and rapidly as to invite the surmise
that the necessary votes had been secured in ad
vance. Superfluous debate was shut out by the

266 MINNESOTA
operation of the previous question. The vote in
the house was 39 to 7, that in the senate 12 to 10;
but the house could not muster enough votes to
pass the bill over Governor Marshall's veto. The
veto message was moderate in tone ; suggesting that
it would be wise to hear frora the people on the
question, that there should be no haste about a final
location of the capital, and that it was no time to
expend a great sura of money on buildings.
Two years later a final proposal to reraove the
capital from St. Paul to the imagined city of Stan
ton met with a prompt indefinite postponement.

CHAPTER XVI
STORM AND STRESS
Horace Austin was inaugurated govemor Janu
ary 9,1870. A native of Connecticut, who had lived
and married in Maine, he had come to Minnesota
in 1855 at the age of twenty-five and settled at St.
Peter. He had studied law and taught school, but
had taken no coUege course. In the campaign of
1863 against the Sioux he comraanded a company
of Minnesota Mounted Rangers and gave a good
account of himself on the march and battlefield.
His neighbors had elected him a district judge and
were more than content with hie wise and fearless
conduct on the bench. It was a piece of good for
tune for the state that the warring Ramsey and
Donnelly factions of the Republican party in the
convention of 1869 compromised upon a candidate
unobjectionable to both, but no especial favorite
with either. His majority was less than two thou
sand over the popular candidate of the Democrats,
George L. Otis. Ingenious, hopeful, independent,
Mr. Austin in successive messages showered upon
the legislatures projects of reform and develop
ment. In many of thera he was doomed to disap
pointment because he relied entirely on the merit

268 MINNESOTA
of propositions, and was not politician enough to
understand that it is only by tiraely and happy
combination of interests that raeasures can be car
ried in legislative bodies. Among these abortive
recoraraendations may be mentioned the one in
his second message, urging a revision of the state
constitution, which he declared to be a motley of
inconsistencies. His desire was that a revised con
stitution should contain such provisions as these :
(1) Restriction of special legislation; (2) prohibi
tion of exclusive franchises ; (3) limitation of local
taxation ; (4) restriction of municipal debts ; (5)
araple power to regulate railroads ; and (6) aboli
tion of the grand jury. Neither the legislature to
whieh the recoraraendation was addressed nor any
subsequent one has been willing to propose to the
people a revision of the constitution. Casual araend
raents have been frequent, but a late amendment to
the amending article, requiring an affirraative vote
of a majority of all the electors to adopt a proposed
amendment, will certainly render it difficult, and it
may be impossible, to make further casual changes
in the state's organic law. A happy illustration of
Mr. Austin's independence may be found in his
action on the disposition of the so-called " internal
iraproveraent lands " of the state. An almost for
gotten statute of the United States, passed in 1841,
authorized the gift to any new state of five hundred
thousand acres of public lands for " internal im
provements." The claim of Minnesota to this grant

STORM AND STRESS 269
had been tardily conceded by the Secretary of the
Interior. In his inaugural address Governor Austin
recoraraended that the disposition of the lands should
be subraitted to popular vote. The legislature then
opening (1870) was of a different mind, and listened
to suggestions that the end of the law would be
served if the lands should be bestowed on certain
railroad corporations willing to accept them. When
the legislature of 1871 convened that proposition
seemed rauch in favor, and a bill to divide the whole
grant, then possibly worth ten millions of dollars,
in eleven parcels among seven corporations was
passed in so summary a manner as to suggest a
careful rehearsal for the purely formal proceedings.
The support of the bill was so evenly derived from
the two political parties that neither of them could
claim the greater credit for guarding the public
interest. The veto message of Governor Austin will long
remain a landmark in the political history of the
state. In the plainest of English he told the legis
lators that they had been either cajoled or bullied
into passing a measure they dared not submit to
the people, that the minute parceling of the lands
would be ridiculously ineffective, that they had no
power to divide the lands, but only the proceeds
thereof, and that they had voted to divert the na
tional gift frora its intended object. From this
date there was no question of a reelection, should
he desire it. In the foUowing year an amendment

270 MINNESOTA
providing that no disposition should be made of
those lands until after the ratification of any pro
posed measure by vote of the electors was submitted
and, at the election, adopted. The use to which they
were put ten years later wiU be related in its place.
For Minnesota as for the country at large, the
early seventies belong to one of the most notable
"boom" periods in our economic history. The
census of 1870 verified the hopes of enthusiastic
promoters in many lines. The total population
footed up 439,706. The native born in round num
bers were 279,000, of whom 126,000 had been born
in the state. The foreign born were 161,000, of
whom the Scandinavian kingdoms had sent 59,000
and Gerraany 41,000. The English-speaking immi
grants numbered 47,000. The swelling number of
inhabitants was inspiring and the high quality of the
population was equally satisfactory. One hundred
and thirty-one thousand coming frora the north
Atlantic and north central states had bronght with
them American traditions and culture, capital,
brains, and ambition for an enlarged career in a
land of opportunity. The foreign accessions were
Christians, willing workers, and raany of them
passionate lovers of free governraent.
The rapid extension of railroads was both a
cause and a consequence of this increase of people ;
of their distribution, their productive power, and
their demands for the comforts and luxuries of
other skies. Rail connection eastward by way of the

STORM AND STRESS 271
head of Lake Michigan, established in 1867, had
given quicker mails and shortened the passenger
journey to the seaboard. No produce save that of
highest value in smallest bulk could stand trans
portation charges to New York. The completion
of the railroad frora St. Paul to the head of Lake
Superior in 1870 brought that city alraost as near
salt water as Chicago, and opened the great water
way of the lakes for Minnesota's grain and luraber,
and returning coal and merchandise. Later her
annual millions of tons of iron ore have passed
down through " The Soo " to Lake Erie ports.
The year following (1871) was abundant in
railroad extension. The main line of the Great
Northern was extended to Breckenridge on the
Red River of the North; the River division of
the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, prolonged
to Winona, shortened the journey to Chicago by
many hours ; and the Northern Pacific had reached
the Red River at Moorhead. Meantime the South
ern Minnesota had been pushed out to the Blue
Earth, and the Winona and St. Peter to the Minne
sota. The 350 miles built in 1872, though reaching
no iraportant terrainals, brought the total mileage
at the close of the year up to an even 1900.
In those years of plentiful money and multiply
ing fortunes, railroad building was rapid and easy
in Minnesota. Investors were keen for bonds se
cured by land grants of enorraous extent, and bear
ing a liberal interest, especially when offered at a

272 MINNESOTA
seductive discount. The controlling spirits of the
corapanies found sorae profit in financing construc
tion corapanies, but more in town lot and land
speculations. Railroad building out on the open
prairie far in advance of settlement was a novelty
then. The gentleraen whose privilege it was to de
termine the lines and locate the stations were in
position to make profitable selections of lots and
lands, and to let their friends "in on the ground
floor" for a consideration. Around the selected
stations considerable villages would arise in a single
season. In some cases the town would be built
before the track had reached it. There were in
stances in which settlements were made on mis
taken calculations of actual location, and then the
houses and shops were literally put on wheels and
hauled over to the chosen spots.
The lands adjacent to the railroad lines, espe
ciaUy within a few miles of the stations, were, of
course, in great deraand and rose rapidly in price.
Cultivation, was no longer confined to the river
counties, but spread rapidly inland. It did not
take a generation of the hardest labor to raake a
farm on the Minnesota prairie. In the first season
the newcoraer could win his subsistence, and in the
second begin to build. The cultivated area of the
state, which was 630,000 acres in the closing year
of the CivU War, rose to 1,863,300 in 1870, andfive
years later fell not rauch short of 3,000,000.
A large fraction of this area was devoted to a

STORM AND STRESS 273
kind of cultivation novel to this country, but which
remained profitable only so long as the virgin fer
tility of the soil survived, and that was rarely
longer than ten years. "Bonanza farming," so
called, was carried on by large proprietors or les
sees, owning or controlling many thousands of
acres, employing machines and large gangs of men
and aniraals. For these estates there were devel
oped out of the petty apparatus suitable to the
little eastern farm, the sulky plow with its two
mould-boards, the disk harrow, the twelve-foot
seeder, the self-binding reaper, aud the giant
threshing-machine. There was but one principal
crop, spring wheat, which was coraraonly threshed
from the shock and iramediately marketed. To
handle the great quantities, grain " elevators " were
built at the railroad stations, tall, ungainly struc
tures with conveniences for weighing in, lifting,
weighing out, and spouting into waiting freight
cars. At terrainals were erected elevators for clean
ing and drying grain, as well as for storage for
raany thousands or millions of bushels. The coun
try elevator was also convenient for the small
farraer, who was saved the cost of building a gran
ary of high-priced lumber frora distant pineries.
Early settlers in the Northwest had found spring
wheat, with its power of rapid growth in the long
sunshine of high latitudes, a better crop than win
ter wheat, occupying the soil for two seasons and
liable to winter kill. But the spring wheat beny,

274 MINNESOTA
although of higher nutritive value than that of
winter wheat, had a fiinty envelope and yielded a
flour too dark in color to suit the market. A revo
lution in the process of miUing presently reversed
the places of the two flours. Milling had already
advanced .so far beyond the primitive separation of
flour from bran by hand sifting as to segregate a
residuum of coarser granules, called " middlings,"
which, subjected to a second grinding, yielded a low
grade flour. It had been "discovered also that these
middlings contained the more nutritive elements of
the wheat berry, and it had been a problem how
to recover them. French miUers were in possession
of a method for its partial solution. George H.
Christian of Minneapolis had long studied on the
problera, and in 1870 eraployed a French immi
grant named La Croix to construct a rude appa
ratus in his mill at Minneapolis. This was the
germ of the " middlings purifier," soon developed
and installed in all mills using spring wheat. Re
ceiving middlings from the first grinding, the ma
chine by use of sieves and air currents separated
out the pure wheat granules. These were reground
and "bolted" into two or more grades of flour.
The first grade was put on the market as " Minne
sota Patent," and for a time commanded a price of
three dollars a barrel above any other. The same
principles, refined upon, have resulted in the more
modern process of "gradual reduction " by means
of roUers, displacing the immemorial miUstones.

STORM AND STRESS 275
The rapid development of a great milling centre
at the Falls of St. Anthony opened a market for
the spring wheat, which could not otherwise have
been grown. The Minnesota crop of fifteen miUion
of bushels in 1870 was to be doubled in 1875. The
patent milling process gave to Minneapolis an
advantage soon apparent in the multiplication not
only of flour mills, but of industries ancillary
thereto. The manufacture of lumber out of logs
from the pineries of the upper Mississippi and its
tributaries, which had been her leading industry,
now took a second but still important place. The
city of Saint Anthony's Falls had suffered by the
migration of many of her most capable raen of
affairs to "the west side," where Minneapolis
sprang into being as by magic when the military
reservation was reduced in the middle of the fifties.
The new city soon outstripped the old in popula
tion, in manufacturing, and in merchandizing. At
length it became apparent that there was no pro
priety in the maintenance of separate municipal
organizations at the falls. By ¦virtue of an act of
the legislature, approved February 28, 1872, the
older city lost its name and became the east divi
sion of Minneapolis. The I'egrets of some of her
oldest citizens were mitigated by the suggestion
that the Minneapolis thus enlarged raight some
day become the rival of Minnesota's capital city
in wealth and numbers, if not in political impor
tance.

276 MINNESOTA
The land grant railroads, rapidly extended after
the Civil War, had occasioned the buUding of new
towns, the opening of new farms, the production
of more millions of bushels of wheat, to be passed
through more elevators and carried in more freight
cars to more mills, for conversion into raore thou
sands of barrels of Minnesota Patent flour. All
these called for raore miles of railroad, and the
revolving game went merrily on for some years.
So obvious were the advantages of raUroad trans
portation that every possible inducement was held
out to invite construction. Rights of way and
bonuses in the shape of town, county, and city
bonds were willingly bestowed. State and munici
pal authorities were so indulgent and generous that
railroad " interests " came to expect the fulfillment
of any requisitions they should please to make. A
crowning exaraple of this confidence has been given
in the so-called "land grab ".of 1871, whose con
suraraation lacked .only the approval of Governor
Austin. But under this seeraing of prosperity for
the public and the people whose wealth was going
into the railroads there was trouble brewing.
Transportation did not corae as cheap as the pub
lic was expecting from corporations, which had re
ceived from Congress public lands worth about
$10,000 per mile at government prices, to aid
them in building. Five cents per mile passenger
fare seemed exorbitant, as did freight rates ran
ging frora seven cents to sixty cents per ton raile.

STORM AND STRESS 277
The immense loans made by sale of bonds were
understood to be part of a policy of the corpora
tion managers to get their roads built on credit,
and to hold the lands, released from the primary
mortgages, for speculation. There were abundant
innuendoes thrown out in political campaigns that
public officials, especiaUy members of legislative
bodies, national, state, and municipal, had not been
losers by the grants and indulgences showered on
the corporations. It is iraprobable that many in
dividuals^ were thus persuaded or enriched by
large benefactions. When the whole community
were ready to grant everything a railroad com
pany could ask, there was little need for " graft."
Chief, however, araong all causes of exaspera
tion were the frequent and notorious discrimina
tions in favor of some individuals, industries, and
places against others. By the connivance of one or
more companies the fuel supply of a city was put
into the hands of a single firm or clique. The big
shipper generally was conceded a better rate than
his sraall corapetitors. But it must be said that at
terminal points and junctions, where shippers had
the choice of two or more lines, they sometimes
forced the hungry traffic managers to offer rates
by no raeans agreeable or profitable. When the
rate per hundred pounds on raerchandise from
New York by way of the lakes to St. Paul, includ
ing 156 miles of railroad haul, was 35 cents, that
from St. Paul to Faribault, 56 miles, was 39 cents.

278 MINNESOTA
The state constitution contained (and still contains)
the provision that all common carriers enjoying
right of way for public use shall carry the mineral,
agricultural, and other productions of the state " on
equal and reasonable terms." The farmers could
not see that a rate on wheat from Owatonna to
Winona of 2.6 cents, and one of 6 cents from
Rochester, 40 miles on the road nearer Winona,
were " equal " ; nor could the people of Faribault
and vicinity see what justice there was in paying
$29.50 freight per carload of lumber from the
falls, while residents of Owatonna, 15 miles farther
on, should enjoy a rate of $18.
As early as 1866, in his inaugural address to the
legislature, Governor MarshaU had advised that
body to be looking out "for the interests of the
people against possible oppression from these cor
porations, which will soon be a power in the land."
In his message of 1867 he suggested that it was time
to attach proper terms and conditions to railroad
aid. He did not like the withdrawal of ten million
acres of land frora the operation of the homestead
act. Governor Austin, in his inaugural address of
1870, went no further than to ask the attention of
the legislature to the complaints of railroad extor
tions and discriminations, and the use of the con
stitutional powers possessed by it for their abate
ment. His first annual message, delivered one year
later, is a notable document in the literature of rail-

STORM AND STRESS 279
road regulation. It may be questioned whether there
was another state executive in the country ready at
that time to nail any such array of theses on the
doors of the capitol. His propositions, briefed out
of his text, were: 1. AU special railroad charters
not put into operation within ten days after consum
mation, to be void. 2. Every railroad corporation
doing business within the state to raaintain a public
office within the state, and keep therein records
of the officials, capitalization, assets, and liabilities.
3. No new road to be built parallel to an existing
road. 4. All railroads in the state to be public high
ways free to all persons for transportation at reason
able charges. 5. No railroad company to issue any
stocks and bonds except for money, labor, or pro
perty actually received and applied to the purposes
of the corporation ; aU fictitious stocks and bonds to
be void, and no increase of either, unless in a man
ner prescribed by law. 6. The state's right of emi
nent domain to apply to railroad as to other pro
perty. 7. Adequate penalties, extending if deemed
necessary to forfeiture of property and franchise,
to be provided for unjust discriraination or extor
tion. 8. Finally, the creation of a national railroad
coraraission for the regulation of coramerce by rail
and otherwise among the several states.
It is remarkable that the same legislature which
passed the 500,000 acre land grab also enacted one
of the first and most stringent acts for railroad regu
lation. It is chapter 24 of the General Lawsof 1871.

280 MINNESOTA
It classified all freight and fixed a maximum rate
for each of the five classes, according to distance.
It deterrained a maximum passenger fare of five
cents per mile. It declared all railroads in the state
to be public highways, and fixed a penalty of $1000
for every denial of the right of any person to travel or
ship goods at the prescribed rates. The law finally
declared the rates therein established to be " maxi
mum reasonable rates," and any corporation de
manding or receiving more should, on conviction,
forfeit its charter.
The sarae legislature (1871) provided for the
appointment by the governor of a state railroad
commissioner to observe the behavior of the corpo
rations under the new law. The first incumbent was
General Alonzo J. Edgerton, who had given proof
of ability by gallant military service and successful
practice as an attorney. The three reports of this
official are a pitiful record of the unequal struggle
of the legislatures with their informally confederate
creatures, the railroad corporations. To the regu
lative act of 1871 the corporations gave not the
slightest heed, partly on the ground of their rights
as quasi-persons, partly because in their territorial
charters they had been authorized to raake " rea
sonable charges " for services, and the legislature
had not reserved the right to determine what charges
were reasonable. If some of the roads somewhat
abated their rates, it was not because of the legal
mandate. Gross discriminations continued to be

STORM AND STRESS 281
practiced. The evasion of taxes by the companies
by various devices added to public exasperation.
The commissioner was gratified to have exacted an
increase of railroad taxes from $56,505.54 in 1871
to $106,876.35 in the year after, and regretted his
inability to reach $250,000 raore illegally withheld.
One corapany, the Minnesota Central, sold its en
tire railroad property to the Milwaukee interest,
retaining its unsold lands, and clairaed to survive
as a railroad corapany entitled to hold its lands free
of taxation. For lack of authority to make personal
inspections of company accounts and property the
commissioner could not verify their reluctant re
ports, which, because not made on a prescribed uni
form plan, were of slight practical service. In his
report for 1873 he reminded the legislature that the
companies, which had by the beginning of that year
constructed 1900 miles of road, had received from
the nation, state, and raunicipalities, grants and
gifts to the value of $51,000,000, being about $27,-
000 per raile of completed road. The average neces
sary cost of construction and equipment, according
to an expert computation, would have been a trifle
over $23,000 to the mile. In that year the bonded
debt of the roads araounted to $54,600,000. The
aggregate of capital stock, $20,000,000, raised the
"capitalization" of the roads to $74,500,000; nearly
$48,000 per raile. Only norainal amounts of stock-
proceeds had gone into construction and equipment,
and there were wide margins between the face value

282 MINNESOTA
of the bonds sold and the actual expenditures. In
some instances, says the commissioner, not more
than forty per cent, went into construction. In these
years in which building was going on so swimmingly,
operation was far from encouraging. The managers
had been raore concerned to increase mileage than
to build substantially. Heavy grades, sharp curves,
and slight construction were the result. The iron
rails weighed for the most part but fifty pounds to
the yard. Equipment corresponded, of course, with
track and rail. The amount of business obtained
at the fares and rates exacted was disappointingly
sraall. After the grain crop was moved the amount
of paying freight was meagre and backloading
trifling in amount. Operating expenses rose to
eighty per cent, of the gross earnings. The balance
of earnings and expenses for the year 1873 was but
$1,400,000 for all the Minnesota roads, a sum which
must have seemed pitifully small in the eyes of the
men whose money had built thera. The reader need
hardly be told that the Minnesota railroad corpora
tions went down in the crash which came upon the
country in 1873. Three defaulted in their interest,
two borrowed raoney to pay it, two went into re
ceivers' hands, and others atterapted assessments
on their stockholders. In the next four years but
eighty-seven miles of new road were built.
When the roads refused to conform to the law of
1871 it became the duty of the attorney-general to
bring suit for forfeiture of charters, the prescribed

STORM AND STRESS 283
penalty for disobedience. John D. Blake and others
sued the Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company
in the district court of Olmstead County, alleging
that said corporation had exacted for a certain ser
vice one dollar and ninety-nine cents, whereas the
statute had determined the sum of fifty-seven cents
to be the reasonable maximum charge. This court
held, with the defending company, that the legis
lature had no power under the constitution to fix
and determine railroad rates. The state intervened
and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of
Minnesota, which reversed the decision of the court
below, thus sustaining the validity of the act of
1871. The case was then carried to the Suprerae
Court of the United States and was numbered
araong the weU-known " granger cases," held under
consideration for four years and disposed of ac
cording to the principles laid down by that court
in the case of Munn vs. Illinois. In the "Blake
case," decided in October, 1876, it was held that
the legislature of Minnesota was within its con
stitutional powers in regulating and fixing railroad
rates and charges and prescribing penalties for
violations of her laws in that behalf.
In this interval the prostrated and nearly bank
rupt corporations were in no condition to conduct
themselves offensively. In 1874 a state board of
three railroad coraraissioners was created. Mr.
Edgerton was retained as a raember, with Ex-
Governor Marshall as one of his colleagues. Under

284 MINNESOTA
their powers they made and published, a complete
schedule of reasonable maximum fares and rates
according to distances, and reported at the close of
the year a general and substantial compliance on the
part of the companies. Their representatives showed
such good nature and made such fair showing of
their meagre profits that the coraraissioners found
good reason to allow them all they could reason
ably claira. This led to the suggestion that the
coraraissioners had been deluded or corrupted by
the sraart and able railroad raen. The next legisla
ture (1875) accordingly replaced them with a sin
gle commissioner to be chosen by the electors, with
such meagre powers as to justify a guess that some
ingenious railroad attorney drafted the bill. Ex-
Governor Marshall held the office for six years,
discharging the duties with adrairable discretion.
As an example of the liberality, not to say crim
inal recklessness, with which railroad operators in
the decade following the Civil War made use' of
other people's money, it will be well to follow the
fortunes of one of the great land grant companies.
The Minnesota and Pacific Railroad Company was
one of the four corporations created by special act
in 1857 to receive the colossal land grant made in
that year to aid railroad building in Minnesota.
This company was obligated to build from Still
water via St. Anthony to Breckenridge, and from
St. Anthony to St. Vincent, a hamlet on the Red
River near the crossing of the Canadian boundary.

STORM AND STRESS 285
Along with the rest it defaulted, and in the suramer
of 1860 its property and franchises were sold to
the state upon foreclosure. An effort to recover
these by conforming to conditions imposed by the
legislature as already stated, proved abortive. In
1862, however, the franchises, rights of way, the
land grant, and other property thus forfeited were
bestowed upon a new corporation styled the St.
Paul and Pacific Railroad Company, which built
ten miles of road that year and opened business
between St. Paul arid St. Anthony. The year after,
seventeen and one half miles of track were added,
and trains run to Anoka. This rate of progress did
not satisfy the corporation nor the expectant people.
Circumstances not now well known opened the way
for borrowing money in Holland. To give the great
enterprise a less tremendous aspect, it was resolved
to separate it, so that the portions of road lying in
districts already settling up raight be iraraediately
"financed," while those running to distant regions
known only to hunters and Indian traders might
be left to the future. Accordingly in 1864, under
legislative authority, a new and separate corpora
tion was forraed by the interests controlling the
existing company, under the name and style of
" The First Division of the St. Paul and Pacific
Railroad Company." To this new company was
transferred the "main line" from St. Paul to
Breckenridge and the " branch " from St. Anthony
to St. Cloud. The early building of these lines

286 MINNESOTA
within the bounds of civilization would not, it was
believed, appear a romantic undertaking to invest
ors. The scherae had its intended effect. Money
poured in galore. When the " branch " was finished
to St. Cloud in 1866 (76 miles), $7,000,000 of bonds
had been sold. That araount of cash would have
built 350 miles of road, as roads were then built in
level regions. Five years later (1871) the " main
line" reached the Red River at Breckenridge (217
miles), and the bond issue had been swelled to
$13,500,000. The two lines might have been built
for much less than half as many dollars. Upon the
completion of the main line and branch it was be
lieved to be feasible and judicious to go on with the
construction of the remaining mileage retained by
the original St. Paul and Pacific Company. This
consisted of the so-caUed " extensions " : the " St.
Vincent Extension," from St. Cloud to the Canada
line on the Red River, and the trifling " Brainerd
Extension," from St. Cloud to Crow Wing. To
build these a loan of $15,000,000 was obtained in
HoUand. The bonds were placed at seventy-five
cents on the doUar, and twenty-one per cent, of the
proceeds were retained to meet three years' interest.
These discounts left a little short of $9,000,000 in
available cash. This araount would have built and
equipped both the extensions (about 470 miles) ac
cording to the building standards of the time. In
November, 1872, the raoney was all gone and there
had been built 140 miles of road, 100 railes having no

STORM AND STRESS 287
connection with the existing portions of the system.
Collections of rails, ties, and bridge raaterial, not
actually paid for, reraained on hand, a useless asset.
In his message to the legislature of 1873 Governor
Austin characterized the finance of the companies
by implication as injudicious and dishonest, and
vaguely suggested that the just claims of the for
eigners should be consulted. The lawraakers, how
ever, were disposed to aUow the foreign investors,
who had placed their funds according to their own
judgraent, to use their own wits to recover their
losses. It is difficult to see what relief the legislature
could lawfully have rendered.
That body had no sooner adjourned than in May
(1873) the companies defaulted on their interest.
Two corporations, parent and child, owned 433
mUes of railroad of light construction and eqiiip-
'ment, on which rested $28,000,000 of bonded debt
running at seven per cent., and the net earnings
for the previous year had been $112,745.57. In
August the United States District Court for Minne
sota put the mother corporation into the hands of
a receiver, but left the stockholders and bondhold
ers of the " First Division " company to wrestle
with the business under their legal and stipulated
powers. The legislature had in separate acts au
thorized the bondholders of that company to vote
for directors, who might be foreigners, any or all,
and provided that meetings of directors might be
held abroad. The fact that the Northern Pacific

288 MINNESOTA
Railroad " interest " had held the major number
of shares in both of the Minnesota companies does
not modify the foregoing account, but points to
the quarter in which to seek for the residence of
responsibility, in part at least, for a series of opera
tions hard to account for on presumptions of hon
esty and coramon sense. The reader may be curious
to follow further, on a subsequent page, the story
of the St. Paul and Pacific.
The panic of 1873 was a typical example. An
era of great prosperity had induced a fever of
speculation which had spread through all social
strata. Not railroads only but ships, mills, factories,
mines, fisheries, farras had been built or bought
with sraall suras of ready cash and large suras in
raortgage notes. A huge cloud of debt rested over
the land. Transactions were so rapid and enormous
that bankers loaned out their swelling deposits
with a reckless eagerness. One fine raorning sorae
conservative institution refused a new discount or
declined to renew a custoraer's paper. That cus
toraer could not pay his creditors, and those could
not pay theirs. By nightfall alarm had spread
wherever the telegraph lines extended. The next
day there were no bank deposits of cash, and credit
transactions ceased. Securities offered on the mar
ket by hard pressed debtors began to drop, and
presently all forms of property depreciated. In the
general distrust which ensued, all kinds of Indus-

STORM AND STRESS 289
tries and business languished, and months passed
before even the raore modest of credit operations
were adventured. Years passed before the full tide
of prosperity was again in flow. In a country stiU
new, where capital was smaU and opportunities
for credit operations great, the havoc wrought was
extreme. Liquidation and recovery were corre
spondingly tardy. In Minnesota the panic was ac
companied by two disasters which added much to
the general discouragement.
The morning of January 7, 1873, opened clear
and bright over the south half of Minnesota, with
no signs of foul weather in the sky. The country
people had left their homes on their usual errands
to mill, to post-office, to town, to distant wood lots
or fields, without thought of danger. Soon after
midday those who were still on the road were over
taken by one of those terrible winter storms known
to old voyageurs as " blizzards." The raost learned
authority in Araerica on English usage has recently
raade the stateraent that the word " blizzard " is
not more than twenty-five years old. It was in
common use in Minnesota in the fifties. In a true
blizzard the air is so completely filled with a fine
granular snow as to cause absolute darkness. It is,
as on this occasion, frequently accompanied by a
furious wind. The temperature may or may not be
excessively low. The voyageur did not atterapt to
travel when a blizzard overtook hira, but got behind
and beneath such shelter as he could find or make.

290 MINNESOTA
and waited for it to blow over. These inexperi
enced Minnesota settlers pressed on, wandered
frora the unf enced roads,. and if they found shelter
it was by good fortune. Many perished in the ter
rible gusts which swept the prairie. The weather
did not clear till the third day. The first accounts
estimated the nuraber of lives lost at many hun
dreds, but when the state statistician collated the
local reports sent in he was happy to find that not
more than seventy persons had perished. A much
greater number, of course, were frost-bitten and
raaimed. There were cases in which farmers had
been either injured or destroyed while attempting
to reach their houses from their barns and fields.
There has been no blizzard of any notable severity
in Minnesota since this of 1873.
In June of the same year a southwest wind
brought over the western border, south of Big
Stone Lake, swarms of the Rocky Mountain locust
(JMelanoplus spretus), which soon spread them
selves over large parts of fourteen southwestern
counties as well as a considerable area of north
western Iowa. Because not learned enough in
entomology to distinguish, the people supposed
these locusts to be grasshoppers, and soon adopted
the abbreviated form "hoppers." The growing crops
were presently devoured. Settlers who had made
their first plantings were irapoverished and had to
accept the generous aid, of neighbors. The area
visited was small compared with that of the state

STORM AND STRESS 291
and its settled portions, and it was not conceived
that grasshoppers could survive a Minnesota winter.
The legislature of 1874 made an appropriation of
$5000 to relieve cases of coraplete destitution, and
another of $25,000 to be advanced to the farmers
for the purchase of seed.
In July of this year (1874), to the astonishraent
of all, innumerable multitudes of " hoppers " sud
denly appeared as if rising out of the ground ; and
they did so rise. In the pre^vious faU the female
locusts had deposited in cylindrical wells about an
inch deep and one fourth of an inch in diameter,
hollowed out on high ground, clusters of eggs in
closed in protecting envelopes and covered with
soil. The midsuramer heat hatched these eggs, and
the brood at once fell on the growing crops. In a
few days not a spear was left over large areas,
and the hoppers had grown wings. Taking wing
as if by a common inspiration, they flew over into
Blue Earth, Sibley, Nicollet, and Renville coun
ties, where they repeated the devastation of the
previous season. But the counties thus abandoned
were again in many places infested by fresh swarms
from the southwest. In all twenty-eight counties
were visited in 1874. Upon an appeal from the
governor a subscription was opened for the relief
of stricken settlers. General Sibley, at his request,
undertook the disbursement, and later accounted
for $19,000. The legislature of the following winter
set aside $45,000 for immediate relief and $75,000

292 MINNESOTA
for seed, the latter sum to be repaid along with
taxes. The devastations of 1875 did not extend
more widely and were somewhat less damaging, but
they added not a little to the discouragement and
gloom resulting from the panic.
The Republican party was so completely in the
ascendant in the seventies in Minnesota that the
only political events of importance were those
which occurred in its ranks. United States Senator
Daniel S. Norton died July 13, 1870, and it fell
to the legislature assembling in the January fol
lowing to elect his successor. It took but a single
ballot in the Republican caucus to decide who
should be Senator Ramsey's colleague. Williara
Windom had given such satisfaction by his five
consecutive terms as representative in Congress
frora the first district that, Mr. Donnelly being
out of the road, there was none to dispute his
claira to the proraotion. Mr. Windora's large ac
quaintance, his long legislative experience, his sound
comraon sense and Quaker simplicity of manner at
once gave him a standing at the other end of the
capitol not easily accorded to new senators.
President Grant in his message of 1872 advised
the Congress to authorize a committee to investi
gate the various enterprises for the more direct
and cheaper transportation of the products of the
West and South to the seaboard. The Senate re
sponded by the appointment of a select committee

STORM AND STRESS 293
on transportation routes to the seaboard, with ara
ple powers for investigation. Senator Windom, as
chairman of this committee, devoted many raonths
to the analysis and interpretation of the great
mass of information and counsel submitted, and to
the preparation of the report in two octavo vol
uraes, printed in the spring of 1874. Among the
novel conclusions of this coraraittee (and some of
them are after the lapse of a generation not familiar
to all) were : (1) that the power of Congress to
regulate commerce among the several states in
cludes the power to aid and facilitate it by the
improvement or creation of channels and ways of
transportation; Congress has the sarae right to build
railroads as canals: hence, (2) the ownership or
control of one or raore double-track freight rail
ways ; (3) the iraproveraent of our great natural
water ways and their connection by canals ; (4) par
ticularly the improvement of four great channels
at national expense. These were the Mississippi
River itself, a route from the upper Mississippi by
way of the great lakes, a route from the sarae
river by way of the Ohio and Kanawha, and, last,
a route from the Mississippi via the Tennessee ; all
to be pieced out either by canals or freight roads.
At the present writing Congress is just warm
ing up to attack the first of these four great en
terprises. As might be supposed, the coramittee incident
ally suggested complete publicity of all interstate

294 MINNESOTA
railroad classifications and rates, the prohibition of
combinations with parallel or competing lines, the
receipt for and delivery of grain by quantity, the
making it unlawful for railroad officers to be inter
ested in car or freight line companies, and the
absolute cessation of stock watering. The proposi
tion of a bureau of commerce to supervise all inter
state railroad operations bore fruit twelve years
later in the interstate commerce comraission. Sen
ator Hoar declared this report to be "the most
valuable state paper of modern times."
The Minnesota Republicans from the beginning
had been divided. Opposed to the old " Ramsay
dynasty," which had controlled the distribution of
government appointraents, there was at all times
an array of patriotic gentlemen quite willing to
enter the public service, believing themselves as de
serving of party rewards as those on whora Fortune
had smiled. The Civil War liberated from military
service many ardent young Republicans desirous
and capable of sharing in public affairs. Among
these was a St. Paul attorney, Cushman Kellogg
Davis, a native of Wisconsin, who had been grad
uated frora the University of Michigan. He had
done good service as a line officer in a Wisconsin
regiment and as a staff officer under General Gor
man. His ability and diligence as a lawyer soon
gained him prorainence at the bar, and his per
sonal qualities attached to him a circle of influen
tial friends. He was not greedy for minor offices.

STORM AND STRESS 295
but served in the legislature in 1867 and was ap
pointed, a year after, United States district attor
ney, at the instance of Seuator Rarasey. A lecture
on "Modem Feudalism " first delivered in 1870, in
which he portrayed the growing dominance of cor
porations, gave proof of powers of insight and
analysis above the ordinary. When the Republican
state convention met in St. Paul on July 16, 1873,
the old dynasty had no other expectation than that
the nomination for governor would fall on its
worthy favorite, the Hon. WiUiam D. Washburn.
Few expected that Mr. Davis, whose loudest support
had corae frora an independent St. Paul newspaper,
would receive more than a complimentary vote. On
the informal ballot he did not, nor on the first for
mal ballot. Three more ballots followed, on the last
of which the favorite of the " young Republicans "
was nominated by a vote of 155 to 152, 154 being
necessary to a choice. As Mr. Davis's noraination
came by a slender majority, so also was his elec
tion secured by a majority of about one fourth of
the nominal Republican strength. His friends had
made no secret that the governorship was desired
by them merely as a stepping-stone to a national
senatorship. The old dynasty evidently did not ex
pend much raoney or labor on that election.
Mr. Davis's governorship during the years 1874-
75, a period of depression and discourageraent, was
not raarked by notable events. His raessages were
admirable for literary style, and, while counseling

296 MINNESOTA
economy iu expenditure, advised liberaUty towards
the schools and the university. His radical sugges
tion as to the unfinished St. Paul and Pacific Rail
road was that the bondholders in control should
presently put up the money to complete the lines,
or the state should have them turned over to
responsible parties who would do so.
Senator Ramsey's second term was expiring in
March, 1875, and it was no secret that he desired and
expected a reelection. Mr. Davis was an avowed
aspirant, but there were other gentlemen who did
not intend that the choice should fall to hira in
case of Mr. Ramsey's rejection. The Republican
caucus met on January 14, 1875. Mr. Ramsey's
friends were far in the lead, and on the last vote of
the session lacked but two votes to nominate. Con
fident of success, they consented to an adjournraent
deraanded by the "field." The field had but one de
sire in common, to get Senator Rarasey out of their
daylight. On reassembling the following night one
third of the members were absent or did not vote.
The two votes lacking to Mr. Ramsey on the pre^vious
evening appeared, and he was formally nominated.
But the vote did not corapel the unanimous sup
port of the Republican raembers. On the separate
voting in the two houses on January 19, Mr. Ram
sey had 60 votes, 74 being necessary to elect. On
the 20th the houses raet in joint convention and
proceeded to ballot. Mr. Ramsey received 61 votes,
his maximum. Davis received 24, and at no time

STORM AND STRESS 297
any greater number. Mr. Donnelly, the norainee
of the Deraocrats and " Greeleyized Republicans,"
had 51 votes. The baUoting now proceeded from
day to day, on most days but one being had. On
the 27th Mr. Donnelly withdrew, alleging that
Deraocratic raerabers failed to give him the sup
port he was entitled to as a regular nominee. Hon.
Williara Lochren, a Civil War veteran highly re
spected for personal character and legal ability, was
put in his place and commanded the fuU strength
of the opposition, sixty-four votes. On February 13,
after seventeen ballots, Ramsey and Davis were
withdrawn, but it was not till the 19th that the
eighty-two Republican votes could be concentrated
on the Hon. S. R. J. McMillan of Stillwater, a
highly respected citizen and a judge of the district
court. His career in the national Senate, by no
means brilliant, was characterized by such dili
gence, good sense, and party fidelity that there was
no notable opposition to his reelection six years
later. Mr. Davis did not seek reelection as gov
ernor, but resuraed his law practice, and not long
after published an ingenious essay on " The Law
in Shakespeare."
The arabition of certain young men, who could
well afford to wait, and who did wait for promo
tion, lost to the state and nation the services of a
wise and experienced legislator. President Hayes
called Mr. Rarasey into his cabinet as secretary of
war, and temporarily devolved on him the duties

298 MINNESOTA
of secretary of the na'vy. Retiring frora public life,
he continued for nearly a quarter of a century to
enjoy the esteera and gratitude of citizens of all
parties and persuasions. For many years he pre
sided over the Minnesota Historical Society and
its executive council. He died April 22, 1902.
The legislature of 1860 in a spasm of retrench
ment fixed the salary of the state treasurer at $1000
a year, and it remained at that figure for a quarter
of a century. The business and responsibility in
creased from year to year, but no addition was made
to compensation. In the absence of express prohibi
tory legislation a custom grew up of depositing the
state's money in banks which paid an interest to
the treasurer, the bank proprietors becoming his
sureties. No mischief resulted from this arrange
ment. But in one case, at least, that of Emil Munch,
a treasurer did not content himself with merely
depositing in banks, but in private enterprises era
ployed the state's money to a large amount. By
contrivance or good fortune his brother-in-law,
WiUiam Seeger, succeeded him in office, rather
than some stranger. This relative obligingly took
the promissory notes of his predecessor and other
"paper" and receipted for them as cash.
The treasurer's report for 1872 showed a balance
of cash in the treasury of $243,000. A newspaper
editor in St. Paul, with no other motive than, in
his own phrase, "to raise hell and sell papers,"
gave expression to the open secret that much of

STORM AND STRESS 299
this money was not in fact in the treasury, as re
ported, and challenged the Republican legislature
of 1873 to investigate the Republican treasurer.
Nothing less could in decency be done, and the in
vestigation revealed a shortage of $180,000. The
house of representatives passed a resolution of cen
sure and awaited the resignation of the unlucky
official. No resignation appearing, the same body
on March 4 made an " imperative demand " for
one. Mr. Seeger replied in writing, adraitting that
he had found a deficit on taking office, but declaring
that every dollar had been made good and the state
would suffer no loss. His bondsmen had raised and
paid in the money. The house, however, could not
content itself with restitution alone, and subraitted
articles of impeachment to the senate. After the
trial had begun, Mr. Seeger offered his resigna
tion, which was accepted by Governor Austin. The
impeachraent proceedings, however, went on and
resulted in a conviction. The legislature took the
obvious lesson to heart, and raised the salary of the
state treasurer to $4000.
Public education made notable progress in Min
nesota during the half decade beginning with Gov
ernor Austin's administration. The services of
Horace B. Wilson as superintendent of public in
struction during the period advanced the good work
begun by his predecessor. Both felt obliged to argue
the cause of public schools to be kept free from

300 MINNESOTA
ecclesiastical meddling. It was not, however, till
1877 that the araendraent to the state constitution,
forbidding the use of any public funds or property
for the support of sectarian schools was adopted
by the electors. Spite of much unreasoning preju
dice against the state norraal schools, they pros
pered, but were inadequate to supply the demands
of over three thousand comraon schools for trained
teachers. The faculty of the University of Minnesota, who
in September, 1869, enrolled a small handful of
freshmen, saw that dwindling tiU but two survived
at the end of the four-year course, to be graduated
as bachelors in June, 1873. The time of the teachers
was spent and well spent on the preparatory stu
dents who were later to fill the college classes. The
first coraraenceraent was celebrated with no little
circumstance, and had its effect on a public not yet
certain that the state had any concern with college
education. That question was much debated in
those years, and there were plentiful outpourings
of orthodox denunciation of the state university as
hopelessly and necessarily " infidel" and "godless."
The regents were affected by this respectable oppo
sition, and unduly raoderated their requisitions for
appropriations. Upon the advice of the president of the uni
versity (the author of this book), the regents in
1870 prematurely adopted a novel plan of organ
ization. The underlying principle was the fact that

STORM AND STRESS 301
the work of the first two years in American colleges
is " secondary " in its nature, and according to
any scientific arrangement should be performed in
secondary institutions. They therefore merged the
studies and exercises of the freshman and sopho
more years with those of the preparatory years into
a so-caUed " CoUegiate Department." The plan was
approved by the highest educational authorities of
the country, but the faculty, conservative and in
disposed to break away from tradition, could not
give it a united support. There were but trifiing
difficulties of operation, but when a new adminis
tration came in, with its differing interests, the plan
was allowed to lapse. The principle has since been
recognized by two leading American universities.
Account has already been taken of the first con
gressional land grant, that of February 19, 1851,
" reserving " for the support of a territorial uni
versity seventy-two sections of public lands. When
the enabling act of 1857 was before the House of
Representatives, Delegate Henry M. Rice secured
a modification of the traditional tender of lands for
university purposes. The enabling acts of Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Iowa had provided that the lands
previously reserved from sale for university sup
port should be granted and conveyed to the respect
ive states. Delegate Rice quickly saw to it that
the corresponding section of the Minnesota act
should read, "that seventy-two sections of land
shall be set apart and reserved for the use and sup-

302 MINNESOTA
port of a state university to 5e selected by the
governor of the state. ..." Why no claira was
presented for the additional university reservation,
apparently authorized by the enabling act of 1857,
till 1860 is not known, but when then raade, it met
with no hospitality. No secretary of the interior or
commissioner of the general land office would con
strue the paragraph as having any other intent than
to guarantee to the state the reservation of 1851
made to the territory. The correspondence revealed
the fact that the original reservation had not been
"granted and conveyed" to the state. The mort
gages placed on the lands and the devastations
permitted had therefore been illegal. It took an
act of Congress, that of March 2, 1861, donating
the lands reserved in 1851, to remedy this omis
sion. Ten years ran by after the passage of the enabling
act, and Minnesota's claim for a double portion of
university lands had not been allowed. On Febru
ary 8, 1867, the legislature authorized the special
board of regents to employ counsel to prosecute
the claim on " a contingent compensation in land
or money." The person employed rendered such
effective aid to the member from the university
district that Congress was moved to direct the
commissioner of the general land office, by an act
approved July 8, 1870, to ignore the reservation
of 1851 and allow Minnesota to take the seventy-
two sections raentioned in the enabling act of 1857.

STORM AND STRESS 303
The successful counsel was voted by the regents a
compensation of 1950 acres of land. As these acres
were proraptly located in the pine region of Itasca
County it may be assumed that the remuneration
was satisfactory.
Upon the initiative of the president of the uni
versity the legislature of 1872 authorized a geolo
gical and natural history survey of the state, and
placed the same in charge of the board of regents.
In a later year the twelve sections of land donated
by Congress in the enabling act of 1857 for the
development of possible salt springs or deposits,
less sorae deductions for fruitless exploitations, were
turned over to defray the costs of the survey. Pro
fessor Newton H. Winchell was appointed state
geologist, and reraained in office for twenty-four
years. The geological results of the operations con
ducted by hiraself and assistants may be found in
twenty-four annual reports, ten bulletins, and a final
report in seven qiiarto voluraes. Two additional vol
umes of botany and one of zoology were published.
Much remains to be done on the natural history
branch, and iraportant geological investigations of
scientific interest were left incomplete when that
work was suspended. The survey has been econom
ically worth to the state far more than it cost, and
the reports will remain as a noble monument to
their authors.

CHAPTER XVII
CLEARING UP
When the Republican state convention assembled
on July 28, 1875, its first informal ballot virtually
selected the successor of Cushman K. Davis in the
governorship. The distinction fell on John Sar
gent Pillsbury, who had proved his capacity for
public affairs by ten years' service in the state sen
ate and on the board of regents of the university. A
successful business career, a reputation for inflex
ible integrity, a power to select frora varied propo
sitions the one which could be carried and worked,
and a keen insight into huraan nature gave him an
influence with legislatures and the people rarely
equaled. Two reelections were accorded him as by
common consent. The varied events and incidents
of his six years' service are so related that, while
forraing a whole, they may be thrown into con
venient groups.
After the harvest of 1875 Governor Davis ap
pointed a coraraission to investigate the locust
devastations, and placed on it Allan Whitraan of
St. Paul, a man of science. The report, by giv
ing in siraple language an account of the vermin,
their manner of propagation, and the stages of

CLEARING UP 306
their growth, suggested the principles upon which
their ravages might be restricted, and, when new
invasions did not take place, actually repressed.
Early in the season of 1876 Governor Pills!) ury
issued a proclamation comraending to the farraers
of the infested districts the advice of the coramis
sion to attack the " hoppers " immediately after
hatching. By digging ditches around fields and
gardens not infested, the vegetation could be pro
tected. For the rescue of crops somewhat grown
he recommended a simple apparatus which got the
popular name of " hopperdozer." It consisted of a
piece of sheet-iron twelve feet long or more, turned
up on the back edge and ends. By means of ropes
attached to the front edge, at or near the ends, it
could be hauled by men or aniraals over the sur
face of the field. The upper surface of the pan,
smeared with coal tar, imprisoned the insects till
they could be scraped out at convenient intervals.
By such simple devices considerable areas of crops
were rescued from total destruction. They were of
course useless after the appearance of wings on
the creatures ; and the havoc of the previous sea^
son was repeated, particularly in the southwestern
counties. These Governor PiUsbury visited in per
son, and, after witnessing the ruin and distress
going on, called for contributions in relief. The
response was immediate and generous, and with
the aid of his wife the governor attended person
aUy to the distribution. The damage extended in

306 MINNESOTA
this year to twenty-nine counties south of Otter
Tail Lake and west of the watershed of the Missis
sippi. The worst of all was that at the close of the
season these counties were "literally peppered"
with locust eggs. The outlook for the coraing season
caused deep anxiety. The legislature of 1877 au
thorized a loan of $75,000 to be advanced to
farraers for seed, and erapowered county corarais
sioners to levy a tax for the destruction of locusts
and their eggs. In the spring the hatching began
in alarraing volume. Governor PiUsbury, in the
expectation that the expense would be reimbursed,
distributed 56,000 pounds of sheet iron and 3000
barrels of coal tar for " dozers." Where these
were diligently operated the daraage to crops was
reduced. On April 10, 1877, in response to an expressed
desire of various religious bodies. Governor Pills
bury appointed the 26th of that raonth as a day of
fasting, hurailiation, and prayer : " In the shadow
of the locust plague," said he, " whose irapending
renewal threatens the desolation of the land, let us
humbly invoke for the efforts we raake in our
defense the guidance of that hand which alone is
adequate to stay the pestilence." The day was
observed in a goodly number of congregations, but
there was no great and general humiliation of the
people, and there was no immediate evidence of
supernatural interference. The infernal brood grew
wings and began their aerial excursions in various

CLEARING UP 307
directions. In the last days of June the swarms
began rising high in the air and taking flight on
different bearings. In the course of sixty days all
had so risen and flown out of the state to unknown
destinations. Although they had wrought daraage
equal at least to that of any previous year of their
residence in Minnesota, the state as a whole har
vested the greatest wheat crop in her history, —
30,000,000 bushels, of sixty-three pounds to the
bushel. In spite of the ruin wrought in so large a portion
of her territory, and of rainor and ordinary losses,
the period in view was one of prosperity. The
population, which had risen from 439,706 in 1870
to 597,407 in 1875, increased to 780,773, accord
ing to the census of 1880. The wheat crop, which
had been 30,000,000 bushels in 1875, touched
40,000,000 in 1880. The raost striking evidence
of material development is seen in railroad build
ing. In the four years 1873-76 but 87 miles had
been added to the 1900 miles of construction in
the eleven years ending with 1872. This mileage was
increased in the six years beginning with 1877 to
3278 ; 446 were added to the St. Paul and Pacific
(now Great Northern) system.
How a corporation left in the panic year 1873
in a condition of hopeless bankruptcy was resusci
tated and put into vigorous life is a story which
the reader will be interested in. The "Division

308 MINNESOTA
roads," the main line from St. Paul to Brecken
ridge and the branch to St. Cloud, had gone into
a receiver's hands in August, 1873. The " Exten
sions " to St. Vincent and Brainerd, of which 140
miles in detached portions had been built, remained
in the control of the stockholders till October,
1876, when they were turned over to trustees of
the bondholders, according to the terras of the
company's contract with them. These trustees em
ployed as their general manager the same gentle
man who for three years had been receiver of the
Division roads. The stockholders having given
over the task of corapleting the roads and retaining
ownership, it remained for the bondholders to de
cide between putting in several raore miUions of
doUars to complete and equip the roads, or giving
up and letting the property go to sale under pend
ing foreclosure proceedings. Had they taken the
former course and selected honest and capable
agents, they would have not merely escaped great
losses but realized large profits. The greater por
tion of the bonds of the systera, over $17,000,000,
were owned in HoUand, and they had been placed
by their holders in the hands of a syndicate of
Dutch bankers to be controlled for the common
interest. The drift of affairs had been watched by three
deeply interested persons. Donald A. Smith, re
siding at Winnipeg and representing that city in
the Dominion parliament, was chief commissioner

CLEARING UP 309
of the Hudson's Bay Corapany. That company had
many millions of acres of land in Manitoba, and
was desirous to obtain railroad connections through
Minnesota with the outside world. He particularly
desired the completion of the St. Vincent Exten
sion. Another was Norraan W. Kittson, an old
associate of Sibley in the fur-trade and politics,
still interested in the Red River trade. The third
was James J. HiU, who had corae from Canada to
Minnesota as a boy of eighteen in 1856. He had
been in Mr. Kittson's employ in his Red River
business, had built up a rival line of steamboats
and barges, and made it for Mr. Kittson's interest
to take him into partnership. These three men had
journeyed up and down the Red River till they
knew every foot of the stream and the lands drained
by it. Early in 1874 Mr. Smith asked Messrs.
Kittson and Hill to collect for him all the informa
tion accessible in regard to the St. Paul and Pacific
systera, its lines completed or unfinished, its termi
nals, equipment, land grants, and in particular the
stock and bonds. The consultations which followed
were fruitless. " There seemed no way to get in."
Two years later, when it becarae evident that the
Dutch bondholders were bound to realize what
they could and let the properties go, there appeared
a way to get in. 1876 was one of the grasshopper
years In Minnesota. The crop was light and prices
were low. Rates and fares were so high as to dis
courage railroad traffic. The net earnings of

310 MINNESOTA
$300,000 on the system were a drop in the bucket
compared with the interest charges of nearly
$2,000,000. In March, 1876, Mr. HiU and Mr.
Sraith were again in consultation, and resolved on
an effort to obtain control by buying all, or nearly
aU, the bonds held in Holland. Delays and dis
couragements postponed action. It was not till
May, 1877, that Mr. George Stephen, president of
the Bank of Montreal, was induced to consider
taking a hand in the deal. In Septeraber, after a
visit to Minnesota, he went to England in full ex
pectation of enlisting the necessary capital, the
Dutch coramittee having accepted a conditional
offer of cash for their holdings. To his surprise
Mr. Stephen found no English capitalists wiUing
to send good money where so much bad money
had gone. To all appearance the project was a
failure. The associates, however, learning that the
Dutch were still fierce to seU, submitted to them
in January, 1878, a proposition to buy their bonds
at agreed prices and pay in the bonds of a new
company to be formed, which should buy the pro
perties at the now impending foreclosure sales. As
a " sweetener " they were willing to throw in $250
of six per cent, preferred stock with every $1000
bond of the new company.
In the articles of agreement signed March 13,
1878, the Dutch coramittee agreed to this proposi
tion and consented to extend the time of payment
for their bonds six months after the last of the six

CLEARING UP 311
foreclosure sales. For their 17,212 one thousand
dollar bonds, including coupons for unpaid interest,
they accepted $3,743,150. The associates bought
large amounts of " minority bonds " at similar
figures. As they agreed to pay interest on the
bonds of the new company at seven per cent., they
were empowered to take imraediate control and
operation of the completed lines and to resurae
construction on the St. Vincent Extension, whose
completion was greatly desired. On May 23, 1879,
the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway
Company was organized, and at the foreclosure
sales in the following month bought all the fran
chises and assets of the expiring St. Paul and
Pacific Railroad Company, including those of the
Division lines. Mr. James J. Hill at once became
the general manager of the roads, and began a
career of railroad operation vnth few if any equals
in the country. Better times had come, but it was
mainly the vigor, economy, and discipline of the
management which soon swelled the earnings into
millions. The great financial exploit of the " associates "
was followed by tedious, exasperating, and costly
litigation. About the time of the foreclosure sales
in June, 1879, Jesse P. Farley, who had been
receiver of the Extension roads and general raan
ager of the Division lines, brought suit in the dis
trict court of Rarasay County against Messrs.
Kittson and Hill to recover from them one third

312 MINNESOTA
of all moneys, securities, and effects which were
accruing to them from the operation. In his com
plaint Mr. Farley alleged that " in the summer of
1876 " a parol agreement had been made by the
defendants and himself to undertake jointly the
purchase of the bonds of the two railroad corapa
nies, the three to share equally in the net proceeds.
In his testiraony, he deposed that the two defend
ants had no knowledge of the great opportunity
until revealed by him at the time mentioned. It
was because of his intiraate knowledge of the affairs
of the companies, of his understanding of railroad
finance, and his long experience as a railroad man
ager, that they were unwilling to make any adven
ture without his cooperation ; and, to induce him to
enter into the contract, they agreed to consider his
knowledge and skill equivalent to the money they
would severally procure. This part of the bargain
was to remain a secret. The defendants denied that
any such contract had been made, or that any con
versation in relation to such an agreement had ever
been had. They had been familiar with the condi
tion and finances of the companies long before the
time of the alleged contract. The district court
found in favor of the defendants, as also did the
Supreme Court of Minnesota on appeal. The Su
preme Court, however, appears to have considered
that there was a contract between the parties, but
that it aborted when in the late fall of 1877 the
" associates " were balked in the effort to borrow

CLEARING UP 313
money in England with which to buy the bonds
for cash.
Encouraged by this recognition of a contract,
Mr. Farley brought suit in the United States Dis
trict Court for Minnesota in December, 1881, set
ting up substantially the same aUegations. Defeated
here, he took an appeal to the Suprerae Court of
the United States, which in 1887 reraanded the
suit to the Circuit Court for a novation of proceed
ings. The printed pleadings, testimony, exhibits,
and arguraents fill more than five thousand octavo
pages. The Circuit Court held with the defendants
that no contract had been made, and that the
plaintiff, standing in the relation of a trustee, could
not honorably or legally have embarked in any such
enterprise. When Farley's appeal reached the Supreme
Court of the United States, in October, 1893, that
tribunal sustained the decision of the Circuit Court
so far as it denied the making of the alleged con
tract. The plaintiff had not proven his aUegations,
and his story was inherently improbable. The court
had no occasion to pass on the impropriety of an
agreement never made.
In his inaugural address of 1870 Governor Aus
tin raentioned as a notorious fact the frequency
with which county treasurers retired from office
with much more wealth than they possessed at the
time of their elections. To secure this office, cau-

314 MINNESOTA
cuses and conventions were packed and votes se
cured by methods little short of outright bribery.
But there was no response from the legislature. It
was not till Governor Pillsbury's second term that
the legislature of 1878 yielded to his urgent recom
mendations and passed the act providing for a pub
lic examiner. It was made the duty of this officer
to supervise the bookkeeping of all state banks
and institutions and aU state and county auditors
and treasurers. He was authorized to prescribe
correct and uniforra methods of bookkeeping. He
was required to visit all these institutions and offi
cials without previous warning, and verify and in
spect all the moneys, assets, and securities held by
them respectively. His powers extended to railroad
companies, so far as the exaction of gross-earnings
taxes was concerned. The first appointee, Henry
M. Knox, performed the duties with such intel
ligence and industry as to place the state under
lasting obligations. In his last message (1881)
Governor Pillsbury expressed his satisfaction over
the operation of the law by saying : " No single act
of legislation in this state has ever been produc
tive of more good in purifying the public service
than the creation of the office of public examiner."
The penalty for homicide in the first degree had,
from the beginning of organized government in
Minnesota, been death without alternative. An act
of March 5, 1868, laid on the trial jury the duty of
deciding whether the convicted murderer should

CLEARING UP 315
suffer death or imprisonment for life. Governor
Davis in two messages strongly denounced this
leaving the penalty for raurder to the caprice of
juries, citing a case in which one of three con
victs equally guilty was put to death, while the
others received a sentence of life imprisonment. A
tragical incident brought the attention of a later
legislature to the matter and caused a return to
traditional policy. On Septeraber 6, 1876, eight
men from Missouri, armed and mounted, rode
into the viUage of Northfield in Rice County. Two
of their nuraber entered the bank and ordered
Heywood, the cashier, to deliver the raoney. On
his refusal they shot hira dead and wounded his
assistant. Securing a sraall araount of booty, the
robbers passed out to find their corapanions en
gaged in a fusillade with citizens who had found
arms and chosen points of vantage. One unarmed
citizen had fallen, and two of the bandits had
dropped dead from their horses. The survivors
rode away with all possible speed, firing at citizens
who showed themselves on the streets. After a pur
suit of some days, four of the bandits were sur
rounded in a swarap near Mankato. One was kUled
and three brothers named Younger were captured.
Two had evaded pursuit and escaped from the state.
Upon arraignment the three Youngers pleaded
guilty, and, as there was no occasion for a jury,
received sentences of life imprisonment. They were
models prisoners. One died in =1889, another com-

316 MINNESOTA
mitted suicide in 1902, and the third was pardoned
in 1903.
The political campaign of 1878 in the third (the
Minneapolis) district, was diversified by a personal
contest of raore than local interest. The Republi
can candidate for representative in Congress was
William D, Washburn, who had been an aspirant
in 1868, but declined the candidacy because of the
great defection led by Ignatius Donnelly. The
Democrats, doubtless according to an understand
ing, made no nomination, thus virtually throwing
the party vote over to Mr. Donnelly, who had been
named as the candidate of the Greenback Labor
party. Ignoring national issues, Mr. Donnelly ap
peared as the champion of the Minnesota farmers
oppressed by the raUroads and the Minneapolis
Millers' Association. It was charged and widely
credited that this organization was fixing the
prices of wheat at every railroad station in the
state. This it was doing by direct dictation to buy
ers, and also indirectly through the making of
grades. There was in use for inspection and grad
ing a small cylindrical vessel of brass with an at
tached scale beam, which the farmers were told
could be so manipulated by a practiced hand that
it would yield three grades of wheat from the same
bag full. It was charged that the association buyers
not only undergraded, but also reduced the prices
for lower grades Out of all just proportion. Mr.

CLEARING UP 317
Donnelly never had a finer opportunity for the ex
ercise of his unequaled powers of ridicule and in
vective. He denounced his opponent as the wiUing
tool of the corporations and the Millers' Associa
tion. He perambulated the district haranguing
great crowds, whom he convulsed with scornful
tirades upon " the swindling brass kittle."
The "brass kittle carapaign," however, resulted
simply in reducing the normal Republican majority
of the district from 10,000 to 3003 votes. But Mr.
Donnelly obtained a majority of nearly 500 of the
country vote. When Congress met in December,
1879, Mr. DonneUy appeared as a contestant. He
claimed that the count had gone against hira by
reason of illegal ballots, of bribery, and of the col
onization of voters. The House coramittee on elec
tions lingered long in their investigation, partly
because it was diversified with an episode which
for the time attracted more interest than the con
test itself. A letter addressed to the chairman of
the committee. Springer of Illinois, made him an
offer of $5000 to keep Washburn in his seat. The
authorship was later fixed by a special committee
of investigation on one Finley, a friend of Don
nelly. They did not find that Mr. Donnelly had
inspired the letter or had known that it was to be
written and sent. The aUeged object, of course,
was to so incense Springer against Mr. Washburn
that he would immediately swing his committee
for the innocent contestant.

318 MINNESOTA
Still it was a Democratic HoUse, wiUing, ac
cording to abundant precedent, to seat its partisan
contestant if any plausible explanation could be
invented. On the last day of the session two reports
came in from the comraittee on elections, each
signed by five raerabers. The coramittee had ar
rived at no conclusion. The House ordered the re
ports printed and recommitted, and that was the
last ever heard of the contest. Mr. Washburn
served out the term with great satisfaction to his
constituents, and was accorded two reelections by
majorities which nobody had occasion to question.
Ignatius DonneUy thus closed his career in na^
tional politics. He appeared later in two or raore
state legislatures, and was editor of several short
lived weekly newspapers. In early life he had pub
lished a small volume of poems and some prose
essays in which he gave assurance of literary ability.
His occupation as statesman gone, he now turned
to authorship. In the winter of 1880-81 he com
posed a geographical romance, entitled " Atlantis,
the Lost Continent." He dressed the ancient clas
sical legend in such attractive garb as to interest a
great body of readers, serious and other. Many
editions have been published. This work was fol
lowed by another, similar in character, under the
title of "Ragnarok." The author elaborated the
ingenious theory that the mantle of drift covering
large portions of the northern hemisphere had been
landed where it lies, when the earth at some time

CLEARING UP 319
crossed the orbit of some great meteor. This fasci
nating book was also widely read. Mr. Donnelly
next took up the study of a question which had
already been araong his recreations, that of the
authorship of the plays and poems of Shakespeare.
His "Great Cryptogram" of a thousand octavo
pages contains the results of "an incalculable labor,
reaching through raany weary years." In the first
part of King Henry the Fourth, Mr. DonneUy pro
fessed to have discovered the key to an involved
cipher showing that Francis Bacon, Nicholas Bacon's
son, had a mysterious connection with that work,
although making no clear and direct claim to its
authorship. There was a bewildering array of " root
nurabers" and "modifying numbers," beyond the
understanding of the wayfaring man. No hidden
secrets were revealed by the ingenious and compli
cated computations, and no additions to historical
knowledge were obtained. But Mr. Donnelly only
claimed to have raade a sraall beginning of a great
work left to future investigators. The book, however,
excited great interest araong people concerned with
the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, and formed a
notable addition to that literature. In 1889 the
indefatigable author brought out a novel under
the title " Caesar's Column," being a graphic and
horrible picture of the fancied results of the sway
of an unbridled plutocracy in America. Published
at a happy moment, the book was sold by hundreds
of thousands of copies, not only in America, but in

320 MINNESOTA
translated versions in Europe. The first edition
appeared under the name of Edmund Boisgilbert,
and the author had no little difficulty in finding a
publisher. In another novel, " Dr.* Huguet," the
author appealed for a humaner treatment of people
of color, but the public did not respond by buying
largely. Later ephemeral volumes and pamphlets
added nothing to the repute of a Minnesota author
known wherever the English tongue was spoken.
The superintendent of public instruction during
the Pillsbury administrations was the Rev. David
Burt. Although his education was clerical and his
educational experience brief, by a conscientious
devotion to the novel duties he carried forward
successfully the work of his predecessors. He did
much to annul the chronic opposition to the normal
schools, and justified the regents of the university
in asking more liberal appropriations for buildings
and appliances, in spite of the sraall numbers of its
early graduating classes. He persuaded the legis
lature with no little persistence that the common
school fund should be distributed to the districts
according to the number of children attending, and
not according to the census. of those of school age.
The legislature of 1877, acting under an amend
ment to the constitution adopted two years before,
extended to women the right to vote on aU measures
relating to schools, including the choice of school
officers ; and " to hold any office pertaining solely

CLEARING UP 321
to the management of schools." A later constitu
tional change extended this privilege to library
officers and measures. It has been effectively exer
cised in but few instances.
In his annual message for 1874 Governor Austin
advised the legislature that the text-books used in
the common schools were sold to parents at exorbi
tant prices fixed by a convention of the publishing
craft, but raade no definite suggestion for relief.
Ignatius Donnelly, who was in the state senate con
tinuously from 1874 to 1878, took the lead in an
effort to emancipate the people from the tyranny
of the school-book ring. His favorite plan was to
have the state print books prepared by competent
experts and distribute thera free to the schools.
Two bills for this purpose were passed by the senate
and defeated in the house. In 1877 a well-known
book dealer of St. Paul carae forward with a pro
position to furnish text-books as good as those in
use for half the prices exacted, provided he could
have a fifteen-year contract. To this the legislature
agreed, and the contract was made and executed.
Mr. Donnelly's biographer clairas that the saving
to the state in that term was at least $2,839,765.
There is no positive evidence of the aUegations
that large amounts of money were used to defeat
the biU.
In all the territories of the Northwest as they
were successively carved out of the old Northwest
Territory, provisions were made in their organic

322 MINNESOTA
acts for universities, to be endowed by grants of
land from the general government. That univer
sities could not in fact appear and exist until after
the development of fitting schools did not trouble
the pioneers, intent chiefly on getting the lands.
The reliance of American colleges generally for
the preparation of their students had been upon
the excellent acaderaies, controlled or countenanced
by Christian denominations, which were the orna
ments of so many eastern villages. The academy
did not multiply nor flourish in the West. Ambi
tious cities existing on highly colored lithographic
maps could tolerate nothing less than a college
or university. A score of them were chartered in
Minnesota in the fifties. All the western coUeges
were obliged to open preparatory departments,
and it maj' be said that they have never done more
useful service than in thus setting patterns for
the secondary education of the future. When the
University of Minnesota began college work in
1869 there were practicaUy no efficient preparatory
schools in the state. After a study of the situation
the president of the university formed the opinion
that it was to the budding high schools of the state
that the university must look for its supply of
students prepared for college work. At the state
teachers' convention of 1872 that body was asked
by a coraraittee from the board of regents to join
in an endeavor to bring about a vital organic con
nection between the high schools and the uni ver-

CLEARING UP 323
sity. It was not proposed that these schools should
be made over into mere " fitting schools," but that,
while perforraing their great function as " people's
colleges," they should accoraraodate those worthy
and arabitious youth desirous to carry their school
and professional educations still farther. The idea
was not unwelcome, but it was not easy to work
out a plan of vital, organic connection. Yet one
was worked out, embodied in a bill drawn by the
head of the university, and laid before the legis
lature of 1878. The law enacted provided for a
money payment out of the state treasury to any
high school which, having the proper faculty and
equipment, would maintain preparatory courses of
study, and admit thereto pupils of both sexes from
any part of the state, free of tuition. The schools
were obliged to subrait to inspection and make
reports to the "high school board." The high
schools of cities and villages were thus employed
as the state's agencies for extending free second
ary education to all the youth of the state. A be
ginning was made under the law in the year of its
passage, but owing to an omission in an appropria
tion bill it was not put into full and effective oper
ation till 1881. The results have fully equaled all
reasonable expectations. The university, the high
schools, and the comraon schools of Minnesota
have been converted from a loose aggregation into
a complete, harmonious, organized system. There
is open to every child of the state a course of free

324 MINNESOTA
school education from the kindergarten to the
doctorate of philosophy.
On May 2, 1878, soon after seven o'clock in the
evening an explosion took place in the Washburn
flour mill in Minneapolis. The report was heard
at great distances, the windows in neighboring
streets were shattered, and not one stone of the
great building was left on another above the foun
dations. Two other mills of less capacity, standing
near, blew up within a few seconds, and three
others took fire and were completely destroyed. It
was the hour for' the change of shift of day to
night crews, or many more than eighteen raen
would have lost their lives. The insurance cora
panies, when called upon to pay their losses, de
murred, taking the ground that they had insured
against fire only, and not against chemical explo
sion. Mr. Louis Peck, the instructor in physics in
the University of Minnesota, attracted by the prob
lem, conducted an exhaustive course of experiraents
to ascertain the truth of the raatter. Some of them
were exhibited to the public. His conclusion was
that the mills were destroyed by a true fire. He
found that any carbonaceous dust, fiour, starch, or
even sawdust, diffused through the atraosphere,
would take fire and burn with an incalculable
rapidity frora a spark or fiame. His testimony
compelled the payment of the insurances. The
statement of a Minnesota historian that this excel-

CLEARING UP 325
lent bit of scientific work was done by a professor
in Berlin is erroneous.
Even more disastrous was a fire which on No
vember 15, 1880, destroyed a wing of the hospital
for the insane at St. Peter. Twenty-seven patients
lost their lives. -The state capitol, erected in 1853,
took fire in the evening of March 1, 1881, while
the senate was in session, and was completely de
stroyed. Fortunately no lives were lost, but the
senators made their escape none too soon. The
ceiling fell as the last of thera reached the street.
The Fourth of July, 1880, was the two hun
dredth anniversary of the discovery of the Falls of
St. Anthony by Father Louis Hennepin. The event
was commemorated by a celebration held on the
university campus, under the management of the
Minnesota Historical Society, General Sibley pre
siding. The principal address was delivered by
Mr. Cushman K. Davis. Archbishop Ireland chari
tably defended the Franciscan father frora charges
of untruthfulness on the ground that unauthor
ized interpolations were made in his original book.
General William- T. Sherman was present, arid was
heard in some happy extemporaneous remarks.
The reader already knows how the peopleof Min
nesota, believing themselves to have been tricked
and swindled by a corabination of corrupt politicians
and greedy railroad operators, forbille in 1860, by
a constitutional amendment, their legislature to

326 MINNESOTA
make any provision for redeeming the special Min
nesota state railroad bonds without their affirma
tive vote. The holders of the bonds refrained from
attenipts to secure recognition of their claims till
after the close of the Civil War. The legislature of
1866 yielded to their urgency so far as to appoint
a coraraission to ascertain who were then holding
the bonds and at what prices they had obtained
them. The working members of the commission
were John Nicols and General Lucius F. Hubbard.
It was in this year that the discovery occurred of
600,000 acres of public land coraing to the state
under the forgotten act of 1841. On Governor
Marshall's recommendation the legislature of 1867,
without waiting for the report of the Nicols com
mission, joyously devoted those acres to the redemp
tion of the bonds. Under the constitutional amend
ment of 1860 the act had to run the gauntlet of
popular vote. The electors turned down the bill
by a decisive majority.
The Nicols commission reported to the legisla
ture of 1868 that they had found 1840 of the 2275
bonds in the hands or control of 106 persons. The
largest holder was Selah Chamberlain of Ohio, who
had held the largest contracts for construction. He
averred that his bonds had cost him " more than
par " for work done and material furnished ; and
claimed the whole araount with interest to date as
justly due hfin. Other holders had obtained their
bonds by purchase as low as seventeen and one

CLEARING UP 327
half cents on the dollar. In response to allegations
frequently repeated, that the grading done by Mr.
Chamberlain for three of the four companies had
never cost $9500 a mile, the commission employed
an experienced engineer to examine the work and
make an estimate of what it should reasonably have
cost. His figure was $2843.42 per mile. The report
of the Nicols commission did rauch to confirra the
Minnesota people in the conviction that the men
who had tricked and cheated them had no standing
as honest creditors. Governor Marshall, however,
believing that the innocent holders for value at
least had just claims, urged the legislature to use
the internal improvement lands to satisfy their
claims. An absurd bill of 1869 he felt obliged to
disapprove. Another of 1870, passed In response
to an appeal in his closing message, proposing to
turn over the lands at a price which would pro
duce a sum sufficient to pay the bonds, became a
law and was ratified by a large majority of the elec
tors voting thereon. The legislature had imposed
the condition that the act should not be In effeet
until at least 2000 bonds had been offered for
rederaption. But 1032 were turned in, and the act
was futile. Governor Austin expressed his regret
that the bondholders were unwilling to accept so
"fair and equitable a compromise." The legislature
of 1871 entertained a new proposition. The bill
introduced provided for a coraraission whose first
duty should be to ascertain and decide whether the

328 MINNESOTA
bonds were a legal and equitable obligation against
the state. If the decision should be affirmative,
the commission was to award to each holder the
amount due him on the basis of cost, and deliver
to hira proper amount of new state bonds. The
railroad taxes were to be devoted to the redemption
of the new bonds. General Sibley had left his
retirement and taken a seat in the house of repre
sentatives because of his desire to see the old bond
matter settled. He had never wavered from his
opinion that the state was a debtor to the full
amount of the bonds issued. But for his influence
the bill could not have passed. He would not be
lieve that Minnesota would not at sorae tirae pay
what she had proraised to pay. Could he so believe^
he declared in his speech, he would emigrate to
some community in which he would not suffer the
" intolerable humiliation " of living in a " repudi
ating state frowned on by a just and righteous God
and abhorred by man." Governor Austin, although
he sympathized with the popular feeling, did not
disapprove the bill, but let it go to be mercilessly
slaughtered at the polls. The people would not pay
mere paper obligations without right or equity be
hind them. Such they held the bonds to be.
Having failed to obtain satisfaction from the
political authorities, the claimants presently resorted
to the courts. In 1873 Mr. Chamberlain, their repre
sentative, sued the St. Paul and Sioux City Rail
road Company to recover from that company as

CLEARING UP 329
assignee of a portion of the land grant, which he
claimed to be still subject to the mortgages au
thorized by the "five million loan bill." The
decision went against him in the Circuit Court of
the United States, and he took an appeal to the
Supreme Court, to be there finally defeated. Both
of these courts, however, took opportunity to de
clare that the bonds were legal obligations, and
that if the state of Minnesota were suable no court
of justice could refuse to adjudge her to pay. "Jus
tice and honor alike " bound her to redeera her
bonds. The state of Minnesota was thus branded
by the highest judicial tribunals of the land as
a defaulting, repudiating state, regardless of the
clairas of honor and justice. These opinions — they
were not decrees — ¦ had little effect on the Minne
sota people, raost of whom never heard of them,
but they did affect the minds of many of her public
men, who smarted under the reproaches they
could not help but hear. Governor Davis in hi.s
retiring message urged the establishment of a
commission to arbitrate between the bondholders
and the state. Governor Pillsbury in his inaugural
address urged the payment of the bonds in full, to
redeem the reputation of the state. To these ap
peals the legislators gave no heed. To the legis
lature of 1877 Mr. Chamberlain for hiraself and
others subraitted an offer to cut their clairas in
two and accept new six per cent, bonds in pay
ment. To this the legislature promptly agreed, but

330 MINNESOTA
the electors in the foUowing November put their
veto on the bill. They did the same thing to an act
of 1878 providing for an exchange of internal
iraproveraent lands for the bonds, differing in par
ticulars from a previous act of the sarae general
tenor. In his messages of 1879 and 1881 Governor
Pillsbury, under the heading of "Dishonored
Bonds," entreated and implored the legislatures to
pay the honest debt of the state and clear her tar
nished honor. His earnest and Impressive appeals
had no effect on the former of the two, but the
legislature of 1881 was moved to provide for a
special tribunal, to be composed of judges of the
supreme and district courts, to consider and decide
whether the repudiating amendment of 1860 was
binding on the legislature. If the tribunal should
hold in the negative, then the old bonds were to
be redeeraed by new ones at fifty per cent, of the
araount norainally due. Not one of the judges of
the Suprerae Court was willing to serve, and the
tribunal was tardily raade up of five district judges
designated by the governor. The tribunal met and
organized, and nothing more. An order from the
Suprerae Court required it to show cause why a
writ of prohibition should not issue, on the ground
that the legislature had not the right to establish
such a tribunal. The attorney-general at the sarae
time protested against its competency, and had
leave to protest further that the act was repugnant

CLEARING UP 331
to the constitutional amendment of 1860, which
forbade payment of the bonds unless after an
affirmative vote of the electors. This pleading
brought forward as the principal issue the validity
of that amendment. The contentions were exhaus
tively argued in the Supreme Court by able coun
sel. The decision of the court was that the repudi
ating amendment of 1860 was obnoxious to that
provision of the constitution of the United States
forbidding states frora passing any law Irapairing
the obligations of contracts. The writ of prohibi
tion issued and the tribunal dissolved. There was
no appeal, and the Minnesota legislature was free
to dispose of the bond matter without a refer
endum. Governor Pillsbury called that body to
meet on October 11. The bondholders were ready
and anxious to accept fifty cents on • the dollar. A
bill to issue new 10-30 four and one half per cent
" Minnesota state railroad adjustment bonds," to
a sufficient amount, was passed after some conten
tion as to details. A companion bill devoting the
proceeds of the 500,000 acres of internal improve
ment land was passed, and under constitutional
requirement submitted to the electors in November,
1884. The vote stood : Yes, 31,011 ; no, 13,589.
The presidential vote of the state In 1880 was 150,-
484. This vote, therefore, did not indicate so rauch
a change of sentiraent among the people as a will
ingness to have the old bond controversy quieted.
The state's power to borrow at reasonable interest

332 MINNESOTA
had never been affected. Good judges were of opin
ion that the bondholders fared very well and could
afford the liberal expenditures made to secure the
legislation. The amount of new bonds issued was
$4,253,000, of which Mr. S. Charaberlain received
$1,992,053.70. Governor PiUsbury closed his third
terra by signing them, a duty he performed with
great satisfaction. With this he retired from office,
except that he served on the board of regents of
the university till his death in 1902, the legislature
having by special act created him an additional
regent during his good pleasure. He had been ori
that board since 1863.

CHAPTER XVIII
FAIR WEATHER
Whether Governor PiUsbury could have been
nominated for a fourth term may be questioned,
but when he publicly declined a fortnight before
the Republican convention, it was evident that
among the aspirants to the succession the favorite
was the gallant colonel of the Fifth Minnesota,
General Lucius F. Hubbard. The nomination was
his on the first ballot. He brought to the office a
ripe experience In legislation and public affairs and
a worthy arabition to promote the public welfare.
He was easily accorded a reelection in 1882, and,
by reason of a change made in the official year
of the state, remained in office a fifth year. It was
a period of marked prosperity, not greatly dimin
ished by the commercial depression of 1883-84.
The population of the state rose from 780,773 in
1880 to 1,117,798 in 1885, an increase of forty-
three per cent. The urban comraunities had an
excessive increase of nearly eighty per cent. ; Min
neapolis increased frora 46,887 to 129,200. Twelve
hundred and sixty-nine railes of railroad were
added. Governor Hubbard's interest in organizations

334 MINNESOTA
and institutions for promoting the public health,
improving the adrainistration of the penal and
charitable institutions, and the relief of superan
nuated soldiers was deep and continuous. With
his hearty approval the legislature of 1883 enlarged
the powers of the state board of health, which had
been in existence for ten years with powers and
resources much too limited. The executive sec
retary of the board for nearly the first quarter
century was Dr. Charles N. Hewitt, whose concep
tion of the state's interest and duty in preserving
the health and Increasing the physical efficiency of
its members was in advance of his time.
It had been the policy of the state to intrust the
care of her penal and charitable Institutions to
separate boards of citizens serving without pay.
To secure uniformity of administration and to
enable these separate bodies to profit from one
another's experiences, a state board of charities
and corrections was authorized by law in 1883. To
the working secretary of this board for fourteen
years, Mr. Henry H. Hart, must be accorded high
praise for such unstinted and intelligent devotion
to his duties that Minnesota's institutions of chari
ties and corrections were accorded a place In the
front rank. The state lost one of her most valu
able servants by his deserved promotion beyond
her borders.
Following Governor Hubbard's earnest advice,
the legislature of 1885 established "The State

FAIR WEATHER 335
Public School "for neglected children, which under
wise management by different officials has rescued
frora lives of crime or dependence many hundreds
of homeless waifs. The reforraatory for youthful
delinquents and the Soldiers' Horae, coraraended
by him to the legislature, were established under
the succeeding administration. His repeated recora
raendation that all raoneys coraing into county'
treasuries should be " covered in " through the
county auditor's office fell on deaf ears, and that
needed reforra In our public accounting still re
mains to be wrought.
The sanction of the granger laws by the Su
preme Court of the United States had established
the principle that states have the constitutional
right to regulate railroads ; but Minnesota had not
exercised the right in any vigorous or comprehen
sive way, partly because the companies had of their
own motion raoderated charges, improved their ad
ministration, and shown a disposition to treat the
public with sorae respect. Still, complaints of ex
tortion, unjust discriraination, and insolence were
frequent, and by raany believed to be well founded.
Governor Hubbard in his first two messages urged
the legislatures to take up these complaints and
endeavor to frame a comprehensive statute which
should secure to the companies their just rights and
imraunities, and at the sarae time protect the
people in theirs. The result was the railroad law of
1885, chapter 188 of the session laws of that year.

336 MINNESOTA
This act, judiciously drawn, raet the purpose of its
framers so fully that amendment has been neces
sary only in points of detail. The historian at sorae
far-off day will marvel that In the closing years of
the nineteenth century it was necessary to corapel
coramon carriers by law not merely to serve the
public at just and equal charges published in ad-
¦ vance, but to provide coramon decencies and accom
modations in the way of platforms, waiting-rooms,
fire-extinguishers, and toilet-rooms.
Another measure successfully pressed upon the
legislature by Governor Hubbard was that of public
state grain inspection. The precarious and con
flicting grades fixed by individual and associated
buyers were the source of incessant dissatisfaction
and complaint. Chapter 144 of the General Laws
of Minnesota, 1885, established that systera of
inspection and grading since known and approved
on both sides of the Atlantic. A warehouse re
ceipt for a certain quantity of grain of a certain
Minnesota grade became a definite asset. Because
grain inspection necessarily involved the regulation
and control of elevators, which in turn were closely
related to railroads, the law placed the control of
the system in the hands of the Board of Railroad
Coraraissioners. The title of the board was changed
to Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commis
sioners, and its powers were much extended and
fortified. Annual sessions of the legislature had ceased

FAIR WEATHER 337
with that of 1879, but elections continued to be
held annuaUy tiU 1886, from which year all United
States, state, and county officers have been elected
in the even-numbered years. All state and county
terms of office begin on January 1 ; the fiscal year
begins August 1.
Governor Hubbard called to the important office
of state superintendent of public instruction David
L. Kiehle, who, like his predecessor, had received
a clerical education and had had slight experience
in school work, but like that predecessor was able
to throw hiraself unreservedly into the public
school cause. During the seven terms (1881-93)
he remained in office he labored with great fidelity
and success to iraprove the schools of all grades.
Institutes and sumraer training schools were pro
moted and a state tax of one raill was established to
increase the efficiency of the cotairaon schools. By
an act of 1885 school attendance was made com
pulsory for twelve weeks in each year.
In September, 1884, Cyrus Northrop, resigning
his professorship in Yale College, assumed the
presidency of the state university, bringing to the
office large knowledge, a ripe experience in educa
tion and public affairs, and a remarkable gift for
gaining effective support for reasonable measures.
The president of the university and the state super
intendent of schools being the two working mem
bers of the high school board, such effective operation
was given to the "act for the encouragement of

338 MINNESOTA
higher education " that high schools In large num
bers heartily took up the desired duty and presently
began feeding the university with students fitted
for college work. The university was thus enabled
in 1890 to drop the last of its preparatory classes.
Whatever may have been whispered in political
circles, it was general public expectation that when
the legislature of 1883 should come to the election
of a United States senator It would do nothing
else than reelect William Windom. He had re
signed from the Senate in 1881 to accept a seat in
Garfield's cabinet, but had been reappointed by
the governor after the death of that President.
Mr. Windom felt so confident of his reelection that
he remained at his post of duty in Washington and
did not come to St. Paul until after the discovery
by his friends of an indifference, not to say an
opposition, needing his personal attention. The
Republican caucus gave him a unanimous nomi
nation, but the absence of fifty members was
ominous. The election went to the joint con
vention of the two houses. After sixteen days of
balloting the choice went to another. The causes
of this defeat of the best man of Minnesota for th'e
place were various. An old political quarrel In the
first congressional district was a cause of no lit
tle disaffection ; that Mr. Windom had built a
costly house in Washington, impliedly asserting
a permanent hold on the senatorship, furnished

FAIR WEATHER 339
excuse to some; the fact that he had been unwisely
praised by admiring supporters alienated others.
Interaperate censure of opponents by a leading
newspaper favoring his reelection doubtless cora-
pacted the opposition. Mr. Windom was himself
convinced that a liberal use of money was the
effective means of his defeat.
President Harrison called Mr. Windora into his
cabinet as secretary of the treasury, for whose
duties his industry, his large training in publio
affairs aud matured judgment fitted hira. His life
was suddenly ended on January 29, 1890, by a
paralytic stroke coming at the close of a speech at
a banquet in New York city.
On the evening of Noveraber 7, 1884, citizens of
St. Paul gave a banquet in honor of General Henry
Hastings Sibley, first state governor, celebrating
his arrival at Mendota fifty years before. For the
long series of honors and compliments bestowed on
this first citizen of Minnesota the reader must re
sort to his biographer. In 1888 the trustees of
Princeton College conferred upon him the honorary
degree of Doctor of Laws, In consideration of "high
personal character, scholarly attainments, and erai
nent public service, civil, military, and educational."
General Sibley's death did not occur until Febru
ary 18, 1891.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS

With the close of Governor Hubbard's adminis
tration, now twenty-one years ago, the connected
story of Minnesota may properly end. Only after
sorae lapse of years may the historian presume to
view affairs with discrimination, selecting those of
permanent significance from the trifling and tran
sitory. He may, however, as a mere annalist, record
such facts and events as seem to have more than
momentary Importance.
The governors of the state have been : —

NJlMO.

Paety.

Dates.

Andrew R. McGill . .
William R. Merriam .
Bjiute Nelson ....
David M. Clough . .
John Lind . . .
Samuel R. Van Sant .
John A. Johnson . .

Republican.Republican.
Bepublican.
Republican.Democrat.Republican.
Democrat.

January 5, 1887, to January 9, 1889.
January 9, 1889, to January 4, 1893.
January 4, 1893, to January 31 , 1895.
January 31, 1895, to January 2, 1899.
January 2, 1899, to January?, 1901.
January 7, 1901, to January 4, 1905.
January 4, 1905, to

Mr. Nelson was elected to the United States
Senate In the first month of his second term as
governor. Mr. Clough, lieutenant-governor, suc
ceeded hira, and was elected governor for a second

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 341
term. Mr. Lind was the first Democratic governor
after Governor Sibley, the first state executive.
Both he and Mr. Johnson were elected in spite of
the fact that Minnesota was and is overwhelmingly
Republican. Four United States senators only have been
elected, aU Republican. Cushman K. Davis, who
in 1875 had balked Mr. Rarasey of a third term,
but failed to secure his own election, went into re
tireraent, devoting hiraself to his law practice, to
literature, and to preparation for a publio career
to come in good time. He so coraraended himseK to
Republicans by his professional ability, his fine pub
lic addresses, and the moderation of his deraands for
advanceraent, that when the tirae carae, in January,
1887, to fiU the vacancy of Senator McMillan,
about to occur, there was but one opposing vote
against hira in the Republican caucus. Ignatius
Donnelly, who had temporarily returned to the fold,
made a rousing speech of approval. The election
followed as of course. In 1893 Mr. Davis was
elected for a second term, but by a close vote. In
1899 he was accorded a third term with alraost no
opposition. He had made a brilliant record as
senator and chairman of the committee on foreign
relations. He served as one of the commissioners
to negotiate the treaty of peadfe at the close of the
Spanish war of 1898. Mr. Davis died In office
suddenly, November 27, 1900.
William D. Washburn, who had retired from the

342 MINNESOTA
House of Representatives, did not reach his ex
pected promotion to the Senate till 1889. At the
close of his term he gave way to Governor Nelson,
who has since been twice reelected. Moses E. Clapp
was elected in 1901 to fiU the vacancy caused by the
death of Senator Davis.
The Australian ballot system, established in 1889
for cities of 10,000 inhabitants or more, extended
to operate throughout the state in 1891, was re
codified in 1893.
The legislature of 1899 passed a law providing
for " priraary elections " to replace norainations by
party caucuses and conventions. The aet is uot op
erative in towns, villages, and sraall cities, and does
not apply to state officers. The primary election
takes place on the first of the registration days for
the usual election, and is conducted by the same
judges and clerks. Any person eligible to an office
may, by payment of a prescribed fee and making a
qualifying oath, have his name printed on the pri
mary ballot of his party. Every qualified voter may,
after registration, receive and mark the ballot of the
party he " generally supported at the last election
and intends to support at the next ensuing." The
general election laws apply, and the usual penalties
attach to misconduct. The experiment Is still too
brief to warrant a flihal judgment. It has certainly
weakened the machine, and stimulated aspiration to
office In persons whose qualifications are more ap
parent to themselves than to others. That candi-

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 343
dates for judicial positions are obliged to raake a
personal canvass Is perhaps the feature most to be
regretted. When the capitol buUding was burned in 1881
the legislature, upon Governor Pillsbury's recom
mendation, immediately appropriated $75,000 for
rebuilding, on the assumption that the walls were
sufficiently sound. Thisassuraption was found mis
taken, and additional sums were voted till more
than four tiraes the original amount was expended.
But ten years had not passed before it was appar
ent that ampler accomraodations were imperative
for multiplying functionaries and expanding busi
ness. The legislature of 1893 accordingly author
ized the appointment of a commission to plan, build,
and furnish a new and appropriate structure. The
local influence was sufficiently effective to keep the
location in the heart of St. Paul, on an elevated
site of small area, rather than permit erection on
a larger area In the " midway district," still in that
city, but near Minneapolis. The corner-stone was
laid on July 27, 1898, by Alexander Ramsey. Sen
ator C. K. Davis delivered the principal address.
The legislature of 1905 was the first to convene
In the completed building. The traditional plan of
a central body flanked by wings and surraounted
by a dome was followed, with the variation that
the house of representatives Is housed in a rear ex
tension, leaving the wings to accommodate the
senate and the supreme court. The exterior Is of

344 MINNESOTA
Georgia marble. The Interior corridors are faced
with polished Minnesota magnesian limestones of
charming tints, relieved by panels of foreign mar
bles. The interior of the dorae, the senate chamber,
the suprerae court room, and the governor's office
are splendidly decorated with mural paintings by
leading American artists. Over the fa9ade of the
central structure rests a quadriga in bronze, typify
ing the progress of Minnesota. The total cost was
$4,428,539.72 ; and in this age the honorable com
missioners need not resent as superfluous the record
that there was absolutely no " graft " in the whole
construction and furnishing. The architect, Mr.
Cass GUbert, a native of Minnesota, will be fortu
nate if he shall In his future career surpass the
taste, skiU, and nobility of conception displayed in
this work. It is a splendid object lesson In civic
architecture, not only to Minnesota but to neigh
boring comraonwealths.
The legislature of 1905 adopted a new codifica
tion of the general laws of the state, which had
been prepared by a commission of which Daniel
Fish, Esq., was the working member. It has been
published in a single volume of 1380 pages.
The penal and charitable institutions of Minne
sota under the supervision of the board of charities
and corrections had attained to the first rank for
economy of administration and beneficial results.
Two neighboring states made the experiment of
disbanding the separate boards of trustees or man-

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 345
agers and placing all such institutions in the hands
of a single " board of control." To be in the fashion
the legislature of Minnesota in 1901 created a
board of control of state Institutions, and went so
far as to include the university and norraal schools
in aU their financial concerns. These, however,
were in a later year exempted frora the operation
of the act and restored to their independence. It
may be conceded that in point of finance the single
board has justified the change, in spite of the fact
that its members have been appointed on political
considerations. Persuaded that there was danger
of neglect in a board so composed and fully occu
pied with the business management of the institu
tions, the legislature of 1907 provided for a board
of visitors to exercise a humanitarian supervision
over the patients and inmates.
The people of Minnesota have not yet desired a
revision of their constitution, content to live under
the original statute of 1857 and to amend it casu
ally from time to time. In the period now in view
no fewer than seventeen amendments have been
adopted, some of them of far-reaching importance.
They may be enumerated : —
1. 1888, an amendment fixing January 1 as
the beginning of the official year of the state,
on which day aU officers chosen at the pre
vious election enter upon their duties.
2. 1886, an amendraent authorizing loans upon
Interest frora the permanent school fund of

346 MINNESOTA
the state to counties and school districts, to
be used in the erection of county and school
buildings. This provision, wisely guarded,
has proved advantageous.
3. Of the same year, an amendment forbidding
the enactment of any special law in all cases
where a general law can be made applicable,
and specificaUy Inhibiting special legislation
In fifteen cases. Its operation has been bene
ficial, but there have been instances where
special legislation has been had under mere
color of general.
4. 1888, an amendment limiting the sessions of
the legislature to ninety legislative days, and
forbidding the introduction of any new bill
during the last twenty days, unless upon
recommendation of the governor in a special
message.
5. Of the sarae year, an amendment declaring
any combination to monopolize markets for
food products, or to interfere with the free
dom of such markets, to be a crirainal con
spiracy, punishable as the legislature may
provide. No action has yet been had.
6. 1890, an amendraent authorizing the legisla
ture to provide that an agreement of ten
jurors in a civil action shall be a sufficient
verdict. The legislature has not yet acted.
7. 1896, an amendment creating a board of
pardons, consisting of the governor, the at-

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 347
torney-general, and the chief justice, with
powers to be defined and regulated by law.
The procedure of the board has been pre
scribed by statute. Its administration has
been judicious, and the governor has been
relieved of a duty exceedingly painful and
difficult for any Individual to discharge.
8. 1896, an araendraent to the elective fran
chise article, taking from declarants for
naturalization the right to vote.
9. In the year 1906 a so-caUed " wide open "
tax amendraent, repealing a large part of
Article IX as formerly standing. It declares
that "the power of taxation shall never
be surrendered, suspended, nor contracted
away." After exemptions of the ordinary
kind, it leaves the legislature free to levy
taxes according to Its discretion, requiring
only that they shall be uniforra upon the
sarae class of subjects.
10. 1898, an amendment granting suffrage to
women of full age In school and library
measures absolutely, and not merely allowing
the legislature to extend the pRvilege.
11. In the same year, an amendment requiring
a majority of aU the votes cast at the elec
tion to ratify an amendment to the constitu
tion. Up to that year a majority of the
electors voting on the particular amendraent
was sufficient to ratify.

348 MINNESOTA
12. In the same year, an amendment creating a
state highway commission and a road and
bridge fund and authorizing a special tax
therefor.
13. Also In 1898, an amendment authorizing
cities and villages to adopt charters for their
own government, to be drafted by a board
of freeholders appointed by district judges ;
commonly called a " home-rule " amendment.
An affirmative vote of four sevenths of the
electors Is necessary to adopt. In Minneap
olis on four occasions, large majorities have
favored " home rule," but the required four-
sevenths vote has not been obtained.
14. 1904, an araendraent authorizing the invest-
raent of the permanent school and university
funds in the bonds of counties, towns, cities,
viUages, and school districts under prescribed
conditions.
What place the tornado, the hailstorm, the lo
cust, and such like destroyers have in the mundane
economy ; whether they are providential disposi
tions for tUfe punishment of particular communi
ties, or freaks of sheer diabolism, or resultants of
powers imparted to nature playing under determin
ing conditions, is a question which must be left to
casuists, reverend and other. Minnesota can claim
no exemption from such visitations. On April 14,
1886, a furious tornado struck the city of St. Cloud

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 349
and its suburb, Sauk Rapids, cutting a swath of
desolation and destroying some seventy persons.
In 1891, on June 15, a series of tornadoes trav
ersed the counties of Martin, Faribault, Freeborn,
Mower, and Fillmore, on a line nearly paraUel with
the Southern Minnesota division of the Milwaukee
and St. Paul Railroad. Many farm buildings were
wrecked and about fifty people killed. In previous
years disastrous tornadoes had wrought havoc in
New Ulm and Rochester.
In the fall of 1886 there was a descent of what
were supposed to be ordinary grasshoppers in Otter
Tail County. When In the foUowing spring " hop
pers " were appearing dangerously numerous. Gov
ernor McGill sent out the state entomologist. Dr.
Otto Lugger of the university agricultural college,
to Investigate. He saw at once that the genuine
Rocky Mountain locust was to be dealt with, and
proceeded to organize the farmers for warfare on
them. So effective was the campaign that thirty-
five thousand bushels of the Insects were caught
and destroyed, and half the crops on about one
hundred square railes saved.
On Septeraber 1, 1894, a fire broke out In the
cut-over pine woods near Hinckley, In Pine County.
A high wind prevailing, it spread and raged for
many days. Eight villages, including Hinckley and
Sandstone, and scores of farrasteads were cora
pletely destroyed. Not less than three hundred and
fifty square miles were devastated. Four hundred

360 . MINNESOTA
and eighteen persons lost their lives, and more than
two thousand were left homeless. The property
loss was not less than a million dollars. Governor
Nelson appointed a relief coramittee of citizens,
with Charles A. Pillsbury at its head. The esti
mated amount of relief furnished through this and
the local committees was $185,000. In the same
year the chinch bug did much damage to growing
crops In several southwestern counties.
At the outbreak of the war with Spain In April,
1898, Minnesota was first of the states to respond
to the call of the President for volunteers, as she had
been in the Civil War. Before the close of the month
three regiments, — Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Four
teenth, — mostly recruited frora the national guard,
were assembled at St. Paul. They were mustered into
the United States service May 7 and 8. The Thir
teenth Regiment, comraanded by Colonel Charles
McCorraick Reeve, was dispatched to the Philip
pine Islands and participated In the capture of
Manila, August 13, 1898. It performed provost
guard duty in that city till the spring of 1899, and
formed part of Lawton's expedition to the interior.
The regiment was mustered out In San Francisco
in September, but was transported horae In trains
furnished by Minnesota cities, and on arrival in
Minneapolis, October 12, 1899, was reviewed by
President McKinley.
The Twelfth and Fourteenth regiraents were
sent to the grand rendezvous at Camp Thomas,

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 351
Chickamauga Park, Georgia, detained thereabout
through the suraraer, sent home late in September,
furloughed for thirty days, and mustered out No
veraber 18.
The Fifteenth, recruited frora the state at large,
was raustered in July 18, detained at Fort Snell
ing till Septeraber 15, and then sent to Camp
Meade, Pennsylvania. A raonth later it was or
dered to Camp Mackenzie, Georgia, where it re
mained till mustered out March 27, 1899.
The Thirteenth alone suffered losses in action.
Its roll of honor shows officers and men killed, 5 ;
died of disease or accident, 37 ; wounded, 44.
A detachment of the Fourteenth Minnesota saw
sorae service, happily bloodless, in its own state.
The PiUager band of Chippeway Indians on Leech
Lake had long been complaining of injustice done
thera in the raatter of the pine on their reservation,
which they had been persuaded to sell. The prices
paid them were ridiculously low, and the charges
for appraisal and inspection as ridiculously high.
Parties holding permits to cut " dead and down
timber," cut live trees standing convenient. Re
peated protests to the government had brought no
redress. The deputy United States marshal, Shee
han (he of Fort Ridgely), undertook to arrest a
chief who had given show of misbehavior. He re
sisted arrest, and a number of his Ijraves rallied
and stood off the marshal's posse. A company of
sixty United States Infantry was sent from Fort

352 MINNESOTA
Snelling, which was later reinforced by two hun
dred raen comraanded by Major M. C. Wilkinson
and supervised by General Bacon. On October 5
the troops were landed on the peninsula known as
Sugar Point, and a sharp little conflict followed
which cost the lives of Major Wilkinson, Sergeant
William Butler, and two privates. Two corapanies
of the Fourteenth were recalled from furlough and
distributed to stations of the railroad running
north of Leech Lake. After repeated councils, at
which the United States coraraissioner of Indian
affairs was present, eight chiefs surrendered to the
marshal, and the war ended. Governor Clough, in
his raessage to the legislature of 1899, charged the
United States governraent with a " series of acts
and neglects most wrongful to the Indians " and
with a " blunder more crirainal in its results than
those neglects and acts," the performance being the
" climax of a long course of folly and wrong."
All branches of the public school system have
been enlarged and improved. The common school
endowment from the lands granted by Congress
has increased to more than $11,000,000. Sales of
pine timber ($3,500,000) and other items have
sweUed the fund to more than $16,000,000. The
state still holds millions of acres unsold. The ex
cellent work of the normal schools, supplemented
by that of the high schools, has greatly added to
the number of qualified teachers. Opposition to

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 353
the normal schools, now five in number, has long
since ceased.
Beginning with the year 1889, and the first
graduations from the professional schools, the de
velopment of the university has surpassed all ex
pectations. The total attendance in that year was
791, the nuraber of degrees conferred, 52. In 1900
those numbers were increased to 2866 and 449
respectively. In 1907 they were 3955 and 507.
It has been difficult to keep the buildings and
equipment abreast of the needs of these develop
ments, especially as the original " main " build
ing has been once extensively damaged and later
destroyed by fire. Despite inadequate corapensa
tion, the professorships have been filled with able
and earnest men and women, but no small number
of teachers whom the state and the institution
could ill afford to lose have been drawn away.
The student body have secured high places in inter
collegiate athletics, oratorical and forensic contests,
adding rauch to the repute of the university, already
holding an honorable rank for scholarship and cul
ture. While the state university is the largest and
best-equipped in the state. It possesses no raono
poly of the superior education. There are at least
fifteen other degree-conferring institutions. More
than half of the nuraber are Lutheran colleges or
seminaries, in which excellent instruction is given
in the classical languages, history, and philosophy.
The Roman Catholic colleges, also strong In the

354 MINNESOTA
humanities, are St. John's University and the Col
lege of St. Thoraas. The leading Protestant insti
tutions which have passed out of the experimental
stage are Carleton College at Northfield, and Mac
alester College and Hamline University, both within
the liraits of St. Paul. All are open to women,
maintain excellent preparatory departments, and
do well the work they undertake to do.
The notable development of the university Col
lege of Agriculture at St. Anthony Park cannot
here have adequate room, but raention raust be
made of one of its auxiliaries, the so-caUed " School
of Agriculture." From the year 1868, when the
agricultural college lands were merged with those
of the university, the regents and faculty of the
uni versity had exerted themselves in all good faith
to gather students into the agricultural college
which they had proraptly organized on paper. The
farraers' boys flocked to the university, but not to
learn agriculture to practice it. Only occasionally
could any be induced to enroll in that college. Up
to 1888 not fifty had so done, and but one had
completed the course and been graduated. The first
president had declared that there was no proper
work for an agricultural " college" to do, and that
agricultural schools of secondary rank must be or
ganized. Professor Edward A. Porter of the univer
sity department of agriculture, after some years of
experiment and reflection, became convinced that
such a school should be undertaken, and that, not

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 355
on the university carapus, but on the experimental
farm sorae two miles away. He brought the board
of regents to his opinion through the influence of
an " advisory board of farmers " which he induced
them to appoint. State Superintendent D. L.
Kiehle, a member of the board of regents ex-officiot,
worked out the pedagogical details, and early in
1888 submitted the plan of a " school " of agricul
ture to receive students of fifteen and over, with
a coraraon-school training, for a terra extending
from Noveraber to April. His Idea was to raake
the instruction practical In the branches immedi
ately related to agriculture, cultivating powers of
observation and judgment, and arousing interest
in and taste for country life. The school was opened
October 18, 1888, with forty-seven students. Young
women were admitted in 1897, and a second-year
course has been added. The school expenses proper
do not exceed eighty-five dollars a year. The en
rollment of students for 1908 was 581, and the
whole nuraber since 1888 is 4608. A notable fact
Is that this " school " has stiraulated and fed the
"college" of agriculture, 69 students having been
graduated since the opening of the school. The
framers of the "MorriU biU " of 1857-62, granting
public lands for the endowment and support of col
leges of agriculture and mechanic arts, could have
had no expectation of any such use of the grant,
and doubtless would have provided against devot
ing it to elementary education. The industrial

356 MINNESOTA
education had yet to be invented for this country.
But this school of agriculture Is far better for the
practical farraer than any coUege could be.
One department of the school of agriculture of
the university has had no small part In working a
great change in Minnesota agriculture. While the
state as a whole will long retain a leading place
as a wheat producer, all southern Minnesota has
abandoned that cereal as a principal crop. Supplied
from the department of dairy husbandry of the
school of agriculture with expert operators of cream
eries and cheese factories, the farmers of many
counties have turned to dairying. Minnesota butter,
thanks to the science and practice taught in the
school, commands a premium In the market, and
its annual output has run up to near 100,000,000
pounds. Minnesota has become the "Bread and
Butter State." The total dairy product of Minnesota
in 1907 raay be safely valued at $40,000,000.
Along with dairying has naturally grown up an
extensive animal husbandry, profitably converting
into marketable forras the forage crops of great
areas. At the experiment station conducted in the agri
cultural department of the university new varie
ties of grains, in particular wheat, have been de
veloped by careful breeding and selection, which
promise rauch to Minnesota farmers.
Adjoining the agricultural establishment of the
university is the domain of two hundred acres and

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 367
more on which the Minnesota State Agricultural
Society, in a vast range of buildings and inclosures,
holds its annual fair in September. Given this per
manent location in 1885, the society has developed
a great industrial museum of high educational
value. For many years after the white man built his
sawmills on Minnesota rivers it was believed that
the pine forests north and east of the Sioux-Chip
peway intertribal boundary of 1825 could never
be exhausted. A generation ago that belief was
given up, but exhaustion was thought to be so
far away that people then living need not worry
about it. There being no public control over pri
vate lumbering, the reckless, indiscriminate, ruin
ous raethods of the pioneer operators were con
tinued. Young growing trees went down along
with those old and ripe for the axe. Within a few
years it has becorae apparent to all who concern
theraselves, that the days of Minnesota lumbering
in the old piratical fashion are numbered. Had a
reasonable forest policy been established fifty years
ago, permitting only the annual cutting of ripe
trees and leaving the young to grow, a harvest of
luraber might have been reaped in perpetuity.
There are miUions of acres of land in the state
which are fit only for forest growth and will some
day be so devoted. An act of the legislature of
1899 created a state forestry board, which has al-

368 MINNESOTA
ready outlined a policy and begun the iramense
work of re-afforesting despoiled areas. Another act,
that of 1905, provides for a forest coraraissioner, and
to that office has been appointed General C. C.
Andrews, who for raany years has been the apostle
of forest preservation and replanting in Minnesota.
In 1878 the state geologist. Professor N. H. Win
cheU, announced the existence of iron ore fit for
steel production about Vermilion Lake in St. Louis
County ; but neither the university nor the state
authorities took sufficient interest to cause a proper
examination of the region to be made. George
C. Stone of Duluth conducted explorations whose
revelations led to the formation of the Minnesota
Iron Company and the building of the Duluth and
Iron Range Railroad in 1884. In that year 62,122
tons of ore were shipped from the mine opened at
Tower. Four years later the railroad was extended
to Ely, and 54,612 tons were carried from the
Chandler mine. The product of the Vermilion
range increased with astonishing rapidity. It was
near a half million tons in 1888, and double that
figure four j'ears later.
Marvelous as had been the development of the
Vermilion range. It was eclipsed by that of another
of which geologists had detected but faint indica
tions. In November 1890, an exploring party of
the Merritt Brothers of Duluth found iron ore at a
point west of Virginia, near which the Great Moun
tain Iron mine was later opened. A year after one

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 359
of their explorers found ore turned up by the roots
of a fallen tree. A shaft sunk on the spot struck
the ore body of the Biwabik mine. From these be
ginnings date the developments of the Mesabi iron
range, lying some twenty miles south of and par
allel with the Verrailion range, but extending much
farther to the west. In 1892, 4245 tons of ore were
shipped over the railroads which had been built out
frora Duluth to the Mesabi mines. Three years later
the shipments were nearly three millions of gross
tons ; in 1900 they had swelled to nearly eight mil
lions, and in 1907 they touched twenty-seven and a
half miUions. The shipment in the year last named
from a certain single mine was 2,900,493 tons. The
Mesabi ores are of the " soft " variety, lie near
the surface, and are in large part mined by means
of steam shovels dumping into cars ; these, in the
shipping season, are at once dispatched to the lake
ports, where the ore is transferred to vessels which
carry it below. The output of the Vermilion range
has remained under two millions a year, except in a
single case. The ores of both ranges are of the va
riety known as hematite, with great differences of
physical structure. Much of them yield seventy per
cent, of pure metal. Ore containing less than fifty-
five per cent, of iron is not now considered market
able, and there are enormous masses of such low
grade ore left untouched by the mine operators.
At least 1,500,000,000 tons of ore marketable
under present conditions have been located and

360 MINNESOTA
measured. The state tax commission in 1907 raised
the valuation of 2116 ore properties, containing
1,192,509,757 tons, from $64,500,000 in 1906 to
$189,500,000. An act of Congress of 1873 expressly excepted
Minnesota from the operation of the mining laws
of the United States, leaving all her mineral lauds
open to settlement or purchase in legal subdivisions,
like agricultural or tirabered lands, thus virtually
giving to lucky speculators these priceless ore
deposits. Up to 1889 the state pursued the same
policy, selling her school and swamp lands contain
ing ore at the annual sales and getting the usual
prices for arable lands. In 1889 the legislature
provided for the leasing of ore properties for fifty
years at a royalty of twenty-five cents per ton. At
this rate, less than one third that obtained by pri
vate mine owners, the school fund will be splendidly
enriched. The receipts frora royalties and contracts
In 1907 were $273,433.
At the close of the year 1907 the railroads of
Minnesota had increased their mileage to 8023
miles, having almost doubled it in twenty years.
The Suprerae Court of the United States In the
Blake case, decided in 1876, had affirraed the right
of the state of Minnesota to regulate railroad fares
and rates, according to the pleasure of the legisla
ture. In 1890 carae a decision frora the same tri
bunal in another Minnesota case to the effect that

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 361
any regulation, whether by statute or through a
commission, must be subject to judicial review. The
legislature could not deprive a railroad company of
its property — rents, issues, and profits included —
without due process of law, much less could a com
mission. This decision with others of the period
materially moderated the effect of the "granger
cases." Another litigation arising in the state was
of national iraportance. A small clique of capital
ists who had bought control of the Great Northern
and Northern Pacific railway systeras, each of eight
thousand miles and more, desiring to operate them
as one property or interest, formed a third corpo
ration called the Northern Securities Company. It
was chartered in New Jersey, November 13, 1900,
with an authorized capital stock of $400,000,000.
When duly organized this corapany proceeded to
exchansre its own stock for the stocks of the Great
Northern and Northern Pacific, and absorbed more
than three fourths of thera. This consolidation, ef
fecting a monopoly of all traffic between the Missis
sippi and the Pacific coast for five degrees of lati
tude, caused the greatest alarm. Governor Van
Sant used every means at his disposal to prevent
Its consummation. A suit, brought by the state in
one of her district courts alleging violation of her
statute forbidding the consolidation of parallel and
competing roads, removed to the Circuit Court of
the United States, was there decided against the
state on the ground that the Northern Securities

362 MINNESOTA
was not a railroad company, but a mere "holding
company." An appeal was taken to the Supreme
Court of the United States, but that court de
clined to review the action below because the case
had been improperly removed frora the Minnesota
court. Without waiting for the result of this suit,
the Attorney-General of the United States sued in
the Circuit Court of the United States for Minne
sota, charging infraction of the " Sherman anti-trust
law " of 1890. That court, after elaborate hearings,
found the Northern Securities Corapany to be an
unlawful combination in restraint of trade, and or
dered its dissolution. As was expected, an appeal
was taken to the Supreme Court, where in March,
1904, the decision below was affirmed, the chief
justice and three associates dissenting. Under judi
cial direction the Northern Securities Company
proceeded to return the stocks taken in exchange,
and at length went into dissolution. The same men
own the two roads still.
Early in the present year the Supreme Court of
the United States considered that the Circuit Court
for the District of Minnesota had the right to
punish the attorney-general of Minnesota for at
tempting, in disobedience of Its process, to enforce
a state law regulating railroad rates, held to be
obnoxious to the national constitution.
Minnesota enjoys a great advantage in point of
transportation to both oceans in the competition of
Canadian roads, with branches penetrating to her

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 363
principal cities. The water route eastward from
Duluth has moderated costs of shipping out her
staple products — grain, ore, and luraber — and
given her favorable rates on returning raerchandise.
The new states of the Northwest have departed far
from the conservative doctrine that governments
exist merely for the protection of persons and pro
perty. Two example's of this departure in Minne
sota raay be mentioned. In 1899 the legislature
created the Minnesota Public Library Commission.
Its duties are to maintain (1) a bureau of informa
tion on library raatters, (2) a circulating library,
and (3) a clearing-house for periodicals. Frora the
circulating library, " traveling libraries " of twen
ty-five or fifty volumes are sent to sraall towns
and rural communities on payment of a small fee.
Home study and juvenile libraries are also sent
out, and small collections in five different foreign
languages. No provision for the general culture
could be more popular.
Equally acceptable have been the ministrations
of the Minnesota State Art Society, organized under
an act of 1903. This body manages periodical art
exhibitions, offers and awards prizes for excellence
in artistic work, and will ultiraately form a perma
nent collection. The exhibitions, held In St. Cloud,
Mankato, and Winona have been of great educa
tional value.
Minnesota lies between the latitudes of 43 degrees,
30 minutes, and 49 degrees north, and the longitudes

364 MINNESOTA
of 89 degrees, 29 minutes, and 97 degrees, 15 min
utes west. Her extreme dimensions are therefore
about 380 miles from north to south and 350 miles
from east to west. Her situation is not far from
the geographical centre of the North American con
tinent, and the drainage from the Itascan plateau
falls into Hudson's Bay, the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and the Gulf of Mexico. The lowest land is at the
head of Lake Superior, whose surface is 602 feet
above sea-level. The highest land a granite peak
of the Misquah hills in Cook County, is 2230 feet
above sea-level. The annual mean temperature is
44 degrees Fahrenheit ; that of the summer months,
70 degrees. The cliraate has proved favorable to
health and industry .
By the state census of 1905 the total population
of Minnesota was 1,979,912, including 10,920 In
dians, 171 Chinese, and 50 Japanese. The native
born were 1,424,333. Of the 537,041 foreign-born
persons, 262, 417 carae frora the Scandinavian king-
doras, 119,868 from Germany, 84,022 from English-
speaking countries. The average yearly increase
for the decade closing in 1905 was 40,529 ; for the
five-year period, 22,852. The urban population was
1,048,922, equal to 53 per cent, of the total. In
the same decade the urban population had in
creased 38 per cent., while the rural population
had augmented but 14.5 per cent. The most notable
examples of urban development are in the " twin
cities " of Minneapolis and St. Paul, their aggregate

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS 365
population in 1905 being 458,997. If the suburban
dwellers within easy "trolley" ride be added, that
nuraber rises to more than half a million. Although
the two municipalities have long been coterminous,
they may reraain politicaUy separate for many
years, if not indefinitely.

POPULATION OF MINNESOTA FOR TWELVE CENSUS YEARS.

Fedbeal Cehsds.

State CENsna.

1850 

6,077

1857 

150,037

1860 

172,123

1865 
250,099
1870 
439,706
1875 
597,407
1880 
780,773
1885 
1,117,798
1890 
1,301,826
1895 
1,574,619
1900 
1,751,394
1905 
1,979,912
INDEX

ACCAULT leads expedition to up
per Mississippi, 18.
Acton murders, 197.
Agricultural college, established
at Glencoe (1858), 160.
Agricultural school at Lake Cal
houn, 67.
Aidrich, Cyms, M. C, and candl-
datefor U. S. senator,248; cham
pions homestead act, 253.
AUen, Lieut. James, commands
Schoolcraft's escort, 75.
Allouez, Ptoe, at La Pointe (1665),
14; at convocation of 1671, 15.
American Fur Company, organ
ized, 54 ; policy of, 64; chief 8.ta-
tions, 55; control of Indians, 58;
factors of, 59.
Anderson, Capt. Joseph, in battle
of Birch Coulie, 213.
Andrews, C. C, votes against
surrender of Third Minnesota,
183; in command at Fitzhugh's
Woods, 243; accepts nomination
for M. C., 264 ; state forest com
missioner, 358.
Astor, John Jacob, organizes the
American Fur Co., 52.
"Atlantis," written by Ignatius
Donnelly, 318.
Attorney-General of Minnesota
enjoined by U. S. courts from
enforcing state law, 362.
Auguelle, associate of Accaultand
Hennepin, 18.
Austin, Horace, nominated, 265 ;
inaugurated governor, 265; an
tecedents, 276 ; proposes consti
tutional amendments, 268; ve
toes bill to squander internal
improvement lands, 268 ; re
commends regulation of rail
roads, 279.
Australian ballot system, 342.

Bancroft, George, mentioned, 121.
Banking, see Railroads.
Banks issue notes on deposit of
special state railroad bonds, 166.
Battle of Big Mound, 235; Birch
Coulie, 213; Dead Buffalo Lake,
235 ; Kaposia, 65 ; Skakopee,
157; Rum River, 63; Stillwater,
63; Wood Lake, 218.
Becker, George L. , mentioned, 164.
Bee, Capt. Alexander, pursues
Inkpaduta, 146.
Beltrami, Constantino Giacomo,
aspires to discover the true
source of the Mississippi, 73 ;
starts out with Major Long, 73 ;
at "Lake Julia," 74; publishes
his "Discovery," 74; publishes
his "Pilgrimage," 74; charta
Lac la Biche, 75.
Biennial sessions of legislature,
336; elections, 337.
Bierbauer, Capt. William, comes
to relief of New Uim, 208.
Big Mound, battle of, 235.
Birch Coulie, battle of, 213; dis
pute as to command, 215.
Bishop, Gen. J. W., at Mission
Ridge, 213.
Blake case, the, 283; modified by
later decision, 361.
Blizzard, the, of 1873, 289.
Board of Pardons ; constitutional
amendment, 346.
Bonanza farming, 273.
Boom of 1857, 141.
Boucher, Rta^, see La Perrifere.
Boundaries, 86, 98, 136.
Boutwell, Rev. W. T., missionary,
64; helps Schoolcraft with his
Latin, 76.
Brackett's Cavalry Battalion, in
Tennessee, 1862; with Sully at
Killdeer Mountain, 187.

368

INDEX

Brass kettle campaign, the, 316.
British control lasts till 1815, 52.
British hold the Northwest, 38.
British proposal in 1814, 52.
Brower, J. V., discovers the " ul
timate bowl " of Mississippi, 78.
Brown, Joseph R., drummer boy,
arrives with troops (1819), 84;
lays out town (1840), 81; J. P.
of Crawford County, Wis., 84;
in Wisconsin legislature, 85 ; far
thers Minnesota Northwestern
Railroad bill in legislature of
1854. 122 ; member of consti
tutional convention, 138; ap
pointed Sioux agent, 168; plan
to civilize the Sioux, 168 ; super
seded as Sioux agent, 169; com
mands detachment at Birch
Coulie, 213; commands scouts
in 1863, 234.
Browning, O. H., permits further
issues of Chippeway half-breed
scrip, 114.
Brul6, Etienne, report of Lake
Superior, 5.
Burger, Capt. Emil, mentioned,
224.
Burt, Rev. D., superintendent of
public instruction, 320.
Butler, Sergeant William, shot in
Pillager outbreak, 352.
Cadillac builds fon; at Detroit
(1701), 29.
"Caesar's Column," by Ignatius
Donnelly, 319.
Camp Coldwater, 56.
Cantonment at Mendota (1819),
55.
Capital of Minnesota, located in
St. Paul, 91 ; attempt to remove
(1857), 132; attempt to remove,
(1869), 265.
Capitol, old, bumed, 325 ; rebuild
ing of, 343.
Capitol, new, building of, 343; ac
count of, 344.
Carleton College, mentioned, 354.
Cartier, Jacques, two voyages, 3.
Carver, Jonathan, expedition, 33 ;
travels, 35 ; claim, 36.

Cass, Gov. Lewis, exploring ex
pedition 71; induces Sioux and
Chippeways to make a treaty at
Fort Snelling, 72.
Catlin, John, Secretary of Wis
consin Territory, calls an elec
tion in the rump, 87.
Cavanaugh, James M., seated as
representative from Minnesota,
154.
Chamberlain, Selah, holder of
special state railroad bonds,
326; sues railroad company
(1873), 328; offers to take half of
face value of bonds (1887), 329.
Chambers, Gov. John, commis
sioner for treaty with Sioux
(1849), 93, 111.
Champlain, Samuel, two explor
ing voyages, 3; founds Quebec,
3; discovers Lake Champlain, 4;
defeated by Iroquois, 5; emis
saries of, 5; "Father of New
France," 6.
Charlevoix, on the Mississippi
(1720), 26.
Chase, Charles L.. territorial sec
retary and delegate to constitu
tional convention, 138; acting
governor, 155.
Chatfield, Andrew G., appointed
territorial justice (1853), 108.
Chippeway half-breed scrip, story
of, 112.
Chippeways, immigration of, 44;
drive Sioux south and west, 44;
characteristics, 45; still on re
serves, 112; disquiet of, 1862, 224
Chippeway treaties (1826, 1851,
1854, 1855, 1863), 11.
Christian, George H., pioneer
in patent milling, 274.
Church, flrst organized, 67.
Civil War, First, Second, Third,
Fourth, and Fifth Infantry regi
ments, 178; Sixth, Seventh,
Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth regi
ments, raised, 188 ; batteries,
sharpshooters, and cavalry bat
talion raised, 186 ; Eleventh In
fantry regiment raised, 247;
First Heavy Artillery raised.

INDEX

369

247; whole number of Minne
sota volunteers, 247.
Clapp, Moses B., elected U. S.
senator, 342.
Claim Association of Hennepin
Co., 130.
Clark, Gen. Geofge Rogers, men
tioned, 37.
Clough, David M., governor (1895-
99), 340; his judgment on treat
ment of the Pillagers, 352.
Code of 1851, 91.
Cody, Capt. John S., killed by
Sioux, 237.
Colbert, recommends a colonial
system, 13.
College of Agriculture of the Uni
versity of Minnesota, slow de
velopment, 354.
College of St. Thomas, mentioned,
354.
Colville, Col. William, commands
First Minnesota in Gettysburg
charge, 241.
Compulsory school attendance,
337.
Conquest of Canada by British, 30.
Constitution of state, framing of,
139; adopted, 141; ratifled, 148.
Constitutional amendments: au
thorizing state officers to act
before admission to Union, 156 ;
five million loan, 158; expung
ing amendment of 1858, 173 ; re
quiring referendum of special
railroad bonds, 173; flxing offi
cial year, 345; loan of school
fund, 345; forbidding special
legislation, 346; ninety-day ses
sions, 346; forbidding mono
polies, 346 ; ten jurors to render
verdict, 346; creating board of
pardons, 346; declarants not to
vote, 347; "wide open" tax
power, 347; woman suffrage in
school and library matters, 347;
majority of whole vote to ratify
amendment, 347; creating high
way commission, 348 ; home rule
charters, 348; investment of
school fund, 348.
Constitutional convention, elec

tion for, 135 ; delegates, 135 ; re
sult of election, 137; the split,
137; efforts to unite the two
bodies, 139 ; conferees appointed
139; report of conferees, 140.
Convocation of 1641, 15; 1825, 61.
County government, change in,
176.
Crooks, William, appointed colo
nel of Sixth Minnesota, 189.
Cullen, Major, Sioux agent, men
tioned, 148.
Dairy industry, development of,
356.
Dakota Indians, see Sioux Indians.
Daumont, see St. Lusson, 15.
Davis, Cushman K., antecedents
of, 294; secures governorship,
295; balks Senator Ramsey of re
election, 296 ; fails to secure
notnination for U. S. senator,
297; address at celebration of
two hundredth anniversary of
discovery of fallsof St. Anthony,
325; recommends arbitration of
railroad bonds, 329 ; elected U. S.
senator (1887), 341 ; reglected 0.
S. senator, 341; Spanish treaty
commissioner (1898), 341 ; ad
dress at laying corner-stone of
new capitol, 343 ; death, 341.
Davis, Jefferson, mentioned, 123.
Dead Buffalo Lake, battle of, 235.
Death penalty, changes in, 314.
Declarants for naturalization de
prived of suffrage, 347.
Delano, Columbus, investigates
Chippeway half-breed scrip, 115.
Detroit occupied by British, 32.
I)odd, Capt., killed in battle of
New Ulm, 209.
Dodge, Henry, mentioned, 87.
Donnelly, Ignatius, antecedents,
170 ; elected lieutenant-govern
or, 170 ; reelected lieutenant-
governor, 177; elected to Con
gress (1862), 248 ; aspires to U. S.
senatorship, 262; attack on Re
presentative E. B. Washbume,
262 ; fails to receive nomination
f or U. S. senator, 264 ; withdraws

370

INDEX

from senatorial contest, 297;
nominee for Congress (1878),
316; contests W. D. Washburn's
election, 317; turns to author
ship, 318; champions free school-
books, 321.
Douglas, Stephen A., expedites
Minnesota organic act, 89.
Douglass, Capt., engineer of Cass's
expedition, 71.
Draft, the, in Minnesota, 246.
Duluth, on Lake Superior, 16; on
Pigeon River, 17; on Mille Lacs,
(1679), 17; at Point Douglass
(1680), 19 ; meets Accault's party,
19.
Dunnell, Mark H., superintendent
of public instruction, 256.
Dustin murders, 238.
East and west line, 139.
Edgerton, Gen. A. J., appointed
state railroad commissioner, 280.
Eleventh Minnesota Infantry,
raised, 247.
Emmegabowh, missionary, men
tioned, 225.
Enabling act : opposition to, 134 ;
passage of, 134; land grants of,
134.
Execution of Sioux convicts, 231.
Expedition to upper Mississippi
(1680), 18.
Farley, J. P., sues associates, 311.
Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteers,
in Spanish War, 361.
Fifth Minnesota Infantry, raised,
185; leaves three companies in
Indian forts, 185; at Corinth,
185; at Nashville, 244.
Fillmore, Ex-President, men
tioned, 121.
First Battery of Minnesota Light
Artillery at Shiloh, 187.
First claim at St. Anthony's Falls,
81.
First Minnesota Heavy Artillery,
247.
First Minnesota Infantry, called,
178; mustered, 179; enlists for
three years, 179 ; leaves for the

South, 180; at first Bull Eun,
180; at Antietam, 180; charge at
Gettysburg, 240.
First Minnesota Sharpshooters,
mustered, 186; merged into Sec
ond regiment of U. S. Sharp
shooters, 186.
First white child in Minnesota,
66.
Fiscal year, 337.
Fish, Daniel, reviser of laws, 344.
Five million loan, story of, 156;
expunged, 173 ; investigation of,
325; efforts for settlement, 325;
redeemed, 331.
Flandrau, Charles Eugene, Sioux
agent, causes pursuit of Inkpa
duta, 146 ; summoned by the
people of New Ulm, 207; marches
to their relief, 208; placed in
command, 208, 209 ; appointed
colonel, 213.
Flour mill, first, in Minnesota, 56.
Flour, patent, 274.
Ford, John W., champions normal
schools, 267.
Forsyth, Major, pays lower Sioux
for the land bought by Pike, 57.
Fort Abercrombie, location, 190;
attacked, 224.
Fort Beauharnois, described, 26.
Fort Ridgely, location, 190; de
scription, 205; flrst attacis on,
206; second attack on, 206; re
lieved, 212.
Fort Ripley, garrisoned, 225.
Fort St. Anthony, changed to Fort
Snelling, 56.
Fort St. Antoine, built by Perrot
(1686), 22.
Fort Snelling, occupied (1822), 56.
Fort Snelling reservation, delim
ited, 128; reduced (1852), 129;
occupied by squatters, 129 ; part
east of Mississippi sold, 130 ; pre
emption right granted by Con
gress (1855), 131; clandestine
sale, 132.
Foster, Dr. Thomas, account of
Indian tribes of Minnesota, 91.
Franklin, Benjamin, his Canada
pamphlet, 31.

INDEX

371

French, abandon western trade
(1699), 25; ree'stablish it (1714),
25 ; fortify frontier, 30 ; build
Fort Duquesne, 30 ; lose Quebec
(1769), 30 ; lose Fort Duquesne
(1759), 30; lose Montreal (1760),
30 ; cede to Spain territory west
of the Mississippi (1762). 31 ; cede
to England territory east of the
Mississippi (1763), 31.
French dominion, proclaimed at
Sault, 15 ; proclaimed on upper
Mississippi, 22; proclaimed at
mouth of Mississippi by La Salle,
22.
French, early discoveries, 2.
Frontenac, govemor (1672), 16 ;
commissions Duluth, 16; dis
patches Joliet, 16; death (1689),
24.
Frontier dangers, 1863, 237.
Fourteenth Minnesota Volun
teers, in Spanish war, 350.
Fourth Minnesota Infantry, re
cruited, 184; at Corinth and
luka, 184 ; at Altoona, 244.
Free school-books, 321,
Fur-trade, organization of, 7; ex
pands in seventeenth century,
7; revived under English, 32;
effect on Indians, 45; effect of
act of 1816, 64; in politics. 106.
5ee American Fur Company, and
Northwest Company.
Fur-traders, two unknown (1656) , 7.
Galbraith, Thomas F., succeeds
J. R. Brown as Sioux agent, 169 ;
recruits volunteers, 197.
Galtier, Rev. Lucius, missionary
at Mendota (1840), 83; builds
chapel of St. Paul, 83.
Gardiner, Miss, rescued from Ink
paduta, 147.
Geological survey, 303.
Gilbert, Cass, architect of new
capitol, 344.
Goodrich, Aaron, first territorial
chief justice, 90.
Gorman, Willis A., antecedents,
108; appointed territorial gov
emor, 108; recommends con

stmction of ONE railroad; 122,
approves charter of Minnesota
and Northwestern R. R. Co.
(1854), 122; vetoes Minnesota
and Northwestern Railroad bill
(1855), 126; denounces jugglery
of the railroad company, 126 ;
proposes formation of constitu
tion without enabling act, 133 ;
calls special session of legisla
ture. 135; resigns. 136; appointed
colonel of the First Minnesota,
179.
Gonor. de, missionary, 26.
Grain elevators, use of, 273.
Grand convocation of 1825, 61.
Grant, Capt. H. P., in battle of
Birch Coulie, 213.
Grasshoppers, see Rocky Moun
tain locust.
" Great Cryptogram, The," by Ig
natius Donnelly, 319.
Oreen, Corporal, makes heroic de
fense, 183.
Griggs, Lieut.-Col., votes against
surrender of Third Minnesota,
183.
Groseilliers, first mentioned. 8.
Groseilliers and Radisson. voy
ages, 8 ; first French in Minne
sota, 11.
Guinas, missionary at Fort Beau
harnois, 26.
Hamline University, mentioned,
354.
Harlan, James, forbids further is
sues of Chippeway half-breed
scrip, 114.
Hart, H. H., secretary of state
board of charities and correc
tions, 334.
Hazlewood republic, 169.
Hendricks. Capt. Mark, handles
battery at Wood Lake, 219.
Hennepin, Father Louis, member
of expedition to upper Missis
sippi, 18; discovers falls of St.
Anthony, 19; a subordinate to
La Salle, 21 ; his "Description of
Louisiana," 21; his "New Dis
covery," 21.

372

INDEX

Hewitt, Dr. C. N., secretary of
state board of health, 334.
High School Board, 322 ; effective
ness, 337.
High schools, feed university, 321.
Hill, J. J., an associate for pur
chase of the St. Paul and Pacific,
309; becomes general manager
of St. Paul, Minneapolis and
Manitoba E. R. 311.
Hinckley forest fire (1894). 349.
Hoag, Charles, proposes the name
Min-ne-ha-po-lis, 131.
Holcomb, William, first lieuten
ant-governor, 160.
Home rule for cities; constitu
tional amendment, 348.
Homestead act, operation of, 252.
Hopperdozers, described, 306.
Hospital for insane at St. Peter,
flre in 1880, 325.
Hotchkiss, William A., captain of
Second Light Battery. 187.
Hubbard, Lucius Fairchild: in
command of Fifth Minnesota,
185; gallantry at Corinth, 185;
wounded at Nashville. 246 ; bre
vetted brigadier, 246; declines
nomination for member of Con
gress, 264; member of special
commission on special state rail
road bonds. 326; elected gov
ernor (1881), 333; fosters state
institutions, 333 ; advises public
school for neglected and de
pendent children, and reforma
tory for youthful convicts, 334;
recommends "covering in" of
moneys into county treasuries,
335; recommends railroad law
(1885), 335.
Huggins, Alexander, mentioned,
66.
Indian forts, location and object,
190.
Indian treaties : commissioners to
be appointed from Indian offi
cials, 94; price of, 101; with
Chippeways (1837), 80; with
Sioux (1837). 80; abortive with
Sioux (1849), 92; with Sioux

(1851), 95; with Chippeways
(1864, etc.). Ill ; with Sioux (1858),
169.
Indian tribes of Minnesota, ac
count of. 94.
Indians, how affected by traders.
46.
Indians, see Chippeways, Sioux.
etc.
Inkpaduta: murders by, 146; res
cue of captives, 146; fruitless
efforts to capture. 147; effect of
failure to capture, 193.
Interest, rate of (1860), 176.
Internal improvement lands, de
voted to redemption of bonds,
331.
Ireland, Archbishop, chaplain of
Fifth Minnesota, at Corinth, 186 ;
speaks at celebration of two hun
dredth anniversary of discovery
of falls of St. Anthony, 326,
Iron ore of Minnesota: nature of,
359; ranges, discovery and loca
tion, 358; marketable, amount
of, 359 ; properties, valuation for
taxation, 360; land of state,—
royalties, 360 ; lands excepted
from mineral laws of United
States, 360.
Iroquois, subjects of England. 29.
Itasca, Lake, discovered, 76; mak
ing of the word, 76.
Jefferson plans expeditions to
west, 47.
Jennison.Lieut.-Colonel, wounded
at Nashville, 245.
Johnson, John A., govemor (1905),
340.
Joliet, on Lake Superior (1669), 14;
at convocation (1671), 15; dis
covers the Mississippi (1673), 16.
Jones commission, 116.
Jones, John, sergeant, in charge
of artillery at Fort Ridgely, 205.
Jogues, at Sault Ste. Marie (1641),
9-
Keating, Prof. William H., geolo
gist and historian of Long's ex
pedition, 7.

INDEX

373

Kiehle, David L., state superin
tendent of public instruction
(1881-1893), 337; works out plan
for school of agriculture, 355.
Kingsbury, W. W., not recognized
as delegate from the rump of
Minnesota, 154.
Kittson, N. W., trades at Pem
bina, 112; an associate for pur
chase of Saint Paul and Paciflc,
309.
Knox, H. M., flrst public exam
iner, 314; his administration
commended, 314.
La Framboise, Joseph, rescues
whites at upper agency, 201.
Lampson, Nathan, kills Little
Crow, 238.
La Perriere, Sieur de, builds Fort
Beauharnois (1727), 26.
La Salle, in Canada (1663), 17; au
thorized to explore, 17; at Pe
oria, 111. (1680), 18; plans expe
dition to upper MissisF-ippi, IS ;
at the mouth of the Mississippi
(1682), 22.
Lea, Luke, commissioner for
Sioux treaties of 1851, 94.
Leavenworth, Lieutenant-Colonel
Henry, leads troops to St. Pe
ter's, 55; appoints oificers of
Crawford County, Mich., 58.
Legislative sessions, limited by
constitutional amendment, 346.
Legislative steal of 1858, 165.
Legislature, first, doubtful status,
160.
Lester, Henry A., colonel of the
Third Minnesota, 182; surren
ders, 182 ; dismissed, 184.
Le Sueur, Pierre, on Prairie Is-
land(1694),23; gets leave to mine
copper, 23; builds Fort I'Huil-
lier (1700), 24; his copper mine,
24.
Lincoln, President, examines re
cord of Indian trials, 229; writes
out order for execution of Sioux
murderers, 230; recommends re
election of M. S. Wilkinson as
U. S. senator, 251.

Lind, John, governor (1899-1900),
340.
Little Crow: apparently peace
able, 197; character, 198; as
sumes command of Sioux, 199;
plans attack on Fort Ridgely.
205; leads Indians in battle of
New Ulm, 209; retires behind
the Yellow Medicine, 210; plans
ambush for Sibley, 218; takes
•flight after battle, 220; killed,
238.
Lochren, William, candidate for
U. S. senator, 297.
Long, Major S. H., examines site
for Fort Snelling (1817), 65; ex
pedition to Pembina, 72 ; marks
international boundary, 72 ; see
Keating.
Loras, Bishop, visits Mendota, 83.
Louisiana, under Spanish mle, 42 ;
retroceded to France by Spain,
43; bought of France, 43; de
livered to United States, 43.
Lugger, Dr. Otto, investigates lo
custs, 349.
Macalester College, mentioned,
354.
Mackinac, British garrison at, 32.
Mackubin, C. N., state senator, ad
vises payment in full of the
special state bonds, 172.
McGill, Andrew E., governor
(1887-89), 340.
McGillis, Hugh, agrees to Pike's
demands, 51.
McLean, Nathaniel, mentioned,
97.
McLeod, Martin, bill for free
schools, 90.
McMillan, S. R. J., elected United
States senator (1875), 297.
McPhail, Samuel, leader of reliev
ing party at Birch Coulie, 214.
Maine Law, 137.
Majority to amend constitution,
347.
Marine, flrst American settle
ment (1839), 81.
Markle, Mrs., taken prisoner and
killed by Inkpaduta, 146.

374

INDEX

Marquette, at La Pointe, 14 ; to ac
company Joliet, 16.
Marsh, Capt. John S., marches to
rescue of victims of Sioux mas
sacre, 200; drowned after battle
of Redwood Ferry, 200.
Marshall, William R. : defeated by
Eice (1865), 110; Republican
leader, 136 ; candidate for Con
gress, 137; commands Seventh
Minnesota at Wood Lake, 219;
commands brigade at Nashville,
245; brevetted brigadier, 245;
leads Seventh at capture of
Fort Blakely, 246; elected gov
ernor (1865), 254; vetoes bill to
remove state capital (1869), 266;
recommends oversight of corpo
rations, 279; elected state rail
road commissioner, 284; recom
mends use of internal improve
ment lands for redemption of
bonds, 327.
Medary, Samuel, appointed terri
torial governor, 136; leaves Min
nesota, 156.
Medawakantons, country of, 96;
see Sioux Indians.
Meeker, B. B., appointed territo
rial justice, 90.
Mendota, flrst settlement, mostly
French, 81; treaty of, 96.
Merriam, William E., govemor
(1889-93), 340.
Merriman, O. C, member of spe
cial board of regents, 259.
Merritt Brothers, explore for iron
358.
Mesabi iron range, mines of. 358.
Militia companies form nucleus
of First Minnesota, 178.
Militia law of 1858, 160.
Mill explosion in Minneapolis
(1878), 324.
Miller, Stephen, appointed colonel
of Seventh Minnesota, 189 ; mili
tary career, 250 ; brevetted brig
adier, 261 ; elected governor, 251.
Minneapolis and Cedar Valley
Railroad Co. chartered, 162.
Minneapolis, meaning of name,
131; founded, 131; uuited with

St. Anthony, 131; absorbs St.
Anthony, 275 ; a milling centre,
275 ; increase of population,
1880-85, 333.
Minneapolis Millers' Association,
316.
Minnesota, meaning of word, 1.
Area east of the Mississippi
("Minnesota East"): ceded by
France to England (1763), 2, 31 ;
eflect of proclamation of George
III (1763), 36; operation of the
Quebec act of 1774, 37; claim of
Virginia. 37; becomes part of
the Northwest Territory (1787).
38; remains in control of the
Northwest Company of Mont
real, 39 ; British control ends
(1815), 62; part of successive ter
ritories, 58; excluded from the
State of Wisconsin (1848), 86;
treated by Congress as the Ter
ritory of Wisconsin, 86.
Area west of the Mississippi
(" Minnesota West ") : ceded by
France to Spain (1762), 31, 42;
retroceded (1801), 43 ; bought of
France by the United States as
part of the Louisiana Purchase,
43. As Territory : bill to organize
in 1846, defeated, 88 ; created
(1849), 88; proclaimed, 89; bound
aries and area, 89 ; laws of
Wisfconsin remain in force, 90 ;
provisional counties and judi
cial districts, 90; first census,
election, and legislature, 91;
capital located at St. Paul, 91; ,
code of 1851, 91 ; population, 90,
120, 149.
As State : enabling act (1857),
133; boundaries and area, 135;
constitutional convention in
two bodies, 137; they agree on
one constitution, 141 ; ratified,
148; opposition in Congress to
admission to the Union, 151;
admitted, 163 ; state offlcers
qualified, 157; latitude and lon
gitude, 363 ; " Heart of the Con
tinent," 364; elevation and tem-

INDEX

375

perature, 364 ; population, 176,
252, 270, 307, 333, 364.
Minnesota colleges, 353.
Minnesota Historical Society in
corporated, 91.
Minnesota River, course of, 1.
Minnesota state railroad adjust
ment bonds, 331. See Five mil
lion loan.
Minnesota troops, in Civil War,
178, 186, 188, 247; in Spanish
War, 350.
MinnesotaandNorthwestern Rail
road Company, incorporated
(1864), 122; land grant before
Congress, 123 ; bill for land grant
repealed, 125; act of 1854 held
repealed by Supreme Court of
United States, 127.
Minnesota and Pacific Railroad
Co., chartered, 101; superseded
by the St. Paul and Paciflc, 285.
Missions, first, in Minnesota, 27;
beginning of Chippeway, 64;
flrst to Sioux, 65; at Kaposia,
68; Methodist, at Redwing, 68;
Catholic, at Lac qui Parle and
Chaska, 68; why unfruitful, 68.
Mississippi, the, rumors of, 14;
discovered (1673), 16.
Monopoly of markets forbidden;
constitutional amendment, 346.
Munch, Emil, Captain of ' First
Light Battery, 187; wounded at
Shiloh, 187; state treasurer, 298.
Natural history survey, 303.
Neal commission, 114.
Neill, Rev. E. D., draws bill for
free schools, 91; chaplain of
First Minnesota, 179; superin
tendent of public instruction,
255.
Nelson, Knute, governor (1893-95),
340; elected to United States
Senate, 340.
New France, a royal province
(1663), 13.
New Ulm, flrst attack on by Sioux,
201 ; battle ot. 209.
Nicollet, Jean, at Green Bay (1634),
6; locates Lake Mlchigaif, 6.

Nicollet.JosephN., confirms work
of Schoolcraft and Allen, 77;
discovers the " infant Missis
sippi," 78.
Nicols, John, member of special
board of regents, 259; member
of state commission on special
state railroad bonds, 326.
Ninth Minnesota Infantry, at
Nashville, 244.
Nix, Capt. Jacob, commands de
fense of New Ulm, first attack.
201.
Normal schools, establishment,
257.
Northern Securities Company, or
ganized, 361 ; dissolution of, 362.
Northfield murders (1876), 315.
Northrop, Cyras, president of
University of Minnesota, 337.
Northwest Company, organiza^
tion and policy, 39; posts of,
39.
Norton, Daniel A., elected United
States senator, 252 ; death, 292.
Ofiicial year fixed by constitu
tional amendment, 345.
Olmstead, David, mentioned, 110.
Other Day, John, rescues whites
at upper agency, 201.
Otis, George L., defeated by Aus
tin for governor, 267.
Ozawindib, Schoolcraft's Chippe
way guide, 76.
Panic of 1867, 142; of 1873, 288.
Parker, Bly F., forbids issue ot
Chippeway half-breed scrip, 114.
Parrant, Pierre, mentioned, 82.
Peck, Louis, discovers cause of
mill explosion, 324.
Pembina, French and half breed
town, 84; treaty of, 112,
Perrot, Nicholas, at convocation
of 1671, 15 ; builds Fort St. An
toine, 22; proclamation, 22.
Phelps, William F., organizes
Winona Normal School, 257.
Phelps, William W., seated as re
presentative from Minnesota,
154.

376

INDEX

Picard du Gay, a title of Auguelle,
companion of Accault, 18.
Pinchon, trades on Minnesota
River, 32.
Pike, Zebulon Montgomery, per
sonal appearance, 47; expedi
tion, 47 ; treaty with the Sioux,
48; at upper sources of Missis
sippi, 50; asserts dominion of
United Statea, 51.
Pillager band of Chippeways, out
break of, 351; suffer injustice,
352.
Pillsbury, C, A., heads relief com
mittee, 360.
Pillsbury, John S., becomes regent
of university, 269; characteris
tics, 304; governor for three
terms, 304; advises farmers how
to flght "hoppers," 305; visits
devastated counties, 305; ap
points day of fasting and prayer
for " hoppers," 306; praises
operation of public examiner
law, 314; urges payment of " dis
honored bonds," 330; regent for
life, 332; death, 332.
Pine on the St. Croix, 79.
Pine forests, exhaustion of, 357.
Pine land operations, see Chippe
way half-breed scrip, Sioux
.half-breed scrip.
Plympton, Major, mentioned, 128.
Pokegama mission broken up, 65,
Pond brothers, flrst missionaries
to Sioux, 65 ; build on Lake Cal
houn, 65; invent the Pond al
phabet, 66.
Pope, General John, takes com
mand of department ot the
northwest, 222 ; protests against
the appointment of H, M. Rice
as brigadier-general, 223; pro
poses to exterminate the Sioux,
226,
Population of Minnesota, in 1849,
90 : increase of, in Gorman's ad
ministration, 120; in 1860, 175;
in 1865, 262; in 1870, 269; in 1875
and 1880, 307 ; in 1880 and 1885,
333; in 1906, 364; 1850 to 1906, 365;
of the Twin Cities, 1905, 364.

Porter, Edward A., conceives
school of agriculture, 354.
Prairie du Chien supply station,
32; garrisoned, 55.
Presbyterian church at Fort SneU
ing, 67.
Prescott, Philander, teaches in
agricultural school at Lake Cal
houn (1839), 67.
Primary elections, 342,
Prohibitory liquor law, 91.
Public examiner, office created
(1878), 314.
Public lands, grants of, 135; grants
for railroads, 143,
Public Libraiy Commission, 363.
Quebec act, the, 37.
Quinn, Peter, killed by Sioux,
201.
Radisson, see Groseilliers.
Radisson manuscript discovered,
9.
"EagnarSk," by Ignatius Don
nelly, 318.
Eailroad excursion of 1854, 121.
Railroads, land grant of 1857, 143;
four companies chartered (1857),
143; flve million loan for, 155;
the four land grant companies
of 1867, 161; loan of credit to
the four companies, 162 ; special
Minnesota state railroad bonds,
162; work stops, 164; work of
the four companies, 165; spe
cial bonds not regarded as state
obligations, 164; banking on
special bonds, 166 ; special bonds
repudiated, 173; the four com
panies revived, 173; they de
fault, 173; they give up, 174; four
new companies chartered, 174;
mileage, 174, 175, 271, 307, 360;
beginnings of construction, 175;
extension in late '60's, 265; ex
tensions in '70's, 270 ; extend cul
tivation, 272; welcomed, 276;
multiply new towns, 272 ; extor
tion and discrimination, 276;
ignore legislation, 280; state
commissioner appointed, 280;

INDEX

377

debts of 1873,281; evade taxes,
281; reports of slight service,
281; slight construction, 232;
flnances in 1873, 282; failure of
companies (1873), 282; litigate
right to regulate, 282; state
board of commissioners created
(1874), 283; elective commis
sioner (1875), 284; grants and
gifts, 291; law of 1885, 335; com
petition of Canadian, 362.
Ramsey, Alexander : antecedents,
89 ; appointed territorial gov
emor, 89 ; commissioner for
Sioux treaties (1849), 93 ; inves
tigation of his conduct in Sioux
treaties (1861), 100; exonerated
by Senate, 101 ; protests against
Eice's Winnebago contract, 105 ;
superseded as territorial gov
ernor, 108; negotiates Pembina
treaty, 112; director of Minne
sota and Northwestern Eailroad
Co., 126 ; elected governor of
state, 170 ; inaugural address
(1860), 170; rescues the school
lands, 171 ; recommends settling
with holders of special state
railroad bonds, 172 ; reelected
governor (1862), 177; in Wash
ington on day of attack on Fort
Sumter, 178; tenders a regiment
of infantry, 178; appoints colo
nels, 189 ; appoints Sibley to
command the Indian expedition,
211 ; elected United States sen
ator (1863), 249; recommends sale
of university lands to pay debt,
268; reSlected senator, 266; fails
to secure nomination again, 297 ;
secretary of war, 297; lays cor
ner-stone of new capitol, 298;
death, 298.
Eavoux, Monsignor, Catholic mis
sionary, 68 ; succeeds P^re Gal
tier, 83 ; baptizes thirty con
demned Sioux, 231.
Eaymbault, at Sault Ste. Marie
(1G41), 6.
Eeeve, Col. C. McC, commands
Thirteenth Minnesota, 350.
Eegistration of voters, 175.

Eenyille, Joseph, trader at Lac
qui Parle, invites Dr. William
son, 67; guide and interpreter
for Major Long, 72.
Eenville Eangers, help defend
Fort Ridgely, 205.
Eepublican party, organized, 136.
Eevised laws ot 1905, 344.
Rice, Henry M., birth and educa
tion, 102; in Indian trade, 102;
personal qualities, 103; settles
in St. Paul, 103; his Winnebago
contract, 103; selects new home
for Winnebagoes, 103; elected
delegate to Congress, 107; in
Congress, 110; reelected dele
gate, 110; secures issue of ad
ditional Chippeway half-breed
scrip, 113, 118; director of Min
nesota and Northwestern Rail
road Co., 126; assists in sale ot
Snelling reserve, 132; reelected
delegate, 136; introduces billfor
enabling act, 133; causes retire
ment of Govemor Gorman, 136;
elected United States senator,
160; seated as senator, 153; de
clines to change politics, 2,52;
defeated for governor by Mar
shall (1865), 264; plans double
land grant for the university,
301.
Eiggs, Eev. Stephen Eeturn, joins
Sioux mission, 67; edits Dakota
grammar and dictionary, 68;
escape from upper Sioux, 202;
chaplain of Sibley's Indian ex
pedition, 227; assists military
commission, 227.
Eocky Mountain locust, scourge
of, 290; devastations of (1876),
305; suddenly vanish (1877), 307;
appear in Otter Tail County
(1886), 349.
Bolette, Joseph, absconds with
capital removal bill, 132,
Eoot Eiver and Southern Minne
sota Eailroad Co. chartered, 161.
St. Anthony's Falls, discovered,
19; two hundredth anniversary
celebrated, 325.

378

INDEX

St. Anthony's Falls, city of, laid
out (1847), 84; united with Min
neapolis, 131.
St. John's University, mentioned,
354.
St. Lusson, at convocation of
1671, 15.
St. Michel the Archangel, mission
of, 27.
St. Paul, Hennepin at site of
(1680), 19; Carver visits site
(1767), 34; flrst inhabitant, 82;
settled by evicted Swiss, 82;
how named, 83 ; a French village
till 1846, 83 ; gets post-offlce (1846),
84; capital of territory, 91; re
mains the capital, 132, 265.
St. Paul and Paciflc Eailroad Co.,
flnancing of, 285; bankruptcy
of, 308; sold to associates (1878),
310; litigation following sale of,
311.
St. Paul, Minneapolis and Mani
toba Eailroad Co. organized
1879, 311.
Saint Pierre, Capt. Legardeur, at
Fort Beauharnois, 27.
Sanborn, John A., appointed colo
nel of the Fourth Minnesota,
184.
Sandy Lake and post, 40.
San Ildefonso, treaty of, 43.
Savanna portage, 40. '
Sawmill, near Menominee, Wis,,
80 ; flrst in Minnesota, at Marine.
81; first at falls of St. Anthony,
84.
School, agricultural, at Lake Cal
houn, 67.
School-books, free, 321.
Schoolcraft, Henry E., mineralo
gist of Cass's expedition, 71;
narrative of same, 71; expedi
tion of 1832, 76 ; at Lake Itasca,
76 ; conceals discovery in report
to War Department, 77; an
nounces discovery in published
narrative, 77.
School fund, increase of, 352;
may be loaned for erection of
school buildings, constitutional
amendment, 34S; may be in

vested in municipal bonds,
constitutional amendment, 348.
School of Agriculture of Uni
versity of Minnesota, evolution
of, 354.
School tax, 337.
Schools, common, development of,
265.
Second Battery of Light Artillery,
187.
Second Minnesota Infantry, re
cruited, 181; at Mill Springs,
181; gallant stand at Chicka
mauga, 242; at Mission Eidge,
243.
Second Minnesota Sharpshooters
at Antietam, 181.
Seeger, William, Impeachment of,
298.
Selkirk, Earl of, plans colony, 78 ;
plants settlements in Canada,
78,
Selkirk colonists migrate to the
States, 78.
Selkirk refugees, squat about
Fort Snelling, 79 ; evicted from
Fort Snelling reservation, 82;
settle at St. Paul, 82,
Seventh Minnesota Infantry, at
Nashville, 244; at Wood Lake,
219.
Seven Years' War, effect of, 31.
Sheehan, Timothy J., recalled to
Fort Eidgely, 200; commands
there, 205; gallantry at Nash
ville, 245; U. S. marshal, 351.
Sherburne. Moses G., appointed
territorial justice (1853), 108;
presents plan of union of two
tactions of constitutional con
vention, 139; reports constitu
tion to democratic body, 140,
Sherman, Gen. W. T., speaks at
celebration of two hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of
the falls of St. Anthony, 325.
Sherman, John, opposes the ad
mission of Minnesota, 153.
Shields, James, elected U. S. sen
ator, 150; seated as senator, 153.
Sibley, Henry Hastings: birth and
education, 69; arrives at Men-

INDEX

379

dota (1834), 59 ; Dakota name, 60 ;
chosen delegate by the StiU
water convention, 86; delegate
from Wisconsin Territory, 87;
secures passage of act creating
Minnesota Territory. 88; pro
tests against Eice's Winnebago
contract, 105 ; elected delegate to
Congress from Minnesota Ter
ritory, 105; his notable Indian
speech, August 2, 1850, 107; se
cures double land grants for
common schools and for a uni
versity, 107 ; speech for reform
of Indian policy, 107; retires
from American Fur Company,
197; drafts new bill for land
grants to Minnesota railroads,
124; in legislature of 1855, 126;
frames report on Minnesota
and Northwestern Railroad, 126;
draws memorial to Congress
praying for disapproval of Min
nesota and Northwestern Eail
road bill, 127; chairman and
president of Democratic end of
constitutional convention, 138;
elected first state govemor, 149 ;
sworn in as governor, 157; inau
gural address, 169; notifies the
four companies as to prior lien,
163; appointed to command In
dian expedition, 211; corre
sponds with Little Crow, 216;
moves against the Sioux, 218;
commands in battle of Wood
Lake, 218; releases captives,
220; promoted brigadier-gener
al, 222; appoints military com
mission, 227; commands Sioux
expedition of 1863, 234; in legis
lature of 1871 , favors payment of
bonds of 1858 in full, 328; honor
ary banquet to, 339 ; receives de
gree of LL, D,, 339 ; death, 339.
Sioux and Chippeways exchange
murders, 62.
Sioux campaign of 1864, 236; ex
pedition of 1863, 234.
Sioux half-breed scrip, story of,
117; placed on Iron ore pro
perties, 119.

Sioux Indians: first heard of, 7;
seen by Allouez, 14; early habi
tat, 44 ; immigration of , 44 ; char
acteristics, 46 ; tribes and num
bers of, 94; move to reserves
(1863), 120, 167; uneasy on re
serves, 167; become farmers,
168; effect of concentration,
191 ; character of reservations,
192; prey of whiskey-sellers, 192;
disturbances at upper agency,
194; delay of payments, 195 ; sol
diers' lodge, 196; late arrival of
gold, 196 ; murders at Acton, 197 ;
council at upper agency, 201;
depopulation, 203 ; losses in out
break, 211 ; removal from Minne
sota, 232.
Sioux outbreak, 190.
Sioux prisoners, trial of, by mili
tary commission, 227; dispo
sition of principal body of,
228, 232; maltreated by whites,
228; protests against leniency,
229; Bishop Whipple's letter to
President, 230; President Lin
coln's scrutiny, 230; executions,
231 ; mistakes in identification,
231; become Christians,231, 232;
disposition of convicts not ex
ecuted, 232.
Sioux reservations: granted in
treaties of 1861, 96 ; annulled by
Senate, 1852, 98 ; ratified by In
dians, 1853, 98 ; nevertheless oc
cupied, 167; permitted by Con
gress tobelield, 167 ; reduction,
169, 192 ; forfeited, 232,
Sioux treaties : abortive'treaty of
1849,92; treaties of 1851,93; ot
1858, 169, 192; abrogation of,
232.
Sissetons, 94; country of , 96.
Sixth Minnesota Infantry, deci
mated in Arkansas, by disease,
246; at Wood Lake, 219; gallan
try at Fort Blakely, 246.
Smith, Donald A,, an associate for
purchase of St. Paul and Pacific,
308.
Smith, Eobert, gets lease at falls
of St Anthony, 129.

380

INDEX

SneUing, Col. Joseph, takes com
mand, 56 ; builds Fort St. An
thony, 56.
Soldiers' Home, 335.
Source of rivers, the true, 70.
Spain retrocedes Louisiana to
France, 43.
Special legislation forbidden,
constitutional amendment, 346.
Special state railroad bonds, au
thorized, 155; intended employ
ment of, 164; discredit of, 164;
amount of issue, 165 ; legislative
reports on, 172; tribunal for,
330; redeemed (1881), 331.
Springer, William, mentioned, 317.
Spring wheat, adapted to Minne
sota, 273.
State agricultural college, located
at Glencoe, 261; merged with
university, 261.
State Agricultural Society, men
tioned, 356.
State Art Society, 363.
State Board of Charities and Cor
rections, 334; Board of Health,
334; Board of Control, 344; Board
of Visitors, 316.
State capital, efforts to remove,
132, 265.
State capitol, burned (1881), 325;
rebuilt, 343; new, built, 343.
State Forestry Board, mentioned,
368.
State highway commission; con
stitutional amendment, 348.
State Public School for neglected
and dependent children, 335.
State Eeformatory, 336.
Steele, Franklin, gives site for
university preparatory school,
144; defeated by Shields for
U. S. senator, 151.
Stephen, George, takes an interest
in St. Paul and Pacific purchase,
310.
Stevens, Eev. J. D,, missionary,
opens school at Lake Harriet,
66; pastor of Snelling church,
67.
Stevens, J. H., gets lease at falls
of St. Anthony, 130.

Stillwater, laid ont (1843), 81; con
vention, 86.
Stone, George C, explores for
iron ore, 358.
Stuart, Robert, mentioned, 64.
Sully, Gen, Alfred, commands ex
pedition, 1863, 236.
Supreme Court of Minnesota holds
" five million loan " amendment
of 1860 unconstitutional, 331.
Supreme Court of United States,
validates Sioux half-breed scrip,
120; in obiter dictum holds Min
nesota responsible for railroad
bonds, 329.
Swift, Henry A., becomes gov
ernor for six months, 249.
Taliaferro, Lawrence, first Sioux
agent, 61 ; opposes issue of indi
vidual patents to Sioux half-
breeds, 117.
Talon, intendant of New France,
13; orders post at the Sault, 14;
plans expedition to the west,
15 ; chooses Joliet to lead, 16.
Taxation, system, changed by
constitutional amendment, 347,
Tenth Minnesota Infantry, at
Nashville, 244,
Terms of office, 337.
Third Minnesota Infantry, re
cruited, 181; at Murfreesboro,
182; at Wood Lake, 219; in bat
tle of Fitzhugh's Woods, 243.
Thomas, M. T,, appointed colonel
of Eighth Minnesota, 189.
Thompson, David, on Turtle Lake,
70.
Tomado, at St. Cloud (1886), 348;
in southern counties (1891), 349.
Traders' paper, 95.
Transit Railroad Co., chartered,
161.
Transportation to seaboard, see
Windom.
Traverse des Sioux, treaty of, 95.
Treaty, see Indian treaties.
Tweedy, John H., mentioned, 87.
Twelfth Minnesota Volunteers, in
Spanish War, 350.
Tyler, Hugh, attorney-in-fact, 100,

INDEX

381

University of Minnesota, created.
144; land grant of 1851, 144; first
board of regents, 144 ; prepara
tory school of 1851, 144; campus
purchased on credit, 145; re
gents borrowmoney, 145,160,257;
erect building, 145 ; state board
appointed, 175, 258; state board
recommend sale of land, 258;
Congress donates lands reserved
in 1851, 268; properties turned
over to state auditor, 258 ; special
board appointed, 269; " extrica
tion " by same, 259 ; new char
ter, 260; preparatory and aca^
demic departments opened, 260;
novel plan of organization pro
posed by the flrst president, the
author of this book, 300; flrst
commencement, 300 ; double
land grant, 302; fed by high
schools, 338; late prosperity,
353.
Van Cleve, Horatio P., colonel of
Second Minnesota, 181.
Van Cleve, Mrs. Charlotte Ouis
consin, born, 66.
Van der Horck, Capt. John, com
mands at Fort Abercrombie, 223.
Van Sant, Samuel R., governor
(1901-06), 340; opposes railroad
consolidation, 340.
Verendrye, Sieur de la, explorar
tions, 28.
Vermilion Iron Range, 353.
Vilas, William F., secretary of
state, endeavors to prevent use
of Sioux scrip, 119.
Wabashaw sends letter to Sibley,
217.
Wabashaw reservation, 117.
Wahp^kutes, see Sioux Indians.
Wahp^tons, see Sioux Indians.
Walker, Lucius C, Chippewa
agent, mentioned, 225.
Washburn, William D., declines
nomination for Congress, 264
becomes nominee in 1878, 316
service as congressman, 318
elected U. S. senator, 342.

Washburne, E. B., reply to Ig
natius Donnelly, 263.
Weiser, Dr. J. S., shot by Sioux,
235.
Welch, Major A. E , gallantry at
Wood Lake, 219.
Welch, William H., appointed ter
ritorial chief justice, 1853, 108.
Westem fur-trade suspended,
25.
Wheat crops of 1875 and 1880, 307;
grading and inspection, 336.
Whipple, Henry Eenjamin, pro
tests against wholesale execu
tions, 229.
Whitman, Allen, report on lo
custs, 304.
Wilkin, Alexander, defeated for
delegate, 1865, by Rice, 107; ap
pointed colonel of Ninth Minne
sota, 189.
Wilkinson, Major M. C, shot in
Pillager outbreak, 352.
Wilkinson, Morton S., elected
U. S. senator, 171 ; defeated for
Senate by D. S. Norton, 252,
Williamson, Miss Jane, mission
ary work, 67, 233.
Williamson, Thomas Smith, mis
sionary of American Board
(1835), 66; translates Bible into
Dakota, 67; organizes the Hazle
wood republic at Yellow Medi
cine, 169; escapes from upper
Sioux, 202; ministers to Sioux
convicts, 233.
Wilson, Eugene M., elected M. C,
264.
Wilson, Horace B., state superin
tendent of public instruction,
299.
WincheU, N. H., state geologist,
303; reports on iron ore flnd
(1878), 358.
Windom, William, reelected to
Congress (1862), 248 ; elected U. S.
senator, 292; personal qualities,
292; report of, on "transporta
tion routes to the seaboard," 292 ;
defeated for reelection to U. S.
Senate (1883), 338; Secretary of
the Treasury, 339; death, 339.

382

INDEX

Winnebagoes, established on Long
Prairie reservation, 104; stray
from reserve, 104; Eice contract,
104; moved to new reserve, near
Mankato, 120; removed from
Minnesota, 232.

Woman suffrage on school
library measures, 320, 347.
Wood Lake, battle of, 218.
Younger brothers, 316.

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MICHIGAN. By Thomas M. Cooley. (Revised Edition.)
MINNESOTA. By Wm. W, Folwell.
MISSOURI, By Lucien Carr,
NEW HAMPSHIRE. By Frank B, Sanborn.
NEW YORK. By Ellis H. Roberts. 2 vols. (Revised Ed.)
OHIO. By Rufus King. (Revised Edition.)
RHODE ISLAND. By Irving B, Richman.
TEXAS. By George P. Garrison.
VERMONT. By Rowland E, Robinson.
VIRGINIA. By John Esten Cooke. (Revised Edition.)
WISCONSIN. By Reuben Gold Thwaites.
In preparation
GEORGIA. By Ulrich B, Phillips.
ILLINOIS. By John H, Finley,
IOWA. By Albert Shaw.
MASSACHUSETTS. By Edward Channing,
NEW JERSEY. By Austin Scott.
OREGON. By F. H. Hodder.
PENNSYLVANIA. By Talcott Williams.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY