Part 22

The storms were so terrible. We had never seen anything like them. One crash after another and the lightning constant. Once I was sitting by a little stove when the lightning came down the chimney. It knocked me one way off the bench and moved the stove several feet without turning it over.

Mrs. Anna Todd--1856.

We came to St. Anthony in '56 and lived in one of the Hudson Bay houses on University Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. They were in a very bad state of repair and had no well or any conveniences of any kind. The chimneys would not draw and that in the kitchen was so bad that Mr. Todd took out a pane of glass and ran the stovepipe through that. Everybody had a water barrel by the fence which was filled with river water by contract and in the winter they used melted snow and ice. Mr. Todd built the first piers for the booms in the river. The hauling was all done by team on the ice. The contract called for the completion of these piers by April 15. The work took much more time than they had figured on and Mr. Todd realized if the ice did not hold until the last day allowed, he was a ruined man. There were many anxious days in the "little fur house" as it was called, but the ice held and the money for the contract was at once forthcoming. I remember those winters as much colder and longer than they now are. They began in October and lasted until May.

When we were coming from St. Paul to St. Anthony, just as we came to the highest point, I looked all around and said "This is the most beautiful country I have ever seen."

Where Mrs. Richard Chute lived in Minneapolis, the view was wonderfully beautiful. Near there, was a house with the front door on the back side so that the view could be seen better. Times were very, very hard in '57 and '58. We never saw any money and to our Yankee minds this was the worst part of our new life. A friend had been staying with us for months sharing what we had. One day he said to my husband, "I'm here and I'm stranded, I can see no way to pay you anything, but I can give you an old mare which I have up in the country." He finally induced Mr. Todd to take her and almost immediately, we had a chance to swap her for an Indian pony. A short time after, there was a call for ponies at the fort and the pony was sold to the Government for $50.00 in gold. This seemed like $1,000.00 would now.

The first time I saw an apple in Minnesota was in '58. A big spaniel had come to us, probably lost by some party of homeseekers. After having him a short time, we became very tired of him. One of the teamsters was going to St. Paul, so we told him to take the dog and lose him. Better than that, he swapped him for a barrel of apples with a man who had brought them up the river as a speculation. The new owner was to take the dog back down the river that day, but that dog was back almost as soon as the teamster was. We used to joke and say we lived on that dog all winter.

The early settlers brought slips of all kinds of houseplants which they shared with all. The windows were gay with fuchias, geraniums, roses, etc. Most everyone had a heliotrope too. All started slips under an inverted tumbler to be ready for newcomers.

Mr. Edwin Clarke--1856.

On April 12, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, two days prior to his assassination, signed my commission as United States Indian Agent for the Chippewas of the Mississippi, Pillager and Lake Winnebagosish bands, and the Indians of Red Lake and Pembina.

The Mississippi Bands, numbering about two thousand five hundred, were principally located around Mille Lac, Gull and Sandy Lakes; the Pillager and Winnebagosish bands, about two thousand, around Leach, Winnebagosish, Cass and Ottertail Lakes; the Red Lake Bands, numbering about fifteen hundred, were located about Red Lake and the Pembina Bands about one thousand at Pembina and Turtle Mountain, Dakota.

At that time there were no white settlers in Minnesota north of Crow Wing, Long Prairie and Ottertail Lake.

The Chippewa Indians were not migratory in their habits, living in their birch-bark covered wigwams around the lakes, from which the fish and wild rice furnished a goodly portion of their sustenance and where they were convenient to wood and water. The hunting grounds, hundreds of miles in extent, covering nearly one-half of the State, furnished moose, deer and bear meat and the woods were full of rabbits, partridges, ducks, wild geese and other small game. The Indians exchanged the furs gathered each year, amounting to many thousand dollars in value, with traders for traps, guns, clothing and other goods. Some of the Indians raised good crops of corn and vegetables and they also made several thousand pounds of maple sugar annually. They also gathered large amounts of cranberries, blueberries and other wild fruit.

The Chippewa Indians had very few ponies, having no use for them, as it was more convenient to use their birch bark canoes in traveling about the lakes and rivers. At that time the Chippewas were capable of making good living without the Government annuities, which consisted of a cash payment to each man, woman and child of from $5.00 to $10.00 and about an equal amount in value of flour, pork, tobacco, blankets, shawls, linsey-woolsy, flannels, calico, gilling twine for fish nets, thread, etc.

An Indian in full dress wore leggings, moccasins and shirt, all made by the women from tanned deer skins, and trimmed with beads, over which he threw his blanket, and with his gun over his arm and his long hair braided and hanging down, and face streaked with paint, he presented quite an imposing appearance. The young men occasionally supplemented the above with a neat black frock coat.

The Indians during the time I was agent were friendly and it was only upon a few occasions when whiskey had been smuggled in by some unprincipled persons, that they had any quarrels among themselves.

The late Bishops Whipple and Knickerbocker were my traveling companions at different times thru the Indian country, as were General Mitchell of St. Cloud, Daniel Sinclair of Winona, Rev. F. A. Noble of Minneapolis, Rev. Stewart of Sauk Center, Mr. Ferris of Philadelphia, Mr. Bartling of Louisville, Doctors Barnard and Kennedy and others. The late Ennegahbow (Rev. John Johnson) was appointed by me as farmer at Mille Lac upon the request of Shawboshkung, the head chief.

Ma-dosa-go-onwind was head chief of the Red Lake Indians and Hole-in-the-day head chief of the Mississippi bands at the time I was agent.

Captain Isaac Moulton--1857, Minneapolis.

The middle of December 1857, it began to rain and rained for three days as if the heavens had opened. The river was frozen and the sleighing had been fine. After this rain there was a foot of water on the ice. I was on my way to Fond du Lac, Wis. to get insurance on my store that had burned. You can imagine what the roads leading from St. Paul to Hastings were. It took us a whole day to make that twenty mile trip, four stage loads of us.

I have often thought you dwellers in the Twin Cities nowadays give little thought to the days when the stage coach was the essence of elegance in travel. The four or six horses would start off with a flourish. The music of the horn I have always thought most stirring. The two rival companies vied with each other in stage effect. If one driver had an especial flourish, the other tried to surpass him, and so it went on. No automobile, no matter how high powered, can hold a candle to those stage coaches in picturesque effect, for those horses were alive.

On this trip, I hired a man with two yearling steers to take my trunk full of papers from the Zumbro River that we had crossed in a skiff, as the bridge was out, to Minnieski where we could again take the stage. Those steers ran and so did we eight men who were following them in water up to our knees. We reached Minnieski about as fagged as any men could be.

Mr. George A. Brackett--1857, Minneapolis.

Prior to the Indian outbreak, I had charge of the feeding of the troops, comprising Stone's Division at Poolville, Md., with beef and other supplies. In this Division were the First Minnesota, several New York (including the celebrated Tammany Regulars) and Pennsylvania troops. I continued in that service until the Sioux outbreak, when Franklin Steele and myself were requested by General Sibley to go to Fort Ridgely and aid in the commissary department, General Sibley being a brother-in-law of Franklin Steele. I remained in this position until the close of the Sibley campaign, other St. Paul and Minneapolis men being interested with me in the furnishing of supplies.

Just after the battle of Birch Coolie, when General Sibley had assembled at Fort Ridgely a large force to go up the Minnesota River against the Indians, he sent Franklin Steele and myself to St. Peter to gather up supplies for his command. We started in a spring wagon with two good horses. A number of refugees from the fort went with us in Burbank's stages and other conveyances. At that time Burbank was running a line of stages from St. Paul to Fort Ridgely, stopping at intervening points. Allen, the manager of the lines, was in Fort Ridgely. A few miles out the cry was raised, "The Indians are in sight." Immediately the whole party halted. Allen went over the bluff far enough to see down to the bottoms of the river. Soon he returned very much frightened saying, "The valley is full of Indians." This caused such a fright that notwithstanding our protest, the whole party returned pell-mell to Fort Ridgely, except Steele and myself. The party was so panic stricken that Allen was nearly left. He had to jump on behind. We determined to go on. A mile or so further on, we saw a man crawling through the grass. I said to Steele, "There's your Indian," and drove up to him. It proved to be a German who, in broken English said, "The Indians have stolen my cattle and I am hunting for them." Driving a few miles further, we came to what had been Lafayette, burned by the Indians days before. Some of the houses were still smoking.

We stopped at the ruins of a house belonging to a half breed, Mrs. Bush, and killed and ate two chickens with our other lunch. When the refugees got back to the fort they reported to General Sibley that we had gone on. He said we were reckless and sent George McLeod, Captain of the Mounted Rangers, with fifty men to overtake us and bring us back. However, we drove on so fast that McLeod got to St. Peter about the time we did. There we bought out a bakery and set them to baking hard tack, and purchased cattle and made other arrangements for the feeding of the troops.

One day, before this, while I was at General Sibley's camp talking to him, I saw someone coming toward the camp. I called General Sibley's attention to it and he sent an officer to investigate. It proved to be a friendly Indian who had stolen a widow and her children from the hostiles and brought them to the fort. Her husband had been killed by the Indians.

Mrs. C. A. Smith--1858.

In the spring of 1858 we came to St. Paul. We took a boat which plied regularly between St. Paul and Minnesota river points, to Chaska. There we left the boat and walked to Watertown where our new home was to be. My father carried $2,000 in gold in inside pockets of a knitted jacket which my mother had made him. With this money we paid for two quarter sections of improved land and the whole family began to farm. We lived just as we had in Sweden, as we were in a Swedish settlement. We were Lutheran, so there were no parties. Going to church was our only amusement.