Part 29

I served as first Lieutenant, Co. E, 9th Minnesota of the frontier extending from Fort Ridgely through the settlement at Hutchinson, Long Lake and Pipe Lake. At the latter place we built a sod fort and I was in charge. Mounted couriers, usually three in number, traveling together, reported daily at these forts. I was stationed along the frontier for more than a year and we had many encounters with the Indians, and I soon learned that a white man with the best rifle to be bought in those days had a poor chance for his life when he had to contend with an Indian with a double barrel shot gun.

The Indian, with one lightning like movement throws a hand full of mixed powder and shot into his gun, loading both barrels at once and takes a shot at his enemy before the white man can turn around, and when the Indian is running to escape, he jumps first to this side and then to that, never in a straight line, and it is an expert marksman, indeed, who can hit him.

I worked on the Winnebago agency as carpenter and millwright and learned to know the habits of the Indians very well. I learned to follow a trail and later during the Indian trouble that knowledge came in very handy.

It is very easy for a white man to fall into the habits of the Indian, but almost impossible to raise the Indian to the standard of the white man. The head chief of the Winnebagoes was well known to me, and we became fast friends. He was a friendly man to all the settlers, but I knew the characteristics of the Indian well enough to trust none of them. He never overcomes the cunning and trickery in his nature and I learned to know that when he seemed most amiable and ingratiating was the time to look out for some deviltry. The Indians were great gamblers, the squaws especially. They would gamble away everything they owned, stopping only at the short cotton skirt they wore.

"Crazy Jane" was an educated squaw and could talk as good English as any of us. She was very peculiar and one of the funny things she did was to ride her Indian pony, muffled up in a heavy wool blanket carrying a parasol over her head. She had the habit of dropping in to visit the wives of the settlers and would frequently; on these visits, wash her stockings and put them on again without drying. One day when we were living at the agency I came home and found my wife in a great fright. Our little three year old girl was missing. She had looked everywhere but could not find her. I ran to the agency buildings nearby, but no one had seen her. They were digging a deep well near our house and I had not dared to look there before, but now I must and after peering down into the depths of the muddy water and not finding her, I looked up and saw Crazy Jane coming towards me with a strange looking papoose on her back. When she came nearer I found it was my child. I snatched the little girl away from her. She said she was passing by and saw the child playing outside the door and had carried her away on her back to her tepee, where she had kept her for several hours but had meant no harm.

We were ordered to New Ulm after the outbreak. We found the place deserted. The doors had been left unlocked and everyone had fled for their lives. The desk and stamps from the postoffice were in the street and all the stores were open. I put out scouting parties from there and we stood guard all night. After two or three days a few came back to claim their property. They had to prove their claim before I would allow them to take charge again. Uncle "Tommy" Ireland came to us a few days after we arrived there. He was the most distressed looking man I ever saw in my life. He had been hiding in the swamps for seven days and nights. He had lain in water in the deep grass. When we examined him, we found seventeen bullet holes where he had been shot by the Indians. He told me about falling in with Mrs. Eastlake and her three children.

They had all come from Lake Shetek. The settlement there comprised about forty-five people. They had been attacked by the Indians under Lean Bear and eight of his band, and the bands of White Lodge and Sleepy Eye, although Sleepy Eye himself died before the massacre.

Many of the settlers knew the Indians quite well and had treated them with great kindness. Mr. Ireland and his family were with the rest of the settlers when they were overtaken by the Indians. Mrs. Ireland, Mr. Eastlake and two of his children, were among the killed. Mrs. Eastlake was severely wounded, and wandered for three days and nights on the prairie searching for her two children, hoping they might have escaped from the slough where the others met their death. Finally on the way to New Ulm she overtook her old neighbor, Mr. Ireland, whom she supposed killed, as she had last seen him in the slough pierced with bullets, but he had revived and managed to crawl thus far, though in a sorry plight. From him she received the first tidings from her two missing children. Later on when she found her children, they were so worn by their suffering she could hardly recognize them. The eldest boy, eleven years old had carried his little brother, fifteen months old on his back for fifty miles. All the baby had to eat was a little piece of cheese which the older boy happened to have in his pocket. When within thirty miles from New Ulm they found the deserted cabin of J. F. Brown in Brown County, where Mrs. Eastlake and children, a Mrs. Hurd and her two children, and Mr. Ireland lived for two weeks on raw corn, the only food they could find. They dared not make a fire for fear the Indians would see the smoke. Mr. Ireland had been so badly injured that he had not been able to leave the cabin to get help, but finally was forced by the extreme need of the women and children to start for New Ulm. He fell in with a priest on the way, and together they came to our headquarters and told their story. We started at four o'clock next morning, with a company of soldiers and a wagon with a bed for the injured women. When we reached the cabin the women were terribly frightened and thought it was the Indians after them again. On our return to New Ulm we took a different turn in the road. It was just as near and much safer. One of our men, Joe Gilfillan had not had his horse saddled when the rest started and when he came to the fork in the road, he took the one he had come by and was killed by the Indians. Undoubtedly we would have met the same fate had we taken that road as the Indians were on our trail and were in ambush waiting for our return. However, we got safely back to New Ulm and later Mrs. Eastlake and her children and Mr. Ireland came to Mankato where they were cared for with the other refugees. The sufferings and hardships endured by the older Eastlake boy soon carried him to an untimely grave.

COLONIAL CHAPTER

Minneapolis

CARRIE SECOMBE CHATFIELD

(Mrs. E. C. Chatfield)

RUTH HALL VAN SANT

(Mrs. S. R. Van Sant)

Miss Carrie Stratton--1852.

My father was Levi W. Stratton who was born in Bradford, N. H., who came to St. Croix valley in 1838, taking up a claim where Marine now stands.

He helped to build the old mill there, the ruins of which are still to be found there. After two or three years he removed to Alton, Ill., where he remained for ten or twelve years marrying my mother there in 1842.

In 1852 he returned to Minnesota, coming up the river in the old "War Eagle." His family consisted of my mother, myself and my four brothers and sisters, the youngest an infant of six months.

We arrived at St. Paul on June 8. Being a child of but seven years, my memory of the appearance of the town at that time, is very indistinct. In fact the only clear remembrance of anything there, is of a large sign upon a building directly across the street from the little inn or tavern where we stopped for the night. It was "Minnesota Outfitting Company." On account of our large family of little children, I had been put into school when I was between two and three years of age and so was able to read, write and spell, and I have a very vivid recollection of the three long words of that sign.

We came from St. Paul to St. Anthony in the stage of the Willoughby Company, which was the first stage line in Minnesota. The driver stopped to water his horses at the famous old Des Noyer "Half Way House."

We stopped at the old St. Charles Hotel while the house my father had engaged was made ready for us. It was the Calvin Tuttle home, which was on the river bank at the foot of the University hill.

My father's previous residence in Minnesota had taught him to understand and speak the Indian language and so the Indians were frequent visitors at our house on one errand or another, generally, however to get something to eat. The first time they came, my father was absent, and my mother, never having seen any Indians before, was very much frightened. Not being able to understand what they wanted, she imagined with a mother's solicitude, that they wanted the baby, and being actually too terrified to stand any longer, she took the baby and went into her room and laid down upon the bed. After a while, either from intuition, or from the motions the Indians made, it occurred to her to give them something to eat, which was what they wanted and they then went peaceably away. The rest of the children, like myself, did not appear to be at all frightened, but instead, were very much entertained by the novel sight of the Indians in their gay blankets and feathered head dress. After that they were frequent visitors but always peaceable ones, never committing any misdemeanor.

One of the earliest diversions I can remember was going up University hill to the old Cheever tower and climbing to the top, in accordance to the mandate at the bottom, to "Pay your Dime and Climb," to get the magnificent view of the surrounding country, which included that of the great falls in their pristine glory. I can remember too, like all the others here who were children at that time, the stupendous roar of the falls, which was constantly in our ears especially if we were awake at night, when every other noise was stilled.

In the fall of that first year, I entered school, which was an academy in a building on University Avenue opposite the present East High School. This school was the nucleus of the State University and was presided over by Mr. E. W. Merrill, who was afterward a Congregational minister and home missionary.

After two or three years we moved into the home of the Rev. Mr. Seth Barnes above Central Avenue, and between Main and Second streets. Here my father cultivated a fine garden which included, besides corn, beans and other usual vegetables, some fine sweet potatoes, which were quite a novelty in the town at that time.

Mr. Irving A. Dunsmoor--1853.

In 1852 on account of poor health, my father resolved to come to Minnesota and become a farmer, and in the fall of that year, he set out with his family, consisting of my mother, myself and my three brothers.

We arrived at Galena, Ill., only to find that the last boat of the season had gone up the river the day before. So my father left us there for the winter and came up by the stage.