Old Rail Fence Corners Part 19

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, m.u.f.fled 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed the little girl away from her. She said she was pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s. 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 ma.s.sacre.

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.

The end of his journey found him in the little town of Harmony, which was afterwards changed to Richfield, and is now within the city limits of Minneapolis.

Here he was able to buy for $100 a claim of two hundred and sixty acres, with a house upon it, which was only partly finished, being, however entirely enclosed. This particular claim attracted his attention on account of the house, as his family was so soon to follow. It began at what is now Fiftieth street and Lyndale Avenue and continued out Lyndale three quarters of a mile. The house (with some addition) is still standing on Lyndale Avenue between Fifty Third and Fifty Fourth streets.

Minnehaha creek ran through the farm and the land on the north side of the creek (part of which is now in Washburn Park) was fine wooded land.

When the first boat came up the river in the spring it brought my mother and us boys. My father had sent us word to come up to Fort Snelling on the boat, but we had not received the message and so got off at St.

Paul and came up to St. Anthony by stage and got a team to take us to our new home. We found it empty, as my father and an uncle who was also here, had gone to the fort to meet us. As we went into one of the back rooms, a very strange sight met our eyes. My father and uncle had set a fish trap in the creek the night before and had poured the results of their catch in a heap on the floor and there was such a quant.i.ty of fish that it looked like a small hayc.o.c.k. This was done for a surprise for us, and as such, was a great success, as we were only accustomed to the very small fish that lived in the creek that ran through our home town in Maine, and these long pickerel and large suckers were certainly a novelty.

We salted them down and packed them in barrels and for a long time had plenty of fish to eat, to sell and to give away.

Our house soon took on the character of a public building, as my father was made Postmaster, Town Treasurer and Justice of the Peace, and all the town meetings were held there, as well as church and Sunday school.

My father gave five acres down at the creek to a company who erected a grist mill and the settlers from fifty or sixty miles away would come to have grain ground and would all stop at our house to board and sleep while there. Then the house would be so full that we boys would have to sleep on the floor, or out in the barn or anywhere else we could find a place.

During our first winter, a party of about fifty Sioux Indians came and camped in our woods just west of where the Washburn Park water tower now stands. They put up about twenty tepees, made partly of skins and partly of canvas. We boys would often go in the evening to visit them and watch them make moccasins, which we would buy of them. They would often come to our house to beg for food, but in all the time they remained there (nearly the whole winter) they committed no depredations, except that they cut down a great deal of our fine timber, and killed a great quant.i.ty of game, so that when they wanted to come back the next winter, father would not allow it.

Once after they had gone away, they came back through the farm and went off somewhere north of us, where they had a battle with the Chippewas.

When they returned, they brought two scalps and held a "pow-wow" on the side of our hill.

We had a great deal of small game in our woods, and great quant.i.ties of fish in the creek. We used to spear the fish and sometimes would get two upon our spears at once.

My mother was very fond of dandelion greens, and missed them very much, as she could find none growing about our place. So she sent back to Maine for seed and planted them. But I hardly think that the great quant.i.ties we have now are the result of that one importation.

After a few years we had a school at Wood Lake, which is down Lyndale avenue two or three miles.

Mrs. Mary Pribble--1854.

My father, Hiram Smith arrived in Minnesota Apr. 21, 1854 settling first in Brooklyn, Hennepin County. My mother followed in July of the same year, with the family of three children, myself, aged seven, and two brothers aged two and five years. We arrived in St. Paul July ninth and my mother, with her usual forethought and thrift, (realizing that before long navigation would close for the winter and shut off all source of supplies) laid in a supply of provisions while we were in St. Paul.

Among other things she bought a bag of rice flour which was all the flour in our colony until April of the next year.

We came by stage to Anoka and were to cross the Mississippi river in a canoe, to the trading post of Mr. Miles, which was on a high point of land in what is now Champlin. It was where Elm creek empties into the Mississippi. But the canoe was too small to carry us all at once and so I was left on the east sh.o.r.e sitting upon our baggage, to wait for a return trip. When I finally arrived across the river, there were Indians gathered at the landing and they touched me on the cheek and called me "heap pale face."

There was great joy in our little colony when that same autumn my father discovered a fine cranberry marsh. Much picnicking and picking followed.

My parents secured seven bushel and alloted very much on the winter supplies that these cranberries would buy when they could send them to St. Paul, our only market.