Old Rail Fence Corners Part 6

Mrs. Richard Chute--1851.

I came to Minnesota a bride in 1851 and with my husband shortly afterwards took the steamer for Traverse de Sioux, where a great treaty with the Indians was to be signed. With us we took a tent, provisions and a French man to cook. I was the only woman in all the company.

It was all so wonderful to me--the beautiful country through which we pa.s.sed and the preparations made for all the company on landing.

The Indians, a great concourse of them were down to see the boat come in. To see them scamper when the boat whistled was a sight to be remembered. Some fell in the water, but fled as soon as they could get themselves out. I think this was the first steamboat they had ever seen.

They were frightened and curious at the same time.

Ten years before, at my home in Ohio, I had seen the Indians often as they would stop at our house for food on the way to Fort Wayne. My mother always cooked corn dodgers for them and gave them milk to drink.

They loved her and knew she was their friend. They always gave me strings of vari-colored gla.s.s beads. I think I had one of every color.

These Indians at Traverse made me feel at home at once and I gave them a friendly smile. The glances they returned were shy, but friendly. Their painted faces and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and gaudy clothes were different from our Indians. Their tepees stretched as far as the eye could see. It seemed that the squaws must have had instruction in embroidery from some civilized teacher. Their patterns were so intricate. Their colors so well placed. Their moccasins were always beautifully done with beads and colored porcupine quills; their best petticoats, too. As for their liege lords, their best suits, if suits they might be called, were beautifully done. A young squaw, instead of pouring out her love in song, would pour it out in embroidery and her husband would be very gay, indeed.

Mrs. Hopkins, wife of the missionary, met us and took us home with her where we were very well cared for. She was a charming little woman, full of missionary zeal and greatly loved. I never heard her complain. Her husband, too, was greatly beloved by the Indians.

We took our stores and cooked there and with fresh vegetables from the little farm worked by Mr. Huggins, fish and game, we had choice meals.

I used to ride horseback, or rather "pony back," every day, always with my husband and frequently with Mr. Sibley. My pony was borrowed from the Indians. Mr. Chute and Mr. Sibley rode large horses. Every Indian brave, who came, came on a pony. His tepee, household goods and children were drawn by one. There were so many that they seemed more than the blades of gra.s.s. Literally thousands of these ponies were grazing some distance back of the encampment. We three rode out to see them. As we neared them, and they smelled my pony, that vast herd, with one accord, started towards us and almost at once literally engulfed me. The men called, "For G.o.d's sake, don't get off. Hold on for your life." I took the pony around the neck with both arms and did hold on. The men came after me as fast as they could and rode their big horses on either side of me. The Indians rushed in on their ponies and after some time succeeded in turning that vast mult.i.tude and letting the prisoner escape. I was cool and collected while the danger menaced, but when it was over, trembled and shook. My taste for horseback riding at Traverse was gone.

Mr. Sibley, Mr. Chute and I, with a guide, went to see a miniature Minnehaha. We walked all day going there and back--crossing the little stream many times. My husband took off his boots to ford the stream. He always carried me over. He cut his foot badly and could hardly get to the commission tent. Mr. Sibley urged us not to go to the Hopkins', but to stay there, but Mr. Chute wanted to go. It was bright moonlight, and I walked three quarters of a mile to Mr. Hopkins' to get a pony to take my husband back. I pa.s.sed a little lake on the prairie. Mr. Chute and I always walked arm in arm as was then the custom for married people.

Mirrored in the lake I could see reflected many, many Indian lovers walking as they had seen the pale faces do. I laughed to myself as I thought what mimics these children were. It was their following the customs of the white man, drinking as they saw him drink, that degraded them so.

On the Fourth of July there was to be a great celebration. The Indians were to have all their dances. Early in the morning, Mr. Hopkins went out to bathe in the river. He did not return. A little Indian girl said she had seen him go under the water and only two hands come above it.

His body was not found for two days. A great crowd of squaws surrounded the house, showing by their sad looks what the loss was to them. At the burial, the Indians, a vast number of them, sang the hymns in Sioux.

This funeral, way off in the wilderness, with these crowds of savage mourners, could never be forgotten.

Mr. Charles Bohanon--1851.

I moved to the farm where I am now living in '53. My father first took up a claim in 1851 where the Central Market now stands, but while he was in the woods, Old Man Stimson squat on that, so he took a claim at what is now Camden Place. He built a small house there. The farm was covered with brush and "oak openins". Everyone of these trees had to be grubbed out. One of my earliest recollections is the Red River carts that used to go squawking by on this side of the river as well as on the St.

Anthony side. They were called the Red River Band. They were one of the loudest bands ever brought together, as their music, that of wood rubbing against wood, could be heard three miles. While my father was in the woods, the Indians used to come and sleep in the dooryard. Sometimes it would be full of painted Sioux. They never stole anything or begged, but would gratefully take anything offered them. They were very friendly and kind and full of curiosity, as their looking in the windows at all times showed.

My father had brought a fine pair of horses from Galena. One day when he was mowing wild hay on a meadow, he left them unhitched and was excitedly told by a neighbor that they had got in the river. He ran and saw one swimming near the other sh.o.r.e but as the other had turned over with his feet in the air, the combined weight of the horse and wagon was too much for him and before help came, he sank. We recovered the running gear of the wagon later when all came upon a sandbar, but the harness had been stolen. What the loss of this team was to a pioneer farmer, we can hardly conceive.

The countless number of pigeons which migrated here every spring could never be estimated. At all hours of the night their cry of "Pigie, Pigie, Pigie," could be heard. They could be seen in countless numbers on the "slab trees," that is, old, dead trees. Anyone could kill hundreds in a day and thousands killed, seemingly made no impression.

They flew very low and in dense ma.s.ses. Ducks and geese were exceedingly plentiful. I have never seen wild swan here, but many in Minnesota in the Red River country.

On our farm was a thicket of plums which probably came up from the stones from one tree. Some were blue, some red, others yellow and red.

Some were sour, some bitter, others tasteless, while others still, were sweet and of an exquisite flavor. These trees soon ran out and I think all of this best variety are gone. I remember picking raspberries, blackberries and wild strawberries in quant.i.ties. Every summer we would go up to Anoka and spend a week camping and picking blueberries.

We sold our corn which was our first crop, to Alexander Moore in St.

Anthony. At that time, he was the only one buying corn. Two bushel baskets made a bushel. This sold for 15c. Mr. Moore had much larger baskets than those ordinarily in use and measured the corn in these.

When the farmers demurred, he said, "If you don't like my measure, take your corn home." He knew there was no one else for us to take it to, so was very brave. There were very few scales so farm produce was generally sold by measure.

I never saw a pair of shoes until after the war. Everyone wore boots.

In the northern part of the State I have seen men start out in the morning with an ox team and return at night, blind themselves and the oxen, too, from the sting of the buffalo gnat. The mosquitoes came in great clouds and were everywhere.

Every little clear s.p.a.ce of a hundred acres or more was called a prairie.

When I first saw Duluth it was only a cotton-town. That is, log houses with canvas roofs or tents. Most mail carriers used dog teams. Three dogs. .h.i.tched tandem was the common sight. I have seen three dogs haul a dead horse.

In our expedition against the Indians only thirty-seven of the eight hundred horses we took, came back with us. The rest starved to death.

Unlike the Red River stock which would paw through the deep snow to the long gra.s.s, fill themselves and then lie down in the hole and sleep, they knew nothing of this way and so could not forage for themselves.

This campaign was with Hatch's Independent Battalion.

Lieut. Grosvenor who was new to the Red River country was married and on his wedding trip was to stop at McCauleyville. He sent word ahead that he wanted a private room. When he got there, he was shown into the only room there was--full of half breed sleepers. He hastened to the proprietor and said, "I ordered a private room." His answer was, "There are only six beds in there, what more could you want?"

Mr. Austin W. Farnsworth--1851.

We came to Fillmore County in the Fall of 1851 from Vermont. We were strapped. Not one cent was left after the expenses of the trip were paid. A neighbor took my father with him and met us at McGregor Landing with an ox team hitched to a prairie schooner. We were four days getting to Fillmore County, camping on the way. The nearest town, only a post office, was Waukopee. Father had come the previous spring and planted two acres of wheat, two acres of corn and one-half acre of potatoes. The potatoes all rotted in the ground.

I was only nine years old and my brother thirteen, but we made all the furniture for that cabin out of a few popple poles and a hollow ba.s.swood log. For beds, beams were fitted in between the logs and stuck out about a foot above the floor and were six feet long. To these we fastened cross pieces of "popple" and on this put a tick filled with wild hay and corn stalk leaves. It made a wonderful bed when you were tired as everyone was in those days, for all worked. After we had cut off a section of our big log by hand, we split it in two and in one half bored holes and fitted legs of the unpeeled popple for the seat. The other half made the back and our chair was done. As we had no nails, we fitted on the backs with wood pegs. Our table was made of puncheons split with a wedge and hewed with a broadax. The cabin would have been very homelike with its new furniture if it had not been for the smoke. My mother had to do all the cooking on a flat stone on the floor with another standing up behind it. She nearly lost her sight the first winter from the smoke. Our attic was filled with cornstalks to make the cabin warmer.

Our fare was good, as game was very plentiful and we had corn meal and a coa.r.s.e ground wheat more like cracked wheat. There was a little grist mill at Carimona, a tiny town near. My mother made coffee from corn meal crusts. It would skin Postum three ways for Sunday.

When I was nine years old I killed a buffalo at Buffalo Grove near us.

That grove was full of their runs. Elk were very plentiful, too, and deer were so plenty they were a drug in our home market. I have counted seventy-five at one time and seven elk. Pigeons were so thick that they darkened the sky when they flew. Geese and ducks, too, were in enormous flocks. In season, they seemed to cover everything. We used the eggs of the prairie chickens for cooking. They answered well.

Once my brother shot a c.o.o.n and my mother made him a cap with the tail hanging behind and made me one too, but she put a gray squirrel's tail at the back of mine. She knit our shoes and sewed them to buckskin soles. I was twelve, when I had my first pair of leather shoes. They were cowhide and how they did hurt, but I was proud of them. None of the country boys wore underclothing. I was nineteen before I ever had any.

Our pants were heavily lined and if it was cold, we wore more shirts. I never had an overcoat until I went in the army. Before we left Vermont, my mother carded and spun all the yarn and wove all the cloth that we wore for a long time after coming to Minnesota.

We found the most delicious wild, red plums, half the size of an egg and many berries and wild crab-apples.

The timber wolves were plenty and fierce. My sister was treed by a pack from nine o'clock until one. By that time we had got neighbors enough together to scatter them. I was chased, too, when near home, but as I had two bulldogs with me, they kept them from closing in on me until I could get in the house.

There was a rattlesnake den near us and once we killed seventy-eight in one day. They were the timber rattlesnakes--great big fellows. I caught one by holding a forked stick over its head and then dropped it in a box. I kept it for a pet. It was seven feet, one and a half inches long, I used to feed it frogs, mice and rabbits. I thought it was fond of me, but it struck at me and caught its fangs in my shirt when I was careless, so I killed my pet.

The only time I ever went to school was for two months in '55, to John Cunningham. Wilbur made our desks out of black walnut lumber, cut in Buffalo Grove. It was very plentiful there.

Later we used to go to dances. I was great for cutting pigeon wings and balancing on the corner with a jig step. We used to dance the whirl waltz, too. Some called it the German waltz. We spun round and round as fast as we could, taking three little steps.

Mr. Elijah Nutting--1852.

We came to Faribault in 1852 and kept the first hotel there. It was just a crude shanty with an upstairs that was not part.i.tioned off. Very cold too. I rather think there never was anything much colder. But it was very well patronized, as it was much better than staying outside.

There were many Indians whose home was in our village. We used to have good times with them and enjoyed their games and seeing them dance.

Families were moving in all the time. Finally winter was over and spring with us.

We began to think how near the Fourth was and how totally unprepared we were for its coming. We decided to have a minstrel show. We had seen one once. My brother was to be end man and black up for the occasion. But he was a little tow head and we did not see our way clear to make nice kinky black wool of his hair.

Unfortunately for her, a black sheep moved into town in an otherwise white flock. We boys would take turns in chasing that sheep and every time we could get near her, we would s.n.a.t.c.h some of the wool. When sewed on to cloth, this made a wonderful wig. The proceeds from this entertainment, we saved for firecrackers. Then we bought some maple sugar of the Indians--very dark and dirty looking. It looked very inadequate for a young merchant's whole stock of goods, but when it was added to by sc.r.a.pings from the brown sugar barrel, when mother's back was turned, it sold like wild fire.

We felt like Rockefeller when we entrusted the stage driver with our capital to buy the coveted firecrackers in Cannon City, which then was much larger than Faribault. They cost forty cents a bunch, so we only got three bunches. The size of the crackers depressed us considerably for they were the smallest we had ever seen. We feared they would not make any noise. We put them away in a safe place. Brother was a natural investigator. Every time I was gone, he would fear those crackers were not keeping well and try one. He wanted no grand disappointment on the Fourth.

Joe Bemis, son of Dr. Bemis, always trained with us fellows and never backed down. We were going to have a circus in the barn. Joe said, "I'll ride a hog." The hogs were running around loose outside. They were as wild as deer. We laid a train of corn into the barn and so coaxed one old fellow with great tusks into it, and then closed the door. Joe ran and jumped on his back. Like lightning the hog threw him and then ripped him with his tusk. Joe yelled, "For G.o.d's sake let him out." We did. We laid Joe out on a board and Dr. Bemis came and sewed him up. He said, "Joe won't ride a hog very soon again, boys. Neither will you, I guess."