The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier Part 25

I have known a brigade of teams, manned by Germans, Englishmen and Irishmen (the Scandinavians had then just begun to make their appearance in the Northwest) to be caught in a winter storm, and result in the amputation of fingers, toes, feet and hands from freezing, but I cannot remember ever losing a Canadian Frenchman. I recall one instance, where a train was overtaken by a severe storm just about evening, where no timber was in sight. The men built barricades with their sleds and loads, and took refuge to the leeward of them, where they pa.s.sed quite a comfortable night for themselves and their teams. With the coming of the morning light they discovered a timber island not very far off, and started for it with their horses, to make fires, feed the teams, and get breakfast. The storm had abated, and the sun shone brilliantly. One young American lad shouldered a sack of oats, and not realizing that it was very cold, did not put on his mittens, but seized the neck of the sack with his bare hand. When he arrived at the timber all his fingers were frozen, and had to be amputated. It was merely one of the cases of serious injury I have known arising from ignorance.

No one who has not encountered a blizzard on the open prairie can form an adequate idea of the almost hopelessness of the situation. The air becomes filled with driving, whirling snow to such an extent that it is with difficulty you can see your horses, and the effect is the same as absolute darkness in destroying all conception of direction. You may think you are going straight forward when in fact you are moving in a small circle; the only safety is to stop and battle it out.

I remember a case which happened in this region before it became Minnesota which fully proves the dangers of a blizzard to a traveler on the open prairie. Martin McLeod and Pierre Bottineau, together with an Englishman and a Pole, started from Fort Garry for the headwaters of the Minnesota river. They were well equipped in all respects, having a good dog train, and, in Bottineau, one of the most experienced guides in the Northwest. While the party was in sight of timber it was suddenly enveloped in a blizzard, and, of course, wanted to reach the timber for safety. Here a controversy arose as to the direction to be taken to find it, the Englishman and the Pole insisting on one line, and McLeod and Bottineau on another. They separated. McLeod took the dogs, and he and they soon fell over a precipice and were covered up in a deep snow drift, where they remained quite comfortably through the night.

Bottineau through his instincts reached the timber, and was safe, where he was joined the next morning by McLeod. The Englishman was afterwards discovered so badly frozen that he died, while the Pole was lost. The only trace of him that was ever discovered was his pistols, which were found on the prairie the next spring, the wolves having undoubtedly disposed of his remains.

The remedy for these dangers is to avoid them by a close scrutiny of the weather, and by never venturing on a big prairie if you can by any means avoid it, and always being abundantly supplied with food for yourself and animals, whether horses or dogs, besides fuel, matches, blankets, robes, and all the paraphernalia of a snow camp, should you have to make one. No people are more careful in these particulars than the Indians themselves, from whom the French voyageurs undoubtedly learned their lessons.

To give an idea of how treacherous the weather may be, and of what dangers frontier people are subjected to, I will relate an adventure in which I partic.i.p.ated when living in the Indian country, which, however, turned out pleasantly. I had been at my Redwood agency for several days, and it became important that I should visit my upper agency, situated on the Yellow Medicine river, about thirty miles distant, up the Minnesota river. After crossing the Redwood river, the road led over a thirty-mile prairie, without a shrub on it as big as a walking stick. The day was bright and beautiful, and the ride promised to be a pleasant one, so I invited my surgeon, Dr. Daniels, and his wife to accompany me. They gladly accepted, and Mrs. Daniels took her baby along. (By the way, this baby is now the elder sister of the wife of one of our most distinguished attorneys, Mr. John V. I. Dodd.) Mr. Andrew Myrick, a trader at the agency, learning that we were going, decided to accompany us, and got up his team for the purpose, taking some young friends with him, and off we went.

I had early taken the precaution to construct a sleigh especially adapted to winter travel in this exposed region. It had recesses where were stowed away provisions, fuel, tools, and many things to meet possible emergencies. The cushions were made of twelve pairs of four-point Mackinaw blankets, and the side rails were capable of carrying two carca.s.ses of venison or mutton, so I felt quite capable of conquering a blizzard.

I may say here that I had a surgeon at each agency, who were brothers, Dr. Asa W. Daniels at the lower agency and Dr. Jared Daniels at the upper, and this excursion presented a pleasant opportunity for the families to meet. The upper agency was in charge of my chief farmer, a Scotch gentleman by the name of Robertson. He was a mystery which I never unravelled,--a handsome, aristocratic, highly educated man about seventy years of age, with the manners of a Chesterfield. He had been in the Indian country for many years, had married a squaw, and raised a numerous family of children, and had been in the employment of the government ever since the making of the treaties. I always thought he once was a man of fortune, who had dissipated it in some way, after travelling the world over, and had sought oblivion in the wilds of America.

There was a large comfortable log house at the Yellow Medicine agency, occupied by Robertson, which answered for all his purposes, both business and domestic, and furnished a home and office for me when I happened to be there; and on one occasion, during the Ink-pa-du-ta excitement, I found it made a very efficient fort for defense against the Indians.

Our trip was uneventful, and we arrived in the evening. That night a blizzard sprang up that exceeded in severity anything of the kind in my experience, and I have had nearly half a century of Minnesota winters.

It raged and rampaged. It piled the snow on the prairie in drifts of ten and twenty feet in height. It filled the river bottoms to the height of about three feet on the level. It lasted about ten days, during which time, we of course, did not dream of getting out, but amused ourselves as best we could. It was what the French called a _poudre de riz_, where there is more snow in the air than on the ground. Although I have been entertained in many parts of the world, and by many various kinds of people, I can say that I never enjoyed a few weeks more satisfactorily than those we spent under compulsion at the Yellow Medicine river on that occasion.

Personal a.s.sociation with Mr. Robertson was not only a delight, but an education. He had been everywhere, and knew everything. He was charming in conversation and magnificent in hospitality, and the unique nature of his entertainment under his savage environments lent an additional charm to the situation. He soon became aware that we needed something exciting to sustain us in our enforced imprisonment, and he produced fiddlers and half-breed women for dancing. He gave us every day a dinner party composed of viands unknown outside of the frontier of North America. One day we would have the tail of the beaver, always regarded as a great delicacy on the border; the next, the paws of the bear soused, which, when served on a white dish, very much resembled the foot of a negro, but were good; then, again, roasted muskrat, which in the winter is as delicate as a young chicken; then frica.s.seed skunk, which, in season, is free from all offensive odor, and extremely delicate,--all served with _le riz sauvage_. In fact, he exhausted the resources of the country to make us happy.

But Robertson's menu was the least part of it. Every evening he would a.s.semble us, and read Shakespeare and the poetry of Burns to us. I never understood or enjoyed Burns until I heard it read and expounded by Robertson.

The time pa.s.sed in this pleasant fashion until we commenced to think we were "snowed in" for the winter, and I began to devise ways and means for getting out. I had to get out; but how, was the question. To cross the prairie was not to be thought of; we could not get an Indian to venture over it on snowshoes, let alone driving over it. Nothing had been heard of us below, and, as we learned afterwards, the St. Paul papers had published an account of our all being frozen to death, with full details of Andrew Myrick being found dead in his sleigh, with the lines in his hands and his horses standing stiff before him.

I decided that an expedition might work its way through on the river bottoms, and we could follow in its trail. So I sent out a party with several heavy sleds, loaded with hay, and each drawn by four or five yoke of oxen to beat a track. They returned after several days' absence, and reported that the thing was impossible, and they could not get through. I then called for volunteers, and the French Canadians came to the front. I allowed them to organize their own expedition. They took their fiddles with them, and the agreement was, that if we didn't hear from them in five days, we were to consider that they were through, and we could follow. The days pa.s.sed one after the other, and at the expiration of the time, we all started, and laboriously followed the trail they had beaten. We noticed their camps from day to day, and saw that they had not been distressed, and found them, at the end of the journey, as jolly as such people always are, whether in sunshine or storm.

It is much more agreeable to write about blizzards than to encounter them.

LAW AND LATIN.

In the beginning of the settlement of the Minnesota valley, in the early fifties, a man named Tom Cowan located at Traverse des Sioux. His name will be at once recognized by all the old settlers. He was a Scotchman, and had been in business in Baltimore. Financial difficulties had driven him to the West, to begin life anew and grow up with the country. He was a very well read and companionable man, and exceedingly bright by nature, and at once became very popular with the people. His first venture was in the fur trade, but not knowing anything about it, his success was not brilliant. I remember that he once paid an immense price for a very large black bearskin, thinking he had struck a bonanza. He kept it on exhibition, until one day John S. Prince, who was an experienced fur buyer, dropped in, and after listening to Cowan's eulogy on his bear skin, quietly remarked: "He bear; not worth a d--n," which decision induced Tom to abandon the fur trade.

There being no lawyer but one at Traverse des Sioux, and I having been elected to the supreme bench, Mr. Cowan decided to study law, and open an office for the practice of that profession. He accordingly proposed that he should study with me, which idea I strongly encouraged, and after about six weeks of diligent reading, princ.i.p.ally devoted to the statutes, I admitted him to the bar, and he fearlessly announced himself as an attorney and counselor at law. In this venture he was phenomenally successful. He was a fine speaker, made an excellent argument on facts, and soon stood high in the profession. He took a leading part in politics, was made register of deeds of his county, went to the legislature, and was nominated for lieutenant governor of the state after its admission into the Union; but, of course, in all his practice he was never quite certain about the law of his cases. This deficiency was made up by dash and brilliancy, and he got along swimmingly.

One day he came to my office and said: "Judgey, I am going to try a suit at Le Sueur to-morrow that involves $2,500. It is the biggest suit we have ever had in the valley, and I think it ought to have some Latin in it, and I want you to furnish me with that ingredient." I said: "Tom, what is it all about? I must know what kind of a suit it is before I can supply the Latin appropriately, and especially as I am not very much up in Latin myself."

He said the suit was on an insurance policy; that he was defending on the ground of misrepresentations made by the insured on the making of the policy, and he must have some Latin to ill.u.s.trate and strengthen his point.

I mulled over the proposition, looked up some books on maxims, and finally gave him this, "_Non haec in federe veni_," which I translated to mean, "I did not enter into this contract." He was delighted, and said there ought to be no doubt of success with the aid of this formidable weapon, and made me promise to ride down with him to hear him get it off. So the next day we started, and in crossing the Le Sueur prairie, Cowan was hailed by a man who said he was under arrest for having kicked a man out of his house for insulting his family, and he wanted Tom to defend him. The justice's court was about a mile from the road, in a carpenter shop, the proprietor of which was the justice. Tom told him to demand a jury, and he would stop on his way back and help him out.

When we arrived at Le Sueur we found that the case could not be heard that day, and, starting homeward, about four o'clock we reached the carpenter shop. There we found the jury awaiting us. We hitched the team, and I spread myself comfortably on a pile of shavings to witness the legal encounter. The complaining party proved his case. Cowan put his client on the witness stand, and showed the provocation. Then he addressed the jury. His defense was, want of criminal intent. He dwelt eloquently on the point that the gist of the offense was the intent with which the act was committed, and when it appeared that the act was justified, there could be no crime. Then, casting a quizzical glance at me, he struck a tragic att.i.tude, and thundered out: "Gentlemen of the jury, it is indelibly recorded in all the works of Roman jurisprudence, '_Non haec in federe veni_,' which means there can be no crime without criminal intent." The effect was electrical; the jury acquitted the prisoner, and we drove home fully convinced that the law was not an exact science. With what effect Tom utilized his Latin in the insurance suit I have forgotten, or was never advised.

INDIAN STRATEGY.

In the summer of 1856 I had the celebrated battery commanded by Major T.

W. Sherman of the United States Army (better known as the Buena Vista Battery, from the good work it did in the Mexican war) on duty in the Indian country, on account of a great excitement which prevailed among the Indians. The officers of the battery were Major Sherman, First Lieutenant Ayer, and Second Lieutenant Du Barry. Its force of men was about sixty, including noncommissioned officers. I think it had four guns, but of this I am not certain.

One day, after skirmishing about over considerable country, we made a camp on the Yellow Medicine river, near a fine spring, and everything seemed comfortable. The formation of the camp was a square, with the guns and tents inside, and a sort of a picket line on all sides about a hundred yards from the center, on which the sentinels marched day and night. I tented with the major, and seeing that the Indians were allowed to come inside of the picket lines with their guns in their hands, I took the liberty of saying to him that I did not consider such a policy safe, because the Indians could, at a concerted signal, each pick out his man and shoot him down, and then where would the battery be? But the major's answer was, "Oh, we must not show any timidity." So I said no more, but it was just such misplaced confidence that afterwards cost General Canby his life among the Modocs, when he was shot down by Captain Jack. Things went on quietly, until one day a young soldier went down to the spring with his bucket and dipper for water, and an Indian who desired to make a name for himself among his fellows followed him stealthily, and when he was in a stooping posture, filling his bucket, came up behind him, and plunged a long knife into his neck, intending, of course, to kill him; but as luck would have it, the knife struck his collarbone and doubled up, so the Indian could not withdraw it. The shock nearly prostrated the soldier, but he succeeded in reaching camp. The major immediately demanded the surrender of the guilty party, and he was given up by the Indians. I noticed one thing, however; no more Indians were allowed inside the lines with their guns in their hands.

When the prisoner was brought into camp a guard tent was established, and he was confined in it, with ten men to stand guard over him. These men were each armed with the minie rifle which was first introduced into the army, and which was quite an effective weapon.

While all this was going on, we were holding pow-pows every day with the Indians, endeavoring to straighten out and clear up all the vexed questions between us. The manner of holding a council was to select a place on the prairie, plant an American flag in the center, and all hands squat down in a circle around it. Then the speechifying would commence, and last for hours without any satisfactory results. Anyone who has had much experience in Indian councils is aware of the hopelessness of arriving at a termination of the discussion. It very much resembles Turkish diplomacy. But the weather was pleasant, and everybody was patient.

The Indians, however, were concocting plans all this time to effect the escape of the prisoner in the guardhouse. So one day they suggested a certain place for the holding of the council, giving some plausible reason for the change of location, and when the time arrived, everybody a.s.sembled, and the ring was formed. Those present consisted of all the traders, Superintendent Cullen, Major Sherman, Lieutenant Ayer,--in fact, all the white men at the agency,--and about one hundred Indians, everyone of whom had a gun in his hands. I had warned the major frequently not to allow an Indian to come into council with a gun, but he deemed it better not to show any timidity, and they were not prohibited. The council on this occasion was held about four hundred yards from the battery camp, and on lower ground, but with no obstruction between them. The scheme of the savages was to spring to their feet on a concerted signal and begin firing their guns all around the council circle, so as to create a great excitement and bring everyone to his feet, and just at this moment the prisoner in the guardhouse was to make a run in the direction of the council, keeping exactly between the guard and the whites in the council ring, believing that the soldiers would not fire for fear of killing their own people.

When the time arrived every Indian in the ring jumped to his feet and fired in the air, creating a tremendous fusilade, and as had been expected, the most frightful panic followed, and everyone thinking that a general ma.s.sacre of the whites had begun, they scattered in all directions. Instantly the prisoner ran for the crowd, and an Indian can sprint like a deer. Contrary to expectations, every one of the ten guards opened fire on him, and seven of them hit him, but curiously not one of the wounds stopped his progress, and he got away; but the bullets went over and among the whites, one ricocheting through the coat of Major Cullen. The prisoner never was caught, but I heard a great deal about him afterwards. His exploit of stabbing the soldier and his almost miraculous escape made him one of the most celebrated medicine men of his band, and he continued to work wonders thenceforth.

After the return of the battery I was informed by my close friends among the Indians that they had sat on the hills overlooking the camp and concocted all kinds of schemes to take it, the princ.i.p.al one of which was to fill bladders with water, and pour them over the touch-holes of the guns, and, as they supposed, render them useless, and then open fire on the men. Fortunately nothing of the kind was tried, but I was convinced that no one can be too cautious when in the country of a savage enemy. A good lesson can be learned from this narrative by the people now occupying the country of the Filipinos.

One pleasing circ.u.mstance resulted from the presence of this battery in the Indian country. About thirty years after the occurrences I have been narrating I had occasion to transact some business with the adjutant general of our state at his office in the capitol, and after completing it I was about to retire, when the general said to me: "Judge, you don't seem to remember me." I replied: "General, did I ever have the pleasure of your acquaintance?" "Not exactly," he said, "but don't you remember the time when you had the old Sherman Battery in the field, with its tall first sergeant?" I said: "I recall the event quite clearly, but not the sergeant." He said: "One day, after a long, hot march, I was laying out the camp, and you were sitting on your horse observing the operation, when you noticed me and called me to you, and pulling a flask from your pocket or holster, you asked me to take a drink. That is a long time ago, but I remember it as the best drink I ever had, and I always a.s.sociate you pleasantly with it." The tall sergeant had matured into a most dignified and charming gentleman, with whom I have ever since enjoyed the most agreeable relations.

The moral of this story is, that when you are in the country of hostile savages, never accept any confidences or take any chances, and when you have more drinks than you can conveniently absorb, divide with your neighbor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE FIRST STATE ELECTION RETURNS FROM PEMBINA.

The State of Wisconsin was admitted into the Union in the year 1848, with the St. Croix river as its western boundary. This arrangement left St. Paul, St. Anthony, Stillwater, Marine, Taylor's Falls and other settlements, which had sprung up in Wisconsin west of the St. Croix, without any government. The inhabitants of these communities immediately sought ways and means to extricate themselves from the dilemma in which they were placed. There were a great many men among them of marked ability and influence--Henry M. Rice, Henry H. Sibley, Morton S.

Wilkinson, Henry L. Moss, John McKusick, Joseph R. Brown, Martin McLeod, Wm. R. Marshall and others. Differences of opinion existed as to whether the remnant of Wisconsin on the west side of the St. Croix still remained the Territory of Wisconsin or whether it was a kind of "no man's land," without a government of any kind. Governor Dodge of the territory had been elected to the senate of the United States for the new state. The delegate to congress had resigned, and the government of the territory had been cast upon the secretary, Mr. John Catlin, who became governor ex-officio on the vacancy happening in the office of governor. He lived in Madison, in the new state, and would have to move over the line into the deserted section if he proposed to exercise the functions of his office. A correspondence was opened with him, and he was invited to come to Stillwater, and proclaim the existence of the territory by calling an election for a delegate to congress from Wisconsin Territory. He accepted the call, moved to Stillwater, and in the month of September, 1848, issued his proclamation. An election was held in November following, and Henry H. Sibley was chosen delegate from Wisconsin Territory to the congress of the United States.

Sibley procured the pa.s.sage of an act, on March 3, 1849, organizing the Territory of Minnesota, and we have had regular elections ever since.

There is a little unwritten history connected with the transaction above related. The princ.i.p.al citizens west of the St. Croix fixed things up among the settlements in a manner entirely satisfactory to themselves.

They divided the prospective spoils about as follows: Sibley lived at Mendota, and that place was to have the delegate to congress, St. Paul was to have the capital, Stillwater the penitentiary, and St. Anthony the university, which comprised all there was to divide. The program was faithfully carried out, and has been maintained ever since, although various attempts have been made to violate the treaty by the removal of the capital from St. Paul; but I am glad to be able to say, in behalf of honesty and fair dealing, none of them have been successful.

The existence of this unwritten treaty has been denied, but there are men yet living in the state who took part in it, and have publicly affirmed its authenticity. Judge Douglas of Illinois, when chairman of the senate committee on territories, insisted on placing the capital at Mendota, with the building on the top of Pilot k.n.o.b, and had it not been for the stern integrity of Sibley, he would have succeeded, to the everlasting inconvenience and discomfort of our people.

There were really no politics worthy of the name during the years of the territory. All the princ.i.p.al offices were filled by appointment by the general government, and the rest of them determined by personal rivalries. The main business of the territory was the fur trade, carried on by warring companies, whose chief factors sought office more for the sake of its influence on their business than for the principles they represented.

I remember one year the legislature, in a spasm of virtue, pa.s.sed a prohibitory liquor law, which the supreme court, under the influence of a counter spasm, immediately set aside as unconst.i.tutional. Outside of the cities, where the missionaries exerted a strong influence, the contention was usually whisky or no whisky; in fact, there was very little else to fight about.

The first government was appointed by the Whigs (the Republican party being yet unborn), and as Governor Ramsey was from Pennsylvania, we had a great influx of immigration from that state. The second governor (Gorman) was appointed by the Democrats, and came from Indiana, and the people of that state being much more migratory than the Pennsylvanians, we were flooded with Hoosiers. These various influences caused differences of opinion and interests sufficient to keep the political pot boiling quite lively, but on lines that were necessarily personal and temporary in their bearing. We soon, however, approached the more important subject of statehood, and, strange as it may seem to the present generation, the question of slavery was a strong factor. The Republican party was born about 1854, and as its princ.i.p.al creed was opposition to the extension of slavery, its followers naturally forced the subject into the politics of the day. I can, however, positively affirm that no one of any political faith had the slightest idea of introducing slavery into Minnesota. A const.i.tution for the proposed state was framed in 1857, and in the fall of that year the election for the officers of the first state government was held, and, of course, great interest was manifested as to the result. The general election was fixed by law for November in all of the counties of the territory except one. The county of Pembina was so distant from the capital that it was found to be difficult to get the returns in so as to be counted with those of the rest of the state. The only transportation between the two places was by Red River carts, drawn by oxen in the summer, and by dog trains in the winter; the distance to be travelled was about four hundred miles, and the time necessary to compa.s.s it nearly or quite a month. The legislature had, in 1853, in order to remedy this difficulty, and because the population was on its annual buffalo hunt in November, pa.s.sed an act fixing the time for holding elections in the county of Pembina on the second Tuesday in September in each year, thus giving ample opportunity to get the returns to the authorities in St. Paul in time to be counted with those from the other districts. The result of this was that no one outside of Pembina ever knew how many votes had been polled in that district until long after the rest of the territory had been heard from, and it became a common saying among the Whigs that the Pembina returns were held back until it became known how many votes were necessary to carry the election for the Democrats, and that they were fixed accordingly, which the Democrats denounced as a Whig lie.

About all that was known of Pembina was that it was inhabited by a savage looking race of Chippewa half-breeds, and that Joe Rolette lived there, and Norman W. Kittson went there occasionally. It carried on an immense trade in furs with St. Paul, by means of brigades of Red River carts each summer and by dog trains in the winter, and the more you saw of these people the more you were impressed with their savage appearance and bearing.

The first state election, curious as it may appear, was held in 1857, before the state was admitted into the Union, which latter event was postponed until May 11, 1858, and when the votes from all the counties except Pembina had been returned to the proper officer the result, as far as could be ascertained before the official count was made, was somewhat in doubt, which circ.u.mstance naturally excited great interest in the Pembina election, as it was well known that all the votes from that district would be Democratic, so the great question was, "How many?"