Fifty Years In The Northwest. Folsom William Henry Carman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Rust and all valuables from the house, knocked out the heads of two whisky barrels and fired the house, the whisky greatly aiding the combustion. I removed the body to Pokegama and buried it there. Forty men attended the funeral. They held a meeting and resolved to clear the country of whisky. They commenced by destroying two barrels of it for Jarvis. He begged hard for his whisky, saying he was a poor man, and in debt to Frank Steele at Fort Snelling. The response was, 'Out with your whisky,' and it was destroyed before his eyes. The whisky of two other trading stations followed. For a brief period there was peace, but the whisky soon put in an appearance again."

      The first term of district court held in Minnesota, then Wisconsin, was convened in Stillwater, the county seat of St. Croix county, June 1st. It was held in the upper story of John McKusick's store, southwest corner of Maine and Myrtle streets, Hon. Charles Dunn presiding. The session lasted one week. The bounds of St. Croix county then included Crawford county, Wisconsin, on the south, Brown county, Wisconsin, and the Lake Superior country on the east, the region as far as the British possessions on the north, and to the Mississippi river on the west. The jurors were found within a circuit of a hundred miles.

      The grand jury was composed of the following gentlemen:

      Jonathan McKusick, J. W. Furber, J. L. Taylor, W. R. Brown, Chas. Cavalier, J. A. Ford, Hazen Mooers, C. Lyman, C. A. Tuttle, Hilton Doe, Elam Greely, Martin Mower, Jr., Edward Blake, W. B. Dibble, Harmon Crandall, Jerry Ross, James Saunders, Joseph Brown, J. R. Irving, J. W. Simpson, John Holton, Pascal Aldrich, and Albert Harris.

      Joseph R. Brown acted as clerk of court, Jonathan E. McKusick as foreman of the grand jury, and Morton S. Wilkinson as prosecuting attorney.

      The attorneys present were: M. S. Wilkinson, of Stillwater; A. Brunson, of Prairie du Chien; Ben C Eastman, of Platteville, Crawford and Frank Dunn, of Mineral Point. There were but few civil cases. Nodin and Ne-she-ke-o-ge-ma were indicted for murder, tried and acquitted on the ground that the killing was the result of a drunken brawl.

      This season, in addition to attending to my duties as sheriff, I went to St. Louis with a raft of logs. The steamer War Eagle, Capt. Smith Harris, towed through the two lakes, St. Croix and Pepin, a fleet containing ten acres of logs. During the winter of 1847-8, I was engaged in logging. It was difficult to get supplies to the pineries before the swamps were frozen over. This season my goods were taken by batteaus from Stillwater to Clam lake.

      AMUSEMENTS. – SOCIETY BALL IN STILLWATER

      A writer in the Stillwater Lumberman, April 23, 1877, gives a sketchy account of an old time ball, from which we select a few items:

      Anson Northrup kept what we called a first class hotel. If a man had blankets he could spread them upon the floor and sleep till the bell rang. If he had none he spread himself on the floor and paid for his lodging by tending stove and keeping the dogs from fighting. It was one of the aristocratic rules of the house that a man who slept in blankets was not to be disturbed by dogs.

      At one time our popular landlord got up a ball. He sent round a copper colored card, – a half-breed Indian boy, – to tell all the folks to come. Everybody was invited. At the appointed hour they began to assemble. Soon all in town arrived except one Smith. Frequent inquiries were made for Smith, and at last a deputation was sent to inquire the cause of his absence; when it transpired that he had broken his leg. He said he was helping the landlord roll a barrel of whisky from the landing when the barrel slipped, and, rolling back on his leg, broke it. Northrup said that he had bet him one gallon of whisky that he could not lift the barrel to his lips and drink from the bung. In attempting to do this the barrel had slipped from his grasp with the result before mentioned. The wife regretted the accident very much, and said that if it had not been for that barrel of whisky, or some other whisky, they might have both attended the dance. She could have put out the fire, locked up the house, tied up the dog and taken her nine days' old baby with her. "There would be younger babies at the dance," she said.

      Everything was ready. The ball opened with three "French fours," or two over. They danced a French two, the music consisting of one old violin with three strings, played by a half-breed from St. Croix Falls. He played but one tune and called it, "Off she goes to Miramachee." This carried a "French four" well enough, but when we danced a cotillion or hornpipe there was a great deal of rolling around instead of dancing. We often called for a new tune. "Oh, yes, gentlemen, you shall have him," but when we got him it was the same old "Off she goes." He worked hard to please the company and the sweat rolled down his manly cheeks like the droppings from the eaves of a saw mill; but all this would not do; it was the same old "Off she goes." There were twenty-four couples at the ball. The ladies brought with them their babies, fourteen in number, and ranging from six weeks to six months old. The night passed merrily, uproariously, but without tragic incident. The fiddler became at last so tipsy that he could no longer play "Off she goes to Miramachee," and staggered off to that locality himself. The only thing direful occurred at the breaking up, about five o'clock in the morning. The fourteen babies had been laid to sleep on a bed, but some malevolent genius during the dance mixed them up and changed their wraps, so that the mothers, in the hurry of their departure, gathered and took home with them each one some other mother's darling, and this deponent saith not that the snarl has ever been untangled and the babies restored to their rightful mothers.

      With the year 1848 a new era dawned upon Stillwater and the valley of the St. Croix. Great changes had taken place in the little town. There were many new citizens, new buildings had been erected and the streets were much improved. Slabs had been placed over the quagmires on Main street. A stage route had been established to St. Paul, on which stages ran regularly. This was the first stage route in Minnesota.

      The correction lines of the government survey had been run in 1846-7, chiefly in the latter year. Township, range and section lines were run in 1847, and in the early part of 1848. Prior to this claims had been made and were held subject to the limitations of the first legal survey. The creation of the new state of Wisconsin and the prospective organization of Minnesota Territory, the development of the lumbering business and the formal opening of the government lands to entry, gave an impetus to immigration. Stillwater profited largely by this immigration, it being an objective point. Population increased. The village was regularly surveyed and platted in the fall of 1848, Harvey Wilson, surveyor. Stillwater, although it never aspired to be the future capital of the Territory, became a headquarters for political characters and a place for public meetings for the discussions of territorial and other public questions. It was convenient of access, and contained up to that time a greater population than was to be found in St. Paul, and it seemed likely to become the commercial metropolis of the Territory.

      CHAPTER III.

      BIOGRAPHIES

      Joseph Renshaw Brown, one of the best known of the pioneers, came to Dakotah, Schulenberg's addition, in 1839. For items in his history I am personally indebted to him. He was born in 1805, and, when old enough, apprenticed to a printer. On account of ill treatment he ran away and enlisted in the United States army at the age of fourteen years, serving as a drummer boy. He came with the army to the Northwest Territory in 1819. After enlistment he made his first home at Gray Cloud on the Mississippi, where he married a half-breed woman. Wisconsin history says she was the daughter of Robert Dickson, Indian trader and friend of the English in 1812. He learned and spoke the Chippewa and Sioux languages fluently. In 1839 he founded the town of Dakotah, at the head of Lake St. Croix, and erected some log buildings. Through his influence, in part, St. Croix county was organized, and the county seat located in Dakotah.

      He built here a two story log court house, which, the county failing to pay for, was left upon his hands. He kept a trading station, was clerk of the county court and county commissioner. He filled several offices of trust and was by far the most important and universally serviceable man in the new county of St. Croix. In 1843 he left Dakotah, and returning to Gray Cloud, continued his Indian trade at that point and further west by means of branch СКАЧАТЬ