Old Rail Fence Corners. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ the materials from Fort Snelling and the flag was made in Mrs. Godfrey's house. Those working on it were Mrs. Caleb Dorr, Mrs. Lucien Parker, Misses Julia and Margaret Farnham, Mrs. Godfrey and myself. I cut all the stars. Mr. William Marshall who had a small general store was orator and no one could do better. That reminds me of that little store. I just thought I'd laugh out loud the first time I went in there. There were packs of furs, all kinds of Indian work, hats and caps, tallow dips and more elegant candles, a beautiful piece of delaine for white women and shoddy bright stuff for the squaws, a barrel of rounds of pork most used up, but no flour, that was all gone. There was a man's shawl, too, kind of draped up. You know men wore shawls in them days; some hulled corn the Indians done, too, I saw. But to return to that first Fourth—it seemed a good deal like a Farnham Fourth, for the music which was just soul stirrin' was sung by them and the Gould boys. When the Farnhams all got out, it made a pretty big crowd for them days. Perhaps their voices wan't what you call trained, but they had melody. Seems to me nowadays some of the trained high-falutin' voices has just got that left out. Seems so to me—seems so. All the Farnhams just sung natural, just like birds. Old Doctor Kingsley played the bass viol so it was soul stirrin' too. Margaret Farnham, the president of our first aid society married a Hildreth—Julia a Dickerson.

      In '49 my husband paid a ten cent shin plaster for three little apples no bigger than crabs. I tried to make these last a long time by just taking a bite now and then, but of course, they couldn't hold out forever.

      The Indians was always around, but we never minded them—always lookin' in the windows.

      General William G. Le Duc—1850, Ninety-two years old.

      I arrived at St. Paul on the steamboat Dr. Franklin. Among the travelers on board the boat were Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Dayton and a brother of Goodhue, the Editor of the Pioneer Weekly Newspaper. The principal, if not the only hotel at that time, was the Central, a frame building about twenty-four by sixty feet, two stories kept by Robert Kenedy. It was used as a meeting place for the legislature, court, and public offices, until something better could be built. Here I found quarters, as did Mr. and Mrs. Dayton.

      A few days after my arrival, I was walking along the high bank of the river in front of the Central House in conversation with a large robust lumberman who had come out of the woods where he had been all winter logging and was feeling very happy over his prospects. Suddenly he stopped and looking down on the flowing waters of the Mississippi, he exclaimed, "See those logs." A number of logs were coming down with the current. "What mark is on them? My God, that is my mark!—the logs are mine! My boom has broken! I am a ruined man." He went direct to the hotel and died before sun down of cholera, the Doctor said. He was hurriedly buried and there was a cholera panic in St. Paul. The next day while walking in front of the hotel, Mrs. Dayton called from an open window excitedly to me, "Come and help me quick. Mr. Baker has the cholera!" (Mr. Baker was a boarder at the Central and a school teacher at that time.) Mrs. Dayton was frightened and said she had given him all the brandy she had and must have some more. I got more brandy and she insisted on his taking it, altho' he was then drunk. He recovered next day and I have never heard of a case of cholera in Minnesota since that time.

      I hired a little board shack about twelve by sixteen feet at the Northeast corner of Third and Roberts Streets, St. Paul, and put out my sign as Attorney and Counselor at Law, but soon discovered there was little law business in St. Paul, not enough to sustain the lawyers already there and more coming with every boat. My business did not pay the monthly rent, $9.00, so I rented a large house on the southwest corner and started a shop selling books and stationery, and in this succeeded in making a living.

      On the 22nd day of July '50, a number of citizens of St. Paul and some travelers chartered a little stern wheel steamboat, the Yankee, and intended to explore the St. Peter River, now the Minnesota, if possible to its source, Big Stone Lake. We invited the ladies who wished to go, promising them music and dancing. A merry time was anticipated and we were eager to see the fertile valley, knowing it was to be purchased of the Indians and opened for settlement to the frontier settlers. The passengers were men mostly, but enough women went to form three or four cotillion sets. The clergy was represented by Rev. Edward Duffield Neill; the medical fraternity by Dr. Potts; statesmen by one who had been an Aide to General Harrison and later Ambassador to Russia; another was a graduate of Yale Law School and of West Point Military Academy; another, one of the Renvilles, had been interpreter for Nicollet; another was an Indian Trader, Joe La Framboise, who was returning to his post at the mouth of Little Cottonwood. He was noted for his linguistic ability and attainments and could acquire a talking acquaintance with an Indian language if given a day or two opportunity; another was a noted Winnebago half breed, Baptiste, whose Indian dress and habits attracted much attention.

      As we entered the sluggish current of the St. Peters at Mendota, the stream was nearly bank full and it seemed like navigating a crooked canal. The first stop was at an Indian village, fifteen or twenty miles from the Mississippi, called Shakopee, or Little Six village. Our boat attracted a crowd of all kinds and conditions of Indian village population, not omitting Little Six who claimed toll for permission to navigate his river. His noisy demand was settled by the trader by some trifling presents, including some whiskey and we proceeded on our voyage up the river. The next stop was at Traverse des Sioux. Here there was a Missionary station in charge of Mr. Hopkins, from whom we bought the rails of an old fence for fuel. Next we landed at a beautiful level grassy meadow called Belle Prairie, where we tried to have a dance. The next landing was at the mouth of the Blue Earth River, called Mankato, where a tempting grove of young ash trees were cut for fuel. Here the passengers wandered about the grove while the boat hands were cutting and carrying the wood. Leaving the Blue Earth we slowly ascended the stream, hoping to arrive at the Cottonwood where La Framboise promised some fuel for the boat, but night overtook us and Captain Harris tied up to the bank and announced the voyage ended for want of fuel and that early in the morning he would return. Millions of mosquitoes invaded the boat. Sleep was impossible. A smudge was kept up in the cabin which gave little relief and in the morning all were anxious to return. I stationed myself on the upper deck of the boat with watch and compass open before me and tried to map the very irregular course of the river. It was approximately correct and was turned over to a map publisher in New York or Philadelphia and published in my Year Book.

      Some time during this summer, I had occasion to visit the Falls of St. Anthony, a village of a few houses on the east side of the Mississippi River, ten miles Northwest of St. Paul. I crossed the river to the west side in a birch bark canoe, navigated by Tapper, the ferryman for many years after, until the suspension bridge was built. Examining the Falls, I went down to an old saw mill built by and for the soldiers at Fort Snelling and measured the retrocession of the fall by the fresh break of the rock from the water race way and found it had gone back one hundred and three feet which seemed very extraordinary until examination disclosed the soft sandstone underlying the limestone top of the falls.

      Events and persons personally known to me or told me by my friend, Gen. Henry Hastings Sibley, who was a resident of Minnesota, years before it was a territory. He was the "Great Trader" of the Indians, a partner of the American Fur Co., and adopted into the Sioux Tribe or nation, the language of which spoke as well or better than the Indians. He told me that Little Crow, the chief of the Kaposia Band of Sioux, located on the west side of the Mississippi river, six miles below St. Paul, was a man of unusual ability and discernment, who had chivalric ideas of his duty and that of others. As an instance he told me the following story. A medium of the tribe had a dream or vision and announced that he would guide and direct two young members of the tribe, who were desirous of winning the right to wear an eagle's feather, as the sign to all that they had killed and scalped an enemy, to the place where this would be consummated. He conditioned that if they would agree to obey him implicitly, they would succeed and return safely home to their village with their trophies. Little Crow's eldest son, a friend of the whites, much beloved by all, and another young man were interested in the venture. He took them into the Chippewa country. They concealed themselves in some dense bushes along a trail used by the Chippewas traveling from СКАЧАТЬ