Fifty Years In The Northwest
Another oath, such as is now administered, to support the constitution
of the United States, was signed and attested in like manner.
BURNING OF THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL.
On a clear, cold night in February, 1869, the International Hotel,
located at the corner of Seventh and Jackson streets, took fire and
was speedily consumed. The alarm was sounded at two o'clock in the
morning. The hotel was crowded with boarders, among whom were many
members of the legislature, then in session, and their families. The
writer occupied a room on the second floor and was among the first
aroused. Hastily seizing my trunk I hurried down stairs and returned
to assist others, but was stopped by the smoke at the entrance. The
guests of the house were pouring from every outlet. A group of ladies
had escaped to the sidewalk, partly clad, some with bare feet. Ladders
were placed to the windows to save those who had failed to escape in
the hallway. Senators C. A. Gilman and Seagrave Smith, with their
wives, were rescued in this manner. Many diverting circumstances
occurred illustrative of nonchalance, coolness and daring, as well as
of bewilderment and panic.
Senator Armstrong tried in vain to throw his trunk from a window in
which it was wedged fast and was obliged to leave it to the flames.
Judge Meeker came out of the house carrying his clothing upon his arm,
having a shawl wrapped round his head, and bewailing the loss of the
maps and charts of Meeker's dam. Seagrave Smith tarried too long
searching for a senate bill, and narrowly escaped sharing the fate of
the bill. Many of the guests escaped in their night clothing, and
carrying their clothing with them completed their toilet standing in
the snow in the light of the burning building. Considering the
rapidity of the fire, and the hour at which it occurred it seemed
marvelous that no lives were lost.
GRASSHOPPERS.
Minnesota has been visited at intervals by that scourge of some of the
Western States, grasshoppers. The first visitation was from the
Selkirk (now Manitoba) settlement, about 1838-9. The pests are said to
have accompanied some of the early immigrants from Selkirk who came
down to the reservation about Fort Snelling. They made yearly
visitations and threatened to become a serious obstacle to the
settlement of the country. Some seasons they proved quite destructive.
In 1874-5-6-7 the state legislature made appropriations to relieve
those suffering from their ravages in the western and southwestern
parts of the State. There were also large private contributions to the
relief fund. One of the acts passed at the session of 1877
appropriated $100,000 for bounties to pay for the destruction of
grasshoppers and their eggs. Townships and villages were also
authorized to levy taxes for the destruction of the common enemy, and
$75,000 was appropriated to furnish seed grain for those who had lost
their crops, and $5,000 was voted for a common relief fund. Special
prayers were offered for an abatement of the scourge. In 1877, when
the grasshopper appeared in myriads again, the governor appointed a
day of fasting and prayer for riddance from the calamity. From some
unknown cause the grasshoppers disappeared, and have not since
returned in such numbers as to prove a plague. These grasshoppers were
a species known as the Rocky Mountain locusts.
ANCIENT MOUNDS.
The valley of the Mississippi and the valleys of its tributary streams
abound with mounds of various sizes and fashions, circular, oval or
oblong, serpentine and sometimes irregular in outline, and all works
of intelligence and design, wrought by some ancient people for
purposes now not fully known. It is probable, however, that some were
used as places of defense, others were built for sacrificial or
religious purposes, others for sepulture, and others still may be the
remains of dwellings. Most of them contain relics, coins or implements
made of shells, of flints and in some instances of baked earthenware,
and lastly human remains. These relics are not necessarily of
cotemporaneous date, and many of them are comparatively modern. Such
mounds were used for burial places long after their original builders
had passed away.
That they are very ancient is unquestionable. They outdate the
traditions of the Indians who inhabited this country at the date of
its discovery, while the most ancient remains taken from them indicate
as their builders a people widely different from the present
aborigines, and possessed of arts unknown to them. Conjecture points
to a race from the South, probably the Aztecs, as the mound builders.
This race was exterminated in some way, or driven away by some
stronger tribes, who may in turn have given place to our present race
of Indians. A full description of these ancient works would require
volumes; we can therefore allude only to a few that may be considered
typical specimens of their class.
At Prairie Village, now Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1836, the writer saw a
mound six feet high, representing a tortoise, the head, feet and tail
being still distinctly traceable. Many mounds exist at Prairie du
Chien, some quite large, and of varying shape, some representing
inclosures or fortifications, with gateways or openings. These are
located on the high bluffs east of the Prairie. Many of these, very
distinct in the early days, are now almost obliterated by the
plowshare of the farmer and the spade of the relic hunter.
The builders of the ancient mounds certainly exercised great taste in
their location, as they are generally found in pleasant localities, on
grassy plateaus or elevated lands, and by the shores of lakes and
streams. Some, originally built on plains, have since been overgrown
with trees. In some cases trees of immense size have been found
growing even on the summit of the mounds. The most notable mounds of
the St. Croix valley are at Vasa village, in Marine township,
Washington county, Minnesota, and in the neighborhood of Osceola
Mills, Polk county, Wisconsin. We append notes of a survey of the
latter, made in 1870. They are sixteen in number and we mention only
the most remarkable.
No. 1 is of circular form, 20 feet in height and 60 in diameter. Trees
2 feet in diameter are found on this mound. Mound No. 2 has a diameter
of 90 feet, and was originally 30 feet high; at present but 20. This
mound is also of circular formation. Mound No. 3 is circular in form,
36 feet in diameter and 2 feet high. Mound No. 4 is circular, 40 feet
in diameter and 5 feet high. Mound No. 5 is oblong and 40×60 feet in
dimensions, and 4 feet high. The largest and finest of these mounds
have been nearly destroyed by the encroachments of the road makers.
These mounds are located two miles north of Osceola, on Close creek.
Alanson Thompson made a homestead of the land on which they are
situated, and built his home immediately in the rear of the two larger
mounds. His garden included many of the mounds.
Mr. T. H. Lewis, of St. Paul, made a later survey of these ancient
mounds. In the group north of the creek and near the school house,
which he classifies as the upper group, he finds ninety-six well
developed mounds, and some of them of peculiar shape and great
interest. In the group south of the creek, which he calls the lower
group, he finds forty-nine mounds, a total of one hundred and
forty-five in the two groups; at least five times as many as has been
supposed to be there.
But one of the mounds is an effigy mound, and this is not clearly
defined, plowing in the field having disturbed the outline of the
effigy. The most of them contain bones, as has long been known, and
Mr. Lewis finds in them shell relics, which are rarely found in any
mounds; also pottery, and beads made from shells.
Another peculiar mound not included in this description may be found
on the bluff overlooking the St. Croix, not far from the Close creek
series of mounds. It is over one hundred feet in length and serpentine
in form, one end being enlarged to represent the head. There are also
fine specimens of ancient mounds on Chisago lake, near Centre City and
Chisago City.
The subject is a fascinating one to the archaeologist, but it behooves
him to make haste with his investigations, as these marvelous works
are rapidly disappearing, being dug over by the irresponsible and
unscientific relic hunter, or worn down by the plow, or carted away
for loose earth to mend a roadway or fill a sinkhole.
LAKE ITASCA.
The Mississippi appropriately takes its name at the outlet of Lake
Itasca, its reputed source. This lake, although known to the fur
company adventurers of the eighteenth, and the early part of the
nineteenth centuries, received the name Itasca in 1832 from
Schoolcraft and Boutwell. A complete account of the naming of the lake
will be found in the biography of Rev. W. T. Boutwell, attached to the
history of Pine county in this work. Itasca lies in range 36,
townships 133 and 134, and is about three miles in length by one and
one-half in width. Its title to the distinction of being the true
source of the Mississippi has been frequently called in question.
There are tributary lakes of smaller size lying near it, connected
with it by small streams, barely navigable for birch canoes. Elk lake,
a body of water three-fourths of a mile in length, lying south, is
connected with it by a stream 25 links wide and 30 rods in length.
Elk lake has an influent stream 2 miles in length, which drains a
swamp lying south.
Another stream from the south, two miles in length, flows into Itasca,
and has its source in a lake one-fourth of a mile long. As this lake
has not been named in any original or later township map, United
States Surveyor Chandler, Chief Clerk B. C. Baldwin and the writer, in
January, 1887, agreed to give it the name of Boutwell, in honor of the
devoted missionary who visited Itasca in company with Schoolcraft in
1832. This lake is really the source of the Mississippi, though from
its small size is not likely to receive general recognition as such.
Lakes Itasca, Elk and Boutwell lie in range 36, township 143, west of
the 5th principal meridian, United States survey, latitude 47.10, and
longitude 95.30 west from Greenwich United States survey. The lands
bordering on and adjacent to these lakes were surveyed in October,
1875, by Edwin Hall, and lie in Beltrami county, which was named after
an Italian traveler who visited this section in 1823.
Hon. B. C. Baldwin, a member of the Minnesota constitutional
convention of 1857, told the writer that when surveying government
lands in 1874, he discovered in range 37, township 143, six miles west
of Itasca, a lake two and a half miles in length, without inlet or
outlet, the waters apparently rising, as trees were standing in the
water near the shore and submerged at least eight feet. Small lakes of
similar character were also discovered. Twelve miles west of Itasca
the tributaries of the Red River of the North have their source.
The latest claim made as to the discovery of the source of the
Missispippi is that of Capt. Willard Glazier, who, in 1881, claimed to
have discovered Elk lake as the source of the Mississippi. The
Minnesota State Historical Society promptly repudiated his
assumptions, and protested against affixing to Elk lake the name
Glazier, as the captain was in no sense a discoverer, either of the
lake or its connections with Itasca, the adjacent lands having been
surveyed in 1875, and partially covered with claims in 1881. With far
more justice we might claim for Lake Boutwell, a more remote lake, the
distinguished honor of being the true source of the Mississippi.
COPPER MINING ON THE ST. CROIX.
As early as 1842, a company, composed of the Harris brothers and
others, of Galena, Illinois, prospected in the Upper St. Croix valley