Fifty Years In The Northwest
Fort I carried these prisoners with a team,--Ham Gates being
driver,--unshackled, unbound, my only weapon a pistol without a lock.
In May I summoned jurors and visited Kanabec river to procure
witnesses in the case against Nodin and Ne-she-ke-o-ge-ma for the
murder of Henry Rust. The first night I stopped with B. F. Otis, on
the St. Croix, where Taylors Falls is now situated. On the second day
I crossed the river and proceeded up the east side to Wolf creek,
thence crossing to the west side, up as far as Sunrise river. There
was no inhabitant, Samuels having vacated his shanty. I crossed the
river with great difficulty. The water was high, the current was
strong and swift, and I could not swim. I found a fallen tree, partly
under water, cut a pole, waded out as far as I could into the current,
and then by the aid of the pole floated down some distance, until by
pawing and splashing I was able to reach the other shore. That night I
stopped with an old Indian trader, Mr. Connor, who, with his Indian
wife, welcomed me to his bark shanty, divided into rooms by handsome
mats, and made me quite comfortable. He had plenty of good food, and
entertained me besides by a fund of anecdotes, incidents in Indian
history, and adventures of traders, trappers and missionaries in the
Lake Superior and St. Croix region. He was a very intelligent and
genial man. Next day I went to Russell's farm, paddled a canoe to
Ground House river, and traveled thence on foot to Ann river, where I
found the parties of whom I was in quest, Greely, Colby, Otis and
others, a jolly log driving crew, with whom I spent a very pleasant
evening. On the return journey, about two miles above the mouth of
Ground House river, I saw the ruins of the trading house in which
Henry Rust was killed. Rust, at the time of his murder, was selling
whisky for Jack Drake. Rev. W. T. Boutwell gives the following account
of the murder: "In the winter of '46 and '47 I visited the camps of
Kent & True and Greely & Blake. On one occasion I met Rust, and asked
him to come and hear me preach. He did not attend. On this day I
preached at three camps. On the following night, at Greely's camp,
came a midnight visitor with word that Rust had been shot.
Seventy-five men armed themselves with all kinds of weapons, proceeded
to the scene of the tragedy, removed the body of 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] For the facts in this history I am indebted to John McKusick,
Jacob Fisher, Elias McKean, and Elam Greely.
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 houses. He was a member
of the territorial Wisconsin legislature two sessions at Madison. He
returned to Stillwater in 1848, left again in 1849, and in 1850
removed to St. Paul, where, in 1852, he purchased of Mr. Goodhue the
_Pioneer_, then the leading Democratic paper of the Territory. Mr.
Brown was chief clerk in the Minnesota territorial legislature during
the sessions of 1849, 1850 and 1851. In 1854 and 1855 he was a member
of the territorial council. In 1857 he was a member of the Democratic