Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
claim to many thousand square miles of hunting grounds in Wisconsin,
for which they actually received a million and a half dollars when
they quit-claimed it to the United States. Their claim to any lands
on the east side of the river had been disputed by the Chippewa from
time out of mind; and these rival claims had occasionally been, as
we have seen, referred to the only court of arbitration which the
Indians recognized--that of the tomahawk and scalping knife.
As a boy I have spent many an hour searching in the sands at the
foot of the bluffs below Prescott, for arrowheads, rusted remnants
of knives and hatchets, and for the well-preserved brass nails with
which the stocks and butts of old-time trade muskets were plentifully
ornamented. Just how many years ago that battle had been fought, does
not appear to be a matter of historical record. That it was fiercely
contested, is abundantly proven by the great amount of wreckage of
the fight which the white lads of Prescott recovered to be sold to
tourists on the steamboats which touched at our levee. The Indians
themselves had a tradition that it was a bloody fight. Taking the
word of a Chippewa narrator, one was easily convinced that hundreds
of Sioux bit the sand on that eventful day. If the narrator happened
to belong across the river, one felt assured, after listening to
his version, that the Chippewa met their Marathon on this battle
plain. In any case the treasure trove indicated a very pretty fight,
whichever party won the field.
Charlevoix, the French historian, relates that in 1689 Le Seuer
established a fortified trading post on the west side of the
Mississippi, about eight miles below the present site of Hastings. In
speaking of this fort, he says:
"The island has a beautiful prairie, and the French of Canada
have made it a centre of commerce for the western parts, and
many pass the winter here, because it is a good country for
hunting."
As a boy I have many a time visited the site of this ancient
stronghold, and hobnobbed with the Indians then occupying the ground,
descendants of those with whom the French fraternized two hundred
years ago. At this point the islands are about four miles across from
the main channel of the river; the islands being formed by Vermillion
Slough, which heads at Hastings, reëntering the river about two and a
half miles above Red Wing. Trudell Slough, which heads in the river
about four miles below Prescott, joins Vermillion at the point at
which was probably located Le Seuer's post. At the juncture of the
two sloughs there was a beautiful little prairie of several acres.
On the west, the bluffs rose several hundred feet to the level
prairie which constitutes the upper bench. Just at this point there
are three mounds rising fifty to seventy-five feet above the level
of the prairie, and serving as a landmark for miles around. Whether
they are of geological origin or the work of the Indians in their
mound-building epoch, had not been determined in my day. There are
other prominences of like character everywhere about, and it would
seem that they were erected by the hand of man.
On the north, east, and south the islands afforded good hunting
grounds for the French and their allies. In 1854 and later (I think
even yet), the site of this ancient fort was occupied by a band of
Sioux Indians of Red Wing's tribe, under the sub-chieftaincy of a
French half-breed named Antoine Mouseau (Mo'-sho). In Neill's history
of the settlement of St. Paul he mentions Louis Mouseau as one of the
first settlers occupying, in 1839, a claim lying at the lower end of
Dayton Bluff, about two miles down the river from the levee. This
Antoine Mouseau, a man about forty in 1854, was probably a son of the
St. Paul pioneer and of a squaw of Red Wing's band.
In the days when the white boys of Prescott made adventurous
trips "down to Mo-sho's", the islands were still remarkably rich
in game--deer, bear, wolves, 'coons, mink, muskrats, and other
fur-bearing animals; and in spring and fall the extensive rice swamps
literally swarmed with wild fowl. Two or three of the adventures
which served to add spice to such visits as we made with the little
red men of Mouseau's tribe, will serve to illustrate the sort of life
which was led by all Prescott boys in those early days. They seemed
to be a part of the life of the border, and were taken as a matter of
course. Looking back from this distance, and from the civilization
of to-day, it seems miraculous to me that all of those boys were not
drowned or otherwise summarily disposed of. As a matter of fact none
of them were drowned, and to the best of my knowledge none of them
have as yet been hanged. Most of them went into the Union army in the
War of Secession, and some of them are sleeping where the laurel and
magnolia bend over their last resting places.
The water craft with which the white boys and Indian boys alike
traversed the river, rough or smooth, and explored every creek,
bayou, and slough for miles around, were "dug-outs"--canoes hollowed
out of white pine tree trunks. Some canoes were large and long, and
would carry four or five grown persons. Those owned and used by the
boys were from six to eight feet long, and just wide enough to take
in a not too-well-developed lad; but then, all the boys were lean
and wiry. It thus happened that the Blaisdells, the Boughtons, the
Fifields, the Millers, the Merricks, the Schasers, the Smiths, and
the Whipples, and several other pairs and trios ranging from fourteen
years down to seven, were pretty generally abroad from the opening
of the river in the spring until its closing in the fall, hunting,
fishing and exploring, going miles away, up or down the river or
lake, and camping out at night, often without previous notice to
their mothers. With a "hunk" of bread in their pockets, some matches
to kindle a fire, a gun and fishlines, they never were in danger of
starvation, although always hungry.
One of the incidents referred to, I accept more on the evidence of
my brother than of my own consciousness of the situation when it
occurred. He was eleven at the time, and I fourteen. We each had a
little pine "dug-out", just large enough to carry one boy sitting in
the stern, and a reasonable cargo of ducks, fish or fruit. With such
a load the gunwales of the craft were possibly three or four inches
above the water line. The canoe itself was round on the bottom,
and could be rolled over and over by a boy lying flat along the
edges, with his arms around it, as we often did for the amusement of
passengers on the boats--rolling down under water and coming up on
the other side, all the time holding fast to the little hollowed-out
log. Such a craft did not appear to be very seaworthy, nor well
calculated to ride over rough water. Indeed, under the management of
a novice they would not stay right side up in the calmest water.
For the boys who manned them, however, whether whites or Indians,
they were as seaworthy as Noah's ark, and much easier to handle.
A show piece much in vogue, was to stand on the edge of one of
these little round logs (not over eight feet long), and with a
long-handled paddle propel the thing across the river. This was not
always, nor usually, accomplished without a ducking; but it often
was accomplished by white boys without the ducking, and that even
when there was some wind and little waves. The Indian lads would not
try it in public. For one thing, it was not consonant with Indian
dignity; for another, an Indian, big or little, dislikes being
laughed at, and a ducking always brought a laugh when there were any
spectators. I cannot, after all these years, get over an itching to
try this experiment again. I believe that I could balance myself all
right; but the difference between sixty pounds and a hundred and
sixty might spoil the game.
Some boys, more fortunate than others, were from time to time
possessed of birch-bark canoes--small ones. Of all the craft that
ever floated, the birch-bark comes nearer being the ideal boat than
any other. So light is it, that it may be carried on the head and
shoulders for miles without great fatigue; and it sits on the water
like a whiff of foam--a veritable fairy craft. It was the custom of
the boys who owned these little "birches" to shove them off the sand
with a run, and when they were clear of the land to jump over the
end, and standing erect, paddle away like the wind. This was another
show piece, and was usually enacted for the benefit of admiring
crowds of Eastern passengers on the steamboats.
On one such occasion, a young man from the East who professed to be
a canoeist, and who possibly was an expert with an ordinary canoe,
came off the boat, and after crossing the palm of the birch-bark's
owner with a silver piece, proposed to take a little paddle by
himself. The boy was an honest boy, as boys averaged then and there,
and although not averse to having a little fun at the expense of the
stranger, in his capacity of lessor he deemed it his duty to caution
his patron that a birch-bark was about as uncertain and tricky a
proposition as any one would wish to tackle--especially such a little
one as his own was. He proposed to hold it until his passenger had
stepped in and sat down and was ready to be shoved off. This was
the usual procedure, and it had its good points for the average
tourist. But this one had seen the boys shoving the same canoe off
the sand and jumping over the stern, and he proposed to do the same
thing, because he was used to canoes himself. Against the cautions
of the owner he _did_ shove off and jump, but he did not alight
in the canoe. That elfish little piece of Indian deviltry was not
there when he arrived; it slipped out from under him, sidewise, and
with a spring which jumped it almost clear of the water it sailed
away before the wind, while the canoeist went headfirst into six or
eight feet of water, silk hat, good clothes and all, amid the howls
of delight from the passengers on the steamer who had been watching
him. He was game, however, and admitted that he had never imagined
just how light and ticklish a birch-bark was; nor how much science
it required to jump _squarely_ over the stern of such a fragile
creation and maintain one's balance. Woodmen and canoeists familiar
with "birches" will understand just how small a deviation is required
to bring discomfiture. A little carelessness on the part of an old
hand is often just as fatal as a little ignorance on the part of the
tenderfoot.
But I digress. On the trip concerning which I started to tell, my
brother and I had been down to the Indian village and were on our way
home. When we emerged from Trudell Slough we found a gale blowing
from the south, against the current of the river, and great combing
waves were running, through which it seemed impossible to ride in
our little boats. However, we had to cross the river in order to get
home, and we did not long debate the question. Being the oldest I
took the lead, Sam following. He was but eleven years old, and had
a boat all by himself to manage in that sea. But he could paddle
a canoe as well as any Indian boy. I also could paddle, and being
older, nearly fourteen, was supposed to have the wisdom of the ages
in the matter of judgment in meeting and riding combers.
Under these conditions, I started out to make the crossing. My
brother has told me since that he never thought of any danger to
himself; but he figured, a dozen times, that I was gone--in fact he
lost three or four good bets that I would not come up again after
going down out of sight. My canoe would go down into the trough of
the sea at the same time that his did, thus he would lose track
of me. He had to keep his eyes on the "combers" and meet them at