Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis

J. Fletcher Williams, Edward D. Neill, C. M. Foote, George E. Warner

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9783849652371
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The recounting of events which have transpired in our own neighborhood is the most interesting of all history. There is a fascination in the study of the intermingled fact and fiction of the past which is heightened by a familiarity with the localities described. The river which flows through our native village acquires a new interest when, in imagination, we see the Indian canoe on its surface and the skin-covered tepee on its banks, as in days of yore. Log cabins, straw roofs, and the rude "betterments" of the hardy pioneer, are the next changes on the scene, followed soon by mushroom towns, some of which perish as quickly as they spring up, while others astonish us by their rapid growth; cities are built, and moss and ivy, the evidences of age, o soon accumulate. The purpose of this book is to present these pictures in their natural succession, arousing the enthusiasm of the reader, if possible, giving him a more vigorous enjoyment of the present by linking if with the past. The compass of this work is wide, extending over a long period of time, embracing the accounts of early explorers, also reaching back among the legends of the past, and approaching the events of today. In the end it leaves a thrilling account and narrative of the history of Hennepin county, the townships and especially the city of Minneapolis.

EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER I. FOOTPRINTS OF CIVILIZATION TOWARD THE EXTREMITY OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

The Dakotahs, called by the Ojibwas, Nadowaysioux, or Sioux (Soos), as abbreviated by the French, used to claim superiority over other people, because, their sacred men asserted that the mouth of the Minnesota River was immediately over the center of the earth, and below the center of the heavens.

While this teaching is very different from that of the modern astronomer, it is certainly true, that the region west of Lake Superior, extending through the valley of the Minnesota, to the Missouri River, is one of the most healthful and fertile regions beneath the skies, and may prove to be the center of the republic of the United States of America. Baron D'Avagour, a brave officer, who was killed in fighting the Turks, while he was Governor of Canada, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated August 14th, 1663, after referring to Lake Huron, wrote, that beyond "is met another, called Lake Superior, the waters of which, it is believed, flow into New Spain, and this, according to general opinion, ought to be the center of the country."

As early as 1635, one of Champlain's interpreters, Jean Nicolet (Nicolay), who came to Canada in 1618, reached the western shores of Lake Michigan. In the summer of 1634 he ascended the St. Lawrence, with a party of Hurons, and probably during the next winter was trading at Green Bay, in Wisconsin. On the ninth of December, 1635, he had returned to Canada, and on the 7th of October, 1637, was married at Quebec, and the next month, went to Three Rivers, where he lived until 1642, when he died. Of him it is said, in a letter written in 1640, that he had penetrated farthest into those distant countries, and that if he had proceeded " three days more on a great river which flows from that lake [Green Bay] he would have found the sea."

The first white men in Minnesota, of whom we have any record, were, according to Garneau, two persons of Huguenot affinities, Medard Chouart, known as Sieur Groselliers, and Pierre d'Esprit, called Sieur Radisson. Groselliers (pronounced Gro-zay-yay) was born near Ferte-sous-Jouarre, eleven miles east of Meaux, in France, and when about sixteen years of age, in the year 1641, came to Canada. The fur trade was the great avenue to prosperity, and in 1646, he was among the Huron Indians, who then dwelt upon the eastern shore of Lake Huron, bartering for peltries. On the second of September, 1647, at Quebec, he was married to Helen, the widow of Claude Etienne, who was the daughter of a pilot, Abraham Martin, whose baptismal name is still attached to the suburbs of that city, the "Plains of Abraham," made famous by the death there, of General Wolfe, of the English army, in 1759, and of General Montgomery, of the Continental army, in December, 1775, at the commencement of the " War for Independence."

His son, Medard, was born in 1657, and the next year his mother died. The second wife of Groselliers was Marguerite Hayet (Hayay) Radisson, the sister of his associate, in the exploration of the region west of Lake Superior.

Radisson was born at St. Malo, and, while a boy, went to Paris, and from thence to Canada, and in 1656, at Three Rivers, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Madeleine Hainault, and, after her death, the daughter of Sir David Kirk or Kerkt, a zealous Huguenot, became his wife.

The Iroquois of New York, about the year 1650, drove the Hurons from their villages, and forced them to take refuge with their friends the Tinontates, called by the French, Petuns, because they cultivated tobacco. In time the Hurons and their allies, the Ottawas (Ottaw-waws), were again driven by the Iroquois, and after successive wanderings, were found on the west side of Lake Michigan. In time they reached the Mississippi, and ascending above the Wisconsin, they found the Iowa River, on the west side, which they followed, and dwelt for a time with the Ayces (Ioways) who were very friendly; but being accustomed to a country of lakes and forests, they were not satisfied with the vast prairies. Returning to the Mississippi, they ascended this river, in search of a better land, and were met by some of the Sioux or Dakotahs, and conducted to their villages, where they were well received. The Sioux, delighted with the axes, knives and awls of European manufacture, which had been presented to them, allowed the refugees to settle upon an island in the Mississippi, below the mouth of the St. Croix River, called Bald Island from the absence of trees, about nine miles from the site of the present city of Hastings. Possessed of firearms, the Hurons and Ottawas asserted their superiority, and determined to conquer the country for themselves, and having incurred the hostility of the Sioux, were obliged to flee from the isle in the Mississippi. Descending below Lake Pepin, they reached the Black River, and ascending it, found an unoccupied country around its sources and that of the Chippewa. In this region the Hurons established themselves, while their allies, the Ottawas, moved eastward, till they found the shores of Lake Superior, and settled at Chagouamikon (Sha gah wah mik ong) near what is now Bayfield. In the year 1659, Groselliers and Radisson arrived at Chagouamikon, and determined to visit the Hurons and Petuns, with whom the former had traded when they resided east of Lake Huron. After a six days' journey, in a southwesterly direction, they reached their retreat toward the sotirces of the Black, Chippewa, and Wisconsin Rivers. From this point they journeyed north, and passed the winter of 1659-60 among the 'Nadouechiouec,' or Sioux villages in the Mille Lacs (Mil Lak) region. From the Hurons they learned of a beautiful river, wide, large, deep, and comparable with the Saint Lawrence, the great Mississippi, which flows through the city of Minneapolis, and whose sources are in northern Minnesota.

Northeast of Mille Lacs, toward the extremity of Lake Superior, they met the "Poualak,"or Assiniboines of the prairie, a separated band of the Sioux, who, as wood was scarce and small, made fire with coal (charbon de terre) and dwelt in tents of skins; although some of the more industrious built cabins of clay (terre grasse), like the swallows build their nests.

The spring and summer of 1660, Groselliers and Radisson passed in trading around Lake Superior. On the 19th of August they returned to Montreal, with three hundred Indians and sixty canoes loaded with "a wealth of skins."

"Furs of bison and of beaver,

Furs of sable and of ermine."

The citizens were deeply stirred by the travelers' tales of the vastness and richness of the region they had visited, and their many romantic adventures. In a few days, they began their return to the far West, accompanied by six Frenchmen and two priests, one of whom was the Jesuit, Rene Menard. His hair whitened by age, and his mind ripened by long experience, he seemed the man for the mission. Two hours after midnight, of the day before departure, the venerable missionary penned at "Three Rivers," the following letter to a friend: 'Reverend Father: "The peace of Christ be with you: I write to you probably the last, which I hope will be the seal of our friendship until eternity. Love whom the Lord Jesus did not disdain to love, though the greatest of sinners; for he loves whom he loads with his cross. Let your friendship, my good Father, be useful to me by the desirable fruits of your daily sacrifice.

"In three or four months you may remember me at the memento for the dead, on account of my old age, my weak constitution and the hardships I lay under amongst these tribes. Nevertheless, I am in peace, for I have not been led to this mission by any temporal motive, but I think it was by the voice of God. I was to resist the grace of God by not coming. Eternal remorse would have tormented me, had I not come when I had the opportunity.

We have been a little surprised, not being able to provide ourselves with vestments and other things, but he who feeds the little birds, and clothes the lilies of the fields, will take care of his servants; and though it should happen we should die of want, we would esteem ourselves happy. I am burdened with business. What I can do is to recommend our journey to your daily sacrifice, and to embrace you with the same sentiments of heart as I hope to do in eternity.

"My Reverend Father, Your most humble and affectionate servant in Jesus Christ.

R. MENARD.

"From the Three Rivers, this 26th August, 2 o'clock after midnight, 1660."' On the 16th of October, the party with which he journeyed reached a bay on Lake Superior, where he found some of the Ottawas, who had fled from the Iroquois of New York. For more than eight months, surrounded by a few French voyageurs, he lived, to use his words, "in a kind of small hermitage, a cabin built of fir branches piled one on another, not so much to shield us from the rigor of the season as to correct my imagination, and persuade me I was sheltered."' During the summer of 1661, he resolved to visit the Hurons, who had fled eastward from the Sioux of Minnesota, and encamped amid the marshes of Northern Wisconsin. Some Frenchmen, who had been among the Hurons, in vain attempted to dissuade him from the journey. To their entreaties he replied, "I must go, if it cost me my life. I cannot suffer souls to perish on the ground of saving the bodily life of a miserable old man like myself. What! Are we to serve God only when there is nothing to suffer, and no risk of life?"

Upon De L'Isle's map of Louisiana, published nearly two centuries ago, there appears the Lake of the Ottawas, and the Lake of the Old or Deserted Settlement, west of Green Bay, and south of Lake Superior. The Lake of the Old Plantation is supposed to have been the spot occupied by the Hurons at the time when Menard attempted to visit them. One way of access to this secluded spot was from Lake Superior to the headwaters of the Ontanagon River, and then by a portage, to the lake. It could also be reached from the headwaters of the Wisconsin, Black and Chippewa Rivers, and some have said that Menard descended the Wisconsin and ascended the Black River.

Perrot, who lived at the same time, writes: "Father Menard, who was sent as missionary among the Outaouas [Utaw-waws] accompanied by certain Frenchmen who were going to trade with that people, was left by all who were with him, except one, who rendered to him until death, all of the services and help that he could have hoped. The Father followed the Outaouas [Utawwaws]to the Lake of the Illinoets [Illino-ay, now Michigan] and in their flight to the Louisianne, [Mississippi] to above the Black River. There this missionary had but one Frenchman for a companion. This Frenchman carefully followed the route, and made a portage at the same place as the Outaouas. He found himself in a rapid, one day, that was carrying him away in his canoe.

The Father, to assist, debarked from his own, but did not find a good path to come to him. He entered one that had been made by beasts, and desiring to return, became confused in a labyrinth of trees, and was lost. The Frenchman, after having ascended the rapids with great labor, awaited the good Father, and, as he did not come, resolved to search for him. with all his might, for several days, he called his name in the woods, hoping to find him, but it was useless. He met, however, a Sakis [Sauk] who was carrying the camp-kettle of the missionary, and who gave him some intelligence. He assured him that he had found his foot-prints at some distance, but that he had not seen the Father. He told him, also, that he had found the tracks of several, who were going towards the Sioux. He declared that he supposed that the Sioux might have killed or captured him. Indeed, several years afterwards, there were found among this tribe, his breviary and cassock, which they exposed at their festivals, making offerings to them of food." In a journal of the Jesuits, Menard, about the seventh or eighth of August, 1661, is said to have been lost.

Groselliers (Gro-zay-yay), while Menard was endeavoring to reach the retreat of the Hurons which he had made known to the authorities of Canada, was pushing through the country of the Assineboines, on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, and at length, probably by Lake Alempigon, or Nepigon, reached Hudson's Bay, and early in May, 1662, returned to Montreal, and surprised its citizens with his tale of new discoveries toward the Sea of the North.

The Hurons did not remain long toward the sources of the Black River, after Menard's disappearance, and deserting their plantations, joined their allies, the Ottawas, at La Pointe, now Bayfield, on Lake Superior. While here, they determined to send a war party of one hundred against the Sioux of Mille Lacs (Mil Lak) region. At length they met their foes, who drove them into one of the thousand marshes of the water-shed between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where they hid themselves among the tall grasses. The Sioux, suspecting that they might attempt to escape in the night, cut up beaver skins into strips, and hung thereon little bells, which they had obtained from the French traders. The Hurons, emerging from their watery hiding place, stumbled over the unseen cords, ringing the bells, and the Sioux instantly attacked, killing all but one.

About the year 1665, four Frenchmen visited the Sioux of Minnesota, from the west end of Lake Superior, accompanied by an Ottawa chief, and in the summer of the same year, a flotilla of canoes laden with peltries, came down to Montreal. Upon their return, on the eighth of August, the Jesuit Father, Allouez, accompanied the traders, and, by the first of October, reached Chegoimegon Bay, on or near the site of the modern town of Bayfield, on Lake Superior, where he found the refugee Hurons and Ottawas. While on an excursion to Lake Alempigon, now Nepigon, this missionary saw, near the mouth of Saint Louis River, in Minnesota, some of the Sioux. He writes: "There is a tribe to the west of this, toward the great river called Messipi.

They are forty or fifty leagues from here, in a country of prairies, abounding in all kinds of game. They have fields, in which they do not sow Indian corn, but only tobacco. Providence has provided them with a species of marsh rice, which, toward the end of summer, they go to collect in certain small lakes, that are covered with it. They presented me with some when I was at the extremity of Lake Tracy [Superior], where I saw them. They do not use the gun, but only the bow and arrow with great dexterity. Their cabins are not covered with bark, but with deerskins well dried, and stitched together so that the cold does not enter. These people are above all other savage and warlike. In our presence they seem abashed, and were motionless as statues. They speak a language entirely unknown to us, and the savages about here do not understand them."

The mission at La Pointe was not encouraging, and Allouez, "weary of their obstinate unbelief," departed, but Marquette succeeded him for a brief period.

The "Relations" of the Jesuits for 1670-71, allude to the Sioux or Dakotahs, and their attack upon the refugees at La Po...

Table of contents

• PREFACE.
• EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.
• CHAPTER II. EARLY MENTION OF LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER.
• CHAPTER III. DU LUTH PLANTS THE FRENCH ARMS IN MINNESOTA
• CHAPTER IV. FIRST WHITE MEN AT FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA.
• CHAPTER V. NICHOLAS PERROT, FOUNDER OF FIRST POST ON LAKE PEPIN.
• CHAPTER VI. BARON LA HONTAN'S FABULOUS VOYAGE.
• CHAPTER VII. LE SUEUR, EXPLORER OF THE MINNESOTA RIVER.
• CHAPTER VIII. EVENTS WHICH LED TO BUILDING FORT BEAUHARNOIS ON LAKE PEPIN.
• CHAPTER X. EFFECT OF THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH WAR.
• CHAPTER XI. JONATHAN CARVER, THE FIRST BRITISH TRAVELER AT FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONY.
• CHAPTER XII. EXPLORATION BY THE FIRST UNITED STATES ARMY OFFICER, LIEUTENANT Z. M. PIKE.
• CHAPTER XIII. THE VALLEY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI DURING SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
• CHAPTER XIV. LONG'S EXPEDITION, A. D. 1817, IN A SIX-OARED SKIFF, TO THE FALLS OF SAINT ANTHONY.
• CHAPTER XV. THOMAS DOUGLAS, EARL OF SELKIRK, AND THE RED RIVER VALLEY.
• CHAPTER XVI. FORT SNELLING DURING ITS OCCUPANCY BY COMPANIES OF THE FIFTH REGIMENT U. S. INFANTRY, A. D. 1819, TO A. D. 1827.
• CHAPTER XVII. OCCURRENCES IN THE VICINITY OF FORT SNELLING, CONTINUED.
• CHAPTER XVIII. INDIAN TRIBES IN MINNESOTA AT THE TIME OF ITS ORGANIZATION.
• CHAPTER XIX. EARLY MISSIONS AMONG THE OJIBWAS AND DAHKOTAHS OF MINNESOTA.
• CHAPTER XX. TREAD OF PIONEERS IN THE SAINT CROIX VALLEY AND ELSEWHERE.
• CHAPTER XXI. EVENTS PRELIMINARY TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE MINNESOTA TERRITORY
• CHAPTER XXII. MINNESOTA FROM ITS ORGANIZATION AS A TERRITORY, A. D. 1849, TO A. D. 1854.
• CHAPTER XXIII. EVENTS FROM A. D. 1854 TO THE ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA TO THE UNION.
• CHAPTER XXIV. ADMISSION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE.
• CHAPTER XXV. MINNESOTA'S SHARE IN SUPPRESSING THE REBELLION.
• CHAPTER XXVI. THE SIOUX MASSACRE.
• CHAPTER XXVII. DEFEAT AND PUNISHMENT OF THE HOSTILE INDIANS.
• CHAPTER XXVIII. CLOSE OF THE INDIAN WAR AND THE WAR OF SECESSION.
• CHAPTER XXIX. PRINCIPAL EVENTS FROM 1866 TO 1881.
• CHAPTER XXX. FORT SNELLING.
• HISTORY OF HENNEPIN COUNTY
• CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS.