Chapter VII: Part 7

They were hardly out of sight before the soldiers who had been with us and had just left for Fort Ripley before the outbreak, filed in. Captain Marsh had sent for them just before leaving the fort for Redwood. Those noble fellows, nearly exhausted from the long march, with no sleep for thirty hours, immediately took their places with the defenders, without rest or sleep the night before. Gere had sent to St. Peter for the Renville Rangers and some of our own men. They came in the evening.

The prayers of thanksgiving that could be heard in many tongues from that mournful group of refugees, as they knew of the soldiers return, could never be forgotten. Mrs. Dunn and I had asked for guns to help fight, but there were none for us. There was little ammunition too. The blacksmith, John Resoft, made slugs by cutting iron rods into pieces. Mrs. Mueller, Mrs. Dunn and I worked a large share of that day making cartridges of these, or balls. We would take a piece of paper, give it a twist, drop in some powder and one of these, or a ball, and give it another twist. The soldiers could fire twice as fast with these as when they loaded themselves. All the women helped.

My squaw was still with me. The others made no effort to escape. Just as night came, she broke away and when she really started she could run off with me, as she was big and I only weighed one hundred and three pounds. When I found I could not stop her, I screamed to Sargeant MCGrew, "This squaw is going to get away and I can't stop her." He turned his gun on her and shouted, "If you don't go back, I'll blow you to h---." That night I had to sleep and she got away.

With a hundred and sixty soldiers in the fort, all were so reassured that we all slept that night.

The next morning was a repetition of Tuesday. The care of the wounded under that great man, Doctor Mueller and his devoted wife, was our work. One woman who was my especial care had been in bed with a three day's old baby when the smoke from the burning homes of neighbors was seen and they knew the time to fly had come. A wagon with a small amount of hay on it stood near the door with part of a stack of hay by it. Her husband and the hired man placed her and the baby on this and covered them with as much hay as they could get on before the savages came, then mounted the horses and started to ride away. They were at once shot by the Indians who then began a search for her. They ran a pitch fork into the hay over and over again, wounding the woman in many places and hurting the child so that it died. They then set fire to the hay and went on to continue their devilish work elsewhere. She crawled out of the hay more dead than alive and made her way to the fort. Besides the pitchfork holes which were in her legs and back, her hair and eyebrows were gone and she was dreadfully burned.

None of the women seemed to think of their wounds. They lamented their dead and lost, but as far as they themselves were concerned were thankful they were not captives. The suffering of these women stirred me to the depths. One poor German woman had had a large family of children. They all scattered at the approach of the Indians. She thought they were all killed. She would sit looking into space, calling, "Mine schilder! Mine schilder!" enough to break your heart. I thought she had gone crazy when I saw her look up at the sound of a child's voice, then begin to climb on the table calling, "Mine schilder! Mine schilder!" In a group on the other side she had seen four of her children that had escaped and just reached the fort that Wednesday morning.

Early in the afternoon the long expected fighting began. We were all sent up stairs to stay and obliged to sit on the floor or lie prone. All the windows were shot in and the glass and spent bullets fell all around us. I picked up a wash basin heaping full of these and Mrs. Dunn as many more. By evening the savages retired, giving their awful war whoops.

Thursday there was very little fighting as the rain wet the Indians' powder. Mrs. Dunn, Mrs. Sweatt and I spent the time making cartridges in the powder room in our stocking feet. We also melted the spent bullets from the day before and ran them in molds. These helped out the supply of ammunition amazingly.

Friday was the terrific battle. A short distance from the fort was a large mule barn. The Indians swarmed in there. Sergeant Jones understood their method of warfare, so trained cannon loaded with shell on the barn. At a signal these were discharged, blowing up the barn and setting the hay on fire. The air was full of legs, arms and bodies, which fell back into the flames. We were not allowed to look out, but I stood at the window all the time and saw this. Later I saw vast numbers of the Indians with grass and flowers bound on their heads creeping like snakes up to the fort under cover of the cannon smoke. I gave the alarm, and the guns blew them in all directions. There was no further actual fighting, though eternal vigilance was the watchword. It was those hundred and sixty men who saved even Minneapolis and St. Paul, and all the towns between. If Fort Ridgely had fallen, the Sioux warriors would have come right through. General Sibley did not get there with reinforcements until the next Thursday after the last battle.

You can imagine the sanitary condition of all those people cooped up in that little fort. No words I know could describe it.

Note.--Mrs. Hern has a medal from the government for saving the fort.

Mrs. Mary Ingenhutt--1858, Minneapolis.

Mrs Ingenhutt, now one hundred years old, for ninety years has made "Apfel Kuchen," "Fist Cheese" and wine as follows:

Apfel Kuchen--Mix a rich dough using plenty of butter and rich milk. Line a pan with this, cut in squares and cover with apples sprinkled thick with sugar and cinnamon. Bake until apples are thoroughly cooked.

Fist Cheese--Take a pan of clabbered milk. Set over a slow fire. When the whey comes to the top, strain off and shape in balls. Let stand in warm place until it is ripe--that is, until it is strong.

Wine--Grape, currant, rhubarb and gooseberry wine: Mash home grown fruit with a home made potato masher, squeeze it through a coarse cloth, add sugar and place in warm spot to ferment. Draw off in kegs and allow to stand at least two years.

I used to love to go to the picnics in the early days. Everyone had such a good time, and was trying to have everyone else have one, too. Then, all were equal. Nowadays, each one is trying to be prouder than the next one.

Captain L. L. McCormack.

Georgetown on the Red River was the Hudson Bay post. After the railroad was built to St. Cloud the Red River carts crossed there on a ferry and then on the Dakota side went from point to point on the river in the timber to camp. The river is very crooked. A days journey with one of these carts was twelve miles. The first stop was at Elk River, now Dalyrimple, then to Goose River, the present site of Caledonia and then to Frog Point and from there to what is now Grand Forks. The freight was teamed to and from St. Cloud and Benson.

Mr. Charles M. Loring--1860.

On the 20th day of September 1860, I reached Minneapolis with my wife and little son, and went to the Nicollet Hotel where I made arrangements for board for the winter. The hotel was kept by Eustis & Hill. They fixed the price at $6.00 a week including fire and laundry for the family, i. e. $2.00 a week for each person. Mr Loren Fletcher occupied the rooms adjoining and paid the same price that I paid, notwithstanding there were but two in his family, but his rooms were considered to be more favorably located being on the corner of Hennepin and Washington Avenues.

The cook at the hotel was a Mrs. Tibbets from New England who was an expert in preparing the famous dishes of that section of our country, and in the many years that have elapsed since that time, I have never been in a hotel where cooking was so appetizing.

Our first winter in Minnesota was passed in the most delightful and pleasant manner.

The following spring, I rented the house on the corner of what is now Third Avenue and Sixth Street, for the sum of $6.00 a month. This house is still standing and is a comfortable two story New England house. At that time it stood alone on the prairie with not more than three or four houses south of it. One of these is still standing at the corner of Tenth Street and Park Avenue and is occupied as a "Keeley Cure."

There were few luxuries in the market, but everything that could be purchased was good and cheap. There was but one meatshop which was kept by a Mr. Hoblet. He kept his place open in the forenoon only, as his afternoons were spent in driving over the country in search of a "fat critter." The best steaks and roasts were 8c a pound and chickens 4 to 6c a pound. Eggs, we bought at 6c a dozen and butter at 8 to 10c a pound. In winter, we purchased a hind quarter of beef at 3 and 4c a pound, chickens 3c and occasionally pork could be bought at 6c a pound, but this was rarely in market. Mutton was never seen. Prairie chickens, partridges, ducks and venison was very plentiful in the season and very cheap. We used to purchase these in quantities after cold weather came, freeze them and pack them in snow. This worked well provided we had no "January thaw" and then we lost our supplies.

The only fruit we had for winter use was dried apples, wild plums, wild crab apples and cranberries. In the season, we had wild berries which were very plentiful. There was a cranberry marsh a half mile west of Lake Calhoun, on what is now Lake Street, where we used to go to gather berries. One day a party of four drove to the marsh and just as we were about to alight, we saw that a large buck had taken possession of our field. We did not dispute his claim, but silently stole away. That same autumn a bear entered the garden of W. D. Washburn, who lived on Fifth Street and Eighth Avenue and ate all of his sweet corn.

About this time the settlers on Lake Minnetonka were clearing their claims in the "Big Woods" burning most of the timber, but some of the hard maple was cut as cordwood and hauled to Minneapolis and sold for from $2.00 to $2.50 a cord.

The winters were cold but clear and bright. The few neighbors were hospitable and kind and I doubt if there has been a time in the history of Minneapolis when its citizens were happier than they were in the pioneer days of the early sixties.

There were few public entertainments, but they enjoyed gathering at the houses of their neighbors for a game of euchre and occasionally for a dance in Woodmans' Hall which was situated on the corner of Helen Street, now Second Avenue, and Washington Avenue. One violinist furnished the music. Sleighing, horse racing on the river and skating were the out-of-doors amusements for the winter. A favorite place for skating was in a lot situated on Nicollet Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. Nicollet Avenue had been raised above the grade of this lot, causing a depression which filled with water in the fall. There was a small white house in the center of the lot and the skaters went around and around it, and no skating park was more greatly enjoyed.

At the time the war broke out, the town began to show signs of recovering from the effects of the panic of 1857 and its wonderfully beautiful surroundings attracted new settlers and the foundation of the great commercial city was laid.

Dr. Stewart of Sauk Center.

I was government physician for many years and so was back and forth all the time. I used to meet old man Berganeck, an old German, who carried supplies for the government. He always walked and knit stockings all the way. This was very common among the German settlers. The government paid such an enormous price for its freighting that one could almost pay for an outfit for supplies in one trip. Berganeck became very wealthy.

I often passed the night near the bivouac of the Red River drivers. They knew me and were very glad to have me near. I never saw a more rugged race. They always had money even in the panic times of '57. If I treated them for any little ailment, I could have my choice of money or furs. The mosquitoes did not seem to bother them, though they would drive a white man nearly crazy.

I started for Fort Wadsworth, a four company post, in January '68. The winters, always severe, had been doubly so in '67 and '68. I went by team, leaving Sauk Center with the mercury at forty below zero. It never got above forty five below in the morning, while we were on the trip. The snow was three feet on a level and we broke the roads. It took us twelve days to make this three day's trip. My driver was drunk most of the time. There were no trees from Glenwood to Big Stone Lake on the trail. When I drove up to Brown's station, a big log house with a family of about forty people, Nellie met me. To my inquiry as to whether I could stay over night, she answered, "Yes, but there is no food in the house. We have had none for three days. My father is somewhere between here and Henderson with supplies. He knows we are destitute, so will hurry through." About three o'clock, we heard an Indian noise outside. It was Joe with his Indian companions. All he had on that big sled was half a hog, a case of champagne and half a dozen guns. These men were always improvident and never seemed to think ahead.

His daughters, Amanda and Emily, twins, had a peculiarity I never knew before in twins. One day, one would be gay, the other sad. The next day, it would be reversed.

Mrs. J. M. Paine, Minneapolis.

During the early days of the war my husband raised a company of cavalry and wanted me to inspect them as they drilled. I was only a girl of seventeen, but had instructions enough how to behave when they were drilling, for a regiment. I was mounted on one of the cavalry horses and was to sit sedately, my eye on every maneuver and a pleased smile on my face.

I was ready with the goods, but unfortunately when I was ready, my steed was not. At the first bugle call he started on a fierce gallop, squeezing himself in where he had belonged, while a terrified bride clung to his neck with both arms. The only reason that I did not cling with more was that I did not have them.

I went once on a buffalo hunt with my husband. It does not seem possible that all those animals can be gone. The plains were covered with them. The steaks from a young male buffalo were the most delicious I have ever tasted.

Miss Minnesota Neill.

My father, the Reverend Mr. J. D. Neill, first came to St. Paul in April '49, then returned east to get my mother. In July, when they arrived at Buffalo on their way west, at the hotel, they met Governor and Mrs. Ramsey who were on their way to Minnesota to take up their duties there. They were delighted to meet my father as he was the first man they had ever met who had seen St. Paul. When they arrived, they were much surprised at the smallness of the place. My mother was not easily consoled over the size of their metropolis. Among other supplies she had brought a broom as she had heard how difficult it was to get them. Mr. H. M. Rice, who came down to meet them, chided her for being disappointed and putting the broom over his shoulder with pure military effect, led her along the little footpath which led over the bluff to the town, and to the American House. Although this was a hotel par excellence for the times, the floor was made of splintered, unplaned boards. My mother was obliged to keep her shoes on until she had got into bed and put them on before arising, to escape the slivers. The furniture of the bedroom consisted of a bed and wash stand on which last piece, the minister wrote powerful sermons. My mother wished to put down a carpet and bring in some of her own furniture, but the landlady would not allow this, saying, "There was no knowing where it would stop, if one was allowed to do the like."

They early began the construction of a small chapel and a large brick house which later became the stopping place of all ministers entering the state. In the fall of '49 the house was not completed, but the chapel was. They felt that the Scotts, where they then lived, needed their room, so moved into the chapel and putting up their bed on one side of the pulpit and stove on the other, kept house there for six weeks. The only drawback was that the bed had to be taken down every Sunday. In all the six weeks it never rained once on Sunday.

My mother used often to go alone through a ravine at night to see the Ramsey's. She carried a lantern but was never molested or afraid although it was often very dark. Their storeroom, in those days everyone had one, was stocked in the fall with everything for the winter. My father would buy a side of beef and then cut it up according to the directions his wife would read from a diagram in a cook book. This was frozen and placed in an outside storeroom.

One Sunday my father announced from the pulpit that if anyone was in need they always stood ready to help. That night everything was taken from the storehouse. It was thought the act was done by someone who respected my father's wishes as expressed in his sermon.

Their first Christmas here, the doorbell rang. When it was answered, no one was there, but a great bag containing supplies of all kinds hung from the latch. A large pincushion outlined in black was among the things. It was years before the donor was known.

Once some eastern people came to see us and we took them for a long drive. The bridges were not built, so we had to cross the Mississippi on a ferry. We went first to Fort Snelling which seemed to be abandoned. In one of the rooms we found some peculiar high caps which had belonged to the soldiers. My father took one and amused the children much when he went under Minnehaha Falls by leaving his own hat and wearing that funny cap.

Mr. L. L. Lapham.

When we were coming to Houston County, if we couldn't get game we breakfasted on codfish. I think it was the biggest slab of codfish I ever saw when we started. It made us thirsty. The fish called for water and many's the time mother and I knelt down and drank from stagnant pools that would furnish fever germs enough to kill a whole city nowadays, but I suppose we had so much fresh air that the germs couldn't thrive in our systems.

Speaking of codfish, reminds me that one day we met a man and his family making their way to the river. I halted him and asked him what he was going back for. You see we met few "turnouts" on the road for all were going the same way.

"Well," said he, "I'm homesick--homesick as a dog and I'm going back east if I live to get there." "Why what's the matter with the west?" I asked. "Oh nothing, only it's too blamed fur from God's country and I got to hankering fer codfish--and I'm agoin' where it is. Go lang!" and he moved on. I guess he was homesick. He looked, and he talked it and the whole outfit said it plain enough. You can't argue with homesickness--never.

Arnold Stone and his good wife lived up there on the hill. One day in the early 60's an Indian appeared in Mrs. Stone's kitchen and asked for something to eat. They were just sitting down to dinner and he was invited to join the family. The butter was passed to him, and he said, "Me no butter knife." "I told Arnold," said Mrs. Stone, "that when it gets so the Injuns ask for butter knives it's high time we had one."

ANTHONY WAYNE CHAPTER

Mankato

LILLIAN BUTLER MOREHART

(Mrs. William J. Morehart)

Mrs. Margaret Rathbun Funk--1853.

I came to Mankato in the year 1853 on the Steamer Clarion from St. Paul. I was eleven years old. My father, Hoxey Rathbun, had left us at St. Paul while he looked for a place to locate. He went first to Stillwater and St. Anthony, but finally decided to locate at the Great Bend of the Minnesota River. We landed about four o'clock in the morning, and father took us to a little shack he had built on the brow of the hill west of Front Street near the place where the old Tourtelotte Hospital used to be. Back of this shack, at a distance of a couple of blocks were twenty Indian tepees, which were known as Wauqaucauthah's Band. As nearly as I can remember there were nine families here at that time and their names were as follows: Maxfield, Hanna, Van Brunt, Warren, Howe, Mills, Jackson and Johnson, our own family being the ninth.

The first winter here I attended school. The school house was built by popular subscription and was on the site of the present Union School on Broad Street. It was a log structure of one room, and in the middle of this room was a large, square, iron stove. The pupils sat around the room facing the four walls, the desks being wide boards, projecting out from the walls. Miss Sarah Jane Hanna was my first teacher. I came from my home across the prairie, through the snow in the bitter cold of the winter. Oftentimes I broke through the crust of the snow and had a hard time getting out. One of the incidents I remember well while going to school, was about a young Indian whom we called Josh, who pretended he was very anxious to learn English. Most every day he would come to the school, peer in at the windows, shade his eyes with his hand and mutter "A" "B" "C", which would frighten us very much. The education the children received in those days had to be paid for either by their parents or by someone else who picked out a child and paid for his or her tuition. That was how I received my education. My parents were too poor to pay for mine, and a man in town, who had no children volunteered to pay for same. I went to school for a few years on this man's subscription.

The first winter was a very cold one and although we were not bothered much by the Indians as yet, they often came begging for something to eat.

Although the Indians had never harmed us we were afraid of them. When we came to this country we brought a dog, and when these Indians came begging we took the dog into the house with us and placed him beside the door, where his barking and growling soon frightened them away. They seemed afraid of dogs, as there were very few in this country at that time. One time when father was on his way home he saw an Indian boy who had been thrown from his horse. He picked him up and put him back on his horse and took him to his tepee. Later this same Indian remembered my father's kindness to him by warning us that the Indians were planning an uprising and telling us to leave the country.

My father was the first mail carrier through this part of the country. John Marsh and his brother, George Marsh contracted with him to carry the mail, they having previously contracted with the government. He was to carry the mail from Mankato to Sioux City and return. He made his first trip in the summer of 1856. The trip took about three weeks. He made several trips during the summer. His last trip was in the fall of 1856, when he started from here to Sioux City. The government was supposed to have built shacks along his route at regular intervals of about twenty miles, where he could rest and seek shelter during cold weather and storms, but this had been neglected. He often slept under hay stacks, and wherever shelter was afforded.

On his way to Sioux City he encountered some very severe weather, and froze one of his sides. The lady where he stopped in Sioux City wanted him to stay there for a while before returning home, and until his side had been treated and he had recovered, but he would not have it so, and started on his return trip during exceedingly cold weather. He did not return on schedule time from Sioux City on this trip, and mother became very much worried about him. She went to the men who had contracted with father to carry the mail and asked them to send out men to look for him. They promised to send out a Frenchman, and a dog team. This contented mother for awhile, but as father did not return she again went to these men and this time they sent out three men with a horse and cutter to look for him.

After traveling over the route for some time they came to a shack on the Des Moines river, near where Jackson, this state, now is and in this shack they found my father, badly frozen and barely alive. He lived but a few moments after shaking hands with the men who found him. They brought the body back to Mankato and he was buried out near our place of residence, at the foot of the hill. The weather was so extremely cold at that time that the family could not go out to the burial.

Later, after I was married, myself and husband came down to what is now the central part of town for the purpose of buying a lot for building a home, and we selected the lot where I now live, at the corner of Walnut and Broad streets. We purchased the same for $487. We could have had any lot above this one for $200, but selected this for the reason that it was high. The country around us was all timber and we had no sidewalks or streets laid out at that time.

At the time of the Indian outbreak I lived on what is now Washington street, directly across from where the German Lutheran school now stands. The Indians started their outbreaks during the Civil war. They started their massacres in this neighborhood in July and August of 1862. I can distinctly remember seeing, while standing in the doorway of my home, a band of Indians coming over the hill. This was Little Priest and his band of Winnebagoes. These Winnebagoes professed to be friendly to the white people and hostile to the Sioux. They claimed that a Sioux had married a Winnebago maiden, and for that reason they were enemies to the Sioux. To prove that they were their enemies they stalked the Sioux who had married a maid of one of their tribes and murdered him, bringing back to show us his tongue, heart, and scalp, and also dipped their hands in the Sioux's life blood and painted their naked bodies with it.

Mrs. Mary Pitcher--1853.

The old Nominee with a cabin full of passengers and decks and hold loaded with freight bound for St. Paul was the first boat to get through Lake Pepin in the spring of 1853. The journey from Dubuque up was full of interest, but although on either side of the Mississippi the Indians were the chief inhabitants, nothing of exciting nature occurred until Pigseye Bar on which was Kaposia, the village of the never-to-be-forgotten Little Crow was reached. Then as the engines were slowed down to make the landing a sight met our gaze that startled even the captain. The whole village of several hundred Indians was in sight and a most frightful sight it was. Everyone young and old was running about crying, wailing, with faces painted black and white. They did not seem even to see the big steamer. It was such an appalling spectacle that the captain deemed it best not to land, but there were two men on board, residents of St. Paul returning from St. Louis who got into a boat and went ashore.

They learned that there had been a fight in St. Paul the day before between this band of Sioux and a party of Chippewas in which one of the Sioux was killed and several wounded. It was not a very pleasant thing to contemplate, for these people on board the boat were going to St. Paul with their families to make homes in this far away west.

There were also on board some Sisters of Charity from St. Louis, one of them Sister Victorine, a sister of Mrs. Louis Robert. They all fell on their knees and prayed and wept and they were not the only ones who wept either. There were many white faces and no one seemed at ease.

I remember my mother saying to my father, "Oh Thomas, why did we bring these children into this wild place where there can be an Indian fight in the biggest town and only ten miles from a fort at that."

The excitement had not subsided when St. Paul was reached, but the first man that came on board as the boat touched the landing was my mother's brother, Mr. W. W. Paddock. The sight of him seemed to drive away some of the fear, as he was smiling and made light of the incident of the day before. He took us up to the Old Merchants' Hotel, then a large rambling log house and as soon as we had deposited some of our luggage, he said, "Well, we will go out and see the battlefield." It was in the back yard of our hotel, an immense yard of a whole block, filled with huge logs drawn there through the winter for the year's fuel.

The morning of the fight, a party of Chippewas coming into St. Paul from the bluffs saw the Sioux in canoes rounding the bend below and knowing they would come up Third Street from their landing place, just below Forbes' Store and exactly opposite the hotel, the Chippewas made haste to hide behind the logs, and wait the coming of the Sioux.

The landlady, Mrs. Kate Wells, was standing on one of the logs, hanging up some clothes on a line. Frightened almost to death at the sight of the Indians running into the yard and hiding behind the logs, she jumped down and started to run into the house. Instantly she was made to understand she could not go inside. The Indians pointed their guns at her, and motioned her to get down behind the logs out of sight, which she did and none too soon, as just then the Sioux came in sight and were met by a most deadly fusilade that killed Old Peg Leg Jim and wounded many others. Some of the Sioux took refuge in Forbes store and opened fire on any Chippewa who left his hiding place. Pretty soon the inhabitants began to come into hailing distance and the Chippewas concluded to beat a hasty retreat but not before they had taken Old Jim's scalp. When the Sioux ran into Forbes store, the clerk, thinking his time had come, raised a window and taking hold of the sill, let himself drop down to the river's edge, a distance of over fifty feet.

Between the Sioux and Chippewas ran a feud further back than the white man knew of and no opportunity was ever lost to take the scalp of a fallen foe.

The Indians mourn for the dead but doubly so if they have lost their scalps, as scalpless Sioux cannot enter the Happy Hunting Grounds.

One of the things about this same trip of the old Nominee was the fact that almost every citizen of St. Paul came down to see this welcome messenger of spring.

Provisions had become very scarce and barrels of eggs and boxes of crackers and barrels of hams, in fact almost everything eatable was rolled out on the land and sold at once. It didn't take long to empty a barrel of eggs or a box of crackers and everyone went home laden.

Mrs. J. R. Beatty--1853.

I landed in Mankato on my twelfth birthday, May 26, 1853. We came from Ohio. My father, George Maxfield and his family and my uncle, James Hanna and family and friend, Basil Moreland, from Quincy, Ill. We took the Ohio River steam boat at Cincinnati. Somewhere along the river we bought a cow. This cow started very much against her better judgment and after several days on the boat decided she wouldn't go west after all and in some way jumped off the boat and made for the shore. We did not discover her retreat until she had reached the high bank along the river and amid great excitement the boat was turned around and everybody landed to capture the cow. She was rebellious all along the way, especially when we had to transfer to a Mississippi boat at St. Louis, and when we transferred to a boat on the Minnesota river at St. Paul, but she was well worth all the trouble for she was the only cow in the settlement that first summer. She went dry during the winter and not a drop of milk could be had for love or money in the town.

The want of salt bothered the pioneers more than anything else. Game abounded. Buffalo herds sometimes came near and deer often came through the settlement on the way to the river to drink. The streams were full of fish, but we could not enjoy any of these things without salt. However, our family did not suffer as much inconvenience as some others did. One family we knew had nothing to eat but potatoes and maple syrup. They poured the syrup over the potatoes and managed to get through the winter. Sometimes flour would be as high as $24 a barrel. During the summer when the water was low and in the winter when the river was frozen and the boats could not come down from St. Paul, the storekeepers could charge any price they could get.

Our family had a year's supply of groceries that father had bought at St. Louis on the way up. We had plenty of bedding and about sixty yards of ingrain carpet that was used as a partition in our house for a long time. There was very little to be bought in St. Paul at that time. Father bought the only set of dishes to be had in St. Paul and the only clock.

There were only a few houses in Mankato and the only thing we could find to live in was the frame of a warehouse that Minard Mills had just begun to build on the south end of the levee, where Otto's grocery store now stands. My uncle purchased the building and we put a roof on and moved in. We were a family of twenty-one and I remember to this day the awful stack of dishes we had to wash after each meal. A frame addition was put along side of the building and in July my cousin, Sarah J. Hanna (later Mrs. John Q. A. Marsh) started a day school with twenty-four scholars. It was the first school ever held in Mankato.

In 1855, a tract of land twenty four miles long and twelve miles wide was withdrawn from civilization and given as a reservation to two thousand Winnebago Indians who took possession in June of that year against the vigorous protest of the people. Everyone in the town was down to see them come in. The river was full of their canoes for two or three days. As soon as they landed, the Indians began the erection of a rude shelter on the levee of poles and bark, perhaps twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. The squaws were all busy cooking some kind of meat and a cake something like a pancake. We soon discovered that they were preparing a feast for the Sioux who had come down in large numbers from Fort Ridgely which was near New Ulm to meet them. After the shelter was finished the feast began. Blankets were spread on the ground and rows of wooden bowls were placed before the Indians, one bowl to about three Indians. The cakes were broken up and placed near the bowls. After the feast was over, the peace-pipe was passed and the speaking began. The first speaker was a Sioux chief, evidently delivering an address of welcome. He was followed by several others all very dignified and impressive.

We had heard that the Sioux would give a return feast on the next day and when we got tired of watching the speakers, we went down to the Sioux wigwams to see what was going on there and found an old Indian squatting before the fire. Dog meat seemed to be the main article of food. Evidently it was to be a ceremonial feast for he had a large supply of dog beside him on the ground and was holding one over the fire to singe the hair off. When we came near, he deftly cut off an ear and offered it to me with a very fierce look. When I refused it, he laughed very heartily at his little joke.

The Winnebagoes were sent to the agency four miles from town soon after. The agency buildings were where St. Clair is now located.

One day at noon the school children heard that the Indians were having a squaw dance across the river. It was in the spring, just as the snow was beginning to melt. We found about twenty-five squaws dancing around in a circle and making a fearful noise in their high squealing voices. They danced in the same way that the Indians did, and I had never seen any other form of dancing among them. They were wearing moccasins and were tramping around in the water. The Indians were sitting on logs watching them. One was pounding on a tom-tom.

One day when we were eating dinner, about twenty-five Indians came to the house and looked in the window. They always did that and then would walk in without knocking. They squatted down on the floor until dinner was over and then motioned for the table to be pushed back to the wall. Then they began to dance the begging dance. In their dances they pushed their feet, held close together over the floor and came down very heavily on their heels. There were so many of them that the house fairly rocked. Each Indian keeps up a hideous noise and that with the beating of the tom-tom makes a din hard to describe. The tom-tom is a dried skin drawn tightly over a hoop and they beat on this with a stick. After they were through dancing they asked for a pail of sweetened water and some bread which they passed around and ate. This bread and sweetened water was all they asked for. It is a part of the ceremony, although they would take anything they could get.

The Sioux were the hereditary foes of the Chippewas who lived near the head waters of the Mississippi and during this summer about three hundred Sioux on their way to Fort Ridgely where they were to receive their annuity, pitched their wigwams near our house. They had been on the war path and had taken a lot of Chippewa scalps and around these bloody trophies they held a savage scalp dance. We children were not allowed to go near as the howling, hooting and yelling frightened everybody. It continued for three nights and the whole settlement was relieved when they went away.

Mrs. A. M. Pfeffer--1858.

My father, Miner Porter had been closely connected with the early history of Fox Lake, Wis. He had conducted the leading hotel and store for years, was Postmaster, and did much by his enterprise and liberality for the town. He went to bed a wealthy man and awoke one morning to find everything but a small stock of merchandise swept away by the State Bank failures of that state. Selling that, he came to Mankato in 1857 and pre-empted a tract of land near Minneopa Falls, now our State Park. It was one half mile from South Bend, located on the big bend of the Minnesota River.

The following year, 1858 father started to build on our claim. There were sawmills in our vicinity where black walnut and butternut for the inside finishing could be bought, but the pine that was needed for the other part of the building had to be hauled from St. Paul by team. It took all summer to get the lumber down.

After our house was finished it came to be the stopping place for lodging and breakfast for settlers traveling over the territorial road towards Winnebago and Blue Earth City.

Pigeon Hill, a mile beyond our house was used as a camping ground for the Sioux all of that winter. We could see the smoke from their campfires curling up over the hill, although they were supposed to stay on their reservation at Fort Ridgely they were constantly coming and going and they and the Winnebagoes roved at will over the entire country.

One night mother was awakened by an unusual noise. She called father, who got up and opened the bedroom door. The sight that met their eyes was enough to strike terror to the heart of any settler of those days. The room was packed with Indians--Winnebagoes--men, women and children, but they were more frightened than we were. They had had some encounter with the Sioux and had fled in terror to our house. After much persuasion, father induced them to leave the house and go down to a small pond where the timber was very heavy and they remained in hiding for two days. We were in constant terror of the Sioux. All the settlers knew they were a blood thirsty lot and often an alarm would be sent around that the Sioux were surrounding the settlement. Mother would take us children and hurry to the old stone mill at South Bend, where we would spend the night.

They became more and more troublesome until father thought it unsafe to remain any longer and took us back to our old home in Wisconsin.

Mr. I. A. Pelton--1858.

I came into the State of Minnesota in April, 1858 and to Mankato May 1, 1858 from the State of New York, where I was born and raised. This was a pretty poverty stricken country then. The panic they had in November 1857 had struck this country a very hard blow. It stopped immigration. Previous to this panic they had good times and had gone into debt heavily, expecting to have good times right along. Everyone was badly in debt and money was hard to get. Currency consisted of old guns, town lots, basswood lumber, etc. These things were traded for goods and groceries. Money was loaned at three to five per cent per month, or thirty-six to sixty per cent per year. I knew of people who paid sixty per cent a year for a short time. Three per cent a month was a common interest. I hired money at that myself.

The farmers had not developed their farms much at that time. A farmer who had twenty to twenty-five acres under plow was considered a big farmer in those days. The summer of 1858 was a very disastrous, unprofitable one. It commenced very wet and kept raining during the summer until North Mankato was all under water and the river in places was a mile wide. The river was the highest about the first of August. The grain at the time of this heavy rain was ripening causing it to blight, ruining the crop. Wheat at this time was worth from $2 to $3 per bushel. A great many of the farmers did not cut their grain because there was nothing in it for them. The man where I boarded cut his grain but he had little or nothing, and that which he did get was soft and smutty. He took the same to be ground into flour and the bread the flour made was almost black, as they did not at that time have mills to take out the smut.

The people in the best condition financially were mighty glad if they had Johnny cake, pork and potatoes and milk and when they had these they thought they were on the "top shelf."

At this time too, they had to watch their fields with guns, or protect them with scarecrows and have the children watch them to keep them clear from the blackbirds, which were an awful pest. There were millions of these birds and there was not a time of day when they were not hovering over the fields. These birds would alight in the corn fields, tear the husks from the corn and absolutely ruin the ears of corn; also feed on the oats and wheat when it was not quite ripe and in a milky condition.

During the winter they would go south, but come back in the spring when they would be considerable bother again, by alighting on fields that had just been sown and taking the seed from the ground. Farmers finally threw poisoned grain in the fields. This was made by soaking wheat and oats in a solution of strychnine. It was ten years before these birds were exterminated enough to make farming a profitable occupation.

Farming was more successful after that, for the reason that these birds did not need watching. During the summer of 1858 and all during the summer of 1859 the river was navigable. St. Paul boats came up often and sometimes a Mississippi boat from St. Louis. We had no railroads in the state at that time.

During the year of 1859 State Banks were put into the state but these did not last long. I know at that time my brother sent out $150 that I had borrowed of Harry Lamberton. He sent this money by a man named David Lyon from New York. He came to where I was boarding and left State Bank money. The people where I was staying gave me the money that night when I came home and told me about what it was for. I started for St. Peter the next day to pay the debt and during the time the money was left and when I arrived at St. Peter it had depreciated in value ten per cent and it kept on going down until it was entirely valueless. Money was very scarce at that time and times were hard. We had some gold and a little silver.

In the year of 1859 we had the latest spring I ever experienced. We did not do any farming of any kind until the first week in May and this made it very late for small grain. We had a short season, but the wheat was very good. We had an early frost that year about the third of September and it killed everything. I saw killdeers frozen to death the third day of that month. Corn was not ripe yet and was ruined. It would have been quite a crop. It was dried up afterwards and shrunk, but was not good. Oats and wheat however were good and it made better times.

The country was gradually developing. In the spring of 1860 we had an early spring. The bees flew and made honey the seventeenth of March. We commenced plowing on the sixteenth of March. I brought down potatoes that spring and put them in an open shed and they did not freeze. This summer was a very productive one. Wheat went as high as forty bushels to the acre, No. 1. All crops were good.

The fall of 1860 was the time they held presidential election and Lincoln was elected that fall. We had very many speakers here at Mankato and excitement ran high. General Baker, Governor Ramsey, Wm. Windom, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury and other prominent men spoke.

After the war commenced and the volunteers were called out, most of the able bodied men joined the army. These men sent their pay home and afterward business began to get better and conditions improved. Early in August of 1862 Lincoln called for five hundred thousand men and those men in this immediate vicinity who had not already joined, went to war, leaving only those not able to join to protect their homes and property.

Mr. John A. Jones.

We were among the very earliest settlers in the vicinity of Mankato and came from Wisconsin. I had come in April and pre-empted a claim at the top of what is known as Pigeon Hill. Two other families came with us.

Traveling across country, we and our teams and live stock made quite a procession. We had five yoke of oxen, several span of horses, and about forty head of cattle, among them a number of milch cows. The wagons, in which we rode and in which we carried our household goods were the real "prairie schooner" of early days. We found our way by compass and made our own road west, traveling over the soft earth in which deep ruts were made by our wheels. The following teams were compelled to proceed with care in order not to get stalled in the ruts made by the first wagons.

We made the trip in four weeks, fording all rivers and streams on the way. At La Crosse we hired both ferries and took all day to cross. During the difficult journey we averaged about twenty-two miles, some of us walking all the time driving the large drove of cattle. No Indian villages were passed although we met a number of friendly redskins. At night we slept in the wagons and cooked our meals as all emigrants did. We brought a large store of provisions and on Saturdays would set a small stove up in the open and do our weekly bread baking. We passed through eighteen miles of heavy timber beyond what is now Kasota, coming out from the forest about three miles this side onto a very nice road.

We finally arrived at the homestead. We set our stove up in the yard by a tree and lived in the shanty until our new log house was completed. The shanty was covered with seven loads of hay to make it warm inside and a quilt was hung over the door. Here we lived for two months, suffering at times from rain penetrating. At one time a heavy cloud burst nearly drowned us out.