Mrs. Anna Hennes Huston—1854.

I moved to St. Anthony in 1854. I was only a tiny tot but used to go with my brother along a path by the river to find our cow. We usually found her in the basement of the university.

The roaring of the Falls used to scare me and if the wind was in the right direction we would be all wet with the spray.

I remember that at one time in the early days, potatoes were very scarce. My mother traded a wash dish full of eggs for the same amount of potatoes.

Mr. Henry Favel—1854.

With my family I lived thirty miles from Carver. My father died and as I had no money to buy a coffin, I made it myself. I had to walk thirty miles for the nails. The boards were hand hewed and when the coffin was made, it looked so different from those we had seen, in its staring whiteness, that we took the only thing we had, a box of stove blacking, which we had brought from the east with us and stained the coffin with this.

I walked twenty miles for potatoes for seed and Paid $3.00 a bushel for them. I brought them home on my back. I was three days making the journey on foot.

The wages for a carpenter at this time were $30.00 a month and found.

Mrs. Rebecca Plummer—1854.

We came to Brooklyn Center in 1854. Mr. Plummer's father had come in '52 and had taken a claim.

We did enjoy the game, for we had never had much. Pigeons were very thick. We used to stake nets for them almost touching the ground. Under these we scattered corn. They would stoop and go in under and pick up the grain. When they held their heads erect to swallow the corn, their necks would come through the meshes of the net and they could not escape.

I saw the Winnebagoes taken to their river reservation. They camped a night on the island in the river and went through all the dances they knew and made every noise they knew how to make. The most wonderful sight though was to see that vast flotilla of canoes going on the next morning. There were hundreds of them with their Indian occupants, besides the long procession on foot.

Mrs. C. A. Burdick—1855.

We came to what is now St. Cloud settling near the junction of the Little Sauk and Mississippi. The Sauk was a beautiful little river. The strawberries were very sweet, a much nicer flavor than tame ones. The prairie was covered with them.

The Winnebagoes who had lived on Long Prairie were transferred to their new home and we went to take care of the agency buildings they had left. There were from seventy-five to a hundred of these buildings. Franklin Steele and Anton Northrup owned them. We were awfully lonesome but we braved it out. The Indians were always coming and demanding something to eat. They were always painted and had bows and arrows with them. They would everlastingly stand and look in the windows and watch us work. We were so used to them that we never noticed them, only it was troublesome to have the light obscured.

Have I ever seen the Red River carts? My! I should say I have! Seen them by the hundred. My husband had charge of a fur store for Kittson at Fort Garry, now Winnipeg and we lived there. I used to go back and forth to St. Cloud where my parents lived with this cart train for protection. The drivers were a swarthy lot of French half breeds. Likely as not their hair would be hanging way down. They wore buckskin and a fancy sash. Sometimes a skin cap and sometimes just their hair or a wide hat. A tame enough lot of men, fond of jigging at night. They could hold out dancing. Seemed to never tire.

Their carts had two wheels, all wood and a cross piece to rest the platform on. This platform had stakes standing way up at the sides. They were piled high with goods, furs and skins going down and supplies coming back. I can shut my eyes and see that quaint cavalcade now. Where are all those drivers?

The tracks were wide and deep and could be plainly seen ahead of us going straight through the prairie. It took twenty-one days to go from St. Cloud to Pembina. We used to go through Sauk Center, just a hotel or road house, then through what is now Alexandria. A family by the name of Wright used to keep a stopping place for travelers. I don't know just where it would be now, but I have stayed there often. We went by way of Georgetown. Swan river, too, I remember. There used to be one tree on the prairie that we could see for two days. We called it Lone Tree.

Mr. Peter Cooper—1855.

I moved to Vernon Center in the early fifties. I had never worn an overcoat in New York state, but when I came to Minnesota particularly felt the need of one. The second year I was here, I traded with an Indian, two small pigs for a brass kettle and an Indian blanket. Without any pattern whatever, my wife cut an overcoat from this blanket and sewed it by hand. This was the only overcoat I had for four years, but it was very comfortable.

When I was in the Indian war in 1862 I had no mittens and suffered greatly for this reason. In one of the abandoned Norwegian homes, I found some hand made yarn, but had no way to get it made into mittens. I carved a crochet hook out of hickory and with this crocheted myself gloves with a place for every finger, although I had never had any experience and had only watched the women knit and crochet.

Mr. Stephen Rochette—1855, St. Paul.

Indians used often to stop to get something to eat. They never stole anything and seemed satisfied with what we gave them. We were on the direct road from Fort Snelling to St. Paul. It was made on the old trail between those two places. This went right up Seventh Street. The Indians often brought ducks and game to sell.

I used to shoot pigeons and prairie chickens on what is now Summit avenue.

I used to make cushions for Father Revoux's back. He had rheumatism very badly. He used to go by our house horseback. I wanted to give him the cushions but he would never take anything he did not pay for.

I bought a number of knockdown chairs in Chicago all made by hand for $125 and sold them for much more. Those chairs would last a lifetime. The parts were separate and packed well. They could be put together easily.

Mrs. Stephen Rochette—1855.

When we first came into St. Paul in 1855 we landed on the upper levee. It was used then more than the lower one. We thought we could never get used to the narrow, crooked streets. We lived with my father, Jacob Doney, where the Milwaukee tracks now cross Seventh Street.

We soon had three cows. We never had any fence for them, just turned them out and let them run in the streets with the other cows and pigs. Sometimes we could find them easily. Again we would have a long hunt.

Mrs. James A. Winter—1855.

We came to Faribault in 1855. My father had the first frame hotel there. The Indians had a permanent camp on the outskirts of the village. I was a small girl of sixteen with very fair skin, blue eyes and red cheeks. The squaws used to come to the house asking for food, which mother always gave them. "Old Betts" was often there. A young Indian, tall and fine looking used to come and sit watching me intently while I worked about the house, much to my discomfort. Finally one day he came close to me and motioned to me to fly with him. I showed no fear but led the way to the kitchen where there were others working and fed him, shaking my head violently all the time. He was the son of a chief and was hung at Mankato.

Mrs. George E. Fisher—1855.

Mother's name was Jane de Bow. Her father and mother were French. She came to Minnesota with the Stevens' in 1834 when she was seven years old. They were missionaries and when their own daughter died induced Jane's family to let them have her. The Indians were always sorry for her because her mother was away. They called her "Small-Crow-that-was Caught". Mrs. Stevens never could punish her for it made the squaws so angry.

The first Indian child my mother ever saw was a small boy who stood on the edge of Lake Harriet beckoning to her. She was afraid at first but finally joined him and always played with the Indian children from that time.

The Stevens' the next year had a little school near their cabin not far from where the pavilion is now. The Indian children always had to have prizes for coming. These prizes were generally turnips. Often they gave a bushel in one day.

In 1839 some Chippewa Indians ambushed a Sioux father who was hunting with his little son. The child escaped and told the story. The Sioux went on the warpath immediately and brought home forty or fifty Chippewa scalps. They had been "lucky" as they found a camp where the warriors were all away. They massacred the old men, women and children and came home to a big scalp dance. My mother had played with the Indian children so much that she was as jubilant as they when she saw these gory trophies. She learned and enjoyed the dance. She taught me the Sioux words to this scalp dance and often sang them to us. Translated they are:

You Ojibway, you are mean, We will use you like a mouse. We have got you and We will strike you down. My dog is very hungry, I will give him the Ojibway scalps.

The Indian children would take a kettleful of water, make a fire under it, and throw fish or turtles from their bone hooks directly into this. When they were cooked slightly, they would take them out and eat them without salt, cracking the turtle shells on the rocks. The boys used to hunt with their bows and arrows just as they did in later years. They were always fair in their games.

My mother married Mr. Gibbs and moved to this farm on what was the territorial road near the present Agricultural college. It was on the direct Indian trail to the hunting grounds around Rice Lake.

The Indian warriors were always passing on it and always stopped to see their old playmate. By this time they had guns and they would always give them to mother to keep while they were in the house. The kitchen floor would be covered with sleeping warriors. Mother knew all their superstitions. One was that if a woman jumped over their feet they could never run again. I can well remember my gay, light hearted mother running and jumping over all their feet in succession as they lay asleep in her kitchen and the way her eyes danced with mischief as she stood jollying them in Sioux. We noticed that none of them lost any time in finding out if they were bewitched.

Our Indians when they came to see mother wanted to do as she did. They would sit up to the table and she would give them a plate and knife and fork. This pleased them much. They would start with the food on their plates but soon would have it all in their laps.

They were very dissatisfied with the way the whites were taking their lands. The big treaty at Traverse de Sioux was especially distasteful to them. They said their lands had been stolen from them. They were very angry at my father because he put a rail fence across their trail and would have killed him if it had not been for mother.

The last time these good friends came was in May, 1862. A large body of them on horseback camped on the little knoll across from our house where the dead tree now is. They were sullen and despondent. Well do I remember the dramatic gestures of their chief as he eloquently related their grievances. My mother followed every word he said for she knew how differently they were situated from their former condition. When she first knew them they owned all the country—the whites nothing. In these few years the tables had been turned. Her heart bled for them, her childhood's companions. He said his warriors could hardly be kept from the warpath against the whites. That, so far, his counsel had prevailed, but every time they had a council it was harder to control them. That their hunting and fishing grounds were gone, the buffalo disappearing and there was no food for the squaws and papooses. The Great White Father had forgotten them, he knew, for their rations were long overdue and there was hunger in the camp.

They slept that night in our kitchen, "Little beckoning boy" and the other playmates. I can still see the sad look on my mother's face as she went from one to the other giving each a big, hot breakfast and trying to cheer them. She could see how they had been wronged. She stood and watched them sadly as they mounted their ponies and vanished down the old trail.

Lieut. Governor Gilman—1855.

The winter of '55 and '56 was thirty five degrees below zero two weeks at a time and forty degrees below was usual.

I have often seen the Red River carts ford the river here. They crossed at the foot of Sixth Street between where the two warehouses are now.

Mrs. Austin W. Farnsworth—1855.

We came to Dodge County in 1855. The first year we were hailed out and we had to live on rutabagas and wild tea. We got some game too, but we were some tired of our diet before things began to grow again. When that hailstorm came we were all at a quilting bee. There was an old lady, Mrs. Maxfield there, rubbing her hundred mark pretty close. She set in a corner and was not scared though the oxen broke away and run home and we had to hold the door to keep it from blowing in. We said, "Ain't you afraid?" She answered, "No, I'm not, if I do go out, I don't want to die howling."

The first time I worked out, when I was fourteen years old, I got 50c a week. There was lots to do for there were twin babies. I used to get awful homesick. I went home Saturdays and when I came over the hill where I could see our cabin, I could have put my arms around it and kissed it, I was that glad to see home.

Mr. Theodore Curtis—1855, Minneapolis.

When I was a little boy my father was building some scows down where the Washington Avenue bridge now is at the boat landing. There were five or six small sluiceways built up above the river leading from the platform where the lumber from the mills was piled, down to where these scows were. These sluices were used to float the lumber down to the scows. A platform was built out over the river in a very early day and was, I should say, three hundred feet wide and one thousand feet long. As the lumber came from the mills it was piled in huge piles along this platform. Each mill had its sluiceway but they were all side by side.

It was very popular to drive down on this platform and look at the falls, whose roaring was a magnet to draw all to see them.

We boys used to play under this platform jumping from one support to another and then finish up by running down the steps and cavorting joyously under the falls. I used to get the drinking water for the workmen from the springs that seeped out everywhere along near where my father worked. Once he sent me to get water quickly. I had a little dog with me and we unthinkingly stepped in the spring making the water roily. Childlike, I never thought of going to another but played around waiting for it to settle, then as usual took it on top of the sluiceways. It seemed father thought I had been gone an hour and acted accordingly. I shall always remember that whipping.

Mrs. Charles M. Godley—1856.

My father, Mr. Scrimgeour, came to Minneapolis in 1855 and built a small home between First and Second Avenues North on Fourth Street. When my mother arrived she cried when she saw where her home was to be and said to her husband, as he was cutting the hazel brush from around the house, "You told me I would not have to live in a wilderness if I came here."

Mr. Morgan lived across the street. He and my father decided to dig a well together and put it in the street so that both families could use it. My father said to Mr. Morgan, "Of course, there is a street surveyed here, but the town will never grow to it, so the well will be alright here."

Mr. Morgan was a great bookworm and not at all practical. If his horse got out and was put in with other strays, he could never tell it, but had to wait until everyone took theirs and then he would take what was left.

There was a big sand hole at the corner of Second Avenue South and Fourth Street where they had dug out sand. It was the great playground for all the children, for it was thought the town would never grow there and so it was a good place for a sand hole.

When I went to school I always followed an Indian trail that led from Hoag's Lake to the government mill. It was bordered by hazel brush and once in a while a scrub oak. I was much disturbed one night on my way home, to find men digging a hole through my beloved trail. I hoped they would be gone in the morning, but to my great disappointment they were not, for they were digging the excavation for the Nicollet House. My school was in an old store building at the falls and was taught by Oliver Gray.

Dr. Barnard lived on the corner by our house. He was Indian agent and very kind to the Indians. One night a number of them came in the rain. Mr. Barnard tried to get them to sleep in the house. All refused. One had a very bad cough so the doctor insisted on his coming in and gave him a room with a bed. Shortly after, they heard a terrible noise with an awful yell like a war-whoop. The Indian dashed down the stairs, out of the house and away. The slats in the bed were found broken and the bed was on the floor. Later, they found that he had started for bed from the furthest side of the room, run with full force and plunged in and through.

In 1857, when the panic came, all stores in Minneapolis failed and there was not a penny in circulation. Everything was paid by order.

There was a small farmhouse where the Andrews Hotel now stands. Fourth Street North, that led to it from our house, was full of stumps. We got a quart of milk every night at this place. They never milked until very late so it was dark. I used to go for it. My mother always gave me a six quart pail so that after I had stumbled along over those stumps, the bottom of the pail at least would be covered.

No one who was used to an eastern climate had any idea how to dress out here when they first came. I wore hoops and a low necked waist just as other little girls did. I can remember the discussion that took place before a little merino sack was made for me. I don't remember whether I was supposed to be showing the white feather if I surrendered to the climate and covered my poor little bare neck or whether I would be too out of style. I must have looked like a little picked chicken with goose flesh all over me. Once before this costume was added to, by the little sack, my mother sent me for a jug of vinegar down to Helen Street and Washington Avenue South. I had on the same little hoops and only one thickness of cotton underclothing under them. It must have been twenty degrees below zero. I thought I would perish before I got there, but childlike, never peeped. When I finally reached home, they had an awful time thawing me out. The vinegar was frozen solid in the jug.

A boardwalk six blocks long was built from Bridge Square to Bassett's Hall on First Street North. It was a regular sidewalk, not just two boards laid lengthwise and held by crosspieces as the other sidewalks were. Our dress parade always took place there. We would walk back and forth untiringly, passing everybody we knew and we knew everybody in town. Instead of taking a girl out driving or to the theatre, a young man would ask, "Won't you go walking on the boardwalk?"

Lucy Morgan used to go to school with us when we first came. She had long ringlets and always wore lownecked dresses, just as the rest of us did, but her white neck never had any gooseflesh on it and she was the only one who had curls.

We went to high school where the court house now stands. It was on a little hill, so we always said we were climbing the "Hill of Knowledge."

I can well remember the dazed look that came on my father's face when for the first time, he realized that there were horses in town that he did not know. The town had grown so that he could not keep pace with it.

Mr. Frank Slocum—1856.

When we drove from St. Paul to Cannon Falls in '56 we only saw one small piece of fence on the way. A man by the name of Baker at Rich Valley in Dakota County had this around his door yard. He had dug a trench and thrown up a ridge of dirt. On top of this he had two cross pieces and a rail on top. You call it a rail fence. We called it oftener "stake and rider." We followed the regular road from St. Paul to Dubuque.

The original Indian trail which was afterward the stage road, started at Red Wing and went through Cannon Falls, Staunton, Northfield, Dundas, Cannon City to Faribault.

My father had a store in Cannon Falls. I was only thirteen and small for my age but I used to serve. One day a big Indian came in when I was alone and asked for buckshot. They were large and it did not take many to weigh a pound. He picked a couple out and pretended to be examining them. I weighed the pound and when I saw he did not put them back, I took out two. You never saw an Indian laugh so hard in your life. You always had to be careful when weighing things for Indians, for if you got over the quantity and took some out they were always grouchy as they thought you were cheating them.

The farmers used to come through our town on their way to Hastings with their grain on their ox drawn wagons. They had a journey of two hundred miles from Owatonna to Hastings and back. They would go in companies and camp out on the way.

During the years of '56 and '57 many people could not write home as they had no money to pay postage. Our business was all in trade.

In 1854 a man whom we all knew who lived up above Mankato took an Indian canoe and paddled down the river to St. Paul. There he sold it for enough money to pay his fare back on the boat. He was a man of considerable conscience in his dealings with white men but when a man was only "an injun" it had not caught up with him yet. Now for the sequel: The man who bought it had it under the eaves of his house to catch rain water. During a storm his window was darkened. He looked up to see an Indian with his blanket held high to darken the window so he could see in. The white man went out. The savage said, "My canoe. Want him." The man would not give it up, but the Indian and his friends went to the authorities and he had to. They had traced it all that long way.

We bought an elevated oven cook stove in St. Paul and it was in use every day for fifty years. We brought Baker knock down chairs with us and they have been in constant use for fifty-eight years—have never been repaired and look as if they were good for one hundred years more.

We made coffee from potato chips, sliced very thin and browned in the oven. Not such bad coffee, either.

Mrs. T. B. Walker—Minneapolis.

I remember going to market in the morning and seeing a wagon with all the requisites for a home, drive up to a vacant lot. On the wagon were lumber, furniture and a wife and baby. What more could be needed! When I passed in the afternoon the rough house was up, the stove pipe through the window sent out a cheery smoke and the woman sang about her household tasks.

One morning I was at church in St. Anthony. The minister had just given out the text when the squeaking of the Red River carts was faintly heard. He hastily said, "To be discoursed on next Sunday," for nothing but this noise could be heard when they were passing.

Mrs. Virginia Jones—1856.

I lived in St. Peter in 1856. The Sioux Indians were having a scalp dance at Traverse. Their yelling could be plainly heard in St. Peter. All of that town went over to see them dance. They had a pole decorated with several scalps. These were stretched on hoops and painted red inside. The Indians danced round and round this pole, jumping stiff legged, screeching and gesticulating, while the tom-toms were pounded by the squaws. I was frightened and wanted to leave, but could not as I had been pushed near the front and the crowd was dense. Seeing my fear the Indians seized me by the hands and drew me into their circle, making me dance round and round the pole.

Some days later I started east to spend the summer with my mother. Distances were long in those days as the trip was made by steamboat and stage coach. I took one of the steamers which then ran regularly on the Minnesota river, sorrowfully parting from my husband as I did not expect to see him again until fall. That anguish was all wasted for we stuck on a sand bank just below town and my husband came over in a boat and lived on the steamer for nearly a week before we could get off the sandbar.

Mrs. Georgiana M. Way—1856.

We moved to Minnesota from Iowa. Came with a prairie schooner. The country was very wild. We settled on a farm five miles south of Blue Earth. We brought along a cow and a coop of chickens. The roads were awfully rough. We would milk the cow, put the milk in a can and the jarring that milk got as those oxen drew that wagon over the rough roads gave us good butter the next day. Our first shack was not a dugout, but the next thing to it. It was a log shed with sloping roof one way. We had two windows of glass so did not feel so much like pioneers.

The rattlesnakes were very thick. We used to watch them drink from the trough. They would lap the water with their tongues just as a dog does. Many a one I have cut in two with the ax. They always ran but I was slim in those days and could catch them.

We used prairie tea and it was good too. It grew on a little bush. For coffee we browned beets and corn meal. Corn meal coffee was fine. I'd like a cup this minute.

Once a family near us by the name of Bonetrigger lived for four days on cottonwood buds or wood browse as it was called.

We drove forty-five miles to Mankato to get our first baby clothes. When we got in our first crop of wheat, I used to stand in the door and watch it wave as the wind blew over it and think I had never seen anything so beautiful. Even the howling of the wolves around our cabin did not keep us awake at at night. We were too tired and too used to them. The years flew by. I had three children under five when my husband enlisted. I was willing, but oh, so sad! He had only three days to help us before joining his company. Our wood lot was near, so near I could hear the sound of his ax as he cut down all the wood he could and cut it into lengths for our winter fuel. You can imagine how the sound of that ax made me feel, although I was willing he should go. When he was gone, I used to put the children on the ox sled and bring a load of wood home. Pretty heavy work for a woman who had never seen an ox until she was married. I was brought up in New York City, but I did this work and didn't make any fuss about it, either. I did all kinds of farm work in those days for men's help wasn't to be had, they were all in the war.

When I needed flour, there was no man to take the wheat to mill. The only one who could, wanted to charge $1.00 a day and I did not have it, so I left my darlings with a neighbor, got him to hist the sacks aboard for me, for says I, "I'm not Dutchy enough to lift a sack of grain," and long before daylight I was beside those oxen on my way to the nearest grist mill, fifteen miles away, knitting all the way. It was tough work, but I got there. I engaged my lodging at the hotel and then went to the mill. There were a number there, but they were all men. The miller, Mr. Goodnow, said "It's take turns here, but I won't have it said that a 'soldier's widow' (as they called us) has to wait for men, so I'll grind yours first and you can start for home at sunup, so you can get home by dark; I want you to stay at our house tonight." After some demurring, for I wan't no hand to stay where I couldn't pay, I accepted his most kind invitation. In the morning, when he saw me start, after he had loaded my sacks of flour on for me, he said, "Get the man living this side of that big hill to put you down it." I said, "I came up alone, alright." He said, "Woman, you had grain then, you could have saved it if it fell off and your sacks broke, but now you have flour."

When my boy was three weeks old, I drove fourteen miles to a dance and took in every dance all night and wasn't sick afterward either. Of course, I took him along.

When I came to sell my oxen after my husband died in the army, no one wanted to give me a fair price for them, because I was a woman, but Mr. S. T. McKnight, who had a small general store in Blue Earth gave me what was right and paid me $2.50 for the yoke besides.

We had company one Sunday when we first came and all we had to eat was a batch of biscuits. They all said they was mighty good too and they never had a better meal.

We all raised our own tobacco. I remember once our Probate Judge came along and asked, "Have you any stalks I can chew?" It was hard to keep chickens for the country was so full of foxes. Seed potatoes brought $4.00 a bushel. We used to grate corn when it was in the dough grade and make bread from that. It was fine.

In 1856 and 1857 money was scarcer than teeth in a fly. We never saw a penny sometimes for a year at a time. Everything was trade.

Mrs. Duncan Kennedy—1856.

My father moved from Canada to Minnesota. He was urged to come by friends who had gone before and wrote back that there was a wonderful piece of land on a lake, but when we got there with an ox team after a two days trip from St. Paul, our goods on a lumber wagon—we thought it was a mudhole. We were used to the clear lakes of Canada and this one was full of wild rice. It was near Nicollet Village. The road we took from St. Paul went through Shakopee, Henderson and Le Seuer. They said it was made on an old Indian trail.

The turnips grew so enormous on our virgin soil that we could hardly believe they were turnips. They looked more like small pumpkins inverted in the ground.

The wild flowers were wonderful too. In the fall, the prairies were gay with the yellow and sad with the lavender bloom.

The first party we went to was a housewarming. We went about seven miles with the ox team. I thought I would die laughing when I saw the girls go to their dressing room. They went up a ladder on the outside. There were two fiddlers and we danced all the old dances. Supper was served on a work bench from victuals out of a wash tub. We didn't have hundred dollar dresses, but we did have red cheeks from the fine clear air.

One day when I was alone at my father's, an Indian with feathers in his headband and a painted face and breast came quickly into the house, making no noise in his moccasined feet. He drew his hand across his throat rapidly saying over and over, "Tetonka-te-tonka," at the same time trying to drag me out. I was terrified as I thought he was going to cut my throat. Fortunately my father happened to come in, and not fearing the Indian whom he knew to be friendly, went with him and found his best ox up to his neck in a slough. It seemed "Tetonka" meant big animal and he was trying to show us that a big animal was up to his neck in trouble.

Afterward, I married Mr. Duncan Kennedy and moved to Traverse. I papered and painted the first house we owned there until it was perfect. I did so love this, our first home, but my husband was a natural wanderer. One day he came home announcing that he had sold our pretty home. We moved into a two room log house on a section of land out near where my father lived. The house was built so that a corner stood in each quarter section and complied with the law that each owner of a quarter section should have a home on it. It was built by the four Hemmenway brothers and was always called "Connecticut" as they came from there.

My husband worked for Mr. Sibley and was gone much of the time buying furs. Then he carried mail from Traverse to Fort Lincoln. Once in a blizzard he came in all frozen up, but he had outdistanced his Indian guide—you couldn't freeze him to stay—he was too much alive. He once traveled the seventy-five miles from Traverse to St. Paul in one day. He just took the Indian trot and kept it up until he got there. He always took it on his travels. He could talk Sioux French and English with equal facility. Mr. Cowen once said when my husband passed, "There goes the most accomplished man in the State."

They used to tell this story about Mr. Cowen. He had cleared a man accused of theft. Afterward he said to him, "I have cleared you this time, but don't you ever do it again."

When the outbreak came, my husband was storekeeper at Yellow Medicine. A half breed came running and told him to fly for his life, as the Indians were killing all the whites. Mr. Kennedy could not believe this had come, though they knew how ugly the Indians were. After seeing the smoke from the burning houses, he got his young clerk, who had consumption, out; locked the door, threw the key in the river; then carried the clerk to the edge of the river and dropped him down the bank where the bushes concealed him, and then followed him. The Indians came almost instantly and pounded on the door he had just locked. He heard them say in Sioux "He has gone to the barn to harness the mules." While they hunted there, he fled for his life, keeping in the bushes and tall grass. All doubled up, as he was obliged to be, he carried the clerk until they came to the plundered warehouse, where a number of refugees were hiding. That night, he started for the fort, arriving there while it was still dark.

A call was made for a volunteer to go to St. Peter to acquaint them with the danger. My husband had a badly swollen ankle which he got while crawling to the fort. Nevertheless, he was the first volunteer. Major Randall said, "Take my horse; you can never get there without one," but Mr. Kennedy said, "If the Indians hear the horse they will know the difference between a shod horse and an Indian pony. I will go alone." Dr. Miller tried to make him take half the brandy there was in the fort, by saying grimly, "If you get through you will need it. If you don't we won't need it." He started just before dawn taking the Indian crawl. He had only gone a short distance when the mutilated body of a white man interposed. This was so nauseating that he threw away the lunch he had been given as he left the fort for he never expected to live to eat it. He passed so near an Indian camp that he was challenged, but he answered in Sioux in their gruff way and so satisfied them. When he came near Nicollet village he crawled up a little hill and peered over. He saw two Indians on one side and three on the other. He dropped back in the grass. He looked for his ammunition and it was gone. He had only two rounds in his gun. He said, "I thought if they have seen me there will be two dead Indians and one white man." When he came to what had been Nicollet Village, the camp fires that the Indians had left were still burning. He reached St. Peter and gave the alarm.

Major S. A. Buell—1856.

Major Buell eighty-seven years old, whose memory is remarkable says:—I came to Minnesota in 1856, settling in St. Peter and practicing law. Early in 1856, Mr. Cowen, one of the brightest lawyers and finest men Minnesota has ever known, came to Traverse de Sioux with his family, to open a store. He soon became a warm friend of Judge Flandrau who urged him to study law with him. He was made County Auditor and in his spare time studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was much beloved by all, a sparkling talker—his word as good as his bond. He had never been well and as time went on, gradually grew weaker. His house was a little more than a block from his office, but it soon became more than he could do to walk that distance. On the common, half way between the two, was the liberty pole. He had a seat made at this point and rested there. When he was no more, the eyes of his old friends would grow misty when they passed this hallowed spot.

Soon after I made the acquaintance of Judge Flandrau at Traverse de Sioux there was a young man visiting him from Washington. The judge took us both on our first prairie chicken hunt. We had no dog. On the upper prairie back of the town going along a road, we disturbed an old prairie hen that attempted to draw us away from her young. The Judge had admonished us that we must never kill on the ground, always on the wing, to be sportsmen. This hen scudded and skipped along a rod or two at a time. Finally, he said, "Fellows, I can't stand this, I must shoot that chicken, you won't tell if I do?" We pledged our word. He fired and missed. After we got home, we told everybody for we said we had only promised not to tell if he shot it. We never enjoyed this joke half as much as he did. We always joked him about making tatting.

Flandrau, dearest of men, true as steel, decided in character, but forgiving in heart, a warm friend—was one of the greatest men our state has ever known. He was a tall, dark man, and very active. He had often told me how he and Garvie, clerk for the Indian Trader at Traverse de Sioux used to walk the seventy-five miles to St. Paul in two days. He once walked 150 miles in three days to the land office at Winona.

In 1858 I built my own home in St. Peter and made my garden. The year before I had gone into a clump of plums when they were fruiting and tied white rags to the best. I had moved them into my garden and they were doing fine. One day I took off my vest as I was working and hung it on one of these trees. Suddenly my attention was attracted to the sky and I never saw a more beautiful sight. A horde of grasshoppers were gently alighting. Nothing more beautiful than the shimmering of the sun on their thousands of gold-bronze wings could be imagined. They took everything and then passed on leaving gardens looking as if they had been burned. When I went for that vest, they had eaten it all but the seams. It was the funniest sight—just a skeleton. Not a smitch of white rags left on the trees, either.

We people who lived in Minnesota thought there was only one kind of wild grape. A man by the name of Seeger who had been in Russia and was connected with a wine house in Moscow came to St. Peter. In the Minnesota valley were immense wild grape vines covering the tallest trees. Here he found five distinct varieties of grapes and said one kind would make a fine red wine—Burgundy. He told me how to make this wine from grapes growing wild on my own farm. I made about ten gallons. When it was a year old it was very heady.

Edward Eggleston belonged to a debating society in St. Peter and was on the successful side in a debate, "Has Love a Language not Articulate." He was a Methodist preacher here, but later had charge of a Congregational church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He said when the Methodists abolished itinerancy and mission work, he thought the most useful part of the church was gone.

In my boyhood days at home, a little boy in the neighborhood had the misfortune to drink some lye. Fortunately the doctor was near and using a stomach pump saved his life for the time being. However, the child's stomach could retain nothing. In a short time he was a skeleton indeed. One day his father who carried him around constantly, happened to be by the cow when she was being milked. The child asked for some milk and was given it directly from the cow. Great was the father's astonishment when the little lad retained it. Milk given him two minutes after milking was at once ejected. The father had a pen made just outside his son's bedroom window and the cow kept there, and here many times a day the cow was milked and the milk instantly given. After several months the child was restored to health.

One night in Minnesota just as I was going to sit down to supper my wife told me that a man who had just passed told her that a child that lived ten miles back in the country had drank lye some days before and was expected to die, as he could retain nothing. Without waiting to eat my supper I jumped on a horse and made the trip there in record speed. This child followed the same formula and was saved.

It was easy for youngsters to get at lye for every house had a leach for the making of soap. This lye was made by letting water drip over hard wood ashes in a barrel. A cupful would be taken out and its strength tried. If it would hold up an egg it was prime for soap. It was clear as tea, if it was left in a cup it was easily mistaken for it.

During the days when New Ulm was expecting a second Indian attack and the town was full of refugees, I was ordered to destroy some buildings on the outskirts. I started with a hotel and opened all the straw ticks that had been used for refugees beds and threw the contents all around. I believed all the people had left but thought I would go in every room and make sure of this. In one room I heard a queer noise and going to the bed found a small baby that had been tomahawked. Its little head was dented in two places. I took it with me and went out. Its grandmother who owned the place came running frantically and took it from me. Its father and mother had been killed and it had been brought in by the refugees. In the hasty departure it had been overlooked, each one supposing the other had taken it.

On the 25th day of August after the massacre of the 22nd, around New Ulm and in that vicinity, a little boy who had saved himself from the Indians by secreting himself in the grass of the swamps, came into New Ulm and said there were twelve people alive and a number of bodies to be buried sixteen miles from New Ulm. He said he had seen a man who was driving a horse and wagon, shot and scalped, but could not tell what had become of the woman and baby that were riding with him. The troops marched to the place, having the boy as a guide, buried a number of bodies and brought the twelve survivors to New Ulm. They could find no trace of the woman and baby, although the father's body was found and buried.

Later the troops marched to Mankato, stopping at an empty farm house sixteen miles from New Ulm for the night. This farm house was on a small prairie surrounded by higher land. The sentries were ordered to watch the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians might ambush the troops. It was a night when the rain fell spasmodically alternating with moonlight. Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on the horizon and watched it disappear in the grass, then appear and crawl along a fence in his direction. He called, "Who goes there?" at the same time cocking his gun ready to shoot. At the answer, "Winnebago" he fired. At that moment there had been a little shower and his gun refused to fire. Later he found that the cap had become attached to the hammer and the powder must have been dampened by the shower. He dashed for the figure to find a white woman and baby and was horrified to think that if the gun had fired she would have been blown to pieces. This was woman for whom they had looked in the swamp thirty miles away. He aroused the troops, who took her in. She held out her baby whose hand was partly shot away, but said nothing about herself. Later they found that she had been shot through the back and the wound had had no dressing except when she laid down in the streams. Her greatest fear had been that the baby would cry, but during all those eight awful days and nights while she lay hidden in the swamps or crawled on her way at night, this baby had never made a sound. As soon as it became warm and was thoroughly fed, it cried incessantly for twelve hours. The mother said that for three days the Indians had pursued her with dogs, but she had managed to evade them by criss-crossing through the streams. She had said "Winnebago" as she thought she was approaching a Sioux camp and they were supposed to be friendly to the Winnebagoes. She would then have welcomed captivity as it seemed that the white people had left the earth and death was inevitable.

In May 1857, eggs were selling in St. Peter for 6c a dozen, butter at 5c per pound and full grown chickens at 75c a dozen as game was so plentiful.

Mrs. Jane Sutherland—1856.[3]

[Footnote 3: A sister of Mrs. Duncan Kennedy.]

Mrs. Cowan came to Traverse in 1856 when it was almost nothing. At her home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to continue them here. She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town, no matter what their situation in life, to come. My maiden name was Jane Donnelly and she asked me to come and "Help pass things"—"assist"—as you call it now. She had tea and biscuits. Flour and tea were both scarce so she warned me not to give anyone more than one biscuit or one cup of tea. This we rigidly adhered to. She had the only piano in our part of the country and we all took great pride in it. I could sing and play a little in the bosom of my family, but was most easily embarrassed. Judge Flandrau was our great man. He dropped in, bringing his tatting shuttle, and sat and made tatting as well as any woman. Mrs. Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his mind and keep it off from weighty matters. Mrs. Cowan insisted that I should sing and play while he was there. I resisted as long as I could, then was led still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin piping, all the while covered with confusion. When I arose we both looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes—just kept right on tatting.

Finally Mrs. Cowan asked, "Don't you like music, Judge?" He looked up with a far-away look in his eyes and said, "Yes, martial music in the field." Then we knew he had never heard a thing, for, as Mrs. Cowan explained to me as we were making a fresh pot of tea, "He is the kindest man in the world. If he had noticed you were singing he would have said something nice."

Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out there to live. The first time I came into town was on a load of wild hay drawn by my father's oxen. The man I later married saw me, a girl of sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then. A few days later he drove past our farm and saw me out in the corn field trying to scare away the blackbirds. I was beating on a pan and whooping and hollering. That finished him for he said he could see I had all the requisites for a good wife, "Industry and noise."

During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the war, we were repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety. This we were loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock. We often saw the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sometimes heard shots. One day I was with my children at a neighbor's when a new alarm was given by a courier. Without waiting for us to get any clothes or tell my parents, the farmer hitched up and we fled to Fort Snelling. It was two months before I ever saw my home or parents.

There were three grasshopper years when we never got any crops at Middle Lake. When I say that, I mean just what I say; we got nothing. The first time they came the crops were looking wonderful. Wheat fields so green and corn way up. The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously and this was the first year for ours. I went out to the garden about ten o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans, onions and lettuce that were simply luscious. The tomatoes were setting and everything was as fine as could be. I felt so proud of it. The men came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country and the crops. While we were talking it gradually darkened. The men hastily went out to see if anything should be brought in before the storm. What a sight when we opened the door! The sky darkened by myriads of grasshoppers and no green thing could be seen. Everything in that lovely garden was gone. By the middle of the afternoon, when they left, the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots eaten. Not a leaf on the trees. My husband's coat lying outside was riddled. Back of the house where they had flown against it they were piled up four feet high. They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to hatch and ruin the crops the following year. And enough the second for the third, though we did everything. The last year the county offered a bounty of three cents a bushel for them and my little boy, four years old, caught enough with a net to buy himself a two dollar pair of boots. You can perhaps get an idea how thick they were from that. The rail fences used to look as if they were enormous and bronzed. The grasshoppers absolutely covered them.

We lived only a short distance from my father's farm. One afternoon I saw smoke coming from there and could hear explosions like that of cannon. I caught our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their home. We trusted the Indians and yet we did not. They were so different from the whites. I thought they had attacked the family. I don't know how I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went. When I got there I saw my father and mother tearing a board fence down. A swamp on the place was afire and the fire coming through that long swamp grass very rapidly. The swamp had a number of large willows and when the fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon. I don't know why, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of similar experiences. I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the fence.

Governor Swift had paid me $5.00 to make him a buffalo coat. I had put it all into "nigger blue" calico and had the dress on. When we went into the house mother said, "What a shame you have spoiled your new dress." I could see nothing wrong, but in the back there was a hole over twelve inches square burned out.

Another time my husband was a short distance from the house putting up wild hay. We had several fine stacks of it near the house in the stubble. I happened to glance out and saw our neighbor's stacks burning and the fire coming through the stubble for ours. I grabbed a blanket, wet it soaking and dragging that and a great pail of water, made for the stacks. I run that wet blanket around the stacks as fast as I could several times. My husband came driving like mad with half a load of hay on the rack and grabbed me but as the stubble was short that sopping saved the stacks.

We had a German hired man that we paid $30 a month for six months. Crops were plentiful and we hoped for a good price. No such good luck. Wheat was 25c a bushel and oats 12-1/2. He hauled grain to market with our ox team to pay himself and was nearly all winter getting his money. That was before the war. We boarded him for nothing while he was doing it. How little those who enjoy this state now think what is cost the makers of it!

Mrs. Mary Robinson—1856.

We came to St. Anthony in 1856. Butter was 12-1/2c a pound; potatoes 15c a bushel and turnips, 10c. I have never seen finer vegetables. We made our mince pies of potatoes soaked in vinegar instead of apples.

One of our neighbors was noted for her molasses sponge cake. If asked for the recipe, she would give it as follows: "I take some molasses and saleratus and flour and shortening, and some milk. How much? Oh, a middling good sized piece, and enough milk to make it the right thickness to bake good." Needless to say, she continued to be the only molasses sponge cake maker.

Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder—1856.

Mr. Snyder and Mr. Pettit used to batch it in a cabin in Glencoe before our marriage. In '56 we decided to move to Glencoe and live in this place. We, together with Mr. Cook and Mr. McFarland were forty-eight hours going the sixty miles. We stayed the first night at Carver and the next night got to "Eight Mile Dutchman's." When we came to the cabin we found the walls and ceiling covered with heavy cotton sheeting. My mother had woven me a Gerton rag carpet which we had with us. The stripes instead of running across, ran lengthwise. There was a wide stripe of black and then many gaily colored stripes. When it was down on the floor, it made everything cheerful. We had bought some furniture too in Minneapolis so everything looked homelike. Later, six of us neighbor women were invited into the country to spend the day. While we were gone some of the neighbors said, "The mosquitoes must be awful at the Snider's today—they have such a smudge." A little later, they saw the house was in flames. In this fire, we lost money and notes together with all our possessions. These notes were never paid, as we had no record so we were left poor indeed. We were able to get boards for the sides of our new house, but lived in it six weeks without a roof, doors or windows. We had a few boards over the bed. There was only one hard rain in all that time but the mosquitoes were awful. During this time, we lived on King Phillip's corn, a large yellow kind. We pounded it in a bag and made it into cakes and coffee. We had nothing to eat on the cakes nor in the coffee and yet we were happy. My husband always kept his gun by the bed during this time. One morning we awoke to see two prairie chickens preening their feathers on the top of our house wall. Father fired and killed both, one falling inside and the other outside.

Mrs. Colonel Stevens was our nearest neighbor. We just took a little Indian trail to her house.

We had wild plums and little wild cherries with stems just like tame cherries, on our farm. They helped out tremendously as they with cranberries were our only fruit.

One morning twelve big braves came into my kitchen when I was getting breakfast. They said nothing to me, just talked and laughed among themselves; took out pipes and all smoked. They did not ask for anything to eat. Finally they went away without trouble.

Indian Charlie, afterwards hung at Mankato, was often at the house and became a great nuisance. He would follow me all over the house. I would say, "Go sit down Charlie," at the same time looking at him determinedly. He would stand and look and then go. He once found my husband's gun and pointed it at me, but I said firmly, stamping my foot, "Put it down Charlie," and very reluctantly he finally did. Then, I took it until he left.

My husband enlisted, so in 1862 we moved to Fort Ridgely and lived in one room. One day three squaws, one of whom was old Betts, came in to sell moccasins. I asked her to make some for my baby and showed her a piece of pork and some sugar I would give her for it. She brought them later. We had eaten that piece of pork and I got another piece which was larger but not the same, of course. When she saw it as not the same, she said, "Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey squaw," and was very angry. I then gave her the pork and two bowls of sugar instead of one and she went away. Later I saw her in the next room where another family lived and said, "Aunt Betts called me, Cheatey Squaw, Cheatey Squaw." Quick as a flash she drew a long wicked looking knife from her belt and ran for me and it was only by fleeing and locking my own door that I escaped. She was never again allowed on the reservation. Later in the year, before the massacre, I went home to Pennsylvania.

When we built on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Tenth Street, we could plainly hear the roar of St. Anthony Falls. I used to follow an Indian trail part of the way down town.

Mrs. Helen Horton—1856, Minneapolis.

When I came, things were pretty lonesome looking here. I found the young people just as gay as they could be anywhere, however. The first party I attended was a cotillion. I wore a black silk skirt, eighteen feet around the bottom, with three flounces, over hoops too. A black velvet basque pointed front and back, and cut very short on the sides gave a great deal of style to the costume. My hair was brought low in front and puffed over horsehair cushions at the sides. It stuck out five inches from the sides of my head. We danced square dances mostly. We took ten regular dancing steps forward and ten back and floated along just like a thistledown—no clumping around like they do now. Just at this time, I had a plaid silk too. It was green and brown broken plaid. The blocks were nine inches across.

One evening we were to have a sociable. It was great fun playing games and singing. They wanted me to make a cake. It was in the spring months before the boats began to run and after the teams that brought supplies had stopped. It was always a scarce time. I wanted some white sugar to make a white cake as I knew a friend who was to make a pork and dried apple cake, a dark cake, so I wanted the opposite kind. We went everywhere but could find no sugar. I was so disappointed. Finally a friend took his horse and cutter and in one of the houses we were able to find a little. My cake was delicious. Did you ever make a pork apple pie? You cut the pork so thin you can almost see through it. Cover the bottom of a pie tin with it, then cut the apples up on top of this. Put two thin crusts one on top of the other over this, then when cooked, turn upside down in a dish and serve with hard sauce. This recipe is over a hundred years old but nothing can beat it.

The first home we owned ourselves was at the corner of Ninth Street and Nicollet Avenue. There was only one house in sight, that of Mr. Welles. Our whole house was built from the proceeds of land warrants that my husband had bought.

My father had a store at the corner of Helen St., and Washington Avenue. To reach it from our home at Fourth Street and Second Avenue North, we followed an Indian trail. There was generally a big cow with a bell to turn out for somewhere on it.

Mrs. Mary Staring Smith—1856.

When we first came to live at Eden Prairie I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as that flowering prairie. In the morning we could hear the clear call of the prairie chickens. I used to love to hear it. There were great flocks of them and millions of passenger pigeons. Their call of "pigie! pigie!" was very companionable on that lonely prairie. Sometimes when they were flying to roost they would darken the sun, there were such numbers of them. Geese and ducks were very numerous, too. Black birds were so thick they were a menace to the growing crops. I used to shoot them when I was twelve years old.

Once my father and uncle went deer hunting. They got into some poisonous wild thing, perhaps poison ivy. My uncle's face was awful and father nearly lost his sight. He was almost blind for seven years but finally Dr. Daniels of St. Peter cured him.

Once during war time we could get no one to help us harvest. I cut one hundred acres strapped to the seat as I was too small to stay there any other way.

We had a cow named Sarah. A lovely, gentle creature. Mr. Anderson brought her up on the boat. My dog was an imported English setter. These and an old pig were my only playmates. I used to love to dress my dog up but when I found my old pig would let me tie my sunbonnet on her I much preferred her. She looked so comical with that bonnet on lying out at full length and grunting little comfortable grunts when I would scratch her with a stick.

I never saw such a sad expression in the eye of any human being as I saw in "Otherdays" the Sioux friend of the whites. It seemed as if he could look ahead and see what was to be the fate of his people. Yes, I have seen that expression once since. After the massacre when the Indians were brought to Fort Snelling I saw a young squaw, a beauty, standing in the door of her tepee with just that same look. It used to bring the tears to my eyes to think of her.

There used to be a stone very sacred to the Indians on Alexander Gould's place near us. It was red sandstone and set down in a hollow that they had dug out. The Sioux owned it and never passed on the trail that led by it without squatting in a circle facing it, smoking their pipes. I have often stood near and watched them. I never heard them say a word. They always left tobacco, beads and pipes on it. The Indian trails could be seen worn deep like cattle paths.

At the time of the Indian outbreak the refugees came all day long on their way to the fort. Such a sad procession of hopeless, terrified women and children. Many were wounded and had seen their dear ones slain as they fled to the corn fields or tall grass of the prairies. I can never forget the expression of some of those poor creatures.

Mrs. Mary Massolt—1856.

I first lived at Taylor's Falls. I was only fourteen and spoke little English as I had just come from France. Large bands of Indians used to camp near us. They never molested anything. I took a great fancy to them and used to spend hours in their camps. They were always so kind and tried so hard to please me. When the braves were dressed up they always painted their faces and the more they were dressed the more hideous they made themselves. I would often stick feathers in their head bands, which pleased them very much.

The storms were so terrible. We had never seen anything like them. One crash after another and the lightning constant. Once I was sitting by a little stove when the lightning came down the chimney. It knocked me one way off the bench and moved the stove several feet without turning it over.

Mrs. Anna Todd—1856.

We came to St. Anthony in '56 and lived in one of the Hudson Bay houses on University Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. They were in a very bad state of repair and had no well or any conveniences of any kind. The chimneys would not draw and that in the kitchen was so bad that Mr. Todd took out a pane of glass and ran the stovepipe through that. Everybody had a water barrel by the fence which was filled with river water by contract and in the winter they used melted snow and ice. Mr. Todd built the first piers for the booms in the river. The hauling was all done by team on the ice. The contract called for the completion of these piers by April 15. The work took much more time than they had figured on and Mr. Todd realized if the ice did not hold until the last day allowed, he was a ruined man. There were many anxious days in the "little fur house" as it was called, but the ice held and the money for the contract was at once forthcoming. I remember those winters as much colder and longer than they now are. They began in October and lasted until May.

When we were coming from St. Paul to St. Anthony, just as we came to the highest point, I looked all around and said "This is the most beautiful country I have ever seen."

Where Mrs. Richard Chute lived in Minneapolis, the view was wonderfully beautiful. Near there, was a house with the front door on the back side so that the view could be seen better. Times were very, very hard in '57 and '58. We never saw any money and to our Yankee minds this was the worst part of our new life. A friend had been staying with us for months sharing what we had. One day he said to my husband, "I'm here and I'm stranded, I can see no way to pay you anything, but I can give you an old mare which I have up in the country." He finally induced Mr. Todd to take her and almost immediately, we had a chance to swap her for an Indian pony. A short time after, there was a call for ponies at the fort and the pony was sold to the Government for $50.00 in gold. This seemed like $1,000.00 would now.

The first time I saw an apple in Minnesota was in '58. A big spaniel had come to us, probably lost by some party of homeseekers. After having him a short time, we became very tired of him. One of the teamsters was going to St. Paul, so we told him to take the dog and lose him. Better than that, he swapped him for a barrel of apples with a man who had brought them up the river as a speculation. The new owner was to take the dog back down the river that day, but that dog was back almost as soon as the teamster was. We used to joke and say we lived on that dog all winter.

The early settlers brought slips of all kinds of houseplants which they shared with all. The windows were gay with fuchias, geraniums, roses, etc. Most everyone had a heliotrope too. All started slips under an inverted tumbler to be ready for newcomers.

Mr. Edwin Clarke—1856.

On April 12, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, two days prior to his assassination, signed my commission as United States Indian Agent for the Chippewas of the Mississippi, Pillager and Lake Winnebagosish bands, and the Indians of Red Lake and Pembina.

The Mississippi Bands, numbering about two thousand five hundred, were principally located around Mille Lac, Gull and Sandy Lakes; the Pillager and Winnebagosish bands, about two thousand, around Leach, Winnebagosish, Cass and Ottertail Lakes; the Red Lake Bands, numbering about fifteen hundred, were located about Red Lake and the Pembina Bands about one thousand at Pembina and Turtle Mountain, Dakota.

At that time there were no white settlers in Minnesota north of Crow Wing, Long Prairie and Ottertail Lake.

The Chippewa Indians were not migratory in their habits, living in their birch-bark covered wigwams around the lakes, from which the fish and wild rice furnished a goodly portion of their sustenance and where they were convenient to wood and water. The hunting grounds, hundreds of miles in extent, covering nearly one-half of the State, furnished moose, deer and bear meat and the woods were full of rabbits, partridges, ducks, wild geese and other small game. The Indians exchanged the furs gathered each year, amounting to many thousand dollars in value, with traders for traps, guns, clothing and other goods. Some of the Indians raised good crops of corn and vegetables and they also made several thousand pounds of maple sugar annually. They also gathered large amounts of cranberries, blueberries and other wild fruit.

The Chippewa Indians had very few ponies, having no use for them, as it was more convenient to use their birch bark canoes in traveling about the lakes and rivers. At that time the Chippewas were capable of making good living without the Government annuities, which consisted of a cash payment to each man, woman and child of from $5.00 to $10.00 and about an equal amount in value of flour, pork, tobacco, blankets, shawls, linsey-woolsy, flannels, calico, gilling twine for fish nets, thread, etc.

An Indian in full dress wore leggings, moccasins and shirt, all made by the women from tanned deer skins, and trimmed with beads, over which he threw his blanket, and with his gun over his arm and his long hair braided and hanging down, and face streaked with paint, he presented quite an imposing appearance. The young men occasionally supplemented the above with a neat black frock coat.

The Indians during the time I was agent were friendly and it was only upon a few occasions when whiskey had been smuggled in by some unprincipled persons, that they had any quarrels among themselves.

The late Bishops Whipple and Knickerbocker were my traveling companions at different times thru the Indian country, as were General Mitchell of St. Cloud, Daniel Sinclair of Winona, Rev. F. A. Noble of Minneapolis, Rev. Stewart of Sauk Center, Mr. Ferris of Philadelphia, Mr. Bartling of Louisville, Doctors Barnard and Kennedy and others. The late Ennegahbow (Rev. John Johnson) was appointed by me as farmer at Mille Lac upon the request of Shawboshkung, the head chief.

Ma-dosa-go-onwind was head chief of the Red Lake Indians and Hole-in-the-day head chief of the Mississippi bands at the time I was agent.

Captain Isaac Moulton—1857, Minneapolis.

The middle of December 1857, it began to rain and rained for three days as if the heavens had opened. The river was frozen and the sleighing had been fine. After this rain there was a foot of water on the ice. I was on my way to Fond du Lac, Wis. to get insurance on my store that had burned. You can imagine what the roads leading from St. Paul to Hastings were. It took us a whole day to make that twenty mile trip, four stage loads of us.

I have often thought you dwellers in the Twin Cities nowadays give little thought to the days when the stage coach was the essence of elegance in travel. The four or six horses would start off with a flourish. The music of the horn I have always thought most stirring. The two rival companies vied with each other in stage effect. If one driver had an especial flourish, the other tried to surpass him, and so it went on. No automobile, no matter how high powered, can hold a candle to those stage coaches in picturesque effect, for those horses were alive.

On this trip, I hired a man with two yearling steers to take my trunk full of papers from the Zumbro River that we had crossed in a skiff, as the bridge was out, to Minnieski where we could again take the stage. Those steers ran and so did we eight men who were following them in water up to our knees. We reached Minnieski about as fagged as any men could be.

Mr. George A. Brackett—1857, Minneapolis.

Prior to the Indian outbreak, I had charge of the feeding of the troops, comprising Stone's Division at Poolville, Md., with beef and other supplies. In this Division were the First Minnesota, several New York (including the celebrated Tammany Regulars) and Pennsylvania troops. I continued in that service until the Sioux outbreak, when Franklin Steele and myself were requested by General Sibley to go to Fort Ridgely and aid in the commissary department, General Sibley being a brother-in-law of Franklin Steele. I remained in this position until the close of the Sibley campaign, other St. Paul and Minneapolis men being interested with me in the furnishing of supplies.

Just after the battle of Birch Coolie, when General Sibley had assembled at Fort Ridgely a large force to go up the Minnesota River against the Indians, he sent Franklin Steele and myself to St. Peter to gather up supplies for his command. We started in a spring wagon with two good horses. A number of refugees from the fort went with us in Burbank's stages and other conveyances. At that time Burbank was running a line of stages from St. Paul to Fort Ridgely, stopping at intervening points. Allen, the manager of the lines, was in Fort Ridgely. A few miles out the cry was raised, "The Indians are in sight." Immediately the whole party halted. Allen went over the bluff far enough to see down to the bottoms of the river. Soon he returned very much frightened saying, "The valley is full of Indians." This caused such a fright that notwithstanding our protest, the whole party returned pell-mell to Fort Ridgely, except Steele and myself. The party was so panic stricken that Allen was nearly left. He had to jump on behind. We determined to go on. A mile or so further on, we saw a man crawling through the grass. I said to Steele, "There's your Indian," and drove up to him. It proved to be a German who, in broken English said, "The Indians have stolen my cattle and I am hunting for them." Driving a few miles further, we came to what had been Lafayette, burned by the Indians days before. Some of the houses were still smoking.

We stopped at the ruins of a house belonging to a half breed, Mrs. Bush, and killed and ate two chickens with our other lunch. When the refugees got back to the fort they reported to General Sibley that we had gone on. He said we were reckless and sent George McLeod, Captain of the Mounted Rangers, with fifty men to overtake us and bring us back. However, we drove on so fast that McLeod got to St. Peter about the time we did. There we bought out a bakery and set them to baking hard tack, and purchased cattle and made other arrangements for the feeding of the troops.

One day, before this, while I was at General Sibley's camp talking to him, I saw someone coming toward the camp. I called General Sibley's attention to it and he sent an officer to investigate. It proved to be a friendly Indian who had stolen a widow and her children from the hostiles and brought them to the fort. Her husband had been killed by the Indians.

Mrs. C. A. Smith—1858.

In the spring of 1858 we came to St. Paul. We took a boat which plied regularly between St. Paul and Minnesota river points, to Chaska. There we left the boat and walked to Watertown where our new home was to be. My father carried $2,000 in gold in inside pockets of a knitted jacket which my mother had made him. With this money we paid for two quarter sections of improved land and the whole family began to farm. We lived just as we had in Sweden, as we were in a Swedish settlement. We were Lutheran, so there were no parties. Going to church was our only amusement.

The prairies were perfectly lovely with their wild flower setting. There had been a fire two years before and great thickets of blackberry vines had grown up. I never saw such blackberries. They were as large as the first joint of a man's thumb. The flavor was wild and spicy. I never ate anything so good. Cranberries by the hundreds of bushels grew in the swamps. We could not begin to pick all the hazel nuts. We used to eat turnips as we would an apple. They were so sweet, they were as good. We made sun-dials on a clear spot of ground and could tell time perfectly from them.

We children made dolls out of grass and flowers. I have never seen prettier ones. We kept sheep and mother spun and wove blankets and sheets. We had bolts and bolts of cloth that we made and brought with us from Sweden. Here, we raised flax and prepared it for spinning, making our own towels.

Nothing could be cozier than our cabin Christmas eve. We had brought solid silver knives, forks and spoons. These hung from racks. Quantities of copper and brass utensils burnished until they were like mirrors hung in rows. In Sweden mother had woven curtains and bed coverings of red, white and blue linen and these were always used on holidays. How glad we were they were the national colors here! We covered a hoop with gay colored paper and set little wooden candle holders that my father had made all around it. This was suspended from the ceiling, all aglow with dips. Then, as a last touch to the decorations, we filled our brass candle sticks with real candles and set them in the windows as a greeting to those living across the lake. A sheaf for the birds and all was done.

The vegetables grew tremendous. We used to take turns in shelling corn and grinding it, for bread, in a coffee mill. Mother would say, "If you are hungry and want something to eat of course you will grind." We made maple sugar and fine granulated sugar from that.

My sisters used to walk from Watertown to Minneapolis in one day, thirty-seven miles, following an Indian trail and then were ready for a good time in the evening. How many girls of today could walk that many blocks?

The lake was full of the biggest fish imaginable. We used to catch them, and dry and smoke them. They made a nice variety in our somewhat same diet. We used to fish through the ice, too.

Major C. B. Heffelfinger—1858, Minneapolis.

Well I remember the St. Charles hotel as it was when I first boarded there. The beds were upstairs in one room in two rows. Stages were bringing loads of passengers to Minneapolis. They could find no accommodations so no unoccupied bed was safe for its owners. Although my roommate and I were supposed to have lodging and were paying for it, the only safe way was for one to go to bed early before the stage came in and repel all invaders until the other arrived. If the sentry slept at his post the returning scout was often obliged to sleep on the floor, or snuggle comfortably against a stranger sandwiched between them.

The strangers who arrived had made a stage coach journey from La Crosse without change and spent two nights sitting erect in the coaches, and were so tired that they went to bed with the chickens. On lucky nights for us they were detained by some accident and got in when the chickens were rising.

Nothing was ever stolen and many firm friendships were thus cemented. Our pocketbooks were light, but our hearts were also. It was a combination hard to beat.

1857 was the most stringent year in money that Minnesota has ever known. There was absolutely no money and every store in the territory failed. Everything was paid by order. Captain Isaac Moulton, now of La Crosse, had a dry goods store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold. The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My God woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 in money."

Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick—1858, Minneapolis.

When I married, my husband had been batching it. In the winter his diet was pork! pork! pork! Mrs. Birmingham, who helped him sometimes, said she bet if all the hogs he ate were stood end to end, they would reach to Fort Snelling.

We had a flock of wild geese that we crossed with tame ones. They were the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I would go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk. When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as soon as they saw the horse. They were handsome birds.

I used to go to my sister's. She had a boarding house on the East Side. Her boarders were mill workers and "lathers." That is what we used to call the river drivers. They always had a pike pole in their hand. It looked like a lath from a distance, so they got the name of "lathers" from this.



Mrs. Margaret Hern—1858.

My husband enlisted in the Fall of 1861. It was not a very easy thing for him to do, for our farm was not yet very productive, our three children were very young, one a tiny baby, and we had no ready money. However, he felt that his country called him and when the recruiting officer told him that all soldier's families would be welcome at the post and that we could go there with him, he rented our farm to George Wells and went on to Fort Ridgeley. We lived forty miles from there on the Crow River, near Hutchinson.

We found that the officer had lied. We were not expected or wanted at the fort. We finally made arrangements to stay by promising to board the blacksmith in his quarters. His name was John Resoft. His rations and my husband's supported us all. Mr. Hern was very handy about the house, as he was a Maine Yankee and daily helped me with the work.

There was a great sameness about the life as there were only about a hundred men stationed at the fort. Very few of them had their families with them. The only women were Mrs. Mueller, wife of the doctor, Mrs. Sweet, wife of the chaplain and their three children, Mrs. Edson, the Captain's wife; Sargeant Jones' wife and three children; Mrs. Dunn and their three children; Mrs. Snider and three children; Mrs. Mickel and three children; Mrs. Randall, the sutler's wife, and myself and our three children.

The winter passed monotonously. We used to have some fun with the squaws. Once I was writing home to mother. I wanted a little lock of Indian hair to show her how coarse an Indian's hair was. Old Betts happened to come in just then, so I took my scissors and was going to cut a little bit of her "raving locks." When she saw what I was going to do she jumped away screaming and acting like a crazy woman. She never came near that house again, but in the spring after my husband had gone to the front and Mrs. Dunn and I had joined forces and gone to living in another cabin, she stuck her head in our window to beg. I jumped and grabbed a looking glass and held it before her to let her see how she really did look. She was a sight. She had an old black silk hood I had given her and her hair was straggling all over. When she saw the reflection she was so mad she tried to break the glass.

Three weeks before the outbreak, the Sioux, our Indians had a war dance back of the fort and claimed it was against the Chippewas. At first we believed them, but when the half breed, Indian Charlie, came in to borrow cooking utensils, he sat down and hung his head, as if under the influence of liquor. He kept saying "Too bad! Too bad!"

Mrs. Dunn became suspicious and knowing I knew him well, as he had often stopped at our cabin, said "Ask him what is too bad." He said, "Injins kill white folks. Me like white folks. Me like Injins. Me have to fight. Me don't want to." He seemed to feel broken-hearted. I did not believe him and thought him drunk, but Mrs. Dunn said "You go over and tell Sergeant Jones what he said." I did. Sergeant Jones said, "What nonsense! They are only going to have their war dance. All of you white people go over and see that dance."

We all went. The soldiers were all there. The Indians had two tom-toms, and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously, jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the day learned that there was a soldier for everyone of us to snatch us away if it was necessary to fire on the Indians.

On Monday morning, August eighteenth, 1862, at about ten o'clock, we saw a great cloud of dust arising. Soon it resolved itself into teams, people on horseback and on foot coming pell mell for the fort. They said that Redwood Agency, twelve miles distant, had been attacked and the Indians were killing all the white settlers.

As they were flying for their lives, they passed the sutler of the Redwood store lying face downwards with a board on his back on which was written, "Feed your own squaws and papooses grass."

He had trusted the Indians until he would do so no longer. Their annuities were long, long overdue and they were starving. They appealed to him again and again and pleaded for food for their starving families. He finally told them to "Go eat grass." The settlers had seen the consequence. They had passed seven dead, besides on the way.

This was only the beginning of a sad multitude of refugees, who, wounded in every conceivable way, and nearly dead from terror, poured into the fort.

Captain Marsh, as soon as he had heard the stories, called the soldiers out on the parade ground and called for volunteers, who would go with him to try and stop the awful carnage. Every soldier came forward. Captain Marsh told them that he thought the sight of the soldiers would cow them as it had so many times before. They at once departed, leaving about thirty men with us.

We knew nothing of what was happening to this little handful of soldiers, but as more and more refugees came in with the terribly mutilated, our fears increased. We knew a small group of the savages could finish us. Just at dusk, Jim Dunn, a soldier of nineteen who always helped us about our work, came reeling in, caked with blood and sweat. I said, "For God's sake, what is the news, Jim?" He only panted, "Give me something to eat quick." After he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he told us that nearly all of the boys had been killed by the Indians. He said, "The devils got us in the marsh by the river. Quinn told the Captain not to go down there, but he held his sword above his head and said, 'All but cowards will follow me.'" The Indians on the other side of the river were challenging us to come by throwing up their blankets way above their heads. Only three more of the boys came in that night.

All of us who were living outside, had gone into the stone barracks with the refugees. That night we were all sitting huddled together trembling with fear. We had helped feed the hungry and cared for the wounded all day long and now were so fatigued we could hardly keep awake. I had brought my little kerosene lamp with me. I lit it and brought out of the darkness the sorrowful groups of women and children. Some one called "Lights out." I turned mine down and set it behind the door. We sat in darkness. A voice called, "Up stairs." I gathered my baby in my arms, told Walter to hold on to mother's dress on one side and Minnie on the other, and up stairs we went, all pushed from behind so we could not stop. We were pushed into a large room, dark as pitch. There we all stood panting through fear and exertion. How long, I do not know. A voice in the room kept calling, "Ota! Ota!" meaning "Many! Many!" We knew there were Indians with us, but not how many. I had the butcher knife sharpened when the first refugees came and covered with a piece of an old rubber. It was now sticking in my belt. I asked Mrs. Dunn what she had to protect herself with. She said she had nothing, but found her shears in her pocket. I told her to put out their eyes with them, while they were killing us, for we expected death every minute after hearing those Indian voices. I heard Jim Dunn's voice and called him and told him where my lamp was and asked him to bring it up. He brought it to me. This was the crucial moment of my life. I sat the lamp on the floor, and with one hand on the butcher knife, slowly turned up the light. I saw only three squaws and three half breed boys, instead of the large number of Indians I expected. Each declared "Me good Injin! Me good Injin!"

All was confusion. William Hawley was inside guard at the door of the room we were in upstairs. He was just out of the hospital and was very weak. In spite of this he had gone with the soldiers to Redwood and had just returned after crawling out from under his dead companions and creeping through the brush and long grass those dreadful miles. He was all in. His gun had a fixed bayonet.

My eyes never left those squaws for a moment. I was sure they were spies who would go to the devils outside and tell them of the weakness of the fort. Two of the squaws began to fight about a fine tooth comb. The more formidable of the two, with much vituperation, declared she would not stay where the other one was. Just at the height of the fight, a gun outside was fired. The minute it was fired, the squaw started for the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come outside, and tell what she knew. Hawley had left his post and come in among us. Our babies were on a field bed on the floor. Calling to Mrs. Dunn to look after them, I sprang to the door and grabbed the discarded gun. At that moment, the squaw tried to pass. I ordered her back. She called me a "Seechy doe squaw" meaning "mean squaw" and tried to push me back. I raised the bayonet saying, "Go back or I'll ram this through you." She went back growling and swearing in Sioux. Probably in half an hour I was relieved of my self-appointed task. Martin Tanner taking my place, I said to him, "Don't let that squaw get away." I sat down on a board over some chairs and made the squaw sit beside me. There we sat all that long night with my right hand hold of my knife and the other holding her blue petticoat. Didn't she talk to me and revile me? None of the others even tried to leave. At last we saw the dawn appear.