Early history of North Dakota

PART I The State Flower

(The Wild Rose)

Illustrated by EDWIN WILLARD DEMING Photographs by D. F. BARKY

"THE BUFFALO REPUBLIC"

DDLDTH

F. U. Lounsberry & Go.

Copyright 1913 by CLEMENT A. LOUNSBERRY

WASHINGTON, D. C.

Published 1913

To THE North Dakota Pioneers

and their successors, the fathers, mothers and children of the North Dakota of today, this work is affectionately dedicated, by

The Author.

Bismarck, Jan. 1913.

Table Of Contents

PART I.

P«ge Chapter I — In the Beginning 1

A Trail of Blood.

Fwe

Chapter II — Occupied for Indian Trade 5

The Hudson's Bay Company. — Prince Rupert's Land. — The North- West and X. Y. Companies. — Alexander Henry's Red River Brigade. — The Embarkation. — The Indian Hunting Grounds, abounding in Bears, Beavers and Buffalo. — Terrorized by the Sioux. — The Park River Post. — The Vicious Element of Liquor. — Sacrifice and Thanksgiving. — Story of the British Flag. — An Attempt at Bribery. — Hunters and the Spoils. — Contracts with the Lords of the Forest. — Early Trading Posts. — -Pembina Post Established.

Page Chapter III-— The Buffalo Republic 19

Riches of the Indians. — The Vast Herds of Buffalo. — A Buffalo Hunt on the Sheyenne. — Running the Buffalo. — Making Pemmican. — The Missouri River Blockade by Buffalo. — The Last Great Hunt.

Page

Chapter IV — Founding of Pembina 27

The Post Named. — Origin of the Name. — The First Farming. — Poultry Raising and Manufactures. — The First Child. — Pierre Bonga. — The First White Child. — Managers, Employees and Trading Statistics. — Buffalo. — The Hunter. — Effects of the Liquor Trade at Pembina. — The Stain on the Record. — Northwest and X. Y. Consolidation. — First Family Names. — Henry Suffers From the Sioux. — Trial of the New Policy. — Chief Tabishaw. — Change in Managers. — Outlying Posts Withdrawn. — Anarchy and Hostility. — A Night Attack. — Posts on the Red River. — Early Traffic on the Red River.

Page Chapter V — 'The Louisiana Purchase 40

Events Leading Up to the Purchase. — Discovery and Acquisition of Lewis and Clark. — ^^The June Rise in the Missouri River. — The Arikara Villages. — Great Herds of Buffalo, Elk and Other Game. — Mandan Villages. — Fort Mandan. — The Winter of 1804-'05 in North Dakota. — The Beautiful Northern Lights. — Visiting Traders. — Sacajawea, the Bird- Woman. — The Missouri Fur Company, — The Return of the Mandan Chief.

Page

Chapter VI — "When Wild in Woods the Noble Savage Ran" 60

The Expedition of Lieutenant Z. M. Pike. — Treaty With the Sioux. — On the Upper Mississippi. — The Chippewas Smoke the Pipe of Wabasha. — Substituting the American for British Flags and Medals. — Game. — The Winter Cantonement. — Hospitality of the Traders. —Alexander Henry's Visit to the Mandan Villages. — Ideal Indian Homes. — Social Life Among the Indians. — Story of an Indian Battle. — Proposed Treaty That Failed. — Manuel Lisa, the Trader.

Page Chapter VII— Graft in the Indian Trade 72

Eternal Vigilance the Price of Liberty. — The Country Overrun by Indian Traders. — The United States As a Factor. — Organization of the American Fur Company. — The Lords of the Lake and Forest. — Fort William. — The Selkirk Purchase and Colony. — The Seven Oaks Massacre. — 'Selkirk Visits the Red River Colony. — Churches and Schools Established.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page ^

Portrait of the Author Frontispiece •■'

Running the Buffalo 19 ^

The Buffalo in Bronze 24 t^

Noted Sioux — Chief Gaul, Rain-in-the-face, Sitting Bull, Bull Head.. 32/^ Noted Sioux — Sioux Warrior, Crow King, John Grass, Running ,

Antelope 36

Statute of Sacajawea at Bismarck oQ y^

Virginia Grant, Grand-daughter of Sacajawea 56 /

Sioux Women Dancing 56

LIST OF MAPS

Map of Early Explorations 4 '^■

Louisiana as Proclaimed by LaSalle 1682-1762 40''

Louisiana Purchase 48 '

The Louisiana Purchase and Later Acquisitions 1819-1853 72 /

Preface

"I hear the tread of pioneers,

Of nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon

Shall roll a human sea."

—JOHN G. WHITTIBR.

More intensely interesting than a fairy tale is the story of the development of the great Northwest. It is a story of adventure and of daring in the lives of individuals not unmixed with romance, for there were brave, loving hearts, and gentle clinging spirits among those hardy pioneers, and many incidents and choice bits of legend have been handed down, which I hope may serve to make these pages interesting.

It is a story with traces of blood and tears, illustrating "man's inhumanity to man," for there were some among the early traders who had little regard for the expenditure of these precious treasures, in their pursuit of "Gold! gold! gold! gold!" that is "heavy to get and light to hold," as suggested by Hood — the

"Price of many a crime untold

To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless.

As even its minted coins express.

Now stamp'd w^ith the image of good Queen Bess,

And now of a Bloody Mary."

It is a story of man's love for men, in the work of the early missionaries, who, in obedience to the command of the Master, went forth into the wilderness to lift up and benefit the "untutored" savage, who only "sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind," and to bring refuge to His white children, who had blazed the way, and who were languishing in despair. It is a story of heroic deeds, of patriotic devotion to duty, of suffering and bloodshed and of development.

Whether I am the one to write the story, let others judge.

"Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night wind, there's a star agleam to guide us. And the Wild is calling, calling — let us go."

— ROBERT W. SERVICE,

•'The Call of the Wild."

My family in all of its branches were among the early settlers of New York and New England, frontiersmen and participants in all of the early Indian wars. My mother's people suffered in the Wyoming massacre. Among the slain in that bloody affair were seven from the family of Johnathan Weeks, her paternal ancestor, who with fourteen fatherless grand-children returned to Orange County, New York, from whence he came, abandoning his well developed farm near Wilkesbarre, as demanded by the Indians.

I knew many of the people directly connected with the Minnesota massacre of 1862, and the incidents leading up to it, and the campaign following — settlers in the region affected, prisoners of the Sioux, traders, soldiers, missionaries, men in public life, and many of the Indians. One of the stockades built by the settlers for defense, was situated on the first real property I ever owned, and in a log house within this stockade, my first child, Hattie, wife of Charles E. V. Draper of Mandan, North Dakota, was born.

In July, 1873, I established the Bismarck Tribune, the first newspaper published in North Dakota. There were then but five villages in North Dakota — Pembina, Grand Forks, Fargo, Jamestown and Bismarck; no railroad, excepting the Northern Pacific under construction; no farms, no agriculture, except the cultivation of small patches by Indians and half-bloods, or in connection with the military posts or Indian agencies; no banks, no public schools, no churches. It was my fate to be one of four (John W. Fisher, Henry F. Douglas, I. C. Adams and myself) to organize the Presbyterian Church Society at Bismarck, the first church organization in North Dakota, in June, 1873, and in the autumn of Ihat year I was instrumental in organizing the Burleigh County Pioneers, developed through my direction into the North Dakota State Historical Society, of which I was the first president.

I was at Bismarck when a party of Northern Pacific surveyors started west to survey the line of the road from that point to the Yellowstone River, in the spring of 1873, and saw the smoke of battle and heard the crack of rifies, as the engineers were forced to fight, even before they got as far west as the site of Mandan.

I saw General George A. Custer as he marched to his last battle — the massacre of Custer and 261 men of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry on the Little Big Horn, by the Sioux. Accompanying him was Mark Kellogg, bearing my commission from the New York Herald, who rode the horse that was provided for me — for I had purposed going in his stead — and who wore the belt I had worn in the Civil War, which was stained with my blood.

I saw the wounded brought down the Yellowstone and the Missouri, by Grant Marsh, on that historic boat, the "Far West," and the weeping widows whose husbands returned not.

The trail of blood, beginning at the Atlantic, taking a new start at the Gulf, extending to the Pacific, and, returning, starting afresh on the banks of the Missouri, came to a sudden check on the banks of the Little Big Horn, but it was not ended, the blood already spilled was not enough. The Seventh U. S. Cavalry, Custer's Regiment, was again baptized in blood at Wounded Knee, and the end was not reached until the tragic death of Sitting Bull in 1891.

We have the Indians with us yet — in many instances happy and prosperous farmers, their children attending the schools and universities, the male adults having taken lands in severalty under the Federal Allotment Act, being recognized citizens of the United States, and entitled to the elective franchise in the State of North Dakota.

If I dwell upon Indian affairs, it is because I have been interested in the Indians from childhood. After the battle of Spottslyvania I lay in the field hospital beside an Indian soldier, wounded even worse than I. Not a groan escaped his lips. I admired the pluck and courage, and the splendid service of the Indian soldiers from the States of Michigan and Wisconsin in the Civil War. I have seen them in battle. I have known their excellent service as Indian police, I have seen them in their happy homes, when roaming free on the prairie, and I know their good points. Although I shall picture the horrors of Indian wars in a lurid light, I have no sympathy with the idea that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," and I am glad to know that they are no longer a "vanishing race," but their numbers are now increasing, and to feel that they have a splendid destiny before them.

I have seen the growth of North Dakota from the beginning, and as I have performed my part in its development, I feel it a duty, as well as a privilege, to contribute these pages to its history.

CLEMENT AUGUSTUS LOUNSBERRY, Bismarck, N. D., January, 1913.

Chapter I. In The Beginning

A Trail of Blood.

"Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night."

—SHELLEY.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

HOLY SCRIPTURES.

Long before the earth took form, the universe existed. Compared with the whole, the earth's proportion is that of a thought snatched from a busy life, a leaf from the forest, a grain of sand from the seashore, a chip from the workshop of Eternal Energy.

Perhaps it existed in impalpable dust, or fragments left when other worlds or celestial bodies were created, hurled together by Almighty Force, forming a burning mass, still burning in the interior, changing but not destroying the material of which it was made. Gases from the flames still form, and finding vent at some weak spot, the explosion and the earthquake follow, and portions shake and tremble, cities are destroyed or buried, and the face of the earth is changed.

Perhaps a crust formed upon the surface of the burning mass when this old earth was young, which, shrinking as it cooled, gave the mountain ranges and the depressions which make the beds of the seas and oceans, and out of the volcanoes, belching forth their clouds of smoke and gases, came the "darkness" which "was upon the face of the deep," and when the darkness disappeared, and life and growth became possible, "the morning stars sang together," for a new world was born.

And that world took its course among the planets, the portion receiving the direct rays of the sun remaining tropical, while immense bodies of ice formed at the poles. "The testimony of the rocks" indicates that when the ice was broken loose, and plowed over the surface of the earth, it was miles in depth. It broke down, and ground to gravel and dust, mountain ranges, leaving here and there the boulders, forming new valleys and new plains, burying the Immense mass of vegetation of that earlier period, giving to the world its fields of coal.

Perhaps, under this enormous accumulation of ice, the earth was changed in its axis, possibly by some convulsion of nature. The fact that a large portion of North Dakota was, time and time again beneath the waters, is apparent to any observer, and in all of the eastern part of the state, the work of the ice is as visible as the stilches of a seamstress upon a completed garment.

Neither life nor light was possible in the earth's earlier stages and after the creation of all other forms of life, man appeared and into his organization there was carried every element in nature whether on the earth, in the waters which surrounded the earth or m the atmosphere-whether in the chattering ape or creeping thing m beast or bird, in fish or fowl, in life-supporting or life-destroying prmciple, and to all these life was added, breathed into man created indeed from the dust of the earth by Divine Energy. And what is life? We may follow matter and find it in its changing form but when life passes from its earthly tenement, who can say whither it goeth?

Man ate of the tree of knowledge. That was God-given, and its use brings its reward and its punishment, but death is essential to development, and is as natural as birth. The seasons come and the seasons go; winter has its work no less than summer; the flowers bloom and fade, and so man is born, matures, and falls into decay and, like the dead worlds which have performed their missions, passes into dust to be bom again into some new form of life.

"The stars shine over the earth

The stars shine over the sea; The stars look up to the mighty God

The stars look down on me. '

The stars have .lived a million years

A million years and a day; But God and I shall love and live

When the stars have passed away."

When man appeared upon the face of the earth the strenuous life began. Doubtless from the beginning he "earned his bread by the sweat of his brow" and the quiet life of Abel invited the first flow of human blood, which has formed a continuous trail that marks the course of human development. Without bloodshed there has been no advancement, without bloodshed no redemption; no great reforms have ever gained a masterly headway without bloodshed; no nation has ever been established without its baptism of blood.

Persecution in the old world led to the peopling of the new, and every step in the development of the new world is marked by human blood. There was war between the French and the English colonists, war between the Dutch and their neighbors, and cruelty in most re^ volting form by those who sailed under the flag of Spain and gained & permanent foothold in the country west of the Mississippi River. And from the beginning the whites were at war with the reds, driving them from one section, then another, destroying their homes, taking from them their wealth of game, and planting within their breasts hatred almost undying. Who does not remember the pathetic words of Tah-gah-jute called "Logan?" He was the son of a white man reared among the Indians, and was known as a Mingo chief — a common term for those Iroquois living beyond the proper boundaries of the tribe. He was named for James Logan, colonial secretary of Pennsylvania, his father's friend. All the members of his family were killed in the spring of 1774, while crossing a river in a canoe, and after the defeat of the Indians in the bloody war which followed, instead of suing for peace with the rest, he sent this message to be delivered to John Murray Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia.

Logan to Dunmore.

"I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logap's cabin hungry, and he gave him no meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed by, and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to have lived with you, had it not been for th^ injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, who last spring, in cold blood, unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children, and he an officer in the white man's government! There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the gleams of peace; but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."

The traditions of many families run back to the King Philip's v/ar of 1676, in which six hundred settlers lost their lives, and twelve hundred homes were burned, some of the women and children escaping by being placed in an out-of-door brick oven, before which wood v/as piled when the men were called out for the common defense. When the men returned they found the family safe, but the buildings had been destroyed by fire. In Abbott's "History of King Philip," the author graphically tells the story, and concludes with these words: "But the amount of misery created can never be told or imagined. The midnight assault, the awful conflagration, the slaughter of women and children, the horrors of captivity in the wilderness, the impoverishment and mourning of widows and orphans, the diabolical torture, piercing the wilderness with shrill shrieks of mortal agony, the terror, universal and uninterrupted by day or night — all, all combined in composing a scene in the awful tragedy of human life, which the mind of the Deity alone can comprehend."

Similar scenes were enacted in the Wyoming Valley, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1778, when more than three hundred settlers were slain.

Extending the Frontier.

Before the Revolutionary War, steps were taken to extend the settlement to the west, partly from the impulse to expand, to grow, and partly from a desire to extend the frontier as a measure of protection. This ambition was the leading, moving thought among the great minds of Virginia, and it was sons of Virginia who blazed the way into the trackless wilderness, and took possession of Kentucky, "the dark and bloody ground," where the battles were fought and the minds cultured which made apparent the advisability of the purchase of Louisiana, and contributed so much to its development.

As Washington, then a young surveyor and lowly citizen, extended the lines of survey, he was watched by the red men, who dogged his footsteps and scalped his unfortunate assistants who happened to fall into their hands, and often it became necessary to drop the tripod and compass, and take up the rifle and the knife. That which occurred in his case was true in the life of almost all of the frontier surveyors, and the frontier farmer carried the rifle, as well as the hoe, into the field where the work was done.

When the little band of Virginians passed down the Ohio River on their way to the unknown land, muffled oars guided the Indian canoe behind them, and stealthily treading feet followed their footprints on the land. When they sent their representatives back to Virginia, it was the eloquence, the force and the patriotism of Patrick Henry— and the loving sympathy of his wife, Dorothea, a gift of God, indeed— which gave to the settlers five hundred pounds of powder, to Kentucky a name as a county in Virginia, and the support necessary to the life of that colony.

Startling and fruitful of results were the incidents in the years of warfare which followed. We find in them the chain of forts, the campaign of "Mad" Anthony Wayne, the Battle of Tippecanoe' and the War with Mexico.

The horrors of Indian war were again visited on the frontier settlers in the Minnesota massacre of 1862, which brought the trail of blood home to Dakota dooT-s, the story of which will be told with considerable detail in this volume, for it is important that the youth of this fair land should know something of what it has cost to establish liberty, to extend the settlements, and to develop the resources of this country, until now there is no frontier.

^Tn^i'^^ prairie's passed or passing- with the passing- of the years ?hev hTve'ririe^tf worth knowing, and there arl no pionltrl! iney have r ddled it with railroads throbbing- on, and on and on- In^rv^'/LH^f^;^ '* °^ dangers till the zest Sf it is gone. '

And Ive saddled up my pony— for I'm dull and lonlsome here—

?o let^loWn"p'n^''"*^^'''''-,y t^^'-'^' t'll ^« fi"*i a neTprontl;;- But therp i« n^ wl^t""^." wildness and the skies we used to know. But there is no West— 'tis conquered, and I don't know where to go."

— JAMES W. FOLEY.

chaptp:]r II.

OCCUPIED FOR INDIAN TRADE.

The Hudson's Bay Company. — Prince Rupert's Land. — The North-West and X. Y. Companies. — Alexander Henry's Red River Brigade. — The Embarkation. — The Indian Hunting Grounds, abounding in Bears, Beavers and Buffalo. — Terrorized by the Sioux. — The Park River Post. — The Vicious Element of Liquor. — Sacrifice and Thanksgiving. — Story of the British Flag. — An Attempt at Bribery. — Hunters and the Spoils. — Contracts with the Lords of the Forest. — Early Trading Posts. — Pembina Post Established.

"For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along- Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong'. Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame — In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim."

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

The Hudson's Bay Company.

Prince Rupert's Land.

In 1609, Henry Hudson, a navigator of English birth, sailing under the flag of fhe Dutch West Indies, ascended the stream now known as Hudson River, discovered by Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524. The next year he explored Hudson Bay, and perished on the voyage. In 1667, the Duke of York and Prince Rupert, formed a company in England for the exploration of Hudson Bay with a view to trade, and two vessels were dispatched for the purpose; one of them the "Nonsuch Ketch," commanded by Captain Zachariah Gillam of Boston, reaching Hudson Bay in September of the following year. The winter was spent in that region at Fort Charles. They returned to Boston, and thence to London in 1669, and proceeded to organize the Hudson's Bay Company, which was chartered by Charles II, May 2, 1670, the King himself, his brother, the Duke of York, and his nephew. Prince Rupert, leading a long list of distinguished stockholders. They were granted exclusive privileges on Hudson Bay and along the streams emptying into the bay and their tributaries, embracing a vast region which came to be known as Rupert's Land, including the Red River country and the streams tributary to the Red River, until restricted by the location of the international boundary after the Revolutionary War.

The Hudson's Bay €tompany had full power to own, occupy, govern, sell and convey and were authorized to maintain armies and levy war, if necessary for defense, but for more than one hundred years they had been content to confine their attention to the shores of Hudson Bay, and to trade with the Indians visiting their factories, as their trading posts on the bay were called. But the French traders from Montreal were occupying portions of their country, and were pushing on beyond them, while strong opposition had arisen in England, which demanded the annulment of their charter, or at least an equal opportunity for trade. In 1797, they extended their trade to North Dakota points on the Red River, and to the Missouri River and other places west and north. They continued to own, occupy and govern Rupert's Land until 1869, when they sold their possessory rights to Great Britain, and in 1870, Rupert's Land became ^an independent province in the Dominion of Canada, known as Manitoba.

The Hudson's Bay Company, however, continued in business as a commercial organization and still occupy and govern leased territor: in the British possessions.

The North-West Company Organized.

In 1783, the rival Montreal traders consolidated under the name of the "North-West Company," and pushed its trade into new and hitherto unexplored regions. Sir Alexander McKenzie leaving on his first expedition on behalf of this company in 1789, exploring the Mc- Kenzie River and making other important discoveries, points on the Upper Mississippi having been occupied.

The Hudson's Bay Company had greater resources and were pushing their explorations with much vigor. In 1801 another company was organized, with which Sir Alexander McKenzie became interested on his return from Europe, known as the "X. Y. Company," these initials being adopted for marking their goods, in order to distinguish them from the "H. B." of the Hudson's Bay Company and the "N. W." of the North-West Company. In selecting this title they chose the letters of the alphabet immediately following the "W" of the North- West Company, to let them know they were right after them, and intended to make their opposition merciless. Alexander Henry.

The Red River Brigade.

In the year 1800, Alexander Henry, a nephew of Alexander Henry mentioned in connection with the early fur trade on Lake Superior, but known in history as Alexander Henry, Jr., was the leader of an expedition, which set out from Lake Superior with Turtle River for its objective point. It was Henry's intention to establish his headquarters on that stream for use while in charge of the Red River District to which he had recently been assigned by the North-West Company. His party bore the title of "Henry's Red River Brigade."

The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson, 1799-1814, edited by Dr. Elliot Coues, were published by Francis P. Harper, New York, 1897. Dr. Coues was a surgeon in the U. S. Army and the medical officer on the boundary survey of 1872-1876, and was familiar with much of the country of which Thompson and Henry wrote. Thompson, learned in mathematics and astronomy, was in charge of the location of the boundary line on behalf of the North-West Company of which he was the geographer.

The Embarkation.

After a portage of nine miles from Lake Superior to a point on Pigeon River, Alexander Henry and his party left for the mouth of the Assiniboine, on the Red River, July 19, 1800, where they arrived on the 17th day of August.

On starting from Lake Superior, the men were each given a twogallon keg of liquor, and on the fifth day they reached the height of land where they "finished their small kegs and fight many a battle." — (Henry's Journal.)

At the first stop three leading Indians accompanying the expedition, were each given various articles of merchandise, including a scarlet faced coat and hat, a red, round feather, a white linen shirt, a pair of leggings, a breech clout, a flag, a fathom of tobacco, and a nine-gallon keg of mixed liquors — two gallons of alcohol to nine gallons of water being the usual mixture. After giving them their presents, Henry made a formal address to the Indians, encouraging them to be good and follow him to Turtle River, and not to be afraid of the Sioux, but just as he was giving them their farewell glass, before their return to their tents to enjoy their liquor, some of the women reported that they had heard several shots fired in the meadow. A council was immediately held. Henry ordered them to leave theif liquor with him and put off their drinking until the next day, but they had tasted the liquor and must drink, even at the risk of their lives. They requested Henry to order his men to mount guard during the night.

Having reached the Assiniboine August 17th, on the 18th the party divided, and that portion intended for the Red River embarked on the 20th. There were four canoes in this party, and a total of twenty-one persons. Two horses were led along the shore, and Henry claimed that these were the first introduced into the Red River Valley by the whites. Such an assemblage of canoes was called a "brigade," and the master, standing between the company and the men, was called the "bourgeois."