By H. V. Arnold
The Sioux Indian outbreak was confined more to central and western Minnesota than to the Red River Valley, though in the upper part of it they killed a few settlers, plundered teams loaded with supplies, burned what there then was of Breckenridge, and besieged Fort Abercrombie for six weeks. Most of the settlers then located along the Minnesota side of the river in that part of the valley were warned in time and fled for shelter, both to the fort and the fur trading post at Georgetown.
During these troubles, the International was taken to Fort Garry. A cart train from St. Paul loaded with Hudson Bay goods had just arrived at Georgetown in charge of Norman W. Kittson; the teamsters and others were organized into a defensive force consisting of forty-four men, but as they were indifferently armed, and the post unable to stand a siege, it was decided, after keeping guard for two weeks, to abandon it and seek safety at Fort Garry. Pierre Bottineau was sent to Pembina for a relief guard, and the people, carts, and goods were ferried across the river at night. Elm River was crossed the first day and the Goose River on the second, when the relief party was met. Among these men were Joe Rolette, William Moorhead, Hugh Donaldson, and other old-time frontiersmen. The third night out, the party camped three miles south of the site of Grand Forks. At the forks of the river, they found several hundred Chippeways who had gathered to meet the Indian commission. This band took whatever food they could lay their hands upon and allowed the party to proceed to Fort Garry without further molestation. The Georgetown post remained vacant until 1864 when it was again occupied.
The International was brought to Fort Abercrombie in 1863 by Captain Barrett, and in 1864 was sold to the Hudson Bay Company, it having become apparent that the country could not be opened up against the interest of that powerful organization. They did not want immigration and trade, nor mails or other appliances of civilization. The boat made but one trip that year. The cart brigades again put in an appearance, and the country became devastated by grasshoppers. (Sketch by Capt. Russell Blakely.)
Hatch’s Battalion
On account of the Sioux outbreak of 1862 and the continuation of Indian troubles into the following year, it was thought advisable to occupy the valley with troops. The Secretary of War commissioned Major E. A. C. Hatch of St. Paul to recruit a battalion of four companies of cavalry. It was late in the fall before the expedition, with its accompanying wagon trains, got started. They marched by way of St. Cloud, Sauk Centre, and Alexandria, but they divided the line of march at Pomme de Terre. Major Hatch, with one division, proceeded to Georgetown direct, but Lieutenant Charles Mix, with the other division, went by way of Fort Abercrombie. Major Hatch arrived at Georgetown on October 30, and Lieutenant Mix came in several days later. The expedition reached Pembina on November 13, 1863. The march down the valley was an arduous one on account of the scarcity of forage for the teams and the cold weather. Upward of 250 animals—horses, mules, and oxen—were lost. That winter the troops built Fort Pembina. Governor Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota made a “treaty” with the Indians in October 1863, and this, with the patrolling of the river, ended the trouble with them in the valley. In the spring of 1864, Hatch’s battalion left the valley and returned to St. Paul.
Cunningham’s Expedition
Cunningham’s expedition was also a military operation made in 1865. It consisted of a regiment of cavalry and upward of two hundred civilians, employed in various capacities, such as teamsters, cooks, etc. The expedition left Fort Snelling with Major Cunningham in command, and, crossing the state of Minnesota, they marched to Devils Lake by way of the Sheyenne River. The objective of entering Dakota with United States troops at that time appears to have been to make a reconnaissance or to scout through the country and impress the Indians with a show of military strength, as their depredations in other parts of the territory had not wholly ceased. From Devils Lake, the expedition proceeded eastward toward the Red River. This was in August, and the line of march was probably through the southwestern part of this county, as the expedition headed for the Georgetown post on their way back to Fort Snelling. This expedition had some influence on the settlement of the eastern part of North Dakota, as it made the country better known to men of Cunningham’s command, who, some years later, emigrated hither.
Disappearance of the Buffalo
About the year 1867 or ’68, the last of the buffalo that roamed over the eastern part of North Dakota disappeared from the Red River Valley. The bison instinctively avoided all localities frequented by man, and on that account, the herds did not approach very near to the old Red River trail during the later years of their visits to the valley, but rather ranged somewhat back from the river. That they were extensively hunted in this part of the state, the abundance of their bones that the settlers found scattered over the prairies bore convincing testimony. The last roving herd left in the West was wiped out in eastern Montana in 1883. A few were saved from total destruction by being protected in the National Park, and also some in corrals by a few ranchers. While the last of the herds were being killed off, their hides by the carload were shipped over the Northern Pacific railroad, to be followed a few years later by carloads of their bones over the same and other lines, destined for eastern sugar refineries and bone mills. The immense bone piles at some of the railroad stations in North Dakota, as collected by the settlers and sold to shippers during the later eighties, presented surprising objects.
Manitoba Opened Up
In March 1869, the Earl of Granville succeeded in terminating the Hudson Bay contracts, and that company surrendered possession of the country, thus ending a twenty-one-year contest on the part of the imperial government for the opening of the country. The organization of the Manitoba government was provided for in 1870, and on August 23 of that year, Colonel Wolseley, at the head of the Sixtieth Canadian Rifles, entered Fort Garry. On September 2, Lieutenant-Governor Archibald arrived, and the colony was duly organized. James W. Taylor, the American consul, arrived in November.
At the time of the surrender of their privileges to the Crown, the Hudson Bay Company occupied twenty districts and possessed 120 posts in Manitoba and the Northwest Territory, employing 3,000 men. Fort Garry was their principal stronghold. The first Fort Garry was established in 1821, at the time of the coalition of the Northwest and Hudson Bay companies. A second fort, often mentioned in Red River Valley history, was built in the vicinity of the first in 1835, with the old one being dismantled. Both of these forts stood on the site of the city of Winnipeg, which was founded in 1870. The political power of the Hudson Bay Company now being gone, they dwindled to a mere commercial organization, and in that capacity, they continued to maintain a few posts this side of the boundary line so long as it was profitable to do so. The British Northwest now being open to settlement, a large immigration soon followed from Ontario and other eastern provinces of Canada.
The Approach of the Railroads
The railroads have wielded a vast influence on the later development of the Red River Valley. As we shall have to take up this subject again as these neared and were next built through this county, it will be proper at this point to give some account of the time and manner of their approach to the valley itself. Two great railroad lines, more than any others, finally exercised a potent influence on the settlement and development of the valley. These were the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads. While the latter road has always borne its present name, it should be stated of the former named system that its lines were at first called the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. This name was retained until 1879; in that year there was a reorganization of the company and the road then took the name of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway. In 1890 the Great Northern system took its present name. The original road was chartered in 1856.
On June 25, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, a short ten-mile stretch of track was put in operation between St. Paul and the village of St. Anthony, now comprised in the east side of Minneapolis. This short line was the first railroad to be built in Minnesota and it was the beginning of the present Great Northern system. An isolated railroad system, comprising a few short lines of track and owned by different companies, next began to radiate outward in various directions from St. Paul and Minneapolis. These lines were confined to eastern Minnesota and were isolated in the sense that, while interconnected, none of them for about a half dozen years had any connection with any of the lines then radiating from Milwaukee or Chicago. To equip them, the rails, cars, locomotives, etc., all had to be brought up the Mississippi River from the nearest points below St. Paul at which they could be delivered to the boats by railroad.
By the year 1866 the northern line of the St. Paul & Pacific had been extended up to Sauk Rapids, near St. Cloud, seventy-six miles above St. Paul. In 1872 this line was built through St. Cloud to Melrose, thirty-four miles west of the former place, and here the track halted for several years. In the meantime, the southern route of this system was begun at Minneapolis in 1867, was pushed year by year toward the Red River Valley and reached Breckenridge, according to some old settlers’ recollections, October 21, 1871.
The conception of a railroad from the head of Lake Superior to Puget Sound originated during the early years of railroad construction in this country. After the beginning of the first transcontinental line, the original conception took definite form and shape and a company was organized to build it. The road was chartered by Congress on July 2, 1864. Preliminary work on the Northern Pacific was begun near Thompson, Minn., on February 15, 1870, and by the close of that year fifty miles of track had been laid west of the point of its divergence from the St. Paul & Duluth railroad. The next year 179 miles more of track were added to that first laid, thus completing the road as far west as the Red River at Moorhead by December 1, 1871.
Along Red River in 1870-71
There had been a few frontiersmen located along the Minnesota side of the Red River above Georgetown since about 1858, but the Dakota side of the upper part of the valley practically remained unoccupied until about the year 1870. John Lindstrom, now a resident of Lind Township in this county, came from Douglas County, Minnesota, and settled on the Dakota side of the river on May 18, 1870. He writes to the author as follows:
“When I came to Dakota in 1870, I settled on the Red River in what is now Cass County, fifteen miles north of where Fargo now stands. At that time there were very few white people anywhere on the Dakota side of the Red River. At Fort Abercrombie there was the garrison, but below that place there were no settlers for fifty miles. At the point right opposite the Hudson Bay post of Georgetown, there lived a Frenchman called Jack—I never heard any other name applied to him—who traded with the half-breeds and Indians that came along the river. I used to trade with him too, sometimes. He charged fifteen dollars a barrel for flour, thirty cents a pound for pork, two dollars a gallon for kerosene, two dollars a gallon for blackstrap molasses, four dollars a gallon for vinegar, three pounds of sugar for a dollar, and two and a half pounds of coffee for a dollar. He sold gunpowder, shot, and gun caps, always charging three times as much as at the general stores.
“Jack also sold whiskey, but the sale of that article came to a sudden stop when the soldiers who were to garrison Fort Pembina went by his place. They camped for the night south of his place, but they found out that he sold whiskey. So two of them walked down there to ‘get the lay of the thing,’ as they generally expressed it. They took a few candles along which they traded off for whiskey to find out where it was kept. The next morning, as they were about to pass by, the whole gang turned into his place, crowded into the house, corralled Jack at the table where he was eating his breakfast, and some of them commenced to help themselves to what was on the table to draw his attention while the others helped themselves to the whiskey. The keg was nearly full, and as this held ten gallons they could not afford to leave what their canteens would not hold, so they shouldered the keg and walked off. Their officers took them about three miles down the river; there they had a rest which lasted until the next morning, and they had a glorious time, singing and shouting. This wound up Jack’s saloon business, for he was afraid of having more customers of that kind.
“One day a contractor that hauled goods to Pembina came along the river with about twenty-five yoke of oxen and as many wagons. His teamsters were all white men, or would have been such if washed. Each man drove two or three teams, according to his ability, but his cook was considered one of the smartest of them, though he only drove two teams. But in addition to driving the teams, he was furnished with an old smooth-bore musket and ammunition to do a little hunting along the road. When they had gotten between Georgetown and Elm River, a bear came along on the outer side of the road to cross it behind the line of teams. Someone, as a joke, shouted to the cook to take his gun, run out, and kill the bear. The man took his gun, loaded with duck shot, and the rest of his ammunition, and ran out to meet the bear. All thought that they would lose their cook, but none of them had sense enough to warn the fellow back. But fools generally have good luck and so had this one. When he had gotten within five rods of the bear, the latter party thought he had better get ready for a fight. Rising on his hind legs, he waited for an attack. The cook fired his charge of shot square into the bear’s forehead, but the gun being dirty, the shot scattered and blew out the bear’s eyes. That was the only thing that saved the man’s life. Now there was time to reload, and a man was hastily sent out by the train boss to shout to the cook that he should go close up to the animal, take aim behind the shoulder, and fire forward. He did so, and put an end to the roaring and distracted animal.
“But the greatest novelty we had to look at in those days was when the Hudson Bay Company’s freighters passed by us, going between Fort Garry and St. Cloud. Sometimes they had trains consisting of 106 Red River carts drawn by ponies or oxen, both kinds of animals being used in the same train. The drivers rode alongside on horseback. They were generally half-breeds, as could be seen by their long hair hanging down on their shoulders and moccasins on their feet; otherwise they were clothed like white men. From eight to ten carts were managed by each driver. The equipment of each man was a short whip, generally hung by a string around the wrist of the right hand, a muzzle-loading shotgun, a powder horn, and a shot bag. The boss was always a white man, and he generally had one or more white men with him as a kind of bodyguard.
“The last buffalo seen in this region was in 1867 when one was seen and shot on the Dakota side six miles below Georgetown. In 1871 there were some wild Texas steers roaming across the country, one being shot at Rush River, one at the mouth of the Sheyenne, and another near the mouth of Elm River.”