Next

HISTORY OF ANOKA COUNTY 

and the Towns of Champlin and Dayton

in Hennepin County Minnesota

By Albert M. Goodrich

Minneapolis

Hennepin Publishing Col. 1905

Transcribed by MaryAlice Schwanke

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST HOUSE.

Early residents of Anoka remember a log house which stood on the east side of Rum river near its mouth. Several cellars are still visible near the spot where it stood. This was the first house built in Anoka county. It was built in the fall of 1844 for an Indian trading post, by direction of Wililam Aitkin, who had been for many years a trader of the upper Mississippi and who at that time had his headquarters at Sandy lake. The building was constructed by a French trader named Joseph Belanger, assisted by George Cournoyer, Pierre Crevier, Joseph Brunet and Maxime Maxwell. The men cut the logs on the point between the two rivers and carried them on their shoulders to the place where the house was to be built. The house was divided by a partition, one room being designed for a living room and the other to be used as a store room for the goods. In October Mr. Aitkin came to inspect the new post, and left his clerk, Mr. Crebassa in charge of the stock of goods, which had been procured from H. H. Sibley’s trading post at Mendota.

Neighbors were few and far between in those days. The nearest house on the north was probably Allan Morrison’s trading post at Crow Wing. Back from the Mississippi the country had not yet been explored. Aside from the Indian traders and the soldiers at Fort Snelling, there were very few white people within the present limits of Minnesota in 1844. There were a few white settlers in the valley of the St. Croix river, and a few around Mendota and the fort. There were two claim shanties on the east side of St. Anthony falls and no other building near except the ruin of the old government mill on the west side. On the present site of St. Paul were two or three log shanties, Whose occupants were principally engaged in selling whiskey to the Indians.

Mr. Belanger and his four assistants made the Rum river post their headquarters during the winter. The work was very hard. The men carried the goods out on their backs in great packs held in place by a strap passing around the forehead. A man was expected to carry two “pieces” (240 pounds), and his load must be at an appointed spot before daylight the next morning. Some “pieces” were more diflicult to carry than others. For instance, a keg of powder in a “piece” would be likely to render it very unwieldy. If a man found it impossible to carry more than one “piece,” he would have to make another trip during the night with the second one, in order to be ready for the next day’s journey in the morning. Two men always traveled together for safety, and the fifth man stayed with the clerk at the post. In this way a large section of country was covered, the men trading sometimes as far away as Mille Lacs. The boundary line between the Sioux and Chippeways had been fixed by treaty at “Choking creek,” (wherever that may be), one day’s march north of the mouth of Rum river, running thence westward to the Mississippi at the mouth of the Watab river a few miles above Sauk Rapids, and eastward to the St. Croix and thence to the Chippewa river in Wisconsin. But the Indians paid no attention whatever to these boundary lines. For all practical purposes Anoka county was then Chippeway country, later becoming a sort of neutral ground, in which members of neither tribe dared remain for any length of time unless on the war path. Consequently wild game congregated within its limits, the earliest white settlers found it an unexcelled hunting ground. Sioux territory could hardly be said to extend farther north than the Minnesota valley, and Sioux seldom crossed Crow river. The trading was, therefore, almost entirely with Chippeways. If the traders came to a teepee whose owner was absent, this fact was not necessarily permitted to interfere with commercial operations. The scale of exchange was pretty well es tablished - so much powder and shot and lead for so many furs of a certain kind - and the owner on his return would be perfectly satisfied to find his pelts gone and the proper proportion of ammunition left in their stead. The trading post itself was often surrounded by tepees, numbering from ‘half a dozen to twenty or more, whose owners had come in to trade.

In the spring the trading post was abandoned for the time being, but during the next winter was again occupied by Mr. Belanger and his associates, trading as before in the interest of Mr. Aitkin. The second winter a shanty was erected on the bank of Rum river near the place where the railroad bridges now cross it. This was used by the men as a temporary stopping place on long excursions. No goods were ever stored here. After the second winter Mr. Aitkin gave up his Rum river enterprise, and the men repaired to Mendota in the spring, where they were paid off and discharged.

Joseph Belanger, who built the first house in Anoka county, and who may in a certain sense be called its first settler, was born at St. Michel d’Yamaska, Province of Quebec, June 10th, 1813. In 1836 he joined a party of ninety-three men, who were going west in the service of the American Fur Co. Norman W. Kittson, then fifteen or sixteen years of age, also formed one of the party.

The means of transportation were but little improved since the time of the expeditions of La Salle and Hennepin, and the party made the journey to the Mississippi in canoes over the route which Father Hennepin had taken on his return trip. The canoes crept along the shores of Lake Ontario to the Niagara river, and a portage was made around the falls. Having entered Lake Erie, persistent paddling day after day brought the voyageurs to the Detroit river, through which they passed to Lake St. Clair, and through the St. Clair river and Lake Huron to Mackinaw strait.. At this point three men deserted. The others kept on down Lake Michigan, through Green Bay and up the Fox river to Fort Winnebago, where another portatge was made to the Wisconsin river, after which the canoes floated without much effort on the part of their occupants down to the Mississippi.

At Prairie du Chien the traders drew lots for stations and Mr. Belanger drew a station on Lake Superior. One of the men who had drawn a ticket for the Yellow stone river was greatly disheartened at the idea of being sent into that remote and almost unexplored region, and when the young and venturesome Belanger offered to

Joseph Belanger.

First white resident of Anoka county.

trade tickets with him, he gladly consented to turn over the two suits of clothes allowed him by the company as a partial consideration for the exchange. After two years in the wilderness of the far West Mr. Belanger returned to the Mississippi river. In 1842, when the American Fur Company failed, he was in Prairie du Chien. The traders who had lost their hard-earned wages wanted to kill Joseph Rolette, who was then the company’s agent at that point, and Rolette concealed himself for more than two months on an island in the river, where Mr. Belanger occasionally took food to him secretly. After his engagement with Mr. Aitkin at the Rum river trading post Mr. Belanger crossed into what is now Wisconsin, and built the first house in Chippewa Falls. Later he engaged in rafting lumber from Stillwater to St. Louis, and then acted as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river for some twelve years. Mr. Belanger was a continuous resident of Minnesota from 1856 until the time of his death. He was a man without education, except such as comes from contact with the frontier. The portrait shown in this volume is from a photograph taken in 1900, at the age of eighty-seven. When seen by the writer in that year his eyesight had begun to fail. It seemed pathetic that the intrepid trader who had found his way through trackless wilds swarming with hostile Indians to the Yellowstone valley in 1837, should be unable to find his way about the streets of St. Paul without a guide.

In 1846 Peter and Francis Patoille repaired the old trading post at Rum river and began trading with the Indians. Just how long they remained is uncertain.

Thomas A. Holmes was the next trader to try his fortune at the mouth of Rum river. He came there in the spring of 1847. It is possible that the old Belanger house had been destroyed by this time and that Holmes erected a new log house on the same site, but it is more likely that he repaired and enlarged the building which was already there, erecting a wing on each side, which gave him quite a commodious residence. Late in the summer Aaron Betts and wife lived in the house with Holmes. The same year John Banfil made a claim on Rice creek and kept a tavern for the accommodation of travelers. William Noot located just below King’s island (known then as the “big island”) during the summer of 1847, and living with him was a German count who had fled from the old country for political reasons. During this year also Franklin Steele, who had acquired the water power on the east side of St. Anthony falls partly by preémption and partly by purchase, decided to build a dam and saw mill at that 'point. Caleb D. Dorr, who was then one of the half dozen residents of St. Anthony village, went up the Mississippi to procure timber to be used in constructing the dam, and on the first day of September Daniel Stanchfield started with a crew of men from St. Anthony to go up Rum river for a like purpose. While exploring for a suitable road up Rum river, Mr. Stanchfield came upon the Indian battle field of 1839, as already stated. He cut the logs in what is now Isanti county about a mile above the mouth of the stream which has since been known as Stanchfield brook. Mr. Stanchfield got his logs to the mouth of Rum river the first week in November. Mr. Dorr cut his timber on the Mississippi about three miles below Little Falls, and got back to Rum river on the same day that Mr. Stanchfield arrived there. William A. Cheever also stopped at the Rum river post that night. Anchor ice had begun to run in the Mississippi, and during the night snow began to fall. Suddenly the whole party were roused by the breaking of Stanchfield’s boom, and rushed out in time to see the logs whirling and grinding against each other in a mad race for the open Mississippi.

Mr. Dorr was more fortunate with his timber, most of which he saved and delivered safely at the St. Anthony dam the next spring.

In the winter Holmes sold the Rum river post to Patrick Caine; and Captain Simeon P. Folsom, who was then living in St. Paul, purchased half of Caine’s interest and moved to the place with his wife about the middle of February, 1848. Provisions were scarce and high. Captain Folsom paid $4 for a barrel of potatoes at Fort Snelling in the spring of, 1848. He pared them carefully so as to preserve the eyes, and after eating the potatoes planted the parings near his home at Rum river. On a small patch of ground, half the size of a city lot he raised forty bushels of potatoes, which grew from these parings. Mr. Noot also raised some very good corn and a few beans at King’s island. These were the first crops raised in Anoka county. In the spring of 1847, the count heard of an uprising in his native country, and left in haste for Europe, leaving a valuable horse and some other property with the Noots.

In 1840 the Winnebago Indians had been removed from their ancient home in what is now Wisconsin beyond the Mississippi to land since included in the state of Iowa. But white men were now casting longing eyes upon this land also, and after much persuasion and negotiation the Chippeways had been induced to grant land in the vicinity of Long Prairie in what is now Minnesota for the use of the Winnebagoes, and the latter had agreed to remove thither in 1848. But when the time came for the removal the Indians were very reluctant to go. Edmund Rice had undertaken the task of transferring them to their new home. Mr. Rice succeeded in getting most of them as far as the Sioux village presided over by Chief Wabasha, by steamboat. The old Dakota chief sympathised with the new corners and finally sold them the site of the present city of Winona. Here the Winnebagoes camped and refused to move another rod. Troops were hastily summoned from Fort Snelling, and after a considerable show of force those of the Indians who had not run away were bundled into steamboats and taken to St. Paul. From this point the Winnebagoes and their military escort marched up the Mississippi on foot. The Indians had heard of Rum river and believed that intoxicants must be plentiful there. Consequently, those who were provided with ponies pushed on ahead, and reached the river before the main body had got much beyond St. Anthony falls. Captain Folsom understood the Winnebago language and recognized a number of the Indians, whom he had known in 1840 at the time of their former migration. But he had no whiskey for them. At the “big island” they had better success. Noot had two barrels of whiskey; but as soon as the Indians found he had it they proceeeded to help themselves without ceremony. They locked Noot in the barn and his wife and child in the house, and then proceeded to get riotously drunk.

Noot had a yoke of oxen, and had agreed to haul some hay for Captain Folsom. The latter went up toward the island in the morning to see about hauling the hay and met Indians in all stages of intoxication. They had whiskey in all sorts of receptacles. One had a pan half full before him on his horse, and every few minutes bent his head down and took a drink. Another had filled up an empty powder can. One had two cans tied at the ends of a rope thrown across his horse’s neck, and these clanked together at every step.

It took considerable courage to face a mob of drunken savages, but Captain Folsom was determined to ascertain what had become of the Noots. When he came in sight of the cabin he heard Noot and his wife calling for help. Just then there came up a chief named Whistling Thunder, whom Captain Folsom had known in Wisconsin, and Folsom said to him:

“What is going on here?”

“You mustn’t go down there,” said the chief.

“See here, chief,” said Captain Folsom in the Winnebago tongue, “no brave man will ever lock up a woman.”

“We-chook-a-nig-era says no brave man will lock up a woman,” repeated the chief to his followers.

This appeal to the Indians to save their reputation for courage proved effectual, and the cabin door was im mediately unfastened. Mrs. Noot came out with her child, and ran off into the brush.

As a means of gaining the good will of the redskins Captain Folsom set before them the remainder of the whiskey in the barrel which they had seized. One of the Indians, who was in an advanced state of intoxication was recklessly firing his gun, to the imminent danger of everybody within range. Captain Folsom succeeded in convincing the others that this ought not to be permitted, and so the offender was tied up in such a manner as to put a stop to this form of hilarity.

Folsom next visited the barn, where Noot was making piteous appeals to be released.

Simeon P. Folsom.

“That door has got to be opened,” said he firmly. Finding that Folsom was thoroughly in earnest, the Indians went away, and the captain unfastened the door of the barn where Noot was confined. He then procured an ax and stove in the head of the remaining barrel of whiskey. Noot was disposed to bemoan the loss of his liquor, but Folsom said to him:

“You are very foolish to begrudge an old barrel of whiskey. Don’t you know that your life is at stake here ?”

Noot ran over on the island calling to his wife, but Captain Folsom finally found her at the mouth of Rum river, whither she had fled with the heavy child in her arms. The only boat Folsom had was a leaky birch bark canoe, and before he could get Mrs. Noot and the child into it the Indians appeared. They were firing their guns in drunken glee. Some of them tried to enter the canoe, but the captain ordered them away, pushing one back forcibly, and finally succeeded in getting his canoe launched.

Having safely landed Mrs. Noot and the child near his own house he heard Noot calling from the shore he had just left:

 “Meester Folsom! Meester Folsom!”

There was nothing to be done but to make another trip, and try to save the man from the reckless savages. When the captain got back to the west shore he found that Whistling Thunder had also arrived. Again a half drunken Indian attempted to enter the boat. But the rebuke of his chief was forcible and effective. Whistling Thunder gave the bending figure of the savage a sound kick under the chin, which sent him sprawling on his back, and Folsom sped away with his passenger to the east side.

Then Whistling Thunder himself decided that it would be very much safer to put the river between him self and his unruly followers until they had had an opportunity to sleep off their debauch, and begged Folsom averse to the presence of so stalwart an ally, and again braving the river in his crazy craft, he brought the chief over in safety, and the whole party slept that night in Captain Folsom’s house, exhausted with their exertions, but feeling tolerably safe from the intrusion of the drunken crew who were making night hideous on the farther shore.

Noot’s experience with the Winnebagoes seems to have dampened his enthusiasm for frontier life. He afterward went to St. Paul, where he became possessed of eighty acres of land. This having risen in value on account of the growth of the city, he became quite well off. Some time later he served a term in the legislature.

Captain Folsom cut a great deal of hay in the summer of 1848, which he sold at a profit of some $6,000. All the supplies for the Winnebagoes had to be hauled to Long Prairie. A considerable amount of these supplies had been stored at Banfil’s, on Rice creek. The teams had to be fed. Captain Folsom had the best hay on the upper Mississippi and the most of it, and could command a good price. In the fall of 1848 he removed to Elk river.

Captain Folsom and Caleb D. Dorr were both present at the Anoka street fair in I904, and regaled the citizens with many anecdotes of pre-territorial days.

The settlement of the Winnebagoes at Long Prairie greatly increased the amount of travel up and down the river, and there sprang up along the route between that point and St. Paul a series of taverns and trading posts, many of them with farms attached. Bloodgood settled on Coon creek. Joseph Brown located at Big lake. and Burgess at Big Meadow, eight or ten miles north of Big lake. There was also a settler at Clear lake still farther north, and there were a number of settlers at or near Sauk Rapids. Allan Morrison was still at Crow Wing, where he had had a trading post for some twenty years.

The Winnebagoes were very much dissatisfied with their home at Long Prairie. They complained bitterly of the scarcity of game, and often large bands of the tribe would descend the Mississippi to Crow river for the purpose of hunting and fishing on the neutral lands between the Chippeways and Sioux. In order to keep the Indians under some sort of restraint, the government decided to establish a fort on the upper Mississippi, and in 1848 Gen. George M. Brooks located the new fort between Sauk Rapids and Crow Wing. It was first known as Fort Marcy, but later as Fort Gaines, and finally as Fort Ripley.

A considerable band of Winnebagoes established themselves at and near the mouth Of Crow river, from which place they roamed through the adjacent country in search of sustenance. One of their trails ran through the northern part of what is now the town of Ramsey, crossing Rum river about a mile and a quarter above Trott brook and below the mouth of Cedar creek, and running thence to Lake George, where the fishing was excellent, and where deer came to feed in great numbers. Some parts of this trail were afterward used as a road by the early settlers, and it was visible for many years.