A Red River townsite speculation in 1857

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857.*

BY DANIEL S. B. JOHNSTON.

From the age of seventeen, in 1849, to my arrival in St. Paul,
July 21, 1855, I was a school teacher during winters, and part
of the time during summers. My district school pay ran from
twelve to sixteen dollars a month and boarding round fare.
Naturally, when I got to St. Paul I set about trying to better
myself financially, as I owed fifty dollars and had only four
cents to pay it with.

A chance was offered me in November, 1856, to become one
of a company of five to make townsites along the Red river of
the North, with a fifth interest and all expenses paid, if I would
help hold the towns by occupation. I thought opportunity had
knocked at my door and I said yes, promptly. My journal of
this expedition supplies the following narrative.

THE) COMPANY AND THE) PLANS AND OUTFIT.

George F. Brott of St. Cloud, E. Demortimer and J. W.
Prentiss of St. Paul, and J. C. Moulton and I of St. Anthony,
made the company. Brott and Demortimer were the financial
backers of the concern, Moulton its travelling superintendent,
and Prentiss and I were to be the resident townsite managers.
Moulton, Prentiss and I, English Bill, our cook, two guides, and
four ox team drivers, were to go on the trip, in total ten men.
Two sleds were built for rough usage. One was to be loaded
with corn and cob ground feed for our five yoke of oxen. The
other sled was to carry provisions for ten men and our garden
and farm tools. Six of the ten men were to remain on the Red
river during the winter. Our two guides were French and
Chippewa half-breeds named Pierre and Charlie Bottineau
(pronounced Birchineau). The distance we had to travel was
about one hundred and twenty-five miles in a westerly direc-

*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, May 13, 1913.

412 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

tion from St. Cloud, Minnesota, to the junction of the Bois des
Sioux and Otter Tail rivers where they head the Red river of
the North.

Our expedition began on the last day of the year 1856, in
one of the severest winters the oldest inhabitants of the North-
west had yet seen. We started at that time because we had
heard that other parties were planning to get out ahead of us,
and there was no "get left" in any of our party that I had
ever heard of.

It was intended at first to make a canoe trip up the Minne-
sota river and down the Bois des Sioux in October, 1856; but
a freeze up somewhere en route was feared, so that it was de-
cided to wait until we could get ready for a winter trip with
ox teams, lumber woods fashion.

My outfit garments were three thick woolen shirts, three
pairs of heavy woolen drawers, three pairs of woolen stock-
ings with a pair of Indian moccasins drawn over them, and a
pair of thick elk skin overshoes laced high on my ankles. Then
came a pair of Canada gray trousers and leggings to button
down on the overshoes to keep the snow out when we had to
break roads. A short coat of Kentucky jeans, and a lamb skin
cap, wool inside and made to come down over my neck, with
side flaps to tie with strings over my nose to keep it from
freezing, and a pair of fur gauntlets, completed my garment
outfit. I was not pretty, but even in forty below zero weather
I was comfortable. I had no colds, nor did I freeze any part
of my body during all the terrible exposure of that terrible
winter of 1857.

When we struck unburned prairie, we had to break our
roads through snow a foot to eighteen inches deep and often
drifted from four to eight feet deep. These drifts were some-
times ten to fifteen rods wide, and all had to be shoveled
through, often with temperature ten to thirty degrees below
zero. On the burned prairie the snow was usually blown down
to a three to four-inch icy crust, which cut the fetlocks of our
cattle unmercifully.

BEGINNING TH£ TRAMP.

Wednesday, December 31, 1856, Moulton and Prentiss
started from St. Paul with the loaded teams. I followed on

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 413

Friday, January 2, 1857, in a blinding snow storm, picking up
on my way Pierre Bottineau and his brother from their home
in St. Anthony. I had a span of horses and driver and intended
to overtake Moulton and the teams about the time they reached
St. Cloud. Before we got out of St. Anthony our sleigh tipped
over in a snow drift. We righted without breaking anything
and went on to Elk River, where we stopped for the night.

The next morning we started for St. Cloud at daylight. It
was very cold. As the ox teams had broken the roads in fair
shape, we made good time reaching Boyington's tavern, about
fifteen miles from St. Cloud, in time for dinner. There we
overtook Moulton. I got out and assumed charge of the teams,
and Moulton and Prentiss went on with Bottineau and brother
to St. Cloud. I got to Colonel Emerson's stopping place oppo-
site lower St. Cloud at half past six, pretty tired, as I had to
walk most of the way over not the best of roads. At Emer-
son's we put up for the night.

Monday, January 5th, we moved up the Mississippi and
crossed at the upper ferry, headed by the guides, and started
across the prairie in the direction of St. Joe. The guides went
ahead on snow shoes. Prentiss and I followed. Between the
four of us we made a road that our teams followed with more
or less difficulty, for the snow was about eighteen inches deep
and what track there had been was drifted full. We made
eight miles to St. Joe by night.

The necks of three of our cattle had begun to gall. We
changed the bows and wrapped them with soft cloths. The
next day we reached Cold Spring, ten miles farther on. The
7th we go to Richardson's, seven miles from Cold Spring. The
8th, which was Thursday, we made only five miles, as we had
to cross snow drifts three to four feet deep with not a sign of
a road anywhere. Up to this time roofs had sheltered us and
our cattle at night. There was only one spare bed in any of
the settlers' houses, and usually none at all. Then all of us
had to sleep on the floor under a comforter about fifteen feet
long, eight feet wide, and three inches thick, quilted with cot-
ton batting and made specially for the trip.

Friday, the 9th of January, we started at daylight, again
a very hard day. On the unburned prairie snow drifts were

414 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

crossed, which the guides on their snow shoes beat down for
the teams the best they could. Progress was slow, but we
made ten miles and camped under our tent for the first time,
with our feet to a rousing hot wood fire. We slept comfortably
and soundly.

Saturday, the 10th, we crossed a grassy lake near which
we had camped the night before. It was very bad getting on
and off the lake. We teamed only about seven miles that day,
and camped on the shore of a beautiful lake that Bottineau
called Lake Henry.

The llth was Sunday, and, tired out, we rested. A Dutch-
man had built a house about half a mile away from our camp.
It was about a third of the way to our destination from the
Mississippi, and the last house between us and the Pacific coast,
so far as we knew.

Just after we had breakfasted, a boy about twelve years old
sauntered up opposite our fire to investigate. I was sitting on
our bedding next to Pierre Bottineau, our main guide. "See
me scare that boy," said he in a low voice. Suddenly grab-
bing his hunting knife in his right hand and letting out a wild
Indian yell that made the woods ring, he went over the top
of the log fire after the boy. Didn't that boy run? Well, he
did.

Our preparations for camping consisted in finding timber
and water. The lakes and ponds were only five to ten miles
apart and usually wooded on one side or two sides, so this was
not a difficult thing to do. For our bedding we usually found
swamp reeds or prairie grass. On this we spread our unlined
buffalo skin overcoats and waterproofs. Over us we had our
comforter of wool, padded with cotton batting, about three
inches thick and firmly quilted. This covered ten men and was
about fifteen feet long, as I have stated. We slept with all our
clothes on, and there was no chance to change or wash any of
them short of the end of our journey. We slept spoon fashion,
and when one wanted to turn the rest of us had to turn also.
Sometimes my hips got pretty cold on the frozen ground when
the under-bedding happened to be thin.

Monday, tt>e 12th. we found trouble again from the galled
shoulders of our cattle. This time we changed the off ox to

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 415

the near side and wrapped the bows with more soft cloth. On
this day we crossed elk tracks. The guides went after them,
but unsuccessfully.

From the 12th to the 23rd the days were much alike in
travel experiences. There was heavy pulling for the cattle and
shoveling across strips of unburned prairie for us, and con-
siderable flinching of our cattle as the icy crusts cut their
ankles where fires of the summer and fall had burned the
prairie grass. Brilliant sun dogs predicted stormy weather.

WOUNDING TWO BUFFALOES, AND SNOWED UNDER.

On Friday, the 23rd, we crossed the last of a chain of lakes
near their head. They were about three miles long. As our
teams were crossing we saw two buffaloes feeding on the
swamp grass, about two miles away. We stopped the teams
and sent them off under Prentiss to a patch of woods bordering
the lake, to find a camping place. The guides, followed by
Moulton, English Bill (our cook), and myself, started to circle
around the meadow where the buffaloes had been feeding.
About two miles farther away we found where the animals,
evidently frightened, had gone out to the prairie on the jump.
The guides took the pony and started on the trail, and the
rest of us returned to camp, and none too soon.

A lively blizzard was sweeping down. All hands cut and
dragged the dryest wood we could find while the snow drove in
great blanket sheets fiercely upon us. Gradually it put out our
fire, and wet and exhausted, our tent blown down, we were
doubtful what to do. At this juncture the guides returned.
''Spread out the bed and get into it as quick as you can/'
shouted Pierre, and we obeyed. It seemed to me there was an
inch of drifted snow on the buffalo skins when we got in and
covered up heacf and ears. How the wind howled through the
creaking tree tops overhead, and how we shivered in our wet
clothing! It was pretty cold for a while, but gradually we
steamed up and went to sleep. Through the night the wind
drifted from four to six inches of snow upon us. Pierre said
that the snow, covering us as it did, probably kept us from
freezing to death, as the wind changed in the night and the air
became intensely cold.

416 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

Pierre waked me about three in the morning, trying to start
up the fire from a few coals that were still alive under the logs
of the afternoon fire. He was singing in Chippewa. I pulled
the bed clothes down a little and a chunk of snow rolled in,
nearly as big as my head. I asked Bottineau to turn his Chip-
pewa jargon into English, and he said it was to give us en-
couragement. Crawling out of that steaming bed into down
below zero air, to try to dry our wet clothes, as we had to do
that morning, certainly needed encouragement. The guides
had overtaken the two buffaloes and put four shot-gun bullets
into them. They evidently were severely wounded, but had to
be left because of the rapidly approaching blizzard. Our cat-
tle and pony, partially sheltered from the wind, among the
trees and back of broken bluffs, were less exposed than we
were and fared comfortably well.

As our guides predicted another storm, we moved our camp
to a less exposed place near our cattle, and laid over on Sat-
urday, the 24th. When the sun arose, a brilliant sun dog ap-
peared on each side of it, and a bright crescent swung down
above it. It was a beautiful sight but portentous. Hardly had
we got settled when the storm burst again with renewed fury.
We could not see, even hazily, ten rods before us in any direc-
tion. Toward evening the wind slackened, and we dug our
bed clothes out of the snow and dried them before the fire the
best we could in preparation for a night of doubt. We slept
safe and warm, however.

Sunday, the 25th, dawned clear but intensely cold. Usually
we did not travel on Sunday, but today, in this time of sudden
storms, we felt called to push on. Our cattle also were grow-
ing weak, and the ankles of some of them were swelled as large
as tea kettles, having been cut by sharp snow crusts and in-
flamed by freezing. They stained the snow with gushing blood
at nearly every step they took. Besides, we were some thirty-
five miles from our destination on the Red river, and there was
only one reliable patch of timber on the way. This was at
Lightning lake. We were ten miles distant from that lake, and
we did not know what deep drifts of snow might obstruct our
way. A few small groups of poplar trees, two or three inches

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 417

in diameter, were strung far apart along the Otter Tail river,
but they were miles from the route we were to follow on our
way to the Red river. The guides said our safety lay in push-
ing on as fast and direct as we were able. After we had gone
about five miles, Moulton and Charlie Bottineau concluded to
go after the wounded buffalo. About that time one of our
oxen fell, and it seemed as if we could not get the discouraged
animal on his feet again. We still had five miles to go to reach
the woods of Lightning lake, and night was near. We finally
got through, however, and selected a place for our camp on the
south side of the lake under a high bluff. Moulton and Charlie
returned without seeing the buffalo.

The wind changed during the night, and on Monday it
began to blow again. Pierre, our head guide, vetoed all at-
tempts of our anxious men to make a start across that treeless
twenty-five mile prairie to the Bois des Sioux river.

Tuesday, the 27th, started in clear and cold. The Leaf
mountains on our right, twenty to thirty miles away, and the
Coteau des Prairies ahead and toward the left, about sixty
miles distant, loomed white and cold in the bracing morning
air. According to Bottineau, Lightning lake took its name
from a man in a former expedition being struck by lightning
and killed, a few rods back of where we camped.

1 KILLING MY FIRST BUFFALO.

Shortly after we started, we saw two buffalo off to the left.
Pierre and Moulton started after them. Charlie and I went on
ahead of our teams. We were soon met by Pierre with the in-
formation that one of the animals that he and Charlie had
wounded was near. Charlie and I started on a trot in the
direction Pierre pointed. The snow was more than a foot deep,
with a crust on top, through which we broke about every fifth
step. In that way we ran over a mile. On reaching his trail
we followed it in nearly the direction the teams were pointing.

At the last bench of land before coming to the wide level
prairie east of the Bois des Sioux river, we crawled carefully
up to the summit of the bench. About forty rods away we
saw the buffalo lying in the snow. He saw us as soon as we

27

418 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

saw him. I said to Charlie, "We must run him down," and we
started as fast as we could in the pursuit. The buffalo dragged
himself on three legs about twenty rods farther, and then gave
up. Charlie reached him first and emptied both barrels of his
gun into him without bringing him down. I had a breech-load-
ing Sharp's rifle, with caps on a tape which ran out one at a
time as I cocked the gun. Nearly breathless from wallowing
through the snow, I reached the buffalo just as Charlie fired
his second shot. My first shot went wild, but I had a cartridge
in before Charlie could get a ball down one barrel. We tried
to get around to his side, but snorting, with his bead-like eyes
glowing like coals of fire through the shaggy hair of his fore-
head, the buffalo swung on his crippled hips and faced me. I
told Charlie to attract his attention in front and keep on load-
ing his gun. I stepped around to his left side and put a bullet
in his heart, which killed him.

Hearing the sound of our firing, Moulton soon brought the
teams around, and we were all highly pleased that we would
not have to eat pork for supper. Unhitching our teams, we
fed them from our rapidly diminishing store of cattle feed.
Then kindling a fire with the dry poplar poles that we had
loaded on our sleds at Lightning lake for that purpose, we
cooked our first meal of buffalo meat, which, with our starved
cattle, was soon to be our only food until new supplies could
be sent to us from St. Paul.

AN ALL NIGHT DRIVE.

As there was no sheltered place to camp and Pierre was
anxious to get ahead for fear of another snow storm, we de-
cided to keep going through the night. The guides traveled
by the North star, and when that was clouded over by the
below zero fog that swept over us every few minutes, we had
to stop and wait for the air to clear. As soon as our cattle
stopped, the drivers dropped on the snow and into a sleepy
drowse from which we had to arouse them in some cases by a
vigorous shake. It was easy to freeze to death in the temper-
ature of that night. Fortunately nearly all the prairie had been
burned over, else probably our cattle would not have lasted

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 419

through. As it was, they staggered as they slowly walked.
Constantly in fear of the wind rising on that twenty-five mile
prairie in the moonless night of the 27th and sunless day of
the 28th until four in the afternoon, while I followed our stag-
gering men and cattle, it was anything but a play spell.

Soon after leaving the place where we killed the buffalo, we
found a huge drift where we had to shovel our way nearly
thirty rods. It was a slow, hard job, but we finally got the
teams through. It delayed us so much that by daylight fully
twelve miles of the twenty-five remained to be crossed. Dur-
ing the day and night of the 27th we had traveled only about
thirteen miles. About daylight of the 28th our teams refused
to go any farther. I had wet my feet running down the buffalo,
and though I kicked and threshed the best I could, they were
now nearly frozen. We stopped and kindled a fire with our
dry poplar poles, and I changed my stockings for dry ones.
After feeding our teams and eating a hasty breakfast, we went
slowly on again toward a patch of timber about four miles up
the Bois des Sioux river. There was only one place on the 28th
where we had to shovel the road and that we soon got over.
When we reached the Bois des Sioux late in the afternoon, we
were about as happy a bunch of men as you often see.

A BUFFALO HE^RD ON THE BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSITE.

Thursday the 29th we started for the junction of the Bois
des Sioux and Otter Tail rivers, where we were to make our
first town, called Breckenridge. The guides and Moulton and
I went ahead of the teams that were coming down along the
right bank of the river under Prentiss. Near the junction of
the two rivers to form the Red river of the North we saw fresh
buffalo tracks. We followed them to the mouth of the Bois
des Sioux, when the guides left us with instructions to keep
down by the river out of sight and to keep quiet while they
went after the buffalo, which evidently were quite numerous.
In about an hour we went down the bed of the Red river about
a half mile to where the banks were high. Climbing to the top,
we saw a herd of fully eighty buffalo basking on the prairie
east of the river and the guides crawling through the snow to

420 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

get up to them. They were in a bend of the Otter Tail and
only about eighty rods from the Red river.

Moulton and I at once started up the river on the run wal-
lowing through four foot drifts to stop the teams, which were
not more than three quarters of a mile away and in a direct
line with the buffalo. I led the teams down out of sight toward
a point of timber opposite where the city of Wahpeton now
stands. Here we prepared to camp with as little noise as
possible.

The guides crawled through the snow which was about
eighteen inches deep, breaking the crust from underneath.
The animals had their heads down below the surface of the
snow, where they had pawed it away to get at the dry grass.
The bulls fed outside and the cows and calves in the center,
so as to be protected from the wolves which hovered around
the herd. When all was quiet the guides would crawl up to the
cordon of bulls. As they slowly approached, the bulls would
come up, smell their wolf-skin caps and snort a little. The
guides would lie perfectly quiet. The bulls, evidently believ-
ing the caps were dead wolves, would go on pawing and feed-
ing. As the guides got up near a cow or calf they would fire
and drop their guns in the snow and hold their wolf-skin gaunt-
lets over the gun locks to keep them dry. The startled buffalo
would jump away a few rods and turn around to see what had
made the noise. Seeing nothing moving but themselves, they
would paw the snow and go to eating again. In this way they
killed a cow and two calves, and wounded two cows that they
could not get, owing to the approach of night. They then tied
a red handkerchief to a ramrod and stuck the rod in the snow
to keep the wolves away, and left the carcasses to freeze.

On Friday the 30th, Moulton and I tried to survey some of
the townsite, but the wind blew so hard that we could not
straighten our tape line chain, and we had to abandon the
effort. A double team started under the lead of Prentiss and
Charlie Bottineau to bring in the dead buffalo. It was a very
severe day, and when night came the teams had not returned.
We in camp became very uneasy. As it began to grow dark
some one shouted "Whoa!" down on the river. Pierre sprang

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 421

to his feet with the exclamation, "They've come ! 0, God, I'm
so glad!" Soon Prentiss came into camp nearly exhausted and
called for hot tea. He emptied cup after cup in quick succes-
sion until he got warm. They had been compelled to abandon
one of our best oxen about four miles up the Otter Tail, and
had lost their way and wandered fully eight miles without
finding the dead buffalo. A terrible night of storm followed,
which we were long to remember.

Saturday the 31st opened clear and cold. We had been
twenty-nine days traveling to the town we were to make at
the head of the Red river of the North, and in many ways had
gained a memorable experience. But we were after money,
and the glamour of the "million in it" brightened all the diffi-
cult ways we had come since leaving St. Paul.

SURVEYING THIS TOWNSITE AND KILLING ANOTHER BUFFALO.

The morning of the 31st, Pierre Bottineau started with the
teams to see if he could find the dead buffalo, while Moulton
and I began to survey the Breckenridge townsite. As we had
only a hand compass and an ordinary tape line, and a very
crooked stream to meander, it was slow work. All we expected
to do, however, was to block out the site and leave the filling
in to be done in St. Paul. We were not very particular as to
the absolute accuracy of such doings in those days. About four
o'clock in the afternoon we had the main lines completed.

We climbed the river bank to return to the camp, when we
saw the team halted, that Pierre had taken out in the morning.
Hastening up to solve the trouble, we heard the report of two
guns in quick succession on the low ground bordering the river.
Then a huge buffalo bull, weighing probably a ton, lurched into
sight through the snow at the base of a sharp rise from a marsh
fronting me. I was alone, having got some distance ahead of
Moulton. When I saw the bull he was about thirty rods away,
coming directly toward me and rounding the inner edge of the
deep drifted bluff that evidently he could not break through.
On the river side of the marsh the guides ran back and forth
to keep him from crossing. As the buffalo passed them they
would pump balls into him from their double-barrelled shot

422 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

guns. Seeing me on the bank, the bull turned and raced back
in front of the guides. Four bullets again struck him. He
then made three convulsive leaps forward, the last clearing
fully fifteen feet. Then his legs sprawled out and he went
down and soon was dead.

The team, having on the sled the cow and two calves and
part of the ox (evidently he had died shortly after Charlie left
him the evening before), went on to camp, headed by Pierre,
while Moulton and I helped Charlie dress the buffalo just
killed. It was near sundown and too late for the teams to
return, so Charlie fixed his red handkerchief in a split stick
and stuck it in the snow by the carcass to keep the wolves away,
and we walked up the river bank to the camp at the mouth of
the Bois des Sioux, which we reached about dusk.

The next day was Sunday, February 1st. We hauled in the
buffalo body and spent the rest of the day writing to friends
at home, for Moulton and the guides and Billy, their cook, were
to return soon to St. Paul. Having now about a ton of buffalo
meat on hand, we packed it in ice the best we could, and felt
that we were safe from starvation until supplies could reach
us in the spring, unless a warm spell should set in early in the
spring, a thing that exactly did happen.

Moulton had brought a tough, wiry Indian pony through to
the Bois des Sioux, to draw back the necessary supplies for
himself and our guides. The guides and Barrett, one of the
teamsters, had been rigging a jumper and had it nearly com-
pleted ready to load on Monday, the 2nd. Moulton and I had
completed the townsite survey, and all was ready except the
harness for the pony, to be made of raw buffalo hide. It con-
sisted of a front shoulder piece, and two hide traces all in one
strip and held in place by an equally broad back band. Mean-
time two of our men had been felling trees to enclose a yard for
our cattle.

MOULTON RETURNS TO ST. PAUL.

February 3rd, Moulton and the two guides and the cook
left the Bed river camp to return to St. Paul, expecting to reach
our Bois des Sioux camp about four miles up the river about
dark. From there they were to take the first good chance to

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 423

cross the twenty-five mile wide prairie to Lightning lake in
daylight and before storms would rise again.

Wednesday, February 4th, all went to work at the mouth
of the Bois des Sioux cutting logs for our shanty, as we had
only a tent for shelter.

MEN ON SHORT RATIONS AND CATTLE STARVING.

We started from St. Paul with only a barrel of flour, and
as we gave Moulton part of that, there was but little left.
Nothing could be done but to take the remainder of the corn
and cob meal away from the cattle and put them on elm tree
browse, using the meal for ourselves. It was tough business
for both sides, but there was no other way. There was only a
little more than a two bushel and a half bagful of it left. This
we divided on the second of February in daily portions to last
till April 1st, the date we expected Moulton back with supplies
for our relief.

The division gave, for each of the six men who remained,
enough of this coarse mixture, when wet in water and baked
in our old-fashioned tin oven before the fire, to supply a cake
roughly measuring six inches in length, three inches in width,
and a half an inch in thickness, at night and morning. At noon
we had buffalo meat chopped up, and a slice of pork cut from
about fifty pounds that was left of a 150-pound hog we started
with from St. Paul. This was boiled into a soft, thick concoc-
tion that Bottineau called "boo-yeh." We also had about a
peck of beans left. On such living bowel trouble soon started.
I was the first victim. We had a case of drug remedies, and by
their aid we kept ourselves fairly well patched up during the
remainder of the winter.

Soon our cattle began to weaken. Our second ox was found,
in a few days unable to get on his feet. We shot him, buried
his quarters in snow and ice, and hauled the body a few rods
away from the stable and left it for the wolves to quarrel over.
The stable we fastened tight at night, and we soon became
used to the howls and fighting yelps and snarls of these animal
devils of the woods and prairies.

On Thursday, the 19th of February, we finished mud-chink-
ing between the logs of the shanty we had built, and moved

424 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

into it from the tent that for six weeks had been our home.
Our bed was made of poplar poles covered with willows and
weeds. On this foundation we spread out buffalo skins and
waterproofs and the few blankets we had. Our thickly padded
bed comforter covered us. We still slept with all our day
clothes on. At first we had neither door nor window. We used
our tent over these openings to block out the cold the best we
could. We had a rip saw, and with that we soon made rough
basswood boards for door and window casings, and with cracks
battened got along quite comfortably. The roof was made of
20-inch shake shingles, split from sawed-off oak logs.

On Wednesday morning, the 25th, a third ox could not get
up and Prentiss shot him. We saved the quarters and hauled
the body out to the wolves. That night a strong southeast wind
drove snow an inch deep upon our bed clothes. All hands
turned out in the morning and calked the cracks of the roof
with dry grass that we found under the snow out on the prairie.
At the time we built our shanty house the point where the Otter
Tail river joins the Red was covered west of the bluff with a
thick growth of elm, oak, and basswood trees. We built our
house at the north end of this grove, and the stable for our cat-
tle on the fifteen-foot rise a few rods off and nearly fronting
the house, which faced the bluff. South of the house, near the
point, was where we cut down trees for a cattle fence and
where our cattle were herded, except in extreme dry weather
and cold nights, and also where we fed them their meals of
elm browse.

On Wednesday, March 4th, we divided what salt we had
left, confining us to about a pint a week until April 1st. On
the 6th we divided our beans, limiting us to less than a quart
a week for the same time. We tried to help out our food sup-
ply by shooting prairie chickens and rabbits in the patches of
wood along the river, but the weather was so severe and the
snow so deep that we were not very successful.

A MARCH FLOOD.

Sunday, March 15th, the weather suddenly turned warm,
and the snow began to melt. No effective work could be done
by any of us on account of bowel trouble. Tuesday, the 17th,

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 425

we had to kill another of our cattle, very poor ; the only parts
worth saving were the hams, heart and tongue. As the buf-
falo cow had thawed we skinned her and found the flesh spoiled,
so we dragged her down on the ice for the wolves to eat. Our
meat supply was now nearly gone, only the hams of one ox
and half of a buffalo calf remained. On Saturday we divided
the last of our corn and cob meal. Some discouragement pre-
vailed as the snow melted and the river rose above its banks
during this unseasonably warm spell, and the worst of it was
that we feared its effect on the supply teams then on the way
to relieve us. That we had reason to fear was fully known
later.

On the morning of Friday, April 3rd, the water from the
river began to come into the house, the level of the house foun-
dation being only about four feet above the summer stage of
water in the river. The only thing to do was to pile our things
on the bed and let it come. It rose about eight inches more
and then came to a stand.

Our fire place was built under the ridgepole of the house,
and was well mudded with clay about eighteen inches above
the earth floor. The smoke went through the roof. The fire-
place was built of logs and was about four feet square. We
had received fair warning of what was to come later on, so
we began to build a temporary shed, about twelve feet square,
farther back where the ground was some fifteen feet higher.
In our feeble condition this was slow work. Though the air
had turned cold, the water rose more than a foot higher in the
house that afternoon. We cut and dragged in elm logs and
built up the floor and fire bed so that our feet and fire would
be above water. Then we went to bed with our bed poles only
about a foot above the flood.

Sunday, the 5th, was clear and intensely cold. Ice had
frozen during the night thick enough to bear an ox. There
was no chance to rest that day, for the weather might turn
warmer on short notice. So we cut and backed logs up the
fifteen foot bank through water knee deep, the remainder of
our oxen being so weak we could not use them. Six of the
oxen had died, and we had eaten all that was eatable of three
of them, and God only knew when Moulton could come to our
relief.

426 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

Thursday, April 9th, I shot a large otter in the last bend
the Otter Tail river makes before uniting with the Bois des
Sioux to form the Red river. I skinned the otter, and stuffed
the skin ; then, in order to promote variety in our cooking, we
set Prentiss at work roasting it without parboiling, which we
should have done. As our salt was gone, there was no season-
ing to temper the intense oily, fishy condition of the meat. We
thought it would taste better cold, so we laid it by for break-
fast on the 10th, but the taste was so strong that we had to
throw it out for the wolves to eat.

Ed Dunn, one of our men, started for St. Paul afoot and
alone on the morning of the 10th, with eight days' supply of
meat from our cattle that had starved to death. We could not
spare him either a gun or an axe. All the weapon we could let
him have was a butcher knife, and the only covering a heavy
Mackinaw blanket. Months afterwards we heard he had got
off the road going toward St. Cloud, and wandered away west-
ward across the prairie that Bottineau was so careful to shun
through fear of storms. He reached a settler's house on the
Minnesota river at last, with both feet frozen so badly that his
toes had to be amputated. He said, before starting, that we
were all bound to die anyway, and he preferred to make at least
one desperate struggle for his life.

APRIL BLIZZARDS.

Sunday, the 12th of April, our beds were drifted over with
fine snow that had sifted through the roof in a blizzard during
the night. The storm was even worse than the one which
snowed us under at Lightning lake. It brought a hard outlook
for Ed Dunn, we thought, unless he could have reached a patch
of timber somewhere.

After Dunn left us on the 10th, we poured water into our
molasses keg, shook it up, and afterward doled it out carefully
until the 14th, when we saw the last of it. Sweets and salt
were now gone for good. There was nothing to keep the four
of our remaining cattle alive but elm buds, and nothing for
us but the quarters of three of our starved cattle, for our buf-
falo meat was gone. Then the sky promised still another snow
storm. It came, and Tuesday the 14th was another terrible

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 427

day. Where was Moulton an<J his relief teams? They ought
to have been through to us by April 1st. We feared something
had happened. As subsequent events proved, something had
happened.

Wednesday the 15th was intensely cold for April, with
cloudless sky and freezing fast all day. Ice that opened on the
river during the thaw, now closed so as to bear loaded teams.
Only two places where the water ran rapidly were now open,
and they were closing. We felt much regret for loss of our
thermometer. Crows for several days had become very tame.
We could get within four or five rods of them before they would
fly. The cold continued on the 16th and 17th.

A TRYING REUEF EXPERIENCE.

On the 17th of April Moulton came through to us with three
men, and told of a hard time trying to come to our relief. The
party bringing supplies started from St. Paul on the 9th of
March. The warm wave struck them on the 15th of March.
They kept on over the fast melting snow until they reached
Lake Pomme de Terre, and then, thoroughly frightened, sev-
eral of the men threw off their loads and turned back, despite
all Moulton could say or do. At once Moulton and three of
his men loaded their packs with biscuits and started for us,
though we were fifty miles distant and the prairies were swim-
ming with water.

They finally came to the swamps at the head of Mustinka
river, some fifteen miles from us, and found them deep under
water. They waded in snow and slush nearly an hour until,
hip deep, and no hope ahead, and night coming on, they had to
retreat. Chilled to the bone, they made their way back to a
small patch of woods, built a fire, dried their wet clothes as
best they could, and went back to Lake Pomme de Terre, put
up a shelter shanty, and two weeks later they crossed those
swamps to us on the ice. I got half a biscuit from what they
had left when they reached us.

The men of those days were here mainly for what they
could make, and were willing to take chances to get what they
were after. We, of this Red river venture, were built that way.

428 - MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

We thought we saw Opportunity at the door, we locked arms
with her, but found on this trip that it was not Opportunity
at all.

TWO OTHER TOWNSITES BELOW BRECKENRIDGE.

On the morning of April the 19th, Moulton and his men and
I started down the river to make more towns, our only depend-
ence for food being our guns and a seven and a half pound can
of meat biscuit. This meat biscuit was made of beef boiled soft
and the fat poured over it while hot, the whole being pow-
dered when cold. It made a nourishing soup.

Our first stopping place was to be Graham's Point, near
where Fort Abercrombie was afterward built, about twelve
miles below Breckenridge. Here the first town below Breck-
enridge was to be started. English Billy, our cook, who was
one of Moulton 's men, and I, were to hold it, our only depend-
ence for food being our guns and the fish in the river, with no
salt.

Prentiss, Barrett, teamster Bill, and Bob, were to remain in
Breckenridge to hold that site. Mark Leadbeater and John
Hunt were to go downstream with Moulton to start a third town
at the mouth of the Sheyenne river, where we hoped the North-
ern Pacific railroad would cross the Bed river into Dakota.

As there were no more provisions at Breckenridge, the last
ox of our faithful ten had to be killed on the morning of the
20th, about the time we were eating our meal of meat biscuit
soup at Graham's Point. After that meal I was to go out on
the prairie to see if I could find game. Moulton and his two
men went on down the river with their guns and what was left
of the meat biscuit, and he promised to keep out of sight on
the river ice while I hunted for something for Billy and me
to eat.

Walking up the bank from the lower level where we had
put up our tent, I saw what looked like four buffaloes feeding
on bare spots of the prairie about three miles away and some-
thing like a mile from the river. I began to stalk them, as we
say in hunting parlance. Soon they swung around and fed on
the bare places toward the head of what used to be called
Whiskey creek. I followed them as carefully as I could until

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 429

I came within about a mile of them, when they moved to a
lower level out of sight. I then started on a trot and had come
considerably nearer to where they went out of sight, when they
slowly went up the bank where the drifted snow was lightest,
and disappeared. I took their trail up to the foot of a rise
which was about fifteen feet high. All was silent as a grave-
yard. I began to climb, half expecting to sight the buffaloes a
mile away. As I poked my black sheep-skin cap above the rise
I saw four bulls, weighing I should say a ton each, standing
in a huddle and evidently considering in their animal minds
what to do next. Instantly four buffalo tails flashed into the
air and away all went across the country toward Breckenridge.
It was useless to shoot and perhaps scare some other game, so,
shouldering my gun, I walked down toward the bed of the
creek out of sight, as the snow had begun to fly and I had no
intention of losing my way, for I knew that the creek at flood
time emptied into the Red river about a mile to the westward.

MY SECOND BUFFALO AND HOW WE GOT HIM.

As I walked along, looking for small game, I saw just ahead
of me a buffalo lying on a point of land where the snow had
been blown away. I tried to edge around out orf sight till I could
get a fair shot, when I heard a cap crack, then another, and
another, in quick succession. The buffalo rose to his feet with-
out seeming to be in any hurry, and moved off on the prairie
and out of sight. I hurried down around the point. There
stood John Hunt, back towards me, and holding his gun by
the muzzle end of the barrel with breech upraised above his
head as if about to smash it down on the trunk of a tree just
in front of him. "I'll break it ! Damned if I don't break it,"
he muttered. "Better think four times, before you do that,
John; extra guns are not very plentiful out here," I said.
"Where did you come from," be blurted, as he plumped the
butt of his gun down into the snow at his feet. "No matter,
now, you've got your priming wet. Reload, and we'll get that
buffalo yet, ' ' I said. c ' Get that buffalo, ' ' John replied, disdain-
fully ; " He 's half way to Pembina by this time. " " Don 't waste
time talking," I said; "snow out there on the prairie is knee

430 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

deep, and that buffalo poor, and not frightened. He '11 be com-
ing back to the shelter of this coulee in a few minutes if let
alone. Reprime your gun and we'll crawl up the bank and see
about it."

John did as I directed. As we got to the top of the bank,
we saw the buffalo standing about fifteen rods away, looking
northward and evidently considering what he had better do
next. Then, as I expected, he turned around and came back
toward the bare grassy spot he had just left on the slope of
the bluff. We were lying in a place where the bull could not
see us. He came a few steps directly toward us and then turned
sidewise, as if making for a bare spot a little farther eastward
on the bank of the creek. I said to John, "When he stops will
be our chance. We will aim at his heart. I will count one, two,
three, and when I say three, let both guns crack." The buffalo
waded slowly two or three rods through the snow and stopped!
I counted three. Both guns sounded as one. The buffalo made
a tremendous bound, followed by two more, and then, all
sprawled out, he went down, and before we got to him he was
dead. I could put three of my fingers into the hole our balls
made through his heart.

Snow was falling, fresh meat tempting. Moulton and Mark
came up and raised a tent. Meantime the buffalo was cut open,
the liver taken out, and we were roasting strips of it on the end
of sharpened sticks in the fire. There may have been sweeter
meals for me. If so, I could not remember them. Having
skinned the buffalo and dried the skin stretched on stakes back
of the fire, we spliced it with my oilcloth blanket, and this in-
creased our overhead shelter from the snow. The storm soon
ceased and it turned colder. We continued to cut thin strips
of all that was eatable of the buffalo, and jerked it by drying
on poles before the fire. Billy, my cook, and I, then went into
permanent camp in the woods opposite Graham's Point, while
Moulton, having been crippled by tipping over a cup of hot tea.
upon one of his feet, had to wait over until the river cleared of
ice so that he could go down by canoe.

MILLIONS IN IT.

Tuesday, the 21st of April, Theodore H. Barrett of St.
Cloud, a surveyor whom Moulton brought to plat our Brecken-

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 431

ridge and Graham's Point townsites, arrived at the point, and
meandered the town that was to be. On the 22nd he finished
his Graham 's Point plat, and on the 23rd went to Breckenridge
and completed that survey in the rough, nearly as Moulton and
I had already meandered it. Most of the day, in correcting this
work ready for the plat, we had to wade through prairie ponds,
and some of them nearly knee deep. But what of that? There
were still millions in it.

About noon I saw five buffalo cows and four calves on the
bank of the Bois des Sioux river just above its mouth, where
part of Wahpeton now stands. I wounded three of the cows,
but they got away so far toward the Wild Rice river, to the
westward, that I thought it would not pay to follow them.

Friday, the 24th, we surveyed two claims bordering the
townsite of Breckenridge. It rained all night. The river rose
so fast that we had to move our things and camp in the shanty
on top of the bluff to the southward. On the 25th we also had
to move our Graham's Point camp to higher ground.

Sunday, the 26th, we spent in camp at Graham's Point.
Monday, the 27th, Billy and I began on our cabin. Again we
had to move camp on account of the rising water, moving twice,
and one of our removals was in the night. On the 28th, the
next day, we continued the cutting and carrying of logs for
the cabin. Barrett, the surveyor, helped us with the heaviest
logs. We could not roll some of them up more than half way
on the skids without sitting down to rest, being so weak; but
this was no wonder, as we had nothing to eat but stewed buf-
falo meat and tea and boiled cat fish without salt.

John and Mark started on the 28th to fix a crossing of the
Otter Tail river, as we intended to send John and Barrett to
St. Cloud to hurry supplies and breaking teams. We also
planned to have some ox meat brought down to the point on
a raft from Breckenridge. The current of the high water was
so swift, however, that a raft could not safely come. So Pren-
tiss and John Hunt came down on foot. At Breckenridge the
men had killed a buffalo the week before. The water on the
30th was about eighteen feet above low water mark.

On May 1st the river was falling rapidly. Barrett, John

432 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

and Prentiss started from Breckenridge for St. Cloud the morn-
ing of the second. Barrett was to stop at Lake Pomme de Terre
and bring back Harris to superintend at Breckenridge, bring-
ing along some temporary food supplies to help out the buffalo
meat. Sunday, May 3rd, Moulton came down to Graham's
Point from Breckenridge in a canoe with an Indian and went
down to the mouth of the Sheyenne river to make another
town there. The Indian said he passed men with boats some
distance up the Otter Tail, who were coming down the river.

Monday, May 4th, Joe Whitford, who was afterward killed
by the Indians in 1862, came with a Frenchman and an ox and
cart, expecting to appropriate the townsite we were on; but,
finding it occupied, he went across the river and camped where
Graham formerly had his camp, from which this point received
his name. All of Dakota was Indian territory, and he was lia-
ble to be driven off at any time. "Whitford was sent by a Little
Falls company and was a welcome arrival to us, for we had
been living on tea and boiled catfish without salt for several
days. They had flour. It was the first I had tasted since Jan-
uary, and like a fool I filled my stomach with pancakes and
syrup. After supper I went down in the woods and rolled in
agony behind a log until vomiting relieved me.

Friday, the 8th, teams and supplies came to Breckenridge.
Saturday, the 9th, I went down with Bill Simpson toward Whis-
key creek to pick out a claim for him. Mark went down to the
Sheyenne about noon. Harris and Barrett remained at the
Point. Sunday, the 10th, we rested in camp. Monday, the
llth, supplies came down to the Point from Breckenridge, a
welcome arrival. May 12th I went up to Breckenridge to see
to things there, both Prentiss and Moulton being gone.

Wednesday, the 13th, McDonald and his men came down
the Otter Tail in boats. They were seven days coming from
Otter Tail lake. They started by way of Crow Wing before
we started from St. Paul, and got frozen into Otter Tail lake
and had to winter there. Tom Patmore and Bob went down to
the Point ahead of them, to look after our claims. They re-
turned on Friday, the 15th, and reported that two of Becker
and Hollinshead 's men, who had located about six miles south

A RED RIVER TOWNSITE SPECULATION IN 1857. 433

of the mouth of the Wild Rice river, had been up begging pro-
visions to keep them from starving.

Saturday, the 16th, Harris and Barrett, one of our team-
sters, started from the Point to Sheyenne. George and Sweet-
ser followed about noon to help hold that site against McDon-
ald's men, if they acted ugly. A few days later Moulton re-
turned with the men who had wintered at Sheyenne, and hur-
ried them, half starved, through to St. Cloud to receive pay for
vacating the townsite. It was a waste of money. That Shey-
enne townsite is now a farm, and we never entered a foot of it.

In those days the Red river of the North was to be the com-
ing steamboat avenue of travel between the United States and
Manitoba, besides being the main outlet of a rich farming re-
gion. This came true for a few years between Fargo and the
border. Above Fargo the river was at all seasons, except flood
time, not much better than a good sized creek, and so crooked
that its chief ambition seemed to be to tie itself into all kinds
of bow knots. From May 17th until I started to St. Paul in
the latter part of June, I was chiefly engaged in directing gar-
den and farming operations.

AFTERWARD.

In August, 1857, I went back to editing the St. Anthony
Express. The financial panic of that year having begun, I took
no further interest in Red river townsites. The indomitable
Brott, however, persevered. He started a building at Brecken-
ridge to be a steam saw mill of 150 horse power, and had mill
machinery strung along all the way from St. Paul to the Red
river, when he did not know that a single saw log, so large as
sixteen feet long and a foot through, could be floated down
the crooked shallow Otter Tail river, even in a June freshet,
without snagging.

When the Civil War began, Brott 's men enlisted. Barrett,
the surveyor of our townsites, became the colonel of a colored
regiment, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general, re-
turned to Minnesota and for many years owned a large farm in
Grant and Stevens counties, where he died about a dozen years
ago.

In 1862 the Indian war began. Whitford was killed by the

28

434 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

Indians, and the Breckenridge mill building was burned. Of
course, all we had done up there fell into ruins.

Brott went east before the end of the Civil War, loaded a
steamer with supplies for the South, steamed around to New
Orleans, and there patched up his shattered fortunes. He died
about ten years ago in the city of Washington. Endowed with
tireless energy, no amount of unfortunate circumstances seemed
to discourage him. Continually under the harrow of debt, its
teeth, however sharp, seemed only to wound him slightly be-
fore he was up and getting ready to go under again.

The Graham's Point and Sheyenne enterprises were aban-
doned. At Breckenridge I selected two hundred lots as my
share, and they were deeded to me by Henry T. Welles, who
had become the proprietor of the town. The railroad built the
town so far away from them, however, that they became worth-
less even for tax purposes. What has become of them I have
not heard, and I have not seen a foot of that country since
June, 1857. The medicine I took during six months of that
year cured me of the townsite speculation fever so completely
that I have never felt a touch of it since.

14

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