The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier Part 4

One of the curious results of the many governmental changes which the western part of Minnesota underwent is ill.u.s.trated in the residence of Gen. Henry H. Sibley, at Mendota. In 1834, at the age of twenty-two, Mr.

Sibley commenced his residence at Mendota, as the agent of the American Fur Company's establishment. At this point Mr. Sibley built the first private residence that was erected in Minnesota. It was a large, comfortable dwelling, constructed of the blue limestone found in the vicinity, with commodious porticos on the river front. The house was built in 1835-36, and was then in the Territory of Michigan. Mr. Sibley lived in it successively in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Territory and State of Minnesota. He removed to St. Paul in the year 1862. Every distinguished visitor who came to Minnesota in the early days was entertained by Mr. Sibley in this hospitable old mansion, and, together with its genial, generous and refined proprietor, it contributed much towards planting the seeds of those aesthetic amenities of social life that have so generally flourished in the later days of Minnesota's history and given it its deserved prominence among the states of the West. The house still stands, and has been occupied at different times since its founder abandoned it as a Catholic inst.i.tution of some kind and an artists' summer school. The word Mendota is Sioux, and means "The meeting of the waters."

It was the admission of Wisconsin into the Union in 1848 that brought about the organization of the Territory of Minnesota. The peculiar situation in which all the people residing west of the St. Croix found themselves set them to devising ways and means to obtain some kind of government to live under. It was a debatable question whether the remnant of Wisconsin which was left over when the state was admitted carried with it the territorial government, or whether it was a "no man's land," and different views were entertained on the subject. The question was somewhat embarra.s.sed by the fact that the territorial governor, Governor Dodge, had been elected to the senate of the United States from the new state, and the territorial secretary, Mr. John Catlin, who would have become governor ex-officio when a vacancy occurred in the office of governor, resided in Madison, and the delegate to congress, Mr. John H. Tweedy, had resigned; so, even if the territorial government had, in law, survived, there seemed to be no one to represent and administer it.

There was no lack of ability among the inhabitants of the abandoned remnant of Wisconsin. In St. Paul dwelt Henry M. Rice, Louis Roberts, J.

W. Simpson, A. L. Larpenteur, David Lambert, Henry Jackson, Vetal Guerin, David Herbert, Oliver Rosseau, Andre G.o.dfrey, Joseph Rondo, James R. Clewell, Edward Phalen, William G. Carter, and many others. In Stillwater and on the St. Croix were Morton S. Wilkinson, Henry L. Moss, John McKusick, Joseph R. Brown, etc. In Mendota resided Henry H. Sibley.

In St. Anthony, William R. Marshall; at Fort Snelling, Franklin Steele.

I could name many others, but the above is a representative list. It will be observed that many of them were French.

An initial meeting was held in St. Paul, in July of 1848, at Henry Jackson's trading house, to consider the matter, which was undoubtedly the first public meeting ever held in Minnesota. On the fifth day of August, in the same year, a similar meeting was held in Stillwater, and out of these meetings grew a call for a convention, to be held at Stillwater, on August 26th, which was held accordingly. There were present about sixty delegates.

At this meeting a letter from Hon. John Catlin, the secretary of Wisconsin Territory, was read, giving it as his opinion that the territorial government of Wisconsin still existed, and that if a delegate to congress was elected he would be admitted to a seat.

A memorial to congress was prepared, setting forth the peculiar situation in which the people of the remnant found themselves, and praying relief in the organization of a territorial government.

During the session of this convention there was a verbal agreement entered into between the members, to the effect that when the new territory was organized the capital should be at St. Paul, the penitentiary at Stillwater, the university at St. Anthony, and the delegate to congress should be taken from Mendota. I have had reason to a.s.sert publicly this fact on former occasions, and so far as it relates to the university and the penitentiary, my statement was questioned by Minnesota's greatest historian, Rev. Edward D. Neill, in a published article, signed "Iconoclast;" but I sustained my position by letters from surviving members of the convention, which I published, and to which no answer was ever made. The same statement can be found in Williams' "History of St. Paul," published in 1876, at page 182.

The result of this convention was the selection of Henry H. Sibley as its agent or delegate, to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton and present the memorial and resolutions to the United States authorities. It was curiously enough stipulated that the delegate should pay his own expenses.

Shortly after this event the Hon. John H. Tweedy, who was the regularly elected delegate to congress from the Territory of Wisconsin, no doubt supposing his official career was terminated, resigned his position, and Mr. John Catlin, claiming to be the governor of the territory, came to Stillwater, and issued a proclamation on Oct. 9, 1848, ordering a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Delegate Tweedy. The election was held on the thirtieth day of October.

Mr. Henry H. Sibley and Mr. Henry M. Rice became candidates, neither caring very much about the result, and Mr. Sibley was elected. There was much doubt entertained as to the delegate being allowed to take his seat, but in November he proceeded to Was.h.i.+ngton, and was admitted, after considerable discussion.

On the 3d of March, 1849, the delegate succeeded in pa.s.sing an act organizing the Territory of Minnesota, the boundaries of which embraced all the territory between the western boundary of Wisconsin and the Mississippi river, and also all that was left unappropriated on the admission of the State of Iowa, which carried our western boundary to the Missouri river, and included within our limits a large part of what is now North and South Dakota.

The pa.s.sage of this act was the first step in the creation of Minnesota.

No part of the country had ever before borne that name. The word is composed of two Sioux words, "Minne," which means water, and "Sota,"

which means the condition of the sky when fleecy white clouds are seen floating slowly and quietly over it. It has been translated, "sky tinted," giving to the word Minnesota the meaning of sky-tinted water.

The name originated in the fact that, in the early days, the river now called Minnesota used to rise very rapidly in the spring, and there was constantly a caving in of the banks, which disturbed its otherwise pellucid waters, and gave them the appearance of the sky when covered with the light clouds I have mentioned. The similarity was heightened by the current keeping the disturbing element constantly in motion. There is a town just above St. Peter, called Kasota, which means "cloudy sky;"

not stormy or threatening, but a sky dotted with fleecy white clouds.

The best conception of this word can be found by pouring a few drops of milk into a gla.s.s of clear water, and observing the cloudy disturbance.

The princ.i.p.al river in the territory was then called the St. Peters river, but the name was changed to the Minnesota.

EDUCATION.

An act organizing a territory simply creates a government for its inhabitants, limiting and regulating its powers, executive, legislative and judicial, and in our country they generally resemble each other in all essential features. But the organic act of Minnesota contained one provision never before found in any that preceded it. It had been customary to donate to the territory and future state, one section of land in each surveyed towns.h.i.+p for school purposes, and section 16 had been selected as the one, but in the Minnesota act, the donation was doubled, and sections 16 and 36 in each towns.h.i.+p were reserved for the schools, which amounted to one-eighteenth of all the lands in the territory; and when it is understood that the state as now const.i.tuted contains 84,287 square miles, or about 53,943,379 acres of land, it will be seen that the grant was princely in extent and incalculable in value.

No other state in the Union has been endowed with such a magnificent educational foundation. I may except Texas, which came into the Union, not as a part of the United States' public domain, but as an independent republic, owning all its lands, amounting to 237,504 square miles, or 152,002,560 acres, a vast empire in itself. I remember hearing a distinguished senator, in the course of the debate on its admission into the Union, describe its immensity by saying, "A pigeon could not fly across it in a week."

It affords every citizen of Minnesota great pride to know that, under all phases and conditions of our territory and state, whether in prosperity or adversity, the school fund has always been held sacred, and neither extravagance, neglect nor peculation has ever a.s.sailed it, but it has been husbanded with jealous care from time to time since the first dollar was realized from it until the present, and has acc.u.mulated until the princ.i.p.al is estimated at $20,000,000. The state auditor, in his last report of it, says:

"The extent of the school land grant should ultimately be about three million acres, and as the average price of this land heretofore sold is $5.96 per acre, the amount of princ.i.p.al alone should yield the school fund not less than $17,000,000. To this must be added the amount received from sales of timber, and for lease and royalty of mineral lands, which will not be less than $3,000,000 more. It is not probable that the average sale price of this land will be reduced in the future, but it may increase, especially in view of the improved method of sale inaugurated by the new land law."

The general method of administering the school fund is to invest the proceeds arising from the sale of the lands, and distribute the interest among the counties of the state according to the number of children attending school; the princ.i.p.al always to remain untouched and inviolate.

Generous grants of land have also been made for a state university, amounting to 92,558 acres; also, for an agricultural college to the extent of one hundred thousand acres, which two funds have been consolidated, and together they have acc.u.mulated to the sum of $1,159,790.73, all of which is securely invested.

The state has also been endowed with five hundred thousand acres of land for internal improvements, and all its lands falling within the designation of swamp lands. An act of congress, of Feb. 26, 1857, also gave it ten sections of land for the purpose of completing public buildings at the seat of government, and all the salt springs, not to exceed twelve, in the state, with six sections of land to each spring, in all seventy-two sections. The twelve salt springs have all been discovered and located, and the lands selected. The salt spring lands have been transferred to the regents of the university, to be held in trust to pay the cost of a geological and natural history survey of the state. It is estimated that the salt spring lands will produce, on the same valuation as the school lands, the sum of $300,000. Large sums will also be gained by the state from the sale of timber stumpage, and the products of its mineral lands. Some idea of the magnitude of the fund to be derived from the mineral lands of the state may be learned from the report of the state auditor for the year 1896, in which he says that during the years 1895-96 there was received from and under all mineral leases, contracts and royalties, $170,128.83.

It will be seen from this statement that the educational interests of Minnesota are largely provided for without resort to direct taxation, although up to the present time that means of revenue has to some extent been utilized to meet the expenses of the grand system prevailing throughout the state.

THE FIRST TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.

The organization of the territory was completed by the appointment of Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania as governor, Aaron Goodrich as chief justice, and David Cooper and Bradley B. Meeker as a.s.sociate justices, C. K. Smith as secretary, Joshua L. Taylor as marshal, and Henry L. Moss as district attorney.

On the 27th of May, 1849, the governor and his family arrived in St.

Paul; but there being no suitable accommodations for them, they became the guests of Hon. Henry H. Sibley, at Mendota, whose hospitality, as usual, was never failing, and for several weeks there resided the four men who have been perhaps more prominent in the development of the state than any others,--Henry H. Sibley, Alexander Ramsey, Henry M. Rice and Franklin Steele, all of whom have been honored by having important counties named after them and by being chosen to fill high places of honor and trust.

The governor soon returned to the capital, and on the 1st of June, 1849, issued a proclamation, declaring the territory duly organized. On the 11th of June he issued a second proclamation, dividing the territory into three judicial districts. The county of St. Croix, which was one of the discarded counties of Wisconsin, and embraced the present county of Ramsey, was made the first district. The second was composed of the county of La Pointe (another of the Wisconsin counties), and the region north and west of the Mississippi river, and north of the Minnesota, and of a line running due west from the head waters of the Minnesota to the Missouri. The country west of the Mississippi and south of the Minnesota formed the third district. The chief justice was a.s.signed to the first, Meeker to the second and Cooper to the third, and courts were ordered held in each district as follows: At Stillwater, in the first district, on the second Monday, at the Falls of St. Anthony on the third Monday, and at Mendota on the fourth Monday, in August.

A census was taken of the inhabitants of the territory, in pursuance of the requirements of the organic act, with the following result. I give here the details of the census, as it is interesting to know what inhabited places there were in the territory at this time, as well as the number of inhabitants:

Total Inhabitants.

Stillwater 609 Lake St. Croix 211 Marine Mills 173 St. Paul 840 Little Canada and St. Anthony 571 Crow Wing and Long Prairie 350 Osakis Rapids 133 Falls of St. Croix 16 Snake River 82 La Pointe County 22 Crow Wing 174 Big Stone Lake and Lac qui Parle 68 Little Rock 35 Prairieville 22 Oak Grove 23 Black Dog Village 18 Crow Wing (east side) 70 Mendota 122 Red Wing Village 33 Wabasha and Root River 114 Fort Snelling 38 Soldiers, women and children in forts 317 Pembina 637 Missouri River 85 ------ Total 4,764

On the seventh day of July the governor issued a proclamation, dividing the territory into seven council districts, and ordering an election for a delegate to congress, nine councillors, and eighteen representatives, to const.i.tute the first territorial legislature, to be held on the first day of August. At this election Henry H. Sibley was again chosen delegate to congress.

COURTS.

The courts were held in pursuance of the governor's proclamation, the first one convening at Stillwater. But before I relate what there occurred, I will mention an attempt that was made by Judge Irwin, one of the territorial judges of Wisconsin, to hold a term in St. Croix county, in 1842. Joseph R. Brown, of whom I shall speak hereafter as one of the brightest of Minnesota's early settlers, came to Fort Snelling as a fifer boy in the regiment that founded and built the fort in 1819. He was discharged from the army about 1826, and had become clerk of the courts in St. Croix county. He had procured from the legislature of Wisconsin an order for a court in his county for some reason only known to himself, and in 1842 Judge Irwin came up to hold it. He arrived at Fort Snelling, and found himself in a country which indicated that disputes were more frequently settled with tomahawks than by the principles of the common law. The officers of the fort could give him no information, but in his wanderings he found Mr. Norman W. Kittson, who had a trading house near the Falls of Minnehaha. Kittson knew Clerk Brown, who was then living on the St. Croix, near where Stillwater now stands, and furnis.h.i.+ng the judge a horse, directed him how to find his clerk. After a ride of more than twenty miles, Brown was discovered, but no preparations had been made for a court. The judge took the first boat down the river, a disgusted and angry man.

After the lapse of five years from this futile attempt the first court actually held within the bounds of Minnesota was presided over by Judge Dunn, then chief justice of the Territory of Wisconsin. The court convened at Stillwater in June, 1847, and is remembered not only as the first court ever held in Minnesota, but on account of the trial of an Indian chief, named "Wind," who was indicted for murder. Samuel J.

Crawford of Mineral Point was appointed prosecuting attorney for the term, and Ben C. Eastman of Plattville defended the prisoner. "Wind" was acquitted. This was the first jury trial in Minnesota.

It should be stated that Henry H. Sibley was in fact the first judicial officer who ever exercised the functions of a court in Minnesota. While living at St. Peters (Mendota), he was commissioned a justice of the peace in 1835 or 1836 by Governor Chambers of Iowa, with a jurisdiction extending from twenty miles south of Prairie du Chien to the British boundary on the north, to the White river on the west and the Mississippi on the east. His prisoners could only be committed to Prairie du Chien. Boundary lines were very dimly defined in those days, and minor magistrates were in no danger of being overruled by superior courts, and tradition a.s.serts that the writs of Sibley's court often extended far over into Wisconsin and other jurisdictions. One case is recalled which will serve as an ill.u.s.tration. A man named Phalen was charged with having murdered a sergeant in the United States army in Wisconsin. He was arrested under a warrant from Justice Sibley's Iowa court, examined and committed to Prairie du Chien, and no questions asked. Lake Phalen, from which the city of St. Paul derives part of its water supply, is named after this prisoner. Whatever jurisdictional irregularities Justice Sibley may have indulged in, it is safe to say that no injustice ever resulted from any decision of his.

The first court-house that was erected within the present limits of Minnesota was at Stillwater, in the year 1847. A private subscription was taken up, and $1,200 was contributed. This sum was supplemented by a sufficient amount to complete the structure, from the treasury of St.

Croix county. It was perched on the top of one of the high bluffs in that town, and much private and judicial blasphemy has been expended by exhausted litigants and judges in climbing to its lofty pinnacle. I held a term in it ten years after its completion.

This court-house fell within the first judicial district of the Territory of Minnesota, under the division made by Governor Ramsey, and the first court under his proclamation was held within its walls, beginning the second Monday of August, 1849. It was presided over by Chief Justice Goodrich, a.s.sisted by Judge Cooper, the term lasting one week. There were thirty-five cases on the calendar. The grand jury returned thirty indictments, one for a.s.sault with intent to maim, one for perjury, four for selling liquor to Indians, and four for keeping gambling houses. Only one of these indictments was tried at this term, and the accused, Mr. William D. Phillips, being a prominent member of the bar, and there being a good deal of fun in it, I will give a brief history of the trial and the defendant.

Mr. Phillips was a native of Maryland, and came to St. Paul in 1848. He was the first district attorney of the county of Ramsey. He became quite prominent as a lawyer and politician, and tradition has handed down many interesting anecdotes concerning him. The indictment charged him with a.s.sault with intent to maim. In an altercation with a man, he had drawn a pistol on him, and his defense was that the pistol was not loaded.

The witness for the prosecution swore that it was, and added that he could see the load. The prisoner, as the law then was, was not allowed to testify in his own behalf. He was convicted and fined $25. He was very indignant at the result, and explained the a.s.sertion of the witness, that he could see the load, in this way. He said he had been electioneering for Mr. Henry M. Rice, and from the uncertainty of getting his meals in such an unsettled country, he carried crackers and cheese in the same pocket with his pistol, a crumb of which had gotten into the pistol, and the fellow was so scared when he looked at it, that he thought it was loaded to the muzzle.

Another anecdote which is related of him shows that he fully understood the fundamental principle which underlies success in the practice of law--that of always charging for services performed. Mr. Henry M. Rice had presented him with a lot in St. Paul, upon which to build an office, and when he presented his next bill to Mr. Rice there was in it a charge of four dollars for drawing the deed.

The territorial courts as originally const.i.tuted, being composed of only three judges, the trial terms were held by single judges, and the supreme court by all three sitting in bank, where they would review each others decisions on appeal.