Old Rail Fence Corners Part 15

Nothing was ever stolen and many firm friends.h.i.+ps were thus cemented.

Our pocketbooks were light, but our hearts were also. It was a combination hard to beat.

1857 was the most stringent year in money that Minnesota has ever known.

There was absolutely no money and every store in the territory failed.

Everything was paid by order. Captain Isaac Moulton, now of La Crosse, had a dry goods store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold.

The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My G.o.d woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 in money."

Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick--1858, Minneapolis.

When I married, my husband had been batching it. In the winter his diet was pork! pork! pork! Mrs. Birmingham, who helped him sometimes, said she bet if all the hogs he ate were stood end to end, they would reach to Fort Snelling.

We had a flock of wild geese that we crossed with tame ones. They were the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I would go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk.

When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as soon as they saw the horse. They were handsome birds.

I used to go to my sister's. She had a boarding house on the East Side.

Her boarders were mill workers and "lathers." That is what we used to call the river drivers. They always had a pike pole in their hand. It looked like a lath from a distance, so they got the name of "lathers"

from this.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUP OF CONTRIBUTORS TAKEN AT A PARTY AT THE HOME OF MRS. JAMES T. MORRIS, May 26, 1915

Upper row from left to right: Mrs. Robert Anderson, Mrs. James Pratt, Mrs. John Brown, Mrs. Mary E. Partridge, Mrs. Anna Todd, Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick, Mrs. Rufus Farnham, Mrs. Charles G.o.dley, Mrs. Paulina Starkloff.

Second row: Mrs. Elizabeth Clifford, Mrs. Stephen Rochette.

Lower row: Mrs. Mahlon Black. Mrs. Mary Schmidt, Mrs. Margaret Hern, Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder, Miss Carrie Stratton, Mrs. Mary Weeks, Mrs.

Rebecca Plummer. Eleven of these ladies are over eighty-four years old and Mrs. Weeks is ninety. All have wonderful memories.]

Mrs. Margaret Hern--1858.

My husband enlisted in the Fall of 1861. It was not a very easy thing for him to do, for our farm was not yet very productive, our three children were very young, one a tiny baby, and we had no ready money.

However, he felt that his country called him and when the recruiting officer told him that all soldier's families would be welcome at the post and that we could go there with him, he rented our farm to George Wells and went on to Fort Ridgeley. We lived forty miles from there on the Crow River, near Hutchinson.

We found that the officer had lied. We were not expected or wanted at the fort. We finally made arrangements to stay by promising to board the blacksmith in his quarters. His name was John Resoft. His rations and my husband's supported us all. Mr. Hern was very handy about the house, as he was a Maine Yankee and daily helped me with the work.

There was a great sameness about the life as there were only about a hundred men stationed at the fort. Very few of them had their families with them. The only women were Mrs. Mueller, wife of the doctor, Mrs.

Sweet, wife of the chaplain and their three children, Mrs. Edson, the Captain's wife; Sargeant Jones' wife and three children; Mrs. Dunn and their three children; Mrs. Snider and three children; Mrs. Mickel and three children; Mrs. Randall, the sutler's wife, and myself and our three children.

The winter pa.s.sed monotonously. We used to have some fun with the squaws. Once I was writing home to mother. I wanted a little lock of Indian hair to show her how coa.r.s.e an Indian's hair was. Old Betts happened to come in just then, so I took my scissors and was going to cut a little bit of her "raving locks." When she saw what I was going to do she jumped away screaming and acting like a crazy woman. She never came near that house again, but in the spring after my husband had gone to the front and Mrs. Dunn and I had joined forces and gone to living in another cabin, she stuck her head in our window to beg. I jumped and grabbed a looking gla.s.s and held it before her to let her see how she really did look. She was a sight. She had an old black silk hood I had given her and her hair was straggling all over. When she saw the reflection she was so mad she tried to break the gla.s.s.

Three weeks before the outbreak, the Sioux, our Indians had a war dance back of the fort and claimed it was against the Chippewas. At first we believed them, but when the half breed, Indian Charlie, came in to borrow cooking utensils, he sat down and hung his head, as if under the influence of liquor. He kept saying "Too bad! Too bad!"

Mrs. Dunn became suspicious and knowing I knew him well, as he had often stopped at our cabin, said "Ask him what is too bad." He said, "Injins kill white folks. Me like white folks. Me like Injins. Me have to fight.

Me don't want to." He seemed to feel broken-hearted. I did not believe him and thought him drunk, but Mrs. Dunn said "You go over and tell Sergeant Jones what he said." I did. Sergeant Jones said, "What nonsense! They are only going to have their war dance. All of you white people go over and see that dance."

We all went. The soldiers were all there. The Indians had two tom-toms, and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously, jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the day learned that there was a soldier for everyone of us to s.n.a.t.c.h us away if it was necessary to fire on the Indians.

On Monday morning, August eighteenth, 1862, at about ten o'clock, we saw a great cloud of dust arising. Soon it resolved itself into teams, people on horseback and on foot coming pell mell for the fort. They said that Redwood Agency, twelve miles distant, had been attacked and the Indians were killing all the white settlers.

As they were flying for their lives, they pa.s.sed the sutler of the Redwood store lying face downwards with a board on his back on which was written, "Feed your own squaws and papooses gra.s.s."

He had trusted the Indians until he would do so no longer. Their annuities were long, long overdue and they were starving. They appealed to him again and again and pleaded for food for their starving families.

He finally told them to "Go eat gra.s.s." The settlers had seen the consequence. They had pa.s.sed seven dead, besides on the way.

This was only the beginning of a sad mult.i.tude of refugees, who, wounded in every conceivable way, and nearly dead from terror, poured into the fort.

Captain Marsh, as soon as he had heard the stories, called the soldiers out on the parade ground and called for volunteers, who would go with him to try and stop the awful carnage. Every soldier came forward.

Captain Marsh told them that he thought the sight of the soldiers would cow them as it had so many times before. They at once departed, leaving about thirty men with us.

We knew nothing of what was happening to this little handful of soldiers, but as more and more refugees came in with the terribly mutilated, our fears increased. We knew a small group of the savages could finish us. Just at dusk, Jim Dunn, a soldier of nineteen who always helped us about our work, came reeling in, caked with blood and sweat. I said, "For G.o.d's sake, what is the news, Jim?" He only panted, "Give me something to eat quick." After he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he told us that nearly all of the boys had been killed by the Indians. He said, "The devils got us in the marsh by the river. Quinn told the Captain not to go down there, but he held his sword above his head and said, 'All but cowards will follow me.'" The Indians on the other side of the river were challenging us to come by throwing up their blankets way above their heads. Only three more of the boys came in that night.

All of us who were living outside, had gone into the stone barracks with the refugees. That night we were all sitting huddled together trembling with fear. We had helped feed the hungry and cared for the wounded all day long and now were so fatigued we could hardly keep awake. I had brought my little kerosene lamp with me. I lit it and brought out of the darkness the sorrowful groups of women and children. Some one called "Lights out." I turned mine down and set it behind the door. We sat in darkness. A voice called, "Up stairs." I gathered my baby in my arms, told Walter to hold on to mother's dress on one side and Minnie on the other, and up stairs we went, all pushed from behind so we could not stop. We were pushed into a large room, dark as pitch. There we all stood panting through fear and exertion. How long, I do not know. A voice in the room kept calling, "Ota! Ota!" meaning "Many! Many!" We knew there were Indians with us, but not how many. I had the butcher knife sharpened when the first refugees came and covered with a piece of an old rubber. It was now sticking in my belt. I asked Mrs. Dunn what she had to protect herself with. She said she had nothing, but found her shears in her pocket. I told her to put out their eyes with them, while they were killing us, for we expected death every minute after hearing those Indian voices. I heard Jim Dunn's voice and called him and told him where my lamp was and asked him to bring it up. He brought it to me.

This was the crucial moment of my life. I sat the lamp on the floor, and with one hand on the butcher knife, slowly turned up the light. I saw only three squaws and three half breed boys, instead of the large number of Indians I expected. Each declared "Me good Injin! Me good Injin!"

All was confusion. William Hawley was inside guard at the door of the room we were in upstairs. He was just out of the hospital and was very weak. In spite of this he had gone with the soldiers to Redwood and had just returned after crawling out from under his dead companions and creeping through the brush and long gra.s.s those dreadful miles. He was all in. His gun had a fixed bayonet.

My eyes never left those squaws for a moment. I was sure they were spies who would go to the devils outside and tell them of the weakness of the fort. Two of the squaws began to fight about a fine tooth comb.

The more formidable of the two, with much vituperation, declared she would not stay where the other one was. Just at the height of the fight, a gun outside was fired. The minute it was fired, the squaw started for the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come outside, and tell what she knew. Hawley had left his post and come in among us. Our babies were on a field bed on the floor. Calling to Mrs. Dunn to look after them, I sprang to the door and grabbed the discarded gun. At that moment, the squaw tried to pa.s.s. I ordered her back. She called me a "Seechy doe squaw" meaning "mean squaw" and tried to push me back. I raised the bayonet saying, "Go back or I'll ram this through you." She went back growling and swearing in Sioux. Probably in half an hour I was relieved of my self-appointed task. Martin Tanner taking my place, I said to him, "Don't let that squaw get away." I sat down on a board over some chairs and made the squaw sit beside me. There we sat all that long night with my right hand hold of my knife and the other holding her blue petticoat. Didn't she talk to me and revile me? None of the others even tried to leave. At last we saw the dawn appear.

Have you ever been in great danger where all was darkness where that danger was? If so, you will know what an everlasting blessing that daylight was.

From our upper windows we could look out and see that our foes were not yet in sight. All night long among the refugees, praying, supplicating and wailing for the dead, was constant, but as the light came and we began to bestir ourselves among them, nursing the wounded and feeding the hungry, this ceased and only the crying of the hungry children was heard.

The Indians had driven away all the stock so there was no milk. My baby had just been weaned. All those ten days we stayed in the fort, I fed her hard tack and bacon; that was all we had. I chewed this for her.

There were many nursing mothers, but all were sustaining more than their own.

There was no well or spring near the fort. All water had to be brought from the ravine by mule team. Early that morning, under an escort, with the cannon trained on them, the men drove the mule teams again and again for water. Busy as all the women who lived at the fort were, I never let that squaw out of my sight. I kept hold of a lock of her hair whenever I walked around. She swore volubly, but came along.

About ten o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Gere, a boy of nineteen, who was left in command when the senior officers were killed, called on me.

On a hill to the northwest, a great body of Indians were a.s.sembled. He wanted me to look through the field piece and see if Little Crow was the leader. I knew him at once among the cavorting throng of challenging devils. I knew too, whose captive I would be if the fort fell, for he had offered to buy me from my husband for three ponies. He loved so to hear me sing. Mr. Gideon Pond had tried to teach him to sing. We watched them breathlessly as they sat in council knowing that if they came then we were lost. The council was long, but finally after giving the blood curdling war whoop, they rode away.

They were hardly out of sight before the soldiers who had been with us and had just left for Fort Ripley before the outbreak, filed in. Captain Marsh had sent for them just before leaving the fort for Redwood. Those n.o.ble fellows, nearly exhausted from the long march, with no sleep for thirty hours, immediately took their places with the defenders, without rest or sleep the night before. Gere had sent to St. Peter for the Renville Rangers and some of our own men. They came in the evening.

The prayers of thanksgiving that could be heard in many tongues from that mournful group of refugees, as they knew of the soldiers return, could never be forgotten. Mrs. Dunn and I had asked for guns to help fight, but there were none for us. There was little ammunition too. The blacksmith, John Resoft, made slugs by cutting iron rods into pieces.

Mrs. Mueller, Mrs. Dunn and I worked a large share of that day making cartridges of these, or b.a.l.l.s. We would take a piece of paper, give it a twist, drop in some powder and one of these, or a ball, and give it another twist. The soldiers could fire twice as fast with these as when they loaded themselves. All the women helped.

My squaw was still with me. The others made no effort to escape. Just as night came, she broke away and when she really started she could run off with me, as she was big and I only weighed one hundred and three pounds.

When I found I could not stop her, I screamed to Sargeant MCGrew, "This squaw is going to get away and I can't stop her." He turned his gun on her and shouted, "If you don't go back, I'll blow you to h---." That night I had to sleep and she got away.

With a hundred and sixty soldiers in the fort, all were so rea.s.sured that we all slept that night.

The next morning was a repet.i.tion of Tuesday. The care of the wounded under that great man, Doctor Mueller and his devoted wife, was our work.

One woman who was my especial care had been in bed with a three day's old baby when the smoke from the burning homes of neighbors was seen and they knew the time to fly had come. A wagon with a small amount of hay on it stood near the door with part of a stack of hay by it. Her husband and the hired man placed her and the baby on this and covered them with as much hay as they could get on before the savages came, then mounted the horses and started to ride away. They were at once shot by the Indians who then began a search for her. They ran a pitch fork into the hay over and over again, wounding the woman in many places and hurting the child so that it died. They then set fire to the hay and went on to continue their devilish work elsewhere. She crawled out of the hay more dead than alive and made her way to the fort. Besides the pitchfork holes which were in her legs and back, her hair and eyebrows were gone and she was dreadfully burned.

None of the women seemed to think of their wounds. They lamented their dead and lost, but as far as they themselves were concerned were thankful they were not captives. The suffering of these women stirred me to the depths. One poor German woman had had a large family of children.

They all scattered at the approach of the Indians. She thought they were all killed. She would sit looking into s.p.a.ce, calling, "Mine schilder!

Mine schilder!" enough to break your heart. I thought she had gone crazy when I saw her look up at the sound of a child's voice, then begin to climb on the table calling, "Mine schilder! Mine schilder!" In a group on the other side she had seen four of her children that had escaped and just reached the fort that Wednesday morning.