Fillmore County, Minnesota - Chapter 5: Early Exploration, 1912

Chapter 5: Early Exploration

No Evidence That Barliest Explorers Reached Fillmore County - Interesting Speculation as to Whether La Hontan Meant His ''Long River'' as an Exaggeration of the Root River - Albert Miller Lea and the United States Dragoons Cross Fillmore County - -Early Maps of the Root River - Early Surveys.

From time immemorial until the Indians relinquished their rights, the territory now embraced in Fillmore county was the hunting ground of the Red Men. As there were, in the days of the early explorers, no recorded permanent Indian villages here; and little of vital geographic interest in the sweep of country now embraced in southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa; none of the earlier adventurers, so far as we know, visited Fillmore county. Hennepin with his two companions, Pickard du Guy (Auguelle) and Michael Accault (Ako), who explored the upper Mississippi in 1680; Perrot, who had trading posts about Lake Pepin as early as 1685; LeSueur, who built a fort near Red Wing on Prairie Island in 1695, and one near Mankato in 1700; Jonathan Carver, who ascended the upper Mississippi in 1766; Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, who explored the upper Mississippi in 1805-06; Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who in 1819 established at Mendota in what is now Dakota county, the fort which was afterwards moved across the Minnesota river and hecame Fort Snelling; Major Stephen H. Long, who explored the upper Mississippi in 1817 and 1823; Governor Lewis Cass, who in 1820 explored the principal sources of the Mississippi and then descended the river; William Morrison, who visited Lake Itasea in the winter of 1803-04, and is usually credited as the discoverer of the source of the Mississippi; Henry R. Sehooleraft, who in 1882 explored northern Minnesota ; George Featherstone, who made a geological survey of the Minnesota valley in 1835; George Catlin, who made a faithful study of the Indians of Minnesota; Jean Nicollet, whose activities in the thirties and forties contributed much to Minnesota geography, and David Dale Owen, who explored large portions of the state in 1847, '48, 49 and '50, and whose names are honored as the early explorers of Minnesota, all failed. so far as we know, to make Fillmore county a visit. ;

It is possible that missionaries, renegades, traders or hunters visited this region, in the days of the early exploration, but of this, historians have no record or knowledge, although those who enjoy speculation and conjecture think it quite possible the Frenehmen from the posts of Perrot.on Lake Pepin, the stockades ut Frontenac, or the forts at Prairie Island and Mankato may have come here after game. The mouth and the lower course of the Root river (then ealled the Kieapous river) were mapped as early as 1703, and as the outlet of this stream into the Mississippi was remarkable in that it was filled with rushes and flowed with almost no current, it is not unlikely that many explorers sailed up Root river, but whether any reached Fillmore county, no one at present knows.

The suggestion by N. H. Winchell, that La Hontan's ''Long River'? may be simply au exaggeration of the Root river is most interestmg. La Hontan is now entirely diseredited by historians. 'Whether the writings of this adventurer are purely fietion, written after a talk with explorers and a perusal of old maps, or whether the superstructure of marvelous adventures and amazing experiences is built on a skeleton of actual journeys by La Hontan has never been decided.

The ''Travels'' of Baron La Houtan appeared in 1703, both at London and at Hague, and were as salable and readable as those of Hennepin, which were on the counters of booksellers at the same time. La IJontan, a Gascon by birth, and im style of writing, when about seventeen years of age, arrived in Canada, in 1683, as a private soldier, and was with Governor De Ja Barre in his expediiion of 1684, toward Niagara, and was also in the battle near Rochester, New York, in 1687, at which De Luth and Perrot, explorers of Minnesota, were present. In 1688 le appears to have been sent to Fort St. Joseph, whieh was built by De Luth, on the St. Clare river, near the site of Fort Gratiot, Michigan. It is possible that he may have accompanied Perrot to Lake Pepin, who came about this time to reoceupvy his old post.

In his '' Travels'? La Hontan alleged that on Oetoher 23, 1688, after a trip from the Great Lakes across a part of what is now Wisconsin, and down the Wisconsin valley he reached the Mississippi river, and, ascending, on November 3 he entered into a river, a tributary from the west, that was almost without a current, and at its mouth filled with rushes. Ile then deseribes a journey of 500 miles up this stream. Ile declares he found upon its banks three great nations, the Eokoros, Esanapes, and Gnaesitares (the Mozeemlek being to the westward), and because he ascended it for sixty days, he named it Long river. For years his wondrous story was believed, and geographers hastened to trace it upon their maps. But in time the voyage up the Long river was discovered to be a fabrication. There is extant a letter of Bohe, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, dated Versailles, March 15, 1716, and addressed to De L'Isle, the geographer of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, whieh exposes the deception. He writes: ''It seems to me that you might give the name of Bourbonia to these vast countries which are between the Missouri, Mississippi, and the Western ocean. Would it not be well to efface that great river which La Hontan says he discovered? All the Canadians, and even the governor general, have told me that this river is unknown, If it existed, the French, who are on the Ulinois, and at Onabache, would know of it. The last volume of the 'Lettres Edifiantes' of the Jesuits, in which there is a very fine relation of the Illinois country, does not speak of it, any more than the letters whieh I received this year, which tell wonders of the beauty and goodness of the country. They send me some quite pretty work, made by the wife of one of the principal chiefs. They tell me, that among the Scioux, of the Mississippi, there are always Frenchmen trading; that the course of the Mississippi is: from north to west, and from west to south; that it is known that toward the souree of the Mississippi there is a river in the highlands that leads to the western ocean; that the Indians say that they have seen bearded men with caps, who gather gold-dust on the seashore, but that it is very far from this country, and that they pass through many nations unknown to the French. I have a memoir of La Motte Cadillac, formerly governor of MLissilimackinack, who says that if St. Peters (Minnesota) river is ascended to its source they will, according to all appearanee, find in the highland another river leading to the Western ocean. For the last two years I have tormented exceedingly the governorgeneral, M. Raudot, and M. Duche, to move them to discover this ocean. Ii I succeed, as I hope, we shall hear tidings before three years, and I shall have the pleastwe and consolation of having rendered a good service to geography, to religion and to the state."'

Charlevoix, in his History of New France, alluding to La Hontan's voyage, writes: ''The voyage up the Long river is as fahulous as the Island of Barrataria, of which Sancho Panza was governor. Nevertheless, in France and elsewhere, most people have received these memoirs as the fruits of the travels of a gentleman who wroie badly, although quite lightly, and who had no religion, but who described pretty sincerely what he had seen. The consequence is that the compilers of historieal and geographical dictionarics have almost always followed and cited them in preference to more faithful records."'

''Having procured a eopy of La Hontan's book, in which there is a roughly made map of his Long river, I was struck with the resemblance of its course as laid down with that of Cannon river, which I had previously sketched in my own field-book. I soon convinced myself that the principal statements of the baron in reference to the country and the few details he gives of the physical character of the river, coincide remarkably with what I had laid down as belonging to Cannon river. Then the lakes and swamps corresponded ; traces of Indian villages entioned by him might be found by a growth of wild grass that propagates itself around all old Indian settlements."'

N. H. Winchell in his '' Aborigines of Minnesota'' says: 'It (the Long river of La Hontan) comes nearest to the region of the Root river. The Mozeemlek are far west on a river that flows west, separated from the sonrees of the Long river by a mountain range. In the Journal (Travels), La Hontan says he entered the mouth of Long river November 3 (1688) and that on the ninth he reached the villages of the Eokoros (that is, after six days' travel); therefore the Eokoros were likely to be Iowas. Thev were then at war with the Esanapes, sixty leagues (180 miles) higher up the river. They had 20,000 warriors, which number was greater before the war which they had waged with the Nadouesses (Sioux), the Pinamoha, and the Esanapes. They lived in long huts, round at the top, made of reeds and hullrushes, interlaced and cemented with a sort of 'fat-earth' (that is, clay).

'The Esanapes were very numerous and powerful. The village was large and like a city, the houses almost like ovens, but large and bigh, and constructed as above deseribed. The Gnacsitares were not acquainted with the peace pipe. The Long river had 'little tronts' which they fished out for food.*'

Prof. Winchell further writes: ''After having read attentively the narrative of La Hontan, and examined his map ateompanying it, [reached the following conclusions :

'1. He entered the Root river in Houston county, Minnesota, that being the only stream with rushes (reeds) at its mouth, and also large and long enough to give basis io his story, and having trout; though I do not feel satisfied that he entered auy stream at all.

"9. There is a naturalness in the yarn, in its general course and in its details, that almost preelude disputing its truthfuluess - except what he says ahout the Mozeemlek slaves - whieh convinees me either that he is trying to sketch a veritable trip up the Long river or is an adept at mixing fact and fiction, making the whole to appear fact, tious, or having for a basis of fact only some general and crude statements of the natives, and could have been framed in with imaginary fietion by any unscrupulous reporter who cared not for the truth, and expected that his lies would not be detected, at least not until after his death, but was determined to weave a wonderful and book-selling yarn.

't4 Te eowld not have been beyond the limits of Minnesota, and so far as his facts are amenable to geographic verification, they are limited to Minnesota. They ean be verified in that area. He had « compass and an 'astrolabe,' and he makes a map that shows a stream nearly direct from the west. He shows many islands, but the Root river is almost free from islands, and does not issue from a lake. Its distanees are enormously too great and cannot be condensed into the limits of Root river.

"<5. The names given the Indian tribes are probably invented, oy manufaetured by the adventurer in some such manner as Sehooleraft obtained 'Itasca,' but from the natives' dialects instead of from Latin.

'*§. This fictitious characier being forced upon the reader by the pursual of his Long river trip, is necessarily extended, though with much regret on the part of the student of carly northwestern travels, to his trip down the Mississippi, up the Missouri to Osages, and to the Arkansas, and hence to the whole book. In short, the reader is more than on¢e compelled to doubt the statements made as to the lives and customs of the 'savages,' and hence to class the work as a tissue of falsehood, strung on so inuch faet as the author could command from his knowledge of the country.''

The first visit by white men to the present area of Fillmore eounty, of which any record is found, was made in July, 1835, by Companies B, H, and I, of the First United States Dragoons. under the command of Lieut.-Col. Stephen W. Kearney, the topographer of the expedition being Lieut. Albert Miller Lea.

The Dragoons, ereated by congress in March, 1833, und organized for the more perfeet defense of the frontier, were a fine body of men who had been enlisted from nearly every state in the Union in the summer months of 1833. The commanding officer of this regiment of ten companies was Col. Henry Dodge, a most valiant soldier.

The trip, which has so mneh interest. to the people of Fillmore county, was a march of 1,100 miles by Companies B, H, and I, under Lieut.-Col. Stephen W. Kearney. On June 7, 1835, this detachment left Fort Des Moines and marehed between the Des Moines and Skuuk rivers to near the mouth of the Boone river, Then taking a northeasterly course across Lowa, they entered what is now Minnesota, crossed Mower and Fillmore counties, and reached Wabashaw's village on the Mississippi at practically the present site of Winona. After remaining there about a week, the companies marched somewhat to the south of westwardly, through a part of sonthern Minnesota, then turned southward, and entering Iowa in what is now Kossuth county, reaching the Des Moines river safely. After crossing the river, they descended it on the lower side and reached Fort Des Moines on August 19, 1835, without the loss of a single horse or man. Lieut. Albert Miller Lea, attached to Company I, of the expedition, was the official topographer, and in his honor Nicollet afterwards named a previously undesignated lake whieh the expedition passed in the present Freeborn county.

Lea's hook, ''Notes on Wisconsin Territory,'? was published in 1836 by Henry 8S. Tanner, of Philadelphia. Tt contains fifty-three pages and a map of the Iowa region. This work is an excellent deseription of that part of the original territory of Wiseonsin lying west of the Mississippi river. It was this region that the hook christened the ''Iowa District.°? The map shows the route of the Dragoons and is an indispensable aid in correlating the Dragoon's traek with modern Iowa and sonthern Minnesota geography.

"June 7, 1835, a detachment of the First Regiment U. S. Dragoons left their winter quarters at the head of the lower rapids of the Mississippi (where now stands the village of Montrose) under orders to show themselves to the Sioux Indians in the region west of ake Pepin.

''After organization at Jefferson Branch, twelve miles helow St. Louis, the whole regiment, under Co). Henry Dodge, made a campaign to the Pawnee towns on the upper Red river in the summer of 1834, and in the autumn returned to Fort Gibson, where the command was divided, headquarters going to Fort Leavenworth, and three companies, under Lieut.-Col. S. W. Kearney, going to some log huts prepared for {hem on the west bank of the Mississippi, styled in order 'Fort Des Moines.' The eaptains of these companies were H. V. Sumner, Nathan Boone and Jesse Brown. Men and horses were in a pitiable condition on arrival. The writer joined the command ahout the first of November, and first entered duty with troops on actual service; and during the winter was sent to bring up the eonvalescents of the sick left at Fort Gibson. Recruits of men and horses made up the command so that 164 all told were mustered for the expedition, whieh was started as soon as the grass would feed the horses. Our ontfit was meagre enough, and is noteworthy only as con- trasting with the full equipment of the expeditions of latter days. Captain Smuner being absent, his company was officered entirely by Second Lieut. H. S. Turner, now a respected citizen of St. Louis. Captain Boone, the youngest son of Daniel Boone, having been on detached service, had his company prepared for the campaign by the eare of Lieutenant Lea, who had been especially assigned to that duty, but he took command on the march, and was especially valuable for his knowledge of wooderaft, and as guide. Captain Brown, being detached, his company was in the sole charge of Lieutenant Lea, who acted as ordnance officer.

'Five wagons drawn by four mules each, with pack horses, furnished us transportation, and we had some beef cattle on foot. Lientenant-Colonel Kearney commanded in person, Lieut. J. H. Burgwin was surgeon. The prairie was still very wet, our teams were bad, most of our men unskilled, and we had a hard time for some weeks. But soon strawberries began to ripen, and we had them in superabundance for several weeks, the season advancing with us in our northward march.

"Our route lay along the divide between the Mississippi and the Des Moines. The country was then wholly uninhabited, save by a few Indians, A narrow strip along the lower Iowa was opened to settlers by a treaty made at Rock Island the previous year. A few Indians joined us as hunters and interpreters. At the head of the small river that joins the Mississippi below Burlington, we saw a few buffalo and killed one near a small lake, the head of that stream, and noted down as 'Swan Lake.' As there were no topographic officers with the command, and as the writer had been some years on duty, he undertook, without orders, to make a rude survey and sketch of the country traversed by using a pocket compass, a wateh, and a sketch book, the distance being computed by time and rate of marching. Streams and places were nained on this sketch, and most of them traversed still bear the names thus assigned.

"On the waters of the lowa, we again found buffalos, killed some, and caught a calf, which ran through the column on the march, fell into a dry ereek bed and was caught by the hand of one of my men. These two small herds were the only buffalos seen by our command during the whole mareh. Desiring to visit Wabashaw's band, the officers directed ow course toward Lake Pepin, and about the first of July we encamped on a small rivulet which empties into a river that enters the Mississippi four miles away, Just below Lake Pepin, This river, from the obstructing drift in it was dubbed 'Embarrassed River,' in usage of French travelers with whom I had previously ndsodiated in a suryey of Lake Narm. This name, I understand, has been gradually changed into 'Zumbro,' and the facts ave cited here as a curious illustration of the changes induced in naines of place, through translations and varied spellings in different languages. On this little rivulet we remained three days, and during that time our whole force of 164 men had as much speckled trout as we desired, taken from that single brook only a step wide. One of my men took 130 in four hours with an improvised line and hook.

''Rarly in July we moved camp to the bank of the Mississippi below the lake in sight of Wabashaw's village, which we visited, and there found burials in elevation on trees and scaffolds. We were in view of the 'Montaique qui Trempealean,' on the east side of the lake, Whilst at this camp we were aroused by a passing steamboat, a rare occurrence at that date, having aboard Maj. Gen. Robert Peterson, of Philadelphia, at whose house I had met President Jackson two years before. Here also Captain Brown joined us and took command of his company. Wabashaw's people were scattered in bunting and fishing. But the old chief, with a few attendants, visited the commissioned officers, and expressed his gratifieation hy an invitation to a dog feast, which was declined, as were also other honors, more distinguished than delicate.

"<A map of the country from the Missouri Jine to St. Peter, and from the Mississippi to the Missouri river was made out from such scant materials as I had, ineluding a minute plot of the wanderings made during the summer, and it was sent to the adjutant general. The next spring, having resigned my commission in the army, I obtained a copy of this map, wrote out a description of the country embraced, and had it published by Hi. 8. Tanner, of Philadelphia, under the title of 'Notes on the Towa District of Wisconsin Territory.' The name of 'Iowa' was thus first applied to that region, and afterward adopted by congress in organizing the 'Territory of Iowa.' "'

Early Maps

The first appearance of the Root river on any map was in 1703, when the published map of Guillianme De L'Isle showed the course of the ''R. des Kieapous,'' flowing into the Mississippi from the west. This water, which historians have identified as the Root river, is sketched as a large stream, and is continued westward by a dotted line to a supposed union with the ''Riviere Longe,'' of lia Hontan. This fictitious ''River Long,'' of La Hontan, is made to be a westward continuation of the Des Moines river with a conjectural connection with the ''Kicapous,'' which as Just stated has been identified as the Root river.

believed to have been fiction, and his map merely a garbled copy of previous maps, it is not a matter of vital import whether or not he intended that his '' River Long'' should be merely an exaggeration of the Root river. As before stated, N. H. Winchell believes that the Root river flows into the Mississippi at about the place where La Wontan deseribes the mouth of his Long river. Nicollet believed La Hontan's river to be the Cannon, while De L Isle drew it as a western extension of the Des Moines.

Sheet Number 5, of Popple's Atlas of the British Empire in America, published in 1733, shows the River Quicapon, which is probably intended to he the stream now called Root river.

Another map evidently of Italian origin, which bears neither date nor author's name, but whieh was evidently published in the latter vears of the eighteenth century (1750 and 1778 are both conjectural dates) has a river ''Quikapous,'' which from its size and location is evidently the Root river.

The map of Sr. Robert de Vaugondy, probably published in 1775, shows the ''R. des Quiecabou,'' evidently the Root river. The ''Quicapons'' also appears on the map by Le Sr. d'Anville, published in 1775, and the ''Quieapoux"' on the ''Carte des Cing grands Lacs du Canada'' (Map of the Five Great Lakes of Canada), probably published in 1762, but of which no author or date are given.

But in a map published by J. Hinton, probably about 1776, the old general form of the name is resumed, and the Root river appears as the ''Quicapous."'

In Carver's own map, of 1781, the Root river is named the "Yallow.''? The map of the United States of North America, etc., engraved hy William Faden in 1793, ealls the Root river the '"Quicapoo,'' but the map published by Laurie and Whittle in 1794 uses the name ''Macerct."'

The map compiled by General Collott to accompany his travels in North America in 1774-76, engraved in 1805, ealls the Root river the 'Yellow R.,"' but incorreetly gives its source as a lake,

The Root river has borne its present name since about 1806-07, when it appears on a chart entitled '(A map of Lewis and Clark's track across the western portion of North America from the Mississippi to the Pacifie ocean. By order of the exceutive of the

United States in 1804, °05 and '06. Copied from the original drawing of William Clark by Samuel Lewis.'' Sinee that time the Root river has been a feature of every map of Minnesota.

Thus it will be seen that from the first appearance of the stream on a map in 1703 down to the time it assumed its present name in 1805-06, the Root river hore the following names: Kicapous, Quicapon, Quikapous, Quicabon, Quicapoux, Macaret, Quicapous, Yallow, Quicapoo, Maceret, Yellow, and Carneille.

The first survey made in Fillmore county was that of the northern boundary of the Neutral Strip whieh crossed the southeastern corner of Fillmore county. The survey was completed by James Craig in 1838, and the results of the survey appear on Map No. 112, in the Office of Indian Affairs at Washington. The survey of the Neutral Strip was completed in 1849.

Wilham B. Yerby surveyed and marked off into sections the townships that are now Newburg, Preble and Norway in 1853, and the town that is now Rushford, in 1854.

Lewis W. Carter surveyed and marked off into sections the townships that are now Canton, Amherst, Uolt, Arendahl, Harmony, Preston, Carrolton and Pilot Mound in 1858.

John Parker surveyed and marked off into seetions the townships that are now Bristol, York, Forestville, Beaver, Carimona and Bloomfield in 1853.

C. Phipps and E. Fitzpatrick surveyed and marked off into, sections the townships that are now Fountain, Chatfield, Fillmore, Jordan, Spring Valley and Sumner in 1853.

That part of the First Standard Parallel whieh forms the northern boundary of Fillmore county was surveyed by E. &. Norris in the spring of 1853.