Goodhue County, Minnesota - Chapter 8: Indian Troubles, 1909

Half-Breed Tract - The Location and Purpose - Issue of Scrip - Difficulties Which Ensued - Threats and Recourse to Washington Finally Settle the Matter - Spirit Lake Massacre - Investigation by Red Wing Men - Uprising of 1862.

The difficulty in regard to the "Half-breed tract," so called, was a source of much inconvenience to the early settlers in Goodhue county. As has previously been mentioned, the lower hands of Sioux had succeeded in having set off a certain tract of land, lying largely in the present Goodhue county, for the benefit of their half-bloods. There is little doubt that the Indian traders and those in their employ were the chief instruments in having such a reservation made. The persons who would be entitled to share in the tract were at that time chiefly children under age. This land was not laid off into townships and sections by the surveyors until about a year after the other parts of the county had been surveyed. A few settlors, however, had, by permission of some of the relatives of the Indians, settled within the tract. Some had .purchased rights of some mixed bloods and had made a claim accordingly. "When the United States survey was finally made, no attention was paid to previous boundaries, the townships and sections being laid down in the usual order, and in conformity with the adjacent lands. Soon after the land office was opened in Red Wing, a list of the names of all persons entitled to a share in the reserved tract was made out and sent to the general land office in Washington. Scrip was immediately issued to each name, designating the number of acres the person named was entitled to. General Shields brought the scrip to Minnesota for distribution. A great portion of this scrip passed into the hands of parents or guardians of children, and from them it passed into the hands of speculators. About this time there were probably two hundred families of whites settled upon this tract. Many of them held quit claims from individual half-breeds for a certain number of acres. But the land office could not recognize the quit claims, for obvious reasons. Nothing but the scrip from the general land office would avail in filing an entry upon any portion of this land. Speculators saw their opportunity and began to take up the land by "laying the scrip," as the act was called, in the land office. The choicest locations were already occupied by settlers, and those who held scrip could enter the lands these settlers had chosen, in many cases where extensive improvements had been made, the soil broken, crops raised, and buildings and fences erected. The actual settlers had the sympathy of all the surrounding population, but holders of the scrip had the legal advantage of the situation, and commenced to obtain titles to farms already improved. This caused the settlers to rally in self-defense. Red Wing, in particular, was a scene of excitement, for here was located the land office, and the eastern part of the township was included in this troublesome tract. Meetings were held by the actual settlers and counsel taken as to methods of procedure. They assessed upon themselves a tax, raised money, and "sent one man to Washington to demand justice, as they called it, in their behalf. They secured from the land office correct copies of plats of all the townships and fractional townships included within the tract, and upon whatever quartersection a settler had made his improvements, that quarter-section was definitely marked. Holders of scrip were publicly warned against filing upon such land. At a meeting of those interested in the cause of the settlers, which was held at the Kelley House m Red Wing, March 17. 1856. a vigilance committee was chosen to prevent any more scrip being laid upon land already occupied. This committee was empowered to demand that in every case where scrip had been laid on the land of actual settlers said scrip should immediately be raised. This committee was composed of twenty-one members. They were men of dauntless courage and muscular power, and devoted their whole time and energy to the work appointed until it was accomplished. Two of them stood as sentinels at the land office, armed with loaded revolvers, constantly watching every transaction therein, being relieved by another two at stated times. In the meantime the majority of the committee were acting as detectives, arresting and bringing to trial those who had offended, the trial not being before a court of justice, but before the committee. There was at that time no court house and no jail, and the lawyers knew that the scrip holders were acting within their legal rights. The kind of justice meted out is shown by the following case, related by the Rev. J. W. Hancock :

"A former Indian trader lived on Lake Pepin. He had been a member of the territorial legislature, was a man of some notoriety, whose well known character has procured for him the title of 'Bully.' He had succeeded in 'laying' some half-breed scrip upon land occupied by a settler. The committee watched his movements, knowing that his family was entitled to a large amount of scrip, and waited for his next visit to the land office, which was not many days after. He came as far as the door of the land office, when he was taken into the custody of a strong guard of armed men. whose leader commanded him to march into the office forthwith and raise the entry he had made upon a settler's land by scrip. He utterly refused to comply with this demand and defied the committee to compel him to do so. Meantime preparations were made for his trial and its consequences. "Witnesses were summoned and he was convicted of refusing to obey the mandate of the committee. He was then escorted down to the river, which was still covered with ice, although it was near the close of March. Very near the middle of the stream a hole had been cut big enough to put a good sized man into. He was there told to take his choice either to go immediately to the land office, and in the presence of the members of the committee, raise that entry of scrip or be put down through the ice. He looked into the faces of those determined men a moment, and made up his mind to go and do as they had ordered in relation to the scrip."

There were several cases of this kind, disposed of by threats, but it is said thai uo personal injury was inflicted on anyone A few weeks later a decision from the land office at Washington obviated the need of such a committee. By this decision, those who had settled upon a tract and made improvements thereon had the preemption and homestead rights, the same as on other government lands. The same decision granted to the holders of half-breed scrip the privilege of laying the same upon any other government land not previously claimed by an actual settler. All the vacant land on the half-breed tract was taken very soon after this decision, the situation near the river enhancing its value. The disadvantage of a distance of a few miles from market was considered a great drawback in those days, before the advent of the railroads. Few or none of the mixed bloods ever cared to settle on the land thus set apart for them. Occasionally, a decade or so afterward, there was an echo of this half-breed affair, when some half-blood whose guardian had sold his (the half-breed's) scrip rights would, upon attaining his majority, demand of the settler on the property that he, too, he paid. In most cases these demands were complied with, the farmers, whose land had greatly enhanced in value, deeming it wiser to pay a small sum than to undergo the expense of a lawsuit.

Any account of the relations between the Indians and Goodhue county whites would be incomplete without mention of the Spirit Lake massacre. The Sioux of Red Wing's village used to I mast that although they had killed the Chippewas whenever they had found any, they nor any of their tribe had ever killed a white person. But this was in 1850 that they so proudly made their boast of their peaceable inclination toward the wmites. In the spring of 1856 Red Wing enterprise fitted out a company of men consisting of G. W. Granger, Barton Snyder and Isaac Harriett, and sent them down to Spirit lake to select land claims and found a town. In the fall of 1856 there were seven cabins around the lake, all of which were occupied. The occupants were a man named Thatcher and family. Marble and family, Judge Howe and family, Mattox and family, and Isaac Harriett, Barton Snyder and G. W. Granger, the three last named occupying one cabin and keeping hall."

For some years previous to this, a few Dakota Indians and outlaws, under the lead of an excommunicated Dakota Indian named Inkpadootah, had been roving through that part of Iowa. They had been driven away from their own people and were a band unto themselves - insolent, devilish, murderous wretches; and on Sunday. March 8, 1856, they came to Spirit Lake, and almost immediately commenced their hellish work. Mr. Neill says they proceeded to a cabin occupied only by men. and asked for beef. LTnderstanding. as they afterward asserted, that they received permission to kill one of the cattle, they did so. and commenced cutting it up. when one of the white men went out and knocked the Dakota down. In retaliation the white man was shot and killed, and, surrounding the house, the Indians set fire to the thatched roof and killed the occupants as they attempted to escape from the burning building - eleven in all.

Other authorities say there was no beef demanded by the Indians, no beef killed, and that Inkpadootah wTas not assaulted hy any of the white men, but that the attack was instigated solely and simply by Indian treachery and thirst for blood. This version of the affair is maintained by Isaac Lauver, W. W. DeKay, George Huntington and a Mr. Patten, who went down to Spirit Lake from Red "Wing about the 31st of March, as soon as they beard of the massacre, to bury the remains of the murdered victims and look after the claim interests.

At about the same time the murdering wretches went to a cabin occupied by a man named Gardner and his family, and asked for something to eat. Everything in the house was given them. While they were disposing of Gardner's hospitality, his

/ son-in-law and another man who was there went out to see if everything was right at the neighboring cabin - the one just mentioned as being set on fire. It was their last mission, for some of the Indians were in ambush, and shot and killed them also. The Indians left Gardner's after securing all the food the cabin contained, but returned in the latter part of the afternoon and killed Gardner, his wife, two daughters and his grandchildren, and carried away as a prisoner one other, named Abbey. That night or the next morning they visited the homes of Noble and Thatcher, who had settled there, and carried Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher prisoners to their camp. On Monday a man named Markham went to Gardner's on some errand, and found the murdered bodies of the entire family. Markham hid himself until darkness came on, and then went to Springfield and reported the murder.

The following Thursday. March 12, an Indian called at Marble's cabin, three miles above Thatcher's, and told her that the white people down the lake had been nipped (killed) a day or two before. This intelligence alarmed the Marbles, the more so as the great depth of snow then on the ground had prevented communication with the settlement below for some days; but, fearing the worst, it was impossible for the Marble family to inaugurate any measures for flight, or other means of safety. The next morning, Friday, the 13th, four Indians, with friendly bearing, came to Marble's and bantered him to trade rifles. The trade was made, after which they prevailed on Marble to go out on the lake and shoot at a mark. After a few shots they turned in the direction of the house, and managing to get Marble in advance of them, the Indians shot him, and he fell dead in his tracks. Mrs. Marble, who had been watching the maneuvering of the fiends, saw her husband fall, and ran to him, when the bloody wretches seized her and told her they would not kill her, but that they would take her with them, and she was carried to the camp, where they had previously taken Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher and Miss Gardner.

Inkpadootah and his followers next went to Springfield, where, a week or two later, they butchered the entire settlement. The alarm was sent to Fort Ridgely, and a detachment of soldiers was sent out in pursuit. They found and buried two bodies, and the Iowans, who had volunteered and started out to avenge the murders and outrages as soon as they heard of their perpetration, found and buried twenty-nine others. Besides these thirty-one bodies that were found and buried, others were still missing.

Learning that soldiers were in pursuit of them, the outlaws made haste to leave the vicinity of their depredations, carrying the four women along with them. They were forced to carry heavy burdens by day, and to cut wood, build fires and do other camp duty when night came. In consequence of poor health and recent childbirth, Mrs. Thatcher became burdensome, and at Big Sioux river, when attempting to cross on the trunks of trees fallen from the opposite banks, she was pushed off into the deep, cold water by one of the Indians. She swam to the shore, when they pushed her back into the current, and then shot at -her, as if she were a target, until life was extinct.

In May two men from Lac qui Parle, who had been taught to read and write, while on their spring hunt found themselves in the neighborhood of Inkpadootah and his party. Having heard that they held some American women in captivity, the two brothers visited the camp, though this was at some risk of their own lives, since Inkpadootah 's hand was now against every man, and found the outlaws and succeeded in bargaining for Mrs. Marble, whom they conveyed to their mother's mission and reclothed in civilized costume. From thence she was conveyed to St. Paul, where the citizens welcomed her and made up a purse of $1,000. with which she was presented.

The rescue of the other two women was now resolved upon, and Flandrau, the Dakota agent, commissioned a ''good Indian" named Paul by the whites to accomplish their redemption. He was fitted out with a wagon, two horses and some valuable presents, and started on his mission. He found Inkpadootah and his iniquitous cut-throats with a band of Yanktons on the James river. Only Miss Gardner was living. Mrs. Noble had been murdered a few nights before. She had been ordered to go out and be subject to the wishes of the party, and refusing to go, a son of Inkpadootah dragged her out by the hair of her head and killed her. The next morning a Dakota woman took Miss Gardner out to see the corpse, which had been horribly treated after death. By perseverance and large presents, Paul succeeded in redeeming Miss Gardner, and she was taken to the mission house. From there she was taken to St. Paul, from whence she was sent to her sister in Iowa.

The same year, about the last of June or first of July. Inkpadootah's son, said to have been the murderer of Mrs. Noble, was killed while seeking to escape arrest for that cruel butchery. Keports became current that he was in camp on l^ellow Medicine river. Flandrau and a detachment of soldiers from Fort Ridgely, acompanied by some Indian guides, started for the camp to arrest him. As they approached the camp the alarm was given and the murderer ran from his lodge and concealed himself in the brush near the river, but was soon uncovered and shot by United States soldiers. The rest of the gang managed to escape, and are said to have taken refuge beyond the Missouri river.

The Red Wing party who went down to Spirit Lake to bury the dead, etc, as already mentioned, found the remains of Granger by the side of the cabin he occupied in common with Snyder and Harriett. Granger had first been shot, and then his head cut off from above the mouth and cars with a broadaxe. The remains of Harriett and Snyder were found about forty rods distant, with several bullet holes through their bodies. The presumption was they had started out to defend one of the other cabins and that they were shot and killed where their bodies were found.

Aside from the scare, which was general up and down the state, the people of Goodhue county did not suffer during the outbreak of 1862, although a number of men from the county participated in General Sibley's expedition against the murderers.

Judge Eli T. Wilder, whose name will always stand for that which was sturdy and good in pioneer life, was born in Hartland. Conn.. November 27, 1813. There he spent his early boyhood, and attended the district schools. In 1837, at the age of nineteen, he moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, later going to Paynesville. in the same state, where he commenced the practice of law. In the early fifties he was elected judge of the court of common pleas of that district, a position he filled faithfully and honorably. In 1855 he started a real estate office in Dubuque, Iowa, with offices in several adjoining A'illages and town. It was in 1856 that he took up his home in Red Wing. Arriving here, he continued the land business and again took up the practice of laAv. In this profession he associated himself with Judge AY. A. Williston, the firm name being Wilder and Williston. He was one of the first members of Christ church, of Red Wing, presented that church with a beautiful altar, and devoted the latter years of his life largely to church work. He was one of the first wardens and continued in that position until the time of his death. At one time Judge Wilder was persuaded to run for congress on the Democratic ticket, to which party he paid his political allegiance. He died at his home here, June 3, 1904. Judge Wilder was first married to Julia W. AVakefield, of Connecticut, who died in 1866. In 1868, at Waterloo, X. Y., he was married to Larissa Kendig, who survived him. At. the time of his death it was said of him: "Judge Wilder was an ideal citizen, honest and upright in all his dealings, and always taking a deep interest in the welfare and progress of the city.''