McLeod County, Minnesota - Chapter 1: Early Minnesota, 1917

Preliminary to the history of McLeod County, a brief history of Minnesota perhaps ought to be given. Father Louis Henhepin, a French or Belgian Franciscan priest, and two companions, Antony Auguelle and Michael Accault, discovered St. Anthony Falls in J uly, 1680. Subsequently other French subjects came to the upper Mississippi and were followed by British traders, A French fort or post was built on Lake Pepin, in the Mississippi in 1665, and another in 1700, on the Blue Earth, a few miles from its mouth. As early as in 1761 English traders were on the lower Minnesota river, then called the St. Peter,

Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike came up on an exploring trip to the mouth of the Minnesota in 1805 and by treaty purchased the site of Fort Snelling from the Sioux Indians. The fort was built by a detachment of troops under Col. Henry Leavenworth, who came to the site the fall of 1819. The American Fur Company had its Minnesota headquarters at Mendota across the St. Peter river from the fort, and its extensive business was mainly directed from this point. H. H. Sibley, afterwards Sovernor, ete., was in charge of the Fur company's business. The first mills in Minnesota were built at St. Anthony Falls (Minneapolis) in 1822-23, by the Fort Snelling garrison, and the first steamboat, the Virginia, arrived at the fort in the latter year, In 1837, by a treaty made at Washington, the Sioux ceded to the United States all of their lands east of the Mississippi and all of the islands of that river. Previously, by the treaty of 1825, at Prairie du Chien, the Sioux had arranged a boundary between that country and that of the Chippewas - as has been stated. Both treaties secured what is now McLeod county to the Sioux.

he comparatively limited area in the Minnesota county open to white Settlement, and the fact that there was at that Period so much desirable land in the United States pleading to be converted into homesteads, kept out immigrants from Minnesota until the concluding year of 1849. Up to that date there were not one hundred white people - fully white - in what is now Minnesota that were not Indian traders and their employes, officers and soldiers of the garrison at Ft. Snelling; timebr cutters and dam builders at St. Anthony (now North Minneapolis) ; lumbermen at St. Croix Falls and Stillwater; members of a few families at St. Paul; half a dozen farmers in Washington county, and the missionaries and those in their service. In 1846 a movement, instigated by Joseph R. Brown and others, to organize Minnesota Territory disclosed the fact that there were fewer than five hundred white people within the boundaries of the proposed territory.

In 1836 Wisconsin was organized as a territory, and all of the country east of the Mississippi now included in Minnesota was included in that government, In 1848 Wisconsin was made a state with boundaries as at present, The country west of the St. Croix which had previously been St. Croix county, Wisconsin Territory, was now a no-man's-land. It had either been legislated out of existence or was still St. Croix county and virtually Wisconsin territory - the left-over part of the former territory. The inhabitants of the district chose to consider it Wisconsin Territory, and as such entitled to a delegate in Congress, to be elected by them. To assist them in their contentions, the then delegate, Hon, John H, Tweedy, who lived at Madison, resigned, In August, 1848, a public meeting ealled "the Stillwater convention" met at Stillwater and chose Henry H. Sibley, of Mendota, the delegate from the "no-man's-land" or so-called Wisconsin Territory. Later in the year, or in October, Mr. Sibley was elected the delegate over Henry M. Rice, at a special election called by John Catlin, who was either governor or ex-governor of Wisconsin Territory - governor if no-man's-land was still Wisconsin, but ex-governor if it was not. Mr. Sibley went on to Congress, Was recognized and admitted as a delegate, and introduced and argued for a bill to organize Minnesota Teryitory. The bill passed near the close of the session in March 1849, and it is claimed that the affixing of his signature thereto was the last official act of President James K. Polk,

The incoming president, Gen. Zachary Taylor, appointed a full set of territorial officers for the new territory with Alexander Ramsey, of Pennsylvania, as governor, and he organized the government June 3, 1849. The northern, eastern, and southern boundaries of the territory were those of the state, but the western was the Missouri river. There was not much development of the territory until after the Sioux Treaties of

1851, which opened all of the vast expanse west of the Mississippi to settlement. The census of 1849 showed a total white Population of 4,780, including 700 in what is now Dakota, 367 soldiers, and 580 mixed-blood Indians counted as whites. There was not a single citizen of the territory whose wealth aggregated $50,000. Manufacturing was confined to two mills at St. Anthony, one at St. Croix Falls, one at Stillwater and Balles' one-stone mill on Balles' Creek in Washington county, below Stillwater.

Even before the Sioux Treaties of 1851 were ratified, enterprising pioneers began to make claims on the west side of the river, preparatory to permanent occupation and development. Traders and couriers had traversed the region and gave glowing accounts of its beauties and advantages. In 1851 a party of hunters went from St. Paul, St. Anthony, and Fort Snelling westward through where now are Carver, McLeod, Renville, Yellow Medicine, and Lac qui Parle counties. Among the members of this party was Martin McLeod, then a trader under Sibley at Lac qui Parle. The return of the party was noted in the St. Anthony Express and the St. Paul papers, with attractive and enticing descriptions of the country which the party had traversed.

From time to time other white men passed through the McLeod county region and on returning to the settlements had nothing but praise for its natural advantages. There was no State Immigration Board in those days, no paid agents to trumpet abroad the natural advantages of Minnesota, no publie money spent to advertise the young territory in any way} and yet immigrants poured into the country by the hundreds every month, some of them coming 2,000 miles and all of them enduring hardship and privation,

In August, 1851, only a few days after the Treaty of Mendota had been signed, Thomas A. Holmes came up the Minnesota in a canoe, with the well known mixed blood, Wm. L. Quinn, as his guide, and selected the sites of the towns of Shakopee and Chaska. Later in the fall they were laid out; the next spring Holmes sold his claims to Chaska to David L. Fuller, of St. Paul, by whom the town was laid out. Axel Jorgensen was the first settler on the townsite of Carver, in the spring of 1852, and the town was laid out by a town-site company from St. Paul in the fall of 1854. Both Carver (Carver is very near the Little Rapids, the first obstruction to navigation on the Minnesota. The village was often called Little Rapids,) and Chaska were steamboat points on the Minnesota and not far away from what is now McLeod county. For many years they were to hundreds of pioneers in this region the principal doors to the outside world and the shipping ports.

Meanwhile other portions of the state were being settled, but all of these were made as near as possible to Fort Snelling, St. Anthony, Minneapolis and St. Paul. The west side of the Mississippi was considered by the authorities as Indian country, until in 1853, but Minneapolis, on that side, began to be settled in 1852, although there were many arrests for trespass and many evictions on account thereof. There was a sort of accepted "laying out" of the town in 1853 but it was not regularly Jaid out in blocks and lots and with streets and alleys until in 1854, The development of Minneapolis was largely influential upon that of McLeod county.

The Indian Treaties of 1851 opened the flood-tides of immigration and they rolled in by great currents and flowed westward until they were checked by the barriers of the Indian reservation on the upper Minnesota. Roads were laid out; towns and villages established; schools and church societies were organized; counties created, newspaper presses set up, and all the forces of civilization were soon at work, Of a truth a vast majority of the settlers were in humble circumstances, and from the lonely walks of life; but they were brave, hardy, and determined, three qualities essential to suecess in the composition of every pioneer. A majority of them had come from warmer latitudes, but the rigors of a Minnesota winter did not daunt them, nor the long, cool seasons discourage them. They soon became acclimated to the new conditions and accustomed and reconciled to the discomforts.

What became McLeod county was noted as a beautiful country. Its varied expanse of prairie and timber, of beautiful lakes and streams among fine and fertile dry lands, made it an ideal location for the settler and the investor, and especially for the farmer and stock raiser. Its reputation was already known from the visits of trappers, hunters, and others that had traversed the country. They had reported a rich soil, a sufficiency of timber, an abundance of surface water, and two considerable streams capable of furnishing ample water power. These conditions existed elsewhere in Minnesota, but nearness to St. Paul, St. Anthony, the then existing and admittedly future principal markets of the prospective state was desirable and important in choosing a location; the country between the Buffalo and the South Fork of the Crow met these requirements.