McLeod County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: Mcclelland's Story of Meleod County, 1917

At the celebration at Hutchinson, October 4, 1905, of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of that city, an interesting, informing, and instructive historical address was made by Hon. R. H, McClelland, secretary and a leading member of the McLeod County Historical Society. Mr. McClelland's address was a concise historical sketch of McLeod county in its early and mature formative periods. He was editor of the Glencoe Enterprise from 1900 to 1907, and much of the information upon which the statements in his address were made had been obtained by his researches and investigations during that time. He was born in Ohio in 1844; served in

Union army during the Civil War; came to Minnesota and Was admitted to the bar in 1874; was attorney of Scott county in 1881-82; came to Glencoe in 1886 and was mayor from 1893 to 1902, Many of the statements of his address are but repetitions ang Corroborations of what was printed elsewhere, but the ©xcuse for the duplication must be apparent. In part Mr. McClelland said:

"Fifty years ago on the 11th of June last, that little band, Composed of Col, John H. Stevens, Martin McLeod, A. J. Bell, James H. Mayall, w. S. Chapman, John Johnson, and Robert Vinton, Pushed its way through the Big Woods, as the timbered land between Buffalo creek and Carver was then called, and beheld, as they emerged from the forest the lovely landscape Spread out before them. On reaching the spot where Glencoe now stands, they determined to lay out a townsite. During the Summer, fall, and winter, came Charles Hopkins, William Churchill, Peter Durfee, Henry Little, A. H. Rouse, Ducan

Dougal, Dennis Corniea, Anthony Corniea, Prentiss Chubb, mike Cummings, J. V. McKean, Mr. Bates, John Smith, and some others, who Settled on claims and founded homes about

Messer, John H. Chubb, Henry Chambers, and a few others started out from Minneapolis and traveled westward until they struck a point on the south fork of the Crow river, and there they laid out a village to which they gave the name of Hutchinson, after the Hutchinson Brothers, who constituted a noted musical organization and were members of the town company, Here, as at Glencoe, a townsite company was formed of which Andrew Jackson Bell was made chairman, and, on appointment by the townsite company, he and Lewis Harrington laid out the town into lots and blocks, and this was the beginning of Hutchinson, Mr. Bell was a Virginian and a pro-slavery man, while nearly all of the others, and especially the Hutchinsons, were anti-slavery, and indeed some of them were radical abolitionists. Yet all were of one sentiment on the main question, which was the establishment of a new district of civilization and progress on the frontier of the great Northwest, and the building and maintenance of permanent homes for themselves and families."

In his semi-centennial address Mr. McClelland gives the details of a disconcerting and disturbing Indian alarm in the summer of 1857, following the massacres, by Inkpaduta's band at Springfield, in this territory, and at Spirit Lake, Iowa. That the alarm was unfounded did not make it any the less disquieting for a time; happily the conditions were farcical and the ending almost ridiculous. Says McClelland:

"The Sioux Indians during those first years, especially during the fall and winter hunting seasons, were always camped in the neighborhood, usually at some point on Crow river near Koniska or on Buffalo creek above the village. They visited the settlers and exchanged venison for flour or meal and sometimes for tobacco. They were regarded as kindly disposed, but true to tradition they possessed retentive memories and were sure to resent a prior injury however long deferred.

"Tn the summer of 1857 word came from beyond St. Peter that a family had been massacred by the Sioux in revenge for an injury inflicted by some member of the unfortunate family and that 700 mounted Indians were on the warpath and headed in the direction of Glencoe. This word was hastily communieated to the surrounding settlers on a Saturday afternoon with the request that they assemble at Glencoe with their families and bring all guns and ammunition at hand with them, prepared to make a stand in defense of person and property should the Indians appear.

"A. B. White, a blacksmith and wagonmaker by trade, had been dispatched to St. Peter to procure such information as might. be obtainable respecting the whereabouts of the Indians and the direction from which the attack on the town might be expected. The day following the circulation of the report, most of the settlers around about had assembled at Glencoe - men, women and children.

"Col. John H. Stevens, who had derived his title of colonel from having served as a subordinate in the commissary department in the Mexican war thirteen years before, was relied upon to conduct the defense. The guns were cleaned, all accessible ammunition was obtained and divided among the hastily improvised home guard, A detail was selected from among the bravest to stand guard during the night, and these aving been provided with a countersign, were instructed to the effect that if anyone attempted to pass inside the guard line during the night to demand of him the countersign, 'three times,' and if no answer was received to shoot.

"Henry Jacobs, a German, then engaged in the mercantile business at Glencoe and who understood the English language but imperfectly, was placed on guard on the traveled highway leading from St, Peter to Glencoe and at about eleven o'clock that night he heard the sounds of horse's hoofs approaching the guard line from without, and the rider whom he could not Bee, was assumed to be the advance guard of the 700 blood thirsty Redskins armed with guns, tomahawks and scalping knives, Instantly he brought his gun to his shoulder, at the Same time pressing the hammer backwards and demanding in tremulous tones, 'Who comes there three times?' The response came quickly, 'A. B, White of Glencoe, blacksmith and wagonmaker,' Although the Indians never came, the boys about town never ceased teasing Jacobs for the interpretation he had fiven to the colonel's instructions to the guards. The following day the Settlers returned to the homes and all fears of any attack by the Indians soon passed away."

4 fight between the Chippewas and the Sioux on the Carver county side of the Minnesota, opposite Shakopee. The Sioux had a village at the latter place of 150 persons, composed of former members of four of the Lower Sioux bands. Not all of them had gone upon their reservation, farther up the

Innesota, and some of those who had gone there temporarily had returned to their old haunts. Mr. McClelland gives this account of his observation of the battle ground, soon after

"After we had raised the first little crop of wheat (either in 1857 or 1858, I can not now recall the exact date) I accompanied my father to Minneapolis to mill. We had an ox team and it required eight days to make the trip. We went via Carver and from thence east along the Minnesota river bottom north of the river and within sight of Shakopee, situated south of the river. When crossing quite a deep ravine, extending north and south and which emptied into the Minnesota, we discovered the dead bodies of several Chippewa Indians, horribly mutiliated; their scalps had been removed and their limbs severed from the body. I was much frightened and when leaving the river bottom, which was covered with grass, and upon entering the timber, we found where the Chippewas had cut down some small sapplings with which to make litters to carry away their wounded. In their haste they had left a small, bright colored shawl hanging on a bush which father was about to carry away but desisted by my expressing fears that some of the Indians might be lurking around and attack us.

"We learned from a settler, whom we soon afterwards met, that the particular occasion of the battle of the day before, between the Sioux and Chippewas, although always enemies, was that a Sioux had crossed from the Shakopee side to the opposite bank of the river and was there fishing near the shore, when a party of Chippewas crept cautiously down to the river, following the ravine, where they took the solitary Indian wholly unawares, and killed and scalped him, When the news reached the Sioux they crossed the river and the battle began. The Sioux succeeded in driving the Chippewas away, but their loss in killed and wounded was fully equal to that of the Chippewas. The citizens of Shakopee were said to have aided the Sioux by way of furnishing them with ammunition. The scene presented by the dead Indians lying along the way was my first personal observation of the results of actual war. Battles between these two tribes were matters of common occurance in early days."

The Chippewas were led by Chiefs Wadena, (or Little Hill) for whom the county was named, and Shagobe of the Gull Lake band. The Sioux had no general leader and were without a chief. They had come from the bands of Mankato, Cloud Myan, Rattling Moccasins, and Shakopee, but the main Shakopee band, under the old chief, was up on the Redwood reser- vation, The Chippewas said that they had 166 warriors present, but that less than 50 actually fought in the battle. They had five killed and fifteen sorely wounded. Their most noted warrior killed was Noon Day, a great fighter and Sioux killer, who was dressed so fancifully that for some time it was thought he was a chief. The most prominent wounded man was Chief Wadena, who was shot through both legs. The wounded that could not walk were carried to Minneapolis, where they were treated by white doctors. The Sioux had two killed and eleven wounded; one of the killed was of the noted Blue Stone family; the wounded weve treated by Drs. Weiser and Wakefield, of Shakopee, and the Sioux repaid Dr. Weiser, five years later, when they killed him at the battle of Big Mound, North Dakota.

Elaborate space is given to the Shakopee Indian battle from the fact that at the time it engaged large attention among the Pioneers of McLeod county. There was considerable excitement among them when the first news, wild and dreadfully exaggerated, reached the settlements. It was feared that, aving become excited and blood-thirsty because of their victory over the Chippewas, the Sioux might be led to attack the whites, "Just to keep their hands in," as some suggested. Only the Presence of the 200 soldiers composing the garrison " F ort Ridgely, 40 miles away, could be depended upon to elp in case of need; but with this protecting force and their ict Stout hearts and strong arms - and moreover their acpeat firing fowling pieces - the men of the county soon ecame cool and confident.

bees to McClelland, the first white child born in Me- Mrs. Iohn ik either Winona Hoover, daughter of Mr. and of Mr. and ree or Elizabeth Chapman, youngest daughter rei bors Mrs. Wm. S. Chapman, of Glencoe. Both children remember < 1856, but the exact dates of their births are not bist aes - After her birth the career of Winona Hoover child slo ec Rs i Elizabeth Chapman, when a young Charan Sab her parents to San Francisco, Cal. Here Mr. Uitie. the Giie wealthy and prominent and his daughter, ually migiled tens baby of primitive McLeod county, event-

The first aad tsa the Second son of Gen. U.S. Grant. terms of this d and was recorded May 24, 1856. By the veyed to § ocument Henry Faude and Aloyse Baker conamuel Barton the southeast quarter of section 10 in