Redwood County, Minnesota - Chapter 7: Explorers, Traders, Missionaries, 1916

The French explorers from the settlements in Canada and about the Great Lakes gradually began to penetrate toward Minnesota. At various times traders, adventurers and priests disappeared from these settlements. What deaths they met or what experiences they underwent will never be known. What places they visited in the wilderness of the upper Mississippi is lost to human knowledge. With the seventeenth century, however, the area that is now Minnesota began to be known to the civilized

To understand Pierre Charles Le Sueur's trip up a portion of that river in the fall of 1700 it is necessary that a few of the earlier Mississippi river explorers should be considered.

Grosseiliers and Radisson. The meager accounts which these two explorers have left of their two expeditions which are supposed to have penetrated into Minnesota, are capable of more than one interpretation. Dr. Warren Upham believes that Grosseilliers and Radisson, the first known white explorers of Minnesota, entered it near the southeast corner, and proceeded up the Mississippi through Lake Pepin to Prairie Island, just above Red Wing. Here the French explorers and the Indians that accompanied them, together with other Indians, spent the year 1655-1656. Thus when Cromwell ruled Great Britain and Ireland, when the Puritan theocracy was at the height of its glory in New England, and when the great emigration of Cavaliers was still going on to Virginia, Minnesota saw its first white man - unless indeed the Scandinavians visited this region centuries before, as the Kensington Stone avers.

About New Years, 1660, if we may trust Radisson 's narration and its interpretation, our "two Frenchmen" are again in Minnesota. Traveling with a big band of Indians, they passed a severe January and February, with attendant famine, probably (according to Prof. Winchell) at Knife lake, Kanabec county. According to Hon. J. V. Brower (in his monograph "Kathio," 1901) the lake was called Knife lake and the Dakota tribe of this region the Knife tribe (Issanti) because early that spring deputations of Dakotas came to the encampment and here for the first time procured steel knives from the white men and from the Indian band that was with them. Until this time the Stone Age had ruled supreme in the realm of Renville, but now we may well suppose that within a short time many an enterprising brave cherished as his most precious possession one of these magic knives that cut like a stroke of lightning. Very soon after meeting these Dakotas at Knife lake, Grosseilliers and Radisson went to the great Dakota village at Mille Lacs, and were there received with every mark of friendship and respect.

Now follows the story of a seven days' trip to the prairie home of the "nation of the Boefe" (buffalo), that is to say, the Dakotas living farther west and south. This story seems likely to be fiction, but if it is true, there is a fair chance that it was to the region between the Big Bend of the Mississippi river and the prairie region of the Minnesota valley. This was possibly the nearest and most accessible buffalo country from Mille Lacs. So it is possible that these two Frenchmen were the first white men to approach Renville county. But the supposition favored by Winchell is that they went due south. However that may be, it is certain that with Grosseilliers and Radisson the first glimmer of European civilization reached Redwood county.

Hennepin and Du Luth. Robert Cavelier, better known in history as the Sieur de la Salle, who had built a fort near Lake Peoria, Illinois, decided in February, 1680, to send from there an expedition up the Mississippi. For this task he selected three of his associates. Accordingly, on February 29, 1680, Father Hennepin, with two companions, Picard du Gay (Anthony Auguelle) and Michael Accault (also rendered dAccault, Ako, dAko and Dacan), the latter of whom was in military command of the party, set out in a canoe. They paddled down the Illinois to its mouth, where they were detained by floating ice in the Mississippi until March 12. On the afternoon of April 11, while on their way up the Mississippi, they were met by a band of Sioux on the warpath against the Illinois and Miami nation. Being informed, however, that the Miamis had crossed the river, and were beyond their reach, the Indians turned northward, taking the Frenchmen with them as captives. The journey up the river occupied nineteen days.

At the end of the nineteen days, the party landed near the present site of St. Paul, and then continued by land five days until they reached the Mille Lacs region. There Aquipaguetin, the chief, who had previously been unfriendly to a certain extent, adopted Hennepin in place of the son he had lost. The other two Frenchmen were adopted by other families. After several months in the Mille Lacs region, Hennepin and Pickard were given permission in July, 1680, to go down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wisconsin, where they expected that La Salle would send them supplies.

On their southward journey, accompanied by a Sioux chief, Ouasicoude (Wacoota) and a band of Indians, the Frenchmen descended the Rum river, and camped on an eminence opposite what is now the city of Anoka. Accault was left as a hostage. Continuing down the river with the Indians, Hennepin and Pickard came to St. Anthony Falls, which Hennepin named in honor of his patron saint. On July 11, 1680, while hunting for the mouth of the Wisconsin river, the party was overtaken by Hennepin's savage adopted father, Aquipaguetin, with ten warriors. The two Frenchmen and the Indians then spent some time in the vicinity of Winona, hiding their meat near the mouth of the Chippewa, and then hunting on the prairies further down the river, the old men of the tribe watching on the river bluffs for enemies while the warriors killed buffaloes.

July 25, 1680, the party encountered Daniel Graysolon, Du Luth and five French soldiers. There is some doubt about the exact spot where this meeting took place, but it was probably near the southeast corner of Minnesota, or possibly a little further south. After the meeting, the eight white men, accompanied by the Indians, went up the river. Du Luth had been exploring the country of the Sioux and the Assiniboines, west of Lake Superior, for two years, and had secured the friendship of these very Indians who had captured Hennepin. Consequently, when he learned what had happened since he last saw them, he rebuked them for their treatment of the priest, saying that Hennepin was his brother. The party reached the Issanti villages (the Mille Lacs region) August 14, 1680. No mention is made of the route which they took.

Toward the end of September the Frenchmen left the Indians to return to the French settlements. A chart of the route was given them by Ouasicoude, the great chief. The eight Frenchmen then set out. Hennepin gives the number as eight, though it would seem that the number was nine, for Hennepin and Pickard had met Du Luth with five soldiers, and when reaching the Issanti villages they must have been rejoined by Accault, though possibly the last named stayed with the Indians and pursued his explorations. The party passed down the Rum river in the fall of 1860, and started the descent of the Mississippi. After reaching the Wisconsin they went up that river to the portage, thence up the Fox river, thence to Green Bay, and thence to the settlements in Canada.

Accault, one of Hennepin's companions, had been left with the Indians near the present site of Anoka, when Hennepin and Arguille took the memorable down-the-river trip on which they met Du Luth. Accault took many journeys with the Indians, even visiting the Itasca region, and it is not improbable that he may have been taken to the region which lies north of the upper Minnesota river and southwest of the Big Bend of the Mississippi river.

Le Sueur. From 1681 to 1699, Nicolas Perrot made numerous trips to the country of the upper Mississippi river. Several of his posts were located in the vicinity of the lower end of Lake Pepin, which is an enlargement of the Mississippi river extending generally speaking from a short distance above Winona to a short distance below Red Wing. One of these expeditions was probably that of Charville and Pierre Charles Le Sueur, taken up the Mississippi above the Falls of St. Anthony, about 1690. They probably went as far as the outlet of Sandy Lake.

Le Sueur wrote an account of this trip to refute certain fictitious narrations by Mathien Sagean. Of this, in his excellent and monumental work, "Minnesota in Three Centuries," in Vol. I, pp. 253-4, Dr. Warren Upham says: "Brower and Hill come to the conclusion that on the Mississippi at the outlet of sandy lake, a village of Sioux doubtless then existed, as it has also been dur- ing the last century or longer the site of an Ojibway village. The estimates noted, that the distance traveled above the Falls of St. Anthony was about a hundred French leagues, and that an equal distance of the river's course still separated the voyageurs from its sources, agree very closely with the accurate measurements now made by exact surveys, if Le Sueur's journey ended at Sandy lake.

"Very probably Charleville, whose narration of a similar early expedition of a hundred leagues on the part of the Mississippi above these falls is preserved by Du Pratz in his ' History of Louisiana, ' was a companion of Le Sueur, so that the two accounts relate to the same canoe trip. Charleville said that he was accompanied by two Canadian Frenchmen and two Indians ; and it is remarkable that Charleville, like Le Sueur, was a relative of the brothers Iberville and Bienville, who afterwards were governors of Louisiana." As in Le Sueur's description of the sources of the great river, Charleville also states that the Indians spoke of the Mississippi as having many sources.

In the spring of 1695 Le Sueur and his followers erected a trading post or fort on Isle Pelee, now Prairie Island, just above Red Wing. Early in the summer of 1695 he returned to Montreal with some Indians, among whom was a Sioux chief named Tioscate, the latter being the first Sioux chief to visit Canada. Tioscate died while in Montreal.

In his journeys to the Northwest, Le Sueur received reports from the Indians which led him to believe that copper was to be found near the place where the Minnesota river turns from its southwest to its northeast course. Therefore he received a commission to examine this mine and obtain from it some ores. In April, 1700, he set out with a party of men from the lower Mississippi settlements in a sailing and rowing vessel and two canoes. September 19 he reached the mouth of the Minnesota, and on the last day of the month, having reached the mouth of the Blue Earth river near the present site of the city of Mankato, he ascended that river about a league, and erected a fort which he named Fort L'Huillier, named for a prominent officer in the service of the King of France. A short distance from the fort they located their "mine." They spent the ensuing winter at this fort, and in the spring of 1701 Le Sueur started down the river with a part of his followers and with a load of green earth which he believed to be copper. In due time he reached the Gulf of Mexico. The party whom he had left at the garrison on the Blue Earth followed him down the river at a later date. The fact that seven French traders who had been stripped naked by the Sioux, took refuge in Le Sueur's fort on the Blue Earth, and the further fact that those whom he left at the fort, encountered while going down the Mississippi a party of thirty-six Frenchmen from Canada at the mouth of the Wisconsin, shows that aside from the explorers recorded in history, various Frenchmen, now unknown, penetrated the upper Mississippi region from time to time even at that early day.

The data secured by Le Sueur were used in the preparation of a map of the Northwest country by William De L'isle, royal geographer of France, in 1703. Several of the larger and more important physical features of southwestern Minnesota were more or less accurately located. The Minnesota river appeared upon this map, being labeled R. St. Pierre, or Mini-Sota. Its course is somewhat accurately drawn. The Des Moines river also has a place on the map, being marked Des Moines, or le Moingona R., and its source was definitely located. There is nothing in the writings of Le Sueur, however, to lead to the belief that he extended his exploration much farther up the Minnesota river than the mouth of the Blue Earth.

Lahontan. Early historians have endeavored to identify the "Long River" of Lahontan with the Minnesota river of the present day. In case this identification were correct then a Frenchman sighted the fair area of Renville county only three years after Hennepin made his memorable voyage up the Mississippi. Modern historians, however, entirely discredit the writings of this adventurer.

Baron de Lahontan is now regarded as the Baron Munchausen of America. His explorations and journeys to the upper Mississippi region were probably entirely fictitious and "Long River" merely a creation of his own imagination.

Lahontan was born in France in 1666, and as a soldier of the French empire came to America in 1683 as a boy of seventeen years. The next ten years he spent in various parts of Canada, and there doubtless heard the stories upon which he based his pretended journeys. In 1693 he deserted his post of duty in New Foundland and thereafter until his death, probably in 1715, he spent his life as an exile, homeless and friendless, in Holland, Denmark, Spain, the German provinces and England.

In 1703 at The Hague in Netherlands, Lahontan had narratives of his pretended travels published in three volumes, written in his native French language. Later in the same year a revised edition of the work, entitled "New Voyages to North America," was issued in London. At present there are several other English and French editions. A translation was made into German in 1711 and into the language of Holland in 1739. In this publication Lahontan pretended to have ascended the Missisippi river and to have discovered a tributary called "Long River" flowing into this river from the west. He gives in detail his many adventures on this "Long River." Before he was discredited historians had many arguments as to whether Lahontan ascended the Root

Carver. During the next sixty-six years after Le Sueur visited the Minnesota river country no white man was in Southwestern Minnesota, so far as we know. Then, in November, 1766, Jonathan Carver ascended the Minnesota. Carver was a Connecticut Yankee and explored the upper Mississippi in the interests of the British government.

Of his trip to this point Carver wrote : "On the twenty-fifth of November, 1766, I returned to my canoe, which I had left at the mouth of the River St. Pierre (Minnesota), and here I parted with regret from my young friend, the prince of the Winnebagoes. The river being clear of ice by reason of its southern situation, I found nothing to obstruct my passage. On the twentyeighth, being advanced about forty miles, I arrived at a small branch that fell into it from the north, to which, as it had no name that I could distinguish it by, I gave my own, and the reader will find it in the plan of my travels denominated Carver's river. About forty miles higher up I came to the forks of the Verd (Blue Earth) and Red Marble (Watonwan) rivers, which join at some little distance before they enter the St. Pierre.

"The River St. Pierre at its junction with the Mississippi is about a hundred yards broad and continues that breadth nearly all the way I sailed upon it. It has a great depth of water and in some places runs very swiftly. About fifteen miles from its mouth are some rapids and much higher .up are many others.

"I proceeded up this river about 200 miles, to the country of the Nadowessies (Sioux) of the plains, which lies a little above the fork formed by the Verd and Red Marble rivers just mentioned, where a branch from the south (the Cottonwood) nearly joins the Messorie (Missouri) river." (The sources of the Cottonwood river are near those of Rock river, the latter being a tributary of the Missouri.)

On the seventh of December he arrived at the most westerly limit of his travels, and as he could proceed no further that season, spent the winter, a period of seven months, among a band of Nadowessies (Sioux), encamped near what is now New Ulm. In his map he draws three tepees opposite the present city of New Ulm on the north side of the Minnesota river and makes the statement, "About here the Author winter 'd in 1766." In his hunting and exploration he doubtless penetrated Redwood county. He says he learned the Sioux language so as to converse with them intelligibly, and was treated by them with great hospitality. In the spring he returned to the mouth of the Minnesota.

His account of this is as follows: "I left the habitations of these hospitable Indians the latter end of April, 1767, but did not part from them for several days, as I was accompanied on my journey by near three hundred of them, among whom were many chiefs, to the mouth of the River St. Pierre. At this season these bands annually go to the great cave (now called Carver's cave) before mentioned, to hold a grand council with all the other bands, wherein they settle their operations for the ensuing year. At the same time they carry with them their dead for interment, bound up in buffalo skins."

As already stated, Carver hunted with the Indians over some of the great plains of Southwestern Minnesota which, "according to their (the Indians') account, are unbounded and probably terminate on the coast of the Pacific ocean."

From information received from the Indians Carver made some wonderful deductions as to the physical features of the country. In his narrative of the trip he wrote : "By the accounts I received from the Indians I have reason to believe that the River St. Pierre (Minnesota) and the Messorie (Missouri), though they enter the Mississippi twelve hundred miles from each other, take their rise in the same neighborhood, and this within the space of a mile. The River St. Pierre's northern branch (that is, the main river) rises from a number of lakes (Big Stone lake) near the Shining mountains (the Coteau des Prairies), and it is from some of these also that a capital branch (Red River of the North) of the River Bourbon (Nelson river), which runs into Hudson's bay, has its sources. * * * I have learned that the four most capital rivers of North America, viz., the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the River Bourbon (Nelson) and the Oregon (Columbia), or River of the West, have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather farther west.

"This shows that these parts are the highest lands of North America; and it is an instance not to be paralleled on the other three-quarters of the globe, that four rivers of such magnitude should take their rise together and each, after running separate courses, discharge their waters into different oceans at the distance of 2,000 miles from their source. ' '

Of the country through which he traveled Carver wrote : "The River St. Pierre, which runs through the territory of the Nadowessies, flows through a most delightful country, abounding with all the necessaries of life that grow spontaneously, and with a little cultivation it might be made to produce even the luxuries of life. Wild rice grows here in great abundance; and every part is filled with trees bending under their loads of fruit, such as plums, grapes and apples ; the meadows are covered with hops and many sorts of vegetables ; whilst the ground is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard and ground nuts as large as hen's egges. At a little distance from the sides of the river are eminences from which you have views that cannot be exceeded by even the most beautiful of those I have already described. Amid these are delightful groves and such amazing quantities of maples that they would produce sugar sufficient for any number of inhabitants."

Ft. Snelling Established. With the establishment of Ft. Snelling, the area of Redwood county became more widely known, as the soldiers, traders and visitors there made many trips up the river past the county.

February 10, 1819, the Fifth Regiment United States Infantry was ordered to concentrate at Detroit preparatory to a trip which was to result in the maintaining of a post at the mouth of the St. Peter's (now Minnesota) river. After establishing various garrisons at different places, the troops started up the river from Prairie du Chien, Sunday, August 8, 1819. The troops numbered ninety-eight, rank and file. They were accompanied by twenty hired boatmen. There were fourteen keel boats for the troops, two large boats for stores, and a barge for Lieut-Col. Harry Leavenworth, the commander, and Maj. Thomas Forsyth, the Indian agent. This expedition established at Mendota the military post now moved across the river and now known as Ft. Snelling.

May 10, 1823, the "Virginia," the first steamboat to navigate the upper Mississippi, arrived at Ft. Snelling, and thus what is now Redwood county was placed in still closer communication with the outside world. On board, among others, were Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro and James Constance Beltrami, the Italian explorer.

Long, Keating, Beltrami. Undoubtedly white men, engaged in trade with the natives or trapping and hunting for the fur companies or for themselves, visited that part of south-central Minnesota which is now designated Redwood county in the early part of the nineteenth century. But such men left few records of their operations, and our information concerning the exploration of the country is obtained almost wholly from expeditions sent out by the government.

In accordance with orders from the War Department, an expedition under the command of Major Long, with a corps of scientists for observations of the geographic features, geology, zoology and botany of the Northwest, traversed the area of Minnesota in 1823, passing from Ft. Snelling up the Minnesota valley, down the valley of the Red river to Lake Winnipeg, thence up the Winnipeg river to the Lake of the Woods, and thence eastward along the international boundary and partly in Canada to Lake Superior. Prof. William H. Keating, of the University of Penn- sylvania, was the geologist and historian of this expedition. One of its members or its guest in the travel from the fort to Pembina was Constantino Beltrami, a political exile from Italy, but becoming offended, he left the expedition at Pembina and returned to the fort by the way of Red lake and the most northern sources of the Mississippi, traveling alone or with Indian companions.

The boat party entered the mouth of the Minnesota river, then called the St. Peter, late in the night of July 2, and a stay of a week was made there, for rest and to visit the Falls of St. Anthony.

Provided by Colonel Snelling at the fort with a new and more efficient escort of twenty-one soldiers, with Joseph Renville as their Dakota interpreter, and with Joseph Snelling, a son of the colonel, as assistant guide and interpreter, the expedition set forward on July 9 up the Minnesota valley. A part traveled on horseback, including Say and Colhoun, while the others, including Long, Keating, Seymour and Renville went in four canoes, which also carried the bulk of their stores and provisions. It was planned that the land and river parties "should, as far as practicable, keep company together, and encamp every night, if possible, at the same place."

On July 13 they reached the vicinity of Traverse des Sioux (St. Peter), and encamped at a beautiful bend of the river, called the Crescent. Here the expedition left the canoes, reduced the escort, and on July 15 moved westward by the route of Swan lake. They now numbered in total twenty-four men, with twentyone horses. The most southern part of the course of the Minnesota having been cut off by the journey past Swan lake, this stream was again reached and crossed a short distance below the mouth of the Cottonwood river. Thence the expedition passed along the southwestern side of the valley, and across the contiguous upland prairies, to Lac qui Parle and Big Stone lake. The latter lake was reached on July 22, and the Columbia Fur Company's trading post, at the southern end of Lake Traverse, the next day. Joseph Snelling returned to Ft. Snelling from Pembina by way of the Red and Minnesota rivers, thus passing Redwood county.

Of the Redwood river, Prof. Keating makes the statement that its banks "are formed of a fine white sandstone." In this observation he was in error, having mistaken the conspicuous white kaolin bluffs, which occur at this point, derived from the decomposition of the granite "in situ" for sandstone. The red pipestone was said to exist on the banks of the river three days' journey from its source.

He notes a "very interesting fragment of rock" at the place where the Redwood joins the Minnesota, said to be forty or fifty feet in circumference, evidently out of place, of an enormous mass, and irregular hemispherical form, cleft by lightning. This mass was said to be granitic, presenting "very distinctly the appearance of a formation of concentric shales. The rock at Patterson's rapids (section 29, township 114, range 36, northern Delhi), was considered as primitive, but was not carefully examined.

Of the mouth of the Redwood river, Beltrami wrote: "We now reached a valley of the most lovely and interesting character. Never did a more striking illusion transport my imagination back to the classic lands of Latium and Magna Graecia. Rocks scattered, as if by art, over the plain, or plateau, and on the hills, were, at a little distance, perfect representations of every varied form of the ruins of antiquity. In one place you might think you saw thermal substructures, or those of an amphitheater, a circus, or a forum; in another, the remains of a temple, a cenotaph, a basilicon, or a triumphant arch. I took advantage of the time which chance procured me, to survey this enchanted ground ; but I went alone, that the delicious reverie it threw me into, might not be broken by cold heartedness or presumption. My eyes continually met new images; at length they rested on a sort of tomb, which for some time held me motionless. A thousand afflicting recollections rushed to my heart ; I thought I beheld the tomb of virtue and friendship; I rested my head upon it, and tears filled my eyes. The spot was of a kind to soften and embellish grief, and I should have long given myself up to its sweet influence had I not been with people who had no idea of stopping for anything but a broken saddle, or some such important incident.

The rocks are granitic, and of so beautiful and varied a quality, that the tricking dealers of the Piazza Navona, at Rome, would sell them for the most enthusiastic and, - in their own opinion - the most learned antiquarians, as oriental and Egyptian porphyry or basalt, which are now generally admitted to be merely granite more elaborated by time and water.

The Pembina Refugees. The members of the Pembina colony in the Red river valley were among the people who passed Redwood county during the era of exploration. In the early winter of 1820 the Pembina colony sent a delegation to Prairie du Chien for seed wheat, which could not be found nearer home. The men set out on snow shoes and reached their destination in three months. The route was by the way of the Red river to Lake Traverse, then down the Minnesota, past Fort Snelling, and thence down the Mississippi. At Prairie du Chien 250 bushels of wheat was purchased at ten shillings ($2.50) per bushel. It was loaded into flat boats, which were, with much hard labor, propelled up the Mississippi to the St. Peter, thence up that river to the portage near Lake Traverse. The boats and cargo were

In 1827 a number of Swiss families left the Red river colony to make new homes for themselves within the United States. They were accompanied by several families of French Canadians who had become "Selkirkers," that is, members of the Selkirk colony. The refugees came down the valley on the Red river - or up that stream - to Lake Traverse, and thence down the Minnesota (or St. Peter's) to Fort Snelling. Alexis Bailly and others who had visited the colonists in their Red river homes had informed them of the superiority of the Minnesota country over the Assiniboine region, and assured them that they would be heartily welcome if they removed to the big, free, hospitable and favored company of the Stars and Stripes.

Colonel Snelling gave the refugees a kindly reception and allowed them to settle on the military reservation, west of the Mississippi and north of the fort. The colonists at once set to work and built houses, opened farms, engaged in work at the fort, and were soon comfortable, contented and hopeful. All of the refugees spoke French. The French Swiss and the French Canadians seemed like kinsmen and dwelt together like brethren in unity. It is of record that among these people were Abraham Perry, a watchmaker, and Louis Massie, both Switzers, but the names of the other heads of families have not been preserved.

July 25, 1831, twenty more Red river colonists arrived at Fort Snelling. Up to the year 1836 nearly 500 more had come, and by the year 1840 nearly 200 more, while from time to time, for many years, frost-bitten and famine-stricken fugitives from the Red river country found rest for their feet, food for their bodies and comfort generally in Minnesota. But only about onehalf of these people remained here permanently. The others went further south - to Prairie du Chien, to Illinois, to Missouri, and some families journeyed to Vevay, Indiana, the site of a Swiss settlement

Nearly all of the early residents of St. Paul were Red river refugees and their children. Many of the descendants of good old Abraham Perry were born in Minnesota and are yet citizens of the state.

Featherstonhaugh and Mather. Another exploration of southwestern Minnesota was made in the summer of 1835 by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, an English gentleman. He bore the title of United States geologist and was commissioned by Colonel J. J. Abert, of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. Featherstonhaugh proceeded up the Minnesota river to lakes Big Stone and Traverse, and to the high sources of the Minnesota on the Coteau des Prairies west of these lakes. Featherstonhaugh was accompanied by William Williams Mather.

From Featherstonhaugh's expedition resulted two works, one entitled "Report of geological reconnaisance made in 1835 from the seat of government by the way of Green Bay and the Wisconsin Territory to the Coteau des Prairies, an elevated ridge dividing the Missouri from the St. Peter's (Minnesota) river," printed by the order of the Senate in 1836, and the other "A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotar," published in London in 1847.

Catlin. It was in 1837 that George Catlin, the famous traveler and Indian delineator, passed near this county on his way to visit the Pipestone quarries.

He organized the expedition at the Falls of St. Anthony and was accompanied only by Robert Serril Wood, "a young gentleman from England of fine taste and education," and an Indian guide, O-kup-kee by name.

This little party traveled horseback and followed the usual route up the Minnesota. At Traverse des Sioux, near the present site of St. Peter, Mr. Catlin and his companion halted at the cabin of a trader, where they were threatened by a band of savages and warned not to persist in their determination to visit the quarries. They continued on their way, however, crossed to the north side of the river at Traverse des Sioux, proceeded in a westerly direction, and crossed the Minnesota to the south bank near the mouth of the Waraju (Cottonwood), close to the present city of New Ulm.

There Messrs. Catlin and Wood left the river and journeyed "a little north of west" for the Coteau des Prairies. They traveled through the present counties of Brown, Redwood and Lyon and passed several Indian villages at several of which they were notified that they must go back ; but, undaunted, they continued their journey. Catlin states in one place that he traveled one hundred miles or more from the mouth of the Cottonwood, and in another place "for a distance of one hundred and twenty or thirty miles" before reaching the base of the coteau, when he was still "forty or fifty miles from the Pipestone quarries." He declared that part of the journey was over one of the most beautiful prairie countries in the world.

Most of Catlin 's distances were overestimated. The distance from the mouth of the Cottonwood to the base of the coteau where he came upon it is only about seventy-two miles in a direct line ; then he was about thirty-six miles from the quarries.

Nicollet and Fremont. From 1836 to 1843, most of the time assisted by John C. Fremont, afterward candidate for the presidency of the United States on the Republican ticket, Joseph Nicolas Nicollet prosecuted a geographical survey of the upper Mississippi country. He explored nearly all portions of Minnesota and many other parts of the country theretofore unvisited.

His operations in south-central Minnesota were quite extensive. In 1838 Nicollet and Fremont made a trip to the vicinity of what is now Renville county. In the party were six men, the others being Charles A. Geyer, the botanist of the expedition ; J. Eugene Flandin and James Renville.

Nicollet and Fremont traveled from Washington to St. Louis and thence up the Mississippi river to H. H. Sibley's trading post, near the mouth of the Minnesota river. Thence they journeyed over the general route of travel up the east side of the Minnesota river, crossing at Traverse des Sioux. They proceeded west across the "ox-bow," stopping at Big Swan lake in Nicollet county, and crossed the Minnesota again at the mouth of the Cottonwood. They proceeded up the valley of the Cottonwood, on the north side of the river, to a point near the present site of Lamberton, and then crossed to the south side of the river and struck across country to the Pipestone quarries.

On Nicollet's map, issued in 1843, his route to the quarries is indicated by a fine dotted line. This map at the time it was issued was the most complete and correct one of the upper Mississippi country. It covered all of Minnesota and Iowa, about one-half of Missouri, and much of the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Illinois. The author gave names to many streams and lakes and gave the first representation of the striking topographical features of the western and northern parts of Minnesota. He located, by astronomical observations, the numerous streams and lakes and the main geographical features of the state, filling in by eye-sketching and by pacing the intermediate objects. On his map the country along the Minnesota river is labeled Warpeton country and that further south Sisseton country. The Tclianshayapi or Redwood river, Waraju or Cottonwood river, and Patterson's rapids all appear on the map.

After spending three days at the Pipestone quarries, where is now situated the city of Pipestone, the Nicollet party visited and named Lake Benton (for Mr. Fremont's father-in-law, Senator Benton) and then proceeded westward into Dakota, visiting and naming Lakes Preston (for Senator Preston) ; Poinsett (for J. R. Poinsett, secretary of war), Albert, Thompson, Tetonkoha, Kampeska and Hendricks. Before returning to civilization Nicollet visited Big Stone lake and other places to the north. He returned to the Falls of St. Anthony by way of Joseph Renville's camp on the Lac qui Parle.

Allen. The next recorded visit of white men was in 1844, when an expedition in charge of Captain J. Allen came up the Des Moines river, operating chiefly to chart that and other streams. He passed through Jackson, Cottonwood and Murray counties and came to Lake Shetek, which he decided was the source of the Des Moines river. He gave that body of water the jiarae Lake of the Oaks and described it as remarkable for a singular arrangement of the peninsulas running into it from all sides and for a heavy growth of timber that covered the peninsulas and the borders of the lake.

With Lake Shetek as temporary headquarters, Captain Allen extended his explorations in several directions. He proceeded due north from the lake and crossed the Cottonwood and later the Redwood near the present site of Marshall. When thirtyseven miles north of Lake Shetek he turned east and crossed the Redwood again near the site of Redwood Falls. From the mouth of the Redwood he explored the south shore of the Minnesota river several miles up and down and returned to Lake Shetek. The expedition then set out for the west and went down the Big Sioux river to its mouth.

"From Lizard creek of the Des Moines to the source of the Des Moines, and thence east to the St. Peter's is a range for elk and common deer, but principally elk," wrote Captain Allen. "We saw a great many of the elk on our route and killed many of them; they were sometimes seen in droves of hundreds, but were always difficult to approach and very difficult to overtake in chase, except with a fleet horse and over good ground. No dependence could be placed in this country for the subsistence of troops marching through it."

Fur Traders. These explorers, Le Sueur, Carver, Long, Keating and Beltrami, Featherstonhaugh and Mather, Catlin, Nicollet and Fvemont and Allen were men who gave their knowledge to the world, and their journeys in the Minnesota river region marked distinct epochs in its development. It should be understood, however, that even before 1700 white men were probably passing Renville county with more or less frequency. The fact that several Frenchmen took refuge in Le Sueur's fort after being stripped naked by the Indians, shows that white men visited this region even at that early date.

Lac qui Parle, Big Stone lake and Lake Traverse made excellent fur trading points, and were probably locations of such from early in the eighteenth century. The furs from these posts were brought down the Minnesota and past Renville county in canoes.

Of the several traders in the Minnesota valley toward the close of the eighteenth century one of the principal ones was Murdoch Cameron, a Scotchman.

As early as 1783, Charles Patterson had a trading post in Redwood county. He was located in what is now section 29, township 114, range 36 (Delhi township), at the place long known as Patterson's rapids. It is not, however, definitely known on which side of the rapids Patterson located. He may have been over the river in Renville county.

James H. Loekwood, the first white native of the United States to trade with the Indians of this locality, came up the Minnesota river in 1816, and maintained a trading post at Lac qui Parle for a little over two years.

After Ft. Snelling was established, an Indian agency opened, where the traders were required to obtain licenses from the agent. In 1826 the records of the agent show that Joseph Renville was at Lac qui Parle, and John Campbell at the mouth of the Chippewa, both of which locations were not far from Renville county. William Dickson and Hazen P. Mooers were at Lake Traverse. Mooers was especially successful. It is recorded that in the summer of 1829 "the dry year," he made a trip from Lake Traverse to Ft. Snelling with 126 packs of furs, valued at $12,000.

In 1833-23 Moers and Renville were at the same stations as in 1826. Joseph R. Brown, afterward a pioneer of Renville county, was on the Minnesota at the mouth of the Chippewa. Joseph Renville, Jr., was at the Little Rock on the Minnesota, at the mouth of the Little Rock (Mud) creek, which flows for a part of its course in what is now Renville county. Joseph La Framboise established himself at the mouth of the Little Roek in 1834. He also had various other locations and was in Lyon county when Catlin passed in 1837.

The Missionaries. In 1835 Thomas S. Williamson established a mission at Lac qui Parle. In coming up the river as a missionary for the American Board of Foreign Missions, Williamson had met Joseph Renville. After surveying the situation carefully, the missionary concluded to accompany Mr. Renville to the latter 's home and store at Lac qui Parle and establish a mission station there. On June 23 his party embarked on the Fur Company's Mackinaw boat, which was laden with traders' goods and supplies, and set out on a voyage up the Minnesota, then at a good stage of water. The boat was propelled by poles, oars, a sail, and by pulling the willows along the abrupt shores. Progress was very slow and eight days were required to reach Traverse des Sioux. From the Traverse the remainder of the journey was made in wagons and Lac qui Parle was reached July 9 - seventeen days out from Fort Snelling. At Lac qui Parle Dr. Williamson and his companions established themselves as religious teachers of the Wahpeton and Sisseton Sioux.

1635. Jean Nicollet, an explorer from France, who had wintered in the neighborhood of Green Bay, brought to Montreal the first mention of the aborigines of Minnesota.

1659-60. Grosseilliers and Radisson wintered among the Sioux of the Mille Lacs region, Minnesota, being its first white explorers. In a previous expedition, four years earlier, they are thought by some to have come to Prairie island, west of the main channel of the Mississippi, between Red Wing and Hastings.

1661. Father Rene Menard left Kewennaw, on Lake Superior, to visit the Hurons, then in northern Wisconsin, and was lost near the sources of the Black and Chippewa rivers. His breviary and cassock were said to have been found among the Sioux.

1679. July 2, Daniel Greyselon Du Lhut (Duluth) held a council with the Sioux at their principal settlement on the shore of Mille Lacs. Du Lhut, in June, 1680, by way of the St. Croix river, reached the Mississippi and met Hennepin.

1689. May 8, Nicolas Perrot, at his Fort St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, laid formal claim to the surrounding country for France. He built a fort also on the Minnesota shore of this lake, near its outlet, as well as other posts.

1700. Le Sueur established Fort L'Huillier, on the Blue Earth river (near the mouth of the Le Sueur), and first supplied the Sioux with firearms.

1727. The French established a fort on the present site of Frontenac on Lake Pepin. Forts were also erected on nearly the same site in 1727 and 1750.

1766. Captain Jonathan Carver visited St. Anthony falls and Minnesota river. He claimed to have made a treaty with the Indians the following spring, in a cave, afterward called "Carver's Cave," within the present limits of St. Paul, at which he said

1796. Laws of the Ordinance of 1787 extended over the Northwest territory, including the northeastern third of Minnesota, east of the Mississippi river.

1803. April 30, that part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi, for the preceding forty years in possession of Spain as a part of Louisiana, was ceded to the United States by Napoleon Bonaparte, who had just obtained it from Spain.

1803-04. William Morrison, the first known white man to discover the source of the Mississippi river, visited Elk lake and explored the streams entering into the lake forming the head of the river.

1805. Lieut. Z. M. Pike visited Minnesota to establish government relations there, and obtained the Fort Snelling reservation from the Dakotas.

1812. The Dakotas, Ojibways and Winnebagoes, under the lead of hostile traders, joined the British during the war. Red river colony established by Lord Selkirk.

1819. Minnesota, east of the Mississippi river, became a part of Crawford county, Michigan. Fort Snelling established and a post at Mendota occupied by troops, under command of Colonel Leavenworth. Maj. L. Taliaferro appointed Indian agent, arriving April 19.

1820. Cornerstone of Fort Snelling laid September 10. Governor Cass visited Minnesota and made a treaty of peace between the Sioux and Ojibways at Fort Snelling. Col. Josiah Snelling appointed to the command of the latter post.

1823. The first steamboat arrived at Mendota, May 10, Major Taliaferro and Beltrami being passengers. Maj. Stephen H. Long explored Minnesota river, the Red river valley, and the northern frontier. Beltrami explored sources of the Mississippi.

1837. Governor Dodge, of Wisconsin, made a treaty, at Fort Snelling, with the Ojibways, by which the latter ceded all their pine lands on the St. Croix and its tributaries ; a treaty was also effected at Washington with a deputation of Dakotas for their lands east of the Mississippi. These treaties led the way to the first actual settlements within the area of Minnesota.

Authority. This article has been compiled by the editor from many available sources regarding the early Minnesota explorers. The chronology is from the Minnesota Legislative Manual.