Washington County, Minnesota - Chapter 32: Legend Ok the 8t. Ckoix - Du Luti1 First, 1881

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LEGEND OK THE 8T. CKOIX - DU LUTI1 FIRST EXPLORER - HENNEPIN'S DESCRIPTION - IN¬ DIANS FIGHT AT FALLS OF 8T. CROIX - EARLY TRADERS, PORLIER AND REA UME - SCnOOLCRAFT'8 EXPLORATIONS - POKEOUMA MIS¬ SION.

The river and Lake St. Croix, which Le Sueur, as has been narrated in a former chapter, says was called after a Frenchman of that name, was always called by the Sioux, Hogan-wahnkaykin, (the place where the fish lies.) Their le¬ gend as to the origin of the name is that two Dahkotah hunters were descending the river after a long hunt. After several days of fasting one said " are you not hungry?" "Yes," was the re¬ ply of the other, "but what have we for food?" At night the one who opened the conversation, killed a sand hill crane, and preparing it for sup¬ per invited the other to partake. The comrade answered "If cranes did not wade I could eat. I am not afraid of water, but may not eat flesh which has touched water." His friend astonished asked, "How can that be?" But he persisted in refusal, saying "Hold your peace and eat alone. I am hungry as well as you, but may not eat."

The journey was continued, when the first es¬ pied the tracks of a supposed raccoon on the snow, and they followed it to a hollow tree and the comrade was pleased at the thoughtof finding flesh which had not touched water. He first kindled a fire, while his comrade ascended the tree, and looking into the hollow he was disap¬ pointed in finding it a fish, and told the first, "If you will not urge me to eat, I will throw down the fish, which is a pike."

The pike was thrown to the ground and roasted by the first, and his comrade could no longer re¬ sist the craving for food, and agreed to eat, on condition that the first would bring water from the lake, on the shore of which they were, to sa¬ tiate his thirst. . After the meal was over, the comrade began to ask for water. It was brought again and again. After he had been supplied hundreds of times, still he asked for more, when the first, worn out with fatigue, told his comrade to lie down by the water of the lake and drink. The comrade answered, " You urged me to eat, but now you weary in giving me drink. If you had continued one day you would have saved me. You will soon tremble with fear." After this speech he lay down by the waters of the lake and drank. Gradually he was transformed into a large fish, and stretched liimself across the lake. This, tradition says, is the origin of " Pike Bar," which stretches across the middle of the lake.

Upon page 112, will be found the description of Du Luth, who was the first explorer. Hennepin, who afterwards met Du Luth on the Mississippi, writes: " Forty leagues above, is a river full of rapids, by which striking northwest, you can reach Lake Conde [Superior], that is as far as Nimmissakouat [Brule], river, which empties into the lake. This first river is called Tomb river, because the Issati [Knife lake Sioux], left there the body of one of tbeir warriors, killed by a rat¬ tlesnake. According to their custom, I put a blanket on the grave, which act of humanity gained me much importance by the gratitude dis¬ played by the countrymen of the departed, in a great feast, which they gave me in their country, and to which more than a hundred Indians were invited."

The Sioux have a tradition that a tribe called Onk-to-kah-dan lived just above Lake St. Croix, and were exterminated before white men ex¬ plored the country.

Very near the period that France ceded Can¬ ada to Great Britain, the last conflict of the Foxes and Ojibways took place at the Falls of St. Croix. Waubojeeg, or White Fisher, who died at La Pointe, in 1793, when he was in the prime of life, sent his war club and wampum to collect a party to go against the Foxes and their allies the Sioux.

The Ojibways who had but recently driven the Sioux from Sandy Lake, sent word that they would unite with him at the confluence of the Snake and St. Croix rivers. Waubojeeg with three hundred warriors reached that point, and the Sandy lake party not having arrived, he did not wait, but continued down the St Croix. Early one morning he reached the Falls of St. Croix, and while some of his warriers were pre¬ paring to take their bark canoes around the port- .age, scouts were sent in advance to reconnoitre. They soon returned with the information that they had discovered a large party of Foxes and Sioux. The Ojibways instantly prepared for the conflict, and the Foxes requested the Sioux to sit still and watch them defeat the foe. The fight now commenced in earnest, and about noon the Foxes began to yield, and at last fled in confusion. They would have been driven into the river, if the Sioux had not come to their relief. The Ojibways bravely resisted the attack of the allies, but their ammunition being exhausted, they in turn were forced to retreat, and they would have been exterminated had not at this juncture the band from Sandy lake arrived. Eager for the fight this last party withstood the onset of the Foxes and Sioux, and at last drove them from the field. Many to escape sprang into the roaring wa¬ ters, and in the crevices of the rocks some of the wounded crept, and died. From this time the Foxes ceased to appear in large bodies in this region.

A French post was established fifty leagues from the Mississippi, on the upper St. Croix, on the Wisconsin side of the river, but on a map prepared in 1762, by Jefferys, geographer to the king of England, it is marked as destroyed.

James J. Porlier, sometimes written Perlier, traded with the Indians of the St. Croix valley. He was a native of Montreal, and in 1793 was employed by Pierre Grignon, of Green Bay, to take goods to this region, and here he married the daughter of an Indian woman who had been abandoned by a French trader. Ilis associate was a broken-down merchant of Montreal, quite pompous and eccentric, by the name of Charles Reaume. One day, it is stated, that he asked Por¬ lier, and some other traders, to dine with him. The company arrived, and the venison was cooked, when Amable Chevalier, a half breed, told Reaume that there were not plates enough on the table, because there were npne for him. "There are," said Reaume sternly, when Chevalier without a word, tore a red cap from Reaume's head, and placing it upon the table, without cere¬ mony, filled it with hashed venison. Reaume in indignation, threw some hash into the half-breed's face, and the whole room was in an uproar. Reaume afterward lived at Green Bay, as justice of the peace, and in the eighth volume of the Wisconsin Historical Collections is the following certificate signed by him: "I certify that I have baptized a child of Mr. Grignon, named Bernard, at Green Bay, the 22d of June, 1806. Bom the 12th of June, at 9 o'clock, A. M."

About seventy years ago, the South West Com¬ pany had a trading post on the upper St. Croix. In 1826, the Indian agent at FortSnelling licensed a trader of the Columbia Fur Company, to trade at the Falls of St. Croix, and the post was desig¬ nated as Fort Barbour, but in 1831, the only licensed trader above the falls, on the Minnesota side, was Thomas Connor, an energetic Irishman whose trading post was at Lake Pokeguma on Snake river.

The first American explorer of the St. Croix river, was Henry R. Schoolcraft, and among his companions was the Rev. W. T. Boutwell. On the 16th of July, 1832, about three o'clock in the afternoon he entered the lake from the Missis¬ sippi. As evening approached he met a Mr.

several Frenchmen and Indians, and as there was reason to suppose that he had been selling whisky to the Indians, his license to trade was revoked. At eight o'clock of the evening of the next day he encamped at the Falls of St. Croix

Early Missionaries

On the 30th he reached Snake river, and had an interview with the Cliippeway tribe called Pezhikee, or Buffalo. Indians at that point num¬ bered about three hundred, and the half-breeds, thirty-eight. By eight o'clock of the morning of the next day, he was at the mouth of Yellow river, and at two o'clock in the afternoon, reached the Namakagun fork of the St. Croix, where the Ojibway Chief Kabamappa and bis band received him with a salute. On the evening of the second of August, he reached the lake which is the source of the river, and then made a portage to Splashing Brule or Misakoda river, by which he descended to Lake Superior.

In the fall of 1826 the Ojibways of Pokeguma were visited by Mr. Frederick Ayer. He was bom October 11th, 1803, at Stockbridge, Massa¬ chusetts, and in June, 1829, became a teacher and catechist in the Mackinaw mission, and in 1831 went to La Pointe, and moved from thence in September, 1833, to Yellow Lake, in northwest Wisconsin, where with his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Taylor, a native of Ileath, Massachusetts, he established a mission school among the Indians. As the point did not prove favorable, he came to Pokeguma, to make ar¬ rangements for removal there. He soon brought to the lake his wife and two assistants, John L. Seymour as teacher and mechanic, and Sabrina Stevens.

In the spring of 1837 the Rev. Sherman Hall, missionary at La Pointe, passed a week at Lake Pokeguma and organized a church, consisting of the missionary's family, Henry Blatchford a mixed blood from Mackinaw, a chief of the band, and some others. '' *

On the 4th of October, 1837, Mr. Ayer wrote: "We have assisted in putting up a log house for the chief, who is a member of the church, and are now about completing two more. * * ferred to the Pokeguma mission. Mr. Ely was a native of North Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and at the age of twenty-four, on the 19th of Septem¬ ber, 1833, became a missionary teacher at Ait¬ kin's trading post, on the shores of Sandy lake. In August, 1834, he went to Fon du Lac, and on the 30th of August, 1835, he married at La Pointe, Catherine Bissell, who was born at Sault St. Marie.

Rev. W. T. Boutwell, who had been for several years a missionary at Leech lake, on the 4th of January, 1841, with two men, left La Pointe for Pokeguma. The snow upon the ground was over two feet in depth, and placing blankets, axes and provisions on a dog train, the journey was per¬ formed on snow shoes, and occupied nearly ten days. Mr. Boutwell, upon his arrival, was very much surprised to Dnd the highest chief and many others of the band cutting wood with axes. Mr. Ayer had persuaded them to work by offer¬ ing them a bushel of potatoes, or an equivalent in coin, for each cord of wood cut, and thus had suppressed the habit of begging. Mr. Boutwell wrote on the 8th of February, after his return to La Pointe : " I administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to twelve. Five of the num¬ ber were natives of Pokeguma. The ordinance ' of baptism was administered to tliree children. Two were admitted to the church on profession of their faith, one of them a young man from Ohio, who had wandered into the forest to engage ' in lumbering."

Jeremiah Russell, a pioneer, in 1837, in open¬ ing the pine forests of the Saint Croix valley, was in 1840 appointed by the United States govern¬ ment, to oversee the farms for the Pokeguma band, and he cheerfully co-operated with the mis¬ sionaries.

Mr. Ayer wrote in April of this year: "During the past winter Indians from among the heathen portion of the tribe have chopped for us, about one hundred cords of wood and boarded themselves. Chief and subject, men, women and children of all ages from twenty to seventy, have come and solicited work. Some who were once so lazy that they preferred going hungry to working, have, the last winter here chopped from four to six and eight cords of wood. Two or three, one of therp a man of seventy or more, have cut most of the timber for their houses alone.

"In connection with Air. Russell we have helped them draw their timber, and put up the body of the buildings. Three others are erecting houses, and another completing a house begun two years ago. One of the last mentioned is a chief, as is the old man. They visited Washing¬ ton during Mr. Adams' administration. * * * Mr. Russell takes a lively interest in the settling of the Indians, and has to some extent assisted thus far, all, with one exception, who have re¬ cently begun to build. lie is also pieparing to aid the Indians efficiently in agriculture this spring. lie will assist exclusively the heathen Indians. We think it expedient, on the whole, that the praying Indians should depend on us for aid, since the heathen party seeks every possible occasion to speak evil of them, and accuse the farmer and blacksmith of partiality toward them. On this account, I presume, they prefer digging up their fields with the hoe, to soliciting or receiv¬ ing aid from the Indian farmer. They are de¬ signing to cultivate much larger fields than here¬ tofore. The lumber company will purchase at a very fair price all the surplus produce of the set¬ tled Indians."

In May, 1841, the Sioux attacked the Ojibways at Fokeguma, and this conflict, the particulars of which are given on page 110, was a death-blow to the mission at that point.