TO THE NORTH DAKOTA PIONEERS and their successors, the fathers, mothers and children of the North Dakota of today, this work is affectionately dedicated, by THE AUTHOR. Washington, D. C., February 27, 1919. PREFACE "I hear the tread of pioneers, Of nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon Shall roll a human sea." -John G. Whittier. More intensely interesting than a fairy tale is the story of the development of the great Northwest. It is a story of adventure and of daring in the lives of individuals not unmixed with romance, for there were brave, loving hearts, and gentle clinging spirits among those hardy pioneers, and many incidents and choice bits of legend have been handed down, which I hope may serve to make these pages interesting. It is a story with traces of blood and tears, illustrating "man's inhumanity to man," for there were some among the early traders who had little regard for the expenditure of these precious treasures, in their pursuit of "Gold! gold! gold! gold!" that is "heavy to get and light to hold," as suggested by Hood-the "Price of many a crime untold * How widely its agencies vary, To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless, As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary." It is a story of man's love for man, in the work of the early missionaries, who, in obedience to the command of the Master, went forth into the wilderness to lift up and benefit the "untutored" savage, who only "sees God in clouds, or hears. Him in the wind," and to bring refuge to his white children, who had blazed the way, and who were languishing in despair. It is a story of heroic deeds, of patriotic devotion to duty, of suffering and bloodshed and of development. Whether I am the one to write the story, let others judge. "Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us; There's a whisper on the night wind, there's a star agleam to guide us, -Robert W. Service, "The Call of the Wild.” My family in all of its branches were among the early settlers of New York and New England, frontiersmen and participants in all of the early Indian wars. My mother's people suffered in the Wyoming massacre. Among the slain in that bloody affair were seven from the family of Jonathan Weeks, her paternal ancestor, who with fourteen fatherless grand-children returned to Orange County, New York, whence he came, abandoning his well-developed farm near Wilkesbarre, as demanded by the Indians. I knew many of the people directly connected with the Minnesota massacre of 1862, and the incidents leading up to it, and the campaign following-settlers in the region affected, prisoners of the Sioux, traders, soldiers, missionaries, men in public life, and many of the Indians. One of the stockades built by the settlers for defense, was situated on the first real property I ever owned, and in a log house within the stockade, my first child, Hattie, wife of Charles E. V. Draper of Mandan, N. D., was born. In July, 1873, I established the Bismarck Tribune, the first newspaper published in North Dakota. There were then but five villages in North Dakota— Pembina, Grand Forks, Fargo, Jamestown and Bismarck; no railroad, excepting the Northern Pacific under construction; no farms, no agriculture, except the cultivation of small patches by Indians and half-bloods, or in connection with the military posts or Indian agencies; no banks, no public schools, no churches. It was my fate to be one of five (John W. Fisher, Henry F. Douglas, I. C. Adams, Mrs. W. C. Boswell and myself) to organize the Presbyterian Church Society at Bismarck, the first church organization in North Dakota, in June, 1873, and in the autumn of that year I was instrumental in organizing the Burleigh County Pioneers, developed through my direction into the North Dakota State Historical Society, of which I was the first president. I was at Bismarck when a party of Northern Pacific surveyors started west to survey the line of the road from that point to the Yellowstone River in the spring of 1873, and saw the smoke of battle and heard the crack of rifles, as the engineers were forced to fight, even before they got as far west as the site of Mandan. I saw Gen. George A. Custer as he marched to his last battle-the massacre of Custer and 261 men of the Seventh United States Cavalry on the Little Big Horn, by the Sioux. Accompanying him was Mark Kellogg, bearing my commission from the New York Herald, who rode the horse that was provided for me-for I had purposed going but could not-and who wore the belt I had worn in the Civil War, which was stained with my blood. I saw the wounded brought down the Yellowstone and the Missouri, by Grant Marsh, on that historic boat, the Far West, and the weeping widows whose husbands returned not. The trail of blood, beginning at the Atlantic, taking a new start at the Gulf, extending to the Pacific, and, returning, starting afresh on the banks of the Missouri, came to a sudden check on the banks of the Little Big Horn; but it was not ended, the blood already spilled was not enough. The Seventh United States. Cavalry, Custer's Regiment, was again baptized in blood at Wounded Knee, and the end was not reached until the tragic death of Sitting Bull, Dec. 15, 1890. We have the Indians with us yet-in many instances happy and prosperous farmers, their children attending the schools and universities, the male adults having taken lands in severalty under the Federal Allotment Act, being recognized citizens of the United States, and entitled to the elective franchise in the State of North Dakota. If I dwell upon Indian affairs, it is because I have been interested in the Indians from childhood. After the battle of Spottsylvania I lay in the field hospital beside an Indian soldier, wounded even worse than I. Not a groan escaped his lips. I admired the pluck and courage, and the splendid service of the Indian soldiers from the states of Michigan and Wisconsin in the Civil War. I have seen them in battle. I have known their excellent service as Indian police, I have seen them in their happy homes, when roaming free on the prairie, and I know their good points. Although I shall picture the horrors of Indian wars in a lurid light, I have no sympathy with the idea that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," and I am glad to know that they are no longer a "vanishing race," but their numbers are now increasing, and to feel that they have a splendid destiny before them. I have seen the growth of North Dakota from the beginning, I have performed my part in its development, but in the words of Kipling's Explorer: "Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre? But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy." I feel it a duty, as well as a privilege, to contribute these pages to its history. CLEMENT AUGUSTUS LOUNSBERRY. Washington, D. C., February 27, 1919. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TENDERED The author desires to acknowledge the receipt of historical data and other means of information necessary to the compilation, from the following persons: Canada: A. M. Edington, Montreal Star. Louisiana: Colonel William O. Hart, New Orleans. Massachusetts: Hugh C. Cormack, Boston and Montreal. Edward J. Holmes, Harvard Law School Association, Boston. Professor Lee S. McCollester, D. D., Dean of Crane Theological School, Tufts College, Medford. Joseph Sargent, Secretary Harvard Law School Association, Boston. Brevet Captain William H. Wade, Seventh Mass. Vol. Inf., War of 1861, and Mrs. Wade, Fall River. Thomas Weston, Jr., Harvard Law School Association, Boston. New York: Henry Winthrop Hardon, counselor at law, New York City. North Dakota: John E. Blair, former Secretary of the College of Law of the University of North Dakota, Spokane, State of Washington. Mrs. Minnie Clarke Budlong, Secretary of the Library Commission, Bismarck. Ex-Governor John Burke, United States Treasurer, Washington, D. C. Charles Cavileer, Pembina (deceased). Very Rev. Thomas Egan, Rector of St. Mary's Cathedral Rectory, Fargo. Adjutant General G. Angus Fraser, Bismarck. Thomas Hall, Secretary of State, Bismarck. |