At 13.3 m. is a MONUMENT TO FATHER JEROME HUNT, who served St. Michael's Mission (see below) almost 40 years. With the help of a young Indian, Ignatius Court, whom he sent to the office of the Devils Lake News to learn the art of printing, he published a small newspaper, two prayer books, and Bible stories, all in the Siouan language.
FORT TOTTEN, 14 m. (1,470 alt., 1,250 pop., including town and reservation), with its uniform white agency buildings primly facing a central square, was originally a military post established in 1867 as a step in the plan to place the Indians of the region on a reservation. The reservation, named for Gen. Gilbert Totten, then Chief, Engineer Corps, U. S. Army, was established through a treaty in 1867 with the Sisseton, Wahpeton, and Cut-Head Sioux. On July 17, 1867, Gen. A. H. Terry, commander of the Department of Dakota, arrived on the southern shore of Devils Lake with three companies of the Thirty-First U. S. Infantry, to establish the post. The original fort was of logs, and still stands half a mile S. of the brick buildings that replaced it in 1868. The bricks for the fort were made on the reservation, and, with the exception of present Fort Lincoln (see Tour 8), built much later, this is considered the best-built fort in the history of North Dakota.
Principally used as troops' winter quarters, the post sometimes had as many as five companies and at other times only one. Fort Totten troops acted as escorts for surveyors of the N. P. Ry. and for the International Boundary Line Commission, and participated in various campaigns in Dakota and Montana, returning to the fort for the winter.
Although the Indians of the region were usually quite peaceable, there was occasional trouble with them, particularly on the route to Fort Stevenson along the Missouri (see Tour 10). This trail constituted the main channel of transportation and communication for Fort Totten in its early days. An anonymous poem describes what is said to have been an actual occurrence (although the date given is not correct) in which Josh Murphy and Charlie Reynolds—General Custer's scout on the Black Hills expedition, who died with Custer at the Little Big Horn (see History)—are carrying the mail into Fort Totten.
"It was in the spring of sixty-four,
Just a little while ere the war was o'er,
That 'twas mine the mail bags to transport
From Stevenson Pass to Totten fort;
Through the rugged passes the route to take
O'er the mountains that frown on Devils Lake;
Those canyons alive with skulking crews
Of the Chippewas and the savage Sioux;
But my heart felt light and my arm felt strong
For brave Josh Murphy rode along."
Josh is shot by Indians and begs his companion to prevent them from taking his scalp. Charlie lifts the dying man to his saddle and Josh's pony dashes into the night.
"We sought for Josh and we struck his trail
In the dew damp notes of the scattered mail;
And we found him at last, scarce a pistol shot
From the picket wall of the fort he sought.
There he proudly lay with his unscalped head
On the throbless breast of his pony—dead!
And the route from the pass to the cedared hill
Is known as the 'Deadman's Journey' still."
The garrison was withdrawn from Fort Totten in 1890, and the mission school, which had been conducted by the Grey Nuns of Montreal since 1874, was consolidated with the Indian Industrial School and housed with the agency offices in the fort buildings. Approximately 1,000 Sioux and a small number of Chippewa—many of both tribes are now of mixed blood—are under jurisdiction of the agency. At the school here the boys are taught dairying, gardening, carpentry, shoe repairing, steam and electrical engineering, baking, and tailoring; and the girls, sewing, laundering, cooking, and housekeeping.
At the auditorium (last wk. Feb.) is held the annual Midwinter Fair. Another annual fair is held (1st wk. Sept.) on the fairgrounds adjoining the agency on the NW. To both of these a few Indians bring handicraft work for sale; elsewhere such work is scarce, though beadwork and certain primitive musical instruments—flutes of red cedar, whistles of bone, large drums, tom-toms, rattles, and string bells—can be obtained at some of the homes.
The reservation, with its wooded hills and ravines, and its numerous lakes, is a beautiful region. Originally covering 360 sq. m., it has been reduced to 137,000 acres. The land is allotted in 60-acre tracts to a family, and some farming is done. The economic status of the Indians here is poor, however.