On the western shore is the celebrated Maiden’s Rock, a bold, precipitous bluff, rising four hundred feet above the lake. All eyes were turned toward its towering height. Its story is one of great beauty.
A maiden of the Sioux had given her heart to a chief of her own tribe, who had sought her love. The parents, however, would not consent to her alliance with the young brave, but insisted on her marrying an old chief, of great wisdom and influence in the nation. The marriage-day was fixed, and Oola-Ita, with other Indian maidens, was gathering berries on the brow of this cliff for the wedding-feast. Suddenly a plaintive song rose on the sea, and they saw the beautiful Oola-Ita poised gracefully on the very edge of the precipice, her head upraised, and her long hair floating in the wind, as she warbled her parting song. In a moment, before a friendly hand could arrest her, she leaped from the precipice, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
No. 666.
MAIDEN’S ROCK.
Six miles above Lake Pepin is the town of Red Wing, finely situated on the river bank, beneath the shadow of a towering bluff. There was formerly the village of Talangamane, or the Red Wing, esteemed the first chief of his nation. The university which bears Bishop Hamline’s name, and which has been founded by his liberal gift, may be seen from the water, and near it is a large Methodist church.
Two weeks after a terrible accident happened at this town. The steamer Galena took fire. The pilot manfully kept his place at the wheel; amid the scorching flames he brought the boat to the shore, and kept her there till the passengers had escaped. A mother and three children were lost, but the rest stood in their night-clothes on the shore; some of them stripped of the means which were to provide them with a home in the new country to which they were going, but thankful for lives saved from flood and flame.
The presiding elder of the district came on board at Red Wing. He was introduced to Mrs. Lester by a Baptist minister, who was returning to St. Paul with his bride. He had been in the country for twelve years, and his varied knowledge made him a most agreeable companion. He had been brought in familiar contact with the Indians and with the settlers; he could tell of the wigwam, and the log cabin, and the thriving towns now replacing them; he knew the character of the strata of the river bank and the names of the trees in the forest. He had visited an Indian mission four hundred miles above the Falls of St. Anthony; had ascended part of it in a canoe carried over the portage past the rapids, by half-breeds. A most quiet, domestic river it is above St. Anthony, flowing through beautiful prairies covered with grapes and wild flowers, diversified with gentle hills and groves of oak. These prairies were formerly the resort of herds of buffaloes and deer; wolves, too, roamed over them, and just before dawn might be heard the hideous cry of the great white owl. Abundance of water-fowl used to be seen here; ducks, geese, pelicans, swans, and snipe; while the hawk, buzzard, and eagle sailed on lofty wing in the regions of upper air.
The waters of the St. Croix River looked blue and beautiful as they flowed from the lovely lake at its mouth into the more turbid waters of the Mississippi, with which they refuse for some time to mingle, the currents of different hues running side by side. Magnificent forests, huge trees (primeval) of stately trunk and deep rich foliage, adorn the shores of the river, or the large islands in its broad bosom.
Norman saw three wigwams on one of these islands, and two Indian boys seated on the shore. Not very far from this was formerly a Sioux village of Le Petit Corbeau, or the Little Raven. An anecdote is told of this Indian chief, which very finely illustrates the Saviour’s precept: “If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”
The Little Raven, going one morning to examine his beaver-trap, found a sauteur in the act of stealing it. The thief, looking up, saw the chief of a nation with which his own was at war, standing looking at him with a loaded rifle in his hands. The culprit expected instant death. How great then was his astonishment when the Sioux chief, approaching him, said: “Be not alarmed, I come to present you the trap, of which I see you stand in need. You are entirely welcome to it. Take my gun also, as I perceive you have none of your own, and depart with it to the land of your countrymen; but linger not here, lest some of my young men, who are panting for the blood of their enemies, should discover your footsteps in our country, and should fall upon you.” So saying, he gave him his gun and his accoutrements, and returned unarmed to his village.