Those who were associated with him at the fort also had kind words for him. “He belonged to a class more common then than now”, remarked the son of Colonel Bliss. “He imagined it to be his imperative duty to see that every Indian under his charge had the enjoyment of all his rights, and never seemed to realize his opportunities for arranging with contractors for the supply of inferior goods and for dividing the profits.”[180] Of this honesty Taliaferro wrote: “I have the Sad Consolation of leaving after twenty Seven years—the public Service as poor as when first I entered—The only evidence of my integrity”.[181]
No one can write of Fort Snelling without using the papers which Lawrence Taliaferro left. The diary kept by him during these twenty years shows the meager pleasures and grim duties of his task. Of this diary only a few fragmentary pages are extant—three roughly bound collections of sheets, many of them torn, many of them half-burned, and their writing faded. But from almost every page that is legible some information is gleaned, concerning the life of the soldiers, the visits of the Indians, the state of the weather, and reflections on Indian relations and the best time for planting potatoes.[182] His wide acquaintance and the great extent of territory which his agency covered led to correspondence with many men. These letters also passed through a fire, and those that were rescued are now bound in four volumes.[183]
His reports to General William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, were forwarded to Washington where they are now kept in the files of the Indian office.[184] With methodical care Governor Clark copied the letters which he received into letter books. The existence of these letter books was not known until a few years ago, when some of them were found in the hands of a junk dealer in Lawrence, Kansas, and were rescued—a great gain to the history of the West.[185]
Many years after he closed his connection with the agency Lawrence Taliaferro wrote an “Autobiography”—a narrative that shows all the quaintness and egotism of the man. “Not until after the year 1840”, he wrote “did the government become unfortunate in the selection of their agents for Indian affairs.”[186] From this account can be gleaned information to supplement the bare facts usually given about his life. His ancestors had come to England from Genoa, Italy, and later they emigrated to Virginia. Here Lawrence Taliaferro was born on February 28, 1794. At the age of eighteen he joined the army and served through the War of 1812, being a first lieutenant when it closed. Although he received no other promotion he was always known among his associates as “Major”.[187]
He was appointed Indian agent for St. Peter's on March 27, 1819, and on April 1, 1819, he accepted—resigning the same day from the army.[188] He reached his new station probably in the summer of 1820, and was immediately engaged in the duties connected with Indian affairs.[189] During his term of office he was continually troubled by ill-health which resulted from his campaigns in the late war. In 1824 he resigned because of this ill-health, and although he continued in service, Governor Clark at one time wrote to the Secretary of War that “his fate is considered as very doubtful.”[190]
As early as 1831 he confided to his diary that “there is something of a Combination of Persons at work day after day to pick at my Actions both public and private”.[191] His resignation finally came in 1839, and he closed his connection with the Department on January 1, 1840, because he could no longer endure the machinations of the traders.[192] Thereafter he made his home at Bedford, Pennsylvania, serving as a military storekeeper from 1857 to 1863, when he was put on the retired list. Mr. Taliaferro visited his old home at Fort Snelling in 1856 and wrote characteristically: “We were in St. Paul on the twenty-fourth of June, the ‘widow's son’ was Irving's Rip Van Winkle; after a nap of fifteen years, we awoke in the midst of fast times. We truly felt bewildered when we found all the haunts and resting-places of the once noble sons of the forest, covered by cities, towns, and hamlets. We asked but few questions, being to our mind received as a strange animal; if nothing worse.”[193]
Among the others who served before 1858 as Indian agent were Amos J. Bruce, R. G. Murphy, and Nathaniel McLean. The influx of whites had greatly increased the difficulties of their position, and the memory of their former agent made the Indians suspicious of their new advisers. The Governor of the Territory became the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and his presence so near the agency took from the agent much of his power.[194]
Scott Campbell, the interpreter at Fort Snelling, was the intermediary between the Indians and their lords. He was a half-breed whom Meriwether Lewis had met on his expedition up the Missouri River. He took the boy with him back to St. Louis; and when Lewis died, Campbell returned to his Sioux relatives and finally drifted to the agency at Fort Snelling.[195] Having a knowledge of four languages, and possessing the confidence of all the tribes within four hundred miles of the post, he was indispensable. From August, 1825, to April, 1826, he was engaged in the fur trade, but was lured back into service by a salary of thirty-four dollars per month and one ration per day. By 1843, however, he had become such a drunkard that he had to be dismissed.[196]
The veteran missionary, S. W. Pond, in recalling early days wrote that “Scott Campbell no longer sits smoking his long pipe, and conversing in low tones with the listless loungers around the old Agency House; but who that resided in this country thirty or forty years ago can pass by the old stone houses near Fort Snelling and not think of Major Taliaferro and of his interpreter?”[197]
And who can pass the Old Round Tower without thinking of those men who as officers at Fort Snelling ruled supreme over a vast region, and who left the fort for places of greater trust and greater influence?