OLD FORT SNELLING.
Our next visit was to old Fort Snelling, three miles out from St. Paul. This fort was built in 1820. It is round, two stories high and is constructed of stone. The old fort, of course, is not used now. The regular soldiers stationed here are located in delightful quarters. The barracks are just beyond the old fort. The hospital is a large, commodious building of stone. The parade field is a delightful bit of rolling prairie. The barracks are quite deserted now, most of the regiment being in the Philippines. Only a small detachment of twenty-five troops remains to take care of the property. Fort Snelling was the rendezvous of the Chippewas and the Sioux in the old days of Indian occupation.
While the two tribes smoked the pipe of peace and made protestations of friendship they might not intermarry.
At one of these meetings a Sioux brave won the heart of a Chippewa maiden. Their love they kept a secret, but when the tribes met again at old Fort Snelling a quarrel arose among the young warriors which resulted in the death of a Sioux.
The Sioux fell upon the Chippewas with the cry of extermination.
In the midst of battle lover and loved one met, but for a moment. They were swept apart and the young warrior knew that the fair maiden lived only in the land of shadows.
There dwells in the river at the falls of Saint Anthony a dusky Undine. She was once a mermaid living in a placid lake, longing for a soul which the good Manitou finally promised her upon her marriage with a mortal. The mortal appeared one day in the form of a handsome Ottawa brave, and to him the beautiful mermaid told her tale of woe. The two were wed. The mermaid received her soul and the form of a human, but her new relatives disliked her. They quarreled over her and at last the Ottawas and the Adirondacks fought over her, and threw her into the river. There she lives to this day, thankfully giving up her soul for the peace and quiet of a mermaid’s life.
This is the home of the pine and the birch. The white melilotus grows rank in the byways of Minneapolis.
