The boat had brought a barrel of flour, one of pork and other supplies for the Mission at Lac qui Parle, so after spending a week at Traverse waiting for the train to start, I took these in a cart drawn by one ox and started with the rest on Monday morning. The Dressers had their cart which I had managed to fix and their team of horses. I started with them and the string of carts. I could see the trail two miles ahead. It had to go around the sloughs. The cart train of course followed it. I soon saw the sloughs were frozen and would bear my ox and wide wheeled cart where it was not deep, so I cut across. When Mrs. Dresser was getting dinner, I appeared and ate with them. They could not understand how I could keep up with horses. The train was several miles back. We all camped together at night. The first night was spent on the border of Swan Lake. The trail followed a straight line from Traverse to Lac qui Parle, except for these sloughs.
Saturday night we camped at Black Oak Lake, twelve miles from Lac qui Parle. In the morning, McLeod and his train went on, but we stayed and kept the Sabbath, arriving the next day.
The first Indian I ever shook hands with was Little Crow at Kaposia, his village. He was common looking even for an Indian. My uncle, Dr. Williamson said, "He is the smoothest Indian I know. Usually when I am told a lie once, I look out for that liar and never trust him again, but Little Crow has fooled me with his lies a dozen times and I suppose he will a dozen times more."
When I first knew John Otherday he was a savage with all a savage's instincts. My uncle, Mr. Williamson said to me one night, "We'll lock the cattle up tonight; Oupeto Topeca, later Otherday, is back from Washington and feels very much abused. He might kill them." When he became a Christian all this was changed. He never forgot his religion for a moment. At the time of the outbreak he led a party of refugees at the greatest risk to himself through the back country to Shakopee. I think there were over forty in the party.
I used to walk fifty miles a day with ease, and could keep it up for several days. I never walked in moccasins, for they gave no support to the feet; but a soldier's shoe, bought at the fort for $2.00 was ideal to wear. It had a long, heavy sole leather sole, a very low heel and heavy leather all hand sewed, for the uppers.
The Northwestern Fur Company's trail started from New Cave, now St. Paul, and followed the Mississippi River through St. Anthony to Anoka. It forded the Rum River at Anoka, near the Mississippi, following as nearly as possible that river to St. Cloud, where it crossed at a ford. It then followed the Sauk River about eleven miles; then turned to the right and crossed Big Bend forty-five miles, striking the river again four miles north from Sauk Center. Then it passed through the timber to Alexandria. It crossed Red River near Fort Abercrombie; then went directly north to Pembina, passing from point to point of the Red River of the North. The Red River carts had wheel rims eight inches wide. I have seen them with solid wheels cut from a single round of a tree. I have heard that the carts around Pembina were formerly all like this, but in my day they generally had spokes. I suppose they were lighter. It was the width of wheel and sagacity of the animal that made it possible to go with security over the most impossible roads. They usually carried eight hundred pounds. When they reached St. Paul they camped where Larpenteur's home now is.
I never knew an Indian who had been converted to go back on the whites. Some people would sell them a pair of pants, for a Christian Indian could vote and then say as they saw them so dressed, "There is a Christian Indian." It took more than a pair of pants to Christianize an Indian, but when they were once converted, they stayed so, as the many people who were saved by them in the massacre could testify.
Mr. D. E. Dow—1850.
In 1850 when I first came to Minnesota, I took a claim at Lake Harriet near where the pavilion now stands. The ruins of the old Steven's Mission were on my claim. It had been built in 1834. I did not keep this claim long, though I built a log cabin there and kept bachelor's hall, but soon took a claim where my present house stands in Hopkins. I built a cabin here but boarded with a widow and her children. All the food we had was game, pork and buckwheat cakes. The buckwheat they had brought from their home and it was all ground in the coffee mill then sifted through a horsehair sieve before it could be used. There were seven in the family to grind for, so it kept one person grinding all the time.
I was supposed to live alone in my cabin but hardly ever spent a night without the companionship of some Sioux Indians who were hunting around there. I gladly received them as they were friendly, and their company was much better than none. One winter they came in such numbers that at night the floor was entirely covered by their sleeping forms. Early in the morning, they would go out and all day hunt the deer, with which the woods abounded. It was very cold and the slain deer froze immediately. They stacked them up, making a huge pile. Suddenly all the Indians left. One morning shortly after, I was working in the clearing around my cabin, when I saw a line of squaws which I think was a block long, coming over the trail which led from Shakopee to Hopkins. The squaws went to the pile of deer. Each took one on her back and silently trudged away over the trail toward Shakopee. Some of the squaws were so small that the frozen carcass had to be adjusted by another squaw or it would drag on the ground. They were two weeks removing this pile of deer and had to walk twenty-eight miles with each one before they got home with it.