University of Minnesota - Gopher Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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Now 11m |)i-olial)Iy saved tlie lower Minne- sota valley from iinasion. Out iiumliered I ()-t()-one, the inliahitants of New I ' lni desperately witiistood tlieassanlt nntii tliey were finally forced into a stoekade, and the sa aj;es hnrned the town. The wiiites later retired safely to Mankalo. At Wood Lake, Sihley surrounded the Iiulian cam]) and look ii er 400 i)ris ners, ' MYA of whom were sen- U ' need to death l)y a military court. Pre.si- dent Lincoln suhse(|uently commuted the sentences of most of them, but 38 were hanged at Mankato on December 2( . 1S()2. The cause of the uprising is attributed to tiie hatred of the Indians for the settlers. That lumber manufacturing sliouM be the first business of note in Minnesota was natural; |)ine forests reached almost to the very doors of St. Anthony, and the ra])id influx of settlers re(iuire(l a large sup|)ly of building materials. The output of the government mill established in 1821 at tlie Falls of St. Anthony was inadeciuate for eomnuM-cial jjurposes, .so numufacturing on a eomj)rehensivc scale did not begin until eighteen years later when a saw mill was established on the St. Croix river at Marine. On August 24, 1839, this mill began to saw; thus the lumlicr industry antedated the establishment of government in Minnesota by ten years. But with the virtual exhaustion of timber in Michigan and Wisconsin, greater demands were made upon linnesota, and the ra])id disjippearance of the great i)ine forests diverted the lumber business from the North Star State to the Pacific slo])e. Lacking the roiuantic and ))ictures(|ue (pialities of the lumber industry, but ])ossessing greater ])raetical jjossibilities, floiu ' milling has developed into the largest manufacturing industry of the Northwest. The original mill established at the Falls of St. . nthony groiuid flour for the garrison of the fort for nearly thirty years, fiiudly jjassing into private hands when Robert Smith, an Illinois Congressman, acquired it in 1849. Several other mills were erected along the Mississippi river, and in 1859 Minnesota sent her first shijiment of flour eastward. ] Iiniu aiiolis is now the flour milling center of the world. The i)resence of iron ore in Minnesota was first re|)orted by Indians and lumbermen; and geologists of the govennnent reported indications of its presence in 1859 and 1S(J5. Susquehanna Pit at Hibbing — .1 Typical Open Fit Mine Lake Vreiijhter anil Ore Doehs at Dntnth, from tetiere Half the W ' ltrlil ' . Iran Ore is Shipped Page S9

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Mankalo ' : Grim Rt:nilndcr great blast of triiunpli, and a bright lightning flash re- vealed the boat itself, just rounding the bluff, less than a mile below the St. Paid wharf. In a few seconds, re- gardless of the tuniidt and perils of the storm, almost the entire male jjopulation of the town was running for the boat-landing. Very soon the fine steamer. Dr. Franklin, No. 2, dashed gallantly uj) to her wharf. l?ut l)efore she reached the moorings she was boartled by the excited throng. The news was learned and one ghid shout which resounded through the boat, was taken up on shore, and, echoed from our beetling bluffs and rolling hills above the roar of the storm, [iro- claimed that the bill for the organization of Minnesota Territory had l)ecome a law . With the organization of the territorial govern- ment, the residents set themselves to the task of establishing Minnesota as a state. As the first step it was necessary to secure the jjassage of an Enabling Act , authorizing the i )eo])le to frame a constitution and elect state officers. A large amount of opposition was encountered in Congress, because the balance of power , zealously guarded l)y the South, and main- tained by admitting free and slave states to the Union in pairs, had been broken in 18.50 by the admission of California as a free state. The bill was finally adop- ted, however, through the tireless eft ' orts of Douglas. the senator who had lieen responsilile for the establishment of the territory. He introtluced the l)ill admitting Minnesota to the Union, and President Buchanan signed it on May 11, 1858. When the fall of Fort Sumter in 1861 aroused the North to the certainty of war, Minnesota was equal to the emergency. Governor Alexander Ramsey, who was then in Washington, at once offered President Lincoln a regiment for the suppression of the rebellion, giving Minnesota the distinction of being the first state to volunteer her services in the war. In accordance with a telegram from Ramsey, the first call for troojjs was issued on April 16. The First Minnesota was the first three years regiment to go into battle, and fought at Antietam, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg. Of its famous charge at (iettysburg, where 21. ) of its 262 men were lost. General Hancock, who gave the order to charge, said, There is no more gallant deed recorded in history . Yitll half of her volunteers in the South, and more regiments hastily recruiting for service in the Civil war, Minnesota received a knife thrust in her back. Sioux Indians from reservations on the u])per Minnesota river unexpectedly rose under the leadership of Little Crow on August IS, 1862, and murdered about a thousand frontier settlers within thirty-six hours. Probable reinforcement of the Sioux by west- ern bands, and the possibility of co- operation by Chip])ewas and Winne- bagoes, which was indeed the plan of Little Crow, necessitated imme- diate action by the State govern- ment. Learning of the U])rising on the following day, (iovernor Ramsey immediately ])laced General Henry Hastings Sibley in charge of a move- ment to restore a lasting peace on the frontier. A successful encounter at Fort Ridglev, and the stand at ISoT- -Rcd Hirer Ox Carls Driven by Half -breeds, in Their Annual Pilgrimage to the Tuin Cities Page S

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' ' ni S! l oil ttniJl But it was not until 1884 on the ' erniillion range that actual mining operations commenced. In 1890 iron ore was discovered on tlie Mcsalii range; the peculiarly favor- able mining conditions here, where the ore is near the surface, making it the cheapest ore of its class ohtain- ahle. Then iron was found on the Cuyuna range, and the first shi])- ment from this region was made in 1911. The deposits of this exceed- ingly important ore are nowhere else as rich as they are in Minnesota, ;ind this state supplies about five- eighths of the amoiuit mined in the I ' nited States. Lord Selkirk, moved by a desire to alleviate the distress he observed while on a vacation in the Scotch highhuuls, believed that by establishing a colony across the Atlantic he could enable the settlers to escape the i)overty which oppressed them in their old homes. He accordingly sent some Irish and Scotch to settle on 100,000 square miles of land on the Red and Assiniboine rivers, which he had purchased from the Hudson Bay company. They reached their Canadian homes in 1812. The.se settlers were later joined by Swiss immigrants. Dissatisfied with the Red river valley, and informed that conditions were much better in the Minnesota country, several Swiss families from the Selkirk colony came down to the Fort St. Anthony reservation in 182: where they established themselves as tiie first farmers in Minnesota. The introduction of cattle raising and dairying by these Swiss i)eoi)le laid the foundation for the great dairy industry now carried on in Minnesota. Senator Westcott of Fh)rida said in the congressional contro -ersy preceding the creation of the Minnesota Territory, I am told that there are some forty lawyers practicing there, which is a, favorable sign as to the resources and extent of the .settlements . That was in 1849. Governor Sibley had established himself fifteen years before at Mendota, near the mouth of the Minnesota river, as the first lawyer in the state. And the following year Sibley received a commission from the governor of Iowa as justice of the peace over the area boundetl by the Mississippi river on the west and the White river on the east and extending south from the British possessions to Prairie du Chien. This extensive jurisdic ' tion of Sibley necessarily re |uire(l considerable discretion in those early frontier days. It was 1840 that the first trial by jury within the area now known as Minnesota was held. Brown, co-discoverer of Lake Minnetonka, was justice of the jieace for St. Croix county, Wiscon- sin, and he had to go to Marine to try the case because a jury could not be assembled in his home town of Dakota. The action was brought by Philander Prescott, a fur trader, who accused Charles D. Foote of jumping his claim at the mouth of the St. Croix river, where there is now the town of Prescott. N o decision could be reached by the jury without first inspecting the prem- ises, so a party made uj) of the justice, the jury and the parties to the suit went up the river in birch bark canoes. Ice in Lake St. Croix forced them to abandon their canoes at Stillwater, so they completed the journey l y land. Siblrif Houae at Meudulii. oldest in the State; htiill hy General H. II. Sihlei in 18S6. Page 30