HISTORY OF STEAMBOATING ON THE MINNESOTA RIVER.* BY THOMAS HUGHES. The picturesque river which gave our commonwealth its name has always been an important feature in the geography and history of this northwest country. The geologist reads in the deep erosion of this valley, and in its continuance to lake Traverse, which outflows to lake Winnipeg and Hudson bay, the story of a mighty river, the outlet of a vast ancient lake covering the Red river region in the closing part of the Glacial period. What use, if any, the primitive men of that time made of this majestic stream, we know not. The Dakota tribes, whom the white explorers found dwelling upon our river's margin two or three centuries ago, called it “the sky-tinted", from the tincture given its water by the rich clayey soil of its valley. Their mortal foes, the Ojibways, whose home was among the somber pines of the north, were impressed with the greenness of its luxuriant foliage, and hence knew it as Ashkiibogi-Sibi, "the River of the Green Leaf." The French traders named it the St. Pierre (or St. Peter), probably in honor of one of their leaders who had been among the first to explore it. Many and varied have been the scenes enacted upon its banks, scenes of thrilling adventure and glorious valor, as well as of happy merriment and tender love. It was for centuries the arena of many a sanguinary conflict, and the blood of Iowas, Dakotas, Ojibways, and white men, often mingled freely with its flood. *Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, April 14, 1902. EARLIEST NAVIGATION BY WHITE MEN. For generations unknown the only craft its bosom bore was the canoe of the Indian. Then came the French traders, with their retinue of voyaguers, who made our river an avenue of a great commerce in Indian goods and costly, furs. For over a hundred years fleets of canoes and Mackinaw boats, laden with Indian merchandise, plied constantly along the river's sinuous length. The sturdy voyaguers, however, left to history but a scant record of their adventurous life. A brave and hardy race were they, inured to every peril and hardship, yet ever content and happy; and long did the wooded bluffs of the Minnesota echo with their songs of old France. The first white men known to have navigated the Minnesota were Le Sueur and his party of miners, who entered its mouth in a felucca and two row boats on September 20th, 1700, and reached the mouth of the Blue Earth on the 30th of the same month. The next spring he carried with him down the river a boat-load of blue or green shale which he had dug from the bluffs of the Blue Earth, in mistake for copper ore. Much more profitable, doubtless, he found the boat-load of beaver and other Indian furs, which he took with him at the same time. This is the first recorded instance of freight transportation on the Minnesota river. In the winter of 1819-20, a deputation of Lord Selkirk's Scotch colony, who had settled near the site of Winnipeg, traveled through Minnesota to Prairie du Chien, a journey of about a thousand miles, to purchase seed wheat. On April 15th, 1820, they started back in three Mackinaw boats loaded with 200 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels of oats, and 30 bushels of peas. During the month of May they ascended the Minnesota from its mouth to its source, and, dragging their loaded boats over the portage on rollers, descended the Red river to their homes, which they reached early in June. The Mackinaw or keel boats used on the river in those days were open vessels of from twenty to fifty feet in length by four to ten feet in width, and capable of carrying from two to eight tons burden. They were propelled by either oars or poles as the exigencies of the river might require. The crew usually comprised from five to nine men. One acted as steersman, and, in poling, the others, ranging themselves in order upon a plank laid lengthwise of the boat on each side, would push the boat ahead; and as each, in rotation, reached the stern, he would pick up his pole and start again at the prow. Their progress in ascending the river would be from five to fifteen miles per day, depending upon the stage of water and the number of rapids they had to climb. Dr. Thomas S. Williamson, the noted missionary to the Indians, in describing his first journey up the valley of the Minnesota, in June, 1835, gives an interesting account of how he shipped his wife and children and his fellow helpers, Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Huggins, with their goods, on one of these boats, which was nine days in making the trip from Fort Snelling to Traverse des Sioux. In the correspondence of Mrs. S. R. Riggs, the wife of another famous missionary to the Sioux, is found a vivid picture of a Mackinaw boat, belonging to the old Indian trader, Philander Prescott, in which she ascended the Minnesota in September, 1837. It was about forty feet long by eight feet wide and capable of carrying about five tons. It was manned by a crew of five persons, one to steer, and two on each side to furnish the motive power. Oars were used as far as to the Little rapids, about three miles above Carver, and thence to Traverse des Sioux poles were employed. The journey consumed five days. Illustrative of the size and capacity of some of the canoes used by the traders, we find George A. McLeod in April, 1853, bringing down from Lac qui Parle to Traverse des Sioux forty bushels of potatoes, besides a crew of five men, in a single canoe twenty-five feet long by forty-four inches wide, hollowed out of a huge cottonwood tree. EARLIEST STEAMBOATS. The first steamboat to enter the Minnesota river was the Virginia on May 10th, 1823. She was not a large vessel, being only 118 feet long by 22 feet wide, and she only ascended as far as Mendota and Fort Snelling, which during the period between the years 1820 and 1848 were about the only points of importance in the territory now embraced within our state. Hence all the boats navigating the upper Mississippi in those days had to enter the Minnesota to reach these terminal points. Except for these landings at its mouth, and save that in 1842 a small steamer with a party of excursionists on board ascended it as far as the old Indian village near Shakopee, no real attempt was made to navigate the Minnesota with steamboats until 1850. Prior to this time it was not seriously thought that the river was navigable to any great distance for any larger craft than a keel boat, and the demonstration to the contrary, then witnessed, has made that year notable in the history of the state. EXCURSIONS IN THE YEAR 1850. In June, 1850, the Anthony Wayne, a Mississippi river boat in charge of Captain Daniel Able, arrived at St. Paul with a party of St. Louis people. They were a jolly crowd, and to enliven their trip had brought with them a small band of music from Quincy, Illinois. Just then there was quite a freshet in the Minnesota, and it was suggested to Captain Able that to entertain his guests he take his boat on an excursion up this river, then little known, to see the country. The people of St. Paul were soon enlisted in the project, and a purse of $225 was raised to defray the expense. On the day set, Friday, the 28th of June, early in the morning the Anthony Wayne, with her decks crowded with one hundred and fourteen of St. Paul's prominent citizens and the seventy St. Louis people, started on her memorable journey up the Minnesota. All nature seemed propitious. The day clear and balmy, the luxuriant vegetation freshened by recent showers, and the river full to the brim, glistening like silver between its winding avenues of trees gaily decked and festooned in varied green, all combined to make a glorious paradise of this most charming of valleys. Louis Pelon and Thomas J. Odell, because of their acquaintance with the river, acted as pilots. At Fort Snelling our excursionists found Captain Monroe with only fifty men in charge and expecting every moment to be summoned to Sauk Rapids to quell a disturbance by the Winnebagoes, which happened the next day. Here the military band, under the lead of Mr. Jackson, joined the excursion. The first point of note above the fort, and at a distance of about three miles by land from it, was Black Dog's village, comprising a row of huts and tepees ranged on the brow of the north bluff. The intervening ground between the bluff and the |