Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society
Volume 15
A Red River Townsite Speculation in 1857
by Daniel S. B. Johnston
From the age of seventeen, in 1849, to my arrival in St. Paul, July 21, 1855, I was a school teacher during winters, and part of the time during summers. My district school pay ran from twelve to sixteen dollars a month and boarding round fare. Naturally, when I got to St. Paul I set about trying to better myself financially, as I owed fifty dollars and had only four cents to pay it with.
A chance was offered me in November, 1856, to become one of a company of five to make townsites along the Red river of the North, with a fifth interest and all expenses paid, if I would help hold the towns by occupation. I thought opportunity had knocked at my door and I said yes, promptly. My journal of this expedition supplies the following narrative.
The Company and the Plans and Outfit George F. Brott of St. Cloud, E. Demortimer and J. W. Prentiss of St. Paul, and J. C. Moulton and I of St. Anthony, made the company. Brott and Demortimer were the financial backers of the concern, Moulton its travelling superintendent, and Prentiss and I were to be the resident townsite managers. Moulton, Prentiss and I, English Bill, our cook, two guides, and four ox team drivers, were to go on the trip, in total ten men. Two sleds were built for rough usage. One was to be loaded with corn and cob ground feed for our five yoke of oxen. The other sled was to carry provisions for ten men and our garden and farm tools. Six of the ten men were to remain on the Red river during the winter. Our two guides were French and Chippewa half-breeds named Pierre and Charlie Bottineau (pronounced Brichineau). The distance we had to travel was about one hundred and twenty-five miles in a westerly direction from St. Cloud, Minnesota, to the junction of the Bois des Sioux and Otter Tail rivers where they head the Red river of the North. Our expedition began on the last day of the year 1856, in one of the severest winters the oldest inhabitants of the Northwest had yet seen.
Beginning the Tramp Wednesday, December 31, 1856, Moulton and Prentiss started from St. Paul with the loaded teams. I followed on Friday, January 2, 1857, in a blinding snow storm, picking up on my way Pierre Bottineau and his brother from their home in St. Anthony. I had a span of horses and driver and intended to overtake Moulton and the teams about the time they reached St. Cloud. Before we got out of St. Anthony our sleigh tipped over in a snow drift. We righted without breaking anything and went on to Elk River, where we stopped for the night.
The next morning we started for St. Cloud at daylight. It was very cold. As the ox teams had broken the roads in fair shape, we made good time reaching Boyington's tavern, about fifteen miles from St. Cloud, in time for dinner. There we overtook Moulton. I got out and assumed charge of the teams, and Moulton and Prentiss went on with Bottineau and brother to St. Cloud. I got to Colonel Emerson's stopping place opposite lower St. Cloud at half past six, pretty tired, as I had to walk most of the way over not the best of roads. At Emerson's we put up for the night.
Monday, January 5th, we moved up the Mississippi and crossed at the upper ferry, headed by the guides, and started across the prairie in the direction of St. Joe. The guides went ahead on snow shoes. Prentiss and I followed. Between the four of us we made a road that our teams followed with more or less difficulty, for the snow was about eighteen inches deep and what track there had been was drifted full. We made eight miles to St. Joe by night.
The necks of three of our cattle had begun to gall. We changed the bows and wrapped them with soft cloths. The next day we reached Cold Spring, ten miles farther on. The 7th we go to Richardson's, seven miles from Cold Spring. The 8th, which was Thursday, we made only five miles, as we had to cross snow drifts three to four feet deep with not a sign of a road anywhere. Up to this time roofs had sheltered us and our cattle at night. There was only one spare bed in any of the settlers' houses, and usually none at all. Then all of us had to sleep on the floor under a comforter about fifteen feet long, eight feet wide, and three inches thick, quilted with cotton batting and made specially for the trip.
Friday, the 9th of January, we started at daylight, again a very hard day. On the unburned prairie snow drifts were crossed, which the guides on their snow shoes beat down for the teams the best they could. Progress was slow, but we made ten miles and camped under our tent for the first time, with our feet to a rousing hot wood fire. We slept comfortably and soundly.
Saturday, the 10th, we crossed a grassy lake near which we had camped the night before. It was very bad getting on and off the lake. We teamed only about seven miles that day, and camped on the shore of a beautiful lake that Bottineau called Lake Henry.
The 11th was Sunday, and, tired out, we rested. A Dutchman had built a house about half a mile away from our camp. It was about a third of the way to our destination from the Mississippi, and the last house between us and the Pacific coast, so far as we knew. Just after we had breakfasted, a boy about twelve years old sauntered up opposite our fire to investigate. I was sitting on our bedding next to Pierre Bottineau, our main guide. "See me scare that boy," said he in a low voice. Suddenly grabbing his hunting knife in his right hand and letting out a wild Indian yell that made the woods ring, he went over the top of the log fire after the boy. Didn't that boy run? Well, he did.
Monday. the 12th we found trouble again from the galled shoulders of our cattle. This time we changed the off ox to the near side and wrapped the bows with more soft cloth. On this day we crossed elk tracks. The guides went after them, but unsuccessfully. From the 12th to the 23rd the days were much alike in travel experiences. There was heavy pulling for the cattle and shoveling across strips of unburned prairie for us, and considerable flinching of our cattle as the icy crusts cut their ankles where fires of the summer and fall had burned the prairie grass. Brilliant sun dogs predicted stormy weather.
Wounding two Buffalos, and Snowed Under A lively blizzard was sweeping down. All hands cut and dragged the dryest wood we could find while the snow drove in great blanket sheets fiercely upon us. Gradually it put out our fire, and wet and exhausted, our tent blown down, we were doubtful what to do. At this juncture the guides returned. "Spread out the bed and get into it as quick as you can," shouted Pierre, and we obeyed. It seemed to me there was an inch of drifted snow on the buffalo skins when we got in and covered up head and ears. How the wind howled through the creaking tree tops overhead, and how we shivered in our wet clothing! It was pretty cold for a while, but gradually we steamed up and went to sleep. Through the night the wind drifted from four to six inches of snow upon us. Pierre said that the snow, covering us as it did, probably kept us from freezing to death, as the wind changed in the night and the air became intensely cold.
Pierre waked me about three in the morning, trying to start up the fire from a few coals that were still alive under the logs of the afternoon fire. He was singing in Chippewa. I pulled the bed clothes down a little and a chunk of snow rolled in, nearly as big as my head. I asked Bottineau to turn his Chippewa jargon into English, and he said it was to give us encouragement. Crawling out of that steaming bed into down below zero air, to try to dry our wet clothes, as we had to do that morning, certainly needed encouragement. The guides had overtaken the two buffaloes and put four shot-gun bullets into them. They evidently were severely wounded, but had to be left because of the rapidly approaching blizzard. Our cattle and pony, partially sheltered from the wind, among the trees and back of broken bluffs, were less exposed than we were and fared comfortably well.
Sunday, the 25th, dawned clear but intensely cold. Usually we did not travel on Sunday, but today, in this time of sudden storms, we felt called to push on. Our cattle also were growing weak, and the ankles of some of them were swelled as large as tea kettles, having been cut by sharp snow crusts and inflamed by freezing. They stained the snow with gushing blood at nearly every step they took. Besides, we were some thirty-five miles from our destination on the Red river, and there was only one reliable patch of timber on the way. This was at Lightning lake. We were ten miles distant from that lake, and we did not know what deep drifts of snow might obstruct our way. A few small groups of poplar trees, two or three inches in diameter, were strung far apart along the Otter Tail river, but they were miles from the route we were to follow on our way to the Red river. The guides said our safety lay in pushing on as fast and direct as we were able. After we had gone about five miles, Moulton and Charlie Bottineau concluded to go after the wounded buffalo. About that time one of our oxen fell, and it seemed as if we could not get the discouraged animal on his feet again. We still had five miles to go to reach the woods of Lightning lake, and night was near. We finally got through, however, and selected a place for our camp on the south side of the lake under a high bluff. Moulton and Charlie returned without seeing the buffalo.
The wind changed during the night, and on Monday it began to blow again. Pierre, our head guide, vetoed all attempts of our anxious men to make a start across that treeless twenty-five mile prairie to the Bois des Sioux river. Tuesday, the 27th, started in clear and cold. The Leaf mountains on our right, twenty to thirty miles away, and the Coteau des Prairies ahead and toward the left, about sixty miles distant, loomed white and cold in the bracing morning air. According to Bottineau, Lightning lake took its name from a man in a former expedition being struck by lightning and killed, a few rods back of where we camped.
Killing My First Buffalo Shortly after we started, we saw two buffalo off to the left. Pierre and Moulton started after them. Charlie and I went on ahead of our teams. We were soon met by Pierre with the information that one of the animals that he and Charlie had wounded was near. Charlie and I started on a trot in the direction Pierre pointed. The snow was more than a foot deep, with a crust on top, through which we broke about every fifth step. In that way we ran over a mile. On reaching his trail we followed it in nearly the direction the teams were pointing.
At the last bench of land before coming to the wide level prairie east of the Bois des Sioux river, we crawled carefully up to the summit of the bench. About forty rods away we saw the buffalo lying in the snow. He saw us as soon as we saw him. I said to Charlie, "We must run him down," and we started as fast as we could in the pursuit. The buffalo dragged himself on three legs about twenty rods farther, and then gave up. Charlie reached him first and emptied both barrels of his gun into him without bringing him down. I had a breech-loading Sharp's rifle, with caps on a tape which ran out one at a time as I cocked the gun. Nearly breathless from wallowing through the snow, I reached the buffalo just as Charlie fired his second shot. My first shot went wild, but I had a cartridge in before Charlie could get a ball down one barrel. We tried to get around to his side, but snorting, with his bead-like eyes glowing like coals of fire through the shaggy hair of his forehead, the buffalo swung on his crippled hips and faced me. I told Charlie to attract his attention in front and keep on loading his gun. I stepped around to his left side and put a bullet in his heart, which killed him.
Hearing the sound of our firing, Moulton soon brought the teams around, and we were all highly pleased that we would not have to eat pork for supper. Unhitching our teams, we fed them from our rapidly diminishing store of cattle feed. Then kindling a fire with the dry poplar poles that we had loaded on our sleds at Lightning lake for that purpose, we cooked our first meal of buffalo meat, which, with our starved cattle, was soon to be our only food until new supplies could be sent to us from St. Paul.
All Night Drive As there was no sheltered place to camp and Pierre was anxious to get ahead for fear of another snow storm, we decided to keep going through the night. The guides traveled by the North star, and when that was clouded over by the below zero fog that swept over us every few minutes, we had to stop and wait for the air to clear. As soon as our cattle stopped, the drivers dropped on the snow and into a sleepy drowse from which we had to arouse them in some cases by a vigorous shake. It was easy to freeze to death in the temperature of that night. Fortunately nearly all the prairie had been burned over, else probably our cattle would not have lasted through. As it was, they staggered as they slowly walked. Constantly in fear of the wind rising on that twenty-five mile prairie in the moonless night of the 27th and sunless day of the 28th until four in the afternoon, while I followed our staggering men and cattle, it was anything but a play spell.
Soon after leaving the place where we killed the buffalo, we found a huge drift where we had to shovel our way nearly thirty rods. It was a slow, hard job, but we finally got the teams through. It delayed us so much that by daylight fully twelve miles of the twenty-five remained to be crossed. During the day and night of the 27th we had traveled only about thirteen miles. About daylight of the 28th our teams refused to go any farther. I had wet my feet running down the buffalo, and though I kicked and threshed the best I could, they were now nearly frozen. We stopped and kindled a fire with our dry poplar poles, and I changed my stockings for dry ones. After feeding our teams and eating a hasty breakfast, we went slowly on again toward a patch of timber about four miles up the Bois des Sioux river. There was only one place on the 28th where we had to shovel the road and that we soon got over. When we reached the Bois des Sioux late in the afternoon, we were about as happy a bunch of men as you often see.
A Buffalo Herd on the Breckenridge Townsite On Friday the 30th, Moulton and I tried to survey some of the townsite, but the wind blew so hard that we could not straighten our tape line chain, and we had to abandon the effort. A double team started under the lead of Prentiss and Charlie Bottineau to bring in the dead buffalo. It was a very severe day, and when night came the teams had not returned. We in camp became very uneasy. As it began to grow dark some one shouted "Whoa!" down on the river. Pierre sprang to his feet with the exclamation, "They've come! O, God, I'm so glad!" Soon Prentiss came into camp nearly exhausted and called for hot tea. He emptied cup after cup in quick succession until he got warm. They had been compelled to abandon one of our best oxen about four miles up the Otter Tail, and had lost their way and wandered fully eight miles without finding the dead buffalo. A terrible night of storm followed, which we were long to remember.
Surveying This Townsite and Killing Another Buffalo The morning of the 31st, Pierre Bottineau started with the teams to see if he could find the dead buffalo, while Moulton and I began to survey the Breckenridge townsite. As we had only a hand compass and an ordinary tape line, and a very crooked stream to meander, it was slow work. All we expected to do, however, was to block out the site and leave the filling in to be done in St. Paul. We were not very particular as to the absolute accuracy of such doings in those days.
About four o'clock in the afternoon we had the main lines completed. We climbed the river bank to return to the camp, when we saw the team halted, that Pierre had taken out in the morning. Hastening up to solve the trouble, we heard the report of two guns in quick succession on the low ground bordering the river. Then a huge buffalo bull, weighing probably a ton, lurched into sight through the snow at the base of a sharp rise from a marsh fronting me. I was alone, having got some distance ahead of Moulton. When I saw the bull he was about thirty rods away, coming directly toward me and rounding the inner edge of the deep drifted bluff that evidently he could not break through. On the river side of the marsh the guides ran back and forth to keep him from crossing. As the buffalo passed them they would pump balls into him from their double-barrelled shot guns. Seeing me on the bank, the bull turned and raced back in front of the guides. Four bullets again struck him. He then made three convulsive leaps forward, the last clearing fully fifteen feet. Then his legs sprawled out and he went down and soon was dead.
The team, having on the sled the cow and two calves and part of the ox (evidently he had died shortly after Charlie left him the evening before), went on to camp, headed by Pierre, while Moulton and I helped Charlie dress the buffalo just killed. It was near sundown and too late for the teams to return, so Charlie fixed his red handkerchief in a split stick and stuck it in the snow by the carcass to keep the wolves away, and we walked up the river bank to the camp at the mouth of the Bois des Sioux, which we reached about dusk.
Moulton Returns to St. Paul February 3rd, Moulton and the two guides and the cook left the Red river camp to return to St. Paul, expecting to reach our Bois des Sioux camp about four miles up the river about dark. From there they were to take the first good chance to cross the twenty-five mile wide prairie to Lightning lake in daylight and before storms would rise again.
Wednesday, February 4th, all went to work at the mouth of the Bois des Sioux cutting logs for our shanty, as we had only a tent for shelter.
The Bottineau Family
My Elusive Ancestors
E-Mail Debra McCann