MN AHGP Archives-Dakota Co. 1882 History
From the 1882 "History of the Minnesota Valley, including the Explorers and pioneers of Minnesota", Dakota County excerpt.


DAKOTA COUNTY EARLY HISTORY

Dakota was one of the nine original counties created by the first territorial legislature. The act was passed October 27th, 1849, which defined the boundaries and declared the existence of this county.

Those boundaries were scarcely such, however, as the boundaries of to-day. All that portion of the territory "lying south of a line running due west from the mouth of Clear Water river to the Missouri river, and north of the north boundary line of Wabasha county," was erected into a separate county, called Dakota ("allied") from the Indian tribe that inhabited it.

The north boundary line of Wabasha county, referred to above, is given in the laws of 1849 as "a line running due west from a point on the Mississippi river, opposite the mouth of St. Croix river, to the Missouri river." This immense territory included ten or twelve of the counties of to-day, but scarcely embraced the northern half of Dakota county as bounded at present.

Under the revised statutes, all the territory west of the Mississippi river, and east of a line running from Medicine Bottle's village at Pine Bend, due south to the Iowa line, was erected into a separate county known as Wabasha. This included Hastings and other valuable portions of the present Dakota county.

By the revision, also, Dakota county was made to consist of "all that part of the territory west of the Mississippi river, and lying west of the county of Wabasha, and south of a line beginning at the mouth of Crow river, and up said river and the north branch thereof to its source, and thence due west to the Missouri river."

Dakota county continued with a vast extent of territory for some years. By degrees many other counties were formed out of that territory, including Hennepin county, which was formed in 1852.

An act to organize certain counties, and for other purposes, was passed March 5th, 1853. By this Dakota county was given the following boundaries: "Beginning in the Minnesota river, at the mouth of Credit river, thence in a direct line to the upper branch of Cannon river, thence down said river to its lower fork, as laid down on Nicollet's map, thence on a direct line to a point in the Mississippi river opposite the mouth of St. Croix lake, thence up the Mississippi river to the mouth of the Minnesota river, thence up the Minnesota river to the place of beginning."

As time passed on other changes were made in the county boundaries. February 20th, 1855, quite important changes were made. June 11th, 1858, the boundary between Scott and Dakota was changed. It is said that political considerations determined its final location. It seems to have been a troublesome boundary to politicians, who determined, according to hearsay, that both counties should be democratic. By skillful division of the Irish farmers who occupied the eastern part of Scott and the western part of Dakota these politicians were able to accomplish their purposes, though at the expense of a regular boundary line. Changes in this western boundary were made again in 1860 and in 1871. The present northern boundary was fixed in 1873.

The county seat was first established in 1853 at Kaposia. There were no county buildings and no county offices, other than the houses of the officers. The following year the county seat was removed to Mendota, the commissioners meeting there for the first time February 6th, 1854.

At this time Hastings being the largest town in the county, and becoming the following month an incorporated city, on St. Patrick's day, March 17th, 1857, it was voted by the people to establish the county seat in the newly-fledged city. The records were accordingly removed from Mendota on the 2d day of June following.

Hastings has continued as the permanent county seat since that date, although two attempts have been made in behalf of other locations. In 1860 a bill was passed allowing the people to decide by ballot on the claims of Pine Bend. Six hundred and eighty-six votes were cast in favor of the proposed removal and eleven hundred and twenty-five against it.

Farmington was the next aspirant for the honor, presenting her own more central location, to the disparagement of Hastings. In 1868 the act permitting a vote upon the issue was passed, but it was decided, by five or six hundred majority, to maintain the county seat at Hastings. The first territorial legislature convened September 3d, 1849, and adjourned the first of the following November. The county was represented in the council by John Rollins, Fifth district; and Martin McLeod, Seventh district; and in the house by Wm. B. Marshall, Wm. Dugas, Fifth district; and Alexis Bailly and Gideon H. Pond, Seventh district.

Michigan territory had jurisdiction over it until 1836, and Wisconsin until 1838. Iowa territory was then organized, and Dakota county, in common with other territory west of the Mississippi river, became subject to its legal dispensations. The first officer of justice in the county was H. H. Sibley, who was appointed a justice of the peace by Governor Porter, of Michigan, and again by Governor Chambers, of Iowa, in 1838. His jurisdiction was over the territory included in Clayton county, Iowa, "an empire in itself," extending from below Prairie du Chien to Pembina, and westward from the Mississippi to the Missouri. General Sibley was, at this time, a resident of Mendota. Several important cases were brought before him, including the trial of Phelan for the murder of Hays.

On the 11th day of June, 1849, the governor issued his second proclamation, dividing the territory into three judicial districts. The seat of justice for the third district was at Mendota, and the first court was held there on the first Monday in August. Judge David Cooper presided, and H. H. Sibley was foreman of the grand jury, the first ever impaneled west of the Mississippi river in Minnesota. Judge Cooper delivered a written charge, able and finished, "but only three of the twenty old men composing the jury," understood a word of the language he was speaking. Major Forbes served as interpreter through the term, but no indictments were found. The court was organized in the large stone warehouse belonging to the Fur Company.

Judge Cooper's term of office was from June 1st, 1849, to April 7th, 1853. He was succeeded by Judge Andrew G. Chatfield, April 7th, 1853, to April 23d, 1857. Charles E. Flandrau succeeded him from April 23d, 1857, to May 24th, 1858.

Under the schedule of the state constitution, Dakota county was included in the fifth judicial district, and the first judge of the state of Minnesota, for this district was Nicholas M. Donaklson. He was elected in the fall of 1857, and succeeded Judge Flandrau in holding courts in the county, May 24th, 1858.

The last term of court in Dakota county, as part of the fifth judicial district, was held November 21st, 1850. at which time Thomas Wilson presided as acting judge. The county now became a part of the newly constituted first district. S. J. K. McMillan held the first court in the county, for this district, March 27th, I860, Judge McMillan was elected associate justice of the supreme court, the term extending from July 5th, 1864.

The first settlement in "the State of the sky-tinted water" was made in Dakota county. Lord Selkirk's famous colony or Red River settlement, established in 1812, was just outside the present boundaries of this State. Impelled by the pangs of hunger, verging on starvation, the unfortunate colonists of Kildonan hunted the buffalo on the prairies of north-western Minnesota during one or two winters, but they were in no sense settlers here. The oldest settled county in the State lies about the junction of the Minnesota with the Mississippi river.

It was the executive force and far-sighted statesmanship of John C. Calhoun that first extended the power of the Union over this remote, uncultivated region, and thereby inaugurated its permanent possession and occupation by the whites.

Under his order of February 10th, 1819, Colonel H. Leavenworth, commanding the Fifth Regiment of Infantry, left Detroit, and came by wav of Prairie du Chien to the mouth of the Minnesota river. The journey up the Mississippi was performed in keel-boats, and was completed August 23d, 1819. At that date the detachment arrived at New Hope (Mendota), and established a cantonment on the south bank of the Minnesota, near the end of. the railway bridge which at present spans that stream.

While the detachment was at Prairie du Chien, a daughter was born to Lieutenant Nathan Clark, commissary of the regiment, and to Mrs. Charlotte (Seymour) Clark, his wife. This daughter, now Mrs. Charlotte 0. Van Cleve of Minneapolis, was born on the first of July. Her father proceeded, in August, with Colonel Leavenworth to the Minnesota, but from all that can be ascertained his wife and daughter did not arrive there until November. It is said that owing to the unusually low stage of water, the keel-boats were frequently drawn through the sand by the wading boatmen, and Mrs. Clark and little daughter were six weeks on the tedious voyage from Prairie du Chien to Mendota.

Mrs. Clark's was the first white baby in Dakota county, and is said to have been an object of great curiosity to the Indians, who came from far and near to see it.

There were several ladies connected with the regiment, and among them Mrs. Gooding, wife of Captain Gooding, who came with her husband, as a part of the original detachment. She was probably the first white woman in the county. If others arrived at the same time their names have not been preserved.

Only the rudest pickets and tents were ready for use in the first winter, that of 1819-20, and until these could be erected the company were obliged to occupy the flat-boats. The troops took up summer quarters at Camp Coldwater, on the opposite side of the river, but returned to their old quarters at Mendota for the winter of 1820-'21.

During the summer of 1820, Colonel Josiah Snelling succeeded Colonel Leaven worth as commander. Mrs. Abagail Snelling came, with him, and in September of that year gave birth to a daughter, the first white child ever born in Dakota county. Mrs. Snelling's sick-room at Mendota was papered, and carpeted with buffalo robes, and made as warm and comfortable as possible.

In October, 1821, Mrs. Snelling's child, Elizabeth, died at Mendota, where she was born, and was the first interment in the military graveyard at Fort Snelling.

In October of 1822, some of the buildings at Fort Snelling were ready for occupancy, and a part of the garrison occupied them. It was not until 1824 that the original cantonment, variously referred to as St. Peter's, New Hope, and Mendota was entirely broken up. Then the eventful and interesting history of Fort Snelling began, a sketch of which has been given previously.

The honor of first settlement in Dakota county belongs properly to Jean Baptiste Faribault, who was born at Berthier, Canada, in 1817, and died at Faribault, August 20th, 1860.

In 1820, at the solicitation of Colonel Leavenworth, he located at Pike's Island, where he built log cabins and had some acres of ground under cultivation. In June of 1822, that island was flooded, as it has been the present year, and Mr. Faribault was forced to remove, with heavy loss, to the east bank of the Mississippi. In 1826, the father of waters was again in wrath, and forced the Faribault's to seek still higher ground, which they barely reached with their collection of furs.

It was then that Jean Baptiste Faribault built the first house in the county at Mendota. The excavations of the railroad company have well nigh destroyed its site, and the very dead, who reposed about it, have been driven from their resting places. Mr Faribault's family resided at Mendota for many years.

Alexis Bailly, some account of whom is given in the sketch of Hastings, was early identified with the interests of the county, and had a residence at Mendota for some six or eight years, beginning about 1826-8.

Pierre Gervais a Red River refugee, came to Mendota in 1836, and entered into the employ of the American Fur Company. William Beaumette, a Canadian stone-mason, who had settled at Red River about 1818 or 1819, lived at Mendota for some years after the Selkirk exodus Vetal Guerin, who was born in 1812, at St. Bemi, Canada, arrived at Mendota, late in the fall of 1832, having journeyed with a large company of voyageurs from Montreal. The whole distance was made in boats. He lived at Mendota until 1839. Antoine Le Claire came about the same time.

The year 1834 marks the coming of Henry Hastings Sibley. He continued a staunch devotee of the interests of Dakota county for many years. He came as superintendent of the fur company, but he remained as a citizen. In 1836 John Miller, stone-mason, built for him at Mendota, the first stone residence in the state. It is now owned by the Roman Catholic sisters, or at least, is occupied by them, after the manner of their order

Many of the early settlers of St. Paul, came there by way of Mendota. During the early days of St. Paul, Mendota was the only place where tea, flour, pork, sugar, and the other bare necessities of life could be obtained. General Sibley's store opened soon after his arrival, marks the proper beginning of the now great commercial interest of the state, as well as county.

The stone hotel built by Alexander Faribault in 1838, was exceedingly early in the list of hostelries, and ready for. the comers of the following year, who settled east of the great river. Before advancing further to the period of actual, permanent possession of the whole domain of this county by the settler some mention must be made of the Indian treaties.

The treaty made by Lieutenant Pike in 1805, and previously described, included, in the lands obtained by it, a part of the territory now embraced in this county. This land, as previously stated, was ceded for the purposes of a military reservation.

The treaty of 1837, concluded by Governor Dodge of Wisconsin, by which the Chippewas ceded the pine valley of the St. Croix and its tributaries, opened the way for new progress everywhere, and filled the hearts of the settlers with hope. The following year all the country east of the Mississippi was open for settlement, and settlers increased. An eager eye was already cast on the lands west of the Mississippi. Accordingly, Governor Doty, of Wisconsin, negotiated treaties for the cession of those lands in 1841. The treaty with the lower bands of Sioux was concluded at Mendota. Twenty-five million acres of land were embraced in these treaties, which for some reason failed of confirmation by the United States senate. Any further development of Dakota county was thereby delayed until the treaty of 1851. July 29, 1851, the chiefs and principal head men of the Med-e-wa-kan-ton-wan and Wah-pe-kute bands of Sioux met the commissioners of the United States in grand council. The place of meeting was the upper room of the large warehouse at Mendota. The pipe was passed and smoked, and Governor Ramsey made a sensible speech, which was interpreted by Rev. G. H. Pond. He said that the lands were becoming destitute of game and of little value to the Indians, owing to that and to the fact that they would soon be surrounded by the whites, the upper bands having already sold their possessions. He had left his home many times and been a greater distance from it than they were asked to go. They would be paid money, furnished supplies to a certain amount, and still live on their own lands, if they acceded to the requests of the .government.

Colonel Luke Lea, Indian commissioner, also addressed the council, which was broken up, to submit the proposition of the government to the Indians. This was done by the interpreter. The confirmation of the treaty hung long in doubt. It was solely the surpassing tact of Commissioner Lea and Governor Ramsey that brought it to a successful close. The Indians spoke many wholesome truths, but they were no match for the shrewd, white diplomats. Finally, Little Crow, first turning to the Indian soldiers' lodge, and saying "that he was not afraid of any one's killing him, though he should sign the treaty first; for a man had to die sometime, and could die but once," then took his seat and a pen and signed duplicate copies of the treaty. Wapasha next made his mark, and sixty-four chiefs, head-men and warriors, in all, signed the documents.

"By the conditions of this treaty the Med-e-wa-kan-ton-wan and Wah-pe-kute bands of Indians cede and relinquish all their lands in the territory of Minnesota and state of Iowa. In consideration whereof, the United States reserve for them a home, of the average width of ten miles, on either side of the Minnesota river, bounded on the west by the Tchay-Tarn-bay and Yellow Medicine rivers, on the east by the Little Rock river, and a line running due south from its mouth to the Little Waraja river, and agrees to pay them the following sums of money: For settling debts and to aid in removal, 8220.000; for the erection of buildings, opening of farms, etc., $30,000; civilization fund, annually, �12,000; educational fund, annually, �6,000; goods and provisions, annually, $10,000; cash, $30,000.

"These annuities continue for fifty years. The introduction of spirituous liquors within the borders of the ceded territory is prohibited, until otherwise ordered by the president." This treaty was ratified by the United States senate in 1852, and the event was signalized by a rapid staking out of claims in many desirable locations. The few first succeeding years saw Dakota county entirely transformed. From 1853 to 1857�four brief years�the change was indeed remarkable. In that period Hastings grew from the dimensions and appearance of a New England farm to those of a flourishing western town. The growth here may be taken as an index of that throughout the county. Settlement at Hastings began with the Bailly's in 1850 and the squatters of 1851, such as Van Rennsalaer and Abraham Truax. The settlers of 1852 were few in number; the year 1853 brought many new-comers. In 1854 and 1855 the rapid growth began. The growth of 1855 was rapid yet substantial. The first of January, 1856, saw a population in Hastings of quite seven hundred, most of whom had gathered at this point within a year.

But the year 1856 was the crowning one in the growth of Hastings. From the date of the open�ing of navigation to the 1st of the month of July there were seventy-three stone and frame houses built in the town, beside some one hundred of a temporary character, which gave way in the autumn to durable and tasty residences. New enterprises were established. Mr. Campbell reported twelve hundred dollars as his trade for a single day. Mr. Hertzell reported twelve thousand dollars as his trade in Hastings for the month of March. Everything was thriving, active and progressive. Money flowed from one hand to another, cheerfulness was everywhere prevalent, and the citizens of Hastings hopeful and sanguine for the future of their town.

During the years of 1857 and 1858, there was an era of hard times. The financial crash that visited all parts of the country alike in the former year, and has passed into its general history, was especially severe in this new country, where rates : of interest were high and money in great demand. Speculation had become almost a frenzy, previously, and it was often a most melancholy truth that men were "land poor." Five per cent, per month was paid upon notes, after their maturity, and consequently debts would double themselves in twenty months. Twenty thousand dollars in gold was offered for a lot that was afterwards foreclosed for a $50 mortgage, and yet Hastings grew in many ways, not withstanding all this. "The Hastings Independent" of July 25, 1857, notes the making of several improvements and the erection of several buildings. It also speaks proudly of the manufacturing interests of the town, and adds that much machinery is being received at the levee, stating furthermore, that more freight is received at this point than at any other on the river between Dubuque and St. Paul.

But the hard times continued in their effects until the breaking out of the war, when the farmers began to flourish again and business generally to improve. From that time to the present, the growth of Hastings has been substantial rather than rapid, and it has consequently achieved a reputation as a thorough-going and substantially prosperous business point.

With the year 1881, a new epoch of business improvement seems to be dawning, and the capital gathered here appears ready to enlarge the boundaries of its operations. The foundations of new enterprises have been laid, new blocks have been contracted for, new dwellings are in process of erection, and the manufacturing facilities have been increased.

The future takes earnest of the past, and will be shaped successfully, doubtless, by skillful hands and scheming brains, actuated by a worthy purpose.

What is here said of the city of Hastings, can be said of the whole county of Dakota, of which Hastings is the center or heart.



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