Dakota Territory Research Articles

Legend, Myth, and Symbol in Frederick Manfred’sLord Grizzly

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames C. AustinJAMES C. AUSTIN, assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University, is the author of Fields of the Atlantic Monthly, Letters to an Editor (1953), and Artemus Ward. His musical drama about the Dakota Territory was produced during the Territorial Centennial year.

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN HISTORY, XVI

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN HISTORY, XVI COMPILED BY CLARENCE A. CLAUSEN "A. C. M." Luren sangforening er 90 âr. Nordmanns-jorbundet, 51:111 (May, 1958). The Norwegian-American choir, Luren, of Decorah, Iowa, celebrates its ninetieth anniversary. Ahlstrom, Sydney E. The Lutheran Church and American Culture. Lutheran Quarterly , 9:321-342 (November, 1957). American Economic Association. Papers and Proceedings of the Seventieth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association , Philadelphia, December 28-30, 1957 (. American Economic Review , vol. 48, no. 2 - May, 1958). The first thirty-four pages are devoted to the Vehlen Centenary Round Table, with the following papers: Source and Impact of Veblen, by Joseph Dorfman; The Influence of Veblen on Mid-Century Insti tutionalism, by Allan G. Grundy; Veblen's Critique of the American Economy, by Paul M. Sweezy; Discussion, by Peter N. Vukasin and George W. Zinke. Ander, Fritiof. The Cultural Heritage of the Swedish Emigrant Rock Island, Illinois, 1956. 191 p. This volume contains a selected but comprehensive bibliography of books and articles relating to all aspects of Swedish immigration. Andersen, Arlow William. Norwegian-Danish Methodism on the Pacific Coast. N orwegian- American Studies and Records , 19:89-115 (1956). Apsler, Alfred. "Little Norway" on the Columbia River. American-Scandinavian Review , 44:63-68 (Spring, 1956). An account of a Norwegian settlement on Puget Island in the Columbia River. Arneberg, John G. From Mountains to Prairies. Minneapolis, 1958. 215 p. The autobiography of a Norwegian-American doctor. Balchen, Bernt. Come North with Me: An Autobiography. New York, 1958. 318 p. The autobiography of the famous Norwegian-American aviator and explorer . This book was published in Norwegian under the title Kom nord med meg (Oslo, 1958). 213 214 CLARENCE A. CLAUSEN Bergmann, Leola Nelson. A Century of Immigration. Palimpsest , 37:129-133 (March, 1956). 1956). 155 (March, 1956). Bjork, Kenneth 0. "Snowshoe" Thompson: Fact and Legend. N orwegian- American Studies and Records , 19:62-88 (1956). Pacific Coast, 18h7-1893. Northfield, 1958. xvi, 671 p. Reviewed in Mississippi Valley Historical Review , 45:505 (December, 1958). Blegen, Theodore C. Amerikabrev. Oslo, 1958. xii, 408 p. This volume of selections from hundreds of America letters was published in English under the title Land of Their Choice : The Immigrants Write Home (Minneapolis, 1955). The Norwegian edition has a foreword by Ingrid Semmingsen . Reviewed in Nordmanns-forbundett November, 1958. Studies and Records , 19:1-14 (1956). Boewe, Charles. R0lvaag's America: An Immigrant Novelist 's Views. Western Humanities Review , 11:3-12 (Winter, 1957). B0HN, Tora. A Quest for Norwegian Folk Art in America. Norwegian -American Studies and Records , 19 : 116-141 (1956). Bronner, Hedin. Norge in Virginia. American-Scandinavian Review , 45:258-263 (Autumn, 1957). The story of a Norwegian settlement in Virginia. Britain? Norseman , 15:372-374 (November-December, 1957). United States. Scandinavian Studies , 28:99-108 (August, 1956). tions of Learning in the United States. Scandinavian Studies , 30:157-177 (November, 1958). Clancy, C.S. The Saga of Leif Ericsson. New York, 1956. 223 p. A fictionalized biography of the saga hero. SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS 215 Clausen, Clarence A. Some Recent Publications Relating to Norwegian-American History. Norwegian- American Studies and Records , 19 : 189-198 (1956). vatten. Norwegian- American Studies and Records , 19:142159 (1956). Dahl, Oddvar. Han har satt sitt preg pa Chicago. Nordmanns forbundet , 51 :90 (April, 1958). A sketch of the Norwegian-American architect, Sigurd E. Naess of Chicago. Davis, R. B. American Studies in Norway. American-Scandinavian Review, 44:348-353 (Winter, 1956). Dickerson, Inga Hansen. Trina . New York, 1956. 204 p. The story of a Danish couple who came to the United States in 1872 and experienced the hardships of immigrant life in New York and Chicago and on the plains of Dakota Territory. Dithmer-Vanberg, Eva. Knut Rockne fra Voss. Nordmannsforbundet , 50:283-286 (December, 1957). An article about the famous football coach. fornia. Nordmanns-forbundet , 51:40 (February, 1958). A Norwegian artist in California. Djupedal, Reidar. Vinje og Amerka. Syn og segn , vol. 64, nos. 9-10, p. 427-438 (1958). A discussion of the Norwegian poet Vinje's plans to go to America. Dorfman, Joseph. Source and Impact of Veblen. American Economic Review , 48 : 1-10...

Dakota Territory, 1861–1889: A Study of Frontier Politics. By <italic>Howard Roberts Lamar</italic>. [Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany 64.] (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 1956. Pp. x, 304. $4.50.)

Journal Article Dakota Territory, 1861–1889: A Study of Frontier Politics. By Howard Roberts Lamar. [Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany 64.] (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 1956. Pp. x, 304. $4.50.) Get access Dakota Territory, 1861–1889: A Study of Frontier Politics. By Lamar Howard Roberts. [Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany 64.] (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 1956. Pp. x, 304. $4.50.) Paul F. Sharp Paul F. Sharp Hiram College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 63, Issue 1, October 1957, Pages 145–146, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/63.1.145 Published: 01 October 1957

Old Prairie Days: A Historic Narrative of the Stirring Pioneer Days in Dakota Territory in the Eighties. By Arthur E. Towne. (Otsego, Michigan: Otsego Union Press, 1941. iv + 415 pp. $2.75.)

Old Prairie Days: A Historic Narrative of the Stirring Pioneer Days in Dakota Territory in the Eighties. By Arthur E. Towne. (Otsego, Michigan: Otsego Union Press, 1941. iv + 415 pp. $2.75.)

PIONEERS IN DAKOTA TERRITORY, 1879-89

PIONEERS IN DAKOTA TERRITORY, 1879-89 EDITED BY HENRY H. BAKKEN On many occasions Carl M. Grimstad (1856-1940) entertained his family and friends with his reminiscences of early life in the Park River country. These vivid narratives about life on the frontier, so skillfully told, seemed too precious to be lost forever with the memory of the one who so enthusiastically devoted the best years of his youth on the virgin Red River prairies creating institutions for an ascending civilization. Happily, we succeeded in inducing him to write the story of that memorable decade, 1879-89, of mass migration northwestward into Dakota Territory. This paper is a condensation of his memoirs, a manuscript of 154 pages, from which I have attempted to extract some of the more interesting episodes of pioneering life. The many descendants of those early settlers who founded the state of North Dakota may read this account about the activities of their forebears with much interest and curiosity. H.H.B. Memoirs of Carl M. Grimstad It was during the summer of 1879, while at home on the old homestead in Brigham Township, Iowa County, that I decided to go west to Dakota Territory. A neighbor boy, Knute Lewis, was to be my traveling companion for part of the trip. He was a splendid young man, several years older than I, and he planned on settling in Kingsbury County, South Dakota. My intended destination was the Red River Valley in North Dakota. Before leaving home, I went down to "Fure Hotten" and there beneath the evergreens on the sheer stone of the bluff I chiseled my initials, the year, and the date. My partner met me at the appointed time on the highway near Blue Mounds and we headed west to Dodge ville on the old military road. This was in l 2 STUDIES ANDRECORDS the last days of August, 1879. We crossed the Wisconsin River by way of the toll bridge at Bridgeport and drove on over a sandy plain approaching the historic city of Prairie du Chien. This city was especially interesting to me, for it was here that my brother Ole was finally hospitalized after the sanguinary shooting affair at Atlanta, Georgia, on July 21, 1864. Prairie du Chien was the second oldest settlement in the state. Remnants of old Fort Crawford could still be seen and a wonderful active artesian well in the city emitted so much water that it flowed down both sides of the street to the river. We continued by ferry across the Mississippi to McGregor, Iowa. The ferry was a huge barge propelled by a steam engine. Around the machinery there was ample deck space for a number of wagons and teams, and a considerable number of horses and cattle were driven into an enclosure. I have never seen horses so frightened as they were on this boat. The pounding and clanking of machinery on one side and the deep old Mississippi on the other were to the horses nearer being "between the devil and the deep blue sea " than they cared to be. Some of them were bent on committing suicide by drowning right then and there. When we reached the shore at McGregor, the horses and the cattle rushed off the ferry to get their feet on hard ground again. From McGregor we traveled west into Iowa. After we were well out of the rough country adjacent to the Mississippi, we camped in a grove. While we were resting there, a covered wagon hove into sight from the west. As this strange apparition approached our camp the driver pulled in on the reins with a loud " whoa! " The outfit was rather the worse for wear and exposure. The team, harness , wagon, and occupants were apparently cut from the same cloth. There were only two persons to be seen, both past middle age with the map of Ireland on their faces. The woman, as usual, did most of the talking. She opened up by asking, "And ar ye goin' back on yer claim? " We assured her that we were. The woman proceeded to give a lengthy account of their experiences in living on a claim out in...

THE MISSOURI FLOOD OF 1881

THE MISSOURI FLOOD OF 1881 BY HALVOR B. HUSTVEDT TRANSLATED BY KATHERINE HUSTVEDT INTRODUCTION To the country at large and to the Dakotas in particular the following account of the tremendous Missouri flood of 1881 should indicate that the continued drouth of the past few years, which has been a calamity of far greater magnitude , is not necessarily one past redress. The moisture-laden snows may bring floods again to these regions. My father's story of the hardships he experienced that winter and spring was, regrettably, written in Norwegian, though he wrote beautiful English and, as he was a native American of pioneer stock, used English in his everyday speech. This translation has been undertaken because his account is a page of Dakota history, because he told it entertainingly, and because the courageous pioneering of brave men and women should be made known to their children and their children's children. My father, Halvor Bj0rnson Hustvedt, first set foot on Dakota soil in the year of the Custer massacre.1 The fires of Custer's last bivouac on the edge of civilization at Yankton had just turned to ashes, and traces of his camp were still plain when my father reached the scene where for five years he was to be a young pioneer pastor among the first white settlers of the Dakotas. The measure of his courage and 1 Hustvedt was bom, reared, and educated in America. He went as a young pastor of twenty-three to serve these first Dakota settlers on the James and Missouri rivers, decades before the latest influx of immigrant settlers on the upper reaches of the James, of whom R0lvaag writes in his Giants in the Earth. The Bergen congregation, the first congregation organized in the Dakotas, belonged to the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod of America, whose college was situated in Decorah, Iowa, and of which Hustvedt was a graduate, as well as of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He was a native of Wisconsin, where in 1843 his parents had settled in Dane County, fifteen miles from the site of the capital, Madison, which at that time was a mere village. 77 78 STUDIES AND RECORDS endurance is given in his account of walking thirty miles through snow up to his knees, the last fourteen of them with one foot largely incapacitated through an accident. I It was the memorable winter of 1880-81. I call it memorable because, during that winter, there had been a snowfall such as has never been seen before or since, in the memory of man, to this day. We had then lived in Yankton County, Dakota Territory , for four years and I had traveled about quite regularly, in four counties, through summer and winter, in good and bad weather, but always on horseback or in a buggy - never in a sleigh, and that for the very good reason that there never had been any sleighing. This, then, was the fifth winter and to begin with promised to be like all the others. But after the New Year it began to look different. The earth was at last hidden by a white coverlet and this remained. More and more snow fell and the going became heavy. But a sleigh was rarely to be found in this locality at that time and we were obliged to get along as well as we could; there would always be a way out. If it was impossible to use a vehicle we could always saddle the horse or resort to the locomotion of the apostles. On the seventeenth of January I left for a conference in Decorah , Iowa, and reached my destination without undue trouble the following day. But on the homeward journey, a couple of weeks later, from the first moment on it began to look a little dubious. The customary schedule was followed fairly well until evening. This was Monday, January 31, 1881. We reached Algona about on time but there the conductor, Jim Hogan, then a resident of Decorah, received orders from the superintendent of the division at Mason City for the passengers to detrain and to return, himself, with the train to Mason City as quickly...

A PIONEER PASTOR'S JOURNEY TO DAKOTA IN 1861

A PIONEER PASTOR'S JOURNEY TO DAKOTA IN 1861 By Abraham Jacobson Translated by J. N. Jacobson FOREWORD Abraham Jacobson came to America from Norway in 1848, when he was twelve years old. At the age of sixteen he went to study at what was then known as the State University of Illinois, at Springfield, making most of the journey from his home near Decorah, Iowa, on foot. He helped work his way through school by acting first as janitor and then as custodian of the courthouse, where Abraham Lincoln occasionally made political addresses. Later Jacobson served as librarian in the supreme court rooms, where Lincoln and his friends were wont to meet in the evenings to discuss politics and tell stories. A year after the journey described in these reminiscences, Jacobson was sent to the immigrant quarantine station at Quebec, where he was instrumental in improving accommodations for Norwegian immigrants.1 He spent the winter of 1868 in Minnesota, traveling on snowshoes or skis, holding services and organizing congregations; and for the following ten years he was a pastor in Dane County, Wisconsin. In 1908, at the age of seventy-two - two years before his death - Jacobson wrote the present account, which has been turned into English by his nephew. Miss Clara Jacobson surveys Jacobson ^ career in an article entitled "A Pioneer Pastor Who Knew Lincoln," published in Scandinavia , vol. I, no. 3, p. 38 (March, 1924) . 1 See post, p. 76. 53 54 STUDIES AND RECORDS PASTOR ABRAHAM JACOBSONS ACCOUNT In the vast domain of the Northwest there may still be found places where roads are poor, but the ease and facility of presentday travel cannot be compared with conditions fifty years ago. In the summer of 1850, when I was a boy of fourteen, my trusty legs carried me across the state of Wisconsin from the vicinity of Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien, a distance of more than two hundred miles. This journey was made in company with a large caravan of emigrants who were to settle in Iowa. The day's journey was short and the roads were good, so the four weeks' trip was an enjoyable one, though it was strenuous enough for many of the older people. In the eleven years that followed, among many varied experiences, I was ordained into the ministry and served a congregation in Chicago. Circumstances so shaped themselves that a journey to the then new Dakota Territory seemed to me a duty from a religious point of view. A keen desire for recreation for both mind and body was also an impelling factor in my determination to undertake the trip. An opportunity for the realization of this wish soon presented itself. In October, 1861, a small party of eight people in Decorah were in readiness to make the trip westward to Dakota. The company had four yoke of oxen and four wagons. Three of these wagons had just been driven in from Dakota by settlers who came to meet some newly-arrived relatives from Norway. The leading man in the company, and the one with whom I became most closely associated, was Lars Severson. He had resided in Nebraska for a couple of years, but, like nearly all the earliest settlers, had moved across the Missouri River to Vermillion in Dakota Territory. Severson or rather Sigvatson, R0nnestrand , later removed to Decorah and resided there with his family until his death about a year ago (1907) . Our wagon was constructed in a practical manner, in true prairie schooner style. The arched bows were covered with canvas and, as an extra precaution , were again covered with oilcloth, so that we were well protected against both wind and rain. We were amply provided A PIONEER JOURNEY TO DAKOTA 55 with provisions and cooking utensils; and this later proved to have been a wise forethought. The first event that occurred on our trip, and which yet remains vivid in my memory, happened near Calmar. Along the main highway to McGregor came a man with a yoke of oxen hauling a load of wheat. A little boy, who was a cripple, sat on top of the load. The weather was warm and the road...

NORWEGIANS AT THE INDIAN FORTS ON THE MISSOURI RIVER DURING THE SEVENTIES

NORWEGIANS AT THE INDIAN FORTS ON THE MISSOURI RIVER DURING THE SEVENTIES By Einar Haugen The little chapter of history herewith presented casts some light on the part that Norwegian- Americans have played in the building of the United States. The subject, to the writer's knowledge, has never before had attention, and the narrative is fragmentary and incomplete, for it depends largely on oral narration and imperfect recollection. These very recollections, however, reveal the psychological effect of the frontier on the young Norwegian farmers who had immigrated. They came from the countryside and were looking for more and better farm lands; in the interval many of them were forced to become frontiersmen. Their work at the forts needs to be seen against the double perspective of their origin in Norway and of their eventual fate in America. It will be remembered that these men were contemporaries and near neighbors of the characters described by O. E. R0lvaag in Giants in the Earth . SOUTH DAKOTA AND THE INDIAN FORTS The first habitations built by white men in South Dakota were the fur-trading posts. Before 1800 fur traders had penetrated the region and, during the first half of the nineteenth century, they had carried on extensive operations. Towards the middle of the century fur-bearing animals were fast disappearing, and in 1855 the American Fur Company was glad to sell Fort Pierre to the government at a high price. The war department wished to establish a strong fort at this point on the Missouri in order to protect Overland travelers to California against the Indians. In the 89 90 STUDIES AND RECORDS autumn of 1855 General Harney arrived with an army of one thousand men. He found the fort utterly inadequate: his men suffered cruelly during the hard winter that followed . In the summer of 1856 Harney selected a new site, 213 miles farther down the river. The new post was named Fort Randall for Colonel Daniel Randall, paymaster of the United States army. Meanwhile prospective settlers cast longing eyes on the rich soil of Dakota, which still belonged to the Indians and hence was closed to white men. After long negotiations with the Sioux tribes of Dakota, a treaty was signed at Washington on April 19, 1858, between Charles E. Mix, United States commissioner of Indian affairs, and a group of Yanktonai Sioux headed by the friendly chief Struckby -the-Ree. In this treaty the Indians released all lands between the Big Sioux and the Missouri except a reservation of about four hundred thousand acres in Charles Mix County. The treaty was ratified by Congress early in 1859, but the Yanktons were not induced to agree to it until July 10, when the lands were finally opened. Immigration began even before the law permitted, and the signing of the treaty brought a large additional influx of settlers. In the years that followed many similar treaties were made, treaties in which the Indians signed away one piece of land after another in return for guarantees of reservations and promises by the government that they would be fed and clothed until they could support themselves. In 1861 Dakota Territory was created by Congress, and South Dakota was well on its way to statehood. The Yanktonai Sioux were for the most part loyal to these agreements, but many of the tribes were dissatisfied and angered over the white encroachments. The first notable conflict, the Sioux War of 1862, took place in Minnesota. After this outbreak was suppressed, it was decided to remove the Sioux of Minnesota to the Missouri River. In 1863 AT THE INDIAN FORTS 91 Colonel Clark W. Thompson took charge of the removal, and for him a new fort on the Missouri River was named. In the same year General Alfred Sully built old Fort Sully near the present site of Pierre. Three years later, this fort was abandoned because of the unhealthfulness of its location , and new Fort Sully was built thirty miles farther up the river. This was perhaps the most famous of all the Missouri River forts in South Dakota; it was the headquarters of a regiment and played an important part in the subsequent Indian...

Ponka Stories, Told by Tim Potter, or Big Grizzly Bear, in 1872, at Ponka Agency, Dakota Territory

Ponka Stories, Told by Tim Potter, or Big Grizzly Bear, in 1872, at Ponka Agency, Dakota Territory

THE MEDICINE AND SURGERY OF THE WINNEBAGO AND DAKOTA INDIANS.

The following interesting account of aboriginal medical art is just received from Dr. F. Andros. now of Mitchell, Dakota Territory, but formerly well-known and eminent at McGregor, Iowa. Dr. Andros is said to be the grandson of Sir Edmund Andros, the British governor of New York in colonial times. He is now over eighty years of age, but writes a firm hand, and is still actively engaged in practice. He has lived nearly all his adult life in contact with the Indians. Among the Winnebagoes he was a “great medicine man,” and was admitted to the lodge of their secret society, which has its signs and passwords, and is in many respects like some of the secret orders among the whites. Being thus closely intimate with the Indians at a very early day, before they were much modified by contact with civilization, his testimony as to their original medical and

On a new extinct genus and species of Percidae from Dakota Territory

On a new extinct genus and species of Percidae from Dakota Territory

Scientific Serials

Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (vol. v. No. 1. Washington, February 28).—Notes on the Aphididæ of the United States, with descriptions of species occurring west of the Mississippi, by Chas. V. Riley and J. Monell.—The relations of the horizons of extinct vertebrata of Europe and North America, by E. D. Cope.—Observations on the faunæ of the miocene tertiaries of Oregon, by E. D. Cope.—Notes on the birds of Fort Sisseton, Dakota territory, by Chas. E. McChesney.—Palæontological papers, No. 9.—Fossils of the Jura-trias of South-eastern Idaho, by C. A. White, M.D.—Jura-trias Section of South-eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming, by A. C. Peale, M.D.—Fossil forests of the volcanic tertiary formations of the Yellowstone National Park, by W. H. Holmes.—Palæontological Papers, No. 10.—Conditions of preservation of invertebrate fossils, by C. A. White, M.D.—Supplement to the bibliography of North American invertebrate palæontology, by C. A. White, M.D., and H. Alleyne Nicholson. This supplement embraces publications which have been made during the year 1878, and also all the omissions pertaining to the first list issued as No. 10 of the Miscellaneous Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey. The year 1878 was not productive of many memoirs on North American invertebrate palaeontology. Dr. White records the publications made in the United States, Prof. Nicholson those made in British North America, West Indies, and Europe.

Meteoric iron from Dakota Territory; description and analysis

Meteoric iron from Dakota Territory; description and analysis