Minnesota, the North Star StateFolwell, William Watts
History
Minnesota, the North Star State
Folwell, William Watts
Minnesota -- History
Company’s post at Fond du Lac (of Superior) on the 6th of July. He
ascended the St. Louis River and took the Savanna portage to Sandy
Lake. With a reduced party he pushed up stream through Lake
Winnebigoshish to that upper Red Cedar Lake which Pike had seen
fourteen years before. Assured that this was the true source of the
Mississippi, he ended his journey. Mr. Schoolcraft doubted, but he was
too polite to differ openly with his chief. Captain Douglass on his map
gave the lake the name “Cassina,” which, shorn of two superfluous
syllables, has remained in use. Mr. Schoolcraft wrote a narrative of
the expedition which is very pleasant reading. The return journey,
beginning July 22, was down the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien and
thence to Green Bay by the Fox-Wisconsin portage. At Fort Snelling the
party were feasted with fresh vegetables from the post garden. At the
Sioux agency, then on the Mendota side of the Minnesota, some chiefs of
the Sioux and Chippeways were got together in council and a reluctant
consent was obtained to cease from troubling one another. The high
contracting parties were content to gratify the white man, but they
understood the farcical nature of the convention. Governor Cass
reported the cost of the expedition at $6156.40-1/4.
It seems proper to interpolate here some account of the expedition
conducted by Major Stephen H. Long of the topographical engineers of
the army, in 1823, to the valleys of the Minnesota and Red rivers. Six
years before, that officer had made an uneventful journey to St.
Anthony’s Falls, of which he left a graphic and appreciative
description. His party, escorted by a detail of soldiers, left Fort
Snelling on July 9 with Joseph Renville as interpreter and guide. At
Traverse des Sioux, Long abandoned his canoes and set out overland by
the well-worn trail for Lake Traverse, where he was welcomed at the
headquarters of the Columbia Fur Company. On August 2 Long reached
Pembina, where he established a monument to mark a point astronomically
determined in the international boundary. His instructions had been to
strike east from Pembina and trace the boundary to the Lake of the
Woods. This he found to be impracticable. Putting his people into bark
canoes, he descended the Red River past Fort Garry to Lake Winnipeg,
traversed the south arm of that water, and ascended the Winnipeg River
to Rat Portage on the Lake of the Woods.
The homeward journey by the old Dawson route to Lake Superior, along
the north shore to the Sault Sainte Marie and thence by the lower lakes
and the Erie Canal, was rapidly made without notable incident.
Professor William H. Keating of the University of Pennsylvania, who was
geologist of the expedition, published a narrative abounding in varied
and interesting knowledge. It will ever remain indispensable to the
historian of the period and region.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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