Fifty Years In The Northwest by William H. C. Folsom
1878. He married a second wife in 1880. His family consists of eight
1663 words | Chapter 202
sons and one daughter. He came to Minnesota in 1854, removed to
Stearns county in 1858, and to Otter Tail county in 1872, where he now
resides in the town of Perham. He was a member of the legislature of
1876-77, and of the senate of 1878 to 1882, inclusive. In 1885 he was
appointed one of the commissioners to locate the second state prison.
JOHN W. BLAKE was born in Foxcroft, Maine, in 1839. His parents moved
to Wisconsin in 1840. He received a good education in the common
schools, in Milton Academy, and Wisconsin State University, and became
a civil engineer. He served as a soldier during the war of the
Rebellion. In 1872 he came to Minnesota, located at Marshall, Lyon
county, and the same year was elected a representative in the
legislature. He was a member of the senate during the years 1875,
1876, 1882, and 1884.
KNUTE NELSON, born in Norway, came to America, studied law at
Wisconsin University, and was admitted to the bar. He came to
Alexandria in 1870, where he practiced law. He was a senator in the
seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth legislatures, and
was elected representative to Congress from the Fifth Minnesota
district in 1884 and 1886. Mr. Nelson is a man of unquestioned ability
and force, a strong Republican, and an enthusiastic advocate of a
modified tariff.
W. R. DENNY was born at Keene, New Hampshire, in 1839; received an
academic education, and after spending eight years in Wisconsin, came
to Carver, Minnesota, in 1867. He served in the state legislatures of
1874, 1876, 1879, and 1881. He was appointed United States marshal
from 1882 to 1886. He was Grand Master of the Masonic fraternity in
1884-5. He was married in Wisconsin in 1863, and has a family of four
children.
[Illustration: PRESENT HOME OF THE AUTHOR ERECTED BY HIM A.D. 1855.]
APPENDIX.
MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS, ITEMS AND STATISTICS, INCLUDING AN
ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE VARIOUS TREATIES BETWEEN THE UNITED
STATES GOVERNMENT AND THE INDIAN TRIBES INHABITING THE
TERRITORIES OF WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY UNTIL THE CREATION OF
WISCONSIN TERRITORY IN 1836.
SPANISH CLAIMS.
The Spaniards have made persistent claims to territory lying along the
Atlantic coast, the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and up the valley of
the Mississippi, basing their claims on discovery and conquest.
In 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon, a companion of Columbus, discovered
Florida, and planted on its shores the standard of Spain.
In 1539 Hernando de Soto visited Florida and having strengthened the
Spanish claim adventured west to the Mississippi, on which river he
died and in which he was stealthily buried by his surviving followers,
who returned to Florida broken and dispirited with the loss of half
their number. By virtue of De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi, the
Spaniards now laid claim to the land along that river and its
tributaries. They also claimed land lying along the Atlantic coast,
without limit, northward. This large and somewhat indefinite empire
was by them styled Florida, after the name of the peninsula on which
they gained their first foothold. Unable to defend or enforce their
claims, they gradually relinquished them, giving up tract after tract,
until the peninsula of Florida alone remained to them. This was ceded
to the United States in 1819.
The government of the Territory was vested in the discoverers. Ponce
de Leon was governor from 1512 until 1521. De Soto was governor of
Florida and Cuba until 1541. Melendez, by compact with King Philip,
succeeded him, his commission giving him a life tenure. The history of
the Spanish possessions is by no means interesting, and illustrates
chiefly the Spanish greed for gold.
FRENCH CLAIMS.
The French early disputed the claims of the Spaniards and Portuguese
to the possession of the New World, and accordingly in 1524 sent a
Florentine, Jean Verrazzani, who explored the coast from Carolina to
Nova Scotia, took possession of it, and called it New France. Ten
years later Cartea continued the work, sailing around New Foundland
and ascending the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal. In 1564
a French colony located in Florida, but were almost immediately
exterminated by the Spaniards. During the following century the French
pushed their explorations to the regions of the Mississippi and the
great lakes. In the year 1603 Champlain was engaged in the exploration
of the St. Lawrence, and in 1609, he, with two other Frenchmen,
explored Lake Champlain and the country of the Iroquois and took
possession of it in the name of Henry IV of France. In 1611 and 1612
he explored Lake Huron, entered Saginaw bay, passed down Detroit
river, exploring Lake Erie, and laid the foundation of French
sovereignty in the valley of the St. Lawrence. Champlain for many
years prosecuted the fur trade where Boston now stands, prior to the
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.
We have not space for a complete account of the conflicting claims of
the French and English, but will give the boundaries of New France as
defined by French and English authorities at different times: 1609--L'
Escartot, in his "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," defines the French
boundaries as extending "on the west to the Pacific ocean, on the
south to the Spanish West Indies, on the east to the North Atlantic,
and on the north to the Frozen Sea." 1683--Baron La Honton says, "All
the world knows that Canada reaches from the 39th to the 65th degrees
of north latitude and from the 284th to the 336th degrees of
longitude." [More accurately from about 45 to 90 degrees west, or from
Cape Race to the Mississippi.] The French government persistently
denied the right of the English to any territory west of the
Alleghanies. The great Northwest, therefore, was for a long time under
French rule and influence. We must accord to France the credit of
making the first progress in civil government in the Northwest. They
made many permanent settlements and by a wise and pacific policy so
conciliating the Indian tribes that they were able to hold their
positions on the frontier at will. They were early and persistent
explorers, and, under the guidance of pious and devoted Jesuit
missionaries, planted settlements in the most desirable places. They
made a cordon of posts reaching from Louisiana to the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and along the chain
of the great lakes, completely surrounded the English colonies and
disputed with them the possession of the country. The French-English
War of 1689 to 1697 failed to decide satisfactorily the question of
the interior domain.
In 1712 New France was divided into two provinces, that of Canada and
that of Louisiana, the dividing line being the Ohio, Mississippi and
Missouri rivers, the Mississippi boundary line extending from the
mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Missouri river. Mobile was made
the capital of the southern province. The patent or commission of the
new province was issued to Crozat, Marquis du Chatel. The Illinois
country was afterward added, and it seems probable that the country
east of the Wabash was also included in it. All north of the boundary
named formed part of the province of Canada. Other boundaries than
these have been given by geographers, but these boundaries are
sufficiently established by official documents.
In 1763 all of the territory claimed by France lying east of the
Mississippi river was ceded to the English, the territory lying west
to Spain. Virginia, by three royal charters, given in 1606, 1607 and
1611, by the English government, held a part of the Northwest
Territory, and in 1776 established three counties north of the Ohio
river, named Ohio, Youghiogheny and Monongahela, but in 1787 ceded
this territory to the United States. Its settlement was somewhat
impeded by the perils of the wilderness, not the least of which was
the doubtful and often unfriendly attitude of the Indians, resulting
in many cases from the changes in the tenure of the lands, and the
influence of French or English emissaries, generally hostile to
American claims. The history of these early settlements is replete
with thrilling adventures.
The first settlement made in the newly ceded territory was at
Marietta, Ohio, in 1788, under the supervision of Gen. Rufus Putnam,
nephew of Gen. Israel Putnam, and first surveyor general of the
Northwest Territory. The settlement was named Marietta, in honor of
Queen Marie Antoinette, who had been a firm friend to the colonies
during the Revolutionary struggle. Gen. Arthur St. Clair was appointed
governor July 15, 1788, of the newly organized Ohio Territory.
The country claimed by Virginia under the royal charters included the
land lying between the sea shore on the east, and the Mississippi on
the west, the Ohio river on the south, and the British possessions on
the north. It will be seen, therefore, that that part of the Northwest
Territory lying immediately along the eastern banks of the Mississippi
now comprised in the state of Wisconsin and part of Minnesota, has
been successively claimed by Spain, France, England, Virginia, and the
United States, and under the territorial governments of the
Northwest--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin
territories. That part of Minnesota lying west of the Mississippi
belonged to the French by right of discovery, but passed into the
hands of Spain, thence back again into the hands of France, by whom,
with the territory known as Louisiana, it was sold to the United
States in 1803. The original grant to Virginia included far more than
the area of the State and that of the Northwest Territory, but was
subsequently reduced by grants made by states lying north of Virginia,
and vexatious disputes arose as to titles, a circumstance calculated
to retard rapid settlement.
We append the following data concerning the early history of the
territory included in the present states of Wisconsin and Minnesota,
tabulated for more convenient reference:
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