NORTHWESTERN

 IOWA

ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS

1804-1926

CHAPTER III.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION IN IOWA - DEATH OF SERGEANT FLOYD - FIRST RECORD OF A WHITE MAN’S BURIAL IN IOWA - PIKE’S EXPEDITION - THE FUR TRADERS - ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO SERGEANT FLOYD - THE FIRST FORT MADISON - KEARNY’S EXPEDITION FROM THE MISSOURI TO THE MISSISSIPPI - CATLIN AND MAXIMILIAN AT FLOYD’S GRAVE THE ALLEN-SCHOOLCRAFT EXPEDITION - KEARNY BUILDS FIRST FORT DES MOINES - TROOPERS FIGHT SIOUX IN NORTHWESTERN IOWA - LEA’S “NOTES ON WISCONSIN TERRITORY” - CAPTAIN ALLEN ENCIRCLES NORTHWESTERN IOWA - ESTABLISHES FINAL FORT DES MOINES - THE CAPTAIN STARTS ON HIS EXPEDITION - TRAVELS UP THE DES MOINES INTO THE LAKE COUNTRY - FLOUNDERS AMONG “INTERMINABLE LAKES” - SEEKS HEADWATERS OF THE DES MOINES AND MINNESOTA - SIOUX FALLS AND THE SIOUX QUARTZITE - DOWN THE VALLEY OF THE BIG SIOUX - WHERE THE BIX (should have been BIG) SIOUX AND THE MISSOURI JOIN - THE SHORT CUT TO FORT DES MOINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Soon after the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, President Jefferson began making preparations to explore the territory thus acquired by the United States. He announced his intention to send an expedition up the Missouri River to discover its sources and to ascertain whether a water route to the Pacific coast was practicable. It was late in the year 1803 before the treaty of Paris was ratified, however, and the expedition was postponed until the following spring. Jefferson selected as leaders of the expedition Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark of the regular army. Both were natives of Virginia and the latter was a brother of Gen. George Rogers Clark.

THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION IN IOWA.

On May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark left the mouth of the Missouri River and began the ascent of that stream. Their

63

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company consisted of fourteen regular soldiers, nine young men from Kentucky, two French voyageurs or boatmen, an Indian interpreter, a hunter and a negro servant belonging to Captain Clark. Their main vessel was a keelboat fifty-five feet long, with twenty-two oars and drawing three feet of water. It was provided with a large square sail, to be used when the wind was favorable, and had a cabin, in which were kept the most valuable articles, such as the scientific instruments. They also had two pirogues, fitted with six and seven oars, respectively. Two horse were led along the bank, to be used in hunting game.

Between July 18 and August 22, 1904, the expedition encamped eleven times in what is now the State of Iowa. On the 22nd of July Lewis and Clark reached a “high and shaded situation” on the east side of the river, where they established a camp, “intending to make the requisite observations, and to send for the neighboring tribes for the purpose of making known to them the recent change in government and the wish of the United States to cultivate their friendship.” It is generally believed that the site of this camp was near the present line between Mills and Pottawattamie (as spelled in this book) counties. Two of the eleven camping places in Iowa were in what is now Monona County. At Onawa a monument has been erected, bearing a bronze tablet with the following inscription:

This Stone Marks the Second Camping Ground
in Monona County
of
Lewis and Clark
in their voyage
up the Missouri River
in August, 1804.
Erected by
Iowa Society
and
Onawa Chapter
Daughters of the
American Revolution

PHOTO: FLOYD MONUMENT

PHOTO: MONUMENT TO MARK THE CAMPING
SITE OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK
EXPEDITION, ONAWA

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 67

DEATH OF SERGEANT FLOYD.

About the middle of August Sergt. Charles Floyd, a member of the company, became seriously ill. The following account of his death is taken literally from the journal of the expedition: “20 Aug Monday 1804 - We set out under a gentle breeze from the S. E. and proceeded verry well Sergt Floyd bad as he can be no pulse & nothing will Stay a moment on his Stomach or bowels. Passed two islands on the S. S. (south side) and at the first Bluff on the S. S. Serj. Floyd Died with a great deal of Composure, before his death he Said to me “I am going away” I want you to write me a letter.” We buried him on the top of the bluff 1/2 mile below a Small river to which we Gave his name, he was buried with the Honors of War much lamented, a Seeder (cedar) post with the (1) Name Sergt. C. Floyd died here 20th of August 1804 was fixed at the head of his grave. This man at all times gave us proofs of his firmness and Determined resolution to doe Service to his Countrey and honor to himself after paying all honor to our Decesed brother then we camped in the Mouth of floyds River about 300 yds. wide, a butifull evening.”

FIRST RECORD OF WHITE MAN’S BURIAL IN IOWA.

This is the first record of a white man’s remains being buried on Iowa soil. Brigham’s History of Iowa (p. 54) says: “On their return, two years later, the explorers visited Floyd’s Bluff, to find the grave had been disturbed and the body left half exposed. After reburying the remains the explorers resumed their long voyage back to civilization.” During the flood in 1857, not long after the first white settlements were made in the vicinity of the bluff, the Missouri River washed away a portion of the bluff, exposing part of the remains. The pioneers gathered and made a new grave farther from the river. A stately monument was afterward erected to mark the last resting place of this gallant soldier. Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-05 among the Mandan Indians, near the present City of Bismarck, North Dakota. In 1905 (should be 1805) they reached the sources of the Missouri River, crossed the divide and descended the Columbia River

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to the Pacific Ocean. On their return trip in 1806 they occupied several of their old camping sites, including Floyd’s Bluff and the one near the line between Mills and Pottawattamie (as spelled in this book) counties. They arrived at St. Louis in September, 1806, and their report gave to the country the first authentic information of the country and the Indian tribes living along the Missouri River.

PIKE’S EXPEDITION.

On August 9, 1805, Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike, then twenty-six years of age, left St. Louis with a sergeant, two corporals and seventeen privates, to explore the upper Mississippi River. He was instructed to hold councils with the Indian tribes, recommend sites for military posts, and report as to the value of the Government’s new possession. In the latter part of August he held a council at a Sac village near the present village of Montrose, in Lee County, Iowa. On that occasion Pike addressed the assembled chiefs as follows: “Your great father, the President of the United states, in his desire to become better acquainted with the conditions and wants of the different nations of red people in our newly acquired territory of Louisiana, has ordered the general to send a number of warriors in various directions to take our red brothers by the hand and make such inquiries as will give your great father the information required.” No attempt was made to conclude a treaty, but at the close of the council Pike distributed presents among the Indians. Lieutenant Pike seems to have been the first American with whom Chief Black Hawk came in close contact. Some years later the old chief gave the following account of Pike’s visit to the Sac and Fox village on the rock River, in Illinois: “A boat came up the river with a young chief and a small party of soldiers. We heard of them soon after they passed Salt River. Some of our young braves watched them every day, to see what sort of people were on board. The boat at last arrived at Rock River and the young chief came on shore with his interpreter, made a speech and gave us some presents. We in turn gave them meat and such other provisions as we could spare. We were well pleased with the

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young chief. He gave us good advice and said our American father would treat us well.”
On August 23d Pike landed at a place which he describes as being “on a hill about forty miles above the River de Moyne rapids, on the west side of the river, in latitude 40 degrees 21’ north. The channel of the river runs on that shore. The hill in front is about sixty feet perpendicular, and nearly level at the top. About 400 yards in the rear is a small prairie, fit for gardening, and immediately under the hill is a limestone spring, sufficient for the consumption of a whole regiment.”  From Pike’s description and the location upon his map, this site is generally believed to be that where the City of Burlington now stands, known among the early voyagers on the Mississippi as “Flint Hills.” Passing on up the river from Flint Hills, Pike visited the settlement of Julien Dubuque, where he was “saluted with a field piece and with other marks of attention.” This settlement was where the City of Dubuque now stands and was the first to be established on Iowa soil. It was founded by Julien Dubuque, a French-Canadian, who at a council held at Prairie du Chien on September 22, 1788, obtained from the Indians a grant “to work at the mine near Kettle Chief’s village as long as he shall please . . . . Moreover, that they shall sell or abandon to him all the coast and the contents of the mine discovered by the wife of Peosta,” etc. Subsequently Baron Carondelet, Spanish governor of Louisiana, granted to Dubuque a tract of land “seven leagues up and down along the west bank of the Mississippi and extending three leagues into the interior.” Here Dubuque worked the “Mines of Spain” until his death on March 24, 1810. On October 31, 1897, a monument to his memory was dedicated by the Dubuque County Early Settlers Association. Another point selected by Pike for a military post was the bluff where the City of McGregor now stands (Clayton County, Northeastern Iowa), which he describes in his report as “a commanding spot, level on the top, a spring in the rear, most suitable for a military post.” This height was known for many years as “Pike’s Hill.” Near the northeast corner of the present State of Iowa the young explorer

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was met by the Sioux chief Wabasha and passed into what is now the State of Minnesota. In 1806 he returned to St. Louis and made a full report of his expedition, in which he made one serious error when he said: “It is my best judgment that the prairies between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are incapable of cultivation and should be left to the wandering savages.”

THE FUR TRADERS.

The expedition of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri, and that of Pike up the Mississippi, were the first official exploration made by authority of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase. These expeditions touched only the western and eastern borders of the Iowa, respectively, and the reports of the explorers gave no definite information regarding the interior of the state. However, white men had penetrated portions of Iowa long before the region became a part of the United States public domain. Early adventurers in America discovered that the country north of the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude abounded in fur-bearing animals, whose skins would bring almost fabulous prices in European cities. This discovery brought into the field the trader, who exchanged with the Indians cheap trinkets and bright colored cloth for their valuable peltries. In the early years of the seventeenth century the fur traders has a well defined trail from the vicinity of Spirit Lake to the Mississippi River a few miles below the present City of McGregor. In this trade the French were the pioneers, but in 1667 some London merchants organized the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was chartered by the British crown on May 2, 1670. In a short time its traders and trappers passed freely among the Indian tribes of the interior, ignoring French protests. This trespass upon territory claimed by the French was one of the principal causes of the French and Indian war nearly a century later. That war was ended in 1763 and the same year a fur company was organized in New Orleans for the purpose of trading with the Indian tribes living along the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In this company Auguste and Pierre Chouteau were the most prominent fig-

HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA 71

ures. The following year Pierre Laclede founded the City of St. Louis, which was made the headquarters of the company, its representatives operating in what are now the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, with occasional excursions into Minnesota, South Dakota, Illinois and Wisconsin. There is a tradition that in Laclede’s company was a man named Bowyer, who led a little band of trappers up the Missouri River and gave names to some of the streams flowing into it. This tradition is partially substantiated by a French writer in his “Travels in Louisiana,” published in 1801, three years before Lewis and Clark began their historic voyage up the Missouri. He mentions by name the “Bowyer” and the “Soldier” rivers as emptying into the Missouri from the east. The journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition says they encamped for one night “at the mouth of Boyer’s River,” indicating that the stream had previously been so named. Two years after Laclede commenced his settlement at St. Louis a number of independent English trappers and traders came into the upper Mississippi Valley and probably traded with some of the Iowa Indians. At first they operated without the sanction of the British colonial authorities and did not always strictly observe the laws in their dealings with the natives. To overcome this condition of affairs, give them greater prestige with the Indians, and at the same time render them amenable to law, they organized themselves into the Northwest Fur Company, which was a formidable competitor of the Chouteau Company for the Indian trade of the great Northwest until the beginning of the Revolutionary war. The first recorded voyage across interior Iowa preceded the expeditions of Lewis and Clark and Pike by several years. It was made by Jean Baptiste-Faribault, a trader and adventurer in the employ of the Northwest Fur Company, presumably in the spring of 1800. He carried on a successful trade with the Sioux and, having collected a stock of furs, wended his way to the mouth of the Des Moines River, where he delivered them to an agent of the company. During the remaining three or four years’ service with the company, Faribault is reported to have made annual tours from the sources to the mouth of the Des Moines. For more than thirty years

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thereafter no record survives to indicate that any white man traversed the entire territory now known as Iowa by means of its principal river. Various fur traders, however, continued to make the Des Moines their avenue of travel. Many of them made their homes near the mouth of the Des Moines, married Indian wives, and their children usually adopted the habits of their red mothers as they matured. these inter-marriages generally occurred between the white traders and trappers and the Sac and Fox Indians and led to the establishment of the Half Breed Tract between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers - over 100,000 acres in what is now Lee County, Southeastern Iowa. Although the travels of these half-savage white men are virtually unrecorded, and they were pure adventurers with no thought of serving the best interests of their race, they are given the credit of useful pathfinders for those who had such aims. Hiram M. Chittenden, that noted writer on pioneer western themes, puts the matter thus succinctly in his “American Fur Trade in the Far West”: “But if the fur trade was lacking in events of deep national significance - the Astorian enterprise always excepted - it was not without its influence upon the course of empire in the West. It was the trader and trapper who first explored and established the routes of travel which are now, and always will be, the avenues of commerce in that region. They were the pathfinders of the West, and not those later official explorers whom posterity so recognizes. No feature of Western geography was ever discovered by Government explorers after 1840. Everything was already known and had been, for fully a decade. It is true that many features, like the Yellowstone wonderland, with which these restless rovers were familiar, were afterward forgotten, or were rediscovered in later year, but there has never been a time until very recently when the geography of the West was so thoroughly understood as it was by the trader and the trapper from 1830 to 1840.” The fur traders were not interested in observing and reporting the character of the country in which they operated. They were concerned solely with the profits to be derived

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from their trapping and their trade with the red men. The posts they established were usually temporary and were abandoned when the trade grew unprofitable. They kept no record of the different sections they visited, yet it is known that they traded with the Indians on the upper Des Moines and trapped along the sources of the Little Sioux in what is now Dickinson County, and, in all likelihood, they visited other portions of Northwestern Iowa.

ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO SERGEANT FLOYD.

It is a matter of distinct record that representatives and employees of those two great rival concerns, the American Fur Company and the Missouri Fur Company, passed up the Missouri and probably stopped at its picturesque junction with the Big Sioux. In the spring of 1811, when the rivalry was at its height, two expeditions sent out by the two companies started for the upper Missouri fur country at nearly the same time. The Astorian company was led by one Wilson P. Hunt and he was accompanied by the English scientist John Bradbury. The boatsmen of the Missouri company were directed by Manuel Lisa, its founder and inspiration. Henry M. Brackenridge, a brilliant journalist and man of letters, was with Lisa and his men, and the grave of Sergeant Floyd, marked with a wooden cross, could be seen on the high bluff at the mouth of the little river which bore his name. The journalist, in fact, wrote as if he visited the historic spot, for he said: “The grave occupies a beautif
ul rising ground, now covered with grass and wild flowers. The pretty little river which bears his name is neatly fringed with willow and shrubbery. Involuntary tribute was paid to the spot and by the feelings of even the most thoughtless as we passed by. It is several years since he was buried here; no one has disturbed the cross which marks the grave; even the Indians who pass, venerate the place and often leave a present or offering near it. Brave, adventurous youth! Thou art not forgotten - for although thy bones are deposited far from thy native home in the desert waste; yet the eternal silence of the plain shall mourn thee and memory will dwell upon they grave.”

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THE FIRST FORT MADISON.

When Lieutenant Pike was sent to the region of the upper Mississippi to explore the country, the military authorities instructed him to select a site for a fort somewhere between St. Louis and Prairie du Chien. In all this latitude of country he selected “a site on a hill forty miles above the River De Moyne rapids on the west side of the river.” Five years afterward, in 1808, the fort named in honor of President Madison was built; not, however, upon the site recommended by Lieutenant Pike, but at a location only nine miles above the rapids and on the lands belonging to the Sac and Fox. The City of Fort Madison, Lee County, now occupies its site. During the War of 1812, the fort was attacked three times by the Indians and finally burned and abandoned by the little garrison who narrowly escaped starvation and annihilation. This was the first fort built in Iowa. Fort Armstrong, at Rock Island, was not completed until four years after old Fort Madison had been deserted.

KEARNY’S EXPEDITION FROM THE MISSOURI TO THE MISSISSIPPI

On Sunday, the 2nd of July, 1820, Capt. Stephen W. Kearny, afterward colonel of the First Regiment of Dragoons, with four other army officers, fifteen soldiers, four servants, and Indian guide with his wife and papoose, and eight mules and seven horses, were ferried from Council Bluff across the Missouri and the mouth of the Boyer and landed upon Iowa soil. They were dispatched as a Government expedition to discover a practicable route for the passage of United States troops between Camp Missouri and Camp Cold Water (later, called Fort St. Anthony and Fort Snelling) on the St. Peter or Minnesota River. After traveling northward about thirty mile they celebrated the Fourth of July “to the extent of our means; an extra gill of whiskey was issued to each man, and we made our dinner on pork and biscuit and drank to the memory of our forefathers in a mint julup (sic).” Following the course of the Boyer and the Little Sioux rivers, then east and northeast to Lake Pepin, and the northwest, the party arrived at the northern post

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where, Captain Kearny declared, the officers “were a little astonished at the sight of us, we having been the first whites that ever crossed at such a distance from the Missouri to the Mississippi River.” For various reasons, Captain Kearny reported that this circuitous route was impracticable and almost impassable throughout the entire year for more than very small military forces, and troops seem never again to have traversed this particular region.

CATLIN AND MAXIMILIAN AT FLOYD’S GRACE.

In 1822, the Astors of New York established a branch of the American Fur Company at St. Louis, with the definite design of competing with the western merchants. Their ventures were so successful that they decided to replace their cumbersome and slow keel boats by steamboats. In 1831 the pioneer of the new craft, the “Yellowstone,” made her maiden trip to the upper Missouri, and in the following year George Catlin, the noted Indian painter, in his explorations for savage subject for his brush and pen, was one of its passengers. In one of his letters he thus describes his visit to Floyd’s grave: “I landed my canoe in front of this grass-covered mound, and all hands being fatigued, we encamped a couple of days at its base. I several days ascended it and sat upon his grave, overgrown with grass and the most delicate wild flowers; where I sat and contemplated the solitude and stillness of this tenanted mound, and beheld from its top the windings infinite of the Missouri and
its thousand hills and domes of green vanishing into blue in the distance.” On the third trip of the “Yellowstone,” in 1833, Maximilian, Prince of Wied, accompanied the fur traders in the interest of science. He, too, in his book of travels, makes this mention of Floyd’s grave: “A short stick marks the place where he is laid, and has often been renewed by travelers when the fires in the prairie have destroyed it.”

THE ALLEN-SCHOOLCRAFT EXPEDITION.

Lieut. and Capt. James Allen, of the First Regiment of Dragoons, United State Army, comes in for a large share of the credit of the exploration which were slowly approaching

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the territory of what is now Northwestern Iowa up the Des Moines and Little Sioux rivers. He was a West Point graduate and member of a class which numbered Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston. He was at once assigned to duty on the western frontier and while stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Territory, was detailed to accompany Henry R. Schoolcraft, with a small escort, to make an expedition to the Indians of the Northwest. In June-August, 1832, they traveled nearly 3,000 miles in the upper country, but the fame of this expedition rests in the fact that the army officer and the scholar-explorer first gave to the world an intimate knowledge of the region around and beyond the headwaters of the Mississippi.

KEARNY BUILDS FIRST FORT DES MOINES.

Gradually, however, the importance of the Des Moines River as the great interior waterway between the Mississippi and the Missouri became pronounced in the consciousness of the military authorities of the country, and they harked back to the suggestion of Lieutenant Pike made thirty years before. By order of the War Department, Lieut. Col. S. W. Kearny was directed, in May, 1834, to establish a post near the mouth of the Des Moines River. The result was the establishment of the first Fort Des Moines in what is now Lee County. In June of the following year, under orders, he moved up the river to the Raccoon Fork, with parts of three companies to select a site for another military post in that locality. One of the commands was under Capt. Nathan Boone, a son of Daniel Boone, and another under Lieut. Albert M. Lea, the latter an accomplished draughtsman and hydraulic engineer. Lieut. H. S. Tanner, who figures in the narrative to a less extent than the other two, was in command of the third detachment. The Dragoons, numbering about 170 officers and men, were well mounted. Provisions were conveyed in five commissary wagons each drawn by two spans of mules. Beef was provided for the journey in the form of a herd of cattle. But there was such an abundance of game in the country through which they passed that the men had little need of the domestic animals.

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TROOPERS FIGHT SIOUX IN NORTHWESTERN IOWA.

The troopers followed a dividing ridge between the Skunk and Des Moines rivers, and their line of march led through that section of Iowa now embraced by the counties of Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Keokuk, Mahaska, Jasper and Polk. They camped at the mouth of the Raccoon River and spent some time in exploring the country. The expedition then turned northwestward until they reached the mouth of a beautiful river which entered the Des Moines from the east. It was called Boone after the captain who was in active command of the explorers. A northeastwardly course was then taken along the divide between the Boone and the Iowa rivers, when the Dragoons again turned westward through what are now Hamilton, Wright, Hancock, Cerro Gordo, Worth and other counties of Northern Iowa, and then north into what is now Southern Minnesota. A hat-shaped lake to which they gave the name Chapeau was afterward called Lake Albert Lea, after the talented young lieutenant of the expedition. Until the 30th of June, 1835, Kearny’s men had seen few Indians, but when in camp near the headwaters of the East Fork of the Des Moines River, probably in the eastern part of what is now Emmet County, the expedition was suddenly attacked by a large party of Sioux warriors. Being in the heart of the Sioux country, that fierce tribe determined to resist a march through their possessions. Captain Boone made a successful defense until darkness put an end to the battle. Knowing that his little command was far beyond the reach of reinforcements, he ordered a retreat, and during the night placed many miles between his men and the enemy. By the 8th of August, the expedition had returned to the Raccoon fork of the Des Moines River, where Colonel Kearny had established a camp, and afterward spent some time exploring the country north and west. From this camp, Lieutenant Lea was ordered to descend the Des Moines to its mouth to ascertain its flowage and resources. Accompanied by one private and an Indian guide, he descended the river in a hollowed cottonwood log and shortly after having completed his work resigned from the army. In the following

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year, as the immediate result of his participation in this expedition, he published a notable little book in Philadelphia. It was entitled “Notes on Wisconsin Territory: The Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase.” The tile is somewhat misleading, as the Iowa District was still a portion of Michigan Territory. Lieutenant Lea’s book is interesting as a literary curiosity, although its text does not apply closely to Northwestern Iowa. It is claimed that his book was the first record to be found in which the name Iowa is applied to the section of the country which became the state thus designated; although it is of political record that in 1829 the Legislature of Michigan Territory erected the County of Iowa which substantially covered the present State of Wisconsin. The direct results of the expedition of 1835, as to the advisability of establishing a military post on the upper Des Moines, was an adverse report to the War Department by Colonel Kearny. If such a post were still deemed necessary, as he evidently questioned, he would locate it a hundred miles farther up the river. But a few years afterward, Kearny’s recommendation were forgotten.

CAPTAIN ALLEN ENCIRCLES NORTHWESTERN IOWA.

And there now comes upon the scene of action, all tending to stabilize the valley of the Des Plaines and make it safe for the settlement and development of the whites, the lively Lieutenant Allen, who, in 1832, had accompanied Schoolcraft through the Upper Mississippi country. In the meantime - from 1832 to 1842 - he had served at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, at Fort Dearborn, Chicago, and at Fort Leavenworth; had reached the grade of a captaincy and at the age of thirty-six was considered on of the best posted and most alert officers in the Indian country. Captain Allen is more intimately connected with the explorations of the Northwestern Iowa covered by this history than any of the army officers or scientists who preceded him. In the Iowa Journal of History and Politics for January, 1913, is a compilation by Jacob Van der Zee, the well known historical scholar and author, and a reproduction of Captain Allen’s Journal, originally published the Congressional

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Documents, both of which indicate the services rendered by Allen to the development of the Des Moines valley and a better acquaintance with the comparatively unknown region of what is now Northwestern Iowa. Of the officer to whom so much credit is due, Mr. Van der Zee says: “During the summer of 1842, Captain Allen received orders to march to Fort Atkinson, Territory of Iowa, with Company I of the Dragoons. Taking a direct route from Fort Leavenworth, crossing the Des Moines River above the Raccoon Fork, he arrived at his post among the Winnebago Indians on August 7, 1842. Soon afterward he proceeded to the Sac and Fox Agency, twenty miles due west of Fairfield (now Jefferson County, Southeastern Iowa). By permission of Maj. John F. A. Sanford, of the American Fur Company, Captain Allen quartered his dragoons in eight log cabins then abandoned for purposes of Indian trade, and also built stables for his horses and huts for two officers. This temporary post he designated Fort Sanford, but the Government retained the name of the agency.

CAPTAIN ALLEN ESTABLISHES FINAL FORT DES MOINES.

“On November the 12th, 1842, the commandant conducted a small force on an expedition to the mouth of the Raccoon River. There, at the confluence of the Raccoon and the Des Moines, he established a new military post, evacuating his camp at the Sac and Fox Agency on May 17, 1843. The troops at once set about constructing officers’ quarters, barracks, stables and corrals, and also laid out gardens. Allen chose the none too euphonious name Fort Raccoon for this western post, but General Scott of the War department preferred to call it Fort Des Moines. “Although Captain Allen was kept busy protecting the Sacs and Foxes in their treaty rights by driving squatters back across the Indian border, he found time to make the exploring expedition of which he rendered the Journal. * * * In the summer of 1845 he was ordered to join Captain Sumner of Fort Atkinson on a visit to the Sioux dwelling along the St. Peter's or Minnesota River. “Upon Captain Allen’s recommendation, Fort Des Moines continued to be occupied until the spring of 1846, when the

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troops marched out to serve as a military escort for the remnant of the Sacs and Foxes who had not removed to Kansas with their tribe in October, 1845. The site of Allen’s post was, within a short time, destined to become the homes of hundreds of ambitious pioneer families, the county seat of Polk County, and in 1857 the capital of the State of Iowa.”

THE CAPTAIN STARTS ON HIS EXPEDITION.

Captain Allen’s Journal, ordered printed by the United States House of Representatives, covered the period from August 11 to October 3, 1844. It was submitted directly to Col. S. W. Kearny, then commanding the Third Military Department of the United States, with headquarters at St. Louis. Captain Allen took with him on his expedition Company I, First Regiment of Dragoons, and at his return to Fort Des Moines had traveled 740 miles up the Des Moines River to its sources, passed through Southwestern Minnesota and over the Sioux River into the present South Dakota, recrossed it and then skirted the western and southern counties included in this history. He and his dragoons had journeyed all around this territory, and thus early gave it historic significance. As was customary in such reports Captain Allen introduces his paper with a summary of his travels, but the vital interest of it consists in following the journey of his command, day by day, as Mr. Van der Zee’s footnote s enable the reader to approximately follow the route in the light of the present.

TRAVELS UP THE DES MOINES INTO THE LAKE COUNTRY.

The first few miles of the march from Fort Des Moines followed the historic Oregon trail, but soon the expedition took the dividing ridge between the Beaver and Des Moines rivers. Travel was much impeded by the mud, as it had rained hard, and the ox team and the mules pulled the heavy wagons with difficulty. Within a week, although rain continued and the country was hard to travel through, Captain Allen and his men had passed through what are now Dallas and Boone counties and were camped in Northern Webster County. There they remained a short time upon the site of what was called the Delaware Battle Ground, where three

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years before, a band of Delawares were killed to a man by Sioux warriors, who had protested against the former hunting on the Neutral Ground. Toward the last of August, the march had led through Humboldt and Palo Alto counties. The route left the main valley of the Des Moines and was directed up the West Fork, until by the 22d of August the soggy expedition had reached the border of the lake country in Palo Alto County. The entry of that day indicates Captain Allen’s impression of Medium Lake: “It took all this day to make six miles through this soft prairie, flooded by the rain of yesterday and last night; encamped at sunset on a pretty little lake 4 miles long and 300 or 400 yards broad, having a rich looking little island near the center; there are many small groves of fine timer skirting this lake.” Then came the next day, August 23. “Laid still today,” the Captain records, “and sent back to bring up ox-team that had been left the day before yesterday about 8 miles from here; it could not be moved for the floods of the slues; abundance of swan, geese and ducks on this lake and much sign of otter all around it; one of the men shot an elk, but did not get him; killed plenty of fowl but no fish; I believe the otter frightened the fish from the shores.”

FLOUNDERS AMONG “INTERMINABLE” LAKES.

Captain Allen rescued his mired ox team and continued his march northwest by north and a few days afterward the men and animals were floundering around in the lake region of Emmet County. The commandant is excusable for this entry, though his experiences may have clouded his judgment as to the intrinsic value of the country: “We spent the whole of this day in fruitless search of a way to lead us through these interminable lakes; determined finally at night to cross a strait between two of them (thought to be Swan Lake), and with that object encamped on the south side of it, six mile north of encampment of last night. The grass of this country is tall and luxuriant, remarkably so for so high a latitude, but the whole country is good for nothing, except for the seclusion and safety it affords to the numerous water fowl that are hatched and grown in it.” On the 28th

6V1

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of August, Turtle Lake, the source of the East Fork of the Des Moines was reached. It is partly in Iowa and partly in Minnesota, and is described in the Journal as “a lake seven or ten miles long, of beautiful character, with bright pebbled shores and well-timbered borders.”

SEEKS HEADWATERS OF THE DES MOINES AND MINNESOTA.

Captain Allen’s expedition then spent nearly two weeks in Southwestern Minnesota endeavoring to locate the headwaters of the Des Moines and the Blue Earth rivers, the latter a tributary of the St. Peter’s or Minnesota. In the light of our present geographical knowledge, he missed the sources of the Blue Earth, which are in Kossuth County, just east of the Northwestern Iowa of this work. What he considered the true source of the Des Moines in Minnesota (West Fork of the river) he named Lake of the Oaks, from the forests of immense white oak trees that border it and cover its peninsulas. Captain Allen reached it on September 6, 1844, and with his sextant (in which he says he had “not much confidence”) computed its latitude to be 43 degrees 57’ 42”.

SIOUX FALLS AND THE SIOUX QUARTZITE.

After exploring that region for a couple days, the expedition took a due west course for the Big Sioux River. Over the Big Prairie the men journeyed for thirty-eight miles, entering the borders of Buffalo Land and killing several of the animals before they crossed the stream. They went down that river about eighty-six miles. They came across several bands of Sioux, who stole some of their horses, killed more buffalo and an antelope. On September 13th they were at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is described as “a great and picturesque fall of the river.” Its rock is spoken of as “massive quartz,” and as “the first rock formation, or rock in place” which had been seen since leaving the St. Peter’s River. “It crosses the river here,” the Journal continues, “north and south, and is not seen elsewhere, the bluffs or general level of the country covering it some 250 feet. * * * The rock, in the course and on the borders of the stream is split, broken and piled up in the most irregular and fantastic shapes, and presents deep and frightful

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chasms, extending from the stream in all directions.” Thus did Captain Allen note the outcrops of the Sioux quartzite, or the primary rock of Northwestern Iowa which juts in from the country beyond the big Sioux. Two days afterward, the troopers were passing through Lyon County and down Rock River, in what is now Sioux County, and again struck the Big Sioux. They were vainly searching for a trading house to which they had been directed by the wily Sioux on the other side of the river.

DOWN THE VALLEY OF THE BIG SIOUX.

From September 16th to September 20th, inclusive, Captain Allen and his command skirted the eastern shores of the Big Sioux River through the western portions of the present counties of Sioux and Plymouth, and there are a number of extracts from his Journal which are interesting. Under date of September 16th he says: “Crossed the clear stream (Rock River) near its mouth and again ascended the bluffs, which are near 300 feet high and much broken - the breaks running far out from the main river; the obstructions forced us to leave the river far on our right and made the line of our march very crooked. I sent two men to follow the river as closely as practicable, and look if there were any appearances of a trading house in the neighborhood. They found none, and so it is demonstrated that the Indians have basely lied and deceived us, in this respect, and for what purpose I am unable to conceive. It is said of the Sioux that they are prouder of, and more habituated to lying than truth-telling; and here is a pretty good evidence in support of the charge. Encamped on a slue at a bunch of willows far out on the prairie, horses and mules much fatigued. We have not seen any buffalo today, nor any fresh sign of them; we are apparently out of their present range.”

On the following day a broad river was struck, but Captain Allen was not sure whether it was Floyd’s River or the Big Sioux. For three days the route was through a wild country, the surface broken by steep bluffs and deep ravines. Not an easy land either for animals or men to travel. Comments the Captain: “Of course, we had all sorts of trouble,

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upset one wagon twice, killed one mule and broke another wagon square off at the hounds. The romance of marching through a wilderness country is much abated.”

WHERE THE BIG SIOUX AND THE MISSOURI JOIN.

Allen’s one aim now was to find the mouth of the river which the expedition had traced so long, and on September 20th his wish was gratified. The Journal records: “We encountered bluffs, ravines, vine, valleys, tall grass and swamp, and plum bush and willow thickets, worse than any we had seen; but worked our way along, and, in the distance of seven miles, reached really the point where this river unites with the Missouri. It comes tot he Missouri in a due south course, and the Missouri meets it perpendicularly (at right angles), as coming from the west. Both, at their junction, wash the base of a steep bluff, some 500 feet high, and the great river then pursues its general course to the southward and eastward. Opposite to this point, there appears to be a large island of the Missouri, but we could not see enough to know if it were really an island, or a peninsula, in one of the great bends of the river. I have learned all I can now of the river which we have followed down to its mouth. I shall consider it the Big Sioux until I shall be better informed. Tomorrow I shall march for home by the nearest route I can find. It has rained most of the day, and is cold and disagreeable.”

THE SHORT CUT TO FORT DES MOINES.

Captain Allen did lead his men over the most direct route possible. They went through Southern Plymouth to the corner of Woodbury, crossed all the streams little and big in Northern Ida and Sac counties, and when they had reached the body of water which has been identified as Twin Lakes, Calhoun County, turned to the southeast down the valley of the Raccoon. Finally, they reached the ridge between the Raccoon and the Beaver, and arrived at Fort Des Moines in the afternoon of October 3, 1845, after an absence of fifty-four day.
This expedition under Captain Allen threw open the bor-

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ders of Northwestern Iowa, and, with the establishment of Fort Des Moines, the settlers of the lower valley felt that a gateway had been erected as an approach to the north. Later, settlers moved up the valley to the lake region, which had been so maligned by Captain Allen, and were prospering there when slaughtered by the Sioux, while various fur traders and their families were locating in the picturesque region described by Captain Allen, where the Big Sioux is absorbed by the greater expanse of the Missouri.