1

the support of common schools; a grant of 72 sections of land for a State University, and a State appropriation of $15,000 in aid of three State normal schools. In 1859 the number of persons of school age was 42,258, and of school districts, 1,016. There are union or high schools wherever the population is sufficiently compact. In 1859 a law was passed for the establishment of a deaf and dumb asylum at Faribault, and in 1858 for a State agricultural college at Glencove. The State common school fund amounted, at the beginning of the year 1867, to about $1,500,000. At the same time, there were 52,752 pupils in attendance at the public schools.

COUNTIES.-The following is a list of the counties in Minnesota, with their county towns where known, and the population of each county, according to the census returns of 1860:

POPULATION.-The census of 1860 gave the total population of Minnesota as 172,123, of whom 169,495 were white persons-91,804 males and 77,691 females; 259 were colored persons-126 males and 133 females, and 2,369 were Indians-1 254 males and 1,115 females.

The population in 1850 was 6,077. The ratio of increase for the ten years preceding 1860 was about 2,745.19 per cent. The total vote of the State at the Presidential election in 1860 was 34,799, and in 1864, 42,435. The total vote for members of Congress in 1866 was 41,758. The total population of the State at the beginning of the year 1867 was set down in the message of Governor Marshall to the Legislature at 340,000, being double the aggregate population in 1860.

PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS.-The principal cities and towns of Minnesota are St. Paul, the capital, St. Anthony, Minneapolis, Stillwater, Winona, Red Wing, Hastings, Wabasha, Lake City, Anoka, St. Cloud, Shakopee, St. Peter, Mankato, Faribault, Rochester, and Chatfield.

St. Paul, the capital of the State, and the county town of Ramsey County, is situated on the left bank of the Mississippi River, 2,082 miles from its mouth, and nine miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, and in latitude 44° 52′ 46′′ north, and longitude 93° 5' west. Its population in 1850 was 1,112; in 1860 it had increased to 10,277. The city lies on a plain about eighty feet above the river, eight hundred feet higher than the Gulf of Mexico, and partly encircled by low hills, abounding in excellent water from numerous springs. The Mississippi is navigable to this point for large steamers. St. Paul is a city of active trade and general business. The State-house is a handsome structure, 150 feet long by 53 wide, surmounted by a handsome dome.

St. Anthony is also in Ramsey County. It is situated on the east of the Mississippi River, and north-west of St. Paul, eight miles distant by land. It contained, in 1866, 3,258 inhabitants. It is the head of navigation on the Mississippi, and has an unlimited water-power in the falls from which it takes its name. Within its limits are a State University, and several saw-mills and manufacturing establishments. Adjoining it on the south is the village of St. Anthony City. Minneapolis, containing in 1860 a population of 2,564, is on the opposite side of the river.

GOVERNMENT.-The qualifications of voters in Minnesota are, that they be free white males, twenty-one years of age, who are or have declared their intention of becoming citizens of the United States, and who have resided in the United States one year, and in the State four months next preceding the election. Indians, and persons of mixed white and Indian blood, who have adopted the language, customs, and habits of civilization, are also allowed to vote in any district in which they have resided for ten days next preceding the election.

The Legislature consists of thirty-seven senators, elected for two years, and eighty representatives, elected for one year. They must be qualified voters and residents in the State one year, and in their respective districts six months next before the election.

The Executive consists of a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor-who is President of the Senate-Secretary of State, Treasurer, and an AttorneyGeneral, all elected for two years, and an Auditor elected for three years.

The Judiciary consists of a Chief-Justice and two associates, forming the Supreme Court, six Judges of District Courts and a Judge of Pro

bate, and Justice of the Peace in each county. All Judges are electedthose of the Supreme and District Courts for seven years, and the others

for two years.

HISTORY.-Though of comparatively recent settlement, Minnesota has long been the seat of considerable traffic with the Indians, and of missionary enterprise. As early as 1680 Hennepin and La Salle penetrated these wilds, followed by La Hontau and Le Sueur, and in the last century by Carver. This region has been, within the present century, thoroughly explored by Pike, Long, Keating, Nicollet, Schoolcraft, Owen, and others. It was not, however, until 1812 that the United States had any authority within the limits of Minnesota. A law was passed in 1816 excluding foreigners from the Indian trade, and the military post of Fort Snelling was established in 1819. In 1837 a small tract of country between the St. Croix and Mississippi was ceded by the Indians to the United States, and lumbering operations commenced upon the St. Croix. The Territory of Minnesota was organized by act of Congress of March 3, 1849, and the government of the same was organized in June following. It embraced nearly twice the area of the present State, its western limits extending to the Missouri and White Earth Rivers. Up to this period the country was occupied almost entirely by Indians; but a small civilized population of whites and half-breeds had grown up around the trading-posts and mission stations, amounting in 1849 to 4,857 persons.

In 1851 the Sioux ceded to the United States all the lands in the territory west of the Mississippi to the Big Sioux River. The population increased so rapidly after this that in 1857 application was made for the admission of Minnesota as a State of the Union. By act of Congress of February 28, 1857, the people of the Territory were authorized to form a Constitution and State Government, and Minnesota became, on the 11th of May, 1858, the thirty-second State of the American Union. That portion of the State lying on the east side of the Mississippi originally belonged to the country termed the "Territory northwest of the Ohio," and, had the ordinance of 1787 been fully complied with, would have been included in the fifth State (Wisconsin) formed from that region. This section comprises an area of 22,336 square miles. The part of the State lying west of the Mississippi River, and embracing more than two-thirds of its area, was originally a portion of Louisiana, and came into the possession of the United States in 1803. Previous to its inclusion in the Territory of Minnesota, it had been a part of the Territory of Missouri, and subsequently of Iowa.

THE INDIAN MASSACRE.-The following account of the atrocious Indian massacre in Minnesota in the year 1862, and of the war that followed, is extracted from Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia for that

year:

"During the spring and early summer of 1862 reports from various sources reached the United States Government, indicating that the Indian tribes of Utah, Colorado, Dakota, and Western Nebraska would ravage the Territories and frontier States. It was said that emissaries from the Southern Confederacy had been among them, stimulating them

to rise and plunder and destroy the frontier settlements; and to encourage them in this movement, they were told that the United States Government was broken up by the South, and could make no resistance. Adventurers from Canada, too, had visited them in the early part of the year, (when, in consequence of the Mason and Slidell affair, it was expected there would be war with Great Britain,) urging them to bring their furs across the boundary, and assuring them that they should be aided with money and arms to drive the Americans from their lands. The Indians, while thus prompted to insurrection by evil and designing men from both north and south of their hunting fields, had also many imaginary and some real grounds of complaint against the Indian Agents sent among them by the United States Government. Some of these had proved unworthy of their trust; had swindled and defrauded the Indians, and had treated them with harshness. And though there were exceptions, and perhaps rare exceptions, yet the delay in paying the Indian annuities-owing to the negligence of the Indian Bureau, and the attempt on the part of some of the agents to pay them in legaltender notes instead of gold, which the Government had furnishedaroused distrust in the minds of the red men, and led them to plot revenge.

"The reports which reached the Department of the Interior had given rise to so much apprehension, that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs published in the summer an advertisement warning the public of the danger in taking the overland route to the Pacific.

"Meantime the settlers in western Minnesota were entirely unsuspicious of danger. A large proportion of these settlers were Germans, especially in Brown and the adjacent counties; a considerable number were Norwegians, and the remainder generally of American birth. Most of them had purchased considerable farms, and they had built up small but thriving villages through the entire western counties. They were on terms of friendship with the Indians, and had no apprehension of any treachery from them.

Though an insurrection had been deliberately planned, there is reason to believe that the massacre was precipitated somewhat sooner than was at first intended. On the 17th of August, four drunken Indians, belonging to Little Crow's band of Sioux, roaming through the country and becoming intoxicated on whisky obtained from a white man, had a violent altercation with each other as to which of them was the bravest, and finally determined that the test of their bravery should be the killing of a white man. After committing several murders, and becoming somewhat sober, they fled to their village (Red Wood) and told their chief, Little Crow, who was one of the conspirators, what they had done. He, expecting retaliation for this outrage, at once determined upon commencing the attack, and on the morning of the 18th, with a force of 250 or 300 Indians, proceeded to the agency of Yellow Medicine and engaged in an indiscriminate slaughter of all the whites he could find there. Mr. Galbraith, the agent, was absent, having left home three days before, but his family were among the victims of this murderous assault. A force of forty-five soldiers sent up from Fort

Ridgley at the first rumor of disturbance, were attacked by the Indians, in ambush, and half their number slain. The marauders, flushed with success, passed on with their work of death, murdering, with the most atrocious brutalities, the settlers in their isolated farm-houses, violating and then killing women, beating out the brains of infants or nailing them to the doors of houses, and practicing every species of atrocity which their fiendish natures prompted. On the 21st of August they had attacked New Ulm, a flourishing German settlement, the capital of Brown County, with a large force, had beleaguered Fort Ridgley, and were advancing upon other settlements.

"The only Indians engaged in these outrages were Sioux, and that portion of them under the special command of Little Crow. The Chippewas, the inveterate enemies of the Sioux, who had also a reservation in Minnesota, were uneasy, and assumed a threatening attitude. They alleged gross frauds on the part of their agent, who escaped from the reservation and committed suicide; but they took no part in the Sioux massacres, and, indeed, a few weeks later, offered to raise a force of their warriors to fight the Sioux, an offer which the Government did not think it wise to accept. On the first intelligence of this insurrection, Governor Ramsey sent four companies of the sixth regiment of volunteers from Fort Snelling, and, two days later, on fuller information, he sent forward seven companies more. Colonel (now General) H. H. Sibley, who had thirty years' experience among the Indians on the frontier, was placed in command. Mounted volunteers were also called for by proclamation to join the forces, and large numbers obeyed the call. The Third Minnesota regiment, then on parole at St. Louis, was also ordered to report at St. Paul, and arrived there on the 4th of September.

"On the 23d of August New Ulm was attacked by the Indians, who were repulsed, after a severe battle, by a body of the citizens under Judge Flandran, but remained in the vicinity, intending to renew the assault. The next day a detachment of Col. Sibley's troops relieved them from siege, and scattered the marauders; but as 2,000 women and children, who had fled in terror from the surrounding region, had taken refuge there, it was deemed best to evacuate the place, in order to convey them to a place of permanent safety. Fort Ridgley had been besieged for nine days, and its little garrison had sustained and repelled three desperate attacks; they were relieved on the 26th by a force under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel McPhail, sent forward by Col. Sibley. Finding a large force concentrating on their trail in this direction, the greater part of the Indians proceeded northward, burning and killing every thing in their way, toward Breckinridge, a town at the junction of the Bois des Sioux and Red River of the North, which at that point formed the west boundary of the State, massacred the settlers there, and crossing the river, laid siege to Fort Abercrombie, in Dakota Territory. Intelligence of these movements having reached St. Paul on the 27th, two companies were forwarded at once to reenforce Fort Abercrombie. On the 3d of September a force of 150 Indians unexpectedly appeared at Cedar City, in McLeod County, in the center