HISTORY OF DULUTH, AND OF ST. LOUIS COUNTY,

TO THE YEAR 1870.*

BY HON. JOHN R. CAREY.

When we take into account, in this rapidly advancing age, the many years, and I may say centuries, since the vast wealth and resources afforded to man by the great lake Superior and the country surrounding it became known, their settlement and development seem surprisingly slow.

While trading posts, missionary stations, and other small settlements, had been made within the boundaries of northeastern Minnesota at different dates, from the first advent of the white man in 1659, yet the first effort as to settlement of any part of that region, by the building of towns and cities, was not made until about the year 1854; after a lapse of nearly two hundred years, since the visit of the intrepid explorers, Groseilliers and Radisson, who are said to have been the first white men to visit Minnesota.

DANIEL GREYSELON DU LHUT.

Next in line of those early worthies, we have that noble and intrepid soldier and leader, Daniel Greyselon Du Lhut, a native of France and a prominent and influential man. That name (Du Luth, as it is better spelled in English) is destined to exist as long as the city which bears it as its name shall continue as the great commercial gateway of Minnesota and the Northwest.

*Presented and read in part at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, May 9, 1898. This paper, in a somewhat more extended form, was later published by the Duluth News Tribune, as a series of articles beginning June 12 and ending August 21, 1898; and these were united and published from the same type, as a pamphlet, in November, 1898, under the auspices of the Duluth Historical and Scientific Association.

Some prominent merchants of Quebec and Montreal, with the support of the governor of Canada, formed a company in 1678, and organized an expedition for the purpose of continuing the trade among the Indians in New France which had already been opened by Groseilliers and others in the preceding twenty years, but which for a time had been interrupted. Du Luth, being a prominent man and an officer of the governor's guards, was chosen as leader of the expedition. An ordinance or law promulgated by the governor of Canada then existed against trading with the Sioux; "the king's subjects were forbidden to go into the remote forests there to trade with the Indians." This ordinance was issued, doubtless, for the reason of the dangers to which the traders and missionaries would be exposed in consequence of the bloody strife that existed between some bands of the Sioux and the Ojibways of the country bordering the lake. However, the temptation was so great to procure the furs, notwithstanding the law and the hostility of the Indians, that the governor general, who was probably an interested party in the scheme, winked at the contraband trade. It is probable, also, that among the Indians there was some hostility to the trade, for it is related that Randin visited the extremity of lake Superior and distributed presents to them in the name of Frontenac, the governor, to secure their favor and to open a way for Du Luth and his party to trade with them.

Du Luth started on his mission with a party of seventeen Frenchmen and three Indians, on the 1st of September, 1678. In the spring of 1679, after wintering with his party in the woods about nine miles from the Sault Ste Marie, he wrote to Frontenac that he would remain in the Sioux country until further orders, and that, when peace was concluded, he would set up the king's arms, lest the English and other Europeans who settled toward California should take possession of the country.

There has been so much written relating to Du Luth that I will forbear giving an extended account of his life and services. Suffice it to say that he was a leader of men, a man of unblemished moral character and undaunted courage, a hater of the whisky traffic among the Indians, a resolute and true soldier, and a fearless supporter and vindicator of law and order.

It is believed by many that Du Luth established the first trading post at the head of lake Superior, but the writer can find no definite record of the fact. There can be no doubt but that he visited and traded with the Indians at Fond du Lac, and that he also traveled over the canoe route and portages between Fond du Lac and Sandy lake.

FOND DU LAC.

Jean Baptiste Cadotte, a man of influence and possessed of a liberal education, in the year 1792 was employed by the Northwest Fur Company, and was in charge of the Fond du Lac post. The country tributary to this post comprised the sources of the Mississippi, St. Croix and Chippewa rivers. The depot or post was then located about three miles above the entry of the St. Louis river, on the Wisconsin shore of Superior bay, where that part of the present city of Superior known as Roy's Addition is situated. This post or fort was a collecting point. It was surrounded with strong cedar pickets driven into the ground, the burnt ends of many of which remained projecting from the earth in 1855, and were many times seen by the writer. The Fond du Lac of those early times was known, in'translation to English, as the Head of the Lake.

Several of the buildings of the Fond du Lac trading post, as it was later occupied by the American Fur Company, on the northern side of the St. Louis river, in Minnesota, were yet in existence and in a good state of preservation in 1855, and for many years thereafter.

In 1854 and 1855, when the great rush came for the control or a share in the site of the future great city at the head of the lake, Fond du Lac was the only place having a name as a town or village. It was looked upon by the early pioneers of St. Paul as a place of much importance, as the lake port for Minnesota. Our old pioneer, Gen. William G. Le Duc, now of Hastings, Minn., in his Minnesota Year Book for 1851, published at St. Paul, thus mentions it: "Fond du Lac is a very old settlement on the St. Louis river, twenty-two miles from its entrance into lake Superior. Fond du Lac is destined to be a place of great importance, its situation making it the lake port of Minnesota. Steamboats and vessels find no dif

ficulty in ascending the St. Louis to Fond du Lac." The general's prophecy is now verified, as it is a part of the city of Duluth.

TREATIES WITH THE OJIBWAYS.

On the 5th day of August, 1826, Gov. Lewis Cass and T.' L. McKinney, commissioners appointed by the United States government, met with the Ojibway Indians at Fond du Lac, Minn., and concluded the first formal treaty with these Indians. It is related that a few days earlier, on the 28th of July, 1826, the commissioners approached this trading post in their barges, with flying colors and music, and then, for the first time, the Ojibways of that region heard the tune “Hail, Columbia." The principal effect of that treaty was to give the United States the right to explore for and carry away any metals or minerals that might be found along the country bordering the lake.

In August, 1847, by a treaty concluded at Fond du Lac, by J. A. Verplanck and Henry M. Rice, as the commissioners on the part of the United States, all of the land west and southwest from the head of the lake was ceded to the United States. And in September, 1854, by the treaty made at La Pointe, Wis., the remainder of the country along the north shore of the lake and the northern boundary of the state was ceded.

COUNTIES OF NORTHEASTERN MINNESOTA,

Here I desire to refer to some legislation in the early days of the Territory of Minnesota, relating to the formation of counties in the northern part of our state. Itasca county, established by an act of the first territorial legislature, approved October 27, 1849, embraced that part of Minnesota bordering on lake Superior and reaching west to the upper Mississippi river and the Lake of the Woods. It was quite large enough for a good-sized state. From this area were subsequently carved out three whole counties, St. Louis, Lake, and Cook, and parts of Aitkin and Beltrami, leaving the county of Itasca yet large enough to make several fair-sized counties.

St. Louis county was established by acts of the territorial legislature which were approved March 3, 1855, and March 1,