The History of the St. Vincent Weather Station: 1880-1892

The St. Vincent weather station was established by the War Department circa 1880.  During the period of 1880 to July 1891, it was under the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce and Agriculture. 

St. Vincent was one of the three stations that were instrumental in reporting conditions on June 16, 1887, the day a major tornado hit Grand Forks, ND/East Grand Forks, MN - “Reshaping the Tornado Belt”  

Beginning in July 1891, weather services were established under the new Weather Bureau, and taken from the War Department and becoming part of the Department of Agriculture. St. Vincent remained an active weather station within the Weather Bureau until around 1940. 

Initially, the St. Vincent Signal Station, under the U.S. Army, was manned by soldiers from Fort Pembina.  From 1891 forward, civilian federal employees under the Department of Agriculture took over.  Many observers worked in St. Vincent over the years - men with last names of Day, Frank, Baldwin, Cobb, and Ellis - among others.   

St. Vincent Signal Station daily barometric pressure, temperature, and wind speed readings, for September 1885.

[Click to enlarge and more easily read…]

Cover of July 1885 monthly report, for St. Vincent, Minn. Signal Station.

[Click to enlarge and more easily read…]

April 1885 Monthly Meteorological Report for St. Vincent, Minn. Signal Station.

Sources:

National Archives [War Department. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce and Agriculture. St. Vincent (Minnesota) Weather Station. (Ca. 1883-07/01/1891)]

Fort Pembina Airport

When Pembina decided to throw an “after threshing celebration” on September 27, 1919, Lt. Vernon Omlie of Grafton was booked to “...give a number of airplane flights."  

Pembina would figure prominently in the history of aviation in Pembina County. Twelve years after Omlie’s 1919 flights, officials from United States and Canada “joined hands with chiefs of the Northwest Airways, Inc. in dedicating Fort Pembina Airport as the first international airport in the world.” ¹ Northwest began making regular flights out of Pembina for a number of years (until the airport was sold to the Whelan family in 1945...) 

- From Saga of Pembina County:  150 Years, by Jim Benjaminson ©2020

Fort Pembina Airport, was mentioned in Appendix C of the 1935 issue of the Journal of Air Law & Commerce Vol. 6 Issue 1, as an ''airport of entry" along the Canadian border. 

Fort Pembina Airport, municipal. AIRPORT OF ENTRY. One mile S. of Pembina on State Highway No. 81. Latitude 48° 57'; longitude 97° 15'. Alt. 790 feet. Square, 2,640 by 2,640 feet, clay, level, artificial drainage. FORT PEMBINA AIRPORT embedded in field, N.W.A. on hangar roof. Hangar and trees to E.; pole line to E. , obstruction lighted. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only. Medium powered radio range, KCDN, identifying signal “PB” ( .--. -... ) operating frequency 242 kc. 

- Airport and Landing Fields in the United States, Bureau of Air Commerce (January 1, 1938)

Trivia: Buell Edwin Blake, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in May 1937 right after graduating from high school. "He had a tattoo saying USN 1937-41...He was a Radioman² 3rd class at that time [during WWII]. Later went on to be an Air Traffic Controller in Pembina," said his son, Gary Blake.  

[Buell would meet his future wife during this time - Jeanne Short, daughter of Gail & Eliza Short of Short's Cafe...]

In Journal of Air Law & Commerce (Vol. 10, Issue 2 - 1939), Pembina was listed as a site that needed an established "...pilot-balloon station; and to Install Weather Bureau meteorological personnel."

¹: Despite official Northwest Airlines history saying it wasn't until 1928...

²: Why did airliners of old require radio operators? 

One answer has touched on a major reason - Morse code operations. 

In the earliest days of aeronautical radio communications, the airborne equipment and procedures were patterned after the very well-adapted and successful maritime radio system. 

The main differences were that the equipment usually was lower-powered and light-weight. 

This state-of-affairs extended through both WWI and the 1920s, so radio-equipped aircraft used primarily MF radiotelegraphy handled by a radio operator just like the ships. 

But the rapid evolution of radio in the early 1930s changed all this. 

Small and lightweight radiotelephony receivers and transmitters using the new HF frequency range became available, and were installed even in small and medium-sized aircraft.

Where was Fort Pembina?

Location of Fort Pembina:  All of section 16, 17 and 18. Township one hundred and sixty three (63), North Range Number 51, West of the 5th Principal Meridian. Site selected for post is on section 16 immediately on the Red River of the North one and one fourth miles above (South) of the mouth of the Pembina River.

The post would be situated about two hundred yards from the Red River at low water. The location was chosen because it was the highest point near the Red River, having not flooded since 1851. Section seventeen was chosen because it could provide hay and pasturage, and section eighteen because it had the best stand of timber within five miles of the mouth of the Pembina.  

From "History of Fort Pembina 1870-1895" (William D. Thomson thesis, 1968, UND.)

Below: Military Reservation Plans for Fort Pembina, Dakota Territory, showing blacksmith and carpenter shops, as well as officers and company quarters, kitchens and bake house, gardens, stables, hospital, magazine, and trader/sutler [think old-fashioned PX...]

Postscript to the U.S.-Dakota War

by Curt Brown [Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 8, 2015]

Shakopee, left, and Medicine Bottle were hanged three years
after the U.S.-Dakota War because military leaders wanted to
prove they finished the job.     [Source:  Minnesota Historical Society]

They were the last two high-profile holdouts.

The bloody U.S.-Dakota War had been over for three years. Thirty-eight Dakota men had been hanged in Mankato. But white military and political leaders weren’t satisfied.

They felt they had to show, once and for all, that they’d handled the Indian problem and the frontier was back in business for immigrant settlers who could replenish the fledgling Minnesota economy.

So just after noon on Nov. 11, 1865, 425 soldiers marched in formation to surround a specially constructed double gallows at Fort Snelling.

More than 400 St. Paul citizens turned out 150 years ago to watch the hangings of two Dakota leaders: Medicine Bottle and Shakopee. They had eluded soldiers for years, escaping across the Canadian border to Manitoba with more than 500 Dakota refugees from the war.

John McKenzie was the man who drugged Little Six (aka Shakopee) and Medicine Bottle after the Sioux massacre and brought them in this condition from Manitoba and delivered them to Major E. A. C. Hatch. Knowing the frailty of Little Six, who was a different man from the old chief Little Six, his father, McKenzie left a bottle of drugged whisky with a woman at the house which he was accustomed to visit, knowing that his greedy appetite would ferret it out. The artifice succeeded, and Little Six and Medicine Bottle were tried and hung at Fort Snelling for killing Philander Prescott. - History Of The Minnesota Valley, Scott County History Archives, 1882

Their flight ended in January 1864, when Shakopee and Medicine Bottle stopped by the home of a white friend near Winnipeg’s Fort Garry. That "friend" - Canadian trader, John McKenzie - was secretly in cahoots with a U.S. Army major across the border in what would become Pembina, N.D.

McKenzie plied both Indian leaders with alcohol laced with drugs. Shakopee, then in his 50s, was dosed with chloroform and rendered unconscious. Medicine Bottle, in his mid-30s, struggled longer but several men subdued him. Both Dakota men were tied to dog sleds and taken to Pembina, then Fort Abercrombie, en route to Fort Snelling.

The Minnesota Legislature forked out $1,000 — big money in the 1860s — to McKenzie as a bounty. Trials were held and both men were convicted despite sketchy evidence that they had committed atrocities during the war. They were blamed in the death of Philander Prescott, 60, who had lived among the Dakota for more than 40 years. He was beheaded on the first day of the war as he fled toward Fort Ridgely.

“It would have been more creditable if some tangible evidence of their guilt had been obtained,” said an editorial in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, published the day before the hangings.

The newspaper said “no serious injustice will be done by the execution,” but warned of a dangerous precedent of “hanging without proving.” Saying the men were probably guilty of murder, the paper nevertheless pointed out that “no white man, tried by a jury of his peers, would be executed upon the testimony thus produced.”

President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated seven months earlier. He had stepped in to reduce the number of Dakota men hanged in Mankato from 303 to 38.

One of Medicine Bottle’s descendants, Dakota researcher and filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild, insists Lincoln would have halted the hangings. But the president’s successor, Andrew Johnson, quickly approved the executions of Medicine Bottle and Shakopee.

When Shakopee and Medicine Bottle were captured in Manitoba, a French Jesuit priest and missionary named Augustin Ravoux baptized them and administered their Last Rites, accompanying them up until their final moments on November 11, 1865.

Wolfchild, 68, lives in Morton, Minn., and has produced a film about the era that saw his ancestors swept from the area five generations ago.

After their hangings, some of the witnesses ran up and cut off pieces of the nooses for souvenirs. St. Paul photographer Joel Whitney snapped glass-plate images showing white caskets at the feet of the dangling men.

Wolfchild says rocks went in the caskets that were buried in a nearby cemetery, with onlookers thinking they had witnessed the interments of important Dakota figures.

Their bodies, instead, were taken away in a horse-drawn cart at the behest of two doctors with offices near 7th and Jackson Streets in St. Paul. Some accounts say the doctors dug up the bodies the next day.

Wolfchild says Shakopee’s body was preserved in a wooden whiskey barrel and sent to a Philadelphia medical school where a professor Pancoast used it in anatomy lessons. St. Paul doctors dissected Medicine Bottle’s body.

“Who is the savage here?” Wolfchild asks. “Running to the scaffold to get a piece of the rope? The bottom line is they had to dehumanize us to where we were little more than beasts so they could get rid of us.”

Wolfchild says that his grandfather five generations ago, Medicine Bottle, didn’t die instantly when his body dropped at the Fort Snelling gallows.

While Shakopee’s neck snapped immediately, he said, Medicine Bottle dangled for 10 minutes before dying.

“He was saying: ‘We don’t die like that. You cannot kill us with a rope,’ ” Wolfchild said. He’s trying to find any remains that might still exist of the two men, pointing to the Missing In Action banners popular since soldiers went missing in the Vietnam War.

“We feel the same way about our ancestors, they are missing in action and their bodies are in universities, museums and private homes,” he said, “waiting for proper burials so they can continue their journey to the spirit world.”

Scaffold:  Shakopee and Medicine Bottle, moments after the execution
[Photographer:  Joel Emmons Whitney - Source:  Minnesota Historical Society]

Ox Cart Trails: WOODS BRANCH

The oxcart trail on the open prairie. Photo courtesy Wadena County Historical Society 

History of the Woods Branch of the Red River Trails (1844-1870)
Written By: John Crandall, Special to Wadena Pioneer Journal | Oct 30th 2019 - 7am.

Commencing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada the Red River Trail squirreled its way down the Red River Valley and down the Minnesota River Valley to Mendota and later St. Paul, Minn. Thus began a half century of commerce between the Selkirk colonies in Manitoba, Canada and St. Paul.

In 1812 Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk was granted thousands of square miles of land in Manitoba where the Assiniboine River and the Red River meet (Winnipeg) by the Hudson Bay Company (HBC), which had been founded in England in 1670. Portions of this land grant extended West and Southwest into what we know today as Minnesota and North Dakota. Selkirk dreamed of establishing an agricultural colony for Scottish settlers in the New World. But the Earle’s dreams would not continue peacefully. It only infuriated the Northwest Fur Company.

With the British traders entrenched in the region around Hudson Bay, the struggle for the soul of the interior of North America and the riches provided by the lucrative fur trade industry began.

The French traders and voyageurs began exploring the Great Lakes and west at the start of the 18th century, establishing many fur posts along the waterways that followed the future Canadian and American boundaries. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ending the French and Indian War (1754-1763) France gave up over a century of control of Canada to England.

With the French relinquishing their claim to Canada, exploration and trade began to expand into the interior of America. First, in 1784 came the reorganization of the Northwest Fur Company (NWC), which sought to challenge the monopoly the Hudson Bay Company had on the fur trade industry. Between 1783 and 1821, there was an immense increase in the amount of bloodshed and open hostility between the HBC and NWC ending only after the two companies merged in 1821. Secondly, came President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Even after the end of the American Revolution, the northern boundary of the newly formed American States was unclear. The British continued their incursions into the Red River Valley. It wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that America put a total end to the British occupancy of the United States. In order to stop British traders from enticing the Native Americans to continue trading with them, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun convinced Congress to build a contingency of forts along the Mississippi River and West to the Yellowstone River to protect American interest. In 1819 construction of Fort Snelling commenced.

"On the 3rd of August, 1818 - three weeks after the arrival of the missionaries - clouds of grasshoppers descended on the fields, and in a trice devoured nearly everything. The few grains of wheat remaining barely sufficed to seed the garden-bed farms the following spring. To add to the misfortune, the grasshoppers deposited their eggs, thus insuring another scourge the next year..." 

"...the grasshoppers had again devastated the fields, this time destroying all vegetation, even to the bark of the trees."

- Father Provencher  

During the first two decades of the 19th century the Red River colonists became more disgruntled with the Hudson Bay’s monopolistic control of trade. In addition, several years of grasshopper blights and the inability to obtain seed for planting prompted the residents of the Red River colonies to begin looking south to Fort Snelling. So, in 1821 the first group of Red River settlers migrated to Fort Snelling and were allowed to settle on the Fort Snelling military reservation. This was to be the first of numerous migrations that would use the Red River Trails as an avenue for reaching and establishing trade with American traders at Mendota.

In 1823 Major Stephen Long reached the settlement of Pembina (in what is now North Dakota) while on an explorative mission to determine where the 49th parallel lay. Upon determining the boundary between Canada and U.S., it became clear that Pembina now resided on U.S. soil. So, the tie that binds was broken between the Red River Colonies and Hudson Bay Company.

Throughout the first part of the 19th century little trade flowed south along the Red River and Minnesota River Valleys. The trickle of traffic that did traverse the Red River Trail during this time frame were seeking a safe haven from the horrific violence between HBC and NWFC. Once migration between Pembina and Fort Snelling began in full swing it would peak around 1826, but continued well into the 1830s and 1840s.

"...the fight for the fur trade was suicidal. As competition with the Hudson's Bay Company intensified, the Nor'Westers kidnapped Indian trappers, laid siege to bay posts, terrorized women and children. Dozens of bay men were murdered. The solution, Mackenzie said, was to merge the two companies before they destroyed one other."

- Empire of the Bay

When given their royal charter in 1670 the Hudson Bay Company was given total monopolistic control of all commerce occurring within their jurisdiction. As the population in the Red River Valley increased, HBC began placing higher prices on their goods and less compensation for the furs traded. In time, the Red River Colonist began to seek other sources for conducting trade.

Upon arrival of the American Fur Company in the valley, the Red River Colonies’ chance came. With the American Fur Company absorbing the holdings of the Columbia Fur Company in 1827, the American Fur Company acquired full control of the fur posts that the Columbia Fur Company had along the Minnesota and South Dakota border linking them to the Red River Valley.

During the 1830s, with an increasing growth of settlers in the Red River region and increased production of furs and agricultural products the Hudson Bay Company could not keep pace with the economy. This overflow of productivity induced the Colony traders to seek closer connections to the traders located at Mendota.

With an ever-present increase of settlers in and around Fort Snelling, the American government became increasingly concerned. With negotiation of the Treaty of 1837 with the Dakota and Chippewa, large tracts of land were opened east of the Mississippi River for white settlement. With increasing concerns about the number of settlers homesteading on military land, the government, in 1840, concluded a survey of their holdings around Fort Snelling. The results showed many Red River colonists residing on a military reservation. In the end, the Federal Government expelled them from their homes, forcing them across the river to what was to become St. Paul, and eventually the commercial hub for Red River trade.

The Red River Oxcart trail began its journey south from Winnipeg linking with Pembina and then followed a network of trails south on both sides of the Red River and eventually crossing the continental divide at Lake Traverse. Upon arriving at Big Stone Lake, the trail turned eastward and followed the Minnesota River into St. Paul.

The Valley of the Red River traversed by traders from Pembina to St. Paul was land that had been in contention between the Dakota and Chippewa for over a century. The incursion of the Ojibway into Minnesota and Dakota land began in the 1700s. By the early 1800s the Sioux had been pushed south of the Minnesota River. The Dakota still claimed the Long Prairie and Sauk Valleys as their hunting grounds after tragic losses.

With trade beginning to increase between the Red River colonies and Mendota, this area became an area of concern for the Federal Government. In 1825, the administration tried to work out a demarcation line between Dakota and Chippewa holdings. The line ran from St. Paul on the Minnesota River northwesterly to present day Moorhead, Minn., but to no avail.

As hostilities between the Chippewa and the Dakota fluctuated over the decades it became apparent to the Red River traders that alternate routes should be established in order to avoid conflicts. The middle route was established early in the 1840’s starting at Breckenridge, Minn., and heading east, skirting the northern boundary of Dakota, holding in Minnesota, and followed the Sauk Valley, terminating at St. Cloud, Minn., on the Mississippi River. After fording the river, the Middle trail followed the east bank into St. Paul.

A photo of a group of oxcart travelers taking a rest along the Red River Trail. Photo courtesy Wadena County Historical Society

Although easy to follow, the Minnesota Valley trail and the Middle Branch of the Red River trail traversed land held by the Dakota. Most of the Teamsters that handled the oxcarts were “Mixed Blood” or “Metis” with ancestral ties to the Ojibway who were long standing enemies of the Dakota. One such conflict occurred in 1844 when a group of Metis attacked a Dakota hunting party and killed them.

As news of the attack reached St. Paul, a group of Red River traders who had arrived earlier became stranded in St. Paul. So, in 1844, Peter Garrioch or William Halliet, depending upon which source you read, decided that they needed to find a safer route, which would take them through Chippewa lands thus avoid any contact with the Dakota. Following the Mississippi River, the party traveled northwest to the Village of Crow Wing situated on the Mississippi River and across from the mouth of the Crow Wing River. Here, fording the Mississippi, they began their trail following the Crow Wing River. Upon fording the Crow Wing River at the sight of what would become “Old Wadena” they followed the Leaf River west. The only real forested area of the Woods Branch was the region from Detroit Lakes to Crow Wing Village.

Over the years some changes were made to the Woods Trail. In 1855, Congress passed an appropriation of $10,000 for building a military road from Fort Ripley, established in 1848, to improve travel conditions. The original survey of the route took place in 1858 and followed the Woods Branch all the way to Pembina.

At a point known as Grand Marais, a swampy area some 8 miles east of “Old Wadena,” completion of the road halted because the government had not appropriated enough funds for completion of the route.

In 1857 an economic panic hit the United States. To improve trade relations with the Red River Valley settlements, a study of steamboat navigation on the Red River was taken. The study reported that the Red River could be open for steamboat navigation for five months. The result of this study prompted the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce to post a $1,000 bonus to any man who could get a steamboat on the Red River. Anson Northrup proposed building a boat for such a purpose. In the fall of 1857 Northrup’s vessel, the North Star made an extensive excursion up the Mississippi to Pokegama Falls, (near present day Grand Rapids, MN). Upon returning down the Mississippi River, the North Star ended up being docked at Crow Wing Village. There Northrup began the construction of the steamer he would transport over land to the Red River. He loaded the machinery, cabin, furniture and lumber to build the boat, on 34 teams and with sixty men started for Lafayette on the Red River. (“Opening of the Red River of the North to Commerce and Civilization” MN Historical Society collections, Vol III, 1898). The route Northrup used for transporting his boat was the Woods Branch of the Red River Oxcart Trail, which took them right through “Old Wadena”. The “Anson Northrup” was launched in the spring of 1858.

During the 1860s, commerce along the Woods Branch dwindled and when the Northern Pacific Railroad company extended its railway from Brainerd through Wadena County in 1871, the era of the oxcarts was dead.

In Pembina, History is the Attraction

A historic postcard touts Pembina's attractions. 

[Photo Credit: State Historical Society of North Dakota/Digital Horizons]

Pembina, N.D., has accumulated a cast of characters and logged a number of firsts that belie its current existence as a town of 600 people.

By: Mike Jacobs (Grand Forks Herald Publisher Emeritus) | July 21, 2019

PEMBINA, N.D. – History is the attraction in Pembina and there is a lot of it – more than 200 years of it.

A look at the map of North America shows why this is so.

Pembina is close to the center of the continent, and a direct line drawn from northeast to southwest would pass between two of the continent’s great watersheds, one feeding Hudson’s Bay and the other the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Plus, it’s near the source of the continent’s greatest river, the Mississippi, flowing southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

Draw an international boundary across this expanse and history – dramatic, sweeping history – becomes inevitable in Pembina.

Frank "Chicken Stalker" Dickens & Fort Dufferin

Francis J. Dickens, second from the right

From Wayne Arseny, former mayor of Emerson:

I think of the latrine at Fort Dufferin and once read something about it being a 3-hole toilet. To me that was a rare oddity, and kooky as it sounds to write about, something people would want to see inside for themselves after reading it on a sign. 

As a kid we only had an outdoor biffy (one hole style) but when you went to community halls or schools you often saw 4-hole ones. So why was Fort Dufferin only three? So many reasons to guess on why they had to make them that way. I also read in the diary from Francis Dickens, one of the first NWMP officers - and son of the famous writer, Charles Dickens - of men going out to use the biffy in the night with their primitive lanterns on a windy night. The toilets were made from recycled lumber which often had poor fitting boards leaving gaping holes. 

As the wind swirled around the building he said it was often so windy inside the biffy that the lamp blew out. Sitting there in their long underwear with no pockets and no match to relight the lantern, making their way back to the sleeping quarters was difficult in total darkness. No yard lights or lanterns left burning in the building as a guide. So he said they strung a rope on short posts from the biffy to the main house.  A man would just follow the rope back to not get lost.

From Dufferin: Then and Now (Manitoba History, Spring 1992):

In 1874, when Northwest Mounted Police Inspector Francis Dickens arrived at Dufferin, an outpost along the west side of the Red River near the Manitoba-U.S. Border, he was angry and upset, first because he had arrived too late to take part in the original trek west, and second because he would have to remain at what he considered one of the most unpleasant places in the entire British Empire. [1] George A. French, the first commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, described the site [Fort Dufferin/Emerson area], where he would assemble nearly 300 people in preparation for a march into Canada’s far west, as a “small shanty town surrounded by a few brothels and grog shops.” [2] 

1.  E. Nicol, (ed), Dickens of the Mounted (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989). A series of letters written by Francis Dickens during his stay in the North West Mounted Police. Although often full of disdain for the physical situation he was placed in, these letters provide an insight into the conditions of the time as well as the character and personality of the writer.  

2.  G. A. French, Diary, July 8 - November 7, 1874.

From the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:

His superiors consistently rated him as lazy, alcoholic, and unfit to be an officer in the NWMP.

From Lesser Expectations:  Charles Dickens' Son in North America - Amusing anecdotes:

Calculating that the free time he would have in Toronto would be the last until he was subject to the rigours of military service and a prairie winter that was still beyond his imagination, Dickens indulged in more than his share of intoxicants. Two days behind schedule, he caught the train for Chicago. He chastised himself for his foolishness and took no more alcohol until he reached Pembina. He arrived in a cold spell in late October and Dickens had never felt a chill as bitter as that of the prairies. Like all frontier towns, Pembina contained more than its share of rogues, swells, and desperadoes, wonderful characters whom Dickens found enchanting. He again succumbed to temptation, easily taken in by new-found friends and took what he considered to be a modest amount of brandy to ward off the frigid winds of late fall. This was a momentary lapse, but it launched him into a wave of comradeship with the peculiar people who populated the local saloons. It was three days before he realized with alarm that he would be unable to make the planned rendezvous...

Pembina County at 150: Ferries & Bridges

Last year, Pembina County celebrated its Sesquicentennial.  In celebration of this, local historian Jim Benjaminson wrote an ongoing series of historical essays for the local newspaper entitled Pembina County at 150.  Jim has shared some of them with us here on St. Vincent Memories before.  Today we're sharing one on a subject we've been discussing on our Facebook page recently...

Ferries and Bridges

To the fur traders of the late 1700's and early 1800's the Red River and its tributaries were their “highways”. As permanent settlers began infiltrating the area establishing farms and communities, the rivers were at first an asset – but as more and more settlers took up permanent residence further away from the main streams, the rivers began to take on a new persona – they began to be more of a hindrance than anything. As trails became roads, crossing rivers and streams became a challenge and a chore. From 1859 on, as steam boats began to ply the Red the movement of goods was made considerably easier, despite the fact river travel consumed over 395 miles from Breckenridge to the International Border despite land routes that totaled under 200 miles. But river travel wasn't always dependable. For at least 5 months of the year, the river was frozen over and in other years, the water level was too low to allow passage of the steamers between river communities.

Amazing as it may seem, crossing the Red into Minnesota meant at least a day's journey to either Winnipeg or Grand Forks even as late as 1910. The pages of the early Pembina County Commissioners books are filled with requests from county residents “praying for funds” to establish either a road or a bridge crossing in various locations of the county. But there was at least one other option – establishment of a ferry service between the two states.

At least three ferry franchises were authorized by the County Commissioners over the years. One of the earliest references found in the Commission records is dated April 13, 1872 which granted D.F. Brawley a ten-year franchise for a ferry at Pembina, for which Brawley agreed to pay Pembina County $26 a year for the privilege; G.F. Keney was awarded the Grand Forks ferry franchise at $50 a year. Ten years later, on page 60 of commission records, Robert Tweedlie of Drayton was granted a three-year franchise, effective October 2, 1882 through October 2, 1885 paying a franchise fee of just $10 per year to the county – by late August of 1883 the Pioneer Express was running the following: “Wanted, a good man to run the Drayton Ferry”!

Apparently the Pembina franchise was worth considerably more than the Drayton franchise, as commission records show (on page 90) James Airth of Pembina agreed to pay Pembina County $75 per year for three-years, effective January 1, 1883 through January 1, 1886 – placing his ferry in service April 23, 1883.

Exactly when Pembina County relinquished issuing franchises in favor of the cities (and how the franchise was honored from the Minnesota side of the river) is unclear. D.F. Brawley, a St. Vincent resident had been awarded a ferry franchise which was revoked by the Minnesota Legislature in January of 1878. Brawley would be involved in other dealings with the government when he sued the military over a contract he held for supplying cord word to Fort Pembina (he lost the suit). At the Pembina Council meeting of April 1, 1889, tenders to operate the ferry between Pembina and St. Vincent were offered by P. L. Messareur [Note from Trish:  Could this be a misspelling of Philip Le Masurier's name?] for $160 for the year of 1889; Wilbur Kerns tendered an offer of $156 per year for three years while Alex Airth offered $169 per year for three years. The franchise was granted to Airth.

Although details are lacking, Pembina County jail records record that William O'Keefe was arrested and jailed January 19, 1881, as was James L. Fisk for “establishing, maintaining and running an illegal ferry in North Dakota”. The next day, January 20, J. Rich was also arrested and charged as was W. W. Nicholas on January 21st. Whether these men were interlopers from Minnesota or just trying to worm their way into the ferry business has not been discovered – nor has any court disposition! One has to question why they were arrested in January when there obviously was no ferry service!

Guest Essay: The Story of West Lynn

West Lynne, Manitoba townsite, today.

The Story of West Lynne and the First Customs House in Western Canada 
by James McClelland

To  say that the oldest federal building in southern Manitoba had a diverse and chequered past would be an understatement. According to the old Winnipeg Telegram, this building was originally built in the 1850s. The design and architecture were similar to buildings found in the Acadian region of Canada. The article describes the building as "20x26, and made from hewn oak timbers, dove tailed at the corners." Later this building would serve as a symbol of Canadian sovereignty and a floodgate against Yankee commerce.

Today it sits just 500m north of the border it guarded for so long.

The line separating the United States from British territory had always been vague and tentative. Agreement that the 49th parallel would record the western boundary was established as early as 1818, but its exact location tended to shift each time a party had been sent out to survey it. Between 1823 and 1870 three different boundary lines had been drawn; all of them controversial.

In the 1840s, agitation began to develop along this line between the free traders from the Red River Settlement and the Hudson Bay Company officials at Fort Garry. In 1843, the first regular cart service between Pembina and St. Paul was opened. This provided easy access to the American markets. This bickering heightened as more Red River traders sought the higher American prices. It intensified in 1845 when Norman Kittson, an American Trader, opened a store just a scant 4km south of British Territory, at the junction of the Red and the Pembina Rivers.

The door of American commerce was beckoning. In fact, Kittson offered such good prices for fur that the ensuing rush of illegal trade from British Territory was referred to by the HBC as "Kittson’s Fever". As a counter-move in September of 1845, the Hudson Bay Company opened a post called North Fort Pembina. It was located on what they considered their side of the line. The Company put John Palmer Bourke, a retired officer living in the colony, in charge of this new frontier post.

During the winter of 1845-46, Robert Clouston, an employee from the Stone Fort visited this place. In his journal, he described these Spartan surroundings.

"Mr. Bourke has a rough log house, the walls of which, inside and outside are plastered with clay, and the roof covered with earth - it is floored with rough logs: the men live in the same house, with merely a partition between them - a mud chimney in each room and a door opening from Mr. B's apartment to his trading room"

The following day Clouston visited Kittson's store. The uncertainty of the exact spot where American and British authority met is noted in his diary:

"About quarter of a mile above the house (the HBC store) we saw a post planted by Major Long - marking the boundary at a place called Monroe’s Encampment some wag had pulled up the post of demarcation and placed Uncle Sam's initials toward British territory." 

Clouston later reported that Kittson's store was about 3 kms farther south. Here, between Kittson's store and the HBC post, the log house was originally located.

From these squalid beginnings the HBC post at the border continued to develop. A sketch from 1858, shows several log buildings surrounded by a sturdy log palisade.

However, the strip of land between North Pembina and Kittson’s store quickly developed into a "no-man's land." Other buildings sprang up and an unsavory frontier community known as Huron City was born. A few years later the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba would complain to Ottawa about the rowdy brawling atmosphere and the flourishing trade in whiskey smuggling that was going on in this "Whisky Post". By this time, the log building, had been turned into an inn.

Unquestionably, many travelers passed through the doors of this establishment, but two guests in particular played a very important role in the creation of Manitoba. In the autumn of 1869, the Hon. Wm. McDougall, the Governor designate of Rupert's Land, stayed here briefly after he was denied entry into the Red River Settlement by Louis Riel's metis guards. In December, McDougall would return to the deserted post and read a Proclamation declaring himself the official lieutenant-governor of the region. Ironically, in August of the following year, Louis Riel himself found momentary refuge in the same building after his hasty escape from Fort Garry.


On July 1, 1871, F. T. Bradley arrived to become Collector of Customs. The log building, empty at the time, became Manitoba's first regular Customs House. It also served as a telegraph, express and postal office. Yet, in October 1871, one of the most bizarre events in Canadian history had yet to unfold on these premises.

Hugh O'Lone & The Red Saloon

Hugh O'Lone, 1870

Kootenai Brown,1895

John George "Kootenai" Brown's reference to “Bob O'Lone” in his memoir, "I Remember" ... is interesting, for in the famous portrait of Louis Riel and his Council of 1869-70, early descriptions of the photo identified Bob O’Lone as the man seated in the front row to Riel’s right. This version of the photo was incorporated into the works of many of the early Red River historians such as R. G. MacBeth. This figure was later correctly identified by G. F. G. Stanley as Hugh Francis "Bob" O’Lone. He was in the whisky business; he was “the American who ran a saloon in Winnipeg.” This was apparently the Red Saloon, recalled by A. C. Garrioch: “Three years later when the writer moved to St. John’s he found the Red Saloon contributing very considerably to the business of the little village.” Bob O’Lone had continued in the liquor business and was the proprietor: “No spot in Winnipeg was so often the scene of a drunken row as that occupied by the Red Saloon.”




A common misconception about Hugh Francis O'Lone is that he was the brother of a saloon keeper named Robert O‘Lone. In fact Hugh WAS the saloon keeper - his nickname was "Bob", and he did not have a brother named Robert.

Early Winnipeg; O'Lone's saloon, aka the Red Saloon, in center...

During this time, Brown lived the kind of dangerous life that tended to be his trademark. He was captured by Sitting Bull and only his wits and luck removed him from this delicate situation. He finished his contract with the U.S. Army in the spring of 1869, and then moved to Fort Burfurd, further to the west, in response to the quickly consolidating American frontier. His task was to maintain communications between Fort Burford, Fort Stevenson, and Fort Totten near Devil’s Lake. It was during the course of a parallel scouting assignment for the U.S. Army, headed by Major General W. S. Hancock, that Brown found himself in Pembina on the Red River in the fall of 1869.

Customers in front of the Red Saloon owned by Bob O’Lone, Red River, 1869.
Source: Archives of Manitoba

O'Lone participated in the 16 November 1869 Convention of Twenty-four. He enlisted as a 2nd Lieut. in the Settlement guard under Ambroise-Dydime Lépine. He was an Honourable Member of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniobia in the same capacity. In February of 1871 a notice of Hugh‘s impending demise appeared in the Manitoba News-letter, owned by John C. Schultz, a declared enemy of everything to do with the Provisional Government:

Badly Hurt.—Hugh O‘Lone (better known here as Bob), a General in the rebel force of last winter, got into an altercation with some American half-breeds at Pembina, about a fort-night ago, and got so severely hurt on the head that the U.S. Post-Surgeon at Pembina, declined to perform the Surgical operation necessary to ensure recovery without assistance. There being no medical man nearer than Fort Garry, assistance was sought here, and Dr. Turver went on Monday evening and gave the patient the benefit of his professional skill. 

On 7 March 1871 the Saint Paul Daily Pioneer reported that Hugh F.  "Bob" Olone had been killed by a blow to the head from a revolver in early January. In the opinion of historians such as A.H. de Trémaudan and Ruth Swan, O'Lone‘s death was one of several assassinations meted out not by Métis, but by Canadian troops after their arrival in August of 1870, as retribution for the execution of Thomas Scott.

Bibliography:

 - “Kootenai” Brown in the Red River Valley" by Graham A. MacDonald, Manitoba History, Number 30, Autumn 1995) 

 - Hon. Hugh Francis Olone, Town of Winnipeg; Do Canadian History blog, 7 March 2011.

The Men Who Built Fort Pembina: William Nash

Portrait of Nash, Compendium of
  History & Biography of North Dakota,
Geo. A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1900

WILLIAM C. NASH enjoyed the distinction of being the first to settle in the vicinity of Grand Forks; but before that, among other things:

He was engaged in carrying United State mail in the early days from Fort Abercrombie to Pembina, and used dogs and sleds for the purpose, and he served four years as postmaster in East Grand Forks... 

He then accompanied General Hatch on his campaign through the northwest after Indians, and accompanied the expedition as far as Pembina, spending the winters of 1863-64 in Fort Garry and Pembina, and while there acted as agent for the government, and succeeded in bringing Little Six and Medicine Bottle, two Indian chiefs, back to the United States under arrest.

[Source: Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota, Geo. A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1900]

The following fall, he was appointed sutler at Fort Abercrombie, and held that position five years, during which time he was contracting.  In 1870¹ he helped build the post at Pembina, making the first brick used in Dakota.

____________________
¹ - Prior to 1870 the Hudson Bay company had absolute control of practically all the trading interests west of the Canadian provinces. They even appointed the governor for Prince Rupert’s land, which, until the boundary was established in 1823 by Long’s expedition, was held to embrace much of present day North Dakota. A portion of the Selkirk settlement of 1812 was on American soil, as indeed was the old fort of Capt. Henry, and even later establishments. The old policy was to confine their business principally to the fur trade, but when Donald O. Smith succeeded Governor McTavish it was to trade with all the people.

Boundary Markers: "Soup Plates"

In the September of 1872, some two-hundred and fifty astronomers, blacksmiths, cooks, engineers, medics for the work animals and the working humans, naturalists, surveyors, topographers, wheelwrights, and woodworkers, gathered at the small isolated town of Pembina two degrees south of the parallel. When their American counterparts, flanked by the United States cavalry, arrived, the five-hundred members of the North American Boundary Commission were united in common cause. - From Beneath My Feet

George Mercer Dawson

A few months back, a friend of Jake Rempel - who is also a friend (and a fellow local historian) of this blog's writer - found a dish in an old basement north of Fort Dufferin near modern day Emerson, Manitoba.

How it got there is not known. Oral history has it that the building that used to be upon the foundation, was once a bar and a house of pleasure.

Boundary Marker Plate

Jake said, "I know they used different types of steel markers; I am not sure what they used right in the beginning, pole markers of some kind. George Mercer Dawson followed the survey crew and seems to have placed soup plates as each marker. This reference (below) in his book, Beneath My Feet, is all I have found about this type of marker..."

From George Mercer Dawson's Beneath My Feet

There is still an International Boundary Commission to this day. They describe their ongoing mission "...as maintaining the boundary in an effective state of demarcation. This is done by inspecting it regularly; repairing, relocating or rebuilding damaged monuments or buoys; keeping the vista cleared, and erecting new boundary markers at such locations as new road crossings."

The Dead of Fort Pembina

Some of the graves that were originally in the Fort Pembina Cemetery.
In anticipation of Fort Pembina (1870-1895) closing, the graves were  
disinterred and reburied at the Custer National Cemetery in 1892.

When Fort Pembina existed (1870-1895), it was in a sense its own town, almost entirely self-sufficient. That included having its own cemetery.

As Fort Pembina's time was winding down, the U.S. Army knew it would need to find a new home for the graves at the Fort's cemetery.  It was determined they would be disinterred, then transferred for reburial, to the Custer National Cemetery.  This was accomplished in 1892.

I recently became curious about whether the Fort had its own cemetery or not, and that's when I learned about the above after doing the initial research.  That wasn't enough for me - I had to know more.

I eventually learned that prior to Fort Pembina's establishment, the people of Pembina demanded protection due to the recent Dakota Uprising of 1862 in Minnesota.  To fulfill their request, the government formed a special unit which eventually became known as Hatch's Battalion.  Mustered in 1863, the battalion was ready to head to Pembina, Dakota Territory in early October; they arrived - after many challenges and losses of stock and supplies - on November 13th.  They encamped over the winter, building as best they could log buildings for the 300 men that comprised the battalion.  Their main objective was to hold back the hostile Dakota that had retreated across the boundary into Canada.  [In the end, they captured over 300 Dakota; the prisoners were remnants of the 1862 uprising that had been hiding 60 miles north of Pembina...]

Hatch received orders in April to transfer the Battalion to Fort Abercrombie.  In that same letter, dated April 26, 1864, he was ordered to put one company on patrol duty, up and down the Red River of the North between Fort Abercrombie and Pembina, "...to protect the route to Pembina, and keep open communication."  The immediate threat had passed, but an eye would be kept on the situation with the patrols.  Meanwhile, communications and plans were coming together, to obtain authorization for what would become Fort Pembina. In 1869 Major General Winfield S. Hancock, commander of the Department of the Dakota, recommended the establishment of a post near Pembina. Lobbying by citizens and local area politicians had worked.  With General Hancock's recommendation to the War Department, the fort would finally become a reality; "...danger from the Sioux and construction of two railroads" were cited as reasons for providing military protection to the area.

During the time prior to the fort's establishment in 1870, two soldiers with Hatch's Battalion were the first to die while stationed in Pembina:

- Joseph Gague (Co. C, Hatch's Battalion) D. 24 April 1864
- John Munger (Co. A, Hatch's Battalion) D. 8 March 1864

News from the Past V: Brown & Moorhead

Pembina Pioneer Express masthead
[Courtesy:  Pembina County Historical Society]

Jim Benjaminson recently shared some excerpts from old local papers.  There is a reference to Sheriff Charley Brown in one story, and in another we even find out the likely reason for a well-known local man's nickname...

Northern Express – Drayton (R.H. Young, Editor; Weekly, published on Fridays - $2 per year)
December 9, 1881 Vol. 1 No. 1 is the first issue
(Becomes the Pioneer Express April 20, 1883 at Vol. 3 No. 38)
____________________ 

December 23, 1881 Vol. 1 No. 3 

The train loaded with some $2,000 worth of goods which Ricard Bros. sent out from here the 7th to Turtle Mountains was captured by Indians and half-breeds at or near Pembina mountains. The Indians claim the land as their own, and say that no one has the right to cross it, and therefore appropriated the goods to their own use. Sheriff Brown of Pembina was out there yesterday and found most of the goods, but could not get them as they refused to give them up. They were too many for him, so he returned for help. We understand he has gone out today with a squad of soldiers from Fort Pembina. We will give full particulars tomorrow. – Independent (Emerson, Manitoba) 

February 10, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 10 

Announcement – We announce this week our intention to remove the Northern Express to Pembina, at which place the next issue will be published. (page 1) 

February 24, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 12 

Amongst many drawbacks and inconveniences incidental to the removal of our business and the enlargement of our paper we lay before our readers this week as good a paper as we can under the circumstances.

Townsite Auction Bill

March 24, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 16 

[Indian Title to Dakota Lands – page 1]

The St. Vincent townsite company have sold their interest in that town to a Winnipeg syndicate. St. Vincent has invested $200 in a hook and ladder truck with other fire apparatus. This is a wise move which should be a reminder to this town of its duty in the promises. Of course when Pembina takes hold it will be on a larger scale. 

March 31, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 17 

Quite a number of our citizens went over to St. Vincent on Tuesday evening to attend the auction sale of town lots.

April 21, 1882 Vol 1. No. 20 

The unmistakable double-toned whistle of the steamer Selkirk was heard on Tuesday evening for the first time this season. Passengers from various points on the river improved the opportunity of making a business trip to Town and taking in interesting features of the flood along the way.

The Selkirk has had a lively business the last two days carrying freight across from St. Vincent.
The ice made a new door into the engine room of the St.Vincent elevator last Sunday. At St. Vincent the situation is becoming somewhat unpleasant. Several of the streets are covered with water. Around the Northern Hotel it is nearly a foot deep, but the higher portion of town is dry yet. 

April 28, 1882 Vol. 1 No. 21 

Moorhead has had several bets at stake including a town lot and a suit of clothes, that the water would not rise to the level of his saloon floor. He has won the bets with just a quarter of an inch to spare. 

Now we know how William Moorhead got his nickname, “High Water Bill”...!