Saint Paul: PIONEER PRINTING COMPANY. 1867....

Hon. H. H. Sibley, President of the Minnesota Historical Society : Your Committee of Publication, acting under instruction of the Executive Council, beg leave to lay before you the accompanying annual. The limited means of the Society have compelled brevity; and most of the articles selected are of local, rather than of general interest. The article on the “Mineral Regions of Minnesota” may be a matter of some general interest; but its chief interest will be with the people of our State. The “Li

The contributions to the society since the last annual report, February 22, 1866, have been as follows: O. E. Garrison , Esq., St. Cloud.—Map of Stearns county. American Antiquarian Society , Worcester Mass.—Their proceedings at their annual meeting, Oct., 21, 1865. D. W. Ingersoll , Esq., St. Paul.—A Chart, illustrating the operations of the U. S. Sanitary Commission. Hon. D. A. Robertson , St. Paul.—Thirty-four Pamphlets, relating to the city of St. Paul, and State of Minnesota—and one volume,

BY HON. H. M. RICE, OF SAINT PAUL. One hundred and twenty-one years ago there were found, north Lake of Superior, several “large lumps of the finest virgin copper.” The finder wrote: “In the honest exultation of my heart at so important a discovery, I directly showed it to the Company, (Hudson’s Bay Company) but the thanks I met with may be easily judged from the system of their conduct. The fact, without any inquiry into the reality of it, was treated as a chimerical illusion, and a stop arbitr

Though narratives of the fortunes of early explorers of a country cannot, in general, throw any light upon its history, apart from their travels in the region itself, yet such recitals or biographies may still be useful in enabling us to form juster opinions of the accounts given by the travelers of their discoveries, from the knowledge afforded as to character, attainments and position. Of the subject of this article, till within a few years, nothing was known to us, Minnesotians, beyond the li

No doubt, at the time our traveler visited the United States, more or less was said concerning him in the journals of the day; and that he was violently assailed by writers of that time is shown in his own books; but such accounts, appearing in fleeting papers, are now entirely inaccessible, and indeed would be of but little interest or value if they could be found. Hitherto, therefore, our knowledge of Beltrami was derived from three books only, which were: 1. A work, published by himself at Ne

Gabriele Rosa, of Bergamo, Lombardy, an author of note, furnished to the Review of Venice, (Revista Veneta) a couple of papers on this traveler, which appeared April 20 and 27, 1856, and were reprinted, at Bergamo, in 1861, under the title, “Of the Life and Writings of Constantine Beltrami of Bergamo, Discoverer of the Sources of the Mississippi;” (Della vita e degli scritti di Costantino Beltrami da Bergamo, scopritore delle fonti del Mississippi)—a pamphlet of 34 pages octavo. On being applied

Major Lawrence Taliaferro, of Beaufort, Penn., a soldier of 1812, who from the year 1819 to 1840, acted as Agent for Indian Affairs for the tribes of the north-west, and who yet lives in the memories of the Sioux, to whom he was known as Mahza Bakah or Iron Cutter, furnished, under date of the 4th of April, 1866, the following information concerning his friend Beltrami: “I was in Washington in 1823 relative to my official connection with the north-western tribes of Minnesota; whilst on my return

No further direct information concerning Beltrami, personally, can be added to the preceding; and enough undoubtedly has been said to fill the blank hitherto existing, and to place him properly before the people of Minnesota, to the majority of whom his name is totally unknown. There remains, however, to supplement this monograph, one more task to be performed, at some future time, when the territory he independently explored shall have been surveyed and mapped by the deputies of the General Lan

In reference to the question as to which stream we should look to for the right source of the Mississippi, the following article has been prepared by Col. Charles Whittlesey—a man well known to the reading public, not only by his explorations and contributions to the stock of knowledge concerning the geology and physical geography of the North West, but by his writings on the earthworks and other relics of the aboriginal inhabitants of the same region: “ Cleveland, O. , March 28, 1866. “Turtle L

[By Hon. H. M. Rice, of St. Paul.] On the 26th day of January, 1796, when the American Congress was in session in Philadelphia, a Bill was reported for establishing land offices for the sale of lands in the North-western Territory. It was under discussion until April of the same year in the House of Representatives. A great diversity of opinion existed; some were in favor of selling in small tracts of fifty acres—others contended that none should be surveyed or sold in less than township tracts.

Nicolas Perrot, whose name is already well known to the readers of the early history of Minnesota, was born in 1644, and repaired, at an early age, to New France, where he resided, almost habitually, from 1665 to 1689, amongst the diverse races of its most distant part—the extremity of the angle formed by the valleys of the St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi. “At first simple coureur du bois by trade (1665-1684), and interpreter incidentally (1671-1701), he was at last, under the successive gov

Car le pays du nord est la terre du monde la plus ingratte, puisque, dans quantitez d’endroits vous ne trouveriez pas un oiseau a chasser; on y ramasse cependant des bluets dans les mois d’aout et de septembre [2] .... Les Chiripinons ou Assiniboualas sement dans leurs marais quelques folles avoines qu’ils recueillent, mais ils n’en peuvent faire le transport chez eux que dans le temps de la navigation(1).... Les Kiristinons qui hantent souvent le long des bords du Lac Superieur et des grandes r

(1) “Assinipoualaks, or warriors of the rock , now Assiniboines, a Sioux tribe, which, towards the commencement of the seventeenth century, having quarrelled with the rest of the nation, was obliged to secede, and took refuge amongst the rocks (assin) of the Lake of the Woods.” (2) “The Kilistinons lived upon the banks of Lake Alimbegong, between Lake Superior and Hudson’s Bay.” (3) “ Mechingan —eastern Wisconsin and north-western Michigan.” (4) “ Kionconan —Kewenaw of the American maps.“ [Prono

It seems to be proper to allow this wakan object to take the precedence in our arrangement, as he does really in respectability. The literal signification of the name is probably lost, though it may, perhaps, signify extraordinary vital energies. In their external form, the Onktehi are said to resemble the ox, only that they are of immense proportions. This god has power to extend his horns and tail so as to reach the skies. These are the organs of his power. The dwelling place of the male is in