Old Fort Snelling

pon a world of stone barracks and Indian tepees, of tangled prairies and rushing rivers.198 The landing was directly under the cliff which towered a

n road which crept upwards along the sandstone wall-nearly as white as loaf-sugar200-wher

the picket-stockade which was so prominent a feature in earlier and ruder fortifications. Conforming to the arrangement of the buildings which it enclosed, the wall was diamond-shaped, one point being at the edge of the promontory where the valley of the Minnesota River met that of the Mississippi River. A second point was on

emaining from the days of the past. But to the soldier of Old Fort Snelling it was a more practical structure-a place of lookout from which he was often to scan the swells of the prairie for approaching Indians or returning comrades. At the second and

which was intended to accommodate two companies was divided into sets, each set having on the main floor an orderly-room and three squad-rooms, while below in the basement were a mess-room and a kitchen. The othe

OLD FORT

roduced in the Collections of the Minnesota H

OLD FORT

isting of two rooms, the front one sixteen by fourteen feet, and the back one, eight by fifteen and a half feet. In the basement were located kitchens for each set. The other building contained the offices of the comman

n the main floor and in the basement were kitchens and pantries. Other buildings were also included within the fort. The storehouse of the commissary

espects sacrificed in the effort to secure the comfort and convenience of the troops in peace. These are important considerations; but at an exposed frontier post the primary object must be security against the attack of an

adapted for mounting cannon if needful, the walls were unprovided with those weapons; and the only piece of ordnance that I detected out of the magazine, was an old churn thrust gallantly through one of the embrasures. We were howev

ght-tenths inch iron howitzers. There was also equipment for these pieces of artillery-carriages, sponges and rammers, lead aprons, dark lanterns, gunners' belts, gunners' haversacks, and tarpaulins. There were stored ready for service, 440 balls for the twelve-pounders, 1255 ba

house, the agent's house, and an armorer's shop. The original council house was built by the troops in 1823, but Agent Taliaferro claimed that most of the inside work was done at his own expense. The building was of

erpreter and his family who lived in this building barely escaped with their lives. In reporting the loss to the superintendent, Major Taliaferro wrote that the general impression here is that fire was put to the house by So

en hired at $12 per Month to cut & carry timber out of the pine Swamp for the Agency Council House.209 But in 1839 Taliaferro recommended that the ag

r and two rooms above.211 Hastily built by troops at an early day, its comforts were few. Since the Rainy Season Set in, complained the agent in 1834, both the hired Men and Myself have not had a Spot in our houses that Could be c

as built, the officers at the post allowed him to remain. Later it was sold to Kenneth McKenzie, who in 1853 built an addition, renovated the entire building, and used it as a hotel. I

he world about him-the points of scenic interest and the Indian villages. From the wooden looko

self. It is seen flowing through a comparatively open vale, with swelling hills and intermingling forest and prairie, for many miles above the point of junction. As it approaches the Mississippi, the volume of water divides into two branches; that on the right pursues the general course of the river above, and enters the Mississippi, at an angle of perhaps fifty degrees, directly under the walls of the fort; while the other, keeping to the base of the high prairie lands which rise above it to a notabl

conical tents of the wandering Sioux. A more striking scene we had not met with in the United States, and hardly any that could vie with it for picturesque b

ide lay the little Catholic chapel, surrounded by the graves in the cemetery. But the center of interest was in the warehouse and store of the American Fur Company, where the skins of buffalo, elk, deer, fox, beaver, otter, muskra

the common practice for travellers to descend to the foot of the falls, clinging to the shrubs along the slippery pathway, and then go behind the sheet of falling water.218 Continuing, at a distance of eight miles up the Mississippi from the fort, the Falls of St. Ant

ng herself and her children in it,-sang her death song, and went over the foaming acclivity in the face and amid the shrieks of her tribe. And often, the Indian believes, when the nights are calm, and the sky serene,-and the dew-drops are hanging motionless on the sprays of the weeping

to guard the property. The saw mill had provided much of the lumber used in the construction of the fort, and in the grist mill the corn was cracked that was fed during the wint

unds for the men and women of the garrison. An old map made in 1823 shows Green's Villa on Lake Calhoun-probably a hunting lodge or shelter built by Lie

ks of the Minnesota was the group of wigwams called Black Dog's village, although the chief was Wamditanka or Big Eagle. About nine miles from Fort Snelling was Pinisha, reported as having one hundred and forty-eight inhabitants ruled over by Good Road. The largest group, three hundred and sixt

hildren, squaws, painted warriors, and yelping dogs. About the lodges were the corn fields, the scaffolds where the corn was dried, and the more