| Summary: | THE LONG AGO. Aug. 22, 1801.—We arrived at the forks of th° Assinaboine river and sent on the cances (to Pembina,) he says, on his return from annual gathering of the fur traders at Fort William. Lake Superior. "I took the horse myself, and with two men proceeded by land up the Assinaboine river three leagues, to the grand passage, where we passed over on our horses, having the water up to our saddles, then we came on and slept at the passage on the River Salle. "At Pembina Henry found his new fort completed and fifty armed Saulteau Indians awaiting his arrival, the same band that traded with him during the prior season." The latter have made several trips to the Assinaboine river and have now a number of horses which they purchased there for guns and medicines. The medicine is of their own collection and consists of different roots and bark sorr e of whirh are found on the banks of the river and others are brought from the Fond du Lac country and even from the south of Lake Superior." An Indian arrived with his family, in a small canoe, in fifteen days, from Leach Lake (now in Minnesota ) and tells of several Saulteau having murdered each other in a drinking match a few days before he left. This caused a terrible up roar in the camp here, the deceased persons being nerr relatives of some here. There are persons related to the murderers and the former insist upon retaliating upon them and it was with the greatest trouble that we prevented them by taking their guns away from them. They were all drunk and kept up a most terrible crying, screaming and howling and lamenting the death 01 their relatives. The liquors-only augumented their false grief." On September 1st Henry sent off a party of men under John Cameron to Gand Forks, to establish a trading post- Men were alsj sent to th; Hair Hills post. "Bass Coure's daughter (a Saulteau girl aeed nine years) died. They must have a keg of liquor to wash away their grief and a fathom of cloth to cover the body and a quarter of a pound of vermillion to paint the same." During the winter of 1800 and 1801 the Morthwest company traders were alone on the Red River, though the Hudson Bay company and the X. Y. company had posts on the Assinaboine. !n September, 1801, TnaTus Millar, of the Hudson Bay company, with eight Orkney men arrived at Pembina an:i established a post on the east side, in the vicinity of where Emerson now is. A few days later Mr. J. Creboss and ten men of the X Y. Co . appeared and established a post below Henrys, "Fort Paubian " "None of them dare build above me for fear of the Souix coming here." There was a great deal of rivalry between the traders of the different interests during the ensuing season.; Learning that the X. Y. company were building a post at Scratching river.under charge cf Desford, Henry sent J. B. Desmarais with five men to oppose them in the fur ciade. On October 3, 1801, Henry notes that he took one and one-half bushels of potatoes from his garden on the east band of the Red River where he had planted some seeds in the spring. Horses had destroyed all the other vegetables. On October tenth Henry went to the Hair Hills and found that Langloise had built about three leagues higher up than our houses of last winter, exactly at the foot of the steep and sandy banks where the river first issues from the mountains. A few Assinaboines, Crees and Sonnants now began to come to our house in the mountains to trade. A few days later we are informed that Cournoyor, of the X. Y. Co., set off from Pembina for the Hair Hills to build near the N. W. Go's, house, "Neither of my neighbors have a horse all their transportation is done onthe backs of their men." Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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