History of Grand Forks County : with special reference to the first ten years of Grand Forks City, including an historical outline of the Red River Valley

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: State Historical Society of North Dakota
• Subjects: Garry; Grand Forks; Hudson; Hudson Bay; Steamboat
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/39004

CIVIL 0 R G A N I Z A T ION 51 There was plying on the river in those days a single steamboat —rthe International'—owned by and operated in the interest of the Hudson Bay company. . During the spring, when there was a good stage of water, the boat sometimes went up stream as far as Fort Abercrombie in running between Fort Garry and any of the up river points, and later in the season only as far as Georgetown. In the fall, when the water ran low in the Goose rapids, she only ran up as far as Frog Point. The boat was then making [as many as three trips each season and the cart brigades but one. THE OLD CART TRAILS. There were three cart routes or "halfbreed trails," as the. early settlers called them, that crossed through different parts of the present county. The river route has already been referred to. It was one of the-cart routes from Pembina and Fort Garry to St. Paul and later to St. Cloud after thatplace.'became a railroad point. It followed the general trend, of the river, of course, cutting off the bends. -It was already .old when Griggs and Vaughn first saw it in the fall of 1870, and it probably dated from the early 'forties if it was first struck put by the independent traders of Rolette's time. At all events,,it was no recently,njarked way when Major Woods and Capt. Pope.followed its course in 1849, and the mail appears to have been carried over it ten years later than that date. In 1870 it was a well worn trail. "Hundreds of carts in summer, and dog-sleds. in. winter traveled over it," writes Vaughn, and at tbe close of the.preceding part.of this work another old timer has mentioned what impressed himself concerning it during the same year. Next in age was the old Georgetown trail that passed through the' western .part of the county. .This had been abandoned for several years when first observed by the settlers who had located in that section, and it was then already grass-grown. It followed the lower slope of the uplands through this county, at least to •'a considerable extent, if not wholly so, and on account of avoiding such wet or sedgy places.as existed toward the., western side of the 151k Valley,.then occurring more frequently than now. 'This trail led from.Fort Garry to. Fort Abercrombie, thence to St. Paul by one of the Minnesota routes that have been mentioned. A branch ti<ail,:or cross-cut, from Georgetown ran northwest through parts of Cass and Traill counties intersecting the inland trail, and together these formed,a.continuous.route between the Georgetown and St. Joseph posts, thence to Fort. Garry. Hence it came to be called by the early settlers of Traill county who found it still plainly marked-upon tlie surface the "old Georgetown trail." ' ,, Chas. H. Lee, of Walhalla, the compiler of the "Long Ago" sketches, writes to the author: . -'This trail, I think, was opened Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.