Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Cornell University Library
• Subjects: Albright; Garry; Indian; Northwest Territories; Platen; Red Lake; Riley
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/53068

EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA 211 the scrap-iron. Later still it became known to Senator Richard F. Pettigrew that at .the back door of a humble house of his home city was the platen of the much-traveled old press, serving in the useful capacity of a door-step. The senator bought it and gave it an honorable place among historic relics of the Northwest territories in the State Historical Society. THE FIRST DAKOTA PRINTING PRESS The first printing press in Dakota was purchased at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1848, and was the gift of Oberlin College students to Rev. Alonzo Barnard, a Presbyterian missionary, about to be stationed at St. Joseph, now Walhalla, N. D. It was brought up the Mississippi in the summer of 1849, from Cass Lake in I canoes down the Red' Lake and Red River to Pembina, and from there trans-ferred to St. Joseph, in a Red River cart, and thence to Fort Garry, now Winnipeg, where it was used by Dr. Schultz in printing the Northwester, the first newspaper published on the Red River. THE FIRST DAKOTA NEWSPAPER July 2, 1859, Samuel J. Albright established the Dakota Democrat at Sioux Falls City, the first newspaper published within the limits of Dakota Territory. Mr. Albright had been connected with the Free Press at St. Paul. At the date of the issue of the Sioux Falls Democrat there were less than two score of people at Sioux Falls City. The publication was suspended in March, i860, during the absence of Mr. Albright, until December, i860, when it was revived as the Western Independent, and was published occasionally thereafter until March, 1861, by J. W. Stewart. According to the record given above, Mr. Albright's was not the first printing press in Dakota. The Dakota Republican, the first permanent newspaper in Dakota, was established by J. Elwood Clark and James Bedell September 6, 1861. I THE TREATY OF 1 85 1 Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. The plains west of the Missouri River were occupied by Indian Tribes claiming them under undefined hereditary rights, or by the power of might. The Laramie treaty of 1851 defined the boundaries of their several claims. The Mendota treaties of 185 1 ceded Indian lands lying on and extending to the western boundary of Minnesota Territory. These. treaties were made without the consent of the masses of the tribes arid were not accepted by them. There were bad hearts and hot blood among the Indians. Fort Riley in Kansas and Fort Ridgeley in Minnesota, the main reliance of the settlers of Dakota in 1862, as related in Chapter XIII, were built in 1852. THE MASSACRE OF LIEUTENANT GRATTAN AND HIS MEN In June, 1853, two young Indians fired "their guns into the air, in the vicinity of a frontier military post, contrary to military regulations, lest alarm be created Internet Archive