Daily globe., 1883-08-17
Pine Lands and Pine Land Men.
LETTER NO. 2 i.
fha Editor of tho GTopr.


To the Editor of the GLOBE:
The devil is loose and the saints are not
under cover. My first letter was declined
by the temporary editor in chief of the
Pioneer Press, because it was "profane,
obscene and vulgar" I will not there
fore shock his delicate sensibilities by
offering him this letter for publication in
the P. P, as am sure it is worse than the
first.
My first letter was devoted to the ancient
history of the pine region of Minnesota,
description of the country and the gene
alogy of one of our popular ex-governors,
known among lumbermen as "On-it john
and who is one of the heaviest pine-land
owners in Minnesota, and widely known as
the polished author of that finished and
Jfoury fiction called "PiliSbury'S Best" ..b,s
will in this turn my attention to some
of the methods used in obtaining pine
timber and pine lands from the United
States in early and late days and will en-
deavor to make it interesting to the inter
ested.
THE EARLY LUMBERMEN
of Minnesota rarely invested much
money in pine lands. They usually en-
tered or ''scripped" a few "forties" where
they proposed to log, and using these as a
base of operations they accidentally" cut
over the lines upon the government do
main and relieved ''Uncle Samuel of mil
lions of feet of valuable pine. If they
happened to be discovered (which was rare
Indeed), they generally divided" with the
.. S. surveyor general who had the gov
ernment stumpage in charge. This was
profitable for the surveyor general, and
''Uncle Samuel being none the wiser, was
none the poorer for it. Every lumberman
who could borrow or buy barrel of beans,
quantity of hardware" and few head
of ''cat4le" could, in those good old days,
go into the logging business, with nothing
to lose and something to gain. There
was, in those golden by-gone days, GER
tain prominent hardware merchant in
Minneapolis who, they say. laid the foun-
dation of his fortune by furnishing
beans and other hardware to the
hardy lumbermen for their winters oper-
ations, and by going ''snucks" with the
shrewdest and most successful loggers.
Happy were the frugal lumbermen, and
happy the thrifty surveyor generals of
those days. Many of the wealthiest men
in Minneapolis laid the solid foundations
for their fortunes in those good old golden
days of cheap stumpage and Floating"
alf-breed scrip. Two of them have been
mayors of the city, and one of them was
very successful surveyor general and laid
the foundation for his first fortune, ac-
cording to popular legend, while he occu-
pied that lucrative position, and won his
title of general without a battle, and in
deed without any serious dispute even
with the poachers on Uncle Sans pre-
serve.
SIOUX HALF-BREED SCRIP.
Under the treaty with the Sioux or Da-
kota Indians, by which they ceded to the
United States nearly all their laLds in
Minnesota west of the Mississippi, certain
Gland scrips" were issued to the ''niHed
bloods" of that nation, which entitled the
head of each family to enter, without
money and without price," 320 acres OF
public land and forty acres additional for
each child. 1t was supposed at the time
the treaty was made that there were, all
told, perhaps fifty half breeds among the
Dakotas.
Unfortunate "Uncle Samuel !"-he had
not taken a census of the half breeds be-
fore he signed the treaty. To his surprise,
and the surprise of the oldest inhabitants,
as the sluggard years rolled by, these rare
''bois brules" multiplied by hundreds, and
every one of them was the head of a family
and every family had from fifty to a
hundred children. No wonder that
the state of Minnesota sud-
denly became famous for the healthfulness
of her climate and the marvellous fertility
of her soil.
"What do you raise in Minnesota p"
asked prominent clerg Jman of Washing
ton of ''Stuttering BIll,' member of the
bloody old First Minnesota, while we lay
in camp on Capitol hill, directly after the
first battle of Bull Run. "Stuttering Bill"
cooked his weather eye on the reverend
and replied in solemn gutterals:
"H-h-heH and H-h-half-breeds.
''Stuttering BilI' was probably familiar
with the machinery of the mills that man
ufactured "Sioux scrip" This half breed
scrip was convenient thing for lumber
men to have about the house, and so they
bought it and manufactured it by the
bucket fulls, 1t could be located on any
government land in the United States
opened or unopened, surveyed or unsur-
veyed, and besides it had floating quail
ties. You could locate this "scrip'' on a
tract of unsurveyed land "by metes and
bounds" and fill the scrip" with an aff-
davit of location in the proper United
States land Office and hold the land. The
''scrip' could not be definitely located
and sent on to Washington for patent
till the survey of the township
was made and the scrip adjusted to the
government survey. So, in the meantime,
the frugal lumberman cut the pine off the
land, ''foated' his scrip over onto another
tract and cut that, and so kept on, "foat
ing'' his scrip as often as it was desirable.
and finally, after it had done good service
for its owner, he either "raised" it by max
ing an affidavit that it was located by
mistake, or he ''foated" it again over up
on some desirable surveyed tract anG
''staked it down" and took his patents fol
the land. Prominent men who have Of
late years become suddenly pious and gone
into politics, we're deft manipulators o.
this Sioux half breed scrip and made snug