St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-04-17
Pembina, the Oldest Town, Owes Its Tx
iStence to the Hudson's Bay
Company.
The Patriarch of the Pioneers Still
Living at His Home in the
wilderness.
Reference TO the Men of Courage ana
Enterprise Who First went
to Dakota.
Red driver "Reminiscences.

Elements were made, perhaps, unuer SUCH
circumstances and at such times that they
NAV not be altogether devoid or interest.
The first settlements were made in Penn
bina county in 1911 by few stragglerS
from the Selkirk settlement at Fort Garry,
now Winnipeg. This settlement was CON-
posed of evicted tenants of the Duchy of
Sutherland, in the north of Scotland, and.
under the patronage of Thomas Douglass,
Earl of Selkirk, had come into this new
wilderness To subiugate its wildneSS and
WIN from its bounty choicer gifts from ma
ture than their stony and craggy mountain
homes in the mother country could ever
give them. The greater number of these
emigrantS located at Fort Garry, but some
few, perhaps more enterprising. struck off
through the new country to the south and
found homes on the banks of the Pembina
river, sheltered and protected by its
WIDE BELT OF TIMBER,
In 1916 a sort of internecine war occurred
between the traders of the Hudson Bay
company and the Northwest Fur company,
and in the course OF the trouble Gov. Rob
ert Semple, the Hudson Bay company's
governor, was killed. This naturally in
creased the trouble and ended in the flight
of most of the settlers to the Pembina dis
trict In 1917 Earl Sellirk appeared on the
a
and soon restored quiet. As soon as it was
safe TO do so the refugees returned to their
homes. leaving the original ''SelkirkerS''
still enjoying their homes in the Pembina
timber In 1919 the boundary line known
as the ''old line" was surveyed, and when
the Pembina settlers found themselves upon
the territory of the United States, their
loyalty to the king, whose subjects they had
been, Outweighed the value of the new
homes they had made in foreign land and,
leaving everything behind them, they has
tened to place themselves again under the
protection of the flag they loved. and to re-
gain their citizenship with the brothers they
had unwittingly deserted. This was the
end of the Selkirk settlements in Dakota.
They never returned, and they left but few
traces behind them. A little way from the
Present site of the village of Pembina is the
ruin of an old dam which must have been
built either by them or
BY BEAVERS,
but there is nothing to indicate by which.
No remains of a man mark the spot as
human work, and yet it is of course prob
able that if they built it, it was done IN 1918
or 1919, and the discovery that they were
upon the wrong side of the boundary came
before the mill was commenced. There
have been found here and there ruins of
what were homes of some of them. In one
or two places small cellars are found, and
in one case the crumbling remains of fire.
place can still be distinctly seen. They,
however, were never citizens, were never
in any way identified with the country, and
never did anything to aid in its develop
ment They were merely sOjourners.
and their loss cannot be seriously incurred,
nor can the dearth of traces which they left
behind them be felt with that reverential
@ense Of loss which would impress us had
they borne the hardships and privations of
pioneer life to lay the foundations for the
civilization which were are now enjoying
They We're here, and they are gone. That
is all that can be said of them. That is the
history of the Selkirk settlers on the Penn
bina river
The Hudson's Bay company established
small trading post at Pembina, but that
was a
COMMERCIAL VENTURE,
and had no direct bearing on the develop
ment of the country. In 1910 Father Bal
court, a priest of the Roman Catholic
church, erected a small mission chanel
about a mile north of the present TOWNSHIP.
1t has been a singular phase of the history
of this country that the religion of Jesus.
the lOwly NaZarine. has been the guiding
hand that has led the Star of Empire in its
westward march. The pilgrim fathers
sought only a wider religious liberty. and
from that day to this, the church has been
first on the frontier, and so it was in the
Red River valley. The little Catholic
mission chapel of Father Bacourt, built in
1910, was the first work of white men.
having for its object the permanent adj
vancemtnt of the Red River valley. The
father labored long among the Indians. and
lived to see the barren plain upon which
his was the first habitation, dotted with
homes and Respondent with the glories of
the harvest. In 1851 the government made
Pembina post of entry, and sent Charles
Cavleer to fill the position of collector of
the post. This
PATRIARCH OF DAKOTA
pioneers, now living, in his ripe maturity
midst friends and in plenty, at the home he
reared i'll the wilderness over thirty-fve
years ago, will be remembered by the Oldest
of st. PaufS inhabitants as DR.. Cavileer. who
opened the first drug store in st. Paul. He
has been pioneer all his life. He came TO
Pembina from st. Paul in 1851, by carriage.
and has been prominently identified with
the development of the lower Red River
valley far more than a quarter of a century.
In 1885 Mr.. Cavileer resigned his official
position and removed to st. joe about
twenty-five miles west from Pembina. This
was a growing settlement in the Turtle
mountains, and superior point for fur
trading, in which business Mr.. Cavileer en-
gagged. st. Joe reached a considerable size
for an isolated frontier settlement, number
ing, in 1856, some 200 or $50 people. 1t
had church, which Father Balcourt, hay
ing abandoned the Pembina mission.
watched over and cared for with all the
zeal for which his order is noted.
IT HAD A MILL,
which combined the work of saving Inn
Der and grinding wheat and oats, 1t had
two large stores where merchandise was ex
changed to the Indians for furs. and. i'm
short, st. Joe was a lively little village
years before the ''old settlers of the pres
ent day ever heard of the Red River valley
of the North. 1t was about this time that
BILLY" Moorhead appears upon the scene.
He is nephew of William G. Moorhead,
Esq, at one time director of the Northern
Pacific railroad, and the one after whom
the city of Moorhead, Mimi, is named. He
is also related to Jay Cooke, the great
financier. But the wild freedom of West
ern life allured him from the quleter re-
finements of the East, aid he became an
itinerant trader among the Indians, and is
to-day a prominent citizen of Pembina.
Not long after Mr.. Moorhead became citi-
zen of Dakota, he was followed by L.
GirouX, who was also a travelling trader
among the Indians, and who is. like most
of those who came first, still faithful to
his early love. Mr.. Giroux built the fine
hotel in Pembna which bears his name, and
has always been identified with the best
interests of Pembina from then
UNTIL 1868
affairs in Pembina county were quiet and