Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1901-11-08
EARLY TERRITORIAL HISTORY.
A Chapter From Armstrong; History Of
~ Dakota in 1866.

A Chapter From Armstrong; History o.
Dakota in 1866.
An Account of a Surveying Trip From
Yankton to Pipestone in 1864.
There are good many old settlers
in Lincoln county who remember tht
famous political campaigns.of 1870 and
1872 when Moses X. Armstrong oi
Yankton, was elected, as democrat
delegate to congre: over his republican
compe itors, owing to split in the re-
publican party which originated ir
Yankton and largely due to the person
al ambition of men who cared more fol
Office than anything else. Mr.. Arm
strong made splendid representative
and was credit to the territory. he
is now a resident of st James Minn.,
and has been very successful as bauk
er and has made a fortune in Mime
sofa lands. A recent issue Of the LEA
DER was sent him containing brief
sketch of the famous campaigns of 1870
and 1872, and he promptly responded
by sending The writer a copy of his
new book entitled 1.-The Early Empire
Builders of the Great West, a volume
of remarkable interest to the early
pioneers, of which he was a leader,
having located at Yankton in 1850.
The fly leaf contains the following:
''To Arthur Linn with compliments of
the author.
'We drank from the same canteen
Full thirty years ago-a dream"
He also kindly favored US with q
copy of recent volume, giving q his.
tory of his travels, entitled: From
Northern Shows to Southern Seas"
Mr.. Armstrong is an entertaining
writer, with charming and eloquent
power of describing what he sees. On
the cover we found Compliments Of
the Author to Arthur Linn, fellow
pioneer of 30 years ago."
Both volumes are full of Interest to
a pioneer Dakotian, and his description
of the early Dakota legislatures, begin
ming with the first session, which con.
vened at .Yankton on the 18th of March
1862, carries one back to the days when
Yankton ruled the territory.
Here is Chapter from Armstrong;
Empire Builders, giving a descrip.
ton of surveying trip in 1854.
On the 18th of October we left Yank.
ton, as one of a party of twelve armed
men who were assigned to the duty OF
extending the government survey Of
eastern Dakota, to connect with the
state boundry Of Minnesota.
We were provided with forty days
rations, which with our skin lodge,
blankets and implements of labor, were
loaded in two wagons and drawn by
six oxen. We were three days on the
road before reaching the ill.fated and
abandoned town of Sioux Falls, where
we arrived and encam2ed in the old
stone printing Office on the night of the
Goth. The cold, rocky shores of the
Big Sioux river, studded with scatter.
ing trees; the ashes of burned houses
and the crumbllng habitations of q
once thriving settlement-Wer ere all that
greeted our vision on ascending the
prairie hill tops which overlook the
great valley of the Sioux. 1t was one
Of the cold cloudy days of October. and
the wild desola,ion around soon i'm
pressed us with the fact that we were
within the pale of an Indian country
where but two years ago massacre
was committed by the savages and tn
town evacuated by ci,izens ana soldiers
a portion Of the houses being burned
BY the Indians. =.
Four or five buildings were still
standing, and the printing press of th'
old Dakota Democrat (the first papel
published in the territory was stand
in the room where we stopped for thu
night. The steam mill was there
though the building was burned around
it, Ploughs, wagon wheels. stoves
sleds and many other farm and house
hold implements were scattered about
the town in ruins.
The old mail road from Yankton tc
Sionx Falls is now nearly overgrown
with grass. and the falls are nothing
but noisy brook in comparison with
the laundering torrent of white foam
and food that they were when I first
saw them in 1859. These falls consist
of a succession of Cascades, from
twelve to twenty feet in height, falling
over perpendicular precipices of rock
and extending one. quarter of q mile
down the river. When the stream il
at full banks the roar of the Falls car
be heard at a distance of three miles
and their appearance is one of the most
beautiful imaginable, resembling i'm
mense drifts of snow tumbling dowr
over the rocks of a steep mountain side
The whole townsite is underlaid will
rock, covered with few feet Of earth
The course of the falls is nearly north
and the general direction of the stream
is south.
The next morning we were on oul
Journey by sunrise, and passing arount
the long bend to the north, we turned
o11r uay eastward for the Split Rocl