The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-11-12
WAITER AND TELEPHONE AID DURANT
In COMPLETION OF $6,O0O,000 DEAL
village and the stone house Of the
factor stood.
Cts2e. ~ keA seavlcc. INC.
pFc u S. PAT. OFF.

village and the stone house Of the
factor stood.
Riverbed Dry
Nov, one can walk tor two miles,
dry shod, where once the river
flowed, before reaching the channel.
1t will be back again some day
doubtless, in its old bed. A hundred
years ago, the fur company had a
boat landing. where cattle now
browse among the lush grasses of the
river bottom. One may still make
out the old trail that led from the
factors house down to the landing.
One day, in 1928, the river steamer
st. Peter, came up the river from
st. Louis. On the fore deck were
the bodies Of two white men that
had died Of the smallpox. They
were covered with army blankets,
and an opportunity was but waited
to get them ashore and give them
safe burial. But a couple Of Indians
from the village knowing nothing of
the laws Of sanitation. and seeing a
chance to make up a shortage in
their quartermaster property, took
the blankets from the dead bodies
unobservcd. AS though some one
had touched a match to brush heap,
the ravages Of the dread disease
sprang through the settlement.
Terrified men ran screaming across
the prairies only to drop dead in
their tracks. A few succeeded in
reaching neighboring villages, but
this served only to spread the dis
ease. 1t marked the end of the once
proud and powerful tribe of the Man
dams. Their nation was decimated.
Never again were they to be a power
among the Indian nations. The sur
vivors finally withdrew to a spot
near the present town Of Armstrong,
in the southeastern tip of the Fort
Berthold Indian reservation, and
there founded what was known as
Fish Hook village. In the course of
time they were joined by certain of
the eros Ventures and the Arikaras,
and the place, from that circum-
stance, was often referred to as the
Federated Village, three tribes from
the five Knife river villages having
gathered there by 1863.
Scenes Unchanged
"But though the heyday of the
Mandans was passed, Mittuhtahang
kush continued. The cleansing in
fluence of the elements made il
habitable again, and the Arikara
moved in and took possession. Here
George Catlin, famous expounder Of
Indian lore, came in 1888.
Standing today on the ruins OF
the old residence Of the factor, one
can look out over scene such as
must have greeted the eyes of Lewis
and of Clark. 1t does not take much
imagination to conjure up, in the
minds eye, the other villages of this
immediate neighborhood. 'Ruptare,
for example, second of the Mandar
villages from the south; sometime:
called Black Cats village probabl.
built and deserted about the same
dates as Mittuhtahangkush. Ana
haway, and also peopled by the Gro.
Ventre. The inhabitants of these
villages, and also of Hidatsa-ati, fin
ally amalgamated in the Federated
Village, and this, in time, became
an important traders rendezvous
often referred to in most traders
journals as Fort Berthold. Genera
Meager. commanding the Irish Bri
gade in the Civil war, is buried here
hundreds of miles below the place Q
his death in the Missouri, by drown
ing. Most Of Clusters scouts ar
buried here, where there are II
government headstcnes in the Gem
etery.
"1oday, the buffalo is gone, pra.
tically all OF the game is gone, an
with it has vanished the race that
served to support. The white ma
has supplanted the red, and no.
roams the country along fine road.
covering by train and automobile j
one hour, what used to be sewers
days journey in an early day.
new era has set in. Waukontouk
kin ca he pc 10. The Great Spiri
has spoken"