It then followed the Sauk River about eleven miles; then turned to the
right and crossed Big Bend forty-five miles, striking the river again
four miles north from Sauk Center. Then it passed through the timber to
Alexandria. It crossed Red River near Fort Abercrombie; then went
directly north to Pembina, passing from point to point of the Red River
of the North. The Red River carts had wheel rims eight inches wide. I
have seen them with solid wheels cut from a single round of a tree. I
have heard that the carts around Pembina were formerly all like this,
but in my day they generally had spokes. I suppose they were lighter. It
was the width of wheel and sagacity of the animal that made it possible
to go with security over the most impossible roads. They usually carried
eight hundred pounds. When they reached St. Paul they camped where
Larpenteur's home now is.

I never knew an Indian who had been converted to go back on the whites.
Some people would sell them a pair of pants, for a Christian Indian
could vote and then say as they saw them so dressed, "There is a
Christian Indian." It took more than a pair of pants to Christianize an
Indian, but when they were once converted, they stayed so, as the many
people who were saved by them in the massacre could testify.

Mr. D. E. Dow--1850.

In 1850 when I first came to Minnesota, I took a claim at Lake Harriet
near where the pavilion now stands. The ruins of the old Steven's
Mission were on my claim. It had been built in 1834. I did not keep this
claim long, though I built a log cabin there and kept bachelor's hall,
but soon took a claim where my present house stands in Hopkins. I built
a cabin here but boarded with a widow and her children. All the food we
had was game, pork and buckwheat cakes. The buckwheat they had brought
from their home and it was all ground in the coffee mill then sifted
through a horsehair sieve before it could be used. There were seven in
the family to grind for, so it kept one person grinding all the time.

I was supposed to live alone in my cabin but hardly ever spent a night
without the companionship of some Sioux Indians who were hunting around
there. I gladly received them as they were friendly, and their company
was much better than none. One winter they came in such numbers that at
night the floor was entirely covered by their sleeping forms. Early in
the morning, they would go out and all day hunt the deer, with which the
woods abounded.