n urged to join, that "Hole-in-the-day" had been
sending runners to Mille Lacs asking that band to join with him in
extermination of the whites, and we were all getting nervous. Finally
all the people in the outlying settlements came into Princeton and
camped in and about the old log hotel near the big elm (which still
stands, the largest and most beautiful tree in the city). Captain
Benedict Hippler, an old soldier who had seen service in Germany, took
command, and men and boys armed with all sorts of guns were drilled
continually by the Captain, who was a martinet and at one time
threatened to shoot me and a companion for sleeping on our post. It was
found that Stevens the Indian trader at Mille Lacs had a large stock of
powder, and H. A. Pemberton was sent to haul it away, which he did with
Stevens mules, bringing it to Princeton where it was stored in my
brother's cellar. About this time it was determined to build a stockade
fort. I hauled the poplar logs from which it was built with my father's
oxen from just across the East Branch, and I made many loads in a day.
We moved a small house within the enclosure for the women and children
and had the fort, such as it was, about completed when one day as
Captain Hippler was putting us through one of his drills an Indian face
appeared at a port hole and Kay-gway-do-say said, "What you do here,
this no good, pooh!" He then told us that Hole-in-the-day had sent his
runners to Mille Lacs urging war and that the Mille Lacs band had held a
council and that "some young men" had urged war but the older heads led
by Mun-o-min-e-kay-shein (Ricemaker) and others had counseled against it
and that there would be no trouble.

This eased our minds somewhat and the settlers gradually returned to
their homes. Soon we were reinforced by Co. F. of the Eighth Minn., who
stayed with us two winters in "The old quarters" across the river, but,
save their effect in overawing the Indians, their mission was peaceful.
That same fall, '62, the Government concluded to make a display of force
at a delayed payment to be made to the Chippewas at Mille Lacs and an
Iowa regiment was sent with several cannon to accompany the paymaster to
Mille Lacs.

Stevens, the trader at Mille Lacs had a large stock of Indian goods at
Princeton and just before the payment my father sent me, then sixteen
years of age, with four oxen and a wagon to haul these goods to Mille
Lacs some fifty miles over what was then and fo