the outbreak in 1862. I made the
first trip from the Agency to Faribault with Bishop Whipple. Also the
last when we took a number of Indian girls from Faribault to the Sioux
Agency in August 1862.

I had enlisted and was with my company in line at Fort Snelling, being
sworn in when a man came riding in to tell us the Indians were on the
war path. We were ordered to St. Peter at once and found the families
all sheltered in stone houses and the men barricading the town with cord
wood and digging rifle pits in the bluffs. But none of the families was
molested within a radius of about seven miles. Everyone who was left in
town had to help. All the lead pipes were taken out of the wells and
slugs were cut from pieces of iron.

Jim Powell, a young man left in charge of the cattle at the Agency,
waiting for the Indians to receive their pay, said to me when I came up
on my last trip, "Jim, I am afraid there will be trouble. The Indians
are getting ugly. They shot an ox and skinned it and we can't say a
word." When the outbreak came Jim Powell was sitting on a mule at the
Agency. Five Indians shot at him. He tried to make his mule go down to
the ferry. He would not go, so Jim slipped off and ran for the ferry.
The boat had started across to Fort Ridgely, but he swam out and climbed
on. He went across, then the twelve miles to the fort and enlisted.
Before this the Indians were driven to beg for food, their rations had
been so slow in coming from the government.

I often think there is many a man that should have a monument to
commemorate his brave deeds. There was Duncan Kennedy of St. Peter, one
of the bravest men I ever knew. During the outbreak he carried messages
back and forth from St. Peter to Fort Ridgely, alone. When asked why he
did not take someone with him, he said it was safer alone for if he saw
an Indian he would know what to do; he would lie down and be quiet. If
some one was with him, he would have to tell them to be quiet.

Mrs. John Crippen[4] was an early settler in the country, coming here by
way of the Morris trail. There were two trails, one by way of
Hutchinson, and the other following along the Minnesota River, the
latter being the trail used during the Sibley Expedition.

[Footnote 4: Mrs. Kaercher's work begins with Mrs. Crippen.]

Mr. and Mrs. Crippen, with a baby about a year old, came to their
homestead, not far from Big Stone lake where they endured many
privations the first few years. The fi