o the fur trade
prosecuted by the whites. The first event after the appearance of
Jonathan Carver that can be considered as materially affecting the
history of Minnesota was the location and erection of Fort Snelling, of
which event I will give a brief account.

FORT SNELLING.

In 1805 the government decided to procure a site on which to build a
fort somewhere on the waters of the upper Mississippi, and sent Lieut.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the army to explore the country, expel
British traders who might be violating the laws of the United States,
and to make treaties with the Indians.

On the 21st of September, 1805, he encamped on what is now known as Pike
Island, at the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota, then St.
Peter's river. Two days later he obtained, by treaty with the Dakota
nation, a tract of land for a military reservation, with the following
boundaries, extending from "below the confluence of the Mississippi and
St. Peter's, up the Mississippi, to include the Falls of St. Anthony,
extending nine miles on each side of the river." The United States paid
two thousand dollars for this land.

The reserve thus purchased was not used for military purposes until Feb.
10, 1819, at which time the government gave the following reasons for
erecting a fort at this point: "To cause the power of the United States
government to be fully acknowledged by the Indians and settlers of the
Northwest, to prevent Lord Selkirk, the Hudson Bay Company and others
from establishing trading posts on United States territory, to better
the conditions of the Indians, and to develop the resources of the
country." Part of the Fifth United States Infantry, commanded by Colonel
Henry Leavenworth, was dispatched to select a site and erect a post.
They arrived at the St. Peter's river in September, 1819, and camped on
or near the spot where now stands Mendota. During the winter of 1819-20
the troops were terribly afflicted with scurvy. General Sibley, in an
address before the Minnesota Historical Society, in speaking of it,
says: "So sudden was the attack that soldiers apparently in good health
when they retired at night were found dead in the morning. One man who
was relieved from his tour of sentinel duty, and had stretched himself
upon a bench; when he was called four hours later to resume his duties,
he was found lifeless."

In May, 1820, the command left their cantonment, crossed the St. Peter's
and went into summer c