Fifty Years In The Northwest. William H. C. Folsom
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Red Bird Indian war he served as second lieutenant, and for several years was stationed at Fort Crawford. He was also a prominent agent or confidential adviser in the fur company which had its headquarters at Prairie du Chien. He was sheriff of Crawford county and held the office of county treasurer and other positions of trust. In 1872 President Grant appointed him consul to Vernier, Belgium, but ill health compelled an early return. Mr. Brisbois married into the La Chapelle family. He died in 1885, leaving an interesting family.
Pierre Lapoint was also before the commission of Col. Lee as an early resident, having lived at the Prairie since 1782. The testimony of these early citizens served to establish the ancient tenure of the lands by French settlers, a tenure so ancient that no one could definitely give a date for its commencement. Mr. Lapoint was a farmer. He reared a large family of children, and died about 1845.
Joseph Rolette.—Joseph Rolette was at one time chief justice of the county court of Crawford county. He was of French descent and was born in Quebec, L. C., in 1787. He was educated for the Catholic priesthood. In 1804 he came to Prairie du Chien. In the early part of his mature life he was an active and successful trader with the Indians on the Upper Mississippi. He was a man of keen perceptions and considerable ambition. He joined the British at the siege of Detroit, and was an officer at the capture of Mackinaw. He was in command of a company in the campaign of the British from Mackinaw to Prairie du Chien, and aided in taking the American stockade. His early education and associations inclined him to espouse the British cause during the war of 1812, which he did with all the ardor and enthusiasm of his nature. To his family he was kind and indulgent, giving his children the best education possible. One daughter, married to Capt. Hoe, of the United States army, was a very superior woman. One son, Joseph, received all the aid that money could give, and might have risen to distinction, but he early contracted intemperate habits which became in later life tenaciously fixed. This son was at one time a member of the Minnesota legislature. Joseph Rolette, Sr., died at Prairie du Chien in 1842.
Hercules Dousman.—The leading Indian trader of the Upper Mississippi, the prominent adviser at Indian treaties and payments and the trusted agent of the American Fur Company, was Hercules Dousman, a keen, shrewd man, and universally influential with the Indians, with whom it might be said his word was law. He understood all the intricacies involved in the Indian treaty and the half-breed annuities and payments. His extended favors and credits to the Indians, properly proven, of course, would be recognized and paid at the regular payments. He accumulated through these agencies great wealth, which he retained to his dying day. He came to Prairie du Chien, in the employ of Joseph Rolette, in 1828. He afterward married the widow of Rolette. He died in Prairie du Chien in 1878.
Rev. David Lowry.—A noble, big hearted Kentuckian, a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, he was located by the government as farmer and teacher of the Indians on Yellow river, near Prairie du Chien, in 1833. For years this good man labored with unquestioned zeal for the welfare of the untutored Indian. Mr. Lowry informed me, while at his post, that he was fearful that all his labor was labor lost, or worse than useless. The Indian pupil learned just enough to fit him for the worst vices. The introduction of whisky was a corrupting agency, in itself capable of neutralizing every effort for the moral and intellectual advancement of the Indian, with whom intoxication produces insanity. He felt quite disheartened as to the prospect of accomplishing any good. He died at St. Cloud some time in the '50s.
Chief Justice Charles Dunn.—When Wisconsin Territory was organized in 1836, Charles Dunn was appointed chief justice. He served as judge until Wisconsin became a state in 1848. He was of Irish descent and was born in Kentucky in 1799. He studied law in Kentucky and Illinois, and was admitted to practice in 1820 at Jonesboro, Illinois. He was chief clerk of the Illinois house of representatives five years. He was one of the commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan canal. In 1829 he was one of a party which surveyed and platted the first town of Chicago, and superintended the first sale of town lots there. He was captain of a company during the Black Hawk War in 1832, and was severely wounded through mistake by a sentinel on duty. In 1835 he was a member of the Illinois house of representatives. In 1837, as judge, he held his first court in Crawford county. In this court, in 1838, indictments were found against certain individuals for selling liquor to whites and Indians contrary to law, when, by evasions, continuances and technicalities, the suits would go by the board. In one case the charge given to the jury by this dignified and courteous Judge Dunn was as follows: "Gentlemen of the Jury: Unless you are satisfied that the defendants in this case did deal out, in clear, unadulterated quantities, intoxicating drinks, it is your imperative duty to discharge them." The jury, of course, discharged the defendants. Aside from his drinking habits, which interfered much with his usefulness, he was a genial gentleman and regarded by his associates as an eminent jurist. He sometimes kept the court waiting till he should become sober, and on one occasion came near losing his life in a drunken spree. He jumped through an upper window of Tainter's hotel, and escaped with only a broken leg. Judge Dunn was a member of the second Wisconsin constitutional convention. He was state senator in 1853-4-5 and 6. He died at Mineral Point, April 7, 1872.
Rev. Alfred Brunson, a distinguished pioneer preacher in the West, was born in Connecticut, 1793, and received there a common school education. His father died while he was yet a minor, and with commendable zeal and filial love he devoted himself to providing for his mother and her bereaved family, working at the trade of a shoemaker till he was seventeen years of age, when he enlisted as a soldier under Gen. Harrison and served under him until the peace of 1815, when he entered the Methodist ministry, in which, by industry and close application, he became quite learned and eminent as a divine. His active ministry extended to the long period of sixty-seven years. He was the first Methodist minister north of the Wisconsin river. In 1837 he established a mission at Kaposia and thence removed to Red Rock (Newport), in Washington county, Minnesota. In 1840 he was a member of the Wisconsin legislature. In 1842 he was Indian agent at Lapointe, on Lake Superior. Mr. Brunson was very prominent in the councils of his own church, having represented his conference several times in the general conference of that body. He is also the author of many essays and other publications, among them "The Western Pioneer," in two volumes, a most entertaining and instructive account of life in the West.
Mr. Brunson was married to Eunice Burr, a relative of the famous Aaron Burr. She was a woman of great intelligence and of excellent qualities of heart as well as mind. Her heart overflowed with sympathy for the sick and distressed, and she won by her care for them the affectionate title of "Mother Brunson." She died in 1847.
Rev. Alfred Brunson, though an itinerant, was so favored in his various fields of labor that he was able to have his permanent home at Prairie du Chien, where he lived from 1835 until the time of his death in 1882.
Many incidents in Mr. Brunson's career are worthy of permanent record. He was among the most hardy and daring of the pioneers. He came down the Ohio and up the Mississippi in a barge to Prairie du Chien in 1835, the barge laden with household furniture and the material for a frame building which, on landing, he proceeded immediately to erect. This house, which he and his family occupied till his death, is still standing.
When he established his mission at Kaposia he was greatly in need of an interpreter. An officer at Fort Snelling owned a negro slave who had been a Methodist before going into the army in the service of his master. Afterward he had married a Dakota woman and by associating with the Indians had learned their language. This young negro, James Thompson, was a slave, and Mr. Brunson could only secure his services by purchasing him outright, which he did, paying the price of $1,200, the money for which was raised by subscription in Ohio. "Jim" was presented with his "free papers," and was soon interpreting the Gospel to the Indians at Kaposia. This is the only instance on record of a slave being sold on Minnesota soil. It will be remembered, however, that the historical "Dred Scott" was also the property of an officer at the Fort, Surgeon Emerson. James Thompson resided in St. Paul in the later years of his life, and died there in 1884.
Ira Brunson.—Ira, the eldest son of Rev. A. Brunson, was born in Ohio in 1815, and came to Prairie du Chien in 1836. He was a member of the legislature during the years 1837-38-39 and 40. He was also postmaster many years. He was continuously in office in Crawford county until his death in 1884. In 1840 he was appointed special deputy United States marshal