for Huron by land. It was my lot to act as one of the oarsmen on board the boat on which the wounded were placed. Daylight was fast fading away when we put out from Cedar Point into the mouth of the bay. Here we stopped some little time and listened in the silence of the evening for any noise that might come from the house in which our companions were left. Hearing nothing from that distance, we started for the mouth of Huron river. We entered the river and arrived at a place then called "Sprague's Landing," about a mile above the mouth, about one or two o'clock on the morning of the thirtieth of September. An advance post was kept at that point, and we fortunately found one of the assistant surgeons be longing to the service at that place. We soon started a fire in a vacant cabin and placed the wounded in it, and delivered them over to the care of the medical officer to whom I have alluded, but whose name I am now unable to recollect. Having accomplished this, our Sergeant Rice proposed going to headquarters that night, provided a small party would volunteer to accompany him. Anxious that the earliest possible information of the situation of Captain Cotton and his party on the peninsula should be communicated, some eight or ten of us volunteered to accompany our determined and persever ing sergeant. In the darkness of the night we mistook the road, and finding ourselves on a branch leading south, and which left Camp Avery on the right perhaps a mile and a half, we attempted to wend our way through the forest. We soon lost our course, but wandered through openings and woods until daylight enabled us to direct our course with some degree of correctness. We struck the road near what was then called "Abbott's Landing," and reached camp a little after sunrise. Arrived at headquarters both officers and men were soon made acquainted with the situation of our friends who yet remained on the peninsula. But in the enfeebled state of our skeleton army it was difficult to obtain a sufficient force to send out to relieve them. During the forenoon Lieutenant Allen (of the company to which I belonged) succeeded in raising some thirty volunteers, and started to the peninsula in order to bring home those we had left there. The necessity of this movement will be understood when the reader is informed that Captain Cotton and his men were destitute of all means of crossing the bay. Lieutenant Allen, however, met with difficulty in obtaining boats to convey his men across the bay, and did not reach Captain Cotton and his party until the morning of the first of October. They then found our friends in the house, but the enemy were not to be seen. Soon after Captain Cotton and his men commenced firing upon them from the house, they retired out of danger. They seemed not to have noticed those who passed by the house in order to find the boats, and who then passed down the bay to the point of the peninsula, on Monday, during the skirmish. Had they discovered those men, they would doubtless have pursued and massacred them all. Being unconscious of this, and there being no prospect of effecting any injury to those in the house, they retired to the scene of action and stripped and scalped two of our dead whom we left on the field. They mutilated the body of Simons, who fell during the skirmish. His right hand was cut off, and the scalping knife of a chief named Omick was left plunged to the hilt in his breast. This Indian had previously resided at a small village on the east bank of the Pymatuning creek, in the township of Wayne, in the county of Ashtabula. I had been well acquainted with him for several years, and so had many others who were engaged in the combat of that day, some of whom declared that they recognized him during the skirmish. It is also supposed that he must have recognized some of his old acquaintances, and left his knife in the body of Simons as a token of triumph. The knife was recognized by some of the soldiers from its peculiar handle of carved ivory. The Indians took away and secreted the bodies of their own dead. There were three of our men killed during this latter skirmish. Mason lived on Huron river, and cultivated the farm on which we were encamped. He came into camp on the twenty-eighth, about sunset, volunteered for the expedition and accompanied us on our march. He was shot through the lower region of the breast, the ball evidently having passed through some portion of the lungs, as the blood flowed from his mouth and nose. A friend took him upon his shoulder and attempted to bring him off the field, but as the enemy pressed hard upon them, Mason requested his friend to set him beside a tree, and give him a gun and leave him to his fate. His friend, knowing that at best he could only prolong his life a few moments, sat him down as requested and left him. He was seen some moments subsequently by those who passed him in haste, flying before the pursuing enemy. They reported him as still sitting up beside the tree, and the blood flowing from his mouth and nose. They also stated that they heard the report of his musket soon after they passed him, and the report of several rifles instantly followed. followed. On examining the body, it was found that several balls had passed through his breast, and it was generally supposed that he fired upon the enemy as they approached him, and that in return several Indians fired at him. His body was stripped of its clothing and he was scalped. saw On the arrival of Lieutenant Allen and his party at the house, Captain Cotton joined him, and they proceeded to bury the bodies of those two men. Mingus (I may have forgotten the name of this man, but I think such was the name) was also killed during this skirmish. His brother him fall, immediately seized the body and, raising it upon his shoulder, proceeded to the house with it. After the Indians had retired out of sight and left our friends somewhat at leisure, they proceeded to raise a portion of the floor, composed of planks split from large timber. They then dug a sort of grave and, burying the body, replaced the floor, leaving no signs of the body being deposited there. Captain Cotton and Lieutenant Allen and his party then recrossed the bay, and returned to camp on the evening of the first of October. The next morning we again mustered, and the roll of volunteers was called. The names of the killed and wounded being noted, we were dismissed, and each returned to his own company. CHARLES WHITTLESEY. THE BENCH AND BAR OF RAMSEY COUNTY, MINNESOTA. RAMSEY County is the lineal descendant of the county of St. Croix, which the territory of Minnesota inherited from the territory of Wisconsin when the latter territory became a state of the Union. It is one of the original counties established by the first legislature which convened in the territory, and was created by act of October 27, 1849. It has always been the leading county of the territory and state in population, wealth,commerce and social influence, as well as containing the capital of both territory and state,and since the admission of Minnesota into the Union the circuit court of the United States has always been held at St. Paul, the principal city of the county. With all these elements of power and advantage, it is not surprising that the bar of Ramsey county, regarded collectively, has always been the most prominent and influential of any in the commonwealth. From the earliest days in its history it has had inscribed upon its rolls the names of many men who would adorn the bar of any state as well for learning and ability as for high and honorable standing in the profession. The industries and capital of St. Paul having been, during all the earlier period of its existence and up to quite a recent date, devoted almost exclusively to commerce and finance, were much more prolific of important litigation than the manufacturing, lumbering, and the agricultural interests of other portions of the state. It is a well ascertained fact that any given amount of capital invested in the various branches of business which combine to create commerce, will be productive of more litigation than three times the amount engaged in any kind of manufacturing. It is quite natural, therefore, that about the financial and commercial centre of the state should be found the leading representatives of the bar, and this is said without any disparagement of the individuals who compose the bars of other counties of the state, many of whom are second to none in Ramsey county, or, we can truthfully say, in the entire northwest. In treating of the bar of this county we will divide the subject into two periods : the traditional, the materials for which rest mainly in the recollection of a very few living men, and the record period, which covers the time since the methods of civilization superseded those of the rude frontier. Much more interest usually attaches to the early days of a country when everything is fresh, free and disorderly, than to the more regular proceedings of courts and lawyers in after times, when judicial work is conducted in a manner which robs it of the possibility of humor, romance or adventure. We shall, therefore, endeavor to record the history of the traditional period as fully as the facts attainable will permit. Henry H. Sibley, now a distinguished citizen of St. Paul, was undoubtedly the first person who ever engaged in the practice of the law in any part of what is now the state of Minnesota. In 1835 and 1836 he resided at St. Peter's, now Mendota, in Dakota county, and was connected with one of the great fur companies which occupied the country at that time. He was not then admitted to the bar, but being a young man of fine ability, and having familiarized himself with the principles of the common law, and there being no one else in the country who made any pretensions in that direction, the necessities of the situation induced him to hang out a shingle announcing himself as an attorney and counselor at law. Even tradition does not inform us that Mr. Sibley ever tried a case, as there were no courts nearer than Prairie du Chien, except the one held by himself as a justice of the peace, which we will speak of hereafter. General Sibley still retains the professional sign he put up fifty-one years ago. It is ornamented with a bullet hole, which was accidentally made in it from the careless handling of a gun by someone, indicating that powder and lead were more in vogue in those days than the wordy weapons of the profession. General Sibley was also the first judicial officer who ever exercised the functions of a court of law in any part of the new state of Minnesota. He was commissioned a justice of the peace in 1835 or 1836 by Governor Chambers of Iowa, with a jurisdiction extending from twenty miles south of Prairie du Chien to the British boundary on the north, White river on the west, and the Mississippi on the east. When he committed an offender for a crime of sufficient magnitude to preclude his trying and sentencing him, there was no place to send him except Prairie du Chien, which often involved the necessity of holding him for a long time before an opportunity would occur to dispose of him. Tradition says that this magistrate would sometimes, in cases of pressing urgency, extend his jurisdiction into Wisconsin, on the east side of the Mississippi, one instance of which is well authenticated: A man named Phalen, from whom the lake which supplies St. Paul with water took its name, was charged with the murder of a discharged sergeant from the United States army, named Hayes. The murder was committed on the east side of the Mississippi in Wisconsin. Justice Sibley held the examination, committed the offender to jail at Prairie du Chien, and he was duly forwarded and no questions asked by anyAfter the organization of our territory, General Sibley was duly admitted to the bar. one. Prior to the admission of Wisconsin into the Union, which occurred on the twentyninth day of May, 1848, all the country west of the St. Croix river and east of the Mississippi was a part of the county of St. Croix, in the territory of Wisconsin, which was a fully organized county for judicial purposes, having its district court and all proper county officials. The first attempt at holding a term of the district court west of the St. Croix was in 1842. Joseph R. Brown had been appointed clerk of the court and had his residence on the bank of Lake St. Croix, at the point where now stands the city of Stillwater. Mr. Brown was not a lawyer, but he was a man of extraordinary ability, enlarged experience on the frontier and among the Indians. His versatile talents fitted him for anything he undertook, and there were very few things, from playing the fife in the army to editing the leading newspaper in St. Paul, and framing the state constitution, that he did not take a prominent part in. He was among the first lumbermen on the St. Croix, Indian trader with the Sioux, member of the legislature of both Wisconsin and Minnesota territories, United States agent for the Sioux, editor of the St. Paul Pioneer and other papers, and a member of the constitutional convention that framed our present state constitution, and in every important position he held he displayed marked ability. His last undertaking was the invention of a steam motor to traverse the western prairies. On this idea he expended large sums of money, but died before bringing it to a state of practical utility. In 1842 Judge Irwin, then one of the territorial judges of Wisconsin, came up the river from Prairie du Chien to hold a term of the court which had been appointed for St. Croix county. He landed at Fort Snelling, and could find no one who could give him any information about localities, or anything concerning the court, until he reached the trading house of Norman W. Kittson, which was situated a mile or two above the fort, at Big Spring, and near where the St. Louis house sub. sequently stood. Mr. Kittson gave him the address of Joseph R. Brown, the clerk of the court, and furnished him a horse on which to reach Stillwater. After a weary journey he arrived at Lake St. Croix, but could find neither habitation nor human being until he discovered a log house, which was occupied by Joseph R. Brown, the clerk of his court. Either Brown had not been informed of the contemplated term or had forgotten it, but at all events no preparations had been made for holding it, and the disgusted judge took the first chance down the river, swearing it was the last time he would ever answer a summons to St. Croix county. Tradition says that Brown, being of a speculative turn of mind, had procured the appointment of the term for the purpose of ad. vertising the country and luring immigration to his region. Five years elapsed before another attempt was made to hold a term of court in St. Croix county. In June, 1847, the district court convened at Stillwater, Judge Dunn, then chief-justice of Wisconsin territory, presiding. Much interest was felt in this term on account of the trial of the Indian chief "Wind," who was charged with murder. Many noted attorneys of Wisconsin took advantage of this opportunity to visit the remote county of St. Croix. Among those who attended the court were: Benjamin C. Eastman of Platteville; Frank Dunn, Samuel J. Crawford, Moses M. Strong of Mineral Point; Thomas P. Burnette of Patch Grove; Hiram Knowlton of Prairie du Chien, and others. Judge Dunn appointed Samuel Crawford prosecuting attorney for the term, and Benjamin C. Eastman to defend the prisoner, "Wind." The trial was had and the chief acquitted. This was the first jury trial that took place within the present limits of Minnesota, as well as the first criminal trial in a court of record, and this term was the only one ever held |