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By
Rosemarie Vezina Braatz
Quailtown
was a notorious northern “suburb” of early
From written accounts and remarks from
old-timers such as historian Hope Mineau, it seems it was located on Mindy
Creek, named for an Indian woman who lived along the stream that flows from the
steep bluff into the St. Croix River at about what is now the
The settlement at Quailtown,
according to Ray Stannard Baker in his book “Native American,” was largely
populated by half-breeds, “half Indian and half river-driver.” At Quailtown, Baker
wrote, “the dominating figure was an enormous squaw, a pure-blooded Indian
called Old Mindy. She was said to be a
hundred years old but I suppose was not a day beyond
fifty. She had a miscellaneous family of
children, one girl having no nose.
“I remember well my first visit to Old
Mindy’s camp. It was winter and my
brother Charlie and I walked up with my father, a mile or so, by the narrow,
moccasin-packed trail through the snow.
The hovel where the Indians lived was of considerable size, but dark and
smoky. It had no floor, but the ground
was swept clean: at one end were the rolls of blankets where the Indians slept,
at the other, a huge, old, iron cookstove.
“Our errand was to have moccasins made
for my brother and me. In that country the
winters were long and cold: there would be weeks when the temperature was never
above freezing, with the air so dry and sharp that the snow was like powder and
tickled one’s nose. For such weather
nothing equaled Indian moccasins worn with two pairs of thick woolen socks.
“The towering blear-eyed squaw, to
whom my father by signs had indicated what we wanted, produced a piece of
dark-brown wrapping paper, such as the merchants then used, and this she put on
the ground in front of the cookstove.
She then directed me to take off my shoes and stand on the paper. I was frankly afraid of her but did what she
asked. She took a coal from the hearth
and kneeling down beside me -- to my great alarm --
drew marks around my feet. This she
repeated for my brother. She then
produced two or three beautiful buckskins from deer the Indians had shot. They had been tanned by the squaws and were
as soft and pliable as satin. They also
had a fragrant odor of smoke which I have always liked, and which no amount of
wear ever obliterated. My father chose
the best of the skins and a week later we tramped
again to Quailtown to try on our moccasins.
“They were beauties, with high
legging-tops made of the thinner part of the skin which could be tied in place
with buckskin thongs, and ornamented with rows of
beads along the instep. They fitted
perfectly.
(Baker wrote about the girl with no
nose in another chapter of the book: she, Josephine Squires, was “a daughter or granddaughter of Old
Mindy, a strong and well-developed girl of fifteen or sixteen years… The
remarkable thing about her – I recall the intensity of my fascination when I
first saw her – was that she had no nose.
It was said that in a drunken row among her people, when she was a
child, a hatchet or axe thrown in a fight had clipped it off. She was stupid and intractable, but she
seemed to like to come to school.”
Baker goes on to describe a fierce
all-out fight between the girl and the teacher, after she refused to obey his
instructions: “There
was a dreadful instant when he had his knee on her breast and his hand
throttling her. I remember her strangled
shrieks and oaths – That was the graduation day of Josephine: her education in the white man’s school was
completed. She never came again.”)
According to James Taylor Dunn in his
book “The St. Croix:
Folsom records a murder that occurred
at Quailtown in the summer of 1849, “after Alfred
Romain and Patrick Kelly met and disputed, fought, were parted, and the next
day met by agreement to continue the fight with pistols. They were to meet at sunrise in front of Daniel
Mears’ store. An attempt was made to
pacify them, but in vain. Only Romain
appeared at the appointed place, and not finding Kelly, hunted through the
village for him. About 9 o’clock A.M. he found him at the house of Kimball, a
mulatto man. Romain shot him at sight, fatally. At
the inquest, held by Dr. Hoyt, it was proven that Romain fired four shots into
the body of Kelly, each taking effect, and then crushed his skull with the
pistol, and that Kelly fired one shot at Romain. Romain was held for murder,
but was never brought to trial.
After two years’ confinement he escaped from the jail at Prairie du
Chien.
“Romain afterward removed to
Sponsored
by the
By
Rosemarie Vezina Braatz
Many streams flow down the bluffs and
into the river north of
Beyond Mindy Creek there’s “Bloody
Run” – possibly the little stream at the south end of the Lion’s Park, now
crossed by a little bridge --
named for obvious reasons after a warring party of Sioux caught
up with a band of Chippewas, so the story goes, who were trying to reach
Mindy’s friendly encampment.
Further north, there were Watering
Creek and Roaring Creek and, finally, Whiskey Creek – also known as Last Chance
Creek – a landmark stopping place for the tote team drivers headed into the
wilderness. Supposedly, by now, their
whiskey jugs were drunk down enough to add a mix of water – and some
conviviality.
* * *
If you know “Rabbit Hollow,” “Jerusalem Pond,” and
“Luke’s Mountain,” chances are you’re a native of this
Peasley’s Slough – on the river south of
Rabbit Hollow – that steep hill at the south end of
Mount Pisgah – the high spot at the top of the sand
pit (the esker) on
Luke’s Mountain – the bluff down which Mindy Creek
flows at the north end of
Thaxter’s Lake – now known as Lake O’ the Dalles in
the Interstate Park, also previously known as Berger’s Lake.
Old Milltown -- Early settlement on the river south
of
Spangler Place – Picnic spot on the
Sievert’s Bay – on the
Comer’s Pond – “across from Beyl’s on
McCourt’s Pond – South of hwy. 8 and north of Soo
Line tracks … (Possibly the present location of