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By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
ARLY this summer the secretary ot
war announced that, In the Inter.
ests of economy and because they
had outlived their usefulness, some
fifty army posts were to he disman-
tiled and abandoned. Soon
wards Mrs, George A. Custer, wid-
ow of the famous Indian
after.
fighter,
was quoted in press dispatches from
oe
=e
her home in New York as sayin
“It does seem as if some of the old
’
frontier forts should be saved, We
ought not to all
to die, We should preserve hat hist we
have.” Almost Ir 3! sr statement was
linked with the fact tha
near Bismarck, N. D., was one he army posts
marked for dissolution and th i} n was
made that the post from whicl ‘uster rode
away to his death on ‘ Horn in
Montana in 1876 should be preserved as a memo
rial to him and his
cavalry
every vestl; that period
raham Lincoln
» Seventh
nt Fort Abraham
As a matter of fact the pre
mi with the old Indian
Lincoln has no connectie
fichting days. The original Fort Lincoln was
built early in the seventies a few miles south
of the present city of Mandan, N. D. It was
first named Fort McKean but that name was
soon changed to the one which honored the
memory of our Civil war President. As usual
the Sioux Indians resented the building of an
army post in their territory which they regard-
ed as a violation of the treaty with the gov-
ernment made at Fort Laramie in 1868 and
began a series of attacks on the post.
As a result of these attacks and further evi
dences that the Sioux were on the point of an
outbreak, Ces. Phil Sheridan, commanding the
Military Division of the Missouri, decided that
a cavalry regiment which could pursue and pun-
ish the hostiles when the need arose should be
assigned to the Department of Dakota. So the
Seventh cavalry, commanded by Custer, was
ordered up from New Orleans In April, 1873,
and was stationed at Fort Abraham Lincoln.
From that fort Gen. George A. Forsyth went
on his exploring expedition up the Yellowstone
in 1873 and In the same year Gen. A. H. Terry
mobilized at Fort Lincoln and Fort Rice another
expedition which was to escort and guard the
surveyors who were to make the preliminary
survey for the Northern Pacific raliroad through
the Yellowstone country. Custer's Seventh cav-
alry was a part of this expedition and had its
first taste of fighting with the Sioux. In fact, on
one occasion the Seventh narrowly escaped the
fate which was to overtake it three years later,
From this post, also, Custer started In 1574
on his exploring expedition in the Black Hills
which gave to the world the news of the discov-
ery of gold in that region, resulted in a mad
rush of whites into the Sioux’s beloved Pah-
sah-pa (Black Hills) and eventually precipi
tated the Sioux war of 1876-77. And on the morn-
ing of May 17, 1876, Custer and his Seventh
marched gaily away from Fort Abraham Lin-
coin to the stirring strains of “The Girl 1 Left
Behind Me” and rode away across the prairie
toward the west. The next scene in the story of
Fort Lincoln is told in the final paragraphs of
Mrs. Custer's book, “Boots and Saddles,” thus:
“On the Oth of July—for it took that time for
the news to come—the sun rose on a beautiful
world, but with its earliest beams came the first
knell of disaster. A steamer came down the
river bearing the wounded from the battle of the
Litlle Big Horn, of Sunday, June 25th, This bat-
tle’ wrecked the lives of twenty-six women at
Fort Lincoln, and orphaned children of officers
add soldiers joined thelr ery to that of thelr
bereaved mothers, From that time on the life
went out of the hearts of the ‘women who
weep’ and God asked them to walk on alone
and in the shadow.”
After the Indian wars were over Fort Abra-
ham Lincoln gradually fell into disuse and by
1002 all of the buildings, shown in the photo
graph above, except two had been torn down.
During the World war a large modern post
bearing the same name was built on the oppo-
gite side of the river just below Bismarck. It
is this fort for which there is no Apparent use
that is to be dismantled along with others, none
of which, according to a government official
“has the slightest historical significance.”
“Fort Abraham Lincoln N.D.
ee
on por
Fort Bent
The agitatie
{8 announ
given to the i
served the useful
cans the part
nnd it has also
of them are being
another than is gener
their ruins are bel
are being used
the hasis
work : In other cases exact replicas
inal fortifications have been bullt
others monuments great Iu
ironze tani
The list Is so long
only a few examples can be given
appropriately engraved
erected on their sites
Perhaps the tanding example of
gtrovtion of historic fort is that of Ti
deroga on 1
York. The preservation of this place, so rich in
its memories of colonial and Revolutionary war
history, Is due to the patriotic spirit of an Indl
vidual, Stephen H. P. Pell of New York, in
whose family the land upon which Ticonderoga
stands has been owned for many years. Much
has been done to restore Ticonderoga to ils
original state and the work is still going on.
lilinois' contribution to preserving the memo-
ry of her frontier outposts was the dedication
last summer of a repliecn of Fort Dearborn,
which is to be one of the buildings for the Cen-
tury of Progress exposition In Chicago in 1083.
Skyscrapers now stand on the original site of
Fort Dearborn so the replica was built along
the lake shore on “made land” which Is pushing
the shore line out into Lake Michigan. The lit-
tle palisaded structure, which offers such a
striking contrast to the tall buildings of stone
and steel which make up Chicago's sky-line,
stands not far from the scene of the historic
Fort Dearborn massacre of 1812 when the gar-
rigon of the fort was attacked and most of
them killed by hostile Indians after they had
evacuated the fort and started on their fateful
retreat to Fort Wayne, Ind
he shores of Lake George in New
This replica not only recalls the most thrill
ing incident in the history of America’s second
largest city but it aise preserves the memory
of the man whose name it bears, an important
figure in the early days of the republic who
is little known to most Americans—Gen, Henry
Dearborn. Born in New Hampshire In 1751,
Dearborn studied medicine and became a doc
tor but abandoned his profession at the out-
break of the Revolution to raise a force of
volunteers. He fought at Bunker Hill, accom-
panied Arnold on the expedition to Quebec
where he was captured. After being exchanged
he entered the service again, fought at Mon.
mouth, accompanied Bullivan on the expedition
against the Iroquois and was present at the sur.
render of Cornwallis, After the war he was
twice elected to congress and In 1801 Jefferson
made him secretary of war, a position which
he held for elght years. At the outbreak of the
War of 1812 Colonel Dearborn was again in
military service and was commissioned a major
general in the American army. He captured
York in Upper Canada and Fort George and
after the war commanded the military district
of New York. Monroe made him minister to
Portugal and after two years he resigned and
returned home, dying In Massachusetts in 1820,
Out in the West where pioneer history was
a more recent affair than it was in the East
and Middle West, there are many evidences of
a desire to preserve the historic forts and recon-
struct them while some vestiges of them still
remain, In Kansas there Is agitation to recon.
struct Fort Aubrey, one of the pioneer sod forts
on the Arkansas river, and make it a public
park, Colorado is busy with its plans for the
reconstruction: of Bent's fort near Lamar, the
post whose history is a veritable summary of
the historic Santa Fe Trail
¥
AS eS
The Bent brother
trading on the Up
twenties, The famon
Fort William, was
The inci
The walls were
high, Bastion
corners and
in 1532
musketry and cannor
frontier and to name all the men wh
Fremont, Kit Carson, Dick Woe
ton and a host of others
all the outstanding men in the earliest Wild
West,
What Bent's fort was to the Santa Fe Trail,
Fort laramie was to that other famous trans
continental highway, the Oregon Trail, So it is
especially appropriate that a movement should
now be under way In Wyoming for the pur
chase of old Fort Laramie from its presen!
owners (it forms part of a cattle ranch) and
convert it into a state monument. The last
legislature appropriated $15,000 for this pur
pose and Fort Laramie way soon be restored
to some of its former glory.
i
i
i
i
i
years the most lmportant rudd post n the |
nected with it |
5 1
is to call the roll ol
The history of Fort Laramie goes back to
1533 when Robert Campbell and William Sub
Jette, trappers and fur traders, established a
camp on the North Platte river & few miles
west of what is now the state line of Wyoming
Here were erected a few cabins and this fron
tier outpost was first named Fort William, then
Fort John and finally named Fort Laramie after
Jacques La Ramie, a French Canadian trapper
whose exploits made him a noted figure in that
region,
From the beginning the fort did a prosperous |
business in pelts and furs, trading principally |
ennes and the Arapahoes. In 1535 it becamé the |
property of the Rocky Mountain Fur company, |
composed of Milton Sublette, Thomas Fitzpat
rick, Jim Bridger, Henry Fraeb and John Bap
tiste Gervais,
Later In the same year the post passed into
the hands of Lucien Fontanelle for the Ameri:
ean Fur company, which had been founded sev-
eral years earlier by John Jacob Astor. Busi
ness was so good that the American Fur come
pany felt justified in spending £10,000 on im-
provements, These Included enlargements, im-
proved fortifications and increased facilities for
handling furs and trading with emigrants and
trappers.
The American Fur company sold Fort Lara:
mie to the government in 15840 and for many
years under national control it served as a prin.
cipal depot for emigrants and a base of opera
tions against Indians. It was rebuilt and en
larged, and sun-dried brick was used in strength-
ening the fortifications. Walls 20 feet high and
4 feet thick were built around it, enclosing a
space 250 feet long by 200 feet wide. Within
this enclosure there were more than a dozen
buildings, chucked squarely against the walls.
Fort Laramie played a stirring part In the
Indian wars of the sixties and seventies and
was finally abandoned as a military reservation
in 1800, It then passed into private hands and
has had three different owners. Some of its
buildings have been remodeled and put to vari
ous uses, but others have crumbled into the
dust of oblivion from which it Is now proposed
to restore this historic outpost.
(® by Western Newspaper Union.)
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as Savior of Europe |
Lord d'Abernon’s tribute to Pil
sudski as the real savior of Europe |
in 1920 has aroused much comment |
The praige of the Polish leader ap-
tenth anniversary of the Polish vie
tory against the Bolsheviks, Lord}
d’Abernon declared that .contempo- |
rary history includes few
fmuporiant as the battle of the
tula In 1920 and not one which
been less appreciated If the
sheviks had won the !
events a
would hay narke
in Euroj hist
Europe
Many Germa
Lake Sunerior Relic of
Ice and Glacial Ages
Lake Superior i8 now the shrunken
reminder of a large Lake Algonquin
that was left in the same area by the
melting ice of the great Ice ages, it
hag been proved by excavations for
a dam of the Algoma District Power
company, on the Michipicoten river
that empties into northeastern Lake
I
Dr. E. E
A . 1
ro eeoloo
Moore, geolo
that his
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