wilderness cannot satisfy the hunger for beauty and learning, once awakened. The test was the same from year to year, and once the seniors found the answers and passed them on to the juniors, nobody read “Phileopolis” any more.
* I n the spring of 1851, as the Ojibway near Lac Malheur were preparing to cede vast tracts to the government, several chiefs who smelled the deal coming had decided to sell out early to Bayfield’s group of Yankee investors who they met two years before on a buffalo deal. The chiefs didn’t like the looks of the federal agents who came to parley. They were big hearty men who clapped the Ojibway on the shoulders and told them how they, the agents, considered themselves deep down to be really Indians at heart and, when questioned about the value of the paper they offered in exchange for land, were hurt. “We are your friends,” they told the Ojibway, tears welling up in their eyes. “We go back to Washington and defend you to the Great Father and make the very best treaty that we possibly can for you—and now you question our honesty! We are deeply offended. Very deeply offended.”
Most of the chiefs much preferred Bayfield who never claimed to be interested in anything but making a pile and who came to meet them in an immense canoe paddled by fourteen French-Canadians, and offered three times the agents’ best price plus a large gift for signing, a walnut dresser with three drawers and an oval mirror, brand new. In the fall, three Ojibway chiefs signed with his New Albion Land Company, for the sale of almost five hundred square miles, including the present site of Lake Wobegon. The sale was opposed by the agents, who felt it could lead to a bidding war, with wealthy Eastern oligarchs tempting the Ojibway with large sums and purchasing vast lands for the pleasure and profit of the few. Minnesota should be opened up to the common man, they said, and should be settled on the basis of equal opportunity, not on the ability to pay. So the deal with Bayfield was cancelled by a squad of soldiers from Fort Snelling, the Ojibway received the standardfrom the government for the Albion tract, which the government gave in 1852 to the Albion Land Company. The Indians didn’t hold a grudge against the Yankees for making the best deal they could, though, and during the “Sioux Uprising” of 1862, when Little Crow’s band was eliminating white settlers wherever they could be found, in New Albion the Indians only took thirty-four hostages and redeemed them later for cash. Bayfield’s son James bargained hard for the hostages, which included his two young daughters and several elderly aunts, finally talking the Indians down to $35 per head, $20 for children under sixteen.
* T hus the name “Lake Wobegon” was introduced into public print. In Bayfield’s promotions, “Lake Victoria” was used, though the lake was more commonly referred to as “Mud Lake” or “Green Lake,” particularly after a bolt of lightning disturbed the lake bottom and half the water drained out, a situation that only gradually remedied itself. “Lake Victoria” no longer seemed appropriate for what was left, a brackish puddle surrounded by mud flats that for months stank of dead fish. “Lake Wobegon” apparently was an attempt to be accurate while still putting the best face on things. To scholars of the Ojibway tongue, “Wobegon” or “Wa-be-gan-tan-han” means “the place where [we] waited all day in the rain,” but some translated the word as simply “patience” and it was used by the
Star
in that sense.
FOREBEARS
The oldest living Wobegonian, Mr. Henry Anderson, eighty-nine, is in a state of decline, and his memory of town history now includes such things as President Warren G. Harding living at the Sons of Knute temple and elephants in the woods and people running down the street after the Great Earthquake, so the oldest reliable memory may be Hjalmar Ingqvist’s, of his grandfather standing with an
* I n the spring of 1851, as the Ojibway near Lac Malheur were preparing to cede vast tracts to the government, several chiefs who smelled the deal coming had decided to sell out early to Bayfield’s group of Yankee investors who they met two years before on a buffalo deal. The chiefs didn’t like the looks of the federal agents who came to parley. They were big hearty men who clapped the Ojibway on the shoulders and told them how they, the agents, considered themselves deep down to be really Indians at heart and, when questioned about the value of the paper they offered in exchange for land, were hurt. “We are your friends,” they told the Ojibway, tears welling up in their eyes. “We go back to Washington and defend you to the Great Father and make the very best treaty that we possibly can for you—and now you question our honesty! We are deeply offended. Very deeply offended.”
Most of the chiefs much preferred Bayfield who never claimed to be interested in anything but making a pile and who came to meet them in an immense canoe paddled by fourteen French-Canadians, and offered three times the agents’ best price plus a large gift for signing, a walnut dresser with three drawers and an oval mirror, brand new. In the fall, three Ojibway chiefs signed with his New Albion Land Company, for the sale of almost five hundred square miles, including the present site of Lake Wobegon. The sale was opposed by the agents, who felt it could lead to a bidding war, with wealthy Eastern oligarchs tempting the Ojibway with large sums and purchasing vast lands for the pleasure and profit of the few. Minnesota should be opened up to the common man, they said, and should be settled on the basis of equal opportunity, not on the ability to pay. So the deal with Bayfield was cancelled by a squad of soldiers from Fort Snelling, the Ojibway received the standardfrom the government for the Albion tract, which the government gave in 1852 to the Albion Land Company. The Indians didn’t hold a grudge against the Yankees for making the best deal they could, though, and during the “Sioux Uprising” of 1862, when Little Crow’s band was eliminating white settlers wherever they could be found, in New Albion the Indians only took thirty-four hostages and redeemed them later for cash. Bayfield’s son James bargained hard for the hostages, which included his two young daughters and several elderly aunts, finally talking the Indians down to $35 per head, $20 for children under sixteen.
* T hus the name “Lake Wobegon” was introduced into public print. In Bayfield’s promotions, “Lake Victoria” was used, though the lake was more commonly referred to as “Mud Lake” or “Green Lake,” particularly after a bolt of lightning disturbed the lake bottom and half the water drained out, a situation that only gradually remedied itself. “Lake Victoria” no longer seemed appropriate for what was left, a brackish puddle surrounded by mud flats that for months stank of dead fish. “Lake Wobegon” apparently was an attempt to be accurate while still putting the best face on things. To scholars of the Ojibway tongue, “Wobegon” or “Wa-be-gan-tan-han” means “the place where [we] waited all day in the rain,” but some translated the word as simply “patience” and it was used by the
Star
in that sense.
FOREBEARS
The oldest living Wobegonian, Mr. Henry Anderson, eighty-nine, is in a state of decline, and his memory of town history now includes such things as President Warren G. Harding living at the Sons of Knute temple and elephants in the woods and people running down the street after the Great Earthquake, so the oldest reliable memory may be Hjalmar Ingqvist’s, of his grandfather standing with an
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