middle of the winter, with two feet of snow on the ground, and, after changing my underclothes, wringing the sweat out of those I took off and hanging them up around the fire to dry, I have lain down on top of the bed of fir boughs, with nothing over me, and slept soundly until morning.

I have seen several lists of goods for an outfit for a surveying party, but I do not remember one that was not loaded down with stuff that would not pay transportation. If you are on the prairie where you can haul your outfit with teams, you can take a great many things that are not absolutely necessary but are luxuries when camping out. But in timber, where everything has to be packed by men, or even by horses, it is necessary to have everything of the least weight consistent with comfort. I have seen no better list of articles constituting an outfit than I had in 1875 on the east line of the Red Lake Reservation; and for the benefit of those who may want to supply a party in a timber country, I give

it here.

From the last of September, to the first of November, five weeks, with a crew of six men, equal to one man thirty weeks, I had 300 lbs. flour, 200 lbs. pork, 60 lbs. beans, seven and a half pounds of black tea, 50 lbs. cut loaf sugar, 30 lbs. dried apples, six pounds of baking powder, and salt, pepper, soap, matches, etc.

White rice is poor food for working men, but wild rice is as hearty as beans and is easily cooked. Oat meal is good wholesome food, cooked in short order, and is easily digested, good for supper.

On the survey of the east boundary of that reservation in 1875, I had as packer one Jack Bonga, of Red Lake, who was onequarter negro and three-quarters Indian. He would pack two sacks of flour of a hundred pounds each every day, rather than make two trips for the same baggage. Two hundred pounds is a regular pack for a horse in the mountains. Jack was a nephew of George Bonga, who, when he came into the country from Lake Superior packed 700 pounds for a quarter of a mile over the portage at the Dalles of the St. Louis river. He was half negro, the son of a fugitive slave, a giant in strength, over six feet high, over 200 pounds weight, as straight as an Indian, with sinews and cords in his limbs like a horse.

THE BEGINNING OF BANKING IN MINNESOTA,*

BY ADOLPH O. ELIASON, PH. D.

Before the days of white settlement in the Northwest, the territory now embraced within the boundaries of Minnesota was inhabited by Indians. Agriculture, trade and commerce, even in their most rudimentary forms, could scarcely be said to exist. Hunting, trapping and fishing were the chief occupations of the men; and the women prepared the food, made the moccasins and clothing, cared for the children, and in general performed the work and drudgery about the camp or village.

The first white men to enter the territory were exploring traders, closely followed by missionaries and by regular traders seeking the furs which the Indians procured with such little effort.

There was no metallic money in circulation in the early fur trade. Trade was carried on by barter. Furs were exchanged by the Indians for blankets, knives, powder, firearms, rum, and other articles brought in by the traders. Henry R. Schoolcraft, the noted traveler and writer, says, in his "Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake in 1832," that the standard of value and computation in the fur trade was a prime beaver, called "plus" by the French. Other writers bear out this statement, and it is established beyond a doubt that, from the beginnings of trade in this territory, the unit of trade was the beaver skin, allowed at one and one-half pounds per skin. About 1820 a prime beaver skin was estimated as worth $2 a pound, a large prime beaver being worth $4.† Schoolcraft, in the narrative referred to, states that a prime beaver or plus was worth one bear, one otter, or three martens, while a keg of rum was equivalent to thirty plus. A little later the muskrat skin was the unit of trade in this territory.

*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, May 11, 1908. +Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, Vol. VII, p. 205.

The fur trade was the forerunner of civilization throughout this region, as it has been in nearly all parts of the North American continent. Its attractive profits tempted exploration, established settlements and posts for trading purposes, opened regular avenues of trade, and prepared the way for the influx of agricultural settlers, merchants, and those bent on other lines of trade and industry. The history of the early fur trade in Minnesota becomes, then, of first importance in the study of early business conditions; and some little attention to these conditions is absolutely necessary in order to determine just when and how the needed banking facilities were supplied before conditions demanded the establishment of exclusively banking institutions.

The fur trade in our territory was for many years in the hands of the French, but after the middle of the eighteenth century the English gradually began to secure the trade of the Northwest. After the treaty of Paris in 1763, the English came into possession of all the posts, and for a brief period the fur trade was carried on exclusively by the Hudson Bay Company. About 1766 private traders began to encroach, and in 1783 the strongest of these traders united their stocks and formed the Northwest Company, with headquarters at Montreal, a strong rivalry immediately springing up between the two companies. In 1798 the Northwest Company alone had over forty clerks, fifty interpreters, and six hundred canoemen in Minnesota. In 1809 the American Fur Company was organized by John Jacob Astor, but it did not begin business until the close of the war of 1812. A few years later the Indian trade of the territory passed into the hands of the American Company, for the Northwest Company was obliged to dispose of its posts south of the Canadian line, on account of an act passed by Congress in 1816 excluding foreigners from the Indian trade.

With the advent of the American Company and the protection of the frontier by the establishment in 1819 of the military post at Fort Snelling, the Indian trade in our territory received a great impetus, and although it was several years before settlers actually began to arrive, the territory was being exploited by explorers and traders and the eyes of future settlers turned in this direction. Referring to the year 1832, Neill wrote in his History of Minne

sota (page 415): "There were no white families in the country. The entire population, besides the soldiers of the fort, were Indian traders." He undoubtedly left out of account the few Swiss refugees who were at this time squatting upon the Fort Snelling Reservation. By 1833, traders were established in posts at Mendota, Olive Grove at the mouth of the St. Croix, Traverse des Sioux, Little Rapids of the Minnesota river, Lac qui Parle, and Lake Traverse; and as traders went out from these posts in every direction, it may be seen that trade with the Indians was carried on over a large part of our territory.

Up to 1837, none of the land in Minnesota was open to settlement. All the land belonged to the Indians, with the exception of the military reservation. Beginning with 1837, treaties were made with the Indians by which their rights of occupancy between the Mississippi and St. Croix as far north as the Crow Wing were ceded to the United States, thus making settlement possible. Gradually settlers began to arrive, but up to 1849 comparatively little headway had been made in this direction, considering the vastness of the territory. Mr. A. L. Larpenteur, who was afterward one of the first merchants in St. Paul, arrived in the territory in September, 1843. "At that time," he says in his Recollections, "the white population

in the vast

territory that now includes the great state of Minnesota, the two Dakotas, parts of Wisconsin and Iowa, and all the country across the Missouri river to the Pacific coast, did not exceed three hun-. dred." At the time of the first official census, taken in 1849, when the territorial organization was effected, there were less than 5,000 inhabitants within the area now included in Minnesota.

John Jacob Astor was an enterprising and astute trader. He sent to the territory a number of wide awake young men from the East. Among them were Ramsay Crooks, who was his first agent and afterward was president of the company, and Charles H. Oakes and Charles W. W. Borup, who have the distinction of starting the first banking-house within our boundaries.

In 1834, II. II. Sibley, who later was to play such an important part in our history, came to Minnesota, having formed, with Colonel Dousman and Joseph Rolette, Sr., a copartnership with the American Fur Company. Sibley was placed in control of the

trade throughout this vast region and had his headquarters at St. Peter's, now the village of Mendota. He inspected the posts. supervised the operations of the traders, clerks, and voyageurs, and dictated the policy of the company with regard to the traffic with the Indians. Sibley's day books, his letter books showing copies of all his letters, and several files of letters received by him while in the fur trade, are to be found in the Library of this Society. They furnish a vast fund of information as to the history of the fur trade and the conditions of the Territory in general, during a period upon which it is extremely difficult to find any definite and reliable information.

In order that we may more clearly comprehend the earliest stages of banking development in Minnesota, let us give a moment's attention to the beginnings of banking in New England. A glance at the early conditions in the east will show a remarkable similarity with the conditions in this territory.

In studying the rise of banking institutions in the United States, we find that the business and industries of the colonies were carried on for nearly two centuries without the assistance of a single local commercial bank. The peculiar conditions of colonial trade and industry made the rise of local banking institutions unnecessary. There were no manufactures requiring extensive capital and banking facilities; the financial aid necessary to carry on operations under the agricultural and domestic systems was supplied by individuals in the colonies; the retail trade and the coasting and shipping industries were conducted on English capital; the banking for the merchants in the colonies was done in England; and these merchants, with the aid of their own capital and their banking connections in England, together with their remarkable credit arrangements with the English merchants, were able to give to individuals and small traders in the colonies the credit. accommodations and limited banking services which they required.

So long as these conditions continued in the colonies, local banking institutions were not needed and consequently did not arise; but with the gradual disruption of the domestic system, and with the development of manufactures and other industries requir

*See "The Rise of Commercial Banking Institutions in the United States," by A. O. Eliason.