Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/171



of law, stolen horses from them and also from the nearest white settlers. To preserve peace and protect the country from their depredations, an order was issued in 1842 for the establishment of a fort at the forks of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. Captain James Allen, of the First United States Dragoons, at Fort Sanford, had in November, 1842, ascended to the forks of the rivers in the Indian reservation for the purpose of selecting a suitable site for a fort whenever the Government should determine to establish one farther up the river. He had reported in favor of a point at the junction of the two rivers. His reasons for this selection are given as follows:

“The soil is rich; wood, stone, water and grass are all abundant. It will be high enough up the river to protect these Indians against the Sioux, and is in the heart of the best part of the country, where the greatest efforts of the squatters will be made to get in. It is about equi-distant from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and offers a good route to both. It will be within twenty-five miles of the new line, about the right distance from the settlements, and above all of the Indian villages and trading houses. All of the Sacs have determined to make their villages on a larger prairie bottom that commences about two miles below, and the traders have selected their sites there also. It will be about the head of keel-boat navigation on the Des Moines. I think it will be better than any point farther up, because it will be harder to get supplies farther up, and no point or post that may be established on this river need be kept up more than three years, or until these Indians shall leave. A post for the northern boundary of future Ioway will go far above the sources of the Des Moines.

“I would build but common log cabins for both men and officers, giving them good floors, windows and doors; stables very common. Pine lumber for the most necessary parts of the buildings ought to be sent up in keel boats in the spring rise of the river. One of their agents has told me that the American Fur Company would send a steamboat up to the Raccoon on the early spring rise. If they do it would be a good time to send up army supplies. Such is the desire of people to get a footing in the country that I believe I could hire corn raised here for twenty-five cents a bushel. The rise in the Des Moines will occur in March.”

The establishment of the post was delayed until March, 1843, when Captain Allen was selected to build the fort. He left Fort Sanford on the 29th of April with a small detachment and supplies, took passage on a steamer which