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                         American Commonwealths

                               MINNESOTA

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 [Illustration: MINNESOTA
 TO ACCOMPANY
 W. W. FOLWELL’S
 MINNESOTA in AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS

 Compiled by the author, 1908.]

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                         American Commonwealths

                               MINNESOTA

                          THE NORTH STAR STATE

                                   BY

                         WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL

                    [Illustration: L’ETOILE DU NORD]

                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                     The Riverside Press Cambridge

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                COPYRIGHT 1908 BY WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL
                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

                        _Published October 1908_

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                                PREFACE

If this compend of Minnesota history shall be found a desirable
addition to those already before the public, it will be due to the good
fortune of the writer in reaching original sources of information not
accessible to his predecessors.

The most important of them are: the papers of Governor Alexander
Ramsey, in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Marion R. Furness; the
letter-books and papers of General H. H. Sibley, preserved in the
library of the Minnesota Historical Society; some hundreds of letters
saved by Colonel John H. Stevens, and deposited by him in the same
library; the papers of Ignatius Donnelly, in the hands of his family;
the great collection of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien papers belonging
to the Wisconsin Historical Society; the remarkable group of early
French documents owned by the Chicago Historical Society; and finally,
the priceless collection of Minnesota newspapers preserved by the
Minnesota