Back to Rocky's Corner Archive
March 2006: The Unlikely Adventurer
For a little town, Hampton has been touched by history numerous times. We have mentioned before about Zebulon Pike coming through here and mentioning the site of Hampton (actually the site of Hampton Park) describing the location of the site and saying there were about 12 lodges of Indians there. We take this as the beginning of the village of Hampton. In this column we’ll expand a bit about Zebulon Pike and what he was doing here.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike was a 26 year old army lieutenant. He had joined the army at 15 with very little education behind him. However, he was ambitious and hard working. He educated himself, learned French, Spanish, and mathematics. He was promoted to lieutenant at age 21.
In 1803 President Jefferson had purchased the vast territory west of the Mississippi (called the Louisiana Territory) from French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, thereby doubling the size of the United States. There was little known about this area. In order to correct this ignorance, Jefferson set up a program to learn about what he had purchased. This resulted in Lewis & Clark’s expedition up the Missouri river to find its source (and also a water route to the Pacific, which didn’t exist). Young Lt Pike was given the task of going up the Mississippi with four tasks to accomplish: (1) follow the river and find its source; (2) inform British fur traders and American Indians that they now were subjects of the United States; (3) acquire land for at least two forts; (4) make peace between the Ojibwa and the Sioux (Dakota) who had been at war for decades.
He was to accomplish all of this in nine months. His previous experience was limited to purchasing and shipping supplies by boat. He was not a friendly or well liked man but he did have a strong sense of duty.
Pike chose 20 soldiers to accompany him, and he designed and built a boat. It was called a keel boat, with a flat bottom and plank sides. It had no deck but there walking planks for those men who poled the boat. In the stern was a shelter for supplies and which could hold a few soldiers in bad weather. In the middle was a mast for sails which could be used if conditions were right, otherwise the boat was rowed or poled. All this sounds awkward, and it was. It was a poor design for navigating the western rivers, but they didn’t know better at the time.
Pike set out August 9. Pike kept a daily journal recoding his mileage, encounters with Indians, and any other event he considered significant. It is from this journal that we know that Pike visited where we live in the fall of 1805.
1805 was a low water year on the Mississippi, compounding Pike’s difficulties. On some occasions it was necessary for the soldiers to carry the boat over shallows. Those 20 soldiers soon found out that they were not on vacation.
Not far from the site of Hampton and on the west side of the river Pike found James Aird, a British fur trader. Aird, like many of the European men in the West, had
“gone native” and married an Indian. It turned out that his brother-in-law was a Dakota chief Wapesha., a well respected man. Pike found him in a village up river. Wapesha was willing to help and gave Pike his pipe, symbol of his authority, and arranged for a conference with the other chiefs. Pike smoked the pipe with the chiefs and gained their confidence. The chiefs were relatively unconcerned that they were now in US territory. To them land was never owned but here for the use of everyone. They did promise to make peace with the Ojibwa (a promise only partially kept)
Up river Pike ran into a British settlement. His men hauled down the Union Jack and raised the US flag. When Pike’s men left the British flag went back up. Pike told the British he was looking for the source of the Mississippi and they pointed out a lake they said was the source. Pike thought he had completed one of his objectives, but it turned out he was being purposely misled. It was not Lake Itasca which we now know was the source. Pike had accomplished the task of finding sites for forts which were built soon after.
Pike started back in February, 1806 and reached St Louis in April. :It was much easier going down stream. Had he accomplished his mission? He had found sites for the forts that must be built if the US government was to be in control. He had tried to make peace between the tribes, but is hard to see how he could have accomplished that. The information that the land was now part of the US was made known, not that most of the recipients of the information cared very much, at least at the time. Due to the shenanigans of the British he didn’t find the source of the Mississippi. Pike himself, had the feeling that the hold of the US on this territory was in jeopardy. It took one more war to guarantee it. We had it in 1812.
But he had accomplished one thing extremely important to us. He had discovered the site of the future town of Hampton!