ers added to their incomes by
such trapping as their environments afforded, which increased the market
at St. Paul by the addition of all Minnesota, which then included both
of the Dakotas, and northern Wisconsin.

The extent and value of this trade can better be understood by a
statement of the increase of the number of carts engaged in it between
1844 and 1858. In the first year mentioned six carts performed all the
required service, and in 1858 six hundred carts came from Pembina to St.
Paul. After the year 1858 the number of carts engaged in the traffic
fell off, as a steamer had been put in operation on the Red river, which
reduced the land transportation to 216 miles, which had formerly been
448 miles, J. C. & H. C. Burbank having established a line of freight
trains connecting with the steamer. In 1867, when the St. Paul & Pacific
Railroad reached St. Cloud, the caravans of carts ceased their annual
visits to St. Paul. St. Cloud then became the terminus of the traffic,
until the increase of freight lines and the completion of the Northern
Pacific Railroad to the Red river drove these most primitive of all
transportation vehicles out of business. Another cause of the decrease
in the fur trade was the imposition of a duty of twenty-five per cent on
all dressed skins, which included buffalo robes, and from that time on
robes that formerly came to St. Paul from the British possessions were
diverted to Montreal.

The extent and value of this trade to Minnesota, which was then in its
infancy, can easily be judged by a brief statement of its growth. In
1844 it amounted to $1,400 and in 1863 to $250,000. All the money paid
out for these furs, and large sums besides, would be expended in St.
Paul for merchandise, in the shape of groceries, liquors, dry goods,
blankets, household utensils, guns and ammunition, and, in fact every
article demanded by the needs of a primitive people. Even threshers and
mowers were included, which were taken apart and loaded on the return
carts. This trade was the pioneer of the great commercial activity which
now prevails.

I cannot permit this opportunity to pass without describing the Red
river cart, and the picturesque people who used it, as their like will
never be seen again. The inhabitants of the Pembina country were
principally Chippewa half breeds, with an occasional white man,
prominently Joseph Rolette, of whom I shall hereafter speak as the man
who vetoed the capital removal bi