Note I-71 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

Hastings to Newport, 18½ m. by the channel; camp a mile and a half beyond this, vicinity of present Red Rock, Washington Co., at the point on the small strip of prairie where the Sioux had their celebrated red medicine-stone; this was the "large painted stone" Pike observed. It gave name to Red Rock, having meanwhile become a historical object. We read in Long, I. p. 287: "a stone which is held in high veneration by the Indians on account of the red pigment with which it is bedawbed, it is generally called the painted stone.... It is a fragment of syenite, which is about four and a half feet in diameter.... The Indians frequently offer presents to the Great Spirit near this stone," etc. The party found near the stone an eagle's feather, roots of Psoralea esculenta, and willow sticks painted red; they secured a fragment of the idol for their mineralogical collection. At the time of this visit (1823) there was an Indian burying-ground a short distance above—in sight from the spot—if that place can be called a burying-ground where the bodies are not buried in the ground but scaffolded in the air; a mode of disposition of the dead which might be called hypsitaphy, in distinction from bathytaphy or ordinary underground interment. See Pike's remarks on Sioux burial on the 21st. To reach the sacred spot, hallowed by association with the deepest religious emotions of the untutored aboriginal mind, Pike left Hastings, where the river was bridged by the C., M. and St. P. R. R. in 1871 (Act of Minn. Legisl., Feb. 7th, 1867), and soon passed the site of Nininger, Dakota Co., a small town built at the lower point of a steep bluff which fronts the river's edge on the S., at the mouth of the rivulet which serves as the upper discharge of Lake Rebecca or King l.—in fact the whole bottom on his left is an island 2¾ m. long, extending from Hastings to Nininger, being cut off by the slough of which King l. is a dilation. On the right, in Washington Co., bluffs front the river for a mile or more, to the lower opening of Boulanger slough, which cuts off an island 2½ m. long. The immediate frontage of the Nininger bluffs on the river is less than a mile, for they recede at the lower opening of Nininger slough. The river thus winds from side to side of its bed, with alternation of bluffs and bottom on each side. Above Nininger slough the river makes a great loop to the left; the whole irregular curve is subtended on the right by Grey Cloud slough, about 4 m. long direct, and longer by its meanders, thus cutting off Grey Cloud isl., of the same length, and over 2 m. wide in some places; town site Grey Cloud, Washington Co., on the river bank on this island, which also presents at its northern end a limestone rock, 50 to 75 feet above low-water mark, and a mile or more long; this is probably the Medicine Wood of Forsyth, 1819. Near the middle of the loop, on the other side, is the nominis umbra site of Pine Bend, Dakota Co., where the river runs under the hills. This loop was formerly called Détour de Pin or des Pins, whence its modern names Pine bend and Pine turn. The hills border the river pretty closely for 5 m. further, to Merrimac, opposite which is an island of the same name; within 1½ m. of this on the right hand, opposite an island of its own name, is Newport, Washington Co.