Can a person be in awe of something or someone that they have never met nor seen? Maybe not, but that is the way I feel when I think about and read about my great great grandfather, John H. Fairbanks. He was truly a man for his time. A time when life was a struggle for everyone but especially for those who lived in the wilderness. As a very young man, 18 years of age, he went west to Montreal, Canada from his home in upper New York State to work in the Fur Trading business. Montreal was the headquarters for the American Fur Trading business (AFTco). Later the company merged with the North West Fur Company. His first assignment was to serve as a clerk at a fur trading post in the wilderness of the Northwest Territory in 1818. Forty years before Minnesota became a state in 1858. There were very few, if any, white people living in the territory. There were two primary, but different native tribes who claimed ownership of the territorial lands, the Chippewas (Ojibways) and the Sioux and they were frequently opposing tribes and at war. The area was only known as the Northwest Territory, over time it had become populated and now it is comprised of several states, heavily populated states, they replaced the territory. The fur trading headquarters were in Montreal, Canada, located on the St. Lawrence Waterway, a very large river that carries water from the Great Lakes Region to the sea. Every Autumn, in order for the traders to travel from Montreal to their wilderness posts in the West, they had to travel upriver, and through the Great Lakes, over 500 miles, travelling in rough Birchbark canoes. The canoes were large, up to forty feet long, loaded with trade goods, mostly blankets, kettles, beads, yarn and rum, each canoe had several voyageurs (those who paddled the canoes), the chief trader, the clerk and sometimes the trader’s wife and family. When they arrived near the wilderness post the rivers were too small for the larger canoes so they had to transfer their trade goods and equipment, etc. to smaller canoes that could maneuver through local rivers and streams. Ofttimes, they had to portage from one river to another by land, carrying their trade goods, personal supplies, including the canoes on their backs sometimes for long distances. Rivers were their primary means of traveling as the land was wilderness, with hundreds or even thousands of lakes without roads or designated trails. (Minnesota the state of ten thousand lakes) The trading posts were generally about twenty five miles apart so that the native trappers did not have to carry their furs too very far to make their trades. Ofttimes the trading post were already built and they just had to make repairs to be ready for the new winter trading season. In some cases the area was newly assigned and they had to select an appropriate area to construct a post, build buildings and a stockade around it. They were built very much like a military outpost in case they had to defend against renegade Indians. Log structures inside the stockade included the log living quarters for the trader, and the clerk, a large storage area for the trade goods and furs as they became available and a larger sleeping area for the voyageurs. Posts were usually built on river banks where native traders had access via canoes. Trading was always done in the winter season because beaver’s fur grew thicker and more dense in the Winter to protect them from the cold. The furs were bundled in 90 lb bales for when they were brought back to Montreal in the Spring of the year when the trading season came to a close. After John Fairbanks served as a clerk for several years, he was appointed a chief trader as a very young man. Many of the traders took native women with them and lived as man and wife, they were called ‘country wives.’ John, however, met a lovely young native lady who was the daughter of one of the NorthWest Company’s partners who was a former trader himself. His name was John Sayer, a man who came from England in 1775 to enter the fur trade business. He had several children with a country wife named Bwana Quay and they had a daughter they named Shau-gon-aush-equay and later Christened Mary Sayer. Shau-gon-aush-equay her native name means “English Woman” because she was the daughter of an Englishman. John Fairbanks and Mary met and married at Michilimackinac, Michigan in 1821. Michilimackinac, Michigan was a famous hub for traders and the trading business. John and Mary had many children together and my family has descended from his son Albert on my mother’s side. After more and more pioneers started settling the west and the fur business started winding down around 1843, John and Mary settled down in a little territorial community called Crow Wing.
The Northwest territory was breaking up into states, and this section of it was soon to be named the Minnesota Territory and in 1858 the state of Minnesota. For a brief while Crow Wing was the largest settlement west of the Mississippi River. It was located near where the Crow Wing river runs into the mighty Mississippi and at its peak it had a population of nearly 600 people. Though many of that number were transient. John Fairbanks had a mercantile store in Crow Wing right on the bank of the river where he sold everything including groceries. In 1859 the U.S. Congress approved the building of the Continental Railway, to connect the eastern United States with the Western United States. At the time the only way west was by horse and wagon or to walk, One other way was to take a sailboat around the southern tip of South America. There was another small community about 30 miles north of Crow Wing named Brainard, when the railroad got to the new state of Minnesota, they decided to cross the Mississippi at Brainard instead of Crow Wing. The building of the railroad never got started for another five years because the civil war was raging in the South and all federal money was directed to the war effort.
This was about the time lumbering became a big business. There were vast thick forest areas in Minnesota and Brainard became the center of the lumber commerce. Crow Wing, in the meantime, was populated by many from the Mississippi band of the Chippewa Indians and many were half breed or ‘meti,’ such was the family of John H. Fairbanks. The federal government had been making treaties, or agreements with the Chippewa chiefs in order to take large sections of their land. They had already developed reservation lands in other parts of the country. Chief Hole-in-the-Day was one of the chief negotiators, he also lived in Crow Wing. It was agreed that the Chippewa would give the Federal Government so many thousands of acres of Minnesota land in exchange for a reservation area in Northwestern Minnesota away from the area being settled by the white man. They would also receive an annual stipend or payment and each person would be allotted so many acres of land. There was to be housing provided, schools and a central government building to administer the local community affairs. They would have hunting privileges and access to water, etc. Paul H. Beaulieu, the son-in-law of John H. Fairbanks was hired by the government to go to the wilderness region that would later be called the White Earth Reservation and mark it off geographically and to try to provide access to it by cutting down a swath of trees so that the Indians could more easily gain access to their various properties.
First a small group lead by Paul Beaulieu to investigate the reservation land, included the now aging, John H. Fairbanks. When they arrived on the property, they saw a huge herd of Buffalo, and they thought this has got to be a great hunting ground. But the buffalo were soon extinguished by white men as more and more settlers moved West. Most of the Mississippi Chippewa band left the Crow Wing area to settle their new reservation in 1868. Mary was sick at the time so the Fairbanks stayed behind. The tribe moved in Ox drawn, two wheeled carts that were common among the Red River trail drivers. They left with very little of food supplies and John H Fairbanks provided much of the supplies that they took with them. Supplies they were unable to pay for with anything other than a note. Crow Wing became a ghost town almost overnight. Mary and two of the Fairbanks children died around that time and were buried in the Crow Wing Cemetery. John, now getting old, moved with his son Albert and others about two years after the main group left. Albert built a home on the acreage he was allotted and started farming. He had recently returned from fighting in the Civil War and he was appointed to be a policeman for the reservation. He patrolled on horseback all during his lifetime. John H and his youngest daughter, Mary, lived in Albert’s tiny home along with all of Albert’s children including my Grandmother, Catherine. John was broke, as no one was able to pay him their notes as there was no money at the reservation. He was known on the reservation as Ke-chi-mo-ko-mon-ah-ke-wen-zie Fairbanks, The name meant old wrinkled skin. He died in 1880 at the age of 82 and is buried at the White Earth Reservation Graveyard. It is said of him that he could speak all of the native languages fluently and was loved and appreciated by whites and Native Americans alike.
To me his greatest achievement was the statement said of him by the historian who wrote his brief history below; “He was a man of high moral worth, strictly temperate in his habits, charitable to a fault, and noted for his tender affection for his children. He was the soul of honor, and it has often been said that he had not an enemy in the world.” Would that I could go to my grave with the same or similar epitaph. That is what I call “Ancestral Awe”.
The following are direct quotes from several different Historical Documents:
Sayers, Mary b. About 1805, Native name: Sha gah nash e quay, John or Ke- chi- mo- ko- mon- ah- ke- wenzie Fairbanks
Abbrev: Fairbanks: 1633-1897
Title: Genealogy of the Fairbanks Family in America, 1633-1897 Author: Lorenzo Sayles Fairbanks
Publication: Boston, MA: American Printing and Engraving
Company, ©1897, 1971, 3rd edition 1991; FHL film #874118; <http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/>
Name: John H. * FAIRBANKS
Suffix: III 1
Name: Ke-che-mo-ko-mon-ah-ke-wenzie
Sex: M
Birth: 27 Jul 1798 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts
Death: 20 Apr 1880 in White Earth Reservation, , Minnesota 2 Occupation: Fur Trader
Census Note:
Buffalo Killed at White Earth.
…During the year 1848, as near as I can get at it, my father, Clement H. Beaulieu, who was then in charge of the American Fur Company’s interests in the Chippewa county, was informed that a very large herd of buffalo was making White Earth Lake and vicinity its winter quarters, so he decided to send a small party from Sandy Lake in charge of Mr. John H. Fairbanks, grandfather to Ben. L. Fairbanks, and father of Robert, Sr., and Albert Fairbanks, whom you no doubt knew, to kill enough buffalo for the winter supply of the traders of the company whose trading post were tributary to the White Earth Lake, or the now Becker County territory… p54
John H.Fairbanks: (b.1798, Champlain, N.Y.–d.1880, White Earth, Mn.)
In the spring of 1818, John, along with Samuel Ashmun went to Montreal where they were hired by Wm. W. Mathews as American Fur Co. clerks for 5 years. They spent those five years in AFC’s Fond du Lac Dept. beginning that first winter at Leech Lake. He met the Gov. Cass expedition when they arrived at Sandy Lake in the summer of 1820. Not long after that he married Mary Sayer (Saganoshequa) at Mackinac, she was probably the daughter of former Fond du Lac trader John Sayer. John & Mary’s children were: William B.; Robert (1825-1901)(m.Catherine Beaulieu); George (1827-1849); John Jr.(1830-1848); Benjamin (b.abt.1832); Albert (b.abt.1836); Jane (1838-1865); Albert (b.abt.1840) & James (1841-1869). His list of winter posts include Lake Winipec(1825-26); Cass Lake(1826-27) & Red Lake(1836). In 1840 his residence was at Lapointe and by 1844 he resided at Crow Wing (he can be found in the 1860 census as a farmer in Crow Wing Co., Mn. In 1848 John was sent by Clement H. Beaulieu, who was in charge of the Fond du Lac Dept. (Northern Outfit), with Paul H. Beaulieu & Jacques Courrier by dog train to obtain a winter supply of meat. They found a buffalo herd wintering on today’s White Earth Reservation and together with a party that arrived from Red Lake had a successful hunt. During the late 1860s & 1870s, much of the Fairbanks family took up residence on the newly formed White Earth Reservation.
JOHN H. FAIRBANKS
Married, in Mackinaw, Mich., Mary Sayer, whose mother was the daughter of an Indian chief.
His son JOHN H. FAIRBANKS, of White Earth, Minn.
(180), John VI, John V, Thomas IV, Jabez III, Jonas II, Jonathan I.
Born in “The Chazy,” New York, July 27, 1798; died in White Earth, Apr. 20, 1880.
At 14 years old, He was a useful scout for the American army during the war of 1812. Was in the battle of Lake Champlain, and rendered efficient service during that engagement, for which he received the thanks of his commanding officer. John, a lad of considerable spirit, drove his ox team; he objected to his load, but was ordered forward, when he upset the cart on the road; his objections were then heeded. A brutal British soldier wanted his corn stalks for a bed—-Jack, for his oxen; a conflict ensued; the oxen got the stalks, the soldier a thrashing.
In 1822, he was employed by the American Fur Co., under the late John Jacob Astor. He filled all the positions of trust as chief trader, with profit to his employers and great credit to himself, until the dissolution of the company in 1835. He then entered the service of the Northwest Fur Co., successors to the American Fur Co., and remained in their service until their dissolution in 1848.
He was known to every Chippewa Indian in Minnesota, and was master of the Indian languages. He was a man of high moral worth, strictly temperate in his habits, charitable to a fault, and noted for his tender affection for his children. He was the soul of honor, and it has often been said that he had not an enemy in the world.
Father: John * FAIRBANKS b: 06 May 1755 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts
Mother: Fanny * KELTON b: 14 Aug 1763 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts
Marriage 1 Mary * SAYER b: 1799-1802 in Vermillion Lake, Dakota, Minnesota
Married: Abt 1820 in Mackinaw City, Cheboygan, Michigan Children:
Maria Margaret FAIRBANKS b: 21 Feb 1821 in Vermillion Lake, Dakota, Minnesota
Robert P. FAIRBANKS b: 21 Sep 1825 in Luch Lake, , Minnesota
George A. FAIRBANKS b: 26 Aug 1827 in Sandy Lake, , Minnesota
John FAIRBANKS b: 11 Jul 1831 in Vermillion Lake, Dakota, Minnesota
Benjamin FAIRBANKS b: 22 Jun 1834 in Vermillion Lake, Dakota, Minnesota
William FAIRBANKS b: 20 Aug 1837 in Mud Lake, Itaska, Minnesota c: in Winnebagoshish, Itasca, Minnesota
Albert * FAIRBANKS b: 23 Sep 1840 in Red Lake, Beltrami, Minnesota (My GGrandfather)
James FAIRBANKS b: 28 Jun 1842 in Crow Wing, Crow Wing, Minnesota
Jane FAIRBANKS b: 15 Oct 1844 in Mud Lake, Itaska, Minnesota
John H. FAIRBANKS b: 10 Nov 1849 in Mud Lake, Itaska, Minnesota
Mary FAIRBANKS b: 1852 in Mud Lake, Itaska, Minnesota
John H. Fairbanks was a true pioneer and man for his time. He had a heart of gold and the love of all who knew him.