Tag: dakota territory

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Naming South Dakota

By Laura Andrews

Shakespeare wrote,”A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but is the same true of South Dakota? Perhaps you’ve never given much thought to the name of our fair state, but back in 1889 it was briefly a point of contention.

U. S. Rep. William Springer of Illinois, chairman of the House Committee on Territories, was no friend to Dakota. The Democratic leader had little interest in seeing Dakota Territory split into two states, both likely filled with Republican voters. Springer made himself more unpopular when he proposed a bill linking statehood for the Dakotas with the admission of New Mexico.

In January of 1889, Springer took another unpopular step. He contacted Garrick Mallory of the Bureau of Ethnology to request suggestions for unique names of native origin for the Dakotas and other territories seeking statehood. Mallory replied,”Two words purely Dakotan seem to have euphony and poetical merit. One is Winona, the name given to the first-born child of a Dakota woman, provided the first born is a female. The other is Tatanka, translated”Buffalo,” involving the idea of the land of the buffalo, which is appropriate to that region.” Mallory also proposed Sanona,”the old and correct form for the larger part of the Dakotan stock” and Teton or Titonwan.

Springer took a shine to Winona for the southern state, advocating that the north receive the name Dakota.”The name has become a part of our political history and has so many reasons to be remembered,” he said. (Under Springer’s scheme, New Mexico was to become Montezuma, and Washington would be dubbed either Tacoma or Laconica, depending on which newspaper was doing the reporting.)

One New York Herald editorial approved, declaring,”Let us have no more states with the abominable prefix of new, east or west, north or south. Let the names be simple, euphonious and original.” The Minneapolis Tribune agreed, adding,”It is bad enough that these objectionable adjectives have once been given a place; the confusion and inconvenience would be much more than doubled if the error were repeated, and we owe it to our children’s children to save them from the infliction.”

The Chicago Tribune was against the name change.”The Dakotas now have a good trademark. They are known by all the world over. The schoolboys of the two hemispheres know them by that name. Why then spoil all the maps and unsettle the knowledge of the children? Both North and South Dakota should hold on to their original baptismal names of honest aboriginal American origin and permit no silly namby-pamby change to be made in them.”

And what did Dakotans think of Springer’s idea? Yankton Daily Press and Dakotaian editors, wearied by the six-year struggle for statehood, wrote,”We are not going to quarrel with Mr. Springer over a name. Anything with the words ‘state of’ before it will sound very sweet.”

I don’t have to tell you how Springer’s name change idea worked out in the end. Just check your map, or your most recent issue of South Dakota Magazine. When the matter was put to a vote, north was officially North and south stayed South. Can you imagine it any other way?

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Statehood Began With a Turkey Dinner

By John Andrews

Thousands of local, state and federal problems will be”solved” by families gathered around Thanksgiving tables this month, though in reality, when the turkey’s gone, gas will still cost $3 a gallon and you may or may not be able to surf healthcare.gov.

One of our most fruitful Thanksgivings happened in Yankton in 1879, when a group of influential men gathered at the home of a Congregational minister. By the end of the evening, they had resolved to divide Dakota Territory and make its southern half the newest state in America.

Many historians agree that the 1879 Thanksgiving Day dinner at the Rev. Stewart Sheldon’s house served as a catalyst in the quest for South Dakota statehood. The other men gathered around his table included his brother-in-law Joseph Ward, also a Congregational minister and founder of Yankton College, territorial governor William Howard, U.S. Attorney Hugh Campbell, superintendent of public instruction General William H.H. Beadle and Edward P. Wilcox.

The meeting had its origins because of a proposition quietly floating around the territory regarding school lands. Some residents believed they should be sold to a large syndicate for $2.25 per acre. School lands were near and dear to Gen. Beadle’s heart, and he firmly believed no school section should ever be sold for less than $10 an acre. All in attendance stood with Beadle, and all agreed that division of the territory and the creation of a new state government for the southern half would help prevent similar nefarious acts in the future. Beadle traveled the territory spreading the word about the importance of school lands, while Sheldon, Ward and the others carried the banner of statehood.

Their hard work resulted in a delegate convention held in Canton in 1882. Ward was appointed to an executive committee that helped push a bill through the territorial legislature calling for a constitutional convention. Unfortunately Gov. Howard, their Thanksgiving Day ally, died in 1880 and was replaced by Nehemiah Ordway, whose vast interests in the northern half of the territory led him to veto the bill.

Southern Dakotans were outraged and responded by sending 188 delegates to another convention at Huron in June 1883. Again, they demanded a constitutional convention to be held in Sioux Falls in September. Delegates gathered at Germania Hall drafted a constitution and presented it to the people, who approved it 12,336-6,814 in the November 1883 election. A newly appointed executive committee traveled to Washington and presented the document to Congress, but statehood was denied, despite support from Sen. Benjamin Harrison of Indiana (a close friend of Arthur Mellette, a statehood champion who worked in the territorial land office).

The defeat seemed only to galvanize division proponents. Once again they pushed a constitutional convention bill through the 1885 territorial legislature, and this time they found support from newly appointed governor Gilbert Pierce. The second convention met at Germania Hall in Sioux Falls and drafted another document that was overwhelmingly approved (25,138-6,527).

Sen. Harrison again introduced a bill in Congress calling for South Dakota statehood, but the Democratically-controlled House defeated it. Prospects remained slim as long as Democrats held the House, and Harrison even predicted that nothing would advance the cause until the presidential election of 1888. That’s when Harrison himself became president, and both houses of Congress fell under Republican control. Seeing the writing on the wall, Congress passed an Omnibus Bill creating South Dakota and four other states on Feb. 20, 1889, just before the new administration took office. President Grover Cleveland signed it with a quill pen made with the feather of an eagle killed in Dakota Territory.

When President Harrison signed the official proclamation admitting South Dakota on Nov. 2, it came none too soon for one of statehood’s greatest champions. Joseph Ward died on Dec. 11. He was 52, and the state he worked so hard to create was just six weeks old.

South Dakota began its 125th year on Nov. 2. Over 800,000 people live here today and love its prairies, lakes, mountains and rivers. For that, we owe a debt of gratitude to the men who shared ideas around the Thanksgiving table and committed themselves to creating a new and better home.

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‘I Told You So’

By John Andrews

Richard Pettigrew did not leave this earth on good terms with the men who ran Sioux Falls. Despite the fact that he attracted railroads to the fledgling community on the falls of the Big Sioux River, established businesses and secured land grants, his opinions on other political matters alienated him from nearly everyone in town. When he died in 1926, the surveyor, politician, businessman and South Dakota’s first full-term senator was quickly forgotten.

But Darwin Wolf has resurrected Pettigrew. His statue of the man, a project 10 years in the making, was unveiled last week along Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls. The dedication featured kind words for Pettigrew from city officials, the presentation of a small replica to students from R.F. Pettigrew Elementary who helped raise money for the project (and who watched Wolf sculpt as part of the Artists in Schools program), and deeper reflection on the man who was part city-builder, part scoundrel.

We visited Wolf in his Sioux Falls studio in 2010, when the Pettigrew statue was still a clay head sitting atop a table. When he took the job in 2003, it began with meticulous research, just like his other projects. But the artist grew fascinated with the wily politician.”The more I learned, the more I found that I liked and disliked,” he told us.”He was such a tenacious fighter and did so many good things for Sioux Falls, the monument evolved into being a project for some redemption.”

There are countless stories of Pettigrew’s unscrupulous behavior. There’s the”Deuel County Fraud” that marred his first run for the state legislature. Pettigrew discovered that his opponent had ensured Pettigrew’s name was left off ballots circulated south of Sioux Falls. So naturally, Pettigrew omitted his opponent’s name on ballots north of town. Pettigrew was elected, but the House threw him out.”He fought fire with fire, and he was the one who got burned,” Wolf said at the dedication.

In 1870 Pettigrew and Nyrum Phillips wanted Congress to open Fort Dakota to settlement. Too few people lived within Minnehaha County to sign their petition, so they added names of men they thought would soon arrive and sent the document to Washington. He also started a stockyard and meatpacking plant along the Big Sioux River, but had no plan in place for waste removal. It was simply dumped into the river.

Chicanery aside, we cannot deny the role Pettigrew played in making Sioux Falls the urban center it is today. He brought five railroad lines to town, and got funds to build the county courthouse, post office and penitentiary. And, as Augustana College president Rob Oliver noted at the dedication, he helped secure the land grant on which the school stands today.

As U.S. Senator, many of his stances ran counter to popular opinion. He was an early advocate of women’s suffrage and opposed imperialism and America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War. He was indicted under the Espionage Act for comments disparaging President Woodrow Wilson and encouraging young soldiers to avoid fighting in World War I. His stellar legal team led by Clarence Darrow avoided prosecution, and you can still see the indictment hanging next to the Declaration of Independence inside Pettigrew’s home at the corner of Eighth and Duluth, just as it was on the day he died.

Wolf’s statue stands 10 feet tall (15 if you include the pedestal), and everything about it is meant to vindicate Pettigrew’s position on one final contentious issue. Pettigrew holds a letter in his right hand. It’s meant to be the note he penned to city leaders in the 1920s urging them to spare a piece of land near the falls from urbanization and create a park. They paid him no heed, and businesses soon moved in. Their buildings were hollow shells by the 1990s, when the city decided to remove them and spruce up the area as part of its Phillips to the Falls project.

Today Pettigrew stands at the corner of Fifth and Phillips overlooking downtown as families enjoy Falls Park behind him. If he could say anything to the leaders who occupied those downtown office buildings 100 years ago, it might be the line Wolf scratched into the base of his statue:”I told you so.”

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A Scoundrel and a Saint

By Katie Hunhoff

The homes of two territorial governors still stand in South Dakota, the Mellette house in Watertown and the Pennington house in Yankton, now home to South Dakota Magazine. Both are stately, attractive Italianate brick houses but they housed very different men with different ideas on how the territory should be governed.

The Pennington house was built in 1875 by John L. Pennington, a carpetbagger appointed by President Grant. Pennington’s predecessor John Burbank spent more of his term in Washington than he did in Dakota Territory. Yankton was mostly a clapboard town. Pennington’s two-story building, made from locally manufactured soft brick, is a humble abode compared to the Victorian mansions built just a few years later in Yankton but it has stood the test of time.

Pennington’s character was tested when the territorial legislature established Custer, Lawrence and Pennington counties in the Black Hills. Pennington had authorization to appoint officials for the new counties, and he promptly gave jobs to his Yankton cronies rather than West River locals. As expected, there was an uproar, especially when the new appointees stayed in Yankton rather than relocating west.

To make matters worse, he then chose Sheridan over Rapid City as the capital of his namesake county. Rumors abounded that he had a stake in the Sheridan town site, which fueled even more resentment.

Locally elected officials soon replaced Pennington’s friends, but the governor’s reputation was tarnished. William A. Howard succeeded him in 1878. Five years later, Yankton lost the territorial capital to Bismarck in large part because of the cronyism practiced in the river city.

Nine years later, Arthur C. Mellette became the last territorial governor. His integrity was beyond reproach. In fact, Mellette actively campaigned for statehood for Dakota Territory and spent $16,000 of his own money traveling to Washington to lobby the cause.

Mellette was successful and became our first governor. He faced hard times immediately as the state was crippled by a drought that hung on for years. He traveled east again, at his own expense, to raise money from charities. One trip raised almost $40,000 and all donations went directly to needy families. He spent $3,600 of his own money to manage the funds.

After serving two terms, Mellette decided not to seek re-election in 1893. His health was failing and he was devastated after his eldest son, Wylie, committed suicide during a fit of delirium from typhoid fever.

The last tragedy came in 1895 when Mellette’s good friend, State Treasurer William Walter Taylor, stole $300,000 from public funds and fled to South America. Because Mellette served as bondsman for Taylor, he was legally required to pay for the thievery. Worse, Mellette felt betrayed and personally responsible. He handed over all his money and property, including his fine new home in Watertown. Taylor was eventually caught, but Mellette was never repaid.

Broke, homeless and betrayed, the Mellettes moved to Kansas. Mellette died on May 25, 1896. His wife, Maggie, fulfilled her husband’s wish by returning him to South Dakota for burial. Thousands paid respects as he lay in state at Watertown’s Arcade Hotel and for his burial at Mount Hope Cemetery. At the funeral, Mellette’s last statement as governor was recalled: “May God bless the people of South Dakota and their children forever and make them all worthy representatives of a great and grand state.”

After Pennington’s term as territorial governor he stayed in Yankton and started the Weekly Telegram. He opposed dividing Dakota Territory into two states and in 1891 returned to the South. He died in Anniston, Alabama and is buried nearby in the Oxford Cemetery.

Pennington met many historic figures at the foot of his black walnut stairway in his house; riverboat captains, military officers and Indian chiefs. If you’re interested in visiting a piece of territorial history, we’d be happy to give you a tour of our magazine publishing office.

You may also tour the Mellette House, which is preserved by local historians in Watertown and open to the public. The house features a beautiful circular wood stairway that was built in Minnesota and brought by train.

Our territorial governors lived far from perfect lives but they built a foundation for our state that still serves us today.

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Is This Jack McCall?

By John Andrews

When you hear the name Jack McCall, there’s probably one image that comes to mind: a black and white photo of a man with black hair, black mustache, black jacket and seated, facing the camera with his bent left arm resting on a table. We’ve come to accept that this is a photograph of McCall, but historians in Yankton, where was McCall was executed on this day in 1877 for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, are skeptical.

I never gave the photo a second thought until our book, South Dakota Outlaws and Scofflaws, was released in August. I wrote a chapter on McCall, which features the image in question at the bottom of page 41. Not long after we finished the book, Yankton historian Bob Hanson visited our office and listed five or six reasons why he believes the man in the photo is not Jack McCall. The assassin’s age and various descriptions of his physical appearance don’t match, he said. McCall was called”Crooked Nose,” or”Broken Nose” Jack, and the nose on the photographed man doesn’t seem that crooked. Plus, McCall was no more than 25 years old when he died. The photographed man appears to be older.

A few months later I mentioned the controversy to Jim Lane, another Yankton historian who is married to our circulation director, Jana. He deepened the mystery by pointing out that no other image of McCall or his hanging has ever surfaced.

McCall’s trial and execution in Yankton were pivotal moments in Dakota history. His trial helped established the territorial court’s jurisdiction over Deadwood, and his execution — which was well reported attended by as many as 1,000 people — was Dakota Territory’s first. It seems astounding that no verified image (a photograph, sketch or woodcutting) has ever been seen, especially since Yankton was home to expertly trained photographer Stanley J. Morrow.

Morrow was an Ohio native who learned his trade as an apprentice to famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. Around 1868 he moved to Yankton and started a photography studio. His passion was as a traveling photographer, and his summers were spent traveling to forts, towns and reservations along the Missouri River making portraits and landscape scenes.

In the summer of 1876, around the same time McCall shot Hickok at Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, Morrow left for the Black Hills to photograph the gold rush. He also spent time with Gen. George Crook’s troops, who had battled Indian tribes in the Slim Buttes of far northwestern South Dakota.

He arrived at the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska in October 1876 and spent a month there photographing Indian leaders like Red Cloud. It is believed that Morrow returned to Yankton in mid-December, just a week or two after McCall’s trial had concluded. McCall spent January and February of 1877 in jail downtown, but either Morrow never attempted to photograph him or McCall never granted permission.

Even if Morrow wasn’t in Yankton, his wife Isa had the expertise and opportunity to capture an image of McCall. After the Morrows moved to Yankton, Stanley taught Isa how to make photographs, and she ran the studio while her husband was gone on photographic tours of Dakota.

Morrow left Yankton in 1883. Many of his images were lost in a fire, but about 500 that we know of have survived. And maybe an image of his, or another traveling photographer, depicting McCall has survived tucked away in someone’s attic or basement. Pay attention the next time you’re rifling through old boxes. You might be holding a never-before-seen piece of Dakota history.

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A Spirited Pioneer Promoter

Every Tuesday, we post a South Dakota trivia question on our Facebook page. This week’s question was, “What South Dakota pioneer had two cities and a county named in his honor?” Many folks might not know about Wilmot Wood Brookings, so we dug up a little information about him to enhance your South Dakota historical knowledge.

The county and the city of Brookings got their names from one of South Dakota’s greatest pioneer promoters, Wilmot W. Brookings. Brookings set out for Dakota Territory in June of 1857. He arrived at Sioux Falls on August 27, 1857, and became one of the first settlers there. He and his group represented the Western Town Company. After a time in Sioux Falls, Brookings and a companion set out for the Yankton area to locate a town in an area that was soon to be ceded by the Native Americans. This trip was begun in January of 1858, and the two soon encountered a blizzard that froze Brookings’ feet, which both had to be amputated.

Though such a plight would have scared many men from the unsettled Dakota Territory, Brookings was never to be scared away. He rose to a high position, once being a member of the squatter Territorial Legislature and later being elected squatter governor. Brookings was a highly respected man with huge amounts of courage, energy and ability. These traits led Brookings to be appointed superintendent of a road that was to be built from the Minnesota state line west to the Missouri River about 30 miles north of Ft. Pierre. It was during the construction of this road that Brookings came into contact with land that was part of this county at the time. Because of his drive to settle the Dakota Territory, Brookings County and city were named for a spirited pioneer promoter. Wilmot W. Brookings made settlement of this area a real possibility for many people.

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Reminders of Our Outlaw Days

By Katie Hunhoff

Every region has favorite outlaws and villains but few have the outlaw-rich history of Dakota Territory and South Dakota.

Those who came to Dakota Territory were either bravely adventurous or very desperate. The faint of heart did not leave family, friends and comforts of home for a dangerous and uncertain existence. South Dakota remains the center of the American frontier, and we are surrounded by remnants and reminders of territorial history.

Furthermore, descendants of some of our most colorful characters still live here. Last year I helped write a South Dakota Magazine article on outlaws. We featured a man who had lured investors to the Hills by switching mineral samples. The suckers realized they had been duped when miners processed 3,000 tons of ore and extracted only $5 in gold. It’s a good story, but one of our readers took offense. “My grandfather was not a crook!” wrote a nice lady from West River. It turns out her ancestor was also a pillar of the Rapid City community.

Other reminders of our outlaw past remain in every corner of the state. In Geddes the cabin of fur trader Cuthbert DuCharme sits in the city park. DuCharme, called “Old Paps” because of a talent for whiskey-making (Papineau is French for whiskey), lived along the banks of the Missouri River. His roadhouse boomed when Fort Randall was established, and wild parties were held every night.

On the other side of the state, a tree used for hanging three accused horse thieves still stands on Skyline Drive in Rapid City. The tree died long ago, but the trunk is now embedded in concrete, a grey reminder of an era when hangings were punishment for a crime that might not merit a prison sentence today.

One of those killed that night was a teenager. His two traveling companions admitted their guilt, but declared to the very end that the boy was innocent. Some Rapid Citians felt there was a curse on their city because of the boy’s hanging.

Yes, our past is hard to escape. A new gravestone now marks the Gregory County burial site of Jack Sully, the famous Robin Hood of the Rosebud country. The shackles worn by Lame Johnny on his last stagecoach ride (vigilantes stopped the coach and hanged him) are now split between the State Historical Society in Pierre and the 1881 Custer Courthouse Museum. Potato Creek Johnny’s 7.75 ounce gold nugget can be seen at the Adams Museum in Deadwood. And you can still sleep at Poker Alice’s house in Sturgis.


Reminders of our outlaw history are all around. South Dakota Magazine recently published a book, South Dakota Outlaws and Scofflaws, about the colorful characters who settled Dakota Territory. The book also points readers to historical places that can still be visited today — like Old Pap’s cabin and the hanging tree. For more information, call us at 1-800- 456-5117.


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What Does the Civil War Have to do With Dakota Territory?

By John Andrews

Think of the Civil War and what comes to mind? We all learned about Bull Run, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh and Robert E. Lee’s final surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. But are you familiar with the Battle of Whitestone Hill? The Battle of Killdeer Mountain? The Battle of the Badlands?

They aren’t as prominent in Civil War history because they didn’t directly affect the outcome of the conflict. But they are important here because all three battles took place in Dakota Territory and greatly affected how this region was settled.

We’re in the midst of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War as well as the 150th anniversary of the Dakota Uprising in Minnesota (another important regional clash during the Civil War period). To discuss Dakota Territory’s role in the war that divided our nation for four years, a series of programs is planned around the state beginning this weekend and continuing through the fall.

“Back East it was the Civil War. Out here on the Northern Plains it was a whole different situation,” says Brad Tennant, an associate professor of history at Presentation College in Aberdeen and discussion leader for a portion of the series. “I think it’s often overlooked.”

The first tragic event was the Dakota War of 1862, which ended with the executions of 38 Dakota warriors, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Following the uprising in September 1863, the military dispatched Gen. Alfred Sully up the Missouri River through Dakota Territory in pursuit of hostiles who had fled Minnesota. He found an encampment at Whitestone Hill, about 80 miles northwest of Aberdeen. Sully’s troops murdered nearly 300 Yanktonais, Dakota, Hunkpapa Lakota and Blackfeet. As it happened, none had been involved in the Minnesota conflict.”It’s North Dakota’s counterpart to Wounded Knee,” Tennant explains.

The next clash between Sully and the Indians came at Killdeer Mountain in June 1864. More than 1,600 warriors fought Sully’s force of 2,200 men. Estimates range from 31 to 150 Sioux warriors killed, compared to five U.S. Army soldiers. The Battle of the Badlands followed in August 1864 near Medora, with another 100 to 300 Indians killed.

Not surprisingly Dakota Territory promoters had a difficult time convincing Easterners to settle on the Plains. Tennant cited a study by former University of South Dakota professor Thomas Gasque that found only three South Dakota cities with a population greater than 1,000 possessing a name of Indian origin: Sisseton, Yankton and Sioux Falls.”That’s not just a coincidence,” Tennant notes.”Most of our places were named after people or geographic features, simply to make it sound less Indian, and to convince Easterners that the territory was not as hostile as they may have been led to believe.”

There’s much more to learn about the Civil War period in Dakota Territory at these upcoming discussion sessions.

Aug. 26, Sept. 16 and Oct. 7: Klein Museum, Mobridge
Sept. 6, Oct. 18 and Nov. 8: Public Library, Sturgis
Oct. 4, Nov. 1 and Dec. 6: Siouxland Library Main Branch, Sioux Falls
Oct. 11, Oct. 20 and Nov. 4: South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center, Pierre

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Bake Like a Pioneer

By Laura Johnson

We’re in prime fair season right now, and the reports I’ve heard from the county fairs around the state have me really excited about my trip to the South Dakota State Fair on September 2 to be a judge at the Family Heirloom Recipe Competition. I hope to see you all there, with your favorite pre-1950 recipes and stories in hand.

I love historic recipes. It’s fascinating to leaf through old cookbooks and see how tastes have changed as new ingredients, tools and techniques were introduced. How would you like to whip stiffly-beaten egg whites by hand? Can you imagine a Midwestern potluck before the days of Jell-o?

I recently learned a little about cooking in the 1860s after browsing through a few years’ worth of the Yankton Weekly Dakotian, one of South Dakota’s first newspapers and an ancestor of today’s Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan. It was a short four-page publication, comprised largely of stories, Civil War news, a handful of local items and ads with titles like “Lumber!” “Shingles! Shingles!” and “Brick! Brick! Brick!” I suppose if you had to choose between hauling construction materials up from Sioux City or purchasing them in Yankton, a local supply might be worthy of multiple exclamation points.

Occasionally the paper would include a few”receipts,” or recipes. The July 13, 1861 edition has recipes for sponge cake, rice pudding, cocoanut cake, cake without eggs, removing warts on cattle, gold cake, johnny cake, puff pudding and silver cake. Yes, they put the wart removal instructions smack in the middle of the desserts. Very appetizing.

I thought it’d be fun to try my hand at one or two of these prairie desserts, but it proved to be more of a challenge than I was expecting. For one thing, they’re a little light on instructions — no oven temperatures, no cooking times and very little guidance on how the ingredients are to be combined. Some of the measurements are a little sketchy, too — the Dakotian measures rice for pudding by the teacup, and the sponge cake recipe calls for one do. of sugar. What’s a do.?

So I selected a couple recipes that looked manageable, threw caution to the wind, preheated my oven to 350, plugged in my electric mixer and thought about my great-great grandmothers, and how tough they must’ve been to be able to do this all by hand. You’ll find the receipts as written in the Weekly Dakotian below, along with my interpretation of them. If you have any insights into 1860s cooking, PLEASE leave a comment — particularly if you have some 1860s era frosting recipes.

Puff Pudding

Golden on the outside, lumpy on the inside.

Take three eggs, nine table-spoons of flour, a pint of milk, salt, pour the milk on the flour, scalding hot, then add the eggs; bake from twenty minutes to half an hour. Sauce made from wine or lemon, to suit the times.

This recipe was one of the more detailed ones. After trying it out in my usual slap-dash fashion, I would recommend adding the scalded milk to the flour SLOWLY. I ended up with a lumpy mess that whisking did not really improve. I baked said mess in a cast iron pan until it was speckled brown on top. It puffed up nicely, but collapsed quickly once removed from the oven. Lemon sauce suited my times, but the lumpy texture of the finished pancake did not.

Warts on Cattle

Dissolve potash to a paste, spread over the wart with it for half an hour, then wash it off with vinegar. The cure is sure for man or beast.

I didn’t actually try this, but it didn’t seem right to leave it out.

Gold Cake

One cup of sugar, half cup of butter, half cup of milk, yolks of eight eggs, one teaspoonful cream tartar, half teaspoon of soda, two cups of flour.

I chose to follow what I think of as standard cake-baking procedure on this one. Cream butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg yolks. Mix the flour, soda and cream of tartar together, then add it to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. The batter fit in two greased and floured round cake pans. Bake for a half-hour or until toothpick comes out clean. The Dakotian didn’t include frosting recipes, so I gave it a quick dusting with powdered sugar so it looked a little more finished.