Red River Ox Carts

Courtesy MN Historical Society

The earliest settlers around the area that would become Lowry, Minesota were Scottish. The townsite of Lowry was laid out in 1887 by the Soo Railway Company on land owned by Thomas Hume and Hugh Bryce who had settled in that part of Ben Wade about the year 1869. (See Lowry Pioneers post).

And although the Scandinavians and Bohemians now comprise a majority, Lowry still has remnants of those initial Scottish colonizers, most prominently members of the McIver family. The early Scottish settlers may have been drawn to the desolate prairies by an initiative of Thomas Douglass, 5th Earl of Selkirk. Lord Selkirk received a land grant from the Hudson's Bay Corporation and proceeded to establish the Selkirk Settlement which was to become known as the "Red River Colony", covering areas of southern Manitoba, eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.  He then encouraged impoverished Scottish farmers to relocate to America.

"No Americans are to be accepted as settlers, but special inducements are offered to people from the highland of Scotland and some parts of Ireland, so that they will not be lost to the Empire by emigration."

The incentives being 100 acres of land, free and clear, after surviving 3 years. 

In the mid-19th century, this area was developing into a major wheat growing and flour production area. This, coupled with the Hudson Bay/Northwest Co. fur trade headquartered in Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and the establishment of Fort Snelling in 1821, presented trading opportunities to those willing to brave the hardships. There were no established roads, so 2 crude trails from St. Paul to Fort Garry - the "Woods Trail" & "East Plains Trail"- were carved out. A third, the "West Plains Trail" utilized the Minnesota and Red Rivers to Pembina and on to Winnipeg. The "prairie schooners" before the arrival of the railroads were ox carts transporting furs, flour and pemmican from the northwest to the Mississippi River steamboats.

From MNopedia: "The Red River cart was made entirely of wood. The only tools needed to build it were an ax and an auger. Rawhide, or wood found along the route, was used to mend breaks. The cart was suspended between two large wheels, each more than five feet in diameter. The wheels had spokes that angled outward from the hubs to the rim, which helped stabilize the cart.

When the wheels were taken off, they could be lashed together and, concave side down, used as a raft to cross water. When they were used on land, their squeal could be heard from miles away because they could not be greased; grease would mix with the trail dust and either stop the wheels from turning or wear down the axel. The axel supported the cart’s weight and, even without grease, wore out quickly. Travelers carried spare axels on their journeys; a typical trip from Winnipeg to St. Paul would require four or five."

Each cart carried up to 1,000 pounds and traveled an average of 20 miles per day. There were often 100 carts in a group and the sound of the groaning and creaking of the carts could be heard for miles. 

The "East Prairie Trail" paralleled the current Soo Line tracks and Highway 55. It forked from the "Woods Trail" at St. Cloud and went west to what is now Osakis and northwest to what is now Elbow Lake, passing very near what would become Lowry Minnesota. It ran parallel to the current Soo Line railroad line and state highway 55.  Continuing north, it linked back up with the Woods Trail west of Lake Itasca. Waypoints Fort Abercrombie (Breckinridge), Centralia (Fargo) & Le Grande Fourches (Grand Forks) owe their existence to these trade routes.

From Grace Flandrau book

The most prominent "ox-cart trader" was Norman Kittson, who has a Minnesota county named for him, but this trade brings me back to the Lowry Scots. Hugh Bryce farmed but also had a freighting business, delivering goods on the "Red River Trail" to Pembina, Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and other military outposts in the northwest. It is unclear what goods Hugh traded in.  

The teamster's life was not an easy one. From Grace Flandrau's book "Red River Trails" (published by Great Northern Railroad):  "As marathons of patience and endurance, these ox cart journeys are almost unequalled. Besides the difficulties common to all the routes: bad roads, absence of bridges, the peculiarly violent and often fatal thunder storms and cyclones common to the region at that time, and the devouring legions of mosquitoes which inspired the most impassioned eloquence in the contemporary writers ... the route east of the river which skirted the forests was pock marked with bottomless mud holes and in later years miles of corduroy jolted the travelers through tamarack swamps." 

Not surprisingly, when the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed to Moorhead in 1872, the ox cart trails quickly disappeared.

If you are northbound on 94 approaching Alexandria and need a rest, there is a historical marker at the rest stop just southeast of the Alex exit., 45° 50.235′ N, 95° 20.64′ W.  Also, I believe, if you are willing to search, there are remnants of the East Prairie Trail to be found near Fergus Falls.

Sources
1. Flandrau, Grace.  The Red River Trails, Great Northern publications
2, Red River Carts, MNopedia
3. Mankato Free Press archives
4. Red River Colony. Wikipedia Selkirk archive


Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin