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Fort Ripley
Fort Ripley was a U.S. Army fort established in Minnesota in 1849. During its 28 year existence, it was garrisoned by both regular Army troops and the Minnesota volunteer infantry. The fort's presence helped promote relative peace between the Dakota and Ojibwe Indian tribes which, in turn, encouraged new settlers to come to the area. After several peaceful years between the Native American tribes in the area, the fort was closed in July, 1857. It was re-opened again in September, 1857 after several disturbances by the Ojibwe made the necessity of the Fort's peacekeeping mission apparent. After a fire in the stockade in January, 1877, the fort was closed and the land eventually returned to the Department of the Interior for sale to settlers.

Progressive History of the Naming of Fort Ripley
Leading an expedition to locate the site was Brigadier General George Brooke, who informed the Adjutant General at Fort Snelling on October 18, 1848, that: "I have taken the liberty of naming the new work Fort Marcy after the distinguished head of the War Dept."1

His reference was to William Larned Marcy, who had ordered General Brooke to establish a new military post near the junction of the Mississippi and Crow Wing rivers for the purpose of offering protection to the Winnebago Indians. The Winnebagoes had been resettled in the area after they had ceded their reservation lands in northern Iowa to the U.S. government. Their new reservation was strategically located so as to place them in between the Dakota and Ojibwe Indian tribes who had a long history of mutual hostility.

Even prior to completion of the fort it was renamed Fort Gaines. However, under General Orders No. 38, it was renamed Fort Ripley on November 4, 1850 in honor of Brigadier General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, who served with distinction in the War of 1812.

Construction of the Fort
The first topographical map of the future Fort Ripley military reservation site was completed in September of 1848 by Lieutenants Darby and Wilkinson of the U.S. Army's Corps of Topographic Engineers.

The initial reservation consisted of two parts:  a one mile square tract on the West side of the Mississippi River upon which the fort would be built, and approximately 57,000 acres on the East side of the river. This additional land was intended for use as forage, a wood source and for raising food for the fort's occupants, but it also served to prevent settlers from building immediately adjacent to the Fort.

Several civilian employees of the Army Quartermaster Department had traveled to the Fort Ripley site with General Brooke. After the initial surveys and maps were completed, General Brooke departed to return to St. Louis in November of 1848. Captain Napoleon T. Dana of the Army Quartermaster Department arrived to supervise construction of the fort, and he and the other civilians erected a sawmill to begin sawing lumber. Living in temporary shelters through the winter, they continued to saw lumber until the Spring of 1849 when construction began. Eventually, 16 buildings were built, surrounded by a three sided stockade which was open toward the river. The stockade included blockhouses on two corners. To allow the fort's occupants better visibility of their surroundings, great care was taken to remove all brush and trees from the area immediately surrounding the stockade.

The buildings included barracks, a hospital/chapel, officer's quarters and the sutler's store. An ammunition magazine was built of native stone, and the ruins of this structure are still visible today. Since many of the soldiers stationed there had families, a school was established in 1852.

Life at Fort Ripley
The first troops to garrison the fort were those of Company A, 6th U.S. Infantry, commanded by Captain B. S. Todd. Captain Todd became the first post commander of the new facility. For the most part, their duty was uneventful. Occasionally the troops were called up to perform law enforcement duties, which provided a welcome change of pace.

The first chaplain, Rev. Manney, kept a diary which provided many details of life at the fort. To allieviate boredom, social events such as dinners and dances were a regular occurrence. It was necessary for soldiers to go to the Long Prairie and Crow Wing Indian agencies at the times when annual payments of goods, etc. were made to the indians as per the terms of the treaties signed with the U.S. government. State and Federal government officials regularly visited the fort, as did missionaries passing through the area. The visits of the paymaster were always welcome and caused much celebration in the form of drinking and gambling--much to the chagrin of the post chaplain. Of course there were the aggravations of mosquitoes in the summer and the long, cold winters that inconvenienced everyone at the isolated outpost.

The presence of the fort ushered in a period of peace between the Dakota and Ojibwe. Settlers, reassured by the fort's presence, moved into the area and established farms. They, in turn, provided the fort with needed supplies, and this helped bolster the local economy. The period of indian inactivity at Fort Ripley lulled government officials into a false sense of security, and in the mid 1850's they began to debate whether or not it was necessary to maintain a military presence at the fort. Ultimately the fateful decision was made to close the fort, and the last soldiers left on July 8, 1857. Almost immediately, the Ojibwe began harassing settlers and destroying their homes, livestock and property.

A man was murdered by the Ojibwe, but his killers were captured by local residents and taken to the fort. Finding no garrison there, a farmer took them by wagon to the Little Falls sheriff who, in turn, made arrangements to have them transported to Fort Snelling for incarceration. However, during the journey the sheriff and his deputy were jumped by a group of armed, white settlers. They seized the prisoners and hanged them. When word of the lynching reached the Ojibwe they were infuriated, and in response they increased their marauding attacks of settlers in the area.

Word of the escalating activity near the closed fort reached government officials, and in September of 1857 they immediately sent troops of the 2nd U.S. Infantry to once again garrison Fort Ripley. Upon hearing that soldiers were on their way to the fort, the Ojibwe attacks on settlers ceased and order was restored once more.

The U.S. Civil War and Minnesota's "Civil War"
The U.S. Civil War began with the attack on Fort Sumter in April of 1861. Federal troops at outposts all over the nation were withdrawn and sent to fight for the Union. Troops of the Minnesota Volunteer Infantry arrived to garrison Fort Ripley in June of 1861 and remained there until November of 1865.

Even though they had sold most of their land to the Federal government, the Dakota and Ojibwe resented the intrusion of white settlers into the area. Government payments due to them under the treaties were slow and often unfair, adding to the underlying hostilities already brewing with the Dakota and Ojibwe. They ultimately agreed to make mutual war on the white settlers, hoping to drive them from lands that the tribes still viewed as their own even though they had been sold under treaty in the 1850's.

On August 17, 1862, the murder of a white family by a Dakota hunting party near Acton, Minnesota marked the start of Minnesota's civil war. The next day, a Dakota war party attacked the Lower Sioux Indian Agency in southern Minnesota near Fort Ridgely and the Town of New Ulm. Word was received at Fort Ripley of the destructive activity taking place at the Lower Sioux Agency, and some troops from Fort Ripley were sent as reinforcements. Fort Ripley's remaining troops had to carry out the daunting task of defending the fort as well as the settlers in the area. Soon thereafter, word was received that the Ojibwe were gathering for an attack on the Gull Lake Indian Agency, and still more men were dispatched to defend that facility. However, while on their way they were met by Lucias Walker, the Gull Lake Indian Agent. He informed the men that the agency had been overrun by Ojibwe, and he and other whites in the area had been forced to flee for their lives, deciding to make their way to Fort Ripley.

An attack upon Fort Ripley appeared imminent, so a rider was sent to Fort Snelling to request additional troops. The fort's occupants and refugee settlers, including many from the nearby village of Crow Wing, began preparing for an attack. Ordnance Sergeant Frantzkey found ammunition for the fort's cannon but virtually none for the rifles. Everyone began working with whatever materials were available to make more ammunition, often by candlelight. Some buildings located just outside the stockade were burned and trenches were dug as well. Lieutenant F. B. Fobes, in charge of the men from Company C, Fifth Minnesota Infantry who were on garrison duty at Fort Ripley, declared martial law. Some men were sent to arrest Ojibwe Chief Hole-In-The-Day, but he fled and escaped.

The efforts of the occupants of Fort Ripley in preparing for an attack and the arrival of additional troops from Fort Snelling were successful in discouraging the Ojibwe from mounting an offensive on Fort Ripley, thus sparing central Minnesota from attacks and the massacres similar to those that took place near Fort Ridgely and New Ulm.

Fort Ripley After the Civil War
Following the end of the Civil War, Fort Ripley was once again garrisoned by U.S. Army troops until 1877 when a fire destroyed several buildings in the stockade. The Federal government determined there was no longer a need for a fort in the area, so ultimately the decision was made to close Fort Ripley. The last troops departed in July, 1877. A prairie fire destroyed most of the fort's remaining buildings in 1879, and any salvageable wood and materials that remained were removed by area settlers until only the foundations remained.

Upon closing of the fort, the Federal government began receiving pressure from settlers to reduce the size of the Fort Ripley military reservation and either sell some of the land or open it to settlement. Of particular interest was the acreage on the East side of the river, as it was a sizable tract of land. However, it wasn't until 1880 that the land was turned over to the Interior Department which eventually declared it available for sale to settlers.

The lands of the original military reservation remained in private hands in 1931 when the State of Minnesota was forced to seek a new location for their national guard training facility. Adjutant General Ellard A. Walsh selected a 12,000 acre site north of Little Falls which encompassed the ruins and former area of old Fort Ripley. The new training facility was named "Camp Ripley" in honor of its historic predecessor.

Artifacts found at and around the Fort Ripley site are on exhibit at the Minnesota Military Museum, which is located on the grounds of Camp Ripley. In its "Forts on the Frontier" exhibit, several drawings, paintings and photos of Fort Ripley are on exhibit as well as a model of the fort constructed by a member of the Minnesota National Guard and presented to the museum in 1988.

The "Lost" Fort Ripley Cemetery
Fort Ripley's goal of self-sufficiency inevitably demanded the establishment of a cemetery. Records of deaths at the fort are inconsistent, but several sources mention the death of Elizabeth Welton Todd, the infant daughter of the post commander, in approximately 1849 from cholera. Reference is also made to a Private Burns from Company A, 6th U.S. Infantry, who died on December 6, 1850 and was also interred at the fort's cemetery. By the time the fort was abandoned in 1877, between 48 and 52 individuals had been buried in the cemetery. The Federal government officially abandoned the fort in 1878, but it wasn't until 1881 that Captain Gibbs of the Army Quartermaster Department submitted a letter to the superintendant of the Rock Island National Cemetery stating that 48 sets of remains had been disinterred and shipped to that facility for re-burial.

The Fort Ripley Cemetery was often referred to as the "lost" cemetery because for many years no one knew what had happened to the remains of the individuals that had been buried there. Ultimately, letters surfaced at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration which confirmed they were moved and re-buried in Illinois.

1 "The Muster Roll: A Biography of Fort Ripley, Minnesota" by Robert Orr Baker, Page 14.