Wide Open, Red-Hot, and Mighty Interesting

 Wide Open, Red-Hot, and Mighty Interesting  

Frank Ziebach, editor of The Weekly Dakotian, glanced out the window of his print shop and witnessed a man crashing through the window of Robeart’s Saloon in Yankton, Dakota Territory. He saw the dazed victim rise and throw off the sash that hung around his neck, brush shards of glass from his clothing, while in the gaping window frame his burly assailant stood shouting, “That’s what you get for breaking your promise. If you want more of the same, git back in here!”

A surge of shouting and laughing men squeezed through the doorway and started toward the victim who pulled a small pistol from inside his coat and waved it in the air shouting “Keep back!” It was enough to discourage the jeering mob from coming closer while he ran from the scene.

Ziebach rushed out to gather some facts from the excited bystanders. He learned the victim was George Pinney who until recently had been serving as speaker of the house of the newly formed Dakota Territory. The strong arms belonged to Jim Somers, the sergeant at arms. What could have caused such a barbaric act?

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The western lands beckoned settlers to come, but they met fierce resistance from the indigenous people who saw them as intruders. Soon their numbers increased to the point where the Indians recognized the futility of resisting and signed the Treaty of 1858 through which they ceded a huge area of what is now the eastern Dakotas.

When the door opened, land speculators walked through. Among the first to enter was J. B. S. Todd, who happened to be a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln. Todd had been a promoter of the treaty, and followed it up with a trip to Washington, DC to present a request for territorial status. He gained no traction, but when Lincoln became president, Todd returned, flaunting his relationship to the president’s wife, and found success. Congress passed the Organic Act. Through the process we learned Todd’s underlying ambition was to be named governor of the new territory.

President James Buchanan had cleared his desk on March 2, 1861, but before leaving signed the Organic Act to establish Dakota Territory. President Abraham Lincoln took office just two days later and found himself facing the impending Civil War. Needing to free himself from the work of establishing a functioning government in this new territory, he quickly named an acting governor, his friend Dr. William Jayne. Lincoln feared naming Todd governor would bring charges of nepotism. Besides Todd was a Democrat, a fact which would not mesh well with the party in power.

Jayne’s task was large, even needing to name a temporary capital city. He chose Yankton, knowing that when the legislators assembled, one of their jobs would be to choose an official capital site. That Yankton should win the seat of government on a permanent basis may have

been seen as a given in some quarters, but a rivalry developed with other towns vying for the honor, namely Vermillion and Bon Homme.

Dakota Territory experienced a stormy birth. When Governor Jayne arrived in Yankton on May 27, 1861, he found a dismal town with primitive amenities. Of necessity, his office consisted of a two-room cabin, the back room of which served as a bedroom that he had to share with Attorney General William E. Gleason. The attorney general soon discovered the pecking order since his daily duties included emptying the chamber pot.

In order to proceed Jayne ordered a census which accounted for about 2,400 residents. Jayne used the number to issue his first proclamation that divided the territory into judicial districts and assign judges for them. The roving Metis were hard to find for a count and the census takers didn’t bother to count Indians.

The first territorial legislature convened on March 17, 1862, consisting of nine councilmen and thirteen representatives. Starting with a clean slate, the representatives worked to fill it. Contentious discussions and arguments swirled around their selection of a permanent capital site. George Kingsbury stands as a reliable historian of the time and relates to us just how contentious it was.

When a group of legislators gathered to eat in the dining room of the Ash Hotel two argumentative councilmen loudly asserted their preferences and began fighting over the matter with J. W. Boyle promoting Vermillion and Enos Stutsman favoring Yankton. Kingsbury gave a blow by blow account of the affair. “Stutsman was crippled from birth but he was every inch a fighter and amply able to take care of himself if he could get his hands on an antagonist... Boyle seized the ketchup bottle and flung it at Stutsman’s head, narrowly missing him. ‘Stuts’ retaliated with a fusillade of tumblers, cups and the skeleton of a fowl that had contributed to the feast. The combatants then flung themselves forward across the table for a finish fight, which might have ended seriously had not friends interfered and led the enraged gentlemen out into the air by different exits and walked them around until their ardor for a fight had time to cool, which it did, and they soon after joined hands in token of forgiveness and forgetfulness.”

Some details regarding the occurrence at Robeart’s Saloon highlighted earlier can be added here. It was on April 5 of the session that speaker of the house George Pinney discovered consequences for reneging on a promise he’d made to support Yankton for territorial capital. When a candidate for the speakership he’d agreed to support Yankton so as to gain their votes. Then as speaker, for whatever reasons, he inserted Bon Homme in an amendment, lost, then inserted Vermillion in it. That action won the day, but the bill came up for reconsideration the next day which prompted Moses Armstrong to report “a little blood was shed, much whisky drank, a few eyes blackened, revolvers drawn, and some running done.”

As they deliberated, they charged Pinney as being a traitor and a liar. The sergeant at arms James Somers, having the reputation of a thug, offered to throw Pinney through the window. The panic-

stricken speaker appealed to Governor Jayne for protection who complied by sending several guardsmen. That act enraged the representatives to the point where Pinney thought better of his action and resigned. Later that day he found himself flying through a saloon window.

In the closing days of that first legislative session, a number of representatives sullied their reputations with an inglorious episode on main street. Recorded history tells us the men celebrated for three nights before wrapping up business and going back to their homes. Campfires burned all night around which they gathered drinking, singing, and speech-making. Armstrong made note of observing the remarkable sight of two legislators holding a kicking cow by the horns with a third one stretching out its tail. Two more, one on each side of the animal, sat with buckets in hand trying to squeeze milk from the non-lactating heifer. Another man lay on the ground convulsed with laughter at the futility of effort and one silver-tongued lawmaker, J. W. Boyle, who afterward went on to become a justice of the Supreme Court, stood looking in the animal’s eyes pleading with it to give milk.

Known as the Pony Congress, this group of legislators accomplished the passage of 91 laws that served as the foundation for the new territory. James Somers moved on and was shot and killed in a dispute near Chamberlain. Yankton became the bona fide capital and Vermillion received a consolation prize of what has developed into the University of South Dakota. The promised state penitentiary for Bon Homme never materialized.

Dakota Territory existed as a self-governing body for 28 years until November 2, 1889, when it split simultaneously into North and South Dakota. Rowdy as they were, the first gathering of legislators in Yankton established the foundation for the territory to function. Historical accounts penned by George Kingsbury, Moses Armstrong, and Doane Robinson permit today’s readers to know something of its beginning, a beginning that Armstrong termed, “wide open, red-hot and mighty interesting.”