Genealogy research is a significant part of what visitors to the State Archives do when they come to the reading room. Past censuses are a great tool for searching for your ancestors and are accessible online via the Ancestry genealogical site, though we do have schedules microfilmed and some physical census sheets in our holdings, too.

One census of note is the 1885 Dakota Territory census. It is important because the 1890 federal census was largely destroyed in a fire at the U.S. Department of Commerce building on January 10, 1921. This incident impacted genealogical research in a massive way, as people attempting to trace their ancestors now faced a 20-year gap between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. This can be problematic for people researching their North Dakota ancestors, as many newcomers to the state would have been enumerated in the 1890 census. The 1885 territorial census provides a nice fill-in but lacks the level of detail of a federal census. 

One interesting aspect of the 1885 census is the schedules for enumerating Civil War veterans. As with other states in the Midwest and Great Plains, the prospect of available land, especially via the Homestead Act, enticed the settlement of North Dakota. While many of these pioneer settlers were immigrants, Civil War veterans were another important group comprising the leading names in many early North Dakota communities. Having fought in our nation’s bloodiest war, many headed west from the states where they had joined the service and lived during the war years. While the forces that pushed or pulled them west vary, these veterans came to their new homes, became pillars in their communities, and are an important demographic in the region’s early population.

Tucked behind the general population schedules for each enumeration district in a county are Special Schedule No. 6-Soldiers sheets, which contain a “list of ex-soldiers of the volunteer and regular army of the United States.”

In the image below, some good information is provided to help a person start researching these veterans’ service in the Civil War. Details include the unit served in; when they joined; their nationality or birth state; how many years they enlisted for; when they left the service; what ranks they entered and left at; from where and when they came to Dakota Territory; whether they were wounded and had a pension; and how many engagements (battles) they fought in. There is also space for remarks. These are wonderful details that can lead researchers down many exciting trails.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

As the image demonstrates, these veterans came from different places, though many were from nearby states, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In Richland County’s Enumeration District 23, there are remarks for some of the veterans, including on the back of the sheet. One interesting note is that James Victory, a veteran of Company C, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, is listed as having participated in 100 engagements during his service. Given the storied history of that regiment and that he served throughout the war, it is not impossible that he participated in 100 battles over four years. Victory, according to the remarks on the back, also served in the regular army before and after the war. He lost the use of both his legs as well.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

Another schedule stood out among the sheets for Enumeration District 23. There was a Confederate veteran residing in Richland County. E.R. Davenport came to Richland County from Minnesota in February 1884. He served in the 22nd Virginia Infantry during the war. According to Ancestry, he served in Company H, enlisting in September 1862. He was captured at Cold Harbor, Virginia, in June 1864, and spent time in Union prisons at Point Lookout, Maryland, and Elmira, New York, before being exchanged and paroled in April 1865. He was listed as a casualty in early May 1865 at Richmond, though the war had ended by this time.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

These veteran schedules are a great resource for learning more about a specific group of early North Dakota settlers and researching their service in the United States’ bloodiest war. They provide important details for genealogy researchers searching for a Civil War ancestor and a glimpse into the pillars of the community in the region’s early days.

The schedules are accessible at Ancestry.com, where they have been digitized, and also in hard copy format at the State Archives reading room. If your family has been in North Dakota since territorial days, don’t overlook the 1885 territorial census as a resource as clues may abound to your family’s story.

If you’ve visited our website, history.nd.gov, lately, you’ve probably noticed it looks outdated and isn’t mobile friendly. Soon (within the next year or so) we will have a new website! Why so long you ask? There’s a lot that goes into redesigning a website of that size.

The homepage of our current website.

The first thing I looked at was how many pages are on our current website and how we could reduce that number. Some pages had old versions that were still on the website with no way to get to them other than using the search feature. I spent many hours going through all the pages on the website and getting rid of old and duplicate ones. This will make transferring necessary pages to the new website much easier and quicker.

The next item I looked at was website navigation. Our current site doesn’t have the most user-friendly navigation, and we want to make sure visitors can quickly and easily find information. I started looking at other state historical societies’ websites to see how their navigation is set up and how they’re grouping different sections. Our new site will reflect a mix of different societies’ navigation features that we think will work well for us.

After those two steps came the design. Because we have so many other websites, we wanted to keep a design that’s different enough to stand alone but also similar enough to look like it’s part of our family of websites. We accomplished this by using the dark and light copper from history.nd.gov, statemuseum.nd.gov, and blog.statemuseum.nd.gov in different ways but still in the header and footer. The homepage will feature a large, beautiful image of one of our state museums or historic sites that will change with each page refresh.

The next step is coding the website, which I’m currently in the process of doing. Our new website is being built in Drupal, a content management system. This will allow us to edit content from anywhere with an internet connection by simply logging into the website as an administrator.

Once the coding is finished, it will be time to transfer content from the old site to the new site. We will be updating some of the text and many of the images to keep with the fresh look and feel of the new website.

Throughout the last two steps, there will be a lot of testing on my part to make sure everything is functioning properly on the website’s desktop, tablet, and mobile versions as we add more pages and content.

I would love to show you the look of the new website, but then there wouldn’t be a big reveal once it’s ready, so for now I’ll leave you with this little sneak peek. Enjoy, and stay tuned for the launch of the new website!

As an intern at the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Audience Engagement & Museum Department, I have spent the past several months inventorying items stored in the collections that lack documented history. Since these objects don’t have a written history, I can only imagine the life each must have lived before entering the ND Heritage Center & State Museum’s walls.

However, much can be learned from the objects themselves. Since these don’t have a written history, I find myself paying closer attention to minute details. Each object becomes a little mystery, a puzzle for me to solve. Below are a few objects that have piqued my interest.

1. Pillow shams

PEB-00992, 00993

These pillow shams intrigued me because of the amount of effort that must have gone into creating them. On each is depicted a woman with text reading respectively, “Good morning,” or “Good night.” On the morning sham, the woman stands outside with plants at her feet, vines encircling her, as a bird flies nearby. The night sham shows the woman holding a candle and the hem of her dress in one hand and waving a handkerchief through the air with the other. Why? It is hard to know without documented history of the object and information about the maker.

As someone who has had the same unfinished COVID-19-sparked embroidery project sitting in a box untouched since July 2020, I can only dream of having the patience and persistence to complete such a project. The embroidered borders are what really show the extent of effort required. What a tedious task! Kudos to the creator!

2. Ice cream scoop holder

PEB-00742

Initially this object looked just like a regular goblet for drinking, but upon closer inspection I noticed that there was a clear hole straight through it to the base. As opposed to a drinking goblet, this item turned out to be specifically designed to hold paper cups full of ice cream. In the early 1900s, added pressure and restrictions were put on soda and ice cream parlors to ensure that their establishments were hygienic and thoroughly sanitizing their glasses. Cup holders such as this one were created and marketed to the shops in order to provide an easier and cheaper method of sanitization. The hole in the center holds a disposable paper cup, making cleanup easier. These metal cup holders were also advertised as being a cheaper option than glasses.

3. Shoehorn

PEB-00829

Sometimes I look at an object and suddenly realize that a question about the universe I had never thought to ask has just been answered for me. That is what I felt as I gazed at this shoehorn, broken but retaining a clear and familiar shape even without its end. The object’s name suddenly made much more sense.

“Huh … shoe … horn. So that is where that name comes from.”

Shoehorns are tools that make it easier to get your heel down into a tight shoe. While they have faded in popularity over time, they remain an important accessibility tool for many people. Modern shoehorns are often made of durable plastic. However, the original material they were made from, animal horn, can be seen in the example above and likely gave the tool its name.

4. Asbestos iron

PEB-01087

When I looked at this sad iron, the word “asbestos” across the top caught my attention. I immediately did some research and learned that asbestos was once commonly used to line and insulate sad iron covers in order to allow the iron to hold heat longer and to prevent the user from being burned. Though this handy innovation may not have any documentation telling its specific history, the item itself reveals a dark story in light of what we now know about the health impacts of asbestos exposure.

It's interesting what a single object can tell you if you take the time to listen and pay attention to the little details that make even everyday items useful and unique.

Some of the rocks and petrified wood in my inventory.

Outside in the natural environment, you will often see rocks on the ground or sticking through the surface. Rocks and the things found inside them, such as fossils, are important to the world and to scientific communities because they contain a record of the Earth’s history and the life that populated it. Through rocks and fossils, we can read how the Earth and its environment changed, how the continents moved, and how life has developed over time. We can even examine natural disasters. For this reason, many museums house rocks to safeguard them and the information they hold. One of the most important parts of preserving that information is the process of a detailed inventory.

Rocks and fossils form in a variety of ways, as demonstrated by these specimens of concretions, petrified wood, and other fossils.

To perform a detailed inventory, I first removed the rocks from the collection so they could be examined more carefully and described in greater detail. I then opened their database records and went through each field to update and correct any information that was missing or incorrect. Next, I examined the rocks and fossils to ensure there was nothing severely wrong with them; a few were shedding dirt or splinters since these had not been coated to keep loose pieces on the specimens. Once the records were mostly complete, I photographed the rocks so that their records would show what they looked like, making them easier to find in the future. 

One of the most important things to know about a rock specimen is where it came from (i.e., site, latitude/longitude, and formation). This allows us to identify its age and specific type. Having this data also provides more researchable information about what geological and environmental processes were occurring on Earth at the time of the rock’s formation. I checked the donation files for site information before doing extensive online research to complete the collection site and paleontology or geology fields in the database.

Depending on their use, rock and fossil specimens are defined as either artificial (think arrowheads, building materials, and statues) or natural (unmodified by humans).

The diversity of rocks and fossils found in North Dakota is truly amazing, and I got to experience that firsthand during my inventory of the rocks held by the State Historical Society. I found sandstone, granite, mudstone, limestone, petrified wood, plant and animal fossils, and fossils that were a combination of plant and trace fossils. 

Quartz syenite riprap from Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park in Mandan. Riprap are large rocks used to protect structures at shorelines from weathering and erosion.

Leaf fossil in a sandstone collected in North Dakota from a rock formation in the Fort Union Group, which formed during the Paleocene epoch (66 to 56 million years ago).

Clam fossil with mineral formation inside the cavity found at Long Butte, North Dakota, in the Sentinel Butte Formation. This specimen is from the Thanetian Age in the Paleocene epoch (59 to 56 million years ago), a time when North Dakota was covered by the ocean.

Looking for information on this scapula from a mammoth or mastodon turned out to be quite the scavenger hunt. The reference number on it was incorrect (the number actually belonged to a serving ladle), and we searched for days through the digital and physical records to find any trace of the object in the museum’s recorded history.

I have a geology background, which made this inventory especially exciting for me. One of the most interesting and coolest fossils I found in my inventory was a mudstone with opalized ammonites embedded inside. This occurs when silica spheres in the rock are slowly moved through the cracks of the shell replacing the organic material. These leave behind opal giving the fossils an iridescent quality not evident in most other minerals. 

Opalized ammonite fossils inside gray mudstone.

Another fascinating fossil was the North Dakota state fossil, Teredo petrified wood, which results when a tree is living in an aquatic or semi-aquatic environment and becomes infested with Teredo worms. As the landscape changes and the tree dies, the wood petrifies, and the worm tunnels are evacuated. While petrification is occurring, minerals become trapped in the tunnels and leave behind permineralized trace fossils where the worms burrowed. 

Permineralization occurs when tiny mineral pieces seep through the cracks and fill all the holes and crevices within the fossil, surrounding rather than replacing the organic material. Trace fossils are the tracks, trails, and tunnels left behind by organisms. When a tunnel gets filled with minerals from the surrounding rock, it becomes a permineralized trace fossil.

Teredo petrified wood is North Dakota’s state fossil.

An inventory can reveal the wonders of the objects that are in the museum collection. Even more fascinating is an inventory about rocks and fossils since it gives you the chance to read the history of the region and the planet. The rocks tell us that North Dakota used to be a marine environment before the water retreated and became a swamp that eventually dried out and transformed into the grassland of today. Rocks and fossils need to be preserved so we can continue to study our world’s rich history.

Spring has sprung, and we’ve been busy at the Pembina State Museum. Besides the usual spring cleaning, we are renovating spaces and preparing for spring and summer programs. This summer season promises to be an exciting one as we focus on an expanded schedule for Gingras Days in conjunction with Walhalla’s 175th celebration and on developing new programs that will be available at the museum.

We’ve already finished one of our renovation projects, updating the restrooms, and visitors can enjoy the improved bathrooms when they visit. Since the museum was first built in 1996, the restrooms had been a boring sea of beige. But now they are bright and colorful and so much more pleasant. The new design was inspired by the Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket with its four colored stripes of green, red, yellow, and indigo, an iconic part of the northern Plains fur trade.

This capote at the Pembina State Museum, which was made from a Hudson’s Bay Company Point Blanket, is part of our “Hands on History” display and helped inspire the restroom revamp.

We replaced the stalls, painted the ceiling, and installed new lighting. The lighting was installed first, and that improvement alone was stunning. Once the color was added and the space steam-cleaned by the contractors, the restrooms felt completely new. These pictures show the dramatic nature of the change.

The men’s room before, top, and after the renovation.

With the bathroom project complete, our attention now turns to program and event planning. “Arrows and Atlatls,” a pre-historic hunting program, is slated for introduction later this year. Atlatls, for the uninitiated, are spear throwers. The word “atlatl” derives from the Nahuatl (or Aztec) word for this ancient hunting device, found world-wide during Neolithic times. It was gradually replaced on the northern Plains by bows and arrows, with the bow appearing around A.D. 600. The atlatl had been in use for many millennia, but the bow was around for less than one millennium before Europeans introduced muskets. While visitors to the Pembina State Museum can try out our atlatl at any time weather permitting, “Arrows and Atlatls” will provide an in-depth experience for students and visitors.

Our atlatl, soon to be joined by others, is always available for visitors to try out. Just ask for a team member at the front desk to help you get started.

The objective of “Arrows and Atlatls” is to show students the advantages and disadvantages of pre-contact hunting technologies and to let them try their hand at using the tools themselves. This summer we will have scheduled atlatl demonstrations, where visitors can also participate. A few large animal targets will be available as well. Be on the lookout for a bear or bison decoy lurking around the museum.

The big event of the summer, though, is going to be the Gingras Days at the Gingras Trading Post State Historic Site near Walhalla. We are working with the Walhalla Area Chamber of Commerce to plan an amazing two-day event to coincide with the city’s 175th celebration. This will take place on July 1-2 and will include live music, vendors, and other programs.

Ryan Keplin, also known as “Fiddling Lefty,” will perform in the Walhalla parade on the morning of July 1 and then take his show over to the Gingras Trading Post for an afternoon performance of live music and folk tales. There’s no charge for admittance and anyone interested in Métis fiddle music is encouraged to attend. Vendors will also be on-site. Regional craftspeople will be on-hand selling various souvenirs and gifts.

On July 2, the Gingras site will once again be open with activities available all day. We will have “Games of Pembina’s Past” available for people to play both days of the celebration. These include grace hoops, hoop-and-stick, and trundling hoops. (Suffice to say, a lot of hoops are involved!) The house and trading post will be open both days for tours. The storeroom of the trading post will be set up with crafts on July 2. Bring the family and make your own popsicle stick ox cart. The “Red River Rendezvous” hands-on activity will also be set up in the trading room with new features representing life during the fur trade era of the early 1800s in the Red River Valley. Visitors will have the opportunity to try on a capote, a top hat, and snowshoes, and even set a trap with help from staff.

The Gingras trading room during last year’s Gingras Days. This year’s celebration promises to be even better.

These are just the plans solidified so far. More is still in the works, including improved shelving for on-site storage and the much more exciting, and relevant for visitors, improvements and programs planned for the updated conference room. The summer season promises to be very busy and very exciting!

From the first step inside On the Edge of the Wind: Native Storytellers & the Land at the State Museum in Bismarck “you get the sense this truly is another world,” says Exhibitions Manager David Newell.

Produced by the North Dakota Council on the Arts in association with the State Historical Society, the new exhibition, which opens to the public Thursday, explores connections between cultural practices, regional landscapes, and tribal oral narratives. It’s the result of a 10-year project by State Folklorist Troyd Geist to photograph landscapes sacred to Native American tribal nations that share geography with North Dakota and to record Indigenous stories relayed by elders and knowledge keepers related to these significant and spiritually powerful places. As audiences move through the Governors Gallery, they will encounter unique sensory experiences allowing them to immerse themselves in the featured stories, landscapes, and artifacts.

With that in mind, I asked Newell to give us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the elements that set this exhibit apart.

1. The Power of Plants

As you enter the exhibition, free-standing walls following the curve of the Missouri River guide you first to the flowers and plants section. This area inspires you to think “differently” about nature, Newell points out. Images of elders collecting botanicals to be used for medicinal and spiritual purposes can be seen along with Ojibway herbalist and artist Marvin Baldeagle Youngman’s exquisite beaded medicine bags. (Baldeagle Youngman is also pictured in one of the photographs.) The bags, adorned with realistic nature-inspired designs, depict traditional medicines such as wild rose and yarrow. At four smelling stations you can even lift a flap and take in the aromas of cedar, sage, sweetgrass, and mint.

Sweetgrass and mint smelling stations in the exhibit’s plant section.

An adjacent display of tobacco, pipes, and accessories speaks to that plant’s importance in connecting people to the spiritual realm. “Pipes act as a communication device,” Newell explains. Prior to the exhibit installation, an elder conducted an outdoor ceremony making an offering to the land and blessing the ND Heritage Center & State Museum. Part of this involved the blessing of red tobacco ties (small pouches stuffed with tobacco), which were placed in the gallery’s four cardinal directions. These will remain in the space for the duration of the exhibition.

2. Guided Imagery and the Medicine Wheel

Standing in the center of a Medicine Wheel representing the four cardinal directions, visitors look at screens showing the view in those directions from the summit of Butte St. Paul. Eight earphones are available for individuals or groups to listen as Dr. Linda Gourneau, a family medicine physician, narrates a five-minute guided imagery experience of hiking the butte accompanied by flute music. By linking the trail walk with the Native American concept of the Medicine Wheel and its role in promoting well-being and balance, the space imparts a sense of calm and “transports you to someplace else,” Newell says.

3. Northern Lights Experience

This sense of calm continues seamlessly in a nearby space featuring a projection of the northern lights and the sounds of night animals interspersed with flute music by Mandan/Hidatsa storyteller Keith Bear. (Fittingly, Bear’s Native name O’Mashi! Ryu Ta translates to Bright Light That Waves in the North Sky.) Here, visitors can sit on benches while immersing themselves in a visual and aural experience. Newell dubs this space “a contemplation zone.” Quotes from storytellers remind the viewer of the interconnectivity of life and the spiritual power of the natural world.

4. Story Spaces

Exhibitions Manager David Newell demonstrates one of five kiosks, where visitors can watch Native elders recount traditional stories. The knowledge keepers have been granted the right to tell these stories, which can also be viewed in the ND Heritage Center’s Great Plains Theater.

The heart of the exhibit is the story spaces, where visitors can watch short videos of the elders and knowledge keepers recounting their narratives about significant landscapes. (As variations of the same story may exist, those on display here represent the individual storyteller’s version.) Interpretive panels provide an overview of each story along with comments and quotes from the elders. Surrounding the kiosks are Geist and Swiss photographer Barbara Hauser’s stunning digital photographs on aluminum panels, as well as associated objects and artifacts, most of which are part of the North Dakota Council on the Arts’ collection.

Bison skull and sage from Buffalo Lodge hill in North Dakota. This site figures prominently in a story told by Ojibway knowledge keeper Alex DeCoteau about a boy who sacrificed himself so “the spirit of the buffalo” would always be found there to guide and bless the people.

Newell stops in front of a case containing a large cottonwood disk showing the star-shaped pith at its core. “This is my favorite story in the whole exhibit,” he says, referencing the Dakotah account of “a little star that wants to come down to the earth and live amongst the people because they make it so happy.” When the other stars tell him he can only do so if he hides himself, the star “hides inside a tree. And he’s still there.”

State Folklorist Troyd Geist personally cut this wooden disk used to help illustrate the story of “The Star in the Cottonwood Tree” from a fallen tree along the shores of the Missouri River.

The spaces surrounding the story kiosks are meant to immerse the visitor in the narration on the screens, allowing the words on the panels to recede and the experience to “take over,” says Newell. Twenty offering stations, interpolated throughout the exhibition, contain an abalone shell smudge bowl filled with sage accompanied by a small red pouch of tobacco as a sign of respect and gratitude. In some instances, elements from the narratives have been incorporated into this standard offering. For example, Hunkpapa Lakota elder Anna Littleghost told of the importance of keeping the supernatural Little People (said to inhabit the area around Spirit Lake) happy and noted their yen for red jellybeans, which she includes in her offerings to them. Newell sifted through six bags of jellybeans to procure the necessary amount of spicy cinnamon and red cherry jellybeans for the offering station in this area.

Tobacco pouch icons on a story menu reflect a modern digital representation of the traditional tobacco offering to the storyteller.

The exhibit concludes with a wall of prayers from the storytellers as they give thanks for the Earth's “power and energy” (Mary Louise Defender Wilson, Dakotah/Hidatsa) and meditate on the importance of stories to provide “the connection, the ancestral lineage all the way back to Creator” (Debbie Gourneau, Ojibway).

The sacred and contemplative nature of the landscapes and stories influenced all aspects of the exhibition’s design and organization, from its low-lighting and tonal qualities to the decision not to include the locations of referenced sites.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to respect the narratives of the storytellers and the sacred nature of the sites,” says Newell. “We are deeply appreciative for the trust these elders granted us.”

On the Edge of the Wind: Native Storytellers & the Land runs from April 27 through October 2024 in the Governors Gallery at the ND Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck.