June 5, 2003

Plains Folk: Minnie H

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

There’s a silly story running through various books and Web sites devoted to matters paranormal, having to do with ghost ships on Devils Lake in 1893. Now, I’m pretty gullible, and also a great believer in investing the land with story, but this one is just unnecessary. Devils Lake has plenty of good historic material to saturate it with legend.

For instance, the story of Captain Edward E. Heerman, impresario of steam boating, qualifies as regional epic. It has the essential narrative elements for the northern plains--struggle with a rigorous environment, transformation of the wilderness, and association with great names, even family values. It also has the appropriate residuals--tales repeated, historical markers placed, names perpetuated, holy relics enshrined.

Heerman was a veteran steam boater who inaugurated commercial service on Devils Lake in 1883 and continued until 1908. He arrived when the lake was high and hopes were also, as the Great Northern Railway was building through the vicinity. By 1908, when he beached his boats, lake levels had receded and settlement had run its course. He remained in Devils Lake, a living monument, until his death in 1929.

The Heerman legend predated his arrival in Devils Lake. This was a fellow who captained his own paddle wheeler on the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers at age 19 and went on to develop a line of steamers. Continually, too, he looked west, planting a town on the banks of the Red River in the 1850s, intending to enter the freight business on that stream, but giving up the idea with the Indian troubles of 1862.

Friends told and retold the story of how he wooed his bride, Halicia Hanna, twice--the second time after transport troubles caused him to miss his wedding date, requiring delicate intercessions by his prospective mother-in-law to re-seal the deal. They claimed, too, that in 1880 he accomplished the longest continuous inland voyage in American history, transporting a load of freight some 4200 miles from St. Paul down the Mississippi thence up the Missouri to Fort Benton, Montana.

Heerman himself tells the tale of transporting the materials for his Devils Lake flagship, the Minnie H, from the end of track to lakeside during the bitter winter of 1882-83. Nine span of horses drew the boiler on runners and rollers. Exposed workmen and their captain braved temperatures near 50 below (All right, I’m wondering about that one myself.) to build a sawmill and construct the boat.

After shakedown cruises on July 2 and 3, the side-wheeled, double-decked Minnie H was ready for a grand excursion transporting tourists and dignitaries from Devils Lake to Fort Totten on July 4,1883. The celebration marked both the inauguration of Heerman’s steamboat service and the arrival of Jim Hill’s railroad. The railroad built a convenient spur to Heerman’s landing, located where the Minnie H Elementary School today stands.

The Minnie H, like other Heerman boats, was named for his daughter, who came to live with him in Devils Lake, married, and stayed. I’ll bet the old man would be delighted that indirectly a school was named for her. I’m not so sure how he would feel about the Minnie H Carwash. A C-47 named the Minnie H airlifted troops during the Second World War.

Then there are the relics: the stone marker placed by the Boosters Club in 1937, now situated in front of the Minnie H School; the anchor, bell, grappling hook, and block and tackle reposing in the Pioneer Daughters Museum, Fort Totten; the oak gavels crafted from the salvaged rudder and presented to dignitaries from President Herbert Hoover on down; and other splinters of the true Minnie H dispersed by gift or scavenge.

My personal favorite image is of the pilothouse from the old boat salvaged to the captain’s lawn in Devils Lake, serving as a playhouse for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Wonder what became of it?

###

Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, isern@plainsfolk.com
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu 

Click here for a TIF photo of Tom Isern that is suitable for printing. 
(1.5MB b&w photo)

Click here for a TIF photo of Tom Isern wearing a hat that is suitable for printing.
(1.3MB b&w photo)