RIVER BASIN SALVAGE PROGRAM — ROBERTS 543 



it represents the first permanent occupancy of that section by the 

 whites and played an important part in the settlement of the area. 

 The fort was started in 1867 and was completed late in 1868. 



The work here micovered interesting evidence concerning the 

 method of construction used in the various buildings, as well as a 

 good series of objects representing items of everyday use, which give 

 a good picture of the kinds of military equipment and household goods 

 that were in favor at that time along the frontier. Many of the 

 larger buildings had been constructed from adobe bricks made on 

 the site by soldiers. According to tradition the bricks were manu- 

 factured mider the direction of an Indian woman, possibly from the 

 Southwest, who was the wife of one of the soldiers, although this has 

 not yet been substantiated in the documentary records. Several of 

 the buildings had been destroyed by a fire which burned some of the 

 bricks and thus preserved them. In all respects they appear quite 

 similar to the adobes made and used by the Indians and Spanish 

 Americans m the Southwest. There is no knowledge of adobe bricks 

 elsewhere on the Upper Missouri, and their manufacture apparently 

 did not spread from Fort Stevenson. In some of the other buildings 

 the bricks were definitely not of local origin but had been shipped 

 upriver from St. Louis. Fort Stevenson was abandoned as a military 

 post in 1883 and was taken over by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 

 use as a school. It served in that capacity mitil 1894, when a new 

 school was erected on the Fort Berthold Reservation farther upstream 

 and to the west. It is interesting to note in passing that when the 

 archeological work was started, no single structure of the military 

 period survived above the ground, even in ruins. Most of what re- 

 mained of the buildings had been removed for use in later construc- 

 tion and much of the area had been leveled. The materials recovered 

 in the excavation also abundantly record the school period and reveal 

 the things that were in common use by the pupils and teachers during 

 those years. By and large much was learned from the excavations 

 at Fort Stevenson and there is now greater knowledge about it and 

 the general nature of the days when it was occupied than could pos- 

 sibly have been obtained only from the recorded documents. 



In previous pages mention has been made of the work done at 

 Like-a-Fishhook Village and the adjoining Forts Berthold I and 

 II. In contrast to the case of Fort Stevenson, the documentary 

 record of earlier years in the Fort Berthold area leaves much to be 

 desired. Consequently, archeological work in historic remains there 

 was of greater importance than that at Fort Stevenson. The site 

 of Fort Berthold II was the first to be excavated, and the remains of 

 Fort Berthold I were not discovered until after considerable work 

 had been done in the Indian village which was located between the 



