RIVER BASIN SALVAGE PROGRAM — ROBERTS 545 



have had many openings. Some of the items found consist of goods 

 employed in the Indian trade, others pertain to the subsistence of the 

 whites and Indians at tlie fort, inchiding household utensils and per- 

 sonal articles. The Indian trade goods are particularly useful in 

 establishing the type of things being used for that purpose at a 

 specified time. When similar objects are found in Indian sites for 

 which there is no record, it is possible to correlate them with that 

 particular period. Fort Bertliold I was destroyed by fire in 1862 

 as a result of a raid on the native village and the trading post by the 

 Dakota Sioux. 



In 1858 a competing fur company erected a trading post on the 

 south side of Like-a-Fishhook Village which was first known as Fort 

 Atkinson in honor of one of the partners of the new organization. 

 The records pertaining to the new fort are much more abmidant and 

 detailed than in the case of Foi-t Berthold I. One of the jmiior part- 

 ners wrote a series of long and descriptive letters concerning the post 

 and even prepared a ground plan of it with an account of its appear- 

 ance, the methods of construction, and the problems involved in its 

 completion. Those letters together with other dociunents were pre- 

 served and are in the custody of the North Dakota State Historical 

 Society. There are also numerous pictures including some photo- 

 graphs taken during the later days of the occupation of the fort. All 

 that material was studied prior to the start of excavations. From the 

 information thus available it was possible to identify most of the 

 features within the stockade area and augment the written records 

 with data obtained from the digging. Fort Atkinson was subse- 

 quently acquired by the ownei-s of Fort Berthold I, and many of the 

 activities of the old company had been transferred to it prior to the 

 attack on and destruction of the original post in 1862. After its acqui- 

 sition Fort Atkinson was renamed Fort Berthold and is commonly 

 referred to as Fort Berthold II. From 1863 to 1867 it served as a 

 military post, and following the removal of the troops downstream 

 to the newly established Fort Stevenson it became the agency for the 

 three tribes living at Like-a-Fishhook Village. In 1874 an extensive 

 fire destroyed all the agency buildings, including tlie school, and three 

 sides of the stockade of the fort. A new agency was constructed about 

 11/2 miles below the Indian village, and Fort Berthold II virtually 

 passed out of existence. Approximately 75 percent of the remains of 

 Fort Berthold II, including the stockade line and two bastions, was 

 excavated. During the course of the work it was determined that the 

 architectural style followed in the buildings differed from the corner- 

 notched log structures with which most people are familiar and fol- 

 lowed the French Colonial practice of liaving grooved corner posts 

 into which horizontal square-hewn timbers were fitted. It is possible, 



