234 A RAFT PILOT'S LOG 



CAPTAIN CYPRIAN BUISSON 



There were four of the Buisson boys. Antoine, the 

 second, only made a few trips on floating rafts, then 

 went to the Dakotas and took up farming. The other 

 three, Henry, Joseph and Cyprian, stuck to the rafting 

 game as long as it lasted, except that Henry enlisted in 

 the Fifth Minnesota Infantry and served during the 

 Civil War. 



Their grandfather was Lieutenant Duncan Graham 

 who commanded the small detachment of British troops 

 that with their indian allies, defeated the United States 

 force under Colonel Zachary Taylor at the Battle of 

 Credit Island near Davenport on September 6, 1814. 



Lieutenant Graham married an indian wife, prob- 

 ably of the Sac tribe, and their daughter was born on or 

 near Credit island. Lieutenant Graham's duties took 

 him to Minnesota for many years and this daughter 

 married Joseph Buisson, a French-Canadian trader, 

 who was an early settler in Wabasha. 



Whether Mrs. Buisson, the mother of these four sons 

 and three daughters, was a Sac or a Sioux, is in doubt, 

 but one thing is sure: she had children of whom any 

 mother could be justly proud. They all stood high in 

 their old home town. 



Cyprian, the third son of Joseph Buisson, was born 

 in Wabasha, Minnesota, September 25, 1849. 



His youth was spent mostly in learning and playing 

 the games of the young Sioux who were his chosen com- 

 panions. He was fond of hunting and trapping and be- 

 came very skillful in using a gun or a canoe and always 

 had both with him on the "B. Hershey." 



Joseph, his next older brother, took more interest in 

 school, but hard as he tried, he could not keep young 

 Cyp at his studies when conditions were favorable for 



