PAP.^o.' isf' HISTORIC SITES ARCHEOLOGY — MATTES 17 



In 1951 Smith, accompanied by historians Mattes and Mattison, also 

 reconnoitered the site of Like-a-Fishhook Village of the Mandan- 

 Hidatsa-Arikara alliance, the locale of Fort Berthold I (1845-62) 

 and II (1858-ca. 1885) (Comm. Ind. Aff., 1868-94; Kane, 1951; Tay- 

 lor, 1932; Mattison, MS.) In 1950 Glenn Kleinsasser of the North 

 Dakota Historical Society conducted limited excavations in the 

 remains of the Indian village. In 1951 James H. Howard, his succesor, 

 did likewise. 



Smith also reconnoitered the alleged site of Kipp's trading post of 

 1828, at the mouth of White Earth River, and confirmed the location 

 of this little-known post (Chittenden, 1936, p. 957; Will and Hecker, 

 1944, pp. 8-12). 



In 1952 Smith returned to tackle the excavation of one of the princi- 

 pal historic features of Garrison Reservoir, Forth Berthold II — 

 trading post, Indian agency, military post, and focal point of the 

 great village that was the final refuge of the Three Tribes from the 

 assaults of smallpox and the Sioux. 



While Smith and Howard were entrenched at Fort Berthold, John 

 E. Mills instituted mopping-up operations (as far as historic sites 

 were concerned) in the Fort Randall area. Mills carefully reviewed 

 the work of Garth and Miller at Fort Recovery, Fort Lower Brule, 

 Fort Lookout II and IV, and Fort Hale, and contributed supplemen- 

 tary data. He confirmed the negative findings at the mouth of White 

 River, and made a fruitless search for any evidence of Bijou's, or 

 Bisonette's, trading post of 1812, opposite old Rosebud Landing. 

 Since the Fort Recovery-Fort Lookout area seemed to have yielded all 

 the information it had to offer, he then moved back downriver. 



Whetstone Creek was the locale of Whetstone Indian Agency and a 

 stockaded Fort Whetstone, outpost of Fort Randall. The only thing 

 left in sight to go on was the creek itself, plus one or two suspicious 

 depressions in a wheatfield. Ground plans from the National Archives 

 and historical sources indicated a rather extensive village with cotton- 

 wood log construction dominant. Mills reconnoitered the area and 

 tested it intensively, at first with disappointing results. It was several 

 weeks before the outline of a stockade was encountered ; this proved to 

 be the post corral. The fort itself was not in evidence and there was 

 relatively little else that could be linked to Spotted Tail's occupancy. 

 This was bottomland, and alternating sheet-erosion and siltation seems 

 to have effectively obliterated the bulk of the remains. 



From Wlietstone, Mills moved to the immediate vicinity of old 

 Fort Randall itself. He took up quarters in a building, condemned 

 by the Corps of Engineers, which proved to be the remnant of an 

 officers' quarters. The main area of the fort, a mere stone's throw 



