Location
Medicine Wood is in Washington County Medicine Wood, a translation from the Dakota, was a camping place on or near the western end of Grey Cloud Island, occupied for a night by Col. Henry Leavenworth, Thomas Forsyth, and the first troops coming in 1819 for building the fort later named Fort Snelling. Forsyth wrote of it in his journal: "Medicine Wood takes its name from a large beech tree, which kind of wood the Sioux are not acquainted with, and supposing that the Great Spirit has placed it there as a genii to protect or punish them according to their merits or demerits" (MHS Collections 3: 153, 156). From: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, First edition 1920. Third Edition 2001. Print.
