Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Margaret Bridget Haley was born on May 24, 1824 in County Cork in Ireland. Her parents were Daniel James Haley (1803-1876) and Johannah Barrett (1802-1882).

In the 1840s, Margaret moved to New Orleans. She was there to join her brother in Pennsylvania. According to the Life Story of the O’Loughlin Familyby Dennis O’Loughlin III, while Margaret was on a sailing ship to New Orleans, she met a well-to-do woman who talked her into going to work for her in New Orleans. The woman said that if Margaret didn’t like it, the woman would pay for her way to her brother’s place in Pennsylvania.

According to Margaret, she never saw her brother or any of her relatives again!

In New Orleans, Margaret met Dennis O’Loughlin, who had been born on May 24, 1824, in County Clare, Ireland. Dennis was a medium-sized man with light complexion, though he turned darker after contracting yellow fever. Margaret was a good-sized woman, very outspoken, and could express herself in no uncertain terms.

Margaret and Dennis married in New Orleans. Around 1850, they took a steamboat to St. Paul, Minnesota Territory. Dennis worked on the Mississippi River on the levee, and owned lots where the state capitol now stands. The first of nine children were born in Minnesota, starting with Mary Ann, who was born in St. Paul in 1851, and the rest in Eagle Creek Township.

When visiting relatives in Le Sueur County, Dennis stopped in Shakopee. He met another old country Irishman who persuaded him to locate in Eagle Creek Township, where they bought 160 acres of unsurveyed land from Minnesota Territory for $1.25 an acre. The land, according to Dennis O’Loughlin III, was mostly covered with hardwood timber, some natural wild hay meadows … There was a creek across one corner and a small part of a lake on the property. Most of the land had to be cleared. The first buildings were upon a rise of ground near the center of the land, but a log house and others were built near the creek.

Margaret knew that Dennis was a hard-working man, but he often would go to Shakopee and met with his old cronies. He wouldn’t come home until someone went after him. Then he wouldn’t go again for a couple of months. He was well-liked and never quarrelsome.

Dennis and Margaret sold their lots in St. Paul to get money to bring Dennis’s parents over from Ireland. Michael O’Loughlin (1803-1865) who swore in Gaelic, and Bridget Moran O’Loughlin (1803-1862) both were buried at the Catholic cemetery, but no markers were located.

The Civil War had been going on for three years in 1864 when someone from Shakopee came out and told Dennis that his name was on the list soon to be called up. If a man enlisted, he could go to whatever regiment he wanted to, and his family would get $300 bounty. So, Dennis went to Fort Snelling and enlisted in the Ninth Minnesota Volunteers because there were other men from County Clare.

Margaret walked to church regularly, five miles and back. Someone from Shakopee came to tell Margaret that Dennis had enlisted at seven in the morning. She walked to Fort Snelling, arriving at 1 p.m. Dennis was allowed to come back home for her for the last time. The children remembered the stick candy he brought to them, and the youngest ones got to wear Dennis’s soldier cap.

Meanwhile, Margaret cared for the nine children. The oldest was 13, and the youngest was six months old. Margaret had 12 acres cleared, dug ditches, and built rail fences. The family owned cows, but hardly anyone had horses at that time. Oxen was the main source of power, but it is not known if the family owned any.

The adjoining neighbors included Thomas Turner, Thomas Kennedy, Edward Smith, and Mr. Manning. The children remembered that potatoes piled in their jackets, and salt and milk was sometimes all they had to eat. The early settler-colonists were very neighborly. Whenever anyone of them needed help of any kind, other others pitched in to help without being asked or expecting pay for it.

Dennis joined the Union forces into Nashville. In a letter home, Dennis said, “I am in the highest courage and good health, but I feel very much homesick and lonesome after the children.” A few days later, he was hit with a bullet hole between the left thigh and groin. He got gangrene which ate through an artery, and he bled to death. Dennis was buried in Nashville, Tennessee on December 29, 1864.

Margaret was left as a widow with nine small children. She got only six dollars a month pension at first, but twelve dollars by the time she died. She never considered marrying again. Margaret was a midwife and would also lay out the dead. At the wakes she would sing a death chant, but the children hated it and asked her to stop.

A squatter built a cabin on her land. If she allowed it, she would have lost the creek and the lake. When the squatter went to get his family, Margaret burned his cabin down. He did not try to build another. Margaret’s strength and fortitude were great. She was also a singer and dancer. It was said that she could play tunes on the floor with her feet and bring them out as well as if she had been playing some musical instrument.

Margaret was one of the hardest workers in getting donations to build the Church of the Immaculate Conception in 1864. She would ask for donations from people no one else would think of and got them, too. The church was dedicated in March 1866. It was snowing, raining, thundering, and lightning all day, but Margaret and her daughter, Nellie, walked to the dedication.

Margareth Bridget Haley O’Loughlin died on October 7, 1886, in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, Minnesota, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery on the top of the hill.

Bibliography

O’Loughlin, Dennis III. Life Story of the O’Loughlin Family, 1959.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Katherina Freihaut was born on December 11, 1802, in Biblis, Kreis Bergstraße, Hessen, Germany. Her parents were Wilhelm Freihaut (1764-1813) and Katherina Reis (1768-1807).

Katherina married Valentin Bartholomaus Reis on November 25, 1823, in Biblis, Bergstraße, Hesse, Germany. Valentin was born on January 11, 1795, in Biblis, Bergstraße, Hesse, Germany, son of George Bartholomeus Reis (1763-1838) and Anna Maria Freihaut (1771-1834).

Katherina and Valentin had twelve children, including Bartholomaus, Valentin F., Elizabeth, Johann, Anna Maria, Michael, Elisabeth, Katharina, a stillborn child, Heinrich, Barbara and George Reis.

Valentin, Katherina, and their family headed to America, arriving on July 20, 1846, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Reis family then moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Valentin was a shoemaker for several years.

The traditional shoemaker would measure the feet and cut out upper leathers according to the required size. These parts were fitted and stitched together. The sole was next assembled, consisting of a pair of inner soles of soft leather, a pair of outer soles of firmer texture, a pair of welts or bands about one inch broad, of flexible leather, and lifts and top pieces for the heels. The insole was then attached to a last made of wood, which was used to form the shoe. Some lasts were straight, while curved lasts came in pairs: one for left shoes, the other for right shoes. The “lasting” procedure then secured the leather upper to the sole with tacks. The soles were then hammered into shape; the heel lifts were then attached with wooden pegs, and the worn out-sole was nailed down to the lifts.

The finishing operation included paring, rasping, scraping, smoothing, blacking, and burnishing the edges of soles and heels, scraping, sandpapering, and burnishing the soles, withdrawing the lasts, and cleaning out any pegs which may have pierced through the inner sole, according to James Paton’s “Shoemaking” in Encyclopædia Britannica.

Valentin had a knack for finding jobs that were essential to the communities in which he lived — and working as a shoemaker was no different. Making and repairing shoes, whether for work or dress, required skill and a whole array of specific tools. And in the 1870s, before the mass production of footwear, a town’s shoemaker could count on a steady stream of customers. And that is what Valentin did.

While Valentin was a shoemaker, Katherina took care of the children. It was a big job, but Katherina loved being closer to the children.

By 1860, the family moved to Shakopee, Minnesota. Within a few years, Katherina Freihaut Reis died on December 10, 1867. She was 64 years old. Katherina (also called Catherine) was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Eagle Creek Township in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Katherina’s husband, Valentin Bartholomaus Reis, died on June 4, 1874. He was buried next to his wife at Calvary Cemetery, up the hill in Eagle Creek Township.

Bibliography

Paton, James. “Shoemaking.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 1902.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Joannes Josephis Antonius Anton Entrup was born on February 8, 1821, son of Antonius Entrup and Maria Catharina Rogge. He grew up in Eggerode, Westfalen, Prussia.

Anton, as he was called, decided to move to America, and he arrived in New York on November 10, 1849. He moved to St. Louis, where he met Elizabeth “Lizette” Schmitz. Lizette was born on January 13, 1823, in Mönchengladbach, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland, daughter of Wihelm Josef Schmitz and Anna Gertrud Tillges. Lizette headed to America, arriving on June 2, 1853, according to Ancestry.com.

Anton and Lizette got married in St. Louis and moved to Shakopee in April of 1855.

According to The Shakopee Story, the small but growing Catholic people in Shakopee had been visited by Father Augustin Ravoux of Mendota and Father Valentine Sommereisen of Mankato in 1854 and 1855. “It was not until the very dawn of 1856 that they had offered in their midst the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which, according to their belief, is the most important single ritual of the church. The first Holy Mass in Shakopee was offered in the home of Anton Entrup on January 1st by Reverend George Keller, pastor of Assumption Church in St. Paul. It was on this bitterly cold New Year’s day that the Catholic determined to organize and agreed to meet six days later,” according to Julius Coller II, page 42-43.

In a meeting on January 20, 1856, Anton, along with H.H. Strunk, George F. Coller, Adolph Albachten, and Joseph Bartolet were in charge of looking for a location for St. Mark’s church. They bought Lots 4 and 5 for $250, and the first church was built of native limestone for $986.50, according to The Shakopee Story. Anton oversaw the masonry, and Adam Koerner was in charge with the woodwork.

Anton was a mason and bricklayer in Shakopee, since he arrived in 1855.

He built many of the structures in and around Shakopee. Besides St. Mark’s, he also helped built the Argus block in downtown Shakopee.

Antony and Lizette had six children: Charles Augusta, Lisette, August, Julia, Antonia, and Louis.

While working at a building in Jordan, Anton fell from the building on June 19, 1876. He died when he fell from the roof of the building. He was 55 years old, according to the History of the Minnesota Valley: Including the Explorers and Pioneers by Edward Duffield Neill.

Joannes Josephis Antonius Anton Entrup was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Shakopee. His wife, Elizabeth Lizette Schmitz Entrup, died on March 13, 1895, and was buried near her husband at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, Minnesota, on the high hill overlooking the Minnesota River.

Bibliography

Coller, Julius A., II. The Shakopee Story, pp. 42-43.

Neill, Edward Duffield. History of the Minnesota Valley: Including the Explorers and Pioneers.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Vitaline Lebeau was born on November 2, 1836, in Montréal, Canada. The city was called by Iroquois, Tiohtià:ke. Other First Nations languages, such as Algonquin, refer to it as Moniang. In 1642 the place, a mission, was called Ville-Marie. And by 1705, Ville-Marie was called Montréal, which it is still called today.

When Vitaline was a young adult, she was married and recently widowed. She moved from Montréal and settled south of Shakopee with a relative, either brother or cousin, by the name of Jean-Baptiste Lebeau.

Jean-Baptiste Lebeau was one of the Canadian voyagers that came up the Rivière Saint-Pierre (St. Peter’s River) with Thomas Holmes and William Quinn. Holmes wanted to establish townsites with an eye to the profit they represented. He asked for carte blanche trading rights but was denied. He was then allowed to be licensed for two sites.

Thomas Holmes was a townsite promoter. By getting a license to trade in 1851, Holmes was a squatter on Indian land. It gave him a toehold on townsites before claims could be legally settled. Holmes “improved” the land with dwellings, warehouses, and stores, and thus were less liable to be taken over by settlers and promoters who came along later. “In other words, fur trading was not an end in itself with these men as it had been with some of the earlier traders in the valley. Rather, it was a means of obtaining a legal or quasi-legal claim on the land they staked out before they could actually file their preemptions with the government,” said Dr. Norene Roberts and Dr. Clark Dobbs in A Lower Minnesota River Valley Cultural Resource Study and Interpretive Plan for the Minnesota Valley State Park & Trail(June 1993).

So, Thomas Holmes, William Quinn, Jean Baptiste Lebeau, and others headed up the Rivière Saint-Pierre. The river became the Minnesota River on June 19, 1852. “Bringing logs and his stock of goods on the flat-boat Wild Paddy, Tom Holmes soon had a log trading house built on the brow of the river bank. This was the first building in the original town site of Shakopee,” said Julius Coller II in The Shakopee Story, pp. 25-26.

By February 11, 1861 Vitaline Lebeau married François-Xavier Beaxine Boan at St. Mark’s Catholic Church, with Father Cornelius Willman, OSB officiating. The wedding was witnessed by Peter Shumbeau and Louis Lebeau.

François- was born on December 24, 1831 at Ste-Therese, Thérèse-de-Blainville, Quebec, Canada. His parents were Christophe Beaxine Boan, who was born in 1780, and Marie Louise Louéraud, who was born in 1787 in Québec, Canada.

Xavier was a clock and watch maker and a ticker, and a jeweler in downtown Shakopee.

Vitaline and Xavier lived in Lots 4 and 5, Block 51 in Shakopee. They had eight children: Mary (1860-1888); Uxilda (1862-1870); Francis (1862-1869); Celia (1864-1939); Rose (1867); Emma (1868-1949); Vitaline (1872-1873); and Leo (1873-1873).

François- was also an alcoholic, according to The DeMers Family of Normandy, New France, Minnesota & Beyondby Father William J. Paron in 2011. Father Paron’s mother, Corinne Ann Dellwo Paron, remembered being told by Celia, her grandmother, that the family lived in fear continually, never knowing when her father would come home and beat his wife (Vitaline) and children.

With the passing of time, life became increasingly intolerable with Xavier, and so, with the permission of St. Mary’s pastor, Vitaline kicked François out of the house. This happened prior to the 1885 Minnesota Census.

François- moved to Duluth, and he died on March 23, 1900, and was buried there.

Vitaline Lebeau Boan, after some peaceful years, died on March 25, 1916, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek. Her children, Mary, Francis, Rose, Vitaline, and Leo were also buried there.

Bibliography

Roberts, Dr. Norene and Dr. Clark Dobbs. A Lower Minnesota River Valley Cultural Resource Study and Interpretive Plan for the Minnesota Valley State Park & Trail. June 1993.

Coller, Julius II. The Shakopee Story, pp. 25-26.

Paron, Father William J. The DeMers Family of Normandy, New France, Minnesota & Beyond. 2011.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Peter Jost Yost was born on February 2, 1822, in Honsfeld, Büllingen, Verviers, Liège, Prussia (later German Empire, now Belgium). His parents were Nicolaus Jost (1782-1844) and Cäcilia Fickers Jost (1791-1855).

In the period 1815-1919 it belonged first to the Kingdom of Prussia and later to the German Empire following the unification of Germany. Büllingen is a municipality of East Belgium, located in the Belgian province of Liège, Wallonia. The official language of Büllingen is German. Its component village of Krewinkel includes the easternmost point in Belgium. The municipality also contains Rocherath, the highest village in Belgium, as well as the second highest point in Belgium, the Weißer Stein near Mürringen.

By 1850, Peter was living and working as a settler-colonist in St. Paul, Minnesota Territory.

Peter married Maria Catherine “Katie” Bender, who was born on April 27, 1837, in Meerfeld. Meerfeld is a village and municipality belonging to a collective municipality in the county of Bernkastel Wittlich in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Maria’s parents were Mathias Bender (1804-1853) and Catherina Jungels Bender (1799-1847). Mathias and Catherina married on January 22, 1829. When Catherina died in 1847, Mathias and their three children immigrated to America. On that trip, Mathias died on September 14, 1853. The three children continued to the United States.

One of Mathias’s daughters, Maria Catherine “Katie,” married Peter on February 20, 1855, in St. Paul. They then headed to Shakapee City in a steamboat, where on the levee at the foot of Holmes Street, the first of ten children, Caecilia was born on November 28, 1855.

Peter became the chief of police in Shakopee in 1876. A resolution was passed by the Shakopee council, fixing his salary at $2.00 a day, and $3.00 for special day and night assignments, according to an article, “Wage of Police Hard But $2.00 Per Day in ‘70s,” Shakopee Argus-Tribune, April 1, 1931.

Chief Yost’s duties included giving his whole time the first Monday of each month, from 9 a.m. until midnight. He also had to be available on the 4^th of July, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, or any time the circuses came to town, and any other public day. He had to work on Sundays from 2 p.m. until midnight.

In those days, the chief was kept busy. Shakopee had several saloons, and sometimes there was trouble there. Besides that, the chief was responsible for checking for the saloon licenses were paid for, and that all city ordinances were strictly obeyed.

Once, in 1877, people criticized Peter because of alleged infractions. Yost was charged with letting the patrons of some saloons on First Street become too noisy, thus disturbing the peace of people walking along the street.

Besides this, Chief Yost had to oversee keeping stray animals off the streets, especially those in the business section, and he was supposed to round up or send home all dogs found running around town. Between the cows and dogs and an occasional intoxicated celebrant, he had his hands full.

Chief Yost was instructed to keep all strangers from creating disturbances within the city limits, and to keep track of all suspicious people.

While there were no gangsters in town in 1870s, there were plenty of unwelcome visitors who tried to reap a harvest by frisking saloon patrons or doing a little pickpocketing on the streets.

In the 1870s and 1880s, the city slickers frequently visited the smaller towns, like Shakopee, especially at fair times, and on holidays in the summer when crowds gathered. Their work was crude, according to the Shakopee Argus-Tribune, but the people had not yet been educated and often were victimized. The larger numbers of people in town, and the culprits were more skillful.

In some towns in the early years, the marshal was allowed fifty cents or a dollar for each drunk he arrested.

It was reported in Gaylord that the marshal used to wait outside the saloon that had the most people to make a bit of money. When that started, the drunks stayed in the bar and would not leave unless the saloon owner had to get someone to help them out without the marshal catching them!

Luckily, this did not happen much in Shakopee. In Shakopee, the people enjoyed a real beer or a little good whiskey once in a while.

Peter Jost Yost died on August 4, 1895. He was buried up the hill at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek. His wife, Maria Catherine Katie Bender Yost, died twelve years later on June 21, 1907.

Bibliography

“Wage of Police Hard But $2.00 Per Day in ‘70s.” Shakopee Argus-Tribune, April 1, 1931.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Mary Julia Ehman was born in Haller, Canton d’Echternach, Grevenmacher, Luxembourg on January 28, 1832.

Though there is little evidence related to her family, at some point, Mary Julia Ehman immigrated to America, and was living in Buffalo, New York when she met Peter Lies.

Peter was born on May 24,1826 in Haller, Canton d’Echternach, Grevenmacher, Luxembourg. His parents were Henry Heinrich Henry Lies (1793-1855) and Susanna Marie Tammel (1792-1875). Peter was one of sixteen children of Henry and Susanna. Fourteen of their sixteen children were born in Haller. Four died. Margaretha died at one year of age. Jean died also there at the age of thirteen. Anne Marie married Nicolas Jungels in Haller but died six months after her marriage. Margaret died at ten months of age in Haller. The remaining by name but not necessarily by birth: Nicholas, John, Peter, Claus, Marcus, Mathias, Katherine, Susanna, Elizabeth, and Maria. That leaves two unaccounted for if there were 16 children. A story has it that one of the children was lost in New York City and never found.

Peter came to the U.S. in 1847. He was the first young man to leave Haller for that “supposed wilderness of North America,” according to Joachim Spexarth, in an article published in 1988 on Ancestry.com.

After abandoning the idea of the California Gold Rush, Peter was the foreman in a sawmill near Buffalo, New York, and Canada. Around 1853, Mary Julia Ehman married Peter Lies in New York. Peter had a first wife, an Irish woman, who died in 1852. Their first two sons, John George (1854-1907) and Nicholas Michael (1856-1940) were born in New York.

Meanwhile, on April 7, 1852, the Henry Lies family, his father and mother and siblings started on the journey to America. Henry Lies, like his fathers before him, was a farmer and had a large family. With no new land available, they would have had to follow custom of dividing the farm between their children. The Henry Lies farm consisted of six acres. Therefore, on April 7, 1852, the Henry Lies family started on their journey.

They traveled from their home in Haller, arriving the first night in Hosigen. The second day they reached Pepinster, Belgium, the nearest railroad station, then went by rail to Antwerp the intended seaport. On April 11, they boarded a three-mast sailing vessel along with about five hundred other passengers.

After twenty days of favorable sailing, on the morning of May 1, 1852, they sighted the American shore. On May 3, the ship anchored off Staten Island for inspection, remaining unmoved for two days.

Then the group was transported to New York by tugboat; on May 7 they proceeded by river steamer up the Hudson to Albany, and the next day by rail to Buffalo, taking quarters at Steinmetz hotel. Remaining there they met three of their sons who had come to the U.S. ahead of them: Peter who came in 1847; Claus and Markus who came in 1851. Peter was married at this time and had one child.

On May 13, the Lies family proceeded by boat to Detroit, Michigan and then by train to Chicago, and then to Aurora, Illinois. There Henry and his eldest son Nicholas bought a farm of 208 acres ($22 per acre). They paid for it in the French gold coin they had carried in girdles about their bodies.

Henry died October 17, 1855, in Aurora. Susanna died in 1875 in Aurora. Both are buried in Calvary Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois.

Mary and Peter Lies, along with their two boys, settled in Stillwater, Minnesota. By 1858, the family moved to Shakopee.

Mary continued to have children: H. Frederick (1858-1863); Susanna (1861-1861); John August (1862-1906); Mathias (1867-1867); and Harriet Lies (1869-1963).

When Mary was 37 years old, and after she had seven children, she died in Shakopee on July 28, 1869. Mary Julia Ehman Lies was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek.

Peter also served in the Civil War. He joined the Ninth Minnesota Infantry Regiment Military on August 15, a Minnesota USV infantry regiment that served in the Union Army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

On July 15, 1875, Peter married for the third time. He married Maria Mechtildis Pass in St. Paul. Mathilda had five children with Peter: Helen Mary, Henry August, Anna Barbara, Joseph H., and Herbert Duncan Lies.

Peter Lies died on May 4, 1909, in Stillwater, Minnesota. Mathilda Pass Lies died, also in Stillwater, on December 8, 1944.

Bibliography

Spexarth, Joachim. Ancestry.com, 1988.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Timothy Canty was born about 1822 in Ireland, and arrived in Lower Canada, and then to the United States.

He came to Holmes Landing (Shakopee) as an employee of Thomas A. Holmes. Some said that Timothy came on the flat boat Wild Paddy in the fall of 1851, though others think he arrived a short time later. He came to file on a tract of eighty acres granted him by the government because of his involvement in the Mexican-American War, also known as the Invasion of Mexico.

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a manifest destiny to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Timothy married Margaret O’Keefe. Margaret was born in County Waterford in Ireland. She left Ireland to America in 1851, and lived in Ohio and Chicago, Illinois for two years. Then Margaret moved to St. Paul in 1853, where he met the acquaintance of Timothy Canty. Timothy and Margaret married in St. Paul and moved near Marystown to their farm in 1854. They had two sons, John and Daniel.

After working with Thomas A. Holmes in Shakopee, Timothy worked on the steamboats, including Greek Slave and Pocahontas. When the Civil War arrived, Timothy wanted to go, but he couldn’t leave his wife, who was blind at that time.

Tim said one day that he knew General William Tecumseh Sherman. “He is a fine officer and a real man,” he observed to a group of settlers in Geyermann’s store on Lewis Street.

Most people didn’t believe him.

In the late 1860s, news brought up the Minnesota River said Sherman was making a tour of the west, and would stop in Shakopee.

“Where’s Canty?” some of the settlers asked. “He ought to be there since he claims he knows Sherman well.”

Tim didn’t say much.

A few of the townspeople hinted that Tim couldn’t make good with his claim.

On the day of the visit, a cloud of dust was seen down the trail.

“Here they come!” someone shouted.

The stage came into view, drawn by four large horses. The driver swung around the corner at Strunk’s Drug Store and stopped with a flourish.

A cheer arose and General Sherman put his hand out of the window to acknowledge the greeting.

A cheer arose and General William Tecumseh Sherman put his head out of a window to acknowledge the greeting. His eyes roved over the crowd as he spoke. Suddenly, he stopped and the watchers saw his attention was riveted on a man in the rear of the crowd. Timothy Canty was there, having come to Shakopee to get his scythe sharpened. He was still carrying the scythe.

“Hello Tim!” Sherman called. “Don’t you remember me?”

Tim came forward and shook hands.

For some time their hands were clasped and the embarrassed settlers who had doubted Tim’s claim saw tears welling in the eyes of the two veterans – the general of all the armies and the humble homesteader.

Timothy Canty died in 1885 in Louisville Township, and was buried at the Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek.

Margaret then moved in with her son, John Canty, for the next 16 years.

Margaret O’Keefe Canty died on June 16, 1900, and was buried next to her husband, Timothy, at the Calvary Cemetery in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

John O’Connor was born around 1825, probably in Ireland or maybe New York. He moved west, and ended up in LaSalle, Illinois, near Chicago in 1858. John married Catherine Neafsey (or Nefsey), who was born in Ireland, in 1858.

The family came to Minnesota in 1859 or 1860. In 1861, the family lived in Glendale Township, Scott County, Minnesota, which is near present day Savage. They lived near Thomas Neafsey, his wife, Mary, and two children, Patrick and Catherine. Thomas was the brother of Catherine Neafsey O’Connor.

The O’Connor family in 1865 consisted of John and Catherine, along with their children: Edwin, age 8, Mary, age 7, Julie, age 5, Catharina, age 2, and John Jr., age one.

While Catherine Neafsey O’Connor was taking care of the five children, John O’Connor volunteered and joined the Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, Company I. Catherine probably did not support his enlisting, but for John it was one way to get money for the family.

As the Ninth Minnesota Infantry I company and other companies were recruited and headed to Fort Snelling for training, Thaóyate Dúta or Little Crow (1810-1863) and others, hungry and not receiving provisions, attacked New Ulm and other settlements on Dakota land. The regiment spent the next year on the frontier duty, its companies scattered throughout the state. The Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment were involved in defending colonist-settlers in Minnesota, and then defending people in the South, according to “Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment” on MNopedia.

During the Civil War, the regiment served for three years for the Union, culminated in the Battle of Nashville, a battle in which its members fought side-by-side with men from three other Minnesota regiments.

John was found drunk on guard duty, and was sent to a military prison. He spent a year in prison and was released with highest regard for his character and work ethic. John worked as a brick layer and stone mason in prison, which he later used when he returned to Minnesota.

When John was released back to his regiment, John was involved in the Battle of Nashville. During that time, John received an injury to one of his eyes.

The Ninth mustered out of the service at Fort Snelling on August 24, 1865. The Ninth Minnesota Infantry suffered six officers and 41 enlisted men killed in action or who later died on their wounds, plus another three officers and 224 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 274 fatalities.

John returned to his family in Glendale and shortly after, bought a house in downtown Shakopee. Henry and Mary F. Hinds sold their house on Second and Market Street to the O’Connors for $200. It was near the train tracks and is now at The Landing in Shakopee.

John and his family spent regular time at the Church of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Shakopee. The church was often called the Irish Church. The Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was just a few blocks from St. Mark’s, was erected by 1866. It was not until 1876 that the church became St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

John O’Connor worked at the Schroeder Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company. It was one of the leading and most prosperous business enterprises of the city and was well known in the northwest. The brickyard was located north of Bluff Avenue between Market and Minnesota Street. The bricks were from near the Minnesota River, near Huber Park. Many of the early buildings in Shakopee were made from these bricks. The work that John did was only for eight months of the year. The rest of the year, he was out of work.

To make it worse, John and Catherine’s son, Johnnie, died suddenly on October 31, 1866. Johnnie was five years, eight months old, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Shakopee.

John had a long and lingering illness due to the eye injury he suffered in the war. The injury turned cancerous. He was turned down for support from the military.

John O’ Connor died in June of 1878. He was buried next to his son at Calvary Cemetery. His wife, Catherine Neafsey O’Connor, died on April 13, 1897 in St. Paul.

Bibliography

Hutchinson, Matthew W. “Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment.” MNopedia, 11 March 2013. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/group/ninth-minnesota-volunteer-infantry-regiment.

Sister Adelaide Elder coughed. Crimson droplets appeared on her lips, the first sign of tuberculosis, or consumption, as it was called.

Tuberculosis is something people don’t often think about anymore. But 19^th century people in Minnesota were frighteningly aware of the symptoms: flushed cheeks, bright eyes, fever, loss of appetite, and most of all, the cough. It was feared but regarded with a peculiar resignation because it was so unavoidable. It was dreaded, but at the same time romanticized. It was a disease that reflected the culture of its time: the victim slowly, gracefully fading away, transcending their corporeal body, their immortal soul shining through, according to A Gentle Death: Tuberculosis in 19^th Century Concord by Constance Manoli-Skocay.

Tuberculosis, commonly called consumption in the 19^th century, affected the poor more often than the wealthy, females more than males, and people of all ages. Anyone could be a victim, but it was especially prevalent among young adults, cruelly striking down those in the prime of their lives.

Unfortunately, the disease was not well understood. Its cause would not be discovered until 1882. In the meantime, beliefs about the disease reflected the cultural and scientific thinking of the time. It was thought that it might be a vaguely environmental, “something in the air;” but more likely caused by the victim’s own constitution, either physiologically, psychologically, or both. It was not believed to be contagious, so those suffering from the disease were not avoided. Recommended steps toward prevention included fresh air, a wholesome diet, exercise, and healthy manual labor.

Priscilla Jane Elder was born in 1840 near Loretto, Pennsylvania, according to Jane Hanson in May 2007. Her parents were James Elder (1811-1880) and Ann O’Conner (1819-1898). By 1850, Ann O’Conner Elder had died, and Jane and her siblings were living with various families in the area. Jane’s brothers, William (1838-1928) and James (1845-1919) moved to Hastings, Minnesota with their uncle in 1867. Her brother Peter (1842-1926) was a banker in Philadelphia. Thomas (1843-1862) died in the Civil War. And Jane’s sister, Mary Ann (1847-1873) went to St Xavier’s school near Latrobe, and became a nun called Sister Mary Leonard.

As for Jane? She went to the convent of St. Benedict in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania and became a nun.

Priscilla Jane Elder told her brother, Peter, that she wanted to be a nun. “After a talk to with a priest, she was pleased as (the priest) told her he would accept her as a sister of the order of St. Benedict’s and that she could go to St. Mary’s, Elk County, Pennsylvania to join the order as same as others who were going to join,” said Peter Elder, who told the relatives in a writing “A Chapter in the Life of Jane Elder” by Peter Elder, her brother, in 1924. “I was present and saw her off on the way to St. Mary’s. I corresponded with Jane all the time she was at St. Mary’s.”

Boniface Wimmer was a missionary from Metten, Bavaria. He wanted to spread the Benedictine Order to people in America. Boniface asked the sisters in St. Walburga’s in Eichstatt to teach German immigrants in Pennsylvania. Three arrived to America: Sister Benedicta Riepp, age 27, Sister Walburga Dietrich, age 48, and Sister Maura Flieger, age 30. They left Bavaria on June 12, 1852, and arrived in New York on July 8, 1852, and then to St, Mary’s, Pennsylvania on July 22. Before too long, 39 sisters were at St. Mary’s.

Rev. Boniface Wimmer wanted to spend the gospel to the west, and by October 9, 1862, Wimmer, along with Sister Clara Vogel, a lay sister, Sister Mechtild Richter, and Sister Adelaide Elder arrived in Shakopee and founded St. Gertrude’s Convent. Sister Adelaide was 21 years old.

“When the time came for her to go out to Shakopee, Minnesota together with two other sisters and one lay sister … She looked splendid in her habit. I again saw her on her western trip to Minnesota. That was the last time I saw our sister Jane,” said her brother, Peter.

In a letter to King Ludwig of Bavaria on December 2, 1862, Abbott Boniface Wimmer noted that he founded a little mission in Shakopee for the sisters “to the great joy of the English and German Catholics. The new convent has its own story. First, it was a cow shed, then a horse barn, and now it is an embryo of a woman’s convent, but it only serves, in any event, only the most necessary purposes.”

Sister Adelaide entered the convent in Pennsylvania in 1859, received the habit in 1860, and made triennial vows in 1861. She arrived in October 1862 and died of tuberculosis two months later.

The records at St. Mark’s Church in Shakopee noted that Sister Adelaide Elder died two months after arriving in Shakopee on December 21, 1862, and was buried the next day in Calvary Cemetery by Father Scherer, O.S.B., who assisted and anointed her before her death.

In the first 25 years at St. Mary’s Convent, the community lost 22 postulants and nuns who died of tuberculosis, ages 17 to 30, including Sister Adelaide Elder.

Tuberculosis is not gone if forgotten. Since 1985, tuberculosis (TB) has slowly come back to the U.S. Though the number of cases reported in the United States has been dropping since 1992, there were more than 16,000 cases reported in 2000.

Bibliography

Elder, Peter. A Chapter in the Life of Jane Elder, 1924.

Hanson, Jane. May 2007

Skocay, Constance Manoli. A Gentle Death: Tuberculosis in 19^th Century Concord.