By David Schleper

In the May 9, 1854 diary of Daniel M. Storer, a pioneer builder and merchant in Shakopee, Minnesota, made the following note:

“A black man by the name of Griffin commenced working for me on the 9th.”

Mr. Griffin worked with Daniel Storer in Shakopee as a carpenter, and built some of the buildings in the town of Shakopee.

Daniel Milton Storer was born on July 11, 1828 in Carthage, Maine, and lived in a backwoods hamlet with his siblings until, at age 19, he moved west. He was in Illinois for two years, and in 1849 he moved to Minnesota, locating first at Stillwater, and then in the spring of 1853 Daniel came to Shakopee. The town of Shakopee was in its infancy (though the Dakota were there for years before this). Daniel found an ample field for his trade, that of a carpenter, and over the next ten years he assisted in building many structures, a few still standing, monuments to the good old days of hardwood timbers and careful construction. A year after Daniel started building houses, he met and hired Mr. Griffin to work with him starting on May 9, 1854.

So, who was this African American man in Shakopee in 1854? Was he a slave, hired out by a master from St. Paul or the Minnesota Valley? Or was he a free man? Or was Mr. Griffin a runaway, heading to Canada and freedom?

When you think of slavery, you probably think of a feature of the South part of the United States. But there were many slaves in the north. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant’s Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people.

Practices such as the breeding of slaves like animals for market, or the crime of slave mothers killing their infants, testify that slavery’s brutalizing force was at work in the north. Philadelphia brick maker John Coats was just one of the Northern masters who kept his slave workers in iron collars with shackles. Newspaper advertisements in the North offer abundant evidence of slave families broken up by sales or inheritance. One Boston ad of 1732, for example, lists a 19-year-old woman and her 6-month-old infant, to be sold either “together or apart.”

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in theory, outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory, including the Minnesota area. Though slavery was outlawed, it still happened, especially in the Fort Snelling area.

By the time Fort Snelling was built in the 1820s, slavery was a reality in the Northwest Territory. Fur traders often utilized slave labor and some officers at the post, including Colonel Josiah Snelling, owned slaves. Major Lawrence Taliaferro had many slaves, and he often rented slaves.

Historians estimate that throughout the 1820s and 1830s anywhere from 15 to 30 enslaved African Americans lived and worked at Fort Snelling at any one time. These people likely cooked, cleaned and did laundry and other household chores for their owners.

In the book A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota, William D. Green looked at the decades leading up to the Civil War, when some black people lived in freedom on the frontier of Minnesota, working in the fur trades and mingling with Native Americans, French traders and immigrants drawn to the area.

Meanwhile, slave hunters roamed the streets of St. Paul, and military life at Fort Snelling included numerous slaves serving the military in residence as well as visiting officers. “Even though slavery was very present and tolerated in Minnesota at Fort Snelling, the concept was an abstraction. Minnesota was still the frontier at this point, and the issue of slavery was a low priority, even with people who felt they were friends of black people,” said Green.

Green says slavery came to Minnesota in part to discourage race mixing with another group of people, the Native Americans, who still made up a large part of the population. “Virtually every French trader had a Native American wife and children, and a large number of the troops at Fort Snelling were involved with Native American women as well. This didn’t sit well with (John Caldwell) Calhoun, so he initiated a policy that encouraged wives to live at the fort to civilize the corps, and to purchase slaves in order to release wives from the drudgery of housekeeping in frontier conditions.”

Calhoun is best remembered for his strong defense of slavery. He was a patriarch of slavery and succession in the South and he also engineered to bring slavery to the north. Fredrika Bremer, a Scandinavian writer and reformer, quoted Elijah Green, one of the slaves who dug Calhoun’s grave in 1850, stating, “I never did like Calhoun ’cause he hated the Negro; no man was ever hated as much as him by a group of people.”

Besides Fort Snelling, slaves were allowed in other towns, including St. Cloud. Wealthy slave owners from the deep south or neighboring territories like Missouri would vacation in St. Cloud, and often these vacationers brought along their slaves. Slaves were documented in St. Cloud as early as 1854, the same year that Mr. Griffin was in Shakopee.

In the 1850s, free blacks and escaped slaves arrived, following the Mississippi River north, and made Minnesota their home. Records from 1850 show 39 free blacks out of a population of 6,077 citizens (not including Native Americans).

African Americans traveling on the western waters were quite common. Some free black people, as well as slaves, worked on the steamboats, many as firemen, stewards, and chambermaids. African American travelers occupied a different status from that of the white people on board. Sometimes slaves traveled with their masters and mistresses, sleeping on trundles in their owner’s private cabins, and where they could take care of errands. Free black people were not allowed in the private cabins, but had to travel on the lower deck.

According to Lea VanderVelde, “Some of the black boatmen were free, while others were slaves, hired out by their masters to work steamboats. The captains obligated themselves to return as slaves. Some owners bought insurance in case their slaves attempted to escape while on the river. Black cooks, stewards, chambermaids, and barbers attended to travelers’ comforts. Stevedores, deckhands, and engine stokers performed the heaviest tasks of actually moving the cargo and firing the lumbering boats up the great rivers.”

Traveling by steamboat carried considerable risk. They could fall overboard since the decks had no guide rails and few people knew how to swim. Steamboats hit snags, ran aground on sandbars, and the engine boilers, which were on the lower deck close to the African American workers and passengers, exploded regularity. The explosions occurred on the upstream voyage, with the captains pushing their boilers to dangerous levels going against the river’s current.

Was Mr. Griffin a worker on the river, and then stopped and stayed and worked as a carpenter in Shakopee for a short time?

One of the most famous of the early African Americans in the Minnesota territory was George Bonga. He was born in Minnesota in 1802, his father Pierre Bonga the son of a freed slave and his mother a member of the Ojibwe tribe. Bonga was schooled in Montreal and eventually became a fur trader in the Northwest territories. He went on to serve as an interpreter in negotiations with the Ojibwe, particularly as a representative of Michigan Governor Lewis Cass. His brother Stephen served as the Ojibwe interpreter at Fort Snelling for the 1837 treaty.

In A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota, William D. Green writes about a meal served at Fort Snelling where Stephan Bonga, who was black, translated information to the Ojibwe, and was served alongside important white political and military leaders, and by a slave named Dred Scott. What must it have felt like for a slave to serve an important, free black man, and what must Bonga have felt to see a person who looked like himself living life as the property of another person? To make it even more interesting, Jim Thompson, who was brought to the area as a slave of a military officer, purchased and freed in 1837 saw Dred Scott, his wife Harriet Robertson Scott, and their first child, who was just born, in 1838. In Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier, author Lea VanderVelde remembers that in 1838, Jim Thompson met a steamboat at the dock. He was sent by Agent Lawrence Taliaferro during Reverend Brunson’s absence. Jim was probably the first person Dred, Harriet, and their little baby Eliza saw as they walked down the gangplank. Jim’s Dakota wife, Marpiyawecasta, had just recently had a child. The blessed meeting on the dockside between the freed man, with the new parents carrying their baby Eliza must have been nice, especially onto the snow-blanketed, solid ground of their new home in free territory. It was the village of Shakopee, in the territory of Minnesota, that Jim and Marpiyawecasta and their two children lived starting in 1853!

In the 1850s, Fort Snelling played a key role in the infamous Dred Scott court case. Slaves Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott were taken to the fort by their master, John Emerson. They lived at the fort and elsewhere in territories where slavery was prohibited. After Emerson’s death, the Scotts argued that since they had lived in free territory, they were no longer slaves. Ultimately in 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court sided against the Scotts. This decision caused rancor over slavery, and eventually the American Civil War.

For Mr. Griffin, if he was not a free man or openly a free man, he might be escaping to Canada. Abolitionists in Minnesota still assisted slaves in running away to Canada. Some free people of color also settled in nearby Canada.

Race is written between the lines in early Shakopee history. Rather than spoken directly, it is only found through diaries, memoirs, letters, government documents. As William D. Green noted, “When you are looking at slavery, you see instead the word ‘servant’ — a nicety that actually means slave. And when you understand that, it changes things. It’s like going into a room and finding a door to another room you’ve never looked into before.”

So who was Mr. Griffin? Was he a slave, working for a master in the Minnesota River area, or St. Paul? Was he a free person of color, living in Shakopee for a year or two, before moving on? Or was he a runaway, stopping to work for a short time before escaping to Canada?

At this time, we do not know. But because of Daniel Storer’s diary, at least we know that an African American lived in Shakopee in 1854.

(Some information from The Diary of Daniel M. Storer from 1849 to 1905: A Pioneer Builder and Merchant, His Personal History of Shakopee, Minnesota from August 1853 to January 1905 by Shakopee Heritage Society, 2003; Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier by Lea VanderVelde, Oxford University Press, 2009; Northern Slave Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey by Walt Bachman, 2013, Pond Dakota Press; A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota by William D. Green, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007; Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865–1912 by William D. Green, University of Minnesota Press, 2015.)

By David Schleper

Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault and Wakanyankewin

Grace Manaige, daughter of Charles A. Manaige and Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige, and granddaughter of Oliver Faribault and Wakanyankewin, was planning to marry. But she went to South Dakota to be with her sister, Isabelle, during the birth of a child.

It was a difficult delivery, as the baby came breech and couldn’t be turned. In order to save Isabelle, the doctor cut off an extremity of the baby, and the baby died.

When Grace returned home, she broke off the engagement with the man she was to marry. She said she would not go through that for a man!

By David Schleper

In 1943, Shakopee Avenue stopped about one block west of the farm, and there was just a gravel road leading to the farm. To the north and east of the farm was a sand and clay pit, about 25 feet deep. The clay from this pit once was used by the Schroeder Brick Company for making brick for Shakopee.

Hiliary Drees purchased a farmstead which consisted of approximately 20 acres. He bought the farm from Mr. Turner, who was a rural mail carrier for Shakopee. The location is just north of Pearson Sixth Grade Center, near Prairie Street today.

Hilarius Antonius Drees was born June 4, 1903 in Wanda, Minnesota, and died April 18, 1974 in Shakopee. He married Agnes Nathalia Dorzinski, who was born August 1, 1904 in LeSueur County, and died July 1, 1978 in Shakopee. They married on November 24, 1925. Hiliary was a farmer, but also worked at Rahr Malting, as well as Pullman Club as a waiter. Agnes was a homemaker, but also worked as a clerk at M.J. Berens grocery and dry goods store, and was a waitress at Pullman Club. They had five children.

Because Drees Hog Farm was at the outskirts of Shakopee, there was no city water or sewer. A cow barn stood north of the house, with a chicken coop, outdoor well, smoke house, and outdoor privy making up the rest of the farmstead. The outdoor privy was used until 1951.

Along with the dairy cows and chickens, Hiliary Drees started to raise hogs. He built two hog barns east of the farm house and started his hog operation. At the peak of the hog operation, he raised as many as 300 or 400 hogs a year on 10 acres. The hog pasture went east and about 300 feet north of the house.

In the past, butchering was used using a big black iron kettle to heat the water and a wooden barrel to soak the pig until the hair came loose, noted Margaret Haas of Shakopee.

According to Margaret:

“We cooled the meat and then the hams and some side pork were put in dry salt for a while. Later came the task of smoking them. We would hang them on pipes with wire hooks and then a smoldering fire was built by using hard wood and some apple wood, covering it with damp sawdust.

“We had to watch this fire very closely for sometimes if the wind blew hard it would cause the fire to flare up and one had to add more sawdust. Sometimes one would wake up and see flames coming out of the smokehouse, and then quick steps were taken to add the sawdust.

“The rest of the pork was fried down and put in crock jars. We also butchered beef, so taking parts of beef and pork, we made sausage. We used the pig heads for head cheese, pickled the tongues and hearts, and also used the brains for a special food. We took the tallow and extra fat to make soap.”

LaVina Busacker noted that her father and two brothers butchered two beef animals, and they let their meat age in a sun porch for three weeks, as it was a large, enclosed, and unheated porch. After that, they butchered six hogs:

“That was about three days’ work – to cut up the meat, grind it up for sausage.… The hams and bacon were put in a brine (water with enough salt in it to float an egg). They made head cheese, liverwurst, summer sausage, pork sausage, gritwurst (oatmeal and lard cracklings) and blood sausage.”

At the smoke house, apple and hickory wood would be used to smoke the meat. According to LaVina Busacker, “When we got our smoked hams from the smoke house, we would bury them in the wheat bin as deep as possible, so they would stay cold, since we had no refrigeration in those days.”

Hiliary and Agnes Drees and their family continued the hog operation until 1952. At that time, hog cholera hit the farm. After the quarantine was lifted, Hiliary did not resume hog farming.

Many years later, the hog farm is gone, and houses and schools have taken over the area that used to be Drees’ Hog Farm. The original house is still there, on Shakopee Avenue and Prairie Street, right across from Pearson Sixth Grade Center in east Shakopee.

(Some information from Butchering Many Years Ago by LaVina Busacker; A New Type of Living by Margaret Haas, As I Remember Scott County, 1980 by Scott County Senior Citizens, edited by Marcia Spagnolo; and Scott County Historical Society.)

By David Schleper

Joe was orphaned as a child. He worked on road construction crews and for Union Carbide before he became in charge of maintenance for the K-12 Shakopee school. He lived in Shakopee for 66 years. Clifford Thibodeau remembered, “Joe was a great guy! I remember being in 5th grade, if I remember right. Me and some other boys were asking him about his job. I don’t know if he was supposed to, but he showed us areas of the school that may have normally been off limits to students, like the boiler room, and the pretty big basement the school had. In all the years I went to that school, he was always such a good humored guy!”

Barb Stein also remembered Joe. “He was so cool, he would let us play with his retractable key chain, zing, zing, zing, the patience of a saint.” “When we talk about Joe I always smile. I remember when we moved to Shakopee my sophomore year, my parents just had me walk to school and register myself. Joe was out cleaning the sidewalk and could tell I was lost. He took the time to walk me to the office,” said Marilyn Rein.

Joe Jenn recalled growing up in Shakopee. “Shakopee was really a community by itself, cut off by the Minnesota River and the river bottoms. Back in the 1930s, the town was a little Las Vegas. We had 33 beer joints at one time and notorious nightclubs like Rock Springs and the Riviera. People, including gangsters, came here for booze, women, and gambling; the mayor, sheriff, and city councilmen went along with it all.”

Joe said, “A garage was established on Lewis Street. In the rear door off the alley was a receiving depot for boxes of liquor.” According to Joe, “There was also a bottling works in town; they’d delivered bottles of pop to St. Paul and return with bottles of whiskey.”

(Some information from Midwest Highways and Byways by Alice M. Vollmar, Summer 1999.)

By David Schleper

This is a picture of Ruth Gardner. Or Laura Jensen. Or Ruth Radtke, or Ruth Warner. And Ruth Gardner is an escaped prisoner, from the State Reformatory for Women, in Shakopee, Minnesota. She escaped on February 20, 1933!

Ruth is 22 years old, and 5 feet, 6 5/8 inches, and weighs 109 pounds. She has light brown hair, and hazel eyes, with a sallow complexion.

Ruth is a clever forger. She operated in Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota. She obtained about $2,000. She always presented her victims with a fraudulent letter from an insurance company, stating that they were enclosing a check for a settlement of a claim. She then presented victims with a carefully prepared forged check, usually for about $70.

If you find Ruth Gardner, please apprehend and deliver to an officer of the Minnesota State Reformatory for Women in Shakopee. You will get a $25 reward!

Compiled and written by David Schleper, 2020

Charles August Manaige was born Dec. 7, 1847 in Madison, Wisconsin. His father, Pierre Manaige, was a native of France, and his mother was a part-Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk Indian.

Charles and his family came to Minnesota in the early 1840s. His father was an interpreter for the government, sent to avoid bloodshed and disputes in the territory. The Winnebagos first settled at what is now Long Prairie in Todd County. Charlie remembered that he never had seen a white man, except his father, until he was about six years old. Charlie spent his childhood with other Winnebago children, sharing games such as ball play and becoming proficient as a hunter with bow and arrow.

On Jan. 25, 1846, wearing high-heeled boots to give him the required height, Charles enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served as a private in Company F, First Regiment, Minnesota Heavy Artillery under the command of Captain Hugh J. Owens. Eight months later, on Sept. 27, 1865, Charles was honorably discharged in Nashville, Tennessee.

After the war, Charlie farmed near St. Clair and later operated a butcher shop. He also spent some time at Mankato.

As a young man, he visited the Shakopee vicinity frequently, and on July 30, 1870, Charles A. Manaige married Pelagie Eliza Faribault.

They lived in Shakopee for the rest of their lives.

“Charles A. Manaige and his wife, Eliza Faribault Manaige lived across the street from the Mill Pond, a famous gambling place on First Avenue in the 1920s. Charles was Ho-Chunk Indian, and Eliza was part Dakota. And they were not too thrilled about what happened across the street. You see that big building over there,” said Charles’s granddaughter, Florence Kelm, as she pointed to the sprawling Mill Pond across the road. “That is a tavern, and at night it gets very noisy, and people came outside and make nuisances of themselves.

“People used to come over on our land and lie on the grass. They broke bottles against our trees and threw things at our house. They called us ‘Indians’ and did many things to taunt us. We are Indians, you know, that is, we have Indian blood.

“Grandfather went to the village authorities, and asked if we couldn’t have some protection, as there were little children at his house … but because we were Indians—we didn’t get any help!”

Florence remembered Charles put a fence up, but “the people broke it down each time he put it up.”

Charles decided, “So, I will take the law into my own hands! I am not going to have those drunken bums lying on my green, green grass; I’m not going to have those drunken bums leaning against my beautiful trees; I’m not going to have them polluting the pure water of our creek. They are going to keep off our property!”

And so, Charles used to sit under the tree with a shotgun across his knees and threaten anyone who came near from the tavern side of the property!

Charles Manaige worked for a number of years in Shakopee as a painter and paperhanger and also served in the police force.

A familiar figure, Charlie was endeared to young and old. The old veteran, riding in his horse-drawn carriage, made daily trips from his home at the east part of the city to do the family shopping. No matter the weather, Charlie still would visit downtown Shakopee. Not so many years back, Charlie could be seen morning, noon, and later afternoon, with his grandchildren seated beside him in the carriage, going and coming from the grade school. The duty was one of his greatest pleasures, and the pleasure was vividly recorded on his beaming face.

Charles and Pelagie had four children, two sons and two daughters. Isabelle was born in 1871 and married Harvey Randolph Leach in Des Moines, Iowa. They had nine children. Melvin was born in 1872 and died April 12, 1931. He married and lived in Brooklyn, New York. Eugene Curtis was born 1874 and died of tuberculosis in 1903. Grace was born in 1876 and died at Friendship Manor in November 1966.

Charles, at 82 years old, became the Paul Revere of Shakopee in December 1929. He was driving in town in his horse and buggy when he heard the opening volley of shots happening at the First National Bank. Hightailing the old mare up the main street in Shakopee, he gave the alarm. He kept shouting, “Hey…the bank is being held up. Everybody, get out your guns.” Charlie was in grave danger of being hit by the barrage of bullets that swept the main street, but he still continued his heroic dash.

Two months before he died, Pelagie died. Since that time, Charlie had a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia. For several days he was confined to his bed at home, and as his condition became critical, he was moved to the Veteran’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where he died.

Charles A. Manaige, Shakopee’s 91-year-old Civil War veteran, the sole surviving member of General Shield’s Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, died in January 1938. His funeral was at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, with Fr. Michael McRaith officiating. Interment was at the Valley Cemetery beside his wife, Pelagie Faribault Manaige. Most businesses were closed during the funeral as Shakopee saluted the old soldier.

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By David Schleper

Eleanor Gates was born on September 26, 1875 in Shakopee, Minnesota. She was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and children’s author, who created seven plays that were staged on Broadway, including her play The Poor Little Rich Girl, which later was made into a film for Mary Pickford (1917) and Shirley Temple (1936).

Eleanor was born in the Eagle Creek area. When she was a young girl, she moved to the Dakota Territory. She later described her early life in her novel, The Biography of a Prairie Girl in 1902:

“Up and down the oxen toiled before the plow, licking out their tongues, as they went along, for wisps of the sweet, new grass which the mold-board was turning under. After them came the biggest brother, striving with all his might to keep the beam level and the handles from dancing as the steel share cut the sod into wide, thick ribbons, damp and black on one side, on the other side green and decked with flowers. And following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep from stepping with her bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling in the rear.”

The playwright is most known by her play The Poor Little Rich Girl. One of the favorite lines was:

“You’re the Poor Little Rich Girl.”
―Eleanor Gates, The Poor Little Rich Girl act 2, sc. 1 (1912)

By David Schleper

According to Florence Leach, granddaughter of Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige, three Dakota Indians who were killed in the Battle of Shakopee in 1858 are buried near the house and close to the orchards. “The graves are flat, and you cannot see them. Grandfather Faribault buried them and concealed the graves so the Chippewa would not find the bodies and scalp them. We were traders and friendly to all Indians.”

An Indian girl was also buried there. According to Florence, “Grandmother said this girl was a very fine horsewoman, and one day she was on horseback and racing across the fields with a group of young men. The girl was in the lead, but she turned in her saddle to see how far ahead she was, and to wave to the men, when her horse stumbled and she was thrown and broke her neck. She died, and they buried her here.” Florence also recalled that Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige, her grandmother, remembered that the girl had bracelets on her wrists. “I know these Indians are buried here because when I was a little girl, my brother and I started to dig into the graves to see if we could find the bracelets. We did not think it was wrong, for we were just little children.”

“Grandmother caught us digging, and she was so worried that she called the priest. He told her not to worry, we had done no harm; but just a few years later we tried it again, and uncovered bones. It scared us because we hadn’t believed anyone was really buried there. Of course, Grandmother found us, covered the hole, and she was frightfully upset; again she called the priest, and he comforted Grandmother. We all went out to the graves, and he said a little prayer.”

“Then the priest told Grandmother he didn’t think those Indians minded our digging for them one bit, as long as we were only trying to find out if they were really there. Now, the priest felt sure our curiosity was satisfied, and we would let them rest in peace.”

(Some information from Marian Winter story for the Sibley House Historic Site.)

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• Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige

By David Schleper

William Louis “Bill” Quinn was born near Coldwater Springs near Fort Snelling, Minnesota on November 4, 1828. His father was Peter Quinn, who was an Irish immigrant who married Ineyahwin, also known as Mary Louisa Finley, who was a mixed-blood Christeneauz (Cree) Indian. Therefore, William was half Cree by blood.

When Bill was 20 years old, he married a half-blood Dakota woman, Angelique Jeffries, of the Mdewakanton band in 1848. By 1856, the couple had three children, all of which were one-quarter Dakota. Bill was fluent in Chippewa, Dakota, English, and perhaps other languages. At various times he was a clerk, a scout for the army, and an interpreter. Bill was employed as a clerk in the Indian trade for many years.

In the spring of 1851, Thomas A. Holmes employed Bill as a guide. They packed for one week, and Bill had already decided on two possible places for a town. They ascended the Minnesota River and cooked a meal in a hollow near the old Dakota Indian village of Tiŋta-otoŋwe. Thomas and Bill looked the place over, and climbed the bluffs north of the settlement, and Thomas was even more impressed. They decided to continue up the river to Le Sueur. But soon Thomas and Bill returned to the first landing, and deemed it the more favorite place to locate. And so Thomas Holmes picked the area near Tiŋta-otoŋwe, and called the area Holmes Landing. It was here that Thomas built a trading post for the Dakota Indians in Tiŋta-otoŋwe (which was close by where today is Sommerville Street, and continued until beyond Memorial Park.)

One interesting story about William Louis Quinn happened a few years later.

In 1862, Bill and his family were at the Yellow Medicine Agency, where he worked in William Forbes’ store. In 1862-1865 he was a scout, guide, and messenger. Bill was chief of scouts at Fort Wadsworth from 1867-1870. For 30 years, starting in 1870, Bill was immersed in learning, documenting, and providing testimony about the genealogy of Dakota mixed-bloods. In an article written in 1901, Knute Steenerson discussed his experience of being a pioneer. He had a saloon in the village of Lac que Parle. “I sold whiskey by the drink, pint, quart, and gallon. Along in the winter came a half-breed from St. Paul. He had driven up by team—there was no railroad at that time—and he was going to Big Stone Lake, he said, to buy scrip from the Indians.” Scrip allowed the holder to appropriate about 480 acres of land not already occupied for people who were half-Dakota.

“His name was Bill Quinn. He had seventeen hundred dollars in cash in his pocket book. He came into my saloon often and treated the crowd, no matter how many there were or how few. He would throw a five-dollar bill on the counter and did not want any change. When I gave him change back, he would throw it on the dirty floor and tramp on it. So I learned after a while to please him and never gave him change, but slipped the bill into the money drawer and set up the drinks. This pleased him entirely.”

“So he proceeded on to Big Stone Lake and in about a week or ten days he was back again. He brought his son and his son’s sweetheart with him. They were pretty good-looking half-breed Indians. He said he had caught them wild on an island in Big Stone Lake and wanted to ‘buckle them up’ and marry them. So he bought ten gallons of whiskey and ten gallons of cherry brandy. I was invited to the wedding, which was held at the house of a French squaw man, who lived down the river a few miles. The next thing was to send for a justice of the peace to ‘buckle them up,’ as he said.” Knute continued, “A New England Yankee was sent for. His name was Mr. Stowell, and he performed the ceremony. But Mr. Quinn was in such a hurry that he sang out between drinks, ‘buckle them up, buckle them up,’ and then again he would jig and laugh. Well, after it was done Quinn said he was so glad that they were ‘buckled up.’”

“We had a good time at the wedding. Some were drinking, some dancing, and others talking. It was a sort of cosmopolitan gathering. There were Dakota Indians talking with the lady of the house around the cook stove. There were the squaw man and old Bushma taking French. There were Fritz and Rosenbaum talking German. There were Ole Olson and John Johnson talking Norwegian. They were all enjoying a trot sling and conversation between themselves, while Bill Quinn was dancing with a glass in his hand, to the music of the violin played by the half-breed, Joe Laframboise. A more pleasant and jolly time I have never enjoyed.”

(From Knute Steenerson’s Recollections The Story of a Pioneer, Minnesota History Magazine, Vol. 4, Issue 3-4, 1921, pg. 130-151.)

By David Schleper

Witch-e-ain was around 15 years old in early 1840s. Witch-e-ain’s father was another chief named Mock-ah-pe-ah-ket-ah-pah. (Although some people said that Witch-e-ain’s father was Wah-pa-sha).

The name of Witch-e-ain is closest to the Dakota word wićíte, “the human face,” although like some of LaFayette Houghton Bunnell’s other names, it is highly corrupted. The name “Face” could allude to her beauty and seductiveness. The name may also be a corrupted front formation from Wićítokapa, “the eldest born,” although this posits such a degree of corruption as to defy probability.

In the early 1840s, a special celebration was happening in Wah-pa-sha’s band. They assembled, and after elaborate preparation and sanctification of the ground by invocations and incense, the chief speaker came forward, and in a sonorous address lauded the virtues of chastity and warned against the sin of bearing false witness.

Wah-kon-de-o-tah, the great war-chief of the band, addressed his warriors in a quiet and affectionate manner, and told his braves to maintain the truth as sacred, and not offend the spirits of their ancestors. Wah-pa-sha then called for the virgins and matrons to come forth, and for some time there was the silence of expectation.

Again the call was made for any virgin to come forward and receive her reward. Two maidens came partly forward, but, upon reaching the line of denunciation, faltered and turned back, probably from modesty. We-no-nah, the wife of the speaker, and eldest sister (or cousin) of Wah-pa-sha, motioned to her youngest daughter, Witch-e-ain to come forward.

After repeated calls by the crier of the assembly, Witch-e-ain came modestly forward and was crowned goddess of the feast that immediately followed. Her head was encircled with braids of rich garniture and scented grass, and presents of colored cloths, calicoes, yarns, beads and ribbons were lavished upon her as the tribe’s representative of purity.

Wah-pa-sha said that Witch-e-ain could pick either LaFayette Houghton Bunnell or Thomas A. Holmes, as both allowed royal alliance for the family. Witch-e-aim said she did not like the trader, and preferred LaFayette. When Bunnell declined her offer, Witch-e-ain’s withering, silent contempt was clear.

During the feast, Thomas was so enchanted that he decided at once to make Witch-e-ain his wife.

Witch-e-ain was allowed to marry European American traders, like Thomas A. Holmes, in the fashion of the country. This means that these marriages were not recognized by law or religion. The French speaking traders of Canada term for this is “a la faḉon du pays.” Some people would call them “country wives.” While many marriages brought loving couples together for the rest of their lives, other marriages were very short-lived or violent. Many traders married native women, but also had other wives back home. Sometimes when the men retired from the fur trade, they returned to their legitimate, or legally married wives.

These marriages came with the expectation that trade between the woman’s relations and the trader would be secured, and that aid would be mutually provided in times of need. It was also the hope of the woman’s family that the trader’s generosity would increase after the marriage took place. The marriages between these two groups would lead to the creation of the Métis people, who would be considered the offspring of the fur trade.

So Thomas gave Wah-pa-sha an offer that he accepted. Based on this, Witch-e-ain then picked Thomas A. Holmes. This was in the early 1840s.

Thomas then married Witch-e-ain a la faḉon du pays. They were married in the fashion of the country, and lived together. But Witch-e-ain did not like living with Thomas. Like a caged bird, she soon pined for her Dakota prairie home. By the spring, while flowers bloomed, Witch-e-ain died of consumption.

(Some information from Lafayette Houghton Bunnell, Winona (We-No-Nah) and Its Environs on Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Days, Winona, MN: Jones & Kroeger, 1897; History of Wabasha County: Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc. Gathered from Matter Furnished by Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources as Have Been Available. Also a History of Winona County, H.H. Hill & Company, 1884.)