Compiled and written by David R. Schleper

Mary Hernandez was born in Mexico City, Mexico on July 16, 1975, daughter of Alberto and Angelica Hernandez. Mary’s older brother is Jose Hernandez, and her younger brother is Marco Hernandez.

Mary’s parents wanted to work, and to have the American dream. Alberto and Angelica wanted their three children to have a better life and future. And so, in 1980, the family moved to Minnesota.

In St. Paul, Mary, along with her two brothers, learned English in the St. Paul Public Schools. In 1993, Mary moved to Shakopee.

In May of 2003, Mary married Jorge Gomez. They have four children. During the last twenty years, Mary has earned a reputation as a strong advocate for the residents of the community of Shakopee. According to Mary, “I will always do my best in serving whoever is needed to build a strong, loving, inclusive community.”

Mary started working as a cultural liaison for the Shakopee School District. She also was the co-founder of the nonprofit organization Esperanza.

She was also co-founder of the Shakopee Diversity Alliance. Formed in 2012, the Shakopee Diversity Alliance is a community-based group made up entirely of volunteers and is aimed at celebrating the city of Shakopee’s culturally diverse community as well as addressing its needs. The SDA’s vision is that through collaboration and awareness, Shakopee is united as a vibrant, diverse, inclusive community.

Mary also was a member of the St. Francis Regional Center Board of Directors and was an at-large member of the Shakopee Community Education Advisory Council. She also volunteered with the FISH network and Isaiahmn.org as she fights for racial and economic equality for all Minnesota, according to the list of “20 Hispanic and Latina Women to Know” from YWCA Minneapolis.

Mary is the community project coordinator at the Scott, Carver, Dakota Community Action Partnership (CAP) Agency. The Scott Carver Dakota CAP Agency’s vision is to create a strong community with healthy individuals and families, quality education, safe and affordable housing, and work that dignifies. More than 50,000 individuals help achieve social and economic well-being.

Mary worked to help feed neighbors who are missing a meal. The face of hunger is not what some people might expect.

Many seeking food assistance in Minnesota have jobs, raise families, work toward education, and struggle with health problems. Unfortunately, difficult trade-offs must be made to provide enough food for their families. Hungry is everywhere – in rural, urban, and suburban areas, of every age and background.

And some people in Shakopee do not have enough food to survive. And when that happens, Mary Hernandez and her supportive friends and helpful businesses help make food insecurity, the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food, less of a problem in the community of Shakopee.

Bibliography

“20 Hispanic and Latina Women to Know.” YWCA Minneapolis, 8 Sept. 2025. https://www.ywcampls.org/blog-content/all-our-voices-blog/20-hispanic-latina-women-to-know.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Mary Hapstiŋna Otherday was born on July 8, 1880, near the Minnesota River bottoms east of downtown Shakopee. Her parents were James Mom Anpetutokica Otherday (ca. 1849-1930) and Hapstiŋna Black Flute Lucy Otherday (ca. 1832-1920).

Mary grew up on the north side of the Minnesota River. She was a Mdewakanton Dakota Indian.

A postcard shows the “Sioux Reservation” in Shakopee, but the 18 acres, located on the north side of the river, was actually purchased by Oyatekokepa Jacob Otherday in 1871. The land was directly across the Minnesota River from Tínṫa Otuŋwe, often called the Village of Six’s.

The 1875 census shows 15 people, ages from seven to 65, with surnames of Otherday, Tokudo or Tahkudo, Bonska, Simis, and Bluestone. In 1900, the colony consisted of about 15 residents, living in three dwellings. The surnames include Otherday, La Framboise, Ortley, Bluestone, Shoto (or Choteau), Campbell, Cloud, Jackson, Tahkudo, and Baska. All were probably related.

Mary grew up near Shakopee. Her sister, Minnie Josephine, along with her brother Charles, spoke Dakota and English.

When she was 28, Mary married Ocankutopana George Chantu Mato Crazy Bear Cantu on October 8, 1908, in Shakopee. The two of them moved to the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, the homeland of the federally recognized Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a branch of the Santee Dakota group of Native Americans. Mary and Charles had eight children.

Mary spent her years in South Dakota until she was one hundred years old. It was 1980, and Mary decided she wanted to return to Shakopee. She had lived in South Dakota since her marriage, but she decided to return for her 100-year birthday celebration, according to an article in the Shakopee Valley News, July 9, 1980, by Claire Robling.

Mary remembered that her life probably lacked all the luxuries of others, but she enjoyed her simple life. Mary had few belongings now and was staying at a nursing home in Sisseton. Many of her things, including some clothes, photographs, and moments from her early life, had not been located, according to her niece, Elizabeth Vig, who brought Mary back to Shakopee, in the article, “Indian woman born, raised in area returns to celebrate 100th birthday.”

Mary sat quiet at her niece’s home. She could still walk around but her pace was slow and unsteady. She could still use her hands and read, but her eyes were growing weaker, according to Robling’s article. Mary was not senile, but “her world is filled with yesterday’s descending, enveloping silence.”

Her world was filled with yesterday’s captured moments, frozen in time. She remembered faces and events, according to Elizabeth, but was having a harder time hearing. Elizabeth had to speak loudly and directly in Mary’s ear. She responded best when she was spoken to in the Dakota language. This was the language of her youth in Shakopee in the 1880s.

On July 12, 1980, a celebration of Mary’s 100-year anniversary, with relatives and friends from far and wide arrived for the birthday celebration for the century-old woman. “I wanted to have something special for her. There are very few people who reach 100 and could enjoy a party, but I think Mary will,” said Elizabeth. “I think she will remember the people who are coming, even if she doesn’t say much.” Though she did not have much to say, her mind was full of a century of history to tell.

Ocankutopana George Chantu Mato Crazy Bear Cantu, who had been born in 1877, died on March 3, 1926.

Mary Hapstiŋna Otherday Cantu, at age 102, died in September of 1982 in Sisseton, South Dakota. Her relatives from South Dakota and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Prior Lake still remember the life she lived.

Bibliography

Robling, Claire. “Indian woman born, raised in area returns to celebrate 100th birthday.” Shakopee Valley News, 9 July 1980.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Louis Scharf and Elizabeth Rosckes got married at St. Mark’s Catholic Church on November 25, 1884.

They had five children: Mary Catherine, Anna Catherine, John Henry, William John, and Mary Elizabeth Scharf.

On September 29, 1894, the family, along with a sister-in-law, went to the Chaska Fair.

In Shakopee, to cross the river to Chaska, three ferries were available. One was Major Richard C. Murphy’s ferry, on the south side of the Minnesota River a mile and a half east of Shakopee in what was called Eagle Creek. The second ferry was Luther M. Brown’s ferry which was located half a mile below Holmes Street. Some research shows that it was located on the west side of the original town plat of Shakopee. The third ferry was Thomas A. Holmes’s ferry, located at the foot of Cass Street in the western portion of platted Shakopee. The ferry was located west of downtown to accommodate settlers on the north side of the river.

Louis, Elizabeth, her sister, and the five children lived at Nic Majors farm just outside of Shakopee, and it is assumed that they used the Thomas A. Holmes ferry on Cass Street.

They headed home to rural Shakopee at 7 p.m. They had to take the ferry over the Minnesota River to Shakopee.

Louis might have been drunk. He had been driving very fast.

A block from the river, J. Kunz of the Kunz Oil Company of Minneapolis told him to slow down.

But Louis continued to drive fast, whipping his horses furiously.

The horses kept prancing and jumping. The horses started to run down the bank toward the ferry. Louis tried to control them, but they rushed down, broke the in-gate, and the horses, wagon, and all the occupants headed into the cold and angry river.

The ferry man, Chris, rushed to the scene but could only see Louis, clinging to the wagon box, and crying for help.

A boat was rowed out to get Louis. One paper noted that he was too under the influence of liquor to realize what happened.

The search was begun for the bodies.

The horses and wagon were found at the bottom of the river at the end of the ferry in 15 feet of water.

The body of his wife, Elizabeth, her sister, and the five children were all found in 15 feet of water.

Sad was the spectacle in the undertaker’s room.

Louis was arrested and a coroner’s inquest commenced.

The verdict was that “Mrs. Elizabeth Scharf came to her death by accidental drowning in the Minnesota River, near the city of Chaska, on the evening of the 29th Day of September A.D. 1894.”

The sheriff discharged the prisoner, Louis.

He moved into his wife’s parents house until he married Augusta Haase on September 15, 1896, in Chaska.

Louis and Augusta had four children.

While Louis enjoyed his four children, I am sure he often thought back to his first wife and the five children, including Mary Elizabeth Scharf, who died in the cold Minnesota River.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Mary Brown Griffin was born around 1825 in Virginia. She was enslaved. Like many other African Americans at that time, little is known about her past.

One thing we know is that at some point, either by skill or luck, she became a free woman in Philadelphia.

Once she was in Philadelphia, Mary met and married James Griffin in 1849. Mary and James moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where James worked as a steamboat builder.

One of the steamboats that James helped build was the Minnesota Belle. When it was ready, James and Mary and their children Richard, Martin, and Estella, were on the steamboat in the beginning of May, ready to locate at the new town near Blue Earth, Minnesota Territory.

As Mary looked around the Minnesota Belle, she saw several African Americans working on the steamboat. African Americans traveling on the western waters were quite common. Some free Black people, as well people who were enslaved, 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. Some African American enslaved people traveled with their masters and mistresses, sleeping on trundles in their owner’s private cabins, where they could take care of errands. Most of the people on the Minnesota Belle were probably immigrants from other countries who moved to the United States. Free Black people, such as Mary Brown Griffin, were not allowed in the private cabins, however, but had to travel on the lower deck.

Captain Samuel Humberston had christened the steamboat the Minnesota Belle, and he loaded the boat with immigrants intended mostly for his new town near Blue Earth. He hoped the new town would become the chief city of the valley. Mary and James and their children were not immigrants but decided to move west in 1854.

To the captain’s great chagrin, Humbertson’s new boat failed to climb Little Rapids, near Carver, and he abandoned the river, townsite, and all, in disgust.

The Minnesota Belle landed in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory, in May 1854, after they failed to get over the Carver rapids. “The boat was from Pittsburgh, bound for the upper part of the valley, and its being obliged to discharge its large cargo of freight and passengers here established Shakopee’s reputation as the head of navigation. This incident was used to good advantage by citizens to secure new settlers,” said William Hinds.

Mary and James and their family were part of the new settlers staying in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory, from 1854 until 1856. According to the Wright County Heritage Herald, James worked as a carpenter with Daniel Storer and then was a teamster by 1856. He had wagons and teams in Sha K’ Pay, and he helped immigrant families settle in the territory.

In an article in Minnesota History by Emily O. Goodridge Grey called “The Black Community in Territorial St. Anthony: A Memoir,” Grey, an African American in Minnesota Territory, mentioned James and Mary Brown Griffin: “In 1855 there came from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, James Griffen, wife, and children, first locating at Shohope (Shakopee), afterwards taking up land near Buffalo.”

Mary and James made a claim on the shores of Lake Mary, outside of Buffalo, Minnesota. By the 1860s, James started a stagecoach line. He had a daily stage route between Buffalo and Monticello, and three times a week from Monticello to Minneapolis.

Near Buffalo, two more children were born, Guilford and Louisa.

Mary Brown Griffin died August 22, 1882, of cholera sporadic. Cholera is a bacterial disease that is usually spread through contaminated water. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and dehydration. It is easily treated today with a simple and inexpensive rehydration solution. But in 1882, something like this probably was enough to cause Mary to die.

Mary was buried at St. Joseph Catholic Church, which in 1881 was at the corner of Second Street and Tenth Avenue North in Minneapolis. It was a wooden building, 35’ x 80’, and served one hundred German families. Both Father Salzeder and his assistant, Father Bader, served there. According to the Minneapolis Evening Journal on August 22, 1882, Mary E. Griffin was buried from this church.

What is remarkable is that Mary was African American, not German. And she was probably not Catholic. However, her sons, Martin and Frank (Franz) lived in the vicinity of the church. The other members of the family who lived in Minneapolis included her other children, Richard H. Griffin, Estella Griffin Wilkin, and Louisa Griffin James.

Bibliography

Grey, Emily O. Goodridge. “The Black Community in Territorial St. Anthony: A Memoir.” Minnesota History, Summer 1984. p. 53.

Minneapolis Evening Journal, 22 Aug. 1882.

Wright County Heritage Herald.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Mary Ann Moormann was born on May 4, 1845, in Hannover, Stadt Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Mary married Fidel Hutter on April 7, 1864, at Assumption Catholic Church in St. Paul. Fidel was born around 1836 in Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria. Along with his brother, Fidel moved to America and arrived in Baltimore in May of 1854. His parents were Aloysius Hutter (1796-1853) and Maria Theresa Scholler (1796-1867).

Fidel moved to Waconia Township, Carver County, Minnesota Territory. Five months after marrying Mary, Fidel enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 21, 1864, in St. Paul. He was a private in Company B, First Minnesota Heavy Artillery. Fidel died at the Union Army Hospital from typhoid fever in Nashville, Tennessee on June 29, 1865. Fidel was 28 years old. He was buried at Nashville National Cemetery.

Mary Ann Moormann Hutter married a second time on May 16, 1866. She married another member of the military, Andrew Ferdinand Kreger (1839-1916), whose parents were Andrew Christ Kreger and his wife, Wilhemine. They married at Assumption Catholic Church in St. Paul, the same church where Fidel Hutter married a few years earlier.

Andrew and Mary had eight children.

Mary Ann Moormann Hutter Kreger died on December 12, 1916.

Mary’s husband, Andrew Ferdinand Kreger, died on March 2, 1916, and was buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Mary Anna Geyermann was born June 6, 1836, in Waldeck, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Germany, a little village near Coblenz on the Rhine. She came to America when she was 18 years of age in 1854. For a time, she resided at Aurora, Illinois, later moving to St. Paul, Minnesota. On June 27, 1859, in St. Paul, she married Paul Weydert, who was born in Landscheid, Luxembourg on May 1, 1829, son of Gaspard Weydert and Marguerite Thies Weydert. Mary and Paul had eight children: Anna, Peter, Helena Mary, Anna Mary, Susan, Theodore, Augusta Elizabeth, and Albert Nicolas Weydert.

Their first child, Anna, died in infancy. Soon after, Mary and Paul moved to Shakopee. Shortly after the birth of their son Peter in 1864, Mary and Paul joined the Holmes Wagon Train.

Mary was one of 14 women who were on the Holmes Wagon Train of 1864, and the only one with a baby in tow. There were about 113 to 175 wagons, and about 200 to 300 people.

The journey across the plains took four months and was filled with hardship, as were the years following in a country altogether new and undeveloped.

A young Indian man travelled beside the train for several days in June of 1864. The Indian man was very interested in the infant son, Peter from Shakopee, who was with Mary and Paul Weydert. The Indian asked in sign language if he could hold the baby. Mary was a bit scared but decided to hand Peter to the Indian. The Indian gently wrapped two beautifully tanned buffalo robes about the baby and gave it back to his mother.

By mid-September 1864 Thomas A. Holmes’s wagon train from Shakopee arrived. They had planned to go to the gold fields of eastern Idaho Territory, but when Congress created the Territory of Montana on May 26, the train headed to Montana. They were tired after four months of harrowing experiences crossing rough waters and Indian lands.

Only half of their names were recorded. Many hailed from Minnesota, but emigrants also came from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and some were European-born immigrants. The incomplete roster includes several pioneers who stayed and became citizens of Helena.

When they arrived at Last Chance Gulch, later called Helena, Paul tried his hand at mining while Mary took care of the children.

In 1870, Paul, Mary, and their five children were living in Helena, Montana where he ran The California Blacksmith Shop with a partner to keep himself and his family fed on a regular basis.

Eventually Paul wearied of the mining and smithing life in the city and in 1879 Mary and Paul took the young and growing family into the Lewistown area of Fergus County, Montana. They built a ranch to raise sheep.

When not too busy with ranching or smithing work, Paul continued to search for gold in Maiden, Montana.

Paul was a wheelwright, blacksmith and carpenter – all skills that helped him to become a successful rancher.

Paul Weydert died at the age of 72 because of an accident which occurred while unhitching his team of two horses from his wagon.

The horses bolted, possibly the result of the bite of a horsefly or other stinging insect, while he was underneath the “tree” of the hitch.

He was trampled to death.

Mary Anna Geyermann Weydert died on January 7, 1924, in Lewistown, Montana.

At the time of her passing Mary was 87 years and seven months old.

She was buried in Lewistown City Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Martha Tamazawiŋ Toboskas War Eagle Wamadeduda was born around 1815 in Otter Tail, Minnesota.

Her parents were Wambdiokicize Little Eagle War Eagle Huvanike (1785-1851) and Maza Kirawiŋ or Laugh at Iron Woman (1784-1875).

In 1834, Martha married Jacob Tatekokipapi Otherday, who was born around 1816 in Minnesota.

Jacob’s parents were Zitkaduta Redbird Otherday and Zitkada Duta.

The May 1875 Minnesota Territory and State Census noted that Martha and Jacob Otherday lived on the north side of the Minnesota River in what is today Eden Prairie. It is the location of the “Sioux Reservation in Shakopee, Minn,” even though it was not a reservation at all. And it was in Eden Prairie, not Shakopee. Instead, the Otherday family and others had land that they purchased.

The 1880 U.S. Federal Census shows Martha and Jacob are living in Eden Prairie, just across the Minnesota River from Shakopee. According to the Census, Martha was sixty years and was keeping house with her husband, Jacob Otherday.

It also shows that on March 12, 1887, Martha Tamazawiŋ Toboskas War Eagle Wamadeduda married Jacob Tatekokipapi Otherday in the Catholic rites at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

Lucie K. Hartley in a book, The Carver Story: Being the Village of Carver, One of the Earliest Towns in the State of Minnesota, the 1897 Carver County Fair included “The Indian Village at the Carver Fair.” Though some of the words are racist, the demonstration shows Martha and the family in their place in Eden Prairie.

“The Indian Village was a feature of interest during the fair days, and could have commanded even more attention had their history been more generally known. From Wednesday evening until Saturday night, war dances and songs were almost continuously held to good audiences and afforded no end of laughter and amusement, although the performances brought back to one’s memory that treacherous native of this race of human beings.

“The ‘tum-tum’ sound of the beaten drum rent the air and vibrated again and again in everybody’s ears, while the ‘hi-yah’ of male voices mingled occasionally with the shrill tones uttered by the squaws echoed incessantly throughout the village.

“On their faces, as likewise their apparel, every hue that the rainbow boasts of was to be found, which gave them a weird expression that only the Red Race can produce. Numerous people threw aside civilized courtesy and manners and intruded into the Indian camp after nightfall to behold the inside of a teepee, and though after bedtime the curiously and inquisitively inclined always received a cordial invitation to look around from any inhabitant that might be awakened.

“These Indians, although appearing to be as savage as ever, which of course was the idea that was brought here to convey, so as to give the growing generations a chance to study the manners and nature of the aborigines they so often hear the early settlers talk of the whites, during the bloody massacre that occurred in this section.”

“They are all well educated, and are devoted members of the Catholic Church. The band of Dakota Sioux was comprised as follows: James Wabashaw, an old man of 72 years, resides at Red Wing and is the old medicine chief; David W. LaFramboise, the present chief, is 31 years old; James and Thomas Otherday; Joseph Campbell, whose Indian name is Mazaicicasna; Joseph Williams; Charles Jackson (Mazahaninajin); Sam Standing Cloud, Thomas Whipple, Jasper T. Windgrow, Paul Windgrow; Fred Wanboiske; Alex LaFramboise, who is grandson of Chief John Otherday and the son of Alex LaFramboise.

“During the war of 1862, Chief Otherday, who has since gone to the ‘Happy Hunting Ground’ saved the lives of 360 white by giving them timely warning of an intended massacre, and was afterward a private in a company under Captain Sibley, while Alexander LaFramboise acted as interpreter in the same company during the entire war.

“The squaws’ names are Josephine and Mary Rock; Lucy, Julia, and Emma Williams; Minnie and Mary Otherday; Lucy Campbell; Mrs. Julia Williams; Mrs. Windgrow, Mrs. James Standing Cloud; Mrs. Emma LaFramboise, Mrs. Lucy Otherday, and Mrs. Julia LaFramboise.”

The 1900 Federal Census noted Martha, according to the records, was 78 years old.

U.S. Indian Census Rolls show Jacob Tatekokipapi Otherday at age 75 (November 13, 1891), age 79 on June 30, 1896, and age 81 years old on June 30, 1897. By the 1910 U.S Census shows Martha Otherday as 86 years old and a widow, so clearly Jacob Tatekokipapi Otherday died before 1910.

Martha Tamazawiŋ Toboskas War Eagle Wamadeduda Otherday died on October 27, 1911, in Eden Prairie, just across the river from Shakopee.

For more information about Martha Tamazawiŋ Toboskas War Eagle Wamadeduda Otherday and Tínṫa Otuŋwe, visit Hoċokata Ti [ho-cho-kah-tah-tee] the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s (SMSC) cultural center and gathering space. The public exhibit, “Mdewakanton: Dwellers of the Spirit Lake,” enhances the knowledge and understanding of the Mdewakanton Dakota people and their history. Hoċokata Ti is at 2300 Tiwahe Circle, Shakopee, MN 55379. (952) 233-9151.

Bibliography

Hartley, Lucie K. The Carver Story: Being the Village of Carver, One of the Earliest Towns in the State of Minnesota. 1971.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Marpiyawecasta Mary Wabashaw Hapah Cloud Man was born in a Dakota village near Fort Snelling in 1817.

Her father was Maȟpíya Wičhášta Cloud Man, who was born around 1780 in Minnesota Territory. After the U.S.-Dakota War, Maȟpíya Wičhášta was forced into internment camp at Fort Snelling. “About 1,300 of the surrendered Dakota were brought down to Fort Snelling. A large, picketed enclosure was built on the river bottomland and here the Dakota were interned, living in their worn-out buffalo skin lodges,” said Mark Dietrich. “Living conditions were deplorable and disease spread quickly in the crowded lodges. During the winter, about 130 people died, particularly of measles, and Cloud Man was among them. He probably was buried somewhere in the bottomland of the Minnesota River,” noted Dietrich in “A ‘Good Man’ in a Changing World: Cloud Man, the Dakota Leader, and His Life and Times,” in Ramsey County History.

Marpiyawecasta’s mother was Mniyodutawiŋ Scarlet in the Water Woman Cloud Man, the second wife of Maȟpíya Wičhášta Cloud Man. She was born in 1785 and died in 1855 in Minnesota Territory.

Marpiyawecasta lived with her family at the village on the shore of Bde Maka Ska called Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe, or The Village Set Back (from the Mississippi River) starting in 1829. Maȟpíya Wičhášta never intended to become a white man. He intended to always remain Dakota. He and other families developed the agricultural village, known as Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe, to survive as Dakota people. The success of the village can be measured in their ability to share food with villages in the area. Ȟeyáta Othúŋwe prevented starvation and ensured the survival of descendants of these villages, according to Bde Maka Ska’s webpage on “Cloudman/Mahpíya Wičhášta.”

In 1833, Marpiyawecasta married James Thompson. James was born around 1799 in Virginia. His father was a white man, and his mother was Courtney, who was enslaved. James, along with his siblings and other relatives had been “owned” by George Monroe, nephew of U.S. President James Monroe, also enslaved people. According to Walt Bachman, “George Monroe’s gambling debts compelled him to sell off Thompson and five of his kin, a transaction that apparently separated Thompson forever from others in his enslaved family.”

James was resold to John Culbertson, a sutler licensed to sell merchandise to the First Infantry. Culbertson, from New York. First Lt. William Day headed to Fort Snelling in 1828, and Day purchased James. In fact, of the 38 officers stationed at Fort Snelling, 33 of them used an enslaved servant at some point. Slaveholding was the norm at the fort. Day repeatedly identified “James, Slave” (with no surname) as his servant on pay vouchers, according to Bachman.

In 1833, Marpiyawecasta Mary Wabashaw Hapah Cloud Man married James Thompson. During this time, James learned the Dakota language.

According to James’s half-breed scrip affidavit, #68 (signed with an “X”), Scrip Rolls, gives 1833 as the year of his marriage to Marpiyawecasta, a full-blood Dakota woman, documented by Walt Bachman in his book, Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey.

After three years, William Day was reassigned to Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, and James had to move there with Day, and without Marpiyawecasta. In Prairie du Chien. Missionary Alfred Brunson wanted to convert the Dakota but couldn’t speak the language. So, Brunson devised a scheme to buy the freedom of James, who could speak Dakota from his wife, and hire him as an interpreter. “On March 14, 1837, with funds from Methodist abolitionists back east, Brunson purchased Thompson – a man deemed pious and quite intelligent for $1,200 and immediately signed his deed of emancipation,” said Joel Hoekstra in an article in The Growler called “Up From Slavery: How Early Settler James Thompson Became a Pillar of St. Paul.”

Bunson and Thompson set up a mission at Kaposia, and Marpiyawecasta was reunited. By 1839 the mission fell apart, and Brunson abandoned his post. James and Marpiyawecasta settled near Fort Snelling and then nearby Pig’s Eye settlement, a bend of the river that eventually became St. Paul.

The Thompsons moved to the less-settled area of Sha K’ Pay in 1853, where they lived with the Barnes family in Eagle Creek (now Shakopee). From 1853 until 1860, Mary and James lived in Shakopee, along with their two children, George and Sarah.

Between 1860 to August 1862, the family moved near the Lower Sioux Agency. Thompson left his family realizing (correctly) that his Dakota wife and half-Dakota, half African American children would remain safe. After the U.S.-Dakota War, James was reunited with his family and eventually returned to St. Paul.

“A collection of $17.65 was then taken up for James Thompson, a colored man, the oldest settler in the state. Thompson came to Fort Snelling in 1828, as a slave of one of the officers. He is the only man who was ever held in slavery in Minnesota, and the only colored man who is a member of the association,” according to the Minneapolis Daily Tribune, June 2, 1883.

In 1884, James and Marpiyawecasta moved to Nebraska to be closer to their son. Marpiyawecasta Mary Wabashaw Hapah Cloud Man Thompson died October 11, 1884, at her son, George Thompson’s home at the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.

Four days later, her husband, James Igmosapa Thompson, died on October 15, 1884, also at his son’s residence at the Santee Agency, Knox, Nebraska.

According to William D. Green in his book, Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1912, “In fall 1884, the man many considered to be the ‘oldest setter of Minnesota’ died on the reservation four days after his wife Mary had passed on, far from the city he had helped to build, far from the stigma of being black, far from the kind of society that St. Paul had become.”

Bibliography

Bachman, Walt. Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey, 2013.

“Cloudman/Mahpíya Wičhášta.” Bde Maka Ska. https://bdemakaska.net/place/%C8%9Feyata-othunwe/cloudman-mahpiya-wicasta/.

Dietrich, Mark. “A ‘Good Man’ in a Changing World: Cloud Man, the Dakota Leader, and His Life and Times.” Ramsey County History, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2001, p.4. https://rchs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/RCHS_Spring2001_Dietrich.pdf.

Green, William D. Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1912. University of Minnesota Press, 2015. p. 126.

Hoekstra, Joel. “Up From Slavery: How Early Settler James Thompson Became a Pillar of St. Paul.” The Growler, March 2020. p. 18-22.

Minneapolis Daily Tribune, 2 June 1883. p. 5, col. 3.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Raceway Park was a quarter-mile asphalt oval racetrack located near Valleyfair in Shakopee. One woman who became “the Janet Guthrie of Figure-8s,” Marjorie “Marge” Beckrich, was born in Shakopee on June 7, 1954. Her parents were Harold and Marie Anderson Beckrich.

And she loved driving cars!

Janet Guthrie was a professional racecar driver and the first woman to qualify and compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.

At Raceway Park, Marge Beckrich became the Janet Guthrie of Figure-8s! In fact, Marge was the first (and only at that time) woman who raced the Figure 8.

Marge was the first female racecar driver at Raceway Park in Shakopee, where she raced in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many people looked up to Marge, who competed with men, and did well!

Over the years, the lines to go to Raceway Park started to slow down, and during later years, fewer people attended the park. After sixty years of up-close racing, Raceway Park closed in 2013.

According to owner John Hellendrung, there was not enough fan support in recent years to sustain the place. Raceway Park closed, and an asphalt recycling plant was built there.

Marge enjoyed bingo and riding motorcycles. She worked for Scott County Transit for 15 years. Marge was also a member of the V.F.W. Ladies Auxiliary in Shakopee.

Marjorie “Marge” Beckrich died on Friday, October 8, 2010 at her residence in Shakopee. She was 56 years old.

Marge funeral service was held Tuesday, October 12, 2010. She was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

And many people remember the time when she drove with men at Raceway Park and did well!

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Marjorie (Marge) Ries was born in December of 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, daughter of Joseph and Irene Ries. Though she was born in Minneapolis, her heart was in Shakopee, where her grandparents lived. She married James Henderson and had five children.

Marge’s father was mayor of Shakopee in 1960, and Marge’s son, Jeff Henderson, served as mayor from 1996 to 1997. Marge was a woman of many facets, which started after attending St, Margaret’s Academy and the College of St. Catherine. She used her background to work at various types of work, including social workmen teaching, public relations, and government jobs as city recorder and administrator in Shakopee.

Marge was well known for her tireless involvement in local government, beginning with being hired as Shakopee city administrator, then serving over thirty years on the Scott County CDA, championing issues of housing and redevelopment. Her commitment to her community extended to serving on numerous boards of directors for civic organizations and her beloved St. Mary’s Church. Marge spent her life in service but was always a loving mother dedicated to her family and friends.

After retiring, she spent five years as the director of Murphy’s Landing (now The Landing), where, in 1986, a former director had absconded with $15,000 in museum funds, and the buildings at the 19th century village were falling into disrepair. Three Rivers Park District bought The Landing in 2002.

Marge agreed to step in as a director for three or four months, but she ended up there for five years.

She implicated a new accounting system, completed an accurate inventory of the site’s historical artifacts, and helped supervise almost all 88 buildings, according to Sheila Evertz from the Shakopee Valley News in 1991. Marge also built up the gate attendance to where it accounted for 87 percent of the site’s revenues.

Marge had strictly adhered to recreating an 1800s town. She helped instill in Murphy’s the grace and dignity of a Williamsburg, Virginia without the massive amounts of federal financial support, said Marge in an article in the Shakopee Valley News on December 26, 1991. Interpreters costumed in garb of the trade and time perform among the carefully restored homes, businesses, school and church.

Marge knew that serving the community was very important for her. In an article in the Shakopee Valley News on June 3, 1981, Marge need “When you get involved in your community, your community becomes more personal; you become part of it and it becomes part of you. That’s so important.”

Carol Thaemert remembered Marge, “I am so glad I got to meet and become friends with Marge. She had a great sense of humor and was one of the brightest women I knew. I will never forget how giving and kind she was and how much she loved her children.”

Marjorie “Marge” Ries Henderson died on January 30, 2010, at age 83. She was survived by her children, Gregory, Jeffrey, Patricia and Elizabeth. Marge hoped to comfort her family and friends and hoped someday they will be rejoined once again around the dinner table to share stories, debate issues, and laugh until heaven shakes. Marge was buried at the Catholic Cemetery on 10th Avenue.

Bibliography

Evertz, Sheila. Shakopee Valley News, 26 Dec. 1991.

Shakopee Valley News, 3 June 1981.