Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Spier Spencer was born in Elizabethtown, Spencer County, Kentucky, January 22, 1827. His father, John Spencer, was a prominent owner of enslaved people. His mother was Pricilla Allen Spencer. So, Spier, along with his father, were prominent slave owners. Spier lived there until age 14, when his father sold his slaves and moved to Boone County, Indiana. The family stayed in Indiana for eight years.

In 1849, accompanied by his only brother, John B. Spencer, Jr., he went west and located at St. Paul, which was a small village at that time. The two brothers worked as carpenters until 1853. Then, John B. Spencer, Jr. and Spier Spencer purchased a farm between St. Paul and St. Anthony Park, which they kept for a short time.

On November 16, 1853, Spier married Rose Ann Spencer at Traverse des Sioux. Rose Ann Spencer was born at Terre Haute, Indiana on April 25, 1834. She was educated at St. Mary-of-the-Woods Convent. She moved to St. Paul with her parents in 1852. Rose Ann was the first white girl who married at Traverse des Sioux. Spier and Rose Ann were cousins. Spier and Rose Ann had six children: George, Julia, Charles, Carrie, Hattie, and Belle, according to the Shakopee Tribune November 20, 1903 and October 10, 1913.

Spier and Rose Ann sold their farm and moved to Shakopee in 1853. He purchased one-third of the town of Shakopee from Thomas A. Holmes and David L. Fuller. It cost him $4100 in 1853.

Spier, in 1853, bought a considerable portion of raw estate in Shakopee, and one person who sold land to him was a George M. Garig, according to Slavery Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State by Christopher P. Lehman. According to Dr. Lehman, Spier also made money from the Garigs. “Between 1855 and 1860, Spier sold $7,300 in Shakopee land to members of the Garig family. The influx of money allowed him to survive the Panic of1857, and he stayed in Shakopee. Three years later his real estate was valued at $10,000, and he had a personal estate of $500” (p. 62-63). So, the action of Spier Spencer and the growth of Shakopee’s economy was thus inextricably linked to wealth earned from slavery.

In 1853, the Dakota were forced to move to a reservation, and the village of Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory, became a booming town. Spier and others built several homes in the area. Spier, along with Rose Ann, opened a general store in Sha K’ Pay, and traded produce and furs with the Dakota who often came back to the area.

In 1854, Spier, without attracting attention, succeeded in having enough lumber drawn onto one agency claim to build a house. Spier and a carpenter commenced to work on the frame before the claim agents thoroughly realized what had happened.

Wasson, Holmes, or Kennedy usually acted as agents for sites, and would sell a claim for $200 in gold, or as much more as they could get from a newcomer. If a person squatted on a claim without getting settled with one of the three agents, trouble would happen.

Mr. Wasson informed Spier that the claim was already taken by a friend of his, and that he needed to get off. Spier knew that the pretended friend was just a myth, and the holding of the claim was speculation so that he would pay up or get off.

Putting a revolver into his belt, Spier walked to the Wasson House, where the three agents were meeting. The three people came outside and told Spier to pay $300 or get off the land, but Spencer said he would not do either. Spier purchased a rifle and two navies, people who showed a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment. He returned to his claim and was soon visited by a delegation of men headed by the agent. When they saw Spencer’s warlike equipment, they decided not to carry out their threat of tying him with a rope and hauling him off the claim like a hog.

Spier kept the claim.

Spier had a side business in 1861, owning and operating a steamboat, Clara Hinds, on the Minnesota River. He was active in the affairs of the rapidly growing village of Shakopee.

In the fall of 1862, a kernel of wheat struck him in the eye and caused inflammation, resulting in total blindness in one eye. Spier then bought a home on Second Street and opened a private boarding house known as the Union Home. Later he mastered the trade of broom-making and supplied local stores and communities until 1895, when he retired.

Spier Spencer passed away on January 26, 1907, and was buried at Valley Cemetery in East Shakopee.

His wife (and cousin) Rose Ann Spencer Spencer, died on October 5, 1913, and is buried at Valley Cemetery.

Bibliography

Shakopee Tribune, 20 Nov. 1903.

Shakopee Tribune, 10 Oct. 1913.

Lehman, Christopher P. Slavery Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2019.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Snásna (snah-snah) was born in Mdote on April 28, 1839. Her Dakota name, Snásna, translates to Tinkling, according to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. Both she and her mother, Wamnuka (Barleycorn), were members of the Kapoza band of Mdewakanton Dakota.

While growing up, Snásna lived for a time with her relatives, including Mary Brown and Jennie Robertson, and also boarded for a time with the family of Dr. Thomas Smith Williamson. From 1849 to 1852, Snásna attended Williamson’s Presbyterian mission school at Kapoza village, where she learned to read and write. She also became fluent in English.

In late 1853, Snásna and her mother moved with other Mdewakanton to the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation. They moved from Kapoza, which was near present-day South St. Paul on the upper Mississippi River, to the new reservation on the Minnesota River.

In 1854, at the age of fifteen, Snásna married Wakinyanwaste (Good Thunder). Wakinyanwaste offered gifts to her mother in the Dakota tradition, but Snásna insisted on marrying in a church. Snásna and Wakinyanwaste were married in the Episcopal mission established by Rev. Samuel Dutton Hinman. In 1861, Snásna and her husband became the first Dakotas confirmed as Christians at the Mission of St. John, the Episcopal church at the Lower Sioux Agency. After that, they went by the names Maggie and Andrew Good Thunder, according to Minnesota Historical Society.

In early August 1862, Snásna Tinkling Maggie Good Thunder and Andrew Good Thunder’s oldest daughter Lydia died at the age of seven.

Upon hearing from one of her uncles that a “nice looking girl” had been captured, Maggie and her mother arranged to trade her pony for the hostage, 14-year-old Mary Schwandt. Mary had been captured while fleeing eight miles from New Ulm with a family she worked for. Maggie sent her mother to negotiate the trade.

“When she brought this girl, whose name was Mary Schwandt, she was much larger than the one I had lost, who was only seven years old; but my heart was so sad that I was willing to take any girl at that time. The reason why I wished to keep this girl was to have her in place of the one I lost. So, I loved her and pitied her, and she was dear to me just the same as my own daughter,” said Snásna Tinkling Maggie Good Thunder Brass.

Snásna and her mother hid Mary under blankets and buffalo robes and would tell the warriors that she had run away. Snásna explained her determination to protect Mary, “I thought to myself that if they would kill my girl they must kill me first. Though I had two of my own children at the time with me, I thought of this girl just as much as of the others,” said Snásna in Narration of a Friendly Sioux, in 1901.

Snásna dressed Mary in Dakota clothes and beaded moccasins for her, thinking that she was less likely to be hurt that way.

Mary Schwandt said that she called Maggie her “Indian mother.” She was aware that Maggie was fluent in English, but that they seldom spoke “because it made the other Indians suspicious.” Mary also looked after Maggie’s two young children, who Mary knew as Winona and baby CheeChee, according to The Story of Mary Schwandt: Her Captivity During the Sioux Outbreak of 1862.

On September 23, 1862, Snásna dug a hole in her tent. She hid Mary and her two children in the hole and covered it with poles. She then sat on the poles nonchalantly to protect them while their camp was thrown into pandemonium as many planned to flee to Canada

With the arrival of Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley and his army nearby on September 25, 1862, Snásna had sadness in parting with Mary at Camp Release. “When I turned this dear child over to the soldiers, my heart ached again; but afterwards I knew that I had done something which was right.”

After the war, Maggie and Andrew Good Thunder lived at the internment camp at Fort Snelling, where their other two children died. In the spring of 1863, most Dakota were expelled from Minnesota and were removed to Crow Creek Indian Reservation in present-day South Dakota. However, Good Thunder joined the Sibley expedition as a scout, and Maggie was given permission to move to Faribault, Minnesota. Around 1865, Snásna separated from Good Thunder and moved to the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska, where many Dakota had moved after Crow Creek.

At the Santee Reservation, she married Charles Brass (Mazazezee), a respected Dakota scout, after which she became known as Maggie Brass. They had one son and two adopted daughters. Charles died in 1894 of injuries he received while serving under General Alfred Terry and General George Armstrong Custer, according to Kenneth Carley in the book The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota’s Other Civil War, and “Heroine of the Sioux Massacre” in the July 20, 1901 Minneapolis Journal.

In the fall of 1894, historian Return Ira Holcombe edited and published survivor Mary Schwandt-Schmidt’s narrative in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The matron at the Santee Sioux Reservation saw the article and showed it to Maggie. Maggie Brass wrote a letter to Mary, leading to regular correspondence between the two women. Soon, she was on her way to St. Paul to meet Mary. Snásna said of their reunion, “It was just as if I went to visit my own child.” She and Mary became very close, and Maggie would continue to visit Mary at her home once a year.

Snásna Tinkling Maggie Good Thunder Brass died on April 24, 1908, in Knox County, Nebraska. She was buried at the Santee Catholic Cemetery.

Bibliography

Carley, Kenneth. The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota’s Other Civil War, 1976. p. 76-79.

“Heroine of the Sioux Massacre.” Minneapolis Journal, 20 July 1901.

Schwandt, Mary. The Story of Mary Schwandt: Her Captivity During the Sioux Outbreak of 1862.

“Snasna (Maggie Brass).” Minnesota Historical Society. www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/snana-maggie-brass.

Snásna. Narration of a Friendly Sioux, 1901.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Sean Touch was born in the province of Kampong Thom, Cambodia. She was born around the fourth month of the Lunar calendar in 1927 to Sean Sun and Ji Sun. Sean was adopted and cared for by her aunt after losing her mother at the age of one month.

Sean was one of the few girls of her generation who learned how to read. She was eight years old.

When she was 17 years old, she married Seng Mengly. The two newlyweds started their lives together as banana farmers in ក”ពង%&ម, or Kampong Cham.

Kampong Cham means Port of the Chams in Khmer. Kampong means port or harbor. Cham refers to the ethnic Cham people living in the province. The word Kampong in Cham is shared in other Austronesian language, the Malaysian and Indonesian, both mean village. A symbol the province is known for is two snakes wrapped around each other, which are located at the capital city bridge, Kampong Cham. Kampong Cham is primarily lowlands. The main river is the Mekong River which forms the eastern border of the province.

Despite working tirelessly, they barely made ends meet. So, she and her husband decided to move to Phnom Penh in 1958 in hopes of creating a better life for themselves and their young children. In Phnom Penh, she and her husband sold water for a living, according to Ballard-Sunder Funeral & Cremation in Shakopee.

Sean and her husband were extremely hard workers. Their love for their children gave them strength to work tirelessly. Through the hard times, they had each other. And in each other, they found strength and joy. Sadly, this happiness did not last. Sean Touch’s husband, Seng Mengly, passed away in 1970 at the age of 57.

Things continued to get worse as the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975 after winning the Cambodian Civil War. They pushed people out of the city to empty fields. These fields later became known as the Killing Fields.

In Cambodia, collectively more than one million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) during its country rule from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War. The mass killings are widely regarded as part of a broad state-sponsored genocide. At least 1,386,734 people were victims of execution.

During this time, Sean got separated from her family. Her oldest son, Buntha, was taken by the Khmer Rouge; her second oldest son, Sokha, joined the Cambodian Navy with the help of his brother-in-law, Seng Kim Noun.

Being separated from her four oldest sons, Sean was made to walk by foot for 15 days straight from Phnom Penh to Romlong while caring for her two youngest children, 12-year-old Maseak and six-year-old Toma.

Eventually, she met up with her second eldest son, Sokha, who left the navy in disguise to find her. Sean also learned that Sokha’s wife and son made it to America with his brothers-in-law. They decided to journey to the Thai refugee camp in hopes of reuniting with them in America.

It was a big risk to travel to the camps while the country was amid war. However, they made it to the camps and eventually were able to reunite with their family in America in 1980. Despite the tragedies and loss Sean experienced, this day brought her a familiar joy seeing her children happy and safe.

However, she knew she could not be truly happy until her whole family was reunited. She still had her sons, Bunsa and Masy, and their families still trapped in Cambodia. Therefore, she tried very hard to learn English so she could pass her citizenship test in hopes of being able to sponsor her remaining children to America. In July of 1987, she succeeded in this effort. She was able to reunite with her remaining children.

Sean was in good health, living in the comfort and care of her children in Minnesota until the age of ninety. Her physical health struggled from ninety-years-old onward. However, her mind was sharp until her very last year.

Sean Touch died on April 25, 2022. She was 95 years old. After a visitation on April 29, 2022, at the Ballard-Sunder Funeral Home in Shakopee, Sean Touch was buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

Sean was loved and missed by her children, Sokha (Sivhong) Seng, Bunsa (Porthy Soung) Seng, Masy (Porchou) Seng, Masiek Seng, Botuma Seng; 11 grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren, and other loving relatives, and friends. She was preceded in death by her husband, Seng Mengly, and their son, Buntha Seng.

Bibliography

“Sean Touch Obituary, Apr. 25, 2022.” Ballard-Sunder Funeral and Cremation. www.ballardsunderfuneral.com/obituaries/sean-touch.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Scott Richard Caske Taḣca Wihni Hokṡida First Born Son Who Hunts for Deer, Boy Vig was born on October 13, 1981, in St. Louis Park, the son of Charlie Vig and Donna Kraemer Vig.

“I remember growing up across the street from Scott and Andy when we were really young,” said Kelly Evans. “My brother, Mike, would babysit the three of us by having us dig up worms in our yards to use for fishing.” Scott was always kind to everyone, according to Kelly. “He always treated you like you mattered.

“It seems silly, but I keep thinking about spearmint gum … in high school, Scott always had (and shared) spearmint gum. He was so kind, and smiley. He was dependable, always showing up when you needed him, and passionate about things that mattered. I remember he and Andy dancing for the school, and his laugh. I am grateful to have known him,” said friend Tana.

Scott Richard Caske Taḣca Wihni Hokṡida First Born Son Who Hunts for Deer, Boy Vig married Kristin Breault on October 6, 2007, at Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church in Prior Lake. Kristin’s parents were Gregg Breault, Hopkins and Karen O’Donnell of Prior Lake.

Scott and Kristin had three girls, Claire, Paige, and Reese. Scott was passionate about his daughters, wife, family, and friends and cherished the time spent with them.

“I never met a more kinder, caring, respectful person than Scott and a beautiful smile! Oh that smile!” said Rosie Heinicke. “Whenever he came to Pete and Tammy’s house I would go out to greet him and as he was walking up the driveway with that beautiful smile ‘Hi Rose’ he would then tell me all about you Kristen and what you have been up to. Then he would tell me about the girls and their dance. It was so clear the love he had for you and the girls. The pride in his voice about your girls.”

Scott served on the board of directors at Mystic Lake Casino as the treasurer. He had a knack for running equipment, construction and building projects, farming and the restoration of land, along with working with the Land of Natural Resources work group Infrastructure.

Scott and his brother, Austin, also owned Musky Bros. Tackle, which built custom musky lures. Scott enjoyed the outdoors and being in nature, going hunting, and fishing.

He performed in X-Games SnoCross and placed, and enjoyed snowmobiling, downhill skiing, four wheeling and dirt biking. He appreciated the time he got to spend volunteering and enjoyed any opportunity of having fun.

Scott Richard Caske Taḣca Wihni Hokṡida First Born Son Who Hunts for Deer, Boy Vig, a member of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, passed away accidentally Thursday, February 27, 2020, due to a terrible mechanical failure in Eden Prairie. He was 38 years old.

Kristin remembered, “On February 27, 2020, Scott was supposed to help his brother for a bit and then meet us back at home with dinner. He never came back. In a split second, our lives were forever changed. We were blindsided by the massive loss of a wonderful husband and plugged-in dad. He was many things to many people, but to us, he was our world and our world just stopped.” Kristin noted how to manage her grief, the household, and countless other things while helping her daughters cope.

“I just knew I couldn’t do this on my own,” said Kristin. “I needed a support system of highly experienced people to help guide us in putting the pieces of our family back together. I reached out to Sarah from The Grief Club of Minnesota. She was so kind and gentle with us every step of the way … We were able to access our grief in many different ways. Whether that was through a meaningful art project, a writing exercise, or by simply talking and sharing in laughter and in the pain.”

Scott was survived by his wife, Kristin; children, Claire, Paige, and Reese; parents, Charlie and Donna; siblings, Andrew (Anna) Vig and their sons, Wesley and Miles, Austin (Kelsey) Vig and their son, Beckett, Kevin Vig, Brooklyn (Jacob Thomas) Vig. He was preceded in death by his grandparents, Bernard and Elizabeth Vig, Vivian and Richard Kraemer; aunts and uncle, Doris Guion, Jim Vig, Darlene Matta, and Bob Theis.

Scott’s funeral was at the Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church in Prior Lake. Officiating was Pastor Dan Poffenberger. Serving as pallbearers were Chad Nelson, Pete Didion, Ricky Vig, John Vig, Jr., Noel Perrier, Joey Vig, Brad Hoppe, Jason Vig, and Jesse Vig.

Scott Richard Caske Taḣca Wihni Hokṡida First Born Son Who Hunts for Deer, Boy Vig was buried at the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Cemetery in Prior Lake.

“What a kind loyal and selfless soul you were!” said friend Joel about Scott. “I always admired how you always seemed to have such patience and managed to hold everything together so well. You were such a great husband and father. From the time I first met you after you started dating Kristin when we were in high school 20 years ago to the time that I last saw you I can’t recall a time that I didn’t see that same smile that you had on your face. My mind is just flooding with all of the memories of you and awesome achievements you had and how hard of a worker you truly were. I will miss your laugh, and I will always try my hardest to keep your memory alive. Even though you are not here anymore you will be an internal compass to me on how to be a good man who can hold their head up high, and I can only hope to be half of the man that you were. Thank you, kind Sir.”

For more information about Tínṫa Otuŋwe and the Dakota people, Hoċokata Ti [ho-cho-kah-tah-tee], the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s (SMSC) cultural center and gathering space, is worth visiting. 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.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Scott Marvin “Skeeter” Mosher was born on February 16, 1966, in Golden Valley, Minnesota. His parents were Don Marvin Mosher and Betty Jo Prunella O’Brien Mosher.

Scott went through elementary school in Shakopee, and attended junior high in both Jordan and Shakopee, according to the February 26, 1986 Shakopee Valley News.

Scott, called “Skeeter,” left Shakopee to get basic training in the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia. The place is now named Fort Moore.

Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) is a United States Army post near Columbus, Georgia, adjacent to the Alabama-Georgia border. Fort Moore supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees, and civilian employees daily. It was originally named for Henry L. Benning, a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. Fort Benning was one of the ten U.S. Army installations named for former Confederate generals that was renamed on May 11, 2023. Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore after Lieutenant General Hal Moore and his wife Julia Compton Moore, both of whom are buried on post.

After completing basic training, Scott went back to Shakopee to get his high school general equivalency diploma. He then moved to Cibolo, Texas, and lived with his sister, Pamela Mosher Mellius. He was a construction worker and was engaged to Ann Tucker. Tucker was 16 years old, and Scott was waiting to marry when Ann graduated from high school in 1987.

When he was 19 years old, Scott was riding on his motorcycle in Cibolo, Texas. Ann’s brother was riding on the back of the motorcycle. Because his future wife’s brother had been in a car accident a few years ago, and his brain was damaged, Scott let him wear his only helmet.

As they were driving along the highway, the motorcycle hit the side of a car. While Ann’s brother only suffered a broken arm in the accident, Scott suffered seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a ruptured spleen. According to his dad, “His lower jaw was split, his teeth were shoved into the roof of his mouth, his upper pallet was split, his nose was smashed in,” he said in an article, “Former Shakopee resident’s organs give life to other after accident injuries claim his life” by in the February 26, 1986 Shakopee Valley News.

At first, there was no sign of brain damage. However, five days after the accident, Scott went into convulsions. The next afternoon, on February 5, 1986, he was declared brain dead.

In an ironic twist, Scott’s sister, Pam, delivered twins, a boy and a girl, on the day that Scott died.

Scott’s parents, Don Mosher of Shakopee and Betty Jo O’Brien of North Highlands, California, gave doctors permission to remove his organs for transplant.

Scott’s liver went to a 36-year-old woman at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas. His kidneys were both transplanted at an Air Force hospital in San Antonio, Texas. A 21-year-old woman and a 27-year-old woman each received one.

The South Texas Organ Bank coordinated the donations, The two women who received the kidneys were doing extremely well and expressed their sincere appreciation for the organs. Scott’s father said he wanted to talk about his son’s death “to impress on the local people how important it is to donate organs.”

Besides the kidneys and liver, other parts of Scott’s body were also donated. They included his corneas, bone marrow, pelvic bones, and various other bones. In addition, according to the article, parts of his heart were used later for heart valve transplants.

Scott Marvin “Skeeter” Mosher, who died on February 5, 1986 at age 19, was buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas according to Find a Grave.

Bibliography

Forkner Moe, Beth. “Former Shakopee resident’s organs give life to other after accident injuries claim his life.” Shakopee Valley News, 26 Feb. 1986.

Alberthal, Mark. “Scott ‘Skeeter’ Mosher (1966-1986).” Find a Grave, 19 Dec. 2015. www.findagrave.com/memorial/156187448/scott-mosher.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Sarah Florence Brown was born to working-class parents in Rhode Island on March 18, 1829. In 1854 Sarah lived in Minnesota Territory. Sarah married Dr. John Luman Wakefield, a fellow New England transplant, on September 27, 1856, in Jordan. Dr. Wakefield was a land speculator, legislator, and had a medical practice in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Their relationship seems to have been rocky from the start, and it didn’t help when the doctor chose in 1861 to move with Sarah and their two very young children to the Dakota reservation in southwestern Minnesota. John Wakefield would serve as the Upper Agency physician.

Though Sarah did not view the Dakota as equal to her, she nevertheless respected them to a significant degree and valued their friendship. According to some reports, Sarah preferred the company of Dakota more than that of the Agency whites, who sometimes looked down on her. The Dakota called Sarah Tonka-Winohiuca waste, or large woman.

Sarah hired Dakota women and girls to help in her home; she rode out to Dakota camps to sit fireside with the women, smoking pipe with them as they cooked, learning their language and their stories.

Traditionally the Dakota people had sustained themselves by hunting and trapping, gathering and foraging, raising some crops, preserving and storing up caches of meat, fruits and vegetables, moving their camps with the seasons, rotating to where they knew food would be most abundant.

But in August of 1862, the Dakota were confined to the reservation. They were largely dependent on unscrupulous local traders and on the rarely honorable U.S. government for food. Late annuity payments to the Dakota, a shortage of wild game, crop failures the previous summer and fall, extreme hunger and disease, pent-up rage over broken promises and treaty violations, resentment of government policies intended to destroy the Dakota way of life, a flood of white settlers into the traditional Dakota homeland – all of these factors and more created a tinderbox that concerned Indians and settlers alike, according to Phyllis Cole-Dai.

In pioneer riverman-turned-farmer William Cairncross’ memoirs, there’s a story from 1861 that took place at the Upper Sioux Agency near modern-day Granite Falls, Minnesota. He’d brought supplies by wagon to the Indian reservation a year before the U.S.-Dakota War erupted.

When a Dakota father with a sick child asked Dr. Wakefield for some medicine, the doctor – smoking his cigar with his feet up – told him to go to hell.

“At that I was angry and jumped up to my feet and pointed my finger at the doctor and swore an oath,” Cairncross wrote, “that if I was that Indian and had come ten miles to get something for my child, and the doctor sat at the stove and refused something for him, so help me, he would never doctor another, if I were to hang for it.

“There were just such things as that that made the Indians break out and massacre the whites, and I could hardly blame them,” said William Cairncross in “Tales deliver a ‘hot dose’ of river life in the mid-1800s,” by Curt Brown from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

At the onset of the U.S.-Dakota War, Wakefield’s husband decided that she should travel with her children to Fort Ridgely. George Gleason, a clerk at the Lower Agency warehouse, drove Wakefield, 33, her four-year-old James Orin, and Lucy Elizabeth (Nellie), an infant.

Two Dakota Indians stopped them. Hapa wished to kill both. Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi persuaded Hapa to spare Wakefield, and she was taken as a war captive. Gleason was killed.

Wakefield spent six weeks living among the Mdewakanton Dakota, often in danger from a few Dakota who felt captives should be killed. Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi (Caska) and his family intervened. Wakefield was still nursing her daughter. Her body was weak and unaccustomed to the outdoors.

Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi and his family protected her from murder, starvation and, at one point, from sexual assault.

Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi was found guilty of the murder of a white man and “other sundry hostile acts toward whites” and was sentenced to death. According to Jane Lamm Carroll in the book Daybreak Woman: An Anglo-Dakota Life, during the Dakota War Trials in Redwood in November 1862, “Although he was reprieved when President Lincoln reduced the execution list, he was mistakenly handed in at Mankato when the name Caske was called and he stepped forward, taking the place of another man who went by the same name.”

Sarah Wakefield was horrified when she read a newspaper account two days after the execution and found Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi’s name among those who were hanged. She demanded an explanation from Rev. Stephen Riggs, who had assisted in transferring the prisoners to the gallows. Riggs had earlier pressured Wakefield to testify that she had been raped during her captivity, but she would not lie.

This is Rev. Stephen Riggs’s explanation of the mistake in the letter he wrote to Sarah Wakefield after the execution:

Mrs. Wakefield, Dear Madam:

In regard to the mistake by which Chaska was hanged instead of another, I doubt whether I can satisfactorily explain it. We all felt a solemn responsibility and a fear that some mistake should occur. We had forgotten that he was condemned under the name of We-chan-hpe-wash-tay-do-pe (Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi). We knew he was called Chaska in the prison and had forgotten that any other except Robert Hopkins, who lived by Dr. Williamson, was so called. We never thought of the third one; so when the name of Chaska was called in the prison on that fatal morning, your protector answered to it and walked out. I do not think anyone was to blame. We all regretted the mistake very much. S. R. Riggs.

However, Riggs’s story was not easily believable. He and the clergy and soldiers who gathered the prisoners together the morning of the execution had come to know the Dakota men very well during their imprisonment of many months, and they especially knew Chaska.

Wakefield came to believe that Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi (Caska) had been deliberately executed, in retaliation for her testimony and in reaction to rumors that she and Caska were lovers. General Sibley, who appointed the tribunal that convicted Caska, privately referred to him as Wakefield’s “dusky paramour,” though she had assured Sibley there had been no sexual relations between them.

Sarah Wakefield said, “I will never believe that all in authority at Mankato had forgotten what Caska (Wicaŋȟpi Waṡedaŋpi) was condemned for, and I am sure, in my own mind, it was done intentionally.”

John and Sarah moved back to Shakopee. After the war, they had two more children, Julie E. in 1866 and John R. in 1868.

Author Kathryn Zabellet Derounian-Stodola described Dr. Wakefield as a drinker, smoker, and bon vivant who died with outstanding debts that took up $4,500 of an estate valued at $5,073.

There was speculation that he may have committed suicide when he died suddenly from an overdose of opiates in February 1874. He died at his home in Shakopee. After her husband’s death, Wakefield moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. She married a younger man for a short time. Sarah Florence Brown Wakefield Henderson died on May 27, 1899. She is buried at Valley Cemetery.

Bibliography

Brown, Curt. “Tales deliver a ‘hot dose’ of river life in the mid-1800s.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 13 May 2017.

Carroll, Jane Lamm. Daybreak Woman: An Anglo-Dakota Life, 2020.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Samuel Ferdman was born on December 8, 1893, in Russia. He moved to the United States in 1913, and by 1920 he was a peddler and walked the roads in St. Paul. He married Anna Sherin, who arrived from Lithuania. Both Sam and Anna were Jewish and spoke Yiddish. They had two children, Max Melvin, who arrived on November 10, 1917, and Lucille, who was born on June 9, 1927, both in St. Paul.

Not too long after this, the family moved to Shakopee, where Sam was a merchant in downtown Shakopee, on First Avenue. Ferdman’s Bargain Store was located on the south side of First Street. The Ferdmans lived upstairs in an apartment. Sam, Anna, and their two children lived there. This was probably one of the first Jewish families in Shakopee.

On a sunny Sunday in September of 1934, a low explosion, followed by a roar of fire shattered the Ferdman Bargain Store at 3 a.m., according to an article, “Blaze Demolishes Ferdman Store,” in the October 4, 1934 Shakopee Argus-Tribune. The fire siren wailed, and the roused people of Shakopee stared at the mounting flames. They hurriedly rushed to the scene in various stages of dress.

The Ferdman family barely escaped with their lives. Also in the apartment was Sam’s aged mother-in-law, Rebecca Sherin, and Gladys Price who had to escape quickly with only their night clothes on. Gladys was the one who aroused the other people in the house.

The fire had already made great headway in the storeroom at the south end of the building and filled the entire rear of the brick structure with flames. The inside stairs leading to the Ferdman apartment on the second floor were ablaze before the family was awakened by the dense smoke. They exited the store on First Street, almost cut off by roaring fire and acrid smoke.

Apparently, the fire started in the storeroom.

There was a stock of rubbers, socks, gloves, woolen goods, groceries, flour, and bulk food stuff which all started burning, and then it spread rapidly to the second story and over the first floor. According to the October 4, 1934 Shakopee Argus-Tribune, “Windows burst from the building and the liberated flames leaped up the walls sending pillars of smoke and sparks towering skyward. The tin roof, which covered the structure, made it a veritable furnace.

“Power wires leading to the building caught fire and stretched glowing streaks across the smoke-heavy sky. Fallen wires endangered firemen and hundreds of spectators.

“Three streams of water were played on the fire from as many fire pumps. Immediately realizing the difficulties and dangers the blaze offered, Leo Siebenaler, Shakopee fire chief, summoned the Chaska fire department. From 3 o-clock until 6 the departments fought the blaze. Their job was a big one, and the manner in which they handled it won nothing but praise. The prompt response and efficient work of the Chaska department earned for its members no small amount of compliments. This is little doubt that it was the thoroughness of both departments that kept the fire from becoming a more devastating configuration.”

It was not until the eastern sky reddened with the dawn before the fire got under control. By that time, the Ferdman building was burned out, and the adjacent store of R.C. Kline was damaged.

Samuel’s loss was estimated at $20,000. It was partly covered by insurance. Building damage was estimated at $6,000. The building was owned by James Condon of Minneapolis.

Before bed, Samuel placed a roll of bills in his trouser pocket before he retired Saturday night for bed. After the fire, he went with the fire department into the building to search for his glasses. No trace of the spectacles was found. But a small portion of the trousers, containing the pocket and the money, was found!

By the 1940 census, Sam and Anna were in Chicago, where Sam was a proprietor for an apartment hotel.

Eventually they moved to California. Anna died on August 30, 1963. Samuel died on May 2, 1966, in San Joaquin, California. Both were buried at the Congregation of Ahavas Achim Cemetery, a place for Jewish people in San Joaquin.

Bibliography

“Blaze Demolishes Ferdman Store.” Shakopee Argus-Tribune, 4 Oct. 1934.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Samuel Beisang was born on November 6, 1848, in Wellesley, Ontario, Canada.

He was the second child of William Beisang (1821-1888) and Brigetta Bridget Middleholtz (1826-1910).

Andrew Beisang was born on November 6, 1851, at Wellesley. He was the third child of several children of William and Brigetta.

Sam and Andrew, along with their parents, sisters, and brothers, moved from their home in Cross Hill, Ontario, Canada in 1878.

They settled on a farm located five miles east of Shakopee on Highway 5 near the Barden station.

Andrew moved to St. Paul where he was employed as a baker for the National Biscuit Company for twenty years.

Then he moved to the Eagle Creek area, between Shakopee and Prior Lake. He built a cottage.

He never married.

Sam lived on the farm near Barden. At some point, he married Nellie Hoffmann, but they did not stay together long.

In 1913, Sam moved to Eagle Creek to live with Andrew. Samuel was 79 years old in 1928. Andrew reached the three-quarter century mark.

About 3:45 a.m. on Sunday, May 27, 1928, a fire started at the two-room cottage. Neighbors near the cottage noticed the fire. A group of them headed to the cottage to give assistance. As they arrived, they noticed two men, Martin and Morris Martinson, brothers, walking near the fire.

Morris told them to put in an alarm. He then went to other cottages to let them know. Martin stayed at the fire, and in an exciting manner attempted to relate some of the details of the catastrophe.

He seemed intoxicated.

The charred bodies of Andrew and Sam were in the ashes. The brothers, 75 and 79 years old, were found after fire illuminated the entire countryside.

Sheriff J.C. Weckman and Joseph Menden, who lived 1 ½ miles away, arrived by 6 a.m. The sheriff went to the Martinsons’ home, half a mile away, and placed the two brothers under arrest.

A coroner’s inquest happened on Tuesday.

Martin and Morris went to the Beisang brothers’ cottage between 8 or 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 26. They prepared and ate a late meal after which they all indulged in drinking apparently to a very excessive degree, according to Shakopee Argus Tribune.

One witness said he heard noises from the direction of the Beisang cottage throughout the night. These noises included swearing and cursing.

The jury, after the inquest, returned a verdict acquitting the Martinson brothers from all blame in connection with the deaths of Andrew and Sam Beisang. “Sam and Andrew Beisang came to their death by burning in a fire which destroyed their home. The origin or cause of fire being unknown to the jury.”

The remains were brought to the A.B. Wise undertaking parlors at Shakopee on Sunday.

The funeral happened at the Wise chapel at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 30. Interment was in St. Mark’s cemetery.

Bibliography

Shakopee Argus Tribune.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Ṡakpe (pronounced ‘shock-pay’) is a Dakota word for the number six and is the name of three leaders of the Dakota village of Tínṫa Otuŋwe.

According to one story, Dakota leader Ṡakpe I (1750-June 1827) received this name when his wife, Ptesaŋ Wiŋ (White Buffalo Woman), also known as Pteska Wiŋ, gave birth to sextuplet boys.

When Ṡakpe I died, his adopted son took the hereditary name of Ṡakpe II.

Marhpia Nazhe (Standing Cloud) (1794-1857), now called Ṡakpe II, was the biological twin son of the Anishinaabe leader Ozaawindib (Yellow Head).

His father gave him to the Mdewakaŋtoŋwaŋ Dakota to forge an alliance with the band, and to provide them with a hereditary leader. This alliance between the two bands helped keep the peace.

As an adult, Ṡakpe II identified equally as being both Anishinaabe and Dakota.

Ṡakpe II was a prominent leader of a Mdewakanton band of Dakotas whose village, called Tínṫa Otuŋwe, the prairie village, was situated in what later was called Shakopee.

A famous spring, which gushes at once in a small river of excellent water from the head of the stubby ravine, marked the site. The trader, Oliver Faribault, and Wakan Yaŋke Wiŋ lived on one side of the spring starting in 1844. The missionary, Rev. Samuel W. Pond and his wife, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, lived on the other side starting in 1847. And Ṡakpe II and his followers, about 600 members, resided in the bark huts and skin lodges (called tipi tonka) scattered all about. They had been living in the area since the late 1600s.

The City of Shakopee is named after Ṡakpe II, whose band was living in the area along the Minnesota River when Thomas A. Holmes and William Quinn established a trading post here in 1851.

William Keating wrote in 1823 about Tínṫa Otuŋwe: “…it consists of fifteen large bark lodges, in good order; they were arranged along the river. Some of them were large enough to hold from thirty to fifty peoples, accommodated as the Indians usually are in their lodges. The ground near it neatly laid out, and some fine corn-fields were observed in the vicinity.”

Documentation shows that Tínṫa Otuŋwe was located on the north side of the river from 1823-1839, and on the south side of the river from 1839-1858. According to Leonard Wabasha, the cultural resources director for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Tínṫa Otuŋwe was located on several places on both the north and south side of the river.

Throughout the summer season, the Dakota women grew crop gardens, collected wild fruits, and fished. The men would also hunt for deer, elk, and bison. Many Dakota would also practice other skills such as tanning, beadwork, and bow-making during the long summer days.

Once the European Americans moved to the area, the village of Tínṫa Otuŋwe was on the east half of the third ward, starting at what was later called Sommerville Street. It continued east to the Pond Mill in eastern Shakopee.

Ṡakpe II is said to have possessed a wonderful voice. Stepping outside his lodge on an evening and standing alone in the middle of the camp, he would deliver a speech while his warriors, sitting inside in the bark huts and tipi tonka, heard distinctly every word he said. He was fond of putting thoughts into epigrammatic forms which were long remembered by the Dakota people.

For more information about Ṡakpe II, Tínṫa Otuŋwe, and the Dakota, Hoċokata Ti [ho-cho-kah-tah-tee], the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s (SMSC) cultural center and gathering space, is worth visiting. 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.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Ṡakpe (pronounced ‘shock-pay’) is a Dakota word for the number six and is the name of three leaders of the Dakota village of Tínṫa Otuŋwe.

According to one story, Dakota leader Ṡakpe I (1750-June 1827) received this name when his wife, Ptesaŋ Wiŋ (White Buffalo Woman), also known as Pteska Wiŋ, gave birth to sextuplet boys.

Ṡakpe I met Major Stephen Harriman Long at the mouth of the Minnesota River in 1817, when Long came up to distribute the presents for which Lieutenant Zebulon Pike had contracted to send them 12 years earlier when he made the Pike’s Purchase.

In June 1827, the Dakota and Anishinaabe were camping in a field outside of Fort Snelling.

That night, five Dakota Indians slipped in and shot several Anishinaabe, killing two and wounding three.

Lawrence Taliaferro, the Indian Agent, persuaded the Dakota to give up the men who had done the shooting. The Dakota lived by the principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.

For the five wounded Anishinaabe, the Dakota handed over five Dakota. Among them was leader Ṡakpe.

The punishment was to run the gauntlet. The Dakota encampment was far across the field; halfway across stood the Anishinaabe men, armed with their rifles.

The Indian women and children stood behind the warriors of their tribes.

Outside the open gate were the troops, standing in rank; the officers, and shackled Dakota prisoners.

Charlotte Ouisonsin Van Cleve, who was a child at Fort Snelling, remembered that one who was forced to run the gauntlet was Ṡakpe I. Charlotte readily recognized him from his commanding height and graceful form; he was her friend and Charlotte hoped he would get home. “He darted out from the blue-coated ranks of the soldiers almost before the children knew. The rifles cracked. The smoke cleared.

“A roar of delight from the Sioux (Dakota) – Shakopee was still running; and the fort children began to clap their hands; for the Chippewas (Anishinaabe) had fired off all their rifles and had to pause to reload.

“He was not ten paces from the goal when the rifles again cracked. The children hid their faces. His body had jerked into the air…”

When the dust cleared, he was lying on the ground where he had fallen.

Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve, in her book, “Three Score Years and Ten,” Lifelong Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other Parts of the West, noted, “The fort children, who had been watching with their parents, wept, for their friend was dead.

“That night, the bodies of the Dakota men were dropped from the bluff into the river.”

For more information about Ṡakpe I, Tínṫa Otuŋwe, and the Dakota, Hoċokata Ti [ho-cho-kah-tah-tee], the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s (SMSC) cultural center and gathering space, is worth visiting. 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

Van Cleve, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark. “Three Score Years and Ten,” Lifelong Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other Parts of the West. Kessinger Publishing, 2010.