Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Ellen Marie Oleson, an immigrant from Vadsø in Finnmark County in northern Norway, arrived in America in 1865. In Shakopee on June 6, 1868, Axel Jorgenson took out a marriage license and married Ellen.

Axel Jorgenson was born Aksel Jørgensen on Dec. 1, 1818, in Gjerstad in Aust-Agder County in southeast Norway and was baptized in the Gjerstad parish church five days later. Axel was the eldest of four sons and a daughter born to Jørgen Akselsen (1783-1864) and Karen Margrete Nilsdatter (1794-1866).

According to Mark W. Olson, the Gjerstad area of Axel’s youth was known for iron works and for cutting logs and floating them to destinations via streams and lakes, occupations he picked up. In 1846 Axel, by then a blacksmith by trade, moved to nearby Tistedalen (today called Halden) in nearby Østfold County, on Norway’s southernmost border crossing with Sweden. In Oslo, Norway on April 28, 1850, Axel married his first wife, Ingeborg Marie, age about 31, and five days later on May 3, 1850, the newlyweds boarded the brig Incognito in Christiania (Oslo), Norway bound for New York. No information exists about Ingeborg Marie. Her fate unknown, most likely she died in the first year or two after arriving in America.

Jorgenson probably traveled America’s water routes, eventually making his way to the frontier territory of Minnesota sometime in 1850-1851. By December 1863 Axel Jorgenson moved to Shakopee to take up business doing clock and watchmaker repair.

In the Minnesota Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1865 Axel was advertised as a watchmaker and jeweler on Holmes Street in Shakopee.

In Shakopee on June 6, 1868, Axel took out a marriage license and married his second wife, Ellen Marie Oleson.

The 1870 United States Census for Shakopee mentions that Axel Jorgenson was a watchmaker and legal citizen of the United States with $2730 in real estate worth and $600 in personal property value, a tidy sum for the period.

Axel is listed in 1870 as being married to Ellen M. Jorgenson, age 30, who is described as a housekeeper and not yet a legal citizen. Both are listed as born in Norway and having no children or others listed as living in household.

In 1874, Alex and Ellen were involved in a domestic dispute. In the Weekly Valley Herald newspaper on Nov. 4, 1874, Axel put in an item reading, “Notice is hereby given that my wife Ellen M. Jorgenson has left my bed and board without cause or provocation and that I will pay no debts of her contracting after this date. Dated August 26, 1874, Axel Jorgenson.”

By 1875 Minnesota Census shows Axel living in Waconia, without Ellen. But eventually, the two of them got back together.

By 1877, the couple moved to Stockholm Township in Wright County, where they lived for the rest of their lives, according to the Carver Historic District, Civil War Onset Sesquicentennial Update 1861-2011.

Axel and Ellen adopted a son in late 1879. The child was Oscar Lind. Axel and Ellen called their adopted son Axel Peter Jorgenson. Axel Peter’s birth mother, who was only 29, died 24 days after his birth. The widowed husband had two other children to care for, so he gave Axel Peter up for adoption.

Aksel Alex Jørgensen died in Stockholm Township on June 8, 1898, and was buried at the Stockholm Town Cemetery.

Ellen lived with Axel Peter, his wife, Anna Kristine Betson Jørgensen, and child in Stockholm Township.

She was also a postmaster, and owned a farm, which was quite an accomplishment in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Ellen died Feb. 10, 1910, and was buried in the family plot in the Stockholm Town Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Eliza Ella Victoria Hunt was born Nov. 12, 1840, in Nicolet, Centre-du-Quebec Region, Quebec, Canada. Her parents were Joseph Vidler Hunt and Anne Marie Roche.

One of Ella’s older brothers, Thomas Benjamin, emigrated to the United States before 1850 when he declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen; which he did in 1855. Eliza decided, at age 15, to emigrate to Shakopee, Minnesota Territory to be near her brother.

Tom was a lawyer in Shakopee, according to anncestry.com. He was a member of the first territorial legislature of Minnesota from Jan. 2 through March 1, 1856, when it adjourned.

In September 1861, Tom joined the fourth regiment of Minnesota Volunteers and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on Oct. 15, 1861. During his military career Tom served mostly as Quartermaster. He was complimented often on his ability and organization. In recognition of his long and faithful service, he was made Brevet Lt. Col. Volunteers, on Oct. 30, 1866. His litigious nature, however, caused problems. Tom was court-martialed three times; acquitted twice, judged guilty the third time. Tom was also frequently in debt, which led to more court problems. Toward the end of his life Tom was increasingly troubled by what the family called rheumatism; it was locomotor ataxia, a form of late latent syphilis. According to military records, this was the cause of his death on Sept. 7, 1890, at the Sherwood Hotel, Fort Monroe, Virginia.

As for Eliza? When she arrived in Shakopee, she met Dr. Josiah Schroeder Weiser (1832-1863). They were married in Shakopee on June 2, 1859, in St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church.

Eliza and Dr. Weiser had a daughter, Ada Alicia (1860–1894) on March 18 ,1860, and two years later, on Sept. 16, 1862, they welcomed another daughter, Florence (1862-1863) in Shakopee.

Josiah enlisted in the First Minnesota Cavalry (Mounted Rangers) as a surgeon on Oct. 21, 1862, under Col. Samuel McPhail of the Mounted Rangers who headed to Dakota Territory by Gen. Henry H. Sibley’s Minnesota volunteers. “Doctor Josiah S. Weiser, regimental surgeon for the 1st Minnesota Mounted Rangers, was from Shakopee, Minnesota, and had lived among the Dakotas, learning their language and serving as their doctor,” said Paul N. Beck in his 2013 book, Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions 1863-1864.

While Dr. Weiser was in the Dakotas, Ella was stuck in Shakopee with Ada (Florence had died in infancy).

Most of the four thousand Upper Sioux from the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands had been reluctant participants in the U.S.-Dakota War. A few of these refugees from the war fled to Canada, but more than four thousand congregated in the summer of 1863 in a large encampment in present-day Kidder County, North Dakota. Tȟatȟáŋka Nážin (Standing Buffalo), Ožúpi (Sweet Corn), and other Sisseton and Wahpeton leaders who favored peace had led their people to the Big Mound area. Other groups of Dakotas, led by Iŋkpáduta (Scarlet Point) and other leaders who favored continued resistance, were also camped nearby to hunt. Some Hunkpapa Lakotas also crossed the Missouri River to join the hunt. They included Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull), Phizí (Gall), and Nážin Maȟtó (Standing Bear).

Dr. Weiser, chief surgeon, spoke Dakota and was assisting in the discussions. “Believing he saw men that he knew, Weiser and his African American orderly rode out of camp to a nearby hill, where scouts were meeting with some young warriors,” said Beck, when he was unexpectedly shot. A member of Iŋkpáduta’s band suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Dr. Weiser in the back, probably thinking he was Sibley.

So, Ella was left a widow, with a child, when Dr Josiah Schroeder Weiser was killed on July 24, 1864.

Ella applied for a widow’s pension of $25 a month starting in 1864. On Feb. 14, 1865, at the petitioned probate court she was awarded $200 for one year’s maintenance. After probate on Dr. Weiser’s estate was completed on May 27, 1865, Eliza joined her brother, Thomas, who was living in Iowa. Ella applied for allowance for her minor child, Ada. She was awarded $25 per month, commencing in April 1867, in that same month, on April 25, 1867

Eliza Ella Victoria Hunt Weiser married Alfred Houghton Stubbs. Eliza Ella Victoria Hunt Weiser Stubbs and Rev. Alfred Houghton Stubbs had a daughter, Emilie Eugenie Houghton Stubbs, and a son, Thomas Houghton Doane Stubbs. Ella and Alfred moved to Milford, New York in 1870. Over the next ten years, they had another daughter, a son, two other sons who died as infants, and another daughter.

In early 1880, Eliza separated from Rev. Stubbs. Ella moved to Queens County, New York with her five living children: Alda, Genie, Boys, Rollo, and Daisy.

Ella supported herself by working for St. Nicholas Magazine, a popular monthly American children’s magazine, in New York. She then moved to Brooklyn, New York, and ran Willowmere as a summer hotel on Gravesend Bay. Eliza Ella Victoria Hunt Weiser Stubbs died Jan. 25, 1897, in Manhattan, New York. She died of chronic intestinal nephritis. Eliza was interred on Jan. 29, 1897, according to the Christ Church Episcopal Churchyard burial records, according to Find-A-Grave #138244911.

Eliza Ella Victoria Hunt Weiser Stubbs was buried in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Elizabeth K. Ries was born Aug. 26, 1874, in Shakopee. Her parents were Jacob Franz Ries (1830-1911) and Josephine Mamer Ries (1835-1916) who were born in Septfontaines, Canton de Capellen, Luxembourg, and arrived in Minnesota in 1857, where Jacob founded the Jacob Ries Bottling Works in 1872. The company bottled water and other beverages under the name Rock Spring Beverages. Jacob also served as Shakopee’s mayor from 1895-1899.

Elizabeth became a nurse so she could take care of her mother, who needed help. In 1918, during the Flu Pandemic, there were not enough nurses, and Elizabeth gave her services night and day.

In 1925, just five years after the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, the city of Shakopee elected its first female mayor. The election was a nail-biter. Elizabeth beat incumbent John P. Ring 319 to 290 votes, according to Jon Lyksett. She also was elected again in 1927.

Ries embraced her newfound stardom. In 1926, she appeared on WCCO radio in Minneapolis as a sort of mistress of ceremonies, bringing with her a group of musicians known as the Shakopee Serenaders and a group of male singers which she deemed The Lady Mayor’s Trio, according to Jon Lyksett.

During her time as mayor, Shakopee approved a critical connection to Chaska over the Minnesota River with the Holmes Street Bridge, which remains today as a pedestrian bridge.

Elizabeth also owned the Rock Spring Café, one of the most popular establishments in town in the 1920s and 1930s. “Shakopee was really a community by itself, cut off by the Minnesota River and the river bottoms,” said Joe Jenn. “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.”

In Shakopee, the people had Fords and Chevrolets, but the cars in front of Rock Spring were too fancy. If you looked inside, almost no one was there. A local guard was at the basement door where the machines and other equipment were kept. Only secret clientele were allowed in, usually from the Twin Cities.

The Rock Spring Café and other places had runners to inform them when raids were coming. They had safe houses, including one on Spencer Street across from St. Mary’s School. There were 30 or 40 safe houses, where the slot machines were stored there for hours or a day until it was safe to return them.

Elizabeth was elected a second time in 1927. But in 1928, she resigned to become postmaster.

Elizabeth K. Ries died May 6, 1949, at 74 years age. She was buried at the Shakopee Catholic Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Elizabeth Hermes was born in Prussia, at Endolf in the province of Westphalia on Feb. 11, 1832. Her parents were Johannes Wilhelm Hermes and Maria Catherina Schoettler. When Elizabeth was 18, she and her parents moved to the United States. They then lived in Detroit for two years. Then they moved to Minnesota Territory.

On their way from Detroit to Minnesota Territory, Elizabeth married Johan John Theodor Koeper (1818-1901), son of Johann A. Koeper and Anna K Haggen. They married in Chicago on Sept. 15, 1852.

Elizabeth and John first settled in St. Paul, and they were engaged in the hotel business. After two years there, they took a steamboat up the river to Shakopee on Oct. 28, 1854.

Elizabeth and John settled on the fertile spot upon the banks of the Minnesota River in what was, at that time, the Cates Farm. They lived there for 18 years.

The Hermes-Koeper family increased by ten children. The first two probably died shortly after birth in St. Paul. The rest of their children included Elizabeth (1854), Charles (1856), August (1858), Anton (1860), Sophia (1861), Frank (1865), Joseph (1870), and Emma (1872).

In 1872 Elizabeth and John moved to their new homestead located inside the city limits on the west side of Shakopee. John preempted a tract of land adjoining Shakopee as originally platted and platted a portion of his tract as an addition to Shakopee city, known as Koeper’s Addition.

Elizabeth’s brother, Franz, who was a bachelor, lived in a log cabin at the bottom of the hill on the Koeper farm. He also enjoyed his Schnapps. According to one story, Franz was attempting to climb the hill on all fours so as not to arouse the household. The geese, who were roaming loose on the farmyard, disclosed both his position and condition with their honking, combined with Franz’s German cursing! Mamie Koeper heard this story from her mother, according to a note in A Little History: Compiled in Celebration of the Life and Death of Henrietta Deutsch (1984) by Betty Scherkehbach.

John was engaged in the distillery business for four or five years at what was later called the Union Brewery. After that, John and Elizabeth and family were involved extensively in dairying and farming.

Elizabeth was a member of the Old Settlers’ Association and was well known in town. In the closing years, Elizabeth had a lingering and painful illness, though she bore her suffering in patience.

Elizabeth Hermes Koeper, at age 63, died after a long illness, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 1895. The funeral happened at St. Mark’s Catholic Church and was attended by many friends and family. It was clear that people had a high esteem in which she was held.

Elizabeth was buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Six years later, Johann John Koeper died of heart disease at age 82 on Thursday, Jan. 3, 1901. One newspaper remembered him, and remembered his hearty laugh, his interesting tales, and his bluff honest voice. He had been part of the Shakopee community for almost half a century and was remembered on his daily round in the dairy wagon. Johann was buried next to his wife, Elizabeth, at the Catholic Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Elizabeth Clarke Mawney was born Aug. 13, 1813, in Cranston, Rhode Island. Her parents were John Mawney and Ruth C. Gladding Mawney (1790-1815). Elizabeth’s paternal grandparents were Dr. John Mawney (1750-1830) and Elizabeth Prentice Clarke Mawney (1765-1803).

Dr. Mawney was born in Cranston and was the son of John Mawney and Amey Gibbs of Providence, Rhode Island. He first married Nancy Wilson. The second marriage was with Elizabeth P. Clarke (1765-1803). Dr. Mawney was a physician, and a colonel in the Rhode Island Militia during the Revolutionary War, according to Gaspee Info.

He was a member of the party that burned the British vessel Gaspee in 1772, and following the incident removed a bullet from Lt. Duddingston, the vessel’s commander. Fifty years after the American Revolution, Dr. Mawney was among the four veterans of the Gaspee incident still living and was honored by the State of Rhode Island.

The Gaspee Affair was a significant event leading up to the American Revolution. HMS Gaspee was a British customs schooner that enforced the Navigation Acts in and around Newport, Rhode Island in 1772. According to an article, “An Act of War on the Eve of Revolution,” on the U.S. Naval Institute website, the Gaspee ran aground in shallow water while chasing the packet ship Hannah on June 9 near Gaspee Point in Warwick, Rhode Island. A group of men attacked, boarded, and torched the Gaspee.

The event increased tensions between the American colonists and British officials, following the Boston Massacre in 1770. British officials in Rhode Island wanted to increase their control over trade—legitimate trade as well as smuggling—to increase their revenue from the small colony. But Rhode Islanders increasingly protested the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and other British impositions that had clashed with the colony’s history of rum manufacturing, slave trading, and other maritime exploits.

This event and others in Narragansett Bay marked the first acts of violent uprising against the British crown’s authority in America, preceding the Boston Tea Party by more than a year and moving the thirteen colonies toward the war for independence.

Elizabeth married William Albert Cole (1815-1902). William’s parents were William Davis Cole (1780-1842) and Mercy Pearce Cole (1782-1847). His grandparents were Capt. John Cole, Jr. (1749-1825), and Virtue Davis Cole (1755-1820); and Joseph Pearce (1760-1814) and Sarah Havens Pearce (1760-1845).

Elizabeth and William had eight children.

The first child was William Davis (1842-1880). William was a Civil War veteran and was buried near the front entrance of Valley Cemetery. He served in Company I of the Ninth Minnesota Infantry, along with several other Shakopee young men. William never married and returned home to Eagle Creek (now part of Shakopee) after the war to live with his parents and siblings and a neighbor to Samuel Pond. Sadly, he died at age 37 due to consumption, also known as tuberculosis.

Their second child was Henry Harry Barton (1843-1925). Harry, like his other siblings, was born in Baltimore City, Maryland, and moved to Eagle Creek. Like most of his siblings, Harry was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

The next child was Sarah Elizabeth. Sarah, who was born in 1844 in Baltimore City, married Pvt. George Sidney Mayfield (1843-1932) in 1866. Both are buried in Valley Cemetery, with Sarah dying in 1918.

The fourth child of Elizabeth and William was Anna Frances (1846-1929). Anna married George Washington Murphy (1843-1918). George’s parents were Richard G. Murphy (1801-1875) and Sarah Sally Lemen Murphy (1809-1846). George lived with his family at what is now the Landing in Shakopee. He was also in the Civil War (1861-1865). In Valley Cemetery is a tall spire, which is a monument for Richard G. Murphy. Richard came to the Shakopee area after being appointed Indian Agent in the territory of Minnesota in 1848. He built a large hotel and operated a wharf and ferry service on the Minnesota River just east of Shakopee (now part of Shakopee), along with his youngest son, George. Anna and George were buried at Valley Cemetery.

The fifth and sixth children were Harriet Baron (1850-1924) and Kate (1851-1946). Harriet married George C. Christ (1833-1915). Kate married George A. Pettey (1841-1890), who was in the navy in 1863. All of them are buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Elizabeth and William’s seventh child was Eliza Mercy (1853-1939). Eliza married Lewis Sharpless (1836-1899) in Shakopee on Nov. 3, 1885. Lewis first married Jane Burke, and they had five children before Lewis moved to Shakopee and married Eliza. Both Eliza and Lewis were buried at Valley Cemetery.

The final child born to Elizabeth and William was Minnesota (1855-1918). Minnesota, also known as Minnie, was born when Minnesota became a territory, and so that is why she was named Minnesota. Minnie married George Washington Kinsey (1834-1917). George is on the monument with William David Cole. He was another Civil War soldier. George married Minnie in 1882. They are both buried at Valley Cemetery.

Elizabeth Clarke Mawney Cole died Sept. 15, 1891, and was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, along with her husband and her children. A few years later, in 1902, William Albert Cole died.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Elizabeth Betty Anne Schmitt was born Jan. 7, 1930. She was the daughter of Theodore Ted Schmitt (1882-1935), who grew up in Shakopee, and Kathryn Fritz (1887-1972), who grew up in Chaska. Betty was the youngest of 13 children.

Betty’s father died of silicosis when Betty was five years old. While they were living in a house not far from St. Mark’s Church, her mother had to confront the fact that, during the Great Depression, she had 13 children to feed. Her mother rented rooms at the house. And then her mom went around the town and asked people who had vacant land if Kathryn and her family could plant gardens there. And so, every day, the children had to go around town to take care of the vegetables. From earliest childhood into her late 80s Betty lovingly tended her vegetable and flower gardens, and canned and froze her harvests. No one could stretch a dollar like she could.

Like others of her generation, Betty said that she “learned at an early age, what some people never learn – that if we wanted something out of life, we had to go out there and make it happen. We learned how to be self-sufficient.”

Betty also was a devout Catholic and a lifetime member of St. Mark’s Catholic Church. But as for school, Betty went to St. Mary’s School.

David Schleper asked her about this, and she explained that at St. Mark’s, students had to pay for books. When St. Mary’s School started in 1935, the students did not have to pay for the books, which was important during the Depression. And so, Betty, like others, went to St. Mary’s for school.

Betty married Earl William Dols on June 3, 1947, at St. Mary’s Church. Earl was born Jan. 16, 1919, to Leonard Dols (1873-1957) and Mary Ellert Dols (1878-1955) on their dairy farm six miles north of Glencoe, Minnesota. He attended local schools and completed the automotive course at Dunwoody Institute in Minneapolis. He worked at the Ford garage in Glencoe before going into the Army in 1941. He served in the 175th Field Artillery attached to the 34th Infantry Division called the Red Bulls in England, Ireland, Scotland, North Africa, and Italy. At the end of the war in 1945, he came home and worked at Shakopee Ford for the next 35 years. He learned to fly on the G.I. Bill at Flying Cloud Airport and had his own plane with a partner for a time.

The couple had two children, Leonard and Linda. When Leonard, her older child, was in college, Betty went to work for the Mertz Insurance Agency, later called Mertz-Horeish Insurance Agency in Shakopee for 25 years until her retirement in 1990. During that time, she achieved licensure as CPIW and CIC. After she passed her board certification, she taught classes in her spare time to help others achieve certification. She was recognized as Insurance Woman of the Year 1980 by the Insurance Women of Greater Minneapolis, according to the Shakopee Valley News on May 21, 1980.

After her retirement, she began a second career as a professional genealogist. She was president of the Minnesota German Genealogical Society and traveled to Salt Lake City and Germany to do research. As a lifelong resident of Shakopee, Betty loved her community and volunteered countless hours for many organizations, such as Meals on Wheels, Friends of the Library, Scott County Historical Society, and Shakopee Heritage Society. Betty was a proud member of the historic Shakopee Book Lovers Club.

Betty was one of the founding members of the Shakopee Historical Society in 1992. Later the name of the society was changed to the Shakopee Heritage Society to avoid confusion with the Scott County Historical Society. For more than a decade Betty worked to build the Shakopee Heritage Society, and she held several offices for multiple terms and brought many interested and informative programs to the meetings.

Several articles from the Shakopee Valley News discuss Betty, the genealogist, who volunteered at the Stans Museum effort to catalogue the death and marriage records of residents. Over 650 thousand entries, and 120,300 handprinted entries were written on 3×5 cards by Betty and nine other volunteers who took three years and eight months to make the information available. Some of the articles from the Shakopee Valley News include “History at Your Fingertips” by Shannon Fiecke, April 24, 2008; “She’s the Area’s Family Sleuth” by Kristin Holtz, April 30, 2009; “Roots of Family Trees Surface at County Historical Society” by Nicole S. Colson, Jan. 3, 2013, and “Finding Your Family History” by David Schueller.

David Schleper remembered going to the Stans Museum every Thursday while she volunteered there. The two of them spent hours and hours talking about the history of Shakopee. Over time, Betty willingly produced over 100 families’ ancestry charts, and family group sheets documenting births, marriages, and deaths. But she didn’t write the family’s stories, which is best done by family members. She still loved doing research, and it’s fun to come across a black sheep. “Every family has someone they would rather not have, but those people generally make it more interesting,” said Betty, grinning.

Betty Anne Schmitt Dols, 91, died peacefully on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021, at St. Gertrude’s Nursing Home. After a mass of Christian Burial on Nov. 15, 2021, at St. Mark’s Catholic Church, she was buried next to her husband at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Josiah Schroeder Weiser was born Aug. 17, 1832, to Samuel and Mary Schroeder Weiser in Reading, Pennsylvania. Josiah’s father was a miller near the city. After completing his normal school education in Reading, Josiah attended the Fredonia Academy in Pomfret, New York, and then enrolled in the Jefferson Medical College (now the Sidney Kimmel Medical College) in Philadelphia, according to an article by Curt Eriksmoen on May 29, 2020, in his “Did You Know That” column.

He graduated in 1855 and decided to join his two brothers, William and Joel, and his mother, who were living in Shakapee City, Minnesota Territory since 1854. His father died in 1854 while traveling to Shakopee. Josiah’s brothers and their mother began farming, and Joel found plentiful work as a mason and plasterer.

Shakapee City, located across the Minnesota River southwest of Minneapolis, was a rapidly growing community for white settlers. It was the traditional home of many of the Mdewakanton Dakota Indians, where they fished, hunted game, and gathered wild rice, nuts, berries, and roots.

Dr. Weiser (along with Dr. Wakefield) treated the wounded Dakota during the Battle of Shakopee in 1858. The Dakota had old men, boys, and even some men who were disabled in the battle, a total of 65 men. According to the History of Carver County, “There were but few good guns among them, all being common fowling pieces, some of them old and unreliable, while a dozen or more men had no guns at all. But the white men of Shakopee supplied this deficiency; they gave the Indians every gun in town.” Dr. Weiser and Dr. Wakefield helped the wounded in downtown Shakopee. Josiah had been in Shakopee since 1855, and he was a doctor to many people in Shakopee, including the Dakota, and he learned the language, so that helped.

Everything appeared to be going well for Josiah as his practice continued to grow, and in 1858, he partnered with David Lennox How in owning a drugstore in Shakopee. Dr. Weiser married Eliza Victoria Hunt on June 2, 1859, in St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Shakopee. They had two children in Shakopee, Ada (1860) and Florence (1862).

Josiah enlisted in the First Minnesota Cavalry (Mounted Rangers) as a surgeon on Oct. 21, 1862.

“Dr. Josiah S. Weiser, regimental surgeon for the First Minnesota Mounted Rangers, was from Shakopee, Minnesota, and had lived among the Dakotas, learning their language and serving as their doctor,” said Paul N. Beck in his 2013 book, Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions 1863-1864. An orderly, also on a horse, was an aide to Dr. Weiser. He was African American.

Dr. Weiser was assigned to the First Minnesota Mounted Rangers, which was under the command of Col. Samuel McPhail. On June 16, 1863, Sibley and his army of 3,320 men began their long journey into Dakota Territory.

Riding on horseback across the prairie in the summer heat was very taxing on the soldiers, and they were on constant lookout for a pleasant area where they could dismount and relax in comfort. One such place was six miles southeast of present-day Kathryn, in Barnes County, where they arrived on July 13, 1863. This site was later named Camp Weiser, in honor of Josiah, the company physician, according to Curt Eriksmoen.

For over a month, Sibley’s soldiers pushed westward without seeing any warriors. They were informed about a place called Big Mound, ten miles north of present-day Tappen, where there was an encampment of about 2,500 Native Americans.

Weiser was acquainted with some of the Indians, and “as he approached Big Mound to greet several Indian friends,” he was shot through the heart by a renegade who was not a member of the group.

“Believing he saw men that he knew, Weiser and his African American orderly rode out of camp to a nearby hill, where scouts were meeting with some young warriors,” said Beck, when he was unexpectedly shot. A member of Iŋkpáduta’s band suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Dr. Weiser in the back, probably thinking he was Sibley.

There have been many medical doctors from North Dakota and northern Dakota Territory killed on battlefields outside of the state, but Weiser is the only medical doctor killed inside the state’s present borders during a military conflict, according to the article “Assassination in central ND likely was the spark that ignited the Dakota War” in Curt Eriksmoen’s “Did You Know That” column, on May 29, 2020.

Soon, both sides began shooting at each other, and a battle began.

The Santee were poorly armed. Only about half had firearms and those had little ammunition. Several hundred of the Mounted Rangers pursued the Indian warriors, protecting the flight of their women and children, until nightfall. Most of Sibley’s infantry devoted themselves to destroying the large quantities of jerky, buffalo robes, cooking utensils, and other goods left behind by the Sioux in their hasty flight. According to records, “…the majority of the Santees whose villages they had destroyed and who were now economically devastated by the battle, left with no food or shelter for the winter, had had little or nothing to do with the uprising.”

Dr. Joseph S. Weiser was killed July 24, 1863, in the Battle of Big Mound, Dakota Territory. Located in Kidder County, a headstone marks the place where Dr. Weiser was shot, according to Find a Grave.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

John Luman Wakefield was born April 25, 1823 in Winstead, Connecticut. His parents were Luman Wakefield (1787-1850) and Elizabeth Betsey (Rockwell) Wakefield (1789-1831). John graduated from Yale Medical School at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1847.

John first practiced medicine in Winstead. He then moved to the California goldfields in 1849. He treated patients there until 1854, when he became ill with cholera and returned to Winstead.

John’s younger brother, James, had graduated from Trinity College by then and became a lawyer. He and his brother decided to go west to Minnesota Territory and settled in Sha K’ Pay in April 1854. James became a successful land speculator, a state and then a federal legislator. John set up a medical practice there and was one of the town’s earliest physicians. He was also a land speculator.

He married Sarah Florence Butts Brown in Jordan, Minnesota on Sept. 27, 1856. Sarah was born June 12, 1830, in Providence, Rhode Island. John was listed as 33 years of age and she was 28. Their first child, James Orin, was born in 1858, the year Minnesota became a state, in Shakapee City.

By the late 1850s, treaties with the U.S. government had confined the Dakota to a reservation straddling the upper Minnesota River and the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) to lands further north and east. White immigration and reliance on the fur trade intensified the two groups’ competition for resources. The addition of guns made the fighting even more deadly. The Ojibwe-Dakota tensions turned violent again in June 1858 across the Minnesota River from Shakopee. Dr. Wakefield and Dr. Josiah Schroeder Weiser helped the Dakota hurt in the battle. The Dakota had old men, boys, and even some men who were disabled in the battle, a total of 65 men. According to the History of Carver County, “There were but few good guns among them, all being common fowling pieces, some of them old and unreliable, while a dozen or more men had no guns at all. But the white men of Shakopee supplied this deficiency; they gave the Indians every gun in town.” Dr. Weiser and Dr. Wakefield helped the wounded in downtown Shakopee.

In 1860, their second child, Lucy Ellen, also called Nellie, was born. John and Sarah’s relationship seemed to have been rocky from the start, and it wasn’t helped when the doctor chose in 1861 to move with Sarah and their two very young children to the Dakota reservation in southwestern Minnesota. John would serve as the Upper Agency physician.

Though Sarah didn’t view the Dakota as equal to her, she nevertheless respected them to a significant degree and valued their friendship. 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. The Dakota called Sarah Tonka-Winohiuca waste, or large woman.

The family’s house at the Upper Agency was located next to the agent’s quarters and warehouse building. It was a big house, and had plenty of food, unlike the Dakota in the area.

In pioneer riverman-turned-farmer William Cairncross’s memoirs, there’s a story from 1861 that took place at the Upper Sioux Agency near modern-day Granite Falls. He’d brought supplies by wagon to the Indian reservation a year before the U.S.-Dakota War erupted, according an article by Curt Brown called “Tales deliver a ‘hot dose’ of river life in the mid-1800s” by the Minnesota Star Tribune, May 13, 2017.

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.”

The Dakota War broke out the morning of Aug. 18, 1862, at the Lower Agency. News of the events traveled to the Upper Agency, and white settlers, agency employees, and some Indians, fearing for their safety, began to make their way to Fort Ridgely, the closest military fort in the area. Dr. Wakefield arranged for his wife and children to leave that afternoon with George Gleason, an Upper Agency clerk. They left about 2 p.m. and traveled using Wakefield’s horse and open wagon. On their way to Fort Ridgely, Gleason was killed and Sarah and her two children were captured by a few Dakota. Sarah wrote a book, Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees: A Narrative of Indian Captivity, which is available through the Shakopee Heritage Society.

Dr. Wakefield, along with 61 settler-colonists from the Upper Agency, arrived safely in Hutchinson a day later. Six weeks later, Sarah and her two children, plus about 260 white and mixed-descent women, a few men, and children were freed.

Dr. Wakefield and Sarah moved back to Shakopee. They had two more children, Julie Elizabeth in 1866 and John Rockwell in 1868. Six years later, on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1874, Dr. John Lumen Wakefield died at his residence in Shakopee. The immediate cause of the doctor’s death was attributed to an overdose of an opiate. It appears that he returned home, and shortly after retiring requested his wife to call him at a specified hour. A short time after, the attention of his wife was attracted by his breathing, and upon attempting to arouse him she found herself unable to do so. Assistance was called, but to no avail, and he expired soon after.

The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict Through the Captivity Literature by Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola (2009) by University of Nebraska Press, 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.

After her husband’s death, Sarah moved to St. Paul. She married Lewis Henderson (1852-1923), who was 22 years her junior. The marriage, which took place in the late 1870s, lasted only a few years, and, by 1885, census records list her again as Sarah Wakefield.

Sarah Florence Brown Wakefield Henderson died May 27, 1899. She is buried at Valley Cemetery, next to her first husband, according to Find a Grave.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Jacob Jack Le Van Sach and his wife, Pham Ngoc Diep, were born in Vietnam. Jack was born in Saigon, which became Ho Chi Minh City when the communists took over in 1975. Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam, situated in the south. In the southeastern region, the city surrounds the Saigon River. Pham Ngoc Diep was born in Mỹ Tho. It is a city in the Tiền Giang province in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. It is the regional center of economics, education, and technology.

Jacob was forty years old, and Pham was 43 years old in 1975. They had three children, according to an article in the Shakopee Valley News on Sept. 3, 1975. Their oldest child was Le Nghi Nguyen, who was a 12-year-old son. Their only daughter was Le Thuy Kieu, who was born in 1965. And their youngest, another son, Le Nguyen Nghi, was born in 1970.

Jack received a baccalaureate degree from the University of Saigon in 1953. In Vietnam, he was a secondary school teacher, according to the article “Parishioners welcome Jacob Le Van Sach family.” He authored several books as an area developmental specialist. And in Vietnam, he was a U.S. Embassy liaison translator. In fact, during his liaison with the Vietnamese government since 1968, Jack authored several textbooks for teaching languages.

Large-scale immigration from Vietnam to the United States began at the end of the Vietnam War, when the Fall of Saigon in 1975 led to the U.S.-sponsored evacuation of Vietnamese refugees. As the humanitarian crisis and displacement of people in the Indochina region (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) intensified, more refugees and their families were admitted to the United States.

Like government and military officials, urban professionals and well-educated South Vietnamese people who could speak English and were familiar with American culture were the first immigrants to arrive in America in 1975. South Vietnamese left because they feared that their way of life would not be the same with North Vietnam in power.

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota was significantly involved in the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in Minnesota after the Fall of Saigon.

When Jacob Jack Le Van Sach and Diep Phan Ngoc Sach, along with their three children, arrived in Minnesota, parishioners from St. John’s Lutheran Church in Shakopee, including Pastor Walter Johnson, greeted the new immigrants at the Amtrak station. According to the Shakopee Valley News, the family met the people from St. John’s Lutheran Church as well as parishioners from St. Mark’s Catholic Church including Duong Manh Hung and Pham Thi Hoa, who had just moved to Shakopee a few weeks before.

It worked well to have people who had recently arrived there to help the family as they all could speak Vietnamese. It also was helpful because Jack and his family knew more English.

Eventually, Jack and Diep ended up in Hennepin County. Jack received a doctorate degree and worked as a refugee relocation specialist.

Dr. Jacob Jack Le Van Sach died Oct. 29, 2013, in Blaine, Minnesota.

He was 78 years old, and a widow who never married after the death of his wife a few years earlier. He was cremated and buried in Brooklyn Park.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Mudcura Sanitarium (1908-1951), later known as the Assumption Seminary (until 1970), was located on what was once Highway 212 just west of Highway 169, near the Seminary Fen.

The sulfur springs, mud, and plants from this area had been used by Dakota medicine men for many years before the settler-colonists discovered their healing attributes.

The treatments at Mudcura used these plants and mineral-rich mud when treating people for medical ailments, including for arthritis, asthma, nervous disorders, and even alcoholism.

Mudcura Sanitarium was not located in Shakopee, though it was close. It was located between the cities of Chaska and Chanhassen, and just across the river from Shakopee. Though located in Chanhassen, many postcards named the place as in Shakopee.

One of the masseurs at the place was Dr. Gustave Herman Seidler. Dr. Seidler was born in Gerbstadt, Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on Dec. 9, 1867. He married twice. The first woman died in Germany, and Dr. Seidler was left with two daughters, Bertha and Helene, according to an article in the Nov. 21, 1913 Shakopee Tribune, “Instantly Killed.”

He married for a second time in Germany, and moved the family to America in 1904, and to Shakopee in 1908.

The Seidlers lived near the train tracks in Shakopee on Nov. 11, 1913. Dr. Seidler’s daughter, Helene, ran in front of the Omaha #11 Passenger Train, which was speeding to town at 9:45 p.m.

Gustave ran to get her, but he stumbled and fell. The wheels passed over his body and completely severed both legs above the ankles, according to an article in the Scott County Argus, Nov. 21, 1913, called “Shocking Accident Horrifies Community.”

Helene called Coroner Hirscher, and Dr. Gustave Herman Seidler, in pieces, was brought to the office, and eventually to Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, where he was buried.

He was survived by his second wife, Minnie Finsch Seidler and his two children, Bertha Ida (1897-1994) and Helene (1898-1948). Gustave’s second wife died in 1931 and is buried at Valley Cemetery near her husband.

As for the Mudcura Sanitarium, it closed in 1951. The sanatorium was sold to the Black Franciscans, Order of Friars Minor Conventual, from Louisville, Kentucky. They named it Assumption Seminary. It remained in operation until 1970.

After 1970, the property changed hands many times but remained abandoned. On Nov. 8, 1997, a fire destroyed the building, a sad ending for Mudcura Sanitarium, a landmark that was known internationally for good health.