Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Elnathan Judson Pond was born in Prairieville (later Shakopee), Minnesota Territory on Oct. 17, 1847, the third of four children of Rev. Samuel Pond, Sr., and Cordelia Eggleston Pond, who moved to Tínṫa Otuŋwe, which they called Prairieville as missionaries in the fall of 1847. “Between the mission house and the Minnesota River lay a beautiful and fertile tract of ‘bottom land,’ as it was ordinarily termed, subject to annual or biennial overflow…”

“On one side of this fertile tract ran a clear sparkling stream of water, flowing from the spring before described; itself bounded in turn by a rocky bluff rising precipitously from the brink of the stream. This land was bounded on the other side by the Minnesota, sweeping in a beautiful curve around its border. This piece of land was cultivated by the (Dakota) Indians, and when not covered by water, tadpoles and fishes, in the months of June and July was rich with waving corn,” said Samuel William Pond, Jr. in the book Two Volunteer Missionaries Among the Dakotas or the Story of the Labor of Samuel W. And Gideon Pond in 1893.

Rev. Pond, Sr., and Cordelia took care of their children, including Jennette Clarissa (born May 6, 1842 in Minneapolis, and died April 2, 1862 in Shakopee), Rebecca Cordelia Pond Dean (born Oct. 10, 1844 in Bloomington), Elnathan (born Oct. 17, 1847 in Prairieville), and Samuel William, Jr. (born April 20, 1850 in Holmes Landing).

Elnathan married Wilhelmine Minnie Catharina Elisabeth Markus in Shakopee on June 24, 1879. Minnie was born Oct. 21, 1862, daughter of William (1823-1895) and Wilhelmina (1832-1908) Markus. Elnathan and Minnie had six children. Elnathan’s younger brother, Samuel William, Jr. married Irene Goodrich Boyden. The two couples started housekeeping at the mission farm. Later, Elnathan and Minnie moved across the road to a 170-acre farm. This farm is now part of The Landing in Shakopee, according to “Pond Grist Mill Is Start of Something Big” by Ginger Timmons, Scott County Historical Society, Shakopee Valley News, Aug. 30, 1972.

Elnathan and Samuel, Jr., built the Pond Grist Mill in 1875. The mill was built for supplementary income. Elnathan and Wilhelmene’s seven-room, two-story frame house, complete with summer kitchen and woodshed, stood about a block east of the mill. The families moved the big barn from the mission farm to Elnathan and Wilhelmene’s farm.

The mill first opened for business around September 1875. A notice in the Shakopee Weekly Argus read: “S.W. Pond’s mill is now running. Custom work in flour and feed done promptly.” Although the term “gristmill” can refer to any mill that grinds grain, the term was used historically for a local mill where farmers brought their own grain and received back ground meal or flour, minus a percentage called the “miller’s toll.” Early mills were almost always built and supported by farming communities and the miller received the “miller’s toll” in lieu of wages. Most towns and villages had their own mill so that local farmers could easily transport their grain there to be milled.

These communities were dependent on their local mill as bread was a staple part of the diet.

To operate the mill, the miller placed the grain to be ground in the funnel-like hopper above the pair of millstones, after first taking out the miller’s toll. Then the miller opened the sluice gate that let water into the water wheel. As the weight of falling water turned the water wheel, large gears turning smaller gears made the shaft turn faster, much as the large gear on the pedals of a bicycle will turn the smaller gear on the wheel more rapidly.

This power was transmitted to a vertical spindle, upon which rested a large, flat disc of stone, often weighing a ton or more. This stone spun just above, but not quite touching, an identical stone set stationary in the floor of the mill. Both stones had a pattern of grooves cut into their faces. As one stone turned above the other, their grooves crossed much like scissor blades. Grain falling through the hole, or “eye”, in the runner stone was cut apart as it passed between the two stones, according to an article in The Northwestern Miller, Vol. 77, No. 7 on Feb. 17, 1909.

The miller could adjust the distance between the stones to regulate how finely the grain was ground. The milled grains moved around the cover that was over the stones, until it fell through a hole into the meal chest. From there it could be scooped into a sack to be taken home for baking. In Shakopee at that time, about ten thousand bushels a week were delivered and paid for in cash, at a higher rate than at any other point within twenty miles. Products milled included flour, bolted corn, ground grains, and livestock feed. According to Rebecca Pond in 1972, the huge one hundred-pound sacks of flour sold for five cents a bag.

Rebecca Pond remembered that there was a wheelhouse by the mill, and that her father used to shut down the business once or twice a year. “Then [she] would put on goggles to protect [her] eyes and sit down with a long time with a pick and hammer, sharpening the grinding stones.”

The Pond Grist Mill was operated by a water-powered turbine. In later years, a gasoline engine was purchased but never used much. The mill closed soon after, in 1908.

Elnathan Judson Pond died Jan. 2, 1943. He was 95 years old. He was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, according to Find a Grave. One year and six days later, Wilhelmine Minnie Catharina Elisabeth Markus Pond died at age 81 years old in Shakopee, and was buried next to her husband at Valley Cemetery, according to Find a Grave.

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, 2020

A contingent of peasant farmers from Germany left for the New World, including the Lenz and Gerdesmeier families around 1848. When they arrived in America, the authorities asked their name and occupation and decided to combine their name (Lenz) with their occupation (dairy farmer) to become Lenzmeier.

Mary Theresa Elizabeth Gerdesmeier (called Elizabeth) was born April 9, 1835. Elizabeth married Stephan Lenzmeier either in Germany or in East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1860, Elizabeth and Stephan came by steamboat to St. Paul, where they traveled to Scott County and to Marystown.

Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth, who was either pregnant or carrying a newborn infant along the trip, arrived and registered their homestead in Shakopee. The family, like others in Marystown, spoke German. The church in Marystown had services in German, and then later in German and English. The parish built a school very early, with German as the official language, with English as a second language.

Stephan settled the homestead and brought in crops and did fairly well, with Elizabeth every inch the heroic pioneer woman, keeping people fed and clothed while rearing a big family, including eight boys and finally a baby daughter, Mary, in 1878.

Stephan either went west to Idaho where silver and gold had been discovered, or out to South Dakota under Gen. George Custer to look for gold in the Black Hills. Stephan was 53 years old, while Elizabeth was 38, and stuck at home with the children. Stephan was hoping to get rich quickly, but he didn’t succeed. He reportedly fell ill away from home and had difficulty getting back. He did return, but his health was broken, and he died at 57 of heart failure, just two months after the birth of baby Mary.

It was said that his widow, Elizabeth, was very bitter about his death, blaming him for bringing on his own demise and leaving her to raise their large brood and run the farm, even with an infant at her breast. She reportedly held up the child before his open casket and cried something to the effect of “Here, take her with you, why don’t you! How can you leave me here alone with all this responsibility and this little one, too?”

Elizabeth surveyed her situation. She was a widow at age 43 with assets of a good farm, eight sons, and an infant daughter. Life must go on. Elizabeth learned of a good family in Shakopee who had some marriageable daughters. She made an inevitable logical decision. One Sunday morning, she hitched up a team to the buggy and drove the five miles to the Hubert Roehl farm just west of the town of Shakopee, along the road leading to Jordan.

Hubert was an immigrant from Luxembourg, and owned a long piece of land parallel to the Minnesota River. He also owned an overabundance of daughters!

Elizabeth told Hubert about her big, handsome boys, and suggested that they had a basis for an arrangement. Elizabeth was one smart woman!

And so, it was arranged that her sons would marry Roehl’s girls. And four of them did! The four brothers who married Roehl’s sisters received pieces of good land from their father-in-law’s original claim along the Minnesota River.

And Elizabeth? She was happy. And one smart woman!

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, 2020

Eleanor Gates was born Sept. 26, 1874, in Eagle Creek Township, which is now part of Shakopee. Her father was William Cummings Gates, and her mother was Margaret Ann Archer. Eleanor was an American playwright who created seven plays that were staged on Broadway. Her best-known work was the play The Poor Little Rich Girl.

Eleanor remembered growing up in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, and Dakota Territory, and she later described her early life in her novel The Biography of a Prairie Girl, which she wrote in 1902:

“Up and down the oxen toiled before the plow, licking their tongues, as they went along, for wisps of the sweet, new grass which the old-board was turning under. After them came the biggest brother, striving with all his might to keep the beam level and the handles from dancing as the steel share cut the sod into wide, thick ribbons, damp and black on one side, on the other green and decked with flowers.

“And, following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep the stepping with her bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling in the rear.”

Gates remembered growing up in Shakopee and the Dakota Territory. “I do not exaggerate the somber side of prairie life, nor do I exaggerate the joys,” Gates is quoted as saying in newspaper articles. “I believe that the country child grows old sooner than the city child, because the country child often does manual labor of a heavy kind when he or she is not physically able to do it. The plainswoman is frequently gray and worn at thirty-eight or forty; the plainsman is often bent, impaired in sight by the sun, and old at forty-five. I do not say that this is always so, but it is commonly so.”

When she was a young girl, she moved to the Dakota Territory. From there, Eleanor moved to California for college. Gates married another playwright, Richard Walton Tully, in 1901 after they had both completed their studies at the University of California, in Berkeley.

Gates had worked initially as a writer for a newspaper in San Francisco, as well as writing novels. In 1907, one of her novels was illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Her best-known work was the play The Poor Little Rich Girl, which was produced by her husband in 1913. Tully divorced her in 1914 citing desertion, which Gates admitted.

Before Gates’s divorce had been finalized, she married another divorcé, Frederick Ferdinand Moore, in Paterson, New Jersey, in October 1914. In 1916 they separated when they both realized that they were not legally married.

At the beginning of 1915, Gates founded the Liberty Feature Film Company, which was said by Motion Picture News to be the only film company to be owned and managed by women. The company was led by the wife of an Alaskan businessman, Sadir Lindblom. In the year that it existed the company created several two-reel films.

The first film, produced in 1917, was The Poor Little Rich Girl, which starred Mary Pickford. Shirley Temple starred in the 1936 remake of the same name. The new film had made two million dollars by the end of 1939.

Eleanor Gates died March 7, 1951, at Los Angeles County General Hospital. But she is remembered as a writer from Eagle Creek Township 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.