Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Margareth O’Keefe was born in County Waterford, Ireland in 1825. Her parents were Michael O’Keefe and Margarita Lannan O’Keefe.

County Waterford is in the province of Munster and is part of the southern region. It is named after the city of Waterford. Waterford city is situated in southeastern Ireland, on the river Suir (pronounced Shure) about seventeen miles from where the river enters the sea. Practically the entire city is built on the south bank of the river. The “old town,” now the business center, clusters behind the broad quay-front on a low-lying strip of land left behind by a gentle loop of the river at this point. From this, the land rises sharply to the east and opposite to the west while remaining level in between.

Waterford is Ireland’s oldest city. Though Waterford’s name is handed down from the Viking influence in the region, the area’s history of course precedes this. It was inhabited by a Gaelic tribe called the Déise, who conquered the area sometime between the 4th and 8th centuries after being driven out of the region known today as southern County Meath and northern County Kildare. They were converted to Christianity by St. Declan, who also founded the monastery at Ardmore.

The Vikings came to the area in the mid- to late-800s, as is evidenced by the remains of Woodstown, a Viking settlement just west of Waterford city. It is the only large-scale Viking settlement of that era to be found in western Europe and was likely the largest Viking settlement of Scandinavia. According to IrishCentral, Vikings founded Waterford city in 941; the name comes from the Old Nose Vedrarfjord. Reginald’s Tower, in the city’s historic Viking section, is the oldest civic, urban structure in Ireland.

Since then, it has seen sieges, invasions, famine, and economic highs and lows. It remains the foremost city in Ireland’s southeast, according to Wikipedia.

Margareth left Ireland for America in 1851, and became a settler-colonist, living in Ohio and Chicago, Illinois for two years. Then Margareth moved to St. Paul in 1853. While there, she met the acquaintance of Timothy Canty.

Timothy was born about 1822 in Ireland, and arrived in Lower Canada, and then to the United States. He came to Holmes Landing (Shakopee) as an employee of Thomas A. Holmes. Some said that Timothy came on the flat boat Wild Paddy in the fall of 1851, though others think he arrived a short time later. He came to file on a tract of eighty acres granted him by the government because of his involvement in the Mexican-American War, also known as the Invasion of Mexico.

While in St. Paul, Timothy and Margareth married, and they moved near Marystown to their farm in 1854. People said Timothy loved Margareth’s red hair!

Marystown is an unincorporated community in Louisville Township, near Shakopee. The community is located along Marystown Road (Scott County Road 15) and 160th Street West.

They had two sons, John in 1857, and Daniel Canty in 1859.

After working with Holmes in Shakopee, Timothy worked on the steamboats, including Greek Slave and Pocahontas. When the Civil War arrived, Timothy wanted to go, but he couldn’t leave his wife, who was blind at that time.

Timothy Canty died in 1885 in Louisville Township and was buried at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Eagle Creek.

Margareth then moved in with her son, John, for the next 16 years.

Margareth O’Keefe Canty died on June 16, 1900, and was buried next to her husband, Timothy, at the Calvary Cemetery in Shakopee.

An obituary in The Irish Standard in Minneapolis on June 30, 1900, noted that Margareth O’Keefe Canty “died at her home near Marystown on Sunday, June 17 (actually June 16), after an illness of sixteen weeks. Mrs. Canty (nee O’Keefe) was born in the county of Waterford, Ireland, left for America in 1851, lived in Ohio and Chicago for two years and came to St. Paul in 1853 where she made the acquaintance of Timothy Canty, and soon after married and came to Marystown in 1854 and settled on the farm where she lived until called by her Creator, respected and loved by all around her.

“The funeral took place from St. Mary’s church, Marystown, Rev. Ronald O.F.M, offering requiem high mass for the repose of her departed soul. Her husband preceded her in death 16 years ago, and since she then had lived with her son John, who cared for her, taking the place of a dutiful son and father.”

Bibliography

“What’s your Irish county? County Waterford.” IrishCentral, 28 May 2022. https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/county-waterford.

“History of Waterford.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Waterford.

The Irish Standard. Minneapolis, 30 June 1900.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Margaret Bridget Haley was born on May 24, 1824, in County Cork in Ireland. Her parents were Daniel James Haley (1803-1876) and Johannah Barrett (1802-1882).

In the 1840s, Margaret moved to New Orleans. She was there to join her brother in Pennsylvania. According to the Life Story of the O’Loughlin Family by Dennis O’Loughlin III, while Margaret was on a ship to New Orleans, she met a well-to-do woman who talked her into going to work for her in New Orleans. The woman said that if Margaret didn’t like it, the woman would pay for her way to her brother’s place in Pennsylvania.

According to Margaret, she never saw her brother or any of her relatives again!

In New Orleans, Margaret met Dennis O’Loughlin, who had been born on May 24, 1824, in County Clare, Ireland. Dennis was a medium-sized man with light complexion, though he turned darker after contracting yellow fever. Margaret was a good-sized woman, very outspoken, and could express herself in no uncertain terms.

Margaret and Dennis married in New Orleans. Around 1850, they took a steamboat to St. Paul, Minnesota Territory. Dennis worked on the Mississippi River on the levee, and owned lots where the state capitol now stands. The first of nine children were born in Minnesota, starting with Mary Ann, who was born in St. Paul in 1851, and the rest in Eagle Creek Township.

When visiting relatives in Le Sueur County, Dennis stopped in Shakopee. He met an old country Irishman who persuaded him to locate in Eagle Creek Township, where they bought 160 acres of unsurveyed land from Minnesota Territory for $1.25 an acre. The land, according to Dennis O’Loughlin III, was mostly covered with hardwood timber, some natural wild hay meadows … There was a creek across one corner and a small part of a lake on the property. Most of the land had to be cleared. The first buildings were upon a rise of ground near the center of the land, but a log house and others were built near the creek.

Margaret knew that Dennis was a hard-working man, but he often would go to Shakopee and met with his old cronies. He wouldn’t come home until someone went after him. Then he wouldn’t go again for a couple of months. He was well-liked and never quarrelsome.

Dennis and Margaret sold their lots in St. Paul to get money to bring Dennis’s parents over from Ireland. Michael O’Loughlin (1803-1865) who swore in Gaelic, and Bridget Moran O’Loughlin (1803-1862) both were buried at the Catholic Cemetery, but no markers were located.

The Civil War had been going on for three years in 1864 when someone from Shakopee came out and told Dennis that his name was on the list soon to be called up. If a man enlisted, he could go to whatever regiment he wanted to, and his family would get $300 bounty. So, Dennis went to Fort Snelling and enlisted in the Ninth Minnesota Volunteers because there were other men from County Clare.

Margaret walked to church regularly, five miles and back. Someone from Shakopee came to tell Margaret that Dennis had enlisted at seven in the morning. She walked to Fort Snelling, arriving at 1 p.m. Dennis was allowed to come back home for her for the last time. The children remembered the stick candy he brought to them, and the youngest ones got to wear Dennis’s soldier cap.

Meanwhile, Margaret cared for the nine children. The oldest was 13, and the youngest was six months old. Margaret had 12 acres cleared, dug ditches, and built rail fences. The family owned cows, but hardly anyone had horses at that time. Oxen were the main source of power, but it is not known if the family owned any.

The adjoining neighbors included Thomas Turner, Thomas Kennedy, Edward Smith, and Mr. Manning. The children remembered that potatoes piled in their jackets, and salt and milk was sometimes all they had to eat. The early settler-colonists were very neighborly. Whenever anyone of them needed help of any kind, others pitched in to help without being asked or expecting pay for it.

Dennis joined the Union forces into Nashville. In a letter home, Dennis said, “I am in the highest courage and good health, but I feel very much homesick and lonesome after the children.” A few days later, he was hit with a bullet hole between the left thigh and groin. He got gangrene which ate through an artery, and he bled to death. Dennis was buried in Nashville, Tennessee on December 29, 1864.

Margaret was left as a widow with nine small children. She got only six dollars a month pension at first, but twelve dollars by the time she died. She never considered marrying again. Margaret was a midwife and would also lay out the dead. At the wakes she would sing a death chant, but the children hated it and asked her to stop.

A squatter built a cabin on her land. If she allowed it, she would have lost the creek and the lake. When the squatter went to get his family, Margaret burned his cabin down. He did not try to build another. Margaret’s strength and fortitude were great. She was also a singer and dancer. It was said that she could play tunes on the floor with her feet and bring them out as well as if she had been playing some musical instrument.

Margaret was one of the hardest workers in getting donations to build the Church of the Immaculate Conception in 1864. She would ask for donations from people no one else would think of and got them, too. The church was dedicated in March 1866. It was snowing, raining, thundering, and lightning all day, but Margaret and her daughter, Nellie, walked to the dedication.

Margareth Bridget Haley O’Loughlin died on October 7, 1886, in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, Minnesota, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery on the top of the hill.

Bibliography

O’Loughlin, Dennis III. Life Story of the O’Loughlin Family, 1959.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Margaretha Mary Wolf was born on September 8, 1841, in Tettingen, Perl, Merzig-Wadern, Saarland, Germany. Margaretha, at age 13, came to America in 1854 with her parents and siblings. Her parents were Johann “John” Wolff and Margaretha Gerardÿ.

In the Minnesota Valley MINT, Monday, June 15, 1981, by Sue Warmka, the Wolf family had been in Scott County for 127 years. John Wolf, Margaret Gerardÿ Wolf, and their six children, including Margaretha, arrived on July 4, 1854.

“Because of Tettingen’s location close to the Moselle River, many immigrants followed the stream to LeHarvre France and left the continent from there. They would have arrived in the port of New York, going overland to Chicago, and on to Galena, Illinois, where they traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Paul. From St. Paul, it would have been on to Shakopee via the Minnesota River and from Shakopee, they walked the distance to St. Joseph, carrying all of their possessions,” according to the article.

John declared the intention to become a United States citizen on May 19, 1855, a prerequisite to receive homestead land from the United States government. John and Margaret received from the United States for $150.00 ($1.25 per acre) the west half of the northwest quarter of section 26 and southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 23 in Township 114, north of Range 23. This is Sand Creek Township, but they had bought it before the township was named so it went by numbers.

This paper was filed in Red Wing, Minnesota, the land office at the time for the territory of Minnesota, on September 12, 1855. This deed was signed by President Franklin Pierce on Nov 1, 1856, in the city of Washington. It is certificate no. 275 in volume 1 with the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States Office in Alexandria, Virginia.

The land that John and Margaret settled on was hilly with heavy clay soil and covered with trees. Before the family could farm, they had to clear the trees, and they used the wood for erecting farm buildings.

On September 26, 1859, Margaretha’s parents donated three of these forty acres on the northwest quarter of the northwest section 26 to Rev. Thomas Grace, Bishop of St. Paul, Ramsey County. They were paid one dollar for the paperwork involved. This land is supposedly the cemetery of St. Joseph.

The Federal Census of 1870 shows John and Margaret living in Spring Lake Township, but with the death of John in 1873, Margaret went to live with her son Mathias and his family in Helena Township until her death from pneumonia in 1885.

Margaretha married Mathias “Matt Hennen” at St Mary of the Purification Catholic Church in Marystown on April 14, 1864.

Matt was born on February 20, 1833, in Bonerath, Rhineland-Palatinate, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. His parents were Johannes Phillipp Hennen and Anna Claudina Theis. Matt had come over from Germany to the United States with his two brothers, Michael and Johann. Johann was lost at sea during a storm on the way to America, either washed off the ship by a wave or fell overboard.

After marriage, Margaret and Matt Hennen farmed near Marystown, just like their parents before them.

Margaretha and Matt had five children: John, Matt, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Katherine Hennen. They were all baptized at the Marystown church.

Mathias “Matt” Hennen died on October 23, 1891, in Spring Lake, and was buried at St. Mary’s of Marystown Catholic Cemetery.

After Matt died, Margaret lived with son Matt, Jr. Her son John was a close neighbor, and she may have stayed with his family too, according to the John Wolf-Margaret Gerardy Wolf Family Tree book.

Margaretha Wolf Hennen died on October 1, 1909, in Spring Lake Township, and was buried at St. Mary of Marystown Catholic Cemetery in Marystown, Minnesota.

Bibliography

John Wolf-Margaret Gerardy Wolf Family Tree.

United States, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States Office. Certificate No. 275. Vol. 1, p. 328. Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States Office, Alexandria, Virginia.

Warmka, Sue. Minnesota Valley MINT, 15 June 1981.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

As she got off the ship in 1852, red-haired Margaretha Flammang smiled and said goodbye to the people she knew. She was energetic. She collected her luggage. She was strong, well built, and healthy. As the crowd thinned and the last few stacks of luggage were being loaded onto wagons, Margaretha drifted off to read bulletins, while keeping a sharp eye on her small assortment of baggage, according to Dorothy Klein Luers in the book A Marschall Family History 1784-1980. She returned to a bench and sat down.

Boisterous Margaretha turned silent and looked sad. Nearby was Henry Marschall II. He noticed that no one arrived to meet her. Finally, Henry went over to see if she needed help.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Henry asked.

With tears in her eyes, Margaretha said, “I am alone.” In fact, Margaretha was born on April 16, 1830, in Konsdarf, Luxembourg. Her older brother, Peter, left a few years before, heading to the Gold Rush in America. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. Margaretha’s plan was to find him in America.

Her mother went with her. The long trip on the ship, with the cold, wet weather, the poor food, the crowded cabins, and the sickness, including her mother, made it hard. Margaretha asked the captain, but nothing happened. The ocean trip took over three months. At one stage, the wind blew and the storm raged so savagely that the voyage regressed for three weeks. People died daily, according to Dorothy Klein Luers.

Margaretha’s mother died four weeks ago and was buried at sea.

Henry knew that Margaretha was a forceful woman. He admired her spunk. He sighed her deep laughter as she recalled happier times. He asked her if she’d like to help him build this new life in a new country.

And so, in a little French church in St. Anthony Falls in 1852, Margaretha Flammang became the bride of Henry Marschall II. They lived in St. Paul for a short time, then moved to Helena Township near New Prague. Margaretha was a loud, demanding, impatient, hot-tempered woman. Busting sod, building, growing, and all needed for the homestead demanded much work. And the neighbors were Bohemian, and the Luxembourgers couldn’t understand them, and the Bohemians didn’t understand the Luxembourgers.

The Dakota Indians would stop by, and asked Margaretha to give them coffee and food before they left. Sometimes Margaretha would make weak coffee. When the Dakota grumbled, she would say that it was all she had, and then she would slam the door when she returned to the house. For the Dakota, it was normal to share with others.

It was long hours, the winter was cold, and on February 5, 1857, Anton was born.

In 1862, the Marschalls decided to sell the farm. A woman who bought the place came to them with $1500 in gold pieces which she carried in the long apron that she wore!

Margaretha and Henry bought a place in Eagle Creek Township for $1200, which left them rich! The location was up the road from Shakopee, at the top of the hill. Margaretha and Henry had seven children, with Anton the only boy. After Anton and his two wives took over the farm, Margaretha and Henry moved to a house on East Fourth Street in Shakopee.

Henry Marschall II died on October 4, 1892.

Margaretha kept her spark. When Anton got his first family car in 1916, a seven-passenger Studebaker, Margaretha wanted to be driven to Hastings to see her friend and relative. She was impatient and couldn’t see a delay in starting. As they drove, Margaretha fussed at the slow speed, saying that she could have got there faster if she walked. Finally, they got there, and after visiting for 15 minutes she was ready to go home. There was no point in sitting around any longer!

On September 23, 1918, Margaretha died. She was 88 years old. She had been in failing health and died on Sunday. The funeral was held at St. Mark’s Church, and she was buried next to her husband at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Bibliography

Klein Luers, Dorothy T. A Marschall Family History 1784-1980.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Manuel “Manny” Lee Florez was born in Shakopee on May 1, 1938. He was the son of Bernard and Elizabeth (Weldon) Vig. His three sisters, Elizabeth, Darlene, and Doris, and his brother, John, lived with him in a house near Sand Pit Road in Shakopee.

Manny attended St. Mary’s School, and he served as an altar boy. He was a member of the St. Mary’s Altar Boys’ Society.

His friend, Nancy Metcalf Schmit, was with Manuel, as they were at recess. It was in 1951. Manny was in the eighth grade. While on the playground, Manuel fell and skinned his knee. He had to go to the hospital. Doctors discovered that Manny was the victim of bone cancer, and by January 1952, one of his legs was amputated after a serious infection in an effort to prolong his life.

Despite his surgery, Manuel remained cheerful and hopeful of recovery. He wanted to go back to participating in the Boy Scout troop in Shakopee. He was a model pupil, with an absorbing interest in schoolwork. At one point, Manuel gave a girl from St. Mary’s a locket, with a piece of hair in it. The girl held onto the locket and kept it for years and years.

Manny had to leave eighth grade when the illness forced him to leave St. Mary’s School. Despite his suffering, Manny looked forward to continuing his studies when his health permitted.

Manny’s illness lasted for ten months.

Nancy and four of her friends went to visit Manny at his home. The home was an old brick house, red in color.

When they arrived, Nancy asked if they could see Manny. She was told that he was in the room on the second floor.

As they crept up the stairs, Nancy and her four friends looked in the room. They looked in the bedroom. Manny looked like an old man, sitting on a chair by the window. As they headed back down to the first floor, Nancy was ready to ask where Manny was. But then it hit her. The old man in the window was Manny, slowly fading away.

On a Saturday morning in November 1952, Manuel Lee Florez died.

Manny had a funeral at St. Mary’s Church. Father Henry Byrne sang the requiem mass. Father Donald Salt and Father John Flaherty were present in the sanctuary.

Pallbearers, who were school mates, included Dallas Peter Capesius, Richard Wampach, George Schmitt, John Vierling, Thomas Hovorka, and William Ries.

Six Shakopee boy scouts served as honorary pallbearers.

The burial of Manuel Lee Florez was at St. Mary’s Cemetery, now called the Shakopee Catholic Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Major Richard G. Murphy was born in Tennessee on January 4, 1804, and he never saw the inside of a school except for a three-month period when he was 21. He fought in the Blackhawk War and in 1832 he was elected to his state’s legislature of Illinois. In 1848 President Polk appointed him Indian Agent in the Territory of Minnesota.

Indian agencies were created as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to control trade between the U.S. and Native American nations. Throughout its more than thirty-year history, the St. Peter’s Agency was administered by several individuals, including Richard Murphy, who was an Indian agent in 1848-1849.

During the early 1800s, the U.S. government adopted policies aimed at acculturating and assimilating Native people into European American society. Agents at the St. Peter’s Agency encouraged Dakota people to give up hunting as a primary method of subsistence, educate their children according to European American standards, give up their traditional religion to become practicing Christians, and adopt European American agricultural methods.

The U.S. government’s policy of assimilation would effectively destroy the traditional cultural identities of Native American nations. Many historians have argued that the U.S. government believed that if Native people did not adopt European American culture, they would become extinct as a people. This paternalistic attitude influenced interactions between the Dakota and the U.S. government throughout the first half of the 1800s, and its effects continue to be felt today.

Major Murphy’s first wife was Sarah Sally Lemen, born November 2, 1809, in St. Clair, Illinois. They married on September 2, 1834. They had five children: William, Mary Ann, Joseph, Benton, and George. His second wife was Nancy Glore, and they married on April 17, 1851, in Randolph, Illinois.

A stage line was established between St. Paul and Shakopee in 1853, and a ferry across the river at Shakopee opened the same year.

The first license for a ferry across the Minnesota River was granted to Thomas A. Holmes in 1853 and let to John Hare. The ferry crossed the river near the town site. On July 3, 1864, license for a ferry was granted to Richard Murphy at a point called Murphy’s Landing, about a mile below the village of Shakopee. (A third ferry was licensed on January 1, 1855, to Luther M. Brown at a point half a mile below Holmes Street. This ferry was of short duration).

In 1853 Murphy settled in Eagle Creek Township just east of Shakopee, where he built a large two-story house and hotel. It became a mecca for travelers, with good food, drink, merry dancing, and fresh horses. Back then, it was only about 1 ½ miles from Shakopee, and many parties and dances were held there. It was the liveliest pioneer inn on the Minnesota River between Fort Snelling and New Ulm.

Richard had exclusive right for 15 years to operate a ferry across the Minnesota. Nearby was a grist mill where Samuel Pond and Cordelia Eggleston Pond’s sons worked. The grist mill and the area where the Murphy’s ferry is now part of Three Rivers Park District’s “The Landing,” near Memorial Park in Shakopee.

Murphy unfailingly collected his fare in mid-stream, even during the Battle of Shakopee, which was fought less than a hundred yards from his home. The Dakota buried their enemies near Faribault Post, not too far from Murphy’s place.

Some Shakopee people called the inn “Murphy’s Folly” because Major Murphy supported David Faribault, who lived nearby. David wanted to develop Eagle Creek. Murphy had built his two-story inn, a wharf, and a huge barn for the products from the 900-acre farm. He thought that the railroad would junction at Eagle Creek. Instead, the railroad picked Shakopee. As the river trade and stagecoach travel succumbed to the railroad, so did the prosperity of Murphy’s Folly.

Richard was president of the First Legislative Session of the Senate in Minnesota. He was sworn in on December 7, 1857, and subscribed to the oath of office on December 8, 1857. He continued until December 6, 1859.

On January 10, 1875, Major Murphy died. In the Shakopee Argus obituary, the editor notes: “No man living can say that he ever deceived him by anything he said or done. He was, if you use such an expression, ‘Honest to a fault.’ He loved his family and his ‘kith and kin.’”

Once the railroads arrived, the inn became a farmhouse. By 1900, it was abandoned “to tramps and the elements.” In 1936, the National Youth Administration refurbished the three-story stone house. In 1947, it became emergency housing. By 1956, the house was owned by the city of Shakopee, and before too long, was torn down.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

C.M. Wilson was born in 1842 in Ohio. When he was nine years old, he moved to Minnesota Territory in 1851. In Thomas McLean Newson’s book, Pen Pictures of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Biographical Sketches of Old St. Paul in 1886, he writes about some of the people who lived in St. Paul, and biographical sketches of old settler-colonists. He writes about the settler-colonists from the earliest settlement of St. Paul from the east, as well as those from Europe who moved here, and continued to 1857. One person who he writes about is C.M. Wilson, the boy who engaged in trading with the Dakota in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory in 1853.

C.M.’s parents, General Thomas W. Wilson and his wife, along with C.M., came to St. Paul in 1851. C.M. attended Miss Harriet E. Bishop’s school for a year and also attended a mission school that was run by Rev. Breck. “C.M. was one of the oldest scholars living of both these schools.”

At that time, many kids were in two gangs in St. Paul. The upper-town boys would have contests against the lower-town boys. Sometimes the two groups would have pitched battles. “When quite young, he seemed to possess not fear, and was at one time the captain and leader of the upper town boys vs. the lower town, and all old citizens can readily recall many contests between these two factions, some of which ended in pitched battles,” said Thomas McLean Newson, p. 326.

In 1851 in St. Paul, C.M. Wilson and his friends heard screams in the direction of the upper levee of the Minnesota River. C.M. and his friends ran to the area of the river and saw people pointing to a man who was sinking into the water for the third time. Although there were several grown people witnessing the struggle, no one moved to save him. C.M. pulled off his boots, jumped into the river, and swam to the man, who was sinking below the surface. C.M. seized the man by the hair and pulled him to the shore. Everyone was impressed with C.M., who was only ten years old, but was braver than any others in St. Paul that year!

Another time, C.M. was at an old house, called the Daniels House, a wooden building of four stories on the upper levee in 1852. Suddenly, it was in flames, A lady boarder frantically and piteously looked up into the faces of several men as she said, “Can’t you save that valuable package?” She pointed to the Daniels House, which was in flames, and looked around. No one responded.

“I’ll go!” said C.M., and he did. He brought out the valuables, and just as he got out of the building, the whole framework fell in with a terrible crash! The brave traits of C.M. caused him to be in prominence. The adult population praised him, and he was lionized as a hero by the boys in St. Paul, according to Pen Pictures of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Biographical Sketches of Old St. Paul in 1886. C.M. and his brother were engaged in trading with the Dakota Indians at Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory in 1853. He was one of the only white boys in the place, and the Indians called him “the little black head,” said Thomas McLean Newson. C.M. gained knowledge of the Dakota language and habits, and even thirty years later, the Dakota Indians would see him and remember “the little black head,” as they used to call him.

In 1855 until 1857, C.M. attended school in Granville, Ohio. He then returned to Minnesota and farmed until 1861, where he joined the Union army. Major Wilson was in a company of George Stoneman, Jr. (1822-1894), a United States Army cavalry officer. Major Wilson was promoted step by step, and each time for meritorious conduct.

In 1864, Major Wilson was captured and taken to Andersonville prison. He was also a prisoner in Monticello, Florida, and Florence, South Carolina. In Florence prison, he escaped with fifteen others but was recaptured using bloodhounds. Three of the fifteen prisoners were killed by the bloodhounds, while seven more died before reaching the Florence prison again. Major was held in high esteem by his fellow prisoners.

After the war, Major Wilson helped build railroads and became inspector of customs. He married Miss Miller of Ohio in 1871. They had two children, a son and a daughter. His wife died in 1884, according to Pen Pictures of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Biographical Sketches of Old St. Paul.

Major Wilson was a rather slender, wiry man, who was full of energy. He used his indomitable willpower in his aims and in his purpose. He had a very active brain, backed by nerve, and entered earnestly into his enterprises. He was liberal according to Pen Pictures of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Biographical Sketches of Old St. Paul. C.M. was liberal in his disposition, social in nature, a natural schemer, persistent in his efforts, and devoted to his friends.

Bibliography

McLean Newson, Thomas. Pen Pictures of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Biographical Sketches of Old St. Paul in 1886.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ was born in 1793 at Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River. Her father was James Aird, a prominent fur trader. James was a Scotchman, born in Ayrshire, and was a cousin of Robert Burns, the poet. He came to America in 1783, landing at Quebec and then heading to Wapahaṡa’s village as a trader in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ’s mother, also known as Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ, was a member of the Dakota tribe. She was born at her father’s village where the city of Winona now stands.

Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ was of noble lineage. She was the daughter of powerful Dakota leader Wapahaṡa I and sister of Wapahaṡa II. Maḣpiya-ḣota’s grandfather was Wapahaṡa (Red Cap) who was born in 1720 and died in 1806.

Because of her unique family position, Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ became a major facilitator in trading between tribal members and white traders, even at a very young age. Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ was “a beautiful and attractive half-breed girl, not without schooling, and it is not surprising that she should have found favor among the few white men employed about the trading post.”

In 1818, Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ married her second husband, Hazen P. Mooers, an American who was sent to Minnesota to work with the American Fur Company in 1816.

After years of traveling throughout the state to various trading posts, in approximately 1838, the family moved to Spirit Wood Island, whih is now called Grey Cloud Island. Grey Cloud Island, about five miles long and one to two miles wide, is situated in the south end of Washington County, Minnesota, between St. Paul and Hastings. Historical accounts surmise the move was made for Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ (Grey Cloud Woman) to be closer to relatives in Hohaanskae (Black Dog Village) directly across the river, while Hazen could establish a trade center.

Thanks to the strong influence of his wife, Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ, he was able to traffic with three bands of the Dakota Indians.

In the fall of 1846, Hazen and Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ moved to Tínṫa Otuŋwe and lived there among the tipi tanka (bark lodges) and a tioti or two until the spring of 1849.

The house was built in the fall of 1846 and located just as you arrived on Highway 101 into downtown Shakopee. It was located on the right side as you head west, close to the duck pond. The location is also located about ten rods, or 55 feet, north of Rev. Samuel W. Pond and Cordelia Eggleston Pond’s house (which would be built the following year).

The family moved here because Hazen was appointed as an Indian farmer, and this also provided land to farm.

Hazen and Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ moved out in the spring of 1849.

Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ, known as Grey Cloud Woman, also known as Margaret Aird Anderson Mooers, died on July 20, 1849, appropriately enough at Hohaanskae, or Black Dog Village, a village of her Dakota relatives. Family traditions state that she was buried near the village and the burial site of her mother in what is now Eagan, Minnesota.

There is no picture of Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ, although she was described in a historical memoir as “by no means unattractive.”

Perhaps the most interesting and most telling bit of research to describe the prominence of Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ or Grey Cloud Woman was a story told in 1858 by Thomas Anderson Robertson, a grandson of Grey Cloud Woman.

Thomas and his father had accompanied a treaty agent who tried to bully some Yankton tribal members into a deal they did not want to make. The Yankton men showed their displeasure by taking the group’s horses. Thomas had the task of trying to get them back. After giving the men each a knife and some tobacco, Thomas shared with them his lineage including the name of his grandmother, Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ.

They knew her right away and said, “she had fed many of them the winter of the great famine when so many of them starved to death getting back from their winter hunt.” With that, the horses were immediately returned to Thomas and his party.

Even with the limited amount of specific data regarding her life, it is apparent that Maḣpiya-ḣota Wiŋ was an important part of local heritage, and a highly regarded citizen in the early history of Tínṫa Otuŋwe, on the land later called Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Edward D. Neill’s book, History of the Minnesota Valley, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, remembers “…a hired girl of William Holmes…” William Hinds’s book, An 1891 Sketch of Shakopee Minn: Historical and Industrialmentions “…a servant girl, M ——— Conklin, who afterwards worked for Wm. Holmes family and the next year was married to Emerson Shumway, in St. Paul.”

Like most men who wrote books in the 1800s, men, especially white men, are celebrated. But women? They are ignored or are never remembered. But the women were here, and they should be recognized.

This servant girl, this hired girl, had a name. She was Mahala Conklin. And she should be remembered.

Mahala was born June 9, 1835, in Marion County, Ohio. Her father was William James Conklin, Jr., and her mother was Easter Esther Ackley. Mahala, one of 14 children of William and Easter and family, moved to Lytle’s Creek in Farmers Creek Township in Iowa.

For Mahala, life on the farm was grueling. It was hard spending every day trying to feed all the children, in-laws, nieces, and nephews. At some point, Mahala headed to St. Paul, probably in 1851, and from there went to Holmes Landing.

By 1851 Emerson Shumway joined Thomas A. Holmes and friends at the founding of Holmesville or Holmes Landing, later called Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory.

Mahala worked as a servant of the Haywood family. She worked in their temporary shanty built in 1852 in an area that is now the corner of First Avenue and Holmes Street in downtown Shakopee. Mr. and Mrs. Haywood and their daughter, along with Mahala, lived there until the fall. Then the Haywoods moved up the valley, taking the boards of the shanty with them.

At that time, Mahala became a servant of William Holmes, brother of Thomas A. Holmes.

In the small village that later became Shakopee, Shumway got smallpox in the fall of 1852. After he recovered, he moved to St. Paul and then married the servant girl, Mahala.

The Shakopee Storyby Julius A. Coller, the History of the Minnesota Valleyby Rev. Edward D. Neill, and an article about Shumway in the December 3, 1909 Scott County Argus noted that in the fall of 1857, Emerson and Mahala Shumway joined a wagon train to California and were killed in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The only problem is that Benjamin Emerson Shumway and Mahala Conklin Shumway were never involved. They were not killed there.

In fact, they didn’t even head west until 1859.

In 1859, Emerson and Mahala left Anoka, crossing the plains with an ox team, and spent the first winter in Honey Lake Valley, California. Emerson was engaged in prospecting and mining in California and Nevada for ten years.

Mahala and Emerson had four children: Emerson Bartlett (1852-1946), Hester (about 1854-1860), Mary Ella (1855-1895); and Susan (Susie) Shumway (1867-1945).

By 1869, Emerson and Mahala located near Horse Lake Valley, California. They ran a stock ranch for twenty years, and then they sold out the stock and ranch and moved to Oregon. Benjamin Emerson Shumway died February 6, 1909, in Logan, Clackamas County, Oregon. He was buried at Logan Pleasant View Cemetery in Oregon City, Oregon.

The May 7, 1909 Oregon City Enterprise noted: “Mrs. Shumway, widow of the late B. E. Shumway, who died a few months since, died on April 30 and the remains were buried at the Pleasant View Cemetery on May 1. Mrs. Shumway came here from California with her husband several years ago. She was about 70 years of age.”

Bibliography

Coller, Julius A. II. The Shakopee Story. Shakopee Heritage Society, 2009.

Hinds, William. A 1891 Sketch of Shakopee, Minn: Historical and Industrial, 1891.

Neill, Edward D. and Charles S. Bryant. History of the Minnesota Valley, including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota and History of the Sioux Massacre, 1882.

Oregon City Enterprise, 7 May 1909.

Scott County Argus, 3 Dec. 1909.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Luis Alberto Canchari Nuñez was born on August 20, 1956, in Lima, Peru. His parents were Esteban Canchari-Yauri and Felícita Nuñez Gamboa de Canchari.

“He was kind of like a jack of all trades,” Alex said of his father, Luis. “He’s been everything from an agent to a trainer, and he was a jockey. He could do everything with horses; that’s what I always admired about him.”

Luis grew up in Lima, attending races at the Monterrico Oval and, when he was old enough, grooming and galloping horses there. In fact, Luis was the groom/exercise rider for the legendary Peruvian horse Santorín, the first ever winner of the country’s Quadruple Crown. Santorín was a Peruvian thoroughbred racehorse who was the first to win the Peruvian Quadruple Crown and is known as “Salvador de la Hípica Peruana.” Santorín is regarded as the most important racehorse in Peruvian history and has a monument and race named after him at the Hipódromo de Monterrico, a Thoroughbred horse racing facility opened in Lima.

“I still have that picture of my dad walking the horse into the winner’s circle,” Alex said, pride evident in his voice. “The grooms would gallop horses without saddles there. He was amazing.”

Luis moved to the United States in the mid-1980s, working and riding races in Florida for a few years. However, it was a trip to Minnesota’s Canterbury Park that altered the man’s life forever. That is when Luis Alberto Canchari Nuñez met Ann Nordgren.

“My mom was on the rail watching the horses, but when he passed her, she had her head down, and he thought she was crying,” Alex said. “He asked her if she was okay, and that’s how they met.”

Luis married Ann Marie Nordgren in St. Paul, Minnesota on August 17, 1990. Ann was born on September 18, 1969 in Chicago, and died on July 9, 2003, in Shakopee. Her parents were Ronald Joseph Nordgren (1932-2002) and Patricia Bernadette Hantsch Nordgren (1935-1997).

Luis and Ann settled down and raised four children in Minnesota: Ashley Ann (1990), Patrick Alexander (1991), Alexander Luis (1994), and Steven Canchari (2000).

And every summer, the family worked with the horses at Canterbury Park in Shakopee. Luis remembered that the racetrack and his family was a major part of his life. Alex spent endless hours at the track with his father and his brothers, learning horses from the ground up. His father wasn’t the kind of man who taught by way of instruction; no, Luis’s children learned by doing.

Luis had loved, owned and trained horses at Canterbury Park in Shakopee for 32 years. His two sons, Patrick and Alex, practically grew up there and became successful jockeys.

Luis lived only two blocks away from Canterbury. His reputation took a hit in 2014 when his horse, Smart Masterpiece, finished second and Canchari was approached by the steward. “He said ‘your horse got a bad test,’ I said ‘bad test,’ he said, ‘methamphetamine,’ ‘I don’t even know what it is, methamphetamine,’” he recalled. It was the same methamphetamine that’s a common street drug, also known as speed. Smart Masterpiece was disqualified. Canchari was fined $2,000 and suspended for ninety days.

Then, three years later, in 2017 another Canchari horse, Carson’s Storm, tested positive for methamphetamine. This time, the Minnesota Racing Commission dropped the hammer: a $25,000 fine and a three-year suspension. The penalty, which was upheld by an administrative judge, was later reduced to $10,000 and one year.

Investigators believe their horses were contaminated by methamphetamine users working behind the scenes at Canterbury.

Canchari said after the second positive result, all his employees took drug tests and passed. Canchari even took a voluntary polygraph. He believes his horses could have been contaminated by the starting gate crew. It’s the one part of the race a trainer has no control over.

A month after Canchari’s first horse tested positive, Shakopee police arrested two members of the starting gate crew, both of whom were in possession of methamphetamine. In a dorm room behind the track, police found a gram of methamphetamine, a pipe used to smoke it, a scale, and a bottle containing urine to falsify a drug test. At least five other horse handlers at Canterbury were busted for drugs during this period, according to Fox 9 Investigator Tom Lyden in a November 25, 2019 report, “Speed: Canterbury Park race horses exposed to methamphetamine.”

At 62, Luis was broke and had to sell his nine horses. But he couldn’t imagine returning to Canterbury Park until he got his reputation back. “I refuse to go. When I go, I want to run with my horses. I’ll be happy man, and my life will come back again.”

In late fall of 2020, an unknown respiratory illness sent the family patriarch, Luis Alberto Canchari Nuñez, to the hospital. It wasn’t COVID, but doctors were unable to diagnose him and Luis succumbed on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. He was 64 years old.

Luis spent his life chasing his dream and doing what he loved most: horse racing. “Louie the Glove” made countless friends along the way. His devotion to his native country Peru was ever-present. He adored his wife Ann and was the proudest father and grandpa. Luis led an honest, admirable life – always defending the “little guy.” We will forever miss his comical personality and unrelenting spirit.

Bibliography

Lyden, Tom. “Speed: Canterbury Park race horses exposed to methamphetamine .” Fox 9, 25 Nov. 2019.