Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Maximus Guido Wermerskirchen was born in New Prague, Minnesota on Jan. 2, 1931, son of Peter Paul Wermerskirchen and Clara Marie Beckius Wermerskirchen.

His family moved to Shakopee after a few years. After grade eight, Wermerskirchen decided he was done with school. He quit and took a job on the Grommesch farm. He was 14 years old. While working on the farm, Max fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Beatrice, known as Bea.

In the 1950s, Max took a construction job in Alaska for several years. He saved enough money to buy a home. He proposed to Bea, and when she accepted, he moved back to Shakopee. They had three children, Sandra, Steven, and Larry.

He had been employed at Rahr Malting Plant in Shakopee in a maintenance job for the last three years of his life. Maxvolunteered for the fire department in December 1958.

Why did he volunteer? It just seemed to be the right thing to do. It was a way to help others. 

Max was always helping others. When his parents called, he would be over in a flash. They lived nearby, and he helped install storm screens, mow the lawn, or take care of anything that was needed.

Max’s younger sister, Clareen Ries, remembered that “He knew everybody in town, knew everyone’s names. He would do anything for anybody.” The whole town liked him.

Max left his home and his family very early in the morning of Sept. 30, 1959, to fight a fire at Schesso-Hughes Auto Dealership in downtown Shakopee. He never returned.

It was a difficult fire to put out. Explosions from gasoline tanks, grease, and oil made it more difficult. Firefighters from Shakopee, Carver, Chaska, and Jordan fought the blaze for over five hours.

Max, who had joined the fire department nine months before, offered to take the place of an older firefighter and climbed to the roof of the building. He had to help ventilate the garage and douse the flames from above. “But, just before 2 a.m., the roof collapsed, sending Wermerskirchen below into the smoke. He hit the roof of a large, concrete vault within the building—likely used as an office or for records storage—but nobody knew about it, and Wermerskirchen’s fellow firefighters couldn’t find him in time to save him.”

According to the Shakopee Valley News, Max died quickly without the breathing equipment which now is required. In 1959, there were only three or four packs for the whole department.

In the Jordan Independent, “Eighteen cars inside the structure including five new models, along with tools and equipment, were destroyed. Cause of the blaze which started about 1:30 a.m. is not known. Firemen said it apparently started near the center of the garage.”

Heroic rescue attempts were made by Fire Chief Art Dubois and other firefighters, who entered the burning building again in vain search for the victim. The body was brought out about 4:30 a.m.

The garage, which covered a half-block on Lewis Street, was a complete loss. The damage was estimated at $200,000. In today’s time, this would be nearly $1.7 million!

Maximus Guido “Max” Wermerskirchen was only 28 years old, and left behind his wife, Bea, and three preschool children. This was the only firefighter to die in the line of duty in Shakopee.

Every year since, the fire department in Shakopee, Wermerskirchen family, and past members of the fire department meet at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee, where they have a graveside service. Then they head to Fire Station 1 where they grill steaks and have a buffet-style dinner. It is the time to connect the younger guys to the history and pass on the values and traditions that have shaped the department.

Max Wermerskirchen was added to the Minnesota Fire Service Memorial at the capitol in 2012. It commemorates the firefighters who have died in the line of duty.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Bernardino Dean Taranto Toronto was born Jan. 27, 1901, in Seattle, Washington, son of Giuseppe Joseph Taranto, Sr. (1873-1962) and Lillian Margaret Lilly Lehnertz Taranto (1874-1943). Dean’s grandparents were Bernardino Taranto and Santina Santa D’Arrico Taranto, who were born in Italy, and Gerard Lehnertz (1831-1913) and Joanna Jane Rossbach Lehnerz (1846-1878).

Two years after he was born, Bernardino’s father died in Seattle, and in 1905 the widowed mother and the four-year-old son moved to Shakopee. Dean, as he was called, attended school and grew to maturity, according to an article from the Shakopee Argus-Tribune on July 7, 1941 called “Dean Toronto, 40, Buried Saturday.”

Bernardino Dean Taranto Toronto married Mary Ellen O’Brien (1906-1956), daughter of John O’Brien (1872-1960) and Catherine Kate Gallagher O’Brien (1872-1943) in St. Paul.

Dean and Mary Ellen lived in Shakopee, where they had six children: Howard Joseph (1924-2007); Patricia Mary (1926-2018); Eugene Francis (1928-2004); Margaret Ellen (1930-1939); James Edwin (1931-2016); and Marc Edward Toronto (1938-2009).

According to the article in the Shakopee Argus-Tribune, Dean was “a good hearted, upright and honest man…above all else a devoted husband and father. He was known for his genial disposition and warmly regarded throughout this area where he had spent the major portion of his life.”

In the beginning of July 1941, Dean was working on an electric power line in Carver, north of the city of Shakopee. While he was working on the line, Dean was killed. The Minnesota Star on July 10, 1941, and the Minneapolis Tribuneon July 10, 1941, had an amateur photographer who watched all the drama.

Dean, on July 9, 1941, came in contact with a wire line he had just repaired. He slipped from the pole he was climbing and was electrocuted. Rescuers made a daring attempt to haul down lineman Dean Toronto, who was a victim of high-power wire near Shakopee. While they tried to rescue him as he hung from top of a pole by his safety belt, it was not enough, and Bernardino Dean Taranto Toronto was killed, leaving his widowed wife and five children.

“His death came as a stunning blow not only to his immediate relatives but to every one who knew him,” said the article in the Shakopee Argus-Tribune. Funeral services were conducted by Rev. Father McRaith at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Shakopee, and Father Kauer officiated at the grave. The pallbearers were R.S. Condon, Roy Dellwo, Harvey Dressen, Morse Johnson, and George A. Ring.

Mary Ellen sued the city of Shakopee, the Travelers Indemnity Company, insurance company, and the Minnesota Electric Service Company on Oct. 30, 1942.

The record held to sustain finding of industrial commission that the lineman was an employee of electric service company and not of the city at time of his death, according to Julius J. Olson, justice. The review, an order of the industrial commission, awarded compensation to the widow of Dean Toronto. The issue is whether at the time of his fatal injury the employee was working for the city of Shakopee or for relator, the Minnesota Electric Service Company. They found relator to be such employer, and on appeal the industrial commission unanimously affirmed.

Neither the relator nor the city produces electric energy, and neither has facilities for its production. The city purchases power from the Northern States Power Company not only for its own distributing system, which is wholly within the city limits, but also to service the relator’s customers, some 100 in number, in an area adjacent to but outside the corporate limits of the city. The city resells the electric energy required by the relator at a profit to itself.

Toronto was a resident of Shakopee at the time of his death and had been for several years. His work was in the electrical field. He rendered service to the city from time to time, and, as an individual enterprise, also did a lot of work wiring houses and making other electrical repairs and installations for private individuals and concerns.

Dean handled wires charged with electricity. These are referred to as “hot wires,” and Toronto was called “the “hot wire man.” On the day in question, as he was making a last connection of these wires to complete his job, he was electrocuted.

A few of the facts may be thus summarized:

Toronto had been paid at the rate of 75 cents per hour while he worked for relator, for whom he had rendered many services in the past and at various times. His regular pay when employed by the city was 60 cents per hour. When he worked for the city, it was his custom to punch a clock registering the time when he started his work each day and likewise when he finished. The last day he worked was July 1. There the time clock stopped as far as Toronto was concerned. His death occurred on the ninth.

May he rest in peace.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Anna Thelka Bögemann Bogenmann was born on a farm on Sept. 20, 1880 in Marystown, Minnesota, the second oldest child of John Bögemann (1850-1905) and Helena Pieper Bögemann (1848-1889). Eventually John and Helena had two boys and two girls.

Anna remembered her grandfather, Anton Pieper, who was living in St. Louis, Missouri when the cholera epidemic broke out. Her grandmother, Sophie, and three of the four children died. Anton, along with his only living child, Helena, gave the local orphanage nuns $200 to took care of Helena, who was Anna’s mother, and Anton headed to the Gold Rush in Sacramento, California. Three years later, Anton returned to Minnesota, picked up his daughter, and eventually settled in Marystown. He hired John Bögemann as a hired hand, and later he married Helena Pieper. With the $3000 dowry, John and Helena bought a farm near Marystown, where Ann Thelka Bögemann Bogenmann was born.

According to the News Page on Sept. 25, 1982, Anna showed a keen interest in learning. At five years old, she insisted on joining her older brother when he started school in Marystown.

When Anna was nine years old, her mother died on Sept. 29, 1889. Two years later, her father, married a second time, to Maria Franzen Bögemann (1863-1939). Three boys and two girls were born in the second marriage.

Anna, at age 15, entered the order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Milwaukee, becoming an aspirant in 1895 and taking her final vows in 1903. She became Sr. Alberta Boegemann, SSND.

In the History of St. Mary’s Purification in Marystown, Scott County, Minnesota, which was written on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of the parish on June 12, 1930 by Reverend James Klein, he noted that Anna was one of 17 sisters who entered Marystown in the course of 75 years. “Sister M. Norberta (Anna Boegemann, daughter of John Boegemann and Helen Pieper), born September 20, 1880, and who is at present stationed at the College of Notre Dame, MD.”

When Sr. Alberta Boegemann was living in the Milwaukee Motherhouse, and under the kindly guidance of Sr. Cunigunda, she began her years of training. In August 1899 she received the habit, and in December 1899 she was sent to Formosa, Ontario, where she taught grades seven, eight, and nine for nine years. In July 1903 she took her First Vows in Milwaukee.

In 1908, Sr. Alberta was transferred to St. Anne’s, Kitchener, where many future Notre Dames were privileged to be in her English, Latin, and history classes. In 1920 she taught for a year in Longwood, Illinois, and in 1925 began six years of teaching at Notre Dame of Maryland. The remaining years of teaching were spent in Ontario, in Wakerton, Kitchener, and Waterdown. She spent a short time in St. Agatha in the 1940s recuperating from ill health. By 1944 Sr. Alberta was back in the Academy classrooms, where she taught until 1957.

Sr. Alberta was an inspiring teacher. She was a cultured woman. When the Ontario government in the early years of the 1900s required that teachers had to have Ontario qualification, Sr. Alberta was one of the first American sisters to receive a First Class Certificate in 1911. She also held a B.A. degree from Queen’s University and Fordham University, New York.

In her early years of retirement, she continued worthwhile reading and current events to satisfy her alert mind. Sr. Alberta could sometimes be seen reading a dictionary. When asked why, she explained, “When I get to heaven I want to be able to talk to God in high-flown English.” When her eyesight declined, she focused on favorite phrases in her large-print bible.

She was a delightful conversationalist and would relate with much enjoyment anecdotes of her teaching years. She was always very gracious and so grateful for favors done. As she became older, deafness cut off from participation, but with an appreciative smile and sly wink she would show her gratitude. 

Sr. Alberta celebrated her 100th birthday on Sept. 20, 1980. She received greetings from the Queen, Prime Minister Trudeau, and Premier Davis. Sr Alberta enjoyed the day with many friends, and repeatedly gladdened their hearts with her many quick, appreciative winks.

On Sept. 25, 1982, at age 102, Sr. Alberta Bögemann Boegeman died at the Canadian Mother House, Villa, where she lived. She was intern at the Villa Cemetery.

“She was a very unique woman and a marvelous teacher,” recalled Sr. Miriam, a teacher at the convent. “Whenever I meet one of her students they go into ecstasies about her teaching. I’m a bit envious I didn’t have her as a teacher.”

Sr. Claire, 83-year-old nun who had Sr. Alberta, remembered her as a teacher who made everyone in the classroom feel important. Sr. Antoinette recalled “She could make the works of Shakespeare come alive.”

“Quite a dramatic teacher, but very regal, too,” said Sr. Antoinette.

According to Sr. Claire, “She didn’t walk across the room—she floated!”

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Anna Maria Wolf was born March 8, 1870 in St. Joseph Township, daughter of Mathias Mather Wolf (1835-1925) and Anna Deutsch Wolf (1831-1922.). According to the John Wolf-Margaret Gerardy Wolf Family Tree, Mathias had emigrated to America with his parents and brothers and sisters in the year 1854 when he was 20 years old.

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 Township, carrying all their possessions.

Johann Wolf (Anna Maria Wolf’s grandfather) had declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen on May 19, 1855, and therefore he became eligible to receive homestead land from the government. Under the pre-emption plan, settlers-colonists could purchase surveyed public lands for $1.25 per acre through the government land office. Wolf filed his claim at Red Wing, the land office for Minnesota Territory, on Sept. 12, 1855, and received a deed for 120 acres of land in Sand Creek Township. The deed was signed by President Franklin Pierce on Nov. 1, 1856, in Washington, D.C.

The land that Johann and Marguerithe Margaret Gerardy Wolf settled on was hilly with heavy clay soil and covered with trees. Before the family could farm, the members had to clear the trees, and they used the wood for erecting farm buildings. Johann and Margaret saw their children marry – John Jr. to Magdelina Ruppert; Mathias to Anna Deutsch; Peter to Frances Kerrer; Frank to Mary Meyer; Margaret to Matt Hennen: and Katherine to John Deutsch.

It was in 1857, three years after coming to this country, that Mathias took Anna Deutsch as his bride. She had come to America from Besch, Germany, in 1855, with her parents, five brothers, and one sister. Anna’s parents, John and Mary Deutsch, had settled nearby in Helena Township. The couple was married at St. Joseph where the parish had just been established and was without a formal church structure. In fact, it was John Wolf, Peter Ruppert, and Wilhelm Budde who donated the land for the eventual church building and cemetery of St. Joseph.

The pair turned to farming like their parents and ancestors, buying a 100-acre parcel in Helena Township. The papers were filed at the land office in Henderson and signed by President Abraham Lincoln, Aug. 1, 1861.

Together, Mathias and Anna Deutsch Wolf did their full share of subduing the Scott County wilderness and converting the woods into fertile fields. After Mathias’s father died in 1873, the couple shared their home with Mathias’s mother until her death from pneumonia in 1885.

In the 1880, after all their nine children were born, Anna and Mathias sold their farm and moved to one near St. Benedict. The couple became active in the church and school of St. Benedict, and it was in 1887, when the present church was built, that Mathias joined his neighbors in donating the labor to raise the structure.

Eight of the couple’s children married and struck out on their own. The children and spouses included: John and Mary Haus; Margaret and Michael Beckius; Mathias Jr. and Rosalia Koelzer; Peter and Catherine Cenzius; Frank and Frances Schloesser; Anna and Andrew Busch; John Michael and Sophia Pranke and Helen and Andrew Busch and Anton Scheffler. Their daughter Mary, second youngest child, died at the age of 27.

The couple watched with pride as their children grew to be respected citizens in their communities. In 1905 they lived with son Frank and family, according to the census but the children of Frank’s stated that their grandparents never lived with them.

Perhaps they were visiting the day the census was taken. At the time of their deaths in 1922 and 1925 Mathias and Anna were living with their son Michael and his family on Michael’s farm. (Both Mathias and Anna’s death certificates have wrong information on them. It is stated that Mathias was 79 years, 11 months and 13 days and buried in New Prague. The birth and death dates are correct so subtract the 2 dates and you get over 90 years old. Also, Mathias is buried in St Benedict as the stone marker is there. On Anna’s death certificate, it is stated that her father’s name is John and it should have been Mathias.)

In 1883, Anna Maria Wolf had her first communion at St. Benedict. She was 13 years old, and Fr. Asimirus Hueppe, O.S.F., was the pastor. In May 1893, she married Andreas Andrew H. Busch (1869-1947) who was born in Sand Creek Township Aug. 17, 1868, son of Henry Busch (1837-1919) and Anna Maria Roentgen (1841-1886). According to the John Wolf- Margaret Gerardy Wolf Family Tree, Andrew was a well-known Marystown farmer and retired in Jordan. The witnesses for marriage were Peter Busch and Lena Wolf, and the priest was Fr. Pulthoff.

Anna and Andrew had several children: Florian Henry; Julian; Hildegarde; Bertha M.; Francis; Alphonse M.; Alice; Rosetta; Loretta Rosalia; Elmer John; and Emma.

Andreas Andrew Busch died March 17, 1947 in Jordan, and was buried at the cemetery in Marystown. Anna Maria Wolf Busch died Aug. 19, 1958 at age 88 in Sand Creek Township. The service was at St. John’s Catholic Church in Jordan, and Anna was buried at St. Mary’s Purification Catholic Cemetery in Marystown, next to her husband.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Ann Pow was born December 12, 1811, in Tranent, East Lothian, Scotland. Her parents were Robert Pow (1770-1854) and Jean Richardson Pow, born in 1780 in Scotland.

In Tranent, on December 19, 1830, Ann married David Kinghorn, who was born in Scotland in 1809. David’s parents were George H. Kinghorn, born in 1785 in Fogo, Scotland, and died on January 29, 1871 in Shakopee, and Agnes MacLaren Kinghorn, born in 1786 and died in Scotland in 1866.

David learned the miller’s trade. Around 1830, David and Ann headed to Ontario, Canada. David was employed as a miller for four years, according to The History of the Minnesota Valley by Edward Duffield Neill in 1882. He then worked in New York for six years. Then, in 1839, the family moved to Kane County, Illinois, where David worked in milling for three years, and then bought 160 acres of land. He later sold the land and purchased one section of Cook County, Illinois, where he farmed for ten years.

Meanwhile, Ann gave birth to twelve children: David, Agnes, George Franklin, Janet, John Mitchell, William, Robert, David, Thomas, Elsie, Margaret, and Charles Kinghorn.

In 1852, the family came to Eagle Creek, now Shakopee, Minnesota Territory, where they pre-empted 160 acres of land. He later owned eighty acres. David Kinghorn was sergeant-at-arms at the first constitutional convention in the state, was a representative in the first legislature, and for years held offices of trust in the town and county.

The family moved to Redwood, Lower Sioux Agency in 1860, when Ann was 52 years old. David taught school there for two and a half years.

In the summer of 1862, the Redwood Agency was one of the first places attacked during the U.S.-Dakota War. The government had defaulted on their treaty with the Dakota Indians. The Dakota were supposed to be paid and supplied with provisions for surrendering (or taking) their lands. The summer was extremely hot and dry, and food supplies were running low. There was no forthcoming help for the people and so in their desperation for survival, the Dakota began to attack colonists-settlements and farms.

A story has been passed down that David and Ann were rescued from the attack on the Lower Sioux Agency by their Dakota friends who hid them in a wagon and covered them with hay and took them to a place of safety, according to the Kinghorn History by Elaine Kinghorn Hill, Linda Martin, and others who have cooperated with its compilation.

The Lower Sioux Agency, or Redwood Agency, was built by the federal government in 1853 near the Redwood River in south-central Minnesota Territory. The agency served as an administrative center for the Lower Sioux Reservation of Santee Dakota. It was also the site of key events related to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, according to Matt Reicher at “Lower Sioux Agency.” MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/place/lower-sioux-agency (accessed August 29, 2024).

Four bands of Dakota—the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton, and Wahpeton—ceded most of their homelands in southern Minnesota with the 1851 treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota. They were forced to reservations along the Minnesota River in exchange for food, supplies, and regular payments from the U.S. government. In 1853 the U.S. created the Lower Sioux Agency near Morton to issue these goods to the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands. An agency for the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands was built north of the Lower Agency at the mouth of the Yellow Medicine River.

The Lower Agency compound was made up of about a dozen buildings clustered around a council square. Four traders’ stores stood nearby. Laborers, teachers, merchants, and missionaries lived on-site. The agency housed officials and provisions to meet the Dakota people’s needs related to the treaties. It also built manual labor schools, mills, and blacksmith shops. David Kinghorn and family were there while David taught at the school there.

Agency workers tried to persuade the Dakota to conform to Euro-American customs. They encouraged them to give up hunting and gathering and to rely on farmed crops and livestock for food. Only about 150 of the 3200 Dakota on the reservation became farmers.

A poor harvest in 1861 followed by a harsh winter ravaged the Dakota on the reservation. In 1862, many were starving. Tribal leaders looked to agency officials to meet the government’s treaty obligations: food, supplies, and money. Previous payments had been made in June. When that month passed without a delivery of gold from Washington, Indian Agent Thomas Galbraith (from Shakopee) promised to issue the goods and money together by July 20.

In early August, Mdewakanton leader Thaóyate Dúta (His Red Nation, also known as Little Crow) met with Galbraith and the traders to persuade them to open their stores. Thaóyate Dúta asked the agent to give out food right away and pay the money later. He spoke of the stores filled with food while Dakota people remained hungry. In response, agency storekeeper Andrew Myrick exclaimed, “If they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung.”

After Myrick’s remark, frustration that had simmered within the Dakota for years boiled over. On the morning of Aug. 18, Mdewakanton warriors attacked the traders’ stores. Many of the traders and staff of the agency were killed, including Myrick and Galbraith’s clerk. Buildings were looted and burned down. Some of the agency’s residents fled to nearby Fort Ridgely.

The attack at the agency was the first organized incident of the U.S.-Dakota War. The six-week series of battles took the lives of more than six hundred white civilians and soldiers and an unknown number of Dakota.

In October of 1862 the trials of 392 Dakota prisoners started at Camp Release and then were moved to the agency and held in the cabin of trader Francis LaBathe. Thirty-eight of the men tried were later executed in Mankato.

Acts of U.S. Congress passed in 1863 exiled the Dakota from Minnesota. They dissolved their reservations and agencies, including Lower Sioux. According to Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Archipedia, at the end of the war, the majority of Dakota were relocated to reservations outside Minnesota, first to the Crow Creek Reservation in what is now central South Dakota, and later to the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.

David and Ann Pow Kinghorn and family moved back to Eagle Creek according to the 1870 United States Federal Census. They had ten children, four of whom are living; nineteen grand-children and two great-grandchildren. David and Ann had two of their sons in the Civil War. On Aug. 15, 1862, Corporal George Franklin Kinghorn (1838-1914) and Private William A. Kinghorn (1843-1864) served in Company I, Ninth Minnesota volunteers. While Corporal George Franklin Kinghorn returned home, and died in 1914, Private William A. Kinghorn was taken prisoner in Memphis, where he died of disease on Sept. 6, 1864.

Ann died March 3, 1889 at age 77. She was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota. Her husband, David, died April 24, 1890 and was buried at the Rochester State Hospital Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

About 9:30 p.m., a thin, loose-jointed, poorly clad African American teenager was seen rounding the corner of First and Holmes Street in Shakopee, according to the Shakopee Argus-Tribune on May 8, 1930. He disappeared in the darkness of the alley at the south end of the Holmes Street Bridge, according to the article, “Dejected dusky youth finds end of rainbow in humble hospitality.”

Officer Kelly waited. After several minutes, Kelly commandeered Greg Hartmann’s car and drove through the alley, but he could not find the youth. A second trip over the course, Officer Kelly, along with the aid of a flashlight, spotted the youngster sitting motionless, stiffened with fear on a swing at the rear of a First Avenue residence.

According to the article, the search “revealed no weapons—in fact, nothing but a thin body lightly clad. He was taken to the city hall, where, after long and tedious effort, the by was convinced he was hot arrested, but was being helped.” With eyes straight forward, never turning to high of left, he began his story.

The teenager was 16 years old and had left Minneapolis on a bicycle about 8 a.m. that morning. He was in 9th grade but had to leave school to help earn a living.

He was headed to Chaska. He had met a friend, a Mexican American, who worked at the sugar beet fields around Chaska and Shakopee.

As he was biking to Chaska, he was struck by a passing truck. The front wheel of his bicycle was broken shortly after leaving Lyndale Avenue. So, the teen walked to Chaska and looked for his friend. He only had his first name and was unable to locate him.

As he walked home to Minneapolis, he got turned around at the intersection of Highway 5 and Highway 52, and so he arrived in Shakopee. And so, he was sitting at city hall when Ray Hill walked in. Ray had seen the teenager in the afternoon on the highway.

The Mexican American family, including the friend of the African American, had left Minneapolis on Friday, driving a brown and black truck. According to the Shakopee Argus-Tribune, Ray Hill had seen the truck and its occupants—father, mother, and six children. They were building a shack on the Indian Road, where they would work in a sugar beet field.

The Indian Road is a road on the north side of the Minnesota River. The road follows the river, then ends at Flying Cloud Drive. Along the road were the Dakota who lived in tipi tonka, tipi, and cabins along the Minnesota River. The Indian settlement on the north side of the Minnesota River in what is now Eden Prairie, though a common postcard called the area Shakopee’s Reservation, the land was purchased by Oyatekokepa Jacob Otherday. The 18 acres were purchased in 1871.

Once a car was procured, the group of people, including the African American teenager, headed across the Holmes Street Bridge, then right to Indian Road where the shack was located.

“Through an open window the glow of a lighted match fell upon the Mexican family asleep on the floor of the crowded shack.” The Mexican American father was awakened and summoned to the window. The Mexican American might have been Pedro Delgado, who was one of the migrant laborers who worked tending and harvesting beets for the massive sugar industry from 1924 to 1932, or one of the many Latino migrant laborers who worked there, according to the Chaska Herald article by Mark W. Olson on October 23, 2009 called “Fields of memory: Former beet farmer revisits his childhood home of Chaska.”

The Mexican American saw, in the rays of a flashlight, the smiling face of the African American teenager. “There was no doubt as to their acquaintance.” In a moment the door was ajar; the youth accepted the humble hospitality.

The African American teenager and the Mexican American family spent the night, and in the morning all of them headed to work in the beet fields in Scott and Carver county.

By David R. Schleper

Corporal George B. Clark, of Shakopee, Minnesota served with the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company A, and was present at all of the regiment’s battles. The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first in the nation to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops in 1861, and they courageously served with great distinction.

The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment mustered for a three-year term (1861-1864) in the Union Army at the outset of the American Civil War when the prevailing enlistment period was three months. During offensive movements, it sustained high degrees of casualties at the Battles of First Bull Run and Antietam and a catastrophic degree of casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is most noted for its service on the second day at Gettysburg.

At a pivotal moment and position during the 1863 conflict at Gettysburg, Union general Winfield Scott Hancock desperately ordered the 262 men of the First Minnesota to charge the 1,600 advancing Alabama Rebels.

Carpenter recalled, “We advanced down the slope…Comrade after comrade dropped from the ranks; but the line went. No one took a second look at his fallen companion. We had no time to weep.” Only 47 men returned alive, but they preserved a key Union defensive position.

On July 4, Lieutenant William Lochren wrote a letter to his hometown Winona Republican newspaper. “We are in the midst of a terrible battle,” he wrote. “Two thirds of the regiment are killed or wounded. We got the better of the enemy in the fight, and our regiment captured one stand of colors.”

When given the opportunity to speak about the Regiment after the war, both General Hancock and US President Calvin Coolidge were unrestrained with praise. Hancock placed its heroism highest in the known annals of war and ascribed unsurpassed gallantry to the famed attack. Emphasizing the criticality of the circumstances on July 2 at Gettysburg, President Coolidge considered, “Colonel Colvill and those eight companies of the First Minnesota are entitled to rank as the saviors of their country.”

Corporal Clark was captured at Antietam but released through a prisoner exchange and then was wounded at Bristow Station. He re-enlisted with the 1st Battalion of Minnesota Infantry, was captured at Petersburg and incarcerated for eight months.

While imprisoned he endured virtual starvation and lost his teeth due to scurvy. George B. Clark was forty-five years old when he died on March 16, 1887 due to his continuing illness.

By David R. Schleper

John Shoto (also called Shodo) was born at Wabasha in March 1798, and remained with the band of Chief Wabasha until he was 25 years old. At that point, he joined the Red Wing band of Dakotas, serving with Chief Redwing near Barns Bluff for 15 years, according to Dr. David Laframboise.

Shoto came up the Minnesota River and was a brave in the Ŝakpedan or Little Six band in Tiŋta-otoŋwe, later called Shakopee. After the Dakota Uprising in 1862, Shoto became a scout under Governor Sibley. He served from 1862 to 1870. In 1872, Shoto returned to Shakopee as chief of the Little Six band.

In the beginning of January 1899, Old Shoto was about town, peering out of his almost sightless eyes and now and again saying “Hau! Hau!” to all who gave him a merry greeting. Hau is Dakota for “hello.”

Nearly everyone in Shakopee and Scott County knew Old Shoto, and many pioneer settlers in other parts of the state remembered the old Dakota scout. It is also interesting to hear how smart Shoto was. He used to stop at various houses of rich people in downtown Shakopee. He would ask for food. If the housekeeper was there, she would fill his plate with lots of food, and Shoto was happy. When the woman of the house would answer the door, Shoto asked for food, and one rich woman would look disgustingly at him, and would give him two pieces of bread and little more. Shoto would point to his throat, gesture that he had a sore throat, and then would leave. He knew he could find something better at other houses, where the people were friendlier.

Fr. J.J. Girrimondi of St. Mary’s Catholic Church baptized Shoto, who was one of Ŝakpe’s braves, in 1895.

The 1880 census noted that Shoto was born in 1813, and was 67 years old and living in Shakopee. The 1895 census noted that he was 91 years old, born around 1804, and living in Eden Prairie. In an issue of the Scott County Argus, editor C.G. Bowdish noted that his age is a matter for some conjecture, and is variously placed at from 102 to 109 years old. “There is a large painted portrait of him in a Minneapolis house on Nicollet Avenue that is labeled ‘109 Years Old,’ but from his own reports and the traditions of the Sioux, he was probably about 105 at the time of his death,” noted Bowdish.

According to Eden Prairie: A Brief History, Chief Shoto died in January 1899 at the age of 99 at his home in the American Indian settlement in Eden Prairie (across from Shakopee, on the north side of the river.) He died within the walls of his beloved tipi at the reservation east of town at 3 p.m.

His wife, Anna, survived him, and died at the age of 90. Their daughter, Caroline Moore, died as an infant in 1830, and was buried in the Valley Cemetery in the pauper field (next to Dan Eddings, the African American who lived, worked, and died in Shakopee).

He also left two (or four) grandchildren. Fr. Flemming of St. Mary’s Church in Shakopee buried old Shoto, who had been converted by his predecessor.

And now you have a little bit of information about John Shoto, who was a good friend with Ŝakpedan!

(Some information from Eden Prairie: A Brief History, by Marie Wittenberg, 2010, The History Press; The Shakopee Story by Julius A. Coller, II; Shakopee Tribune, Jan. 27, 1899; Scott County Argus, Jan. 26, 1899; Jordan Independent, Feb. 2, 1899.)

By David R. Schleper

After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Minnesota women, like Americans across the nation, were called to contribute to the war effort. Though some went to Europe and served as nurses, drivers, and aid workers on the battlefields, many more participated on the home front. They took on new jobs, conserved vital resources, and joined volunteer organizations.

Women joined, led, and donated their time and money to groups that provided soldiers with food, shelter, and supplies. They joined YWCA sewing and knitting circles to craft items for soldiers and civilians. They rolled bandages and collected funds for the American Red Cross. In 1918, these Shakopee women, called Bandage Girls, stood on the east side of Lewis Street in Shakopee, between First and Second avenues.

Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 finally granted them, and women across the nation, suffrage (the right to vote).

By David R. Schleper

On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter which was held by a dedicated group of Union soldiers.

With the news of the attack, Minnesota was the first state to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers to serve in the Union army. Scott County citizens gathered for a meeting on April 20 at the Scott County Courthouse. Immediate support was given to defend the union of the nation.

Alexander H. Lyons, his wife, Eliza A. Lyons, and their family moved to Shakopee in 1855. Stephen, who was born in New York in 1839, was the oldest of four brothers, all of whom served during the Civil War.

Stephen went to St. Paul to enlist for the war on April 25, 1861. His brother, Harrison, also joined the war, and both Stephen and Harrison were wounded at Gettysburg.

George F. Lyons, born in 1841, served in the 9^th Minnesota Infantry, and John L Lyons, born in 1847, served in the 11^th Minnesota. They both arrived back to Minnesota without any physical problems.

And so, now you know about the four brothers. Stephen, Harrison, George, and John; the Lyons brothers, from Shakopee, and part of the large number of Shakopee people who fought for our nation during the Civil War.

(Some information from The Diary of Daniel M. Storer from 1849 to 1905: A Pioneer Builder and Merchant; Historical Scene: “Scott County’s Civil War Veterans Remembered” by Scot Stone, Aug./Sept. 2011, p. 15; Vangsness, Dave. “Stephen Lyons (1838-1907).” Find A Grave. findagrave.com/memorial/36766844.)