Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Orestus S. Brown was born in New York in 1831. He moved to Shakopee in 1869 when his son, Frederick Van Ness Brown, was seven years old.

His wife, Evelyn Bortle Brown, died March 8, 1871. The family and servants lived on a farm between Hamilton (Savage) and Shakopee in Glendale.

In 1880, Orestus and his second wife, Carrie, along with their two children, Frederick and Gertrude, moved to their new home in downtown Shakopee.

And along with the family was Alice Briggs, who was listed as an indentured servant.

The house is at 519 First Avenue East, one of the oldest structures in Shakopee.

The house was built in 1856 as a 24’ x 24’ limestone. In 1880 it sold to David and Julia Brown, and in 1888 to O.S. Brown. The house is across the street from the First Presbyterian Church, now the Iglesia la Luz Mundo Casa de Oracion.

Some people in Minnesota were rich. But this wealth was not shared by all. People on the top, mostly businessmen, made lots of money. The middle-class people, such as doctors and lawyers, lived very comfortably. But, like most ordinary working people, Alice’s family was poor. Alice was 15 years old. Her father was from Tennessee, and her mother was from New York. Alice had brothers and sisters, and though they were living in a small, cramped home, Alice decided to get a job.

There weren’t many jobs in rural Minnesota except for farmhands, factory workers (which were mostly for men) and servants. The pay was bad, the hours were long, and there was not a lot of personal freedom, but Alice decided to work for a rich family in Shakopee. Once Alice got the job, she needed to be neat and pleasant around their home. She needed to be obedient and show the right attitude.

O.S. and Carrie wanted a servant who did the work. Alice needed to get up at dawn to light the fires and boil water for washing. She had to help cook and serve breakfast (and then, afterwards, she could eat her own breakfast). Alice had to clean the home, wash the floors, and help with the laundry. Alice had to sweep, dust, clean glass windows, and shake and beat the carpets. She had to polish the heavy wooden furniture, wipe down walls, and clean the pavement and steps outside the front door. She had to work all day, from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., where she could retire to her cold and damp room and into the hard and lumpy bed to sleep (and hope the bed bugs don’t bite) before being up again at the crack of dawn.

Luckily for Alice, Freda and Charles Long were also servants of the Browns in 1880. Freda probably cooked, and Charles helped chop wood and helped with the farm. Freda, a white female, was age twenty, and Charles was white and male, age 23. Charles was also a farmhand. Both Freda and Charles were from Michigan, but their parents were from Prussia. Alice was born in Minnesota, and her parents were from Tennessee and New York.

A boarder, Columbus McMullen, also lived at this home. He was bedridden and probably disabled. He was 27 years old and probably needed to be helped by the three servants.

Monday was laundry day. Filthy clothes were washed and mended, and bed linens were cleaned. Bundles and baskets of wash were taken outside. The dirty water from the day before had to be hauled out of the kettles, bucket by bucket, and dumped in the yard, though not too close to the house. Then came refilling the kettles with water pulled up, bucket by bucket, from the well, or down at the bank of the Minnesota River. Then clean water had been poured into the kettles. Proper laundering required lots of boiling-hot water.

To loosen the dirt, the clothes were first boiled in a massive copper cauldron outside. Then they were scrubbed with lye soup made from ashes and pig’s fat. Sometimes Alice would use a brush, and other times against an old scrubbing board that liked to take the skin off Alice’s knuckles. Stains —and nearly every piece of clothing had some —were treated with lye or pipe clay and then soaked in soapy water.

People who lived in this house in Shakopee remember a spirit, an African American, who was doing laundry over and over.

Was it the spirit of Alice Briggs?

Alice was not in the next census, so people don’t know what happened to Alice, who lived and worked in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Alexander Luis Canchari was born Jan. 5, 1994, in Ramsey, Minnesota, son of Luis Alberto Canchari Nuñez (1956-2020) and Ann Marie Nordgren Canchari (1969-2003). Alex’s grandparents were Esteban Canchari-Yauri and Felícita Nuñez Gamboa de Canchari from Peru, and Ronald Joseph Nordgren (1932-2002) and Patricia Bernadette Hantseh Norgren (1935-2003).

Canchari is a popular name around Canterbury Park. That’s because brothers, Alex and Patrick, as well as their dad, Luis, all rode or are currently riding here, according to Mari Ballinger in an article, “It’s a Family Thing at Canterbury Park.”

According to Ballinger, Alex made his professional riding debut on Dec. 26, 2011, at Hawthorne Racecourse, just days before his 18th birthday. But life at the track started way before his teenage years. His grandpa trained horses and Luis rode from 1984 to 1991, when he started to own and train horses. Luis immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s, coming from a family that frequented Hipódromo de Monterrico, a thoroughbred horse racing facility opened in Lima, Peru.

With this much time spent at the racetrack, it’s hard for any of the Cancharis to imagine life without it.

Alex’s first career victory came on Jan. 13, 2012, at Oaklawn Park on opening day. He was aboard mare Run Mama Bear Run. Later that day, he won again. This time he was aboard gelding Simply Gone. In fall 2012, the hard work paid off, and Alex earned the title of leading rider at the Hawthorne Racecourse.

Since then, Alex only improved. He traveled back to Canterbury, riding Schnitzel and Runaway Wind. “The Shakopee Kid” raced again and many were excited for his return to Minnesota. The victory was the 999th for the jockey who grew up in Shakopee as part of a racing family.

Canchari tallied career win 1,000 when he rode Tonka Warrior to victory in the final race. “I grew up here. I got my first job here in the concession stand when I was a kid,” Canchari said. “I just love it here. I love all the fans and all the people because without them, I’d be nothing.”

In an article, “Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Think Dad Would Be Proud’” by Chelsea Hackbarth on March 29, 2021, an emotional Alexander saluted his father after winning the Temperence Hill Stakes. Alex raised his gaze to the clouds and allowed himself a moment to experience the rolling waves of emotion. He raised his right hand in a salute, acknowledging the man from whom he’d inherited his love of the horses.

It wasn’t just his father’s passing that was affecting Alex on the way to the winner’s circle; it had been a long, arduous 12 months for the entire Canchari family.

In March 2020, Alex’s older brother, jockey Patrick Canchari, was gravely injured in a car wreck on the way to the racetrack in Arizona. Patrick overcame all odds and enjoyed his 30th birthday at home in Minnesota. He lives with sister Ashley Canchari, who renovated her house for wheelchair access, cares for Patrick, and takes him to daily therapy sessions.

“He’s in good spirits,” Alex said. “He was really well-liked in our town. There are people there that come every day and help him; he needs help doing everything. But he’s doing really well now.”

Looking back on his childhood, Alex couldn’t remember a time when both the racetrack and his family weren’t a major part of his life. He spent endless hours at the track with his father and his brother, learning horses from the ground up.

“I remember when I was 10 years old, I was cleaning stalls for a quarter horse trainer in Minnesota,” Alex said. “Part of my pay was that she would let me ride the pony. One day, my pony freaked out for some reason and took off full speed across the blacktop. I couldn’t slow him down. There is a chain link fence surrounding the track up there, and he was heading straight for it. Well, he hit the brakes, and I flew right over the top of his neck into the fence.”

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to get back on him.’ My dad, he was wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes, and he came over and got on the pony and started galloping him around in figure eights with one finger on the reins. That was the only time I can remember being scared around horses, but seeing my dad do that, it took away all the fear. He said, ‘It’s easy Alex, you just gotta enjoy it.’”

When Alex committed to a career as a jockey in his early teens, his father was right alongside him. “I used to run around all of Shakopee,” Alex said. “Dad would follow me in the car, while I was running with the sauna suit and carrying a whip, practicing switching hands and stuff.”

Things were definitely looking up, and Alex was excited to spend the summer at home in Minnesota where he could ride at Canterbury and help take care of his brother, as well as spend time “being a dad” to his own two kids.

“Everybody has tough times,” Alex summarized. “I pray a lot, and work every day, and try to look for the good side of things, like my brother walking again someday. I think Dad would be proud.”

“I grew up here. I got my first job here in the concession stand (at Canterbury) when I was a kid,” Alex said. “I just love it here. I love all the fans and all the people because without them, I’d be nothing.”

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Albert LeClaire was born May 12, 1885, in Mendota, the first of seven children of Frederick LeClaire and Celina Robinette.

Albert’s grandparents were Jean Baptiste Octave Wakon LeClerc and Marguerite Dupuis, and Vanosse Robinette and Mathilde LaBatte.

Albert married Lillie Felix on July 12, 1904, in Hastings. Lillie was born Sept. 6, 1881. Her parents were Peter Felix, Jr., and Margaret Bellecourt. Her grandparents were Peter Felix and Mazasnawin Iron Woman Rosalie Frenier.

Albert, Lillie, and their three children moved just outside Shakopee to a 17-acre farm in 1919.

Albert’s farm was part of Shakopee until 1972, when the city of Prior Lake annexed the reservation.

The Prior Lake Indian Settlement became the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community and is the site of the Little Six bingo parlor, according to Mary Losure in Our Way or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State, which was published in 2002 by the University of Minnesota Press, p. 85-87.

At a school in Shakopee, Albert and Lillie’s older children were called “half-breed” and “dirty Indians.”

The two youngest would come home with cuts and bruises. Lillie complained to the teacher but was told that her children just needed to toughen up.

Lillie decided to move back to Mendota with the older children, while Albert and Russell stayed and farmed.

Albert applied to get more land for farming. He had to note the “degree of Indian blood.” He noted that his father was one-quarter Mdewakanton Dakota, while his mother was one-half Mdewakanton Dakota.

Albert ended up with forty acres of land for farming.

He was not very successful with farming.

Four years later, Albert was thrown from a car that overturned into the ditch near his farm outside Shakopee in December 1941. The hospital and Dr. J. Anthony Malerich refused to treat him because he was an Indian.

“What kind of arrogance would lead someone in an emergency room to turn somebody away?”

Bob Brown, Albert’s grandson, noted. “His hip was protruding out of his side; he had a massive skull fracture – it pissed me off!”

Dr. Malerich said that he needed to go to the Pipestone Indian Hospital by ambulance, which was several hours away.

When Albert, Jr., arrived a week later in Pipestone, his father was still covered with dirt and blood.

Because of the delay in treatment, Albert passed away in Pipestone of a fractured skull.

The family shipped his body home in a train and buried it in St. Peter’s cemetery in Mendota.

They abandoned the land at Shakopee, and it lay fallow for years.

Albert LeClaire died Jan. 28, 1942, hastened by the discrimination of Dr. Malerich and the first hospital in Shakopee.

This information from the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

When that big orange school bus rolls up and the door swings open, there’s a pretty good chance the person behind the wheel will be a woman, according to the Shakopee Valley News on April 4, 1973.

Peter Sterbonic and Norb Schmitt, owners and operators of Shakopee Services, the Shakopee school bus company, employed five women drivers in addition to eight men drivers to transport 1400 students daily in Shakopee in 1973. Four of the women were six-year veterans at the helm of a 60- or 66-passenger bus: Mickey Baden, Shirley Marek, Madge Olson, and Grace Schmitt. The newest addition to the group was Kay Grimme.

Kay drove the 15-passenger minibus for special education students from Lydia, St. Joe, and Glen Lake. When she announced her decision to drive a bus, Kay’s friends told her she was nuts. “After deciding to drive I went to tell my family, expecting them to tell me I was nuts, too, but they all encouraged me.”

Agatha Margaret Mickey Barlau Baden was born May 17, 1938. Her parents were Rev. Werner Carl Barlau (1906-1974) and Margaret Selma Jeske (1906-1990). Mickey married Donald Duane Baden, and they lived on Eighth Avenue in Shakopee, between Main and Spencer Street.

In 1973, Mickey had the most runs with eight. She started driving the parochial bus to Chaska and joined Shakopee in 1970. Mickey said she would recommend the job to others but added that you had to be mentally and physically strong.

“It’s a good job if you want to be home when the kids are,” said Shirley. She was encouraged to try bus driving by her husband, who had driven bus before coming to Shakopee.

All the women agreed that they were as capable as driving as the men. “If a man can turn a bus around, a woman can do the same thing,” said Grace, wife of owner Norb Schmitt. It was quite new to have women bus drivers, even though they are good drivers, and have a lot of experience with children.

It was clear that the five women did well, as over time, more women became bus drivers.

Madge mentioned a statement often heard when she told people that she drives a bus. “How can you stand all that noise?” Madge drove five routes a day, and had been a driver since 1966, according to the article, “Drivers in Skirts Handle Local School Bus Duties,” Shakopee Valley News, April 4, 1973. Shirley explained that you learn to block out the noise. Fall and spring are the worst times for noise, according to the ladies, and the night runs are always noisier than the morning.

Kay said you had to have a feeling for kids and be a “patient person,” according to the article.

Responsibility plays a big part in a bus driver’s job. In 1973, there were approximately two hundred people who traveled on any bus per day, and a bus driver had the responsibility of getting these students to and from school safely.

The bus drivers agreed that the parents could help drivers out. Teaching preschoolers how to sit down on a bus, rather than stand on the seats or in the aisle would ensure a safer trip for all.

Other drivers posed another problem to the bus drivers. It seemed that some people just don’t have the time to be behind a bus for a short distance and will pass on the shoulder when buses are stopped at railroad crossing, or hurry through a stop sign to get ahead of a bus.

Bus drivers were required to have a special license which meant a test and physical exam. There were no other special required courses or schooling in 1973. Some drivers participated in a workshop sponsored by the Traffic and Safety Center at Mankato State College held at the Chaska Senior High during March 1973, according to “Drivers in Skirts Handle Local School Bus Duties,” Shakopee Valley News, April 4, 1973.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Jane Lamont was around 13 years old. She spoke the Dakota language. She did not speak English.

She was born Jan. 11, 1827. It was 1840, now, and Jane’s mother, Haŋyetu Kihnaye Wiŋ (Hush the Night) was Dakota. Jane’s grandparents were Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa and Caŋ Paduta Wiŋ of the Bde Maka Ska band who lived in the southern shore in Minneapolis. Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa was also known as Cloudman, and Caŋ Paduta Wiŋ was known as Red Cherry Woman.

Jane’s father, Daniel Lamont, married Haŋyetu Kihnaye Wiŋ à la façon du pays around 1824. He married a second time to Margaret, daughter of Markpeemanee, or Walking Cloud, a Sisseton leader in 1827. Besides Jane, Daniel had two sons, Colin and Charles.

Daniel died in 1837.

In the spring of 1840, Samuel Pond was planning to abandon the Lake Harriet mission. Haŋyetu Kihnaye Wiŋ had known the Ponds while living in their father’s village called Ḣeyate Otuŋwe, or the village at the side. It was near a marshy area, later called Lake Calhoun, and now known as its original name, Bde Maka Ska.

Haŋyetu Kihnaye Wiŋ asked Samuel to take Jane and raise her with the Pond family. This fluidity of family comes from Indian tradition. “This had always been a part of active life, this ability to hand over a child to a sister, or to someone else, to raise for a while if you’re having trouble,” said author Louise Erdrich.

Jane lived with Samuel and Cordelia Eggleston Pond, as well as Gideon and Sarah Poage Pond at Oak Grove and at Shakopee for 13 years. She learned English.

In 1847, Samuel, Cordelia, and family, along with Jane Lamont, moved to Tínṫa Otuŋwe, which Samuel named Prairieville.

Moses Starr Titus met Jane while at Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun).

On March 14, 1850, at the age of 21, Jane married Samuel Pond’s nephew, Moses.

In the fall of 1851, Moses came to the residence of his uncle, Rev. Samuel W. Pond, Jr., and spent the winter in Prairieville.

In the fall of 1852, Moses and Jane, along with their first child, Seymour Starr Titus, built a house. In 1860, the house was moved two blocks west and a little north. The land for the cabin was the area that Jane bought from land scrip from the government.

Moses and Jane had four children, three sons and a daughter: Seymour Starr (1851), Henry Harlan (1854), Moses Starr (1858), and Jane Marilla (1866). Moses and Jane were involved in the founding of the Presbyterian Church, and they took an active role. Jane was remembered as a woman of kindness and mercy. As a wife and mother, she was true and tender, and as a mother she exerted all a mother’s love and watchful care.

Moses was a farmer. He also organized one of the first schools in the Minnesota River Valley.

Moses and Jane quickly prospered on their new homestead.

Moses Starr Titus, for 26 years a resident of Shakopee and 34 years an inhabitant of Minnesota, died Sept. 22, 1878. He was 58 years old.

Jane Lamont Titus died March 26, 1899, at age 72. She was buried at the Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Mary Brown Griffin was born around 1825 in Virginia. She was enslaved. Like many other African Americans at that time, little is known about her past.

One thing we know is that at some point, either by skill or luck, she became a free woman in Philadelphia.

Once she was in Philadelphia, Mary met and married James Griffin in 1849. Mary and James moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where James worked as a steamboat builder.

One of the steamboats that James helped build was the Minnesota Belle. When it was ready, James and Mary and their children Richard, Martin, and Estella, were on the steamboat in the beginning of May, ready to locate at the new town near Blue Earth, Minnesota Territory.

As Mary looked around the Minnesota Belle, she saw several African Americans working on the steamboat. African Americans traveling on the western waters were quite common. Some free Black people, as well people who were enslaved, worked on the steamboats, many as firemen, stewards, and chambermaids.

African American travelers occupied a different status from that of the white people on board. Some African American enslaved people traveled with their masters and mistresses, sleeping on trundles in their owner’s private cabins, and where they could take care of errands. Most of the people on the Minnesota Belle were probably immigrants from other countries who moved to the United States. Free Black people, such as Mary Brown Griffin, were not allowed in the private cabins, however, but had to travel on the lower deck.

Captain Humberston had christened the steamboat the Minnesota Belle, and he loaded the boat with immigrants intended mostly for his new town near Blue Earth. He hoped the new town would become the chief city of the valley. Mary and James and their children were not immigrants but decided to move west in 1854.

To the captain’s great chagrin, Humbertson’s new boat failed to climb Little Rapids, near Carver, and he abandoned the river, townsite, and all, in disgust.

The Minnesota Belle landed in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory, in May 1854, after they failed to get over the Carver rapids. “The boat was from Pittsburgh, bound for the upper part of the valley, and its being obliged to discharge its large cargo of freight and passengers here established Shakopee’s reputation as the head of navigation. This incident was used to good advantage by citizens to secure new settlers,” said William Hinds.

Mary and James and their family were part of the new settlers staying in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory, from 1854 until 1856. According to the Wright County Heritage Herald, James worked as a carpenter with Daniel Storer and then was a teamster by 1856. He had wagons and teams in Sha K’ Pay, and he helped immigrant families settle in the territory.

In an article in Minnesota Historyabout Emily O. Goodridge Grey called “The Black Community in Territorial St. Anthony: A Memoir,” Grey, an African American in Minnesota Territory, mentioned James and Mary Brown Griffin. On page 53, she said, “In 1855 there came from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, James Griffen, wife, and children, first locating at Shohope (Shakopee), afterwards taking up land near Buffalo.”

Mary and James made a claim on the shores of Lake Mary, outside of Buffalo, Minnesota. By the 1860s, James started a stagecoach line. He had a daily stage route between Buffalo and Monticello, and three times a week from Monticello to Minneapolis.

Near Buffalo, two more children were born, Guilford and Louisa.

Mary Brown Griffin died Aug. 22, 1882, of cholera sporadic. Cholera is a bacterial disease that is usually spread through contaminated water. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and dehydration. It is easily treated today with a simple and inexpensive rehydration solution. But in 1882, something like this probably was enough to cause Mary to die.

Mary was buried at St. Joseph Catholic Church, which in 1881 was at the corner of Second Street and Tenth Avenue North in Minneapolis. It was a wooden building, 35’ x 80’, and serving one hundred German families. Both Fr. Salzeder and his assistant, Fr. Bader, served there. According to the Minneapolis Evening Journalon Aug. 22, 1882, Mary E. Griffin was buried from this church.

What is remarkable is that Mary was African American, not German. And she was probably not Catholic. However, her sons, Martin and Frank (Franz) lived in the vicinity of the church. The other members of the family who lived in Minneapolis included her other children, Richard H. Griffin, Estella Griffin Wilkin, and Louisa Griffin James.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

In Edward D. Neill’s book, History of the Minnesota Valley, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, in 1882 remembers “…a hired girl of William Holmes….” In William Hinds, in his book, An 1891 Sketch of Shakopee Minn: Historical and Industrial mentions “…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 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, and the History of the Minnesota Valleyby Rev. Edward D. Neill and an article about Shumway in the Dec. 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 Shumway (1852-1946), Hester Shumway (about 1854-1860), Mary Ella (1855-1895); and Susan (Susie) Shumway Allen (1867-1945).

By 1869, Emerson and Mahala located land 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 Feb. 6, 1909, in Logan, Clackamas County, Oregon. He was buried at Logan Pleasant View Cemetery in Oregon City, Oregon.

The Oregon City Enterpriseon May 7, 1909 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.”

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

John Shoto was born in Wabasha in March 1798.

After being in Wabasha for 25 years, he joined the Red Wing band for 15 years.

Leaving Red Wing, John came up the Minnesota River where he became a leader of the Dakota band, along with Ṡakpedaŋ in Tínṫa Otuŋwe until the US-Dakota Conflict.

After the US-Dakota Conflict, he became a scout from 1862-1870, working with Henry Hastings Sibley.

In 1872, Shoto returned to Shakopee as leader of the Little Six band.

Shoto was smart.

He used to stop at various houses of rich people in downtown Shakopee. He would ask for food.

If the housekeeper was there, she filled his plate with lots of food, and Shoto was happy.

When the woman of the house answered the door, the rich woman would look disgusted and just gave him two pieces of bread and little more.

Shoto would point to his throat, and gesture that he had a sore throat, and then he would leave.

He knew that he could find something better at other houses, where the people were friendlier!

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.”

John Shoto died January 24, 1899, at age 100. He died at 3 p.m. at the Indian settlement on Indian Road on the north side of the Minnesota River in what is now Eden Prairie. His wife, Anna, survived him, and died at age 90.

The funeral was at St. Mary’s Church, and he was buried at Valley Cemetery. Their daughter, Caroline Moore, died as an infant in 1830 and is buried at the potter’s field at Valley Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Sophia de Levie was born May 17, 1919, in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Sophia’s father was Samuel Benjamin de Levie (1879-1943), and her mother was Frouwkje Frieda Simons de Levie (1883-1957).

Sophia’s grandfather was Nochum de Levie (1841-1891); her great-grandfather was Benjamin Nochums de Levie (1810-1889); Sophia’s great-great-grandfather was Nochem Benjamin de Levie (1780-1836); her great-great-great-grandfather was Benjamin Heiman de Levie (1744-1828); and Sophia’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was Heiman Meyer Heinemann de Levie (1703-1782).

Sophia’s parents lived in Oude Pekela, Pekela Municipality, Gröningen, Netherlands. Gröningen is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. It borders Friesland to the west, Drenthe to the south, the German state of Lower Saxony to the east, and the Wadden Sea to the north. It was a farming area.

After Samuel and Frieda married on March 2, 1904 in Sappemeer, Hoogezand-Sappemeer, Groningen, Netherlands, they moved to Oude Pekela, where their first two girls, Ettie, or Stella, and Helena Lena de Levie were born. Then their first son, Nathan, was born May 21, 1909, but died Dec. 30, 1909.

Two years later, Samuel and Frieda, along with Stella and Lena, moved to America.

The family moved to Marion Township, in Linn County, Iowa. The U.S. Census said that the area was agricultural, just like the area in Gröningen, with about 725 people there. During the time in Iowa, Samuel and Frieda had two more children, Mary, who was born Dec. 1, 1913, and David, who was born Oct. 27, 1915.

Not long after, the family moved to Shakopee, Minnesota. And on May 17, 1919, Sophia was born. The U.S. Census for Shakopee in 1920, which had 1,988 people, lists the family, including Benjamin, Sophia’s father, who was 40 years old and a livestock broker; Frieda, his wife, who was 37 years old; Stella, who was 13; Lena, who was 11 years old, and both born in the Netherlands; Mary, age six, who was born in Iowa; and David, age three, who also was born in Iowa. And finally, the U.S. Census noted Sophia de Levie, who was eight months old, who was born in Shakopee. The family was Jewish.

About a year later, the family moved back to the Netherlands. Maybe the family missed the relatives who lived there. Or maybe they found that the United States was not that welcoming to them. Or it could be for many other reasons. But it was clear that on May 11, 1921, a son, Simon de Levie, was born in Hoogeveen, Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Netherlands.

The family lived in the Netherlands without many problems until Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), an Austrian-born German politician, rose to power as leader of the Nazi Party, where he became the Führer in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland in 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims. The Netherlands entered World War II on May 10, 1940, when invading German forces quickly overran the country.

After the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, it became a transit camp for Jews who were being deported to the Nazi concentration camps in middle and eastern Europe, and later to extermination camps.

The Holocaust in the Netherlands was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in the German-occupied Netherlands. In 1939, there were some 140,000 Dutch Jews living in the Netherlands, among them some 24,000 to 25,000 German-Jewish refugees who had fled from Germany in the 1930s. Some 75 percent of the Dutch Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust, according to Wikipedia.

Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to German-occupied Poland and Germany began on June 15, 1942, and ended on Sept. 13, 1944. Ultimately, some 101,000 Jews were deported in 98 transports from Westerbork to Auschwitz (57,800; 65 transports), Sobibor (34,313; 19 transports), Bergen-Belsen (3,724; eight transports) and Theresienstadt (4,466; six transports), where most of them were murdered, according to Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Johann Baptist Albin Rauter (1895-1949) was a high-ranking Austrian-born SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads) functionary and war criminal during the Nazi era, according to Wikipedia. He was the highest SS and police leader in the occupied Netherlands and therefore the leading security and police officer there during the period of 1940-1945.

Rauter sent progress letters to Himmler informing him that “in all of Holland some 120,000 Jews are being readied for departure.” These “departures” that Rauter spoke of were the deportations of Dutch Jews to concentration and extermination camps.

The de Levie family, like most Jewish people in the Netherlands, were forced into concentration and extermination camps in Poland, including the Jewish girl who was born in Shakopee.

Simon, Sophia’s youngest brother, died Sept. 30, 1942, at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Sophia died Jan. 21, 1943, at age 23 years old. She died at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Oświęcim, Powiat oświęcimski, Małopolskie, Poland. On the same day, her older brother, David, died at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Sophia’s father died at the Sobibór Concentration Camp on May 28, 1943 in Sobibór, Lubelskie, Poland. Sophia’s sister, Helena Lena, died June 4, 1943, at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and another sister, Ettie, or Stella, died there June 4, 1943. And the final sister, Mary, who was born in Iowa, died Jan. 28, 1944, also at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

And so, Samuel Benjamin de Levie, and his six children all died in the Holocaust, including the one child who was born in Shakopee, Minnesota, Sophia de Levie.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Chinese immigrants in the 19th century struggled to make a home for themselves in the United States. Despite harsh immigration restrictions and job discrimination that persisted well into the 20th century, Chinese people managed to put down roots in all parts of the country.

The first Chinese immigrants arrived in Minnesota in the mid-1870s. The first Chinese immigrant to arrive in Minnesota was Wang See Ling who arrived in 1875. He was one of the first Chinese entrepreneurs. Chinese entrepreneurs started restaurants, stores, import shops, and hotels and businesses not just in the Twin Cities, but in Stillwater, then a lumber town, the Iron Range, Duluth, and ten smaller towns, including Shakopee. By the late 1880s more than one hundred Chinese men had entered the state, with most settling in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth, and the rest scattered in smaller towns. In Shakopee, the first documentation of a Chinese person in Shakopee was in 1892.

In 1890 in Shakopee, the Oriental Hotel was downtown on Second Avenue, between Lewis and Sommerville streets.

It was probably not used in a derogatory way. It was just something to use for anything Asian, whether that’s food, a business, a person, an idea. But it is not a word used today. “We use Asian, or Asian American, now,” said Kat Chow in an NPR interview. “That term’s been outdated for a long time.” Kat Chow notes that it is cringe-inducing and sinister at its base, kind of like “chink” meant to box one group away for another’s comfort. It makes one think of the caricatures of grinning Asian men with ponytails and buckteeth. In fact, the term oriental is no longer used by federal laws. It is not a word to use today.

It could be that the Chinese American man who lived in Shakopee in 1892 worked at the Oriental Hotel or may have been a cook there. Most Chinese Americans were either laundry men or restaurant workers. But there is no information about this person, including his name. He was just listed as “oriental.”

In 1878, someone came to Shakopee to convince people to have telephones. The “telegraphy” system was operating by February 1879, connecting Strunk’s Drug Store, the depot, Fr. Alois Plut’s residence, and the courthouse. By 1882, several local dwellings also got phones. Hines noted that they were “a nice plaything for little boys at either end.”

Having a telephone that called long distance did not happen until 1892.

C. Joseph Strunk stepped to the back of the Old Drug Store on the north side of First Avenue and rang the bell, making the first long-distance phone call in September 1892. He called the Noyes Brothers and Cutler at St. Paul, by way of Minneapolis.

The booth at the back of the store was the first and only for several years, of long-distance service.

An Asian American man, the only one in Shakopee at that time, would call to a friend in Minneapolis, according to Julius Coller II. The Chinese American used to yell loudly to make sure it went through, and many white men at the store would wonder if he would just open the door of the booth, the singsong conversation would reach its destination easier than over the wire!

Family life developed slowly in Minnesota’s early Chinese community and elsewhere in the United States, due to the restrictions of the immigration law, Chinese tradition, and the high cost of trans-Pacific travel.

Most Chinese people in the United States, and in Minnesota, were men.

Liang May Seen was the first woman of Chinese descent to live in Minnesota when she moved here with her husband in 1892. Woo Yee Sing, a Chinese businessman from Minneapolis, was looking for a wife, and he found Liang; they were married that summer, and she moved with him to Minneapolis. She overcame an impoverished childhood in China and teenage years spent in a San Francisco brothel to become a respected leader in the Chinese immigrant community in Minneapolis.

At least six Chinese American families were established in Minnesota before 1910. The Chinese American man in Shakopee, as far as what the Shakopee Heritage Society has learned so far, never did find a wife in Shakopee. But he did have family members and friends in Minneapolis. The weekly calls to Minneapolis were probably a lifeline for the man from Shakopee, and an opportunity to speak his primary language with others.

The 1930s and 1940s brought violent upheavals in China and were difficult times for Chinese Minnesotans, concerned for their relatives and for the future of their homeland. After World War II, Chinese American communities and businesses flourished in Minnesota. By 2002, Chinese immigrants and their descendants in Minnesota numbered more than 18,000 people. In Shakopee, about 10 percent of the people are Asian American. Of those, about 55 people are Chinese Americans.

And the first documented Asian American in Shakopee was the Chinese American who called his friend in Minneapolis at the Strunk Drug Store in 1892.