Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022
John Tudantoiciya Bluestone was born in 1835 in the territorial era of Minnesota, the son of Candeskamani and Blue Eyes Anptuokiyewiŋ.
John Tudantoiciya Bluestone married Haliestone Anna Josephine Makahdegawiŋ Allen. John moved to Eagle Creek (now part of Shakopee) in 1856. The Federal Census and the Minnesota Census show that they lived in Eagle Creek, and the Scott County Plat Map of 1898 show that they were farming in Eagle Creek area.
John spent a lot of time hunting, trapping, and fishing, often with a neighbor, Ed Gilkey. They both enjoyed the fun, and both enjoyed telling stories.
An article in the Minneapolis Journal on May 20, 1901 discusses Ed, who was a storyteller and fisherman in the area. According to the article, “Ed’s versatility is only equaled by his disdain for one who would sacrifice a good story for the sake of veracity.” Ed was a hunter, trapper, fisherman, carpenter, farmer, and woodcutter. He was found by the author of this article in 1901. Ed was fishing from an exposed rock, surrounded by water, off Clark’s point.
“How are they biting, Ed?” the author asked.
“Middlin’ well, considerin’ I ain’t took a drink in a month.” Ed’s philosophy was to drink every time a fish is landed.
“Say, Ed,” the author said, as his boat grated against the rock, “you spin that yarn you’ve be telling about the snake skin, and I’ll let you wet your whistle with some sure-’nough moonshine from old Kentuck.”
“Well, mister, jes’ let me sample that air moonshine – I ken tell it by the small, all right – and I’ll tell you ‘bout the truest and strangest thing that ever was.”
As Ed put a fresh shiner on the hook and contaminated the clear water with a streak of tobacco juice, he said, “You’ve heard of that old Injun, John Bluestone, who used to be ‘bout these parts, I reckon?” Ed was talking about John Tudantoiciya Bluestone, who was living and farming in Eagle Creek. “Wa’al, old John and me used to do a pile of huntin’, trappin’, and fishin’ together away back in the sixties (1860s), and I reckon we was ‘bout as chummy as a white man and an Injun ever got.” Of course, the use of “Injun” is not very nice, and should not be used, but this was written in 1901.
“We had a cabin out in the brush about a mile west of the old Injun reservation.” (This would be the “Shakopee Sioux Reservation” often shown in post cards. But the place was not a reservation (the Otherday family bought the land), and is actually not in Shakopee, but across the river, in East Shakopee near Memorial Park, on the north side of the river in Eden Prairie, at least it showed the location.
”One night – I disremember the month ‘cept it wuz late fall – arter I had stowed the supper things away and was settin’ afore the fire, sorter softenin’ up one a full belly and a pipe of good terbac, old John comes in with a pack of bacon and flour on his back. He’d been into Shakopee, and wuz chuck full of firewater and fight. He rummaged around and got some grub; then he lit his pipe and laid down on his bunk.”
John told Ed that some Anishinaabe (sometimes called Ojibwa) had been to Shakopee and there was a fight. One Anishinaabe had stolen a Dakota woman. Then John mentioned that he had a woman, who was Catholic, and was a sweetheart with John. “Guess me get married,” he said.
“I didn’t give a hang if the Injun did get married, so I says: ‘Go ahead, John, jes’ the thing yer want to do.’ Wa-al, the next mornin’ he went back to Shakopee and I moved up to Fish Lake, leavin’ the cabin empty.
“‘Bout a week afterwards, I wuz fishin’ at the lower end of this lake and I caught a corkin’ big pickerel. I toted him over to my Fish lake shack and cut him open, and darned if he didn’t have small-sized prairie bull-snake inside of him – that’s what I thought it wuz, anyway, until I examined it and discovered that it wuz a snakeskin purse, jes’ like old Bluestone had, and inside that air purse wuz one of these hitching certificates – yer know one of them papers a feller gits when he gets hitched to a gal. I made out the names, John Bluestone and Annie Iron Toe (Haliestone Anna Josephine Makahdegawiŋ Allen), and the next day I struck out fer the shanty and found John and wife livin’ together.
“I shoved the paper under his nose, and I never seen an Injun get so goldarned crazy. Annie, too, she spluttered around in Sioux and white folks’ lingo (Dakota and English), fit to kill.
“After everyone quieted down, and John said, ‘Blackcoat marry me en Annie; much talk good medicine; me put paper me get from paleface chief in skin of snake and make big walk for tepee, take canoe cross lake, Annie she hold skin of snake, drop it in water. Heep big pickle swallow mighty quick; me no thing get back.’”
It is a great story, though it may have been exaggerated!
By 1900, John and Haliestone moved to Paxton, in Redwood County, Minnesota, where John Tudantoiciya Bluestone died in 1904 in Morton. He was 69 years old.
Haliestone ended up in Flandreau, South Dakota, where Annie enjoyed being around friends and family.
Haliestone Anna Josephine Makahdegawiŋ Allen Bluestone died on April 24, 1910, in Flandreau, South Dakota, having lived a long life of eighty years.
Bibliography
Minneapolis Journal, 20 May 1901.