Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Reflecting on 9/11, eleven years later September 11, 2012

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My then 8-year-old son drew this picture of a plane aimed for the twin towers a year after 9/11 for a school religion assignment. He was a third grader in a Christian school at the time and needed to think of a time when it was hard to trust God by drawing a photo illustrating that time. To this day, this drawing by my boy illustrates to me how deeply 9/11 impacted even the youngest among us.

IF I WAS IN MY HOMETOWN today I would visit the cemetery just outside of Vesta, to the north along the gravel road and atop the lone hill which rises ever so slightly in a sea of ripening corn and soybean fields.

I’d walk the rows until I found the gravestones of the Kletschers, mostly clumped together, close still even in death.

I’d pause at the tombstones of my paternal great grandparents and grandparents, my father and then, finally, my Uncle Mike, the bachelor uncle who was like a second father to me and my five siblings. He lived the next farm over, farmed with our father and joined us for everyday meals and holidays. His inherent curiosity is a trait I possess.

Uncle Mike died on September 5, 2011, and was buried just days before 9/11.

Today thousands will visit graves of those who lost their lives on that horrific day 11 years ago when our nation was attacked by terrorists.

My uncle had never, as far as I know, been to New York or Washington D.C. or Pennsylvania, never traveled much. He stuck close to the prairie, close to the farm, close to the land he cherished with the depth of love only a farmer can possess.

I miss him and grieve his death with a depth of grief that comes only from loving someone deeply.

Today, on this the 11th anniversary of 9/11, countless family and friends and co-workers and others will grieve with a depth that comes from loving deeply. They may grieve privately or at public ceremonies marking the date nearly 3,000 innocent individuals lost their lives.

Some will travel to that field in Stonycreek Township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, where the passengers of Flight 93 fought back against those who would terrorize this nation.

It is the one place I can most relate to in the whole horribleness of this American tragedy because my roots reach deep into the land. Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, a rural community of 250 in the Laurel Mountains of western Pennsylvania with a population 100 less than my Minnesota hometown.

None of this diminishes the significant impact made upon me by the terrorist-directed planes slamming into the twin towers or the destruction wreaked upon the Pentagon in urban settings.

But big cities—even though I’ve been to New York once in my life many decades ago while in college—are unfamiliar terrain, skyscrapers as foreign to me as a silo to a city-dweller.

A lone plane crashing into a field, plowing into the earth, that I understand.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Meet Bob, the opinionated farmer from Madelia September 10, 2012

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I met Bob Michniewicz  and his wife, Judy, selling their woodcrafts at the recent Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show. He wouldn’t allow me to photograph his art, except for a single sign and a single cow, not wanting others to steal his ideas. However, a few other crafts got into the photo when Bob obliged my request for a portrait.

OCCASIONALLY YOU MEET a character, and you know it just looking at the person, before lips even part to utter a single syllable.

I knew, just knew, Bob Michniewicz was a character when I saw him and his set-up at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show in rural Dundas. With kitschy wooden lawn ornaments—you know the kind—and wind chimes and eye-catching messages defining his space, Bob was bound to be interesting.

Just look at the poster Bob leaned front and center against a support post for the tent under which he and his wife of 50 years, Judy, were peddling their wares.

Bob was gauging interest in this sign with plans to print it on vinyl and sell it should interest run high.

Naturally, I asked Bob about that message. Seems he’s a bit worked up about all the non-farm folks moving onto farms in his area and then complaining about noise or smell or dust and such from working farms.

“Farmers were here first,” he emphasizes. And that, in this retired farmer’s opinion, should settle any matters of dispute.

All around him, Bob views the ever-changing rural Minnesota landscape. Within a three-mile radius of his farm (the home place) 3 ½ miles from Madelia, only four farmers remain. The rest are people living on the building sites.

Therein, according to Bob, lies the problem. “People don’t know where farm stuff comes from.” I’m not sure I understand what he means, but I think I do and Bob doesn’t allow me to interrupt this rather one-sided conversation.

Bob just steamrolls forward, asking if I know that potatoes in stores are sprayed to keep them from sprouting. (I don’t know this and check later to see if Bob, who is a gardener, is right, and apparently he is, although I’m not saying all potato growers, all stores, follow this practice.)

He looks me directly in the eye and says: “Next time you eat mashed potatoes, you may as well take a shot glass of Round-up with a beer chaser.”

Like I said, Bob’s a character, and an outspoken one at that.

Bob certainly possesses a sense of humor, as seen in this bovine lawn art.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The winter whisperers September 8, 2012

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I CAN HEAR THEM. The whisperers.

They rustle through the cornfields, fingertips brushing brittle leaves.

They swish through the tall prairie grasses, hips not just swaying, but sashaying, in the bending breeze.

Their voices drone like a billion buzzing busy bees.

In the woods, I strain to hear them as my flip flops crunch leaves strewn upon the path. I know they are there, hiding among the trees.

When two bikers pedal past me, the whisperers think I cannot hear them whispering. But I can.

At 4:28 in the morning, when the owl’s hoot awakens me from sleep, I cannot hear the whisperers. But I feel their chilling presence slide through the open bedroom window, brushing my bare shoulders with icy fingers.

They cloak themselves in glorious golden robes…

hide among the grasses…

tempt me with wine.

Their distractions and disguises don’t fool me. I hear them whispering of winter in these early days of autumn.

FYI: All of these photos, except the vineyard and the cornfield, were taken at the River Bend Nature Center in Faribault on Monday, September 3. The other two were shot a day earlier east of Waterville.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A short photo essay of a tractor parade, rural Dundas, Minnesota September 7, 2012

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The Oliver was the featured tractor in this year’s Rice County Steam and Gas Engines Show, rural Dundas, Minnesota.

They start ’em driving tractors young. Not to worry; an adult was on the tractor, too.

And younger…

And as young as six weeks old. Doesn’t baby Kelly/Kelli (not sure on the spelling) look just like her dad?

Tractor buffs of all ages, and with all types of tractors, join the parade.

The parade of tractors and other vehicles just goes on and on.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Warning: I am about to ride in a parade September 6, 2012

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MY HUSBAND WOULD HAVE jumped on the invitation without hesitation.

But I held back, reluctant to accept Harold Martin’s offer to ride in the Rice County Steam and Gas Engines Show parade. You see, I’ve never ridden in a parade and I feel more comfortable on the audience side where I can blend into the crowd, hidden behind my camera.

So, initially, Randy and I declined and told Harold we’d catch up with him if we changed our minds.

Harold Martin of rural Northfield with his 1948 Dodge truck outfitted with a 1960 Civil Defense siren.

“I don’t want to do it,” I reiterated after Harold and his friend, Gabe, drove off in Harold’s 1948 Dodge truck with a 1960 Civil Defense siren mounted on the back and a rescued-from-the-side-of-the-road sofa planted behind the cab.

That would be our parade spot, on that cream-colored, canopied couch.

I just couldn’t picture myself up there, acting like I was the queen of something or other.

But then Randy said, “Let’s do it.”

And just like that I caved to peer pressure and we headed down the dusty gravel road behind and between tractors, pulled the swimming pool ladder from the back of Harold’s truck, scampered up (well, not quite scampered) and began our tour along the parade route.

My sofa seat view of the parade route as the Civil Defense siren swings my way. I covered my left ear (I’m deaf in my right) every time the siren passed by my face. These warning sirens were used from 1952-1970, Harold tells me.

And you know what. Except for the rotating and screaming air raid siren swinging uncomfortably close to us on the couch, the whole experience was simply a hoot. I shot photos and watched the faces of audience members who mostly smiled, finding the humor in Harold’s quirky, movable warning system.

About that Harold. He calls himself an opportunist, not only scooping up the freebie couch, but also saving the outdated and scrapped 1960 Civil Defense siren. His nephew was about to toss it.

“Somebody should keep one of these,” he remembers thinking before doing just that, then repairing the siren and mounting it on the back of his vintage Dodge. He showed me a photo from 1952 of a siren, like his, attached to a truck. The portable warning system was used in Seattle and had a range of eight miles.

Harold’s siren, obviously, doesn’t have that range or volume.

The U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center replica is housed in the box, right. And there’s the pool ladder Randy and I used to climb onto the back of the truck.

He does have, though, a missile warning system in place. Or, more accurately, he has a U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center, purchased on e-Bay for $50, attached to the rear of the flatbed. The 1963 Marx toy set shows a guarded scene of U.S. missiles ready to launch against the Soviet Union.

Remember the Cold War school drills of hiding under your desk and covering your head with your hands? Pretty silly, huh?

But then so is settling onto a recycled couch and riding on a make-shift Civil Defense truck in a rural Minnesota parade. Who cares, though? Apparently not me.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

In Faribault: Scholar to address Lincoln’s response to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 September 5, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:26 AM
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A Lincoln postcard which a collector brought to a Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable meeting several years ago.

THE FIRST TIME I ATTENDED a Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable meeting nearly three years ago, I arrived expecting to view slave documents. The presenter, however, left the papers at home and brought, instead, memorabilia specifically related to Abraham Lincoln.

He did not disappoint. I viewed vintage postcards and original photos of Lincoln, Civil War buttons and replicas of Mary Todd Lincoln’s White House china, among many other items.

An 1840 Philadelphia Derringer, like the pistol used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

What impressed me the most, however, was the collector’s 1840 Philadelphia Derringer, exactly like the pistol with which John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln. The weapon was nearly small enough to hide in the palm of my hand.

Visuals like that teach me more about history than any textbook ever will. So do guest speakers. They address the monthly meetings of the Roundtable whose 25 members are interested in preserving and interpreting the Civil War.

Now the Faribault-based Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable is bringing in a scholar of Abraham Lincoln to kick off its eighth year as an organization. You needn’t be a Roundtable member to attend; I’m not.

Bryce Stenzel of Mankato portraying President Abraham Lincoln. Stenzel, among other things, directs Lincoln’s Traveling Troupe, a group of students and community actors who bring Lincoln’s life and legacy to life via a dramatic, living history portrayal and authentic re-enactment.

Bryce Stenzel of Mankato, who developed a first-person portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in 1989 and since has traveled around the country presenting, will present “1862: Lincoln Trials by Fire” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 20, at the Faribault American Legion, 112 Fifth St. N.E.

He will address, Stenzel says, “the ‘State of the Union’ as it existed in 1862 and Lincoln’s response to the U.S.- Dakota War, against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the issuance of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862.”

It’s a timely topic given this year marks the 150th anniversary of the U.S. – Dakota War.

Specifically, Stenzel details, his upcoming program “is a means for Faribault to acknowledge its unique connection to the U.S. – Dakota War by paying homage to its native son, Bishop Henry Whipple. Even though no fighting took place in Faribault, your community played an active role in influencing the final outcome.”

This historian, who has authored eight books on local historical and Lincoln-related topics, possesses an advanced history degree and has taught social studies/history at all levels, including college, has long taken a personal interest in the U.S. – Dakota War. His great-great grandmother and her two-year-old daughter escaped a band of Dakota warriors by hiding in tall prairie grasses. And his great-great grandfather served with the Fifth Minnesota Regiment and fought in the decisive Battle of Nashville in 1864.

Stenzel grew up in Mankato, where 38 Dakota were hung in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. President Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 265 Dakota.

Says Stenzel:

The central question of my presentation is why did Lincoln feel compelled to intervene at all, when he didn’t have to? In fact, from a political standpoint, Lincoln committed political suicide—most Minnesotans at the time believed it was both right and necessary to hang the Indians as a means of preventing such a tragedy from ever happening again. It is useful for the modern audience to consider that what was “politically correct” in the 19th century, is no longer. Historical interpretation changes with time.

Dan Peterson, a member of the Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable who has heard Stenzel speak, fully endorses him: “(Stenzel)) reminds me of my love for Abraham Lincoln just to be in his audience or close to him. Lincoln is on our money, our named streets, one state capitol, highways, buildings, businesses, cars and more. You just cannot get away from him.”

FYI: Tickets to the dinner and program are on sale now at the Rice County Historical Society in Faribault or from Chuck Peterson (507-301-2470), Jan Stevens (507-244-0500) or Dan Peterson (507-459-3140). Cost is $22 for non-members and $20 for paid-up members of the Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable.

Tickets for the meal of pork ribs with trimmings must be purchased by Saturday, September 8. The event begins at 5 p.m. on September 20 with a social and then dinner at 6 p.m.

If you want to attend just the Lincoln presentation by Stenzel, the cost is $10 for adults, $5 for students 16 and older, and free for those under 16. The program begins at 7:30 p.m.

The Cannon Valley Civil War Roundtable meets the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Faribault Senior Center with a speaker at each meeting. In October, the topic will be the New Ulm raid as part of the U.S. – Dakota War; in November, the Antietam Battlefield; and in December, the annual Civil War food potluck (probably with possum soup, hardtack and more, Peterson promises).

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Bryce Stenzel photo courtesy of Bryce Stenzel

 

Threshing oats at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engine Show September 4, 2012

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Grayden Moorhouse of Randolph holds freshly-threshed oats.

GRAYDEN MOORHOUSE unfurls his palm, revealing some two dozen oat kernels before dropping several into my hand.

He wants me to try them, to separate the meat from the hull with my teeth and spit the shell onto the ground.

I try, without success, and then he hands me a single kernel already hulled.

All the while I am thinking this:

I shoveled plenty of oats in my day growing up on a dairy and crop farm. And why would I want to eat raw oats, which I associate with cattle feed?

But Grayden is one of those guys who seems convincing and I like the strong sound of his name and, heck, what’s life without trying something new occasionally?

So I eat the single oat kernel and that is enough for me. I’d rather eat my oats in oatmeal.

Now that I’ve ended that introductory narrative, let’s follow the path of how those oat kernels ended up in Grayden’s hand via this photo essay from the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show this past weekend in rural Dundas.

Shoveling the raw oats into the conveyor system.

An overview of the threshing equipment and process of separating the oats kernels from the stem.

Bill Becker of rural Northfield mans the Minneapolis Moline which powers the threshing operation.

More shoveling of oat bundles, a dusty, dirty job.

The dust flies as men and machine work.

Plenty of farmers and retired farmers watch, remembering…

While horses plow a nearby field (left), the threshing crew continues working.

And the straw pile grows.

Finally, meet Grayden Moorhouse, whose strong name, it seems to me, belongs in a western.

FYI: Please check back for more posts from the steam and gas engine show. You’ll meet one interesting character and an incredible teen, plus ride along with me on the back of a truck.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

In which I learn a lot about the James-Younger Gang bank raid in Northfield September 3, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:52 AM
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CHRISTIAN HAKALA WEAVES the story of the bank robbery with the skills of a seasoned storyteller, his voice rising as the tension mounts, his hands gesturing, his eyes locking with those of a rapt audience.

Looking through a front window of the Northfield Historical Society museum toward Division Street.

It is Sunday afternoon and I am with a small group touring the Northfield Historical Society. I have come here with my husband to view the temporary U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 exhibit as it relates to Rice County.

The James-Younger Gang re-enactors riding in The Defeat of Jesse James Days parade perhaps five years ago.

But I find myself, instead, captivated by Hakala’s intriguing play-by-play account of the James-Younger Gang bank robbery of September 7, 1876, as he leads us through the historical society and into the bank. I am embarrassed to admit that I’ve never visited this museum, site of perhaps the most historic bank robbery in U.S. history, even though I live only 15 miles away and once worked briefly as a newspaper reporter in this town.

This week some 100,000 visitors, according to Hakala, are expected in Northfield for the annual Defeat of Jesse James Days celebration September 5-9.

Christian Hakala talks about gang members involved in the Northfield bank raid, pictured to his left: Frank and Jesse James; Cole, Bob and Jim Younger; Clell Miller; William Chadwell; and Charlie Pitts.

The former history teacher, and now a fund raiser at Carleton College in Northfield, serves on the historical society board, volunteers as a tour guide and role plays a townsperson in the annual re-enactments of the bank robbery. His knowledge of the crime is precise, right down to the minute on the original bank clock, stopped at 1:50 p.m., the time of the deadly and unsuccessful robbery.

The front of the original First National Bank of Northfield. I didn’t photograph the entire building as the sidewalk in front of the bank was torn up and blocked for installation of sidewalk poetry.

It was all over in seven minutes with four shot dead, including acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood who refused to allow the robbers into the vault; Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson; and outlaws Clell Miller and William Chadwell.

The gun confiscated from Cole Younger when he was captured two weeks later near Madelia. I shot this glass-encased weapon in available light, without a tripod and without flash, meaning quality is not there in this image.

Not until the end of the tour does Hakala reveal that efforts are currently underway to exhume and determine if the presumed body of gangster Miller, buried in his home state of Missouri, truly is Miller.

Hakala explains: Then-medical student Henry Wheeler, who shot Miller from an upper story level of a building across the street from the bank, dug Miller from his grave and shipped the body from Northfield to his Michigan medical school for dissection and study. Later, Wheeler would return the supposed body of Miller to his family in Missouri. But, as the story goes, Wheeler kept a skeleton, purported to possibly be Miller, in a closet of his Grand Forks, N.D., medical practice office. That skeleton is today owned by a private collector.

The Miller family, Hakala says, is cooperating in proposed plans to positively identify the body buried in Missouri via forensic testing. The body was badly decomposed and thus not identifiable by the time it was received by the Miller family for burial.

Wheeler’s actions, Hakala further says, would not have been all that unusual for the time period with a likely attitude of “I killed the guy. He’s mine.”

This recent development simply adds to the mystery and drama and varying versions of events and details which have long accompanied the James-Younger bank raid in Northfield. Hakala, a northeastern Minnesota native who has also lived and taught in Missouri, knows how perspectives and stories differ based on source locations.

Yet, Hakala assures that the minute-by-minute account he relates of the actual bank robbery is based on the eyewitness testimony of a bookkeeper, collaborated by a teller who also witnessed part of the hold-up.

The only portion of the original bank you’ll see in this post is to the right in the background, caught when I was photographing this display case in the adjoining museum space which is in a separate building.

I can’t possibly share with you here the entire scenario Hakala presented in his tour on Sunday. Nor can I show you images, because photography is not allowed inside the original First National Bank of Northfield. But I can tell you that walking upon the very same rough floor boards trod by outlaws with a 10-year history of successful raids on trains and in banks, eying the massive black vault (closed, but unlocked at the time of the crime) and seeing blood stains on the bank ledger makes an impression.

These two items in a display case caught my attention. On the right is a note written by Cole Younger the day before his trial. When asked who killed Joseph Lee Heywood, he answered. “Be true to your friends if the Heavens fall.” In other words, he wasn’t telling. To the left are spurs worn by outlaw William Chadwell, who was shot and killed on Division Street during the raid.

However, here are some select pieces of information presented by Hakala which I find particularly interesting:

  • Jesse and Frank James’ father was a Baptist minister.
  • The James-Younger Gang invented the “stick ’em up” bank hold-up, conducting the first bank raid during daylight business hours, in which no war was going on, in Northfield.
  • One theory surmises that the James-Younger Gang was trying to get back at the Union by robbing banks.
  • In following with that anti-Union theory, Hakala notes that Union General and post Civil War provisional governor of Mississippi Adelbert Ames was a member of the Northfield family—coincidentally Jesse Ames and sons—which owned the local Ames (flour) Mill. Adelbert’s father-in-law was Benjamin Butler, a Union general much-despised by Southerners. This could explain why the gang targeted Northfield since the Ames’ family had money in the First National Bank.
  • While there was $15,000 in the Northfield bank vault, the outlaws made off with only $26.70 in cash, and not from the vault, which was protected by hero/cashier Heywood.
  • The unarmed Heywood was shot out of frustration and “cold-blooded meanness” (Hakala’s words, not mine). He was also slit across the throat, just enough to scare him, and pistol-whipped.
  • Northfield townspeople were throwing cast iron skillets, tossing bricks and aiming birdshot at the trapped gang members as they tried to ride away from the narrow canyon-like street setting in Northfield.
  • A posse of some 1,000 people formed to track down the gang.  The three Younger brothers were shot and captured in a gun battle at Hanska Slough near Madelia. Charlie Pitts was killed there. Frank and Jesse James escaped to Missouri.
  • Jesse James was killed by a friend and fellow gang member, Robert Ford, in 1882 for the reward money.
  • Postcards featuring photos of the dead outlaws, Clell Miller and William Chadwell, were sold to the public after their bodies were taken to a professional photography studio in Northfield and photographed.
  • It is written into a lease on an apartment across the street from the original First National Bank that re-enactors can use the apartment each year for bank raid re-enactments. An actor is stationed in the upper level room to portray medical student Henry Wheeler shooting, and killing, Clell Miller.

Another shot of the James-Younger Gang re-enactors riding in The Defeat of Jesse James Days parade several years ago.

If you wish to witness the seven-minute bank raid re-enactment, this is the week to do so. Performers will shrug into their long linen dusters, tuck their sidearms in place, saddle up and shoot it out at the Northfield Historical Society Bank Site & Museum, 408 Division Street in downtown Northfield.

Re-enactments are set for 6 and 7 p.m. Friday, September 7—the actual date of the robbery—and at 11 a.m. and 1, 3 and 5 p.m. on Saturday and at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.

A copy of a wanted poster posted next to the front door of the museum.

For a complete listing of The Defeat of Jesse James Days activities, click here.

For more information about the bank site and museum, click here.

The front of the museum. If you look underneath the white steps, you’ll find three holes ringed in black, supposedly bullet holes made during the raid. It’s conjecture with nothing proven, according to Christian Hakala, who has his doubts about the holes being made by bullets. That’s Division Street on the left.

The original Ames Mill, once owned by Jesse Ames and sons, and today owned by Malt-O-Meal. It’s located around the corner and across the river from the bank. The company’s hot cereal is made here in the old flour mill.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

New exhibit highlights Rice County in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 September 2, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:52 AM
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IT IS EASY TO FORGET SOMETIMES, because I grew up in the region of Minnesota where the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 was centered, that residents of the county in which I now live also played an integral role in the conflict.

Specifically, Rice County residents Bishop Henry Whipple and Alexander Faribault, after whom my community of Faribault is named, are key persons often noted in historical information written about the war.

I am always surprised that relatively few people from outside of southwestern and central Minnesota know so little about the bloody, six-week war between the Dakota and the white settlers and soldiers given it is a major, defining event in Minnesota history.

An overview of 1862, Through Rice County’s Eyes, which opened August 22 in Northfield.

However, awareness has grown considerably this year on the 150th anniversary of the war, including right here in Rice County. The Northfield Historical Society, partnering with the Rice County Historical Society, is currently showcasing an exhibit, 1862, Through Rice County’s Eyes.

I recently checked out the Northfield exhibit, which features mostly memorable quotes, volumes of summarized information and copies of photos. It’s a lot of reading.

But if you’re interested in educating yourself, it’s worth the time and concentration needed to absorb the information presented in this exhibit. And I’ll admit to occasionally skimming the postings because I am more of a visual, multi media, show-and-tell kind of history learner. I also had a pretty good background of knowledge going into the exhibit.

This sculpture of Alexander Faribault trading with a Dakota trading partner stands in Faribault’s Heritage Park near the Straight River and site of Faribault’s trading post. Faribault artist Ivan Whillock created this sculpture which sits atop a fountain known as the Bea Duncan Memorial Fountain.

I knew, for example, that fur trader Alexander Faribault was one-quarter Dakota and married to Mary Elizabeth Graham, whose mother was a family member of a Dakota chief. I knew, too, that Faribault was involved in the negotiating and translating of land treaties between the government and the Dakota before the war and that he benefited financially.

I was aware that Alexander Faribault sheltered the Dakota.

Above the photos and info is this quote by Bishop Henry Whipple to President Buchanan in August 1860: “In my visits to them, my heart had been pained to see the utter helplessness of these poor souls, fast passing away, caused in great part by the curse which our people have pressed to their lips.”

But I had forgotten that Bishop Henry Whipple, a long-time advocate for the rights of the Dakota and known to them as “Straight Tongue,” worked to find a safe refuge for them in the city of Faribault.

Alexander Faribault opened his land to the Dakota. Information in the exhibit states:

This land was the only safe-haven of its kind in a state now prejudiced in fear and anger against anyone with Dakota blood.

According to info in the exhibit, Alexander Faribault, whom you recall was one-fourth Dakota, also experienced prejudice against him. By 1869, this once successful fur trader, flour mill owner and politician had to sell his land and assets, including the land occupied by the Dakota.

Equally interesting is the quote, below, attributed to Mary Whipple. Even though her husband, the bishop, worked tirelessly to help the Dakota, fear still existed in his home community.

A quote from a letter written by Mary Whipple to her sister during the U.S.-Dakota War.

Perhaps the most interesting fact I learned relates to that of Lt. Rollin Olin, a decade-long resident of Northfield. He was second in command of the Third Minnesota Regiment at the Battle of Wood Lake—the final battle of the war—and a member of a five-man military tribunal which tried the Dakota following the war. He signed more than 300 death sentences for nearly 400 Dakota charged with murder, rape and/or robbery.

For me, that raises the obvious question: How could someone who fought against the Dakota judge them without bias? All members of the tribunal, in fact, had fought the Dakota. The answer, of course, is that Lt. Olin and the other four could not.

Likewise, the Northfield Historical Society is wisely careful to indicate that its new, temporary exhibit may not please everyone or include everything on the topic of Rice County’s connection to the war. On the NHS website, you’ll read this disclaimer:

As varied as these and other local perspectives may be, any exploration of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 suffers from the inevitable limitations facing every historical examination—limitations such as scope and biases, past and present, which impact the telling and perception of the stories and data. In presenting the exhibit 1862, Through Rice County’s Eyes this fall, NHS endeavors to draw visitors into thoughtful interest and discussion of this momentous event and its aftermath by sharing local connections. Come and critically examine this exhibit.

The exterior of the Northfield Historical Society, 408 Division Street, Northfield.

FYI: To learn more about 1862—Through Rice County’s Eyes, click here to the NHS website.

To learn more about the Minnesota counties, county by county, involved in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, click here.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling