Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Zillah Worsley was born on March 31, 1855, in Paris, Ontario, Canada, the daughter of Joseph Theodore Worsley (1832-1894) and Jane Jennie Bonnamy Worsley (1837-1914). Zillah’s grandparents were Joseph Worsley (1810-1895) and Teresa Thirza Bean (1812-1905) and James Bonnamy (1795-1895) and Jane Joan Easterbrook (1796-1861), according to Shakopee Jackson Family Tree at ancestry.com.

When Zillah was 15, she and her family moved from Canada to Illinois. Zillah then married James R. Jackson, who was also from Canada. James was born on June 26, 1855, and died on January 14, 1918, in Chicago. His parents were George Jackson (1832-1896) and Mary Bonnamy (1830-1915).

Zillah and James, both 25, lived in Shakopee, Minnesota in the U.S. Census in 1880, along with their one-year-old daughter, Reinie Zillah Jackson (1879-1929). By 1890, the family moved to Oak Park, Illinois.

That would be all that the Shakopee Heritage Society knows about Zillah, except for an article in Shakopee Argus in 1880. The article was titled, “A Brave Woman and a Baffled Burglar.”

“The city contains one lady – nothing disrespectful to the other ladies is intended – that she may feel proud to claim as a citizen.

“It is pretty generally supposed that a woman is afraid of three things – a snake, a cow, and a burglar. This is not true as regards one woman, Mrs. Zilla Jackson. The lady lives on Third street in the block immediately West of the Methodist church. Her husband is absent to Winnipeg.

“Lately Mrs. Jackson has noticed two men prowling around her premises.

“Several times she has seen them in the yard, and finally becoming suspicious as to their good intentions, she purchased a revolver to defend herself and the property if need were.”

Monday night she laid the revolver, ready cocked, upon a stand within reach of the bed. During the night she was awakened by a slight noise, and to her extreme surprise saw a man in an adjoining room.

“Grasping her trusty weapon, the plucky little woman quietly arose and stealthily approached the burglar. As she stepped into the next room she saw the man examining articles of value, and in firm tones commanded him to drop them.

“The burglar did drop them, but seized her by the arm.

“At this moment she discovered another man at the window outside and fired at him. The fellow threw up his hands and exclaimed, ‘My God,’ immediately taking to his heels, followed by the burglar in the house.

“Nothing daunted, the brave woman gave chase, and drew a bead on the retreated figure, out of her extreme chagrin the revolver failed to go off, so the burglars did. There is reason to believe the shot fired took effect for the burglar uttered the above exclamation as if in pain. It is to be hoped such is the case, then, maybe, he will hereafter not molest unprotected woman.

“An inventory show that no booty was obtained. A number of silver knives and other valuable articles had been handed through the window to the pal below, but in their precipitate retreat they forgot to leave directions for their disposal. Entrance was gained though the woodshed door, and then into the house. All honor to a brave women! The Argusadmiringly doffs it hat.”

And so that is how Shakopee knows about Zillah Worsley Jackson. Before too long, Zillah and James, along with their three children, Renie Zillah Jackson Smith (1879-1929), Katherine A. Jackson Anderson (1886-1864), and Mary Jane Madie Jackson Utz (1892-1940) were living in Illinois.

James R. Jackson died January 14, 1918, in Chicago, Illinois. Zillah Worsley Jackson died April 21, 1937, in Oak Park, Illinois. But thanks to the Shakopee Argus, all of us know about Zillah, a brave woman who lived in downtown Shakopee.

Bibliography

“A Brave Woman and a Baffled Burglar.” Shakopee Argus, 1880.

“Shakopee Jackson Family Tree.” Ancestry.com.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Wowaka Wa-Pa-Let, meaning Hat in Dakota, was born in the Village of Mendota in 1836. She was also known as Winona Nancy McClure Faribault Huggan.

Wowaka Wa-Pa-Let’s mother was Winona, who was born in about 1818 in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Wowaka Wa Pa-Let’s great-great-grandfather was Ta-temannee or Walking Wind. Her great grandfather was Ma-ga-iyah-he, or Alighting Goose. Her mother’s father was Manza-ku-te-niannee or Walking Shooting Iron.

Winona entered a relationship with James McClure, a white soldier at Fort Snelling, in 1835, and Nancy was the only child of that partnership.

Nancy lived with her mother’s people at Mendota. James, her father, remained in contact with Winona and Nancy until he was transferred to Florida and died there in 1838. The next year, Nancy’s mother, Winona, married Antoine Renville. Winona and Antoine Renville had three other children who were Nancy’s half-siblings: Sophia, Isaac and William Renville.

Nancy grew up at Lac qui Parle after 1839 and attended school at the Dakota mission there. She was baptized into the Christian faith by Dr. Thomas Williamson on November 8, 1840. Nancy’s mother was often not well, and Nancy lived with the Williamsons until they left for Kaposia in 1846, at which time she became part of the Fanny and Jonas Pettijohn family at the Lac qui Parle mission.

In 1851 Nancy went to live with her grandparents at Traverse des Sioux near her uncle Rdayamani (Rattling Walker)’s village. She lived with the Robert and Agnes Hopkins family and attended the mission school there.

Nancy was at Traverse des Sioux in 1851 for a treaty signing. Frank Blackwell Mayer, a writer and artist, drew Nancy’s portrait and described meeting her in his journal: She was “the most beautiful of the Indian women I have yet seen. Her eyes are dark and deep; a sweet smile of innocence plays on her ruby lips and silky hair of glassy blackness falls to her dropping shoulders.”

While at the treaty signing, Nancy, who was 16 years old, married David Faribault, who was almost 35. Frank Meyer described David as a young man when he wrote about Faribault’s marriage to Nancy McClure. David was 19 years older than Nancy, had been married twice before and had several children when he and Nancy wed. In Frank Meyer’s diary, he wrote “She has been courted for a year past in person and by proxy by David Faribault, a young Indian trader of half-breed descent and the ceremony of marriage was yesterday at our camp. Two horses were given for the bride.”

After their marriage, and after Oliver Faribault died, Nancy and David moved to the newly established town of Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory where David continued to trade with the Dakota Indians. They lived in a house below Oliver Faribault and Wakan Yaŋke Wiŋ’s log cabin in the eastern part of what is later Shakopee. They stayed for two years.

During this time, David tried to create a settlement along the Faribault Springs that would rival the newly established town of Shakopee. “Though he succeeded in gathering a little colony of French half breeds about him, he was finally obliged to abandon his scheme as useless,” said Neill.

David Faribault, Sr. didn’t die until November 18, 1887, but in the 1880 Federal Census, Nancy is identified as Nancy Huggan, and is living with Charles Huggan in Flandreau, South Dakota.

It appears, however, that the so-called romantic marriage between Nancy and Charles did not last, according to Lois Glewwe. In 1902, an Indian School Service report on Indians living at Flandreau records the following in Nancy’s entry: “62 years old, receives rations. She has a worthless white husband. She has no land and lives with John Eastman [her son-in-law].”

Wowaka Wa-Pa-Let Winona Nancy McClure Faribault Huggan passed away on August 6, 1927, at Flandreau at the age of ninety-one years.

According to Lois Glewwe, “Her life had spanned the earliest days of the Dakota mission in the 1830s, through the U.S. Dakota War of 1862, the arrival of the railroad, the advent of the airplane and the dramatic events of World War I. Throughout the span of her long life she had also dealt with the reality of her birth and learned how to live within both Dakota culture and white Christian culture, always trying to find the best path.”

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Witch-e-aim was around 15 years old in early 1844. Witch-e-aim’s father was another chief named Mock-ah-pe-ah-ketah-pah (although some people said that Witch-e-aim’s father was Wapahaṡa).

The name of Witch-e-aim is closest to the Dakota word wićíte, “the human face,” although like some of LaFayette Houghton Bunnell’s other names, it is highly corrupted. The name “Face” could allude to her beauty and seductiveness. The name may also be a corrupted front formation from Wićítokapa, “the eldest born,” although this posits such a degree of corruption as to defy probability.

In 1844, a special celebration was happening in Wapahaṡa’s band. They assembled, and after elaborate preparation and sanctification of the ground by invocations and incense, the chief speaker came forward, and in a sonorous address of lauded the virtues of chastity and warned against the sin of bearing false witness.

Wah-kon-de-o-tah, the great war-chief of the band, addressed his warriors in a quiet and affectionate manner, and told his braves to maintain the truth as sacred, and not offend the spirits of their ancestors.

Wapahaṡa then called for the virgins and matrons to come forth, and for some time there was the silence of expectation.

Again, the call was made for any virgin to come forward and receive her reward. Two maidens came partly forward, but upon reaching the line of denunciation, faltered and turned back, probably from modesty. We-no-nah, the wife of the speaker, and eldest sister (or cousin) of Wapahaṡa, motioned to her youngest daughter, Witch-e-aim, to come forward, according to Winona (We-No-Nah) and Its Environs on the Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Days in 1897 by Lafayette Houghton Bunnell.

After repeated calls by the crier of the assembly, Witch-e-aim came modestly forward and was crowned goddess of the feast that immediately followed. Her head was encircled with braids of rich garniture and scented grass, and presents of colored cloths, calicoes, yarns, beads, and ribbons were lavished upon her as the tribe’s representative of purity.

Wapahaṡa said that Witch-e-aim could pick either Lafayette Houghton Bunnell or Thomas A. Holmes, as both allowed royal alliance for the family.

Witch-e-aim said she did not like the trader, and preferred Lafayette Houghton Bunnell. When Bunnell decline her offer, Witch-e-aim withering, silent contempt was clear.

During the feast, Holmes was so enchanted that he decided at once to make Witch-e-aim his wife. Witch-e-aim was allowed to marry European American traders, like Thomas A. Holmes, in the fashion of the country. This means that these marriages were not recognized by law or religion.

The French speaking traders of Canada term for this is a la faḉon du pays. Some people would call them “country wives.”

While many marriages brought loving couples together for the rest of their lives, other marriages were very short-lived or violent. Many traders married native women but also had other wives back home Sometimes when the men retired from the fur trade, they returned to their legitimate, or legally married, wives.

These marriages came with the expectation that trade between the woman’s relations and the trader would be secured, and that aid would be mutually provided in times of need. It was also the hope of the woman’s family that the trader’s generosity would increase after the marriage took place.

The marriages between these two groups would lead to the creation of the Métis people, who would be considered the offspring of the fur trade.

So, Thomas A. Holmes gave Wapahaṡa an offer that he accepted. Based on this, Witch-e-aim then picked Thomas A. Holmes. It happened around 1844.

Thomas A. Holmes then married Witch-e-aim a la faḉon du pays. They were married in the fashion of the country and lived together.

But Witch-e-aim did not like living with Thomas A. Holmes. She was 14 years old, while Tom was forty. Witch-e-aim did not enjoy living at his trading post at Wah-ma-dee, or Eagle Bluffs. It was later called Holmes Landing, and later was called Fountain City in Wisconsin. She missed the Winona prairie in what was later Minnesota.

Like a caged bird, she soon pined for her Dakota prairie home. By the spring of 1845, while flowers bloomed, Witch-e-aim died of consumption.

And that is what the Shakopee Heritage Society learned about Thomas A. Holmes’s second marriage, and the sad experience of Witch-e-aim of the Wapahaṡa’s prairie.

Bibliography

Bunnell, Lafayette Houghton. Winona (We-No-Nah) and Its Environs on the Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Days in 1897, 2013.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

From professional baseball player and internationally known prized pigeon breeder to sheriff, Wilmer Bryan “Rip” Schroeder is one that people remember.

Wilmer, called Rip, was born on December 12, 1908, in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents were Frederick M. Schroeder (1885–1914) and Johanna Hannah Henriette Hamann (1886–1926).

Rip Schroeder played baseball, basketball, and football in high school in Omaha. In 1927, when he was 18, he signed a professional baseball contract with the St. Louis Browns of the American League. He spent 13 years playing minor league baseball. He was a member of the 1937 Columbus, Ohio, team that won the American Association pennant and playoffs.

Rip married Viola Iona Sudmann (1905-2005) on May 1, 1931, in Union, South Dakota. Vi was the daughter of Wilhelm Henry Friedrich Sudmann (1869-1943) and Wilhelmina Marie Felton (1872-1948).

Rip played nine seasons as a minor league player, in Sioux City, Omaha, Des Moines, and Knoxville area.

Schroeder joined the sheriff’s department after he injured his pitching arm.

Schroeder was sheriff of Scott County from 1951 to 1971, a county record. He was deputy sheriff for nine years before that and worked for the State Sheriff’s Association as executive director for nine years after his retirement. In his five successful bids for sheriff, Schroeder was more often praised by his opponents than criticized. George Mankowski, who lost to Schroeder in 1962, called him “one of the best sheriffs in the state,” said an article in the October 25, 1986 Minnesota Star and Tribune.

In 1953 Schroeder was elected president of the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association, according to Scott County’s “History of the Sheriff’s Office.” Sheriff Schroeder was responsible for modernizing the sheriff’s office in many ways, including purchasing the first marked patrol car, implementing uniforms for deputies and himself (which made Scott County the first Minnesota County outside a metropolitan area to have uniformed sheriff’s deputies), overseeing the building of the Scott County Public Safety Building in 1959, purchasing a patrol boat, and starting a radio dispatch headquarters for Scott and Carver counties.

In 1955 Schroeder attended the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia, according to Hennepin County Sheriff Don Omodt. “For a sheriff in a rural county to attend the FBI academy … and graduate with honors … was an inspiration. The sheriffs of Minnesota owe him more than they can repay.”

“The other side of Rip is that he was perhaps one of the most respected lobbyists the Minnesota Legislature had the pleasure of working with in the years he represented Minnesota sheriffs. He was a gentleman … He was a diplomat,” said the October 25, 1986 Minneapolis Star and Tribune.

Although receiving numerous honors and awards in law enforcement and civic contributions, among his friends, Rip was known as “Giant of the Pigeon World.” Rip was a prolific writer of articles on the King breed of pigeons. He was past president of the National Pigeon Association and the American King Club and was secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota King Club for 25 years.

Rip Schroeder was also past president of the St. John’s Lutheran Church council and congregation in Shakopee and a member of Faith Lutheran Church.

Wilmer Bryan “Rip” Schroeder died of cancer at age 77 in Gaylord, Minnesota on October 23, 1986. He was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee. Rip’s wife, Viola Iona Sudmann Schroeder, died on December 32, 2005, and was buried near her husband at Valley Cemetery.

Bibliography

“History of the Sheriff’s Office.” Scott County. www.scottcountymn.gov/1520/History-of-Sheriffs-Office.

Minnesota Star and Tribune, 25 Oct. 1986.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Kids in the 1950s had different sets of leisure time choices than those today. In the 1950s, kids used to do a lot of hunting, fishing, trapping, and other outdoor activities. It was common to see youngsters with their own guns, and wandering around the Minnesota River bottoms in and around Shakopee.

The kids didn’t have a lot of money, so they didn’t always have money for shells for their guns.

However, the bounty system in the city helped. An office for this purpose was maintained by the City on Second Street by the old City Hall, and at the Pelham Hotel. Various critters that were vermin had a bounty place on them, and bringing the expired animal and giving it to the city received an award. This happened from the 1930s until the 1950s.

A box of 22 caliber shorts cost 50 cents at that time. It contained 50 rounds. For hunting rabbits, squirrels, and other game, 22-caliber longs were much better, but the cost was double. For hunting rats, the shorts were adequate.

The boys would buy shotgun ammo at the hardware store. It was 25 shells to a box, five in a row of five shells. It worked as 50 cents per row.

The store owner would put the kid’s name on a box then sell them one row at a time. Since the Great Depression to the 1950s, the boys could not afford to buy the whole box. Many boys would buy a row of ammo and then hunt the river bottom creeks and woods for rabbits, ducks, quail, pheasants, and other small game. This was to augment the family food supply. With just five shells for a seven-day week, the boys learned to shoot well.

The bounty was five cents for a rat. The kids had to bring in the tail in to claim the bounty. This worked well for both parties and kept the employees paying the bounty. It worked well because the rats that roamed the river bottoms and the dumps that were along the river would be destroyed.

Over time, the city would give the children and young adults ten cents for each rat.

The one problem was that the employees didn’t like to have rat tails laying around the office. They would dispose of them in the alley in the garbage can. The kids were smart. They knew that if they waited a few minutes, they could stop in the alley and get the same tails back. The next day, they could bring the same rat tails in and get a second bounty on the same tails.

William “Willy” Carl Rein was born on May 3, 1941, in Shakopee. His parents were Christian Charles “Carl” Rein (1910-1992) and Alice Marie “Minnie” Siebenaler (1912-1999). Willy’s grandparents were Christian Peter Rein (1878-1951) and Anna Mary Neural Rein (1888-1942); and Franklin Fritz Siebenaler (1879-1961) and Maria Sophia Gelhaye Siebenaler (1872-1945). His great-grandparents were Johannes John Rein (1848-1887) and Margaret Hoch Rein (1847-1930); John Joseph Neuzil (1855-1938) and Mary Kopek Neuzil (1860-1916); Mathias Mathew Siebenaler (1838-1910) and Anna Katherina Beljong Siebenaler (1844-1944); and Nicholaus Gelhaye (1831-1900) and Katharina Sifted Schutz Gelhaye (1841-1913).

And Willy loved shooting rats.

The rat tails were not something that rotted quickly, and could have been used repeatedly, but most kids just used it just one additional time. With the money, the kids kept supplied with 22 shorts for more bounty hunting, and an occasional box of 22 longs for rabbit and other game hunt. And the idea worked!

But Willy Rein was smart. He realized that the dump, which is now on the west side of The Landing in Shakopee, was running out of rats.

Willy thought and thought. And then he realized that he could go to Chaska. He could go to Chaska, shoot some rats, and then return to Shakopee to receive the ten cents for the rat tails.

And he did, repeatedly, until the workers in Shakopee noticed that the rat tails were from Chaska, not Shakopee rats! So, the city decided to stop paying for the rats.

The rats were from Chaska, and students in Shakopee used to have a rivalry with Chaska and called them river rats! (Of course, Chaska did the same thing with Shakopee!) So even though Shakopee got rid of the rats, the rats in Chaska remain!

As for Willy? He eventually got married to Mary Jane Vierling. They married on September 11, 1965. Mary Jane’s parents were Markus Joseph Vierling (1916-1972) and LaVerne Elizabeth Kerber Vierling (1921-2012). Her grandparents were Joseph Peter Vierling (1873-1947) and Josephine Mathilda Wampach Vierling (1886-1978); and Joseph Paul Kerber (1892-1969) and Josephine Williams Kerber (1894-1982). And Mary Jane’s great-grandparents were Heinrich Henry Vierling (1841-1920) and Anna Margaretha Rein Vierling (1845-1909); Nickolas Karl Wampach (1857-1898) and Susanna Lander Wampach (1858-1933); Aloysius Anthony Kerber (1859-1933) and Elizabeth Ann Lizzie Schutrop Kerber (1867-1953); and Wilhelmus William Williams (1858-1951) and Ida Mary Neutgens Williams (1863-1959).

William “Willy” Carl Rein and Mary Jane Vierling Rein continue to support Shakopee sports teams. Though they no longer go out and shoot rats, they still support the Sabers against Chaska, and their grandchildren, when going to the Chaska Theatre, always remember to keep their feet up to prevent the river rats who run beneath their feet in the theatre! For sure!

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Southerners who were settler-colonists in in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory in 1857 brought generations of slavery’s history with them. One family who moved to Sha K’ Pay and later Shakapee City was the Garig family.

In fact, the Garig family participated in the transatlantic slave trade. According to a book, Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State by Dr. Christopher P. Lehman, “At the dawn of the nineteenth century, an eight-year-old African boy disembarked from the slave ship Success to a new world in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.”

At least fifty-five “slave ships” and “ships with slaves” entered the port of New Orleans between 1804 and 1808, including ten in 1806, including Success, the ship that included enslaved people bound to Louisiana, according to Jean-Pierre Leglaunec’s article, “Slave Migrations in Spanish and Early American Louisiana: New Sources and New Estimates” in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association.

“After months of writhing in the vomit and waste of his fellow captives in the vessel, he stood in iron restraints on dry land. He heard the auctioneers speaking quickly, and then a man took him away from the auction and brought him to a plantation,” said Lehman, on page 61-63 of the book, Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State. The boy became enslaved on July 6, 1806, and the captor who called himself the boy’s master was George Garig, according to “Louisiana, U.S., Records of Enslaved People, 1719-1820.”

George’s son, Phillip, was just two months old when the enslaved boy arrived on the plantation, but as Phillip grew into adulthood, he acquired his own human chattel in East Baton Rouge. According to Lehman, Phillip had 16 enslaved people of his own by 1850.

In the mid-1850s, Phillip and his family abandoned the parish and moved to Scott County in Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory. George M. Garig, his son, arrived a few years earlier, and bought land here.

Before he left and moved to Minnesota Territory, Phillip sold his plantation and the enslaved people who lived there. An advertisement in the Baton Rouge Weekly Gazette and Comet on January 26, 1857 noted:

“The attention of persons desiring negroes and lands is directed to the advertisement elsewhere of Phil. Garig, Esq. His place is handsomely situated, and his fruit trees are of the best species.” In the notice by Garig himself, according to Lehman, announced “I will sell at public auction, in the town of Baton Rouge at the Court House door, on the 14th day of February next at 11 o’clock a.m., a like lot of CREOLE SLAVES, as follows – Five women, two men, and five children…(and) an undivided tract of land…containing 640 acres,” said Christopher P. Lehman in Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State (p. 62).

Phillip also established the terms of the sale: “The slaves and land, one-third cash, the balance in one and two years from day of sale, with good endorsed notes, and mortgage retained until final payment. Persons desirous to purchase the back, the stages, or land, can see me at my Amite plantation, previously to the day of sale.”

The 1857 Census of Shakopee included Phillip Garig, age 53, from Louisiana, his wife, Jane E. Garig, age 45, from Kentucky, William W. Garig, 18, Ann, age 15, Margaret, age 11, H.H. age 5, and M.M. age 3, all born in Louisiana.

Three generations of Garig members moved to what later became Shakopee, with Spier Spencer selling $7,300 land between 1855 and 1860 to the Garig family. The Garigs owned a greater portion of the town and the family remained here for generations, according to Lehman (p. 62).

One of their grandsons was William Wallace Garig, who was born in 1839 in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. He moved to Minnesota Territory with his parents, Phillipo Phillip Garig (1806-1880) and Jane Emerlione Spencer Pierson Garig (1812-1880). Jane’s parents were John Spencer (1774-1820) and Margaret Bruce Spencer (1774-1851). The Spencers, like the Garig family, had enslaved people working in Kentucky.

Before the Civil War, William lived in Minnesota. He was known by the Confederate soldiers as “Minnesota Bill” because when the Civil War started, he wanted to get to Louisiana to fight for the Confederate Army. There was no steamboat heading south, and so William got in a skiff to the headwaters of the Mississippi River and came down the river all alone in his boat to join the Confederate Army, according to the Times-Picayune article, “William Wallace Garig Dead: Traveled from Minnesota to Louisiana in a Skiff to Fight.”

He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862 at Camp Moore in Louisiana, entering Company A of the 11th Louisiana Infantry Regiment.

William later married Susan Beatrice Freeman (1840-1915), who was from East Feliciana Parish. They married on February 21, 1866, in East Feliciana Parish. Their children were William Wickliffe (died in August 1931), Idalia Inda (died in March 1906), Mercedes Melville (born on July 18, 1877, and died on July 17, 1957), George Gardiner (died in November 1961), Lillian Louise (died on July 8, 1935), Rukins R. (died on October 5, 1948), and Edwin E. (died in June 1951). There were other children who did not survive childbirth or childhood.

William had a livestock and animal husbandry business that he operated in Livingston Parish at Cedar Ota. He bred and sold dogs, poultry, pigs, hares, and other animals.

William wrote a lot including Civil War diaries and writings, and his views on the outcome of the Civil War, often criticizing African Americans and expressing white supremacist beliefs, according to William Wallace Garig and Family Collection at the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library at Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge.

William Wallace Garig died on October 23, 1908, and was buried at the Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Bibliography

Baton Rouge Weekly Gazette and Comet, 26 Jan. 1857.

Leglaunec, Jean-Pierre. “Slave Migrations in Spanish and Early American Louisiana: New Sources and New Estimates.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 46, no. 2, 2005, pp. 185–209. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4234106.

Lehman, Christopher P. Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2019.

“Louisiana, U.S., Records of Enslaved People, 1719-1820.” Ancestry.com. www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7383.

Minnesota. Census of 1857: Population Schedules, Scott County, Shakopee. Microcopy T1175. Minnesota Historical Society, 1857.

William Wallace Garig and Family Collection. Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge.

“William Wallace Garig Dead: Traveled from Minnesota to Louisiana in a Skiff to Fight.” The Times-Picayune, 25 Oct. 1908.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

At the location at 128 Holmes Street South in downtown Shakopee was the location of Digital Impact Solutions. In 1917, it was Liu Kwong Kee’s Chinese Laundry. And in 1931, William Nestor Wermerskirchen opened a dry-cleaning business here, not too far from the Minnesota River. He started out with $150, and a dry-cleaning service in Minneapolis. Eventually he started his own production and then got into men’s clothes and then slowly expanded into the store today. William was born on December 24, 1912, in Credit River. His parents were Philip Wermerskirchen and Josephine Mamer. He married Florence Catherine Sauber on September 6, 1937, and moved to Shakopee.

A short time later, after the People’s National Bank of Shakopee, one street over at 138 Lewis Street South in downtown Shakopee, closed in 1931, Wermerskirchen moved his business there. He did laundry for the St. Paul House, the Riviera, and the Shakopee House. In 1956 he bought the bar to the north of his building and the Red Owl Grocery Store (which moved to East Shakopee in September 1961) to expand his clothing business.

William Philip Wermerskirchen, W.N.’s son, worked at the store and later took over in 1978. William Nestor Wermerskirchen died on December 8, 1987, in Shakopee.

Wally Welter recalled, “I remember shopping there while going to high school during the early 1960s. They had great customer service, and it didn’t matter if you were a high school kid or a local businessman.”

Rochelle Brenke Faulkner noted, “My mom doesn’t even live in the area (and hasn’t for quite some time) and STILL stays loyal to Bill’s!”

With more space, the elder Wermerskirchen stocked a full selection of fine clothing. In 1976, the family sold its rights to the dry-cleaners and continued leasing the space to a new owner, who kept it operating. Once Wermerskirchen added a tailor to the mix, Bill’s Toggery became a one-stop shopping destination for men, according to Liz Sawyer from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on December 3, 2014.

The third generation continued the tradition. William “Billy” John Wermerskirchen watched his father restore many of the building’s original features while helping out in high school. It was there, just beneath his grandfather’s massive portrait in the store’s big and tall section, where he watched his father work and where he picked up some of dad’s sales touch, and in 2015 took over the business. The tradition of customer service and small-town charm continues with the high quality, unsurpassed fit, and exceptional service at a fair price for the third generation.

While big-box retailers across the country have put many independently owned clothing shops out of business during that time, Wermerskirchen’s store has survived through a mix of hard work, speedy and specialized customer service, and a small-town charm that suburban fringe cities like Shakopee fight to preserve, according to Liz Sawyer.

Wermerskirchen said the business has thrived largely by branding itself as a multigenerational personal shopping experience. He said he has found success by providing top-notch customer service to older men accompanied by sons and grandsons who often become regulars and remain loyal for life.

If you have gone to Shakopee in the past 89 years, you could have bought fine menswear from William Wermerskirchen, said David Scheller in Eden Prairie Lifestyle. Depending on the decade he may have been the original William Wermerskirchen and founder of Bill’s Toggery, his son William, or his grandson Billy.

“My grandfather took a big gamble opening up a store during the Great Depression,” said Billy. “He started out running dry cleaning back and forth to Minneapolis, grew to sell men’s suits and hats, and eventually invested in his own dry-cleaning facility. He did it all from the same downtown corner where Bill’s Toggery sits today.”

Billy described the trials of keeping a family business alive against all odds. His grandfather managed the enterprise for 46 years; his father was the leader for another 37 years; and he took the reins in January of 2015, after starting work there in 1985.

“I don’t want to knock the big-name chain stores, but they just can’t tailor their business to their customers like we can. I don’t sell clothes I wouldn’t also wear myself, and I won’t try to sell you something just because it’s on our rack,” said Billy. “Owning a third-generation business like mine feels as much like I’m passing down a legacy as I am working a job. I’ve read that the odds of a business lasting as long as Bill’s Toggery are ten against one. I’ve kept up with modern times without sacrificing the small store feel that my customers like. At the end of the day, the secret to selling men’s clothing boils down to the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated yourself.”

Bibliography

Sawyer, Liz. Minneapolis Star Tribune, 3 Dec. 2014.

Scheller, David. Eden Prairie Lifestyle.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

William “Bill” Horace Barnes was born April 13, 1858, in Eagle Creek, in an area now known as Shakopee. He was a baseball player and played center field for the St. Paul Saints.

Bill played starting at the end of the 1884 season. In eight games as the Saints’ starting center fielder Barnes batted .200 (6 for 30) with two runs scored. In the field he recorded eight putouts, three errors, and participated in one double play.

Bill’s grandfather was St. Paul early settler, James Thompson (1799-1884). George Monroe, nephew of President James Monroe, “owned” James in Virginia. Monroe became involved in debt and obliged to part with six of his slaves; among them was Thompson, his brother and sister, and several aunts and cousins. He was then conveyed to St. Louis and from there moved to Fort Snelling as the property of John Culbertson, sutler, in 1827.

James Thompson married Marpiyawecasta Mary Wabashaw Hapah Cloud Man Thompson (1817-1884), who was a Dakota Indian, and James learned the Dakota language.

In the 1830s, James was hired by missionary Alfred Brunson as an interpreter, and the mission purchased his freedom. Thompson, along with his wife, became one of St. Paul’s first settlers and a man of property. He eventually donated materials and money in the 1840s for the construction of St Paul’s first Methodist church.

James and Marpiyawecasta moved to the less-settled area of Sha K’ Pay in 1853, where they lived with the Barnes family in Eagle Creek (now Shakopee). Their children, George and Sarah, lived with them.

Sarah Thompson was married on October 31, 1854, in St. Paul to William J. Barnes, who was born in England in 1829. They moved to the Barnes farm in Eagle Creek, where they had three children: Mary Elizabeth “Libby” Barnes (1855), William Horace (1858) and Lucy Emma (1860). Sarah Thompson Barnes (1837-1875) was Bill Barnes’s mother. Sarah was half Dakota, one-quarter white, and one-quarter African American. And Sarah and William’s son was the baseball player, William “Bill” Horace Barnes!

Bill, whose heritage included African American, Dakota, and white ancestors, became the first professional baseball player who was born in Shakopee! And one of his great-grandfathers was Maȟpíya Wičhášta, or Cloudman, a Dakota leader who lived at Bde Maka Ska, which was called Lake Calhoun for many years, where there was a Dakota farming village.

William “Bill” Horace Barnes married Mary Katherine Smith on February 5, 1882, in Ramsey, Minnesota. Bill and Mary Katherine had two children, both born in St. Paul: Mabel Winona Barnes Auge Sullivan (1885-1957) and William “Henry” Horace Barnes, Jr. (1888-1955).

William “Bill” Horace Barnes died on July 10, 1945, in St. Paul, at the age of 87. He was buried in St. Paul, Minnesota.

But Shakopee will always remember William “Bill” Horace Barnes, the African American, Dakota, and white man who played pro ball in Minnesota!

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

William Weiser was born on March 22, 1830, near Reading in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel D. and Mary Schroeder Weiser.

In 1850, William moved to Illinois, and by 1851 he moved to St. Paul. By 1854, William and his brother, Joel, moved to Shakapee City, Minnesota Territory. With many other settler-colonists who moved here in 1854, they found work. Joel found plentiful work as a mason and plasterer. William was a farmer.

A year later, William’s other brother, Dr. Josiah Weiser, his new wife, Louisa Cleaver Weiser, and his mother, Mary Polly Schroeder Weiser, also moved to Shakapee City. William was a farmer, while his brother, Dr. Josiah Weiser was a Doctor of Medicine and surgery, and his brother Joel was a mason and plasterer.

Mary Elizabeth Allen moved to Shakapee City with her parents, John Boswell Allen (1806-1893) and his wife, Jane Dillard (1809-1885) in 1853. Mary Elizabeth was one of nine siblings, according to “John Boswell Allen and Jane Dillard Allen: Kentucky to Indiana to Shakopee, Minnesota” by David H. Eggler.

William married Mary Elizabeth Allen on August 9, 1857, in Jackson Township in what is now west Shakopee. Mary was born in Spencer County, Kentucky in 1832. Mary and William had three children, Flora in 1857 and Cora Ann (called Annie) in 1859, and John Frank, who was born in 1863, shortly after William, at age 32, became a private in the army in 1862.

William enlisted in the Ninth Minnesota Infantry as a sergeant and served throughout the entire Civil War, retiring as a lieutenant on August 25, 1865.

His brother, Dr. Josiah Weiser, became a surgeon under Colonel McPhail of the Mounted Rangers in the Sibley Expedition, and was killed at Big Mound, Dakota Territory. And the third brother, Joel, enlisted as a member of the Company I, Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, under Captain Straight and Colonel Marsh.

During the war, William helped free 12 enslaved men, who then moved with him to Eden Prairie in 1864 to work on a farm. Ten of the men left, probably not enjoying the weather, but two of the African Americans stayed, including Dan Eddings, an African American who ended up moving to Shakopee.

William, meanwhile, was back with his wife until she died on August 15, 1865. Mary Elizabeth Allen Weiser was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

On September 13, 1867, in Eagle Creek Township in east Shakopee, William married his second wife, Catherine “Kate” Love McCallum. Kate was born on January 3, 1847, at Carleton Place, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. She moved to Shakopee and then married William. Together, they had ten children.

William became a schoolteacher and brick mason. At some point, the family moved to Washington.

Catherine “Kate” Love McCallum Weiser died on January 19, 1901, at age 54. She was buried at Greenwood Memorial Terrace, Spokane, Washington, according to Find a Grave.

Lieutenant William Frank Weiser died in Everett, Washington on September 12, 1919. According to the SDC Newspaper on June 12, 1919, “William F. Weiser, a pioneer G.A.R. man of Spokane, who moved to Everett recently, died there yesterday. He was 89 years of age. The remains were received in Spokane this morning by the Gilman Company. Mrs. Weiser died here about 19 years ago.” The next day, the SDC Newspaper, on Friday, June 13, 1919, noted “The funeral for William F. Weiser, who died Wednesday at Everett, will be held tomorrow at 2 p.m. in the Gilman Chapel. Pallbearers will be from the Sedgwick post, G.A.R. of which the deceased was a member.”

Lieutenant William Frank Weiser, at age 89, was buried at the Greenwood Memorial Terrace on Spokane, Washington according to Find a Grave.

Bibliography

Eggler, David H. “John Boswell Allen and Jane Dillard Allen: Kentucky to Indiana to Shakopee, Minnesota.” Bellefonte Historical and Cultural Association, 10 Sept. 2019. www.bellefontearts.org/Eggler_genealogy/Allen_genealogy.pdf.

JAKE. “Kate Love McCallum Weiser (1847-1901).” Find a Grave, 13 June 2012. www.findagrave.com/memorial/91860411/kate-love-weiser.

JAKE. “William Frank Weiser (1830-1919).” Find a Grave, 14 June 2012. www.findagrave.com/memorial/91914000/william-frank-weiser.

SDC Newspaper, 12 June 1919.

SDC Newspaper, 13 June 1919.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

At the time, the African American population of Minnesota was small. Only about 4,000 of Minnesota’s nearly two million residents were African American, and more than ninety percent of them lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But African American baseball teams did play in Shakopee, including the St. Paul Colored Gophers and the St. Paul Quicksteps.

In 1887, the Shakopee Reserves played against the St. Paul Quicksteps, which was an African American team. “An announcement in the Western Appeal prior to the game on August 20 announced that the Quicksteps were to ‘leave the Union Depot at 8:30, and all who wish to go are invited. Fare for round trip $1.40.’” The Reserves won, 23-4.

One African American baseball player, William “Billy” Frank Williams, played on over twenty teams in the Midwest, including the Chaska White Diamonds, the Knoblauch Lands Carver team, and the Shakopee Browns. He played with the Browns in 1898.

After his baseball play at the Shakopee Browns, he played at Carver and Chaska. In the May 2, 1907 Chaska Herald, the city’s semiprofessional White Diamonds baseball team, named after Chaska’s White Diamond-brand flour, was ready to take the field. And it had a new standout player.

“The most notable addition is that of ‘Billy’ Williams, the great colored first sacker, who played such phenomenal ball at Carver the past two years,” reported the Herald.

Many celebrated baseball players have passed through the area over the decades. However, one of the greatest athletes to wear the Carver and Chaska jersey was William “Billy” Frank Williams according to Mark W. Olson in 2016.

Billy Williams loved playing baseball.

Billy Williams loved sports. As a high school student, he put in star performances in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field.

But baseball was his favorite.

Billy Williams was born on October 24, 1877, in the shadow of the state capitol in St. Paul. His father was George Williams, of West Indian descent, who migrated from New York to St. Paul. He was a steward on a steamboat line that made frequent runs between St. Louis and St. Paul, where he met Barbara Smith Williams, whose parents were immigrants from Germany.

Mark W. Olson, in an article in the Chaska Herald in 2016, noted that by the turn of the century, Williams’s name was popping up in the daily newspapers as a standout Twin Cities baseball player.

Billy was a popular amateur baseball player in Minnesota. He was also asked to join the Baltimore Orioles. Of course, they did not want him to play as an African American player. They wanted him to pass as an American Indian to avoid racist opposition. They assured Williams that it would be easy to for him to impersonate an Indian because he was “light complexioned, has an aquiline nose, and straight hair.” But Billy was extremely proud of his heritage, and he did not want to ignore the African American part of him.

While Billy loved baseball, he realized that it might not be in the cards. In 1904 Governor John Albert Johnson offered Williams a position as an assistant in the governor’s office.

Billy finally decided to assist the governor. Billy was a great athlete, but he also wanted to do what was right. Williams was adept as an administrator and based on his mother’s wish to take care of his family, Billy served 14 Minnesota governors for over 53 years.

Williams’s legacy was made outside of the baseball diamond.

“I don’t want to take anything away from his baseball, because they said he was a great baseball player, but I think his influence at the State Capitol helped change things,” noted Frank M. White in the book They Played for the Love of the Game.

On November 13, 1963, Billy Williams passed away following a long illness.

The flags on all Minnesota State buildings were flown at half-mast in his honor. He had retired in 1957 after spending 52 years (1904-1957) as the executive aide to 14 consecutive governors.

Bibliography

Chaska Herald, 2 May 1907.

Olson, Mark W. Chaska Herald, 2016.

White, Frank M. They Played for the Love of the Game. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016.