52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Final Prompt: Resolutions

 

My 2021 Research Resolutions

 

I have just completed my second year of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, and it was a success—I completed 57 blog posts in 2020 that related some important and fascinating pieces of family history. And I had a blast researching and writing them.

So my first resolution for 2021 is to join the 2021 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program. I can’t wait to see what I discover next year, and how I can craft those discoveries into interesting blog posts for my family. I hope to complete all 52 weeks just as I was able to do this year.

My second resolution is to expand my research from just my family to my husband’s family as well. I hope to alternate crafting posts about his ancestors with those about my ancestors. There are some fascinating characters in his family tree, and I need to record some of those stories.

My third resolution is to do more work preserving family photos and letters. I need to work on scanning the originals in my files, converting them to digital files that can be shared by family members. As 2020 has shown all of us, we don’t know how much time any of us has, so I had better ensure these items are accessible to others in our family.

And my fourth and final family history resolution is to do more work transcribing my 9^th great grandfather Francis Dane’s Commonplace Book. I am eager to understand more of what he recorded nearly 400 years ago in the early years of Andover, Massachusetts.

Due to COVID and the stay-at-home orders, 2020 turned out to be a very productive year for my genealogical research. I hope that 2021 is equally productive, but also finds us able to return to our normal lives as soon as vaccinations can reach all Americans.  

Goodbye, 2020. On to a more healthy and happy 2021.   

Jerome Dane and the Dakota War of 1862: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Witness to History”

Captain Jerome Dane, the Minnesota Ninth Regiment Company E and the “Sioux Uprising”

Jerome Dane: 1828-1908

 

            My brother-in-law recently contacted me after listening to a public radio program about the Dakota War of 1862 and the mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota of 38 men from the Dakota tribe, the largest mass execution in American history. Knowing that I grew up just miles from Mankato, he wondered if I had ever heard of this tragic event. Oh, yes, I responded. I am very familiar with the Dakota War and the hangings in Mankato. I had learned about it as a child, when the war was referred to as the “Sioux Uprising.” But I was more familiar with it because my second-great-grandfather, Captain Jerome Dane, fought in the war and commanded one of the units that provided security at the execution. He was an eyewitness to a sad and ugly piece of history.

Captain Jerome Dane--1863 Civil War Photo courtesy of Minnesota Hist. Society

           The Dakota War of 1862 began in August of that year. The government had, as usual, reneged on the terms of treaties signed with the Dakota tribes, pushing them off their lands to make room for settlers and leaving the Dakota desperate and starving. After some young Dakota men were involved in a violent confrontation with some settlers, the Dakota went to war, attacking the mostly European immigrants who were homesteading in southern Minnesota. Over the next few months, somewhere between 400 and 800 settlers were killed, including women and children. The lightly defended forts in the area of the uprising, including Fort Ridgley near New Ulm, received reinforcements from the Minnesota Volunteer infantry units, which had been forming in response to the Civil War. The infantry units eventually defeated the Dakota people, leading to their expulsion from Minnesota and the horrific mass hanging in Mankato on December 26, 1862.

            Jerome Dane was born March 3, 1828 in Genesee, New York. His father died when he was only seven, and times were difficult for his mother and siblings. When he was a young man, Jerome and his brothers moved westward in search of a better life. They first settled in Wisconsin, where Jerome married a young woman from Wisconsin, Mary Jane Mills, in 1853. Jerome was then 25 years old. At some point in the later 1850s, Jerome moved his young family to southern Minnesota, settling in Blue Earth County not far from Mankato, where he took up farming.

            Jerome was also interested in the military life. He had served as a lieutenant in a militia, so when it was time to begin recruiting Minnesota men to serve in the Civil War, Jerome volunteered and was commissioned as a Captain in the Minnesota 9^th Infantry. Since he lived near Mankato, he was placed in command of Company E, which was being formed there. When the Dakota War began, this new unit was close to hand and were sent by to defend the German community of New Ulm about twenty miles distant.

The town of New Ulm was then the largest city in that part of Minnesota, with 900 residents. As terrified settlers fled the Dakota, the town’s population ballooned to nearly 2000. It was a repeated target of attacks by the native fighters, and over the course of several weeks nearly 190 structures in the city were burned. The town was evacuated at least once, but residents returned and came under attack again.

Attack on New Ulm: 1904 Oil Painting by New Ulm artist Anton Gag

Judge Charles Flandreau had been placed in charge of the defense of the area, and he reported that in early September, “Enough citizens of New Ulm had returned home to form two companies at that point; Company E of the Ninth Regiment, under Capt. Jerome E. Dane, was stationed at Crisp's farm, about half way between New Ulm and South Bend.”

Another history of the war states, “Company E under Captain Jerome Dane, was temporarily mounted on horses and stationed at New Ulm. Later Company F, of the Eighth Regiment, under Captain Leonard Aldrich, was sent to New Ulm, relieving Captain Dane’s company, which was then stationed at Crisp’s Farm, half way between New Ulm and South Bend.”

Settlers escaping the violence 1862 by photographer Adrian J. Ebell 

During his patrols with Company E, Captain Dane discovered the corpses of settlers killed by the Indians and helped to rescue and protect survivors. Of course the press was greatly interested in the war, and wildly lurid stories began to be published, claiming that people were nailed to fences and mutilated. Captain Dane apparently proved to be source of colorful—and perhaps exaggerated—copy for eager reporters. As reported by Gary Clayton Anderson in his book Massacre in Minnesota,

“Captain E. Jerome Dane rescued the Lake Shetek survivors, including Lavina Eastlick, Smith, Bentley, Everett and the others on August 26. A month later, as the story regarding the fence incident escalated in the press, Dane gave his version of it to George W. Doud, apparently on September 25. One young girl, Doud later reported, ‘was fastened to the side of a house by driving nails through her feet and her head was downward.’ Another young ‘lady was found scalped and all her garments were gone and both of her breasts were cut off.’ Finally a woman ‘soon to be a mother’ had her baby cut from the womb, ‘her offspring had been severed from her and an owl was deposited in its stead.’”

Lavina Eastlick and sons, Lake Shetek survivors protected by Dane's unit--Lavina had been shot three times and beaten; her husband and middle child killed.

Doud’s lurid details were apparently based in part on Captain Dane’s supposed eye witness testimony. Other witnesses call Dane’s testimony into doubt. Burial parties reported the bodies they buried—who admittedly were not the people Dane saw-- had been shot or stabbed; no mutilation. Why would Dane have lied? Did he hope to further inflame sentiment against the Dakota? Or was he merely eager for publicity and so chose to confirm the crazy stories that already existed? Or did he actually witness the atrocities as reported by Doud? We will never know for certain.

By December 1862, the captured Dakota warriors were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of some 200 Dakota, but let the death sentences of the remaining 38 men stand. Nearly 4,000 people gathered in Mankato to witness the execution. Several infantry companies, including Captain Dane’s Company E, were assigned to provide security, to control the angry crowds. Confirmation of this comes from the National Park Service’s Civil War records, which state:

“ Company "E" organized at Mankato and duty there; at Lake Crystal, Judson, till April, 1863. Present as guard at hanging of Indians at Mankato December 26, 1862. Mustered in November 14, 1862. Frontier post service at Hutchinson, Forest City, Long Lake and Pipe Lake till September, 1863.”

Scaffolds in Mankato surrounded by Infantry Units including Dane's Company E. Artist W. H. Child, original at Library of Congress

            I wonder what Captain Dane felt when he saw the gigantic gallows in Mankato for the first time. I hope he felt some pity for the 38 Dakota men when the mechanism was triggered and they all dropped to their deaths at once. However, fear and anger ran high among the residents of southern Minnesota who had lost so many friends, neighbors and family, so I suspect he felt the deaths by hanging and the expulsion of the Dakota people from the state were justified.

Painting of the December 1862 Execution by J. Thullen, courtesy of Minn. Historical Assn.

            As the Civil War records note, Jerome’s Company E spent the next year providing frontier post protection in southern Minnesota before they were sent to the front in the Civil War. Jerome would go on to witness more cruel and violent incidents in American history before he was able to return home to his farm in 1865.

Sources:

Minnesota In Three Centuries, 1655-1908: Description And Explorations, By W. Upham. Lucius Frederick Hubbard, William Pitt Murray, James Heaton Baker. Pg. 377.

Encyclopedia of Biography of Minnesota, History of Minnesota by Judge Charles E. Flandreau, 1900, transcribed by Mary Kay Krogman. http://genealogytrails.com/minn/history_militia.html

“Union Minnesota Volunteers: 9^th Regiment Minnesota Infantry”.  https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UMN0009RI

Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History, Gary Clayton Anderson. University of Oklahoma Press. Oct. 17, 2019.

http://www.dakotavictims1862.com/Family_and_Friends_of_Dakota_Uprising/Newspaper_Articles_of_Settler_Stories.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862

Ivan Macbeth’s Good Deed Goes Awry: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Good Deeds”

Playing Santa at the One-Room School in the 1930s: Unintended Consequences

Ivan Macbeth: 1904-1972

 

My mother, Ione Macbeth Peterson, told a marvelous story about how her father’s good deed in the mid-1930s went sadly awry, crushing her childhood Christmas dreams.

My mother was born in 1928 to Nora Hoffman Macbeth and Ivan Macbeth. Ione attended a one-room school, the Tivoli School in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. One December during her early elementary years, her teacher asked to talk to her after school. She wanted my mother to ask her father to do a favor for the school.

My mother obediently remained behind as the other children left and started their walks home in the chill Minnesota afternoon. Her teacher gave her a message for her father, both written and verbal, asking him to dress up to play Santa Claus for the school Christmas party, which was coming up in a week or so.

My mother couldn’t remember what she said to the teacher. She couldn’t remember the long, cold walk home. She was stunned. How could her father be Santa Claus? My mother, despite being nearly nine years old, still believed in Santa Claus. Now her world was crushed. She realized adults had lied to her. LIED. They had told her Santa brought her presents on Christmas. They had told her he rode through the sky on Christmas night in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and that he stopped at the house of every child to bring the good ones gifts and the bad ones lumps of coal. They had told her Santa was real. And she had believed them, because they were her parents. Because they were adults, and adults were the source of facts and knowledge.

Ione Macbeth 8th Birthday

When she arrived home and relayed the message to her parents, and also expressed her confusion and feelings of betrayal, her parents laughed. They had assumed she had already figured out that Santa was a lovely Christmas fiction, and that she’d just been playing along as most children do, pretending to believe the last couple years. Their laughter just hurt my mother even more.

She recalled that her father did a good job as Santa. He had been pleased to be asked and was happy to do the job for the school—he saw it as his Christmas good deed. 

Ivan and Ione as a toddler on the Macbeth Farm--1930

Ivan Macbeth was a slender man, so she was amazed that he looked quite fat in the costume, and that his face was nearly unrecognizable under the full white beard. She remembers staring and staring at him, wondering how she had ever believed the school Santa was real—now that she knew who was beneath the padding and red clothes and black boots, it was so obvious that Santa was just a father in a costume, and that different fathers had played the role in years past.

As an adult, my mother recalled that for years after she remained mistrustful of adults. “If they could lie about Santa Claus, they could lie about anything,” she said. And when she had her own children, she refused to pretend that gifts came from Santa. She always made sure we saw her putting the gifts under the tree—there were no Christmas lies for my brother and me.

Blizzard of 1917: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Winter”

 

A Brutal February the Year My Father Was Born

 

            I wasn’t sure how to approach the 52 Ancestors “Winter” prompt until I ran across a vintage photo on Ebay from my hometown of Hanska. It was labeled “Hanska Blizzard Feb. 1917”.  It depicted a roadway with 2 wagon tracks in sharp black running down the snowy middle of the road. The roadway had been cleared of a large drift that had covered the road. Snow drifts formed walls flanking the road. I could just imagine the force of the wind that whipped up such enormous drifts, and the amount of labor—most by hand in 1917—that would have been required to make the road passable.

            My father, Juhl Peterson, was born August 1, 1917, so his mother would have been pregnant with him when this blizzard struck. I decided to do some research on the event. I discovered that the blizzard, one of six that battered Minnesota that February, wasn’t the worst of the winter problems residents faced. Here is a passage from an article by Mark Seeley in the 2017 issue of Farm Progress, titled, “February 1917: The Heart of a Brutal Winter”:

“The winter of 1916-17 was one of the cruelest in state history for a number of reasons. It started early, with widespread snow and cold blanketing the state by mid-October. From there, the cold became more intense and the snowfall more frequent. Over the three winter months — December through February — temperatures around the state averaged from 9 to 12 degrees F cooler than normal, and many climate stations reported extreme low temperatures ranging from -30 to -40 degrees F.

Some climate observers reported 12 to 15 days with morning low temperatures of -30 degrees F or colder. Seasonal snowfall accumulations in many areas were record-setting, ranging from 65 to 99 inches.

In the middle of this winter, the month of February brought persistent and extreme cold. The month started with 110 consecutive hours of below-zero degrees F temperature readings, finally rising above 0 degrees F on the afternoon of Feb. 5. For many areas of the state, only four nights brought low temperatures that remained above 0 degrees F. The only two days during the month with above-normal temperatures were Feb. 15 and 16. Monthly average temperatures from Minnesota climate stations ranged from 12 to 16 degrees F colder than normal. At the time, February 1917 was the coldest in state history, with an average statewide temperature value that was subzero in most places.

This magnitude of February cold was not surpassed until 1936. As the month closed, climate observers noted that lake ice was extremely thick, ranging from 20 to 40 inches in thickness. Many well pumps froze up, causing rural residents to harvest and thaw ice for water supply. There was little let up from the cold until March 20, when temperatures rose above 40 degrees F.

During February 1917, six blizzards crossed the state, mostly affecting northern and western counties. Snowfall totals exceeded 20 inches in many places, and snow depth exceeded 2 feet in most areas of the state.

During the first half of the month, these blizzard conditions blocked railroads for many days and caused many school closures. Farmers also reported some livestock losses associated with these storms.”

All I could think about was my grandmother Regina Peterson, then 45 years old and pregnant with what would be the last of her nine children, in a tiny house, probably no more than 900 square feet and with perhaps four rooms, trying to keep her family warm in those brutal temperatures.

Paul and Regina's small farmhouse circa 1917

The family couldn’t stay huddled by the stove or fireplace all day and night; farm work still had to be done. I don’t think the house had running water yet—they were still forced to pump well water. If the well froze over, they would have been melting snow to get water. The wood they needed to burn to keep the house warm would have been stored outside. The windows would have been single-paned and would have been drafty when the wind howled outside. The farm animals still had to be cared for—grain measured out, hay forked into pens in the barn, and water tanks cleared of ice. The work was hard and the family would have only had woolen clothing and leather gloves and boots to wear as they worked, possibly fur coats if they had them. I am amazed no one lost fingers or toes to frostbite given the extreme cold. The windchill would have been even more numbingly cold.

Paul and Regina Peterson on their wedding day

Reading about this horrible winter makes me admire my grandparents and uncles and aunts even more. They had to deal with the worst of nature without the tools we take for granted now—county snowplows to plow the roads, efficient furnaces and well-insulated homes to keep us warm when temperatures drop, and innovative fabrics like down coats, thinsulate gloves, and insulated boots. They were strong, determined people—true pioneer stock.

Sources:

https://www.farmprogress.com/weather/february-1917-heart-brutal-        minnesota-winter ; February 1917: The Heart of a Brutal Winter. Mark Seeley. Farm Progress. Jan. 4, 2017.

Rev. Francis Dane’s Commonplace Book: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Gratitude”

 

Rev. Francis Dane’s Poem Fragment on Gratitude

 

In my previous post, I wrote about the difficulties of transcribing my tenth great-grandfather’s Commonplace Book. Rev. Francis Dane, the first minister of Andover, Massachusetts, wrote in the book over a forty year period. He used it to make notes, compose poetry and hymns, and draft sermons and letters. One poem fragment I discovered dealt with the topic of gratitude. I have tried to transcribe it below. Any misspellings are copied from the original text:

 “And tell you that my gratefull mind

Do render thanks as much in kind.

Take in g. part this small return now

Though for me yet sure my love doth bestow.

But if I wholley silent were

And after all shouts still forbear,

Then justly you might count me rude

And charge me with ingratitude.”

 I know that I have made some mistakes, particularly in lines three and four, which were damaged and scarcely legible. However, the basic meaning and intent of the poem is clear: that he feels grateful but has trouble expressing his gratitude, which may cause others to judge him as rude and ungrateful.

I find the poetry in the book to be quite charming. It is rough and uneven in meter, so I don’t believe he was copying the works of others, but was composing his own poems. I love getting a glimpse into the mind of this fascinating ancestor of mine.

Image 146: Complete page containing Gratitude poem.

I too am grateful—grateful that this book survived nearly four hundred years, and that the NEHGS generously posted the scans of the book’s pages online for all to access without charge. What a wonderful gift to Rev. Dane’s many descendants, as well as to historians studying early colonial life.