From
the "History of the Minnesota Valley,
including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota.
North Star Pub. Co. 1882.
SOME
FIRSTS IN SCOTT COUNTY
A
murder of a white woman named Mrs. Keener, by an
Indian, occurred in the fall of 1852 under the
following circumstances: H. H. Spencer, who is
now a respectable citizen of Louisville, made a
claim in 1852 above Belle Plaine, in the
"Big Woods", and employed Mr. Keener
and his wife at St. Paul to come with him to work
and keep house while he was clearing up his
claim. They came by team in the fall, the party
consisting of Mr. Spencer, John Schroeder, Keener
and his wife and baby. Their outfit consisted of
the necessaries for housekeeping. They crossed
the river by the Bloomington ferry and encamped
there at night. During the night a drenching rain
soaked everything through. They therefore spent
part of the next day drying their clothes and
spent the second night at the house of Samuel
Apgar, in the embryo village of Shakopee. The
following day they pursued their journey. They
had proceeded about eight miles and were walking,
some before and some behind the wagon, when they
were accosted by two Indians, of the Sand Creek
band, who, with their usual freedom, entered into
conversation and looked over their outfit
including the guns which they saw to be useless
from the soaking rain. They soon became bold and
saucy, and while the men were before the wagon,
punched the woman with their guns, saying that it
was a shame for the man to carry papoose, for the
husband was carrying the child.
Mr.
Spencer then came back, and shaking the cane he
carrried in his hand at them, threatened them,
perhaps showing a little of a southerner's
temper. Whereupon one of the Indians, named
Yu-ha-zee, loaded his gun to shoot him, but the
other Indian attempted to dissuade him, holding
up his blanket before him. He also diverted the
aim by pushing the gun aside, and the bullet
struck the woman in the back of the neck, passing
clear through and killing her instantly. The
Indians then hurried away, and the frightened
party hastily unloaded on the ground the contents
of the wagon, placed the body and prepared it for
removal to St. Paul, where it was taken the same
day in a skiff. Yu-ha-zee was arrested by a squad
of troops from Fort Snelling, and after several
trials, consuming a year, during which his tribe
made strenuous efforts to secure his discharge,
he was hung at Fort Snelling. This band harbored
ill will against Mr. Spencer ever after, and the
trader, Louis Le Croix, assured him of their
purpose to kill him. At the time of the Indian
massacare Mr. Spencer thought it safer to leave
the country with his family for a short time.
Yu-ha-zee's companion, however, professed
friendship for Mr. Spencer, and declared that he
diverted the aim on purpose to have the woman
shot because he knew Yu-ha-zee would shoot
somebody, and he thought it not so bad to kill
only squaw, but too bad to kill a man, the leader
too. This was the first death of a white person
in Scott County.
The
first birth in the county was that of a son to
Rev. Samuel W. Pond, April 20, 1850, at Shakopee.
The
first marriage was that of Peter Shamway, in
1852, to a hired girl of William Holmes, to whose
tragic death we have elsewhere referred.
The
second marriage was solemnized by Rev. S. W. Pond
between Henry D. J. Koons and Henrietta B. Allen,
April 16, 1854.
The
first death was that of a woman shot by an Indian
in 1852. The account which has been given
(above).
The
second death was that of Lucy Jane Allen,
September 16, 1853, daughter of John B. Allen,
who kept the hotel at Shakopee.
The
first mortgage was given June 2d, 1853 by William
H. Calkins to John W. Turner, on a water power
between Spring Lake and Long Lake, called on
records Minnetonka; this mortgage was
unacknowledged.
The
first mill in the county was built at Jordan in
1853.
The
first post-office was established December 10th,
183, at Shakopee.
