Hidden in a Stove To Avoid Massacre

Debunking a Family Myth

In 1980, a small committee of community volunteers had the wherewithal to ask the senior citizens of the area to document memories of their early life in Scott County. (Huzzah for these people!) The stories, some scant and others quite verbose, were collected into a booklet – As I Remember Scott County – which is available at the Scott County Historical Society

Within this booklet, the brother of my great-grandmother contributed 18 memories! One of the memories is about what was commonly referred to as the “Sioux Uprising of 1862.” It reads:

Living in Sioux Land

My father was a baby around the time of the Sioux Indian Massacre. The Sioux were going around looking for male babies to kill in retaliation and my grandmother saw them coming to her place. She quickly put my father inside the cook stove. Luckily there wasn’t a fire at the time. The Sioux came and looked in the windows and all around the house while my grandmother sat in her chair. My father never made a sound and they left. Shortly after that there was the New Ulm Massacre.

This intrigued me because for quite some time I’ve suspected there may have been some type of connection between some of my ancestors from this part of Minnesota and the, what we now call, U.S.-Dakota Conflict. I’m wondering if the story relayed about my 2x great-grandfather is exaggerated and if so, which elements could possibly be true. 

To be honest, I’m not sure how to deconstruct the little information that I have to find the truths. Here’s what I’ve done already: 

• Confirmed the birth date of my 2x great-grandfather

  • Both the 1900 and 1910 US Census record Robert E. Devine’s  birthdate as 5 Sept 1862 in Blakely, Minnesota. 

• Confirmed dates of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict

  • All accounts indicate that the conflict started on 17 August 1862 with the murder of five pioneers at Acton, Minnesota and lasted until the mass hanging of 33 Sioux Indians in December of that same year.

• Verified the dates of the New Ulm Massacre

  • There were two attacks at New Ulm. The first was 19 August and the second was 23 August. Both of these were bloody and brutal, and were PRIOR to the birth of Robert.

• Reviewed other well-documented skirmishes after Robert’s birth

  • The day after he was born there was an attack at Fort Abercrombie. This fort is 100s of miles of away on the border of what is now North Dakota. It’s about the furthest from Robert’s town of Blakeley as is possible in the context of this war.

  • A few weeks after Robert was born, on 23 September, the Battle at Wood Lake occurred and marked the end of organized warfare by the Sioux in Minnesota. Wood Lake is pretty far from Scott County as well. It’s not likely that anyone who had been peeking in a Blakely window made their way to either Fort Abercrombie or Wood Lake.

Here’s what I have yet to do:

• Check old newspapers from Scott County for reports of violent activity in the area around the time of Robert’s birth. It is possible that smaller, less documented skirmishes were happening up and down the river valley. Scott Co Historical Society does have newspapers on microfilm from Belle Plaine 1858-1862; 1893-2014; with any luck there will be some reports in the 1862 issues.

I need your help! What other investigation would you recommend to verify any nuggets of truth within the story?