Lewis Thompson (Excelsior book) rr
1
1862 1863
q' 3 ✓ P tit 1
I �� ate
Summer. Four Excelsior men who enlisted in the A pril 9. J . Murray left Fort Snelling to serve in the Union army. Also this year
Ninth Minnesota Volunteers, Company B, were .. R.B. McGrath oh n W and A.P. Beeman served in the Second Minnesota Cavalry, Company D,
Silas Seamans, 17- year -old George E. Day, George ; I that was sent west "to the Missouri River country, where settlers were in danger from
Gideon, and A.H. Hopkins, who had moved to . . =~ 9 hostile Indians." (N, 252)
Excelsior from the town of Hopkins. A fifth ° r
J.J. Jellison, joined the Eighth Minnesota, Com- _ F
pang E. Both Regiments were assi ned to ht the Spring. Construction of Trinity Episcopal Church was interrupted by lack of funds and
g fig
; a manpower shortage. Its walls had been erected the previous summer by Tallman
Sioux in the great Indian Uprising that was about ( "Stonewall ") Moore. They were "built of cobblestones and mortar, a combination
to begin. Two years later, the Eighth would be in ; A , R, known as grout," which had been used in several buildings in Shakopee. Moses Stod
the South, fighting in the Battle of Murfrees- , " dard is said to have hauled lime from Shakopee, and Mr. Harrison sand
borough, and the Ninth would see action at Nash - for the mortar. Other parishioners gathered stones around the lake and hauled hauled loads them of to
ville and Mobile (ORC, 576, 580, 620) ms
Excelsior on the Governor Ramsey, loaned by owner Galp in and engineered by Wm. B.
August 22. News that the Indians had attacked � Morse. R.B. McGrath and Lewis Thompson, who were to "," p
ly got the roof on the Chapel sometime before McGrath enlist ed in the finishing Cavalry. a parent -
New Ulm and were waging a war of extermina-
tion on the frontier settlements reached Excelsior' . ,,,,r,
in in the forenoon of this day by word of mouth, 1864
two days after the Battle of Fort Ridgely. A f ` -Y
woman, with her little boy and a neighbor girl, '
came to the Day farm "in great excitement and '" , May 6. Completed at last, the Trinity Mission Episcopal Chapel was consecrated on
reported that Indians were killing the whites 1 this date by Bishop Whipple, who called it "a model of beauty and cheapness." Built
I further west." at a cost of $1,500, it was a memorial to the children of English -born Arthur Vickers,
George Day, who had enlisted but was still
home on furlough, tells about the "panic-stricken
mass of men, women and children ';'
)gathered t-
who
(
at Jones's store." Lydia Ferguson Holtz opened Ned Aldritt, C War soldier ,5 " ,
1. her Linwood home to Semantha Galpin and others whom her husband, Fred, rowed
across the bay, assuring them a head start to the city if Indians should appear in Excel- ' • .' 1 '` °
sior. And level headed George Galpin tried to get fleeing refugees, bound for Fort
Snelling or St. Anthony, o stop their he ¢;
Y p headlong flight and +'' �.
g g help the townspeople
protect themselves, but most kept hurrying eastward. = n. t
,,, ,:� � �q,,; .�
After consultation, the best defense seemed to be to remove the women and ' „ - ' : , '. „:
children to Gooseberry (Gale's) Island. Overloaded with frantic passengers, the un- ,' ` �-
reliable, unsteady Governor Ramsey got underway and slowly headed for the island 44 k - , � ° `
but engine trouble developed and she drifted instead toward the shore of Tonka Bay. , " �.�<< :: "
Fortunately, a man in a rowboat brought the good news that he had ridden horse- h,' '
i back to Shakopee and learned that there were no Indians this side of New Ulm.
(FJ, GD)*,;�• r<�
'"ms
September 15. Fear was still rampant as reports of Indian attacks and atrocities kept
coming from outlying areas. Silas Seamans built a block house stout enough to protect 0
s
everal families. And Excelsior's Town Board of Overseers ordered "that $10 ... be .'
paid to J.G. Freeman towards sawing plank to be used for building a fort in said town
and afterward to be used for bridges and other town purposes." VC -� °
,l The result was a stockade built around the school and its upper room, used for ��
church services and "College Hall." The stockade "was built of hardwood planksI�� Yz
I twelve feet high, with loopholes for musketry. The cupola was arranged for a lookout
II but was never needed, and the stockade was never used." (McG -B; LMT 7 -29 -1876)
A year later, it was taken down and the materials used for road culverts and bridges. Trinity Episcopal Church when located on Third Street, 1863 to 1907
12 13