Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-03-06

anu ehClI eullIe OullI buIldlOGS were
very plentiful in that part of Iowa and
Minnesota. They took her as far as
Dakota, somewhere on the Jim river.
A council of war was held in which
all of the big warriors took part. 1t
was evident to her that she was the
cause of the council and the subject of
their deliberations. Nobody took any
pity on her, however. The warriors
would whet their knives in her pres
ence and they would point their pis.
tolls in her face. They gave her to un.
derstand that she was to be tortured
and killed. Finally an old squaw
seemed to have little feminity left
and she impaired the information that
she was to be returned to her own peo-
pie. That is. to the white trading
post in Minnesota. OF her own people
or of her settlement none remained ex-
cept sister, who was in Indiana the
time of the massacre, and never came
back. She has never seen her since.
One is not able to get much infor-
nation from her on the period follow
ing the massacre. She tlwells only on
the time of her captivity and on the
time since the massacre ground has
been made state ground.
She drifted from place to place, as
near as one can find out, and finally
she was married to Mr.. Sharp and to
them two sons were born. Both were
married, and one, with his wife, has
since died. and both are buried in the
family lot. Her other son lives in
the vicinity of the old massacre
ground.
The state took up the matter OF
erecting a monument to the pioneers
who gave up their lives to the cause
of humanity, just as much as John the
Baptist did, or just as much as did
the Revolutionary Fathers. Whether
one loses his life in battle with an in.
vading host or whether he is slain by
the savage of the forest does not mat,
ter. He is a martyr to the cause OF
civilization. If there had not been
Daniel Boones and Captain Clarks and
Mad Anthony Waynes and General
Clusters and the Gardeners and the
| Howes and the Lucas there would
have been no progress and there would
be no place in which to talk politics
and to discuss religion and to find
fault with the government. In every
| age and in every country there must
be sacrifice. There is no excellence
without great labor, and sometimes il
costs human life. 1t did cost human
life at Okiboji in that stormy and rig
orous spring of 1857.
For many years no effort had beer
made to commemorate this bloody
event. At one time some society OF
other, forgot what 1t was, had raised
$14 for the erection of monument
but it was not considered sufficient tt
purchase much of a shaft. 1t would
scarcely have bought a good telegraph
pole in that prairie country. WOOD
was high. So the matter dropped
Monument matters frequently do drop
1t took the whole United States years
to erect a monument to the Father O
his country, so you couldn't expect toe
much from just single state. Abb
gail Gardner Sharp wrote her book il
1885. The book seemed to revive in
terest in the place where the massacre
occurred. Work was begun to get al
appropriation to buy the land an(
erect a suitable monument. After ;
long period of watching and waiting
the bill was finally passed with bu
lone dissenting vote in the lower house