Nathaniel Sperry comes west and meets troubles. Chapter Three

Nathaniel Dow Sperry left home in 1857 with his friend Rayne Parker to start a new life in the Great Woods of Minnesota. We know nothing of his travels there from his home in New Hampshire and many routes could well be true. I would have expected him to travel to the Mississippi River and then straight up that waterway to the small burg of Minneapolis before heading west a relatively short distance to his new home in Rockford, Wright County. He could also have travelled west following his brother James and that route may well have been up the Mississippi then the Chippewa to the Red Cedar River making his way to Menomonie before heading west through St. Paul and on to Rockford. The second scenario would help to explain the story of James coming to Prairie Farm to go deer hunting. The trio could well have been considered James and his brothers, and they may well have gone there to go hunting while Nat and Rayne were visiting.

Nathaniel settled down in Rockford and never returned home to Connecticut. He must have corresponded with several of the family members since some references to him state knowledge about family affairs and health which he would otherwise not have known. His brother Anson stated that Nathaniel “…had early gone to Minnesota (1857), settling in the big woods with his chum, Rayne Parker, with whom he hunted and trapped rather than improve his claim, which later on he sold. He was a soldier of the 3rd Minnesota Infantry, became a victim of that soldiers’ bane chronic diarrhea (from hard tack, coffee, salt pork and bad water, standing first perhaps in the list of hopeless ailments of the army). He was invalided from his regiment and died a pensioner of the United States.”

Mary Halesia (Anson’s daughter) ‘Hallie’ wrote of him, “Nat likewise went west in early life, never to return home. He settled in a new little community west of the hamlet of Minneapolis on the Mississippi, and there he lived his solitary life, respected by his neighbors. He served honorably in the Civil War with the other men from the new state. He acquired there the amoebic dysentery that was then one of the uncontrollable diseases of war, so that he was never really well again. He lived on a little patch of land that he had acquired, alone but a respected citizen, on his little government pension of $12 a month, and was never seen again by his family, except for one. An emergency, characteristic of the frontier, brought to him, of all the family the only other woods dweller, his brother Jim of the Wisconsin lumber camp, where he was guard at the big dam for one of the lumber companies, and where he also lived alone in a cabin as a free and solitary trapper and hunter.

“The story was of one of those vigilante raids that served as unlicensed substitutes for law in frontier regions. A thief had been executed as a murderer, and the law stepped in to investigate. The men were not prosecuted, but for a time they were under the shadow of it, Nat Sperry being one of them. One evening there was a heavy footstep outside the cabin; a voice called out, ‘Is this Nat Sperry’s diggings? I’m his brother Jim, and I’ve come to take care of anyone who tries to bother him.’ But there was no need nor long reunion. Jim returned to his Wisconsin retreat, as he had done after his short visit to see his mother back in the eastern home town.

“Many years later, when those rude hamlets had become cities and the frontier a rich agricultural region, our father went to place monuments on the graves of his two woodsman brothers. He found among the old residents a high regard for the two backwoodsmen, both spoken of as kindly, honest men of scholarly tastes.”

Nathaniel went to Minnesota in 1857 to settle in the Hennepin and Wright County region west of current day Minneapolis. The town of Rockford still exists today and is the site of his grave in the Elmwood Cemetery. Anson states that he had a land claim, but later sold that, preferring to hunt and trap rather than improve the land as would be necessary. Early on in his residency there, Nathaniel is wrapped up in the horrible incident that would become to be known as the ‘Wright County War’.

In August of 1858, a man by the name of Henry Wallace was found murdered on his property, the body dumped in a field and his personal possessions missing. Oscar Jackson was accused of the murder, arrested, tried and found not guilty by a proper jury and court of law. In spite of this finding of innocence, the local were certain of his guilt and tried several times and ways to have him put to ‘true’ justice. He was arrested in St. Paul and then released due to jurisdictional irregularities and eventually caught at home in Wright County while checking on his property. Arrested by the sheriff and assured safe passage, he relented to capture and arrest on theft of the personal property of the deceased Mr. Wallace. The trip to the jail seems a farce and the mob that amassed stole him from the sheriff and proceeded to eventually hang him.

Subsequent events caused one man to be arrested for the lynching, a mob freed him and eventually the Governor himself got involved. After much back and forth and refusal to mete out proper justice, the Governor sent the militia to the region to arrest the members of the mob. The newspapers had a field day and the entire lynching episode became an embarrassment to the law of the newly formed state and much was made of the whole affair. The entire incident is well worth reading and a view into the meaning of justice on the frontier.

This incident allegedly involved Nathaniel Sperry and one way or another aroused the concern of his brother James. I am not certain how he heard of Nat’s involvement, but this would be the incident that ‘Hallie’ mentioned which brought James to visit his doorstep. The meeting would have occurred in 1858 or more probably 1859. Although Hallie states that James was the guard at one of the big dams for a lumber company (Knapp Stout and Company), he would not have been at the dam until much later. This helps to establish a history and another spot on the timeline of James’ life. This was also to be the only contact by any family member in the life of Nathaniel.

Nathaniel continued to have an interesting and colorful life. On April 29, 1861, he joined the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, Company D. He was mustered into the 3rd Regiment Company A on October 4th, 1861. The 3rd Regiment was sent south and early on was captured by the Confederates, marched to prison camp and paroled. They were sent back to Minnesota to fight the Indian uprising and in November of 1862, Nathaniel was discharged with disability and returned home with a $12/ month pension. Although he didn’t serve long in the Civil War, he saw action with the enemy and they served a vital role afterward in the suppression of the Indian uprising in Minnesota.

Life in the frontier towns of Minnesota was never easy or apparently without serious incident. On June 29, 1863, Amos Dustin was taking his family to their new claim in the southwestern part of Wright County. Amos Dustin, his wife Kate, their three children, Almeda 6, Robert 4, and Leon 2, and Dustin's widowed mother, Mrs. Jeanette Dustin. Their wagon was drawn by an ox team which was spooked by a party of four Indians. The oxen crashed the wagon into a tree, breaking lose and disabling the wagon. The Indians attacked and killed Amos, his mother Jeanette and young Robert with arrows. Alma was trapped beneath her father’s dead body and was unharmed, Leon was thrown into the bushes by the Indians and Kate was shot in the back and brutally beaten. After the Indians robbed the wagon and left, Kate roused enough to escape the horror. With an arrow sticking through her and protruding out below her breastbone, she dug her daughter from beneath her husband’s body, found her son in the brush and proceeded to head back toward civilization. She was found the following day by a small search party, taken to a cabin and nursed until her death several days later. A crew of volunteers was gathered to recover the bodies and Nathaniel Sperry was amongst them. The incident is well documented and is known as the ‘Dustin Massacre’ of Wright County.

From here we find little reference to Nathaniel and his life must have thankfully quieted down. I was able to find him on the 1875 census which wrongly lists him as 38 years old and has him living in Greenwood Township, Hennepin County. The 1880 census correctly lists him as a 46 year old working as a laborer, also in Greenwood Township. I was unable to find him on the pensioner’s rolls or on any other census listings and began to wonder what became of him. Anson’s account said that he died ‘before 1890’ and I could find no obituary or cemetery listing. Here, once again, Joan Keller came to the rescue with a friend who found the obituary and cemetery location.

Birth: Mar. 5, 1834, Claremont, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, USA Death: Sep. 9, 1889. Rockford, Wright County, Minnesota, USA

The people of Rockford were shocked yesterday morning to learn of the death of Nathaniel D. Sperry, one of the early settlers of Rockford and a most respected citizen. He attended church Sunday evening, in apparent good health, but died before morning. His remains will be interred in Elmwood cemetery this afternoon at 2 o'clock, services to be conducted by Star Lodge, No. 62, A.F. & A.M.

The Buffalo Journal; September 11, 1889

Civil War Veteran: Joined the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment Co. D April 29, 1861. Mustered in with the 3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment Co. A October 4, 1861. Discharged for disability November, 1862 in Nashville, Tennessee.