Did your ancestors return to their homestead? If not, where did they go? We have conducted research on fifty-one families from Renville County, and of those fifty-one, only eleven settler families returned to their original homestead.
Descendants, click on the pdf of your township and check to see if we have your family information correct. Below the PDF are suggestions offered by our readers.
1. Birch Coulie Township: Birch Coulie Survivors.pdf. There were twelve families we followed in Birch Coulie Township. Of those, only one family returned to their homestead.
Reader Suggestions:
• Faribault, David, as suggested by Don Dawson
Reader Don Dawson shared this article published by the Minnesota Historical Society which explains more about where the Faribaults went after the uprising: “. . . His father lost all of his belongings twice: in 1862 when his house, two miles from the Lower Sioux Agency, was plundered during the course of the "outbreak,” and in 1868, when a "strong Indian war party" again took all that the Faribaults had. (At this time the elder David Faribault was running a mail post about 30 miles from Fort Ransome, Dakota Territory, but was at Fort Garry [Winnipeg] seeing to his daughter's schooling.)
The article is found here: http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/51/v51i08p313-318.pdf
• Martell, Oliver, as suggested by Don Dawson
Don also added this about ferryman from the Redwood Ferry, Oliver Martell, his ancestor: “Oliver Martell did come back in 1865 to run the ferry again, but I do not know for sure if he lived in Birch Coulie again. I found him on a taxpayer roll in Sherman township of Redwood County in 1868, which is on the other side of the river.”
After losing his home and business in Birch Coulie and helping to defend Fort Ridgley, Oliver went to Faribault with Major Dyke for a couple years.
In 1864 Oliver returned to rebuild the ferry, but I am pretty sure he did not rebuild his home in Birch Coulie because he comes up as a taxpayer directly across the river in Sherman Township of Redwood County in 1868.
In 1870 Oliver and his family were living in Redwood Falls. In 1871 Oliver turned the ferry business over to his sons Charles and David and set off on foot for South Dakota where he was one of the first homesteaders in what became Big Stone City, South Dakota.
Oliver married my great-great grandmother in 1875 and they had one child. My blood great-great grandfather had passed away in a blizzard January 7, 1873. In 1878 Oliver was appointed treasurer of Grant County, South Dakota.
An interesting note would be that at the same time one David Faribault was appointed Register of Deeds, a Louis LaCroix family was living in Grant County, South Dakota. It could be possible that these are the same David Faribault and Louis LaCroix families that would have been first warned by Oliver on his way to Fort Ridgley, but more research would need to done.
Oliver did set off to Canada in 1898 at the age of 80 to homestead, but returned home to the Big Stone City area when his health started to fail; he passed away there in 1904.
2. Beaver Falls Township: Beaver Falls Survivors.pdf. There were seventeen families we followed in Beaver Falls Township. Of those, seven families returned to their homestead.
3. Flora Township: Flora Township Survivors.pdf. There were twenty-five families we followed in Flora Township. Of those, three families returned to their homestead.
Reader Suggestions
• Boelter Survivors, as suggested by Nick Cannon:
Justina (Wendtlandt) Boelter (Mrs. John Boelter), her youngest two children: Ottilie and Julius J. Michael Boelter (Justina’s brother-in-law)
Died as a result of the massacre:
Gottlieb Boelter (Justine’s husband and father to John & Michael)
Justine Boelter (Gottlieb’s wife and mother to John & Michael)
John Boetler (Justina’s husband & Michael’s older brother)
Amelia Boelter (John & Justina’s oldest daughter – died of starvation while hiding weeks with her mother and younger sister)
Mrs. Michael Boetler (who was pregnant with twins)
Michael’s 3 daughters: Justine, Pauline and Wilhelmina
About a year after the Massacre, Michael and Justina married. The children consisted of Ottilie and Julius J as well as seven additional children that Justina had by Michael: John Julius, Elizabeth, William Frederick, Henry, George, Simon and Lydia
The family moved to Holden Township near Kenyon in Goodhue County, MN, never to return to Renville County. Justina and Michael are buried in the Kenyon Cemetery in Goodhue County. Julius J and Ottilie are buried in Nerstrand, Rice County. Justina’s children by Michael are buried in various places.
• Johann Urban, as suggested by Danny Urban:
Johann Urban did not escape the actual attack itself. He "survived or escaped" only because he was not there but near New Ulm and so his wife and five children faced the ordeal without him.