During the “recent unpleasantness” of 2021, I was lucky enough to live in a state whose shelter-in-place directives were not as severe as others. Already being someone not accustomed to sitting around, I began to take road or bike trips by myself or with my kids out into the more rural (and more sensible) areas outside the Twin Cities. While on those trips I would take the time to stop and admire local sites such as scenic areas, monuments, churches, and most often, cemeteries. Some of those cemeteries were along the side of the road, some were in the middle of large fields, and some were hidden away forests that I came upon by pure chance while riding on hunter’s trails. Almost all of them were old, as in before Minnesota was even a state.
One such cemetery I came across was the St. Louis Cemetery, located next to a crop field in the Wheatland Township established in 1860. At its entrance, there was a sign that told the history of the cemetery and of two of its more notable figures interred there.
One was Joseph Jack Frazer (1806-1869) and the other was Amabe Crispin (1849-1867). Frazer was the son of a British fur trader and a Dakota woman who was a farmer and trapper before becoming a scout and interpreter for the U.S. Army. He fought at the Battle of New Ulm which was part of the Dakota Wars in Minnesota in 1862. Amabe Crispin was a member
