Jacob Fahlstrom
Jacob Fahlstrom was known to his very good friends, the Indians,
as "Yellowhead," and to the white settlers
as the "Swede Indian." He was, in fact, the first Swede in Minnesota, for which reason Prince Bertil
of Sweden in June, 1948,
unveiled a plaque in his honor on Kellogg
Blvd. in St.
Paul.
Fahlstrom was born in Stockholm
in 1795 of a well-to-do family, but the boy had a wandering foot which took him
down to the docks where he shipped as cabin boy on a vessel captained by his
uncle. At fourteen he experienced shipwreck on the English coast, after
which he made his way to London where he joined
up with Lord Selkirk's expedition to Hudson's
Bay. He became a fur trader, first for the Hudson's Bay CO. and later for the American
Fur. Co. As he
traveled from one Indian village to another in quest of pelts, he learned in
addition to the English he had picked up, the Indian language and with it a
handy working knowledge of Indian psychology.
In his
wanderings Jacob Fahlstrom drifted southward to Ft. Snelling
where he took two jobs: supplying the fort with wood and carrying the mail
north to the Lake Superior region, and from Prairie du
Chien to St.
Croix Falls.
In 1823 he married Margaret, daughter of Chief Bungo
of the Lake Superior Chippewas. In 1837 or 1838
the "Swede Indian" was converted at the Kaposia
mission. Thereafter he became a sort of missionary to the Indians and
also to the men of the lumber camps in the north woods.
In
1841 Fahlstrom moved to what was to be Washington County
where he took up a claim at Valley Creek near Afton.
His home there was pretty well filled with nine children, but still the latch
string was always for traveling purposes. It is said that he once owned
eighty acres where the business district of St. Paul stands today.
Unfortunately he gave up this claim because he thought the place was too
hilly! He had more use for the island he owned in White Bear Lake; it was covered with sugar
maples, and his wife and children made sugar there every spring.
Jacob Fahlstrom died in 1859, his wife surviving until 1880.
Their graves
at Valley Creek remain unmarked, although he has been honored by having his
portrait hung in the Swedish Art Institute of Minneapolis. It is not a
work of art, however, but rather dark and forbiding
with a half-circle fringe of whiskers, revealing nothing of the character of
the man which was kindly, sincere and devoted, whatever unattractive habits he
may have picked up from his friends, the Chippewas.
In Easton's
HISTORY OF THE ST. CROIX VALLEY we catch this glimpse of him: "Jacob Fahlstrom was a sort of preacher, and he could pray pretty
well, and could be depended on upon to do so, providing a good meal was in
sight. Many a good meal he got at Carli's
(Tamarack House at Stillwater)
in return for his old-fashioned prayers."
The
missionaries at Kaposia and Red Rock considered
"Father Jacob" as he had noe came to be
called, such a valuable brand snatched from the burning that his conversion
seemed like compensation for their unproductive labors among the Sioux.
Elder Brunson is said to have stated that this event alone justified the
existence of the Kaposia mission. Here was one
who understood the red men far better than they, one who could be depended upon
to carry the Gospel on all his adventurous journeys among the Indians and
likewise the white settlements in what is now Washington County.