HENRY HASTINGS SIBLEY First Governor of the State, was born in Detroit, Michigan, February 20, 1811, and died in St. Paul, Minnesota, February 18, 1891. He was factor for the American Fur Company in pre-territorial days; was the first delegate to Congress from this area; and commanded the white forces who conquered the Indian outbreak in 1862. HENRY HASTINGS SIBLEY FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA May 24, 1858, to January 2, 1860 H ENRY Hastings Sibley, the first governor of the State of Minnesota, was born in the city of Detroit, Michigan, February 20, 1811. The genealogical record of the Sibley family shows him to have been well born. His ancestors were English. His father was chief justice Solomon Sibley, of Detroit, whose immediate ancestors attained prominence, in early New England history and were all of thoroughly Puritan stock. The mother of Henry Hastings Sibley was Sarah Whipple Sproat, and was the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, Col. Ebenezer Sproat, a family of subsequent distinction in both Ohio and Michigan. The Sibley family were in Detroit during the War of 1812, and during the disgraceful surrender of the fort by General Hull to General Brock, the British commander. When the attack was made upon the city, Mrs. Sibley was holding in her arms her youngest child, Henry Hastings, while she was making cartridges for the soldiers, or scraping lint for the wounded. To the memory of this good and noble woman, Mrs. Ellet, in her admirable volume, "The Pioneer Women of the West," pays a beautiful and touching tribute. Young Sibley was thus by heredity born to an adventurous career. He was educated in the academy at Detroit, and received during two years a polishing course of Greek and Latin under an Episcopal clergyman. Then followed two years of study in the law. But this was irksome work for one who longed for outdoor pursuits and a more stirring life. Of his own accord he entered upon a career of his own choosing. In 1828, in his eighteenth year, he turned his steps to the West, never again to return to his home, except as a transient guest. He first found employment as a clerk at Sault Sainte Marie in a sutler's store. This and subsequent employment familiarized young Sibley with Indian affairs, and opened the way for an important clerkship in the American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor, of New York, was the head. This company gathered furs and pelts from vast regions in the Northwest. Sibley's first employment was at Mackinac, then the central depot of the great fur company, second only to that of the Hudson Bay Company. There he met Robert Stuart, the head and embodiment of the fur company itself. Under the tutorship of that distinguished trader, he learned the entire business of traffic with the Indians. Here he also became intimate with Henry R. Schoolcraft, who was ever afterward his warm personal friend. The five years he spent with this great company advanced |