In the spring of 1857, the renegade Wahpekute Dakota Chief Inkpaduta and his band of warriors descended on the homesteads near Spirit Lake in northwestern Iowa and committed murder and mayhem. The causes of the massacre are still debated. One reason can be traced to an 1854 episode when a whiskey trader and horse thief, Henry Lott, and his son killed, among others, Inkpaduta’s blood brother Sintomniduta and Sintomniduta’s wife and five children. Inkpaduta (meaning ‘Scarlet Point’ or ‘Red Cap’) appealed to the military to punish Henry Lott, but the killer fled and was indicted in absentia. The prosecuting attorney, Granville Berkley, took Sintomniduta’s head and skewered it on a pole over his house in a gross act of contempt. Lott was never found, and justice was never served.

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During an elk hunt in Woodbury County in the winter of 1856, a Wahpekute hunter shot a dog that bit him, and the enraged owner, a white man, beat the Indian senseless. This Indian, whose name is apparently lost to history, then claimed to have conversed with the Great Spirit and been told that the white people who were responsible for all the Indians’ suffering must be destroyed. When other Wahpekutes stole the cattle, hay and corn of nearby settlers, 20 armed whites led by Captain Seth Smith rode into Inkpaduta’s camp and demanded the Indians surrender all their firearms. Inkpaduta stated that his people could not survive the winter without guns for hunting. Unmoved by Inkpaduta’s plea, Smith confiscated the weapons. The whites planned to come back the next day to escort Inkpaduta and his band from the area and give them back their guns, but the plan failed. When they returned the next day, the Indians were gone.

Seeking revenge, Inkpaduta took to raiding in northern Iowa in February 1857. At Lost Island Lake, one of Inkpaduta’s warriors approached the Gillett cabin, trying to steal food, weapons and livestock. The settler shot and decapitated the raider. On the Little Sioux River in Clay County, Inkpaduta’s band attacked Ambrose S. Mead’s home, killed his cattle, knocked down his wife and attempted to capture his 10-year-old daughter, Emma. When she resisted, the chief beat her with a stick and carried off 17-year-old Hattie instead. Inkpaduta knocked down Mr. E. Taylor, threw his son into the fireplace, badly burning his leg, and carried off his wife. Hattie Mead and Mrs. Taylor were released after one night in the Indian camp.

On March 7, the Indians arrived at Okoboji and Spirit lakes. The Dakotas considered Spirit Lake a sacred dwelling place for the gods. The Indians were not permitted to fish from those lakes or even place a canoe in the waters. The sight of the log cabins and fences incensed them, according to one account, to ‘bloodlust and butchery,’ for this was viewed as an invasion of their sacred shores.

A number of white settlers were unluckily caught in this proverbial powder keg at the wrong place and time. They had arrived at the lakes’ pristine shores in July 1856 and had selected them as the ideal place to live. The region, beautiful and teeming with fish and wildlife, was previously unknown to the civilized world. Roland Gardner built his home on the south side of West Okoboji Lake. He and his wife, Frances, shared the house with their three youngest children — Eliza Matilda (16), Abigail (13), Roland Jr. (6) — and their married eldest daughter, Mary, and her family. Mary and Harvey Luce had two children, Albert (4) and Amanda (1). Six other families and several single men were also drawn to this area, which became known as the Spirit Lake settlement. Residents Lydia Noble (21), Elizabeth Thatcher (19) and Margaret Marble (20) were all soon to share a common fate. Alvin and Lydia Noble, with their 2-year-old child, and Joseph and Elizabeth Thatcher with their 7-month-old child, lived in one cabin on the east side of East Okoboji Lake. Lydia and Elizabeth were cousins. William and Margaret Marble lived in Marble Grove on the west shore of Spirit Lake.

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