Heritage Renewal

A new page in our Remembrance in Stone site, which catalogs the historical monuments of the northern plains, is devoted to the Anne Carlson monument in Jamestown. The story of this monument to a heroine of the disability community comes to us courtesy of the research of Zach Jendro, who produced a fine paper on the subject in the senior seminar of Fall 2011.

The museum at Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site exhibits this replica of a 12-pound mountain howitzer. Three of these stubby artillery pieces figured in the defense of the fort in 1862.

Forty percent of the uniformed defenders of the fort were German immigrants, many of them with significant military experience. The Germans took charge of the howitzers, and their facility in handling them was crucial.

In fact, weaponry was a key factor toward determining the outcome of the siege. More on that later.

I'm just home from a service learning expedition to historic Hutmacher Farm, Dunn County ND. Exhausted and edified.

Exhausted because this is hard work. We're operating 300 miles away from home, in the middle of the oil patch. The operation has a long tail, and the logistics are manageable only because I have such a great partner in this enterprise and in life, who sees that materials and sustenance are delivered on site. Management is another taxing element in the job. We brought 18 NDSU students with us, and we not only have to keep up with them, but also stay a step ahead, so that they always have constructive and, I think, educational work before them. Then there is the simple physical nature of the work, which involves shoveling clay, cutting timber, lifting rock, and always, it seems, loading and unloading stuff. I must mention, too, the stalwart and expert work of our right-hand man, Robert Kurtz, who in this case brought his boys along as extra and good hands. Some things we just could not get done without Rob.

Edified because this is good work. We are rebuilding significant and irreplaceable heritage resources of North Dakota. We are performing service to our statewide historic preservation association, Preservation North Dakota, that no one else is in a position to do. We are working alongside the finest college youth of the Great Plains and Midwest, and doing it in the spectacular landscape of West River North Dakota. We are spending time in a heritage site so evocative that we linger when all others have left in order to converse with it for a while just by ourselves.

Historic Hutmacher Farm, a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places, owned by Preservation North Dakota, has been brought back from ruins by the dedicated efforts of hundreds of volunteers—mostly NDSU students. It is destined to be a lodestone for heritage tourism. Its suite of vernacular buildings characteristic of German-Russian folkways on the Great Plains is without peer. Our thanks go out to every one of the 18 students who worked so hard and effectively this weekend.

One of the key elements in our research on the 1862 Siege of Fort Abercrombie is to establish just who the fighters were, inside the fort and outside. This is not so simple as it may sound, but we can say with some finality that some people were NOT part of the action.

For instance, there is a sketch of the siege offered by Anishinabe History, a website of uncertain provenance. Whoever wrote this is spoiling for a fight: he recounts how the "brave Anishinabe warriors" attacked the "evil whites" in their "unwanted fort," but did not prevail, because the whites didn't fight fair. There may be several problems with this narrative, but begin with the baseline assumption, there is a reason why they call this the Dakota War. Sorry, the Anishinabe did not fight at Fort Abercrombie.

Then we have the novel, Abercrombie Trail: A Novel of the 1862 Uprising, by Candace Simar. This is a historical romance featuring Norwegian immigrants wrapped up in the Siege of Fort Abercrombie. It poses a certain problem as to authenticity, for the rosters of defenders of the fort contain no Norwegian names at all. None. But had there been any Norwegians there, we're sure they would have comported themselves with distinction.

And before you even ask, Barth, there were no Swedes at Fort Abercrombie, either.

Tamara St. John, archivist for the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, brings Dakota perspectives to the commemoration at Fort Abercrombie, 1 September 2012: "Include the identity. Tell a story, who they are, name the names."

Aaron Gutman says a few words (he's a man of few words) about the work at his feet - archeological excavations with Trefoil Cultural at Fort Abercrombie earlier this summer.