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Alexander Faribault
American politician (1806–1882) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Alexander Faribault (June 22, 1806 – November 28, 1882) was an American fur trading post operator with the American Fur Company and Minnesota territorial legislator who helped to found Faribault, Minnesota, and was its first postmaster.
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Early life and fur trade
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Born in Prairie du Chien, Michigan Territory, his father was the fur trapper Jean-Baptiste Faribault. His mother was Elizabeth Pelagie Ainse, a half-Dakota daughter of Joseph-Louis Ainse, a British superintendent at Mackinac.[2] He was the eldest of eight and considered mixed-blood. By 1819, the Faribault family moved to Pike Island, near Fort Snelling at the behest of Colonel Henry Leavenworth.
Faribault began clerking with the American Fur Company at age 12. By 1822, Faribault had become a licensed fur trader with the American Fur Company. He was granted a license to set up a trading post on the St. Peters (Minnesota) River. He traded at Traverse des Sioux, Lake Elysian in Waseca County, as well as in what is now Rice County.[3]
Faribault married Mary Elizabeth Graham in 1825. Mary was a member of another prominent French-Dakota family. This helped contribute to Faribault's successful business enterprises. Together, they had ten children.
Around 1827, Faribault travelled for the first time to the Cannon River Valley where he traded with the Wahpekute, the local band of Dakota. By 1834, the trading post had grown in popularity and within several years, Faribault re-located it to the site of modern-day Faribault.[4][5]
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Early Faribault
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Alexander Faribault built his the first log-cabin structures in what is now Rice County in the 1830s or 1840s.[6] By 1851, he owned a trading post and served in the Minnesota Territorial House of Representatives.
His first house in Faribault, the Alexander Faribault House, was built in 1853 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[7] Faribault only lived in the home for a handful of years, building a large brick mansion on the bluffs opposite the Straight River several years later. This second house was later sold to the state of Minnesota to be used for the Minnesota School for the Blind.[6] However, only the 1853 house, the first frame house in Rice County, survives.[8]
The first Catholic Mass in the City of Faribault was held at Alexander Faribault's house in 1848. Alexander contributed the land and a large sum of money for the construction of the first Catholic Church, St. Ann in 1856. Within a year this church burned down and Catholic Masses were once again held at Alexander's house. Alexander made a larger financial contribution to build a fireproof stone church on the same site as St. Ann in 1858. This church was named Immaculate Conception and is still standing at the corner of 3rd Avenue South West and Division Street West in the city of Faribault.[9][6]
More settlement came to Rice County in the mid-1850s. Faribault, along with several other early settlers, filed the plat of the town of Faribault in 1855. Faribault offered inducements to other institutions in Faribault, including James Lloyd Breck and Bishop Henry Whipple, contributing ten acres of land for their schools (which became Seabury Divinity School and Shattuck-St. Marys) as well as money.[5] Faribault was also involved in the founding of the first mills on the Straight River which brought skilled millers to the town, was a trustee of the first school district in the county (the first school had been hosted in his home), helped to set up several of the first public parks in the area, and was the first postmaster.[10]
His son-in-law was William Henry Forbes, who also served in the Minnesota Territorial Legislature. Faribault died in Faribault, Minnesota,[11][12] after suffering a "paralytic shock" (stroke) the previous month.[13]
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Relationship with the Dakota
Faribault accompanied the Dakota delegation to Washington for a treaty in 1837. In 1851, he was a translator for the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and was at the Treaty of Mendota. He served as a witness before the United States court regarding charges of fraud in "Indian affairs."[5]
During the Dakota War of 1862, he fought in the Battle of Birch Coulee, the bloodiest battle in the war for American soldiers.[14] During the siege, Alexander Faribault pleaded for peace. Speaking Dakota, Alexander pleaded to Big Eagle, "You do very wrong to fire on us. We did not come out to fight; we only came out to bury the bodies of the white people you killed."[15]
After most Dakota were ordered into exile from their Minnesota homelands in 1863, Faribault sheltered a number of Wahpekute and Mdewakanton people on his farm.[3]
Notes
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