On the morning of Monday, the 18th of August, 1862, Helen Carrothers was at the home of Mr. S. R. Henderson, caring for Mrs.

Henderson, who lay quite ill. It was half past six, and the household was at breakfast, when four Indians appeared at the house and looked in. They wore Indian blankets. After a short look without entering, they departed, going toward Mr.

Earl’s. At Mr. Earl’s, they attempted to take his gun. Failing in this, they sat down by his door.

About the same time, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Earl, Mr. Wedge, Eugene White, three of Mr.

Earl’s boys, and David Carrothers, Helen’s brother-in-law, saw some 150 Indians on the prairie catching horses. The men went down to prevent them. When told to desist, the Indians refused, saying they were going to kill Chippewas and needed the horses. Seeing all efforts useless, the men returned.

As they made their way toward the houses, a man arrived from the lower agency and reported that the Indians were killing all the whites there. Mr. Earl had his horses already in the harness for farm work. Helen’s husband was away from home.

David Carrothers came after her, and she went with him to Mr. Earl’s. It was soon determined to go to the fort. With two horse teams belonging to Mr.

Earl, and another team with three yoke of oxen attached, they began their journey, the Indians remaining behind. They had scarcely gotten underway when Helen saw several more Indians, not hitherto seen, rise up. They were soon surrounded on all sides. Before they had gone fifteen rods from the house, the teams were all stopped.

Mr. S. R. Henderson and David Carrothers went out to the Indians to learn their intention.

On inquiry, they were told that the whites were all to be killed. This was the more shocking to them as these Indians were all well known to them, and had hitherto expressed so much friendship. A parley took place for some moments, during which the strongest remonstrances possible were urged. The result was that their lives should be spared if they would give up all the teams.

Again, David Carrothers pleaded for one team, in which Mrs. Henderson, sick as she was, and her two small children might be conveyed to Fort Ridgely. The Indians agreed also to this, and shook hands with all of them in token of satisfaction, seeming well pleased. Thus deprived of their teams, except the one carrying Mrs.

Henderson, they supposed at this sacrifice all were safe. But sad to relate, after going about ten rods further, the Indians came up with them and demanded this last team also. Another urgent appeal was made for the sick woman. It was agreed that if the team drawing the wagon were given up, the wagon might be retained.

This was yielded, and they again advanced on their intended journey, the men drawing the wagon by hand. They could not think of leaving Mrs. Henderson. In this way they had advanced some twenty rods.

Helen was some ten rods ahead of the wagon when she heard the Indians singing. Looking round, she heard the reports of three guns. The dreadful truth flashed upon her mind. The Indians were actually killing them.

When the firing began at the wagon, Mrs. David Carrothers, who was holding an umbrella over Mrs. Henderson, jumped out of the wagon, two balls passing through her dress before she reached the ground. At the request of Mrs.

Henderson, a white flag, a pillowcase, was held up by David Carrothers and Mr. Henderson. This flag of truce was not respected but was soon riddled with bullets, and the fingers of Mr. Henderson holding one corner of it were shot off, and the flag fell.

At the first fire, Mr. Wedge fell dead at the wagon. Mr. Henderson and David Carrothers, after the former had lost his fingers, seeing that they could offer no assistance to Mrs.

Henderson, ran from the wagon. Mr. Earl and his sons and Eugene White were still ahead of Helen. When the Indians came up to them, they shook hands with each of the women, and said they were now going to live with them.

Here they sat down in the open prairie, guarded by two Indians. In some fifteen minutes, eight more came back from the pursuit of the men, and with these they returned. They would not let them return by Mrs. Henderson’s, but they saw a fire where she had last been seen, and they supposed they had burned her and her little children.

This turned out to be so, as Helen afterward learned. The party of which Helen was one now consisted of eight persons: Mrs. David Carrothers and baby, Mrs. Earl and two daughters, Mrs.

White and baby, Julia White, and herself. All these were ordered into one of the wagons taken from them and driven to Mr. Earl’s house, where they were told to get out. The conversation was in the Sioux language, most of which Helen understood.

They stood by the door while the Indians plundered the house, breaking up all the furniture, throwing cups and saucers and other dishes through the windows. One of their number, an Indian called John, went to the spring and brought them water in a pan procured from the house. When all they wanted was put into the wagon, they were driven off to Little Crow’s house. On the route, they were taken past their house and the house of Mr.

Hunter, one team attended by three Indians stopping at the latter place. As they proceeded, they asked and obtained leave to walk down the hill, at the foot of which was the house of Thomas Robinson, the Indian interpreter. On the door of this house being struck violently by one of the Indians with a hatchet, another reproved him sharply, saying, “This is an Indian’s house. ” Here they remained until the other team came up from Mr.

Hunter’s. At this place, Julia White, Julia Earl, Helen, and her two children were placed in one wagon, and all the other women and children into the other. They next stopped at the house of Mr. Hayden and remained in the wagons until the Indians had taken from the premises all they wanted and had wantonly shot down a hog and some chickens in the yard.

Here Indian John told Helen he had cut off Mrs. Hayden’s head and that she was then lying in the house. This was a lie, as she afterward learned. Mrs.

Hayden escaped unharmed with her child to Fort Ridgely and was then alive and well. They next went to the house of Mr. Uen, a German. The door was open, and the house had already been plundered.

They went on, and next passed by the house of Mr. Aisenrich. Here again, the same Indian John told her that Mrs. Aisenrich had been killed, and that her children were then alive in the house.

This was not true, as Mrs. Aisenrich and children were at the time captive with the Indians. They passed on, and next came to the Minnesota River, crossing at a ford. The Indians here walked up the river hill, and Helen drove.

After they crossed, they came into a prairie, where John told her she must drive fast, that he heard the cannon at the fort, that the soldiers he feared would come after them and kill them before they reached Little Crow’s. Again, they had a steep hill to go up, and all got out and walked. At the top of the hill, an Indian told her that he was going to take her to John Moore’s house. She inquired if Mrs.

Elizabeth Carrothers and herself might not remain together. His answer was emphatic, “No. ” They were then separated, and were not again permitted to stay in the same wagon. The team in which was Mrs.

Earl then drove off toward Redwood, and Helen saw her no more that day. About a mile from the hill last alluded to, they stopped, and loaded the wagon full of different kinds of stores: dried apples, prunes, calico, blankets, and numerous other articles taken from the lower agency. On the top of this load, with three Indians, they were permitted to ride. Some of the dried apples were given them to eat.

At the river, the Indians had opened a chest brought from Mr. Earl’s, packed by him with stores such as sugar, meat, bread, and clothing. Of these stores, they gave them to eat, Helen supposed, to be quite sure they did not contain poison. They soon came in sight of Little Crow’s house, and approaching near, stopped some fifteen rods from the door of the great chief, who was himself at home.

Helen asked if she could not go down to the house. The privilege was refused. Here they were given water to drink from an old tin kettle. In a few moments Little Crow came along and seemed very much pleased to see them, extending a cordial hand to welcome them to his own home.

Helen then asked the chief himself if she could not go down to his house. He tried to be agreeable and said yes, and soon showed them the way to his Indian mansion, a two-story frame house made of boards set upright and battened, with one room below and two above, all plastered, furnished with a good cooking stove, chairs, tables, and good common furniture. Besides the usual and ordinary furniture, the house was packed with goods of all kinds taken as plunder, such as sugar, coffee, tea, calico, and clothing in general. Helen told Little Crow that she was hungry.

He pointed to a sack of flour and said, “Go and make yourself some bread if you are hungry. ” After he had gone out, an old squaw came and made her a cup of coffee and prepared her some bread fried in grease, and she and the children ate their supper. On the table at this meal were good ordinary dishes, knives, and forks, and the table was quite supplied, butter, sugar, and coffee being among the luxuries. It was, however, an extra occasion both as to the guest and the supply of provisions.

After supper Helen went out and sat by the door of the chief, looking after her boy, Tommy. While sitting there, Little Crow came along and gave her a sudden push, saying, “Go into the house. The Indians will kill you if you do not. ” Thus kindly admonished, she took the boy, went into the house, and sat behind the door, taking her boy on her lap and trying to keep him still.

While thus situated, she saw Little Crow’s brother come in and sit down by the side of a German girl, and putting his arms around her in a loving manner, said in the Sioux language, “This is my squaw. ” This Indian told them that John wished all of the women to go up to his teepee. They had now to obey an Indian who chose to command them. This too was the brother of the renowned Little Crow.

They all arose and followed him. On arriving at John’s teepee, they found it all fitted up in the nicest Indian fashion, John himself building a fire after they arrived. He seemed to behave as though he expected them to remain with him. Outside of the teepee, supper was being cooked, and they all sat down there.

But Helen had scarcely been seated a moment when a squaw came and took Mrs. Earl and her daughter Julia off with her, not permitting them to remain for supper. Mrs. White and baby, Helen, and her two children were now all the white persons left at the teepee of the too much delighted, lying John.

Here they ate supper. While they were eating, the squaw fitted up the teepee, and supper being over, they all went in. A buffalo robe was brought, and they sat down according to the Indian fashion. The squaw now gave Helen a comb and told her she must braid her hair after the Indian fashion.

After this was done, a comforter was brought for a bed for the children. About ten o’clock, Little Crow came around and said they must not be in haste to go to bed, as they must make themselves some clothes to wear. The waiting squaw, in obedience to this hint from the chief, soon brought forth a blue colored cloth to make into skirts and a calico sack for each of them. They had soon sewed up a skirt each for themselves.

Helen had sewn hers up with a seam in the usual way among white people. The squaw ordered her to take it out and directed her to place the two edges so that one doubled over the other and then to run the seam down. This, she said, was their fashion. Owing to this mistake, Mrs.

White finished her skirt first but refused to put it on. It looked so horrible. Helen very cheerfully put hers on and laughed heartily at the figure she cut, thus half dressed in Indian costume. The squaws too were taken with a fit of laughter, and went and brought in other squaws and Indians, and they all laughed heartily.

Mrs. White reluctantly and soberly put hers on, and the laugh turned on her, but she seemed not to see why anyone should laugh. Helen felt as Mrs. White did, yet she forced a laugh with a desire to make herself as agreeable as possible under the circumstances.

This night the Indians sat up all night long, running bullets and preparing for war against the whites. Helen also sat up all night. Once during the night, the alarm was given that the soldiers were coming, and all was hurry and bustle getting ready to leave for Yellow Medicine. But after a while, Little Crow came around and told them they had better not go.

All were soon quiet again. In the morning they had for breakfast boiled beef without salt. Helen could not eat it and asked for salt. The reply she received was that they had no salt, but would have some that day.

After giving the children some, she put the rest back, as she could not eat beef without salt. The squaw told her she had better eat it, for it was all they would get until night, as they were going to Yellow Medicine. They now watched her very closely. She was not permitted to go out of the teepee alone, but was always attended by a squaw and compelled to wear a blanket over her head.

About eleven o’clock of that day, Tuesday, the 19th of August, a squaw came and took Mrs. White away, and left Helen quite alone. The Indians now came to her, Little Crow and others, and talked a long time about killing someone. She did not understand who, but now a squaw came and told her that they were going to kill her.

The reason alleged was that four Indians wanted her for a squaw, and as they could not agree, Little Crow, unable as umpire to decide the quarrel, had concluded to settle the difficulty in the way intimated. The squaw was ordered to take her into a cornfield nearby and disrobe her, and the Indians were then to come and kill her. She took Helen out and told her to take off her clothes. Helen told her she would not unless she would bring her something else to put on.

She went back to the teepee and brought her a quilt and skirt, an old rag unfit for anyone to wear. When she left her, Helen started and went over to the middle of the cornfield. An Indian son came where she was and said the Indians were not going to kill her. After he went away, she made off still further, and the idea came to her that she might possibly get away.

Soon another Indian came looking after her and was within six rows of corn of her when she sat down, and he passed by without discovering her. As he disappeared, she took fresh courage. Soon she passed out of the corn and through a potato patch and down into the woods. That night she stayed in the grass at the head of Tiger Lake.

The next morning she thought she would try and cross the Minnesota River and go over to her house and find something to put on better than that which she had. She made a number of attempts to ford the river at different places but failed in each attempt. She could get over herself but could not get over with the children. The water being up to her chin, she failed to manage them and herself too in water so deep.

Thus baffled in her efforts to cross the river, she stayed around there for three nights after reaching the river. She then went up near to the lower agency on the hill. Here were two roads, one near the bank, the other half a mile back on the prairie. She traveled along the one near the river bank while the Indians at the same time were on the other.

She could not at this place get down the bank, some 200 or 250 feet to the river. She finally found a path down the hill at Joe Campbell’s spring and hid just below the spring until almost dark, and then went up to the house. Finding there a feather bed, she threw that down a trapdoor into the cellar and went down with her children and took up her abode there for the present. Here she tried to find something to eat but did not succeed.

She remained here for three nights and two days. Indians came into the house at different times during the nights and days while she was below in the cellar. This place became too fearful to endure longer, and she thought she would go down to the ferry and cross the river. All this time she had nothing but a few potatoes she found in Campbell’s garden.

These potatoes were very small, not larger than the end of her thumb. When she reached the river, she found the ferry boat gone, and she was again disappointed. But wandering along the shore, she found a board box pointed at one end and square at the other, nearly filled with water. Opposite this she saw a soldier, one of Captain Marsh’s men killed on the Monday previous.

She bailed out the boat with a tea cup which she had brought from Campbell’s house to drink from, and got in with her children and sat down in the middle and pushed off from the shore. Thus improperly balanced, the boat went round and round. She discovered that she must make her station at the end of the boat, and when thus balanced, the boat went down the stream, leaking fearfully. With her tea cup she made a feeble effort to keep the rickety craft afloat, but the water gained on her fast.

She now found she must make for the shore, and in her efforts to do so succeeded in getting hold of some willows overhanging the edge of the river and was soon safe on the shore. Had the boat not leaked so badly, she had intended to go down the stream in it opposite the fort. But now, having made a crossing after falling down about seven miles without sinking, thankful for this unlooked for assistance, she sent the sinking craft afloat, leaving her tea cup in it, and hastily set out for Fort Ridgely. She had seen in different places in all six dead soldiers along the river lodged in the driftwood.

She now ascended the hill and reached the road leading from the agency to Fort Ridgely. It was just sundown as she stepped into the road. At the first house she came to on the road, she stopped to rest and search for food. The house was deserted and plundered.

She went into the garden and there found some cucumbers. She pared them with an old chisel, which she found at the house, and ate them, giving each of the children a piece. She went forward and thought she would travel all night and reach the fort before she stopped. It was now getting dark, and the mosquitoes were exceedingly annoying.

She could not protect herself from them as she had two children to carry, and her face was totally covered with them. It was now entirely dark. She could not travel and so was compelled to stop for the night. She heard horses coming and supposed the Indians were returning from the fort and that she should even yet be killed when she had so nearly escaped.

She went off from the road and hid in the grass and here remained all night. She was in fact afraid to go to the fort, for Little Crow had told her that everyone at the fort would be killed and that when these men were killed, he was going with his own men to New Ulm. In the morning, however, hoping against hope, she made toward the fort. She came to a house but found nothing at all in it.

It had, from appearance, not been occupied for some time. She then went on to Mr. Bush’s house, three miles from the fort. Here she found some sugar in a bowl, tasted it, and gave some to her children.

She went into the cellar and there found some butter but could not eat it. She was so near the fort, she thought she could get something better there if the Indians had not killed off all the white people. While in the cellar, a man came down and looked into the cellar. She supposed, of course, it was an Indian and was much frightened.

But to her joyous surprise, the strange man asked her if she could give him something to eat. She replied, “This is what I am looking for. ” This man proved to be a German who had come there three nights before and had not the courage to go to the fort, as he had heard shooting there most of the time. So he had dug a hole in a haystack close by and had remained there ever since.

Seeing she had determined to go to the fort, this companion in distress took her little girl and carried her for her, which helped her very much. When within half a mile of the fort, Lieutenant Colver and Warren De Camp came out to meet her. Mr. De Camp supposing her to be his own wife until he came within twenty feet of her.

They stopped where she met the men from the fort until some clothing could be brought for her. A gray blanket was brought, and in this she wrapped herself head and ears, and in this manner made her joyous entry into Fort Ridgely. “After all,” she exclaimed, “I am safe. ” She had been out eight days, having had nothing to eat but raw potatoes and a cucumber.

She had carried the two children all the way except about half a mile. The eldest was nearly four years old. She had traveled from Little Crow’s house in the route she had taken over thirty miles. She had been in imminent danger of detection by the Indians several times.

The reader may imagine her joy at reaching Fort Ridgely. She remained at the fort three nights. The first night she could not sleep. Some fellow sufferers congregated to hear of her escape, which exhausted the night.

The eldest child during this night would frequently cry out in its troubled dreams, “Mama, mama, I can’t walk. ” While on the route, this little girl would wake from partial sleep and most piteously cry, “Mama, mama, give me some bread. ” All Helen could reply, from her full heart with face averted from the child, was, “When we get to the fort, you shall have something good to eat. ”

She remained at the fort three days and came to St.

Peter. She then went to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and remained all winter. In March 1863, she came to St. Paul, and in June returned again to St.

Peter, where at the request of friends, she furnished this simple story of her adventures among the Sioux Indians. Helen was born in Wisconsin to parents Thomas and Laura Paddock, both natives of Vermont. She was named after the heroine Lady Helen Mar from the historic novel The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter, first published in 1810. Beginning with Helen Mar Paddock, the name carried through four generations of daughters: Helen Mar McAnany, 1873 to 1912; Helen Mar Riddle, 1898 to 1950; and Helen Mar Johnston, 1929 to 2010.

In October 1856, when she was only thirteen years old, Helen married James Carrothers, aged twenty-six. In 1857, following a move to Winona, Minnesota, the couple moved to the southwest quarter of section 22 in Beaver Falls Township, Renville County, Minnesota, six miles from the Lower Sioux Indian Agency, where Mr. Carrothers was employed as a carpenter. They were some of the first white residents of the area known as Beaver Creek settlements, and here their children Althea and Thomas were born.

Helen was only fifteen years old when she gave birth to Althea. Mr. Carrothers could be away from home for several days at a time, so Helen became acquainted with the Dakota Indians and learned their language. The medicine man was fond of Helen and taught her how to gather herbs and use them to make medicine, and she would go with him to nurse the sick.

By the summer of 1862, the number of white settlers in the area had grown, and many of the Dakota were angry with the results of treaties and with conditions on the reservation. It all boiled over on August 18th, 1862, when Indians attacked the whites at the Lower Sioux Agency and at the settlements in the region, killing hundreds and taking over one hundred, mostly women and children, as prisoners. When word of the uprising reached the Beaver Creek settlements, several residents gathered at the Jonathan Earl claim, where they made plans to go to Fort Ridgely for protection. They traveled just a short distance when they were surrounded by Indians who began shooting at them.

Some in the group were killed, some escaped, and the rest, women and children, including Helen and her two children, were captured. Her husband was away at the time. All were then taken to Chief Little Crow’s village. Helen and her children managed to escape from this camp, and after a perilous journey lasting eight days, they reached Fort Ridgely.

In time, refugees at the fort were taken to Saint Peter and then to Saint Paul. In early September, Helen traveled to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to visit her parents, who were overjoyed to learn that she was still alive. She remained with them through the winter months to recover from exhaustion and other effects of her captivity and escape. In April, James rejoined Helen, and they moved to Saint Paul, where he worked as a pattern maker in a foundry and she boarded the men who worked with him.

They were there for just two months before moving to Saint Peter. By this time they were having problems with their marriage. Many years later, Helen would write, “After my capture by the Indians, there was discord between me and my husband and at St. Peter, we agreed to disagree.

” Following their divorce, he joined the First Wisconsin Battery of Light Artillery and went to the South. She went to work for Joseph and Valencia Reynolds, keepers of the Northwestern Hotel in St. Peter. She worked there for two years, then returned to the home of her parents, who had moved from Wisconsin to Dodge County, Minnesota.

Here she met Dennis McNanny, a native of Ireland, and they were married in October 1869. They eventually had three children: Helen Marr, Arthur, and Moses. It is unclear why the divorce occurred. All she says is that they agreed to disagree, but it is possible that this was a similar situation to what happened to Mrs.

Wright after she returned from her captivity, when her husband divorced her after she gave birth to a half-Indian child.