Bicentennial Story #25-Fr Sommereisen, 1873

Bicentennial Story #25-Fr Sommereisen, 1873

Account of Father Valentine Sommereisen's lone trip across Indian country in 1873.

6/4/1975

2/18/1976

Father Louis Pfaller
Jack Hjort

This recording cannot be copied or reproduced without the written permission of the Dickinson Museum Center. This recording may be freely used for education uses, so long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this recording file is permitted without written permission of the Dickinson Museum Center.

mp3

audio reel, analog, 1/4 inch polyester tape

English

BS-025

Dakota Territory

Copyright Stark County Historical Society and Dickinson Museum Center

On July 25, 1873, an officer of the military escort for the railway surveyors wrote from the Yellowstone that a sensation was created in the camp when a one-horse buggy came into camp from the East. The occupant was Father Valentine Sommereisen, who dated "that he had left Fort Rice on the 19th...and had followed our trail for 260 miles in the intervening six days. This seemed at first incredible, but when he produced letters from friends at Fort Rice . . . they were forced to believe it. The brave old gentlemen had actually traveled alone over an Indian country a distance of over 250 miles, when it was considered necessary to send a force of 15 hundred soldier to protect a party of engineers going over the same route.!"

This is Bicentennial Story No. 25, prepared by Father Louis Pfaller, for the Stark County Historical Society.

Pfaller, The Catholic Church in Western North Dakota, 21

Sound recordings

1:07

128kbps

1970 1979

Bicentennial tape #3, Bicentennial stories 23-45