I have probably driven through Blunt (South Dakota) a hundred times, but I have never stopped at the historic marker in front of an old house on the north side of U.S. Highway 14. This time I stopped.
Much to my surprise, the marker stated "Mentor Graham the man who taught Abraham Lincoln died in this house on October 4, 1885."
Mentor Graham was born in Kentucky, but moved to Illinois in 1826 and taught both Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge "the finer points of English grammar." He was admired by Lincoln and at Lincoln's 1861 inauguration "when the president saw his old friend in the crowd, he invited him up to the speaking platform."
In 1880 Graham migrated west to Blunt (South Dakota) with his son's family and died there in 1885. The house was donated to the South Dakota State Historical Society in 1946, but in recent years the house has been neglected and is now in poor condition.
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| Mentor Graham (Historic Web Picture) - Photographer Unknown |
While we were in Blunt, we decided to drive by the place where my Uncle Ormel lived. The house has been demolished and the lot at the northeast corner of Main Street and Josie Avenue is now covered with weeds, brush and trees.
Like so many small towns, Blunt has not prospered well with time. The old dance hall where we went to see touring Rock-and-Roll Bands like "BJ and the Flies" (Maybe that wasn't their real name.) and other forgettable groups is still standing, but about to fall down. I somehow remembered that it was a much larger building. The old ticket window where you paid your 50-cents admission is still located at the front of the building between the two entrance/exit doors.
Located diagonally across the street was Howard's International Harvester (I-H) farm equipment facility and the old hardware store building. I don't remember, but Howard's may have owned the hardware store and had their I-H business in the same building. (The building is in better condition now than it was 50 years ago, so the building must have been restored.)
On the inside of the building there was an old sliding ladder along one wall for hard to reach items and in the center of the building there were large rotating multi-level tin bins that contained nails. Nails were purchased by the pound, so people could select any combination of nails they wanted and the bag was weighed to determine the sale price. The building is now vacant.
A number of people that I remember well are buried in the cemetery just outside of town. There is also a nice Veterans Memorial in the cemetery.
Along U.S. Highway 14 about 4 miles west of Blunt there is a large rock that is also an interesting historic marker. An arrow on top of the rock points to Medicine Knoll and a plaque on the rock states: "Medicine Knoll Two Miles South. Gen. John C. Fremont the great pathfinder and Joseph Nicollet eminent scientist celebrated July 4, 1839 on this butte. A large serpent in boulder mosaic a Sioux Memorial is on the top." Medicine Knoll is located on private land and the Mosaic is not open to the public.
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| Historical Aerial Photograph - Photographer Unknown |
The stone effigy on top of Medicine Butte was first reported by Theodore Lewis in 1889 and he recorded that the effigy was 360 feet long and contains 825 stones. An Indian informant told Lewis that the effigy was created to honor Dakota Chief Saswe. Apparently, as a young man Saswe camped on Medicine Butte in a quest to have a vision. The informant told Lewis that there were two ways to have a vision. "You could do a vision by standing, praying with the pipe, or you do a vision in a somewhat different way, by digging a kind of a hole, with a kind of a little seat in it, and then you would put your head down and you would wait." Apparently, Saswe opted for second type of vision.
The story goes on that when Saswe did not return, his cousin, Brown Bear, rode his horse up Medicine Knoll, but was stopped by a large number of rattlesnakes. Brown Bear could see Saswe in the distance and Saswe was covered with a large ball of rattlesnake that were " furiously writhing back and forth over Saswe's prostrate body." Brown Bear rode back to camp and told what he had seen, so the tribe started mourning. However, during the mourning ceremony, Saswe came safely down the hill.
It is reported that near the head of the stone effigy there is an indentation in the ground, which is where Saswe was reportedly covered with the rattlesnakes.
Dr. Craig Howe of the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies has studied numerous stone effigies and said that:
Another thing about these effigies out of rocks...rocks are not just rocks in Lakota cosmology. This idea of these rocks are, from their origins, from the beginning of time from a Lakota perspective. This is a being...These Rocks are evidence of an original being called Inyan. And he was what was here at the beginning. And eventually, Inyan...pulsated with the potentiality of the universe. So this being eventually, through processes that are in Lakota cosmology, he bled out, and went from this amorphous powerful being to this hard, brittle substance that we call rock today. So any of these rocks are, in Lakota cosmology they're referencing Inyan, that original being. So, to use them to make a shape of anything can have these really strong cultural significance. The people on this landscape knew this landscape cold. They knew everything about it. They traveled all over it. They understood it in great detail. And these kinds of places, these Medicine Knolls and buttes, this feels to me like something that was knowledge that was held collectively by people, for a really long time.
CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF JERRY HAWKINS
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