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About Thomas Lestang Sarpy
Source: http://www.nathpo.org/Many_Nations/mn_news16.html
Thomas Sarpy was full of life and ready to enjoy himself whenever the opportunity presented itself. In 1829, Thomas Sarpy was sent up river to Fort Tecumseh after getting drunk and marrying a prostitute, he was 19 years old at the time. This bit of local gossip from St. Louis followed the young man.
The earliest records found on Thomas after his less that praiseworthy exit from St. Louis, show him as a company clerk at the Oglala post near the mouth of what is now called Rapid Creek in South Dakota. A marriage was arranged for him shortly after his arrival to Woman Ahead of the Clouds, daughter of Chief White Swan of the Minneconjou band of the Teton Sioux. They had a daughter, Thomas named Pelagie, after his mother; and shortly after her birth Woman Ahead of the Clouds died.
With a small baby to take care of, Thomas Sarpy soon remarried, this time to Her Good Ground a daughter of Rotten Body Stinking Ribs (English translation that was probably incorrect), a chief of the Sans Arc Band of Teton Sioux. Her Good Ground gave birth to Mary Sarpy (White Woman) in 1831. But within a year Her Good Ground would find herself a widow with two young girls to raise on her own. Twenty two year old Thomas Lestang Sarpy, the young man who was forced out of St. Louis because he like to drink and have a good time died in an unfortunate accident far from home.
Jacob Halsey, Sarpy’s superior, wrote to notify Pierre Choteau, as the head of the company, to let his family know of the Thomas’ death on January 21, 1832. Following the tradition of her culture, Her Good Ground took her two daughters and returned to her family. But as she went home to mourn and tend to her girls, the wheels of fate were already in motion.
When word of Thomas Sarpy’s death reached St. Louis, the first rule of order was to make sure that his children would be cared for. Although the family did not formally acknowledge the half-Indian daughters Thomas had left behind, they apparently did feel responsible for them. Turkey Head and Her Good Ground found themselves in an arranged marriage very shortly after the death of Thomas Sarpy. Perhaps the extended Chouteau/Sarpy family believed that by having the children raised by a son of their former associate, Meriwether Lewis, they had fulfilled their responsibility to their mixed blood relatives Pelagie and Mary Sarpy.
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Thomas Lestang Sarpy's Timeline
| 1810 |
March 10, 1810
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Saint Louis, Missouri
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| 1829 |
July 1829
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Chouteau, SD, United States
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| 1830 |
1830
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Fort Pierre, SD, United States
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| 1831 |
January 21, 1831
Age 20
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Rapid Creek, South Dakota
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