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March 11, 2022 8:30 am  #1


Tom Fitzpatrick led a very interesting life!

If you are a history buff like me, you will LOVE this.  It is a wonderful biography of Fitzpatrick.  It's quite long to read, but it is extremely interesting and a lot of names you'll recognize are mentioned all throughout this article.  I loved reading it! 

In the article there is a photo of some round-topped mud huts, called Mound houses and this particular drawing was made at the village just south of present day Bismarck, North Dakota.  Also this was located not far from Ft. Lincoln which is/was just south of present day Mandan, North Dakota. Bismarck and Mandan are often mentioned together because they are only 1 mile apart! Today that mound hut village is a popular tourist site, along with a park and a museum, and the mud huts look much as they did when they were first made/built.  They have been very well preserved although they didn't require much in the way of preservation because that mud can withstand weather of all kinds, and fires too. 

This mud hut Indian village is also where Lewis and Clark spent a winter on their trek westward, along with Toussant Charbonneau, husband of Sakakawea, and it is where her first of two children (sons) were born. There are many different spellings for her name, but there is a monument to her just outside my hometown along the Missouri River and it is spelled the way I have put it here, which I truly think is the correct spelling.  That's also EXACTLY how it was pronounced, not Sakajawea, as many historians normally have incorrect.  Heaven forbid they should ask someone from this area about any of these pronounciations . . .

Wm. Ashley (Fitzpatrick's employer for beaver pelts)  was famous in the northern part of South Dakota as a trader/employer before he became a Senator.  A town was established near there (although after state lines were drawn it was actuallly located just across the border into North Dakota) and named after him.  It is where my maternal grampa was born and raised.  Many, many Russian/German families settled there in the late 1800's and early 1900's and some of the family names are still very much present in that area today.

Just an extra bit of bonus information for ya there!

https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/mountain-man-thomas-fitzpatrick-the-legendary-broken-hand
 


A government which robs Peter to
pay Paul can always depend on
the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw
 

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