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Shieldsville, Minnesota

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Location: Shieldsville Township, Rice, Minnesota, United Statesmap
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Contents

Introduction

This Free-Space page is an ongoing project, and hopes to serve as a resource for genealogical study of people who have a connection to Shieldsville, Minnesota. The page makes use of dozens of footnote links to access resources such as books, maps, documents, news articles, etc., so Please, use the links and have fun learning more about Shieldsville.

James Shields

James Shields was born in Ireland about 1810, and came to the United States as a young man. He fought in the Mexican-American war, served as a Senator from 3 different states, and challenged Abraham Lincoln to a duel. Shieldsville township, located in Rice county, southern Minnesota, is named after him. The village of Shieldsville was platted by James Shields in 1856, and founded around St Patrick's Catholic church located there. Shieldsville claims to be the first Irish settlement in Minnesota, created 2 years before gaining statehood in 1858. Click this link for his complete profile: James Shields

St Patrick's Catholic Church

St Patrick's, one of Minnesota's oldest Irish Catholic churches.[1]

St Patrick's church on Facebook. [2]

Current St Patrick's church website. [3]

St Patrick's Cemetery on Find-A-Grave.[4]

St Patrick's Cemetery on Billion Graves.[5]

Trebon Cemetery in Shieldsville township.[6]

Local History

"Meet Shieldsville" is a book written by Mary Hagerty in 1940. It tells the story of the community surrounding St Patrick's church. Local history and pioneer families are featured.[7]

Facebook page, Meet Shieldsville.[8] This is a surprisingly active little page, with photos and stories of past residents, and some old-timers that may even be able to answer a question or two. Many entries are based on the above mentioned book "Meet Shieldsville".

Shieldsville is located in Rice county, so these books will have a section on Shieldsville and also cover a slightly wider area:

  • History of Rice County.[9]
  • History of Rice & Steele counties Minnesota. Vol 1[10] The section on Shieldsville begins on page 182.
  • History of Rice & Steele counties Minnesota. Vol 2 [11] Use the search feature within each volume to find specific names or places.

Maps & Land

This 1874 map of Rice county, Minnesota shows Shieldsville township on the western edge of the county. When zoomed in, you can see the village located in the northeast corner of the township, and the church nearby.[12]

1900 Map of Shieldsville Township.[13] This is the plat map which has the landowner names for each parcel. It can be a huge help in locating your family homestead if they were in the area in 1900. Note several things about plat maps: they are divided into "sections" numbered 1 to 36, starting at upper right. The number below property owner's name is acres. The tiny black squares represent dwellings.

1900 Map of the Village of Shieldsville.[14] Notice that this is the populated area in the far NE corner of Shieldsville Township.

1915 Plat Map of Shieldsville Township. [15]

1940s Plat Map of Shieldsville township.[16]

1958 Plat Map of Shieldsville township.[17]

1971 Plat Map of Shieldsville township.[18]

1980 Map of Shieldsville township.[19]

2021 Road Map of Shieldsville Township.[20]

This is the current (2022) Highway map for Rice county.[21]

The Bureau of Land Management - General Land Office has a great site for finding homestead parcels in most states west of Ohio. It has a very clumsy interface, but is well worth the effort in finding land documents and original land surveys (before platting).[22]

If you're successful finding a land document, you can enter the "Legal Land Description" into this calculator to find the location on the map.[23] Again, on this site, the interface is not very user friendly, but it does work.

Vital Records

The MOMS site (Minnesota Official Marriage System) allows you to search for marriage records.[24] A surname and date range usually results in a manageable number of returns to look through, but add a given name if needed, and try alternate spellings.

FamilySearch records

The FamilySearch website is probably the best free online genealogical site, period. If you haven't used this site yet, you're missing out on a great resource, so set up a user name and password, FREE, and get started.[25]

Military Service & War Veterans

CIVIL WAR - Many local men served for the Union in the US Civil War.
  • The US National Park Service hosts this site that allows you to search for your soldier by name.[26] Filter the many results by clicking "union", "Minnesota" and by battle unit if known (such as "Infantry", "Heavy Artillery", etc.). Make note of the details, and use the next resource to look up the roster for your soldier.
  • This book lists the "Military forces of the state of Minnesota from 1861-1866"[27] I have found no Index for this 800 plus page book, so good luck.
All Veterans -

Minnesota Military Records FamilySearch page.[28]

While the idea of Veterans memorials is great, I have personally found that at least 4 Civil War vets in my family tree are missing from these rosters.
  • Rice County Veteran's Memorial.[29]
  • Shieldsville Veteran's Memorial.[30]

Mazaska Lake Monster

It raised quite a fuss when first reported in 1875, a sea serpent was sited at lake Mazaska, in the NE corner of Shieldsville township. The original article is found reprinted in the above mentioned book "Meet Shieldsville" by Mary Hagerty,1940, on page 40. Another newspaper report from a few years later seems comical today, but at the time many people were taken in.[31] Here are a few more modern mentions of the old story.[32][33]

The Great Northfield Band Robbery

While the historic crime didn't take place in Shieldsville, the city of Northfield is just 20 miles away, so we'll call that close enough to be of local interest.  In late August of 1876, the Jesse James - Cole Younger Gang headed for Minnesota. On September 7, 1876, eight bandits rode into Northfield to rob the First National Bank. The attempted raid was a huge disaster, resulting in the deaths of three gang members and two Northfield citizens. The escape route used by the fleeing gang included traveling SW along historic Dodd rd, directly through Shieldsville. Follow the footnote links for the full story.[34][35] Several movies were inspired by the event.[36][37]

Research Notes

Sources

  1. ↑ St Patrick's, one of Minnesota's oldest Irish Catholic churches https://mnprairieroots.com/tag/st-patricks-church-shieldsvile/
  2. ↑ St Patrick's church on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/spshieldsville.org/
  3. ↑ St Patrick's church website http://www.spshieldsville.org/
  4. ↑ St Patrick's Cemetery on Find-A-Grave https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2178239/saint-patrick-catholic-cemetery
  5. ↑ St Patrick's Cemetery on Billion Graves https://billiongraves.com/cemetery/Saint-Patrick-Catholic-Cemetery/631646
  6. ↑ Trebon Cemetery https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1969849/trebon-cemetery
  7. ↑ Meet Shieldsville book https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/H004709.pdf
  8. ↑ Facebook page, Meet Shieldsville https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064702417963
  9. ↑ History of Rice County https://archive.org/details/cu31924028913097/page/574/mode/2up
  10. ↑ History vol 1 https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Rice_and_Steele_Counties_Minn/7U40AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=shieldsville+rice+county+minnesota&
  11. ↑ History vol 2 https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Rice_and_Steele_Counties_Minn/M080AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=history+rice+county+minnesota&
  12. ↑ 1874 map of Rice cty https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~22513~750021:Map-of-Rice-County%2C-Minn-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:Rice%20county%2C%20Minnesota;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=2&trs=7
  13. ↑ 1900 Plat Map of Shieldsville Township https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/479066/Shieldsville+Township/Rice+County+1900/Minnesota/
  14. ↑ 1900 Map of the Village of Shieldsville (on Lower Half of page.) https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/479069/
  15. ↑ 1915 Plat Map of Shieldsville Township https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/474659/Shieldsville++Shields+Lake++Rice+Lake++Mudd+Lake++Cedar+Lake++Hunt+Lake/Rice+County+1915/Minnesota/
  16. ↑ 1940s Plat Map of Shieldsville township https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/47846/Shieldsville+Township/Rice+County+194x/Minnesota/
  17. ↑ 1958 Plat Map of Shieldsville township. https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1254522/Shieldsville+Township/Rice+County+1958/Minnesota/
  18. ↑ 1971 Plat Map of Shieldsville township https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/34187/Shieldsville/Rice+County+1971/Minnesota/
  19. ↑ 1980 Map of Shieldsville township https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/628183/Shieldsville+T110N+R22W/Rice+County+1980/Minnesota/
  20. ↑ 2021 Road Map of Shieldsville https://www.dot.state.mn.us/maps/gdma/data/maps/township/rice/shieldsville.pdf
  21. ↑ Highway map - Rice county https://www.ricecountymn.gov/DocumentCenter/View/300/Rice-County-Highway-Map?bidId=
  22. ↑ BLM-GLO Land Records https://glorecords.blm.gov/default.aspx
  23. ↑ legallandconverter https://legallandconverter.com/p43.html
  24. ↑ Minnesota Official Marriage System https://moms.mn.gov/
  25. ↑ FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/en/
  26. ↑ US National Park Service soldier search https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers.htm
  27. ↑ Minnesota military forces 1861-1866 https://archive.org/details/annualreport01minn/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater
  28. ↑ Minnesota Military Records https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Minnesota_Military_Records
  29. ↑ Rice County Veteran's Memorial https://ricecountymemorial.org/
  30. ↑ Shieldsville Veteran's Memorial https://www.legion.org/memorials/250252/all-american-veterans-memorial
  31. ↑ St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.), 07 Sept. 1886, pg 5, column 2. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1886-09-07/ed-1/seq-5/>
  32. ↑ Shieldsville Monster https://books.google.com/books?id=SP6JmM70J8cC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&
  33. ↑ Fishing newsletter, Page 4 https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/southernminn.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/6b/46b08282-1f7c-5b13-9650-90b83dd8ea26/5dd85fc7aebd2.pdf.pdf
  34. ↑ Northfield Bank Raid https://mndigital.org/projects/primary-source-sets/northfield-bank-raid-1876
  35. ↑ Northfield Historical Society http://www.northfieldhistory.org/the-bank-raid/
  36. ↑ Movie, Northfield Bank Raid Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Northfield_Minnesota_Raid
  37. ↑ Movie, Jesse James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Jesse_James

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