Philander Prescott

Who was Philander Prescott?

Philander Prescott. He was a native of Phelps, Ontario County, New York. He headed west in the spring of 1819, stopping a few months in Detroit, Michigan, before continuing west to Fort Snelling.

He married in 1823 Na-he-no-Wenah, also known as Mary Ke E Hi, daughter of Man-Who-Flies, a Dakota subchief who lived near Lake Calhoun. She was born around 1804-1806 and died on March 29, 1867 at Shakopee, Minnesota. They had sons, William Prescott, Hiram Prescott; Lorenzo Taliferro Prescott a daughter, Lucy Prescott Pettijohn, and two more children.

During his life on the frontier he served as a government interpreter of the Dakota language. He worked as a miner, a trapper, and on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. He also ran trading posts in several locations, and farmed.

From 1839 to 1862 he operated a trading post along the St. Croix River - its location became the town of Prescott, Wisconsin, named for him.

He was killed at the Lower Sioux Agency during the Dakota War of 1862; he was buried in Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery in Minneapolis, as was his wife and son.