This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this coming week.

Dec. 21

1998 Television’s original Betty Crocker, Adelaide Hawley Cumming, dies in Seattle. Cumming starred in the Betty Crocker Show beginning in 1949 and remained General Mills’ advertising icon until 1964, after which she taught English as a second language in Seattle.

Dec. 23

1846 A bill is introduced in Congress to create a territory called “Minasota.” Although the bill fails, this is the first legislative use of the name.

1926 Robert Bly is born in Madison, Minnesota. A poet, translator, editor, and activist in the men’s movement, he would write numerous books, including the best-selling nonfiction work on men and myth Iron John: A Book About Men. Much of that book was written at a cabin in Carlton County near Moose Lake.

Dec. 25

1842 The first U.S. flag in St. Paul is raised on a pole in front of Richard Mortimer’s house. Born in England, Mortimer had served successively in both the British and American armies and been a commissary and quartermaster sergeant at Fort Snelling before settling in upper St. Paul. The flag flies briefly and then is cut down by “some wicked scamp” from the lower—and rival—part of town.

1866 George Liscomb and Alexander Campbell, fur traders from Mankato, are lynched in New Ulm after they kill a town citizen, John Spenner, in a fight upon being ejected from the bar at the National Hotel. The following day, 300 angry residents of Mankato, along with a company of militia, march to New Ulm to investigate the lynching. Liscomb and Campbell’s mutilated bodies are found stuffed under the ice of the Minnesota River. Although an investigation quickly names many members of the lynch mob, no indictments are ever made.

Dec. 26

1850 Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey declares Minnesota’s first Thanksgiving Day. He cites good crops; no hurricanes, droughts, or diseases; and friendly relations between Native Americans and settler- colonists as worthy reasons to give thanks.

1862 Thirty-eight Dakota men, convicted of crimes committed during the US-Dakota War, are hanged by the federal government in Mankato. It is the largest mass execution in American history.

This column is derived from MNopedia, an online project at mnopedia.org. and developed by the Minnesota Historical Society and its partners.