Historical Marker · No. 590
In Memory of Mrs. Joseph Thatcher
Moody County · South Dakota
Erected by Moody County Y. C. L., 1937
She was Elizabeth Thatcher, nineteen, taken in March 1857 at the East Okoboji cabin her family shared with the Nobles; her seven-month-old child was killed. Sick with phlebitis, she was made to carry a pack for some six weeks. At the Big Sioux a warrior of Inkpaduta's band pushed her from a driftwood bridge, and when she fought toward shore she was driven back and shot. The 1937 plate on the fieldstone obelisk was the gift of the Young Citizens League, a schoolchildren's civic club; a later plaque credits the DAR's Mary Chilton chapter with its restoration.
What the plaque says
In Memory of Mrs. Joseph Thatcher One of the captives of the Spirit Lake Massacre, who was drowned while crossing the Big Sioux River, in April 1857, about 300 yards east of this point. This plate donated by Moody County Y. C. L. 1937
Where it stands
44.05239, -96.56622 · Directions
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