Little Susan Multi-Cache

This is a quick cache to share a little bit of the history of my hometown of Bloomington, Minnesota.

Cemetery hours are from 7 AM - 7 PM April to September, and 7AM - 5 PM October to March.

Please do NOT visit the cemetery after those hours, because 1) it's illegal and 2) it's just plain spooky to visit in the dark.

NOTE: The headstones are over 150 years old; some of the numbers are hard to read. Look closely at them to make sure you have the right numbers!

The area around Bloomington started to be settled by pioneers in 1851 following the the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, which allowed the territory west of the Mississippi River to be settled. A group of families from Bloomington, Illinois migrated to this area and settled here, naming their new community for the one which they just left. These settlers included the Goodrich, Whallon, and Ames families.

There was a little Dakota Indian girl who had been adopted by Mrs. A. M. Whallon and named Susan in 1852. Everyone in the area was familiar with "Little Susan."

In 1856, Mrs. Whallon, who had a small baby of her own in addition to Susan, took both children over to the home of Mrs. Orville Ames, who lived over by the Indian Burial Mounds. If you would like to visit the location of the old Ames cabin, it is located at the location of Mound Springs TB Hotel, which is just southwest of the Indian mounds. At that time, there were not as many trees (and certainly no houses), and so being atop the burial mounds atop the bluffs overlooking the Minnesota River valley allowed an extensive view of the entire Minnesota River valley.

On this particular day, Little Susan was playing on the Indian Mounds when she noticed a band of about 20 Ojibwe Indians riding nearby. She ran into the cabin to tell her mother of the sighting. The Ojibwe saw Little Susan as well, and made their way to the Ames cabin. The Ojibwe rode up to the Ames cabin, and entered it single file.

The first Ojibwe told Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Whallon that they wanted to meet the little Dakota girl and shake her hand. As the story goes, each Ojibwe shook her hand and passed her onto the next until they had her out the door. At this point, they shot her in the arm and chest and scalped her. They then mounted their horses and rode off.

Little Susan was buried in the Bloomington Cemetery. Her monument still stands as a reminder of the violent past and difficult conditions that the first settlers of Bloomington had to contend with in what was then the wild frontier.

To find the final stage of this cache, you must perform the following:

Observe the gravestone and note the following information:

A = The month that Susan was murdered

B = The day that Susan was murdered 

Observe the adjacent gravestone for Martin S. Whallon, who died as a prisoner of war in Danville, Virginia during the Civil War.

C = The month that Mr. Whallon died

D = The day that Mr. Whallon died

E = The year in the 1860s that Mr Whallon died (186E)

Then, when you have all this information, the cache will be at:

N 44 48.(E+5)(D-2)(C) W 093 17.(B-9)(A-4)(D)

Congrats to Rustynails on the FTF!