“History of Stratford New Hampshire” excerpt

Jared Waldo Daniels

The following is taken from the

“History of Stratford New Hampshire 1773 to 1925”,

By Jeannette R. Thompson.  The Rumford Press, Concord, New Hampshire, 1925.

[Pages 362 – 363]

Doctor Jared Waldo Daniels was born in Stratford, June 15^th, 1827.  When he was but four he was deprived of a father and left in very humble circumstances.  He left home when young, secured an academic education, studied medicine with his uncle, Dr. B. F. Hatch, in Boston, and graduated from Belleview Medical College, in New York.  He went west in 1855 and was appointed the resident physician at Yellow Medicine Agency.  In 1856 he married Hortense Eugenie Beardsley of New York, taking her to the Agency, where she had the society of two missionary families living within five miles.  She won the hearts of the Indians by her kindness, as she generally accompanied her husband on his visits, carrying such articles of food as they required.  She died in 1870.

In 1862 Dr. Jared was commissioned surgeon in the volunteer forces of Minnesota and served during the war.  At its close he located at Fairbault, Minnesota, but after years of civil practice he was appointed Indian agent to gather the Indians who were driven from their homes at the time of the massacre, and place them on a reservation.  They were Indians he had lived among six years.  He knew them all and they showed their confidence in him by obedience to his wishes so that within three years he had them living in homes of their own making and cultivating fields of their own breaking.

He established schools, a court of native officers for the trial of criminals, and a native police force for the protection of the frontier and to keep the peace on the reservation.  That was the first Indian police force ever established among the tribes in this country.

After spending nearly three years among these people and seeing them well started on the road to self-support he was sent to North Platte River, near Fort Laramie, to influence Red Cloud and his people, numbering 6,000, to locate on an agency.

This great Sioux had made a treaty but would not avail himself of its advantages, remaining north with the hostile bands. He was the most influential war chief in the Sioux nation.  When he heard that the “medicine man” was in his country he met him at Fort Laramie and was influenced by him to go to where the Indian supplies were and in a few months afterwards to locate his agency on White River.

In the summer of 1872, he took Red Cloud and thirty braves to visit eastern cities.  This gave them a chance to see the power of the government, and that band has been at peace ever since.  On his return from the east he was ordered to take a few influential Indians and join a commission at the headwaters of the Missouri River and to make a treaty with a band of Northern Sioux. 

In 1873 he was appointed Inspector of Indian Agencies.  This required him to visit all agencies west of the Mississippi, both north and south. In 1875 he was one of the commissioners to make treaty for the Black Hills country.  This was consummated in the fall of 1877.  This closed his connection with the government after twenty-two years’ service.”