HON. HENRY HASTINGS  SIBLEY, LL.D.                  85
valuable pre-emption, but it is believed to be the only case in
which speed of foot was made to decide a legal question in
obedience to the fiat of a magistrate!"*
Nine years of such varied life, so full of vicissitude, labor,
romance, danger, and incident, living most of the time as an
Indian among Indians, a hunter, a soldier, a legislator, and a
judge, and transacting an immense business as the head of the
great American Fur Company for the Northwest, had passed
away. The year 1843 was an important one for Mr. Sibley.
It changed entirely the whole mode of his life, from that of a
"bachelor" to that of a "benedict." He resolved no longer
to live a single life. The fair woman, who that year became
his wife, he had previously met in the spring of 1842, in the
city of Baltimore, where, unexpectedly called from Washing-
ton to stand as groomsman for her brother, the late Franklin
Steele, he first made her acquaintance. So was it ordered by
divine Providence. Henry Hastings Sibley and Sarah Jane
Steele, the youngest of the family, having just completed her
educational curriculum, stood up together at the bridal. The
beauty of her person, her bright intelligence, her modesty of
mien, her sprightliness and charm, unconsciously impressed a
deathless mark upon the soul of the gallant pioneer, though
even then not "on matrimonial thoughts intent." No dream
had yet occurred that, with the flight of a few months, he
would play the r61e of a married man. Soon after the cere-
mony, General Steele, the father of the recent bridegroom,
died, and Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Steele, happy in their union,
came to Fort Snelling, accompanied by the charming Sarah
Jane. Later, in 1848, the widow of General Steele came to
Mendota, and made her home for sixteen years with Mr. Sib-
ley after he became her son-in-law; "a venerable Christian
mother," whose influence was everywhere felt, and whose
praise to this day is upon the tongues of all her children. At
the same time her oldest daughter, Mary H., attended her.
As to Mr. Sibley's condition, when Miss Sarah Jane arrived
at the fort, it was critical. The perilous encounter with the
buffalo, already recited, had caused him to become a cripple,
in a measure, for a number of monotonous and weary months,
unable to visit Fort Snelling and enjoy the companionship of
his friends. Amusingly enough, however, the palsied condi-
tion of our pioneer suddenly, as no less surprisingly, gave
1 Minn. Hist. Coll., Vol. Ill, Part 2, p. 268.