Philander Prescott

Philander Prescott (September 17, 1801 – August 18, 1862) was an American trader, interpreter, and pioneer of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The town of Prescott, Wisconsin was first settled by and named after him.

Biography Philander Prescott was the son of Dr. Joel Prescott and Phildelia Reed. He was a native of Phelps, Ontario County, New York. He headed west in the spring of 1819, stopping a few months in Detroit, Michigan Territory, before continuing west to Fort Snelling, then also in Michigan Territory.

In 1823, he married Na-he-no-Wenah (Spirit of the Moon), also known as Mary Ke E Hi, daughter of Man-Who-Flies, a Dakota subchief who lived near Lake Calhoun. She was born –1806 and died on March 29, 1867, at Shakopee, Minnesota. They had sons, William Prescott; Hiram Prescott (born December 21, 1831 or 1832); and Lorenzo Taliferro Prescott (c. 1839 – January 2, 1869); as well as a daughter, Lucy Prescott Pettijohn; and two more children.

During his life on the frontier, he served as a government interpreter of the Dakota language (including for the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux). He worked as a miner, a trapper, and on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. He also ran trading posts, in several locations, and farmed.

From 1839 to 1862, he operated a trading post along the St. Croix River – its location became the town of Prescott, Wisconsin, named for him.

Death He was killed at the Lower Sioux (or Redwood) Agency during the Dakota War of 1862 in the Attack at the Lower Sioux Agency; he was buried in the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, as were his wife and son.

His papers are in the Minnesota Historical Society library.