Sarah Campbell Obituary and Photo

So I have been organizing my files - both paper and digital. I ran across a couple of items that were in my Sarah Campbell files that I thought I had already uploaded to the website. Upon further review, I had them in a folder of website items when in fact they have never been put on the site. My bad.

The first item is the only known photo of Sarah "Aunt Sally" Campbell. I know the quality isn't that great but it's as good as it gets folks.

Only known photograph of Sarah "Aunt Sally" Campbell

The other item is her obituary from the Black Hills Weekly Times in Deadwood. This obituary appeared in the April 14, 1888 issue on page 4, column 4. The obituary lists her age as 75 when it is generally believed that she was 64 years old at the time she died. Lilah Morton Pengra's excellent biography, SARAH CAMPBELL: THE FIRST WHITE WOMAN IN THE BLACK HILLS WAS AFRICAN AMERICAN, also lists her birth year as 1823. That's good enough for me.

UPDATE!!! - UPDATE!!! - UPDATE!!!

Sarah Campbell researcher and author Lilah Morton Pengra recently contacted me and provided an un-cropped version of the photo above. Many thanks to Lilah for this wonderful photo!

Sarah "Aunt Sally" Campbell Obituary - Black Hills Weekly Times - April 14, 1888

Sarah Campbell Page

Finding Sarah "Aunt Sally" Campbell

Back in December I added a page for Sarah Campbell to the trooper pages. In the strictest sense she wasn't one of Custer's troopers. But she definitely deserves her space among those troopers with the 7th Cavalry and also in the pages of Black Hills history.

Here is a video showing how to locate her grave near Galena, South Dakota. She is buried in Vinegar Hill Cemetery which is located at the top of a hill. If you decide to visit her grave for yourself, I would highly recommend a 4-wheel-drive vehicle as the access road is rutted with several washouts. Or you can do what I did and park at the bottom of the access road and walk up.

Finding Sarah Campbell video

Sarah Campbell page

Sarah Campbell - "Aunt Sally"

Sarah Campbell, aka Aunt Sally, is a fascinating person. Her story is just one of many in the history of this country.

Sarah Campbell, who was later to become known as “Aunt Sally”, was born a slave on July 10, 1823, in Kentucky.  She was sold to Henry Choteau, a cousin of Pierre Choteau, who was the founder of Fort Pierre in Dakota Territory. She worked as a cook on a steamboat. She traveled on the Missouri River between Yankton and Bismarck via steamboat. She became a free woman at the age of 14 in 1837. She married in 1839 and gave birth to a son, St. Clair Campbell, in 1840. Her son worked as a ferry boat operator at Fort Randall in Dakota Territory. There is no historical record of Sarah’s husband.

While working in Bismarck she picked up the moniker ‘Aunt Sally” and became the first black woman to own property in that town. She provided services to Fort Abraham Lincoln, located across the Missouri River from Bismarck. In 1874, she signed on the the 7th Cavalry’s Black Hills Expedition as a cook and laundress. She was the first non-Indian woman to enter the Black Hills.

While in the Black Hills, Sarah was inflicted with “gold fever” and returned to the area in 1876. She was the first woman to stake a claim on French Creek near what would become the present-day town of Custer, South Dakota. She later moved to the Black Hills town of Galena and purchased and operated a cattle ranch. In addition to her gold mining properties, she also had interest in a silver mine called the Alice Lode. She still provided laundry services, was a midwife, and sold firewood to miners and settlers.

Sarah Campbell died on April 10, 1888 at the age of 64. She is buried at Galena’s Vinegar Hill cemetery,  in the Black Hills she loved and helped to open to settlement.

Lilah Morton Pengra's excellent biography, SARAH CAMPBELL: THE FIRST WHITE WOMAN IN THE BLACK HILLS WAS AFRICAN AMERICAN is the definitive book on Sarah Campbell.

Tip - If you choose to visit her grave at the Vinegar Hill cemetery in Galena, I would recommend a 4x4 vehicle. It is a steep and rough road to the top. I parked my car at the bottom and walked up.

Sarah Campbell Page