Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins
Humboldt County, Humboldt County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1844 1891). Proposed Text, Marker Plate in Production:Sarah Winnemucca, whose Paiute name was Thocmentony (Shell-flower), was the daughter of Chief Winnemucca, and granddaughter of Captain Truckee, a friend and supporter of Captain John C. Frémont. Sarah Winnemucca sought understanding between her people and European Americans when the latter settled on Paiute homelands. Sarah lectured, wrote a foundational book in American Indian literature, and founded the non-government Peabody School for Native children outside of Lovelock, Nevada. She worked tirelessly to remedy injustice for her people and to advocate peace. Here at Fort McDermitt she served as an interpreter and teacher. Because of her importance to the nation’s history, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins was honored in 2005 with a statue in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.STATE HISTORIC
Erected by Mrs. Curtis S. Harner
The Story
Born around 1844, Sarah Winnemucca—Thocmentony, or Shell-flower—was a Northern Paiute who became one of the most powerful Native voices of her era. Daughter of Chief Winnemucca, she lectured across the country, wrote a landmark book of American Indian literature, and founded a school for Native children near Lovelock as white settlers pressed onto Paiute homelands. Here at Fort McDermitt she served as interpreter and teacher, working tirelessly for justice and peace, and in 2005 was honored with a statue in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.
Why it matters
Sarah Winnemucca stands among the first Native American women to shape national debate through writing and public advocacy, giving her people a hearing in a country determined to dispossess them.
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Related people
- · Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins
- · Chief Winnemucca
- · Captain Truckee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort McDermitt
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Established in 1865 as Quinn River Camp #33, this post was renamed Fort McDermitt for a district commander killed while fighting Native peoples. A cluster of adobe, stone, and frame buildings around a central square, it guarded the road linking Virginia City, the Quinn River Valley, and Oregon. Its troops took part in the Modoc War and in campaigns against the Bannock and Shoshone, and after twenty-four years—the longest active service of any Nevada army fort—it became an American Indian reservation school in 1889.
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Hudson's Bay Company trapper Peter Skene Ogden passed through Paradise Valley in 1828, and settlers arrived in 1863 to farm land that would supply mines across Nevada and Idaho. Conflict with local Native Americans soon followed, prompting the U.S. Army to establish Camp Winfield Scott nearby from 1866 to 1870. The town changed names with its fortunes — Scottsdale, then Paradise City as a mining supply center, and finally Paradise Valley once livestock raising came to dominate.
Pioneer Memorial Park
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This corner of the pioneer cemetery holds the founders of Winnemucca, a Humboldt River town first known as French Ford. Frank Baud, who arrived in 1863, helped name the settlement after the noted Northern Paiute chief Winnemucca. Baud came to work on Dr. Gintz's ambitious but never-finished 90-mile Humboldt canal, then became a merchant, the town's first postmaster, and the donor of its schoolhouse before his death in 1868.