Note: Succeeding the Upper Platte Agency in 1868, the Whetstone Agency was primarily responsible for the Sicangu people in Spotted Tail’s band. From 1871-1875 the agency was located on the White River near the Dakota-Nebraska border. In 1874 the agency was renamed Spotted Tail Agency. (See also Spotted Tail, Rosebud and Upper Platte Agencies)

Many people described Sefroy Iott in retrospect as "a man of small means." He was one of many who spent their whole adult life on the frontier without accumulating either fame or fortune to any satisfying degree.

He came from Missouri. It appears that the first "Ayot" transferred to St. Louis with the garrison of Fort Chartres when that post was surrendered to the English in 1765. 1

In common with many of his boyhood companions, Iott went to the mountains as soon as he was old enough. In 1834 on the Green River, Fontenelle wrote him an order for $27.00 for services rendered the expedition to the mountains that year.2 Later he worked for the opposition firm of Pratte & Cabanne and finally came to Fort Pierre about 1846 as an employee of P. Chouteau Jr. & Co.3

At St. Charles, Missouri about 1838 Iott married Leonide Janis, sister of the frontiersmen Nicholas and Antoine Janis.4 The St. Charles baptismal records list three children by this marriage: Margaret Philomena (1838), Emilie Sophie (1840), and Marie Felicite (1845).5 However, in later life Mrs. Iott referred to her only daughter Emily - the other children may have died in infancy.

In 1847 Sefroy Iott appears in the records as a godfather for the daughter of Jean Janis in St. Charles but a conclusive rift developed in the family soon after. He eventually ended up in the Platte country and is notted with an Indian wife named "Ellen" by 1857.6

Iott was an interpreter at Ft. Laramie when the Grattan Massacre occurred in 1854. He was in the Oglala camp about a mile from the first fighting & barely escaped with his life.7 During the next ten years he lived around Fort Laramie with this Sioux wife, trapping, guiding and trading in a small way with the Indians & emigrants. He usually had enough Indian ponies to move his family about but appeared generally to be in reduced circumstances. 8 He apparently had a second Indian wife by 1860 because Episcopal missionary records show the marriage in 1877 of John O'Brien to Mary Iott, who was born in 1860 to Sefroy and Mary Iott. Mary was also the mother of at least two of his sons.

When the abortive attempt was made in 1865 to move the friendly Indians and squawmen away from Ft. Laramie, Iott was with the caravan commanded by Captain Fouts. In the ensuing revolt of the Indians, he claimed to have lost thirty-six horses.9 After the fight, he returned to the Fort Laramie vicinity.

In the treaty of 1868 at Ft. Laramie he appears as one of the interpreters for the Oglalas. He was also one of the interpreters selected by the Peace commission to assist in moving the Indians to Whetstone Agency on the Missouri that same year, being appointed May 27, 1868, and discharged September 7, 1868.10 After reaching Whetstone, Iott submitted a claim for flour and bacon furnished the Indians enroute from Fort Laramie. Captain Poole, the new agent, forwarded the claim with the statement, "The claimant, who is legally incorporated and located with the Indians at this Agency, is a very worthy mand and deserving of any assistance that can be extended him.11

In April 1870, Iott was one fo the men who wrote the commissioner saying that they were asked to use their influence in getting the Indians to move and that most of their property had been used up by the Indians. In return they wanted land upon which each of them could settle. Nothing, of course, was ever done to comply with the request.12

In 1873 he was working at new Whetstone Agency on White River as a "sub-farmer" in charge of certain bands of Indians.13 The Iotts were listed in Agent Howard's 1875 census at the new Spotted Tail Agency with three boys and three girls.14 That same year Iott served as interpreter for Colonel Collins in a council at Spotted Tail Agency on the Black Hills problem. Collins wrote that Iott had then spent over thirty years with the Sioux.15 He was apparently well-liked by the Indians, who called hime "Stand In The Prairie."16

He also enjoyed the good-will of Agent Howard. In a letter to the Commissioner Sept 20, 1875, the latter included Iott in a list of men recommended for continuance fo rations when it appeared that many whites at the Agency should be stricken from the rolls.17 Sefroy Iott died in Northwestern Nebraska July 15, 1885.18 One of his mixed-blood sons, William, died at Spotted Tail Agency in 1875. In 1891 his Indian wife Mary was listed on the Rosebud census, at 54 years of age, with sons Henry 21 and John 17.

After the death of their daughter Emilie, Iott's first wife, Leonide, cared for sevem orphaned grandchildren and the Janis brothers brought them all to northwest Nebraska in the 1880's. Mrs. Iott was a favorite with all her neighbors and there were many expressions of regret when "Grandma Iott" passed away at Rushville, Nebraska, June 28, 1905.19 A number of descendants live in South Dakota and Nebraska.

NOTES: 1. Louis Houck, History of Missouri (Chicago 1908), II, p. 17. 2. Sublette Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 3. Fort Pierre Letter Books, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 4. In later days her family spelled the name "Eleonitte," we give it as it appears in the St. Charles baptismal record for 1818. 5. Index to Saint Charles County Baptisms 1792-1863. p.49. 6. In the Episcopal Church records there is noted the marriage of Sefroy and Ellen (Indian) at Spotted tail Agency June 9, 1877 by the Reverend Wm. J. Cleveland, with notation "Had live together about 20 years." 7. James Bordeaux' account quoted in Pulications of the Nebraska State Historical Society (Lincoln), XX, p.260. 8. Statements by Elias Whitcomb, Albert Rouleau and Wm. Lee in records of claim No. 9125, Louis Bordeaux, Adm., Records of U.S. Court of Claims, National Archives. 9. Ibid. 10. Letter received by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Upper Platte Agency 1868. National Archives. 11. Ibid. (1870). 12. Ibid. 13. Letters received by the Office of Indian Affairs, Whetstone Agency 1873, National Archives. 14. Ibil. (1875). 15. Ibid. 16. Letter to Frank Aplan, Rushville, Nebraska from Philip Young, grandson of Sefroy Iott. 17. Letters received by the Whetstone Agency 1875, National Archives. 18. Claim No. 9125, Louis Bordeaux, Adm., Records of U.S. Court of Claims, National Archives. 19. Statements by Henry Cottier and Frank Aplan, Rushville, Nebraska 1963.