Jacob Fahlström

Jacob Fahlström (c.1794–1859), also known as Father Jacob, was the very first Swede to settle in Minnesota. He was known as Ozaawindib or "Yellow Head" to the Ojibwe, and to other white settlers as the "Swede Indian." After working in the fur trade for the Hudson's Bay Company in Manitoba, he joined the American Fur Company at Fond du Lac (in present-day Duluth) as a boatman. In 1823, he married Margaret Bonga, the part-Ojibwe daughter of Pierre Bonga, a French African interpreter in the fur trade. Around 1825, he started working for the U.S. government as a woodsman, mail carrier, and blacksmith's striker at the St. Peter's Indian Agency next to Fort Snelling.

In 1838, Fahlström became the first Methodist convert in Minnesota. In 1840, he became a lay preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church and was considered one of their most successful missionaries to Native Americans in the region. Fluent in Ojibwe and English, he also spoke French, Dakota and Iroquois, in addition to his native Swedish. His parish extended from the Rum River to Lake Superior. Stories of his adventures in the wilderness and his encounters with Indians made him a legendary figure in Minnesota history. During the last decade of his life, he also preached to newly immigrated Swedes who became part of a growing community near his family farm in Afton, Minnesota where he was buried in 1859.

In June 1948, Prince Bertil of Sweden unveiled a plaque in his honor on Kellogg Boulevard in Saint Paul.