Henry Hopkins Sibley - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Henry Hopkins Sibley, while descended from Massachusetts Bay Colony ancestors, was born in 1816 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. His father Samuel Hopkins Sibley moved his family there from Massachusetts in 1811. He followed his own father, Dr. John Sibley, who moved to the Red River country in Louisiana before 1803.

Dr. John Sibley served as a medic in Massachusetts in the American Revolutionary War. His wife was Elizabeth Hopkins, whose family name was given as a middle name to their son Samuel and grandson Henry. After her death, Sibley moved to the French colony of Louisiana. Dr. Sibley settled on the banks of the Red River at Natchitoches, Louisiana.

In 1803 after the Louisiana Purchase, Dr. Sibley was part of an expedition to western Louisiana for the US government. In 1811 his son Samuel Hopkins Sibley and his wife followed to Natchitoches and settled there. Samuel Sibley served as a parish clerk from 1815 until his death in 1823.

After his father's death when Henry was seven years old, the boy was sent to Missouri to live with his paternal uncle George Champlin Sibley and his wife Mary Easton. They founded Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri.

Union general and first Governor of Minnesota, Henry Hastings Sibley (1811–1891), was a distant cousin. His family had migrated west in the Northern Tier, which historians have called Greater New England.