So Minnesota: Bishop Henry Whipple

He was a bishop who died more than a century ago, but he never actually left a historic Minnesota house of worship.

Bishop Henry Whipple helped found the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour in Faribault.

Whipple gained a reputation as a humanitarian and an advocate for Native Americans.

"He really was a man who was ahead of his time," Rev. Henry Doyle, with the Cathedral, said. "What he was doing in many ways was living out the Gospel. The Gospel is love God and love one another, those are the two great commandments."

Whipple is best known for his clemency pleas in favor of a group of Native Americans who fought against the United States government in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. After the war, around 300 were sentenced to be hanged but President Abraham Lincoln pardoned 265 at Whipple’s urging.

"He really went to bat for them, he just put it all on the line for the people, the Native Americans," Doyle said. "He felt this is what we need to do as a nation."

When Whipple died in 1901, he was buried under the altar of the Cathedral.