USA > Minnesota > Concise history of the state of Minnesota > Part 8
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The agent, although not at that time a communicant of the Church, welcomed these visitors, and afforded them every facility in visiting the Indians. On Sunday the sixth of September, the Rev. Mr. Coe preached twice in the Fort, and the next night held a prayer-meeting at the quarters of the commanding officer. On the next
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
Sunday he preached again, and on the fourteenth, with Mr. Stevens and a hired guide, returned to Mackinaw by way of the St. Croix River. During this visit the agent offered for a Presbyterian mission the mill which then stood on the site of Minneapolis, and had been erected by the government, as well as the farm at Lake Calhoun, which was begun to teach the Sioux agri- culture.
In 1S30, Frederick Ayer, one of the teachers at Mack- inaw, made an exploration as far as La Pointe, and re- turned. Upon the thirtieth dayof August, 1831, a Mack- inaw boat abont forty feet long arrived at LaPointe, bring- ing from Mackinaw the principal trader, Mr. Warren, Rev. Sherman Hall and wife, and Mr. Frederick Ayer, a catechist and teacher. Mr. Hall wrote in his journal: "After sailing thirty leagues, in a day and a half, we ar- rived at La Pointe, the place of our destination, about noon to-day, all heartily glad to find a resting-place. We were agreeably disappointed on finding the place so much more pleasant than we anticipated. As we ap- proached, it appeared like a small village. There are several houses, stores, barns, and out-buildings about the establishment, and forty or fifty acres of land under cultivation."
Mrs. Hall attracted great attention, as she was the first white woman who had come to reside in that region. Sherman Hall was born on April 30, 1801, at Wethers- field, Vermont, and in 1828 graduated at Dartmouth College, and completed his theological studies at Ando- ver, Massachusetts, a few weeks before he journeyed to the Indian country. His classmate at Dartmouth and Andover, the Rev. W. T. Boutwell, still living ( January, 1SS7, ) near Stillwater, became his yoke-fellow, but re-
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FIRST MISSION IN MINNESOTA.
mained for a time at Sault Ste. Marie. In June, 1832, Henry R. Schoolcraft, the head of an exploring expedi- · tion, invited Mr. Boutwell to accompany him to the sources of the Mississippi. Upon Mr. Boutwell's return from this expedition he was at first associated with Mr. Hall in the mission at La Pointe.
In 1833 the mission band which had centered at La Pointe diffused their influence. In October Rev. Mr. Boutwell went to Leech Lake, and established the first mission in Minnesota west of Lake Superior, Mr. Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, Wisconsin, and Mr. E. F. Ely became a teacher at Aitkin's trading post at Sandy Lake. A letter from Leech Lake, written by Mr. Boutwell, soon after his arrival, contains the following wise suggestions:
"If the Indians can be induced by example and other help (such as seed and preparing the ground), to culti- vate more largely, they would, I have no doubt, furnish provisions for their children in part. If a mission here should furnish the means of feeding, clothing, and in- strueting the children, as at Mackinaw, I venture to say there would be no lack of children. But such an esta- blishment is not only impracticable here; it is such as would ill meet the exigencies of this people. While a mission proffers them aid, they should be made to feel that they must try at least to help themselves. It should be placed on a footing that will instruet them in the principles of political economy. At present there is among them nothing like personal rights, or individual property, any further than traps, guns, and kettles are concerned. They possess all things in common. If an Indian has anything to eat, his neighbours are all allowed to share it with him. While, therefore, a mission er-
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tends the hand of charity in the means of instruction, and occasionally an article of clothing, and perhaps some aid in procuring the means of subsistence, it should be ouly to such individuals as will themselves use the means so far as they possess them. This might operate as a stimulus with them to cultivate and fix a value upon corn, rice, etc., at least with such as care to have their children instructed, rather than squander it in feasts and feeding such as are too indo- lent to make a garden themselves. It will require much patience, if not a long time, to break up and eradicate habits so inveterate. An Indian cannot eat alone. If he kills a pheasant, his neighbours must come in for a portion, small indeed, but so it is."
In the year 1834, Mr. Boutwell was married at Fond du Lac, of St. Louis River, to an interesting person, the daughter of a director of the fur trade, and an Indian mother. He has written the following account of the first days of married life at Leech Lake: "The clerk very kindly invited me to occupy a part of his quarters, until I could prepare a place to put myself. I thought best to decline his offer; and on the thirteenth instant, removed my effects, and commenced housekeeping in a bark lodge. Then, here I was, without a quart of corn or Indian rice to eat myself, or give my man, as I was too late to purchase any of the mere pittance which was to be bought or sold. My nets, under God, were my sole dependence to feed myself and hired man. I had a barrel and a half of flour, and ninety pounds of pork only before me for the winter. But on the seventeenth of the same month, I sent my fisherman ten miles dis- tant to gather our winter's stock of provisions out of the deep. In the mean time, I must build a house, or win-
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ARRIVAL OF THE BROTHERS POND.
ter in an Indian lodge. Rather than do worse, I shoul- dered my axe and led the way, having procured a man of the trader to help me; and in about ten days had my timbers cut and on the ground ready to put up.
"On the second of December, I quit my bark lodge for a mud-walled house, the timbers of which, I not only assisted in cutting, but also carrying on my baek, until the rheumatism, to say the least, threatened to double and twist me, and I was obliged to desist. My house, when I began to occupy it, had a door, three windows, and a mud chimney; but neither chair, stool, nor bed- stead. A box served for the former, and an Indian mat for the two latter. A rude figure, indeed, my house would make in a New England city, with its deer-skin windows, a floor that had never seen a plane, or a saw, and a mud-chimney, but it is nevertheless, comfortable."
Mr. Boutwell, on the 6th of May, 1834, was on a visit at Fort Snelling, when a steamboat arrived bringing two young men, brothers, natives of Washington, Con- necticut, Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, who had come constrained by the love of Christ, and without conferring with flesh and blood, to try to improve the Sioux, or Dakotahs. Samuel, the older brother, the year before. had talked with a liquor seller in Galena, Illinois, who had come from the Red River country, and the desire was created to help the Sioux, and he wrote to his brother to go with him. He still lives( January, 1887 ) at Shakopee, in the old mission house, the first building of sawed lumber erected in the valley of the Minnesota, above Fort Snelling,
About this period a native of South Carolina, a grad- uate of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, the Rev. T. S. Williamson, M. D., who previous to his ordination had
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been a respectable physician in Ohio, was appointed by the American Board of Foreign Missions to visit the Dakotahs with the view of ascertaining what could be done to introduce Christian instruction. Having made inquiries at Prairie du Chien and Fort Snelling, he reported the field was favorable.
The Presbyterian and Congregational Churches through their joint Missionary Society, appointed the following persons to labor in Minnesota: Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M. D., missionary and physician; Rev. J. D. Stevens, missionary; Alexander Huggins, farmer; and their wives; Miss Sarah Poage, and Lucy Stevens, teachers; who were prevented during the year 1834, by the state of navigation, from entering upon their work.
During the winter of 1834-35, a religious officer of the army exercised a good influence on his fellow officers and soldiers under his command. In the absence of a chaplain, 1 like Gen. Havelock, of the British army in India, he was accustomed not only to drill the soldiers, but to meet them in his own quarters, and reason with them "of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come."
In the month of May, 1835, Dr. Williamson and mis- sion band arrived at Fort Snelling, and were hospitably received by the officers of the garrison, the Indian agent, and Mr. Sibley, Agent of the Company at Mendota, who came to the country a few months after the brothers Pond.
On the twenty-seventh of this month the Rev. Dr. Williamson united in marriage, at the Fort, Lieutenant Edward 1. Ogden to Eliza Edna, the daughter of Capt.
1. It was not until 183>, that Rev. E. G. Gear was appointed chaplain.
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FIRST CHURCH IN MINNESOTA.
G. A. Loomis, the first marriage service in which a cler- gyman officiated in the present State of Minnesota.
On the eleventh of June a meeting was held at the Fort to organize a Presbyterian Church, sixteen persons who had been communicants, and six who made a pro- fession of faith, one of whom was Lieutenant Ogden, were enrolled as members. Four elders were elected, among whom were Capt. Gustavus Loomis, of the army, and Samuel W. Pond. The next day a lecture prepara- tory to administering the communion, was delivered, and on Sunday, the fourteenth, the first organized church in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi assembled for the first time in one of the Company rooms of the Fort. The services in the morning were conducted by Dr. Williamson. The afternoon service commenced at 2 o'clock. The sermon of Mr. Stevens was upon a most appropriate text, 1st Peter, ii:25; "For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." After the discourse, the sacrament of the Lord's supper was administered.
At a meeting of the Session on the thirty-first of July, Rev. J. D. Stevens, missionary, was invited to preach to the church, "so long as the duties of his mission will permit, and also to preside at all the meetings of the Session." Captain Gustavus Loomis was elected Stated Clerk of the Session, and they resolued to observe the monthly concert of prayer on the first Monday of each month, for the conversion of the world.
Two points were selected by the missionaries as proper spheres of labor. Mr. Stevens and family proceeded to Lake Harriet, and Dr. Williamson and family, in June, proceeded to Lac qui Parle. As there had never been a chaplain at Fort Snelling, the Rev. J. D. Stevens, the
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missionary at Lake Harriet, preached on Sundays to the Presbyterian church, there, recently organized. Writ- ing on January twenty-seventh, 1836, he says, in relation to his field of labor:
"Yesterday a portion of this band of Indians, who had been sometime absent from this village, returned. One of the number (a woman) was informed that a brother of hers had died during her absence. He was not at this village, but with another band, and the information had just reached here. In the evening they set up a most piteous crying, or rather wailing, which continued with some little cessations, during the night. The sister of the deceased brother would repeat, times without number, words which may be thus translated into Eng- lish: 'Come, my brother, I shall see you no more for
ever.' The night was extremely cold, the thermometer standing from ten to twenty degrees below zero. About sunrise, next morning, preparation was made for per- forming the ceremony of cutting their flesh, in order to give relief to their grief of mind. The snow was removed from the frozen ground over about as large a space as would be required to place a small Indian lodge or wigwam. In the centre a very small fire was kindled up, not to give warmth, apparently, but to cause a smoke. The sister of the deceased, who was the chief mourner, came out of her lodge followed by three other women, who repaired to the place prepared. They were all barefooted and nearly naked. Here they set up a most bitter lamentation and crying, mingling their wailing with the words before mentioned. The principal mourner commenced gashing or cutting her ankles and legs up to her knees with a sharp stone, until her legs were covered with gore and flowing blood; then in like
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INDIAN SCHOOL AT LAKE HARRIET.
manner her arms, shoulders, and breast. The others cut themselves in the same way, but not so severely. On this poor infatuated woman I presume there were more than a hundred long deep gashes in the flesh. I saw the operation, and the blood instantly followed the instrument, and flowed down upon the flesh. She ap- peared frantic with grief. Through the pain of her wounds, the loss of blood, exhaustion of strength by fasting, loud and long-continued and bitter groans, or the extreme cold upon her almost naked and lacerated body, she soon sunk upon the frozen ground, shaking as with a violent fit of the ague, and writhing in apparent agony. 'Surely,' I exclaimed, as I beheld the bloody scene, 'the tender mercies of the heathen are cruelty"
"The little church at the fort begins to manifest some- thing of a missionary spirit. Their contributions are considerable for so small a number. I hope they will not only be willing to contribute liberally of their sub- stance, but will give themselves, at least some of them, to the missionary work.
"The surgeon of the military post, Dr. Jarvis, has been very assiduous in his attentions to us in our sick- ness, and has very generously made a donation to our board of twenty-five dollars, being the amount of his medical services in our family.
"On the nineteenth instant we commenced a school with six full Indian children, at least so in all their hab- its, dress, etc .; not one could speak a word of any lan- guage but Sioux. The school has since increased to the number of twenty-five. I am now collecting and arrang- ing words for a dictionary. Mr. Pond is assiduously employed in preparing a spelling-book which we may forward next mail for printing,"
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
On the fifteenth of September, 1836, a Presbyterian church was organized at Lac-qui-Parle, a branch of that in and near Fort Snelling, and Joseph Renville, a mixed blood of great influence, became a communicant. Mr. Renville's wife was the first pure Dakotah of whom we have any record that ever joined the Church of Christ. This church has never become extinct, although its members have been necessarily nomadic. After the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, it was removed to Hazle- wood. Driven from thence by the outbreak of 1862, it has become the parent of other churches, in the valley of the upper Missouri, over one of which John Renville, a descendant of the elder at Lac-qui- Parle, is the pastor.
Father Ravoux, recently from France, a sincere and earnest priest of the Church of Rome, came to Mendota in the autumn of 1841, and after a brief sojourn with the Rev. L. Galtier, who had erected St. Paul's chapel which has given the name of St. Paul to the capital of Minnesota, he ascended the Minnesota River and visited Lac-qui-Parle.
Bishop Loras, of Dubuque, wrote the next year of his visit as follows: "Our young missionary, M. Ravoux, passed the winter on the banks of Lac-qui-Parle, with- out any other support than Providence, without any other means of conversion than a burning zeal, he has wrought in the space of six months, a happy revolution among the Sioux. From the time of his arrival he has been occupied night and day in the study of their lan- guage. * When he instructs the sav- ages, he speaks to them with so much fire whilst show- ing them a large copper crucifix which he carries on his breast, that he makes the strongest impression upon them."
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MISSION AT POKEGUMA.
The impression, however, was evanescent, and he soon retired from the field and preached to the half-breeds at Mendota and Saint Paul. The young Mr. Ravoux is now the venerable vicar of the Roman Catholic diocese of Minnesota, and justly esteemed for his simplicity and unobtrusiveness.
During the summer of 1835, Mr. E. F. Ely, the teach- er, removed from Sandy Lake and established a school at Fond du Lac of the St. Louis River. The Indians having left the vicinity he and his wife were sent to Pokeguma mission station, as assistants.
Pokeguma is one of the "Mille Lacs," or thousand beautiful lakes for which Minnesota is remarkable. It is about four or five miles in extent, and a mile or more in width, and is situated on Snake River about twenty miles above the junction of that stream with the St. Croix.
In the year 1836 Presbyterian and Congregational missionaries came to reside among the Ojibways at Pokeguma, to promote their temporal and spiritual wel- fare. Their mission house was built on the east side of the lake, but the Indian village was on an island not far from the shore. In a letter written in 1837, we find the following: "The young women and girls now make, mend wash and iron after our manner. The men have learned to build log houses, drive team, plough, hoe, and handle an American axe with some skill in cutting large trees, the size of which, two years ago, would have afforded them a sufficient reason why they should not meddle with them."
In May, 1841, Jeremiah Russell, who was an Indian farmer, sent two Chippeways, accompanied by Elam Greeley, of Stillwater, to the Falls of Saint Croix for
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
supplies. On Saturday, the fifteenth of the month, they arrived there, and the next day a steamboat came up with the goods. The captain said a war party of Sioux, headed by Little Crow, were advancing, and the two Chippeways prepared to go back.
They had hardly left the Falls, on their return, before they saw a party of Dakotahs. The sentinel of the ene- my had not noticed the approach of the young men. In the twinkling of an eye, these two young Ojibways rais- ed their guns, fired, and killed two of Little Crow's sons. The discharge of the guns revealed to a sentinel that an enemy was near, and as the Ojibways were re- treating, he fired, and mortally wounded one of the two.
According to custom, the corpses of the chief's sons were dressed, and then set up with their faces towards the country of their ancient enemies. The wounded Ojibway was horribly mangled by the infuriated party, and his limbs strewn in every direction. His scalped head was placed in a kettle, and suspended in front of
the two Dakotah corpses. Little Crow, disheartened by the loss of his two boys, returned with his party to Kaposia. But other parties were in the field. It was not till Friday, the twenty-first of May, that the death of one of the young Ojibways sent by Mr. Russell, to the Falls of Saint Croix, was known at Pokeguma.
Mr. Russell on the next Sunday, accompanied by Cap- tain William Holcomb and a half-breed, went to the " mission station to attend a religious service, and while crossing the lake in returning, the half-breed said that it was rumored that the Sioux were approaching. On Monday, the twenty-fourth, three young men left in a canoe to go to the west shore of the lake, and from thence to Mille Lacs, to give intelligence to the Ojib-
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SIOUX ATTACK POKEGUMA.
ways there, of the skirmish that had already occurred. They took with them with two Indian girls, about twelve years of age, who were pupils of the mission school, for the purpose of bringing the canoe back to the island. Just as the three were landing, twenty or thirty Dakotah warriors, with a war-whoop emerged from their concealment behind the trees, and fired into the canoe. The young men instantly sprang into the water, which was shallow, returned the fire, and ran into the woods, escaping without material injury.
The little girls in their fright, waded into the lake; but were pursued. Their parents upon the island, heard the death cries of their children. Some of the Indians around the mission-house jumped into their canoes and gained the island. Others went into some fortified log huts. The attack upon the canoe, it was afterwards learned, was premature. The party upon that side of the lake were ordered not to fire, until the party sta- tioned in the woods near the mission began.
There were in all one hundred and eleven Dakotah warriors, and all the fight was in the vicinity of the mis- sion-house, and the Ojibways mostly engaged in it were those who had been under religious instruction. The rest were upon the island.
The fathers of the murdered girls, burning for revenge, left the island in a canoe, and drawing it up on the shore, hid behind it, and fired upon the Dakotahs and killed one. The Dakotahs advancing upon them, they were obliged to escape. The canoe was now launched. One lay on his back in the bottom; the other plunged into the water, and, holding the canoe with one hand, and swimming with the other, he towed his friend out of danger. The Dakotahs infuriated at their escape,
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fired volley after volley at the swimmer, but he escaped the balls by putting his head under water whenever he saw them take aim, and waiting till he heard the dis- charge, he would then look up and breathe.
After a fight of two hours, the Dakotahs retreated, with a loss of two men. At the request of the parents, Mr. E. F. Ely, from whose notes the writer has obtained these facts, being at that time a teacher at the mission, went across the lake, with two of his friends, to gather the remains of his murdered pupils. He found the corpses on the shore. The heads cut off and scalped, with a tomahawk buried in the brains of each, were set up in the sand near the bodies. The bodies were pierced in the breast, and the right arm of one was taken away. Removing the tomahawks, the bodies were brought back to the island, and in the afternoon were buried in accord- ance with the simple but solemn rites of the Church of Christ, by members of the mission.
The sequel to this story is soon told. The Indians of Pokeguma, after the fight, deserted their village, and went to reside with their countrymen near Lake Supe- rior.
In July of the following year, 1842, a war party was formed at Fond du Lac, about forty in number, and pro- ceeded towards the Dakotah country. Sneaking, as none but Indians can, they arrived unnoticed at the little settlement below Saint Paul, commonly called "Pig's Eye," which is opposite to what was Kaposia, or Little Crow's village. Finding an Indian woman at work in the garden of her husband, a Canadian, by the name of Gamelle, they killed her, also another woman with her infant, whose head was cut off. The Dako- tahs on the opposite side were mostly intoxicated, and,
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METHODIST MISSIONARIES.
flying across in their canoes, but half prepared, they were worsted in the encounter. They lost thirteen war- riors, and one of their number, known as the Dancer, the Ojibways are said to have skinned.
Soon after this the Chippeway missions of the St. Croix Valley were abandoned. In a little while Rev. Mr. Boutwell, who in 183S had come down to Pokeguma, removed to the vicinity of Stillwater, and the mission- aries Ayer and Spencer, went to Red Lake and other points in Minnesota.
In 1837, the Rev. A. Brunson commenced a Methodist mission at Kaposia, about four miles below and oppo- site Saint Paul. It was afterwards moved across the river to Red Rock; he was assisted by the Rev. Thomas W. Pope, and the latter was succeeded by the Rev. J. Holton. The Rev. Mr. Spates and others also labored for a brief period among the Ojibways at Elk River, Sandy Lake, and Fond du Lac.
At the Presbyterian stations the Dakotah language was diligently studied. Rev. S. W. Pond had prepared a dictionary of three thousand words, and also a small grammar. The Rev. S. R. Riggs, who joined the mis- sion in 1837, in a letter dated February 24, 1841, writes: "Last summer, after returning from Fort Snelling, I spent five weeks in copying again the Sioux vocabulary which we had collected and arranged at this station. It contained then about fifty-five hundred words, not includ- ding the various forms of the verbs. Since that time the words collected by Dr. Williamson and myself, have, I presume, increased the number to six thousand. *
* In this connection I may mention that during the winter of 1839-40, Mrs. Riggs, with some assistance, wrote an English and Sioux vocabulary containing about three
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HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
· thousand words. One of Mr. Renville's sons and three of his daughters are engaged in copying. In commit- ting the grammatical principles of the language to writ- ing, we have done something at this station, but more has been done by Mr. S. W. Pond."
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