USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. I > Part 21
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In 1852 there appeared among the appointments superintendents for three additional schools, namely, the Choctaw Academy, Bloom- field Academy and Colbert Institute, the last two being in the Chickasaw Nation. Crawford Seminary, situated among the Qua- paws was another school which was operated under the patronage and control of the conference; it dated from 1850.
Twelve of the first seventeen sessions of the conference were pre- sided over by bishops of the church and some of the most noted lead- ers of Southern Methodism thus visited the Indian Territory. At each of the other sessions, the conference elected its own presiding officer, the choice falling on Rev. John Harrell more often than any one else.4
4 John Harrell was born in Perquimans County, North Carolina, October 21, 1806. In 1823 when only seventeen years old he was licensed to preach. Four years later when only twenty-one he joined the Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1831 he was transferred to the Missouri Conference, which then included not only the State of Missouri but also the set- tled portions of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. His first ap- pointment was Washington (Arkansas) and the Cherokee Mis- sion. Until 1836 his pastoral work was on both sides of the state line, when he became a member of the newly formed Arkansas Conference. Still his work remained on the border and he was deeply interested in the work of the new mission conference. In 1850 he was formally transferred to the Indian Mission Conference, where he continued to labor until the end of his life. After serving four years as superintendent of Fort Coffee Academy he was made presiding elder of the Choctaw District in 1854, and from that time on he was either presiding elder or mission superintendent (except during the war in which he served as chaplain, first of Gordon's Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers and afterward in a similar capac- ity with the brigades of Gen. W. L. Cabell and Gen. Stand Watie) until the appointment which was made shortly before his death,
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THE AMERICAN BOARD MISSIONS IN THE CHEROKEE NATION
On their journey from Fort Coffee to Tahlequah to attend the session of the first Methodist conference in the Indian Territory, in the autumn of 1844, Messrs. Goode and Benson and several com- panions paid a visit to the mission station of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Fairfield, of which Rev. Dr. Elizur Butler was the superintendent. In describing his visit to the Fairfield Mission, Mr. Benson wrote as follows :
"Dr. Butler was the minister in charge of the station. He was a Presbyterian, had labored for a period of nineteen years with that people, having commenced his labors with them before they emi- grated from the old nation in Georgia. Himself and family had an experience in labor, in trial and suffering, which language may not record and for which there is no compensation this side of Heaven.
"We found Dr. Butler sitting in an arm-chair, in a dark room, prepared to spend the night in that position. He was suffering from astlima to such an extent as to render it impossible for him to lie upon a bed and sleep in a recumbent position. For many successive nights he had been compelled to sit alone in his dark chamber while the hours were slowly passing. At the ring of the bell we were admitted, with a brotherly and Christian cordiality that was truly grateful to our hearts at the end of our day's jour- ney. Mrs. B., being indisposed, did not rise; but Miss Smith, the teacher of the Mission school, and two fine Cherokce misses, who were about fourteen years of age, came and, in a few minutes, pre- pared us a substantial tea.
"We were impressed with the good sense and economy which characterized, as far as we could discover, the entire establishment. There were no servants; Mrs. B., Miss Smith and six Cherokee girls,
which was that of superintendent of Asbury Manual Labor School, at Eufaula, with a monthly preaching appointment at Vinita. His death occurred December 8, 1876, at Vinita, whither he had gone to fill a preaching appointment, so he literally died in the harness. A man of magnetic personality and of imposing physical presence, he was always humble and unassuming, yet possessed of a courage that was daunted at nothing, and was therefore a splendid type of all that was best in the frontier mission worker. He was a delegate in the Louisville convention which resulted in the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was a delegate to the general conference of that church three times. His remains were buried by the side of those of his wife (who died but a few weeks before) at the Asbury Manual Labor School.
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who had been received into the family, did the kitehen and chamber work. The girls were not treated as servants, but daughters; they were neat, intelligent and sufficiently comely to pass reputably in any society. The furniture of the mission was very plain, yet com- fortable; while the table was destitute of every article that might be considered a luxury, the food was good, substantial and of suffi- cient variety.
"The family was orderly and remarkably interesting. Each member was supplied with a Bible and hymn-book; and they also had books to be used by strangers who should chance to worship at their altar. Dr. B. commeneed the reading-each one reading his verse in turn, 'from the greatest down to the least.' The hymn was announeed and sung, after which we kneeled and Rev. Mr. Goode was requested to lead in prayer. The same order prevailed at Park Hill and Dwight missions, both of which we subsequently visited.
"The school at Fairfield was not a boarding seminary but a 'day school,' and free to all. The population in the vieinity was dense and the school was well attended, mostly by girls, and yet boys of small size were also admitted. Miss Smith's school-room was well supplied with maps, cards and globes for purposes of illustration. We saw no others so well and so conveniently furnished.
"There was a good farm in connection with the mission, the product of which nearly supplied the demands of the family. The needed supplies of horses, oxen and milk eows were not wanting. We were gratified to learn that Dr. B.'s congregations were good and his church composed of substantial and pious men and women. A large and prosperous Sunday school was a most interesting appen- dage of the mission."
Upon their arrival at the seat of the conference, Messrs. Goode and Benson were taken to the Park Hill Mission and entertained as guests in the home of Rev. S. A. Worcester, who was superintendent. Of their visit there Mr. Benson wrote as follows:
"On reaching Tahlequah, Mr. Goode and myself were taken to Park Hill and introduced to the family of the Rev. Mr. Worcester, with whom we were kindly entertained during the session of the conference. Park Hill was a missionary station of much note. Mr. Worcester was superintendent of the establishment and was emi- nently qualified for the important position. There was a good farm ; a frame church of proper size; a good frame school-house; a two- story building used for a book establishment, having its printing presses and book bindery. There were two frame buildings, each
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two stories high, for family residences, occupied by Mr. Worcester and by Rev. D. Foreman, who was a Cherokee, and connected with the mission. The Scriptures were translated and printed in the Cherokee and Choctaw languages at Park Hill. Hymn-books, tracts, spelling-books and readers were also translated and published there. John Candy, a Cherokee, was foreman in setting type and W. Wor- cester, a son of Rev. Mr. Worcester, was head-workman in the bindery. The school was taught by Miss Avery, an accomplished and interesting young lady.
"There was also a Miss Thompson in the family, who taught school a short distance from Park Hill, with whose character and history we were deeply interested. She was certainly a model mis- sionary, having consecrated upon the Divine altar her 'body and spirit, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in God's sight.' She had gone to the Cherokee country when a young lady; had emi- grated with the Indians from the State of Georgia to their present home ; had labored in the Park Hill School till she thought herself to have grown old; when, at the earnest solicitations of her relatives, she returned to her New England home to spend the evening of her life with the surviving companions of her youth. She was extremely happy to meet with the loved ones from whom she had been sep- arated for a score of years. They gave her a most affectionate wel- come to their hearts and homes and did all in their power to con- tribute to her comfort and happiness. When a few weeks had elapsed and her round of visiting was completed, she began to look . around for work. She longed to be useful ; but there were no open doors for such labor as her habits of life had qualified her for and given her tastes to enter upon and accomplish. Her soul longed for its appropriate work; she could not live in idleness, and must be wretched if she failed to be useful. The truth finally flashed upon her that she had committed a blunder-that it was an error to quit the Indians. She hastily made a second round of visits, bidding her New England friends a final farewell, and returned to her adopted people, witli the language of Ruth to Naomi in her heart, if not on her lips, 'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people; thy God, my God; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.'
"On returning to Park Hill, she found her place in the mission filled by another; but she was rather pleased to find it so, for she went out a mile and a half distant and opened a new school which was soon filled with children that otherwise would not have been taught. She walked back and forth, making her home with her old
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friends at the mission ; and she was cheerful and happy in her work, intending to live, die and be buried with her Cherokee friends. Whether she still survives or has fallen at her post, I know not; but generations yet unborn shall rise up to call her blessed."
After briefly reciting the persecution and imprisonment of his host at Park Hill, Mr. Benson concluded his remarks concerning the mission and mission workers there in the following language:
"I had read of missionaries-of Brainerd, of Eliot, and others -- but hitherto I had seen none whom I regarded as worthy of the appellation. These had passed through fiery ordeals and had stood firm. They had suffered willingly for Christ's sake, only claiming rewards in Heaven. They were not missionaries for a month or a year, but for life; and no man is really a missionary who does not cheerfully give all to the great work of evangelizing the world."
On their way home from Tahlequah to Fort Coffee, the Metho- dist missionaries visited Dwight Mission, which was described in Mr. Benson's book as follows :
On their way home from Tahlequah to Fort Coffee, Messrs. Goode and Benson visited the Dwight Mission, which was described in Mr. Benson's book as follows :
"Having chosen to return home by a different route, we reached Dwight Mission at sunset, traveling about thirty miles. It was a Presbyterian mission and the oldest one in the tribe, having been founded in the old nation [i. e., among the Western Cherokees, in Arkansas] and re-established immediately after their arrival in the new territory. Mr. Hitchcock was superintendent ; he was a layman and managed the farm and the temporal interests of the station. There was a female seminary in which the pupils were taught and boarded, but not clothed. Mr. Day and his wife were teachers of the school, and Mrs. Hitchcock was matron. There were over forty fine buxom lassies in attendance, from ten to sixteen years of age-many of them very interesting, sprightly and promising girls. Mr. Hitch- cock and family had been with the tribe for twenty-four years, en- gaged in missionary work. They received no salaries from the Mis- sionary Board; the entire annual appropriations to Dwight Mission amounted to only fourteen hundred dollars. There was an excel- lent farm, well cultivated and well stocked, the produce of which nearly sustained the mission. All were taught to labor, and economy and frugality were studied and practiced in every department. There was a plain, comfortable church but no efficient pastor in con- nection with it at that time.
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"Rev. Mr. Buttrick and his aged companion were there but not as active laborers in the mission. He was then superannuated, hav- ing retired from the active duties of the ministry. He could preachi occasionally but not with regularity, nor had he the strength to per- form pastoral labor. Father Buttrick had been twenty-seven years in the Cherokee tribe, laboring to establish and build up the cause of the Redeemer. His children were grown up and all settled in the East. They had earnestly urged their parents to return home and spend the evening of their days with them. But, after mature delib-
ELIZADEIN
HEY 7 B, BUTTHICK
GRAVES OF MISSIONARIES, DWIGHT MISSION BURIAL GROUND
eration, himself and wife had resolved to end their pilgrimage with their Indian people. They had come to Dwight for the sake of the society ; and, having fitted up a comfortable log cabin, they enjoyed a quiet retreat from the busy and exciting scenes of the world. With a good library and the desired papers and magazines, and with the privileges of the church and the society of kind and sympathiz- ing Christian friends, they were cheerful and happy and patiently waiting the Master's summons to take them home to Heaven. Our interview was from necessity brief, but full of interest, to us at least. As we rose to take our leave, Father Buttrick interposed his paternal authority : 'Come,' said he, 'this will not do, remain a few minutes longer, for we must not separate without prayer.' The lit- tle company joined in singing one of the songs of Zion, after which we all kneeled and Mr. Goode led in devotions. We can never forget
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that devout and holy man of God, who, with patriarchal simplicity and fervor, stood up and invoked Heaven's benediction upon us as we bade him a final adieu. Since that period the papers have an- nounced the departure of that aged disciple of the Lord. He has slept the long and dreamless sleep of death. His remains repose in the little church-yard at the Dwight Mission, with Indian graves all around. '' 5
THE PUBLISHING HOUSE AT PARK HILL MISSION
Of all of the mission stations of the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions in the Indian Territory, those at Park Hill and Dwight have always been the most noted-Park Hill be- cause it was the center of the publishing interests of all of the mis- sions of this board in the Indian Territory, and Dwight because it was the first mission to be established after the Indians began to move to the territory. The first printing establishment ever brought into the Indian Territory (and therefore the first ever brought into Oklahoma) was set up at Park Hill. The printing and binding establishment has already been briefly described in Benson's ac- count of his visit to Park Hill. Rev. Charles C. Torrey, who was transferred thither from the Fairfield Mission a few months before the death of the founder, Rev. Dr. Samuel A. Worcester, and who succeeded the latter as superintendent, left a more detailed account
5 Dwight Mission was located in the valley of Sallisaw Creek, about three miles below the Village of Marble City, in the north central part of Sequoyah County. In common with the other mis- sions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, it was abandoned shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. The memory of its work and influence was never entirely effaced, however, and some of the Indians asked that it be re-estab- lished, more than twenty years after the end of the war. This was ultimately undertaken by the Presbyterian Home Mission Society and there is now a prosperous industrial school for young Indians of both sexes, which still bears the name of Dwight.
Daniel Butterick was born at Windsor, Massachusetts, August 25, 1789; professed religion at Richmond in 1803; studied at the Academy at Cooperstown, New York ; ordained September 30, 1817; embarked from Boston, November 13, 1817, arriving at Brainerd, January 3, 1818; labored at Brainerd, Carmel, Willstown, High- tower and elsewhere, removed to Fairfield in the Spring of 1839; died June 8, 1851. He married Miss Elizabeth Proctor, April 29, 1827.
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of the work of the mission publishing house at Park Hill. Mr. Tor- rey wrote as follows : 6
"When I first went to see Doctor Worcester he questioned me particularly as to my knowledge of the languages and asked me to write for him a Latin and a Greek sentence. It so happened that I had done such work in my studies and teaching and was good at it. When I showed him the Greek that I had written, he was evidently pleased. I have always thought he was thinking of who should suc- ceed him in his work at the Printing House. None of the other missionaries, I learned later, were fresh in their Seminary studies or had kept up their Greek and Hebrew. Mr. Worcester took me into the printing office and bindery and showed me the publications of the Mission. They were nearly all-all the Bible texts were-24to and in a form that could not be permanent. I asked him why he did not have the Testament printed by the [ American] Bible So- ciety, at New York. He replied, 'They have no type.' 'They will cast a font of type for you if you will ask them,' I said. He was incredulous, but wrote to inquire of the secretaries; they complied, and the New Testament was published in Cherokee, and in that way [ the result of] forty years of hard, costly toil was rescued. But for the Bible Society the result of this labor would have been wholly lost.
"In 1859, Doctor Worcester's health began to fail and he sent for me to come and help him and to preach in his church at Park Hill. I left my family in the care of Mr. Chamberlain, a son of an
6 Charles Cutler Torrey was born at Salem, Massachusetts, Jan- uary 4, 1827. Most of his early life was spent in Vermont and he graduated from the University of Vermont in 1849. He also took a course in Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1854. In 1855 he was ordained as a missionary under the American Board shortly after his marriage to Miss Adelaide L. Damon, and ac- cepted an appointment to one of the mission stations in the Choctaw Nation (Wheelock). Their goods were shipped by steamboat, down the Ohio and Mississippi and up the Red River, while they, trav- eling a more direct route, paused for a season at Fairfield, and finally decided to remain in the Cherokee country. Most of their effects, including a portion of Mr. Torrey's valuable library, were lost when the steamboat was "snagged" on the way up Red River. After his return to New England in 1861, he filled various pastor- ates in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, remaining in the active ministry until his eightieth year. He remained a scholar until the end, daily reading the New Testament in the Greek until within a few weeks of his death, which occurred at Andover, Massa- chusetts, August 14, 1914.
Vol. 1-13
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old missionary, living near Fairfield Station. * Doctor Worcester (who had had the degree of D. D. conferred upon him a short time before this) talked freely with me and told me all of his plans. These included the revision of the whole of the New Testa- ment, now nearing, under his hands, a completion. I sent to New York the printed copy of the translation as it went on. It was set up and printed in our office for the convenience of the New York printers, who could not read Cherokee manuscript. I also superin- tended, with Doctor Worcester's help, the preparation of the Chero- kee Almanac and a Cherokee primer. The calculations for the Almanac were all furnished by Mr. Greenleaf, of Bradford, from year to year. This almanac contained, besides the usual matter, the names of all the principal officers of the Cherokee government- judges, sheriffs, members of the two branches of the Legislature, and was filled in as completely as possible with original matter, re- lating to temperance and religion."
It was fortunate, indeed, that Mr. Torrey's suggestion concern- ing the printing of the New Testament by the American Bible Society was adopted, for the death of Doctor Worcester, followed shortly afterward by the outbreak of the Civil war, in which every vestige of the mission establishment at Park Hill was wiped out, would have literally destroyed the results and benefits of the pain- staking labors of the latter as a translator. Mr. Torrey's service in helping to complete the translation and in seeing it placed in type and printed was also invaluable. Although the period of his activ- ity in the mission field in the Cherokee Nation was brief as com- pared with those of some others, his work was of an enduring char- acter. Some estimate of the importance of the publishing house at Park Hill Mission may be formed from the statement that 14,084,100 printed pages were issued from its presses for the benefit of the Cherokees and, in addition to this, there was a large amount of printing and publishing done for the missions among the other tribes, including over 11,000,000 pages for the Choctaws.
MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN BOARD AMONG OTHER TRIBES
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had established missions among the Choctaws in 1818, among the Chickasaws in 1827 and among the Creeks in 1832. When the Chickasaws came West in 1837, they settled among the Choctaws, so they were included thereafter among the Choctaw missions of the American Board, and not as a separate tribe. As among the
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missions to the Cherokees, there were scholarly translators among the missionaries, who made a careful and thorough study of the Choctaw language. One of the earliest of these was Rev. Cyrus Byington," who entered the mission field among the Choctaws in 1819, and, from his arrival among them, he devoted himself assidu- ously to the study of their language. He prepared a grammar of the Choctaw language, the first draft of which was completed in 1834. He also prepared a Choctaw-English dictionary, upon the seventh revision of which he was at work at the time of his death, nearly fifty years after he first entered the mission field. This monumental work has recently been published as a public document by the Government.8
The American Board (Congregational) had more inission stations and a larger force of workers in the Choctaw Nation than in the Cherokee Nation. Some of these stations and the well known workers who had charge of them were: Pine Ridge (Chuahla Female) Seminary, Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury,9 superintendent ; Stock-
.7 Cyrus Byington was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, March 11, 1793. His early educational advantages were limited, but in his youth he was taken into the home of Mr. Joseph Wood- bridge, in his native town, under whose tuition he studied Latin and Greek, and with whom he afterward read law. He was admitted to the bar in 1814 and began to practice with bright prospects. Be- coming impressed with the belief that it was his duty to prepare himself for missionary service, he entered the theological seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1819. A year later he was sent to the Choctaw country, in Mississippi, jour- neying from Massachusetts to Pittsburgh by land and thence by Hatboat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, to the point nearest their destination. When he came West with the Choctaws at the time of their migration, he opened up a mission near Eagletown, in the southeastern part of the Choctaw Nation, which he named in honor of his native town-Stockbridge. His health failing, he went to New York in 1851, but later returned and resumed his work in the Choctaw Nation. The outbreak of the Civil war having put an end to practically all missionary work for the time being, he again returned to the East. He died at Belprè, Ohio, December 31, 1868.
8 Bulletin 46 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, entitled "A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language."
9 Cyrus Kingsbury was born at Alstead, New Hampshire, No- vember 22, 1786. He graduated from Brown College in 1812 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1815. He entered the mis- sion field at Brainerd, among the Cherokees, in 1817. The follow- ing year he opened the work of the American Board among the Choctaws, establishing the Mayhew Mission. In 1836 he came to the
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bridge, Rev. Cyrus Byington; Bennington, Rev. C. C. Copeland ; Living Land and Mayhew, Rev. Ebenezer Hotchkin.9ª Other mis- sions and schools under the patronage and direction of the American Board and the Presbyterian Board (all of which ultimately passed under the control of the Presbyterians) were: Good Land, Spencer Academy,1º Eagletown (Iyanubbi Female Seminary), Good Water Female Academy, Wheelock Female Seminary and Wapanucka Institute, all except the last one mentioned being in the Choctaw Nation, and it was in the Chickasaw Nation. Armstrong Academy was under the control of the Mission Board of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
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