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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 2:53:34 GMT -5
part 16
TROUBLE AT THE Til AVERSE. 175
her tent to the spirits, who frightened her away. An old man who is here says the " spirits" scared her because she has plenty to eat and does not feed them. They are always very particular to feed the spirits of their deceased friends and honor them by various performances. The spirits eat only the shade or spirit of the food; the substance is often devoured by the living, who are not unfre-quently collected by invitation, under the scaffold where tie body-lies, to feast on that which is presented to the spirit.
The following extracts are from a letter written by Samuel Pond, August, 1844 : —
So far as this world is concerned we are more comfortably and
pleasantly situated than we ever expected to be in an Indian country, and I trust we have good hope through "grace of eternal life in heaven. Though we have not had such success in our labors for the conversion of the Indians as we hoped and wished lor, yet I do not know as we have good reason to be discouraged. There is much preparatory labor to be done by missionaries before they can communicate the gospel to people of a strange language, and there are peculiar difficulties in the way of the conversion of the first who embrace the gospel among a heathen people. Though our labors have not resulted in the conversion of many, and perhaps not of any, yet we do not know that we are laboring in vain.
It is slow work to communicate the truths of the gospel to the minds of the heathen, but many of this people are becoming more and more acquainted with the way of salvation, and we hope the word of God will not return unto him void but accomplish the work whereunto he sent It.
There can be no harvest without a seedtime. For nearly twenty years the English missionaries to the South Sea Islands sowed In tears. A large amount of property arid many lives were sacrificed, apparently in vain, but now they or their successors reap in joy, and that is one of the most.successful of modern missions. Some
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TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
of these Indians seem desirous to learn the way of salvation and a few of them usually attend meeting at our house on the Sabbath, but such as manifest a desire to listen to the truth meet with a great deal of opposition.
For many ages Satan has reigned here undisturbed and he will not give up his dominion over this people without a struggle. Yet Jesus has conquered the powers of darkness, and in due time all the earth will be filled with his glory,
It would give rue great pleasure to see you once more in this world, but 1 have more hope of meeting you in that new world, wherein dwelleth righteousness, than I have of seeing you again on earth.
The foregoing was to his mother. About the same time G-. EL Pond wrote in a little different strain: —
It is probable that we can do as much good here as we could anywhere, and that we shall be less likely to become inordinately attached to this life than we should in any other place.
During several of the years last preceding Mr, Daniel Gavin had been laboring with little apparent result at lied Wing village. In an interesting letter written, in .his native language, which he always used in writing to Mr. Pond, he speaks of the various trials and discouragements encountered in his work at that point. Mrs. Gavin also adds a word to Mr. and Mrs. Pond, from which we quote : —
Oh, that I could give you a cheering account of the result of our labors here, but alas S all is dark except to the eye of faith. " Lord, increase our faith." Increase our confidence in thy precious prom-
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TROUBLE AT THE TRAVERSE. 177
fees is our prayer. What God is about to do with this people is known only to himself. Whether lie will glorify himself in their salvation or in their destruction, we know not now, but we shall know hereafter.
The Winnebagoes are circulating the war-pipe among the Sioux with the intention of making a formidable attack upon the Sacs and Foxes. The lower band has accepted it, and it is expected to reach us very soon and no doubt will be welcomed.
The Chippewas, report says, meditate an early attack upon this band. Let us beseech the Lord to avert the stroke, peradventure they may be saved.
Do you still observe Friday P.M.? [referring to the woman's prayer meeting]. If so, do you remember your unworthy sister €. ? Oh, forget her not! I am glad to hear that Master Yuwipi is improving. If he does not make a " Wieaxtayatapi"l here, he may, by the blessing of God, be fitted for a servant of the court of (heaven. Courage, my dear sister! We have the promise of God if we do our duty.
About the year 1845 it became necessary for Mr. and Mrs. Gavin to withdraw from the Dakota Mission on account of Mrs. Gavin's failing health. Sooa afterwards the enterprise of the Lausanne Society was abandoned, Mr. Denton having also engaged in other work. Cornelia Stevens came into the Indian country in 1835, a merry girl of sixteen, and had therefore been in this section ten years. Laborious, weary years they had been, and now, in broken health, she was going away apparently to die.
Just before the Gavins left Eed Wing, their nearest i Chief.
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178 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
friends, Mr. and Mrs, Samuel Pond, made a canoe journey of one hundred and sixty miles (eighty miles and return) down the Mississippi to bid them farewell.
After leaving the land of the Dakotas the Gavins went to Upper Canada, where Mrs. Gavin regained her health, and Mr. Gavin labored several years with success at a place called Sabrevois. He died there about ten years after leaving Red Wing,
Mrs. Gavin supported her family by teaching French and music, until her children were grown. She died in Baltimore in 1872. Her oldest son, Daniel, born at Red Wing, had an intense longing for the sea, and after the death of his father became a sailor. He was wrecked in the mouth of the St. Lawrence on his first voyage, but again went to sea and was buried in the Indian Ocean. At the time of Mrs, Gavin's death but two of her children were living.
Long after Mr. Gavin's death, Mr. Pond wrote of him as follows : —
Friend of my youth, how few like tfaee
Through a long life my eyes have seen;
And who again can ever be
To me what thou hast ever been?
Ah, best of friends! can I forget,
Till death shall stop my beating heart,
That hopeful hour when, first we met,
Or that when we were called to part?
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TROUBLE AT THE TRAVERSE. 179
I have a record in my heart
Of choicest treasures, rich and rare,
Of loves and friendships, true and pure,
And Gavin's name is written there.
"Tig written there in letters bright,
A brightness which no age can dim:
For though I once had many friends,
I had no other friend like him.
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CHAPTER XV.
THE NEW STATION AT PRAIRIEVILLE.
"TjlARLY in the winter of 1846 the way seemed to -•—^ open for a new station at Shakpe village. Some time prior to this Samuel Pond, in a letter to the Missionary Society, said that more good could be accomplished at the villages already occupied if other contiguous points could also be occupied. The time seemed now to have come for taking possession of one of these points.
A message arrived at the Oak Grove Mission, summoning Samuel Pond to Colonel Bruce's office at Fort Snelling, where he found the chief, Xakpedan (Shakpaydan), and many of his principal men. The agent explained to Mr. Pond that their errand was to give him an invitation to locate at their village and instruct them, and they, at the same time, promised to send their children to school and give all necessary privileges, such as that of cutting wood for fuel, grass for stock, etc.
It will be remembered that the village named had refused Mr. Biggs permission to locate there, and Mr. Pond was well enough acquainted with the chief,
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THE NEW STATION. 181
Shakpe, and Ms people, to have but little confidence in their professions and promises. Colonel Brace, however, said that they had always been opposed to schools and missionaries, exerting a bad influence over the other Indians, and as they had now asked for a teacher of their own will he thought the opportunity should be improved. •
Mr. Pond gave them no definite answer at that time., but told them to go home and talk the matter over and he would go up after a while and see them and come to some decision.
After waiting a few weeks Mr. Pond visited Tinto-wan, as the Indians called their village, and met the assembled band at the house of Oliver Faribault, their trader. The Indians seemed not to have changed their minds, but still insisted on their need of, and desire for, a missionary. They also said that no objections were made by any one in the village. When Mr. Faribault was asked his opinion, he said that he was first to suggest the move. Although Mr. Pond suspected that all was not just as it appeared to be, he determined to accept the invitation and remove to Shakpe's village.
Materials for a house were purchased at Point Douglass, in Wisconsin, and Gideon went down with a sled and several yoke of oxen and brought up. the frame timbers on the ice to Fort Snelling. These
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182 - TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
timbers were very heavy, many of them "being twelve by fourteen inches in size. Soon afterward S. W. Pond went down with four yoke of oxen and loaded on his sled four thousand feet of boards and started to return, also on the ice. Near Grey Cloud Island, below the present site of St. Paul, the forward yoke of cattle slipped and fell on the ice, and the accident turned all the cattle from the track upon weak ice, where they all broke through into the Mississippi Eiver. The water was so deep that there was danger that the cattle would all be drowned ; but they were strong and active and when relieved of their yokes succeeded one after another in getting out. Mr. Pond
C! *1 YT O » ™—
O<& V K> « ~™~~
"I had of course to get into the water myself up to my waist, and found it a difficult matter to extricate them from their yokes and chains. Some of the bow-pins I chopped off, but lost my axe in the river before they were all unyoked. The yokes and bows did not sink, but the chains of course did. As fast as the oxen came out of the water I tied them to the sled, for I had ropes on them all, but with their additional weight the sled broke through the ice and I cut the ropes in haste and let them all go. Some of them were young and wild and all of them were frightened and ran off in different directions, some on one side of the river and some on the other. I caught them
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THE NEW STATION. 183
one by one and tied them to trees. After recovering my axe and chains I went to Grey Cloud Island and got two men to help me unload and reload my sled. This accident detained me twenty-four hours, and I felt the effects of the wetting and exertion many days."
The timbers were framed and materials prepared at Fort Snelling, and on the return of spring they were loaded on a barge and taken up the river to the new location. Mr. Pond set a man at work digging a cellar and returned to Oak Grove. The following day the man who was left to dig the cellar appeared at Oak Grove, saying that the Indians had taken away his tools and had driven him off.
Mr. Pond says in regard to this occurrence: — " Colonel Brace was then absent, and I forget who was in charge of Indian affairs at the fort, but I think he was a stranger to me. When I went to him with my complaint he said that Colonel Bruce had requested him to see that the Indians did not annoy me during his absence and he proposed to send up soldiers to arrest some of the Indians. I told him I thought a letter from him would answer my purpose just as well. So he gave me, one. I went up and collected the Indians together at Mr. Faribault's and asked him to read the letter to them. He read it reluctantly but correctly, for I was there to listen to it."
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184 TWO VOLUNTEEE MISSIONARIES.
The work of building proceeded without further interruption, and this was the only occasion on which military interference was solicited by the brothers in their missionary work.
The mission house at Shakopee was pleasantly located on gently rising ground, about half a mile south of the Minnesota River. At a distance of twenty rods or so to the west was the house of the fur trader, Oliver Faribault. Between these two dwellings was a ravine through which ran a never-failing spring of clear cold water, which had doubtless served to determine the location of the Indian village.
The village was south of the mission house and near by, and was called by the Dakotas " Tintonwan," signifying " The village on the prairie." Mr. Pond named the place Prairieville, by which name it was known until the arrival of white settlers, five years later, who, sacrificing euphony to novelty, called it Shakopee, after the chief.
Between the mission house and the Minnesota River lay a beautiful and fertile tract of "bottom land," as it is ordinarily termed, subject to annual or biennial overflow, the rise in the Minnesota depending upon the depth of the Snows which accumulate during the winter in the section tributary to it. The maximum rise of the stream is from twenty-five to thirty
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feet. The meadow above described,was something more than one hundred acres in extent.
On one side of this fertile tract ran a dear sparkling stream of water, flowing from the spring before described, itself bounded in turn by a rocky bluff ris-ing precipitously from the brink of the stream. This land was bounded on the other side by the Minnesota, sweeping in. a beautiful curve around its border. This piece of land was cultivated by the Indians, and when not covered by water, tadpoles, and fishes, in the months of June and July, was rich with waving cora.
In the fall of 1347 the new home was ready for its occupants, and some time in November Mr. Pond moved his family to the new station. This family consisted at that time of Mrs. Pond, two daughters, Jennette' Clarissa and Rebecca, five and three years of age, and a little boy scarcely one month old, called for his grandfather Elnathan Judsori. The house, which was sufficiently commodious, was carefully and comfortably built, although inexpensive in all its appointments. The walls were carefully filled with moistened clay, making them probably bullet-proof and rendering the house very warm. Although the first frame, 'house erected on the Minnesota River, above Fort Sneliing, it is still a very comfortable home and still occupied by its builder.
The band at Prairieville .was a rather numerous
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186 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
one, consisting of about six hundred persons. It was noted for the turbulent and warlike character of its men, and the chief prided himself on the length of that line of chiefs of which he was practically the last representative.
Chief Shakpe was a man of marked ability in council and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota Nation. Some of his epigrammatic expressions were often repeated and long remembered by his people. One such quotation has been already mentioned in ' connection with the battle at Rum River. Here is another : " No man who was absent from a battle but would have been brave had he been there; no man absent from a council but would have been wise had he been present."
With all his gifts Shakpe was a man who would stoop to petty thefts such as few Indian men would have been guilty of, and it seemed to give him little uneasiness when caught in the act. He was a man easily excited by opposition and vindictive in revenge. When excited he ran from place to place, laying aside the natural dignity of his race, and the degree of his excitement could be accurately measured by the rapidity of his trot. His character was quite in contrast with that of Cloud-Man of the Lake Calhoun band.
Shakpe was at first disposed to be insolent and overbearing toward the missionary. He one day very
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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 2:54:26 GMT -5
part 17
Re: VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES AMONG THE DAKOTAS
« Reply #16 on Aug 21, 2006, 1:06pm »
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Tim NEW STATION. 187
abruptly asked him: ''How long are you going to stay here?" Yankee-like Mr. Pond replied by the query: "How long are you going to stay?" The conversation passed from one topic to another until Mr. Pond finally told the chief that he had a forked tongue, the Dakota idiom for saying one lies. The chief became very much enraged, and spent the rest of the day in trotting from one tepee to another in great excitement. He afterwards said no man had ever ventured to use such plain language to him before. This plain talk, however, did 'him a world of good, and he became much more friendly afterwards.
Another important person at Prairieville was Oliver Faribault, the trader. Like many of the traders, he was somewhat autocratic and self-willed, and had great influence with the Indians. His trade must have been quite extensive, since he bought of the Indians at Shakopee and Carver, in a single year, fifteen hundred deerskins, a large number for a single band.
This trader died suddenly about the year 1851, but his family, consisting of a wife and four daughters, lived many years in the old home and always had a large retinue of Indian retainers around them, for their circle of native relatives was very large.
The voyager on the Minnesota, for a few years prior or subsequent to the year 1850, would have found near the present site of Shakopee a noisy and numerous
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188 TWO VOLUNTEEB MISSIONARIES.
band of Indians. If a nervous or a timid man, they would have sadly tried his nerves while he tarried among them, and would moreover have surely tested Ms courage. He would have found there Indians of all known indigenous varieties save the innocent, harmless, milk-and-water species which a certain class of popular novelists delight to describe. He would also have found Indian dogs and Indian ponies, the former in formidable numbers. Very likely the Indians would have been compelling the ponies to fight, a favorite amusement of the young bloods of Prairie-ville in those days. The weird scaffold on which the dead were reposing in their last silent sleep would have been plainly visible on a slight elevation south of the village. It would have served to keep in ever-present memory the end of all flesh, especially if the wind happened to be in the south and it was the summer season. The rattle and shriek of the conjurer; the song and tireless tread of the scalp dance; and the wail of the mourner would have fallen in mingled and discordant cadence upon his ear.
If we except the tepees of the Indians and the crowded log house of the trader, the only place where he could have found shelter would have been the home of the missionary, and many travelers it hospitably entertained during those five long years of isolation. The nearest white man's dwelling on the
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THE NEW STATION. 189
one hand was the Oak Grove Mission, fourteen miles distant, and the Minnesota, over which there was neither ferry nor bridge, rolled between. In any other direction it was more than fifty miles to the nearest neighbor.
Possibly the first view of the mission house would have suggested to the traveler the kraals of an African village, for it was surrounded, except in front, by a stockade or barrier consisting of sharpened stakes, seven or eight feet in length, set close together in a trench. This fence also enclosed a small field of perhaps half an acre-. It was found that this was the only way in which potatoes and other vegetables, and in fact any kind of property, could be protected from the thievish habits of certain of the Indians. Even this in itself was not sufficient and many a long night was spent in watching the field. Inside the fence a trusty dog acted as sentinel, until poor Watch was poisoned for his faithfulness. His grave is with us to this day.
Dr. Williamson, observing this material fence, the work of his missionary associates, said he proposed to build a "moral fence " around his house. Mr. Pond replied that he found the material fence essential to his existence while the moral fence was in building. This little isolated station, constantly surrounded by, and almost constantly filled with, lawless members of one
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190 TWO VOLUNTEEE MISSIONARIES.
of the worst bands of Indians in Minnesota, was no earthly paradise. With every precaution which ingenuity could invent and all the fortitude which experience assisted by grace could develop, life at the Prairieville station was but a doubtful warfare at best. In an article published in The Missionary Herald, Mr. Pond writes of this period as follows : —
Our situation in many respects is unpleasant. We have no persons residing with us, arid no white neighbors within sixteen miles. This is much the largest band of the Dakotas on the Minnesota, or Mississippi, and they all dwell within a hundred rods of our door, some of them much nearer. We have great reason to be thankful for the degree of peace and security we enjoy whilst living in the midst of so many savages, but we are continually annoyed in a thousand ways. They are all almost universally thieves and beggars, and. though we have endeavored to have as little property exposed as possible we are obliged to be continually on the watch. My wife has been only a mile from home in three years, and when the Indians are here I seldom go out of sight of the house unless I am obliged to do so. Few days pass in which they do not commit some depredation. I do not mention these things by way of complaint.
This particular period of the-lives of Mr. and Mrs. Pond was truly a night of toil. Daily and hourly vexations were encountered on every hand. They were isolated from all society except such as the occasional meetings of persons living scores or hundreds of miles apart afforded. Letters from friends arrived not oftener than once a month and often at much
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THE NEW STATION. 191
longer intervals. Most supplies were obtained through Dr. "Weed, of Cincinnati, who acted as purchasing agent.
The good doctor exercised some discretionary power in filling orders received from the missionaries, and once, when one of the scientifically inclined sent for a work on phrenology, he refused to fill the order, stating it as his opinion that foreign missionaries could find better employment than that of studying the new science. Usually orders were filled in a very satisfactory manner.
The constant vexations of a house full of Indians, bent on giving annoyance in every way the ingenuity of fertile minds could invent, can never be adequately understood by one who has not passed through similar experience.
No hour was too sacred, no retreat too secluded, for the rude entrance of the Indians. They sat by the fire and smoked their pipes for hours in succession, while their wet and dirty feet left an imprint wherever they trod. The walls of the front hall were adorned with choice specimens of their famous picture-writing as high as the tallest of them could reach. Their dirty children were brought to be doctored and their dead to be encofflned. The sacred privacy of life in civilized communities was unknown to those living among the Indians.
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The song of the scalp dance, which might be called the Dakota National Hymn, was heard many long nights in succession.
In the midst of these annoyances, the second daughter, always frail, seemed for a time entering the borders of the shadowed valley, and the Dakota women would come in, gaze upon her face, and say in their native language, " She will die," and then pass out. Mr. Pond said, " We supposed she would, but did not find the oft-repeated remark very consoling."
For the retiring wife, who was often compelled to remain for days alone, during the necessary absence of the missionary, surrounded as she was by the noisy revelry of six hundred Indians, life's burdens were often heavy; but she was one of those who can " suffer and be still," and she never murmured at the hardships of her lot.
The number who attended school and Sabbath services was never very large, and at the instigation of Hound-Wind, mentioned elsewhere, the children who attended school were forcibly removed with a good deal of violence and forbidden to come again.
In addition to the opposition of some Indians and the distrust of others, a new difficulty was about this time encountered at the three stations nearest St. Paul, in the ease with which the Indians could procure " fire water" in that embryo town. The entire male
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portion of a village would sometimes become so drunk and quarrelsome that the women would tie the feet and hands of their liege lords and allow them to remain so until they became sober. Occasionally men, while thus pinioned, rolled into the fire or into the water, and perished. During one drunken frolic a woman swung a firebrand which she snatched from the fire, so that a spark from it fell into a package of powder a man had on his back and the explosion of the powder killed the man. This indulgence in the use of liquor among the Indians was a very serious obstacle to missionary work.
The begging trait of the Indian character was another great annoyance. Sometimes fifty in a single day would ask, each for some little necessary, at the same time reminding the missionary that he came to do them good and now had the opportunity. It was impossible to give them all they asked for, and if denied, they often replied something like this : "I'll kill your horse," or, "I'll kill your cow," and sometimes they were as good as their word.
Sometimes the mischievous spirit of the Indians outwitted itself. At one time an Indian on whom Mr. Pond could rely came to him and told him that the Indians proposed killing his cow that night. He employed the Indian to quietly drive her into the barn and awaited developments, After a time, during
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which there had been some commotion among the Indians, a very innocent-looking native came and told how some "bad Indian" had shot the missionary's cow, and of course since the poor beast was dead, the missionary could do no better than turn her carcass over to the Indians that they might feast and make merry. Mr. Pond expressed surprise and did not think it could be his cow; the Indian, on the other hand, was very sure that it was. Mr. Pond replied that it must be her "ghost," and taking the still incredulous native to his barn exhibited his cow in a very fair state of bodily health, although she always showed great mental disturbance at the approach of an Indian. At last it dawned upon the intellect of the bewildered aborigine that the dead cow belonged to the trader and would have to be paid for before it was eaten.
Another little incident illustrates the native quickness of invention which sometimes characterized the Dakotas. Mr. Pond found an Indian in his potato patch one night apparently searching for something. On inquiring the object of his search, the quick-witted but mendacious rogue replied that he was looking for a small pocket mirror which he had lost. Mr. Pond quietly remarked, "I have lived a good many years and this is the first time in the course of my life that I ever found a man out in the night with no light, but
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with a pile of potatoes at his feet hunting for a looking-glass." The joke soon got out among the Indians and the object of it was destined to hear it often repeated.
Among the Dakotas most of the missionaries became, almost of necessity, medical practitioners to some extent, and at Prairieville station the demand for medicines was always more active than that for spiritual instruction. Dakotas had a more realizing sense of the diseases of the body than of the sickness of the soul. If the white men in their inexperience hastened the death of some of their patients, it is probable that they cured many rnpre than they killed, which is perhaps about all that can be said of most medical practitioners.
In many common diseases, such, for instance, as intermittent fevers, croup, and various malarial disorders, Mr. Pond had an extensive and very successful practice. He also vaccinated very many of the Indians, as they were often willing to be treated by him while they refused the services of the physician appointed by the government. At one time his reputation as a doctor seemed somewhat in danger. A man of prominence had long been suffering from some mysterious disease and had been faithfully treated by the native doctors with no good result. His friends at last came to the missionary for medical advice.
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The man seemed about to die. Mr. Pond said he did not wish to treat him, for if he died, as he probably would, they would all say the white man's medicine had killed him. The Indians replied that the man would die anyway, and the medicine could do no harm, if it failed to do good. Mr. Pond therefore administered such remedies as the case seemed to require, and went home. He had hardly reached there before an Indian rushed in saying that the man was in convulsions and was dying. Mr. Pond caught up a bottle of peppermint and hastened to the tent where the man lay. The man had already recovered from his convulsions and continued to improve until he was quite well. By this little occurrence Mr. Pond's medical reputation was greatly extended. There was a certain balsam which was very popular with the Indians, and they had great faith in the " costly medicine," as they called quinine.
By his own admission the government physician killed many of the Dakotas with his medicines, but he said he supposed it made little difference, as, if the medicine had not killed them, their disease would have produced in time the same result.
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CHAPTER XVI.
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
ONE perilous accident, occurring somewhat later,
may be mentioned here, that the narrative of
these early experiences may be as nearly complete as
possible before we pass to other things.
In the month of October, 1852, heavy snows fell and winter set in with unusual severity before the fifteenth of the month. Mr. Pond cut wood the previous fall, about three miles from home, in what was known as the "big woods." The sixteenth day of November, as the night was drawing on, he was descending a long, steep hill nearly three miles from home, with a sleigh load of wood. As he drove down the hill, the horses became somewhat unmanageable, and the sleigh swung against a stump, crushing Mr. Pond's right ankle between the load of wood and the stump. A part of the load of wood fell off, carrying him with it. The horses trotted merrily toward home with the lightened sleigh. On attempting to stand, Mr. Pond found his limb was broken, and when he attempted to move, felt the grating contact of the fractured bones. His position was a desperate one.
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The dusk of evening was gathering. The mercury was below zero, and the chance of an Indian passing that night seemed practically hopeless. A kind Providence so ordered that the lines of the harness fell under the runner before the horses had gone more than twenty rods, which soon stopped the team. Mr. Pond painfully dragged his wounded limb through the snow until he reached the sleigh, and, climbing upon it, he finally reached home.
There was no surgeon nearer than Fort Snelling, twenty miles distant. Sending his little children out to the wood pile for timber of which to make splints, he set the broken bones that night, and the next day busied himself making a pair of crutches. Dr. Ames, of Minneapolis, arrived a day or two later, but did not remove the wrappings, saying the bones were set as well as so bad a fracture could be. It was a long time before the bones knit so that the limb could be used, and much longer before it became strong again. This accident was also followed by an almost fatal attack of lung fever.
During these five years at Shakopee, the loneliness was somewhat broken by occasional visits from the few white men who were led by business or inclination into the Indian country.
A man named Klepper visited the station in 1848, and had nearly caused serious trouble for himself and
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others by his ignorance of Indian character and his own indiscretion. He was a medical student and was anxious to obtain the skeleton of an Indian. He finally secured the bones of a child and put them in his carpet sack. The Indians soon found that some one had been robbing their airy necropolis and were very much enraged. Mr. Klepper became alarmed, and asked the missionary what course he would advise the person to take who had done the deed. Mr. Pond replied that he would advise the guilty party to leave the Indian country at the earliest possible moment.
Mr. Klepper lost no time in acting upon the advice, but encountered Dr. Williamson on the road, who, in the kindness of his heart, insisted on carrying him on his way, and when he refused, the doctor seized his carpet sack, for the purpose of at least relieving him of that. Mr. Klepper was in mortal dread that the doctor would learn the nature of his baggage, but finally escaped without detection from the land of the Dakotas.
A clergyman by the name of Williams also visited the Prairieville station and left behind him a very pleasant memory, especially with the younger members of the mission family, to whom he afterwards sent the first toys they had ever seen.
In the year 1850, another was added to this little family, and the young mother, never very strong,
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200 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
gradually failed in health from that time. The oldest girl, now eight years of age, was a great comfort and help to her mother, whom she was said to resemble closely in both character and person. She was morbidly conscientious and must have been rather precocious, since she had finished reading the Bible through by course before she was six years of age. The younger daughter was a frail little girl from her birth, and her parents had little expectation that she would live to grow up.
It is not surprising that the many cares, domestic and otherwise, incident to her lot among the Dakotas, should have undermined Mrs. Pond's constitution, already predisposed to hereditary disease. The support received by the missionaries to the Dakotas, which in the case of this particular station never exceeded $300 per annum, provided for little save bare subsistence, since provisions and clothing were expensive in this section at that time, as all supplies had to be brought from the states during the comparatively short period of summer navigation. Mrs. Pond performed all the work of her house with her own hands, besides the daily ministry to the wants of the Indians which her position made necessary.
In the fall of 1851, Mr. Pond obtained from the Board a year's leave of absence, and prepared to visit New England. The journey was a fatiguing
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THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 201
one, as much of it was by stage. A few days were spent in Michigan, where brothers of Mrs. Pond were then living. Somewhere in Ohio a railroad was reached, and the party finally arrived in Washington, Conn., late in the fall, where it received a warm welcome.
Kind friends took charge of the four children, for their mother was rapidly failing, and by the first of February it was evident that the end was near. On the evening of the fifth, the dying mother expressed a desire to see all her children once more, knowing that it would be the last time in this world. To the older ones she gave words of counsel which were carefully heeded and diligently followed. Jennette Clarissa never forgot her mother's parting words. Mr. Edward Pond went over the icy hill and brought Elnathan Judson from his aunt Jennette's, to receive his mother's last kiss and listen to her dying words. She told him to be a good boy and love God. To the youngest she said, " Poor boy ! he will not remember his mother!" and kissed him farewell. She expressed perfect resignation to His will who doeth all things well, and so completed her work. Before the dawn of the morning of the sixth she had entered into rest. Her years were but thirty-six, and fourteen of these had been spent in continuous service among the Dakotas. She left four children: Jennette Clarissa, died April 7,
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202 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSION ABIE 8.
1867; Cordelia Rebecca, now Mrs. W. J. Dean, Minneapolis; Elnathan Judson, living at Shakopee; Samuel William, living at Minneapolis,
On a quiet hillside, in the old bury ing-ground, they laid her mortal part away, placing upon the grave this inscription, which seemed like an echo from her life : —
" Be ye also ready, for at such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."
Yes; as he journeyed Kachel died,
And ever to this day,
Our well-beloved Kachels we
Must bury by the way.
Their graves are strewn along the paths
Trod by the sons of men;
Like Jacob, we remember where
We buried them, and when. s. w. P.
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CHAPTER XVII.
THE DAKOTA FRIEND.——ANOTHER BEREAVEMENT.
DURING- the five years beginning with the fall of 1847, mission work at Oak Grove had been vigorously prosecuted with varying success. The use of intoxicants steadily and alarmingly increased among the Indians, and their inclination to work perhaps as steadily diminished.
G. H. Pond had been for some years pursuing a course of studies in preparation for the ministry and was licensed in 1847 and ordained one year later.
The third of September, 1849, the first territorial legislature convened in St. Paul and Mr. Pond represented his district in the lower house. He was especially active in his efforts in that body, to secure legislation giving civil rights equally to all, and prohibiting Sabbath violation, especially in the line of loading and unloading steamers on that day. In these efforts he was in a measure successful, and the initiatory steps taken by that legislature formed a substantial foundation for future action. The record of these years is far from complete, but we learn that they were filled with hard, conscientious work, and
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204 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
were marked like other years by trials and triumphs of the faith.
Much opposition was encountered at this station, as at other stations near the growing towns of the territory, from prominent men among the Indians themselves, who naturally reasoned that white men would not labor so assiduously year after year among the Indians unless they had some expectation of future remuneration at their expense.
Mr. Pond writes under date of May 13, 1850 : —
Last week the Indians renewed their threats against those who are disposed to come to our religious meetings. The fact that two or three women who have not before attended have been attracted to us a few Sabbaths of late is the occasion of it. The great men appear to fear that if they let them alone, all the common people will go away and believe on Jesus. It is said that Red-Boy said that " whereas the missionaries were getting away all their money, the clothes should be torn from all who came to our meetings on the Sabbath."
At its annual meeting in 1850, the Dakota Mission determined to undertake the publication of a small monthly in the interests of their work. This paper was designed to serve a double purpose — to furnish reading matter in their own language for such of the Dakotas as could read ; and also to awaken interest in the work among the friends of missions who were imperfectly acquainted with the history and needs of the Dakota work. G. H. Pond was selected to edit
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THE DAKOTA FRIEND. 205
this paper, which he continued to do until the little sheet was discontinued. The Eev. E. D. Neill, now of McAllister College, aided him in this work, editing the English part of the paper. This was the first religious periodical published in Minnesota.
In his diary, Mr. Pond speaks of the first issue of this paper as follows : —
November 4,1850. Went to St. Paul with a manuscript copy ol The Dakota Friend, and put it into the hands of the printer. It has been with great reluctance that I have attempted the work of editing this little paper. It has been laid upon me by the missionaries, under God. If I must perform this service, if it is the will of God that I should, he will enable me to do it. Without his assistance I cannot succeed. Lord, I look to thee for strength as my day shall be; and may thy rich blessing attend this enterprise! Oh, give wisdom and discretion that I may conduct the difficult and responsible work in thy fear and to thy glory! What am I that I should perform such a service ?
November 27. Started early for St. Paul and returned in the evening, fasting. On my way home I met Governor Ramsey, who very kindly invited me, hereafter in my visits to St. Paul, to stop at his house and have my horse put in his stable.
It was with great anxiety that I waited to see the first number of The Dakota Friend. It made a more creditable appearance than I anticipated.
S. W. Pond contributed a number of pieces in verse to this paper, An-pe-tu-sa-pa-win, a legend of St. Anthony Falls, first appearing in its columns;
While its publication continued, The Dakota Friend
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206 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
accomplished all that was expected of it by its originators, but changes in the mission, resulting from new treaties, made it necessary to discontinue the paper in August, 1851.
Mr. Pond's family increased, until there were seven children — five girls and two boys. When the youngest was about two years of age, the mother's health began to fail, and in the spring of 1853, after a lingering illness of eighteen months, she was called home. The weakness and sufferings of her last days were borne with the same patience and resignation that had characterized her in the manifold toils and hardships of her earlier labors among the Dakotas. The memory of such lives is blessed.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
THE NEW TREATY AND WHAT FOLLOWED.
"N the autumn of 1846 Dr. Williamson accepted an invitation from Little Crow's band at Kaposia to locate among them, and he remained with that band until it was removed to the Reserve, in 1852. While stationed there, he often visited St. Paul and other points, preaching to white people and laboring for the Master wherever the way was open. He sowed seed which bore fruit in after years.
In the meantime Mr. Riggs had been laboring, with little apparent success, at Traverse des Sioux, during the earlier part of this time. The four years spent by Mr. Riggs and Mr. Hopkins at that point, prior to 1847, were years of anxiety and hardship for them, and of indifference and open opposition on the part of the natives. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs returned to Lac Qui Parle in the fall of 1846, remaining there until the treaty of 1851. In the latter year*they went east on a second visit, remaining away until 1852.
Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins remained at Traverse des Sioux after the removal of Mr. Riggs, and were Joined by Mr. Huggins and family, who remained^
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208 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
there until their connection with the mission work terminated. Mr. Hopkins was drowned in the Minnesota while bathing, July 4, 1851. In this sad affliction the Dakota Mission lost a faithful and energetic member, and one whose heart was in the work. Shortly after his death, Mrs. Hopkins returned to Ohio with her three little children, all born at Traverse des Sioux,
Miss Fannie Huggins had become connected with the Lac Qui Parle station as teacher in 1839, and was afterward married to Mr. Jonas Petti John, who became also himself identified with that station as teacher and farmer.
Above are briefly noted the principal changes in the working force at the various stations, prior to the transition period commencing with the treaties of 1851 and 1852.
The treaty with the Mdewakantonwan and Wakpe-kute bands was concluded at Mendota, August 5, Governor Eamsey and Luke Lea acting as commissioners. Many Dakota chiefs were present, including Little Crow. The interpreter was the Rev. G. H. Pond. All the Indian lands belonging to the Sioux were ceded to the United States except a Reservation, beginning fifty miles above Traverse des Sioux and extending up the river to the Yellow Medicine River. This Reserve extended back ten miles from the river on either side. The Indians were to receive $220,000,
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TEE NEW TEE AT Y. 209
and annuities in addition amounting to $30,000 per year for a period of thirty years. This treaty became effective in 1852, and the Dakotas were removed by the government to their Reservation.
Special grants of land were made to all having mixed-blood families; and to the traders such sums were allowed as they claimed were due them from the Indians. In some cases the amount so claimed probably exceeded the whole amount of the trade up to that time.
Many of the Indians, especially the older ones, withdrew from their hereditary hunting grounds with sorrowing hearts. They left behind them the lands of their fathers, lands for which they and their ancestors had been fighting hostile tribes for generations. Their possessions were endeared to them by the traditions of their childhood and by all the associations of their own experience. There were the graves of their parents and of their children, and there they had hoped to one day sleep.
While the transfer was in a sense voluntary, the Dakotas fully realized that they were powerless to resist the encroachments of the white race. They saw before them but the two alternatives — to acquiesce in the sale or to submit to the seizure of their lands. Many felt in their hearts much as did the old Eoman who so often uttered the sentiment:
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210 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
" Carthago delenda est," merely substituting the white race for Queen Dido's troublesome city. Among the Dakotas, those who felt the most usually said the least.
The new mode of life within the prescribed limits of the Reservation was naturally, in fact necessarily, extremely irksome to a people accustomed to an active, roving life, untrammeled by any of the restraining rules and regulations of civilized communities. It is not surprising that such men as Shakpe and Cloud-Man, by nature and custom warriors and hunters, should soon have passed on to the happy hunting grounds, leaving behind them no successors of like influence and experience to exert a restraining power over the coming generation. Thus one of the chief obstacles was removed which had existed to prevent an outbreak of the savage spirit of the race.
To many, who had passed the best years of their lives in exciting hunts or glorious warfare, the new mode of life was
" Lethe's gloom without its quiet —
The pain without the peace of death."
The brothers Pond gravely weighed the question of removal to the Reservation, to continue the work to which nearly a score of the best years of their lives had been given.
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THE NEW TREATY. 211
They finally decided In the negative. Some of the reasons which led to this decision were given by S. W. Pond as follows: —
u While other missionaries hoped the treaty of 1851 would be of great benefit to the Indians, we, taught by past experience, believed the results of the treaty would be evil, and only evil.
" We had witnessed the effect of the treaty of 1837 and had been patiently waiting fifteen years, hoping that when the twenty years had expired, during which they were to receive annuities, the Indians would be compelled to resume habits of industry. When we came among them, we found them as a general rule an industrious, energetic people, and we hoped they would be so again, when they were compelled to support themselves without the aid of the government. So we were counting the years as they went by, hoping to see an end of the annuities and a change for the better. It was like waiting for a river to run by, for before the termination of the twenty years another treaty was made, no better than the first, and all our hopes of a change for the better were at an end.
" The older Indians had gradually lost their former habits of industry or were dead, and a new generation of insolent, reckless fellows had grown up, who spent their lives in idleness and dissipation. So long as they were scattered in little bands along the Missis-
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212 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
sippi and Minnesota rivers, they were comparatively harmless, but now they were all to be gathered together on the Reservation, where they could act in concert and encourage each other in mischief. We did not anticipate anything so bad as the massacre of the whites in 1862, but we thought there would be serious trouble on the Reserve, and we did not like to take our families among such a horde of lawless, reckless sons of Belial. At the same time, we thought the prospect of our being useful on the Reserve was not sufficiently encouraging to justify the expense we must incur in removing and erecting new buildings.
" Mr. Treat, the Corresponding Secretary of the American Board, made us a visit and expressed himself as fully satisfied with our reasons for leaving the mission.
"As we neve'r regretted coming among the Dakotas as we did, so we never regretted leaving them when we did.
" In a pecuniary point of view, it seemed safest for us to continue in the Mission, for we did not then know how we should succeed in supporting our families, and if we were taken away suddenly, we had little to leave them.
" We were then past our prime, and having almost discarded the use of the English language for many
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THE NEW TREATY. 213
years, we could hardly hope our preaching would prove acceptable to white people.
" For some years after we came to this country, we had little use for the English except when transacting business at the fort, and we had little of that to do. The language of the fur traders was French, and many of the Canadians could speak no other language. As we often had dealings with such persons, we learned enough French to transact ordinary business with them. Mr. G-avin aided us in learning to speak that language, although I could read it very well and speak it some before I met him. It was the Dakota language that chiefly engaged our attention, and we purposely avoided speaking English in our intercourse with each other, as soon as we were able to use the Dakota as a substitute for it. In fact, for many years we used the Dakota so much more than we did the English that we thought in Dakota, dreamed in Dakota, and when we spoke, whether we intended it or not, the Dakota would come first. I do not think we could speak the English as fluently at forty as at twenty years of age.
" For nearly twenty years after we came here to Minnesota we were fully determined to spend our lives with the Dakotas, and it was not without the greatest reluctance and a feeling of bitter disappointment that we came to the conclusion that we must leave them.
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214 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
u It is not easy to turn one's back upon the labors of nearly twenty years and commence anew. It is especially hard when the vanished years have been years of privation and toil, and when the seed sown in labor and affliction and watered with tears seems to give little promise of fruitage. Yet we are assured the Lord of the harvest will adjust the accounts in the great day of final compensations.5'
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CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED*
OjINCE the design of this history covers mainly ^— the work among the Dakotas, a brief review of what had been accomplished up to this time, and of the later history of the bands with which G. H. and S. W. Pond principally labored, may with propriety be here introduced.
The manner in which the alphabet, orthography, etc., of the Dakota language were arranged has been already fully described, and also the pioneer work in collecting and arranging a vocabulary of the Dakota. Mr. S. Pond writes regarding this : —
"We were convinced from the first that our influence over the Indians would depend very much on the correctness and facility with which we spoke their language. When we had been among them five or six years, we had learned most of the words in common use. I see very few words now in Dakota books which I had not then learned, and after that new words came slowly.
We observed that no white man among the Dakotas pronounced the words correctly or spoke the language grammatically. Some of them had Indian families and had lived among them thirty or forty years. We labored hard to avoid the defects we saw in others, for we wished to speak like Dakotas and not like foreigners.
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216 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
We began as soon as we came to the Indian country to collect and arrange materials for a dictionary and grammar of the Dakota, and prosecuted the work steadily from year to year until it was completed. Though the grammar is a much smaller work than the dictionary, it was in some respects a more difficult one, and it was a long time before I could attain to even an approximation of what a grammar should be. Other grammars were of very little use to us in this work. The Dakota contains many peculiarities not found in any of the various languages with which I am acquainted, and to describe these peculiarities so as to be understood required much patient study.
The earliest manuscript dictionary now in existence . was completed sometime previous to 1840 and contained about three thousand words. To use Mr. Biggs' expressive language, "entering into other men's labors," he found three thousand words collected in 1838. A grammar of a still earlier date is in the possession of the writer, prepared, it would appear, from an endorsement on one of the blank leaves, for the use of Dr. Williamson.
Many of the words contained in the vocabulary at this date were of course primitive words, and as the Dakota is rich in derivative and compound words, the collection thus made formed the groundwork for many additional words. This collection was constantly added to and enlarged, until in the autumn of 1847 it was practically complete, containing at that time about fourteen thousand words, or about
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WHAT HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. 217
the same number as the dictionary published five years later by the Smithsonian Institution, which was edited by Mr. Eiggs. This manuscript is now in the library of the Minnesota State Historical Society.
The grammar was completed about the same time, and was approved by Dr. Williamson in very emphatic terms, A considerable part of this grammar was printed in connection with the dictionary, Mr. Eiggs having made a trip to Washington, Conn., where Mr. Pond then was, to obtain from him his manuscripts. Dr. Neill says : " Some alterations were made in the alphabet, but with the grammar, which had been prepared by Samuel Pond, he [Professor W. W. Turner*] was especially pleased."
Mr. Pond, writing of his dictionary not many years ago, said : " For many years I could not look upon my dictionary and grammar, which had cost me so many years of ,toil, without a feeling of sadness2;" but while the years thus spent brought the toilers neither wealth nor fame nor other visible reward, they were content to leave the question of recompense to Him who is unerring in his judgments.
Most faithfully and persistently the main object
1 Professor Turner was an able philologist, then instructor in Hebrew
and cognate languages in Union Theological Seminary.
2 This sadness arose from the fact that the work seemed, at that time,
to have been all in vain.
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218 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES*
of missionary efforts was presented to the Dakotas,
Mr. Pond says : —
We tried to make them understand that while we were willing to aid them in things pertaining to this life, we regarded things spiritual and eternal as of paramount importance; but such language was new and strange to them, and they were slow to understand how men could be actuated by such motives.
The Dakotas had a general belief in the immortality of the soul, and a vague apprehension that men would be punished in another world for crimes committed in this. They also held that theft, lying, adultery, and murder were crimes that deserved punishment, so they had little to say against the doctrine of retribution; but when we made known the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, they maintained that though it was a good religion for us, it was not for them. They, however, were most of them very reserved in regard to their views on religious subjects, and when we presented the claims of the gospel, they either listened in silence or simply remarked that it was all very good, so it was difficult to ascertain whether or not they understood us.
In the summer of 1837 I entered a tent where were some visitors from the upper country, and the man of the house, who was a brother of the chief, told them who I was and what I said to them about religion. I was surprised to learn that he had a clear understanding of some of the more important articles of our faith, and could state them in plainer language than I could have done at that time in Dakota. That man on his deathbed told me he should die trusting in Christ, and wished to be buried like a Christian. He also requested me to instruct his son in Christianity.
So the seed was sown in season and out of season, and the principles of a Christian life taught by precept and example. But this sowing, continued during a long season of years, was " painfully discouraging."
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WHAT HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. 219
The scattered seed seemed often wasted, for there were few conversions. Mr. Pond continues: —
" What troubled me most was the apprehension that the mission money that I was spending here might be more profitably applied in some other field, and I endeavored to get along with as little of that money as possible. I drew nothing from mission funds for my support until I had been here three years and more, and then commenced with a salary of $200 per annum, which was never greatly increased. Before the outbreak of 1862 I saw very few Dakotas who seemed to give evidence of piety. A few at Oak Grove, a few at Lac Qui Parle, and that was all."
Among these few was Simon Anawangmani, who was the first full-blood Dakota man to profess Christianity. In his youth and early manhood a noted warrior, during the remainder of his long life he was a valiant soldier in the army of the great Captain.
During the ten years prior to 1862 that the annuity Sioux lived on the Eeservation, Dr. Williamson and Mr. Rlggs continued their labors among them with little apparent result. Amos Huggins also, during a part of this time, taught a government school at Lac Qui Parle.
The seed of truth, during these years, seemed to lie dormant, and as the War of the Rebellion was an element in God's plan for the abolition of African
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220 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
slavery, so the bloody insurrection of the Sioux in August, 1862, and the retribution which followed, seem to have been necessary to break the rule of tradition and superstition which presented an ever-present obstacle to the civilization and Christianization of the Dakotas.
It is not my purpose to speak of the causes, direct and indirect, which resulted in the outbreak. They have been many times recounted with more or less accuracy, and have become a part of history. We are now only concerned with its results.
The outbreak came and caused such a "reign of .terror " as had never been known in the northwest. It is impossible to describe the bitter hatred felt by nearly all the whites toward every individual, without exception, of the hated race. This feeling was modified to some extent when it was found that several of the Christian Indians risked their own lives to save the lives of white persons ; but with very many, especially those of foreign birth, to be an Indian was to be a murderer, entitled to neither justice nor mercy.
It was proven that none of the Christianized Indians had participated in the murders, although some of them were indirectly involved by the deeds of their friends and relatives.
Those who were most guilty fled across the line into British territory for protection, and still live there. A
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WHAT HAD SEEN ACCOMPLISHED. 221
large number of those who did not flee surrendered themselves to the troops under G-eneral H. H. Sibley, bringing with them all the captives, whom they had protected from injury.
Two persons connected with the mission families were killed — Amos W. and Rufus Huggins. The former was brutally murdered before his own door ; the latter was wounded in the defense of New Ulin and died from the effects of the wound. Of the Indians who were taken prisoners, about three hundred were found guilty by a military commission, and were condemned to death. This sentence was approved, although in very many cases no specific acts of violence were proven. When the findings of this commission were submitted to President Lincoln for his approval, he mercifully and wisely interposed to prevent this second wholesale massacre, and directed that only those who had been guilty of murder or of the violation of white women should be hanged. Under this ruling thirty-nine were condemned ; one, however, succeeded in proving an alibi, and but thirty-eight were executed. This thirty-ninth man was Tatemima (Round-Wind), who aided G. H. Pond in burying the victims of Hole-in-the-day's treachery, fourteen years before. The remaining nearly three hundred of the condemned were confined in prison at Mankato during the succeeding winter.
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222 TWO VOLUNTEEE MISSIONARIES.
In January the Bev. G. H. Pond visited the prison and found a marvelous change in the character and disposition of the Dakotas whom he had once known so well. He reached Mankato January 31, and remained with the Indians some days. He writes in his diary of what occurred as follows : —
There are over three hundred Indians in prison, the most of whom are in chains. There is a degree of, religious interest manifested by them which is incredible. They huddle themselves together every morning and evening in the prison, to hear the Scriptures, sing hymns, confess one to another, exhort one another, and pray together. They say that their whole lives have been wicked, that they have adhered to the superstitions of their ancestors until they have reduced themselves to their present state of wretchedness and ruin. They declare that they have left it all, and will leave all forever; that they will and do embrace the religion of Jesus Christ, and will adhere to it as long as they live; and that this is their only hope in this world and the next. They say that before they came to this state of mind — this determination — their hearts failed them with fear, but now they have much mental ease and comfort.
About fifty men of the Lake Calhoun band expressed a wish to be baptized by me, rather than by any one else, on the ground that my brother and myself had been their first and chief instructors in religion. After consultation with Eev. Marcus Hicks, of Mankato, Dr. Williamson and I decided to grant their request, and administer to them the Christian ordinance of baptism.
We made the conditions as plain as we could, and we proclaimed there in the prison that we would baptize such as felt ready to heartily comply with the conditions, commanding that none should come forward to receive the rite who did not do it heartily to the
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God of heaven, whose eye penetrated each of their hearts. All by a hearty — apparently hearty —response signified their desire to receive the rite on the conditions offered.
As soon as preparations could be completed, and we had provided ourselves with a basin of water, they came forward, one by one, as their names were called, and were baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, while each subject stood with the right hand raised and head bowed, and many of them with the eyes closed, with an appearance of profound reverence.
As each passed from the place where he stood to be baptized, one or the other of us stopped him and addressed to him in a low voice a few words, such as our knowledge of his previous character, and the solemnities of the occasion, suggested. The effect of this, in most cases, seemed to very much deepen the solemnity of the ceremony. I varied my words in this part of the exercises to suit the case of the person, and when gray-haired medicine men stood before me, literally trembling as I laid one hand on their heads, the effect on my mind was such that at times my tongue faltered. The words which I used in this part of the service were the following, or something nearly like them in substance: " My brother, this is a mark of God which is placed upon you. You will carry it while you live. It introduces you into the great family of God, who looked down from heaven, not upon your head but into your heart. This ends your superstition and from this time you are to call God your Father. Remember to honor him. Be resolved to do his will." It made me glad to hear them respond heartily, " Yes, I will."
When we were through and all were again seated, we sang a hymn appropriate to the occasion, in which many of them joined, and then prayed. I then said to them, " Hitherto I have addressed you as friends; now I call you brothers. For years we have contended together on this subject of religion; now our contentions cease. We have one Father, we are one family. I must now
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224 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
leave you and shall probably see you no more in this world. While you remain in this prison, you have time to attend to religion ; you can do nothing else. Your adherence to the Medicine-sack and the Watawe (consecrated war weapons) has brought you to ruin. Our Lord Jesus Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. He looks not upon your heads nor on your lips, but into your bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a term of brotherly salutation, to which you have been accustomed in your medicine dance, and say to you, ' Brothers, I spread my hands over you and bless you.'" The hearty answer of three hundred voices made me glad.
The outbreak and events that followed It have, under God, broken in shivers the power of the priests of devils which has hitherto ruled these wretched tribes. They were before bound in the chains and confined in the prison of paganism, as the prisoners in the prison at Philippi were bound with chains. The outbreak and its attendant consequences have been like the earthquake to shake the foundations of their prison, and every one's bonds have been loosed. Like the jailer, in anxious fear they have cried, "Sirs, what must we do to be saved?" They have been told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who will still save to the uttermost all that come to God by him. They say they repent and forsake their sins, that they believe on him, that they trust in him and will obey him. Therefore they have been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, THREE
HUNDKED IN A DAY.
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CHAPTER XX.
FIKSTFRUITS AND FILE-LEADERS.
~T~TT"HILE the Pentecostal events described in the » ™ foregoing chapter were taking place within the prison walls at Mankato, a similar revival was in progress at the Indian camp near Fort Snelling. This camp was composed mainly of relatives of the prisoners under death sentence at .Mankato. During the winter of 1862-63, the Rev. John P. Williamson labored faithfully among them, and accompanied them the following spring to Niobrara, on the Missouri River, where the government officials had determined to locate them.
As the Dakota exiles bade a last farewell to the scenes amid which their past lives had been spent, and cast a last lingering look from the deck of the steamer upon the places which had long known them but would know them no more, they all united in singing one of the songs of Zion in their native tongue.
Shortly after their removal, E. R. Pond, and later Ms wife, a daughter of Robert Hopkins, joined the mission at Niobrara in the capacity of teachers, thus taking up the work of their parents. The condemned
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rnen were removed from Mankato to the government prison at Eock Island in the spring of 1863, and after being confined there for some years, those who survived the confinement were released.
After their release, many of them and also many of those who were located in Nebraska, left the Reservation, renouncing their annuities, and taking lands in severalty in the vicinity of Flandreau, S. D., and from that time on made as rapid advancement in the arts of civilized life as perhaps was ever made by any savage people of nomadic antecedents, whose ancestors had lived for many generations by the chase. Many of the active leaders in the little settlement at Flandreau were members of the Lalte Calhoun band. The churches among the Dakotas soon became active, vigorous, and, to quite an extent, self-supporting organizations, ministered to by faithful and efficient native pastors. Of very many of these but recently wild, bloodthirsty, and superstitious Dakotas, it might be truly said that "all things had become new." Their complete renunciation of their old idolatrous customs and incantations, their observance of the Sabbath, their missionary labors among those more ignorant than themselves — all bore incontrovertible testimony to the reality of that faith which they professed. Readers rapidly multiplied, schools were well attended, and the
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Dakotas made substantial progress in every line of advancement open to them.
The outbreak of 1862, and the consequent removal of the Dakotas of Minnesota to a distant section, made it difficult, if not impossible, for the elder missionaries with their families to accompany them in their exile. The Pond brothers had already withdrawn from the Mission, as has been stated, and now Mr. Riggs removed his family, first to St. Anthony and later to Beloit, Wis., where a permanent home was made. Dr. Williamson also located on a farm at St. Peters and made that place his home. Dr. Williamson and Mr. Riggs were, however, both connected with the mission work as long as they lived.
Respecting the general results of the many years of early missionary effort expended for the Dakotas of Minnesota, probably no man living is more competent to speak than is Dr. John P. Williamson, whose entire life has been consecrated to the work, and whose opportunities for accurately measuring the progress made have been unequalecl. In a letter to the writer referring to the labors of" the pioneer missionaries he says: —
I can say with all sincerity that the results of their faithful labors prove that they were not in vain in the Lord. The salvation of souls was their first object, and the seeds of truth they sowed have been the principal means in saving hundreds of souls. Among the Sioux who lived in Minnesota previous to 1862, we
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now have (May, 1891) nine Presbyterian and two Congregational churches, with a membership of one thousand. There are also four or five Episcopal churches, with membership of over three hundred. These churches are now nearly all supplied by Indian preachers, who receive a considerable part of their support from their churches.
As to civilization, the scale is a sliding one, but the Sioux among whom the first missionaries labored have made long strides in that direction, and are far in advance of any other Sioux. There are now between three thousand and four thousand of the Minnesota Sioux, and they receive nothing from the government now except what is due them by treaty.
It is to be remembered in this connection that all of the three hundred baptized at Mankato were under sentence of death for murders committed, which makes their subsequent stedfastness the more remarkable.
In military tactics, when it is desired to "rectify alignment," as it is called, a certain number of soldiers at regular intervals in the line are ordered to step some paces to the front, their companions then receiving orders to advance to the position of the new line thus formed. Similar tactics are employed in the economy of nature and of grace, when tribes and nations are to make an advance in the scale of enlightenment.
In addition to the foregoing general statement of progress made, a brief sketch of the lives of some of those "file-leaders" may not be entirely without interest.
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Eagle Help (Wanmdi-Okiye) was one of the most prominent, intelligent, and warlike members of the Lac Qui Parle band. Mr. S. W. Pond, who knew him long and intimately, wrote of him : "He was a man of uncommon mental abilities, and would have been so considered among white men." When the missionaries first located at Lac Qui Parle he was in the vigor of ripe manhood, a war prophet and medicine man, holding a position somewhat similar perhaps to that filled by Red-Bird of the Lake Calhoun band. He possessed an inquiring mind and seemed disposed to investigate the statements of the white men in a comparatively candid spirit. His earliest literary and religious instruction was received mainly from G-. H. Pond, who first met him in 1836, and whose diary contains frequent mention of this man and of his efforts in his behalf. A letter of Eagle Help written to S. W. Pond, then in Connecticut, in February, 1837, is in the possession of the writer, and is doubtless the oldest specimen of native Dakota composition in existence. In this letter he expresses the hope that the coming summer '' many of the Dakotas will learn to read." This letter was included in one by Gideon Pond, who says of it that the writing and spelling would have been better if the writer bad not " feasted " just before writing.
In the winter of 1838 Mr. Pond nursed Eagle Help
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230 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
through an attack of smallpox, and he was also his companion the following year in his canoe journey from Lac Qui Parle to Mendota. This Indian was a man of a very violent temper and was sometimes a dangerous friend as well as a formidable foe. On the last-mentioned journey a thoughtless remark of Mr. Pond nearly cost him his life. Eagle Help, who had lately lost his wife, blackened his face in token of mourning. The occasion of this act not at the moment occurring to Mr. Pond, he carelessly said, " I suppose you think that becomes you." This remark, so innocently uttered, the Dakota counted an intentional personal insult to be bitterly avenged.
'Dr. Williamson fell into a somewhat similar danger at one time. Eagle Help wished to send a letter to a son who was then in Ohio, and the doctor refused to take it, intimating that the postage would have to be paid. Eagle Help took his gun and stationed himself near the road where the doctor must pass; but Mr. Huggins, in the meantime, went to the angry Indian and obtained from him the letter, promising to have it forwarded. Eagle Help afterward affirmed that if no move had been made toward forwarding his letter, the doctor's team would never have passed with him alive, and it is not probable that it would.
Cicero somewhere makes the statement that all men make a distinction between religion and superstition.
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In like manner most Indians recognize a difference between the sorcery of the conjurer and the legitimate medical practice of the same party. Eagle Help was well versed in both these methods of healing. "While he practiced the cunning arts of the Indian conjurer, he at the same time administered the simple remedies of which experience had taught the value. Indian treatment was remarkably successful in certain lines of surgical practice in which Indian doctors were experienced. They were both judicious and successful in the treatment of gunshot wounds.
When Eagle Help was dying he said, "My medicines are good, but if another attempts to use them, he may do more harm than good, so throw them all away."
In 1862, Eagle Help, though not himself personally engaged in the conflict, fled to the British possessions with the^ hostile factions, his son having been doubtless involved in the murders. This young man had enjoyed some advantages. He had spent a year in Ohio, and could speak some English; he also inherited his father's superior talents.
Eagle Help died at a recent date, in the Christian faith.
The party of which he was the acknowledged leader and patriarch had settled down to honest toil, while his people had professed themselves worshipers of
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232 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
Jehovah. They had also formed a church organization, and erected a church building wherein regular church services were held before Eagle Help's death. This church has received aid and encouragement from the Presbyterian Church in the Northwest Territory. Eagle Help's son, who is still alive, is a professing Christian.
Next comes Nancy. Cloud-Man, chief of the Lake Calhoun band, had two daughters and also several sons. His wife was a woman of a very violent temper, and was a sister of the noted war chief Ked-Bird. This woman often became so enraged that no one ventured to oppose her. On one such occasion she cut in pieces and destroyed a valuable parchment tent, without interference from interested parties standing by.
One of the chief's daughters was married in Indian form to an officer in the military service. This couple had a daughter whom the Indians called Wakan-tanka (Great Spirit), but since that was the term used by the missionaries for the name Jehovah, they naturally objected to its becoming the common name of a little half-breed girl, and therefore called the child Nancy.
Nancy was a fine, intelligent child, one of the most prepossessing in appearance of her race, and as bright and intelligent as she was handsome. When she was
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about twelve years of age, her mother brought her to Mr. S. W. Pond, and proposed to give her to him to be trained and educated as a white girl, as her cousin had been trained. Nancy's narrow-minded and selfish old grandmother objected, saying she had taken care of the girl when she was small, and now that she was old enough to bear burdens, she would not give her up unless a horse were given her in exchange. As the missionary was not purchasing girls with horses, Nancy continued to live with and aid her loving grandmother. She contrived, however, to pick up a good deal of instruction at the mission at Oak Grove. High-spirited Indian girls are hard subjects to make slaves of, and the sequel of the old lady's oppressive treatment was an elopement and disgraceful matrimonial alliance on Nancy's part in another band. The disgraceful feature of the affair was the fact that the girl's relatives received no fair equivalent in exchange for her. Nancy's cousin had brought her loving grandmother a horse, a fair and satisfactory equivalent, while Nancy had not brought the old lady a revenue of even so much as a dog for feasting, and was therefore eternally disgraced. The proprieties must be observed, even among Indians. They, like other races, have their u sacred white elephants" of established custom which must be duly worshiped. A chief's granddaughter too!
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The old lady had her revenge. Nancy had stored her ornaments in the storehouse at the Oak Grove Mission, and when she returned for them after her marriage they were found to be gone, taken by her grandmother. As the Indian bride realized the extent of her loss, she turned away wailing, probably sorrowing as much at this unkind act on the part of her relative as at her own loss.
Nancy had two sons, who are now in the prime of early vigorous manhood, active, intelligent, and influential men. One of them, the Rev. John Eastman, is pastor of a Presbyterian church at Flandreau, speaks English with ease and fluency, and is respected by all who know him. His brother, Dr. Charles Eastman, is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a man of superior education, both literary and medical, and has already taken high rank in his profession. He is now government physician at Pine Ridge Agency. He was recently married in New York to Miss Elaine Goodale, a teacher.
These two young men have usually been spoken of as full Dakotas, but strictly speaking are three-quarter bloods. They are great-grandsons of chief Cloud-Man, of Lake Calhoun, the patriotic elements of whose character they seem to have inherited in a marked degree. Such men—thoughtful, progressive, practical — are an honor to any age and to any race.
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They are the true file-leaders in the march of human
progress.
In the Lake Calhoun band there were two brothers whose names were Hepi (haypee) and Catan (chatan), signifying that they were third and fourth in order of birth in their father's family. All Dakotas are thus provided with names when they come into this world, and they are sometimes known by these names as long as they live. These were bright intelligent boys, and at the time when our sketch begins were probably twelve or fifteen years of age. They were not only bright but ambitious, and in spite of the ridicule and opposition of their companions they regularly recited to Mrs. Pond, who had undertaken to teach them to read and write, Mrs. Pond became much attached to her pupils, and they and she both persevered until the brothers could both read and write their own language very well. The task must have been often in some respects an unpleasant one for the teacher, since the best of Indians, in their native barbarism, are not given to divers washings, whatever may be said of their tendency to carnal ordinances.
After a time the teacher removed to Shakopee, and the lads occasionally visited the mission station at that point, usually carrying with them some portion of printed Scripture in their native language. They always received a warm welcome from their former
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236 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
teacher, and seemed to feel a special regard for her. Notwithstanding their literary attainments and amiable dispositions, they gave no evidence of any change in heart or life.
In the spring of 1858 a war party of Ojibways visited Shakopee to obtain scalps. These two brothers, now grown to manhood, had just before, with others, made, a raid into the 0 jib way country and had returned with a scalp. They encamped on their return on the'outskirts of the village of Shakopee and danced nightly around the scalp which they had taken.
There were about fifteen lodges of the Dakotas at that time in the vicinity. The Ojibway war party, having gained the bluff which overlooks Shakopee without being discovered, were silent but interested spectators of the scalp dance, which took place under their very eyes. The writer remembers very distinctly standing beside the dancers the evening before the battle and watching the progress of the dance, which took place but a short distance from his father's door.
The succeeding morning, a few stragglers from the main body of the Ojibways, which was led by Hole-in-the-day in person, shot a Dakota who was fishing in the river, bringing on, prematurely, a conflict. The plan of the Ojibway chief was to surprise the
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Sioux camp in the night, and if this plan had been carried out, he would doubtless have succeeded in destroying the camp.
The battle took place on low ground, between Rice Lake and the river. Four or five Dakotas were killed, and about the same number of Ojibways. Catan was shot through the lungs and was borne away on a litter, for both he and his brother were active participants in the battle. The Dakotas hastily intrenched their camp, fearing an attack the following night; but the Ojibways returned at once to their own country, and after a few days the Dakotas also went back to the Reservation. Those who were slain in the fight were buried the same evening near the Indian camp, and I remember observing that one of the bodies was headless. Doubtless the enemy had taken away the head to scalp at leisure. I well remember Catan's smiling farewell as they bore him away. We never saw him again.
Finally both these men were condemned to death for participation in the outbreak of- 1862, but in the revival in the prison they were among the most active in persuading their fellow captives to become Christians. It is said that the example and exhortations of Catan did more than those of any other one of the Indians confined at Mankato in preparing the way for the work of grace wrought there. He
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died at Rock Island, an apparently sincere follower
of Christ.
Hepi was released after a time and located at Flan-dreau with many of his kindred. He became a faithful and consistent preacher of the gospel of Christ. In 1884 he wrote to his old friend and instructor, from Flandreau, as follows: —
S. W. POND :
Brother, — The letter which you sent me I received safely, and rejoicing I read it. I opened the envelope and saw the picture of the face of a good-looking young woman. " Who is this?" I thought as I gazed upon it. Then I gave it to my children and read the letter. I used to see your two girls long ago, and I thought this must be one of them. " The older is dead, and this must be the younger," I thought. When I was a boy, her mother was kind to me, and it seemed as if this were she. As I read the letter, brother, it seemed as if you had come into my house, and I gazed at the letter rejoicing. God has watched over you well and multiplied your days, and we can now converse with
each other. That is a great joy.
Of the Dakotas who were about your age when you came, a
young man, none are now living on earth, and even of their chil-
dren only here and there one is alive.
Brother, I will tell you how many of my father's children are
left. There are two of us living, but we had not the same mother.
The other is a man and has many children, but I do not know
how many, for they live far away. , . .
In our church we always have good meetings. The sacrament
of the Lord's Supper we shall observe the second of March.
To-day the wind blows from the south and there is a great flying
of snow. I think perhaps the snow is melting with you to-day,
for you are sheltered from the wind,
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JOSEPH BLACKSMITH (WAKANHDiSPA),
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FIUSTFRUITS AND FILE-LEADERS. 239
That is all I will say. I shall preserve your daughter's picture carefully, also yours. With all my heart I salute you.
One of your kindred,
JOSEPH BLACKSMITH,
HEPI AM I.
After writing the foregoing letter, Hepi was sent by the native missionary society to labor among pagan Indians at Fort Totten. The few remaining months of his life were spent there in successful missionary work. He wrote the following from that place: —
FORT TOTTEN, Dakota, November 21,1885.
Mr. S. W. POND:
My elder Brother, — To-day I look toward you arid remember you. I came from Flandreau north to Devil's Lake. I am in the midst of many Dakotas. I tell them the words of God. On the Sabbath many of them come and hear gladly.
Last fall, at the meeting at Sisseton Agency, they directed me to come here and I am here. Brother, I am not well, but not very unwell. Your younger brother,
JOSEPH BLACKSMITH.
Shortly afterward his last letter was received. The concluding portion of this letter is unfortunately lost, but of that which remains the following is a translation: —
FOKT TOTTEN, December 10,1885.
S. W. POND:
My elder Brother, — The letter you sent me I have received and rejoice. To-day I raised blood and was alarmed, but suddenly they brought me a letter, and I read it at once, and as I gazed at
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240 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES,
your words I felt brave and was no longer afraid. You have made me glad.
Though. T raise blood, I feel comfortable. Every Sabbath they come well and delight in singing. I have never been confined to the bed, and I continue to preach to them. ISTow the people with whom I am say to me, " Now that you have raised much blood, if you will perform no labor, it will be well with us." So they proposed that I should live in the house of a young man named Job, and I am living there.
Your picture that I have I show to them and say to them, " This is he who wrote to me. I also say, " This is he who made our alphabet for us." Then they look at your picture and hand it from one to another. I tell them of your brother Matohota [G. H. Pond], and say, "When I was a boy, these men gave me instruction."
Mr. S. W. Pond describes the last days of this remarkable man in a letter written shortly after his death: —
Perhaps you know Hepi Wakanhdisapa is dead. He was a delegate to the General Assembly [Presbyterian] last spring, and was sent to Devil's Lake last fall to preach to the Indians there. In the winter he wrote me that he had been bleeding at the lungs, and I advised him to stop preaching. His children at Flandreau, when they heard of his sickness, requested John Williamson to call him home, and he did so; but Hepi refused to leave Devil's Lake. He said," I want to be with my children, but God has given me a work to do here and I must finish it." His wife was with him when he died and gives the following account of the last day of his life: —
" That day he seemed to be tolerably comfortable and five men came to read with him, with whom he spent the whole day till
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evening, when they went home. Then he put on his coat and stood outdoors. As it was some time before he came in, a girl — his daughter — went out and stood beside him. He said to her, ' Now I shall die,' and went into the house. He then said, i I wanted to die in the presence of my children, and thought I should feel sad, but I have been standing out-of-doors and looking at the beauty of the heavens, and I rejoice. Let us have our evening worship soon.' He then took the Bible and read the account of the translation of Elijah, and prayed. He was then anxious to have the man return soon who had gone to the post office for his letters, and when he came said, ' I will see first the letters from Flandreau,' and opened two of the letters, but did not read them. He handed them back, saying, ' I feel strangely,' and then as they supported him he said to his wife, * Do you not remember that I said I wished to have my body lie at Flandreau?' She said, ' Yes.' He then said to a young man who was present, ' Nephew, take the Bible and pray ; I am going now.' The young man did so, and when he had prayed, Wakanhdisapa raised his hands and said, ' To all the ministers and elders with whom I have been associated, good-by," and died."
The foregoing are a few specimen examples of many that have been brought out of the shadows of darkest paganism into the glorious light of the gospel of Christ through the human instrumentality of the missionary labors of the Pond brothers and their associates, briefly sketched in these pages.
' ' He that winneth souls is wise " — wise for a more enduring world than this.
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CHAPTER XXI.
OLDTIME FRIENDS.
A FEW" were found among the early pioneers, not connected with the mission, who afforded the Ponds substantial aid in their pioneer work among the Dakotas. Perhaps Major Lawrence Taliaferro is entitled to most prominent mention in this connection. He received the brothers kindly, and during all the years of his official service was their warm personal friend and adviser. He was ever remembered by them both with feelings of kind regard and grateful esteem.
In a letter written by Gr. H. Pond in the cabin at Lake Calhoun, November 14, 1834, the following passage is found : —
We have had a visit to-day from two men, professors of religion : one, an officer from the fort, who has been there two or three months; and the other, a trader, who has been here one month. We had a prayer meeting in our house, four of us, while they were here. The trader is a temperance man and expects to take the place of one who smuggled and sold whiskey to the Indians and caused some intemperance among them. This is one of the remarkable occurrences.
This was one of the most remarkable prayer meet-
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OlDTIME FEIENDS. - 243
ings ever held in the territory now called Minnesota. The visitors from the fort were Major Loornis, then in command of the garrison at Fort Snelling; and H. H. Sibley, for many years afterwards the most prominent business man in the entire northwest and the first governor of the state. They doubtless prayed for the success of the infant mission to the Dakotas, and for the conversion of the garrison at the fort, both of which prayers were in a measure answered.
The acquaintance at that time formed with Mr. Sibiey continued during succeeding years and was only terminated by death. He ever manifested a friendly feeling toward the mission and its founders, both at Lake Calhoun and Oak G-rove, He was one year younger than G. H. Pond and arrived in the Indian country a few months after they landed at Fort Snelling.
The following letter, received by G. H. Pond the February preceding his death, will be found of interest:—
My dear old Friend,— I was much gratified to receive your kind and affectionate reminder of the olden time, and I cordially reciprocate your sentiments. As I grow older T feel more and more like holding fast to my early friends, among whom I have always counted you and your good brother Samuel.
Our acquaintance dates back to the year 1834, you having come here in the spring, and I in November. Considerably more than the lifetime of a generation have we been identified with what is
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244 TWO VOLVNTEES MISSIONARIES.
now Minnesota. In the providence of God our spheres of action have been different—you having consecrated yourselves to the service of the Master, while my avocation has been purely secular. That you have both well and faithfully served him I can attest, and I verily believe that "there are crowns laid up for you" against that day. . . .
I am now sixty-five years old, with health considerably shattered and infirmities which warn me that erelong I must be gathered to my fathers. I " hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints." It would betoken a false humility on ray part to state that I have lived an altogether useless life.
I do not believe this, and yet on the other hand I know I have left undone many things I ought to have done. I can look back and remember hundreds of lost opportunities for glorifying God and serving my fellow men. Judged therefore by the stern and awful requirements of the law, I am a guilty creature; but I trust in the mercy of God through his Son for forgiveness, having no other reliance or hope. I trust, my dear friend, that we may be permitted to meet again " before we go hence to be no more seen." In any case, we are in the hands of a gracious and merciful God. When you write your brother Samuel, please convey to him my kindest remembrances and receive the same for you and yours. I am always glad to hear from you.
Affectionately your friend,
H. H. SlBLEY.
On the occasion of the death of G. H. Pond, General Sibley wrote of his early friend as follows : —
When the writer came to this country in 1834, he did not expect to meet a single white man except those composing the garrison at Fort Snelling, a few government officials attached to the Department of Indian Aftairs, and the traders and voyageurs employed by the great Fur Company in its business,
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OLDTIJUE FRIENDS. 245
There was but one house or log cabin along the entire distance of three hundred miles nearly, between Prairie du Chien and St. Peters, now Menxtota, and that was at a point below Lake Pepin, near the present town of "Wabashaw.
What was his surprise, then, to find that his advent had been preceded in the spring of the same year by two young Americans, Samuel "W. and Gideon II. Pond, brothers, scarcely out of their teens, who had built for themselves a small hut at the Indian village at Lake Calhoun, and had determined to consecrate their lives to the work of civilizing and Christianizing the wild Sioux.-
For many long years these devoted men labored in the cause, through manifold difficulties and discouragements, sustained by a faith that the seed sown would make itself manifest in God's good time. The efforts then made to reclaim the savages from their mode of life, the influence of their blameless and religious walk and conversation upon those with whom they were brought in daily contact, and the self-denial and personal sacrifices required at their hands are doubtless treasured up in a higher than human record.
Referring to the literary labors of the Ponds among
the Dakotas, General Sibley adds : —
Indeed to them and to their veteran co-laborers, Rev. T. S. Wil-liamson and Rev. S. R. Riggs, the credit is to be ascribed of having produced this rude arid rich Dakota tongue to the learned world in a written and systematic shape, the lexicon prepared by their joint labors forming one of the publications of the Srnithsonian Institution at Washington City, which has justly elicited the commendation of experts in philological lore as a most valuable contribution to that branch of literature.
In occasional letters, written during the declining
years of his life to Mr. S. W. Pond, General Sibley
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248 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES,
used the kindest language of hearty appreciation in speaking of the work which had filled the past lives of these brothers.
The following are the concluding letters of this correspondence: —
January 30,1888. GENERAL H. H. SIBLET:
My dear Friend, — I have often felt inclined to write to you, but hesitated because I have so little to write which you would care to read. You and I have moved in different spheres, for while my life has been spent in obscurity, yours has been just the reverse. My deafness excuses me from service in public, and I lead a solitary life, seeing little and hearing less of what is going on around me, while you are in the rnidst of the bustle of a great city, with many affairs both public and private claiming your attention. But after all, is there not a feeling of fello*wship between us? Some of your friends—Turner, Ogden, Loomis, and others — were my friends too, and when you lost them I lost them; and many of your acquaintances of fifty years ago were my acquaintances, and together we have seen them one by one pass away until nearly all are gone.
Of all the pioneer missionaries to the Dakotas I am left alone. And do you not sometimes feel a little lonesome, though surrounded by a host of friends? Where is now that merry company that was wont to assemble every summer at your headquarters, so full of life and jollity? From Lake Pepin to Lac Traverse, from Rock to Frenier, they are gone — all gone — gone to oblivion: for who knows that they were ever here? They have not been succeeded by their children, but supplanted by strangers, some of them by strangers from beyond the sea. They who lose the friends of their youth meet with a loss which can never be repaired, and few of the friends of their youth are spared to them who like
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us have outlived two generations. You are the only one left to me, except Boutwell, and lie is eighty-six and very infirm.
I believe that you are somewhat younger than I, but we are both on the broken arches of Addison's mystic bridge, and no precaution will preserve us from soon falling into the gulf below. When we fall may the tide bear us away to the "Isles of the Blest," which the poet saw with delight!
When we take a retrospective view of our past lives, we see abundant cause for both regret and gratitude: regret for our many misdoings, and gratitude toward Him who hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. And can we not look forward with cheerful hope, the hope of eternal salvation through him who " hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light" ?
General Sibley's reply is as follows : —
ST. PAUL, February 1,1889.
My dear old Friend, —I was much gratified to receive your friendly letter of the 30th ult.
Providence, as you suggest, having cast our lot in different spheres, we have necessarily been separated for many years; but time has by no means blunted the affectionate regard I entertained for your sainted brother Gideon and yourself.
We came to this then wilderness in the same year, 1834, and while he was called to his rest many years since, you and I, for some wise purpose of our heavenly Father, remain to accomplish our mission, while almost all of our old mutual friends have been gathered to their fathers. The Rev. Mr. Boutwell, you, and myself are, if I mistake not, the only ones left of the original white pioneers.
Your career has been a quiet but most useful one, devoted as you have been to the service of the Master. Mine, on the contrary, has been a life of unceasing activity, called as I have been
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to fill various offices, contrary to my inclinations, for I never sought such positions voluntarily, I have endeavored nevertheless to discharge the duties devolved upon me in the fear of God. and if I have been of service to my fellow men, I owe it not to any merit of my own, but to Him " who doeth all things well."
In this the evening of my life, my efforts, for more than forty years, to induce the government to change its Indian policy, and to do justice to that race, although unsuccessful, are a source of consolation to me; while in other things I lament my shortcomings and lost opportunities.
You and I are so far advanced in life that in the course of nature we have but a brief time to live. May we have a well-grounded hope of meeting in another blessed sphere, where " the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest"!
Another early and valuable friend was found in Dr. Turner, whose cordial kindness and rare medical skill were both highly appreciated in this frontier section. The doctor's estimable wife was also a valued friend of the ladies of the missionary party. Mention has already been made of the kind aid and encouragement afforded the enterprise by Major Loomis and his noble son-in-law, the lamented Lieutenant Ogden.
Eugene Gauss, an educated German military man, was also a worthy member of this pioneer circle.
In later days Governor Karnsey and the Rev. E. D. JSIeill were especially interested in the brothers, and Dr. Neill became a most zealous and lifelong friend of them and their work.
It would be vain to attempt even a passing notice
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OLDTIME FSIENDS. 249
of the many kind friends more or less intimately associated with these early missionary laborers and gratefully remembered by them both as long as they lived. Providence prepared the way for such measure of success as was enjoyed, by raising up, in many cases, unexpected friends, and in others changing opposition to indifference and indifference to friendship.
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CHAPTER XXII.
A PASTORATE OF TWENTY TEARS.
rTlHE record of missionary labor briefly sketched -•*- in the foregoing pages, commencing on the shores of Lake Calhoun in 1834, practically terminated with the removal of the Indians in 1853, although both the brothers Pond, for many years afterward, held occasional Sabbath services in the native language for such of the Indians as remained in the vicinity of the old mission houses. The number of these stragglers varied, but was often quite considerable. With the transition period, the narrative contemplated by the writer practically ends, but this story would be incomplete without some mention of the work afterwards undertaken and accomplished by S. W. and G. H. Pond.
In October, 1853, Dr. Treat, Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, wrote Mr. Samuel Pond as follows : —
The change in the treaty still seems to me very unfortunate, and yet we ought not to give up the Indians, though the government pursues a hurtful policy toward them. Hence we labor in hope that the dawn of day may come at length.
We are very sorry to have your brother leave us, but his own 850
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A PASTORATE OF TWENTY YEABS. 251
convictions of duty are so decided that we cannot say nay to his request. You, I trust, will hold on for the present even though you are compelled to hope against hope. A few months will shed light on this subject and will make certain things more clear. I have a dim floating expectation of visiting your mission hereafter. The time may not come, however, for a year or two.
This expectation of visiting the Dakota Mission was shortly afterward realized, and after personally looking the field over, Dr. Treat cordially acquiesced in the decision of the Pond brothers, believing with them that the prospect of accomplishing good among the incoming white population was at that time vastly greater than among the Sioux. Both S. W. and G. H. Pond felt in some respects ill prepared for the work to which Providence seemed to call them. Long disuse of their native language had in some measure impaired their command of it, and long association with a savage people had, they feared, somewhat unfitted them for the office of pastor.
They had not enjoyed the prestige which a collegiate education might confer, although this lack they had in some degree supplied by so diligently applying themselves to the study of the Greek and Hebrew tongues that for many years they both used the originals in family worship daily, translating with such ease and readiness that one unacquainted with the English version would hardly have suspected the process of translation.
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252 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
S. W. Pond later in life applied himself to the Latin and German with similar diligence, in order to read the Vulgate version and Luther's translation. The works of Cicero, Virgil, and Paterculus he learned to read with ease, and gained a very accurate knowledge of the involved and peculiar idiomatic constructions found in the last-named author. Such studies were his favorite recreation.
In the prosecution of these various lines of study, S. W. was the more inclined to general work; G. H. to special. S. W. Pond applied himself from a natural fondness for study in both classical and scientific lines, abstractly considered; G-. H. Pond, on the other hand, for the sake primarily of the greater good which such acquisitions would enable him to accomplish.
The nearly a score of years spent in teaching the Indians and reasoning with them " of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," while not altogether in the line of pulpit and pastoral work among civilized people, was not altogether lost time when considered in connection with the somewhat different work which lay before them. Whatever preparation or lack of preparation these brothers may have had, they were surrounded by souls hungry for the bread of life, and in the name of their divine Master they proceeded to break it to them.
It was a sudden transition from the old dispensation
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A PASTORATE OF TWENTY TEARS, 253
to the new. The advancing column of the incoming
o o
race trod hard upon the heels of the nation superseded. Every steamer which ascended the Mississippi was loaded to the guards with settlers and adventurers, seeking the promised land in the new Northwest. This tidal wave was largely composed of a restless population much like the sand-burrs, which temporarily hold the shifting soil until they are replaced by permanent vegetation. Thus very many of these first arrivals floated westward with succeeding years to again encounter the hardships and enjoy the excitements of pioneer life.
Now, however, they beheld in every crossroad an embryo town ; in every collection of shanties a future metropolis; and in every barren sand bank a fertile plantation. Their paper cities, laid out upon the open prairie, were soon to become commercial marts, while visions of agricultural wealth, manufacturing activity, and political preferment danced like the mists of the morning before their enchanted vision.
The German and Irish races succeeded the Canadian French, the shiftless white man supplanted the shiftless half-breed, and the Anglo-Saxon took the place of the Dakota. War songs and scalp dances gave place to church bells and Sunday-school hymns, while the stone wayside shrines of the Dakotas were replaced by the steepled temples of Jehovah.
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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 2:58:40 GMT -5
part 24
254 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
Around the mission station at Oak Grove a rural population speedily became located, and at the Falls of St. Anthony an embryo city sprang up. Eeligious services were held in the new town by the Rev. G. H. Pond, in the house of his friend Colonel Stevens at first, and afterward in other places, as opportunity offered. On the twenty-second of May, 1853, he organized the first Christian church in Minneapolis proper, it being the earliest church organization west of the Falls of St. Anthony.
At Oak Grove, which now assumed the name of Bloomlngton, a church was soon organized consisting of members widely differing in their former church connections and preferences. This church, as well as the one at Shakopee, was organized as a Presbyterian church although both pastors and many of the members were by early training Congregationalists.
It might have been supposed that a church formed in this way would have proved discordant; but under the wise leadership of its pastor, whose splendid executive abilities all acknowledged, the church was singularly harmonious and became the banner church in Christian giving within its Presbytery.
In 1854 Mr. Pond represented the Presbytery of St. Paul in the General Assembly. When he returned he was accompanied by the second Mrs. G. H. Pond, formerly Mrs. Robert Hopkins, who thenceforth
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A PASTORATE OF TWENTY TEARS. 255
shared the toils and privations and lightened the burdens of his life. Her three children added to his seven made a family of ten, and to this number six little ones were afterward added, making in all sixteen.
In the year 1856 a church building was completed and dedicated. It was built and paid for without outside assistance, a large part of the expense being borne by the pastor from his slender means. Faithfully, wisely, and well Mr. Pond ministered to this church for a period of twenty years.
His large family was governed with parental kindness but with military precision, and all around him were taught by precept and example to value, first of all, things spiritual.
His life knew much privation and hardship, for his family was large and his income small, and his gifts to his Master's work often more than he could well afford. His farm, on which he depended for a part of his support, was at that time unproductive, and a man of less ability and energy would have failed.
He was not exempt from family affliction. His second son, a boy of rare promise, lost a limb by the accidental discharge of a gun when about fourteen years of age. Having determined to enter the gospel ministry, he went to Lane Seminary after graduating with honor from Marietta College, Just one month
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256 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
after entering the seminary he died, all alone, among strangers, of Asiatic cholera. This was one of the great afflictions of Mr. Pond's life. The entire expense of his son's education he had borne alone.
The burdens of his large parish bore more heavily on him than they would have borne on many, for every duty was discharged with a spirit of rigid self-denial and self-sacrifice into which the element of personal preference never entered. No one ever more fully accepted the apostle's statement, " Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price."
After he had resigned his pastorate he continued to bear many of the burdens of the pastoral office, being apparently unable to lay them down. It is hard to realize the arduous character of these burdens so cheerfully borne during the long period of his pastorate.
His parish was large, covering more than fifty square miles of territory, in which there was for a long time no other Protestant church organization. It was peopled by an exclusively rural and therefore scattered population. Church services and two weekly prayer meetings, six miles apart, were sustained during the heats of summer and the severest blizzards of winter. Services once appointed were never for any cause omitted or postponed. Every such service required on the part of the pastor a
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A PASTORATE OF TWENTY YEAES. 257
journey of from two to six miles across a Minnesota prairie. In addition to this work within his own parish, he for many years preached regularly at Minne-baha, Richfield, and Minneapolis.
He was very thorough and painstaking in his pulpit preparations, and no field of Christian labor was ever more thoroughly cultivated than was his.
He also conducted the affairs of a large farm, doing much of the work with his own hands. During the twenty years of his pastorate he had but two vacations, of a few weeks each, on both of which occasions he was a delegate to the General Assembly. It is not strange that these arduous labors, continued for so long a period, somewhat prematurely wore out his magnificent constitution. The exposure and privation of his nineteen years of service among the Dakotas and the heavy burdens of his twenty years of labor among the white settlers gradually undermined his strength, until not even his indomitable will could longer sustain him in his ceaseless labors.
March 26, 1877, he wrote as follows: —
Dear Brother,—I begin to feel now as if I were nearing the end. Yesterday I turned over my dear old Sabbath-school to Mr. C—— and shall not again have a place in it. This school work is my last public work. I felt obliged to end off on account of personal infirmities by reason of which I could Jl^d^iit any longer.
I have become old very young. A canififejlftirus out quicker in a current, and life seems to be like a candle. My life has been in
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258 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
a current. As I remember, a few years ago I used to prepare my-self the best I could with earnest study to preach on the Sabbath, superintend two Sabbath-schools, four miles apart, attend Wednesday afternoon or evening meeting at the Ferry and Thursday on this prairie, and attend to my affairs at home comparatively without weariness.
Now I have refused to take a class in one Sabbath-school because 1 do not feel as if I could do the work of a teacher, though I do nothing at home! I am burned well down in the socket. Well, I do not know as I am sorry to be near the close of life on earth. I only regret that I have not made a better job of it. Still I should not be forward to undertake to repeat. It would be easy to make a worse. I could hardly hope to do better, though much better would fall far below perfection.
August 16 following, he wrote again : —
I am glad we have hope of a better life than we have had in this world, though we have no cause to complain of this. With us it has been a prosperous life. As compared with the lives of many of our acquaintances, it has been good and satisfactory, but that has been much owing to the fact that we did not expect much from this life except as it relates to the one for which we look after its close. With us it is almost sundown. We shall soon be gone and forgotten, and matters will go on as they did before us and as they have while we have been here. Our children we shall leave with ample means to obtain the comforts of life, if they are virtuous, industrious, and frugal. We shall leave them hoping that they will live religiously, and finally reach heaven. This is a great comfort.
As regards our woijldily afTiirs, we can see many things that we would alter, but ifjjp vgite to fuss at them a thousand years, I do not think we shouiilgef them fixed just right. I am persuaded that I shall not find the resting place here either for the body or the
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A PASTOSATE OF TWENTY YEARS.
mind. We look for rest after the life is over. The time will soon be along. Our efforts to fix things here are about like fixing for the night or for a day of rain when traveling in an uninhabited country.
As regards the foundation of our hopes to which you allude, I have never in my life had much doubt that they were sure. My only doubt was whether I was on them, and even of this I have not felt much hesitancy these forty-five years or more. My confidence has given direction to my life work. It has been a constant support and solace to me thus far, and poor as I am in character and life-doing, I fully expect to reach heaven through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I expect much on the grounds of his work as Mediator; if I am finally disappointed, it will be a sad disappointment.
I do not expect that you and I shall meet many more times in this life, but I do expect to meet you in a better world — in a life to which this has been a preface, in which we shall feel but little interest except as it relates to that. That life will occupy our attention as a book does after we leave the preface and enter upon the body of it.
In October following Mr. Pond attended the meeting of the Synod of Minnesota and took part in the deliberations of that body. He preached for the Rev, Mr. Breed, of the House of Hope, the last sermon which he ever delivered. During the meeting of the Synod, Mr. Riggs says, u He greatly entertained the meeting and the people of St. Paul with his terse and graphic presentation of some of the Lord's workings in behalf of the Dakotas."
Early in the following January his infirmities eul-
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260 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES. •
minated in a lung trouble, and it soon became evident that the summons was coming and the messenger near. His brother Samuel was sent for, and as the latter entered the room he said, " So we go to see each other die." A few months before, this brother had been apparently at the point of death, and this remark was an allusion to that occasion.
On the twentieth of January, 1878, he passed through the gates into the Celestial City, to go no more out.
The Rev. D. E. Breed, of St. Paul, conducted the funeral services. The entire community attended as mourners at the interment of him to whose faithfulness and zeal they had been so deeply indebted, and none perhaps were more sincere in their demonstrations of sorrow than the little company of Dakotas to whom he had been a more than father.
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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 2:59:10 GMT -5
part 25
CHAPTER XXIII.
PASTORATE AT SHAKOPEE AND THE RELEASE.
SAMUEL POND, who had married a schoolmate of his early years, Miss Rebecca Smith, returned to the land of the Dakotas previous to the removal of the Indians. The summer of 1853, which witnessed the departure of the natives, also brought many white people. A town was soon built upon the land adjoining the mission house, and in a short time a church organization was formed. The new church at first consisted of about ten members, mostly women.
The situation at Shakopee was a peculiar one. The population was even more unstable than in most other western towns, and very few of the early settlers became permanent residents. There was also a large and vigorous infidel element which made itself felt in many ways. These facts proved serious obstacles to successful church work at Shakopee.
Services were first held in a hall called " Holmes Hall," until it was more profitably utilized as a barber shop on the Sabbath, and then meetings were held in unfinished dwellings wherever a place could be found.
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262 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
At first Mr, Pond preached sitting, on account of Ms crushed ankle, but he recovered from this after a time.
In 1856 a church building was erected entirely at the expense of the pastor and his congregation, the former of course bearing proportionately much the larger share. That church cost Mr. Pond more money than the house which afforded him a home for more than forty years. The amount thus contributed represented the savings of many years of rigid self-denial.
For thirteen years he served this church as pastor, diligently laboring by day for the support of Ms family and often toiling the greater part of the night in pulpit preparation. As some slight indication of the arduous character of this pastorate, it might be mentioned that he was called to attend more than two hundred funerals. The greater part of this time a second service was held in a neighboring town in addition to the home service. If the church did not reach " self-support," as it is termed, it rejoiced in the happy equivalent of a self-supporting pastor, Mr. Pond took but one vacation in the. period named, being absent from his pulpit at that time a little more than a month. For his services he received from his people never much more than one hundred dollars per annum, and sometimes less. For a small part of this time he received $250 a year from the Home Mission.
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PASTOEATE AT SHAROPEE. 263
Board, but declined reappointment, supposing that the sum thus spent might be applied in a more needy and possibly more promising field.
In the political excitement of 1861, and the war which followed, he took a painful interest. Abraham Lincoln had no warmer supporter in life, no sincerer mourner in death, than he. In children he always took a special interest and undertook the early education of all his own children and several of his grandchildren. He had a natural antipathy to pecuniary obligations of every nature, and never contracted a debt of any kind or bought a thing for which he had not the present means of paying.
Mr. Pond's ministry at Shakopee, as he justly remarked in Ms farewell sermon, was no sinecure, but the work was one in which he delighted and very reluctantly laid down, influenced by considerations which it is not necessary to give in detail here.
From this period, 1866, changes gradual but great mark the lapse of years. The following year the firstborn of the family, like her sainted mother, crowned a lovely and inspiring life by a happy end. One by one, as the years went by, the remaining children sought homes of their own.
The second Mrs. Pond was domestic in her tastes, a pattern of industry and economy, and faithful in the discharge of every duty which lay in her path. She
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264 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES,
was much attached to her church, was always much interested in The Missionary Herald and the cause it represents, and ever pursued the narrow path of quiet home duties toward the Celestial City, She set her house in order, prepared everything for the morrow, and laid herself down to her last rest at the age of eighty-two. A bookmark, her last receipt from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, was found after her death marking the place in Baxter's Saint's Rest where the description of the rest was laid aside for the Rest itself.
The old mission house, the hallowed scene of so many toils and privations, and also of so many pleas-. ant memories, has been gradually deserted until its builder now alone remains within its walls. Gradually increasing deafness has in great measure incapacitated him for social intercourse and public ministrations, but books, which were his chief delight in youth, have lost none of their power to interest in advancing age; especially is this true of the Book of books.
He has done much literary work of permanent value during these last years, including a work descriptive of the Dakotas in their primitive state. This work is soon to be published,
By way of recreation in his leisure hours, he carefully compared the Septuagint and Vulgate versions
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PASTOSATE AT SHAKOPEM. 265
of the Old Testament, noting omissions and variations, and Ms last published article was upon the chronology of the Septuagint.1
He was never idle. The active energy which distinguished his youthful years no less marks his advancing age. His mind is as clear, Ms judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three as they were at thirty-three, and lie displays no trace of the mental failure so common in advanced age,
o
His. memory is still accurate and retentive as in former days.
And now as the lengthening shadows of life's evening are gathering around the hoary head whose years have already exceeded the psalmist's limit, we can look back with unmingled pleasure upon the retrospect of a successful life. Whatever of toil or privation a life may have contained, if such life be unproductive of good results, we cannot call it successful. To those who fail to recognize the fact that there must of necessity be a period of sowing in order that there may be a season of reaping, the twenty years of self-denying toil given by these early missionaries to the Dakotas may seern well-nigh wasted; but those years of apparently unproductive sowing were essential to the production of the abundant harvest of later years.
i Printed in The Herald and Presbyter the week of Ms death.
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266 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since the mission was commenced among the Dakotas. Of the natives who were then grown to manhood, not one is now alive. Of the men of that devoted band who gave the strength of their manhood, the best of their lives to the pioneer work among these barbarous heathen, Mr. S. W. Pond, the first to arrive with his brother, is the sole survivor.
He has seen the wild and savage bands of Indians among whom he labored half a century ago become practically a civilized people. Those who sang the wild measures of the war song and danced nightly around the gory scalps of their hereditary foes now delight in the sweet melody of the songs of Zion, among which may be found those his pen indited in the dark days of fifty years ago. Many hundreds of the Dakotas earn an honest subsistence by the various pursuits of civilized life, and are humble but sincere members of Christ's Church on earth. Thousands have learned to read and write that language which the first missionaries so laboriously, but so successfully, reduced to a written form.
The unpaid labors of volunteer missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions have done more to solve the Indian question, so far as the Dakotas are concerned, than has been accomplished by all the varied and costly experiments of the general government.
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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 2:59:36 GMT -5
part 26
PASTOEATE AT SHAKOPEE, 267
Wifch S. W. Pond, the last survivor of a heroic band, the sun of life is nearing the western horizon ; its level rays are casting hourly deeper shadows. The beloved companions and fellow laborers of former years have joined the company of those who rest from their labors. With undimmed faith, he writes, as in the " border land " : —
"And when or how my longing soul
Shall enter into rest,
I with my heavenly Father leave,
Whose times and ways are best."
A little more than a month after the foregoing was written, the subject of it was called hence to the grand Reunion. He had planned much work for the coming year. He had commenced a translation of some Dakota legendary tales, taken down from the lips of the Dakotas years before. He also proposed to attend the annual meeting of the Dakota Mission ; but the Master had planned otherwise.
A severe attack of pneumonia terminated his life on the twelfth of December, 1891, after a brief illness of less than five days.
Dr. Neill, of McAllister College, the oldest surviving friend of his earlier years, conducted the funeral services.
Dr. Webster, Dr. Donaldson, and the Rev. S. L. B.
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268 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONAKIES.
Speare, of Minneapolis, also participated. The last
hymn sung was one composed by himself: —
Deck not my tomb with flowers that fade,
Frail emblems of mortality,
And when my dust in dust is laid,
Sing no sad dirges over me.
With faith that banishes all fear,
Remember Him who died to save,
And thus, without a sigh or tear,
Consign my body to the grave.
And, looking on my cold remains,
Behold them with an eye of faith,
And sing, in cheerful, joyful strains,
Of Him who, dying, conquered death.
Without misgiving lay me down,
To wait the resurrection day,
For Christ will not forget his own,
Though heaven and earth should pass away.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
SOME THOUGHTS IN CONCLUSION.
fTHHE path of duty lies for different individuals -*- in different and often widely diverse directions. For some it seems to wind hither and thither through green pastures and beside still waters. Others find their allotted field of labor in crowded cities and busy thoroughfares. Still others are called to the toils and hardships of the pioneer's lot, and to face new and untried difficulties in the physical, the mental, or the social world. To this latter class belonged S. W. and G. H. Pond.
The Master chose for them as they would have chosen for themselves, and they were required to build on no other man's foundation. Their work was essentially a pioneer work from the time they left their New England home until their earthly work was completed. Theirs was the first permanent mission to the Da~ kotas; theirs the first citizen-settler's cabin, school-house, and house of worship in the section where they located ; theirs was the first vocabulary and translation in the Dakota language, and the first pupil taught to read and write his own language in the entire Sioux
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2*70 TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES.
nation. At Oak Grove and Shakopee they were pioneers and alone in their mission work, the earliest settlers, and the first to preach the gospel to white people. G. H. Pond was one of the pioneer legislators of the territory and the first to preach the gospel in the city called Minneapolis. Furthermore, he was the editor of the first religious paper published in Minnesota. Theirs was the spirit of consecration which gives direction to life, and while it often led Into discomfort, suffering, and peril, they never for one moment regretted the steps taken or desired to retrace them.
They had some of the spirit of their Puritan ancestors so eloquently described by Macaulay: "Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand."
The work which they undertook to perform few could have done, and fewer still would have cared to do. Their views of duty brought them into daily and hourly contact with barbarism in its rudest, most repellent form. They were brought into the irnme-
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SOME THOUGHTS IJV CONCLUSION. 271
diate presence of degraded humanity, as it were, in the nude. No glamour of distance lent enchantment to the filthy, degraded beings for whose temporal and eternal welfare they labored. It was hard to recognize the faint possibility of a Saviour's restored image in the fallen men and women among whom their lot was cast. The unfallen man lay so deeply hidden beneath the accumulated filth of ages that nothing but the eye of faith could discern his possible presence.
For themselves, these men expected nothing in this present life. The little cabin on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun was the only home its builders ever expected to possess on earth. They came, as they then supposed, " to live and die 'mong savage men," unless it should please their Master to turn the savages around them to himself. When that little cabin was built, there were, besides the missionaries and their brethren among the Ojibways, no Protestant Christians in the whole territory, save one woman.
The cabin by the lake long ago disappeared from sight, and few there are of the 175,000 souls living within the limits of the city now growing up around it who are aware that it ever existed. But the work commenced in that lowly hut will go forward, ever widening until it is completed.
In my youth I often visited a beautiful and fertile meadow, surrounded, like the garden of Eden, by
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Post by mdenney on Feb 7, 2007 3:00:22 GMT -5
part 27 TWO rOLUNTEEB MISSIONARIES. streams of living water. Here and there upon the green-carpeted surface of this meadow, old elms reared their lofty heads in fearless defiance of wintry blasts and springtime torrents. The birds of heaven built habitations in their branches and the cattle sought the fragrant coolness of their shade. One by one those ancient trees have fallen until but two or three now remain. Like those giant trees were once the " pioneers of Minnesota " and like them have the pioneers passed away. For a full knowledge of the results of the labors of the Pond brothers and their associates, briefly sketched in the foregoing pages, we must await the revelations of that country where they now "behold the King in his beauty " ; where the voices which once sang Dakota war songs now sing "the song of the redeemed"; and they who toiled and suffered, met and parted, on the banks of the turbid Minnesota, meet once more by the crvstal waters of the River of Life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIX. AN-PE-TU-SA-PA-WIN. A LEGEND OF THE DAKOTAS. WHEN winter's icy reign is o'er And spring has set the waters free, I love to listen to the roar Of thy wild waves, St. Anthony. I love to watch the rapid course Of the mad surges at my feet, And listen to the tumult hoarse Which shakes me in nay rocky seat. For, gathered here from lake and glen, The turbid waters, deep and black, With foaming rush and thundering din, Pour down the mighty cataract. Entranced with visions strange and new, The 'wildering scene amazed I scan, As with a wild delight I view Nature unmarred by hand of man. But go through all this world so broad, Go search through mountain, vale, and plain: Each spot where human foot e'er trod Is linked with memory of pain. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 274 APPENDIX, A. sight these rugged rocks have seen Which scarce a rock unmoved might see; On the hard hearts of savage men That scene was graved indelibly. And though since then long years have fled And generations passed away, Its memory dies not with the dead, The record yields not to decay. No theme of love inspires my song, Such as might please a maiden's ear; I sing of hate and woe and wrong, Of vengeance strange and wild despair. Unskilled to fashion polished lays, I sing no song of mirth and glee; A tale of grief in homely phrase I tell you as 'twas told to me. Long e'er the white man's eye had seen These flower-decked prairies, fair and wide, Long e'er the white man's bark had been Borne on the Mississippi's tide. So long ago, Dakotas say, An-pe-tu-sa-pa-win was born. Her eyes beheld these scenes so gay First opening on life's rosy morn. I of her childhood nothing know, And nothing will presume to tell Of her extraction, high or low, Or whether fared she ill or well. I know she was an Indian maid And fared as Indian maidens do; In morning light and evening shade Hardship and danger ever knew. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIX. 275 The flowing river she could swim, She learned the light canoe to guide: In it could cross the broadest stream Or o'er the lake securely glide. She learned to tan the deer's tough hide, The parchment tent could well prepare; The bison's shaggy skin she dyed With art grotesque in colors fair. With knife of bone she carved her food, Fuel with axe of stone procured; Could fire extract from flint or wood To rudest savage life inured. In kettle frail of birchen bark She boiled her food with heated stones. The slippery fish from coverts dark She drew with hook of jointed bones. The prickly porcupine's sharp quills In many a quaint device she wove — Fair gifts for those she highest prized, Tokens of friendship or of love. Oft on the flower-enameled green, Midst troops of youthful maidens gay, With bounding footstep she was seen. Intent to bear the prize away. The Chippewa she learned to fear, And round his scalp she danced with glee; From his keen shaft and cruel spear Oft was she fain to hide or flee. Thus she, with heart now sad, now gay, Did many a wild adventure prove, Till laughing childhood passed away, Succeeded by the time of love, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 276 APPENDIX. Now wedded to the man she loved, Fondling her firstborn infant boy, Her trusting heart the fullness proved Of nuptial and maternal joy. Thus did her heart with love o'erflow And beat with highest joy elate; But higher joy brings deeper woe, And love deceived may turn to hate. He whose smile more than life she prized Sought newer love and fresher charms, While she, forsaken and despised, Beheld him in a rival's arms. Whate'er she thought she little said; No tear bedimrned her flashing eye; Her faithful tongue no thought betrayed, Her bosom heaved no telltale sigh. Long had she hid her anguish keen When on yon green and sloping shore The wild Dakotas' tents were seen With strange devices painted o'er. An-pe-tu-sa-pa-win is there, Her wan cheeks tinged with colors gay, And her loved boy wears in his hair The tokens of a gala day. Why braids she her neglected hair, As if it were her bridal day? Why has she decked her boy so fair With shining paint and feathers gay? See! She has seized her light canoe! She grasps in haste the slender oar, Has placed her infant in the bow, And thus in silence leaves the shorts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIX. 277 With steady hand and tearless eye She urges on that frail canoe. Right onward to those falls so high, Right onward to the gulf below. Her frantic friends in vain besought; She calmly went her fearful way, Nor turned her head nor heeded aught Of all that friend or foe might say. All quake with horror; she alone Betrays no sign of grief or fear. With gentle word and soothing tone She strives the timid child to cheer. Amazed the awe-struck husband stood. A father's feelings checked his breath; His son is on that raging flood, So full of life — so near to death. The quiv'ring bark like lightning flies, Urged by the waves and bending oar; No swifter could she seek the prize Were death behind and life before. The fatal brink is just at hand, And thitherward she holds the bow, See eager Death exulting stand! No power on earth can save her now. And now she raises her death song Above the tumult, shrill and clear, Yet may she not the strain prolong, The verge of death is all too near. The song has ceased. The dark abyss Swallows with haste its willing prey. The foaming waters round them hiss — Mother and child have passed away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 278 -APPENDIX. The fragments of the shattered bark The boiling waves to view restore, But she and hers, in caverns dark, Find quiet rest forevermore. They say that still that song is heard Above the mighty torrent's roar, When trees are by the night wind stirred And darkness broods on stream and shore. OAK GROVE, 1850. this was from these links below- krafftfamily.org/docs/Dakotas/Dakotas.htmwww.krafftfamily.org/docs/Dakotas/The End |
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