Among the Sioux Part 9

Rev. John P. Williamson, D.D., of Greenwood, South Dakota, was born in the month of October, 1835, in one of Joseph Renville's log cabins, with dirt roof and no floor; and was the first white child born in Minnesota, outside of the soldier's families at Fort Snelling. His father, the Rev. Thomas S. Williamson. M.D., was the first ordained missionary appointed to labor among the Sioux Indians. He came out to the new Northwest on an exploring expedition in 1834, visiting the Indian camps at Wabawsha, Red Wing, Kaposia, and others.

He returned in the spring of 1835, with his family and others who were appointed.

After the arrival of this missionary party, Dr. Williamson and his colleagues, lived and labored continuously among the Indians the remainder of their lives. Their work for the Master has not suffered any interruption, but is still carried on successfully and vigorously by their successors.

John P. Williamson grew up in the midst of the Indians. He mastered the Sioux language in early boyhood. As a lad, he had the present sites of Minneapolis and St. Paul for his playgrounds and little Indian lads for his playmates. Among these, was Little Crow, who afterwards became infamous in his savage warfare, against the defenseless settlers in western Minnesota, in 1862.

He was early dedicated to the work of the gospel ministry. In his young manhood he was sent to Ohio, for his education. In 1857, he graduated at Marietta College, and in 1860, at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. In 1859 he was licensed by Dakota (Indian) Presbytery, and ordained, by the same body, in 1861. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Yankton, (S.D.) college in 1890. He recognized no call to preach the gospel save to the Sioux Indians, and for forty-six years, he has given his whole life zealously to this great work. He has thrown his whole life unreservedly into it. And he has accomplished great things for the Master and the tribe to which he has ministered.

In 1860 he established a mission and organized a Presbyterian church of twelve members at Red Wood Agency on the Minnesota. These were both destroyed in the outbreak two years later. He spent the winter of 1862-3, in evangelistic work, among the Sioux, in the prison-camp at Fort Snelling, where 1,500 were gathered under military guard. An intense religious interest sprung up amongst them and continued for months. Young Dr. Williamson so ministered unto them, that the whole camp was reached and roused, and the major part of the adults were led to Christ. Many, including scores of the children of the believers, were baptized. A Presbyterian congregation of more than one hundred communicants was organized. This church was afterwards united with the church of the Prison-pen, at Crow Creek, Nebraska.

In 1883, he was appointed superintendent of Presbyterian missions among the Sioux Indians. He has ever abounded in self-sacrificing and successful labors among this tribe. He has organized Nineteen (19) congregations and erected twenty-three (23) church edifices. In twenty-three years he has traveled two hundred thousand miles in the prosecution of these arduous labors. The number of converts cannot be reckoned up.

In 1866, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Vannice. To them there have been born four sons and three daughters, who are still living. In 1869 he established the Yankton mission, which has ever since been a great center, moral and spiritual, to a vast region. At the same time he established his home at Greenwood, South Dakota, and from that, as his mission headquarters, he has gone to and from in his great missionary tours throughout the Dakota land.

He has, also, abounded in literary labors. For sixteen years he was the chief editor of "Iapi Oayi," an Indian weekly. In 1864, he published "Powa Wow-spi," an Indian Spelling Book, and in 1865, a collection of Dakota Hymns. His greatest literary work, however, was an edition of the "Dakota Dictionary," in 1871, and other later editions.

He has won the affections of the whole Sioux nation. They bow willingly to his decisions, and follow gladly his counsels. To them, he is a much greater man than President Roosevelt. While he has pa.s.sed the limit of his three-score years and ten--forty-six of them in frontier service--his bow still abides in strength, and he still abounds in manifold labors. He is still bringing forth rich fruitage in his old age.

Every white dweller among the Indians is known by some special cognomen. His is simply "John." And when it is p.r.o.nounced, by a Sioux Indian as a member of the tribe always does it so lovingly, all who hear it know he refers to "John, the Beloved of the Sioux Nation."

X

THE MARTYRS OF OLD ST. JOE.

One of the most touching tragedies recorded in the annals of the new Northwest, was enacted in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century, on the borders of Prince Rupert's Land and the Louisiana purchase (now Manitoba and North Dakota). It is a picturesque spot, where the Pembina river cuts the international boundary line in its course to the southeast to join the Red River of the North in its course to Hudson's bay.

Sixty years ago, in this place, encircled by the wood-crowned mountain and the forest-lined river and prairies, rich as the gardens of the G.o.ds, there stood a village and trading post of considerable importance, named after the patron saint of the Roman Catholic church, in its midst--St. Joseph--commonly called St. Joe. It was a busy, bustling town, with a mixed population of 1,500. Most of these dwelt in tents of skin. There were, also, two or three large trading posts and thirty houses, built of large, hewn timbers mudded smoothly within and without and roofed with s.h.i.+ngles. Some of these were neat and pretty; one had window-shutters. It was the center of an extensive fur trade with the Indian tribes of the Missouri river. Many thousands of buffalo and other skins were s.h.i.+pped annually to St. Paul in carts. Sometimes a train of four hundred of these wooden carts started together for St.

Paul, a distance of four hundred miles.

But old things have pa.s.sed away. The village of old St. Joe is now marked only by some cellar excavations. It possesses, however, a sad interest as the scene of the martyrdom of Protestant missionaries on this once wild frontier, then so far removed from the abodes of civilization.

James Tanner was a converted half-breed, who with his wife labored, in 1849, as a missionary at Lake Winnibogosh, Minnesota. His father had been stolen, when a lad, from his Kentucky home, by the Indians. Near the close of 1849 he visited a brother in the Pembina region. He became so deeply interested in the ignorant condition of the people there, that he made a tour of the East in their behalf. He visited New York, Was.h.i.+ngton and other cities, and awakened considerable interest in behalf of the natives of this region. While east he became a member of the Baptist Church. He returned to St. Joe, in 1852, accompanied by a young man named Benjamin Terry, of St. Paul, to open a mission among the Pembina Chippewas and half breeds under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary Society. Terry was very slight and youthful in appearance, quiet and retiring in disposition and was long spoken of, by the half-breeds, as "Tanner's Boy." They visited the Red River (Selkirk) settlement (now Winnipeg). While there, Terry wooed and won one of the daughters of the Selkirk settlers, a dark-eyed handsome Scotch la.s.s, to whom he expected to be married in a few months. But, alas, ere the close of summer, he was waylaid, by a savage Sioux, shot full of arrows, his arm broken and his entire scalp carried away. Mr. Tanner secured permission to bury him in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in the corner reserved for suicides, heretics and unbaptized infants. Thus ended in blood, the first effort to establish a Protestant mission in the Pembina country.

June 1, 1853, a band of Presbyterian missionaries arrived at St. Joe.

It was composed of the Reverends Alonzo Barnard and David Brainard Spencer, their wives and children. They came in canoes and in carts from Red and Ca.s.s lakes, Minnesota, where for ten years, they had labored as missionaries among the Chippewas. They removed to St. Joe, at the earnest request of Governor Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota, and others familiar with their labors and the needs of the Pembina natives.

Mrs. Barnard's health soon gave way. Her husband removed her to the Selkirk settlement, one hundred miles to the north, for medical aid.

Her health continued to fail so rapidly that by her strong desire they attempted to return to St. Joe. The first night they encamped in a little tent on the bleak northern plain in the midst of a fierce windstorm. The chilling winds penetrated the folds of the tent. All night long the poor sufferer lay in her husband's arms, moaning constantly: "Hold me close; oh, hold me close." They were compelled to return to the settlement, where after a few days more of intense suffering, she died, Oct. 22, 1853, of quick consumption, caused by ten years exposure and suffering for the welfare of the Indians.

Mrs. Barnard was first interred at the Selkirk settlement, in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). In the absence of other clergymen, Mr.

Barnard was compelled to officiate at his wife's funeral himself. In obedience to her dying request, Mrs. Barnard's remains were removed to St. Joe and re-interred in the yard of the humble mission cabin, Dec.

3, 1853.

In 1854, Mr. Barnard visited Ohio to provide a home for his children.

On his return, at Belle Prairie, Minnesota, midway between St. Paul and St. Joe, he met Mr. Spencer and his three motherless children, journeying four hundred miles by ox-cart to St. Paul. There in the rude hovel in which they spent the night, Mr. Barnard baptized Mr. Spencer's infant son, now an honored minister of the Congregational church in Wisconsin. On his arrival at St. Joe Mr. Barnard found another mound close by the grave of his beloved wife.

The story of this third grave is, also, written in blood. It was Aug.

30, 1854. The hostile Sioux were infesting the Pembina region. Only the previous month, had Mrs. Spencer written to a far distant friend in India: "Last December the Lord gave us a little son, whose smiling face cheers many a lonely hour." On this fatal night, she arose to care for this darling boy. A noise at the window attracted her attention. She withdrew the curtain to ascertain the cause. Three Indians stood there with loaded rifles and fired. Three bullets struck her, two in her throat and one in her breast. She neither cried out nor spoke, but reeling to her bed, with her babe in her arms, knelt down, where she was soon discovered by her husband, when he returned from barricading the door. She suffered intensely for several hours and then died. And till daybreak Mr. Spencer sat in a horrid dream, holding his dead wife in his arms. The baby lay in the rude cradle near by, bathed in his mother's blood. The two elder children stood by terrified and weeping.

Such was the distressing scene which the neighbors beheld in the morning, when they came with their proffers of sympathy and help. The friendly half-breeds came in, cared for the poor children and prepared the dead mother for burial. A half-breed dug the grave and nailed a rude box together for a coffin. Then with a bleeding heart, the sore bereaved man consigned to the bosom of the friendly earth the remains of his murdered wife.

Within the past thirty years civilization has rapidly taken possession of this lovely region. Christian homes and Christian churches cover these rich prairies. The prosperous and rapidly growing village of Walhalla (Paradise) nestles in the bosom of this lovely vale and occupies contentedly the former site of Old St. Joe.

June 21, 1888, one of the most interesting events in the history of North Dakota occurred at the Presbyterian cemetery, which crowns the brow of the mountain, overlooking Walhalla. It was the unveiling of the monument erected by the Woman's Synodical Missionary Society of North Dakota, which they had previously erected to the memory of Sarah Philena Barnard and Cornelia Spencer, two of the three "Martyrs of St.

Joe." The monument is a beautiful and appropriate one of white marble.

The broken pieces of old stone formerly placed on Mrs. Barnard's grave, long scattered and lost, were discovered, cemented together and placed upon her new grave. The Rev. Alonzo Barnard, seventy-one years of age, accompanied by his daughter, was present. Standing upon the graves of the martyrs, with tremulous voice and moistened eyes, he gave to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude a history of their early missionary toil in the abodes of savagery. It was a thrilling story, the interest intensified by the surroundings. The half-breed women who prepared Mrs. Spencer's body for the burial and who washed and dressed the little babe after his baptism in his mother's blood, were present. The same half-breed who dug Mrs. Spencer's grave in 1854 dug the new grave in 1888. Several pioneers familiar with the facts of the tragedy at the time of its occurrence were also present.

"The Martyr's Plot," the last resting place of these devoted servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a beautiful spot, on the hillside, in the Presbyterian Cemetery at Walhalla. It is enclosed by a neat fence, and each of these three martyr's graves is marked by a white stone, with an appropriate inscription.

The Rev. Alonzo Barnard retired to Michigan, where he gave five years of missionary toil to the Chippewas at Omene and many other years of helpful service to the white settlers at other points in that state. In 1883 he retired from the work of the active ministry and spent the remainder of his days with his children.

He died April 14, 1905, at Pomona, Michigan, at the home of his son, Dr. James Barnard, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. There is a large and flouris.h.i.+ng Episcopal Indian church at Leech Lake, Minnesota, the scene of Mr. Barnard's labors from 1843-52.

The rector is the Rev. Charles T. Wright, a full-blood Chippewa. He is the eldest son of that famous chieftain, Gray Cloud and is now himself, chief of all the Chippewas. "Thus one soweth and another reapeth."