1854-1856.—Simon Anawangmane.—Rebuilding after the Fire.—Visit of Secretary Treat.—Change of Plan.—Hazelwood Station.—Circular Saw Mill.—Mission Buildings.—Chapel.—Civilized Community.—Making Citizens.—Boarding-School.—Educating our own Children.—Financial Difficulties.—The Lord Provides.—A Great Affliction.—Smith Burgess Williamson.—“Aunt Jane.”—Bunyan’s Pilgrim in Dakota.

When, after the fire, we were somewhat comfortably domiciled in the adobe church, the time came for our regular communion. The disaster had made all our hearts tender, and the opportunity for helpfulness on the part of our native church members, which had been improved by many of them, had drawn us toward them. It was an appropriate time to remember what Christ had done for us. And just then we were made very glad by the return of Simon Anawangmane from his long wanderings. Some years before, he had broken away from strong drink, but he was so overcome with remorse and shame that he could not get up courage enough to come back and take again upon him the oath of fealty to the wounded Lord. He edged his way back. He had often come and sat on the door-step, not daring to venture in. Then he came in and sat down in a corner. By and by he took more courage. He had talked with Dr. Williamson at Yellow Medicine, who gave him a letter, saying, “I think Simon should now[Pg 153]
[Pg 154] be restored to the church.” We did reinstate him. And for more than a score of years since his restoration, Simon has lived, so far as we can see, a true Christian life. For nearly all that time he has been a ruling elder in the church, and for ten years past a licensed exhorter.

We decided almost immediately to rebuild our burnt houses, and as soon as we had taken care of the potatoes in the cellars, that were not too much injured, we set about getting out timbers. It was a slow process to saw boards and timbers with the whip-saw, but up to this time this had been our only way of making material for building. This work had been pushed on so well that when, by the first of June, Secretary S. B. Treat, of the mission house in Boston, made us a visit, we had gotten out material for the frame of our house. His visit, at this time, was exceedingly gratifying and helpful to us all. It was good to counsel with such a sagacious, true, thoughtful, Christian counsellor as Mr. Treat.

The whole line of mission work was carefully reviewed. The result was that we gave up our plan of rebuilding at Lac-qui-parle and sought a new place. The reasons for this were: first, we had from the beginning been widely separated in our work, spreading out our labors and attempting to cultivate as much of the field as possible. This had obviously had its disadvantages. We were too far apart to cheer and help each other. Now, when we were reduced to two families, Mr. Treat advised concentrating our forces. That was in accordance with our own inclinations. And, secondly, the Yellow Medicine had been made the headquarters of the Indian Agency for the four thousand Upper Indians. The drift was down toward that point. It was found that we could take with us almost all the Christian part of our community. The idea was to commence a settlement of the civilized and Christianized Dakotas, at some point within convenient distance from the Agency, to receive the help which the government had by treaty pledged itself to give. And so we got on our horses and rode down to Dr. Williamson’s, twenty-five or thirty miles; and Mr. Treat and Dr. Williamson and Miss Spooner and Mary and I rode over the country above Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze, which was selected as the site for the new station, afterward called Hazelwood. At Dr. Williamson’s, we had a memorable meeting, at which Mr. Treat told our Dakota church members of a visit he had made to the Choctaws and Cherokees. We also had consultations on various matters; among which was that of getting out a new Dakota hymn-book, which should contain the music as well as the hymns. A new departure was thus inaugurated in our mission work, and, in after years, time was often counted from this visit of Secretary Treat.

The building materials we had prepared at Lac-qui-parle were partly hauled by land and partly floated down the river; and by the month of September our house was so far finished that we removed the family down. Also, we had erected a small frame which served for various purposes, as school-room and dwelling. But, while the work was progressing, Mary had quite a sudden and severe attack of sickness. It was nearly sundown when the messenger arrived, and Dr. Williamson and I had a night ride over the prairie. The shadows looked weird and ghostly—perhaps tinged by the mental state of the beholder. At midnight we reached the sufferer, who was, by wise doctoring and skilful nursing, restored in a week....

The Dakotas entered at once into the idea of the new settlement; and no sooner had we selected the spot for our building and set a breaking-plough to work in making a mission field, than they were at work in the same line. The desirable places were soon selected, and log cabins went up, the most of which were replaced by frame buildings or brick within a year or two. The frames were put up by themselves, with the assistance we could give them,—the brick houses were built by the government.

We had been long enough schooling ourselves in the use of the whip-saw. That was one of the processes of labor that, years before, I had determined not to learn. I had acquired some skill in the use of the broadaxe, and rather liked it. I had applied my knowledge of mathematics in various ways to the work of framing houses, and it became a pleasure. But I thought I should avoid the whip-saw. The time, however, came when I needed a sawyer greatly, and could obtain none, and so took hold myself.

But now we decided that it would be more economical to make boards by horse and ox power than by man power alone; and so the committee at Boston authorized the purchase of a small circular saw-mill. This proved quite a help in our civilized community. It enabled us to put up in the next season a house for a small boarding-school, and also a neat church building. This latter was erected and finished at a cost of about $700, only $200 of which was mission funds. At this time the Indians were receiving money annuities. It was paid them in gold, about $10 for each individual. So that the men received from thirty to fifty dollars. At a propitious time I made a tea-party, which was attended by our civilized men largely, and the result was that, with some assistance from white people, they were able to raise about five hundred dollars. It was a success beyond my most sanguine expectations.

We had now such a respectable community of young men, who had cut off their hair and exchanged the dress of the Dakotas for that of the white man, and whose wants now were very different from the annuity Dakotas generally, that we took measures to organize them into a separate band, which we called the Hazelwood Republic. They elected their President for two years, and other needed officers, and were, without any difficulty, recognized by the agent as a separate band. A number of these men were half-breeds, who were, by the organic law of Minnesota, citizens. The constitution of the State provided that Indians also might become citizens by satisfying a court of their progress in civilization.

A few years after the organization of this civilized community, I took eight or ten of the men to meet the court at Mankato, but, the court deciding that a knowledge of English was necessary to comply with the laws of the State, only one of my men was passed into citizenship.

A part of the plan of our new community was a mission boarding-school. Almost from the beginning, we had been making trial of educating Dakota children in our own families. Mary had a little girl given her the first fall after we came to Lac-qui-parle; she was the daughter of Eagle Help, my Bible reader; but after she had washed and dressed her up she stayed only a month, and then ran away. The Messrs. Pond raised one or two in their families. Dr. Williamson had several Dakota children when at Kaposia, and afterward at Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze. Mr. Adams had at one time a boarding-school of a half-dozen at Lac-qui-parle, and we had two or three in our family. Now the work was to be attempted on a larger scale.

The Hazelwood boarding-school was for a while cared for by Miss Ruth Pettijohn, and afterward by Mr. and Mrs. H. D. Cunningham. Counting those in Dr. Williamson’s family and our own, the boarding scholars amounted to twenty. This was the extent of our ambition in that line at that time. A large boarding-school demands a large outlay for buildings, as well as for its continual support. The necessities of our mission work did not then demand the outlay, nor could it have been easily obtained from the funds of the Board. Connected with this school, as teachers, were Mrs. Annie B. Ackley and Miss Eliza Huggins and Isabella B. Riggs.

We had reached the time, in 1854, when it became necessary to enter upon some plan to educate our children beyond what we could give them in our Indian home. Three years before this, Alfred had been at school in Illinois, but that was only a temporary arrangement; now he was seventeen years old and prepared to enter college. Mary and I often discussed the question of ways and means. It was our desire to give our children as good an education as we possessed ourselves—at least, to give them a chance of obtaining such an education. We did not feel that our position as missionaries should make this impossible, and yet how it was to be accomplished we could not see. We had neither of us any patrimony. In this respect we were on an equality. She received $100 from her father’s estate, and I but a little more than that, and we did not know of any rich friends to whom we could apply for aid. Our salary had been small from the beginning. We entered the mission work at a time when the Board was cutting down everywhere. So that we started on a salary or allowance of about $250, and for the first quarter of a century it did not materially differ from the basis of a Methodist circuit rider in the West of olden times; that is, $100 apiece, and $50 for each child. At this time, when our family numbered eight, we had an allowance of $500. We were both close calculators, and we never ran in debt. We could live comfortably with our children at home, each doing something to carry the burdens of life. But how could we support one or more away at school? A third of the whole family allowance would not suffice to pay the expenses of one, at the most economical of our colleges or schools. To begin, the work required faith. We determined to begin, by sending Alfred to Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois. From year to year, we were able to keep him there until he finished the course. Two years after sending Alfred, we sent Isabella to the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford, Ohio. This, however, we were enabled to do by the help which Mrs. Blaisdell and other Christian friends of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati gave.

With two away at the same time, “the barrel of meal did not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail.” In various ways the Lord helped us. One year our garden produced a large surplus of excellent potatoes, which the Indian agent bought at a very remunerative price. From year to year our faith was strengthened. “Jehovah Jireh” became our motto. He stood by us and helped us in the work of education all through the twenty-three years that have followed, until the last of Mary’s eight children has finished at the Beloit high school. We have redeemed our promise and pledge made to each other. We have given, by the Lord’s help, each and all of our children a chance to become as good or better scholars than their father and mother were.

The 3d of March was associated in our minds with calamity from the burning of our houses at Lac-qui-parle. But two years later, or in the spring of 1856, the 3d of March brought a great shadow over Dr. Williamson’s household. Smith Burgess Williamson was just coming up to young manhood. He was large of his age, a very manly boy. On this 3d of March he was engaged in hauling up firewood with an ox-team. He probably attempted to get on his loaded sled while the oxen were in motion, and, missing his step, fell under the runner. He was dragged home, a distance of some rods, and his young life was entirely crushed out. We were immediately summoned over from Hazelwood. Human sympathy could go but a little way toward reaching the bottom of such a trouble. It was like other sorrows that had come upon us, and we were prepared to sit down in silence with our afflicted friends, and help them think out, “It is the Lord”; “I was dumb because thou didst it.” The family had been already schooled in affliction, and this helped to prepare them better for the Master’s work.

During these passing years, the educational work among the Dakotas was progressing beyond what it had done previously. Our boarding-school at Hazelwood, in charge of H. D. Cunningham, was full and doing good service. Our civilized and Christian community had come to desire and appreciate somewhat the education of their children. At Dr. Williamson’s, also, several were taken into the family, and the day-school prospered. Miss Jane S. Williamson, a maiden sister of the doctor, had come to the land of the Dakotas when Mary and I returned in 1843. From the association and connection of her father’s family with slavery in South Carolina, she had grown up with a great interest in the colored people. She had taught colored schools in Ohio, when it was very unpopular, even in a free state, to educate the blacks. When she came to the Dakotas, her enthusiasm in the work of lifting up the colored race was at once transferred to the red men, and she became an indefatigable worker in their education.

She often carried cakes and nuts in her pocket, and had something to give to this and that one, to draw them to her school. The present race of Dakotas remember Aunt Jane, as we called her, or Dowan Dootawin, Red Song Woman, as they called her, with tender interest, and many of them owe more to her than they can understand.

At this time, a translation of the first part of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim, which I had prepared, was printed by the American Tract Society, and at once became a popular and profitable reading-book for the Dakotas.