1866-1869.—Prisoners Meet their Families at the Niobrara.—Our Summer’s Visitation.—At the Scouts’ Camp.—Crossing the Prairie.—Killing Buffalo.—At Niobrara.—Religious Meetings.—Licensing Natives.—Visiting the Omahas.—Scripture Translating.—Sisseton Treaty at Washington.—Second Visit to the Santees.—Artemas and Titus Ordained.—Crossing to the Head of the Coteau.—Organizing Churches and Licensing Dakotas.—Solomon, Robert, Louis, Daniel.—On Horseback in 1868.—Visit to the Santees, Yanktons, and Brules.—Gathering at Dry Wood.—Solomon Ordained.—Writing “Takoo Wakan.”—Mary’s Sickness.—Grand Hymns.—Going through the Valley of the Shadow.—Death!

The spring of 1866 saw the prisoners at Davenport released by order of the President; and their families, which had remained at Crow Creek for three dry and parched years, were permitted to join their husbands and brothers and fathers at Niobrara, in the north-east angle of Nebraska. That was a glad and a sad meeting; but the gladness prevailed over the sadness. And now all the Dakotas with whom we had been laboring were again in a somewhat normal condition. All had passed through strange trials and tribulations, and God had brought them out into a large place. The prisoners had prayed that their chains might be removed. God heard them, and the chains were now a thing of the past. They had prayed that they might again have a country, and now they were in the way of receiving that at the hand of the Lord.

And so, as Rev. John P. Williamson was with the united church of camp and prison on the Missouri, Dr. T. S. Williamson and I took with us John B. Renville and started on a tour of summer visitation. After a week’s travel from St. Peter, in Minnesota, we reached the Scouts’ Camp, which, in the month of June, 1866, we found partly on the margin of Lake Traverse, and partly at Buffalo Lake, in the country which was afterward set apart for their especial use.

At both of these places we administered the Lord’s Supper, ordained Daniel Renville as a ruling elder, and licensed Peter Big-Fire and Simon Anawangmane to preach the Gospel. Neither of these men developed into preachers, but they have been useful as exhorters from that day to this. On the Fourth of July, we added Peter to our little company, and started across from Fort Wadsworth, which had only recently been established, to Crow Creek on the Missouri. From that point we passed down to the mouth of the Niobrara.

On this journey across the prairie we encountered many herds of buffalo. Sometimes they were far to one side of us, and we could pass by without molesting them. Once, on the first day from Wadsworth, we came suddenly upon a herd of a hundred or more, lying down. When we discovered them, they were only about half a mile in front of us. Peter said it was too good a chance not to be improved; he must shoot one. We gave him leave to try, and he crawled around over some low ground and killed a very fine cow. We could only take a little of the meat, leaving the rest to be devoured by prairie wolves. This episode in the day’s travel frightened our horses, delayed us somewhat, and made us late getting into camp at the “Buzzard’s Nest.” The result was that in the gloaming our horses all broke away, and gave us four hours of hunting for them the next morning. Then we had a long, hot ride, without water, over the burning prairie, to James River.

As I have said, the prisoners released from Davenport and their families from Crow Creek had met at Niobrara. This point had been selected for a town site, and a company had erected a large shell of a frame house intended for a hotel. Their plans had failed, and now the thought probably was to reimburse themselves out of the government.

We found the Indians living in tents, while the families of Mr. Williamson and Mr. Pond and others were accommodated with shelter in the big house. For their religious mass-meetings, they had erected a large booth, which served well in the dry weather of summer. Every day, morning and evening, they gathered there for prayer and praise, reading the Bible and telling what God had done for them. They had come too late to plant, and there was but little employment for them, and so the weeks we spent there were weeks of worship, given to the strengthening of the things that remain, and arranging for future educational and Christian work. The churches of the prison and the camp were consolidated, and we selected and licensed Artemas Ehnamane and Titus Ichadooze as probationers for the Gospel ministry. When we had remained as long as seemed desirable, Dr. Williamson and I left them, and came down to the Omaha Reserve, where we visited the new agency among the Winnebagoes and the Presbyterian Boarding-School among the Omahas. The latter was flourishing, but, having been conducted in English alone, its spiritual results were very unsatisfactory.

The multiplication of Dakota readers during the past few years gave a new impulse to our work of translating the Scriptures, and made larger demands for other books. This furnished a great amount of winter work for both Dr. Williamson and myself. In five years we added the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song, and Isaiah, together with the other four books of Moses, to what he had printed in 1865.

The Wahpatons and Sissetons, who constituted the Scouts’ Camp on the western border of Minnesota, and who had done good service in protecting the white settlements from the roving, horse-stealing Sioux in the first months of 1867, sent a delegation to Washington to make a treaty, and obtain the guarantee of a home and government help. While that delegation was in Washington, I took occasion to spend a month or more in lobbying in the interests of Indian civilization. To me this kind of work was always distasteful and unsatisfactory, and this time I came home to be taken down with inflammatory rheumatism. I had planned for an early summer campaign in the Dakota country, but it was July before I could get courage enough to start. And then it was with a great deal of pain that I endured the stage ride between Omaha and Sioux City. There I was met by Dr. Williamson, in his little wagon, and together we proceeded up to the settlement in Nebraska.

Since we had been there in the previous summer, these people had drifted down on to Bazille Creek, where Mr. Williamson and Mr. Pond had erected shacks—that is, log houses with dirt roofs—and between the two had made a room for assembly. The two men we had licensed the summer previous were this season ordained and set over the native church, Mr. Williamson still retaining the oversight. At each visitation we endeavored to work the native church members up to a feeling of responsibility in the work of contributing to the support of their pastors, but it has been no easy undertaking.

This summer, with Robert Hopkins and Adam Paze for our companions in travel, the doctor and I crossed over directly from Niobrara to the head of the Coteau. Those Indians we now found considerably scattered on their new reservation. Some general lines began to appear in the settlement, and during this and our visit in the year following several church organizations were effected; and Solomon Toonkan-Shaecheya, Robert Hopkins, Louis Mazawakinyanna, and Daniel Renville were licensed to preach.

Louis was an elder in the prison and on the Niobrara, and of his own motion had gone over to Fort Wadsworth, and, finding a community of Sioux scouts connected with the garrison, commenced religious work among them. In this he was supported and encouraged by the chaplain, Rev. G. D. Crocker. This year our camp-meeting was held on the border of the Coteau as it looks down on Lake Traverse.

The opening of the season of 1868 found me starting from Sioux City on a gray pony, which I rode across to Minnesota. But first I spent some weeks with the Santees. They had partly removed from Bazille Creek down to the bottom where the agency is now located. A long log house had been prepared for a church and school-house. The Episcopalians were building extensively and expensively, while our folks contented themselves with very humble abodes. The work of education had progressed very finely, Mr. Williamson and Mr. Pond giving much time to it, while Mrs. Pond and Mrs. Williamson greatly helped the women in their religious home-life.

This summer John P. Williamson and I took Artemas Ehnamane, the senior native minister of the Pilgrim Church, and crossed over to Fort Wadsworth, where Dr. Williamson and John B. Renville met us. On the way, we made a short stop at the Yankton agency, which we had visited two years before. Now it was opening up as a field of promise to Mr. Williamson, and he proceeded to occupy it soon afterward. We made another stop, for preaching purposes, at Brule and Crow Creek, where the pastor of Santee showed himself able to gain the attention of the wild Sioux. Our ride across the desert land was enlivened by conversation on Dakota customs and Dakota songs. In both these departments of literature, this former hunter and warrior from Red Wing was an excellent teacher.

This annual gathering at the head of the Coteau was held at Dry Wood Lake, where Peter Big-Fire had settled. It was the most remarkable of all those yearly camp-meetings. On this occasion about sixty persons were added to our church list. It was a sight to be remembered, when, on the open prairie, they and their children stood up to be baptized.

At the close of this meeting we held another at Buffalo Lake, in one of their summer houses, which was full of meaning. The recently organized church of Long Hollow, which then extended to Buffalo Lake, had selected Solomon to be their religious teacher. And this after meeting was held to ordain and install him as pastor of that church. He was a young man of Christian experience and blameless life, and has since proved himself to be a very reliable and useful native pastor.

Since the marvels of grace wrought among the Dakotas in the prison and camp, we had received numerous invitations to prepare some account thereof for the Christian public. Several of these requests came from members of the Dakota Presbytery, which then covered the western part of Minnesota. Accordingly, I had taken up the idea, and endeavored to work it out. Some chapters had been submitted for examination to a committee of the Presbytery, and commended by them for publication. In the autumn and winter of 1868, the manuscript began to assume a completed form. It was submitted to Secretary S. B. Treat for examination, who made valuable suggestions, and agreed to write an introduction to the book. This he did, in a manner highly satisfactory.

The manuscript I first offered to the Presbyterian Board of Publication. But the best that Dr. Dulles could do was to offer me a hundred dollars for the copy-right. Friends in Boston thought I could do better there. And so “Tahkoo Wakan,” or “The Gospel Among the Dakotas,” was brought out by the Congregational Publishing Society, in the summer of 1869. In the preparation of the book Mary had taken the deepest interest, although not able to do much of the mental work. The preface bears date less than three weeks before her death.

Authors whose books do not sell very well, I suppose, generally marvel at the result. This little volume was, and is still, so intensely interesting to me that I wonder why everybody does not buy and read it. But over against this stands the fact that hitherto less than two thousand copies have been disposed of. Pecuniarily, it has not been a success. But neither has it been an entire failure. And perhaps it has done some good in bringing a class of Christian workers into more intelligent sympathy and co-operation in the work of Indian evangelization; and so the labor is not lost.

Since we left Minnesota, Mary had apparently been slowly recovering from the invalidism of the past. She enjoyed life. She could occasionally attend religious meetings. The society of Beloit was very congenial. Sometimes she was able to attend the ministers’ meetings, and enjoyed the literary and religious discussions and criticisms. The last winter—that of 1868-69—she became exceedingly interested in a book called “The Seven Great Hymns of the MediÆval Church.” She read and re-read the various translations of Dies IrÆ. But she was attracted most to the Hora Novissima of Bernard of Cluni. Such a stanza as the 26th:—

And the 29th:—

But these and others were all eclipsed by the last, which seemed afterward to have been a prophecy of what was near at hand, and yet neither she nor we anticipated it:—

This was a fascination to her. We were blind at the time, and did not see afar off. Now it is manifest that even then she was preparing to go to “Jerusalem the only.” She was tenting in the Land of Beulah.

For years past Mary had almost ceased to write letters. Neither her physical nor mental condition had permitted it. But a letter is found written on the 2d of February, 1869, which must have been the very last she ever wrote. Along with it she sent a copy of some of the stanzas from Hora Novissima, which at this time were such an enjoyment to her. The letter is addressed to Isabella, in China. She writes: “Your last letter, written October 5, ’68, was received January 5, 1869. All your letters are very precious to us, but this is peculiarly so. Perhaps I have written this before; but if I have, I am glad again to acknowledge the joy it gives me that our Father gives you faith to look gratefully beyond the passing shadows of this life into the abiding light of the life to come.

“Was the 19th of First Chronicles the last chapter we read in family worship before you left home? If so, the 13th verse must be the one you read: ‘Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the Lord do that which is good in his sight.’ Even so let it be. May you ever ‘be strong in the Lord.’”

We had passed the nones of March. It was on Tuesday, the 10th, as I well remember, the day of the ministers’ meeting, which was held at the house of the Presbyterian minister Rev. Mr. Alexander. Mary had been planning to attend in the evening. But the day was chill and cold, as March days often are. She had been out in the yard seeing to the washed clothes, and had taken cold. In the evening she was not feeling so well, and decided to stay at home. For several days she thought—and we thought—it was only an ordinary cold, that some simple medicines and care in diet would remedy.

On Saturday, as she seemed to be growing no better, but rather worse, I called in Dr. Taggart, who pronounced it a case of pneumonia. The attack, he said, was a severe one, and her lungs were very seriously affected. Her hold on life had been so feeble for several years that we could not expect she would throw off disease as easily as a person of more vigor. But at this time her own impression was that she would recover. And the doctor said he saw nothing to make him think she would not.

But soon after the physician’s first visit, the record is, “She was occasionally flighty and under strange hallucinations, caused either by the disease or the medicines.” On the following Thursday, she evidently began to be impressed with the thought that she possibly would not get well. She said she felt more unconscious and stupid than she had ever felt before in sickness. When, in answer to her inquiry as to what the doctor said of her case, I told her he was very hopeful, she said, “He does not know much more about it than we do.” At one time she remarked, “I feel very delicious, the taking down of the tabernacle appears so beautiful”; and she desired me to get Bernard’s Hymn, and read such passages as “Jerusalem the Golden” and “Exult, O dust and ashes.”

“Friday, March 19, noon.

“I watched with your mother last night. Her strength seems to keep up wonderfully well, but the disease has quite affected her power of speech. When it came light, I perceived a livid hue about her eyes, and became alarmed. We sent for Dr. Taggart. The propriety of continuing the whiskey prescriptions seemed quite doubtful, especially as the mother was taking them under a conscientious protest. When the doctor came, he appeared to be alarmed also, and changed his treatment from Dover’s powders to quinine, but wished the whiskey continued.

“During the morning she spoke several times about the probabilities of life. ‘God knows the best time,’ she said; ‘but, if I am to go now, I do not wish to linger long.’ She had been able, she said, to do but little for years, and there was not much reason for her living—but she would be glad to stay longer for the children’s sake. At one time she remarked, in substance: ‘I have tried all along to do right; I don’t know that I should be able to do better if the life was to be lived over again.’”

“Saturday noon, March 20.

“It is a privilege that I never knew before to watch and wait in a sick chamber where one is in sympathy and contact with the spirit that is mounting upward. It does seem as if the pins of the tabernacle were indeed being taken out one by one, and the taking of it down is beautiful—how much more beautiful will be its rebuilding!

“Anna and I watched the first part of last night—or, rather, she watched, and I lay on the lounge and got up to help her. In the latter part, Alfred took Anna’s place. So we watch and wait. Her mind-wandering continues at intervals, and she complains of her dulness—so stupid, she says. Christ, she says, has been near to her all winter, and is now. A little while ago, she remarked that she had been once, at St. Anthony, as low as she is now, and God had restored her. So she wanted us to pray that God would restore her yet again. This forenoon she had a talk with Henry, Robbie, and Cornelia separately. When Mr. Warner came in, she asked to see him, and said she hoped to have seen him under different circumstances than the present—and then commended Anna to his gentle care.”

“Saturday evening.

“One feels so powerless by the side of a sick loved one! How we would like to make well, if we could! But the fever continues to burn, and we can only look on. Then the mind wanders and fastens on all kinds of impossible and imaginary things. We would set that right, but we can not. Dr. Taggart has just been here, and speaks encouragingly of your mother. He thinks if we can keep her along until the fever runs its course, then careful nursing will bring her up again. The neighbors are very kind in offering us help and sympathy.”

“Sabbath morning.

“The mother is still here. But the hopes Dr. Taggart encouraged are not likely to be realized. Alfred and I watched with her until after midnight, and Mrs. Bushnell and Anna the rest of the night. As the bourbon continued to be so distasteful, the doctor substituted wine; but that was no more desirable.

“When told it was the Sabbath morning, she looked up brightly and said, ‘I think He will come for me to-day.’ Over and over again, she said, ‘He strengthens me.’ Mrs. Carr and Mrs. Benson came in this morning and were very helpful. The doctor has been up again, and says he is still hopeful. So we hope and watch.”

“Sabbath evening.

“The sick one continues much the same as earlier in the day. Mrs. Blaisdell and Mrs. Merrill came to offer their sympathy. Dr. Taggart came again and desired that she might renew the whiskey. This she promised to do. Mr. Bushnell has been in and expressed his confidence in the minne-wakan for those who are ready to perish.”

“Monday morn, 5:30 o’clock.

“The end seems to be coming on apace. Anna and Alfred watched the first part of the night, and Mrs. Wheeler and I have been watching since. The difficulty of breathing has increased within the last few hours, and added to it is a rattling in the throat. Your mother called my attention to it about three o’clock. It seems now as if we can’t do much but smooth the way, which we do tenderly—lovingly.”

“Seven o’clock, A. M.

“The battle is fought, the conflict is ended, the victory is won, and that sooner than we expected. Your mother’s life’s drama is closed—the curtain is drawn.

“About one hour ago she called for some tea. Mrs. Wheeler hasted and made some fresh. When she had taken that, we gave her also the medicine for the hour. She then appeared to lie easily. I sat down to write a note to Thomas, who was in the Freedman’s work in Mississippi. But I had written only a few lines when Mrs. Wheeler called me. She had noticed a change come on very suddenly. When I reached the bedside, your mother could not speak, and did not recognize me by any sign. She was passing through the deep waters, and had even then reached the farther shore.

“Mrs. Wheeler called up the children, and sent Robbie for Alfred. But, before he could come, the mother had breathed her last breath. Quietly, peacefully, without a struggle, only the gasping out of life, she passed beyond our reach of vision.

“Yesterday she had said to me, ‘I have neglected the flowers.’ I asked, ‘What flowers?’ She replied, ‘The immortelles.’ Dear, good one, she has gone to the flower-garden of God.”