1869-1870.—Home Desolate.—At the General Assembly.—Summer Campaign.—A. L. Riggs.—His Story of Early Life.—Inside View of Missions.—Why Missionaries’ Children Become Missionaries.—No Constraint Laid on Them.—A. L. Riggs Visits the Missouri Sioux.—Up the River.—The Brules.—Cheyenne and Grand River.—Starting for Fort Wadsworth.—Sun Eclipsed.—Sisseton Reserve.—Deciding to Build There.—In the Autumn Assembly.—My Mother’s Home.—Winter Visit to Santee.—Julia La Framboise.

As Abraham, a stranger and sojourner in the land of the children of Heth, bought of them the cave of Machpelah wherein to bury Sarah, so it seemed to me that I had come to Beloit to make a last resting-place for the remains of Mary. The house seemed desolate. Sooner or later, it involved the breaking-up of the family. Indeed it commenced very soon. Robert went up to Minnesota to spend a year at Martha’s. In the meantime, Anna had become mistress of the home, and had with her Mary Cooley, an invalid cousin.

That year of 1869 I was commissioner from the Dakota Presbytery to the General Assembly, which met in New York City. It was an assembly of more than ordinary interest, as at that meeting, and the one that followed in the autumn, the two branches of the Presbyterian Church North were again united. During this stay in New York City I was the guest of Hon. Wm. E. Dodge. That was quite a contrast to living among the Dakotas. But at the close of the assembly I hastened westward to join Dr. Williamson at St. Peter. He had procured a small double wagon and a pony team, with which we together should make our summer campaign. Having fitted ourselves out, as we always did, with tent and camping materials, our first objective point was Sioux City, where we had arranged to meet and take in Alfred L. Riggs.

Since a little previous to the outbreak in 1862, he had been preaching to white people; first at Lockport, Ill., where he was ordained and continued with the church five years, and then for a year at Centre, Wis., and now at Woodstock, Ill. But all this time he seemed to be only waiting for the Dakota work to assume such a shape as to invite his assistance. For some time he had been especially acquainting himself with the most approved methods of education, that he might fill a place which, year by year, was becoming more manifestly important to be filled.

As in the progress of modern missions a large and increasing share of the new recruits are the children of missionaries, it will be interesting to know, from one of themselves, how they grow up in and into the Missionary Kingdom.

“My first serious impression of life was that I was living under a great weight of something; and as I began to discern more clearly, I found this weight to be the all-surrounding, overwhelming presence of heathenism, and all the instincts of my birth and all the culture of a Christian home set me at antagonism to it at every point. The filthy savages, indecently clad, lazily lounging about the stove of our sitting-room, or flattening their dirty noses on the window-pane, caused such a disgust for everything Indian that it took the better thought of many years to overcome the repugnance thus aroused. Without doubt, our mothers felt it all as keenly as we, their children, but they had a sustaining ambition for souls, which we had not yet gained.

“This feeling of disgust was often accompanied with, and heightened by, fear. The very air seemed to breathe dangers. At times violence stalked abroad unchallenged, and dark, lowering faces skulked around. Even in times when we felt no personal danger, this incubus of savage life all around weighed on our hearts. Thus it was, day and night. Even those hours of twilight, which brood with sweet influences over so many lives, bore to us on the evening air only the weird cadences of the heathen dance or the chill thrill of the war-whoop.

“Yet our childhood was not destitute of joy. Babes prattle beside the dead. So, too, the children of the mission had their plays like other children. But it was lonesome indeed when the missionary band was divided, to occupy other stations, and the playmates were separated. Once it was my privilege to go one hundred and twenty miles—to the nearest station—to have a play-spell of a week, and a happy week it was.

“Notwithstanding our play-spells, ours was a serious life. The serious earnestness of our parents in the pursuit of their work could not fail to fall in some degree on the children. The main purpose of Christianizing that people was felt in everything. It was like garrison life in time of war. But this seriousness was not ascetical or morose. Far from it. Those Christian missionary homes were full of gladness. With all the disadvantages of such a childhood was the rich privilege of understanding the meaning of cheerful earnestness in Christian life. Speaking of peculiar privileges, I must say that I do not believe any other homes can be as precious as ours. It is true every one thinks his is the best mother in the world, and she is to him; but I mean more than this; I mean that our missionary homes are in reality better than others. And there is reason for it. By reason of the surrounding heathenism, the light and power of Christianity is more centred and confined in the home. And then, again, its power is developed by its antagonism to the darkness and wickedness around it. For either its light must ever shine clearer, or grow more dim until it expires.

“Next to our own home, we learned to love the homeland in ‘the States,’ whence our parents came. A longing desire to visit it possessed us. We thought that there we should find a heaven on earth. This may seem a strange idea; but as you think of us engulfed in heathenism and savage life, it will not seem so strange. It was like living at the bottom of a well, with only one spot of brightness overhead. Of course, it would be natural to think that upper world all brightness and beauty. Thus all our glimpses of another life than that of heathenism came from ‘the States.’ There all our ideas of Christianized society were located. The correspondence of our parents with friends left behind, the pages of the magazines and papers of the monthly mail, and the yearly boxes of supplies, were the tangible tokens which in our innocent minds awakened visions of the wonderful world of civilization and culture in ‘the East.’

“These supplies were in reality, perhaps, very small affairs, but we thought them of fabulous value. Indeed they were everything to us. With the opening of the new year the list of purchases began to be arranged. Each item was carefully considered, and the wants of each of the family remembered. This was no small task when you had to look a year and a half ahead. What debates as to whether B could get on with one pair of shoes, or must have two; or whether C would need some more gingham aprons, or could make the old ones last through. And, then, it was so hard to remember mosquito bars and straw hats in January; but if they were forgotten once, the next January found them first on the list. It was fun to make up the lists, but not so exhilarating when, on summing up the probable cost, it was found to be too much, and then the cruel pen ran through many of our new-born hopes. Then the letter went on its way to Boston, or maybe to Cincinnati, and we waited its substantial answer. Sometimes our boxes went around by lazy sloops from Boston to New Orleans; thence the laboring steamboat bore them almost the whole length of the Father of Waters; then the flat-boatmen sweated and swore as they poled them up the Minnesota to where our teams met them to carry them for another week over the prairies. Now it was far on into rosy June. After such waiting, no wonder that everything seemed precious—the very hoops of the boxes and the redolent pine that made them; even the wrappers and strings of the packages were carefully laid away. And, thanks to the kind friends who have cared for this work at our several purchasing depots, our wants were generally capitally met; and yet sometimes the packer would arrange it so that the linseed oil would give a new taste to the dried apples, anything but appetizing, or turn the plain white of some long-desired book into a highly ‘tinted’ edition.

“When the number of our years got well past the single figures, then we went to ‘the States,’ to carry on the education begun at home. Then came the saddest disappointment of all our lives. We found we were yet a good way from heaven. For me, the last remnant of this dream was effectually dispelled when I came to teach a Sabbath-school in a back country-neighborhood, where the people were the drift-wood of Kentucky and Egyptian Illinois. Thenceforth the land of the Dakotas seemed more the land of promise to me. From that time the claims of the work in which my parents were engaged grew upon my mind.

“Of late years the children of missionaries have everywhere furnished a large portion of the new reinforcements. This is both natural and strange. It is natural that they should desire to stay the hands of their parents, and go to reap what they have sown. On the other hand, they go out in face of all the hardships of the work, made vividly real to them by the experience of their childhood. They are attracted by no romantic sentiment. The romance is for them all worn off long ago. For instance, those of us on this field know the noble red man of the poet to be a myth. We know the real savage, and know him almost too well. Thus those who follow in the work of their missionary fathers do not do it without a struggle—often fearful. On the one hand stands the work, calling them to lonesome separation, and on the other the pleasant companionship of civilized society. But if the word of the Lord has come to them to go to Nineveh, happy are they if they do not go thither by way of Joppa.

“I have spoken of the drawbacks to entering the work, but the inducements must also be remembered. They are greater than the drawbacks. We know them also better than strangers can. If we have known more of the discouragements of the work, we also know more of its hopefulness. We know the real savage, but we now know and fully believe in his real humanity and salvability by the power of the cross. Now, too, when the work is entered, the very difficulties which barred the way grow less or disappear. We find the dreaded isolation to be more in appearance than reality. We here are in connection with the best thought and sympathy of the civilized world, whether it be in scholarship, statesmanship, or Christian society. And not unfrequently do we have the visits of friends and the honored representatives of the churches. One may be much more alone in Chicago or New York.

“The difficulties of the work in earlier years are also changing. We have a different standing before the people among whom we labor. We also have matured and tested our methods of operation, and can be generally confident of success. We have also an ever increasing force in the native agency which adds strength and hopefulness to the campaign. The people we come to conquer are themselves furnishing recruits for this war, so that we, the sons of the mission, stand among them as captains of the host, and our fathers are as generals.”

With such a growing-up, it would seem that he was attracted to the life-work of his father and mother. And yet our children will all bear witness that no special influence was ever used to draw them into the missionary work. Some ministers’ sons, I understand, have grown up under the burden of the thought that they were expected to be ministers. It was certainly my endeavor not to impose any such burden on my boys. But we certainly did desire—and our desire was not concealed—that all our children should develop into the most noble and useful lives, prepared to occupy any position to which they might be called. Accordingly, when a boy, while pursuing his education, has shown a disposition “to knock off,” I have used what influence I had to induce him to persevere. But, beyond this, it has been my desire that each one should, under the divine guidance, choose, as is their right to do, what shall be their line of work in life. At the same time, it is but just to myself, as well as to them, to say that it gives me great joy now, in my old age, to see so many of Mary’s children making the life-work of their father and mother their own.

This visit of Alfred to the Santee and Yankton agencies was made for the purpose of looking over the field, and forming an intelligent judgment as to whether the way was open and the time had come to commence some higher educational work among the Dakotas. The place for such an effort was evidently the Santee agency. And John P. Williamson, who had so long and so well carried on the mission work among the Santees, had for several years past been more and more attracted to the Yanktons, where there was an open door; and to the Yankton agency he had removed his family, in the early spring, before our visit. So the hand of God had shaped the work. It required only that we recognize his hand, and put ourselves in accord with the manifestations of his will. After a few weeks, Alfred returned to his people in Woodstock, and made his arrangements to close his labors there in the following winter, when he accepted an appointment from the American Board to take charge of its work at the Santee agency.

Our summer campaign now commenced. The Williamsons, father and son, with Titus, one of the Santee pastors, and myself, proceeded up the Missouri. We made a little stop, as we had done in former years, with the Sechangoos, or Brules, near Fort Thompson, preaching to them the Gospel of Christ. Some interest was apparent. At least, a superstitious reverence for the name that is above every name was manifest. “What is the name?” one asked. “I have forgotten it.” And we again told them of Jesus.

Our next point was the Cheyenne agency, near Fort Sully, a hundred miles above Fort Thompson, at Crow Creek. There we spent a week, and met the Indians in their council house. Our efforts were in the line of sowing seed, much of which fell by the way-side or on the stony places. And then we passed on another hundred miles, to the agency at the mouth of Grand River, where were gathered a large number of Yanktonais, as well as Teetons. This agency is now located farther up the river, and is called Standing Rock. Among these people we found some who desired instruction, but the more part did not want to hear. Our attempt to gather them to a Sabbath meeting seemed quite likely to fail. But there had been a thunder storm in the early morning, and out a few miles, on a hill-top, a prominent Dakota man was struck down by the lightning. He was brought into the agency, and before his burial, at the close of the day, we had a large company of men and women to listen to the divine words of Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life. It was an impressive occasion, and it was said by white men that many of those Indians listened that day for the first time to Christian song and Christian prayer. But that agency has since passed into the hands of the Catholics, and David, one of our native preachers, who visited there recently, was not permitted to remain.

At this point—Grand River—our company separated. John P. Williamson and Titus returned down the Missouri, and Dr. Williamson and I took a young man, Blue Bird by name, and crossed over to Fort Wadsworth. On Saturday we traveled up the Missouri about thirty miles, where we spent the Sabbath, and where we were joined by a Dakota man who was familiar with the country across to the James River, and who could find water for us in that “dry and thirsty land.” As we journeyed that Saturday afternoon, the day grew dark, the sun ceased to shine, our horses wanted to stop in the road. It was a weird, unnatural darkness—an eclipse of the sun. We stopped and watched its progress. For about five minutes the eclipse was annular—only a little rim of light gleamed forth. The moon seemed to have a cut in one side, appearing much like a thick cheese from which a very thin slice had been cut out. We all noted this singular appearance. The Dakotas on the Missouri represent that year by the symbol of a black sun with stars shining above it.

When we reached the Sisseton reservation, we held our usual camp-meeting again at Dry Wood Lake, regulating and confirming the churches, and receiving quite a number of additions, though not so many as in the year previous. The place for the Sisseton agency had been selected, some log buildings erected, and the agent, Dr. Jared W. Daniels, with his family, was on the ground. The time seemed to have come when, to secure the fruits of the harvest, some more permanent occupation should be made in the reservation. Mary was gone up higher. The boys, for whose sakes, mainly, we had made a home in Beloit, were no longer in college. Thomas had graduated, and spent a year in teaching freedmen in Mississippi, and was now in the Chicago Theological Seminary; while Henry had commenced to seek his fortune in other employment. Without apparent detriment, I could break up housekeeping in Beloit, and build at Sisseton. The plan was formed during this visit, and talked over with Dr. Williamson and Agent Daniels. God willing, and the Prudential Committee at Boston approving, it was to be carried into effect the next spring.

And so I returned to my home in Beloit, and went on to attend the meeting of the two General Assemblies at Pittsburg, where their union became an accomplished fact. At the close of this meeting, I spent a couple of weeks in visiting friends in Fayette County, Pa., and the old stone church of Dunlap’s Creek, which had been the church-home of my mother when as yet she was unmarried.

For several winters preceding this I had been working on translations of the Book of Psalms and Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. They were printed in 1871. But this winter of 1869-70 was mostly spent with the Santees. Mr. Williamson had left that place and gone to the Yankton agency, where he has since continued with great prosperity in the missionary work. And so there came to me a pressing invitation from Mrs. Mary Frances Pond and Miss Julia La Framboise to come out and help them that winter.

Julia La Framboise was the teacher of the mission-school at Santee. She was born of a Dakota mother, and her father always claimed that he had Indian blood mixed with his French. Julia was a noble Christian woman, who had been trained up in the mission families, completing her education at Miss Sill’s Seminary, in Rockford, Ill. I found them all actively engaged in carrying forward mission work. But we conceived more might be done to bring children into the school and men and women to the church. Accordingly, I called together the pastors and elders of the church, and engaged them to enter upon a system of thorough church visitation, which had the effect of greatly increasing the numbers in attendance on both the school and the church.

Even then, as it afterward appeared, Julia was entering upon the incipient stages of pulmonary consumption. She was not careful of herself. After teaching school until one o’clock, she was ever ready to go with the agent’s daughters to interpret for them in the case of some sick person, or to relieve the wants of the poor. Before I left, in March, her cough had become alarming. And so it increased. The second summer after this, she was obliged to stop work, and simply wait for the coming of the messenger that called her to the Father’s house above.