several years they toiled unceasingly for the welfare of the wild men, by whom they were surrounded.
In 1851, Mr. and Mrs. Pond were compelled, by her rapidly failing- health, to spend a year in the east. She never returned. She died February 6, 1852, at Washington, Connecticut. Thus after fourteen years of arduous missionary toil, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, the beautiful bride of the Lake Harriet mission house, was called from service to reward at the early age of thirty-six.
Mr. Pond returned to Prairieville and toiled on for the Indians until their removal by the government, in 1853. He himself, remained and continued his labors for the benefit of the white community of Shakopee, v/hich had grown up around him. In 1853, a white Presbyterian church was organized and, in 1856, a comfortable church edifice was erected, wholly at the expense of the pastor and his people. The congregation still exists and the mission house still stands as monuments of the wisdom, faith and fortitude of the heroic builder. After thirteen years of faithful service, he laid the heavy burdens-down for younger hands, but for a quarter of a century longer he remained in his old home.
During these last years, his chief delight was in his
books, which lost none of their power to interest him
in advancing age; epecially was this true of the Book
of books. He was never idle. The active energy,
which distinguished his youth, no less marked his ad-
vancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, as they v/ere at thirty-three. His was a long and happy old age. He lingered in the house his own hands had builded, content to go or stay, till he was transferred, December twelfth, 1891, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
THE PRINCE OF INDIAN PREACHERS.
Without disparagement to any of his brethren in the ministry, this title can be properly applied to the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, of lyakaptapte, (Ascension) South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shining ranks of the saved Sioux in glory.
Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet firm as a rock, when duty demanded it; a loving husband, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presbyter—a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner— a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man was this Indian sen of a Sioux mother, herself the first fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith.
He was the youngest son of Joseph Renville, a mixed blood Sioux and French, who was a captain in the British army in the War of 1812 and the most famous Sioux Indian in his day. After the war, he became a trader and established his headquarters at Lac-qui-Parle, where he induced Dr. Thomas S. Williamson to locate his first mission station in 1835.
John Baptiste was one of the first Indian children baptized by Dr. Williamson and he enjoyed the benefits of the first school among the Sioux. He was rather delicate, which hindered his being sent east to school as much as he otherwise would have been. However, he spent several years in excellent white schools, and
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Pi
The Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M. D.. Fortv-five vears a Missionary to the Sioux.
he acquired a fair knowledge of the elementary branches of the EngHsh language. The last year he spent at Knox College, Galesburgh, Illinois, where he wooed and won Miss Mary Butler, an educated Christian white woman, whom he married and who became his great helper in his educational and evangelistic work.
He was the first Sioux Indian to enter the ministry. In the spring of 1865, he was licensed to preach, by the presbytery of Dakota, at Mankato, Minnesota, and ordained in the following autumn. When he entered the ministry, the Sioux Indians were in a very unsettled state, and his labors were very much scattered; now with the Indian scouts on some campaign; again Avith a few families of Indians gathered about some military post, and anon with a little class of Indians, who were trying to settle down to civilized life.
In 1870, he became the pastor of lyakaptapte, (Ascension) a little church in what subsequently became the Sisseton reservation. Both physically and in mental and spiritual qualities, he was best adapted to a settled pastorate. His quiet and unobtrusive character required long intercourse to be appreciated. However, in the pulpit, his earnestness and apt presentation of the truth ever commanded the attention even of strangers. Under his ministry, the church increased to one hundred and forty members. More than half a dozen of them became ministers and Ascension was generally the leading church in every good work among the Dakota Indians. No one among the Christian Sioux was more widclv known and loved than Mr.
Renville. In the councils of the church, though there were seventeen other ministers in the presbytery before his death, he was ever given the first place both for counsel and honor. He twice represented his presbytery in the general Assembly, and he was ever faithful in his attendance at Synod and Presbytery and active in the discharge of the duties devolving upon him. iMary Butler, the white wife of his youth, died several years ago. Their daughter Ella, a fine Christian young lady passed away at twenty years of age. She was active in organizing Bands of Hcj.e among the chilflren of the tribe. She sleeps, with her parents on the brow of lyakaptapte overlooking" the chruch to which all their lives were devoted. Josephine, the Indian wife of his old age, survives him and remains in the white farm house on the prairie in which John Baptiste Renville spent so many years of his long, happy useful life. He died December 19, 1904, in the seventy-third year of his age.
VlII
AN INDIAN PATRIARCH.
Chief Cloiidman or Man-of-the-skv, was one of the strongest characters among the natives on the headwaters of the Mississippi in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. He was one of the leading chiefs of t-he Santee band of Sioux Indians. He was born about 1780. He was brave in battle, wise in council, and possessed many other noble qualities, which caused him to rise far above his fellow chieftains. He possessed a large fund of common sense. Years prior to the advent of the white man in this region, he regarded hunting and fishing as a too precarious means to a livelihood, and attempted to teach his people agriculture and succeeded to a limited extent.
It was a strange circumstance that prompted the chief to this wise action. On a hunting tour in the Red River ccuntr}-, with a part of his band, they were overtaken by a drifting storm and remained, for several days, under the snow, without any food whatsoever. While buried in those drifts, he resolved to rely, in part, upon agriculture, for subsistence, if he escaped alive, and he carried out his resolution, after the immediate peril was passed. His band cultivated small fields of quickly maturing corn, which had been introduced by their chief in the early 30's. He was respected and loved by his people and quite well obeyed.
Before the coming of the missionaries he taught and enforced, by his example, this principle, namely, that
REV. JOHN EASTMAN.
SOWING AND REAPING.
93
it as wrong to kill non-combatants, or to kill under any circumstances in time of peace. He favored peace rather than war. He was twenty-five years of age, and had six notches on the handle of his tomahawk, indicating t'hat he had slain half a dozen of his O jib way foes before he adopted this human policy.
His own band lived on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Harriet, within the present limits of Minneapo-On the present site of lovely Lakewood—Minneapolis' most fashionable cemetery—was his village of several hundred savages, and also an Indian burial place. This village was the front guard against the war parties of the O jib ways—feudal enemies of the Sioux—but finally as their young men were killed off in battle, they were compelled to remove and join their people on the banks of the Minnesota and farther West. He located his greatly reduced band at Bloomington, directly west of his original village. This removal occurred prior to 1838.