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 In-^ dian 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.
]oo AMONG THE SIOUX.
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 i860, at Lane Seminary, Cincinnatti. 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. xA.nd he has accomplished great things for the Master and the tribe to which he has ministered.
In i860 he established a mission and organized a Presbyterian church of twelve members at Red Wood Agency on the Minnesota. These were both dstroyed, 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.
SOWING AND REAPING. loi
In 1883, he was appointed superintendent oi Presbyterian missions among the Sioux Indians. He has ever abounded in self-sacrificing and successful labors a-mong 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 "lapi Oayi," an Indian weekly. In 1864, he published 'Towa 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. AMiile he has passed the limit of liis 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 pronounced, by a Sioux Indian as a member of the tribe always does it so lovingly, all who hear it know he refers to ''J<^hn, the Beloved of the Sioux Nation."
X THE MARTYRS OF OLD ST. ]DE.
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 bcundar}' 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 Ijy the wood-crowned mountain and the forest-lined river and prairies, rich as the gardens of the gods, 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 w^ithin and without and roofed with shingles. 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 shipped annually to St. Paul in carts. Sometimes a train of four hundred of these woodeii carts started together for St. Paul, a distance of four hundred miles.
But old things have passed away. The village ot 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, ^^ a missionary at Lake Win-nibogosh, Minnesota. His father had been stolen, when a lad, from his Kentucky home, by the Indians. Near the close of 1849 ^e 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, Washington 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^ Societ}'. 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 lass, 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 I, 1853, a band of Presbyterian missionaries arrived at St. Joe. It was composed of the Reverends-A.lonzo Barnard and David Brainard Spencer, their wives and children. They came in canoes and in carts from Red and Cass 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 Ptembina 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 sufl'ering, she died, Oct. 22, 1853, of quick consumption, caused by ten years exposure and suffering for the welfare of the Indians.