Mrs. Barnard was first interred at the Selkirk settlement, in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). In the absense of other clergymen, Mr. Barnard was
compelled to officiate at his wife's funeral himself. In obedience to her dyino^ request, Mrs. Barnard's remains were removed to St. Joe and re-interred in the yard of the humble mission cabin, Dec. 3, 1853.
In 1854^ Mr. Barnard visited Ohio to provide a home for his children. On his return, at Belle Prairie, Minnesota, midway between St. Paul and St. Joe, he met Mr. Spencer and his three motherless children, journeying four hundred miles by ox-cart to St. Paul. There in the rude hovel in which they spent the nig-ht, Mr. Barnard baptized Mr. Spencer's infant son, now an honored minister of the Congregational church in Wisconsin. On his arrival at St. Joe Mr. Barnard foruid another mound close by the grave of his beloved wife.
The story of this third grave is, also, written in blood. It was Aug. 30, 1854. The hostile Sioux were infesting the Pembina region. Only the previous month, had Mrs. Spencer written to a far distant friend in India: ''Last December the Lord gave us a little son, whose smiling face cheers many a lonely hour." On this fatal night, she arose to care for this darling boy. A noise at the window attracted her attention. She withdrew the curtain to ascertain the cause. Three Indians stood there with loaded rifles and fired. Three bullets struck her, two in her throat and one in her breast. She neither cried out nor spoke, but reeling to her bed, with her babe in her amis, knelt down, where she was soon discovered by her husband, when he returned from barricading the door. She suleered intensely for several hours and then died. And till daybreak Mr. Spencer sat in a
horrid dream, holding his dead wife in his arms. The baby lay in the rude cradle near by, bathed in his mother's blood. The two elder children stood by terrified and weeping. Such was the distressing scene which the neighbors beheld in the morning, when they came with their proffers of sympathy and help. The friendly half-breeds came in, cared for the poor children and prepared the dead mother for burial. A half-breed dug the grave and nailed a rude box together for a coffin. Then with a bleeding heart, the sore bereaved man consigned to the bosom of the friendly earth the remains of his murdered wife.
Within the past thirty years civilization has rapidly taken possession of this lovely region. Christian homes and Christian churches cover these rich prairies. The prosperous and rapidly growing village of Walhalla (Paradise) nestles in the bosom of this lovely vale and occupies contentedly the former site of Old St. Joe.
June 21, 1888, one of the most interesting events in the history of North Dakota occurred at the Presbyterian cemetery, which crowns the brow of the mountain, overlooking Walhalla. It was the unveiling of the monument erected by the Woman's Synodical Missionary Society of North Dakota, which they had previously erected to the memory of Sarah Philena Barnard and Cornelia Spencer, two of the three "Martyrs (^f St. Toe." The monument is a beautiful and appropriate one of white marble. The broken pieces of old stone formerly placed on Mrs. Barnard's grave, long scattered and lost, were discovered, cemented together and placed upon her new grave. The Rev. Alonzo
Barnard, seventy-one years of age, accompanied by his daughter, was present. Standing upon the graves of the martyrs, with tremulous voice and moistened eyes, he gave to the assembled multitude a history of their early missionary toil in the abodes of savagery. It was a thrilling story, the interest intensified by the surroundings. The half-breed women who prepared Mrs. Spencer's body for the burial and who washed and dressed the little babe after his baptism in his mother's blood, were present. The same half-breed who dug Mrs. Spencer's grave in 1854 dug the new grave in 1888. Several pioneers famihar with the facts of the tragedy at the time of its occurrence were also present.
"The Martyr's Plot," the last resting place of these devoted servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a beautiful spot, on the hillside, in the Presbyterian Cemetery at Walhalla. It is enclosed by a neat fence, and each of these three martyr's graves is marked by a white stone, with an appropriate inscription.
The Rev. Alonzo Barnard retired to Michigan, where he gave five years of missionary toil to the Chippewas at Omene and many other years of helpful service to the white settlers at other points in that state. In 1883 he retired from the work of the active ministry and spent the remainder of his days with his children.
He died April 14, 1905, at Pomona, Michigan, at the home of his son, Dr. James Barnard, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. There is a large and flourish-
ing Episcopal Indian church at Leech Lake. Minnesota, the scene of Mr. Barnard's labors from 1843-52. The rector is the Rev. Charles T. Wright, a full-blood Chippewa. He is the eldest son of that famous chieftain. Gray Cloud and is now himself, chief of all the Chppewas. "Thus one soweth and another reap-eth."