May the blessing of Him who dwelt in the Burning" Bush, rest upon all these toilers on the prairies of the new Northwest.
R. J. Creswell.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, January, 1906.
AMONG THE SIOUX.
PART ONE.
SOWING AND REAPING.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing
Precious Seed, Shall doubtless come again
With rejoicing.
Bringing his sheaves.
Chapter I
Now appear the /low'rets fair Beautiful beyond compare And all nature seems to say, "Welcome, welcome, blooming May."
It was 1834. A lovely day—the opening of the merry month of May!
The Warrior, a Mississippi steamer, glided out of P'ever River, at Galena, Illinois, and turned its prow up the Mississippi. Its destination was the mouth of the St. Peters—now Minnesota River—five hundred miles to the north—the port of entry to the then unknown land of the Upper Mississippi.
The passengers formed a motley group; officers^ soldiers, fur-traders, adventurers, and two young men from New England. These latter were two brothers, Samuel William and Gideon Hollister Pond, from Washington, Connecticut. At this time, Samuel the elder of the two, was twenty-six years of age and in form, tall and very slender as he continued through life. Gideon, the younger and more robust brother was not quite twenty-four, more than six feet in height, strong and active, a specimen of well developed manhood. With their clear blue eyes, and their tall, fully developed forms, they must have attracted marked attention even among that band of brawny frontiersmen.
In 1831 a gracious revival had occurred in their na-
tive village of Washing-ton. It was so marked in its character, and permanent in its results, that it formed an epoch in the history of that region and is still spoken of as "the great revival''. For months, during the busiest season of the year, crowded sunrise prayer-meetings were held daily and were well attended by an agricultural population, busily engaged every day in the pressing toil of the harvest and the hayfieJds. Scores were converted and enrolled themselves as soldiers of the cross.
Among these were the two Pond brothers. This was. in reality with them, the beginning of a new life. From this point in tlieir lives, the inspiring motive, with both these brothers, was a spirit of intense loy-altv to their new Master and a burning love for the souls of their fellowmen. Picked by the Holy Spirit out of more t!lian one hundred converts for special service for th^ Lord Jesus Christ, the Pond brothers resolutelv determined to choose a field of very hard service, one to which no others desired to go. In the search for such a field, Samuel the elder brother, journeyed from New Haven to Galena, Illinois, and spent the autumn and winter of 1833-34 in his explorations. He visited Chicago, then a struggling village of a few hundred inhabitants and other embryo towns and cities. He also saw the Winnebago Indians and the Pbtta-watomies, but he was not led to choose a field of labor amongst any of these.
A strange Providence finally pointed the way to Mr. Pond. In his efforts to reform a rumseller at Galena, he gained much information concerning the
Sioux Indians, whose territory the rumseller had traversed on his way from the Red River country from which he had come quite recently. He represented the Sioux Indians as vile, degraded, ignorant, superstitious and wholly given up to evil.
"There," said the rumseller, "is a people for whose souls nobody cares. They are utterly destitute of moral and religious teachings. No' efforts have ever been made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fellows are looking, in earnest, for a hard job, there is one ready for you to tackle on those bleak prairies."
This man's description of the terrible condition of the Sioux Indians in those times was fairly accurate. Those wild, roving and utterly neglected Indian;s were proper subjects for Christian effort' and promised to furnish the opportunities for self-denying and stlf-sacrihcing labors for which the brothers were seeking.
Mr. Pond at- once recognized this peculiar call as from God. After prayerful deliberation, Samuel determined to write to his brother Gideon, inviting the latter to join him early the following spring, and undertake with him an independent mission to the Sioux.
He wrote to Gideon:—'T have finally found the field of service for which we have long been seeking. It lies in the regions round about Fort Snelling. It is among the savage Sioux of those far northern plains. They are an ignorant, savage and degraded people. It is said to be a very cold', dreary, storm-swept region. But we are not seeking a soft spot to rest in or easv service. So come on."
Despite strong', almost bitter opposition from friends and kinsmen, Gideon accepted and began his prepara-\tions for life among the Indians, and in March, 1834, he bade farewell to his friends and kindred and began his journey westward.
Early in April, he arrived at Galena, equipped for their strange. Heaven-inspired mission. He found his brother firmly fixed in his resolution to carry out the plans already decided upon. In a few days we find them on the steamer's deck, moving steadily up the mighty father of waters, towards their destination. "This is a serious undertaking," remarked the younger brother as they steamed northward. And such it was. There was in it no element of attractiveness from a human view-point.
They expected to go among roving tribes, to have no permanent abiding place and to subsist as those wild and savage tribes subsisted. Their plan was a simple and feasible one, as they proved by experience, but one which required large stores of faith and fortitude every step of the way. They knew, also, that outside of a narrow circle of personal friends, none knew anything of this mission to the Sioux, or felt the slightest interest in its success or failure. But undismayed they pressed on.
The scenery of the Upper Mississippi is still pleasing to those eyes, which behold it, clothed in its springtime robes of beauty. In 1834, this scenery shone forth in all the primeval glory of ''nat'nre unmarred by the hand of man.''
As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way
SAMUEL VV. POND, 20 Years a Missionary to the Sioux.
GiDFON H. POND^
For Twenty years Missionary to the Dakotas.
up the Mississippi, the rich May verdure, through which they passed, appeared strikingly beautiful to the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. It was a most delightful journey and ended on the sixth day of May, at the dock at old Fort vSnelling.
This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civilization. It had been established in 1819, as our front-guard against the British and Indians of the Northwest. It was located on the high plateau, lying between the Mississippi and tlie Minnesota (St. Peters) rivers, and it was then the only im])ortant place within the limits of the present state of Minnesota.
While still on board the Warrior, the brothers received a visit and a warm welcome from the Rev. William T. Boutell, a missionarv of the American Board to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He was greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear brethren, who, from love to Christ and for the poor red man, had come alone to this long-neglected field."
A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves in savage environments and face to face with the grave problems they had come so far to solve. They were men extremely well fitted, mentally and physically, naturally and by training for the toils and privations of the life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not by man but by the Lord; appointed, not by any human authority but by the great Jehovah; without salary or any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknowm, unheralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead earnest, their grand life-work. Their mission and commission was to conquer that savage tribe of fierce.