Chapter XXIV: Appendix: Monographs (1)

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS.

CORNELIA MARGARET, daughter of Hon. John B. Foster and Catharine McGaw Foster, was born in Bangor, Me., March 19, 1848. Very soon after she left us, on August 5, 1878, there appeared appreciative testimonials of her life and character in the _Advance_, in the _Iapi Oaye_, and in _Life and Light_. In preparing this monograph, the writer will make free use of all these materials.

Rev. R. B. Howard, while in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, knew her as Nina Foster, "a golden-haired, fair-cheeked, gracefully formed little Sabbath-school scholar of ten, at the Central Church. Her quick, laughing eye, her sensitive face reflecting every changing thought, her constant companionship of an only sister a little taller, her ready answers to all Sabbath-school questions, her intelligent appreciation of the sermons, and her sunshiny presence at school and at home, were among the impressions which her childhood gave.

"She lacked no means of cultivating the rare powers of mind which she early developed. Many things she seemed to learn intuitively. Her scholarship was bright, quick, accurate. Literature was her delight. Her mother's father, Judge McGaw, whose white locks and venerable presence then honored Bangor, was an interested and judicious guide in the home reading.

"In social life few shone more brilliantly, or were more admired and sought after. In those days, the beauty of person of the young lady was of a rare and noticeable type. Her conversational powers were fascinating. She had by nature genuine histrionic talent, and in conversation, reading, or reciting seemed to be completely the person she sought to represent. On one occasion, by a slight change of dress, voice, and manner, she appeared as an aged widow, pleading with a high officer of the government at Washington, to help her find her son, lost in the troublous times of the war."

The "only sister, a little taller," Mrs. Katie Foster Howard, thus testifies of Nina's early life:--

"When a little child, from eight to twelve years old, she and some of her companions formed 'a praying circle,' and had a little room in one of their homes which they called The House of Prayer. They met often in this room, and delighted to decorate it after their childish fashion.

"Another favorite occupation was the teaching of some poor children whom she and one or two friends brought out of their dreary homes to the church vestibule, and there taught to sew and read.

"When eleven years old she was examined by the pastor and church officers for admission to the church; they asked her how long she had loved Jesus, and she answered,'Oh, a great many years.'"

Mrs. Howard speaks of her sister as "the little girl in the Eastern home, whose _spirituelle_ face, with its halo of golden hair, seemed so much more of heaven than of earth as to cause the frequent, anxious comment that this world could not long detain her. An active, happy child among her playmates, her thoughts were often upon heavenly things, and her desire was to turn theirs thitherward, yet without anything morbid or unchildlike in her ways.

"As she grew to womanhood, she was the delight of the home which so tenderly shielded her from every rude blast, and of a large circle of attached friends. She possessed those charms of person and manners and qualities of mind which won admiration, and peculiarly fitted her to enjoy and adorn society. So when the time came for her to change this for a secluded life, many regretted that the fine gold should be sent where baser metal, as they thought, would do as well; that the noble woman, so eminently fitted for usefulness in circles of refinement, should spend her life among the degraded and unappreciative savages. But the event has proved that only such a nature, abounding in resources, could be the animating spirit of a model home in the wilderness; which should be an object-lesson of Christian culture not only to the Indian but to the army people, who were her only white neighbors, and who for her sake could look with interest on a work too often an object of contempt. And thus the reflex influence upon those who missed her from their number, or met her as she journeyed to her field of labor, has been in proportion to the grace of her refinement and the depth and breadth of her character. God, who spared not his own Son, still gives his choicest ones to the salvation of men."

While on a visit to Chicago, in the family of her sister, she first became acquainted with Thomas L. Riggs, then a student in the theological seminary. Their mutual love soon compelled her to consider what it would be to share in his life-work. She recognized its hardships and deprivations as could hardly have been expected in one so inexperienced in life's trials. She afterward often playfully said she was "not a missionary, only a missionary's wife." But it was a double consecration, joyous and entire, to the life of wife and missionary.

Thomas and Nina were married at her home in Bangor, December 26, 1872. It is said, "Christian people, and even Christian ministers, were inclined to say, 'Why this waste?'" Some did say it. Some spoke in bitter and almost angry condemnation of her course. That this beautiful and accomplished girl, eminently fitted to adorn any society, should devote herself to a missionary life, occasioned much comment in the social circle in which she had been prominent. What could she do for the coarse, degraded Indian women, that might not be better done by a less refined, sensitive, and elevated nature? Why shut up her beauty and talents in the log cabin of an Indian missionary? It was a shock to some who had preached self-sacrifice, and a painful surprise to many who had been praying the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. But none of these things moved her. There has seldom been a sweeter and more lovely bride. The parents too made the consecration, while they wrestled in spirit. The father writes: "I gave her up when she left us on that winter's night. It was a hard struggle, but I think I gave her unconditionally to God, to whom she so cheerfully gave herself."

At this season of the year, it was not possible for Nina to accompany her husband to Fort Sully, and so he left her at Gen. C. H. Howard's, near Chicago, to come on in the early spring. This was my first opportunity of becoming acquainted with "Mitakosh Washta," as I soon learned to call her. General Howard accompanied her to Sioux City, and then I became her escort by railroad and stage to Santee agency, and thence by steamboat to Sully. The boat was nearly two weeks on the way, and we took on two companies of United States troops at Fort Randall. The officers soon manifested a marked admiration for the beauty and culture of the Bangor lady; so that afterward, in alluding to this little episode, I used playfully to say to Nina that I was rejoiced when Thomas, coming down the Missouri in his skiff, met us and took charge of his bride.

We had but a few weeks to spend at Fort Sully, until we should start down to the meeting of our annual Conference, which was held in June that year, at the Yankton agency. But those weeks were full of pleasure to Nina. Everything was new and strange. She was devoid of fear when she sat in the iron skiff, and crossed the Big Muddy with her husband at the helm. The time came to go down. It was nearly noon on Monday when we were ready to start; but, by hard driving, we were able to reach Rev. John P. Williamson's--more than 200 miles--by the afternoon of Thursday. Secretary S. J. Humphrey, from Chicago, was there, and afterward wrote that for T. L. Riggs and the father, who were accustomed to hard traveling and sleeping on the ground, it was nothing very strange; but for one reared as Nina had been, it was simply wonderful.

This was the first meeting of Martha Riggs Morris with her new sister. When the latter had gone beyond our ken, Martha wrote an appreciative article for the _Word Carrier_: "Let me give something," she wrote, "of the little glimpses I have had of her brave, cheery life. I may first go back to the time when we first heard of Nina Foster--who thought enough of T. L. Riggs and the Indian work to help him in it. That was in the spring-time. A few months later, Thomas had a hard ride across from Fort Sully to Sisseton on horseback, accompanied by a soldier for guard and an Indian for guide. He came to attend the annual Conference of the Dakota churches, and he showed us a picture of the young lady herself. A beautiful face, we all thought it was. And from what we heard of Nina Foster, we were all prepared to take her into our hearts, as we did when we saw her afterward.

"It was in June of the year following that I had my first glimpse of her. I had myself taken a tedious journey of some three hundred miles, and the years as well as the journey had worn upon me. So I felt some trepidation about meeting the blooming bride. But, on seeing her, that soon vanished, and I had nothing left but admiration for the beautiful sister. She told so merrily how they had strapped her in, to keep her from falling out of the wagon, and other incidents of her unaccustomed journey. There was an evident determination to make the best of every experience."

A little while after this Mrs. Morris was called to lay away her blue-eyed boy out of sight. Then Nina's letter was very comforting. "I have wept," she says, "with you for the dear little baby form laid away from your arms to its last sleep; and I think of your words, 'Nothing to do any more.' Ah! my dear sister, He will not so leave you comfortless. He who forgot not, in the last hours of his earthly life, to give to the aching mother-heart a new care and love, will not forget, I think, to bestow on your emptied hands some new duty which shall grow to be a joy."

At the meeting of the American Board at Minneapolis in the autumn of 1873, Mrs. Nina Riggs was present, and addressed the ladies of the Woman's Board, asking for a young lady companion in her far-off field. To this call Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield responded, and gave the remainder of her bright, true life to help on the work at Fort Sully. Nina visited her sister in Chicago, and charmed them all by reciting her strange experiences of the summer. "Her buoyant spirits and faculty for seeing the droll side of everything helped to make the sketch a bright one. Her sense of humor and keen wit has lightened many a load for herself and others; the more forlorn and hopeless the situation, the more elastic her spirits. How often have those of her own household, wearied with severe labor and weighed down with care, been compelled to laugh, almost against their will, by her irresistible drollery, and thus the current of thought was turned and the burden half thrown aside."

In the summer of 1874 baby Theodore was born, and none from Fort Sully came to our annual meeting. On my way from a visit to Fort Berthold, down the Missouri River, I stopped off for a few days. They were then occupying Hope Station, across the river from the fort. Both Miss Bishop and Mrs. Nina Riggs I found very enthusiastic over their work for the Teeton women.

When another year had been completed, Lizzie Bishop had gone home to die, and Nina Riggs made a visit to her friends in the East. The Board met in Chicago that autumn, and Mrs. Riggs again addressed the ladies. "Two years ago," she said, "at a meeting in Minneapolis, I made a request which was promptly answered. I asked for a young lady to go back with me to the mission work. I find her name is not on the rolls. But if ever a brave life should be recorded, and the name of an earnest woman be loved and remembered by all, it is that of Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield, Minn. We had hoped that she might return, but the Lord has not seen fit to allow that. He calls her to himself soon. For the past two years I have been at different stations. I was at Hope Station, on the west side of the Missouri. Now I am at Bogue Station, fifteen miles below Fort Sully, on the east side. Since I have been there, I have met a great many women. At first they all seemed to me very degraded; but I have come not only to feel interested in many of them, but to love some of them with a very deep love." So spake Nina; and when she sat down, a telegram was read that the good and brave Lizzie Bishop had already entered in through the gates of pearl, into "Jerusalem the golden."

Two others, Miss Mary C. Collins and Miss Emmaretta Whipple, were ready to start back with Mrs. Riggs. So the vacant place was more than filled, and they all girded themselves for a hard winter's work.

A little before this time, Nina sent to the _Word Carrier_ a short bit of poetry, which seems to embody her own wrestling with doubt in others. The last stanza reads:--

"With daring heart, I too have tried
To know the height and depth of God above;
And can I wonder that I too walked blind,
And felt stern Justice in the place of Love?
Above the child, the sun shines on;
Above me too One reigns I cannot see;
Yet all around I feel both warmth and power;
_If God is not_, whence can _their_ coming be?"

In September, 1876, the great gathering of the Dakota mission was held in the new Ascension church, on the Sisseton reservation. Mrs. Morris writes: "We looked out eagerly for the travelers from Fort Sully way. We hoped they would come a few days beforehand, so that we might have more of their companionship. But they did not come. And as we had to be on hand in the Ascension neighborhood, ten miles away, to entertain the missionaries that might come, we shut up our house, and went on without the Fort Sully friends. It was Friday noon when they arrived, and received a glad welcome from all."

Thomas and Nina and their little lad Theodore, now two years old, who amused every one with his quaint sayings, together with Miss Collins and Miss Whipple, with all their personal and camping baggage, had been packed for eight days into a small two-horse buggy. The journey of 250 miles, the way they traveled, over a country uninhabited, was not without its romance. "Not the least of the enjoyment of this 'feast of days,' were the bits of talk sandwiched in here and there between meetings, and caring for the children and providing for the guests. As we baked the bread and watched over the two cousins, Theodore and Mary Theodora, so nearly of an age, we had many a pleasant chat--Nina and I. She gave me an insight into their happy home-life, and I longed to know more. She told, too, of her special work in visiting the homes of the Teetons, and prescribing for the sick. At the special meeting held for the women, Nina made a few remarks, winning all hearts by her grace of manners, as well as by her lovely face. Now that she is gone, the Dakota women speak of her as 'the beautiful woman who spoke so well.'"

"To all who come I wish my home to seem a pleasant home," is a remark which Miss Collins accredits to Nina. So indeed we found it in the months of August and September of 1877. The dear Miss Whipple had just stepped into the boat at Chicago which carried her to the farther shore. Miss Collins was mourning over her departed comrade while making out the visit to her friends. By appointment I met on the way, Gen. Charles H. Howard of the _Advance_, who, with his family, was bound for Fort Sully. We were prospered in our journey up the Missouri, and gladly welcomed into the mission home on Peoria bottom. The two sisters met and passed some happy weeks in the home of the younger one. Mrs. Howard thus describes that home in those August days: "Its treeless waste lay under a scorching sun. Beneath a bluff which overlooks the river lowlands, nestled a solitary green enclosure around a long, low dwelling, whose aspect was of comfort and of home. The sunshine which withered the surrounding country was not the gentle power under which had sprung up this oasis in the desert. The light within the house, whose sweet radiance beautified the humble dwelling, and shone forth upon the wilderness around, was the fair soul, whose heaven-reflected glory touched all who came within its ray."

To the same effect is Miss Collins' testimony: "I think no one ever entered her home without feeling that the very house was purified by her presence. I remember well just how she studied our different tastes. She knew every member of the family thoroughly; and our happiness was consulted in all things." So we all thought. Nina presided in her own home, albeit that home was in Dakota land, with a queenly grace.

About the middle of that September our annual Conference met in their new and not yet finished chapel, on Peoria bottom. Miss Collins did not get back until the close of the meeting. Besides her guests, Mrs. Nina Riggs had a good deal of company from Fort Sully and the agency. But it was all entertained with the same quiet dignity. Of this visit to her sister, Mrs. Howard wrote afterward: "I do not know how to be grateful enough that we spent last summer (1877) together; it is a season of blessed memory."

To this I add: I too have one last picture of Nina in my memory. I was to return to Sisseton with the Indians who had come over to our annual Conference. They went up on Monday to Cheyenne agency to get rations for the journey. On Tuesday afternoon Thomas arranged to take me out fifteen miles to meet them. Thinking they would go out and return that evening a party was made up. The two sisters, Mrs. Howard and Nina, and little Theodore and Thomas and myself in a buggy, and Gen. C. H. Howard and "Mack" on ponies, we had a pleasant ride out. But it was too late for them to return. The Dakota friends gave us of their fresh meat, and with the provisions Nina had bountifully supplied for my journey, we all made a good supper and breakfast, and had an abundance left. The next morning we separated. That was my last sight of Nina.

In midsummer of 1878, the time for her departure came. She seemed to have a premonition of its coming. Miss Collins writes: "The last summer of her precious life seemed a very fitting one for the last. She labored earnestly for the conversion of her boy, and said: 'If I should die and leave my boy, I should feel so much better satisfied to go if he had that stronghold.'"

In the _Word Carrier_ for September appeared this notice: "Our beloved Nina Foster Riggs, wife of Rev. T. L. Riggs of Bogue Station, near Fort Sully, has heard the Master's call, and gone up higher. She was taken away in child-birth, on the 5th of August. Hers was a beautiful life, blossoming out into what we supposed would be a grand fruitage of blessing to the Dakotas. It is cut off suddenly! 'Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' _We are dumb, because thou didst it!_"

Two days after her death, Thomas wrote: "Dear Father--Mitakosh Washta has been taken from us. My good Nina has gone. She was taken sick Saturday night. Before the light of the Sabbath, violent convulsions had set in. We got the post surgeon and Mrs. Crocker here as soon as possible; but, though every effort was made, the spasms could not be prevented, and our dear one sank gradually out of reach. Early Monday morning, after child-birth, the mother seemed to brighten a bit; but soon our gladness was turned to sadness, for she did not rally. God took her. She was his. We buried the body--the beautiful house of the more beautiful spirit--in the yard near her window, yesterday. May God help us."

Only a few days before, a kind Providence had guided Arther H. Day, a cousin of Nina's, from his work in the office of the _Advance_, in Chicago, and Robert B. Riggs from his teaching in Beloit College, up to Peoria bottom, for a little rest. And so they were there to help and give sympathy. Of this event Mr. Day wrote: "Rarely is it the lot of one so blessed with loving relatives and friends to pass away surrounded by so few to sympathize, and to be buried with so few to weep. Three relatives and nine other white friends stood alone by her grave, and the many hundreds in the far East knew not of the scene. I say _white_ friends, because I would not ignore the presence of those many dusky faces which looked on in sorrow, because _their friend_ was dead.

"About noon on Tuesday, August 6, the funeral service was conducted by Chaplain Crocker. The same hymn was sung that, by Nina's own choice, had been sung at her wedding:--

"'Guide me, O thou great Jehovah.'

One room of the house was filled with Indians, and the service was partly in the native language. Her grave was made near the window of her room, where she so often had beheld the sunset; and as kindly hands laid her body there, surrounded by beautiful flowers, the chaplain said: 'Never was more precious dust laid in Dakota soil--never more hopeful seed planted for a spiritual harvest among the Dakota people.'"

This beautiful summing-up of her character appeared as an editorial in the _Advance_, by Rev. Simeon Gilbert:--

"Here was a young woman of extraordinary beauty of person, of
still more noticeable symmetry and completeness of mental
endowment, sweetness and nobility of disposition, brightness and
elasticity of temperament; quickly, keenly sympathetic with
others' joys and sorrows--but who had never known a grief of her
own; converted in infancy, reared in one of the happiest of
earnest Christian homes, and favored with as fine social and
educational advantages as the country affords; with too much
sense to be affected by mere 'romance,' yet deeply alive to all
the poetry alike in literature and in real life; and withal,
from early childhood, with a spiritual imagination exquisitely
alive to the realness and the nearness of unseen things, and the
all-controlling sweep of the motives springing
therefrom;--rarely does one meet a young person better fitted at
once to enjoy and to adorn what is best in American Christian
homes. At the age of twenty-four she marries a young man just
out of the seminary, and goes forth with him beyond the
frontiers of civilization, into the very heart of savage Indian
tribes. What a sacrifice; what a venture; what certain-coming
solicitudes, perils, cares, deprivations, hardships, loneliness,
and mountainous discouragements! And there for the short period
of less than five years she lives, when suddenly the young
missionary is left alone, longing for the 'touch of a vanished
hand and the sound of a voice that is still.'

"Now, a case like this must set one to studying over again
what, after all, is the true philosophy of life, and what, on
the whole, is the wisest economy of personal forces in the
church's work of Christianizing the world. As helping to a
right answer, let us note a few facts:--

"1. It costs to save a lost world; and nothing is wasted that
serves well that end. God himself has given for this purpose
the choicest, the highest, and the best which it was possible
for even him to give.

"2. Heathen people, even savages, as we call them, are not
insensible to the unique fascination, and power to subdue and
inspire, which belong to what is really most beautiful in
aspect, manner, mind, and character. Often it is to them as if
they had seen a vision, or dreamed a startling dream of
possibilities of which they had known nothing, and could have
known nothing, until they _saw_ it, and the sight awakened into
being and action the diviner elements of their own hidden
nature. The Word of God is one form of revelation, but the work
of God in a peculiarly complete and lovely character is another
revelation, and one that unmistakably interprets itself. There
is as much need of the one as there is of the other. The light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ
must, in most cases at least, first be seen reflected 'in the
face' of some of his disciples. The more dense the darkness,
the more intense must be the shining of the love and the beauty
of the truth which are to enlighten, captivate, lead forth, and
refine. Among all the teepees and huts of that Indian
reservation, as also throughout the barracks and quarters of
the military post at Fort Sully, Mrs. Riggs was known, and the
potent charm of her personal influence and home-life was deeply
felt. It is largely due to such persons that the cause of
missions, even among the most degraded, commands the respect,
if not the veneration, of those who otherwise might have
looked on derisively.

"3. Nor, again, are the lives of such persons wasted as regards
their influence upon those who knew them, or shall come to know
of them; at home. 'How far that little candle throws its beams;
so shines a good example'; and in instances like these it
shines more effectively than, perhaps, in any other
circumstances would have been possible. If one were to mention
a score of American women who have exerted most influence in
determining the best characteristics of American women, half of
them, we suspect, would be names of the women who, leaving home
and country, went far forth seeking to multiply similar homes
in other countries.

"4. Nor, again, is the strangely beautiful life wasted because
cut short so early in its course. The ointment most precious
was never more so than when its box was broken and the odor of
it filled all the house. This that this young missionary has
done, animated by the love of the Master and a sacred passion
for lifting up the lowly, will be spoken of as a memorial of
her in all the churches; and in not a few homes, of the rich as
of the poor, will be felt the sweet constraint of her
beautiful, joyous, consecrated life. She was not alone; there
are many more like her; and, best of all, there are to be
vastly more yet, who will not be deaf to 'the high calling.'
The Master has need of them. The way, on the whole, is
infinitely attractive. Thanks for the life of this woman who
did so much, from first to last, to make it appear so!

"And thanks too for such a death, which, coming in the sweetest
and completest blooming of life's beauty, when not a fault had
stayed to mar it, and no wasting had ever touched it--an ending
which transfigures all that came before it, and which now, in
the mingling of retrospect and prospect, helps those who knew
her to a deeply surprised sense of the fact that,

'To Death it is given,
To see how this world is embosomed in heaven.'"

To us, who are blind and cannot see afar off, it is impossible to perceive, and difficult to believe, that the taking away in the vigor of womanhood of one who was showing such a capacity and adaptability for the work of elevating the Teetons can be made to subserve the furtherance of the cause of Christ. But we must believe that God, who sees the end from the beginning, and who makes no mistakes, will bring out of this sore bereavement a harvest of joy; and that that grave under the window of the mission house in Peoria bottom will be a testimony to the love of Jesus and the power of his Gospel, that will thrill and uplift many hearts from Bangor to Fort Sully. It was a beautiful life of faith and service; and it has only gone to be perfected in the shadow of the Tree of Life.

S. R. R.

REV. GIDEON H. POND.

A SUCCESSFUL LIFE.

Born and brought up in Litchfield county, in a town adjoining Washington, Connecticut, Rev. George Bushnell visited that hill country in his youth, and was deeply impressed with the manifest and pervading religious element in the community. Taken there by a special providence, more than a quarter of a century ago, and enjoying the privilege of a visit in some of the families, it seemed to me that it had been a good place to raise men. This was on the line of the impression made upon me years before that. When I first met, in the land of the Dakotas, the brothers Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, they were both over six feet high, and "seemed the children of a king."

In this hill town of Washington, on the 30th of June, 1810, Gideon Hollister, the younger of the two brothers, was born. His parents were Elnathan Judson and Sarah Hollister Pond. Gideon was the fifth child, and so was called by the Dakotas _Hakay_. Of his childhood and youth almost nothing is known to the writer. He had the advantage of a New England common-school education; perhaps nothing more. As he grew very rapidly and came to the size and strength of man early, he made a full hand in the harvest field at the age of sixteen. To this ambition to be counted a man and do a man's work when as yet he should have been a boy, he in after life ascribed some of his infirmities. This ambition continued with him through life, and occasional over-work at last undermined a constitution that might, with care and God's blessing, have continued to the end of the century.

He came to the land of the Dakotas, now Minnesota, in the spring of 1834. The older brother, Samuel, had come out as far as Galena, Ill., in the summer previous. The pioneer minister of that country of lead was Rev. Aratus Kent, who desired to retain Mr. Pond as an adjutant in his great and constantly enlarging work; but Mr. Pond had heard of the Sioux, or Dakotas, for whose souls no one cared, and, having decided to go to them, he sent for his brother Gideon to accompany him.

When they reached Fort Snelling, and made known their errand to the commanding officer of the post, Major Bliss, and to the resident Indian agent, Major Taliaferro, they received the hearty approval and co-operation of both, and the agent at once recommended them to commence work with the Dakotas of the Lake Calhoun village, where some steps had already been taken in the line of civilization. There, on the margin of the lake, they built their log cabin. Last summer Mr. King's grand Pavilion, so called, was completed on the same spot, which gave occasion for Mr. Gideon H. Pond to tell the story of this first effort in that line:

"Just forty-three years previous to the occurrence above alluded
to, on the same beautiful site, was completed an humble edifice,
built by the hands of two inexperienced New England boys, just
setting out in life-work. The foundation-stones of that hut were
removed to make place for the present Pavilion, perchance
compose a part of it. The old structure was of oak logs,
carefully peeled. The peeling was a mistake. Twelve feet by
sixteen, and eight feet high, were the dimensions of the
edifice. Straight poles from the tamarack grove west of the lake
formed the timbers of the roof, and the roof itself was of the
bark of trees which grew on the bank of what is now called
'Bassett's Creek,' fastened with strings of the inner bark of
the bass wood. A partition of small logs divided the house into
two rooms, and split logs furnished material for a floor. The
ceiling was of slabs from the old government saw-mill, through
the kindness of Major Bliss, who was in command of Fort
Snelling. The door was made of boards split from a log with an
axe, having wooden hinges and fastenings, and was locked by
pulling in the latch-string. The single window was the gift of
the kind-hearted Major Lawrence Taliaferro, United States Indian
agent. The cash cost of the building was one shilling, New York
currency, for nails used in and about the door. 'The formal
opening' exercises consisted in reading a section from the old
book by the name of BIBLE, and prayer to Him who was its
acknowledged author. The 'banquet' consisted of mussels from the
lake, flour and water. The ground was selected by the Indian
chief of the Lake Calhoun band of Dakotas, Man-of-the-sky, by
which he showed good taste. The reason he gave for the selection
was that 'from that point the loons would be visible on the
lake.'

"The old chief and his pagan people had their homes on the
surface of that ground in the bosom of which now sleep the
bodies of deceased Christians from the city of Minneapolis, the
Lake Wood cemetery, over which these old eyes have witnessed,
dangling in the night breeze, many a Chippewa scalp, in the
midst of horrid chants, yells, and wails, widely contrasting
with the present stillness of that quiet home of those

'Who sleep the years away.'

That hut was the home of the first citizen settlers of Hennepin
county, perhaps of Minnesota, the first school-room, the first
house for divine worship, and the first mission station among
the Dakota Indians."

The departure of Mr. Pond called forth from Gen. Henry H. Sibley so just and beautiful a tribute, that I can not forbear inserting a portion, from the _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul:--

"When the writer came to this country, in 1834, he did not
expect to meet a single white man, except those composing the
garrison at Fort Snelling, a few government officials attached
to the department of Indian affairs, and the traders and
voyageurs employed by the great fur company in its business.
There was but one house, or, rather, log cabin, along the entire
distance of nearly 300 miles between Prairie du Chien and St.
Peters, now Mendota, and that was at a point below Lake Pepin,
near the present town of Wabashaw. What was his surprise then to
find that his advent had been preceded in the spring of the same
year by two young Americans, Samuel W. Pond and Gideon H. Pond,
brothers, scarcely out of their teens, who had built for
themselves a small hut at the Indian village of Lake Calhoun,
and had determined to consecrate their lives to the work of
civilizing and Christianizing the wild Sioux. For many long
years these devoted men labored in the cause, through manifold
difficulties and discouragements, sustained by a faith that the
seed sown would make itself manifest in God's good time. The
efforts then made to reclaim the savages from their mode of
life, the influence of their blameless and religious walk and
conversation upon those with whom they were brought in daily
contact, and the self-denial and personal sacrifices required at
their hands, are doubtless treasured up in a higher than human
record."

General Sibley mentions an incident belonging to this period of their residence at Lake Calhoun, which never before came to my knowledge:--

"Gifted with an uncommonly fine constitution, the subject of
this sketch met with an accident in his early days, from the
effects of which it is questionable if he ever entirely
recovered. He broke through the ice at Lake Harriet in the early
part of the winter, and as there was no one at hand to afford
aid, he only saved his life after a desperate struggle, by
continuing to fracture the frozen surface until he reached
shallow water, when he succeeded in extricating himself. His
long immersion and exhaustive efforts brought on a severe attack
of pneumonia, which for many days threatened a fatal
termination."

My own personal acquaintance with Mr. Pond commenced in the summer of 1837. He was then, and had been for a year previous, at Lac-qui-parle. In September my wife and I joined that station, and the first event occurring after that, which has impressed itself upon my memory, was the marriage of Mr. Pond and Miss Sarah Poage, sister of Mrs. Dr. Williamson. This was the first marriage ceremony I had been called upon to perform; and Mr. Pond signalized it by making a feast, and calling, according to the Saviour's injunction, "the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind." And there was a plenty of such to be called in that Dakota village. They could not recompense him, but "he shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."

Mr. Pond had long been yearning to see what was inside of an Indian. He sometimes said he wanted to be an Indian, if only for a little while, that he might know how an Indian felt, and by what motives he could be moved. When the early spring of 1838 came, and the ducks began to come northward, a half-dozen Dakota families started from Lac-qui-parle to hunt and trap on the upper part of the Chippewa River, in the neighborhood of where the town of Benson now is. Mr. Pond went with them and was gone two weeks. It was in the month of April, and the streams were flooded and the water was cold. There should have been enough of game easily obtained to feed the party. But it did not prove so. A cold spell came on, the ducks disappeared, and Mr. Pond and his Indian hunters were reduced to scanty fare, and sometimes they had nothing for a whole day. But Mr. Pond was seeing inside of Indians and was quite willing to starve a good deal. However, his stay with them, and their hunt for that time as well, was suddenly terminated, by the appearance of the Ojibwa chief Hole-in-the-Day and ten men with him. They came to smoke the peace-pipe, they said. They were royally feasted by three of the families, who killed their dogs to feed the strangers, who, in turn, arose in the night and killed the Dakotas. As God would have it, Mr. Pond was not then with those three tents, and so he escaped.

No one had started with more of a determination to master the Dakota language than Gideon H. Pond. And no one of the older missionaries succeeded so well in learning to talk just like a Dakota. Indeed, he must have had a peculiar aptitude for acquiring language; for in these first years of missionary life, he learned to read French and Latin and Greek, so that the second Mrs. Pond writes: "When I came, and for a number of years, he read from the Greek Testament at our family worship in the morning. Afterward he used his Latin Bible, and still later his French Testament."

In this line of literary work General Sibley's testimony is appreciative. He says:--

"Indeed, to them, and to their veteran co-laborers, Rev. T. S.
Williamson and Rev. S. R. Riggs, the credit is to be ascribed of
having produced this rude and rich Dakota tongue to the learned
world in a written and systematic shape, the lexicon prepared by
their joint labors forming one of the publications of the
Smithsonian Institute at Washington City, which has justly
elicited the commendation of experts in philological lore, as a
most valuable contribution to that branch of literature."

While Mr. Pond was naturally ambitious, he was also peculiarly sensitive and retiring. When the writer was left with him at Lac-qui-parle, Dr. Williamson having gone to Ohio for the winter, although so much better master of the Dakota than I was at that time, he was unwilling to take more than a secondary part in the Sabbath services. "Dr. Williamson and you are ministers," he would say. And even years afterward, when he and his family had removed to the neighborhood of Fort Snelling, and he and his brother had built at Oak Grove, with the people of their first love, Gideon H. could hardly be persuaded that it was his duty to become a preacher of the Gospel. I remember more than one long conversation I had with him on the subject. He seemed to shrink from it as a little child, although he was then thirty-seven years old.

In the spring of 1847, he and Mr. Robert Hopkins were licensed by the Dakota presbytery, and ordained in the autumn of 1848. We were not disappointed in our men. Mr. Hopkins gave evidence of large adaptation to the missionary work; but in less than three years he heard the call of the Master, and went up through a flood of waters. Mr. Pond, notwithstanding his hesitation in accepting the office, became a most acceptable and efficient and successful preacher and pastor.

After the treaties of 1851, these Lower Sioux were removed to the Upper Minnesota. White people came in immediately and took possession of their lands. Mr. Pond elected to remain and labor among the white people. He very soon organized a church, which in a short time became a working, benevolent church--for some years the banner Presbyterian church of Minnesota in the way of benevolence. When, in 1873, Mr. Pond resigned his pastorate, he wrote in his diary, "I have preached to the people of Bloomington twenty years." He received home mission aid only a few years.

We are very glad to have placed at our disposal so much of the private journal of the late Rev. G. H. Pond as relates to the wonderful work of God among the Dakotas in prison at Mankato, Minn., in the winter of 1862-63. The facts, in the main, have been published before; but the story, as told so simply and graphically by Mr. Pond, may well bear repeating. Mr. Pond arrived at Mankato Saturday, January 31, 1863, and remained until the afternoon of Tuesday, February 3:--

"There are over three hundred Indians in prison, the most of
whom are in chains. There is a degree of religious interest
manifested by them, which is incredible. They huddle themselves
together every morning and evening in the prison, and read the
Scriptures, sing hymns, confess one to another, exhort one
another, and pray together. They say that their whole lives have
been wicked--that they have adhered to the superstitions of
their ancestors until they have reduced themselves to their
present state of wretchedness and ruin. They declare that they
have left it all, and will leave all forever; that they do and
will embrace the religion of Jesus Christ, and adhere to it as
long as they live; and that this is their only hope, both in
this world and in the next. They say that before they came to
this state of mind--this determination--their hearts failed them
with fear, but now they have much mental ease and comfort.

"About fifty men of the Lake Calhoun band expressed a wish to
be baptized by me, rather than by any one else, on the ground
that my brother and myself had been their first and chief
instructors in religion. After consultation with Rev. Marcus
Hicks of Mankato, Dr. Williamson and I decided to grant their
request, and administer to them the Christian ordinance of
baptism. We made the conditions as plain as we could, and we
proclaimed there in the prison that we would baptize such as
felt ready heartily to comply with the conditions--commanding
that none should come forward to receive the rite who did not
do it heartily to the God of heaven, whose eye penetrated each
of their hearts. All, by a hearty--apparently hearty--response,
signified their desire to receive the rite on the conditions
offered.

"As soon as preparations could be completed, and we had
provided ourselves with a basin of water, they came forward,
one by one, as their names were called, and were baptized into
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, while each
subject stood with his right hand raised and head bowed, and
many of them with the eyes closed, with an appearance of
profound reverence. As each one passed from the place where he
stood to be baptized, one or the other of us stopped him and
addressed to him, in a low voice, a few words, such as our
knowledge of his previous character and the solemnities of the
occasion suggested. The effect of this, in most cases, seemed
to very much deepen the solemnity of the ceremony. I varied my
words, in this part of the exercises, to suit the case of the
person; and when gray-haired medicine-men stood literally
trembling before me, as I laid one hand on their heads, the
effect on my mind was such that at times my tongue faltered.
The words which I used in this part of the service were the
following, or something nearly like them in substance: 'My
brother, this is the mark of God which is placed upon you. You
will carry it while you live. It introduces you into the great
family of God, who looked down from heaven, not upon your head,
but into your heart. This ends your superstition, and from this
time you are to call God your Father. Remember to honor him. Be
resolved to do his will.' It made me glad to hear them respond,
'Yes, I will.'

"When we were through, and all were again seated, we sung a
hymn appropriate to the occasion, in which many of them joined,
and then prayed. I then said to them, 'Hitherto I have
addressed you as friends; now I call you brothers. For years we
have contended together on this subject of religion; now our
contentions cease. We have one Father--we are one family. I
must now leave you, and probably shall see you no more in this
world. While you remain in this prison, you have time to attend
to religion. You can do nothing else. Your adherence to the
Medicine Sack and the Wotawe has brought you to ruin. Our Lord
Jesus Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. He
looks not on your heads nor on your lips, but into your
bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a term of brotherly
salutation, to which you have been accustomed in your medicine
dance, and say to you, Brothers, I spread my hands over you and
bless you.' The hearty answer of three hundred voices made me
feel glad.

"The outbreak and events which followed it have, under God,
broken into shivers the power of the priests of devils, which
has hitherto ruled these wretched tribes. They were before
bound in the chains and confined in the prison of Paganism, as
the prisoners in the prison at Philippi were bound with chains.
The outbreak and its attendant consequences have been like the
earthquake to shake the foundation of their prison, and every
one's bonds have been loosed. Like the jailer, in anxious fear
they have cried, 'Sirs, what must we do to be saved?' They have
been told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who will still
save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. They say
they repent and forsake their sins--that they believe on him,
that they trust in him, and will obey him. Therefore they have
been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost, _three hundred in a day_."

In the spring of 1853, Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond departed, after a lingering illness of eighteen months, and left a "blessed memory." There were seven children by this marriage, all of whom are living, and have families of their own, but George, who died while in the Lane Theological Seminary. In the summer of 1854, Mr. Pond was married to his second wife, Mrs. Agnes C. J. Hopkins, widow of Rev. Robert Hopkins. The second Mrs. Pond brought her three children, making the united family of children at that time ten. Six have been added since. And there are twenty-two grandchildren, six of whom are members of the Church of Christ, together with all the children and their companions. Is not that a successful life? Counting the widowed mother and those who have come into the family by marriage, there are, I understand, just fifty who mourn the departure of the patriarch father. A little more than two-score years ago, he was one; and now behold a _multitude_!

Mary Frances Hopkins, who came into the family when a girl, and afterward married Edward R. Pond, the son, writes thus: "To me he was as near an own father as it is possible for one to be who is so by adoption, and I shall always be glad I was allowed to call him father."

The members of the synod of Minnesota will remember with great pleasure Mr. Pond's presence with them at their last meeting at St. Paul, in the middle of October. For some years past, he has frequently been unable to be present. This time he seemed to be more vigorous than usual, and greatly entertained the synod and people of St. Paul with his terse and graphic presentation of some of the Lord's workings in behalf of the Dakotas.

During the meeting I was quartered with Mrs. Governor Ramsay. On Saturday I was charged with a message to Mr. Pond, inviting him to come and spend the night at the governor's. We passed a profitable evening together, and he and I talked long of the way in which the Lord had led us; of the great prosperity he had given us in our families and in our work. Neither of us thought, probably, that that would be our last talk this side the golden city. The next day, Sabbath, he preached in the morning, for Rev. D. R. Breed, in the House of Hope, which, probably, was _his last sermon_. In the evening he was with us in the Opera House, at a meeting in the interest of home and foreign missions.

"His health gradually failed," Mrs. Pond writes, "from the time of his return from synod, though he did not call himself sick until the 11th of January, 1878, and he died on Sabbath, the 20th, about noon." She adds: "His interest in the Indians, for whom he labored so long, was very deep, and he always spoke of them with loving tenderness, and often with tears. One of the last things he did was to look over his old Dakota hymns, revised by J. P. W. and A. L. R., and sent to him for his consent to the proposed alterations."

"His _simple faith_ in the Lord Jesus caused him all the time to live a life of self-denial, that he might do more to spread the knowledge of Jesus' love to those who knew it not." The love of Christ constrained him, and was his ruling passion.

Of his last days the daughter says:--

"He really _died of consumption_. The nine days he was confined to bed he suffered much; but his mind was mostly clear, and he was very glad to go. I think the summons was no more sudden to him than to Elijah. He was to the last loving and trustful, brave and patient. To his brother Samuel, as he came to his sick bed, he said: 'So we go to see each other die.' Some time before he had visited Samuel when he did not expect to recover. 'My struggles are over. The Lord has taken care of me, and he will take care of the rest of you. My hope is in the Lord,' he said.

"Toward the last it was hard for him to converse, and he bade us no formal farewell. But the words, as we noted them down, were words of cheer and comfort: 'You have nothing to fear, for the present or the future.' And so was given to him the victory over death, through faith in Jesus."

_Is that dying? He sleeps with his fathers. He has gone to see the King in his beauty, in a land not very far off._