Fifty Years In The Northwest
determined to have his shirts. The woman declared her innocence, and
told him to search the wigwam. He did so, but said himself that it was
done rather roughly. In the meantime the wife espied the shirts just
where she had put them. This affair was ever after a source of regret
to them.
Some of the Indians laughed heartily; others made remarks rather
sarcastic. The woman herself felt disgraced by the accusation, but
never manifested signs of wanting to "pay back," or in any way to
avenge the wrong.
INDIAN MAGNANIMITY.
An employe of the American Fur Company, a "green hand," was crossing a
portage. The load on his back was topped off with a bag of flour. The
hill was steep and long. Steps were cut in it like a flight of stairs.
As he reached the top a mischievous Indian touched the bag, and it
went tumbling to the foot of the hill. The Frenchman immediately sent
the Indian tumbling after it. Some of the company advised the
Frenchman to run away, for the Indian might kill him. He told them
boldly that he would not run away. The Indian gathered himself up,
came to the top of the hill, told the Frenchman he had done just
right, offered his hand and they were firm friends. Magnanimous had it
been a white man.
REV. FREDERIC AYER was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1803.
When he was two years old the family moved to Central New York. His
father was a Presbyterian minister, and they intended that their son
should follow the same profession; but before he was prepared his
health failed and he turned his attention to other business.
He commenced his labors for the Indians in 1829, by teaching the
mission school at Mackinaw, under the superintendency of Rev. M.
Ferry. The pupils of this school were not all Ojibways but were from
many different tribes, and spoke different languages. Mackinaw was
then a general depot of the North American fur traders. They brought
not only their own children to the school but such others as parents
among whom they were trading wished to send. They were gathered from
Lake Winnipeg, British America north, to Prairie du Chien and the head
of Lake Michigan south. They were taught in English only.
In the summer of 1830 Mr. Ayer went to La Pointe, Lake Superior, with
Mr. Warren, opened a school and commenced the study of the Ojibway
language. In 1831 he met at Mackinaw, Revs. Hall and Boutwell, who
were sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions to the Indians, and he returned with Mr. and Mrs. Hall and
their interpreter to spend another winter at La Pointe.
The next year, 1832, Mr. Ayer wintered with another trader at Sandy
Lake. He opened a school there and completed a little Ojibway
spelling book which was commenced at La Pointe. In the spring of 1833
he left Sandy Lake for Utica, New York, to get the book printed. Mr.
Aitkin, with whom he had wintered, gave him eighty dollars, and with a
pack on his back and an experienced guide, he started on his journey.
Before they reached Sault Ste. Marie the ice on Lake Superior was so
weak that Mr. Ayer broke through and was saved only by carrying
horizontally in his hands a long pole to prevent his sinking.
Mr. Ayer hastened on to complete the object of his journey, that he
might return to Mackinaw in time to go up Lake Superior with the
traders. Mr. Ayer, hitherto an independent worker, now put himself
under the direction of the "American Board," and was sent to Yellow
Lake, within the present bounds of Burnett county, Wisconsin. Miss
Delia Cooke, whose name should never be forgotten among the early
missionaries of the American board to the Indians, and Miss Hester
Crooks, a girl educated at Mackinaw, and who had some experience in
teaching, were among the number who coasted up Lake Superior in a
Mackinaw boat; the former to La Pointe mission, the latter to Yellow
Lake with Mr. and Mrs. Ayer. They wintered in Dr. Borup's family. Mrs.
Borup also had, for some years, been a pupil at Mackinaw. The next
year Miss Crooks married Rev. Mr. Boutwell and went to Leech lake, and
J. L. Seymour and Miss Sabrian Stevens, also Henry Blatchford, an
interpreter from Mackinaw, were added to Yellow Lake mission. When Mr.
Ayer told the Indians his object in coming among them, they gave him a
welcome. But six months later, seeing two or three log houses in
process of building, they were much troubled, and met in a body to
request him to go away. A Menomonie from the region of Green Bay had
stirred them up, not against the missionaries, but against the general
government.
The speaker said: "It makes the Indians sad to see the white man's
house go up on their land. We don't want you to stay; you must go."
Further on he said: "You shall go!" Mr. Ayer answered him. The party
left at midnight, and the missionaries went to bed with heavy hearts,
thinking they might be thurst out almost immediately. But before
sunrise the next morning about two-thirds of the same party returned,
and said they had come to take back what they said the night before.
The war chief was speaker, but his words were mild. "Why," said he,
"should we turn these teachers away before they have done us any
harm?" They would like to have us stay, he said, but added that they
did not want any more to come, for the result might be the loss of
their lands. We might use whatever their country afforded, but they
would not give us any land, or sell us any. "For," said the speaker,
"if we should sell our land where would our children play?"
Mr. Ayer finished his school house, and went on with his work as
though nothing had happened. But evidently things were not as they
should be. The chief seemed to "sit on the fence," ready to jump
either way. The war chief was always friendly, but he had not so much
control over what concerned us. He did what he could without giving
offense, and was anxious that his daughter of fourteen years should be
taken into the mission family. Mr. Ayer remained two years longer at
Yellow Lake. In the meantime the chief of the Snake River band sent
messages inviting the teachers to come and live among them.
Accordingly in the spring of 1836 the mission was removed to Pokegama
lake, eighteen miles up the river. The chief did all he had promised,
and showed himself a man. Nothing was said here to remind the
missionaries that they were using the Indians' wood, water and fish.
On the contrary, when they sold their land, it was urged that the
teachers' children should be enrolled for annual payment, the same as
their own. The chief said that as they were born on the land it was no
more than right, and he wished it might be done.
In 1842 Mr. Ayer went with his family to the States; and in Oberlin
was ordained preacher to the Ojibways. He soon returned to the Indian
country, and David Brainard Spencer, an Oberlin student, with him.
They spent the winter of 1842-3 in traveling from one trading post to
another, selecting locations for missionary labor. For their own field
they chose Red Lake. When Mrs. Ayer, with her two little boys, six and
eight years old, went to join her husband at the new station, Alonzo
Barnard and wife and S. G. Wright, all of Oberlin College, went with
her. Other missionaries soon followed, and that station was for many
years supplied with efficient laborers. More recently the work there
was assigned to Bishop Whipple, and is still carried on.
Mr. and Mrs. Ayer, in 1865, offered their services to the freed-men of
the South and were employed at Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Ayer organized a Congregational church and a baptistry connected
with the house of worship, that he might baptise by immersion or
otherwise, according to the wishes of the candidate. He also formed a
temperance society, which some months before his death numbered more
than six hundred members.
There was great grief at his death amongst all classes. An aged man,
who had lost a small fortune in his devotion to the Confederacy,
embraced the corpse, and said: "If he had not holpen me, I should have
before gone him." Many others, in word or action, expressed a similar
feeling. All classes of people were represented at his funeral. His
remains were buried in the Atlanta cemetery, Oct. 1, 1867. Thus passed
away one who had spent a life for the benefit of others.
Mr. and Mrs. Ayer in some instances taught three generations of
Ojibway blood, and North and South, they were, in the course of their
labors, associated for a longer or shorter time, with more than eighty
different missionaries,--a noble band,--with few exceptions worthy the
name they bore. Most of them have passed away, and their graves are
scattered here and there from British America to Georgia.
REV. WILLIAM T. BOUTWELL, who figures so prominently in the history of
the early missions in the St. Croix valley, was born in Hillsborough
county, New Hampshire, Feb. 4, 1803. He was educated at Dartmouth and
Andover colleges, and in 1831, the year of his graduation at Andover,
he came to the Northwest as a Presbyterian missionary. He spent one
year at Mackinaw, learning the Chippewa language, under the
instruction of Rev. W. M. Ferry, father of Senator Ferry, of Michigan.
In 1832 our government sent an embassy of thirty men, under the
control of the Indian agent at Ste. Marie, Henry R. Schoolcraft, to
tranquilize the tribes and effect some advantageous treaties. The
embassy was accompanied by an outfit of soldiers under the command of
Lieut. Allen, Dr. Houghton, physician, George Johnson, interpreter,
and Mr. Boutwell. The embassy had a liberal outfit of provisions,
equipages and trinkets for the Indians, and was conveyed in a large
bateau of several tons capacity, and some birch canoes, the largest of
which was thirty feet long, and capable of containing nine persons. On
arriving at Fond du Lac, the head of navigation on the St. Louis
river, Mr. Boutwell wrote as follows to the missionary board:
"On arriving here I was not a little surprised to find four hundred
souls, half-breeds and white men. The scene at our landing was such as
I never before witnessed, and enough to fill one, unaccustomed to the
like as myself, with wonder, if not with fear. The yelling of Indians,
barking of dogs, crying of children, running of the multitude,
discharge of musketry, and flourish of flags, was noise in the
extreme. At ten o'clock I preached to about forty in English, the
first sermon ever preached here, and at 4 P. M. I addressed, through
Mr. Johnson, more than twice that number of French, half-breeds and
Indians; many of the latter of whom for the first time listened to the
word of Life. All listened with attention and interest. My interpreter
sat on my right, while a chief occupied a seat at my left. Around and
below me, on the floor, sat his men, women and children, in a state of
almost entire nudity, many of whom had no more than a cloth about the
loins, and a blanket, but some of the children not even a
blanket,--all with their pipes and tobacco pouches, painted with all
the variety of figures that can be imagined."
From Fond du Lac he proceeded with the expedition up the St. Louis
river, crossing the falls by a portage, and ascending to the point
nearest Sandy lake, which was reached by a portage. The expedition
proceeded up the Mississippi to Leech lake. Learning from the Indians
at this point that Cass lake, the reputed source of the Mississippi,
was not the real source, the expedition proceeded, under the guidance
of a chief and a number of his tribe, to ascend the river further.
When they reached the lake, now known as Itasca, five of the party,
Lieut. Allen, Schoolcraft, Houghton, Johnson, and Boutwell, were sent
in canoes with Indian guides to explore the shores of the lake. No