VI Two Famous Missions
Lake Harriet and Prairieville
In the spring of 1835, the Rev. Jedediah Dwight Stevens, of the Presbyterian Church, arrived at Fort Snelling under the auspices of the American Board of Missions. He established a station on the northwestern shore of Lake Harriet. It was a most beautiful spot, west of the Indian village, presided over by that friendly and influential chieftain Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky. He erected two buildings—the mission-home, first residence for white settlers, and the school house—the first building erected exclusively for school purposes within the present boundaries of the State of Minnesota.
Within a few rods of the Pavilion, where on the Sabbath, multitudes gather for recreation, and desecration of God’s holy day, is the site, where, in 1835, the first systematic effort was made to educate and Christianize Dakota Indians. It is near the present junction of Forty-second Street, and Queen Avenue (Linden Hills).
In July, Mr. Stevens, and his interesting family, took possession of the mission house. With the co-operation of the Pond brothers, this mission was prosecuted with a fair measure of success till the removal of the Indians farther west, in 1839, when it was abandoned, and the connection of Mr. Stevens with the work of the Dakota mission ceased.
Here on the evening of November 22, 1838, a romantic wedding was solemnized by Rev. J. D. Stevens. The groom was Samuel Pond of the Dakota mission. The groomsman was Henry H. Sibley, destined in after years to be Minnesota’s first delegate to Congress, her first state executive, and in the trying times of ’62, the victorious General Sibley. The bride was Miss Cordelia Eggleston; the bridesmaid, Miss Cornelia Stevens; both amiable, lovely and remarkably handsome.
It was a brilliant, starry evening, one of Minnesota’s brightest and most invigorating. The sleighing was fine, and among the guests, were many officers, from Fort Snelling, with their wives. Dr. Emerson and wife, the owners of Dred Scott, the subject of Judge Taney’s infamous decision, were present. The doctor was, then, post-surgeon at the fort, and the slave Dred, was his body-servant. The tall bridegroom and groomsman, in the vigor and strength of their young manhood; the bride and bridesmaid, just emerging from girlhood, with all their dazzling beauty, the officers in the brilliant uniforms, and their wives, in their gay attire, must have formed an attractive picture in the long ago. After the wedding festivities, the guests from the fort were imprisoned at the mission for the night, by a blizzard, which swept over the icy face of Lake Harriet.
In the previous November, at Lac-qui-Parle, the younger brother was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Poage, by the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs. It was a unique gathering. The guests were all the dark-faced dwellers of the Indian village, making a novel group of whites, half-breeds and savage Indians. Many of the latter were poor, maimed, halt and blind, who thoroughly enjoyed the feast of potatoes, turnips, and bacon so generously provided by the happy bridegroom.
PRAIRIEVILLE.
In 1846, Shakpe or Little Six, extended an urgent invitation to Samuel Pond to establish a mission at Tintonwan—“the village on the prairies”—for the benefit of his people. He was chief of one of the most turbulent bands of Indians in the valley of the Minnesota. He was a man of marked ability and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota nation. Yet withal, Shakpe was a petty thief, had a “forked tongue,” a violent temper, was excitable, and vindictive in his revenge. These characteristics led him to the scaffold. He was hanged at Fort Snelling, in 1863 for participation in the bloody massacre of ’62. He and his followers were so noted for their deception and treachery, that Mr. Pond doubted their sincerity and the wisdom of accepting their invitation. But after weeks of prayerful deliberation, he accepted and began preparations for a permanent establishment at that point. He erected a commodious and substantial residence into which he removed, with his household, in November 1847.
This station, which Mr. Pond called Prairieville, was fourteen miles southeast of Oak Grove mission, on the present site of Shakopee. The mission home was pleasantly located on gently rising ground, half a mile south of the Minnesota River. It was surrounded by the teepees of six hundred noisy savages. Here, for several years they toiled unceasingly for the welfare of the wild men, by whom they were surrounded.
In 1851, Mr. and Mrs. Pond were compelled, by her rapidly failing health, to spend a year in the east. She never returned. She died February 6, 1852, at Washington, Connecticut. Thus after fourteen years of arduous missionary toil, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, the beautiful bride of the Lake Harriet mission house, was called from service to reward at the early age of thirty-six.
Mr. Pond returned to Prairieville and toiled on for the Indians until their removal by the government, in 1853. He himself, remained and continued his labors for the benefit of the white community of Shakopee, which had grown up around him. In 1853, a white Presbyterian church was organized and, in 1856, a comfortable church edifice was erected, wholly at the expense of the pastor and his people. The congregation still exists and the mission house still stands as monuments of the wisdom, faith and fortitude of the heroic builder. After thirteen years of faithful service, he laid the heavy burdens down for younger hands, but for a quarter of a century longer he remained in his old home.
During these last years, his chief delight was in his books, which lost none of their power to interest him in advancing age; especially was this true of the Book of books. He was never idle. The active energy, which distinguished his youth, no less marked his advancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, as they were at thirty-three. His was a long and happy old age. He lingered in the house his own hands had builded, content to go or stay, till he was transferred, December twelfth, 1891, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.