and this United Foreign Missionary society, as it was called, representing the Presbyterian, the (then Dutch) Reformed and the Associate Reformed churches, re-established the mission at Mackinaw which, for various reasons, finds place in our Wisconsin history. Here were the headquarters of our missionary work for this part of the world. As we have seen the story of Wisconsin can not be told without reference to that of Mackinaw. And at one tinfe, February, 1828, the committee on Territories in the House of Representatives was committed to the project of making the Upper Peninsula (now) of Michigan with the adjacent islands, Mackinaw among them, a part of the proposed Territory of “ Wiskonsin," a name then recently substituted in congressional proceedings for Chippewau."

In 1822 Rev. William Montague Ferry visited Mackinaw and organized a church there. 1 The following statement of special need for Christian work is from the missionary report of a later year:

"It had long been a common, though not a universal practice, among the many traders, clerks and other whites in this whole region to live with Indian women, either as wives or concubines, and to desert them and their children on returning to civilized life. This practice was introduced while the French held possession of Canada, and the greater part of the half-breeds were still of French descent. They and many of the Indians were nominally Roman Catholics, but were almost entirely ignorant of Christianity."

Mr. Ferry returned next year with his wife, arriving 19th October, 1823. The mission and boarding school which formed part of his plan was opened Monday, 3rd of the following November, with twelve Indian children. The school increased and at one time had an attendance of one hundred eighty. The children from the village attended as day pupils, and those from the seyeral tribes as boarders. These were collected from the whole region extending from the white settlements south of the Great Lakes to Red River and Lake Athabasca. The children were trained in habits of industry, taught trades and how to cultivate the soil, besides receiving a common-school education. Most of the Ojibway traders sent their half-breed children to this school. "Great good was desseminated from it, which spread over the whole Northwest territory. Many of our most promising half-breeds, now engaged as missionaries or in mercantile pursuits, received their education at the Mackinaw mission. After its dissolution such of the traders as were financially able sent their childdren to receive an education in some of the Eastern states."2 The school was first held in the old court house. In 1825, the building now known as the Mission House," was erected for missionary and school pur

poses. 3

1 Previous to the location of this mission, Mr. Ferry spent a year in Mackinaw, in which time he organized a church; persuaded the inhabitants, generally, to abandon secular employments on the Sabbath, and attend public worship."-Missionary Gazetteer by Rev. Walter Chapin, of Woodstock, Vermont.

2 'History of the Ojibways," by William Whipple Warren.

3 During the late war this old mission house was used for a time as the home of certain

In this same year the United Foreign Missionary society,1 which, as already stated, had previously absorbed the Northern Missionary society, gave up its own distinctive name and work by union with the American Board. This action was ratified the following year and, in in the proceedings of the Board for 1827, we find -quoted from above-its first report, of the Mackinaw mission. In August of that year, there were one hundred twelve pupils in the boarding school, and there had been several interesting cases of conversion. 2 French priests occasionally visited this region and opposed this mission to the extent of their power.

Thus the mission grappled at once with heathenism and a corrupted form of Christianity. It has a history written in the lives of men and women who have left their imprint upon all this region. It made Mackinaw a St. Columba's island of the West.

Among those who became earnest Christians in a revival there, as early as 1826, was Lyman Marcus Warren, a trader in the employ of the American Fur company. He at once desired that a mission be established at his trading post, La Pointe, on the largest of the many islands in Chequamegon Bay, not far from the scene of the labors of Allouez and Marquette more than one hundred fifty years before. Then, among others, Hurons dwelt there, but Mr. Warren's Indian neighbors were Ojibways. His earnest entreaty reached some students at Hamilton college, and in response to it came, in 1827, Rev. Jedidiah Dwight Stevens who fills so large a place in the early history of our Wisconsin churches. He and his wife arrived July 21st. He came with the purpose of establishing a mission among the Ojibways. But Mr. Ferry thought that this project was premature. Accordingly Mr. Stevens remained at Mackinaw to strengthen the mission there and, to use his own words, "was at once installed principal of the male department of the school. There was gathered a motley mass of boys from five to twenty years of age, of various colors, tongues and bloods, pure and mixed, French and English, Irish, Scotch, American and Indian; nearly all born of heathen mothers. These boys were to be educated and

state prisoners from Tennessee.

1 Formed in New York City in 1817 by a joint eommittee of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, the General Synod of the Reformed Dutch church, and the General Synod of the Associate Reformed church.

2 Yet the school failed to accomplish the object for which it was founded. "In 1826-7," says the late A. G. Ellis, then a missionary teacher at Green Bay, "I was requested [by the Episcopal church committee] to acquire all the information possible of the best manner of organizing and conducting a large boarding school for Indian children." He visited Mackinaw. "Mr. Ferry received me courteously. I acquainted him with the object of my inquiries; that they were made in behalf of the committee of the Episcopal church, who designed establishing such a school at Green Bay. He candidly advised against it and gave his reasons: informing me that this school, which had been put in operation at great expense, had failed of the object sought, and that he had already received instructions to reduce it in numbers as fast as could be done, and eventually discontinue it entirely; that with all their endeavors they had been able to secure the entrance into it of comparatively very few Indian children; that the great proportion of their nearly two hundred attendants were children of Indian traders, who were reaping all the benefits of education from which the Indian children were being almost wholly excluded." Accordingly, Mr. Ellis reported against attempting to establish a like school at Green Bay.

But was it not as good a thing to educate a half-breed as an Indian ?

molded into a Christian civilization and religion, and made to be educators of the tribes now perishing in heathenism.”

As we soon leave Mackinaw to follow Mr. Stevens on more adventurous service, we may give an epitome of the remaining history of the mission there. The building known as the "mission church" was erected in 1830. It was dedicated 1831, March 4th. As it was thought that the Indian children could be more advantageously educated near their homes, the school which according to the "Missionary Herald" for June, 1829, had numbered one hundred sixty or one hundred seventy, including thirty or forty from the village of Mackinaw, was, as we have learned, purposely made smaller. Mr. Ferry's health failed and 6th August, 1834, he was released from missionary service. 1

During his stay at Mackinaw there was born to him a son, Thomas White Ferry, who, on the death of the late Hon. Henry Wilson became acting Vice-President of the United States. In 1836 the mission was discontinued. Mackinaw had ceased to be a place of rendezvous for the Indians and of trade for the whites. The island was almost deserted until it became a place of resort for summer visitors. The old church gave to other communities,— Green Bay and La Pointe among them, its membership and its very life. The work of the mission passed to other stations in some of which it is still continued.

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As a picture of what it accomplished, the following from "Wau-bun, the Early Day,' in the North-West," is suggestive, though colored no doubt by the warmth of friendship and brightened by the gladness of a young wife's jour ney to a new home in a land which she had always regarded as a region of romance. At Fort Winnebago, whither at this time, September, 1830, she and her husband were going, we shall again meet the writer, Mrs. John H. Kinzie, well known in the early history of Chicago:

"We were received with the most affectionate cordiality by Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, at whose hospitable mansion we had been for some days expected. After a season of pleasant conversation, the servants were assembled, the chapter of God's word was solemnly read, the hymn chanted, the prayer of praise and thanksgiving offered, and we were conducted to our place of repose.

"It is not my purpose here to attempt a portrait of those noble friends whom I thus met for the first time. To an abler pen than mine should be assigned the honor of writing the biography of Robert Stuart. All who have enjoyed the happiness of his acquaintance, or still more, a sojourn under his hospitable roof, will carry with them, to their latest hour, the impress of his noble bearing, his genial humor, his untiring benevolence, his upright, uncompromising adherence to principle, his ardent philanthropy, his noble disinterest

1 Mr. Ferry was one of five ministers who, in 1827, established the presbytery of Detroit. From Mackinaw he removed to what is now Grand Haven, Michigan. His was the first white family that settled there. They landed Sabbath, 2nd November, 1834. Directly the father called them into a log house,- he had been at the place previously himself,- and preached from the text: "For who hath despised the day of small things?" He died 1867, December 30th, honored and beloved. By will, he left to various objects of Christian benevolence one hundred forty-seven thousand dollars. Ferry Hall, Lake Forest university, Illinois, bears his

name.

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edness. Irving in his Astoria,' and Franchere in his Narrative,' give many striking traits of his early character, together with events of his history of thrilling and romantic interest, but both have left the most valuable portion unsaid, namely, his after-life as a Christian gentleman.

"Michilimackinac! that gem of the lakes! How bright and beautiful it looked as we walked abroad on the following morning! The object of our early walk was to visit the mission house and school. This was an object of especial interest to Mr. and Mrs. Stuart. They had lived many years on the island, and had witnessed its transformation, through God's blessing on Christian efforts, from a worldly, dissipated community to one of which it might almost be said, 'Religion was every man's business.'"

The commercial ruin of Mackinaw was brought about by the use of larger vessels in the Indian trade, especially that on Lake Superior. This, in the way of navigation, was cut off from the other lakes by the falls in the St. Mary's river. As the first canal around the "Sault" was not completed until 1855, May 19th, vessels needed on Lake Superior in the early years had to be built or put together there. That done, La Pointe became, in a sense, the successor to Mackinaw.

CHAPTER VII.

DR. MORSE AND HIS ERRAND IN THE WEST.

Within little more than five years of the time when the British flag was floating at Green Bay, Dr. Jedidiah Morse held public religious service in Fort Howard. He was the first Congregational minister, and, so far as is known, the first Protestant minister, who ever preached in the part of Michigan Territory that is now Wisconsin. He came as did Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of this region, by the broad way of the Great Lakes. Leaving Mackinaw on the 3rd of July, 1820, he attended, at L'Arbre Croche, a council held with the Ottawa Indians, and arrived at Fort Howard July 7th. Having come under a commission issued by the Secretary of War, he was made the guest of Colonel Joseph Lee Smith, 1 commandant at the post. Dr. Morse's mission was one of investigation into the condition and needs of the Indians of the West and South. He made it part of his duty to aid a movement which, after vexatious delays, provided a home for those who are known in the history of our state as the "New York Indians." These aborigines were the first emigrants from any of the older states who came with the purpose of making here their permanent homes. With Dr. Morse and his service, which was especially in behalf of the little tribe of Indians commonly called Stockbridges, begins properly not only the history of Congregationalism in Wisconsin but almost of Christian civilization therein. He was the herald of a great company of the universal church.

As Dr. Morse did not leave Green Bay until the 23rd of July, it is probable that he or his son held service in the fort on both the Sabbaths of their stay, the 9th and the 16th.

2

A letter written at "Mackinaw, July 25th. 1820," and addressed to “Mr. John Law, Green Bay," shows on what errands Dr. Morse went thither, and implies certain sadly defective social condiitons that then prevailed there:

you

"I was sorry to leave Green Bay without having another interview with & your friends on subjects on which we had conversed relating to the Indians, & to the establishment of a school for the children of your village. This was the principal business left unfinished. A few hours employed together

1 Colonel Smith was a native of New Britain, Connecticut, and the father of Brigadier General Edmond Kirby Smith of the Confederate army.

2 Mr. John Lawe. The letter itself I copy by permission of Herbert Battles Tanner, M. D.