Hello, jazzdog
I understand that there is an "Anpahdiwin" buried in Greenwood. I would like to know if there is any information about a Nancy Anpahdiwin/St. Clair, in John P. Williamson's reconstructed memorandum or records of the people buried there.
Thanks for your posting.
fwaukazoo
I was just cut and paste from different web sites.
Just thought you might like to take a look.
I'm trying to trace T.S. Williamson, who is listed as "Officiating Clergyman" of Nancy Anpahdiwin's Baptisms, at Redwood Falls, Minn., 1863.
from:
dakota_church_records/church files2/Santee Agency Baptismal Ledger 1843-1904.
(jpeg 137)
Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson (1800-1872).
The Rev. William Williamson and his second wife Mary Smith of North Carolina, by whom he had two children, the Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, missionary to the Dakotahs and Jane Smith Williamson (1803-1895). Thomas became an accomplished physician.
Early in the spring of 1835, Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson started with his family, and reached Fort Snelling. Here, he organized the first Presbyterian Church within the present limits of Minnesota--the first Presbyterian Church of Minneapolis.
With the establishment of permanent government relations regular mission work began. In 1834 the brothers Samuel and Gideon Pond for the Congregationalists, located among the Santee at Lake Calhoun, near the present St. Paul, Minnesota.
Doctor Williamson never removed his family from St. Peter. He spent his summers in missionary tours, his winters partly in correspondence with native pastors and other Dakota workers, and the various labors already alluded to, but chiefly in translating the Work of God. The thriving fur trade town of St. Peter's, known as Mendota after 1837.
Finding other laborers at Fort Snelling and believing that more could be accomplished by a division of the forces, he purshed on to Lac-qui-Parle, two hundred miles west; this last journey then requiring over three weeks.
In 1835 the same denomination established other missions at Lake Harriet and Lac-qui-Parle, Minnesota, under Rev. J.D. Stevens and Thomas Williamson respectively. Established in 1835 by the Presbyterian Church among the Sioux, this mission housed one of the first Indian schools west of the Mississippi. The mission's founder, Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, and his coworkers devised a phonetic system and translated the Christian Gospels and other works into the Sioux language. In 1837 Rev. Stephen Riggs and his son Alfred joined Williamson.
In 1837 the Sioux sold all of their remaining territory east of the Mississippi. In the winter of 1837-8 smallpox, introduced from a passing steamer, swept over all the tribes of the upper Missouri River, killing perhaps 30,000 Indians, of whom a large proportion were Sioux.
Prior to 1850, Yellow Medicine was part of Redwood County and under federal jurisdiction as Indian Territory. This Indian name means Yellow Medicine, the name of the bitter root of the MoonÂseed plant used by the Indians for medicinal purposes.
from: History of Yellow Medicine County.
yellowmedicine.govoffice.com/Hazelwood Mission. Located along Hwy. 274, 4 miles south of Granite Falls. Established in 1854 on Hazel Creek, near the Doncaster Cemetery on the top of Doncaster Hill. Hazelwood Mission was destroyed during the conflict of 1862.
In 1852, Dr. Thomas Williamson, a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church, established the Pejuhutazizi Mission. Southeast of Granite Falls on Hwy. 67. This Presbyterian Church has a continuous link with the Williamson Mission established here in 1852. This church is located on the Upper Sioux Reservation. This site was destroyed during the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.
In 1854, Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, a Congregationalist, established the Hazel Creek Mission. These two missions were located about five miles south of Granite Falls in what is now Minnesota Falls Township.
The government established the Upper Sioux Agency in 1854 in what is now Sioux Agency Township. According to the treaties of 1850, when tribes of the Sioux surrendered title to their lands in Minnesota, a tract of land ten miles wide on each side of the Minnesota River was reserved as Indian Territory. During the Sioux uprising of 1862, the Agency, missions, and all white settlements were destroyed and as a result of the uprising the Indian lands were declared forfeit. White settlement began again in 1865.
from: History of Yellow Medicine County,
yellowmedicine.govoffice.com/In 1860 the first Episcopalian work was begun among the (Santee) Sioux by Rev. Samuel D. Hinman.
Not foreseeing that any serious trouble was coming, Rev. Williamson left on a business trip to Ohio. When Rev. Williamson read of the uprising at Redwood, he dropped his business and hurried back to Minnesota and from then on remained with the Indians through all the tragic years that followed.
Then 450 braves were arrested and tried before a military commission. Fifty were released. All this was done without specific charges being proved against them. These men were then chained and taken to a prison camp at Mankato. Three hundred prisoners were condemned to death by court martial, but Abraham Lincoln ordered an investigation. As a result only 38 were hanged at Mankato, 1862, and the rest to be imprisoned.
They were attended by Revs. Riggs and Williamson and by Father Ravoux. In the prison camp at Mankato, his father, Dr. Thomas S. Williamson, helped the prisoners write their letters to the families at Ft. Snelling.
In the spring of 1863 the others were transferred to a prison Camp at Davenport, Ia. With them went the missionary Dr. Thomas S. Williamson. Using the Bible, he taught them to read, to write and to sing hymns in their own language. Many were converted.
On May 4, 1863, 750 of the prisoners at Ft. Snelling were put on the riverboat Hannibal. The next day 540 went on board the Northerner and both boats sailed down the Mississippi. On their long journey through the next six years, Rev. John P. Williamson went with them. For their questions, Where are we going?
The boat on which Mr. John Williamson came up the river had on board thirteen hundred Minnesota Sioux, in charge of Col. C. W. Thompson, who located them at Crow Creek. They arrived there May 31, 1863.
In 1866, the Santee being dissatisfied with the location of Crow Creek, the government moved them down to Niobrara, Nebraska.
Thomas Williamson and his son John had opened two new churches, one at Flandreau and one at Greenwood. W. O. Rogers, a Dakota Indian, was pastor of the Greenwood church and John Eastman, a native, was installed as pastor at Flandreau in 1877. The Presbyterian cemetery established by Rev. John P. Williamson on the reservation.
In 1869, His son Rev. John P. Williamson took up his permanent location at Greenwood, South Dakota, a missionary to the Dakotas since 1860.
The Episcopal Church also conducted a boarding school for Indian boys at Greenwood for many years, called St. Paul's School, but it was closed.
Sharing the experiences of Jacob Eastman was his son John who was born in Shakopee, Minn. in 1849. When he was fifteen years old he had an experience at Niobrara of which he wrote later: "One day I was walking by the schoolhouse (at Bazile) and from within I heard singing and thought I will go in and hear the singing better. So I went in. Mr. John P. Williamson was teaching them singing. He knew me though I had not seen him for two years. He said, you are Many Lightnings son. From that time on I began to go to school and since then I have always been near to Mr. Williamson".
Jane Smith Williamson (1803-1895) did not get to go to her brother until 1843. When she reached Minnesota, she taught several hundred Indians to read the Word of God, and, the greater part of them to write well enough to write letters. She ministered to all the sick within her reach, and devoted a great deal of time to instructing Indian women. Lac-que-Parle, her first missionary home, was two hundred miles west of St. Paul. Her home continued to be with her brother, at or near St. Peter, until his death in 1872, and in his old home two years longer. She died March 24, 1895, at the home of her nephew, Rev. John P. Williamson, at Greenwood, South Dakota.
