Among the Sioux: A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two DakotasCreswell, R. J. (Robert J.)
History
Among the Sioux: A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas
Creswell, R. J. (Robert J.)
Dakota Indians -- Missions; Missionaries -- Great Plains -- Biography
Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins were first stationed at Lac-qui-Parle. After one
year they were transferred to Traverse des Sioux, near the present site
of St. Peter, Minnesota. Here they gave seven years of the most
faithful, devoted, self-sacrificing toil for the lost and degraded
savages around them. They built a humble home and established and
maintained a mission school. Five children were born to them there. Two
of these were early called to the celestial home on high. Their life at
Traverse des Sioux was a strenuous, isolated, but a fruitful and happy
one. It was destined, however, to a speedy and tragic end.
Early in the morning of July 4, 1851, Mr. Hopkins entered the river for
a bath. He was never seen alive again. A treacherous swirl in the water
at that point suddenly carried him to his death. His wife waited long
the carefully prepared morning meal, but her beloved came not again. He
went up through the great flood of waters from arduous service on the
banks of the beautiful Minnesota to his glorious rewards on the banks
of the still more beautiful River of Life.
Broken-hearted, the young wife, only twenty-six years of age, laid him
to rest on the banks of the river whose treacherous waves had robbed
her of her life companion. Sadly she closed her home in Minnesota and,
with her three little fatherless children, returned to her old home in
far-distant Ohio.
Rev. Robert Hopkins enjoyed the full confidence of his colleagues and
was greatly beloved by the Indians. His untimely death was an
irreparable loss to the mission work among the Sioux.
SECOND BRIDAL TOUR TO THE WEST.
Shortly after the tragedy at Traverse des Sioux, Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond,
wife of Rev. Gideon H. Pond, died at Oak Grove Mission of consumption.
In 1854 Mr. Pond visited Ohio, where he and Mrs. Hopkins were united in
marriage. She made a second bridal tour from Ohio to Minnesota, and
toiled by his side till his death in 1878.
In every relation in life in which she has been placed, Mrs. Pond has
excelled. While she long ago ceased from active service in mission
fields, she ever has been, and still is untiring in her efforts to do
good to all as she has opportunity. She is strong and vigorous at the
age of eighty. She still resides at the Oak Grove Mission house, her
home since 1857, universally beloved and regarded as the best woman in
the world by about one hundred descendants.
[Illustration: JOHN P. WILLIAMSON, D.D.,
Superintendent of Presbyterian Sioux Missions.
Forty-five years a missionary to the Sioux.]
[Illustration: ST. ANTHONY FALLS.]
OAK GROVE MISSION HOUSE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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