This beautiful lake lies in township 39, range 22. It is about five miles in length by one in breadth and finds an outlet in Kanabec river. It is celebrated for its historical associations. Thomas Conner, an old trader, informed the writer of these sketches, in 1847, that he had had a trading post on the banks of this lake thirty years before, or about the year 1816. This was before Fort Snelling was built. Mr. Conner said that there was a French trading post at Pokegama long before he went there. It was in the spring of 1847, after a wearisome day's tramp, that I made his acquaintance and shared his unstinted hospitality. His post, at that time, was located at the mouth of Goose creek, Chisago county, on the banks of the St. Croix. His rude, portable house was built of bark, subdivided with mats and skins into different apartments. Although at an advanced period in life, his mind was clear and he conversed with a degree of intelligence which caused me to ask him why he lived thus secluded, away from all the privileges of a civilized life. His reasons, some of them, were forcible; he liked the quiet of the wilderness, away from the turmoils of the envious white race. I learned from him many interesting facts connected with travelers, traders and explorers of our St. Croix valley. This was the last season he spent on the river. In 1847, when I visited Pokegama, Jeremiah Russell, an Indian farmer, had a very pretty farm on a point of land on the southwest side of the lake, and between the lake and the river. A Frenchman, Jarvis, lived a short distance from Russell. Across the lake from Russell's were the neat and tasteful log buildings and gardens of the Presbyterian mission. The mission was established in the spring of 1836, by Rev. Frederic Ayer and his associates, under the auspicies of the American Board of Foreign Missions. Mr. Ayer had been laboring at Yellow Lake mission, but, owing to the growing unfriendliness of the Indians, had been removed to Pokegama. Much pertaining to the mission work, both at Pokegama and elsewhere, will be found in the biographies of the principal missionaries. We mention here only such incidents as may be of more general interest. For many of these incidents we are indebted to Mrs. Elisabeth J. Ayer, of Belle Prairie, the widow of Rev. Frederic Ayer, for a long time missionary to the Ojibways. This estimable lady has passed her eighty-fifth year, but her mind is still clear and her hand steady, her manuscript having the appearance of the work of a precise young schoolmistress. She mentions an old Canadian, who had been in the country sixty years, and for seven or eight years had been entirely blind. He was known as Mushk-de-winini (The-old-blind-prairie-man), also the old trader, Thomas Conner, the remains of whose mud chimney and foundation of the old trading house may still be seen on the southern shore of the lake.