Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And NotesFolsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)
History
Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes
Folsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)
Minnesota -- History; Wisconsin -- History
Mr. Ayer organized a Congregational church and a baptistry connected
with the house of worship, that he might baptise by immersion or
otherwise, according to the wishes of the candidate. He also formed a
temperance society, which some months before his death numbered more
than six hundred members.
There was great grief at his death amongst all classes. An aged man,
who had lost a small fortune in his devotion to the Confederacy,
embraced the corpse, and said: "If he had not holpen me, I should have
before gone him." Many others, in word or action, expressed a similar
feeling. All classes of people were represented at his funeral. His
remains were buried in the Atlanta cemetery, Oct. 1, 1867. Thus passed
away one who had spent a life for the benefit of others.
Mr. and Mrs. Ayer in some instances taught three generations of
Ojibway blood, and North and South, they were, in the course of their
labors, associated for a longer or shorter time, with more than eighty
different missionaries,--a noble band,--with few exceptions worthy the
name they bore. Most of them have passed away, and their graves are
scattered here and there from British America to Georgia.
REV. WILLIAM T. BOUTWELL, who figures so prominently in the history of
the early missions in the St. Croix valley, was born in Hillsborough
county, New Hampshire, Feb. 4, 1803. He was educated at Dartmouth and
Andover colleges, and in 1831, the year of his graduation at Andover,
he came to the Northwest as a Presbyterian missionary. He spent one
year at Mackinaw, learning the Chippewa language, under the
instruction of Rev. W. M. Ferry, father of Senator Ferry, of Michigan.
In 1832 our government sent an embassy of thirty men, under the
control of the Indian agent at Ste. Marie, Henry R. Schoolcraft, to
tranquilize the tribes and effect some advantageous treaties. The
embassy was accompanied by an outfit of soldiers under the command of
Lieut. Allen, Dr. Houghton, physician, George Johnson, interpreter,
and Mr. Boutwell. The embassy had a liberal outfit of provisions,
equipages and trinkets for the Indians, and was conveyed in a large
bateau of several tons capacity, and some birch canoes, the largest of
which was thirty feet long, and capable of containing nine persons. On
arriving at Fond du Lac, the head of navigation on the St. Louis
river, Mr. Boutwell wrote as follows to the missionary board:
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. BOUTWELL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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