And, as an attraction to the Dakotas, a full-page picture has been generally added. In starting the paper, the main object proposed was to stimulate education among the Dakotas, so that we were not disappointed to find that, in addition to all that came in from subscriptions, several hundred dollars were required from the missionary funds to square up the year. But we lived in hope, and do so still, that the time will come when the enterprise will be self-supporting. It has proved itself to be an exceedingly important assistant in our missionary work, which we can not afford to let die. * * * * * With the homesteaders on the Big Sioux, on the 23d of June, 1871, we held our first general conference of the Dakota churches.[7] From the Sisseton Agency there went down John B. Renville, Daniel Renville, and Solomon, of the pastors, with several elders and myself. Dr. Williamson came up from St. Peter; and John P. Williamson, A. L. Riggs, and Artemas Ehnamane, and others, came over from the Missouri River. Year by year, from that time on, we have continued to hold these meetings, and they have constantly increased in interest and importance. On this first occasion, four or five days were spent, and religious meetings held each day. The circumstances by which we were surrounded intensified the interest. As yet there was no church or school-house in which we could assemble, and our meetings were held out-of-doors, or under a booth in connection with Mr. All Iron's cabin. [7] This was preliminary to the regularly organized conference which met the next year. This colony of more than one hundred church members had located near the eastern line of Dakota Territory, in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Big Sioux River. Their settlement lay along that stream for twenty-five or thirty miles, its centre being about forty miles above the thriving town of Sioux Falls. The most of these men were in 1862 engaged in the Sioux outbreak in Minnesota. For three years they were held in military prisons. Meanwhile, their families and the remnants of their tribe had been deported to the Missouri River; so that when they found themselves together again, it was at Niobrara, Neb., or soon afterward at the newly established Santee agency a few miles below.