"When the writer came to this country, in 1834, he did not expect to meet a single white man, except those composing the garrison at Fort Snelling, a few government officials attached to the department of Indian affairs, and the traders and voyageurs employed by the great fur company in its business. There was but one house, or, rather, log cabin, along the entire distance of nearly 300 miles between Prairie du Chien and St. Peters, now Mendota, and that was at a point below Lake Pepin, near the present town of Wabashaw. What was his surprise then to find that his advent had been preceded in the spring of the same year by two young Americans, Samuel W. Pond and Gideon H. Pond, brothers, scarcely out of their teens, who had built for themselves a small hut at the Indian village of Lake Calhoun, and had determined to consecrate their lives to the work of civilizing and Christianizing the wild Sioux. For many long years these devoted men labored in the cause, through manifold difficulties and discouragements, sustained by a faith that the seed sown would make itself manifest in God's good time. The efforts then made to reclaim the savages from their mode of life, the influence of their blameless and religious walk and conversation upon those with whom they were brought in daily contact, and the self-denial and personal sacrifices required at their hands, are doubtless treasured up in a higher than human record." General Sibley mentions an incident belonging to this period of their residence at Lake Calhoun, which never before came to my knowledge:-- "Gifted with an uncommonly fine constitution, the subject of this sketch met with an accident in his early days, from the effects of which it is questionable if he ever entirely recovered. He broke through the ice at Lake Harriet in the early part of the winter, and as there was no one at hand to afford aid, he only saved his life after a desperate struggle, by continuing to fracture the frozen surface until he reached shallow water, when he succeeded in extricating himself. His long immersion and exhaustive efforts brought on a severe attack of pneumonia, which for many days threatened a fatal termination."