A few months afterward he received his appointment as a missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. to the Dakotas; and on the first day of April, 1835, Dr. Williamson, with his wife and one child, accompanied by Miss Sarah Poage, Mrs. Williamson's sister, who afterward became Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, and Alexander G. Huggins and family, left Ripley, Ohio, and on the 16th of May they arrived at Fort Snelling. At this time, the only white people in Minnesota, then a part of the North-west Territory, were those connected with the military post at Fort Snelling, the only post-office within the present limits of the State; those connected with the fur-trade, except Hon. H. H. Sibley, were chiefly Canadian French, ignorant of the English language; and Messrs. Gideon H. and Samuel W. Pond, who came on their own account as lay teachers of Christ to the Indians in 1834. While stopping there for a few weeks, Dr. Williamson presided at the organization, on the 12th of June, of the First Presbyterian Church--the first Christian church organized within the present limits of Minnesota. This was within the garrison at Fort Snelling, and consisted of twenty-two members, chiefly the result of the labors of Major Loomis among the soldiers. Having concluded to accompany Mr. Joseph Renville, Dr. Williamson's party embarked on the fur company's Mackinaw boat on the 22d of June; reached Traverse des Sioux on the 30th, where they took wagons and arrived at Lac-qui-parle on the 9th of July. There, on the north side of the Minnesota River, and in sight of the "Lake that speaks," they established themselves as teachers of the religion of Jesus. Of the "Life and Labors" pressed into the next forty-four years, only the most meager outline can be given in this article. It is now almost two round centuries since Hennepin and Du Luth met in the camps and villages of the Sioux on the Upper Mississippi. Then, as since, they were recognized as the largest and most warlike tribe of Indians on the continent. Until Dr. Williamson and his associates went among them, there does not appear to have been any effort made to civilize and Christianize them. With the exception of a few hundred words gathered by army officers and others, the Dakota language was unwritten. This was to be learned--_mastered_, which was found to be no small undertaking, especially to one who had attained the age of thirty-five years. While men of less energy and pluck would have knocked off or been content to work as best they could through an interpreter, Dr. Williamson persevered, and in less than two years was preaching Christ to them in the language in which they were born. He never spoke it easily nor just like an Indian, but he was readily understood by those who were accustomed to hear him.