Before our return, Mr. and Mrs. Pettijohn had taken the pre-emption fever, and had left the mission and gone to the Traverse and made a claim. Mrs. Pettijohn had been connected with the mission work since 1839, and Mr. P. for a shorter period. Both had been conscientious workers, and had done good service. They now wanted to make a home for their growing family. Mr. Huggins also, about the same time, left the mission work, and made a home in the same neighborhood. Mr. Potter had left the Dakota field after only a year's trial, regarding it as a very difficult one, as compared with the one he had left in the Indian Territory South. Now, in the years 1852 and 1853, our numbers diminished very rapidly. The Indians were to be removed, according to the stipulations of their treaties, to their reserve on the Upper Minnesota. Both the brothers Pond elected to stay where they were, and minister to the white people who were rapidly settling up the country. Both were successful in organizing churches, one at Shakopee and the other at Bloomington. Both still live, but have retired from the work of the ministry, and are waiting for the translation to the upper world.[5] [5] Since this chapter was written, Rev. G. H. Pond, the younger of the brothers, has gone to see the King in his Beauty, in the Land that is not very far off. He departed on the 20th of January, 1878, leaving a family of _fifty_,--twenty-two were grandchildren,--and all except the sixteen youngest professing Christians. Likewise, for the same reasons, Mr. John F. Aiton retired from the service of the Board about the same time, and Mr. Hancock also. Dr. Williamsom elected to continue his work among the Dakotas, and so made arrangements, in advance of the removal of the Indians, to open a new station near the Yellow Medicine, which he called Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze--the Dakota name for that stream.