In the middle of the period now in view, a new influence, not heartily welcomed by the traders, came over the Minnesota Indians,—that of the missionaries, mostly Protestant. The first efforts at evangelization were made for the Chippeways and probably at the instance of Robert Stuart, the principal agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, an ardent Scotch Presbyterian. In 1823 a boarding-school was opened at that place and flourished for some years. In 1830 a mission was opened at La Pointe, Wisconsin, on the spot occupied by the Jesuit fathers one hundred and fifty years before. From this place as a centre mission work was extended into Minnesota. In 1833 the Rev. W. T. Boutwell proceeded to Leech Lake, built a log cabin, and began work. The Rev. Frederick Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix, and the Rev. E. E. Ely began teaching at Sandy Lake. Three years later all of these were removed for more concentrated, coöperative effort to Lake Pokegama in Pine County. This mission was carried on with much promise for five years, when it was interrupted by a descent of a large war-party of Sioux led by Little Crow. Among the killed were two young girls, pupils of the mission school. The Chippeways abandoned the place for homes farther from the danger line, and this mission came to an end. The Chippeways had their revenge a year later (1842), when they came down to the near neighborhood of St. Paul and got in the so-called battle of Kaposia the scalps of thirteen Sioux warriors, two women, and a child. The missions to the Sioux were begun in the spring of 1834 by two young laymen from Connecticut, who appeared at Fort Snelling without credentials from any synod or conference, but with abundant faith and zeal. They were brothers, Samuel William and Godwin Hollister Pond, then twenty-six and twenty-four years of age respectively. Although they had entered the Indian country without leave or license, they secured at once the confidence of Agent Taliaferro and Major Bliss, commander of Fort Snelling. With their own hands they built a log cabin on the east shore of Lake Calhoun, on the edge of Cloudman’s village. That chief selected the site. Established in this “comfortable home,” they devoted themselves to learning the Dakota language. Within a few weeks they adapted the Roman letters to that language with such skill that the “Pond alphabet” has with slight modification been ever since used in writing and printing it. A Dakota child can begin to read as soon as it has “learned its letters.” The zealous brothers made the first collections for the dictionary, later enlarged by others, prepared a spelling-book, and formulated a rude grammar. Mr. Sibley, who came in the fall of the same year, became a warm friend of the Ponds.