At first the mission was called _Chickamauga_, but since Chickamauga Town was situated on the other side of the creek, visitors coming to the school often became confused and went to the Indian village. It was decided to correct the handicap by changing the name to _Brainerd_, in honor of David Brainerd, the pioneer missionary among the Indians of New England and New York. David Brainerd had been in his grave seventy years before the founding of this namesake of his. Many were the visitors of prominence who came to Brainerd. Perhaps the most noted person was President James Monroe, who paid the mission a surprise visit May 27, 1819, and spent the night there. Monroe took a deep interest in the institution and gave it the material support of the Federal Government. John Howard Payne, author of the famous song, _Home Sweet Home_, while collecting data for a history he was preparing of the Cherokee, spent two weeks at Brainerd, and the fourteen large volumes of his manuscripts now at the Newberry Library in Chicago contain copies of many letters written by the pupils of this mission school. Dr. Samuel Worcester, one of the founders of the American Board and its first secretary, who was largely responsible for founding Brainerd Mission, visited the institution in 1821. He was ill when he left his home in Boston and traveled by boat as far as New Orleans. After driving a horse and buggy from that southern city to Brainerd, he arrived there on May 25 a very sick man. On June 7 he passed away. His funeral in the Brainerd cemetery on June 9, 1821, was attended by hundreds of Cherokees riding horseback from all parts of the nation, who came to show their respect for a man they had not seen but whom all had learned to love. [Illustration: Little Owl’s village site on the Elise Chapin Wildlife Sanctuary] Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary, also came for a visit. The first translations of the Bible in Cherokee was made by another Indian by the name of _Atsi_, but who was known to the whites as John Arch. This took place at Brainerd. John Arch was the interpreter at Brainerd. When he arrived at the school, after having walked to the mission from the Nantahala Valley of Western North Carolina, now a part of the Smoky Mountain Park, he was so raggedly dressed and so wild looking that the missionaries were three days deciding whether to accept him as a pupil or not. He had only one possession, a gun, which he gladly exchanged for some warm clothes. Much to their surprise John Arch proved an apt pupil, and after receiving a few years’ education, he became one of the strongest supporters of the school.