Your sincere friend,
OSHKAHPUKEDA.
P.S.—Tell all the boys I send them my love; and the boy that he loved best I shall think him my son. Good-bye."
* * * * *
A year after this, Oshkahpukeda, and a number of the other Indians of Lake Neepigon were baptized; the site for a Mission was selected, and a roughly built log school-house with bark roof was constructed, also another log-house for a teacher. Joseph Esquimau, a pupil of the Shingwauk Home was placed in charge of the Mission temporarily, and conducted services, and taught school very successfully. In the summer of 1881, the Rev. R. Renison, was appointed by the Bishop to take charge of the Mission, and moved there with his family. Several of the Indians had by that time built log-houses for themselves, and the village is called Ningwinnenang, after the boy who died.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE WAWANOSH HOME.
The spot selected for the Wawanosh Home was rather more than a mile above the village of Sault Ste. Marie. I bought five acres of bush land at three pounds an acre as a site for the Institution, and a ten-acre cultivated lot, just opposite, for L60.
Immediately after making the purchase, we took all our boys up there for a "clearing bee;" they hoisted the Union Jack on the site of the new Home, and within a few days had cleared a considerable piece of land and commenced digging the foundations. It was to be a stone building of two storeys high with a frontage of about forty-five feet, and a wing running back, and to cost about L700. During the summer our boys got out all the stone necessary for building, most of it was collected on the Shingwauk land, and they were paid 20 cents a cord for piling it.
We were anxious as soon as possible to get the new Home into operation. After the summer of 1876 no girls returned to the Shingwauk, and we doubled our number of boys. It seemed hard to shut the girls out from the privileges of Christian care and education, and we were naturally desirous of receiving back as soon as possible those whom we had already commenced teaching. For this reason we thought it well at once to make a beginning by erecting the back wing of the Institution first. During the winter stone and sand were hauled, and on the 5th of May, 1877, building operations commenced. We took the contract ourselves. I had a good practical man as carpenter at the Shingwauk, and we got our plans and specifications; then an estimate was made, and after being approved by a third party—a person experienced in such matters—the work began. Mrs. Fauquier, our Bishop's wife, and two or three other ladies kindly joined with me as a committee to manage the Institution, a lady was engaged as lady Superintendent, a man and wife as gardener and matron, and about the first week in September the girls began to arrive.