As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way up the Mississippi, the rich May verdure, through which they passed, appeared strikingly beautiful to the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. It was a most delightful journey and ended on the sixth day of May, at the dock at old Fort Snelling.
This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civilization. It had been established in 1819, as our front-guard against the British and Indians of the Northwest. It was located on the high plateau, lying between the Mississippi and the Minnesota (St. Peters) rivers, and it was then the only important place within the limits of the present state of Minnesota.
While still on board the Warrior, the brothers received a visit and a warm welcome from the Rev. William T. Boutell, a missionary of the American Board to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He was greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear brethren, who, from love to Christ and for the poor red man, had come alone to this long-neglected field."
A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves in savage environments and face to face with the grave problems they had come so far to solve. They were men extremely well fitted, mentally and physically, naturally and by training for the toils and privations of the life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not by man but by the Lord; appointed, not by any human authority but by the great Jehovah; without salary or any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknown, unheralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead earnest, their grand life-work. Their mission and commission was to conquer that savage tribe of fierce, prairie warriors, by the two-edged sword of the spirit of the living God and to mold them aright, by the power of the Gospel of His Son. And God was with them as they took up their weapons (not carnal but spiritual) in this glorious warfare.
They speedily found favor with the military authorities, and with one of the most prominent chieftains of that time and region—Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky.
The former gave them full authority to prosecute their mission among the Indians; the latter cordially invited them to establish their residence at his village on the shore of Lake Calhoun.
The present site of Minneapolis was then simply a vast, wind-swept prairie, uninhabited by white men. A single soldier on guard at the old government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls was the only representative of the Anglo-Saxons, where now dwell hundreds of thousands of white men of various nationalities.
Busy, bustling, beautiful Minneapolis, with its elegant homes; its commodious churches; its great University—with its four thousand students—; its well-equipped schools—with their forty-two thousand pupils—; its great business blocks; its massive mills; its humming factories; its broad avenues; its pleasant parks; its population of a quarter of a million of souls; all this had not then even been as much as dreamed of.
Four miles west of St. Anthony Falls, lies Lake Calhoun, and a short distance to the south is Lake Harriet, (two most beautiful sheets of water, both within the present limits of Minneapolis). The intervening space was covered by a grove of majestic oaks.
Here, in 1834, was an Indian village of five hundred Sioux. Their habitations were teepees, made of tamarack bark or of skins of wild beasts. Their burial ground covered a part of lovely Lakewood, the favorite cemetery of the city of Minneapolis. This band recognized Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky as their chief, whom they both respected and loved. He was then about forty years of age. He was an intelligent man, of an amiable disposition and friendly to the approach of Civilization. Here, under the auspices of this famous chieftain, they erected for themselves a snug, little home, near the junction of Thirty-fifth street and Irving Avenue South, Minneapolis.