Isabella Burgess had been two years in the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford, Ohio, and Alfred Longley was completing his academical course at Knox College. Isabella came to see him graduate, and then together they started for their Indian home in Minnesota. It was about the first of July, 1858, and at midnight, when the steamboat on which they were traveling, having landed at Red Wing and discharged some freight, and pushed out again into the river, was found to be on fire. The alarm was given, and the passengers waked up, and the boat immediately turned again to the landing; but the fire, having caught in some cotton bales on the front deck, spread so rapidly that it was with difficulty the passengers made their escape, the greater part of them only in their night-dress. Their baggage was all lost. But the good people of Red Wing cared for the sufferers, and started them homeward, with such clothing as could be furnished. Of the catastrophe we knew nothing, until I met the children at St. Peter, whither they came by steamboat. This, and what had gone before, gave us something of a reputation of being a fiery family, and the impression was increased somewhat when, nearly two years later, Martha Taylor, in her second year at Oxford, escaped by night from the burning Seminary building.
After Alfred’s return, in the summer of 1858, he spent a year at Hazelwood, in teaching a government school, and then joined the Theological Seminary at Chicago. In the summer of 1860, the absent ones were all at home. During the six years we had been at Hazelwood, two other children had been given us, Robert Baird and Mary Cornelia Octavia, which made a very respectable little flock of eight.
Twenty-five years had passed since Dr. Williamson came to the Dakotas. Many changes had taken place. It was fitting that the two families which remained should, in some proper way, put up a quarter-century milestone. And so we arranged an out-door gathering, at which we had food for the body and food for the mind. Among other papers read at this time was one which I prepared with some care, giving a short biographical sketch of all the persons who up to that time had been connected with the Dakota mission; a copy of which was afterward placed in the library of the Historical Society of Minnesota.
Ever since the removal of the Lower Indians up to their reservation, there had been several members of Dr. Williamson’s church at Kaposia, living near the Red Wood Agency. They would form a very good nucleus of a church, and make a good beginning for a new station. This had been in our thought for several years, but only when, in 1861, John P. Williamson finished his theological studies at Lane Seminary, had we the ability to take possession of that part of the field. While we waited, Bishop Whipple came up and opened a mission, placing there S. D. Hinman. Still, it was thought advisable to carry out our original plan, and, accordingly, young Mr. Williamson took up his abode there, organized a church of ten or twelve members, and proceeded to erect a chapel. In the last days of the year 1861, I went down, by invitation, to assist in the dedication of the new church.
That journey, both going and returning, was my sorest experience of winter travel, but it helped to start forward this new church organization, which was commencing very auspiciously. Mr. Williamson had his arrangements all made to erect a dwelling-house early in the next season. And when the outbreak took place in August, 1862, as Providence would have it, he had gone to Ohio, as we all supposed, to consummate an engagement which he had made while in the seminary.
CHAPTER XI.
1861-1862.—Republican Administration.—Its Mistakes.—Changing Annuities.—Results.—Returning from General Assembly.—A Marriage in St. Paul.—D. Wilson Moore and Wife.—Delayed Payment.—Difficulty with the Sissetons.—Peace Again.—Recruiting for the Southern War.—Seventeenth of August, 1862.—The Outbreak.—Remembering Christ’s Death.—Massacres Commenced.—Capt. Marsh’s Company.—Our Flight.—Reasons Therefor.—Escape to an Island.—Final Leaving.—A Wounded Man.—Traveling on the Prairie.—Wet Night.—Taking a Picture.—Change of Plan.—Night Travel.—Going Around Fort Ridgely.—Night Scares.—Safe Passage.—Four Men Killed.—The Lord Leads Us.—Sabbath.—Reaching the Settlements.—Mary at St. Anthony.
When President Lincoln’s administration commenced, we were glad to welcome a change of Indian agents. But, after a little trial, we found that a Republican administration was quite as likely to make mistakes in the management of Indians as a Democratic one. Hardly had the new order of things been inaugurated, in 1861, when Superintendent Clark W. Thompson announced to the Sioux gathered at Yellow Medicine that the Great Father was going to make them all very glad. They had received their annuities for that year, but were told that the government would give them a further bounty in the autumn. At one of Thompson’s councils, Paul made one of his most telling speeches. He presented many grievances, which the new administration promised to redress. But when the superintendent was asked where this additional gift came from, he could not tell—only it was to be great, and would make them very glad.