MISS MARION MOIR
Mrs. Gideon Pond—1843.
On the twenty-third day of August, 1842, I was married to Robert Hopkins. He was preparing to come to the Northwest as an assistant missionary in the Dakota mission, and in March 1843, we started on our long journey from Ohio to Fort Snelling, sent out by the American Board. We came down the Ohio and up the Mississippi in a steamboat, stopping off for Sabbath and had to wait a long time for a boat at Galena after spending Sunday there. We reached Fort Snelling in May after a tedious journey. From Fort Snelling we started up the Minnesota River in an open boat propelled by oars. At night we camped on the banks and cooked our supper. In the party were Mr. and Mrs. Steven Riggs and their two children and his wife's brother. Dr. Riggs was just returning from the east where he had had some books printed in the Dakota tongue.
We also had three men to row the boat. We suffered much from the myriads of mosquitoes. We baked our bread each day. It was simply flour and salt and water baked in a frying pan before a smoking camp fire. It was very distasteful to me and I determined to have a loaf of light bread. I had some home made yeast cakes in my luggage as bought yeast cakes were then unknown. I soaked one of them in a pail of river water, stirred in some flour and soon had some nice light yeast. I mixed a loaf of bread and set it where the hot sun would keep it warm. At night it was ready to be baked and I used a little Dutch oven which was on the boat to bake it in. The oven was like a black iron kettle flat on the bottom and standing on three little legs about three inches long. We placed coals under the oven and a thick iron cover heavier than any you ever saw, we heated in the fire and placed over the oven to bake the bread on the top, while to bake it on the sides we turned the oven around. I attending the baking of my bread with great solicitude and care.
While it was baking an Indian man came into the camp and sat down by the fire. I paid no attention to him but attended to my loaf, just as I would have done if he had not been there. Mrs. Riggs said, "You should not have let that man see your bread." I said, "Why not," and she answered, "He may come in the night and steal it," which I thought was preposterous. In the morning I fried some bacon, made coffee, spread the breakfast on the ground and went to get my bread and it was gone. So the breakfast had to wait until I could mix some of the bread I disliked so much and bake it. I remember well I thought "So this is the kind of people I have come to live among."
At the point called Traverse de Sioux we left the river and made the remainder of our journey nearly one hundred miles in wagons which had been sent from the mission at Lac qui Parle to meet us. A new station was to be started at Traverse and Mr. Riggs and two of the men remained there to build houses for us.
We were four or five days going from Traverse to Lac qui Parle and had many thrilling adventures. Dr. Riggs had been east a year and had taken with him three young Indian men that they might see and learn something of civilized life. They were returning with us on their way to their homes. The last morning of our journey two of them proposed to go ahead on foot and reach their friends, as they could go faster so, than in wagons. The other, being sick, remained with us. We had an extra horse and later he was told that he might ride on to meet his friends. After some time he came tearing back. He excitedly told us that his only brother had come to meet him and had been murdered by ambushed Ojibway Indians.
We soon came to where the scalped and bleeding body lay, right across the road. The men of our party carried the body gently to one side and covered it with a canvas. In a short time we met large numbers of Indian men armed and very much excited, in pursuit of those who had murdered their neighbor and friend. I could not understand a word they said, but their gestures and words were so fierce that I expected to be killed. They fired at our team and one of the horses was so seriously injured that we had to stop. Mrs. Riggs and I walked the rest of the journey, five miles, she carrying her fifteen months old baby. This was July 4, 1843. My first baby was born on the 10th of the following September.
On this last five miles of our journey, Indian women came out to meet us. Some of them had umbrellas and held them over us. They seemed to know that this was a terrible adventure for us. One of them put her arms around me and tried to help me on and was as kind as any white woman. They offered to carry Mrs. Riggs' baby, but the little thing was afraid of them and cried so that they could not. Mrs. Riggs kept saying over and over again, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
The Indians seemed to me very poor, indeed. They had for many years depended upon the buffalo but now these were growing very scarce and no longer furnished a living for them. The Indian women each year planted small patches of corn with only their hoes for plows. They raised only small amounts and they had no store houses. Sometimes they buried their supply of food for the coming spring in holes in the ground, but dared not mark the place for fear of having their supplies stolen, so they were not always able to find it when it was wanted. In the fall they gathered wild rice which they threshed by flailing it in buffalo skins. In the spring they made a little maple sugar. They were often very short of food and suffered from hunger.