“A teacher for this place should love the Savior…”

Harriet Bishop chronicled the early history of Minnesota in her book Floral Home, First Years of Minnesota in order to “rescue from oblivion facts which might be unchronicled by future historians.” She was also very enthusiastic about Minnesota and desired others to travel west to Minnesota. She called Minnesota the “El Dorado of the World” and claimed that anyone seeing it would exclaim, “Eureka, Eureka.”

She wanted more women to travel west, for she felt that one woman added to the population was of more “importance than a whole cargo of the sterner sex.” After reading what Miss Bishop wrote, a reader could easily visualize her as a 21st century woman driven to make her mark on society.

Miss Bishop was studying to become a teacher in Albany, New York. While there, she read the following letter written by Dr. Williamson of the Sioux Mission in Minnesota:

My present residence is on the utmost verge of civilization in the northwestern part of the United States, within a few miles of the principal village of white men in the territory that we suppose will bear the name of Minnesota, which some would render, ‘clear water,’ though strictly, it signifies slightly turbid or whitish water.

The village referred to has grown up within a few years in a romantic situation on a high-bluff of the Mississippi, and has been baptized by the Roman Catholics by the name of St. Paul. They have erected in it a small chapel, and constitute much the larger portion of the inhabitants. The Dakotas call it Im-mi-ja-ska (white rock), from the color of the sand-stone which forms the bluff on which the village stands. This village has five stores, as they call them, at all of which intoxicating drinks constitute a part, and I suppose the principal part, of what they sell. I would suppose the village contains a dozen or twenty families living near enough to send to school. Since I came to this neighborhood, I have had frequent occasion to visit the village, and have been grieved to see so many children growing up entirely ignorant of God, and unable to read his Word, with no one to teach them. Unless your Society can send them a teacher, there seems to be little prospect of their having one for several years. A few days since I went to the place for the purpose of making inquiries in reference to the prospect of a school. I visited seven families, in which there were twenty-three children of proper age to attend school, and was told of five more, in which were thirteen more that it is supposed might attend, making thirty-six in twelve families. I suppose more than half of the parents of these children are unable to read themselves, and care but little about having their children taught. Possibly the priest might deter some from attending, who might otherwise be able and willing.

I suppose a good female teacher can do more to promote the cause of education and true religion than a man. The natural politeness of the French (who constitute more than half the population) would cause them to be kind and courteous to a female, even though the priest should seek to cause opposition. I suppose she might have twelve or fifteen scholars to begin with, and if she should have a good talent for winning the affections of children (and one who has not should not come), after a few months she would have as many as she could attend to.

One woman told me she had four children she wished to send to school, and that she would give boarding and a room in her house to a good female teacher, for the tuition of her children.

A teacher for this place should love the Savior, and for his sake should be willing to forego, not only many of the religious privileges and elegances of New England towns, but some of the neatness also. She should be entirely free from prejudice on account of color, for among her scholars she might find not only English, French, and Swiss, but Sioux and Chippewas, with some claiming kindred with the African stock.

A teacher coming should bring books with her sufficient to begin a school, as there is no book store within three hundred miles.

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^{Each week visitors to this site will be able to read about a segment of Minnesota Baptist Association (MBA) history. Much of the information will come from a booklet published in 1983 entitled A Light in the Darkness by John Ballentine and Wellie Midgley, two pastors who served in MBA churches. Other information will be taken from Annuals containing the minutes of the annual meetings back to the beginning of the association in the 1850s, along with articles from the North Star Baptist magazine and from The History of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College written by Larry Pettegrew. -Carolyn Van Loh}