Sale 2455 - Printed & Manuscript Americana, September 28, 2017

“THEY HAVE BEEN DANCING ALMOST EVERY NIGHT AROUNDTHE SCALP” 166 c   (MINNESOTA.) Large archive of Indian missionary letters written by the Pond family on the Minnesota frontier. 245 Autograph Letters Signed from various family members; various sizes and conditions. Vp, 1833-93 [30,000/40,000] Brothers Samuel and Gideon Pond of Washington, CT experienced religious conversions in 1831, and resolved to bring the Gospel to the Indians of the west. Samuel Pond (1808-1891) left in 1833 without any official support or credentials. Gideon followed him the next year, when they established themselves in Minnesota as missionaries among the Dakota Sioux. Eventually, four Pond siblings and their spouses went to Minnesota and raised families. Most of the letters in this collection are from SamuelWilliam Pond (1808-1891), Gideon Hollister Pond (1810-1878) and his wife Agnes, Ruth Pond Riggs (1813-1882), and Frederick Philip Pond (1819-1891) and his wife Martha. Also appearing frequently are Samuel’s daughters Jennet Clarissa and Rebecca Cordelia. Most of the letters are addressed to family matriarch Sarah Hollister Pond (1775-1864), her daughter Jennet Pond Hine (1802-1892), and husband Jonathan Hine, who remained behind inWashington, CT. Samuel Pond is the central character of this archive—the first to head west and the most frequent correspondent with 63 letters. His first Minnesota letter is dated 22 June 1834 from St. Peter:“Gideon & I mean to build us a log house this summer . . . 7 or 8 miles from the mouth of the St. Peters River. . . . The Indian Agent here wished to have us build there. He offered to furnish us with a yoke of oxen to build with & such tools as we want.The Indians selected the place for the house to stand. It is about one hundred rods from an Indian village.” He gained the trust of the Indians by teaching them agriculture, as he explained in this circa 1835 letter from Lake Minnetonka: “We have been able to render the Indians essential benefit and they know it.The Chief called on us last night to make a visit. He says he has seen the Chippeways, that he shook hands with them, and told them that we were here & that we had ploughed for them and they raised a great deal of corn.” His brother Gideon joined him early in 1834. In a 1 March 1835 letter from Lake Calhoun, he wrote:“I sit upon the ground in an Indian hut and have [mu]ch I want to say, but cannot, and if they talk, it is generally to tell how many men and women and children they have killed, how much game they take in hunting, that they are cold without cloths, have nothing to eat &c.” In their first years in Minnesota, Samuel and Gideon moved frequently, spending time in St. Peter, Prairieville, Lake