.C5W9 M m IK 4 o ,*' .^;:;^^ ^-. *<^ <^<^' Mv Deak Bkothkr: We seud to you, as a friend of the Indian race, this Article of our Indian girl, "Vada." It tells its own pathetic story. "Vada" is a Chri.-^tian girl, 16 years of age. She is a member of this "WoR- CKSTEK Indian Academy of Vinita," the only Congregational Indian Mission iSch(X)l of the Am. H. M. Society. Please read the article yourself on account of its merits and thrilling interest, and we know you will desire to have it read to your Sunday SchfX)l and Missionary Society. It will give you some idea of tlio class of inintls we are given to work upon, the kind of work we, as a denomination, are called to do, and the blessed results we may expect. Let us make this one Indian school worthy of our name, and an evidence of our Hinrorc purpo.se, in the place of abuse and wnjng, to do justice to the* hxlian race; to elevate and save the people of these tribes. We greatly need funds. Witli the needed money at hand, we can furnish here, in this Indian Land, eur life and work among the Imilans, wc will aii.s\\«r, to Ito rcaii\ \yi)kci:sTi;k. n. ii torn M YtAR* A MlttlONARV Or THE A. B. C. F. M. AMOMO THf CHCROKtES. :^ Vapcr i;i \h \i rill « mmmi vrKMi.NT UK wokckstm: \( \i>i;mv \\ \iMi \. iM» ri:i{...n \K is. ik«<4. U\ Mjs> NE\Ai)A rorcii A Mii. i,o. o< f... Acjdemy t.,..^MED FOR THE INSTITUTION TIIIUO KI»ITI«»N. MKVISKK. \{ V. >tii. >t. I.<.ni« .0.5 Iv/f COPYRIGHT SECURED. Ylic Woi'des^tei' Sdadeniv of Viiiita. Is a ( onjrre^ational Mission School, intended especially to ffive tlje best educational advantajres to Indian boys and ^nrls. It is located at \'inita, (.'lierokee Nation, Indian Terri- tory. It was established, and is suppijrted by the American IIojMf Missionary Society. It lias a I'xtanr of Directors, composed of the best citi- zens of the locality. Only a Nominal Tuition is charged to students, about sufVn'ient to meet the incidental expenses of the school. The Salaries of the Teachers are paid from Congrega- tion:il Home Missionary fun*f(^itB^ cS)yit a^ ts. Jj^^yit^v^z s=(»ysET, e^ ivRT, Dcf R&^say to collect such facts as may he availahle, from what^jver source and in whatever form, pertaininjf to the early and later life of this eminently faithful and ^'<>od man, with some leading fads of (Jhero- kee Indian history ideiititled with it. Kev. Samuel Austin Worcester was sprung from an honored anrestry. The "Worcester Family Jiecord" traces him hack through eight generations of ministers of the gosjiel. He was the son of Rev. Leonard Worcester, of I'eacham, N't. Ills mother was Kli/aheth Hopkins, daugh- ter ot Kev. Samuel Hopkins, l>, D., of Hadlev, Mass. He was l»(»rn January 1!», 17*JK, at Worcester, Mass., from which place, when the t^hild was «iuito young, his father removed to Peacham, Vt., to hecteps, ollering himself to the servieo of the then only Missionary Board representing his own fait!) and the faith of his fathers. So they embarked from Boston, August 31, 1825, for life- long labor to the Cherokee Nation, whose tlevelopment and interest Mr. Worcester had most heartily adopted, and to which he was to give the busy years of a struggling devoted life. They arrived at liraiiu-rd, lOast Tennessee, on the bor- ders of (icorgia, October lil, 1H25, where they labored until Ih'Jh, when they removed to New P^chota. In IsHi Dr. Samuel Worcester, pastor of the Tabernacle Church, at Salem, Mass., the first Corresponding Secretary of tlie American Jtoard of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, in whose church the five first foreign missionaries, three years before, had been ordained, wrote, congratulat- ing Rev. (Jyrus Kingsi)ury, on his success in having estab- — 8 — lished, the year previous, among the Cherokees, by aid of an Indian chief, the site of the Brainerd Mission, on the banks of the Chickamauga — " a point ten miles from the place made famous forty-seven years later by the repulse of the Union army, on the banks of the creek which some rebel termed the " River of Death," and seven miles, also, from the brow of that Lookout Mountain, where, in " the battle of the clouds," the Confederacy received a stunning blow. The Missionaries called it Brainerd. A neighbor- ing height still bears the name of "Mission- Ridge." Little thought he then that only five years later his own spirit would take its flight heavenward from that very spot. A few weeks before the arrival of the nephew and his wife at Brainerd, where the boarding school for Cherokee boys and girls had been established and was in operation, Mr. J. C. Ellsworth, the superintendent, on reading a letter from the Secretary of the Board, said : " We are soon to have a minister and an old acquaintance, Samuel A. Wor- cester, a scholar who can learn the Cherokee language." Reading the next page, he remarked to Miss Sawyer, teacher of the girls' school: "He is just married to Miss Ann Orr, a former school companion of yours." Miss Saw- yer at once exclaimed . "A Worcester and an Orr united in marriage! they are strong characters. We shall have to mind our P's and Q's when they get here." When the people were collected at Brainerd to hear the new missionary preacher for the first time, according to custom, a Cherokee name must be given to him. An old Indian woman said: " He is very white ; " and suggested a name in Cherokee which meant "green," Charles Reese, the warrior mentioned in Mrs. Sigourney's " Traits of the Aborigines," was standing by, and exclaimed: "No, no. He knows a great deal ; he must have a better name." After considerable discussion in Cherokee, they agreed to call him A-tse-nu-sti, " a messenger," and a messenger of good tidings he was ever after to that people. There was general rejoicing at other stations, on learning that there was now a prospect that tracts, hymns and other literature would ere long be published, as Guess', or Sequoyah's Syllabic Alphabet, was soon to be used in pub- lishing a national newspaper, partly in English and partly in Clierokee, at New Eehota, the eapitol of the Nation. Mr. Worcester and wife spent, two years at Brainerd, encouraging and strengthening those of the mission family to whose lot it had fallen to repair, improve and add to the buildings. Here his ingenuity and skill in mechani- cal work was in requisition. He was slow, patient and generally successful. Hen*, at Jirainerd, his first child. Ann Eliza, who after- wards became the wife of Rev.W. S. Robertson, was born— a woman of rare intellect and power, who, true to family instincts, has given her whole life to missionary work, in tlie Cberokee Nation at first, and from the day of her nnirriage, in the Creek Nation. For many years, and up to this writing, in advanced age, she has been, and is engaged in translating the Bible, hynms and tracts, into the Creek <*r '^ Mus-ko-ker'^ language. His work of translating, with the aid of an educated •Cherokee, was soon after intcrrui)ted by the unrighteous laws of ( MMirgia ; but tbe ycarly+ almanac, and two or three important tra«;ts, were scattered among tbe people, most of wliom judgercester entered most heartily iuth«Mi Forciimn, n-centlv <|.. . 1^. .1. fiitlicr of Di. ri»n-iiiaii, (if \ inita!. of Mr. KdiMiuaii, the Mi.^^i'iunu Jhraiil, Dec. K'..;, lia^ ilii.«* notice: "Mr Stei»lieii Foreintui. ;i « i. ,1,. v., Ill,' inuii, wlin ieeei\ei| liis elo?iientar>' eilueatioii al I 111 ' ii CmikIvS ('it-ek, ami after attemliii;; to >()iiie j)ie- li:i' Ml Mr. \V(ireestei- al N<'\v Keliuta. >|ient one > ear at (111 I „;(iil >einiiiar>,in Viririnia, and anntlier at that in rnneetoii, Stw .l.i.-»i'\. in the 'stnds of theoh);^_\, was licensed to Iireai'h by the I nion r'reshyt«-iy. Tenni-ssee. al)ont "tiie lirst of Oct. 18.'i:5. Iv l^^eaeile^ witii animation and ihnney in the Ciierokee lanfruaKC, and i)n)niiM'.H to In* hi^ldy useful as an evan^eUst among his people." tThe ealenlations for which were mud«*.year by year, Ijy the cele- bratey a conscience void of offence, and by the anticipation of a righteous decision at that tribunal from which there is no appeal." 12 Dr. Worcester was arrested the third time August 17, 1831, but released the next day, on account of the death of his youngest daughter, to attend whose funeral he had just reached home, after a sad ride of 52 miles, to his sick wife and bereaved family. He was finally arrested, with Dr. Butler, and taken be- fore the Superior Court of Georgia, on the 15th of Septem- ber, 1831, and on the following day they were sentenced, by Judge Clayton, of Georgia, to four years' imprisonment at hard labor, in the Georgia Penitentiary, at Milledge- ville. It is true, all this was claimed to be under cover of law, but a law aimed at the missionaries, because they stood in the way of the most nefarious plans. When the State of Georgia sent a guard to arrest him, he called his family together in his wife's sick room, and, inviting the soldiers also, he conducted family worship with accustomed ease, and then, gently bidding adieu to his wife and little daughters, he followed the guard to the court room, several miles away, attended by no counsel, and to plead his own cause, though he was a postmaster at the time, and, as a United States official, exempted from their authority. In January, 1831, Mr. Worcester and his companions had received notification of a law requiring all white jnen re- siding on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia and get a license from the Governor, under penalty, if found there after the first of the follow- ing March, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor for not less than four years. It was under this law they were to stand trial. When the blow fell and the sentence was finally given. Dr. Worcester, leaving his sick family, accepted it with all its indignities — the hardship, cruelty and persecution it betokened. Nine other persons were arrested, tried and sentenced to the same punishment by this court, among whom was a Methodist minister, Mr. Trott, (father of the Trott Bros, of — 13 — Viuita,) and a Cherokee named Proctor. The latter was for two nights chained hy the neck to the wall of the house, and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and marched two days chained l»y tlie neck to a wagon ; and Dr. Butler was marched also with a chain about his neck, and part of the time in pit^-h darkness, with the chain fastened to the neck of a horse. So says Dr. Bartlett in his " Sketch of the North American Indians." As they fame within siirlit of the penitentiary walls, one of the guariitlei-, took the >li().iii;iker's liench. -wtup CH- •riiiii Ministers c«»iidf'iime(l tliciii, aii'i >\ M.-n their \vi\i-^ W.I. ..II 111. II way to s«»o thcni. ur;,'('«l thut they ohoiihl nsr thfii iiitlii<-iicr to h-jul tljt'ir hiisl»iiii(ls to siil)riiit to tlic «triirtfia law . ii-t a rhri-tian «liit\ . Mrs. Wofcrstn's answer to on** of tliivHi- wii-H, "If svv tlioiiKlit we woiihl say oni- \voriiiMl!j we wouUl not ^^ounotlier steji." — 14 — During the time they were separated from their families and labors, condemned to an ignominious punishment, and shut up in a penitentiary with felons, they had been placed in a most trying situation, requiring great fortitude and a firm reliance on the faithfulness of their covenant God and Saviour. Nor should it be noticed with less grati- tude that they were enabled so well to maintain the Chris- tian character, and to exhibit in all the trials and sufferings to which they were subjected, that meekness and benev- olent forbearance which the Gospel requires. It is be- lieved that in all their correspondence there was not one word which indicated an angry, unforgiving or vindictive spirit. They held stated religious services on the Sabbath, and during the last five or six months all the prisoners were assembled, and Mr. Worcester was requested by Col. Mills, the keeper, to preach to them one-half the day. A spirit of inquiry was to some extent awakened among the prison-' ers, — a number w^ere savingly and permanently benefited. Mrs. Worcester and Mrs. Butler visited the prison, and were received kindly by Col. Mills. Mrs. Butler was quite overcome, but Mrs. Worcester carried out her determina- tion that no Georgian should see her tears, lest the}^ should construe them as regretting her husband's coiirse, which she never did. The second Mrs. Boudinot, in her "Reminiscences," thus describes this visit to the penitentiary : " When the year came round, it was proposed that Mrs. Worcester and Mrs. Butler, with their children, should visit their husbands and fathers. Accompanied by a kind missionary brother, Bev. William Chamberlin (grand- father of the Chamberlin Bros, of Vinita), eight in number, they travelled over the same rough road, which was made smoother years later when Gen. Sherman left Grant to capture Richmond, while he was marching to relieve our Union boys from a prison equally cruel and unjust. The hand of God w^as in each. Col. Mills, the -15- kind keeper, received these families at Milledg-eville as Christians, and Gov. Lumpkin and his amiable Xorthern wife showed them kindness. " When the children met their fathers in prisoners' garb they shrunk back from their proffered embrace, but rallied when smiled upon." It was father and child. Mr. Worcester and Dr. Butler remained in this incar- ceration at hard labor, according- to the terms of the sen- tence, for sixteen months, when they were liberated by the (Jovernor, Jan. 14, 1833. They immediately returned to the stiitions which they had respectively occupied in the Cherokee country, and resumed their labors; but still iniiependent in their consciousness of rijrht, in refusinor to take the obnoxious oaths. The following' is a copy of the letter to (iov. TiUmpkin, written by Dr. Won-ester. \\ hie}) Ifd to Ins lehvise froiu the (ttH>r;ria penitentiary : " I'KMTKN riAKV, M I LLKIKJ EVILLE, 1 Jan. 8, 183:5. i "7'o//M KxcrUrncif WiImoii /jUi/i/»f:i/i, (iorrmor of (icoi'fjia. " HiK : In reference to a notice j,nven to your Excellency on the L'8th of November last, by our counsel in our l)ehalf, of our intention to move the Su])reme Court of the United States, on the second day of February next, for further process in the case between ourselves individually, as plaint ills in error, and t!ie State of Georgia, as defendant in error, we have now to inform your Kxcelleiicy that we have this day forwarded instructions to our counsel to f(jr- bear th«« intended motion, and to prosecute the case no further. We beg leave respectively to stjite to your Excel- h'ucy, that we have not been led to the adoption of this measure by any change of views in n-gard to the principles on which we have acted, or by any doubt of the justice of our cause, or of our perfect right of a legal discharge, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court in our favor already given, but by the apprehension that the further prosecution of the controversy, under existing — 16 — circumstances, might be attended with consequences in- jurious to our beloved country. We are, Respectfully yours, (Signed) S. A. Worcester. Elizur Butler." The Governor was highly offended with the latter part of this letter. He thought that it would have been suffi- cient to give him a simple notice of the withdrawal of their suit, without insulting him with the declaration that they were altogether right, and the State altogether wrong. Whereat, after consultation and deliberation with politi- cal friends, a second letter was written, January 9, saying they meant no indignity, etc., but " simply to forbear the prosecution of our case, and to leave the question of the continuance of our confinement to the magnanimity of the State." After five days of deliberation on the Governor's part, and of suspense to them, he was satisfied, and they were told by the keeper of the penitentiary that the Gov- ernor had ordered their discharge, but no reply was ever made to the prisoners themselves. Mrs. Robertson, his daughter, gives an account of this transaction, in a letter to the collator, as follows : "They would neither forsake their work, or perjure themselves, so took the penalty, and appealed to the Su- preme Court. They employed a lawyer, Mr. Chester, to plead their cause. The celebrated Wm. Wirt, then in public life, also volunteered on their behalf, and, refusing compensation, argued the case before the Court. The de- cision of the United States Supreme Court was given in an order that the missionaries must be set at liberty. The State of Georgia refused to release them, ' except at the point of the bayonet.' After this the missionaries with- drew their suit, thus leaving the question of State Sover- eignty to he settled by bloodshed at a later day.^^ The tale of the removal of the Cherokees from their Georgia home, made dear to them by the most sacred associations, is one of the saddest of the many sad stories of Indian history. After every effort, it was found that no modification of the treaty requiring their removal would — 17 — he granted. It had seemed inipossihle to them that a treaty so iiiiciiiitoiis and oppressive would be executed. The order will he enforced. While the military were Catherine: around them, like the vultures round their vic- tim, and while numerous fortifications were erected in the country, they remained quietly in their homes. Late in the season, the missionaries celehrated the Lord's i^upper for the last time at Rrainerd, and sixteen thousand people s<»on bade a mournful and reluctant adieu to the land of their fathers.* A tive months' journey was before them. Sick, and well,(jld men and children, mothers and infants, throuurh the winter months they travelled on, from six to ei«;hteen miles a day. There were births and there were •leathH, but the deaths, ahis I were two to one. They aver- ajred thirteen deaths a day. They arrived at last, but more tlian four thousand — more than one-fourth of their \N hoh* nuMjher — in that ten months' time, they had left Iteneath the sod. That this shockintr mortality and ill- treatment was borne so patiently is a woniler. Jieligious sorvicea were held by the companies aloup the way, and probably the inlluence of the missionaries had to do with the prevention of that outburst whi«h liad been predicted by the government. The followin«: year, however, brouu^ht loan untimely end three of the six men who had sold their country by si^rnin;; the treaty. Major Kid^je was way- laid and shot; John liidge, his son, was taken from his bed and cut to pieces ; tKllas lioudinot was decoyed from his hous»' ""i -^'(i" will. Upiv*'- rind hatchets. •Tlu- ( coiiipri.s»*. u dauKlitrr t>f .lnd;:r (ionid of Unit i)laef. Wln-n Mr. and Mr.-. W<.rc«'sti-r n-acln-d tin- »i^iiiii;{ tlif trrtity iiikI its coiisi'iiiirticfs, tii- i-xi-laiuit'cl, ai- I nMnriiihcr In- wonlsj wn'li Mtroii:; ciiioiioii. " hor niyx'll', I can lii'ur wlialrxi'r <>oiiii-s upon UK', Imt t<» sc** Mr. NVoivcster thrown into siifh trouhii' by my lU'tioii srrni-i almost morr than 1 t-an hear." ♦ Thr fiut of Dr. \V.>iv«'st«-rs coniin;; W«'st l.rfoif tlif si;;nin;;ot tiic tr«'aty. was oiu* of tin* mo>t iiii|iortaiit in his lil«« in rr;rar{o on with his work ou the Scriptures, in their hehall. -20- not forgotten— it will go down with our traditions — that in 1838 General Winfield Scott, at the head of 2,000 United States troops, entered our territor}^ and drove us from our homes. Dr. Worcester remained with the Cherokees, faithful and beloved to the time of his death. Two of Mr. Worcester's most striking traits of character were his humility and his meekness. The meekness with which he bore contradiction was very strongly spoken of in the Presbytery of Maryville, Tenn., of which he was a member for a time. The peculiar circumstances in which he was often placed might have led to complaints of un- kind treatment received, but never did a word of the kind escape his lips. His humility was w^ell illustrated on one occasion, when, after his receiving the degree of D. D. from his Alma Mater, a brother minister addressed him as " Dr. Wortceser." " Don't doctor me," he exclaimed in tones so beseeching as to make it really touching ; but for once he begged in vain. What Dr. Rufus Anderson, in the " Memorial Volume," says of his instructor, Jeremiah Evarts, is equally true of the pupil at Brainerd and Park Hill. " His personal ap- pearance was by no means imposing, but he had a mind and a heart that made him a prince in the domain of intel- lect and of goodness." Dr. Worcester's daughter, Mrs. Robertson, writes : "It was ver}^ pleasant to me, in visiting my father's native town in my own school days, to find how affectionately his memory was cherished there for what he was in his young days among them. The work he did in improving his father's house and grounds in his college vacations was shown me with pride. How little could he have foreseen while his hands jvere so employed, that he would one day be called upon to use his mechanical skill within the walls of a penitentiary, or that his work would ever be found in a state capitol. My father's cheerful submission to cir- cumstances was shown on his way to the penitentiary, when, before being chained to his bed at night, he walked back and forth singing, the chains attached to his ankles — 21 — dragorin^ along the tloor. On reaching the gate of the penitentiary, tl»e keeper was not on hand with the kev so wiiile tljey waited there, my father lay down on theground and UM)k a go-seated ambulance, leaving Brainerd April 8, 1h;{.'>, an«l arriving at Dwight, on the Salisas, May 29, 1835. Tin* n«'Xt fall he remove*! to the old I'nion Mission, on (J rand lUver, set up again his mission press, and had printing done for both (.'herokees and Creeks, while his house at I*ark Hill was in building. To that he removed December, 2, lS.3t>. There he established a day school and printing otllce, and tjjere he built up a church, whose menjbers mourned as for a father when he was "taken from the evil to conu\" just Itefore the war which proved — 22 — so terrible to the nation of his love and care. He labored faithfully at Park Hill until his death, April 20, 1859. At Park Hill, May 23, 1810, he was bereaved of his wife, who was just such a helpmeet as Mr. Worcester needed during his eventful life. She was one from whom, he often said, he learned much that was of great benefit to him in his work. Having this family of six motherless children, about a year later he married the second time. Miss Erminia Nash, of Lowville, New York, a lady who had been teaching a mission school at Honey Creek station. She was a most devoted wife while he lived. She survived him thirteen years, and died of paralysis, at Fort Gibson, May 5, 1872. She sleeps near him in the cemetery near Park Hill, the place where for so many years he preached the blessed Gospel. During twenty years of the twenty-three he lived thero, he published an Almanac in Cherokee. This almanac he made a great power for good upon every moral question, especially the subject of temperance. The last number contains a powerful appeal to the Cherokee people for temperance. He was accustomed to travel through the country lecturing on this subject, taking with him a mu- sical instrument, and furnishing himself the hymns and songs. He was author of the "Cherokee Hymn Book." He expressed a desire not long before his death, to live to prepare a new edition of the Hymn Book, as well as to finisli the Bible. He wished to prepare a revised and larger book, saying, "2%ere is no one else who can do it/^ And he seems to have been correct in this feeling, for the Hymn Book has been reprinted since, witli very little change. He felt praise to be a very important part of worship, and never omitted it from family prayers. Even after his children were grown up, and he left with no one to help him in singing, he would sing alone, chanting most frequently, as he could best' manage chants on the instru- ment. - 23 — 'I'lie last iiiinil»er of liis A linanac contains the statenieiil, that tlie Cherokee Iiil)le Society had then heen in exist- ence seventeen .years, and the Mission Chun-h aid Semi- nary at Park Hill, near Tahle(]uah, was contributinir Sl'"^ per year for foreijrn missions. Thus, in every department of his work, there was the evidence of excellent plaiminir, a clear takinjr in of dnn|rers and wants, and a healthy •rrowth. The practical <:ood sense, antl the ten«ler, charitable Christian spirit of Dr. Worcester is seen in the view which he took of the relation of denominations of Christians to each other, where only unimportant matters were involved. He was a Conjptef the Apostle Paul, who has e °' > ,> <^. ^- ■0?' '^ G^ '^^ 'c- ^ Vv' ;^ WW «. -iV*^ v-^ ^3 c,0 ^<> .0' ^^ %^ .V ,<5> "^^ O > t ^ /VT-?-, .0- lO^ %. ,^^^. o V t""*. ..V DOBCS BROS lallARr «IN01NC n:>. 0' ST. AUGUSTINE /^f*V FLA. \'-./ 32084 ^O -^ .0