Jeanette "Granny" Gardner: A Living Bridge

The 1930's was a pivital time for the Stockbridge Mohicans.  In the political sphere, the Indian New Deal gave them a chance to regain federal recognition, purchase land that was once theirs, and have a piece of it proclaimed a reservation again.

But the 1930's were just as important to the Stockbridges from a cultural point of view.

On the downside, William Dick, the last speaker of the Mohican language, died and the Stockbridge Bible was sold in a transaction that many of today's tribal members regard as illegal.  (That is a moot point, however, since the Bible was returned to the tribe in 1991.)

Anyway, on the positive side, Granny Gardner was 100 years old in 1930 and she survived for six more years.  I have seen some literature put out by the Lutheran Church which boasted that, at age 98, "'Granny' Gardner" was "the oldest Lutheran Indian in America."  It also said that she was still making splint baskets with no tools other than a jacknife and her own hands.

Jeanette (her given name) was an Oneida by birth.  When she was nine years old her grandmother sent her off to Wisconsin Territory, where the New York Indians were a somewhat closeknit community.  Our heroine became part of the Stockbridge community when she married Jeremiah Gardner. 

The thing about Granny Gardner that is so important is that she was a medicine woman.  And not just a medicine woman, but the oldest known link in a thread of knowledge that continues to this day.  The Stockbridge Mohicans have worked really hard at reviving their language and other cultural ways.  But herbal medicine seems to be the one field of knowledge that was never really "lost," forcing tribal leaders to get help from other tribes to bring it back. 

Granny Gardner taught the Native medicine to her granddaughters, Ella (Bowman) Besaw and Mary (Bowman) Burr.  Ella Besaw passed the knowledge on to her son, Dave Besaw.  Dave had been the administrator of the tribe's clinic until arthritis forced him to retire early.  He stayed actvie in retirement and passed on his knoweldge to Misty (Davids) Cook.  While speaking before a sizable audience at the 2011 tribal history conference, Besaw announced that his apprentice was ready to practice traditional healing.  The torch was passed.  About six weeks later Dave Besaw died.

Postscript: Misty (Davids) Cook has written and published a book about traditional medicine. She ignored a request from this reporter to be interviewed.  However, if you want to purchase the book, I have the following information to share, thanks to the August 15, 2013 issue of Mohican News "According to Cook, the book will be available for $35 via contacting her at 715-851-2848 or via email at niconishkawah[at]yahoo.com.

 

Racial Identity Among the New York Indians - Chris Geherin Looks at "New Guinea"

The issue of African American blood running through the veins of the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians has been a controversial one and I have avoided it for that very reason.  But today I surfed onto an award-winning journal article that is clearly part of Algonkian Church History.

Above: "Brothertown Descendant Greg Wilson, of Union Grove, Wisconsin, on a tour of Brothertown Indian Cemeteries" as noted in the blog "At Home in the Huddle 2."



The New York State Historical Association awarded its Kerr History Prize to Christopher Geherin for the best article in New York History in 2010.  The title itself says a lot:



New Guinea: Racial Identity and Inclusion in the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indian Communities of New York


The full text of the article - along with old photos and maps -  is found in the e-Journal, New York History.

Blogger's note:  Hey, I'm sorry, everybody.  It seems that the New York History e-journal is now a subscription site.  Here's their address: http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/digital_subscription_nyh




Here are a few things that Geherin addresses:

1. William Gardner's status is something I addressed in an earlier post, but Geherin has more to say:

In 1824 the Stockbridge tribal council formally adopted William Gardner, identifying him as Narragansett. But in 1826 the legislature of New York defined Gardner as "coloured," and by the 1870s the tribe sought to exclude the Gardners by characterizing the family as "negro."

2. Rev. John Sergeant [Jr.] "mentioned preaching to a small nearby settlement of mulattoes."

3. Names of those (apparently only "heads of families") who lived in the so-called "New Guinea" settlement: Nathaniel, Joshua, and Peter Pendleton; John Baldwin; Henry and George Cook; and Margaret Reid


It should go without saying that Geherin did careful research and documented his sources.  Please refer to his article if you would like to check them.


Citation:

Christopher Geherin, "New Guinea: Racial Identity and Inclusion in the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indian Communities of New York," New York History; Summer 2009 (2 Aug. 2012).

Your Comments and My Posts

With over 270 posts, it can be somewhat of a challenge to find what you want in the Algonkian Church History blog.
A number of comments that were submitted recently were responses to some of my older posts.


Anyway, the most recent comment the blog received was to an old post. A reader who identified herself as Lisa said

So looking forward to information on the Gardner Family. My grandmother's father was Thomas Gardner, who is Stephen's son and really have not found too much reliable information. Great site!

Well, the Gardner family is - in my opinion - a very important part of the Stockbridge Indians, So I went back and created a new label for the Gardner family and tagged seven existing posts (plus this one) with it. (See the list of labels on the right of the screen).

Another thing to keep in mind if you're looking for something in particular: There is now a google-powered search box near the upper-right corner of Algonkian Church History. Of course, if all else fails, the site allows you to send me an e-mail.

Bill Miller and Janice-Marie Johnson: The Stockbridge Mohicans' Grammy Winners

My thanks to Wenona Gardner for posting a Shawano Leader article to her Mohican 7 e-mail list. The article, Bill Miller Wins Third Grammy is a good read.














A lot of Bill's music has been posted on YouTube.
Since this blog is about church history, I decided to embed a song of his called "I Believe."





Possibly even more famous than Bill Miller is Janice-Marie Johnson, a member of "A Taste of Honey" the group that won their Grammy for Best New Artist in 1979. Their number 1 song was called "Boogie Oogie Oogie." You could actually sing those kinds of words in the 1970's and become rich and famous doing it. Or, maybe not just anybody could, but Janice-Marie did.

A Taste of Honey's big hit "Boogie Oogie Oogie" can be viewed on YouTube.



Read the Wikipedia article about A Taste of Honey.





No doubt about it, Janice-Marie can still rock.

Death of the Tribal Church: Keeping the Faith

Conclusion of the Death of the Tribal Church Series
A series of posts about the church history of the Stockbridge Mohicans

I. Introduction
II. Summary of Tribal Church History, 1734 - 1844
III. A "Riot" with "no Fighting"
IV. Was Jeremiah Slingerland "a Man of too much Consequence"?
V. Was Jeremiah Slingerland a Big Spender?
VI. The ABCFM Pulls out of Stockbridge
VII. The Citizen Party Makes a Request
VII. Jeremiah Slingerland Keeps on Preaching

Today's post: Keeping the Faith




This 1878 map shows the Stockbridge Reservation shrunk to 1/4 its original size. Contrary to what some say, the shrinking of this reservation cannot entirely be blamed on the Congressman/Lumber Barron Philetus Sawyer. The Indian party leaders who made closed-room deals with Sawyer (Jeremiah Slingerland as much as anybody) are also responsible.


Reverend Slingerland's death appears to have devastated his Presbyterian congregation. The three Presbyterian ministers sent to serve the tribe between 1884 and 1907 stayed for an average of only about a year. But even before Slingerland's death, the era of a unified tribal church for the Stockbridge Mohicans had already passed. Led by Stephen Gardner, some of Slingerland's political opponents (citizen party families) already had a preference for Roman Catholicism. While their neighbors, the Menominees had a long association with the Catholics, many of the Stockbridges would insist on remaining Protestant. Among them were leaders like William C. Davids and Ed Sprague who sought out Lutheran ministers in the area in 1892, giving rise not only to Immanuel Mohican Lutheran Church, but also to a Lutheran boarding school. Nevertheless, for better or for worse, there was no going back to having one church for all of the Stockbridge Mohicans.

One hundred and twenty-five years after Jeremiah Slingerland's death, there is still a Presbyterian church on the reservation. While Presbyterianism has survived, Christianity as a whole has done better. Now over one hundred and sixty years after the ABCFM withdrew its support of the Stockbridge Mohicans' mission, my estimate is that church attendance on the reservation is comparable to national averages.


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This is the last of a series of seven posts.

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Some serious issues have been covered in this series of posts.
One is the issue of white mission societies being unwilling to promote or encourage independence from Indian churches.

I made it a point to stick to the facts:
But in this case much of what we know is "He said, she said" material. Many of the facts we have are rather subjective statements, the perceptions of Cutting Marsh and Jeremiah Slingerland. I don't think either was dishonest. What Marsh saw as a "riot," Slingerland saw as an event where "excitement prevailed" but there was "no fighting, save one."

Race, religion, culture, politics, personal ownership and thrift... these are just some of the controversial issues that this series of posts has touched on. Your comments are appreciated.

Grave Sites of Simeon and Stephen Gardner Found

The Septemeber 1, 2009 edition of Mohican News (Vol. XVII, No.17) features two articles that I want to blog on. The first, "Past Mohican Veterans Recognized," is about a "rededication of Civil War veterans" at the Woodlawn Cemetery in (the city of) Shawano, Wisconsin.

The article states that as of "[a] few years ago, Civil War veterans grave sites were unmarked or in a soldiers plot, group burial." Since Shawano has always been a predominantly "white" town, that statement is surprising: Is the Mohican News really saying that both white and Indian Civil War veterans from Shawano County were buried in unmarked graves? Is it saying that veterans of both races were buried together in a "group burial"?

I cannot tell you the answer to those questions. They only led me to scrutinize the article further and I think the News should also have been clearer on how many veterans who survived the Civil War were also in unmarked graves. They were, of course, young men when they returned and were likely to live long enough to purchase a gravestone and request to be buried with loved ones in Red Springs. (Other Stockbridge Indians who died in the late 1800's were buried in marked graves in the cemetery in Red Springs.) As a subscriber to Mohican News I wish more detail or explanation was provided.

Anyway, here's some of the "meat" of the article (these quotes are verbatim, that is, with grammatical errors):

"Through record searches, Mohican veterans, Simeon Gardner and Stephen Gardner, brothers were discovered and arrangements were made through the government to have their graves marked. Simeon Gardner received a new head stone, and now all Civil War grave sites located in the Woodlawn Cemetery will be marked."

and

"Simeon Gardner's grave had a musket with bayonet perched on and a Civil War backpack."

Maybe that is why Simeon Gardner's grave site "was used as the main point of representation of all 71 Civil War" veteran's grave sites in the re-dedication ceremony.

The ceremony in Shawano and the military history behind it, of course, are things for Gardner descendants and others to be proud of. We'll be hearing more about the Gardners in future posts. The same Stephen Gardner who fought in the Civil War also plays a prominent role in the church history of the Stockbridge Mohicans.

The Munsees: According to an Indian Party Brief

New York Indian Removal, Part XIX:
The Munsees: According to an Indian Party Brief

I've made some references to an "Indian Party Brief" in past posts. It is a document that was once written up on behalf of the federally recognized faction of the Stockbridge Mohicans, more commonly known as the Indian Party. I am not aware of the "Indian Party Brief" existing anywhere today aside from the source I got it from, which is the January 1932 issue of Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly. The authors of the document appear to be Edwin Willits, J. H. McGowan, Samuel Shelleboyer, and Jeremiah M. Wilson (McGowan was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives in the 1890's).

Here is what they have to say about the Munsees:

Under...[the] Treaty of 1856...there was an enrollment of 409 souls, of whom 58 were of the Munsees of New York, included in the Treaty of September 3, 1839, who had never emigrated from New York to Wisconsin and whose connection with the tribe had from that time been declared sundered by the Stockbridge tribe....

and here's another quote that will give you an idea of which Indians lived on the Shawano County reservation at certain points in time:

The Indian Party, not having removed until 1859, were paid nothing until after their removal, and the withholding of the payment was one of the strong inducements that led them to acquiesce in the removal. After these moneys had been paid, and about in the years 1859 and 1860, the Citizen's Party as a body (with one or two exceptions),and the Munsee Party, a few of whom came West to receive their money (with the exception of one family), abandoned the reservation, leaving on it the Indian Party proper...one family of Munsees, and two of the Citizen Party, to wit, Stephen Gardner and his father, William Gardner....

There will be more about the Gardners in future posts, but in regards to the vast majority of the 58 New York Munsees, the best guess I have is that they went back to where they came from. (For a number of years, but not "permanently.")

I've also found a government document from 1875 that confims that the remnant of Munsees living among the Stockbridge Mohicans numbered "About a half dozen" at that time. (Source: Records of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1875, you'll have to scroll a long way to get to "Munsees").

William Gardner: Mohican or Narragansett?

The State Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin --->

A document that I found in the John C. Adams Papers (box 1, folder 1) at the State Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, a few years ago, says something in its own right, but I think I also learned something about "Mohican" identity when I shared it via an online community.

Since the document I found is basically a handwritten copy of an earlier document, the quotation marks you see are as they appear in the original. Due to the nature of blogger technology, I had to add the three lines on the bottom in order to indent those lines. Otherwise, I consider this to be a faithful transcription:

"At a legal council called and [illegible] by the inhabitants of the Town of Stockbridge, this 4th day of April, A.D. 1825, at the School House near Capt. Hendricks[;]
In the first place unanimously voted to adopt William Gardner of the Narragansett Tribe of Indians, he is hereby adopted into the Stockbridge Tribe of Indians conditional for him to go with our people to Green Bay this ensuing season and there to enjoy Equal privilege of said Tribe."
A true copy of the "Town Records"
________________John N. Chicks
________________Secretary of the Stockbridge
________________Tribe of Indians
Stockbridge
Wis. Ter.
Oct. 1839

Let me explain the context of this document. As James Oberly has noted, the "Quinney Constitution" of 1837 put an end to adopting into the tribe Indians that weren't from the Stockbridge community. Therefore, the "Town Records" from 1825 had become relevant because there was apperently some controversy over whether or not William Gardner and his descendants belonged to the Stockbridge or Mohican nation.

Ethnically, nobody questioned the facts. Gardner was a Narragansett. Oh yeah, he had African-American blood too and that may have been part of the controversy. But my point here is that William Gardner had no "Mohican" blood. But he was a full-fledged Stockbridge Indian, or Stockbridge Mohican, if you prefer.



I subscribe to an online community, a Yahoo newsgroup, called The Mohican 7. It was founded by a descendant of William Gardner who I have not met in real life. Several weeks ago, the Gardner descendant who founded the Mohican 7 sent a message out to the group rejoicing that she had located some documentation of the fact that her ancestor, William Gardner, was a "real" Mohican.

At that point I sent out a message which included the same transcription of the document I quoted above and I told the Gardner descendant that I thought she was wrong, because my document clearly said that her ancestor was a Narragansett. But she came back with another message saying that the document I found proved that she was right, because it said that William Gardner was adopted into the Stockbridge Mohicans.

There are still members of the tribe who prefer to abbreviate the name of their tribe to "Stockbridge" rather than "Mohican," because "Stockbridge" makes more sense from a historical perspective. But right now more people are proud to call themselves "Mohicans."

The Stockbridge Iroquois?

In the last few decades, many of the Stockbridge Mohicans have gone from shortening the name of their people from the "Stockbridges" to the "Mohicans." Of course, there are reasons for this. First of all, the word "Stockbridge" couldn't have been picked by Indians. The name "Stockbridge" was taken from an English town with that name. And now that Indians can be proud of being Indians, why not refer to themselves by an authentic Indian name?

Now I'm going argue that the name "Stockbridge Indians," though not as romantic as "Mohicans," is more historically or genealogically accurate. It is a rather simple argument, really. Many of the Indians that joined the Stockbridge community over the years, were non-Mohicans. It began with Algonkians that had lived among or been politically influenced by the Mohicans since the 1600's. These groups would include (probably the Schaghticoke's and) the Wappingers. In 1756 the remnant of the Wappingers, numbering 227 souls, joined the Stockbridge community. At that time there were probably only about 200 Stockbridge "Mohicans," but the community became larger by taking on the Wappingers.

Then of course, there are the Munsees, they are not Mohicans. There are the Brotherton Delawares (but they might not have many descendants left among the Stockbridges). And the Gardner family were Narrangansetts.

So far, I've only mentioned other Algonkians, but there were also Indians from Iroquois nations who joined the Stockbridge community. The treaty of 1856 included language that encouraged the Munsees and all other Indians that were still in New York State to settle in the new Stockbridge-Munsee reservation. Some of the New York Iroquois took the government up on this. J.N. Davidson (page 44) says he was told that Senecas, Onondagas, and Cayugas, "about eighty in all," joined the Stockbridge community in the 1850's.

There were also escaped slaves and others with African blood marrying into the Stockbridge community, and white people, what about the white people?! There is a lot of German and other white blood among those who are members of the Stockbridge community. Maybe they could call themselves the Stockbridge Tri-racial Community - If you can think of something more genealogically accurate than that, please let me know.

Stockbridge Mohican Church History Timeline: Part II

This timeline is based on a multitude of sources. Ask me if you want documentation for anything:

1773: John Sergeant [Jr.] takes on the mission work in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

1782: Ninety innocent Christian Indians are massacred in Gnadenhutten, Ohio by a renegade frontier militia.

August, 1787: Tribal leaders call an old friend, Rev. Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian, to be their minister in New Stockbridge, New York.

October, 1787: John "Sergeant [Jr.] - also an old friend - is appointed by a new mission society to live and work at New Stockbridge.

July, 1788: A dispute between Rv. Occom and Rev. Sergeant splits the Stockbridge Mohicans into two churches.

July 1792: The result of Rev. Occom's unexpected death is a reunited church.

August, 1805: Having traveled across the Atlantic, Dorothy Ripley, an Englishwoman not connected with any church body, preaches to the New York Indians. She is especially well received by the women of New Stockbridge.

1818 to 1829: A period of western migration. Deacon John Metoxen is the leader of a new church organized with Rev. Sergeant's help. The Stockbridge Mohicans conduct their own worship services when no missionaries are around.

1824: John Sergeant [Jr.] dies at New Stockbridge, NY.

Circa 1826: Tribal leaders write a letter asking that a missionary be sent to their new location.

1828: Having already replaced Sergeant in NY and visited the tribe on the Fox River (what is now Kaukauna, WI), Jesse Miner moves his ministry to what is now Wisconsin.

1830: Calvin Colton, a Presbyterian minister, observes that the Stockbridge Mohicans treat their tribal Bible with reverence.

1830 - 1848: Cutting Marsh replaces Miner as missionary. After a honeymoon period of a few years, the Indians find Marsh to be rather stern and stubborn. Marsh found it difficult to stay out of tribal politics which became very contentious in the last 11 years of his tenure.

1833: John Metoxen, John N. Chicks, two other Stockbridges and Cutting Marsh conduct a mission trip to the Sauk Indians in and around Davenport, Iowa.

1833-1834: Tribe moves to what is now Calumet County [WI].

1837-1839: A faction of the tribe breaks away from Marsh's church and holds their own Baptist services. Eventually this group emigrates to what is now Kansas under the treaty of 1939.

1844: Wesson Miller, a Methodist circuit rider, holds a revival meeting in Jacob Chicks' barn. Some members of the Citizen Party leave Marsh's church to become Methodists.

1845: Jeremiah Slingerland - a Stockbridge Mohican - graduates from Bangor Theological Seminary. He moves back to Stockbridge, Wisconsin Territory, and takes on the work of schoolteacher and assistant to Rev. Marsh.

1848: The Indian Party makes a treaty to move west of the Mississippi, Citizen Party members are on their own. After much conflict between Marsh and Slingerland, Marsh leaves his post and dissuades the mission society from supporting Slingerland's ministry.

1850 - 1857: The Indian Party stays put and pays Slingerland and two white ministers to preach.

1856: A treaty brings the Indian Party and the Citizen Party, plus remnants of other tribes - especially Munsees - together on a new reservation in Shawano County [WI].

1857: Jeremiah Slingerland and his wife move to the new reservation. Worship services ae held in their home.

1859 - 1863: Jeremiah Slingerland preaches in the town of Shawano before the first white minister comes to town.

1866: More than twenty years after graduating from the seminary, Jeremiah Slingerland is finally ordained as a Presbyterian minister.

1867: After conducting their worship either informally, or in cooperation with the Methodists, the Stockbridge Mohicans finally have their own Presbyterian church again.

1881: Stephen Gardner and others attend Roman Catholic midnight mass on Christmas Eve on the Menominee Reservation. Under Gardner;s leadership, Roman Catholicism gains a foothold among the Stockbridge Mohicans for the fist time.

1884: Rev. Slingerland dies and the Presbyterian church fades without his leadership.