AT BELLEVUE IN THE THIRTIES

BY MRS. E. ANDERSON

'The next most noted men that lived at Bellevue were the Pawnee missionaries. They were Old School Presbyterians—Mr. Dunbar and wife and Mr. Allis and wife. They never went farther west that I know of-not during our stay at Bellevue, at least. All I can say about them is they were Christian gentlemen and ladies. Mr. Curtis was sent by the Baptist Board of Missions to preach to the Omaha Indians. He moved from Bellevue to the village, but the Indians became insulting and made hostile demonstrations. Mr. Curtis wrote back east to know what he should do. They wrote to him to trust to the Lord and stay where he was. He wrote back to them that the Lord did not work miracles in these days and he was a going to leave. He came back to Bellevue and baptized the first person that was ever baptized in the Nebraska River. It took place near the Otoe village. The candidate for baptism was a black woman that belonged to Mr. Merrill. It was a beautiful Sabbath day and was a romantic sight to see a nation of wild Indians gathered together to witness the solemn rite of Christian baptism. Mr. Merrill gave a long talk to the Indians and Uncle Robert Dougherty was interpreter.3

'The first page of Mrs. Anderson's interesting story is unaccountably missing, so that whom she appraised as the most noted men of Bellevue may only be conjectured.-Ed.

2 These missionaries, Rev. John Dunbar and Samuel Allis, resided with the Pawnee at their villages on the Platte and the Loup rivers. See Dunbar, "Missionary Life Among the Pawnee", Nebraska State Historical Society, Collections, XVI, 268; Allis, "Forty Years Among the Indians and on the Eastern Borders of Nebraska", ibid., Transactions and Reports, II, 133; "The Pawnee Missionaries", The Christian Keepsake (1839), p. 25.-ED.

'Samuel Allis gives some account of the experience of Rev. Samuel

Doctor Saterlee was sent by the Presbyterian Board to act as doctor and surgeon. At the Pawnee mission his wife died, and he went on alone. He never reached there. His fate is unknown. They found on the bank of Nebraska River some torn paper and human hair that they thought was his; but they did not know, as it was so defaced they could not tell.*

A sad ending of two human lives in those young days during our stay at Bellevue.

I saw Kit Carson. He stayed but a short time at the fort. He was on his way from Saint Louis to Santa Fe. He was a well formed man but rather undersized and was dressed in buckskin. There was a great deal of romance and fiction interwoven in the life of Kit Carson, that he never thought of. I never saw him but once. There was a Mr. Fontenelle that had a trading post a half mile south of Bellevue. His two little boys, Logan and Tecumseh, were attending school in Bellevue. Their mother was a Sioux woman, and their father was a Frenchman. He was well educated and appeared to be much of a gentleman; but in an evil hour he listened to bad advice. They told him if he would take an Indian wife he would have better success trading with the Indians, and when he wanted to leave there he could leave her with her people. He lived with her until their first child was born. He said he could not desert his child. He stayed amongst the Sioux Indians until they had two children. He left them and came to Bellevue. There was a sore trial in wait for him at Bellevue. One morning, shortly after school was called, the two Fontenelle brothers were conning over their lessons, when the mother and a negro man dashed to the door and caught the little boys in their arms and ran out at the

Curtis as a missionary to the Omaha in his history named in the preceding footnote, page 150. Rev. Moses Merrill, missionary to the Oto and Missouri.-ED.

*See an account of the Dr. Benedict Saterlee tragedy, by Rev. John Dunbar, The Christian Keepsake, p. 51.-ED.

southwest corner of the fort across the bluffs to the trading post. And the news in the fort was that Fontenelle's wife was killed by an Iowa Indian who was in the fort. There were a great many Iowa Indians there at that time; and they were for getting away from there in a hurry.

That night Mr. aboard of a boat

In a short time they found it was right to the reverse. The woman had killed the man. The men ran out at the southeast corner of the fort; ran down the river road to the trading post; but she got there first. She and the children were locked up in the upper story. Fontenelle put her and her two children and sent them up the river to her people. She came back the next summer. While up there a little girl was added to the family. Her name was Mary. The oldest boy had the features of his father and genteel deportment, but the complexion and color of his hair was like his mother. The younger brother had the complexion of his father but the features of his mother. The little girl was an Indian in full-their mother said the reason she killed the Indian was that he joined a war party of Iowa and killed all of her father's family after taking him in and keeping him all winter and showing him a great deal of kindness. He did his mischief on his return home. In the spring she found he was in the fort, and she enticed him into the southeast corner of the house with whisky, and he sat down in a drunken stupor, when she stepped up behind him and cleft his skull with an ax. The thought of his children being half Indian preyed so on Mr. Fontenelle's mind that he died the death of a suicide, a sad ending of what might of been a noble life. But we should imitate his virtues and shun his vices and let his name rest in peace.

5

Lucien Fontenelle was doubtless a highborn Frenchman, who preferred the freedom of the frontier to the conventional society of New Orleans in which his family moved. Accordingly, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, he ran away to St. Louis and soon engaged in the Rocky Mountain fur trade. He was married to a daughter of Big Elk, a famous chief of the Omaha, and four children were born to them. According to the best accounts intemperance caused his death. See

SITE OF OLD OTO AND MISSOURI INDIAN VILLAGE

The small stream in middleground is Otoe Creek. Photographed by A. E. Sheldon, July 1912.