Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, M.D.
He was the only son of Rev. William Williamson and Mary Webb Smith, his second wife; was born in Union District, South Carolina, March 6, 1800, and removed with his parents to Mason County, Kentucky, in the Fall of 1802, and to "The Beeches," two miles from Manchester, Adams County, Ohio, probably in the Spring of 1805.
He prepared for college at home, went on horseback to Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1819. He read medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William B. Willson, of West Union, Ohio, and was for two years principal of an academy at Ripley, Ohio, where he prepared a large number of young men for college. He studied medicine in Philadelphia and New Haven, and received the degree of M. D. from Yale College in 1824.
He settled in Ripley, Ohio, and built up a large practice. He married Margaret Poage, daughter of the town proprietor, a lady of high Christian character, and most admirably adapted in all respects to be his helpmeet. Settled in a pleasant town, surrounded by warm friends, in the house he regarded the most pleasant in the place, he had everything he could desire to make life happy. But he felt a voice within him, which, to his death, he never for one moment doubted, was the voice of God calling him to leave all these comforts, and endure hardships in bringing to Christ the wanderers of our Western wilderness. His wife was in full accord with him. In the spring of 1832, he placed himself under the care of the Chillicothe Presbytery. August 21, he left his pleasant home, removed with his family to Walnut Hills, and entered Lane Theological Seminary. In April, he was licensed to preach, and May 2, he left Cincinnati to make a tour of the West, and to select a suitable field of labor under the care of the A. B. C. F. M. He decided to begin work at Fort Snelling. Return ing, he was ordained by the same Presbytery that licensed him, September 18.
Early in the spring of 1835, he started with his family, and reached Fort Snelling May 16. Here, June 11, he organized the first Presbyterian Church within the present limits of Minnesota—the first Presbyterian Church of Minneapolis. Finding other laborers at Fort Snelling and believing that more could be accomplished by a division of the forces, he pushed on to Lac-qui-Parle, two hundred miles farther west; this last journey then requiring over three weeks.
He worked with indefatigable zeal to acquire the Dakota language, and also the Canadian French, and was soon able to preach in both languages.
Practicing medicine to relieve their bodies, earnestly sympathizing with those in distress, undauntedly courageous in danger, he soon won the respect of the Indians, of the traders and of the Government officers. He often made long journeys to visit the sick, and was unceasing in his labors to win the savages to Christ. He entertained a great number of travelers and Government officials. He kept up his studies, and in his later years, he could translate from Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, with the same facility with which he read English. He kept up with the progress of improvement in medicine. He made himself familiar with the botany of the region, thoroughly studied the history of the Northwest, contributing many valuable papers to the Historical Society and the magazines. He was untiring in his efforts to secure the Indians their rights, involving a large correspondence with Indian Commissioners, with leading Senators and Representatives, and made several trips to Washington. His thorough good sense, and his reputation for absolute accuracy in the statement of facts, almost always secured him at least a respectful hearing.
His whole heart was in the work of winning souls to Christ. All his studies were subordinated to this end. In 1836, he organized a small native church at Lac-qui-Parle, the second Protestant church in the present State. He prepared a Dakota reader with the aid of the Ponds, and a part of the Bible with the aid of Mr. Henville.
By 1846. he and his helpers had built up a church of nearly fifty native members. It was his decided personal preference to remain, but he felt the call of duty in a request from the Kaposia band, and removed there, to where South St. Paul now is. This move probably hindered his work for the Indians, but it made him an influential factor in building up work among the whites. He preached the first Protestant sermon in the English language, and also in the French language, within the present limits of St. Paul, and secured for that place its first teacher. Miss Harriet Bishop, and its first minister of the Gospel. Rev. E. D. Usill, D. D.
The Indians having sold their land, he removed to Pajutazee, on the Minnesota, nearly thirty miles below Lac-qui-Parle, in 1852. Here he labored until 1862. On August 18, the terrible outbreak occurred at daybreak, thirty-eight miles nearer the white settlements. On Tuesday, the Doctor sent away his family, except his wife and sister, who were unwilling to leave him, hoping that by remaining, he might check the spread of the outbreak. The Christian Indians rallied around him, but it became evident by night, that if they remained, they would be attacked by the hostiles, causing much bloodshed. Aided by Christian Indians, he escaped in the night, overtook his family, came near Fort Ridgely just after the second attack on it, and escaped safely to St. Peter.
Many were ready to cry that the mission work was a failure. All the other missionaries began to talk of leaving, but the Doctor and his son did not, for one moment yield to hesitation, but pushed their work with redoubled zeal. However much the Christian Indians might be abused by excited whites, he knew that they had done all in their power to diminish the massacres, had aided hundreds in escaping, and had held the hostiles in check, diminishing, by more than one-half, the size of the war. Had every Christian Indian now gone back to heathenism, the effect of the work in diminishing this blow, would have saved to our country at least fifty times the cost of the mission.
The Doctor lived to see more than one thousand communicants, members in the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches, the direct result of the mission of himself and his coadjutors. The Episcopalians, building on the foundation they had laid, gathered about as many more. In September, 1894, at a meeting of the Presbyterian and Congregational Dakotas, nearly two thousand were gathered together, earnestly planning for the spread of the Redeemer's Kingdom in their tribe.
The Doctor never removed his family from St. Peter. He spent his summers in missionary tours, his winters partly in correspondence with native pastors and other Dakota workers, and the various labors already alluded to, but chiefly in translating the Word of God. He was extremely anxious that the exact meaning of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures should be rendered into idiomatic Dakota. To this end, he spent almost as much time in revising the translation of Dr. Riggs, as in making his own. Dr. Riggs also revised his, and Prof. J. P. Williamson, son of Dr. Williamson, also revised nearly all. As a result, very few languages have as good a translation of the Bible.
The Dakota Dictionary, regarded as the best of any Indian language and originally prepared by the Messrs. Pond, owed very much to the painstaking scholarship of Dr. Williamson, though it bears the name of its editor, Dr. Riggs.
Mrs. Williamson died July 21, 1872. No couple were ever happier in each other, or mutually more helpful. Still cheerful, he did not, after this time, show the overflowing spirit of calm rejoicing, which, to his family, had always seemed to characterize him, even in the most troublous times. He completed his translation of the Bible in 1878. There was other work he would have liked to do, but the strain of work without his loved companion to solace him had worn him out. His great work was done, and the earnestness in this no longer sustaining him, he gradually failed, and June 24, 1879, fell asleep in Jesus, in his eightieth year. Four children survive him: Rev. John P. Williamson, of Greenwood, South Dakota, since 1860, a missionary to the Dakotas; Andrew W. Williamson, Professor of Mathematics, Augustans College, Rock Island, Illinois; Mrs. Martha Stout, Portland, Oregon, and Henry M. Williamson, editor of the Rural Northwest, Portland, Oregon. His daughter, Nancy Jane, was a missionary from 1869 to her death in 1878, performing a grand work. His granddaughter, Nancy Hunter, having lost her mother in infancy, was adopted and soon after his death began the same work, in which she is still engaged, the last three years as the wife of Rev. E. J. Lindsay, Poplar, Montana.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900