Located one mile south of Cowetah off Hwy 58B, Wagoner County, Oklahoma.
National Register
of Historic Places, Site #73001571 (added 1973)
The Rev. Robert McGill Loughridge set out on horse-back,
November 2, 1841, from Eutaw, Alabama to meet the chiefs of the Muskogee Nation
to inquire whether they would be willing to have preaching and a mission school
among them. There was not a missionary in the whole country, nor was there
an institution of learning, except a little government school, later proved to
be run by a counterfeiter.
When the council met they explained they wanted no
preaching, because it broke up their old customs, their busks, ball-plays and
dances; but they wanted him to come and establish a school; he
informed them he was a preacher, and unless permitted to preach to the
people he would not come among them. They finally proposed that if a school
was established he might preach at the school-house, but nowhere else. Terms
were agreeable and he and returned to Alabama, to prepare to move. Rev.
Loughridge returned by steamer, arriving with his young wife, in the nation, at
the Verdigris landing, February 5, 1843.
At the suggestion of the
principal chief the mission was located in the Coweta Town, and called
the "Coweta Mission,"
situated one and one-half miles east of the Arkansas River, and
twenty-five miles southwest of Fort Gibson. A cabin was built for school
and church purposes; fifteen or twenty children were enrolled, and my
wife, an experienced and well-qualified teacher, commenced the school.
During the following year a
large, hewed-log house was built, and at the request of some persons
living at a distance we received eight or ten children, boys and girls,
to live with us to attend school. This was the beginning of our system
of manual labor boarding schools. Gradually, the number of students
increased until we had forty. The people becoming more interested in
religious exercises attended preaching more regularly, and in about two
years we had the pleasure of organizing a church.
After 1847, Rev. Loughridge
was appointed superintendent of the newly erected Tallahasse
school. Rev. H. Balentine was sent to take charge of the Coweta Mission.
The school flourished until July
10, 1861, when it was suddenly broken up, and all the mission property
was taken possession of by the chiefs of the nation. The children were
sent home, and teachers left for their homes in the North and South. The
Coweta school was never renewed; but at the close of the Civil War, the
former teacher, Rev. Robertson was sent with others and revived the
school to something of its former size and usefulness in March 1868. The
school continued in operation until December 19, 1880, when fire from a
flue caught the building on fire and it was burned to the ground.
Following
submitted by Teresa Roberts cc1158@looksmart.com>
January 2000 from an unnamed source.
This is eighteen miles west of Tallahassa, in the skirts of the timber which lines the banks of the Arkansas River. The road running from Fort Gibson, through Tallahassa, past this Mission house, and then stretching on towards the west, is the old army trail. From Tallahassa to Kowetah, it passes over rolling prairies, crossing two or three small streams, but which, powerful rains sometimes swell suddenly to rivers that cannot be forded.
The Mission premises are not in sight from the prairie; for the farm was made by clearing away the forest, leaving a thin belt of timber still standing between it and the prairie.
The Mission house is pleasantly situated. Grand old forest trees stand there, in all their native pride and strength. The buildings are not at all imposing; they have not any of that look which would lead one to wonder if they had been taken up out of the city, and set down there; but they bear the marks of having been constructed of such materials and with such tools as were at hand, far out on the frontier; they are innocent of paint, or needless ornament; but they look comfortable.
Let us see if we can set them before you, so that you may be at home with us there, for a little while.
There was first a solid one-and a half story building of hewed logs, facing the east, with a wide hall and two rooms on each side of it. Afterwards, as the school increased, a two story building was joined to its south end; it was of hewed logs, and weather boarded with clap-boards, split out of oak trees, and covered with pine shingels (sic). Along the front was an open shed with rude seats. On the west side of the old house another building was added. Of these buildings, No. 1 was the girls' department; No. 2. the boys'; No. 3, the dining-room, store-room, kitchen, etc. You may think of these as in the centre (sic) of a large yard, which was surrounded by a high rail fence; the yard, however, being divided in the middle by a close picket fence, giving a separate yard to each department, and you must not forget about those noble trees, which were very much higher than the houses. And now we wish, you to look along the west side of the yard, and you see a row of little cabins. The first was occupied by the black man, who was hired by the month to work on the farm, and who was also employed as interpreter. The second was the mill-room, where "Uncle Frank," the blind Negro man, with an iron hand mill, ground all the meal and hommony (sic) used in the establishment, to supply fifty mouths, and the bread used there was principally of corn. (Uncle Frank's own little cabin was still west of the mill-house, and on the other side of a narrow lane, in which lane is the "wood pile") the third cabin in the row was generally reserved as a place for lodging strangers -- Indian families that wanted entertainment for the night. For a time it was occupied by a young man and his wife, who wished to perfect himself in studies which had been broken off a year or two previously. Before his marriage, he had acquired a taste for learning, and having begun to drink at this fountain, desired to drink still more.
Beyond this cabin was the smoke-house, where the bacon was hung. On further, and down back of all were the stable, hay stacks, cattle pens, etc. Off at the east, and down a little hill was a spring, and over it the milk room. At the northeast was a capacious garden, guarded by its picket fence; the orchards at the west, and the fields spread out beyond and around; and there were corn cribs here and there. And this was the farm with its appearances, where Indian boys learned how to do all manner of out-door work; and where the girls learned to be good help-meets for educated Indian men, by getting a knowledge of the method of performing all manner of indoor work.
At the south, and in front of the house, was an open space, covered with a green-sward; in the centre (sic) and most elevated point of the green, stood the chapel, which during the week days was also the school house. It had no steeple or bell; but a hand bell called the children into the school; and to gather the people from the surrounding cabins for public worship, a man with strong lungs blew a trumpet- a trumpet of the most primitive kind, a long crooked horn of an ox.
East of the Mission premises is a pretty valley; and through that valley glides a stream of pure water over a rocky bed. Beyond the stream is undulating ground with scattering timber; and one of the prettiest of those knobs is enclosed with a fence: it is the Mission burying ground; and there lie the ashes of some the saints. Some who lie there are the blessed dead who rest from their labours (sic) , their works following them; and by their side sleep some of those for whom they labroured (sic), and who will rise with them in the first resurrection-missionaries and those who, by means of their teaching, were turned to the Lord -teachers and pupils slumber together there; and Jesus watches their dust.
We are describing things as they were when we were on the ground; there have been changes since-changes in the internal economy, not in the external arrangement. And even if the whole were changed, yet what has been is worthy of record as a matter of history. Those who have advanced up in to the comfortable ceiled (sic) house, love to talk about the first log cabin in the woods; so let me go on to tell you about the origin of the Kowetah Mission.
That little cabin No 2, now the mill-house, was first erected by the pioneer missionary, who is the present Superintendent of the Tallahassa Mission. Afterwards he brought a wife to it, to share his labours (sic). In that one little cabin they taught a little day-school. There they had experience of many privations, of some sorrows; but yet of much enjoyment through it all.
There, in that little log cabin, some who are now teachers, and interpreters, and church members, first began to acquire that education which has rendered them useful men and women in their nation: there they began to learn respecting the way of life, which some are now traveling and as the" light of the world and salt of the earth," are leading others in the same narrow way. Among those early pupils was, I think, the boy, now the man and ordained minister, who at this present time has charge of this same Kowetah Mission, and the pastoral care of the church.
From such records as this we learn not to despise the day of small things. Look over the Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions, for the last fourteen or fifteen years, and see to what that Mission has grown, which commenced with one man in a little lone cabin. That missionary still lives to see the work go on; indeed most of the improvements at the different stations have been made under his superintendence (sic), and with much of his own manual labour (sic).
At first the Creeks were hostile to schools, and especially to Christian Missions. Formerly missionaries connected with other denominations had incurred the displeasure of the chiefs, and had been driven from the nation. Therefore, for a long time they had been left without schools, and without preaching of the gospel; except that there were a few Indians and Negroes that claimed to be preachers; but from reports concerning then, it is to be feared that, however well meaning they may have been, they sometimes darkened counsel by words without knowledge.
Our church began to be interested in this nation; especially the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, who, from his long familiarity with public affairs, had learned the history and conditions of the Indian tribes, and had become ardently enlisted in every feasible plan for elevating them, both in temporal and spiritual things.....
Sources:
National Register of
Historic Places Jul 2002 http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/OK/Wagoner/state.html
Koweta Mission
Choctaw Schools and Missions Jul 2002 http://www.choctaw-web.com/schools.htm
Kowetah Mission, submitted by Teresa Roberts cc1158@looksmart.com>
January 2000.
O'Beirne, H.F. & E. S.
Autobiographical Sketch of Rev. Robert McGill Loughridge, D. D.,
Missionary to the Muskogee Indians. Indian Territory, Its Chiefs,
Legislatures, and Leading Men. July 2002 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pennstreet/ITsketches4.htm#475
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