Stockbridge-Munsee Historical Trips

[caption id="attachment_7125" align="aligncenter" width="786"] This public domain image was taken from Wikipedia's Old Mission House, Stockbridge, MA page, as are the following words:
Mission House in ca. 1908 postcard (as it looked in its original location)
Old Mission House, Stockbridge, MA; from a c. 1908 postcard. It was built in 1739 by Reverend John Sergeant[/caption]

Interest in their people's history is not a new thing for descendants of the eastern seaboard Indians now living in the midwest. Our freeway system and the internet have made it easier, however, to visit historical sites and research the past. The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians now organizes historical trips for their enrolled members on a regular basis. The itineraries vary, sometimes the final destination is Stockbridge, Massachusetts and other times it is somewhere in New York State. The first trips, as you might imagine, were informal and not organized by tribal government.

The first trips made by any of the Stockbridge Mohicans from Wisconsin back to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, were more about business than historical interest. Jeremiah Slingerland made one of those trips back in 1879. There were probably other trips like that one, but we need not concern ourselves with them here because their purpose was not historical in nature.

The first recorded historical trip by a Mohican descendant was way back in 1916! William Dick (a grandson of Abraham Pye), went all the way to Stockbridge, Massachusetts with his minister and friend, Charles Kilpatrick (Milwaukee Journal, February 1, 1931).

The second recorded historical trip was something of an afterthought. Samuel Miller traveled the country dressed up in a Sioux headdress and buckskins to raise money for Lutheran missions. Miller was a featured speaker at a nationwide church convention in Albany, New York, when he got the urge to see the historical sites of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. A reporter from the Berkshire Eagle followed Miller and his three companions (all Lutheran ministers) around the town, noting that he took "special interest" in the two-volume Bible and the communion set that were very recent acquisitions of a new museum in the town, called the Mission House, belonging to a wealthy heiress, Mabel Choate. This second recorded historical trip occurred in 1930 and I found it significant enough to include it in my tribal history Proud and Determined, on pages 191-192.

Those first two historical trips had, until recently, only been recorded in old newspapers, so they were forgotten about by tribal elders. When Thelma Putnam wrote Christian Religion Among the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, she wrote (57) of her brother, James Davids, and his family's trek to Stockbridge, Massachusetts as the time when the historic Stockbridge Bible was re-discovered by the tribe. (Once when I was doing research at the tribal museum I overheard a volunteer tour guide addressing the significance of that trip in the life of the old two-volume Bible.) Anyway, this third trip, made by the James Davids family in 1951, appears to have been an inspiration for future historical trips. Mrs. Grace Wilcox, the historical librarian of the New England town quickly became friends with the Davids family. When she retired after many years of service, the people of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, gave her a trip to Wisconsin. According to Thelma Putnam (58), Mrs. Wilcox was an "honored guest" on the reservation.

On page 58, Thelma Putnam describes the next trips:

1968: Dorothy "Dot" Davids "took her father, Elmer Davids, along with her aunt, Wildie Putnam, and her sister, Bernice Miller, to Massachusetts."

1972: A "group from the Reservation made the trip in cars and camped along the way..." This group included Dorothy Davids, Ruth Gudinas, Bernice Miller, Blanche Jacobs, Tina Williams, Kristy Miller, La Loni Kroening and Karolyn Raasch.

1975: A photo of those who made the 1975 trip to Massachusetts appears on page 6 of the most recent edition (June 15th, 2014) of the Mohican News. I'd not seen it before. It was a different perspective on some tribal elders that I've known and what they looked like in 1975. Also, Vicki Bowman (now Vicki Stevens), the cover model for Proud and Determined was just a kid in that picture. Those making the trip 39 years ago: Adults: Dorothy, Ruth, Bernice, Margaret Raasch, Sheila Moede, and Linda Kroening. Youth: Kay Miller, Fran Miller, Jackie Miller, Mark Davids, Renee Granquist, Vicki Bowman, Carmen Cornelius, Nikki Moede, and Leslie Kroening.