In 1836, Daniel and Electa decided to move to Indian Territory. That year, Daniel visited a church in Illinois. He sang and spoke in the Mohawk language. People at the church gave him $193 to buy a horse and to pay for their move.
The United States government had created Indian Territory in 1834. It was a big place. What was once Indian Territory is today the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and part of Iowa.
Most Indians did not get to choose whether to live in Indian Territory. The Indian Removal Act forced most Indians who lived east of the Mississippi River to leave their homes and move there. By 1840, more than 60,000 native people were living in Indian Territory.
A map of part of Indian Territory, showing the area where Electa and Daniel lived
In the 1830s and 1840s, Indians were forced to move west of the Mississippi River.
Some Indians in the territory were very poor. They lived in tents made from animal skins or tiny huts made from wood and mud. The poorest Indians did not have farms. They relied on food sent by the US government. Many were sick.
A town in Indian Territory
However, other Indians were doing well. They lived in 2-story houses on large, fenced-in farms with crops, cows, and horses. They wore nice clothes. Some owned African American slaves. Major General Ethan Allen Hitchcock of the US Army, who visited Indian Territory from 1841 to 1842, said one Cherokee Indian’s home had carpet on the floor, lots of mahogany furniture, and a beautiful piano.
General Hitchcock said some Indians lived in traditional ways. They wore Indian blankets and clothes with feathers, spoke their native languages, and held traditional Indian ceremonies and dances. In his diary, Hitchcock wrote about watching a traditional Indian game played with balls and sticks.
Many Indians played a ball-and-stick game similar to today’s game of lacrosse.
Others in Indian Territory spoke and wrote English well, went to church, and had given up many traditional Indian ways of living. General Hitchcock went to a fancy Cherokee ball where women wore beautiful gowns and the guests danced to fiddle music.
Daniel and Electa lived a couple of miles outside of Indian Territory, near what today is Seneca, Missouri. The name of the town comes from one of the tribes in Indian Territory. The Seneca Indians were from New York. Daniel’s job as a missionary was to teach them about the Christian religion.
At first, Daniel and Electa were excited to live near Indian Territory. Their first son, Alex, was born soon after they arrived, and they were happy. But then life became harder.
Teaching the Seneca Indians about Christianity had seemed like a good job for Daniel. He could speak the Seneca language. But even though the Seneca Indians liked Daniel, they weren’t interested in becoming Christians.
After nearly 2 years of trying, Daniel still had not convinced one Seneca Indian to join his church. “He has had no success,” wrote Reverend Jacob Lanius, who visited Daniel and Electa in 1839. Daniel was discouraged. “Sometimes he has a little congregation, others none at all. The prospect is dark, very dark,” Lanius wrote.
But Daniel and Electa still had many reasons to be happy. They lived in “a neat little cabin, better than many in the state … with 2 beds, a table, trunks … and the best library I have seen in the district, save one,” Lanius said.
Daniel had started farming, and he seemed good at it. The land in Indian Territory was mostly flat plains, which was good for farming. Daniel grew wheat and corn.
Like this farmer, Daniel grew wheat.
Electa was smart, Jacob Lanius wrote. He called her “one of the most intelligent ladies I have seen for days … many days. She has a good mind and a very good English education.”
And Lanius said they had a son, Alex. They were planning to teach him “in English first and afterward in Indian.”
“I enjoyed myself well with this family,” he wrote.
Soon, 2 more sons arrived. Daniel Jr. was born in 1840 and John Clark in 1842.
In 1842, 2 Quaker visitors stayed at Daniel and Electa’s house. They talked about many things with Electa, including the Quaker school that she had gone to in New York as a girl.
After traveling through Indian Territory and meeting many Indians, the visitors were surprised that Electa and Daniel’s 3 sons were dressed like white children and spoke English. Most Indians they had met were more traditional. The visitors said the family lived in a new house made of boards, not logs. They were impressed with Electa. “Her whole conduct and conversation were dignified,” the visitors wrote.
Electa was smart, they said. She talked easily about complicated subjects such as Indian treaties. Daniel and Electa told their guests that many Indians didn’t like white people because of the way white people treated them. And the visitors noted that Daniel still had not found any Seneca Indians interested in joining his church.
Soon after this visit, Electa’s life took a terrible turn. On March 3, 1844, Daniel died. We don’t know how he died, but Electa was left to raise 3 young boys on her own.
A few weeks later, another church leader visited Electa. She was all alone, the visitor wrote. There was no one nearby who shared her Christian beliefs. “She is abundantly qualified, and would doubtless devote herself, if encouragement were extended, to the care of a female school,” he wrote. But there was no school nearby where Electa could teach.
