Camp Meeting 1905

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines camp meeting as a series of evangelistic meetings usually held outdoors and attended by persons who often camp nearby. Along with other locations in Michigan, camp meetings were held in Northport, Michigan.

This postcard tells of the Shah-sko-ke-zhik (Greensky), Great Indian Camp Meeting to be held August 11-21, 1905 in Northport.

The Christian Advocate volume 80 pages 906 (8 Jun 1905) and 947 (15 Jun 1905) include the Northport camp meeting in the calendar of events.

The Traverse City Evening Record of 29 Jul 1905 speaks of the preparations being made to the upcoming camp meeting. Native preachers will be Nabaynayash/Rev. T.C. Thomas of Munising; Rev. W.A. Elias; Rev. John Jacobs; Rev. John Kewaykeshik of Kewadin.

The Traverse City Evening Record of 8 Aug 1905 identifies the following as attending: Robert Agosa; S.W. Pigeon (Wauh-me-me) and wife Liza Me-da-wis from Allegan county; John Baptist Jacobs, nephew of Ke-waze-e-mo-qua; and John Baptist Waukazoo (Shob-a-tiste)

From The Evening Press, Grand Rapids Michigan, 17 Aug 1905 page 5. Caption points out Stephen Redbird (carpenter department, Indian School at Genoa, NE), Rev. James Wau-sha-gee-shic (inmate at the Soldiers' Home in Grand Rapids, a member of Company K, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters), and Mrs. Thomas Gilbert (of Grand Rapids, whose father was a missionary at Mackinac) in the right of the picture.

In this picture front row fourth and fifth from the left are Josie and Catherine Madagame; third row second from left is Wah-sa-qum, fourth from left is A-bung-ge-she-mok. Fourth row far right are Stephen Redbird (bow tie), Mrs. Thomas Gilbert (between the two men) and Rev. James Wau-sha-gee-shic (end of row). Peter Shawandase is the older man in fifth row seen between two men in the fourth row.

The Traverse City Evening Record of 12 Aug 1905 page 4 had the following info on the camp meeting.

Michigan's Five Ordained Indian Ministers: 1. Rev. Lewis Medawis of Bradley; 2. Rev. John Jacobs of Northport; 3. Rev. Wm. Elias of Petoskey; 4. Rev. John Ke-way-ke-shik of Kewadin; 5. Rev. Wm. Petoskey.

Three Generations are Present; Wau-sa-chum, his son Rev. Jas. Wau-sha-gee-shic and his daughter Alice Wau-sha-gee-shic, a former student of Haskell Institue.

Three aged members of the O-nom-o-nience band: 1. Peter Show-an-da-sa; 2. Was-sa-chum; 3. A-pung-ga-sha-moke.

Unfortunately one can't believe everything written in the newspaper, as the page also claims the oldest in attendance was Rev. Kewadin, age 104, whose continuous residence at Kewadin dates back past the oldest inhabitants' recollection, sixty years. Chief Kewadin actually died in 1884 and was buried outside of the church cemetery because of his pagan beliefs.

From the Traverse City Evening Record of 15 Aug 1905 we learn that it rained for 36 hours, the Natives from Charlevoix had yet to arrive, and that organist Ella Agosa died soon after last year's camp meeting. Playing the reed organ for 1905 camp meeting were Eliza Lewis and Louise Williams, both of Northport. Choir members were: Louis Sho-an-da-sa and John Redbird (tenor); Martha Way-a-sing and Nancy Waun-a-gee-shic (soprano); James Waun-a-gee-shich, Genereau Solomen, Joe Redbird and John Coon (base).

The Traverse City Evening Record 18 Aug 1905 says of Robert Agosa, that he is son of David, grandson of Chief Ago-say, and that Robert attended both Haskell and Carlisle schools.

The 19 Aug 1905 edition of the Travese City Evening Records tells it is raining, that Rev. Carlos Montezuma has arrived from Chicago and that many people from Traverse City come to Northport on the Columbia.

The Traverse City Evening Record of 23 Aug 1905 tells of how few children were recruited to attend government schools compared to last year's camp meeting, although Simeon Redbird did take Anjeline Men-do-ga of Northport and James and Paul Wan-me-gos of Chief Lake to Genoa, Nebraska. Mrs. Jennie Dodge also took three unnamed students with her when she returned to Chilocco.

The Christian Work and Evangelist of 9 Sep 1905, vol. 79 no. 2012, page 345, transcription by Art Dembinski.

An Indian Camp Meeting

by J. M. Bulkley

It is not often given to many persons to witness such an interesting and altogether unique assemblage as this which, during the week beginning on the 11th of August, has been brought together in this romantic region at Northport, Mich., on the shores of one of the most beautiful sheets of water in the world. It is a camp meeting, attended and largely conducted by the Christianized Ottawa and Chippewa tribes of Indians, who compose the largest communities of Indians in Michigan. It is called "the Sha-Sko-ge-Shick." Northport is a small village of a few hundred in the county and township of Leelanan [sic], which occupies the extreme northern point of the peninsula which separates Lake Michigan from that charming expanse of water, Grand Traverse Bay, whose bay-indented shores stretch for thirty or forty miles northward from Traverse City, the metropolis of that favored section of the commonwealth and then unite with the great lake. In this county and at Cross Village, in Emmet county, farther up the Lake Michigan shore, are the most populous communities of what remains of the once powerful and numerous Ottawa and Chippewa tribes of Indians in Michigan. They have become not only civilized, but Christianized, and educated in the way that has made of them in the main an industrious and worthy people. They have not all of them forgotten and grown out of the inbred and clinging customs and manners of their ancestors, but there are many of them who have taken in the cultivation and ambitions of their white brethren, and it is not too much to say that the comparison in point of moral life and tendencies is not altogether to the credit of the latter. This camp meeting is under the direction of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Northport, and, as has been stated, is composed almost entirely of the people of the Ottawa and the Chippewa tribes of Indians, who were the original possessors of this magnificent domain.

Here on the shores of the beautiful sheet of water, a short two miles from the village, amid "God's first temples," are pitched the tents, and are erected the temporary buildings in which, for the week, this earnest band of simple folk live and worship. The exercises are conducted by the pastors of the different Methodist churches, but participated in by all who choose to take part. To one who has visited the Negro camp meeting in the South, the devotions of these meetings will strike most forcibly by their quiet earnestness, and the absence of the emotional demonstration which is a part of the Negro meeting. The early aborigines were not an emotional race; neither are their descendants of to-day, yet it is not unusual to witness individual exclamation or movements showing the intense earnestness and mental activity of those in the large audience.

Perhaps the most strikingly unique feature of these exercises is the singing which enters very largely into them. It is undoubtedly true that there is no race so completely warpped up in the simple harmonies of sound as the American Indians. During the services at almost any moment, whether opportune or otherwise, a voice suddenly starts up in an overwhelming rush of sound singing in a peculiar blending of words like the chants of ancient orgies, some familiar hymn, which is at once caught up by a hundred other voices, and the swelling melody sweeps through the woods. It is a well known fact that the Indian race are almost child-like in their willingness to be led, either by right or wrong, and as it is the characteristic way of their natures, it is easy to see that a large majority of the attendants will be on their knees in confession before the close of the meeting. Whether the influences and the impressions will be forgotten upon the return to the usual avocations of life in which they live is a matter of conjecture. The music of the camp meeting is especially to be noted. There is a choir composed wholly of the Ottawa and Chippewa men and women, the leaders of which are all or nearly all members of the local mission church, under the leadership of Show-an-da-sa, who has a tenor voice of extraordinary clearness and purity--indeed of a quality seldom heard in the paleface brother, although it is not exceptional among the Ottawas, to find rare tenor rather than deep base ones. The names of the members of this remarkable choir are as follows: Louis Show-an-da-sa, John Redbird, Lois Williams, Nancy Waun-a-gee-shic, James Waun-a-gee-shic, Peter Show-an-da-sa, John Jacobs, W.E. Elias, Genereau Solomon, Joe Redbird and John Coon. The latter is nearly eighty years of age, yet has a powerful voice, which he uses to good advantage. The language used in the hymns is Ojibway which is recognized jointly by the Ottawas, Pattawattanies and Chippewas, though originally belonging to the Chippewas, the two tribes in the early days being  practically one. Back in 1847 translators began the task of preparing for the Indians a set of familiar hymns, which later were revised and combined into a hymn book in the Ojibway tongue by a half-bred missionary, named Peter Jones, assisted by the missionary, Peter Dougherty, of Old Mission, Mich. Following this, Rev. James Evans and George Henry added others which, together, are now published in book form, Ojibway on one page and English on the opposite one. If an exact translation were followed, it would require two volumes to include the hymns very condensed, for in the majority of hymns, so lengthy are the simplest words translated into the strange language, that but one or two thoughts of the original can be used for the entire hymn, as sung in the Ojibway. Sometimes even one thought is the limit. Take the familiar hymn:

"Oh for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer's praise        

The glories of my God and Kin   

The triumphs of this grace."        

The literal translation embodied in the hymn used in the regular service has but a faint resemblance to the original, its text being altogether inadequate for the true thought expressed, thus:

"O-uh p-gish ke-che in go dweck

Neej uh she nah taig                 

Che nuh guh mo tuh wah wild  

Ning e shah Mun-e-doom."      

The retranslation again into the English has little or no suggestion of the beautiful thought originally embodied, for certain words are althougher eliminated, owing to their length or euphonic peculiarities. If re-translated literally it would appear in the following phraseology:

"I wish I had a thousand

With other countrymen,

For us to sing               

About our great God."  

Of the one hundred and thirty hymns translated, the predominating thoughts are in connection with the Sabbath, the rising sun, which they have always worshipped, the blessings and goodness of tehir God, and the joy they take in their religion.

Altogether, the Sha-sko-ge-shic camp meeting is certainly an interesting event in this twentieth century.
Detroit, Mich.

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