Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/98

92 a suitable present. Accordingly an attractive package of scarlet and blue cloth, beads of various colors, and a mirror was made up and given to her, and the two Indians went away, the girl apparently quite satisfied with her parcel and the father likewise pleased with other suitable presents made to him. While the matrimonial conference was in progress, the girl had looked on well pleased, leaning composedly against the door post.

The previous year, 1838, Nicollet and Frémont had visited the eastern part of South Dakota, coming in by way of Pipestone Quarry, and they mapped the Coteau region and gave to many of the lakes the names which they still bear. Lake Preston was named by Frémont for Senator Preston; Lake Abert (Albert) for Colonel Abert, chief of the topographical engineers; and Lake Poinsett for the then Secretary of War.

In 1840 Rev. Stephen R. Riggs drove across country from the missionary settlement at Lac qui Parle, Minnesota, to Fort Pierre, where he preached a sermon to the traders and Indians. This was the first sermon preached within South Dakota.

In 1851 Father Peter John De Smet, a famous Catholic missionary, made his first visit especially to the Dakota Indians, though he had previously become interested in them while passing down the Missouri from a trip among the Indians of Oregon, and in 1839, also, had come up the river as far as the mouth of the Vermilion to endeavor to effect a peace between the outlaw band of Wamdesapa and the Potawatomies. From 1851 until his death in 1873 he devoted his attention principally to the spiritual