In 1876, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decided to open a mission at Fort Berthold in northern Dakota Territory. It began at an old fur trading post of the Astor Fur Trading Company, about 90 miles northwest of Bismarck and where the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara lived in peace along the Missouri River.

The Board selected Congregationalist minister Charles L. Hall and his wife, Emma, to start the mission. Charles was born in England in 1847 and educated at City College and Union Seminary in New York and at Andover Theological Seminary in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.

Charles was ordained in the South Dakota mission at Yankton in 1876. He had served a new non-Indian church at Springfield in southern Dakota Territory where he met his future wife, Emma Calhoun.

The Halls left the Yankton Agency on a Missouri steamer on April 26, 1876, and headed for Fort Berthold. They arrived in early May, about two weeks later, with the building materials on board for their house and meeting room.

A small number of Sioux came to the first meeting in log house built by the Astor Fur Trading Company. The Halls communicated through an old French half-breed of the Arikara tribe who knew seven languages.

Their mission efforts started at Like-a-Fishhook village on the Missouri River. The chiefs of the three affiliated tribes--Son of the Star, Crows Breast and Red Cow--deeded the mission sufficient land for its work and promised to “protect the American Board and their Missionaries in their rights.”

Charles established Fort Berthold’s first permanent school at Like-a-Fishhook and also became an advocate of eastern, off-reservation, boarding schools. Charles worked in English, but loved to sing Indian lyrics. He was called Ho Washte or Good Voice.

He used Indian people as helpers in both church and secular work. The mission developed slowly, and nine years passed before he organized the first church in 1885.
In 1897, the mission work was moved about 20 miles upstream to Elbowoods, where a new chapel, school and housing were built.

Charles and Emma continued to serve the Fort Berthold mission faithfully until 1922, when Robert Hall encouraged his friends, Harold and Eva Case, to take over the Fort Berthold mission for his parents. The Cases agreed to go to Fort Berthold for one year and ended up staying for the remainder of their careers.

Written by Cathy A. Langemo
WritePlus Inc.

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