A lost mission for education

GREEN BAY – “In 1823, the Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society established a school in Ihe agency house on Dutchman’s Creek (Town of Ashwaubenon), the Rev. Eleazer Williams having charge and Albert G. Ellis conducting the school. Both white and Indian children seem to have attended this school,” Historian Deborah Martin wrote in the History of Brown County Wisconsin Past and Present.

At that time, both the Episcopal and the Catholic churches were engaging in the education of youth.

An attempt was made by the Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society to gather Native American children for the purpose of education, but that met with failure until 1827, when the Rev. Richard F. Cadle was brought in to take charge.

Wisconsin Historical Collections Vol. XIV “Episcopal Church and Mission in Green Bay 1825-41” noted that the students were slow in coming to the school.

A May 18, 1831, letter from Cadle to P.B. Grignon announced the first student “I have been happy in receiving your note of this day and with it an accession of a Menominee pupil. I will take good care of him and must solicit to keep his father in good disposition towards this school which he has now.”

The mission was established near the old Fort Smith at “Shantytown”

“Possession was obtained from the government of a vacant strip of land… It was a beautiful site, on high ground overlooking Fox River at its broadest stretch, and is included today in the town of Allouez; on its buildings were erected, at a cost of $9,000, and in a year and a half, there were nearly 200 children enrolled and in attendance. Those of pure Indian blood were boarded and clothed as well as instructed free of expense,” Martin added.

Cadle was aided by his sister, Sarah, and a team of about six teachers.

But their mission was soon under the microscope of the community they had aimed to serve.

According to a report to the society’s executive committee, “it seems that after children are received, fed, clothed and partially instructed, the parents are apt to claim and take them away. This is a state of things not to be endured, for by it the labors and expenditure of the society may be entirely disappointed.

To remedy that, Cradle suggested incorporation, “so that the indentures which the parents may enter into with the society may have a binding force at law.”

“A charge of cruelty was brought against an under teacher of the institution for punishing severely two boys who had been guilty of a serious misdemeanor, and Mr. Cadle sensitively appreciative of the criticism that might include him as head of the institution, resigned after four years of almost insupportable labor and anxiety, In 1842, it was decided by the board of missions to discontinue it as a mission school,” Martin said.

“I feel greatly interested in its prosperity and should deeply lament in my withdrawal from it proved the slightest occasion of injury to it. On my own account I am anxious that no children should be removed; and it, as opportunity may be given, you would use your influence to prevail upon their parents to allow them to remain, you would confer upon me a great favor,” Cadle wrote shortly before his resignation.

In October 1929, a bronze marker was placed at the intersection of Mission Road and Webster Avenue in Allouez to commemorate the approximate site of the first Episcopal mission.

“Although the building, which was destroyed by fire in 1898, was further down the Mission Road, the marker is being placed on the highway, which is state property,” the Press-Gazette stated shortly before its placement.

The marker was later knocked down and found among rubble near Duck Creek and turned over to the Brown County Historical Society.

It was restored and placed on the grounds of the Cotton House at Heritage Hill State Historical Park.

It was later returned to the original site of the mission at 155. W. Mission Rd., Green Bay, on privately owned property.