# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S65
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 65 —

...should remain their undisputed property for all time, provided
that they made small, convenient payments annually as they were
able (whether in sugar or other goods, or in labor) to gradually
repay the modest purchase price of the land. At the final payment, a
fully valid deed of purchase was then to be issued to each Indian
family. Missionary Miessler hoped that they would not leave their,
and his, beloved Bethany, and tried to encourage them to stay;
nevertheless, not only did they decide firmly in favor of the other
option, but by now nearly all of them have already moved to Isabella
County, where most were received by the Methodists and are now
being drawn into their nets even more than before. Until last spring
they only went back and forth occasionally from Bethany to Isabella
County, to clear land and plant there from time to time; but now the
tables have turned — Isabella County is their home, and they come to
Bethany only to visit. It is obvious that, given such
circumstances, the missionary's effectiveness among them was greatly
hindered, since services at Bethany could now only rarely be attended
by them, and the school nearly ceased altogether. And yet missionary
Miessler now has precisely the ability to offer them the living
preaching of the Word in their mother tongue, which had not been the
case until a year ago. He had therefore been able to dismiss the
interpreter, retaining his services only for extraordinary cases.

The undersigned Mission Commission would like to put before the
Reverend Synod, with respect to Bethany, the question for
deliberation whether it might not be advisable to relocate the
Bethany station 25 miles further, to Isabella County, in order to
continue our work in earnest among these Indians entrusted to us.

Regarding the outward condition of the mission property at Bethany,
it should be mentioned that, over the course of the last three
years, a new frame barn has been added to the old buildings, that
the land yields good produce, and that, should the present mission
property at Bethany be sold, at least $1,200 could be realized for
the mission farm. A good state road is currently being built right
through it, which naturally raises the value of the land. The
horses and cattle are in good condition. If we add to the mission
farm the value of the land formerly left to the Indians — to which,
through their present departure from Bethany, they appear to have
forfeited all claim — that land is worth at least $4.00 per acre, or
about $2,560 in all, since the acreage is 640; so that the entire
holdings of the mission at Bethany might be reckoned at $4,000.00.

The undersigned Mission Commission now asks the Reverend Synod,
should it order the discontinuation or relocation of the Bethany
station, to decide whether the mission property there should be sold
or leased at once, or whether the sale or lease should be deferred,
at the missionary's discretion, until he can judge whether he will
gain a hearing among the Indians in the new county of Isabella or
not, or whether he may perhaps even hope that they will return to
Bethany.