Alonzo Barnard

Alonzo Barnard (1817–1905) was a Presbyterian missionary to Native Americans. He helped people escape slavery and taught formerly enslaved people in Ontario, Canada. He met his wife Sarah Philena Babcock Barnard (1819–1853) at Oberlin College and they worked together as missionaries and abolitionists with other graduates from Oberlin. Called the "Oberlin Band", they were led by Rev. Frederick Ayer. They worked initially for the Western Evangelical Missionary Society, and then the American Missionary Association after 1846. He ran one of the first printing presses in Minnesota, which was used to print books in the Ojibwe language. He established several mission stations and was a fund-raiser for the mission.

They were missionaries to the Sioux and the Ojibwe (Chippewa). to Harriet Byam and Josiah Barnard. He began working on the Underground Railroad while at Oberlin. and were married that year in Rochester, Ohio. in what was then the frontier of northwest Wisconsin Territory (now Minnesota). Other missionaries who established the "Oberlin Band" mission included Frederick Ayer and David B. Spencer—who selected the Red Lake site in 1842 — and Sela Wright, Dr. William Lewis, and P.O. Johnston. The new mission did not have the money to pay the missionaries salaries. The Western Evangelical Missionary Society provided tools so that the missionaries could build houses and grow food, with the objective of being self-sufficient. They established themselves near the fledging St. Paul, Minnesota, where the only business was a government grist mill and there were three or four buildings. It was called "Devil's Den" for the character of its residents. Barnard traveled with Ayer to Winnipeg for supplies.

Barnard worked at the Leech Lake mission before going to Cass Lake, where he and Sarah established a mission in 1846 with David Spencer. or August 1851. Barnard was the first ordained protestant minister to conduct a church service in North Dakota.

Oberlin alumni and Sunday schools in Ohio donated funds for Barnard to acquire a printing press in 1849. The Minnesota Historical Society stated in 1934 that it was the second use of a printing press in Minnesota history. It was used at Cass Lake to print books, like hymnals, in the Ojibwe language—as well as a book to teach missionaries the Ojibwe language. On Barnard's return to Red Lake from the eastern United States in the summer of 1849,

Alexander Ramsey, Governor of Minnesota Territory, called on the missionaries to establish a mission in the Pembina and St. Joseph area to meet the needs of the Native American community. In 1853, Barnard and his wife established a mission at St. Joseph

In the meantime, Barnard and Sarah had two children. She was buried first at the settlement, and then reinterred at their cabin at St. Joseph, as she had requested. under David Anderson, bishop of Rupert's Land. The mission in Minnesota and North Dakota closed in 1859 after the Oberlin missionaries were exhausted from years of extreme cold, primitive living quarters, isolation at remote mission stations, and resistance.

Having left the area in 1863, Barnard at the mission for Native Americans at Benzonia, Michigan, for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Barnard was a missionary in Omena to the Ojibwe.

He lived in Red Lake, Minnesota, by 1871. By 1888, Barnard lived in Wisconsin. He died on April 7, 1905 at his son Dr. James Barnard's house in Pomona of Cleon Township, Manistee County, Michigan.

Legacy A memorial called "Martyrs of St. Joe" was established for Sarah Philena Barnard and Cornelia Spencer at the Presbyterian cemetery in Walhalla (near St. Joseph) in June 1888. It was established by the Women's Synodical Missionary Society of North Dakota.