Adams, Moses N. (Moses Newton), 1822-1902

Moses N. Adams was born on February 14, 1822 in Rockville, Adams County, Ohio, the son of Robert and Elizabeth Baird Adams. Following a common school education, he attended Ripley (Ohio) College (ca. 1839-1845) and the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio (1845-1848). He received his ministerial license on May 5, 1847 and was ordained by the Cincinnati Presbytery on June 14, 1848. He was then appointed as an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) missionary to the Dakota Indians on or near the upper Mississippi River. Immediately following his July 9, 1848 marriage to Annie Gaul Rankin, daughter of James and Sarah Gaul Rankin and also an ABCFM missionary, the couple traveled up the Mississippi River to the Kaposia, Minnesota Territory mission station. They remained at the Kaposia and Shakopee stations learning the Dakota language until the fall, when they joined Reverend Stephen R. Riggs at the Lac Qui Parle mission station on the upper Minnesota River.

At Lac Qui Parle Adams taught a day school, developed a systematic study of the Dakota language, and produced a Dakota/English lexicon. He and his wife also began the first successful boarding school for Dakota children, boarding six children in their home.

In 1853 Adams left the Indian missions to enter Presbyterian Church home mission work. He moved to Nicollet County, Minnesota Territory, and ministered to settlers in the Traverse des Sioux and St. Peter area. In November 1853 he organized the first Presbyterian church at Traverse des Sioux. Between 1860 and 1871 Adams was engaged in Sunday school work and served as the American Bible Society agent for the state of Minnesota.

In December 1871 he accepted appointment as the United States Indian agent to the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of the Dakota living on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, Dakota Territory. During his tenure as agent he oversaw the construction of two district school houses (1872) and a Manual Labor Boarding School (1873). He resigned as agent in April 1875. He then went to St. Paul where he remained until February 1876, when he received a commission as chaplain in the United States Army. In that capacity he served three years at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, three years at Fort Lyon, Colorado, and four years at Fort Sill, Indian Territory. He retired from the chaplaincy in 1886.

He again returned to St. Paul but soon accepted the Goodwill Mission post vacated by the death of Stephen R. Riggs. At Goodwill he was both missionary and general superintendent of native pastors and churches on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation and superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions' missionaries. Adams also acted as resident chaplain at the reservation's Goodwill Mission and United States government schools.

He retired in the autumn of 1892 due to poor health and returned to St. Paul. He died at the Buffalo Surgical Institute, Buffalo, New York on July 23, 1902 and was buried in St. Paul on July 28.

Biographical data was taken from the collection.

For more information about Adams, see: Minnesota History Bulletin, 3:522-523; Meyer, Roy W., History of the Santee Sioux: U.S. Indian Policy on Trial (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), pp. 199-208; and Sterling, Everett W., "Moses N. Adams, A Missionary as Indian Agent," Minnesota History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Dec. 1956), pp. 167-177.

From the guide to the Moses N. Adams papers, 1849-1902., (Minnesota Historical Society)