Missionary Moses Merrill. Source - NSHS, RG2441_3715.

Rev. Moses Merrill, his wife Eliza, Cynthia Brown and Ira D. Blanchard were sent by the Baptists to Bellevue in 1833. It was an arduous trip, but when they arrived they found that the Oto nation had just signed a treaty with the U.S. that ceded or gave up land.

Read more about Indian treaties here.

In exchange, the tribe were promised yearly cash payments (or annuities), a grist mill, livestock and equipment to help them learn how to farm, and the promise of a government sponsored school. The Merrills were hired to provide the school, thereby augmenting their meager wages from the Baptist Missionary Union.

When Rev. Merrill arrived he began studying the Oto language and eventually translated portions of the Bible and several hymns into Oto. The hymns were printed in a book with the title, "Wdtwhtl Wdwdklha Eva Wdhonetl." Some credit this as the first book published in Nebraska. He also wrote a spelling book and a reader in Oto.

In 1835, Merrill decided he needed to move the school and their mission away from the evil influence of the trading post. They chose a site on the Platte about 8 miles west of Bellevue, the government built them a log cabin and schoolhouse, and about half of the Oto tribe moved close by from their village about 30 miles north near present day Yutan. But the trading continued and the tribe became poorer and poorer. When a couple of children in the school died of diseases, traders spread rumors that teaching children to read would kill them.

Towards the end of the decade, Merrill began following the tribes on their annual hunts and traveling to Shawnee Mission, Kansas (another Baptist settlement) where he could get his books printed on the new press there. These trips were difficult and he contracted tuberculosis in 1839. He died the next year. Eliza Merrill and her young son Samuel were essentially alone after that, and she struggled with her fear for their lives and her religious conviction. Prudence won out, and Eliza and Samuel returned to the East, leaving the school and their work behind.

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