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Who Became a Bishop
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team the Dean drove us up the Laramie River twenty miles, then climbing to the top of the ridge drove us twenty miles more along the summit of the Medicine Bow Range. At sunset we came to a road ranch kept by a Frenchman where we spent the night. The next morning we descended into the valley of the North Platte River, called the North Park of Colorado. At noon we dined on crackers and caught a few trout, in the Platte. All the afternoon we drove west across the Park. Toward evening we passed through the mining camp of Pearl, Colorado. We then turned north and climbed over a spur of the Rockies. Not reaching a ranch house, as we had hoped, we decided to camp on the mountain by Big Creek. Before dark we had caught a nice string of mountain trout. We had brought no blankets and were not prepared for camping, but were prepared as always to make the best of the situation. The seats were taken out and the curtains of the mountain wagon were put up. The bed of the wagon was filled with pine boughs and a bag of grain made a pillow for the Bishop and his son. The Dean put the seat cushion under the wagon for a bed and took the only overcoat in the party for a covering. The Bishop and his son were soon asleep, but the Dean spent the most of the night nursing the fire made of such sticks as he could break with his hands from the willows and sage brush. The frost was heavy all around us and the water pail was frozen over. Still we all enjoyed our breakfast of graham crackers and trout fried on a piece of tin from an old can.
     "Soon after sunrise we were on our way again, climbing another spur of the Rockies. At noon we stopped at a stream for lunch, where the Bishop caught


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a few more trout In the afternoon we passed by the mining camp of Grand Encampment and that night we stayed at Cocheron's ranch on Cow Creek, where we were entertained royally.
     "The next morning we baptized a grandchild of Mr. Cocheron and reached Saratoga by noon. In the afternoon the Bishop made calls with Rev. Dr. Huntington on all his parishioners.
     "The next day, Sunday, we held services in Saratoga and collected six dollars and thirty-five cents for our mission work. Here Rev. Mr. Toole, the missionary from the Snake River country seventy miles away, met the Bishop with his team. After resting over Monday, Mr. and Mrs. Toole, the Bishop and his son started on their long drive over the continental divide. Lunching by the roadside, we reached the little hamlet of Battle Lake, ten thousand feet above sea level. There we picked up copper ore on the very summit of the mountain and walked over acres of snow, some of it twenty feet deep.
     "The next morning we jolted over nine miles of the rockiest road in the country, then ever down into the valley of the Little Snake to Dixon. There for several days we rested and made calls on the neighboring ranchmen. The Glorious Fourth of July we spent in the little village of Baggs, watching the races, the contests in riding bucking bronchos and other sports peculiar to the far west. Our Church ladies at Baggs cleared one hundred and forty dollars that day serving refreshments to the celebrators.
     "On Sunday morning we were in Dixon for Sunday school, the Bishop teaching a class. In the afternoon, at the Savoy school-house, five miles away, we


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preached to sixty people. In the evening at Dixon again we had a congregation of sixty and confirmed a class of six, mostly adults.
     "During the week following we visited the ranchmen for thirty miles up and down the valley and two or three times filled our ten-pound basket with trout.
     "On the next Sunday we held morning service in the little school-house at Battle Creek, into which twenty-eight people were crowded. In the afternoon we drove twenty-eight miles down the valley to Baggs. There we held the opening service in the new brick church, without windows or pews, preached to ninety people and confirmed a class of two presented by Rev. A. A. Gilman. No Christian services of any sort except our own are held in this valley or within seventy miles of it.
     "After a day's rest at Dixon, we took the stage seventy miles to Rawlins and toward evening heard the whistle of the locomotive once more. We had driven nearly four hundred miles since leaving the railroad."
     My vacation came in September, when I camped with the old Minnesota friends in the woods twenty miles north of Duluth, Minnesota. In addition to the many ducks for our larder, we shot a young deer and secured some moose meat from a logging camp.
     The middle of October 1 attended an "All America Conference of Bishops," held in Washington, District of Columbia. Bishops from Canada, the West Indies and from all over the United States were present. Some important matters were considered, such as the attitude of our Church toward Protestant Communions,


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Methods of Work with Negroes and Indians, the Proper Method of Transferring Clergymen from Canada to the United States and other matters of general interest. This meeting was followed by the annual Missionary Council. While east, I visited some of our friends and helpers in Philadelphia, New York and Connecticut. The balance of the year I was busy making visitations in my District. For the first fifteen years of my episcopate I was at home only about one-fifth of the time.


CHAPTER XXXI.

1904.

HE middle of January I was in Kansas City, attending the first conference of the Sixth Missionary Department. From there I visited Bishop Millspaugh and his Church institutions at Topeka, Kansas. To break the cold winter, I went on to a truck ranch, near El Paso, Texas, staying with a Church family there, hunting quails and rabbits for three weeks, and began writing this autobiography. By the twentieth of February I was at my regular visitations, which kept me busy until the first of August. In July, Rev. C. H. Plummer, of Lake City, Minnesota, came to me and together we visited the Snake River Missions in Southern Wyoming. Between Sundays we camped on the banks of the river, caught and ate many mountain trout.


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     On the seventh of August I ordained my oldest son, Frederick, to the priesthood. On the twenty-fourth of the same month I baptized my first grandchild, son of my second son, Eliot. In September I was camping for a short time in Minnesota and in October attended the General Convention in Boston. In this convention missionary bishops were elected for Hankow, Cuba, Salt Lake and Mexico. The following extract from my report to the Board of Missions will give some idea of how the work of our District was coming on:
     "The past year has been a prosperous one for our missionary work on the frontier. The winter and early spring had fewer storms than the previous year and in consequence our services have been more regular and congregations better. The number of confirmations and other spiritual fruits seem much more abundant. There were fewer changes in our staff of clergy, and those not until near the end of the fiscal year.

"CHURCH PROPERTY.

     "The property of the Church in this District has increased in many ways. At Gering, Nebraska, lots have been secured and a chapel is being built. At Merriman money is in sight to build a chapel. At Bassett and Stratton we have secured lots for chapels. At Cheyenne, Chadron and Buffalo funds are accumulating for parish houses. At Baggs windows and pews have been put in and the church plastered so it is in constant use. At Sidney the side wall and roof of the church have been extended to make more room for


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the choir and a furnace put under the church. The church at Rawlins has been presented with a new pipe organ. The repairs on the church at Sundance have been completed and also on the chapel at O'Neill. About fifteen hundred dollars have been put into improvements on the Kearney Military Academy and, as usual, without debt. The rectory at New Castle is nearly completed and will soon be occupied by the Missionary. At Broken Bow the rectory has been enlarged and improved. At Valentine a fine lot for a rectory has been promised and a good subscription made toward the building. At Alliance and Lexington the debts on the rectories have been fully paid. At Sheridan and Arapahoe the small debts on the rectories have been materially reduced.

"STATISTICS

     "Church families in the District, one thousand four hundred and ten; whole number of baptized persons, four thousand three hundred and fifty-nine; whole number of confirmed persons, two thousand three hundred and ninety-five; number receiving communion in last year, one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight; baptisms during the year, adults ninety-three, children two hundred and eighty-two, total three hundred and fifteen; confirmations in the year, two hundred and sixty-four; marriages, ninety-four; burials, two hundred and ninety-nine; Sunday schools, thirty-two; teachers and officers, two hundred and four; pupils, one thousand six hundred and forty-nine.

"OFFICIAL ACTS.

    " In the last year I have taken part in one hundred and sixty-two services; delivered one hundred and




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