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INDIAN REMINISCENCES BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
Mr. Slater always preached to the Indians in their language, with which he had made himself familiar. He had early sought instruction from Noonday in the Ottawa dialect. He would first deliver his sermon to the old chief, in order to get his criticism as to its correct Indian, before he preached it to the rude worshipers in the chapel. The mission lasted some ten years. Noonday died when some one hundred years old in 1845 or '46, and is buried near the spot where the old mission house stood. A plain slab marks the grave where the old patriarch of the Slater mission sleeps. His "Wife at her death was laid beside him.
Noonday never learned to talk English, but always spoke to his white friends through an interpreter, who usually was Mr. Slater. From an article by D. B. Cook, editor of the Niles Mirror, published in the Century Magazine of June, 1885, I get the following historical facts concerning Noonday: Mr. Cook's father, Phineas Cook, was an early settler in the region near Gull
prairie. He says: "I had in 1838 an interview with Noonday, chief of the Ottawa tribe. The chief was six feet high, broad shouldered, well proportioned, with broad, high cheek bones, piercing black eyes, and coarse black hair which hung down on his shoulders. He possessed wonderful muscular power. He was converted to Christianity by Rev. Leonard Slater, Missionary at the Slater mission at Grand Rapids, and afterwards came with his friend and pastor to the new mission near Gull prairie. Noonday was at the battle of the Thames. " Mr. Cook's diary runs thus: "After rehearsing the speech which Tecumseh made to his warriors previous to the engagement, and how all felt that they fought to defend Tecumseh more than for the British, he was asked:
"Were you near Tecumseh when he fell?"
"Yes, directly on his right.
"Who killed him?"
"Richard M. Johnson. "
"Give us the circumstances. "
Michigan
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