friendly acquaintance with the
Cherokee. 1 In L799, hearing thai the Cherokee desired teachers or
perhaps bj direct invitation of the chiefs two missionaries visited
the tribe to investigate the matter. Another visit wa- made in the
next summer, and a council was held at Tellico agency, where, after a
debate in which the Indians showed considerable difference <>t' opinion,
it was decided tn open a mission. Permission having been obtained
from the government, the work was begun in April. L801, by Rev.
Abraham Steiner and Rev. Gottlieb Byhan at the residence of David
Vann, a prominent mixed-blood chief, who lodged them in his own
bouse and gave them every assistance in building the mission, which
they afterward called Spring place, where now is the village of the
same name in Murray county, northwestern Georgia. They were
also materially aided bythe agent, Colonel Return J. Meigs (32). It
was soon seen that the Cherokee wanted civilizers for their children,
and not new theologies, and when they found that a school could not
at once 1 pened the great council at I'stanali sent orders to the
missi iries to organize a school within six months or leave the nation.
Through Vann's help the matter was arranged and a school was
opened, several sons of prominent chiefs being among the pupils.
Another Moravian mission was established by Reverend .1. Gambold
at Oothcaloga, in the same county, in 1821. Roth were in flourishing
condition when broken up. with other Cherokee missions, by the Stair
of Georgia in 1834:. The work was afterward renewed beyond the
Mississippi. 5
In 1804 the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister of
Tennessee, opened a school among the Cherokee,