the face with a guaranty of payment, and considerable amounts of this so-called "Gosport" and "Tekoma" were issued. Mr. Pettit, alone, put out over $20,000 of these guaranteed notes, all of which he redeemed at face value.

The limits of this paper preclude considering with more detail the operations of these early bankers. The financial crash of 1857 suspended, for a time, the business of all the banks; and during the readjustment, following the crisis, the state banking system was established, ushering in a new era in our banking history.

REV. EZEKIEL GILBERT GEAR, D. D.,

CHAPLAIN AT FORT SNELLING, 1838-1858.

AN ADDRESS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION OF HIS PORTRAIT TO THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT THE MONTHLY MEETING OF ITS EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, FEBRUARY 12TH, 1906, BY THE RT. REV. SAMUEL COOK EDSALL, D. D., BISHOP OF MINNESOTA.

The pleasant duty of rendering honor tonight to Father Gear, of blessed memory, and of formally presenting to the Historical Society the excellent portrait in oil painted by Miss Grace E. McKinstry, of Faribault, comes to me simply because in the Providence of God I am now Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Minnesota, and can therefore represent more fully than anyone else the religious body of which Father Gear was the pioneer minister, and which now rejoices in the opportunity of placing his likeness in your custody, where it may be preserved among the portraits of the other great men who bore their part in laying the foundations of this commonwealth.

This duty could have been more adequately performed either by Rev. William C. Pope, of St. Paul, or Rev. George C. Tanner, D. D., of Faribault, the residence and ministry of both of whom go back to a point in Minnesota's history which would enable them to speak from personal knowledge, not only of the later years of Father Gear's own life, but of the other men with whom he labored, and of events in which they themselves have borne an honorable part.

To Mr. Pope we owe the inception of the project for procuring this portrait, and most of the credit for carrying it through to completion while to Dr. Tanner, as the historian of the Episcopal

Church in this Diocese, we are indebted for the gathering of the facts which have made Father Gear's life and labors familiar to those of us who belong to a later generation.

But enlightened by what Mr. Pope and Dr. Tanner have contributed to the early history of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, I have been permitted to realize how remarkable was the man in whose honor we have met tonight, and how prominent was his share in doing the very first work, not only of the Episcopal Church, but of any English-speaking religious body, among the white settlers of Minnesota, and particularly in that portion of Minnesota centering about Fort Snelling and the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, embracing the present great cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The salient fact for us to fasten in our minds, in estimating the place of this man among Minnesota's pioneers, is that he began his labors as chaplain at Fort Snelling, and as a Christian missionary in the vicinity, in April, 1839, and that thus he became (aside from the Rev. Clement F. Jones, post chaplain in 1828, and aside from certain faithful missionaries among the Indians and half-breeds) the first resident Christian minister of Minnesota. In the days of Mr. Jones' chaplaincy, and, in fact, up to the time of Father Gear's coming, there was practically no white settlement in which a resident minister could labor. We would not detract from the heroism of any missionary who gave his life to ministering among the Indians, nor from the fidelity of any chaplain who may have held service for the garrison in the fort; nor do we deny that it is possible that some occasional service may have been held somewhere in the present boundaries of Minnesota for some passing party of traders or explorers; but the fact remains that Ezekiel G. Gear was the first Christian minister, permanently residing in Minnesota, to conduct services regularly in the English language among the white settlers of the future state. That this fact should be stated and known is but due to a man whose missionary zeal was such that he did not content himself with his Sunday morning and evening services in the fort, but was keen to avail. himself of the earliest opportunity of gathering the settlers at