Jotham Meeker journals

The journals of Jotham Meeker, in three volumes, describe his daily activities as an Indian missionary, printer, and minister in Michigan and Kansas territories. In 1825 Meeker served as a teacher and preacher among the Pottawatomis, the Ottawas, and later the Chippewas in Michigan. The Board of Baptist Missions sent Meeker to Indian Territory in 1833 in an area that would later become Kansas. Due in part to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. government was relocating many Eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River. Meeker was assigned to the Shawnee tribe as a printer-missionary. By February 1834 he had set up his printing press at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in present Johnson County, Kansas. In May 1837 Meeker began his own mission among the Ottawas near present Ottawa, Kansas. Meeker died at the Ottawa mission in January 1855. A full transcription (PDF) is available below under "External Links." Images of the original journals are followed by images of the typescript copies. Funding to digitize these journals was donated by Dr. A. Allan Schmid.

Creator: Meeker, Jotham, 1804-1855
Date: September 10, 1832-January 4, 1855