Ottawa Baptist Mission site

Reverend Jotham Meeker’s second mission in Franklin County here included a meeting house moved from his first mission site on the river in 1844, school, print shop and farm buildings. The open space in the center of the gravestones is the site of the log church. Meeker is buried north of the church site, at his specific request, and John Tecumseh “Tauy” Jones to the south. Two Ottawa chiefs, Notino and Compchau, are buried in graves marked by modern stones. Meeker’s press was the first one in Kansas Territory, and was used to produce Indian language hymnals, prayer books and laws for the Shawnees and the Ottawas, using a syllabary of his own invention. This method of transcribing Indian languages which had no written form, used English letters for native syllables. After Meeker’s death in 1855, the mission fell into disrepair. The Kansas Anthropological Association excavated the site in 1988, identifying the locations of the house, print shop and church.