Letter from Rev. Jacob Vonbrunn
Vonbrunn’s Ville,
7th Febr’y, 1859
Dear Brother Poindexter:
I reside amongst the native of the Bassas, and under my
pastoral charge I have a little church, called an African Church.
Although the Northern mission, by which I was employed, was
established in Bexley, yet since that mission was left alone, I
removed every scholar — I may say the mission — on this side of the
river, among the natives, to whom I preach the gospel in theirs or
our own language, and have none but the children of the natives
from the surrounding different native towns, and the inhabitants of
which are under my protection. The parents of these children
assemble every Sabbath to attend the Divine worship. However, 1
am sorry to state there is no place of worship, neither for the
school. We try our best to keep school in the dwelling-house,
which is indeed quite unpleasant and inconvenient. To relieve us
of this inconvenience, I wrote to inform the friends of the mission
here and America, but received no answer.
I am sorry to inform you we have lost one of our members
of the little African church, Daniel Wood, a hopeful youth, who
had been with us as one of the scholars or boarders, under the care
of the first mission, and after that was extinguished, was placed
under you, with the rest. Daniel had been with me about eight
years. He professed the faith of Christ, and was received into the
church of Christ’s baptism in the month of July, 1855. I believe he
is gone to rest. Among the rest of the young men here, he was one
of the middle-night prayer-offerers to his Redeemer and Master.
We discovered his health being weak, at his own request, we sent
him to visit his parents — his father being one of the chiefs of
influence, a distance of about ten miles form here. After a stay of
some weeks, we were informed that he grew worse. Both my wife
and some of the school children went to see brother Daniel. We
found he was really sick. He shed many tears when he saw us.
We also wept. I asked him whether he remembered the Saviour.
He answered me very firmly, that though his complaint was much
for him to bear, yet he never forgot his dear Saviour. I requested
his father’s permission to let me take him home. By the consent of
the old man, we took him along with us. He suffered much on the
way. No sooner did we reach the station, and he saw the town, he
