page_title: Enmegahbowh
hierarchical_section_title: Enmegahbowh
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of Enmegahbowh, who died in 1902 at the age of 95, so this image must be from the 1860s at the very latest.
context_page_description: Enmegahbowh was the first Native American to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
  Born around 1820, Enmegahbowh, was the only child of the chief of an Ojibwe Band on Rice Lake near Peterborough, Canada. Because this group of Ojibwe "trade Indians" remained behind while the others pressed farther up the Great Lakes in search of furs, some consider Enmegahbowh an Ottawa. He was raised in a Christian Anishinaabe village near Petersburg which was affiliated with the Methodists. An Episcopal clergyman of the vicinity, Mr. Armour, persuaded Enmegahbowh's reluctant parents to send him to be educated with the clergyman's own sons. Enmegahbowh did learn to read and speak English, but after three months, the homesick boy ran away in the night and walked for two days to return to his own people. About 1831, Enmegahbowh's grandfather, a medicine man of high rank, inducted him into the tribal religious organization Midewiwin.
  On July 4, 1841 Enmegahbowh married Biwabikogeshigequay, niece of Hole-in-the-Day. He met the Rev.
context_section_description: Enmegahbowh (c. 1820 – June 12, 1902; from Enami'egaabaw, meaning "He that prays [for his people while] standing"; also known as John Johnson) was the first Native American to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
  Born around 1820, Enmegahbowh (pronounced En-meh-GAH-boe), was the only child of the chief of an Ojibwe Band on Rice Lake near Peterborough, Canada. Because this group of Ojibwe "trade Indians" remained behind while the others pressed farther up the Great Lakes in search of furs, some consider Enmegahbowh an Ottawa. He was raised in a Christian Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) village near Petersburg which was affiliated with the Methodists. An Episcopal clergyman of the vicinity, Mr. Armour, persuaded Enmegahbowh's reluctant parents to send him to be educated with the clergyman's own sons.  Enmegahbowh did learn to read and speak English, but after three months, the homesick boy ran away in the night and walked for two days to return to his own people. About 1831, Enmegahbowh's grandfather, a medicine man of high rank, inducted him into the tribal religious organization Midewiwin.
  On July 4, 1841 Enmegahbowh married Biwabikogeshigequay (a/k/a Iron Sky Woman and baptized Charlotte), niece of Hole-in-the-Day. He met the Rev. Ezekiel Gilbert Gear, chaplain at Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, and became an Episcopalian. Gear eventually introduced Enmegahbowh to the Rev. James Lloyd Breck, a missionary who had arrived in Minnesota in 1851, and who baptised Enmegahbowh.
  Bishop Jackson Kemper ordained the youth a deacon in 1859, and Enmegahbowh went to Crow Wing, Minnesota to assist in founding St. Columba Mission. Mille Lacs Chief Fine-Day was an early member of Enmegahbowh's church, and took over the mission in 1861.
caption: Enmegahbowh
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