Saddle Mountain Mission and Cemetery

Mountain View, OK 73062, USA
Mission Site GPS coordinates: 34.8722854, -98.6797869
Cemetery GPS coordaintes: 34.871369, -98.677078

This is the site of the of the old Saddle Mountain Baptist Mission, founded in 1903 by Canadian Baptist missionary Isabel Crawford. The chapel that once stood here was moved in 1963 to the now closed Eagle Park Amusement Park in Cache, OK. Nearby is what started as the mission's cemetery, the Saddle Mountain Intertribal Cemetery, which is still active.

Because she was nearly deaf, Crawford had to communicate with the Kiowa through an interpreter, by lip reading, or using a hearing device that hung around her neck. The Native American used a sign language to communicate between tribes with different spoken languages; it became known as Plains Indian sign language. A Kiowa man, named Koptah, took it upon himself to teach this sign language to Crawford. She used sign language to teach the Kiowa about "the Jesus road".

Crawford had been at the Elk Creek Mission for three years when she was invited to move to Saddle Mountain, on the northern edge of the Wichita Mountains near Mountain View, Oklahoma, about thirty miles away. She agreed without consulting the board of the WBHMS and, in 1896, she moved to Saddle Mountain. Lucius Aitsan, a Kiowa who had been educated at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and had served as an interpreter for other missionaries, interpreted for Crawford (in addition to her sign language). He was the first person to be baptized at Saddle Mountain. To win the trust of the Kiowa people, she shared chores with them, cleaning, baking bread, gathering firewood, caring for the sick. Crawford also taught the women to sew and used that time to teach them about the Bible.

The Kiowa who converted had to be taken 17 miles away to the Rainy Mountain Church, to be received as members. This was a very long trip, so the Saddle Mountain converts decided that they wanted a local church. Crawford secured a 160-acre allotment from the federal government for a mission and 40 additional acres for a cemetery. She taught the women to sew quilts, which they sold to raise money to build a church. According to Crawford, the $1000 for building the church came from: Indian contributions, $355.98; Quilt money, $311.63; Unsolicited, $250.00; Missionaries, $65.69; Miscellaneous, $16.70. The Saddle Mountain Baptist Church opened on Easter of 1903 with a congregation of 64 people.

The new church had no pastor, but they wanted to celebrate the Eucharist, so Crawford told them to elect one of their own to perform the service, and they chose Lucius Aitsan. The denominational mission board and the nearest baptist missionary pastor disapproved of this move. However, they continued to hold their own services when the visiting pastor was not available. In 1904, the congregation was censured by the Oklahoma Indian Baptist Association for having "deviated from the orderly practice of Baptist churches in the administration of the Lord's Supper" (e.g. without an ordained, white minister), and led to Crawford's forced resignation and transfer from Oklahoma in 1906.

Saddle Mountain was notable for the number of Kiowa missionaries and pastors it produced, including George Hunt, Ioleta McElhaney, and Sherman Chaddlesone. A dwindling congregation led to the church's closing in 1963.

In 1963, the church was purchased by Herbert Woesner and moved to Eagle Park, Cache, Oklahoma, an amusement park and village of historic buildings. Local congregations in Cache began to use the church on Sunday mornings (Pete Coffey Church).

Crawford retired in 1929 and moved in with two nieces in Grimsby, Ontario. Before she left Saddle Mountain, Crawford declared that she "would sooner lie hidden among the tall weeds of the unkept Indian cemetery . . . than in any other burial ground in the whole world." When she died on November 18, 1961, the Kiowa buried her in the Saddle Mountain Indian Baptist Church Cemetery near the graves of her first converts. The inscription on her tombstone read, "I Dwell Among Mine Own People."

Buried in the Saddle Mountain Cemetery:

* Isabel Crawford
* Rev. Lucius Aitsan
* George Hunt
* Ioleta McElhaney
* Sherman Chadlesone
* and others.

An online database of graves at this cemetery is available on findagrave.com.

An excellent book related to this is:

* "The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns" by Luke Eric Lassiter, Clyde Ellis, Ralph Kotay.

Sources:
*Ellis, C. (2019). Saddle Mountain Mission | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. [online] Oklahoma Historical Society, Okhistory.org. Available at: www.okhistory.org [Accessed 31 Jan. 2019].
* En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Isabel Crawford. [online] Available at: en.wikipedia.org [Accessed 31 Jan. 2019].