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BRECK, JAMES LLOYD 173While he was a student at the seminary, an address by Bishop Jackson Kemper*inspired him to undertake missionary work in the West, and after graduation, heheaded to the sparsely settled Wisconsin territory with two of his former classmates,William Adams and John Henry Hobart Jr. The men first settled in 1841at Prairie Village, now Waukesha, Wisconsin, where they built St. John’s Churchin the Wilderness. The next year they moved to Nashotah Lake and foundedNashotah House seminary on a 500-acre tract in the forest 28 miles west ofMilwaukee. All three were seeking an opportunity to live out their priestly vocationsin a quasi-monastic setting. They were successful in accomplishing thatgoal at Nashotah, and by the fall of 1844 there were 30 students in residence.Breck gave fully of himself to the tasks of a missionary in Wisconsin, travelingthousands of miles to develop schools, to preach the gospel, and to administerthe sacraments. Seeking new challenges, however, he moved to Minnesota in1850. He worked first in St. Paul, where he attempted to found a religious order,and then he served for five years among the Ojibwe Indians. He also establishededucational, agricultural, and missionary centers at Crow Wing and Leech Lake.In 1857 he settled at Faribault and the next year founded the Seabury DivinitySchool and boarding schools for the religious training of Ojibwe and Dakotachildren. Like most missionaries of that period, Breck sought not only to bringIndians to the Christian faith but also to instill in them a way of life that whitescalled “civilized.”In October 1867 Breck traveled by ship to San Francisco to carry out furthermissionary work on the Pacific coast. He took with him a party of 17 missionaries:5 clergymen, 7 candidates for the ministry, and 5 women. Settling at Benicia,they confronted a tremendous challenge because the area had a large populationthat was growing quickly, while the Episcopal Church was, as Breck put it, “fifteenyears behindhand in this work.” Throughout his ministry, Breck had focused onthree related areas: education, including theological training for ordination; evangelism,through personal contacts and regular worship; and spiritual formation,with the development of a disciplined religious life. This pattern continued inCalifornia. At the time of his death, the Pacific Coast Mission included five congregationsand a college with both a grammar school and a divinity school attachedto it.After Breck died in Benicia in March 1876, his body was transported back toWisconsin for burial at Nashotah House.BibliographyA. “Indian Mission—Minnesota, 1854,” in DW, 126–29; The Life of the Reverend JamesLloyd Breck, D.D., Chiefly from Letters Written by Himself, ed. Charles Breck (NewYork, 1883).B. ANB 3, 453; BB, 80–81; DAB 3, 3–4; DARB, 73–74; DCA, 183–84; EDC, 58; WWWAHistorical vol. 1607–1896, 72; William P. Haugaard, “The Missionary Vision ofJames Lloyd Breck in Minnesota,” HMPEC 54 (September 1985): 241–51; TheodoreI. Holcombe, An Apostle of the Wilderness: James Lloyd Breck, D.D., His