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214HARE, WILLIAM HOBARTPennsylvania. His wife’s failing health prompted Hare to resign from his parishand move to Minnesota, hoping that the state’s bracing climate would proverestorative to her. It was there, in 1863, that he first became acquainted withAmerican Indians and witnessed how little the church was doing on their behalf.Returning to Philadelphia, he served again at St. Luke’s and then, in 1867, soonafter his wife’s death, he became rector of the Church of the Ascension. In 1871,upon being appointed secretary and general agent of the Foreign Committee ofthe Board of Missions, he moved to New York City.In October 1871 the House of Bishops created the missionary district of Niobrarain Dakota Territory, and in November 1872 Hare was elected its bishop.Niobrara was the vast region, largely unknown to whites, north of the NiobraraRiver (which marked the border between Nebraska and Dakota) and west of theMissouri River. This land was inhabited by the Ponca and Lakota/Dakota Indians,and the Oneidas in Wisconsin and the Santee in Nebraska were also transferredto the oversight of the newly elected bishop. Hare was consecrated in January1873, at the age of 34. Over the next 37 years, he endured great physical hardshipwhile establishing chapels, boarding schools, and missionary residences and supervisingthe training and deployment of clergy, catechists, and other churchworkers. During this period, the number of native clergy, candidates for the ministry,and catechists grew significantly, as did the number of children in the fourIndian boarding schools Hare founded. His Indian work eventually included 90congregations, with 57 church buildings and 3,200 communicants. In 1883 theHouse of Bishops changed the boundaries of Hare’s jurisdiction almost exactlyto those of the present state of South Dakota and substituted the name “SouthDakota” for “Niobrara.”By the 1880s large numbers of white immigrants were streaming into the Dakotas,and Hare’s ministry began to include more and more of them as well. InSeptember 1885 he established All Saints School in Sioux Falls to educate thedaughters of these newcomers as well as of his own missionaries. He maintaineda residence for himself on the grounds of the school, which became a place ofwelcome rest after long and exhausting missionary journeys. By the late 1890s,heart trouble had reduced Hare’s former vigor, and after 1903 a facial cancermade it very difficult for him to carry on his work. The election of a coadjutor,Frederick Foote Johnson, helped lighten the burden of his duties in 1905. In 1907Hare underwent disfiguring surgery for a malignant growth on his face.By the time of his death, half the 25,000 Indians in South Dakota were baptizedmembers of the Episcopal Church, and Hare himself had confirmed over 7,000of them. The annual gatherings of the Niobrara deanery, which included all theIndian missions in South Dakota, attracted several thousand Native Americansfor worship and fellowship on the Great Plains. In 1891 the daughter of the Lakotawar chief Gall, victor against Custer at the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876,presented to Hare an offering of eight hundred dollars on behalf of the Niobrara(i.e., the American Indian) branch of the Woman’s Auxiliary. On the next fourthof July, Chief Gall himself was baptized in the Episcopal Church.