Guide to the Ganado Mission Records

The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA) established the Ganado Mission at Ganado, Arizona around 1901 with the goals of culturally assimilating and converting the Navajo (Diné) and Hopi peoples. Prior to 1901, a scouting group, which included Reverend George Logie and William R. Johnston, surveyed for a location. Using the information that the scouting group had gathered, the PCUSA Board of Home Missions (BHM) and the Presbytery of Arizona (Synod of New Mexico) saw Ganado as a strategic location, it being located near several population districts within the Navajo Indian Reservation and railroad facilities at Gallup, New Mexico to the east and at Chambers, Arizona to the south. The BHM applied to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for a grant of over 100 acres near the Hubbell Trading Post in the Reservation. Charles Harry Bierkemper was the Mission's first pastor, and his wife, Alice Bierkemper (née Woodford), was the first teacher. They stayed on the property of John (Don) Lorenzo Hubbell while a manse was constructed. Navajo interpreters for Bierkemper included Tom Morgan and John Curley.1 The BIA approved the BHM's grant in 1902.

Missionaries and mission administrators pursued their goals of cultural assimilation and conversion of the Navajo and Hopi peoples primarily through the avenues of Christian education, evangelism, and medicine/medical care. In a resolution passed by the Conference of the Navajo Presbyterian Missionaries at Ganado and sent to the BHM in August 1906, the conference body states that "the white-man's doctoring is loosing the bands of superstition." The conference body goes on to state that "... the best way to civilize the Indian is to Christianize him ... The best way to Christianize him is to preach the Gospel to him in his own language ... the schools must be our own schools, where the Bible can be taught regularly and lived practically."2 The conference's resolution set the framework/precedent for BHM strategic funding of the aforementioned avenues.

A manse for the Bierkempers was finished in 1903. The first church building (Ganado Mission Church) was constructed in 1906. A medical missionary, Dr. A. H. Waterhouse, arrived in 1906 as well. A day school opened in 1910 with Ms. S. F. Conklin and Ms. Olive Forsythe (Forsyth) as teachers. A mission building was erected in 1911. In 1914, the BHM transferred Kirkwood Memorial School (the BHM had obtained the school from the Methodist Woman's Home Missionary Society) from Jewett, New Mexico to Ganado. Kirkwood Memorial School was housed in the Westminster Building, which was built in 1915. Dr. James D. Kennedy, Waterhouse's successor, arrived in 1910 and operated the first hospital (twelve to fifteen beds in size), which was built around 1912. Pastors after Bierkemper included Clarence L. Platt and Reverend Hugh D. "Shine" Smith.

Around 1920, the PCUSA BHM asked Reverend Frederick (Fred) G. Mitchell to serve as the Mission's first superintendent. Mitchell worked to translate the Bible into the Navajo language. He remained superintendent until 1929 when Dr. Clarence G. Salsbury took the position. Salsbury had first arrived on the Mission in 1927 as a doctor. Mitchell left the Mission to be director of Indian Wells. Around 1923, the Mission paid the BIA to drill for water supply in Canyon de Chelly. Throughout the 1920s the Mission expanded, developing community centers and outstations for evangelizing and preaching at Cedar Springs, Cornfields, Greasewood, Allantown (sometimes spelled Allentown in the records), and Tselani (sometimes spelled Tse Lani; T'selani in the records). A new hospital building was constructed and named Sage Memorial Hospital in 1930. The hospital housed the School of Nursing, which became accredited in the early 1930s. The program was specifically developed to train Navajo nurses, though other Indigenous students were accepted as well as some foreign students. One of the first Navajo graduates of the School of Nursing was Ruth Henderson, who had previously attended Kirkwood Memorial School.

Enrollment in Kirkwood Memorial School increased in the 1920s, with there usually being around 150 students throughout the year. The school also included a Department of Evangelistic Training (known as the Bible Training School) to train Indigenous evangelists. A high school was organized in 1926. Anna E. Falls became principal in 1933. The high school was named Ganado Mission High School after being accredited by Arizona in the mid to late 1930s. While Navajo and Hopi students made up most of the student population, students from other Indigenous tribes attended as well.

A new church building was erected in 1941. Several cottages and housing buildings were constructed in the 1940s. Several staff and students enlisted in the United States Armed Forces during World War II, including student Keith Morrison Little, who would go on to become a Navajo code talker. In 1949, a new high school building was constructed and named the Clarence G. Salsbury High School. Salsbury retired soon after, with Joseph A. Poncel, previously superintendent at the Tucson Indian Training School, succeeding Salsbury. Arthur Dodd became principal of Ganado Mission High School in 1951. An addition to the curriculum at this time included a short course in the Navajo language, "for high school students to enable them to read to their non-English speaking parents and to interpret the Bible and English publications to them."3 The early 1950s also saw the closing of the School of Nursing, though Sage Memorial Hospital continued operation. The new Sage Memorial Hospital building was built in 1963.

By the 1960s, enrollment in the Ganado Mission High School was decreasing as more students were attending public schools. The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA) Board of National Missions (BNM) closed the Ganado Mission High School in 1970, resolving that the school duplicated services of area public schools, though the closure was also based on financial reasons. That same year, the Ganado Learning Center briefly opened but was superseded by The College of Ganado (TCOG), which used a two-year community college model. In 1969, the BNM transferred Sage Memorial Hospital administration and property to Project HOPE (People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.) under a five year development agreement. Project Hope then transferred the hospital to the newly formed Navajo Nation Health Foundation in 1974. The Ganado Presbyterian Church remained in operation.

Bibliography/Works Cited

1. Moore, Edgar W. "The Bierkempers, Navajos, and the Ganado Presbyterian Mission, 1901-1912." "American Presbyterians," vol. 64, no. 2, 1986, page 130. PHS Call number BX 8905 .J8.

2. United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Mission Development Records, RG 301.7, PHS. Box 7, Folder 22. 1906 resolution, page 3.

3. United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Health, Education and Welfare Records, RG 301.8, PHS. Box 28, Folder 22. Mission station history cards, page 9.