Myron Eells (1843-1907), the younger son of pioneer missionaries Cushing Eells (1810-1893) and Myra (Fairbanks) Eells (1805-1878), was born at the Tshimakain Mission near present-day Spokane, Washington. He graduated from Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut in 1871, and then returned to the Northwest. At first he led a Congregational Church in Boise, Idaho, but then shortly moved to the Skokomish Reservation, west of Puget Sound, where his brother Edwin was Indian Agent in 1874. Myron remained there for the rest of his life, working as a missionary among Native Americans and White settlers.
The two works by Myron Eells republished here, The Twana Indians of the Skokomish Reservation in Washington Territory (first published in 1877) and Ten Years of Missionary Work Among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory (first published in 1886) were both written shortly after the formation of the reservation and during a period of great change for the people of Skokomish. The Twana Indians of the Skokomish Reservation in Washington Territory provides an unparalleled ethnological account of contemporary Native life during this period of change, while Ten Years of Missionary Work Among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory not only builds on the previous work, but also provides the most important published source on the origins of the Indian Shaker Church.
Primary Sources in Native North America
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