Gideon H. (Gideon Hollister) Pond

Born in Connecticut in 1810, he moved west with his brother Samuel to what was then a remote part of the Minnesota frontier. The two brothers settled among the Dakota people near Lake Calhoun, now Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, where they built a mission station and began years of work in teaching, translation, and language study.

He is remembered especially for his part in recording and translating the Dakota language. Along with other missionaries and scholars, he contributed to Dakota dictionaries, religious texts, and other written materials that became important records of both language and culture. That work has made him a notable figure in the history of Minnesota and in the written preservation of Dakota.

He died in 1878 after a long life shaped by mission work, writing, and the changing world of the Upper Midwest. Today he is often discussed not only as a missionary author but also as part of the complex encounter between Native communities and Euro-American settlement.