Samuel Trivett came to the Blood Reserve in 1880.
Before he left in 1891 he suffered hardship, sorrow and
joy. He worked very hard under difficult circumstances
and laid the foundation for many years of Anglican work
which still goes on today.

We are indebted to the Very Rev. D. J. Carter of
Calgary. Dean Carter published a book in 1974 entitled
"Samuel Trivett-Missionary with the Blood Indians,"
which paints a delightful picture of this dedicated mis-
sionary .

Samuel Trivett was born in England on April 6, 1852,
and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps of
winemaking or tea-blending. As a young man Trivett met
Bishop Bompas who was working in northern Canada
and Samuel was inspired to become a missionary to the
Canadian Indians. He headed off for college at Islington
near London to train for the Ministry. His father was
furious and apparently gave his son a sum of money and
disowned him. It seems that Sam used most of this
money to establish the Anglican mission on the Blood
Reserve.

In 1878 Trivett was ordained and he and his wife left
England by ship to New York, then by train to Fargo,
Dakota, and then by steamer via the Red River to Win-
nipeg. He was appointed Anglican minister at Stanley in
northern Saskatchewan. The young couple left Winnipeg
by steamer on Lake Winnipeg and then transferred to
river boats on the Churchill River.

The Trivetts arrived at Stanley (which is still an
isolated community in 1978) before freezeup and built a
house. The Indians would come 10 or 12 miles every
Saturday by canoe or dog team in order to worship on
Sundays. Trivett was learning the Cree language,
teaching the children and building up his mission.

In September of 1879 his 27 year old wife died in
childbirth. Trivett himself conducted the funeral service
in Stanley Church. There were 300 Indians present. Six
men acted as pallbearers and they sang "Safe in the
Arms of Jesus" in Cree as she was buried.

Trivett carried on until the autumn of 1880 when he
was transferred to the "Blood Reserve, Belly River, Fort
Macleod." Trivett found 800 Bloods here and conducted
two services a Sunday in the school and sometimes a
third in a tent two miles away. His congregations were
mostly children with 10 to 20 adults, mostly men, in-
cluding the Head Chief. On weekdays Trivett taught
school and worked at learning the Blackfoot language.
He built a school building on the Blood Reserve-there
were 29 children in attendance. The missionary lived in a
sod shanty with a dirt floor.

In the fall of 1882 Trivett was given a schoolmaster
for the Reserve-but he had to travel to Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan to pick him up! Sam was unable to ford
the Red Deer River due to a flood so he found a place
near Empress (northeast of Medicine Hat) where there
was a ferry. The Ferryman did not come for him so
Trivett's man "swam" the river on horseback and came
back in a dugout for Trivett. They built a raft to carry the
buggy and the horses swam the flooded river. Trivett
found that the ferryman had a broken wrist. With a lady
holding the man and with Trivett's man pulling on the
hand, Trivett set the broken wrist!

When they got to Prince Albert Trivett met his
schoolmaster, the Rev. H. Bourne, and Trivett preached
at his ordination. Winter was coming and they soon
started back to the Blood Reserve. Mr. Bourne had his
wife and small children, so they travelled slowly. They
had to camp out for three days in a snowstorm and had to
burn some of the Bourne's furniture to keep warm. They
finally reached Fort Macleod in October. The winter of
1882-1883 was very severe. The Bournes lived in Trivett's
bedroom while he enlarged the house to make room for
them.

The same winter must have been difficult for Trivett
in yet another, more personal sense. The Mounted Police
Letterbooks of Fort Macleod record that on December
22, 1882 Cpl. De Renzie brought in an Indian from the
Blood Reserve on a charge of attempting to shoot the
Rev. Mr. Trivett. On January 13, 1883 the Indian
brought in on a charge of attempting to shoot the Rev.
Mr. Trivett was bound over to keep the peace for six
months. One of the chiefs went his bail. By 1886 Cpl. De
Renzie who made this arrest had mustered out of the
Mounted Police and was homesteading on Lees Creek
southwest of Cardston.

Trivett had been out from England and had worked
with the Indians at Stanley and the Blood Reserve for
five years. He had been widowed for 31/2 years and he
began to correspond with a lady in England who agreed
to marry him. He asked the missionary society if he
could go back to England-and if he could build a
separate new house. Sam writes that the lady was fully
suited to be a missionary wife and that he had decided to
remarry. Trivett was very anxious-he ends his letter
"PS-Please write as early as possible as to my visiting
England." During 1883 the CPR had reached Gleichen
and Calgary so it would be much easier to get to England
by train and boat. While Mr. Trivett was anxiously
waiting for permission to leave the Blood Reserve for
four months to go to England to be married he made the
first translation of any part of the Bible into Blackfoot-
the Ten Commandments. One evening as he waited a
message arrived that his fiancee had died. Trivett decided
to stay on and work on the Blood Reserve-his school
and services were well attended. He had become an ex-
pert carpenter, and continued to build the Anglican mis-
sion. A school equipped with benches, desks and a stable
were erected and he even put a floor in his own house
after two years on a dirt floor.

Trivett began to work at Pincher Creek as well-the
settlers there built a Church which was opened in 1884. It
is still used today and is the oldest Anglican Church in
southern Alberta. Trivett kept up his work on the Blood
Reserve, assisted by Rev. H. Bourne as schoolmaster. He
travelled back and forth to Pincher Creek, 46 miles away.
He worked that winter learning the Blackfoot language.
One day he came to the Lower Camp on the Reserve for
a service and was caught in a blizzard. Trivett wrapped
his face in a bag and let his horse find the way home. The
horse took him within 400 yards of home-he suffered
frostbite but that afternoon he took a service at the mis-
sion and baptized two children.

By the Spring of 1885 the Rev. Mr. Bourne was
settled on the Blood Reserve so young Sam, once
widowed and once engaged to a girl who died before their
wedding, returned to England. For five years he had had
no change-he had been alone except for the first eleven
months. In England Trivett, aged 33, stayed with his
sister, a Mrs. Barber, and he met a young girl named
Catherine Jennings who was living with the local
Anglican Rector and his wife and caring for their
children. Catherine was an attractive and sensitive young
girl and Trivett did not waste any time in trying to make
her his wife. One Saturday evening in May he brought
her a book and a picture of himself. On Sunday he
replaced the Rector at Church and Miss Jennings
thought he preached a very nice sermon. On Monday he
took her to see his brother-in-law's flowers and on Tues-
day he asked her to marry him! Apparently they were
married in late May, about three weeks after he first
called on her! They sailed the Atlantic and crossed
Canada by rail, suffering two railway accidents on the
way-a derailment and a collision with a freight train.

Mrs. Trivett was the first wife of an Anglican mis-
sionary on the Blood Reserve. She and Sam were well
liked by the Indians. They conducted services and dis-
tributed clothing to the Indians. The mission was by then
located at Big Island (Omoksene) in the Belly River near
the north end of the Reserve.

Trivett had a great sense of social justice and a sincere
desire to help the Indians in every way. He spoke out
against what he considered to be injustices in the way the
Government (through the Indian Affairs Department)
treated the Indians. In February 1886 two missionaries
from this part of the world wrote letters to the Toronto
Globe pointing out the poor treatment that Indians were
receiving from the Indian Affairs Department. John
MacDougall, a famous Methodist minister from Morley
and Samuel Trivett of the Blood Reserve were both dis-
gusted with the quality of Indian agents and the offensive
way the government officials were treating the Indians.
The clergymen realized that many Indian Affairs of-
ficials were not competent to hold jobs in the east and
were sent out here because they belonged to the political
party in power. Later Trivett wrote to charge some In-
dian agents of immorality. Trivett was not afraid to
speak out for social justice, for the demands of God and
for the oppressed Indians. Indians were starving and
medical problems were great.

Trivett, his private money gone, was also having
financial problems. His salary from the Church was five
months in arrears. He had a large overdraft and other
debts. Hay was $23. a ton in 1890! He wore second hand
clothing sent from eastern Canada. In spite of this Trivett
was hard at work visiting the Indians, preaching and
translating. The girls' residence at the school was nearly
completed. Mr. and Mrs. Trivett were people of great
faith. When their sons, Wilfred and Alexander, were
born on the Blood Reserve, Samuel Trivett wrote his
prayer that they might become missionaries of Christ.
Eventually both of them were ordained to the Anglican
Ministry and became missionaries to China. A daughter
was also born on the Reserve.

About this time another school teacher named
Hinchliffe arrived at the mission and began to make trou-
ble. Some silly and trivial accusations were levelled at
Trivett and the Anglican Bishop, the Right Rev. Cyprian
Pinkham, appointed a commission to investigate the
matter. The white men who appeared tried to run down
the character and ministry of Mr. Trivett, but were not
able to offer any proof. Trivett was able to offset all
charges. He had strong support from Head Chief Red
Crow, Head Chief Thunder Chief, Minor Chief White
Calf and Minor Chief Eagle Rib. Red Crow, who signed
Treaty No. 7 on behalf of the Bloods and was a highly
respected Blood Chief, said "Mr. Trivett has not lied to
me and I have not heard of his Iying." The Indians said
that Trivett visited all the camps regularly, built most of
the buildings at Omoksene Big Island and studied
Blackfoot. As an example of the trivial charges made by
Trivett's staff, the white men accused Trivett of buying
moccasins on Sunday, but the Indians agreed that
Trivett, while taking them on Sunday, paid for them
another day! He was accused of working on Sunday but
it turned out he was removing door hinges when a door
wouldn't open!

It is entirely possible that behind the superficial
charges levelled at Trivett there was a political reason.
The Indians respected Trivett greatly for his stand
against the policies of the Indian Affairs Department.
Trivett was loved and respected by the Indians on the
Reserve but he was troublesome to Indian Affairs who
probably wanted him removed from the scene. For
example, it was discovered later that the Minister of In-
dian Affairs had written to the Anglican Bishop in 1887
asking that Trivett be removed.

The Missionary Society in England released Trivett
and his ministry on the Blood Reserve ended in 1891-
almost 11 years to the day from his arrival. In
September, 1891, a Rev. J. Edmonds wrote a letter to an
Anglican magazine to say that the Blood Indians were
grieved at the prospect of Trivett's departure. Edmonds
gave his estimate of Trivett as being: ". . . a valuable
missionary. He had done good work among the Indians
for 13 years, and it seems a thousand pities that he should
be removed now, when he has acquired their language
and gained their confidence."' In the Blackfoot language,
the Bloods still call Samuel Trivett 'Chief Bird.'

Mrs. Trivett was ill from a rupture. Sam sent her and
the children home to England. She was pregnant and
prematurely delivered their fourth child on board the ship
for England. The family was reunited in Manitoba where
the Rev. Mr. Trivett became clergyman of a parish. He
went on to parishes in Michigan and by 1896 they had
moved to Nova Scotia where he served Maritime
parishes. The Trivetts were fine pioneer people and of
their five children, three of them spent many years as
missionaries in China. Mr. Trivett retired from the ac-
tive ministry in 1927 and died in 1931 at the age of 79.
Mrs. Trivett lived on until 1950 and died at age 92. They
are both buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Reverend Samuel Trivett was one of the great
religious pioneers of this area. He laid the foundation for
Anglican work on the Blood Reserve which has carried
on since. Today St. Paul's Anglican Church is a large, ac-
tive, self-supporting parish. Samuel Trivett, first mis-
sionary with the Blood Indians, would be proud if he
could visit St. Paul's Church today for he would know
that his efforts in the Christian Gospel were not in vain.

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