About UsVirtual Tour
Click on a red arrow to visit a particular section of the Fort Snelling
Memorial Chapel.
Stained Glass Window Set 1
Left Window:
This window is “In the memory of Right Reverent Benjamin Whipple, 1st Bishop of Minnesota 1859-1901. It was presented by the Daughters of the King Diocese Minnesota (Episip). He, according to Phillips Endecott Osgood, who wrote his biography, ‘Straight Tongue”, (the name given him by the man Indians he worked with) “was not merely a distinguished prelate, he was something far greater — a great man among men! In an era of challenge to physical bravery and moral courage, his championship of the Indian cause in the early Northwest pioneer days stands out”.
Right Window:
This window is dedicated “to the glory of God and in loving
memory of Ezekiel Gilbert Gear the first chaplain of Ft. Snelling (1793-1874.
It was presented by the Diocese of Minnesota on June 15, 1928”. Rev.
Gear was appointed Ft. Snelling Chaplain on October 2, 1838 and he was said
to have responded upon receiving this honor, “I shall embrace every
opportunity of preaching the gospel and extending the knowledge of the church,
which is the gospel, in this distant and beautiful land.” While he
was traveling to his new post, he fell off the sled and broke his hip, and
from then on he had to preach while sitting on a chair. He was helpful to
both the Indians and settlers who lived outside the fort, He retired in
1867 and lived in Minneapolis until his death on October 13, 1873. (Information
obtained from the book “In Memorial, Ezekiel Gilbert Gear, 1 793-1873”
by Charles Mason Remey.)
