First Missionary

First Missionary. . American Indians lived in Kandiyohi County for thousands of years before settlers first arrived in the 1850s. Among the earliest Euro-Americans to visit this area were traders and missionaries as far back as the mid-1700s. The Missionaries came to share their Christian faith., Father Guignas was one of the two missionary priests, from Canada, who were a part of Fort Beauharnois (Frontenac) on the Mississippi River near the city of Red Wing. He went up the Mississippi River in the 1740s then into the Minnesota River, where he visited all the American Indian nations along the river. It was from them that he learned of the village located here. According to best available records, he walked, alone, from the Minnesota River to visit the Dakota people here.