Leonidas Polk Family Papers

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Alabama, Louisiana, and what was then the Republic of Texas. Responsibility for the last-mentioned of these territories made Leonidas Polk the first foreign Missionary Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

In the course of his first missionary journey, in March, 1839, the Bishop crossed the Red River, passed over into the disputed territory between Texas and the United States, visited pplanters, and then embarked by boat for Shreveport, Louisiana. Accommodations for passengers were lacking, but a fur trader loaned him a bear rug to sleep on. Every day this trader took an observation of the sun to be sure of the hour of the day and then read his Bible to be sure that he was reading it at the same hour as his wife at home. On the trip down the river the ship struck a partially submerged snag and should have had not the Bishop suggested to the ship's captain how to raise it. Then the fur trader and the Bishop, embarking on another ship while the other waited for repairs, proceeded to their destination. At Shreveport