The Rev. Peter Dougherty brought the Gospel when he established "New Mission," the current site of Omena more than 150 years ago.

But he had more in mind than spreading the word when he came to the Leelanau peninsula in 1852.

Dougherty was the first Protestant missionary in the Grand Traverse region, and had already established Old Mission across the bay in 1839.

The Treaty of Washington, signed in 1836, allowed Native Americans to use of the land for five years.

The Michigan Constitution, adopted in 1850, gave Indians the right to citizenship and to purchase land. However, lands on the Old Mission peninsula were not open for purchase at the time.

Concerned that his Native followers would be displaced by white settlers making their way west, Doughtery encouraged Indians to set aside a portion of their annual government payment to purchase property.

So with that in mind, Dougherty and his contingent set out across the bay to the eastern shore of the Leelanau peninsula, a little more than midway up the “little finger.”

In 1853, with money borrowed from his inheritance, Dougherty established the New Mission School on 600 acres purchased by the Board of Presbyterian Missions. There, he had hoped to school the Natives in “the arts of civilization.”

Children studied reading, writing, geography and arithmetic. The boys also learned spelling and bookkeeping and the girls, grammar. In addition, boys learned the arts of animal husbandry; field tending and tool maintenance. Girls were delegated domestic tasks.

Described as a pious and worthy man, Dougherty accompanied his Indians and had his future among them. “He was here to protect his sheep from the destroyer,” it was written.

The destroyer was the white man.

“Dougherty was loath to allow Indian families under his tutelage to be uprooted to different lands,” wrote Amanda Holmes in Omena, a Place in Time, published by the Omena Historical Society.

Doughtery left New Mission in 1871 for Beloit, Wisc. He died in 1894 at age, 88.

The school building was sold in 1885 and became Hotel Leelanau.

Omena, a Place in Time is available for purchase at the Tamarack Gallery and at the Omena Historical Museum.