Off-Reservation Boarding Schools

The first cohort of Pawnee students to attend an off-reservation boarding school went to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. All of them had been born in Nebraska and lived when Pawnee cultural values and beliefs were commonplace but under attack by the U.S. government.

Consisting of four students and ranging in age from 13 to 17, Cora Eyre (Smith) (Pitahawirata), Samuel Townson (Skidi), Lizzie Walton (Chaui), and Edward Myers (Kikahahki) left the Pawnee reservation in October 1879 with a Carlisle employee. They traveled by wagon to Wichita, Kansas, where they caught a train to Carlisle. All but Lizzie Walton were orphans. They signed up for terms ranging from three to five years. Some of them had previous schooling on the Pawnee reservations in Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Of them, Samuel Townson, who stayed on longer at Carlisle, received a great deal of attention. He became the editor of the first Carlisle Indian student newspaper, gave public talks about the virtues of assimilation, attended Marietta College in Ohio, and became a printer after leaving Carlisle.

In 1883, because of sickness, Edward Myers returned home where he died of consumption. Other Pawnee students returned home because of sickness while a few others died at the school.