John Roberts papers, 1882-1963

John Roberts was an Episcopalian missionary who worked among the Arapaho and Shoshone peoples on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. He was born in 1853 at Rhuddlan in North Wales. He was educated in Wales and later received an M.A. from Oxford University in England. He was ordained a deacon in 1878. In 1883, John Roberts was sent to the Shoshone Indian Reservation in Wyoming to work among the Indians and to organize missions among the white settlers in the adjacent territory. While there, he established St. Michael’s Mission for the Arapahos as well as the United States Government Indian Boarding Industrial School for the Shoshones and Arapahos. He translated Biblical texts and church material into the Arapaho and Shoshone languages with assistance from Fremont Arthur, Michael White Hawk, and Charles Lajoe. He died in June of 1949 at his home on the Wind River Indian Reservation.