stop the contagion, and all the local children were inoculated. Even this measure had its fateful consequence, for Kreeta Rovainen, who had helped at the inoculations as interpreter, apparently carried the bacteria home, for her sister Maria Kristiina soon came down with smallpox and died.

Religious Activity in Cokato : Amid the trials and tribulations of living so very close to nature, the Cokato Finns had very early grown accustomed to seeking God's help, in solitary prayers at moments of danger and crisis, and in joint pleas at their prayer meetings. In 1868 they had held their first religious services, at Adam Ongamo's house, and four years later they established a congregation. It was an Apostolic Lutheran group, whose shepherd until 1883 was Isak Barberg, and of whom the Uusi Kotimaa wrote (4 March 1882) that "a schooled pastor there is not yet, but one man has been elected from the congregation to hold church services, give communion, baptize children, bury the dead, and perform all religious functions except the wedding ceremony."

Barberg was assisted in his functions by Kaleb and Jaakko Wuollet, the former of whom took over when Barberg died and who served on until 1904. After that Jaakko Wuollet took over for a year, to be succeeded by William Lahtinen, who served from 1905 to 1911. In 1911 Lahtinen and his wife and their adopted daughter made a trip to Finland, but in Finland the girl died, and on the way back to Minnesota the next spring the Lahtinens themselves perished in the sinking of the Titanic. From 1913 to 1919 John Oberg was in charge of the congregation, and he was succeeded by Niilo Saastamoinen, John Koski, August Huurula and Adolf North.

The St. Paul-Minnesota and Manitoba Railroad presented the congregation a 40-acre plot of land in 1876, and on that land a church was built, the first Finnish church in all Minnesota and the second in the United States. A cemetery was laid out next to the church, and Jacob Keränen, who died in 1876, was the first Finn to be buried there. By 1903, when the church called itself officially the Apostolic Lutheran Congregation, more land had to be bought to enlarge the cemetery. In 1913 the old church building itself was torn down to make way for a new one.

Although Cokato had become a strong bastion of the apostolic creed of Laestadius, other religious groups also appeared. There were occasional visits by various Evangelical Lutheran pastors, which led in January 1892 to a formal meeting resulting in the founding of a new congregation, with 22 men as its founding

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