John Smith (Chippewa Indian)
Chief John Smith (born between 1822 and 1826 (allegedly as early as 1784), died February 6, 1922) was an Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indian who lived in the Cass Lake, Minnesota area. In 1920, two years before his death, he appeared as the main feature in a motion picture exhibition which toured the US, featuring old Indians.
Smith lived his entire life in the Cass Lake, Minnesota area, and was reputed to have been 137 years old when he died of pneumonia. He was known as "The Old Indian" to the local white people.[1] He had eight wives and no children, except for an adopted son, named Tom Smith.
Local photographers, notably including C.N. Christensen of Cass Lake, used him as a model for numerous stylized images of Ojibwe life, which were widely distributed as cabinet photos and postcards. Smith would carry cartes de visite of himself, selling them to visitors. He was known to travel for free on the trains running through the Reservation, selling his photo to passengers, and becoming something of an attraction in and of himself.
Smith converted to Catholicism in about 1914, and is buried in the Catholic section of Pine Grove Cemetery in Cass Lake.
On a page of the University of Minnesota is
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