The first Minnesota mission named for Saint Columba was built by James Lloyd Breck in 1852 at Gull Lake near present-day Brainerd, becoming the fourth Episcopal church established in Minnesota. The initial group of Chippewa Indians arrived here from Gull Lake on June 14, 1868, to begin life on the White Earth Reservation, which had been created the year before. In the fall of 1868 they were joined by John Johnson, or Enmegahbowh, a Canadian Indian who had served at the former mission on Gull Lake. That fall Enmegahbowh conducted the first religious service in Becker County, and he was ordained the following year. He is said to have been the first Indian ordained by the Episcopal church in the United States. The second church of Saint Columba, built of logs in 1868, stood several miles north of the present town of White Earth. It was replaced in 1871 by a frame church near the present site, and Bishop Henry B. Whipple consecrated it in 1872. The present church was built in 1980, and Enmegahbowh is buried in the nearby cemetery.