CHAPTER VII 

 ELIOT OAK AND OTHER TREES OF SOUTH NATICK 



For underneath thy shade, in days remote, 

 Seated like Abraham at eventide 

 Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown 

 Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote 

 His Bible in a language that hath died 

 And is forgotten, save by thee alone. 



Longfellow 



JOHN ELIOT, justly styled Apostle to 

 the Indians, and founder of Natick, 

 both in church and state, first gathered 

 the red men together "from their scattered 

 kind of life into civil society" within the 

 shades of the forest, and preached to them 

 beneath a white oak, now a mighty tree, 

 universally known as the Eliot Oak. 



While established as a teacher of the 

 church in Roxbury, about 1632, Eliot was 

 "moved to compassion for the ignorant and 

 depraved state of the Indians," and re- 

 solved to devote a part of his time to their 

 instruction. He undertook the almost hope- 

 less task of learning their language and 



