16 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE 



Byington (C) — Contiuued. 



by the Ameiicau Board of Commissioiier.s for 

 Foreijrn Missions. In translating they wore 

 allied by tlio most sliillful interpreters tliey 



• could And among the educated Choctaws. The 

 missionaries who have devoted themselves to 

 the labor of preparing books in the Choctaw 

 language, more than any of their associates, 

 are Kev. Alfred "Wriglit, Loring S. Williams, 

 and Cyrus Bj'ington. Mr. Williams is not now 

 a member of the mission. Several hymns in 

 the hymn-book were composed by nitive Choc- 

 taws, as well as by the mixed blooded whites." 



[Choctaw Dictionary : Clioctaw-En- 



glish aufl Eriglisli-Choctaw. 1865?] 



Manuscript, 5 vols, folio, in the library of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology. 



Contains about 1C,000 Choctaw words with 

 English deliuitions. The material has been 

 phiced in the hands of Prof. O. T. Mason, of the 

 National Museum, to be edited and jirepared for 

 publication as one of the series of ' ' Contribu- 

 tions to North American Ethnology." There 

 has been compiled from it an English-Choctaw 

 dictionary of 10,000 words to accompany the 

 original work; these are on slips. 



Grammar of the Choctaw hiuguage. 



[1865?] 



Manuscript in the library of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology. 



This material also is being prepared for pub- 

 Lcation by the Bureau, as one of the series of 

 Contributions to North American Ethnology. 



As left by Mr. Byington it consists of sev- 

 eral parts. The first is dated Stockbridge, 

 Choctaw Nation, June 23, 18G5, and contains 85 

 pages of an old journal sewed together, in 

 which a first attempt is made at systematizing 

 the principles of the language. The remainder 

 appears to bo subsequent revisions of the chap- 

 ters in the first edition. It is in the form of 

 two or more foolscap sheets pinned or stitched 

 together. Of some of the least understood por- 

 tions of the language there are four or five 

 copies, and it is not always possible to select 

 the latest. 



The grammar evidently was designed to con- 

 sist of nine chapters: 



1. Introduction and alphabet. 



2. Article-pronouns. [Post positives, qtian- 

 litives, and determinatives.] 



3. Pronouns. 



4. Verbs. 



5. Prepositions. 

 C. Nouns. 



7. Adjectives. 



8. Adverbs. 



9. Conjunctions and interjections. 



Mr. Byington's material was left in an un- 

 finished condition ; it needs but a casual glance 

 at his manuscript, however, to find that ho 

 looked forward to the wants even of our most 

 advanced philology. 



For an extended notice of this manuscript 

 see biography of Mr. Byington, below. 



Byington (C.) — Coutiuued. 



See Edwards (J.) aud Byington 



(C.) 



Sec Wright (A.) aud Byington (C.) 



" This eminent scholar aud missionary, 

 whose name is inseparably connected with the 

 later history of the Choctaw Nation, was born 

 at Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachu- 

 setts, March 11, 1793. Ho was one of nine chil- 

 dren, aud liis parents wore in humble circum- 

 stances, but industrious and respected. His 

 father was at one time a tanner, and subse- 

 quently a small farmer. Necessarily, there- 

 fore, his early education was limited. 



' ' When a well-grown lad he was taken into the 

 family of Mr. Joseph Woodbridge, of his native 

 town, from whom ho received some instruction 

 in Latin and Greek, and with whom ho after- 

 ward read law. In 1814 he was admitted to the 

 bar, aud practiced a few years with success in 

 Stockbridge and Sheffield, Mass. 



" His father though a moral was not a re- 

 ligious man, and it seems to have been only 

 after he reached manhood that Mr. Byington 

 became, as he expressed it, 'a subject of divine 

 grace.' He then resolved to forsake the bar 

 and devote himself to missionary life. AVith 

 this object in view he entered the theological 

 school at Andover, Mass., where ho studied 

 Hebrew and theology, and was licensed to 

 preach, September, 1819. At this time ho 

 hoped to go to the A.rmenians in Turkey, but 

 Providence had prepared for him another and 

 an oven more laborious field. 



"For about a year ho preached in various 

 churches in Massachusetts, awaiting some 

 opportunity for missionary labor. Toward the 

 close of the summer of 1819 a company of 

 twenty or twenty-five persons left Hampshire 

 County, Mass., under the direction of the 

 American Board of Missions, to go by laud to 

 the Choctaw Nation, then resident in Missis- 

 sippi. They passed through Stockbridge in 

 September, and were provided with a letter 

 from the Board asking Mr. Byington to take 

 charge of them and pilot them to their destina- 

 tion. Ho was ready at a few hours' notice. 



" The company journeyed by land to Pitts- 

 bTirgh, where they procured flat-boats, and 

 floated down the Ohio and Mississippi to a 

 point near the mouth of the Yalobusha Elver, 

 whence a land journey of two hundred miles 

 brought them to their destination. 



"Thus commenced Mr. Bjington's missiou- 

 ary life among the Choctaws. It coutiuued 

 for nearly fifty years, and resulted, with the 

 blessing of Providence and the assistance of 

 some devoted co-workera in the nation, espe- 

 cially the Kev. A. Wriglit aud the Kev. Cyrus 

 Kingsbury, in I'edeennngtlie nation fromdniiik- 

 enness, ignorance, and immorality to sobriety, 

 godliness, and civilization. There are no lives 

 which in the eyes of the philanthropist are more 

 worthy of adminition or more deserving of 

 record than those of such men, who aot only 



