ALGONQUIAN LANGUAGES. 



183 



Eliot (J.) — Continued. 



race." The Indian towns in the Nipmnck 

 country were forced to join the enemy. The 

 other praying towns were broken up, and many 

 of the converts were forced to flee from the 

 English to the woods for safety. On the 30th 

 of October, the Natick Indians, aboiit 200 in 

 number, were forcibly removed from their 

 town, and confined on Deer Island, in Boston 

 harbor, "encouraging and exhorting one an- 

 ther with prayers and tears." The Ponkipog 

 Indians were taken to the same place about a 

 month later, and the Nashobah Indians in the 

 following February. Here they remained dar- 

 ing the winter, exposed to much suffering. In 

 May, 1676, after some of the ill feeling against 

 them had subsided, they were taken back to 

 the main land, where they were permitted to 

 camp during the summer. In August, king 

 Philip was slain, and the war soon after brought 

 to a close. The Wampanoags and Narragan- 

 setts were almost exterminated. In the spring 

 of 1677 the remnant of the praying Indians re- 

 turned to their old plantations at Natick and 

 Ponkipog, where they were encouraged and 

 taught by Mr. Eliot. The eastern Indians of 

 Cape Cod and other places in Plymouth colony, 

 as well as those of Nantucket and Martha's 

 Vineyard, "felt very little of this war com- 

 paratively." 



Mr. Eliot's Harmony of the Gospels was 

 printed in English at Boston in 1678. In the fol- 

 lowing year his Brief Answer To a Small Book 

 written by John Norcot against Infant-Baptisme, 

 was published at the same place. The new 

 edition of the Indian bible, commenced in 1680, 

 was five years in passing through the press. 

 In a letter written by Mr. Eliot to the Hon. 

 Kobert Boyle, on the 15th of March, 1683, there 

 is a reference to "those remote Indians, to the 

 North- West, whose language agreeth with 

 ours, so that they and we can speak to each 

 other's understanding." Mr. Boyle had sent to 

 him 30^., which sum was intended to be used, 

 whenever occasion offered, for a mission among 

 those tribes. In the same letter Mr. Eliot men- 

 tions "our Wameset Indians, who are our most 

 northerly plantation." Another letter to Boyle, 

 dated April 22d, 1684, relates that "the stated 

 places [of worship for the Indians], in the 

 Massachusets, since the wars, are contracted 

 into four, Natik, Ponkipog, "Wamesut, and 

 Chachaubuukkakowok." In Plymouth colony 

 there were about ten places, on Martha's Vine- 

 yard ten, and on Nantucket five. In 1685, a 

 second edition was issued of Bayly's Practice of 

 Piety in Indian. About the same time, or in 

 the following year, there was printed, probably 

 at Cambridge, a little tract containing The Dy- 

 ing Speeches of several Indians. In the preface 

 Mr. Eliot writes : "Here be But a few of the 

 Dying Speeches & CounseJs Of such Indians 

 as dyed in the Lord. It is an humbling to me 

 that there be no more, it was not in my heart 

 to gather them, but Major Gookins hearing 

 some of them rehearsed, He first moved that 



Eliot (J.) — Continued. 



Daniel should gather them, in the Language as 

 they were spoken, and that I should trauvslate 

 them into English ; and here is presented what 

 was done that way. These things are Priu[t]ed, 

 not so much for Publishment, as to save charge 

 of writeing out of Copyes for those that did 

 desire them." 



In 1684 Mr. Daniel Gookin, the eldest son of 

 Major Gookin, began to learn the Indian lan- 

 guage, and held a lecture once a month at 

 Natick, when he preached to the Indians by 

 the aid of an interpreter. This relieved Mr, 

 Eliot to some extent. The church of Natick 

 had received his special care ever since its 

 organiz^ion, and had, therefore, always been 

 without a minister of its own. As early as 

 1687, however, one of the Indian teachers, 

 named Daniel Takawombpait, was ordained to 

 thatoffice. On the 22d of March, 1687, Mr. Eliot's 

 wife died, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. 

 In the same year, probably, a new edition of 

 the Indian primer was published, and in 1688 

 the Indian version of Baxter's Call to the Un- 

 converted was reprinted. On the 17th of Octo- 

 ber, 1688, Mr. Nehemiah Walter was ordained as 

 Mr. Eliot's colleague in the church at Roxbury, 

 to relieve him from his labors there. The 

 Indian translation of Shepard's Sincere Convert, 

 made many years before, was printed in 1689. 

 It was the last of Mr. Eliot's publications. On 

 the 21st of May, 1690, at about one o'clock in 

 the morning, he died at Koxbury, in the eighty- 

 sixth year of his age. Of six children, only two 

 survived him. 



At Natick, after Mr. Eliot's death, the In- 

 dian church rapidly declined. In 1698 it had 

 but ten members, and on the death of the In- 

 dian preacher, Daniel Takawombpait, in 1716, 

 it became extinct. The use of the Indian lan- 

 guage in the records of the town ceased at the 

 same time. In 1721, Mr. Oliver Peabody was 

 sent as a missionary to Natick, where he 

 preached to the Indians in English, and in 1729 

 a new church, consisting partly of English and 

 partly of Indians, was gathered thereunder his 

 charge. The number of white residents con- 

 tinually increased. In 1753 Natick was "erected 

 Into a precinct or parish " by an act of the gen- 

 eral court, and in 1781 it was incorparated as an 

 English town. The Indian residents in 1753 

 numbered but twenty-five families, and in 1763 

 only thirty-seven individuals. In 1792 the 

 number had fallen to about thirty, and in 1797 

 to twenty. Their last reservation was sold in 

 1828. In the report on the Indians of Massa- 

 chusetts made in 1861 by the state commission- 

 er, Mr. John Milton Earle, it js stated that "of 

 all the tribes which held reservations Mnd were 

 placed under guardianship by the State, the 

 Natick Tribe is nearest extinct. There are, 

 scattering about the State, and c ommingled with 

 other tribes, particularly the Hassanamiscoes, 

 those who can trace descent back to the Naticks, 

 but of those who claim now to belong to the 

 tribe, only two families remain, and one of these 



