ALGONQUIAN LANGUAGES. 



189^ 



Evans (J.) — Continued. 



gelization, and a region only occasionally visited 

 and partially occupied before was now to be 

 brought under complete cultivation and to be 

 permanently occupied ; and t wo of the foremost 

 men in the ranks of the missionary laborers 

 were to take possession of the territory in the 

 name of the King of kings. These were no 

 others than James Evans and Thomas Hurl- 

 burt. He proceeded at once to his new field of 

 labour, leaving his family in Canada. 



"Mr. Evans was soon called to his long and 

 widest field of missionary enterprise and toil. 

 The British conference, or their missionary 

 committee, had determined on sending mission- 

 aries among the various Indiau tribes which 

 wandered in vast hordes over the wide and wild 

 expanse of the Hudson Bay territory; and 

 requiring a man of the needed qualifications 

 and experience and heroism, to conduct the 

 bloodless conquest, they asked Mr. Evans to 

 head this important enterprise. He at once 

 gave his consent, and in the following spring 

 (1846) [sic for 1840 ?] he went out to the Hudson 

 Bay territory. 



"Mr. Evans took with him from Canada two 

 young Indian assistants, Peter Jacobs and 

 Henry Steinhaur. His own local position was 

 [N'orway House, where he gathered and estab- 

 lished a noble mission, with the superintendency 

 of all the Hudson Bay territory missions, extend- 

 ingmanyhundredmilesnorth and west. He per- 

 formed prodigies of labor and adventure during 

 the six years he was there. He planted five or 

 six most important Missions at central points ; 

 gathered in hundreds of souls ; traversed that 

 vast, wild country from side to side and from 

 end to end over and over again, in summer's heat 

 and in winter's cold, studying the languages 

 and dialects, especially mastering the Cree, for 

 which he invented a syllabic character by which 

 nine characters, by being each turned or placed 

 in four diflferent ways, expressed thirty-six ele- 

 mentary syllabic sounds of the language; and, 

 after manufacturing both types and press him- 

 self, printed hymns and portions of the 'New 

 Testament, thus, as it were, fixing a written 

 language and giving the people a literature. 

 In labours and exposure he took the lead of all 

 others, being often monhs from home, and con- 

 ducting his correspondence with his family on 

 strips of birch bark. 



"In the absence of his journals, diaries, in- 

 cipient memoranda in language-making (both 

 as to etj^mology and syntax), and vast numbers 

 of letters of his own and others to him, which 

 have passed out of my hands, I will introduce, 

 a paragraph or two of a private letter addressed 

 to me, at my own request, by his highly re- 

 spected and venerable brother, the Rev. Dr. 

 Evans, which relates to the Hudson Bay period 

 of his history. Dr. Evans says : 



* * * " 'You know his great success in the 



invention of the characters in which the Cree 



langxiage is now written and printed. For 



» some years permission to introduce types and 



Evans (J.) — Continued. 



a press was refused, but he labored on, casting^ 

 leaden blocks from the lining of the chests in 

 which tea was brought into the country, and 

 whittling them into shape as best he could, and 

 by a rough, improvised press of his own manu- 

 facture succeeded in printing many hymns, 

 sections of the Holy Scriptures, and primary 

 school-books, which were of great service. I 

 was in England, in 1841, when a set of his home- 

 made types was received by the Wesley an Mis- 

 sionary Society, and took some part with them 

 in obtaining permission from the Directors of 

 the Hudson Bay Company to have a font cast, 

 and, with a press, sent out to Norway House, 

 pledges being given that they would be used 

 only for our mission work. Their arrival was 

 cause of great joy and thanksgiving to God.' 



"His noble character and the circumstances 

 of his death receive confirmation and illustra- 

 tion from the short Conference obituary whick 

 was published in the British Minutes for 1847: 



" ' James Evans was a missionary of remark- 

 able ability and zeal, and of great usefulness 

 among the Jforth American Indians. His suc- 

 cess among the aborigines of Canada led to his 

 appointment as General Superintendent of the 

 recently formed Missions in the Hudson Bay 

 territory. To his mental vigour and indomita- 

 ble perseverance the Indians are indebted for 

 many advantages; among these is a written 

 and printed character, suited to their language, 

 of which Mr. Evans was the inventor. Many 

 were the alHictions and trials he had to endure ; 

 these issued in a failure of health which ren- 

 dered his return home (to England) desirable, 

 but the results were not favourable. He died 

 suddenly at Keilby, in Lincolnshire, on the 2d 

 of I^ovember, 1846, at the house of a friend, af- 

 ter attending a missionary meeting at which., 

 his statements had excited great interest.' " 



Events in Indian History. See Wimer 

 (J.) 



Everhardt (Job). An | epitome | of | 

 stenograpliie ; | or, | An Abridgement 

 aad Contraction, of | the Art of short, 

 swift, and secret Writing by Cha- | rac- 

 ters, both fair, lineall, and legible, as 

 will I appear hereafter, as well as in 

 the 1 Pretixt Example. | Being a brief,, 

 yet plain and full dis- | covery [&c.,. 

 fourteen lines.] | Written by Job Ever- 

 hardt. I 



Printed by M. S. for Lodowick Lloyd,, 

 and are to be sold | at his Shop, next to 

 the Castle-Tavern in Cornhil, 1658. 



11 p. 11. pp. 1-91 sm. 8°. The preliminary 

 leaf and pp. 1-25 are engraved. 



On the 4th and 5th preliminary leaves is given 

 "that famous sentence Habbak. 2.4, [But the 

 just shall live by his faith] in these three and 

 thirty languages following," of which No. 12. 



