350 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE 



Mayhew (E.) —Continued. 



among them, Nor are there any to be had; 

 the last Edition being now gone. These Indians 

 are therefore very desirous of another Imprea- 

 eion of the Bible, if it might be obtained ; and 

 divers of them have told me, as well as some of 

 those on Nantucket, (whom I have divers times 

 visited) that they should be willing according 

 to their capacity, to contribute to it. 



"But the disadvantage which the Indians 

 are under thro' the Scarcity of Bibles is some- 

 what helped by the Care of the Honon rable Com- 

 missioners to supply them with other useful 

 Books in their own Language, viz. The N. 

 England Confession of Faith; Several Cate- 

 chisms ; The Practice of Piety ; Mr. Shepard's 

 Sincere Convert ; Mr. Baxter's Call to the Un- 

 converted. And several Sermons of Dr. Ma- 

 ther's, &c. besides the Psalter, & the Gospel 

 of John, Printed in the Tear 1709. And the In- 

 dian Primer Printed this Tear, in Indian and 

 English. All which Books are now very useful 

 unto them." 



Mr. Thomas Prince, writing in 1726, states 

 that Mr. Mayhew had "the prudential Care 

 and Oversight of five or six Indian Assemblies ; 

 to wliose Service he has been wholly devoted, 

 and to one or other of which he has constantly 

 preached for above these thirty two Years." 



In 1707 his translation of one of Cotton 

 Mather's sermons was printed at Boston, and 

 . about the same time he was employed by the So- 

 ciety for propagating the gospel in New England 

 to make a new version of the psalter, which 

 was printed in 1709. In 1727 he published his 

 Indian Converts : or, some account of the Lives 

 and Dying Speeches of a considerable 'Number of 

 the Christianized Indians of Martha'' s Vineyard, 

 in New-England. To this work is appended 

 "Some Account of those English Ministers 

 ■who have successively presided over the In- 

 dian "Work in that and the adjacent Islands," 

 by the Rev. Thomas Prince. Several other 

 tracts and sermons from his pen were also 

 printed between 1720 and 1744. 



Mr. Mayhew was accounted one of the 

 "greatest Masters " of the Indian language in 

 his time. His version of the psg-lms, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Trumbull, "in literal accuracy and 

 its observance of the requirements of Indian 

 grammar . . . perhaps surpasses even 

 Eliot's." He left four sons, one of whom, Zech- 

 ariah Mayhew (born 1717, died 1806), was or- 

 dained a minister on Martha's Vineyard De- 

 cember 10, 1767, and labored for many years as 

 a missionary among the Indians there. 



Mayhew (Thomas). [A catechism in the 

 dialect of the Indians of Nope or Mar- 

 tha's Vineyard. 165-?] (*) 



Manuscript ; probably not extant. 



Thomas Mayhew, the younger, first minister 

 to the Indians on Martha's Vineyard, was born 

 in England about the year 1621, and was lost at 

 sea in 1657. His father, Thomas Mayhew, came 

 to Massachusetts before 1636, obtained the grant 



Mayhew (T.) — Continued. 



of Martha's Vineyard and the neighboring isl- 

 ands from Lord Stirling in 1641, began a settle- 

 ment at Edgartown in 1642, and died there in 

 1681, aged 92. Shortly after the new settlement 

 was begun Mr. Mayhew the younger became 

 minister of the first English church on the 

 island. In 1643 his missionary work among the 

 neighboring Indians was commenced by the 

 conversion of Hiacoomes. In 1646 he had 

 acquired sufl&cient knowledge of their language 

 to address them in public meetings, which 

 were held at first once a month, and afterwards 

 every fortnight. 



"The way that I am now in," he writes in 

 1650, "for the carrying on of this great work, is 

 by a Lecture every fortnight, whereunto both 

 men women and children do come; and first I 

 pray with them, teach them, catechise their 

 children, sing a Psalm, and all in their own lan- 

 guage. I conferre every last day of the week 

 with Hiacoomes about his subject matter of 

 preaching to the Indians the next day, where I 

 furnish him with what spiritual food the Lord 

 is pleased to afford me for them." 



In October, 1651, he writes again of the In- 

 dians: "There are one hundred ninetie-nine, 

 men, women, and children, that have professed 

 themselves to be worshippers of the great and 

 everliving God. There are now two meetings 

 kept every Lords day, the one three miles, the 

 other about eight miles off my house : Hiacomes 

 teacheth twice a day at the nearest, and Mum- 

 anequem accordingly at the farthest, the last 

 day of the week they come unto me to be in- 

 formed touching the subject they are to handle. 

 . . . I have also undertaken to keep by the 

 help of God two Lectures amongst them, 

 which will be at each once a fortnight." 



In January, 1652, a school for the teaching of 

 thelndian children was opened by Mr. Mayhew. 

 Before October of the same year the number of 

 converts under his care had increased to 283, 

 and he had prepared for them a covenant or 

 confession of faith in the Indian language, of 

 which an English translation is given in the 

 tractentitled Tears of Repentance, London, 1653. 



It was for the use of these Indians that the 

 above-named catechism was prepared. In a 

 letter written by Experience Mayhew, grand- 

 son of the author, in 1722, which has been 

 printed for Dr. John S. H. Fogg, of Boston, the 

 book is mentioned as follows : 



"My Grand Father in his time composed a 

 large and Excellent Catechism fur the Indians 

 of this Island, agreable unto their own Dialect; 

 but not being printed the Original is, I think, 

 utterly lost, and there only remains of it, about 

 40 pages in Octavo, transcribed as I suppose, 

 by some Indian after his Death ; but this goes 

 not so far as to have the Lord's Prayer in it." 



It is probable that Mr. Eliot's primer and 

 catechism was also used to some extent by Mr. 

 Mayhew's Indians. The difference between 

 the dialects of Martha's Vineyard and Natick, 

 according to Experience Mayhew, "was some- 



