History of Greenfield; Shire Town of Franklin County, Massachusetts Volume 1 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II DEDHAM AND THE POCUMTUCK GRANT " Through devious ways and paths unknown, Through forests dark and drear, Our fathers sought these flowery meads, To plant their offspring here." REVEREND John Eliot was about twenty-seven years of age, when in 1631, he arrived in Boston from old England. Full of the true missionary spirit, he soon commenced the study of the Indian language, and undertook to instruct the natives in the doctrines of Christianity. He translated some portions of the gospel into the Indian language, but it was fifteen years before he could preach without the aid of an interpreter. There was in England a society for the propagation of the. gospel among the Indians, and its revenues were turned into this channel. Eliot soon learned that his efforts could effect but little so long as the Indians continued their roving habits, and he undertook to gather them into a village by themselves, selecting a place known as Nonantum Hill, in the town of Newton. The Indians having built themselves huts desired Eliot to frame a civil government for them, and he directed their attention to the counsel which Jethro gave to Moses; and they accordingly elected leaders of tens, f1fties and hundreds. Still the ad- While Mr. Eliot was engaged in translating the Bible into the Indian language, he came to the following passage in Judges, v. 28: " The mother of Sisera looked out at the window, and cried through the lattice" etc. Not knowing an Indian word to signify "lattice " he applied to the natives telling them that it resembled net work or wicker, which could be seen through. They gave him a long unpronounceable word, which he inserted, and a few years after was somewhat astonished when he found he had written, " The mother of Sisera looked out at the window, and ...