USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > History of the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1630-1904 > Part 3
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Mr. Welde was twice married (1) to Margaret -(2) to Judith .- Rev. Samuel Danforth thus records his death in the church book. " March 23 (60) Mr. Thomas Welde some- time Pastor to this church dyed in London."
While in Roxbury he lived east of the town street not far from the present corner of Washington and Dudley Streets. In Eliot's letters to England we find him soliciting aid to enable him to purchase Welde's library, from which it may be inferred that he was well supplied with literary tools.
He published about 1644 "A short Story of the rise, reign and ruin of the Antinomians, Familists and Libertines, that infested the churches of New England." With three other ministers he wrote "The Perfect Pharisee under Monkish Holiness, " against the Quakers. He was also the author of "The Fallen Jew Detceted," against a man who pretended to be first a Jew and then an Anabaptist, and "A Vindication of the New England Churches."
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REV. MR. JOHN ELIOT
REV. MR. JOHN ELIOT
JOHN ELIOT, who has been known since his death as the Apostle to the Indians, was a son of Bennett and Lettese (Aggar) Eliot and was born in Widford, Hertfordshire, England in 1604 & baptised Aug. 5, 1604 in the Parish Church, Widford, in which his parents were married Oct. 30, 1598. In the old record book one reads in letters quite distinct, "Anno Dm: 1604 John Elliott, the sonne of Bennett Eliot was baptised the 5th day of August in the year of our Lord God 1604."
His parents early imparted to him religious instruction, and it was not without effect. His father held lands in both Hertfordshire and Essex from the profits of which the sum of 8 pounds yearly was set apart by will, Nov. 5, 1621, for the maintenance of John at college. On March 20, 1619, John Eliot was entered as a pensioner at Jesus College in Cambridge where he was graduated in 1622 with the degree of bachelor of arts.
After receiving his education he was for some time the instructor of youth. Rev. Thomas Hooker, who afterwards became the first minister of the church in Cambridge (then called Newtown), New England and later the founder of the church in Hartford, Conn., was at this time a silenced non- conformist minister. He had established a grammar school at Little Baddow in Essex. In this school Mr. Eliot was employed as an assistant teacher. This connection with Mr. Hooker proved a great blessing to young Eliot. His example and instruction confirmed Eliot in the belief and practice of Christianity. "When I came to this blessed family," said he, "I then saw as never before, the power of godliness in its lively vigor and efficacy." He here resolved to devote
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himself to the work of the Christian ministry. This he did when there was nothing in prospect for a Puritan minister but fines and imprisonments.
It was this that turned his thoughts towards this Western wilderness. With a mind made up to endure the perils of the wilderness he embarked on board the ship Lyon reaching Boston November 3rd, 1631. The Company that came with him consisted of sixty persons, among this number were the wife and children of Governor Winthrop. Eliot left behind him in England (as Mather quaintly describes her) a virtuous young gentlewoman, Hanna (Anna) Mum- ford (or Mountfort), whom he had pursued and proposed a marriage unto; and she coming hither the year following, that marriage was consummated September 4th, A.D. 1632 (the first record of a marriage in Roxbury).
Mrs. Eliot has not received that attention from her hus- band's biographers of which she is worthy. From the incidental references in Cotton Mather's memoir of the Apostle a concise account of Mrs. Eliot may be gleaned. In the church records, after giving a list of their children, he has written her name in a line by itself, as a member of his church, thus:
" Mris. Ann Eliot, the wife of Mr. John Eliot."
That one wife which was given to him truly from the Lord, he loved, prized, cherished, with a kindness that notably represented the compassion which he (thereby) taught his church to expect from the Lord Jesus Christ; and after he had lived with her for more than half an hundred years, for she died March 24, 1687 in the 84th year of her age, he thus speaks of her death. "Iys year my ancient dearly beloved wife dyed. I was sick to death, but the Lord was pleased to delay me, and keepe in (i.e. retain) my service wch was but poore and weak." "How beautiful and touching is this
·
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simple eulogy of the Apostle on his departed wife - a tribute more eloquent to the heart, than ever any that soiled the published page of ostentatious grief." The popular affection for Mrs. Eliot's character and memory is beautifully illustrated by the following incident. A considerable sum of money had been contributed to redeem Mr. William Bowen, a fellow townsman, from captivity among the Turks, but news of his death arriving "about the time Good oald Mrs. Eliot lay at the point of death," it was devoted to the erection of a ministerial tomb, and resolved that Mrs. Eliot, "for the great service she had done for the town," should be honored with a burial there; "but," says the relator, "before the Tomb was finished the good oald gentlewoman was dead," and she was committed to its sacred care, "wherein was never man yet laid." There mingles with her dust that of her descendants for many generations.
By her did God give him six worthy children, children of a character which may forever stop the mouths of those anti- christian blasphemers who have set a false brand of disaster and infamy on the offspring of a married clergy. By the prudent management of his wife, who looked well to the ways of her household, Eliot was enabled to be generous to his friends, and hospitable to strangers, and with a small salary to educate four sons at Harvard College, of whom John and Joseph, ministers of Newton and Guilford, were the best preachers of that age, Samuel who died early in life and Benjamin born Jan. 29, 1646. This Benjamin was made the son of his right hand, for the invitation of the good people of Roxbury placed him in the same pulpit with his father, where he was his assistant for many years but died before his father.
His family was a little Bethel for the worship of God constantly and exactly maintained in it; and unto the daily
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prayers of the family, his manner was to prefix the reading of the scripture; which being done, it was also his manner to make his young people to chuse a certain passage in the chapter and give him some observation of their own upon it. By this method he did mightily sharpen and improve, as well as try their understandings, and endeavor to make them wise unto salvation. He was likewise very strict in the education of his children, and more careful to mend any error in their hearts and lives, than he could have been to cure a blemish in their bodies. No exorbitancies or extrava- gancies could find a room under his roof, nor was his house any other than a school of piety; one might have there seen a perpetual mixture of a Spartan and a Christian discipline. Whatever decay there might be upon family religion among us, as for our Eliot, we knew him, that he would command his children, and his household after him, that they should keep the way of the Lord.
What estate he became owner of was from the blessing of God upon the husbandry and industry of some in his family, rather than from any endeavours of his own. Once when there stood several kine of his own before the door, his wife, to try him, asked him "whose they were?" and she found that he knew nothing of them. He could not endure to plunge himself into secular designs and affairs, but accounted Sacerdos in foro as worthy of castigation as Mercator in Templo; he thought that minister and market man were not unisons, and that the earth was no place for Aarons holy mitre to be laid upon. His apparel, says Mather, was with- out any ornament except that of humility. Had you seen him with his leathern girdle (for such a one he wore) about his loins, you would almost have thought what Herod feared, that John Baptist was come to life again.
In his manner of living he was very simple. The meat
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upon which he lived was a cibus simplex, an homely but an wholesome diet. Rich varieties, costly viands and poignant sauces, came not upon his table, and when he found them on other men's he rarely tasted of them. One dish and a plain one was his dinner; and when invited unto a feast a friend has seen him sit magnifying of God, for the plenty which his people in this wilderness were within a few years arisen to; but not more than a bit or two of all the dainties taken into his own mouth all the while. And for a supper, he had learned of his loved and blessed patron, old Mr. Cotton, either wholly to omit it, or to make a small sup or two the utmost of it. The drink which he still used was very small; he cared not for wines or drams, and I believe he never once in all his life knew what it was to feel so much as a noxious fume in his head, from any of them; good clear water was more precious, as well as more usual with him, than any of those liquors with which men do so frequently spoil their own healths, while perhaps they drink those of other men. When at a stranger's house in the summer time, he has been enter- tained with a glass, which they told him was of water and wine, he has with a complaisant gravity replied unto this purpose, "Wine, 'tis a noble generous liquor, and we should be humbly thankful for it; but as I remember, water was made before it." His house stood where the People's Bank now stands, at the corner of Washington and Dudley Streets.
We now turn to his public life. As before stated he arrived in Boston Nov. 3, 1631, and soon joined himself unto the Church at Boston; 'twas church work that was his errand hither. Mr. Wilson, the pastor of that church, was gone back into England, that he might perfect the settlement of his affairs; and in his absence young Mr. Eliot was he that supplied his place. Upon the return of Mr. Wilson, that
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church was intending to have made Mr. Eliot his colleague and their teacher; but it was diverted and a church being now gathered at Roxbrough, now Roxbury, according to an agreement with his Nazing friends, he was ordained unto the teaching and ruling of that holy society Nov. 5, 1632, as colleague to Rev. Mr. Welde, with the title of Teacher, Mr. Welde being the Pastor of the Church. These two ministers lived together in much harmony.
So it was in the orb of that church that we had him as a star fixed for very near three score years. He that will write of Eliot, must write of charity, or say nothing. His charity was a star of the first magnitude in the bright constellation of his virtues: and the rays of it were wonderfully various and extensive. His liberality to pious uses whether publick or private went much beyond the proportions of his little estate in the world. Many hundreds of pounds did he freely bestow upon the poor; and he would with a very forcible importunity press his neighbors to join with him in such beneficences. It was a marvellous alacrity with which he embraced all opportunities of relieving any that were miser- able; and the good people of Roxbury doubtless cannot remember (but the righteous God will), how often and with what ardors, with what arguments, he became a beggar to them for collections in their assemblies, to support such needy objects as had fallen under his observation. The poor counted him their father, and repaired still unto him, with a filial confidence in their necessities; and there were more than seven or eight, or indeed than so many scores who received their portions of his bounty. He did not put off his charity, to be put in his last will; but he was his own administrator. He made his own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers.
In 1634 Mr. Eliot incurred the displeasure of the colonial
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magistrates by a sermon in which he criticised their conduct in making a treaty with the Pequot Indians without first obtaining the consent of the people. For these injudicious animadversions he was required to make a public apology. In 1637 both he and Mr. Welde opposed the wild notions of Mrs. Hutchinson and were both witnesses against her at her trial. In 1639 they were appointed with Rev. Richard Mather, of Dorchester, to make a new version of the psalms, which was printed in the following year. For tuneful poetry it would not perhaps yield the palm even to that of Sternhold and Hopkins, but it did not give perfect satisfaction. Mr. Shepard, of Cambridge, thus addressed the translators:
Ye Roxbury poets, keep clear of the crime Of missing to give us very good rhyme: And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen, But with the text's own words you will them strengthen.
It was the first book printed in the English-American colonies. The New England Psalms were afterwards revised and improved by President Dunster, and they have passed through twenty editions. In 1641 Mr. Welde returned to England.
To his congregation Mr. Eliot was a preacher that made it his care to give every one their meat in due season. It was food and not froth which in his public sermons he enter- tained the souls of his people with, he did not starve them with empty and windy speculations. His way of preaching was very plain; so that the very lambs might wade into his discourses on those texts and themes wherein elephants might swim; and herewithal, it was very powerful, his de- livery was always very graceful and grateful. It yet more endears unto us the memory of our Eliot, that he was not only an evangelical minister, but also a true New England one;
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he was a Protestant and a Puritan, and one very full of that spirit which acted on the first planters of this country, in their peaceable succession from the unwarrantable things elsewhere imposed upon their consciences. He was a modest, humble, but very reasonable non-conformist with the ceremonies, which have been such unhappy apples of strife in the Church of England. There were especially two things which he was loth to see, and yet feared he saw, falling in the churches of New England. One was a thorough establishment of ruling elders in our churches, which he thought sufficiently warranted by the apostle's mention of elders that rule well, who yet labour not in word and doctrine. He was very desirous to have prudent and gracious men set over our churches, for the assistance of their pastors, in the church acts that concern the admission and exclusion of members, and the inspection of the conversation led by the communicant, and the instruction of their several families, and the visitation of the afflicted in their flock, over which they should preside. Such helps in governments had he himself been blessed withal; the last of which was the well- deserving Elder Bowles; and of him, did this good man, in a speech to a synod of all the churches in this colony, take occasion to say, "There is my brother Bowles, the godly elder of our church at Roxbury, God helps him to do great things among us:" Had all our pastors been so well accom- modated, it is possible there would be more encouragement given to such an office as that of ruling elders.
His benevolent labors were not confined to his own people. The natives of the country now possessed by the New Eng- landers had been forlorn and wretched heathen ever since their first herding here; and though we know not when or how those Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that probably the devil decoyed
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those miserable savages hither in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them. There were, at the time, when he began his missionary exertions, nearly twenty tribes of Indians within the limits of the English planters and were very similar in manners, language and religion.
Mather continues, "I cannot find that anything besides the Holy Spirit of God first moved him to the blessed work of evangelizing these perishing Indians. It was the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ which enkindled in him a pitty for the dark souls of these natives, whom the God of this world had blinded through all the by-past ages. But when this chari- table pitty had once began to flame, there was a concurrence of many things to cast oyl into it. All the good men in the country were glad of his engagement in such an undertaking the ministers espceially encouraged him, and those in the neighborhood kindly supplyed his place, and performed his work in part for him at Roxbury while he was abroad labour- ing among them that were without. Hereunto he was further awakened by those expressions in the royal charter, in the assurance and protection whereof this wilderness was first peopled: namely, To win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the christian faith, in our royal intention, and the adventurers free profession is the principal end of the plantation." It was among the Massa- chusetts Indians that Mr. Eliot began his missionary labors.
The first step which he judged necessary now to be taken by him, was to learn the Indian language, the Algonquin dialect being the one spoken by the Indians of Massachusetts Bay; for he saw them so stupid and senseless, that they would
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never do so much as enquire after the religion of the strangers now come into their country, much less would they so far imitate us, as to leave off their beastly way of living, that they might be partakers of any spiritual advantage by us, unless we could first address them in a language of their own. This Massachusetts tribe and its language have long been extinct and there are few, if any, living who can translate it. He began the study of their language probably about the year 1643 or perhaps earlier. In a letter dated 2/12/1648 he wrote. "There is an Indian living with Mr. Richard Calicott, of Dorchester, who was taken in the Pequott Warres, though belonging to Long Island; this Indian is ingenious; can read; and I taught him to write, which he quickly learnt, though I know not what use he now maketh of it. He was the first that I made use of to teach me words, and to be my Interpreter."
At the end of his Indian grammar (Cambridge 1666) Mr. Eliot gives the following account of his method of learning the language, "I have now finished what I shall do at present: And in a word or two to satisfie the prudent Enquirer how I found out these new wayes of Grammar, which no other Learned Language (so farre as I know) useth; I thus inform him: God first put into my heart a compassion over their poor Souls, and a desire to teach them to know Christ, and to bring them into his Kingdome. Then presently I found out (by Gods wise providence) a pregnant witted young man, who had been a Servant in an English house, who pretty well understood our Language, better than he could speak it, and well understood his own Language, and hath a clear pronunciation: Him I made my Interpreter. By his help I translated the Commandments, the Lords Prayer, and many Texts of Scripture: also I compiled both Exhor- tations and Prayers by his help. I diligently marked the
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difference of their Grammar from ours: When I found the way of them, I would pursue a Word, a Noun, a Verb, through all variations I could think of. And thus I came at it. We must not sit still, and look for Miracles; Up and be doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and Pains, through Faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything."
There is a letter or two of our alphabet, which the Indians never had in theirs; though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be found an R in their language; but if their alphabet be short, I am sure the words composed of it be long enough to tire the patience of any scholar in the world: For instance, if my reader will count how many letters there are in this one word,
NUMMATCHEKODTANTAMOONGANUNNONASH
when he has done, for his reward I'll tell him, it signifies no more in English than our lusts; and if I were to translate, our loves, it must be nothing shorter than,
NOOWOMANTAMMOONKANUNONNASH.
Or to give my reader a longer word than either of these,
KUMMOGKODONATTOOLLUMMOOETITEAONGANNUNNONASH
is in English, our question.
In 1646 Mr. Eliot began to preach to the Indians in their own tongue. About the middle of September he addressed a company of the natives in the wigwam of Cutshamoquin, the sachem of Neponset, within the limits of Dorchester. His next attempt was made among the Indians of another place, "those of Dorchester mill not regarding any such thing." He first preached to an assembly of Indians at Nonantum in the present city of Newton Oct. 28, 1646.
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The following is the Inscription on the tablet erected near the spot :-
WABAN SHEPHARD GOOKIN HEATH
Here at Nonantum Oct. 28, 1646 in Waban's Wigwam
Near this spot John Eliot began to preach the Gospel to the Indians. Here he founded the first Christian com- munity of Indians within the English Colonies.
Isaac Heath, aged 61 years, elder of the church at Rox- bury, Eliot's friend and counsellor.
Thomas Shepard, aged 41 years, pastor of the Church in Cambridge.
Daniel Gookin, aged 34 years, friend and companion of Eliot in his work from beginning to end, historian and guardian of the Indians.
After a serious prayer, he gave them a sermon which continued about a quarter above an hour, and contained the principal articles of the Christian religion, applying all to the condition of the Indians present. Having done, he asked of them whether they understood, and with a general reply they answered, they understood all. He then began what was his usual method afterwards in treating with them; that is, he caused them to propound such questions as they pleased unto himself; and he gave wise and good answers to them all. One immediately inquired whether Jesus Christ could under- stand prayers in the Indian Language? Another asked how all the world became full of people, if they were all once drowned ? A third question was, how there could be the image of God since it was forbidden in the Commandment.
He preached to them a second time, Nov. 11, and some of them wept while he was addressing them. An old man asked, with tears in his eyes, whether it was not too late for him to repent and turn unto God? Among the other in- quiries were these - how it came to pass that sea water was
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salt and river water fresh; how the English came to differ so much from the Indians in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ since they all at first had but one father; and why if the water is larger than the earth, it does not overflow the earth ? He was violently opposed by the sachems, and pawaws or priests, who were apprehensive of losing their authority if a new religion was introduced. When he was alone with them in the wilderness, they threatened him with every evil, if he did not desist from his labors; but he was a man not to be shaken in his purpose by the fear of danger. He said to them, "I am about the work of the great God, and my God is with me; so that I neither fear you, nor all the sachems in the country. I will go on, - do you touch me, if you dare." With a body capable of enduring fatigue, and a mind firm as the mountain oaks which surrounded his path, he went from place to place, relying for protection upon the great Head of the Church, and declaring the salvation of the gospel to the children of darkness. His benevolent zeal prompted him to encounter with cheerfulness the most terrifying dangers, and to submit to the most incredible hardships. He says in a letter, "I have not been dry, night or day, from the third day of the week unto the sixth; but so travelled, and at night pull off my boots and wring my stockings, and on with them again, and so continue. But
God steps in and helps." May 26, 1647 the General Court ordered that £10 be given Mr. Eliott as a gratuitie from this court in respect of his paynes in instructing the Indians in the knowledge of God also on Oct. 27, 1648 (upon the request of Mr. John Eliot, pastor to the church at Roxbury) it was ordered that none in Boston should sell wine to the Indians but Wm Phillipps, upon pinnaltie of 20s to be heard and determined by any magistrate in case of drunkeness. Whereas Mr. Eliot undertook to procure to the country ten
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shillings from an Indian for his being drunk, which Indian since is dead, the Court therefore thinks meete to release Mr. Eliot from his engagmt.
Martin Moore says Mr. Eliot found that he could not bring the gospel to bear a steady and constant influence upon the natives, unless they had settled homes and constant employ- ment. They must abandon their roving and idle habits, and become industrious. He despaired of Christianizing them, except he could civilize them. He proposed to Waban and his associates to settle a town and conform themselves to the rules of civilized society. They readily agreed to this proposal. They selected a site for their settlement in the eastern part of Newton. The name of their town was Nonantum. In their language it signified "rejoicing." They were furnished with shovels, spades, crow-bars, etc. They surrounded their fields with fences and ditches. They called for tools faster than Mr. Eliot could procure them. The women partook of the general spirit of improvement. The spinning-wheel was introduced into their families, and they were clothed with their own fabrics. They soon felt the advantages of traffic. They manufactured many articles and carried them abroad to sell. They also labored among their English neighbors in times of hay-getting and harvest. The style of their wigwams was also greatly improved. The wigwams of the common people were equal to those formerly erected for their chiefs.
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