[In the following essay, Brain offers a survey of Occom's career.]

Samson Occom, the foremost Christian Indian of New England, was one of the best-known and most eloquent preachers of his day. Until the close of the last century his story was but little known; but now, thanks to the exhaustive researches of Dr. W. De Loss Love, we have a full account of his life and the times in which he lived and worked.¹

Occom was born in 1723 in a wigwam in the Indian village of Mohegan, not far from New London, Conn. His father, Joshua Ockham, Aucom or Mawcum, as the name is variously spelled, seems to have been a man of some distinction in his tribe; while his mother, who soon figures in the records as “Widow Sarah Occom,” implying her husband's early demise, was far above the average of Indian women in industry, intellect and affection. She is said to have been a descendant of the famous Mohegan chief Uncas.

Tho Sarah Occom eventually became an earnest Christian and exercised a strong influence on the life and character of her distinguished son, at the time of his birth she and her entire family and tribe were heathen. In an old manuscript still preserved at Dartmouth College, written by Occom at the age of forty-five, he quaintly gives these glimpses of his early life:

I was Born and brought up in Heathenism till I was between sixteen and seventeen years of age, at a Place called Mohegan, in New London, Conn., in New England. My Parents lived a wandering life, as did all the Indians at Mohegan. They Chiefly Depended upon Hunting, Fishing and Fowling for their living, and had no connection with the English, except to Traffic with them in their small trifles, and they strictly maintained their Heathenish ways, customs and Religions. Neither did we cultivate our Land nor keep any Sort of Creatures, except Dogs, which we used in Hunting, and we Dwelt in Wigwams. …

Once a Fortnight in ye Summer Season a Minister from New London used to come up and the Indians to attend; not that they regarded the Christian Religion, but they had Blankets given to them every Fall of the year, and for these things they would attend. And there was a Sort of a School Kept, when I was quite young, but I believe there never was one that ever Learnt to read anything. And when I was about ten years of age there was a man who went about among the Indian Wigwams, and wherever he could find the Indian Children would make them read, but the Children used to take Care to keep out of his Way; and he used to Catch me sometimes and make me Say over my Letters, and I believe I learnt some of them. But all this Time there was not one amongst us that made a Profession of Christianity.

For fully fifty years faithful workers among the colonists had endeavored to give the gospel to these Indians, but with almost no success. “There has been Something done to Christianize the Mohegans and other Indians in the Colony of Connecticut,” wrote Cotton Mather in 1715; “but, Lord, who has believed! They have been obstinate in their Paganism; however, their obstinacy has not put an End unto our Endeavours.”

About the year 1740, however, when the great revival under Whitefield was sweeping over the colonies, the whites redoubled their efforts for the Indians, and the Indians responded as never before. Among those early convicted of sin was young Occom, then in his seventeenth year. After six months of doubt and darkness, he finally accepted Christ and resolved to devote his life to His service. So eager did he now become to learn to read the Word of God that he bought a primer and went from house to house begging his white neighbors to give him a little instruction.

As time went on his desire to serve Christ grew greater rather than less. By dint of great perseverance he learned to read a little in the bible, and he faithfully used every opportunity for talking to the Indians concerning their souls, but he sorely needed further instruction. This he presently secured from the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, a Congregational minister in Lebanon, Conn., who afterward became president of Dartmouth College. In the manuscript already quoted, Occom tells how his acquaintance with this good friend began:

At this time my Poor Mother was going to Lebanon, and having had some knowledge of Mr. Wheelock, and Learning that he had a number of English Youth under his Tuition, I had a great Inclination to go to him and be with him a week or a Fortnight, and Desired my Mother to Ask Mr. Wheelock whether he would take me a little while to Instruct me in Reading. Mother did so, and when she came Back she said Mr. Wheelock wanted to see me as soon as possible. So I went up thinking I should be back again in a few Days. When I got up there, he received me with Kindness & compassion, & instead of staying a Fortnight or 3 weeks, I spent 4 years with him.

When, on December 6, 1743, Dr. Wheelock opened the doors of his home and received the young Mohegan into his household, he little realized how great an event it would be in the lives of them both. Not only did it give Occom the preparation needed for his life work, but it led the good doctor to establish his famous Indian Charity School, which played an important part in the early evangelization of the Redmen.

Quick to recognize the latent talents of his dusky pupil, Dr. Wheelock set about developing them with rare patience and skill. Under his wise instruction Occom soon mastered the arts of reading and writing and began the study of Latin and the classics. At the same time he was learning many things not found in the textbooks. The refining influence of the Christian home of which he was an inmate did much to mold his character, and association with white youth of his own age revealed defects in his training which he was wise enough to endeavor to remedy.

In view of Occom's desire to be a missionary, it was planned to give him a course at Yale on the completion of his preparatory work with Dr. Wheelock. But at the end of four years, tho he had made “such progress that he would doubtless have entered upon his second year at his first admission,” this plan had to be reluctantly relinquished. His eyes had been so seriously overstrained by application that continuous study was out of the question.

It was hopeful, however, that he might be able to take a private course in theology under some minister, and in the autumn of 1748 negotiations to this end were entered into with the Rev. Solomon Williams, of Lebanon. But Occom's eyes continued so weak and he had such a spell of illness, that this plan had to be given up.

Poor Occom was greatly disappointed, yet his missionary zeal continued unabated, and his heart was full of hope that he might yet find a field of labor among his people. Ere long God honored his faith and called him to a work in which He greatly blest him.

This was at Montauk, the eastern extremity of Long Island. The place was ever a favorite resort of the Indians, and in the summer of 1749 Occom went there on a fishing excursion with a party of his fellow tribesmen. He was an expert fisherman, but he cared more for men than for fish just then, and leaving his companions to engage in their sport, went about among the wigwams fishing for men. So great was the interest that the Indians pleaded with him to come and start a school among them. As a result he returned to Montauk in November, 1749, and began a work there in which he continued twelve years.

Tho merely a teacher, he soon added to his work in the school three religious services on the Sabbath and a mid-week meeting for prayer. As a result the Montauks soon came to regard him as their minister, and called on him to visit their sick and bury theid dead. Ere long he so completely won their confidence that they came to him with all their disputes and made him their legal adviser. Like Eliot, he combined the offices of schoolmaster, preacher and judge.

Meanwhile, he lived among them in the greatest simplicity. His home was a wigwam like theirs, and his house-hold effects so few and simple that they could be easily removed from one place to another. At first he received no compensation save from the Indians themselves, who agreed to take turns in supplying his food. But they were so poor that he would often have suffered had he not been able to add to his stores by hunting and fishing and farming.

At the end of two years, the Society for Propagating the Gospel, through its Boston commissioners, agreed to grant him £20 a year. But as he was married in 1751 to Mary Fowler, daughter of one of the most influential Indians at Montauk, and soon had a large family of young children, he found this inadequate to meet his needs, and was obliged to supplement it by making various articles of wood—spoons, ladles, churns, gun-stocks, pails and piggins—and by rebinding old books for the whites at Easthampton and other settlements near by.

Throughout his entire career, this illustrious Indian was so insufficiently paid that he suffered greatly and frequently from want, yet his zeal in the service of Christ continued unflagging. His one attempt at luxury while at Montauk was a mare to carry him about among his scattered parishioners. But this ended in disaster. The first one he bought fell into a quicksand. The second was stolen. A third died of distemper. A fourth had a colt and then broke its leg. Soon after the colt died also! Whereupon he gave up in despair and made his visits on foot.

Notwithstanding his discouragements, his work was so successful that in 1759, tho he had been unable to take a course in theology, it was decided to ordain him “a minister at large to the Indians.” Having passed a satisfactory examination before presbytery, the solemn and impressive service by which the young Mohegan schoolmaster became an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church was held on August 29, at Easthampton, in the presence of a large company of Indians and whites.

During the entire proceedings Occom seems to have conducted himself with very great credit. His trial sermon on the text “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him,” was well received, and in the ordination sermon, the Rev. Samuel Buell declared him to be “an ornament to the Christian religion and the glory of the Indian nation.” Yet Occom was doubtless glad when it was all over. The account of it in his diary closes with these words: “Thus the solemnity ended. Laus te Deum.”

Tho Occom continued at Montauk after his ordination, it was thought that he ought to be sent to some larger field of labor. Accordingly, when a call came for a missionary to the Oneidas, in western New York, Occom was chosen for the work, and in June, 1761, accompanied by his brother-in-law, David Fowler, he made the first of three journeys to the famous Six Nations. But two years later, owing to Pontiac's war, all work came to an end in that region.

There being no prospect of work among the Oneidas for some time to come, Occom now accepted an appointment from the Boston commissioners as missionary to the Niantics, Mohegans and other tribes near his boyhood home in Connecticut, at an annual salary of £30. Accordingly, in April, 1764, he removed with his family from Montauk to Mohegan, where his mother and brother and sister still lived, and where his tribal inheritance was. Here, with the assistance of the Indians, he erected a house for the accommodation of his large family. The site selected was a hillside near the Norwich and New London highway, and the house, a plain but substantial structure, clapboarded with shingles, was so well built that it survived until recent times and became a famous landmark frequently visited by tourists.

Tho Occom's service here was brief, it was, perhaps, the happiest of his entire career. The Indians loved and trusted him, and so famous had he become that white travelers frequently turned aside from the highway to visit him and hear him preach in the chapel. “He is zealous,” Dr. Wheelock wrote to Whitefield in England, “preaches to good acceptance; ye Indians at Mohegan and Nihantic are all to a man attached to him; his assemblies are crowded with English as well as Indians, and I think a good prospect of his usefulness.”

A year later, at the suggestion of Whitefield, Dr. Wheelock sent Occom to England in behalf of the Indian Charity School, which, inspired by the success of his Mohegan protège, he had established for the training of Indian youth as missionaries to their people. It was now in successful operation, but sorely in need of funds.

Tho there was some little opposition to the scheme, Occom set sail from Boston on December 23, 1765 accompanied by the Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, one-fourth of the passage money being paid by John Hancock, who was part owner of the vessel.

Tho a majority of Occom's friends had favored his going, no little anxiety was felt as to how he would conduct himself in England. Even Dr. Wheelock was dubious about it. “I am concerned for Mr. Occom,” he wrote to Whitefield. “He has done well and been useful as a missionary among his savage brethren, but what a figure he will make in London, I can't tell.”

But these fears proved groundless; for Occom took England by storm. The great audiences that gathered to hear him speak were thrilled by his message, and charmed by the modesty and simplicity of his manner. His popularity was soon very great. He was lionized by the nobility, entertained at the best houses in London, and granted an interview with the king, who gave him £200 for the school. Everywhere he conducted himself with the greatest propriety. Even in the society of the most distinguished people he seemed perfectly at ease, and, much to their amazement, “conducted himself with the manners of a white man, as tho he had never lived in a wigwam of bark.”

In every way his mission was 2 great success. During his tour, which covered both England and Scotland, he made about 400 addresses and collected some £12,000.

Returning to America, Occom found himself more famous than ever. Indians and whites alike now regarded him as the foremost man of his race, and people everywhere were ready to do him honor. Nevertheless, his home-coming was a sad one, and the days that followed were among the darkest of his entire career.

During his absence, tho Dr. Wheelock had agreed to care for them, his family had been allowed to suffer somewhat, and this neglect on the part of the friend whom he had served so faithfully across the water was a very great grief to him. Then, too, he found his wife in poor health, and his children in sore need of their father's control. But sorest of all was the fact, that tho at the height of his power, there seemed no field in which he could labor. The Boston commissioners, not having been in sympathy with his English campaign, refused to employ him again. The only opening was a mission to the Onondagas, and this Dr. Wheelock urged him to take, but, for reasons too lengthy to state, Occom felt obliged to decline it.

During these dark days, when he was sorely disheartened, and often in actual want, Occom fell a prey to the besetting sin of his race, and on two occasions took more liquor than was thought becoming in a minister of the gospel even in those days when social drinking was the rule. There were many extenuating circumstances, but Occom was greatly humbled and much distrest. Suffolk presbytery, to which of his own accord he made confession of his fault, made full examination of the case, and then put on record “that the sensations of intoxication which he condemned himself for, arose, not from any degree of intemperate drinking, but from having drunk a small quantity of spirituous liquor after having been all day without food.” But tho the presbytery dealt thus kindly with him, and Occom seems never again to have sinned in this way, the suspicion of it followed him to the end of his life.

Presently brighter days began to dawn for the famous Mohegan. His friends of England, learning of his sore situation, rallied around him and sent him cheering letters and financial aid.

Some five years after Occom's return from England, an event occurred that added not a little to his fame. It was the custom in those days to precede the execution of a criminal by a service in the church, and Moses Paul, an Indian who was to be executed at New Haven for murdering a white man while under the influence of liquor, requested Occom to officiate for him in this way.

Occom granted the request, and on the day appointed, September 2, 1771, people gathered from far and near in the old First Church of New Haven to hear what the famous Mohegan would say. As soon as the condemned man was brought in by his guard, the solemn service began, and at the close Occom accompanied him to his execution.

So deep was the impression made by Occom's sermon on this occasion that its publication was called for. Somewhat reluctantly Occom consented to this, and when it was brought out it had a wide sale. The demand for it was so great that it ran through nineteen editions.

Encouraged by the success of this first literary venture, Occom soon followed it by another—the printing of a Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, which proved most useful in its day. Among the selections were some of his own composition, which gave him rank among the hymn-writers of New England. The best-known of these is the old hymn, “Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound,” once found in almost every hymnal.

Useful as Occom's life had been, his greatest achievement was yet to be accomplished. In 1771, becoming concerned for the future of his converts, he conceived the plan of forming a new tribe composed of the Christian Indians in the seven settlements of Charlestown, Groton, Stonington, Niantic, Farmington, Montauk and Mohegan, and emigrating with them to the Oneida country, where they could form a Christian community free from the hurtful influence of heathen tribes.

In this work he was eminently successful. The first move was made in 1773, but, owing to the dark days of the Revolution, it was not until 1789 that the work was completed, and Occom removed his family from Monhegan to the new home in western New York. Here, in the summer of 1792, he died somewhat suddenly at the age of sixty-nine and passed to his reward.

Note

1. See Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England, by W. De Loss Love, Ph.D., Pilgrim Press, 1900.