History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

' Baye Psalme Book/ prepared by Kev. iMr. Eliot
and Eev. ilr. Welde of Eoxbury, and Eev AIi
Mather, of Dorchester. The edition of the work
from which we copied was printed at Cambridge,
by Stephen Daye, in 1640, and was the first bound
volume printed in British America. Tlie tune i^
from Ainsworth's ' Psalms in ^letre, Imprmted ni
the yere MDCXVIII.,' at Amsterdam. The oiui
nal is in diamond notes, and is the tune to ^hul
Eliot's Indians actually sung the Psalm. — VWl
We would almost as lief sing tiie Indian as the
unrhythmic English of the third verse :
" Wali-teau-fflk Je-ho-vah God-co
kez-liuk-que-ag-kiip-iui-gum uuli
Qut nee-na-wuu mat ;
uce-iia-wuii
Ma-nit um-mls-siu-uiu-uu-moli."
" Kuow, that Jebovak he is GoJ,
who hath us formeil it is he,
& not oui'selves : his own people
& sheepe of his pasture are wee."
—
Next year, by the efforts of Professor Francis
D. D., of Cambridge, who wrote Eliot's life in
Sparks' American Biography, Oliver Bacon, Esq
and Kfiv. Thomas B. Gannett of South Natick, i
monument of sandstone was reared in memory of
Eliot's work in the little park, on the site of the
to the Indians.
Born 1604,
Died May 20,
1690.
The rear side shows an open Bible with, on the lefthand
page, the legend, " Up Biblum God, 10C;3."
An iron fence encloses the shaft.
October 8, 1851, was celebrated as Natick's
bi-centennial. Incorporated as a town but seventy
years before, this anniversary commemorated
the earliest settlement. The festival included an
address by Professor Stowe, himself born near the
old oak, a procession, and a banquet with speeches,
one being delivered by Eev. George Copway, an
Ojibway Indian. The supposed portrait of Eliot,
recently brought from England by Hon. William
Whiting, hung before the pulpit. A young girl
of sixteen, a lineal descendant of the Natick In-
dians, sat among the guests.
On election-day, May, 1843, an old hollow oak
in the roadway, which had been valued as an his-
NATICK. 201
toric link with the past, was cut down. Tliis act
pro\ oked great indignation A lawsuit followed,
which was settled b\ tlu (fiendiis T_Min^t public
Indian burial-ground, hard by the location of the
opinion paying the costs, and planting trees in the
Indian church. The. obelisk bears in front
simple inscription — :
John Eliot
Apostle
this
public green. The present Eliot Oak, just east of
the Unitarian Church, is in better preservation tlian
its fallen brother of the forest primeval. Tradi-
' ;
•
tion links these trees with the Indian missionary.
Longfellow has a fine sonnet to the Eliot Oak.
" Thou ancient Oak ! whose myriad leaves are loud
With sounds of unintelligible speech.
Sounds as of surges ou a sliingly beach.
Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd
With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed
Thou speakest a different dialect to each ;
To me a language tliat no man can teach.
Of a lost race long vanished like a cloud,
For underneath thy shade, in days remote,
Seated like Abraham at eventide
Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown
Apostle of the Indian. Eliot, wrote
His Bible in a language that hath died,
And is forgotten save by thee alone.''
Sam Lawson, the good-natured, lazy story-feller
in Oldtown Folks, put his blacksmith's shop un-
der this tree. It was removed when the church
was built. We saw a missionary from Turkey
1 J. H. T. (of Hartford) proves the closing lines a rule with
one exception, by giving an Indian version of this sonnet. Vicli'
Atlaniic Mout/ilii, Jlny. 1S77.