Fowler, Jacob

last name (variants): Fowoler
Birth: 1750 in Montauk
Death: Spring 1787 in Brothertown, NY
Affiliation

Montauk; Moor's Indian Charity School; Brothertown

Education

Moor's Indian Charity School from 1762-1765, ordained 1774

Faith

Converted Congregationalist or Presbyterian

Nationality

Montauk

Occupation

Schoolteacher and Missionary

Residence(s)
  • Montauk, LI (from 1750 to 1762-11)
  • Moor's Indian Charity School in Lebanon, CT (from 1762-11-20 to 1766-01-21)
  • Canajoharie (from 1766-10 to 1767-06)
  • Mushantuxet, CT (from 1770 to 1774)
  • Hanover, NH (from 1774 to 1776)
  • Brothertown, NY (from 1784)
Events

1784: Was part of the initial Brothertown migration to Oneida territory.

Marital status

Married to Esther Poquiantup. They had one recorded child, who died at Mushantuxet in 1772.

Biography

Jacob Fowler was a Montauk Indian whose life was dramatically shaped by Samson Occom, his brother-in-law. Occom taught Jacob when he was a child, and in 1762, Jacob followed his older brother David Fowler to Moor's. After three years he was approved as an usher in the 1765 examination, and in 1766 he went to assist Samuel Johnson at Canajoharie. He taught among the Six Nations until at least mid-1767. In early 1770, Occom procured him a job teaching at Mushantuxet through the Boston Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Jacob taught and preached among the Pequots at Mushantuxet and Stonington until 1774, when Wheelock hired him to teach at Moor's, which had relocated to Hanover, NH as a complement to Dartmouth College. During this time, Jacob also assisted Joseph Johnson with efforts to rally the New England Christian tribes for a move to Oneida territory (the Brothertown Movement). By 1776, there were no Indians enrolled in Moor's and Jacob moved on to serve Governor John Trumbull of CT as a messenger to the Six Nations during the Revolution. After the Revolution, he continued organizing the Brothertown Movement and was among those who initially emigrated in 1784. He was elected clerk at Brothertown, and died sometime in the spring of 1787.

Sources

Calloway, Colin, The Indian History of an American Institution. Dartmouth College Press 2010. Love, Deloss. Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England. Pilgrim Press 1899. McCallum, James. The Letters of Eleazar Wheelock’s Indians. Dartmouth College Press 1932.