Moses

Mohawk; Moor's Indian Charity School

Moor’s School 1761-1765, certified as usher on March 12, 1765

Mohawk

Schoolteacher in the Canajoharie, Onaquaga, and Cherry Valley area from 1765-1766 or 1768

Moses was a Mohawk Indian and Wheelock student who was part of the mission to the Canajoharie, Onaquaga, and Cherry Valley areas from 1765-1766. He taught the displaced Oneidas under Good Peter and Isaac Dakayenensere at Lake Otsego (next to Cherry Valley), along with Smith and Gunn. He taught reading and writing to between eight and 12 students. Although Joseph Woolley was initially supposed to teach this school, he fell ill and Moses replaced him. Moses also subbed for Woolley when Woolley visited the Tuscaroras. Like the other schoolteachers, Moses left over the winter of 1765 and returned to Wheelock, but he was back at Canajoharie by the next fall to teach with Samuel Johnson and Jacob Fowler. Theophilus Chamberlain speculated they could set up a third school for Moses, but this did not come to pass because by December 1st, less than a month after Chamberlain’s letter, Moses had traveled to Wheelock and back to Fort Hunter delivering letters. The Indians at Fort Hunter would not take him as a teacher because they preferred Johnson and distrusted unknown teachers after their experience with Hezekiah Calvin (according to Johnson). Moses appears to have continued working in the area, because in 1768 he refused Aaron Kinne’s request that he act as interpreter.

McCallum, James. The Letters of Eleazar Wheelock’s Indians. Dartmouth College Press 1932: Certified as usher (25, 272), Lake Otsego (79-80), nationality (25). Wheelock, Eleazar. A continuation of the narrative of the Indian charity-school : begun in Lebanon, in Connecticut ; now incorporated with Dartmouth-college, in Hanover, in the province of New-Hampshire. Hartford 1765: Graduation, nationality, letter quoted mentioning Moses (August 3rd, 1765; 13-14).