The Occom Circle

The Stockbridge Indians were the inhabitants of the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a Christian Indian town modeled on John Eliot’s 17th-century “praying towns” (Indian towns where the inhabitants lived an Anglicized life style). Established in 1734, Stockbridge was composed of Mahicans, Housatonics, Wappingers, and Esopus (at the end of the 18th century, the Stockbridge Indians also adopted many New Jersey Delaware). The Stockbridge Indians had close ties to the Brothertown Nation, a composite tribe of Algonquian Indians from around the Long Island Sound which was organized by alumni of Moor’s Indian Charity School. The town played host to a series of famous missionaries and ministers, including John Sergeant Sr., Gideon Hawley, Jonathan Edwards, and John Sergeant Jr. (Sergeant Sr. established a boarding school at Stockbridge that provided the model for Eleazar Wheelock’s Moor’s Indian Charity School.) Eventually, the problems that the Stockbridge Indians encountered with white families who owned land in their town (most notably the Williams family) convinced them of the dangers of white land expansion and influenced their later land policies. In 1785, the Stockbridge Indians relocated to a tract of land in Oneida territory adjacent to the Brothertown settlement. (During the Revolution, Stockbridge played host to displaced Brothertown and Oneida Indians who had fled central New York. These ties were extremely influential in the decision to relocate.) They called their town New Stockbridge. By the turn of the 19th century, land pressures again overwhelmed the Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and, along with many Oneida, they sought land in the west where they could attempt to escape white expansion.

The Oneidas are one of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Six Nations. During the 18th century, they were largely considered the most Christianized Haudenosaunee tribe. The Oneidas had a rich tradition of indigenous ministers, including Good Peter, Deacon Thomas, and Isaac Dakayenensere, and played host to several Moor’s missionaries, including Samson Occom, David Fowler, Samuel Ashpo, Joseph Johnson, Joseph Woolley, Titus Smith, and Samuel Kirkland (who went on to found Hamilton Oneida Academy, now Hamilton College). They were also the interpreter James Dean’s adoptive tribe. Notable Oneida towns included Onaquaga, Kanawalohale, and Old Oneida. Onaquaga was the central fire of the Six Nations. By the 18th century, it also had a sizeable contingent of Onondagas and Tuscaroras. Good Peter and Isaac Dakayenensere taught there, as did Joseph Woolley. Kanawalohale and Old Oneida were more predominantly Oneida. The Oneidas were involved in several crucial moments in the history of Moor's Indian Charity School. Onaquaga was the site of the 1765 confrontation between Wheelock and the New England Company, in which the New England Company disrupted Titus Smith's mission, first by sending their own missionary, and second by repossessing Elisha Gunn, the interpreter they had agreed to "loan" to Titus Smith. Left without an interpreter, Titus Smith was forced to abandon his mission (Wheelock repaid the favor a few years later by hiring James Dean away from the New England Company). A few years later, in 1769, Deacon Thomas led the Oneidas in withdrawing all their children from Moor's. The Oneidas' departure struck a devastating blow against Wheelock's Indian education plans, and provided more momentum for his shift to educating predominantly Anglo-Americans. The Oneidas sided with the colonists during the Revolution, but they were still affected by the general devastation in Six Nations territory, especially the Sullivan Expedition (1779). After the Revolution, the Oneidas granted tracts of their land to two Christian Indian organizations: the Brothertown tribe, a composite tribe of Moor’s alumni from New England, and the Stockbridge Indians. It was not long before the groups came into conflict with one another. Encroachment from the new State of New York put increasing pressure on Oneida land, and the Oneidas tried to renegotiate their treaties with the Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians to compensate. The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians fought back, but by the 1820s all three groups had lost, and many of them relocated to Wisconsin.

Albany is a city located in eastern New York. When Netherlander Henry Hudson arrived in what would become Albany in 1609, the Mohican Indians lived in several villages in the area. The Mohicans gave Hudson’s crew furs, and the Dutch East India Company sent representatives to trade with the Native peoples. The Dutch established the village of Beverwyck within the territory of the New Netherlands. Beverwyck hosted a diverse population of Germans, French, Swedes, English, Irish, Scots, Dutch, and Africans. After the fall of New Netherlands to Britain in 1664, Beverwyck was renamed Albany in honor of the colony’s proprietor James, Duke of York and Albany. In 1686, Albany was granted a charter that incorporated the city and provided it the sole right to negotiate trade with Native Americans. During the French and Indian War, Albany was designated as the British military headquarters in the Americas. During the Revolutionary War, most Albany residents supported the revolution because of their opposition to British trade restrictions.

Brothertown was a multi-tribal Indian settlement in the center of what is now New York state. In the 1760s, Indians in New England and New York were devastated by war, disease, and European settlement, and many who had converted to Christianity believed that pressures and influences from surrounding European settlers impeded them from living Christian lives. The Brothertown Indians began as a group of Christian Indians including members of the Mohegan, Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Wangunk, and Niantic tribes. In the 1770s, led by Occom and Joseph Johnson, this group of Indians moved to land granted to them by the Oneida in New York. They named the land Brothertown to both reflect their intention to live with fellow tribes as brothers and also to pay tribute to Brotherton, a Delaware Indian reservation in New Jersey that served as an inspiration for the Christian Indian settlement. When the Revolutionary War began, the Indians of Brothertown sided with the Patriots, and as a result, British sympathizers burnt the Brothertown settlement in 1777. After this, many Brothertown settlers moved east while others remained and fought alongside the colonists.In the 1780s, many more New England Indians, including Occom and his family, moved to Brothertown and the nearby settlement of New Stockbridge, forming a town government, church and schools. In the early 1800s, the state of New York began to purchase tracts of Oneida land, and the Indians were forced to leave New York and settle in Greenbay, Wisconsin.

A village, now within the town of Cherry Valley, in Otsego County, east central New York state. It was founded in 1739 by John Lindesay, a Scot who got a land grant from King George II, and who traded with the Indians throughout western New York. It became one of the strongest settlements on the frontier, and was the site during the Revoutionary War of the Cherry Valley Massacre of 1778 led by Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant and Tory rangers.

Stockbridge is a town in Madison County in central New York state, named for the Stockbridge Indians of Western Massachusetts. During the Revolutionary war, the Stockbridge Indians had befriended the Oneidas, whose villages were burned down by Indians allied to the British. When the Stockbridge tribe lost ownership of their Christian Indian town, the Oneidas invited them to settle on a six-mile square township, known as "The New Stockbridge Indian Territory." Although the details are unclear, a letter from the Stockbridge chief, Hendrick Aupaumut, to Governor George Clinton of New York suggests that the Oneidas gave the Stockbridge Indians a written deed in 1784, possibly at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix that year. The state of New York confirmed the Tribe's ownership of the town on several later occasions, but would ultimately rescind its promise, forcing the Stockbridge Indians to remove further west to Indiana and Wisconsin, where they ultimately settled in the early 19th century. By 1785, the majority of the Stockbridge tribe from Massachusetts had moved to the town of New Stockbridge, originally called "Tuscarora" or "Old Oneida" by the white settlers. In 1787, the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge hired John Sergeant, son of the original missionary in Massachusetts, as minister for the tribe; Sergeant travelled between his home in Stockbrige, MA, to New Stockbridge every year for nearly forty years in that capacity. In 1788, Occom, who had been invited as minister for the Brothertown settlement nearby, opposed Sergeant's mission but Occom's death in 1792 settled the conflict. In 1795, three New York Quakers visited New Stockbridge and began an exchange that helped the village to flourish. The first Europeans settlers arrived in 1791, and the present day town was created in 1836 from parts of four adjoining towns.

Schenectady is a city located in eastern New York State. The area that would become Schenectady was originally controlled by the Mohawk Indians, the easternmost and most powerful of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The land making up Schenectady was one stop on the much larger Mohawk Trail, which extended from Schenectady to what would become Albany, New York. The name of Schenectady was a derivation of the Mohawk word, Schau-naugh-ta-da, which meant the place beyond the open pines. The first Europeans to arrive at Schenectady were the Dutch who established a settlement there in 1661. Schenectady would come under British control as Dutch power in the Americas waned and the British established the colony of New York. In 1690 during King William’s War, Schenectady became the target of French and Indian soldiers who attacked the town and killed 60 of its residents, an event that became known as the Schenectady Massacre. There was a smallpox outbreak in Schenectady in 1767, as noted in this collection’s documents. In 1780, Oneidas found refuge from Loyalist and Mohawk attacks in Schenectady, and the town served as a stop on the way to Brothertown, the pan-Indian settlement founded by Occom and other graduates of Wheelock’s school. Schenectady was designated a borough in 1765 and eventually incorporated as a city 1798.

Stockbridge is a small town on the Housatonic River in Berkshire County in western Massachusetts. The area was the home of the Mohekanew or Muh-he-ka-nuk people (people of the continually flowing waters), also known as the Mahicans, (or Mohicans and not to be confused with Mohegans from the Connecticut area), who had been driven there because of tensions with the Mohawk tribe over the expansion of the fur trade with the Dutch in the 17th century. European traders and settlers in the area brought disease and land greed, weakening the Mahicans and their traditional lifeways. In 1734, a missionary named John Sergeant from New Jersey came to live in the Mahican village of Wnahktukuk, baptizing those who accepted his teachings. In order to survive in a rapidly changing world, the Tribe accepted the misson and in 1736, the town of Stockbridge was created, named after a village in Hampshire, England, the last of the "praying towns" in Massachusetts, also known as "Indian Town." It was, for the English, strategically located along a military trail to Canada and created a Protestant buffer against Indian allegiance to the Catholic French. Sergeant built a church and schoolhouse, and brought four English families to settle there, ostensibly as models. Wappinger, Nipmuck and Tunxis Indians joined the community and the Mahicans made Stockbridge their chief village. They and the other Native peoples who lived there were called the "Stockbridge Indians." With the end of the French and Indian war, new settlers flooded into the town, buying up land and excluding the Indians from town government; the experimental community became divided into white and Indian neighborhoods. Although the Massachusetts General Court promised that the land given to the Indians as a reward for their service in the recent war and held in common would never be sold, that agreement was breached. In 1774, Indians from seven praying towns––Charlestown, Groton, Stonington, Niantic, Farmington, Montauk, and Mohegan––who were also in debt and dispossesed, accepted the invitaion of the Oneidas to settle on their lands in central New York state, but were driven back by the Revolution and retreated to Stockbridge. Eventually, in 1783 many Stockbridge Indians moved to Oneida lands and founded "new" Stockbridge near the Brotherton settlement established by Occom and other Mohegan Indians. Stockbridge, MA, was a destination for many of the missionaries trained by and associated with Wheelock and his Indian school, and eight Stockbridge Indians enrolled at Dartmouth College between 1771 and 1780. In 1778, Daniel Simon, a Narragansett Indian, one of five children in his family to go to Wheelock's Charity School, and the first Indian educated by Wheelock to receive a degree from Dartmouth College in 1777, was licensed to preach and taught at Stockbridge. As late as 1785, Occom recounts in his journals traveling to Stockbridge, MA to preach and visit Sergeant, Jr. and Kirkland, and finds the Indians "scattered," many removed to Oneida country.

Bowman's Creek is a small village about four miles long within the town of Canajoharie in central New York's Montgomery County. Canajoharie (also known as Indian Castle or Upper Castle for the Mohawk fortifications surrounding the town) was a major Mohawk village that became a central location for the missionary activity of Wheelock and others. By the time Occom visited the area in the late 1780s, disease and war had decimated the Mohawk population and only around 250 Indians remained in the area. The village is named for Jacob Bowman, an English colonist who purchased land at the head of the creek in 1760. Occom notes the village as a location distinct from Canajoharie, which he also mentions visiting, and it was a frequent stop on his preaching tours of the 1780s. While in Bowman's Creek, Occom preached to the town's residents, likely at the Presbyterian church. In one entry, he notes baptizing a resident.

Clinton is a small village about 10 miles south of the Mohawk River in Oneida County at the center of New York state. It is named for George Clinton, the first governor of the state. Originally, the area was Oneida land, but in 1787, the State of New York issued what the records call "Coxe’s Patent," granting land in what would become Clinton to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families. These veterans, led by Captain Moses Foote, came from Plymouth, CT to establish the village, which was first a part of Whitestown, then the town of Paris, and finally, in 1827, the town of Kirkland. Occom, who lived in nearby Brothertown when Clinton was founded, visited the village in its early years to preach to Indians and new settlers. In 1793, Samuel Kirkland, Wheelock’s most famous Anglo-American student and missionary, founded Hamilton-Oneida Academy on what is now Clinton’s College Hill. His aim was to educate both white settlers and Oneidas, with whom he had worked as a missionary for many years. While Kirkland hoped the school would promote harmony between Clinton’s original and new settlers, very few Oneidas attended the school, and in 1812, it dropped the "Oneida" from its name and became Hamilton College. Many Oneidas relocated from Clinton to Wisconsin in the 1820s because of pressure to give up more land than they had already given. Clinton became an incorporated village in 1843 and remains mostly agrarian.

Niskayuna is a town in east central New York State on the Mohawk River, just east of the city Schenectady. The name Niskayuna means "extensive corn flats," and is said to come from the Connestigione Indians who occupied a large area on both sides of the river when Dutch settlers arrived around 1642. The Dutch negotiated land deals with several Connestigione chiefs, and began to build homes and farms in the area in the 1660's. In 1746, George Clinton, Governor of New York colony, built one of a line of blockhouses ranging from Fort Massachusetts to Fort Hunter in Niskayuna, and in 1799, the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike (now Route 5) was built through the town. In 1822, the Erie Canal crossed the Mohawk River into Niskayuna, and in 1843 the Troy and Schenectady Railroad was built along the Mohawk River with a station in Niskayuna. The reformed Church of Niskayuna, organized around 1750, is the church at which Occom mentions preaching in his journal of 1787. Around the time that Occom and other Moor's graduates founded Brothertown on Oneida land in upstate New York, Occom commuted back and forth from Mohegan to Brothertown, often stopping to preach to large, enthusiastic crowds in churches and settlements in the area. He mentions preaching at Niskayuna and staying with acquaintances in 1786, 1787 and 1790, often in winter and braving difficult traveling conditions. He likely traveled on the trail that in 1799 became the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike.

Yankee Hill was a hamlet in what is now the town of Florida, in Montgomery County, New York, in the center of the state. Yankee Hill refers to an actual hill, located south of the Mohawk River and west of Schoharie Creek. In 1781, British troops and their Iroquois allies raided Yankee Hill during the Revolutionary War. In the late 1780s, Occom preached in Yankee Hill and the surrounding areas, crossing over the Mohawk River and back again to reach different audiences. At the time, Yankee Hill was home to many farms. Today, the name Yankee Hill refers to a section of the Erie Canal’s Schoharie Aqueduct, which crosses over the creek near modern-day Florida, NY.

Samson Occom was a Mohegan leader and ordained Presbyterian minister. Occom began his public career in 1742, when he was chosen as a tribal counselor to Ben Uncas II. The following year, he sought out Eleazar Wheelock, a young Anglo-American minister in Lebanon, CT, in hopes of obtaining some education and becoming a teacher at Mohegan. Wheelock agreed to take on Occom as a student, and though Occom had anticipated staying for a few weeks or months, he remained with Wheelock for four years. Occom’s academic success inspired Wheelock to open Moor’s Indian Charity School in 1754, a project which gave him the financial and political capital to establish Dartmouth College in 1769. After his time with Wheelock, Occom embarked on a 12-year mission to the Montauk of Long Island (1749-1761). He married a Montauk woman, Mary Fowler, and served as both teacher and missionary to the Montauk and nearby Shinnecock, although he was grievously underpaid for his services. Occom conducted two brief missions to the Oneida in 1761 and 1762 before embarking on one of the defining journeys of his career: a fundraising tour of Great Britain that lasted from 1765 to 1768. During this journey, undertaken on behalf of Moor’s Indian Charity School, Occom raised £12,000 (an enormous and unanticpated amount that translates roughly to more than two-million dollars), and won wide acclaim for his preaching and comportment. Upon his return to Mohegan in 1768, Occom discovered that Wheelock had failed to adequately care for his family while he was gone. Additionally, despite the vast sums of money that he had raised, Occom found himself unemployed. Wheelock tried to find Occom a missionary position, but Occom was in poor health and disinclined to leave his family again after seeing the treatment with which they had met while he was in Britain. Occom and Wheelock’s relationship continued to sour as it became apparent to Occom that the money he had labored to raise would be going towards infrastructure at Dartmouth College, Wheelock’s new project, rather than the education of Native Americans. After the dissolution of his relationship with Wheelock, Occom became increasingly focused on the needs of the Mohegan community and increasingly vocal in criticizing Anglo-Americans’ un-Christian treatment of Native Americans. In September of 1772, he delivered his famous “Sermon on the Execution of Moses Paul,” which took Anglo-American spiritual hypocrisy as one of its major themes, and which went into four printings before the end of the year. In 1773, Occom became further disillusioned when the Mason Land Case was decided in favor of the Colony of Connecticut. The details of the Mason Case are complicated, but to summarize: the Colony of Connecticut had gained control of Mohegan land early in the 18th century under very suspect circumstances, and successfully fended off the Mohegan’s 70-year-long legal challenge. The conclusion of the case came as a blow to the Mohegans, and further convinced Occom of Anglo-American corruption. Along with David Fowler (Montauk Tribe), Occom's brother-in-law, and Joseph Johnson (Mohegan), Occom's son-in-law, Occom helped found Brothertown, an Indian tribe formed from the Christian Mohegans, Pequots, Narragansetts, Montauks, Tunxis, and Niantics. They eventually settled in Oneida country in upstate New York. Occom moved there with his family in 1789, spending the remaining years of his life serving as a minster to the Brothertown, Stockbridge, and Mohegan Indians. Harried by corrupt land agents, the Brothertown and Stockbridge groups relocated to the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago, though Occom died in 1792 before he could remove himself and his family there. Occom's writings and legacy have made him one of the best known and most eminent Native Americans of the 18th century and beyond.

Hendrick Aupaumut, most likely a descendant of the Mohawk chief Hendrick, was a Mahican Indian who was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1757. He was educated by the Moravians and became very involved in tribal affairs and relations with the United States. Along with other Stockbridge Indians, Aupaumut fought as part of Captain William Goodrich’s company in the Revolutionary War, rising to captain in 1778. In 1777, when Joseph Quanaukaunt became sachem, Aupaumut became a member of his council along with Peter Pohqunnoppeet and John Konkapot. He also became close friends with Samson Occom and would often host the preacher or translate his sermons when the latter visited New Stockbridge, to where the Stockbridges moved in the mid 1780s. In 1787 he was one of nine Indians to write to Occom declaring their faith and asking Occom to become their minster. He was also one of the Indians to sign the proclamation that Occom, Pohqunnooppeet, and David Fowler carried during their tour to raise funds to support Occom as their pastor. By the 1790s, Aupaumut was acting as an agent for the United States. He helped the government combat Tecumseh and his brother Elskwatawa, and he fought under General Harrison in the War of 1812. Both conflicts interrupted the various land deals between tribes, as well as treaties and other negotiations, in which he was involved. Although he encouraged Indians to convert to Christianity and learn English, Aupaumut opposed leasing land to whites. Occom and Aupaumut agreed that the Stockbridges must move west to escape the influence of outside cultures, and to preserve their Christianity. In the 1820s, Aupaumut led land deals with Wisconsin tribes, and he finally moved west in 1829 along with the remainder of the Stockbridge tribe.

Sir Peter Pauquunnuppeet (there are several variant spellings), a son of an Indian deacon by the same name, was a Stockbridge Mohican Indian and student of Eleazar Wheelock, who studied at Moor’s Indian Charity School from 1771 until 1775, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1780. Together with Daniel Simon, class of 1777, and Lewis Vincent, class of 1781, he was one of the three Indian students to graduate before the turn of the century, and they became the last native graduates until 1835. The “Sir” that precedes Pohquonnoppeet’s forename originated from his status as a senior in school, and remained a part of his name for the rest of his life. After graduating, Pauquunnuppeet returned to Stockbridge, where he taught school and was involved in tribal affairs. Joseph Quanaukaunt (Quinney) became sachem in 1777, and along with Hendrick Aupaumut and John Konkapot, Pauquunnuppeet was a member of the his council. Pauquunnuppeet was also influential in the Brothertown movement and the founding of New Stockbridge six miles from Brothertown, New York. In 1785, when Americans in New York were driving the Oneidas to cede land that bordered Pennsylvania, Pauquunnuppeet represented the Stockbridge Indians in what became the Treaty of Herkimer. Pauquunnuppeet had an influential friendship with Samson Occom. Occom recorded many occasions in his diary during his missionary tours of 1785-1787 when Peter hosted him, and noted a few instances when they traveled together. Often during Occom’s visits to New Stockbridge Captain Hendrick and Pauquunnuppeet would translate his sermons for those who could not understand English. The Stockbridge Indians favored Occom over the white missionary John Sergeant, Jr., and on August 29, 1787 Pauquunnuppeet was one of nine Indians to write to Occom declaring their devotion and inviting Occom to become their minister. However, the tribe had no means by which to pay Occom, and so, in the winter of 1787 Pauquunnuppeet, Occom, and David Fowler embarked on a fundraising journey through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. They were not, however, able to raise as much money as they had sought to collect. Pauquunnuppeet’s strong presence within the tribe may have led to his death, although the precise date and circumstances of his decease is unknown. Sectionalism within New Stockbridge was growing due to the friction between those who supported Occom and those who preferred Sergeant, Jr. as their minister. The politics of Brothertown as an independent entity contributed to the tension. Finally, when Hendrick Aupaumet rose to the position of chief, Pauquunnuppeet became the leader of a rival faction. It has been suggested that Pauquunnuppeet’s increasing authority provoked his enemies to poison him.

John Sergeant Jr., like his father, served as a minister in Stockbridge, MA. In 1773, Stephen West, the minister to the Stockbridge Indians since 1757, decided to leave his post and turned over ministering duties to John Sergeant Jr. Stockbridge, MA, which John Sergeant Sr. helped establish, failed as a Christian Indian town when the Stockbridge Indians lost ownership of their land. When the Oneida Tribe offered the Stockbridgers land in central New York after the American Revolution, many of them moved to the Brothertown and New Stockbridge settlements. The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge funded Sergeant Jr. in 1787 to continue serving as a minister to the Stockbridge Indians who moved to New York. Sergeant travelled from Stockbridge, MA, to New Stockbridge every year to serve as their minister. In 1788, the Stockbridge Indians at New Stockbridge were divided in their support for Occom or John Sergeant as the town’s minister. Mohican sachem Hendrick Aupaumut led the community members who favored Occom. According to Sergeant, 30 members of the Tribe were in favor of Occom while 50 were in favor of him (later, half of Occom’s supporters defected to Sergeant). The relationship between Sergeant and Occom was contentious, with Occom disliking Sergeant’s manner of preaching. Occom moved to Munhegunnack or New Stockbridge in 1791 and suggests in a letter that many of Sergeant’s supporters were shifting support to Occom. In his sermons, Sergeant blamed the Indians’ loss of land on what he described as their drunkenness and idleness. He suggested that the whites’ encroachment on their lands was God’s punishment for their sins. Sergeant remained the New Stockbridge minister until his death in 1824.

Unidentified Smith.

Lawrence Frank, also identified in histories of Frankfort as "Lewis," was one of the earliest settlers of the town of Frankfort (originally Frank's Ford), located east of present-day Utica, which was named in his honor. He was the son of Henry Frank (c 1725-1790) and Maria Catharine. Henry immigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany, probably Bavaria, with his brother Christopher in 1740 and was a trader between the Mohawk and Lehigh Valleys in the 1740s and 50s. He settled in German Flatts, an area originally belonging to the Mohawk Nation but populated with German immigrants who bought up the fertile river lands. Lawrence married Mary Myers in 1769 and they helped found the new town of Frankfort on land originally bought from the Mohawks by Dutch settlers. The land was set off as a separate town from German Flatts by an act of the NY Legislature on February 5, 1796. Lawrence Frank owned a large tract of land, and town history reflects that he actively promoted the industrial and agricultural progress of Frankfort, which was severely damaged in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars. In fact, Frank and a group of other patriots were taken as prisoners of war during the Revolution and housed in Quebec from August 31 1778 until May 15 1781, when he was released and made his way back home. His popularity is reflected in the fact that the village of Howard's Bush was renamed Frankfort Center and McGowansville was renamed East Frankfort. Later in life, Frank moved with some of his family to a new settlement called Busti in Chautauqua County, NY, which is where he died. On his first journey to the Oneidas in 1761, Occom records paying for lodging at Mr. Franks, a tavern keeper in German Flatts. Although there is no historical record of such a place, Occom returned to this tavern many times on his preaching tours of the area between 1786 and 1790. Frank's Tavern must have been a major establishment because in early July of 1761, Occom notes that William Johnson met him and David Fowler there, and that the next day Johnson met with chiefs of the Oneidas to work out an agreement about an Oneida who killed a Dutchman. In June 1789, Occom records preaching in Esquire Frank's barn to "a vast number of people."

Anthony Paul was born in Charlestown, Rhode Island, to Mary and James Paul. His family was a part of the Narragansett peoples who lived in Charlestown. There is not much information detailing Paul's early years, but he is believed to have attended Wheelock's school in Connecticut. It is through this connection that Paul is likely to have met Christiana Occom, daughter of Samson Occom and Mary Fowler. Paul married Christiana in 1777 and, after spending some time in Mohegan, the two settled in Brotherton in 1784. Paul worked as a preacher and helped raise at least six children with Christiana. Occom was fond of his son-in-law, and his journals tell of many happy times visiting the couple, including fishing trips and the day in 1787 when Samson baptized Paul and four of his children. As further indication of Occom's fondness for his son-in-law, he is believed to have left the books and papers that he kept in his New York home with Paul. In 1797, Paul and Christiana left Brotherton to live in Lake George, NY, where they spent the rest of their years.

Christiana Occom was born in 1757 in Mohegan, CT as the ninth child of Samson Occom and Mary Fowler. Christiana spent her childhood in Mohegan, where she married the Reverend Anthony Paul in 1777. The couple eventually settled in Brotherton in 1784. There, they raised at least six children, four of which Samson Occom baptized. Occom's journals tell of many joyful visits he paid to his daughter and son-in-law while on his travels. Christiana and Anthony finally left Brotherton in 1797 to settle in Lake George, NY.

Conrad Folts was the son of Jacob Melchert Folts (1710-1808) and Anna Catherine Petrie Folts (1714-1799), who settled in the area around Herkimer, near the Mohawk River in central New York. The Folts were probably part of the large German settlement concentrated around German Flatts. Conrad was a Captain, though the records do not indicate where or whom he served. In the 1780s, when Occom, David Fowler and others from Mohegan and Stockbridge began moving Christian Indians up to the Oneida lands they had been given to settle, Occom met and befriended Folts and his family, who lived close to the settlements of Brothertown and New Stockbridge. On October 21, 1785, Occom recorded the first time he lodged with "one Mr. Folts," a phrase he used to denote this as an initial meeting. By September 11, 1786, however, Occom noted, "put up at my good friends Mr Conrod Fols." He lodged and "tarried" with the family several times during 1787 after visits to and from Brothertown. Folts is buried in the Oakview Cemetery in Frankfort, Herkimer County, NY.

Jesse Kimball was a member of the extensive Kimball family, whose ancestors immigrated from England at the end of the 17th century and settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. His father was John Kimball (b. December 12, 1731) of Preston, CT, and his mother was Ruhama Sanders of Lyme, CT; they married on September 21, 1752 and had three sons and 13 daughters. Jesse was the second son. John served in the Revolutionary war and Jesse, though quite young, took the place of his brother Samuel, who contracted measles on the eve of his enlistment. Jesse served three years under Captain Adam Chapley and was stationed in New London, CT. After his service, Jesse moved to the frontier settlement of Bowman's Creek, in the present-day town of Canajoharie in Oneida country, and joined the militia. There he entertained Occom several times on Occom's preaching tours of 1785-87; the two often fished in the creek, to Occom's delight. The date when Kimball's Bowman's Creek house burned down is uncertain, but real estate records have him buying and selling land in Bowman's Creek as late as 1790, and he is listed in the first US Census for New York in 1790 as being the head of a household. His first marriage ended in divorce and in 1793 he married Elizabeth Roelofson (d. 1843). By that time, he had moved to Kentucky, where he was a farmer and miller and started his family. Some records report that he also made whiskey, and when he would not sell it to the local Indians, he was driven from his home and settled in Posey County, Indiana, where he died in 1857.

Roger Waupieh was one of the founders of the Brothertown community. In early life, he lived in Stonington and served in the Revolutionary War. The maiden name of Occom's mother, Sarah, was Wauby, suggesting that Occom and Roger Waupieh may have been related. Some sources suggest "Woyboy" as an alternate spelling of Waupieh; Roger Waupieh may have been related to the Woyboy who was an early student at Moor's.

David Fowler, Jr., was the son of David Fowler and Hannah Garrett Fowler. He was born in Brothertown, inherited property upon the death of his father, and served as town clerk in the early 1800s.

Esther Poquiantup was a Mushantuxet Pequot, the daughter of Samson Poquiantup (Pequot, 1725-1787) and Esther (Mohegan, 1725-1822) and sister of Prude Poquiantup Harry (1752-1828). The Poquiantups (also spelled Pouquenup, Pauhqunnup, Uppuiquiyantup) were a prominent family of Christian Indians with one branch living in Groton and the other at Niantic, CT. In 1766, Samson and Esther were living at Groton. Samson was a church deacon who occasionally hosted Occom's religious meetings. We don't know when Esther married Jacob Fowler, a Montaukett Indian, younger brother of David, and Samson Occom's brother-in-law, but we do know that by 1774, Esther and Jacob were living in Hanover, NH, in a Dartmouth College building down the hall from Elizabeth Walcutt and her daughter Lucy. Jacob, who attended Wheelock's School, had become a preceptor there. Esther and Jacob were part of the first group to emigrate from New England to Brothertown in Oneida country. By 1787, Occom refers to Esther as a widow, and lodges frequently at her house.

Elizabeth Fowler was the daughter of David Fowler, Occom's brother-in-law, and Hannah Garrett.

David Fowler was Jacob Fowler's older brother, Samson Occom's brother-in-law, and an important leader of the Brothertown Tribe. He came to Moor's in 1759, at age 24, and studied there until 1765. While at school, he accompanied Occom on a mission to the Six Nations in 1761. He was licensed as a school master in the 1765 mass graduation, and immediately went to the Six Nations to keep school, first at Oneida and then at Kanawalohale. Fowler saw himself as very close to Wheelock, but their relationship fragmented over the course of Fowler's mission, primarily because Wheelock wrote back to Kirkland, with whom Fowler clashed, but not to Fowler, and because Wheelock refused to reimburse Fowler for some expenses on his mission (767667.4 provides the details most clearly). Fowler went on to teach school at Montauk, and played a major role in negotiations with the Oneidas for the lands that became Brothertown. He was among the first wave of immigrants to that town, and held several important posts there until his death in 1807.

James Gregg was a member of the New York Continental Infantry during the Revolutionary War. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant on June 28, 1775 and 1st Lieutenant on June 26, 1776. He was a captain when the remarkable incident that Occom records in his journal for June 29, 1786 occurred. According to the military journal of Dr. Thatcher at Fort Stanwix in central New York, on June 25, 1777, Captain Gregg left the Fort with Corporal Madison, both of Colonel Gansevoort's regiment, to shoot pigeons. About a mile and a half from the Fort, they where shot down by two Indians. Though never identified, the attackers could have been from any of the Haudenosaunee tribes allied with the British. Madison was killed and scalped. Gregg was shot, tomahawked in the head and back, and scalped. A dog with them alerted nearby soldiers who brought Gregg and Madison back to the Fort. Gregg survived under the care of Dr. Thatcher, and was taken to a hospital in Albany. Thatcher reports that after a year or so of recovery, Gregg was back on duty. Another muster list records Gregg transferred to the 1st Regiment of New York in 1783. In the 1780s, Gregg and his wife were living in central New York along the Mohawk River in the area east of Brothertown where Occom frequently preached. Occom records dining and lodging with the Greggs on numerous occasions.

William Harper was the oldest brother of the Harper family, prominent in the settlement of central New York and the Revolutionary War. His grandfather, James Harper, emigrated from county Derry in Ireland to Maine in 1720, but because of conflicts with the Indians there, moved the family to Boston. His youngest son, John (1705-1785), married Abigail Montgomery of Hopkinton, CT in 1728. They had eight children: William (b. 1729), James (b. 1731), Mary (b. 1733), John (b. 1734), Margaret (b. 1740), Joseph, Alexander and Abigail (b. between 1747 and 1749). John Sr. moved the family from Middletown to Windsor, CT and then to Cherry Valley, NY in 1754, where they purchased land, and began to clear and cultivate. In 1768, John Sr. signed a patent for land between the Delaware and Charlotte Rivers purchased from the local Indians where members of the family moved in 1771, establishing the town of Harpersfield, selling lots to emigrants from New England, and distinguishing themselves. William became a member of the Provincial Congress, a judge in Montgomery and then Otsego Counties, and a member of the State Assembly from Tryon in 1781, 1782, 1784, and from Montgomery from 1785-89. James died of smallpox in 1760. John Jr. attained the rank of Colonel and was appointed commander of the Fifth Regiment of the New York State Tryon County militia during the Revolution, in which his younger brothers, Joseph and Alexander served as Lieutenant and Captain of a company, respectively. Joseph served on the committee of safety of Harpersfield. Alexander kept the first tavern in Harpersfield after the war, the site of town meetings, and served as justice of the peace and treasurer. Abigail married William McFarland, who served as town clerk, and moved, in 1798 with Joseph and Alexander to Ohio where they founded Harpersfield in that state. A history of Harpersfield reveals that during his youth, John Jr. (and possibly William and Alexander) attended Wheelock's School in Lebanon, CT, where he became life-long friends with Joseph Brant, a Mohawk Indian who attended between 1761 and 1763, and became a leader of the Tribe and supporter of the British. This friendship, and the Harper brothers’ knowledge of the Mohawk language and customs, made them valuable leaders and even saved lives; when Harpersfield was destroyed by Indians and British soldiers in 1777, Brant sent John Jr. a secret warning, which allowed the settlers to flee to safety. Occom records visiting "Esquire Harper" in or near Fort Hunter in 1786 and 1787. While this could refer to any of the Harper brothers, it is most likely William, who had the best claim to the title of “Esquire” (whereas John and Alexander would have been titled with their military ranks) and who was the only brother to move to Montgomery county, in which Fort Hunter is located. The Harper family history illustrates how the connections forged at Wheelock's school had wide effects on the course of late eighteenth century political events.

A family in Cherry Valley, New York, whose members include, at least, Nicholas, Adolf, Jona and Susanna (spelling uncertain). Occom lodged with members of the Pickard family and preached at Nicholas Pickard's home during his travels in 1786 and 1787. There appear to be no published sources that verify this family. Some amateur genealogy sites suggest that a family by this name had been residing in Cherry Valley before and after the "Cherry Valley Massacre" in 1778, including one Nicholas Pickard who was killed in 1776.