Big Chief Never Should Have Tried Harvard; Died After Receiving Degree

Caleb Cheeshateaumuck, the only Indian that ever graduated from Harvard, would have done much better to follow the steps of the many others of his race who entered Harvard and left after one or two years.

For Caleb died of consumption immediately after receiving his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1665. Harvard never seemed to agree with Indian students. There were many that entered during the last half of the seventeenth century, but they all either died before they could take their degrees or hied themselves back to their native hunting grounds before their college course was finished.

They were provided with a special building, built in 1654 and called the "Indian College", in the space now between Harvard and Massachusetts Halls, in which some 20 could be accomodated. Harvard's Puritan fathers went even further to lure the Indians into the college where they might be instilled with Christianity. For besides having their own dormitory, most of the aborigines had their expenses paid by friends who were formed into a "Society for Propagating the Gospel", in favor of which odd amounts of pounds and shillings are listed on the old budgets.

When this unsuccessful enterprise was given up, their building was turned over to the University Printing Press, which had in 1638 taken its place as the first one set up in the Colonies. This apparently spent most of its time printing translations of the Bible in the first of which were made in 1661 by John Eliot in the Indians dislects, and sent out where the Indians could digest them in their accustomed surroundings. It was necessary to conform to the Charter of 1650, which dedicated the College "to the education of the English and Indian Youth."