John Eliot (1604-1690), English-born clergyman of the first New England generation and missionary to the Massachusetts Native Americans, translated the Bible and other books into the Algonquian tongue.

John Eliot's baptismal record, dated Aug. 5, 1604, is preserved in the church of St. John the Baptist in Widford, Hertfordshire. His father had extensive landholdings in Hertford and Essex counties. When John was a child, his parents moved to Nazeing. Just before his fourteenth birthday he matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he prepared for the ministry. He took his bachelor of arts degree in 1622. In 1629-1630 he lived with Thomas Hooker and his family in Little Baddow, Essex. After the Separatist Hooker escaped to Holland, Eliot, who as a Nonconformist minister was also unsafe, decided to emigrate to New England, as many other young ministers were doing.

To the New World

Eliot arrived in Boston on Nov. 3, 1631, when the settlement...