Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck Only Indian to Survive Training of Puritan Harvard--University Press Began With Religious Aim

Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the only Indian that ever graduated from Harvard, slim and imperious, strolled, for four years through the buildings which then composed Harvard College, or what is more likely, for he died of consumption almost immediately after taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts, sneaked along the wall of his private dormitory much more fearing than to be feared. Harvard never seemed to agree with Indian students for most of the ones who started, and there were quite a number 250 years ago, either died before they could take their degrees or returned to their native hunting ground before their college course was finished. Whether the ones who died did so violently or not the records do not show but they do say that they had a special building, running from the end of Harvard Hall to Massachusetts Hall in which some twenty of the red men could be accommodated. The missionary spirit must have been very strong in our Puritan ancestors for they went to every possible means of luring them within the pale. Besides having their own dormitory the aborigines had most of their expenses paid by friends who were formed into a "Society for Propagating the Gospel."

When this unsuccessful enterprise was given up their building was given over to the University Printing press, the first one set up in the colonies. This seems to have devoted--most of its time to printing parts of the Bible which were translated into the Indian dialects and circulating amoung the heathens. Its work was highly commended and for a time was on a par with that turned out by the presses of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Later in its history it became tinged with heresy and was twice put under strict supervision.