John Metoxsin, Sachem

Main attributes of this Native American place: Archaeological; Native practices; Landmark.

Massachusetts‐born John Metoxsin (1770‐1858) received a Moravian education in Pennsylvania and rejoined his Stockbridge Mohican tribe after members relocated to New York in 1785. He led some of his people to Indiana in 1818‐1819, then in 1822 to Missouri, then to Kansas, and then to Wisconsin. He succeeded Hendrick Aupaumut as sachem. Known as an eloquent speaker, he is buried in the Stockbridge Indian Cemetery near Stockbridge, Wisc.

The Rev. Cyrus Byington (1793‐1868), also a Stockbridge, Mass., native, with his wife was missionary at the Choctaw Mission. In 1834 during a visit to Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, Miss., he met four Stockbridge Indians who had come with Brother Banks by birch bark canoe, to renew acquaintance with Sacs and Foxes, and to determine the feasibility of relocating to Iowa. One old Stockbridge man was a native of Old Stockbridge, as they called the Massachusetts town. “His father was the interpreter of President Edwards, and Dr. Stephen West, when they preached to the Stockbridge Indians,” Byington wrote. “These circumstances, combined with his appearance, his conversation, and his eyes often wet with tears, made our interview unusually solemn and interesting. His name is John Metoxsin. [Spelled Metoxen on his gravestone.] We made many inquiries of him about his people. And as his people is one among whom the Head of the Church has been pleased to dwell for nearly one hundred years, we listened to many of his statements with thankfulness for the past, and with hope as to the future, not only concerning that tribe, but others.”

 

Speaking of Old Stockbridge days, Metoxsin said his people “were poor and much scattered. Some lived along the Hudson river, between Schodack and Stillwater, and some on the Housatonuck, and some between these rivers. Their wigwams were made of bark and their garments of skins. They subsisted chiefly by hunting. The missionaries came and made an offer to set up a school, to teach their young men how to work on the land, and the young women how to sew and spin. ‘They did not tell us much, only a little. They did not let us know all their plans at first. Our older people said they wanted time to think about it, and talk about it.’ The older people said this was the first offer they had ever had of the kind, and they did not see any harm in it. It would do them no hurt, and they were willing to try. The next morning, they told the missionaries that they were willing to try, etc.’ The missionaries went back to Boston. Old Stockbridge was pitched upon as the place for the school. Soon the people began to settle there., My grandfather carried my mother from Schodack to Stockbridge, on his back, and put her in the school, when she was five years old.’”

Metoxsin described the first school house as made of bark. “He pointed out the land that was first cultivated, which lies near by my father’s late farm; a small brook only divides some of the land from that which was my father’s. And there was commenced this blessed work of mercy, in behalf of the Stockbridge tribe. This man’s mother became pious, and lived to be 85 years of age. And her husband was employed to interpret for such a preacher as is now rarely seen. I refer to president Edwards. The Rev. John Sergeant was the first missionary to his people. And during fifteen years of his ministry, 60 Indians united with his church. After his death, president Edwards preached to them. After him Dr. West and then the son of the first missionary, preached to them in their own tongue, to a good old age. I asked Metoxsin what he thought had preserved his people from destruction. He answered, ‘when I think about that I always think it must be God, and because he had some true Christians there.’”

— Bernard A. Drew

SOURCES

  •   Byington, C., “Stockbridge Indian Mission,” Ohio Observer, 28 August 1834.

  •   Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr., and James W. Parins, eds. Encyclopedia of American Indian Removal, vol. 1. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood, 2011.

  •   Oberley, James W. A Nation of Statesmen: The Political Culture of the Stockbridge‐Munsee Mohicans, 1815‐1972. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.