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Treat, Samuel

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Treat, Selah Burr, D.D.

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a Congregational minister, was born at Milford, Conn., in 1647 (or 1648), and graduated at Harvard College in 1669. He was ordained and settled at Eastham, Plymouth Colony, in 1672. Soon after his settlement he studied the Indian language, and devoted to the Indians-in his neighborhood much of his time and attention. Through his labors many of the savages were brought into a state of civilization and order, and not a few of them were converted to the Christian faith. In 1693 he wrote a letter to Increase Mather, in which he states that there were within the limits of Eastham five: hundred adult Indians, to whom he had for many years imparted the Gospel in their own language. He had under him four Indian teachers, who read in separate villages on every Sabbath, excepting every fourth, when he himself preached the sermons which he wrote for them. He procured schoolmasters, and persuaded the Indians to choose from among themselves six magistrates, who held regular courts. In 1700 he began to serve the new settlement of Truro, and performed parochial duties until a church was established. After having passed near half a century in the most benevolent exertions as a minister of the Gospel, he died, March 18, 1717. He published the Confession of Faith in the Nauset Indian language, and an Election Sermon (1713). See Sprague, Annals of Amer. Pulpit, 1, 183.