The Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany, Church Catechism, Family Prayers, and Several Chapters of the Old and New-Testament
by Lawrence Claesse
| Morning and Evening Prayer | ||
 at the College of William & Mary. |
||
| Author | Lawrence Claesse | |
| Published | New York: Printed by William Bradford | |
| Date | 1715 | |
Lawrence Claesse van der Volgen (1677-1742) (also spelled Claessen) was born in Schenectady, in the province of New York.[1] In 1690, at thirteen years old, Claesse was taken captive by the Mohawk Indians along with twenty-six other men and boys after an attack on Schenectady.[2] While captive, he lived with the Catholic Mohawks known as the Kanien’Kahake.[3] He returned to Schenectady ten years later, where he served as the primary interpreter for the province until his death in 1742.[4] As a result of living amongst the Mohawks, Claesse mastered all five Iroquois dialects[5] and was said to be “the first New Yorker to have mastered the rhetorical and gift-giving protocols of Iroquois diplomacy and politics.”[6] However, Claesse did not speak English, only Mohawk and Dutch.[7] so he needed the assistance of interpreter John Oliver (who was fluent in English and Dutch) when an English translation was required.[8] He also struggled with the Mohawk language himself at times, enlisting the help of other Mohawks when he was at a loss[9] and claiming it was “almost impossible for any to learn . . . perfectly except [those who] begin with it when children.”[10] Nonetheless, his language skills helped him confront a variety of diplomatic situations such as resolving conflicts over the sale of alcohol,[11] urging the Indian nations not to listen to the French calls for war,[12] and negotiating the return of an English boy held captive in Iroquoia.[13]
The Morning and Evening Prayer
Claesse was hired by Dutch Domine Bernadus Freeman to translate the Book of Common Prayer and the liturgy into the Mohawk language, intended for use by missionaries.[14] Freeman was also partially fluent in the Mohawk language, and he devised a system for spelling Mohawk including a sixteen letter alphabet[15] that was used in Claesse’s translation.[16] Claesse would later revise this translation for Reverend William Andrews, and that version was published in 1715 in New York by William Bradford and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGA) in Great Britain.[17] It included rites and prayers for use during worship, weddings, baptisms, and funerals, as well as three psalms, the first three chapters of Genesis, the birth of Jesus, and the Catechism.[18] The first edition was entirely in Mohawk (referred to as the Mahaque Indian Language, like an antiquated Anglicization of Mohawk)[19] except for the English title and prayer headings.[20] It was 115 pages long and printed in unusually large type for the period.[21] The prayer book was republished in Boston in 1763 (shortened to twenty-four pages), and then again in 1769 (without credit to Claesse),[22] with the third edition being published in 1787 after the Revolutionary War.[23] According to Freeman, the Mohawks “had a great veneration for the English Liturgy, especially the Litany at the Reading of which they frequently did tremble.”[24] A copy of this work is apparently possessed by one of Claesse's descendants in Indiana.[25]
Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library
Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as "Claesse's Mohawk liturgy. p. 4to." This was one of the titles kept by Thomas Jefferson and later sold to the Library of Congress in 1815. Millicent Sowerby includes the 1715 New York edition (the only edition published) as an in entry in Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson,[26] Both the Brown Bibliography[27] and George Wythe's Library[28] on LibraryThing record the same volume. Unfortunately, Jefferson's copy no longer exists to note any Wythe markings.
Description of The Wolf Law Library's copy
As yet, the Wolf Law Library has been unable to procure a copy of The Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany, Church Catechism.
See also
References
- ↑ WikiTree Contributors, “Laurens (Classez) van der Volgen (1687 - 1742),” WikiTree: Where genealogists collaborate,[1], accessed November 24, 2025.
- ↑ Nancy L. Hagedorn, “Brokers of Understanding: Interpreters as Agents of Cultural Exchange in Colonial New York,” New York History 76, no. 4 (1995): 3.[2]
- ↑ Wikitree Contributors, "Laurens (Classez) van der Volgen."
- ↑ Hagedorn, "Brokers of Understanding," 4.
- ↑ Jennifer E. Monaghan, “Literacy and the Mohawks,” in Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America, 166–88 (University of Massachusetts Press: 2005), 173. [3]
- ↑ Daniel K. Richter, “The Precarious Settlement Abroad and at Home,” in The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization, 214–35, (University of North Carolina Press: 1992), 220. [4]
- ↑ Daniel K. Richter, “‘Some of Them... Would Always Have a Minister with Them’: Mohawk Protestantism, 1683-1719,” American Indian Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1992): 478.[5],
- ↑ Richter, “Some of Them,” 478.
- ↑ Richter, “The Precarious Settlement,” 220.
- ↑ William B. Hart, “‘Laying a Good and Lasting Foundation of Religion’: Success and Failure at the Fort Hunter Mission, 1710–1719,” in "For the Good of Their Souls”: Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country, 90–124 (University of Massachusetts Press: 2020).[6]
- ↑ Ann Hunter, “Minute Book 3: 1726-March: Conflicts Over Alcohol Continue; the French Presence in Iroquoia is Growing,” Albany Indian Commissioners: a journey through their records (blog), June 26, 2018.[7]
- ↑ Ann Hunter, “Minute Book 3: 1727-October: Oswego Accounts; Arossaguntigook Traders; Laurence Claessen’s Journal,” Albany Indian Commissioners: a journey through their records (blog), October 7, 2018.[8]
- ↑ Ann Hunter, “Minute Book 3: 1726-February,” ,Albany Indian Commissioners: a journey through their records (blog), April 20, 2018.[9]
- ↑ Richter, “Some of Them,” 475.
- ↑ William B. Hart, “Ordering the Life and Manners of a Numerous People’: The Ideology and Performances of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,” in “For the Good of Their Souls”: Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country, 57–89 (University of Massachusetts Press: 2020), 79.[10]
- ↑ Richter, “The Precarious Settlement,” 222-23.
- ↑ Lawrence Claesse, Bernardus Freeman and William Andrews, “The morning and evening prayer, the litany, church catechism, family prayers, and several chapters of the Old and New-Testament,” (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Great Britain) and William Bradford, New York, 1715). [11]
- ↑ “The morning and evening prayer, the litany, church catechism, family prayers, and several chapters of the Old and New-Testament,” Internet Archive Open Library. [12]
- ↑ The morning and evening prayer, the litany, church catechism, family prayers, and several chapters of the Old and New-Testament, translated into the Mahaque Indian language, : Church of England : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive (Internet Archive) [13]
- ↑ Internet Archive Open Library.
- ↑ Monaghan, "Literacy and the Mohawks," 174.
- ↑ Monaghan, "Literacy and the Mohawks," 184.
- ↑ Monaghan, "Literacy and the Mohawks," 166.
- ↑ Richter, “Some of Them,” 475.
- ↑ Jonathan Pearson, “A History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times 7: Adult Freeholders — Laurens Claese Van der Volgen,” Schenectady Digital History Archive, last updated December 19, 2024, [14]
- ↑ E. Millicent Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson. (Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1952-1959), 2:100 [no.1481]
- ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433
- ↑ LibraryThing, s.v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on January 31, 2014.