Beschreibung:

Title: Missionary and famed orthographer among the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi and Oklahoma - letter Author: Banks, Daniel C. Place: Louisville, Kentucky Publisher: Date: 1834 Description: Autograph Letter Signed, June 24, 1834. To William C. Hull, St. Louis. 2pp. Hand carried by Rev. C. Byington: “…The Revd. Cyrus Byington an old acquaintance of mine for several years past, a Missionary to the Choctaw tribe of Indians, will probably hand you this. He is on his way to visit the Indians to the west of Missouri. Any attentions you may show him will do me a favor… " Both Banks, a Presbyterian Minister in Louisville for some 20 years, and Hull, a prominent St. Louis merchant, were originally New England Yankees – as was Rev. Cyrus Byington, a Massachusetts attorney who gave up law practice to became a Protestant missionary among the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi in the 1820s, later following the tribe after they were “removed” along the infamous “Trail of Tears” to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma. There establishing a mission station, he learned to speak Choctaw fluently, and then devoted the rest of his life to constructing a dictionary and grammar of the Choctaw language – “one of the most complete lexicons for any Native American tongue”. This letter is of particular historical interest because existing sources state that Byington joined the Choctaw in southeastern Oklahoma in “late 1835”, whereas he personally carried this letter to St. Louis, on his way westward, more than a year earlier. Lot Amendments Condition: Very good. Item number: 276288