A single leaf from the Gospel of John, translated into the Algonquian language. The leaf is labeled as being from the 1661 Algonquian Bible, but it is almost certainly from an edition of the Psalms and the Gospel of John published in 1709 by Experience Mayhew and known as the "Massachusett Psalter." The leaf contains side-by-side English and Algonquian text for John:9:23-40. Missionary John Eliot devised a system for transliterating the Algonquian language. A collaboration between Eliot and Native translators Job Nesuton; James Printer, a Nipmuc man and printing apprentice studying at the Indian College at Harvard; Joel Iacoomes, an Aquinnah (now part of the Wampanoag) man studying at the Indian College at Harvard; and Caleb Cheeshateaumuck, a second Aquinnah man studying at the Indian College at Harvard produced the published translation of the New Testament in 1661 and the Old Testament in 1662. Both were printed at the Harvard Indian College, the first Bible to be printed in the western hemisphere. A second edition was published in the 1680s. In 1709, missionary Experience Mayhew published an edition of the psalms and the Gospel of John, based on the earlier translation but with many revisions, from which this leaf is taken. It is known as the "Massachusett Psalter." It was printed by Bartholomew Green and James Printer in "Boston, New England."
