KIRKLAND, SAMUEL ( 1741-180S ) . An American missionary to the Iroquois Indians. born at Norwich, Conn. He studied at Prince ton, and received his degree in 1763. though he had left college the previous autumn to visit the Senecas and learn their language. After living among them for a year and a half, he was ordained at Lebanon in 1766, and was given a commission by the Congregational Church as missionary to the Indians. He then took up his residence among the Oneidas. who occupied a central position among the Six Nations and whom lie considered the noblest of the Iroquois. Ills mission was highly successful, and so great did his influence among the Indians become that at the outbreak of the Ilevolution he persuaded the Oneidas and Tuscaroras to remain neutral, despite the efforts of Sir William Johnson and of the other nations to make them join the British, and finally when, during the second year of the war, they would remain quiet no longer, lie pre vailed upon them to support the Americans. He
became an army chaplain. served at Fort Schuy ler. undertook many dangerous missions, and was with General Sullivan on the Susquehanna in 1779. At the close of the war he returned to the Oneidas. and in 1793 founded the Hamilton Oneida Academy. an institution for the educa tion of American and Indian youth, which in 1810 was raised to the rank of a college. and is now known as Hamilton College. Ilis letters, journals. and a vindication. which be wrote in answer to a complaint from the Indians in 1794, contain much valuable information Con cerning the Iroquois. Consult Life of Samuel Kirkland. Missionary to the Indians. by Samuel K. Lothrop, his grandson, in Sparks's Library of American Biography (vol. xxv.; new series, xv.. Boston, 1848).