The âpéRev. Abraham Luckenbach may be called the last of the Moravian Lenapists. With him, in 1854, died out the traditions of native philology. Born in 1777, in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, he became a missionary among the Indians in 1800, and until his retirement, forty-three years later, was a zealous pastor to his flock on the White river, Indiana, and later, on the Canada Reservation. His published work is entitled "Forty-six Select Scripture Narratives from the Old Testament, embellished with Engravings, for the Use of Indian Youth. Translated into Delaware Indian, by A. Luckenbach. New York. Printed by Daniel Fanshaw, 1838." 8vo, pp. xvi, 304.
After his retirement in Bethlehem, he edited, in 1847, the second edition of Zeisberger's "Collection of Hymns," the first of which has already been mentioned.
A short MS. vocabulary, in German and Delaware, is in the possession of his family, in Bethlehem, and some loose papers in the language.
One of the most recent students of the Delaware was Mr. Matthew G. Henry, of Philadelphia. In 1859 and 1860 he compiled, with no little labor, a "Delaware Indian Dictionary," the MS. of which, in the library of the American Philosophical Society, forms a thick quarto volume of 843 pages, with a number of maps. It is in three parts; 1, English and Delaware; 2, Delaware and English; 3, Delaware Proper Names and their Translations.
It includes, without analysis or correction, the words in Zeisberger's "Spelling Book," Roger William's "Key," Companius' Vocabulary, those in Smith's and Strachey's "Virginia" and various Nanticoke, Mohegan, Minsi and other vocabularies. The derivations of the proper names are chiefly from Heckewelder, and in other cases are venturesome. The compilation, therefore, while often useful, lacks the salutary check of a critical, grammatical erudition, and in its present form is of limited value.
Some of the later vocabularies collected by various travelers offer points for comparison, and may be mentioned here.
In 1786 Major Denny[154] at Fort McIntosh, Ohio, collected a number of Delaware words, principally from Shawnee Indians. A comparison shows many of them to be in a corrupt form, owing either to the ignorance of the Shawnee authority, or to the inaccuracy of Major Denny in catching the sounds.