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He entered Jesus College, Cambridge, March 20, 1618. He spent a part of the time between 1622 and 1631 at Little Baddow, Essex, as a school-master with Rev. Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford, Connecticut. He embarked about the middle of August, 1631, in the ship Lion for Boston, arriving November 2, and in the absence of the pastor, Rev. John Wilson, took charge of the church at Boston. In 1632 he became teacher of the church at Roxbury, where many of his old friends and neighbours had settled. He was wanted in the Boston church as colleague for Mr. Wilson, but he had promised in England that when his friends came he would join them. In 1640 the "Bay Psalm Book," of which he was one of the compilers was printed. He began to preach to the Indians, September 14, 1646, and during the rest of his life continued earnestly his efforts to educate and Christianise them. He published "A briefe topographical description of the Severall Townes in New England with the names of our Magistrates and Ministers."In 1650 he selected Natick, Massachusetts, asa place for an Indian town, and the foundations were made there the following year. In 1653 he had so far progressed in his knowledge of the Indian language that he had translated the Book of Psalms, and in 1654 he published a catechism in the Indian language. In 1655 his translation of Genesis was published and the Book of Matthew begun. "A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England" was published. In 1657 he preached to the Podunk Indians at Hartford in their own tongue. In December, 1658, he had completed the translation of the Bible into the Massachusetts dialect. His "Christian Commonwealth" is said to have been published in 1659. In 1660 he was first called the "Indian Apostle," a title by which he has since been distinguished. The publication of his translation of the Bible was completed in 1663 and he began the translation of Baxter's Call. In 1664 his translation of the Psalter was published and in 1666 the Indian Grammar. In 1686, after much revision and delay, a second edition of the Indian Bible was printed and distributed among the Indians. He continued to preach from time to time to the Indians, even after he was eighty years old. The Indian church at Natick languished after he died, and in 1698 there were but seven men and three women in membership. Biographies of Eliot were written by Cotton Mather, Martin Moore, Rev. John Wilson and Rev. Converse Francis, Memorial windows to Eliot are in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University and in the Church of St. John the Baptist, Hertfordshire, England, and a panel framed in Sienna marble, representing Eliot preaching to the Indians was placed in position in the State House, Boston, in 1903. Various other sermons and pamphlets were published by Eliot, besides those mentioned. Besides the memorials already mentioned there is a monument of freestone at South Natick, the parish monument at Roxbury, a granite watering trough at Canton, an Eliot Memorial Fund and Memorial Terrace at Newton, tablets in the Congregational House, Boston, and a Memorial at Tucson, Arizona.¹

He began to preach in 1658 and was called to the church at Cambridge Village (Newton), where he was ordained July 20, 1664. He was a good classical scholar and under the instruction of his father attained considerable proficiency in the Indian language. Until he was settled at Newton he assisted his father in the Indian missionary work. Afterward he preached once a fortnight at Stoughton and occasionally at Natick. Of him, Morton says in the New England Memorial: "He was a person excellently endowed and accomplished with the gifts of nature, learning and grace; of comely proportions, ruddy complexion, cheerful countenance; of quick apprehension, solid judgment, excellent prudence; learned both in tongues and arts for one of his time, and studiously intense in acquiring more knowledge. His abilities and acceptation in the ministry did excel; his piety, faith, love, humility, self-denial and zeal did eminently shine on all occasions. He had under the conduct of his father by his diligence, industry and zeal for the good of souls attained to such a skill in the indian language that he preached to the Indians sundry years; traveling many miles on a day once a fortnight to dispense the gospel to them. The Indians often said his preaching to them was precious and desirable and consequently their loss and the obstruction in that work much to be lamented. In a word there was so much of God in him that all the wise and godly who knew him loved and honored him in the Lord and bewailed his death. "Cotton Mather and other early writers have left similar eulogies.
That the Eliot family used a coat-of-arms is shown by the fact that his will bears a seal with a heraldic device and silver seals are mentioned in the inventory of his estate.²