Samson Occom Day 2026

Brothertown Indian Nation’s 7th Annual Samson Occom Day Celebration

Presentation by Mike Kelly, “A Sermon Preached At The Execution of Moses Paul.” Amherst College Library (7:00 P.M.) on Zoom. Moderated by Former Councilwoman Faith Ottery. Dedicated to Will Ottery.

Please join us via Zoom or phone on Monday, July 14th, at 7:00 p.m. CDT
(8:00 p.m. EDT, 6:00 p.m. MDT, and 5:00 p.m. PDT).

Request a link to the event by clicking here…

Everyone is invited: Tribal members, family, and friends of the Brothertown Indian Nation

 This event is expected to last approximately one hour followed by a Q&A session and is open to the public

Featuring distinguished speaker Mike Kelly

Mike Kelly is Head of Archives & Special Collections at Amherst College, where he oversees more than 80,000 rare books and extensive archival collections. With over twenty years in special collections, he served eleven years as Curator of Books at NYU’s Fales Library before joining Amherst in 2009.

He has been deeply involved in professional organizations, including serving as Chair of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the American Library Association and as an active member of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM). He holds an MLS from the University of Texas at Austin (with an internship at the Harry Ransom Center) and an MA in English from the University of Virginia.

Kelly’s scholarship has centered on Samson Occom, the prominent 18th-century Mohegan leader, minister, and author from Connecticut. In 2016, he received the Reese Fellowship from the Bibliographical Society of America for his work on a comprehensive bibliography of Occom’s writings and publications.

Additional highlights include co-curating the 2017 Emily Dickinson exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, co-teaching “A History of Native American Books & Indigenous Sovereignty” for Rare Book School in 2018, and serving since 2021 as co-chair of Amherst College’s Steering Committee on a Racial History. He is a member of the Grolier Club (elected 2005) and the American Antiquarian Society (elected 2016).

2025 Samson Occom Day presentation on the image below.
Brought to you by a partnership of the Brothertown Indian Nation and our Mohegan Cousins, Jason Lavigne and David Freeburg

Memories of Brothertown Indian Nation Trip to Mohegan Nation
From October 2023, the Tricentennial anniversary of Samson Occom’s birth