Lyman Jewett

Who was Lyman Jewett?

Lyman Jewett DD was an American Baptist missionary and first translator of the Bible into Telugu.

Jewett studied at Worcester Academy and Brown University and took his DD at the Newton Theological Institution. He sailed with his wife for India in October 1848 and reached Nellore in April 1849. The founder of the Telugu Mission in Ongole was Samuel S. Day. After Samuel S. Day, Jewett was the central figure of the Mission along with John E. Clough. The results of the mission were meagre and the home organisation repeatedly pressed for its closure. Jewett and his wife were home, sick, in America in 1862 when one such attempt was made to stop funding for the mission.

He learned Telugu from a Brahmin convert.