Occom—sometimes given as Ockum or Occum—was a Mohican Indian (the tribe immortalized in James Fennimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans). He came to Christ under George Whitefield around 1740, and was educated by Revs. E. Wheelock and Benjamin Pomeroy. In 1748, he moved to Montauk, Long Island, New York, where he worked among a remnant of Indians there. In 1759, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister. In 1766-1767, he traveled to England. As he was the first Indian preacher who had visited there, he drew immense audiences. In a little over a year, he preached four hundred sermons (including once for John Newton at Olney), and collected over $45,000 for his cause of an Indian Charity School (later merged into Dartmouth College).

Occom spent his later life among the Indians on Long Island, and, from 1786 on, in Oneida County, New York. His Choice Col­lection of Hys. and Spir­it­u­al Songs was published in New London, Connecticut, in 1774 (second edition, 1785).