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THE GRAFTON HISTORICAL SERIES
Edited by HENRY R. STILES, A.M., M.D.
The Grafton Historical Series
Edited by Henry R. Stiles.A. M., M.D.
In Olde Connecticut
By Charles Burr Todd
12mo. Cloth, SI .25 net (postage lOc.)
Historic Hadley
By Alice Morehouse Walker
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King Philip's War
By George W. Ellis and
John E. Morris
12mo. Cloth, illustrated, $2.00 net
(postage 15c.)
r
G PHILIP
BASED ON THE ARCHIVES AND RECORDS
OF MASSACHUSETTS, PLYMOUTH, RHODE
ISLAND AND #)NNECTJCUT, AND CON
TEMPORARY IfTTERS AND ACCOUNTS
|J
WITH BIOGRAPHICAI| |ND TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES
a
5'i BY
GEOR|$; W. ELLIS
S « I .\ND
:. MORRIS
H -c
OF THE i."-tj 5/tf'1"1 HISTORICAL SOOETY
SJ.1
i 1
li
THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
KING PHILIP'S WAR
BASED ON THE ARCHIVES AND RECORDS
OF MASSACHUSETTS, PLYMOUTH, RHODE
ISLAND AND CONNECTICUT, AND CON
TEMPORARY LETTERS AND ACCOUNTS
WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES
BY
GEORGE W. ELLIS
AND
JOHN E. MORRIS
OF THE CONNECTICUT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1906,
BY THE GRAFTON PRESS.
PREFACE
THE period marked by the Indian wars of 1675 and
1676, known as King Philip's War, is one of the
most interesting and epochal in the early history of the
New England colonies.
It was the first great test to which the New England
Commonwealths were subjected, and it enforced upon
them in blood and fire the necessity of a mutual policy
and active co-operation. The lesson that union is strength
was learned at that time and was never forgotten. New
England after the war, free from fear of any Indian
attacks, was able to turn her attention to her own peace
ful industrial and political development undisturbed.
However much we must condemn the arbitrary ag
gressions which drove the Indian tribes into revolt, the
historic fact must be accepted that between peoples the
fittest only survive, and that as between races ethics
rarely exist.
The importance of this conflict in the minds of the
early New England people is attested by the great atten
tion paid to it by contemporary New England historians
like Mather and Hubbard, and by the voluminous cor
respondence of the chief men in the colonies.
The correspondence between the Governors and Coun
cils and the commanders in the field in the records and
archives of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con-
229975
vi Preface
necticut, serve as a vast mine for careful exploration of
the conflict in almost all its details.
We do not claim for this work that it is an absolutely
true history; no absolutely true history is possible on any
subject. All the authors claim is that it is the result
of a wide and discriminative study of the published and
unpublished archives of the New England colonies, and
of the contemporary letters found in the Massachusetts
and Rhode Island Historical Society collections.
Among other works consulted have been the contem
porary accounts of Hubbard, Mather, and the Old In
dian Chronicle, Captain Church's Narrative, the Journals
of Mrs. Rowlandson and John Easton, Major Gookin's
Christian Indians, Wheeler's True Narrative of the
Lord's Providence, etc. Liberty has been taken occa
sionally to abridge involved and verbose quotations.
The authors wish to acknowledge their great indebted
ness to the work of Rev. George Bodge, the late Sam
uel Drake, Sydney S. Rider, and the constant courtesy
and help of Mr. Albert C. Bates, librarian of the Con
necticut Historical Society, and to the authors of many
of the valuable town histories.
The narrative and references are the work of Mr.
George W. Ellis, while the biographical and local notes
have been supplied by Mr. John E. Morris. Acknowl
edgment is herewith made to many local antiquarians
for their co-operation and courtesy.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I 1
Survey of New England in the year 1675. The course of settlement
— social and economic aspects of the English settlements. Topography
of the scene of war. The Indian tribes, their customs and divisions.
CHAPTER II ............. 19
Intercourse and relations between English and Indians. Irrecon
cilable points of view. Unsympathetic attitude of the English. Their
harsh and high-handed interference. The result of Christian proselytiz
ing. The question of lands of minor importance. Growing estrange
ment between the races. The Tripartite Treaty.
_
Miantonoinah and Uncas. The alliance betwegn Connecticut and
UflCaflt Attitude of Massachusetts Toward MiantonomaE MTn^nTv.
man becomes involved in the quarrel between Mas&adauset
Gortonlsts through the sale of the Shawamut lands. Mi;
makes war on Uncas and is captured. The commissioners of New
KnOTanf^hand^ojyjjLf i^l?irl^f>r'nnH3ih Jte VJB!QML.lft JbKmBlt»tff Hpatfi . A
riMinrvjiidipiql tniird«p. Tta far-rwir^fng isganfta. Conficfcrifp in Eng
lish justice shattered among the tribes.
CHAPTER III ............ 36
A1eyandprT _g<">n pf IVTa^saiSoit- His death. Philro
_
of the Wampamngs. Aggressive attitude of Plymouth. Many coin-
plaints. A conference at Taunton. Continued suspicions. The
interference of Massachusetts. The charges against Philip and his de
fense. A dangerous situation. The arbitrary aggressiveness of Plym
outh continues. The sullen distrust of the Wampanoags. Philip no
longer subservient.
CHAPTER IV ............. 47
Jndia.n tmiyftrt and- infnrrnsr. His character. He is
found .dead, Philip's subjects accused of murder. Their declaration
as to the evidence. Their trial and execution. Indignation of the
v
H
viii Contents
Wampanoags. Rhode Island's proposal of arbitration. The Indian
reply. Captain Church visits Awashonks. Alarming news. The
comparative numbers and advantages of the two races. The o»|-
break at Swansea. The call to arms. The concentration of the
outn and Massachusetts forces at Swansea. The first
English march toward Mt. Hope. Philip outmaaeuvers
over to the eastern shore.
CHAPTER V ............. 69
Failure of the campaign. The English become suspicious of the
Narragansetts. Tpva-sipp <tf jflffi ffiflJTagflflflCtt _f*umfa8f- — ^ -**notj fti
horted by force. Ehilip devastates Plymouth colony. The adventures
of Captain Church. Concentration of the English forces against Philip-
He slips away to the north. The fight at Nipsacliick. Energetic
fcken bv
CHAPTER VI ............. 84
The conditions in foe Connecticut valley- The embassy of Ephraim
Curtis. His adventures. Tliellj3iar.ch^. of Hutchinson and Wheeler
against the Quabaugs. The fatal ambuscade of \Yinnimisset. The
sjege^ of Brookfield Brookfield relieved by Major WjllaroT Philip
joins Ihe Quabaugs. Brookfield abandoned. The English concentra
tion at Hadley. Harsh treatment of the Christian Indians by Mosley.
The English at Hadley. Attempt to disarm, the Non&tu_cksL Escape
of the Nonatueks. Pursuit by Lathrop and Beers. The English
ambushed at Wequomps". Revolt of the Pocumtucks at Deerfield.
Panic in the vallev.
CHAPTER VII 103
The alarm at Hadley. Legendary appearance of General Goffe,
the regicide. JSLprthfieJd surprised b^ the. Nashaways. Captain Beers
sets out from Hadley to the rescue. His inexcusable lack of precau
tions. H£L. marches into an ambuscade. The last stand. His force
wiped~<jut Tne survivors reach Hadley. Major Treat with Jthe. Con
necticut forces to the rescue. He reaches Northfield,. His abandon
ment of Northfield and demoralized retreat. Perilous condition of the
English settlements in tHe Connecticut valley. Conflict of opinions.
Captain LaJhrop at Deerfield- He sets out with convoy of corn for
Hadley. His carelessness. The Battle of Bloody Brook. The anni
hilation of Lathrop's force. 'fhTaririvaT of Mosley and Treat too late.
The abandonment of Dpprfipld. Confusion and demoralization of the
EnglisR commanders. Depredations of the Indians. Springfield
threatened. A warning at the last moment. Springfield attacked
Contents ix
and burned. Majojr_Pynchon and Captain Appleton to the rescue.
Discouragement and gloom. Major Eyjichon resigns as commander-
in-chief ja tlje valley. Governor Andros of New York warns Con
necticut that Hartford is to be attacked.
CHAPTER VIII ............ 125
^ppfcfrnn-Jn. fvimmnn^ His unavailing marches. No safety with
out the stockades. The attack on Hatfield. The Indians driven off.
Widespread devastation. The English in the valley face famine. Cap
tain Henchman at Mendon. Disastrous failure of the valley campaign
through lack of co-operation, hampering commands from the commis
sioners and the absence of a definite plan of operation. The distressful
position of the friendly Indians. Their wigwams plundered, their
women and children murdered. Torture of Indian prisoners. Captive
women and children sold into slavery by the English. The demand
of Major Gookin and Rev. John Elliot for humane treatment. Their
lives are threatened. The disbandment of the friendly Indian com
panies. Its evil consequences. The Narragansetts. They wish to
remain neutral. Testimony as to their attitude. The English recog
nize no neutrality. Their demands. Canonchet's refusal.
CHAPTER IX 141
Serious searching of heart and conscience. The general court of
Massachusetts enumerates the offenses that have incurred the Divine
displeasure. Preparations for a campaign against the Narragansetts.
A declaration of war. Invasion of the Narragansett country. Concen
tration of the Massachusetts and Plymouth men at Wickford. They
ravage the Narragansett country. The embassy of Stone-layer John.
The Narragansetts surprise the garrison house of Jirah Bull, and ex
terminate the garrison. Arrival of the Connecticut force. A bivouac
in the snow. The Narragansett fort. The attack. A fierce conflict.
Heavy losses of the English. Their final success. The fort and wig
wams fired. An indiscriminate massacre. Serious situation of the
English forces. The fort on fire. A blizzard without. The fort aban
doned. A night march of eighteen miles in the storm. Terrible suffer
ing. Many of the wounded die. Losses of the Narragansetts heavy,
but greatly overestimated by contemporary writers. The destruction
of their provisions a serious catastrophe.
CHAPTER X 157
Negotiations for peace. Both sides play for time. Arrival of rein
forcements. Capture of Tifft, a renegade Englishman. His testimony.
His execution. 1R concentration of the English forces. The "Hungry
x Contents
March." Retreat of the Narragansetts into the Nipmuck country.
Sufferings of the English. They reach Marlboro. The army is dis
banded. The wanderings of Philip. His movements during the winter
definitely known. Acrimonious correspondence between the Council of
Connecticut and Governor Andros of New York. The interesting rela
tion of Quanapohit, a Natick spy in the service of the Massachusetts
Council. Disease and famine among the Indians. Their condition.
Lack of supplies drives them to activity. Fruitless warnings. The
surprise of Lancaster. The settlement wiped out. The Rowlandson
garrison. A desperate conflict. The captivity of Mrs. Rowlandson.
Her adventures. Attack on Medfield. The expedition of Major Savage
toward Quabaug and the valley. He is outmaneuvered by the Indians.
The abandonment of Groton.
CHAPTER XI 184
Northampton attacked. Major Savage in the valley. The last great
Indian council, all of the tribes represented, takes place at Northfield.
Probable plans. They intend to carry the war to the East and draw
off the English forces to that quarter in order that they may raise their
crops without molestation in the upper valley. It is all but successful.
Savage's march to the valley leaves the eastern frontier of the Bay settle
ments and the country toward Plymouth and Narragansett open to
attack. Canonchet sets out to the Narragansett country for seed corn.
The Clark garrison near Plymouth exterminated. Weymouth, Provi
dence and Warwick given to the flames. Simsbury, near Hartford,
burned. A gloomy day the 26th of March. Marlboro attacked. Cap
tain Peirse of Scituate, with fifty English and a score of friendly Indians,
drawn into ambush and annihilated near Seekonk by Canonchet. Savage
recalled from the valley, as was hoped for by the Indians. Governor An
dros of New York and the Connecticut council. Their correspondence
discreditable to both. Negotiations of the Connecticut Council with the
valley Indians.
CHAPTER XII 198
Major Savage leaves the valley. Captain Turner remains with a
small force. Canonchet returning from the Narragansett country is
surprised by Captain Denison near Lonsdale, R. I. His fight and
capture. He is offered his life if he will persuade his people to make
peace. His refusal and lofty bearing. Hubbard compares him with
Attilius Regulus. His defiance. He is executed and his body bar
barously mutilated. His character. Effect of his death upon the In
dian cause. Philip leaves the Connecticut valley and joins the bands
of the Narragansetts and Nashaways at Wachusett. Operations in
Plymouth colony. Massachusetts makes preparations to guard the
eastern frontier against an attack from Wachusett. The attack on Sud-
bury. A relieving force from Concord is exterminated. Captain Wads-
Contents xi
worth and company, coming from Marlboro, is lured into an ambuscade
and his force decimated. Reinforcements pour in from the bay towns.
The Indians withdraw. The lesson of Indian warfare at last grasped.
Indian scouts added to the Massachusetts forces.
CHAPTER XIII 215
The Council of Massachusetts begins negotiations for peace and the
release of English prisoners. Mrs. Rowlandson again. Unexplainable
obstinacy and distrust of the Indians. No peace, "fhe captives ran
somed against the protest of Philip, who would have held them for
hostages. Their release due to Sagamore Sam. The fate of his family.
Operations in Plymouth colony. Captain Henchman's expedition.
Settlers in the Connecticut valley demand aggressive operations. The
Connecticut Council, still negotiating for peace, objects. Condition of
the Indians. Their encampments at Turners Falls. Raiding the
settlers' cattle. Catching fish and sowing the crops. The escape of
John Gilbert and Thomas Reed. Valuable information.
CHAPTER XIV ............ 229
Gflpfain Turn**1" dpffrminpq tr> attack thp TprHnns pncaTTipPfJ q.fr TuTr. "7~*
nets frails. Concentration of the English at Hatfield. A long night
march. SH but discovered. The ruins of Deerfield. A thunderstorm.
The Indian camp unguarded. The attack. No quarter. The wig
wams fired. Turner's fatal delay. The Indiana rally and are rein
forced. The- English ..become demoraliy^d. Death of Turner. The
ld.
retreat to Hatfield. feuddgll-CQlIgpSfi of Indian rpsiatanng ...... Their lack_
of resources both in men and supplies. Weakened by privations, disease
sweeps them away. Their lack of organization. No individual sacrifices
for the general good. Their crops destroyed. They begin to leave the
valley. Operations of Captain Brattle. Hatfield attacked. T^st rally
nf tho TndlW?a "» *Ni yftfley- Th*\Y nttflpk Northampton. Henchman A/ '
and Talcott reach Hadley and Northampton. They march by both
sides of the river and destroy the Indian crops.
CHAPTER XV 245
Major Talcott returns to Connecticut. Henchman marches toward
Boston. His operations. He hears that Philip has left Wachusett
and has turned again toward the Wampanoag country. Philio's des
perate plight. Informed by a renegade Wampanoag of his position, the
Massachusetts Council sends information to Captain Brattle to hunt him
down. Philip escapes. Major Talcott raids the Narragansett coun
try. He falls in with Saunk Squaw Magnus and her people. No
resistance is offered. An indiscriminate massacre. The death of Saunk
xii Contents
Squaw Magnus and Stone-layer John. Talcott hands over a captive
Indian to his Indian allies. Terrible tortures. Captain Church .cedux.
His quarrels with the Plymouth authorities. He goes on a mission to
Awashonks, squaw sachem of the Saconets. She tenders her submis
sion. The wanderings of Philip. He endeavors to surprise Bridge-
water. The English close in upon him. Despair of the Indians.
Massachusetts and Plymouth offer conditional pardon for submission
within a fortnight. Piteous petition of Sagamore Sam, Muttaump, and
others of the Nipmucks for peace and pardon. It is refused. The
death of Pumham. Matoonas betrayed into the hands of the English
by Sagamore John. His execution. The activities of Captain Church
in hunting down the Wampanoags. Battles in the swamps. Capture
of Philip's wife and child.
CHAPTER XVI 266
The grief and despair of Philip over the loss of his wife and child.
The controversy as to their disposal. Scriptural precedent sought.
The plea of Rev. John Elliot and Reverend Mr. Keith of Bridgewater for
mercy and humane treatment. They are finally sold into slavery. The
death of the Squaw Sachem Weetamoo. The fate of Totoson. Cap
tain Church renews the pursuit of Philip. An Indian traitor. The
death of Philip. His character. The capture of Annawon and the
surrender of Tuspaquin. Church promises them their lives. Their
execution.
CHAPTER XVII 281
Major Talcott's expedition. The refusal of Governor Andros of
New York to surrender the fugitives seeking refuge in New York. The
fate of Monoco and old Jethro, Sagamore Sam, and Muttaump. The
practical extermination of the Indian tribes. The cost of the war.
APPENDIX 293
The war in Maine. News of the uprising. Settlements along the
coast. Tribes inhabiting the district. The first depredations. Attack
on the house of Major Philips. Captain Wincoll's victory. Squando.
Attack on Salmon Falls. Destruction of Plaisted's force. Indians
withdraw to winter quarters. Estimate of losses. Sufferings of Indians.
Armistice. Treaty of peace signed. Broken by Squando. The rea
son. Attack upon Falmouth. Flight of the inhabitants. Madocka-
wando offended. John Earthy. Temporary peace through his means.
Peace terminated through an act of treachery. William Hammond
killed. Francis Card captured. Attack and capture of Fort at Arrowsick.
Captain Lake killed. Number of casualties. Indians discomfited at
Contents xiii
Jewell's Island. Foraging on Munjoy's Island. The old stone house.
George Felt killed. Gathering at Major Walderne's. Expedition to
the East. It proves futile. Attack on Black Point. Desertion of the
garrison. Capture of Captain Jocelyn. Futile expedition to Ossipee.
Treaty of peace signed at Boston. Outwitted by Mogg. Recovery of
Thomas Cobbett from captivity. Another expedition to the eastward.
Return of the expedition. Mischief at Wells and York. Expedition
under Captain Swett. Battle at Black Point. Failure to enlist the
Mohawks. Termination of hostilities. Commission of peace ap
pointed. Articles of agreement. Losses estimated. Cost to the
colony.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Narragansett Swamp Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Miles Garrison House 64
Site of Philip's Village 66
Smith's Landing 70
The Pocasset Country 74
Menameset Lower Village 86
Old Hadley Street 96
Hopewell Swamp 100
Place of Beer's Defeat 108
Deerfield North Meadows 112
Bloody Brook 114
Site of Pynchon's Mill and House 116
Old Queen's Fort 146
Site of Rowlandson Garrison 170
Mount Wachusett 198
Scene of the Sudbury Fight 210
Site of the Block House, Scituate 222
River Bank at Turner's Falls 232
House of Reverend James Keith, Bridgewater 256
Place of Philip's Death 274
Plaisted's Battlefield 298
Site of Clark and Lake's Garrison House 304
The Old Jail at York 308
Black Point Battlefield . 312
KING PHILIP'S WAR
KING PHILIP'S WAR
CHAPTER I
IN the opening years of the seventeenth century, Ver-
razzano and Champlain in their explorations along the
New England coast, found the land inhabited by a nu
merous and warlike population. Many a wigwam village
with its waving fields of ripening maize and garden patches
of beans and squash, lay stretched along the sheltered
coves, and the frail barks of the Indian fishermen thronged
the inlets of the shore.
Scarcely a generation later Pilgrim and Puritan search
ing for a habitable site found the coast almost a solitude.
A pestilence more fatal to the Indian tribes than their
internecine wars had swept over the land. Wigwams had
disappeared. Brush and the encroaching forest were fast
blotting out the once cultivated fields and the remnants
of the tribes had either retired into the forests or remained
too broken in power to offer resistance.1
In 1675 a traveler following the course of English set
tlements found no English habitations upon the coast of
Maine east of the Penobscot and the gloom of mighty for
ests reigned undisturbed. The straggling cabins of Pema-
i The Bradford History, page 123, Planters Plea; Forces Hist. Tracts,
Vol. H.
2 King Philip's War
quid amidst the stumps of half-cleared pastures along
the shore marked the northern limit of English civiliza
tion in the New World.
No road as yet traversed the wild hills and forests that
intervened between the Connecticut and the Hudson.
South and east, save where Long Island gave to the
Connecticut shore a narrow strait of quiet water, spread
the Atlantic, while north of the Merrimac lay a vast
solitude of rugged mountains and slumbering forest
reaching to the St. Lawrence. New England was iso
lated; and was to remain isolated for many a year to
come, a fact of tremendous importance in the molding of
New England character.
The political and social center of New England life
was Boston, where, beyond the shore edged with docks
and wharfs, winding streets and crooked alleys, followed
the base of the hills with many a turn, or climbed the
slope at the easiest angle. The narrow streets near the
wharves were paved with cobblestones, and the shops of
one or two stories, and dwellings, mostly of wood, with
peaked or gambrelled roofs, presented a medley of shapes
and colors.1
Homespun garments and cloaks of sober hue, set off
with white collars, steeple-shaped hats, loose breeches
tied at the knee, everywhere met the eye, the gold laced
coats of the brighter colors worn by certain individuals,
bespeaking a higher station or a taste for finery that the
spirit of Puritanism and the statutes had not entirely
eliminated.2
1 Memorial History of Boston, Vol. I, pages 535-539.
2 Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. V, page 59; Connecticut Colony
Records, Vol. II, page 283.
King Philip's War 3
Sailors with skirts hanging to the knees, farm laborers
in leather or deerskins, Indian converts in English dress
from the nearby Christian villages, merchants and mag
istrates, crowded the narrow streets, and if it was train
ing day the cobblestones awoke to the tread of marching
companies of foot equipped with muskets and bandoliers,
or rang under the hoofs of troops of horse armed with car
bines, pistols, swords, helmets and cuirasses over buff coats.1
No card playing or drinking of healths disturbed the
decorum of the taverns, arbitrary regulations which made
no distinctions between self-regarded sins and crimes
against society, were enforced, and liar and idler2 were
terms sufficiently defined for legal regulation.
A democratic theocracy was here building up on its
own interpretations of scriptural precedents, a Biblical
commonwealth, "a moral oasis in the midst of a world
abandoned to sin, " the Canaan of a new Israel, where
personal calamities were interpreted as the direct judg
ment of God.
With the theocracy there was no question of non-con
formity. It was their purpose, thoroughly carried out,
that New England should be made altogether impossible
for those who wished the privilege of thinking or acting
contraiy to the principles and regulations they themselves
laid down as necessary for righteousness and social order.
"Better tolerate hypocrites and tares than thorns and
briars," affirmed Cotton.
It was not religious considerations alone, however, that
1 There were four companies of foot and one of horse. Ed. Randolph
to Privy Council for the Colony, Prince Soc., Hutchinson Papers, Vol. II,
page 220.
2 Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. I, page 538.
4 King Philip's War
had caused the people of the old land to seek homes in
New England. The profits of the seacoast fisheries and
the lumber trade, the opportunity for securing large tracts
of fertile land, and the inducement of copartnership in
the great joint-stock trading corporations, seemingly en
riched by royal charters and monopolies, encouraged
many to venture their fortunes in the colonies of New
England, while the ambitious saw in the new and unde
veloped land that opportunity of bettering their condition
denied them by the civil and ecclesiastical aristocracy
of England.
From Boston as a radius, like the spokes of a wheel,
bringing the outlying settlements in touch with the center,
ran out those rough roads, widened Indian trails cut
through the forests and made passable along the swamps
by foundations of logs and earth. Many led through
forests and meadows only a few miles, but several pushed
their way to the farther settlements and the Connecticut
Path (Bay Trail) wended westward to the towns on the
Connecticut.
Within a radius of twenty miles of Boston were a score
of small settlements 1 scattered along the coast or in the
bottom lands of the Charles, the Concord and the Ne-
ponsit, where the soil yielded an abundance of maize,
1 The settlements in all cases did not occupy the site of the present
town of the same name. The more recent and larger towns have often
usurped the original title, prefixing to the old settlement the designation
north, south, or west. A very considerable number of these settlements
were townships covering a large tract of country within whose ancient
boundaries are to be found many thriving towns and villages. This is
particularly the case in the country around Narragansett Bay, and a
proper understanding of these changes is of importance in following the
operations of the war.
King Philip's War 5
vegetables and hemp, and the meadows once given over
to the coarse native grass, grew thick with English hay.
All these settlements were constantly casting off new
shoots and reproducing themselves in the still unsettled
lands to the north and west. The wide shaded common
running the length of the village, the meeting-house and
school at one side facing the center; the dingy but often
commodious homesteads that look out from the retire
ment of orchard or garden where tall well-sweeps show
among the trees, are familiar to every traveler in New
England. Clapboarded houses of two stories, with gam-
brelled roofs, looked down in 1675 upon rough cabins,
surviving relics of earlier days, or vied in picturesque ri
valry with the long, quick-falling roofs that cut their
neighbor's rear to a single story.1 Comfort within kept
company with appearance without. The windows were
paned with glass, the double or single room of the ground
floor had developed into a large living room, bedroom,
kitchen and pantries. Great chimney-places, with the
crane and swinging kettle, swallowed six-foot logs, and
high-backed settles protected the back from draughts.
The twinkling bayberry dips or candlewood aided the
light of blazing logs, while in the chimney corners were
the seats for the children, and in the bedrooms feather
beds tempered the cold of the long winter nights.
Industries were springing up on every hand and the
foundation of New England as a manufacturing commu
nity had already been laid. Iron, linen, leather, and
1 Description of the houses of this period will be found in Weeden's
Economic and Social History of New England, Vol. I, pages 213-216;
Sheldon's Deerfield, etc.
6 King Philip's War
household utensils were being manufactured.1 Each town
had its saw and grist mill. Ropewalks, breweries, and,
upon the coast, salt works, were springing into being, and
every community, besides its common herdsmen had its
artisans and carpenters, and a considerable commerce was
rapidly developing with England, the West Indies, and
Portugal.
West and north, beyond the bay towns, lay the frontier
settlements, Lancaster, Marlboro, Groton and Billerica,
beyond whose scattered farms a wilderness of mountain
and forest, tenantless save for wandering bands of Indians,
or some adventurous trader, extended for three hundred
miles to the French settlements on the Chaudiere.
Along the roads near the settlements every stage in
the process of reclaiming the wilderness met the eye. By
some running stream, in a gash cut in the upland wood,
a cabin reared its rough features amid freshly hewed
stumps; further along fire had completed the work of
the axe, and in the fields crops were ripening for harvest.
The settler's habitation in these clearings, and surviving
to some extent even in the older communities, were cabins
of square-hewn logs,2 made tight with clay and mortised
at the joints, with irregular exterior chimneys of clay and
rock rising above a roof thatched with coarse grass.3
WTithin, generally two, but sometimes a single room
about eighteen feet square, occupied the first story, whose
floor of beaten earth or split logs merged into the stones
iWeeden's Economic and Social History of New England, Vol. I,
pages 306-308.
2 In Dedham, ninety-five of the original log houses were standing in
1664. Worthington, page 11.
s Weeden's Economic and Social History, Vol. I, page 283.
King Philip's War 7
of the great hearth, above whose ample breast hung the
long musket, flitches of bacon, and sheaves of corn.
Small windows filled with oiled paper and protected with
heavy shutters, broke the expanse of wall, while at the
end of the room a rough ladder led upward to the loft
under the roof.
Plymouth, encompassed by sand, "the ancient mother
grown old and deserted by her children," had not been
favored with prosperity, and, though the oldest of New
England towns, presented an aspect more rough and
homely than many of the younger settlements in the
neighboring colonies.
Westward, toward Narragansett Bay, lay a country of
upland and shallow valleys interspersed with wastes of
sandy plain, of pine barrens, wooded swamps, a sad and
monotonous landscape, the far flung and scarcely popu
lated frontier of Plymouth colony, where the traveler's
horse would probably more than once come to a sudden
halt, as the half-naked forms of a hunting band of In
dians stole stealthily in single file across the road, leaving
a vision of deerskins, of coarse black hair, and eyes full of
somber fire that belied the habitual stoicism of their faces.
Along the eastern coast of Narragansett Bay lay the
territory of the Pocasset and Sagkonate Indians, l while to
the west, where a broad point of land extending from the
north lifts itself in wooded slopes across the water, stood
Mt. Hope, at the north end of which lay the chief village
of the Wampanoags.
Across the narrow strait to the south was the island of
Rhode Island, with its thriving seaport town of Newport,
at that time under the political control of the Quakers,
1 Sub-tribes of the Wampanoags.
8 King Philip's War
and the Antinomian settlement of Portsmouth, where the
followers of Mrs. Hutchinson had found the opportunity
for biblical interpretation and political dissent denied them
in Massachusetts.
At the base of the peninsula, in the meadows along the
Warren River was Swansea, a widely scattered settlement
of about forty houses on the frontier of Plymouth toward
the Wampanoag country to which a bridge thrown across
the river afforded access.
At the head of Narragansett Bay, on "Salt River,"
was Roger Williams's town of Providence, containing some
six hundred inhabitants, which with the nearby settle
ment of old Rehoboth, Warwick, and a few scattered
hamlets along the west shore of Narragansett Bay, con
stituted the colony of Providence Plantations, forming,
with Rhode Island, that "nest of pestilential heretics"
most abominable in the eyes of the Massachusetts and
Plymouth theocracies, Providence supremely so, because
its position at the back door of Massachusetts made it at
once a sanctuary and a sally port for "every false doc
trine that stingeth like a viper. "
Never were such a variety of theological cultures col
lected in so small an area as were found to be in these
settlements; * the Mecca of every inspired tanner, tailor
and woman expounder of Holy Writ, where it was only
necessary to announce that a new religion "had come to
town" to make it as welcome "as in ancient days was a
new philosophy in Athens. "
Of all the New England colonies those of Providence
1 Roger Williams himself had by this time embraced the broad liber
alism of the Seekers; one who seeks but has not found any true church,
ministry and sacrament.
King Philip's War 9
Plantations and Rhode Island were the weakest in pop
ulation, the most divided in sentiment, and the least
effectively organized for the carrying out of any public
policy, yet it was at this point that New England came
in touch with the most powerful and independent of the
Indian tribes. Massachusetts and Plymouth faced the
remnants of broken tribes decimated by pestilence and
awed by fear of the dreaded Mohawks, while Connecticut,
marching hand in hand with the Mohegans, was served
by and unconsciously served the designs of Uncas. But
Providence Plantations and Rhode Island, excluded from
the New England confederation, faced in their political
isolation the powerful Narragansetts and the allied tribes
of the Wampanoags. Hostilities, occasioned more by the
faults of their neighbors than themselves, had more than
once threatened, but had been dispelled by the just and
conciliatory policy of Roger Williams and his friendship
with the sachems of the Narragansetts.
Along the western coast, where stretches of salt marsh
ran into meadows, and numerous inlets driving into the
shore provided a lair for many a smuggler and pirate,1
lay the country of the Narragansetts.
Above the navigable waters of the Connecticut River, a
score of miles beyond the nearest of the three towns that
constituted the heart of the colony of Connecticut, lay
Springfield, with over five hundred inhabitants, its situa
tion at the junction of the Valley Trail and the Bay Path
giving it an importance in the valley second only to
Hartford.
Seventeen miles to the north was the settlement of
1 Weeden's Economic and Social History of New England, Vol. I,
pages 340-845.
10 King Philip's War
Northampton, while across the river in the wide expanse
of meadow lay Hadley, looking out across the stream on
the north at the hamlet of Hatfield.
The meadows, the sloping uplands, and the glades of
the wood where the fires of many years had cleared away
the undergrowth, offered good pasturage, and a rich soil
for cultivation, while the broken trail fit only for riders
or ox teams, the log cabins clinging closely together for
protection, and the frequent Indian wigwams were un
mistakable tokens of frontier life. Throughout these val
ley settlements the traveler met frequently with Indians;
now the slovenly squaw selling her corn baskets in the
villages, or harvesting the crops in the Indian fields; or
the warriors themselves, relieving the long periods of in
dolent loafing with hunting and fishing, or a spasmodic
tilling of the white man's field with an eye to the enjoy
ment of that firewater, which, despite the stringent regula
tions as to its sale, was already working the ruin of the race.
Northwest of Hadley, near the junction of the Green
and Deerfield Rivers, was Deerfield, a rude community
of some thirty houses, while a few miles farther up the
valley, on the uplands, stood the frontier hamlet of North-
field, amid meadows and fields cleared by former genera
tions of the Squakheags.
Here ended the Valley Trail, and the little hamlet, like
a lonely sentinel, faced the encompassing wilderness —
three hundred miles of tangled forest and rugged moun
tains, traversed only by adventurous traders or wandering
bands of Indian hunters, until the French settlements, on
the St. Francis, were reached.
Fifty thousand settlers,1 almost exclusively English, of
1 Poole, in his preface to the life of Johnson, quotes an address drawn
King Philip's War 11
the yeomanry and middle classes, and, with the exception
of a few merchants and traders from Devon and Dorset,
representative of the Teutonic stock which predominates
in the eastern shires of that country, were distributed
among these towns and hamlets, their leaders were almost
all men of education, many of them graduates of the
English universities, particularly of Cambridge.
The suppression of luxury and the penalty against idle
ness, the supervision of social and business life, and the
geographical isolation which virtually compelled New
England to a life of its own, had already intensified in
dividuality and concentrated the energies of its people upon
the cultivation of the land and the development of trade.
In his journey through New England the traveler would
have noticed, scattered along the inlets of the coast and
on the banks of the ponds and rivers, many an Indian
village surrounded by clearings and cultivated fields.
Arranged around a center left open for the performance
of the village games and ceremonies, were the wigwams,
constructed of saplings, which, set firmly in the ground
and bent together, were fastened at the top and covered
with bark or mats. Some were cone-shaped, holding only
a single family, while others, resembling a covered arbor,
varied in length from twenty to one hundred feet. 1
The wigwams were pitched closely together, and the
village seldom occupied more than from three to four
acres. Within the wigwams, and arranged around the
1660 but not sent, congratulating Charles II on his accession, in the
name of 80,000 of his New England subjects; an exaggeration undoubt
edly to swell its importance. Ed. Randolph gives 150,000, an enormous
exaggeration. See Hutchinson Papers, Vol. II, Prince Society.
1 Gookin, I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 150.
12 King Philip's War
walls, were the woven baskets that held the corn, stone or
earthern household utensils, the bark pails and the low
raised bunks covered with boughs and skins.1 In the
center blazed the fires, which, either for the purpose of
cooking or for warmth, were kept constantly alight, and
the smoke from which found its way skyward through a
hole in the roof. The life of the inmates, what with the
dirt, the fleas, unruly children, yelping dogs and the blind
ing smoke, which with every gust of wind filled the in
terior, was one of extreme discomfort.
These villages were seldom permanently located in one
place, the scarcity of fish or game in the vicinity, or
lack of shelter, of firewood against the winter, leading to
a prompt removal of the population to a more favored
locality.
On the top of some prominent hill commanding an ex
tensive prospect of the surrounding country, or some
swamp-surrounded hillock in the midst of the woods, of
fering shelter in the severe winter and a refuge in time of
war, were the stockaded villages, the headquarters of the
sachems.
The men were tall, straight, and admirably propor
tioned, but the women, short, clumsy, and seldom hand
some even in youth, were quickly deprived of every trace
of feminine grace by a life of hard labor and mental and
moral degradation. The force of natural selection left few
weaklings, but the strength of the Indian was that of the
hunter rather than the sinewy power of the husbandman.
Smallpox swept their crowded and dirty villages at in
tervals, with fearful result, the smoke caused blindness to
many, and rheumatism and diseases of the lungs were
i Gookin, I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 150.
King Philip's War 13
common. Their medicines were concoctions made from
roots and herbs, and vapor baths. But even more effect
ive in their eyes were the gorging feasts and the incanta
tions of the medicine men. All manual drudgery, ex
cept the cultivation of tobacco, was left to the women,
who tilled the fields, cooked the food, cured and fashioned
the deerskins and wove the mats, while the warriors, save
when engaged in hunting, fishing, or warfare, passed their
time at indolent ease,1 gorging themselves with food, if
foov was plenty, or gambling with rushes, rude painted
pebbles, or in field sports.
Intellectually they were well developed, but being gov
erned by their emotions were as changeful in purpose as
children. Poets and artists by nature, their artistic side
was well worthy of development. Their sense of humor, it
may be safely said, was more developed than their white
neighbor's.
In warfare they bore themselves as did the Greek heroes
of the Homeric Age, boasted of their own exploits and
taunted the foe with sarcastic reflections on his skill and
courage. Generosity or chivalrousness toward a discom
fited enemy were qualities unknown, and, like Achilles,
their triumph was never complete unless they dragged
their fallen enemies in the dust, or forced upon them the
bitterest dregs of humiliation.
"Their virtues, like their vices, were the product of
the state of society in which they lived." Proud, dig
nified and courteous, they were grateful for favors, nor
was kindness ever forgotten. Hospitable to friends and
strangers, they were generous to improvidence, and if,
despite coolness of temperament, their morals were free
* Gookin, I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 149.
14 King Philip's War
and easy and their treatment of their women unchiv-
alrous, they were devoted fathers. Parental authority,
however, was little more than a name, and the boys particu
larly, were trained to independence rather than restraint.1
Dressed in moccasins and small breeches of tanned
deerskin, fringed and embroidered with wampum, the
body left bare above the waist was greased, and, on the
warpath, adorned with grotesque and startling designs in
black, yellow and vermilion, the totemic emblem of their
clan, the bear, wolf, or tortoise being featured o, ie
breast. The sachems were distinguished by heavy belts
and caps of wampum, and the Indian dandies adorned
themselves with long mantles of multi-colored feathers.
In fall and winter, mantles of fox and beaver, deer and.
bearskin, with the hair turned in, were worn.
The hair was arranged in a variety of fashions accord
ing to the taste of the individual. Some shaved one side of
the head and let the hair grow long on the other. Some
left only a ridge in the middle extending from the fore
head to the neck, which, kept short and stiffened with
paint and grease, resembled the crest of a Roman helmet,
while still others shaved all but a small tuft, the scalp-
lock, on the back of the skull.
Their diet consisted chiefly of fish, wild fowl and game,
corn, beans and squash, ground nuts and berries, pre
pared in a variety of ways without regard to the niceties
of life, the bones and entrails of fish and the smaller ani
mals being seldom removed before cooking.2
i Gookin, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 149; Roger Williams'
Key, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. Ill, page 211.
2De Forest Hist, of the Indians of Conn, page 11. The Narra-
gansetts were an exception in this respect. A party invited by the
King Philip's War 15
Two of their dishes were early adopted by the whites.
Corn mush or samp, consisting of corn meal and currants
boiled with water to a paste and served plain or fried in
fat. The other was succotash, made of boiled corn, beans
and fat, to which fish was sometimes added. The great
dish, however, in times of abundance, was a stew of all
manner of flesh, fish and vegetables boiled in a common
pot and thickened with powdered nuts. The clambake
was a favorite way of cooking shell fish, and was early
?0v ^ted by the whites.
While on the warpath or engaged in hunting, parched
corn and maple sugar were carried, and on this coarse
food, moistened by water from a spring, they covered
long distances. Against the winter they provided stores
of parched corn, maize and dried fish, stored in pits (the
so-called Indian barns) dug in the slope of a hill and
covered with mats and earth.
The Indian mind rarely grasped the essential elements
of the Christian faith. Their own gods were not moral
preceptors but mere dispensers of good or evil fortune,
the last much more to be appeased and regarded than
the spirit naturally benign.1
Every inanimate as well as animate thing had its spirit.
There was the spirit of the deep woods and the flowing
river; the spirit of the waterfall, of fire, of cold, of the
sea and the tempest.
Said an Indian to Roger Williams, "Fire comes out of
the cold stone, it saves us from dying of hunger; if a
Nipmucks to attend a feast of lampreys were murdered by their hosts
for expressing disgust at the manner of cooking. De Forest's Indians
of Conn., page 267.
1 Gookin, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 154.
16 King Philip's War
single spark falls in the dry wood it consumes the whole
country. Can anything which is so powerful be any
thing but a deity ? " l
They believed in the immortality of the soul which
found beyond the grave a land lying in the southwest 2
flowing with milk and honey, bright with sunshine, and
where neither disease, old age, nor want were known.
Their Government was monarchial from father to son;
but the mother must be noble, for if the mother is noble
the son is at least half noble. If the mother is ignoble,
the son may not have a drop of noble blood in him.
At the head was the sachem. Attending him, a coun
cil of sagamores, distinguished for warlike deeds or wis
dom. The authority of the sachems was both loose and
strong, as was natural in a state of society where custom
and tradition take the place of law.
The Indian tribes were divided into a number of great
clans or families, each distinguished by a symbolic totem,
like the bear, the wolf, the tortoise. Each clan had its
separate ward in the village, and its warriors marched
together on the warpath. All members of the totemic
clan were as brothers and sisters, — to injure one was to
injure all, but intermarriage was forbidden.
White law demands that brother shall give evidence
against brother in behalf of the State, but the totemic
law exalted the individual. Understanding this we shall
immediately recognize the fundamental divergence of the
1 Roger Williams' Key, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pages 226-229.
2 Roger Williams' Key, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. HI, page 218.
Heaven was in the southwest because the wind from that quarter was
the warmest and pleasantest that blows, and brings fair weather.
King Philip's War 17
savage and civilized points of view. The importance,
therefore, of the individual under the totemic system,
created among the Indians a closely knit democracy in
which all were essentially equal. Insults were never
borne except by those too physically weak to revenge
them, and the offensive air of superiority assumed by
the English settlers stung the Indians to the quick.
Southern New England in the seventeenth century was
occupied by five great agricultural tribes of the generic
race of the Algonquins, in numbers and lands the greatest
of the Indian races of North America, but far inferior in
political and military organization to the Five Nations,
or Iroquois confederacy, whose hand lay heavy on all the
tribes from Hudson Bay to Tennessee.
Of the New England Indians the Massachusetts were
broken, enfeebled and largely converted to Christianity,
and occupied the country around the Bay towns, many
of them living in the stockaded villages 1 established by
the Rev. John Eliot.
Along the east coast of Narragansett Bay were the
Wampanoags, considerably reduced by pestilence from
their former strength when their confederacy comprised
the whole Plymouth peninsula, but still numbering about
five hundred warriors, while along the west shore of the
Bay, and extending to the Pawcatuck River, lay the ter
ritory of the formidable Narragansetts who wrere able to
bring about a thousand warriors into the field.2
Between the Connecticut River and the Thames were
the scattered tribes of the old Pequot confederacy, on
whose ruins, Uncas, the son-in-law of the Pequot
1 Gookin, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 180.
2 Gookin, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coli., Vol. I, pages 147-148.
B
18 King Philip's War
sachem, Sassacus, had built up the supremacy of the
Mohegans.1
From Northfield, and extending south and east into
Connecticut and Providence Plantations (Rhode Island),
were the Nipmucks, or Nipnets (fresh water Indians),
whose numerous villages supplied about a thousand war
riors, Nashaways, Squakheags, Pocumtucks, Nonotucks,
Agawams and Quabaugs.
Each village was politically independent, and the bonds
of the old confederacy which had once loosely united them,
had completely broken; indeed, even among the Narra-
gansetts, the political adhesion of the different tribal units
were falling apart and each local Sagamore had begun
to act his own pleasure without reference to his sachem.
Along Cape Cod were the Nausets who formerly owed
fealty to the Wampanoags, but whose conversion to Chris
tianity had made them dependent upon the English.
I They probably numbered less than four hundred men,
women, .and children. The Pennacooks, tributary to the
Nipmucks, held the country along the banks of the Mer-
rimac in northeastern Massachusetts arid New Hampshire,
while to the east, between the Piscataqua and the Ken-
nebec and stretching northward into Canada were the
wandering hunting tribes of the Abenakis or Tarratines.
The boundaries of the lands of all these tribes were not
set, but overlapped, and the semi if not complete inde
pendence of the petty sachem of each village and the
lack of political cohesion into which the tribes had
fallen, present a confusion of village communities and
tribes which it is impossible to disentangle and reduce
to accuracy.
1 De Forest's Indians of Connecticut, page 62.
CHAPTER II
THE intercourse between the Indians and the English
had been advantageous to both. The Indians had
taught the early settlers to enrich their fields with fish and
to raise corn, and had during almost the whole of the first
generation been the actual producers of food-stuffs. By
the time the industry and improved agricultural methods
of the settlers had freed them from this form of depend
ence, the increased demand for furs still held the Indian
temporarily on an economic level with his white neighbor,
for furs, fish and lumber were the means by which the
colonists made return to the joint-stock corporations and
paid for their imports.
The economic relation between the races can be clearly
traced by the rise and fall of the value of wampum.
Thirty years after the landing of the Pilgrims it had be
come the accepted currency of New England.1 It figures
in old wills in place of coin. It was made by law legal
currency 2 and colonial records are full of acts regulating
its value.
About 16C2 the fur trade had largely declined and fish
had become the great article of export. Silver received
from the Indies and Europe in exchange for fish and
1 Weeden, Vol. I, pages 39-44. Wampum made from the whelk shell
pierced and polished (black double the value of white), was not only a
medium of exchange, but served as a recalling to memory of events,
and as an ornament.
2 Connecticut Colony Records (1649), Vol. I, pages 179, 546.
20 King Philip's War
lumber had come into the colonies, and between 1662 and
1670 wampum gradually ceased to be the medium of ex
change. When the Indian had ceased to be either a pro
ducer of food or a supplier of furs, the old economic rela
tions perished. No longer necessary to the English he
was soon regarded by them as an encumbrance.
The Indian had both profited and been injured by his
contact with the English. Civilization increased his com
forts but degraded him. The white man's blanket or the
gun which made hunting easy, and in the handling of
which he early became an expert, had become necessi
ties. He had learned better methods of agriculture
and the use of the domestic cattle, while the vicinity of
the settlements to the Indian villages mitigated the peri
odical famines which had fallen so often upon the tribes
during the hard New England winters.
The Indian, always an opportunist, was quick to absorb
and exaggerate in himself all the vices of the white man,
unchecked by religious scruples or civil authority. Gookin
draws the sad picture of the general effect of their contact
with civilization: "And though all strong drink is pro
hibited to be sold . . . yet some ill-disposed people,
for filthy lucre's sake, do sell unto the Indians secretly,
whereby they are made drunk very often, and being
drunk they are many times outrageous and mad. This
beastly sin of drunkenness could not be charged upon the
Indians before . . . the Christian nations came to
dwell in America, which nations, especially the English
in New England, have cause to be greatly humbled before
God. " 1
i Gookin, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 151.
King Philip's War 21
The conduct of the New England settlers and the au
thorities was marked by an evident intention of just deal
ing. The sale of lands was regulated by law, but unfor
tunately the Indian's idea of what he sold and the white
man's idea of what was bought were entirely at variance.
The result was the usual one, the stronger interpreted
from its own point of view, and, in the main, to its own
satisfaction. The Indian believed that the white man
would make such use of the land as he himself made of
it; he made free and lavish gifts of it on this account,
and the English authorities in many respects were more
careful of Indian rights of possession than the Indian
himself. Sometimes its transfer was under terms that
"whenever the Indian shall remove from a certain place,
then and thenceforth the aforesaid settlers shall enter upon
the same as their proper right and interest, to them, their
heirs and assigns. " 1 An elastic deed. Some deeds gave
the right to cut grass and graze stock on land not planted
by the Indians, while in other cases the Indians retained
for themselves the privilege of hunting, fishing, and gather
ing nuts. While "the Indian little appreciated the value
of land until he felt the pressing want of it, " there is no
doubt but that the English settler was greedy, for "land
is one of the Gods of New England, of which the living
and most high Eternal " will punish the transgressor,
wrote Roger Williams.2
It is not always the thing itself as the way a thing is
done that leaves the most abiding sense of injustice and
resentment behind it, and the provocative attitude, the
1 Baylie's Mem. of Plymouth Col, Vol. II, page 234.
2 Letter of Roger Williams to Major Mason. Rhode Island Hist. Soc.
Coll., Vol. Ill, page 162.
22 King Philip's War
rough hand and the constant petty interferences in their
most trivial affairs, did more to ultimately drive the In
dians into hostility than the loss of landed possessions;
yet the relations as a whole for many years after the de
struction of the Pequots, were friendly. The Indian
greeting, "What cheer, friend?" was familiar in every
village. The Indian boys and the settler's children played
in the village streets, and the squaws, during certain sea
sons, stored their valuables in the settler's house. "We
have found the Indians very faithful to their covenants
of peace," wrote Edward Winslow.
Little by little, however, the two races were beginning
to approach the narrow causeway where one would have
to give way before the other. The point of view of the
two races was too far apart for them ever to agree, and,
grounded in suspicion, irreconcilable causes, both social
and economic, were hurling them into collision. The
differences over land have, as a rule, been given too much
importance, though the land question was a contributory
cause to a growing estrangement, for when the Indian
saw that things which, in his own possession, were of little
value, as soon as they were transferred to the Englishmen
became valuable, it led him naturally to the embittered
conclusion, " It is the Indian's property in the white man's
hands that gives the white man importance, makes him
arrogant and covetous, and he despises the Indian as soon
as his ends are met and the Indian has no more to part
with. "
The Puritan was not of a character, either individually
or collectively, with whom men of any other race could
be expected to maintain harmonious relations. Amiabil
ity was not one of his characteristics, and he was totally
King Philip's War 23
lacking in that great gift of humor so essential to friendly
association and broad understanding, and, lacking it, he
remained devoid of that sympathetic temper necessary to
live at peace with and to understand the nature of the
savage, so closely akin to that of a child.
The French cherished the Indian and made the fierce
hunting tribes of New France an instrument in the build
ing up of French power; the English, failing to make an
agricultural laborer out of the more pliable New England
Indian, treated him with indifference or contempt and
turned him into a sullen enemy.
The narrow determination to regulate the actions of
others by their own ideas of what was well ordered led
the authorities to interfere even in the most trivial affairs
of the tribes and individuals, regardless of Indian tradi
tions and customs, held him to a strict observance of
their laws, and constantly punished him for offenses he
did not understand.1 Cotton Mather admirably sums up
the general attitude of the English towards the Indians
by the unconscious confession, "The heathen people,
whose land the Lord God has given to us for a rightful
possession, have at sundry times been plotting mischiev
ous devises against that part of the English Israel. "
Among the causes which inflamed the Indian mind one
of the most potent was the well-meant attempt of the
just-minded Eliot, and others,2 to convert them to Chris-
1 We read in the Connecticut Records of one fined forty shillings for
breach of the peace in traveling from Springfield to Hartford on Sunday;
another for stealing apples and firing a gun on Sunday.
2 Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury in 1604, was born at Nazing, England.
He matriculated as a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he
took his degree of A. B. He came in the Lion to Boston, 1631, and
24 King Philip's War
tianity. It was customary among the Indians to aug
ment their numbers by the adoption of individuals and
even of smaller tribes. Whoever had lost a brother, son
or husband, possessed the right, sanctioned by immemo
rial usage, of extending mercy to a prisoner of war by
adopting him. The Christianizing of these Indians there
fore, when associated with their separate settlements, as
sumed a sinister significance, and appeared to the Indian
as a form of adoption devised to weaken and break up
their tribal relations, while it strengthened the whites.
Nor did the English, actuated by a sincere desire to bene
fit and uplift their neighbors, fail to see a material ad
vantage in that very possibility which so excited the
apprehension of the Indians.
The broken tribes around the Bay and on the Cape
received Christianity as a passport to the white man's
favor, but the others would have none of it. Philip told
^KfjgeT~Williainj3 he cared no more for Christianity than
the button on his coat, while Ninigret told those who
came to him that " as long as the English could not agree
as to what was religion, among themselves, it ill became
them to teach others. " Even Uncas, subservient in
all else, desired no missionaries among his people.
They listened courteously. "It is good for the white
man, but we are another people with different customs, "
they said.
In Massachusetts, fourteen villages, many of them
stockaded, told the success of Eliot's efforts among the
broken tribes of the Massachusetts and the Nipmucks,
was settled as a teacher, and afterwards pastor, in the Roxbury church.
He labored for forty years to spread among the aborigines the sentiments,
in some degree, of his religion. He died May 20, 1690. — Savage.
King Philip's War 25
while other villages of converts, built up by Mayhew l and
Bourne,2 were to be found within the jurisdiction of Plym
outh colony and at Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Many of these Christian Indians did credit to their pro
fessions, but there were some among the independent tribes
who curried favor by playing the role of the informer upon
the actions of their own people, or took advantage of their
position as Christian proteges to escape the consequences
of their own evil behavior,3 and in the frequent bickerings
between the Indians on the one hand and the traders on
the other, punishment was often meted out with little
regard to the source from whence the provocation came.
Traders of the stamp of Stone 4 and Oldham 5 probably
1 Thomas Mayhew, Watertown, born 1591, came to this country in
1631. He was a merchant, active in trade, first at Medford and after
wards at Watertown, but in 1647 removed to Martha's Vineyard where
he became a preacher to the Indians and labored in this field more than
thirty-three years. He died in 1681 and his work was continued by
several generations of his descendants. — Savage.
2 Richard Bourne of Lynn, 1637, removed to Sandwich and was the
first instructor of the Indians at Marshpee, beginning in 1658. He died
in 1682.— Savage.
3 British State Papers, 1665, No. 63: Report of King's Commissioners
to the Colonies.
4 John Stone, captain of a trading vessel from Virginia, was a man
of violent temper and intemperate habits. September 3, 1633, he was
forbidden by the General Court of Massachusetts to come again within
the jurisdiction under penalty of death, "for his outrage committed in
confronting authority, abusing Mr. Ludlowe both in words and behav
ior," etc. Shortly after, he entered the Connecticut River with his
vessel, and, being in need of a pilot seized two Pequot Indians, whom
he bound and in this condition compelled them to take his vessel to the
point he desired to reach. Having been watched through this proceed
ing by other Indians, that night, when all were asleep, they entered the
ship and murdered Stone and his comrades.
5 John Oldham came to Plymouth in the Ann in 1623. He shortly
26 King Philip's War
drew their fate upon themselves by their dishonest and
treacherous conduct, and the Pilgrims had punished with
death the Indians who had resented the pilfering and
the aggressive insolence of Walton's profligate colony at
Weymouth. The Puritan temper had not mellowed in
fifty years; tares had been mixed with the wheat among
the later arrivals and the civil and religious conflict in
England and the ecclesiastical quarrels in the colonies
had made them more intolerant among themselves. That
a serious outbreak had been postponed for so many years
was due to the influence of Massasoit, Canonicus l and
Roger Williams, the memory of the dire fate of the Pe-
quots, the economic benefits of the trade carried on be
tween them and that traditional enmity among the tribes
which made concerted action impossible.
Of the sachems of New England, Uncas,2 the Mohegan,
after gave offense through the expression of his religious opinions and
was driven to Nantasket and thence went with Roger Conant to Cape
Ann. He returned to Plymouth in 1628 and became reconciled with
the government and was made freeman May 18, 1631. He removed
to Watertown and engaged actively in trade with the Indians, chiefly
by means of his shallop, upon which he was killed by the natives near
Manisses (Block Island) in July, 1636.
1 Canonicus, the great sachem of the Narragansetts, was contempo
rary with Miantonomah who was his nephew. He sold the island of
Rhode Island to Roger Williams and others, and was the firm friend of
Williams. At the time of the Pequot war, great pains were taken to
strengthen the friendship between this sachem and the English. " June 4,
1647. Canonicus, the great sachem of the Narragansetts died, a very
old man. " — Drake's Book of the Indians.
2 Uncas was born in the Pequot settlement in Connecticut about 1588.
He was Pequot by birth but by reason of rebellion against his chief,
Sassacus, he was banished from the tribe, and, gathering about him a
band of malcontents, became their head, calling his followers Mohegan s,
after an ancient name of the Pequot tribe. His lands lay to the north
King Philip's War 27
and Canonicus, who divided the power and sachemship
of the Narragansetts with Miantonomah, were the only
ones to recognize the full meaning of the English settle
ments in relation to the fate of their own people. Uncas
made use of them to build up his power; Canonicus
sought to play off the Dutch against the English and to
keep the peace, whereas Massasoit, a thoroughgoing op
portunist, welcomed them for the peace they enforced
upon his neighbors, the Narragansetts.
In the Mohegans and their chief, Uncas, the Con
necticut colony had a constant ally who knew how to
make his personal quarrels appear in the eyes of the
authorities as drawn upon himself solely as their friend.
With rare foresight he had recognized the possibil
ities of a policy based on an alliance with the whites.
Fearless and subtle, uniting in a rare degree the char
acter of statesman and warrior, he had built up the
power of the Mohegans on the ruins of the Pequot
confederacy, and while constantly provoking the other
tribes by his aggressions, he was never at a loss to prove
himself the injured party to the satisfaction of his
Connecticut allies. However valuable in its results to
the Connecticut settlers, this alliance was to be one of
the most toward circumstances in destroying the confi
dence of the tribes in the good faith and justice of the
English.
So important is this fact that some explanation of
the cause is necessary. A quarrel between the Mohegans
and east of Lyme. In the expedition against the Pequots commanded
by Captain John Mason, Uncas with his followers accompanied him as
allies.
28 King Philip's War
and Narragansetts, arising originally over a division of
the Pequot captives on the destruction of that tribe,
soon assumed the character of a personal vendetta be
tween Uncas and Miantonomah,1 and the ears of the
authorities were clamorously assailed by their conflicting
claims and accusations.
So numerous were the complaints and so constantly
did hostilities threaten, that the commissioners of the
colonies compelled both sachems to present themselves
at Hartford, September 21, 1638, and to enter upon what
was known as the tripartite treaty.2
"I perceive you have received many accusations and
hard conceits of this poor native Miantonomah, " 3 wrote
Roger Williams to Governor Winthrop.
In 1640, Miantonomah was accused of conspiring with
the Mohawks, and, obeying the orders of Governor Thomas
Dudley, presented himself at Boston, where, in punish
ment for objecting to a Pequot as an interpreter, he was
treated as an ill-behaved child. "We would show him
no countenance nor admit him to dine at our table as
formerly he had done, until he had acknowledged his
1 Miantonomah, sachem of the Narragansetts, was the nephew of
Canonicus and associated with him in the government of the tribe, suc
ceeding to full authority in 1636, and from him and his uncle, Roger
Williams received the deed to land for his colony at the head of Narra-
gansett Bay.
2 Its principal clause was as follows:
" If there fall out injuries and wrongs, each to the other or their men,
they shall not presently revenge it, but they are to appeal to the English
and they are to decide the same, and if one or the other shall refuse to
do it, it shall be lawful for the English to compel him and take part if
they see cause against the obstinate or refusing party. " — R. I. Hist. Soc.
Coll., Vol. in, page 177.
3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 3, Vol. I, page 166.
King Philip's War 29
failing. " His rebuke, — " When your people come to me
they are permitted to use their own fashions and I expect
the same liberty when I come to you, " should have
shamed them into courtesy. Such childish treatment of
a powerful sachem was an act of inexcusable folly. The
charge was easily refuted and Miaritonomah allowed to
return home.
He continued, however, to be regarded with suspicion,
and two years later a widespread belief that he was plan
ning a general conspiracy caused him to be again sum
moned to Boston.1
Clothed in his robes of state, he made his defense be
fore the grim elders of New England so successfully that
Governor Winthrop wrote of him as having " shown good
understanding in the principles of justice and equity, and
to have accommodated himself to our understanding. " 2
Most of the charges against the Narragansetts were pre
ferred by Connecticut, and display the deft touch of Un-
cas turning his influence with the Connecticut authorities
to good account.3 Uncas had cause to fear his rival; it
was six of one and half a dozen of the other so far as the
desire to injure each other was concerned. That the
Massachusetts authorities were not blinded is made evi
dent by their refusal to assent to the request of Connecti
cut that war be declared against Miantonomah. "All
this might have come out of the enmity of Miantonomah
and Uncas, who continually sought to discredit each
other 4 . . . " and they (Connecticut) were not pleased
1 Winthrop, Vol. II, page 81.
2 Ibid., page 81.
3 Ibid., page 82.
4 Ibid., page 80.
30 King Philip's War
with Massachusetts for refusing, was the comment of
Winthrop.1
The next year, unfortunately for himself, the Narra-
gansett, by selling the Shawamut peninsula to Samuel Gor
ton,2 that " arch heretic, beast and miscreant, whose spirit
was struck dumb with blasphemies and insolences, " in
volved himself in the quarrel between Massachusetts and
the Gortonists.3
Massachusetts , then engaged " in drawing in the last
of those parts who now live under another government,
but grow very offensive, " greatly desired the acquisition
of the territory of Narragansett Bay. Urged by the
enemies of Gorton, Pumham, the local sachem, laid claim
to the ownership of Shawamut and pleaded the inability
of Miantonomah and Canonicus to give valid title to
1 Winthrop II., page 83.
2 Samuel Gorton, born in Gorton, England, about 1600, settled ih
Boston in 1636. He remained there until religious disputes drove him
to Plymouth, where he fared still worse, being fined, imprisoned, and
finally expelled. No better fate was in store for him at Newport, where
he was publicly whipped, and he moved from place to place until 1642
when he bought lands at Shawamut on the west side of Narragansett
Bay. His title to this was disputed by some of the Indians and on the
appeal to the authorities at Boston, a military force was sent to arrest
him and with ten of his followers he was taken to Boston and tried as
"damnable heretics, " sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor in irons.
After his release in 1644, Gorton went to England to obtain redress and
having procured from the Earl of Warwick an order that he should be
allowed the peaceable possession of his lands at Shawamut, he returned
to his colony in 1648 and renamed it Warwick in honor of the earl.
Gorton's religious beliefs were very peculiar, but the sect he founded
survived him for about one hundred years. He has been ably defended
by the late Chief Justice Brayton of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Rhode Island Hist. Tracts, No. 17.
a Winthrop, Vol. II, page 120.
King Philip's War 31
the lands they had sold.1 This scheme was successful,
and a syndicate composed of Benedict Arnold 2 and
other citizens 3 of Rhode Island, standing ready to
purchase the land in question it was conveyed to them by
Pumham and Sacononoco, who at once offered their alle
giance to the Massachusetts colony.
Miantonomah summoned to Boston, could not prove,
in the opinion of the authorities, his paramountcy over
Pumham and Sacononoco, despite the declaration of
Roger Williams, that the authority of the Narragansett
sachems over the lands and chiefs in question, had ex
isted as far back as the settlement of Plymouth.
Miantonomah on his return home, learning that one of
his subordinates, Sequassen, had been roughly handled by
Uncas, took up the quarrel and complaining to Connecti
cut, received for answer that "the English had no hand
in it. " He next turned to Massachusetts and " was de
sirous to know if we would not be offended if he made
war upon Uncas. " To which Winthrop replied : " If
Uncas had done him or his friends harm and would not
1 Clarence S. Brigham in "State of Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, " Vol. I, pages 35, 36.
2 Benedict Arnold was born in England, December 21, 1615. In 1663
he was made by the Royal Charter President of the Rhode Island colony
and was continued in this office for eight years. He was reported to be
the wealthiest man in the colony. About 1676 he built the "old mill"
still standing at Newport, about which traditions of a Norse origin have
been thrown. He died in 1678.
3 The Shawamut lands were held by the Arnold coterie for some years,
when, circumstances rendering it desirable for Arnold to again own
fealty to Rhode Island, by a petition of his party to the authorities they
were granted a discharge from the Massachusetts jurisdiction and Shaw
amut once again became Rhode Island territory.
32 King Philip's War
give satisfaction, we shall leave him to take his own
course. " l
Believing that he had complied with the terms of the
tripartite treaty and was free to make war, he marched
upon Uncas, met his surprised rival, who could rally but
an inferior force, on the outskirts of the town of Norwich.
Uncas, stepping out from the lines, engaged Miantonomah
in a parley and challenged him to decide the quarrel by
personal combat. On the challenge being refused, in
accord with a previously arranged plan, he threw himself
on the ground, and his warriors, firing over his body,
charged and routed the surprised Narragansetts. In the
pursuit, Miantonomah, hampered by a coat of mail,
said to have been the gift of Samuel Gorton, was cap
tured.
In accordance with Indian usage his life was forfeited,
but Uncas, not knowing how Connecticut and Massachu
setts would regard such an act, puzzled by the threat of
Gorton forbidding him to injure his captive, and dreading
to embroil himself with the Narragansetts unless assured
of support, carried his prisoner to Hartford.
On the appeal of Miantonomah, the commissioners of
the colonies, brushing aside the communications that had
passed between Miantonomah and both Connecticut and
Massachusetts, whereby they had themselves failed in
their duty under the tripartite treaty, found that the Narra
gansetts had violated its terms by attacking Uncas sud
denly " without denouncing war. " Finally, deciding that,
though it was not safe to set him at liberty, there was not
sufficient ground to put him to death, they turned over
i Winthrop, Vol. II, page 129.
King Philip's War 33
the matter for advice to a convocation of ministers l then
in assembly at Boston, five of whose number as a com
mittee, advised that "Uncas, the Englishman's friend,
could not be safe while Miantonomah lived, and that he,
Uncas, might justly put such a fierce and bloodthirsty
enemy to death. "
The commissioners therefore ordered Miantonomah
to be turned over to Uncas for execution, but if Uncas
refused to kill him he was to be sent to Boston by water.2
Roger Williams was at this time in England and un
able to speak in behalf of the unfortunate sachem, and
Uncas, attended by a guard of musketeers, took his cap
tive to Windsor 3 where one of the Mohegans, stepping
behind the prisoner, clove his skull with a tomahawk.
1 "Who always to our magistrates
Must be the eyes to see. "
Peter Folger. Looking glass for the times. (About 1670).
2 The details as to Miantonomah and the action of the commissioners
will be found in Hazzard State Papers, Vol. II, page 6; Winthrop, Vol. II,
page 131. Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies. Plymouth
Colony Records, Vol. IX, page 10.
sTrumbull, says Norwich, accepted the local tradition. Governor
Winthrop of Massachusetts, however gives a very different spot as the
place of Miantonomah's execution. When the decision to put him to
death had been reached, the commissioners directed that Uncas should
conduct his captive "Into the next part of his own government, and
there put him to death, provided that some discreet and faithful person
of the English accompany them and see the execution, for our more full
satisfaction. " Uncas promptly obeyed the directions given, taking with
him two Hartford men as witnesses. Winthrop continues: "Taking
Miantonomah along with him, in the way between Hartford and Windsor,
(where Onkus hath some men dwell) Onkus' brother, following after
Miantonomah, clave the head with a hatchet." Winthrop who records
the event understood, evidently, that the execution took place in this
Mohegan claim between Hartford and Windsor, that is, the present
East Hartford and East Windsor, and he probably derived his informa-
34 King Philip's War
The commissioners undoubtedly found themselves on
the horns of a dilemma. Uncas enjoyed the right con
ferred on a conqueror by Indian usage, of putting his
captive to death, but such a course, unsupported by the
English, was dangerous in view of the numerical superi
ority of the Narragansetts.
To free Miantonomah, however, was to take sides
against Uncas, and court a continuance of the old quarrel.
Connecticut was insistent that their ally should be pro
tected from Miantonomah, and in fact the alliance of the
Mohegans seemed more valuable to both Connecticut and
Massachusetts than that of the more distant Narragan
setts, yet, Roger Williams had informed the general
court of Massachusetts some years before, " the Narragan
setts have been true in all of the Pequot wars to you.
. I cannot learn that ever it pleased the Lord to
let the Narragansetts stain their hands with any English
blood. " J
The necessity of defending Uncas, whom they believed
endangered by Miantonomah's intrigues, the general sus
picion that the Narragansetts wrere dangerous to the peace
of New England, were undoubtedly the most potent factors
tion from the Englishmen that were designated to witness the act. Miss
Frances M. Caulkins, the historian of Norwich, thinks that tradition has
become confused between the place of Miantonomah's capture on
"Sachem's Plain" near the Shetucket, and the place of his execution,
but that the contemporary account of Governor Winthrop must be re
liable. The narrative of Winthrop is explicit in stating that Uncas
led his captive to this district, and that he was executed suddenly
on the way, probably as soon as they had passed the English boundary.
Caulkin's History of Norwich, pages 34-38; Winthrop's History of New
England, Vol. II, page 134; Stiles' History of Windsor, Vol. I, page 118.
i Roger Williams to General Court of Massachusetts. R. I. Hist.
Soc. Coll., Vol. Ill, pages 156, 157.
King Philip's War 35
in deciding the fate of the Narragansett sachem. There
is little doubt but that his relations with Gorton weighed
heavily in the balance against him. Not only do almost
all the Rhode Island historians take this view, but it is
supported by the researches of Judge Savage,1 and by
such careful collaborators as Drake and Bodge.
o
The condemnation and execution of Miantonomah was
a clerico-judicial murder.2 He was judg
to death by the white allies of Uncas. On that day con-
fidence in the white man's justice received its death blow
among the Narragansetts who, impotent to save or re
venge, could only nourish their wrath with all the passion
ate remembrance of Indian nature; nor did it pass with
out notice among the other tribes that Uncas, the hated of
all nations had his lips to the ear of the English, who
heard no other voice than his.
1 Winthrop's Hist, of New England, Vol. II, page 133; Judge Savage
note with reference to Governor Stephen Hopkins (1765), Second Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. IX, page 202.
2 Means would have been found for his preservation had he not en
couraged the sale of Shawamut to Gorton and his heterodox associates.
— Judge Savage (Winthrop's History).
All that he and old Canonicus had ever done for the English was
made but as dust in the balance by his countenance of Gorton. Reich-
man's Rhode Island, Vol. I, page 191.
CHAPTER III
TN 1662, Massasoit,1 Sachem of the Wampanoags, the
-*• old and faithful friend of the Pilgrims, was gathered
to his rest. Forty-one years had passed since he had
drunk the great draught of rum that had made him sweat
all over and had pledged himself to peace and friendship.
Two sons survived him, Wamsutta and Metacom, who,
having declared their friendship for the English, had
asked that English names be given them, and received
those of the Greek conquerors, Alexander and Philip.
The eldest, Alexander, became sachem in the place of
his father. He was naturally inclined to continue the
policy established by Massasoit towards the English but
circumstances, not the least of which was his constant
opposition to all attempts to Christianize the Wampa
noags, made a continuance of the old relations difficult.
Since the economic dependence of the whites upon the
Indians had ceased, the two races had been steadily drift
ing apart. The Wampanoags, who in former years had
exercised sovereignty over the territory stretching south
from Plymouth and the head of Narragansett Bay, saw
1 Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, was born about 1580.
This tribe occupied the country in what is now Massachusetts, between
the ocean and Narragansett Bay. It is supposed that the tribe was once
numerous but before the landing of the Pilgrims it had been greatly re
duced by disease. The residence of Massasoit was at Sowams upon
what is now the Warren River. Morton says " he was a very lusty man
in his best years, an able body, grave of countenance and spare of speech."
King Philip's War 37
the ruin of their confederacy and power in the gradual
Christianizing of the kindred tribes along Cape Cod,
while they themselves were being slowly separated and
crowded into the peninsulas.
Complaints of trespass, the loss of lands, the effect of
which they had begun to realize, and a feeling of resent
ment at the constant interference of the English with
their internal affairs, had sown a sullen bitterness in the
Indian breast, which had troubled the last years of Massa-
soit.
Reports of the unrest and resentment of the Wampa-
noags, which lost nothing in the telling, were not long in
reaching the ears of the authorities at Boston and Ply
mouth, borne on the tongues of Christian proteges and
spies, and enhanced whenever the quarrels of the tribes
or chiefs led to mutual accusations of conspiracy in the
endeavor to win the assistance of the English.
Rumors from Boston of his unf riendliries^ jmdjrf nego
tiations on his part for an alliance with the Narragansetts,
soon found credence in Plymouth, and Alexander was
summoned to appear before the court and explain his
intention. On his failure to attend, an armed force un
der Major Winslow l and Major Bradford was sent to
compel 2 his compliance. Winslow took only ten men,
1 Josiah Winslow of Marshfield, was the son of Governor Edward,
and was born in Plymouth in 1629. He was commissioner of the colo
nies for thirteen years, was deputy, and many years assistant, till 1673,
when he was elected Governor of Plymouth and held that office until
his death. — Gen. Register, Vol. IV, page 299.
2 Hubbard says that Major Bradford and his force seized the arms of
the Indians to prevent resistance and compelled Alexander to accompany
them to Plymouth at the muzzle of their guns. We have preferred the
account given in a letter by John Cotton to Increase Mather, who quotes
38 King Philip's War
expecting to recruit more from the towns on the way,
but midway between Plymouth and Bridgewater, observ
ing a hunting lodge on Monponsit Pond they rode up to
it and found it occupied by Alexander and a number of
his men and women. He agreed to return with them
giving as his reason for lack of promptness that he had
wished first to confer with a friend, Mr. Willet,1 who
was absent in New York.
His explanation seems to have been satisfactory, but,
seized with a fever while staying at Major, Josiah Wins-
low's house at Marshfield, he was sent home at his own
request and died during the journey, 1662, his sudden
death giving birth to a belief among the Indians of his
having been poisoned.
His brother Philip, then about twenty-three years of
age and by nature less inclined than his brother to accept
a position of dependence, succeeded him. A policy of
conciliation might have won his good will, but the con
stant nagging to which he was subjected increased his
resentment and nurtured in him a sullen distrust.
Summoned to Plymouth at the beginning of his sachem-
ship, he had renewed the old covenant of peace and
friendship. Five years later one of his own subjects ac
cused him of a willingness to join the Dutch and French
in order to recover his lands and enrich himself with the
goods of the English.2
Philip declared the story was a fabrication of Ninigret,3
the testimony of Major Bradford.— Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. VIII,
page 233, Fourth Series.
1 Captain Thomas Willet of Wannamoiset (Riverside, R. I.), after
wards first English Mayor of New York.
2 Plymouth Records, Vol. IV, pages 151, 164-166.
3 Ninigret was sachem of the Niantics, a tribe of the Narragansetts
King Philip's War 39
sachem of the Niantics. Both chiefs were consequently
summoned to appear at Rehoboth before two commis
sioners appointed by Plymouth, and though the tale
bearer boldly repeated his accusations, Philip was not
held, and at the next meeting of the court the arms he
had surrendered were returned to him. In 1669, Gov
ernor Lovelace of New York warned Rhode Island that
Philip was carrying on an intrigue with Ninigret, but the
Niantic cleared both Philip and himself of the charge.1
Most^of these accusations seem to have been based on
suspicions inspired by Tineas, and evidence of a trust
worthy character is lacking.
The attitude and measures of Plymouth throughout
these transactions and those following were arbitrary and
high-handed and were admirably adapted to bring about
the very state of affairs they were intended to forestall.
Three years later the Plymouth authorities, hearing of
warlike preparations among the Wampanoags, the sharp
ening of hatchets, " the repairing of guns, "suspicious as
semblings and impertinent bearing towards Englishmen
in divers parts of the country, " called peremptorily upon
Philip to appear before them. Philip was at first uncom
promising in his refusal. He demanded hostages as a
guarantee for his own safety and even requested that
Governor Prince 2 should come to him; finally, on Richard
whose principal residence was at Wekapaug, now Westerly, R. I. He
was cousin to Miantonomah. At the time of Philip's war he was an
old man and took no part in the hostilities, but always professed friend
ship for the English.
1 Rhode Island Records, Vol. II, pages 263, 267, 284.
2 Governor Thomas Prince (Prence) was bora in England in 1601.
He came to New England, and settled in Duxbury about 1634, but a
year previous to that time he was appointed "master" of a trading house
King Philip's War
Williams and James Brown remaining as hostages Philip
consented to go, but on approaching Taunton, and" noting
military preparations on the part of the English, he took
up his position near a mill on the outskirts with a large
and well-armed following, but sent no messengers into
the town. The commissioners sent from Massachusetts,
William Davis, William Hudson and Thomas Brattle, to
mediate between the parties, however, went out to meet
him and, after an extended conference, induced him to
meet Governor Prince and the Plymouth authorities on the
12th of April, 1671. On that date Philip and his chiefs
entered the church at Taunton. "Both parties were
armed: the Indians with their faces and bodies painted
after their savage manner, with their long bows and
quivers of arrows at their backs, with here and there a
gun in the hands of those best skilled in the use of them;
the English in the Cromwellian habit, slouched hats with
broad brims, bandoliers, cuirasses, long swords and un
wieldy guns. "
Charged with warlike designs, the Wampanoag de
clared that his preparations were made against the Narra-
gansetts and were entirely defensive, thereby strengthen
ing the suspicions against him, as his relations with the
Narragansetts were believed to be friendly.
After a long conference, a partial confession as to his
failings and " naughtiness " was wrung from him and he
agreed to renew the old covenant of peace and to sur
render all firearms into the custody of the English so long
then established near Sowams, the home of Massasoit. He was sev
eral times chosen Governor and occupied that office at the time of his
death, March 29, 1673.
King Philip's War 41
as any suspicion against him remained.1 This pledge was
^|u^^s^e^couId^imYe no intention of performing it and
placing himself entirely at the mercy of the English, and
he could not have carried out such a measure if he had
desired. Muskets had become a necessity to the Indian
and as the laws in the different colonies against the selling
of arms had been gradually relaxed, and in Plymouth had
been abolished altogether, the Indians had come in pos
session of large numbers and regarded them as the most
valuable and necessary of their possessions. It is not sur
prising, therefore, that few arms were handed over; the
council took measures to enforce compliance. The arms
of the Assowomsett and Middleboro Indians were seized
by force and declared to have been '* just forfeited, " and
an order was issued to distribute them among the Eng
lish towns " proportionately. " Here was an end to
Philip's hope of their restoration as provided by the
Tauriton treaty. Whether or not the English would have
lived up to this agreement had the Indians quietly deliv
ered up their arms cannot, of course, be determined.
The Sagkonate (Saconet) Indians were also threatened
with war unless they complied with the demands made
upon them, and finally submitted themselves by treaty.
By September only seventy guns had been handed in
and~ the PfymoHth^authorities, alaF«i«4 at their 4ai hi re to
receive their surrender, and the general attitude of the
Indians, again summoned Philip to appear before them
on the 13th of that month to give an account of his actions*
threatening to employ force unless he complied with their
1 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, page 63.
2 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, pages 63-74.
42 King Philip's War
demands and observed his agreements. The towns were
ordered to make preparations for furnishing troops and
supplies, and the people were bidden to carry their arms
to meeting.
Secretary Morton l sent word to Massachusetts and
Rhode Island of the action taken, requesting advice and
assistance,2 but adding that unless Philip submitted him
self they " would send out forces to reduce him to reason, "
alone if necessary.
Philip, wrho had no doubt received information of their
intentions, arrived at Boston on the same day as this
letter and appealed to Massachusetts against the demands
and threats of Plymouth, with temporary success. When
the letters from Plymouth were read to him he expressed
himself before the governor and council as follows:
"That his predecessors had been friendly with Plymouth
governors and an engagement of that nature was made
by his father and renewed by his brother, and (when he
took the government) by himself, but they were only
agreements for amity and not for subjection. He desired
to see a copy of the engagement they spoke of and that
the Governor of Massachusetts would procure it for him.
He knew not that they were subjects. Praying Indians
were subject to Massachusetts and had magistrates and
1 Nathaniel Morton of Plymouth, born in England about 1613, came
with his father in the Ann in 1623. He became secretary of the colony
December 7, 1647, and held that office until his death, June 29, 1685.
Almost all of the records of Plymouth colony are in his handwriting.
He wrote a valuable history called "New England's Memorial, a brief
relation of the most memorable and Remarkable passages of the Provi
dence of God manifested to the Planters of New England. " Printed at
Cambridge in 1699.— Pope.
2 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, page 76.
King Philip's War 43
officers appointed; they had no such thing with them and
therefore they were not subject. "
Massachusetts proposed that the difference be referred
to commissioners from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
They also took occasion to inquire into the nature of
Philip's subjection to the government of Plymouth, and
expressed themselves as unable to adopt Plymouth's idea
of the matter.
" We do not understand how far he hath subjected him
self to you, but the treatment you have given him and
proceedings toward him do not render him such a sub
ject as that if there be not a present answering to sum
mons there should presently be a proceeding to hostilities:
and the sword once drawn and dipped in blood may
make him as independent upon you as you are upon
him. "
Governor Leverett 2 of Massachusetts, Governor Win-
throp 3 of Connecticut, and others of the commissioners,
1 Hutchinson, Vol. I, page 281 note.
2 Governor John Leverett of Boston was born in England in 1616.
He came with his father, Thomas, arriving in Boston September 4, 1633.
He was many times chosen delegate and assistant, and on the 7th of
May, 1673, was elected Governor and remained in that office until his
death, March 16, 1678-79. See New England Register, Vol. IV, page
125.
3 Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut was the eldest son of Gov
ernor John of Massachusetts. He was born at Groton, County Suffolk,
and bred at Dublin University, 1622-25. He assisted his father in the
work of colonizing Massachusetts; came in the Lion, arriving at Boston,
November 3, 1631. In 1632 he was chosen an assistant. He was the
founder of New London (Conn.) in 1645, though he was for a number
of years thereafter an assistant of the Massachusetts Court. He was
elected Governor of Connecticut in May, 1657, and every year until his
death, April 5, 1676.— Savage.
44 King Philip's War
finally went to Plymouth at the request of Governor
Prince and his council, to inquire into the matters.1
The charges against Philip were as follows:
1. He had neglected to bring in his arms.
2. He carried himself insolently and proudly, refusing
to come down to our court when sent for.
3. He harbored and abetted divers Indians, not his own
men, but vagabonds and our professed enemies.
4. That he had endeavored to insinuate himself unto
the Massachusetts magistrates and misrepresented matters
to them.
5. He had shown great incivility, especially unto Mr.
James Brown and Mr. Hugh Cole.2
Philip claimed that he and his people were subjects to
the king equally with the Plymouth colonists, but were
not subjects of Plymouth colony, whereas Plymouth
claimed that his acknowledgment of himself as subject to
the king made him a subject to the colony. The claim
that his refusal to obey his neighbors whenever they had
had a mind to command him, and into the justice of
whose mandate he was not to inquire, was a hostile act
and against the treaties, was a sorry one. Philip's appeal
to Massachusetts was in accordance with the terms of
the Taunton treaty which had made the Massachusetts
council the arbitrator of future misunderstandings. These
questions, in view of the practice among all the colonies
except Providence Plantations, are largely academical,
and Massachusetts and Connecticut were not likely to
1 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, page 78.
2 Mr. Cole having come upon Philip during a dance is said to have
called him to account for some offense, whereupon Philip knocked off
his hat. — Letter of James Walker to Governor Prince.
King Philip's War 45
take issue with Plymouth over a self-conferred preroga
tive that they were themselves continually making use of.
On September 29th a new treaty was entered into and
Philip humbled himself to the court and agreed to pay
tribute of one hundred pounds value in kind, and five
wolves' heads a year, if he could get them, to go to Ply-
in case any differences arose and not to engage in
war with the other Indians or sell any lands without the
consent of the Plymouth government.1 The question of
guns was allowed to drop, but he was told that "if he
went on his refractory way he must expect to smart for
it."
During the next three years the relations between them
were interrupted by no event of importance, and Narra-
gansetts, Wampanoags and Nipmucks seemed to have
resigned themselves to the inevitable domination of the
English. There were those who suspected that the calm
was that which comes before the storm. Hunters and
Christian Indians spoke of the sullen demeanor of the
independent Indians, but the great body of the colonists
seemed to have been lulled into security; many of the
exposed towns on the frontier had been left unstockaded,
and so low had the interest in military matters fallen in
Massachusetts that the election of military officers had
given place some time before to appointment by the gen
eral court.
It is impossible to trace Philip's actions during these
years, but contemporary historians imply that he endeav
ored to reach some agreement with the sachems of the
Narragansetts and the tribes of the Nipmucks.
To the Narragansetts and Canonchet he could recall
i Ply-mouth Records, Vol. V, pages 77-79.
46 King Philip's War
the death of Miantonomah, awakening the thirst for ven
geance. To Weetamoo, queen of the Pocassets and widow
of his brother Alexander, he could appeal to the memory
of bitter suspicion. With the Nipmucks there were other
chords to be touched, and if long-continued feuds and
suspicions made any definite or formal alliance almost im
possible, yet the voice of an Indian sachem, even of an
other tribe, calling to mind the high-handed interference,
the stern threats, the loss of lands, and their own de
clining power could not fail to touch a sympathetic
chord and inflame the passions of his hearers on subjects
long brooded over.
No general conspiracy certainly was entered into.
Doubts as to their own power and suspicions of each
other made each tribe hesitate to commit itself before
the others. Philip himself lacked those personal qualities
of leadership which made Pontiac and Tecumseh formid
able, and the Indian nature, liable to alternate outbursts
of passion and despondency, lacked the genius for com
bined and concerted effort. Inflammable substances were
plentiful, however, and it needed but a spark to fire the
train.
-••
CHAPTER IV
E least suspicion of intrigue could not long escape
the notice of those Indian converts who kept the au
thorities well informed of all that went on. There had
been living among the Wampanoags at Nemasket, 1 the
daughter of whose chief he had married, an Indian convert
of Eliot's, named Sassamon, a Natick, " a cunning and
plausible man" Hubbard calls him. This man had ac
companied Philip to Boston as interpreter 2 after the death
of Alexander and served him for some time thereafter,
but having, it is said, been found guilty of some offense,
had returned to Natick arid again professed Christianity.
Associated with Philip on familiar terms, he claimed to
have received the sachem's confidences and betrayed them
to the settlers under pledge of secrecy; his life would be in
danger, he declared, if his connection with the matter
were made known. His information (because it had an
Indian origin "and one can hardly believe them when
they speak truth") was not at first much regarded, but
Philip, learning in advance of a summons, of the charges,
made haste to Plymouth to free himself from suspicion,
and, having given renewed assurances of his friendly in
tentions, was allowed to return.3
1 The Indian village of Nemasket was located about a mile and a half
southeasterly from the center of the present village of Middleborough,
on the river of that name.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 60.
s Mather's Brief History, page 218.
48 King Philip's War
In the spring of the following year the dead body of
Sassamon was discovered in Assowomset Pond.1 An In
dian named David, having discovered some bruises on
the body, suspicions were aroused and an investigation
led to the belief that Sassamon had been killed while fish
ing during the winter and his body thrown under the ice.
Three Indians, Tobias, Mattaschunanamoo and Wam-
papaquin, Tobias' son, were arrested on the evidence of
an Indian who claimed to have been an eyewitness of
the affair.2 The Indians claimed that Sassamon had been
drowned while fishing and that the marks on his body 3
were caused by contact with the ice. They declared that
the informer who claimed to have been an eyewitness,
" had gambled away his coat and, on its being returned and
payment demanded, he had, in order to escape the debt,
accused them of the murder knowing it would please the
English and cause them to think him the better Chris
tian. " 4
Mather, ever on the watch for the marvelous, declared
that the body bled afresh when Tobias approached, a
sign then and to a much later day credited as a proof of
guilt. The three Wampanoags were convicted by a white
jury to which had been added several friendly Indians,
and executed,5 "and though they were all successfully
1 Assowomset Pond is located about four miles south of the present
village of Middleborough in Plymouth County in the town of Lakeville.
Its neighborhood was a favorite resort of the natives. A few survivors
of the Nemasket tribe reside upon the shores of the pond to-day.
2 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, page 159.
3 The wounds were enumerated in the Record as bruises, twisted neck,
etc. No gunshot or arrow or knife wounds are mentioned.
4 Easton's Relation, page 4.
5 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, pages 167, 168. Hubbard declares that
King Philip's War 49
turned off the ladder at the gallows utterly denying the
fact, yet the last of them, hoping to break ox slip the rope,
did before his going off the ladder again confess that the
other Indians did really murder John Sassamon, and that
he himself, though no actor in it, was yet a looker-on. "l
Wampapaquin was reprieved but shot within the month.
No direct proof was produced at the trial to connect
Philip with Sassamon's death, but it was widely be
lieved that it had been decreed, according to Indian law,
by Philip and his council, as a punishment for his
treachery.
The trial and execution of the three Indians aroused
the Wampanoag warriors to madness. From all sides
came reports to the authorities of excesses on the part of
the Wampanoags. Cattle were shot, corn stolen, houses
robbed; in some places outbuildings were fired. The
attitude of the warriors had become defiant, while spies
reported that strange Indians were swarming into Philip's
villages and the women and children were being sent to
the Narragansetts. Alarm and terror spread among the
outlying settlements. Men saw portents that foreboded
evil days. Comets in the form of blazing arrows shot
athwart the skies, and the northern lights took on strange
and awful shapes. Many heard the thunder of hoofs of
invisible horsemen, and bullets fired from no earthly
weapons whistled through the air.2
The authorities held back from all aggressive action,
in the belief that such a course would allow the excite-
Wampapaquin confessed that Sassamon had been murdered by his fa
ther, and implicated Philip, but there is no other contemporary evidence.
1 Mather's Magnalia, Book VII, page 560.
2 Mather, Brief History, page 52.
D
50 King Philip's War
ment among the warriors time to abate,1 but as Philip
made no attempt to clear himself, James Brown of Swan
sea, who had been on friendly terms with him, solicited
and obtained permission to inform Philip that the Ply
mouth authorities disclaimed all injurious intentions and
urged him to discontinue hostile preparations.2
Rhode Island, alarmed at the state of affairs, made
ineffectual attempts to compromise the matter and bring
Philip to an agreement. Deputy Governor Easton 3 of
that colony, and five others, including Samuel Gorton,
met Philip and his chiefs at Bristol Neck Point on the
17th of June, and proposed that the quarrel and all mat
ters in contention should be arbitrated. It might be well,
was the reply, but that all the English agreed against
them. Many square miles of land were taken from them
by English arbitrators. They then went on to recite their
grievances. If they surrendered their arms jealousy might
be removed, but the Englishmen would not deliver them
again as promised until they had paid a fine. They said
they had been the first to do good, the English the first
to do wrong. When the English first came the king's
father was as a great man and the English as a little child.
He constrained other Indians from raiding the English,
gave them seed, showed them how to plant and was free
to do them good, and let them have one hundred times
more land then than now the king had for his own people,
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 65.
2 Hazzard State Papers, Vol. II, page 333.
s Governor John Easton lived in Newport He was born in England
in 1621 and came with his father in the Mary and John in 1634. He
became Deputy Governor of Rhode Island in 1666 and was Governor of
the colony for five years, 1690-94. He died December 12, 1705.
King Philip's War 51
but the king's brother, when he was king, came miserably
to die, being forced to court, and, as they judged, poisoned.
Another grievance : that if twenty of them testify that the
English had done them wrong, it was nothing, but if ever
one of their worst Indians testified against any Indian or
the king, when it pleased the English it was sufficient.
Englishmen made Indians drunk and cheated them in
bargains. English cattle and horses increased. The In
dians could not keep their corn from being spoiled, they
never being used to fences. The English were so eager
to sell Indians liquor that most of the Indians spent much
in drunkenness and then raided upon the sober Indians,
and they did believe often hurt the English cattle and
their king was obliged to sell more land to pay the fines.
The white delegates endeavored to persuade them to
lay down their arms and not to make war, for the Eng
lish were too strong for them. They said the English
should do to them as they did when they were strong to
the English.1
The conference broke up without any agreement having
been reached. Easton states as his belief that the Indians
would have accepted the Governor of New York and an
Indian king as arbitrators and that peace might still have
been preserved. It is more than doubtful. That the
Wampanoags had broken loose from all restraint seems
certain. Philip would at any rate have been glad to gain
time in order to have procured arms and ammunition and
1 Easton's Relations, Hough Edition, page 7. Palfrey questions
whether Governor Easton wrote this narrative ascribed to him on ac
count of its illiteracy. There seems no doubt of it, however. Illiterate
spelling and construction were common. It was not published until
many years after the war. Mather knew of its existence and of some
of its allegations and rushed his own history into print.
52 King Philip's War
to involve more definitely the other tribes, but in the state
of mind of his followers no such course was possible; the
pent-up passions of many years, fanned into flame, were
past suppression.
Captain. Benjamin ChurchJLnf Little .Compton, in the
territory of the Saconet Indians, attending by invitation of
the squaw sachem, Awashonks,2 a ceremonious dance,
June 15th, found on his arrival that it had been given in
honor of six ambassadors from Philip, her overlord, to
make sure of her co-operation. On her explanation of
Philip's overtures he boldly advised her in their presence
to knock them on the head and seek refuge with the
English. Two days later, near Pocasset, he met Peter
Nunnuit,3 who had married Alexander's widow, Weeta-
moo. Peter said he had just come from Mount Hope
where Philip had been holding a dance in which Indians
from all the Wampanoag tribes had participated; that
war was certain,4 and that Philip had been forced to
promise the young men "that on the next Lord's day
1 Captain Benjamin Church was born at Plymouth in 1639 and was
a carpenter by trade. He probably lived in Duxbury after his marriage
in that town, but later removed to Little Compton, R. I., and afterwards
lived for a time in Bristol in the same colony. He subsequently returned
to Little Compton and died there January 17, 1717-18. His services
during the war are recorded in his " Entertaining History, " written by
his son from dictation by himself in his last years.
2 Awashonks, squaw sachem of Sagkonate, was the wife of an Indian
called Tolony, of whom but little is known. — Book of the Indians,
Vol. Ill, page 65.
3 Peter Nunnuit, the husband of Weetamoo, did not concern himself
against the English, but, abandoning his wife, joined the enemy against
her. After the war he was given command over the prisoners who were
permitted to reside in the country between Sepecan and Dartmouth.
— Drake's Book of the Indians.
4 Church's Entertaining History, page 3.
King Philip's War 53
when the English were gone to meeting, they should level
their house and from that time forwrard kill their cattle. "
He also told them that Samuel Gorton and James Brown
of Swansea were at that time at Mount Hope,1 and that
one of the young warriors wanted to kill Brown, but that
Philip prevented it saying that his fatlier had charged him
to show kindness to Mr. Brown. Church, at the request
of Peter, had an interview with Weetamoo, who was near
by, and advised her to go over to Rhode Island for secu
rity and to send a messenger to the governor immediately.
He then hastened with the information he had acquired
to Plymouth.
On the afternoon of June 21st, Governor Leverett of
Massachusetts received a letter from Governor Winslow
informing him of the situation. It was determined in
view of the attitude of the Wampanoags, to immediately
send a commission consisting of Captain Edward Hutch-
inson,2 Seth Perry, and William Powers, to the Narragan-
setts to find out their intentions and to put them on their
good behavior.3 Acting upon their instructions they
stopped at Providence and induced Roger Williams to
accompany them to the chief village of the Narragansetts.
At this conference Pessacus,4 Canonchet and Ninigret
seem to have assented to the desires of the Massachusetts
"authorities and promised to be neutral. The_commission-
1 Probably arranging for the conference with the Rhode Island Com
mittee.
2 Seth Perry was of Boston, a tailor, and was made freeman in 1666.
— Savage.
3 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 67, page 201.
< Pessacus was born about 1623 and was about twenty years of age
when his brother, Miantonomah, was killed. He was killed by the Mo
hawks beyond the Piscataqua River in 1677-78.
54 King Philip's War
ers departed apparently satisfied with the success of their
mission, but Williams, who knew the Indian character
well, seems to have been suspicious and, on June 27th,
wrote to Winthrop that he believed their friendly answers
were empty " words of falsehood and treachery. " Pessa-
cus, one of the sachems of the Narragansetts, is said to
have confessed to several of the men of Newport, that
while his heart sorrowed he could not rule the youth or
common people or persuade the chiefs. Even before the
Massachusetts commission had started on its journey two
houses had been burned by the Wampanoags at Matta-
poiset, June 19th.
Philip, driven to bay and forced into conflict by the
passions he now found himself unable to control, could
hardly have plunged into the conflict confident of success.
He knew the bitter resentment and the desire of his own
warriors for war. The independent tribes of. the Nip-
mucks were ripe for revolt. Initial successes on his part
were all that were needed to bring them to his aid, but he
knew equally well that sympathy, the sense of common
wrongs, and a tentative understanding, were but feeble
reeds on which to lean if disaster threatened.1
Events had rushed forward faster than his plans or
preparations. No general conspiracy had been organized,
no concerted action arranged for, and as the old Warn-
panoag confederacy had fallen into ruins under the pres
sure of the whites, he could depend with certainty only
on his personal following. The Indians, however, did
not lack advantages and if once the pent-up fury of the
1 If they (the Pequots) doubt the victory " they would be in hazard
of joining with the stronger. " — Letter of Rev. James Fitch of Norwich
to the Council of Connecticut. Conn. Records, Vol. II, page 337.
King Philip's War 55
different tribes should be loosed upon the long frontier
the contest was certain to be long continued. They had
become expert~m~ the use~of~fireamw; They knew the
fording places of the rivers and every trail, and were
acquainted with the daily habits of the settlers. They
were adepts in a method of warfare admirably suited to
the character of the country. To turn every cover and
position to advantage, to strike quickly, to lie patiently in
ambuscades, and to draw off rapidly on the failure of an
attack with a fleetness in which the heavily armed settler,
unaccustomed to forest warfare, could not compete, were
formidable tactics in a broken and wooded country of long
distances sparsely settled and traversed only by rough
trails.
The martial spirit which had distinguished the early
generation of colonists had ceased to inspire the new
generation.1 The very spreading out of the settlements
offered a wide-flung and weakly settled frontier to the
swift moving warriors, while the contempt which had
grown up among the settlers in respect to the Indian, both
from the result of the Pequot war and the long subser
vience of the race in later dealings, made it certain that
for a time at least, over-confidence and lack of military
training would lead to catastrophies.
There were among the settlers, however, many traders
well acquainted with Indian ways, and if the great mass
of the settlers were untrained to warfare, yet there were
those among them who had served as under-officers and
captains under Cromwell, in the most perfect army the
century had seen. Material for good soldiers was in
i Conn. Records, Vol. II, page 217. Report on Condition in 1673.
The same was true of Massachusetts.
^
56 King Philip's War
abundance, arms and equipment plentiful, their stock
aded towns offered a protection and a base of supplies
which the Indian villages could not possibly afford.
Many individual Indians were certain to join them and
the whole of the Mohegans would be their effective allies,
while the numbers, resources and character of the popu
lation once brought into the field and trained, made the
result of a prolonged campaign certain.
Tradition had attributed to the Indians engaged in the
war, between seven and eight thousand fighting men.
The swift movements of the war parties, some of whom
were able to cover forty miles a day, made their forces
appear far greater than was actually the case, and neither
the fears of the settlers nor the reports of friendly Indians
desirous of enhancing the value of their services were
likely to underestimate the number. Their actual num
ber probably did not at most exceed thirty^five hundred.
Of these the Wampanoags and their kindred mustered
about five hundred; the Nipmucks and the Connecticut
River tribes not over eleven hundred ; the Abenakis and
Tarratines about six hundred; the Narragansetts about
one thousand. In addition there were probably some three
hundred scattered warriors, roving Indians, small parties
from the northern tribes and Christian Indians, throwing
in their lot with their kindred either from choice, or, as
occurred in more than one instance, driven into revolt
by the harsh treatment of the suspicious settlers.
The Wampanoags, in the belief it is said, that the first
party to shed blood would be vanquished, had been pro
voking the settlers by daily outrages to commence hos
tilities, and on the 18th of June one of a number of
Indians was shot and wounded by an irate settler at Swan-
King Philip's War 57
sea.1 According to John Easton some Indians at Swansea
were seen by an old man and a lad, pilfering from houses
whose owners were at church, whereupon the old man
bade the young one shoot, and one of the Indians fell
but got away. Later in the day some of the neighboring
Indians came to one of the garrison houses, either Miles's
or Bourne's, and asked why they had shot the Indian. In
reply to the English question whether he was dead, the
Indian said, " yea, " on which one of the English remarked
that " it was no matter. " The other endeavored to con
vince the Indians that it was but a young man's idle words,
but the Indians, returning no answer, went hastily away.2
Plymouth colony had already taken precautions in
view of the existing conditions. Captain Benjamin
Church, at the request of Winslow, had some time before
induced the Governor of Rhode Island to provide boats
for the patrol of the northern shore in case of an outbreak,
and the towns had been warned to be on their guard and
prepared to send their contingents into the field at a mo
ment's notice.
Now, on the 20th of June, a messenger brought news
to Plymouth that the house of Job Winslow 3 at Swansea
had been plundered by Indians on the 18th, and that on
1 Hubbard (Hubbard says the Indian was only wounded, not killed),
Vol. I, page 64.
2 Easton's Relation, page 17.
3 Job Winslow was the son of Kenelm Winslow. At the outbreak of
the war he was living at Swansea and his house was "broken up and
rifled " by the Indians. After the close of the war he erected a dwelling-
house near the "wading place" at Kickemuit on what is now the farm
of Mr. Edward Ennis. It is probable that the house destroyed occupied
this same site. — Savage. "Massasoit's Town; Sowams in Pokanoket,"
by Miss Virginia Baker, page 19.
58 King Philip's War
the 19th several houses, among them that of Hugh Cole,
had been burned while the people were attending wor
ship.1 Captain Church was immediately ordered to col
lect a force of twenty horsemen at Bridgewater and
to proceed to Swansea by way of Taunton, which
was appointed as the rendezvous of the Plymouth
forces.
The troops were already assembling under Majors
James Cudworth 2 and William Bradford 3 and Captains
Gorham and Fuller, when Church marched into the place
on the 21st, and the next day the whole force proceeded
towards Swansea, Church leading the van with his horse
men and a number of friendly Indians,4 " and to keep so
far before as not to be in sight of the army, and so they
1 Records of Commissioners of New England. Plymouth Colony
Record, Vol. X; Vol. II, pages 362-364. (Letters of Josiah Winslow
and Thomas Hinckley.)
2 Major James Cudworth came probably from London to Boston in
1632. In 1652 he was captain of the militia at Scituate. In 1649 he
was made deputy to the colony court at Plymouth; assistant from 1656
to 1658 and again from 1674 to 1680. In 1675 he was chosen "General
and Commander-in-chief of all forces that are or may be sent forth
against the enemy," which commission he declined. He was chosen
Deputy Governor in 1681 and appointed agent for the colony to England.
He died in London of smallpox in 1682. See Deane's History of Scit
uate, page 245.
3 Major William Bradford, son of Governor William of Plymouth,
was born in Plymouth, June 17, 1624. In 1656-57 he was deputy from
Plymouth to the General Court and 1658 became an assistant, in which
office he served for twenty-four successive years, and for the remaining
ten years of the colony's existence filled the new office of Deputy Gov
ernor, save for the years of Andros' reign. For twelve years he was
colonial commissioner. He died March 1, 1704. "Governor William
Bradford and his son Major William Bradford," by James Shepard,
page 78.
* Church, page 5.
King Philip's War 59
did for by the way they killed a deer, flayed, roasted, and
eat the most of him before the army came up with them. "
Panic already reigned among the scattered farmhouses
that stretched along the eastern shore, and Major Brad
ford, with the company from Bridgewater, leaving Swansea
on the 23d, marched down to Jared Bourne's l stone house
at Mattapoiset where nearly seventy people had collected.
Everywhere along the march were to be met people flying
from their homes, wringing their hands and bewailing their
losses. A part of the relieving force was dispatched the
next day to escort Mr. John Brown, who had acted as
guide, to his home at Wanamoiset, with orders to act
strictly on the defensive. Meeting, on their return, a
party from the garrison going out with carts to bring in
corn from the deserted and outlying houses, they warned
them that the Indians were out in force and urged them
not to proceed. Confiding in their numbers, however,
the foragers continued on their way only to fall into an
ambuscade, where, attacked and routed, they were driven
back to the garrison with a loss of six killed.2 The settle
ment was abandoned the following week, the inhabitants
seeking refuge on the island of Rhode Island.
June 24th was the day appointed by the authorities for
humiliation and prayer, and as the settlers of Swansea
1 Gerard (Jared) Bourne was of Boston in 1634; made freeman May 6,
1635. He resided at Muddy River (Brookline) and was there a con
stable. Savage says he removed to Rhode Island in 1665. He was in
1675 the owner of the stone garrison house in Swansea on Mattapoiset
(now Gardner's) Neck. This was located one-half mile north of the
railway station at South Swansea, on the farm now owned (1904) by
Mr. William H. Green, and a few rods in the rear of Mr. Green's dwell
ing. The old garrison spring may still be found in the meadow.
2 Old Indian Chronicle, page 109.
60 King Philip's War
were returning from service they were fired upon.1 One
was killed and several wounded. Two of the settlers
were dispatched for assistance, to Plymouth. They were
never to reach it, for the commissioners, Major Savage 2
and Captain Thomas Brattle,3 who had been sent by
Governor Leverett and the council to treat with Philip,
on approaching Swansea in the evening, came upon their
bodies weltering in blood upon the highway, and turned
back to Boston.4
Philip, realizing, it is said, that the first blow, if the war
riors took matters into their own hands, would be struck
at Swansea and the neighboring towns, ordered no harm
should be done to James Brown,5 Captain Thomas Willet 6
1 Mather's Magnalia, Vol. VII, page 561.
2 Major Thomas Savage was born in Taunton, Somerset County,
England, and came in the Planter to Boston, April, 1635. He was an
original member of the Artillery Company and chosen its captain in 1651.
He served as representative to the General Court from Boston, Hingham
and Andover; he was speaker for a number of terms and assistant from
1680 until his death, which occurred February 14, 1682. — Bodge.
3 Captain Thomas Brattle was born about 1624. He was a merchant
in Boston in 1656, and was of the Artillery Company in 1675. He
owned valuable iron works at Concord and was deputy from that town
from 1678 to 1681, as he had been from Lancaster in 1671 and 1672.
In 1671 he was one of the commissioners sent to treat with Philip at
Taunton. He was appointed cornet in the Suffolk troop in 1670, lieu
tenant in 1675 and captain May 5, 1676. He died April 5, 1683, and
left, it is said, the largest estate in New England at that time. Bodge,
page 261. — Savage.
4 Connecticut Records (War Council). Letter of Massachusetts Coun
cil to Governor Winthrop, Vol. II, page 336.
5 James Brown, son of John, was made freeman at Plymouth in 1636.
He was of Rehoboth, 1658. He was for a number of years deputy from
Swansea. He twice went to Philip in 1675 "to persuade him to be
quiet," but both times found his men in arms and "Philip very high
and not persuadable to peace." — History of Barrington, page 580.
e Captain Thomas Willet came to Plymouth from Leyden in the spring
King Philip's War 61
and James Leonard.1 He also sent word to Hugh Cole,2
who had befriended him to remove lest it should be out
of his power to prevent harm befalling him, and extended
protection to two small children because "their father
sometime showed me kindness. "
The news of the attack reached Plymouth before night
and messengers were immediately dispatched to Boston
for assistance. Both governments took prompt meas
ures. At Boston the drums were beat to assemble the
companies and in the late afternoon of the 26th, Captain
Daniel Henchman 3 with a company of foot, and Captain
of 1030. He was intrusted with the command of the Plymouth trading-
house at Kennebec in 1639, from which office he was forcibly ejected by
D' Aubrey, the French Lieutenant Governor of Acadia. He was a mag
istrate in Plymouth from 1651 to 1664, when he accompanied Colonel
Nicholson in the reduction of New York, of which city he was the first
English mayor. In 1673, the Dutch having again come into posesssion,
Mr. Willet retired to Wannamoisett. He died the next year. His wife
was the sister of James Brown. — New England Register, Vol. H, page
376.
1 James Leonard, of Providence, 1645, and Taunton, 1652, came from
Pontypool in Wales. The first iron works in the colonies were estab
lished in Taunton by his brother Henry, Ralph Russell and himself.
Philip was on very friendly terms with the Leonards, visiting them and
being received with great consideration. He depended upon Leonard
for the repair of his guns and tools. Leonard died before 1691. — Bay-
lie's History of Plymouth.
2 Hugh Cole, bora about 1627, was of Plymouth in 1653. In 1669
Philip sold to him and others five hundred acres of land on the west
side of Cole's River in Swansea. During the war his house was de
stroyed and he removed to Rhode Island. He returned in 1677 and lo
cated on the west side of Touiset Neck on the Kickemuit River in Warren.
The farm he owned and the well he dug are still in the possession of his
lineal descendants. History of Barrington, page 574.
3 Captain Daniel Henchman was of Boston. He was appointed cap
tain of the 5th Boston Company Colonial Militia, May 12, 1675. He
died in Worcester, October 15, 1675. — Bodge, page 45.
62 King Philip's War
Thomas Prentice1 with a troop of horse, set forth.2 The
infantry were armed with muskets and long knives fitted
with handles to fix in the muzzles, and carried a knap
sack, six feet of fuse, a pound of powder, a bandoleer
passing under the left arm and containing a dozen or
more cylinders holding a measured charge of powder, a
bag containing three pounds of bullets and a horn of
priming powder. The troopers were equipped with a
sword and either two pistols or a carbine. All carried in
addition a few articles of wearing apparel, a day's provi
sions and a pound of tobacco.
Prolonging their march well into the evening they were
nearing the town of Dedham on the Neponset River,
twenty miles from Boston, when the moon was darkened
by an eclipse (in Capricorn) " which caused them to halt
for a little repose until the moon recovered her light. "
Some among them imagined they discerned in the moon
a black spot resembling the scalp of an Indian, others
made out the form of an Indian bow, ominous signs,
"but both," writes the chronicler, "might rather have
thought of what Marcus Crassus, the Roman general
going forth with an army against the Parthians, once
wisely replied to a private soldier that would have dis
suaded him from marching because of an eclipse of the
moon in Capricorn, 'that he was more afraid of Saggi-
tarius (the archer) than of Capricornus, ' meaning the
arrows of the Parthians. "
1 Captain Thomas Prentice was commander of the Middlesex troop
of horse. He was born in England about 1620, and settled in Cambridge,
N. E. He was appointed captain of the special troop in June, 1675.
He died July 7, 1709.— Bodge, page 89.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 67.
King Philip's War G3
"When the moon had again borrowed her light," and
the road once more became distinct, they resumed the
march, reaching Attleboro,1 thirty miles from Boston, early
in the morning. Here they rested until the afternoon
when Captain Samuel Moseley,2 with a rough company
of volunteers composed of sailors, privateersmen, and sev
eral paroled pirates accompanied by a number of hunt
ing dogs, joined them.
The combined force of two hundred and fifty fighting
men, besides the teamsters, pushing rapidly on, reached
Swansea 3 early in the evening of the 28th and pitched
their camp alongside of Major Cudworth, and the Plym
outh men near the fortified house of the Rev. Mr. Miles,
1 The march ended at Woodcock's garrison, located nearly a mile
north of the center of the present village of North Attleboro, opposite a
small burying ground. John Woodcock was the pioneer of Attleboro,
and his house was built for defense against the Indians and was also
a house of entertainment. It was the only dwelling at the time of its
erection between Dedham and Rehoboth (Seekonk). The old house
remained until 1806 when it gave way to a large tavern built by Colonel
Hatch upon the same site. The cellar hole of the Woodcock garrison
may still be seen, as the Hatch tavern has been removed. — Daggett's
History of Attleboro.
2 Captain Moseley was of Boston and by trade a cooper. "This
Captain Moseley hath been an old privateer at Jamaica." — Bodge,
page 59.
3 This was at what is now the village of Barneyville, about three miles
northerly from the village of Warren, R. I., and Miles' bridge crossed
the Warren River at that place. The garrison house, or rather what is
so considered by some, is still standing, though other antiquarians think
this is of a later date than that occupied by the Rev. Mr. Miles in
1675. The population of Swansea was scattered over a wide area of
farming territory. There were distinct hamlets and many isolated
houses, the whole extending over an irregular trail some ten miles
from one extreme to the other.
64 King Philip's War
a Baptist clergyman,1 which stood a short distance from
the bridge leading toward Mount Hope.
Immediately on the arrival, a dozen of Prentice's
troopers, impatient of delay, under the command of
Quartermaster Joseph Belcher and Corporal John Gill,2
with Captain Church as a volunteer, sallied over the bridge
to explore the country beyond. Hardly had they cleared
the bridge when a party of Indians in ambush poured
in a volley upon them, killing William Hammond,3 a
guide, wounding Gill and Belcher, and driving the rest
back in confusion4 to the barricade which had been erected
around the house of the Rev. Mr. Miles.
Made confident by this success, a number of Indians
the next morning showed themselves at the end of the
bridge, shouting derisively, while some, more bold than
1 Rev. John Miles (Myles), a Baptist clergyman, was born in Wales
and settled in Swansea in the year 1662. The church in Swansea, Mass.,
is supposed to have been organized in Swansea, South Wales, Mr.
Miles simply removing the church organization from that country. Mr.
Miles settled in Rehoboth, now Swansea, hi that part known as Barn-
neyville and his meeting house is said to have been near the One
Hundred Acre Cove on the Barrington River. This was included in
the destruction of Swansea and after the war Mr. Miles returned to his
old field and a church was erected for him at Tyler's Point, New
Meadow Neck, opposite Warren, R. I., and in the cemetery at that
place Mr. Miles was probably buried.
2 John Gill was of Dorchester, 1640, and lived in that part of the town
which became Milton. He removed to Boston and died in 1678. Quar
termaster Joseph Belcher, who was also of Milton, was his son-in-law,
having married Gill's daughter Rebecca. — Savage. Dorchester Church
Records.
3 William Hammond went to Swansea with Captain Thomas Pren
tice's troop, and having been a resident of that town was competent to
act as " pilot, " or guide, to the troops. His body was taken to Water-
town for burial. See The Hammond Genealogies, Vol. I, page 477.
* Church, page 5.
King Philip's War 65
the rest, even ventured upon the bridge itself. The whole
force was immediately drawn up and while the infantry
advanced toward the bank of the stream, a troop of horse
and a party of volunteers under Moseley rushed furiously
down the road upon them and drove them off with loss,1
losing, however, one of their own number, Ensign Savage,2
wounded, it is said, by the fire from the infantry on the
bank.
On the evening of the 29th which was spent skirmish
ing with the Indians, came Major Thomas Savage, ac
companied by Captain Paige and sixty horse and as
many foot, to take over the command of the Massachu
setts forces.3 The force assembled at Swansea now num
bered over five hundred men, and, at noon on the following
day, leaving a small guard in the garrison, the little army,
with Major Cudworth in command, crossed over the
bridge, and, throwing out horsemen on the flanks to pre
vent an ambuscade, pushed on toward Mount Hope.4
Here and there, within the boundaries of the Indian
country, they saw groups of empty wigwams and fields
of corn, the smoking ruins of what had once been the
homes of the settlers, and " Bibles torn in pieces in defi-
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 69.
2 Ensign Perez Savage, son of Major Thomas, was born February 17,
1652. He was ensign of Captain Moseley's company, " a noble, heroic,
youth," as Church calls him. In addition to the wound received at
Swansea he was again badly wounded at the Narragansett Swamp fight,
at which time he was a lieutenant. He never married, but removed to
London, from which he carried on trade with Spain. His death occurred
at Mequinez in Barbary, where he was held in captivity by the Turks.
— Savage.
a Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 67, page 209.
* Hubbard, Vol. I, page 71.
66 King Philip's War
ance of our holy religion, " while ghastly heads l and
hands stuck upon stakes bore witness to the fate of the
occupants. But, while Philip's wigwam 2 was discovered
and the trail of his warriors followed to the shore, not an
Indian was to be seen.
Throughout the day the rain had fallen steadily, soak
ing the troops to the skin, and as evening drew on the
Plymouth men, passing over the strait, found shelter on
the island of Rhode Island, but Major Savage, with the
Massachusetts division, bivouaced in the open fields amid
the storm.3
With the dawn came rumors that the Indians were in
force near Swansea, and Savage, after laying waste the
fields of growing corn, hastened back over the route of the
day before, but though the force met many Indian dogs
deserted by their masters, and saw at times burning dwell
ings, they came upon no Indians, and the infantry, tired
1 Church, in his narrative, says, in connection with the march under
Cudworth to Mount Hope, " They marched until they came to the narrow
of the neck at a place called Keekamuit where they took down the heads,
of eight Englishmen that were killed at the head of Mattapoiset Neck,
and set upon poles after the barbarous manner of these Savages. " This
spot is on the west bank of the Kickemuit River, just above the ancient
"wading place," and directly east of Belchers Cove which sets in from
the Warren River behind the village of Warren, thus narrowing the
Mount Hope Neck to the width of half a mile. The spot is exactly a
mile east of Warren.
2 The term " Mount Hope " was applied to the peninsula between
the W7arren and Kickemuit Rivers and not to the mountain alone.
Philip's Village was not located, as many writers have erroneously
stated, upon the mount itself, but about a mile and a half north of it
near the " Narrows " of the Kickemuit River where evidences of Indian
occupation are still plentiful. — See Massasoit's Town, page 24.
3 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 72.
King Philip's War 67
and discouraged, made halt at Swansea.1 The cavalry,
however, under Prentice, proceeded to scour the country
towards Seekonk and Rehoboth,2 but discovering no trace
of the enemy finally encamped for the night.
The next morning Prentice, having placed a portion of
his command under Lieutenant Oakes 3 with orders to
march parallel with the main force along another road
in order to cover a wider extent of territory, set out on
his return to Swansea. They had advanced only a short
distance when they came in sight of a party of Indians
burning a house. Prentice was unable to reach them on
account of several intervening fences, but Oakes, contin
uing along the road, charged upon and put them to flight,
killing several, among them Phoebe,4 one of their leaders,
and losing one of his own men, John Druce.
Information in the meantime had reached Swansea
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 72.
2 The Rehoboth of King Philip's time was situated about six miles
west of the present village, and very nearly identical with the present
village of East Providence Center. Its western boundary was the See
konk River, and Seekonk Cove pushed its way inland to a point near the
settlement. On the bank of this cove at one time lived Roger Williams.
The site of an early garrison house is still identified, which was one of
the two houses remaining after the destruction of the town by the Indians.
3 Lieutenant Edward Oakes was made freeman in Cambridge, May 18,
1642. He was a native of England. He was selectman of Cambridge
for twenty-six years and deputy to the General Court from Cambridge
and Concord for eighteen years. He became lieutenant of Captain Pren
tice's troop in June, 1675. He died at Concord October 13, 1689.
— Bodge, page 81.
4 Phoebe, Pebee or Thebe, was a petty Wampanoag sachem, one of
Philip's councilors. He lived at Popanomscut in the southerly section
of Harrington, R. I. This was called Phoebe's Neck by the English
and was located directly opposite the village of Warren and separated
from it by the river.
68 King Philip's War
that Philip had been discovered at Pocasset,1 but Savage,
instead of marching directly toward this point with his
whole force, divided his command, sending Henchman
and Prentice to scour the woods and swamps along the
mainland, while he himself with the commands of Cap
tains Paige 2 and Moseley, marched down to Mount Hope.
No signs of Indians were discovered at Mount Hope, and
leaving a party to build a fort,3 despite the earnest en
treaty of Church that the whole force should go over
to Pocasset and drive Philip from cover, Savage again
returned to Swansea.
1 Pocasset was the territory now occupied by the town of Tiverton in
Rhode Island, and the city of Fall River in Massachusetts. Its western
border rests upon the Taunton River and the arm of Narragansett Bay,
known as the Sakonet River.
2 Captain Nicholas Paige came from Plymouth, England, and was in
Boston as early as 1665. June 27, 1675, he was appointed captain of
a troop to accompany Major Thomas Savage. He was active in busi
ness and in civil affairs; was of the Artillery Company in 1693; later
its commander, and a colonel. He died in 1717. — Bodge.
3 This fort was erected very near Philip's Indian village and in full
sight of it, at the Narrows of the Kickemuit. It was built upon the
brow of a bluff facing the water, and a comparatively few years ago its
remains were visible, but the action of the waves upon the bluff has
washed away the site.
CHAPTER V
THE Massachusetts forces, reinforced by a body of
Christian Indians raised by Major Gookin and sent
down from Boston under Captain Isaac Johnson,1 were
once more at Swansea, where Cudworth and the main
body of the Plymouth men soon joined them.
The whole plan of campaign had completely broken
down, every movement had been marked by doubt and
hesitation and the failure of the authorities to promptly
suppress the outbreak was soon to be seen in the growing
disaffection of the Nipmucks.
Suspicious of the Narragansetts, among whom it was
said the women and children of the Wampanoags had
found a refuge,2 and stirred by the warning letter of
Roger Williams before quoted, Governor Leverett and
the Council now sent Captain Edward Hutchinson 3 to
1 Captain Isaac Johnson was of Roxbury where he was admitted free
man March 4, 1635. He was of the Artillery Company in 1645 and its
captain in 1667. He was early in the service of King Philip's war and
is heard of at Mount Hope and Mendon.
2Uncas supplied this information. Rev. James Fitch of Norwich
quotes him as authority for the statement in a letter to the Connecticut
Council. Conn. Records, Vol. II, page 336. Age had not abated his
cunning or his enmities.
3 Captain Edward Hutchinson born about 1608, came to America
from Alford in Lincolnshire in 1633. He early settled in Newport but
removed to Boston. He soon entered service in the Artillery Company
and held a captain's commission in 1657. In 1658 he was elected rep
resentative to the General Court. He owned a large farm in the Nip-
muck country and he and his family were widely known among the
70 King Philip's War
take the Massachusetts force into the Narragansett coun
try and compel Canonchet to make a treaty and give
hostages for the good behavior of his people.
Immediately on the arrival of Hutchinson and Joseph
Dudley,1 a council of war was held and it was resolved
to " go make peace with a sword in their hands. "
Savage at once began his march by way of Providence,
while Moseley and Hutchinson and a party of volunteers
accompanied by Roger Williams and Dudley, sailed
down the bay to Smith's Landing 2 on the Narragansett
shore.
Both parties found the country of the Narragansetts
deserted. The wigwams stood empty, and though the
Indians witn whom he was popular. — New England Register, Vol. I
page 299.
1 Joseph Dudley of Roxbury was the son of Governor Thomas and
was born September 23, 1647. Graduated from Harvard College in
1665; was representative 1673-75; Artillery Company in 1677; assistant
from 1676 to 1685. He was of Andros' Council and Chief Justice of
an unconstitutional Superior Court. After a long imprisonment he went
in 1689 to England and became Deputy Governor of the Isle of Wight
under Lord Cutts, and came home in 1702 with a commission as Gov
ernor in which office he served until 1715. He died April 2, 1720. — Sav
age.
2 Smith's Landing. Richard Smith came from Gloucestershire, Eng
land, and became a leading man in Taunton. " On account of matters
of conscience" he left that place and settled in the Narragansett country,
purchasing from the Indians a large tract of land. He built on the
banks of the Annoquatucket River a large trading house where he gave
free entertainment to travelers. This was located about one mile north
of the present village of Wickford, R. I. At this place he had a wharf.
His son Richard inherited this property in 1664 and became his father's
successor as a trader and prominent citizen. It was burned during the
war, but was rebuilt, some of the timbers of the original house being used
in the construction of the new. It still stands, in an excellent state of
preservation and is known as the Updike house. — Rhode Island Hist
Soc. Coll., Vol. HI, page 166.
King Philip's War 71
crops were showing above the soil, men, women and
children in fear or hostility had withdrawn into the swamps.
Again and again Hutchinson sent for the sachems, but,
as Roger Williams wrote to Waite Winthrop 1 at New
London, July 7th, a meeting had not been agreed upon,
and if it were he feared it " would end in blows and blood
shed. "
A few days later Waite Winthrop with a company of
Connecticut troops and a number of Mohegans after a
march across country, during which Winthrop having
met old Ninigret had secured a promise of neutrality,2
arrived at Smith's Landing and joined the Massachusetts
men.
By the 15th a few aged and unimportant Indians had
been gathered together and forced to sign a treaty. The
totemic marks appearing on the document although des
ignated by the signers of the treaty as counselors and
attorneys to Canonicus, Ninigret and Pumham,3 are those
1 Waitstill Winthrop, sometimes written Waite, was the son of Gov
ernor John Winthrop of Connecticut, and was born February 27, 1042.
He was one of the commissioners of the New England colonies in 1G72
and during the years of Philip's war. He was chosen an assistant in
1692 under the old form of government, ten days before the arrival of
Sir William Phips with the new charter, in which he was named by the
King one of the Council. He died November 7, 1717. — Savage.
2 Letter of Waite Winthrop to Governor Winthrop. Conn. Records,
Vol. II, page 338.
3 Pumham was sachem of Shawamut, a part of Narragansett territory,
and disputed the deed given by Miantonomah to Samuel Gorton, ap
pealing to Massachusetts for protection. There may still be seen on
the banks of Warwick Cove the remains of an earthwork erected by the
authorities of the Massachusetts colony as an aid in the resistance of
the colony to the demands of Rhode Island, and known as Pumham's
fort. See Narragansett Historical Register, Vol. VI, page 137.
72 King Philip's War
of obscure individuals. Not a name of importance ap
pears.
By the terms of this one-sided treaty (here given only
in part) the signers on behalf of the Narragansetts agreed :
"I. That all and every of the said sachems shall from
time to time carefully seize, and living or dead deliver
unto one or other of the above-said governments, all and
every one of Sachem Philip's subjects whatsoever, that
shall come, or be found within the precincts of any of
their lands, and that with the greatest diligence and
faithfulness.
"II. That they shall with their utmost ability use all
acts of hostility against the said Philip and his subjects,
entering his lands or any other lands of the English, to
kill and destroy the said enemy, until a cessation from
war with the said enemy be concluded by both the above-
said colonies.
#*####*#
" VI. The said gentlemen in behalf of the governments
to which they do belong, do engage to the said Sachems
and their subjects, that if they or any of them shall seize
and bring into either the above English governments, or
to Mr. Smith, inhabitant of Narragansett, Philip Sachem,
alive, he or they so delivering, shall receive for their pains,
forty trucking cloth coats; in case they bring his head
they shall have twenty like good coats paid them. For
every living subject of said Philip's so delivered, the de
liverer shall receive two coats, and for every head one
coat, as a gratuity for their service herein . . . etc.
" PETTAQUAMSCOT,1 July 15, 1675. "
i Pettaquamscot was that section of country lying in the southeasterly
part of what is now the town of South Kingstown, R. I. It was sepa-
King Philip's War 73
Well might the unfortunate Narragansetts as they con
templated the forceful invasion of their territory and the
terms of this treaty extorted by force, which, signed by
no sachem, would be held binding upon them, feel that
the burden of past wrongs and present injuries was
almost too great to be borne.
Of all the New England tribes they indeed were the
most deserving of sympathy. The whole conduct of
Massachusetts and Connecticut against the Narragansetts
had from the first been often unjust, and always aggres
sive and high-handed. It had never been a wise policy,
and now that the bold and warlike Canonchet had suc
ceeded the pacific Canonicus the results were soon to be
reaped.
In the meantime Philip, relieved from pressure by the
Massachusetts men and the partial inactivity of the Plym
outh forces, found refuge in the wooded swamps and
thickets that lay in the interior of the Pocasset territory.1
The Indians along the eastern shore had been forced to
join him, and numerous war parties sallying forth ranged
the country in all directions, burning solitary farms, shoot
ing at the settlers from ambush and killing the cattle.
Middleboro 2 was devastated and the inhabitants forced
rated from Boston Neck by the Pettaquamscot River and Cove. Tower
Hill at the southerly end, was the portion of this territory settled by the
English.
1 Although the land of Pocasset along its water front is broken and
hilly, behind this ridge and extending the whole length of the territory
is an extent of swamp and meadow surrounding Watuppa Pond, among
the thickets of which the natives could find shelter from which they
could not easily be driven.
2 Middleboro in Plymouth colony, was so named from the fact that
Nemasket, the Indian village of the town, was the halfway or middle
place between the settlement at Plymouth and Sowams, the seat of
74 King Philip's War
to take refuge in a mill on the Nemasket River; a few
days and this too was deserted and the settlers, abandon
ing all their possessions, removed to Plymouth. Dart
mouth 1 was beset and partly burned during the latter
part of July. Taunton also was threatened and travel
along the highways ceased, except under escort. Men
feared to work in the fields and the inhabitants of all the
border towns sought refuge at night in the largest and
strongest houses, which were extemporized as garrisons.
Cudworth, unmindful of Church's persistent advice to
strike vigorously and with full force at the main body of
the Indians, who, he declared, were with Philip at Pocas-
set, had moved towards Taunton the better to protect that
side of the country from the activities of the war parties.
Like most of the commanding officers he possessed no
experience in warfare and failed to realize that against
the Indians a vigorous offensive was the surest means of
defense.
Massasoit. The English settlement grew up around the "Four Cor
ners" a mile or two above Nemasket, and is still the central portion of
the village. A short distance to the north, on what is now the main
street, stood the fort, overlooking the valley of the Nemasket, and oppo
site the fort lot still stands an ancient house, said to be a survivor of
the destruction of the place in Philip's war. The mill, in which the
inhabitants took refuge from the Indians, stood on the river at a spot
which now forms the northeastern corner of the village and known as
the lower factory.
1 The portion of Dartmouth that suffered most was that located about
five miles southwest from New Bedford and called by the Indian name
of Apponagansett, on the river still called by that name. At Russell's
Orchard, a short distance north of the bridge spanning the river, there
stood on the east bank, Russell's garrison house, into which the inhabi
tants of that section securely retired. This portion of the town is now
known as South Dartmouth or Padanaram. The ruined cellars of the
garrison were traceable a few years ago.
King Philip's War 75
In the hope, however, that Church, who was known
to possess considerable influence with the Pocasset In
dians, would be able to persuade or force them into peace,
he dispatched him with a small force of thirty-six men,
with Captain Fuller in command, to Pocasset. Unable
to get in touch with them, though informed by his Indian
scouts that they were in force close by, the captain placed
his men along a well-trodden trail and sat down to wait.
Fuller's men were unfortunately seized with an intense
desire to smoke, and " this epidemical plague of lust after
tobacco " l betrayed their presence to a party of Indians
coming down the path who instantly turned back.
On their return to the rendezvous certain of the men
began to twit Church on his failure to show them any
Indians, whereupon he offered to show such as would
volunteer to accompany him as many as they desired to
see.
It was now determined to divide the force, Fuller
marching along the coast, while Church, with nineteen
men, moved into the swamp. Fuller had marched only
a few miles when he discovered a band of Indians, who
had evidently been watching the force for some time,
closing in upon him. Urging his men forward he took
possession of a deserted house near the water's edge and
held his own stoutly until the evening when, a sloop ap
proaching the shore, he embarked his force and passed
over to the island of Rhode Island.
Church's party in the meantime marching along the
rocky but deeply wooded ground soon came upon a
" fresh plain trail, " but so infested with rattlesnakes that
1 Church, page 7.
76 King Philip's War
the men were unwilling to proceed. " Had they kept on, "
says the chronicle, "they would have found enough (In
dians) but it is not certain they would have returned to
tell how many. " 1 The desire of the men to turn back
must have been welcome to Church who knew the peril
of their position. Retracing their steps a short distance
they turned off into a pea field in two divisions. Suddenly
two Indians appeared. Church and those with him threw
themselves on the ground, but the others discovered them
selves and the Indians fled. Deeming their position criti
cal the captain drew his men together and marched
toward the shore as the glitter of gun barrels in the sun
light showed them a large force of Indians who soon
opened a fierce fire.2 The little force, keeping well to
gether and taking advantage of the ground, made their
way without loss to the beach,3 and here, burrowing in
the sand and lying behind the rocks, they kept the Indians
at bay.
For over twenty-four hours the force had been without
food, and the boats which they had expected to follow
along the shore were seen aground towards Rhode Island.
Hard pressed by numbers Church ordered his men to
1 Church, page 8.
2 Church, page 9.
3 The scene of Church's exploit is located on Punkatees Neck, some
times called Pocasset Neck. It is about five miles south of the village
of Tiverton and shoots out from the mainland directly opposite the
little village of Tiverton Four Corners. The immediate scene of the
conflict was on the shore directly opposite Fogland Point, a spur of land
pushing out westwardly and then turning to the north, thus forming a
cove of which the point is the western boundary. The spring at which
Church records himself as quenching his thirst, has disappeared, and
it is most probable that the shore on which Church's force actually
stood has been encroached upon and swallowed up by the sea.
King Philip's War 77
throw off their outside garments in order that the Rhode
Islanders, watching the fight from the opposite shore,
might distinguish his meager force by their white shirts,
and send assistance.1
The Indians had now taken possession of the ruins of
a stone house near by, but the English lay close in shelter
and their fire accomplished little. The fight continued
all of a sultry afternoon, until near evening a sloop, com
manded by Captain Golding, came in close to shore and
brought them off two at a time in a canoe.
Philip having been definitely located amid the swamps
about Pocasset, the Massachusetts troops on their return
from the Narragansett country proceeded through Re-
hoboth to Taunton. On the 18th they were joined by
the Plymouth forces under Cudworth and the whole army
proceeded into the Pocasset swamp,2 which they reached
after an eighteen-mile march.3
Pushing forward in haste and without caution they
were met by a murderous volley from a large number of
Indians lying in wait for them in a thicket. Five of their
number were instantly killed and many were wounded.
1 Church, page 11.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 84.
3 The "swamp" here mentioned was rather a thick growth of woods
and tangled underbrush than a wet and miry lowland. There is evi
dence that the encounter was at a point on the eastern shore of the
Taunton River directly opposite the present village of Somerset, between
the Assonet River and the railroad track leading to Middleboro, and
hemmed in on the east by the highway from Fall River to Assonet village.
This section of country is rolling, watered by several streams, with oc
casional marshes. Hubbard characterizes the Pocasset swamp as being
seven miles in length, but this only lends probability to the statement
made above that the term applied to a tangled and difficult wooded
country rather than to a marsh, there being nothing of the latter sort,
of anything like that extent, in this whole region.
78 King Philip's War
Before they could rally and assume the offensive, the In
dians, leaving their wigwams at the mercy of the English,
withdrew farther into the swamp.
Hearing from an old Indian found in one of the wig
wams that Philip was near by, the English attempted to
follow, but the night was coming on and in the dusk the
soldiers began to fire at every stump and waving bush,
and many, made nervous and confused by the darkness,
shot in the gloom even at their comrades. Orders were
given to halt, and the force retreated out of the swamp.
It was now decided, from the belief that Philip and his
Wampanoags were finally cornered, to leave Captain
Henchman and his company, supported by the Plymouth
forces to build a fort which it was supposed would pre
vent the egress of the Indians and lead eventually to their
being starved into submission.
Considering that Philip was as good as taken the main
army now disbanded,1 while Captain Prentice marched
towards Mendon where five or six of the inhabitants had
been killed while laboring in the fields by a war party of
Nipmucks.2
Philip was very far from being taken, and, while Hench
man was building his fort, evaded the outposts during the
night of the 31st of July, and, crossing the Taunton River
at low tide by swimming and by rafts,3 made his escape.
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 86.
2 This was the first attack on any place in the Massachusetts colony,
and was led by Matoonas, a Nipmuck chieftain. The wife and son of
Matthias Puffer were slain as was also one William Post, and these are
the only ones that can now be identified among the victims. The site
of the slaughter is marked by a monument.
3 Hubbard says, " About a hundred or more of the women and chil
dren, which were like to be rather burdensome than serviceable, were
King Philip's War 79
He had turned the flank of the colonists and was well on
his way to the Nipmuck country before the sun was high.
He had outgeneraled his opponents, and could he once
pass unmolested through the plains about Rehoboth the
whole undefended frontier would be at his mercy.
Fortunately for the settlements Philip's force was dis
covered while crossing Seekonk Plain by a scouting party
from Taunton.
The Reverend Mr. Newman l of Rehoboth gathered a
company of volunteers, and, reinforced by fifty Mohegans
and some Natick Indians returning from Boston under
the command of Oneco and two other sons of Uncas,2
rushed in pursuit. The troops towards Mount Hope
and Swansea were notified and the pursuers were soon
joined by Lieutenant Thomas 3 with a small force, in
cluding some Providence volunteers. Night had fallen,
but they continued the chase until notified by the Mohe-
gan scouts that the Wampanoags were near by.
Just before dawn, leaving their horses, the whole force
stole upon the Indian encampment and surprised the in
mates. It was Weetamoo's camp, and the Indians fled,
left behind, who soon after resigned up themselves to the mercy of the
English. "
1 Rev. Noah Newman was the son of Rev. Samuel Newman, and
succeeded his father in the pastorate of the church at Rehoboth. He
died April 26, 1678.— Savage.
2 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVII, page 215. Curtis' Return
and Relation.
3 Lieutenant Nathaniel Thomas lived at Marshfield, of which town
he was representative for eight years from 1672. At the time of Philip's
escape from the Pocasset swamp he was stationed at the Mount Hope
garrison with twenty men, eleven of whom he took with him on his chase
after the other forces, which he overtook at sundown. He died Octo
ber 22, 1718, in his 76th year.— Bodge. Savage.
80 King Philip's War
leaving several dead. The settlers were following hard
upon the heels of the fugitives when suddenly they found
themselves confronted by Philip's fighting menGy
The fight raged fiercely for some time, both sides losing
several killed, among the Wampanoag dead being Woo-
nashun,2 one of the signers of the treaty of Taunton, but
finally the Indians withdrew and the Mohegans, finding
the plunder of Weetamoo's camp to their liking, could
not be induced to continue the pursuit.
Captain Henchman was still building his fort at Po-
casset when the news reached him that Philip had es
caped. Embarking his force he crossed the water and
soon came up with the Rehoboth men who were returning
for their horses left in the rear.
Henchman failed to energetically pursue the retiring
Indians although furnished with supplies by Edmonds 3
and Brown.4 He failed to grasp the importance of an-
lace oj ,tbi&^ooo]j|itor_was known as Nipsachick. It is located
in the northwest corner of the town of Smitnfield, K. L, a mile and a
half south from the Tarkiln station of the Providence & Springfield
R. R. It is in the midst of a hilly country with the swamp Nipsachick
lying in a valley southward of the hill of that name. This was the first
encounter upon the soil of Rhode Island.
2Nimrod, alias Woonashun, was a great captain and counselor.
— Book of the Indians.
3 Captain Andrew Edmonds of Providence commanded the Providence
company which took part in the affair at Nipsachick. He was after
wards granted the privilege of operating a ferry where the red bridge
crosses the Seekonk River, by the men whom, he said in his petition,
"fought with me at Nipsatteke," as compensation for his valiant services
in the war. In 1696 the ferry privilege was continued to his widow.
—The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (Edward Field),
Vol. I, page 403.
* Lieutenant John Brown was the son of John of Wannamoiset. He
was an early settler of Swansea of which town he was a leading citizen.
King Philip's War 81
nihilating or turning Philip back toward Mount Hope,
though even now the Nipmucks were rising and the un
suspecting settlers along the western frontier were in peril
of massacre. Henchman continued his pursuit leisurely
until his provisions were exhausted. Near Mendon the
Mohegans left him and soon after, meeting Captain Mose-
ley who was bringing up supplies, he gave over the pur
suit.1
Philip's force nevertheless had been scattered. Wee-
tamoo and her people turned again to their own territory.
Many of the Wampanoags deserted, or, prevented from
joining Philip through ignorance of his whereabouts, wan
dered around in small parties, falling upon the homes of
solitary settlers and isolated hamlets.
Negotiations had already been commenced with the
Indians left by Philip in the vicinity of Pocasset. By the
persistence of Captain Benjamin Church and Captain
Eels,2 many were induced to surrender themselves and
were taken to Plymouth, but, notwithstanding the terms
on which they had submitted and the indignant remon
strances of Church and the other captains, the whole to
the number of one hundred and sixty were ordered by
the government to be sold into slavery.3
1 Letter of Captain Nathaniel Thomas to Thomas Winslow.— Mather's
History (Appendix), page 231.
2 Samuel Eels of Milford, Conn., was a military officer in Philip's
war and was afterwards at Fairfield, in 1687, but settled later in Hing-
ham from which place he was representative in 1705. He died in 1709.
— Savage.
3 Church, page 13.
A letter written by the Rev. Mr. Fitch of Norwich to the Connecticut
Council records the capture by Mohegans of 111 women and children
about this time, who were afterwards sold into slavery. — Conn. Rec
ords, Vol. II, page 355.
F
82 King Philip's War
Before we follow the developments which were rapidly
unfolding during the month of July toward the western
frontier of the Bay towns, let us turn for the moment to
the state of affairs in the colony of Connecticut. Here
we shall find a prompt realization of the dangers of the
warfare which had broken out and an energy and deci
siveness in marked contrast with the hesitation and blind
ness of both Massachusetts and Plymouth. That colony,
though engaged in a fierce dispute with Governor Andros of
New York, as soon as the first alarm of war was sounded
took energetic measures, and, secure in the friendly dis
position and active alliance of Uncas, was able not only
to guard her eastern frontier but to lend valuable assist
ance to her neighbors.
The towns were ordered to set themselves in a position
of defense, and on the first day of July, when Savage was
marching into Mount Hope peninsula, Connecticut troops
were being sent to New London, Stonington and Say-
brook under Captains Waite Winthrop and Thomas Bull.1
The Mohegans were encouraged to don their war paint
by the promise of rewards for every scalp and prisoner
taken, and scouting parties scoured the country from Nor
wich to the Narragansett frontiers. Winthrop, a few days
after his arrival at New London, had invaded the Narra-
i Thomas Bull of Hartford came in the Hopewell, embarking at Lon
don in September, 1635. He was first of Boston or Cambridge, but ac
companied Hooker to Hartford. He served in the Pequot war in 1637,
and in 1675 was in command of the fort at Saybrook when Sir Edmond
Andros attempted unsuccessfully to gain the place for the Duke of
York. He was appointed lieutenant of a company raised in 1653, by
order of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, to fight the Dutch.
He died in 1684.— Memorial History of Hartford County, Vol. I,
page 232.
King Philip's War 83
gansett country and joined Hutchinson in forcing the
Pettaquamscot treaty on the Narragansetts.
Uncas, though an old man, had not lost his cunning,
and the suspicions in regard to the Narragansetts offered
too valuable an opportunity for the sagacious sachem to
overlook. The report that the Narragansetts were shel
tering the women and children of the Wampanoags was
certainly spread by him, and there is more than a sus
picion that his warriors did not discriminate too care
fully between the scalps of neutral Narragansetts and the
hostile Wampanoags.
Connecticut realized to the full the value of the Indian
auxiliaries as scouts and guides, while the Massachu
setts authorities yielded to public clamor which held all
the Indian race to be treacherous enemies. Connecticut,
whose people tasted little of the bitterness of burned vil
lages and slain settlers, associated the Mohegans with all
their expeditions and by their assistance escaped those
ambuscades so often fatal to the Massachusetts forces.
While desolation and terror prevailed in the isolated
settlements towards Rhode Island and the Plymouth
frontier, and Connecticut lay safe in the security of re
moteness and the Mohegan alliance, the settlers to the
west of the Bay towns and in the Connecticut Valley pur
sued their customary occupations, disturbed by occasional
rumors, yet generally confident in the neutrality of the
neighboring Nipmucks.
The Nipmuck and the valley tribes had planted their
fields as usual and no unwonted movement had been
noticed among them. Warnings, however, had come to
the ears of the authorities early in June before Philip
had plunged into the conflict.
CHAPTER VI
ONE Waban,1 a Christian Natick, and several Chris
tian Indians had early reported that the Nipmucks
were disaffected. In fact all the Indian tribes seemed to
have reached a state of excitement and concealed hostility
which only needed such a spark as was furnished by
Philip's example to break into flame, and there is con
siderable evidence that these tribes, formerly closely con
nected with the Wampanoags, had been visited by emis
saries of Philip in the spring.
In accordance with their usual custom the Governor
and Council of Massachusetts, though with no full reali
zation of the great danger, sent Ephraim Curtis 2 of Wor
cester to the Nipmuck country on the 13th of July, in
the dual capacity of negotiator and spy. Journeying
through the country, particularly that part lying toward
Brookfield, he visited many of the Nipmuck villages and
1 Wauban, commonly written Waban, was supposed to be from Con
cord, and was an old man when Philip's war broke out. He was one
of Eliot's converts; resided at Noantum (Newton), and later at Natick
where he was "a ruler over fifty," and a justice of the peace. He was
among those sent to Deer Island, October 30, 1675, and among the sick
that returned in May, 1676, and it is particularly mentioned that he was
one that recovered. The time of his death is unknown. — Drake's Book
of the Indians, Vol. II, page 115.
2 Ephraim Curtis was the son of Henry of Sudbury, and was 33 years
of age at the breaking out of Philip's war. He was a notable scout and
hunter, well versed in Indian ways and intimately acquainted with many
of the tribes. He was also a trader and had a house at Quamsigamug
(Worcester).
King Philip's War 85
received promises of good behavior. Hardly had he
reached Boston when the Council, now seriously alarmed
by the conditions at Swansea, bade him return to the
Nipmucks. On reaching Brookfield,1 Curtis was informed
that Matoonas,2 with Sagamore John and certain others,
leaders of the party among the Nipmucks friendly to
Philip, had robbed his house at Worcester and was given
to understand by some Indians with whom he had traded
for many years, that it would be dangerous for him to
continue his journey. Securing two men and horses from
Marlboro, however, with a friendly Indian for a guide, he
set out for the Indian encampment at Quabaug^ one of
the Indian villages of which there were several near by.
On approaching the site of the village neither Indians
nor wigwams were to be seen. He determined, however,
to follow on toward one of the upper villages. A few
miles to the west, coming upon an Indian path newly
made he followed it for a considerable distance until they
came by the abandoned lead mines on the old road to
Springfield. A short distance farther on they came upon
two Indians, one of whom they managed to overtake. He
informed them that the others were encamped a short
distance away, which led Curtis to send a Middleboro
Indian to announce that he came as a messenger from
the Governor of Massachusetts with peaceable word and
no intention to hurt or fight them.
1 The location of old Brookfield was upon Foster Hill at a point about
halfway between the present villages of Brookfield and West Brook-
field. At present there are but few houses in this locality.
2 Matoonas was a Nipmuck chief whom Hubbard calls "An old, ma
licious villian." His son had been executed for having murdered a
young Englishman in Dedham.
86 King Philip's War
The guide soon returned with the information that
they would not believe the message sent them. Unde
terred by their hostile attitude, which to an old trader
acquainted with them conveyed its own warning, he went
on towards their encampment and found the main body
on an island of a few acres surrounded by a swamp and
the river.1 A party of warriors whom they found on the
road cocked their guns at him. None who knew him
would speak or return his salutation. Disturbed by these
evidences of hostility his companions urged that it was
too perilous to continue, but silencing them with the ar
gument that their only safety lay in going boldly among
them, he pushed on. On reaching the river bank he
called out that he came peaceably to remind them of
their engagements, at which a great uproar arose. Guns
were aimed at him and many of the young men would
have killed him had not the older men withheld them.
Ordering the sachems to come over the river, they re-
1 This was Menameset where the old turnpike road from Furnace
village through Oakham crosses the Wenimisset Brook in New Brain-
tree. The topography of the country has greatly changed and drainage
and tillage has removed practically all traces of the swamp except im
mediately along the borders of the brook. The site of the encampment
was about twenty rods from Ware River and may be reached by a walk
of perhaps a third of a mile from the New Braintree station of the Massa
chusetts Central Division of the Boston and Maine R. R. This vil
lage was the most southerly of three, all known by the name of Mena
meset, and was perhaps a mere temporary lodging place. The other
villages were located farther up the Ware River, the first about a mile
from the former and the last two miles beyond the middle village. The
two last were permanent abiding places, so far as any Indian dwell
ing could have that term applied, and evidence of this is still to
be seen. The middle village has the distinction of having been the
one to which Mrs. Rowlandson was brought after her capture at
Lancaster.
King Philip's War 87
fused, and bade him come over to them. As he forded
the river the Indians continued to threaten him and he
requested them to lay down their arms. They demanded
that he lay down his arms and that he and his companions
come off their horses, a command with which he was
compelled to comply. Many said they would not be
lieve him or his masters unless two or three bushels of
powder were sent them.1 Among the chiefs were Mut-
taump,2 chief of the Quabaugs, and Sagamore Sam 3 of
the Nashaway Indians.
The feeling against him finally quieted down and they
bade him stay with them over night saying that their hos
tile attitude had been due to the report that the English
had killed a man of theirs on the Merrimac River a few
days before and had an intention to destroy them all.
Assuring them of the friendship of the authorities he left
them apparently appeased. j^ujdn^.,h^.r^tuj-n to Boston
news reached him that war had broken out along.,.tlie
Plyjnojith^ frontier.
The jtttflpk nn JjflfipHnn again aroused the authorities
to the threatening danger from the Nipmuck tribes, and,
combined with the news which had reached them of the
attitude of the eastern Indians, led them to consider the
necessity of keeping the Nipmucks under control. In
consequence Curtis was again dispatched from Boston
to make a perfect discovery of the motions of the Nip-
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVII, page 215.— Curtis' Return and
Relation.
2 Muttaump or Mattawamppe, was the sachem of the Quabaugs. He
was interested in the sale of Brookfield lands to the settlers.
3 Sagamore Sam of the Nashaway tribe was one of the party which
sacked Lancaster February 10, 1676. He was also known by the name
of Uskatuhgun. — Drake's Book of the Indians.
88 King Philip's War
mucks, and with a declaration under the public seal that
the English had no intention to disturb them or any other
Indians who remained peaceable.
After delivering a message to the constable at Marl
boro to forward to Major Pynchon at Springfield, he fol
lowed his old trail and came upon the Indians at the
place where he had found them encamped before. As
he waved his hand to them across the stream they gave
a great shout. Muttaump was away, but several minor
chiefs spoke to him. The warriors seemed calmer and
less sullen than before and listened to the Governor's
letter quietly.
He told them if Muttaump and others would come to
Boston they would be well treated, their bellies filled and
their questions answered, and received their promise to
send one or more of their chiefs to Boston within five
days. Asked why they had been so abusive during his
former visit they replied that Black James,1 one of the
leaders of the Quabaug Indians, had told them that the
English would kill them all because they were not pray
ing Indians.2 They also informed him that one of Philip's
men had been among them with plunder from Swansea
at the time of his first visit.
The Council waited in vain for the embassy. None
came, and, thoroughly alarmed, they determined to force
matters to an issue. Captains Hutchinson and Wheeler,3
1 Black James was a Quabaug, a dweller at Chabanakongkomun,
near what is now Webster, Mass. He was constituted a constable of
all the praying towns. "He is a person that hath approved himself
dilligent and courageous, faithful and zealous to suppress sin. " — Gookin.
2 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVH, page 223.
s Captain Thomas Wheeler was of Concord where he was admitted
freeman May 18, 1642. He was early engaged in military affairs and
King Philip's War 89
with twenty troopers, were accordingly sent from Boston,
July 28th, to demand the reasons why the promised em
bassy had not been sent, and to warn them that unless
they delivered up Matoonas, his accomplices and all hos
tile Indians who came among them, the Council would
hold them as aids and abettors.
Marching leisurely by way of Cambridge and Sudbury
the English came upon several Indian villages, but all
were silent and deserted. Hearing on their arrival at
Brookfield, August 1st, that the Indians were ten miles
to the northwest, they sent Curtis with some other young
men to inform them that they had not come to do them
injury but to deliver a message. Curtis reported on his
return that the chief sachems had promised to meet them
at a place three miles from Brookfield on the morrow at
eight o'clock, but that the younger warriors seemed surly
and hostile.
On the next day they set out for the rendezvous, but
no Indians came to meet them. Encouraged, however,
by several Brookfield settlers who had accompanied them,
and who relied upon the influence of one David,1 a saga-
upon the organization of a troop of horse in Concord, became its cap
tain. He was in this command when the company was called to active
service in Philip's war, July, 1675. He died December 16, 1686.
1 David was ruler of the Quabaug village in the southeasterly part of
Brookfield, and was a trusted friend of the first Brookfield settlers.
During the war he was charged with being privy to a murder committed
at Lancaster and an attempt was made to wring confession from him
through torture. In this situation, in order to avert immediate death,
as well as to be avenged for the death of a brother captured by friendly
Indians and by them delivered over to the English and shot, he accused
eleven Indians of the act, which accusation he subsequently acknowl
edged to have been false, and in punishment for this treachery, as well
as for shooting at a boy in Marlboro, he was condemned to slavery, and
accordingly sold. — Book of the Indians, page 265.
90 King Philip's War
more of the Quabaugs, who had long been a friend of
the English and to whose tribe a majority of the Indians
belonged, they determined to proceed despite the warning
of their Indian guides. Riding in single file along the
trail they entered a narrow path where a wooded hill
rose abruptly from the edge of a swamp covered with
thick brush and tall grass.1 Here, when they had well
entered, from all sides a murderous volley was poured in
upon them and several fell. Unable to retreat by the
way they had come or to enter the swamp, a few of the
party, dismounting, held the savages from rushing and
overpowering them, in a hand-to-hand conflict, until the
rest had had time to rally. Wheeler's horse was shot
and he himself wounded, but his son coming to the rescue
placed him on his own horse and, though himself wounded
in the abdomen, was able to catch a riderless horse and
join the rest of the force.
Skillfully directed by their three Indian guides, the sur
vivors fought their way step by step up the steep side
of the hill and finally broke through, leaving eight of
their number, including all the Brookfield men, dead on
the field. The survivors, five of them badly wounded,
Captain Hutchinson mortally, taking a circuitous route,
reached Brookfield in safety. It is a sad commentary to
add that the Indian guides, to whose skill and loyalty the
survivors owed their lives, were soon afterwards driven
by harsh treatment to join the hostiles. One Sampson is
i The place of ambush in the Wenimisset fight was in the valley of
that brook about a mile south of the lower Menameset village. The
swamplike character of the ground has been reclaimed by drainage, but
the steep and rocky hillside still remains. The old Indian path is sup
planted by a traveled highway.
King Philip's War 91
known to have been killed soon after while fighting against
the English, and his brother Joseph taken prisoner and
sold into slavery in Jamaica was to be released afterwards
through the efforts of Eliot. From the other, Memecho,
a Christian Natick, we obtain information of Philip's meet
ing with the Quabaugs.
The return of the defeated troopers made clear the
deadly peril which now hovered over the little settlement
of Brookfield. Abandoning their homes the people flocked
to the house of Sergeant John Ayres,1 the largest and
strongest in the settlement, with such provisions and house
hold goods as they were able to take with them.
Hardly had the necessary preparations been completed
when the victorious Quabaugs poured into the village,
plundering and burning the deserted houses and encom
passing the garrison on all sides.
Curtis, and Henry Young of Concord, attempting to
leave for the purpose of procuring aid from the other
towns, after reaching the further end of the street were
driven back, and the attack upon the garrison began in
earnest. That evening Young, looking out of a loophole
in the garret window, was shot and mortally wounded.
A son of Sergeant Pritchard,2 venturing out of the garri-
1 John Ayres was of Haverhill in 1645, Ipswich, 1648, a petitioner for
Quabaug in 1660, whither he removed with the first settlers and was a
leading man in the new plantation. He was killed at Wenimisset
August 2, 1675, and his sons received a grant of land on account of their
father's services. — Temple's History of North Brookfield, page 65.
2 Sergeant William Pritchard was of Lynn, 1645, and of Ipswich, 1648,
He removed to Quabaug in 1667 where he was "clerk of the writs,"
and second sergeant in the Brookfield company. He was killed at
Wenimisset fight August 2, 1675. His home lot in Brookfield was the
one first east of Sergeant Ayres' tavern, and it was there that his son
Samuel was killed during the siege. — History of North Brookfield.
92 King Philip's War
son to his father's house near by, in order to bring in
some valuables forgotten in the confusion of flight, was
shot, his head cut off and set upon a pole. Fagots and
hay were piled up at the corner of the house and fired,
but the fire was put out and the garrison, standing to their
posts, drove off the Indians with some loss. Curtis was
again sent out but could not pass, but, going forth the
third time, August 3rd, crept on his hands and knees
through the lines of the besiegers and got safely away to
Marlboro.
Through the third and fourth of August the siege con
tinued. Blazing arrows were shot upon the roof of the
house, but holes were cut through and water poured from
buckets quenched the flames. Finally a wheeled contri
vance loaded with hay and fagots was set on fire and
pushed against the door while the warriors, sheltering
themselves behind the trees and outhouses, fired at the
settlers whenever they exposed themselves, but a down
pour of rain quenched the fire and gave the defenders
renewed hope. Thomas Wilson,1 going out to fetch
water, was shot through the jaw, and a woman killed by
a bullet that entered through a loophole. But though the
bullets occasionally pierced the walls they inflicted few
casualties among the fifty women and children and the
thirty-two men within.2
1 Thomas Wilson was among the earlier settlers of Brookfield. In
the division of lands he received lot No. 7, but a short distance west
of the meeting-house lot, which was No. 10, that of Sergeant John
Ayres upon which stood the tavern, being next east of the meeting
house.
2 The best contemporary account of the ambuscade and the defense
of Brookfield, is given in Captain Wheeler's "True Narrative of the
Lord's Providences."
King Philip's War 93
In the meanwhile, Judah Trumble l of Springfield, who
had set out for Brookfield, saw the flames and, cautioned
by the sound of guns and the shouts of the besiegers,
crept up within forty rods of the burning houses. Imme
diately recognizing the desperate state of affairs he rode
home in haste.
Preparations for the relief of the beleaguered town were
at once made, couriers dispatched to Hartford and Boston
asking for assistance, while warnings of the danger to
which they were exposed were spread through the valley
towns, and a force from Springfield under the command
of Lieutenant Cooper,2 reinforced by a company of troop
ers and Mohegans from Connecticut, Captain Thomas
Watts 3 in command, was immediately sent forward.
Major Simon Willard,4 however, who had been dispatched
1 Judah Trumble removed from Rowley to Suffield, now in Connecti
cut but then within the jurisdiction of Springfield, in 1676. At Suffield
he was constable and held other town offices. He died April 1, 1692.
2 Lieutenant Thomas Cooper came from England to Boston in 1635
when he was eighteen years of age. He settled in Windsor, Conn., in
1641, and two years later removed to Springfield. He was a man of
varied accomplishments; practical carpenter and farmer, practicing at
torney before the county court, bonesetter and surveyor. He built the
first meetinghouse in Springfield in 1645, and was chosen on the first
board of selectmen and served seventeen years, and was for one year
deputy to the General Court. See First Century of Springfield, by
H. M. Burt, Vol. II, page 553.
3 Thomas Watts, son of Richard, was born about 1626. He lived in
Hartford and was called sergeant in the list of freemen in 1669. He
served as ensign, lieutenant, and captain of the Hartford trainband,
and led his company in the desperate fight at Narragansett December 19,
1675. He also commanded the forces that went up the Connecticut
River in 1676. He died in 1683. — Savage. Memorial History of Hart
ford County, Vol. I, page 266.
4 Major Simon Willard was born in Hosmonden, Kent, England. He
arrived in Boston in May, 1634, and soon settled in Cambridge. He
94 King Philip's War
against some Indians near Groton, had fortunately been
informed of the plight of the garrison by the Marlboro
authorities as he was leaving Lancaster and immediately
turned aside and marched toward Brookfield.
Soon after nightfall of the third, his company of forty-
six men passed through the town and reached the garrison,
now well-nigh worn out by loss of sleep and lack of pro
visions. His approach was known to the Indians, an out
lying party of whom had allowed him to pass in the belief
that the besiegers would ambuscade his force, but a large
body of deserted cattle following his men misled the In
dians as to the strength of the relieving force and caused
them to draw off after setting fire to the remaining build
ings. The anxious occupants of the Ayres house, hearing
the confusion in the darkness, suspected it was another
force of the enemy until English voices calling out in the
night brought the welcome assurance that succor had
come.1 With the usual exaggeration the Indian losses
were estimated at over eighty, a not unfamiliar measure
of consolation.
Reinforcements were now pouring into Brookfield.
Beers and Lathrop marched in from the east; on the same
day, from Springfield and Hartford, came Cooper and
became one of the first settlers of Concord in 1637; entered into military
affairs and in 1655 reached the rank of major, the highest at that time.
He served as representative to the General Court for many sessions until
1654, and from 1657 until his death was an assistant of the colony.
About 1659 he removed to Lancaster and to Groton in 1671. At the
opening of King Philip's war he was the chief military officer of Middle
sex County, and was then seventy years of age, and his services until the
time of his death were full and efficient. He died at Charlestown,
April 24, 1676.— Bodge, page 119.— Savage.
i Two pairs of twins were born in the Ayres tavern during the siege.
— Old Indian Chronicle, page 145.
King Philip's War 95
Watts with mounted men, and Mohegans under Uncas'
son Joshua, and the arrival of Captain Moseley with his
own and most of Henchman's company from Mendon,
on the 9th, brought the strength of the force under Major
Willard to about 350 men exclusive of Mohegans. Wil-
lard proceeded to patrol the country but with little suc
cess. Cooper then returned to Springfield but Moseley,
Lathrop, Watts, and Beers marched to the deserted vil
lage at Menameset and, having burnt its fifty wigwams, '
separated, Watts marching to Springfield by way of Had-
ley, Beers and Lathrop scouring the country along the
Bay Path, while Moseley reconnoitered the country to the
north.1 All alike failed to get in touch with the Indians
and none could tell where or when the next blow might
fall. The widely separated settlements throughout the
Connecticut Valley, it was evident, were in great danger,
and an immediate concentration in some stragetic position
in the valley was necessary.
Hadley, halfway up the valley, whose position in a
bend of the river afforded easy access to both banks,
was decided upon. There a stockade, having the river at
each end, was built, supplies were gathered and the
forces concentrated. Brookfield was soon abandoned by
all. Some months afterwards we hear that the aban
doned cattle had returned to their old home and were
grazing among the ruined houses. The other settlements
up the river had, meanwhile, placed themselves in a state
of defense; stockades were built, the best situated and
strongest houses were fortified, and small garrisons were
left to assist the settlers in case of attack.
1 Moseley to Governor Leverelt, August 16th. — Massachusetts Ar
chives, Vol. LXVII, page 239.
96 King Philip's War
All knowledge of the Indians was lost, yet they were
within easy striking distance. Their success at Weni-
inisset had drawn the waverers to arms and kindled the
warlike temper of the tribes. Philip, too, was among
them. He had met the Quabaugs retiring from the siege
of Brookfield in a nearby swamp, on the 5th of August,
and, giving them wampum as a pledge, praised their suc
cess. He told their chiefs how narrow had been his es
cape from capture or death in the fight at Nipsachick.
Two hundred and fifty men had been with him including
Weetamoo's force, besides women and children, but
they had left him; some were killed and he was reduced
to forty warriors and some women and children.1 After
this, save for vague rumors we hear little of Philip for
some months. Tradition has named after him caves
where he lived and mountains from which he watched
the burning of the hamlets in the valley below, but his
hand is hard to trace in the warfare of the valley.
Major Pynchon wrote to the Council of Connecticut,
August 12th, that he was alone and wanted advice. Major
Talcott was immediately sent to him with a recommen
dation to dispatch an agent to Albany to secure aid from
the Mohawks.
The policy of the Iroquois did not favor the active alli
ance, however. The English were valuable allies against
the French but the Iroquois were valuable to the English
for much the same reasons. They had their own wars
to wage without losing men for the English in a quarrel
that did not concern them. It was • no advantage to
i Testimony of George Memicho, a Christian Natick and one of
Hutchinson's guides. — Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I,
pages 293, 294.
King Philip's War 97
them to help the English become too strong, and they
disliked the English ally, Uncas, even more than the hos-
tiles. They would be neutral, they informed Governor
Andros of New York, and Pynchon in sending the news
to Governor Leverett besought him to authorize the use
of friendly Naticks as scouts.
On the 22d Pynchon wrote to John Allyn 1 of Hartford,
saying that the greater part of the forces had returned to
Brookfield, Captain Watts was at Hadley, and a weak
garrison had been established at Northfield. He was
troubled at the thought of Watts being recalled and he
suspected the Mohegan auxiliaries " to be fearful or false,
or both. "
While Captains Lathrop, Beers, and Watts were march
ing up the valley, and leaving men and supplies in the
valley towns from Westfield to Northfield, Moseley, who
had been sent to reconnoiter the country towards Lan
caster, had been doing his best to turn the friendly Indians
in that vicinity into enemies. News having reached him
soon after his arrival at Chelmsford that seven people had
been killed by Indians at Lancaster on the 22d of August,
he immediately marched to that place. On his arrival
some of the townspeople actuated, as Gookin declares, by
a desire for the land of the Christian Indians at Marlboro,
1 John Allyn, son of Matthew, was born in England and married,
November 19, 1651, Ann, daughter of Henry Smith of Springfield and
granddaughter of William Pynchon. He resided in Hartford, was towns
man 1655, town clerk 1659-96, deputy, many years magistrate, secretary
of the colony 1663-65, again elected 1667, and held this office until 1695.
He was of the committee of three chosen in 1662 to take the charter into
their custody and safe keeping. In the military service he rose from
cornet to rank of lieutenant-colonel. He died November 11, 1696.
— Savage. Memorial History of Hartford County, Vol. I, page 228.
G
98 King Philip's War
told him the attack had been made by them, a statement
seemingly confirmed by an Indian named David, about
to be executed. Moseley immediately raided this village
of the Christian Indians, who had already been disarmed
by Captain John Ruddock,1 and, seizing eleven of their
number tied them together by their necks and sent them
to Boston for trial.2 Continuing his march into the Pen-
nacook country he burned the village and supplies of
sachem Wannalancet,3 near Concord, a friendly Indian
who, fearing the same treatment that had been meted
out to the Marlboro Indians, deserted his village at the
approach of Moseley and withdrew into the woods.4
1 Captain John Ruddock became freeman of the colony in 1640. He
was actively engaged in forming the plantation of Marlboro. He built
one of the first frame houses in the town, and was one of its first select
men, first town clerk and deacon of the church. His second wife was
the sister of Rev. William Brinsmead, the minister of Marlboro. — Hud
son's History of Sudbury, page 40; also Hudson's History of Marlboro.
2 Among these prisoners was old Jethro, who, confined at Deer Island,
escaped, and, angered by his treatment, joined the hostiles.
3 Wannalancet, in obedience to the advice of his father, always kept
peace with the English. He resided at the ancient seat of the sagamores
upon the Merrimac, called at that time Naamkeke, and his house stood
near the Pawtucket Falls, but at the time of the war with Philip he took
up his quarters among the Pennacooks, who were also his people. WTan-
nalancet and his company were among those who came to Cochecho at
the invitation of Major Walderne, September 6, 1676, were tricked,
captured, some executed and others sold into slavery by the Massachu
setts authorities. He was, however, among those that were set at lib
erty and returned to his home at Naamkeke to find his lands seized by
the whites and he himself looked upon as an intruder, and, after an un
comfortable year among them, he accepted the invitation of a party of
r Indians from Canada who visited him, to accompany them home, and
^^P-with all his people, reduced to less than fifty in number, went to that
/ region and is not heard of after.— Book of the Indians, Vol. Ill, page 95.
4 Gookin. Christian Indians. American Antiquarian Society Collec
tions, Vol. H, page 463.
King Philip's War 99
Moseley was censured for these acts but his course was
approved by public opinion.
He then set out on his return to the valley. The pris
oners sent down to Boston were acquitted with the ex
ception of one, who was sold to appease public clamor,
but was afterwards released, and the Governor and Coun
cil immediately sent Henchman to Wannalancet to make
explanations.
During the summer the Npnatuck village on the bluff
along the river above Northampton had become the ren
dezvous of a large number of Indians, and though they
had committed as yet no overt act, and indeed had of
fered their services to the English, their temper was dis
trusted as it was reported they had celebrated the success
of the Quabaugs at Wenimisett,1 and the Mohegans' scouts
declared they warned the hostiles to look out for them
selves by shouts. It seemed probable that they were only
awaiting a favorable opportunity to strike at one of the
nearby settlements. Their arms had once been taken
from them but afterwards returned, and a second demand
put them on their guard. They had protested and the
Council of Connecticut was even then drawing up a letter
to Major Pynchon that the disarming of the Indians
should be foreborne at the present.2 Whether the Non-
atucks were forced into hostilities at this time by fear is
uncertain, but the advice in view of later events was bad,
and, at any rate, in this case came too late.
At a council of war held at Hatfield on the 24th of
August, it was determined to surprise and disarm them
1 Letter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard to Increase Mather. — Mather's
Brief History.
2 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 356.
100 King Philip's War
immediately, and a force of one hundred men, com
manded by Captains Lathrop * and Beers who had come
in from Brookfield two days before, was consequently
dispatched late at night with instructions to co-operate
with a force from Northampton going up on the other
side of the river.
The dawn was upon the troops at they reached the
Indian encampment. It was silent and deserted, but the
fires were still smoldering and amid the embers lay the
body of an old sachem, probably one of those appointed
by the English, who was believed to have spoken too
energetically for submission. A part of the force was
sent back to protect the towns but the pursuit was vigor
ously taken up by the remainder, and the fugitives, en
cumbered with their women and children, were overtaken
a mile south of the present village of South Deerfield and
under the shadow of ^lount Wequomps.2 Finding flight
no longer possible, the warriors, concealing themselves in
what is now known as Hopewell Swamp, turned at bay
and poured a volley into the pursuing English.3 The
1 Captain Thomas Lathrop was made freeman at Salem, May 14, 1634.
He became captain of the Artillery Company in 1645 and served in the
expedition against Acadia. He represented Salem and Beverly in the
General Court for a number of sessions, and after that part of Salem in
which he lived became Beverly he was a prominent actor in all its affairs.
In August, 1675, he was given command of a company raised princi
pally in Essex County. Bodge, page 133. — Savage.
2 Wequomps was the Indian name of the sightly elevation near the
banks of the Connecticut in South Deerfield, now known as Sugar Loaf
Mountain. It rises abruptly from the plain to a height of about seven
hundred feet. It looks down upon the Hopewell Swamp which lies to
the southward, its northern boundary being perhaps a quarter of a mile
distant from the mountain.
3 A letter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard to Increase Mather gives what
is probably the most reliable account. — Mather's Brief History.
5? OJ
CH o
Si
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5 o
=
•
King Philip's War 101
troops kept their presence of mind, and rushing into the
swamp sought cover behind the trees, and after three
hours' fighting and the loss of nine of their number killed
or fatally wounded, drove the Indians into flight. It was
stated by an Indian squaw that the Nonotucks had lost
twenty-six warriors, but all such tales of Indian losses
are of little or no value, being generally invented to put the
English in good humor and win their favor. The Indian
losses in all cases where the English were ambushed were
probably very much less than those they inflicted. It
must be remembered that they not only enjoyed the ad
vantage of surprise, but were sheltered and hidden.
Somewhat over halfway between Northampton and
the frontier town of Northfield stands Deerfield, then a
settlement of some one hundred and twenty-five souls,
whose situation at the foot of Pocumtuck Mountain made
it easily accessible to sudden attacks. Three of the houses
had been fortified with palisades,1 and ten men of Cap
tain Watts' company were in garrison.
As after the siege at Brookfield, a strange calm seemed
to have fallen upon the valley in the week following the
fight at Wequomps, but it was a calm fraught with fear
and anxiety and occupied with fruitless marches after a
vanished foe; yet contempt of the Indians and careless
confidence in their own power over those so long sub
servient and submissive, were in the ascendant; but
what could be done against those who, like will-o'-the-
wisps, could seldom be found or forced to stand, but
struck at the settlers in the field, descended by night on
the lonely hamlets and fought only at an advantage. It
Sheldon's History of Deerfield, Vol. I, page 92.
102 King Philip's War
was upon Deerfield that the next blow fell. For many
years the Pocumtucks had found in the protection of the
colonists, peace and safety from their old foes, the Mo
hawks, whose vengeance they had brought down upon
themselves by the murder of Mohawk ambassadors some
years previously; but here as elsewhere safety had been
purchased at the loss of their independence. Drink had
taken hold of them, and they saw themselves sinking in
degradation and subservience before the rising power of
their white neighbors, who with little sympathy and less
suavity gave them the law. Wounded pride had rankled
into hatred and the news of Indian successes enkindled
in them the old passion for war, plunder and vengeance.
In August they had left their village on the mountain
for the woods near the town, and were watching for a
favorable opportunity. On the first day of September a
Connecticut trooper l of the garrison, while looking for
his horse which had strayed away, came by accident upon
a body of some sixty warriors and paid for the discovery
with his life.
The alarm, however, had been given and the people
fled to the shelter of the garrisons. After a sharp fusilade
the Pocumtucks drew off and turned their attention to
the buildings and barns outside the range of the settlers'
rifles, who, not daring to venture out, saw the labor of long
years go up in smoke, and their cattle driven away.
i James Eggleston of Windsor, according to Savage and Sheldon, but
this is denied by Miss Mary K. Talcott of Hartford. See Stiles' History
of Ancient Windsor, Vol. II, page 199
CHAPTER VII
was consternation in the settlements down
•*• the valley at the news (which rumor did not fail to
exaggerate) and Mather says that the people of Hadley
were driven from a holy service by a most violent and
sudden alarm.
It was this alarm which gave rise to one of those ro
mantic legends with which history abounds for, in the
midst of the panic-stricken people, a man, venerable and
unknown, with long white beard, is said to have appeared
and led them against the foe. It was the fugitive regicide,
General Goffe.1
Historians have credited the legend because of the sanc
tion it obtained from Governor Hutchinson,2 on the
strength of some papers that were destroyed by a Boston
mob just before the Revolution. Romantic as the story
is it is certainly a myth, and arose from the fact that
Goffe was in the village at that time, hiding in the house
1 Major-General William Goffe was the son of Rev. Stephen Goffe
of Stanmer, County Sussex, England. He was a member of the pre
tended High Court of Justice selected by a minority of the Long Parlia
ment to sentence Charles I to death. Compelled to flee for safety he
arrived at Boston, July 27, 1660, and in February following went to
New Haven in company with his fellow judge and father-in-law, Lieu-
tenant-General Edward Whalley. They lived in concealment in and
near New Haven for some time, but in October, 1664, they took up
their residence with the Rev. Mr. Russell at Hadley; Goffe outlived
Whalley a number of years and died probably in Hartford, Conn., about
1679.
2 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I, page 219.
104 King Philip's War
of the Reverend Mr. Russell,1 but no record of this dra
matic appearance exists in any contemporary letters or
narratives. The alleged furious attack on Hadley, which
made it necessary for Goffe to take command of the panic-
stricken settlers, never occurred.2 No Indians were near,
and when the town was actually attacked in the following
spring it contained, unknown to the Indians, a force of
nearly five hundred troops.
A few miles north of Deerfield, on the far frontier, lay
the little settlement of Northfield.3 Some seventeen
thatched cabins, a palisade of rough logs eight feet high
set upright in the ground and pierced with loopholes,
and a log fort and church, composed this infant settle
ment born but three years before. A small garrison had
been left here, but both settlers and troopers seem to
have been careless of danger.
On the day following the attack on Deerfield, while the
settlers and the troopers, ignorant of what had occurred
down the valley, were working in the meadows, the Po-
cumtucks, reinforced by a band of Nashaways under
Sagamore Sam and Monoco or "One-Eyed John," fell
upon them. Some were killed in their houses, and a party
1 Rev. John Russell graduated from Harvard College in 1645, and
was ordained about 1649 as pastor of the church in Wethersfield, Conn.,
where he remained until the settlement of Hadley, 1659 or 1660, when
he removed thither and was pastor of the church there imtil his death,
December 10, 1692.— Judd's History of Hadley.
2 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XXVIII,
page 379. Researches of the well-known antiquarian of the Connecti
cut Valley, Honorable George Sheldon.
3 The original settlement of Northfield lay, as does the present village,
on the plateau separated from the Connecticut River by a broad stretch
of fertile meadow. The stockade and fort were at the south end of the
village and their site is marked by a monument.
King Philip's War 105
of men retreating at the alarm from the meadows, were
shot down as they made their way toward the settlement.
Women and children rushed to the stockaded inclosure
and the surviving men held it safe against the rush of
Indians, but the anxious people, more affected than those
in Deerfield, had not only to contemplate the flames
destroying their homes, but to mourn the loss of eight of
their number.1
Even before this attack the commanders at Hadley,
alarmed for the safety of the town, had determined to
succor it and Captain Beers,2 in ignorance of the condi
tion of affairs, left Hadley on the third day with thirty-
six mounted men and an ox-team loaded with supplies,
intending to make a forced march and enter the town at
night. Progress was, however, slow, and the night fell
while the little force was struggling through the woods,
some four miles from its destination. Vague rumors of
the attack or of the presence of Indians must have reached
them, for at dawn the main guard left the horses under a
small guard and pushed on.
Their way lay for some distance along the plateau until
they reached what is now known as Sawmill Brook. Dis
regarding the lesson of Wenimisset and Wequomps, care
lessly, without flankers or scouts thrown out, they turned
and followed it as it fell away toward the valley. The
leaves were thick upon the trees, the ground was covered
1 Rev. Solomon Stoddard to Rev. Increase Mather. — Mather's Brief
History.
2 Captain Richard Beers was made freeman at Watertown, March 9,
1637. He served in the Pequot war. He was representative to the
General Court from Watertown from 1663 to 1675, and was for thirty-
one years selectman of his town, holding both offices at the time of the
breaking out of Philip's war. — Bodge, page 127. Savage.
106 King Philip's War
with rank growth of grass and bush, while the trees shut
out the sunlight and east the trail in deep shadow. Fol
lowing the left bank of the brook they came finally to
where the path following a depression offered a fordable
crossing.
Here, concealed in front and along the steep bank above
the stream the Indians had laid their ambuscade, and
into it, unconscious of danger, marched Beers and his
men. They were in the act of crossing the brook when
a murderous volley smote them in van and rear. Thrown
at first into confusion they finally rallied and fought their
way out of the ravine and up to the high ground. The
Indians were pressing them hard and many of their num
ber were down, but the rest fought desperately on, and,
after an ineffectual stand upon the plain, the remnant
finally gained a position in a small ravine three-quarters
of a mile away. Here, upon the southern spur of what
is now known as Beers' Mountain, fell Beers and most
of his men.1 That evening, the guard left with the horses,
and the survivors of the main body, staggered wearily
into Hadley.2 Hubbard gives the number of Indians in
the fight as many hundreds; Temple and Sheldon with
, more accuracy place them at about one hundred and
forty.
The Indians, replenishing their ammunition from the
cart, got drunk from the keg of rum which was one of
1 Sawmill Brook crossed the path or trail to the southward about a
mile from the stockade, while the level plain on which Beers made his
desperate stand, borders the brook on the south. The point at which
the stand was made is indicated by a suitable monument and is little
more than half a mile south of the brook, near the foot of what is now
known as Beer's Mountain.
2 Temple and Sheldon's History of Northfield, pages 73-77.
King Philip's War 107
the spoils of their victory. The ox-cart abandoned in the
retreat is said to have remained upon the field for many
years thereafter, and one hundred and fifty years later
two Northfield men digging by a rough stone where Beers
was said to have been buried came upon the crumbled
remnants of his body.
Several of Beers' men were captured, one of whom,
Robert Pepper l of Roxbury, was succored by Sagamore
Sam and accompanied him on a visit to Philip near Al
bany in the winter. He fell in with Mrs. Rowlandson
during her captivity and finally made his way home hav
ing been not unkindly treated.
Major Treat 2 with ninety mounted troopers marching
up the valley by way of Westfield with instructions to use
his own good judgment and to press forward to such
towns where he might be directed to quarter,3 had reached
Northampton when the reports of the refugees from
Beers' defeat and the dark fate which seemed about to
threaten the frontier towns caused him to set out early
the next morning, Sunday, September 6th, with one hun
dred men. Darkness fell upon them before they could
reach their destination and they camped in the woods,
1 James Quannapohit's Relation. A full copy may be found in the
Connecticut Archives, War Doc. 356.
2 Major Robert Treat settled in Milford, Conn., when a young man,
going thither from Wethersfield. He early became captain of the train
band of Milford. In 1672 he was placed in command of the New Haven
colony forces. In September, after the outbreak of Philip's war, he
was commissioned as commander-in-chief of the Connecticut military
forces and served actively until after the death of Philip. On his re
turn home he was elected Deputy Governor and afterwards Governor.
He died in Milford, July 13, 1710.— Genealogy of the Treat Family, by
J. Harvey Treat.
3 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 357.
108 King Philip's War
probably on the site of Beers' camp. The trail led them
across the line of Beers' retreat and they saw with horror,
stuck up on poles along the traveled path, the heads of
many of the slain. Treat found the Northfield people
safe within the stockade but worn out with constant
anxiety. No Indians had been seen along the way, but
as the settlers were burying the body of one of their num
ber killed on the second, they were fired upon by lurking
foes, and Treat himself was wounded.
The service of burying the dead was given over and
it was determined to abandon Northfield immediately.1
That night, accompanied by the settlers, the whole force
marched away leaving the standing crops and all their
belongings save horses and a few cattle, at the mercy of
the Indians, and fire soon wiped out the once flourishing
settlement. Treat's troopers, convoying the settlers,
made their toilsome way down the valley, but though
strongly reinforced on the march by Appleton, who urged
Treat to return with him and make some spoil upon the
enemy, the retreat was continued, the forces entering Had-
ley in a state of demoralization.2 The fear of ambush,
into which almost every force had walked and suffered,
the constant strain of watching for lurking foes, the sight
of those ghastly heads along the way and the decompos
ing bodies in the meadow, had completely unnerved them.
Under these conditions a council of war held at Hadley
on the 8th decided to give up operations in the field and
garrison the towns. Treat also received orders from the
1 Letter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard to Rev. Increase Mather. —
Mather's Brief History.
2 Hubbard says the majority of Treat's force decided against Apple-
ton's proposal. — Vol. I, page 112.
King Philip's War 109
Connecticut Council to return, scouring both banks of
the river on his way down.1
With the abandonment of Northfield the plan of oper
ations had fallen through and the fertile lands and fishing
grounds in the upper valley came into possession of the
Indians. The bad news made clear to the authorities
both in Connecticut and Massachusetts that all the towns
along the frontier were in serious danger. The settlers
were ordered not to go into the- fields to harvest except
in companies. Patrols were sent out along the roads
and all able-bodied men not in the field were organized
into companies "to keep watch and ward by night and
day." Henchman and Brattle were sent from Boston
to protect the country around Chelmsford, Groton and
Lancaster, and preparations were made to reorganize the
forces in the valley and increase their numbers. Apple-
ton was sent to garrison Deerfield, but the Connecticut
Council, on the decision of the council of war to give up
active operations in the field, recalled all the Connecticut
contingent with the exception of small garrisons at West-
field and Springfield. They were urgent for active prep
arations and their views finally prevailed. The Commis
sioners of the United Colonies on the 16th of September
recalled the former orders and ordered new forces to be
levied.2 Major Pynchon was appointed commander-in-
chief and Connecticut named Treat for second in com
mand. Bolder council had prevailed at Hadley in the
meantime. Captain John Mason 3 of Connecticut with
1 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 359.
2 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 367. Letter from Commission
ers of the United Colonies to Governor and Council of Connecticut.
3 Captain John Mason of Norwich, son of the famous Major John,
110 King Philip's War
a large body of Mohegans was already on the march, and
Pynchon at Hadley was preparing to move when the In
dians assumed the offensive.
Deerfield was greatly exposed and from the neighbor
ing hills every movement in the village could be seen.
On the 12th as some twenty men of the garrison were
passing from one garrison house to another to attend
meeting, they were attacked from ambuscade, but repelled
the attack without loss. The north fort, however, was
plundered and a sentinel, one Nathaniel Cornbury, on
duty, was captured and never heard from. Two houses
were burnt and a large quantity of pork and beef fell
into the hands of the Pocumtucks.1
The next night volunteers from Northampton and Had
ley reinforced Captain Appleton,2 who was in command,
and the whole force marched to the Indian encampment
on Pine Hill but found it deserted. Reinforcements were
marching into the valley in the meantime, for Captain
Moseley had arrived at Deerfield on his return from the
east, and on the same day Major Treat, with the Connecti-
was freeman 1671, representative 1672 and 1674. He was a merchant.
Served as a captain in Philip's war and was severely wounded at the
Narragansett Swamp fight, December 19, 1675. He was chosen an
assistant in May, 1676, but the 18th of September following, died of
his wounds. — Savage.
1 Sheldon's History of Deerfield, Vol. I, page 99.
2 Samuel Appleton was born in Waddingfield, England, in 1624. At
eleven years of age he came with his father and settled in Ipswich. He
was many times chosen representative to the General Court before and
after the war. His commission as captain was issued September 24,
1675, although at that time he had been in active duty in the Connecticut
Valley several weeks. Soon after the Narragansett fight he retired from
the military service and assumed his duties as deputy until 1681, when
he was chosen an assistant and remained in that office until the coming
of Andros in 1686. He died May 15, 1696.— Bodge, page 142.
King Philip's War 111
cut forces and a body of Mohegans, reached Northamp
ton.
The ripened corn in the Deerfield north meadows had
been stacked, but still offered as it stood in the field a
tempting prize to the Indians, with whom winter was
ever a season of more or less semi-starvation. The troops
now pouring into Hadley from all directions would need
a large supply of food, and Major Pynchon, Septem
ber 15th, ordered Captain Lathrop, who was scouting
around Deerfield in company with Moseley, to load the
grain in sacks and convey it down the valley. Moseley
had been beating the country for several days and had
discovered no considerable force of Indians, and the road
seemed clear when in the early morning of the 18th,
Lathrop with his company of young men from Essex
County, accompanied by seventeen Deerfield settlers as
teamsters, set out for Hadley.
Down the street of the village, across the south meadows,
up Bars' long hill and over the plain, they took their
way, marching but slowly, for the heavy laden teams
moved with difficulty over the rough road. The day was
warm, and Lathrop without interference saw many of his
men cast their arms upon the carts and stop to pluck the
bunches of ripe wild grapes that grew abundantly along
the way. No scouts marched in front of the force, no
flankers searched the woods that lay on either side; care
less of danger, unmindful of the lessons taught so con
stantly throughout the last two months, they marched at
their ease. Little did they suspect that while they had
slept the night before, a large body of warriors, Pocum-
tucks, Nonatucks, Nashaways and Squakheags, under
Sagamore Sam, Monoco, Muttaump and possibly Philip,
112 King Philip's War
had crossed the river and now lay waiting for the careless
English along the edge of a morass six miles south of
Deerfield, where the road with a gentle fall passes over
a marsh made by the waters of Muddy (ever since called
Bloody) Brook.
Lathrop and the main body came carelessly on, strag
gled across the brook and halted on the farther side 1 to
wait for the teams to drag their heavy loads through the
mire. Then the bushes burst into flame and a volley
smote them. Many fell, Lathrop probably among the
first. Some of the survivors rushed back to the wagons
for their arms, while others, paralyzed with fear and sur
prise, stood still and were immediately shot down. The
whole force was deep in the toils and retreat or advance
were alike impossible.
Henry Bodwell of Andover, a man of great strength
and courage, clubbing his musket, fought his way out,
and John Tappan of Newbury, wounded in the leg,
threw himself into the bed of the brook and, pulling the
bushes over him, escaped the notice of the savages, though
more than one of them stepped upon him as he lay hid.
For the greater number there was no escape. The seven
teen teamsters died to a man among their sacks, and the
whole escort, save for a few stragglers in the rear, was
destroyed.2 * :
It was the saddest day in the early history of New
England. Fifty-four young men "the flower of Essex
1 Hoyt's Indian Wars, page 106.
2 A letter of the Massachusetts Council to Richard Smith gives the
loss as, teamsters, 17, Lathrop's company, 41, and Moseley's men, 11.
—Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVII, page 262.
The Rev. John Russell says 71.
King Philip's War 113
County, " and nearly half of the male population of Deer-
field, had been wiped out.
Moseley, with some sixty men, was scouting near Deer-
field when the sound of the heavy firing fell upon his ear.
He pushed on rapidly only to see the victorious warriors
ripping open the grain sacks and plundering the dead.
" Come on, Moseley, come on. You want Indians. Here
are enough Indians for you," they shouted;1 and it is
said he recognized many Christian Indians among them.
Keeping his force well together he charged through them,
but several of his men fell and he could not drive them
from their plunder. His force in turn would have fared
ill had not Major Treat, with one hundred Connecticut
men and sixty Mohegans, marching toward Northfield,
been attracted by the firing and relieved him as evening
fell.
The Indians were driven from the field, but darkness
was now settling down, and Treat and Moseley, leaving
the dead where they had fallen, took up their wounded
and retired sadly to Deerfield. On the following day,
Sunday, returning to the battlefield, they drove off the
Indians, who had returned to strip the slain, and buried
the bodies of the seventy-one victims of Lathrop's ill-
fated force and Moseley's men who had fallen, in a com
mon grave, now marked by a slab, to the south of the
morass.
Hubbard eulogizes Moseley's course in keeping his men
together instead of stationing them behind trees, and
blames Lathrop for not having led his men in the same
way. The real faults, however, of the English command-
Drake's Book of the Indians, Vol. Ill, page 216.
H
114 King Philip's War
ers lay in their continual neglect of the simplest precau
tions against surprise. It was not because of Moseley's
dispositions that he escaped the fate of Lathrop but be
cause circumstances rendered an ambuscade in his case
impossible. With the natural exaggeration of a defeated
party the loss of the Indians was placed at ninety. The
figure is purely fanciful.
The defeat of the 18th sealed the fate of Deerfield.
Amidst the anxiety and depression caused by the annihi
lation of Lathrop's command came the disheartening news
that the northern tribes, provoked by harsh treatment
and encouraged by the successes of the southern Indians,
were harrying the remote settlements from the Merrimac
to Pemaquid with fire and sword. On that remote fron
tier, where the enforcement of law was weakened by
divided claims to ownership, and the rough character
of many of the population, the Indians had much to
complain of. Their people had been kidnapped and sold
into slavery, they had been plundered and abused, while
Moseley's conduct and the actions of the English settlers
had convinced them that it was as dangerous to be a
friend as a foe since the same punishment was meted
out to both. Squando, sachem of the Saco Indians, had
once been a friend of the English, but a brutal outrage
committed against his wife and child had made him an
implacable enemy who had long bided his time. It had
come now, and the day that witnessed Lathrop's defeat
saw also the murder of English settlers and the destruc
tion of their homes at Casco.
At Deerfield, the victorious Indians flaunted from
across the river, in the faces of the garrison, the garments
of the slain at Bloody Brook, and soon its remaining in-
King Philip's War 115
habitants were scattered in the towns to the south; the
Indian's torch wiped out the empty dwellings and the
fertile valley was left in desolation. The defeat meant
more than the mere abandonment of a thriving hamlet;
it brought the frontier down to Hatfield and Hadley and
completely upset the plan to make Northfield the head
quarters of the Connecticut troops for active operations
down the valley in co-operation with the force assembled
at Hadley. The Indians, flushed with success, were
threatening all the settlements in the valley with destruc
tion. Expedition after expedition had been lured into
ambush and defeated with heavy loss, and no effective
blow had been struck in return.
The commissioners of the colonies at Boston acted
vigorously and a new levy of men was ordered. Major
Pynchon l of Springfield, as commander-in-chief in the
valley, wished to garrison the towns by a force sufficient
to insure their safety, while a considerable force of mounted
men and Indian scouts should strike at the hostiles wher
ever they could be found. "The English are awkward
and fearful in scouting,*' he wrote to the Council, but
" they would do the best they could. We have no Indian
friends here to help us.2
1 Major John Pynchon was born in England in 1621. He was the
only son of William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, and when the
father returned to England in 1652, succeeded to his affairs and was
elected in his place as magistrate. He was an officer of the trainband
and later major of the local cavalry troop. He took an active part in
King Philip's war, having the command of the entire army in the valley,
until after the destruction of Springfield, when his request to be relieved
of his command was granted. He died January 17, 1703. — First Cen
tury of the History of Springfield, by Henry M. Burt, page 625.
2 Letter of Major Pynchon to Governor and Council. — Massachu
setts Archives (September 30), vol. 67, page 274.
116 King Philip's War
The commissioners bade him denude the towns of their
garrisons and send every available man to active service
in the field. In issuing hampering orders to the captains
in the field they bent to popular prejudice against the
employment of friendly Indians. This was their fatal
error; without Indian auxiliaries the troops were well-
nigh helpless and no aggressive campaign possible.
No better opportunity could have been afforded the
fast-moving tribesmen. Avoiding the columns in search
of them and refusing all open conflict, they hovered near
the settlements, shooting the unwary settlers who ven
tured out to till their fields, or lay in wait around the
columns to cut off stragglers and scouts. A house and
mill of Major Pynchon on the west side of the river 1 at
Springfield, were burned on the 26th, and two days later
two Northampton settlers were killed while cutting wood.2
"The Indians cut off their scalps, took their arms, and
were gone in a trice. "
It was not until the 4th of October that Major Pyn
chon, having assembled a large force at Springfield, set
out to join the troops already at Hadley. It was his in
tention, having collected the army at that point, to leave
before daybreak on the following morning and attack a
large force of Indians who were reported encamped about
five miles to the north. The sachems, however, had their
1 The house and mill of Major Pynchon " on the west side of the river, "
were located on Stony Brook in what is now Suffield, Conn., but then a
part of Springfield territory, about half a mile above its entrance into
the Connecticut River.
2 Praisever Turner and Unzakaby Shakspere were cutting wood just
back of Turner's house when attacked, near what is now the corner of
Elm Street and Paradise Road.
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King Philip's War 117
own plans and the fact that Springfield was denuded of
troops was well known among them.
On Long Hill, just below the town, near the river bank,
there had been for many years a village of the Agawams.
It had existed when the first settlers of Springfield selected
the site for their town, and its inhabitants had lived on
friendly terms with the settlers for forty years. The dis
quiet and suspicions of the other tribes had, however,
not failed of an effect upon these old neighbors, and
Major Pynchon had informed the Connecticut Council
that he intended to disarm them, but the Council suggested
hostages,1 whose delivery the Indians delayed. The de
parture of the troops from Springfield gave them an op
portunity of which they were not slow to take advantage.
They had been harboring now for some time wandering
parties of hostiles, and a deadly blow might have been
inflicted upon the unsuspicious settlement had not the
plot been revealed by Toto, an Indian employed by an
English settler at Windsor.2 Noticing his uneasiness dur
ing the evening they pressed him for the cause and finally
wrung the secret from him. The night was already far
spent and the fate of Springfield hung on the minutes.
Messengers riding in hot haste sped to Springfield, knock
ing fiercely in the darkness at the doors of the silent
houses to awaken the sleeping inmates. The settlers at
once took shelter in the three fortified houses,3 and mes-
1 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 356.
2 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I, page 295.
3 It is generally thought that the well-known brick house of Major John
Pynchon, which stood until 1831 on the corner of what is now known
as Main and Fort Streets, was the principal fortified house of the town,
but there is reason for doubting this. The common belief that the brick
house was erected in 1GG1 appears to be based upon the record of an
118 King Philip's War
sengers were sent in haste to the forces at Hadley for
reinforcements.
The night passed without attack, confidence revived,
and some of the people returned to their homes. Lieu
tenant Cooper, who was well known to the Indians, and
put little faith in the reports of the hostile attitude of the
Agawams, determined to go down to the Indian fort with
constable Miller l and investigate. They had gone but
a short distance toward their destination, however, when
they were shot at from the woods near Mill River "by
those bloody and deceitful monsters. " Miller was in
stantly killed, but Cooper, shot through the body, man
aged to keep his saddle until he reached the nearest
garrison house, where he fell from his horse dead. The In-
order from John Pynchon to Francis Hacklington of Northampton for
50,000 bricks, but what seems to be good proof of a later date for the
building of the house appears in the records where, on June 3, 1678,
a period of more than two years after the destruction of the town, Pyn
chon desires leave of the selectmen "to set up a flanker in the street at
the east end of his new house ncnv building, on the north side of his
home lot. " As it is known that Pynchon built no house subsequent to
the erection of the brick edifice, it leaves little room for doubt that the
fortified house used as a refuge during the war, was the frame dwelling
built in the earliest days by William Pynchon, inherited and occupied
by his son, Major John. See Selectmen's Records (MSS.), Vol. II,
page 131.
Of the other fortified houses one was the house of Jonathan Burt
which stood near the southwest corner of the present Main and Broad
Streets, and the third was the well-known "Ely Tavern," built about
1665 and then located on Main a little south of Bliss Street. This was
removed about 1843 to Dwight Street a few rods wggt of State, where it
remained until 1900 when it was pulled down on account of its unsafe
condition. See Bi-Centennial Address by Hon. Oliver B. Morris, 1836.
i Thomas Miller was constable and surveyor of highways. His son
Thomas took part in the Falls fight the next spring, May 19th, and the
John Miller who was killed in the same fight was probably his son.
King Philip's War 119
dians following closely behind, tried to rush the garrisons.
One savage advanced, sheltering himself behind a large
pewter plate, but two bullets pierced it and he fell.1
Several others were shot, and, finding their attempt at a
surprise a failure, the rest withdrew. A woman and two
settlers had been killed,2 and thirty-two houses (including
"saddest to behold the house of Rev. Peletiah Glover
furnished with a brave library newly brought back from
the garrison and now made fit for a bonfire for the proud
insulting enemy ") and " not even a bible saved, " these
and twenty-five barns were in flames by the time Major
Treat, marching from Westfield, reached the west bank
of the river which he was prevented from crossing by
the fierce fire of the Indians.
Late in the afternoon came Major Pynchon and the
companies of Captains Sill 3 and Appleton, who, hearing
in the early morning that an attack was contemplated,
had ridden furiously from Hadley to the relief with two
hundred men. The enemy, however, had retired to In
dian Orchard 4 and escaped punishment, all save an old
1 Hoyt's Indian Wars, page 110.
2 Pentecost Matthews, the wife of John, was killed at her home a
quarter of a mile north of the Burt garrison. Edmund Pryngrydays
and Nathaniel Brown were severely wounded and both died soon after
wards.
3 Captain Joseph Sill was born in Cambridge about 1639. He was
called into military life early in King Philip's war and served almost
continually in important times and places, in the campaign of 1675
in the Connecticut Valley. He was removed by the General Court of
Massachusetts from his command, in October, for offensive conduct;
later he was conspicuous in the eastern towns. Some time after the
close of the war he removed to Lyme, Conn., where he died August 6,
1696.
4 A locality on the Chicopee River six miles east of Springfield. Now
a busy manufacturing village in the Eighth Ward of Springfield.
120 King Philip's War
squaw taken prisoner, who, if we are to believe Moseley,
"was ordered to be torn in pieces by doggs and was so
dealt withall. " The number of Indians concerned in the
attack was variously estimated at from 100 to 500. Rev.
John Russell of Hadley gives the former figure which,
if correct, is evidence that few beside the Agawam or
Springfield Indians were concerned.
Discouragement and gloom settled heavily upon men's
minds when the news from Springfield became known.
Large quantities of provisions had been destroyed; a
town, the most important and the most removed from
danger in the upper valley had been devastated, and its
inhabitants, but for a warning at the eleventh hour, had
been massacred. "The Lord will have us in the dust
before him, " wrote Pynchon sadly to Rev. John Russell.
Months of warfare, the sacrifice of valuable lives, the
levying of large bodies of troops, and the expenditure of
considerable sums of money, all seemed to have been in
vain. The field of operations was spreading over a wider
area, while the Indians, their numbers augmented by
wandering bands from the northern tribes and from vil
lages formerly neutral, were encouraged by their suc
cesses to fiercer aggressions.
Men sought to evade military service and it was be
coming increasingly difficult to keep up the companies in
the field to their full complement,1 and the reports sent
to the Connecticut Council of the captures of old men,
women and children by the Mohegans operating from
Norwich, offered but little compensation for the disasters
elsewhere.
1 Secretary Rawson to Major Pynchon, September 30.
King Philip's War 121
Major Pynchon had, as before noticed, taken issue
with the plan of campaign worked out by the commission
ers at Boston. He had repeatedly urged upon them the
danger of leaving the towns ungarrisoned while the troops
followed the fast-moving warriors into the thickets. " To
speak my thoughts all these ought to be garrisoned. To
go out after the Indians unless we know where they keep
is to hazazd our men, " he wrote. l He urgently asked
again to be relieved of his command, which he had never
desired. "I would not" he had written some time be
fore, "willingly sin against God nor offend you, and I
entreat you to ease me of my (trust)." "Pursue and
destroy," they had replied, expressing their confidence in
him.
The attack on Springfield strengthened Pynchon's dis
satisfaction with the plan of the commissioners. An
estimable man and magistrate he was fitted neither by
nature nor training for a military command. He felt
helpless and worried over the conduct of the campaign,
the loss inflicted upon Springfield and the care of its
destitute people weighed heavily upon his mind ; and now,
i Letter of Pynchon to Governor and Council October 8. — Massachu
setts Archives, Vol. LXVII, page 287.
NOTE. — The correspondence in regard to the attack on Springfield
and events in the valley during the last of September and early October
will be found in the Massachusetts Archives:
Maj. Pynchon to Gov. and Council, Sept. 30, Vol. 67, page 274.
Gov. and Council to Maj. Pynchon, Sept. 30, Vol. 67, page 270.
Gov. and Council to Maj. Pynchon, Oct. 4, Vol. 67, page 280.
Maj. Pynchon to Rev. John Russell, Oct. 5, Vol. 67, page 283.
Rev. John Russell to Gov. Leverett, Oct. 6, Vol. 67, page 289.
Letters of Maj. Pynchon to Gov. " Oct. 8-12, Vol. 67, page 287-290.
Capt. Moseley to Gov. Leverett, Oct. 5, Vol. 68, page 17.
122 King Philip's War
for the third time, he requested that he be relieved from
command. He wrote that he was still opposed to the
policy of the commissioners, felt his own unfitness for
command and must devolve the command to Appleton
unless Treat, who had been summoned away to Con
necticut by the report of a body of Indians having been
seen near Wethersfield, returned.
The request conveyed in his former letter had already
been granted and Captain Appleton had been appointed
October 4th to succeed him. He, too, shared Pynchon's
view as to the need of garrisoning the towns and urged
upon the Council the advisability of leaving the question
discretionary with the commander, and complained of
Treat's long absence,1 but the Council held firm to their
original plan and Appleton reached Hadley on the night
of the 12th to begin operations in the field, having left
small garrisons in certain of the towns despite the orders
of the Council. A few days later he again writes to the
Massachusetts authorities. He knows not when Treat
will return, the scouts are timorous and accomplish little
and he finds it difficult to know what to do. He realizes,
too, both the strength and weakness of the commissioners'
position in regard to active operations. "To leave no
garrisons and concentrate all for active service in the
field, is to expose the towns to manifest hazard. To sit
still and do nothing is to tire us and spoil our soldiers
and ruin the country by the unsupportable burden and
charge. " 2
1 Appleton to Governor Leverett, October 12. — Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 3.
2 Appleton to Governor Leverett, October 17. — Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 23.
King Philip's War 123
Dissatisfaction and dissension made his task difficult
from the start, for a conflict of opinions had existed for
some time between the Massachusetts and Connecticut
officers. Summoning Moseley and Seeley from their
posts at Hartford and Northampton, October 15th, in
order to concentrate his troops for the offensive, the latter
came tardily and alone and, pleading lack of orders, was
with difficulty persuaded to bring in his troops. On his
return to Northampton, finding orders from Treat not to
leave the town, he notified Appleton, who felt himself
powerless to enforce his commands, for, though the com
missioners of the United Colonies had made the Connecti
cut force part of the confederate army and taken it out of
the control of the Connecticut authorities, the commis
sioners were not present and Appleton lacked the strength
of character to arbitrarily enforce their decrees.
Alarmed by the report of Indians having been seen
near Glastonbury, the Connecticut Council had recalled
Treat and the greater part of the Connecticut forces to
Hartford, and information from Governor Andros of
New York that an Indian, pretending to be friendly, had
warned him that the hostiles intended to attack Hartford
" this light moon, " 1 caused them to retain the troops
until the middle of the month. "We have news of the
recalling of Major Treat from you with a great part of
the Connecticut men, and the disobedience of those who
were left behind, " wrote the Council of Massachusetts
to Appleton, and they bade him organize garrisons and
security for the towns and prepare the force for return,
i Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 377. — Governor Andros to Con
necticut Council.
124 King Philip's War
for the burden of providing for so many men, lack of pro
visions and the need of men elsewhere were heavy upon
them1
Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. V, page 53.
CHAPTER VIII
THE enforced withdrawal of the Connecticut troops
was a blow to the new commander. They alone were
accompanied by a band of Mohegans, whose presence
had saved them repeatedly from running into ambuscades,
and Appleton had depended upon these Mohegans for his
guides and scouts in the coming campaign. Notwith
standing the refusal of Seeley l to join him, Appleton, hav
ing concentrated the bulk of his command, set out for
Northfield on the 15th of October. He had but started,
however, when information reached him that a large force
of Indians was encamped on the west bank of the river.
He hastened back to Hadley, and, crossing the river to Hat-
field in the evening, struck the Deerfield trail and pushed
forward in the hope of effecting a surprise, but the flash
of a gun and the shouts of the Indians soon made clear
that his movement had been discovered. A tempestuous
night was setting in, and, fearful for the unguarded towns
of Hadley and Hatfield in his rear, he turned back.
Hardly had he arrived at Hadley than Seeley at North
ampton asked for reinforcements, as the Indians were
near by. The air was full of rumors. Indians were here,
there, everywhere, but Appleton, marching from one place
i Lieutenant Nathaniel Seeley, son of Robert of Wethersfield, was of
New Haven in 1646 and later removed to Fairfield. He early entered
upon military duty in the service of Connecticut, and fell in the Narra-
gansett Swamp fight at the head of his company, December 19, 1675.
—Savage.
126 King Philip's War
to another, could not get in touch with them. Vague
unrest prevailed throughout the towns and insubordina
tion grew more rife among the troops as their long and
hurried marches proved ever fruitless. The Connecticut
troops were unwilling to remain in garrison at Westfield
and among the captains jealousies and misunderstand
ings were frequent.
Across the river, a mile through the meadows from its
north bank, and opposite Hadley, stands the little village
of Hatfield. Here, on the 19th of October, Captains
Poole l and Moseley were resting their companies, when,
about noon, several large fires were observed to the north
of the village. Moseley immediately sent out a party of
men to reconnoiter. The building of these fires was a
trap such as the Indians delighted to set and in which
the colonial forces were only too prone to be caught.
There is little doubt but that the ambuscade was laid
with full expectation that the whole garrison would march
out and fall into it, for the scouting party had progressed
but a short two miles beyond the stockade when a fierce
volley fired from the brush practically exterminated them.
Six were killed, three captured, and a lone survivor found
his way back.2
1 Captain Jonathan Poole was of Reading. In October, 1671, he
was appointed quartermaster, and in May, 1674, cornet of the "Three
County Troop," and held that office when the war broke out in 1675.
He served at Quabaug and Hadley and when Major Appleton was given
command of the army of the west he appointed Poole to a captaincy.
The Council refused for a time to confirm the appointment, but, later,
when the main army was withdrawn for the Narragansett campaign
Captain Poole was placed in command of the garrison forces in the
valley towns. He served as representative to the General Court in 1677,
and died December 24, 1678. — Bodge, page 258. Savage.
2 Drake's " Old Indian Chronicle," page 166.
King Philip's War 127
Moseley was too well acquainted with the Indian char
acter to believe this ambuscade the work of any but a
large and aggressive force, who meant to attack the vil
lage. Sending word to Appleton who soon joined him,
having left only twenty men at garrison at Hadley, the
arrangements for defense were quickly completed. Sev
eral hours passed and no Indian had yet appeared,
wrhen suddenly, about four o'clock, a large body of war
riors made their appearance at the edge of the meadows,
rushing toward the stockade. Several heavy volleys, how
ever, told them that the force on guard was large and
well prepared, and after killing Freegrace Norton, l a ser
geant of Appleton's company, and sending a bullet through
Appleton's hat, "by that whisper telling him that death
was very near, " 2 they retired, as Treat, who had at last
returned to Northampton, appeared upon the scene.
Hatfield had escaped the intended stroke, but no safety
existed outside the stockade. The crops, ungathered in
the fields, afforded subsistence to the Indians, and the
scattered farms throughout the valley and to the east
ward lay in ruins or deserted.
From Springfield northward the warriors lay in wait
for any too venturesome settler or small body of troops
and watched patiently for any opportunity to surprise
the towns themselves.
The mill at Springfield had been destroyed and the
people found it necessary to carry their corn to the mill
at Westfield.3 On the 27th Major Pynchon and a small
1 Freegrace Norton was the son of George of Salem. He was first of
Saco but removed to Ipswich.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 125.
3 The original location of Westfield was at the junction of the West-
128 King Philip's War
force, having ground the corn they were escorting, were
fired upon from ambush and three of the party were
killed.1
The previous day a party of seven or eight Northamp
ton settlers, gathering their crops from the Pynchon
meadow,2 had been surprised by a small force of Indians.
No sentinels had been posted; their arms were deposited
under the carts, but, cutting the traces, they mounted
their horses and fled, followed almost up to the stockade
by the Indians, who retired only after having burned
four or five houses and several barns. The next day
the same band surprised and killed two men and a boy
in the meadows in Northampton opposite the town mill,3
field and Little Rivers. Here was the log fort, under which a cellar had
been provided for the retreat of the women and children in case of an
attack. The ground on which this stood has disappeared through the
encroachment of the river. Close upon the present highway stood the
church, built of logs, "barn fation with a bell coney." The settlement
was surrounded by a stout palisade. The original saw and gristmill
was built upon the brook in the easterly part of the town, probably near
the present village of "Little River," two and a half miles east of the
center of the present Westfield.
1 These were John Dumbleton, and William and John Brooks.
2 Pynchon's meadow was a tract of 120 acres of ground granted to
Major John Pynchon, situated at the most northerly turn of the "Ox
Bow, " and bounded on the south by Hurlburt's Pond, into and through
which the Mill River at that time flowed. The Indians followed the
fleeing settlers along what is now South Street, and the houses and barns
destroyed by them were located not far from the present iron bridge over
Mill River, and were at that time the most southerly buildings of the
town. — See TrumbulPs History of Northampton.
3 Northampton Town Mill, built in 1671 at "Red Rocks," was lo
cated on the bend of Mill River between what is now College Lane and
Paradise Road, and upon the land of Praisever Turner, who had been
murdered and scalped on the 28th of the previous month (September)
while cutting wood on the hill just above the mill. Opposite the mill
King Philip's War 129
but in an attempt to destroy the mill were driven
off.1
Operations conducted in other parts of the field in a
more or less perfunctory manner had brought but little
result and the end of the war seemed farther off than
ever and the Council found fault with Appleton for his
failure. "I am not without feeling some smart in your
lines, though I would not be over tender," he wrote
them in reply, and the fault was as much theirs as
his.2
Captain Henchman, marching from Boston, Novem
ber 1st, to reconnoiter the country around Hassamenesit,
came, November 3d, on some fires recently kindled by
the Indians and, urged by his officers, continued on
to the Indian encampment. No Indians were found,
but the scouts, under Captain Sill, early in the morn
ing discovered a miller's lad who, recently captured
near Marlboro, had been abandoned on their ap
proach.
A few days later Henchman, drawing near to Mendon,
received information of Indian wigwams about ten miles
off. Mounting twenty-two of the company, Henchman
and Philip Courtice,3 his lieutenant, set out in the hope
of surprising them. Having come within a short distance
on the west side of the river was the meadow, now known as Paradise
meadow, where the Indians had killed two men and a boy just before
the attack on the mill.
1 Appleton to Governor Leverett, November 10th. — Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 52.
2 Appleton to Governor Leverett, November 17th. — Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 63.
3 Philip Curtis, born in England, was of Roxbury.
NOTE. — Other correspondence of Governor I^everett and Council,
I
130 King Philip's War
of the Indian encampment they tied their horses and di
vided, Henchman taking one-half the company and Cour-
tice the remainder. Henchmen's men were closing in
upon the village when the Indian dogs began to bark.
All halted, then slowly moved forward ; but " the captain's
foot slipping, he could hardly recover himself and sud
denly looking behind him he saw no man following him."
Courtice, however, had pushed on and coming upon
the wigwams was met by a sharp and sudden fire. Cour
tice himself was shot as he reached the door of a wigwam,
one of his men also fell dead, while the remainder took to
flight. Henchman called upon them to shoot into the
wigwams and "they replied that they only went back to
fall on and charge, yet left the field entirely. " l
"Winter was near at hand, the trees were shedding their
foliage, the naked forests no longer offered opportunities
for ambuscades, and as November progressed hostilities
Ceased and the Indians vanished.
In the valley operations also had come to a close.
Treat, who had maintained a friendly attitude toward
Appleton during the campaign at the instance of the
Connecticut Council, finally returned to Connecticut, and
Appleton, having destroyed the Indian crops wherever he
could find them in the valley, left small garrisons in Had-
and of Major Appleton, with each other, during October and Novem
ber 17, will be found in the Massachusetts Archives:
Oct. 4th, Vol. 67, page 245.
Oct. 15th, Vol. 68, page 14.
Oct. 16th, Vol. 68, page 19.
Oct. 17th, Vol. 68, page 23.
Nov. 16th, Vol. 68, page 58.
1 This account is taken from Henchman's letter in Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 80, and Hubbard.
King Philip's War 131
ley, Northampton and Springfield, and departed with
most of the troops for Boston, where plans were already
prepared for a blow at the Narragansetts in their winter
quarters.
The campaign in the Connecticut Valley had been a
disastrous failure through lack of harmony, hampering
commands from the Council and commissioners, and the
absence of a definite plan of operations. The anxious
inhabitants settled down with meager supplies to face
the hard winter, while houses were strengthened against
attack, and the burned out settlers of Springfield crowded
the houses of their friends or covered over their cellars
for a winter refuge. The Indians, their crops destroyed, ,
their powder scarce, and without their winter supply of
dried fish, faced winter in the recesses of the swamps or
wandered to remote parts in search of sustenance. The
constant defeats, the wiping out of settlements where
destruction and death struck so near and poignantly to
all, aroused the stern but latently emotional New Eng-
landers to vengeance. With the spread of the war from
one end of the land to the other, the conflict assumed a
religious and racial character that could have no other
outcome than the extermination of one or the other of the
combatants. The fury of fire and sword, without mercy,
was to sweep alike over cabin and Indian village. Sus
picion and hatred of all Indians became intense through
out Massachusetts. Though many of the Christian In
dians remained faithful, there were others who joined the
hostiles and distinguished themselves by their cruelty. It
was but natural that the settlers, knowing not whom to
trust and suspicious of all, should include innocent and
guilty in the same condemnation. It is unnecessary to
132 King Philip's War
enumerate the results born of this attitude. Even a year
later when peace had come in the south, the women_pf
Marblehead, coming from church, massacred Indian pris
oners from Maine who were being convoyed through the
town.1 The rough element of the community plundered
the wigwams of the neighboring friendly Indians and in
several cases wounded and murdered the women and chil
dren.2 Indian prisoners were tortured for the purpose of
eliciting information and women, children and old men
were sold into slavery. Christian Indians who had served
successfully as scouts were driven to join the hostiles.
The Indians in the stockaded towns near Boston were
ordered by the General Court not to be received in any
town except in the prison, and were finally removed to
Deer Island where, ill supplied with the necessaries of
life, they suffered great hardships during the winter.3 A
mob called upon Captain Oliver 4 to lead them in an at
tack on the jail where Indians were confined, but Oliver,
though an exponent of the harsh policy, belabored the
1 Letter of Increase Mather, May 23, 1677.
2 Gookm's Christian Indians. — American Soc. Coll., Antiquarian Vol.
II, page 482.
3 Ibid, page 485.
4 Captain James Oliver came to New England from the mother
country with his parents, March 9, 1632. He was admitted freeman
of Boston, October 12, 1640; became a merchant; was of the Artillery
Company, ensign 1651, lieutenant 1653, captain 1656 and again in 1666.
He was of the First Military Company of Boston and elected captain
about 1763. His appointment to the command of a company for the
Narragansett campaign was dated November 17, 1675. He was one
of the few officers commanding companies that came out from the
Swamp Fight unscathed. After this campaign his company returned
to Boston where it was dismissed February 5, 1675, 1676. He died in
1682.— Bodge.
King Philip's War 133
ringleaders with a stick.1 It became necessary for the
time being for the authorities to bend to the popular
tempest and disband the companies of Indians organized
by Gookin,2 and the courts appeased popular clamor by
convicting prisoners whom they afterwards released. " O
come, let us go down to Deer Island and let us kill all
these praying Indians," was the cry of the irresponsible.
But the Council, informed of the plot of about thirty
men to pull out to the Island from Pullings Point to kill
the Indians, sent for two or three of the ringleaders and
warned them to attempt it at their peril.3
Whoever adopted most repressive measures won popu
lar approval, and the appeals of men like Major Gookin
and Rev. John Eliot for humane treatment, and their
representations as to the folly of estranging the friendly
Indian, alike fell upon deaf ears. "The error of selling
away such Indians unto the islands for perpetual slaves"
wrote Eliot to the commissioners, " may produce we know
not what evil consequences upon all the land, . . .
this usage of them is worse than death. Christ hath said,
Blessed be the merciful. ... All men (of reading)
condemn the Spaniards for cruelty ... in destroy
ing men and depopulating the land. Here is land enough
for them and us too. " 4
Gookin and Eliot were threatened by angry mobs, and
the former was defeated at the election for magistrate.
1 Old Indian Chronicle, page 152.
2 Order dated August 30th.
3 American Antiquarian Soc. Coll., Vol. II, page 494. Gookin's
Christian Indians.
4 Letter from Rev. John Eliot to Commissioners of the United Colo
nies. Acts of Commissioners, Vol. II, page 451. Plymouth Colony
Records, Vol. X.
134 King Philip's War
Several curious depositions show the feelings of the baser
element toward him. One Rie Scott called him an " Irish
dog, never faithful to his king or his country, ... a
rogue, God confound him, he is the devil's interpreter.
I and a few more designed to cut off all Gookin's
brethren on the island and some English dog discovered
it."1
Warnings were sent both to Gookin and Eliot purport
ing to be from a secret society, calling them traitors and
warning them to prepare for death.2 The men of Cap
tain Henchman refused to serve under him on account
of his moderate views, and even Major Savage and Cap
tain Prentice were held up to popular hatred as friends
of the " incarnate devils. "
These measures cost Massachusetts dear; it left her
forces helpless to carry on a successful campaign. Many
a company was ambushed because of the lack of Indian
scouts, and many a town was burned because of the re
fusal to credit the reports of friendly Indians and their
own Indian spies. Connecticut, comparatively free from
Indian attacks, was naturally able to take a broader view,
and, by employing the Mohegans, did not suffer a reverse
or surprise in the whole campaign.
For some time the mutual suspicion between the Nar-
ragansetts and the settlers had been drawing to a head.
It was believed that numerous women and children of the
Wampanoags had taken refuge in Canonchet's domains,
and Uncas had spread the story that many young war
riors were to be found in the Narragansett villages re-
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XXX, pages 192-193.
2 Ibid.
King Philip's War 135
covering from wounds received in the conflicts in the
valley.
The unprovoked invasion of the Narragansett country
at the beginning of the campaign had added fresh fuel to
the bitter remembrance of Miantonomah's fate and the
harsh and arbitrary acts of Massachusetts constantly re
peated in the intervening years; nor can Canonchet have
been blind to the fact that, whatever Philip's failings
might be, every hope of Narragansett independence would
fall with him.
The treaty, wrung by Captains Moseley and Savage at
the sword's point from the old men, requiring the sur
render of all Philip's subjects, even women and children
who should take refuge with the Narragansetts, was for
a long time openly flouted by Canonchet, yet on the
demand of the commissioners of the United Colonies he
confirmed, on the 18th of October, the terms of the treaty
of July to deliver all the men, women and children to
the Governor or Council at Boston before October 28th
and was presented with a coat trimmed with silver, and
dismissed.1
The sachems would have remained neutral if possible.
They had kept aloof from any alliance with Philip and
were held by both Philip and his allies to be friendly to
the English. Such was the testimony of James Quana-
pohit, an Indian spy in the service of the English among
the Quabaugs and Nashaways, who, questioned by Cap-
!The signers on behalf of the English include no members of the
Massachusetts Council, but Samuel Gorton, James Brown and Richard
Smith, all neighbors of the Narragansetts.
Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Vol. II, page 361.
Plymouth Records, Vol. X.
136 King Philip's War
tain Nathaniel Davenport as to "whether the Narragan-
setts had aided or assisted Philip and his company in the
summer, against the English," replied that they had not
and that the hostiles "regarded them as friends of the
English all along, and their enemies. " This view of the
Narragansetts was also held by the Indians around Ply
mouth, for when Peter, Awashonk's son, who had warned
Church of Philip's designs just previous to the outbreak
of hostilities, was examined at Plymouth in June, 1676,
he testified that the Saconet Indians when the English
had fired their houses, "understanding that the Narra
gansetts were friends to the English, we went to them. "
No hostile actions marked their course, but in the excited
state of mind that existed among both magistrate and
people of New England at the time, neutrality was im
possible.
If the friendly Indians were objects of keen distrust
and suspicion, a neutral tribe could only be regarded as
hostile, harboring evil intention and waiting only a favor
able opportunity for war and massacre.
The policy of peace at any price among the Narragan
setts, so diligently pursued by Canonicus and Pesascus,
had broken down. Submission and subserviency had
neither mitigated the white man's suspicions nor made
the English less diligent in furthering their own interests
and those of Uncas. The lesson taught by the Pequot
war had grown dim in memory, and the young warriors
found in Canonchet a leader who represented far more
than his father or uncles, the warlike spirit of their tra
ditionary leaders.
Swayed by such influence the Narragansetts were in no
mood to commit so great an outrage against the traditions
King Philip's War 137
of Indian hospitality as to surrender the women and chil
dren who sought their protection, among them, no doubt,
many from the sub-tribes of the Wampanoags who feared
the resentment both of the English and their own
kindred.
The attitude of reserve and suspicion assumed by the
Narragansetts and the sullen temper of the young war
riors had not passed unnoticed by those who knew them
best. Pessacus, soon after the signing of the Pettaquam-
scat treaty in July had told several of the Rhode Islanders
that the young warriors would not listen to his words of
peace, and were desirous of war. Roger Williams had
warned the authorities late in July that their words of
peace were treacherous. He knew only too well the hu
miliations to which the whole tribe had been subjected,
and weighed the desire for vengeance which burned in
their hearts.
Immediately after the signing of the October treaty,
Williams, while carrying one of the sachems (probably
Canonochet, returning from Boston) in his canoe to
Smith's Landing, took the opportunity to warn him
against breaking the treaty.
"I told him and his men that Philip was his looking-
glass, and how Philip was dead to all advice and now
was over set.
"He asked me in a consenting, considering kind of a
way * Philip over set ? ' . . . and I told him that if
they were false to his engagements we would pursue them
with a winter's war when they should not, as mosquitoes
and rattlesnakes in warm weather, bite us. They gave
me leave to say anything, acknowledging loudly your
great kindness in Boston, and mine, and yet Captain
138 King Philip's War
Fenner l told me yesterday he thinks they will prove our
worst enemies at last. " 2
The warning did not fall upon deaf ears. The 28th of
October came and the anxious but resolute commissioners
knew that the treaty had been in vain.
It was believed at the time that Philip was Canonchet's
evil counselor, but there exists no doubt that the Narra-
gansett had himself determined to submit no more to
every demand and threat Massachusetts might see fit to
make, for his was a nature imbued with a strength and
temper more certain to act on its own initiative than on
the persuasion of others.
One more attempt at persuasion the English are re
ported by a popular tradition of the time to have made,
only to meet in the stern, inclusive reply, "No, not a
Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag's nail, " 3
a refusal that bade them do their worst.
The commissioners, as well as public opinion, racked
with the anxiety and depression over the disasters in the
valley and the failure of the plan of campaign, felt it was
safer to strike at the Narragansetts immediately, while
concentrated in winter quarters, than to be hampered by
fear of their rising in the spring.
On the refusal of Canonchet to keep the terms of the
treaty, the commissioners of the United Colonies as
sembled at Boston, November 2d, and, without further
1 Captain Arthur Fenner of Providence was born in England in 1622.
He was made freeman in 1655. He was commissioned captain of the
trainband in 1672 and when a garrison was established at Providence
he was appointed commander, and is sometimes called " the Captain of
Providence. "
2 Roger Williams to Gov. Leverett, Mass. Archives, Vol. 67, 296.
a See Hubbard's account of Canonchet's Trial, Vol. 2, page 60.
King Philip's War 139
negotiations, practically declared war in the following
proclamation :
"For as much as the Narragansett Indians are deeply
accessory in the present bloody outrages of the barbarous
Indians that are in open hostilities with the English, this
appearing by their harboring the actors thereof, relieving
and succoring their women and children and wounded
men, and detaining them in their custody notwithstand
ing the covenant made by their sachems to deliver them
to the English, and as is creditably reported, have killed
and taken away many cattle from the English, their neigh
bors, and did for some days seize and keep under a strong
guard Mr. Smith's house and family, and at the news of
the said lamentable mischief that the Indians did at or
near Hatfield, did in a most reproachful and blasphemous
manner triumph and rejoice. . . . The commission
ers do agree to raise one thousand men beside the number
of soldiers formerly agreed upon, and the commander-
in-chief shall with the said soldiers march into the Narra
gansett country, and in case they be not permitted by
the Narragansett sachems the actual performance of their
covenant made with the commissioners, by delivering up
those of our enemies that are in their custody, as also
making reparation for all damages sustained by their
neglect hitherto, together with security for their further
conduct, then to compel them thereunto by the best means
they may. " 1
The commissioners appointed Governor Josiah Wins-
low of Plymouth commander-in-chief, referred the ap
pointment of a second in command to the Council or
i Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Vol. II, page 357.
(Not literal). Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. X.
140 King Philip's War
General Court of Connecticut, fixed the allotment of men
to be furnished by each of the colonies and advised that
all troops be picked men, well equipped, warmly clothed,
and supplied with a week's provisions in knapsacks and
a supply in reserve. The 2d of December was named
as a day of humiliation and prayer.
The fact that the Rhode Islanders, within whose bound
aries the Narragansett country lay, were opposed to hos
tilities, and the contemplated invasion was in defiance of
the royal charter of that colony was entirely ignored.
The hierarchy of the other colonies seldom wasted
courtesy upon the authorities of heretical Rhode Island,
and in this case, when they deemed time all important,
they can hardly be blamed for considering that the safety
of their people must not be endangered by the attitude
of a weak government and the terms of a general charter.
CHAPTER IX
SUCH a situation as obtained throughout the colonies
during the year 1675 could not exist in the New
England of the period without a serious searching of heart
and conscience. In the public mind such trials and tribula
tions were the punishment inflicted for the wickedness
and sins of the whole people, and the General Court of
Massachusetts in setting apart the second day of Decem
ber as a day of humiliation and public prayer, gives
voice to the orthodox conscience.
"Whereas God has not only warned us by his word
but chastized us with his rods . . . and given permis
sion to the barbarous heathen to rise up against and be
come a smart rod, a severe scourge to us, burning and
depopulating several hopeful plantations . . . hereby
speaking aloud to us to search and try our ways and turn
again unto the Lord our God, from whom we have de
parted with a great backsliding. "
The court enumerates a few of the offenses that have
incurred the divine displeasure: The great neglect of
discipline in the churches as regards the spiritual estate
and instruction of the children. The sin of manifest
pride made apparent by the wearing by the women of their
hair long, " either their own or others hair, " and by some
women " wearing borders of hair, and their cutting, curling
and immodest laying out of their hair, especially among
the younger sort. " A feeling of pride in apparel, " strange
fashions in both rich and poor, with naked breasts and
142 King Philip's War
arms and superfluous ribbons. " Shameful and scandal
ous sin of excessive drinkings and company keeping both
of men and women, in taverns and ordinaries. "The
sin of idleness, which is the sin of Sodom." And the
court orders that better order be kept in the churches,
that profanity and idleness and attendance at Quaker
meetings be punished, that measures be taken to restrict
the licenses of public houses and that the magistrates be
more active in the discharge of their duties.1
This careful scrutiny of public morals, with its attend
ant measures of reformation, was accompanied by vigor
ous action looking to the security of the colonies and the
organization of the forces for the winter campaign. The
neutral Indians were ordered confined to the islands in
Boston Harbor, the exportation of all provisions except
fish was prohibited, and captains were appointed to
the command of the various companies ordered for
service.
Following the lead of Massachusetts, the Council of
Connecticut issued orders for the levying of three hun
dred and fifteen men and the accumulation of food, pow
der, lead and flints, at Norwich, Stonington and New
London.
Major Treat was named second in command of the
united forces, the various companies were placed under
the command of Captain Samuel Marshall,2 Captain
1 Massachusetts Records, Vol. V, page 59.
2 Captain Samuel Marshall of Windsor, 1637, was a tanner. Free
man, 1654. He had a short but honorable service in the war against
Philip, and November 30, 1675, was made captain in the place of
Benjamin Newbury who was disabled. — Stiles' History of Windsor,
Vol. II, page 466.
King Philip's War 143
Mason, Captain Watts and Lieutenants A very, Seeley and
Miles,1 and instructions were sent to the Reverend Mr.
Fitch 2 of Norwich, to organize a body of Pequots and
Mohcgans as auxiliaries.3
By the 8th of December the Massachusetts and Plym
outh forces were fully organized and Winslow, after a
conference at Boston with Governor Leverett, proceeded
with his staff, which included Benjamin Church, Joseph
Dudley and a number of ministers, surgeons and volun
teers, to Dedham, the rendezvous of the Massachusetts
contingent, where were concentrated the forces called in
from the valley, and the new levies. Here were Major
Appleton and Captain Moseley with their veterans, Cap
tain Isaac Johnson with the levies of Roxbury, Dorchester,
Weymouth, Hull; and adjacent towns; Davenport4 with
the men of Cambridge and Watertown; Oliver with the
men from Boston ; Gardiner with the Essex County levies,
and Thomas Prentice with a troop of horse, a total of
1 Lieutenant John Miles was born October, 1644, and lived in New
Haven. He was admitted freeman in 1669, made lieutenant 1675, and
later captain. He died November 7, 1704. — Savage.
2 Rev. James Fitch of Saybrook was born December 24, 1622, at
Bocking, County Essex, England. He was ordained in the ministry in
1646. His wife died in 1659 and he removed the next year with a large
part of his Saybrook church to the settlement of Norwich. He gave
up his office in 1696 and removed to Lebanon where he died November 18,
1702. — Savage.
s Connecticut Records, Vol. II, pages 383-387. Allotment 110 men
to Hartford County; New Haven, 63; Fairfield, 72; New London, 70.
4 Captain Nathaniel Davenport was a native of Salem. His father
was for many years commander of the Castle at Boston, and the son
naturally acquired experience in military matters, and at the time of
the fitting out of the Narragansett expedition in Philip's war, he was
summoned to take command of the 5th company in the Massachusetts
regiment.
144 King Philip's War
465 foot, 275 horse, besides volunteers, teamsters and
servants.1
Early on the morning of the 9th, Winslow took over
the command from Major-General Denison 2 and, having
promised the troops a gratuity in land, besides their pay,
if they should drive out the enemy from the Narragansett
country, gave orders for the advance.
The evening camp was pitched at Woodcock's garrison,
Attelboro,3 and by the evening of the next day they reached
Seekonk,4 where Richard Smith's sloop which had sailed
from Smith's Landing to meet them, lay at anchor in the
stream. Captain Moseley's command, Benjamin Church,
Joseph Dudley and a few others, immediately embarked,
while the remainder of the force, ferrying around to the
head of the bay, joined Major William Bradford and
Captain Gorham, with the one hundred and fifty-eight
men of the Plymouth contingent, at Providence.
The united force now pushed into Pumham's country,
marching by night in the hope of surprising and captur
ing the sachem Pumham, formerly a most submissive
and servile friend but now a stout-hearted ally of Philip.
But the night was bitter cold, the guides lost their way
in the darkness and the troops, worn out with floundering
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 139.
2 Daniel Denison, Cambridge, 1633, born in England about 1612,
was freeman April 1, 1634. Removed to Ipswich with the early planters;
its representative 1635 and seven years after; speaker several years.
Artillery Company, 1680, and every rank in the militia to the highest.
Assistant from 1654 till his death September 19, 1682.— Savage.
3 Located at the north end of the present village of North Attleboro,
and its foundation stones and cellar hole may still be seen.
4 Seekonk was upon the river of that name in what is now the town
of East Providence, about a mile or a little more below its northern
limit. It was practically identical with old Rehoboth.
King Philip's War 145
through the deep snow, gave over the quest and, turning
southward with the thirty-five prisoners they had cap
tured, reached the appointed rendezvous, Smith's Land
ing at Wickford, on the 13th.
Here they found Moseley and Church who, having
established the camp, had already begun an aggressive
campaign on their own initiative. Nearly two score pris
oners, men, women and children (many of whom they
subsequently sold to Captain Davenport for the sum of
eighty pounds), had been taken and a number of the
Narragansetts slain.
During Winslow's march there had come to him a
Narragansett Indian named Peter Freeman, who having
" received some disgust among his countrymen " now re
venged himself by playing the traitor, acting as a guide
to the English on several occasions and giving them full
information of the Narragansett stronghold.
Nearly ten years later a reward which had been
promised him was paid and the General Court of Massa
chusetts ordered that his daughter be sought and redeemed
from slavery.1
The Connecticut contingent had not yet arrived, but
on the following day Winslow led out his force to the
nearby village of the squaw-sachem, Matantuck,2 or the
1 Mass. Col. Records, Vol. V, page 477.
2 Queen Magnus was the widow of Mexanno, who was the eldest son
of Canonicus. She was sister to Ninigret the great Niantic chieftain.
This squaw sachem had several successive names, thus, Quaiapen, Mag
nus, Matantuck, the Saunk Squaw (meaning the wife of a sachem),
and the "Old Queen" of the Narragansetts. She was the mother of
Quequaganet, the sachem who sold the Pettaquamscot lands to the
English. She was related by marriage with the most distinguished
sachems of the Niantic and Narragansett tribes, and succeeding Canon-
J
146 King Philip's War
Satmk Squaw, burnt over one hundred and fifty wigwams,
and, having killed seven Indians, returned with nine
prisoners; at the same time a scouting party of thirty
men sent out by Oliver, who had been left behind to
guard the stores, killed an Indian warrior and squaw and
took several prisoners.
At dawn on the 15th, came an Indian known to the
whites as Stonewall or Stonelayer John,1 professing au
thority to enter into negotiations. He was, however, a
chet, became the great squaw sachem of the Narragansetts, and her
last stronghold was the "Queen's Fort." She was killed and her band
destroyed, July 2, 1676, near Nachek on the Patuxet River, by Major
Talcott and his forces. William Harris of Providence wrote of her per
sonal character: "A great woman; yea, ye greatest yt ther was; ye sd
woman, called ye old Queene. " — The Lands of Rhode Island, by Sid
ney S. Rider, pages 240, 241.
The Queen's Fort. — This rude fortification stands upon an elevation
exactly on the line separating North Kingston from Exeter. It is two
miles in a northwest direction from Wickford Junction station on the
N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., and about three and one-half miles from the
Smith garrison house. It occupies the top of the elevation, the hill
falling away from the walls on all sides. The builders taking advan
tage of huge bowlders, laid rough stone walls between them, making a
continuous line. "There is a round bastion or half moon on the north
east corner of the fort, and a salient or V-shaped point, or flanker, on
the west side. " It was in this neighborhood, a little to the southeast of
the fort, near the headwaters of the little river Showatucquere, that the
Narragansetts had a considerable village, undoubtedly the deserted vil
lage destroyed by the army on the 14th of December, 1675. (See Bodge,
Soldiers in King Philip's War, page 180.) The Lands of Rhode Island,
by Sidney S. Rider, page 236.
1 Stonewall John is said by Sidney S. Rider to have been the builder
of the ancient stone fort known as the "Queen's Fort." He quotes
Mr. Samuel G. Drake (Book of the Indians, Vol. Ill, page 77): "One
writer of his time observes that he was called the stone layer, for that,
being an active, ingenious fellow, he had learned the masons' trade and
was of great use to the Indians in building their forts, and" Mr. Rider
adds that " he and he alone of the Indians could do such things. " Stone-
King Philip's War 147
chief of minor importance, and Winslow, believing that
he came only to gain time and spy out the number of
the English, dismissed him with the brief reply, "We
might speak with the sachems. "
During his visit the Narragansetts were hovering around
in considerable numbers, and on the departure of the
ambassador began to pick off the troops, shooting down
from behind a hill three men of Gardiner's company
on the outskirts of the camp, and even firing from the
shelter of a stone wall l upon a considerable force which
had been sent out under Captains Moseley, Oliver and
Gardiner to bring in Appleton's company from outpost
duty; but repulsed here with the loss of one of their lead
ers they drew off towards evening.2
Some eight miles from Winthrop's camp, in a clearing
on Tower Hill, lay the large stone house of Jirah Bull,3
wall John's Indian name has been lost to us. He was killed in Talcott's
attack on the encampment of Queen Magnus, at Nachek, July 2, 1676.
— Lands of Rhode Island.
1 Sidney S. Rider says the stone wall here mentioned was probably
the wall of the Queen's Fort. "It may be stated, with a reasonable
degree of historical accuracy, that the Queen's Fort was the spot around
which lay the great ' town ' of the Narragansetts in 1675, and from be
hind the stone walls of which the Indians fired thirty shots upon the
advance post of the English army on the 15th of December of that year. "
The fort was just three and a half miles from Smith's garrison, the
distance at which Appleton's company lay, and it appears to be the
only place that can be made to fit the description. — Lands of Rhode
Island, page 240.
2 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I, page 301. Captain
Oliver's Letter.
3 Jirah Bull, son of Governor Henry, born at Portsmouth, R. I., Sep
tember, 1638. Kept a garrison house on Tower Hill at Pettaquamscut.
This was about two and a half miles northwest from the present village
of Narragansett Pier, and perhaps a mile and a hah* east from the village
of Wakefield.
148 King Philip's War
"a convenient large stone house with a good stone wall
yard before it which is a kind of fortification to it, " *
and which had been selected as the rendezvous of the
army on the arrival of the Connecticut troops. Here,
on the night of the 15th, had assembled some seventeen
people; careless in the face of danger, and relying on the
near presence of the troops, no watch was probably set,
when, in the darkness, the Indians repulsed at Smith's
Landing in the afternoon stole upon it, broke in the doors
and massacred all but two of the inmates.
Captain Prentice, following the trail of the Indians the
next day, saw smoke rising among the trees in the still
winter air and the silent smoldering ruins told the tale
of surprise and massacre.
Discouragement and humiliation fell heavily on the
minds of Winthrop's men on the return of Prentice, but
with the morrow came the welcome news that the Con
necticut force, three hundred and fifteen troops and one
hundred and fifty Mohegans and Pequots, had arrived
and were encamped at Pettaquamscut.
On the 18th, as the short winter day was drawing to
its close, Winthrop joined Treat at Pettaquamscut and
assumed command over the largest army ever assembled
up to that time in New England. As the weather was
becoming unsettled and provisions were running low it
was decided to make the attack on the Narragansett
stronghold the next day. Fires were built and by this
light the troops cleaned their guns and completed their
preparations. The night was cold, the sky overcast, and
1 Letter of Waite Winthrop to his father, Governor John Winthrop,
of Connecticut, July, 1675. — Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II,
page 338.
King Philip's War 149
the troops, unprovided with tents, lay out under the open
sky. Clustered for warmth around the camp fires, whose
flickering lights in the clearing cast the woods in deeper
shadow, they heard the trees crackling in the frost and
the long-drawn sough of the night wind. Sleep was al
most impossible and before the gray dawn had come the
camp was astir.
Sixteen miles to the west, by a circuitous route, lay the
objective point of the expedition, a fortified winter vil
lage of the Narragansetts 1 situated on a hillock of some
five or six acres, in the midst of a cedar swamp, which
presents to-day much the aspect it then wore. Here were
collected many warriors and a large number of women
and children. Their bark wigwams were lined with skins
and well stored with their winter supplies of corn and
dried fish. Joseph Dudley states, on the authority of a
squaw, that there were assembled here, in addition to a
thousand in the woods in reserve, 3,500 warriors and their
women and children, which would have made a total of
about 14,000 souls; a ridiculous estimate. Five or six
acres would not have accommodated 2,000, and the Nar
ragansetts could not assemble 1,000 to 1,200 fighting men
all told.
Strong as the position was by nature — for the only ap-
!The great Narragansett Swamp is located in the town of North
Kingston, R. I., and is crossed by the line of the N. Y., N. H. & H.
R. R. between the stations of Kingston and Kenyon. The island upon
which the fort was located lies between Usquapaug River and Shicka-
sheen Brook, now known as Queen's River and Muddy Brook, and may
be reached by a drive of two and a half miles from Kingston station.
A causeway has been constructed between a point of elevated land
reaching out in near proximity to the "island," to the island itself, en
abling one to reach this point of interest dry-shod.
150 King Philip's War
proach was over a fallen tree, save when the severest
weather *roze the surface of the swamp — it had been for
tified in a manner seldom employed by the Indians.
They had often fenced in their villages with a stockade
of logs set on end, but here a stockade more than usually
stout and strong was reinforced with a hedge and inner
rampart of rocks and clay, while numerous blockhouses
and flankers commanded every approach with a cross
fire.1 The Narragansetts, according to Hubbard, were
advised in the erection of their fortifications by a settler
named Tifie (or Teft 2).
It was five o'clock Sunday morning, December 19th,
when the army began its march along the uplands, a cir
cuitous route but one less exposed to the possibilities of
an ambuscade; the Massachusetts division in advance,
the companies of Moseley and Davenport leading, Plym
outh men in the center and the Connecticut contingent
bringing up the rear, while the Mohegans and Pequot
auxiliaries covered the flanks of the army or scouted
ahead.
Keen eyes were watching them as they pushed on,
guided by Peter, and as they neared the edge of the
swamp shortly after the noon hour, scattering shots were
fired upon them by warriors who fled ostentatiously toward
the log which led to the principal entrance. It has been
generally believed that the English forced their way in
at this point. Such was not the case, for, either by chance
or directed by their guide, the Massachusetts men in the
1 Old Indian Chronicle, page 181.
2 Captain Oliver's Letter. Rider thinks that Stonewall John may
have been the engineer of the Narragansett fort, and says, "We may
hazard but little in his conjecture. " — Lands of Rhode Island, page 242.
King Philip's War 151
van inclined their march a little to the right and came
upon the one weak point in the defenses, where an un
finished portion of the stockade commanded by a block
house, but unprotected by abattis, had been filled in with
a large tree. "Wherefor the providence of Almighty
God" says Hubbard, "is the more to be acknowledged,
who, as he led Israel by the pillar of fire and the cloud
of his presence to light a way through the wilderness, so
it now directs our forces upon that side of the fort where
they might only enter. "
With a rush, the Massachusetts men, running over the
frozen swamp, charged this entrance, but a deadly fire
smote them in front and flank. Captain Johnson fell
dead, with many of his men, at the entrance, while Cap
tain Davenport, distinguished by a handsome buff coat,
gained the fort only to face a volley that killed him and
decimated his company.
The survivors of the three companies drew back in
confusion to the edge of the swamp and threw them
selves on their faces. Moseley and Gardiner reinforced
them, but Gardiner himself was shot dead near the en
trance and the men could make no headway until Major
Appleton, with the remainder of the Massachusetts men,
dashing forward with the cry "they run, they run,"
gathered them in the rush and the whole mass, storming
over the tree together, drove the Indians out of the flanker
on the left.
They were now somewhat protected from the sharp
shooters in the nearby blockhouses, but many of them
continued to fall, and the Narragansetts, rallying again,
began to press them fiercely, when the Connecticut troops,
suffering fearfully from the fire directed upon them, made
152 King Philip's War
their way in through the breach, though Gallop,1 Marshall,
and Seeley, among their leaders, fell dead and Mason
was mortally wounded.
A short time later the Plymouth men also made their
entrance. Little by little the stern and determined at
tack of the English told, and the Narragansetts fell back,
foot by foot, though the warriors fought desperately
from the shelter of the bags and the baskets of grain
in the wigwams.
Even yet the issue might have been doubtful, but,
either through chance or deliberately fired by some Eng
lish hand, the Indian wigwams caught fire and the wind
swept the fire in a mighty wave of flame through the
crowded fort. An indiscriminate massacre must have
followed "for the shrieks and cries of the women and
children, the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most
horrible and appalling scene, so that it greatly moved
some of the soldiers. They were in much doubt and
they afterwards seriously inquired whether burning their
enemies alive could be consistent with humanity and the
benevolent principle of the gospel. " 2
But though the Narragansetts had been driven out of
1 Captain John Gallop, Boston, 1637. He served in the Pequot war,
for which Connecticut made him a grant of one hundred acres of land.
He removed to New London in 1651, but had been in Taunton for a
short time in 1643. He finally settled in Stonington and was represen
tative from that town in 1665 and 1667.— Savage.
2 Manuscript of the Rev. W. Ruggles.
NOTE. — Details of this campaign are to be found at considerable
length in the letters of Captain Oliver given in Hutchinson's History of
Massachusetts, Vol. I, page 300; the letters of Joseph Dudley to Gov
ernor Leverett, December 15th, Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII,
page 101 ; and December 21st, Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts,
Vol. I, page 302.
King Philip's War 153
the village they still hung on the outskirts of the swamp,
firing continuously at the English from the shelter of the
woods, and Captain Church, who had had little share in
the storm, sallying out, beat them back but was himself
wounded. The victory had been won, but the price paid
had been heavy.
The short day was fast drawing into a wild winter's
night when the surviving commanders gathered around
Winslow in the glare of the blazing wigwams. Their
figures, turning white in the swift-falling snow, were sil
houetted against the flames, and among the dead and
wounded English and warriors around them, lay many
an Indian woman and child.
The debate was long and earnest. Church vehemently
urged that they should camp where they stood, collect
the wounded in the shelter of the blockhouses and give
the weary troops needed rest and food.1 An eighteen-
mile march through a broken trail, encumbered with the
wounded and exposed to the fierce blast of the storm,
was folly. Others saw more clearly than he. Their po
sition was at the best precarious. They had, it was true,
inflicted heavy loss on the Narragansetts and destroyed
their winter shelter and supplies, but their own losses
had been very heavy. Six captains and over twenty men
were already dead. One hundred and fifty wounded
were upon their hands. The blazing village offered little
shelter or provision, the food and ammunition were well-
nigh exhausted and the base of communication lay eigh
teen miles away, and who knew but the Narragansetts,
rallying on the morrow, might be upon them. Better to
1 Church's Entertaining History, page 16.
154 King Philip's War
expose the wounded to the storm than risk a siege or
ambuscade in the morning. Now, when the foes were
dispirited and their plans unformed, was the time to re
turn. Such was the deciding opinion and the tired and
weary troops, leaving twenty of the dead in the fort to de
ceive the Indians as to their loss, and carrying the wounded
on litters made of muskets and saplings, filed out of the
smoldering ruins into the woods and storm, lighted for
three miles of their journey, as the author of the old In
dian chronicle assures us, by the flames of the burning
wigwams.
It was a terrible march. The fierce blast blew the snow
in their faces; sometimes they stumbled over the logs and
trees that lay across their path and heard the agonized
groans of their wounded comrades brought to ground,
twenty-two of them dying on the march. The trail
was indistinct and often they sank to their knees in the
drifted snow, while the heavily-laden boughs slashed
them in the face. Faint from hunger and fatigue,
weighed down with their wounded, and blinded by the
storm, well it was for them that the older chiefs turned a
deaf ear to the appeals of the young warriors that they
should be followed and attacked on the march.
It was two o'clock in the morning before the main
body struggled into Wickford. Many lost their way and
wandered amid the storm all night. Winslow with forty
men did not reach the camp until seven the next morn
ing. Seven of their captains and about seventy-five
of the men were dead or died during the next few
days.
The number of the Indians killed has been greatly
exaggerated by the historians. Mather says there were
King Philip's War 155
one thousand killed;1 Hubbard, seven hundred fighting
men killed, three hundred more died of wounds, besides
women, old men and children beyond count. No effort
was made after the fight to count the Indian dead. Tifft,
on his capture, stated it to have been ninety-eight killed
and forty-eight wounded, besides women and children.
The Narragansetts told the Indians at Quabaug that
they had lost "forty fighting men and a sachem killed,
and some three hundred old men, women and children
burnt in the wigwams, which were mostly destroyed.2
Considering the fact that the Indians fought from shelter
and that though there was, according to Hubbard, "but
one entrance into the fort, the enemy found many ways
to come out," their own statement seems the most reli
able. The desire of the young men to pursue the Eng
lish is very good proof that their losses in men were not
as great as reported by the English.
The provisions of the Indians for the winter had been
destroyed, their shelter burnt and themselves driven out
into the woods in the dead of winter to face famine. The
hornet's nest had indeed been scorched, but the hornets
were loose and the plight of the troops, without shelter
or provisions, exhausted and exposed to the fury of the
elements, was little better than that of the Indians, and
only the fortunate arrival of Captain Richard Goodale 3
1 " We have heard of two and twenty Indian captains slain, all of them,
and brought down to hell in one day. " — Mather's Prevalency of Prayer,
page 265.
2 James Quanapohit's Relation. — Conn. War, 1 Doc. 356.
3 A letter from Joseph Dudley to Governor Leverett, written from
Smith's garrison, December 21, 1675, credits Captain Goodale with
bringing the needed relief, though Church in his Entertaining History
(page 62) states that it was Captain Andrew Belcher whose vessel
156 King Philip's War
of Boston with a sloop load of provisions, at Smith's
Landing the same night, saved them from terrible suffer
ing-
arrived at that time. It is more than probable, however, that Dudley's
statement, written at the very time of the event, is more reliable than
that of Church written forty years later. Both Goodale and Belcher
were contemporary merchants and vessel owners.
CHAPTER X
THE wounded of the Massachusetts and Plymouth con
tingent were sent over to Rhode Island, and the Con
necticut wounded to Stonington and New London, but
the Connecticut force was so disabled that Major Treat
was obliged to withdraw from further operations De
cember 28th, despite the protest of the other officers.
Joseph Dudley had already written to Governor Lever-
ett, requesting two or three hundred more men and cap
tains, "blunderbusses, hand grenadoes and armours if it
may be, and at least two armourers, " and until the arri
val of these reinforcements and other supplies the army
was tied to its base and incapable of assuming the of
fensive.1 The Narragansetts had, in the meantime, re
turned to their ruined fort without molestation and prob
ably secured considerable supplies of corn and fish which
had escaped the conflagration.
Four days after the battle the Narragansetts, probably
fencing for time, sent ambassadors to ask for terms, a
report on the condition of the white forces probably
being not the least of their duties. The deep snow and
the intense cold following a sudden thaw, held the main
body of the army in camp, but scouting parties who were
sent out almost daily secured from time to time corn
from the Indian barns, and some prisoners. Supplies of
* Dudley's letter to the Governor and Council. Hutchinson's History
of Massachusetts, Vol. I, page 302.
158 King Philip's War
food, ammunition and clothing were slowly being brought
in from Connecticut and Boston by vessels, and the com
missioners were organizing reinforcements and urging
Connecticut to hurry forward their reorganized companies.
On December 27th the ground was again frozen and Cap
tain Prentice marched upon Pumham's village l (near
Warwick) and destroyed one hundred wigwams, but
" found never an Indian in any one of them. "
Through a captive squaw taken the following day,
the Narragansetts were informed that the door to peace
would be opened by the surrender of all the Wampanoags
who had taken refuge with the Narragansetts, and com
pliance with such conditions as the authorities deemed
necessary to impose. The squaw did not return but there
came a messenger returning thanks for the offer of peace
and a reply, "It was not we who made war upon the
English, but the English upon us without notice. "
The return of Canonchet in the spring for the purpose
of procuring corn for the spring planting affords strong
evidence that the destitution of the Narragansetts at this
time was less severe than the English believed, and the
1 The Massachusetts colony, claiming the lands of Shawomet (War
wick), had forbidden their occupation by any person without the per
mission of the colony, and in order to aid their ally, Pumham, in hold
ing them, built an earthwork or fort, which they garrisoned with an
officer and ten soldiers. Tradition locates this fort on the east bank of
Warwick Cove and what very plainly indicate its remains may still be
seen there. It commanded the entrance to the cove, while in the rear
was said to have been an impenetrable marshy thicket to protect it in
that direction. This feature has now disappeared and the old earth
work may be reached dry-shod from the track of the electric railway on
the east. Pumham's village, it is most likely, was at this point. His
domain covered the territory now occupied largely by the town of War
wick, R. I.
King Philip's War 159
thaw that allowed Prentice to make his expedition afforded
the Indians an opportunity of securing food by raiding
the settlers' cattle and reaching their stores of buried
corn.
Negotiations continued but each party was suspicious
of the good faith of the other. On the fourth of January,
1676, two messengers came to Winslow "to make way,
as they declared, for a treaty of peace. " They laid the
blame of hostilities upon Canonchet, who, they said, had
misinformed them as to the terms of the treaty, having
told them that the Wampanoags were not to be surren
dered until Canonchet's brother, held as a hostage at
Hartford, had been delivered up. On the following day
a little child, three years old, who had been captured near
Warwick was sent in as a peace offering and a few days
thereafter a messenger came from the old sachem Nini-
gret, recalling his friendship for the English and inform
ing them that provisions in .the Narragansett camp were
scarce ; but whatever the wishes of the old man, the power
had passed into younger and bolder hands " for that young
and insolent Canonchet and Panoquin l said they would
fight it out to the last man rather than they would become
the slaves of the English." 2
In the meantime the reinforcements raised by the com
missioners at Boston had been equipped and the first
company under command of Captain Samuel Brockle-
bank 3 set out on the sixth of January, but again the
1 Panoquin, usually called Quinapin, was at one time the husband of
Weetamoo, Queen of the Pocassets.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 161.
3 Captain Samuel Brockelbank was of Rowley. He was a native of
England and born about 1630. He was elected captain of the first
160 King Philip's War
winter storms and cold set in, and before they reached
Wickford, four days later, sick and disheartened, several
of their number had perished from exposure.1
Several scouts going out on the llth, next day came
upon an Indian hiding in one of the Indian corn pits
under the leaves, and brought him into camp, "but he
would own nothing but what was forced out of his mouth
by the twisting of a cord around his head; he was there
fore adjudged to die as a Wampanoag, " says Hubbard,
a naive confession of torture which he or Mather would
have embellished with a page of scriptural quotations if
committed by the Indians.
Early the next day (the 12th of January) Canonchet
and the sachems sent a request to Winslow for a month's
truce for the discussion of a treaty. This request aroused
Winslow' s indignation and caused him to press more en
ergetically than ever for the return of the reorganized
Connecticut forces. It is difficult to agree with Winslow
in the matter of these negotiations. He seems throughout
obstinate and hot-tempered and unable to make use of
his opportunities. It was well known that there existed
among the Narragansetts a considerable party, neither
uninfluential nor few in numbers, anxious for peace,
among them Pessacus and Ninigret, sachem of the Nian-
tics, yet no effort was made to strengthen their influence
and divide the enemy, which a little diplomacy could
have advanced. Winslow was still to wait two weeks
company at Rowley, in 1673, and was active in recruiting for the Narra-
gansett campaign. He was killed at Sudbury, April 21, 1676. — Bodge,
page 206.
i Old Indian Chronicle (Present State of New England), page 195.
King Philip's War 161
before making any forward movement, and when made
it was to prove worse than abortive, spreading the war
over a larger area.
Four days later a party of Providence settlers under
Captain Fenner, pursuing some Indians who had seized
their cattle, wounded and brought in Joshua Tift, the
renegade Englishman who had joined the Narragansetts.1
Roger Williams, who acted as clerk at Tift's court-
martial, records, in a letter to Governor Leverett, Tift's
defense.2 He said that twenty-seven days before the
battle at the Narragansett fort, the Narragansetts had
burned his house, seized his cattle and that he himself
had only escaped death by agreeing to become Canon-
chet's slave. He had been taken to the fort and there
held. The Narragansetts had made terms with the Mo-
hegans and Pequots before the battle, and after the cap
ture of the fort the sachem had retired to a swamp not
far away. On the departure of the English they sent to
ascertain their losses and found ninety-eight dead and
forty-eight wounded, and five or six bodies of the Eng
lish. Their powder was nearly gone. Pessacus was for
peace, but Canonchet was determined on war. The sa
chems were now about ten miles from Smith's and be
lieved the English proposal of a truce a trap to catch
them. Philip, he said, had been at Quabaug in Decem
ber whither the Narragansetts were now retiring, leaving
foraging parties and a strong rear guard.
His defense was of no avail, and the judgment of the
court soon received vindication from the report of James
i Hubbard, Vol. I, page 162.
2\Vinthrop Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections,
Vol. XXXVI, page 307.
K
162 King Philip's War
Quanapohit,1 who was told by the Narragansetts that he
had killed and wounded several of the English both be
fore and during the battle at the fort. He was hanged
and quartered. "A sad wretch, he never heard a ser
mon but once these fourteen years, " wrote Captain Oliver.
While the English were making final preparations for
an offensive movement, Canonchet was not idle; houses
and barns were burnt and cattle captured and, as late
as the 27th when the English were about to march upon
him in force, he raided Warwick and despoiled William
Carpenter of that place of 200 sheep, 50 cattle and 15
horses.
On January 28th the Connecticut troops to the number
of about three hundred, marching from New London by
way of Westerly, reached the rendezvous, and reinforce
ments from Plymouth and Massachusetts brought the
strength of the army to over 1,400. Then began what
was known as the " hungry march. " Winslow moved
forward through the Narragansett country burning the
wigwams and seizing supplies wherever they were to be
found, capturing here and there a few Indian stragglers,
the sick and the old, women and children, whose strength
had failed them.
i "Of the aboriginal possessors of Nashaway (Lancaster), none, un
less Sholan, better deserves to be honored among us than that Indian
scout, whose courage, skill and fidelity, should have saved the town
from the massacre of 1676, James Quanapaug, alias James Wiser,
alias Quenepenett, or Quanapohit. This Christian Indian was so well
known for his bravery, capacity and friendship for the English that
Philip had marked him for martyrdom, and given orders accordingly
to some of his lieutenants." — Early Records of Lancaster, by Hon.
Henry S. Nourse, pages 99, 100.
See, also, James Quanapohit's Relation. Conn. Archives, War
Doc. 356.
King Philip's War 163
At times they came upon the still smoking embers of
the Narragansett camp-fires, and twenty-five miles from
Warwick found the skeleton heads of sixty horses that
had been butchered for food.
Northward through Rhode Island, through Warwick,
whose inhabitants abandoned it as the army passed on,
through Woodstock in Connecticut into Massachusetts,
they pushed their way over frozen streams and swamps
or along the exposed uplands, foraging for whatever they
could procure. Their camps were pitched in the snow
under the shelter of a hill or in the woods, and they
warmed their numbed bodies over the open fires. Still
they pressed on, footsore, wet and hungry, in pursuit of
the Narragansetts ever retreating before them and out of
reach until, worn out by the dreary march, reduced to
eating their horses and ground nuts for food, Winslow
reached Marlboro and there disbanded his forces on the
3d of February, leaving Captain Wadsworth and a com
pany of foot in garrison, whom, soon afterwards, Cap
tain Brocklebank reinforced.
Marlboro was a position of considerable strategic value.
It lay on what was called the Connecticut or Bay path,
and was the last town of importance until the Connecticut
Valley was reached. It served as a base of operations
and a rendezvous of the troops from the Bay towns in
the movements to and from the valley. A small garri
son had been stationed here. Already it had been threat
ened in the summer and fall of the previous year, and it
was believed that it would be the first town to be attacked
in the coming spring.
The disbandment of the army which sent the Connecti
cut troops homeward and most of the Massachusetts con-
164 King Philip's War
tingent to Boston, was a blunder of the first magnitude,
and, in view of the events of the past few months, as
tonishing in its disregard of the principles of Indian war
fare as taught by events in the valley. The whole frontier
toward the east was left at the mercy of the Indians. It
was no doubt difficult to procure provisions for so large
a force, but the need of a large body to defend the frontier
was an imperative necessity which should have been met.
The Indians to the north, informed by a runner of the
attack on the Narragansett village, had received the news
with suspicion, a messenger bringing in the heads of two
Englishmen was shot at and was informed that the Narra-
gansetts had been the friends of the English all summer
and they did not trust him. They even debated putting
the messenger to death as a spy, but, day by day, fugitives
and messengers bearing the heads and hands of slaugh
tered Englishmen came thronging into their camps.1 The
Narragansett nation were now among them as allies, and
their leaders must have had their hopes raised high by
a reinforcement that more than made up the losses of
the previous year.
Around Quabaug, in numerous small colonies, were
Sagamore Sam, One-Eyed John,2 Matoonas, Mautaump,
1 James Quanapohit's Relation.
2 Monoco, or " One-Eyed John, " as he was called by the English be
cause of a defect in his vision, lived near Lancaster. He was active in
the attack on that town, principal in the assault on Groton, and on his
own word, the destroyer of Medfield. At the close of Philip's war he
gave himself up, with others, to Major Walderne at Cochecho (Dover),
and was sent to Boston and, with Sagamore Sam, Old Jethro and Mau
taump, was executed upon the gallows at " the town's end, " September 26,
1676. He is known to have had a magnanimous disposition and per
haps no charge can be brought against him that would not comport
King Philip's War 165
and two or three hundred Quabaugs and Nashaways. /
Further north, at Wachusett, a favorite camping ground
of the Nashaways, was another small settlement, while
the main body of the valley tribes, Nonotucks, Pocum-
tucks, Agawams and Squakheags, had established winter
quarters in the vicinity of Northfield and Peskeompscut.
The wanderings of Philip, that will-o'-the-wisp of con
temporary chroniclers, are now well known. Roger Wil
liams believed he had made a visit to the Narragansetts
during the fall, and Joseph Dudley, in a letter to Gov
ernor Leverett, stated that he had been seen by many in
the thick of the battle at the swamp, but both were mis
taken. Philip, with the remnant of his Wampanoags and
Pocassets, had spent the late fall and early winter at Qua-
baug, but late in December, attended by his own follow
ers and a considerable following from the valley tribes,
went west toward the Hudson and established winter
quarters at Schaghticoke in Van Rensselaer County, some
twenty miles northeast of Albany where he was joined
by several bands of roving adventurers.
On January 6th Governor Andros wrote to the Gov
ernor and Council of Connecticut, "This is to acquaint
you that late last night I had intelligence that Philip and
four hundred or five hundred fighting men were come !
within forty or fifty miles of Albany, northeasterly, where
they talk of continuing the winter. Philip is sick."1
The report of Andros is confirmed by other testimony,
for to Schaghticoke also came Robert Pepper 2 and
with his character as an Indian warrior. — Book of the Indians. Old
Indian Chronicle.
1 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 397.
2 Mrs. Rowlandson's Removes.
166 King Philip's War
James Quanapohit. It is also supported by the less
reliable evidence of Thomas Warren1 captured in
October and taken to the Indian encampment who,
on his return, declared the assembled force, including
some 500 French Indians, to have exceeded 2,100 men
and that Philip himself with 400 others was then
absent; most certainly an exaggeration leading to the
belief that he was either ingeniously permitted to see
the same warriors several times, or possessed a wild
imagination.
This far removal of Philip from the scenes of opera
tions possessed several advantages. It was safe under
all ordinary circumstances from attack. It afforded com
munication with both French and Mohawks and con
venient means of access to the Dutch traders from whom
he desired to procure supplies of powder, of which the
Indians stood in pressing want.
It was openly declared by the New England authorities
at the time that the Dutch traders were actively engaged
in selling arms and ammunition to Philip, and an acri
monious correspondence took place in respect to the mat
ter between Governor Andros and the Governor and
Council of Connecticut, the irascible Governor replying
to their reiterated charge January 31st, "I do now
plainly see that you look upon it as a signal favor
that that bloody war is removed toward us. I can
not omit your great reflection on the Dutch in which
you seem to make me an accomplice, for which I pray
an explanation, and to name the guilty, there being
1 Probably Thomas Warren, a soldier in Captain Moseley's company.
See also The Old Indian Chronicle (Present State of New England),
page 226.
King Philip's War 167
none in this government but his Majesty's subjects
which obey all his laws. " l
The traders indeed, warned by Andros, refused to sell
direct, but the Mohawks, acting as intermediaries, took
the furs from Philip's warriors and traded them off as
their own, for powder, lead and guns.2 Philip was also
busily engaged in intrigues with both Mohawks and the
French, guarding negotiations with the latter carefully
from the former.
The Mohawks, it is said, told Philip that they would
gladly strike at the Mohegans but would not take up arms
against the English. At the same time, according to
Andros' letters to the Connecticut Council, they were
holding out hopes to the English of an offensive alliance
against Philip, a species of double dealing negotiations in
which the Iroquois were perfectly at home.
A strange story comes down to us to the effect that
Philip sought to inflame the rage of the Mohawks against
the settlers by himself destroying a party of Mohawk
warriors and imputing the outrage to the whites, but that
the Mohawks, discovering his treachery, fell upon his
force and drove it to the east.3
. The most careful research yields no satisfactory evi
dence of such treachery on Philip's part. It seems, like
many other tales, to have been used to color Philip's
character. The belief, widespread in New England, that
Philip made a visit to Canada during the winter in per
son, is also unlikely, for a journey to the French and their
Indian allies, which could not have been disguised from
1 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 404.
2 James Quanapohit's Relation. Conn. War, Vol. I, Doc. 356.
s Increase Mather's Brief History, page 168.
168 King Philip's War
the Mohawks, would have turned them into deadly ene
mies. There is no doubt however but that Philip sought
French aid indirectly. In the fall of the previous year
he had met Monsieur Normanville who had been at
Boston, and the Frenchman had aroused his hopes by
telling him not to burn the best houses as the French
would come in the spring with three hundred men and
ammunition.1 The promise of the boastful Frenchman
was valueless, but Philip's position at Schaghticoke of
fered exceptional facilities for procuring the aid they were
willing to give in supplies of arms and powder.
Throughout the tribes disease had been rife and had
cost them more in lives than the warfare of the preceding
months,2 but they asked no peace. The old men desired
it, but Philip and the young leaders and warriors would
not hear of it. The severity of the whites, the numerous
executions, the selling of all captives into slavery had
had their effect. Peace offered nothing better than pun
ishment, slavery, or complete and humiliating submission
to every caprice and pleasure of the English. Rather,
said they, "Let us live as long as we can and die like
men and not live to be enslaved. "
The winter was one of great suffering among all the
Indians; the war had prevented the Connecticut Valley
tribes from reaping their crops which were even at the
best seldom sufficient to supply their wants, and the Wam-
panoags, driven from their fishing grounds into the Nip-
muck country, and bringing few supplies of their own,
had added but so many more mouths to feed.
1 James Quanapohit's Relation. Conn. War, Vol. I, Doc. 35b.
2 Testimony of James the Printer. Increase Mather's Brief History,
page 173.
King Philip's War 169
Such was the condition of the hostiles when, in the dead
of winter, several thousand Narragansetts, destitute of
supplies, poured in upon them. The already slender re
sources of the Nipmuck tribes were immediately ex
hausted, and though the trees were bare and the ground
deep with snow, raids upon the English villages for the
purpose of securing food became imperative.
The garrisons at Chelmsford, Billerica, Groton, Lan
caster and Sudbury had all been withdrawn as early as
January llth, and, with the exception of the small gar
rison at Marlboro under Captain Wadsworth, the whole
frontier lay open to attack.
Already on the first of February, a small party of Nip-
mucks, under Netus, had fallen upon the house of Thomas
Eames on the outskirts of Sudbury, and, after burning it,
led his family and that of his son into captivity,1 Eames
himself being absent in Boston.
The commissioners of the United Colonies were not
unmindful of the danger that threatened the western
towns, and within a week of the disbanding of Winslow's
army, determined to raise a force of six hundred men for
an offensive campaign against the Indians at Quabaug
and Wachusett. To that end, February 8th, they called
upon Massachusetts to fill out her quota and bade the
Governor and Council of Connecticut send Major Treat
and a body of Pequots and Mohegans,2 but before the
force could be raised the blow fell upon Lancaster.
On the evening of the 9th of February, the people at
*A boy of the family escaped in May and after long wanderings
reached the English town. All of the family were subsequently ran
somed or found except a little girl.
2 Connecticut Records, Vol. II, page 409.
170 King Philip's War
Lancaster, with some fourteen soldiers who had been
stationed in the town, as usual assembled in the fortified
houses of which there were five in widely separated lo
calities.1 The principal one, that of the Reverend Mr.
Rowlandson,2 who was himself absent in Boston for the
purpose of securing from the Governor and Council an
adequate garrison for the defense of the town, stood in
the center.
Warning of the attack had not been wanting. James
Quanapohit had informed the Governor and Council as
early as January 24th that the Indians at Quabaug in
tended to attack the town, and at midnight, February 9th,
another Indian spy, Job Kattenait, a Christian Natick,
knocking at Major Gookin's door in Cambridge, in an
exhausted condition, having traveled over eighty miles
through the wilderness on snowshoes, told him the blow
1 See Marvin's History of Lancaster.
In the History of Worcester County, Vol. I, page 600, it is stated that
the first garrison was that of Rev. Mr. Rowlandson, located in the center
of the town. The next was probably that of John White, situated about
twenty rods north of the present railroad station. Then came that of
Thomas Sawyer, half a mile south of the Rowlandson garrison, in the
center of the settlement of South Lancaster. Then that of John Pres-
cott in Clinton, while the fifth (Wheeler's) was probably in the south
west part of Bolton.
2 The Rowland garrison house was located on the western slope of
the hill, on the top of which, now occupied by the cemetery, stood the
meetinghouse. The road from Lancaster to the south village passes
between these two sites about fifty rods southerly of the iron bridge
over the west branch of the Nashaway River. The settlement of Lan
caster consisted of farms spread out over a considerable territory, there
being nothing in the semblance of a village; but the meetinghouse and
the minister's dwelling may be considered the nucleus of the settlement.
The exact site of the Rowlandson house is marked by a prominent pine
tree, planted there as a means of identification.
-s
MH en
W
o H
King Philip's War 171
was about to fall.1 Gookin immediately sent messengers
to Captain Wadsworth at Marlboro, but it was too late.
In the Rowlandson garrison were gathered forty-two,
possibly fifty, men and women, who, awakened by the
firing of guns and the Indian war cry, rushed to the win
dows and looked out. The sight that met their eyes was
terrifying. Several houses were in flames and the Indi
ans, whose forms could be dimly seen in the gray of the
morning, were massacring the inmates with rifles and
tomahawks.
Three in one house were knocked on the head, a young
man falling on his knees begged for mercy "but they
would not hearken to him." Three others trying to
reach the garrison were shot down by Indians posted on
the roof of a barn, and the sound of other and more dis
tant shots told that the whole settlement was being as
saulted.
The inmates of the Rowlandson garrison, barricading
the doors and windows, repulsed the first attack;2 the
house, however, stood on the slope of a hill and the In
dians lying along the crest poured a continuous fire upon
it. First one and then others of the defenders were shot
down. For two hours they held their own, but the fatal
weakness of the house, the covering of the loopholes in
the rear by firewood laid up for winter fuel, soon attracted
the keen eyes of the Indian warriors. A cart filled with
flax, hemp and hay seized from the barn was wheeled to
the side and fired. One daring soul sallied out and
quenched the flames, but the pile was immediately re-
1 Gookin's Christian Indians. American Antiquarian Soc. Coll.,
Vol. II, page 489.
2 This account is taken from Mrs. Rowlandson's Narrative.
172 King Philip's War
kindled. The roofs and sides caught fire, the house was
enveloped in flames and soon the blazing roof threatened
to fall in. Then men, women and children, Mrs. Row-
landson and her children among them, rushed out in the
desperate hope of reaching the next garrison, but in vain.
A shot passing through Mrs. Rowlandson's side pierced
the hand and bowels of the child she carried in her arms.
Thomas Rowlandson,1 her husband's nephew, aged
seventeen, was killed, her sister's son was struck down,
and Mrs. Henry Kerley,2 wringing her hands in the door
way of the blazing house at the news of her son's death,
was instantly killed.
Of the ten or twelve men, only one, Ephraim Roper,3
leaving his wife dead behind him, escaped. The rest
were killed and the women and children were seized.
1 " Thomas Rowlandson, " says Joseph Willard, on page 39 of his
History of Lancaster, "was brother to the clergyman," and Mr. Marvin
perpetuates this error on pages 96 and 106 of his history of the town.
Rev. Joseph Rowlandson had a brother Thomas who lived in Salisbury,
and died there in July, 1682. It was his son, Thomas Jr., who perished
at Lancaster. Even the careful John Langdon Sibley adopts Willard's
error on page 319, Vol. I, of his Harvard Graduates. — Supplement to
Early Records of Lancaster, by Hon. Henry S. Nourse, page 17.
2 Henry Kerley married Elizabeth, daughter of John White and sister
of Mrs. Rowlandson, as above related. His wife, his sons, William,
aged 17, and Joseph, aged 7, were killed at the attack on the garrison,
and a son and three daughters carried into captivity. He was probably
in Boston at the time with Rev. Mr. Rowlandson. — Early Records of
Lancaster.
3 Ephraim Roper was, in King William's war, the owner of a garrison
house situated on the George Hill road. His father, John Roper, was
killed by the Indians March 26, 1676, the day Lancaster was finally
abandoned by its inhabitants. Ephraim Roper served as a soldier un
der Captain William Turner and took part in the Fall Fight, May 18,
1676. He was killed at Lancaster during King William's war, in the
massacre of September 11, 1697. — Early Records of Lancaster.
King Philip's War 173
So in midwinter were carried off the survivors of the
Rowlandson blockhouse and several other of the towns
people, accompanied by the captured cattle, while Cap
tain Wadsworth with forty men, hurrying along the fur
ther bank found the river swollen in flood and the floor
of the bridge torn up. He arrived in time to save the
other garrisons, the Indians drawing off at his approach,
but too late to rescue the captives.
A few days later the town was abandoned, its surviv
ing inhabitants taking refuge in the settlements to the
east, and its houses, with the exception of the meeting
house and a garrison, soon fell a prey to the flames.
The diary kept by Mrs. Rowlandson l in the midst of
her wanderings affords us an intimate knowledge of the
movements of Philip and of life among the Indians dur
ing the winter. It is exceedingly touching in its simplic
ity and pathos.
Encamped in a deserted house on the hill 2 above the
town that night, she heard the Indians, glutted with the
flesh of the captured cattle, dancing and singing around
their camp fires. "My children gone," she wrote, "my
relatives and friends gone, there remained to me but one
poor wounded babe. " The next day they set out. One
1 Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was the wife of the Rev. Joseph Rowland-
son of Lancaster, the first minister there, and daughter of John White
of that place. Mrs. Rowlandson is well known to the student of King
Philip's war by the diary she kept through the captivity following the
destruction of her home February 10, 1676. This she published after
her return from captivity and the work has passed through many edi
tions. Rev. Mr. Rowlandson became settled in Wethersfield, Conn.,
in April, 1677, and died there November 23, 1678. Mrs. Rowlandson
was living at that time but the time and place of her death are unknown.
2 George Hill, an elevation about one mile from the Rowlandson house.
174 King Philip's War
of the Indians carried her wounded child upon a horse,
"it went moaning all along." At length she took it in
her arms and carried it until her strength failed and she
fell. They mounted her upon a horse and at night built
a fire and a lean-to for her. At Menameset village she
met her daughter and also Robert Pepper, who had been
captured at Beer's defeat, and who told her that he had
been carried to Albany and had seen Philip.
Her child, badly wounded and lacking medical care,
was dying, and " a few days afterwards, about two hours
in the night, my sweet babe like a lamb departed this
life. " The Indians buried it on a hilltop and in the
morning showed her the newly-made grave.
She accompanied her masters in their wanderings,
sharing their scanty food and at times suffering keen
privation. They were often destitute of food and driven
; to boil the hoofs of the dead horses or procure the marrow
from old bones, eking out their fare with ground nuts,
the tender buds of trees or a little meal. At times a deer
or a bear was killed and the long fast gave place to a glut
tonous feast. But the sight of her children, a girl and
a lad of sixteen, safe and well treated, consoled her for
much misery.
They were constantly moving and covered extensively
the country east of the Connecticut. She was sold to
Quinnapin l and his wife Weetamoo, who seem to have
1 Quinnapin was a noble Narragansett by birth, being the son of
Coginaquan who was nephew to Canonicus. He was one of the chiefs
who directed the attack on Lancaster, February 10, 1676, and he pur
chased Mrs. Rowlandson from a Narragansett Indian who had seized
her as she came out of the garrison. At this time he was the husband
of Weetamoo, the widow of Alexander and Queen of the Pocassets.
King Philip's War 175
treated her kindly. She mended the worn clothes of the
Indian children and made a shirt for her master's son.
Once, invited to eat with Philip because she made a
shirt for his son, she was given a small cake of corn cooked
in bear's fat; probably all he had to offer. She offered
him her money but he bade her keep it and she bought
some horseflesh therewith.
A Mrs. Joslyn,1 with a small child, and who was about
to become a mother, was killed by her captors, but
Mrs. Rowlandson and her son and daughter were, in
general, treated with kindness, as were most of the other
captives.
In connection with the captivity of Mrs. Rowlandson
it may be said that one party was as forward in the ex
ercise of cruelty as the other. The torture of Englishmen
by the Indians was the exception rather than the rule.
The women and children were not tortured and were
generally spared if the pursuit pressed not too fast upon
their captor's heels. The Indian conqueror never low
ered himself to the level of the European soldiery of the
time in the sack of captured towns and villages with their
carnival of rape and murder.
In all the chronicles of the time the reader finds no
recorded instance of outrage upon a woman captive or
the useless torture of children. " And such was the good
ness of God to those poor captive women and children
At the Narragansett Swamp fight he was next in command to Canonchet.
He is described as "a young, lusty sachem and a very rogue." — Old
Indian Chronicle; also Book of the Indians.
i Mrs. Ann Joslyn was the wife of Abraham Joslyn, Jr. Her hus
band was killed at the Rowlandson garrison fight and her daughter,
Beatrice, aged twenty-one months, was killed in captivity. — Early Rec
ords of Lancaster.
176 King Philip's War
that several found so much favor in the sight of their
enemies that they were offered no wrong to any of their
persons save what they could not help, being in many
wants themselves, neither did they offer any uncivil car
riage to any of the females, or any attempt the chastity
of any of them, either being restricted of God as was
Abimeleck of old, or by some other external cause
which withheld them from doing any wrong of that
kind."1
The settlers slew without discrimination as to age or
sex, and inflicted torture with a stern self-righteousness.
The former generation had set an example in the destruc
tion of the women and children in the Pequot fort: the
present followed it closely; the next was to burn the
Salem witches.
The temper of the age and their belief that they were
the people of the new Israel, their foes the old Canaanites
and Philistines with new faces, hardened them to mercy.
In the books of the Old Testament they sought and found
precedents and divine commands in plenty that spoke
with the same authority and inspiration for the guidance
of their Israel of the new dispensation as to the fate to
be meted out to hostile people, as it had for the old.
Hence arose more than one instance of bad faith. Hence
men, women and children were slaughtered or sold into
slavery in the West Indies; Rhode Island alone, to her
credit, prohibiting the practice by statute. Hence the ex
clusion from mercy of the captured sachems at the close
of the war and the refusal to recognize in the manly char
acter of men like Canonchet aught but "the obstinate
i Hubbard, Vol. I, page 167.
King Philip's War 177
and perverse spirit of the heathenish and bloodthirsty
blasphemers who made war on God's people. "
The same day as the attack on Lancaster a small party
of Indians made an attack on Concord,1 in which Abra
ham and Isaac Shepherd were killed near Nashobah in
Concord village while threshing grain in their barn. Ap
prehensive of danger, says tradition, they placed their
sister Mary, a girl about fifteen years old, on a hill a
little distance off to watch and forewarn them of the ap
proach of an enemy. She was, however, suddenly sur
prised and carried captive into the Indian settlements,
but, with great heroism, while the Indians were asleep in
the night, seized a horse and, taking a saddle from under
the head of her Indian keeper, mounted and rode through
the forest to her home.
The attacks on Lancaster and Concord were but the
beginning of the storm. All was movement among the
tribes, and attacks fell thick and fast on towns and soli
tary farms alike. The course of one particular party,
under One-Eyed John, could be clearly traced by a trail
of blood southward toward Plymouth colony.
The alarm occasioned by the attack on Lancaster had
aroused the authorities to the necessity of dispatching
troops to the outlying settlements. Captain Jacob 2 and
1 Hubbard Vol. I, page 223.
2 Captain John Jacob was born in England about 1630. He resided
in South Hingham, and his house was fortified as a garrison by order
of the General Court. He served in King Philip's war as a captain and
at the Narragansett Swamp fight succeeded Captain Isaac Johnson,
who was killed, as commander of the company. He died September 18,
1693, aged about 63 years. His son John, slain by the Indians just
back of his father's house near "Glad Tidings Rock," April 19, 1676,
was the only person slain by the enemy in Hingham. See History of
L
178 King Philip's War
Lieutenant Oakes who had been scouring the country
between Lancaster and Medfield, were now at the latter
place, but their commands, instead of being kept in their
entirety, had unwisely been scattered among the different
houses. In Medfield, as in many of the small towns, the
settlers in their greed for land had taken more than they
could possibly cultivate, and large tracts from which the
timber had been cut had been allowed to grow up so the
houses seemed "as if they were seated in the midst of a
heap of bushes. "
During the night of February 21st, the Indians, under
One-Eyed John, stealing upon the town, hid themselves
in this brush, behind the orchard walls, under the sides
of barns and outhouses, in the midst of the settlement
itself. Samuel Morse,2 going out to his barn early in the
morning to feed his cattle, saw an Indian hiding in the
hay. With rare presence of mind he affected ignorance
of the intruder's presence, but left the barn immediately,
and gathering his family fled to the garrison, beholding
on the way his house and barn bursting into flames be
hind him. Then from all sides came the shots, the yell
ing of Indians, and the cries of the alarmed settlers.
Many of the houses were burning, and soldiers and set
tlers coming to their doors were shot down on the thresh
old; eighteen persons in all were killed, others were taken
away alive,3 and an old man of near one hundred was
Hingham, Vol. II, page 372. Soldiers in King Philip's War, by Geo.
N. Bodge, page 283.
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 169.
2 Samuel Morse of Medfield, the son of Joseph, was born January 10,
1640. Died February 28, 1718.— Savage.
3 John Wilson to Governor Leverett. Massachusetts Archives,
Vol. LXVIII, page 134.
King Philip's War 179
burned to death in his home. Lieutenant Adams l of the
town was among the slain, and his wife was accidentally
killed by the discharge of Captain Jacob's gun, the bullet
piercing the floor and passing through her body as she
lay sick in bed.2
Soon forty or fifty houses were in flames, but the greater
part of the troops and settlers had now reached the gar
rison house and the cannon of the garrison was roaring
the signal of the attack to the people of Dedham.
Before the soldiers in the town could rally the Indians
had drawn off across the river to a neighboring hill, burn
ing the bridge behind them, and were roasting an ox in
full view of the smoking ruins. The soldiers halted at
the bridge where the following notice met their eyes:
"Know by this paper, that the Indians thou hast pro
voked to wrath and anger will war this 21 years if you
will. There are many Indians yet. We come 300 at
this time. You must consider the Indians lose nothing
but their life. You must lose your fair houses and cat
tle. " 3
On the same day as the attack on Medfield, nearly
two weeks after the call of the commissioners, the Coun
cil of Massachusetts voted to raise one hundred foot and
1 Lieutenant Henry Adams was born in England about 1604. He
lived first at Braintree in New England, then removed to that part of
Dedham which became JVIedfield, of which place he was the first town
clerk. He was of the Artillery Company in 1652, representative in 1659,
1665 and 1764, 1765. He was a lieutenant in the militia.
2 Drake's Book of the Indians, Book III, page 37.
3 Written, it is said, by an Indian apprentice of Samuel Green of
Cambridge, known as James the printer, seventeen years old. He after
wards surrendered under the terms of the proclamation of July 8th,
and was pardoned. — Gookin's Christian Indians. American Antiqua
rian Society Collections, Vol. II, page 494.
180 King Philip's War
seventy-two troopers to fill the quota levied by the com
missioners. Major Savage was placed in command.
John Whipple 1 was made captain of the horse and Cap
tain William Turner of the foot. To this force was added
two companies of foot under Captains Moseley and Ben
jamin Gillam,2 and at Savage's request John Curtice and
six friendly Indians as guides,3 among them James Quan-
apohit and Job Kattananit.
The rendezvous had been fixed by the commissioners
for Quabaug some days before, but it was the first of
March before the forces of Connecticut and Massachu
setts assembled at Brookfield, Major General Daniel
Denison organizing the force, the command of which fell
to Savage as ranking officer of the contingent in whose
territory operations were to be conducted.4
When the troops reached Quabaug the Indians had
withdrawn to a swamp some seventeen miles away.
1 Captain John Whipple was born in Essex, England, about 1626.
He came with his father to Ipswich before 1638. He was appointed
cornet of the Ipswich troop before 1675, and captain in 1683 in place of
Captain John Appleton. He was lieutenant in Captain Paige's troop
at Mount Hope, June, 1675, and was appointed captain of a troop raised
for service under Major Savage in March, 1676. He was representa
tive to the General Court in 1674, 1679 and 1683, in which year he died,
August 10th.
2 Captain Benjamin Gillam, born in England in 1634, was of Boston.
Savage says, "He was probably master of that ship in which Colonel
Cartwright, one of the royal commissioners, was going home in the
autumn of 1665, taken by the Dutch, was related by Morton, Mem. 315:
Hutchinson, I, 250, and Hubbard, 585." He had command of a com
pany in Philip's war and served under his father-in-law, Major Thomas
Savage. His will, dated March 28, 1681, was probated June 17, 1686.
He was buried, says Sewall, June 13, 1685.
3 Massachusetts Records, Vol. V, page 74.
4 Hazard, Vol. II, pages 538, 539 (Records of Commanders).
King Philip's War 181
"There were" says Mrs. Rowlandson, "many hundred,
old and young, some sick and some lame, and many had
pappooses on their backs. " As Savage pushed on, this
camp too was broken up. "They went as if they had
gone for their lives, and then made a stop and chose out
some of the strongest men and sent them back to hold
the English in play. Then, like Jehu, they marched on
furiously to the river near Athol. " Reaching the river
they made rafts of trees, and finally all went over, while
the party sent back had played with Savage for two days
and led him on a false scent. When he finally struck
the trail of the main body they had crossed Miller's
River in safety, and the English, standing on the banks,
beheld only the smoking ruins of their deserted wigwams.1
It had been the intention of Savage and his command
ers to strike at the Indian encampment at Wachusett but,
fearful for the towns on the Connecticut, now that the
Quabaug Indians had effected a juncture with those who
had wintered at Northfield, he turned against the advice
of his guides and marched to Hadley.2 He had been
completely outmaneuvered.
Even as he left Quabaug, the Indians who had win
tered at Wachusett had stolen upon Groton (March 2d),
rifling eight or ten houses and carrying away many cattle
and hogs. Major Willard and Captain Sill, coming up
the next day, saw nothing of them, but on the 9th, freed
from the fear of any attack by Savage, they again ap
peared, and, lurking in the outhouses during the night
waited for the settlers to appear in the morning.
1 Mrs. Rowlandson's Narrative.
2 The guides were so maltreated and insulted by Moseley and his men
that they returned to Deer Island. — Gookin's Christian Indians.
182 King Philip's War
They were not disappointed, for at dawn four settlers,
escorting two carts, appeared going out to the meadows.
Two of the settlers, spying the Indians, made a difficult
escape. One of the others was immediately shot down
and one taken, and the Indians, setting fire to several
houses and barns, apparently withdrew as suddenly as
they had come. But on the 13th the lookouts at one of
the garrisons l saw two Indians against the sky line of one
of the hills close to the town. Immediately a consider
able number of soldiers of Captain Parker's 2 company
who had been sent to protect the town, sallied out to
capture them. It was the old story of an ambush for,
as they reached the top of the hill, behind which the In
dians had disappeared, a volley was poured into them.
One was killed and several wounded, while at the same
time another party of Indians was seen making its way
into the town from the rear. The ambushed pursuers
turned and ran for the shelter of a nearby garrison, which
they reached in safety, and where, in helplessness, they
saw the town burn before their eyes.
A few days later, a wagon train laden with household
belongings, women and children, and guarded by all the
men and by a company of troops under Lieutenant Oakes,
1 The village of Groton was protected by four garrison houses, while
a fifth is said to have been a mile distant, and its site is at present un
known. A view up the main street of the village covers the location of
the four. The first stood near the present high school, the next just
north of the townhall, the third on the farther side of James Brook,
and the fourth at some little distance beyond.
2 Captain James Parker was of Woburn in 1640; freeman in 1644.
He first removed to Chelmsford and later to Groton. He held the rank
of captain and accompanied Major Willard in his relief and reinforce
ment of the beleagured garrison at Brookfield. He died in 1701 in his
eighty-fourth year. — Savage.
King Philip's War 183
who had been sent to bring them off, might have been
seen toiling over the roads to the east. It was the Groton
settlers abandoning their homes. Even on the march
their enemies struck at them, shooting down two of their
number from ambush, but the troops and settlers held
fast against the attack and, driving them back, passed
on in safety.
CHAPTER XI
TN the early morning of March 14th, a large force of the
•*• valley Indians fell upon Northampton, but fortunately,
in addition to Captain Turner and seventy-eight men of
the original garrison, Major Treat with two hundred of
the Connecticut troops, without their knowledge, were
quartered in the town. Breaking through the stockade
at the lower end of Pleasant Street, the Indians found
themselves, in the first flush of triumph, in a trap, and
were glad to withdraw after losing one of their number
killed and four wounded. Four men and one woman
were killed, and several houses and barns, all with one
exception outside the stockade, were burned.1 Yet, de
spite this repulse the Indians still hung around waiting
for opportunity to strike, and the garrisons at Hatfield
and Hadley slept on their arms.
The spring was opening with terror. No man dared
go out to his fields unless guarded by his neighbors and
soldiers. Food was scarce. No husbandman stirred
from his door save with arms in hand, and at night the
town guards watched upon the stockade. Families on
the outskirts dared not occupy their houses, and even in
the villages people left their homes at night for the pro
tection of the garrison.
Savage, his pursuit of the Quabaugs having failed as
1 Rev. John Russell to Governor Leverett. Massachusetts Archives,
Vol. LXVin, page 163.
King Philip's War 185
we have seen, marched over to Hadley where Turner,
who had been left at Quabaug, joined him, and was
promptly sent over to garrison Northampton.
Moseley took up his station at Hatfield, while Major
Treat came back to his old territory — the west bank of
the Connecticut from Westfield to Northampton. In the
meanwhile and unknown to the English commanders, an
event of great importance had taken place near North-
field. There, on the 9th of March, Canonchet and Philip
met for the first time during the war and a great council
of war was held. Besides the two sachems were Pum-
ham, Quinnapin, Pessacus, Sancumachu of the Pocum-
tucks, Annawan, several other chiefs of the Wampanoags,
Queen Weetamoo and representatives of the various tribes
of the Nipmucks, dressed in all the glory of wampum and
deerskin.
Now full of hope, yet within six months the bullet, the
gallows, or slavery were to claim them all, and Increase
Mather should write of them, "Where are the six Narra-
gansett sachems and all their captains and councillors?
Where are the Nipmuck sachems with their captains and
councillors? Where is Philip and the squaw-sachem of
Pocasset with all their captains and councillors ? God
do so to all the implacable enemies of Christ and of his
people of New England. " l
No record of their plans has come down in history,
but the knowledge of the conditions that confronted them
and the operations that followed the council furnish con
siderable evidence of its general scope.
The question of supplies was all important, seed must
Mather's Prevalency of Prayer, page 265.
186 King Philip's War
be secured for the spring sowing and the planted lands
made secure from attack.
Above Deerfield, to the north, for miles, lay a safe
refuge for the women and children if need came. Spring
was coming and with it the game and fish would be abun
dant. Between Northfield and Deerfield lay fertile fields
where corn and maize and beans could be cultivated in
abundance, while the reaches of the river at Peskeomp-
skut afforded a rare fishing ground.
If war could be carried fiercely to the east they believed
the colonists would concentrate their force in that direc
tion, and the valley, denuded of troops and held by the
valley tribes would be left unmolested. If the English
would only commit the follies that had marked the last
year's campaign, there was hope. Alas for Indian
hopes; the plan had not foreseen the employment of the
friendly Indians by the whites. It underrated the force
and character of the colonists and it was to receive at the
beginning a disastrous blow.
How nearly the plan succeeded, however, and how
clearly they gauged the measure of the authorities and
the panic of the eastern communities will soon be made
evident.
By Savage's march to the valley, the eastern frontier
of the Bay settlements and the countries south of Plym
outh and Narragansett Bay were again left open to at
tack, and here the blows fell thick and fast and the war
parties roamed at will.
A short time after the breaking up of the Indian council
at Northfield, Canonchet set out with a small or picked
body of warriors to his own territory to procure seed
corn from the supplies hidden in the Indian pits and tree
King Philip's War 187
trunks. Monoco, or One-Eyed John, had preceded him
and the cowed bands of the Wampanoags, left behind
on Philip's retreat, again arose to arms at their approach,
while Philip and the gathering forces of the valley tribes
struck at the valley settlements.
All the winter the settlers had been fortifying their
houses and stockading their towns. Now the storm burst
upon them. No man dared pass alone from one village
to another, and there were nights when the sentinels saw
on the outskirts the light of burning farms and houses.
Throughout the Connecticut Valley eastward, even to
Plymouth and Providence, the war parties of the tribes
were spreading death and desolation. On the evening of
February 2oth several dwellings and other buildings in
Weymouth * were destroyed, and on March 12th the gar
rison house of William Clark,2 near Plymouth, was at
tacked by Totoson; an Indian who had enjoyed the hos
pitality of the Clarks a few days before having notified
him of the careless guard maintained. Totoson and his
band, coming early in the morning, lay in hiding until
most of the men had marched forth to church, then they
fell furiously upon it.3 Eleven persons were killed and
the Indians, after plundering the house of provisions,
eight guns, and thirty pounds of powder, set it on fire and
retired.4
Everywhere there was terror and fear and every day
1 This was the nearest approach to Boston made by the Indians ; a
distance of eleven miles.
2 This garrison was at Eel River, a half mile to the eastward of the
present village of Chiltonville. Its site is occupied by the house erected
for the Rev. Benjamin Whitmore, perhaps eighty years ago.
3 Plymouth Records, Vol. V, page 205.
< Old Indian Chronicle (Present State of New England), page 220.
188 King Philip's War
brought news of buildings burnt and settlers killed. The
towns around Narragansett Bay were abandoned save by
the soldiers and the most resolute, who took refuge in
the garrisons, and even Providence could count but fifty
of its five hundred inhabitants.
" Brother Williams, " said one of a band of Narragan
sett warriors, replying to Roger Williams who, going out
to parley, leant upon his staff and bade them make peace,
for their doom was certain in the end if they fought on,
" Brother Williams, you are a good man, you have been
kind to us many years, not a hair of your head shall be
touched. " They told him he must venture no further
among them for there were strange Indians about, but
they did not cease to devastate the settlement of which
he was the founder, and the people of Providence, who
had taken refuge on the island of Rhode Island, heard,
before the month was out, of the destruction of their
homes and belongings left behind, the garrison being un
able to protect them. "And one Wright was killed, that
was neither a Quaker nor Anabaptist, but opinionated. "
The author of the Old Indian Chronicle relates that he
had a strange conceit that while he held a Bible in his
hands he was " secure from all kinds of violence, but the
Indians finding him in that posture, deriding his ground
less apprehension or folly, ripped him open and put his
Bible in his belly."
On the 17th the flames wiped out deserted Warwick,
down the bay, with the exception of a stone house known
as Green's stone castle, and a band of straggling Indians
from the valley tribes, marching down past Pine Meadow
1 Connecticut Records (Letter from Governor and Council of Massa
chusetts, quoted), Vol. II, page 433.
King Philip's War 189
(now Windsor Locks, Conn.), where they killed Henry
Denslow, plundered the deserted houses of Simsbury,1
across the mountains from Hartford, and gave them over
to the flames on March 26th. A cave in the hills above
the town, from which Philip, according to local tradi
tion, watched the burning of Simsbury, is known as
Philip's (Phelps) cave, though Philip was never there.2
On that most gloomy day of the year, the 26th of March,
the people of Marlboro 3 were at church; the hymn had
1 The plantation of Simsbury was spread out over a distance of about
seven miles in length, and lay on both sides of the Tunxis (Farmington)
River, an unfordable stream of considerable width, and contained about
forty houses.
2 An Indian named Menowniet was taken near Farmington about the
12th of August, 1676. He said he was "halfe a Moheag and halfe a
Narragansett. " That he was engaged in hunting, but had taken part
in the several engagements in the Connecticut Valley. He was exam
ined by the Council. In reply to the question, "Who killed Henry
Denslow?" he said, "Wequash, Weawwosse, Whowassamoh, Pawwaw-
woise and Mawcahwat, Sanchamoise and Wesoncketichen, and these
were those that burnt Simsbury." — Connecticut Records, Vol. II,
page 472. Three of these were Springfield Indians, the rest were of
other tribes. Philip's cave and Philip's mountain is undoubtedly a
corruption of the name of the contemporary owner, " Phelps. "
3 Marlboro was built very " scatteringly, " and the original town cov
ered a wide territory. By separating into small companies it was pos
sible for the enemy to compass and destroy the town dwellings without
much hindrance from the garrisons. The meetinghouse stood near the
center of the present city on what are now the high-school grounds and
immediately in front of that building. The town held a prominent
place in Philip's war by reason of its being used almost constantly as a
military garrison. There were at least four garrison houses in the town,
two of them within the limits of what is now the town of Westboro, one
situated about two miles west from the center, on the present boundary
line separating Marlboro from Northboro, and the remaining one was
located on what is now Hayden Avenue, on land known as "the Daniel
Hayden farm, " scarcely more than a quarter of a mile from the site of
190 King Philip's War
just been sung when the Reverend Mr. Brinsmead,1 who
had been compelled to come down from his pulpit and seek
relief from the extremity of the toothache by walking to
the door, discovered the Indians and, rushing back to the
church with the cry, "the Indians are upon us," drove
the congregation to the garrison. Only one of their num
ber was cut off, but eleven barns and thirteen dwellings
were burned and the cattle driven away.2
The evening brought some satisfaction, for Lieutenant
Jacob, setting out in pursuit, fell upon a part of the ma
rauders in the woods that night as they slept around
their camp-fire and claimed to have killed and wounded
nearly forty of their number, among the slain, -according
to Hubbard, being Netus, leader of the Indians who
had attacked the Eames house in Sudbury.
It was a day, however, fated with misfortunes, for Can-
onchet, returning homeward with a large band of war
riors, had near Seekonk, on the 25th fallen in with Cap
tain Michael Peirse 3 of Scituate, who had been sent from
Plymouth with some fifty soldiers and a score of friendly
Indians under Captain Amos.
That night Peirse and his men slept at the garrison
the old meetinghouse. It was probably to this that the people fled when
driven from the meetinghouse by the attack of March 26, 1676.
1 Rev. William Brinsmead was bred at Harvard College but left be
fore graduation. He preached 1660-65, at Plymouth, and thence went
to the new town of Marlboro, where he was ordained October 3, 1666.
He never married and died July 3, 1701.— Savage.
2 Massachusetts Council to Major Savage, April 1. Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 191.
a Captain Michael Peirse was of Scituate and has a record of useful
ness in public affairs. He served in the Narragansett fight in Decem
ber, 1675, and fell in the fierce battle on the Pawtuckat River, March 26,
1676. See Deane's History of Scituate, page 325.
King Philip's War 191
house at Seekonk, setting out in pursuit early the next
morning; they soon encountered the Indians who, lead
ing them on, fell slowly back.
Canonchet had divided his force into two parties, one
circling around the flanks to a selected position while
the other, some of them "limping along to make believe
they were lame" or had been wounded, lured the im
petuous captain over the Pawtucket into a position un
favorable for defense.
In vain Peirse, realizing too late the numbers confront
ing him, fell back to the river bank.1 Unable to draw
off across the river, and galled by the fire from the oppo
site side, he formed his men in a circle, according to
some chroniclers, or in two lines, back to back, and
fought on 2 in the vain hope that Captain Edmunds,
whose co-operation he had requested that morning, would
come up from Providence, only eight miles distant, and
relieve him. But it was Sunday, and while the messenger
waited for Edmunds at the church door, not wishing to
disturb the meeting,3 Pierse, cut off from all retreat, fell,
and almost the whole of his command were killed or cap
tured,4 nine of the latter, it is said, being led by a cir-
1 Mr. Welcome Arnold Greene of Providence, has located the scene of
Peirse' s fight at a point a few rods west of the railroad bridge across the
Pawtucket River, just north of Central Falls, R. I. Peirse proceeding
from Seekonk marched a few miles in a northwesterly direction, and
crossed the river at a wading place diagonally under the present bridge.
His stand was made on the west bank of the river within a few rods of
the water. This spot is now in the street between two manufacturing
buildings. Mr. Greene remembers the spot before it had been touched
by the hand of improvement.
2 Deane's History of Scittiate, page 121.
3 Backus Hist. New Eng., Vol. I, page 423.
* Letter of Rev. Mr. Newman to Rev. John Cotton. Deane's Scituate,
192 King Philip's War
cuitous route to a swamp ever since known as "Nine
Men's Misery, " some miles to the north, where they were
tortured and killed. Only eight whites and a few friendly
Indians survived to tell the fate of the party and relate
their own marvelous achievements.
The loss of the Indians, set by both Hubbard and
Mather at one hundred and forty slain, is palpably an
exaggeration, for, taking the wounded at the conservative
figure of two wounded to one killed, the Indian casual
ties would have reached four hundred and twenty, or
six times the total number of Peirse's party, who, drawn
into an ambuscade and exposed to a flanking fire, were
at a most fatal disadvantage. Their losses were prob
ably considerable, however, as Tom Nepanet, a Christian
Indian, employed by Massachusetts in negotiations with
the Indians, in April, reported that in the fight they had
lost many score. The high figures claimed must be
regarded merely as a customary measure of consola
tion. Two days after the destruction of Captain Peirse
the victorious Indians descended upon and burned
Seekonk.1
On the same day, a party of settlers and soldiers un
der Captain Whipple, sixteen or eighteen men, and a
number of women and children from Longmeadow, jour
neying to Springfield on their way to church, were at-
page 122. The original is in possession of the Antiquarian Society of
Worcester, Mass. Council to Major Savage, April 1. Massachusetts
Archives, Vol. LXVHI, page 192.
iThis town was built in a semi-circular form around what is now
Seekonk Common, with the meetinghouse in the center. This circle is
alluded to in the records as "The Ring of the Town." The garrison
house which stood on the southerly side of the Common, and one other,
were the only dwellings not destroyed.
King Philip's War 193
tacked.1 John Keep 2 and a maid, riding in the rear,
were killed, and Sarah Keep with another woman and
two children captured. Thrown into a panic the settlers
and their guard, who far outnumbered their assailants,
fled with the other women and children to Springfield,
"a matter of great shame and humbling to us," wrote
the Council on receipt of the news.
Soldiers and settlers, under Major Pynchon, hurried to
the scene of the attack and the next day overtook the
Indians who struck down the women and children and
escaped into a swamp where the miry ground forbade
pursuit. Sarah Keep died from her injuries, but the other
woman survived and gave considerable information.
Their captors, she said, were Springfield Indians, who,
until their pursuers came up had treated them kindly.
They told her two Dutch traders, named Jacob and Jar-
rard, had supplied them with four bushels of powder;
that there were three hundred Indians at Deerfield, three
hundred above that place (probably at Turners Falls),
and three hundred at Northfield; that Frenchmen had
been among them and there had been a quarrel with the
Mohawks, but peace was now made again.3
As early as the 14th of March, the Council of Massa
chusetts, alarmed by the activity of the Indians in the
east, had set out to do the very thing the Indians ex-
1 It is commonly believed that the attack on the Longmeadow people
was made at the point where the path crossed Pecowsic Brook, now in
Forest Park at the southern end of Springfield.
2 John Keep was of Springfield, 1660, living in that part of the town
now Longmeadow. He was freeman 1669. His wife Sarah, was the
daughter of John Leonard. — Keep Genealogy.
3 Major Savage to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts,
March 28. Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 189.
M
194 King Philip's War
pected of them, writing Savage that they deemed it wise,
on account of the appearance of the Indians on the fron
tier towns the day before, to retain one hundred and fifty
men whom they had intended to send him.1 A few days
later they advised him to withdraw his command from
the valley, abandoning all the towns but Hadley and
Springfield. "The lesser towns must gather to the
greater, " they wrote, " for unless they come together and
well fortify the large towns all will be lost, the enemy
being so many in these parts (the eastern townships)
that the army must remove from the (valley). " 2
Both these letters reached Savage on the same day,
March 26th, but the settlers refused to abandon their
goods and houses to destruction and Savage did not ac
cept the advice proffered him.
Compelled to break up his force in order to guard the
towns, deprived of expected reinforcements, and weak
ened by the withdrawal of Major Treat, who, recalled
by Connecticut to co-operate with the forces operating
in the Narragansett country,3 had been retained at Hart
ford on the burning of Simsbury, Savage felt himself
powerless to assume the offensive. A more resolute and
capable commander would have marched with the greater
part of his troops against their villages, but Savage was
cautious and held his men to the towns, while war parties
roamed at will throughout the length of the valley, watch-
1 Council of Massachusetts to Major Savage, March 14. Massachu
setts Archives, Vol. LXVIIT, page 166.
2 Council of Massachusetts to Major Savage, March 20. Massachu
setts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 166.
a Connecticut Records (Journal of the Council of War), Vol. n,
page 423.
King Philip's War 195
ing their opportunities to surprise and attack the settlers
who should attempt to break ground for the spring sow
ing, and constantly seizing cattle and sheep to supply
their wants, which, Mrs. Rowlandson records, were so
pressing that "many times they would eat that that a
hog or dog would hardly touch. "
In the meantime, the Connecticut Council was engaged
in a spirited correspondence, far from creditable to either
party, with Governor Andros of New York, for the pur
pose of securing the co-operation of the Mohawks. They
owed him more than they ever gave him credit for, but
the art of conciliatory expression and tactfulness was as
wanting in one as in the other, and the pious expressions
and constant accusations and advice of the Council kept
the irascible soldier in constant ill-temper.
In reply to their request that he should induce the
Mohawks to help them by attacking the valley tribes, he
asked whether they would provide these savage allies with
food and receive them in their own towns. Their reply
implied a suspicion that the Mohawks, if once in the
field, would strike at the Mohegans as readily as at the
hostiles, and their request for permission to send their
own representatives to confer with the Mohawks aroused
Andros' wrath as an impertinent interference in the af
fairs of his governorship. He did not intend to have the
war spread in his own province if he could help it, and
told them that they seemed as ignorant in respect to the
Mohawks as they did in regard to their own Indians.1
The Mohawks were of considerable assistance to them,
however, for the fear of their hostility hung heavily upon
1 Connecticut Records (Journal of the Council of War, February to
August, 1676), Vol. II, page 404.
196 King Philip's War
the valley tribes, and in March or April their war parties
attacked the New England Indians who were encamped
near the Hudson, and drove them westward.
The Connecticut Council entered into negotiations with
the Indians above Deerfield, declaring in a letter to Pes-
sacus, the Narragansett, and the chiefs of the valley
tribes, that they had done them no injury but had been
obliged, by treaty, to succor Massachusetts and Plymouth,
and if the Indians could show that any of them had been
wronged they would endeavor to have that wrong righted.
They had some Indian captives and were willing to ex
change prisoners, and if the sachems desired to negotiate
a treaty they should have liberty to come and go without
molestation.1
The Narragansett sachems, Pessacus and Pumham,
were among the valley Indians exhorting the young men
to defiance, and even those most inclined to peace were
probably suspicious that the object of the negotiations
was not so much to establish peace as to secure the re
lease of the captives. Their answers were, therefore, un
satisfactory; they accepted nothing; they proposed noth
ing.
The expectations of the war party, from the plans
formed early in March, seemed near to fulfillment, and, in
connection with the belief that these negotiations had been
opened for the purpose of securing the release of the
English captives, and that the English were discouraged,
utterly discredited the little influence possessed by the
older sachems who hoped for peace. Among the Wam-
panoags and the Narragansetts there was no desire for
1 Connecticut Records (Journal of the Council of War), Vol. II, pages
425, 439.
King Philip's War 197
peace. Philip had never wavered from his determination
of war to the death. He knew, that for him at least,
there was no mercy. Canonchet, too, was firm, and
would have no peace such as the English would give.
CHAPTER XII
T IMMEDIATELY after the attack on Northampton, a
•»• considerable force of Narragansetts had left the valley
for the Indian rendezvous at Wachusett Hill, from whence
Canonchet almost immediately set forth with a picked
band of warriors, toward his own territory.
Here, in the midst of the unknown land, was a secure
base of operations within easy distance of both the valley
towns and frontier of the Bay settlements. Here, if the
worst came to the worst, they could seek a refuge among
the Pennacooks and Tarratines in the wilderness to the
north.
The attack on Northampton had failed, yet the whites
were idle in the valley; along the eastern frontier the
tribes had left a swath of blood and fire from Groton
to Warwick. They derided the slowness and dullness of
the English, and asked Mrs. Rowlandson when they
should come after them. " I could not tell, " said she.
"It may be they will come in May,"1 they said with fine
irony.
But if the English in the valley could not move they
would, and, April 1st, a party of them, encompassing a
small body of Hadley settlers as they made their way
under escort to the meadows at Hockanum, three miles
south of Hadley, killed Deacon Goodman 2 as he was
1 Mrs. Rowlandson's Narrative.
2 Deacon Richard Goodman was of Cambridge in 1632. He removed
early to Hartford, and went with others to the founding of Hadley.
King Philip's War 199
examining his boundary fence, and two guards who had
set out to make an ascent of Mount Holyoke; a third,
Thomas Reed 1 (of whom we shall hear more hereafter),
was captured.
The burning of Providence, Rehoboth (Seekonk), Marl
boro and Simsbury, the practical annihilation of Peirse's
force, and the serious condition of affairs in Maine, had
so intensified the alarm and terror in the eastern towns
that the Council of Massachusetts wrote to Major Savage,
April 1st, ordering his immediate return. They noted
his advice as to the unwillingness of the settlers to concen
trate for defense, and the peril to which the towns would
be exposed by the withdrawal of the army. They would
allow him to leave one hundred and fifty men, all single,
under Captain Turner, to protect the valley, " but we ex
plicitly command you to draw homeward with the re
mainder and endeavor on your return to visit the enemy
about Wachusett and be careful not to be deceived by
their lapwing strategems by drawing you off from the
nest to follow some men. " 2 He was at liberty before his
return, however, to attack the Indians at Deerfield if
Major Treat returned in time.
Treat did not return, and on the 7th of April, despite
the protests of the valley towns, leaving Captain Turner
with a nondescript force of one hundred and fifty men, with
headquarters at Hadley, he started homeward. On reach-
iThe writer believes this Thomas Reed to have been the son of
Thomas of Sudbury, and that one who married, May 30, 1677, Mary,
daughter of John Goodrich of Wethersfield. Both families came from
Levenham in England. Thomas Reed served under the immediate
command of Captain Gillam.
2 Council of Massachusetts to Major Savage. — Massachusetts Ar
chives, Vol. LXVIII, page 192.
200 King Philip's War
ing Quabaug, a council of war was held as to the advisa
bility of a dash and attack on Wachusett as ordered by
the Council, but though the chaplain, the Reverend Sam
uel Nowell,1 voted in the affirmative, Captains Moseley,
Gillam, Whipple, and Lieutenant Drinker 2 decided
against the plan on account of the scarcity of provisions,3
and Savage continued his journey homeward.
With the departure of Major Savage and his army
vanished every prospect for the negotiation of a peace
opened by the overtures of Connecticut. The Indians
up the valley saw with delight the opportunity for plant
ing their crops and catching fish without molestation.
Their joy was short-lived, for Savage had not reached
Boston when there came the news that Canonchet had
fallen into the hands of the English and was dead.
On the 30th of March, Major Palmes 4 of Connecticut,
1 Rev. Samuel Nowell of Charlestown was a chaplain in Philip's war,
both on Connecticut River and in the Narragansett campaign. He was
freeman 1677; assistant 1680, and October, 1685, was chosen treasurer
of the colony, but was relieved the next year. He died in London in
September, 1688. Mather says of him, " At this fight (Narragansett)
there was no person more like a true son of ' Abraham in Arms,' or
that with more courage and hazard fought in the midst of a shower
of bullets from the surrounding savages." — Mather's Magnalia, Book
VII, chapter 6.
2 Lieutenant Edward Drinker of Charlestown was a potter, and con
stable in 1652. He removed to Boston and was one of the founders of
the first Baptist church. A lieutenant in Captain Turner's company,
though at first refused a command by the bigoted government of the
day. He preached in 1678 in Boston, and died in 1700. — Savage.
3 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 235.
4 Major Edward Palmes was of New Haven in 1659. A merchant.
He removed in 1660 to New London and married Lucy, daughter of
Governor John Winthrop. He was representative 1671 and 1674 and
1677, and major in Philip's war. He was named in the royal commis-
King Philip's War 201
in charge of the forces operating toward the Narragansett
country, had sent from Norwich some seventy-nine sol
diers, under the command of Captains George Denison,1
James A very 2 and John Stanton,3 accompanied by a
mixed force of Niantics, Pequots and Mohegans, the
latter under Uncas' son, Oneko. Passing through the
Narragansett country they reached the Pawtucket on the 3d
sion, 1683, to adjust claims in the King's Province, or Narragansett
country. He died March 21, 1715. — Savage.
1 Captain George Denison came from England in the Lion at thirteen
years of age. Lived with his father at Roxbury, and in 1649 moved with
his family to the Pequot settlement, now New London, Conn., but in
1654 settled at Stonington. He was early a military leader and from
1671 to 1694 represented Stonington. He held a commission as captain
and participated in the Narragansett Swamp fight, and later was asso
ciated with Captain James Avery in a series of forays against the In
dians in Philip's war. He also served under Major Talcott in the ex
pedition up the Connecticut Valley at the time of the termination of the
troubles in that section. He died at Hartford, October 23, 1694. See
Descendants of George Denison, by John D. Baldwin and William
Clift, page 297.
2 Captain James Avery, born in England about 1620, came to Amer
ica with his father and lived at Gloucester, but removed to New London
in 1651. In 1656 he built a house at the head of Poquonnock Plain in
Groton, where he passed the remainder of his life. This house remained
standing until within a few years, when it was destroyed by fire caused
by a spark from a passing locomotive. Its site is commemorated by a
handsome monument. He was much interested in military affairs and
became a captain in the militia. At the Narragansett Swamp fight the
Pequot allies were commanded by Captain Avery, and he was promi
nent in the subsequent forays into the Indian territory which occurred
in the latter part of Philip's war. In civil life he served many years as
representative to the General Court and as a judge upon the bench. He
died April 18, 1700. See The Averys of Groton, by H. D. L.
Sweet.
3 Captain John Stanton of Stonington was sent to Harvard College
at the desire of the Connecticut authorities, that he might be educated
for an Indian teacher and interpreter. He was made freeman in 1666.
202 King Philip's War
of April, and fell in with a fat Indian, whom they slew,
and two squaws, one of whom informed them that Can-
onchet was encamped near by. Pushing forward with
all speed they came upon two Narragansett sentinels,
on the crest of a small hill,1 who fled in panic down the
further slope, past the place where Canonchet and a few
of his men, were lying at ease. The English, following
close at their heels, were almost upon the camp when
another sentinel, rushing among the startled Narragan-
setts, called out that the English were upon them. In a
moment the warriors were flying in all directions. Can
onchet himself ran swiftly around the back of the hill
to get out of sight on the opposite side, but, seeing the
Niantics and Mohegans in close pursuit, he threw off his
blanket, then his silver trimmed coat and the royal belt
of wampum. Recognizing immediately from these ar
ticles that the fugitive "was the right bird" the friendly
Indians and a few of the English followed with renewed
zeal.
Forced by his pursuers toward the river, through which
his only way to safety lay, he rushed into the stream, but
his foot slipped, and falling heavily into the water he wet
the priming of his gun. His pursuers were upon him
before he could recover himself, and Monopoide, a Mo-
hegan Pequot, seized him " within thirty rods of the river
side. "
Defenseless, and finding escape impossible, he faced
A captain in Philip's war and much employed in everything relating to
the Indians. — Savage.
iThis hill is recognized by some as the "Study Hill" of William
Blackstone in Lonsdale, R. I. There is no vestige of it now remaining,
it having been leveled for the purpose of filling and grading the railroad
yards.
King Philip's War 203
his foes and yielded himself with dignity. A young man,
Robert Stanton,1 the first of the whites to reach him,
ventured to ask him a question. " Looking with a little
neglect upon his youthful face" the sachem answered:
"You much child, no understand matters of war. Let
your brother or chief come, him I will answer. "
Having put to the sword all the stoutest of their pris
oners to the number of forty-three, the English set out
with their prize for Stonington. Offering him his life if
he could persuade his people to make peace, he indig
nantly refused and told them his death would not end
the war.2
"The heir of all his father's pride and insolence and
also of his malice toward the English. " " A most per
fidious villian, " says Hubbard, " for he was as good as
his word, acting herein as by a Pythagorean metamor
phosis, some old Roman ghost had possessed the body
of this western pagan, and like Attilius Regulus he would
not accept his own life when it was tendered to him upon
that (in his account) low compliance with the English,
refusing to send an old councillor of his to make any
motion that way, saying he knew they would not yield. "
Charged, as the Old Chronicle tells us, with his breach
of faith in making war, and twitted with his boast that
he would "not give up a Wampanoag nor the paring of
a Wampanoag's nail, but would burn the English alive
in their houses, " he replied that " Others were as forward
1 Robert Stanton, son of Thomas of Stonington, "was" says Savage,
"that youthful soldier, 1676, to which the Indian captive, Prince Nauun-
teno made reproachful answer, as Hubbard tells. " He died October 25,
1724, aged seventy.
2 Hubbard, Vol. II, page 59.
204 King Philip's War
for the war as himself and that he desired to hear no
more thereof. " 1
Asked " why he did foment that war, " he would make
no other reply than this, "That he was born a prince,
and if princes came to speak with him he would answer,
but none present being such, he thought himself obliged
in honor to hold his tongue. " 2 He told them he would
rather die than remain a prisoner and requested that
Oneko might put him to death as he was of equal rank.
The author of the Old Indian Chronicle tells us that
the Mohegans "and most of the English soldiers, declar
ing to the commanders their fear that the English should,
upon conditions, release him, and that then he would
(though the English might have peace with him) be very
pernicious to those Indians that now assisted us;" it
was determined to put him to death.
When told his sentence was to die, he "liked it well
that he should die before his heart was soft or he had
spoken words unworthy of himself. " 3
They carried out the sentence at Anguilla, near Ston-
ington, all the Indians being encouraged to inculpate
themselves equally in his death and mutilation " the more
firmly to engage the said Indians against the treacherous
Narragansetts, whereby they are become most abomi
nable to all the other Indians. " The Pequots shot him ;
the Mohegans cut off his head and quartered his body,
and the Niantics built a fire, burned his quarters and sent
his head to the Council at Hartford as a token of love
and fidelity (acknowledged April 8th). "This was the
iHubbard, Vol. II, page 60.
2 Old Indian Chronicle (Present State of New England), page 231.
3 Hubbard, Vol. H, page 60.
King Philip's War 205
confusion of a damned wretch that had often opened his
mouth to blaspheme the name of the living God, and
those that made profession thereof. " 1
So perished Canonchet, the most romantic figure that
we know among the New England Indians; the unfortu
nate son of a most unfortunate father, both worthy of a
kinder fate. Young and impetuous, he lacked the far-
sighted craft and subtilty that distinguished Philip, but
as a leader of men and a warrior, the younger man was
the superior, and his death was a terrible blow to the
Indian cause. His death was as honorable to him as
its infliction and the shameful mutilation of his body
was disgraceful to his enemies. Something of his lofty
and dignified character seems to have impressed itself
upon the grudging minds of his foes, but it called up no
corresponding chivalry of action.
Before the middle of the month, Philip, after a month
spent with the valley tribes, left his quarters near North-
field, with his Wampanoags, and joined the bands of the
Narragansetts and Nipmucks assembled at Wachusett
Hill.
The death of Canonchet had left him, through the
support of the Narragansetts, the chief figure of the war,
and his removal to Wachusett was more for the purpose
of directing operations against the Bay towns than through
fear for his personal safety from the disaffection of the
valley tribes, among whom Pessacus and Pumham, Nar-
ragansett sachems, friendly to his interests, still remained.
Like all leaders of a confederation ill organized and
ill equipped among people so susceptible to sudden ex-
i Hubbard Vol. II, page 60.
206 King Philip's War
tremes, Philip's influence no doubt had its ups and downs,
but it should be borne in mind that neither Hubbard nor
Mather, who were the principal contemporary historians
of the war, are safe guides either to Philip's character or
his standing among the tribes.
Canonchet's death, as he had warned his captors,
brought no overtures of peace from the Narragansetts.
The blow they had suffered was not fully realized, nor
was its effect immediately felt.
April 9th, a small party of the Wampanoags, probably
under Tuspaquin,1 came upon Bridgewater, destroying a
few houses and barns before they were driven off. The
same day the Indians at Wachusett fell upon Billerica.
On the 15th, fourteen houses were burnt at Chelmsford,
where, on the 18th of the previous month, the two sons
of Samuel Varnham had been killed and several houses
destroyed. Two days later the remaining houses at Marl
boro were given over to the flames. The next day but
one the Indians applied the torch to Weymouth, and in
Hingham,2 young John Jacob, who had served against
the Indians in the Narragansett Swamp fight, on going
into the field back of his father's house to shoot deer
that had been disturbing the crops, was shot and killed.
Wrentham was raided the same month, its deserted houses
were fired and only two dwellings, which sheltered vic
tims of the smallpox, a disease greatly feared by the
Indians, were left unmolested.
1 Tuspaquin, sachem of Assowamset, was one of Philip's most faithful
captains and very active in the war, doing much mischief in the Plym
outh colony.
2 An old fort on Cemetery Hill in Hingham, built for defense in those
days, is still preserved.
King Philip's War 207
From Casco Bay to Stonington the flames of burning
buildings lit the sky; death lay in every bush. So great
was the alarm that even towns as near to Boston as Cam
bridge applied and received permission from the court to
erect stockades.
Philip's appearance at Wachusett was soon followed by
one of the fiercest conflicts of the war. By the abandon
ment of Groton, Billerica, Lancaster and Marlboro, Sud-
bury had become the frontier town of the Bay settlements.
Situated, with the exception of a few houses, on the east
bank of the Sudbury River it was a point of considerable
importance, since from it as a center, the roads radiated
to the settlements, east, south and west.1
Small parties of soldiers with supplies were continually
passing through it on the way to and from the valley,
finding shelter along the way at night in the military gar
risons maintained at Marlboro and Quabaug.
The concentration of the Indians at Wachusett was
known early in the month, and among the forces ordered
out was that of Captain Wadsworth, who was dispatched
by the Council with a company of foot to relieve the gar
rison at Marlboro. As was the case too often in the latter
part of the conflict, the full force assigned to him could
not be collected.2 Many of those impressed failed to
appear and he began his march with only seventy troops,
many of them boys.
The advance parties of the warriors were already in
the woods about Sudbury when Wadsworth, in the even
ing of the 20th of April, passed through the town un-
1 The eastern part of Sudbury, now the town of Wayland, was origi
nally known as "The five paths."
2 Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. V, page 78.
208 King Philip's War
mindful of the large number of Indians near by, for dur
ing the day, some of the Sudbury settlers had been fired
upon and a house or two upon the distant outskirts had
been burned, a warning sufficient to drive the settlers
into the garrison. It was believed, however, that this
was the work of only a small party, and Wadsworth, ig
norant that over five hundred warriors, Philip probably
among them, were lying in wait to fall upon the town,
continued on to Marlboro, his destination, which he
reached about midnight.
Knowing well the layout of the town the Indians crept
upon it before the dawn of the 21st and many of the
houses, whose occupants had sought refuge in the gar
risons, were in flames before the settlers knew the town
was in danger.
Near the west bank of the Sudbury River was a small
isolated garrison, known as the Deacon Haynes house,1
well fortified but badly situated. It was at this point
that their first efforts, continuing from dawn to noon,
were directed. The attack, however, was not vigorously
pressed, being probably in the nature of a feint, and
the garrison even made several successful sallies.
Captain Edward Cowell 2 marching by the north road
from Quabaug to Boston, with eighteen troopers, had
reached the outskirts of the town early in the morning,
1 The Haynes garrison stood on the "Water-Row Road" by the mar
gin of the river meadow. It was about one-eighth of a mile northerly
from the Wayland and Sudbury Center highway, two or three rods
from the road, and fronted south. It was standing in 1876 but has
since been demolished.
2 Captain Edward Cowell was of Boston in 1645, and was a cord-
wainer. He served as captain in King Philip's war, and died Sep
tember 12, 1691.— Savage.
King Philip's War 209
when the sound of intermittent firing and the appearance
of small bodies of Indians at different points warned him
of the danger. Keeping his men well in hand he aban
doned the main road and set out by a circuitous route to
approach it from another direction.
An ambush had evidently been prepared for him and
the Indians hung upon his flanks and rear, firing on his
men and endeavoring to bring on a decisive action. Cow-
ell wisely refused to commit himself to battle, but ordered
his men to hold their fire and keep the Indians at a dis
tance by constantly raising their guns as if about to shoot.
By skillful maneuvering he was able to reach Sudbury
with the loss of only four men who, lagging behind, had
been cut off.
The news of the attack on Sudbury was soon known
in Boston, Watertown and Concord. A small party of
eleven men from the latter town, coming down the west
bank of the river, were the first to arrive, and the occu
pants of Haynes' garrison saw them lured into an am
buscade in the river meadows where a large body of the
enemy lying hidden in the grass rose up and closed in
upon them, massacring all but one of their number.
Soon after, Captain Hugh Mason,1 with a company
from Watertown, reached the east bank of the river, then
in flood, drove the Indians out of the village and passed
over the bridge to the west bank, attracted by the sound
1 Captain Hugh Mason was one of the first settlers of Watertown.
He was admitted freeman March 4, 1634-35. He was a tanner by trade,
selectman of the town twenty-nine years, representative to the court ten
years. He was a commissioner to determine small causes, or what
would now be a justice of the peace. He was commissioned as captain
May 5, 1652, and died October 10, 1678, aged 73. See Bond's Gene
alogies and History of Watertown, page 356.
N
210 King Philip's War
of heavy firing from Green Hill. In vain Mason and his
men endeavored to force their way toward the hill which
lay not far away, but the Indians held them sternly at
bay, and, beginning to circle around their flanks, com
pelled them to retreat to Captain Goodnow's garrison.1
All the afternoon the sound of firing at Green Hill con
tinued, gradually growing fainter and dying down with
the sun, and there was foreboding among all that some
great disaster had taken place.
In the evening the worst was confirmed. Captain
Wadsworth had learned, soon after his arrival at Marl
boro, of the storm gathering in the rear. Leaving the
least efficient of his command in garrison, and taking
with him Captain Brocklebank and the troops who had
been relieved, he marched back without delay. He was
expected. As he neared Sudbury by the south road, a few
warriors appearing across the path ahead amid the trees,
fled before him toward Green Hill. Experienced soldier
though he was he believed that the main body of the foe
had been seized with a panic on his approach, and, leav
ing the road, in eager pursuit rushed into the woods.
The flitting of dusky forms and the roar of musketry
from all sides soon undeceived him. The troops rallied
and fought their way to the crest of the hill and, shelter
ing themselves behind the trees and rocks, held their own
until the evening fell. Then the Indians fired the bushes
and grass to windward, and as Wadsworth's weary men
fell back in the dusk, blinded by the smoke, and their
1 The Goodnow garrison stood a few rods northeast of the East Sud
bury R. R. station, and perhaps twenty or thirty rods from the South
Sudbury and Wayland highway. This house was standing about ninety
years ago.
O
King Philip's War 211
nerves shaken by the loss of many of their comrades, a
panic seized them, the Indians closed in, there was a
brief hand to hand conflict, and all was over.
Few details of the death struggle of Wadsworth l and
his men have come down to us, but, wrote the author of
the Old Indian Chronicle, I am creditably informed,
that in that Fight an elderly Englishman endeavoring an
escape from the Indians by running into a swamp, was
overtaken by an Indian, and, being destitute of weapons
to defend himself, the Indian insulted over him with the
Blasphemous Expression, " Come, Lord Jesus, save this
poor Englishman if thou canst, whom I am about to kill."
This (I even tremble to relate it) was heard by another
Englishman hiding in a bush close by. Our Patient,
Long-suffering Lord permitted that Bloody Wretch to
knock him down and leave him dead.
Thirteen or fourteen of the fifty escaped to Noyes'
stone mill,2 a quarter of a mile away, barricaded the doors
and windows and waited with anxious hearts for attack
or rescue.
1 Captain Samuel Wadsworth came with his father to Duxbury and
about 1656 removed to Milton. In December, 1675, Captain Wads-
worth, with his company, took part in the "hungry march" from Narra-
gansett to Marlboro. He was of service in dispersing the enemy at
Lancaster, but is better known by his brave but fruitless efforts at de
fense at Sudbury, where, with the greater part of his command, he was
killed April 21, 1676. A monument erected by the State of Massachu
setts and the town of Sudbury, stands upon the burial place of Wads-
worth and his men at the foot of the battlefield. See Bodge, page 218.
2 The stone mill was located at what is now South Sudbury village,
on the site of the present Parmenter mill. The distance from the top
of Green Hill is from a quarter to half a mile. This mill was erected in
1659 by Thomas and Peter Noyes. In 1699 the mill property was given
to the town by Mr. Peter Noyes for the benefit of the poor.
King Philip's War
Captain Mason, reinforced in the meantime, by Cowell
and small parties from the nearby towns had repelled
successfully and with some loss the Indians opposed to
him. The night was coming on, the firing from Green
Hill had died away, and as the Indians withdrew in the
gathering darkness, Mason assumed the offensive and
set out to Noyes' mill.-
No people were dwelling there but the mill was known
to be easy of defense, and, lying as it did, in the near
vicinity of Green Hill, it was believed that if any of Wads-
worth's men escaped they would find refuge there.
Late that night they reached it without opposition and
found that the survivors of Wadsworth's party l had al
ready been rescued by Captain Hunting 2 with a com
pany of Indian scouts and a body of Prentice's horse.
This force had been on the eve of setting out from Charles-
town to establish a fort at the fishing grounds on the Merri-
mac, but when the news of the attack on Sudbury became
known, Major Gookin, in charge of the party, dispatched
them immediately to the scene, and on reaching the mill
they were soon joined by Cowell and his command.3
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 224. Petition of Dan
iel Warren and Joseph Pierce.
2 Captain Samuel Hunting was born at Dedham, July 22, 1640. He
settled first at Chelmsford and later at Charlestown. He commanded
a company of friendly Indians during Philip's war; did good service at
Sudbury, and this fact aided greatly to abate the hostility felt by Massa
chusetts toward Indian allies. In the summer of 1676 this company
destroyed or captured a very large number of the enemy and performed
most effective work in the closing operations of the war. He was killed
by the accidental discharge of his gun, August 19, 1701. — Bodge,
page 289.
3 Gookin's Christian Indians. American Antiquarian Society Coll.,
Vol. H, page 512.
King Philip's War 213
Early on the following morning Captain Mason found
and buried the bodies of the Concord men slain in the
river meadow, and the united forces, confident in their
numbers, soon after marched to Green Hill, where they
gathered and buried the stripped bodies of Wadsworth,
Brocklebank, and twenty-seven others of the ill-fated
company. In the thickets, doubtless, there remained un
discovered the bodies of several others killed in their
flight to the mill.
A few of the whites, probably of the Concord men,
since of the eleven believed to have been slain the bodies
of only five had been found, were taken prisoners and
were said to have been put to the torture.
The Indians, after annihilating Wads worth's force,
drew off to the westward, and Lieutenant Jacob, in com
mand of the garrison at Marlboro, saw them the next
morning, two hours after sunrise, firing their guns, shout
ing "seventy-four times to signify to us how many were
slain," and, after firing the remaining houses and seiz
ing all the cattle, they departed.1
The loss of the Indians is not known. Gookin says
that four dead Indians were found hidden in the brush
but their losses were undoubtedly considerably greater.
They boasted of their victory to Mrs. Rowlandson and
one of them told her he had killed two Englishmen whose
clothes were behind her. "I looked behind me and then
I saw the bloody clothes behind me with bullet holes in
them. " They seemed very pensive after they came to
their quarters, showing no such signs of rejoicing as they
were usually wont to do in like cases, "but I could not
1 Lieutenant Jacobs to Governor and Council. Massachusetts Ar
chives, Vol. LXVin, page 223.
214 King Philip's War
perceive that it was from their own loss of men as I missed
none except from one wigwam."
The appearance of Captain Hunting's force of Indian
scouts on this occasion, was an event of great significance.
The representations of Eliot, Gookin, Savage, Henchman
and Prentice, strengthened by the example of Connecti
cut, had at last prevailed,1 and their enlistment by the
direct order of Governor Leverett and the Council marked
a radical departure from the suspicious attitude so long
maintained toward the friendly Indians and which had
occasioned so many injustices and injuries. It meant
that the lesson of Indian warfare had at last been grasped.
The days of disastrous ambuscades had come to an end
and their employment contributed not a little to the sud
den collapse of the Indian resistance that soon followed.
Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. V, pages 85, 92.
CHAPTER XIII
FOLLOWING the lead of Connecticut the Council of
Massachusetts, urged by Reverend Mr. Rowlandson
and Major Gookin, had, on the 3d of April, sent Tom Ne-
panet,1 a Christian Indian, with a letter to Philip, Saga
more Sam and others, expressing the hope that terms of
peace might be arranged, but more specifically, for the
purpose of reclaiming the considerable number of cap
tives that had fallen into their hands.2 On the 12th, the
messenger returned with their reply.3
" We now give answer by this one man, but if you like
my answer send one more man besides this one, Tom
Nepanet, and send with all true heart and with all your
mind, by two men, because you and we know your heart
great sorrowful with crying for your lost many, many
hundred men, all your house and all your land, and
women, child, and cattle, and all your thing that you
have lost and on your back side stand.
(Signed) "SAM SACHEM,
"KuTQUEN, and
"QUANOHIT, Sagamores,
"PETER JETHRO,
"Scribe."
1 Nepanet, commonly called Tom Doublet, was a Christian Natick
Indian.
2 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 194.
3 The original of this letter cannot be found but it is printed in full in
Drake's Book of the Indians, Vol. Ill, page 90.
216 King Philip's War
(Then follow messages to individuals.)
"MR. ROWLANDSON. — Your wife and all your child is
well, but one child dye. Your sister is well and her three
child. "
"JOHN KETTELL. — Your wife and all your child is all
well, and them prisoners taken at Nashaway is all well. "
"MR. ROWLANDSON. — Se your loving sister his hand.
C. Hanah, and old Kettle wif his hand. X. "
"BRO. ROWLANDSON. — Please send thre pounds To
bacco for me, and if you can, my loving husband, pray
send thre pound of tobacco for me.
"This writing by your enemies,
"SAMUEL USKATTNHGUN, and
" GUNRASHIT, two Indian Sagamores. " 1
While Nepanet was journeying to Boston, Mrs. Row-
landson was on her way with Philip and his warriors
from the Connecticut River to Wachusett. They had
forded Miller's Rvier, when an Indian came up to them
saying she must go to WTachusett to her master as there
was a letter come from the Council to the Sagamores
about redeeming the captives, and that there would be
another in fourteen days. "After many weary days"
she writes, "I saw Wachusett Hill, but many miles off
. . . going along having indeed my life, but little
spirit, Philip came up and took my hand, and said, two
weeks more and you shall be mistress again. I asked
him if he spoke true ? Yes, and quickly you shall come
to your master again. . . . And after many weary
days we came to Wachusett, and glad I was to see him. " 2
1 Drake's Book of the Indians.
2 Massachusetts Archives. Hutchinson Papers, Vol. II, page 282.
King Philip's War 217
A few days later, Nepanet, accompanied by Peter Con-
way, another friendly Indian, arrived with a second letter
from the Council, and a conference was held to which
Mrs. Rowlandson was bid.
They bade her stand up and told her they were the
General Court, and asked her what she thought her
husband would give. She told them " twenty pounds, "
and the Christian Indians set out for Boston with the
tentative offer from the Indians to ransom her for
that sum, and expressing themselves sorry for the wrong
done and that when the quarrel began with the Plym
outh men they did not think there would be so much
trouble.
On the 2d of May, in the early Sunday morning, they
returned to Wachusett Hill accompanied by John Hoar.1
The Indians treated him with rude horseplay, firing over
and under his horse, and pushed him about.
After a conference, at which Mrs. Rowlandson's re
lease was agreed upon, Hoar asked the sagamores to
dinner, but " when we went to get it ready we found they
had stolen the greater part of the provisions Mr. Hoar
1 Mr. John Hoar of Boston met the Indian sachems for the purpose
of negotiating for the redemption of the captives, particularly that of
Mrs. Rowlandson, at a well-known gathering place of the tribes known
since that event as "Redemption Rock." It lies near the northern
boundary of the town of Princeton, Mass., and but a short distance
east of the southerly end of Wachusett Pond. It is an isolated rock of
large size lying upon the side of a cleared hill and close to the highway
passing through the little hamlet of Everettville. From its summit a
beautiful view of Mount Wachusett and the surrounding country may
be had. Upon its western face it bears an inscription commemorative
of the redemption. It may be reached by electric cars from Fitchburg
or Gardner to Wachusett Park, and thence from the northern end of
the pond by a walk of something less than a mile.
218 King Philip's War
had brought with him, and we may see the wonderful
Providence of God in that one passage in that when
there was such a number of them together and all so
greedy for a little good food . . . that they did not
knock us on the head and take what we had, but instead
of doing us any mischief they seemed to be ashamed
of the fact and said it was the bad Indians that did
it. " *
Negotiations for the release of other captives, and for
peace, still continued after her release, and on the 5th
of May we find the Council again writing to the sachems,
Philip, John, Sam, etc., "Received your letter by John
Hoar sent up with John and Peter, " and they expressed
their disappointment that no answer was returned as to
the terms upon which they would release all the pris
oners. "You desire not to be hindered by our men in
your planting, promising not to do damage to our towns.
This is a great matter and cannot be ended by letters
without speaking one with another. " " If you will send
us home all the English prisoners it will be a true tes
timony of a pure heart in you for peace ; " and they prom
ised that if the councilors and sachems would come to Bos
ton, Concord or Sudbury, the Council would speak to them
about their desires and they should safely come and go.2
Further correspondence 3 was carried on. John Hoar,
Seth Perry, Reverend Mr. Rowlandson, Peter Gardiner,4
1 Mrs. Rowlandson's Narrative.
2 Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. V, page 83; also pages 93, 94.
3 Ibid.
* Peter Gardiner of Roxbury embarked in April, 1635, on the Eliza
beth, at London. He died November 5, 1698. His son Samuel was
killed by the Indians April 2, 1676.— Savage.
King Philip's War 219
Jonathan Prescott l and others acting as intermedi
aries.
There is no doubt but that, while the main object was
to secure the release of the captives, the authorities would
gladly at this time, have made peace and held in abey
ance the active prosecution of the war. The first object
was finally accomplished and almost all the captives re
turned to their homes.2 The negotiations as to peace
failed utterly. What reason held the Indians aloof it is
difficult to judge, for the suffering among them from the
lack of food was now great, and their ammunition scarce.
It may be that they prolonged the negotiations for the
sole purpose of gaining time, or from the belief that the
English would pay but scant regard to the terms of any
treaty, or that they relied on their own prowess and the
prospect of the replenishment of their supplies from the
crops planted in the valley and the opening of the fishing
season, to achieve success. Possibly Philip was obstinate
and the Narragansetts eager to revenge the death of
Canonchet; all is conjectural.
It was commonly believed at the time, that these ne
gotiations and the release of the captives, occasioned
strained relations between Philip and the Narragansetts,
on the one hand, and the Nipmuck tribes on the other.
Sagamore Sam and One-Eyed John declared later that
they were inclined toward peace, and the former that he
1 Jonathan Prescott was of Lancaster and driven thence to Concord
by the Indians. His second wife was the daughter of John Hoar. He
was a man of prominence, captain, and representative in 1692 at the
first court under the new charter. He died after February, 1707. — Sav
age.
2 New England Deliverances, by Rev. Thomas Cobbet of Ipswich.
New England Register, Vol. VII, pages 209-219.
220 King Philip's War
was the chief advocate of the release of the English cap
tives, which Philip opposed.
Sam may have believed it would make for peace and
more lenient terms for his own people if the worst came
to pass, while Philip, with better judgment, declared that
they would make better terms for their own people by
retaining the English captives as hostages.
Sagamore Sam's family, like Philip's, was captured
and sold into slavery and Sagamore Sam was hanged,
his release of the captives serving him not a whit.
The negotiations into which both Connecticut and Mas
sachusetts had entered, led to a policy of inaction, and,
save for movements of convoys and reliefs, and the send
ing out of a force under Henchman, Brattle and Prentice,
toward Mendon and Seekonk, the month of April and the
early weeks of May were unmarked by any active organi
zation of forces or aggressive movements on a large scale,
an inactivity, however, which, when considered in rela
tion to the Sudbury disaster is not without suspicion that
the authorities, in view of the constant ambuscade and
lack of success, were at their wits' end. Yet among the
Indians, also, many were wavering, and some who had
been actively hostile were already in communication with
the English and professing friendship. "Tell James the
Printer and others, to bring in the heads of Indians as a
proof of this fidelity," wrote the Council to Major
Gookin.1
While, throughout New England, the English held their
hands during these negotiations, the Indians continued
their attacks and depredations without cessation.
Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XXX, page 207.
King Philip's War 221
April 26th, while John Woodcock,1 with his sons and
several laborers were at work in a cornfield near Wood
cock's garrison house, 2 a party of Indians concealed in
a wooded swamp near the edge of the field fired upon
them, killing Nathaniel Woodcock and one of the labor
ers and wounding John Woodcock and the other son.
Fleeing to the garrison the survivors barred the doors,
and though the inmates of the house were but few, they
succeeded in driving off the enemy after they had burned
a nearby house.
On the 2d of May, Ephraim Kingsbury, a young un
married man, was killed at Haverhill, and the same day
the house of Mr. Kimball 3 at Bradford was burned,
Kimball himself being killed and his wife and children
carried away into captivity.4
It was to the south, within the confines of Plymouth
colony, however, that the war parties were the most ac
tive. There, on May 8th, Tuspaquin and his band, to
whom much of the mischief done in that region may be
ascribed, fell upon Bridgewater, but the settlers, fore-
1 John Woodcock is found at Springfield as early as 1635, before the
settlement of the town by Pynchon, and built a house in the Agawam
meadows on the west side of the river, which he abandoned on account
of the freshets. He removed to Dedharn in 1642 and thence perhaps to
Rehoboth before 1673. His garrison house was within the bounds of
Wrentham. Under date of July 5, 1670, he was allowed by the court
"to keep an ordinary at the Ten Mile River (so called) which is on the
way from Rehoboth to the Bay." He was representative from Reho
both in 1691 and was living in 1694.
2 Woodcock's garrison was a well-known place of rendezvous in the
great Indian war, situated on what became the stage road running from
Boston to Providence.
3 Thomas Kimball was an early settler in that part of Rowley that
was afterwards called Bradford. — Savage.
< This was the work of the eastern Indians.
222 King Philip's War
warned of the coming attack, were found prepared, and
the marauders were driven off; not, however, until they
had burned thirteen dwelling houses. Three days later
a party of warriors assaulted Halifax, an outlying part
of Plymouth town, and destroyed some eleven houses
and five barns, but the inhabitants, aroused by the sud
den alarm, precipitately fled and reached a haven of
safety. The Indians still continued in the neighborhood
and a few days later returned, burning seven more houses
and two barns. About the same time the remaining
houses of Middleboro, then Nemasket, were destroyed.
May 20th, the Indians came into Scituate from the
north, first burning the mill of Cornet Robert Stetson,1
on the Third Herring Brook, about a mile north of the
present village of Hanover Four Corners. They avoided
the garrison of Joseph Barstow, and followed the general
course of the North River into South Scituate (Norwell).
They attacked the blockhouse located on the bank of
the river, but were repulsed. Marching on they reached
the garrison at Charles Stockbridge's 2 where a large force
of the townsmen were assembled, and after a desperate
fight, were driven off and no more seen in the town.
With the exception of several small forces from Con-
1 Robert Stetson was of Scituate in 1C34 and came from County Kent,
England. He was a man of great public spirit, cornet of the first body
of horse in Plymouth colony; representative 1654-62, and often after
wards. His service as one of the council of war during Philip's hos
tilities was active. — Savage.
2 The Stockbridge garrison was in the present village of Greenbush,
and the house at present occupying its site contains some of the old gar
rison timbers. It stands close to the border of the mill pond made
famous in the song of the "Old Oaken Bucket," the mill being on the
opposite side of the road a few rods distant.
X
King Philip's War 223
necticut, who were constantly beating up the Narragan-
sett country, and in Plymouth, where, as it has been seen,
the Indians, divided into numerous parties, were occa
sioning widespread ruin, little was accomplished by the
English during April and the early part of May.
Captain Denison of Connecticut returned to New Lon
don after an expedition into the Narragansett country,
and reported that he had killed seventy-six hostiles,1 but
in general the inclement weather, the rough roads deep
with mud, and considerable sickness, combined with the
hope that peace might result from the negotiations, held
the troops to the garrisons.
Only in the southeast, between Medfield and Provi
dence, was there any considerable force of English en
gaged in active operations, whither on April 27th, the
Council of Massachusetts had dispatched a considerable
force under Henchman, consisting of three companies of
foot commanded by Captains Sill, Cutler 2 and Holbrook,3
and an equal number of horse under Brattle, Henchman
and Prentice.
1 Connecticut Archives. War, Vol. I, Doc. 66.
2 Captain John Cutler, blacksmith, was of Charlestown. He was a
deacon of the church. In 1681 he was a member of the Artillery Com
pany, and was representative in 1680 and 1682. In Philip's war he
was a captain and engaged on various occasions in conducting supply
trains to the garrisons, and at the time of the destruction of Wadsworth
at Sudbury, April 21, 1676, narrowly escaped being cut off with his
company returning from Marlboro. He died September 12, 1694.
— Bodge, page 285. Savage.
3 Captain John Holbrook was of Weymouth in 1636. He was an
enterprising man of business and a large dealer in real estate. He held
the rank of lieutenant in the home company and was its commander at
the time of Philip's war. He died November, 23, 1699, leaving a large
estate.— Bodge, page 280.
224 King Philip's War
On May 5th, near Mendon, the Natick Indian scouts
accompanying the force came suddenly on a large party
of Indians engaged in a bear hunt. The English horse
immediately pushed forward, and, rushing upon the ex
cited hunters while still intent upon the chase, killed and
captured sixteen of them.1
At night the troops returned to their quarters at Med-
field, "from whence they saw two hundred fires in the
night, yet they could not afterwards come upon the In
dians " who kept carefully out of their way, and the whole
force soon after being "visited by an epidemical cold, at
that time prevailing throughout the country, " were
(May 10th) temporarily disbanded.
By the middle of May it had become evident that ne
gotiations for a general peace had accomplished nothing,
and in the Bay towns and in the Connecticut valley,
public opinion was beginning to press for aggressive
operations. In the valley of the Connecticut, particu
larly, the troops and settlers were becoming restive under
repeated and annoying attacks by small parties of In
dians from the upper valley, whose constant presence
around the towns prevented the planting of the crops and
whose frequent seizures of cattle threatened the settlers
with scarcity of food.
Captain Turner, left by Savage in command of the
valley, had divided his meager force and lay, himself,
with fifty-one men, at Hadley. Nine had been sent to
Springfield, and at Northampton were forty-six. Many
of his command were mere lads, and the whole force
was so ill-armed and ill-equipped that Turner wrote to
Massachusett Colonial Records, Vol. V, page 96. Hubbard.
King Philip's War 225
the Council of Massachusetts (April 25th) complaining
of the great distress from want of proper clothing. He
himself, he declared, was weak and sickly, but he left it
for their consideration whether he should be continued
in command or another, more able-bodied, be appointed
to succeed him.1
As the spring came on public opinion in the valley
became more and more urgent for an attack upon the
encampment at Peskeompskut (Turners Falls), but the
Connecticut Council of War still believed in the possibil
ity of a successful termination of the negotiations into
which they had entered with the valley Indians, and
urged the Rev. John Russell and Captain Turner to
refrain from all aggressive movements until after the
5th of May.2
A petition of the Rev. John Russell to the Gov
ernor and Council of Massachusetts marks the eager de
sire of the men, both troops and settlers, to go out against
the Indians. "We understand from Hartford some in
clination to allow some volunteers to come up hither.
We believe it is time to distress the Indians. Could we
drive them from fishing and keep out small parties to
harass them, famine would soon subdue them. "
The Indians, in the meantime, relieved of anxiety by
the withdrawal of Savage and by the failure of Turner
to make any aggressive movement, had grown careless.
They were in desperate need of food, their supplies of
dried fish and corn had long since been exhausted. Game
was scarce and the ground nuts were no longer fit for food.
Planting for the new year had but just begun, and until
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXVIII, page 228.
2 Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II, page 440.
O
226 King Philip's War
the crops were ripe they must depend upon fishing, hunt
ing and the spoil of English corn and cattle for existence.
The negotiations with Connecticut had tended to in
crease the sense of security. They were willing to bar
gain over the price to be paid for the redemption of
captives and they took full advantage of the English
willingness to negotiate, to gain time.
Their main strength, divided into three villages, was
now concentrated about Peskeompskut, the great fishing
ground of the valley Indians. One of these villages oc
cupied the high ground on the right bank at the head
of the falls, another was on the opposite bank, and a
third on Smead's Island, a mile below. Here were gath
ered promiscuously not only many of the valley Indians
but also considerable numbers of the Wampanoags, the
Narragansetts, Nashaways, Quabaugs and a few of the
far eastern Indians. Here also, besides the sachems of
the valley tribes, were Pessacus and Pumham of the
Narragansetts, and even the distant Tarratines of Maine
were represented by a Minor sachem, Megunneway.
The greater number were undoubtedly women, chil
dren and old men, engaged in fishing and planting, while
the warriors were continually coming and going in small
parties.
Farther up the river, in the cleared fields of what had
once been Northfield, was another settlement of the
Squakheags, and in the country between still other small
parties were planting their crops. Supplies of seed corn
for the planting had been obtained, fish were abundant
and the cattle plundered from the English by the roving
parties of warriors afforded a welcome addition of milk
and flesh.
King Philip's War 227
So careless had they grown in their fancied security
that John Gilbert,1 who had been taken prisoner at
Springfield the month before, had already escaped out
of their hands and brought considerable information as
to their doings and their attitude to Turner at Hadley.
Throughout the valley the desire to strike an aggres
sive blow was growing; when, on the 12th, learning that
the English had turned their cattle out to graze in the
meadows, a war party from Peskeompskut pushed rap
idly down the valley and seized the whole herd, amount
ing to seventy head of horse and cattle, and were gone
in safety with their booty before the English could reach
the scene. So great a seizure of their property lashed
the settlers into rage, and operations were already under
way, when, three days later, as Rev. John Russell wrote
to the Connecticut Council of War, " This morning about
sunrise, came into Hatfield, one Thomas Reed, who was
taken captive when Deacon Goodman was slain. He
relates that they are now planting at Deerfield and have
been so these three or four days or more; saith further
that they dwell at the Falls on both sides of the river;
and are a considerable number most of them old men
and women. He cannot judge that there are on both
sides of the river above sixty or seventy fighting men;
they are secure but scornful, boasting of the great things
they have done and will do. There is Thomas Eames'
daughter and child hardly used; one or two belonging
to Medfield, and I think, two children belonging to Lan
caster. The night before last they came down to Hat-
1 John Gilbert, aged eighteen, was the son of Thomas Gilbert of
Springfield. Mrs. Rowlandson found him above Northfield, sick and
turned out into the cold. She befriended him and got him a fire.
228 King Philip's War
field upper meadow and have driven away many horses
and cattle, to the number of four score and upwards as
they judge. Many of these this man saw in Deerfield
meadow and found the bars put up to keep them in.
This being the state of things we think the Lord calls
us to make some trial which may be done against them
suddenly, without further delay; and therefore the con
curring resolution of men here seems to be to go out
against them to-morrow night, so as to be with them,
the Lord assenting, before break of day. " * But the
Connecticut Council, though it promised to send a com
pany up the valley in support, stated its belief that an
attack while so many English captives remained in the
hands of the Indians, and negotiations were still pending,
was inadvisable.
i Connecticut Archives. War, Vol. I, Doc. 67a.
CHAPTER XIV
TURNER, well acquainted with Indian habits, realized
that such a favorable condition for attack would not
long continue, and that as soon at they had finished their
planting and dried their fish, they would be on the warpath
down the valley.
Help or no help, he resolved to wait no longer, and,
calling for volunteers, determined to hazard the venture
on the evening of the 18th. Nearly one hundred and
eighty mounted men, one-half of them settlers who had
supplied their own horses, gathered at Hatfield, and soon
after sunset the gates of the stockade were thrown open
and the force filed out.
Turner, himself, just arisen from his sick bed could
hardly keep his saddle, and among his motley force, ill-
equipped and ill-disciplined, were many young boys. It
was an expedition fraught with great promises and
great dangers. Success depended upon the complete sur
prise of the Indian encampment, for if the Indians should
discover the movement and lead them into an ambush,
then the character of the force under his command prom
ised a terrible catastrophe, and the valley, left defense
less, would be harried from end to end.
Their path led them through the depths of the forest
and along the meadows, past the ill-omened fields of
Wequomps and Bloody Brook. It was near midnight
when they entered the broad street of Deerfield and saw,
230 King Philip's War
on either hand, in the gloom, the skeleton outlines of
blackened beams and tumbling walls that had once been
the settlement of Pocumtuck. The moon, overcast with
clouds, and the distant roll of thunder, proclaimed an
approaching storm. They crossed the Pocumtuck River
at the northerly end of the meadows, near the mouth of
Sheldon's Brook, narrowly escaping discovery by an In
dian fishing outpost at what is now Cheapside. They
had made a detour to avoid it, but the noise of their
passage, not far away, aroused the Indians who could
be seen with flaring torches gathered at the fording
place. Finally concluding that the noise was made by a
herd of moose crossing the river, they withdrew and the
English continued their march. The storm overtook
them, drenching them to the skin, and they feared lest
the lightning flashes should reveal them to the prying eye
of some Indian scout, but the thunder and rain deadened
the noise of their passage, and the Indians, unsuspicious
of danger, had placed no outpost.
Pushing on they crossed Green River, and skirting the
great ash swamp to the east, reached the high ground
just under Mount Adams, at daybreak. Picketing their
horses they forded the Falls River near its confluence with
the Connecticut and climbed the steep hill above the
upper encampment of the Indians.
Wet and tired, but full of hope, they had arrived in
time. The storm had driven the Indians to shelter, and
the camp, its occupants gorged with fish and the milk and
flesh of captured cattle, lay silent below them. Neither
guards nor dogs were stirring as they rushed in among the
wigwams, firing through the frail bark or into the open
ings.
King Philip's War 231
The attack, fierce and sudden, allowed no time for the
Indians to rally. Confused and terrified they made but
a feeble resistance. Many fell within the wigwams;
others, shouting that the Mohawks were upon them,
plunged into the river. "Many" says the writer of the
Old Indian Chronicle, "got into canoes to paddle away,
but the paddlers being shot, the canoes overset with all
therein, and the stream of the river being very violent
and swift . . . were carried upon the falls of water
and from thence tumbling down were broken in pieces. "
Many sought refuge among the rocks under the banks,
where Captain Holyoke,1 discovering some old persons
and children, set. the example of indiscriminate massacre
by " slaying five of them, old and young, with his sword."
No discrimination was made, the same fate was dealt
out alike to warriors, women and children. After the
first confusion of surprise, the warriors were able to es
cape, but the women and children fell easy prey and were
put to the sword or forced into the rushing river and
swept over the falls. "The river Kishon swept them
away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O! my soul,
they have trodden down strength," wrote Mather in ex
ultation.
The wigwams were fired, with all the dried fish and
ammunition, and two forges, used by the Indians for the
repairing of their guns, were demolished. Only one of
1 Captain Samuel Holyoke was the son of Elizur Holyoke of Spring
field, and grandson of William Pynchon, the founder of the town. He
was born June 9, 1647, and died October 21, 1676, soon after the Falls
fight, his health having become impaired by the hardships of the cam
paign. See First Century of the History of Springfield, by Henry M.
Burt, page 591.
232 King Philip's War
the English had fallen, shot accidentally by a comrade.
It seemed as if the victory had been cheaply won but
the roar of the muskets and the cries of the assault
had already aroused the other Indian camps, and on the
other side of the river and on Smead's Island the warriors
were astir and hastening to the assistance of their ill-
fated comrades. Turner's men, tired with their long
march, and carried away with the excitement of the as
sault, were now out of hand. No guards had been
stationed at the ford where the Indians from Smead's
Island could cross, and the delay in retreating gave the
warriors an opportunity to come up. Swarming in on
both flanks, they pressed upon the English in ever in
creasing numbers, a party even attacking the guard left
in charge of the horses, until the approach of the main
body of the English caused them to draw off. Turner
led the van while Holyoke, in command of the rear guard,
kept the Indians in check until the horses were gained.
The attack of the Indians meanwhile was growing
every moment fiercer and more determined as they swept
around the rear and left flank of the English and en
deavored to break the column in two, while the confusion
in the English ranks was intensified by the cry of a lad
that Philip with a thousand warriors was coming down
upon them. Holyoke' s horse was shot and several war
riors rushed in upon the captain, but he shot the fore
most, and his men, hastening to his assistance, drove back
the rest.
The rear guard was early cut off and Jonathan Wells,1
a lad of seventeen, appealed to Turner to return to their
i Jonathan Wells was the son of Thomas of Hadley. An interesting
account of his experiences at this time may be found on page 161 of the
King Philip's War 233
aid, but the captain refused. "Better lose some than
all," he replied and pushed forward; but the rear guard
fought its way out in safety.
As the head of the column reached the Green River,
at the mouth of Ash Swamp Brook, it was met by a fire
from both banks, and Turner,1 shot through the back
and thigh, fell dead at the river's edge. The guides grew
panic-stricken, each calling out to the troops to follow
him to safety. The flight and pursuit continued through
the woods and among the ruined houses of Deerfield to
the place known as the Bars, in Deerfield South Meadow,
the Indians easily keeping up with the troopers in the
dense woods, firing upon the column from behind the
trees and cutting off the stragglers.
Only the self-possession and courage of Captain Holy-
first volume of Sheldon's History of Deerfield. He was commander of
the military forces of Deerfield in Queen Anne's war and at the time of
the attack upon that town by the French and Indians, February 29,
1704,1705, occupied a fortified house a few rods south of the stockade, in
which those inhabitants who escaped capture or slaughter in the attack
on the stockade, took refuge. Captain Wells led the relief force in the
attack upon the retreating Indians in the North Meadow. He was,
until his death, which occurred January 3, 1738-39, a leader in the civil
and military affairs of the town. He was representative; selectman for
thirteen years, and the first justice of the peace in Deerfield. See Shel
don's History of Deerfield, Vol. II, page 357 of Genealogies.
1 Captain William Turner came from South Devonshire to Dorchester,
in Massachusetts, and was admitted freeman May 10, 1643. He re
moved to Boston, probably in 1664, and was there a member of the
Baptist church. During this period of religious intolerance he was
twice imprisoned. Early in Philip's war he raised a company of vol
unteers, but their services were refused and he denied a commission on
the ground that most of the members were " Anabaptists. " As early as
February, 1676, however, the demand for soldeirs being then greater
than before, Turner had taken the field with a company. — Bodge,
page 232.
234 King Philip's War
oke, who assumed command on Turner's death, saved
the force from a terrible disaster. Forty-five were miss
ing when they reached Hatfield late in the morning. Six
of these, however, returned in the course of the next few
days, among them Jonathan Wells, who, having attached
himself in the retreat to one party, continued with them
until they entered the swamp, when, seeing the Indians
closing in, he left this company, who were all lost, and
joined a small party taking another course. Wounded
and exhausted he was obliged, soon after, to fall out of
the ranks and spent several days hiding in the woods,
and, though the Indians at times came close to his hiding-
places, he fortunately escaped discovery.
The loss of the Indians has been variously estimated,
some of the contemporary writers placing it as high as
three or four hundred.
The Reverend Mr. Russell, a man not prone to ex
aggerate, declared that eyewitnesses said that there were
one hundred dead Indians among the wigwams and along
the banks.1 William Drew,2 and others, give the Indian
loss as six score and ten. Their reports, however, should
be received with caution, for it is not likely that, in the
heat of such an engagement and the confusion into which
the English forces fell, any accurate enumeration was
possible. Indians who were afterwards taken, wrote
Mather, affirmed that many of the Indians, driven down
the falls, got safe on shore again, and that they lost not
more than three score men in the fight, also that they
1 Letter of Rev. John Russell to the Governor and Council of Con
necticut (War, I, Doc. 74) contains an account of the expedition.
2 William Drew of Hadley, and Robert Bard well, afterwards of Hat-
field, soldiers of Turner's company, are referred to here.
King Philip's War 235
killed thirty-eight Englishmen, which was the exact num
ber of the latter slain.1 The author of the Old Indian
Chronicle states "the English did afterwards find of
their bodies, some in the river and some cast ashore,
about two hundred. " 2
The Indian loss can reasonably be placed, therefore,
at about one hundred, many of them women and children.
The blow was a severe one to the Indians, not so much in
the loss of life as in its physical and moral effect.
The flight of Turner's men before the furious onslaught
of the Indians, marks the last partial success of the latter
in the war. The war cry was again to be heard before
the stockades of Hatfield and Hadley; a few more Eng
lish were to fall in desultory conflicts about Narragansett
Bay and in the Connecticut valley, but these record only
the expiring efforts of a dying cause, the last impotent
protest of a doomed race against extinction.
The sudden collapse of the Indian resistance came as
a surprise to the whites, who looked forward to a pro
longed and bloody struggle. The reasons, however, were
not far to seek. Numerically much weaker than the
English at the beginning, and more poorly armed and
equipped, the Indians lacked the resources, which the
English possessed in abundance.
Their hope of terrorizing into inaction the settlers in
the valley, while they themselves planted and reaped
their crops and laid in stores of fish for themselves and
their confederates, had vanished. Their confidence in
their own prowess had been rudely shaken and the plan,
from which they had hoped so much, had failed. The
1 Mather's Brief History, page 149.
2 Old Indian Chronicle, page 261.
236 King Philip's War
fallen warriors could not be replaced, and arms and am
munition could be obtained only in meager quantities and
with great difficulty from adventurous traders, or from their
opponents, as the spoil of victories; precarious sources of
supply certainly, for such a life and death struggle as they
were now waging. They were improvident and wasteful at
best; and, unprovided with strongly fortified depots, their
supplies were easily at the mercy of foes, who, though they
might themselves be at times in want, found in the neigh
boring colonies all they could not themselves provide.
Disease, as before noted, had been rife during the
winter, and the Indians, weakened by privations, had
fallen easy victims to colds and the malignant fevers, to
whose ravages even among the settlers Mather bears
mournful testimony.
A not less important factor in the collapse of Indian
resistance was their total lack of organization. Their
variable temperament, traditional feuds and jealousies,
combining to make concerted action impossible ; not one,
but many heads, essayed to direct the operations and every
petty chief had his own plans and ambitions to further,
and would sacrifice nothing for the common good.
The dissensions among the Nipmucks on the one hand,
and the Wampanoags and Narragansetts on the other,
had, during the last few months of the war, grown apace,
and Philip had openly quarrelled with the Nipmuck
chiefs over the surrender of the English captives. To
add to the general demoralization the Mohawks had
become openly hostile.
The English towns, palisaded and garrisoned, no longer
offered an easy booty to their sudden raids, and the Eng
lish commanders had learned the lesson of Indian tactics.
King Philip's War 237
When, therefore, in the spring, the colonies put forth
their full force and enlisted the friendly Naticks, Mo-
hegans and Niantics, the weakened tribes were doomed.
May drew to a close amid active operations for a cam
paign in force. Conscious of the necessity of ending the
war before the whole country should be brought to ruin,
and no longer held back by apprehension .as to the fate
that might befall the captives, the authorities worked
energetically levying men and impressing food and trans
port.
In the Connecticut valley guards and scouts were
watching the trails against a counterstroke of the Indi
ans, and Captain Newberry 1 with eighty men, sent by
Connecticut at the request of Holyoke, marched up the
valley and, leaving three troopers at Westfield as a rein
forcement, for the Westfield volunteers had suffered heavily
in the Falls fight, took up his quarters at Northampton
on the 24th of May.
From here, a few days later, he wrote to the Connecti
cut Council of War that there were three hundred In
dians at Quabaug; that if Major Talcott 2 would come
or if the Council would send him a reinforcement of fifty
men he would willingly go himself against them, and
1 Captain Benjamin Newberry was of Windsor and commanded the
military department of the Connecticut colony. He was representative
at twenty-two sessions of the General Court; assistant in 1685, and
member of the Council of War; captain of dragoons, and in November,
1675, was made second in command to Major Treat. His service in
the field during Philip's war consisted of operations at Northampton
and vicinity in the spring of 1676. He died September 11, 1689. See
Ancient Windsor, Conn., by Henry R. Stiles, page 518. Colonial Rec
ords of Connecticut. Savage.
2 Major John Talcott was a native of Braintree, England, and came
to America in the ship Lion in 1632. He settled in Hartford where he
238 King Philip's War
suggested that Samuel Cross' dogs l could be used ad
vantageously.2
In the southeast, in the meantime, parties from Plym
outh and Massachusetts were scouring the country be
tween Plymouth, Rehoboth and Marlboro, and the Con
necticut and Indian forces, under Captain Denison and
Major Talcott, were constantly raiding the Narragansett
country from their bases at Stonington and Norwich.
In Massachusetts Captain Brattle had again taken the
field with a troop of horse and a large body of Natick
Indians under Tom Nepanet. On the 24th, the same
day that Newberry reached Northampton, Brattle, march
ing along the Pawtucket River "being on the Seaconck
side," saw a considerable body of Indians on the oppo
site bank. Pushing forward with his troopers he forded
the river above their camp and put them to flight with
a loss of several killed and a number of prisoners.
In the letter in which the Massachusetts Council an
nounced the success of Captain Brattle to Connecticut,
they gave notice of their intention to send an expedition
of five hundred men to attack the Indian encampments
at Quabaug, Wachusett and Squakheag, by the 1st of
June, and requested that Major Talcott with a consid-
became in 1654 deputy to the court at New Haven. He was elected
treasurer of the colony May 17, 1660, which office he held until 1675,
when he resigned the office and was appointed to the command of the
army with the rank of major, and in June of that year took the field at
its head. He received promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel,
and died in Hartford July 23, 1688. See Talcott Pedigree, by S. V.
Talcott, page 32. See Memorial History of Hartford County, Vol. I,
page 263.
1 Samuel Cross was of Windsor. He is called captain in the records.
He died November 6, 1707.
0 Connecticut Archives. War, Vol. I, Doc. 76.
King Philip's War 239
erable force of troops and Indians should act with them.
Talcott was already at Norwich preparing to march
through the Narragansett country, when, in response to
this letter, the Connecticut Council bade him leave Deni-
son with seventy men at Norwich, and march with the
rest of his force to Quabaug, where it was expected that
Henchman would meet him.
While Massachusetts and Connecticut were making
these preparations, which it was hoped would crush the
Indians in Northern Massachusetts, the Indians in the
valley, who had suddenly vanished toward the north after
the Falls fight, had again taken the initiative. The scouts
had reported no movements among them, but on the 30th
of May they appeared before Hatfield in large numbers,
burning some twelve outlying barns and houses and driv
ing away a multitude of sheep and cattle. Twenty-five
settlers and soldiers from Hadley immediately rowing
across the river to the Hatfield side, in the face of a severe
fire, pushed on across the meadows to the aid of the town.
The Indians, sheltered behind trees and hidden in the
long grass, poured in an unremitting fire, but with little
effect, and the little band had almost reached the shelter
of the stockade in safety when the Indians closed rapidly
in, and firing at close range, endeavored to cut them off
from both the stockade and the river.1 Within the space
of a few minutes five of their number fell, " among whom
was a precious young man whose name was Smith (John
Smith 2 of Hadley), that place having lost many in losing
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 235.
2 John Smith was the son of Samuel, and was the ancestor of Oliver
and Sophia Smith, the founder of the "Smith Charities" and Smith
College at Northampton.
240 King Philip's War
that one man, " 1 and all would soon have been lost,
when the gates of the stockade were thrown open and
the Hatfield garrison, sallying out, drove back the Indi
ans and saved the survivors.
Newberry in Northampton was early informed of the
attack, and, fearful that an ambuscade awaited him on
the direct road to Hatfield (and such was actually the
case), crossed the river below Northampton, and march
ing up to Hadley, sought to cross the Connecticut
River at that point, as had been done by the Hadley
volunteers.
It was not a very certain way to bring relief as his pas
sage across the river would expose him to a heavy fire
without opportunity to reply, but it at least denoted a
change from the usual haphazard rush into an ambus
cade. Unfortunately for Newberry the lack of boats and
the increased vigilance of the Indians prevented his re
peating the feat of the Hadley men, and his force was
still waiting on the bank 2 when the Indians, finding it
impossible to break into the stockade, drew off with the
approach of evening. Seven whites had fallen in the
fight and five were wounded. The Indian loss was set
down as twenty-five killed, but was undoubtedly less.
The news of the attack on Hatfield was already known
throughout Connecticut, when, on the 2d of June, Major
Talcott with two hundred and fifty whites and two hun
dred Mohegans, set out from Norwich with the expecta
tion of effecting a juncture with Captain Henchman and
the Massachusetts forces, at Quabaug. On the 4th he
1 Mather's Brief History, page 151.
2 Letter of Captain Newberry. Connecticut Colonial Records, Vol. II,
page 450.
King Philip's War 241
reached the Indian village of Wabaquasset.1 Everywhere
the country was deserted, no Indians were to be seen,
but the green shoots of the young corn were showing in
the cultivated clearings by the deserted wigwams, and,
after trampling it down and firing the village, Talcott
continued his march.
The next day he came suddenly upon a small encamp
ment of Indians at Chabanakongomun, near the present
town of Webster, and, killing nineteen of its occupants
and capturing thirty-three others without loss to himself,
passed on to Quabaug where he believed Henchman was
awaiting his arrival. Henchman was not there, nor any
news of him, but a small body of Indians, the scouts told
Talcott, had encamped, unaware of his approach, only
three miles away, and at midnight twelve of the English
and a body of Indians marched out and succeeded in
capturing two of them, both well supplied with fish and
powder.2
The morning brought no news of Henchman, and Tal
cott, believing his own force not sufficient to attack the
Indians at Wachusett, waited no longer but pushed on
to Hadley which he reached the next day (June 8th).
His march had been through a country made bare of sup
plies, and his force suffered severely, but Captain Denison
with a convoy of powder and stores, sent at his request
1 Wabbaquasset, "the mat producing country," so called from some
marsh or meadow that furnished reeds for mats and baskets, was a tract
west of the Quinnebaug River, north of a line running northwesterly
from the junction of the Quinnebaug and Assawage Rivers, not far
from Southbridge in Massachusetts. — Trumbull's Indian Names in Con
necticut. Miss Larned's History of Windham County, Vol. I, page 1.
2 Talcott's Letter to the Governor and Council of Connecticut. Con
necticut Archives. War, Vol. I, Doc. 88.
P
242 King Philip's War
from Hartford, joined him on the 10th and relieved his
necessity. In the meantime, Captain Henchman with
five hundred foot and horse and a party of friendly In
dians, had left Concord in time to effect a junction with
Major Talcott at Quabaug, but his progress was slow
and information brought to him by Tom Nepanet and
his Indian scouts who had come upon the trail of a party
of Indians making for the fishing grounds at Washakim
Ponds near Lancaster, caused him to turn aside in pur
suit. He came upon them while fishing, killed seven
and captured twenty-nine, most of the latter women and
children, among them the wife of Muttaump and the
wife and children of Sagamore Sam, who had gone, if
we are to believe his own testimony, to secure the re
lease of the English captives in the hands of the valley
tribes.
The pursuit had taken Henchman considerably out of
his way and he marched to Marlboro to replenish his
ammunition and supplies, and then set out for Hadley.
The Indians, carefully watching Henchman's progress,
had, strange to say, entirely missed touch with Talcott,
and, confident that Henchman could not reach Hadley
for several days, and ignorant of Talcott's arrival, massed
their forces and came down the valley on the night of
the llth of June.
Dividing their forces they placed a strong party in the
meadows at the north end of the stockade to intercept
any English going out or any force attempting to enter
the town from Hatfield. The remainder stationed them
selves near the south end of the stockade with the inten
tion of attacking from that direction and calling the at
tention of the garrison away from the north.
King Philip's War 243
In the early morning three soldiers, having been warned
not to go far afield, were finally allowed by the sergeant
in charge to go out of the south gate. They had gone
but a short distance when a warwhoop was heard and
the men on guard saw them running back with a score
of Indians at their heels. All three fell before the stock
ade was gained, but the alarm was given, and when the
Indians at the north, thinking the garrison had been
withdrawn to meet the attack at the south gate, rushed
forward to take advantage of the confusion, they found
the stockade lined with troops and friendly Indians. Ig
norant as they were that five hundred men were within
the stockade, the appearance of so large a force, which
was evidently ready to sally out against them, so alarmed
and disconcerted them that they hastily withdrew up the
valley.
General Hoyt and Dr. Holland ascribe the appearance
of General Goffe to the occasion of this attack.
It was the last action in the valley. Their counter- j
stroke had failed, and, witR the massing of such a large I
force of trained troops and friendly Indians, their posi- \\
tion in the valley was rendered untenable. From that
day they were seen no more in force.
Henchman arrived on the 14th, and two days later the
combined force swept up the valley to Peskeqmpskut,
Henchman along the east and Talcott along the west bank
of the Connecticut. The weather was cold and chill,
and three miles out of town a thunderstorm overtook
and followed them up the valley. The Indian villages at
the Falls were deserted but they found, along the banks
of the river and in the neighboring swamps, the bodies
of Turner and many of his men, and gave them decent
244 King Philip's War
burial. The rain continued to fall in torrents, they were
wet to the skin, much of the ammunition was ruined,
the bread grew musty in the dampness, it was all but
impossible to make fire with the wood sodden with con
stant rain, and, after searching the woods to the east
and west, the whole force returned down the valley.1
The terror that had hung over the settlers so long was
lifted, the war was drifting back to the starting point,
and along the shores of Narragansett Bay the Indian
cause was entering on its death agony. The valley In
dians, disheartened by their constant repulses and loss of
supplies, and threatened by their old enemies the Mo
hawks, scattered, some far to the north, while others fled
for refuge to the tribes in New Hampshire and Maine,
who were still holding their own against the English.
i Connecticut War, Vol. I, Doc. 93.
CHAPTER XV
BEFORE the end of the month a force of thirty men,
under Captain Swaine,1 who had been left in com
mand of the valley, marched up to the old Indian en
campment on Smead's Island and destroyed the stockaded
fort, one hundred wigwams and thirty canoes, and large
quantities of supplies found buried in the Indian barns.2
On the 20th of June, Talcott was recalled by the Con
necticut authorities and a week later, Henchman also
left the valley for Boston, whither Brattle and Moseley
had preceded him. On the 30th while on the march, he
wrote to the Massachusett Council : " Our scouts brought
intelligence that all the Indians were in continual motion,
some towards the Narragansetts,, others toward Wachu-
sett, shifting gradually and taking up each others' quar
ters and lay not above a night in a place. The twenty-
seven scouts have brought in two squaws, a boy and a
girl, giving account of five slain. Yesterday they brought
1 Captain Jeremiah Swaine was of Reading. When the forces for
the Narragansett campaign were organized, he commanded, in lieu of
Captain Appleton who was also major of the regiment, the First Com
pany of the Massachusetts Line, as lieutenant. At the Narragansett
fight he was wounded. In 1677 he commanded a company sent to
Black Point in the Province of Maine, as part of a force to establish
there a base of supplies, and in 1679 he was captain of the foot company
in Reading. He also served as representative to the General Court.
In 1733 his heirs received a grant of land in the Narragansett Township
No. 3. (now Westminster, Mass.), in recognition of his services in Philip's
war. — Bodge. Massachusetts Colony Records.
2 Mather's Brief History, page 163.
J
246 King Philip's War
in an old fellow, brother to a sachem, six squaws and
children, having killed five men and wounded others.
These and others inform that Philip and the Narragan-
setts were gone several days before to their own places. " *
The information given to Henchman by his captives
in respect to the departure of Philip, was correct. Ac
companied by the remnant of the Wampanoags and
many Narragansetts he had turned in desperation again
toward his own country. Safety was no longer possible,
either in the valley or at Wachusett. The Mohawks were
threatening the valley Indians to the north, and the Nash-
aways, accusing him as the author of all their misfortunes,
would doubtless purchase their safety with his head if
the opportunity arose, and in the hope of regaining the
fishing grounds and the corn buried in the Indian barns,
and finding refuge in the wooded swamps along the coast,
he had turned to the south.
His appearance in the south had already been made
known to the Council of Massachusetts before the re
ceipt of Henchman's letter, by a renegade Indian, the
first of many traitors, sure indication of a dying cause,
who had come into Rehoboth on the 28th and offered to
conduct the English to the place not far distant where
Philip with about thirty followers were encamped.
On receipt of this news the Council immediately dis
patched Brattle toward Mount Hope with orders to pick
up various forces along the way, and to be at Wood
cock's garrison by midnight of the first. "There you
shall meet with an Indian pilot and two file of musketeers,
which pilot has agreed to bring you upon Philip who
1 Letter of Captain Henchman, June 30. Hubbard, Vol. I, page 238.
King Philip's War 247
hath not but thirty men, as he sayeth, and not ten miles
from Woodcock's. In case the enemy should be past
Mt. Hope and you can meet with the Plymouth forces
you are to join with them. " *
Brattle obeyed his orders to the letter, and with seventy-
six men, and accompanied by Moseley and the Rev.
William Hubbard,2 followed their Indian pilot "only to
find Philip newly gone. "
Affairs had come to a desperate pass with him now
and Philip's heart must have failed him as he took note
of the growing weakness and disaffection of the tribes,
but, whatever his failures as a leader may have been, he
went on, neither faltering nor seeking peace, to the end.
Harassed and hunted as they were, there still remained
opportunities for them to surprise and strike at isolated
and outlying garrisons, or a careless settler, and even
while Brattle and Moseley were searching for Philip, a
small band, hovering on the outskirts of Swansea, shot
down Hezekiah Willet 3 within sight of his father's
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXIX, pages 24, 25.
2 The Rev. William Hubbard was the author of "The History of The
Indian Wars in New England, " a contemporaneous record which is the
chief basis of all accounts of those times. He was born in England,
came to this country with his father, and was made freeman of Ipswich
in 1653. He graduated in the first class from Harvard College, and
November 17, 1658, was ordained in the ministry as colleague with
the Rev. Thomas Cobbett of Ipswich. " He was many years the most
eminent minister in the County of Essex; equal to any in the Province
for learning and candour, and superior to all his contemporaries as a
writer. " He was held in the highest esteem and was appointed by the
General Court to write the account of the Indian wars above mentioned,
for which a grant of money was made him. He died September 24, 1704,
aged eighty-three. See I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. X, pages 33, 34.
Savage.
a Hezekiah Willet, born November 17, 1653, was the son of Thomas,
248 King Philip's War
house, and striking off his head, carried it away as a
trophy.
Hubbard, in recounting this exploit, says that the
family frequently kept a sentinel in a watch tower built
on the top of the house, whence they could discover any
Indians before they came near, but not hearing of the
enemy in those parts for a considerable time they grew
careless, and within a quarter of an hour after young
Willet went out of the door he was killed and a negro
servant of the family who accompanied him, carried
away into captivity.
Mather says there were omens of coming events. " On
the 15th of June a bow had been seen in the sky and many
strange and unnatural events occurred presaging great
events, " for " common observation verified by experience
of many ages, show that great and public calamity has
seldom come upon any place without religious warning. "
The Connecticut forces left behind by Talcott had,
during his absence, continually raided the Narragansett
country "taking above thirty, the most of which being
men are said to have been slain by them," in one expe
dition, and soon after capturing a party of forty-five
"most of which probably were women and children but
being all young serpents of the same brood, the subdu
ing and taking so many ought to be acknowledged as
another signal victory and pledge of Divine pleasure."
Supplies were pouring in from the neighboring colonies
an early settler of the Indian lands at Wannamoiset in Swansea (now
Riverside, R. I.). He married, January 7, 1676, his first cousin Ann,
daughter of John Brown the second, and was killed by the Indians
July 1st following. "As hopeful a young gentleman as any in these
parts."
King Philip's War 249
of Connecticut and New York, and even distant Ireland
sent a shipload of provisions. June 21st had been set
apart as a day of humiliation and prayer; the 29th was
proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving.
Major Talcott, recalled from the Connecticut Valley
in the latter part of June, had reorganized his command
at Norwich and before the 1st of July was again abroad
in the Narragansett country accompanied by Captains
Denison and Newberry with three hundred English and
Indians. On July 2d, it being the Sabbath, and the sun
about an hour high, the scouts from the top of a hill
discovered a large Indian encampment in a cedar swamp
at Nachek.1 The English, who were all mounted, mak
ing a circuit, closed in upon the swamp from both sides
and the rear, while the Pequots and Mohegans rushed
down the hill. There was no escape from the trap.
The Mohegans, joined by Captain Newberry and his
men, sword in hand, glutted themselves with slaughter
in the fastnesses of the swamp, while the Narragansetts,
who sought safety in flight, were pursued and cut down by
the troopers. Forty-five women and children were taken, j
and one hundred and twenty-six, including thirty-four /
warriors, were slain. Among the slain, Talcott reported, /
was "that old piece of venom, Sunk squaw Magnus,"
and "our old friend Watawaikeson,2 Pessacus his agent,
and in his pocket Captain Allyn's ticket for his free pas-
1 This was on the south bank of the Pawtuxet River, below Natick.
The exact place of this massacre is not known. It was seven miles from
Providence. — Rider.
2 The messenger between the Connecticut Council of War and Pessa
cus, in the peace negotiations. — Major Talcott to Connecticut Council,
Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II, page 458.
250 King Philip's War
sage up to headquarters." Among the dead also was
Stonewall John.1
No Englishman lost his life in this conflict, and only
one friendly Indian. Resistance there had been none,
and the whole affair was emphatically an indiscriminate
massacre of those who possessed no means of resistance,
and were mostly women, children and old men.
On the next day Talcott marched to Providence and
received information that the enemy were there to make
peace with some of the Rhode Islanders, "upon which
information, being willing to set our seal to it, we posted
away and drest Providence's necks, killing and captur
ing sixty-seven of the Indians we found there," among
them Potuck, a minor sachem of the Narragansetts whose
village was located on Point Judith.
Informed by one of his captives that Philip was at
Mount Hope, Talcott would have gone in pursuit but
could not persuade his Indians to accompany him. On
account of the scarcity of provisions and the terms of
some of his men having expired; he therefore turned
homeward on the 4th, marching along the Bay by way
of Point Judith to Stonington.
On this march an Indian prisoner, who had taunted
his captors with the number of English and friendly
Indians he had killed, was turned over by Talcott to the
mercy of the Mohegans. "He boldly told them that he
had with his gun dispatched nineteen English and that
he had charged it for the twentieth, but not meeting with
another, and unwilling to lose a fair shot, he had let fly
at a Mohegan and killed him, with which, having made
Drake's Book of the Indians, Book III, page 78.
King Philip's War 251
up his number, he was satisfied. . . . This cruel
monster has fallen into their power which will repay him
seven fold. "
" In the first place therefore making a great circle they
placed him in the middle that all their eyes might at the
same time be pleased with the utmost revenge upon him.
They first cut one of his fingers round in the joint at the
trunk of his hand, with a sharp knife and then brake
it off, as men do with a slaughtered beast before they
uncase him; then they cut off another and another till
they had dismembered one hand of all its digits, the blood
sometimes spurting out in streams a yard from his hand,
which barbarous and unheard of cruelty the English were
not able to bear, it forcing tears from their eyes, yet did
not the sufferer ever relent or show any sign of anguish,
for being asked by some of his tormentors how he liked
the war . . . this unsensible and hard-hearted mon
ster answered, he liked it very well and found it as sweet
as Englishmen did their sugar. In this frame he con
tinued until his executioners had dealt with the toes of
his feet as they had done with the fingers of his hands,
all the while making him dance round the circle and sing,
till he wearied both himself and them. At last they brake
the bones of his legs, after which he was forced to sit
down which 'tis said he silently did, till they knocked out
his brains " 1 Then, continues Hubbard, " Instances of
this nature should be incentive to us to bless the Father
of Lights who hath called us out of the dark places of
the earth. "
The blame for this act of barbarous cruelty does not
Hubbard, Vol. II, page 64.
\
252 King Philip's War
lie upon the Mohegans, with whom the torture of a pris
oner was a custom sanctioned by immemorial usage, but
upon Talcott himself who, having the power to prevent
such a barbarity, lent to it the approval of his presence,
and as an Englishman had no excuse whatever.
In the meantime Captain Church, than whom no one
was more fitted by experience for the particular duties of
a partisan leader, had again appeared on the scene after
many months of inaction. He had not been on good
terms with the Plymouth authorities during the winter,
the fault lying as much with their constant interference
as in his own infirmities of temper, but his services had
now become invaluable for the partisan warfare into
which the conflict had degenerated. Some time before
they had asked him for advice as to the best means of
protecting the colony from the marauding bands who were
committing great destruction of property, and he had
proposed the raising of a body of volunteers and a large
number of Indians as scouts. They refused with asper
ity and contempt to employ any Indians, and Church,
angry at the treatment accorded him, removed his family
to Duxbury despite the advice of his friends who had
urged him to leave his wife and family at Clark's garri
son house at Plymouth.1 Fortunate it was for them that
he refused, or they would have shared the fate of that
unfortunate family at the hands of Tatoson.
Late in June, while returning from Plymouth to Narra-
gansett Bay around the Cape, he discovered, near Fal-
mouth, two Indians personally known to him, engaged in
fishing. Calling them to go to a point clear of bushes
Baylie's Memoirs of Plymouth, Part III, page 128.
King Philip's War 253
near by, he landed and entered into conversation with
them, and was told by one named George, that the Sa-
conet tribe was weary of war and would gladly give up
their arms if assured of amnesty.
Church proposed Richmond's Farm, near Falmouth,
as a place of meeting in two days, and hastening to Plym
outh returned with permission of the Governor to enter
into negotiations with the Saconet queen, Awashonks.
On reaching the place of meeting, the warriors, decked
in their war paint, arose from the grass in a fierce man
ner. Turning quietly he asked them to lay aside their
arms, which they did. When all were seated he poured
some rum in a shell and drank it, and, to calm the sus
picion of the queen, who suspected poison, poured out
more and drank it from his hand as a cup.
After some mutual recriminations an agreement was
reached, and though Major Bradford assumed an arbi
trary attitude toward both Church and the Saconets, the
Plymouth authorities, after an examination of Peter
(Awashonk's son), and other Indian delegates, appointed
a commission, consisting of Captain Church, Jabez How-
land l and Nathaniel Southworth,2 to confer with the
Saconets. Church and Southworth, leaving the remainder
of the commission at Sandwich, soon came to the shores
of Buzzard's Bay, and hearing a great noise at a consid-
1 Jabez Rowland, son of John of the Mayflower, was of Duxbury
and served during Philip's war as lieutenant in Captain Benjamin
Church's company. After the war he settled in Bristol and became an
innkeeper. He was representative in 1689-90. — Savage.
2 Nathaniel Southworth, born in 1648, was first of Plymouth, then of
Middleboro. He was a lieutenant in Philip's war. He was represen
tative in 1696, and died January 14, 1711. His sister Alice was the wife
of Captain Benjamin Church. — Savage.
254 King Philip's War
erable distance from them upon the bank, were presently
in sight of a "vast company of Indians of all ages and
sexes, some on horseback running races, some at football,
some catching eels and flatfish in the water, some clam
ming, " etc. Church called and two of them rode up to
see who it was. They were Awashonk's people, and,
feasting with the queen and her councilors that night,
they offered him their services against Philip.1
Plymouth accepted their submission, and a short time
thereafter we find many of their number serving under
Church, the offer of whose services as a leader of a force
of volunteers and Indian scouts was accepted soon after
the close of the negotiations with the Saconets. Thence
forth we find him the most active commander in the
field, the runner to earth of the hostile sachems, tracking
them into the deep recesses of the swamp with the unfail
ing keenness of a wolfhound, and recruiting Indians
from the hostile forces by flattery and the promise of
good pay. He played his part with skill and effect, but
the task was no longer difficult, for traitors and deserters
were saving their own lives by betrayals of their chiefs,
and kept the whites well informed of the movement of
every considerable body of their countrymen. Philip,
worried and distressed by the numerous forces of the
English in the field, had been driven for safety to the
fastnesses of the great swamps that spread over all that
part of Plymouth colony from Monponsit and Rehoboth
on the north to Dartmouth on the south. He dodged
his pursuers hither and thither, making no stand but
seeking refuge in the inaccessible hiding places which the
1 Church's Entertaining History, pages 21-30.
King Philip's War 255
Indians knew so well. He was still able to strike, how
ever, and in order to encourage his disheartened warriors
he endeavored to surprise Taunton on the llth of July,
but the negro servant of Hezekiah Willet of Wannamoiset,
who had been taken prisoner at the time of his master's
death, and was acquainted with the Indian tongue, es
caped and made known their design, and the inhabitants
drove off the attacking force before they had accom
plished other mischief than the destruction of two houses.1
Three days later Bridgewater 2 was attacked, the In
dians coming upon the north side of the town, but after
killing a few cattle they retired. The next day they came
again but with no better success, for though much ex
posed, Bridgewater was inhabited largely by a colony of
young men, who, from the outbreak of the conflict, had
refused to retire into Plymouth and give up their homes
when they had been solicited to do so.
It was the last feeble stroke for a lost cause. From
all sides the whites and large bands of Indians were hunt
ing him down; traitors were many and Philip knew no
longer whom to trust. Powder and provisions were gone,
no shelter was secure from the eyes of the Mohegans,
Naticks and the renegades (and all who had hope of
1 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 241. See also Mather's Prevalency of Prayer,
page 261.
2 The house built for the first minister of the town, the Rev. James
Keith, almost directly opposite the north end of the most westerly bridge
across the river, is still standing, and not far from this was located the
church and cemetery, on what is now known as Howard Street, the site
being marked by a monument. Nearly a mile easterly from the- minis
ter's house, was one of the garrison houses, the location of this being
the only one that can now be identified. The village of that day was
identical with the present village of West Bridgewater and lay chiefly
along the north side of the Nunketetest or Town River.
256 King Philip's War
mercy were seeking only an opportunity to give them
selves up).
Moseley and Brattle and the other forces kept close
upon his heels, searching out his hiding places and by
their unflagging pursuit compelling him to constantly
change his camp, while Major Bradford held the fording
places of the Taunton River.
Through all the country around Rehoboth, through
the great morass known as the Night Swamp, a marshy
tract of some three thousand acres covered with tall
marsh grass and wood, along the confines of the Meta-
poiset peninsula, amid the swamps that border on the
Taunton River and around Assowomset Pond the Eng
lish followed him. In a swamp near Dartmouth they
came suddenly upon his camp; the fires were still burn
ing and food was cooking in the kettles, the blankets and
arms abandoned in wild haste, and the bodies of several
of his warriors who had died of their wounds and lay
unburied, told them how close they had been to him.1
On the 22d of July the Massachusetts forces returned
to Boston, some to be disbanded, others to be sent to
Maine and New Hampshire where the eastern war was
raging with unabated fury. They had killed and wounded
nearly one hundred and fifty Indians and their services
were no longer required in the south, or in Massachusetts,
where the Nipmucks had given way to despair.
The Councils of Massachusetts and Plymouth, in order
to paralyze resistance, early in July offered an opportu
nity of surrender to those who might reasonably hope
for pardon, by a proclamation that whatever Indians
i Hubbard, Vol. I, page 257.
'
Q ^
O ^
H J
o
King Philip's War 257
within fourteen days next ensuing come into the English,
might hope for mercy. By many the opportunity was
gladly accepted, and the 6th of July witnessed the sur
render of over three hundred of the Plymouth and Cape
Indians, with several of their sachems.
Sagamore Sam of Nashaway, through whose efforts
there is but little doubt that many of the English captives
had been redeemed, was among those who offered sub
mission, and with him Muttaump, John the Pakachooge,
and other of the Nipmucks, and on the 6th of July these
sachems entreated them piteously in the following letter : 1
"Mr. John Leveret, my Lord, Mr. Waban, and all
the chief men our brethren Praying to God: We beseech
you all to help us: my wife she is but one, but there be
more Prisoners, which we pray you keep well; Matta-
muck his wife we entreat you for her, and not only that
man, but it is the Request of Two Sachems, Sam Sachem
of Weshakum, and the Pakashoag Sachem.
"And that further you will consider about the making
Peace: We have spoken to the People of Nashobah (viz.
Tom Dubler and Peter) that we would agree with you,
and make a Covenant of Peace with you. We have been
destroyed by your Souldiers, but still we Remember it
now to sit still; Do you consider it again: We do ear
nestly entreat you, that it may be so by Jesus Christ.
O ! let it be so ! Amen, Amen. "
Sagamore Sam in the hope of mercy, wrote them again
recalling his efforts in behalf of the English captives, but
no word of hope was sent him or the others. The appeal
i Drake's Book of the Indians, Book, III. The original letter is not
to be found.
258 King Philip's War
fell upon ears deaf to all mercy, and Sagamore Sam and
the rest in despair fled to the Tarratines.
If the English were ready to extend mercy to some
it was not to the chiefs and those most active in war,
and their reply that "Treacherous persons that began
the war and those that have been barbarously bloody
must not expect to have their lives spared, but others
that have been drawn into the war and acted only as
soldiers and submit to be without arms and live quietly
and peaceably in the future shall have their lives spared,"
closed the door of hope in the face of all the chief sachems
of the tribes. They could make but little resistance, and
the war had already degenerated into the hunting down
of hostiles who, with but little food and ammunition, had
hidden themselves in the thickets.
Amid the general rack and faint-heartedness some
sterner natures fought resolutely to the end. Pumham,
starved and surprised with a handful of warriors (many
of them his relatives), near Dedham, by Captain Hunt
ing and a mixed force of whites and Indians, July 27th,
asked no quarter, but, mortally wounded by a shot in
the back and unable to stand, retained his hatchet and
fought to the death, for, catching hold of an Englishman
who came upon him as he lay in the bushes, whither he
had crawled for safety, he would have slain him had not
another Englishman come to the rescue. His son was
with him, says Hubbard, "a likely youth and one whose
countenance would have besought favor for him had he
not belonged to so barbarous and bloody an Indian as
his father was. " Fifteen of the band perished with their
chief, and thirty-four others fell into the hands of the
English.
King Philip's War 259
Fugitive bands were constantly coming into the English
lines. Some were seized by the way while others not only
gave themselves up but brought in some chief known to
be obnoxious to the whites, as a peace offering. In this
way Matoonas was delivered into the hands of the Eng
lish by Sagamore John, a sachem of the Nipmucks, who,
with one hundred and eighty of his followers, gave him
self up on the 27th,1 and sought to ingratiate himself
with the English by acting as executioner of Matoonas.
Pursued by the whites and friendly Indians, and, in
some cases, attacked by their allies of a few days back,
the plight of the tribes was pitiful in the extreme. It
had become for the English merely a matter of " exter
minating the rabid animals, which, by a most unac
countable condition from heaven, had now neither
strength or sense left them to do anything for their own
defense. "
With the departure of the Massachusetts troops the
task of stamping out the last embers of the war in Plym
outh colony fell to the regular forces of Major Bradford
and Captain Church's volunteers, while the Connecticut
forces crushed all resistance among the Narragansetts.
Major Bradford's plan of campaign seems to have been
limited to holding the fording places along the Taunton
River and covering the towns, a strictly defensive policy
of no value in bringing the war to a close. But if Brad
ford was inactive, not so Church. Doubtless Church
magnified his own exploits, for his narrative, dictated
forty years after the occurrence, is not remarkable for
modesty, and the length of time which transpired between
Hubbard, Vol. I, page 260.
260 King Philip's War
the events and their narration did not lend itself to accu
racy.
On the 25th of July, Church received his commission
from Plymouth colony, and in command of some eighteen
picked English volunteers and twenty-two Indians
marched to Middleboro.
At dawn the next day, seeing the bivouac fires of a
party of Narragansetts, he surrounded their camp and
captured them all. Learning from his captives that an
other party of Narragansetts was near Monponsit Pond,
he hastened back to Plymouth only to be foiled in his
quest by the Plymouth authorities who bade him guard
a convoy of supplies being sent to Major Bradford. On
the march information reached him that Tuspaquin was
encamped at Assawomset Pond, and sending the convoy
on with a small guard, he marched with all speed to come
upon him unawares. Leaving a small guard at the cross
ing of the Acushnet River, the remainder of the force
pushed on a short distance and encamped, but, tired out
with the labors of the last few days, the sentinels and all
fell asleep. Church himself awoke before daybreak, and,
alarmed by the danger to which they had exposed them
selves, he sent a party to bring in the guards at the river,
who came upon a party of Indians examining the trail
over which Church had marched the day before. Find
ing the guards at the ford also asleep, they roused them,
and in the course of the morning met and captured a
number of Saconet Indians who had abandoned their
countrymen when peace was made.
Ascertaining from a captured squaw that Philip and
Quinnapin were only two miles away in a great cedar
swamp, Church followed, and, concealing himself with
King Philip's War 261
one comrade and an Indian in the meadows, saw the whole
body of the Indians defile before him. Church now di
vided his command, the Indians taking the road to the
west around the swamp and Church and his volunteers
setting out to the east, with the agreement that both par
ties should meet at John Cook's house at Acushnet.
When they met at the rendezvous it was found that the
English had killed three of the enemy and taken sixty-
three prisoners, mostly women who had been surprised
while gathering berries, and the Indians had killed and
captured the same number, among them Tyask's wife
and son, and secured many guns.1
Bradford was still at Taunton guarding the fords, and
Philip, harried by Church and unable to cross the river,
took refuge in the country bordering on the Taunton
River, moving up towards Bridgewater. The men of
Bridgewater were on the alert and a small party of them
ranging the woods discovered one of Philip's scouts and,
judging that a considerable force was near at hand, re
treated in all haste to Bridgewater. On the next day
(the Sabbath) messengers were dispatched to Plymouth
to inform the authorities that the Indians were evidently
designing to cross the river near Bridgewater. Church
was at Plymouth at the time and, begging what provi
sions were necessary, immediately marched out and
reached Monponset Pond as the evening fell; his men
worn out by their rapid march in the heat of the day
could go no further. The messengers, however, pushed
on to Bridgewater with notice of his approach.
Early the next morning, July 31st, a force of twenty-
1 Church's Entertaining History, page 32-37.
262 King Philip's War
one men marched out from Bridgewater to meet him but,
as fortune would have it, fell in with Philip and a mixed
company of Wampanoags and Narragansetts in the act
of crossing the Taunton River on a tree which had been
felled for a bridge.1
A sharp conflict followed, but the Indians, fully ex
posed to the fire of the English, drew off, having lost
several of their number, among them Akkompoin,2 Philip's
uncle. A number of captives also fell into the hands of
the English, including, according to Mather, Philip's
sister. Church, who was probably reconnoitering along
the northern edge of the cedar swamp that extended
towards Middleboro, heard the firing but as it lasted
only a short time missed the direction, and as night was
falling went on to the town.
On the following day, August 1st, he marched out
very early in the morning with his own company of thirty
English and twenty Indians, and accompanied by many
of the townsmen, and soon came "very still to the top
of the great tree which the enemy had fallen across the
river, and the captain spied an Indian sitting upon the
stump of it on the other side of the river and he clapped
his gun up and had doubtless dispatched him but that
one of his own Indians called hastily to him not to fire
for he believed it was one of his own men, upon which
the Indian upon the stump looked about and Captain
Church's Indian seeing his face perceived his mistake
1 This tree probably lay over the stream somewhere between what
are now known as Covington's and Woodbury's bridges.
2 H Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. VII, page 157. This account was
supposed to have been written by Comfort Willis, one of those who dis
covered the first Indian and who went as a messenger to Plymouth.
King Philip's War 263
for he knew him to be Philip, clapped up his gun and
fired, but it was too late, for Philip immediately threw
himself off the stump, leaped down a bank on the side of
the river and made his escape. " l
Church, crossing the river,2 threw out his men in a
long line and marched swiftly forward, the Indians fly
ing before him, but he picked up many of the women and
children in the pursuit, among them Philip's wife, Woo-
lonekanuske, and his only child, a son nine years of age.
Following a newly made trail, Church and his men pushed
forward, and after fording the river, in a short time over
took the women and children of Quinnapins' Narragan-
setts, who, faint and tired, had fallen behind. Learning
from these captives that Philip was near by he resumed
the pursuit and about sunset heard the Indians chopping
wood for their camp fires in the midst of a swamp. When
the night had fallen he drew his force up in a ring and
sat down in the swamp without any noise or fire, and
before dawn sent forward two scouts to reconnoiter ; but
Philip had done the same and his Indians, seeing Church's
men, fled shouting to the Indian camp. Church pushed
forward with all haste, but before he could come up with
them Philip and his warriors had fled deeper into the
swamp, leaving their kettles boiling and meats roasting
upon the wooden spits. Confident that they would at
tempt to leave the swamp in some other direction, he
1 Church's Entertaining History, page 38.
2 The pursuit of Church after Philip, commencing at the fallen tree
over the Taunton River not far from the present railway station at
Titicut, passed westerly to the southward of Nippenicket Pond, through
the northern part of Taunton, past Winniconnet Pond in Norton, then,
bearing southwesterly, came into a swamp in the northern part of Re-
hoboth, where they came upon Philip as above related.
264 King Philip's War
sent Lieutenant Rowland with a party around one side
of the swamp while he himself, after leaving a guard at
the place where Philip had entered, in the hope that if
he discovered Rowland's force he would return on his
tracks, marched around on the other side and joined
Rowland at the further end.
Philip, believing the English would follow him in the
swamp, had laid an ambush also, at the same time
sending a band of warriors, with most of the women and
children, to make their way out in the opposite direction.
The latter, however, came upon Rowland and Church
unexpectedly and one of the Christian Indians, at
Church's bidding, shouting to them that "if they fired
one gun they were all dead men," the English rushed
forward and seized the guns out of their hands.
Having secured these prisoners, they then advanced
and came upon Philip. Here a desperate fight was
maintained for some time but Philip finally fled, and
the English following fell into the ambuscade Philip
had placed and one of their number, Thomas Lucas l
of Plymouth was slain. Philip, Totoson and Tuspa-
quin, continuing their retreat, fell in with the party left
at the entrance, but finally broke through and got safely
away.
During the conflict, Church, with two companions, met.
three of the enemy, two of whom surrendered themselves
and were seized by the captain's guard, but the other, a
great stout, surly fellow, with his two locks tied up with
red and a great rattlesnake's skin hanging to the back
1 Thomas Lucas had a bad record for drunkenness, abusing his wife
and reviling deceased magistrates. His name figures constantly in the
court records.
King Philip's War 265
of his head (whom they concluded to be Totoson) ran
from them into the swamp.
The necessity of looking after his prisoners who now
numbered over one hundred and seventy, and of pro
curing supplies, compelled Church to give over the pur
suit. The prisoners were marched to Taunton where
they "were well treated with food and drink and had a
merry night of it." l
1 Church's Entertaining History, page 38-41.
CHAPTER XVI
" XT'OU have made Philip ready to die, you have made
•*• him as poor and miserable as he used to make the
English, for you have now killed and taken all his rela
tions, but this bout almost broke his heart," said the
Indian prisoners taken in this engagement, to Church.
That the arch enemy, who, in their eyes, more than
any other individual, had been instrumental in bringing
about this most devastating war, should at last experi
ence the utmost misery and mental torture through his
affections, could not fail to be a source of abundant sat
isfaction to the generation which saw in Philip nothing
but a fiend. The old chronicles give us abundance of
testimony on this point.
"Philip was forced to leave his treasures, his beloved
wife and only son, to the mercy of the English. . . .
Such sentence sometime passed upon Cain made him cry
out that his punishment was greater than he could bear.
This bloody wretch had one week or two more to live,
an object of pity, but a spectacle of Divine vengeance,
his own followers beginning now to plot against his life. " 1
"It must be as bitter as death to him to lose his wife
and only son, for the Indians are marvelously fond and
affectionate towards their children. " 2
The question as to the disposal of Philip's son and
wife — whether they should be executed or sold into sla-
i Hubbard, Vol. I, page 263.
a Mather's Brief History, page 189.
King Philip's War 267
very — was widely debated, the clergy (with a few excep
tions), proving themselves, as usual, the most relentless
of judges. Precedents of severity were diligently searched
for in the Scriptures, and duly found. "We humbly
.conceive that children of notorious traitors, rebels and
murderers, especially of such as have been principals and
leaders in such horrid villainies, and that against a whole
nation, yea, the whole Israel of God, may be involved
in the guilt of their parents and may be adjudged to
death, as to us seems evident by the scriptural instances
of Saul, Achan, and Haman, the children of whom were
cut off by the sword of justice for the transgressions of
their parents, although concerning some of those children
it be manifest that they were not capable of being co-
actors therein, " * was the grim statement of Rev. Samuel
Arnold.
"Philip's son makes me think of Hadad, who was a
little child when his father, chief sachem of the Edom-
ites, was killed by Joab, and had not others fled away
with him I am apt to think that David would have taken
a course that Hadad should never have proved a scourge
to the next generation, " 2 wrote Increase Mather.
But there were some who were inclined to be merciful to
Philip's son, and whose hearts were troubled, among them
Eliot and Reverend Mr. Keith of Bridgewater, the latter
of whom quotes II Chron. xxv, 4 : " But he slew not their
children, but did as was written in the law in the Book
of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying, the fathers
shall not die for the children, neither shall the children
1 Samuel Arnold, pastor of Marshfield, to John Cotton, September,
1676.
2 Increase Mather to John Cotton, October 30, 1676.
268 King Philip's War
die for the fathers, but every man shall die for his own
sins."
A letter of the Rev. John Cotton, written in the fol
lowing March, contains the brief statement, "Philip's
boy goes now to be sold. " Sent to Bermuda or the Span
ish Indies the boy and his mother disappear from the
pages of history.1
With them vanished the race of Massasoit, the remem
brance of whose friendship of forty long years, and their
own innocence, should have pleaded for them, and their
fate arouses a just indignation at the lack of manly gen
erosity, which could stoop, in all self-righteousness, to such
an act of barbarity against this child and his mother.
Weetamoo, flying with a small remnant of her people,
took refuge in a dense swamp near Taunton early in
August, but an Indian deserter, in order to ingratiate
himself with the whites, carried the news to the people
of that place on the 6th, and offered to lead a force to the
encampment, which he declared was but a few miles dis
tant. Twenty men immediately set out, and, surprising
the encampment, took over a score of prisoners, but
Weetamoo herself escaped. Attempting to cross the
Taunton River near its mouth, on a raft or some pieces
of broken wood, and either "tired or spent with rowing,
or starved with cold and hunger," her strength failed
and her naked body was brought to the shore by tide or
current. Some days later, "someone of Taunton finding
an Indian squaw in Metapoiset, newly dead, cut off her
head, and it happened to be Weetamoo, squaw sachem, her
!The discussion in regard to the disposal of Philip's wife and son,
and the ultimate outcome is to be found in full in Davis' Notes to Mor
ton's New England Memorial. Appendix, page 454.
King Philip's War 269
head, " 1 which, placed on a pole and paraded through
Taunton, was greeted by the lamentations of the captive
Indians who knew her, crying out that it was their queen's
head. " A severe and proud dame she was, " says Mrs.
Rowlandson, "bestowing every day in dressing herself
near as much time as any gentry in the land. " Such
treatment meted out to the dead body of a white woman
would have sent Mather searching the Scriptures for a
proper characterization of the barbarity and wickedness
of the act.
On the 7th of August, Church again left Plymouth,
and, falling in with Tatoson's band, dispersed them, and
captured Sam Barrow,2 who had participated in the mas
sacre of the Clark family. They told him that " because
of his inhumane murders and barbarities" the court al
lowed him no quarter. Stoically asking that he be allowed
a whiff or two of tobacco it was given him, and after
puffing away a moment or two he told them he was ready,
1 Mather's Brief History, page 191.
Winanimoo, or Weetamoo, it is supposed was the daughter of Cor-
bitant, sachem of Mattapoiset. In 1651 she was known as Nummum-
paum, and was the wife of an Indian called Wecquequinequa, and en
joyed the title of squaw-sachem or "queen" of Pocasset. In 1656 she
had become the wife of Massasoit's eldest son, Wamsutta, and called
herself Tatapanum. After the death of Alexander, as he was then
called, she married Quiquequanchett, and after his departure contracted
a matrimonial alliance with Petownonowit, a man of considerable abil
ity but who espoused the cause of the whites in Philip's war while she
firmly allied herself to the Indian cause. She abandoned her husband
and married Quinnapin, a Narragansett, cousin to Canonchet, chief of
that tribe. With him she was present at the destruction of Lancaster
and throughout the march which Mrs. Rowlandson accompanied as a
captive, and from whose pen we have learned much of Weetamoo. — New
England Register, Vol. LIV, page 261.
2 He was said to have been Totoson's father.
270 King Philip's War
whereupon one of Church's Indians dashed out his brains
with a hatchet. Tatoson escaped the fate of most of his
followers and fled with his son, a lad about eight years
old, and an old squaw, to Agawom (in Rochester). Here,
a short time after, " his son which was the last which was
left of his family, fell sick" (and died), and "the wretch
reflecting upon the miserable condition he had brought
himself unto, his heart became as a stone and he died.
The old squaw flung a few leaves and bushes over him
and came into Sandwich, " where she also died a few
days after. Philip's hiding places around Assowomset
Pond had now become untenable. Numerous bodies of
mounted troops and friendly Indians guarded the fords
and trails toward the north and scoured the country in
all directions, and Philip, hunted for everywhere, fled
southward in the hope, it is said, of reaching the Narra-
gansett country. Church, who had left Plymouth on the
9th, was once again in pursuit, but lost the trail, and at
fault as to Philip's whereabouts, after beating the woods
around Pocasset, finally ferried his men across the east
arm of Narragansett Bay into Rhode Island on the llth.
Leaving them encamped near the landing place, he took
horse to Major Sanford's house,1 some eight miles away,
to see his wife, "who no sooner saw him than she fainted
with surprise," and by the time she had revived, they
espied two horsemen (Major Sanford 2 and Captain
1 Major Sanford lived about half a mile south of the present Ports
mouth line, in what is now Middletown, then Newport.
2 Major Peleg Sanford was born at Newport, R. I., May 10, 1639.
He was appointed captain of a troop of horse July 24, 1667, and be
came major in 1679 and later lieutenant-colonel. He was deputy to
the General Court two years and for eight years assistant. He was
King Philip's War 271
Goulding) riding rapidly up the road. They called out
to him, "What would he give to hear some news of
Philip ? " They had ridden hard in the hope of overtak
ing him, for a Wampanoag had come down from Philip's
camp to Sand's Point where, by signals and shouting, he
attracted the attention of the English who rowed over
and took him off. He told them that a short time pre
viously Philip had killed his brother for giving advice
that displeased him, and he had fled in fear of meeting
the same fate.
Riding immediately to the camp where the Wampa
noag had been taken they found him willing to guide
them to Philip's hiding place. The whole force, march
ing with great rapidity, crossed the water at Bristol Ferry
(then called Tripp's Ferry) which was at that point half
a mile wide, and arrived shortly after midnight at their
destination, a little upland in the north end of a miry
swamp at the foot of Mount Hope. Church gave Cap
tain Goulding l command of a small force, with orders,
as soon as it was daybreak, to beat up Philip's hiding
place and drive him into flight, and bade him pursue,
shouting, in order that the Indians who fled silently might
general treasurer from 1G78 to 1681, and Governor from 1680 to 1683.
In 1687 he was member of the council of Sir Edmond Andros. He died
in 1701 and his will was proved September 1st of that year. See Austin's
Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, page 171.
1 Captain Roger Goulding was of Newport, R. I. It was he that
came with his vessel to the rescue of Captain Church at Punkatees Neck
early in the war. Plymouth colony granted him one hundred acres of
land on the north side of Saconet as a reward for his helpfulness in the
transportation of the military forces across the water. In 1685 he was
deputy to the court, and from 1685 to 1691, with the exception of one
year, he was " Major for the Island. " He died before 1702. See Aus
tin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, page 84.
272 King Philip's War
be known as enemies. Captain Williams 1 of Scituate
was stationed on one side of the swamp, a soldier and an
Indian being placed behind the trees at short intervals
so as to cover the trails and paths leading out, with orders
to fire at anyone that should come silently through the
swamp. Church and Major Sanford then spread the re
maining force on the other side and took their stand
together. "I have so placed them it is scarce possible
Philip should escape them," said Church to his com
panion. The same moment a shot whistled over their
heads, then the noise of a gun towards Philip's camp
followed immediately by the sound of a volley.
Goulding and his men, crawling along on their bellies,
had advanced cautiously in the gray of the morning, and
were close upon the sleeping camp when the captain
came suddenly upon an Indian who appeared to be look
ing full at him. He fired immediately and the camp
awoke to life in wild confusion.
Philip, seizing his pouch, gun and powderhorn, plunged
at once into the swamp, clad in his small-breeches and
moccasins, and running along one of the paths came di
rectly upon Caleb Cook 2 and an Indian named Alder
man (not the traitor, as has so often picturesquely been
declared), but a subject of Awashonks. Cook's gun hung
fire, for the morning air was heavy with mist, but the
Indian sent one bullet through the heart and another two
inches above it, "where Joab thrust his darts into rebel
lious Absolom, " and Philip fell upon his face in the mud.
1 Captain John Williams was of Scituate in 1643. He served in Philip's
war in command of a company. He died June 22, 1694, aged seventy.
He left no family. — Savage.
2 II Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. IV, page 63.
King Philip's War 273
The greater part of the Indians escaped, for, perceiv
ing that they were waylaid on the west side of the swamp
they tacked short about. One of the enemy who seemed
to be a great, surly fellow, shouted with a loud voice and
often called out " lootash, lootash. " In answer to
Church's inquiry as to who it was that called out so,
Peter (the Saconet) said that it was old Annawon, Philip's
great captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it and
fight stoutly. The Indian whose shot had laid the sachem
dead in the mire rushed to Church with the news, and
when the whole force assembled Church informed them
of Philip's fate. They greeted the news with cheers, and
the friendly Indians, grasping the body by the leggings
and small of the breeches, drew it out of the mud to the
upland. "A doleful great naked dirty beast he looked
like," says Church, "and for as much as he had caused
many English to lie unburied and rot above ground, not
one of his bones shall be buried. " An Indian executioner,
first addressing the dead Philip to the effect that he had
been a very great man and made many a man afraid of
him, beheaded and quartered the body in the manner of
one executed according to the laws of England, for high
treason.1 Five of his men had fallen with him.
The troops, returning to Plymouth, brought the good
tidings that the arch enemy was dead, and received each
his four shillings sixpence.
Philip's dismembered body had been hung in quarters
1 This account of Philip's surprise and death is taken mainly from
Church's narrative. — Entertaining History, pages 42 to 45. The event
was made known to the Governor and Council of Connecticut by a let
ter from Mr. Wm. Jones of New Haven. Connecticut Colony Records
(Journal of the Council of War), Vol. II, page 471.
274 King Philip's War
upon four trees, but his head, carried through the streets
of Plymouth on the 17th of August, was set upon a pole
where it remained for nearly a quarter of a century, and
about the year 1700, Dr. Mather, upon an occasion, " took
off the jaw from the exposed skull of that blasphemous
leviathan, " while a hand, given to the Indian, Alderman,
and preserved in rum, was shown through the settlements
and won for its possessor many a penny. "He, like as
Agog, was hewn to pieces before the Lord. So let all
thine enemies perish, O Lord,"
His history and biography were written by contempo
rary enemies who regarded him as a Caananite and them
selves as the elect of God. They were manifestly incap
able of weighing testimony under such circumstances,
nor were they, individually, men from whom cool consid
eration or an impartial conclusion could be expected.
The records and the voluminous correspondence of the
time shed abundant light upon the events that led up to
the Indian war and those that attended it, and the reader
to-day, far removed from the narrow theological and ra
cial standpoint of the contemporary writers, can lend
himself to fairer judgment.
Numerous legends, as little deserving of credence as
tales of Philip's cruelty and cowardice, abound; but much
has come to light of late years from which we can arrive
at some approximation as to his real character. Pride
and resentment against the English, and a sullen mis
trust of their intentions, must have been as fire in his
breast under the nagging tyranny and the proclaimed
policy of stamping out the independence of the tribes,
and the systematic subversion of his authority by their
interference with every tradition and usage of Indian
King Philip's War 275
life. No man with self-respect could defy the sentiment
of his own people in such circumstances. As a statesman
he had abilities of no small order. A man mean, cowardly
and of a weak and treacherous character could never
have won the sympathies of those tribes with whom his
own people had waged feuds of many generations, and,
until near the close of the war when despair seized them,
his influence remained strong and respected among the
chiefs, and particularly among the Narragansetts.
The weight of evidence is against the idea of a general
conspiracy, but Philip undoubtedly negotiated with many
of the tribes when it became evident that the conflict
could not be averted. As chief of the Wampanoags and
an independent sachem, Philip, if he deemed war with
the whites the only possible salvation for his race and
people, was fully justified in waging it and forming such
alliances as should insure its success.
As a warrior and a leader in battle he was probably
inferior to Canonchet and several other leaders. His abil
ities were rather those of an organizer and director. In
farsightedness, prudence and tenacity he was undoubtedly
superior to all, save possibly Pessacus. Had he been
able to win over all the tribes and hold his young men
in check until the plan of a simultaneous attack on the
outlying settlements could have been arranged, the war
would have assumed a far more formidable and dangerous
aspect.
The accusations of cowardice frequently made against
him are backed by no proof save the indefinite statement
that he was seldom recognized in the various conflicts.
Of cruelty no specific case has ever been cited, while it
is known that several families owed their lives to his
276 King Philip's War
friendship, and while Mrs. Rowlandson wrote bitterly of
the Indians in general she mentions Philip not unkindly.
That he was abandoned by so many of his tribe at the
last and that there were not found wanting traitors among
his own people, does not prove that he was held in con
tempt or hatred by them, as has often been stated, but
that human nature is much the same among all races;
and the death agonies of a lost cause breeds traitors and
informers anxious to save their own lives and build their
fortunes on the ruin of their former comrades. Neither
the hero that sentimentalists, nor the fiend that Mather
and Hubbard have painted for us, he was, from the
Indian standpoint, a patriot. He fought uncompromis
ingly to the end against a fate that was certain and
against a foe, which, representing a higher order of civ
ilization than his own had attained, deserved to be vic
torious. The defeat of his cause and the doom of his
people when it came in touch with European civilization
was certain, whether by the quicker means of war or the
slower process of decay. The circumstances that led up
to the war and its conduct in many particulars were de
plorable and were undoubtedly brought on more by the
aggressions and petty tyrannies of the English than through
any premeditated aggression of the Indians. At the same
time it should not be forgotten that the point of view,
social, economical and political, of the two races were so
completely at variance that a conflict was almost inevi
table, and that the colonists, harsh and repellant as their
measure undoubtedly was, were more to be excused than
their descendants. It was reserved for Andrew Jackson,
President of the United States, to set an example of gross
breach of faith and cynical violation of treaty rights be-
King Philip's War 277
yond anything that can be urged against the New Eng-
landers of Philip's time. Four days after Philip's death,
Quinnapin, the Narragansett, who had married Weeta-
moo after her last husband's apostacy of the Indian
cause, was captured, and, being taken to Newport, was
tried on the 24th and was shot the next day in company
with his brother.
Though resistance had ceased and the disbandment of
the forces was already begun, there were other remnants
and chiefs to be hunted down, and none so competent as
Church with his scouts and Indians to do it. A few days'
rest after the destruction of Philip, and Church was again
in the field in pursuit of Annawon, Philip's chief captain,
who had escaped from the Mount Hope swamp and was
reported to be near Rehoboth. Marching along the shore
Church's notice was attracted by some Indians paddling
a canoe from Prudence Island toward the promontory on
which the town of Bristol now stands. Following them
to their destination he captured them that night, and
learned that Annawon was encamped in the midst of
Squannakonk swamp a few miles north of Mattapoiset.
Church, with a few men, and an Indian who had re
quested liberty to go out and fetch his father, who, he
said, was about four miles away in the swamp with a
young squaw, set out at daybreak (August 28th). On
reaching the swamp the Indian was sent ahead, while the
remainder of the party hid themselves on either side of
the path. "Presently they saw an old man coming up
with a gun on his shoulder and a young woman follow
ing in his track. They let them come between them and
then started up and laid hold upon them both." The
young woman told Church that she belonged to Anna-
278 King Philip's War
won's company, which numbered between fifty and sixty,
and the old man, confessing the same, told Church that
if he started presently and traveled stoutly he might reach
Annawon's camp by sunset. It was just sunset when
they at last saw the gleam of camp fires among the trees.
The Wampanoags had built their fires at the bottom of
a steep and rocky ledge,1 and the pots and kettles were
boiling and meat was roasting on the spits, while their
guns, resting against a pole supported by forked sticks,
were protected from the weather by a mat.
Church watched them from the top of the ledge, in
doubt as to the course to be followed. He asked his cap
tives if they could not get at the camp from the other
side, but they answered, no; they had been warned to
come over the rock, for anyone entering the camp
from the other side would be shot. Finally, sending the
old man and the girl down the rock to cover the noise
of his own approach, he followed closely. The ruse
succeeded and Church, stepping over Annawon's son
who lay crouched upon the ground, secured the guns.
The young Annawon, discovering him, whipped his blan
ket over his head and shrunk up in a heap, while the
old captain, Annawon, started up and cried welcome.
There was no resistance; Annawon, after an ejaculation
of surprise and despair, asked them to share his food.
During the night, Church's men, worn out with fatigue,
i Annawon's Rock is located in the town of Rehoboth at the head of
the great Squannakonk Swamp. It lies only a few rods south of the
Providence and Taunton turnpike at a point about six miles from Taun-
ton. The turnpike crosses the ledge of which this rock forms a part,
and through which a cut has been blasted out to make a passage for the
electric road. It may easily be reached by trolley from Taunton and
Providence.
King Philip's War 279
fell asleep, but the Indians made no attempt to escape.
It was full moon and by its light Church watched Anna-
won pace moodily back and forth. Finally the old chief
disappeared in the darkness of the swamp, but returned
and, falling on his knees, offered Philip's royal belts of
wampum, saying, "You have killed Philip and captured
his country, for I believe that I and my company are the
last that war against the English, so I suppose the war
is ended by your means; these things belong to you."
Throughout the night they conversed in a friendly way,
Annawon relating "what mighty success he had had for
merly in wars against many nations when he served un
der Philip's father," and Church promised him his life.
On bringing his prisoners into Plymouth, Church was
again requested to take the field for the purpose of effect
ing the capture of a well-known chief, Tuspaquin,1 the
"Black Sachem," Philip's brother-in-law, who was re
ported to be in hiding near by.
The directions given were erroneous, but Church, act
ing on information furnished by his own spies, and the
reports that a large body of Indians were near Lippican
doing great damage to the English in killing their cattle,
horses and swine, searched them out and finding them
" sitting round their fire in the thick brush, " crept quietly
upon and seized them all. Tuspaquin's wife and chil
dren were among the captives, some of whom told him
that the sachem had gone down to Pocasset with a party
to kill horses. Church said "he would not have him
slain for there was a war broke out in the eastern part
i Tuspaquin was the sachem of Assowompset, and was at the head of
the party who in the spring of 1676 so greatly annoyed the towns of
Plymouth colony.
280 King Philip's War
of the country and he would have him saved to go with
them to fight the eastern Indians. "
"The captain's leisure would not serve him to wait
until they came in (though the Indians said they might
come that night), therefore he thought upon this project:
to leave two old squaws upon the place with victuals,
and bid them offer Tuspaquin his own life as well as his
family's if he would submit himself and bring in the
two others with him and they should be his soldiers.1
We will let Hubbard narrate the event and the pretext
for the breach of faith that followed. "Within a day or
two after, the said Tuspaquin, upon the hopes of being
made a captain under Church, came after some of the
company and submitted himself in the captain's absence
(Church had gone to Boston), and was sent to Plymouth;
but upon trial (which was the condition on which his
being promised a captain's place under Captain Church
did depend) he was found penetrable by the English
guns, for he fell down at the first shot, and thereby re
ceived the just reward for his wickedness. " 2
No wonder that Church, on his return, heard with
"great grief" and indignation that both Annawon and
Tuspaquin, "which were the last of Philip's friends,"
had been condemned by the court at Plymouth, and had
been executed. He had pledged his word for their lives,
and his authority to do so was not denied.
1 Church's Entertaining History, page 52 and 53.
2 Hubbard, Vol. I, page 275.
CHAPTER XVII
THE drift of the war into the Wampanoag and Narra-
gansett country, and the constant activity of the
eastern Indians in northeastern Massachusetts and along
the New Hampshire and Maine coasts, had drawn away
the troops from the Connecticut Valley and left an oppor
tunity for the escape of many of the Indians toward the
west. All through July and August straggling bands,
remnants of the Nipmuck and valley tribes, were mak
ing off in that direction seeking a refuge along the lower
Hudson. Two hundred had been seen near Westfield
on July 19th, and the request of the Rev. John Rus
sell 1 to the Connecticut Council for troops testified to
the growing alarm of the settlers, who feared hostilities
might again break out in the valley and their crops be
again destroyed.
After his successful campaign along the western shore
of Narragansett Bay, Major Talcott had reorganized his
force, and on the 18th of July again started out from
New London over the same route, swinging to east around
the head of the Bay. He searched the country around
Taunton where Major Bradford and a large force had
for some time lain more or less inactive, and then in
obedience to orders marched north toward Quabaug
1 Letter of Rev. John Russell to Connecticut Council of War. Con
necticut Colony Records (Journal of the Council of War), Vol. II, page
464.
281
282 King Philip's War
where he destroyed a considerable amount of corn stored
in pits. Striking the trail of a large body of Indians
making for the west, he followed toward the Con
necticut.
On the day before Philip's death, August llth, these
Indians, over two hundred and fifty in number, crossed
the Connecticut at Chicopee on rafts and passed West-
field the next day. A small body of settlers attempted
to oppose them, but were driven off and the Indians
continued their march, but Major Talcott, following fast
in pursuit, finally overtook them August 15th, as they
lay encamped on the bank of the Housatonic River within
the limits of the present town of Great Barrington.1 It
was evening when he saw their camp fires blazing among
the trees, and in the gathering darkness he determined
to divide his force and to surround the whole party and
attack them while they slept; but while Talcott and the
troopers with him were making their way along the bank
they came unexpectedly upon an Indian who had gone
down to the river to fish. Lifting his head he looked
into the faces of the English closing in upon him, and
springing to his feet he shouted a warning to the camp
that the English were upon them. One of Talcott's
troopers immediately fired and killed him as he stood;
the other division, hearing the shot and seeing the In
dians leap up to fly, fired into them. Thirty-five of the
Indians were killed, among them the sachem of the Qua-
baugs, and twenty were captured, but the meshes of the
1 The Indian encampment was upon the western bank of the Housa
tonic River near the central bridge and within a quarter of a mile of the
business center of Great Barrington. The spot is marked by a monu
ment.
King Philip's War 283
net were loose and the remainder, to the number of nearly
two hundred, escaped to the Hudson.1
Many of the fugitives, though at first set upon by the
Mohawks, were afterwards received and incorporated
with them. Only one of Talcott's force, a Mohegan In
dian, was killed in the conflict. Talcott followed the
Indians no further, as he lacked supplies, but turned
homeward.
While Talcott was following the scattered remnants of
the valley tribes to the west, Captain Swaine, in accord
ance with orders from the Council of Massachusetts,
collected a force from among the garrisons, and the set
tlers of Hadley, Hatfield and Northampton, marched up
the valley to Deerfield and Northfield, and destroyed the
growing corn.
In the north and east the conflict continued to flame
well into the following year, but throughout the country
where Philip's war had been waged, fighting had ceased.
A few half -famished and hopeless vagrants, fearful of
punishment, continued to roam the woods, and bands of
friendly Indians continued to hunt them down through
out the year. As late as December, a band of sixty were
run down and captured near Rehoboth, mainly through
the efforts of Peter Ephraim, a friendly Natick,2 and the
punishments were continued well into the next year.
The Indians who had fled from New England to New
York, including several chiefs, among them several
chiefs of the Springfield Indians, and several Nonotuck
and Pocumtuck chiefs, were the subjects of considerable
1 TrumbulFs History of Connecticut, New Edition, Vol. I, pages 292,
293. The information is from the manuscripts of Rev. Thomas Ruggles.
2 Hubbard, Vol. 1, page 285.
284 King Philip's War
negotiations l between Andros and the Connecticut and
Massachusetts authorities, who requested Andros to either
send a force against those who were still at liberty or to
allow them to do so, and they urged him to turn over to
them for punishment those who had taken refuge in that
colony and were in his hands. Andros was not overfond
of the New Englanders, and little inclined to conceal his
opinions, regarding them as constant and impertinent in-
terferers in the affairs of his province. He did not ap
prove of a New England expedition coming into New
York in pursuit of the fugitives, as the Connecticut au
thorities desired. He had secured them, he wrote, but
to all requests that they be surrendered he turned a deaf
ear.
He may have thought that punishment enough had
been inflicted. He certainly felt that his services in per
suading the Mohawks to adopt a threatening attitude
toward the New England Indians had received little
recognition. A rough, choleric but honest soldier, his
character has been persistently misrepresented by the
majority of New England historians. His was a tempera
ment certain to strike sparks when rubbed against the
New Englander. In fact their mutual disposition, ob
stinate, recriminative and self-centered, was too near akin
for cordial understanding or co-operation.
Of the remainder of the Nipmucks, their crops de
stroyed, their country overrun by the English and threat
ened by the Mohawks, many sought shelter among the
Pennacooks and the Abenakis.
In July, Squando and Wannalancet had made a treaty
i Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II, pages 469, 478, etc.
King Philip's War 285
of friendship with the English and in the following month,
as the other eastern Indians continued aggressive, carne
to Major Walderne 1 at Dover, to show the English that
they had not re-engaged in hostilities.
Many of the Nipmucks, who considered it an admir
able opportunity to accept, under the countenance of the
other Indians, the terms of the proclamation made by
the General Court in May, came with them, including
Muttaump and Sagamore Sam, who hoped that in the
company of those who were friends of the English, they
might be overlooked or mercy extended. Vain hope, for
the authorities knew of their presence, and Hathorne,
Walderne and Captain Frost 2 of Kittery, had mutually
agreed to seize all that " were met about Major Walderne's
dwelling. "
The details of what followed are obscure; the contem
porary historians tersely describe the plan followed as a
" contrivement. " At any rate it succeeded and all the
Indians were disarmed and seized on the 6th of Sep
tember. The Rev. Jeremy Belknap 3 furnishes consider
able detail as from eyewitnesses, to the effect that the
Indians were induced to join in a sham fight, and, af
ter considerable maneuvering, led to deliver the first
fire, whereupon, their guns being empty, they were sur
rounded and disarmed.
1 Major Walderne's report of the matter sheds little light on the de
tails. — Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XXX, page 218.
2 Charles Frost, born in Tiverton, England, came with his father,
Nicholas, about 1637 and settled in Kittery. He was representative,
captain and major, and chosen a counselor at the first election under
the new charter. He was killed by Indians in ambush as he was going
home from public worship on Sunday, July 4, 1697.
3 Rev. Jeremy Belknap's History of New Hampshire, Vol. I, page 142.
286 King Philip's War
The strategem adopted for the capture of these people
was applauded by the colonists, but among the Indians,
even by those friendly disposed, it was considered as a
breach of faith and was not forgotten. Thirteen years
later and Walderne paid the debt of vengeance for this
and other acts as soldier and trader, and as they slashed
his face and breast with their knives and weighed his
severed hands in the scales as he had been wont to do
in buying their beaver skins they told the dying man
that thus they crossed out their old accounts.
A few days later Monoco and Old Jethro were cap
tured, by what means we know not, only that "that
abominable Peter Jethro betrayed his own father and
other Indians of his special acquaintance, unto death. " 1
" The vile and the wicked were separated from the rest, "
and, two hundred in number, were sent down to Boston
where the General Court turned them over to the Coun
cil, declaring it to be "their sense that those who had
killed Englishmen should be put to death, and not trans
ported. " On the 26th of September, Hubbard saw Mo
noco "with a few more Bragadozios like himself, Saga
more Sam, Old Jethro and the sagamore of Quabaug
(Muttaump), going through Boston streets toward the
gallows, " with halters about their necks with which they
were hanged " at the town's end. " And with them,2 to
the death, in stern justice, went Samuel and Daniel Goble
of Lancaster, condemned for the wanton murder of In
dian women and children.3
As the war drew to a close, orders were given the con-
1 Mather's Prevalency of Prayer, page 257.
2 Judge SewalPs Diary.
3 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XXX, pages 209-211, 222.
King Philip's War 287
stables to seize the bodies of all Indians remaining in the
colonies after July, and the treasurers of the various col
onies were to dispose of them for the benefit of the re
spective governments. All who had been concerned in
the death of a colonist or the destruction of property
(and to be suspected was often held to be concerned),
were summarily executed. Most of those taken captive
were sold as permanent bondsmen and the receipts from
this source distributed to each colony proportionately,
hundreds being shipped into slavery to the Spanish West
Indies, to Spain, Portugal, Bermuda and Virginia. There
is record of more than five hundred being sold into sla
very from Plymouth alone.1 Rhode Island, to her credit,
abstained from this cruelty, and limited their bondage
within the confines of the colony for a limited term of
years. Some who had surrendered under the proclama
tion were given lands to dwell on, while young and single
persons, particularly in Connecticut, were in many cases
settled in English families as apprentices.2
Uncas had made hay while the sun shone, and many a
hostile native had been added as warrior or servant to
his tribe. He had rendered far greater service than he
was ever given credit for, and to stand before the court
at Hartford and be told that the success of the war was
with the English, and that they meant to dispose of all the
captives and enjoy its results, must have been as worm
wood.3 Suspected by the whites, he had aided in the
ruin of his own race, and thenceforward he and his
1 Baylie's Memoirs of Plymouth.
2 Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II, pages 481, 482. Massachu
setts Colony Records, Vol. V, page 136.
3 Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. H, page 473.
288 King Philip's War
tribe had to accept with humility and subservience the
rewards which ultimately fall to those weak allies who
take the part of the conquering invader against their
own people. A few generations and the Mohegans had
disappeared as completely as their old foes the Narra-
gansetts.
The loss suffered by the colonies was appalling. Con
necticut alone had escaped the devastation that left vast
tracts in the other colonies a wilderness, but even Con
necticut had to mourn a fearful list of slain soldiers. In
the four colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode
Island and Connecticut, over six hundred men had per
ished, or one in eleven of the population able to bear
arms, in addition to many women and children. Over
six hundred dwellings had been destroyed, with innu
merable cattle, sheep and horses, and the greater part of
a year's harvest. Thirteen settlements had been com
pletely wiped out, and a great number had been partly
destroyed, and the wilderness had again closed on many
a scattered farm and hamlet; but the harvest, threatened
with failure in the early summer, was abundant, and the
suffering was not severe. No assistance had been asked
for or given by the motherland; of men there had been
enough.
The war cost the four colonies heavily. The commis
sioners reported that Plymouth colony had been put to
an expense of not less than .£100,000, an immense sum
if we consider the feeble resources of the colony at that
time. But if the whites had suffered, the Indians had
been practically exterminated; their lands had passed to
the whites; a few scantily inhabited villages were all that
was left of the mighty tribe of the Narragansetts. The
King Philip's War 289
valley Indians had disappeared and were seen no more
save for a raid by some fugitive valley Indians, sallying
forth from Canada, who over a year later, September 19,
1677, fell upon the inhabitants of Hatfield while they
were building a house outside the stockade, and killing
several, carried away as captives to Canada some twenty-
four of the English, men, women and children, including
several from Deerfield, most of whom were ransomed a
few months later.
Never again did the southern New England tribes men
ace the people of these colonies. Their submission was
that of death, and the feeble remnants lay quiescent amid
the forays of the French and their Indian allies in the
years to come, while New England rose rapidly from her
ruins.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
THE war waged along the coast of Maine, although
contemporary with the outbreak in the southern
colonies, was not directly a part of that conflict, but by its
coincidence and the engagement in it of those who par
ticipated as contestants in the struggle in the lower colo
nies, it has come to be known as a part of that historic
event, and its story may briefly be related in connection
with it.
Within a few weeks after the uprising of the Indians
in the Plymouth colony, news of events had been carried
to the country lying to the northeast, now known as
Maine, but at that time held under a patent issued to
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and ruled by a commission ap
pointed by the king. This sparsely settled fringe of coast
differed materially from the well-governed United Colo
nies. In extent it reached from Exeter and Dover (now
in New Hampshire) to Pemaquid, a little plantation upon
John's Bay just east of the Damariscotta River. The
settlements or plantations within its confines were York,
Wells, Cape Porpoise, Saco, Black Point (now Scar
borough), Falmouth (now Portland), Arrowsick, Dam
ariscotta, and a few scattered hamlets, all reached by
the tides and practically connected for purposes of travel
by the water, though Indian trails led along the coast.
The Indians inhabiting this territory were the Penobscot,
Kennebec, Pequacket and Ammoscoggin, commonly in
cluded under the general title of Abenakis or Tarra-
tines, well equipped and hardy hunters. In New Hamp
shire were the Pennacook Indians, professed friends of
the English.
During the continuance of the war in the United Colo
nies the local eastern Indians maintained a hostile atti-
294 King Philip's War
tude and committed many depredations from the Pisca-
taqua to the Kennebec, and by the summer of 1676 had
been reinforced by numbers of refugee Nipmucks who,
having lost their all and despairing of mercy, cast in their
lot with their northern neighbors, and inciting them to
further carnage and pillage, prolonged hostilities in the
north long after they had ceased elsewhere.
The English settlers of the northern border included
many of the rough and lawless element always to be found
in a frontier community governed by little other than the
laws of expediency; bent on immediate gain and heed
less of the future. The same arbitrary and insolent in
terference with Indian rights and customs prevailed here
as in the north. The guns which had become a necessity
were continuously being demanded on the slightest pre
text and suspicion, while in matters of trade the Indians,
without doubt, were constantly cheated and imposed upon.
Even Major Walderne, magistrate and austere Puritan,
tradition declares, used to place his hand in the scale
against the beaver skins, telling the Indians it weighed
a pound, and often failed to cross off their accounts when
paid him.
Acts of violence against the natives, particularly kid
napping and selling them into slavery at the West Indies
were not uncommon, and these outrages were tenaciously
stored in Indian memories against the day of reckoning.
No wonder that when that day arrived with its afforded
opportunity, the score was settled to the fullest extent of
Indian ingenuity. The story as it has come down to us
is one of isolated border fights, a warfare of the woods and
thickets, in which the Indians, sometimes punished and
scattered, were more often successful.
The first depredation upon the northeastern frontier
began early in September, 1675, by a raid of the Indians
on the house of Thomas Purchase l in Pegypscot (Bruns-
1 Thomas Purchase, says Savage, "was an adventurer of good dis
cretion and perseverance, and was principal of the Pegypscot settlement
Appendix 295
wick), when some of his cattle were killed but no violence
offered to the inmates of the house. September 12th, the
isolated house of Thomas Wakeley,1 a resident of Fal-
mouth on the Prescumpscut River about three-fourths of
a mile below the falls, was attacked, and Wakeley, his
son and his daughter-in-law, with three of their children
were killed, their charred bodies being found in the ruins
by a relieving party the following day. One daughter,
about eleven years old, was carried into captivity, but
after long wandering among the tribes, even as far south
as the Narragansetts, was finally restored to the English
by Squando. Three days before this attack a party of
Englishmen going up the north shore of Casco Bay in
a sloop and two boats to gather Indian corn came upon
three Indians who were beating on the door of a house, and
fired upon them killing one and wounding another. The
third escaped, and, while the whites were scattered heed
lessly about the field at their labors, rallied his friends,
and attacking the settlers, drove them to their sloop and
secured two boats loaded with the corn they had gathered.
These Indians were followers of Madockawando, sachem
of the Penobscots, and the attack upon them was de
clared by the Penobscot Indians to have been without
provocation. This same month an attack was made upon
Oyster River (now Durham, N. H.), where two houses
belonging to settlers by the name of Chesley were burned.
Two men passing along the river in a canoe were killed
and two others carried into captivity.
These raids were quickly followed by attacks upon
Exeter and Salmon Falls, and a little later houses were
destroyed at Oyster River and two men killed. Small
parties of Indians now prowled the woods in every di
rection, burning barns and houses, killing men and cattle
and goading the English to desperation.
on both sides of the Androscoggin near its mouth. " After the plunder
ing of his house he removed to Lynn where he died in April, 1678.
i Thomas Wakeley was of Hingham when the house lots were drawn
296 King Philip's War
On the 18th of September, Captain Bonython,1 who
lived on the east bank of the Saco River, warned by a
friendly Indian of the approach of Squando's people,
fled with his family, his house bursting into flames be
hind him. Warned by the flames, Major Phillips,2 who
lived on the opposite bank, immediately warned his
neighbors, who fled to his garrison house to the number
of fifty, and prepared for defense.
Setting fire to the neighboring houses, the Indians
closed around the garrison calling out, "You cowardly
English dogs, come out and put out the fire, " but although
Phillips himself was wounded, the garrison held them
at bay and finally repulsed their attack with considerable
loss,3 but as the people would not remain, the garrison
house was soon abandoned and a short time thereafter
was burned. About the same time all the dwellings at
Winter Harbor, abandoned by their owners, were plun
dered by the Indians and then given over to the flames,
and five settlers going up the Saco River were attacked
and killed.
Hearing of the defenseless condition of the settlers of
Saco, Captain Wincoll of Newichawonock, with a com
pany of sixteen men, proceeded by water around the
coast to their assistance. On landing at Winter Harbor
they were instantly fired upon from ambush and several
of the party killed. These Indians gave the alarm to a
by the settlers, September 18, 1635, and he was made freeman March 3,
1636. He removed to Falmouth in 1661.
1 Captain John Bonython was the son of Richard, who was a very
early settler of Saco. His house, which was destroyed by the Indians,
was located on the east side of the Saco River, not far from the present
tracks of the Boston & Maine railroad. He died before 1684.
2 Major William Phillips was of Charlestown where he was admitted
to the church September 23, 1639, and made freeman May 13, 1640.
He removed to Boston, then to Saco, where he had mills, a mansion house,
and a thriving settlement about him. He was a magistrate and an of
ficer in the militia. After the destruction of his property he returned
to Boston.
s Letter of Major Richard Walderne. Massachusetts Archives,
Vol. LXVII, pages 26, 27.
Appendix 297
larger number in the rear, and Wincoll's party l was at
once surrounded by one hundred and fifty well-armed
warriors. Taking refuge behind a pile of shinglebolts,
the English fought with such desperation that the Indians
were forced to retire with considerable loss,2 but eleven
inhabitants of Saco who attempted to aid Wincoll were
utterly destroyed.3 About this time an attack was also
made upon Black Point, in which seven houses were
burned and a number of the inhabitants killed.
The general leader of the Indians was Squando,4 a
sagamore of Saco, whose old friendship for the whites
had been changed to hatred by several acts of insolence
and injustice, but particularly by an outrage perpetrated
by sailors from a vessel harbored in the Saco River. Per
ceiving the wife of Squando, with her infant child, cross
ing the river in a canoe, it seemed to these men a fitting
opportunity to test the general belief that the young of
the savages, like those of wild animals, would instinctively
swim if thrown into the water. Upsetting the canoe the
occupants were cast into the flood, but the mother, div
ing to the bottom, recovered the child, which, however,
was shortly seized with an ailment and died. Squando
never forgave the act.
1 Captain John Wincoll, or Wincoln, was first of Watertown, where
he was freeman in 1646, but he soon removed to Kittery, for which town
he was representative to the General Court at Boston in 1653, 1654, 1655.
In 1665 he was at Newichawanock (South Berwick), and was made a
justice by the royal commissioners. He was representative again in
1665, 1667, 1667 and the holder of other honorable offices. He was in
jured by a fall from his horse and died October 22, 1694.— Savage.
2 Saco Valley Settlements and Families, page 21.
sHubbardVol. II, p. 126.
4 Squando, a Tarrantine sachem of the Socokis, was commonly called
the Sagamore of Saco. Mather calls him "a strange, enthusiastical
sagamore," who saw visions, while the historian Williamson says, "his
conduct exhibited at different times such traits of cruelty and compas
sion as rendered his character difficult to be portrayed." Hubbard
speaks of him as " that enthusiastical or rather diabolical miscreant, who
hath yet put on a Garbe of Religion, and orders his people to do the
like; performing religious worship amongst the Indians in his way, yet
is supposed to have very familiar converse with the Devil, that appears
to him as an Angel of Light, in some shape or other very frequently. "
298 King Philip's War
About the 1st of October, a large body of Indians at
tacked the house of Richard Tozer1 at Salmon Falls,
about a third of a mile north of the Plaisted garrison. Fif
teen persons were in the house, most of whom succeeded in
escaping to the garrison through the heroic efforts of a
young girl of eighteen who held the door while the rest
fled by the rear. She was finally struck down by the
savages, who succeeded in entering, and left for dead,
but recovered, and lived many years. A small child was,
however, killed, and a girl of seven, who had been unable
to keep up with the fugitives, was led away into captivity
but shortly afterward restored.
The next day after burning Captain Wincoll's house
and barn well stocked with corn, they drew away. On
the 16th day of October, however, they returned in force
and again fell on the house of Richard Tozer, killing
Tozer and taking his son captive.
Lieutenant Roger Plaisted,2 who commanded the small
force at the garrison, hearing the sound of the firing, sent
out seven men to reconnoiter and aid the inmates of the
Tozer house. They had proceeded but a short way from
the garrison, however, when they fell into an ambush
which the Indians had prepared in the expectation of
such an attempt, and were badly cut up. The following
day Plaisted with twenty men set out with an ox team
to bring in the bodies, exercising no precaution against
1 Richard Tozer was first of Boston but removed to Kittery. He had
a grant of land at Newichawonock of sixty acres, above the Salmon Falls.
Here he built a garrison house. The site of this is now occupied by the
dwellings of Mr. Charles Collins. Hubbard says this was a third of a
mile north of the Plaisted garrison.
2 Roger Plaisted of Kittery was intrusted with civil commissions as
early as 1661. He was representative to the General Court in 1663-64,
and again in 1673. He was made lieutenant in 1668 and was a brave
and trustworthy officer. — Savage.
His garrison house was built on land purchased in 1669 from Captain
John Wincoll and in a deed is called the " Birchen Point Lot. " It was
located in that part of Kittery known as Newichawonock, on the east
side of the Salmon Falls River and just north of Salmon Falls Brook.
His neighbors, Tozer and Wincoll, lived farther up the hill to the north.
See Old Kittery and her Families.
Appendix 299
surprise. Tozer's body was recovered and the party was
returning to the swamp near the garrison where the other
bodies lay, when the Indians, hidden among the rocks
and trees, fired upon them from an ambuscade.
Plaisted, disdaining to fly, threw away his life in a vain
endeavor to fight, almost singly, against overwhelming
odds. Two of his sons and a number of his men were
killed at the same time, and the survivors were able to
cut their way out with only the greatest difficulty. After
a continuous harassing of the settlements, the Indians
withdrew, near the close of November, to their winter
quarters at Ossipee and Pequacket.1
It is said that up to this time one hundred and fifty
persons, Indians and whites, had been killed or captured
between the Kennebec and Piscatauqua. A projected
plan to attack the enemy in their winter quarters failed
through the severity of the winter and the lack of suffi
cient snowshoes, but the neglect of the Indians to suit
ably provide for their winter wants so scourged them
with famine and disease that they were driven to seek
for a reconciliation. Accordingly they came to Major
Richard Walderne 2 at Dover, early in January, 1676,
1 Ossipee is located in Carroll County on the eastern border of New
Hampshire, and still bears the same name. Pequacket is now Fryeburg,
Maine, on the western border of Cumberland County and nearly on the
line separating that state from New Hampshire, and about twenty-
three miles in a northeasterly direction from Ossipee.
2 Major Richard Walderne was born in Alcester, County of Warwick,
England, September 2, 1615. He came to this country first in 1635,
remaining two years, then returned to England. He settled perma
nently at Cochecho, now Dover, N. H., in 1640. He was a man of great
influence, many times representative to the General Court, and often
speaker. He was a captain in 1672 and in 1674 was made sergeant-
major of the military forces of the province. In 1680 he became major-
general. He was one of the councilors under the new form of govern
ment of New Hampshire in 1680, and the following year, after the death
of President John Cutts, was at the head of the Province until the arrival
of the Royal Governor. He was largely engaged in trade with the In
dians and was a Puritan of the most austere type, which did not prevent
him, if widespread tradition is to be believed, from cheating them in
trade at every opportunity. He was an indifferent commander and
negotiator. His trading and
garrison house stood on the north side of
300 King Philip's War
and entered into an armistice, bringing in some English
captives.
July 3, 1676, a treaty of peace 1 was signed at Cocheco
(Dover) between a committee of the whites and several
sagamores, the most important of whom was Squando,
sagamore of the Sacos. Among those who came in were
Simon and Andrew, the Christian Indians who, in the
previous May, had attacked the house of Thomas Kimbal,
of Bradford, killing him and carrying his wife and five
children into captivity. They had, however, previously
taken several other women whom they had treated not
unkindly, and hearing of the negotiations, came in with
the captives. Instead of improving the opportunity and
securing their friendship, the English seized and threw
them with others into the prison at York,2 from which
they speedily managed to escape.
The Indians living at the east of the Kennebec River,
whose chief, Madockawando,3 had been friendly to the
settlers until the wanton destruction of his corn fields and
the Cochecho River on the west side of what is now known as Central
Avenue in Dover, a little south of Second Street, and a suitable inscrip
tion noting its site is attached to the business block occupying its place.
He was killed by the Indians in a most barbarous manner, June 27,
1689.
1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. XXX, page 206.
2 The prison at York was built in 1653, an addition being made some
time after. The whole of the original structure still exists in an excellent
state of preservation.
3 Madockawando was chief of the Penobscot tribe. He was a great
"Pow Wow," and Hubbard says of him, in connection with Squando,
sagamore of the Saco tribe, "They are said to be by them that know
them, a strange kind of moralized savages. Grave and serious in their
speech and carriage and not without some show of a kind of Religion,
which no doubt but they have learned from the Prince of Darkness
(by the help of some Paptists in those parts), that can transform him
self into an Angel of Light; under that shape the better to carry on the
designes of his Kingdom. " The historians of the war have all observed
that the prisoners under Madockawando were remarkably well treated.
After the close of Philip's war no more is heard of him until 1691 when
he again appears as a warrior in King William's war then being waged.
He died in 1698. A daughter of his married the Baron de St. Casteen
whose residence was on the Penobscot River where the present town of
Castine is located. See Book of the Indians.
Appendix 301
the attack upon the Indians found at Casco Bay in the
month of September previous, had, after that event, re
tired to a fort they had at Totannock, at the confluence
of the Kennebec with the Sebasticook, in the present
town of Winslow, where the English also had a trading
house.
Captain Sylvanus Davis,1 the agent for Messrs. Clark
and Lake, traders at Arrowsick, thought it prudent to
bring down from Totonnock the powder and shot with
other goods stored there, at the same time sending a
message to the Indians inviting them in the interest of
peace, to return to their former habitations near the coast.
The messenger intrusted with Captain Davis' message
delivered it in an insolent and threatening manner, tell
ing them if they did not come in and give up their arms
the English would come and kill them all. Instead of
complying they began to negotiate with the tribes farther
east in order to resist any interference.
In the spring of 1676, John Earthy 2 of Pemaquid,
had attempted to bring about peace, but the unrestrain-
able animosity of the settlers made success difficult.
Another conference had been held in the early spring
(1676), but the Indians felt they had been hardly dealt
with. "We were driven from our corn last year, by the
people about Kennebec," they said, "and many of us
died. We had no powder and shot to kill venison and
fowl to prevent it. If you English were our friends as
you pretend you are, you would not suffer us to starve
1 Captain Sylvanus Davis was of Sheepscot in 1659 and was wounded
at Arrowsick at the time Captain Lake was killed. He removed to
Falmouth in 1680 and had command of the fort there in the next Indian
war. He was captured and carried to Canada, May 20, 1690, and after
his return in 1691 entered the Council by the Charter of William and
Mary. He wrote an account of the conduct of the war which is in III
Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I, page 101. He lived in Hull during the
latter part of his life and died in 1704. — Savage.
2 John Earthy of Pemaquid kept a public house, but little can be
found regarding him. He appears as a witness to the treaty with the
Indians, November 13, 1676. — Savage. Williamson states that it was
Abraham Shurte of Pemaquid who was the negotiator.
302 King Philip's War
as we did. " However, a temporary peace was patched
up and a promise obtained from these Indians that their
influence should be exerted with the Androscoggins to
bring about peace.
Unfortunately, during the winter, the cupidity of one
Laughton, the master of a vessel harboring in those parts,
who held a general warrant from Major Walderne to
seize any Indians to the eastward, had induced him to
carry away, for the purpose of selling into slavery, some
of the natives he had invited on board his ship, and this
act coming to the knowledge of the Penobscots, when
they visited those parts, inflamed them to wrath. John
Earthy and Captain Davis, seeking to pacify them, again
visited Madockawando, and, among others, Assiminas-
qua1 and Mugg, sachem of the Androscoggins, whose
friendship had given place to hatred, in August, 1676,
and endeavored to undo the mischief. Angry and dis
trustful they made bitter complaints of the wrongs they
had suffered.
"It is not our custom when messengers come to treat
of peace to seize upon their persons, as sometimes the
Mohawks do; yea, as the English have done, seizing upon
fourteen Indians, our men, who went to treat with you —
setting a guard over them, and taking away their guns,
and demanding us to come down unto you, or else you
would kill us. This was the cause of our leaving both
our fort and our corn, to our great loss."
An accusation that, Hubbard says, considerably em
barrassed the English, who could only reply that they
would do their best to find and return those Indians who
had been kidnapped, and that the Indians should not
blame the Government for the acts of irresponsible in
dividuals.
" What shall we do, " they asked, " in the winter, when
our corn is gone unless we have guns and powder?
Answer yes or no ; shall we have them ? " The commis-
1 Madockawando was his adopted son.
Appendix 303
sioners could give no direct answer. They would confer
with the Governor and Council, and the chiefs grew angry,
and as the negotiations continued there came the news
that Squando had broken the treaty of July, 1676, and
had fallen on Cleve's Neck, Falmouth, now the city of
Portland. This action commenced on the llth of Au
gust at the house of Anthony Brackett,1 the day preced
ing that of Philip's death at Mount Hope, and was con
tinued the following day, to the utter desolation of the
place. Brackett, with his wife and five children, was
carried into captivity, and Mrs. Brackett's brother was
killed. Several other settlers near by were killed and
their houses burned.
Immediately following the destruction of Falmouth, the
war advancing eastward into the Kennebec country, the
house of William Hammond,2 a trader not much liked
by the Indians, was attacked, August 13th, and Ham
mond and fourteen of its inmates slain, the only person
1 Anthony Brackett is found in Falmouth in 1662. Upon the renewal
of hostilities in the summer of 1676 he was living at his home on the
west side of the Back Bay at Falmouth (now Portland), and was, with
his family, captured on the llth of August. His brother-in-law, Na
thaniel Mitton, who resisted capture, was slain. While being conveyed
to the eastward, his captors being eager to share in the plunder of Arrow-
sick of which they had word, Brackett and his family with a colored
servant, managed to evade their captors; repairing an old birch canoe
which they found upon the shore with a needle and thread, they escaped
across Casco Bay to Black Point where they found a vessel bound for
the Piscataqua. Brackett served during the war, and afterwards as
lieutenant and captain, and was finally killed at his home during King
William's war, September 21, 1689. The cellar hole of his house still
remains and is located on Deering Avenue, a few rods beyond the rail
road crossing just north of Deering' s Oaks, one of the pleasure parks of
Portland.
2 The sight of Hammond's fort and trading house, long in dispute,
has been definitely settled by the researches of Rev. Henry O. Thayer.
See Collections of Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. I, page
261. He says, "It can be rebuilt in fancy upon that northeastern curve
of Long Reach where are now grouped the village dwellings of Day's
Ferry. " Day's Ferry is recorded on the map as West Woolwich and is
three miles north of the ferry connecting Woolwich with Bath. " Ham
mond's Head, " the site of the trading house, lies directly opposite Tele
graph Point in North Bath.
304 King Philip's War
escaping being a young woman. Distrusting the Indians,
who had come as if to make a visit, she hid in the corn;
hearing the shrieks and blows and divining their cause,
she fled across country some ten miles, to Sheepscot, and
gave the alarm.
The Indians then marched up the river and captured
Francis Card l and his family, and passing down the
Kennebec, crossed over to Arrowsick Island.
The cruelties attendant upon this attack are attributed
to Simon, who had been lodged in the prison at York
and had escaped. This attack resulted in the death and
capture of over thirty of the English. The remainder of
the inhabitants fled from the mainland to James Andrews,
now Gushing Island in the Bay. Among them George
Felt,2 whose residence was at Mussel Cove two miles
eastward from the neck.
Arrowsick Island 3 is a large tract of land some four
1 See Francis Card's statement relative to the capture of Hammond's
and Arrowsick, and the subsequent movements of the Indians. Hub-
bard, 1865 Edition, Vol. II, page 202. There is also a copy in Vol.
LXIX of the Massachusetts Archives.
2 George Felt was from Charlestown and in 1660 was a dweller at
Casco Bay having in 1670 a residence at Mussel Cove. He was the
owner of Lower Clapboard Island, the Brothers and Little Chebeague
Islands in the Bay. Hubbard in his Indian Wars, says, "He had been
more active than any man in those parts against the Indians." He was
killed by them in the summer of 1676 on Peak's Island. — Felt Genealogy.
History of Peak's Island.
3 The long-lost site of the busy and populous trading house of Clark
and Lake has been discovered by the Rev. Henry O. Thayer, and treated
of in a paper read by him before the Maine Historical Society, and pub
lished in the first volume of the second series of their collections. This
site may be reached by a drive of but little more than two miles from
Woolwich, opposite Bath, and lies but a short distance to the north of
Mill Island, on the west shore of the Back River. Traces of its build
ings are still distinct. Thayer thus describes its discovery: "If Hub-
bard was correct the fortified post should have been within a mile of
Mill Island. Search discloses it five-eighths of a mile from the present
mill dam, a field by a cove, bearing notable traces of ancient occupation.
Here relics have been gathered, implements found, bones exhumed,
flagstones of old pathways uncovered. Here are cellars close by the
water, a famed well of unknown antiquity. This place, made myste
rious by curious relics and proof of early settlement, and long an enigma
to the writer because not adjustable to the acquired history of the island,
o -|
"w =: ^
U £
h ^
o --
Appendix 305
miles in length, lying in the Kennebec River, between
the main channel and the Back River, so called, its north
ern extremity being directly opposite the city of Bath.
Upon it was the fortified trading house of Clark and Lake,
two merchants of Boston. The Indians concealed them
selves under the walls of the fort and behind a great rock
near by. Early in the morning of August 14th, when,
for some reason, the sentinel left his post, the gate of the
fort being open, they rushed in and seized or killed the
garrison. Captain Sylvanus Davis, who was in the fort,
and Captain Lake,1 with two others, secured a canoe at
the water's edge in which they embarked, hoping to reach
a neighboring island and escape, but they were quickly fol
lowed by four Indians in a canoe, who fired upon them
just as they touched the rocky shore of Mill Island.
Davis, badly wounded, managed to conceal himself in
the crevices of the rocks and was overlooked by the pur
suers. Lake was killed by a musket-shot while the two
others eluded their pursuers and escaped unhurt. Before
their departure the Indians destroyed everything of value
in the neighborhood, including a mill and a number of
buildings outside the fortification. A large amount of
plunder was secured and the news of their success quickly
spread abroad.
The number of persons killed or taken into captivity
here and at Hammond's was fifty- three. About a dozen
persons got away from Arrowsick in safety.
From Arrowsick the Indians proceeded to Sheepscot
is at the so-called Spring Cove, on the northeastern border. When
found and its certified story told, it harmonized all parts of evidence,
and completed the proof. Step by step, the lines of history followed,
led hither to the mansion house of Clark and Lake. "
i Captain Thomas Lake came from London to New Haven, where
he married, before 1650, the daughter of Deputy Governor Goodyear.
He removed to Boston and was an eminent merchant there. In 1654
he purchased half of Arrowsick Island in the Kennebec River, and for
many years had a trading house there with large transactions with the
Indians. His body found by the expedition under Major Walderne in
February following in a perfect state of preservation, was removed to
Boston and buried in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground.
T
306 King Philip's War
and Pemaquid, while a part of the force went over to
Jewell's Island, which was the refuge of a large number
of the inhabitants from the mainland and considered a
place of safety owing to its distance from the shore. The
sudden invasion of this supposed stronghold by the enemy,
caused great consternation among the refugees, who, how
ever, though inadequately armed and not provided with
a suitable shelter, managed to beat them off.
Shortly after this on September 3d, a party of men
having gone upon Munjoy's Island,1 to obtain sheep
which were required by their distressed families for food
(though forbidden to adventure themselves, by their com
mander), were set upon by a party of Indians in ambush,
driven into the ruins of an old stone house 2 and there
destroyed to a man, among them George Felt, "much
lamented, " says Hubbard, " who had been more active
than any man in those parts against the Indians, but at
the last he lost his own life among them, in this too des
perate an adventure. "
In this month of September, the Pennacook and Wam-
esit Indians came in to Major Walderne at Dover, to the
number of four hundred, and with them many of the
southern refugees, and that " contrivement " or sham
fight strategem followed which has been related in the
previous chapter.3
The authorities regarded the entertainment of the south
ern Indians by the Pennacooks and other tribes as a viola
tion of the terms of the treaty, but the Indians themselves
1 Munjoy's Island is now known as Peak's Island. It contains seven
hundred and twenty acres and lies about three miles off Portland in Casco
Bay. A narrow channel separates it from Gushing' s Island.
2 The stone house upon Munjoy's Island (now Peak's) was located at
its southwest point, about four rods northeast of the Brackett family
cemetery fence as it now exists. It was but a few rods from the shore
of the channel separating Munjoy's from James Andrews' Island, upon
the northern end of which the refugees from Falmouth first congregated.
It was built by George Munjoy and was occupied for several years by
John Palmer and his family until they were driven off by the Indians
in 1675.— History of Peak's Island.
3 An account of what followed has been given on page 286.
Appendix 307
were influenced by no other motive than hospitality, and be
lieved the treaty embraced all who should accept its terms.
September 8th the authorities at Boston sent in to the east
ern country one hundred and thirty soldiers and forty Natick
Indians, under Captains Sill, Hathorne l and Hunting,2
which force was to be augmented by such troops as could be
raised in the province. They marched by land from Dover
to Black Point, thence went by vessel as far east as Casco
without discovering the enemy, although the work of des
truction was going on all about them,3 and they were com
pelled to retrace their steps without accomplishing anything.
A week later, October 12th, the Indians, one hundred strong,
under the leadership of Mugg,4 attacked Jocelyn's 5 garrison
1 Captain William Hathorne was born in Salem, April 1, 1645. In
the Narragansett campaign he was lieutenant under Captain Joseph
Gardiner and when that officer fell at the Swamp fight, succeeded to
the command. He died before 1679. — Savage.
2 Captain Samuel Hunting, born July 22, 1640, was first of Chelms-
ford and later of Charlestown. He served during the war "with great
reputation as captain of the praying Indians who took up arms in our
cause against their countrymen. " He and his men were of much serv
ice at the Sudbury fight and their conduct there did much to overcome
the popular prejudice against the friendly Indians as soldiers. He was
killed by the accidental discharge of his gun, August 19, 1701. — Savage.
Bodge, page 289.
3 During the period covered by this expedition the Indians several
times assaulted Wells and Cape Neddeck, killing a number of settlers
and burning their dwellings. These places were directly on the line of
march of the expedition.
4 Mugg, Mogg, Mogg Heigon, deeded in 1664 a tract of land lying
between the Kennebunk and Saco Rivers to Major William Phillips. In
the deed of conveyance he describes himself as "Mogg Heigon of Saco
River in New England, sunn and heyer of Walter Heigon sagamore of
sayd river. " He was the subject of Whittier's poem, " Mogg Megone. "
There appears to be some dispute as to his position. Drake (Book of
the Indians) says he was chief of the Androscoggins. Hubbard says,
"He was the principal minister of Madockawando. " WTillis calls him
"Prime Minister of the Penobscot sachem." He was alternately friend
or foe of the English settlers along the coast, and was killed at Black
Point (Scarborough), May 13, 1677, during an attack upon the garrison
there. See paper of Horatio Hight, read before the Maine Historical
Society, May 31, 1889, and published in the fifth volume of the second
series of their collections, page 345. Another Mogg Heigon was killed
with the Jesuit father, Rasle, by the English at Norigwok, August, 1724.
s Captain Henry Jocelyn, son of Sir Thomas of County Kent, came
308 King Philip's War
at Black Point, but while Jocelyn, who was well acquainted
with the savage leader, went forward to parley with them,
the entire garrison, with such of the inhabitants as were
within the fort, decamped by water, leaving Captain
Jocelyn and his family at the mercy of the Indians.
They were, however, kindly treated and soon liberated.
The winter of 1676-77 set in very early, and the au
thorities, supposing that the Indians were collecting at
their fort at Ossipee, thought it best to attempt their
capture. Accordingly Captains Hathorne and Sill were
directed to march to that point. They set out from
Newichawonock on the 1st of November; the snow was
deep and the streams, not yet frozen, were crossed with
difficulty. No Indians were found at Ossipee nor in the
adjoining region, and the expedition returned having ac
complished nothing but the destruction of the fort.
Immediately after the capture of Black Point, the Eng
lish at Piscataqua had sent a small expedition under a
young Mr. Fryer to Richmond Island to bring away
whatever goods had escaped destruction. As they were
loading their vessel, some being on shore and some aboard,
they were surprised by the Indians and, unable to sail on
account of the wind, and the cable being cut so that the
vessel drifted ashore they were compelled after a short
resistance, in which Fryer was wounded, to surrender.
They were, however, kindly treated and allowed to send
two of their number to Piscataqua to arrange for the
ransom of the rest.
Unfortunately the party who bore the ransom, arriving
a few days before the date set, fell in with another party
of Indians who seized the goods and, through a mistake,
to Scarborough, probably in 1634, and entered into the service of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges. He was one of the most active and influential men
in the Province of Elaine. After the loss of his garrison (which he was
temporarily commanding in the absence of Captain Joshua Scottow),
and his short captivity, he removed to Pemaquid where he was a justice
and much engaged in public affairs, and where he died in the latter part
of 1682 or early in the following year. See New England Register,
Vol. II, page 204; Vol. XI, page 31.
Appendix 309
killed one of the English, but on learning what the goods
were for dismissed the two surviving English in safety.
On the 1st of November, Mugg came to Piscataqua,
bringing in Fryer, who shortly afterwards died of his
wounds. Mugg declared that the Indians were desirous
of peace, and that the attack on the party bearing the
ransom was a mistake committed by a party of Indians
not acquainted with their mission.
Major-General Dennison, who was at Piscatauqua,
alleging that he had not the power to make a treaty,
immediately seized Mugg who was supposed to represent
both the Androscoggin and the Penobscot Indians, and
sent him to Boston, where, on the 6th of November, a
treaty was signed between the Governor and Council on
the one hand and Mugg, presumably acting for Madock-
awando and probably for the Androscoggins, on the
other.1
On the 21st, two vessels sailed for the Penobscot for
the purpose of conveying back the captives released by
the terms of the treaty, together with such arms and goods
as were to be given in ransom. Madockawando was
found ready to confirm the action of his subordinate, but
he had with him only two prisoners.
Mugg, held as a hostage for the fulfillment of the terms
agreed upon, learning that no captives, beyond the two
held by his chief, were near by, offered to attempt a
journey into the wilderness for the purpose of securing
a number of captives that would probably be found there.
The commander of the expedition agreed to wait for his
return at the end of four days, that being the limit of
the time required for the undertaking, and if at its ex
piration he had not appeared it should be assumed that
he had either been killed by the natives or detained by
them. The vessels awaited his appearance for a week
beyond the allotted time, and then, fearing that wintry
i Hubbard, Vol. II, page 189. Also Drake's Book of the Indians,
Book I.
310 King Philip's War
conditions would prevent their return to Boston, sailed
without him, stopping at Pemaquid where they found
Thomas Cobbett,1 the son of the Rev. Thomas Cob-
bett of Ipswich, who had long been mourned by his
friends, and with this small number of captives returned
to Boston. Mugg was not again seen by the English
for some time, but it is reported that he greatly boasted
of the trick by which he had outwitted the English and
repaid them in their own coin.
Early in February, 1677, a force raised by the Council
at Boston, consisting of two hundred men of whom sixty
were Natick Indians, under the command of Major Wal-
derne,2 was sent by water to the eastward in the expecta
tion that a systematic and organized attempt looking to the
reduction of the enemy would meet with successful ac
complishment. The expedition reached Arrowsick (after
a stop or two, at one of which, near Falmouth, they had
a skirmish with the sagamore, Squando, about the 21st.
The country was clothed in its winter aspect and the ice
in the bays and streams frustrated the major's plans.
He decided, however, to leave a party at the lower end
of Arrowsick to establish a garrison while he pushed on
to Pemaquid,3 having learned from some Indians at
1 For an account of Thomas Cobbett' s release from captivity see "A
Narrative of New England's Deliverances, " by his father, Rev. Thomas
Cobbett of Ipswich, to be found in the New England Register, Vol. VII,
page 215. Also Hubbard, Vol. II, pages 193-198.
2 Hubbard & Williamson's History of Maine.
3 Pemaquid is historically one of the most interesting localities of the
Maine coast. It is the most easterly point touched by Philip's war.
Its soil was the first on the mainland of New England to be pressed by
English feet. In 1605 Captain George Weymouth, in his ship Arch
angel, landed here and took back with him to England five of the native
Indians, one of whom, Squanto, was to play an important part in
the history of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Here in 1607 the settlement
of the colony under the auspices of Sir John Popham was accomplished,
only a few months later than the beginning of the settlement at James
town, Virginia. Here Captain John Smith in 1609 attempted the found
ing of a colony to succeed the Popham settlement, but none of the settle
ments remained permanent by reason of the many troubles between the
English, Indians and French, the latter claiming it as a part of their
Appendix 311
Arrowsick that the captives would be brought in later
but were now near Pemaquid. Sailing on to that place,
Walderne met Mattahando, one of Madockawando's
lieutenants, with about twenty-five of his followers, who
declared himself desirous of peace. Suspicious of his
intentions, it was decided at a council to attempt to get
possession of the captives and then to attack the Indians
by surprise. The major finally went ashore with part
of the ransom and while looking around found a lance-
head under a board. Seizing it, he brandished it before
their faces and accused them of treachery, and, waiving
his hand to the men on the vessel to come to his assistance,
he fell upon the Indians killing seven, among them the
old chief, and seizing four others.
In April the noted Simon wrought mischief in Wells
and York and in May a party of Indians laid siege to the
garrison at Black Point, then commanded by Lieutenant
Bartholomew Tippen,1 which was obstinately defended
for three days and resulted in the death of Mugg by
Lieutenant Tippen, who, noting an Indian who was par-
territory of Acadia. A fort, called Shurt's Fort, was built here perhaps
as early as 1624, succeeded by a new structure on the same site in 1677
called Fort Charles. The first must have been the scene of the fracas
between Major Walderne and the Indians during Philip's war. This
was followed by a third fort erected by Sir William Phips, and still later
a fortification of stone erected on the same site in 1729, called Fort
Frederick, was destroyed by the inhabitants during the Revolutionary
war to prevent its falling into the hands of the British.
But the most interesting subject connected with the history of Pema
quid is the ancient city, whose very existence has been forgotten, and
upon the site of which the small settlement of to-day stands. The evi
dence of ancient buildings in some four hundred cellar holes, still to some
extent visible; remains of shipyards, docks, an old burying ground, and
streets regularly paved with cobblestones and found about two feet be
low the present surface of the ground, are cause for speculation. This
interesting spot lies upon a projecting point of land between John's Bay
on the west and the ocean on the east, in the town of Bristol. — Ten
Years at Pemaquid, by J. Henry Cartland.
1 Lieutenant Bartholomew Tippen (commonly found recorded as ser
geant) was of Exeter in 1675 and was commissioned in October, 1676,
to command the forces in re-establishing the settlement of Scarborough.
In 1680 he was representative.
312 King Philip's War
ticularly bold in the attack, fired upon and killed him
under the belief that he was Simon. On the death of
Mugg the Indians hastily withdrew, a part of them going
in the direction of York and killing several settlers in that
quarter.
June 22d, a force of two hundred friendly Indians and
forty soldiers, was sent under command of Captain Ben
jamin Swett 1 of Hampton, and Lieutenant James Rich
ardson,2 on an expedition to the Piscataqua. Anchoring
off Black Point information was received of a force of
the enemy in that vicinity and Captain Swett went on
shore with a detachment of his men, and being joined
by some of the inhabitants, marched some two miles
from the fort in pursuit of an apparently fleeing band,
which suddenly turned and gave furious battle, closing
in and firing upon the English from an encompassing
swamp as they climbed a hill, driving in turn the young
and inexperienced soldiers of Swett' s command before
them. Twenty friendly Indians and forty of the English
were left upon the ground, including Lieutenant Richard
son and Captain Swett, who fell covered with wounds.
This was the most sanguinary battle of the eastern coast.
During this season the Indians attacked many vessels
1 Captain Benjamin Swett, born in England about 1626, came to New-
bury with his father where they were living as early as 1642. He mar
ried there the daughter of Peter Weare. He was early chosen to fill
places of trust in town and county and was appointed ensign of the
Newbury Military Company as early as 1651. He removed to Hampton
and was influential in civil and military affairs in Old Norfolk County.
In 1675 he held the rank of lieutenant. In June, 1677, he was commis
sioned captain and ordered " to Goe forth on the Service of the Country
agt the Eastern Indian Ennemy." — New England Register, Vol. VI,
page 54. Massachusetts Archives, Vol. LXIX, page 132.
2 Lieutenant James Richardson was first of Woburn but in 1659 re
moved to Chelmsford. He was with Captain Wheeler in the defense
of Brookfield. He removed to Charlestown, May 1, 1676, and served
with Captain Hunting in his mixed English and Indian Company in
the summer and fall of that year at Pawtucket Falls (Lowell), where
they built a fortification and maintained a garrison, of which Lieutenant
Richardson was left in charge, as well as of the Christian Indians at
Chelmsford. He was well acquainted with Indian ways and had great
influence with the natives. — Bodge, page 346.
si
U C/5
5 S
Appendix 313
lying apparently secure in the harbors, and more than
twenty of them were taken. "Thus" says Hubbard,
"was the summer spent in calamities and miserable oc-
currents among the eastern parts. "
An attempt, made somewhat earlier than the time of
the events now reached, to enlist the Mohawk tribes
against the eastern Indians, by the advice of Governor
Andros of New York, did not succeed, through the re
luctance of the Mohawks to proceed to such a distance
from their homes. It is probable that had it been pos
sible to have accomplished this plan, the insane dread
held by the New England Indians against this warlike
tribe, would have speedily put an end to the war.
The disturbances in the east having dragged along
until August, 1677, a sudden termination of hostilities
was reached by an enterprise entirely unforeseen. Fear
ful that the Sagadahock province, which was a possession
of the Duke of York, might, in its deserted condition, be
seized upon by the French, Sir Edmond Andros, Gov
ernor of New York, sent an armed expedition to Pema-
quid with orders to take possession of the country, build
a fort, engage in trade with the natives and encourage
intercourse between them and the English. By an agree
ment with the sagamores the release of fifteen captives
was secured, as well as the release of all the vessels which
had been detained by them. It is reasonable to conclude
that the Indians were tired of the long-drawn-out hos
tilities and were glad to embrace an opportunity to re
tire without too great embarrassment.
No attempt to relate in detail all the incidents of the
war along the Maine coast has here been made; some
known to the writer have been omitted and undoubtedly
many occurrences of these times are now absolutely un
known to any person. There were in this region but few
of the conditions existing in the United Colonies. No
well-fortified and defended towns to be set upon in warlike
fashion by a furious enemy. No well-equipped force to
314 King Philip's War
surprise the Indian fastness in a moment of unwatchful-
ness. Here was border warfare only. The sharp and
unexpected attack upon the undefended cabin of the set
tler; the still more unexpected surprise upon the little
garrison, and always, common to all sections in which
the English fought, the deadly ambush, offering a lesson
which was apparently never learned.
The peace and tranquillity which prevailed throughout
the following autumn and winter and the enjoyment of
consequent harmony and safety throughout the eastern
portion of the province, induced the other tribes to seek
a like condition for themselves, and in the spring of 1678,
the Government of Massachusetts appointed a commis
sion, consisting of Major Nicholas Shapleigh l of Kittery,
Captain Francis Champernoon 2 and Captain Nathaniel
Fryer 3 of Portsmouth, to settle a peace between Squando
and all the sagamores of the eastern country. The com
missioners met the Indians at Casco 4 and entered into
Articles of Peace, April 12, by which all captives were to
be returned without ransom, all inhabitants in returning
to their homes were to enjoy their possession unmolested,
but as an acknowledgment of the Indian rights in the
lands, they were to pay to them, year by year, as a quit-
1 Major Nicholas Shapleigh, son of Alexander who built the first
house at Kittery Point, was born about 1610, and after coming to this
country lived first at Portsmouth, but became one of the most prominent
citizens of Old Kittery. He served as selectman, deputy to the Gen
eral Court, Provincial Councilor, County Treasurer, and was one of the
commissioners to hold the first term of court in York County in June,
1653. He was appointed major in the militia in 1656, and was also a
justice. He was extensively engaged in lumbering and milling. He
was killed by an accident during the launching of a vessel, April 29,
1682. — Old Kittery and her Families, page 112.
2 Captain Francis Champernoon was a nephew of Sir Ferdinando
Gorges. He was of Kittery, 1639, Portsmouth, 1646, and York, 1665.
He was captain in 1640 and afterwards major. He was one of the
councilors of the Province of New Hampshire in 1684. His will
was probated December 28, 1687. — Savage.
3 Captain Nathaniel Fryer, mariner, was of Boston but removed to
Portsmouth. He was representative in 1666, captain, and councilor
in 1683. His death occurred August 13, 1705.— Savage.
4 See Williamson's History of Maine, Vol. I, page 552.
Appendix 315
rent, a peck of corn for every English family, and for
Major Phillips of Saco, who was a great proprietor, one
bushel.
The losses throughout the country east of the Piscata-
qua had been very great. About two hundred and sixty
were known to have been killed or carried into captivity,
and there were probably many others of whom no record
was kept. Some of the settlements had been utterly
destroyed and in others many dwellings burned, domestic
animals killed and a great amount of property plundered
and destroyed. The cost to the colony government
amounted to over eight thousand pounds.
INDEX
INDEX
Adams, Lieutenant Henry 179
Akkompoin 62
Alderman (Indian) 272, 274
Alexander 6, 38, 46, 52, 174, 269
Allyn, Captain 249
John 97
Matthew 97
Amos, Captain (Indian) 190
Andros, Sir Edmond 82, 97, 110,
123, 165, 166, 167, 195, 284, 313
Anguilla, Execution of Canon-
chet at 204
Annawan 185, 273, 277, 278, 279,
280
Annawan's Rock, Capture of
Annawan at 278
Appleton, Captain Samuel
108, 109, 110, 119, 122,
123, 125, 126, 127, 129,
130, 143, 147, 151, 245
Arnold, Benedict 31
Rev. Samuel 267
Arrowsick Island, Capture of
Clark & Lake's trad
ing house and fort at 304
Assiminasqua 302
Attleboro, Woodcock's Garri
son at 63
A very, Captain James 201
Lieutenant 143
Awashonks 52, 253, 254, 272
Ayers, Sergeant John 91, 92
B
Baker, Virginia 57
Bardwell, Robert 234
Barrow, Sam (Indian) 269
Barstow, Joseph 222
Beers, Captain Richard 94, 95,
97, 100, 105, 106, 107, 108
Belcher, Captain Andrew 155, 156
Belcher, Quartermaster Jo
seph 64
Belknap, Rev. Jeremy 285
Billerica, Attack upon 206
Black James (Indian) 88
Black Point, Attack on Joce-
lyn's Garrison at, 307,
Death of Mugg at, 311,
Captain Swett's battle 312
Blackstone, William 202
Bloody Brook, Surprise at 112
Bodwell, Henry 112
Bonython, Captain John 296
Richard 296
Boston, Description of 2
Bourne, Jared (Gerrard) 59
Richard 25
Brackett, Anthony 303
Bradford, Major William 37, 58,
59, 144, 253, 256, 259, 260,
261, 281
Brattle, Captain Thomas 40, 60,
109, 220, 223, 238, 245, 256
Brayton, Chief Justice 30
Bridgewater, Attacked by Tus-
paquin 206
Brigham, Clarence S. 31
Brinsmead, Rev. William 98, 190
Brocklebank, Captain Samuel 159,
163, 210, 213
Brooks, John 128
William 128
Brown, Ann 248
James 40, 44, 50, 53, 60,
61, 135
John 248
Lieutenant John 59, 60, 80
Nathaniel 119
Bull, Governor Henry 147
Jirah 147
Captain Thomas 82
Burt, Henry M. 115, 231
Jonathan 118
320
Index
Canonchet 45, 53, 70, 73, 134,
135, 136, 137, 138, 158, 159, 160,
161, 162, 175, 185, 186, 190, 191,
197, 200, 202, 205, 206, 219, 269,
275
Canonicus 26, 27. 30, 35, 71,
73, 136, 145, 174
Card, Francis 304
Carpenter, William 162
Cartland, J. Henry 311
Cartwright, Colonel 180
Casco, Settlement of peace at 314
Caulkins, Frances M. 34
Champernoon, Captain Fran
cis 314
Champlain 1
Charles the First 103
Chelmsford, Houses burned
at 206
Chesley 295
Church, Captain Benjamin 52,
53, 57, 58, 68, 74, 75, 76, 81, 136,
143, 144, 145, 153, 252, 253, 254,
259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 265, 266,
270, 271, 272, 273, 277, 278, 279,
280
Clark 301, 305
William 187
Cobbett, Rev. Thomas 219, 247,
310
Cochecho (Dover), Treaty of 300
Coginaquan 174
Cole, Hugh 44, 58, 61
Collins, Charles 298
Conant (Roger) 26
Concord Village, Attack upon 177
Conway, Peter (Indian) 217
Cook, Caleb 272
John 261
Cooper, Lieutenant Thomas
93, 94, 95, 118
Corbitant 269
Cornbury, Nathaniel 110
Cotton, John 37
Rev. John 191, 267, 268
Courtice (Curtis), Philip 129, 130
Cowell, Captain Edward 208,
209, 212
Cromwell (Oliver) 55
Cross, Samuel 238
Cudworth, Major James 58, 63,
65, 69, 74, 77
Curtis, Ephraim 84, 85, 87, 89,
91, 92
Henry 84
(Courtice), Philip 129, 130
Cutler, Captain John 223
Cutts, Governor John 299
Davenport, Captain Nathan
iel 136, 143, 145, 150, 151
David (Indian) 48, 89, 98
Davis, William 40
Captain Sylvanus 301, 302,
305
D'Aubrey, Lieut. Governor of
Acadia 61
Deerfield, Location of, 10
Attack on 101, 110
Dennison, Major General 309
General Daniel 144
Captain George 201, 223,
238, 239, 241, 249
Denslow, Henry 189
Doublet Tom (Indian) 215, 257
Drake, Samuel G. 146
Drew, William 234
Drinkei, Lieutenant Edward 250
Druce, John 67
Dudley, Joseph 70, 143, 144, 149,
152, 155, 157, 165
(Governor Thomas) 28, 70
Dumbleton, John 128
K
Eames, Thomas 169, 227
Earthy, John 301, 302
Easton, Governor John 50, 51, 57
Edmonds, Captain Andrew 80, 191
Eels, Captain Samuel 81
Eggleston, James 102
Eliot, Rev. John 17, 23, 24, 47,
133, 134, 214/3'' 7
Ennis, Edward 5T
Falmouth, Attack upon An
thony Brackett's house 303
Index
321
Felt, George 304, 300
Fenner, Captain Arthur 138, 161
Field, Edward 80
Fitch, Rev. James 54, 69, 81, 143
Freeman, Peter (Indian) 145
Frost, Captain Charles 285
Fryer, Mr. 308, 309
Captain Nathaniel 314
Fuller, Captain 58, 75
Gallop, Captain John
Gardiner, Captain 143, 147,
Peter
Samuel
George (Indian)
Gilbert, John
Thomas
Gill, Corporal John
Rebecca
Gillam, Captain Benjamin
Glover, Rev. Peletiah
Goble, Daniel
Samuel
Goffe, General William 103,
Rev. Stephen
Goodale, Captain Richard
Goodman, Deacon Richard
Goodrich, John
Mary
Goodyear, Governor
Gookin, Major (Daniel) 69,
133, 134, 170, 171, 212,
214, 215,
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando 293,
Grorham, Captain 58,
Gorton, Samuel 30, 32, 35,
53, 71,
Goulding, Captain Roger 77,
Great Barrington, Indians
surprised at
Green, Samuel
Greene, Welcome Arnold
Gunrashit (Sagamore)
U
152
151
218
218
253
227
227
64
64
180,
200
119
286
286
104
103
155,
156
198,
227
199
199
305
97,
213,
220
308,
314
144
50,
135,
271,
272
179
191
216
II
Hacklington, Francis 118
Hadley, Location of, 10, Se
lected as headquarters,
95, Surprised 243
Halifax Assaulted 222
Hammond, William 64, 303
Hammond's Head, Attack up
on William Hammond's
house at 303
Hatch, Colonel 63
Hatfield, Location of, 10,
alarm at, 125, Attack
upon 239
Hathorne, Captain William 285,
307, 308
Hayden, Daniel 189
Heigon, Walter (Sagamore) 307
Henchman, Captain Daniel
61, 68, 78, 80, 81, 95, 99, 109,
129. 130. 134, 214, 220, 223,
239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246
Right, Horatio 307
Hoar, John 217, 218, 219
Holbrook, Captain John 223
Holland, Dr. J. G. 243
Holyoke, Elizur 231
Captain Samuel 231, 232,
233, 237
Hopewell Swamp, Fight at 100
Hopkins, Governor Stephen 35
Rowland, Jabez 253, 264
John 253
Hoyt, General 243
Hubbard, Rev. William 113, 247
Hudson, William 40
Hunting, Captain Samuel 212,
214, 258, 307
Hutchinson, Mrs. (Anne) 8
Captain Edward 53, 69, 70,
71, 83, 88, 90
Jackson, Andrew (President) 276
Jacob (Dutch trader) 193
John 177
Captain John 177, 179
Lieutenant 190, 213
John, Jr. 206
322
Index
James, The Printer 168,
Jarrard (Dutch Trader)
Jethro, Old (Indian) 98,
Peter
Jocelyn, Captain Henry
Sir Thomas
John (The Pakachooge)
Johnson, Captain Isaac
Jones, William
Joseph (Indian)
Joshua (Uncas' Son)
Joslyn, Abraham, Jr.
Ann
Beatrice
K
179, 220
193
164, 286
215, 286
307, 308
307
257
143,
177
273
91
95
175
175
175
151
Kattenait (Indian) 170
Keep, John 193
Sarah 193
Keith, Rev. James 255, 267
Kerley, Elizabeth 172
Henry 172
Mrs. Henry 172
Joseph 172
William 172
Kettell, John 216
Kimball, Thomas 221, 300
Kingsbury, Ephraim 221
Kutquen 215
Lake, Captain Thomas 301, 305
Lathrop, Captain Thomas 94,
95, 97, 100, 111, 112, 113, 114
Lancaster, Attack upon 170
Laughton 302
Leonard, Henry 61
John 193
Leverett, Governor John 43, 53,
60, 69, 97, 121, 122, 129, 138,
143, 152, 155, 157, 161, 165,
178, 214, 257
London, James 61
Longmeadow, Attack upon
people of 192
Lovelace, Governor 39
Lucas, Thomas 264
Ludlowe (Roger) 25
M
Madockawando 295, 300, 302,
307, 309, 310
Magnus (Queen) 145, 147
(saunk squaw) 249
Manantuck 145
Marlboro, Attack upon 189
Marshall, Captain Samuel 142,
152
Mason, Captain Hugh 209, 210,
212, 213
Captain John 27, 109, 143,
152
Major John 109
Massasoit 26, 27, 36, 40, 74, 268
Mather, Cotton 23
Rev. Increase 37, 99, 100,
105, 108, 132, 167, 168,
185, 267
Matoonas (Indian) 78, 85, 89,
164, 259
Mattahando 311
Mattamuck 257
Mattapoiset, Bourne's Garri
son at 59
Mattaschunanamoo 48
Matthews, John 119
Pentecost 119
Mautaump 164, 242, 257, 285
Mawcahwat 189
Mayhew, Thomas 25
Medford, Attack upon 178
Megunneway 226
Memecho, George 91, 96
Menameset, Mission of Curtis
to 86, 89
Metacom (Philip) 36
Mexanno 145
Miantonomah 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 46, 53,
71, 135
Miles (Myles), Rev. John 63, 64
Miller, John 118
Thomas 118
Mitton, Nathaniel
Mogg, Heigon 307
Megone 307
Monoco (One-Eyed John)
104, 111, 164, 187, 286
Monopoid (Indian) 202
Morris, Hon. Oliver B. 118
Index
323
Morse, Joseph 178
Samuel 178
Morton, Secretary Nathaniel 42
Moseley, Captain Samuel 63, 68,
81, 95, 97, 98, 99, 110, 113, 114,
120, 121, 123, 126, 127, 135, 143,
144, 145, 147, 150, 151, 166, 180,
185, 200, 245, 247, 256
Mount Hope, Advance upon,
65, Death of Philip at 272
Mugg (Mogg — Mogg Heigon) 302,
307, 309, 310, 311, 312
Munjoy, George 306
Muttaump (Mattawamppe) 87,
88, 111
Myles (Miles), Rev. John 63
N
Nachek (Natick), Slaughter at 249
Nanunteno (Canonchet) 203
Narraganset Swamp, Battle of 149
Nemasket, Home of Sassamon 47
Nepanet Tom (Indian) 192, 215,
216, 217, 238, 242
Netus 169, 190
Newbury, Captain Benjamin
142, 237, 240, 249
Newichawonock (South Ber
wick), Attack upon 298
Newman, Rev. 191
Rev. Noah 79
Rev. Samuel 79
Nicholson, Colonel 61
Nimrod 80
Ninigret 24, 38, 39, 53, 71, 145,
159, 160
Nipsachick, Fight at 79
Norman ville, Monsieur 168
Northampton, Location of, 10,
Disarmament of In
dian Fort at, 99, Sur
prise in Pynchon's
Meadow, 128, Attack
upon 184
Northfield, Location of, 10,
Destruction of 104
Norton, Freegrace 127
George 127
Nowell, Rev. Samuel 200
Noyes, Peter 211
Noyes, Thomas 211
Nummumbaum
Nunnuit, Peter
269
52
Oakes, Lieutenant Edward 67,
178, 182
Oldham, John 25
Oliver, Captain James 132, 143,
146, 147, 150, 152, 162
Oneco (Indian) 79, 201
One-Eyed John (Monoco) 104,
164, 177, 178, 187, 219
Ossipee, Expedition to 308
Paige, Captain Nicholas 65, 68,
180
Palmer, John 306
Palmes, Major Edward 200
Panoquin
Parker, Captain James 182
Pawtucket River, Destruction
of Captain Peirse at,
191, Capture of Canon
chet at 202
Pawwawwoise 189
Pegypscot (Brunswick), Dep
redations at 294
Peirse, Captain Michael 190,
191, 192, 199
Pemaquid, Attack upon 311
Pepper, Robert 107, 165, 174
Perry, Seth 53, 218
Peskeompskut (Turners Falls)
Surprised 229
Pessacus 53, 54, 136, 137, 160,
161, 185, 196, 205, 226, 249, 275
Peter (Awashonk's son) 136, 253
Ephraim (Indian) 283
(Indian) 150, 257, 273
Petownonowit 269
Pettaquomscot, Treaty of 72
Phelps 189
Philip, King 24, 36, 38, 39, 40,
41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52,
53, 54, 60, 61, 68, 72, 73, 74, 78,
79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 88, 96, 98, 107,
324
Index
Philip, King (cont.) Ill, 135,
136, 137, 138, 142, 162, 165, 166,
167, 168, 174, 175, 185, 187, 189,
197, 205, 206, 207, 208, 215, 216,
219, 220, 246, 247, 250, 254, 260,
261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 268, 270,
271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 282
Phillips, Major William 296, 307,
315
Phips, Sir William 71
Phosbe (Pebee) 67
Plaisted, Lieutenant Roger, 298,
299
Plymouth, Clark's Garrison
destroyed at 187
Pocasset, Philip cornered at 77
Pontiac 46
Poole, Captain Jonathan 126
Popham, Sir John 310
Post, William 78
Potuck (Sachem) 250
Powers, William 53
Prence, Governor Thomas 39
Prentice, Captain Thomas 62,
64, 68, 78, 134, 143, 148, 158,
159, 212, 214, 220, 223
Prescott, John 170
Jonathan 219
Prescumscut River, Attack
upon settlers at 295
Prince (Prence), Governor
Thomas 39, 40, 44
Pritchard, Sergeant William 91
Providence, R. I., Location
of, 8, Destroyed 188
Pryngrydays, Edmund 119
Puffer, Matthias 78
Pumham 30, 31, 71, 144, 158,
185, 196, 205, 226, 258
Punkatee's Neck, Engagement
of Captain Church at 76
Purchase, Thomas 294
Pynchon, Major John 88, 96, 97,
99, 109, 110, 111, 115, 116,
117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 127,
128, 193
William 115, 118, 231
Quabuag, Siege of 91
Quaiapen 145, 159, 174, 185
Quanapaug, (Quenepenett,
Quanapohit, James
Wiser) 107, 135, 162, 166,
167, 168, 170, 215
Quequaganet 145
Quinapin 260, 263, 269, 277
Quiquequanchett (Weetamoo) 269
R
Randolph, Edward 3, 11
Rasle, Father 307
Redemption Rock, Liberation
of Mrs. Rowlandson at 217
Reed, Thomas 199, 227
Rehoboth, Capture of Philip's
Indians in Swamp at 263
Richardson, Lieutenant James 312
Rider, Sydney S. 146, 147
Roper, Ephraim 172
John 172
Rowlandson, Mrs. Mary 107,
170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 181,
195, 198, 213, 216, 217, 227,
269, 276
Rev. Joseph 172, 173, 215,
216, 218
Thomas 172
Thomas, Jr. 172
Ruddock, Captain John 98
Ruggles, Rev. W. 152
Russell, Rev. John 103 104, 120,
121, 225, 227, 234, 281
Ralph 61
Saco, Attack upon Philip's
Garrison at 296
Sachamoise 189
Sacononoco 31
Sagamore John (Sachem) 85, 259
Sagamore Sam (Uskatahgun) 87,
104, 107, 111, 164, 215, 219,
220, 242, 257, 285
Sam, Sachem 257
Sanchumachu 185
Sanford, Major Peleg 270, 272
Sassacus 18, 26
Sassamon, John 47, 48, 49
Index
325
Saunk Squaw, The 145, 146
Savage, Ensign Perez 65
Judge 35
Major Thomas 60, 65, 66,
68, 82, 134, 135, 180, 181,
184, 186, 190, 193, 194, 199,
200, 214, 224
Saw Mill Brook, Beers' de
feat at 106
Sawyer, Thomas 170
Scituate, Raid upon 222
Scott, Rie 134
Scottow, Captain Joshua 308
Seeley, Lieutenant Nathaniel
123, 125, 143, 152
Robert 125
Sequassen 31
Shakspere, Unzakaby 116
Shapleigh, Major Nicholas 314
Sheldon, Hon. George 104
Shepherd, Abraham 177
Isaac 177
Mary 177
Sholan ' 162
Shurte, Abraham 301
Sibley, John Langdon 172
Sill, Captain Joseph 119, 129,
181, 223, 307, 308
Simon (Indian) 304, 311, 312
Smith, Ann 97
Henry 97
Captain John 239, 310
Oliver 239
Richard 70, 72, 135, 144,
147, 161
Sophia 239
Southworth, Alice 253
Nathaniel 253
Sowams, Home of Massasoit 36
Springfield, Location of, 9,
Surprised 117
Squando (Indian) 114, 284, 296,
297, 300, 303, 310, 314
Squanto 310
Stanton, Captain John 201
Robert 203
Thomas 203
Stetson, Cornet Robert 222
St. Casteen, Baron de 300
Stockbridge, Charles 222
Stoddard, Rev. Solomon 99, 100,
105, 108
Stone, John 25
Stonewall, John (Indian) 146,
147, 150, 250
Sudbury, Attack upon 208
Swaine, Captain Jeremiah 245,
283
Swansea, Commencement of
hostilities at 57
Swett, Captain Benjamin 312
Talcott, Major John 96, 201,
237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243,
245, 248, 249, 250, 252, 281,
282, 283
Mary K. 102
Tappan, John 112
Tattapanum (Weetamoo) 269
Taunton, Head of Weetamoo
exhibited at, 269, Meet
ing at 40
Tecumseh 46
Teft (Tiffe) 150
Thayer, Rev. Henry O. 303, 304
Thebe (Phoebe, Pebee) 67
Thomas, Captain Nathaniel 79,
81
Tifft, Joshua 155, 161
Tippen, Lieutenant Bartholo
mew 311
Tobias (Indian) 48
Tolony (Indian) 52
Toto (Indian) 117
Totoson 187, 252, 264, 265,
269, 270
Tozer, Richard 298, 299
Treat, J. Harvey 107
Major Robert (Gov.) 107,
108, 109, 110, 113, 119, 122,
123, 127, 130, 142, 148, 157,
169, 184, 185, 194, 199
Trumble, Judah 93
Turner, Praisever 116, 128
Captain William 172, 180,
184, 185, 199, 200, 224, 225,
229, 232, 233, 234, 235
Tuspaquin 206, 221, 260, 264,
279, 280
Tyask 261
326
Index
Uncas 9, 17, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31,
32, 33, 34, 35, 69, 79, 82, 83, 95,
97, 134, 136, 287
Uskatahgun 87, 216
Varnham, Samuel 206
Verrazzano 1
W
Waban (Wauban) 84
Wadsworth, Captain 163, 169,
171, 173, 207, 208, 210, 211,
212, 213
Wakeley, Thomas 295
Walderne, Major 98, 164, 285,
286, 294, 296, 299, 302, 306, 310
Walker, James 44
Walton (Richard) 26
W'ampapaquin (Indian) 48, 49
W7amsutta 36, 269
WTannalancet 98, 99, 284
Warren, Thomas 166
Warwick, Earl of 30
Washakim Ponds, Indians sur
prised at 242
W'atawaikeson 249
Watts, Richard 93
Captain Thomas 93, 95, 97,
101, 143
Wauban 257
Weare, Peter 312
Weawosse 189
Wecquequinequa 269
Weetamoo 46, 52, 53, 79, 81, 96,
159, 174, 185, 268, 277
Wells, Jonathan 232, 234
Thomas 232
Wequash 189
WTesoncketichen 189
Weymouth, Captain George 310
Whalley, General Edward 103
Wheeler's Garrison 170
Wheeler, Captain Thomas 88,
90, 312
Whipple, Captain John 180, 192,
200
White, John 170, 172, 173
Whitmore, Rev. Benjamin 187
Whowassamoh 189
Wianimoo (Weetamoo) 269
Willard, Joseph 172
Major Simon 93, 95, 181, 182
Willet, Hezekiah 247, 255
Captain Thomas 38, 60, 247
Williams, Captain John 272
Richard 40
Roger 8, 9, 15, 21, 24, 26, 28,
31, 33, 34, 53, 54, 67, 69, 70,
71, 137, 138, 161, 165, 188
Wilson, John 178
Thomas 92
Wincoll, Captain John 296, 297,
298
Winslow 145, 147, 154, 159, 160,
162, 163
Governor Edward 22, 37,
53, 57
Job 57
Josiah 37, 139
Kenelm 57
Thomas 81
Winter Harbor attacked 296
Winthrop (Governor) 28, 29, 31,
33, 54, 148
Governor John, of
Connecticut 43
Governor John, of Mas
sachusetts 43
Lucy 200
Waite 71, 82, 147, 148
Woodcock's Garrison, Attack
upon 221
Woodcock, John 63, 221
Nathaniel 221
Woolonekamuske (Philip's
Wife) 263
WToonashun 80
Wright 188
Young, Henry
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