USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 18
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good use of them, but the picture of Indian agriculture given by Wood in his "New England's Prospect" is the more commonly received one. Describing the occupations of the squaws, he says "another work is their planting of corn, wherein they exceed our English husbandmen, keeping it so clear with their clamshell hoes, as if it were a garden rather than a corn field, not suffering a choking weed to advance his audacious head above their infant corn, or an under- mining worm to spoil his spurnes. Their corn being ripe, they gather it, and, drying it hard in the sun, convey it to their barns, which be great holes digged in the ground in form of a brass pot, ceiled with rinds of trees, wherein they put their corn, covering it from the inquisitive search of their gormandizing husbands, who would eat up both their allowed portion, and reserved feed, if they knew where to find it."
Six years later, in 1688, Pethus and Ahamo had departed this life for the happy hunting grounds of their race, and no one reigned in their stead. Under the mild protection of the English the tribe no longer needed chieftains to lead them to battle, and the love of office for its petty spoils and dignity, involving the sacrifice of self respect and worldly goods for its attainment, did not appeal to their simple natures. Never- theless, it was desirable that some of their race should have authority to agree with the English in the settlement of con- troversies. A meeting of the tribe was therefore held on the 17th of September. 1688, at the house of John Wadsworth, and they were asked. now that their chief men were dead. whom they would make choice of to be chief. They very modestly " desired Mr. Wadsworth to nominate a man or two, who did nominate Wawawis and Shum, and all that were present well approved of them " " as captains to whom the English may have recourse at all times." The record of the meeting was signed by John Wadsworth, Will- iam Lewis Senior, and John Standly Senior as witnesses on the part of the English, and by Nousbash, Judas, and cleven
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others on the part of the tribe. Wawawis and Shum, on their part, " accepted of the place of captains or chief men amongst all the Indians now in our town and do promise to carry quietly and peaceably towards all English and to give an ac- count to Mr. Wadsworth of any strange Indians coming," etc. Twelve others, " not being Tunxis Indians," also signed an agreement " to walk peaceably and quietly towards the English and to be subject to Shum and Wawawis as their chief commanders." This agreement seems to have been faithfully kept. In 1725, an attack from Canada being feared and bands of hostile Indians having been found lurk- ing about Litchfield, the Governor and Council resolved " That John Hooker, Esq., William Wadsworth, and Isaac Cowles, or any two of them, shall inspect the Indians of Farmington; and the said Indians, each and every man of them, is ordered to appear before said committee every day about sundown, at such place as said committee shall appoint, and give to said committee an account of their ramble and business the preceeding day, unless said committee shall, for good reason to them shown, give their allowance to omit their appearance for some time." In October this restraint was removed from the Farmington Indians provided they refrained from war paint and wore a white cloth on their heads when they went into the woods to hunt, thus distin- guishing themselves from the hostile Indians around them.
The conversion of the natives of this continent to Chris- tianity was a favorite purpose set forth in the grants and charters issued by European sovereigns, whether Protestant or Catholic. In 1706 the General Assembly of Connecticut , desires the reverend ministers to prepare a plan for their con- version, and in 1717 the Governor and Council are ordered to present "the business of gospeling the Indians" to the October session of the assembly. In 1727 persons having Indian children in their families are ordered to endeavor to teach them to read English and to catechise them. In 1733
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the General Assembly provides for the payment of the board of the Indian youth of Farmington at a school -under the supervision of Rev. Samuel Whitman, and the next year the latter reports progress to Gov. Talcott. " I have leisure only to inform your Honour that of the nine Indian lads that were kept at school last winter, three can read well in a testament. three currently in a psalter, and three are in their primers. Testaments and psalters have been provided for those that read in them, Three of ye Indian lads are entered in writing and one begins to write a legible hand." Appropriations for the school were made by the assembly for three successive years. In 1737 a pupil of the school, one John Matawan, became its teacher. In 1751 the tribe had made such prog- ress in adopting the customs of their white neighbors that the Ecclesiastical Society " granted a liberty to the Christian- ized Indians belonging to said society to build a seat in the gallery in the Meeting House over the stairs at the north- east corner of said house and to be done at the direction of the society committee." In 1763 Solomon Mossuck joins the church, and two years afterward his wife Eunice also joins. In November, 1772, a new teacher took his place in the little Indian schoolhouse in West District. This was Joseph John- son, a Mohegan Indian, whose father had been a soldier in the French war. He had attended Wheelock's Indian Char- ity School at Lebanon in 1758, but after leaving it had led an irregular life, at one time going on a whaling voyage and visiting the West Indies. Returning to a sober, religious life, he was employed by the "Society for Propagating the Gospel in New England " to teach the Tunxis Indians until he was ordained as a minister at Hanover, New Hampshire. in the summer of 1774. He had much to do with the subse- quent removal of the tribe to the west.
The continued progress of the Indians toward a civilized life and their feelings and aspirations in regard to it are set forth in the memorial of Elijah Wampey, Solomon Mossuck.
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and the rest of the tribe to the May session of the General Assembly in 1774. "Your Honour's Memorialists have al- ways lived and inhabited in the said town of Farmington by means whereof the most of us have in some measure become acquainted with and formed some general ideas of the Eng- lish custom and manners, and many of said tribe have been instructed in reading and writing in English, and have been at considerable expense in attaining the same, and furnishing ourselves with bibles and some other books in English for our further instruction though poorly able to bear the ex- pense thereof, and we being desirous to make further profi- ciency in English literature and especially to be acquainted with the Statute Laws of this Colony . do therefore pray your Honours to give us a Colony Law Book to guide and direct us in our conduct." The petition was granted.
Another memorial by the same persons, dated six days earlier, foreshadows a great change about to come over the tribe. The restless spirit of the savage which no civilizing influences, or religion itself, could wholly subdue, had been set on fire by the allurements of now scenes offered them and of more room for the exercise of their old-time freedom of forest life. The memorial states " that they have received a kind invitation from their brethren, the Six Nations at Oneida, to come and dwell with them, with a promise of a cordial re- ception and ample provision in land whereon to subsist, and being straightened where we now dwell, think it will be best for ourselves and our children and also tend to extend and advance the kingdom of Christ among the heathen nations to sell our interest in this Colony, to accept said kind invita- tion of our brethren and to remove to the Oneida, and to prevent being imposed upon therein, we humbly pray your Honours as our fathers and guardians to appoint Col. John Strong and Fisher Gay. Esq., and Mr. Elnathan Gridley, all of said Farmington, a committee to assist, direct, and oversee us in the sale of our lands." Their petition was granted.
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We have another account of this invitation of the Tunxis tribe to the home of their former deadliest enemies. It was written down by Deacon Elijah Porter, who was a boy of - thirteen at the time of the occurrence and doubtless wrote of what he personally knew. He says: " Some time before the Revolutionary War a tribe of the Oneida Indians came to Farmington to make the Tunxes a friendly visit. Accord- ingly they had a feast of wild deer. In the evening they held a pow-wow. They built a very large fire and the two tribes joined hands and set to a running around this fire singing and shouting and sounding the war whoop so loud as to be plainly heard a mile."
The great obstacle to the removal of the tribe was their claim to valuable lands which they could neither take with them nor legally sell. Since the year 1738 they had many times besought the assistance of the General Assembly and that body by sundry committees had found them to be the rightful owners of a piece of land known as the Indian Neck. containing from ninety to one hundred and forty acres, bounded east and south by the river, north by the Wells Farm, and west by land of Daniel Lewis. This land. though not held in severalty, certain individuals of the tribe had at- tempted to sell in small quantities by deeds in most instances not legally executed or recorded and dating back as far as the first day of December, 1702. Many legislatures per- plexed themselves with attempts to do justice to all parties. until at length a committee was appointed in 1773, which. taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case. divided a particular holding to each Indian, whether warrior or squaw. in quantity varying from ten acres to a little less than two acres and made a map of the same. Lots were laid out to thirty-seven individuals, being one more than the cen- sus of 1774 records. According to the latter there were four- teen males over twenty years of age and twelve females. The whole matter was accomplished in 1777. and the tribe was
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free to remove with the proceeds of the sale of their lands. The tribe, small as it was, seems not to have made its exodus in a body. In October, 1773, their principal men sent a cir- -- cular letter to six other New England tribes asking them to send each a messenger to the house of Sir William Johnson. who had encouraged their removal. Joseph Johnson and Elijah Wampey were the only men who went. At a meeting at Canajoharie the next January, representatives were sent by four tribes who announced their intended removal in a speech by Joseph Johnson in the council house of the Onei- das. The latter. in their reply, say: "Brethren. since we have received you as brothers, we shall not confine you, or pen you up to ten miles square," and add many expressions of hearty welcome. The spring of 1775 saw the departure of a considerable part of the Tunxis tribe, some to Oneida and some to Stockbridge. In the Indian deeds on record. Elijah Wampey locates himself in 1777 as " now of Oneida in the Mohawk country," and James Wowowas in 1775 as of Stockbridge. The time of their removal was most unfor- tunate. They, with most of the Oneidas. espoused the pa- triot side in the Revolution and were driven in 1777 from their new homes by the British, Tories, and Indians under St. Leger and sought refuge in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. To tell the story of their disaster at length were to rehearse a large part of the history of the Revolution. The war over. they renew their memorials to our state legislature to help them return to their now devastated homes.
Their appeal to the October session of the General .1s- sembly in 1780 was written by Wampey, Cusk. Curcomb. and others from West Stockbridge asking for funds to pay for the preaching among them of " Daniel Simon of the Nar- raganset tribe of Indians of College education and ordained to preach the gospel." Their request, though fortified b an appeal from the missionary Sammel Kirkland, was refused. and instead thereof they were allowed to solicit contribution.
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in the several churches. A considerable sum was thus col- lected in Continental currency and in bills of credit issued by the state, but so utterly valueless had this currency become that "not worth a continental " was the common designa- tion of anything absolutely worthless. The assembly this time took pity on their condition and ordered the state treas- urer to take up the bills and pay lawful money to Rev. Samuel Kirkland for their use.
In 1788 the Indians began to return to their Oneida homes, being encouraged by an act of the New York legis- lature which has the following preamble': " And whereas the Oneida and Tuscarora tribes inhabiting within this state have been distinguished for their attachment to the_cause of America and have thereby entitled themselves to protec- tion, and the said tribes by their humble petition having prayed that their land may be secured to them by authority of the legislature," commissioners were appointed to devise measures for their contentment. In an act of ISO1 we read " that the tract of land of six miles square confirmed by the Oneida Indians to the Stockbridge Indians by the treaty held at Fort Stanwix in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight shall be and remain to the Stockbridge Indians and their posterity forever." " and be it further en- acted that the tract of land heretofore set apart for the Indians called the New England Indians, consisting of the tribes called the Mohegan, Montock, Stonington, and Narragansett In- dians, and the Pequots of Groton and Nehanticks of Farm- ington, shall be and remain to the said Indians and their pos- terity, but without any power of alienation by the said In- dians, or of leasing or disposing of the same or any part thereof, and the same tract shall be called Brothertown and shall be deemed part of the town of Paris in the county of Oneida." Brothertown was on the Oriskany and occupied the greater part of the town of Marshall, which was formerly a part of the town of Paris and the southern part of Kirkland
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in which is located Hamilton College. New Stockbridge was six miles to the west in the town of Augusta. The two settlements formed at first one parish, the Rev. Samson Occom preaching alternate Sundays, now in the barn of Fow- ler in Brothertown and now in some house in New Stock- bridge. The history of these two settlements, of their con- tentions with the land-hungry whites, and of their own in- ternal dissensions, is too voluminous for our present con- sideration. In 1831 they again began a new removal west- ward, this time to Green Bay, Wisconsin. The amount of Tunxis blood diffused through that conglomeration of races must now have become so small that we will not pursue the history of the tribe further. Those who desire further knowl- edge of the Brothertown Indians should consult the account of Rev. Samson Occom by the Rev. William Deloss Love and the numerous authorities to which he refers. I shall only quote a few lines from the account which President Dwight gives of his visit to them in 1799. He says: " I had a strong inclination to see civilized Indian life, i. e., Indian life in the most advanced state of civilization in which it is found in this country, and was informed that it might prob- ably be seen here." The Brothertown Indians, he says, (" were chiefly residents in Montville and Farmington, and were in number about one hundred and fifty. The settle- ment is formed on the declivity of a hill, running from north to south. The land is excellent, and the spot in every re- spect well chosen. Here forty families of these people have fixed themselves in the business of agriculture. They have cleared the ground on both sides of the road about a quarter of a mile in breadth and about four miles in length. Three of them have framed houses. The remaining houses
are of logs, and differ little from those of the whites, when formed of the same materials. Their husbandry is much in- ferior to that of the white people. Their fences are indiffer- ent and their meadows and arable grounds are imperfectly
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cleared. Indeed, almost everywhere is visible that slack hand, that disposition to leave everything unfinished, which peculiarly characterizes such Indians as have left the savage life."
We will close this paper with a brief account of the scanty remnant of the Tunxis tribe who lived and died on their ancestral soil. Solomon Mossuck, who joined the church in 1763. died January 25. 1802, at the age of 78 and was buried in the Indian burying ground on the hill to the left of the road as you go to the railroad station. A well-executed monument marks his grave. He had a son Daniel who was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and a son Luke who re- moved to Brothertown. Thomas Curcomb, who is said on the church records to have been the last Tunxis Indian of unmixed blood. died December 21, 1820, aged 44. He is best remembered by the story of his buying rum at the store of Zenas Cowles, the nearest source of supply for the inhabi- tants of the Indian Neck. It was during the early days when total abstinence societies were unknown and all classes and conditions of men bought rum, and every merchant sold it. as one of the absolute necessities of life. Thomas, having obtained a gallon for eight shillings. in due time returned for another supply and was disgusted to learn that the price in the meantime had risen to nine shillings. It was explained to him that the extra shilling was for interest on the money and for shrinkage of the liquor, and that it cost as much to keep a hogshead of rum through the winter as to keep a horse. Yes, yes, said the Indian. He no eat hay, but he drink much water. Thomas got his rum for eight shillings as before." The story of Henry Mossuck, son of Luke and grandson of Solomon, is not edifying, but as he was the last of his race and as his career well illustrates the inevitable fate of weaker races in the contest of life I must venture to give vou a brief sketch of a man sinning somewhat, but very much sinned against. His first recorded appearance in public was
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in a justice court, where Esquire Horace Cowles fined him for stealing chickens on the night of July 8, 1824. A month afterward he was wanted in another matter but had absconded ~ to parts unknown. Two years later he goes to sea for a three years' voyage, and, as I am told, with Capt. Ebenezer Mix, giving a white neighbor a power of attorney to take care of his land in his absence. Just before he returned, his trusted agent sold the land, pocketed the proceeds, and went west. Passing over twenty years of his uneventful life we find him at the age of forty-nine in Colebrook, where on a Saturday night in the last week of March, 1850, two wretches not twenty-one years of age, William H. Calhoun and Benja- min Balcom, murdered a certain Barnice White in a most brutal manner. They were sentenced to be hung, and Henry Mossuck, known as Henry Manasseth, was sentenced with them as having prompted and abetted them. A year after- ward the sentences of all three were commuted to imprison- ment for life. I have read the lengthy records of the court and the minute confession of Calhoun and have learned much from other sources. There seems to have been no evidence whatever against Mossuck except that of the men, who re- hearsed the story of their brutal crime with no more com- punction than they would feel at the butchering of an ox, and who had every motive for lying. Mossuck vainly petitioned the legislature for release for three successive years, in 1861. 1862, and 1863, but finally, in 1867, Balcom on his death bed having asserted the innocence of Mossuck, and the chap- lain and officers of the State Prison giving him a good char- acter, he was pardoned. He died in our poorhouse on the roth of October. 1883.
So came to an ignoble end a race always friendly to our fathers. They have left little to recall them to mind. A few monuments mark their graves on Fort Hill near by where John Mattawan and Joseph Johnson taught their schools, .1 single stone in our own cemetery overlooks the river once
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covered with their canoes and the broad acres once their hunting grounds. On it are inscribed the well-known lines by Mrs. Sigourney :
Chieftains of a vanished race, In your ancient burial place, - By your father's ashes blest, Now in peace securely rest. Since on life you looked your last, Changes o'er your land have passed; Strangers came with iron sway, And your tribes have passed away. But your fate shall cherished be,
In the stranger's memory; Virtue long her watch shall keep, Where the red-men's ashes sleep.
More enduring than these frail memorials are the few Indian words of liquid sound which remain forever attached to the places where the red man lived : Pequabuck, the clear, open pond; Quinnipiack, the long-water land; and Tunxis Sepus, by the bend of the river.
The Sharming of the Gun
AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Amural Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY
OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
. September 9, 1903
By JULIUS GAY
Dartford Press THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY
1903
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington :
I propose this evening to speak of some of the divi- sions and migrations of our early New England ancestors which led to the settlement of Farmington, and how new divisions in their turn drove new colonies one by one from the old hive. Want of room for their flocks and herds and tales of fertile fields somewhere just beyond them were not the only causes of unrest. Back of all were the more potent internal dissensions which drove them forth. The Hebrews of old would have preferred the flesh-pots of Egypt to the glories of the promised land. It is the trouble within that causes the swarming of the hive.
The first New England concourse with which we of this village are interested by descent was that at Newton, now Cambridge, gathered around the Rev. Thomas Hooker as pastor, and Rev. Samuel Stone as teacher, appointed to their respective offices at a fast, October 11, 1633. Wood in his New England's Prospect printed the next year says: "This is one of the neatest and best compacted Townes in New England, having many Faire structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The inhabitants most of them are very rich, and well stored with Cattell of all sorts ; having many Acres of ground paled in with one generall fence." Nevertheless on the 15th of May. 1634, we read that " Those of Newton complained of straitness for want of land, especially meadow, and de- sired leave of the court to look out either for enlarge- ment or removal." Six months later they give three
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reasons for their desires : the want of accommodation for their cattle, the fruitfulness and commodiousness of Con- necticut, and what was much more to the purpose, the bent of their spirits to remove thither. The theocratic notions of the Boston divines did not harmonize with the more democratic ones of Hooker. It was time for the hive to swarm. The account of the removal of the Cam- bridge church to Hartford, given by Dr. Trumbull in his history of Connecticut, and much expanded in almost every history of Hartford and its ancient families, is thus given in the concise and graphic original. "About the beginning of June Mr. Hooker, Mr. Stone, and about a hundred men, women, and children, took their departure from Cambridge, and travelled more than a hundred miles, through a hideous and trackless wilderness, to Hartford. They had no guide but their compass ; made their way over mountains, through swamps, thickets, and rivers, which were not passable but with great difficulty. They had no cover but the heavens, nor any lodgings but those which simple nature afforded them. They drove with them a hundred and sixty head of cattle, and by the way, subsisted on the milk of their cows. Mrs. Hooker was bourne through the wilderness upon a litter. The people generally carried their packs, arms, and some utensils. They were nearly a fortnight on their journey." The next year saw the extermination of the Pequots, the only people from whom the settlers had any fear of molestation. Here then in this quiet valley, looking out on the broad waters of the Connecticut on the east, on the Talcott Mountain range on the west, and within easy reach of their friendly neighbors of Windsor and Wethersfield on the north and south, here surely was an ideal resting place for weary mortals. Nevertheless. after a residence of less than three years, the settlers "moved the Court for some inlargement of accomma- dacion," and desired that a committee " view those parts by Vnxus Sepus which may be suitable for their pur-
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