USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 40
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Other societies than the Congregational had gained precedence in the parish. A church of Separates had been formed, which kept to- gether a few years under Elder Park Allyn. Some Episcopalians and some Rogerenes were within their limits. In 1770, thirty-five families in that society had been released from the ministerial rates on account of attending worship elsewhere. The Congregational society kept together a short time after the dismission of Mr. John-
1 See Great Awakening, by Joseph Tracy.
Commissary Gorden, of South Carolina, wrote and published six letters against Whitefield in 1740. Mr. Croswell wrote an answer "in his usual biting style"-p. 55. He wrote also a Reply to the Declaration of the Associated Pastors of Boston and Charlestown, dated at Groton, July 16th, 1742-ibid.
2 Society Record.
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son, and then gradually dwindled away and became extinct. When reorganized under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Tuttle, in 1810, not a single member of the old church remained, nor could any record of former members be found.
Groton Baptist Church. The early history of this church is in- dissolubly connected with the name of Wightman. According to tradition, five brothers of the name, all Baptists, settled in Rhode Island, and were reported to be descendants of Edward Wightman, one of the last who suffered death for conscience' sake in England, having been burnt for heresy at Litchfield, in 1612. Valentine Wightman, a son of one of the brothers, removed to Groton, in 1705,1 on the invitation of a few families who were favorably inclined toward the Baptist principles, and after exercising his gifts for a few years, gathered a church and was ordained in 1710.
Elder Valentine Wightman died June 9th, 1747. Daniel Fisk, of Rhode Island, was his successor for about seven years. Timothy Wightman, the son of the founder, was then ordained pastor of the church, May 20th, 1756, and continued in charge forty-two years. He died November 14th, 1796, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, leaving a church of 215 members. Mrs. Mary Wightman, his ven- erable consort, died February 19th, 1817, aged ninety-two years.2
John Gano Wightman, the son of Timothy, succeeded his father in office, and the length of his ministry almost equaled that of his parent. He was ordained in 1800, and died July 13th, 1841, aged seventy-four. Ministers sprang from the elder Wightman like branches from a fruitful vine. Many of his descendants, both in the male and female lines, have borne the pastoral office.
The Wightman church stood upon one of the wood-land ridges- be- tween Center Groton and Head of Mystic. A burial-ground lay by its side, where the two last elders, with their wives, repose. It is probable, also, that the founder of the church rests here also, but no tablet is enriched with his name.
A few years since this society built a new meeting-house, near the village, at the Head of Mystic, and thither the church has been trans- ferred. The ancient edifice has been refitted, and is now used for town purposes.
1 Benedict's History of the Baptists.
2 Gravestone in the burial-ground near the old Wightman church.
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A second Baptist church was formed in Groton, in 1765, with Elder Silas Burrows for its pastor. This church held to the princi- ple of mixed communion till 1797, when the practice was relin- quished. The meeting-house was built on Indian Hill, not far from the spot where stood the royal fortress and village of Sassacus, in 1637 : not the one stormed by Mason, but that in which the chief and the flower of his forces slept that fatal night, unconscious of the . danger of their friends. The religious service and the church mem- bers have been transferred to other sections of the town, and the house itself has been recently demolished.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Early Indian deeds .- First white settler in Mohegan .- Names and signatures of the Indian sachems .- Years of strife and difficulty in the North Parish .- Church formed .- Meeting-house built .- Ministries of Hillhouse and Jewett.
THE early history of the North Parish of New London, runs through a maze of perplexity and contention. Some of the finest farms in that district flew from one possessor to another, like balls in the hands of players. Here were the Mohegans, with all their na- tive and seigniorial rights ; the Masons, guardians chosen by the In- dians, with all their claims; various settlers upon the land with bounds vague and indefinite ; Indian deeds of tracts, not only with bounds undefined, but some of them almost boundless, and legislative grants bitterly contested. No where in this region had speculation so wide a scope. Anarchy was for a while the consequence; but it is con- soling to look back and see how the tempest passed away, and left the aspect of society clear and serene.
The Indian lands were inclosed by the settlements of New London and Norwich. After Philip's War, when the English inhabitants be- gan to consider themselves secure and flourishing, many a longing eye was cast toward the tempting prize that lay upon their borders. The avarice of the white and the improvidence of the red man, con- verged to the same point, and a multiplicity of Indian grants was the result. Some were gifts of friendship, or in requital of favors double the value of the lands; some were obtained by fair and honest trade ; others were openly fraudulent, or the perquisites of adminis- tering to the vicious thirst of the Indian, and degrading him below his native barbarism. Nearly all of them were, however, indorsed by the Masons, the Fitches, or the legislature, and therefore stood, according to colonial acts, on legal ground. In point of actual market value, the Indians were generally, not only paid, but overpaid, lav- ishly paid, for their lands.
Those who are acquainted with the tribe, will be slow to believe that they were too shy or modest in their demands. An Indian gift
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is, in this neighborhood, a proverb, indicating a present made to se- cure a return of double or treble value.
The first grants of land within the Mohegan reservation, north of New London, were made by Uncas, in August, 1658, to Richard Haughton and James Rogers, and consisted of valuable farms on the river, at places called Massapeag and Pamechaug. These had been the favorite grounds of Uncas and his chiefs, but at this period he had been broken up by the Narragansetts, and was dwelling at Nian- tic. The deed of Norwich was signed June 6th, 1659, and the set- tlement of that place commencing immediately and affording him protection, Uncas returned to his former abode, and set up his prin- cipal wigwam at Pamechaug, near the Rogers grant.
The first actual settler on the Indian land was Samuel Rogers, the oldest son of James. The period of his removal can not be definitely ascertained, but probably it was soon after 1670. He had long been on intimate terms with Uncas, who importuned him to settle in his neighborhood, and bestowed on him a valuable farm upon Saw-mill Brook ; promising in case of any emergency, he would hasten with all his warriors to his assistance. On this tract Rogers built his house of hewn plank, surrounded it with a wall, and mounted a big gun in front. When prepared for the experiment, he fired a signal of alarm, which had been concerted with his tawny friend, in case either should be disturbed by an enemy ; and in half an hour's time grim bands of warriors were seen on the hills, and soon came rushing down with the sachem at their head, to the rescue of their friend. Rogers had prepared a feast for their entertainment, but it is proba- ble that they relished the trick nearly as much as the banquet. It was one of their own jests : they were always delighted with contri- vance and stratagem.
Rogers became a large landholder in Mohegan. He had deeds of land not only from Uncas, but his sons Owaneco and Josiah, in rec- ompense for services rendered to them and their tribe. Gifts of land were also bestowed by these sachems on his son Jonathan, and his daughter Sarah, the wife of James Harris.
Joshua Raymond was perhaps the second person who built on the Indian lands. He was one of three persons who in 1668 advanced the £15 which the town was to pay Uncas, and received compensa- tion in Indian land. He was also one of the committee that laid out the road between Norwich and New London, leading through the Indian reservation, and for this service received a farm on the route, which became the nucleus of a tract of 1,000 acres, lying together,
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that was owned by his descendants. Mr. Raymond died in 1676, and it is supposed that the dwelling-house was built and the farm im- proved by him before his death ; for his son, Joshua Raymond, 2d, styles it "my father's homestead farm in the Mohegan fields." The house stood in a commanding position on the west side of the road to Norwich, eight miles from New London, and remained in possession of the family 175 years.1
The latest signature of the sachem Uncas is found under date of June, 1683. A deed to Samuel Chester was signed June 13th, and a grant of several thousand acres in Colchester, or the south part of Hebron, to the Stebbins brothers, was acknowledged before Samuel Mason, about the same period. In June, 1684, Owaneco, in a deed to James Fitch, styles himself son of Uncas, deceased. This is the nearest approximation obtained to the death of Uncas. He is sup- posed to have been very aged, and there are traditions that during the latter years of his life, he was generally found sitting by the door of his wigwam asleep, and that it was not easy to rouse his mind to activity. The sachem was undoubtedly buried at Norwich, in a select position on the banks of the Yantic, which is supposed to have been the place of his father's sepulture,2 and which has ever since been exclusively devoted to the descendants of Uncas. In this cemetery an obelisk of granite was erected by female gifts in 1842, which has for its inscription a single name,
UNCAS.
What is the occult meaning of this word Unkus, Onkos, Wonkas, Onkace? Was it the original name of the sachem, or the new name, descriptive of some trait of character or exploit, which according to Indian usage was given him on arriving at the dignity of a chief ? The latter opinion may be assumed with some probability. In the deed of 1640, to the governor and magistrates of Connecticut, his name appears with an alias, "Uncas, alias Poquiem." The latter may have been his domestic or youthful name, the former that of the chief. Wonkas has a resemblance to Wonx, the Mohegan word for fox, an animal to whose character that of the sachem was so closely allied, that it might naturally suggest the transfer of the name. Judging from the sound, we might likewise suppose that the term Wonnux, used by the Indians for Englishmen or white men, was de-
1 Bought of George Raymond, about 1848, by Capt. James Fitch, who took down the ancient house, and erected a new one on the same commanding site.
2 The Indian graves are mentioned in the earliest grant of the land.
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rived from Wonx, the fox. But in regard to the signification of In- dian words, it is easy to be led astray by analogy. We can seldom prove any thing and are obliged to rest in conjecture. It is not even known, except from inference and probability, that the craft and guile of the fox had been observed by the Mohegans.
For the name of Owaneco, the son and successor of Uncas, as brave a sachem, but more pliant and amiable, we must find a less re- proachful derivation. The word wuneco is one of the numerous vari- ations of a term which signifies handsome, or fair and good, and if we prefix the o which was used before w to represent that peculiar enunciation of the letter by the Indians which is called the whistled w, we shall have the exact name of the son of Uncas, Owaneco or W'necko.1
The signature of Uncas, after he had become habituated to the practice of making a mark for his name, was generally a rude rep- resentation of the upper part of the human form, the head, arms and chest, with a mark in the center, denoting the heart; sometimes, but not often, the lower limbs were added. The mark of Owaneco was uniformly a fowl or bird, sometimes suggesting the idea of a wild turkey, and again of a pigeon or smaller bird. This has led to the supposition that his name was identical with that of some bird, which he thus assumed for his totem or mark.
Among the earliest grantees under Indian deeds were Charles Hill, (1678,) Samuel Chester, (1683,) George Tonge and Daniel Fitch. Hill's tract of several hundred acres, was conveyed to him by Uncas, in exchange for Betty, an Indian woman taken captive in Philip's War, and given to Capt. James Avery, who sold her to Charles Hill.
In October, 1698, the General Court granted to John Winthrop, governor of the colony, and Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, who preached the election sermon, conjointly, a tract of four hundred acres of land in the western part of the Mohegan fields. This tract was laid out by Capt. John Prentis, Feb. 20th, 1698-9. At a later period, (1705,) John Hubbard and Elisha Paine ran the bounds of this tract, and found it to contain eleven hundred and odd acres. It lay on the east side of Mashapaug or Twenty Mile Pond, above the farm of Samuel Rogers. This grant was the cause of long and angry controversy. The Masons raised an outcry against it; the neighboring colonies caught it up, and the reverberation was loud in England, where the
1 For suggestions respecting the derivation of the names Uncas and Owaneco, the author is indebted to Mr. Judd, of Northampton.
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throne was led to believe that great wrong had been done the Indians by this giving away of their lands.
In the year 1705, when the queen's court of commission sate at Stonington, Capt. John Prentis testified that he had surveyed and re- turned about three thousand acres between New London and Nor- wich to nineteen different persons. At the same court it was stated that the following persons had settled on the Indian fields, viz., Sam- uel Rogers, Sen., Samuel Rogers, Jr., Benjamin Atwell, Israel Dodge, George Fevor, (Le Fevre,) Samuel Gilbert, James Harris, Thomas Jones, Sen., Thomas Jones, Jr., Philip Marsey, William Miner, (Mynard,) John Tongue, Richard Skarritt.
Others who had lands laid out to them were Governor Winthrop, Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, Daniel Wetherell, John Plumbe, Caleb Watson, George Denison, Charles Hill, Jonathan Hill-all these were summoned as intruders between New London and Norwich.1
Jan. 11th, 1709-10, Owaneco signed a deed of sale conveying five hundred acres of land to Robert Denison, of Stonington, for the consideration of £20, part in silver money, and the remainder in goods at money price.
This was followed, May 10th, 1710, by a conveyance of great im- port, being no less than a general deed of all the Mohegan lands be- tween Norwich and the old town-line of New London, that had not been heretofore alienated-excepting only the eastern or sequestered part which was actually occupied by the tribe-to Major John Liv- ingston, Lieut. Robert Denison, Samuel Rogers, Jr., and James Har- ris, Jr., in the proportion of two-fifths to Livingston, and one-fifth to each of the other partners. The price paid was £50. Livingston afterward purchased the share of Rogers, which made him the holder of three-fifths. This conveyance comprised several thousand acres.
At the same time a deed of feoffment, or trust, was executed in favor of the Hon. Gurdon Saltonstall, Capt. John Mason, Major John Livingston, Capt. Daniel Fitch and Capt. John Stanton, by which the eastern part, or sequestered tract, was forever settled on the Mohegan tribe, under the regulations of the feoffees and their successors, " so long as there shall be any Mohegans found or known of alive in the world"-excepting only some small parcels in the pos- session of others, which were to be confirmed to them : to wit, Capt.
1 At the court of commission on the Mason controversy in 1743, sixty-four persons were summoned as intruders on the Indian lands. This included planters scattered over the present townships of Montville, Colchester and Salem.
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Daniel Fitch was to be secured in the enjoyment of his farm, and Major Livingston in the possession of the tract claimed by him. These important documents were signed by Owaneco, Ben Uncas, Cæsar, and several counselors and chief men of the tribe.
These proceedings gave great uneasiness to the inhabitants of New London, who regarded the Indian land as granted to them by the act of addition to the town, passed by the General Court in May, 1703, and expressly guarantied by their patent. A town meeting was held July 17th, 1710, and a committee appointed to prosecute Col. Livingston and his associates before the Assembly, for a breach of law. This was the beginning of a struggle for possession, which continued many years. The North Parish was in an unsettled and disorderly state ; no man felt secure of his title. The Indians being much courted and caressed in some quarters, became exacting, and self-important. It was not, however, the dissatisfaction of the In- dians, but the selfishness and cupidity of various claimants among the whites, that was the real cause of the controversy. To benefit the Indians was but a pretense ; they were mere tools used by grasping and uneasy men, to obtain their own selfish ends. Had the Indians been successful in their suit, and wrenched from the hands of the English occupants every acre of the ground that they had inclosed and subdued, they would not have reaped the benefit themselves. Others would have grasped the prize, and the result would merely have been a change of ownership among the whites.
Owaneco died in 1710, and was succeeded by his son Cesar; who being young, inefficient and intemperate, the Assembly appointed Ben-Uncas, the brother of Owaneco, and certain chief men of the tribe, to act as his guardians. This left it uncertain whether the chief authority was vested in Ben-Uncas or Cesar. In 1713, the feoffees renewed their deed with the latter, and on the 10th of May, 1714, with the former-the conveyance being also signed by about fifty of the tribe, in token of approval. Capt. Daniel Fitch having been removed by death, two other gentlemen were nominated by the General Court, and added to the number of feoffees, viz., William Whiting of Hartford, and John Elliot of Windsor.
The gentlemen purchasers and the feoffees, declared that one great object which they had in view, in assuming the guardianship of the Parish, was the settlement of a minister, who should have for his charge the various classes within the precincts, whether proprietors, tenants upon Indian leases, or Indians themselves. New London re- garded this as a mere pretext to obtain the lands, and uttered from
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time to time bitter complaints. In September, 1713, she instructed her deputies to lay before the Assembly, " the oppression and hard- ships endeavored to be put upon the town, concerning the lands in the northern part of the township, and the pretense of a minister to be settled there"-praying the Assembly "to stop the proceedings of certain persons who were in a way to wrong the natives as well as to injure the town's rights."
A large farm in Colchester, lying north and west of Mashapaug, had belonged to Major Mason, and was, in fact, the farm that he had reserved to himself when he surrendered to the colony in 1660, the rights that the Indian sachems had made over to him. This farm had descended to his grandson, Capt. Peter Mason, son of Capt. Dan- iel Mason of Stonington-who, living near the Indians, and having a hereditary right to be their adviser, had acquired considerable in- fluence among them. As a Mason, he was of course hostile to the deed of feoffment ; and was therefore employed by the town of New London to obtain a counter cession of the Indian lands in their favor, so as to nullify the deed. Through his influence a great Indian council was held, and the selectmen of New London obtained from the young sachem Cesar, May 30th, 1715, for the sum of £100, a general deed of all the ungranted land " between Norwich and New London old bounds, and from Mohegan River westerly to Colches- ter and Lyme." This instrument declares that "the just right of purchase of said lands doth belong to the town of New London and no other," and that all former conveyances were void, having been fraudulently obtained by "taking advantage of the old age of my father Owaneco."
A series of town acts followed the execution of this deed. A suf- ficiency of land was secured to Cesar and his tribe, and the title to the remainder was vested in the proprietors of New London in cer- tain proportions ; reserving five hundred acres to Capt. Peter Mason, who assumed the payment of the hundred pounds gratuity. Against all these proceedings on the part of the town, Governor Saltonstall entered a stern protest. A paper, containing what he calls his thoughts concerning their measures, was read in town meeting, and recorded in book vii., where it covers six folio pages.
"I hear," he observes, "the bargain is cheap, not above £100 for the whole land put in trust-nay, I am told there is a project to bring that down to the insignificant sum of £3. You may be assured that its worth above ten times as much as the £100 pretended to be the price of it." He reminds them that they have already about
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seventeen thousand acres of common or undivided land, within the ancient bounds of the town, and that it would be more for their inter- est as well as credit, to improve that to which they had an undisputed title, than to go about to make a purchase of Mohegan, while the title of it was under discussion in the common pleas.
The General Court refusing to confirm the acts of the town, the royal deed of Cesar became a nullity, and the town acts and grants based thereon, were made void. Cesar died in 1720, and the same year the Assembly appointed " James Wadsworth, Esq., Mr. John Hooker, and Capt. John Hall," a committee to settle all existing con- troversies, and provide for the settlement of a gospel minister at Mo- hegan. Two of these, Messrs. Wadsworth and Hall, met at the house of Mr. Joseph Bradford, on the Mohegan lands, Feb. 22d, 1720-21, and held a court of commission, with powers to hear, re- view and decide all disputes respecting the Indian lands. This court was eminently one of pacification ; almost every claimant was quieted in his possessions ; the deed of feoffment was confirmed, and the reversion of the sequestered lands, when the tribe should become extinct, settled. upon New London. The commissioners ratified all the court grants-the farms of Winthrop and Saltonstall-six hun- dred acres to the New London school-two hundred acres to Caleb Watson-the purchase of Livingston and his associates, excepting only a tract of five hundred acres to be taken out for the use of the ministry-the claim of Campbell and Dixon, who bought of Owaneco and Cesar-the farm of Stephen Maples-the lease of Samuel Fair- banks1-and, in general, all Indian engagements previous to 1710.
The tract of land to be reserved for the ministry, was left unde- termined by the commissioners. The inhabitants could not by any means hitherto used, be brought to agree on a place where the meet- ing-house should be built, and it was desirable to lay out a farm for the minister as near to the meeting-house as should be convenient. This matter was therefore left unsettled, and at the request of the inhabitants, referred to the General Assembly.
The North Parish soon became tranquil. Governor Saltonstall, who had the accommodation of their difficulties, and the settlement of a minister among them very much at heart, exerted himself to al- lay animosities, to soothe troubled minds, and harmonize neighbor-
1 Fairbanks had a lease from Owaneco in 1710, of one hundred and fifty acres, on condition of making and maintaining two hundred rods of fence. The feoffees added a new tenure-a yearly fat lamb, if demanded.
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hoods. He lived to see his hopes realized. It was finally decided that the meeting-house should stand on Raymond Hill, and Jan. 17th, 1721-2, John Merritt and Mercy Raymond gave a deed of two acres of land, out of the farm then occupied by Major Merrit, to Capt. Robert Denison, Mr. Joseph Bradford, Mr. Jonathan Hill, Mr. Na- thaniel Otis, and Ensign John Vibert, in trust for the inhabitants of the North Parish, for the site of a church, and for a church-yard or burial-place. A religious society being organized, Governor Salton- stall recommended them to engage the services of Mr. James Hill- house, from Ireland, who was then in Boston. To him they applied, through the agency of the governor, offering him a salary of £100 per annum ; and having received a favorable answer, Mr. Jonathan Copp was commissioned to go on and accompany him to the scene of his future labors.
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