USA > Connecticut > New London County > History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 7
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Mr. Wheeler also appeared and claimed the lands,
33
THE PEQUOT INDIANS.
or his right of herbage in them. The committee were not called upon to fix the rights of the parties, be- cause Mr. Miner and Mr. Wheeler compromised the matter in 1723, Wheeler giving Miner sixty pounds for his interest therein. Soon after, Mr. William Wheeler fenced in the entire tract, and improved it for the herbage, thereby compelling the Indians to fence in their gardens and such lands as they wished to plant, and in this manner the land was occupied by the Indians during the life of Mr. Wheeler, he taking all the hay and grass that the land produced.
After his death, in 1748, his sons-in-law, Williams and Crary, and their wives divided the land between them, and Crary and his wife sold a part of their share to Simeon Miner. These lands were now claimed by Williams and Crary in fee, subject only to the right of the Indians to plant corn, build wigwams, and live there.
The result was that the Indians received but little benefit from the lands, and became dissatisfied, and appealed to the General Assembly in May, 1750, for redress ; whereupon a committee was appointed to in- quire into the matter, who upon due consideration reported to the October session that another commit- tee, with full power to act in the premises, should be appointed to visit Stonington and investigate the matter.
This committee proceeded to the discharge of their duty, and finally agreed upon a compromise which was satisfactory to the Indians, as well as to Williams and Crary, which compromise was approved by the Assembly, and was as follows: The Governor and Council agreed to release to William and Crary two strips of land, one of thirty-five acres, on the south side of the original tract, and the other of twenty acres, on the east side thereof, and permit them to locate their ancient Pequot grants of two hundred and eighty acres on any ungranted lands in the colony, on condition that the said Williams and Crary would release the balance of the entire tract to the Governor and Council for the benefit of the Indians, to which they agreed, and subsequently conveyed all their interest in the main tract to the colony, receiving in turn an absolute deed to the two gore strips, with the assurance that their ancient Pequot soldier grants should be laid out to them by Roger Sherman, who subsequently located them in the town of Plainfield.
Cassasinamon and his company had lands laid out for them, under the authority of the General Court, at Mashantuxet, in the present town of Ledyard, in 1665. Though this grant was made at the request of Cassa- sinamon, it was not satisfactory to him nor his com- pany. They wanted their lands laid out at the head of the Mystic River, nearer to their fishing-places; but the committee appointed to locate it thought otherwise, and established their lands at Mashan- tuxet, and the court ratified their doings in 1666.
So great was the dissatisfaction of Cassasinamon
with this grant that he never occupied it. He con- tinued his home at Noank until he died in 1692.
Some portion of his company occupied and planted lands at Mashantuxet soon after it was granted to them ; but others, with Cassasinamon, lived at Noank, and even after his death continued to reside there un- til 1712, when the town of Groton claimed the Noank land, and contended that the Pequots had no title to the same, and that the colony had given them a suffi- cient quantity of land at Mashantuxet; consequently the Indians were ousted from their possessions at Noank, and reluctantly went to their inland home.
They brought a petition to the October session of the General Assembly in 1713, complaining of the town of Groton for taking their lands at Noank, in answer to which the General Assembly ordered that a survey of both tracts of land should be made and returned to the Assembly the May following, and further ordered that no one should interfere with their hunting, fishing, and fowling at Noank.
When the Assembly met in 1714 a full hearing in the premises was had, which resulted in an order that the Indians must not occupy Noank any longer, but should have full liberty to improve the Mashantuxet grant of two thousand acres, with the right to come to the salt water upon Noank Neck, for clamming, fishing, and fowling purposes, as theretofore.
These early grants by the colony to the Indians were not considered as conveying to them the fee simple thereof, which of course remained in the col- ony, and which by the several patents subsequently issued by the colony passed to the towns or proprie- tors thereof.
So the town of Groton in 1719 voted to divide their commons, reserving to the Indians lands at Mashantuxet to live on, and appointed a committee to carry said vote into effect, who in 1720 gave them a deed of seventeen hundred and thirty-seven acres at Mashantuxet, reserving the herbage for the said proprietors, who brought a petition to the General As- sembly in 1732 for a final determination of all mat- ters in controversy between them and the Indians.
Whereupon a committee was appointed, which came to Groton, and after hearing all parties concerned reported that the Indians at Mashantuxet consisted of sixty-six males, from fourteen years and upwards, a large part of which lived with their English neigh- bors, and that the Indians do not require all the lands previously granted them, and that the west half of the reservation or common should be laid out in fifty- acre lots, and the proprietors allowed to fence them, so as to secure their herbage and the Indians their corn and apple-trees, and the proprietors be allowed to clear the said lots, leaving ten acres of forest on each lot of fifty acres for fire-wood for the Indians, with liberty for them to remove their planting to other lots once in three years if they desire, leaving the other half of the lands unsurveyed and unfenced as formerly.
34
HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.
The report was accepted and allowed, with this con- dition, "that the liberty granted to the proprietors to fence said lands shall continue no longer than this Assembly shall think proper."
This act of the Assembly did not satisfy the expec- tations of the Indians, who repeatedly complained of encroachments on their lots by the English, who really secured the lion's share of their products.
To such an extent were the Indians defrauded that the General Assembly in 1752 interposed in their be- half, and summoned the proprietors of Groton to show reasons why the grant of 1732 should not be annulled, who appeared, and after a full hearing the Assembly repealed said act.
The Indians remained in possession of the west part of their lands until 1761, when the Assembly granted them the use of the east part also. This grant was made in consideration of their services in the then late war with France.
A large proportion of the Pequots of both reserva- tions entered the Connecticut forces that were raised to join the expeditions against Ticonderoga, Louis- burg, and Crown Point, and suffered severely in those campaigns.
So many of them were killed in battle and died of disease that the women and children at home were wellnigh reduced to starvation. Their condition was made known to the General Assembly in 1766 by the Rev. Jacob Johnson, then preaching in Groton, where- upon a committee was appointed by the Assembly to visit them, who repaired to Mashantuxet, and after a patient examination reported back to the Assembly, at the same session, that there were one hundred and fifty persons of all ages, a large part under the age of sixteen years, and widows whose husbands were killed in the late war, and they were too poor to provide decent clothing for themselves, in view of which the Assembly granted them twenty pounds.
In 1773 they again complained of encroachments without redress.
In 1785 they again asked the Assembly for protec- tion against the encroachments of the English, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to fix the bounds of their lands, which were subsequently es- tablished by the committee.
After they recovered from the destitution occasioned by the loss of so many of their warriors in the French war they managed to subsist by their own labor, either on their lands or for their English neighbors, and the colony was not further burdened with their support.
It will be remembered that the commissioners of the United Colonies were in 1650 appointed agents of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians in New England ; in pursuance of which, in 1657, they proposed to Rev. Richard Blinman to be- come the missionary of the Pequots and Mohegans, offering him a salary of twenty pounds per annum, which he declined.
The same year they employed the Rev. William Thompson, son of the Rev. William Thompson, of Braintree, Mass., to preach to the Pequots at a salary of twenty pounds per annum.
He came to Southertown in 1658, and began his labors with Harmon Garret's company, and was as- sisted by Thomas Stanton as interpreter. He con- tinued to preach to the English and Indians for about three years, and then went to Virginia.
After this the commissioners, in 1662, invited the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of Bradford, Conn., to remove his habitation to Southertown, and to apply himself in a more special way to the work of preaching the gospel to the Pequots, but he declined.
Previous to this, and in the year 1654, the commis- sioners of the United Colonies, at the request of the Connecticut members thereof, provided for the edu- cation of Mr. John Miner with the Rev. Mr. Stone, who was to fit him as a teacher and missionary to the Pequot Indians.
Soon after Mr. Thompson left the commissioners, in 1664, instructed the Connecticut members to em- ploy this Mr. John Miner to teach the Pequots to read ; but whether he was so employed or not does not appear. The commissioners also, in 1654, offered, at the expense of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to educate Thomas and John Stanton, sons of Thomas Stanton, the interpreter-general at Cambridge, Mass. The object was to fit them as teachers for such Indian children as should be taken into college to be educated. They accepted the com- missioners' offer and entered college, but did not re- main long enough to graduate, nor does it appear that either of them was ever engaged in teaching the Indians.
The efforts of the English to civilize and Christian- ize the Pequots were not very successful, the reasons for which may be more easily imagined than de- scribed. The agents of the London Missionary So- ciety did not wholly neglect them, for as late as 1766 they employed Mr. Hugh Sweatingham to teach the Pequots, at their school-house at Mashantuxet, at twelve pounds per annum. They also employed Mr. Jacob Johnson to preach to them at five shillings eightpence per sermon.
The Assembly in 1766 granted Mr. Johnson five pounds for his labors, and Mr. Sweatingham four pounds for his services. During the great awakening of the eighteenth century, and for a long time before and after, the more peaceable attended the religious services of the English, and some were baptized and united with their churches. But they were mostly females who worked for and lived in the families of the whites. Now and then some stern old Pequot captain would own the Christian covenant and try to live up to the half-way communion.
It will also be remembered that the commissioners at first attempted to carry out the policy of merging the Pequots with the Mohegans and Narragansetts.
35
THE PEQUOT INDIANS.
They at first refused to permit the remaining Pequots to be relieved of the tyranny of Uncas, but after their connection with the London Missionary Society they adopted a different policy, and gradually favored the Pequots.
They exerted themselves to secure permanent homes for them, with ample lands, and then labored to furnish them with religious instruction. But the colonies preferred to hold and treat the Indians as wards, subject at any time to their control, keeping the fee of their lands in the colony, and giving them only the use thereof; which policy has been pursued by our State ever since, except with the Mohegan In- dians, who, by law enacted in 1872 and 1873, had the rights of citizenship bestowed upon them, and their lands set out to them in severalty as an absolute es- tate in fee simple.
So it appears that the descendants of Uncas and the Mohegans have been more kindly treated in these later days than the descendants of the Pequots. The services of the Mohegans in our early Indian wars have been recognized by the Congress of the United States, which appropriated for their benefit a large sum of money.
These Pequot reservations, located in the ancient towns of Groton and Stonington, were less than a mile apart, with two small lakes or ponds between them ; each reservation had its village, called "In- dian town," which consisted at first of a cluster of wigwams built in the Indian fashion.
By and by framed houses came into vogue, and the old wigwams passed away. The reservation at Mash- antuxet was by far the largest, and the Indians more numerous than the tribe at Lantern Hill. It was proposed at first to give Cassasinamon's company two thousand acres at Mashantuxet, but when sur- veyed by the town it amounted to only seventeen hundred and thirty-seven acres.
The subsequent controversies with the English had the effect of reducing the area of this reservation. After the English ejected the Indians from the Noank lands, the town of Groton divided the same between the inhabitants thereof equally.
They were subsequently surveyed and divided into lots, and assigned by lottery to the proprietors. Not- withstanding that the bounds of these lands were es- tablished in 1785, no accurate survey of them was made until 1793, which was preserved, and when the Legislature of 1855 ordered a survey and sale of a part thereof by a committee to be appointed by the County Court of New London County, all that was found remaining of the original two thousand acres by said committee was a trifle less than nine hundred acres.
Under this authority seven hundred and thirteen acres were sold at public auction, bringing about seven thousand dollars, which is now held by the
overseer of that tribe for their benefit, or such as may need support.
The reservation at Lantern Hill has not been re- duced since Williams and Crary were assigned, in compromise settlement of their claims, two small strips on the south and east sides.
The Legislature in 1873 ordered the overseer to survey and sell all of this reservation but one lun- dred acres, and invest the avails thereof for the bene- fit of the Indians. But owing to the great depression in real estate, nothing has been done in the prem- ises.
It is wellnigh impossible to ascertain at the present time how many Pequots belong to or have an interest in these reservations. The Indian towns of the olden time have run down to two small houses on each res- ervation, which are now occupied by four families. How many are living elsewhere cannot be deter- mined.
So, after two hundred and thirty-nine years since the conquest of Mason, only a small remnant remains of the once powerful and haughty Pequots. No one can defend the horrible tortures that they inflicted upon the English who fell into their hands as prison- ers. Their overthrow by Mason humbled their pride, and so far subdued them that ever afterwards they were the friends of the English. They joined our forces in King Philip's war, and in the great swamp fight in 1675 performed prodigies of valor under Gal- lup and Avery. During the French war they volun- tarily joined the expeditions that were raised to repel the invasions of the French and northern Indians.
But who can successfully defend all of the acts of the English towards the Pequots, especially after they had yielded to their authority and became subservient to their power ? It is not to be wondered at that the English failed in their efforts to Christianize the Pe- quots.
The commissioners of the United Colonies and nearly all of the clergymen of New England made praiseworthy efforts to afford the Indians religious instruction. But, after all, the treatment that the Pequots received from the authorities acting under the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island in the as- signment of lands for their benefit and in other mat- ters was so unjust and oppressive that it wellnigh outweighed every consideration that was urged upon them by Elliott and his co-workers to effect their con- version and make them believe in the white man's God.
Most of the Pequot warriors preferred the favor of their Good Spirit Kritchian, and died believing that in the beautiful southwest land were hunting-grounds of boundless extent and game of endless variety, where no Hobomoke could charm the arrow from its fatal plunge nor mar their happiness in the Indian's summerland.
36
HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.
CHAPTER IV.
BENCH AND BAR.
AMONG the prominent agencies which give shape and order in the early development of the civil and social condition of society, the pulpit, press, and bar are perhaps the most potential in moulding the insti- tutions of a new community ; and where these are early planted the school, academy, and college are not long in assuming their legitimate position, and the maintenance of these institutions secures at the start a social and moral foundation upon which we may safely rest the superstructure of the county, the State, and the nation.
The establishment of court and judicial tribunals, where society is protected in all its civil rights under the sanction of law, and wrong finds a ready redress in an enlightened and prompt administration of justice, is the first necessity of every civilized community, and without which the forces of society in their changeable developments, even under the teachings of the pulpit, the direction of the press, and the cul- ture of the schools, are exposed to peril and disaster from the turbulence of passion and conflicts of inter- est; and hence the best and surest security that even the press, the school, or the pulpit can find for the peaceful performance of its highest functions is when protected by and intrenched behind the bulwarks of the law, administered by a pure, independent, and uncorrupted judiciary.
The New London County bar has from its begin- ning numbered among its members able jurists, tal- ented advocates, and safe counselors. Here many have lived, flourished, and died, while others still are upon the stage of action who have been prominent in the advancement of the interests of the county and figured conspicuously in the councils of the State and nation.
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON .- A considerable lustre in the early days was thrown upon the town plot (Nor- wich Town) by its being the residence of the Hon. Samuel Huntington, Governor of the State. He was not a native of the town, but had early settled in the place as an attorney. His wife was a daughter of the Rev. Ebenezer Devotion, of Windham, a lady with- out any pretensions to style or fashion, but amiable and discreet. It was long remembered that-in a white short gown, stuff petticoat, a clean muslin apron, and nicely-starched cap-she would take her knitting and go out by two o'clock in the afternoon to take tea unceremoniously with some respectable neighbor, perhaps the butcher's or blacksmith's wife. But this was early in her married life, before Mr. Huntington was president of Congress or Governor of Connecticut. These offices made a higher style of housekeeping appropriate, and in later days the movements of Mrs. Huntington in leaving town or returning home became matters of public notoriety,
and she was saluted, whenever she appeared in pub- lic, with ceremonious courtesy. After the Revolution the Governor built a new house, elegant and spacious, and lived in quiet dignity.
This worthy couple had no children of their own, but children always gathered around them. Though he was wise and sedate, and she quiet and thrifty, yet lurking beneath a grave exterior both had large hearts and that sunny benevolence of disposition that attracts the young and delights in the interchange of favors with them, giving care and counsel for cheer and fervid feeling.
Before the Revolutionary war Mr. Huntington had generally some two or three young law students with him; his nephew, Nathaniel Huntington, and the beautiful Betsey Devotion, the belle of Windham, also spent much of their time in his family; the house, therefore, naturally became the centre of attraction to the young and happy of that joyous neighborhood.
Governor Huntington was born at Windham, July 3, 1731. His father, Nathaniel Huntington, was by trade both a farmer and a clothier. He gave a liberal education to three of his sons, who devoted themselves to the Christian ministry ; but Samuel, being designed for a mechanic, was apprenticed to a cooper, and fully served out his time.
Mr. Huntington's mind was naturally acute and investigating, and his thirst for mental improvement so great as to surmount all obstacles. From observa- tion, from men, and from books he was always col- lecting information, and he soon abandoned mannal labor for study. He was self-educated,-went to no college, attended no distinguished school, sat at the feet of no great master, but yet acquired a competent knowledge of law, borrowing the necessary books of Col. Jedediah Elderkin, and was readily admitted to the bar. He settled in Norwich in 1760, and soon became useful and eminent in his profession. He frequently represented the town in the Colonial Assem- bly, was active in many ways as a citizen, agent for the town in several cases, and forward in promoting public improvements. He was appointed king's at- torney, and afterwards assistant judge of the Superior Court. In 1775 he was elected a delegate to the Con- tinental Congress, and served as president of that honorable body during the sessions of 1779 and 1780. While in Congress his seat on the bench was kept vacant for him, and he resumed it in 1781. He held various other important offices, such as chief justice of the State and Lieutenant-Governor, and in 1786 was elected Governor, and annually re-elected by the freemen, with singular unanimity, until his death, which took place at Norwich, Jan. 5, 1796.
He was honored with the degree of LL.D. both by Yale and Dartmouth.
Governor Huntington preserved to the last those habits of simplicity with which he began life. In the published journal of the Marquis de Chastellux
37
BENCH AND BAR.
he speaks of Mr. Huntington, who was then president of Congress, with marked respect. The marquis was a major-general in the French army that came to our assistance. While at Philadelphia, in December, 1780, he called upon Mr. Huntington, in company with the French ambassador, and observes, "We found him in his cabinet, lighted by a single candle. This simplicity reminded me of Fabricius and the Philopemens." At another time he dined with him, in company with several other French gentlemen of distinction, and adds, "Mrs. Huntington, a good- looking, lusty woman, but not young, did the honors of the table-that is to say, helped everybody-with- out saying a word." This silence inust surely be at- tributed to ignorance of the language of the gay cava- liers, and not to any deficiency of good manners or conversational power.
Mr. Huntington was of the middle size, dignified in his manners, even to formality ; reserved in popu- lar intercourse, but in the domestic circle pleasing and communicative ; his complexion swarthy, his eye vivid and penetrating. One who was long an inmate of his family said, "I never heard a frivolous obser- vation from him; his conversation ever turned to something of a practical nature; he was moderate and circumspect in all his movements, and delivered his sentiments in few but weighty words."
He was eminently a religious man : as ready to offi- ciate at a Conference meeting, or to make a prayer and read the Scriptures when called upon in a public assembly, or to breathe counsel and consolation by the bedside of the dying, as to plead before a judge or to preside in Congress.
This sketch cannot be better concluded than with the earnest wish breathed by a contemporary pane- gyrist, "May Connecticut never want a man of equal worth to preside in her councils, guard her interests, and diffuse prosperity through her towns !"
ASA SPALDING was born in Canterbury in 1757, graduated at Yale in 1779, studied law with Judge Adams, of Litchfield, and settled in Norwich as an attorney in 1782. He was without patrimony or any special patronage, but by the force of native ability, sound judgment, and integrity he acquired an ex- tensive law practice, sustained various offices of trust and honor, and by diligence, accompanied with strict economy in his domestic affairs, amassed a handsome property. At the time of his death, in 1811, he was reckoned one of the richest men in the eastern part of Connecticut. Yet it was then no easy matter to grow rich in the practice of the law. The price for managing a case before the Common Pleas varied only from six to thirty shillings, and before the Supreme Court from six to fifty-four shillings.
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