History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 4

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506

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On the day following, September 16th, 1674, religious services were held at which the people of this and the other two villages were present, after which Major Gookin held a court and estab- lished civil government among them. Sampson, who was spoken

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

of as " an active and ingenious person, who spake good English and read well," was approved as teacher among them, and Black James was appointed constable. Each was inducted into the office to which he was appointed with an appropriate charge to be diligent and faithful in their places, and the people were ex- horted to yield them proper obedience in the Gospel of Christ. He then published a warrant or order, empowering the constable to suppress drunkenness and Sabbath breaking, and especially powwowing and idolatry, and after giving due warning, to appre- hend all delinquents and bring them before authority to answer for their misdeeds. For offenses of lesser magnitude he was to bring them before Wattasa Companum of Hassanamesset, "a grave and pious man of the chief sachem's blood,"-but for serious offenses like idolatry and powwowing to bring them be- fore the magistrate Gookin himself.

Mr. Eliot, Major Gookin and their party returned the same day, being well pleased with the success of the efforts which had been made to civilize and Christianize the Indians. Seventy families in Windham territory had been brought under the influence of these efforts and the results were encouraging to the expectation that from this fair beginning light would shine into all the dark region around them.

These hopeful prospects were soon blighted. The Narra- gansett (King Philip's) war broke out in the following summer and swept away at once the result of years of missionary labor. The villages were deserted, the churches fell to pieces and the Praying Indians relapsed into savages. The Nipmucks east of the Quinebaug joined the Narragansetts, and the fearful Wabba- quassets left their pleasant villages and planting fields and threw themselves under the protection of Uncas at Mohegan. Early in August, 1675, a company of Providence men, under Captain Nathaniel Thomas, went out in pursuit of Philip, who had just effected his escape to the Nipmuck country, and on the night of August 3d, reached the second fort in that country, " called by the Indians Wapososhequash " (Wabbaquasset). This was on a hill a mile or two south of what is now Woodstock hill. Captain Thomas reports "a very good inland country, well watered with rivers and brooks, special good land, great quanti- ties of special good corn and beans, and stately wigwams as I never saw the like; but not one Indian to be seen." The Wabba- quassets were then serving with the Mohegans, and aided in

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

various forays and expeditions, bringing in on one occasion over a hundred of Philip's men, so that each warrior, at the close of the campaign of 1675, was rewarded for his services by " a payre of breechis " from the Connecticut government.

No battle or skirmish is reported during the war as occurring within the present Windham county territory, but it was re- peatedly traversed by scouting parties, and companies of soldiers were sent at different times to "gather all the corne and secure all the swine that could be found therein." In June, 1676, Major Talcot went out from Norwich on an expedition through the Nip- muck country with 240 English soldiers and 200 Indian warriors. They marched first to Egunk, where they hoped to salute the enemy, and thence to Wabbaquasset, scouring the woods through this long tract, but found the country everywhere deserted. At Wabbaquasset they found a fort and about forty acres of corn growing, but no enemy. The village, with its " stately wigwams," had perhaps been previously destroyed. They demolished the fort, destroyed the corn, and then proceeded to Chaubongagum, where they killed and captured fifty-two of the enemy.

In this connection it will be of interest to quote the following paragraphs from an article by Reverend Martin Moore in the American Quarterly Register for February, 1843. Speaking of the Praying Indians in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, he says :

" Philip's war produced a disastrous effect upon these praying towns. He formed a confederacy among the natives for the purpose of exterminating the English. He used every possible art to draw the Praying Indians into this league. The English on the other hand feared that they would turn traitors. The praying Indians stood between two fires. Both parties needed their assistance, and neither of them dared trust them. The number of praying Indians was about 3,000. The whole num- ber of English was about 20,000. Philip's confederacy probably numbered less. It was quite an object with both parties, who were nearly balanced, to secure the praying Indians. The Eng- lish were so fearful of them that at the commencement of the contest they dared not take them to the war. The general court finally removed them to Deer island in Boston harbor. In December, 1675, General Gookin and Mr. Eliot visited them. 'I observed in all my visit to them,' says Gookin, 'that they carried themselves patiently, humbly and piously, without mur-

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

muring or complaining against the English for their sufferings (which were not few), for they chiefly lived upon clams and shell-fish that they digged out of the sand at low water. The island was bleak and cold ; their wigwams were poor and mean ; their clothes few and thin. Some little corn they had of their own which the court ordered to be fetched from their planta- tions, and conveyed to them by little and little ; also a boat and man was appointed to look after them. I may say in the words of truth that there appeared much of practical Christianity in this time of their trial.' One of their number thus bewailed his condition to Mr. Eliot : ' Oh, sir,' said he, ' I am greatly distressed this day on every side ; the English have taken away some of my estate, my corn, my cattle, my plow, cart, chain and other goods. The enemy Indians have taken part of what I had; and the wicked Indians mock and scoff at me, saying, " now what is come of your praying to God?" The English also censure me and say I am a hypocrite. In this distress I have nowhere to look but up to God in the heavens to help me. Now my dear wife and eldest son (through the English threatening) run away, and I fear will perish in the woods for want of food ; also my aged mother is lost, and all this doth aggravate my grief. Yet I desire to look up to God in Christ Jesus, in whom alone is help.' Being asked whether he had not assisted the enemy in their wars when he was amongst them, he answered, 'I never joined with them against the English. Indeed they often solicited me, but I utterly denied and refused them. I thought within myself, it is better to die than fight against the church of Christ.' After the war had raged for a while the minds of the English were softened toward them. They let them go forth to the war under the command of English officers. General Gookin says that they took and destroyed not less than four hundred of Philip's men."

" Tradition has handed down to us some anecdotes respecting individuals, which exhibit the shrewdness of the Indian char- acter. Waban, at whose wigwam at Nonantum Mr. Eliot began to preach, was commissioned as a justice of the peace. Instead of having a long warrant, needlessly multiplying words, as legal instruments do at the present day, he was accustomed to issue his precepts in a very laconic form. When he directed his war- rant to a constable, he simply wrote : 'Quick you catch um, fast you hold um, and bring um before me, Justice Waban.' On an-

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

other occasion a young justice asked him what he should do with Indians after they had had a drunken fight, and entered a complaint against any of their number? His reply was, 'Whip um plaintiff, whip um defendant and whip um witnesses.' '

The death of Philip in August, 1676, closed this bloody and destructive war. The Nipmucks found themselves almost anni- hilated. "I went to Connecticut," said Sagamore Sam of Nash- away, "about the captives there and found the English had de- stroyed those Indians, and when I came home we were also destroyed." The grave and pious Wattasa Companum, enticed away by Philip's men, was executed in Boston. Gookin was the only magistrate who opposed the people in their rage against the wretched natives. The few remaining Nipmucks found a refuge with some distant tribes, the Wabbaquassets remaining with Uncas at Mohegan. The aboriginal inhabitants of the future Windham county were destroyed or scattered, and their territory opened to English settlement and occupation.

CHAPTER III.

SETTLEMENT.

First Attempts at Settlement .- The Inter-Colonial Route .- Purchase of Land by John Winthrop .- Indian Title and Subsequent Confirmation .- Dispute as to Colonial Jurisdiction .- Indian Claims Revived .- Land in the Market .- Influx of Speculators .- First Lands Laid Out .- Boundary Disputes with Massachusetts .- Claims of Uncas to the Wabbaquasset Country .- Land on the Quinebaug Sold .- Owaneco Appoints James Fitch his Attorney or Guar- dian .- Makes over to him Mohegan and Wabbaquasset Lands .- Fitch Sells Land to Roxbury .- Joshua Bequeaths Land to Sixteen Norwich Gentlemen. -Agreement of the Legatees .- Windham Settlements Made .- Depression of Improvements under Andros .- Slow Progress of Settlement .- Religious and Social Affairs .- Settlement of the Disputed Section in the Southeast Part of the County .- Some of the Early Settlers .- Early Days of the Quinebaug Country .- Settlement in the Whetstone Country and the Volunteer's Land.

N the early commerce between the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut a popular route over the land was through the region now covered by Windham county. Remote from the sea shore, and possessing no navigable lakes or rivers, it was perfectly reasonable that this territory should be for a time overlooked, or rather that it should be passed by as a goodly land for the home-seekers in a new world to locate upon. Ac- cessibility by water was to the first settlers an almost absolutely essential feature in any site chosen by them for the planting of a little colony. But we may well imagine that the fertile valleys and hills of this beautiful region, and the picturesque attractions of the future Windham did not long remain unnoticed. The land became known to the English about the year 1635. When, about that time, the early colonists began to traverse the " hide- ous and trackless wilderness," on the way from Massachusetts to the Connecticut river, tradition tells us their encampment for the night was on Pine hill in Ashford. A rude track, called the Connecticut Path, obliquely crossing the Wabbaquasset country, became the main thoroughfare of travel between the two colonies. Hundreds of families toiled over it to new homes

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

in the wilderness. The fathers of Hartford and New Haven, ministers and governors, captains and commissioners, govern- ment officials and land speculators, crossed and recrossed over it. Civilization passed to regions beyond but made no abiding place here for more than half a century.

One of the most indefatigable land speculators of that period was Mr. John Winthrop. In Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in Connecticut and upon Long Island his tracks may be seen, as, first in one locality and then in another, he obtained title more or less perfect to the wild lands occupied by the Indians. Here in the territory now occupied by Windham county he was the first Englishman to receive from the natives a deed for an in- definite quantity of land. This conveyance bears date Novem- ber 2d, 1653, and purports to have been given by James, sachem of Quinebaug, and confirmed by Massashowitt, his brother, and also to have been made with the consent, "full and free," of Aguntus, Pumquanon, Massitiarno, his brother, and Moas, “ and all the rest of the chief men of these parts." The confirmation by others than James was made on the 25th of the same month, the writings being witnessed by Richard Smith, Samuel Smith, John Gallop, James Avery and William Weloma. The consid- erations named were "great friendship formerly from Mr. Win- throp, sometime governor of Massachusetts," the father of the grantee, and the fact that the latter had erected a saw mill at Pequot. which the grantors consider as a great prospective means for developing the forest resources of the country. The description of land conveyed was as follows : " the bounds thereof to be from the present plot of the Indians' planting ground at Quinebaug, where James, his fort is, on a hill at the said Pautuxett, and so down towards Shautuxkett so farr as the right of the said James doth reach or any of his men ; so farr on both sides the river as ye right of ye said James doth reach or any of his men, with all the swamps of cedar, pine, spruce or any other timber and wood whatever." The name Pautuxett, a general name for " falls," here refers to the falls at Acquiunk.

In the transactions connected with this conveyance we are told a Pequot Indian, well known by the name of Robin Cassa- minon, acted as interpreter. One of the Indians named, Aguntus, was dissatisfied with the transaction and accused James, also named Hyems, of "selling land that was not his," and com- pelled him, in the presence of Winthrop, to pull off a coat which

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

he had received in payment. Aguntus's dissatisfied spirit, how- ever, was appeased by the presentation of "a roll of trucking- cloth, two rolls of red cotton, wampum, stockings, tobacco-pipes and tobacco." According to Trumbull there was a small num- ber of white families on the lands at the time of the purchase, but no trace of them has been recovered. An Englishman had attempted to settle in Quinebaug about the year 1650, but was driven off by the threat of Hyems, "to bury him alive unless he went away.

Governor Winthrop took great pains to secure legal confirma- tion of this purchase. The Narragansetts were precluded from prosecuting their ancient claim to this territory by an especial clause in the agreement made by himself and John Clarke as agents for Connecticut and Rhode Island, concerning the divid- ing line between their respective governments, which provided that "if any part of that purchase at Quinebaug doth lie along upon the east side of that river that goeth down by New London, within six miles of the said river, then it shall wholly belong to Connecticut Colony, as well as the rest which lieth on the west- ern side of the aforesaid river." The general court of Connec- ticut in October, 1671, allowed Governor Winthrop his Indian purchase at Quinebaug, and gave him liberty to erect thereon a plantation, but none appears ever to have been attempted under this permission.

As a result of its border location the territory of Windham was long in dispute as to jurisdiction. The northern part was for a long time held by Massachusetts. The patent of Connec- ticut allowed her territory to extend northward to the head of Narragansett river, but the prior grant to Massachusetts re- stricted it to the southern bound of the Bay Colony, " three miles south of every part of Charles River." In 1642 the southern boundary line was run out from a point on Wrentham Plain, which was settled upon as being three miles south of Charles river, to a point in Windsor, Connecticut, which was really ten or twelve miles farther south than the starting point. This was the famous Woodward and Saffery's line, and it was maintained by Massachusetts as her southern boundary for seventy years, even against the repeated remonstrances of Connecticut. By this deflection the land now included in Woodstock and Thompson belonged to Massachusetts, and as a part of the vacant Nipmuck country awaited the action of that colony in its disposal, which,

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

on account of being weakened by the Indian war, was delayed for several years until she could recover sufficient pioneering vigor to take hold of it.

After the scenes of King Philip's war had closed and quiet and confidence were gradually restored, many of the Indians, re- covering from the shock of defeat, gathered again around their old homes and laid claim to various sections. To adjust these claims the general court of Massachusetts in May, 1681, appointed William Stoughton and Joseph Dudley, two men of prominence in public affairs there, to investigate the basis of Indian claims in the Nipmuck country. A hearing was accordingly held by them in June, and Mr. John Eliot acted as interpreter on that occasion. Black James, the former constable at Chaubongagum, now appeared as claimant for the south part of the Nipmuck country. The commissioners found the Indians " willing enough to make claim to the whole country, but litigious and doubtful among themselves." They then adjourned to September, in the meantime hoping that some mutual agreement might be arrived at. Then they spent a week exploring the country, at- tended by the principal claimants. They reported Black James' claim as being " capable of good settlement, if not too scant of meadow, though uncertain what will fall within our bounds if our line be to be questioned." They further recommended that some compensation be made to the claimants and that the latter surrender all their lands to the government and company cf Massachusetts. This advice was accepted and Stoughton and Dudley were authorized to negotiate with the claimants and enter into an agreement with them upon the best terms ob- tainable. As a result of these negotiations the whole Nipmuck country from the northern part of Massachusetts to Nashaway, at the junction of the Quinebaug and French rivers in Connec- ticut, a tract fifty miles long by twenty wide, was, on the 10th of February, 1682, made over to the Massachusetts government for the sum of fifty pounds. Black James received, for himself and some forty followers, twenty pounds in money and a reservation of land five miles square.

This Indian reservation was laid out in two tracts of land, one on the east of the Quinebaug at Myanexet, now included in- the towns of Dudley, Webster and Thompson; the other at Quinnatisset, now the south part of Thompson. Five thousand acres at Quinnatisset and a large tract at Myanexet, being a

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

moiety or full half of the whole reservation, were immediately conveyed to Stoughton and Dudley for the sum of ten pounds. A deed for this was given by Black James and his associates, the native proprietors, November 10th, 1682. These commis- sioners, Stoughton and Dudley, thus became personally the first white proprietors of Windham's share of the Nipmuck country .. Dudley retained for a long time his fine farm on the Quinebaug. The Quinnatisset land was soon subdivided to other pur- chasers.

Such a large tract of country being thrown into the market at once incited a rage for land speculation, and capitalists hastened to secure possession of favorable localities. June 18th, 1683, Joseph Dudley, for two hundred and fifty pounds, conveyed to Thomas Freak, of Hamington, Wells county, England, two thousand acres of forest land in the Nipmuck country, part of a greater quantity purchased of Black James. Two thousand acres. in upland and meadow at Quinnatisset were also made over by Stoughton to Robert Thompson of North Newington, Middlesex, England, for two hundred pounds, English money. This Thomp- son was a very noted person, president of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and a devoted friend of the colonies. The land was laid out by John Gore, of Rox- bury, under the supervision of Colonel William Dudley, in June, 1684. This land remained in the family of Thompson for up- wards of a hundred years, and the town which subsequently in- cluded it was named in his honor. Freak's farm included the site of the present village of Thompson. The line dividing it. from Thompson's ran through an old Indian fort on a hill a mile eastward. Five hundred acres south of Freak's were laid out to Gore, and five hundred on the north to Benjamin Gambling, of Roxbury, an assistant surveyor.

These Quinnatisset tracts were not only the first lands laid out in the northern part of Windham, but are invested with additional interest by their connection with the disputed southern bound- ary of Massachusetts. Woodward and Saffery's line crossed the Quinebaug at its junction with the French river, and thence ran northeasterly to Rhode Island and Wrentham. It was intended to make this line the south bound of the Quinnatisset farms, but by an unfortunate blunder the greater part of Thompson's land and an angle of Gore's fell south of it, intruding upon what even Massachusetts acknowledged as Connecticut territory-an

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

intrusion which gave rise to much controversy and confusion. No attempt was made by their owners to occupy or cultivate these lands.

A tract of twelve hundred acres lying between the Quinebaug and French rivers was sold by Nanasogegog, of Nipmuck, with the consent of Black James, to Jonathan Curtis, Thomas Dudley, Samuel Rice and others, in 1684 ; but other claimants apparently secured it. John Collins and John Cotton had each of them five hundred acres granted to them by the Massachusetts govern- ment, laid out on the east side of the Quinebaug in Quinnatisset. On the south of Lake Chaubongagum a tract of one thousand acres was granted to the children of Mr. William Whiting, sometime of Hartford.

In the adjustment of Indian claims Uncas assumed the right to a large share of eastern Connecticut. Massachusetts yielded to his claim the whole Wabbaquasset country. The tract con- firmed to him as the hereditary territory of the Mohegans was bounded on the north by a line running from Mahmunsook on Whetstone brook to the junction of the Quinebaug and Assa- waga at Acquiunk, thence westward to the Willimantic and far beyond it. The Wabbaquasset country was held by him as a Pequot conquest. It extended from the Mohegan north bound far into Massachusetts, and westward from the Quinebaug to a line running through the "great pond Snipsic," now in Tolland. This large tract was given by Uncas to his second son, Owaneco, while the land between the Appaquage and Willimantic rivers was assigned by him to his third son, Atanawahood or Joshua, sachem of the Western Niantics. The latter died in May, 1676, bequeathing the land between the Willimantic and Appaquage to Captain John Mason and fifteen other men " in trust for a plan- tation." His estate was settled according to the terms of his will, the general assembly of Connecticut allowing the Norwich legatees the lands bequeathed to them at Appaquage, which, as soon as practicable, was incorporated as the township of Wind- ham.

In the year 1679 some of the Mohegan Indians in a drunken carousal set fire to the New London county prison and destroyed it. The county court in September of that year ordered that Uncas and Owaneco should render satisfaction for the damage by surrendering their right to six hundred acres of land. The general court at Hartford in October confirmed this judgment

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

and ordered the county treasurer, James Fitch, Jr., to dispose of the land. A tract of six hundred acres was accordingly selected lying on both sides of the Quinebaug, extending from Wanan- gatuck on the north to a brook, now known as Rowland's brook, on the south. This was included in Winthrop's purchase of 1653. It was sold for forty pounds to John, Solomon and Daniel Tracy and Richard Bushnell, the survey being made in June, 1680. A farm south of John Tracy's division, adjoining the river island, Peagscomsueck, which gave its name to this section of the Quinebaug valley, was given to James Fitch by Owaneco, and laid out during the summer of the same year.

Notwithstanding the general court had allowed Governor John Winthrop his purchase at Quinebaug, some nine years before, yet in May, 1680, that body ordered that " if Uncas hath right to any land about Quinebaug he may make it out and dispose of it to his son Owaneco and such gentlemen as he shall see cause. Under this sanction Owaneco assumed the right to the whole Quinebaug country as well as Wabbaquasset. Swarms of greedy land hunters now assailed the Mohegan chieftain, eager to ob- tain possession of these lands upon any pretext. Their chief friends and patrons were the sons of Major John Mason, the re- nowned conqueror of the Pequots, Mr. Fitch, the excellent min- ister of Norwich, and James Fitch, his son.

Uncas was now in the years of his decay and Owaneco was drunken and incapable of managing business affairs with pru- dence and skill. The latter, however, was induced to consent to place his land claims in the hands of the younger James Fitch, to act for him as a sort of guardian, and accordingly gave Fitch a writing in effect a power of attorney, to dispose of all his lands and meadows upon the Quinebaug river, according to his discre- tion. This was done December 22d, 1680. By a formal deed of conveyance which was further confirmed by the general court of Connecticut, Owaneco, in 1684, made over to Captain James Fitch also the whole Wabbaquasset country. The Mohegan and Wabbaquasset lands were then for the first time surveyed and bounded, and their bounds confirmed by the assembly. The whole of the territory now embraced in Windham county, with the exception of two tracts, was thus placed in the hands of one individual, who was destined to play a very prominent part in its early history and subsequent development. The two excepted tracts above referred to were that of Joshua's, between the Willi-

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History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 4

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: New York, Preston Number of Pages: 1506

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506