USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > The Norwich jubilee. A report of the celebration at Norwich, Connecticut, on the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town, September 7th and 8th, 1859. With an appendix, containing historical documents of local interest > Part 13
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In the language of major Mason himself, in his preface to "the history of the Pequot war," " I shall not make a long discourse, nor labor to hold the reader in doubt, using a multitude of words, which is no sure way to find out the truth."
John Mason was born during the first or second year of the 17th century. He served in the low countries under sir Thomas Fairfax, with the rank of lieutenant. The details of that service are not now known, but that he distinguished himself may be fairly inferred from the fact that during the civil wars in England
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at the time of the commonwealth, that distinguished general in- vited his comrade in arms to join him in England as the associate of the ablest officers and most resolute soldiery that England has ever seen.
He was one of the early, although probably not of the first set- tlers of Dorchester, in Massachusetts, which was founded in the year 1630.
Soon after his arrival in the Massachusetts colony, he engaged in a hazardous expedition for the capture of a band of pirates un- der a desperate leader by the name of Bull, who, with a company of fifteen men equally desperate, had committed their atrocities in the dead of winter. Mason spent two months in this enterprise, which called for great courage and prudence and involved severe hardships. He was unable to capture the pirates, but they soon dispersed, and the general court ordered that £10 should be paid to lieutenant Mason for his services.
In September, 1634, he was employed, with other military offi- cers of experience, as a committee for selecting sites for fortifica- tions in Boston harbor, and himself had charge of the erection of the works on Castle Island, one of the most important points, with ample authority and discretion to complete the work.
In the year 1635 he represented the town of Dorchester in the general court, and while a member of that body, on the 3d of June of that year, an application from the inhabitants of Dorches- ter, to form a colony on Connecticut river, was granted. Mason was a leading person in this enterprise. The colonists began their journey for their new homes on the 15th of October, 1635. They traveled on foot. The journey, which is now a short and easy one, occupied fourteen days, and was full of labor and hardship; but the terrible winter which followed would have appalled any less resolute than themselves. It was unusually severe. The Connecticut river was frozen by the middle of November. The ground was covered with snow; their cattle were many of them destroyed; their provisions failed to arrive, and those that returned to supply the want suffered severe hardships, with the loss of one of their number. Those that remained were almost in a state of starvation, and fed on "acorns, malt and grains."
But it was not merely these physical sufferings that they were called upon to encounter. The entire enterprise was one of the
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most remarkable recorded on the pages of the early history of this or of any other country.
The community they were to found was wholly independent of, and unconnected with any government in the world. They went beyond the limits of the colony of Massachusetts. They received no charter from any civilized government, and recognized the au- thority of no foreign power. They left their home at Dorchester in spite of the remonstrances of their minister and spiritual leader The colony of New Plymouth protested against the occupation of what they declared was their own territory. The Dutch at New Netherlands were indignant at the invasion of a country which they claimed to be within their own jurisdiction, and sent to Hol- land for a commission to expel the intruders.
In the midst of the three or four thousand warriors which Win- throp estimates as at the command of the Indians on Connecticut river, vindictive, treacherous and bloodthirsty, they not only came themselves, but brought with them their wives and children, numbering in all one hundred persons, and founded the settlement of Windsor.
A common faith and a feeling of common interest and common danger united these settlers with those at Hartford and Weathers- field, and they together formed the independent sovereignty of Connecticut, numbering in all about eight hundred persons.
Almost from the moment of their settlement, this colony, in common with those of Massachusetts and Plymouth, was threat- ened with extermination by hostile Indians. The most powerful and warlike of these tribes were the Pequots. Their name is said to correspond with our word "destroyer"-such at least was their character. The region which they claimed included most of the coast of Long Island sound within the present limits of this state, and their principal forts and villages were at New London and Mystic. They were the terror of all the other tribes of In- dians, against whom they carried on a constant and almost indis- criminate warfare, and from whom they had conquered the terri- tory which they claimed.
The war with the Pequots constitutes one of the most important events in the early history of the colonies, and while all partici- pated in the beneficial results, the success of the undertaking is to be ascribed to the contributions and sacrifices of Connecticut alone,
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and most of all to the prudence, energy and indomitable valor of John Mason and the troops under his command.
The causes of this war must be very briefly stated.
Captain John Stone, of Virginia, in an expedition to the Con- necticut river, in 1633, had been murdered by the Indians. Re- peated efforts were made by the authorities of Massachusetts to obtain from the Pequots the delivery of the murderers, until, on the 4th of May, 1636, governor Vane and lieutenant governor Winthrop addressed a letter and instructions to John Winthrop, jr., with power to negotiate with the Pequots. These two original documents I have before me, with the original signatures of gov- ernor Vane and deputy governor Winthrop, and in the hand- writing of the latter.
In these instructions, the various outrages of the Pequots are specified, and Mr. Winthrop was required "to take the relation from their own mouths, and to inform us particularly of their sev- eral answers, giving them to understand that it is not the manner of the English to take revenge of injuries until parties that are guilty have been called to answer fairly for themselves," and "to let them know that if they shall clear themselves of these matters, . we shall not refuse to hearken to any reasonable proposition from them for confirmation of peace betwixt us. But if they shall not give you satisfaction according to these our instructions, or shall be found guilty of any of the said matters, and will not deliver the actors in them into our hands, that then (as before you are directed) you return them the present, and declare to them that we hold ourselves free from any league or peace with them, and shall revenge the blood of our countrymen as occasion shall serve."
This mission of peace having proved wholly unavailing, and the present of the Pequots having been returned to them, the transaction amounted to a declaration of war on the part of Massa- chusetts, but at the instance of Gardiner and others, hostilities were for the time delayed.
On the 20th of July following, John Oldham, of Massachusetts, was murdered by the Indians.
Captain John Gallup, of Connecticut, the associate and friend of Mason, on his way from Connecticut to Long Island in his boat of 20 tons burthen, with one man and two little boys, discovered, near Block Island, a pinnace which he knew belonged to Mr. Old-
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ham, filled with fourteen hostile Indians armed with pikes, guns and swords. He had two guns, two pistols and duck shot. In- stead of seeking further help, he immediately attacked the In- dians, and after firing upon them, boarded the vessel, and with the exception of one Indian, whom he took prisoner and sent to Bos- ton, he destroyed the whole party. On board the vessel were the remains of Mr. Oldham, recently murdered.
This same John Gallup was the associate of captain Mason in his expedition against the pirates, to which I have already re- ferred; and the numerous descendants of captain Gallup by whom we are surrounded may well be proud of their ancestor.
To revenge this murder, an expedition was fitted out by Massa- chusetts in the month of August, 1636, under the command of Endicott, with four captains (among whom was John Underhill), and ninety men. The governor of the colony of Plymouth severely censured this expedition as ill devised as it was ill managed, and truly did captain Lion Gardiner, of Saybrook, say to Endicott and his associates-"You came hither to raise these wasps about my ears, and then you will take wings and flee away." Captain Underhill, who was a brave soldier, in his account of the enterprise, says-"Myself received an arrow through my coat: sleeve, a second against my helmet on the forehead. So as if God in his providence had not moved the heart of my wife to persuade me to carry it along with me, (which I was unwilling to do,) I had been slain. Give me leave to observe two things from hence : first, when the hour of death is not yet come, you see God useth weak means to keep his purpose unviolated ; secondly, let no man despise advice and counsel of his wife, though she be a woman."
Soon after this expedition, Sassacus, the chief of the Pequots, devised the plan of exterminating the whites, and sought every occasion of murdering the settlers on Connecticut river. The number so slain amounted to about thirty persons, including women and children.
More than a hundred of the Pequots, uniting themselves with other Indians in the neighborhood, fell upon the settlers in the neighborhood of Weathersfield, killed seven men, two women and one child, and carried away two women as captives. These mur- ders were accompanied with acts of barbarity of the most revolt- ing kind. Two of the men slain were sawn in sunder, and the;
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head of another was cut off and placed upon a tree. Mr. Mitchell, the brother of the minister at Cambridge, was roasted alive.
In pursuance of this plan for the extermination of the settle- ment, was the effort on the part of the Pequot chief to bring about a combination to destroy all the colonists by detail. This combi- nation was for the time prevented by Roger Williams, who in a long letter to Mason, whom he describes as his "honored, dear and ancient friend," gives a touching account of his visit to the Indians for that purpose, undertaken at imminent peril of his life.
It became thus with the Connecticut settlers a question whether they or the Pequots were to be exterminated. This little colony must either submit to entire destruction, or must strike a blow which should be decisive, not only as a punishment for past, but a prevention of future barbarities.
They had sought the aid of Massachusetts, but the tardy move- ments of that colony left them no alternative but to undertake alone the hazardous and bloody enterprise.
At a general court held at Hartford on the 1st day of May, 1637, it was ordered "that there shall be an offensive war against the Pequots, and that there shall be 90 men levied out of the three plantations, Hartford, Weathersfield and Windsor, under the com- mand of captain John Mason, and in case of death or sickness, under the command of Robert Steele, lieutenant, and the oldest sergeant or military officer if both of these miscarry. The court also make provision for the precise amount of provisions, ammu- nition &c., for the service, to be furnished by the three towns."
Prince, who wrote the preface to Mason's narrative of the expe- dition, says-" The reverend Mr. Hooker, of Hartford, being de- sired by the government in their name to deliver the staff into his hands, we may imagine that he did it with that superior piety, spirit and majesty which were peculiar to himself; like an ancient prophet addressing himself to the military officer, delivering to him the principal ensign of martial power, to lead the armies and fight the battles of the Lord and his people."
It is not possible now and here to realize the intense solemnity and sadness of that hour.
What must have been the feelings of Mason when receiving this emblem of authority. They had entrusted their all to him, and under heaven it was upon him that they relied. The whole
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of the little colony were doubtless assembled, for none would be absent at that trying moment. Scarcely a person in the colony who had not a father or husband or son or brother in that little company of ninety men who were embarking on this desper- ate undertaking. So small were the numbers and so inadequate the force, that nothing but the imminence of the danger relieved the enterprise from the charge of the most inexcusable rashness.
Under such auspices, Mason started on his expedition against the Pequots on the 10th day of May, within ten days after it had been determined upon by the general court, and arrived at Say- brook on the 17th, where they remained wind bound until Friday, the 19th. At Saybrook, Mason found Underhill with 19 men from Massachusetts, for the protection of the fort, who were under pay of the Saybrook company. Both he and Gardiner regarded the force as wholly insufficient, and the undertaking as a desperate one.
Gardiner says in his narrative, "But when captain Underhill and I had seen their commission, we both said they were not fitted for such a design, and we said to major Mason, we wondered he would venture himself, being no better fitted, and he said the magistrates could not or would not send better. Then we said that none of our men should go with them, unless we, that were bred soldiers from our youth, could see some likelihood to do bet- ter than the Bay men with their strong commission last year."
Finally, however, one of these "bred soldiers," Underhill, with nineteen men, joined the expedition, and twenty of the original ninety returned to aid in protecting their own homes and those of the absent soldiers.
If Mason had followed his instructions, the enterprise would probably have proved one of disaster and defeat. Those were, that he should proceed to the Pequot river, (the Thames,) in the heart of the enemy's country. This the Pequots expected, and for it were prepared. Mason alone, of all the officers and men, proposed to pass by the Thames and to proceed to the Narragansett country ; form, if possible, an alliance with the Narragansetts, and in con- junction with the Mohegans, surprise the Pequots and attack them in the rear. Suspending a decision of the question, the chaplain of the expedition, Mr. Stone, having spent a portion of the night in prayer for counsel from on high, joined with Mason in his plan of attack, in which all then concurred.
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The firmness and self-reliance as well as the prudence of Mason is thus departing from positive instructions, is the more remarkable from the rigid notions of discipline which he had imbibed during his foreign service. In his " narrative" he says :- "There was a great commander in Belgia who did the state great service in taking a city, but by going beyond his commission, he lost his life. His name was Grublendunk."
On Friday, the 19th, they left Saybrook, and on the evening of Saturday, the 20th, they arrived at their destined port, near point Judith, a distance of about fifty miles.
The Sabbath was religiously observed on board their vessels. A severe wind prevented their landing until the evening of Tues- day, the 23d. After a visit to the chief of the Narragansetts, who regarded their force as wholly inadequate, but who furnished a company of about two hundred warriors, on the morning of Wednesday, the 24th, the little army, consisting of seventy-seven men, (the residue of the original ninety being left on board the vessels,) together with about sixty Mohegans, and the two hundred Narragansetts, proceeded, and after a march of about 18 miles, reached at night a fort of the Niantics, an unfriendly tribe at the time in alliance with the Pequots. This fort they surrounded and watched during the night, to prevent the transmission of intelligence to the Pequots.
On Thursday, the 25th, they were joined by other Indians, making in all about 500. Under the faithful guidance of Uncas and another chief, they approached the two forts of the Pequots, and at first determined to attack them simultaneously; but their courage was greater than their strength, which had been weakened by fatigue, watching, and insufficient food, and they decided to attack one fort alone. Their allies, the Indians, manifested such timidity, and such unmanly fear of the Pequots and their chief, that Mason determined to rely solely on his own troops in making the attack. Uncas alone showed both faithfulness and courage, as well as a knowledge of Indian character. Mason, in his narrative, says :- "I then enquired of Onkos what he thought the Indians would do; who said the Narragansetts will all leave us, but for himself he would never leave us-and so it proved. For which expressions, and some other speeches of his, I shall never forget him. Indeed he was a great friend and did great service."
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It was on the morning of Friday, the 26th May, about two hours before day, by the light of the moon, that the little party of seventy-seven men made their attack upon the fort containing about seven hundred of the dreaded Pequots, principally fighting men, as the old men, the women and children, had most of them been previously removed.
Before making the attack they sought the aid of a power higher than themselves. They invoked, those stern and resolute men, invoked the protection of that Almighty arm which had guided and upheld them across the ocean, and had protected and sustained them amid the incredible labors and unexampled hardships of their enterprise.
The fort was stormed. The Pequots were taken by surprise. So simultaneous was the attack, that Underhill, in his history, says : "We could not but admire at the providence of God in it, that soldiers so unexpert in the use of their arms, should give so com- plete a volley, as though the finger of God had touched both match and flint."
Scattered and concealed as the Pequots were in their huts, the danger which threatened Mason and his men, when the Indians should recover from their panic and see the meager force by which they were attacked, was imminent. With characteristic prompt- ness and energy, Mason exclaimed, "We must burn them," and with a blazing brand set fire to the wigwams of the savages. The flames soon forced them from their hiding places. Some threw themselves into the fire, a great number were slaughtered by the troops, and the rest were pierced by the arrows of the Mohegans and Narragansetts who had been stationed around the fort, at a safe distance from the scene of the attack.
The destruction was complete. Between six and seven hundred of the Pequots were killed, seven escaped, and seven were captured. Two of Mason's party were slain, and about twenty wounded.
Resolute and bold as was this attack, the dangers of the succeed- ing day were even greater. They were in the country of an enemy exasperated to madness by the slaughter of their comrades, them- selves exhausted and worn out by marching, and watching, and fighting. A portion . their number were wounded, and twenty were employed in carrying them. They defended their Indian allies, who gave them tie aid ; attacked a band of three hundred
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Pequots, who, furious with rage, assailed them on their way; and thus, on that dreadful day, step by step, fought their way to the Pequot river. Here their eyes were greeted with the sight of their own boats, that had been taken possession of soon after they left them, by captain Patrick, with a party of forty men, from Massa- chusetts.
Mason in his narrative mentions " special providences." Among these he says :- " Lieutenant Bull had an arrow shot into a hard piece of cheese, having no other defense, which may verify the old saying-' A little armor would serve if a man knew where to place it.' Many such providences happened. Some respecting myself; but since there is none to witness to them, I shall forbear to mention them."
Mason also makes honorable mention of sergeant William Hey- don, who, instead of sergeant Davis, it is claimed, cut the bow string of an Indian as he was aiming an arrow at the head of cap- tain Mason. That very sword I hold in my hand, as I am assured by a respected lineal descendant of the brave sergeant; and this is said to be the sword of captain John Mason himself, and the one used by him in this battle.
Before leaving his boats, Mason had been notified by Roger Williams that captain Patrick and his party were at Providence, and would soon be able to join them. Why he had not waited for them Mason does not inform us. That his reasons were suf- ficient may be inferred from the prudence and sagacity, as well as courage, which marked all the proceedings of that intrepid leader, and the events connected with their meeting, serve to show that the union with captain Patrick would not have added to the harmony, as it could not have increased the success of those en- gaged in the enterprise.
Mason in his narrative says :- " Captain Patrick being arrived there with our vessels, who, as we were informed, was sent with forty men by the Massachusetts colony, upon some service against the Block Islanders, who coming to the shore in one shallop with all his company, as he said, to rescue us, supposing we were pursued, though there did not appear any the least de- sign of such a thing." It seems, too, that captain Patrick refused to relinquish their own vessels to this victorious and exhausted little army.
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Mason continues :- " But we did not prevail with him by any means to put his men ashore, that so we might carry our wounded men aboard, although it was our own boat in which he was." Again-"Shortly after their coming aboard, there fell out a great contest between captain Underhill and captain Patrick," &c.
The result seems to have been that Underhill and his company, with the wounded and prisoners, were taken by water to Saybrook, and that Mason and his weary followers, deprived of their own boat, were obliged to continue on foot to the Connecticut river.
Mason says in his narrative :- " But absolutely necessitated to march by land, we hasted ashore, with our Indians and small number. Captain Patrick, seeing what we intended, came ashore with his men, although in truth we did not desire or delight in his company ; and so we plainly told him."
On their way from the Pequot river, they fell in with and dis- persed a party of Niantic Indians, and on Saturday night, the 27th, arrived at the Connecticut river, opposite the fort at Saybrook, and as he says, "Being nobly entertained by lieutenant Gardiner, and many great guns." He immediately returned with his men to their homes.
In these four days, from the morning of Wednesday, the 24th, to Saturday night, the 27th of May, this little band of seventy- seven men had marched through an unbroken wilderness, a distance not less than sixty miles, surrounded by warlike and hostile Indians, and achieved, undoubtedly, the most decisive victory, considered in all its bearings and results, to be found on record, in the whole history of the Indian wars with the British colonies.
The war had been declared on the 1st day of May ; the power of the enemy, the most warlike of the tribes of New England, had been thoroughly and for ever destroyed, and the war sub- stantially brought to a close by the 27th of the same month. The time occupied in this decisive campaign was just three weeks and three days. The general court at Hartford very liberally called it a month, in paying the officers and men engaged. The soldiers received one shilling and three pence per day, and the captain forty shillings per week, for their services.
Another expedition was sent forth, in conjunction with Massa- chusetts, to pursue and exterminate the prostrate and flying Pe-
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quots. Massachusetts sent one hundred and twenty men on this duty, and under the command of Mason Connecticut sent forty.
What then do we think, and what shall we say of the Pequot war, the events of which our time has required us so briefly to sketch, and what of the actors, and of him who was the leader and soul of the enterprise ? Shall we, like some of the descend- ants of these men, who are enjoying in safety and luxury the fruits of their labors and sufferings, expend all our sympathies upon the "poor Indians," and join in plaudits of the Pequots and their leader, and in lamentations over their untimely fate? If there were any such before me, I would ask what they would have our fathers do? Were they to allow themselves to be exterminated by this savage tribe ? The infant colony numbered less than 800 persons, with less than 200 able to bear arms. They settled in their new homes on the invitation of the Indians occupying and claiming the territory. They had been there less than two years. They had done no acts of wrong toward the Indians, and lived re- mote from the territory of the Pequots, who intermitted their causeless wars with the more powerful tribes only to commence one of extermination against the settlers of Connecticut river. 'Thirty of their number, including women and children, had been slain under circumstances of the grossest barbarity and insult. Their cries of anguish, and supplications of mercy, had been imitated by the Indians with jeers and scoffs, in the sight and hear- ing of their families and friends, and their mangled remains had been exhibited with every mark of ignominy and barbarity. Were they to allow these acts to continue, and the whole company to be cut off by piecemeal and in detail? Would you have had them follow the example of Massachusetts in relation to the murder of captain Stone and his companions-negotiate for more than three years, make treaties with those who did not pretend to respect any treaty, and were utterly faithless?
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