USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Derby > The history of the old town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642-1880. With biographies and genealogies > Part 2
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It is to the traces of Indian occupancy in the territory thus described, that attention is directed, in order to a better knowl- edge of the clans that dwelt in and around Derby, from just before the settlement of the English to the final disappearance of the natives from this territory. These traces might be pur- sued in the light of three sources of information : the land rec- ords, the traditions and place names, and the Indian relics dis- covered-the arrow heads, spear heads and knives, the larger ground-stone implements and the soapstone dishes; but the first of these (the land records) will afford the largest source of information in this brief account of the departing footsteps of the Red man.
The primitive condition of things in the Naugatuck valley continued until the middle of the seventeenth century. Pre- vious to this date, however, a number of settlements had been made within the territorial area now embraced in Connecticut. It was in 1635 that parties of emigrants from the neighborhood of Boston pursued their way through the wilderness to the Connecticut river, and settled at Wethersfield, Windsor and Hartford. After the Indian war of 1637, those who pursued the fleeing Pequots toward the west saw for the first time the lands on Long Island Sound lying westward of the mouth of the Connecticut. Their value soon became known, and in 1638 a colony went from Boston and established its head-quarters on New Haven bay. One of the three New Haven companies went still further west and settled at Milford in 1639. In the same year lands were purchased at Stratford, and a settlement was begun, but by a different company of emigrants. All these
xxii
INDIAN HISTORY.
plantations were upon the sea coast, or on navigable waters ; but in 1640 some of the Hartford settlers, attracted by the meadow lands of the Farmington river, removed westward and established a settlement at Farmington.
Now, how were the aboriginal inhabitants situated at the time when these settlements were made, that is, from 1635 to 1640, and for some years afterward ?
It must be remembered that they all alike belonged to the great Algonkin stock-a division of the Indian race which at the Discovery extended along the Atlantic coast all the way from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Peedee river. Of this extensive family, the most important branch were the Dela- wares. The Abnakis, far to the north-east, were also important. But in New England the native population was broken up into numerous petty tribes, speaking divergent dialects of the one stock language. On the western bank of the Connecticut, an Algonkin people is found extending for some distance up and down the river, constituting a group of tribes, or a confed- eracy, ruled by a sachem named Sequassen. The precise nat- ure of the bond which held them together it is impossible to ascertain ; but it is certain that when the English first came among them Sequassen claimed jurisdiction over territory occu- pied by other chiefs, and sold land to the magistrates of Hart- ford, extending as far west as the country of the Mohawks. His dominion embraced therefore the tribes of the Farmington river, some of whom had their principal seat at Poquonnock, five or six miles from its mouth, and others at the bend in the river, eight or ten miles west of the Connecticut, where Farm- ington was afterwards settled. The first Poquonnock chief known to the English was named Sehat. He was succeeded by one whose name is familiar to Waterbury people under the form of Nosahogan, but whose true name was Nassahegon or Nesaheagun.
The Indians of Farmington are known as the Tunxis tribe. They had a camping ground also at Simsbury, and claimed all the territory west of that place as far as the Ousatonic river. They are spoken of by Mr. J. W. Barber in his "Historical Col- lections," as a numerous and warlike tribe ; but Mr. J. W. De- Forest, in his " History of the Indians of Connecticut," esti-
xxiii
THE PAUGASUCKS AND POOTATUCKS.
mates their number at "eighty to one hundred warriors, or about four hundred individuals." Whatever other chiefs they may have had, the authority of Nassahegon seems to have been recognized, and also the necessity of securing his consent in the disposal of lands.
If now attention is directed from the centre of the state to the shore of the Sound, the country of the Quiripi (or Long Water) Indians comes into view,-a people known around New Haven harbor as Quinnipiacs. They claimed the land for many miles to the north, and the north-west corner of their territory may be considered as lying within the bounds of the Naugatuck val- ley. To the west of these on the coast we enter the country of the Paugasucks. The tribe was a large one, occupying a consid- erable territory on both sides of the Ousatonic. It extended in fact from the West river, which separates New Haven from Orange-or at any rate, from Oyster river, which separates Orange from Milford-all the way to Fairfield. On the west of the Ousatonic they claimed all the territory now comprised in the towns of Stratford, Bridgeport, Trumbull, Huntington and Monroe; and on the east side, as far north as Beacon Hill brook, and, as we shall see, still further, overlapping the hunting grounds of the Tunxis. This large tribe was under the domin- ion of the well known sachem Ansantaway, whose "big wig- wam" is said to have been on Charles Island. Outside of Milford, his son, Towetanomow, seems to have held the reins of power, as he signs the deeds as sachem at Stratford and Derby until his death, about 16761; and after this a younger son, Ockenunge (spelled also Ackenach), signed the deeds in Derby some years, beginning in 1665. About this time Ansantaway removed from Milford with most of his Milford tribe, to Turkey Hill, (a little south of the Narrows on the east side of the Ousa- tonic, just below the mouth of the Two-mile brook), where he soon after died, and where some of his people remained about one hundred and forty years. Molly Hatchett and her children were the last of the tribe there.
If at this time there were any of the Weepawaug Indians remaining east of the Ousatonic, they were, probably, absorbed in this settlement at Turkey Hill. This was a strip of land
1Lambert, 131.
xxiv
INDIAN HISTORY.
between Milford and Derby plantations, bought by Alexander Bryan, and turned over to the town of Milford, containing about one hundred acres. It was set apart by that town as the home of the Milford Indians, and to it they removed some time before the death of Ansantaway ; for in one of the deeds, that chief is named as residing in Derby. It was so near Derby that he is spoken of as belonging there, but it remained under the care of Milford until after the Revolution, when, Lambert says, "This land was lastly under the care of an overseer appointed by the county court."
As early as 1671 Chushumack (also spelled Cashushamack) signed deeds as sachem at Stratford, and a little later at Poota- tuck, opposite Birmingham Point, west of the Ousatonic river. In 1673 there was here a fort, which must have been standing some years before the English first came to Derby, and proba- bly before they came to Milford. Not long after this, these same Pootatucks built a fort about a mile further north, on what is now known as Fort Hill, on the same side of the river. They are said to have built it for the purpose of keeping the English from ascending the Ousatonic, and therefore it must have been a new fort. It was after this fort was built, and probably about the time when the title was confirmed by several Indians, in 1684, to the town of Stratford, that the Pootatucks collected higher up the river, and established the Pootatuck village at the mouth of the Pomperaug, where they continued many years on land reserved by them in their sales to the Woodbury people. They may have been moving up the the river gradually for some years, but about that time they seem to have been collected at that place in considerable num- bers, and many remained there until the removal to Kent.
One of the chief seats of the Paugasucks was at the "Great Neck," between the Ousatonic and the Naugatuck, in the vicin- ity of what is now called Baldwin's Corners. Here they had a fort, mentioned several times in the records as the Old Indian Fort, which was, very probably, built before the English came to the place. There was a large field at this place, frequently called the Indian field, which contained about sixty acres, and was once sold for that number. The Indians of this locality established a fort on the east bank of the Ousatonic, nearly half
XXV
WESQUANTOOK.
a mile above the present dam, which, like that on the opposite side, was built to keep the English from sailing up the river, and which is referred to several times in the records as the New Indian Fort. The Indians of the Neck collected about this fort along the river bank for some years and then removed to Wesquantook?, where a good many were living in 1710, and from which place they removed, some to Kent, some to the Falls, afterwards Chusetown, and some to Litchfield and per- haps as far north as Woodstock, in Massachusetts. Wesquan- toock seems to have been the last residence of the Sachem Cockapatana, if he did not remove to some distant place. It is a curious fact, possibly connected with the fate of this chief, that some years ago (that is, within the memory of per- sons now living), there resided in Goshen or in Torrington a white man who was habitually called " Old Kunkerpot." The nickname was given to him because he reported that while en- gaged in some war he had killed an Indian by the name of Kunkerpot. Cockapatana was sometimes called Konkapot, as an abbreviation of his real name. Most of the Indians had nicknames as well as their white neighbors. It is said, how- ever, that this Cockapatana died in 1731, and if so, he could not have been killed by a man living more than a hundred years later. But it is quite possible, that some of Cockapatana's sons removed to Stockbridge, and that one of them may have borne the same name, for the name is found there. The name Paugasuck seems to have included at a certain time all the minor families of the Indians who descended from the Milford tribe, but it was afterwards used to designate those only who resided on Birmingham Neck, and their descendants.
After the death of Ansantaway the proprietorship of the lands inhered definitely in the two tribes, the Pootatucks and Pauga- sucks ; the lands of the former extending on the west and south of the Ousatonic, and those of the latter east and north of the same river ; yet they signed deeds, as is said in one case, "inter- changeably." The Pootatuck chief signed two deeds to the Derby people, one of quite a large tract of land above the Neck. How the Pootatucks came into possession of the lands sold to
2Wesquantook was the original Indian name, not Squntook.
D
xxvi
INDIAN HISTORY.
the Woodbury settlers is not known, but conjecture is not se- verely taxed to answer the query. There are about forty In- dian names given in the "History of Woodbury " as names of Pootatuck Indians, which are found on deeds given by the Pau- gasuck tribe to the Derby settlers, and some of these names are on quite a number of deeds. Again, the Paugasuck Indians (several of them) signed a quit-claim deed to Milford lands, near the Sound, nearly or more than forty years after these lands were first sold. Another thing seems quite clear : that the Paugasucks, at least, divided the territory among themselves, after the English began to buy; so that different parties sign the deeds of different tracts of land. Sometimes the sachem signs the deed ; at other times it is signed by others, but the deed says, the land is sold "with full consent of our sachem," but by the "rightful owners."
As in Stratford, two sales covering the same territory that was at first deeded to that plantation are recorded, (sales for which payment was made,) some thirty years after the first pur- chase, so in Derby, several pieces of land were sold and deeded three or four times; and had the Indians not removed it is doubtful whether the time would ever have come when the whites would have been done paying for the right of the soil. A careful perusal of the Indian deeds will reveal the masterly ability of the Red man to sell land over and over, without ever buying it, and the wonderful depth of the white man's purse to pay for Indian lands. The land on Birmingham Point and some of that above Birmingham, along the Ousatonic, was deeded four times by the Indians, and each time for a consideration, except once, when that at the Point was given to Lieut. Thomas Wheeler ; and this was probably done so as to sell other lands on the Neck. The prices paid at first were, apparently, every dollar and cent and button and bead that the land was worth, or that they were able to pay. The Indians urged the sale of their lands, and the English bought as fast as, and faster than they could pay for it. In the case of Camp's Mortgage Pur- chase, they hired the money of Merchant Nicholas Camp of Milford to pay for it, and gave a mortgage as security, which mortgage was finally paid, after a number of years, by a town tax, at the rate of four pounds a year.
xxvii
STRATFORD INDIAN DEEDS.
The following items taken from the Stratford records confirm the foregoing statements :
" May 26, 1663. An agreement of friendship and loving correspon- dence agreed upon between us and the town of Stratford .- We will no more plant on the south side of the great river Pugusett, to prevent a ground of future variance between us in order to any damage that might be done to corn. And also do hereby engage that we will not either directly or indirectly sell, bargain, alienate or make over lands or any part of our land at Paugasett or thereabouts, with privileges thereon adjoining to any other English resident in any part of the country except Stratford.
Okenunge, his mark.
Nompunck, his mark.
Nansantaway, his mark.
Jemiogu, his mark.
Amantanegu, his mark.
Ahuntaway, his mark.
Munsuck, his mark.
Ronuckous, his mark.
Asynetmogu, his mark.
Four of these are leading names attached to Derby deeds during thirty or forty years afterwards.
A deed of land lying on the west of land already deeded to Stratford was given April 22, 1665, signed by Okenonge, and witnessed by Ansantaway and Chipps.
An agreement to deed lands in Stratford was made May 17, 1671, and signed by Musquatt, Nesumpau and Robin Cassasin- namin. And another was signed a week later by :
Musquatt, Nisumpaw, Sasapiquan, Shoron,
Takymo, Sucksquo, Ponseck, Totoquan.
a
CHAPTER II.
ETHNOGRAPHIC HISTORY.
HE settlement of the Naugatuck valley must be consid- ered in what may be called its ethnographical .rela- tions, in order to bring to view the significance and bearings of the various purchases made by the first settlers. The valley was claimed by the Paugasetts1 on the south, the Pootatucks on the west and the Tunxis Indians on the east. With one or other of these tribes the white men had to deal, and in Waterbury the settlers found it expedient to purchase the same lands from different tribes, without attempt- ing to decide between their rival claims.
Considering the Naugatuck valley as ending where that river enters the Ousatonic, the first sale of land in the valley made by the Indians was previous to 1646, and was probably the land on which Mr. Wakeman's men were employed in 1642; which was on what is now Birmingham Point. The then governor of New Haven is authority for the statement that this land was purchased of the Indians,2 but no deed has been seen of that sale. The next purchase was made in 1653, by Mr. Goodyear3 and others. It consisted of a tract of land at Paugassett, which was sold to Richard Baldwin and nine other men of Milford, in the spring of 1654, and a settlement was made at that time, of three or four families. All this land lay east of the Nauga- tuck, but no deed is found of this sale of it; the fact, however, is recorded on Derby books. The next year, in the spring, the settlers petitioned the General Court of New Haven to be made into a separate plantation, which was granted and the name of the place called Paugassett, but in the next autumn, in conse- quence of the strong opposition of Milford, the decree of the court was informally revoked.
1This name was written for many years Paugasuck by the best spellers, but after- wards the name Paugasett became more familiar and it has been mostly used in pub- lic prints.
2New Haven Col. Rec. I. 265.
3Ibid. 156.
xxix
VARIOUS INDIAN DEEDS.
In May, 1657, a deed of land on what is now Birmingham Point, was given to Lieut. Thomas Wheeler of Stratford, if he would settle upon it, which he did, and remained there until 1664. This deed was signed by Towtanemow, Raskenute and others. In 1665, after the death of Towtanemow, his brother Okenuck (or Ockenunge) confirmed the Goodyear purchase east of the Naugatuck and this land was given to Mr. Wheeler ; making the western boundary of Paugassett on the Great river (Ousatonic) instead of the Naugatuck as at first. From this time forward the Paugasuck Indians sold lands piece by piece, northward, to the Derby people, until the town bounds reached Waterbury and Woodbury on the north ; and some twenty-five or more deeds were recorded, with one hundred or more differ- ent Indian names attached thereto; the last deed (except of reservations) being given in 1711. The names recorded as sachems or sagamores, are Ansantaway, Towtanemow, Ocke- nuck, Atterosse, Ahuntaway, Nanawaug, Cockapatana of the Paugassucks and Chushumack of the Pootatucks.
The Woodbury lands were purchased in the same way by pieces, only fewer in number ; and of the forty-five names of Indians attached to those deeds as given in the Woodbury his- tory, one-half are names found on Derby deeds, but the former deeds are later in date and indicate that some of the Derby Indians had removed and joined the Pootatucks, or else that they signed the Woodbury deeds in behalf of the Paugasucks.
The same year that Lieutenant Wheeler received his deed of land on Birmingham Point (1657), a transfer of land took place in the upper part of the valley, which found record in a curious deed preserved in the town records of Farmington. Two of the Farmington settlers, Stanley and Andrews by name, in their excursions to the west had discovered somewhere a de- posit of plumbago or something which they mistook for that valuable mineral. Their discovery attracted some attention, and doubtless led to the purchase just referred to. The deed was made on the eighth of February, (O. S.) by Kepaquamp, Querrimus and Mataneage and the land was sold to William Lewis and Samuel Steele. The document is as follows :
" This witnesseth that we, Kepaquamp and Querrimus and Mata- neage, have sold to William Lewis and Samuel Steele of Farmington,
XXX
INDIAN HISTORY.
a parcel or tract of land called Matecacoke, that is to say, the hill from whence John Stanley and John Andrews brought the black-lead, and all the land within eight miles of that hill on every side,-to dig and carry away what they will, and to build on it for the use of them that labor there, and not otherwise to improve the land. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands ; and these Indians above mentioned must free the purchasers from all claims by any other Indians."
This piece of territory, sixteen miles in diameter, was pur- chased by Lewis and Steele in behalf of themselves and a com- pany composed of other inhabitants of Farmington. For what " consideration " it was disposed of is not known. "Precisely where the hill referred to was situated " says Mr. George C. Woodruff in his " History of the Town of Litchfield," " I have been unable to discover ; but from the subsequent claims of the grantees, from tradition and from the deed itself, it would seem that it was in the southern part of Harwinton." The name of Mattatuck still survives in that part of the valley. From a supplementary deed given some years afterwards, it appears that "a considerable part " of this tract was comprised within the bounds of ancient Woodbury ; but the Waterbury planters, as will be seen, paid no regard to this early transac- tion, nor do they seem to have been any way hampered by it.
The deed to Lewis and Steele was made, as has been ob- served, in 1657. At that date, Farmington had been settled seventeen years and the forests to the westward had become familiar ground to the Farmington hunters. From year to year they continued their excursions, and in course of time the Nau- gatuck river became well known to them. Their attention was particularly attracted to the so-called "interval lands " which now constitute the meadows of Waterbury. For obvious rea- sons, such lands were specially valuable in a forest-clad region. Their discovery was duly reported and was enough to arouse the spirit of enterprise. A committee was sent to examine the place and their report being favorable the Farmington people petitioned the General Court for permission to make a settle- ment, "at a place called by the Indians Matitacoocke. This was in 1673, nineteen years after the first settlers took up their residence at Derby. After due investigation the petition was granted and a committee of prominent men of the Colony was
xxxi
WATERBURY LANDS.
appointed "to regulate and order the settling of a plantation at Mattatuck." One of their first duties was to procure the extinguishment of any title to the land on the part of the na- tive proprietors, which they did by honest purchase. A copy of the deed given to this committee by the Indians is pre- served in the land records of Waterbury,4 and is dated Au- gust 26, 1674. The consideration was "thirty pounds in hand received and divers good causes thereunto us moving," in re- turn for which the purchasers received a "parcel of land at Mattatuck, situate on each side of the Mattatuck river, hav- ing the following dimensions and boundaries : Ten miles in length north and south and six miles in breadth : abutting upon the bounds of Farmington on the east, upon Paugassett on the south, upon Paugassett, Pootatuck and Pomperaug on the west and upon the open wilderness " on the north. It was to this purchase the first settlers came in 1674, and again, after a serious interruption, in 1677. The dimensions of the town remained as indicated until 1684, when they were greatly ex- tended by the purchase from the native proprietors of a large piece of territory on the north. This territory was bounded on the south by the former grant, or, more definitely, by an east and west line running through Mount Taylor, the precip- itous rock which overhangs the river not far above Waterville. From this line it extended northward into the wilderness, eight miles. It was bounded on the east by Farmington and on the west by a north and south line which if extended southward would run " four score rods from the easternmost part of Quas- sapaug pond." By this purchase, which cost the proprietors nine pounds, the area of the town was nearly doubled. But it seems to have become necessary at the same time, to buy again from the natives the tract already bought by the com- mittee of the General Court of 1674. The original owners may have claimed that they did not comprehend the significance of their act and were not adequately paid ; but for whatever rea- son Messrs. Judd and Stanley, on the second of December, 1684, purchased again the land lying between Mount Taylor on the north and Beacon Hill brook on the south, extending
+Vol. II.
xxxii
INDIAN HISTORY.
eastward to Farmington bounds and westward three miles to- ward Woodbury. The amount paid, this time, was nine pounds.
These deeds have been examined carefully, to obtain if possi- ble some items of knowledge concerning the aboriginal own- ers, who are described in one of the deeds as " Indians now belong- ing to Farmington." The earliest deed (that of 1674) contains the names of fourteen Indians, eleven of whom (if the copy has been correctly made) affixed to it their mark. The first name is that of Nesaheagon, the sachem at Poquonnock, whose juris- diction has already been described. The occurrence of his signature here indicates what position he held in relation to the Tunxis tribe. The second name is John Compound, which if not of English origin has been forced into a strange resemblance to English. He has been handed down to immor- tality as the original proprietor of Compound's (Compounce) pond. The third name is Queramoush, which has already been met with, in the deed of 1657 ; for it was Querrimus with two other Indians, who deeded to Lewis and Steele the land around the "hill where John Stanley found the black-lead." The other names in the order in which they occur are as fol- lows: Spinning Squaw, Taphow, Chery, Aupkt, Caranchaquo, Patucko, Atumtako, James, Uncowate, Nenapush Squaw and Alwaush. To those who hear them, these names are a mean- ingless jargon ; but it is pleasant to think that originally every one of them meant something and that some of the meanings may have been beautiful. In studying them upon the time- stained pages where they are preserved, one or two points of interest have been discovered. One of the prominent names in the list is Patucko, who will be referred to again. Next to this follows Atumtucko. A relation between the two was sus- pected and this was afterward confirmed by finding in another deed that Patucko's squaw was Atumtucko's mother. In sign- ing this first deed Patucko first promises for James, and then for himself; whence it may safely be inferred that between Patucko and James, who seems to have been well known by his English name, there was some kind of family relationship. It is possible that Caranchaquo may have been a member of the same family.
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