The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company
Number of Pages: 922

USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I > Part 4

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+ " History of Waterbury," p. 2.

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

pied, in the way already indicated. As we shall see (in the follow- ing chapter), there are remains which go to show either that it was more widely occupied than we are wont to suppose, or else that the period of its occupancy extended over hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

What kind of people were these aboriginal inhabitants of Mat- tatuck ? The ordinary reader doubtless believes that he has a toler- ably correct conception of them-although his views may be derived from newspaper estimates of the present-day Indians of the west- ern plains. But concerning the essential facts of aboriginal life and character most of us are thoroughly ignorant. This is not the place for elaborate dissertation or minute description; but there are important facts-some of them bearing directly upon the trans- fer of the territory from barbarian to civilized hands-which ought to be placed on record in such a history as this.

Among the Indians as first known to Europeans a tribal organ- ization was universal. Whatever classification into groups or lin- guistic families may be suggested by a study of their languages, we must not fail to recognize their division into tribes, each tribe claiming possession of a territory of its own, having a name of its own, and distinguished by a special dialect, the result of its separa- tion in area from others speaking the same mother language. It is not generally known, but it is a well established fact, that within the limits of every tribe was another organization -perhaps we should say, an "institution " -- which has received the name of clan or gens. The gens is a very ancient form of social organization, which can be traced in nearly all parts of the globe among savage and barbarous peoples, and which existed in full development among the American aborigines at the time of the discovery. A gens consisted originally of a group of persons related by ties of kindred, who "traced their descent from a common female ancestor through females, the evidence of the fact being their possession of a common gentilic name. It included this ancestor and her children, the children of her daughters, and the children of her female descendants, through females, in perpetuity; while the children of her sons, and the children of her male descendants through males, would belong to other gentes, namely, those of their respective mothers."* Every tribe, therefore contained at least two gentes, while in some tribes the number had increased by subdivision to more than twenty. Each gens was distinguished by its name and totem (usually the name of some animal or bird); its members pos- sessed certain rights in common and were bound together by cer-

* L. H. Morgan's "Ancient Society," pp. 67, 68.

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

tain mutual obligations, the most important of which was the obli- gation not to marry in the gens. It was to the gens, and not to the tribe, that the right belonged of electing sachems and chiefs. The office of sachem (whose duties were confined to affairs of peace) was hereditary in the gens, that is, it was filled by election as often as a vacancy occurred; other chiefs were elected in recognition of per- sonal bravery, wisdom or eloquence. In these elections all adult persons, both men and women, had a right to take part, so that the organization was on a purely democratic basis. The gens held the right also of deposing those whom it had elected, so that the term of office was practically " during good behavior." It ought to be added that the office of sachem, in order to remain within the gens (the line of descent being on the female side), must pass from brother to brother or from uncle to nephew, never from father to son. Property also was hereditary in the gens, and under a similar law.

There is good evidence that these forms of organization-the tribal and the gentilic-existed among the Indians of Connecticut no less than among the other aborigines of America. We have already pointed out certain lines of tribal division and centres of tribal life. There is no doubt (in view of modern investigations) that through these various tribes the existence of three ancient gentes (the Wolf, the Turtle and the Turkey), which belonged to the Indians of Connecticut in common with the Delawares dwelling further to the south, could have been traced, and that these had in the course of centuries been subdivided until they numbered eleven, each having its special name. Among the modern descend- ants of the Mohegans the division into eleven gentes still exists .*

A fact of more importance (not intrinsically, but in order to a correct understanding of the relations of the aborigines to the first settlers) pertains to the ownership of property. Among people in the "lower status of barbarism," the amount of personal property is always small. It consists of one's personal effects, together with possessory rights in garden-beds, and, among some tribes, in joint- tenement houses. Among the Indians, the ownership of these was hereditary in the gens. But, except among the Aztecs, who had advanced somewhat further than the northern tribes, the owner- ship of lands inhered not in the gens but in the tribe. The condi- tion of things existing among the Cherokees and other tribes of the Indian Territory to-day, was universal among the aborigines- namely, tribal ownership of land and no ownership in severalty. The territory of a tribe "consisted of the area of their actual

*" Ancient Society," pp. 173, 174, 100.

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

settlements and so much of the surrounding region as the tribe ranged over in hunting and fishing, and was able to defend against the encroachments of other tribes." Outside of this area was a margin of neutral ground, separating the tribe from other tribes, and claimed by neither. When the neighboring tribe spoke a different language, this neutral area was likely to be broad; when they spoke dialects of the same language, it was narrower and less clearly marked .* The fact that there were no definite boundary lines may serve to explain the rival claims of different bands which the settlers of Mattatuck had to recognize, involving repeated purchases by them of the same territory.

The kind of life which the aboriginal occupants lived may be partly inferred from what has been said in regard to their means of subsistence. Their chief dependence was upon fishing and hunting, which were the sole employments of the men; the cultivation of the ground was left entirely to women. Whatever pertained to in-door life-the wigwam with all its belongings-was under the care of the women; the men, when not occupied in the chase, or engaged in war, lived a life of leisure, diversified by the manufac- ture of bows, arrows, axes and pipes.t

It must be remembered that these people belonged to what has been termed the stone age, and had not emerged from the lower level of barbarism. They knew nothing of iron, and almost noth- ing of copper. But the number of things which they could do, without metals of any kind, is greater than any one would imagine who had not made a special investigation of the matter. They possessed the art of striking fire; they made bows and arrows -the bowstrings of sinew, the arrow-heads of stone or bone; they manufactured various other stone weapons and implements (some

* " Ancient Society," p. 112.

+ Roger Williams, in his "Key," says that the men "commonly get and fix the long poles, and then the women cover the house with mats, and line them with embroidered mats which the women make,-which amongst them make as fair a show as hangings with us " (p. 32, first edition.) He says in the same chapter : "Their women constantly beat all their corn with hand " in their pounding mortar ; "they plant it, dress it, gather it, barn it, and take as much pains as any people in the world. . . . . It is almost incredible what burthens the poor women carry of corn, of fish, of beans, of mats, and a child beside." "Generally all the men throughout the country have a tobacco-bag, with a pipe in it, hanging at their back. Sometimes they make such great pipes, both of wood and stone, that they are two foot long, with men or beasts carved, so big or massy that a man may be hurt mortally by one of them ; but these commonly come from the Mau- quauwogs [Mohawks], or the men eaters, three or four hundred miles from us " (pp. 37, 38, 44, 45.)

Wood, in his " New England's Prospect," says that the women in their care of the cornfield," exceed our English husbandmen, keeping it so clear with their clam-shell hoes, as if it were a garden rather than a cornfield, not suffering a choking weed to advance his audacious head above their infant corn, or an under- mining worm to spoil his spurns." He adds that " in winter-time they are their husbands' caterers, · and their porters to lug home their venison, which their laziness exposes to the wolves till they impose it upon their wives' shoulders." "They are often troubled, like snails, to carry their houses on their backs, sometimes to fishing-places, other times to hunting-places, after that to a planting place, where it abides the longest " (part 2, chapters 19, 20.)

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

of them chipped, others ground), such as axes, hammers, chisels, knives, drills, fish-spears, net sinkers, mortars, pestles, pots, pipes, ceremonial and ornamental objects, and implements for use in athletic games. They made vessels of clay mixed with sand and hardened by fire. They had learned how to cure and tan skins, and of these made moccasins, leggins and other wearing apparel. They made nets and twine and rope from filaments of bark, and wove the same material into belts, sashes and burden straps. They made baskets of osier, or cane, or splints; canoes of birch bark or skins, or dug-out logs, and houses of poles covered with skins. They had also invented musical instruments, such as the flute and the drum. They cultivated maize, beans, squashes and tobacco, and made unleavened bread of pounded maize boiled in earthern ves- sels .* Of the various objects manufactured by the aborigines of Connecticut only those made of stone have escaped the tooth of time, with the exception of a few specimens of pottery, most of them fragmentary. The stone implements, however-especially the small implements made by chipping-are numerous, and are valu- able as indicating the kind of life which the primitive man lived and the various places occupied by him in the course of centuries. Within the bounds of ancient Mattatuck, as everywhere else in America, we can trace the red men by the stone "relics" they have left behind them. We can see them moving from place to place, establishing their camping-ground now on the river-bank, now by the brook-side, now on some commanding bluff, and again at some perennial spring. The arrow-maker's hut had its place in each camp, and the chips which he made still testify, in many a quiet spot, to his industry and skill.t That there were well-worn paths across the tribal territory, made by these roving bands in the course of centuries, is altogether probable, and it is also probable that some of the roads of the present day follow the trails of our aboriginal predecessors. To what extent during their long occu- pancy they had carried the task of clearing the land of forests, it is impossible to say. Perhaps they had done more in this direction- especially at certain tribal centres-than they usually receive credit for.

Our outline would be very imperfect, did we make no reference to the language of these aborigines. As already indicated, the dia- lects spoken on the Connecticut and on Long Island sound, were dialects of an Algonkin language common to all the tribes between the Kennebec river and the Hudson. This language has been pre-

* L. H. Morgan, " North American Review," October, 1868; " Ancient Society," pp. 69, 70.

+ Compare Abbott's " Primitive Industry, " pp. 455-459.

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

served to the present day in John Eliot's Indian Bible and other translations, in Roger Williams's "Key into the Language of America," and in Abraham Pierson's "Some Helps for the Indians." The work by Pierson, who was the father of the first rector of Yale College, is "a catechism in the language of the Quiripi Indians," and represents "a dialect having a place between the dialects of Massachusetts, Narragansett and eastern Connecticut, and those of the middle states; showing nearer affinity than other New Eng- land dialects to the true Delaware or Renapi of New Sweden." *

This is the dialect which was spoken by the Paugasucks of the Naugatuck river, who claimed ownership of the lands to the north, including the territory of Mattatuck, and must have differed some- what from that spoken by the Farmington Indians. The nature of the differences between the dialects is indicated by Roger Williams in his " Key," under the word anum, meaning " a dog." He says: "The variety of their dialects and proper speech within thirty or forty miles each of other is very great," and illustrates this by the differ- ent forms of this word. In the Cowesit dialect it is anum, in the Nipmuck alum, in the Narragansett ayim, and in the Quinnipiac arum. "So that," he adds, "although some pronounce not / nor r, yet it is the most proper dialect of other places, contrary to many reports."+ Eliot in his "Indian Grammar Begun" refers to the same variations: "We Massachusetts pronounce the n, the Nip- muck Indians pronounce /, and the Northern Indians pronounce r;" and we have a further instance in the different forms of the name by which the Indians of southwestern Connecticut are designated. "Quinnipiac (quinni-pe-auke) means 'long-water land ' or country. . . In the Mohegan and Narragansett dialects the first syllable was pronounced quin, by the Connecticut river Indians quil, and by the Indians west of the 'long water' quir." ¿ Similar dialectic peculiari- ties can be traced in the names signed to the deeds given to the set- tlers of Mattatuck by the Paugasuck Indians, who were undoubt- edly Quiripis, when compared with the names of the Indians of Farmington river. Of the dialect actually spoken in the Naugatuck valley, a few words have been preserved by Mr. J. W. DeForest, in the appendix to his "History of the Indians of Connecticut." In this brief list the same dialectic differences can be traced. For ex- ample, the word for " man," which in the Narragansett was nnin, was in the Naugatuck dialect rinh; the word for " fire," which in the Massachusetts was nootan and in the Narragansett note or yote, was in

* Dr. J. H. Trumbull's reprint of Pierson (Hartford, 1873), P. 11.

+ " Key," p. 107.

* Dr. J. H. Trumbull's " Indian Names," p. 61.

IIISTORY OF WATERBURY.

the Naugatuck ruuhtah. The other Naugatuck words are, wenih, woman, keesoop, day, toofku, night, nuppeh, water, tookh, tree, awaususo, bear, and sepu, river,-for each of which a corresponding word, closely resembling it, may be found in the related dialects. *

The language of which this was one of the dialects has been carefully studied in modern times by DuPonceau, Pickering, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, and others; its structure has been examined and its grammatical characteristics have been placed on record. Its peculiarities can not be here explained, but it may be worth while to mention that in its structure it was "polysynthetic," like all the Algonkin languages (perhaps we may say, all the aboriginal lan- guages of North America); that its vocabulary, contrary to the pop- ular impression, was abundant rather than scanty, and that it was as completely subject to strict grammatical laws as the languages of the civilized world. Any one who fancies that the aboriginal occupants of Mattatuck were poorly furnished with means of inter- communication by speech, or had to make use of a rude and form- less dialect, would do well to examine the paradigms of the verb in Eliot's grammar, or the vocabularies in Williams's "Key," or the questions and answers in Pierson's catechism. A close study of these remains of an extinct speech would inevitably result in height- ening the respect of the student for the mental characteristics of the people upon whose lips, in the course of ages, it developed into a symmetrical, copious and expressive language.

Of the Tunxis and Paugasuck Indians, as they were at the time of the settlement of Mattatuck-their numbers, their condition as a people-we have little or no information, except that which may be drawn from the deeds by which they conveyed their lands to the settlers, the signatures attached to those deeds and the very slight personal allusions connected therewith, or found in the colonial records. We have no description of these people from the pen of any early traveller, nor record of them in any journal of trader or missionary. Any one threading his way through the elaborate metaphysical definitions of the catechism prepared for the Quiripi Indians in 1658 would be justified in inferring that the Quiripis,

* The following is the Quiripi version of the first three petitions of the Lord's prayer, as given in Pier- son's catechism (p. 59 of the reprint), with Dr. Trumbull's literal translation into English. The translation is here made interlinear, to indicate the order of the words in the Indian rendering.

"Noushin ausequamuk terre,

"Our-Father the-place-of-light in,

Werrettepantammunatch kowesewunk. Let-it-be-well-regarded thy-name.

Peamoutch' kukkussootummowunk. Let-it-come-hither thy-great-rulership.

Korantammowunk neratch sket' okke nenar ausequamuk terre."

Thy-thinking be-it-so on-the-face-of earth even-as the-place-of-light in."

. 25

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

and therefore the Paugasucks, must have been a people of great intellectual ability. But the more correct inference would be that the devout Pierson had sadly misconceived the method to be employed in evangelizing a barbarous and ignorant race. There is nothing to indicate that the Indians of Mattatuck differed in any important respect from the other aborigines of New England with whom the early writers have made us acquainted. They had the virtues and the defects of other barbarous peoples. If their virtues were not developed, certain it is that new vices were superadded, as the result of their contact with Europeans. But this is not to be wondered at. When we consider the red man's nature and dis- position, the stage of development he had reached and the severe ordeal involved in his being brought suddenly in contact with an aggressive civilization, his conduct in this trying period of his his- tory seems upon the whole worthy of high commendation. How- ever cruel and bloodthirsty he may have been by nature, it is cer- tain that in his intercourse with peaceable white men he was peace- able; if they showed themselves friendly, he was their faithful and useful friend .*

* The gradual withdrawal and disappearance of the Paugasuck and Tunxis Indians before the advance of the white man has been traced by the author of this chapter in two lectures delivered in Waterbury, January 27 and February 17, 1879, and published in the " Waterbury American " (weekly edition) of February 7 and March 7. These lectures were afterward embodied in the " Indian History" prefixed to Orcutt's " History of Derby."

A WESTERN WAR-CLUB, SCALP-LOCKS ATTACHED, AND OLD WATERBURY BUTTONS MARKED "SCOVILLS & CO. EXTRA."

CHAPTER III.

ABORIGINAL REMAINS - INDIAN DEEDS-LAND SALE OF 1658-THE THREE DEEDS GIVEN BY THE FARMINGTON TRIBE-DEED GIVEN BY THE DERBY INDIANS-PERSONAL NAMES ATTACHED TO THE SEV- ERAL DEEDS-RELATIONSHIPS INDICATED BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND BETWEEN TRIBES.

O F the aboriginal occupants of Mattatuck the traces that remain are of three kinds: First, the deeds which record the transfer of their lands to the early settlers; secondly, the Indian place- names which under forms more or less disguised have survived in the town records or in tradition, and some of which are in common use at the present day; and thirdly, the stone implements scattered over the region, many of which have been found and have passed into the hands of collectors. What follows is an attempt to describe these several kinds of remains.

The author of "Good News from New England," writing of Indian customs, says: "Every sachem knoweth how far the bounds and limits of his own country extendeth; and that is his own proper inheritance. In this circuit whosoever hunteth, if they kill any venison, bring him his fee." It was natural for Europeans familiar with the institutions of feudalism and royalty, to suppose that among the barbarous tribes found occupying the new world government was monarchical, as among themselves. To them a sachem was a petty king, the people of the tribe were his subjects, and the tribal territory was, as in the passage just quoted, "his own proper inheritance." But if this was true at all, it was only in the narrowest sense. The territory belonged to the sachem simply as the official representative of his people. An Indian tribe was a democracy; the sachemship was an elective office, and the lands belonged no more to the sachem than to the others. They belonged to the tribe. The true state of the case-however the early settlers may have misunderstood it-comes to view in the large number of Indian names usually attached to an Indian deed. The list may not in any case have included all the adult males of the tribe, but as a rule the tribe was well represented, and the sachem's name seldom, if ever, stood alone. The settlers had no real-estate transactions with individual Indians, and on the other hand they did not allow individual white men-in Connecticut, at any rate-to buy of the

INDIAN DEEDS AND SIGNATURES.

Indians, either directly or indirectly, land or timber "or candle- wood or trees of any sort or kind," without authority from the Gen- eral Court .* The first purchase of land within the limits of Matta- tuck with reference to a settlement was made by a committee of the General Court in behalf of the settlers, and subsequent purchases were made through a committee appointed by the settlers them- selves, or rather, by a company known as the "proprietors of Mat- tatuck."

The Indian deeds relating to the transfer of Waterbury terri- tory from the aboriginal owners to white men are six in number. The earliest of these antedates by seventeen years the first regular purchase with reference to a plantation at Mattatuck. It appears that two of the inhabitants of Farmington, Stanley and Andrews by name, in their excursions westward had somewhere discovered a deposit of graphite, or something which they mistook for that valuable mineral.t Their discovery attracted some attention and doubtless led to what appears to have been the first purchase of land lying within the Naugatuck valley. In the curious deed that relates to it, dated February 8, 1657 (O. S.), and recorded in the town records of Farmington, the purchase is described as "a parcel or tract of land called Matetacoke [Mattatuckoke], that is to say, the hill from whence John Stanley and John Andrews brought the black lead, and all the land within eight mile of that hill on every side,"-making a circular area, sixteen miles in diameter. The pur- chasers were William Lewis and Samuel Steele of Farmington, and the grantors were Kepaquam, Queromus and Mataneg. It appears from a deed of 1714, relating to the same tract of land, that a con- siderable part of it was "comprised within the bounds of Water- bury." But such were the terms of the grant, and such was the action of the General Court in the final disposal of the territory, that this earliest purchase need not be further considered here.t When, on August 11, 1714, this same tract was conveyed anew to Stanley, Lewis and their associates and successors, the deed was signed by Pethuzo and Toxcronuck, who claimed to be the succes- sors of Kepaquam, Queromus and Mattaneag, and in October fol- lowing it was signed by four other Indians, Taphow the younger and his squaw, Awowas (or Wowowis) and Petasas, a female grand-

* See Colonial Records of Connecticut, Vol. I, p. 214 ; New Haven Colony Records, Vol. II, pp. 593, 594. There are cases on record like this, under date of May 12, 1679: " This Court grants liberty to Lieutenant Samuel Steele to purchase of Nesahegen one acre of land in Farmington meadow." (Conn. Col. Records, Vol. III, p. 29.)

+ See Chapter I, p. 9, and note.

* The history of this tract, which was for some time a bone of contention in the colony, is given in some detail in the lecture entitled " Footprints of the Red Man in the Naugatuck Valley," referred to on p. 25.

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

child, probably of Awowas. Some of these names we shall refer to subsequently.

Of the four deeds obtained by the proprietors of Mattatuck from the aboriginal owners, the first is dated August 26, 1674. It con- veyed a tract of land lying on both sides of the Mattatuck river, measuring ten miles from north to south, and six miles in breadth. The second deed was given ten years later-April 29, 1684-and nearly doubled the area of the town by the addition of a tract lying on the north of the previous purchase. The third deed, given December 2, of the same year, refers to the purchase made by the committee of the General Court in 1674, and in consideration of nine pounds received from the agents of the proprietors, conveys certain lands additional. These three deeds were given by the Tunxis or Farmington Indians; the fourth, dated February 20, 1685, was given by the Paugasuck or Derby Indians, and conveyed twenty parcels of land, designated in the deed by their Indian names, probably most of them comprised in the first and third purchases from the Farmington tribe. A sufficient explanation of these purchases of the same territory from two different tribes within the space of three months, is afforded by what has been said with regard to the limits of tribal territory and the conflict of claims concerning the " neutral area."

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The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed Publication date: 1896 Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company Number of Pages: 922

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company
Number of Pages: 922