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M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01065 8166
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1
A SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
EARLY RECORDS AND MILITARY ANNALS
OF mays
LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS.
BY
HENRY S. NOURSE.
NEWBE
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1
1781155
F 84441 . 63
Nourse, Henry Stedman, 1831-1903.
Lancastriana. (I. A supplement to the Early records and Military annals of Lancaster, Massachusetts. By Henry S. Nonrse. Lancaster [Clinton, Mass., Press of W. J. Coulterj 1900.
45 p. front. (map) 23}cm -
SHELF CARD
1. Lancaster, Mass .- Hist. I. Lancaster, Mass. The early records of Lancaster Ed. by Henry S. Nourse. 11. Nourse, Henry Stedman, 1831- 1903. The military annals of Lancaster.
13-1179
P 8841
Library of Congress
F74.L2N91
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LANCASTRIANA.
I. - 2
A SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
EARLY RECORDS AND MILITARY ANNALS OF
LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS.
BY HENRY S. NOURSE.
LANCASTER. 1900
АИЛИТРАДИАЛ
PRESS OF WM. J. COULTER, CLINTON. MASS.
8841
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Ad Nashvam,
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16 55.
PREFACE.
S UCH original records as long and earnest search had brought to light, which could serve to illustrate, at any point, the story of Lancaster and her people during the period ending A. D. 1725, were collected into a volume printed in 1884. Since then a few items of interest relating to the same history have been found and are gathered in the following pages, together with other subsidiary matter, to serve as a supplement to The Early Records of Lancaster. A few historical notes are added supplementary to, or cor- recting, statements in The Military Annals of Lancaster, printed in 1889. Each item bears a reference to some page in those works.
1
EARLY RECORDS
OF
LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS.
THE LOST RECORDS.
PAGES 6 and 152, It has been surmised, and even asserted, that the missing records of Lancaster ( 1671- 1717) were burned during the assault upon the town, July 31, 1704, by Chevalier Beaucourt's army of French and Indians. This might seem plausible, for the meeting-house was then destroyed, and also the neighboring dwelling of the third John Houghton, a leading citizen who held various town offices. Weighing heavily against the surmise, how- ever, are the facts that no mention of such loss is made in the contemporary lists of property destroyed, and that the gap in town-meeting records extends twelve years later. The cause of the lamentable hiatus of forty-six years in the town-clerks' annals continues wrapt in mystery.
REV. NATHANIEL NORCROSS.
12, 340. In a letter from Mrs. Lucy Downing to her brother, John Winthrop, Jr., dated December 17, 1648, she gives this information respecting the first minister of the Nashaway Plantation :-
Mr Norcross is flowen to Agamenticus, and there he sayth for his short experience he likes very well.
[Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series V, Vol. 1, p. 37.]
6
ANNALS OF LANCASTER.
In 1649-50, Rev. Nathaniel Norcross returned to England and there died, August, 1662, being then called "late of St. Dunstans in the East-minster." He was born in England, about 1618, the son of Jeremiah.
DESCRIPTION OF NASHAWAY.
17. In a "Briefe Discription of New England," attribu- ted to Samuel Maverick, occurs mention of the Nashaway Plantation. This manuscript was discovered in the British Museum in 1884, and was printed in full in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 1885. It is not dated, but was written not far from 1653, when the name Lancaster was given to the settlement.
About ten or twelve miles aboue these Two Townes [Concord and Sudbury] is a Countrey Towne called Nashoway, first begun for Love of the Indians' Trade, but since the ffertility of ye Soyle and pleasantness of the Riuer hath invited many more. There is excellent Salmon and Trout.
A letter written by John Eliot in 1650, found in the Hun- terian Museum of the Glasgow University, among descrip- tions of other New England localities, says :-
West from Sudbury 16 myles lyeth Nashaway, inland, who want a Minister.
WATANANOCK.
33. The Nashaway River had another title among the Indians. Most long rivers were given by the aborigines dif- ferent names in different portions of their courses, just as the white men at a later period called the stream now known as the Nashua, "Lancaster River," "Groton River," or "Har- vard River," according to their own residence. In Colonial Records IV, part II, p. 569, it is called "Nashaway or Wata- nanock River."
NASHAWAY SACHEMS.
38, 98, 117 133. The earliest known sachem of the Nashaways appears in New England history under the names: Showanon, Sholan, Shaumauw, Shoniow, Nasho- wanon, Nashacowan and Nashoonon; the number of his
1
7
MASSACHUSETTS.
aliases being indicative of his high renown. His home was upon a slight elevation between the two Washacum lakes. His immediate successor-November, 1654-was his neph- ew, Matthew, whose Indian name does not appear. Both Sholan and Matthew were firm friends of their white neigh- bors and of John Eliot. Upon the death of Matthew, at some unknown date before 1675, Shoshanim was elected sachem. He was known by the English as Sagamore Sam, and also bore the aliases Uskattuhgun and Upchattuck. Rivaling him in savage arts, tribal influence and hatred of the white man, was the Nashaway warrior One-eyed John, alias Monoco, alias Apequinash. Shoshanim and Monoco were hung at Boston, September 22, 1676. In one of his diaries, Increase Mather records this fact as follows:
Sep. 22. This day Sagamore Sam was hanged at Boston. And the sick Englishman that should have been executed the last Week (whose name was Goble) was hanged with him. It seems a mad woman got away the rope which should have hanged the English Man, wherefore he was hanged with the very same rope wh had hanged the Indian just before. The same day 3 other Indians hanged, viz the Sagamore of Quaboag, one eyed John and Jethro. They were betrayed into the hands of the English by Indians.
[Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for January, 1900.]
The chief of the small remnant of the Nashaway tribe that survived King Philip's war was probably the noted Christian Indian, Quanapaug, whose aliases were: Quana- pohit, Quenepenet, James Wiser and James Rumneymarsh. In 1670, he deeded lands at Washacum to John Prescott, calling himself "of Weshakim," but later was resident at Natick. The last sagamore whose name appears in local story was George Tahanto, who, in 1701, deeded the rem- nant of the Nashaway lands to the Lancaster proprietors. He is called Sholan's nephew.
WATAQUADOCK.
42. A hill, a pond and a brook in Brimfield also bear the name Wataquadock, by which the great ridge which bounds the Nashaway valley on the east has ever been known.
8
ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
IRON WORKS.
49. Iron ore was known to exist in the Nashaway valley prior to the purchase of the township from Sholan John Winthrop, Jr., in "Considerations about Iron Works,' 1644, speaking of the Braintree ore, says:
There is of the same sort at severall places-neere Greeneharbou [ Marshfield ], at Nashaway, at Cohasset, at Woburne, and many othe. places. [Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 2d s., VIII, 14.]
The earliest mention of the Prescott bloomary found is in deeds of the third John Prescott to his son in 1748:
.... . land on which said Prescott's forge stands and bounded south east on ys highway lately laid out as it is now marked.
.
.land lying on a Brook called Prescott's Meadow Brook near
where it runs into the Intervale ner ye Iron Mine.
[Worcester Registry, Vol. 28, 295-299.]
HIGHWAYS.
61. The proprietors claimed and exercised ownership of the highways throughout the territory originally granted for the Nashaway Plantation until half a dozen towns had been carved from it, and troublesome questions often arose because of the divided jurisdiction. The following from the records of the Proprietary dates the surrender to the corpor- ations of the title to the thoroughfares then existing:
1791. February 7, ...... Voted that the proprietors relinquish to the several Towns within the Bound of old Lancaster all their Right to the Rodes in the Respective towns and that each Town have a Right to dis- pose of and alter said Roades within their limits, not to injure the pub- lick.
JURORS.
68. Lancaster was required to furnish two jurors for the county courts annually. The grand juror was paid three shillings per day, and the juror for special courts four shil- lings. They were chosen by the voters until 1774, when a special act of Parliament empowered the sheriffs to select them. An example of a warrant and sundry returns follow:
To the Constable of Lancaster. You are required to call your free- men together to choose one able and meet person to serve on the Jury
9
MASSACHUSETTS.
for Trials at the next County Court to be holden at Cambridge the 4th day of the next mo. also you are to warn your grand jury man to attend the said Court, and hereof you are to make a true return under your hands, not to faile.
Dat. 12th, Ioth, 1659. THOMAS DANFORTH Recorder
Goodman John [Moore is chosen and warned to attend the Court accordinge to direction by ye warrant by
Oct. 4th.
JACOB FFARER Constable".
1663. April 2. .. Henry Kerly is fined five shill. for not appearing on the jury.
17.7.1672. . ... Laurence Waters is chosen by the freemen to serve on the jurie of tryalls and Richard Wheeler to attend the Court on the grand jurie as witnesseth:
Jo. MORE, Constable of Lancaster.
20.7. 1673. ..... Jacob ffarer Sen". is chosen to serve on the jurie of tryalls and John More grand jurie man warned according to this sum- mons as witnesseth: JONATHAN PRESCOTT Constable
28. 1 . 1673/4. . . . . . John Prescott Sen. is chose grand jurie man, and Sariant Henry Kerly for the jurie of tryalls. ... by
JONATHAN : PRESCOTT, Constable of Lancaster
20. 1 . 1674/5 . . . . . . John Prescott Sen. is chosen grand Juryman and Beniamin Allen for the jury of tryalls this ist 2mo. 1675, as witnesseth.
ROGER SUMNER Constable
1684 ...... In answer to this warant the former grand juror was warned John Prescott is chose for the yere insuing to sarve in the grand jury. Jamse Houghton is chosen for the jury of tryalls. John More Sen. chose to answare for not having a pound.
30 dy. March 1684/5 THOMAS SAYER Constable [Middlesex Court Files.]
CHESQUONOPOG.
70. Chesquonopog Pond, mentioned as early as 1660 in town records, is proved by a deed of Samuel Bennett to his son Joseph, May 1, 1724- conveying lands " near to a place called Chesquonapoage Hill " and "Asiatic" or "Assoatetick Hill"-to be probably what is known as White's Pond.
HENRY KERLEY.
80. Henry Karley of Lankester beinge a howse houlder and aboue 24 years of age and of good estate and in full comunion, desiers the lib- ertie of freedome by this Court. This I afirme
Admitted to freedom 14 May '68. E. R. Sec. SIMON WILLARD.
[ Massachusettes Archives.]
IO
ANNALS OF LANCASTER.
GEORGE HILL.
82-3. George Hill was so called by the first planters in the Nashaway valley, appearing in proprietors' records as early as 1664 in an assignment of land -"ten acors lying on the top of George Hill"-to Daniel Gains the tailor. It is often asserted that the name was derived from that of an Indian who had a wigwam there, and Joseph Willard, Esq., ( 1826) mentions this, in a note to page 6 of his History of Lancaster, as traditionary. Rev. Abijah P. Marvin (1879), in his History of Lancaster, pages 38 and 65, definitely locates an "Indian Camp" on the southern slope of the hill, and even publishes a view of the place, alleging that it is the site of the first trucking-house. But the Middlesex Registry of Deeds gives abundant proof that the trucking-house was a quarter of a mile north of the position pictured, and on the eastern slope of the hill. To George Tahanto, the last known sachem of the Nashaway tribe, the honor of giving name to the hill is often attributed; but as Tahanto does not appear in history until 1701, and was, if not unborn, proba- bly a minor in 1664, the title of Lancaster's chief elevation may have its origin from a much less romantic source. In fact, the name was presumably given to the locality because George Adams, a glover and trader of Watertown-in the earliest assignment of lands here made to the pioneers by Stephen Day, as early as 1645-received twenty acres for his home lot on the eastern slope of the hill, bounded north by the trucking-house lot which John Prescott bought of John Cowdall in 1647. Adams soon got into serious trouble by illicit trade with the Indians, as told in the court order given below, and his unimproved home lot was reconveyed by the proprietors to Jonas Fairbank. In 1670, however, Adams laid claim to the land and the town appeased him by a grant of sixty acres near "Washacome." There he built and lived, apparently a genial neighbor to the Indians.
In ansr. to the peticon of George Addams, the Courte finding that he was found guilty of selling two gunnes and strong waters [ to the In- dians] having nothing to satisfy the lawe, determined that he shall be severely whipt the next lecture day at Boston, and then discharged the prison. May 13, 1653.
[Mass. Records, IV, part I, 133.]
£
II
MASSACHUSETTS.
In ansr. to the petition of George and Francis Addams, humbly de- siring the favour of this Court to confirm vnto them a certain parcell of vpland and meadow seuerall yeares since given to them by Shoniow Sachem of Nashaway, deceased, called by the name of Washaame Hill, being about the quantity of two hundred acres, which land hath, since the death of the sajd Shoniow, binn confirmed to them by Matthew, his nephew, so called by the English, before the honoured Capt. Gookin, and since the sajd Matthews decease again confirmed by Samuel now Sagamore of the place, and alike acknowledged the seventh of this instant May 1675, the Court judgeth it meet to grant the peticoners re- quest.
[Mass. Records, Vol. V, 39.]
WILLARD GARRISON.
95-6. In the report of a committee upon the compen- sation petitioned for by the heirs of Major Simon Willard for losses during King Philip's war, one item among the claims allowed was:
Expenses out of purse in repairing the house blown up at Lancaster 8£ 58.6ª.
At the abandonment of Lancaster in March, 1676, all buildings that could serve as shelter for the savages were burned, or as in the case of this substantial garrison house of Cyprian Stevens, were destroyed by gunpowder.
MOHAWK RAID.
97. The "Maquas Wars" which, according to Daniel Gookin, broke the power of the Nashaway tribe, raged from 1663 to 1669. The Mohawks, a warlike race and the heredi- tary foes of the Massachusetts Indians, in 1663/4 made a fierce raid eastward, overwhelmed the Connecticut River tribes and carried fire and slaughter even to the neighbor- hood of the Wachusett and Washacum strongholds:
At a Council Called by the Gouernor and Dept. Gouernor and As- sembled together the 24th of November 1663. Whereas this Councill is Informed by Major Willard that the Mohawks are lately come downe and slaine seuerall of the Confederate Indians who are in confederacy with vs. It is Ordered that Major Willard be and hereby is betrusted with furnishing of ye said Confederate Indians with powder and shott proportionable not exceeding three barrells. E. R. s.
So far as appears, this was all the assistance given by the
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
white men to their copper-colored "Confederates." In th summer of 1669, an army of over six hundred warriors 01 ganized from the Massachusetts tribes, under the leadershi, of Chickatawbut, sought revenge upon the Mohawks, assail - ing them in their own fastnesses. They found their foes not unprepared, but were at first victorious. Finally, throug). lack of ammunition and food they were forced to retreat and were ambushed and routed with great slaughter, losing their chief sachem and many of their ablest warriors. From this time the "Confederate Indians" seem to have lost con fidence in the neighborliness of their English allies, growing rapidly more and more dissatisfied, until at last they became the willing agents, and the victims, of Philip's wily schemes.
LANCASTER MEN AT QUABAUG.
98. Major Willard marched from Lancaster to the re- lief of Brookfield August 4, 1675, with Captain Parker of Groton and forty-six men, his original destination being "to look after some Indians to the westward of Lancaster and Groton," doubtless the Nashaways. With him were these Lancaster men in September at Quabaug:
Jonathan Prescott. Daniel Gains. Thomas Beaman.
John Divoll.
Ephraim Sawyer. William Kerley.
Josiah White. Daniel Adams.
MONOCO'S RAID.
99. August 22 [1675] being the Lord's Day, the Indians about Lan- caster Killed a Man and his Wife and two Children in the afternoon exercise. [Increase Mather's A Brief History of the War with the Indians, 1676.]
QUANAPAUG'S RELATION.
100. James Quanapaug's Information - January 24, 1676-was taken down by two scribes, and their versions while agreeing in all essential particulars, differ greatly in phraseology. The "Relation " preserved in the Connecticut archives is the more complete report, and gives the passages quoted in The Early Records of Lancaster, as follows:
.. but James [at the second towne] he came too met with John with one eye of Weshakum [a stout Captaine among them.] this man
-
13
MASSACHUSETTS.
Knew James and said thou hast been with mee in the warr with the Mauhaks and I know thou art a valiant man and therefore none shall wrong thee nor kill thee here but they shall first kill me. Therefore abide at my wigwam and I will protect thee. So this man entertained him kindly, & protected him. Job his companion stayd at Pumham's wigwam wher his 3 children were kept; hee and Job aboad with these indians severall daies & sometimes went forth to hunt deere not farr of & returned againe, hee labored to gaine what information hee could of their affayres, & was informed by, Capt John [with one eye] his host & others said things, vizt. that Philip was quartered this winter within halfe a dayes iorny [north of?] fort Albany,. . . that they had got and caried away all the corne at Pakuahooge & in the Nipmuck coun- try vnto their quarters, vpon wch they had lived this winter & vpon beefe & porke they had kild about Quaboage, & venison of wch there is great store in those parts & by reason of ye deep snow yr being [ mid thigh deep] it is easy to kill deare without gunns, hee saith that ere long, when yr beefe & porke & deere is spent & gon, that they will be in want of corne, but they intend then to com downe vpon the English townes, of Lancaster Marlborow Groton, & particulely they intend first to cut off Lancaster bridge and then say they there can no releef com to you from Boston nor the people cannot escape & their they hope to have corne enough
THE MASSACRE OF 1676.
102. Rev. Increase Mather's A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New England, 1676, was written before William Hubbard's Narrative appeared, and gives some information respecting the destruction of Lancaster not found in the latter:
.. also the Indian spies declared, that there was a designe, within such a time to burn Lancaster, which came to pass both as to time and manner accordingly.
For upon the 10th of February some hundreds of Indians fell upon Lancaster, burnt many of the Houses, kill'd and took Captive above forty persons. Mr Rowlandson (the faithful pastor of the Church there) had his House, Goods, Books all burned; his Wife, and all his Children led away Captive before the Enemy. Himself (as God would have it) was not at home, whence his own person was delivered, which otherwise (without a Miracle) would have been endangered. Eight men lost their lives, and were stripped naked by the Indians, because they ventured their lives to save Mrs Rowlandson. As this good Man returned home (having been at Boston to intercede with the Council that something might be done for the safety of that place) he saw his Lancaster in flames, and his own house burnt down, not having heard of it till his
-
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
eyes beheld it, and Knew not what was become of the Wife of hi, bosome, and Children of his Bowels.
Rev. Cotton Mather in the seventh book of his Magualia Christi Americana gives a similar account, generally using Hubbard's words, and adding nothing of interest. Hub bard's Narrative agrees so entirely with the reports of the Indian spies, Job and Quanapohit, and with all other con temporary records, that it may be accepted as a complete confutation of the tradition that Philip led the assault upor. Lancaster. This persistent myth probably had its origin in the unhistoric statement made by Rev. Timothy Harrington in his Century Sermon, 1753:
But Philip with the rest confessed by themselves after the peace to be 1500, marched for Lancaster, in which there were then above fifty families-And on the 10th of February, 1676, assaulted in five distinct bodies and places
The Lancaster historians, Joseph Willard and Rev. Abijah P. Marvin, accepted this dubious tradition without question, and Rev. Peter Whitney, John W. Barber, John Langdon Sibley, and more recently, even John Fiske-in his Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, 11, 60 -have perpetuated it. But at the date of the destruction of Lancaster, Philip and his forces were either in their winter quarters "half a day's journey north of Fort Albany," as Quanapohit's Rela- tion of January 24, 1675-6, tells us, or were retreating through the woods towards Squakeag after a disastrous fight with the Mohawks. Mrs. Rowlandson, in her Narrative, relates that Robert Pepper, a fellow prisoner who had been captured September 3, 1675, in Captain Beer's fight, told her on Feb- ruary 12, at Menamesset, that he had been taken "almost as far as Albany to see King Philip," and had "very lately" re- turned thence. She also records that she did not see Philip until March 8, when she reached Coasset, on the west bank of the Connecticut River, a little north of the boundary line between Vermont and Massachusetts. The following letter from Sir Edmund Andros, governor of New York, to the Connecticut government, gives similar information:
15
MASSACHUSETTS.
N. YORCK, ye 6th of Jany. 1675[6].
Honr Sr. Thow I have nott yett had sutable returnes, if any at all, I cannott however obmit my part. This is to acquaint you that late last night I had inteligence that Philip & 4 or 500 North Indians, fighting men, were come 40 or 50 miles of Albany northerly, where they talke of continuing this winter; that Phi: is sick, and one Sahamoschuha, the Comander in Cheef. Whereupon I have despatched orders theither.
This accompt to yrselfe, or if yu think fitt, to your Assistances; but I thinck is needles to be published to the whole comonalty. from
Your Humble Servant E. ANDROSS.
[Connecticut Colonial Records, II, 397.]
Under date of February 8, 1676, a letter to London, printed by Samuel G. Drake in The Old Indian Chronicle, p. 99, confirms these statements as to Philip's winter quarters, and Mr Drake locates him at "Scatacook" on the east bank of the Hudson, about twenty miles above Albany. Philip was supposed to be seeking an alliance with the Mohawks against the Massachusetts Colony, and purchasing powder and arms of the Dutch. Much more explicit is the state- ment of Sir Edmund Andros, in "A Short Account of the Generall Concerns of New Yorke from October 1674 to No- vember 1677," to be found printed in Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York, III, 255:
In November and December Phillip and other Indyans about a thousand in two partys armed, went up into the country, and came within about forty miles of Albany, of whch notice by our Indyans to ye com- ander att Albany and by him expresse to the Govern' att New Yorke, the rivers all frozen. The Governour immediately dispatched reitterated orders to ye comander for said Phillips &c to remove, if not effected afore ye receit of said Orders, and sent an Expresse with Letters and Ample Instructions to Connecticutt, desiring Liberty for our forces, Christians or Indyans, to pursue such ye Enemys of said Connecticutt into their parts as occasion &c. and ye like after to Boston; but being denied, and the River opening unexpectedly the beginning of ffebruary 1675/6. he took ye first opportunity to goe up with an additional force and six sloops to Albany, and found att his arrivall aboutt three hundred Maquaas Souldiers in town returned ye Evening afore from ye pursuite of Philip and a party of five hundred with him whom they had beaten, having some prisoners and the crowns, or hayre and skinne of the head, of others they had killed; Att their setting out the Commander had fur- nished the whole party with store of Ammunicon, and all sorts of arms and necessarys they wanted, and received their old Sachems wives and children into the town; but now upon our neighbour's refusall the Gov-
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