USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Early Rehoboth, documented historical studies of families and events in this Plymouth colony township, Volume III > Part 5
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"May 30, 1676. To all Christian freinds, the good people unto whome these prsent writeings shall come greeting; Whereas we have received a letter bearing date May 5, '76, from one John Kingsley, of Seaconck or Rehoboth, whereby we are credibly informed of the great straights, difficulties and wants not onely of or Christian freinds there, but of very many of or dear freinds the Lord's people in that Colony of New Plimouth and elcewhere, by reason of the prevayleing of the cruell enemie, by burning, killing and destroyeing people and places not a fewe; and being called upon for releife, we haue thought fit to recommend it to your pious consideration to remember the poore and them that are in bonds, as bownd with them; it being a worke that even nature, God, and man calls for of us, to extend or compassion and charity for the supply of or distressed freinds' necessities, whose lowd cryes of their misery doth answerably call for or liberallity and mercy, least the Lord should justly turn his hand from them to vs. We desire that you would appoynt one in each congregation, to receive your liberality and to take care for the speedy and effectuall sending the same to Boston and Seaconck, to be distributed to those in necessities. Deacon Walker of Seaconck is recommended to vs as a suit- able person to receive and distribute what shall be sent to Seaconck, and the rest may be sent to Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Mather of Boston, to be by them put into some faythfull hands, to be distributed amongst the people in neces- sity in the Massachusetts and Plimouth Colony. (Mr. Shepherd, added)". [Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (1665-1678), p. 445.]
The following record is an important one for the history of Reho- both. It gives much new detail on the Pawtucket Falls skirmish with the Indians, but most important of all, it corrects the erroneous
9 Enos Kingsley of Northampton, d. 9 Dec. 1708; m. 15 June 1662, Sarah dau. of Edmund Haynes of Springfield. Children: 1. John, b. in 1664, d. soon. 2. Sarah, b. in 1665. 3. John, b. in 1667. 4. Haynes, b. in 1669; d. at 20 yrs. of age. 5. Ann. 6. Samuel, b. in 1675. 7. Remember, b. in 1677; d. soon. 8. Hannah, b. in 1681. John Kingsley in his will of 2 Nov. 1677 mentions only three children, Edward, Enos, and Freedom [Savage's Gen. Dict., vol. III, p. 29].
10 At this time at Hartford, Conn., Mr. Joseph Haynes, son of Governor John, was minister of the First Church, succeeding Mr. Hooker in 1664, and Mr. John Whiting (A.B. Harvard 1657) was minister of the Second Church, established in 1670.
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date given for the skirmish by both Mather and Hubbard in their contemporaneous narratives.
"On 20 May 1676 there came to the Councils hand a letter signed by Jnº Allin, secretary, in the name of the Council of Hartford, on Conecticot, which was communicated to the General Court [of Elections] then setting {at Boston], who returned an ans" thereto, & is as followeth:
. . on 24 May* Capt. Thomas Brattle, wth a troope of horse, about fiuety, sent out to the pursuing of the ennemy that had newly donn spoyle at Seaconcke, when coming wth a smale party of foote there, marcht to the falls of Pacatucke [Pawtucket] River, being on Seaconke side. Spying Indians on the other side, left the foote on Seaconck side, the horse, marching vp the rieur about a mile, wth some difficulty got ouer, marched doune to the ennemy, put them to the rout imediately, killed seuerall of them, took seuerall armes, wth amnition, keetles & other things, wth two horses; burnt great store of their fish they had catchd, wth coates & shooes they had left behind. One man was lost there, & Cornet Elljott wounded in the hand, the dead man carried to Seaconck and buried# there. An Indian boy was taken, that on exami- nation affirmed this party of the ennemy was 3 or 4 hundred & belonged to Nepsuchnit" [Mass. Bay Records, vol. V, p. 971.
The preceding pages show in a small way how a little research will supply the wealth of additional details so necessary for a more com- plete and better history of King Philip's War. The failure to do original research in prime source records; the consequent lack of study of these available records by our historians; and their willing- ness to accept and repeat the outline history as written by the two contemporary historians, Mather and Hubbard, are responsible for the paucity of detail in the history of this Indian war.
These original documents, together with the poetry of Deacon Philip Walker printed in the following chapter, give us a far better first-hand understanding of the background of this war and a greater appreciation of its frightfulness than can be obtained by reading all the printed narrative histories. The words of eye-witnesses written at the time, on the spot, give a true sense of tragedy not found in the recitals of "traditions" no matter how skillfully written.
* Hubbard said that "a party of Indians were discovered at Rehoboth busy fishing in a river thereabouts [the Pawtucket Falls was a famous Indian fishing place] and that Captain Brattle was sent up about the 23rd of May and with the help of some of the inhabitants [of Rehoboth] killed eleven or twelve of the Indians with the loss of one man only". He makes no mention of Ensign Eliot's being wounded [Hubbard's Narrative (Drake Ed. 1865), vol. I, p. 226].
Mather said that "on 23. May some of our troops fell upon a party of Indians (about fifty in number) not far from Rehoboth and slew ten or twelve of them with the loss of only one English- man". No mention was made of Ensign Eliot's being wounded [Mather's Brief History (Drake Ed. 1862), p. 150].
The Boston Merchant writing between 5 May and 4 Aug. 1676 to his friend in London, said that "on 24 May Captain Brattle was sent for with his troop to Rehoboth where he slew twelve Indians with the loss of one man and one slightly wounded" [Drake's Old Indian Chronicle (1836), p. 122].
+ 24 May 1676-"Cosin [nephew] Jacob came home from Seakunk wounded in his hand, his clothes shot throgh and through " [Rev. John Eliot's Records of the Church in Roxbury; N. E. Hist. & Gen. Register, vol. XXXIII, p. 298].
[Cornet] Jacob Eliot was the eldest son of Jacob of Boston, the elder brother of Rev. John, the celebrated Indian Apostle of Roxbury. Jacob Eliot m. 9 Jan. 1665 wid. Mary Wilcox. He was later a captain, deacon, and one of the selectmen in 1677. He d. 16 Aug. 1693 [Savage, Gen. Dict., vol. II, p. 109].
# There is no record of this burial at Rehoboth.
CHAPTER II
DEACON PHILIP WALKER, POET
In the manuscript collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts, is an heretofore unpublished eighteen- page manuscript* consisting of two poems and a prose article written in 1676 by Deacon Philip Walker of Rehoboth, totaling some 4,000 words. This is his only extant literary work, and we now know that the versatile Walker in addition to being a farmer, weaver, sawmill proprietor, deacon of the church, constable, and incidentally the second richest man in Rehoboth, was also a poet and writer of no mean ability.
This Walker manuscript is closely written in a small hand and compactly covers 1723 pages, which measure 31/2 inches in width by 53/4 inches in length, and, from the historical events it records, appears to have been written between 26 March and 30 May 1676. It is divided into three parts: (1) "Captan Perse and his coragios Company", a poem on the Indian ambush and tragic death of Captain Pierce and his company at Rehoboth on 26 Mar. 1676, and on the general New England policy of fighting the Indians, 5 pages of 131 lines, including the title and 2 duplicate lines, prin-
* This manuscript was first copied by the American Antiquarian Society in 1928 with the idea of later publishing it in the Society's Proceedings. It was first called to the writer's attention in June 1943 by his friend Dr. Harold S. Jantz, Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Princeton University, who came across it in the course of his intensive research in the libraries and historical societies throughout New England for early manuscript prose and poetry for his History of Early American Literature which he has in preparation. He found much new material, especially manu- script verse, about a third of which has been published in the Proceedings of the American Anti- quarian Society, under the title, The First Century of New England Verse by Harold S. Jantz (1944). On pages 53 to 57 he briefly analyzes the work of Philip Walker, and on page 113 announces a subse- quent special study of Walker's "Captan Perse and his coragios Company".
The Walker manuscript was at one time bound in a volume of printed pamphlets. On the first page of the manuscript, superimposed upon other writing is inscribed "Samuel Curwin, his Booke", apparently the last owner. On the same page is also found the name "John Curwin" and "John to the hon[ ]". This volume probably came to the Antiquarian Society shortly before 1831 at the same time as the Curwin Papers, which are really the Rossiter Cotton Papers containing much Curwin material.
It is interesting to theorize on how this Philip Walker poem came into the possesssion of the Cur- win family. Samuel3 Curwin was born 12 Oct. 1674. His father was John2 and his grandfather George,1 a captain in King Philip's War, but there is no Rehoboth record showing that either was ever in Rehoboth. There are two possible explanations. The first is that Walker gave the poetry to his minister, Noah2 Newman, and that it came into the possession of the Curwin family through the Newman's. Capt. John2 Curwin was a brother-in-law of Rev. Noah2 Newman of Rehoboth, having married, in 1665, Margaret3 Winthrop, daughter of Gov. John2 Winthrop, whose other daughter, Elizabeth,3 had married, in 1658, Rev. Antipas2 Newman, of Wenham, brother of Rev. Noah2 Newman of Rehoboth. Both Capt. John2 Curwin and Rev. Antipas2 Newman were neighbors at Salem. The town of Wenham was set off from the original town of Salem.
The second possible explanation is that Philip Walker gave the poem to Thomas Mann, the mur- der of whose wife and babe by the Indians is so graphically described, and that Mann gave it to his step-father, John Corwin, of Scituate, Plymouth Colony, and that the latter gave it to the Rev. John Cotton, Minister Noah Newman's friend at Plymouth, and that later it came into the Curwin fam- ily, finally becoming a part of the Cotton papers in the possession of Rossiter Cotton, a descendant of Rev. John Cotton.
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Early Rehoboth
cipally in four-line stanzas, containing some 1,038 words; (2) "The Stragamen of the Indians", in prose, a proclamation from Satan to his servants, the Powwahs, 123 pages, 62 lines including title, containing some 520 words; (3) "The first smile of God in this land", a poem contrasting the ideals of the founding fathers with the present abandonment of them with God's consequent punishment of New England, 11 pages of 336 lines including 1 cut off and 3 ending with signature, principally in four-line stanzas, containing some 2,406 words, a total of 529 lines of approximately 4,000 words.
To the historian, this Rehoboth manuscript record of King Philip's War is an extremely valuable contemporaneous document which adds much new detail to our all too scanty records of that war. Deacon Walker brings out some heretofore unknown facts, the most important of which is, if we read him correctly, that Capt. Michael Pierce marched in force from Newman's garrison in Rehoboth to reconnoiter the Indians without waiting for Captain Mosely and his company who were to have joined him. We also learn for the first time about the brutal murder of Thomas Mann's wife, Rachel, and her infant daughter.
Little or nothing is known about the early life of Philip Walker. He was the son of "Widow" Walker, who first appears in Seekonk at the founding of that township in 1643 when he was about fifteen years of age. His name first appears in the Rehoboth records on 9 Sept. 1652, at which date his mother was undoubtedly deceased. Two years later he married. Whatever formal education he may have had as a boy, must have been obtained overseas before he emigrated to New England.
The first name of his mother or that of her husband is not known. There is fairly conclusive evidence that she had two other children, Sarra, born 1618, and James, born 1620, both of whom came to America in 1635 with their uncle John Browne, who for many years was a Plymouth Colony Assistant and one of the Plymouth Colony Commissioners of the United Colonies.
On 15 Apr. 1635, there sailed for New England from London, Eng- land, on the "ship Elizabeth, William Stagg, master, James Walker, 15 years of age, and Sarra Walker, 17 years of age, servants of Jo. Browne, a baker, and one William Brasey, a linen draper in Cheap- side, London, per certificate of their conformity". On 17 April other passengers boarded the ship, including Jo. Browne, aged 40 years [3 Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. VIII, pp. 259-262].
Later, in 1643, we find John Browne and the two Walker children, James and Sarra, at Taunton, Massachusetts, and John Browne and James Walker, together with Widow Walker, proprietors in the new Township of Seekonk.
On 10 Jan. 1643/4 the Seekonk lots of John Browne, James Browne, his son, and James Walker were ordered forfeited for failure to move their families to the new Seekonk township [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book I, p. 37]. John Browne and his son later removed to Seekonk (Rehoboth), but James Walker forfeited his Seekonk lands
Courtesy of Miss Faith Shedd
The house built by Philip Walker, poet. From a heretofore unpublished photograph taken about 1860. Finished in 1679, and still standing, this is the oldest authenticated poet's house in New England. For the story of this Walker house, and picture, see post, pages 28 and 50.
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Deacon Philip Walker, Poet
and remained in Taunton, where shortly afterward he married* a Taunton girl.
It appears that Widow Walker was either a sister or sister-in-law of John Browne, and that some time after Widow Walker's two children came to New England, in 1635, she followed with her younger son, Philip, and was settled by John Browne at Rehoboth in 1643.
On 23 Nov. 1655 John Browne of Rehoboth gave to his cousin (i.e., nephew) John Tisdill, who had married Sarra Walker, a dwelling-house he had bought at Taunton. He also gave to his cousin (i.e., nephew) James Walker his own house that he had lived in at Taunton [Plymouth Colony Deeds, vol. III, p. 181].
Deacon PHILIP2 WALKER ( - _1 ), weaver, husbandman, sawyer, and poet, born about 1628, died intestate, and was buried at Re- hoboth 21 Aug. 1679, the same day that his friend Stephen Paine, Senior, was buried. He married, probably at Dedham, Massa- chusetts, about 1654, JANE2 METCALF, born at St. Edmondsbury, co. Norfolk, England, 24 Mar. 1632, daughter of Michael1 and Sarah (Elwyn) Metcalf. Michael Metcalf was a Dornixt weaver in the city of Norwich, where he was made freeman 2 June 1618, and where he is said to have employed some hundred or more men. Widow Jane (Metcalf) Walker married, secondly, 2 June 1684, John Polley of Roxbury and lived there until her death on 24 Oct. 1701.
In October 1679 James Walker (probably Philip's brother) and Samuel Walker (24 years old), eldest son of Philip Walker, appraised his property for £685, a large estate for that time when the average was nearer £150. On 1 Nov. 1675, the Court held at Plymouth, before Josiah Winslow, governor, "ordered that the now house in building shall be finished out of the whole entire estate . . . and that the widow shall have a comfortable and convenient being therein during her widowhood" [Plymouth Colony Records, vol. VI, pp. 27-8].
Two days after Pierce's Fight, 28 Mar. 1676, the Indians fell upon Rehoboth and burned most of the houses, barns, and other buildings, including Philip Walker's dwelling house. After the Indian war was over, Philip Walker first rebuilt his sawmill, which we know was in operation on 16 Feb. 1676/7 for on that date his ten-year-old son Michael (named after his grandfather Michael Metcalf) fell into the water wheel and was carried into the river under the ice and drowned
* Gov. Edward Winslow in a letter to Gov. John Winthrop written from Plymouth on 4 June 1646 said: "The bearer ... an industrious and well affected young man desires me to entreat you to further him in a seemingly just demand: He being lately married, it seems that there is one Samuel Crum a wine cooper lately came from sea and a kinsman of his wieus that is departed this life with you. whereupon in his wiues behalf he desires letters of administration he having no other kindred so nearly allied in the country, and therefore I prey you shew all lawful favor. His name is James Waker [Walker], and I shall take any kindness to him as done to myself, and therefore I beseach you, being he is a stranger and put him in some course to accomplish it" [Winthrop Papers, vol. V, p. 82].
t Or "Dornick", a kind of material used for curtains, carpets, and hangings, so called from Door- nik, or Tournay, a city in Flanders, where it was first made [Phillips' Dictionary, London, 1706]. A similar damask-linen was made at Dornoch in Sutherlandshire, Scotland.
¿ For an account of the Walker family, see Memorial of the Walkers of Old Plymouth Colony (1861), by J. B. R. Walker. This is an excellent genealogy and is one of the best written at that period.
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[Plymouth Colony Records, vol. V, p. 209]. He next built a new house (perhaps starting it in 1678) on the foundation of the old one. This is the oldest surviving house in old Rehoboth, built thirty-five years after the settlement of Seekonk in 1643. It has never been out of the possession of the family and is still owned and occupied by a descendant in the tenth generation.
So far as actual documentary proof is known to the writer, the Philip Walker house,* finished in 1679 and still (1947) standing on Massasoit Avenue, East Providence, Rhode Island, is the oldest poet's house in New England. Few seventeenth-century houses are so unquestionably dated. Against this documented evidence is the tradition that the Col. Dudley Bradstreet house in Andover, Massa- chusetts, was the home of his mother, Anne Bradstreet, the earliest known New England woman poet, whose first book of verse was published in England in 1650. However, the claim made for this Anne Bradstreet house seems to rest solely on tradition.t
Returning to Walker's eighteen pages of manuscript, we find that a study of this document adds greatly to our knowledge of the man. In the first place, his penmanship shows a mixture of sixteenth and seventeenth century style letters, with the latter predominating. A good example of sixteenth-century handwriting is found in the letter of old John Kingsley, shown ante, page 21. Some of the char- acters in this letter were in use as early as 1538. Secondly, Walker's handwriting demonstrates that he was a constant writer, for it is of that non-hesitant style where one letter flows into another, proficiency in which is acquired only by continual practice. In the early Rehoboth records, with the exception of Edward Smith, Re- hoboth's first town clerk, none of the town clerks had Philip Walker's free and easy style of penmanship. The town clerks were only occasional writers and most of their handwriting shows a labored effort. Walker must have been a prolific writer, for in this one manuscript he penned some 4,000 words, a continuous writing effort . which it is safe to say was unequalled by any early Rehoboth man other than the two ministers, Samuel Newman and his son Noah.
A search of the Rehoboth record books fails to disclose any of Walker's handwriting. This being the case, it is necessary to look
* Much about Philip Walker will be found in Early Rehoboth, vols. I and II. In volume I is a picture of the Walker house taken about 1890 and a sketch of the old attic stairway.
t Sarah Loring Bailey, writing in 1880, said: "The tradition has always been that the Bradstreet house was the residence of Mr. Simon Bradstreet. That it was the home of his son, Col. Dudley Bradstreet, is authenticated. The latter died 1702. He married 1673. His mother [Anne Brad- street] died the year before. His father, Mr. Simon Bradstreet, removed to Salem about the time of the marriage, doubtless relinquishing the house to his son. It is stated in the Journal of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet that their house was burned to the ground [10] July 1666. Undoubtedly they built another immediately. The tradition has been that the frame of the house was brought from England; but, however this may be, it is not likely that Mr. Simon Bradstreet was homeless for seven years, or, if he had within so recent a period built a house, his son would immediately build a new one. Some years ago the writer, whose birthplace the house was, took some pains to trace its history through the centuries". Without any proof to substantiate the statement, a picture of the. Bradstreet house is shown opposite page 137, under the title "Home of Mr. Simon and Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, Col. Dudley Bradstreet, Rev. Thomas and Rev. John Barnard, and Rev. William Symmes, D.D." [Bailey's Historical Sketches of Andover (1880), p. 127].
At the break of day, 22 Feb. 1697/8, Andover was attacked by the Indians; Lieut. Col. Bradstreet's house was rifled, his kinsman Wade, Capt. Chubb, his wife, and three more slain and some houses and barns burned. The town records were taken away by the Indians [Ibid., pp. 182-3].
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Deacon Philip Walker, Poet
That many years had hepi this bigo alive & in a filhos had the fost contrived What in Rio lay the Bost e all for flows emators mottiphisfall
Mil sofon surprised upon HE Sabots day with Sixorffaut Sans dif Suplirate, e ) po xay This Jomgious Post to stay his fabule Stroke a little time of the might go gauche
Ti Pik for pardon for sinn in friel his Sauce this Orvil Begge disparhl & would not have Pior rachtout hier Brought as he had don Refor fix fishing. Infaul fumbling ni its gone filing, es , houve & killing & sovon mans
Thay glide a way like Soxpauls on a roth or Ship in thates watzy sognono food Before/ porsuore Broas a que or knof upon the valy Storpaul watson Red
with irly dopartur after surf a Stroke. without rowana bovary Equaly provoke own Blowing Rante for our mustgories friends To think with god in Surf a stung Intents./
By . find to his country A offriends
An exact size photostatic reproduction of five stanzas of Philip Walker's poetry commencing on page 15 of his poem entitled "The ffirst smile of god in this land" (see post, page 46), together with his signature at the end of his eighteen-page manuscript. This is the only known extant handwriting and signature of Philip Walker, and is here published for the first time.
These stanzas record the murder of Rachel, the wife of Thomas Mann, and of her infant daughter, a heretofore unknown Indian atrocity committed at Swansea on 24 June 1675, the date of the outbreak of King Philip's War.
In addition to the historical importance of his poetry, his orthography is of particular interest in that it shows rather an unusual combination of sixteenth and seventeenth-century handwriting styles. For instance: his capital "C" is de- cidedly sixteenth-century, as is his small "h" with the top loop below the line; double "f" for capital "F"; "x" for "r"; and the lowered capital "C" for the "&" sign. Mixed in with these characters are also found the seventeenth-century capitals "B, I, L, R, S, T, and Y"; the small "h" with loop above the line; "e", and the "&" sign. The recorded handwriting of no other Rehoboth man seems to have had the styles of two centuries jumbled to the extent found in Philip Walker's writing, of which the foregoing five stanzas are only a small sample.
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Early Rehoboth
elsewhere for the explanation of his practiced hand. We know that he was closely associated with the Newmans, both father and son. From the settlement of the town in 1643 until his death in 1663, Samuel Newman was busily engaged in compiling a concordance to the Bible. The first edition was published in London in 1643, fol- lowed by a revised edition in 1650, and another revised edition in 1658; he was undoubtedly working on a fourth revision at the time of his death. This was a tremendous job of copying and, as it was impossible for Samuel Newman to do it alone, he must have had plenty of help.
It is suggested that Philip Walker's fluency in writing may have been acquired in his younger days by way of countless hours spent in copying from the Bible for Samuel Newman's concordance. This would explain how Walker became such a practiced penman.
Philip Walker's free-flowing penmanship, with each letter carefully formed and the whole exceptionally legible for the date and style of writing, tells much about him,* as does his spelling, which is a rare example of phonetic spelling even for the unorthographic seventeenth century,-of which more later.
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