USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume I > Part 10
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The first settlers of the region lived in peace with the Indians until King Philip's War in 1675. There was constant intercourse between them, for the Indians came freely into the villages for traffic and other purposes, and the salutation, Netop (my friend) was often heard in the streets. Indian men, women, youths, maids and small children, in their scanty garments, were everyday sights, and roused no curiosity. The men sold furs and venison, and the women made and sold baskets, mats, and other things. Among these laborious Indian women were some who were mild and kind-hearted, but the western Nipmucks were pagans.
The Indians of the Norwottuck Valley had several forts which they erected to protect them from attacks of their enemies. A Dutch
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writer says: "They built their castles in places difficult of access, on or near the crown of a hill; the wall is made of palisades set in the ground, and within are their wigwams."
The Norwottuck forts seem generally to have been on top of a bluff or high bank, projecting into a valley near a stream. Some peo- ple have admired the taste of the Indians as shown in the picturesque situations they chose for forts and villages, but there is not much foundation for this admiration. The tribes were pugnacious, and it was owing to their wars that they selected elevated places for villages, where they could more easily secure and defend themselves and more readily see the approach of an enemy. The Indians did not all live in forts, and when our local Indians were fearful of an attack from the Mohawks or other enemies, many sought refuge near the houses and in the outbuildings of the English. This made living among them very troublesome.
The English and the Indians round about were alike in dreading the Mohawks more than any other Indians with whom they came in contact. The tribe lived about forty miles west of Albany. They were brave, but they were also ferocious, and carried on an extermi- nating warfare for more than a century after 1600, making a perfect desert of the country for five hundred miles west and south, and destroying more Indians than have been destroyed by Europeans in war since the country was settled. They were the worst of con- querors, and seemed to fight to gratify their thirst for blood.
They were extremely filthy and never washed either face or hands. It was their habit to cook fish from the water without any cleansing, and to devour the entrails of deer with as little ceremony. Actually, all savages are filthy, and our New England savages are no exception. For instance, by an agreement made with sachems at Concord in 1646, the Indians were not "to pick lice as formerly and eat them."
The early Dutch and New England writers were not long in dis- covering that the Mohawks were man-eaters. First they tortured their captives, and then prepared for a savage feast by roasting them before a slow fire.
About 1663, war was begun between the Mohawks and New Eng- land Indians, and while it was going on the Mohawks in small parties made raids into the region the white men had acquired. In Septem- ber, 1665, the Mohawks came into Cambridge well armed. They
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were arrested and imprisoned at Boston. The English never had seen any Mohawks before and they attracted much attention. The local Indians flocked into Boston and wished to put the Mohawks to death, but the court dismissed them with a letter to their Kennebec sachem, and a convoy of horse to conduct them clear of the nearby Indians.
A couple of years later a number of hogs and cattle belonging to Springfield and neighboring places were killed in the woods, and the Mohawks shot and scalped the Indian servant of a Northampton man. Evidently scalping was something unknown to the English up to this time. Thereupon the General Court of Massachusetts wrote to the chief sachem of the Mohawks complaining that much damage had been suffered in the past summer from the Indians. Several cattle had been shot and wounded, and others had been killed, and the flesh cut from their bones and carried away. Speedy and full satisfaction was demanded, and emphasis was laid on the fact that an Indian youth who was servant to an Englishman was murdered in spite of the fact that "you told us your people would not meddle with any Indians that wore English clothes, or had their hair cut short." The letter ended with "hoping of your readiness to make satisfaction for what is past, and care for your continuance of friendship, your loving friends, the Governor and General Court of Massachusetts."
This letter had some effect, for the Mohawks wanted to be on good terms with New England, and they made reparation with leather that had a value of twenty pounds. This went to the hands of Simon Lobdell in Springfield, and by order of the court the town was to receive what was valued at five pounds for those persons who had lost swine and cattle. Northampton was to have seven pounds, of which half was for the killing of Nathaniel Clark's Indian servant. Hadley, which had lost more than any other town, received what was equivalent to eight pounds for those who had been damaged. Lastly, the court ordered Simon Lobdell to make the various payments with shoes at fair prices.
Militia companies were organized and armed in nearly the same manner as soldiers in England. For training purposes the favorite book was "The Compleat body of the Art Military," which many persons in New England owned. Major John Pynchon had one, and so did Captain Aaron Cooke, of Northampton. Cooke gave his in
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his will to his son. The manual furnished long lists to indicate the right manner of dealing with the matchlock musket and rest. It was a serious matter-those postures of the muskets, and you had to do such things as open your pan, cast off your loose corns and blow off your loose corns, but it fails to tell what to do with the corns that are not loose. You are asked to draw forth your scouring stick, and turn and shorten him to an inch. Later you are told in that same manner to "withdraw your scouring stick and turn and shorten him to a hand- ful." Other curious orders are: "Blow your coal, cock your match, lay down your bandoliers. Here endeth the postures of the musket."
There were also funeral saluting and postures of lighter muskets which were used without rests, but fired with a match. "The Postures of the Pike" are given. Those of English make were sixteen feet long.
Muskets were generally large and heavy and required a forked staff or rest to support them when presented to fire They were hand- guns with matchlocks. The rests had a crotch or crescent at the top, and a sharp iron at the bottom to fasten them in the ground. The musketeer had a rest in his hand, or hung to it by a string, in nearly all his exercises. Musketeers carried their powder in little wooden, tin, or copper boxes, each containing one charge. Twelve of these boxes were fixed to a belt two inches wide worn over the left shoulder, and the boxes and belt were called bandoliers. Usually the primer containing the priming powder, the bullet-bag and priming were fas- tened to the leather bag. These, and the small, long boxes hung on the belt made much rattling. This belt with its dangling appendages had some resemblance to a string of sleigh bells. Each trooper was to have a good horse, saddle, bridle, holsters, pistols or carbine, and sword.
All males above sixteen years of age, if not exempt, were to attend military exercises and service. Companies were to be exercised six days every year, and there was to be a regimental training once in three years. It was the custom to have a prayer at the beginning and ending of a training and the captain was expected to make the prayers.
It was not until 1657 that the Springfield company had three com- missioned officers. John Pynchon was captain, Elizur Holyoke lieu- tenant, and Thomas Cooper ensign. Northampton had a small train
Hampden-9
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band in 1658. In March, 1663, certain persons of the soldiery met at Northampton and listed themselves into a troop with John Pyn- chon, of Springfield, for captain, and fifty-three members. The dress and equipment of the troopers were more costly and showy than those of the foot soldiers, and they may have deemed their service more honorable. The expensive trooping scarf of Captain Pynchon was embellished with gold lace, and silver glittered on his sword and belt
LONGMEADOW COMMON
and on various less important articles of military equipment. His companion officers wore silk scarfs or sashes. When this company met in a village for exercise, the day was one of great excitement, par- ticularly for the young, who heard the shrill trumpet and admired the proud banner and prancing steeds and the gay appearance and . quick motions of the men. Captain John Pynchon, of this Hampshire regiment, was the first regimental officer of the county.
After King Philip's war began men were soon aware that match- locks and pikes, however efficient in European warfare, were of little
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avail against nimble, skulking Indians, who did not face their enemies in the open field. So flintlocks were used whenever they could be obtained. Many expeditions against the Indians were made on horse- back by men who carried carbines, and much scouting was done on horses.
In November, 1675, Massachusetts ordered that every town should provide and have continuously six flints for each listed soldier in the town. Every trooper had, by order of the Colony, already fur- nished himself with carbines, and all pike men with firearms. By 1676 a revolution was effected, and pikes and matchlocks were for the most part laid aside. Pistols were considered useless against Indians. The Colony Committee of War estimated that two thousand flints were necessary for an expedition of five hundred men. New England dis- carded matchlocks, rests, and pikes many years before they were laid aside in Old England. In the new Colony law foot soldiers were to have a firelock musket or other good firearms; a knapsack, bandoliers, boots and spurs, powder, a sword or cutlass, three pounds of bullets, twenty flints, and more or less other articles.
Troopers were to have a horse worth five pounds, and not less than fourteen hands high, with a saddle, bit, bridle, holsters and crup- per; a carbine with a barrel not less than two and one-half feet in length, and a case of pistols, a flask, and various things that were the same as those of the foot soldiers. Males from sixteen to sixty years of age were to train, except those exempt. Negroes and Indians were among the exempts. When soldiers were levied, a man impressed must go, or pay five pounds. A few years later he must pay ten pounds, or be imprisoned six months.
Militia companies, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, began indulging a fancy for flags of rich colors and costly fabrics. In 1660, John Pynchon sold to the Northampton company colors, staff, tassel and top for five pounds. The next year he sold to Hadley for the use of the soldiers, colors, staff, tassel and top for the same price. These flags were costly silk. Sumptuous flags seem to have continued down to the Revolution. When the wind blew, the ensign had much trouble, for it was necessary to gather the flag in folds, which he tried to grip firmly in his hands, but with a considerable degree of uncertainty.
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The early laws insisted on having watchmen even in time of peace, from the first of May to the end of September. They were usually under the care of constables. There was always some distrust of the Indians. The watchmen began to examine night walkers after ten o'clock. Military watches were required in the several towns in time of war, and when danger seemed imminent military officers took charge. Every town was ordered to provide a watch-house, and can- dles and wood. Sometimes day watching was required. Watches were kept up in these river towns much of the time for a century. The people in those days bore without murmuring these and other burdens, which their descendants would deem intolerable.
Alarms in the night were made by firing three guns, followed by the beating of drums, and there were other ways of alarming the peo- ple. A hundred years later, in the Revolutionary War, the inhabi- tants of these towns were several times aroused from sleep by the firing of three guns, which was followed by the beating of drums.
"The Worshipful Major John Pynchon," son of the founder of Springfield, was for many years the town's leading citizen in wealth and influence. He carried on an extensive trade with both the whites and Indians. Sometimes he sent in a single ship to England five thou- sand dollars' worth of otter and beaver skins. Other skins that he bought were the gray and red fox, the muskrat, raccoon, martin, mink, wild cat and moose. Most of them were packed in hogsheads. Many of the skins were brought down the river from the distant north and west.
During Springfield's first forty years it was happily free from the usual experiences of pioneers attempting to occupy a savage wilderness, and the reason for it seems to have been that these first planters never took ground without paying for it. The Pynchon rule of even justice and fair play toward the Indian was known to the tribes hundreds of miles away, at least as far as the Mohawk country.
Often the Indians brought their disputes to Springfield for settle- ment. William Pynchon soon found, in dealing with the Indians, that they were lazy, unreliable, and quick to take offense. Their vengeful disposition and their secretive ways, and their long memory of slights, soon caused Pynchon to avoid employing them as much as possible. He even refused to use them as messengers and scouts when white troopers were in sight. Indians would loiter on the way, and were not
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above breaking their word. Nor did they come up to the English standard of personal tidiness, and if they had not been prodded with the white man's law, they would have been content to stroll about the streets and live off alms at the back doors. In 1669 the county court had occasion to admonish a constable for roughly handling some Indians found abroad on the Lord's Day. The Indians were caught at Woronoco carrying burdens of apples, which they said they got from Windsor, and they acknowledged shooting a gun when he came to the house. The constable seized four guns and called one of the Indians to appear at the court and answer for the offense.
"The which being proved, the court judges the constable striking the Indian, and the dog biting him, he should only be admonished." There was no end of trouble in keeping savage hands off portable property. The owners of the hands would dodge into kitchens and steal food, cider, and any articles in reach, and they would run off cattle and swine. The selling of liquor to the Indians was strictly forbidden, but the natives were continually securing it on the sly.
The Indians were not satisfied with their arrows after they had seen the blunderbuss, and though selling them firearms, like selling them firewater was prohibited, in one way or another they contrived to get them. They had not much thought for the morrow in their trading, and they often obtained blankets, food, and farm tools on credit. The result was that a mortgage system grew as naturally as weeds after a rain. One of the very early mortgages was to a group of Indians, and the person who became the holder of the mortgage was Samuel Marshfield, an active land speculator. However, the mortgage was duly approved by the selectmen, April 2, 1661.
The substance of it is that the Indians acknowledged their several debts for goods received, which they engaged to pay in beaver, "and we still engage to do the same if we can get it any time this summer, or else we engage to pay in corn or wampum, or if we can get moose- skins, or otter, or good deer skins, then to pay him at a reasonable rate, or guns which the said Samuel has in his hands, and if he lends to any of us we engage to return them to him when he shall call for them : and if we do not pay the aforesaid Samuel to his content by Michelmas, then we give full power to seize on all our lands and corn as his proper right."
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Indians became slaves in New England in three ways-through life sentences for crime, through captivity in war, and through legal process as security for loans. The Pequot War seems to have led directly to slavery. Merchants sent captive maidens and boys to the West Indies or Africa and traded them off for negroes. New Eng- land practiced slavery through its ownership in Indian flesh and blood, and Springfield shares in the unenviable distinction of contributing to its extension.
Indian Wars
CHAPTER X
Indian Wars
In the spring of 1675 the plantation entered on a terrible chapter of its history. It was about forty years old, and many of the first settlers had passed away. Others had grown up and taken on public responsibilities. Likewise there were scores of Agawam Indians who never had put on war paint nor remembered the time when the whites had not dwelt there. They had prattled in the dooryards of the white man, followed the deer and elk, and trapped beaver with them, had planted and harvested with them and come to look on their white companions as just, humane, and friendly. The feeling of trust among the whites was quite as deep-seated. One generation had grown up and another started, and no outbreak had disturbed the cordial rela- tions of the two races. But a time came when King Philip undertook to stampede the New England tribes into a war of extermination. Still the local plantation had little fear that the Agawams and the Woronocos would listen to him.
Some squaws of Nonotuck revealed the secret that Springfield was to be attacked, but the whites could not believe it. The Indians up the river had assured Major Pynchon of their loyalty to the English and in general the Indians had been bettered by their contact with the whites, but the friendly Massasoit had died in 1660, and Philip became sachem not long after. King Philip was a natural leader and good fighter, in whom, however, was deep distrust of the English. In 1674 a praying Indian made definite charges of treason against King Philip, and in the following June the praying Indian was murdered and three Indians executed for the crime.
Philip kept himself constantly armed, and the forests were filled with his runners. When forced to leave his home at Mount Hope, he was able to send bands to plunder the Plymouth towns. Philip made a dash for the Nipmuck country, and on August 3, by the light of the
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moon, the Nipmucks set fire to a fortified house at Brookfield, the only settlement between the Connecticut River and Lancaster. This mode of attack the English had taught them in the Pequot War. Arrows with burning brands as well as fireballs were thrown on the roof, but quickly extinguished. The house was besieged for three days, when it was relieved by a company of troopers from the east. Philip arrived just as the Nipmucks had been driven back from Brook- field, and he refreshed their tired spirits by presenting the sagamores a peck of wampum. The Nonotuck Indians were connected with the Nipmucks by marriage, and when they heard of the Brookfield fight, they gave eleven "triumphant shouts" for the number of English killed. The Indians, in their fort a short way below Hatfield, held a pow-wow, and the young Indians were for war. An aged sachem opposed war and he was struck dead in his tracks. The entire party made a dash for the forests; then hastened north before daybreak, and the dreadful valley campaign opened.
The Agawam Indians remained for some time quietly in their wig- wams on the river side, and in their fort that overlooked the bend of the river. This fort was on the old Long Hill Road below Mill River, where there was a little plateau on the spur of a hill that gave natural advantages for a fort. There is a deep ravine on the south side, which was probably the fortified approach to the fort. Many stone arrowheads and hatchets have been found in this ravine, and on the plateau pottery and pestles for bruising corn have been turned up by the plow. The capacity of the fort was sufficient to shelter at least four hundred Indians, and as it was the custom of this tribe to build a palisade large enough to permit putting up rows of little round wigwams covered with skins or bark, we may conclude that the entire brow of the hill was surrounded by a stockade. The neck joining it with the mainland was only a few rods wide, and a spring in the ravine furnished an abundant supply of water.
The inhabitants of this section were now thoroughly roused to a sense of danger. Major Pynchon wrote from Hadley about this time, "Our English are weak and fearful in scouting and spying." Not until the whole valley was aroused were any definite precautions taken against the Agawams in the shape of hostages. These were sent to Hartford for safe keeping.
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At the beginning of the war there were communities of praying Indians who did not go on the warpath. John Eliot, known as "the Apostle to the Indians," in a letter dated December 10, 1675, says : "Another great company of our praying Indians of Nipmucks fled at the beginning of the war, first to Connecticut, offering themselves to Mr. Pynchon, one of our magistrates, but he, though willing, could not receive them, and they fled to Unkas, who was not in hostility to the English." Eliot translated the Bible into the Indian language and converted many by his preaching.
Our ancestors viewed Philip as the master spirit who influenced the councils and conduct of other tribes and contrived and directed most of the attacks, slaughters and desolations of the war, but he was no more inhuman and cruel than other Indians. He was not able to combine against the English in 1675, and he did not persuade a single tribe in Connecticut, Rhode Island or New Hampshire to unite with him, though Indians from those colonies may have aided him. Many of the Indians owed some kind of allegiance to Philip, yet not many were willing to engage in his quarrel. About one-third of his tribe, the Nipmucks, were in the vicinity of the Connecticut River. Not many of the Pawtucket and Massachusetts nations joined in the war. The hostile Indians were mostly Nipmucks. After he left the Pocasset Swamp in 1675 and fled toward the Nipmuck country many of his men withdrew from him, and the squaw sachem of Pocasset and her men drew off to the Narragansetts. It was believed that Philip had little above fifty fighting men left, but hundreds of old men, women and children. His warriors, exclusive of the Nipmucks, were not numerous at any time.
It is a little remarkable that the histories and other documents do not furnish any evidence that Philip, after he came among the Nip- mucks, was present in a single fight with the English. No particular exploit or achievement performed by him is recorded. It is hardly to be doubted, however, that he was actively engaged in some of the furious attacks made on the English near the Connecticut River. But the Nipmucks showed they were capable of planning and executing daring enterprises without his assistance. They destroyed Brookfield and made numerous fierce assaults on the garrison house, and the river Nipmucks burned Springfield. When assaults were made by Indians it was impossible to know how many there were, but there is reason to
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believe that except in the Narragansett swamp fight not more than five hundred Indians were engaged in any battle during this war. The number of Indians which the English imagined they had killed in an engagement was usually much overrated. They did not find the dead bodies and could judge only by guess. The Indians often told a story to please those in whose power they were, and their admissions were seldom worthy of credit.
When King Philip's War began, the towns and plantations in Hampshire County were Springfield, including West Springfield and Longmeadow; Westfield, Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield, Northfield, Brookfield and, lastly, Suffield, whose people soon left and went elsewhere.
The war began near Mount Hope on Thursday, June 24, 1675, when the Wampanoags slew nine of the inhabitants of Swansey. Sol- diers were sent from Boston and Plymouth and Philip and his fol- lowers fled to Pocasset. Houses were burned and people slain in the vicinity. On the fourteenth of July, while Philip was near Pocasset, the Nipmucks killed several persons.
The second attempt of the Nipmucks was in the county of Hamp- shire. The council ordered Captain Thomas Wheeler and a squad of horsemen to go to the Nipmucks near Quaboag and treat with them. They reached Brookfield with three Christian Indians on Sunday, the first of August. Captain Wheeler and his party and three of the principal men of Brookfield rode to the plain about three miles from the village and found no Indians. Captain Wheeler was persuaded by the Brookfield men to go farther and when they had proceeded four or five miles and were in a narrow passage, having a bushy, rocky hill on the right and a thick swamp on the left, a large body of Indians lying in ambush on both sides suddenly fired on them, killing eight and wounding five. The survivors were forced to go up the steep hill and by the guidance of the Christian Indians they escaped to the village. There they took possession of one of the largest and strongest houses and fortified themselves as well as they could in a short time. They selected a house used for an inn which stood on the road that passed from Springfield to Boston. There were about fifteen families, who on being informed of the disaster, all came in haste to the same house, bringing but little with them.
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