History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 15

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Informed of this procedure, the judges began a series of hegiras, which, with the accompanying incidents, would form one of the most interesting and romantic chapters of Ameri- can history. These can only be briefly summarized in this narrative. They soon removed from Mr. Davenport's to the house of William Jones, remained there until May 11, spent the next two days in a mill, and on the 13th joined Mr. Jones and two others-Sperry and Burrell-in the woods, and were conducted to a place known as " Hatchet Harbor," where they remained two nights, by which time their friends had prepared " a cave or hole in the side of a hill" for their recep- tion. Here they remained from May 15 to June 11, during which time the country was being scoured to " Manha- dos" by the merchant-minions, Kellond and Kirk, who offered large rewards to insure their capture. Mr. Daven- port was suspected of having given them aid and comfort, and was liable to arrest, whereupon they offered to surrender, that their friends might not suffer, and actually made known their whereabouts to Deputy-Governor Leet, who took no advan- tage of the information. They were the ne.ct day advised not to surrender. They, however, appeared publicly at New Haven, thus relieving Mr. Davenport "from the charge of still con- cealing them," and again retired on the 24th of June to their cave at " Providence Hill," as they termed the place .* On

October 19 the hunt for them had nearly ceased, and permitted a change to better quarters, which they secured "at the house of one Tompkins, near Milford meeting-house, where they re- mained two years, without so much as going into the orchard. After that they took a little more liberty, and made them- selves known to several persons in whom they could contide."

In 1664, the commissioners from Charles IE. having landed at Boston, they again sought the privacy of their cave, and lived there eight or ten days. Soon after this the cave and the bed were discovered by Indian hunters and became un- tenable, whereupon, on the 13th of October, in the same year, they set out for the new frontier-town of Hadley, which would seem almost to have been " planted" purposely for their reception, begun as it was only the year previous to their ar- rival at Boston. They were doubtless on the road four nights, arriving on or about the 17th at the house of the minister, Mr. Russell, who had engaged to receive them. Rev. Ezra Stiles, then president of Yale College, writing in 1794,7 gave the following hypothetical account of this journey of the fugi- tives :

"On the 13th of October, 1664, they left Milford and pro- ceeded on their excursion. I shall suppose that the first night they came over to New Haven to their friend Jones,-though of this there is no tradition, as there is of their making a lodgment at Pilgrims' Harbor, so called from them, being twenty miles from New Haven, at a place since called Meri- don, half-way between New Haven and Hartford. Here they might rest and lodge one day, and the next night proceed to Hartford, and the night following to Springfield, and the succeeding night reach Hadley. But of this } find no tradi- tion, saving only that on their route to Hadley they made one station at Pilgrims' Harbor."

Once at the minister's home, they remained in almost abso- Jute seclusion for fifteen or sixteen years, or until they died, though not wholly at Mr. Russell's. Little concerning their life in lfadley can be known, outside of what has been gleaned from the diary and papers of Gen. Goffe. Governor Ilutch- inson gives the following, some of which seems to be tradi- tional :

" The last account of Goffe is from a letter dated Ebenezer, the name they gave their several places of abode, April 2, 1679. Whalley had been dead some time before. The tradi- tion at Hadley is, that two persons unknown were buried in the minister's cellar. The minister was no sufferer by his boarders. They received more or less remittances every year, for many years together, from their wives in England. Those few persons who knew where they were made them frequent presents. Richard Saltonstall, Esq., who was in the secret, when he left the country and went to England, in 1672, made them a present of fifty pounds at his departure ; and they take notice of donations from several other friends: They were in constant terror, though they had reason to hope, after some years, that the inquiry for them was over. They read with pleasure the news of their being killed, with other judges, in Switzerland. Their diary, for six or seven years, contains every little occurrence in the town, church, and particular families in the neighborhood. They had, indeed, for five years of their lives, been among the principal actors in the great affairs of the nation. They had very constant and exact in- telligence of everything which passed in England, and were unwilling to give up all hopes of deliverance. Their greatest expectations were from the fulfillment of the prophecies. They had no doubt that the execution of the judges was the staying of the witnesses. They were much disappointed when the year 1666 had passed without any remarkable event, but flattered themselves that the Christian era might be erroneous. Their .

* According to President Stiles, this cave was not "in the side of a hill," but

among the rocks on the top of " West Rock," about two miles and a half north- west of New Haven.

+ A History of Three of the Judges of King Charles I., by Ezra Stiles, late President of Yale College.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

lives were miserable and constant burthens. They complain of being banished from all human society. A letter from Goffe's wife, who was Whalley's daughter, I think worth preserving. After the second year Goffe writes by the name of Walter Goldsmith, and she of Frances Goldsmith, and the correspondence is carried on as between a mother and son. There is too much religion in their letters for the taste of the present day ; but the distresses of two persons under these pe- culiar circumstances, who appear to have lived very happily together, are very strongly described.

" Whilst they were at Hadley, Feb. 10, 1664-65, John Dix- well, another of the judges, came to them ; but from whence, or in what part of America he first landed, is not known. Ile continued some years at Hadley, and then removed to New Haven. He married at New Haven and had several chil- dren. After his death his son came to Boston, and lived in good repute ; was a ruling elder of one of the churches there, and died in 1725. Colonel Dixwell was buried in New Haven,"

In the house of Mr. Russell there already existed, or he had caused to be prepared, a secret chamber or hiding-place, to which his unfortunate guests could betake themselves at short notice. The main or south part of the house-a double one, about twenty by forty-four feet in size-" had two large rooms below, with an old-fashioned chimney and a front entry and stairs between them." Above were corresponding chambers, separated in part by the chimney, which had on the north side a passage-way, or dark closet, used as a communication be- tween the rooms. A door from each room opened into this closet, in the floor of which was a loose board, nicely adjusted, that might be taken up, permitting entrance to a similar space between the lower rooms, but with no opening into either. The judges occupied the upper apartment, on the east side, and it is related that they "once were concealed in this dark place behind the chimney when searchers went through the passage above."

President Stiles, who visited Hadley, May 21, 1792, says : " The Rev. Mr. Hopkins carried me to Mr. Russel's house, still standing. It is a double house, two stories and a kitchen. Although repaired, with additions, yet the chamber of the judges remains obviously in its original state, unmutilated, as when these exiled worthies inhabited it. Adjoining to it, be- hind or at the north end of the large chimney, was a closet, in the floor of which I saw still remaining the trap-door through which they let themselves down into an under closet, and so thence descended into the cellar for conceal- ment, in case of search or surprise." He adds, " They must have been known to the family and domestics, and must have been frequently exposed to accidental discoveries, with all their eare and circumspection to live in stillness. That the whole should have been effectually concealed in the breasts of the knowing ones is a case of secrecy truly astonishing."

Chester Gaylord, born in 1782, in the Russell house, which his father then owned, told Sylvester Judd, in 1858, that when a boy he had frequently entered the "dark hole" behind the chimney and replaced the board above him; and that "if there was once a passage into the kitchen cellar, it had been closed."*

One or both of the judges, for a longer or shorter period, stayed at the house of Peter Tillton ; and a tradition in the Smith family, narrated by Rev. Samuel Hopkins, in 1793, claims that they were "a part of the time" at the house of Lieut. Samuel Smith.

Much speculation has been indulged concerning the times and places of the death and burial of these self-immured .exiles. The veil that so effectually concealed them, living, was not lifted when they died ; and circumstance, embarrassed

by conflicting traditions, yields but an imperfect clue for the historian.

Mr. Hopkins submitted the several traditions to President Stiles,-one claiming that after Whalley's death Goffe went to Hartford, thence to New Haven, where he was suspected and disappeared ; another, that Whalley died at Tillton's and was buried behind his barn, and that Goffe then went to "the Narragansett," and there being set upon went southward, as far as Pennsylvania and Virginia ; another, that both died in Hadley ; and still another, that the one that died in town was buried in Mr. Tillton's garden or in bis cellar. Mr. Hopkins adds, " It seems to have been a matter of conjecture among the inhabitants,-in Tillton's cellar, in his garden, or behind his barn, as they imagined most probable. Of his being buried under a fence, between two lots, I do not find any- thing ; } nor of his being afterward removed."

President Stiles appears to have formed the belief that Whalley and Goffe both died at Hadley,-the former at Mr. Russell's, and the latter at Mr. Tillton's. This conclusion was strengthened when, in 1795,-one year after he wrote the history of the judges, and three years subsequent to his visit to Hadley,-at the rebuilding of the main part of the old house of Mr. Russell, the bones of a man of large size were found four feet below the surface and near the middle part of the front wall.

In August, 1674, Gen. Goffe wrote to his wife concerning her father, " lle is scarce capable of any rational discourse, bis understanding, memory, and speech do so much fail him, and he seems not to take much notice of anything that is either said or done, but patiently bears all things and never complains of anything. The common question is to know how he doth, and his answer for the most part is, Very well, I praise God. He has not been able of a long time to dress, undress, or feed himself, without help; it is a great mercy to him that he has a friend who takes pleasure in being helpful to him."

As Governor Hutchinson says Whalley had been dead some time when the last known letter of Goffe was written, April 2, 1679, it is probable that he was not alive when Capts. Loth- rop and Beers came to Iladley in August, 1675, during the war of King Philip. The bones found, it is more than prob- able, were those of Gen. Whalley.

Mr. Judd intimates that Mr. Russell began to entertain the officers of the Indian war in 1675. Such being the case, it is reasonable to suppose that Gen. Goffe-after the death of his companion, to whom he took " pleasure in being helpful"-

t This missing tradition was secured by President Stiles himself; he says : "Ou my return from Hadley, passing through Wethersfield, on the 25th of May, I visited MIrs. Porter, a sensible and judicious woman, aged 77. She was a daughter of Mr. Ebenezer Marsh, and born at Hadley, 1715, next door to Mr. Tillton's, one of the temporary and interchanged residences of the judges. This house was in her day occupied by Deacon Joseph Eastman. She had the general story of the judges, but said she knew nothing with certainty concerning them, but only that it was said they sometimes lived at Mr. Russell's, and sometimes where Deacon Eastman lived,-that one was buried in Mr. Russell's cellar and another in Mr. Tillton's lot. As she said she had nothing certain, I pressed her for fabu- lous anecdotes. She said she was ashamed to tell young people's whims and notions. But in the course of conversation she said that when she was a girl it was the constant belief among the neighbors that an old man, for some reason or other, had been buried in the fence between Deacon Eastman's and her father's. She said the women and girls from their house and Deacon Eastman's used to meet at the dividing fence, and while chatting aud talking together for amusement, one and another at times would say, with a sort of skittish fear and laughing, ' Who knows but we are now standing on the old man's grave?' Sho and other girls used to be skittish and fearful, even in walking the street, when they came against the place of that supposed grave; though it was never known whereabouts in that line of fence it lay. She supposed the whole was only young folks' foolish notions; for some were much concerned Jest the old man's ghost should appear at or about that grave. But this lady was very reluctant at narrating these circumstances and stories, to which she gave no heed herself.

" In repeatedly visiting Hadley for many years past, and in conversation with persons born and brought up in Hadley, but settled elsewhere, I have often per- ceived a concurrent tradition that both died there, and were Intried somewhere in Hadley unknown, though generally agreed that one was buried at Russell's."

* The visit of President Stiles must have been during the " boyhood" of Mr. Gaylord.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

went to the house of Mr. Tillton, and there eked out his days in solitude. The time of his death is matter of conjecture, -possibly as early as 1680.

In concluding his history, President Stiles says: " The en- lightened, upright, and intrepid judges of Charles I. will hereafter go down to posterity, with increasing renown, among the Jephthahs, the Baraks, the Gideons and the Washingtons, and others raised up by Providence for great and momentous occasions ; whose memories, with those of all the other sue- cessful and unsuccessful, but intrepid and patriotic defenders of real liberty, will be selected in history, and contemplated with equal, impartial, and merited justice ; and whose names, and achievements, and SUFFERINGS will be transmitted with honor, renown, and glory, through all the ages of liberty and of man."

It is certainly to the credit of New England that so early in her history there existed such manifest love of liberty and scorn of oppression, that no son of hers who had knowledge concerning the refugees accepted royal gold for their he- trayal.

The story which connects the name of Gen. Goffe with an alleged defense of Hadley is given place in the history of that town.

Mr. Israel P. Warren, in his book entitled "The Three Judges," in substance says, that after the death of Whalley the danger of the discovery of the retreat at Hadley was en- hanced by the coming to America of Edward Randolph, with a sort of roving commission, as a spy upon the colonies ; and that in consequence Gen. Goffe may have changed his place of abode, as he had done before under similar circumstances. In support of such a change, Mr. Warren quotes from the letters of Gen. Goffe and Mr. Tillton.

The former, in a letter to Dr. Increase Mather, of Boston, dated " Ebenezer, Sept. 8, 1676," says, " I was greatly be- houlding to Mr. Noell for his assistance in my remove to this town. I pray, if he be yet in Boston, remember my affection- ate respects to him."

This would seem certainly not to mean the removal to Had- ley twelve years previous ; and the expression " my remove" indicates that he was alone, Whalley having died. In the same letter, he writes, " I have received the letters from Eng- land that you inclosed to Mr. Whiting." And again, Oct. 23, 1678, " I should take it as a great kindnesse to receive a word from you, if you please to inclose it to Mr. Whiting, onely with this short direction (these for Mr. T. D.). I hope it would come safely."

Mr. Warren remarks, " This Mr. Whiting was doubtless Mr. Samuel Whiting, one of the ministers of Ilartford at that time. 'T. D.' were the initials used by himself in his letters to Dr. Mather, and were evidently well known to Mr. Whiting. The inference seems almost unavoidable that the latter gentleman was made the medium of transmitting Goffe's letters, in consequence of living near and being intimately acquainted with him.

" Still more conclusive is a letter to Goffe from Mr. Peter Tillton, of Hadley, dated July 30, 1679. 'Yours, which I cannot hut mention, dated MIch 18, '78, I receaved, crying howe wellcome and refreshing to my poore unworthye selfe (which as an honeycombe, to use your owne similitude, full of pretious sweetencs), I would you did but knowc, being a semblance or representation of what sometimes, though un- worthye, I had a ffuller ffruition of. I have here sent you by S. P. tenn pounds, haveing not before a safe hand to convey it, it being a token of the love and remembrance of severall friends who have you uppon their hearts.' Then, after men- tioning certain news lately received from England, he says, ' which I presume Mr. Russell hath given you a full account of, as understanding he hath written to Hartford, that I neede not tawtologize in that matter, -i.e., repeat it."

CHAPTER XV. KING PHILIP'S WAR.

1. ITS CAUSES.

THE Indian war of 1675 and 1676, known to historians as King Philip's War, was the cuhnination, and to the Indians the final catastrophe, of the long struggle between the white and the red races for the mastery of the soil of New England.

Its ravages filled New England with mourning over new- made graves. It found the beautiful valley of the Connecticut in Massachusetts, from Springfield to Northfield, prosperous and thriving, but left it a desolate, blackened, blood-stained, and almost desolate waste.

In the autumn before its close Springfield was in ashes, and its terrified people were about deserting it forever. The inhab- itants of Northfield and Deerfield had fled from their ruined homes, and the people of Westfield, Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield were debating whether it were not too dangerous to stay longer in their isolated position in the very heart of the enemy's land, for their old Indian neighbors of the valley, with whom they had lived so long in peace,-the Ag-a-wams, the Wo-ro-noaks, the Non-o-tucks, the Pa-comp-tucks, and the Squak-heags,-had all joined King Philip.

But at its close the Indian fled and the white man stayed. From the first settlement of New England by the whites it was evident that sooner or later there must come a war of races. On the part of the whites every effort was made to conciliate the savage and win him into the paths of civilization and peace. On the first landing of the Pilgrims and Puritans, a fearful distemper was almost exterminating the natives. The white men and women visited them in their wigwams, at the risk of contagion, and afforded them every relief in their power. A few years later missionaries devoted their lives to the object of converting the Indians to Christianity, and with infinite labor learned their language and translated the whole Bible into their difficult tongue. Everywhere their right to the soil was respected, and no part of it was occupied, that had not been already deserted by them, without fairly purchasing the same and taking deeds therefor. But all of these efforts proved una- vailing.

Over the mind of the Indian the influences of a humane civilization bore little sway. Under all circumstances his temper was sullen, jealous, passionate, intensely vindictive, and ferociously cruel. It was impossible that the Indian of New England should ever become a good neighbor. " The white man or the Indian must cease from the land."

The reader should bear in mind, however, that for the first fifty years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, in the year 1620, there was but little actual warfare between the whites and the Indians of New England. This long immunity from the horrors of Indian warfare was doubtless occasioned in part by the uniform fair treatment of the savages by the Fathers of New England, and also in part by the decisive measures taken by the early-settlers in the total destruction of the once-power- / ful Pequot nation in the year 1637.

Il. UN-CAS AND MI-AN-TO-NO-MO.

Although the destruction of the Pequots relieved the whites of New England from further Indian ravages for a period of forty years, and until another generation of men came on the stage of active life, yet it tended to intensity the hatred which had long existed between the neighboring tribes of Mohicans and Narragansetts.

The Pequots, the reader will remember, dwelt on the eastern border of Connecticut, between the Rhode Island line and the river Thames, then called the Pequot River. To the east of the Pequots were the Narragansetts, and to the west of them, between the Thames and the Connecticut, dwelt the Mohicans.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

At the close of the Pequot war the captives were divided by the whites between Un-cas, of the Mohicans, and Mi-an-to- no-mo, of the Narragansetts.

These two tribes were hereditary enemies, although both were the allies of the English, and both aided the whites in the war against the Pequots. The deserted hunting-grounds of the Pequots soon became a bone of contention between the rival tribes, and in the year 1643 war broke out between them. Previous to the commencement of hostilities the emissaries of Miantonomo had made several attempts upon the life of Un- cas, and Uncas had made complaints to the whites of sueli treatment.

Miantonomo had also made an ineffectual attempt, about the year 1642, to unite the New England tribes in a war of exter- mination against the whites. Failing in this scheme, and incensed at Uneas for not joining him in it, lie determined to make war upon the Mohicans.

In the month of July, in the year 1643, Miantonomo, without giving Uneas any previous notice of his intentions or making any formal declaration of war, set out at the head of some seven hundred warriors to invade the Mohican country. · Uneas, learning of his approach, hastily gathered an equal number, and marched out to bar his progress.

The two hostile bands met upon the old Pequot hunting- ground, and, halting in sight of each other, with a level plain between them, the two rival chieftains advanced to the front and held a parley.

The wildest romance of the old wilderness warfare presents no more striking scene than this meeting of Uneas and Mian- tonomo. Uneas proposed that they, the two chieftains, should there and then decide the contest by single combat, and that the people of the one vanquished should become the subjects of the victorious sachem.

To this proposal of Uncas, Miantonomo made haughty an- swer : " My warriors have come to fight, and they shall fight."

Upon receiving this defiant answer, Uncas fell prostrate upon the ground. It was the signal for his men to rush over his body upon the Narragansetts. The Mohicans were vieto- rious. Miantonomo was overtaken in the flight, and made a prisoner by Uncas. Ilaughty and defiant still, he would ask no quarter; but Uncas for the time being saved his life, and delivered him to the English, at Hartford, for safe-keeping.

The case of Miantonomo was brought by Uneas before the commissioners of the United Colonies, and they ordered that he should suffer death, and that Uneas should be his executioner.

Miantonomo was taken to the field of the fight, and, in the presence of two Englishmen, a warrior of Uncas sunk a hatchet into his brain. The spot where he is said to have fallen, in the town of Norwich, Conn., is marked by a block of granite, simply inseribed with his name, MIANTONOMO. Thus died the second prominent Indian conspirator against the whites,-the prototype, after Sas-sa-cus, the Pequot, of Philip and Pontiae, of Tecumseh, Black Hawk, and Osceola.

The part which the English took in this quarrel between Uneas and Miantonomo, still rankling in the minds of -the Narragansetts, doubtless led to their union with the Pokano- kets, nearly forty years later, in Philip's war. The killing of the Narragansett sachem in cold blood, while a prisoner of war, was without doubt justifiable in the minds of the New England fathers as a means of self-defense, for had his life been spared the dreadful scenes of Philip's war would, it is probable, have been enacted long before they were, while the colonists were too feeble to withstand the savages. Yet it must be confessed that the side of the Indian has never been written.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700