USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Sutton > History of the town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1876 to 1950, Volume II > Part 3
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The name is variously spelled: Manchage, Mancharge, Manchogg, Manchauge, Manchoge, Manchogue, Mumchog, Munchog; the spelling has finally settled down to Manchaug. Monuhchogok is probably the nearest approach to the correct spelling of the Indian name anywhere to be found.
Both the origin and the meaning of the word seem to be unknown. It is true that the History of Sutton at page 541 states that:
"The Village of Manchaug (as also the pond) derives its name from a noted Indian Chief who was drowned in the pond now known by that name.'
I am unable to find the slightest foundation for this statement and I have no hesitation in saying that it has none. In all my research I have never seen any mention of an Indian chief named Manchaug. The present village of Manchaug did not exist for a hundred and fifty years after the old Indian village disappeared. The present village undoubtedly took its name from the pond, and the pond took its name from the ancient village, but whence the name of the ancient village came is a question which we may never be able to answer.
Tooker, the Indian scholar, suggests that the name may possibly have been derived from the Indian word, Menuhkhikook, meaning "Ye shall be strength- ened." I am not inclined to accept this suggestion for several reasons: First there is far too little similarity in the sound of the two words, no matter how you spell Manchaug. Secondly, Indian place names were almost invariably based on some physical feature or characteristic of the place. Note the following:
Chabanakongkomun-the boundary fishing place
Nashua-the land between Wabaquasset-the whetstone country
Wabash (Wo-bash)-Bright white - gleaming white from the limestone bottom Waban-the east Passamoquoddy-plenty of pollock
Hassanamesitt-the place of small stones
Cos-cob-High rock
Quinebaug-long pond Pascoag-Land at the branch of the rivers
Pachaug-turns aside, a turning place
Mashepaug-great pond
Mohegan-country of wolves
Mistick (Mystic)-great tidal river
Magunkaquog-place of great trees Packachoag (Boggachoag)-the place where the spring is
Nipmuc-the land of "Fresh water"
Thirdly: The name of no other praying town possessed any religious signifi- cance, and it may be pertinently inquired, why Manchaug should be made an exception to an otherwise unbroken rule.
Tooker admits that if the name originated with the Indians it has no religious significance but thinks that if it originated with Eliot it possibly may have such significance.
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EARLY DAYS
Early in September 1675 King Philip's war was raging fiercely. The corn in the Indian plantations was ripening in the autumn sunshine but not quite ready for the harvest. If the corn should be allowed to mature and the Indians allowed to harvest it, they would be supplied with their most important article of food probably in sufficient quantity to last through the approaching winter. To prevent this about 100 white men, led by Captain Gorham of the Plymouth Colony and Lieutenant Upham of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were sent into the Nipmuck country to destroy all of the corn which belonged to the hostile Indians. It is stated on good authority that these men were definitely instructed to harm nothing which belonged to the Christian or Praying Indians.
Gorham and Upham appear to have come almost directly to Hassanamisco which they destroyed; thence to Manchaug which they must have reached about September 20th. The Indians, probably warned of the approach of the white soldiers, had gone. They had apparently fled in haste as their wigwams, their mats and their corn had been left behind. Whether these Indians were friendly or hostile to the whites we shall probably never definitely know. At any rate Gorham and Upham treated them as hostile and on a fateful autumn day 276 years ago, after taking some of the corn for their own use, applied the torch to everything else which could be destroyed by fire. The smoke from the burning mats and corn and wigwams curled upward and rolled away, and the little Indian town of Monuhchogok disappeared forever. Only the name has been preserved to us and even this has drifted away from the historic spot to which it properly belongs. The burning of this little Indian town is believed to be the only act of war ever committed within the limits of Sutton.
For several months after the burning of Manchaug the war raged with inhuman savagery, each side sharing about equally in victory and defeat. But by late Spring 1676 the tide had turned definitely in favor of the whites. Philip had gone almost to the Hudson river to get aid from the Mohawks and arms from the Dutch but had failed to get either. Hundreds of his followers had been slain with none to take their places. Those who survived began to desert him. Many of the Indian cornfields had not been planted. The outlook was hopeless. Philip realized that his cause was lost. Stealthily he made his way back to Montaup (Mount Hope, R. I.). But Indian treachery had enabled his pale-faced enemy to follow him closely. And here in the early morning of August 12, 1676, while in a rude camp with a few of his followers, he was surprised by a body of white soldiers under the command of Capt. Benjamin Church. Philip grabbed his rifle and started to flee but was soon shot down by another Indian, who had been stationed in ambush near the path which Church thought Philip would take. His head and hands were cut off. His body was quartered and left in the swamp. His hands were taken to Boston and presented to the white government. His head was taken to Plymouth as a trophy and raised upon a pole on the common where it remained for more than twenty-five years.
With the death of Philip, the war came to an end. The losses on both sides had been frightful. The Nipmucks had been almost exterminated. From our neighborhood the red man had gone and gone forever.24 The embers of his last camp fire had ceased to smoulder, the echo of his last war-whoop had died away and a primeval stillness had settled down upon the Manchaug Hills.
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HISTORY of SUTTON
NOTES
1. At one of John Eliot's meetings with the natives one of the questions asked by them was why the white men called them "Indians," because, they said, before the whites came they never were so called.
2. The ponds were numbered by the hundreds. Two of the larger were Quinsigamond covering about 550 acres and Chaubunagungamaug about 1225. (Both now unfortunately usually called "Lakes" ). At least nine small rivers had their headwaters here: the Assabet, the Blackstone, the Charles, the Concord, the French, the Nashua, the Ware, the Swift and the Quaboag.
3. The importance of fish as a fertilizer for the Indian in the growing of corn has seldom, if ever, been sufficiently emphasized. The writings of the white man, almost invariably, have given the impression that the Indian male just wouldn't work but spent most of his time hunting and fishing solely for pleasure, and that taking away from him his hunting grounds and fishing grounds simply deprived him of pleasures. The plain fact is that the loss of hunting grounds and fishing grounds meant not so much loss of pleasure as loss of food, in most cases hunger, and in some stark starvation.
The Indian Squanto is reported to have said: "An acre set out with two shad to each hill raises as much corne as three acres planted without the shad." As usually planted in this vicinity an acre of corn contains about 4200 hills. The average weight of a shad is about 31/2 pounds. So that to plant an acre with two shad to the hill would require about 8400 shad weighing a total of about 141/2 tons, the equivalent of 42 tuna fish weighing 700 pounds each. Of course, in our neighborhood it was impossible to fertilize so gen- erously. In Indian days fish hereabouts available for fertilizer would probably not average in weight more than one-half pound. It is probably not far wrong to estimate the area of their cornfields here at two to three acres. On the basis above outlined from 8000 to 12,000 fish would be needed each season, using only one fish to the hill. On account of the extreme difficulty in getting so many fish at any one time it seems probable that the red man's planting season must have continued over many days and that his cornfields were on the hills where the growing season between late Spring and early Autumn frosts is about six weeks longer than it is in the valley.
4. Major Talcott in 1676 reported that he saw at Woodstock "forty acres of growing corn".
5. Many specimens have been found hereabouts of the old stone mortar in which the Indians pounded their corn into meal. These mortars are sometimes called "Indian Corn Mills."
6. By Gookin.
7. By Roger Williams who said: I have travelled with neere 200 of them at once neere 100 miles through the woods every man carrying a little Basket of this at his back and sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his middle, sufficient for a man for three or four daies. With this readie provision and their Bow and Arrowes are they ready for War, and travell at an houres warning. With a spoonfull of this meale and a spoonfull of water from the Brooke have I made many a good dinner and supper. R. I. Hist. Coll. Vol. I, p. 33.
And by Mather who said: Nokehick, that is a spoonful of parched meal with a spoonful of water which will strengthen them to travel a day. Life of Eliot p. 79.
8. Enc. Brit., 1939 ed. Vol. IX, p. 262.
9. Outside Plymouth colony.
10. Chartered 1629.
11. Vol. I, p. 39.
12. The shortage of food was so serious that the Court passed a law forbidding any "pson Inhabitting within the lymitts of this pattent to sell, give or send any corn either to Englishmen living outside the limits or to Indians."
13. Connecticut was under a different charter.
14. A horse litter was a couch, or chaise body, with a pole fastened to each side in such a way as to form one pair of shafts in front and another pair in back. The litter was carried, not drawn, by two horses one between each pair of shafts. The couch or body was usually covered and provided with curtains.
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EARLY DAYS
The Tercentenary tablet erected on George Hill Road in Grafton says that Hooker's invalid wife was carried in a horse-litter. And a statement that Mrs. Hooker was an invalid is to be found elsewhere.
The author of this article does not pretend to know whether the good lady was an invalid or not; but he does desire to make it plain that the fact that on this occasion she rode in a horse-litter by no means proves that she was an invalid.
Doubtless, many invalids were carried in horse-litters, but in Hooker's time these litters were in common use, in England as a conveyance for persons of wealth or distinction, and the minister's wife was first in social rank. Mrs. Hooker may have been carried in the litter because she was feeble; on the other hand she may have been carried in it because of her social position. The only evidence we have found to prove that she was an invalid is the fact that she rode in the horse-litter, and this is almost no evidence at all. It is note- worthy that Governor Winthrop who knew Mrs. Hooker personally does not state or intimate that she was an invalid.
See Funk & Wagnall's Dict. p. 1039; Webster's Dict. p. 1261 and Eggleston's First Book in American History, p. 100.
15. Boston was settled in 1630.
16. Montgomery, 1899.
17. The early settlers had no money and little time to devote to the building of roads. If there was an Indian path which served their purpose they used it. It is a well known fact that many of our early roads followed Indian trails. This was undoubtedly true in the case of the Boston Road and the Mendon Road. These are Sutton's earliest roads. The former went, as did the Indian trail, from Oxford at one end to Boston (or Cambridge) at the other.
Daniels, one of the most thorough and accurate of our local historians in his history of "The Huguenots in the Nipmuck Country" says:
"The colony was founded in 1686. Arrived on the location of the proposed settlement they fixed upon the eminence a mile and a half southeast of the present centre of the village as their headquarters. At this point, for many years afterward, the highway from Boston entered the town."
In a little more specific statement Daniels says the road entered Oxford on the "eastern slope" of what is now Fort Hill. Proceeding southwesterly from this place the next guide post along this old way is Nipmuc Pond, and thence it led to Charbanakonkomun (Chaubunagungamaug) .
In order for the road to enter Oxford on the eastern slope of Fort Hill it must have passed through West Sutton.
The official records of Sutton mention this road as far back as 1716, the very beginning of the town. All through the early history of the town it is spoken of as the "Boston Road", the "Great Boston Road", the "Great Road from Oxford to Boston" etc. On an official road map made in 1795 it is labeled: "Most Direct Route to Boston". It was the white man's main thoroughfare to Boston for more than 100 years before the Central Turnpike was built. That it closely followed the old Indian way seems to be beyond serious doubt.
18. Mass. Archives 120-226-265; Province Laws Vol. XI p. 153; Daniels Hist. of Oxford, pp. 39, 40; Worcester Dist. Reg. Deeds, B. 19 p. 188-B. 36 p. 23-B. 38 p. 29 -B. 42 p. 228-B. 43 p. 229-B. 220 p. 8-B. 228 p. 114-Many more could be cited.
19. See Worcester Dist. Reg. of Deeds B. 38 p. 29.
20. Daniels Hist. of Oxford pp. 285, 291 and author's own recollection.
21. The wigwams of an Indian village were often moved from one place to another and it may very well be that the Manchaug wigwams were at times on the Oxford side of the present town line. There is also evidence which indicates that there was at some time an Indian settlement on the southeasterly slope of Whittier hill.
22. Conn. Archives.
23. Mass. Hist. Vol. XVII p. 251.
24. A few years later small roving bands bent on murder came through this region, like the one which killed the Johnson family in Oxford in 1696 and the one which killed Digory Serjent in Worcester in 1703. But there appears to have been no attempt to restore an Indian settlement at Manchaug.
JOHN WAMPAS and the BEGINNING of SUTTON
J OHN ELIOT was born in England in 1604, graduated at Cambridge in 1622, came to America in the autumn of 1631, and settled at Roxbury. About a year later he became "teacher" to the church in Roxbury and remained con- nected with this church until his death in 1690, almost 59 years. Soon after his arrival in America he became deeply interested in the Indians. It was his ambition to educate and Christianize all the tribes in New England. He became known as the "Apostle to the Indians". He learned their language and in 1646 began preaching to them in their own tongue. In October and November of that year three meetings of white settlers and Indians were held at the wigwam of Waaban in Watertown. Eliot attended the first two meetings but was unable to attend the third and sent one of his assistants to preach in his stead. In speaking of the third meeting, which was held November 26, 1646, Eliot says:
"for the Saturday night after this third meeting (as I am informed from that man of God who then preached to them) there came to his house one Wampas a wise and sage Indian as a messenger sent to him from the rest of the company to offer unto him his own sonne and three more Indian children to be trained up among the English, one of the children was nine years old, another eight, another five and another foure; and being demanded why they would have them brought up among the English, his answer was, because they would grow rude and wicked at home and would never come to know God which they hoped they should doe if they were constantly among the English."
This letter goes on to state that besides the four children Wampas also brought with him two lusty young men who were received into two of the Elders houses, and continues :
"but the children are not yet placed out because it is most meet to do nothing that way too suddainly, but they have a promise of acceptance and education of them either in learning or in some other trade of life in time convenient, to which Wampas replied that the Indians desired nothing more."
This letter, I believe contains the first mention of the name Wampas anywhere to be found. It is the "sonne" and not the father who is the subject of this sketch. The letter does not state which lad in point of age was young Wampas
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HISTORY of SUTTON
but in November 1646 he was either nine, eight, five or four years old. For reasons which will appear later I am inclined to think he was either nine or eight.
That the father's wish was complied with and the boy "placed out" in some English family seems to be beyond doubt. But no record has been found which tells us where or with whom he served his apprenticeship.
Little or nothing is known of him from 1646 until 1661. On May 21st of the latter year he was married in Boston to Ann Praske, an Indian princess, daughter of Romanock, a Mohegan Sachem, whose domain was at Fairfield in the colony of Connecticut. But while the bride and the groom were both Indians the marriage ceremony was performed by an Englishman, Major Humphrey Atherton, was according to the English custom and a brief record of it appears in the white man's book.1
At the time of his marriage Wampas lived in Boston where he probably had lived from early boyhood and where he continued to make his home for the greater part, though not all, of his later life.
On January 28, 1666 he bought of Robert and Sarah Wyard a tract of land with a dwelling house upon it which fronted upon Boston Common. This estate was on the easterly side of what is now Tremont Street, between Winter Street and Temple Place.
According to a letter written by Eliot Wampas (Wampooas) the father had taken a keen interest in Eliot's work but had died prior to 1655.
The lot was 32 feet wide and 210 feet deep and is a part of the present site of Saint Paul's Church which was erected in 1820. It was bounded on the East by land of one Baker, on the South by land of John Cross, on the West by the Common, and on the North by land of Hudson Leverett, son of John Leverett, who, about six years later became Governor of the Colony. This location at that time must have been one of the most desirable places in Boston for a home. The price paid was "thirty and seaven pounds ten shillings". In the deed Wampas is described as "John Wampas an Indian of Boston". The deed was acknowl- edged before former Governor Winthrop, Book 5, Page 490.
On this estate Wampas and his wife Ann lived about eight or nine years.
In 1668 he gave a mortgage on his home for about $200. but paid it off some six months later. Book 5, Page 541.2
What his early occupation had been we do not know, but about 1668 or 1670 he was following the sea, and thereafter is often referred to as a "seaman" or a "mariner".
November 20, 1671 he gave a deed to Thomas Steadman of New London, Connecticut of "100 acres or 1/3 part thereof between the Town of Malbery and the towne of Mendum and 10 acres of meadow within one mile of said 100 acres". In this deed Steadman is described as a "marriner" and Wampas as an "Indian and Seaman of Boston".2
At the time of his marriage and probably prior to that time he had taken the Christian name John. As early at least as 1672 he had assumed the alias "White" and thereafter is almost invariably spoken of as "John Wampas alias White". My conjecture is that his reason for taking this English alias was that "White" was the name of the family in which he had been brought up.
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JOHN WAMPAS
In 1672 Wampas and two other Indians, Pyam Buckow and Anthony Tra petitioned the General Court in reference to certain lands which they appar- ently claimed had been cleared by the Indians. On October 9th of that year the General Court appointed a committee to investigate the matter and make a report at its next session. But we find no report.
It is recorded that at about the time of the outbreak of King Philip's war in the summer of 1675 Wampas created some sort of a disturbance in a church in Cambridge; that he was put in jail for it but broke out. And this is about all we have been able to learn of this episode. It would interesting to know whether the disturbance was in any way related to the war.
Wampas apparently took no part in King Phillip's war but shortly after it began, that is, in the late summer or early autumn of 1675 he went on a voyage to England. At this time the only means of navigation was the sailing ship, pro- pelled by the winds, and the time required for the journey was usually from five to seven weeks. No steamship crossed the Atlantic for 140 years after this time. The first to do so was the Savannah in 1819.
Late in 1675 or early in 1676, while in England, Wampas was thrown into a poor debtor prison for a small debt.
The English poor debtor prisons of this date were horrible almost beyond description. One writer3 says they were:
"Pestiferous dens, overcrowded, dark, filthy, wholly deprived of fresh air. The wretched inmates were dependent for food upon the caprice of their goalers or the charity of the benevolent; water even in the smallest quantity was denied them. Their only bedding was putrid straw. Everyone confined here whether tried or untried was heavily ironed. Sickness, squalor, starvation and every form of suffering which could result from neglect and inhuman cruelty prevailed."
All prisoners were herded together. Prisons with a separate cell for each prisoner were not in use.
At this date the two main prisons of this character were the Fleet and the Marshalsea. Thousands of wretches confined in these places were guilty of no offense except inability to pay a debt.
Imprisonment for debt had prevailed in England for centuries before Wampas' time, and continued for more than 150 years after his death. As a rule no pris- oner was released except by death or the payment of his debt. In ordinary times conditions in these prisons were wretched, but nine or ten years before Wampas was imprisoned, two frightful calamities had made these conditions much worse.
In 1665 the Great Plague occurred in London. The summer was very hot and the water supply very low. Of an estimated population of 500,000, nearly 100,0004 died during the year and 200,000 more are said to have fled the city. Many died the day they were stricken. The dead were gathered up in horse- drawn carts, and at night about the only sounds to be heard were the rumbling of the cart wheels as they rolled along the streets and the voices of the drivers as they passed from house to house calling out, "Bring out your dead.", "Bring out your dead.".
The next year the Great London Fire occurred. It started in a baker's shop and spread in all directions. All efforts to stop it were in vain. For three days and three nights it raged. All the buildings on four hundred streets, including one
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HISTORY of SUTTON
hundred churches and places of worship, and over thirteen thousand houses were laid in ashes. It has been estimated that 200,000 persons were made homeless.
These appalling calamities reduced to poverty untold thousands who otherwise would have been able to pay their debts. The number of poor debtors confined in prison became so great that the Government itself became disturbed and in April 1671 a law was passed to relieve conditions.
The preamble to the law recited that:
"Forasmuch as very many persons now detained in prison are miserably impoverished either by reason of the late unhappy times, the sad and dreadful fire, their own misfortunes, or otherwise, so as they are totally disabled to give any satisfaction to their creditors, and so become without advantage to any a charge and burden to the kingdom, and by noisome- ness (inseparably incident to extreme poverty) may become the occasion of pestilence and contagious diseases to the great prejudice of the kingdom".
It then enacted that any justice of the peace might order any person who was imprisoned for debt to be brought before him and if the prisoner took oath that he had not property of ten pounds in value or enough to pay his debt and had not transferred any property to evade payment, he was returned to jail and notice given to the creditor of the time when a hearing would be given by the magis- trate. At the hearing, if it appeared that the prisoner's oath was true, he was released unless the creditor was able and willing to pay for his maintenance in prison.
This law further provided that exorbitant fees could no longer be charged for committing or discharging a prisoner, that those committed for debt should not be "lodged" with those committed for crimes and that everyone imprisoned for debt might send for food anywhere he pleased.
The oath provided for in this act was the origin of what has since been called, "The Poor Debtor's Oath".
By virtue of this act more than 50,000 prisoners are said to have been released within a short time.
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