USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Northfield > Puritan outpost, a history of the town and people of Northfield, Massachusetts > Part 7
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Not an Indian in sight the summer long. The men kept their muskets close at hand as they worked on one or another of the houses. Early in the season, Cornelius Merry had raised the question,
"What about the haythen? In the ivint of a call from thim, where will we give thim a fittin' reception?"
"This is not for jesting," responded the graver Benjamin Wright. "Everyman of us will depend his own. But, again there is no reason
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for us not to safeguard our people. Not to shelter our homes by a fort is to expose us to the danger that will be about us till the last redskin is gone."
There was no dissent and every other task was to be laid aside until the stout fort should be built. But where?
"I'm f'r the auld place," said Merry, "it's where they'll be lookin' f'r us. And thin it has the p'int in its favor that it is nearest m' own habitation. The younger of you can run better thin one of my ad- vanced years. I'm for puttin it on that place-whose is it on y'r fine plan of the city?"
Mudge pointed out that the knoll was on Robert Lyman's home lot, easily located as near to where Council rock stood in the middle of the street. Not out of deference to Merry's claim to particular protection but as the natural commanding site, the fort was marked out on the site of the former stockade and there it was built, even while the houses were left far short of completion.
The other community need was the grist mill. Primitive ways of reducing corn to meal had gone out. Clary had been the miller in Hadley and to him fell the planning of the mill on the brook that crossed the street. It was part of his reason for being here that he had been granted twenty acres of land in Great Meadow as a condi- tion of his setting up a like mill here. Henceforth this was to be "Mill Brook."
With such cultivation of the meadow lands as the busy little com- munity could give along with the home-building, the season passed into winter, with a general sense of achievement and of security.
Meanwhile the committee, largely non-resident as it was, carried on its consideration of such difficult matters as the division of the meadow lands. In the possession of the home lots on the street there was a perfect equality. Even the Irishman was on the same footing with the rest. Each had his lot with the uniform twenty rods frontage. The meadows, the real source of wealth, would go in due proportion to the investment of the settler in the costs of the land as it had been or was to be bought, the cost of surveying, the building of the common fence along the brow of the meadow hill and whatever outlay was out of community need.
Special allotments must be made for a minister, for a smith, for the burying ground. There were roads to be laid out in a way to
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reach each meadow lot, and broad reservations of land to be held in common for pasturage. Moreover, here was the Connecticut river, dividing the town and putting the meadows on the westerly side out of reach unless a ferry should be provided. And again, the ever- vexing question of fences must be settled on a basis of fairness and an equalized burden.
How these issues were met may be followed through the records the committee kept and the succession of its prudential orders, leaving no community need unrecognized and having their greatest difficulty in a just and acceptable adjustment of individual land-holdings. They attest the sound judgment and ingenuity in meeting new situa- tions of the men who had come into a new land with the sound equip- ment of practical experience in older settlements.
The name the new community had thus far carried had little to commend it. There was no uniformity in its spelling-and no end of difficulty in adjusting the word hissed through Indian teeth to English pronunciation. An order passed by the committee, relative to the conservation of timber, recognized "Squakeage alias Northfield."
The choice of name was, apparently, the first official recognition of a name that followed the familiar fashion of using the word "field" as basic for town names. Prefixes followed some more or less distinct physical feature or local occurrence. Along the valley had been devel- oped Wethersfield and Enfield, Springfield and Hatfield. Pocumtuck had become Deerfield and Woronoke changed to Westfield. What might have been Southfield was euphemized into Suffield. If the base was to be used for the newest town's name the prefix appropriate was "North"-and it was not long to stay an alias.
Half settled, or less, with more absent landlords than residents, there was enough of a body to hold a town-meeting, the first such assemblage, on March 18, 1686. Ensign John Lyman and Benjamin Palmer were chosen supervisors; Micah Mudge, constable; John Clary and John Lyman, fence viewers; Micah Mudge and Benjamin Palmer, measurers of land. Limited as was the roster, there were not men enough for the offices without duplication. That somewhat of the exclusiveness of the parent town followed the limited group of citizens was shown in no office being awarded "Cornelius, the Irish- man." He was, however, clothed with authority as a land-holder and
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when certain Indians, original grantors, appeared and grunted their discontent with the settlement received in the purchase of years before, he was joined with Mudge and John Lyman as the grantees.
"Injuns!" The industrious builders, who went about as a crew to bring nearer completion one after another of their houses, were about their work one morning of early summer when Benjamin Wright dropped his axe and seized his gun. He was not one ever to forget the day when the first settlers were driven inside the stockade, to which his father never returned ; his eye was keen to catch the first sight of prowling natives. He had hardly uttered the word of alarm before seven Indians leaped into the presence of the builders. Only two of them had guns and these they held at arm's length over their heads.
"Fren's, Fren's!" they had shouted in answer to the alarm. They were made to put the two muskets beyond their reach and to sit on scattered logs before any attempt was made to discover their errand, evidently a peaceful one. Micah Mudge recognized two of them, Massemet and Pampmohook, as of the group that had signed the deed of land in 1671.
What now was their errand? It was not easy to discover. They were "fren's" and wanted their friendship recognized. Wright asked them where they were when Squakheag was attacked years ago. They had had nothing to do with it. They knew about the sheep-stealing but they had no share in it. Innocence was never more marked on Indian faces, never more persistently asserted. But they had been wronged. They had not been fully paid for the land they sold. They wanted money.
Mudge asked which of them was not paid. Had not Massemet and Pompey-as he called the other-passed handfuls of earth to Joseph Parsons to show that the deed they signed was real delivery of title? They remembered the ceremony but said there was a mort- gage. Either they had remembered the word "mortgage" or had cap- tured it since; they were now sure of it. As to the other five, what claim had they? These recruited "owners" were as insistent as the rest ; indeed they had been deprived of their lands without any share in the wampum the others received.
The nebulous claim of title to land by Indians who happened at
BEFORE BRIDGES SPANNED "GREAT RIVER"
Courtesy, Mass. Dept. of Public Works
NORTHFIELD-ON-THE-CONNECTICUT As Framed by the Arch of French King Bridge
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the time to be in a discovered region was perfectly illustrated in this episode. The two who had an original even though shadowy claim had made a perfect delivery years before. The others had nothing to show of possession, past or present. As to all of them, the bloody assault on the settlement had wiped out any obligation; to sell land and then to drive out the people to whom they had sold, killing some of them and destroying their property, was a gruesome and complete defeat of any claim. But legal abstractions of this sort could have no effect upon their greedy minds. They wanted money; and after the long and hopeless parley, the little group of settlers could only con- clude that money better be given them.
Now it was that the thrifty Cornelius, the Irishman, proved his value. He had money. So had Micah Mudge and John Lyman. Let them advance it and be the grantees in the quit-claim deed these demandants should sign. The instrument was drawn up and signed, some of the quit-claimers being able to write their names and some affixing their fantastic marks. It was noticed that the names signed were different from the names they had given during the parley and a postscript was added to the instrument to make clear that they were the same persons.
The "deed" the seven natives left in the hands of the settlers granted nothing that was not covered in the real one of years before. It was at most a removal of the shadow they had tried to cast upon the title-being aside from that a treaty of peace. It contained a declaration that the "aforementioned Indians were the proper owners of the premises and that this land is free from all bargains, sales, right, title, inheritance or incumbrance whatsoever"-a lying statement as to most of them and of value only so long as another set of claimants did not appear ; but it went on to bind the grantors that these grantees and the company they represented, their "heirs, executors, adminis- trators," should "possess and enjoy peaceably and quietly without any molestation from by through or under" the signers or their "heirs, executors, administrators or assigns"-as if these begging natives would ever have any such-and, further, that they would acknowl- edge this to be their "free act and deed before authority when called thereunto."
Legal talent was not represented in the group of white men who were the direct beneficiaries of the transaction ; but some of the stock
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phrases of such instruments were remembered and their insertion lent impressiveness to the document. When the signers had vanished into the wilds-and the town-builders read again the remarkable product of their combined wits, their pride in it was jarred by Cornelius, the Irishman.
"Our fren's," observed Merry, "have agreed that they and their appurtenances, if that's the name of 'em, will come and acknowledge this pa-aper to be their free act and deed"-and here he stopped to recall the draft on his reserves and remark with an Irish oath that "it wa'nt so free after all."
"As I was saying," he went on, "our fren's will admit it before autority whin called thereunto. And thin they went away and left no addresses."
An undisturbed summer and autumn, during which the scattered houses along the street were finished and the meager crops were har- vested, merged into a winter of planning for further development of the town. Meanwhile a second fort had been built, indeed so early in the year as to be mentioned in the peace treaty. It stood on the brow of the slope towards Mill Brook, Cowas, as it had been first known, and commanded the site of Clary's mill.
Eighty-seven's spring came bringing scant signs of further settle- ment. These landlords had become too firmly footed in the settled towns. The pioneering urge had relaxed. But they held to their titles and seemed likely to do so to near the end of the four-year period. Joseph Parsons, first grantee in Indian purchase, presiding genius of real estate captures in the valley, had never been more than a visitor. William Janes did not return to preach again under the oak, but one of his sons, Samuel, was among the '87 arrivals. William Clarke, although active as head of the committee in charge of affairs, was engrossed in the affairs of Northampton. George Alexander, the Scot, was now an old man and having three times transplanted, was content to remain on his ample Northampton estate. His son, Nathaniel, arrived. Two Lymans, Robert and Richard, remained in their settled homes, but each sent a son John, one of whom, the ensign, was named in the Indian quit-claim deed of 1686; with him came his son Moses. The absentee landlords kept their claims good to the extent of paying taxes and took their chances of sale of the spacious lots on Northfield's street, each with its allotment of meadow land,
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before the title should be defeated by non-settlement at the end of four years.
With a sense of security, deepened by the absence of Indian threat upon their possessions, the actual settlers, some of whom were already located beyond Mill Brook on "unpurchased" land, opened negotia- tions with the Sachem, Nawelet, for territory to the north. On the 13th of August, that chieftain, accredited with possession of land on both sides of the Connecticut, went down to Northampton and signed the deed that more than doubled Northfield's expanse. It embraced 72 square miles. Mill Brook was the southerly boundary and this base line continued on the west side of the river. The northerly bound was fixed by the brook Wanascatok, which empties into the Con- necticut, six miles away, some time to be well within the territory of the state of Vermont. To east and west, the tract was six miles wide on each side of the river.
The deed to this broad domain ran to William Clarke, Sr., and John King, Sr., both of Northampton, agents for the proprietors of Northfield. With Nawelet, and assuming to be sharers with him in possession, were four other Indians, unknown to history aside from this transaction. The witnesses to the deed included Peter Jethro, an Indian of the Natick tribe, who had profited by John Eliot's teaching and turned his knowledge of English to account by drafting the deeds from the natives ; with him, Jonathan Hunt, Preserved Clap, William Clarke, Jr., Joseph Atherton and Isaac Chauncey. The consideration was 45 pounds "in trade goods already in hand paid or secured to satisfaction."
With a domain of such extent and such undeveloped wealth, there was no reasonable doubt that settlers would arrive. At least the present owners must surely come to their lands. Not in all the frontier, if anywhere in the colony, was such agricultural and domestic poten- tiality. Here was the one town lying on both sides of the Great River, in complete command of stretches of meadow, the whole product of the river's untold years of deposit of tilth through a dozen miles of its windings, and above it the broad plains on either side for secure and healthful homes, with yet a background of noble but accessible hills clothed with heavy virgin forest.
Pioneer spirit was at ebb. The assured comfort of established homes in the lower towns, the manifold ties of kindred, the involve-
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ment in official and church responsibilities and the memories of the disasters that had befallen exposed settlements contributed towards a resistance to the lure of such a paradise. When the next town-meeting was held in February of the following year it was found necessary to draft formal notice to the land-holders that their absence would work forfeiture of title. The lands and all that had been done upon them, the vote ran, should be forfeited to the use of the town if the owners were not here with their families by the tenth of May next ensuing.
Expectation was high among the settled townsmen and means were not lacking for civic development. The town-meeting of Febru- ary 29 voted a levy of forty pounds five shillings on the grants of meadow lands for to build a meeting-house and a bridge over Mill Brook, the stream that intersected the main street. John Clary, Jr., was deputed to submit the projects to the committee.
The meeting lengthened the roster of town offices. Nathaniel Alexander was chosen constable. Jacob Root, William Miller, Judah Hutchinson, measurers of land; Isaac Warner, Jacob Root, fence viewers for Great Meadow; Joseph Warriner, Samuel Boltwood, for Pauchaug ; Zachery Lawrence, Joseph Root, haywards for both mead- ows; Moses Lyman, William Miller, highway wardens. Miller could hold two offices, Root three, but Cornelius Merry, useful as he was when Indians must be bribed to keep the peace, was not deemed worthy of even one. He was still Cornelius, the Irishman, in a society that had the full measure of English race consciousness.
CHAPTER VIII RETARDATION
Colonial Shift Dampens Frontier Spirits
YOUNG CLARY HAD NO DIFFICULTY in securing the consent of the committee at Northampton to the building of the bridge across the brook near his mill and of a meeting-house. Cornelius, the Irishman, called them the "two breedges." How so? "One," said he, "to the upper end of the town and t'other to Heaven."
The miller messenger improved the chance to talk over affairs at Northfield with the committeemen at Northampton. What was it that kept the land-owners from coming to the town? What had so broken the spirits of men like Deacon William Holton, Sergeant John King and the rest? Clary was told of the troubled state of the whole colony. The charter under which it had been building up a great new people had been annulled and in its place had come a merciless and unholy rule by an arbitrary governor.
Sir Edmund Andros had now been for over a year exercising his unyielding rule. Himself only "a poor Knight of Guernsey," he had been clothed with princely authority. He had landed in Boston from "his majesty's frigate, King Fisher," accompanied by a troop of mili- tary, and, arrayed in resplendent attire of silver and lace, had pro- claimed himself "Captain General and Governor in Chief" of all New England. The General Court had been abolished and in its place there was a council chosen by the governor, made up of renegades, of whom the despised Dudley was one. The holding of town-meetings had been forbidden and burdensome taxes had been imposed upon the people.
When Clary, on his visit to Northampton, asked what all this had to do with a new settlement far away from Boston and undisturbed by its troubles, he was told that the very titles to their homes had been denied. The King's ownership of all the lands had been declared
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and new apportionments to those who stood in the governor's favor were threatened.
"But does this wicked governor know not," asked the Northfield miller, "that we have deeds from the Indians and the land is ours?"
"He has been shown these," was the reply, "and he has said that deeds from the Indians were no more than a scratch of a bear's paw."
When Clary returned to Northfield and told the story of the dis- tress that had befallen the whole colony, his fellow villagers observed that instead of being good reason for the land-owners not coming on it was an added one why they should wish to get as far away from all this trouble as they could, in a village that could go on with its home- building and farming and trading undisturbed. They had their deeds of land from the native claimants thereof, both the warranty of years ago and the quit-claim for which they had only lately paid in good measure.
Political troubles in Boston seemed far remote from the business in hand and the shifting of the English crown from one tyrant's head to another's was quite a minor matter to getting their crops planted and their houses built. They were not holden to any frump of a governor and would hold town-meetings whenever they chose. They called one for April 1 1 and to show both their appreciation of the services of the committee which was handling their "prudentials" and their com- mand of their lands voted their honored committee, William Clarke, Sergeant King, Deacon Holton and Ensign Clap five acres of land each, "for all their cost, pains and labor about the settling of the said Northfield," adding that if these patrons would serve a year or two more they would demand no pay from them.
One day mid-summer, while the settlers were busy about their home affairs, there pranced into the village a little company of horse- men whom they saw at a glance not to be of their own, aside from the guide who was recognized as a Hadley man. Clearly the chief of them was an official of distinction. He proved to be the detested Sir Edmund Andros, the captain general and governor in chief, Clary had been told about on his Northampton visit. The red coats of the escort were impressive but one of the settlers, probably Cornelius Merry, later remarked on the good targets they would make for the heathen.
Sir Edmund was in a hurry. While the horses were being baited
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with the precious grain of the village, he looked at the forts, walked unceremoniously into a house or two, took a view of the meadows, and was off again to Hadley, where he was to hold, the next day, a council of the valley towns to consider the defence of the region against the Indians. The Hadley man had given the information that the governor was on the way back to Boston from a journey to New York, where he had proclaimed himself in command there as well as in the Bay colony and all the rest of "New England" and served notice that Governor Dongan was henceforth out of commission.
There was now a new topic for conversation in the village and for serious discussion. The settlers had been given a demonstration of royal authority. It was impressive but failed to alarm. If this gover- nor was going to raise an army to defend the valley towns he was by so much an improvement on any the colonists had put in office, as Northfield could testify out of its past.
"High honor it is has been paid us," said the Irish philosopher among them. "I'm not sayin' we can take on the style of thim sojers but I'll set up Ben Wright here to be as good as the whole of thim to attind to the haythen. Where, now, are the Injuns to worry us at all ?"
One matter of grave concern had not been revealed in the gover- nor's flying visit. It was that the French governor of Canada was already sending small parties of Indians down the New England valleys to kill and to scalp. The strife between France and England, of no concern when on European soil, was a threatening cloud to every exposed settlement when it became warfare to determine which should gain dominion on American soil. Its terrors must enter into the heart of every home in the beautiful valley of the Connecticut, should it take form in the hiring of savage marauders.
The peace that had followed the inglorious death of Philip had been reflected through the years now passing in the friendly relations between the neighboring Indians and the settlers. Slaughter at their hands had been replaced by trading, with its yield of great gains to the white people and subduing gratification of primitive taste for trinkery and fiery drink, forbidden though traffic in this latter com- modity was. But the forts that even a little town like Northfield had been building were token of the abiding distrust of native friendship.
"Who are ye? Where from?" These the questions put to four or
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five Indians, strangers to the village, who came running into it on the morning of the 23rd of July.
"Scagcooks, Fren's." One of these words was as good as the other for the Northfield men already knew that these Indians from the region of Albany were good allies of the New York white folks and were trusted to scout in the north woods for enemy natives. They had left their canoes in the great river and come up to the village to warn the settlers that some North Indians had just gone down the stream and that their errand was not a friendly one. The Scagcooks had fallen in with them far up the Connecticut and the two groups had paddled and floated down the river together. The North Indians could not be made to tell why they were coming down or by whom they had been sent.
"Go and kill and scalp." Such were the orders the governor of Canada had given his Indian hirelings. "When you meet Indians who are friendly to the English or can get to the English themselves, kill and scalp. Bring no prisoners to me and for their scalps I shall give you ten beavers for every one of them." This and more the friendly Scagcooks told the Northfield men-there were eleven in the party of North Indians that had now gone down the river.
"Be upon your guard. We know not whether their hearts are good," was the warning message of the Northfield visitors.
"We are not afraid of them," answered the resolute villagers. "We are not concerned in the wars of Canada."
Down the river, the North Indians paid Deerfield a visit, some of them staying over a night at the house of Thomas Wells. Noth- ing was told of the motive or object of the visitors. They gave no sign of unfriendliness. That Indians should wander, that they should paddle their canoes in mid-summer down the great river, that they should have no object, was not taken as so unusual as to give alarm. Down the river they disappeared.
How innocent and how harmless this visit was came to view three days later when five peaceable Indians were mysteriously murdered at Spectacle Pond, near Springfield. The gentle visitors had struck their blow and could carry back souvenirs to the governor of Canada, good for fifty beaver skins.
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