USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Falmouth > Suckanesset; wherein may be read a history of Falmouth, Massachusetts > Part 2
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On Elizabeth's Isle they found the ruins of an Indian wigwam and a fishing weir; the island itself at that time was overgrown with trees of many sorts, oak, beech, ash and cedar, and much sassafras. They built a rude block- house near the spring, sowed grain on the island of Nau- shon, pursued the deer in the woods, and traded with the Indians who came to visit them.
On May 31, Gosnold explored the mainland and was courteously welcomed by the Indians who made him gifts of skins, tobacco, turtles and wampum, and the English- man said of the country that is today the township of Fal- mouth: "It is replenised with fair fields, and in them fragrant flowers; also meadows and hedged in with stately groves; being furnished also with pleasant brooks and beautified with two main rivers that (as we judge) may haply become good harbors and conduct us to the hopes that men so greedily do thirst after."
The concord in the vessel's name did not exist in fact among the crew; they quarrelled as to who should return and who be exiled, fearing that profits might be withheld
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from those who stayed to keep the island fort; and in the end, on the 18th day of June, the entire company sailed away for England again, taking with them a cargo of cedar and the sassafras that was highly esteemed for medical purposes.
On June 4, 1902, the cornerstone of a memorial stone tower was dedicated on Cuttyhunk to the memory of Gosnold and his fellow explorers. On August 5, 1907, at Woods Hole, the Woods Hole Yacht Club staged a pictur- esque pageant in celebration of the ter-centenary of Gos- nold's landing in this neighborhood, with a reproduction of the Concord, and a depiction of scenes representing the landing of Gosnold and his men, meeting with the In- dians and gifts by the latter of the spicy sassafras.
The committee in charge included many familiar names: Hon. W. O. Luscombe, F. L. Gifford, J. J. Veeder, S. T. Cahoon, E. F. Locke, E. M. Lewis, B. G. Norton, W. G. Gregg, commodore of the Yacht club; Dr. E. G. Gardiner, H. K. Dyer, C. E. Hall, George E. David, H. G. Haddon, sec- retary of the Yacht Club, George B. Wilbur.
J.K. P. Purdum, in a gorgeous suit of blue velvet, bright crimson cape and broad-brimmed hat with a red feather, took the part of Gosnold; Sala. Rose in Indian costume represented the Sachem. Selectmen Silas Hatch, T. P. S. Phinney and Capt. Edwin F. Lawrence greeted Gosnold for the town as did the Rev. C. H. Washburn, chairman of the committee for the celebration.
On August 7, 1907, as a part of the ter-centenary cele- bration, Governor Curtis Guild was the guest of the town for the dedication of the Mariners' Memorial, the beauti- ful boulder, with great anchor a-top, and bronze bas-re- lief of a full-rigged ship, on Locust street, at the inter- section with Mill road and the Woods Hole road. The day included a historical pageant on Main street. Captain Nehemiah P. Baker and Obed Pierce were placed in seats of honor, facing the memorial, and the unveiling was done by three grand-daughters of sea captains, Marion El- dredge, Albinia Fish and Camilla Watson. Beneath the boulder is buried a copper box containing the names of Falmouth sea captains. The Rev. Charles H. Washburn presented the memorial and Silas Hatch, chairman of the selectmen, accepted it in behalf of the town. Gov- ernor Guild was afterwards entertained at the home of Postmaster George W. Jones.
The "settlement" made at Cuttyhunk in 1602 by
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Gosnold endured only a few weeks, being abandoned when the "Concord" returned to Falmouth, England, but the accounts of Brereton and Archer of that expedition are good evidence of the large Indian population on these shores at that period; evidence which is bourne out by the preponderance of Indian place names that have lin- gered through three centuries in our township of Fal- mouth, Massachusetts.
Quissett (originally Quamquissett), Acapesket, Sippe- wissett, Teaticket, Coonemesset, Menauhant, are names that trip as glibly from our tongues today as ever they did from the tongues of the red men who named them. The old Indian burying ground at West Falmouth can still be traced, and along the shores of pond and inlet are still to be found in surprising quantity the arrow heads, axe heads, stone bowl fragments and pestles chipped out with infinite patience before the white man had brought the knowledge of steel and iron to this country.
Although the earliest records of land boundaries in Falmouth, included in the manuscript book called "Pro- prietor's Records," are dated November 29, 1661, this corner of the Cape was known to the white men some time before.
After the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth in 1620, having first landed at Provincetown, a considerable amount of exploring was done around the Cape. By 1627 the Pil- grims were sufficiently familiar with their environs to select Bourne, near the present Cape Cod canal, as the most strategic and convenient point for their trading post where they met the Dutch coming up from New York; in 1639 the Rev. Lothrop and his flock came from Scituate to take up their grant at Barnstable, and two years earlier Sandwich had been settled.
The English had most honorable intentions in the beginning of their real estate transactions with the In- dians of New England. Governor Winslow in a letter dated from Marshfield, May 1, 1676, wrote, "I think I can clearly say that the English did not possess one foot of land in this colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors. We first made a law that none should purchase or receive of gift any land of the Indians without the knowledge of our Court." A law passed in 1643 did indeed lay a five-pound penalty on any who purchased or hired land of the Indians without the knowledge and consent of the Court for every acre, and
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that it was enforced is shown by the fact that Jonathan Hatch, who was later to be one of the founders of Fal- mouth, in 1651, with Samuel Hinckley, was "had up before the grand jury for hiring land of the Indians."
We of the Twentieth century may smile over the Yankee "cuteness" of those old transactions, when titles to large tracts of land were secured by payment of a brass kettle, or two old coats; but before condemning the Pil- grim fathers too hastily for taking advantage of the un- tutored savage, we must recall the value of such articles in the early days when there were no shops in New Eng- land, space in the small cargo boats was at a premium, and the Indians enthusiastic over the practical value of the imported articles. There were many acres of forest land in those days and very few brass kettles, and eco- nomic laws of supply and demand were functioning just the same.
The first recorded mention of our Falmouth appears to be in connection with a purchase of land negotiated by Captain Myles Standish with Paupmunnuck, sachem of the South Sea Indians, which is spoken of in the Barn- stable records as "the third purchase." Difficulties arose over the bounds, but the Indians agreed with Henry Cobb and Isaac Robinson (whom we will meet later as another of the original proprietors of Falmouth) to free the town of Barnstable from making a fence that had been speci- fied as part of the price and from the one bushel of corn, and in consideration the Indians were to receive one great brass kettle seven spans in wideness round about and one brcad hoe. The date of this agreement is 1643, and Paup- munnock acknowledges the bounds of this purchase to be "westward as far as halfway to SECHONESSETT TOWN THE PLACE WHERE THE INDIANS NOW INHABIT."
Suconesset, Suckinesset and Saconessett were all variants of the more approved spelling of the Indian word Succanesset, which for twenty-six years after its found- ing was the name of present day Falmouth.
The word is a compound of the Indian words sucki, black; puquahock, the round clam; and et or set, the place near the water; meaning, thus, the place where black wampum is found, as wampum was made from shells. The black wampum was made from the quahog shell and three beads were equal to an English penny; the Indians called the black "Suck-au-hock", and the white, which was made from the stem of periwinkle shells and
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AMBROSE PELLS "RAIN-IN-THE-FACE" MASHPEE, 1929
GOSNOLD'S COMING
only worth half the value of the black, they termed "wampum". The English called both kinds indiscrimi- nately "wampum".
The Falmouth shore seems to have been a natural ferry for the Indian travel between the mainland and the Vineyard, and white men evidently soon became familiar with it, for in 1657 when the Quakers, John Copeland and Christopher Holder, went from Rhode Island to the Vine- yard and were banished from the Vineyard they were "de- ported" in an Indian canoe which landed them in Fal- mouth whence they made their way through the forest to Sandwich. Perhaps they journeyed by way of Barn- stable, for ten years later, in 1667, a deed of a purchase by Richard Bourne, Nathaniel Bacon and Thomas Hinck- ley from Quachatasett, Sepitt and Acomont, all Indian sachems, gives as one boundary of the purchase "the high- way which leads from Barnstable to Saconessett", How- ever, they would seem to have appeared in Sandwich be- fore being in Barnstable, so it is a fair presumption that an Indian trail led from Falmouth to Sandwich which was known to the white men as well.
The Indians found by the white settlers around Suc- kinesset belonged to the tribe of Pokanoks, who were called generally, the Wampanoags, Pokanok means "Peo- ple of the Bays" and "Wampanoag" is translated as "Peo- ple of the East." Popmunett was the name of the sachem of the "Praying Wampanoags" along the shores of what is now Mashpee, his name being translated "Great Chief Partridge", and his name occurs on early deeds to land in this vicinity. Pah-pon-essett, or Popponessett as it is called today, was the abiding place of this sachem and his followers, the name meaning "Place-where-we-stay- in-winter".
In 1660, about the time Falmouth was settled, Qua- chatisset was delegated to represent the Praying Indians in the request made to have Mashpee set aside as an In- dian reservation, which was done by the Governor's Coun- cil, the reservation status being maintained until 1872, when the town of Mashpee was created and the tribal lands divided. There were only 263 Indians in Mashpee in 1698 and by 1764 they had dwindled to a census of 119.
During the King Philip's War, the Cape Wampanoags remained neutral, save for a few braves who went to join the forces. A character connected both with the war and with Falmouth is Queen Awashonks, whose village was at
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what is now Little Compton, R. I., but who, by tradition, is said to have often spent the summers at Falmouth Heights. Queen Awashonks and her consort, Tolony, signed a treaty of peace with the white men at Plymouth July 24, 1671, and when Philip ordered them to send war- riors, Awashonks not only refused, but notified Captain Church of the English forces.
Captain Church was wounded in the Great Swamp fight Dec. 19, 1675, but in May went by sloop from Rhode Island to Plymouth, and it is recorded that as they passed Woods Hole, they saw some Indians fishing on the rocks. Church went ashore and held a pow-wow with Peter Awashonks, Chief George and their warriors and they offered him men to fight Philip. A little later Captain Church led the company he had collected on his journey to Sandwich and Plymouth to battle against King Philip who was eventually killed at Mt. Hope by a Wampanoag Indian called Alderman.
Both the names of Chief Popmunet and of Queen Awashonks are perpetuated in the names of whaling ves- sels built at Falmouth in the nineteenth century, the Awashonks being famed for a bloody battle in the South Seas of which a Falmouth man was hero, to be recounted later in this history.
The relations between Falmouth settlers and Indians were in the main friendly although Jenkins in his "His- tory of Falmouth" relates that a Quissett family had a woman and her small son stolen by Indians, forced to enter canoes and carried off to an Indian village where the mother, excluded from shelter of the wigwams, per- ished from exposure. The lad, he says, after remaining some time with the Indians, ran off and returned to his home.
Generally, however, the Indians were on good terms and apparently took an intelligent interest in their neigh- bor's doings, since Jenkins also relates that in a dispute over the boundary which originally ran from Five-Mile River, at the southern end of Coonemessett Lake, to Chap- paquoit Rock in West Falmouth, an old Indian named John Horton was called in and led the parties to a pile of brush beneath which lay the bound-stone. This is remini- scent of the "Indian taverns" or heaps of brush still to be seen at certain cross-roads in Mashpee which are said to be very ancient in their origin.
Old documents bear testimony that the Indians found
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employment in the old Falmouth households. A bill of sale dated September 2, 1747, and signed by Moses Hatch, says "Know all men by these Presents that I, Moses Hatch, of Falmouth of the County of Barnstable, New England, Gentleman.
For and in consideration of the Sum of One Hundred and Sixty Pounds old Tenour, to me in hand paid by Pa- tience Hatch Relict of my Honored Father Moses Hatch Dec'd. and my son Sylvanus Hatch Labourer have Bar- gained, Sold and made over .... my Right and Title unto an Indian Man named Jube and a Mustee or Indian Wo- man named Peggy as Servants for life, which sd. servants were conveyed and made over to me by my sd. Hon'd Father."
The Quakers were given to taking up subscriptions to buy the freedom of negro and Indian slaves. Mrs. Arnold J. Gifford has a paper dated Dec. 17, 1745 which reads:
"Then received of benjamin gifford forty shillings in Cash of ye old tener towards freeing my negro boy for- tunatous sharper by name at the age of thirty five years."
Another paper in Mrs. Gifford's possession says: falmouth, July ye 14 day 1752
Mr. Bengiman giford I should bene very glad if you would Pay the money that you ow to me to Mr. John Hinkely as Sown as you can Posebily. One Pound nine Shillings and nin Pence I payd the old indins for the indin boy. You was to give fife pound mor." There is a note added showing that in all 6 pounds three shillings "was paid the Squaw for the Boy."
There is an old Indian burying place on the Bower- man and Gifford property on the shore of Buzzards Bay in West Falmouth, and another in North Falmouth near Camp Cowasset. At Maravista, near Falmouth Heights are to be found a profusion of flint arrow heads, stone pestles and mortars and other signs of an old Indian vil- lage. Long Pond is said to have been another favorite Indian camping ground of which Mrs. Frances E. Swift wrote a charming poem, based on an old tradition of an Indian girl deserted by a white lover after she had spurned her Indian brave.
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CHAPTER III
A RUNAWAY 'PRENTICE
T HE founding of a town is not as simple a fact as the statement of a date would imply. We can say that Falmouth was 'founded' in 1661, we may take the date November 29, 1661, when the records of the lay- ing off of land were begun as the precise date; but years and months give us no measure, no picture, of the inter- play of environment, coincidence, and character of in- dividual men that led to the establishing of the little group of homes on the shore of Fresh Pond.
Fortunately for the human interest of the historical narrative, certain facts about two leading characters in the settlement of Succanesset (or Falmouth) throw high lights on the strange weaving of Fate's threads that drew the son of a famous clergyman and a little orphan lad together at length to found a new town. These men were Isaac Robinson and Jonathan Hatch.
There was a William Hatch among the passengers of the ship Hercules which sailed from Sandwich, England in 1635, and William Hatch built him a house at Scituate,. on Kent Street, that same year. In 1639 among the new grantees at Mattacheese (Yarmouth) was one Thomas Hatch, who in 1647 is mentioned as 'the late Thomas Hatch.' What relation, if any, William was to Thomas, we have no data, but Jonathan was the son of Thomas. At the age of 14 Jonathan was apprenticed to Lieutenant Richard Davenport of Salem, and it is fair to presume that his father was then dead or he would not have been separated from his family, since sons were such an asset in the pioneer work of the early settlers.
Two years later, in 1640, when 16 years old, Jonathan had run away from the lieutenant and was apprehended in Boston where he was sentenced 'to be severly whipt and for the present is committed for a slave to Lieutenant Davenport." Jonathan's judgment was against complying
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with the order to return to his previous master, and he escaped and made his way back to Yarmouth. It has been said that his mother was living there, and certainly the next year or two would appear as though he had a home in which discipline was not strict, for a short while after arriving, in Dec. 1640, Captain Nicholas Sympkins charged Jonathan with slandering him. Jonathan came out of this very well, for he was found not guilty and Sympkins himself was fined 40 shillings. By spring the town was concerning itself over Jonathan's mode of life, and in March he was "taken as a vagabond and for his misdemeanors was censured to be whipt and sent from constable to constable to Lieutenant Davenport in Salem."
Jonathan apparently argued his cause with convic- tion, for a month later the court reconsidered its sentence and he was "appointed to dwell with Mr. Stephen Hopkins at Yarmouth." Mr. Stephen Hopkins had been a May- flower passenger and was one of the leading citizens of Yarmouth, where he had built a house in 1638. The whole early story of Jonathan Hatch seems to be the tragedy of a high-spirited, independent, sturdy lad, who stood up for himself when older men tried to tyrannize over him, but yet impressed the elders with his good qualities so that in reversing their sentence after Lieut- enant Davenport's plea, instead of ordering Jonathan to be 'a slave,' they merely 'appointed' him to dwell with Mr. Hopkins, which he did until the latter's death in 1644.
Again Jonathan was left alone in the world, and he did the natural thing for a youth of 20 of his tempera- ment; in 1645 he went a-soldiering with Myles Standish against the Narragansett Indians. Returning from the campaign he did another natural thing, he got him a wife, marrying Sarah Rowley, April 11, 1646. It is sup- posed that thereafter he lived in West Barnstable on the farm of his wife's father, Henry Rowley.
Jonathan, we have seen, had d an independent temperament, therefore we need not be surprised to find him, five years later, Oct. 7, 1651, had up before the court with Samuel Hinckley for hiring land of the Indians, con- trary to the law. Jonathan had been left no patrimony, and this was evidently an essay to strike out for himself. He had probably picked up a thorough knowledge of the Indian language and become most friendly with the South Sea Indians of this neighborhood, for in March, 1652, he was prosecuted for furnishing an Indian with gun,
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powder and shot, It was recognized, however, that this was no treason to the colony, but rather friendship for the Indians, since the next year he was one of the jury to lay out the road from Sandwich to Plymouth and in 1657 was admitted to take the oath of fidelity, which as- sures us that he had achieved enough of the world's goods by his own labor to be a tax-payer.
Two years before, Feb. 14, 1655, he received title to a grant of land, 50 acres or more at a place called Sepuisset, which is probably Seapuit, as it was 'on ye South Sea' and 4 acres of meadow land in Oyster Island. There he dwelt for six years, a mile from the wigwam of the sachem Paumunecke (or Popmunnet) and traded with the Indians and grew ever more friendly with them and more trusted of them.
Living near the wigwam of the sachem Popmunnet, Jonathan Hatch established close relations with the Indians. In 1658 some of his trouble-making neighbors charged him before the court with having 'justified' an Indian named Repent who had shot at Governor Prince. Hatch cleared himself of this charge, as he had the charge of slander brought by Sympkins years before, and we are left to draw the inference that he was a blunt- speaking man who feared no one and occasionally trod on the toes of less stalwart souls.
Throughout his life he seems to have remained on terms with the Indians that few white men achieved in those days, most regarding them either as dangerous ver- min to be exterminated, or miserable heathen to be con- verted and civilised. Jonathan Hatch seems to have met the red man on an equal basis, and we can imagine him hunting or fishing with his friends, or sitting in their wigwams to hear long tales of folk lore that would be in- valuable had he handed them down. In 1670, when he was conducting an 'ordinary' or inn in Succanessett, Jonathan was fined 3 pounds for selling liquor to the Indians, and somehow one imagines him as handing a heart-warming tot to a red skin out of friendship rather than as pandering to their weakness for gain. The strict- thinking colonists did not view it in that light, however, and Jonathan paid his fine.
Later yet he bought three Indians, man, wife and child, of a Captain Church; that is, he practically ran- somed three slaves, and knowing what we do of his feel- ings towards Indians, we can imagine that he bought
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them to give them a kinder home. In 1679 the brothers of the woman appeared in court and Hatch agreed that they might buy her freedom for 6 pounds and the child to remain with Goodman Hatch until 24 years of age when he should be released. Knowing what Jonathan Hatch had endured as an apprentice, we may surmise that the Indian lad had no hard lot so long as he lived with Goodman Hatch.
The deed for the purchase of Woods Hole, as printed by Robinson Crocker Bodfish in the Falmouth Enterprise, 1902, has a note that the original was in the handwriting of Governor Thomas Hinckley and was found among the papers of Mr. Thatcher L. Clark of Falmouth; we quote it in full for its quaint terminology:
"To all people to whom these presents shall come
Job (No(ta)ntico, son of Thomas Notantico, Indyan sendeth greeting, &c. Know yee that I, the said Job of Suckanessett in the Government of New Plymouth, understanding that my father, the said N(ac) antico, Sachem for many years since, about or before the begin- ning of Suckanessett plantation, freely and absolutely grant and gave vnto Jonathan Hatch, senior of the said Suckanessett, all track of lands, or neck of land, com- monly called Woods Hole Neck, excepting a part wch he said No(cu)ntico reserved for himself and his heirs and assgns wch afterward on some consideration, he ex- changed with Suckanessett men and accepted in lue thereof forty acres, be it more or less, wch was laid out and bounded to him ye said Nocantico, my ffather at a place commonly called little Sepuissett to be held ** him to his heirs and assigns forever with (word crossed out) liberty to cutt such sticks and wood in ye commons as he and his heirs should need, in consideration whereof (to- gether with ye right of the sd Jonathan Hatches full share of taking fish in Masansaguessett river, and ye finns and tayles of any whales cast on shore on ye said neck, to myne and my heirs forever) and for divers other good reasons me at this time espetially moving, I, the said Job, do grant and by these presents confirm vnto him the said Jonathan Hatch, his heires and assigns, forevr all the estate, right, title and interest wch I ever had, now have, or ought to have vnto the said Woods Hole Neck, to hav and to hold all ye said granted and hereby con- firmed premises of Woodses Hole Neck and all the ap- pertenances thereto belonging vnto him ye said Jonathan
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Hatch, his heirs and assignes, and to the only p'per use and behoofs of him, the said Jonathan Hatch, his heires and assigns forever (excepting as befforeis excepted to be Reserved)-
And I, the said Job Nocuntico, do for myself, my heires and Assigns by these presents do remise, release and quit clayme forever vnto ye said Jonathan Hatch, heires and assigns, all ye estate, right, title, use or interest (except as before excepted) wch we or any of us may or ought to have in the said Woods hole Neck, so that the said Jonathan Hatch his heires and assigns shall or may from time to time, and at all times hereafter, quietly, peaceably have, hold, occupy or possess and enjoy all ye said granted and released in manner and form aforesaid, according to ye true intent and meaning of these presents without any lett hindrance eviction me ( *** )tion suite or disturbance whatsoever from, by or vnder me, heires or assigns or by mine own or any other means or procure- ment.
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