USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 43
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on his tomb, with the arms, is given in the Heraldic Journal, ii. 22. Shurtleff, Description of Boston, p. 195; Savage, Genealogical Dic- tionary, iv. 23; Whitman, Ancient and Honor- able Artillery Company. He lived near the northerly corner of North and Fleet streets, and had a shop near Edward Gibbons's house. lle was a tailor. - ED.]
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BOSTON IN PHILIP"'S WAR.
Hope, in an action in which young Savage was wounded. His father, the commander-in-chief, arrived the next day, and led his force to an attack on Mount Hope. They found and destroyed Philip's own wigwam. But the enemy had flown. After a week's marching and countermarching, Ilench- man with his force crossed into Rhode Island, and gave efficiency to the negotiation which Edward Hutchinson and Joseph Dudley had been directed to carry on with the Narragansetts. The Sachenis of that tribe bound themselves not to enter into the war, and to detain any of Philip's subjects who fell in their way; to surrender any goods stolen from the English, and themselves to make war against Philip: for which they gave four hostages. This treaty was signed by Coeman, Taitson, and Tawageson, as " Councillors and Attorneys" to the six Sachenis of the Narragansetts. It is dated on the 15th of July.
While this was passing, Colonel Benjamin Church, in command of the forces in the Old Colony, had brought Philip and his men to bay at Pocasset, on Taunton River. So soon as Henchman returned, on the 18th of July, he undertook to besiege them there. Retaining his own company of foot he sent the other Massachusetts companies home. Prentice and his troop were ordered to Mendon, in Norfolk County. Philip outwitted Henchman. Hc waded the Taunton River at low tide with his warriors, leaving one hun- dred women and children behind. Henchman secured these, and learning that Philip was marching north-west followed with his company, about a day behind. He went to Providence in a sloop, " giving each one three biscakes, a fish, and a few raisons, with ammunition that may last two or three days." A party of Mohegans, on their way from Boston to reinforce him, cut off . Philip's rear, and killed about thirty men. But Philip escaped further pursuit. Henchman was blamed for letting him escape. It seems clear that the blame, after the first mistake, was not well deserved. But Philip himself said, that when they were in Pocasset their powder was almost gone, and that if they had been pressed there they must have surrendered.
The intense excitement in Boston, meanwhile, may be well conceived. As Leverett's letter has shown, the Council appointed a Fast for the 29th of June. But persons who suppose such appointments were very eagerly met must notice the memorandum on the Dorchester church records: "There was no meeting that day in this town, but people went abroad to meetings in other towns." Besides the troop of Prentice, Captain Isaac Johnson was ordered on the 15th to march with sol- Flack Formjon diers " listed under the order of Major Treatt" (Governor of Connecticut), as also some others from Boston, to relieve Mendon and Wrentham. Johnson was of Roxbury, the son of John Johnson. Like all the other train-band captains, he was a man of distin- guished social position. He had been many years in the artillery company, and had served in the Legislature.1 Major Treatt, who had formerly lived
1 [F. S. Drake, Town of Roxbury, P. 393, says he lived opposite Amory Street, where Centre Street bends to the west. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL, HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in Connecticut, was acting under the orders of Connecticut in command of some auxiliary Mohegans.
The towns westward from Medfield and Wrentham, as far as Springfield, Westfield, Hadley, and Hatfield, were in constant danger through the rest
of the year. Edward Hutchinson was killed in an carly surprise near Thomas Wholly Marlborough. He and Captain Wheeler, of Concord, had been despatched on an expedition from Boston into the Nipmuck country, to ascertain how those Indians were affected. Wheeler was wounded in the same ambush.
Henchman and Mosley, with Boston soldiers, were moving backward and forward as occasion directed. Beers, Captain of Watertown, and Lothrop, at the head of the " Flower of Essex," were killed in that campaign. It was Captain Mosley's good fortune, hearing the musketry, to come to the relief of the wounded after the massacre at Bloody Brook. Lothrop lost fifty- nine men; Mosley lost three.1
Of all these commanders, Samuel Mosley is he who would figure most brilliantly in a romance. He had, perhaps, been what we call a privateer. He had a rough-and-ready way with him, and indulged his prejudices to the country's injury. It was he who, in this western campaign, took fifteen friendly Indians from their fort at Marlborough, and sent them under guard, tied to each other, to Boston, to be tried for the attack on Lancaster. It was he of whom the old story is told, that he took off his wig and hung ยท it on a tree that he might fight more coolly, -to the great terror of the enemy, who thought there was little use in scalping such a man. It was he who, next year, in proposing to raise another company, said he would take for pay the captives and plunder, - and was permitted to do so. He was a lesser Garibaldi, and, it need hardly be added, was always in hot water.
Meanwhile, Boston had all the terrors and other excitements of a town which is a little removed from the scene of danger, where every rumor swells the truth, and people have not the safety-valve of vigorous work before an enemy. In August, when the Christian Indians at Marlbor- ough were tried on the charge of murder. John Eliot, the minister of Rox- bury, with Daniel Gookin, always the Indians' loyal friend, made every effort to save them from the popular fury, and succeeded with all but one, who was sold for a slave. There seemed some doubt of his innocence ; that of the others was certain. But their friends brought the indigna- tion of the mob on their own heads. Eliot happened to be run down in a boat, by a large vessel, and was almost drowned. Cotton Mather repeats with horror the exclamation of some man unknown, that he wished Eliot
1 Only 1wo names are legible, - Peter Barron slain in the county of Hampshire, 1675, is and John Vates. These, it will be observed, given in the Massachusetts Archives, Ixviii. 33. were privateers, or volunteers. [A list of the - ED.]
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BOSTON IN PHILIP'S WAR.
had been drowned.1 The Indians, after acquittal, were let loose by night. This so inflamed the mob, that some thirty boys and young fellows called at nine o'clock at night on James Oliver, a magistrate, thinking he would lead them in an attack on the prison, that they might take and hang one remaining Indian. Oliver manfully took his cane and cudgelled them then and there, and "so far dismissed them." There was a clamor for " martial law." A few days after, when a Watertown man, named Shattucke, had said at the porch of the "Three Cranes," in Charlestown, that he would be hanged, if he would ever serve again if the Marlborough Indians were cleared, Gookin relates with satisfaction that within a quarter of an hour he was drowned by the sinking of the Charlestown ferry-boat. There were other men on board, but all were saved except him.
Swayed by the popular resentment, or striving to satisfy it, the General Court made stringent orders about Indians. None were to enter the town unless with a guard of two musketeers; any Indian found in town without such gnard might be arrested. And by another vote Eliot's colony of pray- ing Indians at Natick were removed to Deer Island, in Boston Harbor, with the consent of Mr. Shrimpton, who owned it. Prentice supervised the sad removal. The Indians made no opposition. Two hundred men, women, and children, they loaded their little possessions on six carts Prentice had brought with him, and at a place called "The Pines," at the Arsenal grounds, not far from Mount Auburn, they were put on boats for the Island. At "The Pines" Eliot met them to comfort and help them. On the 30th of October, at the full tide, they embarked at midnight and were carried to the Island. Another colony of friendly Indians and prisoners were afterwards sent to Long Island, in the harbor. They were kept at fishing and digging clams, and when the next summer came they broke up the land at Deer Island for planting. The Council ap- pointed two " meet men" to oversee them, and supply them with food. Before winter came, the number of the Deer-Island colony had enlarged to five hundred.
It has been seen that Philip had abandoned his women and children with- out hesitation. These were made prisoners; most of them seem to have been brought to Boston, as well as the prisoners of war. At first they were assigned to such families as would receive them ; but before the war ended they were sent into West-Indian slavery. "What was the fate of Philip's wife and child? She is a woman; he is a lad. They surely did not hang them? No. That would have been mercy. They were sold into slavery : West-Indian slavery ! An Indian princess and her child sold from the cool breezes of Mount Hope, from the wild freedom of a New-England forest, to gasp under the lash beneath the blazing sun of the tropics! Bitter as death ! Ay, bitter as hell!" These are Mr. Everett's indignant words in his Bloody-Brook address. Dear old John Eliot of Roxbury made his protest
1 [Eliot's own account of this incident is quoted in Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 183 .- ED.] VOL. 1. - 41.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
against this barbarity at the moment. A thousand pities that it was unheeded ! !
Randolph picked up some of the gossip about Eliot and his friends, when in his report of September, 1676, he said: " These have been the most barbarous and cruel enemies to the English," - a charge which is wholly untrue. In the State archives are two weather-stained placards, duplicates in manuscript, posted on the walls to alarm Gookin and Danforth. They are in this language : -
" Feb. 28, 1675.
" Reader, thou art desired not to suppress this paper, but to promote the design, which is to testify (those traitors to their King and country ) Guggins and Danford, that some ginerous spiritts have vowed their destruction ; as Christians we warn them to prepare for death, for though they will deservedly die, yet we wish the health of their souls.
" By the new Society, A. B. C. D." 2
Richard Scott was imprisoned and tried for scandalous, reproachful, and vile execrations of several persons in authority. He pleaded that he. was drunk, and was discharged on giving bonds for his good behavior.
1 It remains in his own manuscript in the archives of the State; never printed, indeed, until now : -
"To the Honorable Council sitting at Boston this 13th 6th 1675 : --
" The humble petition of John Eliot showeth that the terror of selling away such Indians into the islands for rer- petual slavery, who shall yield up themselves to your mercy, is like to be an effectual prolongation of the war. Such an exasperation of them as it may produce we know not what evil consequence upon all the land. Christ hath said: ' Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' This usage of them is worse than death. To put to death men that have deserved to die is an ordinance of God, and a blessing is promised for it. It may be done in faith The design of Christ in these last days is not to extirpate na- tions, but to gospelize them. He will spread the gospel round the world about. Rev. xi. 15: 'The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.' His sovereign hand and grace hath brought the gospel into these dark places of the earth. When we came we declared to the world, and it is recorded, yea, we are engaged by our Letters Patent from the King's Majesty, that the endeavor for the Indians' conver- sion, not their extirpation, were one great end of our enter- prise in coming to these ends of the earth. The Lord hath so succeeded the work as that (by his grace) they have the Iloly Scriptures, and sundry of themselves able to teach their countrymen the good knowledge of God. The light of the gospel is risen among those that sat in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death. And however some of them have refused to receive the gospel, and now are incensed in their spirits into a war against the English, yet by that good promise, - Psalm ii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, - 1 doubt not but the morning of Christ is to open a door for the free passage of the gospel among them, and that the Lord will publish the Word. Ver. 6: 'Yet have I set my king, my anointed, upon the holy hill of Zion, though some rage at it.'
" My humble request is that you would follow Christ his designs in this matter to foster [?] the passages of religion
among them, and not to destroy them. To send into a place a slave away from spiritual direction, to the eternal ruin of their souls, ist as I apprehend to act contrary to the mind of Christ. Christ's command is we should enlarge the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Isay, liv. 2: 'Enlarge the place of thy tent.'
" It seemeth to me that to sell them away as slaves is to hinder the enlargement of his kingdom. How can a Chris- tian sell [except ?] to act in casting away their souls for which Christ hath in an eminent hand provided an offer of the gospel ? To sell souls for money seemeth to me a danger- ous merchandise. If they deserve to die, it is far better to be put to death under godly persons who will take religious care that means may be used that they may die penitently. To sell them away from all means of grace when Christ hath provided means of grace for them is the way for us to be active in destroying their souls, when we are highly obliged to seek their conversion and salvation, and have opportunity in our hand so to do. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. A fugitive ser- vant from a Pagan master might not be delivered to this master, but be kept in Israel for the good of his soul. How much less lawful is it to sell away souls from under the light of the gospel into a condition where their souls shall be utterly lost so far as appeareth unto men ! All men (of reading) condemn the Spaniard for cruelty upon this point in destroying men and depopulating the land. The coun- try is large enough. Here is land enough for them and us too.
"In the multitude of people is the King's honor. It will be more to the glory of Christ to have many brought in to worship his great name.
" I beseech the honorable Council to pardon my bold- ness, and let the case of conscience be discussed orderly be- fore the thing be acted. Pardon my weakness, and leave to reason and religion their liberty in this great case of con- science."
2 | Mass. Archives, xxx. 193. Palfrey, iii. 201, has a note of this incensed feeling of the popu- lace. The matter is also examined by Dr. Ellis in his chapter on " The Indians of Eastern Mas- sachusetts " in the present volume. - ED.]
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BOSTON IN PHILIP'S WAR.
To return to the prosecution of the war in the field. The Commission- ers of the four united colonies determined to carry the war against the Narragansetts. It was charged that their young men had been found in the parties of warlike Indians. It was certain that they had not delivered up the Wampanoags, Philip's men, who had taken shelter with them. Far less had they held to the treaty made by their " attorneys," and carried on war against him. A new army of one thousand men was now called out, of which Massachusetts was to furnish five hundred and twenty-seven. Bos- ton, as she then was, furnished one hundred and eight. Charlestown fur- nished fifteen. Winslow was the commander-in-chief. Dec. 13, 1676, is one of the terrible days in our history. The lit- Hash Davenport ec tle army marched from Bull's Fort, known to modern tourists as Tow- er Hill, on Narragansett Bay. Passing over Kingston Hill, in a cold snow- storm, they came upon the Indian fort in the midst of a swamp. The Stonington railroad of to-day passes close by the place. They stormed the fort at once. Johnston and Davenport were killed at the head of their men, in leading the attack. It was only after a severe battle that the place was taken, and the wigwams burned. The only vestiges to be found to-day are here and there a grain of Indian corn burned black in the destruction.1 The full loss of the army was thirty-one killed and sixty-seven wounded. Such, at least, was the official return at the time. Appleton of Ipswich had been withdrawn from Samush Appleton. the west for this expedition, and Savage took his place.
The power of the Narragansetts was thus broken. But war harried every frontier ; and on the 28th of December the Council of Massachusetts passed an order to add three hundred more men to the army, of which Suf- folk should furnish one hundred and twelve. For this order the commission- ers thanked the Council the next day. The Suffolk militia had all been in readiness to take the field at once, since the session of the Court in October. The army with its reinforcements kept the field, much of the time in terri- ble weather, following the remnants of the Narragansetts where it could find them. The men suffered a great deal from the cold. But on the 5th of February, when the army returned to Boston, there were not wanting critics
1 The names of the men who were killed, of Boston and towns now united with it, are : Captain Isaac Johnson, of Roxbury ; Captain S. Daven- port, of Boston; Benjamin Langdon, John Far- mer, Richard Barnam, Jeremiah Stock, Thomas Browne (substitute for Paul Bat), Alexander Forbes, James Thomas, Irland Trevor (substi- tute for Davis Turner), all of Boston; John Watson, William Linckern, Solomon Watts, all of Roxbury; John Warner, of Charlestown.
The wounded from the same towns were John Blandon, James Updick, Sergeant Peter Bennett, Sergeant Timberly, James Lendall, Wil- liam Kemble (servant to John Cheems), Ezekiel Gilman, Mark Rounds (servant to Henry Kem- ble), Alex Bogell, John Casey (servant to Thomas Gardiner), all of Boston ; Jacob Cook, of Charles- town; John Speer, of Dorchester, and "sundry others." The Massachusetts Archives contain various lists of this kind.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
who said they should have done something the army did not do. The severest part of the war, for whites and Indians both, was to be crowded into the next four months.
Captain Hull's contemporary diary, kept in Boston, might show us the view of things by a bigoted and hard man of affairs there. But it follows the universal law of diaries ; namely, that when a man is busy he has no time or heart to write the record, and that it is only when he has nothing to say that he wastes his time in'memoranda. For pages as crowded as ours, per- haps no briefer skeleton of the history could be given than his, which is here copied, with no abridgment : -
" Several particular fasts this year. Feb. 10, Lancaster spoiled by the enemy. 21st, Medfield in part burned by ditto. Mar. 13, Groton burned. 26th, Marlborough burned in part. 28th, Rehoboth assaulted. April 6, John Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut, died in Boston. 18th, Sudbury part burned by the enemy. Capt. Wads- worth, Capt. Brocklebanck, and fifty soldiers slain. The second and third months were very sickly throughout this colony. April 25, Major Simon Willard, one of our magistrates, died, a pious Orthodox man. Mr. Peter Lidget died, an accomplished merchant. May 8, some houses burned at Bridgewater. 11th, some also toward Plymouth. 14th, Mr. Hezekiah Usher died, a pious and useful merchant. 15th, Mr. Richard Russell died, a magistrate and the county treasurer, a godly man. 16th, Mr. Joshua Atwater died. 18th, the Fall Fight, many Indians slain. 24th, Capt. William Davis died. June 29th, a day of public thanksgiving. Aug. 12, Sagamore Philip, that began the war, was slain." 1
Twenty such entries, passing through the sad gamut of fasting and grief, but culminating in thanksgiving, are all the Boston merchant finds time for in seven months.2
The share which Boston took in such a season must be briefly told. The Fast Day in the old meeting-house on the 23d was interrupted by alarms, and on the 25th Major Savage marched again to the west, as far as North- ampton, which he relieved. John Curtis of Roxbury was " guide to the forces," and six friendly Indians from Deer Island went with them. All this year the " friendly Indians " are much more cordially spoken of; and before the war was over they were enlisted, and served with distinction and success. Meanwhile Philip and his men having pressed too far westward, in retiring from the English, were attacked by the Mohawks, whom he kept off by a short truce, but who afterwards fell on his women and children. A letter from Savage at Hadley, written in March, makes it almost certain that the Dutch traders supplied the Indians with powder. But Andros, who was Governor of New York, was very indignant when this charge was made.3 The Fall Fight - so called from the great Falls of Connecticut River, now known as Turner's Falls - was a victory over the savages ; but it cost the life
1 [Hull's diary, edited by Mr. Hale, is printed
more particular in its references to these events. in the American Antiquarian Society's Collection, -ED.]
iii. - ED.]
2 | Sewall's diary (Sewall Papers, I.) is hardly
3 [Several letters of Andros are in the Mus- sachusetts Archives. - ED.]
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BOSTON IN PHILIP'S WAR.
of William Turner, a Boston captain. He was not a train-band captain, but early offered to raise a company of volunteers. Because he was a prominent Baptist his offer was at first slighted ; but he had found his services more esteemed at Will Joner the front, and at the time of the battle where he lost his life he was commanding a company of Hadley, Hatfield, and Hampton soldiers.
On the 20th of April another fast was held, close on the news of the loss at Sudbury ; and on the 27th another " army " is raised for a westward expe- dition. April and May were very sickly months. In May alone fifty per- sons died in the little town, whose whole census, including its soldiers in the field, cannot have been six thousand.} On the 9th of May is another day of humiliation, attended at the First Church by the magistrates and General Court ; and on the 21st of June one church in Boston held another. But by the 29th of June, as the reader has seen from Hull's journal, affairs had so far brightened that on that day, as the anniversary of the first fast day of the war, the Government ordered a day of thanksgiving. The Boston troops returned from an expedition to Mount Hope on the 22d of July, dissatisfied. But they had taken or killed one hundred and fifty Indians with the loss of only one man. With Philip's death the war, except at the phillip alias mitacome his Smarke eastward, ended.2 So com- plete was the destruction of the Indian power, that in the proclamation of the annual THE MARK OF PHILIP.8 Thanksgiving in December it was said: "Of those several tribes and parties that have hitherto risen up against us, which were not a few, there now scarce remains a name or family of them in their former habitations but are either slain, captivated, or fled into remote parts of this wilderness, or lie hid, despairing of their first intentions against us."
There was never again an important Indian rising, not instigated by Jesuit or French hatred. But the terrors of Philip's war were the origin of the horror and contempt with which for a century men regarded the Indians.
For such local incidents, connected with this life-and-death struggle, as it has been possible to collect, the best authorities are the contemporary his-
1 Fifteen hundred families is the guess in a report to England. See Chalmers's Annals. But in 16So there were but eight hundred and sixty- eight taxable polls, which gives the full num- ber of males above eighteen years of age. [Tax-lists of 1674-76 are printed in the First Report of the Boston Record Commissioners. - ED.]
2 [One of the most insolent of the Indians, Monahco, -or one-eyed John, - was marched, with others who had been taken, through the Boston streets with a halter about his neck,
and hanged at the "town's end," Sept. 26, 1676 .- ED.]
3 [This is taken from a deed of land in Taunton, the original of which belonged to the late S. G. Drake (Drake, Boston, p. 387). The Rhode Island Historical Society have erected a stone on the spot where he fell. Proccedings, 1877-78, p. 106. In 16So four Boston merchants bought a part of Mount Ilope neck and laid out the town of Bristol, and Colonel Benjamin Church settled there. Cf. Rhode Island Hist. Soc. Proc., 1874-75, p. 60. - ED. ]
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THE MEMORIAL IHISTORY OF BOSTON.
tories, Gookin's admirable narration of the praying Indians, the letters of the time, and the State archives. These have been freely used in this narra- tive. The church records afford little light on a struggle which was, how- ever, followed with intense interest in the churches. "Ned Randolph," as he was called, in his spiteful review of the war, written the same year, says that the church members staid at home, and only "loyal" men went to battle. But this is not true, even as he meant it. It is clear that all classes shared in the dangers of the struggle. The churches contributed freely for the poor of the towns destroyed or depopulated. For instance, the Old South provided a house for the Rowlandsons after their captivity.
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