USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 9
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In his Brief and True Relation, John Brereton told the story of Gosnold's expedition to New England in 1602. In 1605 Champlain made the first accurate survey of the New England coast and pro- vided a comprehensive map with charts of various harbors including that of the future Plymouth which he called Port St. Louis. In 1616 Captain John Smith's Description of New England first gave that name to the territory and with the volume was a map on which the name Plymouth was given to the site where four years later the Pilgrims gave that name to the town they founded. Winslow's Journal was published in 1622 and his Good News from New England in 1624, and that same year came Captain Smith's General History. John White's Planter's Plea was brought out in 1630; Wood's New England's Prospect in 1634; and Morton's New English Canaan in 1637.
The foregoing is by no means a complete catalog of the guide books available at that time, but collectively these give rather complete information for the prospective settler in New England. In them is data regarding the clothing, tools, utensils and furnishings that were requisite for the emigrant's necessities and comfort. Vocabularies of Indian words were included. Descriptions were given of the coun- try, its climate and natural products. Every question seems to have been anticipated.
In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Europe suffered from an epidemic of a disease then known as French pox, but which today is called syphilis. It was thought to have had its origin in America and as the natives there seemed not to suffer from it, it was contended that they must possess a deterrent or cure, which on the authority
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of a Spanish doctor, Monades, was determined to be the root of the sassafras tree. In consequence the root commanded a price sufficient to make two special voyages to New England a good commercial venture.
17th Century Shallop From Contemporary Drawing in Library of the University at Leyden, The Netherlands
The first was that of Barthomolew Gosnold who was financed by the Earl of Southampton, friend of Shakespeare. In 1602 he searched the Maine coast and after sailing past Cape Cod, settled down for the summer on Cuttyhunk Island. He took back to England so much sassafras as to break the market price, to the dismay of Sir Walter Raleigh, who held the patent for the territory. Raleigh sought com- pensation for consequent losses but Gosnold had sufficient influence, through Southampton, to iron out the trouble.
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The following year a group of Bristol merchants, after obtaining Raleigh's permission, sent Martin Pring on a similar expedition. He too made his landfall in Maine, but on sailing south, he entered Cape Cod Bay, which Gosnold had overshot and settled down at what he named Whitsun, the site of the present Plymouth. By the end of July one ship was sent home laden with sassafras, and, early in August, Pring returned home with the other ship. Absence of further mention of sassafras in the books of the day, suggests that some comprehension of the slight value of the commodity had been realized.
One circumstance that very early focused attention on New England and which greatly influenced its exploration and settlement has been given scant attention by historians. Throughout the sixteenth century it was a magnet that attracted the interest of hard-headed industrialists of Europe who anticipated taking from that bleak land, wealth comparable to that which the Spaniards had found in South America.
During the latter half of the sixteenth century, many expeditions crossed the seas to search along the north Atlantic for the fabled city of Norumbega. Though this interest continued into the first two decades of the seventeenth century, it became secondary to the quest for a mythical Great Lake, knowledge of which was based on a rather casual statement made by Captain John Smith. Smith, best known for his association with the Indian maiden, Pocahontas, was a prac- tical and experienced person who had a large part in the affairs of early Virginia. His Description of New England, published in 1616, embodied his observations on a voyage of 1614 which was financed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, John Mason and others. In his report to his sponsors he told of certain New England Indians who lived along "rivers that stretch themselves far up into the country, even to the borders of divers great lakes where they kill and take most of their beavers and otters".
For years, Gorges' interest in these Great Lakes continued, though they eventually came to be known as a single Great Lake, knowledge of which, being obtained from the natives by Europeans having but scant knowledge of the language, was most indefinite. It would seem to have combined some thought of Lake Winnepesaukee, Lake Champlain and the chain of lakes that in modern times are called the Great Lakes, into one composite Great Lake.
On the ship Arbella, off Plymouth, England, on April 10, 1630, while awaiting a fair wind that would serve for the voyage that was to result in the founding of Boston, Governor John Winthrop noted in his Journal "that the bark Warwick was taken by the Dunkirkers. She was a pretty ship, set out by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Captain Mason and others, for the discovery of the Great Lake in New England, so to have intercepted the trade of beaver".
Nothing contributed so much toward the lure for the exploration and settlement of America as the quest for the beaver. English merchants and individuals who financed various colonizing enter- prises urged that emigrants devote their energies to commercial
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activities rather than to agriculture. At times the shipments of beaver skins totaled as high as 200,000 a year, which, eliminating Sundays would average around 650 a day.
The question naturally arises,-what use was made of such a vast number of peltries? Were Europeans in need of that quantity of fur coats and robes? The answer is decidedly in the negative, for while a small proportion were so used, the majority of the skins became material for making hats. Hats were then of two sorts; the hat known as the beaver hat, otherwise called the tall hat or "stove-pipe". The second type was the wide-brimmed soft felt hat, well illustrated in the contemporary portrait of King Charles I, by Van Dyke. In 1634 young Winthrop's agent in London wrote him concerning the receipt of a shipment of skins, complaining that they were "light of leather, yet have little wool. The beaver hat maker calleth it faint stuff". In 1635 Sir John Clotworthy wrote to Winthrop from Antrim, Ireland, asking that Winthrop arrange to have sent to him skins "for a beaver coat, very large, to the length of the calf of the leg", and material "for a beaver hat of the best sort".
Hats are a variety of the ancient cap and bonnet which were early made of velvet, silk and other rich materials. Formed of felt and assuming a certain firmness of fabric, hats began to be manu- factured in England about 1510, and we hear of them superseding caps and softer head gear in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sheep's wool was the material first employed in forming felt hats, but wool was scarce and in great demand for the weaving of cloths.
St. Clement, the patron saint of the hatters, is credited with first producing felt. It is said, that when on a pilgrimage he put carded wool between his feet and the sole of his sandals, and found at his journey's end that the wool was converted into cloth. Regard- less of tradition, it is a fact that if carded wool is thus continually trodden and at the same time moistened, it will become felt, and all the manufacturer's processes of felting are but modifications of such treatment. It is merely taking advantage of the natural tendency of hairs to interlace and cling together.
As trade with America developed, the fur of the beaver was adopted, being finer and softer than sheep wool and of lesser cost and the colonies appeared able to offer an inexhaustible supply of such raw material. Hence, the term beaver, as synonymous with hat, came into use. For more than two centuries, fine beaver hats formed the head covering of the upper classes of Great Britain.
After the hair had been stripped from the pelt, the hide remained for the numerous uses to which calf skin and sheep skin had previously been applied: book bindings, shoes and such.
As American colonies became established and, more and more, the need grew for protection to the merchant and banker financiers King Charles I, by royal proclamation in 1638 prohibited the making of hats from any material other than "beaver stuff and beaver wool". Great impetus was thus given to the trade and so was created a monopoly that continued for more than two hundred years.
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In a "Note on the Present State of the Fur Trade" in Silliman's Journal, January, 1834, it was stated that "the beaver, otter, lynx, fisher, hare and racoon are used principally for hats". Today, mil- lions of rabbits are supplied annually by Australia and New Zealand for the same purpose.
Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans became obsessed with the idea that there existed a river, at the source of which was a great swamp area, where the Indians secured a great part of their furs. Men of means, such as William Pynchon, sent out paid scouts to search for it. Others sought it on their own account. In the minds of all, there was the thought that the control of such a river would mean control of the entire beaver trade of the whole northeast.
The Maine rivers were explored without success. Then, it was confidently expected that the Merrimac was the true river. Finally, it seemed evident that the Connecticut was the long-sought stream. On October 2, 1633, Winthrop said that "this river runs so far north- ward-so near the Great Lake. From this lake and the hideous swamps about it come most of the beaver which is traded between Virginia and Canada-which might easily be diverted", &c, &c. So positive were the Plymouth people that the Connecticut led to the source of endless riches that they endeavored to secure the co-opera- tion of those of Boston in acquiring control of it, but they met with no success, as the Bay people were confident that the Merrimac, which they controlled must surely originate in the Great Lake. In consequence, in 1633, the Pilgrims alone established a post at Windsor, on the Connecticut, the site being chosen so as to be above the Dutch who had previously settled about Hartford. This merely intensified the scramble. Those of Massachusetts, jealous of the Plymouth enter- prise, belatedly sought equal opportunities before it was too late. At Windsor, on July 6, 1635, Jonathan Brewster complained that "the Massachusett men are coming almost daily, some by water and some by land". Various individuals and associates at Massachusetts petitioned the General Court for permission to settle on the Con- necticut, but their pleas were always evaded or denied. Finally, Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, went to England, seeking co-operation in an effort to oust the Dutch from the valley. Winslow, however, was in disfavor in England and advantage was taken of his presence there to curb his activities. He was accused of preaching in the church, though not a licensed minister and with performing the marriage service, and was held in prison for seventeen weeks.
Undeterred by Winslow's failure, in the autumn of 1634 John Winthrop, the younger, went over on a somewhat similar errand. Landing at Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, he went overland to Dublin, which was familiar ground to him, for it was at Trinity College that he had received his education. For some reason he seems to have borne a charmed life and journeyed at will when other Puritans were being harried from pillar to post. He went north to Antrim, where at the castle of Sir John Clotworthy, he was met by a group gathered to hear of his plans. Later, while in London, he
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received from Clotworthy, various "casement" letters regarding details of his scheme. From Antrim, he crossed over to Ayrshire, in Scotland, and at Killing, on January 5, 1635, the Rev. John Living- ston gave him letters to David Dickson in Irvin, John Stewart in Ayr, and James Murray in Edinburgh. All of his operations were
1
Smith'Iles
- Thine as thou art Virtues John Damies .Heref
South Hampton
10
Cape /ANNA
Briflow aty
Baftable
Talbotts Bay
1
Fawmouth
Fullerton Ils
The River CHARLES
Carv Ils
Cheuyor hills
p Murry
London
Poynt Suntliff
Oxford
Poynt Gorge
Cape LAMES
Plymouth
Milford hauen
STUARDS Bay
Barwick
Simon Pafeus foulpsit Robert Clerke exaudit
Section of John Smith's Map Illustrating His Voyage of 1614
conducted with the greatest secrecy, he being passed on from one to another, but only to "men religious and wise, whom you may be sure will communicate what you impart to them, only to such, and so much, as you shall think fitting".
Crossing the Tweed, at Berwick, Winthrop met with George Fenwick, and that well-connected and energetic person immediately took him to London for conference with Lord Saye and Sele and his associates. Winthrop revealed his plans to the Lords Proprietors and readily convinced them that in their grant under the Warwick
If fo, in Braße ,too Soft Smiths Acts to beare ) I fix the Fame, to make Braße Steele out weare
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patent, they held the key to the situation, and by ownership of the land at the mouth of the Connecticut, they controlled the mythical fur source. They admitted that they, themselves, had been in conference with Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden regarding provision for asylum there, if events in England made such a course desirable. They were deterred, however, by the question of means for financing such an elaborate project, but were willing to pool their rights with others who would finance the affair.
In the meantime, on February 12, 1635, Winthrop had acquired a new wife, Elizabeth Reade, step-daughter of Hugh Peter, the Puritan divine, and through her he met the noted preacher. Peter referred him to The Hague, where about the court of the Winter Queen, Elizabeth, were quite a number of influential persons with Puritan leanings. Four miles north of The Hague was Leyden, home of the Pilgrim fathers prior to their emigration to New England. At Rotterdam thirteen miles south of The Hague, Hugh Peter, with his assistant, Dr. Davenport was in charge of the English church. Peter had been reported by the British ambassador as being a dan- gerous and objectionable person and steps had been taken for his apprehension.
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, was the eldest child of James I and sister of Charles I. She married Frederick, the Elector Palatine in 1613, and became Queen of Bohemia and mother of Prince Rupert, first governor of the Hudson Bay Company, who was also the origina- tor of Rupert's drops and of the mezzotint. After the death of Fred- erick in 1632, Queen Elizabeth gathered about her home at The Hague, a considerable group of Puritans. The reason for her Puritan sym- pathies is not fully apparent, but it was possibly due to the acquies- cence of England in the rape of her husband's Bohemia. That there was considerable interest in all this, at Boston, is evidenced by guarded references in various entries in Winthrop's Journal.
At a much earlier period, there lived at Warminghurst, Sussex, England, Sir Edward Apsley. His home was a great brick mansion, taken over by Henry VIII at the suppression of the monasteries. It stands today, in outward appearance very much as it did in Sir Edward's day, except that the elaborate Horsham stone roof has been removed to provide material for a modern billiard hall at Arundel Castle. After the death of Sir Edward, Dame Apsley sold the home to William Penn, and in that house was planned the settle- ment of both Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
Sir Edward Apsley had three children, Elizabeth, Alice and Edward. Between the Apsleys and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, was a very close friendship, as is evidenced by their letters and exchange of gifts, including a portrait of the Queen.
The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, later the wife of Sir Albertus Morton, became maid-of-honor to the Queen, who was very fond of pets, and Elizabeth Apsley had special charge of them. One of her letters is humorously signed by "the fair hand of the right reverend
W. Mass .- I-6
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Mistress Elizabeth Apsley, chief governess to all the monkeys and the dogs".
The younger Apsley sister, Alice, married John, son of Sir Oliver Butler, of Teston, Kent, of a strong royalist family. Though John Butler died before his father, his widow had the courtesy title of Lady Alice Butler. She inherited quite a bit of property from her husband, and jointly with him she had a protégé, a young clerk in Holy Orders, Philip Nye, later the famous Puritan preacher and associate of Thomas Goodwin. To Philip Nye, Butler left a substan- tial annuity.
Lady Alice Apsley Butler was often at The Hague as the guest of her sister and of the Queen, and there, in the spring of 1635, Fenwick and Winthrop found her, together with others having similar interests in the cause.
One result of that meeting was the marriage of Lady Alice with George Fenwick, whereby she became known as Lady Fenwick. She sold to her former mother-in-law, the property left to her by her first husband, which then became the property of her first husband's brother, William, who was later killed while with the royalist forces at Cropredy Bridge, near Saye and Sele's Broughton Castle. With the elder Lady Butler, Philip Nye then compounded his annuity and the combined cash proceeds were entrusted to Winthrop, to finance the proposed plantation on the Connecticut. Thus, George Fenwick became a partner with the Lords Proprietors, as well as resident manager for the group.
Returning to London, Winthrop was, on July 7, 1635, commis- sioned as Governor for the prospective colony and returned to Boston, where he arrived in October, with "£2,000 in money to begin a forti- fication at the mouth of the river" Connecticut.
At once the race was on, and within a few months, Saybrook, Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor and Springfield were established, all on the west side of the Connecticut River.
Eventually, disillusioned, the Lords Proprietors lost interest in what became, at the best, a mere agricultural enterprise, but in New England the dream continued, and fond hopes existed in spite of all disappointments. Though for a number of years the records make little mention of the Great Lake, it is evident that during that period, the matter continued one of much moment.
In June, 1642, an Irishman named Darby Field went up to the Saco River and climbed the White Mountains. From there "he saw some great waters to the westward which he judged to be the Great Lake which the Canada river comes out of". At once the Gorges interests were on tiptoe, and in October "two of the magistrates of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his province, went thither". About the only accomplishment of that expedition was the identifying of the sources of the Saco, Androscoggin and Connecticut, with the certainty that none of them came from the Great Lake.
Still the search continued. In 1644 "divers merchants of Boston, being desirous to discover the Great Lake, supposing it to lie in the
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northwest of our patent", secured a license from the Dutch and Swedish governors and sent out a pinnace to explore the Delaware, but on arriving there, matters were made so uncomfortable for them that the project was abandoned.
Thus, after thirty years of seeking, the quest was given up. While the dream lasted it was very real, not only to the English but to the Dutch as well. There is reason for thinking that John Smith told Henry Hudson of the Lakes. Certainly the Dutch knew of them and sought them. It must be remembered that both the French and the Dutch settled high up on the Hudson, long before Manhattan was purchased from the Indians.
Without any question whatever, the belief in the Great Lake greatly influenced the occupation of New England.
The situation was further complicated by conflicting claims of the French and the Dutch. In 1524 Verrazzano, sponsored by Francis I, came into New York Harbor though he did not explore the Hudson to any considerable distance. However, in 1540, a French group established a fortified fur-trading post on a long, low island on the west side of the river near the present southern limits of Albany. This proved but a temporary affair for spring freshets partially destroyed the post and it was soon abandoned. It would appear certain that while it remained active it must have attracted the natives of Western Massachusetts, who would have thus become acquainted with European ways and wares for nearly a century before the coming of the English to the Connecticut Valley in 1635.
In 1609 Henry Hudson, on behalf of the Dutch East India Com- pany explored the Hudson River and his report of the abundance of fur-bearing animals aroused the commercial zeal of the Dutch. The French stronghold, just below the present Albany, was rebuilt and named Fort Nassau. At Manhattan, in 1614, Adrian Block built a yacht christened the Reckless, in which he explored Long Island Sound, and rounding Cape Cod, continued on as far as the site of Salem in Massachusetts. On that occasion he explored the Connecticut River until deterred by the rapids at Windsor. A contemporary account of that expedition was as follows:
"On the south coast is a river named by our countrymen Fresh river, which is shallow at its mouth. At about fifteen leagues up the river there is not much more than five feet of water. There are few inhabitants near the mouth of the river, but at a distance of fifteen leagues above they become numerous. Their nation is called Sequins. From this place the river stretches ten leagues in a northerly direc- tion but is very crooked. The natives there plant maize, and in the year 1614 they had a village resembling a fort for protection against attacks of their enemies. They are called Nawaas. This place is situated in latitude 41° 48'. The river is not navigable with yachts for more than two leagues farther, as it is very shallow with a rocky bottom. Within the land dwells another nation of savages, who are called Horikans. They descend the river in canoes made of bark".
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Block's map supplied the data for the making of an elaborate map known as the Carte Figurative, which was the basis of the Dutch map of 1656, known as the Van der Donck map, which shows the Connecticut Valley in considerable detail. That the map was from an early source, when knowledge of the interior was meager, is evi- denced by the misplacement of Lake Champlain, here called by its French designation of the Sea of the Iroquois. The names of three Indian families, the Sequins, the Nawaas and the Horikans appear in identical form both in the text and on these maps, though they are not found in any other contemporaneous text. On the Van der Donck map, the names of the river towns are in a style of lettering very different from that of the other names, suggesting that they were a later addition to copper plate from which an earlier map was printed. This thought is strengthened by the fact that the name of Windsor (Voynser) is on the opposite side of the river from its correct location, evidently because a grove of trees took up the space on the map which the name would otherwise have occupied. For the same reason "Mr. Pinsers handel huys" (Mr. Pynchon's trading house) appears far to the northwest of its proper site by the Agawam at the junction with the Connecticut. The sum of the evidence seems to make it conclusive that the Jasper Danker map of 1650, which was the source of this Van der Donck map of 1656, was itself made from an earlier map, drawn at a period prior to the existence of the river towns, and that map could have been only the Carte Figurative of 1614. In any event, whatever the date, it is the earliest detailed map of the area about Springfield.
From the very beginning of the sixteenth century mariners from Portugal and the Basque provinces of Spain, and from Normandy and Brittany, flocked to the fishing grounds of the northeastern coast. From 1504 until the recent war periods, there has never been a year when the French flag has been absent from there. Crewmen were frequently on shore for long periods, building drying stages and curing fish for shipment home. The natives saw much of them and peltries were freely exchanged for European tools and utensils. Captain John Smith said that "while the sailors fished, with eight or nine others who might best be spared, ranging the coast in a small boat, we got for trifles near eleven-hundred beaver skins, one- hundred martins and near as many otters".
Natives were kidnapped and carried to Europe, some of whom eventually returned. By the time the English had permanently settled at Plymouth and at Boston, the Indian population must have had an acute awareness of Europeans and they had certainly acquired a generous admixture of European blood. At Plymouth, the settlers were surprised when a native greeted them with the words, "Welcome, Englishmen". It is more surprising that they did not encounter scores, having at least a rudimentary knowledge of some European tongue.
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