USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > Barnstead > History of Barnstead [N.H.] from its first settlement in 1727 to 1872 > Part 2
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[ Caverly's " Merrimac," page 23.]
Captain Smith says : "They had three plagues within three years, extending about three hundred miles on the coast." "It is certain," he says, " there was an exceed- ingly great plague among them ; for where I have seen
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INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1644
two or three hundreds, within three years afterwards there remained no more than thirty." Speaking of the Paw- tuckets, a powerful nation on the Merrimac River, who before that war with the Tarratines could muster 3,000 warriors, he says scarcely as many hundreds remain . They overawed the Penobscots and Pawtuckets, leaving the land strewed with the victims of their revenge.
Whatever the disease above referred to may have been, it appears to have extended south as far as Cape Cod, and yet wherever it went, was extreme in its viru- lence, destroying almost all, so that the Pilgrims at their landing, and for many years afterwards, had but little to fear, as from the strong tribes which for years previously had inhabited this part of New England. Yet they had to use much precaution and vigilance as against the south- ern tribes and others of the interior who had been less afflicted of disease and war.
INDIANS AS FOUND HERE.
The first explorers of New Hampshire found the natives friendly. Generally they were entertained by them with a generous feeling, seldom if ever doubting their sincer- ity and truth. But when instead of being masters of their own soil, they found themselves in the attitude of degraded servants, through the indiscreet invasions of the white man, some of them became implacable enemies, quick at resentment, and reckless in revenge.
1645
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HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
Among the most powerful tribes were the Pawtuckets and Penacooks. They were ruled and led by the Saga- more, Passaconaway. He was a noted chief whose dominion extended over a very large part of New England. Nearly all the difficulties that arose among his people were sub- mitted to his consideration and decision. His territory extended from the sea to the mountains, and from the Penobscot to the Merrimac River. His places of resi- dence were at Pawtucket, Piscataqua, and at Penacook. Thomas Morton in his New England Canaan, writes of him thus : " Papsiquimo, the Sachem or Sagamore of the territories near Merrimack River, is a man of the best note and estimation in all these parts ; and (as my coun- tryman, Mr. Wood, declares in his prospectus) a great necromancer." We infer from an account of him in Win- throp's journal, that Passaconaway was a clever juggler as well as warrior. In full belief of his supernatural powers, his tribes were held in awe of him, and their destinies were controlled in a great degree by this as well as by his - wise councils. They believed he could make a dry leaf turn green ; that he could make water burn, and then make it turn to ice ; that he could hold the rattle-snake in his hands without danger of hurt or harm.
On the 17th of June, 1629, he, with his three subordi- nate Sagamores, sold all the lands extending from the Piscataqua to the Merrimac Rivers, and from the line of Massachusetts thirty miles into the country, to the Rev. John Wheelwright and his associates.
By this conveyance Passaconaway seems to have strengthened his line of defence as against his eastern enemies by cherishing the friendship which had ever existed between him and his English neighbors, and
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INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1650
creating in them an interest to assist him if occasion might require it in defending his own cherished hunting- grounds.
But in 1642 a suspicion arose among the English that a conspiracy was being formed by the Indians to crush out the white man. Thereupon men were sent out to arrest some of the principal chiefs; and forty of them were directed to arrest Passaconaway, but he escaped by reason of an intervening storm. His son, Wonalancet, not being so fortunate, was taken, but his squaw escaped. As Winthrop relates it, they barbarously and insultingly led Wonalancet away by a rope; that he loosened the rope and escaped from them, but was finally retaken.
For such a wrong Passaconaway was afterwards dis- trustful of his English advisors. For this, in 1647, he refused to see his friend Eliot, while both were giving attendance to the fishing season at Pawtucket Falls. Being fearful that the English would kill him, he regarded their religion, which seemed to tolerate such invasions upon the "rights of the red man, to be unworthy of his attention. But in 1648, when Eliot again visited Pawtucket Falls at the fishing season, Passaconaway was then pleased to hear his preaching. To the assembled Indians Eliot then preached from this text :-
" From the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." - Malachi, i: xi.
The Indians paid respectful attention, and after the discourse was closed proposed many questions.
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1660
HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
At length Passaconaway arose amid the most pro- found attention and announced his belief in the God of the English. Says Eliot : " He said ' he had never heard of God before as he now doth ;'" and that he would per- suade his sons to do the same, pointing to two of them who were present.
Passaconaway was doubtless sincere in his belief, and as it appears, so continued until his death. We have but little else of this chief until 1660, when he had be- come old, he was at Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimac, at a great assemblage of Indians, where, as Captain Goo- kin says, they had a great feast.
The old Sagamore then and there made a farewell ad- dress to his tribes. His raiment was plain but somewhat gaudy and beautiful. He was full of sorrow, being deeply affected ; his. utterances were tremulous yet musical. Standing erect before that assembled multitude, he said :
" Hearken to the words of your Father! I am an old oak · that has withstood the storms of more than a hundred winters ! Leaves and branches have been stripped from me by the winds and frosts ! My eyes are dim; my limbs totter- I must soon fall !.
When young no one could bury the hatchet in a sapling be- fore me. My arrows could pierce the deer at a hundred rods. No wigwam had so many furs, no pole had so many scalp-locks as Passaconaway's. Then I delighted in war. The whoop of the Penacooks was heard on the Mohawk, and no voice so loud as Passaconaway's. The scalps upon the pole in my wigwam told the story of Mohawk suffering. The English came - they seized the lands - they followed upon my foot-path. I made war on them; but they fought with fire and thunder - my young men were swept down before me when no one was near them. I tried sorcery against them, but they still increased and
DEATH OF · PHILIP.
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INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1676
prevailed over me and mine; and I gave place to them and retired to my beautiful Island, Naticook. I, that can make the dry leaf turn green and live again; I, that can take the rattle-snake in my palm as I would a worm without harm; I, that have had communication with the Great Spirit, dreaming and awake- I am powerless before the pale faces! These meadows they shall turn with the plow; these forests shall fall by the axe; the pale faces shall live upon your hunting-grounds, and make their vil- lages upon your fishing-places !
The Great Spirit says this, and it must be so! We are few and powerless before them. We must bend before the storm - peace with the white man is the command of the Great Spirit, and the wish - the last wish-of Passaconaway."
Soon after this, his mantle fell upon his son Wonalan- cet, who continued Sagamore of the Penacooks for several years, yet he was always at peace with the English.
At the breaking out of King Philip's war he was strongly besought by the neighboring tribes to engage in it, but he continued friendly, as did also the Ossipees and Pequawkets. Many of the Indians who had joined Philip against the English had returned into the wilderness and united with the Penacooks, the Pequawkets and Ossipees, hoping thereby to be taken as belonging to those peaceful tribes, and thus avoid danger.
In 1676 there came to Cocheco (now Dover) Wonalan- cet, and with him and through his influence about four hundred Indians. These had the promise of good usage, and had the advice of Major Waldron been followed they would have been treated differently, and good faith would have been kept with them. But the result proved other- wise. Major Waldron, as has been alleged, sometimes may have been unfair in his dealings with the Indians in this, that " his fist " inay have been made somewhat heav-
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1680
HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
ier than a pound weight in the purchase of furs - yet generally he had been their friend. There had been various troubles by which many of the Indians had be- come hostile to the English. Consequently an order had been issued to capture and secure all the Indians as they were then gathered at Cocheco. The English got up a military parade there ; and as had been previously con- certed, the Indians had been furnished with cannon mounted on wheels, which pleased them. The gunners were sup- plied from the English ; the Indians managing the drag- ropes, and a sham-fight commenced. As if by accident, one of the cannons exploded in the direction of the line of Indians, killing some and wounding others; at the same time the English infantry by a preconcerted manœu- vre enclosed the Indians on all sides, securing and disarm- ing them without loss or injury on their part.
Wonalancet and the friendly Penacooks, Pequawkets and Ossipees were dismissed to their homes, while the others to the number of 300, known to be fighting men, were taken to Boston, seven or eight of them hanged, and the rest of them sold into slavery.
"Oh, God forgive our Saxon race; Blot from thy book, no more to trace Fraternal wrath infernal; That taints the atmosphere we breathe- The sky above, and earth beneath, Like dearth and death eternal !" [ Caverly's Poems, vol. 2. p. 17.]
Wonalancet, although he had lost all faith in the promises of the English settlers, still adhered to the advice given him by his father. He sought peace and was in the habit of giving notice to them of danger whenever there was occasion for it.
27
INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1686
In 1686 he sold out all his tracts of land in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, not previously disposed of, and left the pale faces and the graves of his fathers forever, and obtained a distant home in the dense forest where no intruder could come to disturb the peace and quiet of his old age.
The Pawtuckets, after his departure, began to diminish and gradually vanished away, through the over-powering numbers and influence of their white neighbors, who as it seemed, continually intruded upon their hunting grounds, and otherwise became more and more offensive.
Finally the Indians of New Hampshire for many years roamed quietly, and gradually diminished in numbers ; · yet they obeyed the injunction of their old Sachem, and the example of his son, who had ever proved true and friendly to the English.
The encroachments of the English upon the lands of the Indians, often and continually made, had everywhere in New England become a source of much-discontent.
The French, many of whom had settled in the north and east, were inclined to take sides with the natives, and doubtless did much to fan the flame of impending hostilities. Mad, with revenge, the Indians soon made war upon their English neighbors, by killing their cattle, by burning their hay-stacks, and by violence in almost all the forms which a savage could invent.
The English of course imputed most of this trouble to French influence ; and charged much of the blame to one Sebastian Ralle, a French Jesuit who resided among the Indians at Norridgewock. Father Ralle, as they called him, had resided there some thirty years, had built a chapel, and was the religious teacher of many of the
28
1730
HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
Indians that wandered in the valley of the Kennebec and elsewhere. For wrongs on the part of Ralle the English sought to arrest him ; and in 1722 a deputation of armed men under Colonel Thomas Westbrook were sent to catch and imprison him, but anticipating their approach, Ralle escaped. Yet in Ralle's " strong box," (as it was called) they found certain letters from the French Governor in Canada, which tended to prove with much certainty that Ralle had been one of the leaders in exciting the Indians to violence upon the English.
For these proceedings against their spiritual adviser the Indians became still more exasperated, and an attack upon the settlement at Merry Meeting Bay soon fol- lowed ; then an attempt was made to take St. George's Fort, and then in this same year (1722). raids were made by the Indians on various villages in New Hampshire.
Thereupon proclamations by the Governors of Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire were made, declaring war against them. Companies of soldiers were raised and bodies of armed men were sent in pursuit of the savages ; but the effort was attended with very little success. The Indians still sought revenge; and the fall of 1724 was marked by more than ordinary depredations and violence. Fear and consternation prevailed in the frontier towns as well as at the older and larger places on the coast.
The government was poor and inefficient. It was difficult to raise men. Great excitement prevailed.
About this time attacks were made upon Dunstable, a part of which is now Nashua. During this year the famous battle at Pequawket was fought by Lovewell.
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INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1760
The Indians assailed the English garrison-houses, took whole families prisoners, killing and scalping many, and carrying off others into Canada.
These depredations inducing war and bloodshed, con- tinued for many years, making it dangerous for the English to labor in their fields, or even to attend public worship on the Sabbath.
Exeter, Cocheco, Penacook, Contoocook, Suncook, and many other places were often made fields of carnage and blood. Carnage over which the Indian was in the habit of exulting with complacent merriment even when his victim was dying by cruel tortures, such as none but a demon could devise or inflict.
His warfare was secret. He sought the ambush to gain knowledge of the numbers and strength of the place to be assailed, and then to murder and scalp his victim, and set fire to his dwelling-house. It was thus that the then small villages of New England, always in fear, were sometimes laid waste.
On some occasions these Indian raids were attended and aided by Frenchmen from Canada; England and France at that time being at war. Thus many years transpired, attended with more or less of carnage. About the year 1760 the Indian wars began to cease. The Eng- lish had become too numerous to be conquered. The natives thereupon left their old haunts and retreated to their more dense forests. Their tribes had become feeble and the French and English had concluded a treaty of peace. After this the Indians were in the habit annually of returning back to their old fishing and hunting-grounds, and were thus permitted to visit the homes of their youth, and the graves of their fathers.
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HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
1762
PEQUAWKETS.
The tribe next to the Penacooks toward the east, were the Pequawkets, that wandered beyond the eastern shores of Lake Winnipesaugee ; they were, however, subject to the Penacooks, the same as those further north ..
SCALPING.
This feat was performed by the savage as follows : - He places his foot upon the neck of his prostrate enemy, twists the fingers of his left hand into the scalp-locks, cutting with a knife in his right hand a circular gash around the lock, he tears the scalp from the head, and fastens it to his girdle with a yell of triumph, victory and success. The scalps upon their belts on public occasions were worn to designate the warriors.
INDIAN PASTIMES.
An Indian was always at leisure. He knew no over- tasking of the brain ; had no trouble in extensive trade ; no taxes to pay ; no rents nor national debts. All his
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INDIAN PASTIMES.
1765
surroundings were free to him. Each had a share in the cool hunting-grounds and in the best fishing-places. His corn-fields were where he sowed his seed. His tobacco was his constant luxury, and his fishing and hunting his favorite pastime. His wants being few were easily sup- plied. His bow, arrow and fishing-rod afforded him a competence in food and raiment. These instruments were substantially the implements of his toil. With his squaw, who often wandered from the wigwam in company with his tribe, he was usually happy. His home was filled with the song and dance, and smoking of the pipe, or in " drinking the pipe," as' they sometimes termed it. The Merrimac, the Suncook, and their tributaries afforded him many of his best fishing-places. These rivers were grand highways that brought them at every returning spring a full supply of salmon, alewives and shad. At that day no dams or bars being in the way to impede the advent or progress of the finny tribes, they came in vast numbers, and ever proved a source of wealth to the Indian. At the forks of the Merrimac the salmon, which always seek the coldest climes, generally took the cold water and went up the Pemigewaset, while the others took to the warm water and followed the Winnipesaugee to the lake or into the smaller streams. From these rivers and their tribu- varies the thirty thousand Indians that used to trail along these valleys obtained a very large share of their support. For thousands of years the waters of our rivers had afforded the red man an abundant supply. Salmon weigh- ing thirty pounds were common here. There were then no gates to close up nature's highway, no dashing wheels to frighten back the fish, nor was there then any need of artificial steps or fish-ways to lead the finny tribes (as are
1770
HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
32
now invented, but as yet in vain) over high dams into the ponds above. Kind nature had given to the red man the waters of these rivers to run freely down as from the creation they had run ; and had given to the fish a common highway to advance upward in them. Yet, by what is now termed the progress of civilization, the tribes of fish as well as the tribes of red men have become almost extinct in this region.
Sturgeons used to be caught in the Merrimac. As this kind of fish passed up the river, two Indians, the one to scull the boat, and the other to throw the weapon, would spear them. Many a noble sturgeon from year to year was thus slain and tugged ashore from his native waters.
INDIAN TRACES AND REMAINS.
Soon after the close of the French war, the Indians withdrawing from their rivers and ponds and from their hunting and trapping-grounds in New Hampshire, grad- ually vanished away. This opened the way to English settlers, who ventured further into the forests thus vacated, and sequestering and taking possession of the lands, built houses and otherwise made progress, sometimes aggressively excluding the red man, until at length he became unknown in this part of New England.
In his departure he left behind him not the ruins of desolated cities caused by destructive wars, not the ruins of lofty castles, nor of world-renowned monasteries ;
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INDIAN TRACES AND REMAINS.
1765
he left nothing - absolutely nothing - but now and then a sample of his bow and arrow, his chisel and his mortar.
" His foot-steps fondly dwelt where now we trace Primeval heir-looms of the human race; The chisel smooth and tomahawk, first made Of stone, ere Art had formed the iron blade; Where from a narrow dock with native crew He launched in naval pride his first canoe, And plowed the SUNCOOK fair. His dripping oar Ripples the waters never pressed before, Bestirs the scaly tribes to nervous fear For rights most sacred thus invaded here. As if by instinct they the chieftain knew To be a tyrant and a glutton too, Intent on native beast, on bird or fish By slaughter dire to fill a dainty dish; Whose webs are nets from bark of trees alone, And mills that grind are mortars made of stone, Who clothed his tribes, if clad they e'er appear In raiment plundered from the bounding deer; Who maketh treacherous hooks from guiltless bones, And drags a deadly net o'er sacred homes." [" The Merrimac," by R. B. C., p. 21.]
The Indian was no artizan. His wigwam and birch canoe evinced the best skill in architecture which he ever had. His paintings were extravagant and gaudy, his colors brilliant. The flesh side of skins taken by the Indian hunter was generally used by the painter. These he spotted in curious fantastic hues, and often with high- colorings such as none but a wild man could make, con- trive or invent. He knew but little, and sought for im- provements in nothing.
" Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind; His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way."
[ Pope.]
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HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
1765
ORIGIN OF THE RED MAN.
The origin of the natives of this new world is like a sealed book. All speculations in reference to it are attended with extreme doubt and uncertainty. No theory is satisfactory. These benighted sons, of themselves knew nothing, and had no definite idea of the paternity of their race ; and in this perhaps we are no wiser than they. Many have believed them to be of Asiatic origin and that they had crossed over here upon the ice that covers the northern coast of America. Yet, opposed to such a theory is the fact that there is a vast dissimilarity now existing between the Asiatics and the North Amer- ican Esquimaux and other Indians. Reason would seem to warrant the belief that in the absence of proof to the contrary, the same race of men that our forefathers first found, had always been here. That the " New World " had existed for thousands of years without having a race of men upon it, would seem but little short of a rash pre- sumption. That it had been left to accident, that it had been left to be peopled by the passing of a tribe from Asia, over an unknown Arctic region, too cold for human existence to get to it, would seem to be a presumption quite as rash. On the whole we can but perceive that the wild forests of America when discovered by the white race were as well suited to the Indian as the Indian was to the forests. And that the Indian here was no more a matter of accident than was the forest itself; and that both were but parts of one and the same great design, would seem to be the most reasonable theory.
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ORIGIN OF THE RED MAN.
1765
.
In discoursing upon his origin, &c., a modern writer has speculated as follows : 1142494
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" Then next from curious germ beneath the cod, Now blest of needful care of nature's God, Whose eye all-seeing here began to scan The strange invention of mysterious man; By vigorous thrift, as fell the beaming rays Of Phebus, fitly felt on vernal days, Came forth an Indian's* form divine, First spawn of manhood on the stream of time, Basking in valleys wild, earth-formed, earth-fed For ripened age, -- by zative reason ied; And chief o'er beast and bird in power became A fitful terror to the timid game.
Increased at length by nature's self-same laws To numerous tribes prolific- men and squaws From artful wigwams new, spread o'er the land, First skill evinced in architecture grand, He wanders wild, belted with arrows keen, And blest with knowledge right and wrong between, A stately priest at peace. Provoked to strife He wields a hatchet and a scalping knife With dire revenge. E'er true to self and squaw, He knows no faith, no code, but nature's law.".
[ Caverly.]
And so it was; the manners and habits of the native Indians for ought we know, had always been the same as now. Tradition affords us nothing otherwise. They are known only as they were first found by the adventurer from the Old World. Their history, circumscribed as it is, within the limits of their short existence with the white man, comprises the record of their race for all time. Probably for thousands of years they had been nothing
*The natives were called Indians by Columbus through mistake, who at first supposed he had arrived on the eastern coast of India, by which error they took their name.
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HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD.
1765
but wild hunters, with manners and habits the same - unimproved - unchanged.
" And thus o'er land and stream for ages long, A race of red men, vagrant plod along, With language taught from rustic nature's throne, And habits each peculiarly their own; On growth spontaneous fed, content with prey. What serves the purpose of a single day. Their God is seen afar at rise of sun; Their life in heaven is hunting here begun ; By laws un-written sachems rule the tribes, And lead the host, wherever ill betides, To fatal war. By force of arrows hurled, They.reigned sole monarchs in this Western World. [ Caverly's " Merrimac," p. 22.]
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