USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 10
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1 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV; Town Charters, Vol. I, 56-7.
2 See Wanalawet in note at close of chapter.
3 Bouton's Concord, 40.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Wamesit, he signed, with Joseph Traske, another Indian, a deed con- veying to Jonathan Tyng, of Dunstable, a considerable tract of land lying on the west side of the Merrimack and along the Souhegan. It is also recorded of him under the name of Waternummon, that while living at Newbury, in 1689, he preserved by friendly interference, Colonel Dudley Bradstreet and family, in a murderous attack made upon Andover by " a company of thirty or forty Indians."
In 1726, the old and friendly sagamore, now living, as he had been for years, in Penacook, had his wigwam " on a knoll " beside the brook which, by the confluence of two smaller streams, becomes the outlet of the pond whose form las named it Horse Shoe. His rude dwelling stood near by and easterly from the site of the present high- way bridge, which bridge has been named for the chieftain, as has also the brook in which he set his eel-pots. He occupied the land which lay northerly of the brook from its junction with the Merrimack, and, which extending along the right bank of the latter for a consid- erable distance, bore the name of Wattanummon's Field. It was into this open and extensive tract of tempting meadow that Captain Ebenezer Eastman one summer day went over from his own prem- ises across the river, with his men, to make hay. But the old man, gun in hand, soon appeared with his two sons to forbid the tres- pass ; asserting his claim to land and grass, and raising his gun to enforce it. The captain assented to the claim, called off his men from work, and invited the whole party to luncheon in the shade. A bottle was presented to the father, of which he drank freely and without scruple ; but a cup of its contents being offered one of the sons, the old man hastily interposed with " He no drink !" snatched away the cup, and swallowed the dram himself with gusto. Gener- osity was born of the beverage, and the old sagamore-farmer, extend- ing his arms, exclaimed, "My land ! my grass ! all mine-every- thing ! You may cut grass-all you want !" " After this friendly in- terchange of property-rum for grass,"-says Dr. Bouton, " Captain Eastman and Wattanummon lived in peace on opposite sides of the river." What became of this former chief captain of Wonolancet, and true disciple of his pacific policy, is not known.
Contemporary with Wattanummon seems to have been Pehaungun, " a celebrated warrior, whose wigwam and planting-grounds were on the east side of the river."1 He died in 1732, at an advanced age. But it seems hardly probable that his age was so great as it must have been, if he was the person, who, named Pehaungun and described as an " ancient Indian," testified with Tahanto in the rum-and-murder trial of 1668. If the identity really exists, he must have been one
1 Bouton's Concord, 48.
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hundred and twenty years old or more at his death, as some have supposed. But whatever his length of days, he certainly lacked, in the story told by tradition of his death, the moderation " which should accompany old age." It is related that the old warrior's wigwam was one night the scene of a " big drunk," with great noise and outcry that called Captain Eastman thither. Entering the wigwam he found the " ancient Indian " and his guests drinking heavily " from the bung-hole of a keg of rum." The English neighbor being invited to drink, " hoisted the keg to his mouth," but let more of the liquid fire run out than in. Pehaungun, angered at the ruse, as an insult to proffered hospitality, threatened to kill the offender. But with proper discretion, and in good order, Captain Eastman withdrew.
Pehaungun did not awake the next morning, but lay dead in his wigwam. When those who had reveled with him would bury him, the fear fell upon them that the old warrior might return in spirit to plague them. They laid him in the ground, encoffined in a hollow log of pine, with lid of slab, and close fastening of withes bound all about ; and, to "make assurance double sure," they "stamped down hard " each layer of earth thrown in to fill the grave, repeating half triumphantly all the while, " He no get up. He no get up." Then the participants in this grotesque burial service, having, with " danc- ing, howling, wailing, and tearing of hair," set the grave about with boughs of willow, withdrew to conclude the last Indian funeral known to have been held in Penacook with another " big drunk "-at which Pehaungun did not preside.
Another incident of traditional Indian history, of date but little later than that of the white settlement of Penacook, finds here appropriate place. The story runs, that Peorawarrah, a chief, having stolen the wife of another Indian living down the river, had, with his paramour, paddled his canoe to Sewall's island, and there landed for the night. The deserted husband, who had on foot traced the enamored pair to their landing place, lay in wait all night on the opposite east bank. At dawn Peorawarrah and his stolen squaw took canoe for further flight np the river. But by a turn in the cur- rent, the couple were brought within range of the injured husband's gun. At one shot, " both were killed-fell overboard and sunk." " The report of the gun was heard by one of the settlers-tradition says Ebenezer Virgin-who afterwards met the Indian who had satiated his revenge."1 The latter told what he had done, and said, " Peorawarrah had good gun." Virgin verified the statement, by finding, in a search of the river, " Peorawarrah's gun "-a " good " one-which still exists, a valued relic and heirloom.2
1 Bouton's Concord, 47.
2 See note at close of chapter.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
The body of the woman was borne down stream and lodged upon the east bank of the Merrimack, where it was found bearing the bul- let's mark. It was buried in a piece of land, whch lies due west from Federal bridge, " bordering the river;"1 and has since been known as the "Squaw's Lot," in remembrance of the Indian Helen whose Paris was Peorawarrah.
The chief scene of a famous exploit, in which a woman led, in the last year of King William's War, lay within the former limits of Pen- acook, though later excluded from Concord by slight change of boundary. The story of that exploit has been often told, with many variations : its facts, without accretions of fancy, may here form an appropriate pendant to this chapter of Indian history. On the 15th of March, 1697, a band of Indians fell upon " the skirts of Haver- hill,"2 with intent to kill, ravage, burn, and captivate. IIannah Dustin, wife of Thomas, was lying at her home, still weak in child- bed, with her babe but seven days old, and with her nurse, Mary Neff, in attendance. Mr. Dustin, at work in his field, hearing the fearful war-whoop, hurried to his house. Ordering his children- seven of his eight, and of ages from two to seventeen-to make, with all haste, for " some garrison in the town," he thought to res- cue his wife and infant child.
Peorawarrah's Gun.
But the savages had come so near, that, in despair of effecting this intent, he seized his gun, and, mounting his horse, rode on after his fleeing children, resolving that, when he should reach them, he would snatch up the one he loved most, and ride away to safety-leaving the others " under the care of the divine Providence."2 And now he had come up with the panting group -but he could not choose one from among them, all so loved ; he must defend them all, and with all live or die. Bringing up the rear of the fugitives, he kept the pursuers at bay, as they skulked behind tree and fence, firing ineffectual shots, while he with presented gun repelled their too near approach, until the baffled red-skins gave over the chase, and at length he and his precious charge unharmed reached the garrison a mile or more away.
Meanwhile other " furious tawnies " 2 had invested the brave man's home, and, having taken prisoner the nurse seeking escape with the babe in her arms, had entered the house, and captured the astonished matron, who " saw the raging dragons rifle all that they could carry away, and set the house on fire."2 Straightway Mrs. Dustin and her
1 Bouton's, Concord, 46.
2 Mather's Magnalia.
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nurse, with "about a half a score of other English captives,"1 were put upon their northward march-helpless prisoners " of those whose tender mercies were cruelties."1 Indeed, they had not gone far, when before the dazed eyes of its mother, the merciless captors " dashed out the brains of the infant against a tree "; 1 and, thence- forth, more than once, the hatchet was heard to crash out the life of some weary victim fainting by the way. Dreary and painful to the agonized mother, with but one shoe to her feet, was that journey, in an inclement season, through the wilderness, to the little island at the Contoocook's mouth, where her savage master tarried; 2 and where also were abiding another warrior, three women, seven chil- dren, and an English youth, Samuel Lannardson, taken captive at Worcester, the year before. Thence the prisoners were to be taken to Canada, and there sold to the French, for possible future release by ransom.
At length, notice was given the " poor women " that they would soon set out for "a rendezvous of savages, which they call a town, somewhere beyond Penacook ; and . that when they came to this town, they must be stript, and scourged, and run the gauntlet through the whole body of Indians." 1 But Mrs. Dustin, pondering the woes that had befallen her, and dreading the woes that threatened her, at the hands of those whom she could esteem no better than the ravenous wild beasts, upon whose heads, as well as theirs, a price was set, felt herself nerved with strength for the heroic task of rescue. She braced up Mary Neff and the youth Lannardson to her purpose. Through the latter she sought instruction in the use of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. The youth asking his unwary master, where he would strike a man, if he wished to kill him instantly, and how he would take off a scalp, the latter replied,-laying his finger on his temple,-" Strike here!"1 and added the desired information how to scalp adroitly. This information, communicated to the resolute women, found them apt learners.
A few weeks elapsed, and the fatal night came, when, " a little be- fore break of day, " the three captives, " with wise division of labor,"3 smote with tomahawks, deadly sure, the sleeping red-skins,-as they had been instructed,-and of them instantly killed ten. Mrs. Dustin slew her master. and Lannardson his, who had so unwittingly told him how to do it. One boy, purposely spared, disappeared in the darkness ; and an aged squaw, left for dead, rallied from the blows dealt her, and escaping to another encampment where other prisoners
1 Mather's Magnalia.
2 See Mrs. Dustin's Escape, in notes at close of chapter.
3 Bancroft's United States, Vol. III, 188. Charles R. Corning's Address: Proceedings of N. H. Historical Society, Vol. II, 49.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
were held, told Hannah Bradley, also a captive from Haverhill, what her neighbors, Hannah Dustin and Mary Neff, had done. The scalps of the victims were taken and wrapped in linen stolen from her own house, to be witnesses of the almost incredible feat ; for else, who ยท would believe their report? With these ghastly proofs, and with provisions gathered from the stores of the slain, Mrs. Dustin, taking also her dead master's gun and the tomahawk with which she slew him, set out, with her two companions, for Haverhill. However the journey thither was made, and whether on foot or in canoe, or par- tially by each, it was safely accomplished in the early days of April. On the twenty-first of that month, "after recovery from fatigue," Mrs. Dustin, accompanied by her husband, who had saved the chil- dren all but one, and by her late companions in captivity, arrived in Boston to ask of the General Court of Massachusetts recompense for " an extraordinary action in the just slaughter of so many of the barbarians." The scalps, gun, and tomahawk sufficiently enforced her petition, and, within a few weeks, a reward of fifty pounds was ordered to be paid-one half to Mrs. Dustin ; the other half, in equal parts, to Mary Neff and Samuel Lannardson. The feat elicited gen- eral admiration and approval, of which the doers received many tok- ens in presents of substantial value, including a generous gift from the governor of Maryland. The exploit involved no unwomanly element of revenge. It was an achievement of righteous vengeance, in which Hannah Dustin glorified the heroic in woman.1
Since the sixties of the eighteenth century and the French wars of that period no Penacook, or Indian of Penacook descent, has been seen in the valley of the Merrimack. Those red sons of the forest, branch of a still fading race, perished long ago, leaving to crumbling bluff or white man's excavations occasionally to reveal, as relics of aboriginal occupation, their buried bones.1 The Penacook has become a memory ; but a memory worthy to be preserved in history, as best it may be, from inadequate data, as well as perpetuated in the appli- cation of the names of such noblemen of nature as Wattanummon and Tahanto, Wonolancet and Passaconaway, to the uses of modern days.
1 See notes at close of chapter.
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NOTES.
St. Aspenquid. There is a legend which would identify an Indian apostle of Christianity, called St. Aspenquid, with Passaconaway, grand sachem of the Penacooks. That Indian, in May, 1688, died, and was buried on Mt. Agamenticus, in Maine. His funeral was held there with much grotesque observance, and with the attendance of many sachems and warriors of various tribes. The legendary confusion of Passaconaway with St. Aspenquid has historical signifi- cance, as tending to show what the Penacook confederacy included in its eastward extension, and how widely prevalent was the authority and reverent estimation in which the great Penacook sachem was held. [See New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, Vol. III ; also Thatcher's Indian Biography, Vol. I, 322-3; also Albee's New Castle, 62.]
Grant to Passaconaway. The grant of lands mentioned in the text included two small islands near Thornton's Ferry, later known as Reed's Islands. The whole tract afterwards reverted to the govern- ment, and was granted, in 1729, to Joseph Blanchard and others. [Bouton's Concord, 26.]
Date of Passaconaway's Death. The date 1665 has been assigned by some writers, but with no adequate reason given. [Plumer MSS. Papers in New Hampshire Historical Society Library.]
Wanunchus. Whittier calls the Bride of Penacook Weetamoo, a name more euphonious-whether historically authentic or not-than Morton's Wanunchus. The form Witamu is occasionally given.
Wanalawet and the Minister of Rumford. In the "Annals of Con- cord," it is said, in a note on page 30: " Rev. Mr. Walker, who was beloved by all his parishioners, was also esteemed by the Indians, and, when not in open war, they used to visit his house, where they were always well treated. At one time they came to his house com- plaining, in angry terms, that the white people possessed their lands unjustly. Mr. W. informed them that they were purchased of their chiefs, and that the deed signed by them was to be seen in Boston. He finally advised them to go and see it. To this they assented ; and, on their return, called and took some refreshments, and said that they had seen the papers, and were perfectly satisfied. This deed is the famous instrument of Wheelwright, now generally believed to be a forgery."
The above statement assigns no date; but it is reasonable to sup- pose that the facts therein mentioned belong to the year 1733; that the Indians mentioned were Wanalawet and his party ; and that they went to Boston to examine title deeds, at the suggestion of Mr.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Walker, the minister of Rumford. The deed which they saw in Boston was doubtless one of Wonolancet's, and not the forged Wheelwright instrument, which, if seen, could have afforded no sat- isfaction, for it did not cover the territory of Rumford, or any other, within more than twenty miles distant.
" Peorawarrah's Gun." This gun-spoken of in the text, with illustration-descended at the death of Ebenezer Virgin to his son John ; then to his grandson John, from whom it was obtained by Jonathan Eastman, Esq. The gun, identically the same, except the stock, as when held by Peorawarrah, was carefully preserved by Mr. Eastman, and after his death descended to his grandson, Jonathan Eastman Pecker, in whose possession it still (1900) remains.
Mrs. Dustin's Escape. It is not definitely known, and, probably, never will be, to what tribe of Indians the captor, or " master," of Mrs. Dustin belonged. It is known, however, from the testimony of Isaac Bradley, cited in the text, that, in the attack upon Haverhill, in 1695, " Merrimack Indians " were engaged. It is not improbable that some of the same race may have had a hand in that of 1697. The man might have been of the party of Kancamagus removed to Maine or Canada; but at the instigation of Jesuit priests, and by French promises of reward for English scalps and captives, may have been induced to engage in hostile expeditions to the Merrimack valley, visiting familiar haunts and combining the hunt with war. On such an excursion the family might have accompanied the war- rior, and been lodged in a place of security, like that to which Mrs. Dustin and Mary Neff were brought, and where the warrior would be, as it were, at home, as, indeed, this one was, if a Penacook. According to Cotton Mather the man was a "praying Indian," after French instruction-a fact not inconsistent with the supposition that he was a Penacook, thus instructed. But, if, as Sewall says in his Diary, "he had lived in the family of the Rev. Mr. Rowlandson, of Lancaster, and told Mrs. Dustin that ' when he prayed the English way, he thought it was good, but now he found the French way better, '" the supposition that he was a Penacook seems untenable. -IT is commonly asserted that the heroine's return to Haverhill was made by canoe. She must have used a boat in escaping from the island; but there is no evidence that, when she reached the bank of the Merrimack, she retained the frail skiff and sailed therein . all the way home, down the swollen and rapid river. The supposi- tion seems reasonable, that she and her companions pursued their homeward way along the trail of the upward journey, which had not been hurried, and had doubtless left marks by which it could be easily retraced .- ANOTHER part of the story, as frequently told
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is that she forgot, at first, to scalp the victims, and had to return in the canoe, land again, and finish the ghastly work. This may be true ; but it seems rather improbable that the strong-nerved, heroic woman so far lost her head as to forget, even temporarily, that important finishing stroke of her deed of vengeance-a stroke in which she had taken pains to be specially instructed .- MR. CHASE, in his History of Haverhill, says that the tomahawk "was some years after lost in the woods near Mr. Dustin's"; and that the piece of linen eloth, in which the scalps were wrapped, " Mrs. Dustin afterward divided among her daughters, and a part of it is still [1861] preserved by some of their de- scendants." The "gun continued in possession of the male line to the year 1859, when it was presented to the Dustin Monument Association, of Ha- verhill, by Mrs. Luela H. Dustin, widow of Thomas Dustin, of Henniker, N. H."
The Dustin Memorial. A granite memorial of Hannah Dustin's exploit was erected in 1874, on the island at the mouth of the Contoocook. It stands upon the part of the island lying east of the Northern Railroad ; this parcel of land having been conveyed in trust for the purpose, by John C. and Calvin Gage, to the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton and Eliphalet S. Nutter, of Concord, and Robert B. Caverly, of Lowell. Dr. Bouton, in his History of Concord, was the first to suggest the idea of ereeting the monument ; the other two trustees were especially efficient in giving the idea practical effect. Six thousand dol- lars were raised by subscription. The The Dustin Monument. statue and pedestal were designed by William Andrews, of Lowell, sculptured in Concord granite, by Andrew Orsolini, James Murray, and Charles H. Andrews. It was unveiled on the 17th of June, 1874, with appropriate ceremonies, in the presence of many people. Ad- dresses were made, among which were those of the Rev. Dr. Bouton, John H. George, and Ex-Gov. Onslow Stearns, of Concord ; Charles C. Coffin, of Boston ; Robert B. Caverly and D. O. Allen, of Lowell; George W. Nesmith and the Rev. William T. Savage, of Franklin ; the Rev. Elias Nason, of Billerica ; Benjamin F. Prescott, of Epping ;
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
and Gen. Simon G. Griffin, of Keene. Governor James A. Weston accepted the deed, in trust for the state. The legislature of a later year made an appropriation for repairs about the monument, which was expended under the care of Eliphalet S. Nutter.
Indian Bones. About the site of the fort on Sugar Ball, Indian bones have been dug, and also found washed out and dropped at the foot of the bluff .- In November, 1855, human bones were found in digging a cellar for a dwelling west of Richard Bradley's house. Dr. William Prescott thus describes them in a communication printed in Bouton's History of Concord, p. 745 : "The whole number [of skeletons] found thus far is nine, comprised within a space of about ten by fifteen feet. Three of them were adults-one male of a very large size, and two females ; the others were children and youth. Considering the time that must have elapsed since they were interred, the bones were in a tolerable state of preservation. Two of the craniums were nearly perfect-that of the adult male, and one of the adult females. They were each enshrouded in a thick envelope, con- sisting of several thicknesses of pitch pine bark, the only exception being what appeared to be a female between two infants, all being enclosed in one general envelope. The skeletons all lay upon the right side, in a direction north and south, the face looking east ; the lower limbs somewhat flexed at about right angles, and the elbows, completely flexed, the head resting upon the right hand."
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS LEADING TO ENGLISH OCCUPATION .- THE GRANT OF THE PLANTATION OF PENACOOK.
1623-1726.
While most of the events recorded in the preceding chapter were occurring, others were taking place, in train of which came the per- manent civilized occupation of Penacook. It will be recollected that the first appearance of Passaconaway, as a definite historical character, was in 1623, and in the neighborhood of the first English plantation upon New Hampshire soil, at the mouth of the Piscataqua. On the 4th of March, 1629, King Charles I confirmed by charter, a grant of lands made to a company the year before, by the Council of Plymouth.1 This charter made the grantees, "a corporation on the place," under the name of "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." The lands granted bore the . which
following description : "All that part of New England .
lies and extends between a great river there, commonly called Monomack, alias Merrimack, and a certain other river there called Charles river and also all and singular, those lands
. lying within the space of three English miles, on the south part of the said Charles river, or any and every part thereof ; and also all those lands . which lie and be within the space of three English miles northward of the said river called Merrimack, or to the northward of any and every part thereof ; and all lands . . . lying within the limits aforesaid, north and south, in latitude and breadth, and in length and longitude of and within all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the mainland, from the Atlantic and western sea and ocean on the east part, to the South sea on the west part."
Before this, Captain John Mason, a member of the Council of Plymouth, had obtained patents conveying territory, inland and along the coast, in the neighborhood of the Merrimack and Piscataqua, but had made no settlement under them. David Thompson's settlement at Portsmouth, in 1623, and Edward Hilton's at Dover, of a date still uncertain, were probably made with Mason's consent ; though Thomp- son had a special patent of his own. But on the 7th of November,
1 See Council of Plymouth; note at close of chapter.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
1629, eight months after the date of the Massachusetts charter, the Council of Plymouth issued a patent to Mason, conveying lands de- scribed as follows : " All that part of the mainland in New England, lying upon the seacoast, beginning from the middle part of Merrimack river, and thence to proceed northward along the seacoast to Piscataqua river, and . .
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