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 9
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a gun ; while, within easy musket range of the red men in watching, the white soldiers burnt wigwams and destroyed the winter stores of dried fish. Thereupon, Wonolancet withdrew farther into the wil- derness, and, with his people, passed the winter (1675-'76), or the greater part of it, about the head-waters of the Connecticut.
King Philip's War proper came to an end in the summer of 1676 ; but it had a bloody sequel in Maine and New Hampshire, which, commencing later than the war it continued, and from somewhat different motives, ended in 1678. This might be called Squando's war, after its chief instigator, the Saco sagamore and medicine-man, who was of great repute and influence in that country, and who, from personal wrong, hated the English, and sought revenge. Into this war the Ossipees and Pequawkets had been lured; but having lost many men, and suffering from hunger in course of the winter, they came to terms with Major Waldron, prominent in military affairs in that region. Somewhat later, in the year 1676, a treaty "of peace and mutual good offices" was negotiated, at Cocheco, between the chiefs of " the Indians of the eastern parts " and a com- mittee of the general court of Massachusetts. To this treaty, Won- olancet, having returned from his self-banishment, and having re- paired to Dover, on invitation of Major Waldron, affixed his signa- ture, as did Squando, with six other prominent Indians. But the " strange Indians,"-as those were called who had fought to the southward against the English,-now, in their hopeless defeat and fear of extirpation, sought the hospitality of the Penacooks, who had not participated in the war, and of the Ossipees, Pequawkets, and other tribes who had been hostile, but were now in peaceful submis- sion under treaty. These cowering guests hoped thus to escape punishment, in becoming identified with their entertainers.
The Massachusetts authorities, however, had no tenderness for "strange Indians," and, in despatching two companies eastward where hostilities still continued, they ordered the captains, Syll and Hathorne, to seize "all who had been concerned with Philip in the war." Upon the arrival of the companies at Dover, on the 6th of September, 1676, they found assembled there four hundred mixed Indians,-and among them the kindly and innocent Wonolancet,- all relying upon the promise of good usage made by " their friend and father," Major Waldron. The captains would fain have fallen upon them all without delay, but were dissuaded by the Major from ex- posing both friends and foes to peril of life and limb in a " promiscous onslaught." He, while owing, as they owed, obedience to Massachu- setts, yet wishing to keep his word of protection to his red guests, suggested this stratagem: In a pretended military training, to array,
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in sham fight, the Indians against the English, and by dexterous manœuver, surround, seize, and disarm the whole body, without personal harm. The stratagem was successful. " A separation was then made," says Belknap, " Wonolancet, with the Penacook, Indians, and others who had joined in making peace were dis- missed ; but the ' strange Indians' who had fled from the southward and taken refuge among them were made prisoners to the number of two hundred ; and being sent to Boston, seven or eight of them, who were known to have killed any Englishmen, were condemned and hanged ; the rest were sold into slavery in foreign parts." Waldron's action, though " highly applauded by the general voice of the colony," left revenge in many a savage breast, which the veteran's life-blood, just thirteen years later, could alone appease.
But it was with no revenge in his heart, though, doubtless, with much sadness, and a painful distrust of English faith, that, by order of the court, Wonolancet retired, with his people, to Wickasaukee and Chelmsford. There, under the " care " and " inspection " of Mr. Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable, he remained a year, conducting him- self, says Gookin, "like an honest Christian man, being one that, in his conversation, walks answerably to his knowledge." The un- reasonable suspicion of his English neighbors must have grieved him, still he could find some compensation in the happy consciousness of his honest and effective friendliness. He could point, with the triumph becoming a noble deed, to his bringing back from savage captivity a widow and five children, after saving them from the fires already kindled for their burning. With a smile upon a grave face where smiles were rare, he could say, " Me next," to the good minis- ter of Chelmsford, who " desired to thank God," that the town had suffered so little from the Indian enemy.
This sachem "in the care " of Mr. Tying had reasons to be ill at ease. His attendant band had dwindled to a few; "he had but little corn to live on for the ensuing winter, for the English had plowed and sown his land before he came in ; " and " he lived at a dangerous frontier place," exposed to prowling Mohawks and Abe- nakis-they being still on the war-path to the eastward. Then it was that, in September, 1677, as Mr. Elliott says, " a party of French Indians,-of whom some were of the kindred of this sachem's wife,-fell upon this people,-being but few and unarmed,-and partly by persuasion, and partly by force, carried them away " to their settlement of St. Francis.
This captivity of Wonolancet was, it would seem, a voluntary withdrawal under color of force-an expedient for relief and security and with no hostile intent towards white men from whose presence
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he, for a time, retired. The length of his stay at St. Francis is not known; but it was not permanent. He is frequently reported as tarrying at Penacook and other places along the Merrimack. Sachem he must always have remained; for by that title he is uniformly designated in the public records, and as such, to the latest years, dis- posed of lands belonging to the Penacook domain. But as early as 1685, his nephew Kancamagus was also recognized as a sachem of the Penacooks, and, in that capacity, signed treaties. It is probable that the uncle, "the only surviving son of the great Passaconaway," retained the grand sachemship, with special authority over the peace- able and " praying " Penacooks; while the nephew became the specially recognized sachem of the warlike majority of the nation.
At the head, then, of the peace party of his tribe, Wonolancet, at Penacook in 1685, a year of much apprehension of savage outbreak, relieved, to a degree, the fears of the provincial authorities-for New Hampshire had become a royal province-by the friendly assurance that his Indians there "had no intention of war," nor, "indeed were in any posture for war, being about twenty-four men besides squaws and papooses," Again, four years later, while the warlike party of the Penacooks, under Kancamagus, were busily in- tent upon hostile enterprises, he was still the man of peace, as testi- fies this record of the Massachusetts Council, made in 1689; " Wio- lanset, the Penecooke sachem [and] Watamun [or Wattanummon], one of his chief captains, came down to the Council, manifesting their friendship to the English, and promised the continuance thereof." 1
Nine years later, Wonolancet was dwelling at Wamesit, and though still recognized as "chief sachem on Merrimack river," was again in care of Mr. Tyng, to whom, and others, he had transferred by deed, on several occasions, sundry lands in his domain. His years were now nearly fourscore. Where and how long he afterwards lived, neither history nor tradition says. But enough is known of the good sachem to warrant the assurance that, to the last, he obeyed the noble Passaconaway's dying injunction to his children ; "Never be enemies to the English ; but love them and love their God also, because the God of the English is the true God, and greater than the Indian gods."
In the latter years of Passaconaway's sachemship, and the early ones of Wonolancet's, Captain Richard Waldron and Mr. Peter Coffin, of Dover, having much fur trade with the Indians, had a trucking- house at Penacook, probably near the Sewall farm, and on the east side of the Merrimack. There was also an Indian fort in the vicinity. In the summer of 1668, Thomas Dickinson, an English employee of
1 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. II, 47.
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Waldron and Coffin, was killed at that trucking-house by a drunken Indian. In August of that year, the matter was, on warrant from Governor Bellingham of Massachusetts, investigated on the spot, by Thomas Hinchman " with sufficient aid; " the evidence of Indians in the case being admitted. Among the witnesses were Tahanto and Pehaungun, called " sagamores." The " examinants " testified that " one Thomas Payne and the Englishman slain sent several Indians to their masters, Captain Walderne and Mr. Peter Coffin, at Piscata- qua," ordering the messengers to " bring from them guns, powder, shot and cloth, but instead thereof Captain Walderne and the said Peter Coffin returned those Indians to Pennycooke, loaded only with cotton cloth and three rundlets of liquors : with which liquors, there were at least one hundred of the Indians drunk for one night, one day and one half together." During " the time of their being so drunk . . . all the Indians went from the trucking-house, except one, who remained there drunk and killed the Englishman -the other Englishman being at the time in the fort."
It also appeared in evidence, " that an Indian, hearing the slain Englishman cry out, swam over the river, and went to the trucking- house, where he found the Englishman dead ; and that presently after he saw the Indian who killed " him "going towards the fort with his knife bloody in his hand." The murderer, being asked why he had done the deed, replied that he was "much sorry," and that " he had not done it, had he not been drunk." When told that " they must kill him for it," he said " he was willing to die for it," and that " he was much sorry for the death of the Englishman."
The record then proceeds: " The Indians then belonging to the fort, held a council what to do with the said murderer," and " after some debate, passed sentence that " he should be shot to death ; which sentence was accordingly performed the then next ensuing day, about noon. The murderer died undauntedly, still saying " he was much sorry for the Englishman's death."
In further investigation, four English witnesses testified that " going to Pennycooke " in the " month of June and riding to the fort there were told " of the killing of the Englishman ; and " that Tahanto, a sagamore, being afraid that " they " had brought liquors to sell, desired " them, " if " they " had any . . . to pour it upon the ground, for it would make the Indians all one Devill." This urgent appeal of the ancient sagamore, so strong in its simplicity, and so 'broad in application,-whatever its immediate effect,-was to per- petuate the name of Tahanto, as one to rally by in future organized efforts against the evils of strong drink.1
1 N. H. His. Society's Collections, Vol. III.
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It should be added that, in this case of rum and murder, justice did not content itself with the Draconian penalty, paid by the guilty, but repentant, red man ; it brought white men also to account. Heavy blame was found to rest upon the murdered man, and his associate Payne. The latter, upon confession, " that he sold rum to the Indians," and " that he did this when Thomas Dickinson was killed," was fined thirty pounds. Waldron exculpated himself under oath; but Coffin was so far implicated that he confessed " his grief for the miscarriage, and more especially for the dishonor of God therein ; " and, throwing himself upon the mercy of the court, was found to have " traded liquors irregularly, and contrary to law," and was fined in " the sum of fifty pounds and all charges."
For the seven years onward from about 1683, Kancamagus, alias John Hogkins, or Hawkins, is more prominent in history than Won- olancet. He differed widely in character from the latter, as well as from his grandfather, Passaconaway. He loved the war-path, and was never in his element save when he was upon it. He was the " wild Indian " in his hatred of the whites, and in his sullen resent- ment and cunning revenge. His father, Nanamocomuck, Passacona- way's eldest son, having for some reason, come to fear, if not to hate, the English, left the Wachusetts, of whom he was sagamore, and retired to the country of the Androscoggins, in Maine, where his death occurred probably before that of Passaconaway. The son be- came prominent among the Androscoggin warriors, gained a chief- taincy, and "maintained a fort " in connection with Worombo, the sachem.
It was natural that the more warlike of the Penacooks should will- ingly come under the sway of the active and fiery grandson of their greatest sachem, and so, as has already been seen, they did. Their numbers now constantly grew by accretions of restless and disaffect- ed men from various quarters, including many " strange Indians," among whom were not only the friends of those seized at Dover, in 1676, and sold into slavery at Barbadoes, but also some of the latter themselves, who had returned from banishment. By 1684, the Pen- acooks under Kancamagus had become a source of serious apprehen- sion to their English neighbors. Finally, such alarm arose from the suspected hostile intents, not of the Penacooks alone, but of the east- ern savages in general, that the provincial government of New Hamp- shire, in desperate resort, invited the Mohawks " to fight against the Indians of the East." Nothing loth, those eager warriors got ready to make descent upon New England in the summer of 1685 ; threat- ening to destroy all the Indians " from Narragansett to Pechypscott " (Brunswick), in Maine. Kancamagus, at l'enacook, heard of this.
7
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He hated the English no less, but he feared the Mohawks more. He applied to Governor Cranfield for protection, and promised submis- sion, but he got no satisfaction from that official or any other. Such neglect did not strengthen the sachem's amiable intent, if any he really had. He forthwith retired with most of his men to the An- droscoggins ; while the Sacos and neighboring tribes, hearing of the Mohawk threat, withdrew inland to Penacook. The alarm caused by this movement prompted the government to send messengers to that place, to order back those who had retired thither from the seaboard and to learn the truth. The messengers obeyed orders, and returned, as has before been said, with Wonolancet's peaceful assurance. Nego- tiations followed, which resulted in a treaty of mutual aid and protec- tion between the provincial council and the Indians of Maine and New Hampshire, which Kancamagus joined in signing, September 19, 1685, and which secured peace for four years.
" King William's War " was declared in 1689. Of course it meant, for New England, a border Indian war, instigated by the French, as meant all the wars of that period between France and Old England. There had been here, the year before, bloody premonitions of the coming struggle. For some of the Indians of Maine had undertaken hostile reprisal,-having grievances of their own against the English, and being also stirred up by the influential Frenchman, St. Castine, whose plantation at the mouth of the Penobscot had been wantonly despoiled by Andros, the Stuart viceroy of New England. Moreover, Kancamagus and his Penacooks had come into league with the Ossipees, Pequawkets, Sacos, Androscoggins, and other eastern tribes. With these were incorporated the " strange Indians." The Penacook sachem was a leading spirit in this savage conglomeration, and con- genial with him were such warriors as Mesandowit, Metambomet, of Saco, and Wahowah, or Hope-Hood, son of Robinhood, sachem of Kennebec. Hope-Hood had been especially mischievous, and had come to be characterized as " a tiger, and one of the most bloody warriors of the age." In April, 1689,-about the time when the Andros government was overthrown in revolution, leaving New Hampshire with no government, and Massachusetts with a provisional one,-the temporary authorities of the latter province ordered the despatch of a messenger to Penacook "to ascertain the number and situation of the Indians there, and to concert measures for securing Hope-Hood and other hostile Indians." The "tiger " was not then 'secured ; but he escaped, only to perish the next year, at the hands of friends who mistook him for a hostile Iroquois.1
The confederate warriors had rendezvous at Penacook fort,-and
1 Belknap's New Hampshire (Farmer's edition), 133.
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there, in the early summer of 1689, they devised the surprisal of Cochecho, and made ready to wreak on Major Waldron, for alleged violation of faith and hospitality, the vengeance delayed for thirteen years, but not forgotten. Moreover, there existed grudges against the veteran Indian trader for alleged sharp practice in his business dealings with the red men, in which too often, as it was believed, his fist was made to answer "for a pound weight as against their furs."1 But the deadly designs of the hostile chiefs leaked out; and, on the 22d of June, two friendly Indians, Job Maramasquand and Peter Muckamug, hastened down to Chelmsford to inform Colonel Hinchman of the speedy mischief designed "by a gathering of Indians at Pennecooke," against the English-especially Major Waldron, at Cocheco. The informants also reported Hawkins as a " principal enemy and designer," who threatened "to knock on the head whosoever came to treat, whether English or Indians."2 This startling intelligence was communicated to Thomas Danforth of the council, and by him to Governor Bradstreet, on the very day of its reception. But, for some unknown reason,-possibly, from the con- fusion resulting from the revolutionary deposition of the Andros government,-the matter did not receive attention till the 27th of June. Then a messenger was hurried off for Dover with a warning to Waldron, and with no time to spare, if the fell purpose of the sav- ages was to be defeated. But time had to be spared, for the messen- ger met with unavoidable delay at Newbury ferry. He could reach his destination only on the morning of the 28th of June; too late, for during the previous night Kancamagus and his party had accom- plished the surprisal of Cocheco, and " with violence and rage de- stroyed, and laid waste before them." They had " crossed out their accounts" in gashes upon the breast of the dying Waldron; they had slain twenty-two others-men, women, and children ; and, leaving in ashes six houses and " the mills upon the lower falls," they had taken away with them twenty-nine captives in unmolested retreat towards Canada.
After this bold achievement at Dover, Kancamagus never returned to Penacook. He and his following probably sought security in Canada and Maine. He was outlawed by the general court of Massachusetts, and a price was set upon his head. Captain Noyes was sent with soldiers to Penacook, but found nothing except corn to destroy. The Penacooks had disappeared,-either hidden or fled.
But, in 1690, Kancamagus came to severe fighting with Major Benjamin Church along the Androscoggin, in which he was worsted ; and in November of the same year, under the alias of Hawkins, he
1 Belknap's New Hampshire (Farmer's edition, 78).
2 Potter's Manchester, 91-2.
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was one of the six eastern sachems who signed the truce of " Sackatehock," running until 1692. Thenceforth nothing is heard of the last war sachem of the Penacooks. The conjecture that he died not long after the truce of 1690 derives likelihood from the fact that during the six remaining years of King William's War, and the nine of Queen Anne's which followed, no mention of him occurs ; for Kancamagus, if alive, with his vigor unspoiled by age, with his ungovernable propensity for warfare, and his undoubted ability as an Indian captain, must have been, sometime and somewhere, in the con- flicts of those days, and being in them would have been heard of in history. The inference, then, is reasonably safe that his death occur- red before that of Wonolancet, who was living in 1697, the chief sachem on the Merrimack.
It has been seen that the immediate following of Kancamagus, directly engaged in the surprisal of Cocheco, with perhaps some others, permanently left Penacook. Possibly others of his adherents did not at once do so. At any rate, in one of the Indian assaults upon Haverhill-probably, that of 1693-Isaac Bradley was one of the captives, and testified, some forty years later, that he " was taken prisoner by Indians, part of whom were of the Merrimack Indians, and others of them belonged to the Saco." 1 The term " Merrimack " seems a natural substitute enough for "Penacook "; especially in view of the broken condition of the tribe-part peaceful, part war- like. It is safe to conclude that the former, the adherents of Wono- lancet,-who was still alive,-were not in the foray upon Haverhill. The latter, then, the recent followers of Kancamagus, must have been of those who were engaged in that attack, and who either still dwelt in the Merrimack valley, or had temporarily returned thither. Bradley leaves this point in uncertainty, though he says he " went with them hunting to Merrimack river above Penicooke."
Ultimately, however, these hostile Penacooks all left for Maine and Canada, to become parts of other Indian organizations. Thus some of them became merged with the Pequawkets, already composed of remnants of other tribes once belonging to the Penacook confederacy. The conglomerate Pequawkets, having located themselves upon the upper Saco and its branches, did much mischief for two or three years, till having been effectually humbled in Lovewell's fight at Fryeburg in 1725, they retired to the head waters of the Connecticut, and afterwards to St. Francis. Some of the peaceable Penacooks also removed to the latter place, where Wonolancet had once tarried ; but most of them remained in their old haunts,-hunting, fishing, and planting. The soil, however, was no longer theirs, save at the suffer-
1 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XIX, 319-20.
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ance of those who had received it by deed from Wonolancet or huis father, years ago. How far along into the next century they retained their distinct tribal organization is not known. But early in it, they had as a leading sagamore, resident at Penacook, one Wattanummon, or Walternummon, with whom Bradley, in his deposition already cited, says he " was well acquainted " after his return out of captivity about the year 1702, and while employed " for many years after as a pilot " up the river, and whom he styles "an Indian sachem and cap- tain of the Merrimack Indians." In 1703 the Penacooks were repre- sented by the same chief, under the name of Waternummon, in the conference held by Governor Dudley at Casco, with delegates from several Indian tribes.
In this connection, the following entry1 made in the Colonial Rec- ords of Massachusetts, as late as August 21, 1733, may have signifi- cance, while being otherwise of historic interest: " Wanalawet, chief of the Penacook Indians, and divers others of the tribes attending, were admitted to the council. Wanalawet made demand of the lands at Penicook, from Suncook to Contoocook, as his inheritance, saying that they were never purchased of him or his fathers ; and he, like- wise, in behalf of the Indians resorting to Penicook, prayed that a trading-house might be set up there. The Governor thereupon ac- quainted the Indians that Wonalanset, Chief Sachem on Merrimack river, had sold all those lands to the English almost forty years ago ; and the Secretary showed the Indians the record of his deeds, [at] which they expressed themselves satisfied, and acknowledged that the English had a good right to the said lands by those deeds. And then the Indians were dismissed." 2
This occurred seven years after the permanent English occupation of Penacook ; and the brief official record awakens curiosity to know more of the chief, who, at that late day, was demanding his "inheri- tance," as never having been " purchased of him or his fathers." And while history tolerates no mere conjecturing, it can permit the ques- tion,-May not Wanalawet have been of the royal line of Passacona- way, and the last sachem of the thin and fading race of the Penacooks?
It is recorded of the Indians who remained in Penacook until and after English settlement in 1725-'26, that they " were highly useful to the first inhabitants, supplying them with food in the winter of 1726-'27, when almost in a state of starvation." 3 One of those who lingered in their old home after white occupation was Wattanummon, already mentioned as " one of the chief captains of Wonolancet," and as a sagamore. In 1683, as "Wattanummon," then resident at
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