USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hudson > History of Hudson, N.H., formerly a part of Dunstable, Mass., 1673-1733, Nottingham, Mass., 1733-1741, District of Nottingham, 1741-1746, Nottingham West, N.H., 1746-1830, Hudson, N.H., 1830-1912 > Part 3
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This land was laid out 27, 3d mo 1663. By JOHN PARKER and JONATHAN DANFORTH Surveyrs
this worke was done by us at our charge wholly, at the request of the Indians, who was important and as we were informed by the order of this Honord Court respecting ourselves. Hence we humbly request this Honord Generall Court (if our services are acceptable) that they would take order we may be considered Sd the same, so we shall remain yr
Humble Servants as before
The deputies approve of said return and do order the Indians pay the Surveyors what is justly due for the Laying out the same the Honora- ble Magistrates consenting thereto.
WILLIAM TORREY, Clerk.
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ABORIGINAL HISTORY
This grant, it will be seen by examination of the boun- dary, included parts of Manchester, Londonderry and Litch- field on the east side of the river ; and Bedford and Merri- mack on the west. At the northern boundary of the tract, at the mouth of Suskayquetuck Brook, as called by the In- dians, now known as Cohas, is situated a considerable fall in the river, the Indian name of which was Pokechuous, re- named by the English settlers as Goffe's Falls. While per- haps not equal to Amoskeag and Pawtucket Falls, this was a favorite fishing place with the Indians, and they were especially anxious the grant should cover these falls. They were also anxious the grant should include the islands and intervales " which he (Passaconnaway) had lived upon and planted a long time." No doubt they were keen enough to know the truth as expressed by the surveyors in their return, " and considering there is very little good land in that which is now laid out to them." Is it a wonder if an undercurrent of bitterness should pervade the reply of the great sachem, who had been a true and trusted friend of the English, in peace and in war, and who in his old age had provided for a continuance of this good faith through the efforts of his son ?
Further down the river the grant had been made to William Brenton, of Rhode Island, for a trifling service done the government, of a tract of nearly six square miles of territory comprising the rich intervale lands on both sides of the Merrimack, while this grant to Passaconnaway and his associates of mostly worthless land was made with the reservation, "provided he nor they do not alienate any part of this grant without leave and license from this Court, first obtained." So it was not granted to them as their land in fee, but set off for their use for the time be- ing. And to add still further to the injustice and inconsist- ency of the transaction the court made the following order : "The deputies do approve of said return and do order the Indians pay the Surveyors what is justly due for the Laying out of the same the Honorable Magistrates con- senting thereto."
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
The italics are ours, to bring out more forcibly, if pos- ble, the underlying spirit of this whole action. Well might " the Honorable Magistrates consent thereto."
With the closing of this affair the history of Passacon- naway ends and his name does not reappear. It is cer- tain that five or six years later he was dead, but where he spent his last years of loneliness and where he was finally laid to rest, none of his race ever disclosed. It seems wrong that the name of this great and illustrious man, in his time, should not have been better perpetuated than it has been. Mr. Potter, in his history of Manchester, says :
In less than twenty years from the time Passaconnaway submitted himself to the colonists, and put himself under their protection, he and his tribe were reduced to beggary. The Bashaba of the Merrimack valley, and the rightful owner of all its broad lands, had become "a pore peti- tioner " for a plantation of pine plains, and "did earnestly request the Honered Court to grant two small islands and ye patch of intervale " to him, receiving them doubtless with all due submission, if not humility ! Old age, as well as contact with civilization, must have done its work upon the spirit of this haughty sagamon for him thus to have meekly asked his
usurpers to grant him what was properly his own. * In reflecting up- on the character of the Merrimack sagamon, the conviction forces itself upon one, that at the head of a powerful confederacy of Indians, honored and feared by his subjects, and capable of moulding their fierce passions to his will, the history of New England would have been told as another story than the triumph of our Pilgrim Fathers, had Passaconnaway taken a different view of his own destiny and that of his tribe. * * * Prov- idence seems to have tempered the fierce savages for the reception and triumph of the Anglo-Saxon race in the New World.
CHAPTER III 1136490
WHEN HUDSON WAS A WILDERNESS
Passaconnaway left at least four sons and two daugh- ters. The oldest son, Nanamocomuck, was sagamon of the Wachuset tribe of Indians living about the mountains by that name. This chief did not seem to have the forgiv- ing qualities of his father to that extent which enabled him to forget the wrongs thrust upon him. At one time he was seized and put in prison at Boston for a debt due one John Tinker from another Indian, and for which he had become responsible. Unable to pay the claim the chief was in a sorry predicament, when his younger brother, Wonnalancet, came to his assistance by offering to sell the home island in the Merrimack a few miles above Lowell. This was no mean sacrifice, as it was here the chieftain held his royal court, and resided with a dignity becoming his station. The court granted this permission, as if it were bestowing a great favor upon the unfortunate owner, and one Ensign John Evered, sometimes known as Webb, purchased the tract of over sixty acres, so the imprisoned chieftain was set free. ,
But Nanamocomuck had incurred a fear if not a dis- like for the English, and he sought an alliance with the Ameriscoggin Indians in Maine, who had acknowledged fealty to the Pennacook confederacy in the days of its wide-spread power. Here he seems to have died about the time of his father, so that the government of the Penna- cooks fell upon the shoulders of his brother, Wonnalancet.
Passaconnaway had a daughter older than Wonnalan- cet, who became the wife of Nobhow, the sagamon of Paw- tucket, who was quite prominent in the affairs of the whites and Indians. Another daughter married Montawxampate, the sagamon of Saugus. This was prior to 1628, and it
35
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
was around the difference that arose between this chief and his illustrious father-in-law, our poet Whittier wove his ro- mance of the unfortunate Weetamoo.
The names of the other sons were Unanunquosett and Nonatomenut, both of whom dwelt about Pawtucket, and proved friendly to the English.
Wonnalancet, the successor of Passaconnaway, was born about 1619, and it seemed fortunate that he should have succeeded to the important position that he did, else the English might have had far more trouble in overcoming their enemies. Notwithstanding the indignities that one of his proud spirit and position must have suffered at the hands of the whites, and the sacrifices that he was called upon, time and again, to make, he always maintained a friendly attitude towards them. "His name," says Mr. Potter, "is indicative of his character, meaning literally breathing pleasantly, derived from Wonne or Wunne, ' pleasant,' and Nangshonat, 'to breathe.' This name, after the Indian custom, he received when he arrived at the age of manhood, and he had shown to his tribe such quali- ties as deserved it ; and he ever proved himself worthy of this flattering cognomen."
He doubtless succeeded his father in 1668, as he left his fort at Pennacook about that time and appeared at Pawtucket in the spring of 1669, where he built a fort to protect his people from their dreaded enemies, the Mo- hawks. It seems likely that some of his people continued to live at Pennacook, but he evidently preferred the coun- try about Pawtucket. So he and his followers continued to plant and fish along the Merrimack between those places. Following the permission to sell Wickasauke Island and the grant of a hundred acres to the west of Chelms- ford, " because he had a great many children and no plant- ing ground," he desired to recover their favorite resort. Hence the following petition was sent to the court :
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WHEN HUDSON WAS A WILDERNESS
To the most worshipful Richard Bellingham, Esg., Gour and to the rest of the Honord General Court.
The petition of us poore neibor Indians whose Names are hereunto subscribed, humbly sheweth that wheras Indians severall years since we yr petit's out of pity and compassion to our pore brother and Countryman to redeem him out of prison and bondage and whose name is Nanamoco- muck, the eldest son of Passaconnaway, who was Cast into prison for a debt of another Indian unto John Tinker for which he gave his word : the redemption of whome did cost us our desirable posetions where we and ours had and did hope to enjoy our Livelihood for ourselves and our pos- terity : namely an Island on Merrimack River called by the name of wicosurke which was purchased by Mr. John Web: who hath Curtiously Given Vs leave to plant vpon ever since he hath possessed the same, we doe not know whither to Goe, nor where to place ourselves for our Lively hood in procuring vs bread : having beine very Solicitous wh Mr. Web to lett vs enjoy our said posetions againe he did condescend to our motion provided we would repay him his charges but we are pore and Canot so doe-or request is mr Web may have a grant of about 5 C acres of land in two places adjoying his owne Lands in the wilderness, which is our owne proper Lands as the aforesaid Island ever was ---
10:8: 65 NOBHOW in behalf of my wife and children. VNANUNQUOSETT WANALANCETT NONATOMENUT.
If the Court please to grant this petition then yr petitionr Wanalan- cet is willing to surrender up ye hundred acres of land yt was granted him by the Court.
The court looked with favor upon this humble peti- tion, as well it might, considering the generous offer, and the following reply was sent within a week :
In Ans. to this petition the Court grant Mr. John Evered (Webb) five hundred acres of land adjoining to his lands upon condition hee re- lease his right in an Island in the merrimacke river called wicosacke which was purchased by him of the Indian petitioners-also upon condition wonalancet do release a former grant to him of an hundred acres and the court do grant said Island to petitioner-John Parker and Jonathan Dan- forth are appointed to lay out this grant of five hundred acres to John Evered.
EDWD. RAWSON, Secy.
Consented to by the Deputies. 14 Oct. 1665. (Mass. Archives, Vol. 30, p. 130.)
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
Wonnalancet resumed the occupation of his beautiful island home at Wickasauke, which he continued to make his abode until 1675. During this period, besides such cul- tivation as he could do at his island, he planted the clear- ings at Souhegan and Pennacook, and fished at Namos- keag. He seems to have stopped at these last named plac- es only long enough to secure his harvests of crops and fish, though he did maintain a fort at Pennacook in order to defend himself and followers from any depredations of enemies.
It seems rather singular that, while his father had em- braced the Christian faith, more than a quarter of a cen- tury before, and he had lived a peaceful life, listening fre- quently to the word of God as preached by good Father Eliot, Wonnalancet should have refused to accept its teach- ings until in May, 1674. Mr. Gookin says that he and Mr. Eliot visited Pawtucket on the 5th of May, when large numbers of Indians were gathered at the place looking af- ter their fisheries. That evening Mr. Eliot preached to them in the wigwam of Wonnalancet. During the service the sagamon appeared grave and sober. The next day Mr. Eliot approached him and inquired if he did not feel like praying to God. Then Wonnalancet stood up with the grave decorum for which the red man was noted, and look- ing upon the preacher with great deliberation, finally re- plied in a slow, thoughtful manner :
"Sirs, you have been pleased for years past in your abundant love to apply yourselves particularly unto me and my people; to exhort, press and persuade us to pray to God. I am thankful to you for your goodness. I must not deny I have all of my days been used to pass in an old ca- noe; and now you exhort me to change and leave my old canoe and embark in a new one. I have heretofore been unwilling ; now I yield myself to your advice, and enter in- to a new canoe. Hereafter I engage to pray to God."
We have every reason to believe that Wonnalancet kept the faith, though he was many times sorely tried. Gookin in 1677, in speaking of his conversion, says :
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WHEN HUDSON WAS A WILDERNESS
" I have charity and faith to believe him to be an hon- est Christian man, being one that in his conversation walks unswervably to his knowledge. He prays in his family, and is careful of keeping the Sabbath; loves to hear God's words ; sober in conversation."
King Philip's War broke out in 1675, and Wonnalancet found himself confronted by a serious problem. The wily Philip had sent his most trusty followers, or gone himself, to every tribe in Northern New England, hoping to form a confederacy that could crush the English. Wonnalancet firmly refused to ally himself and people in this far-reaching combination. Still past experience told him that, even if he remained neutral, he would be constantly open to sus- picion, and the work of hostile Indians would be attributed to his people. In this dilemma he quietly withdrew to Pennacook, and from thence, with some of his closest fol- lowers, retired to the St. Francis lodge in New France, now Canada.
This movement alarmed the English, and emissaries were sent to entreat him to come back. This he declined to do, though he kept well posted in regard to what was being done by the enemies of the English, and frequently warned them of impending attacks by hostile forces. In the midst of this trying situation, many of the Indians of Northern New England who had joined King Philip de- serted him and returned to their former companions, Pen- nacooks, Sokoki and Ossipees. One reason for doing this was that they expected to escape punishment for their re- cent disloyalty by being under the protection of Wonna- lancet, who had remained faithful to the whites. These Indians promised future good behavior, and as many as four hundred, under the influence of Wonnalancet, were admitted into Dover at one time under the pretence of forming a treaty with them. But the order came from Mas- sachusetts to seize all of these Indians, and in spite of the advice of Major Waldron, these red men were betrayed, and those who were not killed were taken captives, and
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
eight of them were hung in Boston, while the rest were sold into slavery.
Wonnalancet, who had been summoned hither, and his followers were suffered to go free, and they returned to their home at Wickasauke. Perhaps feeling that there was reason for an outbreak among these Indians, the General Court, ever alive to suspicion if not justice, ordered Won- nalancet and his companions to be placed under the guard- ianship of Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable. This veteran frontiersman, with more faith in his princely prisoner than the men who had invested him with the power to watch him, allowed the chieftain comparative liberty. Still the proud spirit of Wonnalancet rebelled against this indigni- ty, and he felt that he could no longer trust the English.
While he had been away the English had taken posses- sion of his planting ground, so he had nowhere to raise the crops so essential to his living. Mr. Eliot in speaking of the situation, says :
He (Wonnalancet) was persuaded to come in again ; but the English having plowed and sown all of their lands, they had but little corn to sub- sist by. A party of French Indians, of whom some were of the kindred of this sachem's wife, very lately fell upon this people, being but few and unarmed, and partly by force and partly by persuasion carried them away.
Wonnalancet showed his friendship for the English by calling upon his old friend and teacher, the Rev. Mr. Fiske, to inquire in regard to what had taken place since he had been away. Mr. Fiske replied that they had been highly favored: for which he desired "to thank God."
"Me next," declared the shrewd sagamon, who felt, and not without reason, that a share of the credit belonged to him.
In spite of the suspicious attitude of the whites against him, at least twice during the period of the war warning them of impending harm from unfriendly men of his race, Wonnaloncet remained at Wicasauke, or in the vicinity, un- til the following autumn, as if he was loath to leave the scenes of the brightest years of his troubled life. The
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WHEN HUDSON WAS A WILDERNESS
Merrimack and its tributaries, abounding with fish, and the rich intervales along its banks easy of cultivation, had been a favorite country of his people for many generations.
Such spots, combining a rich light soil, with productive fisheries, were always chosen ; and the choice was a wise and beautiful one. The Indian was a child of Nature, and he gazed upon her charms with filial admiration, knowing the plains as their harvest land, the mountains as the abode of the Great Spirit.
Towards the last of September, 1677, he retired again to St. Francis, and again his enemies reproached him with the old story of unfaithfulness towards those for whom he had professed a life-long friendship. In spite of these charges he went quietly about his own affairs, to live them down as he had before. Major Gookin, his fast friend, gives five reasons why the sagamon should have adopted this course, any one of which was sufficient. He concludes by saying :
"The wonder of it is that Wonnalancet had not retired long before, and made common cause with the enemies of the English, as they and portions of his own tribe had re- peatedly urged him to do."
He did not re-appear at his old haunts until the close of King Philip's War, and a treaty of peace with the East- ern Indians, and not to be active then. About this time the son of his older brother, Kancamagus, came into the leadership of the Pennacooks and allied tribes. As this relative was of a more warlike nature, and was inclined to harass the English, it was natural the older sagamon should have little if any interest with him. In fact, his retirement to St. Francis was considered by the followers of the grand- son of Passaconnaway as an abdication of his rule.
Wonnalancet was beginning to feel the weight of his years-he was verging upon seventy-and finding that he would receive little further benefit from them, he resolved to sell his interest in the lands about Wamesit, Pawtucket, Nashuay and Naticook. This was the last important rec-
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
ord that we have of him, and a sale was effected early in 1686, and Jonathan Tyng became the owner of the last of the Pennacook possessions in the valley of the Merrimack. The entire purchase money paid amounted to only twenty- four pounds ! As a result of this transaction, the pur- chasers petitioned the court under date of July 12, 1686, praying that the land bought of Wonnalancet be set apart as a new county to be called Merrimack.
Upon making this sale Wonnalancet again retired to St. Francis, where he seems to have remained for ten years, as there is nothing in the records here to show that he was in the Merrimack valley. But in his extreme old age the desire to return to the scenes of his early life seemed to direct his footsteps back to Wamesit, a poor, forlorn old man. With the handful of his followers that kept with him, he was placed under the protection of Jona- than Tyng, who lived in that part of Old Dunstable now comprised in the town of Tyngsboro. He lived with Mr. Tyng a little over a year, the province paying the latter twenty pounds for that service. And this act of charity, about the only kindly deed done him, closes the life record of that grand and good man.
In reviewing the lives of Passaconnaway and Wonna- lancet one cannot help feeling they suffered many abuses that should have been spared them. Had one or both ex- ercised the powerful influence at their command to arouse their followers instead of restraining their natural proclivi- ties, the early history of New England would have been stained with blood where their honesty and magnanimity averted the strife. In return for this good work they were most cruelly ill-treated and insulted, which to them was harder to bear than the former. Their lands were taken from them, and they were at times almost reduced to a state of starvation-obliged to plead for a little land upon which to subsist.
Nor were theirs isolated cases. King Philip and many other sagamons had similar grievances. Contrast the
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WHEN HUDSON WAS A WILDERNESS
peaceful results of the kind and honorable treatment ac- corded to the Indians by Roger Williams, in Rhode Island ; William Penn, who settled Pennsylvania, and others, not forgetting Father Eliot.
The Indians were strangers to the higher influence of the civilized life, yet there were many great and noble men among them-men of honor, ability and principle. Passa- connaway and Wonnalancet stood well towards the head of this class.
We believe the blackest page upon American history is the record of the ill treatment of the aborigines-the poor Indian !- which treatment began with the discovery of the western continent by Columbus, and with greater or lesser cruelty, has continued to the present time. An anonymous poet expresses the plain truth in forcible lan- guage when he makes the heart-broken chieftain say :
I will go to my tent and lie down in despair ; I will paint me in black and sever my hair; I will sit on the shore when the hurricane blows, And reveal to the God of the tempest my woes.
I will weep for a season on bitterness fed,
For my kindred have gone to the mounds of the dead ; But they died not of hunger or wasting decay, For the steel of the white man has swept them away!
Let us pause for a moment in retrospection, and pic- ture to our minds the condition of the region now included in the town of Hudson, as it appeared two and a half cen- turies ago-in the days when the settlements of the whites began to creep up the Merrimack Valley. Where we now behold the placid waters of the beautiful river, as they flow gently along our western border, calmly seeking the bosom of the broad ocean, as if they had never witnessed any wilder scene, then the royal canoes of the powerful wildwood confederacy of Passaconnaway, passed and repassed on the way to and fro between his summer lodge to the north or his winter quarters at Pawtucket.
Here, too, peradventure, upon the shady banks be- neath the giant trees of the primeval forest, whose branches
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HISTORY OF HUDSON
had withstood the storms and tempests of hundreds of years, he reared the conical walls of his regal wigwam, watched the talking smoke of his council fires, as it curled lazily upward, and performed his feats of necromancy that were both the wonder and the terror of his followers. From this same bank of the grand old river the Indians caught the salmon, shad, alewives and eels in almost countless numbers.
Here, upon these productive, alluvial intervales, they planted their scanty crops and under the harvest moon held their forest festival in the autumn. Or it might be, under the mighty canopy of oaks, pines and other primeval giants of that period covering almost all these hills and valleys, the Indian hunter, armed with his bow and quiver of flint- pointed arrows, his tomahawk and spear, pursued the state- ly moose, or ran down the timid deer. Here also he encoun- tered the obstinate bear, outwitted with his imitation call the cautious turkey, snared the partridge, squirrel or wild pigeon.
Since then what a change the white man has wrought. The woodman's ax, with the help of fire, long since leveled the beautiful original forest. The dams of the manufac- turers sometime since stopped the migratory flight of the finny denizens of the river. The game has mainly fled from such forests as remain ; ay, the dusky hunter himself has vanished !
Let us drop the tear of pity upon the ashes of this race whose representative welcomed the Englishmen to their wild shore, and preserved them when famine was at their door :- those sons of the forest, though savages, possessing many of the most worthy and noble traits of character- that people scattered over all this broad land, and who ac- knowledged fealty to the Great Spirit only. Could the old rocks and hills, the mountains, valleys and streams relate the scenes that they have witnessed of treachery, oppres- sion and destruction committed in their presence, in the process of building one race upon the ruins of another,
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