USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 5
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When he had seen the snows of a hundred winters or so pass away he concluded, like many another sinner, to join the church. To the apostle Elliot, who had left friends, home, and happy coun-
* Bouton's History of Concord, N. H., 30.
t Barstow gives the following: "Hearken," said Passaconaway, "to the last words of your father and friend. The white men are the sons of the morning. The Great Spirit is their father. His sun shines bright about them. Never make war with them. Sure as you light the fires the breath of heaven will turn the flames upon you and destroy you. Listen to my advice. It is the last I shall be allowed to give you. Remember it and live !"- Hist. of N. H., 68.
Hon. Chandler E. Potter gives this fanciful version : "Hearken to the words of your father. I am an old oak that has withstood the storms of more than an hun- dred 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. But when young and sturdy - when my bow no young man of the Pennacooks could bend - when my arrows would pierce a deer at a hundred yards, and I could bury my hatchet in a sapling to the eye,- no wigwam had so many furs, no pole so many scalp-locks as Passaconaway's. Then I was delighted in war. The whoop of the l'ennacook was heard on the Mohawk, and no voice so loud as Passaconaway's. The scalps upon the pole of my wigwam told the story of Mohawk suffering.
" The English came. They seized our lands. I sat me down at Pennacook. They followed upon my footsteps. I made war upon them, but they fought with fire and thunder; my young men were swept down before me when no one was
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
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try to cross the ocean on an errand of mercy, is due his conversion. He left off juggling and became a very good man. He was benev- olent, peaceful, and forgiving. We think it fortunate for the very kind-hearted and well-disposed colonists who came to Massachu- setts and New Hampshire that, like Massasoit, he was not fight- . ingly disposed. It is a notorious fact that the English trespassed on his hunting-grounds and stole his lands .* Yet he never stole anything from them. They killed his warriors-yet he never killed a white man, woman, or child. They captured and impris- oned his sonst and daughters-yet he never led a captive into the wilderness. Once the proudest and most noble Bashaba of New England, he passed his extreme old age poor, forsaken, and robbed of all that was dear to him, by those to whom he had been a firm friend for nearly half a century.
Passaconaway had six children-four sons and two daughters whom we read of-and perhaps he had more. The exceedingly pretty names of the boy pappooses were as follows: Nanamoco- muck, who first was sachem or sagamore of the Wachusetts in Massachusetts, and secondly with his whole tribe was changed into the great Amariscoggin nation, of which he continued chief; Wonalancet, a peaceable man, who trod in the footsteps of his father; Unanunquosset, of whom we know but little, and Nona- tomenut. We are much grieved that the name of the eldest daughter has not come down to us. It only transpires that she was the squaw-queen of the royal Nobhow. The youngest was
near them. I tried sorcery against them, but they still increased and prevailed over me and mine, and I gave place and retired to my beautiful island of Nati- cook. I can make the dry leaf turn green and live again ; I can take the rattlesnake in my palm as a worm without harm. I, who have had communion with the Great Spirit - dreaming and awake - I am powerless before the pale faces.
"The oak will soon break before the whirlwind - it shivers and shakes even now. Soon its trunk will be prostrate, the ant and the worm will sport upon it. Then think, my children, of what I say. I commune with the Great Spirit. He whispers me now : 'Tell your people, peace ! Peace is the only hope of your race. I have given fire and thunder to the pale faces for weapons. I have made them plentier than the leaves of the forest, and still shall they increase. These mead- ows shall they turn with the plow -these forests shall fall by their axe; the pale faces shall live upon your hunting grounds, and make their villages upon your fish- ing places.' The Great Spirit says this, and it must be so. We are few and power- less before them. We must bend before the storm. The wind blows hard. The old oak trembles ! The branches are gone. Its sap is frozen. It bends! It falls ! Peace, peace with the white man, is the command of the Great Spirit, and the wish - the last wish - of Passaconaway .- Hist. of Manchester, 60.
IV. Mass. H. C. series 3, 82.
* Potter's Hist. of Manchester, 61.
t When the gov't of Ms. sent forty men to arrest Passaconaway they did not succeed, but captured his sonne Wonalancet .- Winthrop's Journal.
Drake's Indian Biog. 279.
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INDIAN ROMANCE.
Wetamoo, the beautiful squaw of Monatawampatee, the haughty sagamore of Saugus. From the poet Whittier we learn that the marriage of this beautiful Indian girl was celebrated in great state, and that the bride was escorted to her lord's wigwam or palace by a noble train of warriors; that homesick the Saugus chief returned her to visit Passaconaway with like pomp, and that in due time he demanded her back with the same formality. But old Passaconaway had got sick of this foolery and vain show, and would not take the trouble to restore her. Whereupon, the poem states, she left her father's wigwam at Pennacook-by the way, Passaconaway never had a wigwam there-to sail down the Mer- rimack home, but unfortunately perished on the foaming falls of Amoskeag; a very poetical idea, but an exceedingly improbable tale. Wetamoo was known as a grass widow for many years .*
We give this somewhat extended account of Passaconaway, for his life illustrates some of the finest traits of Indian character. As Bashaba he was obeyed by all the Indians of New Hampshire, and by many other of the New England tribes. He died about 1663. In the deep wood, at a place now unknown, the noblest of the Nipmuck Indians, their last and greatest Bashaba, was laid to rest in the burial place of his ancestors.
* Morton's New England Canaan.
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CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH IS SET FORTH THE MANNER THE PEMIGEWASSETTS SOME- TIMES ENJOYED THEMSELVES WHILE THE NEW BASHABA LIVED, AND THEN OF A SLIGHT WAR THAT AROSE, WHICH WAS EX- CEEDINGLY ENTERTAINING TO THEM, TOGETHER WITH ITS PIOUS CLOSE AT QUOCHECO.
THE Pemigewassetts, a tribe of the great Nipmuck nation, belonging to the widely extended Algonquin race, were at peace with the English for fifty years after the first settlements were made at Dover Neck and Strawberry Bank. The same is true as far as the thirteen other great tribes of New Hampshire were con- cerned. But with the Marquas or Mohawks-sometimes called Mohogs-their relations were not always the most friendly. How many fierce battles, cunning ambuscades, or gray-of-the-morning surprises our Pemigewassetts encountered or inflicted upon them, cannot now be told. We lament this ignorance, but there is no remedy, for their birch-bark histories, if they ever had any, are all burnt up; their story-telling legend-men are all dead, while the just and worthy English settlers had such a holy horror and pious hatred of red-skins that they would have disdained to record their great wars, even if they had known anything about them. In fact, the reasons why the learned historians of those days say so little and frequently nothing about our beloved Pemigewassetts are just these: First, because they lived far in the interior, and did not travel down to the coast very often to report themselves, and when they did they had somehow changed into some other great tribe, being known as the Amoskeags, Nashuas, or Winne- cowetts, just as it happened, the name depending upon the place
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THEY VISIT THE MOHAWKS.
of their temporary sojourn and changing with their removal. Secondly, the English scarcely ever visited them; for it must be remembered that ten other great tribes of New Hampshire always intervened. Thirdly, the Puritans believed the Indians to be the children of the devil, and their Quaker-loving, witch-hanging religion forbade them to associate with such low offspring; and fourthly, being religiously inclined to blot out the devil and his works, they would take especial pains to destroy rather than pre- serve the history of our happy Pemigewassetts. Still we know enough of that history to be assured that in battle they did some- times distinguish and immortalize themselves among all good fighting Indians.
Old Acteon used to tell how often a large number of brave war-parties, each consisting of three or more fierce, glory-seeking soldiers, all painted and plumed, went majestically forth to fight the Mohawks. They have danced the war-dance, taken leave of the women and children, and having gathered around their chosen chief, depart from the shadows of Moosilauke and the Haystacks. The Indian story-teller of two hundred years ago, listening, might have heard them singing as they crossed the long river of pines-the Connecticut -
" The eagles scream on high, They whet their forked beaks; Raise, raise the battle-cry, 'Tis fame our leader seeks."
Or he might have heard the whistling of their arrows, the whirr of their tomahawks, and their savage shouts in the valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, or in the dark glens of the Green mountains. We can well believe that such brave mountaineers were often victorious, and returned triumphant with rich trophies of dangling scalps. But as all great military commanders know that the fortunes of battle are fickle, it is nothing more than fair to presume that the war chief sometimes came back with a huge flea in his ear, more scalps having been left among the festive Mohawk fighters than he would well care to acknowledge.
Thus the Pemigewassetts found the wildest kind of enjoyment, and we suppose pretty much all the rest of the New England In- dians lived in the same way, even to the time of the death of the great Bashaba, Passaconaway.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
But in 1675 a great war with the English arose, in which many of the Nipmucks engaged, and which was exceedingly interesting to the Pemigewassetts who lived among our hills.
Philip of Mount Hope, sachem of the Wampanoag's, known in Indian tongue as the renowned Pometacom, waged the first war with the peaceable Puritans. The English had arrested and executed his warriors without his consent. He himself with his child they had captured and sold into slavery. The chieftain was stung to the quick; madness seized upon him; hatred tormented him, and soon his heart burned for revenge. Besides, the en- croachments of his white-faced enemy were driving him from his hunting-grounds. War was inaugurated. What Alexander or Hannibal was to the ancients, or Bonaparte to the last genera- tion, was Philip to the Indians. The bravest in the fight, the most skilled in diplomacy, and eloquent above all others in the council, the great sachem enlisted nearly every New England tribe in his cause.
Wonalancet, in part successor to Passaconaway, true to the teachings of his father and the apostle Elliot, refused to join him. This Nipmuck sachem could not break his faith pledged to the English, neither could he be a traitor to his own race and fight against Philip. Beset on one hand to fight for the English, on the other Philip endeavored to gain him as an ally; refusing to join the first he was suspected of treachery, and holding himself aloof from the second, he was hated by all the hostile Indians.
There was no safety for him at home on the beautiful island of Wickasauke, where he had long resided, and he fled to the land of the Pennacooks. And here let us notice a very novel idea, once before slightly alluded to. Wonalancet, by almost every writer on the subject, has been styled the sachem of the Pennacooks. Yet all his life, up to the period referred to, he had lived amongst the Pawtucket Indians, and we have no record of his ever residing in the Pennacook country until he was compelled to seek refuge in it at this time. Yet he only copies the historical style of his father, Passaconaway, who, likewise called the Pennacook sachem, never lived in that country at all.
The withdrawal of Wonalancet with his few followers alarmed the courageous colonists very much. Runners were sent "to
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A NIPMUCK HEGIRA.
Natacooke, Penagooge, or other people of those northern In- dians," inviting Wonalancet or any other of the principal men to return. But Wonalancet did not choose to accept the polite invi- tation, which was very much in the form of a peremptory sum- mons, and Captain Mosely, the noted Indian fighter, was sent to disperse the Indian enemy " at Penagooge said to be gathered there for the purpose of mischief." But the valiant captain could not find him, and he had to content himself with burning wig- wams, and destroying dried fish which had been cured for winter use.
Wonalancet was off to the fastnesses of the mountains, " where," as Major Gookin says, " was a place of good hunting for moose, deer, bear, aud other such wild beasts."
Late in the autumn all the Wamesits, alias the Wauchusetts, alias the Pawtuckets, joined him. They had been basely treated, had been driven from their homes, and only found Wonalancet in his safe hiding-place after much toil, privation, and suffering. Numphow, their sagamore, Mystic George, a teacher, " besides divers other men, women, and children perished by the way." An old legend, told first perhaps by Acteon, then repeated by our grandfathers, seated at evening around their great cabin fire- places, says that the above-mentioned two lie buried on the banks of the Asquamchumauke.
Many other Indians joined Wonalancet in his retreat. Among them was * Monocco, or one-eyed John, and | Shoshamin, or Saga- more Sam, a valiant chief who had fought under Philip. Some of these refugees even went to the head-waters of the Connecticut, and during the long and cold winter suffered severely.
Philip's war closed in the summer of 1676. Wonalancet with his people then returned to the south part of the State. On the sixth of July he with several others made a treaty with the Eng-
* Monocco, so called by his countrymen, but by the English, One-eyed-John, was termed by an early writer a notable fellow. When Philip's war began he lived near Lancaster, Mass. He had frequently served in the wars against the Mo- hawks. With 600 Indians he burned Lancaster and carried all the inhabitants into captivity. He afterwards burned Groton, and boasted much what he was going to do. He was one of those who were captured at Cocheco, was taken to Boston, marched through the streets with a halter about his neck, "and hanged at the town's end, Sept. 26, 1676."- Drake's Ind. Biog. 267.
Niles' History of the Indian and French Wars, Ms. H. C. 3d series, vol. vi. 202.
t Shoshamin, alias Uskatugun, and called by the English, Sagamore Sam. He was a high-minded, " magnanimous sachem." At the burning of Lancaster he took an active part. He was hanged with Monocco .- Drake's Indian Biog. 268.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
lish. By it they agreed to live in peace; that they would deliver up, for a reward, all hostile Indians who should come among them, or give notice where they were; and that the English on their part should attend to their own business, and if they meddled with the Indians or their estates the offenders should be tried by English laws-and these by the way generally found the whites innocent as turtle doves. It was signed on the one part by Mr. Richard Waldron, to be mentioned hereafter, Nic. Shapleigh, and Thos. Daniel; on the other by Wonalancet, Squando,* Doney, Serogumba,¿ and others.
This same Richard Waldron, or the " Major," as he was com- monly termed, had been engaged in the above-board business of persuading Indians to desert Philip. Three hundred of these, to- gether with Wonalancet and a hundred handsome Nipmucks, came to Quocheco on the first of September, at the invitation of " the good Major." A few days later Captains Syell and Hathorn, brave trooping men, with their companies also arrived in town. They were marching to the eastern country. Their orders were to seize all Indians, and they wanted to fall upon Major Waldron's four hundred guests at once. But he dissented. He was afraid both friends and foes would be killed. By his advice a little friendly strategy was put in practice. A grand sham-fight was arranged. The English were on one side-the Indians on the other. The latter were furnished with a piece of cannon, on wheels, loaded by English gunners. As the unsuspecting Indians manned the drag-ropes, the gun by the merest accident ranging along their lines, strange to say it went off, no one knew how- perhaps by spontaneous combustion-and several were killed. The rest, including wounded, were taken prisoners. A hundred
* Squando was also a sagamore of Saco or Sokokis. He was one of the chief beginners and chief actors in the war, 1675-6. He was roused to a hatred of the English by the rude and indiscreet act of some English seamen, who either for mischief overset a canoe in which was Squando's wife and child, or to see if young Indians could swim naturally, like animals of the brute creation, as some had re- ported. [John Josselyn, Gent., said they could swim like dogs.] The child went to the bottom, but was saved from drowning by the mother's diving down and bringing it up. Yet within a while after the said child died. The whites did not believe the death of the child was owing to the immersion; still, we must allow, the Indians knew as well as they. He was engaged in several battles, one of which was the attack upon Saco in 1675. He was a brave Indian .- Drake's Ind. Biog. 286.
t Doney was a Saco sachem. He signed an Indian treaty in 1698. He once had a captive by the name of Thomas Baker. What Doney's fate was is uncertain .- Drake's Ind. Biog. 308.
¿ Serogumba was a sagamore.
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ENGLISH STRATEGY.
or so of them were hanged. Two hundred were sold into slavery, . while the hundred up-country Indians, including some of our Pemigewassetts, were dismissed to their homes. Thither they went, exceedingly well-pleased with their kind treatment, and firmly convinced that their pale-faced entertainers were the most honest, reliable, and pious set of cut-throats with whom they ever had the happiness to become acquainted.
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CHAPTER VIII.
HOW ACCORDING TO TRADITION THE PEMIGEWASSETTS WERE PRES- ENT AT A GREAT COURT AT QUOCHECO, WHERE THE LAWS WERE VERY LEGALLY EXECUTED AND JUSTICE DONE-ACCORDING TO THE IDEAS OF CERTAIN EXASPERATED RED MEN.
THE valiant deeds of Major Waldron and the brave cap- tains at Quocheco were well remembered by the northern Indians, among whom were numbered the Pemigewassetts. They believed that the pious Quocheco settlers and their allies had committed a great sin.' After thinking the subject over for ten years or more, and after having had their thoughts quickened from time to time by the Indian slaves, many of whom had returned, they came to the solemn conclusion that it was their duty to take the law into their own hands and see it properly executed. Accordingly they planned an expedition to teach Major Waldron and his friends a lesson, if nothing more.
The leader was Kancamagus; and as he often sat down in the. Pemigewassett country, being a Pemigewassett chief when there, we must give him a passing notice. He was " grant-son " of Pas- saconaway. For many years he was chief of the Amariscoggins, sometimes of the Pequawkees, and finally a Pennacook sachem. At one time he was the firm ally of the renowned Worombo,* and with him maintained a strong fort far in the wilderness, on the
* Worombo was a sachem of the Amariscoggins. He had a fort on the river bank. It was captured by Col. Church in 1690, Sept. 14. Two of Worombo's chil- dren were taken prisoners and carried to Plymouth. Seven days after, Kancama- gus and Worombo fell upon Church by surprise at Casco, Maine, killed seven of his men and wounded twenty-four more, two of whom died. The Indians were beaten off' only after a long and desperate fight. He was a brave Indian. What became of him is uncertain.
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ENGLISH FRIENDSHIP.
banks of the Androscoggin. He was a brave and politic chief, and had a little of the forgiving spirit of his grandfather Passacona- way and uncle Wonalancet, but his mercy did not endure forever. In person he was tall and well-proportioned; he possessed great strength, was fleet of foot, and had an eye like an eagle.
When the gentle sachem Wonalancet fled away as he did to the land of the Arosagunticooks, otherwise known as the St. Francis Indians, with a portion of his tribe, Kancamagus took up his residence in the fertile meadows of the Pennacooks. Cranfield* the English governor at the time, did not like the idea of his residing in the hunting grounds of his ancestors, and being a scrupulous man he went to New York and entered into an engage- ment with the gentle fighting Mohawks ; to come and drive him and his people away. Kancamagus heard of the design, and addressed several letters to the "Honur Governor my friend," and sent him presents of beaver-skins, but without much effect. In fact, the governor was firm in his purpose; the Mohawks sent word that they were coming, and Kancamagus and his braves, giving up the idea of taking their revenge just then, fled far into the northern wilderness.
But he did not remain long away. When King William's war broke out he was back again upon the banks of the Merri- mack. Around the council fire they recounted the treachery at Quocheco; how their brothers had some been butchered, others sold into slavery ; some hung upon trees in Boston or shot down in the streets at noon-day; and how they had been burnt in the wigwams by the dozen in time of peace; and now, as the war- times offered an excellent opportunity, the old plans for revenge were fully determined upon. Under the trees on the banks of the river they danced the war-dance-the war-paint was prepared -and Amariscoggins, Coosucks, Pequawkees, Winnepissaukies, Amoskeags, Pennacooks, Pemigewassetts, in fine all the Nipmucks remaining, were ready to put their plans of revenge in execution.
But Major Waldron and his friends might have been saved. When the plan was maturing, friendly Indians communicated it
% He was authorized as early as March 22, 1683, by the Council of Massachu- setts to do this .- Potter's Hist. of Man. 83.
t The Mohawks were sometimes called Mauquawogs, i. e., man-eaters.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
to Captain Thomas Hinchman, of Chelmsford, Mass., and he im- mediately dispatched a messenger to the governor. But the latter was careless, heeded it not, thought nor cared but little about it.
June 27th, 1689, the woods about Quocheco were full of In- dians. Our valiant tribes had come down. Yet the inhabitants mistrusted nothing; they felt secure, for as yet the governor's messenger had not arrived with the warning.
Night came on, and two squaws, as the plan intended, went to each of the garrison houses and asked leave to lodge by the fire. In the night, when the people were asleep, they were to open the doors and gates and give the signal by a whistle, when the Indians should rush in and take their long-meditated revenge. These squaws, in pairs, were admitted into every garrison but one, and the people at their request showed them how to open the doors in case they should have occasion to go out in the night. Mesandowit, a chieftain under Kancamagus, was a guest of Major Waldron. At supper, with his usual familiarity, he said: "Broth- er Waldron, what would you do if the strange Indians should come?" The Major carelessly answered that he could assemble a hundred men by lifting his finger. In this unsuspecting confi- dence the garrison retired to rest.
When the gates were opened the signal was given. The In- dians rushed in, and the butchery commenced. The Major, awak- ened by the noise, jumped out of bed, and though advanced in life to the age of eighty years, he retained so much vigor as to be able to drive them through two or three doors; but as he was re- turning for his other arms, they came behind and stunned him with a hatchet, drew him into his hall, and seating him in an elbow chair mounted on a long table, insultingly asked him, " Who shall judge Indians now?" They then obliged the people in the house to get them some supper, and when they had done eating they cut the Major across the breast and belly with knives, each one with his stroke saying, "I cross out my account!" They then cut off his nose and ears, forcing them into his mouth; and when, spent with the loss of blood, he was fast falling down from the table, one of them held his sword under him, which quick put an end to his misery. Five or six houses, and all the mills, were burned; twenty-three people were killed, and twenty-nine were
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