USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > A history of the Episcopal church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, including a history of other Episcopal churches in the state > Part 18
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In 1765, Mr. Howard was appointed by the Crown, jointly with' Dr. Moffatt and Augustus Johnson, stamp masters for this colony. Their acceptance of these offices rendered them highly unpopular. The fury of the populace against the Stamp Act was directed against the stamp masters. Their houses were attacked by the mob, their doors and windows broken, and furniture destroyed. The stamp masters fled. Mr. Howard was appointed by the Crown Chief Justice of North Carolina, with a salary of £1000 sterling a year. Some years afterwards, he returned to Newport, on a visit to his friends, and in a conversation with Secretary Ward, he observed, "Henry, you may rely upon it, I shall have no quarrel with the Sons of Liberty in Newport ; it was they which made me Chief Justice of North Carolina, with a thousand pounds sterling a year."
James Center, of Newport, married Judge Howard's daughter. She died, and he again married another daughter of Mr. Howard. Captain Norris, of the Revenue service, married Mary Center, the granddaughter of Judge Howard, and resided in the mansion house of their grandfather, on North Main street, Newport. Mrs. Norris has since deceased.
"Sept. 6th, Thursday, 1750. The bans of marriage being duly published at the church of St. Paul's, in Narragansett, no objections being made, John Anthony, an Indian man, was married to Sarah George, an Indian woman, the widow and Dowager Queen of Geo. Augus- tus Ninegret, deceased, by Dr. McSparran."
Canonicus was the Grand Sachem of the Narragansetts when the
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whites settled at Plymouth. History gives no account of his prede- cessors. It commences with him. He died in 1647. Miantenomi was his nephew, son of his brother Mascus. Canonicus, in his advanced age, admitted Miantenomi into the government, and they administered the sachemdom jointly. In the war between the Narragansetts and Mohegans, in 1643, Miantenomi was captured by Uncas, the Sachem of the Mohegans, and executed. Pessecus, the brother of Miantenomi, was then admitted Sachem with Canonicus. He was put to death by the Mohawks, in 1776.
Canonchet, the son of the brave but unfortunate Miantenomi, was the last Sachem of the race. He commanded the Indians at the GREAT SWAMP FIGHT, in 1675. This battle exterminated the Nar- ragansetts as a nation. He was captured near the Blackstone River, after the war, and executed for the crime of defending his country and refusing to surrender the territories of his ancestors by a treaty of peace. It was glory enough for a nation to have expired with such a chief. The coolness, fortitude, and heroism of his fall stands without a parallel in ancient or modern times. He was offered life, upon the condition that he would treat for the submission of his subjects ; his untamed spirit indignantly rejected the ignominious proposition. When the sentence was announced to him that then he must die, he said, "I LIKE IT WELL, THAT I SHALL DIE BEFORE MY HEART GROWS SOFT, OR THAT I HAVE SAID ANY THING UNWORTHY OF MYSELF." The splendid dignity of his fall, extorted from one of the prejudiced historians of the times the sentiment, "that acting as if by a pythagorian metempsychosis, some old Roman ghost had possessed the body of this Western Pagan like an Attilius Regulus." Thus ended the last chief of the Narragansetts, and with Canonchet the nation was extinguished forever.
Ninegret was the Sachem of the Nyantics, or the Westerly Tribe, and since the division of that town now styled the Charles- town Tribe. Ninegret was tributary to Canonicus, Miantenomi, and his successors. He was only collaterally related to the family of Canonicus. Quaiapen, Ninegret's sister, having married Maxanno, the son of Canonicus. The whites purchased Ninegret's neutrality during the Indian war of 1675, and for this treachery to his para- mount sovereign and his race, the "Tribe Land" in Charlestown
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was allotted to him and his heirs forever, as the price of the treason.
The Ninegret Tribe never were the real Narragansetts, whose name they bear. It is a libel on their glory and their graves for him to have assumed it. Not one drop of the blood of Canonicus, Miantenomi, or Canonchet, ever coursed in the veins of a Sachem who could sit neuter in his wigwam and hear the guns and see the conflagration ascending from the fortress that was exterminating their nation forever,
Ninegret died soon after the war. By his first wife he had a daughter, and by his second, he had a son, named Ninegret, and two daughters. The first named daughter succeeded her father, and the ceremonies of inauguration were the presentation of peage, and other presents, as the acknowledgement of authority, and sometimes a belt of peage was placed on the head of the sachem as an ensign of rank. On her death, her half-brother Ninegret succeeded to the crown. He died about 1722, He left two sons, Charles Augustus and George. The former succeeded as sachem, and he dying, left an infant son Charles, who was acknowledged as sachem by part of the tribe, but the greater proportion adhered to George, his uncle, as being of purer royal blood. George was acknowledged as sachem in 1735. It. was Sarah, his Dowager Queen, that was married by Dr. McSparran. George left three children, Thomas, George, and Esther. Thomas, commonly called " King Tom," was born in 1736, and succeeded as sachem in July, 1746,-Vide Potter's History of Narragansett.
William Kenyon, late of Charlestown, deceased, in a statement to the writer, says : "I knew ' King Tom Ninegret ;' he had a son named ' Tom,' his only child. He went away, and died before his father. Tom's brother George having died, the crown descended to Esther, the next heir. I" continues Mr. Kenyon, " saw her crown- ed over seventy years ago. She was elevated on a large rock, so that the people might see her ; the council surrounded her. There" were present about twenty Indian soldiers with guns, They march. ed her to the rock. The Indians nearest the royal blood in presence of her councillors, put the crown on her head. It was made of cloth covered with blue and white peage. When the crown was put on, the soldiers fired a royal salute and huzzaed in the Indian tongue,
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The ceremony was imposing, and every thing was conducted with great order. Then the soldiers waited on her to her house, and fired sa- lutes. There were 500 natives present, besides others. Queen Esther left one son, named George ; he was crowned after the death of his mother. I was enlisting soldiers, and went to him and asked him to enlist as a soldier in the revolutionary war; the squaws objected and told me he was their King."
"I was one of the jury of inquest," continues Mr. Kenyon, " that sat on the body of George. He was about 22 years old when he was killed. He was where some persons were cutting trees. One tree had lodged against another, and in cutting that one it fell and caught against a third, and George undertaking to escape, a sharp knee struck him on the head and killed him; a foot either way would have saved him."
No King was ever crowned after him, and not an Indian of the whole blood now remains in the tribe.
The following poem and introduction, by Albert C. Greene, Esq. of Providence, upon the subject of the death of Canonchet, the last of the great sachems, is inserted here by his permission :
CANONCHET.
" The early history of of New England contains no narrative of deeper interest than the story of the brave and unfortunate Canonchet, the ' Great Sachem' of the Narragansetts, and the last who exercised actual supremacy over that powerful tribe. He was the son of Miantenomi, the noble and generous friend of Roger Williams, and the protector of the infant colony at Providence.
" Miantenomi had been defeated and captured by the Sachem of the Mohegans, who has been well described as the ' Cannibal Uncas ;' and after the ceremony of a trial before the Commissioners of the United Colonies, was, by their order, delivered to his captor to be put to death ; and was by the latter murdered in cold blood.
" At his father's death, Canonchet became by inheritance Chief Sachem of the tribe, and held that station at the time of the celebrated battle between them and the whites, familiarly known as ' The Great Swamp Fight.' This desperate conflict occurred in December, 1675, on a spot within the present town of South Kingston, in Rhode Island, and was long sustained on both sides with terrible energy, and great loss of life. The fort occupied by the Indians, contained a great number of cabins, (probably five or six hundred,) which had been erected as a shelter for their women and children, and as places of deposit for their entire stock of provisions for the winter. During the battle, the cabins were fired;
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many of the wounded, and of the women and children perished in the flames, and the whole of the corn and other stores of the tribe was utterly destroyed. Their defeat was disheartening aud irretrievable. They lingered through the remain- der of the winter ; and, in the April following, Canonchet, having rallied the remnant of his broken forces in a distant part of his territory, intended there to commence a new plantation. The distressing circumstances arising from these events, induced him soon after his removal, to engage personally in a daring and romantic expedition to procure means of relief for his suffering followers.
" That expedition resulted in his death. He was intercepted and seized by the whites-delivered to the Mohegan Sachem, Oneco, the son of his father's mur- derer, and by him put to death, by order of the English captors. The last scenes of his life form the subject of the following imperfect sketch.
"In the variety of incident contained in the whole record of Greek and Roman he- roism, there is not a more noble picture of high and unbending honour, of stern and enduring firmness, of proud elevation of soul, than was exhibited during the last hours of this 'untutored savage.' His character has already given beauty to the page of the historian ; and it will, in future time, furnish to the poet who can ful- ly comprehend and delineate it, a rich and inspiring theme.
" To those who are fully acquainted with the historical narrative on which the following poem is founded, it perhaps need not be said, that the most characteris- tic expressions in the language, which in the latter, is attributed to the hero, are words which are recorded as having been actually uttered by him. These are given as literally as it was possible to give them in a metrical composition.
The last great battle had been fought, The fatal strife was o'er, And the haughty Narragansett power Had sunk to rise no more.
The bravest warriors of the tribe In death were cold and low, And its proud hopes, and gathered might Had perished at a blow.
'The old, the mother with her babe, The wounded and the weak, Had left their spoiled and wasted land Another home to seek.
Through forests heaped with drifted snow That weary band had passed, With wasting strength till they had found A resting place at last.
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And there, around the council fire, The nation's aged men, In sad and sorrowful debate, Once more were gathered then.
Long had they sat, the winter's night Was drawing to a close, When in the midst their noble chief, The young Canonchet rose,
" Fathers, I've listened to your talk ; Your words are good"-he said :
" But words of council will not give My hungry people bread.
" Our women cry aloud for food, I hear them night and morn, And in our baskets there is not A single ear of corn.
" We have no seed to plant the ground Around our cabins here ; How shall my famished people live Through all the coming year ?
"Fathers ! before the sun shall rise, Canonchet must be gone, To ask the Wampanoags to give His starving people corn,
" The English warriors are before, The Pequots are behind ; But the Great Spirit for his feet, A ready path will find."
The word was said : the Council rose ; And ere the morrow's dawn - Upon his brave and daring task The youthful chief had gone ;
And with quick eye and heedful step, Throughout the toilsome day, Kept through the trackless wilderness, His solitary way.
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At length in view, beside his path A friendly cabin rosè ; And there he entered wearily, For shelter and repose.
But scarcely had a watch been set His resting place around, When from the hill above, was heard A low and warning sound.
And then a shout-a rush of feet -- A wild and hurried cry- " The blood-hounds are upon the track- The English foe is nigh !"
He heard that sound, that cry-and like A lion from his den, Made, with a giant's strength, his way Through a host of armed men.
Then came the word for hot pursuit, The answer quick and short, The dry leaves crash 'neath the flying feet And the musket's sharp report.
He darts through the brushwood, he springs through the brake, The earth gives no sound to his tread ; But whene'er for an instant he turns on his heel, His foremost pursuer is dead.
Across the wide valley and o'er the steep hill, Like an arrow just loosed from the string ; As if in the speed of his flight he would vie With the bullets around him that sing.
His eye is on fire, every sinew is strained, His bosom is panting for breath ; But each time that the fire flashes forth from his gun, It carries a message of death.
His foes are gathering fast behind- He feels his failing strength ; But onward strains until he gains A river's bank at length ==
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Where the deep Seekonk's winter stream, Like a cloud of feathery snow, From the wave-worn edge of its river cliffs, Rolls down to its bed below.
The eager host rush wildly on- Where is the warrior-where ? Beside the swollen river's brink- Why stands he silent there ?
With firm set foot and folded arms, He views his coming foss ; But heedless sees the gathering crowd That fast around him close. .
" Now yield thee, Narragansett," cried The youngest of the band ;
The captive slowly turned his head, And proudly waved his hand.
" You are a child ;- for war You are too young and weak :
Go ! let your chief or father come, And I to him will speak."
Then silently he turns, to gaze With fixed, unmoving eyes, Where stained with blood, and blacked with smoke, His useless musket lies,
To seize their unresisting foe None yet among them dare, For his proud bearing overawes The bravest spirit there:
That he now stands within their grasp Can hardly gain belief ; Is this Canonchet-can it be The dreaded Indian Chief ?
" It is Canonchet that you see- Let every one come near : And listen, that you all may know What brought the Sachem here.
" You burned my people's villages, And quenched the fire with blood ; My tribe were driven forth to starve, I sought to bring them food,
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" I came to find them corn to plant, To save the wasting lives Of all our helpless, weak old men, Our children, and our wives.
" Unhurt I passed your warriors through, Your crowded war paths passed, Until you tracked me to the bank Of this deep stream, at last.
" I sprang among the hidden rocks, To gain the other side ; I slipped-and with my gun I fell, And sank beneath the tide.
" Canonchet's aim is very true- He can outrun the deer ; And to a Narragansett Chief, Who ever spoke of fear ?
" But when he found that he had wet The powder in his horn, His heart was like a rotten stick, And all its strength was gone.
" He had no hatchet in his belt, He could not fire his gun ; Then he stood still-because he knew That his last fight was done.
" The Narragansett's bow is broke- The nation's power is dust- ' Its Sachem stands a captive here- And you may do your worst.
" All whom he loved are dead and gone ---- His people's hour is nigh -- Let all the white men load their guns ; Canonchet wants to die."
" Thy prayer is vain : the punishment Our righteous laws decree To rebels and to murderers, Must be the doom for thee.
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" Thou to the white man's council fire, A prisoner, must repair ; And there thou must abide the fate Which justice will declare.
" But send back now thy messengers, And let there forth be brought-
The Wampanoag fugitives Who thy protection sought :
" They were thy nation's enemies ; Let them thy ransom be : Deliver them into our hands, And thou again art free."
" No-not one Wampanoag-no ! My promise shall not fail : Not one-no, nor the paring of A Wampanoag nail !"
He threw a bitter glance of scorn Upon the throng around ; And stilled was every motion there, And hushed was every sound.
" "Tis good ;- the Sachem then will die ---- He understands it all ; His spirit hears it and is glad :- He's ready when you call.
" He's glad, because he'll die before His heart grows soft and weak ; Before he speaks a single word Which he ought not to speak.
" The Sachem does not want to talk ; His answer you have heard : No white man from Canonchet's lips Shall hear another word."
Around his tall and manly form, He wrapped his mantle then : And with a proud and silent step, Went with those armed men.
The third day, when the sun had set, The deed of guilt was o'er ; And a cry of woe was borne along The Narragansett shore.
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Through the Narragansett land, a cry Of wailing and of pain- Told that its Chief, by English hands, Was captured and was slain.
He bore the trial and the doom, Scorn, insults, and the chain- But no man, to his dying hour, E'er heard him speak again.
"Nov. 18, 1750. Sunday, the banns being first duly asked, at St. Paul's, Dr. McSparran married William Pot- ter, youngest son of Col. John Potter, to Penelope Hazard, eldest daughter of Col. Thomas Hazard, both of South Kingstown, at Col. Thomas Hazard's house."
Judge William Potter inherited a large landed estate in South Kingstown, situated one mile north of Kingston, and was otherwise wealthy. He was a Senator in the Colony Legislature when the Ar- my of Observation was raised in April, 1775. He joined Governor Wanton in a Protest against the measure. (See Protest under the notice of Gov. Wanton.) This equivocal step so exasperated the people that Mr. Potter, to moderate public indignation, allay public excitement, and restore popular confidence, addressed the following memorial to the Legislature at the succeeding June session :
" To the Hon. General Assembly of the Colony of Rhode Island, at their session holden at East Greenwich, on the 2nd Monday in June, 1775.
I, William Potter, of South Kingstown, in the county of Kings, in the colony aforesaid, humbly sheweth, That at the session of the General Assembly held at Providence, on the 22nd day of April last, an Act was passed for raising with expedition and despatch, fifteen hundred men, as an ARMY OF OBSERVATION, to repel any insult or violence that might be offered to the inhabitants ; and also, if neces- sary for the safety and preservation of the colonies, to march out of this colony, and to join and co-operate with the forces of the neigh- boring colonies ; against which I, as one of the Upper House of Assembly, together with Joseph Wanton, Esquire, the then Govern- or, Darius Sessions, Esquire, the then Lieutenant Governor, and
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Thomas Wickes, Esquire, then also one of the same Upper House, did enter my protest, which hath given much uneasiness to the good people of this Colony. To remove which, so far as respects myself, and as far as in me lieth, I beg leave to observe, that a rough draught was drawn up, and delivered to a person to be corrected ; which pro. test as the same now stands, appears to me to be of different import from my meaning at that time, and which through the hurry of the business of the House, was not so properly attended to as it might have been, and in that haste was signed. It is true that I was against the passing of said act at that time, as I conceived the trade, and particularly the town of Newport, would be greatly distressed, which a little longer time might prevent ; and because it was known that the very respectable Assembly of Connecticut would soon sit, of whose deliberations we might avail ourselves. These were the rea- sons for my conduct, however contrary they may appear from the protest signed. No man hath been more deeply impressed with the calamities to which America is reduced by a corrupt administration, than myself. No man hath exerted himself, in private and public, to relieve ourselves from our, oppressions ; and no man hath held himself more ready to sacrifice his life and fortune in the arduous struggles now making throughout America, for the preservation of our just rights and liberties ; and in these sentiments I am determin- ed to live and die. Sorry am I, if any of the good people of this Colony should have conceived otherwise of me, and I greatly lament that the unguarded expressions in that protest should give cause therefor. Should I from hence lose the confidence, just hopes and expectations of my countrymen, of my future conduct in the arduous American struggles, it might create an uneasiness of mind, for which nothing can ever compensate. But should this public declaration ease the minds of my friends, and the friends of liberty, and convince them of my readiness to embark, to conflict with them in every diffi- culty, and against every opposition, until our glorious cause shall be established upon the most firm and permanent basis, it will be a consideration that will afford me the highest satisfaction that human nature is capable of enjoying.
I am your Honors' most
Humble servant, WILLIAM POTTER,
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And the said memorial being duly considered, It is vo ed and resolved, that the same be accepted ; that it is satisfactory ; and that the said William Potter be, and he is hereby restored to the favor of this General Assembly."
At the same session Mr. Potter was elected Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Washington county, and was successively re-elected until the year 1780, when he resigned.
About this time Judge Potter became an enthusiastic and devoted follower of the celebrated Jemima Wilkinson. For the more com- fortable accommodation of herself and her adherents, he built a large addition to his already spacious mansion, containing fourteen rooms and bedrooms with suitable fire-places. Her influence controlled his household, servants, and the income of his great estates. She made it her head quarters for above six years. Here was the scene of some of her pretended miracles. Susannah Potter, a daughter of the Judge, having deceased, she undertook to raise her to life. On the day of the funeral, a great concourse assembled to witness the miracle. The lid of the coffin was removed, and Jemima knelt in devout and fervent prayer for her restoration. The laws of nature were inflexible. The impious effort was unavailing. She im- puted the failure to the old excuse, the want of faith in her followers.
The unyielding severity of the injunctions of Jemima, obliging in many cases husbands to leave their wives, and wives their husbands, and children their parents, rendered her so unpopular, and so irritat- ed the public mind, by the separations of families which she caused, that she was compelled finally to leave the country. She induced most of her followers to sell their estates, and invest the proceeds in lands in the Genesee country, in the State of New York, for a com- mon fund for the benefit of all. Judge Potter was the principal agent for that purpose. In 1784, with her train of deluded proselytes, she departed for her new residence in what is now called Yates county, named by Jemima herself " New Jerusalem," " a land flowing with milk and honey."
Whatever obloquy may justly rest on Jemima as an impostor, claiming the gift of prophecy, and the power of performing miracles, or however culpable she may have been in attempting to exercise superhuman authority, or imposing her pretensions on a weak and credulous people, there is no just cause for imputation on her moral
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character. The control which she possessed over the minds and estates of her proselytes, and the influence she exercised in the sepa- ration of families, of which there were repeated and striking instan- ces, 30 exasperated the public mind, that even the most prudent and reflective were at length induced to believe that nothing could be reported too bad or extravagant against her moral as well as her reli- gious character. Justice demands the separation of the two, and those who have been cool and discriminating enough to do so, have freely acknowledged, that the gross aspersions upon her moral purity, are wholly groundless. Hudson's History of Jemima, published after her death at Geneva, in 1821, in this respect is a mere repetition of stale fabrications.
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