USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > Little Compton > The Two-hundredth anniversary of the organization of the United Congregational Church, Little Compton, Rhode Island, September 7, 1904 > Part 6
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Nor is there any one correct spelling. Colonel Church, spelling it as he heard it from the Indians, Sogkonate; later writers spelled it Soughkonate, Sakonate, Seconet, etc. In the ancient town records it is written Seconet or Saconet. 2 Recently the local usage has drifted into the form Seacon- net, which seems to be objectionable because it has led to the mistaken idea that the place derives its name from its prox- imity to the sea.
The U. S. government, on its maps and charts, has adopted, probably for no very learned reason, the spelling Sakonnet, and as this seems to be as near to what was prob- ably the Indian pronunciation as anything, the golf club. the hotel and most of the summer residents have made use of that spelling.
AWASHONKS.
The name most familiar to us among all the Saconet In- dians is that of Awashonks. She was the squaw-sachem of the tribe at the time of the English settlement. She lived to a good old age in this place and died here; and her re- mains were probably buried in the ancient Indian burying- ground on William T. Peckham's land, north of what we call the Swamp road. The rock inscribed with her name by the late Mr. I. C. Wilbour was intended by him to commem- orate her memory though not to mark her grave.
Her real name was probably Awa, a common Indian giv-
(1) Church's King Philip's War, edited by H. M. Dexter, Boston, 1865, Vol. I, page 2, note.
(2) Drake says "Commonly called Seconet." Hist. and Biog. p. 249; Dexter adopt- ed Saconet.
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en-name, Shunks or Shonks being a title which meant squaw sachem. 1
Poor, good woman, she deserves more than passing men- tion in our history for she was of kindly nature and she learned too well the truth of the proverb: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." She was the faithful ally of the settlers through all the Indian wars, and wisely submitted to the friendly guidance of Colonel Church, although oppos- ing all the affiliations of race and kindred.2
The Awashonks people, like all the Indians from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Savannah River, were Algonquins. This great race was divided into many nations and tribes. The Narragansetts occupied the lower half of the mainland of Rhode Island west of Narragansett Bay; the Pequots and Mohegans dwelt west of them in Connecticut and New York; the Massachusetts in Eastern Massachusetts, and the Wampanoags in the vicinity of Plymouth and westerly to Narragansett Bay. The home of the Wampanoag chief was at Pokanoket, or Mt. Hope, which latter name, by the way, Mr. Dexter says is Indian Montaup and Mr. Drake insists is English Mount Hope.3 Our Saconets, their Tiverton neighbors, the Pocassets, and the Nipmucks who dwelt fur- ther north, were small Wampanoag tribes.
ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN TRIBES.
Mr. Field4 says that it is useless to attempt any mention of the various guesses at the origin of the Indian tribes. Little more is known than when Roger Williams wrote: "From Adam and Noah that they spring is granted on all hands."
Roger Williams, like others who have had to do with In- dians, was benevolently inclined at first; and while he never
(1) Biography and History of the Indians of North America. Samuel G. Drake, page 248, note.
(2) For a biography of Awashonks see Biography and History of the Indians of North America, Samuel G. Drake, page 249; also Dexter's Benjamin Church's King Philip's War, Vol. I, p. 6, note.
(3) Biography and History of the Indians, Drake, p. 82, note; Church's King Philip's War, H. M. Dexter, Vol. 1, p. 7.
(4) State of Rhode Island at the End of the Century, Vol. I, p. 10.
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went as far as General Sheridan, who is said to have de- clared, "There was no good Indian but a dead Indian," in the latter part of his life wrote: "All Indians are ex- tremely treacherous." 1
AN INDIAN TRADITION.
Longfellow helped to rescue the picturesque mythology of the Indians from oblivion. A page from the legendary that inspired his song was written upon our shore. In the Mas- sachusetts Historical Society Collections of 1792, you will find a curious tradition which relates that the first Indian on the Vineyard, by some demonic power, caused his chil- dren to be turned into fish ("killers"). The mother mourned "so exceedingly that he threw her away. She fell upon Seconet near the rocks, where she lived some time, ex- acting contributions of all who passed by water. After a while she was turned into a stone. The entire shape re- mained for many years, but after the English came some of them broke off her arms, head, etc., but the most of the body remains to this day."
RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS.
It is to the lasting credit of the early settlers of this place that though as Indian fighters they were second to none, their relations with the neighboring Indians were, first, last and all the time, friendly. I know of no other community where friendly relations existed until the Indian race had become extinct; where treaties had been made and honestly lived up to. One of the lasting regrets of Colonel Church's life was that the arrogant and ill-advised authorities at Plymouth abrogated his solemn promises to the Saconets, and, at one time at least, sold their men into slavery.
The whole Saconet tribe probably never numbered more than a thousand. Drake says that in 1700 there were a hundred Indian men among them. Blake says that when their church was organized there were only two hundred In- dians in Little Compton. Their village, at that time a mere
(1) State of Rhode Island at the End of the Century, Vol. I, p. 15.
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collection of huts, was located northwest of the Caleb Mosher place,1 east of the town on the way to Westport. At about the year 1750 an epidemic carried off many of them, and in 1803 there were not above ten Indians in Lit- tle Compton.
The death of Sarah Howdee, the last of the tribe, occurred at Little Compton and was reported in the Providence Journal, May 7, 1827.
FORMATION OF THE TOWNSHIP.
Title having been obtained to the land, the proprietors met at Duxbury; they had a rude plan drawn of the land between the Pocasset, that is the Tiverton, line, just south of Pachet Brook and Taylor's Lane, the line of the Common and the river; this tract they divided like a gridiron, east and west, into thirty-two long strips or sections, about thir- ty-five rods wide and one to two miles long.
The proprietors met at Duxbury, April 10, 1674, and drew lots for these sections. Benjamin Church and Joseph Church, each being entitled to two sections, and one being reserved for the minister. There were thirty-two sections, though only twenty-nine proprietors.
Within a year Benjamin Church and probably John Almy and John Irish 2 settled and built houses. Benjamin Church apparently did not build at once upon either of the lots which fell to him, but upon one of his choice well up near the Tiverton line, apparently on the southern slope of Windmill Hill, the location having been purchased by him from William Pabodie. 3 He later lived on what is now Ed- ward Howland's farm, and finally moved to the James Irving Bailey farm.
It is said that the oldest portion of the B. F. Wilbur house, near the Swamp road, was built by him for one of his sons.
A roadway, eight rods wide, was reserved, running due
(1) Bayles' History, p. 991. (2) Infra, p. 87.
(3) I gather this from Bayles' History, p. 981, and Otis Wilbor's map supra. Though Mr. Dexter (Church's King Philip's War, Vol. 1, page 11, note) locates Church's early home on Lot 19, which he drew, which is the site of the late Edward W. Howland's farm.
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south, across the great lots. This road has been gener- ally retained excepting as to the portions between Mrs. Drummond's above the Common road, and Taylor's lane. We may wonder if the ghosts of these early settlers have been engaged during these recent moonlight nights in crit- ical observation of the operations of the stone crusher and the steam-roller upon this ancient highway.1
A second purchase was made by the same proprietors in the same year, 1673, for $116 2-3.º It contained all of the land at the south shore east of Bailey's swamp; other pur- chases followed of the intervening land, although allot- ments do not appear to have been made till 1675. After that, successive allotments speedily followed, till all the land in Little Compton was taken up.
Interest in the real estate business seems to have been brought to a standstill at the outset by King Philip's War in 1675.
At the breaking out of the war, by the advice of Church, the proprietors set off a tract three-quarters of a mile square south of Taylor's Lane, including the farms now oc- cupied by David and Philip Wilbour and Mrs. George Gray, for the use of Awashonks.
KING PHILIP'S WAR.
The immediate cause of King Philip's war was the execu- tion of three Wampanoags charged with the murder of a converted Indian. The real issue, however, was the innate race enmity and jealousy at the aggression of the settlers.
Six messengers were sent by Philip from Mount Hope to Awashonks to solicit her alliance in the war, and to tell her that a great army was coming to invade the Indian terri- tory. These ambassadors were received cordially by the Saconets and a great dance was given. The faithful queen sent immediately to Colonel Church, who, attended only by an Indian interpreter, repaired at once to the scene of fes- tivities. Here, he says, they found hundreds of Indians
(1) First half mile Macadam road in Little Compton, 1903.
(*) These various purchases and allotments are located on Otis Wilbor's map supra.
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gathered from all corners of the queen's domain. "Awa- shonks her self, in a foaming Sweat, was leading the Dance. But she was no sooner sensible of Mr. Churches arrival, but she broke off, sat down, calls her Nobles round her, orders Mr. Church to be invited into her presence."1 She put the question to the Colonel, point blank, whether the story of the invasion was true, and the wily colonel, probably not know- ing just what was afoot, asked "whether she thought he would have brought up his goods to settle in that place if he apprehended an entering into war with so near a neigh- bor." The six Mount Hope men (or Pokanokets2), in all their war paint, were confronted with the redoubtable col- onel, and Awashonks proceeded to explain to him that their very agreeable message was that unless she would make an alliance with Philip he would secretly burn the houses and kill the cattle of the English, that she would get the credit of it, and the vengeance of the whites would fall upon her. The captain's blunt answer, intended undoubtedly for the ears of the royal ambassadors, was, if Philip was bent on war the best thing she could do would be to have these six Pokanokets knocked in the head and shelter herself under the protection of the English. This cool-blooded but very effectual bluff settled the whole business as far as Awa- shonks and her tribe were concerned, but it brought down upon the doughty colonel the righteous indignation of sev- eral thin-skinned historians.
Church, bidding Awashonks to stay within her reserva- tion, hastened to Pocasset, where, on the hill above Stone Bridge, he had an audience with Weetamoe,3 Queen of the Pocassets, and urged her alliance with the English. This he was unable to secure, she declaring that all her people had gone, against her will, to Philip's dance, as war was certain.
Having made sure of these facts, Church, with incredible celerity, hastened to Plymouth, reaching there after a jour- ney of forty-two miles from Tiverton, or fifty from Little
(1) Dexter's Church's King Philip's War, Vol. I, p. 6.
(2) Biog. and Hist. of Indians of N. A. S. G. Drake, p. 252.
(3) Weetamoe was the wife of Wamsutta and therefore sister-in-law of King Philip.
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Compton, by the next morning, having collected the Com- mittee of Safety on his way.
The war was then on. Maj. William Bradford, son of Gov. Bradford, of the Mayflower, was given command of the Plymouth soldiers, and he at once requested Church to ac- company him and to use his influence to secure the co-opera- tion of the "Gentleman of Rhode Island." This courteous diplomacy seemed necessary because Rhode Island had been excluded from the confederacy of the New England colonies, formed for mutual defence in 1643,-"on account of her heretical toleration of religious freedom, and her open ad- vocacy of liberty of conscience," says one historian; and "because they had not been able to institute a government such as could be relied on for the fulfilment of stipulations mutually made by the four colonies," says another.1
Church being cut off from Little Compton, the friendly Awashonks was left in entire uncertainty as to what pro- tection she could expect from Plymouth ; her people mean- while were carried away by the tide of Philip's early suc- cesses.
Church at the time was in the thick of the fighting north of Mount Hope Bay, in Swansea. He was wounded in the Great Swamp Fight, Dec. 19, 1675, receiving "one bullet in the thigh, a small flesh wound at the waist. and a pair of wounded mittens." The narration of this affair, and par- ticularly of his hand-to-hand encounter. after being wounded, with a greased and naked Indian, is breezy read- ing.
After many adventures Church made a desperate effort to break southward through the hostile Pocassets to keep his pledge with Awashonks. With about forty soldiers he hastened from Fall River to Bristol, over Bristol Ferry the same night. the next night across the Saconet, where Stone Bridge now is, and was lying in wait for the enemy before daybreak. An anticipated fight was spoiled because one of the Plymouth soldiers "troubled with the epidemical plague of lust after tobacco must needs strike fire to smoke it and
(1) Church's King Philip's War, Dexter, Vol. 1, p. 17, note.
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thereby discovered the soldiers to the enemy who precipi- tately fled."
THE FIGHT OF THE PEASE-FIELD.
Church piloted the company down to Pocasset (or Pun- katees) Neck, west of Tiverton Four Corners, where they succeeded in getting undiscovered into Mr. Almy's pease- field.1 Here they were surprised by a whole horde of well- armed Indians and Church gave his Plymouth men their first taste of real Indian fighting. The colonel, almost sin- gle-handed, kept off the Indians, while his men were taken, one or two at a time, into canoes which had been sent over from Portsmouth, for the soldiers' deliverance, when the fighting was observed from the other shore. Then, levelling at the enemy his gun which was loaded with his last charge, the colonel walked boldly across the pease-field. He picked up his hat and coat where he had dropped them, and re- gained his fellows in their canoes amid a hail of bullets. Two of these struck the canoe as he got into it, one grazed his hair, while another was embedded in a small stake which was close to his breast.
He embarked all his twenty men safely, after a six hours' engagement with 300 Indians; a deliverance which the good gentleman often refers to in his history "to the glory of God and His protecting providence." I scarcely ever ride over Windmill Hill, or sail down the Sakonnet River, without trying to picture this lively fight in my awakened imagina- tion. There are many such stirring incidents recorded in Colonel Church's history.
THE TREATY.
It is impossible to follow Colonel Church through the perils and adventures of the war. I commend his book to your reading as really containing material for two or three modern romances; it is told in blunt, pictorial English and has the charm of truth.
Besides the reception of the above-mentioned "embassy" and the fight of the pease-field which occurred on the shore
(1) Church's King Philip's War, Dexter, Vol. 1, p. 31, and note p. 36.
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lots west of Windmill Hill, there were two other interesting events which occurred in this town, viz. : the making of the famous treaty which occurred at the great rock on the Rev. William Richmond's farm,1 and Colonel Church's parley with the Indians at Sakonnet Point, which took place at Mr. Lloyd's bathing beach. The latter incident occurred during Colonel Church's hurried canoe trip from Wood's Holl to Portsmouth. 9
NOTABLE PERSONAGES.
The name of one of the most influential of the original settlers, William Pabodie, seems to have been made immor- tal because of being his wife's husband. His grave is marked by the ancient slate slab to the left of the monu- ment to "Betty" Alden. He was one of the twenty-nine who proved their shares at Plymouth in 1673, and he, like the Churches, Richmond, Irish and Rouse, had a part in all the subsequent allotments. He was one of the committee sent to purchase the land of the Indians; he was first clerk of the corporation, and the earlier part of the ancient book of records, since copied for the town's use by Otis Wilbour, is undoubtedly in his handwriting. I have no doubt that it was he who made the ancient map to which I made refer- ence as being among the town records. He and Elizabeth Alden were married at Duxbury in 1644.
On which of his several allotments of land William Pa- bodie first settled is uncertain, but there is no doubt that he eventually built for his home that now venerable struct- ure which constitutes a part of the homestead of Mrs. George Gray. This was upon a small grant of land in the southern part of the Awashonks Reservation, which he drew in the allotment of 1681.3 Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Priscilla, of the Mayflower, of Plymouth and of Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish; it is pleasant to note that her descendant, John Alden, and his mother, who
(') Dexter's Church's King Phillip's War, Vol. 1, p. 77. Col. Church definitely locates this rock on Capt. Richmond's farm, which was lot No. 26, allotment of 1674. (2) lbid, p. 73.
(*) Lot 23, allotment of 1681; see Otis Wilbor's ancient map.
Monument to ELIZABETH ALDEN PEABODY
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is an antiquarian student of high order, have their summer home among us.
The monument, into which Elizabeth's tombstone has been set, was erected in 1882 through the efforts of Mrs. Charles Wilbour, the great-aunt of our neighbor and rep- resentative, Philip H. Wilbour. This shaft is a proper me- morial to mark Mrs. Pabodie's last resting place, though there seems to be something of dispute concerning the state ment that she was the first white woman born in New Eng- land, as the inscription on the monument records.
One never feels the realism of long past events so keenly as when he experiences his first sensations in some ancient burial place of the historic dead :- among the effigies of Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, before the marble tombs and rude coffins of the French kings at Saint Denis, or beside the lead caskets of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cathedral crypt at Granada. A like realization of the nearness of past lives is aroused in one's mind on pro- ceeding, after an hour's retirement among the town's old books, into the ancient cemetery where he is confronted with the half-obliterated names of John Rouse, Constant Southworth, John Almy, Nathaniel Searle, and generation after generation of Pabodies, Richmonds, Churches, Brownells, Baileys, Grays, Grinnells, and the rest.
One fondly stoops to trace the archaic records on the fast- scaling stones, and conjures up in fancy those incidents which have come down to us in the lives of those whom they commemorate. We are told, for instance, that Col. Benjamin Church "was carried to his grave in great funeral pomp, and was buried under arms." Cannot Fancy picture that winter day in 1718; the open grave by the little, gray meeting-house, the great concourse of villagers, Indians, clergymen, dignitaries from Providence, Newport, Ply- mouth, men in steeple hats and knee breeches, women in straight gowns and kirtles, the pillioned horses hitched and feeding around the then broader confines of the Common. And good Pastor Billings now resting in a neighboring grave, standing, with great Bible in hand, while the long rifles or bell-mouthed guns of the soldiers sound the last
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tribute which reverberates across fields and woodlands made habitable by the prowess of the dead warrior.
Then another scene, not attended with marshal pomp, but appealing more tenderly to our sensibilities. Again an open grave, one a few paces from Colonel Church's tomb, -again the little gray meeting-house, now darkened by the weathering of a hundred winters,-a great concourse of mourners around the towering,1 gowned form of the Rev. Mase Shepard, the good pastor-shepherd in name and in fact, at the grave of his own beloved son, John Haskins Shepard, applying to his own stricken heart the consolation which he had so often meted out to his afflicted people. The erect form, the bowed head, the beloved familiar face, calm with the schooling which inures the New Englander to re- press the expression of grief,-the stillness of the evening, broken by the utterance of self-abnegation: "Not my will but thine, O God, be done!"
As we pass from the graves of the Shepards, father and son,-reverently noting those of Richard Billings and Jonathan Ellis, the earlier ministers,-going toward the Pabodie monument, we observe a low, slate stone, with placid, graven cherub and ornate border decoration. The inscription reads : "In memory of Mr. Richard Grinnell, who departed this life March 15th, 1789, in the 73d year of his age."
Some wild and fanciful stories are told of the voyaging of the man who, oblivious of all, reposes beneath this mod- est memorial. The folklore of the town would have it that he was a gallant sailor man whose flag was sometimes the Union Jack and sometimes the Jolly Roger.
"' And wickedly he sailed As he sailed, as he sailed !"
Indeed, it used to be whispered that he was a jovial fel- low-marauder of the famous Captain Kidd. When, how- ever, we come to line these stories up against the measuring
(1) " His weight was fully two hundred, and his figure erect and symmetrical." 175th Anniversary pamphlet, p. 47. The old portion of the present residence of Mr. J. B. Richmond was the house of Rev. Mase Shepard. His grave is shown at the left of the church in the frontispiece.
GRAVES OF BENJAMIN CHURCH AND ALICE SOUTHWORTH, HIS WIFE
·
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stick of history, we find that like many of the oft-told leg- ends, they do not coincide with the facts. For, in this case, we find that Captain Kidd died before Captain Grinnell was born; and in this way I am afraid will go all the fanci- ful traditions which have been told at many a winter fireside concerning this famous man. He was the son-in-law of pastor Billings, was a good sailor and a successful mer- chant, and a man of exemplary habits. It is quite possible that his temporal prosperity excited the imaginations of the envious to create tales which might be derogatory to the good captain's influence in the community.
No stone in the cemetery has occasioned more speculation than that of "Elizabeth, who should have been the wife of Simeon Palmer." There are various stories connected with this good lady. Why this curious phraseology is graven over her last resting place no one knows, but certain sug- gestive facts appear upon the town records. Her name, which the stone for some reason, or probably no reason, conceals, was Elizabeth Mortimer. She was born in 1712 and died, so the record says, August 10th, 1776; the stone, possibly recording the day of burial, is marked August 14th.
Elizabeth was, in fact, the wife of Simeon Palmer, having been married to him by the Rev. Jonathan Ellis Sept. 5, 1755. She, therefore, was his wife during twenty-one long years. Let us hope the romance, if romance there was, ended happily. She was Simeon's second wife, he having been married in 1723 to Lydia Dennis, who having given birth to six children died in 1754. That no unkind feelings existed because of the earlier marriage is shown by the fact that Elizabeth's only child bore the name of Simeon's first wife-Lydia.
The good old aunties of our town have told the little chil- dren, and those little children when they became good old aunties have told other little children startling stories of how it happened that Elizabeth failed to become the wife of Simeon Palmer. One of these which had considerable vogue was that the haughty-minded Elizabeth refused, on the evening of her wedding day, to partake of a supper of cat meat which the frugality of her husband had suggested;
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and horrified at such a method of life, but mindful of the obligations of her marriage vow, had thereafter, though liv- ing separate from him, always performed the wifely duties of repairing Simeon's clothing and darning his hosiery. I am afraid that the hard-minded searcher after facts, while he cannot avoid being interested in these traditions, will brush them aside with those of the Arabian horse and Algerine princess of the famous sailor-man, "Pirate Dick." 1
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