USA > Rhode Island > The lands of Rhode Island : as they were known to Caunounicus and Miantunnomu when Roger Williams came in 1636 : an Indian map of the principal locations known to the Nahigansets, and elaborate historical notes > Part 14
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If by the forks of the Blackstone. Dr. Trumbull means the place where the Branch river falls into the Blackstone, it would be just on the border of Massachusetts and northwest from Woonsocket a short distance. In the year 1637 Williams writes of a battle be- tween the "further Neepmucks" and the "hither Nipmucks." and gives the result as a victory for the "hither Nipmucks" (Letters.
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161
LOQUASSUCK, NEAR MANVILLE.
pp. 38, 47). Mr. Drake (Book of the Indians, Book 2, p. 100) gives a record of actions by the commissioners of Massachusetts, in which occurs mention of an Indian battle at Quabakut (now Brook- field, Mass.), which attack is described as "a hostile invasion of Wosamequin ( Massasoit) ; from this, Mr. Drake argues that at some period Massasoit dwelt among the Nipmucks, having left the Poka- noket lands ( Bristol) to Wamsutta. This jurisdiction, but not the dwelling of Massasoit in this district, is confirmed by Roger Wil- liams, by an agreement with Massasoit concerning a tract of land ; the agreement was "to buy the right which Ousamequin pretendeth to a parcel of land which lies between our bounds at Pawtucket and an Indian plantation northwest from thence, called Loquassuck" (Annals of Providence, 566).
It is stated in Drake's "Old Indian Chronicle." page 64. that botli the Narragansett and the Wampanoag tribes laid claim to this por- tion of the lands of the Nipmucks ; and it appears by a letter written by Mr. Williams in 1668 that "the Nipmucks were unquestionably subject to the Narraganset Sachems" (Letters, 326). From all this it is clear that wherever else the Nipmuck lands lay, a part lay certainly in the northeastern part of what is now Rhode Island : and it is stated in the older histories that one cause of trouble be- tween those tribes consisted in the desertions from the Wampanoags to the Nipmucks, at this very spot which was the frontier, or border land, of each tribe. From these facts may have arisen the word which Mr. Tooker says means "at the place of meeting." History thus corroborates philology. To fix the precise location of Loquas- qusuck is now impossible, but the hazard would not be great in plac- ing this Indian Plantation (the meeting place ) on the lands on the western side of the Blackstone river, southeast from Woonsocket. and between the mill villages of Manville and Albion. The defin- ing of this word gives me a fine illustration of different ways men have of looking at the same situation, or question. I have stated. concerning the great varieties of spelling shown in the earliest records, of this word, that Dr. J. H. Trumbull said "in its modern shape it is unintelligible, and corrupt. beyond conjecture of its original Indian origin". These varieties of spelling struck Mr. W. W. Tooker in a very different way. He says: "The various forms
162
MOUNT HOPE-CAUSUMSET.
of Louisquisset gives me a very strong clue to its origin. It is very strange that Trumbull did not notice it. The form Loquas- qussuck. 1667, I take to be the oldest." In this point Mr. Tooker is in error, for I had given him the form which stands at the head of this article as of the year 1646, more than twenty-one years before the form which he selected. The location of Loquasquscit, as the word is spelled in the Colonial Records (v. I. p. 33) is clearly fixed by a Testimony written by Roger Williams concerning some lands bought of Ousamequin, the great Sachem of the Wampanoags, the lands lying "between our bounds at Pautuckqut, and an Indian Plantation northwest from thence called Loquasquscit". But the agreement which Williams and his companions made with Massasoit carried the title of the "great meadow at or about Loquasquiscit" to the English settlers forever. (R. I. Col. Rec. 1, 32.)
MOUNT HOPE. (20)
All the lands now in Rhode Island on the Eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, became a part of the Colony by the Charter of Charles the Second in 1663. This grant was contested by both Plymouth and the Massachusetts for many years, until 1746, when a Decree of the King. George the Second. terminated the claims. It may possibly be for this reason that no reference to Mount Hope as a Rhode Island possession appears in the early annals of that Colony. The earliest is that which came from the petition of John Crowne to Charles the Second in 1679 for a grant to him, Crowne. of them. The earliest reference in either the Plymouth or the Massachusetts is the law of 1668 enacted by Plymouth, prohibiting persons from "buying or receiving from the Indians any lands that appertain unto Mount hope, or Cawsumsett necke" ( Plym. Col. Rec. xi, 221 ). From this law it is possible to think that these two names were synonymous. There was published at London, in 1675, a book entitled "The Present State of New England". In it occurs this phrase: "The place where Philip dwelt is on a parcel of land. called in English. Mount Hope". This may mean that Cawsumsett
MONTE HAUP-MON TOP. 163
was the Indian, as Mount Hope was the English, name of the lo- cality.
In 1772, Dr. Stiles of Newport, subsequently President of Yale College, edited an edition of Church's History of King Philip's War. Where Capt. Church used the name Mount Hope ( page 7), Dr. Stiles placed this note, "Or Mont Haup. a mountain in Bristol". In 1818, was published Mount Hope, a Poem, by William E. Rich- mond, in which is given three forms, Mount Hope; Monte Haup: Mon Top ( page 37). In 1814, Timothy Alden, a clergyman, pub- lished "A Collection of Epitaphs," in which are the following notes concerning Mount Hope: "King Philip, as he is usually called, erected his wigwam on a lofty and beautiful rise of land in the east- ern part of Bristol. which is generally known by the name of Mount Hope; according to authentick tradition, however. Mon Top was the genuine aboriginal name of this celebrated eminence. To this there was no doubt an appropriate meaning, but it cannot at pres- ent be easily ascertained. From the summit of this mount, which is perhaps less than three hundred feet above high water mark. it is said that in a clear day every town in Rhode Island may be seen. The towering spires of Providence, in one direction ; then of New- port, in another: the charming village of Bristol; the fertile island ( sic) of Poppasquash : and fields clothed with luxuriant verdure as far as the eye can stretch". Mr. Alden speaks of "James DeWolfe's summer house near the brow of the hill" ( Alden's Epitaphs, 4. 77). This summer house is also mentioned in a note by Samuel G. Drake ( Hubbard's Indian Wars, ed. 1865, 1, 46). Mr. Drake visited the place in 1824: at that time, he writes, "a neat octagonal summer house stood upon the top erected by Capt. James de Wolfe in 1801. It was surmounted by a statue of King Philip". In 1820. East- burn's Yamoyden, a poem, was published. with notes by Robert C. Sands. One of these notes is this : "Mount Hope appears to have been called by the Indians Mont Haup, or Montaup, and has thence been easily corrupted into its present name: it is called Haup. throughout the poem, improperly. as I ( Sands ) believe" ( Yamoy- den, 259). Francis Baylies, writing in 1830, says: "Mount Hope is supposed by some to be a corruption of the Indian word Montaup" ( Hist. Plymouth, 3. 3). Samuel G. Drake, in 1865, gave the
4
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164
THE NORTHMEN CALLED IT HOP.
opinion that these (forms) are most likely corruptions of Mount Hope" (Hubbard's Indian Wars, ed. 1865, p. 46, v. 1). If there was such an Indian word, it must have been engrafted into the Indian language from the language of the Northmen, who are believed to have visited Narragansett Bay during the Ioth or 1Ith centuries. The first word which a Northman would have uttered, upon entering this Bay, would have been Hop. In truth, it was so uttered, if this Bay was the one into which the Northmen sailed, and the Sagas are to be believed. Prof. Wilfred Munro thus states the case: "Coasting along the shore in the spring of 1008, Thorfinn came to the 'river flowing through a lake' which Leif had described, was detained by the shallows at its mouth, as Ericson had been, and at high tide sailed up to where the river opened out into the lake : this place the Northmen called Hop. This probably was the origin of the Indian name Haup, or Montaup, from which the present name Mount Hope is derived". Prof. Munro thus continues: "The Plymouth settlers only anglicized the name which had been given to the Mount Hope lands by the Indian owners. There is no mention made in the Saga of the return of two of the ships of this expedition, to Iceland. It is quite likely that with some of their followers they remained at Hop and married some of the Indian women. Thus while all traces of them would be lost in the course of a few generations, yet some of the names which they gave might be retained. It is difficult otherwise to account for the name Haup which many familiar with the Indian language have declared to be not Indian, and which yet was undoubtedly applied to the country by the native tribes when the English colonists first heard of the territory." ( Munro's Story of the Mount Hope Lands, 21.) There was published at Hafniae (Copenhagen ), 1837. a work entitled "Antiquitates Americana" by the Royal Society of Northern Anti- quaries. The work was printed in three languages, Norse, Danish, and Latin. It comprized the Sagas of Eric the Red, and of Thorfinn Karlsfne, and in addition all references to the matter in whatever other manuscripts such references might occur. Prof. C. C. Rafn and Finn Magnussen edited the work. Prefixed to the Sagas is an abstract in English of the Historical evidence contained in the work. On page xxxV (35) the following appears : "The word
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165
LOCUM ESTUARY, HOPUM.
Hop in Icelandic may either denote a small recess or bay formed by a river from the interior falling into an inlet from the sea, or the land bordering on such a bay. To this Mount Hope's Bay, or Mont Haup's Bay. as the Indians term it, corresponds, through which the Taunton river flows, and by means of the very narrow, yet naviga- ble Pocasset river meets the approaching water of the ocean at Seaconnet. It was at this Hope that Liefs booth's were situate; it is above it, and therefore most probably on the beautifully situate elevation called afterwards by the Indians Mont Haup, that Thorfinn Karlsfne erected his dwelling hiuse". The following ex- tract is taken from the Historia Thorfinni Karlsefnii (p. 147). It is here given in the Latin version for the reason that few could read it in the Norse or Danish language :
"De Karlsfnio autem hoc dicere est, quod austrum versus terram prætervehebatur atque Snorrius ac Bjarnius cum sociss. Diu navi- garunt et eo usque, donec pervenerunt ad fluvium quendam, qui, ex terra defluens, per lacum quendam in mare se exoneravit ; ibi vasta erant brevia arenosa, quare amnis subiri nisi maximis æstibus non potuit. Karlsefnius ac sin ostium intraverunt, et locum Hopum (æestuarium) appellaverunt" (Antiquitates Americana, 147). I present a rude translation :
"Of karlsfinnis, this is to say that the south wind drove him to- wards land, and Snorrius, and Bjarnius, with their companions. They sailed about for some time until they came to a certain stream which, flowing out from the land, by means of a certain lake or bay. empties into the sea : there, there were short, huge sandy places ( or short sandy wastes), on which account the river could not flow without very large undulations. Karlsfinnis and his companions landed and named the 'locum,' estuary, Hopum". This word is the Latin for the Danish Hopet or Hopi. and for the Norse Hop. The learned Copenhagen antiquaries have told us, as I have above shown, that this name denotes, or was applied, "to the narrow yet navigable river Pocasset, where it meets the approaching water of the ocean at its exit at Seaconnet". They also append this note, explanatory of the application of the word Hop: "Recessus v. derivatio flumi- nis v. maris, conflues, it. refugiem. Idem nomen etiamnum ad- hæret locis et stagnis in toparchia Hunavatnensi borealis Islandia."
166
MOUNT HOPE, SUNDRY ORIGINS.
To this the learned editors have appended certain citations of au- thorities, which I omit, not being accessible to people here. Such is the argument in favor of the opinion that the name Mount Hope, as applied to this hill, came in some way from the visit of the Northmen. But there are those who look upon such an opinion as being but slightly removed from the absurd. First among such men comes Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, who says: "The sugges- tion that the name of Mount Hope has an Icelandic origin (from the 'Hope' of Thorfinn Karlsefne, in 1008,) is hardly entitled to serious discussion. No instance can be shown of the adoption by Indians of a local name from a foreign language. Even after two hundred and fifty years intercourse with English and French, .\1- gonkin tribes still retain their ancient names for the localities on which towns and cities have sprung up. Montreal is still 'Moniake.' Detroit is still .Wawviiatan.' If 'Mount Hope' is an Indian name. and was not originally given by the English, it probably means 'the head,' Montup; no inappropriate designation of this prominent height, distinguished at a considerable distance by
-the snow white clift that capped its head.'"
Roger Williams gives, in his Indian Key, the word Naynayoume- wot, meaning a horse (p. 158, Narr. Club ed., v. 6). Before the English came, the Indians never heard of a horse ( Williams' Key. 158), and hence could have had no name for such an animal. This name was then made after they saw the animal, and after the English came. In his note Mr. Trumbull says, "a creature that carries". Trumbull must then explain why the Indian had a word meaning "a creature that carries", it not being possible to show that the Indian ever heard of such an animal. Again, Roger Williams gives the compound word, Chicksanawat, meaning "the cock crows" ( Key, 134). On the preceding page Mr. Williams says, "A name taken from the English chick". The Indians never knew a fowl of this species before the coming of the English. These are not "local" names, but they are names of things, which throw discredit upon Trumbull's theory. The name coined by, the Indians for a horse canie from the noise made by the animal, written in English, neigh. Mr. Trumbull then says: "If Mount Hope is an Indian name, and was not originally given by the English, it probably means the
167
PATIENCE, PRUDENCE, HOPE, DISPAIR ISLANDS.
. head". Roger Williams, than whom there is no higher authority, gives in his "Indian Key" (page 76) the Indian word Uppaquontup as meaning "the head"; Williams gives no synonymous word, as, for instance, Montup, as meaning the same thing. As between Williams and Trumbull, I must follow Williams. But Trumbull caps the climax of absurdity in this last line, "the snow white clift that capped its head". The word clift is obsolete ; cliff is the word. But what kind of an elevation does he suggest ? Let us come down from poetry to common sense. Mount Hope is 200 feet high, with "its snow white clift". Jerimoth Hill, in Foster, stands 799 feet : Pine Hill, in Johnson, 529: Chopmeset, 730; Niswosaket, 588; Wionkeige, 557 : Absalona, 635; Durfee Hill, also in Glocester, 805. There is scarcely a town in Rhode Island in which are not hills twice the height of this "snow white clift". Mr. Trumbull's para- graph ( Potter's Early Hist. Narr. 2nd ed., 409) was written late in life. The heights here given are the U. S. Government surveys taken from the Topographical Atlas of 1891.
There is no record of the naming of this hill by the English. The absence of early mention by the English is because it did not come into the possession of the English until after the shooting of King Philip upon it in 1676. Before leaving Mr. Trumbull, I wish to touch another name contiguous to Mount Hope. In speaking of the changing forms of Indian words he cites Papasquash, saying it becomes "Papoose Squaw" (Indian Names, vii). It will be impossible to cite any official record, or map, in which, or on which this point of land is named "Papoose Squaw". It is only the silly gossip, in our own time, of some one suggesting the origin of the word in the original Deed spelled as above written. In a recent publication occurs this sentence : "It is more than probable that Mount Hope was named by the same persons who gave the Christian names Prudence, Patience, Hope, Despair to the Islands in Narragansett Bay" ( Bicknell, Hist. Barrington, R. I., 10). Roger Williams was the person who gave these names, just as he gave the name Providence. because "of the many Providences of the Most Holy and Only Wise" ( Narr. Club 6, 335). Providence was not so named until it was bought by Williams; Patience was acquired at the same time by the same parties. Hope was a gift to Williams
168
JOHN CROWNE, AND MOUNT HOPE.
by Miantinomi, who was murdered in 1643; it was afterwards named by Williams, and went upon the record in 1658. There was no island named by Williams "Despair". Mr. Williams de- sired, after the purchase of Aquidneck, to name the Island, Patmos (Narr. Club, 6, 104), but the owners objected. Having named a small island Hope, why should Mr. Williams apply the name Hope to this hill ten years before it became within the jurisdiction of any English colony, being inhabited solely by King Philip and his tribe? There is another interesting fact which came to the writer in his researches. It was concerning the money values given to these Mount Hope lands in 1678. When Crowne asked the King. Charles the Second, for these lands, Randall Holden and John Greene, both from Warwick, R. I., but at that moment in London, they were asked their opinion of the extent, jurisdiction, and money value of thein. They answered about 4000 acres, outside of any jurisdiction, value £4000. The same questions were sent to Ply- mouth. Plymouth admitted that it had no legal jurisdiction, but would like to have one; that there were about 7000 acres, and that Mount-hope with its appurtenances by far the better part of all our conquest land, we have put to sale for £3000, but have not yet found one chapmen" (R. I. Col. Rec. 3, 64). This was dated July 1, 1679. The King granted jursidiction to Plymouth in Jan- uary, 1680, and seven months later the lands were sold for f1100. Under such conditions, would Roger Williams have ventured to give a name to this hill, or would it have been accepted any more freely than l'atmos was accepted for Aquidneck. If the Copenhagen antiquaries are correct, the name was given by the Northmen. not to a hill, but to the specific outlet called now the East, or Seaconet passage, and must, at some subsequent time, have been applied to the hill. If an Indian had spoken the name Montaup to an Eng- lishman, would not his first thought have been Mount Hope just as he wrote it in 1668, twelve years before it was acquired? For these reasons I cannot accept as conclusive that Dr. Trumbull reached that the question was hardly entitled to "serious discussion": on the contrary, I think the question of Icelandic origin comes within the realm of serious discussion.
169
THE MASHANTICUT LANDS.
MASHANTICUT. (9)
This word is, like many other Indian words, spelled in many different ways. Roger Williams has left a record of its use twice, spelled the same on each occasion, thus, Mishauntatuk. It was tlien applied to a country and not to a brook, as it is now applied. The word means a "well-wooded country," and was doubtless given to this land from that cause. These Indian lands were among the earliest which William Arnold attempted secretly to secure to him- self. The Deed which he obtained from Socononoco does not appear in any Providence Record, but was secretly placed on record at Boston in 1645. (Suffolk Records, Bk. 1, Doc. 63.) From that time for nearly half a century the lands of Moshuntatuc, as William Harris wrote the word, was a bone of contention between the Paw- tuxet partners as represented by Harris, against the Providence proprietors, in a lawsuit which lasted forty-six years ; and the lives of the dwellers on these lands were made miserable by innumerable bye-suits. In an appeal to the King by Harris, which was decided in favor of Harris, three of those first settlers were ordered to be ousted, but the decree was never executed. The boundary of the town of Providence in this direction was a line ( which was never drawn or laid down ) extending from the mouth of the Pawtuxet river to Neutaconkanut Hill. A glance at a map will show these lands on the west of such a line; and hence had the claim of the Pawtuxet partners been established these Mashanticut lands would have been theirs, but the claim was not established. The first English settlers of Mashanticut were John Harrold (or Harrud). Roger Burlingame and Thomas Relph ( of Relf, or Ralph). It is not easy to fix the bounds of these Indian localities, nor indeed their area, but apparently the present suburban village is not upon this Indian locality.
Roger Williams in his Key to the Indian Language gives Mish- quatuck as meaning "a cedar tree". He also gives the word Mish- tuckquash as meaning "trees". Mashantuxet was a name given to certain Indian lands near Groton, Conn., about 1695 (Conn. Col. Rec.). Moshantatut was used in a Deed here in 1672. Mashan-
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170
MISIIQUOMACUCK.
tatuk was used in a law brief written by Edmund Calverly in 1672. In these litigations the name Pawquaburke was sometimes given to these same lands. In 1699 George Potter made an agreement with his wife concerning "land scituate at Mashantatuck in Providence" (Prov. Early Rec. 5. p. 9). There are many other records touching these lands, but they are inconsequential. Mr. Williams gives the Indian word Mihtuckquash as meaning "trees".
MISHQUOMACCK, OTHERWISE SQUOMACUR-MUSQUAMACUK. (28)
It was the Indian name by which Westerly was known. Roger Williams says it means a red fish : a salmon ( Indian Key, 137). This tract was sold by the Sachem Socho to Robert Stanton, Wil- liam Vaughan and three other men on the 29th June, 1660. Great opposition arose against this sale, largely aided by the Great Sachem Ninigret ; but every living Chief Sachem of the Narragansetts af- firmed the justice of Socho's title. The most interesting evidence is a statement made by Wawaloam, wife of Miantinomi. She said : "I, Wawaloam, do affirm it to be Socho's, * my uncle Nine- grad sayeth that it is his land: I. Wawaloam, do utterly deny it before all men, for it was conquered by my husband Miantinomi and my uncle Canonicus long before the English had any wars with the Pequots ; my uncle Ninegrad had no hand in the war; this land was given to the valiant Captain Socho for service done for us before the English had any wars with the Pequots." ( Potter's Early Hist. Narr. 248.) The same statement was made by Pessicus. who was a brother of Miantinomi : both statements were made in June, 1661. This matter is still further stated in the note herein on Aspanansuck. Roger Williams used this name in a very inter- esting connection. On the 18th June, Mr. Williams gave a Testi- mony relative to his first coming into the Narragansett country. In it he explains all that he could learn of the meaning of the name Narragansett ; his explanation appears under Nahigonset in these Notes. In the 6th v. Narr. Club the name at the head of these Notes is printed Musquomacuk (page 407) : the editor cited Knowles's Memoir. p. 411, where it appears in the same form. The
171
MAUSHAPOG.
original document is now here. In it the name is clearly written, as it stands at the head of this Note. The original spelling of the word . in the Deed was Misquamicoke. But this comes from Potter ( Early Hist. Narragansett, 1835, p. 242). It was taken by Potter from the Westerly Records ; but by whom written on these Records, 'and when written, and how correctly, nobody knows.
MASHAPAUG. (12)
The name Maushapog, thus written, occurs in the original Deed. It was an Indian town, and must have stood on the banks of a large pond. This pond was then known as Mashapaug. "Lands lieing at Mashapaug" was the common form of expression in the early deeds. The name as applied to a brook was an innovation. (See Papaquinepaug here following.) Mashippaug was one of the vil- lages of Eliot's Praying Indians.
MINACOMUC. (29)
It is an island located on the map in Charlestown; it has been located in Westerly. Both locations are correct, for Charlestown was a part of Westerly until 1738. Hence the island has been in both towns.
MATATECONIT. (II)
Was a name given to a large meadow land northwest from Providence ( Early Rec. HI, p. 75).
METAUBSCOT. (17)
Was an Indian village in Warwick. Concerning such villages Roger Williams says: "In the Narragansett country a man shall
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172
MOSKITUASH.
come to many towns, some bigger, some lesser ; it may be a dozen in twenty miles travel" (Indian Key, 33).
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