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 16
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Not long since George L. Raymond published a little book of verse entitled Ballads of the Revolution and Other Poems. There are seven of these ballads, written with the intention of "representing the spirit and reasons leading to the Revolution." Two of them
184
NIPSACHOOK, NEAR COWESET.
relate to events which took place in Rhode Island : the Destruction of the Gaspee, and the Capture of Prescott ; trite subjects enough. certainly, but never so well handled as now by Mr. Raymond. He has kept as closely as he could to historical verity, and illustrates his verse quite fully with notes. These notes are taken, mainly, from Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution. The ballad recites, -- (p. 27) :
"When off of Nauquit Point, Shrewd Lindsey knew his ground : He steer'd afar, and clear'd the bar ; Then turn'd his ship around."
The authority cited by Mr. Raymond is Bancroft's Hist. U. S. for the word Nanquit. He also says Lossing gives it Namquit. In the account of the affair by Col. Bowen, and in the deposition of Dep. Gov. Sessions, the latter form of the word is used. In Mr. Bancroft's the error was typographical and was corrected in the recent editions. The word is now written Conimicut. In this form it appears on the Blaskowits Chart ( 1777). At a much earlier date, on the chart of the King's Commissioners (1741), it is written Kenemicut.
NIPSACHOOK. (5) (17) (I)
This word appears thrice upon our map, as stated above. In the first, which is Glocester, Dr. Parsons applies it to a hill, now known as Wolf Hill. It is written by Parsons Nippsatchuck, and again Sachuck. From a letter, written by the Rev. James Fitch, to the Connecticut Council, 29th May, 1676, concerning the movements of the Indians, he states: "They have planted at Nipsachook, nigh Coweset." (Conn. Hist. Col. 2, 447.) Mr. Trumbull, who edited this volume, writes the word, on page 448, Nipchossuck. He also on the same page reproduces a letter written by Major Talcott on the same day, 29th May, 1676, in which the word is written Nip- sochoke. It is a fine illustration of the "less corrupt forms" which Trumbull claims for these Records, as against Dr. Parsons, which is referred to in the note on Notaquonckanet herein. It was this
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NANTUSIUNK-NANAQUONSET. 185
tract, Nipsachook, which was crossed by Quaiapen and her com- pany the day before they were all butchered by Major Talcott and his men in the massacre of 2nd July, 1676. The name Nipsachet is given to a swamp in Burrillville. Whether the word is the same I do not know. Another illustration showing the same corrupt spelling in the Connecticut Records which Trumbull alleges as against the Rhode Island work is shown by the name Pototuke. a tract of land in Connecticut so written (Conn. Col. Rec. 2, 75). But Mr. Trumbull in his index gives the name written Potatuck.
NANTUSIUNK-NOMSUSMUC. (33)
It is the small island in the harbor of Newport now called Goat Island. It was sold by Cojonoquant, a son of Canonicus, to Benedict Arnold in May, 1658. At this time there was general buying of all the islands in the Narragansett Bay which remained in posses- sion of the Indians. .
NIANTIC LANDS.
These lands lie in the southwestern corner of Rhode Island. They were tributary to the Narragansett Sachems. Canonicus and Ninegret were related to each other. Sheganishkachoke, or Shegan- iscalhauk, was a name given to some of the lands. It was for the possession of this small tract by Massachusetts and Connecticut that so much trouble occurred. It was claimed by right of conquest in the Pequot war, the only ground for such a claim being that two or three Pequot Sachems had married Niantic squaws and lived among the Niantics. (See Roger Williams's Letter to Major Mason for a minute statement.)
NANAQUONSET.
It is the name of an Island, just below Wickford. now called Fox Island. It was bought by Randall Holden and Samuel Gorton in 1659. The name is also written Nonequasset. The Island was also called by the Indians Azoiquonset, and in the Fones' Records, Ar- nold's reprint (p. 79). it is called Sonanoxet.
,
186
THE PLANTATION OF NETMOCKE.
NISWOSAKET, NOW WOONSOCKET. (2)
The writer will suggest a new and original opinion concerning the original of the word, Woonsocket, a name of a city in Rhode Island : but touching the meaning of the word, the writer gives no opinion. but will simply give you what other men have uttered. The name came, by process of evolution, from the Indian word. Niswosaket. and the writer will briefly give the reasons for this opinion. Down to the year 1659, all the lands lying along the southern bank of the Blackstone river, as the name now is, were Indian lands; in that year William Harris and his coparceners, as part of an infamous land conspiracy, obtained by means of wampum three new deeds from the Indians; these deeds these inen called "confirmation" deeds,-which means that they confirmed the forgery which some- body in the interests of said Harris and his coparceners had per- petrated upon the original deed to Williams from the Indians. By those men in Providence who opposed the schemes of Harris, these deeds were declared to cover new purchases of the lands of the Indians. My own opinion coincides with this latter view ; but which- ever view is held the result is the same; by these instruments all the lands north of the north line of Warwick (save those covered by the first purchase ), and south of the Blackstone river, and west to Connecticut, came into the possession of the "men of Providence and the men of Pawtuxcette:" hence that portion of the city of Woonsocket now lying south of the Blackstone river, was purchased by the town of Providence, or for the town, to speak with more exactness, in 1659. Those lands lying north of the Blackstone river. and as far north as the Massachusetts southern line, came into the possession of the colony of Rhode Island by a decree of the King of England in 1746; previous to that date. these lands, or at least those nearest to the present site of Woonsocket. formed a portion of the Massachusetts town. Mendon: but Mendon was not incor- porated until May, 1667 ; previous to that time this land was known by the name, "Plantations of Netmocke." or, as now commonly spelled. Nipmuc: this land was bought by two men, viz., Moses Payne and Peter Brackett, from the Indians. in September, 1662.
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VISWOSAKET-WAYUNCKEKE. 187
and it was held by them until the 12th May, 1670, when it was trans- ferred to the town of Mendon by order of the General Court of Massachusetts Colony. Hence the land on which the city of Woon- socket stands, lying north of the Blackstone river, was Indian lands until September, 1662; was owned by Payne and Brackett until May, 1670; was within the town of Mendon until 1746, from which time it has been within the jurisdiction of the Colony and State of Rhode Island. Such is the history of the acquisition of these lands.
Let me now return to 1660. the time when William Harris and his coparceners were planting the seeds of his infamous scheme to enrich himself by fraud at the expense of his neighbors, and which happily failed. While these "confirmation" deeds-which were all obtained between May and December, 1659-were under discussion, Roger Williams, in a letter to the men of Providence, suggested in case they wanted more lands, the purchase of another plantation, offering himself to be one of twenty men to buy it. "Let us consider," he said. "if Niswosaket and Wayunckeke, and the land thereabout, may not afford a new and comfortable plantation." ( Williams' Letters, P. 315.)
Concerning Wayunckeke we have knowledge ; it is the well-known hill in Smithfield now spelled Wionkeige. Concerning Niswosaket nothing further is known ; it is the first and only appearance of the word in the early annals of the Colony. Lying just north from Wayunckeke, and between that hill and the Blackstone river, rises another and greater elevation of land, one of the highest hills in Rhode Island : this was doubtless Niswosaket. In 1682. twenty-two years subsequent to Williams' letter, appears the name Wansokutt attached to this particular hill : the origin is obvious ; by the elision of "Nis" the name becomes Wosaket, and by adding "n" the word became Wonsaket, which form is, phonetically, just what it has since that time always been. The writer will give you the evolution of the word : but first let me refer to the spelling Miswosaket, given by Staples ( Annals of Providence. 571, 573). The word was given first, in recent times, by Knowles ( Life of Williams, 404), thus. Niswosaket. Staples copied from Knowles in 1843, giving "Mis"; Bartlett. in Col. Rec. I. p. 39, gives "Nis" : and again. Narr. Club. v. 6. p. 315. "Nis," for which he quotes himself in Col. Rec. and
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188
VARIETIES OF SPELLING.
Knowles, as here cited. In the absence of the original letter a positive conclusion cannot be reached ; it is probable that Staples made a typographical errer, but whether it is "Mis" or "Nis" it has no bearing upon this inquiry. The Hill was the same, and is still there. Now for the evolution of the word, giving first the form, to what applied, when so applied, and the authority :
Wansokutt. . Hill. . 1682. . Providence Early Records, V. 8, p. 118. Wansaukit. . Hill. . 1682. . Trustees to set bounds, Richardson's His- tory, p. 32.
Wansokett. . Hill. . 1699. . Providence Early Records, V. 4. p. 160. Wainsokit. . "Inman" land. . 1699. . Providence Early Records, V. 6,
p. 195, Stephen Arnold's Will.
Wansokut. . Hill. . 1704. . Providence Early Records, V. 4, p. 110. Wansocut. . Hill. . 1704. . Providence Early Records, V. 5, p. 230.
Wansoket. . Land. . 1708. . Providence Early Records, V. 7, p. 3. Richard Arnold's Will.
Wansocott. . Lands. . 1716. . Providence Early Records, IX. p. 29.
Wansecutt. . Hill. . 1718. . Nath. Mowry's Will, Mowry Genealogy, p. 20.
Wansockett. . Div. Mowry Lands . . 1719. . Providence Early Records. IX, p. 25.
Winsokett. . Quaker Meeting. . 1719. . Records of Providence and Mendon Monthly Meeting.
Winsokett. . Iron Mill. . 1720. . Richardson's History of Woonsocket, P. 55.
Wonsocut. . Fall. . 1736. . Colonial Records, V. 4, p. 514.
Wainsokett. . Falls. . 1748. . Richardson's History of Woonsocket. p. 68.
Winsokett. . Arnold's Saw Mill. . 1750. . Richardson's History of Woonsocket, 1876, p. 60.
Wansoket. . Bridge. . 1759. . R. I. Acts and Resolves, March, p. 5.
Wonosoket. . Falls. . 1762. . R. I. Acts and Resolves, March, p. 105. Woonsoket. . Bridge. . 1762. . Lottery Ticket.
Woonsoket . . Village. . 1795. . Harris's Map of Rhode Island.
Woonsocket. . Public School. . 1810. . R. I. Acts and Resolves, Feb- ruary, p. 16.
189
THE NAME OF A "FALLS" CAME FROM A "HILL."
Woonsoquett. . Falls . . 1819. . Pease & Niles Gazetteer, p. 348. Woonsoket. . Village. . 1819. . Lockwood's Map, Rhode Island. Woonsocket. . Falls and Hill. . 1824. . Tanner's Atlas.
Winsokeit. . Fresh corruption . . 1846. . Newman's Numbering of the Inhabitants, p. 7.
Wonsoket. . Arnold's Saw Mill. . Richardson in Woonsocket Patriot, March 7, 1873.
The spelling "Woonsocket" given by Staples (Annals of Provi- dence, p. 428. ) and by Richardson's History of Woonsocket (p. 77) as being in the Quaker Records, 1719, is erroneous; the word is given in the original record as it appears above.
The spelling "Woonsocket" in the "Index to Indian Names." Prov. Early Rec. IX, 224, is an error ; the word is not in the text, but is in a foot note supplied by the commissioners who edited the volume.
This extraordinary list is brimful and running over with in- formation and suggestion. Remember. it gives the form of spell- ing, to what it applied, and when, and the authority. It applied, as herein clainied, to a hill. to land ; not to a "Falls," nor to water. It was a locality : so likewise did Niswosaket. It was never specifically applied to the "Falls" until 1736. It is beyond question that until water power came actively into use, and under control, which could not be until men settled there, the "Falls" were of secondary con- sideration, and that the plantation lands around Woonsocket (as we now write it ) Hill were first considered in all transactions from 1682 until 1736. From that time the importance of the "Falls" grew greater, while the "Hill" grew less ; and hence the name went from the "Hill" to the "Falls," and not as Dr. Trumbull has written. from the "Falls" to the "Hill." This is direct evidence; there still exists a species of evidence in the History of Mendon which may be called indirect, which, nevertheless, is strongly corroborative. As herein shown. Mendon was given jurisdiction in 1670; a survey of the town was made in 1683 ; the bounds were as follows: "Starting upon Charles River and running four miles wanting forty rods, to the northeast corner at a stake and stones in Hoppin's meadow : thence turning and running westerly to the northwestern corner one
190
THUNDERMIST.
hundred rods beyond the Great River (now the Blackstone) eight and one half miles; thence turning and running due south eight miles to the southwest corner to a chestnut tree upon the northern side of a great hill ; thence turning easterly about three miles to the Monhegin (now the Branch) river, crossing it several times, and so on to the Great river upon the south side of the Falls, and then with the said river to the Dedham line." (Annals of Mendon. p. 89. ) It will be observed that the name now given to these Falls was not then so applied. November 21, 1698, the selectmen of Mendon met to give the proprietors now "ingaging to erect a Saw Mill att the Falls upon the Great River (now the Blackstone) free liberty to cutt Timber." ( Metcalf's Mendon Annals, p. 132.) It will be observed that even yet no name is given to the Falls or to the locality. September 27. 1703, a tax was assessed on the property of "John Arnold and ve rest of ye owners in ve Saw Mill." ( Annals of Men- don, p. 146.) Still the locality had no name.
In 1710, a deed was given by Seth Chapin to John Arnold, of land thus bounded : "By. the Great (alias the Nipmuck ) river, by the Saw Mill on the east ; southerly upon said river : westerly part on said river, &c. ; northerly on common ; easterly upon common down to the river, with an allowance for a roadway to the Saw Mill and to the wading place below the Falls." ( Richardson's Hist. Woonsocket, p. 17.) Still these Falls had no name. Here are con- stant references from the Annals of Mendon for seventy-six years to these Falls, but never with the name Woonsocket, no matter how spelled, but always so pronounced, applied to them. This, as is herein claimed. is strong corroborative evidence of the correctness of the positions herein taken.
Let us now come to the meaning of the word, not as an opinion of the writer, but the opinions of other men. First came, in 1846, Mr. S. C. Newman, who published a little book about Woonsocket. entitled "Numbering of the Inhabitants." On page 7, Mr. Newman gives the "etymology, definition, and history of the word Woon- socket" after this manner: "A word by which they (the Indians) expressed one of their ideas of thunder was W'oone, and a mist was expressed by the term Suckete; a simple union of these two terms would produce the word Woonesuckete." It most certainly would.
191
WOOMSAUK-IT.
. and in case Mr. Newman was correct, Woonsocket would mean Thundermist. But unfortunately for Mr. Newman's theory, Roger Williams in his "Key into the Indian Language" informs us that Neimpauog was the word which the Indians used for thunder: in which case it could not have been Woone. The discharge of a gun. which the Indians likened to thunder, they described by the word peskhommin, it thunders. There is no foundation possible for Mr. Newman's fancy, or invention. Mr. Williams is the only actual authority. So also it is with Mr. Newman's etymology : "the whites barbarized the word into Winsokeit, and next modernized it into its present form, Woonsocket." So far as yet discovered, Mr. Newman is the first and only barbarian who ever wrote the word Winsokeit; but concerning his last statement there cannot be the slightest doubt ; the word has been modernized into Woonsocket.
In 1872 Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull read a paper before the American Philological Association on the Indian Local Names in Rhode Island; this paper was only partially printed in the Transac- tions of the Society for that year; but in my own possession is a much more complete abstract of this paper, which Dr. Trumbull corrected for my own use ; it is in effect his own manuscript. He gives the word Woonsocket, which he says signifies "at the descent. or below the falls." Fifteen years later Dr. Trumbull comes again to the subject. He gives three varieties in spelling, all of which are comprised in the list herein, and are of the dates 1736 and 1810, and then he says, "The name belongs to the Falls and to the place of the Falls." It comes from the Woomsu (Narra. Waumsu), to go downwards ; Waumsu, down hill ( R. Williams ) ; compare Woom- suonk, a steep descent. and Woomsuonganit, at the cliff ( Eliot in 2 Chron. xx, 16). Woomsauk-it, easily corrupted to Woonsocket. denotes "the place of steep descent," or "going down" ; perhaps the "Hill" was no named independently of the Falls, from a steep descent." (Perry's Rhode Island Census, 1887, p. 53.) Concerning this, Mr. Perry says: "It will hardly be called in question by the scholars of the country." I do not propose to arrogate to myself the title of one of "the scholars of the country" ; nevertheless, I pro- pose to question the accuracy of Dr. Trumbull's derivation.
He says in the paper on Local Indian Names in Rhode Island,
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192
NATICK.
"Half the Indian names in Rhode Island are so much corrupted as to defy analogies." Possibly Woonsocket may be one of them. Then he gives the form Woomsauk-it, which he says "was easily corrupted to Woonsocket." It certainly might have been so cor- rupted, but where does he find the word? It certainly does not exist in our records. It is itself a construction. While Niswosaket is a name actually applied by Williams : we do not have to theorize or to invent a form ; it exists. Again, Dr. Trumbull says Williams gave the word Wl'aumsu, and meaning "down hill," which is true : but "down hill" does not mean water flowing down a river, nor does it mean a fall of water, nor has it anything whatever to do with water ; it is a word of travel down hill. ( Key to Indian Language. Narr. Club ed., p. 102.) It is strange that so acute a mind should have failed to see these things. When Dr. Trumbull says, "perhaps the Hill was so named independently of the Falls, from a steep descent," he gives probably the exact reverse of the fact. He has not shown, nor can it be shown, that the Indians ever had a name for the Falls. The name Woonsocket came in some form from the Indian language, but it is one of evolution by the English settlers. The list which is herein given is positive proof of these facts.
There is one other definition which appears in the books. It is given by Mr. Richardson in his "History of Woonsocket." p. 26, as being made by Dr. Ariel Ballou, who thought it meant "Pond on the Hill." There is indeed a pond on Woonsocket Hill from which the outflow must have "descended" somewhere, and to which Dr. Trumbull's interpretation might as well apply at it does to the Falls. If Dr. Trumbull is correct in his definition, Dr. Ballou came very close in his "Pond on the Hill" idea.
NATICK. (17)
Concerning this word there has been within recent years several published expressions of opinion, both as to its origin and the mean- ing of the word. One of these opinions, although published in 1901. has but recently come to my notice. The title of it is, "The Signifi- cance of John Eliot's Natick, and the name Merrimac, with his-
NACHEEK. 193
torical and ethnological notes, by William Wallace Tooker." It is because of what is therein printed concerning the village of Natick in Rhode Island that I now discuss this matter.
The nante of the manufacturing village, Natick, as it has been some time spelled, is undoubtedly of Indian origin. Upon a manu- script map of the country around it, once in my possession, made about 1683, the name is spelled Nacheck. In his Key to the Indian anguage, Roger Williams gives the words, Nekick, as meaning "my house"; Kekick, your house: Wh-ick, at his house; and this fine compound word, Nickquenum, as meaning "I am going home"; the accent being on the second syllable, the word is pleasing to the ear and would make a very appropriate name for somebody's dwelling on these Narragansett lands. Concerning it Mr. Williams said : "It is a solemn word amongst them; and no man will offer any hindrance to him who, after some absence, is going to visit his family, and useth this word Nickquenum : confessing the sweetness even of these short temporal homes." It is evident that Natick has come down to us from Nekick, the Indian dwellings, there when the Englishmen came from across the sea.
These were my own original opinions and I still hold to them. If the derivation, or the corruption of the word, is correct, then the meaning is clear. The Natick of the "praying Indians" of Massa- chusetts was in the valley of Charles river, about eighteen miles southwest from Boston. The "praying Indians" laid the founda- tion of the town in 1651. "They named it Natick, which signifies a place of hills" ( Francis' Life Eliot, 1836, p. 162). It was to oc- cupy both banks of the river (p. 163), and hence naturally was not a place of hills. It was a low and level country lying in the town of Dedham. It was ten years after the settlement before an Indian church was established (p. 202). But even then no church was organized. Upon examination only eight Indians "might be first called to enter into church covenant ; but even this small num- ber were not called until 1666 (Francis Eliot, 202). As early as 1653, according to Eliot, so great had been the progress of the Indians in English theology that "two little children, under three years of age, had died, showing, as he ( Eliot ) believed, great manifestation of faith" (Francis' Life, 191). The religious tales of
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194
NITTAUKE.
this "praying" settlement are scandalous and, as the writer believes, . unworthy of any credit. After twenty-four years of existence there were but twenty-nine families of Christian Indians living in Natick- this in 1674; they continued to decline until in 1763, but thirty-seven souls remained ( Spofford's Gazetteer, 249). Eliot had received the appointment of Daniel Gookin and Humphrey Atherton, as magis- trates-certainly a precious pair. The Indian tribe there dominant was the Nipmuc; at the very time, this same tribe existed, and was dominant across the northwestern corner of Rhode Island; the precise bounds of this domination cannot be given; but that it existed here, is outside of any discussion. It may have covered a part of Warwick. It certainly covered the lands at present known as Burrillville, Glocester, Foster, Scituate, and North Smithfield. James Savage, in the edition of Winthrop's Hist. New England, 1853, gives a list of Indian localities, and names "Nipmuck river" as the Blackstone ( Winthrop's New Eng. 2, 478). Under such conditions how can Mr. Tooker prove by conclusive evidence that the Natick of the Massachusetts Nipmue had not the same "origin and derivation" (both words meaning precisely the same) as the Natick of the Rhode Island Nipmuc? The very act of tracing the "origin" is showing the "derivation." I consider Mr. Tooker's position upon the question of "origin and derivation" as indefensi- ble. Both names came from the same tribal language, and their meaning was the same. But concerning their meaning, I will pres- ently come to a discussion.
Mr. Tooker then quotes the late Amos Perry, a man here, who never gave the slightest study of the language of the Narragansetts ; nor to that of the Nipmucs; and absolutely no study whatever to a comparative study of the two. Mr. Tooker, continuing, "There is a village in Rhode Island' bearing the same name (John Eliot's Natick ), and mentioned in Dr. Parsons' Indian Names of Places in Rhode Island." The Hon. Amos Perry says, "Its Indian name was Nittauke, which stripped of its superfluous letters (one t and the final e) and anglicized became Natick." I deny the statement that a village, now called Natick, in Rhode Island, was ever known or called Vittauke; and I further deny that this word, minus one t and the final e, thus, Nitauk, becomes, or ever became, Natick. This
195
NATICK OR NACHICK.
note by Mr. Perry comes from "Book of Minutes of Col. Jolin Jones," edited by Mr. Perry. ( Pamphlet 18, Box 258, in the Sidney S. Rider Collection, now in Brown University Library.) On page 14 of this pamphlet Mr. Perry also printed a letter by D. G. Brinton, which is downright destruction to his ( Perry's) theory concerning Nittauke. But Mr. Tooker does not reproduce Brinton's destructive criticism.
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