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 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24
POCASSET. (9-10)
The name Pocasset, spelled in many ways, is given to a river or brook running through the towns of Johnson and Cranston, and also to what seems to be some part of the eastern shore of Nar- ragansett Bay in the towns of Tiverton or Little Compton. The name as applied to the latter locality can be found in our Rhode Island Records (1, 9) under the date 1639. But the name as applied to the River or Brook, notwithstanding its existence in Rhode Island, first appears in the Suffolk Records at Boston. It occurs in what William Arnold called a Deed, from Socononoco, an inferior Sachem of Pawtuxet. "For consideration granted unto William Arnold, Robert Cole & William Carpenter all the lands, marshes, medowes, islands, rivers, ponds lyeing betweene the great fresh or salt river called Pawtuxet river both above & below the Fall. This river called Pachasett & the river called Wanasqua- tuckett & the great salt river that is between Providence & Patuxet. reserving for himself and his heires & assignes free egresse & regresse to hunt & fish upon any of the said rivers and lands which shall ly open unimproved, and no Indian paths shall be made besides the ancient paths without consent of William Arnold, Robert Cole & William Carpenter or their heires. This was by absolute deed dated the 30 (II) 1641. A marke. The "a marke" was "witnessed upon oath before Mr. Nowell the 9 (8) 1645 by Benedict Arnold".
It was a deliberate fraud designed to antedate the Deed of Miantinomi to Samuel Gorton and his companions of the lands of
----
ONE OF THE TWO CASCADES AT PAUCHASSET.
219
PAUGECACHUKE-POINT JUDITH.
Showomet. The Showomet deed is dated 12th January, 1642, so Arnold dated his fraud 30, 11 month, 1641. As a Deed of Con- veyance of land it had no force until signed by somebody. It was signed by nobody ; and the signature was witnessed in 1645; what force had it in 1641? Of course, not the slightest force. It was recorded in Boston, but never in Providence. The object of this was that the Arnolds, father and son, and Robert Cole, and William Carpenter transferred their allegiance to Massachusets and at- tempted and expected to throw the Colony into the possession of Massachusetts, at which time this fraudulent "deed" would assume importance as against Gorton and his friends. But the scheme while cansing a continuous "confusion" here bore no other fruit. (Suffolk Deeds, Boston, Liber 1, p. 63.) In 1654 Barrows sold Fenner "medow lying at Newdaconkonett adjoining unto Pachassett River" ( Early Rec. 2, 14). Stukely Westcott, one of the thirteen First Proprietors, testified that they "never understood their bounds to be further than Pachaset river" (Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc. ( Harris Papers), v. 10, p. 56). Hipses Rock, the western bound, fixed by Miantinomi about 1642, was nearly one mile from the river. It is a good illustration of the elastic nature of these Indian bounds of lands to the English. The name underwent terrible corruptions through the manipulations of Recorders. Here are specimens : Paugatchet ( Prov. Early Rec. 5, 286) ; Putchaset ( Prov. Early Rec. 2, 12) ; Paugecachuke ( Prov. Early Rec. 5. 319). The name must have had specific reference to the Falls, or more properly Cascades, a view of one of which is here given. Pachasset, Patuxet. and Pautucket are Indian words all having reference to water Falls. The name Pocasset was given to something near Fall River. It was the small stream which at that place falls into Mount Hope Bay under precisely similar conditions with Pawtucket, Pawchaset and Pawtuxet.
POINT JUDITH.
See Weyanitoke (27).
PAQUABACK-PAUQUABUNKE. (9)
These names appear in sundry documents, and appear sometimes to apply to those lands then known as Moshantient.
---
V
--
220
POPANOMSCUT-PEEBE'S NECK.
POMECANSET. (17)
Was an Indian village near Pawtuxet Falls ( Early Rec. 15, p. 101).
PIERCE'S FIGHT. (6)
Capt. Michael Pierce of Plymouth fought his last fight on earth what is now Lincoln on Sunday. 26th March, 1676. He with nearly every soldier with him was killed. The Indians who ambushed him were under the lead of Canonchet. The story of Pierce's fight and total destruction is told in all the early histories. Not an Eng- lishman escaped to.tell the tale : hence all the histories of the battle are really the inventions of the writers. Under the titles "Quinsni- ket" and "Nine Men's Misery" it is again touched herein.
POPANOMSCUT-PEEBE'S NECK. (15)
The Indian name was Popanomscut, as written during these later years. It was defined by Mr. Tooker for Mr. Bicknell ( Hist. Bar- rington, R. I., p. 9) as meaning "at the Shelter Rock; or at the roasting rock". This can hardly be correct. Roger Williams gives the name Paponaumsuog as "a winter fish which comes up the brooks and rivulets; some call them Frost fish from their coming up from the sea into fresh brooks in the time of frost or snow" (Indian Key 141, Narr. Club ed.). The brook, Moskituash, is no doubt where these fish then went. The meaning of the name is obvious. The ignorant English have corrupted the spelling of the name. The Indian title came by the Deed from Ousamequin, or Massasoit, 28th March, 1653 ( Fessenden's Hist. Warren, R. I., 50).
There rests on the eastern shore of the Narragansett a stately building. From it a tower ascends, and this tower I ascend, an
.
22I
THE POMHAM CLUB BUILDING.
unbidden guest. Standing as it does upon a high bluff; it affords a view of great scope, not only of the bay, but also of the surrounding country. Nestling at the foot of this bluff lies Happy Islet, and contiguous to it Pomham Rock and the red light thereon ; hence it was the tower of the Pomham Club House wherein I stood. In serene silence the mind ran back among the forgotten years and visions arose of things I might have seen had I then stood here. The club took its name from the rock and the rock from the Sachem. but how, or why, or when, I do not know. The ancient dominions of Pomham are now within my vision ; across the bay southwesterly they lie, Showomet then, but now they call it Warwick. It was there that Pomham dwelt, and of those lands he gave a deed to Samuel Gorton in 1642, whereon he put his sign manual, an Indian pipe. From this tower I might have seen at the close of December, 1675. the blazing fires of his hundred wigwams, and himself and all his people driven to starvation in the distant woodlands : where a little later Pomham fell by an English bullet, and with him all his people. Harsh things have been said by our Rhode Island people of Pomham. Time, the great alleviator of all human animosities, enables us to see Pomham in possibly a clearer light than those who were smarting under his vigorous blows could hope to possess. To us he seems more sinned against than sinning. He died in the wild woods like a hero, as he was, or, as ancient chronicler writes of him, "he was one of the great Sachems of the Narrowganeets; if he is slain, the glory of that nation is sunk with him into the same pit." Another chronicler writes of him, "he was one of the stoutest and most valiant of the Sachems," and still another, "he was the most warlike and the best soldier of all the Narragansets.". Shot. as here related, he withdrew himself into the bush to die. A wan- dering Englishman drew unconsciously near the dying chief, who, possessed as he was of immense muscular strength, instantly at- tacked, and but for assistance, would have slain another of his enemies. Thus died Ponham on the 27th of July, 1676, and from this tower, his home it was that I saw burning two hundred years ago.
I have thus related how I saw from the tower the town of Pomham burned in midwinter, December, 1675, and the Indians
222
THE BURNING OF SHOWOMET.
driven to the woods for shelter. In these words the reverend chronicler records the event: "On the 27th of December, Captain Prentice was sent into Pomham's country, when they burnt near an hundred wigwams, but found never an Indian in any of them." Again I saw a lurid flame light the whole of Showomet. It was in the following March the outraged Indians came and left but a single house standing in the whole settlement. Vengeance they took, with but a single life. In these words the reverend chronicler records the event: "Another party of them ( the Indians) fell upon Warwick, a place beyond Philip's land, towards the Narra- ganset country, where they burned down to the ground all but a few houses left standing as a monument of their barbarous fury." The reverend chronicler had not then made the acquaintance of Will Shakespeare, else had he learned
That we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return To plague the inventor.
With Pomham the case was different. He may not have been familiar with the precise language of the great poet. In fact, it may be presumed that he was not thus familiar, but then the spirit was in him and he knew
That even handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips.
And he proceeded in his barbaric way to give to the white men, in March, a taste of that medicine which the white men had adminis- tered to him in the preceding December. It was even handed jus- tice.
It was a sorrowful day for us when Thomas Willett died, August 4, 1674. Captain Willett, we called him. He was among the first purchasers here. His name is among the half dozen grantees in Massasoit's famous deed of 1653. Ousamequin, we then called this Wampanoag Sachem. He dwelt hereaway at Sowames, or Warren,
223
PEEBE'S NECK-PHEBE'S NECK.
. as you now call it. . Captain Willett came and "took up" land just here at the head of Bullock's Cove, as since you have named it, but we knew it as Peebe's Neck. You have changed it into Phebe's Neck, but for what good reason I cannot now discover. Peebe was a Sachem of the Wampanoags ; here on this neck he lived and ruled his people, and here we shot him with a good English bullet on the first day in July, 1675, among the first of King Philip's warriors to be "sent to hell," as the Reverend Mather might have written it. Peebe, moreover, was his own executioner ; that is, he brought death upon himself. 'All that we wanted was the land whereon he dwelt, and he should not have resisted us. In these degenerate days of civilization no white man thinks of resisting the encroachments of alien citizens upon his land. In those emergencies we found a material helper in gunpowder. As an argument, persuasive in its effect upon the "untutored savage." The least in amount properly administered, induced sleep to the patient, and he has slept the sleep of his fathers' ever since. Well, here just to the southward, at the very head of Peebe's Neck, Captain Willett built his house and here he died, and just there, at the head of Bullock's Cove, as you now call it, we buried him. Peebe knew it as Popanomseut. There had been trouble with the Dutch at New York, and Captain Willett having been much in Holland, and being well liked by that people, was sent to quiet the quarrels. In this he succeeded, for he was a sagacious and politique man, and so he became the first mayor of that city in 1665. In 1666 he acted as alderman, probably for the reason that, at that time, he was obliged to be more among us here at Wannamoiset, but the following year, 1667, he was made mayor of New York again, thus "twice he did sustain the place." just as we cut the words on his tombstone, which but for this little hill below, you could see from the tower.
On the top of Captain Willett's house the old gentleman had built a "watch house." and in this watch house he had kept a sentinel. Lulled into security, or possibly lacking in that watchful care which so fully possessed the old gentleman, who as I have written was now dead, this sentinel was one day not at his post. An unhappy day indeed it was, for Hezekiah Willett, the son of his father. "an hope- ful young gentleman as any in these parts," "was betrayed (as the
. ..
‹
224
THE PIOUS HUBBARD'S STORY.
Reverend Hubbard writes it ) into their cruel hands within a quarter of an hour after he went out of his own doors, within sight of his house, and he was shot by three of them at once, and from every one a mortal wound." All these things I might have seen from the round tower of the Pomham Club; but there was one thing about this "horrid and barbarous murder" of Hezekiahi Willett, as the Reverend Hubbard calls it, which the same pious chronicler failed to mention ; and this it was, exactly one year to a day had passed since we shot Peebe. Hezekiah was shot on the first anni- versary of the death of Pecbe. We could not account for this un- fortunate coincidence on any other theory than that Hezekiah's god was talking, or pursuing, or on a journey, or peradventure he slept, when Hezekiah went out. We are the more inclined to this belief for the reason that whenever we shot a few of the original owners of the soil, the pious Hubbard says "the Devil in whom they trusted deceived them." As the pious Hubbard hath it, "Except the Lord keepeth the city the watchman watcheth in vain." And so indeed it was with the Willetts.
It was midsummer's day, June 24, 1675, that I sat here in the Tower enjoying the cool breeze late in the afternoon. I had been to worship. A "day of solemn humiliation throughout the colony [had been appointed] for fasting and prayer, to intreat the Lord to give success to the present expedition respecting the enemy." So writes our godly chronicler. " Our people were about to begin a war upon those whom they found in possession when we came here, and we wanted to make sure that God was on our side, so we put in this little preliminary meeting. The thing had been all arranged as we supposed, and the people had departed for their homes. Mine being the nearest, I had reached it first, and was seated in this tower, as before written, when, as I was looking landward towards Mat- tapoiset, the beautiful peninsular which you can see just there jutting out into the waters of Mount Hope bay, but much nearer, and in these fields I saw a puff of smoke and heard the report of a rifle. Another and another followed until I had seen nine puffs and heard the voices of nine rifles. The first blood in King Philip's war had been shed, and I had seen it from this tower of the Pomham Club. I looked towards our strong refuge, the house of our godly minister,
-
225
THE DEATH OF KING PHILIP.
Mr. Myles. I could see it plainly just here below us on the Sowams river. All was quiet there, and without doubt for a very good rea- son. We had built it for several purposes. It was a garrison house, a blockhouse, a church, and a parsonage, all in one. From it we dis- patched our prayers and our bullets, both at the same time; and it became a matter of demonstration, that bullets propelled as ours were, by both prayer and powder, became exceedingly irritating to the skin of an Indian. It seems to me strange, now that I think of it, that notwithstanding our appeals before we begun an attack, nine of us should have been permitted to be shot dead on our way home from appealing. Surely, we had no intention of shooting any Indians for two or three days. I have asked our godly minister, Mr. Myles, about it, and he says that he cannot explain it.
It was but little more than a year from the day when I saw from this tower the first blood drawn in this terrible war, when I again stood here. It was in the early morning, Saturday, August 12, 1676, a wet and lowering morning it was. The war was still progressing, and armed bands still prowled about the country. Was it that I imagined, or did I really see a slight cloud rise from the sonthwest foot of Mount Hope and float lazily away? Whether I saw it or only thought I saw it, it actually rose and floated away. It was the smoke of the musket discharged by an Indian at King Philip, and him it killed. I had thus seen, from the tower of the Pomham Club, both the beginning and the end of King Philip's war.
The old chroniclers thus quaintly put things concerning the shoot- ing of this Indian Sachem: "An Englishman and an Indian stood at such a place of the swamp where it hapened that Philip was breaking away ; the morning being wet and rainy the Englishman's gun would not fire. The Indian having an old musket with a large touchhole it took fire more readily, with which Philip was dis- patched, the bullet passing directly through his heart, where Joab thrust his darts into the rebellious Absalom." Philip's head was cut off and given to the Indian who shot him, and by this Indian taken to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole, and there it stood for twenty-five years, of which thus writes the pious Mather: "Thus did God break the Head of the Leviathan, and give it to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness."
.
-
326
THE BURNING OF THE GASPEE.
Nearly a century elapsed before I again stood within the tower of the Pomliam Club. Singularly enough, it was as before, a mid- summer day, or rather it was the evening of such a day, (the 9th of June, 1772,) that I saw two craft, one, a schooner, in chase of the other, a sloop. It was the British schooner Gaspee attempting to overhaul the New York packet Hannah, then on her way to Provi- dence. The Gaspee failed in her endeavor, and grounded firm and fast on Namquit Point, the long, low sandy land just across there in Pomham's country. Hard and fast there lay the Gaspee, and night descending-I slept, but scarcely had I slept when I was awakened by the wild shouting of men. Across the waters the shouts came in clear and distinct utterances. I could see nothing in the dark- n'ess ; presently all was again quiet ; a light became discernible. It was on board the Gaspec. Larger and larger it grew-the wild Hames enveloped the hull and leaped to the topmasts ; the ship was on fire and burned to the water's edge. The Lieutenant, Dud- ingston, who commanded her, was shot, but not killed, by a musket ball fired by Joseph Bucklin. In a boat I saw him from this tower carried just there to Pawtuxet. Even as I had seen from this tower the first blood drawn in Philip's war, so had I now seen from this same tower the first blood shed in the greater struggle, the war of the Revolution.
It was only a year or two later, while sitting here one afternoon in May, 1776, that I saw two ships launched from the stocks. They were men of war. One the Warren of 32 guns, the other the . Providence of 28 guns. Both were taken to sea, under my own eyes, and through the British fleet then blockading. The Warren sailed first, commanded by Captain John B. Hopkins. He got safely to sea. A little later Congress applied to Commodore Whipple, who was in command of the Providence, to know whether he could take his ship to sea. Whipple answeered that ire could. Dispatches were sent to him to be taken to France. The importance of these dispatches was clearly indicated when it became known that they related to the treaty with France concerning the alliance. It was on a dark and stormy night in April that Whipple cleared his ship and set sail for France. The wind was blowing half a gale. In the darkness I saw him, phantom like, sail by-close under the rock
227
POTOWOMUT.
. Pomham he laid the course of his vessel. Short was the time he made to Warwick, off which point lay the British frigate Lark. I had often seen her lying there beneath this tower, and now, while I could not see her, it being night, I could plainly hear her cannon as she gave the Providence a broadside as she passed. Commodore Whipple returned her salute, and crowded the ship with sails. This salute by Whipple, the flash of which I saw and the roar of which I heard, killed and wounded twenty of his enemies. Further down the bay Whipple exchanged broadsides with the Juno, another British frigate, but stopping not, held swiftly on his course to sea. Another ship impeded his progress-a broadside sunk her, and his course was open. Never man made more adventurous voyage, nor one fraught with greater consequences to his country. I saw the . beginnings of it from the tower of the Pomham Club.
Thus has a mind in idleness wandered back, under the suggestion of a thought, among the days and the things which are gone. It was a thought begot by the scene and unthought before.
There are many places of local historical interest in Rhode Island around which cluster the memories of single actions, but where can be found a spot within the State where one can gather beneath a single glance the fields of so many famous actions as in this tower of the Ponham Club? Like Kartaphilos I have traversed the cen- turies, and have gathered here and there an action; but those untouched far outnumber those herein described. The gleaner has preceded the harvester. Let some enthusiastic member of the Club follow out the study for the regalement of himself and the delecta- tion of his fellows. I came, did I say, an unbidden guest? It is true, and yet it is not true. I cannot be a guest. I could be only a guest when the family were temporarily absent, and so indeed I was; and for it all I owe an apology to the Club for making tales about their domicil.
POTOWOMUT. (17-22)
This name is given by Potter ( Hist. Narrag .. p. 304) as above, or as Potoowoomuck, and described as "a neck of land near East Greenwich". Dr. Parsons ( Indian Names of Places in Rhode
$
228
THE WILD CRAZE FOR LAND, 1658.
Island) gives the name as first written above, and also as Pooto- woomet, and describes the place as a "neck of land where the Ives live". The name is given as Potowomet in the Colonial Records (v. 3. p. 55) ; but whoever made the Index, wrote the word, Pota- womet. Here are a few other forms: Pittewomuck ; Potoume ; Potowomuck ; Pettewomuck ; Potawomett ; Patowoome, etc. Poto- womut is a pretty peninsula penetrating Greenwich Bay, an arm of the Narragansett. It was a bone of contention for individual possession by many men for many years. A brief narrative of these struggles will illustrate the wild craze for the possession of the' land which broke loose here in 1658, and has never ceased. Four years before this wild craze, Randall Holden and Ezekiel Holyman bought "a neck of ground commonly called by the English by the name of Potawomet," from an Indian named Taccomanan, for fifteen pounds. The Deed reads: "I Taccomanan right owner of all ye meadows and movable land," &c. ( Fuller's Hist. Warwick, 49). It was the unwritten law, in the Colony, before the Charter of Charles the Second, that only the chief Sachems could give valid deeds of land; no under Sachem could give a title. This became a written law under this Charter. Holden and Holyman bought the land "for themselves and the rest of the inhabitants of the town of Warwick". The Deed was given on the 13th June, 1654. Tac- comanan was a very insignificant. Sachem, almost unknown ; he was one of the witnesses to the Deed of Showomet given by Miantinomi. He dwelt at Potowomut, but Potowomut was in no part of Showo- mut, but far south of it. Five years later, on the 11th June, 1659, Coginaquand, who was then chief Sachem of the Narragansetts, gave to Gov. Winthrop, of Connecticut, and Humphrey Atherton. and their company, a Deed of land north from Richard Smith's house at what is now Wickford, but then known as Acquidneset. The Sachem by this Deed ignored the Deed of Taccomanan of 1654, and specifically reserved Potowomut "for planting ground for me and my friends until such time as we see cause to forsake it" (Conn. Col. Rec., v. 2, p. 540; also (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 3, Ser. v. I. p. 213) ; also (Fones' Records of the Proprietors of Narragansett ). Coginaquand was a brother to Miantinomi: at least it was so de- clared in the "Confirmation" Deed, as it has been called. signed by
229
BENEDICT ARNOLD, A LAND GRABBER.
him 29th May, 1659 (Staples' Annals Prov. 567). Judge Potter while stating his descent, as above, declares him to have been a son of Canonicus ( Hist. Narr., 1835, p. 172). His sale of lands to the English in the near neighborhood of the Richard Smith house, and near the spot where Canonicus lived and died, indicates a near relationship to Canonicus and Miantinomi. No sooner was this act of Coginaquand known to Randall Holden, and the possible bearing of it upon liis deed of Potowomut from Taccomanan, than Holden induced another unknown Indian named Namawish to give him another Deed of Potowomet. This was done on the 26th June,
1660. A year later Holden surrendered this deed to Benedict Arnold, then an assistant from Newport, for the use of the Colony (R. I. Col. Rec. 3, 104). Benedict Arnold was an inveterate land grabber, and Potowomut was never turned over to the Colony ; and twenty years later, Arnold being then recently dead, Holden ap- pealed to the General Assembly to surrender his Deed, "or the money disbursed therein" (R. I. Col. Rec. 3, 109). But Holden never recovered, and the lands fell into the hands quietly of private owners. It is possible that Holden's transaction arose from an act. or a suggestion, made in the General Assembly. On the 11th July, 1659, this same Sachem Coginaquand sold Namcook to the Atherton Company. In August following, the General Assembly ordered "the purchase from the natives of a sufficient plantation at Potowo- mett, provided that the said plantation do satisfy in reason such of the inhabitants of Providence and Warwick who had expended money for the recovery of the charter from Mr. Coddington's obstruction, upon the account and promise, of this very place" ( R. I. Col. Rec. v. I, p. 424). In 1679-1680 three sets of Proprietors claimed ownership of the lands ; and three towns claimed jurisdic- tion, Kingston, East Greenwich, and Warwick. No definite action was taken by the General Assembly to fix the jurisdiction ; and the inhabitants could be neither taxed, nor called to duty as citizens, nor enjoy the privilege of the King's protection (Col. Rec. 4, 503). The General Assembly then gave Warwick notice, but fixed the jurisdiction in East Greenwich. How long this jurisdiction con- tinued I do not know; but it was placed in the town of Warwick. In February, 1786, the people living there petitioned to be trans-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.