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 21
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have described no other Indian possessed of such talent. The
Swamp Fort was captured by the English by means of the treachery of the Indian Peter, who betrayed his countrymen and led the army directly into the heart of the "Fort" (island it really was), to the utter dismay and destruction of unnumbered hundreds. The Queen's Fort was never captured. It fell into the possession of the English after the massacre of the remaining Narragansetts on the 2nd July, 1676. Concerning "Stone Wall John", Mr. S. G. Drake, certainly the wisest of New England writers concerning these Indians, says of him: "One writer of his time observes that he was called 'the Stone-layer,' for that being an active, ingenious fellow he had . learned the masons' trade, and was of great use to the Indians in building their forts," etc. ; hence we may hazard but little in the conjecture that he was chief engineer in the erection of the great Narragansett Fort; although but little is known of him, he was doubtless one of the most distinguished Narragansett captains" (Drake's Book of the Indians 3, 77). Another contemporary chronicler thus describes him; the writer is describing the fight within the Swamp Fort: "Our men killed many of them, as also their wives and children, amongst which an Indian Blacksmith, the only man amongst them that fitted their guns, and arrow heads, and amongst many other houses, burnt his, as also demolished his Forge. and carried away his tools" (Continuation of the State of New
243
THE STORY OF SHUMATUCKE, 1662.
England being a Farther account of the Indian War, London, 1676, page 6; also Drake's Old Indian Chronicles, Boston, 1867, page 182). But I will take this remarkable structure back to a still greater antiquity ; even to a day before the Colony of Rhode Island came into existence; before the day on which the Charter of Charles the Second was conceived, or suggested. There is a record in Massa- chusetts of a complaint made in May, 1662, to the General Court, by Thomas Minor of Southertown, against "certain Indians of the Narragansett country living at a Fort, over whom one called Shu- matucke is Sachem, for taking his ( Minor's) horses, throwing stones,," etc. (Mass. Col. Rec., v. 4, pt. 2, p. 54). Minor was an inhabitant of Southertown, a town created by the Massachusetts upon both sides of the Pawcatuck river. That portion on the east- ern side became Westerly. In the September following (1662) the same complaint was made to the Commissioners of the United Colonies at Boston ; it reads "for detaining, riding, and concealing" Minor's horses ( Hazard's Hist. Col. 2, 462). But answer was immediately made that "Shawattock knew no reason why he should pay anything ( Massachusetts had fined him twenty pounds) to Thomas Minor, seeing he had his mares again" ( Hazard's Hist. Col. 2, 462). A portion of this document is reproduced in the R. I. Colonial Records (v. I, p. 498). Those horses were probably turned loose by Minor to feed and wandered away in the woods, where they were found by the Indians running wild. This Sachem had a small company, forming an Indian town. The name of this small tribe was given by Williams in a letter as being the Wunnashowat- tuckoogs, which name he shortened to Showatucks (Narr. Club 6, 363). This town was near where Pessicus, a brother of Miantinomi. and Canonchet, Miantinomi's son, lived ; Sawgogue and Acquidnesit (22), northeast, but a short distance from the Queen's Fort. This is made clear by the Williams Letter above cited, concerning a request made by Uncas to Pessicus and Canonchet to kill the Showa- tucks. Still more strongly is the fact made clear by the lease given by Cachanoquand to Richard Smith in 1659. One of the bounds of this lease is "the small river Showatucquere". It was on this brook that the Indian village lay and it ran near the Queen's Fort. It was the structure of which I have claimed Stonewall John to
244
THE QUEEN'S FORT IN A DENSE FOREST.
be the builder, and over which Quaiapen became Queen after the death of Canonchet. Before I leave this interesting subject I will discuss for a moment another matter connected with it. Upon Minor's complaint, the Massachusetts General Court sent Capt. Daniel Gookin with an interpreter to bring Shumatucke into line. Gookin was at this time superintendent of the "Praying Indians" under Humphrey Atherton-certainly a precious pair. But Shu- matucke did not treat Gookin and his Praying Indians with that deference which Mr. Gookin thought proper. So he appeared before the Commissioners of the United Colonies and made complaints against Shawottuck and his people ( Hazard's Hist. Coll. 2, 462). This Sachem dwelt with his small tribe at the head water of Shawatuck brook (see map 24) and within half a mile of the Queen's Fort. Capt. Gookin has written concerning them: "But let me add this by way of commendation of the Narragansett and Warwick Indians who inhabit in this jurisdiction, that they are an active, laborious, and ingenious people ; which is demonstrated in their labors they do for the English ; of whom more are employed especially in the making of Stone Fences" ( Mass. Hist. Soc. Col. Ist Ser., v. I, pp. 141, 230). Gookin also stated that his visit "had been without effect" (Hazard's Hist. Col. 2, 467). The direct falsity of Gookin's statement to the Commissioners is shown in this same volume ( Hazard, 462), where it appears that Shamatuck returned Minor's mares immediately after Gookin's visit. It is clear that Gookin was within half a mile of the Queen's Fort, and while he . may not have seen it, being so densely hidden in the forest, he had seen the stone walls built by these Indians in that neighborhood where, according to the Massachusetts Records, Shawatuck lived : and there Gookin must have seen the works which he described as illustrating the "activity, the laborious character and the ingenuity" of the Narragansetts, as shown in their labors for the English ; and of whom more are employed : especially in making "Stone Fences," and many other hard labors. But the Commissioners of the United Colonies sustained Gookin by writing an abominable letter to the Government of the Providence Plantations, asserting the solidity of the claim of Connecticut to the lands around the Fort. But this claim, long contested, was never maintained. The King of England,
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QUINSNIKET AND NANUNTENOO. 245
George the Second, by a Decree, in 1746, extinguished- the absurd claim of Connecticut, and established the jurisdiction of all these lands in Rhode Island.
QUINIMIQUET.
This was the name of a daughter of Mexanno and Quaiapen, the Indian Queen, and hence a granddaughter of Canonicus; from this name, Conimicut, which was subsequently applied by the English to what we now call Gaspee Point. Under the name Namquit it is further discussed.
QUINSNIKET. (6)
Some four or five miles to the northward from Providence, lying in the town of Lincoln between the Loisquissett (that is the way of writing the name in the law of 1805) and the Smithfield Turn- pikes, is a spot known as Quinsniket. It is claimed by some that this name is not Indian ; a claim equally well founded can be af- firmed against Neoterconkernitt ( R. I. Hist. Coll. 4, 204) or New- daconkonett ( Prov. Early Records 2, 14, 106, 136). Both are terrible corruptions of an Indian name. There are traditions con- cerning this locality carrying us back to the days when Canonchet fought and destroyed Michael Pearce and his Plymouth soldiers in 1676. For this reason I have placed the name and its location upon the Indian map. Tradition says the name means "a rock house". The name is now attached to a huge mass of rocks which caps the hill jujst back of the "Butterfly Factory". It overhangs other rocks, thus forming a sort of room or of space which it covers. Tradition says that beneath this rock, or in this rock house, slept Nanuntenoo, otherwise Canonchet, the night before he destroyed Capt. Pierce and all his soldiers. It may be true, for certainly it might have been. On the green sward to the southward of this immense rock he may have lighted his council fire and planned the fatal ambus- Quinsniket the bountiful hand of nature had brought together every- thing which could delight the eye of the Indian-a magnificent
·
246
WIGWAM AN ENGLISH WORD.
view ; security from enemies; luxuriant foliage; rare plants ; and the waters of the bright Moshassuck for his beverage.
"Again Moshassuck's silver tide Reflects each green bush on its ride Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine, Whose tendrils o'er margin twine"!
So sang the Rhode Island poet, for today the bright, glittering brook runs by us, that ran by Nanuntenoo two centuries, and more, ago.
"For men may come and men may go, But it goes on forever."
The great rocks protected the Indians from the cold northi winds, while the southern sun warmed the openings of their "wigwams". This word wigwam is English ; the Indians knew no such word. It may have come from Wetuomuck, by which the Indians meant "at Home". Quinsniket is now a hill, wild and beautiful as the Trossachs, but less large, and lacks their poet. Sir Walter Scott. A rudely constructed dam turns the watery maid on the hilltop into a beautiful pond, sheltered on every side, and fringed with wild woods and flowers. A pretty rivulet finds its way from the pond, among the rocks, to join the waters of the Moshiassuck below. Years ago, Stephen H. Smith stocked this pond with Golden Carp; but Mr. Smith has departed, and the Golden Carp no longer delights the eye of the visitor. Mr. Smith now rests in the old Quaker Burying Ground hard by; and the meeting house where his ancestors sat, under the preaching of Job Scott, the most celebrated among the Rhode Island Quaker preachers, is still standing near. There is a long line of his ancestors, each resting place marked by a blue state, and all in keeping with each other. He was a man filled with that wisdom which only experience brings-more faithful to the cares and interests of others than to his own: a true indication of unselfish generosity. He lent the helping hand to nature : and that, with no stint. In the neighborhood he built
247
THE MASSACRE OF CAPT. PIERCE'S ARMY.
a fine stone mansion, and planted trees and shrubs, and flowers about it ; and now its ivy mantled front stands in perfect har- mony with the landscape; on Quinsniket Hill he planted lilies, rare ferns, and shrubs albeit unused to the neighborhood ; that they might delight his own eyes as well as those who were to come, after him. It is now many years since a laborer was sent by Mr. Smith to gather a load of stones to be picked up for some purpose ; but instead of picking them up the laborer re- moved, without knowing the interest in it, the last wigwam left by the Indians. This rude habitation had been preserved as a memorial of the former inhabitants. On the spot Mr. Smith planted a young "Honey" Locust, just by the spot where the Indians dwelt. When the writer wrote these lines, now many years since, this tree still stood, large and vigorous. It stood near a cluster of pines, with a hemlock among them, just below the "Rock House". We know nothing of the part played by Quinsniket in the Indian wars. But that it played a part there can be no doubt ; and that, too, in the bloodiest of the battles, to the English, of which there is any record. It was, in fact, ex- termination. It was the last, but as well the greatest, victory gained by the Indians. The Wampanoags, under King Philip. after their attacks on Deerfield, and Springfield, and Hadfield, and Hatfield, fled by many paths, in bands of different numbers, to their native lands on the eastern shores of the Narragansett. Tradition says that some of these bands made Quinsniket a resting place in this retreat. It was near Quinsniket that the fight against Capt. Pierce took place. Capt. Pierce had come from Plymouth with a company of soldiers to attack the Indians, and had reached Rehoboth, where he learned of the Indians in numbers near the Pawtucket Falls, and determined to attack them. Before marching he sent a messenger to Capt. Andrew Edmonds, who then dwelt in Providence, to meet him at a place on the Pawtucket river and assist him in the attack. Capt. Edmonds did not receive the messenger in time to reach the field of battle until all was over, and Capt. Pierce and his com- pany were all dead upon the field-save nine men captured, who were carried northward to a place known as "Camp Swamp"
248
QUANACONTAUG-QUOWATCHAUG.
and there tortured and slain. Capt. Andrew Edmonds was the most famous Indian Fighter who ever dwelt in Providence. His name figures in our Early Records in the capture of Indians and other incidents.
QUANACONTAUG. (28-29)
It is a name given in Charlestown, or Westerly, to a tract of land and to a pond. This pond is given in one Indian carly plat as Neckequaw. (See Potter's Early Narrag. 304.) Trum- bull also gives the word as Nekeequoweere and fixes it as Quonaquataug pond in Charlestown, R. I., and the Wecapaug brook as running into it (Indian Names in Connecticut, 37). This brook was the boundary between the Pequots and the Niantics when Roger Williams came, or before that year.
QUOWATCHAUG-WATCHAUG. (29)
The southern boundary of Rhode Island is the Atlantic Ocean. Along this coast the land is largely covered by inland waters, which have come now to be called Ponds; but they are not in reality ponds, but all, through inlets, are more or less subject to the ebb and flow of the tides. Lying in the town of Charlestown, exactly one mile north from the innermost shore of the inlet from the sea, known to the Niantics by the name Pawawget, is Watchaug Pond, as the name is now written. A ridge of high- lands separates Watchaug from the ocean, notwithstanding its nearness. Two small streams enter it, but the outlet is Poqui- nock brook, flowing northeasterly into the Pawcatuck river.
The first mention in the early documents of the name occurs in the Deed of land by Canonicus and Miantinomi to Henry Hall and Richard Knight, known as Hall's purchase. It was made 19 January, 1664. It was said to contain two square miles. The final boundary of this purchase was not settled until 1708, when the Colonial General Assembly settled it, making the Usquepaug
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249
THE CEREMONIES AT CHEMUNGANNUCK.
river its western boundary. But it is only the Indian boundaries of the original deed which now interests us. These are Qua- matucumpic on the east; Chippuachack on the south; Quo- wachauk on the west; and Winatompic on the north. Quo- wachauk is the name Watchang of to-day. It was not then applied to a pond, but to certain lands, now undefinable. In some early documents the name of the pond is given Chemun- ganset ; in others Chemungannuck. Now the name Shamun- ganuck is given to a fine highland just north of Watchang pond ; and upon this hill tradition says the ceremonies of inauguration of the Sachems and Saunks were performed. A few notes con- cerning the origin of these Indian words and their variations may not be without interest to the few students now left, inter- ested in local history. The modern word Usquepaug in ancient records as given by Parsons in three forms is thus written, Usquebaug Osquepaug Wawoskepaug, is now the name of a river forming the western boundary of South Kingston, rising in Exeter, and running due south till it meets a stream flowing from Worden's pond, and thence running to Shannock Mills ; then it becomes the Pawcatuck. Trumbull in a paper upon Indian local names in Rhode Island, written in 1872, gives Wowoskepaug, which, in the form Usquebaug, has a Celtic flavor. Judge Potter in his Early History of Narragansett gives Wau- woskopog, which he says was the name by which the Indians knew the lands sold to the Hall purchasers, described above -- see Walling's Map of Rhode Island, 1854, upon which Judge Potter caused to be drawn so much antiquarian knowledge about the southern part of Rhode Island. The boundaries of Hall's purchase, which I have given, are taken from a deposition made by Joseph Davel, or Devol, a surveyor, in 1711. These purchasers named their purchase Westerly Manor, and from it came the present town. The word Watchaug was written originally Quowatchaug; it has been shortened by the English settlers to its present form.
250
THE GREAT SWAMP FIGHT FORT.
QUAWAWEHUNK. (27)
This name is stated by Dr. Parsons to be that of the Swamp where the Great Fight took place on the 19th December, 1675. The Fort, described by Hubbard. is the only contemporary account which has been followed by all subsequent writers. Mr. Hubbard writes: "The Fort was raised upon a kind of Island of five or six acres of rising land in the midst of a swamp; the sides of it were made of Pallissadoes set upright, the which was compassed about with a hedge of almost a rod thickness, through which there was no passing, unless they could have fired a way through, which then they had no time to do. The place where the Indians used ordinarily to enter themselves was over a long tree upon a place of water, where but one man could enter at a time, and which was so way-laid that they would have been cut off that had ventured there; but at one corner there was a gap made up only with a long tree, about four or five feet from the ground, over which men might easily pass; but they had placed a kind of a Block House right over against the said tree from whence they sorely galled our men that first entered" (Hubbard's Troubles with the Indians, London, 1677, p. 52). There is another description of this Fort, also contemporary, published in London, 1676: "The next day about noon they (the Massachusetts and Plymouth army) came to a large swamp, which, by reason of the frost all the night before, they were able of going over, which else they could not have done. They forth- with in a body entered the said swamp, and in the midst thereof was a piece of timberland of about three or four acres of ground, whereon the Indians had built a kind of Fort, being Palisado'd round, and within that a clay wall, as also felled down abundance of trees to lay quite round the said Fort, but they had not quite finished the said work" (Continuation of the Present State of New England, London, 1676, p. 6).
SEC-E-SA-KUT. (9)
The earliest mention of the Indian locality Sec-e-sa-kut is
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251
SECASACUT, AND THE HILL.
found in a deed from Wissawyamake, of land to Thomas Clem- ence, in 1654. The phrase read, "I Wissawyamke, an Ingen about the age of 23 yeares ould now dwilling at Sekescute ner providing, have barganed and sould vnto thomas Clemones, of providing on (one) medow, containing about 8 akers, mor or less, a broke (brook) at each End, and a hille on the weaste sid of it, wenasbetuket rver on the other sid of it, and have sould vnto him the free vse of the rver allso" ( Early Rec. p. 20). The phrase is certainly ambiguous. Secesakut may mean the place where the Indian lived, while the land which he sold might lie in another locality: but this interpretation is improbable. Indians did not dwell in one place and own land in other places. Secesakut must have been the place where the Indian lived, and also the name of the locality where the land lay which he sold. Let me endeavor to locate it : It was "near Providence,"-this means that it was nearer to the town of Providence than it was to what was subsequently known as the seven mile line, but it was outside the lines of Providence, and on the west side of the Woonasquetucket river. The lines of Providence in this direc- tion were clearly written, running from Mashapaug pond straight to Neutakonkanut hill and thence direct to the fields at Pawtucket. An examination of the map will show that Secesa- kut must then have been on the river above Dyerville, and since I have shown in a former note that the locality along the west bank of the river between Merino village and Manton was the "place commonly called Venter," it must follow that Secesakut was above the village of Manton, in what is now the town of Johnston, and probably between the villages of Allendale and Lymansville. There being in the Early Records three other ref- erences to this locality, it becomes necessary to inquire whether this reasoning is sustained or weakened by them. The first reference is in a layout of land to Andrew Harris ( Early Rec., 1. II). This confirms my reasoning, for reason that the east. and west, and north bounds of this Harris land was the "com. mon" or unassigned lands, while the "south" bound was the land of John Fenner : the general location of these early Fenner lands is of the common knowledge of to-day. This Harris lay-
252
SOLITARY HILL IN OLNEYVILLE.
ont dates in September, 1661. The next reference in order of time appears in a deed from James Ashton to William Carpenter, dated "ffeburarey in the yeare 1661" (Early Rec., p. 91). Ac- cording to the Calendar then in use, February followed Septem- ber in the order of the months. This reference also confirms my reasoning, for the reasons that Ashton declared his land to be bounded on the east by the land of Shadrach Manton, and on the west by Arthur Fenner's land, both of which bounds are sufficiently clear to those who understand such things to-day. The next and last reference to the word appears in a deed from John Smith to William Carpenter, made in November, 1662 « (Early Rec., p. 77). This also confirms my reasoning. it being north of the lang bought by Clemence of Wissawyamake in 1654, which is above referred to, and adjoining the William Carpenter land so often mentioned. In this deed "Secesakut Hill" is for the first time referred to by this name; it is beyond question that this was the unnamed hill, mentioned as a bound in Wissawyamake's deed of 1654 to Clemence ; the words were "a hille on the weaste sid of it." From all this, the location of Sec-e-sa-kut seems to me a matter of demonstration, as above written, on the west or southwest bank of the Woonasquetueket river, and between the villages of Allendale and Lymansville. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Austin made reference in his Genealogical Dictionary to one of these land evidences in which the word appears, still the name is a new one, now first added to the Gazetteer of Rhode Island Indian. The men who uttered the word are gone, the word survives, another proof that it is the intangible alone which outlives time.
SOLITARY HILL. (9)
The name is not of Indian origin, nor is it upon the Indian map, but it was so marked an object in the earliest years of the Providence plantation, and is so often mentioned in the Early Records, that I make a note concerning it.
There are many men now living who remember the location,
i
253
SOLITARY HILL, AND GOATOM.
or what was supposed to have been the location, of Solitary Hill. The Hill has long since been supposed to have been removed. Its location has hitherto been placed in Olneyville, directly in the rear of the new brick building recently erected on the Square. It was a noted landmark in early times, and in the law of 1759 (Digest 1767, p. 259) it is made one of the boundaries of the town of Johnston, then incorporated (Staples's Annals of Prov., P. 595). One bound of Johnston was to "begin on the southern bank of Wanasquatucket River due north from the Easternmost part of a certain hill called Solitary Hill." There can be no question that this law made in 1759 places Solitary Hill where in these latter years it has been supposed to have stood. But there is in the recently published volume of Early Records a layout of land surveyed in 1671 for Thomas Clemence, which seems to render the position of the hill questionable. The bounds of the land are thus written, "being on the North side of Wanas- quatucket River and against a place commonly called Goatom, it bounding on the South side with the aforesaid river, on the North with the comon, on the southeast partly with the comon and partly with the aforesaid river, it being bounded on the western corner with a mapel tree standing by the aforesaid river side bounding on the Northern corner with a rock; and so to a Reed Oake tree which standeth by [the] river side, which said tree is on the north side of the river aforesaid against the nortli- eastern end of the hill comonly called Sollatary Hill" (Early Records, v. I, p. 8). This record apparently places the hill on the northern side of the river; still, it is ambiguous and the phrase is open to two constructions; the location of the land seems, however, comparatively easy. It must have been a por- tion of the low land included in the bend of the river where the Atlantic and the Fletcher mills now stand, and hence the first English name of this locality was "Goatom."
This Hill, rising out of lands so flat standing solitary. and alone at some distance from the surrounding ranges, is sug- gestive at once of thought. In former ages a glacier came down from the north, resting here between the great hills Nota- quonckanet and Sky High, the Indian name of which I do not
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