THE INDIANS OF THE HOUSATONIC AND NAUGATUCK VALLEYS
THE INDIAN HISTORY.
A CAREFUL review of the territory drained by the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers will be advantageous both to the Indian as well as the English history, especially, since in the account of the company which gathered at Weantinock, now New Milford, for a time, and then passed on westward, it will be maintained that that settlement consisted of remnants of all the tribes who originally inhabited the State, westward of the Connecticut river. It is also important in order to an understanding of the movements of the Indian tribes within this territory, their gradual extinction, and the complete acquisition of the territory by the incoming English.
The chief river of western Connecticut is the Housatonic (more properly the Howsatunnuck,1 and known in former times as the Stratford, Potatuck, or Great river). It enters the State from the north, about seven miles east of its western boundary, and flows in a direction somewhat west of south for about thirty miles, when, having almost touched the New York State line, just before entering New Milford territory, it bends toward the east, and for a distance of thirty-five miles flows in a southeasterly direction, when it turns again and flows nearly due south for nine or ten miles, and empties into Long Island Sound between Stratford and Milford. Between the two bends (in that part of its course wherein it flows to the southeast) it receives several tributaries; prominent among them from the west are the Ten Mile brook, which rises in Sharon, flows southward into New York, and then eastward into the Housatonic at Bull's Bridge; the Wiminam (old name Whomesage or Wimmisink) runs northeast, and empties into the Housatonic at Gaylordsville; the Naromiyocknowhusunkatankshunk brook, which rises in Sherman runs north, and enters the Housatonic a little distance below Gaylordsville; the Rocky river, which rises in Sherman, runs south through New Fairfield into Neversink Pond, in Danbury, then turns directly north, where for some miles it is called Wood Creek, and empties into the Housatonic a mile above New Milford village, but for a little distance before it empties, it is again called Rocky river ; the Still river which rises in the western part of Danbury in several ponds, runs easterly to Danbury village, then directly north and empties into the Housatonic just above Falls Mountain ; and the Potatuck brook in Newtown that flows north into the Housatonic.
Also prominent among those entering from the north are: the Womenshenuck river, that flows southerly into the Housatonic, at Gaylordsville ; the Aspetuck, which drains Wauramaug lake, flows southward and enters the Housatonic a little distance above New Milford ; the Shepaug river, which drains Bantam lake in Litchfield and smaller lakes in Goshen ; the Pomperaug, which flows through Woodbury and Southbury; and Eight Mile brook, which drains Lake Quassapaug. Just at the second bend where it turns to go southward, and nine or ten miles from the mouth, it receives the Naugatuck river. Thus constructed the Housatonic becomes a river of considerable dimensions, and the scenery along its valley is among the most beautiful and picturesque in the state, while in its valley, thirty-five miles from Bridgeport on the Sound, is located the village of New Milford.
The Naugatuck belongs to this group of southward flowing tributaries, but is much the largest and constitutes the main branch of the Housatonic. Its general course from Torrington to Birmingham is southward and parallel to the other tributaries. Its length, running between these two points, is thirty-eight and a half miles. The river is formed by the union of the east and west branches at Torrington, near the southern boundary of the town of Torrington. The west branch rises in Norfolk, and flows through the northeast corner of Goshen, and through Torrington in a southeasterly direction ; the east branch rises in Winchester and flows more nearly southward. Between the two branches there is a range of hills which terminates abruptly at its southern extremity in a height known as Red Mountain.
At Torrington village, the hills on opposite sides of the stream are about a mile apart, but just above Litchfield Station, they come close down to the river, and the valley for many miles below is narrow, and flanked by precipitous heights. All along its course there are alluvial lands, curiously arranged for the most part in triangular pieces on the east side of the stream ; and between Waterville and Naugatuck, these lands broaden out into extensive meadows the " interval, (or inter-vale) lands " of Mattatuck which attracted the first settlers to this part of the state. In the neighborhood of Waterbury, not only are the meadows wide, but the hills which overlook them are low, and partake of the character of bluffs, while on the eastern side there is an opening in the hills large enough to afford room for a thriving little city. Below Naugatuck, the water-shed becomes narrow again, and the hillsides precipitous. This is especially true of the section below Beacon Hill brook, where the hills are not only steep, but high and rocky, and the valley is gorge-like. The "dug-road," on the eastern bank, and the railroad on the western, are cut into the foundations of the mountains, and at the same time overhang the rushing waters. From Beaver brook to the mouth of the river at Birmingham, about two miles, there is a fine tract of meadow-land, about half a mile in width, which attracted the first settlers to that locality. In the upper part of the valley (for example, just above Waterville) there is much that is wild and picturesque; but the entire section between Beacon Hill brook and Seymour, is of quite exceptional beauty and grandeur.
The Naugatuck has many tributaries, for instance, Spruce brook, which flows through East Litchfield, and empties near Campville ; Lead River, which rises in New Hartford, and flows through Harwinton ; the West Branch, which rises in Morris and Litchfield, and divides Thomaston from Watertown, and empties at Reynold's Bridge; Hancock's brook, which rises in the northeast part of Plymouth, and empties at Waterville; Steele's brook, which flows through Watertown, and empties at the northwest boundary of the City of Waterbury; Mad river, which rises in the northern part of Wolcott, and flows through the City of Waterbury; Smug brook, which empties at Hopeville; Fulling-Mill brook, which flows westward and empties at Union City; Hop Brook, which comes from Middlebury and empties at Naugatuck; Longmeadow brook, which rises in Middlebury, drains Longmeadow pond, receives a tributary from Toantuck pond, and empties at Naugatuck ; Beacon Hill river (anciently the boundary between Waterbury and Derby) one branch of which rises in the north of Prospect, the other in Bethany ; Sherman's brook, which tumbles through High Rock Glen; Lebanon brook, which rises in the south of Bethany and empties at Beacon Falls ; Chestnut Tree Hill brook, which comes from the west, and empties at Pine's Bridge; Bladen's brook, which rises in Bethany and Woodbridge, and empties at Seymour; Little River, which rises in Middlebury, drains Oxford, and empties at Seymour; and Beaver brook, which empties a little below Ansonia. These are all rapid streams, plunging downward into the deep valley of the Naugatuck, and compared with the great western rivers, it has but an insignificant watershed ; yet there are eighteen or twenty towns embraced in it. Those which border upon the river are Torrington, Litchfield, Harwinton, Plymouth, Thomaston, Watertown, Waterbury, Naugatuck, Beacon Falls, Seymour, Derby. Those which, although lying back from the river, are drained in part by its tributaries, are Morris, Middlebury, Wolcott, Prospect, Bethany, and Oxford.
It may be seen from this rapid sketch, that this region of country is but a narrow valley drained by a tributary river of very moderate size, is of limited extent and has a decided geographical unity. Besides this, it has come to possess in modern times a unity of another kind. The township divisions and the centers of population are numerous, but industrially the valley is one. The district extending from Winsted, just beyond the headwaters of the river and in the same valley, to Birmingham at its mouth, has become the seat of one of the greatest manufacturing industries of the country. As in other valleys of New England, the populations once seated on the hills have crowded to the water courses, drawn by opportunities of lucrative employment; and, at the magic touch of the finger of trade, have sprung up or risen into a larger life such busy centers as Torrington, Thomaston, Waterbury, Naugatuck, Seymour, Ansonia, Birmingham, and Derby. If we take railway connections into account, the thrifty village of Watertown should be included in the list.
To dwell upon the physical features of the Housatonic and Naugatuck valleys is important, because the Indian history commences at a period when these characteristics were almost the only ones to be noticed, and when the habitations of the natives were mostly confined to the localities at the outlets of these rivers. To obtain a clear understanding of that history, the reader must rid himself, so far as possible, of modern associations, must lose sight of all political divisions of the territory, must forget the existence of these business centers which have just been enumerated, must suppose this dense population, and these dwellings and shops and streets and highways and bridges, and these extensive manufactories, and the railroads with their stations and rolling equipments, all swept away, in fact, all the multitudinous products of modern civilization, and go back to the primitive period in the history of New England. The rivers were here, and the brooks flowing into them. The hills were here, and the occasional patches of meadow land; and the entire region, the meadows excepted, was covered with stately forests. The woods abounded with game, and the streams in fish, but the country was a pathless wilderness, the heritage and possession of the Red man. It was not divided as it now is among individual owners, but it belonged to the natives who roamed through its woods and established their camping grounds upon its streams. The statement in the History of Waterbury, that, " at the time of its discovery by white men there was no Indian settlement within the limits of the ancient town," might safely be applied to the entire valley, if the places near the outlets of the two rivers were excepted Stratford and Derby. But what was true .two hundred years ago may not have been always true; and besides, although there may not have been settlements in these valleys, it does not follow that they were totally unoccupied. The Indians not only claimed them they roamed over them as well-tried hunting-grounds. The lands in the upper part of the valleys were especially attractive in this respect, for it is said that in the section which is now known as Litchfield, " many of the hills were nearly cleared of trees by fires" which Indian hunters had kindled in order to secure game, the same having been true of several hills also in New Milford.
It is to the traces of Indian occupancy in the territory thus described, that attention is directed, in order to a better knowledge of the clans which dwelt at Milford, Stratford, and Derby, from just before the settlement of the English to the final disappearance of the natives of this whole territory. These traces might be pursued in the light of three sources of information: the land records, the traditions and place-names, and the relics discovered, the arrow-heads, spear-heads and knives, the larger ground-stone implements and the soapstone dishes ; but the first of these (the land records) will afford the largest source of information in this brief account of the departing footsteps of the Red man.
The primitive condition of things in these valleys continued until the middle of the seventeenth century, but previous to which a number of settlements had been made within the territorial area now embraced in the State of Connecticut. It was in 1635 that parties of emigrants from the neighborhood of Boston pursued their way through the wilderness to the Connecticut river and settled at Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. After the Indian war of 1637, those who pursued the fleeing Pequots toward the west, saw for the first time the lands on Long Island Sound lying westward of the mouth of the Connecticut, and as a consequence, their value soon became known, and in 1638 a colony went from Boston and established its headquarters on New Haven Bay. One of the New Haven companies went still further and settled at Milford, in 1639. In the same year lands were purchased at Stratford, and a settlement was begun, but by a different company of emigrants. All these plantations were upon the sea coast or on navigable waters, but in 1640 some of the Hartford settlers, attracted by the meadow-lands of the Farmington river, removed westward and established a settlement at Farmington.
Now, how were the aboriginal inhabitants situated at the time when these settlements were made, that is, from 1635 to 1640, and for some years afterward.
It must be remembered that they all belonged alike to the great Algonkin stock a division of the Indian race which at the discovery extended along the Atlantic coast all the way from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Peedee river.Of this extensive family, the most important branch were the Delawares. The Abnakis, far to the northeast, were also important. But in New England the native population was broken into numerous petty tribes, speaking divergent dialects of the one stock language. On the western bank of the Connecticut, an Algonkin people is found extending for some distance up and down the river, constituting a group of tribes or a confederacy, ruled by a sachem named Sequassen. The precise nature of the bond which held them together it is impossible to ascertain, but it is certain that when the English first came among them Sequassen claimed jurisdiction over territory occupied by other chiefs, and sold land to the magistrates of Hartford extending as far west as the country of the Mohawks. His dominion embraced therefore the tribes of the Farmington river, some of whom had their principal seat at Poquonnoc, five or six miles from its mouth, and others at the bend in the river, eight or ten miles west of the Connecticut, where Farmington was afterwards settled. The first Poquonnoc chief known" to the English was named Sehat. He was succeeded by one whose name is familiar to Waterbury people under the form of Nosahogon, but whose true name was Nassahegon or Nesaheagun.
The Indians of Farmington are known as the Tunxis tribe. They had a camping-ground also at Simsbury, and claimed all the territory west of that place as far as the Housatonic river. They are spoken of by Mr. J. W. Barber in his '' Historical Collections," as a numerous and warlike tribe; but Mr. J. W. DeForest, in his " History of the Indians of Connecticut," estimates their number at " eighty to one hundred warriors, or about four hundred individuals." Whatever other chiefs they may have had, the authority of Nassahegon seems to have been recognized, and also the necessity of securing his consent in the disposal of lands.
If now attention is directed from the center of the state to the shore along the sound, the country of the Quiripi (or Long Water) Indians comes into view, a people known around New Haven harbor as Quinnipiacs. They claimed quite a large tract of land, although their numbers were few. The New Haven company entered into an agreement, Nov. 14, 1638, with Momauguin, sachem of that part of the country, and his counsellors, respecting the lands, and the treatment of the Indians. The articles are to this effect. That Momauguin is the sole sachem of Quinnipiac, and had absolute power to aliene and dispose of the same ; that in consequence of the protection he had tasted, by the English, from the Pequots and Mohawks,2 he yielded up all his right, title, and interest to all the land, rivers, ponds, and trees, with all the liberties and purtenances belonging to the same, unto Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, and others, their heirs and assigns forever. He covenanted that neither he nor his Indians would terrify or disturb the English, or injure them in any of their interests; but that, in every respect, they would keep true faith with them.
The English pledged to protect Momauguin and his Indians, when unreasonably molested by the other Indians, and that they should always have a sufficient quantity of land to plant, on the east side of the harbor between that and Saybrook Fort. In this agreement they gave unto the chief, his council and company, twelve coats of English cloth, twelve alchymy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen knives, twelve porringers, and four cases of French knives and scissors.
Thomas Stanton, being the interpreter on the occasion, declared in the presence of God, that he had faithfully acquainted the Indians with the articles, and returned their answers.
In the December following, they purchased a tract of land ten miles in length, north and south, and thirteen in breadth, lying north of the former one. It extended eight miles east of the river Quinnipiac, and five miles west of it towards Hudson's river. It included all the lands within the ancient limits of the old towns of New Haven, Branford, and Wallingford, and almost the whole contained in the present limits of those towns, and the towns of East Haven, North Branford, Meriden, Cheshire, Hamden, North Haven, Bethany, Woodbridge, and a part of range. The deed was signed by Montowese, son of the great sachem at Mattabeseck (Middletown) and Sawsounck, an Indian that came with him to New Haven. nbsp;It appears that this land descended to Montowese from his deceased mother. nbsp;His tribe or company consisted of but ten men, with their women and children.
The Indians of Quinnipiac, in this treaty, declared that they still remember the heavy taxes of the Pequots and Mohawks; and that, by reason of the fear of them, they could not stay in their own country, but had been obliged to flee. By these powerful enemies they had been reduced to forty men. 3 New Haven Deed, Nov. 14, 1638.
Momauguin, Sugcogisin, Quosaquash,
The mark of Shumpishuh, the sister of Momauguin, called in the agreement Squaw Sachem, who had some interest in a part of the land.
The Quinnipiacs dwelt in summer upon the shore, for the convenience of fishing; and in the winter in the forests, for the convenience of fuel.
They had a place in East Haven for pow-wowing, about threequarters of a mile east of the harbor bridge.
It is said that they had neither marriages- nor divorces; and that they .caught round clams with their feet, and taught the same art to the English. The Indian arrow-heads, found here frequently, are like some which were brought from Cape Horn. At Fort Hill there was an Indian fort, and an Indian buryingplace on the eastern side of the hill; the name of the location was at first Indian Hill.
Charles, the last sachem of this tribe, is said to have been frozen to death, near a spring about one mile north of the Congregational church in East Haven, about one hundred and forty years ago.
On the territory ceded by the second New Haven deed, in North Haven, the Indians (says Dr. Trumbull) were sometimes very numerous, giving much alarm to the inhabitants, especially to the women and children. The Indians at Mattabeseck (Middletown), were connected with the Indians in this part of the state, and the extent of the river into the northern part of Farmington, and the fine fishing and fowling upon it formed a connection with the Farmington Indians. The combination of these circumstances sometimes filled the parish with Indians. Aj; particular times they seemed to swarm the river, and the groves and swamps appeared to be alive with them. After the settlement commenced, they held a grand pow-wow, on the road between the corner of the market-place and John Humiston's; the peopie were in great fear that their fields of corn would be ruined by them, but by the influence of the chief sachem they were restrained from doing any damage.
In Wallingford the inhabitants suffered repeatedly in their apprehensions from the incursions of the Indians. On the 27th of August, 1675, upon the breaking out of King Philip's war, the houses of Mr. Street and Lieut. Merriman were ordered to be fortified, and the whole town engaged in the work until it was completed; and every man was required to bring arms and ammunition on the Sabbath. In the following October, Sergt. Doolittle's house at the lower end of the town was fortified, and persons were appointed to keep garrison at each of these fortified places.7 In February, 1690, when the inhabitants numbered four hundred, there was an order of the town " to fort in the meeting-house." Again in 1702, the apprehensions from the fury of the savages were revived and the inhabitants brought arms on the Lord's day.
There were Indians at Guilford from whom the land was purchased in 1639, and one condition made with them was that they should remove from the place, which they did soon after, and " the tradition is, that they removed westward to Branford or East Haven," and possibly some of them went further and united their fortunes with their race at Milford or Stratford.
Some Specific Records.
June 4, 1646, Pawquash a Quillipiock (Quinnipiac) Indian was first complained of for leaving open the oyster shell field gate, and damage being done thereby refused to give any satisfaction.
Secondly, he about four years since came into Mr. Craynes house when they were blessing God in the name of Jesus Christ; and that he did then blasphemously say that Jesus Christ was mattamoy and naught, and his bones rotten, and spake of an Indian in Montoises (Montowese's) plantation, ascended into Heaven, which was witnessed by Mr. Crayne, Mrs. Crayne, Mrs. Ling, Wm. Holt, Goodie Camp.
The sentence of the court was, that he should be severely whipped for thus scorning at our worshiping God and blaspheming the name of our Lord Jesus, and informing him that if he should do so hereafter, it would be against the light he now has, and it would hazzard his life.
And for damage by means of the gate being left open, he was to pay five shillings to Thomas Knowles.
It is ordered that Wequash shall have a sute of clothes made at the towns charge. Nov., 1641.
AN INDIAN PREACHER. 1 1
One Wequash Cook, an Indian living about Connecticut river's mouth, and keeping much at Saybrook with Mr. Fenwick, attained to good knowledge of things of God and salvation by Christ, so as he became a preacher to the Indians, and labored much to convert them, but without effect, for within a short time he fell sick, not without suspicion of poison from them, and died very comfortably.8
MILFORD, STRATFORD, AND DERBY.
WEST of the territory of the Quinnipiacs we enter the country of the Wepawaugs, which tribe was a large one, and at the time of the coming of the English, were settled at three localities, Milford, Stratford, and Derby, thus occupying considerable territory on both sides of the Housatonic. It extended, probably, from the West river, which separates New Haven from Orange, all the way to Fairfield. On the west of the Housatonic they claimed all the territory now comprised in the towns of Stratford, Bridgeport, Trumbull, Huntington, and Monroe ; and on the east side, as far north as Beacon Hill brook, east of the Naugatuck, including the town of Milford, and the western part of Orange, Woodbridge, and Bethany, and, as we shall see, still further,overlapping the hunting grounds of the Tunxis ; and north and east of the Housatonic above Birmingham Point, they claimed the territory nearly to the Massachusetts line, certainly into the town of Norfolk, whither their deeds extend.
This large tribe at the coming of the English was under the dominion of the well-known chief Ansantaway, whose " big wigwam " is said to have been on Charles Island, at Milford, and the wigwams of whose people scarcely extended beyond "The Neck " above the present village of Birmingham, in Derby.
The first purchase of land at Milford was made of the Indians, Feb. 12, 1639, and comprehended about two miles of what is now the center of the town. The deed was given to Mr. William Fowler, Edmund Tapp, Zechariah Whitman, and Alexander Bryan, in trust for the body of the planters ; the consideration being, " six coats, ten blankets, one kettle, besides hoes, knives, hatchets and glasses." The instrument was signed by Ansantaway and others.'
Afterwards other purchases were made until the Wepawaugs had sold themselves out of house and home, at Milford, in very deed. The tract lying west of the settlement, on the Housatonic river, was bought in 1656, for the sum of twenty-six pounds to be paid in goods.2 The Indian Neck, lying between the East River and the Sound, was purchased in 166o.3 A reservation of twenty acres was made by the Indians in this last tract, for planting ground, which reservation they sold, Dec. 12, 1661, for six coats, two blankets, and two pair of breeches. By this last agreement " Ansantaway and wife and his sons Tountonemoe and Ankeanach, in case of danger " were granted " liberty to sit down for shelter in some place near the town where the townsmen (selectmen) should think fit."4 In accordance with this agreement the town sometime afterwards appointed a tract of land on its northern border, adjoining the Derby line and made it a reservation for them.
Turkey Hill Reservation.
Aug. 17, 1680. We whose names are hereunto subscribed being appointed by the General Court to lay out in Milford bounds, one hundred acres of land for the Indians' improvement, we have this present day laid the said hundred acres on the east side of Stratford River, being bounded on the west with Stratford Riverx north with the brook called the Two Mille brook and divided between Milford and Derby, and south with another brook called Turkey Hill brook; and near the north we run not far from the Two Mile brook; from the river called Stratford River, easterly, one hundred and sixty rods, and there marked a white oak and set a straight range which is to run to the Two Mile brook northerly, and a straight range southerly to the brook called the Turkey brook; meet highways allowed.
Jehu Burr, Joseph Hawley, in the behalf of Milford, Robert Treat, Sen., William Fowler consenting.
The place more recently known as Turkey Hill is a little way up the river from the mouth of Two Mile brook, in which place there was an Indian burying place, a few graves, and where is still the sight of the last home of Molly Hatchet, the last of the tribe there, so far as known.
If at this time there were other remnants of the Weepawaug Indians remaining east of the Housatonic, they were, probably, absorbed in this settlement at Turkey Hill.
- Milford Deed, Dec. zo, 1656.
Ansantaway, Toutonomae, Akenash.
3 Milford Deed, Jan. z, 1660.
Ansantaway, Toutonomae, Akenash.
4 Milford Deed, Dec. zo, 1661.
Ansantaway, Toutonomae, Akenash.
This reservation was set apart by the town of Milford as the home of the Milford Indians who had remained in the south part of that town when Ansantaway removed into Derby, at or near the Narrows on the east side of the Housatonic. And since Ansantaway removed thither nearly twenty years before Milford appropriated this one hundred acres, it is doubtful if the Indians ever resided on any part of the one hundred acres;they resided north of it in the town of Derby upon land owned by Maj. Ebenezer Johnson, who appears never to have disturbed them. Upon this land they continued about one hundred and eighty years until the last of Molly Hatchet's children disappeared.
About forty years after the date of the first Indian deed given at Milford, the claims of some of the Derby Indians were purchased by the town of Milford.5
From the time of the giving of the first deed at Milford (1639) to his death in 1665 Ansantaway's name seems to have been important when attached to deeds in the sale of any lands belonging to the tribe. His son Okenuck was sachem at Stratford, and after the sale of the land at that place, to the English, he removed to the settlement already commenced by his people, at Potatuck, where the village of Shelton is now located, in the town of Huntington. Towtonamow was sachem at Derby and as such signed the deeds given in 1657," 16S9,7 1660," and in 1661," but
6 Milford quit claim deed, Oct. 2, 1682.
Conquepotana, Muchilin, Teunque,
Nanshoota, Sowehoux, Rashinoot,
Abenach, Chipoanke, Roucheage.
Assowas, a Derby deed, May, 1657.
Towtanamow, Wampegon, James.
7 Derby deed, April, 1659.
Towtanamow, Pagasite James, Sasaouson.
"Derby deed, Mar. 2, 1660.
Towtanamoe, Succuscoge, Sassaughsough,
James, Chub, Secochanneege, Wauwnmpecum.
9 Derby deed, Sept. 6, 1661.
Towtanimoe, Yonkitihu, Towheage.
FRIENDL Y INDIANs
seems to have died soon after the last date, since in signing a deed in 1664,'Okenuck says he is " Sachem of Pagassett," yet Ansantaway's name is attached to this last named deed. In the same year Ansantaway is said to be " living at Pagassett," and the deed says " I, Okenuck, sachem," but at the bottom his name is written Akenauts."
The next year a deed, confirmatory of all preceding ones, was made in which it is said " I, Okenuck sole and only sagamore of Pagassett, do sell unto Richard Baldwin and his company ;" giving the information that Towtanamow and Ansantaway were both dead."
It may be enquired whether Okenuck retained his position of sachem over the Potatuck or Stratford Indians, while thus he became sole Sagamore at Paugassett.
On May 26, 1663, an "agreement of friendship and loving correspondence agreed upon between us and the town of Stratford" was made, by which the Indians pledged "we will no more plant on the south side of the great River Pugusett [Potatuck] to prevent a ground of future variance between us in order to [avoid] any damage that might be done to corn." The first name on the deed is " Okenunge,"l3 thus denoting his standing over the Indians on that side of the river, but he may have signed it as Sagamore while they had another sachem. It also reveals a benevolent feature in the character of these Indians. Much complaint by the Indians had been made that the white men's hogs, which pastured in the woods, destroyed the Indians' corn, and the matter being brought into Court an effort was put forth to lead the Indians to make fences around their corn, but this they could not or would not do; and hence resolved, in order to end the difficulty, not to plant on that " side of the great river," but to remove further up the river, or on the north side of the
10 Derby deed, April 4, 1664.
Okenuck, Ansantaway, Agonahog.
11 Derby deed, June 27,1661.
Akenauts. A nsantaway.
12 Derby deed, Sept. 15, 1665.
Ochenunge, Chupps, Nebawkume.
13 Deed May 26, 1663.
Okenunge, Munsuck, Jemiogu,
Nansantaway, Asynetmogu, Ahuntaway,
Amantanegu, Nompunck, Ronuckous.
river, which they did by going to Potatuck, at the mouth of a stream by that name in Newtown, not long afterwards, and to Wesquantuck, and Pomperaug. A deed of land, " lying on the west of land already deeded to Stratford," was given in 1665," with Okenonge's name first as sachem, and witnessed by Ansantaway and Chipps; which also shows that Ansantaway died between April 22, 1665, and Sept. 15, 1665. Okenunck's wigwam, and hence the headquarters of the nation, was probably at this time on the " Neck" about a mile north of Birmingham Point.
It is important to view this region of country (the Naugatuck valley) in what may be called its ethnographical relations, in order to bring to view the significance and bearings of the various purchases made by the first settlers. The territory was claimed by the Paugasucks on the south, the Potatucks on the west, and the Tunxis Indians on the east. With one or other of these tribes the white man had to deal, and in Waterbury the settlers found it expedient to purchase the same lands from different tribes, without attempting to decide between their rival claims.
The first sale of land north of Milford made by the Indians was previous to 1646, and was the land on which Mr. Wakeman's men of New Haven were employed in 1642, which was on what is now Birmingham Point.15 The then Governor of New Haven is authority for the statement that this land was purchased of the Indians,13 but no deed of that sale has been found. The next purchase was made in 1653, by Mr. Goodyear and others of New Haven. It consisted of a tract of land at Paugasuck which was sold to Richard Baldwin and nine other men of Milford in the spring of 1654, and a settlement was made at that time of three or four families: and the name of the place established by the General Court the next spring was Paugassett. All this land lay east of the Naugatuck, but no deed of the sale of it has been seen.
In May, 1657, a deed of land on what is now Birmingham
14 Deed April 22, 1665.
Okenonge, Ansantaway, Chipps.
13 New Haven Col. Rec., I, 265.
Point was given to Lieut. Thomas Wheeler of Stratford, if he would settle upon it, which he did, and remained there until 1664. This deed was re-affirmed in 1659, an^ m i665, when Okenuck had become " sole and only Sagamore ;" he confirmed the Goodyear purchase and this land given to Wheeler, making the western boundary of the plantation the great river (Housatonic) instead of the Naugatuck as at first. From this time forward the Paugasuck Indians sold land piece by piece, northward, to the Derby people, until the town bounds reached Waterbury and Woodbury; there being twenty-five or more deeds recorded, with one hundred or more different Indian names attached; the last deed, except of reservations, being given in 1742.
" May 1680. As to Ackenack, sachem of Milford and Paugasuck who complains that he wants land, ... no provision being made for planting land for those Indians, we do grant that they shall have a hundred acres of land laid out to them upon Coram Hill, in some convenient place, by Capt. William Fowler and Mr. John Burr; and this court also do grant the said Indians liberty to hunt, fowl and fish in Stratford bounds, Milford and Derby, any clause in the deed to the contrary notwithstanding, they doing them no damage. Also Mr. Hawley is to lay out a hundred acres of land on the other side of the river in Milford bounds, to the said Indians."17
The chief seat of the Paugasucks was for ,many years at the " Great Neck" between the Housatonic and the Naugatuck in the vicinity of what is now Baldwin's corners. Here they had a fort, mentioned several times in the records as the " Old Indian Fort," which was built most probably some years before the English came to the place. There was a large field at this place frequently called the " Indian Field," containing about sixty acres, and was once sold for that number of acres. These Indians built a fort on the east bank of the Housatonic, nearly half a mile above the present dam, which was established, tradition says, to keep the English from sailing up the river, and which is referred to several times in the records as the " New Indian Fort." The Indians of the Neck collected about this fort along the river bank for some years, and then removed to
17 Col. Rec., Ill, 55. Wesquantook, where quite many appear to have been living in 1680, and which territory they sold in 1687 and removed westward, many of them probably to Potatuck, and some of them to Weantinock, now New Milford.
Wesquantook appears to have been the last place of residence of the Sachem Okenuck, yet he may have removed with Cockapatana to Potatuck at the mouth of the Pomperaug, where the latter chief remained probably until his death, which Lambert says occurred at his home in Derby in 1731. If his home was in Derby at his death it is difficult to surmise where it was located, unless at the mouth of Eight Mile brook, now in Oxford, at Turkey Hill, or at Wesquantook.
It is a curious fact, possibly connected with the fate of this chief, that some years ago that is within the memory of persons now living there resided in Goshen a white man who was habitually called " Old Kunkerpot; "the name having been given him because he reported that while engaged in some war, he had killed an Indian by the name of Kunkerpot. It is said, however, that in later years there was an Indian in Stockbridge, Mass., named Cockapatana.
Of this Sachem, Conkapatana, there is given some account of his former life, but nothing that indicates who his father was. In a deed of land in Derby, dated in 1671,ls to which are attached the names of both Potatuck and Paugasuck Indians, that of Atrechanasett occurs, and in another dated Feb. 19, 1678," is the same person, allowing the customary variety of spelling in the form of Chetrenasut; and yet another two months later with Chettrenasuck2 at the commencement of the deed who signs his name, at the bottom, Cockapatana, but not as Sachem, for Okenuck still holds that position. In the earlier of these two deeds, three Indians make the sale, they say, " with OKENUCK AND COCKAPA TANA. jg
18 Derby deed, 1671.
Chubbs, Mataquenock, Johns,
Coshoshemack, Wasawas, Sasaoso.
Kee Ke Sumun, Atrechanasett,
19 Derby deed, Feb. 19, 1678.
Ahuntaway. Chetrenasut. Jack.
20 Deed dated April 22, 1678.
Okenung, Sagamore. Cockapatana, [Chetrenasuck.]
Ahuntaway. Sanquett, Tom.
Jack. Tom's Squaw.
approbation of Okenuck Sagamore," indicating as do several other deeds that certain parcels of land were sold for the benefit of individuals, and not for the whole tribe. In the second, Tom and Tom's Squaw are signers. Tom was son of Cockapatana and was married, hence if the latter was at this time forty years of age, and died in 1731, as stated, he must have been ninetythree years of age at his death, but the probability is that he was more than forty at this signing, and hence nearly or quite one hundred at his death.
In a deed nine years later, Cockapatana is the third name, and as said in another deed, only a "gentleman Indian" and not sachem,21 but in 1793 it is said "we Cockapatana and Huntawa [Ahuntaway], Sachems of Paugasset,"'a thus showing their official position, probably, soon after the death of Okenuck. The last deed that Okenuck signed was April 22, 1678, and since neither Cockapatana nor Ahuntaway signed the deed in 1687 as sachems, it may be supposed that Okenuck was still living, but an aged man and not able to go abroad far, especially if, as is probable, he was then residing at Potatuck some distance further up the river, and delegated others in his place.
It may therefore be properly concluded that Okenuck died about 1690, aged about seventy years. There can be but little doubt, upon careful study, that Cockapatana belonged either to the family of Okenuck, or that of one of the.Potatuck Sachems, Atterosse of 1668, or Chushamack of 1673. It will be necessary, however, to refer to these families again in the further progress of this westward Indian migration.
In 1698,23 another deed was given covering the same territory as that of 1687, namely, that including Wesquantuck Indian village, called by the people of Derby the " Quaker's Farm purchase," and signed by ten new names, these added to those of the former deed gives the sum of twenty-five prominent men at that time in the tribe, with the headquarters of the tribe at Potatuck, just above the mouth of the Pomperaug river. After the sale of Wesquantook the only land owned by the Indians along the Housatonic on the north side was their reservation at Potatuck, the northern boundary of which extended from the bend in the river Pomperaug, west to the Shepaug Falls, but they still held considerable territory in the northern part of Derby, the sales of which were affected by several deeds, the first being given in 1693," and the last, except an island and reservations in 1711.
In the deed of 1793, Cockapatana and Ahuntaway are called Sachems, but in the deed of 1702, Cockapatana is called Saga
TM Deed dated Sept. 7, 1693.
Cockapatana, Wequacuck, Will Mashok,
Indian Jacks, Punwon, Huntawa.
Indian Toto, Indian Shot,
Deed dated May 6, 1798.
Cockapatana, Ahuntaway, Jacks. Two deeds dated April 16, 1700, each signed by the same.
Cockapatana, Huntaway. Deed dated 1702.
Cockapatani, sagamore, Waerashgonoot, John Toto,
Ahuntaway, sachem, Tisachomo, Arkumi,
Will Doctor, Will Toto, Artownhood.
Deed dated June 18, 1707, sixth year of Queen Anne.
Cockapatows, Rawneton, Weroces.
Chops, Mashekes, Deed dated April I, 1709.
Cockapatana, Chipps, Mamook,
Waskawakes, Cockapatouch, Jack. John Minor, Justice said " Cockapatana and his son Waskawakes, alias Tom." Deed dated March, 1710.
Cockapatana, Sisowecum, Rowagasook.
Will Doctor. Powheag,
Deed dated Jan. 31, 1710.
Nanawaug, Meskilling, Ackcutrout
Jack, Mackwash, Curens,
Charles, Durgen, Watakis.
WOODBURY DEEDS. 21
more, and Ahuntaway the next name below, is said to be Sachem, which distinction is indicated elsewhere by the manner of affixing these official terms in deeds of different date. This distinction has not been noted by writers in this part of the country,the two terms having been used indiscriminately, as indicating the same office, and this may have been the case, but the above looks otherwise. This is illustrated in the early deeds, Okenuck of Stratford, when the first Potatuck is designated as Sachem, and his brother Towtanemow as Sachem, and the father of the two, Ansantaway as Sagamore at Milford or the chief ruler of the three clans ; but as soon as Towtanemow and Ansantaway were dead, Okenuck says : " I, the sole Sagamore of all the Paugasuck Indians," and immediately we find Wompegan," sachem at Paugassett and Acquiomp, Sachem of the Potatucks." How a sachem arrived to the position of Sagamore is not definitely revealed, but, the indications are, that it was by seniority of all the sachems within a certain jurisdiction or tribal combination, and if so, it may be concluded quite certainly that the Indians of Milford, Stratford, Paugasuck, and afterwards those all along the Housatonic valley in Connecticut, and up the Naugatuck to Waterbury, were under the same government as one distinct tribe, composed of a number of families governed by the sachems.
The Woodbury Indian deeds next attract attention. The second chapter of the " Woodbury History,"it being that on the " History of the Indian Purchases," is an unfortunate production. The work that author has done for Woodbury is a magnificent monument of honor, but the Indian history part must have been the least studied although the first written. The deed given in that work as the first of Woodbury Territory, had nothing to do with that township. The author says it comprised " a territory in Litchfield and New Haven counties, nearly as large as Litchfield county itself, and it seems to have been the last sale of lands made by the Derby Indians in this direction, and, no doubt, covered all the territory claimed by them at the north." The deed by which Lieut. Thomas Wheeler sold this same land, bounded in the precise words of the Indian deed of 1659, says : " by estimation forty-five acres." This was land to this amount on what is now Birmingham Point, the southern part of Birmingham village. It was not the last sale by the Paugasuck Indians, since they continued to sell for fifty years, and gave over twenty deeds after this one. It was not " all the territory claimed by them at the north," since they claimed it with the Potatucks, all the way up the Housatonic river to the northern boundary of Kent. The great mystery is how this deed, the second one from the Indians recorded in Derby, should have been copied into the Woodbury records, and the little mystery is, that the author referred to, did not look up this matter a little further, when he hunted up such a mammoth amount of history for that good old town.
Statement made by Sisowecum, alias Warouth, Pequet, Will Doctor, Daupauks alias Will Toto, John Tota, Tom Toto, dated Feb. 1, 1711.
Nauawaug, Mockwash, Charles,
Jacob, Curen, Chips,
Jack, Watakis, Durgen.
26 Deed of Stratford, dated Sept. 9, 1661. Wompegan, Sachem.
23 Deed May 18, 1662.
The first deed of Woodbury bears the name of the Sagamore Okenuck of Derby, in this form " Kenonge," the difference being that it was written by another speller than the Derby scribe. The following are some of the spellings of this name on the Derby records ; Okenuck, Ochenunge, Akenants, Okenug, Okenung. As given in the " Woodbury History," the spellings are : Akenotch, Kenonge. The other names attached to this deed, (allowing for different spelling,) may represent Paugasuck Indians, and the probability is that the deed was given wholly by persons of that clan, and hence the fact as noticed in the Woodbury History, that "this grant seems never to have been regarded by the Potatucks, or the settlers." This was not an unusual occurrence, for many of the deeds were given by different individuals in a tribe with consent of the sachem or sagamore, and the deeds so given represented the claims of the individuals and not the tribes. And further, the planters may have understood that they were buying only the claims of the Paugasuck Indians. In this manner several deeds of Derby lands contained WOODBURY DEEDS. 23
27 Deed dated July 14, 1673.
the names of Potatuck Indians, and two or three of these deeds were never afterwards regarded by the Paugasuck Indians, nor the inhabitants of Derby. The real fact is, that the Indians instituted claims for land in different places over and over, just as often repeated as there was any hope of being bought off with a consideration of any amount whatever. One deed in Derby was given and recorded of quite a tract of land where a part of the village of Seymour is now located, for the " consideration of one shilling."
By a careful examination of the names attached to the other five Woodbury deeds, and a comparison of them with the Indians of both tribes heretofore residing down the river, the mingling of their tribal claims will be further seen.28 The Woodbury lands were purchased in the same way, by pieces, only fewer in number; and of the forty-five names of Indians attached to those deeds as given in the Woodbury History, onehalf are names found on Derby deeds, but the former deeds are later in date and indicate that some of the Derby Indians had removed and joined the Potatucks, or that they signed the
Woodbury Deed dated March 17, 1685-6.
Waramaukeag, Chuhabaux [Chawbrook,] Nemoumbam,
Womoqui, Youngamoush, Poquanow,
Keshooshamaug, Nuccaddamo, Punnahun, interpreter,
[Sachem Chushumack] Papenau, John Banks,
It is said "many others or more both of English and Indians were present at the same time."
Woodbury Deed dated Oct. 30, 1687.
Kesoshamaug, Sagamore, Tantamohoh, Youngstockum,
Nanawauk, Chevoramauge, Chohees.
Woodbury Deed dated May 18, 1700.
Nucquollozomaug, Umbouge, Nannawake,
Mashagasse, John Banks, Wombummaug, his squaw,
Cacapattanees Son, Momanchewaug, alias Cush, Wunnuntcone. Woodbury Deed dated Oct. 25, 1705.
Tomseet, Cotsure, [afterwards Cotshure, and then Corkscrew.]
dated May 28, 1706, confirmatory of the others.
Nunnawaoke, Wussebucome, Kehore,
Tummaseet, Accomy, Noegoshemy,
Chesquaneag, Wirasquancot, Munmenepoosqua,
Mauquash, Wussockannunckqueen, Muttanumace.
Woodbury deeds in behalf of the Paugasucks. When the five deeds were executed there remained a small tract of land in the southwest corner of Woodbury as a reservation to the Indians. That part of it in the southwest corner, west of the Shepaug river below the falls, was sold Mar. 6, 1728-9, the deed being executed by Mauquash, Cockshure, and Conkararum, in presence of Chob, John Chob, Passacoran and their English witnesses. On the 18th of June, 1733, the Indians conveyed to a committee of Woodbury about one-half of the reservation, and on the 3d of January, next year, about one-half of the remainder ; both of the deeds being signed by Quiump (a recurrence of the Sachem's name of seventy years before), Cockshure, Maucheere, and Naucathora. Here on the remaining little portion of land, on which was situated their last village, called the Potatuck wigwams, they dwelt being visited here by the Moravian missionaries, in 1742 or 3; until in 1758, when they parted with 'their much- cherished Potatuck, and took their march westward.
INDIAN DEEDS OF THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY.
THE same year that Lieut. Wheeler received his deed of land on Birmingham Point (1657), a transfer of land took place in the upper part of the valley, which found record in a curious deed preserved in the town records of Farmington. Two of the Farmington settlers, Stanley and Andrews by name, in their excursions to the West had discovered somewhere a deposit of plumbago or something which they mistook for that valuable mineral. Their discovery attracted some attention, and doubtless led to the purchase just referred to, the deed being made on the eighth of February, ( O. S.,) by Repaquamp, Ouerrimus, and Mataneage, and the land was sold to William Lewis and Samuel Steele. The document is as follows:
" This witnesseth that we, Repaquamp and Querrimus and Mataneage, have sold to William Lewis and Samuel Steele of Farmington, a parcel or tract of land called Matecacoke, that is to say, the hill from whence John Stanley and John Andrews brought the black-lead, and all the land within eight miles of that hill on every side, to dig and carry away what they will, and to build on it for the use of them that labor there, and not otherwise to improve the land. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands ; and these Indians above mentioned must free the purchasers from all claims by any other Indians."
This piece of territory sixteen miles in diameter, was purchased by Lewis and Steele in behalf of themselves and a company composed of other inhabitants of Farmington. For what " consideration " it was disposed of is not known. "Precisely where the hill referred to was situated," says Mr. George C. Woodruff in his " History of the town of Litchfield," " I have been unable to discover; but from the subsequent claims of the grantees, from tradition and from the deed itself, it would seem that it was in the southern part of Harwinton." The name of Mattatuck still survives in that part of the valley. From a supplementary deed given some years afterwards, it appears that " a considerable part " of this tract was comprised within the bounds of ancient Woodbury; but the Waterbury planters, as will be seen, paid no regard to this early transaction, nor do they seem to have been any way hampered by it.
The deed of Lewis and Steele was made, as has been observed, in 1657. At that date Farmington had been settled seventeen years, and the forests to the westward had become familiar ground to the Farmington hunters. From year to year they continued their excursions, and in course of time the Naugatuck river became well known to them. Their attention was particularly attracted to the so-called "interval lands" which now constitute the meadows of Waterbury. For obvious reason, such lands were specially valuable in a forest-clad region. Their discovery was duly reported and was enough to arouse the spirit of enterprise. A committee was sent to examine the place, and their report being favorable, the Farmington people petitioned the General Court for permission to make a settlement, " at a place called by the Indians, Matitacoocke." This was in 1673, nineteen years after the first settlers took up their residence at Derby.
After due investigation the petition was granted, and a committee of prominent men of the Colony was appointed "to regulate and order the settling of a plantation at Mattatuck." One of their first duties was to procure the extinguishment of any title to the land on the part of the native proprietors, which they did by honest purchase. A copy of the deed given to this committee by the Indians is preserved in the land records of Waterbury (vol. II.) and is dated August 26, 1674.
It was to this purchase the first settlers came in 1674, and again, after a serious interruption, in 1677. The dimensions of the town remained as indicated until 1684, when they were greatly extended by the purchase from the native proprietors of a large piece of territory on the north.
By this purchase, which cost the proprietors nine pounds, the area of the town was nearly doubled. But it seems to have become necessary at the same time, to buy again from the natives
WA TERB UR Y DEEDS. 2 7
the tract already bought by the committee of the General Court of 1674. The original owners may have claimed that they did not comprehend the significance of their act, and were not adequately paid ; but for whatever reason, Messrs. Judd and Stanley, on the second of December. 1684, purchased again the land lying between Mount Taylor on the north and Beacon Hill brook on the south, extending eastward to Farmingto'n bounds, and westward three miles towards Woodbury. The amount paid this time was nine pounds.
These deeds have been examined carefully, to obtain if possible some items of knowledge concerning the aboriginal owners, who are described in one of the deeds as " Indians now belonging to Farmington." The earliest deed (that of 1674), contains the names of fourteen Indians, eleven of whom (if the copy has been correctly made) affixed to it their mark. The first name is that of Nesaheagon, the Sachem at Poquonnock, whose jurisdiction has already been described. The occurrence of his signature here indicates what position he held in relation to the Tunxis tribe. The second name is John Compound, which, if not of English origin, has been forced into a strange resemblance to English. He has been handed down to immortality as the original proprietor of Compound's (Compounce) Pond. The third name is Queramoush, which has already been met with, in the deed of 1657; for it was Querrimus with two other Indians, who deeded to Lewis and Steele the land around the " hill where John Stanley found the black-lead." The other names in the order in which they occur are as follows: Spinning Squaw, Taphow, Chery, Aupkt, Caranchaquo, Patucko, Atumtako, James, Uncowate, Nenapush Squaw, and Alwaush. To those who hear them, these names are a meaningless jargon ; but it is pleasant to think that originally every one of them meant something, and that some of the meanings may have been beautiful. In studying them upon the time-stained pages where they are preserved, one or two points of interest have been discovered. One of the prominent names in the list is Patucko, who will be referred to again. Next to this follows Atumtucko. A relation between the two was suspected and this was afterward confirmed by finding in another deed that Patucko's Squaw was Atumtucko's mother. In signing this first deed Patucko first promises for James, and then for himself ; whence it may safely be inferred that between Patucko and James, who seems to havebeen well known by his English name, there was some kind of family relationship. It is possible that Caranchaquo may have been a member of the same family.
Between this first deed and that by which the northern half of the town was disposed of, nearly ten years elapsed, so that it would hardly be expected to find precisely the same signatures attached to both, even if Indian society had been more stable than it was. In the second deed Patucko's name stands first and Atumtucko's second; then Taphow, then Wawowus. This fourth name sounds like a new one, but making due allowance for inaccurate hearing and spelling on the part of the early scribes, it may be easily identified with Alwaush in the former list. The rest of the signers are new: Judas (another English name), Mantow, Momantow's Squaw, Mercy (Sepuses's Squaw) and Quatowquechuck, who is described as Taphow's son.
Between this second deed and the third, by which the southern half of the town was sold the second time to the settlers, a few months only elapsed, but the names for the most part are different. Patucko has disappeared, but we have in his stead Patucko's squaw, who is here described as Atumtucko's mother. John a-Compound appears again, and Warm Compound appears, who is described as Nesaheag's son. This fact suggests that John a-Compound, whose name stands next to Nesaheagon's in the first deed, may have been an elder son of the same chief. Spinning Squaw also appears, and Aupkt under the form of Abuckt; and besides these, there is Mantow, who signed not the first deed, but the second. In addition the following appear : Hachetowsock (and squaw, Sebockett,) the sisters of Cocoesen, whoever he may be, and a daughter of one of them. It is probable that Cocoesen's sisters were the daughters of James ; apparently the same James, for whom Patucko promised in the first deed. As one of them was Patucko's squaw and Atumtucko's mother, a connection between the two families is established ; a connection which becomes especially interesting when it is known who James was.
But as already intimated, the Tunxis Indians were not the only claimants. The Paugasucks on the south roamed over the same hunting grounds, and considered their right to them as valid as that of their neighbors on the east. Messrs. Judd and Stanley, without inquiring particularly into the justice of the claim, deemed it expedient to extinguish it by purchase. A deed was accordingly drawn, dated February 28, 1685, and signed by sixteen Paugasuck Indians, by which in consideration of " six pound in hand received" twenty parcels of land,1 named and described in the deed, all of them apparently embraced in the first and third purchases from the Farmington Indians, were conveyed to the settlers of Mattatuck.
The deed which is contained in the volume of land records referred to, is peculiarly interesting because the twenty parcels of land are designated each by its Indian name. Nine of these were on the east side of the river, the others on the west side. The grantors were sixteen in number. Prominent in the list is the name of Conquepatana, (Konkapatanauh,) who signs himself Sagamore, the same already spoken of as Sachem at the mouth of the river, until 1731, when he died. In the body of the deed, however, his name is preceded by that of Awowas. Already among the signers of'the second deed an Awowas has appeared, apparently identified with Alwaush, who signed the first. It might naturally be supposed that the name occurring among the Paugasucks, designated a different person, but there are facts which establish a connection between the two tribes.
Deed from the Paugasuck Indians. " Twenty parcels of land, by their names distinguished as follows:
Wecobemeus, that land upon the brook, or small river that comes through the straight [Straitsville] northward of Lebanon, and runs into Naugatuck river at the south end of Mattatuck bounds, called by the English Beacon Hill Brook, and Packawackuck, or Agawacomuck, and Watapeck, Pacaquarock, Mequnhattacke, Musquauke, Mamusqunke, Squapmasutte, Wachu, which nine parcels of land lie on the east side of Naugatuck River southward from Mattatuck town, which comprises all the land below, betwixt the forementioned river, Beacon Hill Brook and the hither end of Judd's meadows, called by the name Squontk, and from Naugatuck River eastward to Wallingford and New Haven bounds, with all the lowlands upon the two brooks forementioned.
And eleven parcels on the west side; the first parcel called, Suracasko; the rest as follows: Petowtucki, Wequarunsh, Capage, Cocumpasuck, Megenhuttack, Panooctan, Mattuckhott, Cocacoko, Gawuskesucko, Towantuck, [the only name that has survived], and half the cedar swamp, with the land adjacent from it eastward; which land lies southward of Quasapaug pond; we say to run an east line from there to Naugatuck river; all of which parcels of land forementioned lying southward from said line, and extend or are comprised within the butments following; from the forementioned swamp, a strait line to be run to the middle of Towantuck Pond or the cedar swamp, a south line which is the west bounds towards Woodbury, and an east line from Towantuck pond, to be the butment south, and Naugatuck river the east butment, till we come to Achetaqupag, or Maruscopag, and then to butt upon the east side of the river upon the forementioned lands,these parcels of land lying and being within the township of Mattatuck, bounded as aforesaid, situate on each side of Naugatuck and Mattatuck rivers."
For among the signers of this Paugassett deed there is found the name Cocoesen, and not only so but Cocoesen's sisters also, who signed the third deed given by the Tunxis tribe. Their names are Wechamunk and Werumcaske, and in the Tunxis deed they are described as the daughters of James. In the deed given to Lieut. Wheeler at Paugassett in 1757, occurs the name Pagassett James. It is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that Cocoesen was his son, and Cocoesen's sisters his daughters, that one of these was Patucko's squaw, that a connection by marriage between the two tribes was thus established, and that this relationship was recognized in the various sales of lands. Besides the names thus far mentioned, there are the following: Curan, Cocapadous (Konkapot-oos, perhaps little Konkapot), Tataracum, Cacasahum, Wenuntacum, Arumpiske, described as Curan's squaw, Notanumke, Curan's sister.
To this instrument the following note is attached: "Milford February, 1684. Awowas, the Indian proprietor, appeared at my house and owned this deed above mentioned to be his free act, and that he has signed and sealed to it. Robert Treat govenor." On the 18th of April, Conquepatana made a similar acknowledgment of the deed before the govenor " and said he knew what was in it." Several years afterward (June 28, 1711), the same Sagamore and " Tom Indian " his son, for twenty-five shillings, deeded to the proprietors of Waterbury, "a small piece of land " north of Derby bounds, west of the Naugatuck river, and south of Toantuck brook.
The original owners of all the land in the Naugatuck valley, above the old Derby line, (and those below partially,) have thus far been traced, except of what lies in Harwinton and Litchfield. This territory has a history of its own. On January 25, 1687, the General Court of Connecticut, for the purpose of saving the so-called " western lands " from the grasp of Sir Edmund Andros, conveyed to the towns of Hartford and Windsor as follows:
" Those lands on the north of Woodbury and Mattatuck, and on the west of Farmington and Simsbury, to the Massachusetts line north, and to run west to the Housatunock or Stratford river."2 As has already been seen, a portion of this territory, sixteen miles in diameter, had been conveyed in 1657 to William Lewis and Samuel Steele of F"armington. The General Court in its action in 1686, paid no regard to this old conveyance, and on the other hand the Farmington company, represented by Lewis and Steele, insisted on their claim. On the eleventh of August, 1714, they obtained from the successors of the original grantors a deed by which the title to this whole tract was conveyed, " in consideration of the sum of eight pounds received from Lieut. John Stanley about the year 1687, and other gratuities lately received," to Stanley Lewis, Ebenezer Steele, and their associates and successors. To Lieut. Stanley, in especial, fifty acres were laid out and confirmed, near the hill where he found the black.lead, "and fifty acres more where he shall see cause to take it up, or his heirs." This deed was signed by Pethuzo and Toxcronuck, who claimed to be the successors of Kepaquamp, Querrimus, and Mattaneag, and in the following October it was signed by Taphow the younger, and his squaw, by Awowas, whose name (written also in this same deed Wowowis) has been previously noticed, and Petasas, a female grand child, probably of Awowas By the action of the General Court, the title to all this land had been vested in the towns of Hartford and Windsor, and these towns therefore claimed the exclusive right to purchase the Indian title and to survey and sell the lands.3 In the final settlement of the matter, however, the claim of the Farmington company was to some extent recognized. In 1718 they received from the two towns a grant of one-sixth of the township of Litchfield, in consideration of their making over to said towns their interest in the disputed territory.
2 Conn. Col. Rec., III., 225.
8These lands were claimed by Connecticut under its then existing charter, and fearing lest Andros might wrest them from the state and sell them to others, or another Colony, the General Court gave them to the towns of Hartford and Windsor, to hold until the danger should be past, with the private understanding that the lands should revert to the state as soon as the danger should be past. When the danger was past these towns would not surrender the lands, but claimed them as their property. It was one of the clearest cases of betrayal of trust that ever occurred in the settlement of the country, and will be a lasting disgrace to the actors.
The management of these western lands was entrusted to a joint committee appointed by the towns. In 1715 this committee entered upon an exploration of the region lying west of the Naugatuck River, and appointed as their agent Mr. John Marsh, one of their number, who in May of that year undertook what was then a perilous journey into a pathless wilderness. When the committee had concluded to commence a settlement, they proceeded to purchase the Indian title to the lands. But they did not recognize any claim to these lands on the part of the Tunxis tribe, but applied instead to the Potatucks, from whom the settlers of Woodbury had made their various purchases, who had their chief village, at that time on the Housatonic, at the mouth of the Pomperaug. Mr. Thomas Seymour, a member of the joint committee of the towns, visited Woodbury in January, 1716, and again in May, and obtained the necessary deed. " In consideration of the sum of fifteen pounds money in hand received," the Potatucks sold a tract of land lying north of the Waterbury and Woodbury limits, bounded on the east by the Naugatuck River, on the west by the Shepaug and its east branch, and on the north by a line running from the north end of Shepaug Pond easterly to the Naugatuck. It comprised nearly 45,000 acres.4
The witnesses were Weroamaug (whose name is familiar to many as connected with a beautiful lake in New Preston and Warren), Wagnaeng and Tonhocks. Among the names of signers appears the name Corkscrew, which has a very civilized sound. It was originally Cocksure or Cotsure. Comparing these names with the names attached to the Woodbury purchase of May 28, 1706, it appears that although that deed precedes this by ten years, yet several of the names are the same in both. Chusqunnoag appears in the earlier deeds as Chesquaneag (or Cheshconeag of Pagassett); Magnash is evidently an error of the copy
4 This deed, dated May 2, 1716, was signed by twelve Indians, and witnessed by three others.
Witnesses. Maquash, Suckquunockqueen,
Weroamaug, Kehow, Tawseume,
Waguacug, Sepunkum, Mansumpaush,
Tonhocks. Corkscrew, Norquotonckquy.
WORTH OF INDIAN DEEDS.
1st for Maquash (or Mauquash of Pagassett) ; Kehow appears as Kehore, Sepunkum as Wusebucome, Suckquunockqueen, as Wussockanunckqueen, and in a still earlier deed, Corkscrew as Cotsure. It appears that Quiump, under the form of Aquiomp, was also the name of the sachem of the Potatucks in 1661, at Pomperaug. As that was fifty-five years before this, it was probably not the same person, although possibly a relative. Such identifications as these are of but little account to the world to-day, but to the explorer of ancient records, preparing the way for the more stately historian, they are as interesting, and perhaps as valuable as the discoveries of the modern genealogist or the devotee of heraldry.
It thus appears that the aboriginal ownership of the Naugatuck valley was divided among three quite distinct tribes, and that the claims of these tribes were recognized by the early settlers. It would be interesting to consider the nature of this primitive proprietorship, for it has decided bearings upon the great modern question of the origin of property, and the significance of that " institution " in the history of civilization. It was said by Sir Edmund Andros that Indians deeds were " no better than the scratch of a bear's paw," and there are those at the present day who, for different reasons from those which shaped the opinions of Andros, would deny that the aboriginal ownership of the soil was of any account whatever. Because their system was a kind of communism, their rights amount to nothing in the eyes of these modern thinkers. The early settlers, however, either from a sense of justice, or out of regard to expediency, and possibly somewhat of both, made it a rule to extinguish the titles of the natives by actual purchase ; and now, in their recorded deeds with signatures, is treasured up a large part of the only history the world will ever have of the Red man of the forest. And when the value of the money of that day is considered, the unimproved condition of the lands, and the fact that in almost all cases the grantors reserved either large sections as hunting grounds, or else the right to hunt everywhere, as before the sale, it can hardly be said that the Indians were dealt with unfairly. ' The late Chief-Justice Church of Litchfield, in his centennial address in 1851, commented severely upon the action of the early settlers in this respect, but he seems to have looked at the subject in an unjudicial way. The other side is strongly presented in Doct. Bronson's " History of Waterbury."
Mauquash, the last sachem of the Potatucks, died about 1758, says Woodbury History. Gideon Mawwehu had them removed to Kent.
The Indian usually reserved, or supposed he reserved, the right to hunt and fish everywhere, the same as before the lands were sold. In most of the towns he remained harmless and unmolested in the neighborhood of the settlements, from generation to generation. The relations of the aboriginal inhabitants to the whites are well illustrated in the statements of an aged citizen of Farmington, who died within the present century, and who was born about 1730, "that within his recollection the Indian children in the district schools were not much fewer than those of the whites. In their snow-balling parties the former took one side and the latter the other, when they would be so equally balanced in numbers and prowess as to render the battle a very tough one and the result doubtful." But however good the intentions of the white man may have been, the transformation of the wilderness into a fruitful field must go steadily on, and the Red man must inevitably fall back, seeking new hunting grounds. For example, the Paugasucks of the sea-coast removed inland, as we have seen, and made their principal seat at the lower end of the Naugatuck valley, which thus became practically a new settlement, which was their headquarters from about 1660 to about 1680, when they began to collect at Wesquantuck and to join the Potatucks at Pomperaug. After the death of their Sachem, Konkapatana, who resided some years at Wesquantuck or Pomperaug, or at both places, the local tribe broke up, and as such became extinct, except those who settled at Chusetown.
" Some joined the Potatucks," it is said. Quite a number must have done so, since nearly half the names given in the Woodbury History as being Potatucks were Paugasuck Indians and signers of the Derby deeds. Those who collected at the Falls on the Naugatuck, were there earlier as well as in greater numbers than has usually been supposed, as indicated by the extent of their burying-grounds and the remnants that were left some time after 1800. "Some went to the country of the six nations." This is quite probable, for, " in the spring of 1831, a
company of Indians, consisting of about thirty, men, women, and children, from the shores of Lake Champlain, came to the Point at Milford and encamped for a number of days, perhaps fifteen. They were led by an old patriarch or chieftain of 'eighty summers' whom they appeared to obey and reverence. They conversed in the Indian tongue, and some of them knew but little English. They had a tradition that some of their ancestors lived at Poconic Point, and said they had come for the last time to the hunting ground of their fathers."7 These were no doubt descendants of the Paugasuck tribe, whose ancestors had removed from Milford to Turkey Hill, Paugassett, and Potatuck, and who went back yearly from these places to Milford to catch and dry oysters, "spending a summer at a watering place." Again, "some went to Weantinock and Scattacook." Not only some or a few, but the large body of the surviving natives, from the south and east as we shall see, gathered at Weantinock, now New Milford, before 1703, and then moved on westward, first to Scatacook, then still westward. At Turkey Hill a few remained, their number growing less year by year until about 1829 when Molly Hatchet only was left, and in that year she passed to the far away hunting ground of the Indian. There are indications, indeed it is very probable that some of them removed to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The last deed of Derby lands that Cockapatana signed was given in 1710, but his son, Waskawakes (alias Tom), signed a deed given by the Potatucks in 1706, indicating thereby his active part in the business transactions of that tribe, and it would not be surprising if Waskawakes was Wauramaug of New Milford. In 1724, the Stockbridge Indians gave a deed of land which was signed by Konkapot and twenty other Indians. In 1734, Konkapot received a Captain's commission from the Massachusetts government; in 1735, he was baptized in the Christian faith, and he died previous to 1770, one of the first fruits of the Housatonic Mission, of which the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, born in Waterbury, was the founder. Konkapot's name became celebrated through the northern part of Litchfield county, and is perpetuated, after a fashion, in connection with one of the streams of Stockbridge, which was originally called Konkapot's brook. It was afterwards known as Konk's brook, and afterwards went down ingloriously to " Skunk's brook."
FURTHER AUTHENTIC RECORDS.
PROGRESS in disintegration and decay in the native tribes may be traced a little further by the examination of documents and records. Mr. J. W. DeForest, in his " History of the Indians of Connecticut," a book which, after all deductions are made, is a remarkable production for a youth of one-and-twenty years, makes the following remarks upon the retirement of the Red men before the aggressive race that had landed on their shores:
Knowing little of European modes of life, and judging of the colonists greatly by themselves, they supposed that the latter would cultivate but a little land, and support themselves for the rest by trading, fishing, and hunting. Little did they think that in the course of years the white population would increase from scores to hundreds, and from hundreds to thousands; that the deep forests would be cut down ; that the wild animals would disappear ; that the fish would grow few in the rivers; and that a poor remnant would eventually leave the graves of their fathers and wander away into another land. Could they have anticipated that a change so wonderful, and in their history so unprecedented, would of necessity follow the coming of the white man, they would have preferred the wampum tributes of the Pequots and the scalping-parties of the Five Nations to the vicinity of a people so kind, so peaceable, and yet so destructive.1
Of course the natives knew not that they were parting with their homes forever ; neither did the new settlers know how swiftly their predecessors upon the soil would melt away before the glow and heat of a Christian civilization. But the process was inevitable, and in New England, at least, however it may have been elsewhere, it was as painless and as little marked by cruelty as it well could be.
Through several documents still preserved there come before us certain Derby Indians in the peculiar character of Slaves.
To students of colonial history it is a known fact that not only negroes but Indians were held as slaves in New England. That slavery should have existed in the colonies was almost a matter of course, in view of its recognition by the mother country. The Massachusetts code, adopted in 1641, known as the " Body of Liberties," recognized it, and provided for its regulation and restriction ; and Connecticut, in its code of 1650, followed in the same path. The ninety-first article of the Massachusetts code is as follows : " There shall never be any bond-slavery, villanage, or captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars, or such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority." According to this, persons might be sold into slavery for crime; might be purchased in the regular course of trade ; or might be enslaved as captives taken in war ; and it will be observed that no limitation is made in reference to color or race. Probably, however, the English distinction was tacitly recognized, which allowed the enslavement of infidels and heathen, but not of Christians. The Massachusetts Court did decide that certain persons, for giving shelter to certain Quakers, should be sold into slavery, and sent out of the colony, but among English people. Of the fact that Indians became slaves in the different ways here mentioned, there is abundant evidence. In Sandwich, Massachusetts, three Indians were sold in 1678 for having broken into a house and stolen ; they being unable to make recompense to the owner, the General Court authorized him to sell them. In 1660 the General Court of Connecticut was empowered by the United Colonies to send a company of men to obtain satisfaction of the Narragansetts, for an act of insolence they had committed upon the settlers. Four of the malefactors were to be demanded ; and in case the persons were delivered, they were to be sent to Barbadoes and sold as slaves. In 1677 it was enacted by the General Court that if any Indian servant captured in war and placed in service by the authorities should be taken when trying to run away, it should be " in the power of his master to dispose of him as a captive, by transportation out of the country." That the regular slave trade included traffic in Indians as well as negroes appears from several enactments of the General Court. For instance, it was ordered in May, 1711, " that all slaves set at liberty by their owners, and all negro, mulatto, or Spanish Indians who are servants to masters for time, in case they come to want after they be so set at liberty, or the time of their said service be expired, shall be relieved by such owners or masters respectively." At a meeting of the Council in July, 1715, it was resolved "that a prohibition should be published against the importation of any Indian slaves whatsoever." The occasion of this was the introduction of a number of such slaves from South Carolina, and the prospect that many more were coming. In the October following, the General Court adopted an act in relation to this matter, which was a copy of a Massachusetts act of 1712, prohibiting the importation into the colony of Indian servants or slaves, on the ground of the numerous outrages committed by such persons. Of Indians captured in war, a considerable number were sold into slavery, but what proportion it would be impossible to say. It was a defensive measure, to which the colonists were impelled by the fact that they were "contending with a foe who recognized none of the laws of civilized warfare." It was resorted' to in the war with the Pequots, and again in the war with King Philip.
In a manuscript, sold with the library of the late George Brinley of Hartford, namely, the account-book of Major John Talcott (1674-1688), which includes his accounts as treasurer of the colony during King Philip's war, there are some curious entries, indicating how the enslavement of Indians in certain cases originated. The following account stands on opposite pages of the ledger (pp. 54, 55):
1676. Capt. John Stanton of Stonington, Dr., To Sundry commissions gave Capt. Stanton to proceed against the Indians, by which he gained much on the sales of captives.
Contra. 1677, April 30. Per received an Indian girl of him, about seven years old, which he gave me for commission on the other side, or, at best, out of goodwill for my kindness to him.
Further light is thrown on this matter by the following documents, which are interesting also in themselves.2 The first is a deed drawn in Stratford, June 8, 1722 :
Know all men by these presents, that I, Joseph Gorham of Stratford, in the county of Fairfield, in the colony of Connecticut, for and in consideration of sixty pound money in hand received, and well and truly paid by Col. Ebenezer Johnson of Derby, in the county of New Haven and colony aforesaid, to my full satisfaction
and content, have sold and made over to the said Ebenezer Johnson and to his heirs, executors, and assigns forever, one Indian woman named Dinah, of about twentysix years of age, for him, the said Johnson, his heirs, executors, and assigns, to have, hold, and enjoy the said Indian woman Dinah as his and their own proper estate from henceforth forever, during the said Dinah's life ; affirming the said Dinah to be my own proper estate, and that I have in myself full power and lawful authority to sell and dispose of the said Dinah in manner as aforesaid, and that free and clear of all incumbrances whatsoever. In witness I set to my hand and seal in Stratford, this eighth day of June, in the year of our Lord God, 1722.
Attorney for Capt. Gorham. Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of as, John Curtiss, John Leavenworth.
The second document traces Dinah's history a little further. It is dated at Derby, November 22, 1728. Before this date Col. Johnson had died, and this is the deed by which his widow disposes of a part of the estate to her son Timothy :
Know all men by these presents, that I, Hannah Johnson, widow of the late deceased Colonel Ebenezer Johnson of Derby, in the county of New Haven, in the colony of Connecticut, in New England, for the parental love and good-will which I have towards my beloved son, Timothy Johnson of Derby, in the county and colony aforesaid, and for divers other good and well-advised considerations me thereunto moving, have given and do by these presents fully, freely, and absolutely give, grant, and confirm unto my beloved son, Timothy Johnson, him, his heirs and assigns forever: that is to say, one Indian woman called Dinah, and also a feather bed that he hath now in possession, and by these presents I, the said Hannah Johnson, do give, grant, and confirm and firmly make over the above named Dinah and fether bed, with all their privileges and profits; and unto him the said Timothy Johnson, his heirs and assigns forever, to have and to hold ; to occupy, use, and improve, as he, the said Timothy Johnson, his heirs and assigns, shall think fit, without any interruption, trouble, or molestation any manner of way given by me, the said Hannah Johnson, or any of my heirs, executors, or administrators, or any other person or persons from, by, or under me. And furthermore, I, the said Hannah Johnson, do by these presents, for myself, my heirs, executors, and administrators, covenant and promise to and with the said Timothy Johnson, his heirs and assigns, that we will forever warrant and defend him, the said Timothy Johnson, his heirs and assigns, in the peaceable and quiet possession and enjoyment of the above named Dinah and feather bed against the lawful claims and demands of all persons whomsoever. In confirmation of all the above mentioned particulars, I, the said Hannah Johnson, have hereunto set my hand and seal this 22d day of November, in the second year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, King George the Second, and in the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight.
HANNAH JOHNSON. Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
Derby, November 22, 1728. This day Hannah Johnson, the subscriber of the above written instrument, personally appeared and acknowledged this to be her own free act and deed, before me.
Joseph Hulls, Justice of the Peace.
At no time in the history of American slavery has the recognition of human beings as chattels been more complete than it is in this old document, in which " the Indian woman Dinah " and " the fether bed "are classed together in so unceremonious a way.
That the purchase of Dinah in 1722 was not Col. Johnson's first experience in slaveholding, is evidenced by another document pertaining to the Indian literature of the Naugatuck valley, also in the possession of Judge Gillett. It is a brief paper from the hand of Colonel Johnson, relating to an Indian named "Tobe,"s and certifying to his manumission. It is given just as recorded:
these may certifi whome it may consarn that tobee a Ingan that lived with me I had of a Moheg Indian at New London 307 years agoo he lived with me 12 year and is now and has bin a free man ever senc. october the 6 1713. Ebenezer Johnson.
This paper informs us that thirty-seven years before the date of it, Col. Johnson obtained this Indian, that is in 1676; kept him as a slave twelve years, and then made him a free man.
There is a deed given by Cockapatana and Ahuntaway, as sachems, and six other Indians, of land at the place still known as Toby's Rock, deeded to this same Toby, in which he is said to be " a Narragansett Indian, formerly servant unto Capt. Ebenezer Johnson of Derby." The deed is dated September 7, 1693.
The whole record therefore shows that Toby was taken in the time of King Philip's war, 1676; that he was held as a slave twelve years, and made free in 1688 ; received the tract of land in 1693 from the Naugatuck Indians, "in consideration of ten pounds and a barrel of cider," and in 1713 the certificate was given. What circumstances called for such a paper as that, is very uncertain, but possibly the fact that he had petitioned or was about to petition the legislature for a patent of his land, in the same manner as the town had petitioned for one. In such a matter proof that he was a free man was of importance. And
This name was originally pronounced in one syllable with long 0.
what reason the town had for opposing Toby's petition, as it did, is not manifest.
The traditional account of Toby is, that, Capt. Ebenezer Johnson being sent in command of a squad of soldiers to subdue some Indians, did his work so thoroughly, as was his custom, that not an Indian was left except the dead on the battlefield. The fight, it is said, ended at dusk, and the Captain and his company slept that night on the field where the conflict had taken place during the day. Early the next morning he walked out upon the battlefield and while he stood viewing the scene he felt something clinging to his feet, and looking down he saw a little Indian boy looking up in a most pitiful manner. This was Toby, and the Captain took him and kept him as his slave.
The deed says he was a Moheagan Indian, and Capt. Johnson says he obtained him of a " Moheg Indian." The Captain was probably sent in the Indian war to New London or its vicinity, and there obtained the boy, who grew to be an honor to himself, his tribe, his benefactor, and his adopted town.
But Toby did not tarry long in the land of the living although long enough to engrave his name high on what is called " Toby's Rock," on the west side of Naugatuck River, near " High Rock Grove." His kindred were, no doubt, lost to him on some battlefield, and the time of his orphan sojourn was filled with honor and manly work, when he went forward to the unknown country to find those who had gone before him ; and he gave his land, which was divided according to his will, in 1734, to Timothy Wooster, Peter Johnson, Ebenezer Johnson, and Timothy Johnson ; all but Wooster being sons of Capt. Ebenezer Johnson. These were to him as kindred. If there be no future awards, what a world of injustice, inequality and unrequited suffering the present one is.
The will of Toby was contested by the selectmen of the town, which seems very strange, since if the Indian deeds given to the town were good, the one given to Toby was just as good.
In 1709, Major Johnnson sold another Indian girl, placing her in a vastly more satisfactory relation, according to modern ideas, than either of the other sales effected. The Indians in deeding a certain tract of land, say : " On account of a Squaw Sarah, sold unto said Chetrenasut and three pounds, ten shillings in hand received of Mayor Johnson of Derby." This tract of land was " lying in a place called Nayumps, bounded northerly with Beacon Hill River, easterly with Milford, westerly with Naugatuck River, south with Lebanon River." This was a happy sale, probably, because the Indian Chetrenasut obtained a bride. The estimated value of this squaw was seven pounds, which was not a third part of the value of an ordinary slave woman at that time, and hence the transaction may be generously supposed to have partaken somewhat of benevolence in making her free.
He was Captain at that time. He was Major then.
The deed given to the Indian Toby is the link which connects him with High Rock, at the foot of which is High Rock Grove, a place of great resort for summer visitors and parties on pic-nic excursions. This deed is dated September 7th, 1693, and sets forth that Cockapatana and Huntaway, sachems of Paugasuck (the original name of Derby), and certain others " in the name of all the Indians of Paugasuck, for and in consideration of ten pounds and a barrel of cider, paid and secured, with which we do acknowledge ourselves fully satisfied," sell unto Toby a Narragansett Indian formerly servant unto Capt. Ebenezer Johnson of Derby, ... a certain tract of land, bounded north with Chestnut-tree Hill. and Lopus rocks, east with Naugatuck River against Beacon Hill, west with the Little River against Thomas Wooster's land, and southward with Rimmon Hill and Rimmon Hill rocks, pointing into the Little River, and from the upper end of Rimmon Hill through Lopus plain, running between two ponds in Lopus plain, through the hill swamp, and so to Naugatuck River, unto the said Toby his heirs and assigns forever.3
This piece of territory is mentioned afterward in the records of the town (for example, in 1700 and 1708) as "Toby's land," or " Toby Indian's purchase." It seems to have contained a swamp called Squantuck Swamp, which was deeded to Toby a
Derby Deed dated Sept. 7, 1693.
Cockapatana, Wequacuk, Will Mashok,
Indians Jacks, Punwan, Huntawa.
Indian Toto, Indian Shot,
second time in 1707. This deed speaks of him as "an Indian that lives with the English, brought up by Mayor Johnson from a boy."
It might not be impossible to establish certain points in the subsequent history of this friendly Indian ; but the important fact to be noticed here is that his (English) name has survived to the present time, in connection with the towering rock which rises to the south of High Rock Glen. For a hundred and fifty years past, when people in the vicinity have spoken of Toby's Rock, they have paid their unconscious tribute to the memory of a man who represented the Red face in contact with the White, and represented it in its most marked vicissitudes, a man who was almost from the first the white man's captive and slave, and to the last the white man's friend.
The region of country where Toby's Rock is located is wild, romantic, picturesque, and attractive to travelers. It lies on the Naugatuck River, between the villages of Seymour and Naugatuck. The Rock spoken of is on the west side of the river, the foot of it crowding down, steep to the river, scarcely leaving room for the railroad as appears in the accompanying engraving. Between the southern end of High Rock is a deep gorge called some years since, " Sherman's Gorge," but now " High Rock Glen," through which flows quite a brook and from the scenery of which several views, herewith presented, are taken. On the east side of the river the hill is abrupt and rises to a considerable height, along the foot of which there is space only for a highway, which is cut into the side of the hill and rock, and is therefore called the " dug road."
While ascending the river by railroad from Ansonia, the first prominent height seen is Castle Rock on the west side of the river just before reaching the village of Seymour, where it stands in all the grandeur of its ancient days, looking down upon the Falls of the Naugatuck, as it did when the Red man of the valley made that his chief fishing-place. This rock is about two hundred feet in height and without trees or shrubbery, although some years ago it was covered with forest. Passing above the village of Seymour, Rock Rimmon rises in sight on the east side of the river, jutting out in the middle of the valley from the north, and rising to the height of four hundred feet, as if it were the foremost tower in an embattlement of hills, to defy the northward progress of an army of railroads. When this rock is seen from Great Hill several miles at the south, it appears to be on the confines of a boundless wilderness and this appearance, perhaps, suggested the name it bears, as brought to mind in a very ancient historical declaration, upon the defeat of a great army. " And they turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the Rock of Rimmon." 7 On the west side of the river from Seymour, northward for two miles the scenery is wild and hilly, but after this the hills disappear so as to allow the coming of two brooks into the Naugatuck, and some little valley land at the place called Pines Bridge. At the upper end of this little opening of the hills is Beacon Falls village, just above which at the Beacon Falls Dam, the hills close in, leaving little more than space for the river and the roads, and then again the scenery becomes wild and rocky. On the west side of the river the hills rise very abruptly to the height of three and four hundred feet, the rocks standing out in promontories successively, in a curve until they reach High Rock, which has an elevation above the river of four hundred and seventy-five feet, and from which northward the hills gradually diminish in height to the village of Naugatuck. The most elevated point in this rocky rampart, just south of the Glen, has in recent times been named " High Rock" but in more ancient times was known as " Squaw Rock." Just below the mouth of the Glen, between the railroad which runs close to the base of the Rock, and the river, lies a strip of level land formerly covered with a thick growth of trees but now cleared up in a fine manner, which constitutes the now famous " High Rock Grove."
At the northern end of the Grove is the entrance to the ravine or Glen, already spoken of, which is of considerable width at the railroad track, but is narrower further up the brook; from the opposite bank of the river, the little valley looks like the halfcircle of an amphitheater. The observer standing with his face toward the west, has on his right the high crag known in history as Toby's Rock, and on his left Squaw Rock, the highest summit in the entire ledge. The name " High Rock " which has of late years been connected with this last-named height, was formerly attached to a third summit which rises to the northwest, on the other side of the ravine. Through this ravine, a beautiful mountain stream comes plunging down, winding around the huge boulders which [lie in its path ; leaping over rocky ledges as if in sport with the roughness of the way, forms a series of charming cascades, some of them hidden under the dense shadows of the woods.
To one who follows the path cut in this steep side of the rock, a series of picturesque views is represented in rapid succession. For a short distance the path is the same as that which leads to the summit of High Rock, but it soon diverges and strikes into the wildwood close to the brook, and then ascends by a series of irregular terraces until it reaches a height of a hundred feet above the rushing waters. At this point an almost vertical wall towers on the left, and beyond the torrent rises another wall, less precipitous but no less grand, its ruggedness relieved by hemlocks and clinging vines. Thenceforward the path is easier, although continually ascending, and after a little it crosses the brook, winds up the hillside through a kind of clearing, becomes merged in a cart-road for some distance, and so reaches "the Gorge." This is perhaps eighteen rods in extent; the channel is twenty feet wide, and is shut in on either side by vertical walls of granite. Here the foaming waters leap from rock to rock, throwing clouds of spray high in the air. But the scenery here is not more impressive than at the cataract below, fifty rods from the mouth of the Glen, which has been pictured as follows:
From rushing through a narrow defile the stream suddenly spreads out upon the level surface of an overhanging table-like rock, and falls in a broad, thin sheet into a deep basin below. Along the upper edge of the basin wall is a ledge of sufficient size for one to walk, with due caution, close up to the fall. Then, by ducking the head and stepping adroitly sidewise, one may pass directly under the cliff, and behind the sheet of water. The slight sprinkling necessarily attendant upon this feat, is more than compensated for by the delightful coolness of the retreat, and the rainbow-hued landscape visible through the limpid camera. The view from the path at this point is charming. The Glen is narrow and steep. Overhead gigantic hemlocks intertwine their branches in a fanciful net-work extending from wall to wall. Above, the brook rushes in a frothy torrent, forming a multitude of cascades, and disturbing the solemn silence of the rocky fastnesses with its weird, strange music. To one standing here alone, shut in from the world by these walls of adamant, the silence unbroken by any sound save that of the splashing waters, the cares and duties of daily life sink into insignificance, and the primitive simplicity and majesty of nature reveal themselves to the mind.
If instead of keeping close by the brook, the visitor takes the path to the top of the Rock, he is there rewarded with a view of considerable extent and remarkable beauty. The ascent is gradual and not difficult, but continuing until the summit, which is four hundred and seventy-five feet high, is reached, when the river is seen far below sweeping through the woods as a stream of silver, and the winding railroad close along its banks. Lifting his eyes, he finds himself surrounded with great crags, some of them clothed with forests, some of them bare precipices of shrubless granite. To the southward the valley widens a little, making room for a few narrow farms, and the village of Beacon Falls. Beyond the village rises the lofty ridge whose southern promontory is the bold and frowning rocky height called " Rimmon." To the southwest the view opens more widely, extending almost to Long Island Sound ; and in different directions may be seen the centers or some part of the towns of Seymour, Oxford, Southbury, Middlebury, Huntington, Waterbury, Wolcott, Meriden, Southington, Prospect, Naugatuck and Bethany.
It has been well said, " here is a mixture of verdure and sternness, of romantic gorge and wild tumultuous billows of hill and rock, that brings a feeling of solitude, yet of strength to the soul of man."
Whether the summit of Squaw Rock served as "an old beaconlight station during the Revolutionary War," as some have claimed, is more improbable than that it was put to that use by the Indians, long before the English saw the shores of Connecticut. Sentinel Hill in the southern part of Derby, and Beacon Hill on the original northern boundary of it were names, apparently, found here as used by the natives before the English came. The same thing is true, according to legends and records, of several hills along the Housatonic River. Again, it is not known how the Glen came to bear the name of " Jonah's Gorge."
It was not until the summer of 1876, that the establishment of a picnic ground at this place, with all the modern conveniences, was attempted by the Railroad Company. Early in July, the new Grove was ready for use, and on the I2th of that month the first picnic was held there, and from that time to the present, it has been a resort for tens of thousands of visitors almost yearly, there having been as high as 80,000 visitors in a single season.
CASCADE IN THE GLEN AT HIGH ROCK GROVE, NAUGATUCK RAILROAD.
INDIAN LEGENDS. 47
It has been mentioned that the height now known as High Rock was formerly known as Squaw Rock. There are several legends connected with this name, which seem to be variations on a single theme. One of them runs as follows:Some two hundred years ago, when Indian maidens wandered over the mountains, or paddled their light canoes, and sang like Laughing Water, while Thinking of a hunter From another tribe and country,'
the traders came from the coast, and sought to bribe the chieftain Toby, with a quart of rum, to give his daughter to the whites. But she, being as the sequel proves romantically inclined, begged that she might have one-half of the rum before giving her consent. She drank it and fled from her father's wigwam. Failing to return soon, Toby and his warriors started in pursuit of her. Coming out upon the top of Toby's Rock, and looking across the Glen, Toby discovered his daughter standing alone upon Squaw Rock. The maiden perceiving that she was discovered sprang to the edge of the cliff, precipitated herself to the base of the Rock, and was killed. After witnessing the death of his daughter, Toby despatched his warriors to the village, to take from the traders the jug of rum. It was taken to the top of the Rock and thrown thence into the middle of the river ; when, behold I from the spot where it struck, there sprang instantly a huge boulder, which remains to this day a warning to all future Tobies, who may be disposed to sell their daughters for rum.
Two hundred years ago Toby was a boy and became the slave of Col. Johnson, but he never was a chieftain, and never had warriors at his command.
According to another version, the maiden leaped from the top of the rock upon hearing of the death of her lover. Yet there is still another account of the catastrophe which has been given in the following fashion :
Long years ago, when the country belonged to the Indians, a certain chief became enamored of a dusky maiden of another tribe and sought to make her his squaw, but she was not in favor of this plan, and one evening, when the chief came a wooing, she took to her heels and made straight for the summit of this cliff. She was closely pursued, and on reaching the edge of the precipice found herself almost within the grasp of the deserted lover. Escape in the direction whence she came was cut off; beneath her yawned the dreadful abyss. Breathing a prayer to the Great Spirit, she threw herself from the brink, and the next moment was a shapeless mass upon the rocks below. Hence the name " Squaw Rock."
It appears that the spirit of this maiden does not rest well, whatever may have been the cause of her death ; for, about half way up Squaw Rock, and down the river from the cliff, there is a narrow crevice, from which the said spirit appears at midnight, on the 2Oth of March and the 2Oth of September, of each year. It takes the form of a snake,some say with four heads, some, with seven ; and the snake has upon its heads a large carbuncle, which, if anyone can secure it, will make him fabulously rich. Many a night have superstitious persons watched for the snake, hoping to capture this wealth ; but although they may have found snakes with seven rattles, no snake has thus far been secured with heads decorated with carbuncles.
Turning again to the Tunxis Indians, with whom the Paugasucks are related, and from whom the Waterbury purchases were made, we find the same process of gradual decay taking place among them which we trace in other tribes. The main body at Farmington was joined from time to time by re-enforcements from the Connecticut valley; and it is very probable that some of the Paugasucks joined them, since we are informed in one deed that some had settled in Hartford, where they were residing at the time of the execution of a deed in Derby. A school was established among them, a few. were admitted as freemen, and a few became members of the church. But notwithstanding the friendly feeling which existed, the lands which the Indians had reserved slipped gradually from their grasp, and they found it desirable to emigrate. In 1761, the tribe-was estimated at less than twenty-five families. They had moved back from their position and were residing in the northwest part of Farmington and in New Hartford. In 1774, they numbered fifty-six persons. Not long after, some of them removed to the country of the Mohawks ; others, subsequently, to Scatacook, and from there to Stockbridge. The Tunxis Indians, as we have seen, had no established camping-ground in the Naugatuck valley at the time of its settlement by white men ; neither is there any strong evidence that they resided in the valley after they had begun to retire from their old reservation. It is probable, however, that some of the Indians who are still remembered as living in Waterbury, Litchfield, and Wolcottville, belonged to that tribe. It is within the present generation that a family living in the Park road, in the western part of Waterbury, has entirely disappeared. Persons are still living who remember Indian families in Wolcottville and Torringford. In the latter place a wigwam used to stand in the very door-yard of a prominent citizen, Capt. Shu
BRIDGE IN THE GLEN AT HIGH ROCK GROVE, NAUGATUCK RAILROAD.
bael Griswold, some time after the Revolutionary war. Another family had their wigwam within the present century in the field west of the Brass-mill in Wolcottville. where they had resided some years. In the edge of the town of Goshen, a little north of Hart's Hollow, is a cave which used to be the recruiting station for the Indians while on their hunting excursions through that region. Many arrow-heads and other implements have been picked up at that place, indicating considerable occupation of it by these hunters. Another like place is found in the northwest corner of the town of Wolcott, near the boundary between it and Bristol, where implements have been found, and which tradition as well claims to have been a resort of the Red man. The place is called Jack's Cave, because an Indian by that name was the last, or among the last, to make it his home. In the forepart of the present century it was occupied by four or five adult Indians and two or three children, for which purpose the shelving rock formed quite a secure and comfortable retreat. Wist Pond, in the western part of the town of Torrington, was so called from an Indian by that name, who, it is said, was drowned in its waters. There lived, some time since, an Indian family in a cave in the town of Harwinton, nearly opposite the mouth of Spruce Brook, and another on the tract of land called the Wigwam, lying along " West Branch," not far back from Raynold's Bridge. In 1850, Mr. DeForest spoke of "one miserable creature, a man named Mossock," as living in Litchfield, " perhaps the sole remnant of the Tunxis tribe." There may be other similar traces of the departing Red man, which by a little effort would be discovered, and, if it were worth the while, recorded.
It is important to take a further look at the Potatucks, from whom the extensive Litchfield purchase was made. As to their numbers, it is difficult to determine anything to a certainty, but some conclusions may be drawn by comparison, from the number of different individuals who signed the Indian deeds in Derby. From 1657 to 1678, or to the close of the Sachem rule of Okenuck, a space of twenty-one years, there were of the Paugasuck Indians over fifty different signers to those deeds. Sometimes only Okenuck's name is attached ; at other times two, five, seven, and ten are recorded. The fact (which is demonstrated) that only a few signed when there were others who might properly have signed, indicates that it was necessary for but a few to sign at a time. Hence, if during that time one in three of the men in the tribe signed, then the tribe consisted of one hundred and fifty men ; and, making allowance for deaths and removals, the tribe may have numbered one hundred men, or, on a small estimate, between three and four hundred persons at any time during the twenty-one years. It is quite apparent, nay, almost demonstrable, that the Indians increased in numbers from 1657 to 1700, and afterward. Many of the Paugasucks united with the Potatucks from 1680 to 1730.
It is probable that the chief seat of the Potatucks in 1660 was at the " Old Fort" opposite Birmingham Point, on the west side of the Housatonic, and the settlement of the places called Potatuck, twelve miles further up the river, and Pomperaug, was effected mostly afterwards. In 1671, when this tribe deeded to Henry Tomlinson land on both sides of the river at what is now New Milford, fifteen names were placed on the deed,8 and in the next month to a quitclaim deed in confirmation of the territory of the town of Stratford, four others were added, and in 1684, to another deed of the same character eleven more were recorded. Here, then, in the space of thirteen years, there are thirty men ascertained ; and on the computations as in the case of the Paugasucks as before noted, we estimate, making due allowance, that there were about seventy men in the Potatuck tribe, and from two hundred to two hundred and fifty persons. When, then, this tribe had increased, as most probably it did, of its own numbers and by accessions from the Paugasucks up to 1700, it very probably numbered over one hundred men. Hence, when President Stiles of Yale College, in his "Itinerary" in 1760, estimated the number of warriors of this tribe to have been fifty half a century before, he was not far out of the way.
The same writer preserves the account of a great " powwow," which took place at the village of the Potatucks, somewhere from 1720 to 1725. The ceremonies lasted three days, and were attended by five or six hundred Indians, many of whom came from distant places, as Farmington and Hartford. While the Indians were standing in a dense mass, excited by dancing and other wild rites, a little Indian girl was brought forward, gaily
A SCHOOL FOR THE IND1ANS.
dressed and covered with ornaments. She was led in among them by two squaws, her mother and her aunt; and as she entered the crowd they set up a great yelling and howling, threw themselves into strange postures, and made hideous grimaces. After a while the squaws, stripped of their ornaments, emerged alone from the crowd and walked away, shedding tears and uttering mournful cries. Many white people stood around gazing at the scene, but the savages were so excited that none of them dared to interfere. A little white girl, who afterwards related the incident, ran to the squaws and asked anxiously what they had done with the child, but the only reply was that they should never see her again. It was generally believed by the whites that the Indians had sacrificed her, and that this was an occasional custom.
In 1742, the Potatucks petitioned the legistature for a school and a preacher, so that, as they expressed it (or some white friend in their behalf) " our souls need not perish for want of vision in this land of light," and their petition was granted. At this time they numbered forty persons. Previous to this, however (in 1733), they had sold about three-fourths of their reservation in Southbury, and many of them had joined the Weantenocks of New Milford, whither they had been emigrating for more than fifty years. To the fragment of land and the Indian village which remained, known as the Potatuck Wigwams, they retained a title fora quarter of a century longer; but in 1758, they parted with it and took up their abode with other tribes. A clan of the Potatucks resided alternately at Bethlehem, Litchfield, and Nonawaug, and have been sometimes designated as Bantam Indians. In 1761, the Potatucks who remained in the vicinity of their old reservation consisted of one man and two or three broken families.
One year previous to the presentation of the petition just referred to, asking for a school and a preacher (that is, in May, 1741,) a petition had been presented by a member of the Potatuck tribe asking the legislature, first, to allow something toward the schooling and supporting of his children; secondly, to help him to a division of the Indian lands at Potatuck. This document, which is reproduced from Cothren's " History of Woodbury," is a very curious one ; but it demands our attention just now because of the name of the petitioner, who speaks of himself as a poor Indian native, " Hatchett Tousey by name." Hatchett Tousey, notwithstanding its English sound, is obviously the same name which appears repeatedly in the Woodbury and Litchfield records as " Atchetouset;" and it is all the more interesting to us because we meet with it under the form " Hatchatowsuck" among the Tunxis and Paugasuck names affixed to the Waterbury deed of December, 1684, and again as connected with the Hatchett family of Derby. It would not be safe to consider the petitioner of 1741 identical with the signer of 1684, but we can certainly trace him in another quarter,in the town records of Litchfield. On the third day of August, 1732, John Catlin sold to a certain Indian resident of Litchfield, commonly known as Hatchatousset, for eight pounds lawful money, one acre more or less of land in the crotch of Bantam River; and on the I4th of May, 1736, Hatchatousset sold this land to John Sutliff for ten pounds, making, as probably he supposed, a fair profit. The idea of individual ownership had evidently taken hold of this native of the soil, for in his petition, as we have seen, he prayed the legislature to help him to a division of the Indian land at Potatuck " that I might have my right and just part set out to me, so that they might not quarrel with me, for they say if I am a Christian, then I shall not have my land." He had learned, too, that being a Christian does not by any means take away the desire to have land ; and that being a Christian secures sometimes the opposition of nearest kindred.
Another personage comes before us, whose name is already .inscribed in history among the noble and honored defenders of our country. The name of one of the Indians who sold to the Litchfield settlers was written Corkscrew, apparently an impromptu joke of the clerk at the time, who should have written Cotsure or Cocksure. On a deed of land in New Milford, this name was written in 1739 " Cockshure," a still better spelling than the others. This name within a generation or two became Cogswell; a worthy member of the family which it represents is still living at New Milford, and another, William H. Cogswell, won a Lieutenant's commission in a Connecticut Artillery ComAN INDIAN SOLDIER. 5 3
pany, in the late war. The Cornwall History speaks thus of this honored soldier :9
Lieut. William H. Cogswell died Sept. 22, 1864, aged 25 years 2 months and 23 days. He enlisted as a private in the Fifth Regiment, C. V., June 22, 1861, and was promoted to the Second Connecticut Artillery, for gallant services, Sept. 11, 1862. He was in the battles of Peaked Mountain, Winchester, Cedar Mountain, Cold Harbor, and Opequan, and died from wounds received in the last battle.
A handsome freestone monument, with the above inscription, erected by his fellow-townsmen, stands as a tribute to his memory. As a valiant, faithful soldier he had no superiors, while in power to endure fatigue, agility, strength and never-failing spirits, he had few equals. The writer remarked to his Colonel (Wessells) that William was one of a thousand soldiers. He replied, " You might well say, one of ten thousand."
It is related of him, that when on the march many were falling out of the ranks from fatigue, he grasped the muskets of three or four, carried them for miles, showing his men what strong and willing arms could d0.
He was the eldest son of Nathan Cogswell, to whose skilled hands Cornwall farmers are indebted for many of their fine stone walls, and grandson of Jeremiah Cogswell, a member of the Scatacook tribe.
This grandfather was probably Jeremiah Cockshure, who, removing with the remnant of the tribe from Potatuck, became one of Gideon Mauweehu's principal men. He was one of the converts of the Moravian missionaries, and his name often appears in their lists.
When we consider the Indian's character, the stage of development he had reached, and the ordeal necessarily involved in his being brought suddenly into contact with an aggressive civilization, his behavior in this trying period of his history seems worthy of high commendation. However cruel and bloodthirsty he may have been by nature, in his intercourse with peaceable white men he was peaceable ; if they showed themselves friendly, he was their friend. Much is said of the Indian's treachery, but it was mostly reserved for enemies, and does not differ essentially from the deception and stratagems which in all ages civilized people have considered legitimate in war ; and, before the coming of the white man, who was anything but an enemy to the Indian of New England, all the tribes seem to have been ready to devour each other, and the Five Nations ready to de9 By T. S. Gold, p. 223.
stroy all others. The great law of self-defence appears to have been the rendering of terrible sufferings to captives taken in wars.
As a rule the conduct of the Indians was peaceable and friendly, but there were exceptions, most of them traceable, it is presumed, to the intemperate use of spirituous liquors. Among these exceptions may be mentioned a murder which was perpetrated in the town of Litchfield, in February, 1768. The murderer was an Indian named John Jacob, and his victim was also an Indian. The guilty man was tried and executed the same year. Mention should also be made of Moses Cook of Waterbury, whose residence was on the north-east corner of Cook and Grove streets, where another branch of the family still resides. The crime was committed in the town of Bethany, on the 7th of December, 1771, by an Indian named Moses Paul. It appears that Paul was born in Barnstable, Mass., about 1742, and resided at Windham, Connecticut, until twenty years of age, when he enlisted in the Provincial service in the regiment of Col. Putnam. After the campaign was ended, he became a sailor and followed the sea for several years, becoming confirmed in bad habits which he had contracted while in the army. After returning to Connecticut, he lived in a very unsteady way for three or four years, staying but a little while in a place, and often becoming intoxicated. On the evening of December 7, 1771, at the house of Mr. Clark of Bethany, while under the influence of liquor, he quarrelled with the proprietor. He seized a flat-iron weighing four and a half pounds (Paul himself testified that it was a club), and aiming a blow at Mr. Clark, missed him, and struck Mr. Cook who was standing near. The wound terminated fatally five days afterward. Paul was pursued and arrested the same evening ; tried in February, and after a fair and impartial hearing, which lasted a whole day, was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to be hanged in June. The General Assembly, however, on petition, granted a reprieve for three months. At Paul's execution, which took place at New Haven, Sept. 2, 1772, a sermon was preached "at the desire of said Paul," by Samson Occum, a well known Indian preacher and missionary ; the author, by the way, of the once popular hymn,
"Awaked by Sinai's awful sound."
A large assembly of whites and Indians had come together to witness the execution, and Occum taking for his text the words, " For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." delivered a quite elaborate and impressive discourse, in which there were some characteristic specimens of Indian eloquence. The sermon was subsequently published in several editions, and republished in England in connection with the treatise of the younger Jonathan Edwards upon the grammar of the Muhhekaneew (Mohegan) Indians. Mr. Occum in his preface says, it was " a stormy and very uncomfortable day when the discourse was delivered," and hopes that it may be serviceable to his poor kindred, the Indians, and that people may be induced to read it because it comes from an uncommon quarter.10
It is said that before the settlement of Torrington, a white man hunting on the hill which rises between the two branches of the Naugatuck River, just above Wolcottville, saw an Indian and shot him, and from this instance the hill was named Red Mountain. The reason the man gave for his deed, so closely similar to many committed on our western frontier, was, that he " knew if he did not shoot the Indian, the Indian would shoot him, so he shot first and killed him." But the white man's logic was at fault, unless he had good reason to believe that the Indian belonged to some remote and hostile tribe. Indians knew, as well as white men, who were friends and who were enemies, and there was no period subsequent to King Philip's war when any of the Indians of Connecticut would have been likely to shoot a white man at sight, or without the utmost provocation. The shooting of this Indian was, therefore, without excuse, and the name Red Mountain is a standing reproach to the white man's treatment of the Indian.
The consideration of King Philip's war, and the other Indian wars of the colonial period, in their relations to the Naugatuck valley, is worthy of a passing notice. Thus far we have been tracing the foot-steps of a departing friend; we may also trace the coming and going of a wily and cruel enemy. The first war in Connecticut was that waged against the Pequots, in the beginning of its history as a colony. The Pequots were of the Algonkin stock, but by some it is said did not belong to the same family as the other Connecticut tribes. " The Pequots and Mohegans were, apparently, of the same race with the Mohicans? Mohegans, Mohicanders, who lived on the banks of the Hudson." The Moravian missionaries, however, recognized all the Western Connecticut Indians as of the same stock as the Hudson River Indians. The Pequots were, therefore, without allies in that war, and were not only defeated, but practically extinguished. This was in 1636, and King Philip's war did not begin until forty years later. In the interval, which was a period of undisturbed peace, the settlement of Farmington took place, on the one side, and Milford on the other. The settlement of Derby, as we have seen, was begun as early as 1654, and in 1657 the deed was given in which Mattatuck is first mentioned the land around the hill where the black-lead was found. It was during this era of peace that the meadow lands of the Naugatuck were discovered. Preparations had been begun for the settlement of Waterbury, when the colony was startled by the cry of war. The first intimation of a misunderstanding between Philip, who was the chief of the Wampanoags in southeastern Massachusetts, and the colonists, was in April, 1671. From this time, if not before, this, Philip skillfully planned to unite all the New England tribes against the whites in a war of extermination. The want of friendship among the tribes rendered this a difficult undertaking, but he succeeded so far as to extend his operations from the St. Croix river to the Housatonic. An Indian league was formed, and the result was the most formidable war the colonists ever had to sustain. Hostilities actually commenced on the 24th of June, 1675, and were terminated by the defeat and death of Philip fourteen months afterward.
It is a fact worth mentioning in this connection, that the skull of Moses Cook was not buried with his body. It was probably prepared for examination and exhibited at the trial of Paul, and was afterward returned to the family. It was for many years in the posession of Mr. Cook's daughter, the wife of Titus Bronson, and mother of the late Dea. Leonard Bronson of Middlebury. This strange souvenir was kept by Mrs. Bronson in a little cloth bag (being in several pieces), and at her request buried with her in 1841. Her grandson, Edward L. Bronson, remembers having seen it repeatedly in his boyhood.
In this bloody conflict the colonists lost six hundred men. Thirteen towns were totally, and eleven partially, destroyed.
While the eastern part of Connecticut, being nearer the centre of the conflict, suffered more seriously than the western, yet the valley of the Naugatuck was by no means exempt from anxiety, danger and trouble. If there had been no other sources of hardship, the enactments passed by the General Court and the Council which have been correctly characterized as " equivalent to putting the whole colony under martial law,"must have come heavily upon such new settlements as Derby. At a meeting of the Council, held on the 1st of September, 1675, it was reported, " that the Indians were in a hostile manner prepared, with their arms, near Paugasuck;" and this, with other similar reports, led the Council to pass a stringent law in reference to carrying of arms by Indians:
The Council sees cause to order that whatsoever Indian or Indians with arms shall be espied traveling without an Englishman be with them, if they do not call to such English traveling as they may see, and also lay down their arms, with professing themselves friends, it shall be lawful for the said English to shoot at them and destroy them for their own safety ; which it is our duty to provide for thus in time of war.
Two days afterward it was ordered by the Council that in each plantation a sufficient watch should be kept "from the shutting in of the evening till the sun rise," and that one-fourth part of each town should be in arms every day by turns. " It is also ordered that during these present commotions with the Indians, such persons as have occasion to work in the fields shall work in companies ; if they be half a mile from the town, not less than six in company, with their arms and ammunition well fixed and fitted for service." In October, the General Court, in view of " great combinations and threatening of the Indians against the English," ordered that sixty soldiers should be raised in each county, "well fitted with horse, arms, and ammunition, as dragoons ;" that places of refuge should be fortified in every settlement, to be defended by such persons as the chief militia officer in each town should appoint to that work ; and in case of an assault by an enemy or an alarm, any one who should willfully neglect the duty to which he had been appointed should be punished with death, or such other punishment as a court-martial should adjudge him to. The " places of refuge " were fortifications constructed of timbers placed vertically in the ground so close togather that no one could pass between them. Such a wooden wall, with doors properly secured, afforded good protection against hostile Indians, and to a house thus defended the population could resort with safety at night, and return in the morning to their own houses. In the following March, it was further ordered by the Council "in regard to the present troubles that are upon us, and the heathen still continuing their hostilities against the English, and assaulting the plantations," that the watch in the several settlements, an hour at least before day, should call up the several inhabitants within their respective wards, who should forthwith rise and arm themselves and march to their several quarters, there to stand upon their guard to defend the town against any assault of the enemy until the sun be half an hour high. Mounted scouts, also, were to be sent out from every town to watch the enemy, " going so far into the woods as they may return the same day, to give an account of what they shall discover."
It was under such circumstances as these that the inhabitants of Derby and Woodbury sought the advice and aid of the General Court. In answer, the Court advised them to secure their grain and remove to more populous villages for protection. A number did remove, but a few evidently remained in Derby, with the Indians close at hand.
THE LAST FAMILIES IN DERBY.
HUSE was the last Sachem in Derby, and this his name gave rise to the name of the village known for more than fifty years as Chusetown, now Seymour, on the Naugatuck. Considerable has been written as to who this man was, and most writers have followed what is said of him by Mr. J. W. Barber in his " Historical Collections;" which is that he was a Pequot (or Mohegan); but Mr. DeForest1 says that while "various connections might be traced between the Narragansetts and the tribes of western Connecticut," "both united in holding the Pequots in abhorrence and seldom bore any other relations to them than those of enemies, or of unwilling subjects." Hence it would have been almost impossible for a Pequot to come among the Paugasuck or Potatuck Indians, after the English began to settle there, and become a chief.
The office of Sachem, Sagamore or chief was one of inheritance among the Indians, and the direct line of descendants from Ansantaway were numerous among both the Paugasucks and Potatucks, and they held the right of inheritance and were leaders in their tribes, that is before they became chiefs. The names of persons who are distinctly declared to be Sachems and Sagamores, are Ansantaway, Tow-Tanemow, Ockenuck, Atterosse, Ahuntaway, Nanawaug, Cockapatana, and Chushumack, besides several others, the position of whose names on the deeds indicate the office of Sachem. Chushumack succeeded Towtanemow as Sachem at Potatuck on the west side of the Housatonic, at Derby, for he signed a deed as such, in 1671. His son, one of several, signed the same deed, and also a grandson, which would indicate that Chushumack was about seventy years of age, and hence born long before the English came to the shores of Long Island. It is possible for Chushumack to have been a Pequot, but, if not, then Gideon Mauweehu and his son Joseph were not Pequots, for it is inferentially certain that they were introduced to these tribes no other way, if introduced at all from another tribe. Chushumack signed three deeds given to the Derby settlers, dated respectively 1670, 1671, and 1673, thus clearly showing his ownership with .the Paugasucks; and there are many more evidences of this close relation between these tribes.
Another fact must be remembered, that the Indians' land at the Falls (or Chusetown) was a reservation made by Okenuck, in 1678, when the land at that place was sold to the town. It was reserved in the following words : " Only the said Indians do reserve the fishing place at Naugatuck, and the hill next the river at the fishing place; further the Indians do grant to the inhabitants, all the grass and feed and timber on the plain against the Rock Rimmon, and do engage to sell it to thern if they sell it." This reservation comprised about thirty acres and belonged to the Paugasuck Indians, and how could Gideon Mauweehu give this land to his son Joseph unless he was inheritor of it through the Paugasuck tribe as well as the Pootatuck ; and especially so when there were probably more than a hundred men eager to claim it if he had not been the legitimate chief ? He did it only as a chief "relinquishes his claim to his son to be the chief of those who should reside on the land, or hold it as a possession. How did he possess any claim over this land, unless by ancestral right, running back to a time anterior to the date of the reservation? And, how did Gideon Mauweehu become Sachem of this land before 1730, as some have claimed, when the rightful Sachem, Cockapatana, was living, and his son with him, until 1731 ?
Mauweehu is said to have been the name of these chiefs. The name Gideon was given to the elder of the two when he was baptized at Scatacook, in 1742, by the Moravian missionary. The missionary, Christian Henry Rauch, records his name before baptism as "Mauweseman." The names Mawee and Maweehu are found on Indian deeds given at Setauket, Long Island, in 1655 to 1660. Joseph was the son of Gideon, and received his
English name probably at his birth, about 1710. Joseph is said to have been brought up or educated at the home of Agur Tomlinson of Derby, but the first man of that name, resident in the town and quite a spirited business man was first married in 1734, about fourteen years after Joseph's reported settlement at the Falls, wherefore, and also because of other facts, it is probable that he did not settle at the Falls until after 1735. The land did not, probably, fall into the hands of his father until after the death of Cockapatana in 1731, and therefore the settlement must be some years later. An item in the town records confirms this opinion. It was customary, when a man became an inhabitant of the town, to record the mark he was to put on the ears of his sheep, swine, and cattle, and therefore the following entry has force, for the reason that if Joseph was brought up among the English, which is most probable, he would not have remained many years settled at the Falls before being in possession of animals upon which he would need an ear-mark.
"Joseph Mauwee, his ear-mark is two-halfpennies of the foreside of the right ear, and a half tenant the underside the left ear. June 27, 1759."
It is said, however, that his youngest child, Eunice, was born in 1755, and that he had ten children, which might seem that his marriage took place before he could have lived with Agur Tomlinson. But Eunice had no records, only memory, she being at the time about seventy years of age. His wife's name was Ann, whom Mr. J. W. Barber says was " a woman of the East Haven tribe," but the " History of Seymour " says she was " of the Farmington Indians ;"and when we remember that the East Haven Indians were but few, at first, and were dispersed nearly one hundred years before Joseph married any one, the Farmington story seems the most probable.
The " striking statement" reported to have been made by Eunice Mauweehu, that she " had seen an old Indian who had seen King Philip," would require the age of the old Indian to have been about one hundred and twenty years. It was from this Eunice that Mr. J. W. Barber received most of his information about the Indians of Derby,3 and, making some allowances for the memory of an Indian woman seventy-two years of age, the source of information is nearly as reliable as any except actual records. When opinions, interpretations or legendary stories are in question, then the story is all there is of value. The story that Chuse's name resulted from the peculiar manner of his pronouncing the word choose is not credited by the author of this war work any more than those concerning several other things which were told to Mr. Barber, but which the town records of Derby prove to be erroneous.
2 His name was always written on the town records " Mauwee." 8 His. Col., p. 200.
The story that " Sentinel Hill" in Derby was so named from the fact of building sentinel fires on it during the Revolutionary war, when the same name of that hill is found on many deeds one hundred years before the Revolution, is like several other stories ; the story or legend has a foundation in reality, but the date makes the story entirely too young as is the case sometimes with people.
It is more probable that the name " Chuse " originated from the abbreviation of some Indian name, or in the English method of remembering some ancestor, as ". Chushumack," or " Cush," rather than some minor occurrence, especially when we find a growing tendency among the Indians, or rather among the English concerning Indian names, to perpetuate the name. Indian names were not hereditary in early times, but after a hundred years of mingling with the English, the paternal name was used in designating families, and hence we have Joseph Mauwehu, after his father Mauwehu; and as early as 1702, Will Toto, John Toto, Jack Toto.
Chuse settled at the " Falls," a place originally called by the Indians and English " Naugatuck," which name was afterwards applied to the river; the latter being called many years Paugasuck or Paugasset. In the Indian deed of this place it is said: " Only the said Indians do reserve the fishing place at Naugatuck," and in the report of a committee in Derby, dated in 1676, this name is used in the same manner: " Plum meadow and the adjacent land is by estimation about twenty acres, lying on the east side of the river that cometh from Nau tuck." Mr. John W. Barber was told4 that "the original nar of this place was Nau-ko-tunk, which signified in the Indi? language,
one large tree, so named from a large tree which formerly stood near Rock Rimmon, about three-fourths of a mile north of the falls." The name, so far as the town records show, never was Naukotunk, but was at first Naugatuck ; the difference being� unk means a standing tree ; tuck means a tidal or broad river,5 or winding river. The river at this place flows first in a direction a little east of south, then turns short to a southwesterly direction, then south, and at the falls turns almost directly east for about one hundred rods, then turns directly south. It is sufficient to say that this remarkable winding of the river, with the falls, would originate the name rather than a mythical tree, the reality of which is warranted by no records whatever. In the " History of Derby" another idea was maintained with but little research, the author believing that the name grew out of the peculiar characteristics at the place rather than from a tree three-quarters of a mile away, and is still decidedly of that opinion.
It may be said further in regard to the time that Chuse settled at this place, that in 1731, the town purchased " all that tract of land known by the name of the Indian hill in Derby, situate on the east side of the 'Naugatuck river, near the place called the Falls ; all that land that lieth eastward, northward, and southward, except the plain that lieth near the Falls up to the foot of the hill." The deed of this land was not given by Chuse, but by John Cookson, John Howd, and other Indians, which fact is proof that Chuse was not there, nor in possession of this land at that time.
Mr. J. W. Barber's account of Chuse and the Indians at the Falls is worthy of record in this place, and is as follows:
" For a long period after the settlement of this place, it was called Chusetown, so named from Chuse the last Sachem of the Derby Indians, who is said to have derived his name from his manner of pronouncing the word ' choose.' His proper name was Joe Mau-we-hu; he was the son of Gideon Mauwehu, a Pequot Indian, who was the king or sachem of the Scatacook tribe of Indians in Kent, lived in the vicinity of Derby, and wishing to have his son brought up among the white people, sent Joe to Agur Tomlinson of Derby, with whom he lived during his minority. Chuse preferring to live at Derby, his father gave him a tract of land at the Falls, called the Indian Field. Here he erected his wigwam about six or eight rods north of where the cotton factory now  stands, on the south side of the flat. It was beautifully situated among the white-oak trees, and faced the south. He married an Indian woman of the East Haven tribe. At the time Chuse removed here there were but one or two white families in the place, who had settled on Indian hill, the height of land east of the river and southeast of the cotton factory, in the vicinity of the Methodist and Congregational churches. These settlers wishing Chuse for a neighbor, persuaded him to remove to the place where the house of the late Mrs. Phebe Stiles now stands, a few rods north of the Congregational church. When Mr. Whitimore built on the spot, Chuse removed back to the Falls, where a considerable number of the Indians collected and built their wigwams in a row, a few rods east of the factory on the top of the bank extending to Indian hill. Near the river, in the Indian field, was a large Indian burying:ground ; each grave was covered with a small heap of stones. Mr. Stiles of this place purchased this field about fortysix years since of the Indian proprietors, and in plowing it over, destroyed these relics of antiquity. The land on the west side of the river from this place, where the Episcopal church stands, was formerly called Shrub Oak. Both the Indians and the whites went to meeting on foot to Derby. Those of the whites who died here were conveyed on horse-litters to be buried at Derby. These litters were made by having two long poles attached to two horses, one of which was placed before the other; the ends of the poles were fastened, one on each side of the forward horse, and the other ends were fastened to the horse behind. A space was left between the horses, and the poles at this place were fastened together by cross pieces, and on*these was placed whatever was to be carried.
" Chuse lived at this place forty-eight years, and then removed with most of the Derby Indians to Scatacook, in Kent, where he died, at the age of about eighty years. He was a large, athletic man, aftd a very spry and active hunter. He had ten children. Eunice, aged seventy-two years, the youngest daughter of Chuse, is still living  at Scatacook, and it is from her that most of the particulars respecting Chuse and the Indians are derived.
SUNK, AN INDIAN.
" Chuse and his family were in the habit of going down once a year to Milford ' to salt,' as it was termed. They usually went down in a boat from Derby Narrows ; when they arrived at Milford beach they set up a tent made of the sail of their boat, and stayed about a fortnight, living upon oysters and clams. They also collected a considerable quantity of clams, which they boiled, then dried them in the sun, and strung them in the same manner as we do apples which are to be dried. Clams cured in this way were formerly quite an article of traffic.
"The Indians in the interior used to bring down dried venison, which they exchanged with the Indians who lived on the the sea-coast for their dried clams. Chuse used to kill many a deer while watching the wheat fields ; also great numbers of wild turkeys and occasionally a bear. Some of the whites also were great hunters. The most famous were Gideon Washborn and Alexander Johnson. Rattlesnakes were formerly very numerous about Niumph, near Rock Rimmon, and occasionally have been known to crawl into the houses in the vicinity. About the time of the first settlement of Humphreysville, a white man by the name of Noah Durand, killed an Indian named John Sunk, by mistake. They were hunting deer on opposite sides of the river, Durand on the west side and the Indian on the east; it was in the dusk of the evening, in the warm season, at the time the deer went into the river to cool themselves. Durand perceiving something moving in the bushes on the east side and supposing it to be a deer, aimed his gun at the place and fired. Sunk, mortally wounded, immediately cried out, ' You have killed me.'s Durand sprang through the river to the assistance of the dying Indian, who begged for water. Durand took his shoe, filled it with water and gave it to Sunk, who, after drinking, immediately died. This took place perhaps twenty or thirty rods south of Humphreysville, just below where Henry Wooster lived. A kind of arbitration was afterward held upon this case by the white people and the Indians. One of the Indian witnesses remarked that he never knew of deer wearing red stockings before alluding to the common Indian dress. The Indians, however, appeared satisfied that their countryman was killed by mistake, and ever afterwdrds made Mr. Durand's house their stopping-place.
Anecdotes are preserved of Chuse, which show that he was somewhat addicted to the use of ardent liquors and considered rum or whisky essentially superior as a beverage to cold water. He used to come, when thirsty, to a fine spring bursting from a hollow rock at the foot of the hill, and there sit on the bank by the side of the spring and drink the sweet water as it gushed from the rock, and praise it and say that if there was only another spring, of rum, flowing by the side of it, he would ask for nothing more, but should be perfectly happy.
In 1760, he sold an acre and a half of land on the east side of the Falls, including the water privilege, to Thomas Perkins of Enfield, and Ebenezer Keeney, Joseph Hull, and John Wooster of Derby, who had formed a company for the purpose of putting up some iron works. After living at Humphreysville forty-eight years, Chuse removed to Scatacook, where, a few years afterward, he died at the age of eighty. His land was not disposed of until 1792, when it still amounted to thirty-three acres ; and only a part was sold at this time, the rest being sold in 1812."s
Chuse's wife's name was Anna, concerning whom the Rev. Daniel Humphreys made the following record : "September 12, 1779, then Ann Chuse was admitted to communion with the Church of Christ." The Rev. Martin Tuller of Derby, recorded her name in 1787, " Anna Mawheu," and at the same time he recorded Chuse's name, " Joseph Mawheu," as having been a member of the church to the time of his removal, but when he first joined is not known. It is probable, therefore, that he removed to Kent about the time of the date of his dismissal from the church at Derby, and if he resided at Chusetown forty-eight years, as stated, then he settled there in 1739.
In 1780, the town appointed Capt. Bradford Steele, and Mr. Gideon Johnson, a committee with full power " to take care of the Indian lands in Derby, and let out the same to the best advantage for the support of said Indians, and to take care that there be no waste made on said land, and to render an account of their doings to the town."
When Chuse removed, it is said, he took with him a large
portion of his people, but some were left, and for these the town and State took particular care many years. John Howd appears to have been the successor in office to Chuse, for a time, as indicated by the signing of deeds, and the following record: "Whereas the Assembly held on the 2d of May, 1810, authorized Joseph Riggs of Derby, to sell certain lands, the property of Philip, Moses, Hester, Frank, and Mary Seymour, Indians ; lands which descended to them from John Howd an Indian," therefore the lands were sold by Lewis Prindle and Betsey Prindle, agents in place of Joseph Riggs, in behalf of these Indians, and two years later some part of this land was sold to Col. David Humphreys, and another piece, at the same time, to Mrs. Phebe Stiles. This John Howd, Indian, should not be taken for the prominent white citizen of the same town some years before, by the same name, and after whom, most probably, this Indian was named.
On the day-book of the selectmen of Derby are found the following items :
" 1809. Abigail Short, credit, by keeping Frederick Fronk, one of the proprietors of the Indian land at Rock Rimmon Falls, and attending him in his illness, $6.50. By horse and carriage to move Frederick Fronk, one of the proprietors," etc., " $0.67."
"Sep. 4, 1809. Isaac Pease, credit, by making a coffin for Frederick Fronk, one of the proprietors, etc., $4.50."
" Abraham Harger, credit, by digging Frederick Frank's grave, $1.24."
" Daniel Todd, credit, by tending on Lydia French and Frederick Fronk's funeral, $1.00."
" 1808. Augustus Baden, credit, by keeping his mother, Hester, one of the proprietors of the Indian land at the Falls, $10.79."
The Mack Family.
The last remnants of the Indians at Chusetown, were the members of the Mack family who, in their last days, dwelt in the borders of Bethany, just out of the town of Derby. The selectmen of that town, fearing that these Indians would become paupers, purchased a small tract of land in Deerfield, within the limits of Derby, placed them upon it, and assisted them in building some huts, in which they dwelt while securing a living by hunting and making baskets. James and Eunice Mack lived by themselves near the turnpike that leads from Seymour to New Haven, and Jerry Mack and four other Indian men, two squaws and three children, dwelt over the hill south of James Mack's, about eighty rods. For a long time the place was called the Indian settlement.
In 1833, a squaw from Milford became the guest of James,� was taken ill, and at once removed back to Milford, where she died of small-pox. Soon after these, nine Indians became ill with the same disease and all died, but the three children being vaccinated by Doct. Kendall, and removed, were saved from the terrible scourge. The Indians were buried in the garden near their huts, by Samuel Bassett and others who had had the small-pox. Great fear prevailed as to the disease, and to secure the community the selectmen ordered the huts to be burned in the night, by which the pestilence was exterminated.
Of these Deerfield Indians, Mr. DeForest wrote in 1852: " One of the women, old Eunice, as she was commonly called, died a number of years since. Her two children, Jim and Ruby, I have often seen coming into my native village to sell parti-colored baskets, and buy provisions and rum. Ruby was short and thick, and her face was coarse and stupid. Jim's huge form was bloated with liquor, his voice was coarse and hollow, and his steps, even when he was not intoxicated, were unsteady from the evil effects of ardent spirits. At present I believe they are all in their graves."
This woman and her children were for some years the last representatives of the Indians at Turkey Hill, and the vicinity of Derby Landing. Her last dwelling stood on Two-Mile Brook, near the Housatonic, over a cellar place that is still to be seen. This house was built by Leman Stone, agent for the Indians in Derby, the workmen being Truman Gilbert, boss carpenter, and his apprentices, David Bradley and Agur Gilbert.9 The building was only twelve feet square. She had previously lived for some time with her daughter, a married woman, a little distance up the brook, near the highway. In this hut she lived some years, and was visited here by thoughtful neighboring women, to see that she should not be neglected in her last days, and here she died. She was a wanderer upon the earth for many years, but wherever she went she always received a cheerful welcome, and was never turned away with an empty basket, nor with unkind words. She was looked upon with sympathy as the last of a race who would never more return. She visited many families regularly each year, selling her fancy baskets, and bestowing upon every new baby a basket-rattle, in which she put six kernels of corn, but if the mother had more than six children, she made the number of kernels correspond to them.
In her old age, when she could no longer go her rounds, the Derby people at the Narrows visited her frequently; administering relief and comfort as they were able, and when parting with her one day, a neighboring woman said : " It is too bad, Molly, that you should die in such a hut as this." " O no," she replied, " I shall soon have a better home in heaven, where I shall meet the pale faces with the Great Spirit." Her funeral was decently attended, Leman Stone arranging the ceremonies, his workmen acting as pall-bearers. In the parish record of St. James's Church, in the hand-writing of the Rev. Stephen Jewett, appears the following:
" 1829, January 17, died Molly Hatchett, Indian, aged nearly one hundred, buried by Rev. W. Swift."
She was the wife of John Hatchett, who died at an early age, and is said to have been a descendant of old Chuse, who lived at Humphreysville. Molly had four children. She lived some years with her son Joseph, then with her daughter who was married, and finally alone in her hut, overlooking the beautiful Housatonic. Most of her descendants are said to have settled at Scatacook in Kent.
Molly Hatchett possessed a tall, erect, muscular personage, with piercing black eyes, and long black hair falling over her shoulders, and as such was a good illustration of the race she represented. She usually wore a white blanket shawl and a man's hat, and nearly always carried a hatchet, from which last fact, it has been stated, she derived her name. Being quick in intellectual qualities, she was seldom overreached in witticisms having but one particular failing, that of the love of " uncupe," as she called rum.
She often corrected the white man's pronunciation of Indian names. " You must call them as did the old ' Ingins,' Nau-gatuck, Hou-sa-to-#�c/�." When she received a gift her reply was, " Antmshemoke" thank you. " Now you must say tuputney, you are welcome." Her real name was Hatchett, a fact which is surprising, but she was often called "Magawiska"
Of her the following lines were written by Doct. J. Hardyer, a native of Derby, who removed to Stratford, where he died at the early age of twenty-nine years :
Deserted and drear Is the place
Where huts of
my fathers arose ;
Alone, and the last of my race,
I watch where
their ashes repose.
The calumet now is no more,
No longer the
hatchet is red,
The wampum our warriors once wore
along with the dead.
The day of our glory is gone,
The night of
our sorrow is here;
No more will our day-star arise,
No more our
. Once we listened to the war-song,
Once sailed on
the Naugatuck's wave;
The arm of the hunter was strong,
The soul of the
warrior was brave.
Now lonely and drear is the place
Where huts of
my kindred arose ;
Alone I and the last of my race,
I watch where their ashes repose.
Indian Burying-Places in Derby.
The first of these was doubtless just above the Narrows, which was commenced before the English settled at Derby, and where more skeletons have been disturbed than at any other place. A few years since, while Mr. Lewis Hotchkiss was putting up some buildings near the Hallock mills, at the Derby Station, a large quantity of bones was discovered, and the probabilities are that the Indians continued to bury here until Revolutionary times, or about one hundred years after the first settlement of the whites.
The burying-place at Turkey Hill was commenced, probably when they ceased to bury at the old place above the Narrows, and there were but few buried here.
Another place was used after the beginning of the English settlement, at the New Fort, on the east side of the Housatonic, a little above the present dam.
At Chusetown there were two places, one on each side of the river, and the numerous graves at this place indicate a longer occupancy of the place by the Indians, or a larger number in the tribe while settled here, than has usually been supposed to be the facts.
Another burying-place is still to be noticed on Horse Hill, directly east of Ansonia the place called in the very early records, " White Mare Hill."
As the Farmington Indians have been included in this survey of the ancient tribes, the monument erected at that place in 1840 may be referred to. On the bank of the river, looking out upon Farmington Valley and Indian Neck, stands a block of coarse sandstone, bearing the following inscription, which is becoming rapidly obliterated:
In memory of the Indian race, especially of the Tunxis tribe, the ancient tenants of these grounds.
The many human skeletons here discovered confirm the tradition that this spot was formerly an Indian burial-place. Tradition further declares it to be the ground on which a sanguinary battle was fought between the Tunxis and the Stockbridge tribes. Some of their scattered remains have been reinterred beneath this stone.
The reverse side of the monument bears the following lines :
Chieftains of a
In your ancient burial-place,
By your fathers' ashes blest,
Now in peace securely rest.
Since on life you looked your last,
Changes o'er your land have passed;
Strangers came with iron sway,
And your tribes have passed away.
But your fate shall cherished be
In the stranger's memory ;
Virtue long her watch shall keep,
Where the Red man's ashes sleep.
Some few marks or foot-prints of the Red man still remain in Derby. Close by the New Haven and Derby Railroad, a little below the Narrows, is an Indian corn-mill, or mortar, sunk in the bed rock, a little south of the ravine called the " Devil's Jump," and near this place are said to be two other mortars, likewise made in the bed rock. Here for many years the Indians ground their corn for daily bread.
Lover's Leap is a little way up the river from these mortars, consisting of a high rock, almost overhanging the river.
Several Indian axes are preserved in the community, two of which have been seen one being made of blue stone, and is the size of an ordinary English axe, or a little larger.
THE INDIAN AS AN ENEMY.
WE have been tracing, thus far, the footsteps of a departing friend ; we have also to trace the coming and going tracks of a wily and cruel enemy.
The first war in Connecticut was that waged against the Pequots, in the very beginning of its history as a colony. The Pequots were of the Algonkin stock, but did not belong to the same family as the other Connecticut tribes. "The Pequots and Mohegans were, apparently, of the same race with the Mohicans, Mohegansor Mohicanders, who lived on the banks of the Hudson.' They were therefore without allies in the war, and were not only defeated, but practically extinguished by it. This was in 1636, and King Philip's war did not begin until forty years later. In the interval, which was a period of undisturbed peace, the settlement of Farmington took place on the one side, and of Milford and Stratford on the other. The settlement of Derby, as we have seen, was begun as early as 1654, and in 1657 the deed was given in which Mattatuck is mentioned the land around the hill where the black lead was found.
It was during this era of peace that the meadow lands of Naugatuck were discovered. Preparations had been begun for the settlement of Waterbury, when the colony was startled by the cry of war. The first intimation of a misunderstanding between Philip, who was the chief of the Wampanoags in southeastern Massachusetts, and the colonists, was in April, 1671. From this time, if not before this, Philip skillfully planned to unite all the New England tribes against the whites in a war of extermination. The want of friendship among the tribes rendered this a difficult undertaking, but he succeeded so far as to extend his operations from the St. Croix river to the Housatonic. An Indian league was formed, and the result was the most formidable war the colonists had ever sustained. Hostilities actually commenced on the 24th of June, 1675, and were terminated by the defeat and death of Philip fourteen months afterward.
In this bloody conflict the colonists lost six hundred men, while thirteen towns were totally, and eleven partially, destroyed. The eastern part of Connecticut, being nearer the centre of the conflict, suffered more seriously than the western ; but the valley of Naugatuck was by no means exempt from anxiety, danger, and trouble. If there had been no other sources of hardship, the enactments passed by the General Court and Council�which have been correctly characterized as " equivalent to the putting of the whole colony under martial law" must have come heavily upon such new settlements as Derby. At a meeting of the Council, held on the 1st of September, 1675, it was reported "that the Indians were in a hostile manner prepared with their arms near Paugasuck;" and this, with other similar reports (which seem now to have been almost wholly without foundation), led the Council to pass a stringent law in reference to the carrying of arms by Indians:
" The Council sees cause to order that whatsoever Indian or Indians with arms shall be espied traveling in any of the precincts of our township without an Englishman be with him, if they do not call to such English traveling as they may see, and also lay down their arms, with professing themselves friends, it shall be lawful for the said English to shoot at them and destroy them for their own safety ; which it is our duty to provide for thus in time of war."
This was a provision wholly on the side of the white man and at the peril of the Indian, as nearly all laws on the subject have been. Two days afterward it was ordered by the Council that in each plantation a sufficient watch should be kept " from the shutting in of the evening till the sun rise," and that onefourth part of each town should be in arms every day by turns. " It is also ordered that during these present commotions with the Indians, such persons as have occasion to work in the fields shall work in companies, if they be half a mile from the town, not less than six in company, with their arms and ammunition WAR TROUBLES. 75
well fixed and fitted for service." In October the General Court, in view of "great combinations and threatenings of the Indians against the English," ordered that sixty soldiers should be raised in each county, " well fitted with horse, arms, and ammunition, as dragoons ;" that places of refuge should be fortified in every settlement, to be defended by such persons as the chief military officer in each town should appoint to that work ; and in case of an assault by an enemy, or an alarm, any one who should willingly neglect the duty to which he had been appointed should be punished with death, or such other punishment as a courtmartial should adjudge to him. The "places of refuge" were fortifications constructed of timbers placed vertically in the ground, so close together that no one could pass between. Such a wooden wall, with doors properly secured, afforded good protection against hostile Indians ; and to a house thus defended the population could resort with safety at night, and return in the morning to their own houses. In the following March it was further ordered by the Council, "in regard of the present troubles that are upon us, and the heathen still continuing their hostilities against the English, and assaulting the plantations," that the watch in the several settlements, an hour at least before day, should call up the several inhabitants within their respective wards, who should forthwith rise and arm themselves and march to their several quarters, there to stand upon their guard to defend the town against any assault of the enemy, until the sun be half an hour high. Mounted scouts, also, were to be sent out from every town to watch for the enemy, " going so far into the woods as they may return the same day, to give an account of what they shall discover."
At the same time it was ordered that " whosoever shall shoot off a gun without command from some military commander, until further order be given by authority, he shall forfeit for every such transgression the sum of five shillings."
It was under such circumstances that Derby asked advice of the Court what they should do to secure themselves from harm, and received this answer :
"October 14, 1675. The Court return that they judge it the best and safest way to remove their best goods and their corn, what they can of it, with their wives and children, to some bigger town, who, in a way of Providence, may be in a better capacity to defend it, and those that stay in the town do well fortify themselves and stand upon their guard, and hasten their removal of their corn, as aforesaid, what they may ; and all inhabitants belonging to the place may be compelled by warrant from any Assistant to reside there until this be done. The like advice is by this Court given to all small places and farms throughout this colony, to be observed."
It will be seen by this that all were to remain until the corn was mostly gathered, which would be about a month, but it soon became apparent that the Mohegan and Pequot Indians, and the Indians west of the Connecticut river, were not in the league against the English, and could be trusted as friends and allies in defending the colonies. And the first fright of the people on the Housatonic having passed away, and the fact that the Indians of Milford had appealed to the court for protection, gave strong assurances that the western planters were comparatively safe. For the Indians had complained to the Council about this time of severe treatment from the English, and the Council wisely and properly ordered that special care should be observed not to give the Indians reason for unkind feelings.
In the autumn of 1675, the Rev. Mr. Bowers of Derby, and the Rev. Mr. Walker of Woodbury, with several families from each plantation, removed to Milford, and remained about one year, for in October, 1676, in a letter addressed to the General Court, they say: " We make bold before our return, to request this honored Court to resolve us in one important inquiry, namely : In case the war with the Indians should be again renewed, what may we expect and trust to, from the authority of this colony, in order to our protection?" It is quite certain also, that all the families did not remove from these localities, but, probably, fortified some place for a resort if occasion should require, and were not harmed, but the rather protected by the neighboring Indians. We learn from President Stiles' " History of the Judges," that the house of Edward Riggs of Derby was fortified in the years of the early settlement, and if so, was probably again made as a fort for the protection of the people during this war of 1675.
King Philip's war and its influence upon the fortunes of WaSETTLEMENT OF WATERBURY. 77
terbury, we should naturally suppose, must have been slight, for the simple reason that Waterbury was not yet settled, but it is probably owing to that war that Waterbury is where it is; and it would not be unreasonable to connect the course of its later history as. a manufacturing centre, and therefore its modern prosperity, with the same event. As we have seen, the first purchase of land around Waterbury centre was made in August, 1674. It was during the same season that a site was selected for the contemplated village, and there seems to have been no thought at first of any other site than the elevated plateau on the west side of the river, overlooking the meadows and the amphitheater amidst the hills where the city is now situated. The land on the east side was low and swampy, and full of springs ; that on the west side was elevated and airy; and accordingly in this latter situation (known ever since as the Town Plot) roads were laid out, the one which ran north and south being sixteen rods wide. The "home lots," measuring eight acres each, were ranged along this road or street, sixteen on each side. This was accomplished in the autumn of 1674, and apparently nothing more than this was accomplished that year. So far as can now be seen the settlers would have returned in the following year to resume their work and erect dwellings on the Town Plot, had it not been that in June, 1675, the war with King Philip began, placing the whole country into great excitement and confusion ; when not only was all thought of establishing new settlements abandoned, but some of those already commenced were broken up. There was no assured peace until the latter part of 1676, and meanwhile the Waterbury proprietors (unless indeed some of them went forth to the war) remained in their Farmington homes. In the spring of 1677, tranquillity being restored throughout the colony, they began again to make plans for a new settlement; but in the meantime they had learned to think of the dangers which surrounded them. For several reasons they had become dissatisfied with the site they had chosen on the west side ; but the chief reason, the imperative argument against it, was the increased exposure it involved to attacks from hostile savages. At the best, Farmington was twenty miles away�the only place to which they could look for succor or refuge in case of attack�and they did not deem it best to place between them and their friends, in addition to this broad expanse of wilderness, a fickle and sometimes destructive river. A meeting of proprietors was accordingly called in Farmington, and a committee appointed " to view and consider whether it will not be more for the benefit of the proprietors in general to set the town on the east side of the river, contenting themselves with less home lots." On the east side of the river it was set, and the committee of the General Court, in October following, ordered that the inhabitants of the new plantation " should settle near together, for the benefit of Christian duties and defence against enemies." It thus appears that the present position of the city of Waterbury, the industrial and vital centre of the Naugatuck valley, is itself a memorial of the Red man; a reminder of the perils of war, and the cruelty of the Indian as an enemy.
It was natural that the colonists, knowing the character of the Indian and his modes of warfare, should live in a state of chronic anxiety. But from this time forward the people of Connecticut had no trouble with the Connecticut Indians. The league with King Philip was an episode in the history of these tribes ; their normal relation to white men was one of friendship, and, in real fact, of large dependence. They were the more anxious to be on terms of friendship with the settlers, especially in the western part of the colony, because they could then look to them as their allies and defenders when exposed to attacks from their relentless foes, the Mohawks. As already pointed out, the Indians of Connecticut, the Pequots included, belonged to the great Algonkin family of the Red race. The Mohawks belonged to an entirely different stock : they were one of the " nations " of the great confederacy which occupied the territory now comprising the State of New York west of the Hudson, and a part of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and represented the Iroquois family of the Red man. So totally distinct were these two families or stocks, that between the one group of languages and the other the Algonquin languages and the Iroquois no verbal resemblances can be traced. There are, of course, resemblances in grammatical structure, for all the Indian languages seem to be formed upon the one plan of thought, but the vocabularies are totally different. As indicated by the stage of development they had reached, the Iroquois were the foremost people in aboriginal America north of Mexico, and the Mohawks were the first of the Iroquois. At the time of the Discovery they were waging wars of conquest, if not of extermination, upon their neighbors on every side, and the tribes of Connecticut, west of Connecticut river, were tributary to them ; paying an annual tax, and groaning under the capricious cruelties meted to them. The coming of the white man to the Connecticut shores was therefore a welcome relief to these feeble tribes, and it was, of course, desirable in their eyes to have the white man for a friend.
The Connecticut colonists had nothing to fear from the Connecticut tribes on the one hand, nor from the Mohawks on the other, because the confederacy of the Five Nations was on terms of friendship with the English, and after 1684 had a treaty with them ; but trouble came frequently from another quarter. The Indians of Canada hostile alike to the Mohawks and the New England tribes�were the constant allies and subjects of the French government and employed by it in war. Whenever, therefore, war raged between France and England, the French let loose their Indian allies upon the New England settlements, and terror reigned among the colonists. The condition of the settlements under such circumstances may be partially conceived when we are reminded that from 1689, the year when William and Mary ascended the throne of England, to 1713, when peace was proclaimed at Utrecht, with the exception of three or four years, France and England were continually at war, and the colonies continually involved in hostilities. The French aimed to expel the English from the northern and middle provinces, if not from the continent; and the English, on their part, made repeated attempts to dislodge the French from Canada; a result which they finally effected at a later period. As the French availed themselves of the services of their Indian allies', they kept the frontiers in a state of continual alarm. The savages from Canada often penetrated into the heart of the colonies, spreading terror and desolation in every quarter. They destroyed crops, drove off cattle, burned dwellings, and murdered the inhabitants or carried them away into captivity.
During this later war period the town of Derby, in the lower part of the valley, could hardly be considered a frontier settlement, but Waterbury was decidedly so, at least until the settlement of Litchfield in 1620, and shared in all the alarms, dangers, disasters, and burdens of the times. Through a large part of the period now under consideration, Waterbury, in common with the other frontier towns (Simsbury, Woodbury, and Danbury), was required to keep two men employed as scouts. The business of these men was to keep a good lookout to discover the designs of the enemy, and to give intelligence should they make their appearance. The citizens performed this duty in rotation, taking their stand on elevated places overlooking the village and meadows where men were at work. In 1690 the danger of invasion and attack was considered so imminent that the General Court established a military watch throughout the colony, upon which " all male persons whatsoever (except negroes and Indians), upwards of sixteen years of age," were compelled to do duty. Widows and aged or disabled persons, whose estates were valued at fifty pounds, were to serve by proxy, and those absent at sea or elsewhere were to provide substitutes. At the same time (April, 1690) it was ordered "that the fortifications in each town appointed to be made forthwith, be finished according to the appointment of the authority and commission officers and selectmen in each town." Several years afterward, in March, 1704, another order was issued in regard to fortifications : " The inhabitants of every town in this colony shall be called together with as convenient speed as may be, to consider what houses shall be fortified." But already the town of Waterbury had moved in this direction ; for, on the Qth of April, 1700, they had voted to fortify the house of Ens. Timothy Stanley, " and if it should prove troublesome times, and the town see they have need, two more, should they be able." It was voted also to " go about it forthwithall men and boys and teams that are able to work, and to begin to-morrow." Four years later�not long after the order of the General Court concerning fortifications was issued they voted to build another fort, and selected for this purpose the house of their pastor, the Rev. John Southmayd. In the meantime they had provided other means of defense. On the I5th of April, 1703, the town instructed the selectmen "to provide a town stock of ammunition according to law"a law which required that each town should keep " a barrel of good powder, two hundred weight of bullets, and three hundred flints, for
every sixty listed soldiers, and after that proportion." The stock was duly purchased, and Timothy Stanley, who was by this time Lieutenant and commander of the "trainband," was made keeper of ammunition for the town. The order of the General Court in respect to fortifications was followed up, at the regular session in May, by other enactments affecting the town of Waterbury. Eight towns, one of which was Waterbury, were designated as frontier towns, " and it was ordered that these should not be broken up or voluntarily deserted without permission from the General Court." It was as follows :
" That ten men shall be put in garrison in each of these towns, Danbury, Woodbury, Waterbury, and Simsbury; and that the rest of the men to be raised out of the counties of New Haven and Fairfield, with such Indians as can be procured .... shall have their chief head-quarters at Westfield ; . . . . and said company of English and Indians shall, from time to time, at the discretion of their commander, range the woods to endeavor the discovery of any approaching enemy, and in especial manner from Westfield to Ousatunnuck" [that is, Stockbridge].
As already stated, the whole period now under view was a time of anxiety and alarms. But early in 1707, the colony was aroused to special diligence in preparations for defence, by the intelligence "that the French and enemy Indians were preparing to make a descent upon the frontier towns of New England." There was also reason to suppose that the " Pootatuck and Weantanuck Indians (the Woodbury and New Milford tribes) had been invited to join the enemy, and that measures must be taken to secure their fidelity and to preserve the small frontier towns."2 It was further "resolved, that the inhabitants of Waterbury fortify their houses sufficiently for their safety;" and in view of their great losses which the town' had recently sustained through extraordinary floods, it was agreed to recommend to the General Assembly an abatement of the Colony taxes of the town. At the same session it was resolved still further, " that the inhabitants of Woodbury, Waterbury, and Danbury do every one of them maintain a good scout, out every day, from their respective towns, of two faithful and trusty men, to observe the motions of the enemy." These resolutions were passed in council, in February, 1707. In the same month the town of Waterbury responded, by voting " to build the fort that is at Lieut. Stanley's strong" and " build a new fort at the east end of the town." These defences were left for a time incomplete ; but in June, aroused perhaps by some new alarm, it was voted, " considering our troubles and fear of an enemy, to lay aside cutting bushes" (according to a law then in force for the purpose of making pasture in the sparsely-timbered portions of the vicinity), "and this day forthwith to go about finishing and repairing the forts, and to finish them by Wednesday next at night." That they were duly finished and the defences of the settlement made satisfactory to the General Assembly, appears from the fact that at the October session the Assembly "allowed to the town of Waterbury fifteen pounds out of the country rate," in view of the expense they had incurred in fortifying. A year afterwards, in an act " for the encouragement of military skill and good dicipline," it was ordered by the Assembly that the committee of war in Hartford county should establish garrisons in several towns, one of which was Waterbury, at the charge of the colony or of the respective towns as the committee should order. Two garrisoned forts were established at Waterbury at the expense of the colony, and a third at the expense of the town. One of these forts was at the west end of the town, around Mr. Southmayd's house, one at Lieut. Stanley's, and the third at the house of John Hopkins, the grandfather of the Rev.Samuel Hopkins, D. D., the famous theologian. This house, in which Dr. Hopkins was born in 1721, stood a short distance east from the centre of the city, on the corner of East Main and Brook streets. The forts, it will be seen, were situated so as to accommodate the scattered population.
* The reports to this effect were probably made by designing persons to involve the Indians in difficulty. It is quite evident now that these Indians had not the slightest inclination to unite against the whites in a war. It was but a few months after this that John Noble, then the only white settler in New Milford (i. e., in the autumn of 1707), left his daughter with the Indians at Weantanuck several weeks or months, while he was absent, and on his return found her safe and the Indians true friends.
All these defences were prepared with reference to attacks coming from the hostile savages of the north, the allies of the French. The Connecticut Indians were habitually employed by the colonial government as reliable soldiers. An act was passed >>y the General Court in May, 1704, in the following terms:
ORDERS OF THE COURT. 83
" It is ordered by this Court that as many of our friend Indians as are fit for war, and can be prevailed with and furnished with all things suitable, shall go with our forces against the common enemy; and Major Ebenezer Johnson [who has already been mentioned as the owner of Indian slaves] is hereby empowered and ordered to employ suitable persons to acquaint the Indians in the counties of New Haven and Fairfield of this conclusion concerning them, and to furnish'such of said Indians as shall offer themselves for the service as aforesaid with arms and ammunition and what else may be needful to fit them out for war, and cause them forthwith to repair to Derby, to march with our English forces under the command of the chief officer for
the said service And this Court allows the [same] wages
to such Indian volunteers as those have that have gone to the
eastward And for the encouragement of our forces gone
or going against the enemy, this Court will allow out of the public treasury the sum of five pounds for every man's scalp of the enemy [Canada Indians and the French] killed in this colony, to be paid to the person that doth that service, over and above his or their wages and the plunder taken by them."
This last-mentioned provision shows that the General Court not only recognized the Indian taste for scalping, but encouraged it very directly, and when, in 1710, an Indian scout was established, the same encouragement was held out. The scouting company was promised, for each Indian scalp of the enemy brought to the committee of war, the sum of ten pounds, to be divided equally among them. In 1724, the award was fifty pounds for every scalp. Another order, passed at the October session of the General Court, in 1704, shows that the colonial authorities were familiar with the difficulties of the Indian warfare and considered it necessary that the settlers should adopt the Indian's method,not, indeed, as regards scalping only, but to the extent of wearing moccasins and snow-shoes. It was ordered:
" That every town and plantation in this colony shall be provided with a number of snow-shoes and Indian shoes, no less than one pair of snow-shoes with two pair of Indian shoes for every thousand pounds in the list of the estate of such town, which snow-shoes and Indian shoes shall be provided at or before the tenth day of November next, by the selectmen in every town, at the charge of the Colony, and shall be kept by them in good repair and fit for service when there may be occasion to make use of them."
Another method of terror which might be designated the " blood-hound system," was adopted in the October Session of 1708, in which it was enacted that there should be " allowed and paid out of the public treasury of this Colony the sum of fifty pounds, in pay for the bringing up and maintaining of dogs in the northern frontier towns in this Colony, to hunt after the Indian enemy." It was also ordered, that no person whatsoever should furnish lead, or sell, even to friendly Indians, any gun for any time, longer or shorter; and that those who had lent guns to friendly Indians, should recover them as soon as possible.
From all this it is evident that the towns and the general government understood the situation of affairs, and were determined to be thoroughly prepared for emergencies. If the defense of the frontiers had been neglected disasters might have come which would have overwhelmed the settlements, as was the case in sections further north, in after years. As it was, the one frontier town of the Naugatuck valley suffered but little, and none others in the Colony except Litchfield, some years later. The only Indian raids upon Waterbury were in 1710, when a party of savages came through Simsbury into what is now the southern part of Thomaston, and killed a man named Holt, probably a hunter from another town. The place where the deed was committed is named Mount Holt, a spur of Mount Tobe. Another party from Canada, having made their way into the upper part of the town, ascended a hill on the west side of the Naugatuck, opposite Mount Taylor, to reconnoiter. To the south, in Hancock's Meadow, they saw Jonathan Scott, one of the Waterbury settlers, and his two sons, one of them fourteen years of age, the other eleven. Scott was seated under a large oak tree, eating his dinner ; the boys were a little distance from him. The Indians approached stealthily, taking such a course that the tree hid them from his view ; reached him without being discovered, and made him prisoner. The boys took to their heels and would have escaped, but their father was given to understand that it would cost him his life if he refused to recall them, therefore he reluctantly called them back. To prevent him from offering resistance, they cut off his right thumb, and the three were taken to Canada, where they remained until after the proclamation of peace in 1713, when Scott and his eldest son, Jonathan, returned to Waterbury, but the younger son, John, having become accustomed to savage life, preferred to remain among the Indians, and never came home.
It is an interesting fact that the wife of Jonathan Scott, whose name was Hannah Hawks, was the daughter of John Hawks of Deerfield, and that her mother was killed in the Indian attack upon that town, on the 29th of February, 1704. Her only sister was taken prisoner and was put to death on her way to Canada, and her only brother, his wife' and his three children were also killed. Mrs. Scott was the sole surviving child, and her father spent his last days with her in Waterbury. After his return from captivity, Scott continued to reside in Waterbury until about 1720, when he removed to Wooster Swamp, in the northern part of Watertown, near Scott's Mountain, where he built a saw-mill, and lived with his sons. There is a tradition that he died in violence, at the hands of the Indians, while on his way to the north, but it seems to have no foundation in fact. The other tradition is more probable�that he was buried on Scott's Mountain, where his supposed grave is pointed out.'
The capture of Scott and his sons very naturally produced great excitement in Waterbury and the whole region of country. The settlement was very weak, for in 1713 it numbered only thirty-five families, and not more than two hundred souls ; and the greatness of the impending danger could not be known, neither could disaster be completely guarded against by the utmost vigilance. The news of the calamity fled as on wings that afternoon, and the scattered families from every direction fled for Waterbury as the only hope of life or safety. Just at dusk a citizen living on Buck's Hill, about four miles from Waterbury, reached his home, having been in the region of Waterville, not far from the place where the Scotts were taken, and in the greatest confusion he gathered his family of several children, put his wife and some of them on his horse, and taking others in his arms, hasted with them to Waterbury, leaving everything at home, to be found in all probability, as he supposed, if he should ever return to it, in ashes and ruins. Nearly one hundred and seventy years have passed since that day of great excitement, and yet, at the narration or mention of the sad day, the countenances of some of the elderly people of that part of the country, will light up with great excitement at the remembrance of the story which has been so often repeated when they were young, by the older inhabitants of that community.
In July following the capture of Scott, the town appointed a committee, consisting of the Rev. John Southmayd and three others, " to draw up in writing the circumstances of the town in this time of war," and to present the memorial to the General Court in New Haven, in August. That body, in response, made special provision for the protection of the town, by appointing " a committee of war, with full power upon the application of the inhabitants of the said town of Waterbury, and in case of danger on the approach of the enemy, to raise and send men thither from the county of New Haven for their relief, by scouting or lying in garrison there, as occasion may require."
There was no further trouble, however, and the proclamation of peace in 1713 brought relief from apprehension, but the upper part of the valley was visited with similar calamities some years later. Before war broke out again, a settlement had been effected at Litchfield, and when Indian raids from the north were renewed, Litchfield was the frontier town and exposed to the same perils which Derby and Waterbury had previously experiehced. Between 1720 and 1750, five houses indifferent parts of that town were surrounded with fortifications, that is, with palisades similar to those already described. Soldiers were stationed in the town to guard the inhabitants while in the fields, and also while at public worship on the Sabbath. For a number of years seats were particularly appropriated for " the guards" in the old meeting-house in Derby. Notwithstanding these precautions, attacks were made by northern savages, and settlers were taken captive. In May, 1721, Capt. Jacob Griswold, while at work alone in a field about a mile to the west of the present Court-House, was suddenly seized by two Indians who had rushed upon him from the woods, who pinioned his arms, carried him away, traveling in a northerly direction, and reached by night a spot within the limits of what is now the town of Carlaan. They kindled a fire, and having bound Capt. Griswold hand and foot, lay down to sleep. In the night Griswold succeeded in disengaging his hands and feet, and although his arms were still pinioned, he seized their guns and escaped. After traveling a short distance through the dark woods, he sat down and waited for the dawn, when he resumed his journey, still carrying the two guns. When the savages found in the morning their captive gone, they pursued and soon overtook him. During the greater part of the day they kept in sight of him, but when they came too near he pointed one of the guns at them, and this kept them at bay. In this manner he traveled until near sunset, when, on reaching a high place in an open field about a mile north of where he was captured, he discharged one of the guns, which immediately summoned his townsmen to his assistance. The Indians fled and Griswold was restored in safety to his family.
After this occurrence the settlers were more cautious ; but their watchfulness did not last long, for in the following August a more serious misfortune came upon them. The victim this time was Joseph Harris, who was at work alone in the woods, not far from the spot where Griswold was captured, when he was attacked by a party of Indians. Attempting to escape, the Indians pursued him, and finding that he was likely to outstrip them they shot him dead and scalped him. As Harris did not return home at the usual time, the inhabitants became alarmed about him. They searched for him as long as they could see, and again in the morning, when his body was found near the north end of the plain, where the road turns towards Milton. From that time forward the plain was called Harris' Plain. He was buried in the west burying-ground, near the church ; his grave remaining unmarked for more than a century, when, in 1830, a suitable monument was erected over his dust, which bears the following inscription, in which it will be observed there is no reference to his attempt to escape :
"In memory of Joseph Harris, who was murdered by the Indians in the year 1721. While ploughing in the field, about three fourths of a mile northwest of the graveyard, he was shot by the Indians concealed in ambush. He was found dead, sitting on the ground, his head and body reclining against the trunk of a tree. To record the first death among the original settlers, and to perpetuate the memory of a worthy but unfortunate citizen, this monument is erected, 1830, by the voluntary benefactions of individual subscribers."
The war between the French and English was not ended until some time after this, and the attacks of the northern Indians upon the frontier settlements was still continued. In August, 1723, tidings were brought to the Governor and Council of an attack upon Rutland and the massacre of several persons by the hostile Indians. They were also advised that about three hundred French and Indians were come over Lake Champlain toward Connecticut, probably with evil designs. It was therefore " resolved that Simsbury and Litchfield are frontier towns of this Colony, westward of Connecticut river, which are most exposed to danger by these parties of Indians ;" and in view of the impending dangers, it was decided that the commissioned officers of these towns should immediately call together the householders in the respective towns, agree on suitable places for garrisons, and encourage the inhabitants to establish such fortifications with speed ; also, that the Sachems of the several bodies of Indians in the colony should " forthwith call in all their Indians that were out a hunting in the woods, and that they do not presume to go out again in the woods to hunt north of the road that goes from Farmington through Waterbury and Woodbury to New Milford," without leave from the Council; also, that two scouting parties, consisting each of three. English and six Indians, should range the woods above Simsbury, westward to Stockbridge, to be so ordered that they should meet each other about midway between the two places ; and finally, that a military watch should be kept in the towns of Simsbury, Waterbury, Woodbury, Litchfield, and New Milford. In May following, the rule in relation to Indians hunting was enacted as a law by the General Court; and in July, in view of the danger of giving false alarms, the same rule was extended by the Council to English and Indians alike. The spring and summer of 1724 was a period of special alarm and excitement. In that year, the Assembly gave Waterbury authority to employ six men "to guard the men in their outfields, at the discretion of the commission off1cers of said town." The authority thus given was exercised about a month. In Litchfield a small party of Indians was discovered lurking about the town on the night of the
of May. Word being sent immediately to the Council at Hartford, it was ordered that a company of thirty-two men be immediately raised in Hartford, Wethersfield, and Farmington, and marched to the threatened town without delay, to serve as a scouting party. On the 21st of June, it was ordered that ten men be impressed, armed and equipped, and sent to Litchfield for the defence of that town against the enemy. As some of the proprietors of home-lots in Litchfield tried to escape from serving on the military watch, Capt. John Marsh was instructed to see that the law was duly executed upon all such persons. A line of scouts was established, extending from Litchfield to Turkey Hills, curving around the most northerly and westerly settlements in Simsbury. Capt. Richard Case, of the latter town, was directed to employ ten men on his scouting party, to rendezvous at Litchfield. These men continued in the service until October. So serious were the apprehensions of attack, and so threatening the danger, that some of the more timid of the Litchfield settlers deserted their new homes and sought a refuge elsewhere, and as the inhabitants felt themselves greatly crippled by these desertions, they petitioned the Assembly for aid, and it was ordered (Oct. u, 1724) that whoever had left the town because of difficulties which had arisen there on account of the enemy, and should fail within a month of the close of that session of the Assembly to return to the town to abide there, or else to send some man in his stead to perform military duties, should forfeit all his right and estate in the lands of the town. At the same session of the Assembly, it was ordered that the garrison soldiers at Litchfield be withdrawn and disbanded. But, in the following April, tidings were brought " from Philip Schuyler 'of Albany, that the enemies were all come over the Lake," and thereupon the soldiers in the several frontier towns, including Litchfield and Waterbury, were ordered to " be in perpetual readiness to defend themselves and offend the enemy;" and a constables' watch was set up in the towns. A company of twenty-one men was also raised and sent to Litchfield, " to be improved in scouting, watching, and warding for the safety of said town." In May, 1725, the Assembly, "taking into consideration the difficulties of the town of Litchfield in this time of trouble with the Indians," ordered that non-resident proprietors should pay and forfeit toward defraying the cost of defending the town the sum of thirty pounds each per annum, and pro rata for any time they should be absent without permission ; " provided, however, that the right of Joseph Harris is saved from any forfeiture by force of this act."
The stringency of these enactments shows that the General Court not only appreciated the great importance of defending the frontier rather than abandoning it, but anticipated a prolonged and severe conflict. There is little trace, however, of further troubles until many years afterward. A quarter of a century passed away before another French and Indian war broke out, and that was the last of the series. In 1752, the old allied enemies of the Colony were making encroachments on the northern and western frontiers ; those frontiers not having yet advanced beyond the present bounds of the country. In a historical sketch of the churches and ministers of that region is the following:
" The times, circumstances, and duties of these pastors were in some respects peculiar. Their location was in the frontier settlements and open to the incursions of savages. Instead of directing their attention to Christianizing the heathen, they had, in common with others, to exert all their influence to prevent their coming under the dominion of a persecuting Roman Catholic government. In the former part of this period, the great question was, " Shall we continue to enjoy the blessings of civil and religious liberty, or fall under the dominion of a colossal anti-Christian power ?"
In 1756, war was formally declared by England. The capture of Fort William Henry, in 1757, by the French and Indians under Montcalm, and the Indian atrocities connected therewith, aroused the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and a force was raised which was meant to arrest the further progress of the French. In 1759 the invasion of Canada was undertaken, and on the 18th of September, as every body knows, Quebec was captured, the dominion of the French on the St. Lawrence was broken, and the New England colonies were delivered from further incursions of the hostile tribes of the north.
In this war the towns of the Naugatuck and Housatonic valleys were well represented. Waterbury sent a company of thirty-five men, under the command of Capt. Eldad Lewis, and besides these thirty-five, eighteen or twenty others are mentioned in the history of the town as having been engaged, at one time or another, in the war, including the Rev. Mark Leavenworth, who went as Chaplain. Another Waterbury man, Israel Calkins, played a part not altogether unimportant in shaping the course of events. When Fort William Henry, situated at the head of Lake George, was besieged, the English General, Webb, with an army of four thousand men, was at Fort Edward, fourteen miles away. Instead of marching to the relief of the imperiled fort, General Webb wrote a letter to Colonel Monroe advising him to capitulate. The messenger was interrupted by the Indian allies of Montcalm. But the French commander thinking that the delivery of the letter to Col. Monroe would promote his own interest, forwarded it to its own destination, and the surrender of the fort quickly followed. Now the messenger who carried the letter of General Webb was Israel Calkins of Waterbury. After the surrender of the fort he remained in the hands of his Indian captors, and was taken by them to Canada. Here he was "redeemed by a French gentleman," sent to France as a prisoner-of-war, and finally sent in a cartel ship to England to be exchanged. He landed at Boston on the 6th of October, 1758, and immediately petitioned the Legislature of Connecticut " for an allowance of wages during his captivity," and also a gratuity, in consideration of the severe calamities he had suffered, which, he affirmed, " were more than words can express or imagination paint." He speaks of his property as having been dissipated during his absence, and of his family as extremely destitute, and " implores the pitty and compassion of the honorable Assembly." His prayer was heard and thirty pounds were granted him.
There is one more story belonging to the early history of Litchfield, which it is proper to record here. It illustrates, like other incidents which have been mentioned, the Indian mode of warfare, but at the same time brings to view some of the better traits of the Indian nature. It is taken, in a somewhat abridged form, from the " Travels in New England and New York," of President Dwight of Yale College, who vouches for its authenticity.
Not many years after the settlement of Litchfield, a stranger Indian came one day to a tavern in the town, in the dusk of the evening, and asked the hostess for some drink and a supper. He told her he could pay for neither, as he had had no success in hunting, but promised payment at some future time. The hostess refused him, called him a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, and told him she did not work hard to throw away her earnings upon such creatures as he. A white man who sat by, saw in the Indian's face that he was suffering severely from want and weariness, and directed the woman of the house to feed him at his expense. When the Indian had finished his supper, he turned to his benefactor, thanked him, and assured him he would remember his kindness, and if possible repay him for it. For the present he could only reward him with a story. " I suppose," said the Indian, "you read the Bible?" The man assented. "Well," said he, " the Bible say, God made the world, and then he took him and looked on him, and say ' It is all very good.' He made light, and took him and looked on him, and say, ' It's all very good.' Then he made dry land and water, and sun, and moon, and grass, and trees, and took him and looked on him, and say, ' It's all very good.' Then he made beasts and birds and fishes, and took him and looked on him, and say, ' It's all very good.' Then he made man, and took him and looked on him, and say, ' It's all very good.' Then he made woman, and took him and looked on him ; and he no dare say one such word."
Having told his story, the Indian withdrew, with a sly glance at the landlady.
Some years after, the man who had befriended him, having occasion to go some distance into the wilderness between Litchfield and Albany, was taken prisoner by an Indian scout and hurried away to Canada. When he arrived at the principal seat of the tribe, on the southern bank of the St. Lawrence, it was proposed that he should be put to death ; but an old Indian woman demanded that he should be given to her, that she might adopt him in place of a son whom she had lost in the war. He was given to her, and spent the succeeding winter in her family. The next summer, while at work alone in the forest, an unknown Indian came to him and asked him to meet him at a place which he pointed out, on a given day. The captive agreed to the proposal; but before the day arrived, his apprehensions of intended mischief had increased to such a. degree, that he determined not to keep the engagement. Soon after, the Indian found him at his work again, reproved him for breaking his promise, and made another appointment with him for another day. This time the white man was true to his word. When he reached the spot he found the Indian provided with two muskets, two knapsacks and ammunition for both. The Indian ordered him to follow him, and set off toward the south. Within a short time the white man's fears subsided, although his companion preserved a profound silence concerning the object of their expedition. In the day-time they-shot such game as came in their way, and at night kindled a fire and slept by it. After a tedious journey of many days through the wilderness, they came one morning to an eminence whence they beheld a cleared and partially cultivated country, and a number of houses. The man knew his home ; it was Litchfield. His guide reminded him that some years before, he had relieved the wants of a famished Indian at a tavern in that town, and said, " I that Indian ! now I pay you ! go home." Without another word he bade him farewell, and the white man hastened joyfully to his own house.
The Indian looks out no more from any hill-top upon the cultivated fields of Litchfield, or any part of the valley which was once his own hunting-ground. He is gone, and the succeeding race is glad to be well rid of him. The only remains, except the title-deeds and traditions to which reference has been made, are the few names of places which echo on the white man's lips, the strange tones of their language, and the stone implements which are turned up by the plough in our fields. He is gone. But it is pleasant to think of him, the untutored child of the woods, and to reflect that he had much that was good in him, and not a little that is worthy of remembrance. It may be hoped that what is here given will serve to interest us in his character, and render us wiser and kinder in our estimate of those who bear the same name, who in the far West are still carrying on the same hopeless fight with the relentless forces of the Anglo-Saxon civilization.
THE INDIANS OF NEW MILFORD.
GOING back to Stratford, the original name of which was Cupheag, is a necessary proceeding in order to gather the straggling remnants of native history as the various settlements are broken up, and their members borne on toward the ever enchanting wilderness and the West. The view which has been taken in the previous part of this history leaves, to be examined, only the territory of New Milford and Kent, to complete the researches originally intended, but, since the Indians at these places were evidently quite numerous, much more so than has sometimes been represented, we return to Stratford deeds, and those of Newtown, as well as a slight reference to Stamford and Norwalk, that the explanations and conclusions, if not the history, may be the more complete.
Soon after selling their lands at Stratford, the Indians gathered under their chief Okenuck at Potatuck, where now the village of Shelton, in Huntington, stands, until the death of his brother Towtanimow and his father Ansantaway, when he (Okenuck) became the " sole Sagamore" of Paugassett, and apparently made his residence with that tribe. The next we learn is that Atterosse is Sagamore of the Potatucks.1
The Stratford Indians agreed, in 1660, to sell one hundred acres of land. " below Milford men at Pagesutt," on the west side of the river, but the agreement was not recorded as a deed until 1684.*
1 Stratford deed, August 16, 1668.
2 Stratford deed, June 5, 1660.
STRATFORD INDIAN DEEDS. gr
In 1671 eight names were attached to a deed, most of them being Potatuck men, if not all, with Chubbs at the head of the list, but he is not said to be Sachem, and Coshoshemack (Chushumack) stands second. Then, in 1671, Chushumack is said to be Sachem,3 and also in another deed, in 1673.'
In the deed of 1671, the name " Whimta," which occurs at the head of the paper, is left off at the bottom, or changed to some other. Two other deeds were given in 1671, in confirmation of Stratford lands, which lands had been occupied, much of them, twenty years or more, but the signers were other than Sachems;5 and still another in 1684,6 having eleven names, only one of them being the same as in 1671.7
In these several deeds, from 1668 to 1684�sixteen years� nearly fifty different men are found, most of them, if not all, Potatucks, although some of these deeds were for Derby land, and a few of them are on other deeds as Paugasucks. Upon the estimate heretofore followed, of three men to one signer, the tribe must have numbered one hundred and fifty men, making the whole tribe three or four hundred. Their chief locations during this period were Potatuck in Huntington, Potatuck in Newtown, Pomperaug in Woodbury, and Weantinock in New Milford. At their old town, now the village of Shelton, they had a fort when the English first began to settle in Derby, called the " Old Fort," and another soon after called the " New Fort," which stood on what is now called " Fort Hill," near the present Housatonic dam. They also had a burial place, near the Old Fort, from which have been taken, recently, in excavations for foundations for buildings, several skeletons, and a number of stone implements. Two very fine specimens of pestles are in the possession of Henry A. Nettleton, dentist, of Birmingham, Conn.
�Stratford deed, April 25, 1671.
Cheshushamack, Sachem, Tomo, ye 2d son of Mataret or Toto,
Mataret, the Sachem's eldest son, Papiscounos.
4 Stratford deed, June 5, 1673.
Chushamack, Sachem, Ponomskut,
5 Stratford deed, May 25, 1671. "Indians belonging to Paquanocke."
Susqua, James, Sasepaquan,
Musquatt, e Stratford deed, October 8, 1671.
Musquatt, Sassapagrem, or Piunquesh. 7 Stratford deed, 1684
Ponamscutt, Sashwake, James,
Some conveyances of land in Stratford in later years should be noticed. The first was given in 1702, and was confirmatory of a preceding deed, and the names at the beginning differ from those at the bottom of the paper so much, that both are here given: "Know all men that we, Pocono, Wemett, Mamameco, Stupon, Paquahon, Cook, and Huest, Indian proprietors at Ouantenock, do sell, etc."3
The second of these deeds states that, " We, Tom, son of Cockapatana, Winham, Curen, Puckwamp, Rauwston, Pequot, Chips, Meskillin, Aukomi, and Robin, all Indians of Milford, ... for nine pounds current money do sell . . . land in Stratford, near a place called the Narrows, bounded eastward with Stratford river, etc., to Abraham Harger, by way of exchange"the deed being acknowledged in Derby by Tom and others, June 5,1714.'
The third deed makes revelations peculiar : " Whereas certain Turkey Hill Indians upon Stratford River did about May last, and before, steal sundry sheep from Stratford side, out of Quoram TOM KING. 97
8 Stratford deed, August 19, 1702.
Pocono, Nunhotuho, Indian interpreter,
Paquahin, Mattecus, Pocona's son.
9 Stratford deed, May 31, 1714.
Plain, and being convicted thereof before the Authority, viz.: Montegue, Tom, Will, Ponocusate, Chashomon, Mojons, Chipunck, Nonoco, Peiwenut, Tom Sachem, Tom Tonee, or Manshanges, engaging to pay eleven pounds, ten shillings in money, and not having money to pay, the said Tom-tonee, Sagamore, in behalf of all the other Indians hath made over two parcels of land."8
This land was taken from the Indian reservation in Stratford, and the deed shows that " Tom King," who was " Mashages," "Manshanges," "Tom Tonee," and "Sagamore," was chief over the Potatuck Indians on their reservation in Stratford. His being said to be of the Turkey Hill Indians, means that he belonged to the Paugasucks and resided at Turkey Hill, while his father was probably residing further up the Housatonic. We shall have occasion to call on " Tom King " hereafter, to know whether he became the far-famed Waraumaug of New Milford.
For more than fifty years the Indians had been gradually moving up the river, to Newtown, and what is now Southbury, until but few were left below these places. Newtown was finally deserted, but some remained at Potatuck, in Southbury, until 1758, when that was forsaken by them, and they found a home at Scatacook.
The Indians at Fairfield and Stratford were not numerous when the English purchased the lands in those townships, and it is probable that some of them retired to the interior of the country and joined their destinies with the different tribes or clans in the valley of the Housatonic ; for the names attached to deeds in those localities not only indicate a kindred dialect, but some of them seem to have represented persons afterwards known in the valley of the Housatonic. To illustrate this unity in names and language, a few�the most important deeds are referred to and the Indian names given.
The first deed at Norwalk was made to Roger Ludlowe in 1640, in which it is agreed " that the Indians of Norwalke, for and in consideration of eight fathom of wampum, six coats, tenn hatchets, tenn hoes, tenn knifes, tenn scisors, tenn Jews-harps, ten fathom Tobackoe, three kettles of six hands about, tenn lookingglasses, have granted all the lands, meadows, pasturinge, trees, whatsoever there is, and grounds between the twoe Rivers, the one called Norwalke, the other Sockatuck, to the middle of said Rivers, from the sea a day's walk into the country, to the said Roger Ludlowe, and his heirs and assignes forever."
Two months later Daniel Patrick bought another tract on the west side of the Norwalk river: "An agreement betwixt Daniell Patrick and Mahackem, and Naramake and Pemenate Hewnompom indians of Norwake and Makentouh, the said Daniel Patrick hath bought of the said three indians, the ground called Sacunyte napucke, allias Meeanworth, thirdly Asumsowis, fourthly all the land adjoining to the aforementioned, as far up in the cuntry as an indian can goe in a day, from sunrising to sunsettinge ; and twoe Islands neer adjoining to the sayde carantenaqueck, all bounded on the west side with noewanton, on the east side to the middle of tne River of Norwake, and all trees, meadows, waters, and naturell adjuncts thereunto belonginge, for him and his forever; for which Lands the said indians are to receive of the sayed Daniell Patricke, of wampum tenn fathoms, hatchetts three, howes three, when shipps come; six glasses, twelfe tobackoe pipes, three knifes, tenn drills, tenn needles." ....'"
Another deed was received in 1650, in confirmation of that received by Daniel Patrick, given by Annanupp, alias Parrott, " by order and Appointment of the Ashowshake and Chachoamer, received of Mstr. Stephen Goodier of New Haven, marchant, the sayed two coates, and fowre fathom of wampum, and doe by their order and in their names, hereby acquit Mr. Stephen Goodier of all dues or demands."11
A deed of land lying west of that bought by Mr.Patrick was given to Richard Webb and his company in 1651 by " Runckin
9 Norwalk deed, Feb. 26, 1640.
"Norwalk deed, April 20, 1640.
11 Norwalk deed, July 1, 1650. Annanupp, Anthitunn. (Hall's History of Norwalk.) 14 Norwalk deed, Feb. 15, 1651.
NOR WALK INDIANS.
heage, Piamikin, and Magise, and Towntom, an Winnapucke, and Magushetowes, and Concuskenow, and Wampasum, and Sasseakun, and Runckenunnett, and Pokessake, and Shoakecum, and Soanamatum, and Proday, and Matumpun, and CockenoeDe-Long-Island, Indians of the one part, .... in consideration of Thirtie Fathum of Wampum, Tenn Kettles, Fifteen Coates, Tenn payr of Stockings, Tenn Knifes, Tenn Hookes, Twenty
Pipes, Tenn Muckes, Tenn needles, to them in hand paid
Have sold ... .all their lands called and known by the name of Runkinheage, Rooaton, or by whatsoever name or names the same is called or known, bounded on the east upon ye land purchased of Captain Patriarke, so called, on the west bounded with the Brooke called Pampaskeshanke, which said brook and passage, the Bounds West, Extendeth up into the Country by marked Trees ; and so far as the said Runkinheage, and the rest above mentioned, hath any right or proprietie."'2
In this deed, as in some others, all the names mentioned in the body of the deed were not attached at the bottom, as signers of the instrument. Also it may be seen that one, Cockenoe, was formerly of Long Island. Several of them sound so much like names among the Potatucks ten and twenty years later, that "making some allowance for the different spelling of writers variously educated, and having no standard for spelling Indian names, and who would spell the same English name in a marvelous variety of ways, we shall have no difficulty in seeing at least a photograph likeness among them.
For example, we have here at Norwalk, in 1651, Sasseakum, and in 1671 we have among the Potatucks Sasepaquan and Sassapagrem, a name having the same number of syllables and sounding so much alike as to puzzle any speller, if the words were pronounced in a strange language, which was the case with all these names at first. We find also at the same time in Norwalk Towne Tom, and twenty years later Totoquan at Potatuck. Also, Pomenate at Norwalk, and Pawanet at Diarby twenty-two years later; Sassakun at the former, and Sasaouson at Derby eight years later.
Sasseakum, Towne Tom,
The fact, as will be seen, that the Stamford Indians mingled in public doings with the Potatucks, and that the Potatucks sold land all the way on the Housatonic to the Massachusetts line, and west from Newtown to the New York line, is quite certain evidence that the Fairfield Indians became identified with those of the Housatonic valley.
Stamford, called originally by the Indians Rippowams, was purchased in 1641, by Capt. Nathaniel Turner, agent for New Haven, of Ponus, sagamore of Toquamshe, and of Wascussue, sagamore of Shipan. These clans were small, but some of these men, or others, living a wandering life thereabouts, caused no small amount of alarm and trouble to the English settlers at a very early period, but which soon ended ; some account of which is as follows:
"June 3, 1644. -At Stamford, an Indian came into a poor man's house, none being at home but the wife, and a child in the cradle, and taking up a lathing hammer as if he would have bought it, the woman stooping down to take her child out of the cradle, he struck her with a sharpe edge upon the side of her head, wherewith she fell down, and then he gave her two cuts more which pierced into her brains, and so left her for dead, carrying away some clothes which lay at hand. This woman, after a short time, came to herself, and got out to a neighbor's house, and told what had been done to her, and described the Indian by his person and clothes. Whereupon many Indians of those parts were brought before her, and she charged one of them confidently to be the man, whereupon he was put in prison with intent to have him put to death, but he escaped, and the woman recovered, but lost her senses. Sav. Winth. II, 189."
"Aug. 19, 1644. Capt. Turner and Mr. Malbon were chosen deputies for the General Court to be held for this jurisdiction about the trial of an Indian (called Busheage), who is to be arrayed for murder," that is, for the murder of the woman at Stamford.
He was arrested and delivered to the English by Wuchebrough, a Potatuck Indian. The record of the trial is lost, but Winthrop
NEW MILFORD INDIANS.
informs us that " the magistrates of New Haven, taking advice of the elders of those parts, and some here, did put him to death. The executioner would strike off his head with a falchion, but he had eight blows at it before he could effect it, and the Indian sat upright and stirred not all the time. Sav. Winth. II, 189."
" Sep., 1649. This Court taking into serious consideration what may be done according to God in way of revenge of the blood of John Whitmore, late of Stamford, and well weighing all circumstances, together with the carriage of the Indians (bordering thereupon) in and about the premises, do declare themselves that they judge it lawful and according to God to make war upon them."13
President Stiles in his " Itinerary," says, the Potatucks, in 1710, numbered fifty warriors, but Mr. De Forest discredits the estimate and represents them as "a small community;" whereas, from the number of signers to deeds given by them during forty years previously, it must be concluded that they were the strongest and most influential tribe west of the Connecticut River from 1670 to 1690, and at 1700 they were most probably equal to the estimate of President Stiles, although they had been emigrating to Weantinock some years.
The real facts are that the name Potatuck included in a general way all the Indian settlements along the Housatonic river to the Massachusetts line, and therefore it is difficult to decide how many warriors each locality could furnish, since they were continually migrating from one place or settlement to another, and then back again to the first, and on any adequate-emergency the warriors would have collected from all the several settlements as one army, in one cause.
This local name belonged to the Indian settlement seated on what is now called, and ever has been by the English, Fort Hill, on the west side of the Housatonic, opposite the village of New Milford, and should never be used to designate the locality at Falls Mountain, two miles further down the river, the Indian name for which was Metichawan.
Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, whose knowledge of the Indian language and Indian history is not surpassed by any one in the State, if in New England, in his recent work on "Indian Names in Connecticut,"'4 says of Weantinock: "It may, however, designate the place where the river ' winds about the hill,' waen-adn-auke; or, ' land about the hill.' " This is the precise case in a very marked degree, for the river, for some distance on the west of Long Mountain, runs due south, then turns around the end of Long Mountain, one of the most prominent heights in the township, and runs in an easterly direction across the valley, a distance of half or three quarters of a mile, and then turns again directly south, or nearly so, leaving, thus, on the west side of the river and adjoining it, the plain always known by the name of the Indian Field, on the west edge of which rises the bluff known as Fort Hill, an elevation about sixty feet above the Indian Field. Upon this bluff is another plain, from twenty to thirty rods in width, reaching back to Guarding Mountain. This plain, on which the Indian Fort and Indian encampment were situated, bends around the northeast prominence of Guarding Mountain somewhat as the river winds around Long Mountain. The Indians cultivated this upper plain the same as the lower one, and hence bad under cultivation, when the New Milford company settled here, about two hundred acres of land on the west side of the river, besides some on the east side. At some time the Indians, in separate families, if no other way, resided on the east side of the river, since burials took place there, which would not have been the case while all were residing on the west side. Hence the locality, Weantinock, was not at the Falls, but in the valley at the southern end of Long Mountain.
Wannupee island is situated in the river at this place in the second bend of the river, or where it turns to go south. The name Wannupee means, " overflowed," or " subject to overflow."
The Indians at Weantinock were once very numerous, or, if not, they were inhabitants here hundreds of years before the English settled in the place. At the time of this settlement in 1707, they were not very numerous, not numbering over four or
five hundred in all, and these being accumulations during a number of years. In Mr. Griswold's sermon it is stated that they numbered two hundred warriors; but, admitting this to be true, and it is very probable, yet these two hundred were not all located here, but were, some at the falls, some at Potatuck in Newtown, some at the mouth of the Shepaug river, and some up the Housatonic, and there are evidences of their encampments back from the river in various places, while the general headquarters were at Weantinock.
The first deed received by the New Milford company in 1703 contained seventeen Indian names,15 and conveyed the land which constituted the first township of New Milford, except a reservation of the Indian Field and the privilege of fishing at the Great Falls. In 1705, this Indian Field, including the reserved land on Fort Hill, as well as the foot of it, was purchased by the New Milford company, and to this deed were attached thirteen names, three of them being those of squaws,13 the Indians retaining the right to fish at the Falls, which right has never been given up. It is surprising that of these latter names only two probably represent persons who signed the first one, and neither of the thirteen is said to be Sachem, Sagamore or chief, although this land would seem to have been of great importance to them. The matter is inexplainable, but may indicate that if the tribe were numerous in 1703, they had rapidly removed to other places, and considered the location of little value, and deserted. The number of Indians who remained at the Great Falls was evidently quite small, since the graves in that vicinity were very few, and from several considerations it seems quite certain the removal of the largest part of the tribe was to Scatacook, in Kent, especially as all traditions represent the Indians as coming down from Kent, and stopping in the houses and barns of the early settlers, as well as those of later years, over night, and proceeding on their way to fish at the Falls.
�New Milford deed, Feb. 8, 1702-3.
Nanhootoo, . Papiream,
New Milford Deed, Aug., 29, 1705.
Shamenunckqus, Papetapo, his squaws mark,
Chesquaneag, Younggam's squaw her mark,
Papetopo, alias Pomkinsedes. Appacoco,
Mantooes, his mothers mart,
If now we look at the Indian burying-place on Fort Hill we shall be surprised more than at any other of the tracks of the Red man in New Milford. These graves, or mounds, had been dug into, pillaged, and rummaged to a considerable extent before the present owner, Mr. Eleazer T. Brewer, took possession of the place by right of purchase and deed. He took it upon himself, be it said ever to his honor, to hunt up every mound that could be discovered, and put them in good repair, sowed grass seed on the newly-disturbed ground, which in a short time covered the entire locality as a lawn. The place is now a beautiful grove of chestnut and oak trees, from six to ten inches in diameter. There are fifty mounds to be plainly seen, measuring from five to ten feet in diameter, consisting of rings made of the sandy earth, raised to eight and twelve inches high. The method of burial was to place the corpse sitting in the ring, down in the grave, the head remaining but a little below the surface of the ground ; and in this way several burials, from three to ten, could be effected in each mound, or family plot. Hence there may have been buried on an average five bodies in each of these mounds, or nearly three hundred in all. Some burials, however, were made by laying the body in the grave, since skeletons have been found in that position. .But these mounds are not all that were there in 1707, for evidently a part of the old place has been plowed over at the edge of the grove; and besides, skeletons have been excavated in digging sand, some two hundred feet north of where the last mound is now to be seen, thus proving that the territory devoted to burials at that place was much extended beyond the present'appearance.
On the east side of the river, on the bluff along on which West street is now located, a number of skeletons have recently been exhumed while persons were digging cellars. Skeletons have been exhumed also above the mouth of the Aspetuck, on the north side of the river.
It is quite doubtful if the first settlers knew of these burials on the east side of the river, for there are no traditions to this effect so far as heard, and hence these graves were made many years before the settlers came here. It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that anterior to the settlement of this locality by the English, perhaps a hundred possibly two hundred years the Indians were located here at Weantinock under the same name, and that too in considerable numbers.
Upon the selling of the Indian Field, those who remained in the vicinity made their headquarters at the Falls, where afterwards Waraumaug's celebrated tent was located.
If we were to venture an opinion, upon the information now obtained, it would be that the Indians of this part of Connecticut, at least, came from Shekomeko in New York, over the hills, and made a settlement first at Scatacook, but soon discovered the beautiful location at the south end of Long Mountain and. effected a settlement here, particularly because of the planting ground, and its proximity to the Falls where the fish were so abundant, and that they were called Potatucks quot; Falls Indians" (the country about the falls because they dwelt near the falls, and that they called the river Potatuck (Falls River) and never knew any other name for it until the English gave it one. It is certain that they (the Indians) knew no other name for it when Derby first began to be settled in 1654. Hence the original name for all the Indians along the Housatonic was Potatucks, and all other names grew up afterwards, as a matter of local distinction. With this supposition harmonizes the great antiquity of the Scatacook settlement, and also the many burials at New Milford.
Some further information as to the antiquity of the settlement at Weantinock may be obtained from a deed recorded at Stratford. In 1670, the General Court granted liberty to Stratford men "to purchase Weantenock and the lands adjacent," of the Indians, and under this grant Henry Tomlinson and others made a purchase, of those whom they supposed were the rightful owners of a tract of land at this place of over 26,000 acres, lying on both sides of the Housatonic, and received a deed with fifteen
Indian names attached," which were names of Potatuck Indians, and this was the deed under which Col. John Read held his claim to New Milford lands. Where these Indians resided cannot be ascertained, although some of them may have resided at Weantinock, but of this there is much doubt. One of them, the Sachem Cheshushamack, signed a number of deeds in Derby and Woodbury. Against this sale of land a protest was made six years later by " Scantamaug of Wyantenuck," that Henry Tomlinson had bought the land " in a private way to their prejudice," but he does not object to the authority exercised by the Potatuck chief and his men, unless he means that " in a private way" was without authority. Hence there was a settlement here at that time, and if so, there had been for a length of time previous, with the leader Scantamaug at the head, who may have been a Sachem. This indicates that all the various clans of the Potatuck Indians were one tribe, under one general government, on both sides of the Housatonic, then called the Potatuck river, to the Massachusetts line ; and to this conclusion we are led by the signatures of later deeds, for some of the signers to the Woodbury deeds of 1700, 1705, and 1706, and some of those to a deed of lands north of Woodbury in 1716, are the same men who signed the New Milford deed in 1703.
One of these names underwent several rather amusing changes. We find it in 1705, as Cotsure, in 1716 as Corkscrew, and in 1739, to a New Milford deed, Cocksure, which was not long afterwards changed to Cogswell, under which name some of the lineal descendants are still residing in New Milford.
One of the names attached to the New Milford deeds, " Pomkinsedes," has become local in the name of Punkin Hill, a little south of Falls Mountain, which resulted, probably, from the residence of Pompkinsedes on that hill; and another name is perpetuated in connection with a locality a little southeast of
Deed of Weantinock, April 25, 1671.
Pocono, Mattaret, the Sachem's eldest son,
Ringo, Tone, the second son of Mattaret,
Cheshushamack, Sachem, . Mohemat,
New Milford in the name of Chicken Hill, as arising from the Indian "Chickins," who created some commotion in the Colony through the Weantinock Indians in 1720, as will hereafter be seen. " Pinchgut Plain" is most probably abbreviated, or a change from some Indian name, as Paugasset, or Pequusset, changed in one case in Massachusetts to Pigsgusset, and from this the slide is easy to " Pinchgut." Pawgasuck or Pagassett, means where " the narrows open out," which is the case most emphatically as we come up the river to the falls above Falls Mountain.
This is a small island in the Housatonic below Falls Mountain, and below the Fishing Place now overgrown with alders and other small trees. It was probably made by the washing out of the gorge through the mountain.
In 1642, Mr. Goodyear of New Haven, with Mr. Wakeman, established a trading-house on what is now Birmingham Point, in Derby, Ct., and in addition must have built one about the same time on this island at what was then Metichawon, for there was no other person by that name engaged in trade with the Indians, so far as known, before the deed of 1671, which informs us that this was " Goodyear's Island," and he once had a trading-house on it. In 1646, the Governor of New York complained to the Governor of New Haven that he or his men had "determined to fasten your foot near Mauritius River in this Province, and there not only to disturb our trade, of no man hitherto questioned, and to draw it to yourselves, but utterly to destroy it,"u and the New Haven Governor replied a little sharply that his people had established a trading-house " upon Paugassett River," but that he knew of no such stream as Mauritius River. In the suit conducted by Mr. John Read for Mr. Zachariah Ferriss, as given in the first chapter of the English history part of this book, we are told where this Goodyear Island is, and the fact is also revealed in one New Milford deed, if not more. This island being so much nearer the New York line than Paugassett, we can see why the New York Governor should fear the men were trespassing on the rights of his Province, and the Indian name of the place being Metichawon, the Dutch Governor did quite well in writing the name so nearly correct when he called it Mauritius River.
In the fact of the trading-house on this Island so early we find the assurance that the Indians were so numerous here that it was thought advantageous to establish the trading-post; that is, as early as 1646, at latest, probably in 1642, and if so, then the place must have been an Indian town or village a long time before.
The Housatonic (Housatoriuc.)
This river was called the " Great River " in all the deeds of New Milford for more than fifty of the first years of the settlement. Afterwards it was called " Oweantinock," or " Oweantenoque," a few times, and later Housatonic and Ousatonic. In the Colonial Records and the State land records the two forms occur about an equal number of times.
It has been claimed that in pure Indian pronunciation the h is never sounded before a vowel, especially O, but such a claim would not be mentioned by one familiar with the Indian language or words, since there are so many pure Indian words to the contrary as: Hammonasset, Higanum, Hoccanum, Hokonkamonk.
It was at first the name of the locality now called Stockbridge, Mass., and the most thorough research which has been seen concerning this name is in " The American Church Review " for July and August, 1880, by Rev. W. G. Andrews; the following is an extract:
" Westenhuck (or Westenhook) is the Dutch form of Housatonic. The latter is spelled Hooestennuc by President Dwight (Travels I, 32), and the Indians accented the first syllable. Algonquin scholars cannot trace the word in any aboriginal tongue, and it is probable that this musical " Indian " name is the product of an effo1t of the Indians to speak Dutch, succeeded by an effort of the Yankees to speak what they thought was Muhhekanneew (Smith's History of Pittsfield).
"The proper Indian name of Stockbridge was Wnahtukook, while the name of Westenhook as a territorial designation, was given very early to a tract of land lying on the disputed boundary between Massachusetts and New York. But the name had a
more extended application. Not only does Hopkins expressly say that it includes Stockbridge (Memoirs, 142), but the Moravians identify the two, using Westenhook as equivalent to Wannachquatagoch, i. e., Wnahtukook."
This much with a dozen authorities referred to seems quite sufficient, especially when in common use, and historically the name is Housatonic.
INDIANS OF NEW
HIS Indian name denotes an "obstruction or turning back," and hence was applied to the Great Falls in the Housatonic at Falls Mountain, where the fish were turned back, or prevented from going further up the river. In Dr. Trumbull's History of Connecticut, II, 83, it is said of these falls: " These stopped the progress of the large fish, and made it formerly one of the best fishing-places for shad, herring, etc., in the colony."1 The name properly originated from the falls, and not from the fact of a fishing-place.
These Falls are now on the north side of the mountain, just below which is the gorge through the mountain, cut or worn there by the natural flowing of the waters during incalculable ages of time. Thousands of years ago the valleys of the Housatonic and Still rivers constituted one vast lake, and the only place for the outlet of this lake was over this mountain, where gradually it began to wear for itself a passage through the mountain instead of going over it, and continuing steadily at its work, the bed of the river settled lower and lower, age after age, until it has drained the entire valleys and there remains only the falls of about ten or fifteen feet in height at the upper edge of the mountain. The rapids continue all the way through the mountain, a distance of perhaps one hundred and fifty rods, not quite half a mile. At the southern end of the gorge the rocky bluff is almost perpendicular to the height of nearly one hundred and fifty feet. Each way from the gorge, northeast and southwest, the mountain rises still higher, and just below the gorge, or at its outlet, the river widens out, forming what has been familiarly