Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 2: Indian History.1, 1883

That distinguished chieftain, the great and good Massasoit, resided at Pokanoket, that subsequently became the township of Bristol, now in the State of Rhode Island, but which until 1747 formed a part of Bristol County, Mass., wherein it was the shire or county town for the term of some sixty-two years. What therefore at the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 was the seat of empire to the Indians throughout the widely extended domains of Massasoit became the

Although Bristol County was not formed or incorporated until some fifteen years after the death of Massasoit, English settlements had been commenced within what subsequently became its limits nearly or quite twenty-five years before his decease, and he lived to see two of these, viz., Taunton and Rehoboth, incorporated as towns. Wamsutta, as chief ruler of the Indians, succeeded his father, Massasoit, at the death of the latter in or about the year 1662, and the brief reign of Wamsutta ending within one year from its commencement, he was in turn succeeded by his younger brother Pometacom, commonly known as King Philip, whose reign continued about fourteen years, during which time two other English settlements, viz., Dartmouth and Swansea, were incorporated as towns. The first or earliest communication of white men with the Indian inhabitants of that 8e"tf«6fi of country, subsequently incorporated as thL county of Bristol, probably occurred in the month \srf May, 1619, when Capt. Dermer came in a vessel to Panr^^j;. now Plymouth, where, from the assistance rendered him by an Indian named Squanto, he was enabled to communicate with the Indian chieftain Massasoit, whose principal place of residence was then, as afterwards, at Pokanoket, or Mount Hope.

Capt. Dermer, in a letter dated Dec. 27, 1619, thus described the event : " I traveled along a day's journey to a place called Nammastaquet, where, finding inhabitants, I dispatched a messenger a day's journey farther west to Pocanokit, which bordereth on the sea, whence came to see me two kings, attended with a guard of fifty armed men, who, being well satisfied with that my savage and I discoursed unto them, gave me content in whatever I demanded, where I found that former relations were true. Here I redeemed a Frenchman." The Nammastaquet here named was doubtless Nemasket, now Middleborough, and the two kings who met Capt. Dermer were probably Massasoit and his brother Quadequina.

The first visit of white men to the locality, now Bristol County, probably occurred in June or July, 1621, when Massasoit, at his home in Pokanoket, was sought out and visited by Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins, accompanied by the Indian Squanto, who acted as their interpreter. During the lifetime and reign of Massasoit his sub-chiefs appear to have been called or ranked as captains, though sometimes sachems, among whom was Caunbitant, whose residence was at a place then called Mettapoiset, now known as Gardner's Neck, in Swansea; and at the visit Mr. Winslow made to Massasoit, in March, 1623, on coming to the ferry, in Caunbitant's country, was informed that Massasoit was dead, which caused the Governor and his attendants to feel considerable uneasiness, lest Caunbitant, who had been one of Massasoit's most renowned captains, should become his immediate successor as chief sachem or king. This uneasiness and fear arising from the fact that not long before Caunbitant, being at Nemasket, commenced a murderous attack upon the Indian Squanto, who appears to have barely escaped death at his hands ; and the Ply mouthians had lost no time in sending out fourteen soldiers, under Capt. Miles Standish, which force so harassed Caunbitant that he, in September, 1621, had felt compelled to go to Plymouth and submit to certain demands, and signing at the same time a treaty of amity and peace.

The English still considered Caunbitant as being, at heart, their enemy, and that he was only waiting a convenient opportunity to make it known ; and the Governor and his attendants feared that convenient opportunity had now arrived. Said Mr. Winslow, concerning Caunbitant, " Although he were but a hollow-hearted friend toward us, I thought no time so fit as this to enter into more friendly terms with him and the rest of the sachems thereabout; hoping, through the blessing of God, it would be a means in that unsettled state to settle their affections towards us ; and though it were somewhat dangerous in respect of our personal safety, because myself and Hobbamock had been employed upon a service against him, which he might fitly revenge, yet esteeming it the best means, leaving the event to God in his mercy, I resolved to put it in practice if Master Hamden and Hobbamock durst attempt it with me, whom I found willing to that or any other course that might tend to the general good. So we went towards Mattapuyst, and went to the sachem's comaco, for so they called the sachem's place, though they call an ordinary house wites ; but Caunbitant, the sachem, was not at home, but at Puckanokick, which was some five or six miles off. The squa-sachem, for so they call the sachem's wife, gave us friendly entertainment. Here we inquired again concerning Massasowat ; they thought him dead, but knew no certainty. Whereupon I hired one to go with all expedition to Puckanockit, that we might know the certainty thereof, and withal to acquaint Conbatant with our there being. About half an hour before the sun setting the messenger returned and told us that he was not dead."

When Mr. Winslow and his friends were returning from Pokanoket, at the earnest request of Caunbitant, who accompanied them, they stopped and stayed one night at his house, in what is now Swansea ; and Mr. Winslow informs that they never received better entertainment from any Indians than they then had from Caunbitant. What became of Caunbitant is unknown. That section of country now Little Coinpton was formerly known as Seaconnet, or Seconet, and here the Indians for a time were under the direction of a woman named Awashuncks, who was usually known as the squaw-sachem of Seaconnet. She was wife of an Indian named Tolony, and she was mother of a son named William Mommynewit, who, being sent to school, learned the Latin language, and was intended for college, but prevented, being seized with the palsy. She had another and older son named Peter. Awashuncks first came prominently into notice in 1671, when the colony of Plymouth planned a warlike expedition against her, proposing to send a force of one hundred and two men, that were to assemble for that purpose at or near what is now Assonet Four Corners, in Freetown, on the 8th day of August, 1671 ; but the war was prevented by articles of agreement signed by her July 24, 1671.

She comes again prominently into notice in the spring of 1675, when King Philip sent messengers to engage her and her people to unite with him in the great and bloody conflict, still known as " King Philip's war." Those messengers consisted of six Pokanoket Indians, who, having their faces painted and hair so cut as to represent a cock's comb, with powder-horns and shot-bags, made an imposing appearance, and influenced Awashuncks so as to induce her to call the principal of her people together to a great dance. Capt. Church, the soon after renowned Indian hunter, had then recently settled in her neighborhood, and, singularly enough, Church was among the guests bidden to the dance. Taking with him an interpreter, Church repaired to the place, where he said that he found hundreds of Indians, and Awashuncks, in a foaming sweat, leading the dance. Church's arrival being announced to her, she stopped short, sat down, called her chief men into her presence, and then called Church, to whom she communicated a message that she had received from King Philip. Church advised her not to accede to his request ; whereupon she called in the six Pokanoket Indians. Church then told Awashuncks that if Philip was resolved on war her best way would be to kill the six Pokanoket Indians and place herself under the protection of the English. At this advice the Pokanokets became silent, but two of Awashuncks' men that had recently been to Mount Hope, and were very favorably inclined to the proposed measures of King Philip, expressed themselves with great indignation at the rash advice of Church, and one of Awashuncks' council, called " Little Eyes," was so enraged that he would have put Church to death had he not been prevented. Awashuncks agreed to join herself and people with the English, instead of the Indians, placing herself under the protection of the former. She sent two of her men to guard Church back to his house, and desired him to go to Plymouth and communicate her decision, which he did on the 7th of June, 1675 ; and had the Plymouth colony government taken immediate measures to protect Awashuncks, doubtless she, and at least most of her people, in the war that immediately ensued, would have joined with the English instead of the Indians ; but neglecting to communicate with Awashuncks, she was soon after compelled to join with Philip, and thus continued to act for nearly a year.

found means to communicate with Awashuncks, who agreed to serve the English during the remainder of the war. Quite a number of her warriors then entered the service under Capt. Church, and she, with the non-combatants of her tribe, were, for the time being, ordered to take up their residence in the town of Sandwich. Peter, a son of Awashuncks, was her chief captain in King Philip's war, and when, in 1676, Awashuncks re-engaged herself to the English, Peter, her son and chief captain, addressing Mr. Church, said, " Sir, if you will please accept of me and my men, and will head us, we will fight for you, and will help you to Philip's head before the Indian corn be ripe." These peace measures saved the Seconet Indians from total destruction, so that some twenty-five years later one hundred men of the Seconet tribe were still alive, and the General Court of Massachusetts appointed an Indian, named Nurapaus, to be their captain. He lived to be an old man, and died in or about the year 1748. Not far from the year 1700 they erected a meeting-house, in which the Rev. Mr. Billings preached to them one Sunday in each month, and besides which they enjoyed the ministrations of an Indian preacher named John Simon. A large part of the remnant of the tribe were swept away by a fever that prevailed in or about the year 1750, and at the beginning of the present century not more than ten families remained.

The Indian Seconet, afterwards a part of the township of Little Compton, formed a part of Bristol County until 1747, when it was set off, and has since been in the government of Rhode Island.

Adjacent to the Seconet tribe were the Pocasset Indians, their former home being in what afterwards became the township of Tiverton, that until 1747 was in Bristol County, but then set off to Rhode Island. The Pocasset Indians were probably more numerous and powerful than those at Seconet, and were the subjects of a squaw-sachem named Weetamoo, who had formerly been the wife of Wamsutta, older brother of King Philip, and sister to Wootonekanuske, King Philip's wife. Thus connected to or with the royal family, one would have supposed that Weetamoo would have been among the first and foremost to have espoused the cause of King Philip, her former husband's brother and her sister's husband, but still the evidence is quite conclusive that this was not the case ; but, instead, that she demurred, and would have kept herself and those over whom she ruled entirely out of the conflict if she could.

Wamsutta, as before remarked, died in 1662, and Weetamoo, thus left a widow at some time before 1675, became the wife of an Indian named Pentonowowett, whom the English called Ben, and Church's history speaks of as Peter Nunuit.

Weetamoo, who was sometimes called Nanumpum, and also Tatapanum, became the wife of Wamsutta, oldest son of Massasoit, in or before 1653, and during the brief reign of Wamsutta in 1662, Weetamoo must have been queen of the Wampanoag nation. At the death of Wamsutta in 1662, his brother came to the throne, when Weetamoo as queen was succeeded by her sister Wootonekanuske, two brothers having married these sisters, and the ex-queen thenceforth is mentioned in history only as "squaw-sachem of Pocasset." At the commencement of King Philip's war (in 1675) the Pocasset Indians were so numerous that Weetamoo's armed men able to go out upon the warpath were supposed to number three hundred, and her lands at Pocasset were deemed to be of great value. She had, as before remarked, in her widowhood become the wife of an Indian named Petonowowett, who could not by King Philip be induced to join with him in the war, but aided the English in that conflict.

When Capt. Benjamin Church was on his way to Plymouth, carrying the message of Awashuncks, squawsachem of Seconet, passing through Pocasset, now Tiverton, he met Petonowowett, the husband of Weetamoo. who had just come to shore from Mount Hope, and unreservedly told Church that there certainly would be war, that King Philip had held a war-dance and entertained young Indian warriors from all parts of the country, and had promised them that they might on the next Sunday, when the English had gone to meeting, plunder their houses and kill their cattle.

Petonowowett invited Church to visit his wife Weetamoo in their camp on a hill not far distant, and near what is now known as Howland Ferry bridge.

Church accepted the invitation, and repaired to the Indian camp, where he found Weetamoo in a melancholy mood, her warriors having left her and gone to Philip's war-dance, which act.of theirs, she declared, was much against her will.

Circumstances are said to make men, and why may not circumstances control women ? Weetamoo evidently preferred peace, and could she have controlled her warriors, although she could not have had peace, she could, doubtless, by joining with the English, have saved herself and them from the almost total annihilation which now awaited them ; but, as a choice of evils, doubtless she accepted that she was least able to resist by joining herself and her fortunes with King Philip, although this act forever separated her from her husband, who adhered to 'and assisted the English in the war just then commencing, and for his services therein was by his employers appointed to take charge of those Indians that after the war were permitted to reside between Sipecan and Dartmouth. And thus it was that in people's minds she came to be chargeable "next unto Philip in respect of the mischief done."

After separating from Petonowowett Weetamoo became the wife of Quinapin, an Indian of the Narragansett tribe, second in command in the great swamp fight, in what is now Kingston, R. I., Dec. 19, 1675. Quinapin was captured in 1676, taken to Newport,

R. I., and shot, and Weetamoo, the wife, fled to the Niantic country, or what is now Westerly, R. I., where, being pursued, she returned to Mettapoisett, now Gardiner's Neck, in Swansea, where she was betrayed by a deserter from her camp, and a force from Taunton was thus enabled to capture all her followers; but Weetamoo, with a resolution equal to the distressing circumstances, attempted to escape upon a hastily-constructed raft of broken pieces of wood that perished or sunk under her, when, as the last desperate resort, she doubtless attempted to swim, as her naked corpse drifted ashore, and was soon after found on the beach of Gardiner's Neck, in Swansea.

That greatest and most bloody of New England conflicts, although waged in several different colonies, had its commencement and ending within the limits of what became Bristol County, Mass.

On Sunday, the 20th of June, 1675, open hostilities were commenced by the Indians in the town of Swansea by plundering the houses of English inhabitants while the latter were absent at meeting. On that day seven or eight of King Philip's Indians went to the house of an inhabitant of Swansea, whom they found at home, and requested the privilege to grind a hatchet, which was objected to on the part of the Englishman, who told the Indians that it was the Sabbath, and God would be very angry if he permitted them to grind the hatchet that day, to which they are said to have returned the answer that they knew not who his God was, and that they would grind the hatchet for all him or his God either. The same day these Indians meeting an Englishman upon the road told him to do no work on his God's day, and that he should tell no lies, and then suffered him quietly to pass on.

Four days later, as the English were returning from religious worship, they were fired upon by the Indians, killing one and wounding two others, and two men sent for a surgeon were overtaken by the Indians and slain. Two men in another part of Swansea were that day slain by the Indians and scalped, and thus upon the 24th of June, 1675, were five of the English inhabitants of Swansea killed outright and two wounded, and an Englishman slain at what is now Falls River. The first succor that the English at Swansea received was from a company of seventeen mounted men from Bridgewater, who left their homes on the 21st of June and arrived at a fortified house at Mettapoisett, now Gardiner's Neck, in Swansea, the next day.

These Bridgewater troops were quartered at the house of a man named Bourne, where were also collected seventy of the English people, viz., sixteen men and fifty-four women and children, whom they defended till reinforced, when the house was abandoned, and the non-combatants for greater safety were transported to the island of Rhode Island. Great was the alarm throughout the several colonies, and on the 26th of June several companies of soldiers left

Plymouth Colony troops had been ordered to rendezvous at Taunton preparatory to uniting with those from Boston, where, although so far from the chief seat of war, they were severely harassed by the Indians, and Lieut. John Freeman, in a letter dated at Taunton, said, "This morning three of our men are slain close by one of our courts of guard, houses are burned in our sight, our men are picked off at every bush. The design of the enemy is not to face the army, but to fall on us as they have advantage."

Among the houses that Lieut. Freeman said were burned in their sight at Taunton was probably that of John Tisdale, that the Indians destroyed by fire June 27, 1675, also slaying Tisdale and taking his gun, that was retaken at Rehoboth, Aug. 1, 1675, being found with the body of an Indian there slain.

The forces assembled at Swansea consisted of a company of infantry under Capt. Daniel Henchman, and a company of hastily collected volunteers, one hundred and ten in number, under Capt. Samuel Moseley, and a company of mounted men under Capt. Thomas Prentice. These three companies being furnished by the colony of Massachusetts Bay, added to which was a company from Plymouth Colony under Capt. James Cudworth, of Scituate.

The house of the Rev. John Myles, a Baptist clergyman, that stood near a bridge in what is now called Barneyville, was so strengthened as to resist attack, and here the combined forces of Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies were assembled and placed under the command of the ranking officer, Capt. James Cudworth, who for the time being became commanderin-chief.

Flushed with their successes thus far the Indians became encouraged, and seemed to lurk almost everywhere, shooting at all passengers, and killing many who ventured abroad, venturing so near the garrisoned house as to shoot down two of the sentinels,.

A detachment of the cavalry of Capt. Prentice, under the command of Quartermasters Gill and Belcher, accompanied by Benjamin Church, was sent forward, but were no sooner over Myle's Bridge than fired upon from an ambuscade, when William Hammond the pilot, who was probably a resident of Swansea, was killed, Belcher's horse shot under him, and both himself and Mr. Gill wounded, which so surprised and terrified the troopers that they became panic-stricken, wheeled their horses, and fled in the utmost disorder, regardless alike of the threats and entreaties of their officers, and but for Gill and Church the dead body of Hammond would have been left in the possession of the enemy.

June 29, 1675. The Indians appeared boldly in view, and by their shouts and yells seemed to challenge the English to come out and fight. Capt. Moseley with his company rushed furiously upon them, when the Indians immediately fled to their coverts, there making a momentary stand, where, being fired upon, they again fled. Capt. Moseley pursued about a mile, slaying five or six Indians and sustaining no loss on his own part save the wounding of his ensign, Mr. Savage, who received a musket-ball in his thigh and a bullet passed through his hat, and even this, some authorities state, was by mistake, and that he was fired upon by one of his own company. Capt. Moseley pushed on, and at Keek-a-muit his soldiers found the heads of eight Englishmen slain by the Indians set on poles. These heads they took down and buried.

The English now traversed Mount Hope Neck, found King Philip's deserted wigwam, but himself and nearly all his followers had fled, and with their wives and children, bag and baggage, had gone, made a good and successful retreat, and taken all their canoes with them.

King Philip had outwitted his pursuers, got off with little or no loss of his men, made a change of base, gained a more defensive position, and by going over to Pocasset, as he had done, was enabled to enforce the squaw-sachems Weetamoo and Awashuncks to join him with their warriors; in fact, he had outflanked his foes and commenced to deal death and destruction to those who thought themselves safe in the rear of the English army, and the frontier town of Swansea was at that moment the safest locality in Plymouth Colony.

Capt. Church very justly said, "The enemy were not really beaten out of Mount Hope Neck, though it was true they fled from thence, yet it was before any pursued them. It was only to strengthen themselves and to gain a more advantageous post. However, some and not a few pleased themselves with the fancy of a mighty conquest. A grand council was held and a resolve passed to build a fort there to maintain the first ground they had gained by the Indians leaving it to them, and, to speak the truth, it must be said that as they gained not that field by their sword nor by their bow, so it was rather their fear than their courage that obliged them to set up the marks of their conquests." Church further said that he looked upon this act of remaining and building the fort and talked of it with contempt, and urged hard the pursuing of the enemy on the Pocasset side.

June 30th, Capt. Prentice, with his troop, for more convenient quarters, went to lodge at Rehoboth, and as they Avere returning on the morning of July 1st came upon a company of Indians burning a house, but taking advantage of the fences, over which the horses could not go, the Indians escaped to a swamp. Capt. Prentice's lieutenant, Mr. Oaks, with a part of the troopers, discovered another body of Indians, that they pursued on an open plain, overtook, and slew four or five of them, one of whom was Peebe or Phebe, who was one of the counselors of King Philip. In this action John Druce, one of the troopers, received a wound in the bowels, of which he died.

King Philip in the mean time was laying waste the English settlements in what afterwards became the towns of Little Compton, Tiverton, Dartmouth, Freetown, Fall River, New Bedford, Westport, Fairhaven, and Acushnet, and frightening the English inhabitants out of what is now Berkley and Middleborough.

Benjamin Church finally succeeded in persuading the commander at Myles' garrison, in Swansea, to send under Capt. Fuller a company of thirty-six men to Pocasset, in hope to get an opportunity to treat with the Pocasset and Seconet Indians, which force soon after arriving divided, one part starting off under Capt. Fuller and the other under Church.

Fuller encountered Indians, and two of his men were wounded, and all so hard pressed as to be obliged to seek shelter in a deserted house, from which they escaped to a vessel.

Church and his party were also pursued, and driven on board Capt. Goulding's vessel, and thus barely escaped. This was on the 8th of July, 1675. The Indians were so well supplied with arms and ammunition that they put many bullet-holes into the stern of Goulding's vessel and through his sails as he was taking off Church and his men.

Soon after a detachment of soldiers was put on board a sloop and sent to the Quequechan (now Fall River), there disembarked and marched into Weetamo's country, overtook and killed one Indian and alarmed many more that succeeded in escaping to a swamp ; but as soon as the English were ordered back those who had been pursued in turn became pursuers, and chased the English back to the sloop and wounded two soldiers. They returned the next day to the camp in Swansea.

July 18, 1675, an expedition was sent against Philip in his camp in a Pocasset swamp, now Tiverton. The English forces, arriving late in the afternoon, discovered a few Indians on the edge of the swamp, on whom they rushed with ardor, the Indians meanwhile gradually retreating, and thus drawing their pursuers into an ambuscade, by which, when fired upon, fifteen of the English were shot down, and were soon ordered to fall back and give up the pursuit. One hundred wigwams, newly constructed of green bark, were found near the edge of the swamp. The loss in that fight sustained by the Indians was probably very small when compared with that of the white men, and the latter, instead of renewing the contest the next day, fortified themselves on the outskirts of the swamp, and there remained in the hope of starving the Indians into submission, and extorting from King Philip terms of capitulation, neither of which they were able to accomplish, as about the last of that month Philip and his followers one night suddenly decamped, and in canoes un pursued reached the other shore in safety en route for the Nipensic country, now in the county of Worcester. King Philip, with his forces, would have got off not only unperceived but unharmed but for the Rev. Noah Newman, of Rehoboth, who, as the Indians were passing through that town (Aug. 1, 1675), brought out the " home guards," who, with Oneko and some Mohegan and Natic Indians, did some spoil upon King Philip, slaying one of his chief men called Nimrod. Oneko was the son of Uncas, and had been to Boston, where he had engaged to fight for the English, and being with some Mohegan and Natic Indians en route for Swansea, happened to be in Rehoboth just as King Philip was passing through.

On Sunday, March 26, 1676, was fought near Pawtucket, but within the original limits of Bristol County, a sanguinary battle between the English under Capt. Michael Peirce, of Scituate, and the Indians led by the chieftain Canonchet. Capt. Peirce and nearly all his command were slain, and the loss of the Indians even exceeded that of the English.

Tuesday, March 28, 1676, the Indians burned at Rehoboth (afterward Seekonk), forty-five dwellinghouses, twenty-one barns, two grist-mills, and one saw-mill, and slew an Irishman named Robert Beers. King Philip is said to have been present at the burning of Rehoboth, and the frame-work of an ancient chair is still preserved in which tradition saith he sat to witness the conflagration.

April 27, 1676, Woodcock's fortified house; in what was then Rehoboth, now Attleborough, suffered an Indian attack ; Nathaniel Woodcock and another Englishman slain, John Woodcock wounded, and Nathaniel Woodcook's house burned.

Some time in May, 1676, four Taunton men were slain by the Indians, viz., Sergt. James Philips, James Bell, Henry Andrews, and Edward Babbitt. Thus were left thirty-two fatherless children.

May 24, 1676, Capt. Thomas Brattle, of Boston, with a company of about fifty mounted men, being joined by a body of infantry, marched to the Pawtucket Falls, where, arriving on the easterly side of the river, the Indians were discovered on the opposite bank of the stream.

Leaving the infantry at the falls, the cavalry proceeded up the river to a fording-place, crossed over, proceeded down on the other side, making a sudden attack upon the Indians, killing several of them and capturing an Indian boy, taking two horses, several guns, and some ammunition. Lieut. Jacob Elliot, of the cavalry, was wounded in the hand, and one cavalry soldier killed.

The Indians first attempted to retreat through the river, but discovering the infantry upon the opposite side hastily turned about, retraced their steps to the shore, and took refuge in a swamp.

June 26, 1676, the Indians captured Hezekiah Willett in or near Swansea ; he was twenty-five years of age, and a son of Capt. Thomas Willett. The Indians cut off the prisoner's ears and nose and then set him at liberty ; he probably soon after died, as some of the authorities state that he was slain by the Indians.

A negro who was captured by the Indians at Swansea, and who is supposed to have been a slave of Capt. Thomas Willett, escaped, fled to Taunton, and informed the people that the Indians proposed attacking that place. Being warned, the Taunton people prepared themselves for the attack that was made on the 11th day of July, 1676, and in which two houses were fired by the Indians and one Englishman slain.

Aug. 1, 1676, Wootonekanuse, the wife of King Philip, together with his son, aged about nine years, and several women and children, were taken captives by the English.

At about this time a battle between the English and Indians came off in what is now the town of Norton, at a place called Lockety Neck, in which the Indians were defeated.

Aug. 6, 1676, twenty Taunton men captured at Gardiner's Neck, in Swansea, the few remaining followers of Weetamoo, squaw-sachem of Seconet ; she sought to escape by attempting to cross Taunton River on a hastily-constructed raft, but was drowned, and her dead body being found on the shores in Swansea, her head was cut off and carried to Taunton.

Aug. 28, 1676, Philip's great captain, Anawan, who had in like capacity served his father, Massasoit, and at the death of Philip became chief sachem, or king of the Wampanoag tribe or nation, was captured by Capt. Benjamin Church at a place still known as Anawan's Rock, in the easterly part of the town of Rehoboth, a few rods south of the turnpike road leading from Taunton to Providence, about eight miles from Taunton, and ten from Providence.

Indian Reservations. - When what subsequently became Freetown was purchased of the Indians in 1659, reservations were made for the Indians Tabadacason and Pianto; the first for the benefit of those Indians that maintained a ferry across Taunton River, which doubtless was to remain while the ferry was so kept, and the other for planting land, the Indian title to which should end at Pianto's death. That first reservation is thought to have been a point of land lying between Taunton River and Barnaby's Cove so called.

Beside these reservations was another of nearly two hundred acres lying within what formerly was the township of Freetown, but now an easterly part of Fall River, at what is sometimes called Indian Town, and is still appropriated to the uses of that race, one lot having been assigned to and still possessed by Mrs. Zerviah Gould Mitchell, a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of the "good old Massasoit," king of the Wampanoags, and "Sassacus the Terrible," king of the Pequots. Mrs. Mitchell is descended from Massasoit through his daughter Amie and her husband Tuspaquin, known in history as the black sachem, chief of the Assawampsett and Nunasket Indians, who was slain by the English in or near September, 1676. Amie, the wife, was a sister of Wamsutta, alias Alexander, the successor of Massasoit and Pometacom, alias King Philip, successor to Alexander and Sonkanuhoo, who is supposed to have been slain at the swamp fight in Pocasset, now Tiverton.

July 18, 1675, Benjamin, a grandson of tbe black sachem Tuspaquin, married Mercy Felix, a granddaughter of the educated Indian John Sassamon, whose wife was a daughter of Sassacus, and Benjamin and wife Mercy were the grandparents of Mrs. Zervia Gould Mitchell, who now has her home upon the Indian reservation at Betty's Neck, so called, in Lakeville.