THE BRIGHAMS OUT WEST
- westmohney
- Oct 6, 2021
- 11 min read
The Wamsit Indians left their places, and camin into Marlborugh under the English wing...hence they hoped not only to be secured, but to be helpful to the English... ~ Daniel Gookin
the move west
The town of Sudbury was settled in 1638. It was the nineteenth town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and only the second situated away from the ocean. By mid-century, enough people had moved into that frontier area that new towns were springing up all around Sudbury, among them Marlborough.
In the map below you can see that Sudbury and Marlborough were true frontier towns, even further west than Chelmsford.
We wrote about our our cousin Thomas Brigham (1C13X) in our Cambridge post. He and his wife Mercy were happily raising their family in that town when Thomas unexpectedly died in 1653, leaving five under-age children. Shortly afterwards, Mercy married Edmund Frost, a man who had lived in Sudbury for many years. It must have been quite an adjustment for the family to go from the bustling city life they knew in Cambridge to the more rural farming life in Sudbury.
All five children, Mary (2C12X), Thomas (2C12X), John (2C12X), Hannah (2C12X) and Samuel (2C12X) eventually settled in the Sudbury offshoot town of Marlborough. All but one of these five cousins were just beginning their family lives when King Philip's War broke out.
Mary Brigham married John Fay. They had four children. Their last child was born in February of 1675, four months before the start of the war.
Thomas bought land from his step-father which he paid off in 1665. He and his wife had four children, all under ten years when the war began.
In 1672, three years before the war, John received a grant of land in payment for surveying he had done for the town of Marlborough. He had just begun married life and had a one year old daughter when the war broke out.
Hannah married Gershom Eames. He died during the war in 1676. Their second daughter was born four months after his death.
Samuel was 23 when the war broke. He had received a grant of 25 acres in 1673. He didn't marry until well after the war had ended.
the Praying Indians of Marlborough
Near Marlborough was one of the seven Praying Indian towns that the Reverend John Eliot had established. In 1643, Eliot had secured for the Wamesit 6,000 acres of the best land in the Marlborough area. This grant had caused some early friction between the Praying Indians and the settlers. The settlers built their first houses just bordering the Native fields, close enough to see and envy their flowing streams and open meadowland. Naturally desiring the better land for themselves, the townspeople appealed to the General Court to have the Native Americans ousted from their land. Fortunately for the Wamesit, John Eliot had wisely procured a lease for them and the Court refused to renege on it.
Note: Another faction of the Wamesit, friends of our cousin James Richardson (1C10X), lived in the Praying Town near Chelmsford. The story of the natives in the two towns are extremely similar.
Though the Court's decision was a victory of sorts for the Wamesit, it was still an extremely sad state of affairs that the Native Americans had to "lease" lands that had once been theirs to roam free upon. Daniel Gookin, Superintendent of the Praying Indians wrote:
"This town doth join so near to the English of Marlborough, that it was spokine of David...(King David of the Bible) Under his shadow ye shal rejoice: but the Indians here do not much rejoice under the English men's shadow; who do overtop them in their number of people, flocks of cattle &c. that the Indians do not greatly flourish or delight in their station at present."
Still, the Wamesit and the settlers managed to live in relative harmony for twenty years. When the settlers discovered their meeting house had been erected on a corner of the Native American planting ground, the Wamesit Chief, Onamog, readily agreed to deed the land on which it stood to the town of Marlborough. The colonists found the Wamesit to be a self-supporting, peaceable people who helped the townspeople to build houses, to plant and harvest crops and even to barter for goods with their English neighbors. Then came King Philip's War in 1775.
a unique situation
The western and northern frontier towns of Massachusetts would bear the brunt of the brutality in King Philip's War. Marlborough was no exception. The Praying Indians, however, found themselves in a uniquely dangerous situation, caught in the middle of the two warring factions. To make matters worse, the year before war broke out, Chief Onomog of the Wamesit died. Daniel Gookin described him as "a pious and discreet man, and the very soul, as it were, of that place." Onomog's death left the Wamesit without a strong leader.
With their protector gone, the Wamesit were at the mercy of the English whose first agenda was how to deal with the Praying Indians, now seen as a possible threat. Large numbers of Natives were gathered up and brought into Marlborough which served as a kind of internment camp. According to Daniel Gookin they "left their places, and camin into Marlborugh under the English wing...hence they hoped not only to be secured, but to be helpful to the English..."
Under direction of the Marlborough settlers, the Wamesit built a fort for themselves and were furnished with ammunition and arms by the government. As the war heated up, however, the Praying Indians began, inevitably, to be looked upon with more suspicion by the colonists. They were moved across Fort Meadow Lake onto English land where they could be better watched.
the attack on Lancaster
The precarious peace which reigned in Marlborough was broken when the town of Lancaster, only ten miles from Marlborough, was attacked on August 22, 1675 by the Nashaway tribe. Lancaster suffered severe damage and seven townspeople were killed. This attack would have far reaching effects for all Native Americans friendly to the English but particularly the Praying Indians. A captured Nashaway, seeking to place blame elsewhere, implicated fifteen men from the Hassanemesit tribe who were interned in Marlborough. The English Militia arrested these fifteen who, according to Gookin "were orderly and under English conduct." The fifteen were sent to Boston with a guard of soldiers, "pinioned and fastened with lines from neck to neck."
Witnesses from Marlborough would later testify that all of the accused were observing the Sabbath at the time of the attack on Lancaster. Still, after a long trial and imprisonment in Boston, only eleven of the fifteen would be fully acquitted by the court. The upshot of this brutal affair was to harden the feeling of the Praying Indians against the English and push many of them to throw in their lot with Philip.
Boston Court Order of August 30th
Those that remained faithful to the English, however, were not rewarded for their loyalty. The Boston Court met on August 30 and placed severe restrictions on all Native Americans. Their weapons were taken from them and and Order of Removal decreed that "all those Indians, that are desirous to approve themselves faithful to the English" were to be confined in the villages that had become internment camps. Anywhere outside these specified villages was considered a “free-fire zone,” making it lawful for "any person whether English or Indian that shall find any Indian out of internment, to command them or to kill and destroy them as best as they may or can."
By December, Native populations that hadn't already fled to King Philip's camp were forcibly taken from their internment villages and removed to Deer Island in the Boston Harbor. Gookin writes that "...they lived chiefly upon clams and shellfish...the island was bleak and cold, their wigwams poor and mean, their clothes few and thin..." Well over 1,000 Christian Indians were brought to the island and exposed to extreme temperatures. Massachusetts Bay Colony records of 1675-1686 reveal that the majority of indigenous people forced onto the islands were women and children.
escalation
On October 8, a month and a half after the Lancaster attack, garrison houses were finally assigned in Marlborough. 37 soldiers and 32 citizens of the town were assigned to these garrisons. Our cousin Samuel French (1C10X) from Ipswich served in Marlborough as did our Brigham cousins, John and Thomas.
It's possible that frontier towns like Marlborough lived by a different set of rules that the tamer, more settled coastal towns. Whatever the reason, Lt. John Ruddick who was in charge of the garrisons in Marlborough reported problems. He said members of the garrison were misbehaving, that the town refused to feed the soldiers and that the militia and town argued over the authority to place soldiers. The chaos created by this situation left the town ill prepared for attack.
The situation in Marlborough became even more precarious when, in the winter of 1676, King Philip set up his headquarters at Wachusett Mountain. From this encampment, about 30 miles from Marlborough, Philip’s men made a few small raids, mostly to get food supplies in some of the neighboring settlements. That was only the beginning.
An assault at Framingham on the 1st of February was more serious. The home of Thomas Eames, father-in-law of our cousin Hannah Brigham Eames, was attacked. On the day of the raid, Thomas was away at Boston. His wife and five of his children were killed. Five others were taken captive. Four eventually escaped and returned home. One daughter, who never returned, is believed to have been taken to Canada.
Note: Another attack, this one on the town of Lancaster, took place ten days after the Eames tragedy. Mary Rowlandson and her sister, wife of our Uncle Samuel Loomis, were taken captive. Mary Rowlandson wrote a book about her experience. That event will be covered in our next post.
the destruction of Marlborough
By March of 1676, the Massachusetts Militia had their hands full with attacks on many fronts. Gronton, Lancaster and Framingham were all close enough to Marlborough for the danger to be recognized but, even when Native American spies working for the English warned of an intended attack on Marlborough, the warning went unheeded.
On March 26, 1676, Native Americans from the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett tribes made an attack in force on Marlborough. The townspeople were able to secure themselves in William Ward's garrison and, miraculously, only one settler was injured in the arm in the melee. A third of the homes in town were destroyed in this first attack. In fear for their lives, the people of Marlborough, including all the Brighams, fled to Watertown.
On April 18, 1676, the Indians returned and burned the remaining houses at Marlborough. 47 homes in all were destroyed in the attacks. Although the town suffered a major loss of property during the war, Marlborough was luckier than most. Not one citizen of that town was killed.
Our cousin Hannah Brigham's (2C12X) husband, Gershom Eames died in November of 1675. Her second child with him was born four months later. In 1680, well after the war had ended, Hannah married William Ward. His house, designated a garrison, was destroyed with all the rest in the attack on Marlborough. When the residents returned after the war, William built a new home, where he and Hannah lived and raised their eight children. The house shown below stood until 1892. After that, a sign tacked to a tree reminded people that William Ward's garrison house once stood on this spot.
the fate of Native American lands
At the end of the war, most of the Marlborough citizens returned to rebuild their decimated town. In the minds of the resentful townspeople was the thought that surely now the Native American lands should be forfeit after the destruction "their people" had caused. As always, it was deemed important to make their transactions legal. After a few skirmishes with the Court in 1683 the town, with our Brigham cousins right in the thick of it, struck a deal to buy the Native land. Naturally, it turned out to be a raw deal for the Wamesit. Only ten Native Americans who signed the deed profited from the deal. In addition, the price paid for the land was far lower than it should have been.
Feeling uneasy over the probable adverse action of the Court, the proprietors of Marlborough agreed that their grants "shall stand good to all intents and purposes, if they be attested by John Brigham (2C12X), their Clerk."
The General Court did, indeed, deny the deed. Despite the court’s ruling, the people of Marlborough gradually began to occupy the land they had purchased knowing it was only a matter of time. Thirty-two years later, in 1717, the deed was again put forth to General Court for consideration. This time it was approved.
The story of the Marlborough Praying Indians is only one small example of Native American lands that were stolen in the name of retribution at the close of King Philip's War.
the fates of our Brigham cousins
MARY
Mary Brigham married John Fay. They had four children. Mary died in August of 1676, during the town of Marlborough's exile in Watertown. When she died, her oldest child was seven, her youngest eighteen months.
THOMAS
Thomas Brigham bought from his stepfather for £30 a town right in Marlborough, twenty-four acres near Williams Pond. He expanded his acreage over the years. Thomas built the foundation of what is now known as the Warren Brigham (5C9X) House. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, his original log cabin became an ell of the expanded house his son Gershom Brigham (3C11X) built. The house is on Glen Street in Marlborough where other Brigham's also lived. Below is the Warren Brigham House as it looks today. It is on the National Registry of Historic places.
Note: Thomas married Mehitable Warren, granddaughter of Ralph Wheelock. Five generations later, one of Ralph Wheelock's great-grandsons would marry our aunt Olive Parrish (3A), sister of our grandfather Ezra (3GGF). In a future post we'll find the story of Olive and her husband Cyrus Wheelock. It's just one chapter in our family's sad Mormon history.
JOHN
John Brigham left the town proper and moved out to a spot on Brooks Creek, a tributary of the Assabet River, where he started a sawmill. That area would eventually become the town of Northborough, about five miles southwest of Marlborough. According to the Reverend Joseph Allen who wrote The History of Northborough, John Brigham was the first white settler there.
Before he died in 1628 at age 84, John seemed a little worried about his children's reaction to his will. He put this codicil:
"That if any of ye above mentioned Children Molest Each Other by Vertue of my Lands Given them by Deeds of gift Shall by These Presents forever be Bared and Excluded from haveing any Right Title or Interest of or unto any of my Estate both Real & personal..."
His daughter, Mary Brigham Fay (3C10X) (not to be confused with John's sister with the very same name) got particularly harsh treatment:
"Furthermore it is my will & order that if ye above named Mary Fay does proceed in marrying against my will with one Townsend School master late of Westbury that I do alow her but five shillings out of my Estate & her legacy above mentioned..." Forewarned, Mary did not end up marrying the schoolmaster against her father's wishes.
HANNAH
Hannah married first Gershom Eames. They had two daughters, one born four months after Gershom's death. Gershom died in November of 1676 in Watertown during the exile from Marlborough. After the war, Hannah married William Ward and had eight more children. One of her Ward children, Elisha (3C10X), was taken captive by Natives in 1709 when he was twenty-three. Hannah never gave up hope of finding her son alive. In her will, ten years after her son's capture, she specifies that "...if Elisha shall ever come again that my Executor pay him twenty shillings..." Hannah died in Marlborough in 1719.
SAMUEL
In 1700, Samuel Brigham erected a tannery in the town of Marlborough which continued to be operated by his heirs until 1859. He was a lieutenant in Queen Anne's War which took place in the early 1700's. His will shows him to have been a large landholder in the town. Samuel died in 1713 at age 59. He is buried in the Common Burying Ground and has a fairly impressive gravestone still standing. He is the only one of his brothers and sisters to have a gravestone which still exists today.
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