The Wamesit and the Lieutenant

...he buys the Indian’s moccasins and baskets, then buys his hunting grounds, and at length forgets where he is buried and plows up his bones ~ Henry David Thoreau

the Wamesit village of Praying Indians

The particularly sad story of the Natives of the Wamesit Praying town near Chelmsford intertwines with the story of our cousin Lieutenant James Richardson (1C10X).

The Pennacook were an independent confederacy of Natives of the Algonquin language who lived for thousands of years in the Merrimack River Valley of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The rivers in this valley were home to many varieties of fish, the main staple diet of the tribes living along the Merrimack. The Natives living by the river near Chelmsford were known as Nipmuck which meant "fresh water folks."

On the map below, Chelmsford is the blue marker. Red marks the Wamesit Praying Indian Village, established for by John Eliot for the converted Christian Pennacook. The other markers show the course of the Merrimack River into New Hampshire, the hunting grounds of the Pennacook.

In 1653, English colonists came to the Merrimack Valley to settle the town of Chelmsford. That same year, John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians, established his fifth praying town called Wamesit. He helped the Natives to secure the prime land near the river which was so vital to their survival. The Chelmsford citizens were none too happy with this arrangement but the Court repeatedly upheld the Natives right to the property.

Still, relations between the two villages remained peaceful for twenty years. Even though the Council had refused the townspeople of Chelmsford the right to trade with the Natives, most simply ingored the order and a healthy trade developed between the Wamsit and their English neighbors.

Passaconaway

The leader of the Pennacook was Passaconaway who had two main reasons to advocate peace with the English. The first was his wise realization that, in the end, fighting with the colonists would prove futile to the Natives. The second was his hope that the English might offer his people a degree of protection from their natural enemies, the northen tribes of Mohawk.

The Wamesit have been described as "peace loving" because they abided by Passaconaways’s mandate to be peaceful neighbors to the English. But they were still Pennacook and Pennacook were not pacifists. Inter-tribal warfare had gone on for centuries and the Pennacook were warriors with many a battle under their belts. Passaconaway himself spoke of his "delight" in war and boasted that "no wigwam pole had so many scalps as his."

No one can say definitively when Passconaway died. Legend says he lived 120 years. Whenever his death occured, it appears that by 1669 his son Wannalancet had taken over leadership of the Pennacook as his father would have been over 100 years old at that time.

Wannalancet

The Pennacook, like all Native Tribes in New England, were nomadic, traveling up and down the rivers as the seasons dictated. In 1669, Wannalancet, fearing attack from Mohawk, led a group of Pennacook to the Praying Town of Wamesit and built a fort on a hill known today as Fort Hill. While the settlers were alarmed at first with the new influx of Natives into the village, they soon realized Wannalancet had taken up his father's mantle of peace.

Wannalancet and his people, along with the Natives of the Praying town of Wamesit, lived side by side amicably with the English until King Philip's War came to Chelmsford.

The area that encompassed the Native's village is now the town of Lowell, near Chelmsford.

Red = Fort Hill built by the Pennacook Blue = Wamesit Praying Village Orange = Chelmsford

war begins

When King Philip's War began, the Wamsit Praying Indians threw their lot in with the English. Wannalancet, leader of the Pennacook, had rebuffed Philip's efforts to have him join their force but, in reality, did not want to ally his people with either side. Natives who preferred to stay neutral in King Philip's War walked a difficult path, drawing animosity from both sides. Astutely realizing his precarious position, Wannalancet left the Wamesit village and took his people north into Pennacook hunting grounds in New Hampshire.

The Council's reaction to his departure only reinforced Wannalancet's fear of the English lack of trust in them. The tribe was ordered back to Chelmsford and a contingent of soldiers sent to retrieve them. Luckily, the Pennacook knew their lands well and were able to evade capture.

Meanwhile, our cousin James Richardson had his hands full back in Massachsetts. In August, he was with Captain Wheeler's company in Brookfield when Wheeler was mortally wounded. Before his death, Wheeler appointed James Richardson and two other men to take over defense of the Garrison. James survived the Brookfield ambush then rushed to the relief of Sudbury, also under siege.

Possibly engaging in these battles alongside James, whose good rapport with the Natives was well known, were warriors from Wamesit. Daniel Gookin, Superintendant of Indian Affairs, had recruited one third of all able bodied men from the Praying towns of Wamesit and Okommakamesit from the town of Marlborough to aid the English.

the haystack affair and more

James had only recently returned to Chelmsford in September of 1775 when one of his haystacks was torched by some of Philip's warriors. The nervous citizens of Chelmsford attributed the action to the Wamesit even though James himself, who knew the Natives well, insisted that they were his "warm friends and would never injure him." His protests were to no avail. 145 of the Wamesit people were arrested and marched to Boston. The Court released the women and children but charged thirty-three of the men. From Court Records in October of 1675:

"Whereas the Wamesit Indians are vehemently suspected to be actors and consentors to the burning of a haystack at Chelmsford, this Court judgeth it meet that such Englishmen as cann inform or give evidence in the case be forthwith sent for, and those Indians now at Charls Toune, and the case to be heard by this Court, then and there to consider and conclude what with the said Indians."

All thirty-three were found guilty by the Court. The Magistrates, more sympathetic and supportive of the Praying Indians, used their veto power to overturn the verdict. In the end only three of the Wamesit were eventually sold into slavery.

When a second fire burned a barn full of hay and corn on James Richardson's property, a group of men described as a ”scoundrel mob” took the law into their own hands. They went to the Wamesit village with weapons, wounding five women and killing one young child. In the Colony's defense the men were tried for assault and murder but, to the Colony's shame, the men were acquitted on “insufficient evidence.”

It is entirley possible that some of the Wamesit warriors defected to King Philips forces after the horrifically unjust treatment they had received. Unable to trust the settlers and fearing for their lives, the remaining people of Wamesit fled north in hopes of finding shelter with the French.

Sagamore Numphrow, leader of the Wamesit, wrote this letter to James' father-in-law Thomas Henchman:

To Mr. Thomasas Henchman of Chelmsford:

...we cannot come home again, we go toward the French...the reason is we had wrong by the English...when there was any harm done in Chelmsford, they laid it to us, and said we did it, but we know ourslves we never did any harm to the English, but we go away peaceably and quietly...we say there is no safety for us, because many English be not good, and may be they come to us and kill us...We remember our love to Mr. Henchman and James Richardson.

a brief return and second exodus

Life on the path with war raging around them prooved to be more difficult than they had imagined for the Wamesit, who traveled with their children and the elderly. After a twenty-three day trudge through the woods, hunger and bad weather forced them back to their abandoned village. The Council, willing to make amends, sent John Eliot along with Daniel Gookin, Superindendant of Indian Affairs, to reassure them and try to improve relations with the inhabitants of Chelmsford.

The Wamesit, however, still did not feel safe in Chelmsford. They petitioned the Council to let them move to a safer place fearing that "other Indians would come and do mischief and it would be imputed to them and they would be blamed for it." The petition ended with a plea to "pray consider our condition with speed." The Council never acted on the request.

Chelmsford citizens sent their own petition to Council asking that the Natives in their area be taken to Deer Island, the Native internment camp in Boston Harbor. This threat, in addition to fears of more reprisal by the settlers, led the Wamesit to leave their homes for a second time. This time they were able to meet up with Wannalancet and his band of Pennacook but both bands spent a harsh winter hiding in the far north where many of their number died in the cold.

the war escalates

Three attacks on Chelmsford in February, March and April of 1676 occasioned a plea by the townspeople for extra security:

"...we are in such a postiire, as without God's extraordinarye help, we see not how we can stand against the enemy. Or (our) garrisons are so weake, and or men so scattered about their personal occasions: that we are without rational hope, for want of men, and what is otherwise necessary."

For this plea, the Council acknowledged that something needed to be done. They decided to go against popular opinion and employ Natives to work with two Chelmsford citizens, one of them our cousin James Richardson in the building of a defensive fort at Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River.

From Council records:

Orders and Instructions for Mr Samuel Hunting & James Richardson, April 25, 1676

You are ordered (with all convenient Dispatch) To take the conduct & comand of Such English and indians as are ordered to accompany you & with them to march up to the fishing places upon Merrimack river (neare Pawtuckt falls) & in the most convienient place there to erect a fortification Sutable for yor company & build such shelters within it as may bee nescerary according to yor best Discretion..."

The Old Bridge at Pawtucket Falls

Since the Wamesit had fled the scene, the Natives working with Cousin James were from the first Praying Town established by John Eliot, the Naticks of Dedham. These people had been interred on Deer Island and were given a brief reprieve to work with James, now known as Lieutenant Richardson.

Fort construction was interrupted by another attack on Sudbury. Lt. Richardson, with the Praying Indians among his force, was sent to the aid of the besieged town. The company arrived in time to rescue survivors of the attack who had found refuge in a mill.

Work resumed on the fort which was completed just months before the end of the war. James was assigned to maintain the fort and look out for enemy forces. Luckily, there were no more attacks on Chelmsford. The war ended in August, 1676 with the death of Philip.

deceit

Wannalancet with his Pennacook tribe and the Wamesit Praying Indians returned to Chelmford after peace was declared. Their story is the same as so many others. In their absence, much of their land had been taken over by the Chelmsford residents. Some were accused of being complicit with Philip's allies and sold as slaves.

Wannalancet, ever faithful to the English, continued to act as a "peace broker," encouraging Natives still at large to surrender. This backfired very badly on him in September of 1676 when he helped Major Richard Waldron organize a gathering of about four hundred surrending Natives who had taken refuge with the Abenaki tribe in Maine. Waldron, however had been less than truthful with Wannalancet about the fate of these Natives.

Waldren invited the refugees to participate in a "mock battle" against the militia. Instead of the war games continuing, the defenseless Natives were "handsomely surprised" when about 200 of them were separated out and taken prisoner. Waldron arrested not only the refugees who had surrendered but local Natives who violently objected to the ruse. All were sent to Boston where the locals were released and the refugees either hanged or sold into slavery in "foreign parts..."

The Pennacooks and others who were known not to have participated in King Philip’s War were set free but most of them never forgot what they considered a "villainous betrayal."

Note: The betrayal of the Pennacook and other tribes would weigh heavily on the tribes' decisions to ally themselves with the French ten years later in King William's War. And they, indeed, never forgot Major Waldron's betrayal as we will see in a future post.

The Pennacook neutrality in the war had been a factor in reducing both the number of casualties and the amount of destruction that a vulnerable town like Chelmsford faced. Reflecting on Chelmsford’s minimal damage during the war, the good Reverend Fiske commented “Thank God, to which Wannalancit replied 'me next'" indicating that he was fully aware of how his people's peaceful stance had serviced the town.

Afterwards, Wannalancet "seemed to live like a ghost" wandering though old Pennacook lands with the small band that remained with him. At the outbreak of King William's War in 1690, Wannalancet and his people were put under the guardianship of Col. Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable and there they lived for the rest of their lives. The Wamesit's story, like so many others, ended in total dispacement from their ancestral lands.

Ironically, a marker in stone honoring Wannalancet lies not where he wandered free, but in Tyngsboro, near Dunstable, where he spent his last years living under the guardianship of Col. Tyng.

As he spent his last days in virtual captivity, "...the old Chiefs’ mind must have drifted back to better days. Some of those better days were in Lowell where he walked to church and built his fort. It would be a good place for a memorial to him, perhaps reunited with his friend Eliot, and would remind us of this Lowell History chapter which opened with hope and ended with heartbreak for these people who once lived among us. ~ Jay Gaffney, The Wamesit Trail of Tears

the death of Lieutenant Richardson

As much as John Eliot, Daniel Gookin, James Richardson and Thomas Henchman attempted to aid their Native friends, in the end, it was of no avail. And while most of the hostilities of King Philip's War ended in August of 1676, scattered tribes of angry Natives had not given up the fight. Small skimishes continued to grind the war on for almost another year. The remainder of the war was fought mostly in Maine, with disorganized attacks on some of Massachusetts outlying towns.

Cousin James did his part and marched out to do battle one last time. In March of 1677 this order came down from Council:

"It is reffered to Major Gookin forthwith to Supply Leift. Richardson & his pty at Chelmsford with provision Ammunition & appl necessary & to order him to scout & range ye woods between Merrimack & Pascatawq River & endeavour to kill and sease ye Lurking enemy in those parts for wch the Major is ordered to encourage ym wth a reward of twenty shillings for every scalpe & forty shillings for every prisoner or ye prisoner."

The area between the Merrmack and Pascataqua Rivers is now mainly New Hampshire. Lieutenant Richardson was to secure that area and then to march to the Black Point Garrison in Maine "to bee at ye ordering of Liftenant Tipping until further order..."

Red = Chelmsford Blue = Black Point, Maine

The people living in towns throughout Maine, including our Littlefield relatives, had been under desperate attack for the entire two years of the war. Even when the war ended in Massacusetts, the burning of houses and destruction of crops and livestock continued in Maine. In October of 1676, the garrison fort at Black Point had been taken by the Sokosis and the Ammoscoggin tribes of the area.

By the summer of 1677, the English decided that something needed to be done. In June they sent three ships filled with men mustered from various town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And, according to A Doleful Slaughter at Blackpoint by Sumner Hunnewell, "Traveling from Massachusetts by foot were English and Indians following their beloved lieutenant."

The beloved lieutenant would, of course, be our uncle James Richardson who arrived with his men and their Native allies just prior to the day of battle. James was a natural choice since he had proven his leadership skills at the Brookfield battle. In addition, the Natives loved and trusted him.

In all, the English had about one hundred men. They assembled and marched out from the garrison, seeking the enemy who were waiting patiently. As the soldiers and friendly Natives crossed the river and started up a hill, they were suddenly ambused by the Sokosis. While the English were not outnumbered, the element of surprise proved to be their downfall. The military action at Black Point turned into a slaughter for the English. Over half of their forces were killed or wounded.

Shortly into the melee, our Uncle James was killed by the attacking Natives. James, who for so many years had been a faithful friend to the Pennacook and Wamesit was taken down by the Sokosis, natural enemies to his Penacook friends. James' death is just one more sad tale to add to the countless senseless deaths that occurred in the dawn of English settlement in the New World. It is also a prime example of the complicated relationships that, in the end, caused the destruction of Native people in New England.

Note: Also killed in the Black Point excursion was our uncle John Phelps (8U) of Newbury.

Next up: The battle for Maine