King Philip's War • Chapter 15

Before the end of the month a force of thirty men, under Captain Swaine,1 who had been left in command of the valley, marched up to the old Indian encampment on Smead's Island and destroyed the stockaded fort, one hundred wigwams and thirty canoes, and large quantities of supplies found buried in the Indian barns.2

On the 20th of June, Talcott was recalled by the Connecticut authorities and a week later, Henchman also left the valley for Boston, whither Brattle and Moseley had preceded him. On the 30th while on the march, he wrote to the Massachusettsº Council: "Our scouts brought intelligence that all the Indians were in continual motion, some towards the Narragansetts, others toward Wachusett, shifting gradually and taking up each others' quarters and lay not above a night in a place. The twenty-seven scouts have brought in two squaws, a boy and a girl, giving account of five slain. Yesterday they brought p246 in an old fellow, brother to a sachem, six squaws and children, having killed five men and wounded others. These and others inform that Philip and the Narragansetts were gone several days before to their own places."3

The information given to Henchman by his captives in respect to the departure of Philip, was correct. Accompanied by the remnant of the Wampanoags and many Narragansetts he had turned in desperation again toward his own country. Safety was no longer possible, either in the valley or at Wachusett. The Mohawks were threatening the valley Indians to the north, and the Nashaways, accusing him as the author of all their misfortunes, would doubtless purchase their safety with his head if the opportunity arose, and in the hope of regaining the fishing grounds and the corn buried in the Indian barns, and finding refuge in the wooded swamps along the coast, he had turned to the south.

His appearance in the south had already been made known to the Council of Massachusetts before the receipt of Henchman's letter, by a renegade Indian, the first of many traitors, sure indication of a dying cause, who had come into Rehoboth on the 28th and offered to conduct the English to the place not far distant where Philip with about thirty followers were encamped.

On receipt of this news the Council immediately dispatched Brattle toward Mount Hope with orders to pick up various forces along the way, and to be at Woodcock's garrison by midnight of the first. "There you shall meet with an Indian pilot and two file of musketeers, which pilot has agreed to bring you upon Philip who p247 hath not but thirty men, as he sayeth, and •not ten miles from Woodcock's. In case the enemy should be past Mt. Hope and you can meet with the Plymouth forces you are to join with them."4

Brattle obeyed his orders to the letter, and with seventy-six men, and accompanied by Moseley and the Rev. William Hubbard,5 followed their Indian pilot "only to find Philip newly gone."

Affairs had come to a desperate pass with him now and Philip's heart must have failed him as he took note of the growing weakness and disaffection of the tribes, but, whatever his failures as a leader may have been, he went on, neither faltering nor seeking peace, to the end.

Harassed and hunted as they were, there still remained opportunities for them to surprise and strike at isolated and outlying garrisons, or a careless settler, and even while Brattle and Moseley were searching for Philip, a small band, hovering on the outskirts of Swansea, shot down Hezekiah Willet6 within sight of his father's p248 house, and striking off his head, carried it away as a trophy.

Hubbard, in recounting this exploit, says that the family frequently kept a sentinel in a watch tower built on the top of the house, whence they could discover any Indians before they came near, but not hearing of the enemy in those parts for a considerable time they grew careless, and within a quarter of an hour after young Willet went out of the door he was killed and a negro servant of the family who accompanied him, carried away into captivity.

Mather says there were omens of coming events. "On the 15th of June a bow had been seen in the sky and many strange and unnatural events occurred presaging great events," for "common observation verified by experience of many ages, show that great and public calamity has seldom come upon any place without religious warning."

The Connecticut forces left behind by Talcott had, during his absence, continually raided the Narragansett country "taking above thirty, the most of which being men are said to have been slain by them," in one expedition, and soon after capturing a party of forty-five "most of which probably were women and children but being all young serpents of the same brood, the subduing and taking so many ought to be acknowledged as another signal victory and pledge of Divine pleasure."

Supplies were pouring in from the neighboring colonies p249 of Connecticut and New York, and even distant Ireland sent a shipload of provisions. June 21st had been set apart as a day of humiliation and prayer; the 29th was proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving.

Major Talcott, recalled from the Connecticut Valley in the latter part of June, had reorganized his command at Norwich and before the 1st of July was again abroad in the Narragansett country accompanied by Captains Denison and Newberry with three hundred English and Indians. On July 2d, it being the Sabbath, and the sun about an hour high, the scouts from the top of a hill discovered a large Indian encampment in a cedar swamp at Nachek.7 The English, who were all mounted, making a circuit, closed in upon the swamp from both sides and the rear, while the Pequots and Mohegans rushed down the hill. There was no escape from the trap. The Mohegans, joined by Captain Newberry and his men, sword in hand, glutted themselves with slaughter in the fastnesses of the swamp, while the Narragansetts, who sought safety in flight, were pursued and cut down by the troopers. Forty-five women and children were taken, and one hundred and twenty-six, including thirty-four warriors, were slain. Among the slain, Talcott reported, was "that old piece of venom, Sunk squaw Magnus," and "our old friend Watawaikeson,8 Pessacus his agent, and in his pocket Captain Allyn's ticket for his free passage p250 up to headquarters." Among the dead also was Stonewall John.9

No Englishman lost his life in this conflict, and only one friendly Indian. Resistance there had been none, and the whole affair was emphatically an indiscriminate massacre of those who possessed no means of resistance, and were mostly women, children and old men.

On the next day Talcott marched to Providence and received information that the enemy were there to make peace with some of the Rhode Islanders, "upon which information, being willing to set our seal to it, we posted away and drest Providence's necks, killing and capturing sixty-seven of the Indians we found there," among them Potuck, a minor sachem of the Narragansetts whose village was located on Point Judith.

Informed by one of his captives that Philip was at Mount Hope, Talcott would have gone in pursuit but could not persuade his Indians to accompany him. On account of the scarcity of provisions and the terms of some of his men having expired;º he therefore turned homeward on the 4th, marching along the Bay by way of Point Judith to Stonington.

On this march an Indian prisoner, who had taunted his captors with the number of English and friendly Indians he had killed, was turned over by Talcott to the mercy of the Mohegans. "He boldly told them that he had with his gun dispatched nineteen English and that he had charged it for the twentieth, but not meeting with another, and unwilling to lose a fair shot, he had let fly at a Mohegan and killed him, with which, having made p251 up his number, he was satisfied. . . . This cruel monster has fallen into their power which will repay him seven fold."

"In the first place therefore making a great circle they placed him in the middle that all their eyes might at the same time be pleased with the utmost revenge upon him. They first cut one of his fingers round in the joint at the trunk of his hand, with a sharp knife and then brake it off, as men do with a slaughtered beast before they uncase him; then they cut off another and another till they had dismembered one hand of all its digits, the blood sometimes spurting out in streams a yard from his hand, which barbarous and unheard of cruelty the English were not able to bear, it forcing tears from their eyes, yet did not the sufferer ever relent or show any sign of anguish, for being asked by some of his tormentors how he liked the war . . . this unsensible and hard-hearted monster answered, he liked it very well and found it as sweet as Englishmen did their sugar. In this frame he continued until his executioners had dealt with the toes of his feet as they had done with the fingers of his hands, all the while making him dance round the circle and sing, till he wearied both himself and them. At last they brake the bones of his legs, afterwards he was forced to sit down which 'tis said he silently did, till they knocked out his brains."10 Then, continues Hubbard, "Instances of this nature should be incentive to us to bless the Father of Lights who hath called us out of the dark places of the earth."

The blame for this act of barbarous cruelty does not p252 lie upon the Mohegans, with whom the torture of a prisoner was a custom sanctioned by immemorial usage, but upon Talcott himself who, having the power to prevent such a barbarity, lent to it the approval of his presence, and as an Englishman had no excuse whatever.

In the meantime Captain Church, than whom no one was more fitted by experience for the particular duties of a partisan leader, had again appeared on the scene after many months of inaction. He had not been on good terms with the Plymouth authorities during the winter, the fault lying as much with their constant interference as in his own infirmities of temper, but his services had now become invaluable for the partisan warfare into which the conflict had degenerated. Some time before they had asked him for advice as to the best means of protecting the colony from the marauding bands who were committing great destruction of property, and he had proposed the raising of a body of volunteers and a large number of Indians as scouts. They refused with asperity and contempt to employ any Indians, and Church, angry at the treatment accorded him, removed his family to Duxbury despite the advice of his friends who had urged him to leave his wife and family at Clark's garrison house at Plymouth.11 Fortunate it was for them that he refused, or they would have shared the fate of that unfortunate family at the hands of Tatoson.

Late in June, while returning from Plymouth to Narragansett Bay around the Cape, he discovered, near Falmouth, two Indians personally known to him, engaged in fishing. Calling them to go to a point clear of bushes p253 near by, he landed and entered into conversation with them, and was told by one named George, that the Saconet tribe was weary of war and would gladly give up their arms if assured of amnesty.

Church proposed Richmond's Farm, near Falmouth, as a place of meeting in two days, and hastening to Plymouth returned with permission of the Governor to enter into negotiations with the Saconet queen, Awashonks. On reaching the place of meeting, the warriors, decked in their war paint, arose from the grass in a fierce manner. Turning quietly he asked them to lay aside their arms, which they did. When all were seated he poured some rum in a shell and drank it, and, to calm the suspicion of the queen, who suspected poison, poured out more and drank it from his hand as a cup.

After some mutual recriminations an agreement was reached, and though Major Bradford assumed an arbitrary attitude toward both Church and the Saconets, the Plymouth authorities, after an examination of Peter (Awashonk's son), and other Indian delegates, appointed a commission, consisting of Captain Church, Jabez Howland12 and Nathaniel Southworth,13 to confer with the Saconets. Church and Southworth, leaving the remainder of the commission at Sandwich, soon came to the shores of Buzzard's Bay, and hearing a great noise at a considerable p254 distance from them upon the bank, were presently in sight of a "vast company of Indians of all ages and sexes, some on horseback running races, some at football, some catching eels and flatfish in the water, some clamming," etc. Church called and two of them rode up to see who it was. They were Awashonk's people, and, feasting with the queen and her councilors that night, they offered him their services against Philip.14

Plymouth accepted their submission, and a short time thereafter we find many of their number serving under Church, the offer of whose services as a leader of a force of volunteers and Indian scouts was accepted soon after the close of the negotiations with the Saconets. Thenceforth we find him the most active commander in the field, the runner to earth of the hostile sachems, tracking them into the deep recesses of the swamp with the unfailing keenness of a wolfhound, and recruiting Indians from the hostile forces by flattery and the promise of good pay. He played his part with skill and effect, but the task was no longer difficult, for traitors and deserters were saving their own lives by betrayals of their chiefs, and kept the whites well informed of the movement of every considerable body of their countrymen. Philip, worried and distressed by the numerous forces of the English in the field, had been driven for safety to the fastnesses of the great swamps that spread over all that part of Plymouth colony from Monponsit and Rehoboth on the north to Dartmouth on the south. He dodged his pursuers hither and thither, making no stand but seeking refuge in the inaccessible hiding places which the p255 Indians knew so well. He was still able to strike, however, and in order to encourage his disheartened warriors he endeavored to surprise Taunton on the 11th of July, but the negro servant of Hezekiah Willet of Wannamoiset, who had been taken prisoner at the time of his master's death, and was acquainted with the Indian tongue, escaped and made known their design, and the inhabitants drove off the attacking force before they had accomplished other mischief than the destruction of two houses.15

Three days later Bridgewater16 was attacked, the Indians coming upon the north side of the town, but after killing a few cattle they retired. The next day they came again but with no better success, for though much exposed, Bridgewater was inhabited largely by a colony of young men, who, from the outbreak of the conflict, had refused to retire into Plymouth and give up their homes when they had been solicited to do so.

It was the last feeble stroke for a lost cause. From all sides the whites and large bands of Indians were hunting him down; traitors were many and Philip knew no longer whom to trust. Powder and provisions were gone, no shelter was secure from the eyes of the Mohegans, Naticks and the renegades (and all who had hope of p256 mercy were seeking only an opportunity to give themselves up).

Moseley and Brattle and the other forces kept close upon his heels, searching out his hiding places and by their unflagging pursuit compelling him to constantly change his camp, while Major Bradford held the fording places of the Taunton River.

Through all the country around Rehoboth, through the great morass known as the Night Swamp, a marshy tract of •some three thousand acres covered with tall marsh grass and wood, along the confines of the Metapoiset peninsula, amid the swamps that border on the Taunton River and around Assomwomset Pond the English followed him. In a swamp near Dartmouth they came suddenly upon his camp; the fires were still burning and food was cooking in the kettles, the blankets and arms abandoned in wild haste, and the bodies of several of his warriors who had died of their wounds and lay unburied, told them how close they had been to him.17

On the 22d of July the Massachusetts forces returned to Boston, some to be disbanded, others to be sent to Maine and New Hampshire where the eastern war was raging with unabated fury. They had killed and wounded nearly one hundred and fifty Indians and their services were no longer required in the south, or in Massachusetts, where the Nipmucks had given way to despair.

The Councils of Massachusetts and Plymouth, in order to paralyze resistance, early in July offered an opportunity of surrender to those who might reasonably hope for pardon, by a proclamation that whatever Indians p257 within fourteen days next ensuing come into the English, might hope for mercy. By many the opportunity was gladly accepted, and the 6th of July witnessed the surrender of over three hundred of the Plymouth and Cape Indians, with several of their sachems.

Sagamore Sam of Nashaway, through whose efforts there is but little doubt that many of the English captives had been redeemed, was among those who offered submission, and with him Muttaump, John the Pakachooge, and other of the Nipmucks, and on the 6th of July these sachems entreated them piteously in the following letter:18

"Mr. John Leveret, my Lord, Mr. Waban, and all the chief men our brethren Praying to God: We beseech you all to help us: my wife she is but one, but there be more Prisoners, which we pray you keep well; Mattamuck his wife we entreat you for her, and not only that man, but it is the Request of Two Sachems, Sam Sachem of Weshakun, and the Pashakoag Sachem.

"And that further you will consider about the making Peace" We have spoken to the People of Nashobah (viz. Tom Dubler and Peter) that we would agree with you, and make a Covenant of Peace with you. We have been destroyed by your Souldiers, but still we Remember it now to sit still; Do you consider it again: We do earnestly entreat you, that it may be so by Jesus Christ. O! let it be so! Amen, Amen."

Sagamore Sam in the hope of mercy, wrote them again recalling his efforts in behalf of the English captives, but no word of hope was sent him or the others. The appeal p258 fell upon ears deaf to all mercy, and Sagamore Sam and the rest in despair fled to the Tarratines.

If the English were ready to extend mercy to some it was not to the chiefs and those most active in war, and their reply that "Treacherous persons that began the war and those that have been barbarously bloody must not expect to have their lives spared, but others that have been drawn into the war and acted only as soldiers and submit to be without arms and live quietly and peaceably in the future shall have their lives spared," closed the door of hope in the face of all the chief sachems of the tribes. They could make but little resistance, and the war had already degenerated into the hunting down of hostiles who, with but little food and ammunition, had hidden themselves in the thickets.

Amid the general rack and faint-heartedness some sterner natures fought resolutely to the end. Pumham, starved and surprised with a handful of warriors (many of them his relatives), near Dedham, by Captain Hunting and a mixed force of whites and Indians, July 27th, asked no quarter, but, mortally wounded by a shot in the back and unable to stand, retained his hatchet and fought to the death, for, catching hold of an Englishman who came upon him as he lay in the bushes, whither he had crawled for safety, he would have slain him had not another Englishman come to the rescue. His son was with him, says Hubbard, "a likely youth and one whose countenance would have besought favor for him had he not belonged to so barbarous and bloody an Indian as his father was." Fifteen of the band perished with their chief, and thirty-four others fell into the hands of the English.

p259 Fugitive bands were constantly coming into the English lines. Some were seized by the way while others not only gave themselves up but brought in some chief known to be obnoxious to the whites, as a peace offering. In this way Matoonas was delivered into the hands of the English by Sagamore John, a sachem of the Nipmucks, who, with one hundred and eighty of his followers, gave himself up on the 27th,19 and sought to ingratiate himself with the English by acting as executioner of Matoonas.

Pursued by the white and friendly Indians, and, in some cases, attacked by their allies of a few days back, the plight of the tribes with pitiful in the extreme. It had become for the English merely a matter of "exterminating the rabid animals, which, by a most unaccountable condition from heaven, had now neither strength orº sense left them to do anything for their own defense."

With the departure of the Massachusetts troops the task of stamping out the last embers of the war in Plymouth colony fell to the regular forces of Major Bradford and Captain Church's volunteers, while the Connecticut forces crushed all resistance among the Narragansetts.

Major Bradford's plan of campaign seems to have been limited to holding fording places along the Taunton River and covering the towns, a strictly defensive policy of no value in bringing the war to a close. But if Bradford was inactive, not so Church. Doubtless Church magnified his own exploits, for his narrative, dictated forty years after the occurrence, is not remarkable for modesty, and the length of time which transpired between p260 the events and their narration did not lend itself to accuracy.

On the 25th of July, Church received his commission from Plymouth colony and in command of some eighteen picked English volunteers and twenty-two Indians marched to Middleboro.

At dawn the next day, seeing the bivouac fires of a party of Narragansetts, he surrounded their camp and captured them all. Learning from his captives that another party of Narragansetts was near Monponsit Pond, he hastened back to Plymouth only to be foiled in his quest by the Plymouth authorities who bade him guard a convoy of supplies being sent to Major Bradford. On the march information reached him that Tuspaquin was encamped at Assawomset Pond, and sending the convoy on with a small guard, he marched with all speed to come upon him unawares. Leaving a small guard at the crossing of the Acushnet River, the remainder of the force pushed on a short distance and encamped, but, tired out with the labors of the last few days, the sentinels and all fell asleep. Church himself awoke before daybreak, and, alarmed by the danger to which they had exposed themselves, he sent a party to bring in the guards at the river, who came upon a party of Indians examining the trail over which Church had marched the day before. Finding the guards at the ford also asleep, they roused them, and in the course of the morning met and captured a number of Saconet Indians who had abandoned their countrymen when peace was made.

Ascertaining from a captured squaw that Philip and Quinnapin were only two miles away in a great cedar swamp, Church followed, and, concealing himself with p261 one comrade and an Indian in the meadows, saw the whole body of the Indians defile before him. Church now divided his command, the Indians taking the road to the west around the swamp and Church and his volunteers setting out to the east, with the agreement that both parties should meet at John Cook's house at Acushnet. When they met at the rendezvous it was found that the English had killed three of the enemy and taken sixty-three prisoners, mostly women who had been surprised while gathering berries, and the Indians had killed and captured the same number, among them Tyask's wife and son, and secured many guns.20

Bradford was still at Taunton guarding the fords, and Philip, harried by Church and unable to cross the river, took refuge in the country bordering on the Taunton River, moving up towards Bridgewater. The men of Bridgewater were on the alert and a small party of them ranging the woods discovered one of Philip's scouts and, judging that a considerable force was near at hand, retreated in all haste to Bridgewater. On the next day (the Sabbath) messengers were dispatched to Plymouth to inform the authorities that the Indians were evidently designing to cross the river near Bridgewater. Church was at Plymouth at the time and, begging what provisions were necessary, immediately marched out and reached Monponset Pond as the evening fell; his men worn out by their rapid march in the heat of the day could go no further. The messengers, however, pushed on to Bridgewater with notice of his approach.

Early the next morning, July 31st, a force of twenty-one p262 men marched out from Bridgewater to meet him but, as fortune would have it, fell in with Philip and a mixed company of Wampanoags and Narragansetts in the act of crossing the Taunton River on a tree which had been felled for a bridge.21

A sharp conflict followed, but the Indians, fully exposed to the fire of the English, drew off, having lost several of their number, among them Akkompoin,22 Philip's uncle. A number of captives also fell into the hands of the English, including, according to Mather, Philip's sister. Church, who was probably reconnoitering along the northern edge of the cedar swamp that extended towards Middleboro, heard the firing but as it lasted only a short time missed the direction, and as night was falling went on to the town.

On the following day, August 1st, he marched out very early in the morning with his own company of thirty English and twenty Indians, and accompanied by many of the townsmen, and soon came "very still to the top of the great tree which the enemy had fallen across the river, and the captain spied an Indian sitting upon the stump of it on the other side of the river and he clapped his gun up and had doubtless dispatched him but that one of his own Indians called hastily to him not to fire for he believed it was one of his own men, upon which the Indian upon the stump looked about and Captain Church's Indian seeing his face perceived his mistake p263 for he knew him to be Philip, clapped up his gun and fired, but it was too late, for Philip immediately threw himself off the stump, leaped down a bank on the side of the river and made his escape."23

Church, crossing the river,24 threw out his men in a long line and marched swiftly forward, the Indians flying before him, but he picked up many of the women and children in the pursuit, among them Philip's wife, Woolonekanuske, and his only child, a son nine years of age. Following a newly made trail, Church and his men pushed forward, and after fording the river, in a short overtook the women and children of Quinnapin'sº Narragansetts, who faint and tired, had fallen behind. Learning from these captives that Philip was near by he resumed the pursuit and about sunset heard the Indians chopping wood for their camp fires in the midst of a swamp. When the night had fallen he drew his force up in a ring and sat down the swamp without any noise or fire, and before dawn sent forward two scouts to reconnoiter; but Philip had done the same and his Indians, seeing Church's men, fled shouting to the Indian camp. Church pushed forward with all haste, but before he could come up with them Philip and his warriors had fled deeper into the swamp, leaving their kettles boiling and meats roasting upon the wooden spits. Confident that they would attempt to leave the swamp in some other direction, he p264 sent Lieutenant Howland with a party around one side of the swamp while he himself, after leaving a guard at the place where Philip had entered, in the hope that if he discovered Howland's force he would return on his tracks, marched around on the other side and joined Howland at the further end.

Philip, believing the English would follow him in the swamp, had laid an ambush also, at the same time sending a band of warriors, with most of the women and children, to make their way out in the opposite direction. The latter, however, came upon Howland and Church unexpectedly and one of the Christian Indians, at Church's bidding, shouting to them that "if they fired one gun they were all dead men," the English rushed forward and seized the guns out of their hands.

Having secured these prisoners, they then advanced and came upon Philip. Here a desperate fight maintained for some time but Philip finally fled, and the English following fell into the ambuscade Philip had placed and one of their number, Thomas Lucas25 of Plymouth was slain. Philip, Totoson and Tuspaquin, continuing their retreat, fell in with the party left at the entrance, but finally broke through and got safely away.

During the conflict, Church, with two companions, met three of the enemy, two of whom surrendered themselves and were seized by the captain's guard, but the other, a great stout, surly fellow, with his two locks tied up with red and a great rattlesnake's skin hanging to the back p265 of his head (whom they concluded to be Totoson) ran from them into the swamp.

The necessity of looking after his prisoners who now numbered over one hundred and seventy, and of procuring supplies, compelled Church to give over the pursuit. The prisoners were marched to Taunton where they "were well treated with food and drink and had a merry night of it."26

The Author's Notes:

1 Captain Jeremiah Swaine was of Reading. When the forces for the Narragansett campaign were organized, in lieu of Captain Appleton who was also major of the regiment, the First Company of the Massachusetts Line, as lieutenant. At the Narragansett fight he was wounded. In 1677 he commanded a company sent to Black Point in the Province of Maine, as part of a force to establish there a base of supplies, and in 1679 he was captain of the foot company in Reading. He also served as representative to the General Court. In 1733 his heirs received a grant of land in the Narragansett Township No. 3 (now Westminster, Mass.), in recognition of his services in Philip's war. — Bodge. Massachusetts Colony Records.

5 The Rev. William Hubbard was the author of "The History of the Indian Wars in New England," a contemporaneous record which is the chief basis of all accounts of those times. He was born in England, came to this country with his father, and was made freeman of Ipswich in 1653. He graduated in the first class from Harvard College, and November 17, 1658, was ordained in the ministry as colleague with the Rev. Thomas Cobbett of Ipswich. "He was many years the most eminent minister in the County of Essex; equal to any in the Province for learning and candour, and superior to all his contemporaries as a writer." He was held in high esteem and was appointed by the General Court to write the account of the Indian wars above mentioned, for which a grant of money was made him. He died September 24, 1704, aged eighty-three. See I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. X, pages 33, 34. Savage.

6 Hezekiah Willet, born November 17, 1653, was the son of Thomas, an early settler of the Indian lands at Wannamoiset in Swansea (now Riverside, R. I.). He married, January 7, 1676, his first cousin Ann, daughter of John Brown the second, and was killed by the Indians July 1st following. "As hopeful a young gentleman as any in these parts."

7 This was on the south bank of the Pawtuxet River, below Natick. The exact place of this massacre is not known. It was seven miles from Providence. — Rider.

8 The messenger between the Connecticut Council of War and Pessacus, in the peace negotiations. — Major Talcott to Connecticut Council, Connecticut Colony Records, Vol. II, page 458.

12 Jabez Howland, son of John of the Mayflower, was of Duxbury and served during Philip's war as lieutenant in Captain Benjamin Church's company. After the war he settled in Bristol and became an innkeeper. He was representative in 1689‑90. — Savage.

13 Nathaniel Southworth, born in 1648, was first of Plymouth, then of Middleboro. He was a lieutenant in Philip's war. He was representative in 1696, and died January 14, 1711. His sister Alice was the wife of Captain Benjamin Church. — Savage.

16 The house built for the first minister of the town, the Rev. James Keith, almost directly opposite the north end of the most westerly bridge across the river, is still standing, and not far from this was located the church and cemetery, on what is now known as Howard Street, the site being marked by a monument. Nearly a mile easterly from the minister's house, was one of the garrison houses, the location of this being the only one that can now be identified. The village of that day was identical with the present village of West Bridgewater and lay chiefly along the north side of the Nunketetest or Town River.

18 Drake's Book of the Indians, Book III. The original letter is not to be found.

21 This tree probably lay over the stream somewhere between what are now known as Covington's and Woodbury's bridges.

22 II Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. VII, page 157. This account was supposed to have been written by Comfort Willis, one of those who discovered the first Indian and who went as a messenger to Plymouth.

24 The pursuit of Church after Philip, commencing at the fallen tree over the Taunton River not far from the present railway station at Titicut, passed westerly to the southward of Nippenicket Pond, through the northern part of Taunton, past Winniconnet Pond in Norton, then, bearing southwesterly, came into a swamp in the northern part of Rehoboth, where they came upon Philip as above related.

25 Thomas Lucas had a bad record for drunkenness, abusing his wife and reviling deceased magistrates. His name figures constantly in the court records.

p245 Chapter XV

The Author's Notes: