Penacook (Concord, New Hampshire)
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PENACOOK (CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE) “I know histhry isn’t thrue, Hinnissy, because it ain’t like what I see ivry day in Halsted Street. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that’ll show me th’ people fightin’, gettin’ dhrunk, makin’ love, gettin’ married, owin’ th’ grocery man an’ bein’ without hard coal, I’ll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befur.” — Dunne, Finley Peter, OBSERVATIONS BY MR. DOOLEY, New York, 1902 “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1570 By this point at least, Passaconaway (“Child of the Bear”) of the Penacook was alive (he may have been born as early as 1550). NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Concord, New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1600 By this point at least, Passaconaway (“Child of the Bear”) had become headman of the Penacook. He lived at the top of the Pawtucket Falls in what would become Lowell in what would become Massachusetts. At this point, upstream at what would become Concord in what would become New Hampshire, there were about 2,000 English settlers. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Concord, New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1619 Michael Praetorius’s SYNTAGMA MUSICUM portrayed three Querflotten (flutes having a 2-octave range). In about this year Wannalancet (“Pleasant Breathing”) was born, a son of headman Passaconaway (“Child of the Bear”) of the Penacook. (The name has also been spelled Wannalancet, Wannalancit, Wanaloset, and Wanalosett, but here we are relying on the spelling Thoreau would use in AWEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS.) A WEEK: Two hundred years ago other catechizing than this was PEOPLE OF going on here; for here came the Sachem Wannalancet, and his A WEEK people, and sometimes Tahatawan, our Concord Sachem, who afterwards had a church at home, to catch fish at the falls; and here also came John Eliot, with the Bible and Catechism, and Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, and other tracts, done into the Massachusetts tongue, and taught them Christianity meanwhile. “This place,” says Gookin, referring to Wamesit, “being an ancient and capital seat of Indians, they come to fish; and this good man takes this opportunity to spread the net of the gospel, to fish for their souls.” — JOHN ELIOT WANNALANCET DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Concord, New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1666 Summer: There was an exchange of native raids, with the Mohawk hitting the Penacook while the Sokoki and Kennebec attacked Mohawk villages. From the standpoint of the Pennacook, Sokoki, and Abenaki, it was bad enough that the English had become allied with the Iroquois but, even worse, the Boston traders abandoned them to move west to Albany and trade with their enemies. HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1674 Concord, New Hampshire’s population was about 1,250. HISTORY OF CONCORD NH THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Concord, New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1675 Upon the outbreak of “King Philip’s War,” Wannalancet was invited to a meeting with the English and when he came, he was taken into custody. Upon his release he and his Penacook would flee temporarily, possibly to Merrimack, New Hampshire near present-day Horseshoe Pond and possibly all the way to Canada, and await the outcome of the hostilities. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Concord, New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1679 Upon the death of his father Passaconaway, possibly in Maine, Wannalancet became headman of the Penacook. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Concord, New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1689 With the beginning of King William’s War (until 1697), the French wanted the Abenaki and Penacook warriors to remain in Canada to defend Québec, but these refugee tribes had become eager to take their vengeance upon the English who had so badly abused them in previous generations. War parties from St. Francois, Bécancour, and Missisquoi headed south. Ampolack, a Pennacook war chief from St. Francois, was leading raids against the English settlements in the Connecticut Valley. Kancamagus joined with the Saco to attack Dover NH and, when an English army went after him, retreated north into the remotenesses of the upper Androscoggin Valley in Maine. The small groups of Pennacook on the upper Merrimack tried to remain neutral, but this wasn’t easy. In 1687 false rumors had been spreading among the English of a French fort being created near the Pennachook settlements on the upper Merrimack River. Despite their assurances that they were neutral and despite an offer in 1689 to relocate nearer to the English settlements, the Pennachook were under constant danger of an English decimation. Meanwhile, war parties out of Canada were using their river villages as rest stops on their way to and from raids in New England. Their situation had become just impossible. Eventually, most of these neutral Pennacook would need to withdraw to Lake Champlain and Cowass (Sokoki) for the HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE duration of the war.1 1. Professor Mary Beth Norton of Cornell University points out in her IN THE DEVIL’S SNARE: THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT CRISIS OF 1692 that the girls who were initially affected by “witchcraft” in Salem, Massachusetts were refugees from the Indian wars of Maine. She points out that two little-known wars were fought, one between 1676 and 1678 and the other between 1688 and 1699, with the English residents suffered greatly at the hands of the Wabanaki and their French allies. She avers that in 1676 and again in 1690, the English settlements of Maine were virtually abandoned, and that that area would not again be settled for decades. HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1697 Headman Wannalancet of the Penacook died. The name is now perpetuated in the name of a park in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the stream that flows through that park, and a local elevation of 2,780 feet, as “Wonalancet.” HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1701 As war approached in 1701, a large group of hostile Abenaki had situated itself in the area between the Penacook of the upper Merrimack and the Pennacook of St. Francois. At a meeting held at Casco Bay, aware that another war was imminent, the English attempted to lure them away from the French or at least hold them neutral. In the tug-of-war for their allegiance, the English offered trade and a sanctuary at Schaghticoke, while the French countered with a similar but more appealing offer at St. Francois. The Abenaki chose the French side. HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1719 According to a New England story, at this point there were still a few isolated villages of Penacook along the upper reaches of the Merrimack River. HDT WHAT? INDEX PENACOOK CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1765 There had been much dispute as to whether the white settlement at what had originally been Penacook on the Merrimack River was to be considered to be under the jurisdiction of New Hampshire authorities, or under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts authorities. Much depended on this not only in the halls of the respective state governments but also locally, where a decision one way or the other would mean that the claims to real property of one group or another could be held to be spurious. The town changed its name, again, this time to “Concord,”2 with the pious hope that such a name would prevent local whites from coming to blows with one HISTORY OF CONCORD NH another. It was not that the local whites lacked a common enemy which could bring them together, for they were united in the hatred and distrust they felt toward persons of the Roman Catholic faith.3 Those people are engaged in a secret conspiracy to control the planet, and if we let down our guard for an instant they will eat our lunch. There was a restrictive covenant in effect, that no-one could purchase local land or property without the permission of the entire community, and the explanation was that this restrictive covenant was intended to “keep out the Irish,” except we may note that being “Irish” in this context, and being kept out, had little to do with originating in Ireland and a whole lot to do with one’s religious persuasion. ANTI-CATHOLICISM 2. It had been called, for instance, “Rumford.” 3. In point of fact, it would not become legal for Catholics to hold high public office in New Hampshire until 1877. HDT WHAT? INDEX CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE PENACOOK 1805 On a mountainside of the Franconia Notch about 70 miles north of Concord, New Hampshire, a large and quite rich vein of iron ore was discovered, quite unlike the lowland “bog iron” resources that had been utilized until that date. Investors from Boston and Salem set up the New Hampshire Iron Foundry and hired 10 men at $15.00 per month to blast out the ore and cart it downhill.