PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:

DANIEL GOOKIN

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1612

December 6, Sunday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin had been born, perhaps in County Cork, Ireland, in the latter part of this year, as the 3d son of Daniel Gookin of County Kent and County Cork and Mary (or Mariam) Byrd (or Birde) Gookin of Saffron Walden in Essex, a couple that had been married in Canterbury Cathedral because

of the fact that the bride’s father, the Reverend Richard Byrd, DD, was one of the Canons of that Cathedral. On this day the newborn was baptized at the church of St. Augustine-the-Less (which is to say, this was not the Cathedral Church of St Augustine at College Green on the south side of Bristol) in Bristol, Northbourne, County Kent.

Daniel and Mary (Byrd) Gookin had five sons. Richard, the eldest, was born about 1609 and named after his grandfather, Dr. Byrd. At the time of his father’s death he was apparently still a member of the paternal household, being described in the administrator’s bond as “Richard Gookin of St. Finn Barre, Cork, Gent.,” but as he did not serve as one of the administrators it may be that he was engaged in some occupation that made it impracticable. Nothing has been learned about his career, though it is certain that he died before 1655, and fair to presume that he married, since he alone of all the members of the family could have been the father of “John Gookin of St. Dunstan’s in the East, London, mariner,” concerning whom also nothing is known except that on November 21, 1665, being then a “bachelor aged HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

about 28,” he married “Mrs Francis Pitt of Stepney, widow, aged about 23.” Edward, the second son, who was baptized at Ripple in 1611, died young. Next came Daniel, born toward the end of 1612; then John, who was perhaps the twin brother of Daniel; then a second Edward, probably born in 1615, as he was old enough in April, 1633, to be constituted one of the administrators of his father’s estate, yet still a minor, for his mother was appointed his guardian on the same day that the letters of administration were issued. He died, unmarried, before 1655. It may be that there was also a daughter Mary, born about 1617, for, on July 2, 1635, a marriage license bond for the marriage of “Marie Gowkine” to “Hugh Bullock of London, gentleman” was filed in the City of Cork. It seems more likely, however, that “Mary Gowkine” was Daniel Gookin’s widow. If so, the marriage did not take place, for about three weeks later Mary, who appears to have gone to visit the family of her brother-in-law Sir Vincent Gookin, then living at Bitton in Gloucestershire, died and was buried there on July 27, 1635. Daniel and John, the third and fourth sons of Daniel Gookin, were probably away from home at the time of their father’s death. We know that Daniel was at the Marie’s Mount plantation as early as 1631, when he was only eighteen, and not unlikely John may have been there with him. John’s career was a short one. On October 17, 1636, he was granted 500 acres of land on the Nansemond River in Virginia for transporting ten persons to the colony, and in the course of the next five years he had three additional grants aggregating 1490 acres more. In 1637 or 1638 he was appointed one of the Commissioners for keeping monthly courts in Lower Norfolk, and in 1639 was a burgess for Upper Norfolk and attended the Grand Assembly that met in James City on January 6. A few days prior to February 4, 1640/1 he married Sarah the relict of Captain Adam Thorowgood of Lynn Haven, Lower Norfolk county. Captain Thorowgood was one of the principal men of the colony. His wife Sarah was the fifth daughter of Robert Offley, Turkey merchant of Grace street, London, whose wife Ann was the daughter of Sir Edward Osborne, Knt., Lord Mayor of London, 1583, by his wife Ann, daughter and sole heir of William Hewitt, Lord Mayor of London, 1559, “a merchant of great repute.” Sarah Offley was baptized at St. Benet’s April 16, 16O9, and was married to Adam Thorowgood at St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, July 18, 1627. She bore him a son and three daughters, who were living at the time of her marriage to John Gookin. By her second husband she had one daughter, Mary Gookin, born in 1641 or 1642, who was married about 1660 to Captain William Moseley of Rolleston, Lower Norfolk, and after his death in 1671, became the second wife of Lieut. Colonel Anthony Lawson. In 1642 John Gookin had the title of Captain, and on March 29, 1643, he was Commander at a court held for Lower Norfolk. He died on November 2, 1643, being then only about thirty years of age. Four years later his widow was married to her third husband, HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

Colonel Francis Yardley, son of Governor Sir George Yardley. She died in August, 1657, and was buried beside John Gookin, at Church Point, Lynn Haven. The tombstone erected to their memory is the only one now readable of those formerly in the church- yard there, the others having been submerged or destroyed by the incursion of the sea. It bears the inscription: Here lieth ye body of Capt John Gooking and also ye body of Mrs Sarah Yardley, who was wife to Capt. Adam Thorowgood first, Capt John Gooking & Collonell Francis Yardley, who deceased August 1657.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1616

By this year the Gookin family was living in Carrigaline, Ireland, where Daniel Gookin presumably would spend his childhood before being sent to be educated in England.

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.

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1620

November 13, Monday (Old Style): Master Gookin contracted with the Virginia Company for “transportac~on” of “fayr and lardge Cattle and of our English breed” “outt of Ireland into Virginia” at a rate of “eleven pounds the Heiffer.” The vessel that would be chartered for this expedition was named The Flyinge Harte.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1621

Fall: According to John Smith’s THE GENERALL HISTORIE OF VIRGINIA, NEW-ENGLAND, AND THE SUMMER ISLES, during this season Daniel Gookin, accompanied by his son Daniel Gookin, sailed from Ireland “with fifty men of his owne and thirty passengers” to establish themselves at Newport News on the Virginia coast. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

November 22, Thursday (Old Style): On the Virginia coast “arrived Master Gookin out of Ireland, with fiftie men of his owne and thirtie Passengers, exceedingly well furnished with all sorts of Provision and cattle and planted himself at Nupors-Newes. The cotton in a yeare grew so thick as one’s arme, and so high as a man: here anything that is planted doth prosper so well as in no place better.” The Flyinge Harte’s 40 younge Cattle would be well and safely landed. The contracted rate of “eleven pounds the Heiffer” seemed to be enough to generate a profit.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1622

March 22, Friday (1621, Old Style): During an Indian onslaught in Virginia (out of a total of about 4,000 white men, 347 were massacred), Daniel Gookin and his son Daniel Gookin, with barely 35 men, were able to hold out at their plantation: “Only Master Gookins at Nuport’s-news would not obey the Commissioners’ command in that, though he scarce had five and thirty of all sorts with him, yet he thought himself sufficient against what would happen, and so did, to his great credit, and the content of his Adventurers.”

Tisquantum (Squanto) plotted against Ousamequin Yellow Feather (the Massasoit) and the plot was exposed by Hobomok.1

The English arrived at Wessaguscusset (Weymouth MA) but soon after settling there, they antagonized the local Massachuseuck by stealing their maize.

Late April or Early May: Daniel Gookin and his son Daniel Gookin returned in the Sea Flower from their plantation in Virginia to the Virginia Company headquarters in London, and then Ireland.

November: By this point Daniel Gookin (the elder) was in possession of the castle and lands of Carrigaline, Ireland. His income of approximately £250 per year from this estate in County Cork would have seemed a very comfortable one.

1. According to Charles C. Mann’s 1491: NEW REVELATIONS OF THE AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS, “Tisquantum was to the Pilgrims [Brownists and Old Comers] what Ahmad Chalabi was to the Americans in Iraq. At a time when the Pilgrims [Brownists and Old Comers] were really clueless, he introduced them to his society and provided valuable information, but he definitely had his own agenda.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1623

April 10, Thursday (Old Style): The Providence, Captain John Clarke, an 80-ton vessel owned or chartered by Master Gookin, arrived after a hard crossing at the plantation at Newport’s Newes on the Virginia coast.2

Aboard this vessel were 70 new colonists, for whom the Virginia Company would compensate Gookin by means of a grant of an additional 3,500 acres of land.

2. On a previous visit to the New World, this John Clarke had been captain of the Mayflower. If the vessel, upon its return voyage, carried a cargo of tobacco, it must have been at considerable loss, for in 1623 the market for tobacco in London was heavily oversupplied. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1631

February 1, Tuesday (1630, Old Style): Shortly after his 18th birthday, at his father Daniel Gookin’s plantation in Virginia, Daniell Gooking of the Maries Mount plantation at Newport Newes in Virginia, gent. was indentured to Thomas Addison, late servant to his father, who had been made the manager of the Marie’s Mount plantation (upon Addison’s retirement he would grant to this apprentice, his boss’s son, the 150 acres of land he had received in compensation for taking on this responsibility of training the son).

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1637

December 29, Friday (Old Style): Burgess Daniel Gookin received a grant of 2,500 acres3 in the upper county of Norfolk in Virginia, to the northwest of the Nansemond River.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

3. Upon a more precise survey in 1685, this “Marie’s Mount” tract at Newports Newes would turn out to contain not 2,500 acres but merely 1,681. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1639

November 11, Monday (Old Style): A license was granted to Daniel Gookin, Gent. of the parish of St Sepulchre at London, who was a widower (we have no details on his initial marriage except that it had been with a Mary Byrd), to remarry with Mary Dolling of the parish of St Dunstan in the West at London, whose parents were dead. The bridegroom was about 27 years of age and the bride about 21. Here is the coat of arms of this Gent., with the left half being made up of the coat of arms of his Gookin father of Carrigaline, Ireland and the right half being made up of the coat of arms of his Byrd mother of Saffron Walden in Essex:

Between his initial voyage to Virginia in his youth and his subsequent voyage to Virginia after this 2d marriage we may presume that Gookin had been in military service (more than likely, in the Netherlands), since Captain Edward Johnson refers to him in his WONDER WORKING PROVIDENCE as a Kentish “souldier,” and since, in Greer’s list of immigrants to Virginia, he would be referred to as “Captain.” Daniel and Mary would produce the following nine children: • Born probably in 1640 in England, Samuel Gookin (would come with the parents to Virginia and die during childhood before 1644). • Born in 1642 in Virginia, Mary Gookin (would die in 1702). • Born in 1645 in Virginia, Elizabeth Gookin (would die in 1700). • Baptized in Roxbury, Massachusetts on May 9, 1647, Hannah Gookin (would die as an infant, on August 2d). • Born in Cambridge on April 8, 1649, Daniel Gookin (would die as an infant, on September 3d). • Born in 1650, Daniel Gookin (again) (would die in 1718). • Born in 1652, Samuel Gookin (again) (would die in 1730). • Born in Cambridge on June 20, 1654, Solomon Gookin (would die as an infant, on July 16th). • Born in 1656, Nathaniel Gookin (would die in 1692). HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1641

Early in this year Daniel Gookin with his wife Mary Dolling Gookin and their infant Samuel Gookin set sail for Virginia, where they would take up residence at the Nansemond plantation. Daniel would be made a Burgess and would represent Upper Norfolk County in the Grand Assembly which would meet in Jamestown on January 12, 1641/1642. He would receive a grant of 2,500 acres in the upper county of Norfolk on the northwest of the Nansemond River on December 29, 1637, and on November 4, 1642 would add to this a further 1,400 acres on the Rappahannock River. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1642

January 12, Wednesday (1641, Old Style): In what would be known as the “Shawomet Purchase,” Samuell Gorton, Holden, Greene, and others purchased land from headman Miantonomo of the Narraganset people at Shawomet (now Warwick). Other names on the document were William Hutchinson, John Wickes, Sampson Shotten, and Robert Potter. They would be joined by a number of Gorton’s followers. These “Gortonites” had great contempt for the regular clergy and for outward forms of worship, and insisted that true believers partook of the perfection of God. Their tenets included denial of the Trinity, denial of actual heaven and hell, repudiation of any ceremonies of baptism or communion, repudiated any and all religious training of a formal nature, and an insistence that every man should be his own intercessor. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT

“Captain” Daniel Gookin represented Upper Norfolk County in the Grand Assembly at Jamestown, Virginia.

May 24, Tuesday (Old Style): A letter addressed to the Puritan elders of the Church at Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, requested that they send some ministers to Virginia, where holiness was in great demand. The letter, now known as the “Nansemond petition,” would arrive in Boston harbor on a small coasting vessel early in September. After two ministers who had been asked to go had declined, the Reverends William Tompson of Braintree, a graduate of Oxford, John Knowles of Watertown, a graduate of Emmanuel College, and Thomas James of Charlestown and after that of New Haven, would respond. At Hell Gate they almost drowned, but then they would be able to obtain another boat from the Dutch at Manhattan. The voyage of their small pinnacle would consume eleven weeks. The planter Daniel Gookin would be among those welcoming them there, and would become closely associated with the Reverend William Thompson.4 However, the new Governor of the Virginia Colony, Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677), an adherent of the Church of England, would give them a frigid reception and during March 1642/1643 at the next meeting of the Virginia General Assembly (this would be its final meeting, since Virginia was then coming under the direct administration of the Crown), an act of conformity would be passed.

November 4, Friday (Old Style): Captain Daniel Gookin added to the 2,500 acres he had already been granted in the upper county of Norfolk in Virginia on the northwest of the Nansemond River a further 1,400 acres, on the Rappahannock River. Among the persons whom the plantation master placed upon this ground was one black slave, named Jacob Warrow. He would be the property of Daniel until he and another black slave were murdered by two natives, in 1655.5

4. “A constellation of great converts there, Shone round him, and his heavenly glory were. GOOKINS was one of these; by Tompson’s pains, CHRIST and NEW ENGLAND a dear GOOKINS gains.” — The Reverend Cotton Mather, MAGNALIA CHRISTI AMERICANA (I:440). 5. The two natives, incriminated by the testimony of a servant Mary who had herself been severely wounded, and by articles found in their possession, and by their own admission that they had been present, would be convicted and sentenced and on the same day executed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1643

March: The Reverends William Thompson of Braintree, John Knowles of Emmanuel College, and Thomas James of New Haven had been invited to come down from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Virginia Colony and it had taken them eleven weeks to get down the coast by ship, but the new Governor of the Virginia Colony, Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677), an adherent of the Church of England, had given these low-church ministers a frigid reception. The Virginia planter Daniel Gookin had become closely associated with the Reverend William Thompson. However, at the final meeting of the Virginia General Assembly (Virginia was then coming under the direct administration of the Crown), an act of conformity was passed.6 The Reverends John Knowles and Thomas James would need to leave Virginia for New England during April 1643. The Reverend William Thompson, accompanied by his friend the Virginia planter Daniel Gookin, would emigrate during Summer 1643 to Maryland.

April: The Reverends William Thompson of Braintree, John Knowles of Emmanuel College, and Thomas James of New Haven had come down from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Virginia Colony, but their reception had not been as warm as had been anticipated. An act of conformity had been passed by the final Virginia General Assembly. During this month the Reverends John Knowles and Thomas James headed back toward New England. Then during the summer months the Reverend William Thompson, accompanied by his friend the Virginia planter Daniel Gookin, would emigrate to Maryland.

Summer: The Reverend William Thompson, accompanied by his friend the Virginia planter Daniel Gookin, emigrated from the Virginia Colony to Maryland, where, despite Catholic rule, non-conformists were welcomed and tolerated, and where Gookin would acquire land near the South River and the Severn River, near the future site of Annapolis.

November 2 or 22 (sources differ): Captain John Gookin died at Lynn Haven in the Lower Norfolk county of Virginia. His brother the Virginia planter Daniel Gookin would no longer feel himself bound by any strong ties to that colony. Leaving his three plantations in the charge of servants, he would sail for Boston during May 1644 with his wife Mary Dolling Gookin and infant daughter Mary Gookin (his son Stephen Gookin had died).

6. “For the preservation of the puritie of doctrine & unitie of the church, It is enacted that all ministers whatsoever which shall reside in the collony are to be conformable to the orders and constitution of the church of England, and the laws therein established, and not otherwise to be admitted to teach or preach publickly or privatly, And that the Gov. and Counsel do take care that all nonconformists upon notice of them shall be compelled to depart the collony with all convenencie.” — Henning’s STATUTES AT LARGE (I:277). HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1644

April 18, Thursday (Old Style): In Virginia, another massacre of white settlers by the native tribes.

May: Daniel Gookin left his three Virginia plantations in the charge of servants and set sail with his wife Mary Dolling Gookin and infant daughter Mary Gookin (their son Stephen Gookin had died) for Boston.

May 20, Monday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin, his wife Mary Dolling Gookin, and their infant daughter Mary Gookin disembarked. The news they brought of the recent massacre in Virginia was the first news of this occurrence to arrive at Boston.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

May 26, Sunday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin was admitted to membership in the First Church of Boston.7

May 29, Wednesday (Old Style): In Concord, Thomas Brooks was deputy and representative to the General Court.

Daniel Gookin was made a freeman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The family would reside initially in Boston, but would relocate to Roxbury and become a near neighbor of the Reverend John Eliot, Sr., pastor of the First Church of Roxbury and “Apostle to the Indians.”

7. “Mrs. Mary Gookin, or brother Captaine Gookin’s wife,” would be admitted as a member on October 12th. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1645

Daniel Gookin was one of the founders of the Free Grammar School of Roxbury. His daughter Elizabeth Gookin was baptized at the First Church of Boston (she would get married with the Reverend John Eliot, Sr.’s son).

Back on the plantation in Virginia, in this year Daniel’s black slave Jacob Warrow was murdered by the natives. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1646

Daniel Gookin’s daughter Hannah Gookin was born at Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He would be appointed a deputy from Roxbury to the General Court. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1648

April 6, Thursday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin released to Captain Thomas Burbage the 1,400 acres of land granted to him in 1642 on the Rappahannock River in Virginia.

July: The family of Daniel Gookin removed from Roxbury to Cambridge, where he was appointed Captain of the Trained Band (a position he would hold for four decades). HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1649

Spring: Daniel Gookin was chosen as Deputy from Cambridge to the General Court held in Boston. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1650

July 24, Wednesday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin was in London again, on public business for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He obtained on this day an authorization to export certain munitions to New England.8

8. 30 barrels of powder, 10 tons of shot and lead, and fifty arms. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1651

Spring: Daniel Gookin returned from LondonLONDON to Cambridge. He would again be chosen as a Deputy to the General Court held in Boston.

May 7, Wednesday (Old Style): In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Daniel Gookin was chosen as Speaker for the General Court. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1652

May 26, Wednesday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin was elected an Assistant, one of the Council of 18 magistrates to whom, with the Governor and a Deputy Governor, the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was entrusted (except in the May election of 1676, in which he would suffer electoral defeat largely because of his sympathetic treatment of Indians during the Indian War, Gookin would be re-elected to this position continuously for a period of 35 years).

The General Court of the Bay colony ordered that after September no coinage other than 3d., 6d. and 12d. pieces coined at the mint-house in Boston needed to be accepted locally in trade, “except the receiver consent.” These new coins being minted locally were inscribed N.E. on one side and III, VI, or XII on the other. This local minting of coins would continue until after 1667 despite royal displeasure. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1655

December: When Oliver Cromwell had been proclaimed Lord Protector and Daniel’s cousin Vincent Gookin had become a member of the initial Protectorate Parliament, Daniel Gookin had again returned to London. Upon the capture of Jamaica Daniel was sent thither as commissioner for settling the new colony from New England (Granville Penn’s MEMORIALS OF SIR WILLIAM PENN contains his instructions, coped from the books of the council of state). Daniel’s letters to Secretary Thurloe indicate that this mission met with no success. After this HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

failure Daniel returned to London. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

December 5, 1655 Dearest Mother, I write this letter to let you know of our family’s safe arrival, and to express my sincerest apologies for not having written you sooner. I am writing to you from our new plantation in Clarendon, which is on the southern coast of Jamaica. I hope this letter finds you and papa in good health. I wish Ronald and I could have persuaded you to travel with us to our new home. Both he and I wish fervently the plague doesn’t reach northern England. I am sure you are eager for news of our voyage. So I will begin with the week after my last letter, the day of our departure. The week before we left a letter arrived confirming the land grant we were to receive. In an effort to persuade English investors to settle in Jamaica, the governor of the island, Sir Thomas Modyford, had promised each investor thirty acres for each per son they bring with them. As Ronald intends to bring over one hundred slaves from Barbados, we were guaranteed three thousand and ninety acres of land. I was sincerely happy when this news reached us. As you know Ronald originally planned to wait to book passage until the confirmation came. However, when word of the plague was spread we both thought it best to leave immediately. It was a relief to know that we had a home to go to when we arrived in Jamaica. With this thought in mind, my journey seemed to me less foreboding. I shall now relate to you, dearest mother, the details of our journey, as I know you must be anxious to hear them. Ronald was determined to make a hasty voyage, so he allowed us only one servant each. I took with me Betty, who recently came into our employment in anticipation of our voyage. She is young and I hoped that she would be able to endure the humid climate of Jamaica. Our precious Virginia took her nursemaid, Molly, who being the same age as Betty, should be good company for her. Ronald was practically forced to take Jeremy with him, for he has been in his service since he was a young man. However, we both fear his body will not do well in the extreme heat of our new home, him being accustomed to our cool English weather. Our servants were in as much earnest as we to escape the destruction of the plague. The six of us, bundled in our carriage, passed through the gates of Winchester at five o’clock in the morning. There were many houses that were closed down, in the same fashion as our own, throughout the city. We were quite fortunate to have left so early, as we passed many families who were only just packing their carriages. There was sparse traffic until eight o’clock, after that carts and carriages lined the roads. We passed a number of peasants, who carried their few possessions with them. The only place that we could conjecture that they should go was to America as indentured servants or as stowaways. We had traveled north to Newton Toney and back south again to Salisbury. The traveling was so slow that we were forced to stay the night at an inn there. Our next day was much the same, only we left a half hour earlier. We managed to reach Dorchester by the end of the day. Our journey continued in this fashion until we neared Plymouth, which was where our ship was docked. We reached Plymouth by mid-afternoon. We were to sail the next morn. Ronald quickly registered us in one of the hotels. We were very lucky to have procured some rooms in a decent hotel. Plymouth was very busy with all the people escaping the plague, but I think most wished to save money by staying in a cheaper hotel. Thank the Lord that we don’t have to worry about money. As soon as we had settled Virginia and the servants into their rooms, Ronald and I set out to the nearest dress shop. I had earlier entreated him to let me buy one article of clothing before we set sail. I reasoned that this was the most likely the last time I would be in English dress shop and that this one indulgence would mean a lot to me. He was reluctant to separate the family, but he eventually gave in. I returned to the hotel with a divine white satin stomacher, which Ronald thought a very impractical item to buy. However, as you can imagine mother, I was delighted with this diversion. I gave no thought of the impending ship voyage until morning. I was very apprehensive when I woke in the morning, however Ronald got us and our luggage aboard the ship so quickly I forgot about all my fears. Virginia was full of excitement about going on a sea voyage that she had no tears for her homeland. Oh, to be four again and have no cares in the world. Soon we were under way and Plymouth and England were but a speck. At the start of our voyage I felt compelled to keep Virginia in her cabin. I did not wish for her to associate too much with the crew. However, Ronald eventually persuaded me to let her roam about, as long as her nursemaid, Molly was attending her. Our voyage was pleasant not one of our family was HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

affected by sea sickness. Ronald passed much of his time in discussion with another gentleman about sugar plantations and also of Henry Morgan. Morgan, a buccaneer, has been commissioned by Governor Modyford to raid Dutch and French ships. Although we are not at war with the Netherlands and France presently, there is an undeclared war being waged in the Caribbean. It is going on even now as I write this letter. Right now it is mostly with the Dutch, but I fear it will soon escalate and France will soon join in the fight. I had passed many hours on board the ship reading over the works of Sir Thomas Browne that you had given me some years before. I read again with pleasure The Garden of Cyprus and Religio Medici. As for Virginia I had brought my old cup and ball that was so much the rage when I was younger. She constantly plays with it, however, I have yet to see her get the ball inside the cup. I was fortunate to be able to have taken these treasures from home and England. Soon, we had sailed through the Windward Passage and were only a few days from Jamaica. Oh, how nervous I was, mother! My one consolation was that we would be disembarking at Old Harbor and not Port Royal. Did you know that Port Royal is often referred to as the Sodom of the Indies? There are reportedly quite a number of prostitutes and convicts there. I did not wish to start my new life in a place filled with vermin. Fortunately Old Harbor was the closest port to Clarendon. It was an extremely hot day when we arrived and it was in November! The humidity was so great that I think it made Virginia very temperamental. Thankfully, we were able to stay the night in a hotel before continuing our journey. Betty and Molly had been complaining the whole day about the heat, and I was glad that I was rid of them for the night. Ronald had had some business to take care of during the day, and I believe that things wee going well for us. He had made arrangements for the slaves to be transported to the plantation upon their arrival, and he had purchased a carriage to take us to our new home. When we got into the carriage the next morning, the heat was already climbing to high temperatures. Our trip was not very long, for it was just past Round Hill, which is near the ocean. Along the way we saw armies of slaves clearing the immense jungles that covered the island. Fortunately, the land Ronald was granted had been previously been cleared by a Spanish colonist before our English soldiers took Jamaica over in 1655. There is also a house on the land. However, when we reached our plantation we could see that it would be a temporary residence. I have spent the past week getting all of our new furniture arranged in our house. The few belongings we brought with us took Betty and I only a day to unpack. Virginia seems to be flourishing here, although the heat affects her some. I am very adamant that she stays close to the house and goes no where near the jungle. Everyday at noon the entire household takes a nap. I think that without one I would soon be overcome by the heat. Our fears for Jeremy are slowly being realized. I think that he will not survive long in this humid climate, he has been ill ever since we arrived. However, we do our best to care for him. I will write again with news of our plantation and of the apparent strife between the buccaneers and planters. I wish with all my heart that you and Papa are untouched by the plague. Write me soon with news of our family and of England. I miss our ho me a great deal, but I am glad our family arrived safely. Ronald and Virginia send their love, as do I. Take care and watch for my next letters.

Your loving daughter, Emma HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1656

To appease the English, in 1652 and again in 1655 the Pennacook had relinquished some of their territories. In this year they sold some more, for the same reason, but by 1662 so much of the prime land would have been taken up by the intrusives that headman Passaconnaway would be forced to petition the Massachusetts legislature for relief. Merely four decades after the First Comers had arrived at Plymouth, the Pennacook on the lower Merrimack would have become no longer in a position to share or sell their lands but would be reduced to asking the English to leave them some land on which they might live.

Daniel Gookin was appointed by the Massachusetts General Court as the superintendent of all the Indians who had submitted to the government of Massachusetts. He would be reinstated as the superintendent of these “Praying Indians” in 1661, and continue to hold the office until his death, although his protection of the natives would make him unpopular. His work with the natives would suggest his HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND, completed in 1674, first published in Volume I of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY in 1792. Prefixed are epistles to King Charles II as a “nursing father” to the church, and to Robert Boyle as governor of the corporation for propagating the gospel in America. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1659

March 10, Thursday (1658, Old Style): Daniel Gookin was commissioned by the council of state to receive the duties at Dunkirk.

August 30, Tuesday (Old Style): The committee for Dunkirk recommended Daniel Gookin for the post of deputy treasurer at war, to reside in Dunkirk and superintend all the financial arrangements. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1660

With the Convention Parliament restoring King Charles II to the throne of England and the royal court returning to London from exile in Paris, the religious freedom of Puritans such as the Reverend David Clarkson would be beginning to be restricted, by means of what was known as the Clarendon code. At the restoration of the Stuarts, the Puritan leaders Major-General William Goffe and his father-in-law Lieutenant-General Edward Whalley, having signed the death warrant of Charles I and being thus “regicides,” fled for their lives to Vevay, on the borders of the Lake of Geneva, but being in danger of capture they fled on, escorted by Daniel Gookin, to America, winding up for a brief period under Gookin’s protection in Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then for a longer period in New Haven.9

WALDEN: I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when PEOPLE OF the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old WALDEN settler and original proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples or cider, –a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility, and her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her children yet.

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM GOFFE LT.-GENERAL EDWARD WHALLEY

9. For more on the regicides, consult Alexander Winston’s “The Hunt for the Regicides” in the anthology A SENSE OF HISTORY (NY: American Heritage, 1985, pages 60-71). Sometimes it is good for us to practice being non-Eurocentric, therefore please take note that all the New England Puritans were regicides, the king they murdered being one they were terming King Phillip, who was otherwise known as Metacom or Metacomet. After they shot him in the back while he was trying to flee through a swamp practically naked, they quartered his body and hung the quarters in a tree, and took off his crippled hand for exhibition in local saloons, and took off his head to stick upon a pole in their capital town. Here’s a parallel that those of us who find this sort of thing interesting will find interesting: A number of years later, presumably after the skull of Metacomet had been pretty well cleaned off and had stopped stinking, a Puritan reverend reached up and pulled off this American king’s lower jaw, and took it home to his family as a souvenir. Meanwhile, in England, an aristocratic family was being discovered to have in its possession a salt-cellar made from a human neck vertebra neatly sliced through — and so the Queen of England had this grisly object confiscated, and interred it with her ancestor Charles I. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

Gookin would serve Cambridge as Selectman from 1660 to 1672. A “King’s Commission” would report to London that he had been less than cooperative in their inquiry as to the whereabouts of the two regicides — in that he had declined to deliver up some cattle they were supposing to be the property of this pair. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1662

The Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law banning all printing except that done under strict license, in Cambridge. It appointed Daniel Gookin and the Reverend Jonathan Mitchell as the first licensers of this press — and Gookin declined.

In Concord, Thomas Brooks was again deputy and representative to the General Court.

Samuel Willard of Concord, son of Major Simon Willard and a graduate of Harvard College, was ordained at Groton.

In her old age Squaw Sachem had become blind, and in this year she died. In all probability, her death, since HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

she was not white, was not one of the four listed as having occurred in Concord in this year.

Marriages Births Deaths

1656 3 11 —

1657 3 11 3

1658 3 6 3

1659 2 10 4

1660 6 11 3

1661 2 12 6

1662 4 14 4

1663 5 14 4

1664 4 11 2

1665 7 13 6

1666 2 22 6

1667 8 15 6

1668 4 21 5

1669 4 24 5

1670 2 21 2

1671 6 22 7

1672 5 20 3

1673 6 29 6

1674 3 20 5

1675 5 21 11

1676 4 13 13

1677 11 22 6 HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

A remaining group of probably fewer that 100 of her tribe lived in Concord under the subordinate headman Tahatawan, along the far bank of the stream from Egg Rock down to Clamshell Bluffs10 with farmlands behind their homes. They had their Nashobah Plantation, around Nagog Pond approximately 11 miles to the northwest, near what would become Littleton, but evidently were still too fearful of further Mohawk raids to be able to reside there. In this year Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler petitioned the General Court to grant to him 200 acres out of these native lands, but this petition was denied. Eventually the Nashobah would move to their reservation, where they would reside for approximately four decades until they were removed back to Concord during the frenzy of “King Phillip’s War”. At that point 58 would be remaining: 12 men and 46 women and children. Back in Concord, they would pitch their tents on the property of John Hoar. Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler, by trading with the Nashobah Indians, became their creditor, and petitioned the General Court, in 1662, for a grant of 200 acres of land at the southerly part of their plantation [Nashobah Plantation] as payment for his debt; but it was refused. In 1669, he, with several inhabitants of Concord, petitioned for a tract of land at Pompasitticutt; and the Court appointed him, with John Haynes of Sudbury, William Kerley of Marlborough, James Parker of Groton, and John Moore of Lancaster, a committee to view it and report at their next session. This report was made May 11, 1670; and it was found “to contain 10,000 acres of country whereof about 500 is meadow. The greater part of it is very mean land, but we judge there will be planting ground enough to accommodate 20 families. Also there is about 4000 acres more of land that is taken up in farmes, whereof about 500 acres is meadow. There is also the Indian plantation of Nashobah, that doth border on one side of this tract of land, that is exceedingly well meadowed, and they do make but little or no use of it.” George Hayward, Joseph Wheeler, Thomas Wheeler, John Hayward, William Buttrick, Sydrach Hapgood, Stephen Hall, Edmund Wigley of Concord, and Joseph Newton and Richard Holdridge, petitioned for this tract of land; and it was granted to them, “to make a village, provided the place be setteled with not less than ten famyles within three years, and that a pious, an able, and orthodox minister be maintained there.” Daniel Gookin, Thomas Danforth, and Joseph Cook were appointed “to order the settlement of the village in all respects;” and the various proceedings in relation to it resulted in the incorporation of the town of Stow, May 16, 1683;11 which has since been found able to accommodate more than twenty families!12

10. Henry Thoreau would visit Clamshell Bluffs many times, examining not only the broken shells left by previous inhabitants, but also fragments of pottery, and a stone tool. Clamshell Bluffs is now beneath the asphalt of the Emerson Hospital parking lot. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1663

June 25, Thursday (Old Style): The first movement toward a purchase of the province of Maine by Massachusetts was in a letter written by Daniel Gookin to Ferdinando Gorges (printed in the NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER).

Mary Barnes of Farmington, Connecticut, found guilty of witchcraft, was likely hanged in Hartford on this

11. Twelve “foundation lots,” containing 50 acres of upland and 15 of meadow, were at first granted in the following order:— to the Minister, Boaz Brown, Gershom Heald, John Buttrick, Ephraim Hildreth, Thomas Stevens, Stephen Hall, Samuel Buttrick, Joseph Freeman, Joseph Darby, Thomas Gates, and Shadrach Hapgood. Others were afterwards granted. Others were afterwards granted: John Wetherby, Dec. 18, 1679. Richard Whitney, sen. June 3, 1680. James Wheeler, April 8, 1681. Moses Whitney, April 8, 1681. Henry Rand, Jan. 13, 1682. Isaac Heald, Jan. 13, 1682. Israel Heald, March 13, 1682. Benj. Bosworth, Aug. 7, 1682. Thomas Ward, Oct. 24, 1682. Richard Whitney, jr. Oct. 24, 1682. Jabez Rutter, Oct. 24, 1682. Thomas Steevens, jr. June 17, 1684. Boaz Brown, jr., June 17, 1684. Samuel Hall, June 17, 1684. Thomas Darby, June 17, 1684. Mark Perkins, Jan. 1, 1685. Richard Burke, sen. March 1, 1686. Roger Willis, March 1, 1686. Benj. Crane, Dec. 23, 1682. Joseph Wheeler, April 19, 1683. Jabez Brown, June 15, 1683. Thomas Williams, June 15, 1683. Stephen Handell, March 10, 1686. Benj. Crane. These were the original inhabitants of Stow [Massachusetts]. Those in italics went from Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

day.

Major American Witchcraft Cases

1647 Elizabeth Kendall, Alse Young 1663 Mary Barnes

1648 Margaret Jones, Mary Johnson 1666 Elizabeth Seager

1651 Alice Lake, Mrs. (Lizzy) Kendal, Goody 1669 Katherine (Kateran) Harrison Bassett, Mary Parsons

1652 John Carrington, Joan Carrington 1683 Nicholas Disborough, Margaret Mattson

1653 Elizabeth “Goody” Knapp, Elizabeth 1688 Annie “Goody” Glover Godman

1654 Lydia Gilbert, Kath Grady, Mary Lee 1692 Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Towne Nurse, Sarah Good, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes, Mary Staplies, Mercy Disborough, Elizabeth Clawson, Mary Harvey, Hannah Harvey, Goody Miller, Giles Cory, Mary Towne Estey, Reverend George Burrough, George Jacobs, Sr., John Proctor, John Willard, Martha Carrier, Sarah Good, Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Tituba

1655 Elizabeth Godman, Nicholas Bayley, 1693 Hugh Crotia, Mercy Disborough Goodwife Bayley, Ann Hibbins

1657 William Meaker 1697 Winifred Benham, Senr., Winifred Ben- ham, Junr.

1658 Elizabeth Garlick, Elizabeth Richardson, 1724 Sarah Spencer Katherine Grade

1661 Nicholas Jennings, Margaret Jennings 1768 —— Norton

1662 Nathaniel Greensmith, Rebecca Green- 1801 Sagoyewatha “Red Jacket” smith, Mary Sanford, Andrew Sanford, Goody Ayres, Katherine Palmer, Judith Varlett, James Walkley

12. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1674

Major Daniel Gookin created his HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND, which would not be published until 1792.13

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

DANIEL GOOKIN, 1792, 1806

13. Actually, Daniel Gookin wrote two works on the native tribes: not only this HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND completed in 1674 and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792, but also THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS (completed in 1677, published in 1836). — A postscript informs us that as early as this year he had “half finished” a HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND, ESPECIALLY OF THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS, “in eight books” (only portions of this third work have survived). HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

Here is what Henry Thoreau would copy into his Indian Notebook from the version that appeared in the MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS:

Their houses, or wigwams, are built with small poles fixed in the ground, bent and fastened together with barks of trees oval ... on the top. The best sort of their houses are covered very neatly, tight, and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at such seasons when the sap is up; and made into great flakes with pressures of weighty timber, when they are green; and so becoming dry, they will retain a form suitable for the use they prepare them for. The meaner sort of wigwams are covered with mats, they make of a kind of bulrush, which are also indifferent tight and warm, but not so good as the former. These houses they make of several sizes, according to their activity & ability; some twenty, some forty feet long and thirty feet [crossed out] broad. some I have seen of sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad. In the smaller sort they make a fire in the center of the house; and have a lower hole on the top of the house, to let out the smoke. They keep the door into the wigwams always shut, by a mat falling thereon, as people go in and out. this they do to fire-vent air coming in, which will cause much smoke in every(?) [Thoreau’s question mark] windy weather. If the smoke beat down at the lower hole, they hang a little mat in the way of a skreen [sic], on the top of the house, which they can with a ... turn to the windward side, which prevents the smoke. In the greater houses they make two, three, or four fires at a distance one from another, for the better accommodation of the peoples belonging to it. I have often lodged in their wigwams, and have found them as warm as the best English houses.

This, of course, has particular relevance, on account of Emerson’s (Thoreau’s) shanty at Walden Pond. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

Thoreau would derive the following material for A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS from Daniel Gookin:

A WEEK: In these parts dwelt the famous Sachem Pasaconaway, PEOPLE OF who was seen by Gookin “at Pawtucket, when he was about one A WEEK hundred and twenty years old.” He was reputed a wise man and a powwow, and restrained his people from going to war with the English. They believed “that he could make water burn, rocks move, and trees dance, and metamorphose himself into a flaming man; that in winter he could raise a green leaf out of the ashes of a dry one, and produce a living snake from the skin of a dead one, and many similar miracles.” In 1660, according to Gookin, at a great feast and dance, he made his farewell speech to his people, in which he said, that as he was not likely to see them met together again, he would leave them this word of advice, to take heed how they quarrelled with their English neighbors, for though they might do them much mischief at first, it would prove the means of their own destruction. He himself, he said, had been as much an enemy to the English at their first coming as any, and had used all his arts to destroy them, or at least to prevent their settlement, but could by no means effect it. Gookin thought that he “possibly might have such a kind of spirit upon him as was upon Balaam, who in xxiii. Numbers, 23, said ‘Surely, there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.’” His son Wannalancet carefully followed his advice, and when Philip’s War broke out, he withdrew his followers to Penacook, now Concord in New Hampshire, from the scene of the war. On his return afterwards, he visited the minister of Chelmsford, and, as is stated in the history of that town, “wished to know whether Chelmsford had suffered much during the war; and being informed that it had not, and that God should be thanked for it, Wannalancet replied, ‘Me next.’”

THOMAS HUTCHINSON REVEREND WILKES ALLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

And here is how Gookin’s material would appear in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS:

WALDEN: A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived PEOPLE OF mostly out of doors, was once made here almost entirely of such WALDEN materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, “The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best English houses.” He adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.

DANIEL GOOKIN

December 11, Friday (Old Style): Samuel Sewall was replaced as Keeper of the Colledg Library at Harvard College by Daniel Gookin.

The Librarian’s Sword, as mighty as his pen HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1675

February 28, Sunday (1674, Old Style): Samuel Sewall and Hannah Hull were married before Simon Bradstreet. Hannah was the daughter of John Hull, the mint-master of the Massachusetts-Bay Colony. The newlyweds took up residence in the Hull family home on what is now Washington Street in Boston, which would become their life-long residence. The bridegroom determined at this point to “follow Merchandize.”

A placard threatening the lives of Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth was posted about Boston. It would eventually appear that the threatener had been Richard Scott, whose complaint was that he and two or three others had designed to go out to Deer Island and there “cut off all Gookin’s brethren” –that is, slaughter the disarmed Praying Indians there interned– their plot had been discovered by “some English dog” and their agenda of genocide had been forestalled: “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” Boston, February 28, 1675 Reader thou art desired not to supprese this paper but to promote its designe, which is to certify (those traytors to their king and countrey) Guggins and Danford, that some generous spirits have vowed their destruction; as Christians wee warne them to prepare for death, for though they will deservedly dye, yet we wish the health of their soules. By ye new society A.B.C.D. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

July 14, Wednesday (Old Style): There was an attack on Mendon, but it wasn’t by the Wampanoag — the Nipmuc had joined in the hostilities. The attack was led by the warrior Matoonas, who had previously been installed by the Apostle Eliot and Major Daniel Gookin as constable at Quinsigamond. The Reverend Cotton Mather reports that four or five whites were slain, and a petition by Matthias Puffer in the State archives affirms that his wife and eldest son were among the slain. Upon the alarm reaching Boston, a unit under Captain Henchman would be immediately sent out to relieve the town, and Mendon would be declared a frontier town and its inhabitants forbidden to abandon their settlement. The houses there would, however, be abandoned at the approach of the winter, and would soon after be torched by the native Americans.

The sachem of Quinsigamond would soon become disappointed of the war and, to make his peace with the English, would have Matoonas bound with withes and delivered to Boston. The warrior would there be summarily tried and sentenced to be shot, with other native Americans volunteering their services as his executioners. His head would be stuck on a pole on Boston Common near the head of his son, who had a year before been hung for murder. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

December 13, Monday (Old Style): After a night of milling about, the Massachusetts/Plymouth army arrived at Smith’s garrison-house at Wickford, Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Major Simon Willard, the Reverend John Eliot, and Major Daniel Gookin were being put in charge of the resettlement the Christian Indians of the Nashobah community with John Hoar in Concord, in a workshop and stockade built next to his Orchard House. About the last of November, the Nashobah Indians removed to Concord; and December 13th, Major Simon Willard, the Rev. Mr. John Eliot, and Major Gookin, were appointed to order their settlement. They were placed under the care and superintendence of Mr. John Hoar, “the only man in Concord,” says Gookin, “who was willing to do it.” He was compensated by being exempted from impressment and taxation. This man was very loving to them, and very diligent and careful to promote their good, and to secure the English from any fear or danger by them.”14 The excitement 14. Gookin’s MS. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

generally was so great, that the Natick Indians had been previously carried to Deer Island for fear of being attacked by the English. From this time depredations continued to be frequently committed by the unfriendly Indians on the frontier settlements; and not-withstanding the precautions of the government, the friendly Indians occasionally suffered unjustly from the enmity of the whites. Companies of soldiers were often sent for the relief of these suffering towns, in which Concord was usually represented.15 “KING PHILLIP’S WAR”

15. Soldiers often volunteered on these occasions. When they could not be obtained in this manner, they were impressed into service. Precepts were issued by the committees of militia in the several towns to the constable; and none were freed from his arbitrary will, except by a special act of the government. Nathaniel Pierce, with several others of Concord, were pressed in September, 1675, went to Springfield, and continued in the service nearly a year, till they were thus liberated. Daniel Adams belonged to a party which went from Concord to Groton when that town was destroyed. He fired from Willard’s garrison and killed an Indian. It is impossible, however, to ascertain the names of all those who were engaged in this bloody war; but it is said that nearly all the able-bodied men bore arms in defence of their homes, at some time during this conflict. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1676

July 2, Sunday (Old Style): At Cambridge, James Printer took part in the proclaimed amnesty, an amnesty which had

been extended to him in particular by the Massachusetts Council. These Boston Christians had charged Major Daniel Gookin to convey a special condition to him, that he should carry along with him as he came into Boston to surrender as proof of the sincerity of his repentance, “som of the enemies heads.” He forthwith came forward displaying the heads of two of his former compatriots of the forest, and was accepted back into the Christian fold.

Printer realized that his future lay with her (and hers with him). In the coming weeks Printer served as scribe during negotiations for Mary Rowlandson’s redemption. Then, when amnesty was offered to Christian Indians who had joined the enemy, Printer turned himself in to colonial authorities, bringing with him, as required by special instruction, the heads of two enemy Indians — testaments to his fidelity. Eventually Printer returned to his work at the press in Cambridge and, in 1682, in one of the most sublime ironies of King Philip’s War, James Printer set the type for The Soveraignty and Goodness of God. Mary Rowlandson and James Printer are indeed a curious pair. Their intricately linked stories are at once uncannily similar and crucially divergent. Before the war, Mary’s husband, Joseph Rowlandson, was the minister of her town, while James’s brother, Joseph Tukapewillin, was the minister of his. Both Rowlandson and Printer spent the winter of 1675-1676 with enemy Nipmuks. Both returned to Boston months later to live, again, among the English. But while Rowlandson came to terms with her time among enemy Indians by writing a book, Printer supplied body parts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

The 300 Connecticut troopers headed by Major John Talcott, with their Pequot and Mohegan auxiliaries, began a sweep of Connecticut and Rhode Island, rounding up any remnant Algonquins. Quaiapen was the widow of Miantonomo’s eldest son Mexanno, and the sister of Ningret, sachem of the Niantics. She was therefore Squaw Sachem of one of these bands. The fugitives whom Quaiapen was leading, with her highly regarded chief counselor Potock, and with the chief native engineer, called by the English “Stone Wall John,” the man who is said to have designed the Queen’s Fort, are all presumed to have been slaughtered in one action at the south bank of the Pawtuxet River, near Natick (the body count afterward was 238 corpses). Although the English were not squeamish about offing people if it was inconvenient to hold them captive, they were exceedingly HDT WHAT? INDEX

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upset at the pleasure their Mohegan allies were deriving from the deliberate torture of captives.

As individuals were rounded up throughout this summer season, where convenient the English would be kindly and sell them as slaves to be transported off the continent. Potock, however, knew a whole lot, as he had been a high-level counselor, and so he was carefully interrogated. Presumably this questioning was accompanied by serious torture for, at the completion of the process, he was summarily executed. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

October 13, Friday (Old Style): John Evelyn’s diary entry for this day was in part as follows: Supped with P:

Although Daniel Hoar protested his fine for killing the six native American women and children, and although his father John Hoar, a lawyer, would argue before the court that “as I humbly conceive [Daniel] has not broken any law,” and although in fact no law had been broken since the law specifically allowed the summary execution of any natives found more than a mile from the center of a native village or from the coastal island of their wartime isolation “as our enemies,” and “the Council do hereby declare that they shall account themselves wholly innocent, and [the Indians’] blood ... will be upon their own heads,” and although there were several testimonies that the culprits had not heard anyone say that the natives had Major Daniel Gookin’s official permission to be out in that manner “to ... go for berries,” the fine would not be forgiven. (Presumably this fine was to be paid to Andrew Pittimee and Thomas Speen (or “Swagon”), among others, since they were not only husbands of two of the murdered women, and Thomas Speen the father of the three slain children, but also had been the ones to bring charges at law.)16

Anonymous: A New and Further NARRATIVE Of the STATE of NEW-ENGLAND, BEING A Continued ACCOUNT of the Bloudy Indian-War, From March till Auguft, 1676. Giving a Perfect Relation of the Several Devaftations, Engagements, and tranfactions there ; As alfo the Great Succeffes Lately obtained againft the Barbarous In-dians, The Reducing of King Philip, and the Killing of one of the Queens, &c. Together with a Catalog of the Loffes in the whole, fuftain- ed on either Side, fince the faid War began, as near as can be collected. Licenfed October 13. Roger L’Estrange. LONDON, Printed by J.B. for Dorman Newman at the Kings Armes in the Poultry, 1676. March of America Facsimile Series, Number 29. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1966 “KING PHILLIP’S WAR”

16. Are we to presume this to have been, in the face of this unexpected race slaughter of innocents, an early admission of the existence of “Higher Law”? Or, were the magistrates simply alarmed by the popular clamor in defense of these four murderers, and determined that they would not tolerate any of this sort of democracy? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1677

Major Daniel Gookin’s account of “King Phillip’s War” would reside in manuscript form in the archives and would not see print publication until 1836, when it would be published under the title AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE YEARS 1675, 1676, 1677. IMPARTIALLY DRAWN BY ONE WELL ACQUAINTED WITH THAT AFFAIR, AND PRESENTED UNTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE CORPORATION RESIDING IN LONDON, APPOINTED BY THE KING’S MOST 17 EXCELLENT MAJESTY FOR PROMOTING THE GOSPEL AMONG THE INDIANS IN AMERICA.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

DANIEL GOOKIN, 1677, 1836

17. Actually, Daniel Gookin wrote two works on the native tribes: not only this THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS completed in 1677 and published in 1836, but also HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND (completed in 1674 and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792). — He wrote in addition a HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND, but only portions of that third work have survived. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1681

February (1680, Old Style): Edward “It is not to his majesty’s interest that you should thrive” Randolph, British agent, charged Daniel Gookin among others with misdemeanor before the Lords of the Massachusetts Council. Gookin’s response would be to request that a paper in defence of his opinion, which he drew up as his dying testimony, might be lodged with the court.

This agent of the crown would, among other things, file with his masters a report as to the provenance of the race war in which Major Gookin had played such a prominent part: Eighth Enquiry. What hath been the original cause of the present war with the natives. What are the advantages or disadvantages arising thereby and will probably be the End? Various are the reports and conjectures of the causes of the present Indian war. Some impute it to an imprudent zeal in the magistrates of Boston to christianize those heathen before they were civilized and injoyning them the strict observation of their lawes, which, to a people so rude and licentious, hath proved even intolerable, and that the more, for that while the magistrates, for their profit, put the lawes severely in execution against the Indians, the people, on the other side, for lucre and gain, entice and provoke the Indians to the breach thereof, especially to drunkenness, to which those people are so generally addicted that they will strip themselves to their skin to have their fill of rum and brandy, the Massachusets having made a law that every Indian drunk should pay 10s. or be whipped, according to the discretion of the magistrate. Many of these poor people willingly offered their backs to the lash to save their money; whereupon, the magistrates finding much trouble and no profit to arise to the government by whipping, did change that punishment into 10 days worke for such as could not or would not pay the fine of 10s. which did highly incense the Indians. Some believe there have been vagrant and jesuiticall priests, who have made it their businesse, for some yeares past, to go from Sachim to Sachim, to exasperate the Indians against the English and to bring them into a confederacy, and that they were promised supplies from France and other parts to extirpate the English nation out of the continent of America. Others impute the cause to some injuries offered to the Sachim Philip; for he being possessed of a tract of land called Mount Hope, a very fertile, pleasant and rich soyle, some English had a mind to dispossesse him thereof, who never wanting one pretence or other to attain their end, complained of injuries done by Philip and his Indians to their stock and cattle, whereupon Philip was often summoned before the magistrate, sometimes imprisoned, and never released but upon parting with a considerable part of his land. But the government of the Massachusets (to give it in their own HDT WHAT? INDEX

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words) do declare these are the great evills for which God hath given the heathen commission to rise against the: The wofull breach of the 5th commandment, in contempt of their authority, which is a sin highly provoking to the Lord: For men wearing long hair and perewigs made of women’s hair; for women wearing borders of hair and for cutting, curling and laying out the hair, and disguising themselves by following strange fashions in their apparell: For profaneness in the people not frequenting their meetings, and others going away before the blessing be pronounced: For suffering the Quakers to live amongst them and to set up their threshholds by Gods thresholds, contrary to their old lawes and resolutions. With many such reasons, but whatever be the cause, the English have contributed much to their misfortunes, for they first taught the Indians the use of armes, and admitted them to be present at all their musters and trainings, and shewed them how to handle, mend and fix their muskets, and have been furnished with all sorts of armes by permission of the government, so that the Indians are become excellent firemen. And at Natick there was a gathered church of praying Indians, who were exercised as trained bands, under officers of their owne; these have been the most barbarous and cruel enemies to the English of any others. Capt. Tom, their leader, being lately taken and hanged at Boston, with one other of their chiefs. That notwithstanding the ancient law of the country, made in the year 1633, that no person should sell any armes or ammunition to any Indian upon penalty of £10 for every gun, £5 for a pound of powder, and 40s. for a pound of shot, yet the government of the Massachusets in the year 1657, upon designe to monopolize the whole Indian trade did publish and declare that the trade of furrs and peltry with the Indians in their jurisdiction did solely and properly belong to their commonwealth and not to every indifferent person, and did enact that no person should trade with the Indians for any sort of peltry, except such as were authorized by that court, under the penalty of £100 for every offence, giving liberty to all such as should have licence from them to sell, unto any Indian, guns, swords, powder and shot, paying to the treasurer 3d. for each gun and for each dozen of swords; 6d. for a pound of powder and for every ten pounds of shot, by which means the Indians have been abundantly furnished with great store of armes and ammunition to the utter ruin and undoing of many families in the neighbouring colonies to enrich some few of their relations and church members. No advantage but many disadvantages have arisen to the English by the war, for about 600 men have been slain, and 12 captains, most of them brave and stout persons and of loyal principles, whilest the church members had liberty to stay at home and not hazard their persons in the wildernesse. The losse to the English in the severall colonies, in their habitations and stock, is reckoned to amount to £150,000 there having been about 1200 houses burned, 8000 head of cattle, great and small, killed, and many thousand bushels of wheat, peas and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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other grain burned (of which the Massachusets colony hath not been damnifyed one third part, the great losse falling upon New Plymouth and Connecticot colonies) and upward of 3000 Indians men women and children destroyed, who if well managed would have been very serviceable to the English, which makes all manner of labour dear. The war at present is near an end. In Plymouth colony the Indians surrender themselves to Gov. Winslow, upon mercy, and bring in all their armes, are wholly at his disposall, except life and transportation; but for all such as have been notoriously cruell to women and children, so soon as discovered they are to be executed in the sight of their fellow Indians. The government of Boston have concluded a peace upon these terms. 1. That there be henceforward a firme peace between the Indians and English. 2. That after publication of the articles of peace by the generall court, if any English shall willfully kill an Indian, upon due proof, he shall dye, and if an Indian kill an Englishman and escape, the Indians are to produce him, and lie to passe tryall by the English lawes. That the Indians shall not conceal any known enemies to the English, but shall discover them and bring them to the English. That upon all occasions the Indians are to aid and assist the English against their enemies, and to be under English command. That all Indians have liberty to sit down at their former habitations without let.... “KING PHILLIP’S WAR”

May 11, Wednesday (Old Style): Daniel Gookin was elected Major-General (becoming in effect Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). Though he continued, by argument and resistance, to oppose British encroachments upon the colonists’ political and commercial liberties, his last years would be darkened by the 1686 abrogation of the colonial charter by King James II.

The Gookinator HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1683

At some point during this year, earlier rather than later, Samuel Sewall became an Ensign in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston.

Mary Dolling Gookin died. From this point until his 3d marriage in 1685, Daniel Gookin’s household would consist of himself, his son the Reverend Nathaniel Gookin, pastor of 1st Church in Cambridge, and 16-year- old John Eliot (a son of his daughter Elizabeth Gookin by her marriage with the Reverend John Eliot, Jr.).

Henry Jocelyn died, leaving, as likewise in the case of his brother John Josselyn, no descendants. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1685

August 13, Thursday (Old Style): Before this date Daniel Gookin had become married for a 3d time, with Mrs. Hannah Tyng Savage, daughter of Edward Tyng and Mary Sears Tyng, the widow of Habijah Savage. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1686

Daniel Gookin had been among those active in the resistance movement which ultimately had caused (or enabled) King James II to abrogate the New England colonial charters.

In this year Sir Edmund Andros returned to America in an abortive attempt to impose a kind of supercolony, this time as the governor of something which as to be known as “The Dominion of New England” which was initially to include all the New England colonies and later would extend itself to cover in addition New York and New Jersey.

Andros’s imposition of Episcopalian worship in the Old South Meetinghouse in Boston, his vigorous enforcement of the Navigation Acts, his requirement that landholders take out new land patents, and his limitations upon town meetings and rights of local taxation would arouse sharp resentment in colonial America. When news of the 1688 overthrow of the monarch would reach Boston, the colonists would revolt, deposing and imprisoning this royal representative. Returned to England, he would be tried and immediately released. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1687

March 19, Saturday (1686, Old Style): Daniel Gookin died so poor that the Reverend John Eliot would solicit from Robert Boyle a gift of £10 for the relief of his widow (the 3d wife, with whom he had gotten married only seven months before) Mrs. Hannah Tyng Savage Gookin. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The body would be interred at the Old Cambridge Burying Ground, the town’s main burial site opposite Harvard College’s Johnson gate. His table tomb, on which you can still read the epitaph, is topped with a heart- shaped inset (which is so similar to the one cut for major Thomas Savage in King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston in 1682 that we think probably it was done by the “Old Boston Stone Cutter”).

In addition to having written the texts we have available today, he had authored a history of New England which, unfortunately, has mostly been destroyed in manuscript.

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READ GOOKIN TEXT

Here lyeth intered ye body of Major Genel DANIEL GOOKINS aged 75 years, who departed this life ye 19 of March 1687 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1792

Daniel Gookin’s HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND, written in 1674, was published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston (refer to Chapter III, Section 9), where at this point in time, the Great Elm (Ulmus americana) on Boston Common, to which the popular tradition had assigned a great and significant antiquity, was showing effects of age.18

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

DANIEL GOOKIN, 1674, 1792 COLLECTIONS OF MHS, 1792

18. Actually, Daniel Gookin wrote two works on the native tribes: not only this HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND completed in 1674 and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792, but also THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS (completed in 1677, published in 1836). — He wrote in addition a HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND, but only portions of that third work have survived. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1806

The Massachusetts Historical Society republished, among other things, the 1674 account by Daniel Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, of Their Several Nations, Numbers, Customs, Manners, Religion, and Government, Before the English Planted There. Also, a True and Faithful Account of the Present State and Condition of the Praying Indians....” DANIEL GOOKIN, 1674, 1806 COLLECTIONS OF MHS, 1806 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1836

Daniel Gookin’s 1677 account of King Phillip’s War, AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE YEARS 1675, 1676, 1677. IMPARTIALLY DRAWN BY ONE WELL ACQUAINTED WITH THAT AFFAIR, AND PRESENTED UNTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE CORPORATION RESIDING IN LONDON, APPOINTED BY THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY FOR PROMOTING THE GOSPEL AMONG THE INDIANS IN AMERICA, was rescued from archival obscurity and 19 published for the 1st time ever, becoming part of the MASSACHUSETTS STATE ARCHIVES.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

DANIEL GOOKIN, 1677, 1836 ARCHAEOLOGIA AMERICANA

We know Thoreau was aware of this report because of material he copied into his Indian Notebook #1, #2, and #3 and because of comments he would make in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS and in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS: “I have known many of them run between four score and an hundred miles in a summer’s day, and back within two days. They do also practice running of races and commonly in the summer they delight to go with out shoes, although they have them hanging at their backs.” “Their houses, or wigwams, are built with small poles fixed in the ground, bent and fastened together with barks of trees oval ... on the top. The best sort of their houses are covered very neatly, tight, and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at such seasons when the sap is up; and made into great flakes with pressures of weighty timber, when they are green; and so becoming dry, they will retain a form suitable for the use they prepare them for. The meaner sort of wigwams are covered with mats, they make of a kind of bulrush, which are also indifferent tight and warm, but not so good as the former. These houses they make of several sizes, according to their activity & ability; some twenty, some forty feet long and thirty feet broad. Some I have seen of sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad. In the smaller sort they make a fire in the center of the house; and have a lower hole on the top of the house, to let out the smoke. They keep the door shut, by a mat falling thereon, as people go in and out. This they do to fire- vent air coming in, which will cause much smoke in every(?) [this is Thoreau’s question-mark] windy weather. If the smoke beat 19. Actually, Gookin wrote two works on the native tribes: not only this THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS completed in 1677 and published in 1836, but also HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND (completed in 1674 and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792). — He wrote in addition a HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND, but only portions of that third work have survived. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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down at the lower hole, they hang a little mat in the way of a screen, on the top of the house, which they can with a ... turn to the windward side, which prevents the smoke. In the greater houses they make two, thee, or four fires at a distance one from another, for the better accommodation of the people belonging to it. I have often lodged in their wigwams, and have found them as warm as the best English houses.” “Their food is generally boiled maise, or Indian corn, mixed with kidney-beans, or sometimes without. Also they frequently boil in their pottage fish and flesh of all sorts, either new taken or dried, as shads, eels, alewives or a kind of herring etc.” “Also they boil in this ... all sorts of flesh they take in hunting: as venison, beaver, bear’s flesh, moose, others, rackoons, many kind that they take in hunting.” “Their drink was formerly no other but water.” “... but now they generally get kettles of brass, copper, or iron, these they find more lasting than those made of clay, which were subject to be broken; and the clay or earth they were made of was very scarce and dear.” “Some of their baskets are made of rushes; some of brush; others of maise husks; others of a kind of silk grass; others of a kind of wild hemp; and some of barks of trees.” “Clothing was made of the skins of deer, moose, beaver, otters, rackoons, foxes etc.” “’Wompampague,’ says Gookin ‘is made artificially, of a part of the Welk’s shell, the black is of double the value of the white. It is made principally, by the Narragansetts Block Islands (Block-Islanders) and Long Island Indians, upon the sandy flats & shores of those coasts the welk shells are found.’” “Their weapons ... were bows and arrows, clubs, and tomahawks, made of wood like a pole axe, with a sharpened stone fastened therein; and for defence, they had targets made of barks of trees.” “Our Ind. understand the lang. of the Canada Ind. And also of the Great Lake Ind. i.e. Massawomicks.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A WEEK: We passed Wicasuck Island, which contains seventy acres or PEOPLE OF more, on our right, between Chelmsford and Tyngsborough. This was a favorite residence of the Indians. According to the History of A WEEK Dunstable, “About 1663, the eldest son of Passaconaway [Chief of the Penacooks] was thrown into jail for a debt of 45, due to John Tinker, by one of his tribe, and which he had promised verbally should be paid. To relieve him from his imprisonment, his brother Wannalancet and others, who owned Wicasuck Island, sold it and paid the debt.” It was, however, restored to the Indians by the General Court in 1665. After the departure of the Indians in 1683, it was granted to Jonathan Tyng in payment for his services to the colony, in maintaining a garrison at his house. Tyng’s house stood not far from Wicasuck Falls. Daniel GOOKIN Gookin, who, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Robert Boyle, apologizes for presenting his “matter clothed in a wilderness dress,” says that on the breaking out of Philip’s war in 1675, there were taken up by the Christian Indians and the English in Marlborough, and sent to Cambridge, seven “Indians belonging to Narragansett, Long Island, and Pequod, who had all been at work about seven weeks with one Mr. Jonathan Tyng, of Dunstable, upon Merrimack River; and, hearing of the war, they reckoned with their master, and getting their wages, conveyed themselves away without his privity, and, being afraid, marched secretly through the woods, designing to go to their own country.” However, they were released soon after. Such were the hired men in those days. Tyng was the first permanent settler of Dunstable, which then embraced what is now Tyngsborough and many other towns. In the winter of 1675, in Philip’s war, every other settler left the town, but “he,” says the historian of Dunstable, “fortified his house; and, although ‘obliged to send to Boston for his food,’ sat himself down in the midst of his savage enemies, alone, in the wilderness, to defend his home. Deeming his position an important one for the defence of the frontiers, in February, 1676, he petitioned the Colony for aid,” humbly showing, as his petition runs, that, as he lived “in the uppermost house on Merrimac river, lying open to ye enemy, yet being so seated that it is, as it were, a watch-house to the neighboring towns,” he could render important service to his country if only he had some assistance, “there being,” he said, “never an inhabitant left in the town but myself.” Wherefore he requests that their “Honors would be pleased to order him three or four men to help garrison his said house,” which they did. But methinks that such a garrison would be weakened by the addition of a man. “Make bandog thy scout watch to bark at a thief, Make courage for life, to be capitain chief; Make trap-door thy bulwark, make bell to begin, Make gunstone and arrow show who is within.” Thus he earned the title of first permanent settler. In 1694 a law was passed “that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein.” But now, at any rate, as I have frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of truth and justice, which are the State’s best lands, for fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters’ camp itself. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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WALDEN: A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived PEOPLE OF mostly out of doors, was once made here almost entirely of such WALDEN materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, “The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best English houses.” He adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.

DANIEL GOOKIN

PEOPLE OF A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

A WEEK: According to the Gazetteer, the descent of Amoskeag Falls, which are the most considerable in the Merrimack, is fifty-four feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves through here with much ado, surmounting the successive watery steps of this river’s staircase in the midst of a crowd of villagers, jumping into the canal to their amusement, to save our boat from upsetting, and consuming much river- water in our service. Amoskeag, or Namaskeak, is said to mean “great fishing-place.” It was hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet resided. GOOKIN Tradition says that his tribe, when at war with the Mohawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks in the upper part of these falls. The Indians, who hid their provisions in these holes, and affirmed “that God had cut them out for that purpose,” understood their origin and use better than the Royal Society, who in their Transactions, in the last century, speaking of these very holes, declare that “they seem plainly to be artificial.” Similar “pot-holes” may be seen at the Stone Flume on this river, on the Ottaway, at Bellows’ Falls on the Connecticut, and in the limestone rock at Shelburne Falls on Deerfield River in Massachusetts, and more or less generally about all falls. Perhaps the most remarkable curiosity of this kind in New England is the well-known Basin on the Pemigewasset, one of the head-waters of this river, twenty by thirty feet in extent and proportionably deep, with a smooth and rounded brim, and filled with a cold, pellucid, and greenish water. At Amoskeag the river is divided into many separate torrents and trickling rills by the rocks, and its volume is so much reduced by the drain of the canals that it does not fill its bed. There are many pot-holes here on a rocky island which the river washes over in high freshets. As at Shelburne Falls, where I first observed them, they are from one foot to four or five in diameter, and as many in depth, perfectly round and regular, with smooth and gracefully curved brims, like goblets. Their origin is apparent to the most careless observer. A stone which the current has washed down, meeting with obstacles, revolves as on a pivot where it lies, gradually sinking in the course of centuries deeper and deeper into the rock, and in new freshets receiving the aid of fresh stones, which are drawn into this trap and doomed to revolve there for an indefinite period, doing Sisyphus-like penance for stony sins, until they either wear out, or wear through the bottom of their prison, or else are released by some revolution of nature. There lie the stones of various sizes, from a pebble to a foot or two in diameter, some of which have rested from their labor only since the spring, and some higher up which have lain still and dry for ages, —we noticed some here at least sixteen feet above the present level of the water,— while others are still revolving, and enjoy no respite at any season. In one instance, at Shelburne Falls, they have worn quite through the rock, so that a portion of the river leaks through in anticipation of the fall. Some of these pot-holes at Amoskeag, in a very hard brown-stone, had an oblong, cylindrical stone of the same material loosely fitting them. One, as much as fifteen feet deep and seven or eight in diameter, which was worn quite through to the water, had a huge rock of the same material, smooth but of irregular form, lodged in it. Everywhere there were the rudiments or the wrecks of a dimple in the rock; the rocky shells of whirlpools. As if by force of example and sympathy after so many lessons, the rocks, the hardest material, had been endeavoring to whirl or flow into the forms of the most fluid. The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1854

Daniel Gookin’s INDIAN CHILDREN PUT TO SERVICE 1676 was published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register VIII:270-273. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1912

Frederick William Gookin’s DANIEL GOOKIN, 1612-1687, ASSISTANT AND MAJOR GENERAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY: HIS LIFE AND LETTERS AND SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS ANCESTRY (Chicago: Privately printed by the Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelly & Sons; 202 copies). MAJ. GEN. DANIEL GOOKIN

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

People of A Week and Walden “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2010. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: October 29, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:DANIEL GOOKIN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.