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Wheeler’s Surprise and the Siege of Brookfield

Martha DeWolf HIS 791 SNHU Dr. David Byrne October 6, 2016

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BROOKFIELD Settled in 1660 by Men from Ipswich on Indian Lands Called Quaboag. Attacked by Indians In 1675. One Garrison House Defended to the Last. Reoccupied Twelve Years Later.1

1 Brookfield Marker. Location: 42° 13.122′ N, 72° 7.178′ W. West Main Street, Brookfield, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Photo: The Historical Marker Database. Web http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=48781.

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Detail from a nineteenth-century, hand-colored facsimile of Nikolaus J. Visscher’s 1660 Dutch map of New Netherland and New England. Note: in this particular map, the Connecticut River (lower left) forms part of the border between southern New England and New Netherland.2

2 Nickolaus J. Visscher, Novi Belgii, Catalog # 2000.0229, Little Compton Historical Society, 548 West Main Road (Route 77), Little Compton, RI 02837. Web https://lchistorical.wordpress.com.

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Acknowledgements

I owe many, many thanks to Dr. Robert Denning for starting me on my academic journey and considering me a professional; to Dr. Bob Irvine thank you for your engagement, humor, tangents, kind support, and encouragement; thank you to Dr. Sun Yun Susie Chung for helping to focus my proposal; and thank you to Dr. David Byrne for prompt and gentle editing of my capstone paper. The friendship and camaraderie of my colleague Linda Kennedy, was an unexpected benefit of this journey. To my colleague and friend, Julia Dumas Wilks - more than you know - I appreciate your editing, encouragement, and support. Thank you to Cynthia Henshaw for walking me through the woods at Pynchon’s Quaboag mill site. Thank you to Fred Freeman, for so generously sharing indigenous philosophy and Nipmuc History - your patient help and guidance pointed me to the landscape. An astonished thank you, to Margaret R. Dakin, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College for so kindly finding the photo of the ‘Brookfield Pot.’ Many, many thanks to Cliff McCarthy, Archivist at the Lyman and Merrie Wood History of Springfield Museum, for the special privilege of studying John Pynchon’s seventeenth-century Waste Book. I am forever grateful to chemist, humanitarian, and my best friend since forever, Teddi Galligan, for continuing our lifelong conversation, and especially for making me stop typing long enough to go for a walk on the beach - and for taking me to the Little Compton Historical Society, where we found a copy of the Visscher map. Thank you to the staff at the Little Compton Historical Society for such spontaneously gracious help. Earl Heller, thank you for pointing out the Crichton quote, and Adrienne Morrison, thank you for always expanding my universe. To my father, Gordon P. DeWolf Jr., PhD, thank you for reading and correcting the several dozen iterations of this and other papers, for sharing your library, and your extensive knowledge of botany and agriculture. To my late mother, Ellen Kingsbury DeWolf (who went to college for the first time at age sixty), thank you for showing me how it’s done. A heartfelt thank you, to my daughter Madeline for mowing the lawn when you wanted to go swimming - your kindness, intelligence, and strength are always inspiring. Yakov, thank you for being a such a good guy. And finally, a special thank you, to Quaboag historian and free-lance editor Ed Londergan for volunteering (at the last minute, and out of the blue) to edit the paper - you are extraordinarily kind.

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Introduction If you don't know history you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.3

The history of the central Massachusetts town of West Brookfield is tangled up in the branches of the seventeenth-century settlement story of the English town of Quaboag/Brookfield. Over time, the destruction of the settlement in a minor battle between a small group of Indians and a smaller group of English colonists and militia, came to be called Wheeler’s Surprise and the Siege of Brookfield. This work corrects various misconceptions about and inconsistencies within the traditional story in order to demystify the first settlement, the town founders, the Quaboag Indians, the ambush, and the siege. Important to this discussion are concepts of civilization and wilderness, as well as the implications of language and livestock. Sometime after 1665, English settled on present-day Foster Hill in the Quaboag River Valley - then the heart of Nipmuc Country. They incorporated the settlement called Quaboag (or Squaboag) as the town of Brookfield, in 1673 - just two years prior to the outbreak of King Philip’s War. On Monday morning, August 2, 1675, Brookfield wives and daughters might ordinarily have started the weekly wash, but the venerable Captain Edward Hutchinson, Captain Thomas Wheeler with a mounted guard twenty-strong, and their guide, Ephraim Curtis, along with three Natick Indian interpreters, had arrived at noon, the day before. They were well-armed. At the end of July, the General Court at Boston assigned Hutchinson to ‘secure peace’ with the Nipmuc people in central Massachusetts, as he had recently done with the Narraganset people in Rhode Island. The Court ordered fifty-five year old Wheeler and part of his militia company to escort sixty-two year old Hutchinson and protect him, if necessary, from ‘belligerent’ Indians. Before Monday ended (according to Wheeler), the local Indians ‘broke their promise’ to meet with the English. Instead, well-armed and extremely angry Quaboag and Nipmuc warriors led by a man named Matoonas, ambushed the expedition, mortally wounded Hutchinson, chased the expedition back to Brookfield, and besieged the town. When the episode ended late Thursday night, English claimed eighty Indians died over the course of three days and three nights.4 Five English militiamen and five people from Brookfield were dead, and much of the town burned.5 English abandoned the area for more than a decade.6 Shortly after the event, Wheeler penned what is commonly understood as an eyewitness account of the episode. (See Appendix II) He called it, A Thankful Remembrance of God’s Mercy, A True Narrative of the Lord’s Providences in various dispensations towards Captain Edward Hutchinson of Boston & Myself, and those that went with us into the Nipmuck Country, and also to Quaboag, alias Brookfield: The Said Captain Hutchinson having a Commission from

3 Michael Crichton, Timeline, Alfred E. Knopf, 1999, p. 73. 4 Thomas Wheeler, A Thankful Remembrance of God’s Mercy..., Cambridge, 1676, in Joseph Ives Foote, An Historical Address Delivered at West Brookfield November 27, 1828, Merriam & Cooke, West Brookfield, 1843, pp. 34-5. 5 Ibid, p. 45. 6 Josiah H. Temple, The History of North Brookfield, Town of North Brookfield, 1887: Louis E. Roy, Quaboag Plantation alias Brookfeild [sic]: A seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Town, Heffernan Press, Inc., Worcester MA, 1965; Jeffrey H. Fiske, A History of West Brookfield, 1675-1990, West Brookfield Historical Commission, 2009.

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the Honored Council of this Colony to treat with several Sachems in those parts, in order to the public peace, and myself being also ordered by the said Council, to accompany him with part of my troop for security from any danger that might be from the Indians: and to assist him in the transaction of matters committed to him. For the purposes of this text, it will simply be referred to as Wheeler’s Narrative. What really happened in August 1675, was a bit more complicated than either Wheeler’s Narrative, or traditional interpretations indicate. Interpreting local history Often viewed as the realm of amateurs, the significance of local history should not be underestimated. After all, local history is the kind of history with which ordinary Americans have the most familiarity. Granville Hicks pointed out the importance of local history in the 1950s, when he advised local historians “to recognize the urgency of coming to terms with [a] town's past in order to deal with the present and have an influence upon the future.”7 Hicks’ statement is still relevant, today. And, because change often occurs at the ‘grass-roots’ level, local audiences are crucial to transforming perceptions about history. Yet, in some towns, local narratives are more disconnected from contemporary society and scholarly understanding than ever. Such narratives risk irrelevance. The idea of relevance makes teachers of history, historical researchers, and historical societies nervous because for many, relevance and financial security are inextricably linked. Historical societies, (in particular) are funded almost entirely by donations, thus, ‘relevance’ equals the willingness of potential donors to part with potential contributions. While twentieth- and twenty-first-century historical scholarship has transformed the way academia interprets American history, historical narratives at the local level often continue to inadvertently promote versions of Eurocentric nineteenth- century American exceptionalism. These kinds of historical narratives unintentionally “parochialize specific histories” and obscure “larger patterns and processes.”8 In West Brookfield, versions of what happened in August 1675 rely almost exclusively upon Wheeler’s Narrative, nineteenth- and mid-twentieth- century scholarship. Thus, the ambush and siege continue to be misrepresented as a two- dimensional, unprovoked wilderness encounter between hardy English colonists and treacherous Indians. Traditional interpretations disregard and unwittingly disrespect historic and contemporary Native American society. Local historians must become aware that while such interpretations usefully illuminate historic attitudes towards seventeenth-century Indians, they are not indicative of modern historical understanding, or seventeenth-century reality. Lacking access to current academic scholarship (often locked behind a financial firewall), local historical disputes are often geographical rather than historiographical. In The Brookfields, for example, there are disagreements regarding the location of the garrison house, although to date, no archaeological investigation has been undertaken at the site.9 There is uncertainty over the route Hutchinson’s expedition followed from Cambridge to Quaboag, as well as arguments

7 Granville Hicks, “Local History,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn, 1952), p. 28. Web 7/16/15, jstor.org/stable/4632481. 8 Jack P. Greene, “Hemispheric History and Atlantic History,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 300. 9 As of 2008, according to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership, West Brookfield Reconnaissance Report, although the “overall archaeological sensitivity” of Foster Hill “is considered to be extremely high ... no archaeological investigations have been undertaken.” Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon-reports/wbrookfield.pdf.

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over the route followed to the site of the ambush. With regard to the location of the ambush itself - in New Braintree, or West Brookfield - some avocational archaeological investigation has taken place, but there is no consensus about this, either.10 All interpretations place the first settlement of Brookfield in the ‘wilderness’ thirty miles from any English town. All interpretations agree that the English settlers settled far from civilization. Situated sixty-five miles west of Boston, and thirty miles east of Springfield, in what was then Hampshire County, the town seemed very far away from anything.11 Douglas Leach wrote, that during the seventeenth-century “scarcely a town in all of Massachusetts could claim the dubious distinction of being more isolated than Brookfield.”12 Leach described it as reachable only by a “trail through the woods.”13 Noted, but largely ignored by traditional interpretations, the presence of at least three (non-praying) Indian towns located within a six mile radius of the settlement on Foster Hill. Hardly desolate wilderness. Insistence upon locating the seventeenth-century English settlement called Brookfield ‘in the wilderness,’ negates the presence and influence of indigenous people in American history, leaves out a good deal of the story, and allows continued disregard of Native American influence by and within modern society. Traditional versions of this story downplay the presence of indigenous people - except as belligerents - and ignore the landscape, as they ignore the (sometimes questionable) behavior of English settlers. Over time, the story was cast as a two-dimensional ethnic conflict - a tale about the conquest of civilization over savagery. In these versions, what took place in the Quaboag River Valley in August 1675, remains an outdated remnant of the providential version of English conquest. Such interpretations of the contact period and English colonization overlook more than a generation of precipitous Indian population decline, English population growth, as well as the impact of English roads, livestock, and agriculture on Indian/English social relations. This paper makes evident several facts which challenge traditional understanding of the English settlement called Quaboag/Brookfield, Wheeler’s Surprise, and the Siege of Brookfield. First, Thomas Wheeler’s Narrative is not necessarily a reliable ‘eyewitness account.’ Second, labeling the landscape around the seventeenth-century English settlement as wilderness is a misconception. Further, the town was not “separated from human contact by more miles than any other settlement.”14 Third, Wheeler’s expedition was not a peaceful enterprise but an aggressive and terrifying display of English military authority. Fourth, instead of ‘perseverance and foresight,’ some of the Brookfield settlers exhibited less than exemplary behavior towards each other prior to the attack. Fifth, the ambush might not have taken place next to a ‘swamp.’ Sixth, the structure known as Ayres’ Tavern was much larger than popular conception. Seventh, at the time of the siege, women and children did not outnumber adult men. Finally, two sets of twins were not born during the siege, but two women did apparently give birth to three babies. Because Wheeler wrote down what happened to him in August 1675, and has since had ‘good press,’ the episode has traditionally been understood as Wheeler’s story. However, the expedition was assigned to Hutchinson. Read critically, it becomes clear that Wheeler intended

10 “Bob Wilder Donates Wheeler Surprise Site Artifacts to the New Braintree Historical Society,” Wheeler’s Surprise Event, The 350th Anniversary of the Quaboag Plantation 1660-2010, New Braintree Historical Society, New Braintree, Massachusetts, Web http://www.newbraintreehistoricalsociety.org/12.html. 11 Today, ‘The Brookfields’ are part of Worcester County. 12 Douglas Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, Countryman Press, 1958, 2009, p. 78. 13 Ibid. 14“Program and Souvenir,” West Brookfield 300th Anniversary Celebration of the Settlement of Quaboag Plantation: 1660-1960, West Brookfield, 1960, p. 22.

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his Narrative as a glorification of his Puritan God. It might also be read as an attempt to bolster his own reputation. In order to more fully comprehend what really happened in August 1675, this paper discusses the purpose for which Wheeler wrote his Narrative, possible motivations of some of the people involved, and the context in which the episode occurred. For the purposes of Quaboag/Brookfield history, it is useful to be aware of the strong probability that for a few years until about 1661, the old man that English originally called Massasoit (but who called himself Ousemequin), was sachem of at least some Quaboag Indian clans, and likely died in the Quaboag River valley.15 His son Metacom/Philip then, had strong family ties in the area. Important too, the execution in 1671, of Askug, son of Matoonas (the man who led 1675 attacks on Mendon and Brookfield) “upon the Gallows on Boston Common.”16 After execution, Askug’s head “was cut off and set upon the Gallows, where it was remaining at least five years afterwards,” perhaps giving his father Matoonas visible (and visceral) motivation for his attacks on English towns like Brookfield.17 Kinship connections also distinguished the English town of Brookfield. For example, three of the Swan sisters and two of the Symonds sisters married five of the men who eventually moved to Quaboag, while several of the settlers’ children married each other, creating a number of familial alliances. However, it is also clear that the townspeople of Brookfield did not get along with all of their English neighbors, and likely had difficult relationships with their Quaboag neighbors. As elsewhere in the Bay Colony, English livestock from Brookfield almost certainly caused difficulties with Quaboag farmers by trampling, uprooting, or ingesting Quaboag crops, and laying waste to Quaboag food stores. Vital to demystifying this story, is an understanding of geography and environment. Traditional interpretations place Brookfield in the ‘wilderness.’ The seventeenth-century English village of Brookfield is invariably described as isolated, remote, and inaccessible. Although located in the heart of what was then Nipmuc country, glancing at a map reveals that Brookfield was, in fact, as close to the bustling river port town of Springfield, as Marlborough was to the busy seaport at Boston. Further, surrounded by Quaboag towns, Brookfield was not ‘isolated from human contact.’ Describing Brookfield in this way, perpetuates the Puritan assumption that Indians were not human. Indian voices are largely missing from traditional local interpretations of New England history. Reasons for the absence of indigenous voices include the fact that seventeenth-century New England Indians left few written records. English and later, American suppression of Indian culture also contributed to the lack of source material. Local historians already recognize the fragmentary nature of indigenous history, but tend to dismiss the problem as unsolvable. It is not entirely unsolvable. Those who study and interpret local history have long collected Indian artifacts.18 Such objects can add greatly to local understanding of Quaboag culture. Indigenous artifacts, available and future archaeological information, as well as available indigenous oral tradition need to be synthesized with modern interpretations of local history, allowing local historical narratives to become more closely related to modern academic interpretations of the past, and thus, relevant to modern audiences.

15 Temple, p. 28; Fred Freeman, Nipmuc Tribal Member, email interview, July 10, 2016. 16 Samuel Drake, Old Indian Chronicle, Boston, 1867, p. 67. 17 Ibid. 18 Bradford L. Miner, “Researchers study collection of Native American artifacts,” Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Oct 3, 2012, Web http://www.telegram.com/article/20121003/NEWS/110039911.

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In central New England, however, only remnants of Nipmuc (including Quaboag) oral tradition remain. As Fred Freeman confirmed, after King Philip’s War those Nipmuc who survived, “dispersed to other tribal bands or groups ... Survivors of this period when found, were put together with other groupings of Natives and children were often placed with English families as household servants in return for their care and support. The result was that these children grew up with little or no personal knowledge of native culture.”19 Many adult survivors were enslaved and shipped off to Caribbean sugar plantations.20 Indeed, after King Philip’s War, for more than three hundred years, in order to ensure the ‘advancement’ and ‘civilization’ of the remaining New England Indians, white society in New England vigorously discouraged the resurrection of Indian oral traditions or Indian culture. For centuries, Indian children in New England learned and spoke English, and were taught only English history. Consequently, Nipmuc oral tradition effectively ended in 1675. By the nineteenth-century, New England Indians were described by scholars like Temple, as ‘extinct.’ Although often overlooked by traditional history and modern society, Native Americans in general and New England Indians in particular (in spite of nineteenth-century declarations), are far from being an extinct ‘race.’ Three centuries of assimilation did not wipe out Native American culture in the northeastern part of the American continent, although certainly, English colonists and Anglo- and European-American societies and governments tried to do so. Native American culture and people remain a vibrant and important part of the American community. Therefore, while the lack of seventeenth-century indigenous primary source material can never be completely overcome, Indian experience and Native American voices must no longer be overlooked and thus, disrespected. The imbalance in the archives makes vital an awareness that most available sources wrote from the perspective of fifteenth-, sixteenth-, seventeenth-, or eighteenth- century Europeans and English whose understanding of the world was very different from our own. Early modern source materials (State documents, manuscripts, letters, and images) often contain information designed to further the (imperial, political, religious, or economic) desires of the writer or artist, rather than to accurately or impartially portray people and societies Europeans comprehended as different and wholly new. The paucity of indigenous archival source material regarding the Brookfield episode, and my training as a historian and not as an archaeologist or as an anthropologist means that this text will necessarily focus more heavily on archival evidence of the English settlement of Brookfield than on anthropological or archaeological evidence of the Quaboag people who lived in the towns of Asquoash, Quabogud, and Wickaboag. Nevertheless, the Quaboag people provide the frame, the context, and the motivation for this discussion. In the future, perhaps archaeologists and anthropologists will take up the Quaboag story, so that widespread understanding of the history of the Quaboag River Valley, the Nipmuc people, and their reaction to English settlement of their Valley becomes more realistic and complete.

19 Fred Freeman, Nipmuc Tribal Member, email interview, July 10, 2016. 20 Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998, pp. 136, 152, 170, 235.

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Wheeler’s Narrative Words are used to control, manipulate, or memorialize historical events and people.21 For more than three centuries, the words in Wheeler’s Narrative have been the foundation for all interpretations of the events of August 1675. Yet, language about the past can be problematic. Since Wheeler’s Narrative concerns a small battle in a larger war, readers must be aware that interpreting the language of conflict is particularly tricky, and that the words used to describe war are often misleading.22 Often defined as an ‘eyewitness account,’ and therefore, a reliable description of what happened, Wheeler’s Narrative is actually quite unreliable. Wheeler was so badly wounded during the ambush that upon arrival back in Brookfield, he gave command of his troops to three other men. Uncertainty, therefore, surrounds Wheeler’s level of consciousness for three days and three nights inside Ayres’ Tavern. Part of the account must, necessarily, be derived from information Wheeler received after the event and did not witness personally. Further, part of the text represents his memory of a deadly ambush. In such situations, trauma often distorts human memory, making objectivity difficult. Only when memory has faded does objectivity become possible.23 Thus, the Narrative, written only weeks after the event, largely represents a transcription of received details, combined with Wheeler’s tangled and wounded memory of a near-fatal experience. Reading a seventeenth-century text like Wheeler’s Narrative is challenging, and requires taking into account the author’s Puritan worldview. Wheeler’s version of this seventeenth- century encounter was shaped by his understanding of the way the world worked and was not necessarily a ‘true’ accounting of events as modern scholars understand them. The above should not, however, indicate that Wheeler’s Narrative is a fabrication. It is not. What the above does point to, are Wheeler’s motivations for writing the Narrative. Readers should be aware that in the decades leading up to King Philip’s War, dutiful attendance at New England meetinghouses had become more and more occasional. Mid-century, Puritanism itself - long threatened by infighting and accusations of heresy - faced its most potent enemy - indifference. Towns like Brookfield, where it became necessary to court-order the inhabitants to attend worship services, exemplified the lack of communal piety. 24 Many, interpreted King Philip's War as punishment for their lack of piousness. Immediately, after hostilities began in June 1675, superstitious New England ministers called on their credulous congregations to fast, pray, praise God, and repent - in an effort to end the war.25 Readers should also be aware that Wheeler and Hutchinson’s expedition - like the July campaign preceding it - failed. A modern military commander would take responsibility for such a failure in a military field report. Wheeler made no such acknowledgment - in fact, he denied any failure at all. It is important for readers to understand, therefore, that unlike Ephraim Curtis’ Return and Relation, Thomas Wheeler’s Narrative is not a military report.26 Instead, the

21 Lepore, ix. 22 Lepore, x. 23 Richard Terdiman, 'Historicizing Memory', in Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993. 24 John Pynchon - Hampshire County Court Records 1663-1677 (Hampshire County Waste Book), p. 97, Facsimile Spfld 352, Archives, Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts, Website https://springfieldmuseums.org/about/museum-of-springfield-history. 25 Richard Slotkin and James K. Folsom, So Dreadfull a Judgement: Puritan Responses to King Philip's War 1676- 1677, Weslyan University Press, 1978, p. 57. 26 Ephraim Curtis, “Return and Relation, July 16, 1675” in Josiah Temple, History of North Brookfield, North Brookfield Historical Society, 1887, pp. 76-78.

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Narrative is formulaic (even mythic), and should be understood as part of the literary tradition glorifying the Puritan God.27 Written for his Puritan peers, and originally published as the preamble to a sermon, Wheeler’s Narrative exemplifies a heroic Puritan parable. Partly motivated by a need to applaud what he perceived as the extraordinary efforts of his God at Brookfield, Wheeler interpreted his experience as the successful outcome of a providential test - complete with treacherous heathens, the death of innocents, and a Christian hero (himself). The Narrative represents Wheeler’s understanding of the episode according to Puritan ethics and theology. In a time when predestination was the rule, Wheeler's Narrative embodies the providential version of actual events. Motivated also, by the need to explain his experience, (and probably) a desire to save his reputation after the devastating failure to ‘secure peace’ and protect Hutchinson, Wheeler followed the ministers’ lead in trying to end the awful conflict by heaping praise upon the deity and declaring the Brookfield debacle, a success. Again, while Wheeler’s Narrative is ‘true,’ it should be recognized as a stylized interpretation of the ambush and a second-hand account of the siege. The mythology which grew up around this story, however, has little to do with Wheeler. Historically, past human experience has been described by two sorts of language. The first, a language “of concepts, ordered analytically or rhetorically.”28 The second, a language “of evocative symbols, ordered as narratives.”29 The latter, is mythic language. Mythology in this sense, signifies “a set of structuring narratives and a vocabulary of evocative or value-laden symbols, sanctioned by traditional usage, derived from and related to the historical life of a people” 30 This sort of myth defines and sanctions a society’s “response to social, psychological, and metaphysical crises,” in this case, the English response to King Philip’s War.31 These stories begin as simple narratives which “possess special coherence,” and which “strike a responsive chord in the minds of people in a given time and place.”32 Stories like this are used habitually, “as models of human (and divine) action.”33 Further, such myths explain historical experience in a way that “both accounts for the past and offers a model of behavior” for later generations.34 Over time, Thomas Wheeler’s story about Brookfield became just such a model for English bravery and Indian treachery on the ‘early American frontier.’ Quaboag River Valley As their voices are largely missing from the archives, and traditional interpretations of Wheeler’s Surprise and the Siege of Brookfield ignore the indigenous part of the story, it is important for modern interpreters to respect and endeavor to understand the available evidence of Quaboag society. Land, and in particular the Quaboag River Valley, shaped Quaboag culture. Thus, it is not inappropriate to discuss the landscape Quaboag people inhabited, and which they shaped to suit their needs.

27 Ibid. 28 Slotkin and Folsom, So Dreadful a Judgement, p. 5. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Slotkin and Folsom, So Dreadful a Judgement, p. 6. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.

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From about 800 AD to 1500 AD, people in the northeast apparently had extensive contact with and were widely influenced by Mississippian culture.35 Ceramic pottery was introduced from the south, along with maize, beans, and squash.36 Mississippian influence in southern New England was also characterized by the adoption of “systematic agriculture, hierarchical social and political structures [and] elaborate exchange networks.”37 For generations, the Quaboag (and their ancestors) - an extensive, complex, and sedentary agricultural population who benefitted from a region-wide system of trade and communication - lived on the western edge of an area called the Lower Worcester Plateau (LWP), bounded in the west by the Connecticut River Valley, and in the east by an area designated the Gulf of Maine Coastal Plateau.38 Although the terrain is not by any means flat, but instead rugged and “deeply dissected by numerous watercourses,” the region is classified as a plateau “because of the general uniformity in elevation of the ridge tops and undissected surfaces.”39 The ridges are generally aligned north/south, and have always presented an impediment to travel.40 The rivers provided access “to and from a wide surrounding area, including the coastal lowlands bordering Long Island Sound and Massachusetts and Narragansett Bays, as well as the Connecticut and Merrimack valleys.”41 Many of these rivers “are swift flowing streams, fed by numerous swamps, ponds, and lakes, particularly in headwater areas, with abundant rapids and falls along their courses,” well-suited for pre-contact fishing stations.42 However, none of these waterways completely traverse the ‘plateau,’ thus requiring portage, or overland travel in many areas. Land routes were therefore, extensive. The Quaboag River is the “southern branch of the upper Chicopee Drainage.” It arises “as two separate streams: the Fivemile and the Sevenmile Rivers ... [which] flow south from Oakham and Spencer respectively ... [uniting] in East Brookfield” continuing south “a short distance to Quaboag Pond.”43 From Quaboag Pond, the river flows northwest “as a wide, slow- moving river, flanked by broad, open wetland meadows.”44 Just south of Wickaboag Pond, the river turns sharply southwest through a narrow valley and flows towards the present-day village of Three Rivers (a Census Designated Place in the western part of Palmer), where the Swift, Ware, and Quaboag rivers meet to become the Chicopee River, which in turn, empties into the Connecticut River reaching the ocean at Long Island Sound.45

35 Salisbury, p. 19. 36 Salisbury, p. 19. 37 Salisbury, p. 19. 38 “Landscape Assessment and Forest Management Framework: Lower Worcester Plateau Ecoregion in Massachusetts,” Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, May, 2004, p. 5, Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/eea/lf/lworcester/lworcester-toc.pdf 39 “Historical & Archaeological Resources of Central Massachusetts: A Framework for Preservation Decisions,” Massachusetts Historical Commission, February 1985, p. 7. 40 Ibid. 41 “Historical & Archaeological Resources of Central Massachusetts: A Framework for Preservation Decisions,” Massachusetts Historical Commission, February 1985, p. 8. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid, p. 11. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

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The bedrock of the LWP is made up of “several ... bands of igneous and metamorphic rocks” the southwestern portion of which “consists primarily of ... schists.”46 Bedrock outcroppings long provided quartz and quartzite for chipped stone implements, steatite or soapstone for carved vessels, and graphite for pigments.”47 Bog iron was present “in relatively large quantities” in the area now encompassed by the modern town of West Brookfield.48 The underlying structure of the area influenced “the distribution of soils ... because, although [local] soils ... formed from glacial deposits, these deposits are primarily derived from local bedrock.” In the Quaboag River Valley area, therefore, the “soil belt consists largely of Brookfield soils and is characterized by a high percentage of iron-bearing minerals. The fine grained Brookfield loams are [and always have been] very important, productive agricultural soils.”49 Thus, in the larger area now designated as ‘The Brookfields,’ soil made the area attractive to both Indian and English farmers. Quaboag artifacts are abundant in this area. In present-day West Brookfield, “archaeological sites have been ... identified along much of the Quaboag River corridor.”50 In fact, there are “[t]hree overlapping artifact collection areas [which] extend from the western town boundary east along the river to Coy’s Brook [western boundary of the original English settlement]. These sites were all “identified on the basis of surface finds ... exposed by historic and modern period land use (e.g. construction, gravel removal).”51 Temple indicated that the shores of Wickaboag Pond were “the site of the largest of the Quabaug Indian villages.”52 He interviewed the townspeople of West Brookfield in 1887, and from them learned that in 1807, clear evidence still existed of Indian occupation on the shores of the pond in West Brookfield. Tradition placed “the main cluster of Indian wigwams [wetus] ... on the bluff or high plain at the southerly end of, and adjoining the pond.”53 Located on a stratified drift deposit at the southern end of Wickaboag Pond, the area “met all the essential conditions of a permanent residence, and a large community.” It provided good fishing and “the adjacent plain was unsurpassed as planting ground.”54 Piles of firestones, “[g]reat quantities of domestic utensils, such as stone kettles, drinking-cups, gouges, pestles, axes and awls,” and more than one steatite kettle, “in perfect preservation” were found in the area.55 (See Appendix I, Figure XI) Across the river, “to the south-east,” agricultural use turned up “[l]arge heaps of ‘chips’” which indicated the manufacture of “arrow and spear points, knives, piercers, etc.”56 Additionally, “many steatite cups, pieces of clay pottery, a well-finished pipe, and other utensils and ornaments,” were found at this particular site.57

46 “Historical & Archaeological Resources of Central Massachusetts: A Framework for Preservation Decisions,” Massachusetts Historical Commission, February 1985, p. 12. 47 Ibid, p. 13. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 West Brookfield Reconnaissance Report 2008, (http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon- reports/wbrookfield.pdf) 51 Ibid. 52 Temple, p. 26. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid.

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Temple (and local tradition) located a burial place “on the bluff at the north-easterly end of the pond; and a number of skeletons were plowed up here by the early settlers.” He described “the still visible [in 1887], remains of several ‘barns or granaries,’” [... which] were circular excavations in the ground, used for storing provisions, such as corn, nuts, and dried fish. The smaller ones were three to five feet in diameter by an equal depth; the larger were ten to fifteen feet in diameter by five to ten feet deep. In digging, the sides were left slightly converging, and ... it was common to line the sides with a coating of clay mortar, which was hardened by artificial heat, and is now often found unbroken. These barns were commonly set in the sloping sides of a knoll or bank, to secure dryness, and the better to shed rain. A considerable number were placed close together ... When filled, they were covered with poles and long grass, or brush and sods.58

Upriver, the present-day town of Brookfield also represents “an extremely significant archaeological resource area.”59 A minimum of “seven archaeological sites have been identified in the area between the Quaboag River, the southwestern shore of Quaboag Pond, and Lake Road in Brookfield.”60 Seven more sites “are located on the north side of the river around the pond’s northwestern shoreline.”61 Interestingly and importantly, one of the sites “in the Quaboag Pond area appears to document a relatively rare Adenatype occupation that may date to the Woodland Period approximately 3000 to 1600 years ago”62 An ‘Adenatype occupation’ means archaeologists found a site resembling the various communities centered “in what is now southern Ohio,” and it clearly indicates the abovementioned Mississippian influence.63 On the eastern side of Quaboag Pond, in present-day East Brookfield, too, “[s]everal large Native American archaeological sites are located along the eastern shores of Quaboag and Quacumquasit ponds.”64 The ‘South Pond [Quacumquasit] Site’ is sometimes referred to “as the ‘Great Village of the Quaboag’ and contains evidence of repeated occupation and use dating to at least 8,000 years ago.”65 Quabagud, or ‘Quobacut’ was a “large and permanent Quabaug village.”66 In spite of Temple’s designation of Wickaboag as the largest Quaboag town in The Brookfields area, the ‘Great Village’ of Quabagud, more likely deserved that distinction. In 1887, “the distinctive remains of Indian occupancy [were] still plainly visible.” As at the Wickaboag Pond site in West Brookfield, here too, “[p]iles of fire-stones, showing the alternate action of fire and water ... two large barns or granaries ... Indian relics of various kinds,” including “[o]ne or more skeletons ... Parts of aukooks (steatite kettles),” as well as “specimens of baked clay pottery, and personal ornaments,” indicated long-term occupation. Historians believe Reverend John Eliot visited Quabagud when he visited the Quaboag during the soggy

58 Ibid. 59 Brookfield Reconnaissance Report http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon- reports/brookfield.pdf 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 “Adena Culture,” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Web https://www.britannica.com/topic/Adena-culture. 64 East Brookfield reconnaissance Report http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon- reports/ebrookfield.pdf 65 Ibid. 66 Temple, p. 28.

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summer of 1649, in an unsuccessful effort to bring them into the Christian fold and more firmly under the control of Massachusetts authorities.67 During the 1940s, “limited avocational excavations at this site ... were led by Barker Keith and Elmer Ekblaw of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society.”68 A complete understanding of the “physical extent of this site area [remains] unknown but it appears to cover several acres. Several other sites have been identified on the north [Quaboag] and south [Quacumquasit] ponds and, together with the cluster of Native American sites around the western pond shores in Brookfield, document the significance of ... wetland margins as areas of generally high sensitivity for ancient archaeological resources” in this particular valley in central Massachusetts.69 The original 1665 Brookfield deed (See Appendix III) named three Indian towns as boundaries for the English settlement.70 Wickaboag to the west, Quabagud to the east, and Asquoash to the southeast. Pynchon wrote Asquoash “lies somewhat southward of our way to Brookfield, and about 23 miles from Springfield ... the Indians have a great cornfield hard by on the southward side, and not far southward are more Indian cornfields.” In fact, Asquoash was distinguished by its extensive cornfields. Peter Whitney located Asquoash “on an extensive hill” where “large beds of clam-shells were discovered under the soil, which appeared to be placed at equal distances from each other” as well as “Indian utensils.”71 Temple, however, declared that there were two Asquoash’s, creating a century of controversy over the location (and importance) of the town named in the Brookfield deed. Temple located one Asquoash farther down the river valley to the southwest of the Brookfields, in Brimfield, and the second Asquoash - distinguished by being “named in the Indian deed of 1665, as being on the line between the head of Naltaug brook and Quabaug pond,” - placed it “at the extreme southern point of West Brookfield.”72 Jeffrey Fiske pointed out in 2009, that no one but Temple made this distinction, and no one but Temple declared that there were two towns called Asquoash.73 Donald Duffy made extensive calculations based on the 1665 deed, and concluded that Asquoash was located on the hill designated as Mitchell Hill, in the southwestern corner of present-day Brookfield, overlooking the Quaboag River.74 Asquoash, like Quabagud, and Wickaboag was a large and important town. The sites along the river and adjacent to the ponds represent both short- and long-term activities. The larger, long-term sites likely occupied “several acres.”75 Most of the sites in question “were reported by avocational archaeologists or identified through collections research,” making it difficult “to identify individual site boundaries.”76 Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that the area “was extensively utilized by Native Americans for at least ... 8,000 years for both habitation and ceremonial purposes.”

67 Temple, p. 29, pp. 41-46; John Eliot, Correspondence, Roxbury, December 1649, in Temple, p. 40. 68 East Brookfield reconnaissance Report http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon- reports/ebrookfield.pdf. 69 Ibid. 70 1665 Deed, in Temple, p. 53-54. 71 Peter Whitney, “Western,” History of Worcester County, Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, 1793, p. 202. 72 Temple, p. 17 73 Jeffrey Fiske, in Donald Duffy, “Finding Asquoash,” The Quaboag and Nipmuc Indians, 2014, p. 117. 74 Donald Duffy, “Finding Asquoash,” The Quaboag and Nipmuc Indians, 2014, p. 117. 75 Brookfield Reconnaissance Report http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon- reports/brookfield.pdf. 76 Ibid.

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Archival evidence, Temple, and tradition hold that “Wassamegin [Ousemequin/Massasoit], the old sachem of the Wampanoags, came to Wekabaug village about the year 1657, and was the acknowledged ruler here till his death.”77 If so, then Metacom/Philip’s flight to Nipmuc country at the end of July, and his sighting at Asquoash on August 5, 1675, make sense.78 The Quaboag River Valley (perhaps) represented refuge and family. Wilderness Another challenge for modern interpreters of seventeenth-century texts, is sorting out Puritan worldview from later Eurocentric assumptions about the past. In 1887, Josiah Temple described the first settlement to be called Brookfield as “bounded on all sides by wilderness.”79 In 1958, Douglas Leach described the first settlement as perched “on a hill overlooking the forest for miles around.”80 Twenty-first-century popular conceptions of seventeenth-century New England landscapes have not changed appreciably since that time. Modern Americans inherited the perception that men like Thomas Wheeler and thousands of his English peers were alone in the wilderness. At the beginning of 1621, after a long and difficult first winter in America, during which nearly half the colonists died - surrounded by the bones of Patuxet - English undeniably perceived themselves alone in a “hidious & desolate wildernes.”81 During the Great Migration, arriving Puritans, like Wheeler, perceived of their lives in the ‘new world’ as recurring episodes from the Bible, and considered themselves ‘cast into the Wilderness.’ Wheeler’s own hereditary understanding of ‘isolation’ and ‘wilderness,’ should therefore, be understood as biblical, and symbolic. Last to arrive, English had never been alone on the continent. While Leach learned about past landscapes from his predecessors (like Temple) who imagined a wild and uninhabited wilderness, early explorers and colonists knew better. European accounts of contact in the Americas generally reveal that explorers did not anticipate, nor did they find an unpopulated wilderness. Instead, early European and English explorers fully expected to meet and create economic relationships with a huge, resident population in the Americas. Trade with indigenous Americans was established immediately. Shortly thereafter, however, among those people who came into contact with European and later, English traders, colonists, and their animals, indigenous populations declined precipitously due to the spread of European diseases. The earliest English colonists in New England settled their villages in previously inhabited Indian town sites, and planted English crops in abandoned Indian farm fields. Several hundred years later, after the American Civil War, the idea of empty, untamed, ‘virgin land,’ justified the U.S. government’s so-called ‘manifest destiny’ to seize land still under

77 Temple, p.28; Fred Freeman, Nipmuc Tribal Member, corroborated that this story is ‘out there’ and shouldn’t be discounted given kin and trade relationships with Wampanoag; email interview, July 10, 2016. 78 Joseph I. Foot, An Historical Discourse Delivered at West Brookfield, Mass., Nov. 27, 1828, Merriam & Cooke, West Brookfield, 1843, p. 11. 79 Temple, p. 9. 80 Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, p. 78 81 William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, From the Original Manuscript, Wright & Potter Printing Co. Boston, 1898, 2002 p. 95, Electronic Version Prepared by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, Gordon College, Wenham, MA 01984, March 1, Web https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/nereligioushistory/bradford-plimoth/bradford- plymouthplantation.pdf.

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Indian control.82 The concept of ‘untamed’ landscape also justified nineteenth-century perceptions of ‘improvement.’ This nineteenth-century ‘frontier theory,’ espoused by Frederick Jackson Turner and his followers (like Temple), kept the general public and politicians under the impression that ‘empty,’ ‘wild,’ and ‘overgrown’ defined the continent in its natural state, while ‘savage’ and ‘untamed’ defined indigenous people. Thus, when land was appropriated from Indians in the American West, it occasioned no moral dilemma for a ‘civilized’ people who considered themselves superior. In fact, modern Americans are “often surprised,” William Tilden told his nineteenth- century audience, to find that “horse and foot soldiers seem to have penetrated the country in all directions without much hindrance; and tradition says that the woods were so thin and trees so scattering that a deer could be seen in the forest at a distance of forty rods [660 feet].”83 The reason that the woods were ‘so thin’ and the trees ‘so scattering,’ was because the landscape had been fire-managed by indigenous people, for centuries. It is hard for modern Americans to conceptualize and “recapture the degree to which [American] Indian economies were dependent on fire.”84 Indigenous Americans used fire to fell trees, and shape canoes. Used to clear and prepare farm fields, managed fire also kept the woods free of underbrush, and maintained open lowland meadows.85 Maize agriculture required “a slash and burn regime ... [and] Fire hunting was common in the fall.”86 In areas of habitation, forests were “periodically fired to eliminate underbrush.”87 Indeed, early colonists described the woods as ‘park-like.’ Indians, explained Samuel Morton in 1637, ...are accustomed to set fire of the Country in all places where they come, and to burne it twize a yeare, viz: at the Spring, and the fall of the leafe. The reason that mooves them to doe so, is because it would other wise be so overgrowne with underweedes that it would be all a coppice wood [i.e. woven together and impenetrable], and the people would not be able in any wise to passe through the Country out of a beaten path.88

In seventeenth-century southern New England, impenetrable growth occurred only on steep, inaccessible hillsides; in low, boggy areas that were too wet to burn; or in the brambles and scrubby brush which marked fallow Indian farm fields or abandoned indigenous towns. Stratified drift deposits, and nutrient-dense alluvial soil along the Quaboag River, as well as rich, well-drained, rock-free soil on southeastern-facing drumlins provided perfect habitation for people and excellent growing conditions for maize, beans, and squash (perfect too, for English crops). The landscape around the English settlement of Brookfield was (and is) some of the best farmland in Massachusetts. Thus, the seventeenth-century landscape was ‘wilderness’ only because Wheeler (and many of his Puritan peers) interpreted it as a wasteland akin to that

82 Walter Prescott Webb, in Jennings, p. 520. 83 William S. Tilden, History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts, 1650-1886, Geo. H. Ellis, Boston, 1887, p. 26. 84 Stephen J. Pyne, Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1982, p. 71; See also: Howard S. Russell, A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, abridged edition, 1982, Chapter 1. 85 Howard S. Russell, A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, abridged edition, 1982, Chapter 1. 86 Pyne, p. 47-8. 87 Pyne, p. 48 88 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, Smithsonian Libraries, p. 172, Web http://library.si.edu/digital- library/book/newenglishcanaa00mort.

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described in the Bible, and because subsequent writers and scholars interpreted it according to their own needs and conceptions. In fact, Quaboag Indians completely managed the Quaboag River Valley landscape. It was not wilderness, and cannot reasonably be described as ‘forest for miles around.’ The Roads to Quaboag When he described the road leading to the ‘isolated’ settlement of Quaboag/Brookfield as ‘a trail through the woods’ - a phrase which echoed and implied Frederick Jackson Turner’s idea of virgin and available landscape - Douglas Leach did much to perpetuate ‘wilderness’ interpretations of the landscape around Brookfield. A different sort of reality confronted the seventeenth-century traveler, however. In southern New England, the most essential and “heavily travelled roads ... were the Nipmuck Path which ran roughly north to south, and the ‘Old Bay Path,’” which ran east/west.89 Although he described it as ‘isolated,’ Leach nevertheless conceded that Brookfield was “important as a stopping point on the long Bay Path” - but neglected to mention its similar function and location on the Nipmuck/Nashaway Path.90 Located at a nexus of English and Indian roads, Brookfield was a key stopping place on the east/west road between the English and Indian settlements at Agawam/Springfield in the Connecticut River Valley, and Shawmut/Boston on Massachusetts Bay. Transected by the north/south road, travelers accessed English and Mohegan towns to the south in Connecticut, as well as English fur trading posts and timber located to the north in Abenaki lands (present-day New Hampshire and Maine). In the mid-seventeenth-century, the valley was crisscrossed as well, by the “geography of letters, travelers, [and] rumors,” which traversed the New England colonies during the mid-seventeenth-century.91 By the 1670s, John and Susannah Ayres’ tavern on the hill had gained a reputation as “a commodious place for entertainment.”92 In the winter of 1674, English began construction of a broad, English road, 100 feet wide - wide enough to drive livestock to market - following the route of the Bay Path.93 In Brookfield, it was to cross Coy’s Brook and then diverge - “one branch following the old trail through Warren to Springfield, and the other leading ... to Hadley.”94 Not a trail through the woods by any means. In 1675, the road was an enormous, raw gash through the countryside. Katherine Grandjean suggested recently that the construction of this road, destined to bring more English animals, people, and towns to Nipmuc country was particularly onerous to Nipmuc people.95 Without archaeological exploration, it is unclear how many of the known sites in the Quaboag River Valley were occupied during the seventeenth-century, however, it is reasonable to assume that the three sites named in the Indian Deed, viz. Quabogud, Wickaboag, and Asquoash, were all inhabited. The Quaboag River Valley - and most particularly the areas around Wickaboag and Quaboag Ponds - was heavily utilized and managed for thousands of years prior

89 Louis E. Roy, Quaboag Plantation alias Brookfeild [sic]: A seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Town, Heffernan Press, Inc., Worcester MA, 1965, p. 9. 90 Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, p. 78. 91 Katherine Grandjean, American Passage, The Communications Frontier in Early New England, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2015, p. 6-7. 92 Roy Introduction. 93 “Order for the laying out of a highway,” in Temple, p. 25; Katherine Grandjean, American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England, Harvard University Press, 2015, p. 148. 94 “Order for the laying out of a highway,” in Temple, p. 25. 95 Grandjean, p. 150.

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to English settlement. In the seventeenth-century, the valley was characterized by farm land, not forest. Indigenous towns surrounded by fertile and bountiful fields were adjacent to and entirely visible from the English settlement on Foster Hill. Although Wheeler inferred Biblical wilderness, and later writers added a romantic sense of isolation to descriptions of the area, the English settlement at Quaboag/Brookfield was not located in the ‘wilderness.’ In fact, English settlers at Quaboag were not alone by any stretch of the imagination. On a hill overlooking and bounded by river and Indian farm fields, transected by roads and trails, abutting the Indian towns of Quabagud, Asquoash, and Wickaboag, the English town of Brookfield was a hub of people and activity. Livestock Ethnohistorians use the word ‘frontier,’ to indicate a social setting, rather than a geographical location, and note that as a result of interactions between people on any frontier, “mutual adaptation occurs.”96 This process sounds very clean, and quite friendly. While mutual adaptation necessarily occurred in Massachusetts during the seventeenth-century, the process was not clean, or friendly. Suspicion defined many interactions between English and Indian. Doubt magnified minor disagreements. The ultimate source of the schism lay in the “relentless logic of growth,” coupled to the twin hounds of mistrust and fear.97 The question of why Quaboag Indians and others attacked the town of Brookfield, has been well-answered for generations by the notion that Indians simply couldn’t be trusted, i.e., they ‘broke their promise.’ However, reliance on stereotypical explanations of Indian behavior at Quaboag continues to vindicate English behavior during King Philip’s War, i.e. Indian enslavement, extermination, and removal from Massachusetts. The reasons for the 1675 attack were far more complex. Many of the earliest English descriptions of Massachusetts highlighted “the land’s ability to support livestock” and emphasized its suitability for farming.98 As part of the effort to persuade settlers to emigrate, early English explorers promoted New England as well-suited to the ‘plough,’ and pointed out that fodder - in the form of ‘open plains,’ and ‘large meadows’ - was abundant and available. “The country is very beautiful,” wrote Mr. Graves, of Salem, “in open plains in some places five hundred acres not much troublesome to the plough ... and by the rivers, abundance of grass, and large meadows without a tree or shrub.”99 (Emphasis mine.) An important but often overlooked part of the great English migration, European livestock also made the treacherous voyage from England to Massachusetts. Success for English colonies was heavily dependent upon domesticated horses, dairy cows, beef cattle, oxen, pigs, sheep, goats, and fowl. Fecund pigs (as a ready food source), and massive oxen “whose muscle power increased agricultural productivity” were particularly important.100 Once settled in New England, settlers bred thousands more English animals.

96 Jeffrey Mifflin, “‘Closing the Circle’: Native American Writings in Colonial New England, a Documentary Nexus between Acculturation and Cultural Preservation,” The American Archivist. Vol. 72, Vol. 2, Fall/Winter, 2009, Web 2/9/15 jstor.org/stable/27802693, p. 345. 97 Kenneth A. Lockridge, A New England Town: the First Hundred Years, expanded edition, W. W. Norton & Co., New York and London, 1985, p. 147. 98 Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 1994. Web 2/21/15 jstor.org/stabe/2946921, p. 603. 99 Tilden, p. 26. 100 DeJohn Anderson, p. 602. A sow can deliver 7-12 piglets, twice a year.

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Tilden explained, that as early as 1643, ... there were one thousand acres in gardens and orchards, and fifteen thousand acres under cultivation for grain-raising. There were twelve thousand neat [i.e. domesticated] cattle and three thousand sheep in the colony.101

More than anything else, English cattle, sheep, goats, and horses needed grass in summer and hay in winter - found in abundance in the great meadows and plains of southern New England. Pigs ate whatever they could find. Providing fodder for farm animals took such precedence that colonists “reversed the usual English fencing practices.”102 Instead of fencing their animals into pastures as they had done in England, American colonists fenced their animals out of common, cultivated English fields - which left horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, and geese to range freely - including through cultivated (but unfenced) Indian farm fields.103 Livestock became such an issue, English authorities passed additional laws, indicating that any Indian who refused to fence her cultivated fields forfeited the right to sue for damages.104 During this period, both English and Indians pursued redress for grievances in court. When cows and horses “walked into deer traps,” English colonists held Indians responsible for damage to their animals.105 When English swine rooted through underground storage pits containing Indian stores of corn, beans, and other foodstuffs, or ruined newly planted fields, English settlers were held responsible for the destruction.106 Both English and Indian could be imprisoned for such offences. At least on paper. Indians were often frustrated when settlers did not provide restitution for damages, even when ordered to do so. By the 1660s, the General Court dealt with so many claims “for damage caused by trespassing livestock,” individual towns were instructed to “establish procedures for local arbitration,” which necessarily put local authorities in charge of policing themselves.107 At which point, Indians found themselves dealing with a foreign system of justice - “the proceedings of which were conducted in an incomprehensible language” - translated by interpreters who were often absent or undependable.108 Additionally, under such ‘local arbitration,’ the system was presided over by people who had a vested interest in the outcome of every case.109 Frustrated by judicial means, Indians resorted to informal forms of redress like claiming or killing offending livestock.110 English unfamiliarity with and unwillingness to accept this ‘reciprocal’ form of justice, led to frequent accusations of Indians ‘stealing’ English livestock.111 Indians often found themselves jailed. By mid-century, any English recognition of the “mutual subsistence needs,” of Indians and English was overshadowed by the geometric growth of English human and livestock populations, which “accelerated during the 1660s, and early 1670s.”112 Joint land use by English and Indian “greatly diminished,” instead, the burgeoning English population “not only wanted

101 Tilden, History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts, 1650-1886, 1887, p. 32. 102 DeJohn Anderson, p. 604. 103 Russell, pp. 18-20. 104 DeJohn Anderson, p. 611. 105 Dejohn Anderson, p. 608. 106 DeJohn Anderson, p. 610. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid. 109 DeJohn Anderson, p. 610-611. 110 DeJohn Anderson, p. 610. 111 Ibid. 112 DeJohn Anderson, p. 620.

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more land, but demanded exclusive use of it.”113 Concurrently, enforcement of livestock trespass laws in places like Quaboag “became more haphazard.”114 Animal husbandry, both English and Indian, caused major problems for Indian/English society in Massachusetts during the middle of the seventeenth-century.115 Land and livestock disputes magnified minor disagreements which often culminated in violent acts of retribution and retaliation. Social conflict, between people who practiced distinct and competing methods of subsistence farming, defined the era. Although there are no extant records regarding land disputes in Quaboag/Brookfield, there is evidence that English residents raised pigs, cattle, sheep, horses, and likely fowl of several kinds. Agricultural differences and disputes between English and Indian farmers may have formed part of the reason that Quaboag Indians attacked the English at Brookfield. Indeed, Foot suggested Quaboag Indians “took offence at some damages they had sustained from [English] cattle.”116 While English animals caused various conflicts, Indians had complex reactions to English encroachment and agriculture.117 Not every Indian rejected English agriculture. For example, Indians who became Christians (so-called Praying Indians) appeared to submit to English authority, while subtly resisting English encroachment. They took up animal husbandry instead of arms, and thereby used English land law to protect themselves and their territory, as the Quaboag Indians perhaps considered doing when visited by Eliot, in 1649.118 The Quaboag - who resisted Christian conversion - also resisted English encroachment.119 While the three Quaboag towns were situated within or adjacent to prime farmland, the English fields on Foster Hill were limited by rocky outcroppings, streams, boggy swamps, and the near proximity of surrounding Indian towns and fields.120 The Quaboag prevented English settlement on far more desirable land, and maintained their dominance and control over the valley by application of the 1665 deed. Thus, although the Quaboag didn’t convert, they nevertheless asserted agency over their land.

113 Ibid. 114 DeJohn Anderson, p. 621. 115 Even Metacom/Philip kept swine. Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 1994. Web 2/21/15 jstor.org/stabe/2946921. 116 Foot in Temple, p. 70. 117 David J. Silverman, “‘We Chuse to Be Bounded:’ Native American Animal Husbandry in Colonial New England,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jul., 2003), Web 2/9/15, jstor.org/stable/3491550. 118 Ibid. 119 Gookin noted in 1674, that “Quobaug ... is another Indian town which is coming on to receive the Gospel.” However, the Quaboag never converted. 120 Gordon DeWolf, Jr., PhD, Conversation, 7/31/16.

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Trouble In April 1671, Ascooke, or Askug, son of Matoonas (the man who led the attack on Brookfield) was executed and dismembered on Boston Common for the murder of an English colonist called Zachary Smith.121 Difficulties involving pigs and horses almost started a war between English colonists in Massachusetts and Indians in Rhode Island when a group of “angry colonists living near Natick” very nearly attacked Metacom/Philip’s home village at Montaup (Mount Hope), in Rhode Island, in retaliation for the killing of English livestock that trespassed on indigenous land.122 The same year, the General Court reprimanded and humiliated Metacom over rumored plots against the English. Indians were ordered to turn over their guns to English authorities. In 1672, as the third Anglo/Dutch War began, an ongoing conflict apparently continued in Brookfield. As John Pynchon hinted in an entry from his Magisterial ‘Waste Book,’ dated March 26, some of the trouble had to do with the town supporting their (apparently un-ordained) minister John Younglove, i.e. paying him, providing his firewood, etc. Pynchon wrote, “[t]he jury present that they judge it necessary that it be inquired into concerning Mr. Younglove the minister at Quabauge whether he [be] comfortably provided for.”123 Of all the Quaboag settlers, John Younglove has the worst reputation among historians. He may or may not deserve such a reputation. Roy called him ‘unstable.’ Temple wrote that he received “no great acceptance” from the people of Quaboag. It is indisputable that he argued on several occasions with the townspeople of Quaboag/Brookfield where, as lay minister “he seems to have given no satisfaction.”124 Evidently, whatever brand of Puritanism Mr. Younglove dispensed, many people found it unappealing. It is worth remembering, however, that while Younglove “may have had an unhappy temper ... it is not unlikely that the temp[er] of the people was worse than his.”125 Pynchon’s court ordered Mr. Younglove “to appear at the adjournment of this Court viz on the 19 June next,” and also ordered someone from the town speak for the townspeople.126 Apparently, the first complaint to Magistrate John Pynchon about the administration of Younglove’s ministry came from Younglove himself, or from someone complaining on his behalf. Two months later, on June 19, 1672, Younglove duly appeared, “for himself,” while John Ayres and William Pritchard appeared “declaring themselves ... as they thought it necessary and convenient,” for the town.127 Whatever the trouble, there were clearly “very uncomfortable differences between Mr. Younglove and the people of Quabauge,” and the difficulty had evidently been ongoing for some time.128 John Pynchon, in his position as Magistrate, wrote that the Court - desiring compromise - declined to involve itself in the dispute, and refused to lay blame on either side, “least their

121 Grandjean, p. 151. 122 DeJohn Anderson, p. 621. 123 John Pynchon - Hampshire County Court Records 1663-1677 (Hampshire County Wastebook), Facsimile Spfld 352, p. 97-8, Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts, Website https://springfieldmuseums.org/about/museum-of-springfield-history. 124 Granger, Launcelot Granger of Newbury, Mass. & Suffield, Conn., a genealogical history, 1893, p. 61, Web, https://archive.org/details/launcelotgranger00gran. 125 Temple, p. 66. 126 March 26, 1672, account books vol. III, p. 317, in Roy, p. 185. 127 June 19, 1672: Wastebook, p. 97. 128 June 19, 1672: Wastebook, p. 97.

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spirits on either hand should be provoked and reconciliation retarded.”129 As the people of Quaboag apparently refused to attend worship services, Pynchon ordered that until another minister could be found, “the Sabbath ... lie not waste but that the people there meet together for the public worship of God in the Ministry dispensed by Mr. Younglove.”130 On behalf of the town, Ayres and Pritchard promised to comply. That same day, Thomas Wilson of Brookfield “was to have appeared” before Pynchon’s court, to answer “for his evil demeanor toward Mr. Younglove.” John Younglove’s neighbor, Thomas Wilson, was unquestionably possessed of an ‘unhappy temper.’ Wilson first appeared in the historical record when he was reprimanded in 1647 (age thirty), for “sleeping” in an Ipswich barn during his watch.131 Since he evidently did not show up to Pynchon’s court, in absentia, the Court ordered Wilson to “acknowledge that he hath carryed himself vilely ... toward Mr. Younglove.”132 He was to make his acknowledgment in front of the entire town at a (court- ordered) Sabbath meeting, “within one month.”133 The Court required Wilson “to carry himself better toward him [Younglove] for tyme to come” and if he refused to do so, the Court “accordingly order that then he is to be warned to appear at the County Court at Springfield in September next to answer for his offence.”134 It is not clear whether or to what extent Wilson complied with the Court’s order to publicly apologize to John Younglove. There is apparently no record of a further court appearance that year. This should not indicate that Thomas Wilson reformed himself. The Younglove family left town circa 1673. In the middle of the night on August 1, 1673, John Pynchon sent a messenger from Springfield to Quaboag with “Intelligence of 17 dutch ships seen at N York.”135 Two days later, Pynchon sent another messenger to Quaboag letting the people know that “the dutch had Landed & begun a fight.”136 Three weeks later, Richard Coy collected pay from Pynchon, for ‘entertaining’ the messengers, as well as for the use of a horse “from Quabaug.”137 That year, the English settlers at Quaboag successfully petitioned the General Court for the right to incorporate their settlement as a new town called Brookfield. Concurrently, rumors that Philip/Metacom was arming his warriors to attack the English continued. Christian and non-Christian Indians were repeatedly (and often wrongly) accused and imprisoned for ‘stealing’ or killing English livestock - and livestock continued to trespass on Indian land. English settlers persisted in claiming new area, and incorporating new towns like Brookfield. It is likely that in the Quaboag River Valley, as elsewhere in the colony, a struggle over Indian/English land rights and land use, also continued. The Third Anglo/Dutch War ended in 1674. Plans were made that year, to build a bridge over Coy’s Brook, so that the new English road following the old Bay Path, could continue unimpeded through town, thus enabling travelers to more conveniently cross the brook and travel northwest over the new road to Hadley and Northampton. In March 1674, John Ayres “being complained of to this Court for that he refuses to pay certain arrearages of which he has been

129 June 19, 1672: Wastebook, p. 97. 130 June 19, 1672: Wastebook, p. 97. 131 Thomas Franklin Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Ipswich Historical Society; 1905, p. 426, Web 8/14/16 https://archive.org/stream/ipswichinmassach00water#page/426/mode/2up. 132 Wastebook, p. 98. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 Bridenbaugh, Vol. II, Pynchon Accounts, p. 452. 136 Bridenbaugh, Vol. II, Pynchon Accounts, p. 452. 137 Bridenbaugh, Vol. II Pynchon Accounts, p. 453.

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assessed toward Mr. Younglove his maintenance” was required to explain his behavior to John Pynchon’s court.138 His defense included the fact that he had been assessed extra monies because he kept the ordinary (tavern) and that by rights, the people he served ought to pay. The Court apparently agreed.139 The following March (1675), barely three months before King Philip’s War began, Thomas Wilson from Brookfield was “presented by ye Jury for reveling curfew [and] speaking obscene words unto & [against] Samuel Warner.”140 (See Appendix I, Figure X) The Wilson and Warner families were neighbors in Ipswich and (apparently) had a long history. According to Samuel Warner and a man named John Pierce, Thomas told his brother-in-law Samuel that he wished the “Divel to take him.”141 He also taunted Samuel as a “Church member” saying “the Divel will have you for all yt.” Additionally (according to Richard Coy Sr., and William Pritchard Sr.), Wilson was equally obnoxious towards Samuel Kent, saying that Samuel Kent should give his wife “yt wich is in yr breeches” which disturbed (and perhaps, simultaneously titillated) Pynchon enough to record it.142 Whatever Wilson’s problem was - he profoundly provoked his neighbors. On June 18, 1675, only days before hostilities began, John Ayres found himself in court again. This time, he was the plaintiff against “William Pritchard and Samuel Kent, Selectmen of Brookfield.”143 Ayres still owed money to the town for Younglove’s maintenance. Pritchard (as Constable) acted on the Selectmen’s orders and, in lieu of payment, seized some pewter dishes from Ayres’ tavern. Ayres would have none of it, and took the Selectmen (and the Constable) to court. This time, the court disagreed with him, and Ayres was ordered to pay what he owed to Pritchard, Kent, and Coy (as witness). When the Younglove family left Brookfield, John Younglove was replaced as the minister of Brookfield by the seventy-year-old former minister from Gloucester, Thomas Millet, who arrived with his elderly wife Mary (Greenoway).144 Their grown children did not accompany them to Brookfield. Thomas Millet and his wife likely moved into the Youngloves’ old house, which meant that the Millet’s new next-door neighbor in Brookfield was Thomas Wilson. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the Millet’s left Brookfield within the year, and were not present when the town was attacked.145 The Ambush Traditional descriptions of the ambush which occurred on August 2, 1675, label it a ‘surprise.’ According to Wheeler, the English militia and the people of Brookfield were completely unaware of Indian intentions. Given that language used to write about war is often deceptive, when reading Wheeler it is important to remember that “words about war are often lies. False reports, rumors, deceptions.”146 With this awareness, the significance of the words

138 Wastebook, p. 114. 139 Ibid. 140 Wastebook, p. 130 141 Wastebook, p. 130. 142 Wastebook, p. 130. 143 Roy, p. 227; Magistrate Book, p. 159. 144 Vannah, p. 30, Part II, Vol. 8. 145 Roy, p. 269. 146 Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the origins of American Identity, Vintage Books, NY, 1999, p. ix.

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used by seventeenth-century authors like Wheeler to describe King Philip’s War as a defensive action on the part of colonists, and the Brookfield debacle as a ‘surprise,’ become clear.147 Fifty-five year old Wheeler claimed that Hutchinson’s expedition had peaceful intentions. To that end, in the ‘title’ of his Narrative, Wheeler wrote that the sixty-two year old Hutchinson had “a Commission from the Honored Council of this Colony to treat with several Sachems in those parts.”148 Wheeler did not mention that when the Council gave its orders, Metacom/Philip’s whereabouts were unknown; or that Expedition guide, thirty year old Ephraim Curtis (returned to Boston the previous day from his second foray into Nipmuc Country), had already conducted difficult negotiations with Nipmuc sachems. These Nipmuc affirmed their friendship with thirty year old Curtis, but informed him they could not guarantee his safety among other groups of Nipmuc. They expressed to Curtis their fear and belief that the English intended to kill them all.149 Curtis revealed that during his second foray into Nipmuc country in late July, he had gone “through Brookfield,” where he delivered letters intended for John Pynchon in Springfield, “to the constable” (William Pritchard) there.150 Certainly, during his stay in Brookfield, the inhabitants became aware that Curtis was having a hard time negotiating with the Nipmuc and Quaboag. The whole region was in an uproar that summer. By the time Curtis returned to Boston the second time, and when Hutchinson and Wheeler received their orders, four English towns had been attacked, and - in reaction to the assaults there - a large number of Indians in Plymouth Colony had been killed, or captured and shipped off to slavery in the West Indies. Southern New England Indians fled their home towns and took defensive positions in towns like Winemissit. Mohegan marched from Connecticut to support the English. Christian Indians from Massachusetts offered their services in Boston to various English militia companies. Some of the English militia built forts, forced negotiations with such Indians as they could, and galloped around the countryside looking for Metacom/Philip - last seen in mid-July.151 Indians and English alike, were terrified. The Quaboag only recently promised Curtis they would send representatives to the Council ‘within five days’ as a mark of their fidelity to the Massachusetts authorities.152 As Curtis was negotiating however, Matoonas (perhaps thinking about what remained of his son’s head, still displayed on Boston Common) led a separate group of Nipmuc in an attack on Mendon. Thus, when Curtis returned to Boston, instead of waiting for the Quaboag/Nipmuc delegation to reach that town, the Council ordered Hutchinson, Wheeler (and his militiamen), and Curtis to go back and find the Nipmuc sachems immediately. Contrary to Wheeler’s assertion that they were sent to ‘treat’ with the Quaboag (since five days had not yet passed), the Council, in fact, ordered that Hutchinson ‘demand’ why the Nipmuc “have not sent downe their Sagamore according to their promise unto [our] messenger Ephraim Curtis”153 Further, the Council ordered Hutchinson to inform the Quaboag/Nipmuc of the Court’s awareness that “there are some among them yt have actually joyned with our

147 Wheeler, p. 255, and Lepore, p. 108. 148 Wheeler, p. 255. 149 Curtis, in Temple, p. 78. 150 Curtis, in Temple, p. 78. 151 Lepore, p. xxvi. 152 Curtis in Temple, p. 79. 153 “Massachusetts General Court Order, Boston, July 27, 1675,” in Temple, p. 79.

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enemies in the murder & spoyle made upon the English by Philip, And that Mattoonas & his Complices who have Robbed & murdered our people about Mendon are now among ym.”154 The Court ordered Hutchinson to require the Nipmuc turn over those who joined in the ‘murder and spoyle’ at Mendon. Or else. If Hutchinson met with resistance, “then you are ordered to ingage with them if you see reason for it & endeavr to reduce ym by force.”155 Hutchinson’s orders reveal the expedition as anything but a peaceful enterprise. The expedition had orders to “forthwith ... repair into those parts,” i.e. go immediately to the sachems in the Quaboag area. What happened over the next four days then, is a mystery. As Wheeler wrote, The said Captain Hutchinson, and myself, with about twenty men or more marched from Cambridge to Sudbury, July 28, 1675; and from thence into the Nipmuck Country, and finding that the Indians had deserted their towns, and we having gone until we came within two miles of New Norwich, on July 31 ... we then thought it not expedient to march any further that way, but set our march for Brookfield, whither we came on the Lord's day [August 1] about noon.

The distance from Cambridge to Sudbury is about seventeen miles. From Sudbury to Brookfield - about fifty miles. Horses walk approximately four miles per hour, trot at eight mph, canter at ten to seventeen mph, and are able to gallop at speeds up to about fifty miles per hour - but only for about a mile, before becoming winded.156 At variable speeds (walk, trot, and canter), a single unencumbered horse and rider might travel twenty miles in about four hours, depending upon footing and terrain.157 Farther than twenty miles at such speeds required overnight rest, or another horse. An armored cavalry troop moved considerably more slowly - which is why the expedition stopped the first night in Sudbury. At approximately twenty miles per day, the expedition should have reached Brookfield within three days, conducted their business, and returned to Boston. As noted, Hutchinson and company spent the first night in Sudbury. Thereafter, the only locational information offered entailed coming within “two miles of New Norwich on July 31” - nearly sixty miles due south of Brookfield. Curiously, Hutchinson’s expedition evidently did not go west from Sudbury to Lancaster and thence to Brookfield on the Nipmuck/Nashaway Path. Instead, the expedition seemingly traveled southwest on the Bay Path and then, apparently even farther south on the Nipmuck Path (to ‘within two miles of New Norwich’). Riding hard, and changing horses several times (assuming there were twenty-five horses available at each 10-15 mile interval), the expedition might have made New Norwich by August 31. Finding Indians towns deserted along their route, Wheeler stated that the expedition then “set our march for Brookfield,” and reached that town ‘on the Lord’s Day,’ August 1.158 This makes no sense. Freshly returned from that area, Curtis (the expedition guide), informed the Council that the Praying Indians abandoned their towns along the Bay Path before the expedition even started. So, there was no reason for the expedition to seemingly retrace Curtis’ footsteps

154 Temple, p. 256. 155 Temple, p. 256. 156 Susan E. Harris, Horse Gaits, Balance and Movement, New York, Howell Book House, 1993. See also: Lieut. Jonathan Boniface, The cavalry horse and his pack, embracing the practical details of cavalry service, Kansas City, Mo., Hudson-Kimberly Pub. Co., 1875; Virginia W. Johnson and Thula Johnson, Distance Riding from Start to Finish, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1976. 157 Ibid. 158 Wheeler, p. 32.

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through the Praying Towns. And, there was certainly no reason to go so far south (within two miles of New Norwich). Further, how in the world did the expedition travel sixty miles from Norwich, Connecticut to Brookfield, Massachusetts in a day? Such a feat is and was physically impossible. The claim is thus, disingenuous. Wheeler also did not tell his readers that as the expedition marched from Cambridge to Sudbury, Metacom/Philip was last seen headed for Nipmuc Country.159 Undoubtedly, this news burned through English and Indian communities like wildfire. Therefore, it might be reasonable to hypothesize that Wheeler and Hutchinson did not go immediately to Brookfield, because they were hoping to intercept Metacom/Philip. Not finding any Indians (or Metacom/Philip) - Wheeler and company turned around and took the Nipmuck Path north to Brookfield and arrived there about noontime, on Sunday. Wheeler never claimed the company was lost. Therefore, the only explanation for their route is that they disobeyed orders and intentionally did not go directly to Brookfield. The expedition’s true route and the purpose for it, remain unclear. Wheeler continued, From thence the same day, (being August 1,) we understanding that the Indians were about ten miles north west from us, we sent out four men to acquaint the Indians that we were not come to harm them, but our business was only to deliver a Message from our Honored Governor and Council to them, and to receive their answer, we desiring to come to a Treaty of Peace with them (though they had for several days fled from us,) they having before professed friendship, and promised fidelity to the English..

Note, that Wheeler did not indicate the people from Brookfield apprised them of the Indians’ whereabouts. Hutchinson and Wheeler - “we understanding” - apparently knew the Quaboag Indians were at Winemissit, perhaps, before they left Cambridge. Note also that Wheeler’s parenthetical aside (perhaps inadvertently) revealed that the expedition had, in fact, sighted Indians in their travels, and that the Indians “for several days fled from us.”160 Weeks earlier, when Curtis first negotiated with this group, they expressed their fear and certainty that the English intended to kill them all.161 The sight of Wheeler’s mounted cavalry bristling across the countryside surely did not reassure them. Thus, Wheeler and company chased frightened Indians for several days, instead of going directly to Quaboag. Upon arrival in Brookfield, neither Wheeler nor Hutchinson, attended the initial meeting. Instead, they and their twenty mounted militiamen stayed behind and took advantage of John and Susannah Ayres’ ‘commodious’ accommodations. Although Wheeler did not indicate who was sent out (‘four men’), it is highly likely that Ephraim Curtis, and brothers, Joseph and Sampson Petuhanit, along with George Memicho, all from Natick, met with the Indians at Winemissit. When Curtis and the Natick Indians approached Winemissit, sentries sounded an alarm, rousing a very large group of Indian families and about a hundred and fifty warriors who shouted and threatened with weapons at the ready. At length, Curtis and the Natick Indians were able to

159 William Hubbard, “History of the Indian Wars in New England,” in Samuel Drake, The Old Indian Chronicle: Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts, Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War. Boston, 1867, Facsimile edition, 2015, Forgottenbooks.com. Old Indian Roxbury Mass., 1865, p. 88. 160 Wheeler, in Temple, p. 80. 161 Curtis in Temple, p. 78.

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extract a ‘promise’ from “some of the chief Sachems,” who apparently agreed to “meet us on the next morning about 8 of the clock upon a plain within three miles of Brookfield.”162 Returned to the English town, upon word of this plan, serious discussion ensued among those in Wheeler’s company about not going to the planned meeting in the morning. Curtis and the Indians apparently strongly recommended against it. Although “their speeches and carriage did much discourage divers of our company,” Wheeler made it clear, regardless of how ‘discouraged’ the company might have been, he and Hutchinson outranked them.163 Hutchinson, after all, had orders from the General Court to negotiate with force, if necessary. Thomas Wheeler and his militia represented the force. The next morning, Hutchinson, Wheeler, the mounted militia, along with the three men from Natick, accompanied by “three of the principal inhabitants” of Brookfield, set off “to the plain appointed.”164 It is not clear whether Pritchard, Ayres, and Coy were persuaded to join the expedition, if they offered to do so, or whether they were dissuaded and stubbornly insisted upon accompanying the expedition. Dead men tell no tales. Wheeler’s description of what happened next should be understood as Puritan war propaganda. He wrote, the “treacherous heathen intending mischief, (if they could have opportunity) came not.” Wheeler intended this as a warning, and was all too eager to confirm the then common perception that Indians couldn’t be trusted. He affirmed to his readers - who already knew the outcome of the story - that (given the opportunity) Indians randomly attacked English bodies and settlements. His language, and that of writers like him, justified English behavior during the War. Propaganda which labeled and defined Indians as ‘treacherous heathens’ vindicated Indian enslavement, extermination, and removal from Massachusetts. Wheeler then revealed exactly who made the decision to proceed north towards Winemissit - toward what Curtis, Joseph, Sampson, and George assured them was dangerous and probably deadly territory. Despite “apprehending much danger,” and being vigorously warned not to proceed, Wheeler shifted blame from himself, and laid it squarely on the shoulders of “the three men who belonged to Brookfield [who] were so strongly persuaded of their freedom from any ill intentions.”165 Thus, Hutchinson - “who was principally intrusted” with the whole affair - “was thereby encouraged to proceed and march forward.”166 Wheeler laid responsibility for the disaster on Hutchinson and the men from Brookfield. Conveniently, Hutchinson and the men from Brookfield (being dead) had no opportunity to defend themselves against Wheeler’s assertion, true or not. Full comprehension of Wheeler’s Narrative also requires an appreciation of the version of English spoken in seventeenth-century New England. British novelist L. P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”167 This is particularly true regarding language, because languages (like societies) evolve over time. When they arrived in New England, seventeenth-century Massachusetts colonists spoke a particular variety of Early Modern English (EModE). Instead of assimilating into Indian culture, and learning Algonquian dialects, most Puritans’ extreme conservatism and nostalgia for

162 Wheeler, in Temple, p. 80. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Wheeler, p. 33. 166 Wheeler, p. 33. 167 L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between, H. Hamilton, London, 1953.

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England helped maintain their own particular dialect.168 Nevertheless, over time, their version of English was necessarily mixed with a variety of indigenous Eastern Algonquian words. This mixing is referred to as the substrate effect.169 In New England, further mixing of the ‘original’ English dialect occurred with the introduction of later immigrants and other English dialects (from other parts of England and the British Isles). This additional mixing is called the leveling effect. Finally, “innovation in the colonial dialect ... which did not occur in Britain,” distinguished Eastern New England English from British English and other regional dialects of American English. Over time, the language continued to evolve. Words that were brand new in the seventeenth-century, have become familiar to us. Words that were ordinary and common in the seventeenth-century have since gone out of fashion. Meanings have shifted. While intimately related, seventeenth-century Early Modern English, Modern English, and Modern American English, are different languages.170 Possible mistranslation of the next section of Wheeler’s Narrative reinforced the idea that the English were ‘surprised’ by the ambush, and that Indians were inherently untrustworthy. The author of The Present State of New England wrote in 1675, “some of the inhabitants of Brookfield, who thought them [the Indians] to be very honest, therefore took no Arms with them.”171 Historians subsequently took this to mean that the men from Brookfield were so trusting of the Quaboag Indians that they did not carry weapons.172 However, the men from Brookfield may not have been unarmed in the modern sense. The seventeenth-century term ‘Arms’ often referred to armor.173 Thus, it is possible that unlike Hutchinson and Wheeler, the men from Brookfield did not wear armor. The townspeople of Brookfield had been aware for weeks that trouble was brewing (four English towns lay had been attacked since June), and most recently, they learned that Metacom/Philip was headed their way. The representatives of Brookfield’s tiny militia - headed into certain trouble - were expected to carry weapons. No one should have been surprised by the ambush. They should have been on high alert. One of the most salient points of the Narrative, is that the ambush took place between a steep hill, and a ‘swamp.’ Scholars have argued for more than a hundred years over the location of the ambush. Important for this discussion, is an understanding of the relative newness of ‘swamps’ to the English. The word itself was new - because the word ‘swamp’ is indigenous to the northeastern part of the American continent, and entered the language as part of the abovementioned substrate effect. Over the centuries, its meaning has shifted. Seventeenth-century English colonists had no deep understanding of ‘swamps,’ and feared them.174 English used the word ‘swamp’ to describe the landform that we understand as a swamp - a wet, boggy place. However, because it’s meaning was not yet firm in the language,

168 Stanford, James N., et. al., “Farewell to the Founders: Major Dialect Changes Along the East-West New England Border,” American Speech, Vol. 87, No. 2, 10.1215/00031283-1668190, 2012. Web 6/4/2014 http://americanspeech.dukejournals.org/content/87/2/126.full.pdf+html. 169 Ibid. 170 Stanford, James N., et. al., “Farewell to the Founders: Major Dialect Changes along the East-West New England Border,” American Speech, Vol. 87, No. 2, 10.1215/00031283-1668190, 2012. Web 6/4/2014 http://americanspeech.dukejournals.org/content/87/2/126.full.pdf+html. 171 Anonymous, “The Present State of New England,” Boston, 1675, in Samuel Drake, Old Indian Chronicle, Boston, 1867, p. 142, Classic Reprint Series, 2015, www.forgottenbooks.com. 172 Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, p. 80 173 Harold L. Peterson, “The Military Equipment of the Plymouth and Bay Colonies, 1620-1690,” New England Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1947, p. 198, Web 2/21/15 www.jstor.org/stable/361177. 174 Ibid, p. 85-87.

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the word ‘swamp’ also defined an overgrown, brush-covered or bushy, place.175 Indians often used such areas for concealing underground storage pits, and as sheltered habitation in winter. In other words, not wet.176 Indian farming included a cycle of fertile and fallow fields. Fallow fields quickly fill in with thick, scrubby, brushy (sometimes thorny) overgrowth six or seven feet in height, after about five years, or so. If some of the meadows associated with Winemissit had been allowed to rest, and had not been ‘fired,’ the landscape would have appeared exactly as Wheeler described. Thus, the swamp to which Wheeler referred may not have been what we understand as a wet, boggy ‘swamp’ but rather, an overgrown, brushy meadow - much as we might see in rural New England today, passing an abandoned farm field. Horses are useless in wet, boggy footing, and stumble over exposed roots and rocks. Horses are also useless in dense brushy areas. An important detail, and important knowledge for a man like Wheeler (and his cavalry). New England’s bogs and particularly its overgrown, brushy meadows - while navigable by foot - were difficult, if not impossible, terrain for horses. Thus, because swamps of all kinds were impenetrable to horse companies, camouflaged Indians, and physically represented the wildness which made so many colonists apprehensive, many English were terrified of swamps.177 While he no doubt intended the term ‘swamp’ as part of his descriptive prose, Wheeler may also have employed the term in order to heighten the tension of the story. Further, Wheeler took special care in describing the type of swamp his company encountered. He did not refer to the swamp as a ‘boggy’ swamp. Rather, he first described it as a “thick swamp,” and then, he called it a “miry swamp,” with “a very rocky hill on the right hand.” He described the location of the ambush as an area “into which we could not enter with our horses.” Miry might indicate dampness. It might also indicate - to seventeenth-century English eyes - impenetrable brush. Further, Wheeler’s description gave far more attention to the ‘bushes’ and the ‘steep, rocky hill’ than to any sogginess underfoot. Notably, while Indians easily hid in the underbrush - the mounted expedition (Hutchinson, Wheeler, Curtis, Pritchard, Ayres, Coy - plus twenty militiamen) were completely exposed above the bushes. (It is not clear whether or not the Natick Indians were mounted.) Wheeler wrote specifically that the Indians lay “behind the bushes.”178 He documented the presence of bushes along the road, behind which the Indians concealed themselves as Wheeler and company passed, as well as on the “very steep and rocky hill,” which the mounted company summited to escape the ambush. As the company fled up the hill, Wheeler again described the vegetation, writing that the Indians “fired violently out of the swamp, and from behind the bushes on the hill side.” [Emphasis mine.] Wheeler defined the hill - specifically - as ‘rocky’ indicating that the horses had difficulty with the footing. Note, however, that the rockiness of the hill made the footing treacherous for the horses, and not the incline. While horses have difficulty navigating stony footing, they are quite nimble on most slopes. At this point in the action, the Indians managed to wound Wheeler “sorely, and shot my horse under me.”179 Wheeler abandoned his mount. He then took a break from describing the action in order to take stock of his losses. Wheeler told his readers that “[t]here were also then

175 Jill Lepore, “Habitations of Cruelty,” The Name of War, King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, Vintage Books, NY, 1999, p. 85. 176 Ibid, p. 86. 177 Ibid. 178 Wheeler, p. 34. 179 Wheeler, p. 34.

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five persons wounded, viz. - Captain Hutchinson, myself, and my son Thomas ... Corporal French, of Billericay, who having killed an Indian, was (as he was taking up his gun), shot, and part of one of his thumbs taken off, and also dangerously wounded through the body near the shoulder; the fifth was John Waldoe, of Chelmsford, who was not so dangerously wounded as the rest.” Not content to kill English, Wheeler reported, the Indians “also then killed five of our horses, and wounded some more, which soon died after they came to Brookfield.”180 In Wheeler’s estimation, God was responsible for the deaths of the men from Brookfield - William Pritchard, John Ayres, and Richard Coy - whose trust in their Indian neighbors had been so ‘abused.’ Wheeler’s characterization of the men from Brookfield as guileless, God-fearing Christians, stuck. His characterization of the Quaboag as ‘treacherous,’ strengthened and perpetuated Puritan understanding of Indians. Wheeler stated, that as they made their way back to town they didn’t dare stop to “stanch the bleeding of our wounded men, for fear the enemy should have surprised us again, which they attempted to do.”181 Wheeler and company “wheeled off to the other hand, and so ... they missed us, and we all came readily upon, and safely to the town.” The return to town was notable because “none of us knew the way to it,” and Wheeler credited God for providing them another route and leading the company safely back to Brookfield.182 In reality, as modern historians have observed, Joseph and Sampson successfully led the return.183 They led the company around “any thick woods,” taking care to stay “in open places to prevent danger.”184 That they were able to successfully avoid wooded areas all the way back to Brookfield, indicates the openness of the landscape. Here, horses provided the English a clear advantage over the Indians on foot, behind them. Wheeler did not report the capture of George Memicho during the ambush. In fact, Wheeler never acknowledged the presence of Praying Indians at all, until Daniel Gookin insisted he sign a ‘certificate’ confirming their particular bravery at Brookfield.185 Ayres’ Tavern Wheeler wrote, that upon reaching Brookfield, “we speedily betook ourselves to one of the largest and strongest houses therein, where we fortified our-selves in the best manner we could in such straits of time, and there resolved to keep garrison, though we were but few, and meanly fitted to make resistance against so furious enemies.” And so began (according to Leach), “one of the classic sieges of New England’s history.”186 The following should not indicate that what happened within and without Ayres’ Tavern from August 2-4, 1675, was not heroic. Heroism undoubtedly occurred on both sides of the conflict. However, the mythic quality of this siege begs modern analysis. It helps to remember that English Pilgrims and Puritans arrived in America bearing a ‘siege mentality’ as part of their understanding of the world. Their religion under attack in England - in America, physical security ranked high on their list of priorities. Those (like Thomas Wheeler) who arrived during the Great Migration carried or adopted the same outlook,

180 Wheeler, p. 35. 181 Ibid. 182 Ibid. 183 Fiske, p. 19. 184 Wheeler, p. 35. 185 Daniel Gookin, Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the Years 1675-1677, American Antiquarian Society, Cambridge, 1836. Facsimile edition, Kessinger’s Publishing, www.kessinger.net, 2015, p. 448. 186 Leach, p. 81.

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as they jostled with Indians and each other for space. In the early years of Anglo/Indian contact, and certainly during the early weeks of King Philip’s War, English perception that hostile Indians were everywhere, invisible and ready to strike at any moment, was not entirely unjustified. By early August 1675, however, it appears that the Nipmuc Indians had largely taken up defensive positions in towns like Winemissit. Indigenous people necessarily recognized the attack on their culture since 1620 - and long recognized the vulnerability of their land. In order to de-mystify this particular ‘siege,’ Ayres’ Tavern provides a useful starting point. Hubbard called it, a ‘commodious place.’ The author of The Present State of New England defined it as the ‘strongest house.’187 Wheeler himself described it as the ‘largest and strongest’ house in town. Leach called it the ‘principle’ house. Every colonial town was required by law to provide a garrison; “a sufficient place of retreat for women and children, and for keeping ammunition.”188 A garrison was (sometimes) “built partly of stone,” and often included a ‘stockade.’189 Wheeler referred to “a little yard” in front of the structure, which in fact, was large enough to corral Willard’s fifty cavalry horses when they arrived on Thursday night.190 Historians do not know what Ayres’ Tavern looked like, but Wheeler’s description (‘largest and strongest’) makes it likely that the building was well- suited to providing a ‘place of retreat for women and children,’ and was likely, fortified.191 If so, Ayres’ Tavern was also used as a place to store the town’s ammunition, in case of a town-wide emergency - like a Dutch or Indian attack. Seventeenth-century English architecture heavily influenced First Period (seventeenth- century) architecture in New England. Extant examples of tiny, ‘one and a half story’ houses are rare, but exemplified by the Peak House in Medfield, Massachusetts (see Appendix I, Figures III and IV). The Peak House measures approximately 15 X 24 feet. The Ayres’ building was constructed to accommodate ten family members and a busy tavern. It is unlikely that Ayres’ Tavern resembled the Peak House. Midcentury, the swelling English population (who had been very fruitful and multiplied many times over) required many First Period houses to measure 18 feet deep by 38 feet long, consisting of two rooms on either side of a massive chimney, “two-and-a-half stories in height” with a steeply pitched roof.192 Often, an additional ‘lean-to’ (one or two stories in height) extended the length of the rear of the house - like that on the Whipple House, in Hamilton, Massachusetts (see Appendix I, Figure V and VI). Some, like the Turner House (in Salem, Massachusetts) also had first and second story architectural features then known as ‘porches’ which jutted from the building (see Appendix I, Figure VII and VIII). The First Period roof was shingled (rarely - thatched) with cedar shingles, and the building sided with oak clapboards (or cedar shingles) over sturdy vertical or horizontal ‘underboards’ of pine.193 Between the sheathing and the interior walls, ‘infilling’ made of packed eelgrass and clay, wattle and daub, or - in some cases - bricks, formed a sturdy barrier against the weather.194 During the siege at Brookfield, Wheeler described how the Indians sent “in their shot

187 Anonymous, “Present State of New England,” in Samuel Drake, Old Indian Chronicle, Boston, 1867, Facsimile edition, Forgotten Books, 2015, p. 143. 188 William S. Tilden, History of Medfield, Massachusetts: 1650-1886, Boston, 1887, p. 29. 189 Ibid. 190 Wheeler, p. 44. 191 Wheeler, p. 37 192 Cummings, p. 39. 193 Cummings, p. 135. 194 Cummings, p. 140-141.

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amongst us like hail, through the walls.” However, the above described barrier likely prevented musket balls from penetrating the walls of the Ayres’ building. Indeed, no one in the house was injured, save for one of Wheeler’s men who looked out the garret window.195 No doubt, musket balls bouncing off cedar shingles or oak clapboards sounded like hail to a wounded Wheeler, but his hyperbolic description is misleading. New England winter weather required the construction of dwellings over partial and full cellars for food storage.196 Anecdotal evidence places such a cellar beneath Ayres’ Tavern, viz., removal of “[s]everal loads of stone which had formed a cellar and chimney,” during late eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century farm activity at the purported site.197 [Emphasis mine.] Thus, if the building were 18 feet deep by 38 feet long, consisting of two rooms on either side of a massive chimney, both downstairs and upstairs; and if the building was “two-and-a-half stories in height,” and thus, had a garret under a steeply pitched roof, as well as a partial or full cellar, the usable floor space might have been around two-thousand square feet. If the building included a one- or two-story lean-to across the back of the building, available floor space increased in proportion with the size of the lean-to. Whatever the construction of Ayres’ Tavern, it provided ample protection against musket shot, and was defensible against fire. Wheeler also did not indicate how many people shared Ayres’ Tavern during the siege, noting only that Brookfield was “a small town of about fifteen or sixteen families.”198 Douglas Leach determined, “altogether about eighty people, the majority of them women and children, cooped themselves up in this one house on the hill” during the siege.199 Leach’s statement is misleading, and a device to make men seem more heroic. Women and children did not outnumber the men in the garrison. Determining the actual number and sexes of the people inside the garrison requires genealogical analyses, and straightforward quantitative reasoning. In the summer of 1675, there were fifteen English households - including newly married couples - a total of eighty-six people of various ages residing in Brookfield. Male residents outnumbered female residents, and only fourteen residents could reasonably be considered young children. Many of the men combined farming with trapping, surveying, milling, wolf-killing, fur- trading, and at least one man was described as a weaver.200 During the summer of 1675, twenty- four men in town qualified for the militia (i.e. they were sixteen years old, and older). In all, thirty-one male residents were older than thirteen - all, no doubt, familiar with and capable of handling a musket. Twenty-four townspeople were female residents over the age of thirteen - at least two of whom were in the late stages of pregnancy, and several of whom might have been able to fire a musket, if necessary. As ‘helpmeet,’ these women were versed in agriculture, food processing, including the processing of a number of different kinds of animal carcasses, textile production, household economics and maintenance, and, of course, childcare. One or two were likely skilled in midwifery and medicine. Susannah Ayres, at least, was accustomed to cooking for and accommodating a crowd. Eighty-five people from town (less Judah Trumble - gone to Springfield), along with Wheeler, Hutchinson, fifteen militiamen, Joseph, and Sampson, shared Ayres’ Tavern for three days and three nights. There were a total of twenty-four adult women

195 Wheeler, 196 Cummings, p. 29-30. 197 Temple, note page 90; Foot, Appendix H, p. 57. 198 Wheeler, p. 42. 199 Leach, p. 81. 200 Roy, p. 180.

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and fourteen young children in the garrison during the siege, compared to sixty-nine adult men (including militia and Christian Indians). A small misconception regarding the number of babies born can be cleared up fairly quickly by consulting the genealogies of those involved in the siege. The myth holds that two sets of twins were born during the siege.201 Considering that without fertility treatments (in the twenty-first century), about 9 - 16 twin sets per 1,000 live births occur, the odds (in the seventeenth-century) of two sets of twins being born among such a small population (fifteen families) are astronomical.202 However, the Kent family already had two sets of twins. Not surprising then, that Jane Kent gave birth to another pair. Nor, should it be at all surprising that another woman in that small population was pregnant. In fact, two women in Brookfield did give birth during the first week of August 1675. Jane Penny Kent gave birth to twins, and Mary Pritchard Trumble gave birth to a son.203 Altogether, eighty-five townspeople, Wheeler, Hutchinson, fifteen militiamen, plus Joseph and Sampson (104 people - and three infants) were well-protected (although certainly not comfortable) for the duration of the siege. * The siege occasioned several heroic incidents. Ephraim Curtis’ third attempt at escape was successful when he crawled out of town and reached Marlborough on foot, in order to alert the authorities in Boston of the disaster unfolding, and was certainly heroic. That ‘travelers going to Connecticut’ alerted them before Curtis reached Marlborough, illustrates nicely the volume of traffic on one of the roads to Brookfield on any given day. On the first day of the siege, the heroism of Samuel Pritchard who ventured “out of the house wherein we were, to his father’s house not far from it, to fetch more goods out of it,” cannot be diminished by the fact that he was overcome by Indians. They “cut off his head, kicking it about like a foot-ball” for a time, and then put it on a pole, and “set it up before the door of his father’s house in our sight.”204 As William Pritchard (killed at the ambush) and his son Samuel sold beaver skins to John Pynchon, and received bounties from the General Court for killing wolves, they were likely well-known traders among Nipmuc and Quaboag people.205 Thus, the dreadful symmetry between the death and dismemberment of Samuel Pritchard, and the death and dismemberment of Matoonas’ son Askug by order of the General Court four years earlier, should not be overlooked. During the siege, Indians attempted several times over several days to set the Ayres’ building on fire. Each time, the fire was doused from inside the building, indicating a large reservoir of water (or other liquid) somewhere in the building. At one point, the English took a wall down to access the exterior of the building in order to douse a fire; at another, they cut a hole in the roof. At length however, water ran out and during a break in the action the townspeople of Brookfield apparently sent their favorite neighbor, Thomas Wilson, “out to fetch water for our help in further need.” Wilson was subsequently shot “in the upper jaw and in the

201 Anonymous, “Present State of New England,” in Samuel Drake, Old Indian Chronicle, p. 145. 202 Jeroen Smits, Christiaan Monden, “Twinning across the Developing World,” PLOS ONE, September 28, 2011, Web http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025239. 203 Roy, pp. 261 and 263. 204 Wheeler, p. 37. 205 Roy, p. 109.

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neck.”206 He survived, but “cried out with great noise,” which occasioned joy among the Nipmuc (and perhaps likewise among one or two of the townsfolk).207 When news of the attack on Brookfield reached seventy-year old Simon Willard (on his way out of Lancaster to ‘treat’ with another group of Indians), he disregarded his orders and went with forty-six militia and five Christian Indians to rescue Brookfield, instead. The Indians besieging Brookfield allowed Willard and his troop to reach the (apparently enclosed) ‘yard’ of the building wherein the people of Brookfield ‘huddled,’ and then attacked with force. When the people inside realized that those shouting for entry outside were English - they opened the door. For a few hours on Thursday night, Willard and his company joined the hundred and four people already in the building, bringing the total number of people inside to one hundred and fifty-six. Then, inexplicably, the Indians left Brookfield, and the siege ended. Future directions There is much about this story that remains unknown. The sudden departure of Indians from Brookfield during the night of August 4, bears further investigation. The apparent sighting of Metacom/Philip at Asquoash on August 5, 1675 certainly bears investigation, given his kinship connection with Quaboag. Joseph and Sampson Petuhanit’s role in the return to Brookfield has been documented, but their apparent role in the garrison should not be overlooked. Professional archaeological exploration is required in order to more firmly establish and restore Indian portions of Quaboag River Valley history. However, such exploration should only take place with the approval, partnership, and oversight of the Nipmuc people. The heroism of Ephraim Curtis, who negotiated (three times) with the Nipmuc during the summer of 1675, and was tasked during the siege with alerting the Bay authorities to the disaster unfolding at Brookfield, cannot be understated and should summon further investigation. Had the General Council waited for the Quaboag and Nipmuc representatives to reach Boston, Curtis’ role as middleman between Nipmuc and English might have prevented Nipmuc alliance with Metacom/Philip. Further, had the advice of Curtis, Joseph, Sampson, and George been followed in August 1675, Brookfield might not have been attacked. The striking similarities between the deaths of Samuel Pritchard and Askug, whose severed heads horrified their respective parents also bears analysis. That Willard turned from his assigned mission to rescue Brookfield, says much about his devotion to the area he had ‘protected’ since the early 1660s, when he was sent to Quaboag to shoot off his musket in an effort to frighten Mohawk raiders.208 His purported employment of Nipmuc workers on his “farm in Nipmuc country” is a mysterious connection that certainly bears further investigation.209 In fact, Curtis, Hutchinson, Wheeler, and Willard all had trade relationships with Indians in various regions of Massachusetts. These trade relationships beg further analysis. Exploration of the various fires attempted and extinguished during the Brookfield siege could help define the structure of the building. Finally, while it is clear that Ayres’ Tavern was a substantial structure, without archaeological exploration, the dimensions and specifications of Ayres’ Tavern and other structures in town, will remain a mystery.

206 Wheeler, p. 40. 207 Ibid. 208 Temple, p. 44. 209 Bodge, p. 106.

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Conclusion The preceding analysis will not change the world. Local history almost never does. However, because change often occurs at the ‘grass-roots’ level, local audiences are key to transforming perceptions of history, in general. For more than three centuries, interpretations of the Brookfield episode have intentionally or unintentionally promoted and reaffirmed Wheeler’s Puritan view of the inevitability of English conquest over indigenous America - a triumph of ‘civilization’ over ‘treachery.’ Nineteenth-century assumptions about ‘wilderness,’ and ‘savagery’ were added to the mix, and thus, over time and without intention, local historical narratives became unrepresentative of the past and irrelevant to contemporary society. That the Brookfield story became myth, does not diminish its importance in the annals of King Philip’s War. However, local interpreters need to understand that Thomas Wheeler’s Narrative is a Puritan parable, and at best, a second-hand account of most of the action. Recognition that the Quaboag River Valley was crowded with English and Indian agricultural land and families is vital to understanding that the behavior of English colonists and their animals almost certainly contributed to the motivation for an Indian attack on Brookfield. Further, as some of the English settlers at Brookfield exhibited less than exemplary behavior towards each other, it is likely that their behavior towards their Quaboag neighbors was also less than considerate. Wheeler’s expedition was not a peaceful enterprise but an antagonistic and frightening display of English military might. Given the circumstances, the ambush should not have been a ‘surprise’ to anyone. Further, the ambush might not have taken place next to a ‘swamp.’ While I have no intention of entering the local debate concerning the location of the ambush, it is worth considering the effect misinterpreted language has on understanding of the past. The fact that Ayres’ Tavern was much larger than popular conception does not in any way diminish the heroism which occurred within and without, during the siege. Women and children did not outnumber adult men. There were twenty-four adult women and fourteen young children in the garrison during the siege (38), compared to sixty-nine adult men (including teenagers, militia, and Christian Indians). Two sets of twins were not born during the siege (that would have been really mythic), but two women most heroically gave birth to three babies. Perpetuation of the myth that Brookfield was located in the wilderness, “separated from human contact by more miles than any other settlement” disrespects the history of and dehumanizes indigenous people.210 Declared ‘extinct’ in the nineteenth-century, the Nipmuc nevertheless maintain several vibrant communities in central Massachusetts. At the beginning of the twenty-first-century, the Nipmuc were denied Federal recognition. As a people without a so- called ‘continuous history,’ the Nipmuc do not “meet the requirements for a government-to- government relationship with the United States.”211 Yet, as demonstrated here, until the last quarter of the seventeenth-century, the Quaboag River Valley was home to a mature, sedentary society who fully managed the landscape, and asserted control over their land. That their history is not ‘continuous’ has less to do with the Nipmuc and more to do with the way the European/ and Anglo/Americans interpreted the past and perpetuated historical narratives about the ‘extinction’ of the Nipmuc.

210“Program and Souvenir,” West Brookfield 300th Anniversary Celebration of the Settlement of Quaboag Plantation: 1660-1960, 1960, p. 22. 211 “Final Determination Against Federal Acknowledgment of the Nipmuc Nation” Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Federal Register Volume 69, Number 122 (Friday, June 25, 2004), Web https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2004-06-25/html/04-14394.htm.

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Challenging local historical narratives is risky. Tradition is cherished and almost always relinquished unenthusiastically. Relevance within modern society, however, remains important to historians, as well as to historical societies and associations, not least because relevance equals financial strength. Change is always difficult, but as American Historical Association President James McPherson pointed out in 2003, interpretations of past human experience are always “subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, [and] new perspectives gained by the passage of time.”212 There is never a “single, eternal, and immutable ‘truth’ about past events and their meaning.”213 Synthesizing modern historical methods and modern perspectives with local tradition in order to determine what really happened in the Quaboag River Valley during the summer of 1675, does not diminish the story. Nor, does it deny the probability of future interpretations. Instead, by asking new questions of old material, the story is enlarged, enriched, and made human.

212 James McPherson, “Revisionist Historians,” Perspectives on History, September 2003, https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2003/revisionist- historians. 213 Ibid.

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Appendix I

Figure I. Farm fields in Hadley, Massachusetts, Connecticut River Valley (circa 2009); “a rare surviving example of 17th-Century ... agricultural traditions.”214

214 “In pictures: Monuments under threat,” BBC Online, Wednesday, October 7, 2009, accessed 8/5/16 Web http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8295341.stm. The 2010 World Monuments Watch comprised ninety-three sites in forty-seven countries, and included this particular area of Massachusetts because it was (and continues to be) threatened by development.

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Figure II. The Foster Hill ‘plateau’ (so-called), looking northwest. Aerial photo circa 1960, from the souvenir booklet printed for the Quaboag Plantation 300th Anniversary Celebration September 16, 17, 18, 1960. The circled numbers correspond to events relating to that celebration, e.g. the pageant, etc., and to eighteenth-century sites. Number 5, corresponds to the site of Ayres’ Tavern, and Number 6, to the Meetinghouse site. Wickaboag Pond (labeled) is located in the upper right corner. The indigenous town at Wickaboag Pond was clearly visible and although the distance is foreshortened in the photo, not far from Foster Hill. It is extremely unlikely, however, that the road through the town was lined with mature trees in 1675, as it was in 1960. The open farm fields are a good indication of what the landscape around the town might have looked like in the seventeenth-century, but are divided by eighteenth- and nineteenth- century stonewalls. In the seventeenth-century, these fields would have been divided as in Figure I. Many of these fields today, have reverted to young forest and scrub.

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Figure III. Peake House, Medfield, Massachusetts. A rare example of a First Period, story-and- a-half, one room house.215

Figure IV. Peake House drawings courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.216

215 “Peake House,” Medfield Historical Society, Web 8/17/16 http://medfieldhistoricalsociety.org/historic- medfield/peak-house. 216 “The Peak House, Main Street, Medfield, Norfolk County,” HABS MASS,11-MED,1- (sheet 1 of 2) - MA Drawings from Survey HABS MA-2-77, Library of Congress, Web 8/16/17 https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.ma0839.sheet/?sp=2.

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Figure V. The John Whipple House, built 1680, Ipswich, Massachusetts, (unrestored) showing eighteenth-century (Georgian) influence and trim. Note the low rear wall, which indicates placement of a two-story ‘lean-to’ on the back of the house, exaggerating the asymmetrical roofline.217 This form is the familiar ‘salt-box’ commonly understood as New England ‘colonial’ architecture.

Figure VI. Front view of the (restored) Whipple House, revealing original seventeenth-century Elizabethan influence and roofline.218

217 Cummings, p. 33. 218 “The John Whipple House,” Whipple Website, Web 8/17/16http://www.whipple.org/photos/johnwhipplehouse.html

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Figure VII. Detail from a postcard of Turner House, aka the House of the Seven Gables, built 1668, Salem, Massachusetts (unrestored) circa 1900, showing the results of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century remodeling.219

Figure VIII. Turner House, aka the House of the Seven Gables, (restored), showing the original Elizabethan-influenced architecture.220

219 House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne in Salem. Courtesy North Shore Community College. Web http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/images/image.php?name=MMD898. 220 House of the Seven Gables, Library of Congress, http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/det.4a24964/.

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Figure IX. Detail from John Foster’s 1677 woodcut, Map of New-England.221 Here, English towns in New England were represented with stylized versions of what must have then been common - steep, high-pitched Elizabethan-style roofs. The relative size of each town might be indicated by the number of stylized peaks.

Figure X. Entry of the complaint against Thomas Wilson ‘reveling curfew’ etc., in John Pynchon’s waste book222

221 John Foster, A map of New-England, being the first that ever was here cut, 1677, Norman B. Levanthal Map Center, Boston Public Library, Web 8/16/16, http://maps.bpl.org/id/10060. 222 John Pynchon - Hampshire County Court Records 1663-1677 (Hampshire County Wastebook), p. 130, Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. Museum Website https://springfieldmuseums.org/about/museum-of-springfield-history.

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Figure XI. Steatite vessel found in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. Pot Number 29, Detail from Plate I, Catalog of New England Indian Relics in the Gilbert Museum, at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.223

223 “Catalog of New England Indian Relics in the Gilbert Museum at Amherst College (1904),” Pratt Museum Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, Web https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives.

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Appendix II

Wheeler’s Narrative A True Narrative Of the Lord's Providences in various dispensations towards Captain Edward Hutchinson of Boston and myself, and those that went with us into the Nipmuck Country, and also to Quabaug, alias Brookfield. The said Captain Hutchinson having a Commission from the Honoured Council of this Colony to Treat with several Sachems in those parts, in order to the publick peace and my self being also ordered by the said Council to accompany him with part of my Troop for Security from any danger that might be from the Indians: and to Assist him in the Transaction of matters committed to him. The said Captain Hutchinson, and myself, with about twenty men or more marched from Cambridge to Sudbury, July 28, 1675; and from thence into the Nipmuck Country, and finding that the Indians had deserted their towns, and we having gone until we came within two miles of New Norwich, on July 31, (only we saw two Indians having an horse with them, whom we would have spoke with, but they fled from us and left their horse, which we took,) we then thought it not expedient to march any further that way, but set our march for Brookfield, whither we came on the Lord's day about noon. From thence the same day, (being August 1,) we understanding that the Indians were about ten miles north west from us, we sent out four men to acquaint the Indians that we were not come to harm them, but our business was only to deliver a Message from our Honored Governor and Council to them, and to receive their answer, we desiring to come to a Treaty of Peace with them, (though they had for several days fled from us,) they having before professed friendship, and promised fidelity to the English. When the messengers came to them they made an alarm, and gathered together about an hundred and fifty fighting men as near as they could judge. The young men amongst them were stout in their speeches, and surly in their carriage. But at length some of the chief Sachems promised to meet us on the next morning about 8 of the clock upon a plain within three miles of Brookfield, with which answer the messengers returned to us. Whereupon, though their speeches and carriage did much discourage divers of our company, yet we conceived that we had a clear call to go to meet them at the place whither they had promised to come. Accordingly we with our men accompanied with three of the principal inhabitants of that town marched to the plain appointed; but the treacherous heathen intending mischief, (if they could have opportunity,) came not to the said place, and so failed our hopes of speaking with them there. Whereupon the said Captain Hutchinson and myself, with the rest of our Company, considered what was best to be done, whether we should go any further towards them or return, divers of us apprehending much danger in case we did proceed, because the Indians kept not promise there with us. But the three men who belonged to Brookfield were so strongly persuaded of their freedom from any ill intentions towards us, (as upon other grounds, so especially because the greatest part of those Indians belonged to David, one of their chief Sachems, who was taken to be a great friend to the English) that the said Captain Hutchinson who was principally intrusted

DeWolf 46 with the matter of Treaty with them, was thereby encouraged to proceed and march forward towards a Swamp where the Indians then were. When we came near the said Swamp, the way was so very bad that we could march only in a single file, there being a very rocky hill on the right hand, and a thick swamp on the left, in which there were many of those cruel blood-thirsty heathen, who there way laid us, waiting an opportunity to cut us off; there being also much brush on the side of the said hill, where they lay in ambush to surprize us. When we had marched there about sixty or seventy rods, the said perfidious Indians sent out their shot upon us as a shower of hail, they being, (as was supposed,) about two hundred men or more. We seeing ourselves so beset, and not having room to fight, endeavored to fly for the safety of our lives. In which flight we were in no small danger to be all cut off, there being a very miry swamp before us, into which we could not enter with our horses to go forwards, and there being no safety in retreating the way we came, because many of their company, who lay behind the bushes, and had let us pass by them quietly ; when others had shot, they came out, and stopt our way back, so that we were forced as we could to get up the steep and rocky hill ; but the greater our danger was, the greater was God's mercy in the preservation of so many of us from sudden destruction. Myself being gone up part of the hill without any hurt, and perceiving some of my men to be fallen by the enemies' shot, I wheeled about upon the Indians, not calling on my men who were left to accompany me, which they in all probability would have done had they known of my return upon the enemy. They fired violently out of the swamp, and from behind the bushes on the hill side wounded me sorely, and shot my horse under me, so that he faultering and falling, I was forced to leave him, divers of the Indians being then but a few rods distant from me. My son Thomas Wheeler flying with the rest of the company missed me amongst them, and fearing that I was either slain or much endangered, returned towards the swamp again, though he had then received a dangerous wound in the reins, where he saw me in the danger aforesaid. Whereupon, he endeavored to rescue me, shewing himself therein a loving and dutiful son, he adventuring himself into great peril of his life to help me in that distress, there being many of the enemies about me, my son set me on his own horse, and so escaped a while on foot himself, until he caught an horse whose rider was slain, on which he mounted, and so through God's great mercy we both escaped. But in this attempt for my deliverance he received another dangerous wound by their shot in his left arm. There were then slain to our great grief eight men, viz. — Zechariah Phillips of Boston, Timothy Farlow, of Billericay, Edward Coleborn, of Chelmsford, Samuel Smedly, of Concord, Sydrach Hapgood, of Sudbury, Serjeant Eyres, Serjeant Prichard, and Corporal Coy, the inhabitants of Brookfield, aforesaid.

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It being the good pleasure of God, that they should all there fall by their hands, of whose good intentions they were so confident, and whom they so little mistrusted. There were also then five persons wounded, viz. — Captain Hutchinson, myself, and my son Thomas, as aforesaid, Corporal French, of Billericay, who having killed an Indian, was (as he was taking up his gun) shot, and part of one of his thumbs taken off, and also dangerously wounded through the body near the shoulder; the fifth was John Waldoe, of Chelmsford, who was not so dangerously wounded as the rest. They also then killed five of our horses, and wounded some more, which soon died after they came to Brookfield. Upon this sudden and unexpected blow given us, (wherein we desire to look higher than man the instrument,) we returned to the town as fast as the badness of the way, and the weakness of our wounded men would permit, we being then ten miles from it. All the while we were going, we durst not stay to stanch the bleeding of our wounded men, for fear the enemy should have surprized us again, which they attempted to do, and had in probability done, but that we perceiving which way they went, wheeled off to the other hand, and so by God's good providence towards us, they missed us, and we all came readily upon, and safely to the town, though none of us knew the way to it, those of the place being slain, as aforesaid, and we avoiding any thick woods and riding in open places to prevent danger by them.

Being got to the town, we speedily betook ourselves to one of the largest and strongest houses therein, where we fortified ourselves in the best manner we could in such straits of time, and there resolved to keep garrison, though we were but few, and meanly fitted to make resistance against so furious enemies. The news of the Indians' treacherous dealing with us, and the loss of so many of our company thereby, did so amaze the inhabitants of the town, that they being informed thereof by us, presently left their houses, divers of them carrying very little away with them, they being afraid of the Indians sudden coming upon them; and so came to the house we were entered into, very meanly provided of cloathing or furnished with provisions. I perceiving myself to be disenabled for the discharge of the duties of my place by reason of the wound I had received, and apprehending that the enemy would soon come to spoil the town and assault us in the house, I appointed Simon Davis, of Concord, James Richardson, and John Fiske of Chelmsford, to manage affairs for our safety with those few men whom God hath left us, and were fit for any service, and the inhabitants of the said town ; who did well and commendably perform the duties of the trust committed to them with much courage and resolution through the assistance of our gracious God, who did not leave us in our low and distressed state, but did mercifully appear for us in our greatest need, as in the sequel will clearly be manifested. Within two hours after our coming to the said house, or less, the said Captain Hutchinson and myself posted away Ephraim Curtis, of Sudbury, and Henry Young, of Concord, to go to the Honored Council at Boston, to give them an account of the Lord's dealing with us, and our present condition. When they came to the further end of the town they saw the enemy rifling of houses which the inhabitants had forsaken. The post fired upon them, and immediately returned to us again, they discerning no safety in going forward and being desirous to inform us of the enemies' actings, that we might the more prepare for a sudden assault by them.

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Which indeed presently followed, for as soon as the said post was come back to us, the barbarous heathen pressed upon us in the house with great violence, sending in their shot amongst us like hail, through the walls, and shouting as if they would have swallowed us up alive; but our good God wrought wonderfully for us, so that there was but one man wounded within the house, viz. — the said Henry Young, who, looking out of the garret window that evening, was mortally wounded by a shot, of which wound he died within two days after. There was the same day another man slain, but not in the house; a son of Serjeant Pritchard's adventuring out of the house wherein we were, to his father's house not far from it, to fetch more goods out of it, was caught by these cruel enemies as they were coming towards us, who cut off his head, kicking it about like a foot-ball, and then putting it upon a pole, they set it up before the door of his father's house in our sight. The night following the said blow, they did roar against us like so many wild bulls, sending in their shot amongst us till, towards the moon rising, which was about three of the clock; at which time they attempted to fire our house by hay and other combustible matter which they brought to one corner of the house, and set it on fire. Whereupon some of our company were necessitated to expose themselves to very great danger to put it out. Simon Davis, one of the three appointed by myself as Captain, to supply my place by reason of my wounds, as aforesaid, he being of a lively spirit encouraged the soldiers within the house to fire upon the Indians ; and also those that adventured out to put out the fire, (which began to rage and kindle upon the house side,) with these and the like words, that God is with us, and fights for us, and will deliver us out of the hands of these heathen; which expressions of his the Indians hearing, they shouted and scoffed, saying: now see how your God delivers you, or will deliver you, sending in many shots whilst our men were putting out the fire. But the Lord of Hosts wrought very graciously for us, in preserving our bodies both within and without the house from their shot, and our house from being consumed by fire, we had but two men wounded in that attempt of theirs, but we apprehended that we killed divers of our enemies. I being desirous to hasten intelligence to the Honored Council, of our present great distress, we being so remote from any succor, (it being between sixty and seventy miles from us to Boston, where the Council useth to sit,) and fearing our ammunition would not last long to withstand them, if they continued so to assault us, I spake to Ephraim Curtis to adventure forth again on that service, and to attempt it on foot, as the way wherein there was most hope of getting away undiscovered ; he readily assented, and accordingly went out, but there were so many Indians everywhere thereabouts, that he could not pass, without apparent hazard of life, so he came back again, but towards morning the said Ephraim adventured forth the third time, and was fain to creep on his hands and knees for some space of ground, that he might not be discerned by the enemy, who waited to prevent our sending if they could have hindered it. But through God's mercy he escaped their hands, and got safely to Marlborough, though very much spent, and ready to faint by reason of want of sleep before he went iiom us, and his sore travel night and day in that hot season till he got thither, from whence he went to Boston ; yet before the said Ephraim got to Marlborough, there was intelligence brought thither of the burning of some houses, and killing some cattle at Quabaug, by some who were going to Connecticut, but they seeing what was done at the end of the town, and hearing several guns shot off further within the town, they durst proceed no further, but. immediately returned to Marlborough, though they then knew not what had befallen Captain Hutchinson and myself, and

DeWolf 49

company, nor of our being there, but that timely intelligence they gave before Ephraim Curtis his coming to Marlborough, occasioned the Honored Major Willard's turning his march towards Quabaug, for their relief who were in no small danger every hour of being destroyed; the said Major being, when he had that intelligence, upon his march another way, as he was ordered by the Honored Council, as is afterwards more fully expressed. The next day being August 3d, they continued shooting and shouting, and proceeded in their former wickedness, blaspheming the name of the Lord, and reproaching us, his afflicted servants, scoffing at our prayers as they were sending in their shot upon all quarters of the house, and many of them went to the town's meeting house, (which was within twenty rods of the house in which we were) who mocked saying, come and pray, and sing psalms, and in contempt made an hideous noise somewhat resembling singing. But we, to our power, did endeavour our defence, sending our shot amongst them, the Lord giving us courage to resist them, and preserving us from the destruction they sought to bring upon us. On the evening following, we saw our enemies carrying several of their dead or wounded men on their backs, who proceeded that night to send in their shot, as they had done the night before, and also still shouted as if the day had been certainly theirs, and they should without fail, have prevailed against us, whic.fi they might have the more hopes of in regard that we discerned the coming of new companies to them to assist and strengthen them, and the unlikelihood of any coming to our help. They also used several stratagems to fire us, namely, by wild fire in cotton and linen rags with brimstone in them, which rags they tyed to the piles of their arrows, sharp for the purpose, and shot them to the roof of our house, after they had set them on fire, which would have much endangered the burning thereof, had we not used means by cutting holes through the roof, and otherwise, to beat the said arrows down, and God being pleased to prosper our endeavors therein. They carried more combustible matter, as flax and hay, to the sides of the house, and set it on fire, and then flocked apace towards the door of the house, either to prevent our going forth to quench the fire, as we had done before, or to kill our men in their attempt to go forth, or else to break into the house by the door; whereupon we were forced to break down the wall of the house against the fire to put it out. They also shot a ball of wild fire into the garret of the house, which fell amongst a great heap of flax or tow therein, which one of our soldiers, through God's good Providence espyed, and having water ready presently quenched it ; and so we were preserved by the keeper of Israel, both our bodies from their shot, which they sent thick against us, and the house from being consumed to ashes, although we were but weak to defend ourselves, we being not above twenty and six men with those of that small town, who were able for any service, and our enemies, as I judged them about, (if not above) three hundred, I speak of the least, for many there present did guess them to be four or five hundred. It is the more to be observed, that so little hurt should be done by the enemies' shot, it commonly piercing the walls of the house, and flying amongst the people, and there being in the house fifty women and children besides the men before mentioned.

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But abroad in the yard, one Thomas Wilson of that town, being sent to fetch water for our help in further need, (that which we had being spent in putting out the fire,) was shot by the enemy in the upper jaw and in the neck, the anguish of which wound was such at the first that he cried out with a great noise, by reason whereof the Indians hearing him rejoiced, and triumphed at it ; but his wound was healed in a short time, praised be God. On Wednesday, August the 4th, the Indians fortified themselves at the meeting house, and the barn, belonging to our house, which they fortified both at the great doors, and at both ends, with posts, rails, boards, and hay, to save themselves from our shot. They also devised other stratagems, to fire our house, on the night following, namely, they took a cart, and filled it with flax, hay and candlewood, and other combustible matter, and set up planks, fastened to the cart, to save themselves from the danger of our shot. Another invention they had to make the more sure work in burning the house. They got many poles of a considerable length and bigness, and spliced them together at the ends one of another, and made a carriage of them about fourteen rods long, setting the poles in two rows, with peils laid crossover them at the front end, and dividing them said poles about three foot asunder, and in the said front of this their carriage they set a barrel, having made an hole through both heads, and put an axle-tree through them, to which they fastened the said poles, and under every joint of the poles where they were spliced, they set up a pair of truckle wheels to bear up the said carriages, and they loaded the front or fore-end thereof with matter fit for firing, as hay, and flax, and chips, &c. Two of these instruments they prepared, that they might convey fire to the house, with the more safety to themselves, they standing at such a distance from our shot, whilst they wheeled them to the house: great store of arrows they had also prepared to shoot fire upon the house that night; which we found after they were gone, they having left them there. But the Lord who is a present help in times of trouble, and is pleased to make his people's extremity his opportunity, did graciously prevent them of effecting what they hoped they should have done by the aforesaid devices, partly by sending a shower of rain in season, whereby the matter prepared being wet would not so easily take fire as it otherwise would have done, and partly by aid coming to our help. For our danger would have been very great that night, had not the only wise God (blessed for ever) been pleased to send to us about an hour within night the worshipful Major Willard with Captain Parker of Groton, and forty-six men more with five Indians to relieve us in the low estate into which we were brought; our eyes were unto him the holy one of Israel ; in him we desired to place our trust, hoping that he would in the time of our great need appear for our deliverance, and confound all their plots by which they thought themselves most sure to prevail against us ; and God who comforteth the afflicted; as he comforted the holy apostle Paul by the coming of Titus to him, so he greatly comforted us his distressed servants both soldiers and town inhabitants, by the coming of the said Honored Major, and those with him. In whose so soon coming to us the good providence of God did marvellously appear; for the help that came to us by the Honored Council's order (after the tidings they received by our post sent to them) came not to us till Saturday, August 7, in the afternoon, nor sooner could it well come in- regard of their distance from us, i. e. if we had not had help before that time, we see not how we could have held out, the number of the Indians so increasing, and they making so many assaults upon us, that our ammunition before that time would have been spent, and ourselves disenabled for any resistance, we being but few, and always fain to stand upon our defence; that we had lit

DeWolf 51

tie time for refreshment of ourselves either by food or sleep; the said Honored Major's coming to us so soon was thus occasioned; he had a commission from the Honored Council (of which himself was one) to look after some Indians to the west-ward of Lancaster and Groton, (where he himself lived) and to secure them, and was upon his march towards them on the aforesaid Wednesday in the morning, August 4th, when tidings coming to Marlborough by those that returned thither as they were going to Connecticut, concerning what they saw at Brookfield as aforesaid, some of Marlborough knowing of the said Major's march from Lancaster that morning, presently sent a post to acquaint him with the information they had received ; the Major was gone before the post came to Lancaster; but there was one speedily sent after him, who overtook him about five or six miles from the said town; he being acquainted, that it was feared, that Brookfield (a small town of about fifteen or sixteen families) was either destroyed, or in great danger thereof, and conceiving it to require more speed to succour them (if they were not past help) than to proceed at present, as he before intended, and being also very desirous (if it were possible) to afford relief to them, (he being then not above thirty miles from them) he immediately altered his course and marched with his company toward us; and came to us about an hour after it was dark as aforesaid; though he knew not then, either of our being there nor of what had befallen us at the swamp and in the house those two days before. The merciful providence of God also appeared in preventing the danger that the Honored Major and his company might have been in, when they came near us, for those beastly men, our enemies, skilful to destroy, endeavored to prevent any help from coming to our relief, and therefore sent down sentinels, (some nearer and some further off) the furtherest about two miles from us, who if they saw any coming from the bay they might give notice by an alarm. And there were about an hundred of them who for the most part kept at an house some little distance from us, by which if any help came from the said bay; they must pass, and so they intended (as we conceive) having notice by their sentinels of their approach to way-lay them, and if they could, to cut them off before they came to the house where we kept. But as we probably guess, they were so intent and busy in preparing their instruments (as abovesaid) for our destruction by fire, that they were not at the house where they used to keep for the purpose aforesaid, and that they heard not their sentinels when they shot; and so the Major's way was clear from danger till he came to our house. And that it was their purpose so to have fallen upon him, or any other coming to us at that house, is the more probable in that (as we have since had intelligence from some of the Indians themselves) there were a party of them at another place who let him pass by them without the least hurt or opposition, waiting for a blow to be given him at the said house, and then they themselves to fall upon them in the rear, as they intended to have done with us at the swamp, in case we had fled back as before expressed. The Major and company were no sooner come to the house, and understood (though at first they knew not they were English who were in the house, but thought that they might be Indians, and therefore were ready to have shot at us, till wo discerning they were English by the Major's speaking, I caused the trumpet to be sounded) that the said Captain Hutchinson, myself, and company with the town's inhabitants were there, but the Indians also discerned that there were some come to our assistance, whereupon they spared not their shot, but poured it out on them: but through the Lord's goodness, though they stood not far asunder one from another, they killed not one man, wounded only two of his company ; and killed the Major's son's horse; after that,

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we within the house perceived the Indians shooting so at them, we hastened the Major and all his company into the house as fast as we could, and their horses into a little yard before the house, where they wounded five other horses that night; after they were come into the house to us, the enemies continued their shooting some considerable time, so that we may well say, had not the Lord been on our side when these cruel heathens rose up against us, they had then swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us. But wherein they dealt proudly, the Lord was above them. When they saw their divers designs unsuccessful, and their hopes therein disappointed, they then fired the house and barn (wherein they had before kept to lie in wait to surprise any coming to us) that by the light thereof they might the better direct their shot at us, but no hurt was done thereby, praised be the Lord. And not long after they burnt the meeting house wherein their fortifications were, as also the barn, which belonged to our house, and so perceiving more strength come to our assistance, they did, as we suppose, despair of effecting any more mischief against us. And therefore the greatest part of them, towards the breaking of the day, August the fifth, went away and left us, and we were quiet from any further molestations by them; and on the morning we went forth of the house without danger, and so daily afterwards, only one man was wounded about two days after, as he was out to look after horses, by some few of them skulking thereabouts. We cannot tell how many of them were killed, in all that lime, but one that was afterwards taken, confessed that there were killed and wounded, about eighty men or more. Blessed be the Lord God of our salvation, who kept us from being all a prey to their teeth. But before they went away they burnt all the town except the house we kept in, and another that was not then finished. They also made great spoil of the cattle belonging to the inhabitants; and after our entrance into the house, and during the time of our confinement there, they either killed or drove away almost all the horses of our company. We continued there, both well and wounded, towards a fortnight, and August the 10th Capt. Hutchinson and myself with the men there that had escaped without hurt, and also some of the wounded, came from them ; my son Thomas and some other wounded men, came not from them, being not then able to endure travelling so far as from thence to the next town, till about a fortnight afterwards. We came to Marlborough on August the 14th, when Capt. Hutchinson being not recovered of his wounds before his coming from Brookfield, and overtired with his long journey, by reason of his weakness, soon after grew worse, and more dangerously ill, and on the 19th day of the same month, died, and was there the next day after buried;—the Lord being pleased to deny him a return to his own habitation, and his relatives at Boston, though he was come the greatest part of his journey thitherward. The inhabitants of the town also, not long after, men, women, and children, removed safely with what they had left, to several places, either where they had lived before their planting or setting down there, or where they had relatives to receive and entertain them. The Honored Major Willard stayed at Brookfield some weeks after our coming away, there being several companies of soldiers sent up thither and to Hadley, and the towns thereabouts,

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which are about thirty miles from Brookfield, whither also the Major went for a time upon the service of the country in the present war, and from whence there being need of his presence for the ordering of matters concerning his own regiment, and the safety of the towns belonging to it, he through God's goodness and mercy returned in safety to his home and dear relatives at Groton. Thus I have endeavored to set down and declare both what the Lord did against us in the loss of several person's lives, and the wounding of others, some of which wounds were very painful in dressing, and long ere they were healed, besides many dangers we were in, and fears we were exercised with; and also what great things He was pleased to do for us, in frustrating their many attempts, and vouchsafing such a deliverance to us. The Lord avenge the blood that has been shed By these heathen, who hate us without a cause, though he be most righteous in all that hath befallen us there, and all other parts of the country, he help us to humble ourselves before him, and with our whole hearts, to return to him, and also to improve all his mercies, which we still enjoy, that so his anger may cease towards us, and he may be pleased either to make our enemies at peace with us, or may destroy them before us. I tarried at Marlborough with Capt. Hutchinson until his death, and came here to Concord, August 21, (though not then quite recovered of my wound) and so did others that went with me. But since I Am reasonably well, though I have not the use of my hand and arm as before: my son Thomas, though in great hazard of his life for some time after his return to Concord, yet is now very well cured, and his strength well restored! Oh, that we could praise the Lord for his great goodness towards us, that he was pleased to spare so many of us, and add unto our days : he help us whose souls he hath delivered from death and eyes from tears, and feet from falling, to walk before him in the land of the living, till our great change come, and to sanctify his name in all his ways about us, that our afflictions and our mercies may guide us to live more to his glory all our days."

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Appendix III

Quaboag Indian Deed 1665

Here followeth the coppy of the Deed for the Purchase of the lands at Quawbauge (now called Brookfeild) from the Indian called Shattoockquis, together w«h Leiut. Thomas Cooper his Resignation of the said Deed to ye Inhabitants of Quawbauge now called Brookefeild for the said Deed was framed in Name to the said Leiut. Cooper but indeed for yr only use and behoofe of ye Inhabitants of the said Plantation called Brookefeild : Also ye Coppy of ye said Leiut. Coopers acknowledgmt of his said Resignation before ye Worship Majr John Pynchon. These presents Testify, That Shattoockquis alias Shadookis the sole & propper Owner of certayne lands at Quabauge hereafter named Hath for good & valluable Considerations him the said Shattooquis thereunto moveinge given graunted bargayned & Sold, And by these p'sents Doth fully clearely & absolutely give grant bargayne & sell Vnto Ensigne Thomas Cooper of Springfeild for the vse & behoofe of the p'sent English Planters at Quabaug & their Associates, & their successors & to them & their heires for Ever, certayne parcells of land at towards or about the North end of Quabauge pond that is to say beginning at a little Meddow at the north end of the pond Quabauge wch meddow is called Podunk wth the land about it, & soe to a little hill Wullamanick & from thence Northward or North & by East about Three miles & soe Westward off to ye North end of Wecobaug Pond taking in all the playnes meddowes & upland from Podunk by Quabaug pond to Wecobaug pond all the land betwixt, as that called Nacommuck (viz. a brook where meddow is) and soe to Massequockummis viz. another brook where meddow is, and soe through the playne to Wecobaug pond & then down to Lashaway viz. the River wch comes from Quabaug pond all ye land as aforesaid on the East or Northeast side of that River and about three miles North or North & by East from the River together wch the said River, & the lands on the west side or south or southwest side of the said River, & particularly from Lashaway down the River to a brook or streame called Naltaug & soe up that brook to the head of it Southward, & then from the head of that brook to verge of a hill called Asquoach, & soe down Southward or Southeast to ye pond Quabauge, taking in all the wett meddow & meddowes called Masquabamisk & Nanantomquait being about foure Miles from the river to the verge or foote of the hill aforesaid called Asquoach and about six miles or neere thereabouts from the River at the mouth of ye brook called Naltaug to Quabaug pond: All the aforesaid Tract of land from Wecobauge to Podunk at the North end of Quabauge. & from Naltaug to Quabauge, called Naltaug Lashaway, Massequockcurhis Nacommuck Wullammannuck Podunck Nanantomqua Masquabamisk & soe to the hill called Asquoach: All wch land aforedescribed together wth the trees waters stones profits comodityes & advantages thereof, & thereunto belonging, the said Ensign Thomas Cooper for himself and for the present Planters at Quabaug and their Associates & successors is to have hold and enjoy & that for Ever. And the said Shattookquis as well for other considerations as also for & in consideration of the summe of Three Hundred fadom of Wampampeage in hand Received doth grant bargayne & sell All & Singular the aforenamed Tract of land to Ensigne Thomas Cooper his successes & assignes as aforesaid & to their heires for Ever : And the said Shattoockquis doth hereby covenhate & promise to & w*h the said Ensigne Thomas Cooper that he will save ye said Thomas Cooper harmless from all manner of claymes of any person or psons lawfully clayming any right or interest in the said lands hereby sold or in any part thereof, & will defend the same

DeWolf 55 from all or any molestation & incumbrance by any Indians lawfully laying clayme or title thereunto: In witnes whereof the said Shattoockquis hath hereunto sett his hand this tenth day of November, 1665.

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Wheeler, Thomas. A Thankful Remembrance of God’s Mercy, A True Narrative of the Lord’s Providences in various dispensations towards Captain Edward Hutchinson of Boston & Myself, and those that went with us into the Nipmuck Country, and also to Quaboag, alias Brookfield: The Said Captain Hutchinson having a Commission from the Honored Council of this Colony to treat with several Sachems in those parts, in order to the public peace, and myself being also ordered by the said Council, to accompany him with part of my troop for security from any danger that might be from the Indians: and to assist him in the transaction of matters committed to him. Cambridge. 1676. In Joseph Ives Foote. An Historical Address Delivered at West Brookfield November 27, 1828. Merriam & Cooke. West Brookfield. 1843.

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Mifflin, Jeffrey. “‘Closing the Circle’: Native American Writings in Colonial New England, a Documentary Nexus between Acculturation and Cultural Preservation.” The American Archivist. Vol. 72, Vol. 2, Fall/Winter. 2009. Web 2/9/15 jstor.org/stable/27802693.

Miner, Bradford L. “Researchers study collection of Native American artifacts,” Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Oct 3, 2012, Web http://www.telegram.com/article/20121003/NEWS/110039911.

Peterson, Harold L. “The Military Equipment of the Plymouth and Bay Colonies, 1620-1690.” New England Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1947), pp. 197-208. Web jstor.org/stable/361177.

Pyne, Stephen. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire. University of Washington Press, Seattle and London. 1982.

Richter, Daniel. “Cultural Brokers and Intercultural Politics: New York-Iroquois Relations, 1661-1701,” Journal of American History, Vol 75, No. 1, June 1988. Web www.jstor.org/stable/1889654.

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass. 2001.

Roy, Louis E. Quaboag Plantation alias Brookfeild [sic]: A seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Town. Heffernan Press, Inc. Worcester MA. 1965.

Russell, Howard S. Indian New England Before the Mayflower. University Press of New England. Hanover NH, and London, England. 1980.

Russell, Howard. A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England, University Press of New England. Hanover and London, abridged edition. 1982.

Salisbury, Neal. Manitou and Providence. Oxford University Press. NY & Oxford. 1982.

Schwaller, Robert “The Importance of Mestizos and Mulatos as Bilingual Intermediaries in Sixteenth-Century New Spain,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 59, No. 4, Fall 2012. Web http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=849ce442- a536-41e3-b44e-14336bbc3e6e%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=125.

Silverman, David J. “‘We Chuse to Be Bounded:’ Native American Animal Husbandry in Colonial New England.” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 60, No. 3, July 2003. Web 7/20/15, jstor.org/stable/3491550.

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Sleeper-Smith, Susan. “Introduction, Forum, The Middle Ground Revisited,” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 63, No. 1, January 2006. Web www.jstor.org/stable/3491721.

Slotkin, Richard and James K. Folsom. So Dreadfull a Judgement: Puritan Responses to King Philip's War 1676-1677. Weslyan University Press. 1978.

Smith, Joseph H. Colonial Justice in Western Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. 1961.

Stanford, James N., et. al. “Farewell to the Founders: Major Dialect Changes along the East- West New England Border.” American Speech, Vol. 87, No. 2. 2012. Web 6/4/2014 http://americanspeech.dukejournals.org/content/87/2/126.full.pdf+html.

Temple, Josiah H. The History of North Brookfield: Preceded by an Account of Old Quaboag, Indian and English Occupation 1647-1676; Brookfield Records 1686-1783. Town of North Brookfield. 1887. Web https://archive.org/stream/historyofnorthbr87temp#page/n7/mode/2up.

Terdiman, Richard. 'Historicizing Memory', in Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993.

Tilden, William. History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts, 1650-1886. Geo. H. Ellis, Boston. 1887.

Tracy, Martin B. James Travis and the Siege of Brookfield. 2011.

Vannah, Alison, PhD. “Quaboag Plantation: Motives for Migration.” Serialized in Quaboag Plantation Magazine. Ed. Edward Sauer. Volumes 7, 8, and 9. West Brookfield MA. 1989.

Waters, Thomas Franklin. Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Ipswich Historical Society. 1905. Web 8/14/16 https://archive.org/stream/ipswichinmassach00water#page/426/mode/2up.

Whitney, Peter. History of Worcester County. Isaiah Thomas, Worcester. 1793.

Interviews

DeWolf, Gordon P. PhD. Conversation. July 31, 2016.

Freeman, Fred. Nipmuc Tribal Member. Email interview. July 10, 2016.

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Online Resources

BBC Online. Web http://news.bbc.co.uk.

Brookfields Research. Web http://www.brookfieldsresearch.com/index.html.

Digital Commons. Web http://digitalcommons.unl.edu.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Web https://www.britannica.com.

Historical Marker Database. Web http://www.hmdb.org.

Internet Archive. Web https://archive.org.

Library of Congress. Web https://www.loc.gov.

Norman B. Levanthal Map Center, Boston Public Library. Web http://maps.bpl.org.

Whipple Website. Web http://www.whipple.org.

State Reports

“Landscape Assessment and Forest Management Framework: Lower Worcester Plateau Ecoregion in Massachusetts,” Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, May, 2004, p. 5, Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/eea/lf/lworcester/lworcester-toc.pdf

“Brookfield Reconnaissance Report 2008.” Upper Quaboag Watershed and North Quabbin Region Landscape Inventory. Massachusetts Heritage Landscape Inventory Program. Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership. Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon-reports/brookfield.pdf.

“East Brookfield Reconnaissance Report 2008.” Upper Quaboag Watershed and North Quabbin Region Landscape Inventory. Massachusetts Heritage Landscape Inventory Program. Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership. Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon-reports/ebrookfield.pdf

“West Brookfield Reconnaissance Report 2008.” Upper Quaboag Watershed and North Quabbin Region Landscape Inventory. Massachusetts Heritage Landscape Inventory Program. Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership. Web http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/stewardship/histland/recon-reports/wbrookfield.pdf.