Bartlett High School - Chronicle Yearbook (Webster, MA)

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NBARGILECIGI 19 3 ttiiinomician 'K fi: 3 The Nipmuck Indians j 'vN the present site of Webster once stood the Nipmuck village of Chaubuna- gungamaug. It took its name from the lake, the full Indian name of which was Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoiggchaubunagungamaugg, signifying 'M , the fishing place of the boundary. lt was sol called because it served as a dividing line between the territories of the Nipmucks and their southern neighbors, the Narragansetts and the Pequots. The Nipmucks, the English name for which would be fresh-water people, were of Algonquin stock and occupied the territory extending from the Connecticut River eastward through southern-central Massachusetts. Their chief seats were at the headquarters of the Blackstone and the Quinebaug Rivers and about the ponds of Brookheld. Their villages had no apparent political connection, and the vari- ous bands were subject to their more powerful neighbors, the Massachusetts, the Wanipanoags, the Narragansetts, and the Mohegans, some of them being tributary to the distant Mohawks. The Nipmucks usually spent their winters in villages, making occasional hunt- ing excursions into the neighboring forests. Their temporary summer encampments were light coverings of bark on a framework of poles. Their winter homes were more compactly built and sometimes strongly fortified with palisades, because of which construction they were often called forts. This particular group of red men were settled in their habits, being less no- madic than many o-f their brethren. To some extent they were tillers of the soil. In the spring they planted their fields, and then retired into the wilderness to hunt deer until harvest time. Hunting and fishing furnished the principal means of subsistence. Their vegetable diet consisted mainly of corn, accompanied by roots, nuts, berries, beans, pumpkins, and squash. A hoe made of clam shells or of the shoulder blade of a moose fastened to a wooden handle was the one tool which sufliced for their hus- bandry. The Nipmucks trained no animal to assist them in cultivation, hunting, or war. They had neither flocks, herds, nor poultry. Their lines and nets for fishing were made of twisted fibers of dogbones or of the sinews of the deer. The scoop-net, a cylindrical basket, was employed to catch small fish. Torches were waved over the water to attract the larger fish to the surface, where they were speared. The Nipmucks fashioned hooks of sharpened bones of fish and birds. Arrows and spears were tipped with bone or the claws of larger birds. Axes, hatichets, and chisels were made of stone brought to a point. The tomahawk was a wooden club about two feet in length, terminating in a heavy knob. Baskets, nets, and boats were the chief manufactures of this people. They had no law which forbade polygamy, although each brave generally had but one wife. She was his drudge and his slave. All the heavy labor fell to her portion. She covered and lined the Wigwam, and took it down when it was to be moved. The mats and baskets were plaited by her. She tended and harvested the corn and vegetables, and prepared all of the food. The squaw followed her hus- band on his hunting trips and dragged home all the game which he brought down. Her toils were lightened by no participation in the tribal feasts, and she was re- quited with little if any expression of tenderness. The leavings of the meat were her share, and the spot most exposed to the weather was her place in the Wigwam. The Nipmuck brave led the laziest of lives. When not engaged in tribal War, he slept in the retirement of his Wigwam, or engaged in the solitude of the chase. For hours at a time he would sit silent, his elbows on his knees, garrulousness was not an Indian trait. He was a desperate gambler and would stake his most prized possession, his Wigwam, his wife, his personal liberty, on the chances of play. Independence, pride, dignity, and stoicism distinguished the Nipmuck. Seldom if ever did he betray his emotions. In war, craft rather than valor stood high in his esteem. Stealth and speed composed his strategy. In the field he manifested little daring or constancy, but took great pride in being able to bear the most horrible torture without giving evidence of complaint or anguish. To his enemies the Nipmuck was sullen, vindictive, and cruel. The first white men to wend their way into the region of the Nipmucks were a group of colonists from Watertown. On their journey they passed through what is today Webster, establishing a settlement at Vifethersfield, -Connecticut. At that time the Westerly part of the Nipmuck territory was wild hunting ground, and the eastern portion was only thinly inhabited by these red men li-ving in scattered villages, their numbers having been greatly reduced by recent wars with western tribes and with an even more deadly foe, the pestilence. Their early relations with the 'whites were of the IIIOS-t friendly and peaceatble character.

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We llPe21laticiearfr 19 3 QEHRDNIGLE ' 2 John Elliot, the Puritan minister of Roxbury, first preached to the Nipmucks at Nonantum iNewtonb. Meeting with no opposition, he penetrated more deeply into their country. Everywhere he was kindly received. When he came to Chau- bunagungamaug, he had already established seven praying towns, as they were called, with Hassanamesitt f'GraftonJ as a center. He founded praying' towns at Manchaug COxfordJ, Chaubunagungamaug fWebsterJ, and Maanexit, Quantisset, and Wabquasset fWo0dstockJ. Elliot was assisted by Mayhew and Gookin. The Nipmucks were especially amenable to Christian teachingsg a great many were converted and subsequently educated. Dudley Hill, one of the praying towns, was inhabited by the Pegans, a sub- ordinate tribe of the Nipmucks, who, according to Gookin, were the most devout of the many red men whom he visited. Elliot printed the Bible and several other religious works in their language. The Pegans, as well as all the Nipmucks of central Massachusetts, visited the sacred spring of their nation, which was be- lieved to possess great healing properties. At certain seasons of the year they journeyed to this holy spot, which, by a symbolic twist of fate, lies today beneath the gymnasium of the Bartlett High School. In his own way the white man fortni- tously continues the quest of his red brother. In history the Nipmucks will be remembered chiefly for their connection with King Philip's War. Philip is said to have suspected the white men of poison- ing his brother, for years he plotted to avenge the murder. In 1675, thirteen years after Philip had succeeded Massasoit, his father, as chief of the tribe, began what is known as King Philip's War. The first of a long series of atrocities began at the little village of Swanzey, Massachusetts, not far from Philip's wigwams. Homes were destroyedg men, women, and children were murdered or carried off to be sub- jected to horrible tortures. In the Connecticut valley, town after town was simi- larly harassed. Wattascompanum, the chief ruler of the Nipmucks, a the lesser chieftains, became Philip's friends and aids. Thes they were called, rose to fight for their lands, their wigwams, previous to the attack on Brookfield, August 2, 1675, Philip lowers were received and sheltered in the neighborhood of months of 1676 were the period of the greatest activity on mucks. They shared in the destruction of the settlements at Marlboro, Mendon, and Groton, and in the burning of many within a. dozen miles of Boston. They made fierce attacks on nd Matoonas, one of e praying Indians, as their lives. The day and forty of his fol- Webster. The early the part of the Nip- Lancaster, Worcester, homes in Weymouth, Sudbury, Chelmsford, Springfield, Hatfield, Hadley, Northampton, Andover, Bridgewater, Scituate, and Middleboro. On April 18, 1676 five hundred of them surrounded and killed Captain Wadsworth and fifty of his men, but later in the day one hundred and twenty red- skins fell at the hands of Wadsworth's followers. On May 18, 1676 Captain Turner surprised and killed three hundred Nip- mucks in their hiding place near the falls that now bear his name. This unexpected defeat broke the strength of the tribe. In June of that year came the death blow. Major Talcott marched four hundred and fifty men from Norwich, Connecticut to punish the insurgents. At Wabquasset they destroyed a fort and many fields of corn nearbyg at Chaubunagungamaug they killed fifty-tiwo savages. The Nipmuck chief, Wattascompanum, was captured on this occasion. On June 26 he was shot on Boston Common. Can you picture his brother Christians there assembled to wit- ness this rare form of popular entertainment? On July 1 an Indian teacher called James the Printer, who taught at Chaubunagungamaug, surrendered, under promise of pardon, with one hundred and forty of his followers. Matoonas was captured and shot July 28, while three other Nipmuck chiefs were soon after hanged in Boston town. Philip himself was killed August 12, 1676. To the Nipmuck nation the results of the war were disastrous. The execution of so many of their leaders, along with the many losses incurred in battle, com- pletely prostrated them. Some fled to Canada or westward to the Mohegansg some scattered to the districts about the Hudsong others were deported as slaves to Bermuda and the West Indies. Only a feeble and spiritless remnant was found when the English commenced negotiations with them, preparatory to settlement in this region. The Nipmucks must not be condemned, without thought, for their attacks on the white man. For generations the red man had wandered in the forests, free as the birds carolling in the trees overhead, or the wolves prowling through the crackling underbrush. This beautiful land of green woods and golden sunlight had all been his. The meadows and hillsides had been his home, the forests his hunting ground: the streams, the rivers, the lakes he had long regarded as his own. Why should he, month after month, behold his brothers driven westward, relinquishing their territory to the strange white man from over the seas? Day by