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French and Indian Wars

The Wiscasset Incident Sets Off Maine’s Indian Wars of 1750

The Wiscasset Incident occurred on December 2, 1749, when gun shots rang out in the woods of Wiscasset, Maine. Sailors from a visiting ship from Massachusetts slipped ashore and attacked a group of Indians fishing and hunting in the area.

The men concealed the body of an Indian named Saccary Harry, also known as Hegen, under ice in a brook. Two other Indians, Job and Andrew, escaped with gunshot wounds. Over the next several days a picture of what happened emerged.

Colonial authorities quickly identified the men involved in the murder: Obidiah Albee had committed the crime; Benjamin Ledite and Samuel Ball had acted as accomplices and injured the two other Indians.

Albee fled Maine on board a ship. And, while transporting Ball and Ledite to York to stand trial, the deputy sheriff was attacked by a mob and the prisoners escaped. Bringing them to justice marked a turning point in Indian-Colonial relations in Maine – and not one for the better.

The Treaty of 1749

The Battle of Louisbourg

In 1748-49, the Indians in New England were mostly sandwiched between the Saint Lawrence River in Canada and the northern boundaries of Massachusetts’ settlements in Maine.

The Indian settlements in Maine concentrated in two locations. The Penobscot Indians, on the Penobscot River, and the Norridgewock Indians, on the Kennebec.

For 75 years the Indians had butted heads with the English settlers, who continued encroaching on Indian lands. Two broad factions existed within Indian population. Those who advocated a negotiated truce with the English and those who advocated repelling the English by force.

The colonists, for their part, were not wholly hostile toward the Indians. There are cases of Massachusetts’ courts sentencing colonists to death for murdering innocent Indians. But war frequently set the two sides against one another. The English continuously encroached on Indian territory. The Indians, meanwhile, took advantage of French and English hostilities to fight back on the side of the French.

King George’s War

From 1744 to 1748, the violence on the Maine frontier heated up. King George’s War – the struggle between France and England to control Canada and Northern New England – drew both the Indians and the colonists into the fighting.

Fierce fighting took a heavy toll on Massachusetts (Maine existed as a part of Massachusetts at that time). Some estimate as much as eight percent of the Massachusetts’ population of able-bodied men died in the fighting. The main achievement of the fighting was the British colonists capture of the Canadian Fortress of Louisbourg from the French.

The British/French treaty in 1748 restored the fortress to French control. In return the French returned property to England that had been taken a world away in India. The treaty outraged many of the colonists who had family and friends who had died in the wars.

The Indians who had fought in aid of the French cause, meanwhile, had their own discontented factions, and it would take until 1749 for the colonists and Indians to hammer out their own peace agreement.

In October of 1749, the colonists and Indians finally sat down at Falmouth and negotiated a peace, setting the stage for the Wiscasset Incident just weeks later.

Trials and Errors

Obidiah Albee, from Massachusetts, had family in Wiscasset and may have planned to relocate, as his father and family had done. The authorities determined he had killed Hegen. They also identified him as the ringleader of the group of men who carried out the attack.

Though at least seven men participated in the attack, only two others faced charges.

Benjamin Ledite and Samuel Ball had acted as accomplices and injured the two other Indians. Both Ledite and Ball served in the recent wars with the France and its Indian allies. Ball’s father died in the fighting, leading some to theorize that revenge served as Ball’s motive in the attacks. Albee, they theorize, simply wanted to make trouble.

Wiscasset Incident: On the Run

wiscasset incident - postcard of village Square, wiscasset mainee

Wiscasset Post Card (1910)

Once freed from arrest, the three men proved difficult to recapture. As they made their escape, sympathetic colonists helped them or turned a blind eye, ignoring even the promise of rewards if they would help capture the men.

Ledite and Ball were eventually captured at Saco at a military outpost.

The government had no hope of empaneling an impartial jury at York. Massachusetts’ governor shipped Ledite and Ball to Middlesex County in Massachusetts with the hope of trying them there. But the General Court wanted nothing to do with the case and declined to hear the matter in Massachusetts.

Finally reports surfaced that Albee was spotted on a ship at Marblehead, Mass. No one on the ship wanted anything to do with the case, but the sheriff managed to capture him.

The sheriff wrote that, while he had imprisoned Albee at the county jail, the government needed to act quickly because many residents had begun agitating to break the accused out of jail. He suggested moving Albee to York with Ball and Ledite.

Nine soldiers were assigned to guard the York jail and Albee, Ball and Ledite were reunited there to stand trial.

Demands for Justice

Meanwhile, on the Indian side of affairs, no clear consensus emerged. In Indian tradition, a murder could be resolved by the offending party awarding gifts to the family of the deceased. Lacking that, murders often devolved into blood feuds. The conciliatory Indians demanded some form of justice. The more militant Indians demanded that the English execute the men for murder, the custom under English law.

In June of 1750, the court at York heard the case against Obidiah Albee. The jury acquitted him.

Ball escaped from custody in March of 1751 and disappeared. There is no record he was ever tried.

Ledite, however, eventually stood trial later in 1751. A jury found him innocent in the Hegen murder, but convicted him of assault. The court sentenced him to 20 lashes and forced him to stand for an hour upon the gallows with a noose around his neck – a form of public shaming. Further, he had to pledge £100 against any disruption of the peace he might cause.

In October of 1752, representatives from Maine’s Indians and Massachusetts agreed to restore the peace. The treaty, however, represented only the views of the individuals who signed it. Many colonists and Indians, from that day forward, allowed their own anger and attitudes to rule their actions.

Ongoing Violence

Wiscasset Incident - Fighting at Louisbourg The more militant Indians had withdrawn to Canada and did not participate in the peace talks. And Massachusetts had little formal control over the residents of Maine, many of whom still rankled at years of fighting with the Indians. With the declining indigenous population, the colonists now also had little fear of a large-scale retaliation in cases where a colonist murdered an Indian.

“The Wiscasset Incident was the first in a series of atrocities that indicated a significant change in the peacetime violence on the Maine frontier.” David L. Ghere and Alvin H. Morrison wrote in Searching for Justice on the Maine Frontier: Legal Concepts, Treaties, and the 1749 Wiscasset Incident.

Hostilities, thereafter, were less contained to official warfare and incidents between civilians grew in frequency. The English attempted to soothe Indian anger by sending gifts and food to the families of the Indians that had been attacked. The French, meanwhile, offered provisions to Indians who wanted to travel farther south in Maine to carry out retaliatory attacks.

The Wiscasset Incident, however, permanently shattered the peace. Murders, though not commonplace, occurred and went unpunished, with both sides throwing away restraint. In 1756, the Seven Years’ war broke out, bringing full-scale hostility back to Northern Maine.

Thanks to:

“Searching for Justice on the Maine Frontier: Legal Concepts, Treaties, and the 1749 Wiscasset Incident.” American Indian Quarterly 25, no. 3 (2001), David Ghere and Alvin Morrison.

A Page of Indian History, The Wiscasset Tragedy, Rev. Henry O. Thayer

Images: Attack on Louisbourg in 1745, during the War of Austrian Succession. Anonymous; CW Jefferys – Battle of Grand Pre.

This story updated in 2022.

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New England’s Six Wealthiest Towns (And How They Got That Way)

The wealthiest towns in each New England state all have good schools, beautiful homes and well-preserved historic districts. They are also, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly white.

New England’s wealthiest towns also tend to produce and attract celebrities and highly accomplished people in the arts, sports and business. Some of their residents are hell-bent on keeping the wealthiest towns wealthy. Conservative provocateurs Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter live in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Grover Norquist lives in Weston, Mass.

The Wealthiest Towns Get Started

In many cases, the wealthiest towns started off as sparsely populated farm villages. Then after the railroad came and the Civil War ended, rich people started building country estates on them. Then the estates fell to the income tax and the Great Depression. So when World War II ended, real estate developers pounced on some of these rural enclaves and turned them into suburbs.

In two other cases — New Hampshire and Vermont — the wealthiest towns evolved from historic, well-preserved colonial villages.

Several different statistics can measure a town’s wealth, but we chose per capita income.

Here, then, are the wealthiest towns in each of the six New England states.

New Canaan, Conn.

The famous Glass House was built in one of Connecticut’s wealthiest towns.

Bet you thought it was Old Greenwich, right? But New Canaan has the highest per capita income, $99,016, in the wealthiest county in the wealthiest state in the union. Greenwich at $91,478 and Darien, at $94,376, came in as Connecticut’s second and third wealthiest towns, according to the Connecticut 2014-15 Adjusted Equalized Net Grand List per Capita.

New Canaan started out as a Congregationalist parish in 1731, and didn’t get incorporated until 1801. After the American Revolution, shoemaking took off in the town. Then in 1868, the railroad came to New Canaan, bringing wealthy New Yorkers looking for a country retreat. Lewis Lapham, founder of Texaco, built Waveny House and summered on the estate for many years.

The New Yorkers began to stay year-round, commuting to work in the city. In the 1890s, New Canaan earned the nickname ‘Next Station to Heaven,’ though detractors call it the ‘Next Station to Hell.’ In 1980, The Official Preppy Handbook listed New Canaan as one of the preppiest towns in America.

Like most of New England’s wealthiest towns, New Canaan has preserved some of its colonial buildings. But the town has an unusual concentration of mid-century modern homes, such as Philip Johnson’s Glass House. A group of modern architects known as the Harvard Five lived and worked in New Canaan, all followers of Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius.

Not everyone loved the modern homes. Of the 80 or so built between 1940 and 1960, about 20 have been torn down. The town now tries to preserve them. You can see many of them in the 1997 film The Ice Storm.

Rick Moody, who wrote The Ice Storm, lived in New Canaan. Today, the town’s 20,000-odd residents include quite a few show people, including Martin Mull, Paul Simon, Harry Connick, Jr., Mike Wallace and Brian Williams.

Cape Elizabeth, Maine

A John Calvin Stevens house in Cape Elizabeth, one of Maine’s wealthiest towns. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Cape Elizabeth actually has a lower per capita income than North Oxford, Maine. But North Oxford is technically an unorganized territory and had only 17 residents in 2000, so we’re sticking with the seaside town of Cape Elizabeth.

King Charles I renamed Cape Elizabeth after his sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, when explorer John Smith brought him a list of North American places with native names. Anglican traders and fisherman came to the frontier village, which for decades was embroiled in the French and Indian wars.

In 1765, Cape Elizabeth separated from Falmouth (now Portland).Then in 1895 South Portland separated from Cape Elizabeth. The two towns had diverged in character: Cape Elizabeth remained rural, while South Portland grew with commerce and industry. Then, following the typical pattern, wealthy industrialists found the pretty countryside near the city a perfect place to build their estates. And after World War II, Cape Elizabeth turned into an affluent suburb.

Per capita income in Cape Elizabeth, population about 9,000, was $57,725 in 2016.

You’ve seen pictures of Cape Elizabeth’s most famous landmark, Portland Head Light. The town also has a number of Shingle Style houses designed by John Calvin Stevens. Two film icons lived in town: director John Ford was born there and Bette Davis had a summer home in Cape Elizabeth.

Weston, Mass.

The Henderson House, a private home in one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts.

Ever wonder where all those athletes with the astronomical contracts go to live? Try Weston, Mass., the wealthiest town in Massachusetts.

Weston was little more than a field for grazing cattle until its incorporation as a town in 1712. Since the town lies along the Boston Post Road, taverns thrived serving travelers. Two still stand today as historic properties — along with one local historic district, 10 National Register districts, 26 historic areas, and seven houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The railroad brought small factories to Weston, and then it brought business moguls who liked the quick train ride from Boston. They began building large estates on land unsuitable for farming.

In 1927, a wool tycoon built Henderson House, the last great summer estate in Weston. About a dozen more huge estates survive, and rich people are building new ones. Hedge fund manager Jim Pallotta in 2007 built a 27,000-square-foot mansion nicknamed ‘the house that ate Weston.’

Weston boomed after World War II. More than half of the town’s increasingly expensive houses were built between 1950 and 1979. By 2017 the population reached 11,389. Today the median home price is about $1.5 million and the per capita income $105,217.

Five of the 50 richest people in Massachusetts live in Weston, and so do some of New England’s most beloved sports heroes: Celtics M.L. Carr, John Havlicek and Robert Parish. Bruins legend Bobby Orr lives in Weston, as do two former Red Sox players, David Ortiz and Jerry Remy.

New Castle, N.H.

https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wealthiest-towns-new-castle-wentworth.jpg

Wentworth-By-The-Sea today presides over one of New Hampshire’s wealthiest towns.

Tiny New Castle, a collection of island on New Hampshire’s seacoast, started out in 1623 as a fishing village. Within the next decade the British built a fort to protect the harbor. The state incorporated New Castle in 1683 and named it after the fort, now a historic landmark known as Fort Constitution.

For many years, the world overlooked the fishing village squeezed onto several small islands covering just .8 miles. That neglect preserved many of New Castle’s colonial-era homes. The town’s residents, 968 in 2010, have restored and preserved many of those houses.

In 1821, bridges connected New Castle to Portsmouth on the mainland. Then in 1874, the town got a huge boost with the construction of the grand hotel, Wentworth-By-The-Sea. The largest structure on New Hampshire’s 18-mile coast, it attracted famous socialites, politicians and business leaders from around the world. At the height of its glory, Wentworth-By-The-Sea accommodated negotiators for the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended war between Japan and Russia in 1905.

Wentworth-By-The-Sea began to decline with the rise of the automobile, but New Castle’s fortunes continued to rise. Per capita income tops the state at $97,601, according to the 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-year estimates.

Local preservationists saved Wentworth-By-The-Sea from the wrecking ball in 1997 by finding a new owner, Ocean Properties. By 2003, the restored hotel opened as a Marriott hotel property.

Barrington, R.I.

A town hall that’s appropriate for one of Rhode Island’s wealthiest towns.

You’d probably guess Newport as the wealthiest town in Rhode Island because of its famous Gilded Age mansions. But you’d be wrong. Barrington, just southeast of Providence, actually has the highest per capita income in the state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012-2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. Per capita income for Barrington was $59,464. Newport wasn’t even second. That honor belongs to Jamestown, just west of Newport.

Congregationalist Separatists founded Barrington in 1717, and for many years it remained a farm community. Then brickmaking companies moved into town, employing many French-Canadians and Italians. After World War II, the flight from the city began to transform Barrington into a bedroom suburb.

The population more than doubled between 1950 and 1960. In 2015, 16,240 people lived in Barrington. Spalding Gray, Sean Spicer and Roger Angell came from Barrington.

Like most of the wealthiest towns in New England, Barrington has preserved its history in nine historic districts and claims to have excellent schools.

Old Bennington, Vt.

The Old First Church of Old Bennington, one of Vermont’s wealthiest towns.

Old Bennington, an incorporated village inside Bennington, is not only the wealthiest town in Vermont, it’s possibly the most historic.

In 2010, Old Bennington’s per capita income topped Vermont’s list at $40,884, putting it ahead of Manchester Village by $33. Only 139 people lived in Old Bennington that year, which means one wealthy resident could have skewed the per-capita income figures upward — or downward.

However, Old Bennington’s many large, expensively restored Revolutionary-era homes, suggest most Old Benningtonians are comfortably fixed.

New Hampshire Gov. Benning Wentworth chartered Bennington (and named it after himself) in 1749, making it one of the oldest as well as wealthiest towns in the state. Vermont law later created the incorporated village, a defined area within a town. Vermont’s incorporated villages can provide some municipal services like drinking water, sewer systems, police, fire, trash collection and building code enforcement.

Its historic district includes 93 buildings and objects, including the Battle of Bennington Monument and the Old First Church, named Vermont’s ‘colonial shrine’ by the Legislature. Robert Frost and his wife Elinor are buried behind the church, along with 75 Revolutionary War soldiers who died in the Battle of Bennington. A stone near the cemetery marks the spot where Ethan Allen’s house once stood.

Images: Glass House, By Staib – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7797606; Peirce-Henderson House in Weston, By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15922502; Old First Church By Nheyob – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16986574. Canaan Main Street By Jerry Dougherty – http://public.fotki.com/gcdougherty/all-towns-and-cities/north_canaan_ct/canaanvillagemainst-3.html, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74545267.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Rhode Island’s Abraham Whipple Sails to Bermuda for George Washington

In June of 1775, with the Battle of Bunker Hill over, George Washington badly needed gunpowder. Rhode Island’s Abraham Whipple accepted a secret mission to Bermuda to get it.

Some 112 barrels of gunpowder were stored in the royal magazine near the government house at St. George in Bermuda, itself a British colony. The magazine had little security.

Commodore Abraham Whipple, by Edward Savage, 1786. USA Dept of the Navy, Naval Historical Center

Many in Bermuda disliked the British government as much as their American cousins did. They especially despised restrictions on trade. And Washington thought the colonies might turn this to their advantage. He wrote to Rhode Island’s Nicholas Cooke, elected governor after Rhode Island declared its independence.

“One Harris is lately come from Bermuda, where there is a very considerable magazine of powder in a remote part of the island,” he wrote to Cooke. The inhabitants, he wrote, were “well disposed not only to our cause in general, but to assist in this enterprise in particular,”

He suggested Cooke send one of Rhode Island’s two armed vessels to retrieve the gunpowder.

“I am very sensible that at first view this project may appear hazardous, and its success must depend upon the concurrence of many circumstances,” he wrote. “But we are in a situation which requires us to run all risks.”

Abraham Whipple to Bermuda

Cooke and the Rhode Island assembly turned to Abraham Whipple to pull off the raid. Whipple had served as a naval commander in the French and Indian Wars. He had also led the group of Rhode Islanders who burned the British ship Gaspee in protest in 1772.

Cooke informed Washington in September that the ship, Katy, could make the trip to Bermuda. “Capt. Abraham Whipple . . . hath been very ill, but is now upon the Recovery, (he) hath been consulted, and will undertake the enterprise as soon as his health will permit.”

Washington cautioned Bermuda should not be expected to openly support the colonies in rebellion. “There is a great difference between acquiescing in the measure, and becoming principals,” he wrote. “The former we have great reason to expect, the latter is doubtful.”

To help Whipple in negotiating with the Bermudans, Washington gave the captain a letter to the people of Bermuda that he could show if needed. It said:

“We would not wish to involve you in an opposition in which from your situation we should be unable to support you, we know not therefore to what extent to solicit your assistance in availing ourselves of this supply,” he wrote.

[B]ut, he wrote, “if your favor and friendship to North America and its liberties have not been misrepresented I persuade myself you may consistent with your own safety promote and favor this scheme so as to give it the fairest prospect of success.”

Washington then assured the people he would use all his power to influence the Continental Congress. He pledged to persuade the Congress to supply provisions and to show “every other mark of affection and friendship.”

In Search of Powder

On Sept. 12, 1775, Abraham Whipple sailed for Bermuda. He had orders to take away the gunpowder without any communication with the inhabitants of Bermuda, if possible. Washington, a military commander, did not want to get involved in international politics. Whipple could use Washington’s letter in bargaining, if necessary.

When Whipple arrived in Bermuda, the islanders panicked because they mistook his ship for a British warship. But when he landed and told the local people of his mission, they welcomed him. He did not, however, collect any powder. Someone had already taken it.

Capt. George Ord of Pennsylvania had arrived in Bermuda just a few days ahead of Whipple. He had taken the powder away with him on his vessel The Lady Catherine. Supportive Bermudans had helped load the powder and pack it off to America. As Whipple dined with his Bermuda hosts, the powder had already reached Philadelphia.

Fearing Starvation

Bermuda could not produce enough food to survive without trade. The island feared it might starve under British constraints on its trading partners.

In July, John Adams had reported to the Continental Congress that he knew Bermuda might agree to send its powder to America. But America had to allow it to continue trading for food and other goods.

The Congress therefore passed a law allowing foreign trade with friendly nations to continue during the war.

Abraham Whipple Returns Empty-Handed

Whipple then returned to Rhode Island empty-handed on October 20th and returned Washington’s letter. He had not needed it.

Abraham Whipple would later travel to France to acquire supplies for the war. Then as a privateer, he captured the British Jamaica fleet off the coast of Newfoundland. That prize would rank as one of the richest of the war.

Whipple then took charge of the American and French naval forces at the port of Charleston, S.C. The British captured him on May 12, 1780 following the siege of Charleston. The British held him at Chester, Pennsylvania, for the remainder of the war.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Joseph Orono, The Blue Eyed Indian Who Helped the Revolutionary Cause

The Penobscot sachem Joseph Orono died in 1801, too early to know about his consolation prize for losing his people’s land to white settlers.

He lived plenty long, though. He was said to have been born in 1688, which made him 113 when he died in 1801. If that’s true, Joseph Orono lived through every one of the French and Indian Wars as well as the American Revolution, in which he participated

A Penobscot chief

Five years after his death, Orono, Maine named itself after him. He probably would have preferred the land along the Penobscot River promised him, and then taken.

Joseph Orono

Historical accounts agree that Joseph Orono had reddish hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. He spoke fluent French, English and Penobscot.

Accounts disagree about his lineage. Some say he had some relation to Baron de Castine, a French nobleman who married an Indian. (Castine also had a town named after him in Maine.) Perhaps Orono was Castine’s son-in-law, or grandson.

Joseph Orono himself said his father was French, and his mother half French, half Indian. A devout Catholic, he believed the Indians had suffered from war, and advocated peace. White people viewed him favorably, and described him as able, friendly and sagacious.

Revolution

In 1775, Joseph Orono and three other Penobscot chiefs went to air their grievances to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, as Maine then belonged to that colony. The Indian delegation stopped in Falmouth, now Portland, where the people gave them money, horses and a carriage to help them on their journey.

Two days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, they arrived in Watertown, Mass., where the Provincial Congress then met. It included Sam Adams, John Hancock and Joseph Warren.

On June 21, 1775, Joseph Orono addressed the Provincial Congress on behalf of the whole Penobscot tribe. As he spoke, the men inside could hear the groans of the soldiers dying of their battle wounds.

Orono said that if the Congress took care of his people’s grievances, the Penobscots would aid the rebels with their whole force. Those grievances consisted chiefly of trespasses by the whites upon their timber lands and cheating them in trade.

The committee responded warmly, and said the Indians’ complaints would receive their attention as soon as they could take a breath from the Revolution. Eventually, Massachusetts signed a treaty giving six miles of land on each side of the Penobscot river to the Indians.

Frigates

In 1779, the British built a fort in what is now Castine. Joseph Orono communicated intelligence about their activities to the patriots. Massachusetts then sent the Penobscot Expedition to Castine, and the Penobscot Indians fought with them. Whether Joseph Orono actually fought is unclear; he would have been 91.

The British routed the Americans in the worst naval disaster until Pearl Harbor. But Joseph Orono continued to help the cause, communicating intelligence to patriots in Machias and Halifax.

In 1780, Joseph Orono earned his Indian nickname, K’tolaqu. It means ‘frigate.’

Orono went to Newport, R.I., where French forces had landed before marching to Yorktown. His mission: to request a Catholic priest from the French consul. But he was so amazed by the French frigates in the harbor that he couldn’t stop talking about them afterword.

Island Life

Joseph Orono had often stayed and hunted with a friend on Deer Isle, a white settler named Seth Webb. After he broke with other Penobscots in 1783, he moved a small group of his people to White Island, off Deer Isle.

Penobscot wigwams

They established a little village with a Franciscan missionary, a Catholic chapel and wigwams. But they couldn’t live in peace there, either. In 1786, Joseph Orono complained to Massachusetts Commissioner Benjamin Lincoln, once a member of the Provincial Congress. People were chopping down his trees and burning the wigwams, he said.

A decade later, Massachusetts reneged on its deal to deed the land along the Penobscot River to Orono’s people. All they had left was the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation.

Penobscot Indian reservation, ca. 1940s

Five years after Joseph Orono died, white settlers near the Indian reservation incorporated, naming the town Orono. Today, the University of Maine has its main campus there. An island in Penobscot Bay also bears his name.

In May 2018, the University of Maine and the Penobscot Nation were scheduled to signed an agreement ‘formalizing their collaborations in the past decade to help manage the tribe’s cultural heritage.’

With thanks to Canoe Indians of Down East Maine, by Bill Haviland. This story about the Penobscot chief Joseph Orono was updated in 2022.

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River Gods of the Connecticut River Valley Create A World of Their Own

During the 150 years before the American Revolution, a series of aristocrats known as the River Gods ruled the Connecticut River Valley.

Their domain had its own economy and culture, which eventually resembled England more than settlements to the east or the west. The River Gods owned vast farms and shipyards, traded with the West Indies and fed the coastal cities with their produce and meat.

They supported a large class of artisans who fed their thirst for status by building large houses with elaborate doorways. The craftsmen filled the River Gods’ houses with fine furniture, paintings, textiles and ceramics. When they died, elaborate headstones marked their graves to show their prominence in life.

John Adams, on a visit to Middletown, Conn., in 1771, rhapsodized about Connecticut River Valley. “When I first opened into the Town which was upon the Top of a Hill, there opened before me the most beautiful Prospect of the River, and the intervals and Improvements on each Side of it,” he wrote. “…[A]nd on the right Hand is a fine level Tract of Land as rich as the Soil of Egypt.”

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow (1836) by Thomas ColeView from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow (1836) by Thomas Cole

The River Gods

Many of the River Gods already had standing and wealth when they arrived in the Connecticut River Valley. William Pynchon, the first of the River Gods, came to Massachusetts in 1630 as a prominent member of John Winthrop’s party. He owned a plantation in Roxbury, Mass., originally ‘Rocksbury’ because of the stony soil.

Pynchon didn’t like farming among rocks, so in 1636 he moved west and founded Springfield on the boulder-free meadows on the Connecticut River banks.

He started a naming trend that described the grassy meadows that attracted more settlers: Enfield, Bloomfield, Longmeadow, Hatfield and Greenfield.

Pynchon probably heard about the River Valley’s fertile open lands from Edward Winslow of Plimoth Plantation. Indians had come to Plimoth and Boston in 1631 to hype the Connecticut River to the Puritans. The Indians wanted to trade with the English settlers, and they viewed the English as potential allies against the Pequots.

Edward Winslow

Intrigued, Edward Winslow visited in 1632 to check out the Indians’ claims, and wrote a report about the Valley.

Other families followed William Pynchon to the lower part of the Connecticut River. When the new settlers divided up land, they did it according to status and wealth. The wealthiest 10 percent along the Connecticut River got between 30 and 40 percent of the land. The poorest 50 percent got 10 to 20 percent of the land. (By today’s standards, that level of equality is remarkable).

Prosperity

Agriculture flourished in the red sandstone-based soil, unique to New England. The River Gods produced more than enough for themselves, so they sold the surplus to Boston at a high profit. They came to dominate local business and politics, ran the local militias and chose the ministers.

Pynchon, for example, owned a quarter of the land, a grist mill and the town’s store. He chose the town’s minister, traded furs and shipped surplus produce and livestock down the river. He and his son ran what became Hampshire County like a colony within a colony.

William Pynchon

In addition to the Pynchons, the River Gods who came to dominate the Massachusetts river towns in Hampshire County included Ashleys, Dwights, Partridges, Porters and Williamses. Some of the more prominent River Gods in Massachusetts:

Oliver Partridge, born in Hatfield (1712-1792). Military commander, congressman and patriot.
Timothy (1752-1817) and Theodore Dwight (1764-1846). Both born in Northampton. Timothy IV was a minister, author and president of Yale. Theodore was a journalist, editor of the Hartford Mirror and the New York Daily Advertiser.
Ephraim Williams, Jr., born in Newton (1715-1755). Later moved to Stockbridge. Soldier and benefactor of Williams College.

Springfield originally belonged to Connecticut, but Pynchon managed to move it to Massachusetts after a dispute with Connecticut’s leaders. In his absence, River Gods in Connecticut emerged as families of merchants and ministers that intermarried. They included Allyns, Chesters, Hamlins, Pitkins, Talcotts, Welleses and Wolcotts. A few of the best known Connecticut River Gods:

Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797), born in Windsor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, congressman, governor and general under George Washington.
Joseph Talcott (1669-1741), born in Hartford, governor of the Connecticut Colony.
Thomas Welles (1594-1660), born in England, moved to Wethersfield, governor, deputy governor, treasurer and secretary of the Connecticut Colony.

Peace

Wars between the French and Indians limited the settlement of Connecticut River towns in parts of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and even in Connecticut.

Between 1675 and 1678, for example, King Philip’s War wiped out Deerfield and Northfield in Massachusetts, and Suffield and Simsbury in Connecticut. After that, Indians frequently raided many of the surviving Massachusetts river towns.

It wasn’t until the French and Indian wars ended in 1763 that settlers established towns in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Once they did, the towns grew quickly.

The Industrial Revolution was underway, and waterpower became an important reason to settle. The River Gods prospered from the Caribbean trade and shipbuilding. In fact, Connecticut River shipyards built more than 4,000 vessels in the 19^th century.

The farmers began to specialize. Wethersfield, Conn., for example, specialized in onions. Hadley, Hatfield and Deerfield concentrated on livestock. The River Gods of Glastonbury, Hartford and Windsor grew tobacco. And Enfield, Suffield, Longmeadow and Northampton grew so much wheat they earned the designation of New England’s first wheat belt.

More Like England

Lady Williams and Child, by Ralph Earl, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By 1771, the road from Windsor, Conn., to Hartford was settled like one continuous street, noted John Adams. A traveler named Samuel Davis wrote in 1789 that the churches in Suffield had steeples, unlike the ones between the coast and the Connecticut River. He noted the larger houses – the ones belonging to the River Gods – had been painted.

After the American Revolution, travelers noted the valley resembled England more than any other part of the country.

But the River Gods created their own unique culture, filling their houses with clocks and paintings, richly hung beds, upholstered chairs, mirrors and silver. They hired artisans to produce elaborate doorways, vine-and-leaf carved chests (known as Hadley chests), decorated board chests, baroque-style iron door latches and portraits in the style of Ralph Earl.

The River Gods, though, didn’t take on an identity the way the Boston Brahmins did. Part of that had to do with the political division of the Connecticut River Valley. To the south, the boundary between Connecticut and Massachusetts divided the River Gods. To the north, the river itself divided New Hampshire and Vermont.

A Common Character?

Timothy Dwight, one of the Massachusetts River Gods

In 1806, Yale president Timothy Dwight visited the Connecticut River Valley on horseback. “The inhabitants of this valley … possess a common character, and in all the different states resemble each other more than their fellow citizens who live on the coast resemble them,” he wrote.

At the time, however, the local culture was on the wane, wrote William Hosley, Jr., in his introduction to The Great River, Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, published in 1985 to commemorate the 350^th anniversary of the settlement of the Connecticut River Valley.

“Regional culture may have been more apparent in its decline than while it flourished,” wrote Hosley.

Images: Dwight House By Historic-Deerfield – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17941799

With thanks to The Great River, Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, published by the Wadsworth Athenaeum. This story was updated in 2023.

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Susannah Johnson, Indian Captive, Gives Birth in the Wild and Commemorates the Spot 45 Years Later

In August 1754, Susannah Johnson gave birth to a daughter in the Vermont wilderness during a forced march by her Indian captors.

The French and Indian War had started, and childbirth in the woods was only the beginning of her ordeal. Hunger, fatigue, fear and pain accompanied her on her march to an Indian village. The Indians sold her into slavery to the French, who eventually put her and her family into a Montreal prison. To return to her home in Charlestown, N.H., Susannah Johnson had to sail to England first.

Forty-five years later, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to create two stone markers. She had them placed on the exact spot where she bore her daughter Captive and where they spent the night.

The markers still stand, though only near their original location. People know them as the Vermont Indian stones.

Susannah Johnson

Susannah Johnson was born Feb. 20, 1729 or 1730, in Lunenberg, Mass., one of 12 children to Moses and Susanna Hastings Willard. She was descended from Maj. Simon Willard, who founded Concord, Mass., and Thomas Hastings, who immigrated to America in the Puritan Great Migration.

Old Fort No. 4

At the age of 14 she moved to Charlestown with her family. The New Hampshire settlement amounted to little more than a fort, a saw mill and a cluster of huts for about 10 families.

Susannah Johnson’s step-uncles settled Charlestown, but Indians killed one of them during King George’s War, the third of the four French and Indian Wars.

When still in her teens, she married James Johnson in Lunenberg, Mass.

James Johnson

Her new husband had already spent much of his life in captivity – but to the British. As a 10-year-old boy he went to sea with his uncle, a ship captain. His uncle died on the voyage, and the crew sold him to a ship taking Irish slaves to America.

When the ship landed in Boston, the boys were allowed to play on the wharf. Susannah Johnson’s great-uncle happened to walk by them, and he noticed young James Johnson, the only boy who spoke English. The great-uncle bought his indenture.

At the age of 20, James Johnson bought his freedom and obtained a lieutenant’s commission. He married Susannah Willard, and they moved to the northernmost British settlement on the Connecticut River. Known then as Fort at Number 4, it is now called Charlestown, N.H.

Charlestown

During the peaceful years between the third and fourth French and Indian wars, Charlestown doubled in size. James Johnson did some farming and traded with the Indians.

An Abenaki couple

By May of 1754, James and Susannah Johnson had three children. That spring, he decided to go to Connecticut on a trading trip. In Connecticut he learned about an imminent war with the French and Indians, but he didn’t think Charlestown was in any immediate danger.

When James Johnson returned home in late August, neighbors came over to celebrate his return. They ate watermelons, drank flip, made merry and stayed in the Johnsons’ log house until midnight. When the neighbors left, the Johnsons went to bed and slept soundly.

Susannah was in the last days of pregnancy, happy her husband had returned.

The Indian Attack

Just before sunrise on Aug. 30, 1754, the Johnsons’ neighbor Peter Labarree knocked at the door. James Johnson got out of bed and put on his clothes to let him in.

Susannah Johnson heard him open the door and then shout “Indians! Indians!” He went to grab his gun, but a crowd of Indians burst in. Some hauled her 14-year-old sister out of bed, another grabbed Susannah and four Indians tied up her husband.

The Indians led her to the door, fainting and trembling, then brought her three naked children to her. She realized she herself had no clothes on. An Indian gave her a gown. She asked for a petticoat, but he refused.

The Indians took some plunder, bundled it up quickly then ordered them to march. Two Indians grabbed her arms and hurried her through thorny thickets. She lost a shoe.

They walked for a little while until they heard alarm guns from the fort. That hurried the Indians. After walking a mile and a half, Susannah Johnson grew faint and sat down. An Indian drew his knife; she thought he meant to kill her, but he just loosened her dress.

Baby Captive

Image of Susannah Johnson giving birth

The marching party included 11 Abenaki Indians, who understood little English. Also included: James and Susannah Johnson, their son Sylvanus, 6, daughters Susanna, 4, and Polly 2, Susannah’s sister Miriam, 14, neighbor Peter Labbaree and Ebenezer Farnsworth, a hired hand.

Hours after they set out, Indians noticed the blood covering Susannah’s legs and feet, cut badly because she had lost her shoe. They gave her moccasins. Then they caught a stray horse, threw bags and blankets on top of him and put her on top.

They walked another eight miles or so before sleeping on the ground. On the next day’s march, Susannah Johnson sat on the horse, her husband walking next to her holding her on.

After about an hour, she went into labor. The Indians indicated they must go to a brook.

She later wrote of her distress. She was

…fifteen or twenty miles from the abode of any civilized being, in the open wilderness, rendered cold by a rainy day–in one of the most perilous hours, and unsupplied with the least necessary, that could yield convenience in the hazardous moment. My children were crying at a distance, where they were held by their masters, and only my husband and sister to attend me.

Though the Indians remained aloof during her delivery, ‘they shewed some humanity,”

They built a small hut to shelter her, and at 10 am, she gave birth to a daughter, named Captive. The Indians expressed pleasure that they had another prisoner to sell.

More Misery

Captivity narrative by Susannah Johnson

The Indians let her rest during the day and made her a hut to sleep in at night. For two more days they marched on in glum silence and unvarying fatigue. On Day 5 they reached the banks of Lake Champlain, where they shot the horse she rode and ate it.

She couldn’t walk. Her husband had to carry her, which nearly killed them both.

“Inevitable death, in the midst of woods, one hundred miles wide, appeared my only portion,” she wrote.

They marched for four more days. At every meal, the Indians shared with them equally, and more than once they gave her a blanket, to shelter her from a thunderstorm.

On day 9 they reached East Bay in Lake Champlain. There, two Indians met them in four canoes, and they paddled all night to reach the western shore. The Indians built a fire and made the prisoners dance.

Again they embarked in canoes, and arrived at the French fort Crown Point at noon. The Indians took the prisoners to the French commander’s home. He gave them brandy, a good dinner, a change of linen and he put them up for four days. Susannah Johnson had a nurse, who dressed her infant in a French outfit she described as fantastical. Captive kept the outfit her whole life.

The Rest of the Story

They traveled north by water from French garrison to French garrison. Finally they arrived in St. Francis near Montreal, a village of about 30 wigwams and a Catholic church where a French friar said daily Mass.

Sylvanus went hunting with the Indians. Susannah Johnson wouldn’t see him again for years. The Indians put her in a large wigwam with three Indian men and three women. They took James Johnson to Montreal to sell him. Her daughters, her sister Miriam and Peter Labarree soon followed. In November, so did she.

After 11 days of travel she found her husband, children and friends in Montreal. Respectable people had bought them all and treated them well, except for the mayor, who treated her small daughter Polly badly.

James Johnson got two months’ parole to go to New England to raise cash to redeem his family. Massachusetts gave him 10 pounds and New Hampshire 150, but then the Massachusetts governor told him he had to stay.

When he didn’t return after two months, Susannah’s masters started to treat her badly. Finally James Johnson did return, only to be incarcerated with his family in a criminal jail. They were prisoners of war.

Susannah Johnson described conditions in the jail as shocking. The family all got smallpox, but survived.

Freedom

The Indian Stones, near the spot where Susannah Johnson gave birth

After six months the Johnsons persuaded the French authorities to transfer them to a civil jail. There they had decent beds, candles, food and fuel.

In the spring of 1757 they petitioned for their freedom, and got it. She found passage to England and from there she hoped to return home. Her husband had to stay behind. She, her two little daughters and her sister sailed for Plymouth, then went to Portsmouth. They then sailed to Cork. Then to New York, three years, three months and 11 days after her capture.

On Jan. 1, 1758 she embraced James Johnson, her ‘dearest friend’ in Charlestown. Charlestown had suffered from the war, so the family went to Lancaster. Her husband won a captain’s commission.

Captivity, slavery and imprisonment hadn’t killed James Johnson. But shortly after he won his freedom, he died fighting the French and Indians at Ticonderoga.

In October 1758, Susannah Johnson tracked down her son, now 11, who didn’t know her and spoke only broken English. He knew perfect Abenaki, however, after living with the Indians for three years.

Susannah Johnson eventually remarried and had more children. She published a book about her captivity in 1796, when captivity narratives had become a popular literary genre. Hers was no exception.

Indian Stones

In 1799, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to engrave two slate slabs. One said,

On the 31 st of August 1754, Capt James Johnson had / a Daughter born on this Spot of Ground, being / Captivated with his whole Family by the Indians.

The other said,

This is near the Spot that the Indians Encamp/ the Night after they took Mr Johnson’s Family, / Mr Labarree & Farnsworth, August 30th 1754, and / Mrs Johnson was Delivered of her Child Half a mile up this Brook; // When troubles near the Lord is- kind, / He hears the Captives crys. / He can subdue the Savage mind, / And learn it sympathy.

She had the stone slabs placed on the spot where she gave birth to Captive, and the other near the place where they slept that night. In 1918, the stone markers were mounted on a single slab. You can still visit them.

Susannah Johnson died November 27, 1810.

To read her entire story, click here.

Elizabeth George based her young adult novel Calico Captive on Susannah Johnson’s story. You can find the Indian Stones at a small roadside pullout in southern Reading, Vt., on the east side of Route 106 at its junction with Knapp Brook Road.

Images: Stone marker with steps, By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713735; small stone Indian stone By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713733