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Myles Standish

John Billington Gets Lost: A Window to Plymouth Colony’s Early History

In the summer of 1621, the Plymouth colonists finally had reason for optimism — until 16-year-old John Billington wandered off and got lost in the woods.

While we commemorate 1620 as the year of the Mayflower, in 1621 many of the key events occurred that led to the survival and success of Plymouth Colony. It was the “make or break” year in modern parlance. In March, the colonists made a peace agreement with Massasoit, the sachem and leader of the Wampanoag confederation. Then in June, colonists Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins traveled to Pokanoket to solidify the agreement. The harsh winter that had claimed the lives of one-half of the Mayflower passengers had also ended. Work was also well underway to plant crops and build the settlement at Plymouth.

Landing of the Pilgrims by Currier & Ives

Then, the unexpected occurred. At some point in June or July (the primary sources differ on the date), young John Billington got lost.

John Billington, Jr.

Billington wandered for five days before stumbling into the Wampanoag sachemship of Manomet, just south of Plymouth. The sachem Canacum delivered the boy to Aspinet, the sachem at Nauset on the elbow of Cape Cod. Then he notified Massasoit, who notified Gov. William Bradford of John’s whereabouts. Bradford then directed a party of 10 colonists (about one-half of the colony’s adult male population at the time) to travel by boat to Nauset to recover the boy. Squanto joined them as a guide and interpreter. Tokamahamom, who Winslow described as a special friend, came along, too.

After a stop at Cummaquid (present day Barnstable), the recovery party arrived in Nauset. Nauset warriors presented them with the boy “behung with beads.” They returned to Plymouth, mission accomplished.

Edward Winslow

More Than Meets The Eye

The story stands by itself as a tale of the recovery of a lost boy. However, a deeper look reveals several threads of historical significance. Those threads shed considerable light on the events of 1621 so critical to the survival of Plymouth Colony.

When the Pilgrims learned that John had been sent to Nauset, it must have given them great pause. There the Nausets had attacked a Mayflower exploratory party on a beach in present-day Eastham about seven months earlier. Furthermore, Samoset, an emissary sent by Massasoit, advised them of the Nausets’ great animosity toward the English.

The nefarious deeds of Capt, Thomas Hunt in 1614 caused their antipathy. He had kidnapped seven Indians from Nauset along with 20 from Patuxet (Squanto among them) to sell into slavery in Spain. If that weren’t enough, the Pilgrims would have known, or strongly suspected, that their earlier theft of corn had been detected. The recovery party must have felt great trepidation when it set out in the shallop for Nauset.

After departing Plymouth, the recovery party sailed into present day Barnstable Harbor to escape a storm. The next morning, they saw two natives on the beach looking for shellfish. The party sent its two native interpreters ashore to inquire as to the status of the boy, and were told that he was well and at Nauset. The Cummaquid natives then invited the party ashore. They took them to their sachem Iyanough, who they found very friendly and agreeable. In fact, Iyanough joined the recovery party and travelled with them to Nauset to assist.

Statue of Iyanough in Hyannis

History Comes Back to Haunt

While at Cummaquid, the Pilgrims received a poignant reminder of the deep wounds that Capt. Thomas Hunt inflicted with his 1614 kidnappings. In the words of Edward Winslow in Mourt’s Relation:

One thing was very grievous unto us at this place. There was an old woman, whom we judged to be no less than a hundred years old, which came to see us because she never saw English, yet could not behold us without breaking forth into great passion, weeping and crying excessively. We demanding the reason of it, they told us that she had three sons who, when Master Hunt was in these parts, went abroad his ship to trade with him, and he carried them captives into Spain by which means she was deprived of the comfort of her children in her old age.

We told them we were sorry that any Englishman should give them that offense, that Hunt was a bad man, and that all the English that had heard of it condemned him for the same; but for us, we would not offer them any such injury though it would gain us all the skins in the country. So we gave her some small trifles, which somewhat appeased her.

While the receptiveness and hospitality of Iyanough and his tribe was reassuring, this reminder from the old woman of the animosity of the Nausets must have heightened the Pilgrims’ anxiety as they continued on their mission.

Map of Southern New England, 1620-22

John Billington Recovered

Upon their arrival at Nauset, Iyanough and Squanto went ashore to inform Aspinet of the reason for their visit. Then the Indians came to the shore. In Winslow’s words, they were “very thick amongst us, and were earnest with us to bring in our boat.” The Pilgrims hesitated. According to Winslow, “because we had least cause to trust them, being they only had formerly made an assault upon us in the same place, in time of our winter discovery for habitation.”

When their boat came aground on the tidal flats, a large group of Indians approached. The Pilgrims allowed two to board. One was the man who owned the corn that the Pilgrims had taken during their explorations of Cape Cod. The Pilgrims agreed to repay the debt, which ameliorated the Nausets’ animosity over the theft.. Thus, the recovery of John Billington resolved a major point of contention between the Nausets and the colonists.

After sunset, Aspinet appeared with a party of about 100 warriors through the water. One bore the Billington boy “behung with beads.” Aspinet and about half of his party, unarmed, approached the shallop while the remainder stood by with bows ready. John was returned to the Pilgrims, and a peace agreement was made with Aspinet, thus extending the agreement made with Massasoit in March. Notably, relations between the Pilgrims and the Cape Cod tribes remained peaceful, even throughout King Philip’s War later on.

Questions About The Episode

Like many episodes in history, this one has some loose ends. While the story resonates with positive and improving relations between the Wampanoags and the Plymouth colonists, there is also some potentially conflicting evidence. When Billington came into the Indian village at Manomet, why didn’t the sachem Canacum return him directly to Plymouth, or at least to Massasoit? Why send him to Nauset, the site of much animosity toward the colonists? Historians have wrestled with this question.

Perhaps Massasoit’s leadership was not quite as dominant as he had led the Pilgrims to believe. His decision to pursue peaceful relations with the new settlers did not sit well with all of the tribes. The Billington incident may reflect this. Moreover, the great plague had dramatically altered the balance of power among the tribes. The Nausets appear to have survived that ordeal with far fewer losses. The 100 warriors who accompanied Aspinet to greet the recovery party at Nauset was larger than Massasoit’s 60 warriors at Pokanoket. Canacum’s decision to send the boy to the Nausets may have been a deferral to a more powerful neighbor.

forefathers-day-massasoit-statue-plymouth

Statue of Massasoit in Plymouth

Silence on John Billington

The historical record is silent on the kinds of communications, if any, took place between the various tribes on this matter, as well as on the motivations of the various actors. The Indians did not have a written language, and the English accounts that have survived were written from their perspective and from the limited knowledge that they had. Notwithstanding this, it can be reasonably concluded that the end result of this story represents a net positive result on the relations between the Wampanoags and the colonists, particularly on Cape Cod.

No account of the Billington recovery would be complete without some background on the infamous Billington family. Young John travelled on the Mayflower with his father, John Sr., his mother Ellen, and his younger brother Francis. They were not members of the separatist Leiden congregation, but were among the “strangers” placed on the voyage by the backers of the voyage to help insure the financial viability of the endeavor. The family was problematic from the start.

Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

A Troublesome Family

It has been proposed that John Billington, Sr., was one of the “mutinous voices” that Bradford described which led to the Mayflower Compact. In March of 1621, Billington Sr. was tried and convicted for refusing a lawful order from Captain Standish to perform sentry duty. In 1630, he was hanged for murdering a fellow colonist in Plymouth’s first execution. Bradford wrote of him in a 1625 private letter “he is a knave, and will so live and die.”

Bradford also described the Billingtons as “one of the profanest families among them; they came from London and I know not by what friends shuffled into their company.” Young Francis contributed his share to the family’s reputation when he almost ended the Mayflower story before anyone came ashore. He fired a musket in the passenger quarters of the ship, very near the location that the ship’s supply of gunpowder was stored.

Some historians speculate that John Billington, Jr., did not wander off and get lost in the summer of 1621. They suggest he deliberately ran away to escape his family, his father in particular. Instead, he chose to cast his lot with the Indians. While this theory is plausible given what is known, there is no factual support for it in the historical record. Bradford’s account indicates that John, Jr., “lost himself.” As a postscript, John Billington, Jr., died sometime between 1627 and 1630 in his mid-twenties, cause of death unknown.

Thus, the recovery of a lost boy tested the commitment of both sides to the peace treaty that Massasoit and Gov. John Carver agreed on a few months before. In addition, the Pilgrims paid the corn debt. They also addressed the practice of kidnapping American natives by English explorers.

Sometimes, a seemingly small story stands at the crossroads of history.

End Notes

The author of this story, Ron Petersen, is the chair of the Orleans Massachusetts Historical Commission. He has also served on the Orleans Community Preservation Committee, as chair of both the Orleans Historical Markers Committee and the 1918 Attack on Orleans Committee. He is a former board member and officer of the Orleans Historical Society, and is a board member and historian for the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Ron has written numerous published articles on regional history, and has lectured throughout Cape Cod on various historical topics.

Images: Map of Southern New England By AnthroMimus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56851919. Statue of Iyanough in Hyannis By Kerowyn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17797930. Landing of the Pilgrims N. Currier. Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth 11th De. Plymouth Massachusetts, None. [New york: lith. & pub. by n. currier, 2 spruce st., between 1838 and 1856] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/95503144/.

Bibliography

Bradford, William, Of Plymouth Plantation, (Morison ed.), New York: The Modern Library, 1657, 1952.

Bunker, Nick, Making Haste from Babylon, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2010.

Goodwin, John A., The Pilgrim Republic, Boston, Ticknor and Company 1888

Johnson, Caleb H. The Mayflower and Her Passengers, Xlibris Corp. 2006.

Mack, Jonathan, A Stranger Among Saints, Chicago, Chicago Review Press, 2020.

Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Story of the Old Colony of New Plymouth, New York: Alfred A Knoph,1956

Morton, Nathaniel, The New-England Memorial, Plymouth, MA, Forgotten Books, 1669

Prince, Thomas, A Chronological History of New England, Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company, 1736

Silverman, David, This Land is Their Land, New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

Stratton, Eugene Aubrey, Plymouth Colony, Its History and People, Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing Company, 1986

Vaughn, Alden T. New England Frontier, Puritans and Indians 1620-1675, University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Winslow, Edward and Bradford, William, Mourt’s Relation, 1622

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Myles Standish and the Lost Colony of Massachusetts

In March 1623, leaders of the struggling Plymouth Plantation dispatched their paid military leader Myles Standish to a coastal settlement 25 miles north. They gave him a savage mandate: return with the head of a troublesome warrior named Wituwamat.

Wituwamat was the perceived leader of a rumored multi-tribal strike against a failed English trading post and possibly Plymouth itself.

Supposedly a portrait of Myles Standish painted in 1625, but first published in 1885 and of questionable authenticity.

With a handful of men and a Native ally named Hobbamock, Myles Standish ambushed Wituwamat, a powerful brave named Pecksuot and two other Natives in a locked room. He then engaged in a running battle with another group of warriors in present-day Weymouth, Mass. A few others joined them–members of the trading colony established a year earlier by London investor Thomas Weston. Weston and his Merchant Adventurer partners wanted to capitalize on the profitable beaver trade with the Massachusetts tribe.

A few days later, Standish proudly impaled Wituwamat’s head on the stockade at the entrance to Plymouth Plantation—a stark warning to the local Native populations.

It was an important moment in American history–although largely forgotten. The attack clearly established the primacy of the Pilgrims. Today, the event—and the actual physical reminders of it—are being examined and reinterpreted by historians, archaeologists and descendants of the original actors.

Myles Standish, Condemned

The local tribes that had quarreled with the new English settlers quickly dissipated, clearing the way for a massive Puritan migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony anchored at Boston. The Natives feared the Pilgrims’ guns, their ruthlessness, and their rumored ability to unleash a deadly plague on command. Yet the violent preemptive strike was condemned even by the Pilgrims’ own spiritual leader, John Robinson, who had remained at their safe haven in Holland.

The first Thanksgiving — the preferred version for many.

The necessity of the strike is still debated. America prefers to remember the banquet between the Pilgrims and the local Natives, formally proclaimed as Thanksgiving by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. There was indeed a feast, albeit a strained affair, between the Pilgrims and a group of Natives, called the Pokanoket Wampanoags, who had sought a military alliance to stave off possible annihilation by the rival Narragansett tribe.

How It All Started

The story of how tensions escalated to the murder and decapitation of Wituwamat begins with the arrival of the first Europeans in present-day Massachusetts. Capt. John Smith of Jamestown fame explored the region in 1614 with several vessels. One of his commanders, Thomas Hunt, captured several Natives to sell as slaves. That action negatively impacted English and Native relations for years to come, in Smith’s view.

One of the captured natives, a brave named Squanto, later returned. The first Europeans spread infectious diseases that obliterated some coastal populations. Disease wiped out a village called Patuxet, once Squanto’s home.

In 1615, the Natives took revenge on a wrecked French ship, killing most of the sailors and keeping a few as slaves. One of the Natives participating in the butchery was Pecksuot. He later taunted Weston colonists and Standish with his gruesome account. Later, sailors of an English ship reportedly murdered several members of the Wampanoags. They then responded by attacking a party led by an explorer and gold prospector named Thomas Dermer.

Treaty

In his best-selling book titled Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick wrote: “When the Mayflower arrived at Provincetown Harbor in November, it was generally assumed by the Indians that the ship had been sent to avenge the attack on Dermer. In the weeks ahead, the Pilgrims did little to change that assumption.”

A Pilgrim landing party raided a buried supply of corn seed, ripped through a gravesite and fled from the beach under a hail of arrows. The scouting party, sailing up the coast, found a spot with a harbor, fresh water and a hill for a fort. They then started to build homes.

The settlement at Plymouth had inadequate provisions, and 52 of the 102 who arrived on Cape Cod died by spring. Squanto, who had learned to speak English, befriended the Pilgrims. He then helped establish a treaty with Massasoit Ousamequin of the Pokanoket Wampanoags.

But Corbitant, sachem of the Pocasset tribe of the Wampanoag, challenged Massasoit’s treaty with the Pilgrims. The treaty seemed like a straightforward military alliance. However, it actually undercut long-standing tribal legal tradition, according to Paula Peters, a present-day activist for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.

An 1873 lithograph depicting the expedition against Nemasket led by Standish and guided by Hobbamock.

The Pilgrims dispatched Myles Standish to a village called Nemasket with less than a dozen men. His mission: to kill and behead Corbitant, who escaped. Later, the Narragansetts, also unhappy with the Pilgrims, sent Plymouth Plantation a bundle of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin, a threat. Standish ordered construction of a palisade fence surrounding their homes, and beefed up other fortifications.

Unhappy Investor

Meanwhile, the Pilgrims were struggling to feed themselves, let alone return a profit to the London investment group that paid their way. The initial plan to farm communally failed completely. Only 26 acres were planted in 1621. In 1623, each family received permission to plant privately, with the amount of land determined by family size.

“The Pilgrims, in their quest to be stepping-stones for freedom, had almost everything go wrong as they attempted to plant a colony in the new world. By the time they reached the shores of New England, they were poor, had barely enough provisions for the first winter and began to die at an alarming rate,” wrote Dr. Paul Jehle, executive director of the Plymouth Rock Foundation.

The Mayflower

The Mayflower returned to London in 1621 empty of cargo. Weston was not happy. A return ship carried this message to Plymouth Gov. William Bradford: “The life of the business depends upon the lading of this ship, which if you do to any good purpose, that I may be freed from the great sums I have disbursed for the former and must do for the latter (the Fortune), I promise you I will never quit the business.”

Wessagusset

Despite his commitment, Weston bailed on the Plymouth investment. Instead, he created another venture: a trading colony of some 60 men. No religious separatists this time. No women. And no children. Just men, albeit a rough group, who would engage in profitable beaver trade with the Massachusetts tribe.

His traders arrived at Plymouth in the fall of 1622 poorly provisioned and not prepared to establish a settlement. They left for an area on the coast that the Natives called Wessaguscus, and they called Wessagusset.

They were greeted by the local sachem Aberdikes, who welcomed the idea of trade. But the situation soon deteriorated. The alert of an emerging crisis came from a man named Phineas Pratt, a member of the Weston Colony at Wessagusset. He chronicled his story in 1664, when he petitioned the colonial government for the financial benefits accorded “First Comers.”

He was the only first-person witness to make a written record. But he was not present for the battle. That account comes from Edward Winslow of Plymouth Plantation in a detailed report to London titled Good Newes From New England. Details were also provided in accounts from Bradford (Of Plymouth Plantation) and Thomas Morton (New English Canaan). Winslow was the de facto agent with Massasoit as well as with the investors who had funded the Pilgrims trip.

Phineas Pratt’s Account

The account of Phineas Pratt went like this: When the Weston party of 60 men arrived at Wessagusset in 1622 “there was a great plague among the savages &, as themselves told us, half their people died thereof…The savages seemed to be good friends with us while they feared us, but when they saw famine prevail, they began to insult.”

Gravestone of Phineas Pratt in Charlestown, Mass.

Pecksuot sought to intimidate the newcomers with boasts of how the tribe had subdued the shipwrecked French crew. “We made them our servants. They wept much…We took away their clothes. They lived but a little while.”

Aberdikes, the local sachem, later approached the colony with several armed braves and accused one of the men of stealing corn. They retreated when they saw men armed with muskets behind a fence palisade surrounding the fort and houses.

According to legend, the Weston colonists hanged a proxy for the crime, an older man who was deathly ill.

The colonists then buttoned up the palisade and consumed what food they had left while braves watched.

‘Tomorrow I will go’

Pratt continued: “When we understood that their plot was to kill all English people in one day when the snow was gone, I would have sent a man to Plymouth, but none were willing to go. Then I said if Plymouth men know not of this treacherous plot, they & we are all dead men; therefore, if God willing, tomorrow I will go.”

Pratt made a successful escape to Plymouth, where he found preparations already under way for a military expedition to Wessagusset.

Edward Winslow

Edward Winslow had just arrived after a healing mission to Massasoit, who told of a multi-tribal plan to attack Plymouth and the Weston Colony. Spurred by the warning of Massasoit and later confirmed by Pratt, the Pilgrims sent Myles Standish to ambush the tribal leaders.

Myles Standish Battles the Natives

Standish and his men took a small vessel called a shallop and arrived at Wessagusset where the colonist ship, the Swan, lay anchored. No one was on board, and Standish fired a musket. Several men suddenly appeared.

Surprised to find Myles Standish, they said there was no imminent threat from the tribe. In fact, many of the colonists were cohabitating with them.

Standish collected colonists in a hilltop stockade and told them of his plan to lure Natives inside and then kill them. The Natives perceived the threat and only Wituwamat, Pecksuot and two other men ventured into the fort.

Myles Standish promised them a feast and invited them into a house. He then locked the door, grabbed Pecksuot’s knife and killed him. Then his other soldiers killed and decapitated Wituwamat. They hanged a third brave.

The George Soule house at Plimoth Patuxet, probably similar to the house where Myles Standish killed Wituwamat and three other Natives.

Aberdikes approached with warriors, and the conflict debouched into a running battle in the surrounding area. The Natives, outgunned, disappeared into the tall cattails of a marsh. At the end of the day, seven Natives were killed. No English died in combat.

The settlement was evacuated, with most colonists sailing the Swan to a fishing outpost in Maine. Most of the local tribes pulled up stakes and fled the area, fearing another attack.

Aftermath

Bradford lamented the lost ability to profit from further beaver fur trade— at least for a while. The events were later mythologized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his 1858 narrative poem, “The Courtship of Miles Standish.”

Samuel Butler recalled the proxy hanging in his satirical poem titled “Hudibras” published in the mid-17th century.

The peace that prevailed in the area was short lived. Massasoit’s son Metacom planned to continue friendly relations with the English and took the name of Philip. But tensions over land use and diminished game erupted in the 1670s, leading to an armed conflict called King Philip’s War. Colonial militia overwhelmed the tribal coalition, and there was slaughter on both sides. Metacom was killed by militia in 1676.

King Philip’s War (illustration)

Today

The tribes have a modest presence in Massachusetts today. The Wampanoags, led in part by Paula Peters, made a (so far) failed bid for a federal casino license.

The Massachusetts tribe is greatly diminished, but one group still holds tribal meetings at Ponkapoag near their ancestral home in the Blue Hills area south of Boston. Many were segregated in areas such as “Indian Row” in Brockton, Mass. In the 2010 census, just 85 people identified as Ponkapoag Massachusetts.

Tensions between the tribal groups continue to this day. Ren Green, one of the sachems, or leaders, of the Ponkapoag Massachusetts, confronted Paula Peters of the Wampanoags in a standing room only meeting at the Weymouth Public Library in 2017. There, Peters claimed the Wampanoags’ territory had included the Blue Hills area of Boston. Green called it an attempt to claim the Boston area site for a casino. Peters called it a misunderstanding.

Today, on some days, you can talk to an historical actor portraying Phineas Pratt at Plimoth Patuxet, the name of the well-done tourist site recreating the Plymouth Colony and a nearby Wampanoag site.

Wigwam and Wampanoag guide at Plimoth Patuxet

The Reincarnation of Phineas Pratt

On a sunny spring day, I found a youthful Pratt working a field at the bottom of a hill. He was surprised and excited that someone wanted to speak with him. He was particularly surprised that I lived in Wessagusset, which is still dealing with its odd place in history.

Yes, he told me, he had arrived at Plymouth from Wessagusset. Yes, Standish had spiked Wituwamat’s head and stank in the sun. And yes, he had escaped the troubles and alerted the colonists.

The Plymouth settlement is commemorated at Plymouth Patuxet and at historical sites in the town of Plymouth. A recent high-tech archaeological dig by faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Boston campus identified the site of a palisade wall near the fort that protected the settlement.

Finding the Lost Weston Colony

The Weston Colony site is another matter. It had rapidly disintegrated after Myles Standish and his soldiers departed on their shallop. Per local tradition in the mid-19th century, the site was located near a freshwater creek feeding into a cove on what today is called the Fore River.

John Winthrop commissioned this map showing three structures near Hunt’s Hill with the word “Wessaguscus.” Henry F. Waters “discovered” the map in the British Museum and sent photos to the Boston Public Library.

In 1884, a map created in 1633 or 1634 by Gov. John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony came to light in the British Museum. It showed three structures next to a cove where the Fore River opens to a large bay today called Hingham Bay.

Historian Charles Francis Adams did a deep dive into the subject in the 1880s. He armed himself with the Winthrop map, a few descriptions of the topography in the Phineas Pratt account and a dollop of common sense.

Hunt’s Hill

Adams figured the Weston fort was best located on a hill that offered views of the bay and the mouth of the river. It also needed a freshwater source. There was a hill on a hook of land jutting into a cove next to the houses on the Winthrop map. And there was a spring and a swamp nearby that could have been the one mentioned by Pratt.

Adams was convinced this site, called Hunt’s Hill, was the location of the Weston Colony. His logic remains to this day the generally accepted wisdom.

The most widely accepted location for the Weston Colony: a hilly peninsula that extended into a cove near the mouth of the Fore River. The hill was removed in the 1890s for fill used to create the South Boston Marine Terminal. A private dock is on the site today. This photo was taken from King’s Cove Park, adjacent to the controversial Weymouth compressor station.

But Wait…

In the early 1890s, a salvage company needed fill for a large marine park under construction in South Boston. The hill on the cove was for sale. Adams strenuously objected, but the hill was sold with no effort at archaeological excavation.

Today a group called the Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project is having second thoughts about the Hunt’s Hill site. Its director, an archaeologist named Craig Chartier, says the Winthrop map could have identified buildings put up after the Weston Colony was abandoned. He identifies four other sites in the immediate area that are possibilities. One is particularly interesting. Two sets of bodies were dug up in graves either in or adjacent to that site. It meets the key criteria: hilltop, ocean frontage, freshwater access and a nearby swamp, as described by Phineas Pratt.

A Weymouth historian named G. Stinson Lord reported in a commemorative book in 1972 on the discovery of seven bodies at one gravesite and two decapitated bodies in another.

Stories That Need To Be Told or Retold

Today, there is a strong feeling that the stories of Native Americans in the area need to be better represented. For example, the living history exhibit at Plymouth dropped the word “Plantation” in 2020 and replaced it with the word “Patuxet.” And it made plans to improve the adjacent Wampanoag site.

The Massachusetts state seal depicts the arm of Myles Standish brandishing a saber above the head of a Native American standing at peace. Courtesy Doug Smock.

The Massachusetts state seal incorporates an image of Myles Standish’s arm brandishing a sword. It hovers above a Native American with arrows pointed downward. In January an appointed commission set about developing a new state seal. In 1999, Weymouth Town Meeting voted to purchase a tract of land in Wessagusset for conservation and historical purposes. A memorial garden built with private funds raised by local resident Jodi Purdy, a descendent of Myles Standish, commemorates Massachusetts Natives killed or displaced by the colonists.

Descendants of John Saunders, the second governor of the Weston Colony, then installed another memorial.

Descendants of John Saunders, second governor of the Weston Colony, received permission from the Weymouth Historical Commission to place a commemorative marker in Wessagusset Park in 2004.

Peace, Finally?

I started an effort two years ago to place a town historical marker at the park. The town approved the proposal, but then shelved it due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Weymouth Town Meeting approved purchase of Wessagusset land in 1999 to create a park that would recognize the nearby site of the Weston Colony. Myles Standish descendent Jodi Purdy led efforts to buy the land and build a memorial garden in hopes the Weston colonists and Massachusetts tribe “have reconciled their differences and found peace.”

One of the Native American memorials in the park reads: “On Oct. 21, 2001, these puddingstone memorials were dedicated as symbols of hope that the souls of the first inhabitants of Wessagusset, the Massachusett Indians, and the first settlers of Weymouth, the Weston colonists, have reconciled their differences and found peace.”

Need some new ideas for your Thanksgiving feast? How about trying something old — and authentic — from the New England Historical Society’s latest ebook. Available from Amazon (click here).

The author of this story, Doug Smock, is a retired newspaper reporter and magazine editor who has always loved history, particularly forgotten yet important events. His next project is “Young George Washington and the Battle of Braddock”. He is the coauthor of two business books, including “Straight to the Bottom Line”. Smock has lived in the Wessagusset neighborhood of Weymouth for the past eight years. He will present his Myles Standish story to a class at UMass Boston’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Images: Wampanoag wigwam and guide By Swampyank at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18002766; Edward Soule house By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18002664. Phineas Pratt gravestone By Darcyjae – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74569178. Wessagusset map: Lauren Chen, reference librarian, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library. Images of park, Hunt’s Hill, Saunders memorial and state seal courtesy Doug Smock.

This story updated in 2023.

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When John Alden Went to Jail for Murder

Most school children know the story of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, but few know he went to jail for murder.

He didn’t stay long, and he didn’t do it, but the story reminds us that the Pilgrims strayed far from Plymouth Colony. They had a trading business in Maine that did so well it let them repay their considerable debt to their financial backers.

John Alden and Priscilla Mullin

John Alden

Not much is known about John Alden until he met the Pilgrims as a 21-year-old in Southampton, England. They hired him as the Mayflower’s cooper, to make the barrels and casks that carried all the food, drink, clothing and gunpowder on board the ship.

Alden could have gone back to England, but he chose to stay. It was a wise choice. He emerged as a leader of Plymouth Colony, serving on the Governor’s Council and as treasurer, deputy to the General Court and a member of the Council of War.

Alden also belonged to the group of eight who assumed a large debt.

London merchants had underwritten their Mayflower voyage and provisions to establish Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims, however, had a hard time repaying them during those lean first years—in fact, they ended up borrowing even more.

But they made a deal in 1626 that bought them time. The merchants’ partnership broke up, and eight colonists agreed to assume their debt in exchange for a monopoly on the fur trade along the Kennebec River in Maine.

The Kennebec Patent

The year before they made that deal, Plymouth Colony had had a good harvest with enough surplus corn to trade. “It pleased ye Lord to give ye plantation peace and health and contented minds, and so to bless their labours, and they had corne sufficient, (and some to spare to others,) with other foode,” wrote William Bradford.

A handful of young men, including John Howland, loaded the surplus corn into a shallop that came with them in the Mayflower. They then sailed it up the coast of Maine and up the mouth of the Kennebec River. At the head of the river they came upon an Abenaki village, where they traded the corn for 700 pounds of beaver fur.

That highly profitable trip convinced the colonists to set up a trading post, in what was known as Koussinoc or Cushnoc. Today it’s known as Augusta.

The Plymouth colonists managed to obtain a patent for the land along the Kennebec and to build a bigger boat to carry on their trade. They built a trading house and stocked it with trade goods: “coats, shirts, ruggs, & blankets, biskett, pease, prunes” and, of course, corn, according to Bradford.

Exporting beaver furs to Europe was a lucrative business. The Cushnoc trading post made enough profit for the Plymouth colonists to pay back their creditors in 12 years. They ran the trading post for 40.

Site, including plaque, of the Cushnoc trading post in Augusta.

But why did they have to go all the way to Maine to trade with indigenous people for beaver fur? Because Myles Standish had made an ill-considered attack on two Massachusett leaders, luring them to a meal and then killing them. That pretty much ruined relations with the local tribes with whom the Pilgrims had traded furs.

Another question: Why is history so silent on the Plymouth colonists’ trading post at Cushnoc? Some have speculated that the colonists themselves didn’t want word to get out about their money-making operation.

Murder on the Kennebec

John Howland ran the trading post for several years. John Alden, along with other Pilgrims such as Edward Winslow and William Bradford, visited Cushnoc to bring supplies.

Alden had come to Cushnoc in the spring of 1634 when a dispute broke out over trading rights. A man named John Hocking, or possibly Hoskins, from Piscataqua (New Hampshire) sailed up the Kennebec in a boat owned by his bosses, Lord Brook and Lord Saye (from whom Saybrook, Conn., took its name).

Hocking sailed past Cushnoc to trade with the Indians who would paddle down the Kennebec with canoes full of furs. The Plymouth colonists maintained they had exclusive rights to trade in the area and told Hocking to leave. Hocking refused, anchoring his vessel in the river.

John Alden, deputy governor at the time, told Howland to cut Hocking’s line. So Howland ordered four of his men to cut the cable to Hocking’s bark. They took a canoe into the river, and paddled toward Hocking, who threatened to shoot them unless they stopped. The Plymouth men cut one anchor cable, and then tried to cut the other. Hocking shot one man, Moses Talbot, dead.

The three remaining men returned fire, shooting John Hocking in the head and killing him.

“The rest of ye men carried home the vessel and ye sad tidings of these things,” wrote Bradford.

John Alden, Jailbird

Several months later, John Alden visited Boston on business, and the General Court ordered him jailed. A relative of John Hocking had brought a complaint against Alden.

Massachusetts Bay Colony had no jurisdiction over Plymouth or Kennebec, but went ahead and arrested him anyway. John Winthrop explained in his journal that they feared the king would send over a governor general once he got word of the unpleasantness at Kennebec. And the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony wished to continue to govern themselves.

new-england-living-standards-john-winthrop

Portrait of John Winthrop, American Antiquarian Society.

William Bradford sent Myles Standish to Boston to explain what happened, and Gov. Thomas Dudley set Alden free.

The Courtship of Priscilla and John Alden

What may not have happened to John Alden got far more historical recognition than what did happen.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem The Courtship of Miles Standish about a love triangle between Alden, Standish and Priscilla Mullins. Longfellow, through his mother, was descended from John and Priscilla. He claimed the story came down through his family.

In the tale, John Alden and Myles Standish are roommates in Plymouth Colony in 1621. Both have their eyes on Priscilla who was, in fact, the only marriageable woman in the colony at the time. Standish asks Alden to propose to Priscilla on his behalf. Priscilla replied, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”

Historian John Goodwin wrote there’s no reason for believing any of it. The story of John Alden going to jail, however, is true.

With thanks to Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Image of Cushnoc site By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=280178. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Maypole That Infuriated the Puritans

Had it not been for his May Day party with a giant Maypole, Thomas Morton might have established a New England colony more tolerant, easygoing and fun than the one his dour Puritan neighbors created at Plymouth Plantation.

A traditional Maypole

A well-educated, well-connected, free-thinking Englishman, Morton came to America for business reasons. He held a senior partnership in a trading venture sponsored by the Crown. In 1624, he sailed aboard the Unity with Capt. Wollaston and 30 indentured servants. They arrived safely, settled in the future Quincy, Mass., and then began trading with the Indians for furs.

Morton wrote that he found two sorts of people in New England: the Christians and the Infidels. The Infidels he found ‘most full of humanity, and more friendly than the other.’

Morton would battle the Puritans over the next two decades using his wit, his pen, his political connections and his legal expertise. He even managed to get the royal charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony revoked.

Unfortunately for Morton, he tied his fortunes to the Crown. When the Puritan Roundheads gained the ascendancy over Royalists in 1643, Massachusetts officials arrested him. They called him a Royalist agitator and threw him into prison. Today people might call him America’s first hippie.

Nathaniel Hawthorne best described Morton’s struggles with his neighbors in his short story, The Maypole of Merrymount:

Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire.

Illustration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, ‘The Maypole of Merrymount’

Pagan Past

Thomas Morton was born in 1576 in Devonshire, England, a part of the country that still bore remnants of Merrie Old England’s pagan past. The son of a soldier, probably a younger son, he studied law in London at the Inns of Court, the barristers’ professional association.

Morton’s lawyering brought him the connections that brought him to New England. After he arrived he discovered he couldn’t get along with the Puritans at Plymouth Plantation. So he, Wollaston and the indentured servants established their own colony, Mount Wollaston. It grew quickly and grew prosperous.

Morton then parted ways with Wollaston in 1626 when he learned Wollaston sold indentured servants into slavery on Virginia tobacco plantations. Morton encouraged the remaining servants to rebel against Wollaston and set up their own colony.

They didn’t need much persuading. The servants organized themselves into a free community called Merrymount with Morton in command. He called himself the ‘host.’ Wollaston fled to Virginia.

Merrymount was a colonial utopia in which the settlers were considered ‘consociates.’ They lived in harmony with the Algonquin Indians. The Puritans were horrified that the liberal-minded Morton and his men consorted with native women. They considered Morton an impious, drunken libertine. And they didn’t like that his easygoing colony attracted escapees from Plymouth’s strictness.

Those Moles

For his part, Morton disdained the Puritans at Plymouth, who he called ‘those Moles.’ He complained they ‘keep ‘much ado about the tithe of mint and cumin, troubling their brains more than reason would require about things that are indifferent.’

Morton called the pompous John Endicott ‘that great swelling fellow, Captain Littleworth.’ He nicknamed the short Myles Standish ‘Captain Shrimpe.’

On May 1, 1627, Merrymount decided to throw a party in the manner of Merrie Olde England, Maypole and all. Morton hoped it would attract some Indian brides for his bachelor followers. According to Morton,

“The inhabitants of Merrymount … did devise amongst themselves to have … Revels, and merriment after the old English custom … & therefore brewed a barrell of excellent beer, & provided a case of bottles to be spent, with other good cheer, for all comers of that day. And upon Mayday they brought the Maypole to the place appointed, with drums, guns, pistols, and other fitting instruments, for that purpose; and there erected it with the help of Savages, that came thither of purpose to see the manner of our Revels. A goodly pine tree of 80 foot long, was reared up, with a pair of buckshorns nailed on, somewhat near unto the top of it; where it stood as a fair sea mark for directions, how to find out the way to mine Host of Ma-re Mount.”

Bye-bye Maypole

Gov. William Bradford was horrified by the ‘beastly practices of ye mad Bacchanalians.’ After a second Maypole party the next year, Myles Standish led a party of armed men to Merrymount, seized Morton and put him in chains. Standish also took down the offending Maypole.

Not a shot was fired. According to Morton, the Merrymount inhabitants didn’t want bloodshed. According to Bradford, they’d had so much to drink they couldn’t resist.

Capt. Littleworth

Bradford feared executing Morton, who had too many friends in high places in London. He did maroon him on the Isles of Shoals until September, when an English ship took him back to England. During the next winter, an especially harsh one, John Endicott led a raid on Merrymount’s corn supply. The Puritans then chopped down what was left of the Maypole.

Morton returned to New England in 1629, only to find his friends the Indians decimated by plague. Most of the Merrymount residents scattered and the Puritans’ strength increased. In September 1630, the Puritans arrested Morton again. They banished him and burned down Merrymount.

Canaan

In England, Morton plotted his revenge. Even as William Bradford was writing his History of Plimoth Plantation, Morton wrote New English Canaan, a witty composition that praised the wisdom and humanity of the Indians and mocked the Puritans. It made him a celebrity in political circles.

He also began a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Bay Colony, trying to revoke their charter. He succeeded, mostly because of King Charles’ animosity toward the Puritans. When the court ordered the charter revoked in 1634, Morton planned to return to Merrymount.

The Puritans, however, rejected the English court’s order. From 1637 to 1643, Morton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges petitioned for either a charter or an enforcement action. Unfortunately for Morton, the Crown had its own troubles – namely, the English Civil War.

Back to Plymouth

In 1642, Morton returned to Plymouth again, and again the Puritans arrested him. Not only did they view him as a ‘Royalist agitator,’ they blamed him for getting the charter revoked. They then sent him to prison in Boston, but didn’t charge him. Eventually, the Puritans granted the ill and aging Morton clemency.

Morton then spent his final days in York, Maine. He died in 1647.

Over the years other rebels and free-thinkers have lived in Merrymount, now Wollaston. Anne Hutchinson, who challenged the Puritan theocracy, lived there with her husband when they first arrived in New England in 1634. John Hancock was born there, and John Quincy Adams’ great-grandfather built a house on land in Wollaston. In 1925, a man named Howard Johnson built the first Howard Johnson’s there.

This story about the maypole that infuriated the Puritans was updated in 2022. Read more about Thomas Morton in The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England by Peter C. Mancall. You can help independent bookstores and The New England Historical Society by buying it here.

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Massasoit Visits Plymouth for Trade and a Peace Treaty

Around 11 am on March 22, 1621, a fine warm day, two Wampanoag Indians appeared in the village of Plymouth with a favor to ask: Would the Pilgrim leaders meet with Massasoit?

The Indians both spoke English. The first, Samoset, learned a smattering from English sailors along the Maine coast. Squanto, the second, spoke the language well, because English explorers had captured him and taken him to England as a slave .

The Indians told the colonists that Massasoit, their great sachem, was nearby with his brother Quadequina and 60 men — an intimidating show of force. Massasoit wanted to parley with the Pilgrims, for he wished to have trade and peace with them.

The Pilgrims welcomed the Indians’ overtures. They had arrived in the New World nearly four months before and had a rough go of it. Forty-five of the 102 Pilgrims died that winter.

The meeting with Squanto and Samoset resulted in the first peace treaty between Native Americans and American colonists. The peace would last 40 years, with both parties holding to their agreement not to ‘doe hurt’ to one another.

Massasoit and the pilgrims negotiate a treaty

Massasoit, A Lustie Man

As leader of the Wampanoag tribe, Massasoit practiced shrewd diplomacy. He viewed the Pilgrims as potential allies against the Narragansetts, his enemies in the region. A great plague had killed many of his own people.

Massasoit would have been about 40 when he paid that first visit to Plymouth. Pilgrim Edward Winslow described him as:

…a very lustie [strong] man, in his best yeares, an able body, grave of countenance, and spare of speech.

He dressed as his followers did, except for a great chain of white bone beads around his neck and a little bag of tobacco. He had painted his face dark red and oiled both his head and face so he ‘looked greasily,’ wrote Winslow.

Winslow volunteered to go with Squanto and Samoset to meet Massasoit. He brought with him a gift: a pair of knives and a copper chain with a jewel in it. To Quadequina he brought a knife and a jewel ‘to hang in his ear.’ He also brought liquor, biscuits and butter, all of which the Indians accepted.

Edward Winslow

Peace Talks

Upon meeting Massasoit, Winslow made a speech. King James, he said, saluted him with words of love and peace, and accepted him as an ally, and they wished to have trade and peace with him. Squanto and Samoset translated.

Massasoit said he liked the speech. They ate and drank, and then departed the camp with about 20 of Massasoit’s men, who left their bows and arrows behind.

Myles Standish and William Brewster joined them at a brook with six armed men. They escorted Massasoit to a house under construction for William Bradford. It had a green rug on the floor and three cushions.

Gov. John Carver came to the house with drum and trumpet after him and a few musketeers. Massasoit, Winslow later noted, was quite taken with the trumpet. Carver kissed Massasoit’s hand, and Massasoit kissed him back before they sat down.

The Treaty

Statue of Massasoit in Plymouth

Carver called for liquor and toasted Massasoit, who ‘drank deeply.’ Then Carver called for fresh meat, which Massasoit ate and shared with his men.

They then agreed to the treaty:

1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of our people.

2. And if any of his did hurt to any of ours, he should send the offender, that we might punish him.

3. That if any of our tools were taken away when our people were at work, he should cause them to be restored; and if ours did any harm to any of his, we would do the like to them.

4. If any did unjustly war against him, we would aid him; if any did war against us, he should aid us.

5. He should send to his neighbor confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong us, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.

6. That when their men came to us, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them, as we should do our pieces when we came to them.

Lastly, that doing thus, King James would esteem of him as his friend and ally.

Peace and Friendship

Winslow, who became Massasoit’s friend, wrote that he trusted him. Sometimes two or three Pilgrims had gone into the woods, working or hunting, and the Wampanoags didn’t harm them, though it would have been easy to do so.

“Hee hath a potent Adversary the Narowhiganseis [Narragansetts], that are at warre with him,” wrote Winslow, a”gainst whom hee thinkes wee may be some strength to him…”

Massasoit would also form friendships with Carver, Bradford and Standish. And he prevented the Pilgrims from starving to death during the early years of Plymouth Colony.

William Bradford

At the same time, Massasoit protected his people’s spiritual traditions, preventing their conversion to Christianity.

For the next four decades, the Wampanoags and the Plymouth colony lived in peace.

And then, King Philip’s War broke out.

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This story was updated in 2022.

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