The Bay Path and Along the Way

CHAPTER I
ABORIGINAL DOMAIN. A VIEW THREE CENTURIES AGO

OPEN LANDS.--BUSH BURNING.--PARK-LIKE SCENERY.--ABUNDANT FODDER.--HUNTING EASY.--FISHING PLACES.--SOCIAL GATHERINGS.--TIMES AND SEASONS AT THE SEASHORE.--OTHER TIMES INLAND.--THEIR PATHS LOCATED WITH SKILL.--A LONG-DISTANCE PATH.--A FORT.--DESCRIPTION.--LOCATION.

To acquire at once, in imagination, a view of the conditions existing in the period of aboriginal domain, three centuries ago, it is desirable to quote form the letters of that time.

The early writers compared these thin forests to the English parks. Mr. Graves wrote from Salem, in 1629, that the country was "very beautiful in open lands mixed with goodly woods, and again open plains, in some places 500 acres, some more some less, not much troublesome to clear for the plow."

"The grass and weeds grow up to a man's face; in the lowlands and by fresh rivers abundance of grass, and large meadows without any tree or shrub."

The burning of the grass and leaves by the Indians is noticed by Morton, in 1632. He says, "The savages burn the country that it may not be overgrown with underwood. The burning makes the country passable by destroying the brushwood. It scorches the older trees and hinders their growth. The trees grow here and there as in our parks, and make the country very beautiful."

Wood, in 1634, says, "In many places, divers acres are clear, so that one may ride a hunting in most places of the land. There is no underwood, save in swamps and low grounds; for it being the custom of the Indians to burn the woods in November, when the grass is withered and leaves dried, it consumes all the underwood and rubbish."

He says, "There is good fodder in the woods where the trees are thin; and in the spring the grass grows rapidly on the burnt lands." Vanderdonck, a Dutch writer, in his "Descriptions of the New Netherlands," now New York, about 1653, describes the burning of the woods. "The Indians have a yearly custom, which some of our Christians have adopted, of burning the woods, plains and meadows, in the fall of the year, when the leaves have fallen and the grass and vegetables are dry. This 'bush-burning,' as it is called, is done to render hunting easier, and to make the grass grow. The raging fire represents a grand and sublime appearance. Green trees in the woodlands do not suffer much."

Every noated place of hunting or fishing was usually a distinct Seignory, and thither all their friends and allys of the neighborhood used to resort in the time of yere to attend those seasons; partly for recreation and partly to make provisions for the yeere. Such places as they chose for their abode were usually at the Falls of great Rivers, or near the seashore where was any convenience of catching such as every summer and winter used to come upon the coast; at which time they used like good fellows, to make all common, and then those who had entertained their neighbors by the seaside expected the like kindness from them againe up higher in the country; and were wont to have great dances for mirth at those general meetings. With such kinds of intercourse were their affayres and commerce carried on between those that lived up in the country and those that were seated on the seacoast about the havens and channels that issued into the sea; where there used to be at all times clams, muscles [mussels] and oasters [oysters], and in the summer season lobsters, bass, ormulet and sturgeon, of which they used to take great plenty and dry them in the smoke, and keep them the rest of the yeare. Up higher at the Falls of the great River they used to take salmon, shad and alewives that used to pass up the fresh water ponds and lakes in the Spring, therein to spawn; of all which they with their weirs used to take great stores for their use. In all such places there was wont to be great resort.¹

Their long-distance paths used in such economic and social intercourse were narrow but deeply worn. They always traveled single file. The paths were located with skill derived from perfect knowledge of the ground and the course desired.

From wigwam to wigwam, that had hospitable doors always open on the leeward side, the prehistoric people drifted on their long-distance paths. A stone mortar for the grinding of parched corn was a halting place; and if necessary, within their wraps of skins or woven feathers, they slept as contentedly in the great forests as the birds within their nests. Their trails, by constant use, became paths.

A notable example of these paths ran from Boston to Springfield and crossing there the Connecticut River, a little below the South-end Bridge, continued westward and was there called and is still known as the location of the Mohawk Trail.

As the path continued through the state of New York, it was called the Iroquois Path.

The Indians along the Connecticut Valley and all over New England stood in great fear of the powerful Mohawks.

Especially at Agawam, were they exposed to their marauding excursions. For defense, a fort was erected of strong poles with one end inserted in the ground and placed close together, thus making a high fence around an inclosure on Long Hill, opposite the fording place or crossing of the river.

There, before the Agawam, or Westfield River, cut through its upper mouth, early in the last century, a long sand-bar extended far out into the water, which made it possible to wade across the Connecticut River during low-water periods.

"This fort was situated on what is now known as the Storrs lot, on the old Long Hill road, below Mill River.

"The owner of this property sixty years ago (Chester Osborne) names it Fort Pleasant, and took much interest in identifying the Indian landmark.

"A little plateau on the spur of a hill, with abrupt declination, shaped like a sharply trunkated cone, afforded natural advantages for a fort. There is a deep ravine on the south side which was probably the fortified approach to the fort.

"Many stone arrowheads and hatchets have been found in this ravine, and on the plateau pottery and pestles for bruising corn have been turned up by the plough.

"It has been assumed by some that only a part of this plateau was included in the fort.

"The capacity of the fort, however, was sufficient to shelter at least four hundred Indians, and as a rule of the Algonquins was to build a palisade of sufficient size to admit the putting up of rows of little round wigwams made by concentring poles, covered with skins or bark, it is fair to conclude that the whole brow of this hill was surrounded by a stockade. The neck joining it with the main land was but a few rods wide, and a living spring in the ravine furnished an abundant supply of water.

"Upon the north side of the hill stands to this day an ancient chestnut-tree. Its gnarled limbs, hollow trunk, and rugged bark indicate an antiquity quite sufficient to have been flourishing at the time of King Philip's War. Artists have painted it, tourists have climbed the hill to look at it, and it is withal a sacred though speechless monument of the local past."

It will be seen that the above conditions, the long path beyond the river leading to the powerful Mohawks, and the consequent fears of the Agawams, and need of protection, were factors in the combination of circumstances leading to the early occupancy of the Connecticut Valley by the English.

To the strategic mind of the Indian, the idea of a colony of the English at Agawam was desirable from their point of view.

But we know little of the personality of the "Initiative" or of the breadth of the "Referendum" that produced an embassy to the English very soon after their arrival at the Bay of Massachusetts.

"April 4, 1631, Wahginnacut, a sagamore upon the river Quonehtacut, which lies west of Naraganset, came to the governor at Boston, with John Sagamore & Jack Straw (an Indian, who had lived in England and had served Sir Walter Raleigh, and was now turned Indian again) and divers of their sannops and brought a letter to the governor from Mr. Endicott to this effect: That the said Wahginnacut was very desirous to have some Englishmen to come plant in his country and offered to find them corn, and give them yearly eighty skins of beaver, and that the country was very fruitful, &c. and wished that there might be two men sent with him to see the country. The governor entertained them at dinner, but would send none with him. He discovered after that the said sagamore is a very treacherous man, and at war with the Pekoath (a far greater sagamore). His country is not above five days' journey from us by land." (Governor Winthrop's Journal.

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