a0661m
The morning of the 23d was cold and blustering; the ground was hard frozen;October, 1848ice covered the surface of the pools, and the north wind was as keen as the breath of December. I started early in a light rockaway for the battle-ground at the north end of the island, making a brief call on the way (or, rather, out of the way) upon Mr. Nathaniel Greene, a grandson of the eminent general of the Revolution who bore that name. He resides about three miles above Newport, and kindly furnished me with explicit directions respecting the localities I was about to visit. About a mile north of his estate I came to the head-quarters of Prescott, printed on page 76, which I sketched in haste, for my fingers were too soon benumbed with cold to hold the pencil expertly. Twelve miles from Newport I came to the residence of Mr. Anthony, which is, I believe, the "Brindley House" in the picture on page 83. An introductory line from his brother, David Anthony, Esq., was a key to his generous hospitality; and after accompanying me to the top of Butts's Hill, and pointing out the places of interest included in the view from its summit, he kindly invited me to dine with him when my sketching should be finished, an invitation heartily accepted, for a ride of twelve miles in the cold morning air was a whetstone to my usually good appetite.
The remains of the old fort on Butts's Hill, the embankments and fosse, with traces of the hastily-constructed ravelins, are well preserved. Even the ruts made by the carriage-wheels of the cannons, at the embrasures (for the ordnance was composed of field-pieces), were visible. The banks, in some places, are twenty feet high, measuring from the bottom of the fossé. Fortunately for the antiquary, the works were constructed chiefly upon a rocky ledge, and the plow can win no treasure there; the banks were earth, and afford no quarry for wall builders, and so the elements alone have lowered the ramparts and filled the ditches. Southward from this eminence, I had a fine view of Quaker and Turkey Hills—indeed, of the whole battle-ground. Sitting upon the exterior slope of the southern parapet, and sheltered from the wind by a clump of bushes and the remains of one of the bastions, I sketched the above view, which includes all the essential portions of the field of conflict. The eminence in the center, on which stands a 'wind-mill, is Quaker Hill; that on the right is Turkey Hill, on the northern slope of which is seen the west road. In the hollow at the foot of these hills the hottest of the battle was waged. On the left is seen the little village of Newton, beyond which is the Eastern or Seaconet Channel, stretching away to the ocean, and bounded on the left by the cultivated slopes of Little Compton. The undulations in the foreground are the embankments of the fort.
North View from Butts's Hill.—The Narraganset Country.—Masaasoit and his Sons.—King Philip.
Northward the view is more extensive, and in some respects more interesting. The houses near the center of the picture mark the site of the old Bristol ferry, over which the Americans, under Sullivan, retreated to the main land.
a0662m
A little to the left, lying upon the cast shore of the Narraganset, was Bristol; beyond was a glimpse of Warren; and in the far distance, directly over the steam-boat seen in the picture, the church spires of Providence were visible. On the right the high promontory of Mount Hope loomed up; and turning eastward, beyond the limits of the sketch, stood Tiverton and its old stone bridge, already mentioned. I could find no sheltered nook in making the sketch; upon the bleak summit of the hill I plied the pencil, until I could hold it no longer; but the drawing was finished.
From this eminence the vision takes in some of the most interesting portions of the Narraganset country and of the domains of Massasoit, the fast friend of the English. There were old Pocasset and Pokanoket, and, more conspicuous and interesting than all, was Mount Hope, the royal seat of King Philip, the last of the Wampanoags. It is too cold to turn the leaves of the chronicle here; let us wrap our cloaks around us, and, while gazing upon the beautiful land over which that great sachem held sway, read the records upon the tablets of memory, brief but interesting, concerning "King Philip's War."
"'Tis good to muse on nations pass'd away
Forever from the land we call our own;
Nations as proud and mighty in their day,
Who deem'd that everlasting was their throne.
An age went by, and they no more were known!
Sublimer sadness will the mind control,
Listening time's deep and melancholy moan;
And meaner griefs will less disturb the soul;
And human pride falls low at human grandeur's goal."
Robert C. Sands.
We have observed how Massasoit, the sagamore of the Wampanoags, whose dominions extended from Narraganset Bay to that of Massachusetts, presenting the hand of friendship and protection to the white settlers, remained faithful while he lived. His residence was near Warren, on the east side of the Narraganset; and so greatly was his friendship prized by the Pilgrim Fathers, that Winslow and others made a long journey to visit him whena March, 1623dangerously ill. (a ) Recovering, he entered into a solemn league of friendship with the whites, and faithfully observed it until his death, which occurred thirty-twob 1655years afterward. (b) Alexander, his eldest son, succeeded him, and gave promise of equal attachment to the whites; but his rule was short; he died two years after the death of his father, and his brother * Pometacom or Metacomet, better known as King Philip, became the head of his nation. He was a bold, powerful-minded warrior, and al-
* Bancroft and Hildreth say nephew. Earlier historians disagree. Prince and Trumbull say he was grandson to Massasoit, and Hutchinson and Belknap call him his son. Governor Prince, it is said, named Alexander and Philip after the great Macedonians, in compliment to Massasoit, indicating his idea of their character as warriors. They were doubtless sons of Massasoit.
Jealousy of King Philip.—Treaties with the Whites.—Curtailment of his Domains.—His chief Captains.—John Eliot.
1662.ready his keen perception gave him uneasiness respecting the fate of his race.
a8663
Year after year the progress of settlement had curtailed the broad domains of the Wampanoags, until now they possessed little more than the narrow tongues of land at Pocanoket and Poeas-set, now Bristol and Tiverton yet Philip renewed the treaties made with Massasoit, and kept them faithfully a dozen years; but spreading settlements, reducing his domains acre by acre, breaking up his hunting-grounds, diminishing the abundance of his fisheries, and menacing his nation with the fate of the landless, stirred up his savage patriotism, and made him resolve to sever the ties that bound him, with fatal alliance, to his enemies. His residence was at Mount Hope; and there, in the solitude of the primeval forest, he ealled his warriors around him and planned with consummate skill, an alliance of all the New England tribes against the European intruders. *
a6663
For years the pious Eliot *** had been preaching the gospel among the New England tribes;
* The number of Indians in New England at that time has been variously estimated. Dr. Trumbull, in his History of the United States (i., 36), supposes that there were thirty-six thousand in all, one third of whom were warriors. Hutchinson (i., 406) estimates the fighting men of the Narragansets alone at two thousand. Hinckley says the number of Indians in Plymouth county in 1685, ten years after Philip's war, was four thousand. Church, in his History of King Philip's War, published in Boston in 1716, estimated the number of Indian warriors in New England, in the commencement of that war, at ten thousand. Bancroft (ii., 94) says there were probably fifty thousand whites and hardly twenty-five thousand Indians in New England, west of the Piscataqua; while east of that stream, in Maine, were about four thousand whites and more than that number of red men.
** I copied this and the annexed marks of Philip's chief captains, from an original mortgage given by the sachem, to Constant Southworth, on land four miles square, lying south of Taunton. The mortgage is dated October 1, 1672. It was drawn up by Thomas Leonard, and is signed by himself, Constant Southworth, and Hugh Cole. It was acknowledged before, and signed by, John Alden. * This interesting document is in the possession of that intelligent antiquary, S. G. Drake, Esq., of Boston, to whose kindness I am indebted for these signatures. No. 1 is the sign of Munashum, alias Nimrod; No. 2, of Wonckom-pawhan; No. 3, of Captain Annawan, the "next man to Philip," or his chief warrior.
*** John Eliot, usually called the Apostle of the Indians, was minister of Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was born in Essex county, England, in 1604, and came to America in 1631. Educated thoroughly at Cambridge University, he soon obtained great influence among the settlers. Touched by the ignorance of the Indians respecting spiritual things, his heart yearned to do them good, and for many years he labored assiduously among them, with great success. He founded, at Natick, the first Indian church in America, in 1660. The next year he published the New Testament in the Indian language, and in a few years the whole Bible and other books. He died May 20th, 1690, aged about eighty-six. The venerable apostle was buried in the Ministers' Tomb ** in the first burying-ground at Roxbury, which is situated on the east side of the great avenue across the Neck to Boston. The residence of Eliot was opposite the house of Governor Thomas Dudley, on the other side of the brook. Dudley's mansion was taken down in 1775, and a redoubt was erected upon the spot. The site is now occupied by the Universalist church. Reverend Dr. Putnam, of Roxbury, is the fifth pastoral successor of the apostle in the first church. The remains of his predecessors all lie in the Ministers' Tomb. The commissioners of the Forest Hills Cemetery have designated the heights on its western border as the Eliot Hills, and there the citizens of Roxbury are about to erect a beautiful monument to the memory of the apostle, Daniel Gookin, whose signature is given above, was the friend of, and a zealous co-worker with, Mr. Eliot. He came to Virginia, from England, in 1621. He went to Massachusetts with his family in 1644, and settled in Cambridge. He was soon called to fill civil and military offices, and in 1652 was appointed superintendent of the Indians. This office he held until his death, in 1687, at the age of seventy-five years. Gookin wrote an historical account of the New England Indians, and was the firm friend of the red man through life. His remains are in the old burying-ground at Cambridge. Lieutenant Gookin of our Revolutionary army was his lineal descendant.
* Alden was a passenger in the May Flower, and one of the immortal forty-one who signed the instrument of civil government, given on pages 437 and 438, vol. I, of this work, where also is the signature of Southworth.
** In 1724-5, a citizen of Roxbury, named William Bowen, was made prisoner by the Turks. The people of his town raised a sum of money sufficient for his ransom. Before it could be applied they received intelligence of his det±. The money was then appropriated to the building of a tomb for the ministers of the church.
Enlightenment of the Indians.—Sassamon.—Rising of the New England Tribes.—Daniel Gookin.
no pains were spared to teach them to read and write; and in a short time a larger proportion of the Massachusetts Indians could do so than, recently, of the inhabitants of "Russia. * Churches were gathered among the natives; and when Philip lifted the hatchet, there were four hundred "praying Indians," as the converts were called, who were firmly attached to the whites; yet Christianity hardly spread beyond the Indians on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, and the seven feeble villages around Boston. Philip, like Red Jacket of our days, opposed meddling with the religion of his fathers, and, two years before the war, boldly and openly, at the head of seven hundred warriors, boasted of his own and their attachment to the ancient belief.
a0664m
A "praying Indian" named John Sassamon, who had been educated at Cambridge, and employed as a teacher, had fled to Philip on account of some misdemeanor, and became a sort of secretary to the sachem. Being persuaded to return to the whites, he accused Philip of meditated treason. For this he was waylaid by the savages, and slain. Three of Philip's men, suspected of the murder, were tried by a jury of half English and half Indians, convicted, and hanged. The evidence on which they were convicted was slender, and the Wampanoags were greatly irritated. Philip was cautious; his warriors were impetuous. Overruled by their importunities, and goaded by a remembrance of the wrongs and humiliations he had suffered from the English, ** he trampled solemn treaties beneath his feet, and lighted the flame of war. Messengers were sent to other tribes, to arouse them to co-operation, and, with all the power of Indian eloquence, Metacomet exhorted his followers to curse the white men, and swear eternal hostility to the pale faces.
"Away! away! I will not hear
Of aught but death or vengeance now;
By the eternal skies I swear
My knee shall never learn to bow!
I will not hear a word of peace,
Nor clasp in friendly grasp a hand
Link'd to the pale-brow'd stranger race,
That work the ruin of our land.
* Bancroft, ii., 94.
** In 1671, Philip was suspected of secret plottings against the English, and, notwithstanding his asseverations to the contrary, was ordered to give up his fire-arms to the whites. This was a fortunate occurrence for the English; for, had the Indians possessed those arms in the war that ensued, their defeat would have been doubtful.
Philip's Appeal.—Condition of the Indians.—Commencement of Hostilities.—Canonchet.—Mather's Magnalia.
"Before their coming, we had ranged
Our forests and our uplands free;
Still let us keep unsold, unchanged,
The heritage of Liberty.
As free as roll the chainless streams,
Still let us roam our ancient woods;
As free as break the morning beams,
That light our mountain solitudes.
"Touch not the hand they stretch to you;
The falsely-profferd cup put by;
Will you believe a coward true?
Or taste the poison'd draught, to die?
Their friendship is a lurking snare;
Their honor but an idle breath;
Their smile the smile that traitors wear;
Their love is hate, their life is death.
"And till your last white foe shall kneel,
And in his coward pangs expire—
Sleep—but to dream of brand and steel;
Wake—but to deal in blood and fire."
C. Sherry.
Although fierce and determined when once aroused, no doubt Philip was hurried into this war against his best judgment and feelings, for his sagacity must have forewarned him of failure. The English were well armed and provisioned; the Indians had few guns, and their subsistence was precarious. "Phrensy prompted their rising. It was but the storm in which the ancient inhabitants of the land were to vanish away. They rose without hope, and therefore they fought without mercy. For them as a nation there was no to-morrow."
Bancroft has given a condensed, yet perspicuous and brilliant narrative of this war. "The minds of the English," he says, "were appalled by the horrors of the impending conflict, and superstition indulged in its wild inventions. At the time of the eclipse of the moon, you might have seen the figure of an Indian scalp imprinted on the center of its disk. The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared in the sky. The sighing of the wind was like the whistling of bullets. Some distinctly heard invisible troops of horses gallop through the air, while others formed the prophecy of calamities in the howling of the wolves. **
"At the very beginning of danger, the colonists exerted their wonted energy. Volunteers from Massachusetts joined the troops from Plymouth, and, within a week from the commencement of hostilities, the insulated Pokanokets were driven from Mount Hope, andJanuary 29, 1675in less than a month Philip was a fugitive among the Nipmucks, the interior tribes of Massachusetts. The little army of the colonists then entered the territory of the Narragansets, and from the reluctant tribe extorted a treaty of neutrality, with a promise to give up every hostile Indian. Victory seemed promptly assured; but it was only the commencement of horrors. Canonchet, the chief sachem of the Narragansets, was the son of Miantonômoh; and could he forget his father's wrongs? And would the tribes of New England permit the nation that had first given a welcome to the English to perish unavenged? Desolation extended along the whole frontier. Banished from his patrimony,
* Bancroft, ii., 101.
** Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, ii., 486, says, "Yea, and now we speak of things ominous, we may add, some time before this [the execution of three Indians for the murder of Sassamon], in a clear, still, sunshiny morning, there were divers persons who heard in the air, on the southeast of them, a great gun go off, and presently thereupon the report of small guns, like musket shot, very thick discharging, as if there had been a battle. This was at a time when there was nothing visible done in any part of the colony to occasion such noises; but that which most of all astonished them was the flying of bullets, which came singing over their heads [beetles? See page 574, vol. i.], and seemed very near to them; after which the sound of drums, passing along westward, was very audible; and on the same day, in Plymouth colony, in several places, invisible troops of horse were heard riding to and fro." No credence is to be attached to this book of Mather's.
Indian Method of Warfare.—Destruction of New England Villages.—Terrible Retaliation by the Whites.
where the Pilgrims found a friend, and from his cabin, which had sheltered the exiles, Philip and his warriors spread through the country, arousing their brethren to a warfare of extermination.
"The war, on the part of the Indians, was one of ambush and surprise. They never once met the English in open field; but always, even if eight-fold in number, fled timorously before infantry. But they were secret as beasts of prey, skillful marksmen, and in part provided with fire-arms, fleet of foot, conversant with all the paths of the forest, patient of fatigue, mad with passion for rapine, vengeance, and destruction, retreating into swamps for their fastnesses, or hiding in the green-wood thickets, where the leaves muffled the eyes of the pursuers. By the rapidity of their descent, they seemed omnipotent among the scattered villages, which they ravaged like a passing storm; and for a full year they kept all New England in a state of terror and excitement. The exploring party was waylaid and cut off, and the mangled carcasses and disjointed limbs of the dead were hung upon the trees to terrify pursuers. The laborer in the field, the reapers as they went forth to harvest, men as they went to mill, the shepherd's boy among the sheep, were shot down by skulking foes, whose approach was invisible. Who can tell the heavy hours of woman? The mother, if left alone in the house, feared the tomahawk for herself and children; on the sudden attack, the husband would fly with one child, the wife with another, and perhaps only one escape; the village cavalcade, making its way to meeting on Sunday, in files on horseback, the farmer holding the bridle in one hand and a child in the other, his wife seated on a pillion. behind him, it may be with a child in her lap, as was the fashion of those days, could not proceed safely; but, at the moment when least expected, bullets would whiz among them, discharged with fatal aim from an ambuscade by the wayside. The red men hung upon the skirts of the English villages 'like the lightning on the edge of the clouds.'
"What need of repeating the same tale of horrors? Brookfield was set ona August 12fire, (a) rescued only to be abandoned. Deerfield was burned.(b) Hadleyb September 11surprised during a time of religious service, * was saved only by the daring of Goffe, the regicide, now bowed with years, a heavenly messenger of rescue, who darted from his hiding-place, rallied the disheartened, and, having achieved a safe defense, sank away in his retirement, to be no more seen. The plains of Northfield were wet with the blood ofa September 23Beers (a) and twenty of his valiant associates. Lathrop's company of young men, the very flower of Essex, culled out of the towns of that county, wereb September 28.butchered; (b) hardly a white man escaped; and the little stream whose channel became red with their life currents, is called Bloody Brook to this day."
The Narragansets played false to the white men, and in winter sheltered the foe that wasted their settlements. It was resolved to treat them as enemies, and through the deep snows of December, a thousand men, levied by the united colonies, marched to the great fort of the tribe. ** Its feeble palisades quickly yielded, and fire and sword soon "swept away the humble glories of the Narragansets. Their winter stores, their wigwams, and all the little comforts of savage life, were destroyed; and more, their old men, their women, their babes, perished by hundreds in the fire." ** It was a terrible blow for the Indians. Cold, hunger, and disease followed, and were the powerful allies of the English in the decimation of the tribe. Yet Canonchet did not despair, and he fought gallantly, until, being taken prisoner by the English, he was put to death.
In the spring, the spirit of revenge and retaliation began its work. Weymouth, Groton, Medfield, Lancaster, and Marlborough, in Massachusetts, were laid in ashes;
* See page 420, of this vol.
** The fort was situated upon an island containing four or five acres, imbosomed in a swamp. The island was encompassed by high and strong palisades, with abatis outside, and there three thousand of the Narragansets were collected to pass the winter. This swamp is a short distance southwest of Kingston village, in the township of Kingston, Washington county, Rhode Island. The Stonington and Providence rail-way passes along the northern verge of the swamp.
*** Bancroft, ii., 105.
Decimation of the Indians.—Strifes among them.—Philip a Fugitive.—His Death.—His Son.—Captain Church.
Warwick and Providence, in Rhode Island, were burned; and every where the isolated dwellings of adventurous settlers were laid waste. But as the season advanced, and more remote tribes came not to re-enforce them, the Indians, wasted and dispirited, abandoned all hopes of success. Strifes arose among them. The Connecticut Indians charged their misfortunes upon Philip, and so did the Narragansets. The cords of alliance were severed. Some surrendered to avoid starvation; other tribes wandered off and joined those of Canada; while Captain Church, the most famous of the English partisan warriors, went out to hunt and destroy the fugitives. * During the year, between two and three thousand Indians were killed or submitted. Philip was chased from one hiding-place to another; and although he had vainly sought the aid of the Mohawks, and knew that hope was at an end, his proud spirit would not listen to words of peace; he cleft the head of a warrior who ventured to propose it. At length, after an absence of a year, he resolved, as it were, to meet his destiny. He returned to the beautiful land where his forefathers slept, the cradle ofAugust, 1676his infancy, and the nestling-place of his tribe. Once be escaped narrowly, leaving his wife and only son prisoners. This bereavement crushed him. "My heart breaks," cried the chieftain, in the agony of his grief; "now I am ready to die." His own followers now began to plot against him, to make better terms for themselves. In a few days he was shot by a faithless Indian, and Captain Church cut off his head with his own sword. The captive orphan was transported to an island of the ocean. So perished the princes of the Pokanokets. Sad to them had been their acquaintance with civilization. The first ship that came on their coast kidnapped men of their kindred; and now the harmless boy, who had been cherished as an only child and the future sachem of their tribes—the last of the family of Massasoit—was sold into bondage, to toil as a slave under the suns of Bermuda. ** Of the once prosperous Narragansets of old, the chief tribe of New England, hardly one hundred remained. The sword, famine, fire, and sickness had swept them from the earth. "During the whole war the Mohegans remained faithful to the English, and not a drop of blood was shed on the happy soil of Connecticut. So much the greater was the loss in the adjacent colonies. Twelve or thirteen towns were destroyed. The disbursements and losses equaled in value half a million of dollars—an enormous sum for the few of that day. More than six hundred men, chiefly young men, the flower of the country, of whom any mother might have been proud, perished in the field. As many as six hundred houses were burned. Of the able-bodied men in the colony, one in twenty had fallen; and one family in twenty had been burned out. The loss of lives and property was, in proportion
* Benjamin Church was born at Duxbury, in 1639. He was the first white settler at Seaconnet, or Little Compton. He was the most active and noted combatant of the Indians during King Philip's war, and when Philip was slain, Church cut off his head with his own hands. The sword with which he performed the act is in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society (see page 562, ante). In 1689, Church was commissioned by President Hinckley, of Plymouth, and the governors of Maine and Massachusetts, commander-in-chief of a force sent against the Eastern Indians. He continued making expeditions against them until 1704. In his old age he was corpulent. A fall from his horse was the cause of his death, which occurred at Little Compton, January 17, 1718, at the age of seventy-seven years. Under his direction his son prepared a history of the Indian wars, which was published in 1716.
** The disposal of this child was a subject of much deliberation. Several of the elders were urgent to put him to death. It was finally resolved to be merciful, and send him to Bermuda, to be sold into slavery. Such was the fate of many Indians, a fate to them worse than death. During the war the government of Plymouth gave thirty shillings for every head of an Indian killed in battle, and Philip's brought the same price. Their living bodies brought a high price in Bermuda, and probably more living Indian heads went thither than dead ones to the market at Plymouth. Witamo, the squaw sachem of Pocasset, shared in the disasters of Philip. She was drowned while crossing a river in her flight. Her body was recovered, and the head cut off and stuck upon a pole at Taunton, amid the jeers of the whites and the tears of the captive Indians. The body of Philip was beheaded and quartered, according to the sentence of the English law against traitors. One of his hands was given to the Indian who had shot him, and on the day appointed for a public thanksgiving, his head was carried in triumph into Plymouth. What a mockery of Christianity! Men, guilty of gross injustice to a race that had befriended them, lifting their hands toward heaven reeking with the blood of those they had injured, and singing Te Deum Laudamus, or praising God for his providential care! No Providence for the poor Indian, because he had neither cunning, skill, nor gunpowder!
Sufferings of the Colonists.—A Happy Change.—Capture of the Pigot by Talbot
to numbers, as distressing as in the Revolutionary war. There was scarce a family from which Death had not selected a victim." * Thus ended the first general Indian war in New England. Righteousness, sitting upon the throne of judgment, has long since decided the question of equity; and we, viewing the scene at a distance, can not fail to discern the true verdict against the avaricious white man.
Those dark days of distress and crime are passed away forever. The splendors of an October sun, which then shed a radiance over the forests and the waters, beautiful as now, no longer light up the ambuscade of the red men, or the hiding-places of the pale-faces lurking for blood. From the bald eminence on which I stand, the land of Philip and Canonchet, of Witamo and Miantonômoh, and the broad waters where they sported in peace, are spread out to the eye beautiful as the "Happy Valley," and upon the whole domain rest the beneficent influences of love, harmony, righteousness, and peace. Let us, then, endeavor to forget the gloomy past, and leave upon memory only the bright vision of the present.
The vision was bright indeed, but it was the sheen of the glacier. The unclouded sun and the uncurbed north wind wrestled for the mastery. The latter was the victor, and, until I was warmed at the table of Mr. Anthony, I could not fully comprehend the charms which I had beheld while half frozen among the mounds of the old fortress on the hill.
I returned to Newport by the way of Vaucluse, on the eastern road, where I sketched the great sycamore pictured on page 653, which is standing upon the bank of the Seaconnet or Eastern Channel. Near the mouth of this passage, a little below Vaucluse, occurred one of those events, characterized by skill and personal bravery, which make up a large portion of the history of our war for independence. In order to close up this channel, when the French fleet appeared off Newport, the British converted a strong vessel of two hundred tuns into a galley, and named itPigot, in honor of the commander on Rhode Island. Its upper deck was removed, and on its lower deck were placed twelve eight-pounders, which belonged to the Flora, that was sunk in Newport harbor, and also ten swivels. Thus armed, she was a formidable floating battery. Major Silas Talbot, whose exploits had already won the expressed approbation of Congress, proposed an expedition to capture or destroy this vessel, for it effectually broke up the local trade of that section. General Sullivan regarded his scheme as impracticable, but finally consented to give Talbot permission to make the attempt. A draft of men for the purpose was allowed, and with sixty resolute, patriots, Talbot sailed from Providence in a coasting sloop called theHawk, which he had fitted out for the purpose. Armed with only three three-pounders, besides the small arms of his men, he sailed by the British forts at Bristol Ferry, and anchored within a few miles of thePigot. Procuring a horse on shore, he rode down the east bank and reconnoitered. The galley presented a formidable appearance, yet the major was not daunted. At nine o'clock in the evening, favored with a fair wind, and accompanied by Lieutenant Helm, of Rhode Island, and a small re-enforcement, Talbot hoisted the anchor of theHawkand with a kedge-anchor lashed to the jib-boom to tear the nettings of thePigot, he bore down upon1778that vessel. It was a very dark night in October. Under bare poles he drifted past Fogland Ferry fort without being discovered, when he hoisted sail and ran partly under the stem of the galley. The sentinels hailed him, but, returning no answer, a volley of musketry was discharged at theHawkwithout effect. The anchor tore the nettings and grappled the fore-shrouds of thePigot,enabling the assailants to make a free passage to her deck. With loud shouts, the Americans poured from theHawk, and drove every man of thePigotinto the hold, except the commander, who fought desperately alone, with no other mail than shirt and drawers, until he perceived that resistance was useless. ThePigotwas surrendered, with the officers and crew. Her cables were coiled over the hatchways, to secure the prisoners below, and, weighing anchor, Talbot, with his prize, entered the harbor of Stonington the next day. This bold adventure was greatly applauded, and, on the 14th of November following, Congress complimented Talbot and his men, and presented him with
* Bancroft, ii., 108, 109.
Promotion of Talbot.—Departure from Newport.—Adieu to New England.—Halleck's "Connecticut."
a commission of lieutenant colonel in the army of the United States. * He was afterward transferred to the navy, in which service we shall meet him again.
a8669
I reached Newport at four o'clock, and at sunset was on board theEmpire State, a noble Sound steam-boat (which was partially destroyed by fire a few weeks afterward), bound for New York.
We passed old Fort Canonicut and Fort Adams, and out of the harbor at twilight; and at dark, leaving the Beaver-tail light behind, we were breasting the moon-lit waves of the ocean toward Point Judith. I now bade a final adieu to New England, to visit other scenes hallowed by the struggle of our fathers for liberty.
Often since has the recollection of my visit there come up in memory like a pleasant dream; and never can I forget the universal kindness which I received during my brief tarry among the people of the East.
"They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty;
A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none.
Such are they nurtured, such they live and die,
All, but a few apostates, who are meddling
With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling;
"Or, wandering through the Southern countries, teaching
The ABC from Webster's spelling-book;
Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,
And gaining, by what they call 'hook and crook,'
And what the moralists call overreaching,
A decent living. The Virginians look
Upon them with as favorable eyes
As Gabriel on the Devil in Paradise.
"But these are but their outcasts. View them near,
At home, where all their worth and pride are placed;
And there their hospitable fires burn clear,
And there the lowliest farm-house hearth is graced
With manly hearts; in piety sincere;
Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste,
In friendship warm and true, in danger brave,
Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave."
Halleck's "Connecticut."
* See Tuckerman's Life of Talbot; Journals of Congress, iv., 471.
The Hudson Highlands.—Newburgh.—The Indian Summer.—Its character
"By wooded bluff we steal, by leaning lawn,
By palace, village, cot, a sweet surprise
At every turn the vision breaks upon;
Till to our wondering and uplifted eyes
The Highland rocks and hills in solemn grandeur rise.
"Nor clouds in heaven, nor billows in the deep,
More graceful shapes did ever heave or roll;
Nor came such pictures to a painter's sleep,
Nor beam'd such visions on a poet's soul!
The pent-up flood, impatient of control,
In ages past here broke its granite bound,
Then to the sea in broad meanders stole,
While ponderous ruin strew'd the broken ground,
And these gigantic hills forever closed around."
Theodore S. Fay.
a9670
VERY place made memorable by Revolutionary events has an interest in the mind and heart of the American, and claims the homage of regard from the lover of freedom, wheresoever he may have inspired his first breath. But there are a few localities so thickly clustered with associations of deep interest, that they appear like fuglemen in the march of events which attract the historian's notice. Prominent among these are the Highlands, upon the Hudson, from Haverstraw to Newburgh, the scenes of councils, battles, sieges, triumphs and treason, in all of which seemed to be involved for the moment, the fate of American liberty. Thitherward I journeyed at the commencement of our beautiful Indian summer, * the season
"When first the frost
Turns into beauty all October's charms;
When the dread fever quits us; when the storms
Of the wild equinox, with all its wet,
Has left the land as the first deluge left it,
With a bright bow of many colors hung
Upon the forest tops,"
Brainerd.
and rambled for a week among those ancient hills and the historic grounds adjacent. I arrived at Newburgh on the morning of the 25th of October. The town is pleasantly situated upon the steep western bank of the Hudson, sixty miles from New York, and in the midst of some of the finest scenery in the world, enhanced in interest to the student of history by the associations which hallow it. In the southern suburbs of the village, on the brow of the hill, stands the gray old fabric called "The Hasbrouck House," memorable
* The week or ten days of warm, balmy weather in autumn, immediately preceding the advent of winter storms, when, as Irving says of Sleepy Hollow, a "drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land and pervade the very atmosphere," appears to be peculiar to the United States, and has attracted the attention of travelers and philosophers. It is called Indian summer, because it occurs at a season when the natives gathered in their crops of maize or Indian corn. The atmosphere is smoky, and so mellows the sunlight that every object wears the livery of repose, like the landscapes of Southern Italy. The cause of the warmth and other peculiarities of this season is an unexplained question. It is the season when the fallen leaves of our vast forests begin to decay. As decadence is slow combustion, may not the heat evolved in the process produce the effects noticed?
The "Hasbrouck House" and Vicinity.—Its interior construction.—Purchased hy the State.—Ceremonies at its Dedication.
as the head-quarters of Washington at the close of the Revolution.