PART 2 WONOHAQUAHAM

A familiar story in the history of Winchester, depicted in the mural overlooking the lobby of the public library, is that of the acquisition of the land upon which the town was built by the English colonists from the Squaw Sachem, the widow of the sachem Nanepashemet.

Less well known is the story of their son Wonohaquaham and the role he played by first welcoming the English settlers to Charlestown.

When Nanepashemet was killed by the Tarratine in 1619, he was survived by his wife, three sons, and a daughter. The children were then still quite young. However, by the time the Puritans arrived, at least the eldest son had assumed a position of leadership.

His name was Wonohaquaham, though the English called him Sagamore John. (A sagamore was either the same as or subordinate to a sachem--see part 1.) His seat was in the Charlestown/Chelsea area, whereas his brothers, Montowampate and Wenepoykin, when they attained their majorities, had principal habitations in Saugus and Salem.

Wonohaquaham, colonial records state, "always loved the English" and freely gave them permission to settle.

The earliest recorded meeting between Wonohaquaham and the English was in 1628 when three Sprague brothers set out from Naumkeag (Salem) to explore the land to the west. According to the town records of Charlestown written in 1664, they came to a neck of land "lying on the north side of the Charles River full of Indians, called Aberginians. Theire old Sachem being dead, his eldest sonne, by the English called John Sagamore, was theire chief; and a man naturally of a gentle and good disposition; by whose free consent, they settled about the hill of the same place, by the said natives called Mishawum."

Governor John Winthrop and a party of Puritans arrived to settle Charlestown in 1630. Edward Johnson, who was among them, wrote that "Among others one of the chiefe Saggamores of the Mattachusets, whom the English named Saggamore John, gave some good hopes, being always very courteous to them."

Writing in 1631, Thomas Dudley recorded, "Upon the river of Mistick is seated sagamore John and upon the river of Saugus sagamore James his brother, both so named by the English. The elder brother, John, is a handsome young man ... conversant with us, affecting English apparel and houses, and speaking well of our God."

Similarly, according to the Puritan treatise New England's First Fruits (1643), "Sagamore John, prince of Massaquesers, was from our very first landing more corteous, ingenious, and to the English more loving than others of them; he desired to learne and speake our language, and loved to imitate us in our behaviour and apparrell, and began to hearken after our God, and his wayes, and would much commend English men, and their God, saying much good men, much good God, and being convinced that our condition and wayes were better farre then theirs, did resolve and promise to leave the Indians, and come live with us; but yet kept down by feare of the scoffes of the Indians, had not power to make good his purpose."

Protection

In the beginning, the English were not so numerous as to be viewed as an invading threat. Wherever they went, moreover, they offered protection from enemy tribes.

The Massachusetts had not lost their terror of the Tarratines, who killed Wonohaquaham's father and many of his kinsmen when he was a child and who continued to come down from Maine and attack other tribes.

In August of 1631, the Tarratines attacked the Indians at Ipswich while Wonohaquaham and Montowampate were on a visit there. Both brothers were wounded, and Montowampate's wife, Wenuchus, was carried away. After nearly two months, through the intercession of an English trader, she was restored to her people.

(The wedding of Montowampate and Wenuchus, incidentally, is the subject of a poem by Whittier, who got the names of both bride and groom wrong). Considering that neither Wonohaquaham nor Montowampate could command more than 30 or 40 men, according to Dudley, and that skirmishes continued between various tribes, the protection of the English was a valuable promise. That Wonohaquaham valued their friendship is evident from a 1630 report that he warned the English against a Narragansett plot.

Quarrels resolved

Generally, Wonohaquaham lived amicably with the English. There are indications of friction but also of recourse for justice through the colonial court. In 1631 Wonohaquaham complained that two of his wigwams had been burned. He received compensation.

According to Winthrop's journal, in March 1631 Wonohaquaham and Montowampate went to the governor asking assistance in recovering the value of 20 beaver skins taken by an Englishman. "The governour entertained them kindly" and gave them a letter of introduction to a lawyer in London. Alonzo Lewis, in his History of Charlestown, wrote, "Tradition says, that Montowampate went to England, where he was treated with much respect as an Indian king, but, disliking the English delicacies, he hastened back to Saugus."

Another complaint, in 1632, that Wonohaquaham's corn had been destroyed by an Englishman's cattle, was not satisfactorily answered. He was told that he himself was responsible for not having fenced in his fields. But he also got a hogshead of corn.

The story of Wonohaquaham ended only a few years after the arrival of the English. On Dec. 5, 1633, Gov. Winthrop's journal records, "John Sagamore died of the small pox, and almost all his people; (above 30 buried by Mr. Maverick of Winesemett in one day). The towns in the bay took away many of the children; but most of them died soon after.

"James Sagamore of Saugus died also and most of his folks. John Sagamore deired to be brought among the English (so was) and promised (if he recovered) to live with the English and serve their God. He left one son, which he disposed to Mr. Wilson, the pastor of Boston, to be brought up by him."

Memorial

In 1882, according to Charles Brooks' History of Medford, an Indian burial site was found on Brooks land. "Under the direction of Mr. Francis Brooks, these relics of the Mystic Indians were carefully collected and re-buried; and in 1884, with characteristic reverence for the old traditions, he placed a monument of the spot, bearing the date-marks, 1630-1884, and with an inscription dedicating it to Sagamore John and to the memory of the Indians who lie buried there."

Well intentioned, the monument was not well inscribed, since the Mr.Maverick who buried Wonohaquaham lived in Chelsea.

Wonohaquaham's son presumably died. His brother, Montowampate, was survived by his wife. Daughter of the Pawtuckett sachem Passaconaway, Wenuchus reportedly returned to her father's tribe.

Wonohaquaham's heirs were his mother and his brother Wenepoykin. The history of the colonial settlement of Winchester continues with the former, the widow of Nanepashemet, whose own name is unknown, though her deeds stand at the head of Winchester's history.