Map of our route...
Along the way we saw some early fall foliage...
...and paddled a brief side trip up Bogastow Brook to South End Pond...
A historical marker tells the tale...
After launching into the North Branch of the Nashua River I paddled the short distance down to the confluence of the north and south branches...
On my way to the boat launch I had stopped to visit the Haynes Garrison site on Water Row located 25 miles to the southeast of Wachusett...
Hopefully the Goodenow marker will receive some TLC as did the Haynes marker below...
...at the east end of the bridge is a burial marker for 8 men from Concord who responded to the alarm that morning and attempted to aid the folks in the Haynes Garrison...
A closer look...
They never got there.
...where during the height of the King Philip War settlers took refuge in a stone garrison house during a February 1676 Indian attack on Medfield. According to Ron McAdow's book, The Charles River: Exploring Nature and History On Foot and by Canoe, "...half of Medfield's one hundred homes and two mills were destroyed. Seventeen settlers were killed as well". "To discourage pursuit, the Indians fired the bridges (across the Charles). On the ruins at Death's Bridge (a mile or so downriver from Bogastow Brook) they left this notice:
"Know by this paper that the Indians thou has provoked to wrath and anger will war these twenty-one years, if you will. There are many Indians yett. We come three hundred at this time. You must consider that the Indians loose nothing but their lives. You must loose you fair houses and cattle."
The notice is believed to have been written by an Indian known as James the Printer and I think it fair to say must have spooked the settlers.
Thus settlers garrison houses providing refuge for settlers during the 1676 conflict became the theme for my paddling week.
One thing the attacks shared in common was that they all emanated from a Native American stronghold at Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, MA where, according to Leo Bonfanti in volume 4 of his series Biographies and Legends of the New England Indians, the Narragansett leader, Canonchet, "was the military genius who was responsible for the reign of terror in the late winter and early spring of 1676 that almost succeeded in destroying the English army". It should be noted that the Narragansetts had only recently entered the conflict. This followed an attack on their winter village in December by the United Colonies in which many of their women and children were killed. It's known as the The Great Swamp Fight/Massacre. The successful raids against the settlers designed by Canonchet might have provided him with some sense of revenge for the attack/massacre perpetrated by the United Colonies against his people at Great Swamp.
On Wednesday I launched across the street from the Rowlandson Garrison House site in Lancaster, MA located 11 miles to the east of Wachusett where perhaps as many as 42 settlers taking refuge within were either killed or captured...
...where a sign on the bridge marks the significance of the location...
Unfortunately, the sign isn't visible from the river. The Nashua was surprisingly low, only 6 inches deep in places, showing how quickly it gives up its water after four or five dry days. About 1.5 miles upriver on the north branch I found the river blocked bank to bank by a fallen tree.
Yesterday, I wrapped up my week with a paddle on the Sudbury River from River Road in Wayland, MA...
Unlike the Nashua the Sudbury holds it water well and there was still plenty of it.
The view out to the river from the foundation of the long-gone garrison house...
About a mile to the south of the Haynes Garrison another group of settlers were hunkered down in the Goodenow Garrison House...
The no-longer-in use Town Bridge in Wayland where in 1676 an earlier bridge spanned the river...
These three Indian raids occurred in a span of three months in 1676 starting with the Lancaster raid on February 10 followed by the Medfield raid on February 21 and culminating with the Sudbury raid on April 21. Additionally there was a raid at Groton on March 13 where, according to Samuel A. Green M.D. in his book Groton During the Indian Wars 1883 (transcribed by Janice Farnsworth), a Native American Nipmuck leader, One-eyed John (aka Monaco) called out to the captain of the Groton garrison that he had a force of 480 men with whom he planned to burn Chelmsford, Concord, Watertown, Cambridge, Charlestown, Roxbury, Boston in that order. Green writes, "So great was the terror inspired throughout the Bay towns by the quick, succeeding Indian raids of this period that it was seriously proposed to abandon and fence out Lancaster, Groton, and the other outlying towns by a stockade eight feet high and twelve miles in length, from Watertown to Wamesit (near Lowell) [Massachusetts Archives, LXVIII 174.] Fortunately, for the settlers, Canonchet was killed in April leaving me to wonder "what if he had lived and continued the execution of his strategy?" Perhaps those outlying towns would have been abandoned and the 12-mile stockade fence erected.
Instead the Indians won the battle at Sudbury but failed to accomplish their goal of driving the settlers to east of the river. Not too long after, the Native Americans disbanded, and left Wachusett. Philip himself returned to Rhode Island and was killed in August. Oddly, Mary Rowlandson's captivity spans this same stretch of time. She was captured on February 10, 1676 and released on May2, 1676. She heard of these events from her unique perspective within the Native American community.
Trash from the Nashua's North Branch included 80 miniature alcohol bottles (aka "nips") and 3 cool dudes...
Trash from the Sudbury...
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