Trashpaddler: Menimesit Again

Monday, November 20, 2023

Menimesit Again

Started this past paddling week on Wednesday with a visit to the Ware River alongside the once strategic Native American village, Menimesit, in New Braintree, MA. The village was one of 3 locations mentioned in my previous post concerning Magunkaquog (in Ashland, MA) and the Eames Homestead (Framingham, MA). It was from Menimesit that Netus left in hopes of procuring corn at Magunkaquog. Menimesit was situated along the Ware River and consisted of 3 villages. It's strategic value was that the English apparently had no idea where it was located. Menimesit in February 1676 is said to have accommodated more than 2,000 Native Americans refusing to live under the authority of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In addition to the Nipmucs (native to the area) were Wampanoags and Narragansetts who'd been forced to leave their ancestral homelands to the south. Because of all these additional folks food must have been in short supply.

Menimesit was also visited by two notable figures of that tumultuous time: Metacom (aka King Philip), spent time here having arrived the previous August and stayed perhaps until December when he left for New York; Mary Rowlandson, the minister's wife taken captive at Lancaster by Native Americans, spent more than a week here in the early part of her 11-week captivity.

Unlike other sites where modern-day development makes it hard to envision such a large village, here the land has stayed undeveloped for the most part and is still active farmland. This map with my notations shows the area where I paddled (direction of river flow is right to left)...

Paddled this stretch once before...back in November 2018 when the water level was a bit higher. It offers some swift and shallow spots needing to be overcome but nonetheless allowed me to remain in my boat all the way to the dam at the abandoned Wheelwright Papermill (opening photo).

The Central Mass Railroad bridge no longer sees trains but does serve as a rail trail...

Winimusset Brook enters the river from the south alongside where Metacom camped...

One of several fertile meadows adjacent to the brook and river...

In a corner of the meadow nearest the road and brook is this historical marker noting this spot as "Site of King Philip's Camp August 1675...

It was all kinds of quiet there on Monday when not another soul was seen. Tried to imagine what it was like when there were 2,000 people gathered here in early 1676.

On Friday morning I followed this well-maintained trail to the Assabet River in West Concord, MA...

One of the site's maintainers was there...unfortunately having to deal with a car battery someone had left in the parking lot.

Worked my way upriver towards Damonmill...

Below the mill where the current got stronger I entered the mill's no-longer-in-use exit race which long-ago conveyed exhausted water back to the river...