Sunday, October 27, 2024

An Idyllic Week

 

Summer's encore provided some idyllic paddling conditions this past week with the high point for me occurring while paddling into a warm summer-like breeze across the Kickemuit River towards Bristol Narrows (photo above).  

Started my week with a Sunday morning paddle on the Sudbury River in Concord where the Egg Rock inscription stood high and dry...

Plenty of fall foliage to be seen...
...and temperatures reached the mid 70s F.

On Tuesday morning I drove south to Assonet, MA where I launched from Hathaway Park and paddled a few miles down the Assonet River to its confluence with the Taunton River where Little Conspiracy Island sits...
While I only stopped at the island for a quick snack, local legend has it that this island is the place where the Pokanoket sachem Metacom (aka King Philip) planned his attacks on the English settlements in 1675. 
Went upriver from the confluence with the incoming tide to Dighton Rock State Park in Berkley, MA...
...where the elaborately inscribed 40-ton boulder, Dighton Rock, resides inside the museum building pictured above. 

The museum was closed but one of the outdoor kiosks included this 1768 drawing of the inscription attributed to Steven Seal (perhaps Harvard professor Stephen Sewall)...


I last visited this spot in 2014 which now seems an eternity ago.  As far as I know, the meaning of the etchings has yet to be deciphered.  
Another kiosk referenced the Taunton River's Wild and Scenic status...



On Wednesday morning after lodging in nearby Fall River I drove down Rt 24 across the tip of Tiverton, RI and across the Sagonnet River to Bristol, RI.  Before arriving at the Mount Hope boat launch I decided to take another stab at locating the 'Miery Swamp' where Metacom's (aka King Philip's) life came to an end.  My previous attempts at locating this place had failed but this time I had one of these new-fangled hand-held computers.  Carefully following directions found on The Historical Marker Database.org website brought me past a myriad of 'Private Property/No Trespassing' signs to the spot...
The historical marker...
...reads "In the 'Miery Swamp', 100 feet from this spring, according to tradition, King Philip fell, August 12, 1676, O.S.  This stone placed by the R.I. Historical Society, December, 1877".
The mentioned nearby spring...

Hard to believe that this peaceful setting was where Metacom's life came to such an abrupt end.  The way his body was disrespected by all involved is hard to understand, regardless of how much they feared him. Earlier that summer Metacom had been at Mount Wachusett and his world began to unravel.  The federation of tribes he'd assembled dissolved, his wife and son had been captured by the English and were going to be sold into slavery.  He and his remaining followers returned to his Pokanoket home near Montaup probably knowing the end was near.

It was just a short trip from the 'Miery Swamp' to the Mount Hope Boat Launch in Bristol...

  After launching into Mount Hope Bay I paddled south to the cliff at the foot of Metacom's Montaup...

Landed at a small cove between the cliff and a stony beach...

My boat and I were about a half mile from the 'Miery Swamp' marker at this point.

After a lunch break I headed north with the tide and a lively southerly breeze in my favor.  A white-tailed deer watched me pass by...
...en route to the Bristol Narrows.  Fall River could be seen across the bay to the east...


 I passed through the narrows into the Kickemuit River and its wide tidal estuary...


Once back at the boat launch and with everything packed up I drove to the northeast with one remaining objective...a visit to "Anawan's Rock".  After Metacom's death, leadership of his remaining warriors fell to Anawan (aka Annawon or Annawan)) who continued raiding English settlements.  Captain Benjamin Church was ordered to find and capture or kill Anawan.  

The location is about 13 miles as the crow flies from the 'Miery Swamp' and off of Route 44 in Dighton, MA,  The road is fast moving (50 mph) and the sign is easy to miss...

There are several accounts of what unfolded here.  As far as I know they're all based on Benjamin Church's recollections and involve the element of surprise.  One version can be found in Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower and another version is in Leo Bonfanti's Biographies and Legends of the New England Indians Volume IV.

The slope to the rock's top...
...from where Church is supposed to have looked downward upon Anawan's encampment...

The view upward from the rock's base where Anawan thought his camp was secure ...
Despite Captain Church telling Anawan his life would be spared, Plymouth Colony officials had him executed a short time later.  Like Metacom, his severed head was displayed on a pole in Plymouth.

My two day visit had brought me to the area where the conflict known as King Philip's war began and ultimately came to an end...costly in so many ways for both sides.  Did it have to play out the way it did? 

 
Sunday's trash from the Sudbury River...

Tuesday's trash from the Assonet and Taunton rivers...

Wednesday's trash from Mount Hope Bay, mostly found at the stony beach near Montaup...


 


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