Trashpaddler: Keeping One's Head and Staying On Point

While paddling into Connecticut's Sachem Head Harbor (above) this past Wednesday it would have been difficult for me not to have been thinking about how this place got its name. Afterall, the legend it's named for was the reason for my entering the harbor in the first place. Ever since I first encountered the story of Sachem's Head when reading historical accounts of the Pequot War, the grim-sounding place name had been in the back of my mind. Thanks to a stay at a friend's place on nearby Leete's Island in Guilford I had the opportunity to paddle its waters. The legend concerns a series of events that occurred here following the destruction/massacre of the Pequot village Mistick by the combined English, Mohegan, and Narragansett force. Pequot survivors were being hunted down as they sought refuge to the west. One such group of survivors camped at the head of a cove in the area of today's Sachem Head. Of the many historical accounts I've come across, the one found in A History of the Plantation of Menukatuck and of the Original Town of Guilford, Connecticut (written largely from the manuscripts of the Hon. Ralph Dunning Smyth) by Bernard Christian Steiner and published in 1897 provides what I believe to be the most detailed version:

"Uncas scouring the coast with his Mohegans was upon their trail and learning of their proximity from his father-in-law the Sachem Sebequounosh "who dwelt at Hammonessett" he prepared to attack them in their encampment. They met in conflict at the head of the cove. The Pequots were commanded by two of Sassacus' Sachems or captains. Uncas was assisted by Weekwash, a few of the Connecticut soldiers, and probably by some of the Indians of his Sachem father-in-law at Hammonassett. Uncas and his Mohegans were victorious, but not, however, until numbers of both contending parties and one of the Pequot Sachems had fallen, and the beach and the tide were stained with their blood, thus giving the name of Bloody Cove to the spot, which it has borne to this day, the other sachem, with a few of his Pequots, proceeded out on the narrow tongue of land, lying between the marsh and the harbor and the sea, hoping to escape the notice of their enemies. Uncas, however, detecting the stratagem, ordered some of his men to scour the point, which the Pequots perceiving, they endeavored to swim across the mouth of the harbor. But here again they were intercepted by Uncas, just as they were about gaining the opposite point, and made prisoners as they landed. A council was held and the sachem was condemned to be shot to death. Uncas himself is said to have shot him with an arrow. He cut off his head and set it up in the fork of a large oak tree-on the top of a ridge-whose elevated trunk, stript of most of its branches overlooked the Sound and the islands in the distance. Here it remained for many years, a ghastly object of terror and superstition to the peaceful Indians of the vicinity, and before the English planters had purchased Menuncatuck of the natives or settled the town of Guilford, this spot had obtained the name Sachem's Head, a name which it will probably bear as long as the descendants of the Puritans shall dwell in the borders of Connecticut."

If this account was accurate, and if I'd been entering Sachem Head Harbor 388 years ago, I might have seen the sachem and his men swimming across the harbor ahead of my boat's bow. A map showing the area...

In looking for the location where the swimmers may have landed I found myself leaning towards this point that juts out into the harbor...

The harbor on the day of my visit was quite tranquil, and being fairly small it was easy to explore to its innermost point where a narrow strip of land divides the harbor from Bloody Cove in the distance...

Wildlife seen in the harbor included this great egret...

...a snowy egret...

...an adult osprey...

...and some recent additions to the osprey clan...

The following morning I'd hoped to paddle out to the Thimble Islands but upon reaching Foskett Island...

...I looked across some choppy waters between myself and the Thimbles...

So I enjoyed my breakfast while gently bobbing in one of Foskett Island's sheltered coves. While there this American Oystercatcher dropped in...

It'd been awhile since my last salt water paddle, and the water temps in Long Island Sound were much warmer than what I'm used to around Massachusetts Bay.

Prior to my time in Connecticut I enjoyed an up-and-back-down paddle on the Nashua River on Monday from Petapawag in Groton, MA...