Mass Moments, the electronic almanac of Massachusetts history, reminded us that yesterday was the 336th anniversary of the start of King Philip’s War which, when measured by the percentage of population killed, was the deadliest war in the history of North America. Although the fighting broke out in Plymouth, it eventually spread to the Merrimack Valley. In the spring of 1676, Groton had been burned and Chelmsford and Andover had experienced raids by native warriors. Eventually, the colonists prevailed and either killed or drove out of southern New England almost all of the indigenous people. Ironically, the consequences of King Philip’s war played a major (if little understood or appreciated role) in the subsequent founding of Lowell 150 years later.
The first English settlers came to this vicinity in 1653 when a group of 29 men from Woburn and Concord petitioned the General Court to grant a charter for the town of Chelmsford on six square miles “of upland and meadow” bordering the Merrimack and Concord Rivers. The parcel sought by these settlers (which included what is now downtown Lowell) was already occupied by the Pawtucket Indians who called their settlement Wamesit. Fortunately for the Pawtuckets, a minister named John Eliot had began visiting them annually in 1647 and had converted the tribe to Christianity.
Because Eliot was committed to the actual as well as to the spiritual well-being of the Pawtuckets, he intervened in the Chelmsford petition and requested the General Court to grant the Indians a charter for the land which they had long occupied and cultivated. The legislature did just that, granting the Pawtuckets 1000 acres on the west bank of the Concord River (downtown Lowell) and 1500 acres on the east bank (Belvidere) for a town to be called Wamesit while also granting the Chelmsford petition albeit for land farther west along the Merrimack (shown on the 1650s sketch map that appears above). read more »
Recent Comments