History of Amesbury - Merrill.org

HISTORY OF AMESBURY.
TWO
and a half centuries since, and the territory through
which the beautiful Merrimac winds its way to the ocean,
was in the strictest sense a wilderness. From its source to its
mouth, excepting a few savages who had survived the plague,
not a human being was found to enjoy its beauties or feast on
its bounties. But in the dim past the red man had hunted
and fished here and held high carnival on the banks of this
placid stream. Its abundance of fish and clams afforded an
inexhaustable supply to the local tribes and others which occa-
sionally resorted hither. Along the banks of the Merrimac the
Indians delighted to dwell, and when the Great Chief Passacon-
away paid his visits, we may well imagine that their greatest war
dances were celebrated. In Amesbury and Salisbury there were
found abundant evidences of their settlements in the various relics
and extensive shell mounds.
It was fortunate for the first settlers, who so fearlessly ventured
into the forests along the coast, that few Indians remained to
assert their rights and inflict their brutal revenge. The condition
of the country must have rendered these pioneers easy victims
to the red men, and the probability is that no settlement could
have been made a century previous to the plague.
The general aspect of the country cannot, perhaps, be better
described than in the language of an ancient historian who wrote
about 1700, when it is possible that some of the first settlers
were yet living. The historian says "When the English first
landed on the coast, the country looked like one vast wood, the
Indians having only cleared here and there a small patch of ground
for planting corn ; but upon a narrower survey they found every
three or four miles a fruitful valley with a clear, fresh rivulet or