History of Amesbury - Merrill.org

HISTORY OF AMESBURY. 3
climbed the famous Powow, the Indians held their Powows on
its top and there celebrated their victories by their hilarious war
dance. The surrounding hills were lighted by their camp-fires
for centuries before Columbus was born or imagination had
conjured up a western continent. Wild deer after quenching
their thirst at the fountains which burst forth in the meadows,
where they fed in the tall grass, reposed in the shady groves or
wandered in herds over the hills, "the loud bark of the raccoon
was heard everywhere, and droves of voracious wolves roamed
the woods, trotting like dogs." Thus wild and strange was this
unknown land when the white man came.
No trace of pre-historic civilization was found, nor could the
origin of the red man be traced. He was here, but whence
he came, where he originated—Phoenicia, Scythia, China or Tar-
tary—is a question hard of solution, and we only know that the
earliest discoveries have found him everywhere.
The plains were their corn-fields, where the shining grain had
been deposited under the spear-turned sod ; their canoes glided
quietly over the beautiful waters of the Merrimac and Powow
as years came and went ; nor did "*Attitash" refuse the shining
pickerel and perch for their feasts. Ocean and rivers abounded
with fish and clams, the forest with game, and enough was readily
obtained with their simple instruments to satisfy their wants.
Their houses were built of the branches of trees in summer and
skins of wild beasts in winter.
They were following in the steps of their ancestors, who had
gone towards the setting sun and were now in the happy
hunting ground ; dreaming of no intrusion unless from some of
their warlike neighbors who occasionally surprised them by the
startling warwhoop, when the white man suddenly appeared in
their midst.
For a while they hardly knew whether these strange comers
were friends or foes, and their friendliness was far more deserving
of the name than at a later period. For many years these
pioneers lived a life of anything but pleasure, "and their de-
scendants can have but a faint idea of the difficulties they
encountered, and of the dangers that continually hung over their
*Indian name for Kimball's Pond.