History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

44 HISTOliY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
LITTLETON.
BY HERBERT JOSEPH HARWOOD.
MONG the first Indians con-
verted to Christianity by the
Rev. John Eliot were the sachem
Tahattawau, or Ahata-
^\ance, and many of his peoijle,
who expressed a wish to become
more civihzed and have a
town given them at Nashobah,
the Indian name of the territory
now Littleton. Ou May li>,
16.54, "In ans'. to the peticon
of Air. Jno. Elliott, on behalf of seuerall Indians,"
the General Court granted liis request, viz., liberty
for the inhabitants of " Nashop " and other places
" to erect seuerall Indjan tonnes in the places pro-
pounded," thus incorporating them under the colo-
nial government.
Daniel Gookin wrote, in 1674: " Nashobah is
the sixth praying Indian town. This village is sit-
uated in the centre between Chelmsford, Lancaster,
Groton, and Concord. It lieth from Boston about
twenty-five miles west-northwest. The inhabi-
tants are about ten families, and consequently
about fifty souls. The dimensions of this village
are four miles square. The land is fertile, and
well stored with meadows and woods. It hath
good ponds for fish adjoining to it. The people
live here, as in other Indian villages, upon plant-
ing corn, fishing, hunting, and sometimes labour-
ing with the English. Their ruler of late years
was John Ahatawance [son of the above-men-
tioned], a pious man; since his decease Penna-
kennet, or Pennahamiit, is the chief. Their
teacher is named John Thomas, a sober and jiious
man. His father was murdered by the Maquas in
a secret manner, as lie was fishing for eels at liis
wear At this place they attend civil and
religious order, as in the other praying towns, and
they have a constable and other officers.
"This town was deserted during the Maquas
war, but is now again repeopled, and in a hopeful
way to ])rospcr."
Pennaliannet was marshal-general of all the
Indian towms, and attended their chief court at
Natick ; he was sometimes called Captain Josiah.
It is remarkable that the southeastern part of
Littleton, now called Nashoba, w-as not a part of
the Indian town, but was very early settled by
white people and called Nashoba Farm. A fam-
ily by the name of Shepard was living there in
1676, during King Philip's War. Tradition says
that, in February of that year, Mary Shepard, a
girl of fifteen, was stationed on Quagana Hill, a
small rising south of Nashoba Hill, to warn her
brothers, who were threshing, if any Indians" ap-
peared ; but they stole up behind her, killed the
brothers, and carried the girl away to Nashaway
[Lancaster], from which place she escaped the
same night, mounted a horse, swam the river, and
rode home. The Reed house, the ruins of which
may still be seen at the foot of Nashoba Hill, was
built as a garrison probably about this time.
The praying Indians fared badly during the war,
being distrusted by both sides and feared by the
whites. During the month of November, 1675,
the Nashobah Indians, numbering twelve men and
forty-six women and children, were, by order of
the General Court, taken to Concord and put un-
der the charge of Mr. John Hoar, with the double
purpose of guarding and protecting them ; from
there they were taken, in February, to the islands
in Boston Harbor, whence they were removed in
May, part to Pawtucket [Lowell] and part to Cam-
bridge Village. Few returned to Nashobah, the
greater number finally settling in Natick or other
places.
Thomas Dublett, alias Nepanet, who, with his
wife Sarah, was among the few who returned to
Nashobah, acted as interpreter between a com-
mittee of whites and one of the hostile sachems, in
arranging a ransom of one of the white prisoners
at Nashobah in the summer of 1677, for which
service the court awarded him two coats.
The Indians having almost deserted their plan-
tation, tlie English began to move into it, some by
right of jjurchase, others without any right, and