History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

1G38.] ESTABLISHING THE PLANTATION. 3
capt. Mason sent As a Ikst resourcG, Caj)t. John Mason with
Northward for two companions was dispatched up the river
Supplies. .
T n f % • ,1 n
m search ot tood, m the spring of the year
1038. They journeyed as far as Pocumtuck (Deerfield),
where they succeeded in purchasing an ample supply of
corn, which was delivered by the Indians with a fleet of
fifty canoes at Hartford and Windsor.' Forever to the
credit of the red man be it recorded that he responded liberally
and generously to the appeal of the strangers who
came to sui3plant and drive him not only from the home of
his fathers, but eventually from the face of the earth. The
conqueror of the Pequods, fresh from that sanguinary conflict,
which resulted in the annihilation of one Indian na-
tion^ came humbly suing another of the same race to preserve
the victors from a lingering death. "Never was the
like," says Mason, "known to this day."
Mts. Hoiyoke and The two mouutains that stood then as now
^o^^- at the southern entrance to Nonotuck meadows,
undoubtedly received their names from
Elizur Hoiyoke and Rowland Thomas, pioneer settlers of
Springfield. Not many years after the successful mission
of Mason, two parties went northward from Springfield to
explore the country. Hoiyoke commanded the division
that ascended the eastern bank of the river and Thomas
that on the west. Tradition affirms that these parties
standing where the river is narrowest, at the place once
known as Rock Ferry, shouting across to each other, applied
the names of their leaders to the respective moun-
tains.'
1 " The year ensuing the colony being in extream want of Provisions, many giving
twelve shillings for one bushel of Indian corn ; the Court of Connecticut imploying
Capt. Mason, Mr. William Wadsworth, & Deacon Stebbin to try what Providence
would afford for their relief, in this great straight ; who notwithstanding some discouragements
they met from some English went to a place called Pocumtuck, where
they procured so much corn at reasonable rates, that the Indians brought down to
Hai-tford & Windsor Fifty canoes laden with corn at one time."—Mason's History of
the Pequod war, Mass. Hist. Col. vol. 8, p. 153.
3 " There remained not a sannup nor a squaw, not a warrior or child of the Pequod
name. A nation had disappeared from the family of man."—Bancroft's History
of the U. S., vol. 1, page 402, Ed. 1852.
3 Holland's History of Western Mass., vol. 1, p. 54.