John Wheelwright and Wehanownowit – Can we all live together?
by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column appeared in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, October 13, 2017.
In early 1638, the Reverend John Wheelwright was faced with a decision. He’d been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for theological differences and had spent the long cold winter of 1637-38 couch-surfing either at Strawbery Banke (now Portsmouth) or with Edward Hilton near today’s Dover. Once the weather cleared and warmed up a bit, he was planning to head up the Squamscott River to the falls at a place the Englishmen were already calling “Exeter.” There was ample lumber, a series of waterfalls for power, some open land for grazing and salt marsh hay to feed animals, what wasn’t to love about this new Exeter?
There was one small matter Wheelwright had to contend with – once spring arrived, the Natives would return for the season. Settling around the river each summer, the Squamscotts would farm, hunt, fish and replenish their stores for winter, when they would return upstate. Some kind of agreement would have to be made so that the Englishmen and Squamscotts could avoid angry confrontation.
Wheelwright made his way to Exeter in March, hindered a bit by the deep snow that still blanketed the ground, “it was marvelous that he got thither at that time…by reason of the deep snow in which he might have perished,” Wheelwright wrote (in second person) in his Mercurius Americanus. By April, the Squamscotts had returned. The Englishmen would have already picked out choice land and erected rudimentary shelters by that time. One can only wonder what that awkward meeting was like.
Wehanownowit was the leader of Squamscotts in 1638. We know very little about him, unfortunately, except that he was willing and able to negotiate with the English. He must have had contact with the three white men who’d been living near the waterfalls year-round. Exeter Historian Charles Bell tells us, “if we are to credit tradition there were three other persons dwelling at the falls of the Squamscot before the arrival of the company of Wheelwright in 1638. These were Ralph Hall, Thomas Leavitt and Thomas Wilson.” If they’d been there for a few years, they must have had some knowledge of Wehanownowit and his people. Perhaps they were able to assist Wheelwright when the question of land ownership arose. Most Englishmen assumed that land was theirs for the taking by grant of the King. Waves of epidemics in the early 1600s had diminished New England’s Native populations by as much as 80%. Seasonal movement of tribes gave the English the inaccurate impression that these were nomadic people. But, of course, they weren’t nomadic, they simply used the land as needed when needed. And land ownership had different meaning to the two groups of people. Europeans held that land owned was land possessed, defended and restricted. Natives held a broader sense that land owned was land to be used, shared and protected.
Still, in spite of these differences, the two leaders seem to have believed that both groups could peacefully inhabit the same space. In typically English fashion, John Wheelwright drafted a deed that was signed by all parties with witnesses. Wehanownowit and a man called ‘James’ from the Squamscotts signed the deed with pictographs. Several of the Englishmen signed with an ‘X.’ In exchange for “certen comodys which I have received have graunted and sould…all the right title& interest in all such lands, woods, meadows, rivers, brookes, springs as of right belong unto me.” Thankfully, we don’t know what commodities were exchanged for the land deal. If we did know, it would no doubt be an embarrassingly trifle amount of goods.
But Wehanownowit was shrewd enough to keep the rights to his land. “only the ground which is broken up excepted and that it shall be lawfull for the said Sagamore to hunt and fish and foul in the said limits.” Sure, you can own the land, but we can continue to grow our corn, beans and squash, hunt in the woods, fish in the river and snare birds. Seemed like a good deal all around. The early records of the town are careful to protect the Native fishing weirs set out in the river.
For a number of years, things moved along relatively smoothly. In early 1642, an unnamed Englishman was ordered to pay one bushel of corn to a Native once the harvest came around because his swine had dug up the field. The Natives had no domestic animals, and English cows, pigs, sheep and dogs must have been puzzling to them. Why expend so much time tending, feeding and sheltering these beasts when there was meat on the hoof running around the forests? Pigs, in particular, were allowed to run free foraging through their unfenced crops. This must have been a constant irritation.
Within a few years, the English erected dams on the river to power the grist and sawmills. The dams impeded the movement of fish, sawdust despoiled the water. The woods were quickly deforested leaving no place for deer and moose to roam. At some point, Wehanownowit realized that the place they’d been coming to for generations was no longer providing what they needed. By 1672, the Exeter town records refer to most Native holdings in the past tense – “an Indian field formerly planted with corn.” In 1693, Captain Peter Coffin bounded his land near “ye ould Indiane field at ye landing place.” It is most likely that the people moved to New York and did not return to the seacoast of New Hampshire. The experiment of two cultures living together didn’t last very long.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Her column appears every other Friday and she may be reached at info@exeterhistory.org.
Photo: The Wheelwright/Wehanownowit Deed signed in Exeter on April 3, 1638. Wehanownowit was careful to protect his tribe's fishing, hunting and planting rights. Even with these protections, the two groups used the land in different ways that were not compatible with one another.
This "Historically Speaking" column appeared in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, October 13, 2017.
In early 1638, the Reverend John Wheelwright was faced with a decision. He’d been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for theological differences and had spent the long cold winter of 1637-38 couch-surfing either at Strawbery Banke (now Portsmouth) or with Edward Hilton near today’s Dover. Once the weather cleared and warmed up a bit, he was planning to head up the Squamscott River to the falls at a place the Englishmen were already calling “Exeter.” There was ample lumber, a series of waterfalls for power, some open land for grazing and salt marsh hay to feed animals, what wasn’t to love about this new Exeter?
Wheelwright made his way to Exeter in March, hindered a bit by the deep snow that still blanketed the ground, “it was marvelous that he got thither at that time…by reason of the deep snow in which he might have perished,” Wheelwright wrote (in second person) in his Mercurius Americanus. By April, the Squamscotts had returned. The Englishmen would have already picked out choice land and erected rudimentary shelters by that time. One can only wonder what that awkward meeting was like.
Wehanownowit was the leader of Squamscotts in 1638. We know very little about him, unfortunately, except that he was willing and able to negotiate with the English. He must have had contact with the three white men who’d been living near the waterfalls year-round. Exeter Historian Charles Bell tells us, “if we are to credit tradition there were three other persons dwelling at the falls of the Squamscot before the arrival of the company of Wheelwright in 1638. These were Ralph Hall, Thomas Leavitt and Thomas Wilson.” If they’d been there for a few years, they must have had some knowledge of Wehanownowit and his people. Perhaps they were able to assist Wheelwright when the question of land ownership arose. Most Englishmen assumed that land was theirs for the taking by grant of the King. Waves of epidemics in the early 1600s had diminished New England’s Native populations by as much as 80%. Seasonal movement of tribes gave the English the inaccurate impression that these were nomadic people. But, of course, they weren’t nomadic, they simply used the land as needed when needed. And land ownership had different meaning to the two groups of people. Europeans held that land owned was land possessed, defended and restricted. Natives held a broader sense that land owned was land to be used, shared and protected.
Still, in spite of these differences, the two leaders seem to have believed that both groups could peacefully inhabit the same space. In typically English fashion, John Wheelwright drafted a deed that was signed by all parties with witnesses. Wehanownowit and a man called ‘James’ from the Squamscotts signed the deed with pictographs. Several of the Englishmen signed with an ‘X.’ In exchange for “certen comodys which I have received have graunted and sould…all the right title& interest in all such lands, woods, meadows, rivers, brookes, springs as of right belong unto me.” Thankfully, we don’t know what commodities were exchanged for the land deal. If we did know, it would no doubt be an embarrassingly trifle amount of goods.
But Wehanownowit was shrewd enough to keep the rights to his land. “only the ground which is broken up excepted and that it shall be lawfull for the said Sagamore to hunt and fish and foul in the said limits.” Sure, you can own the land, but we can continue to grow our corn, beans and squash, hunt in the woods, fish in the river and snare birds. Seemed like a good deal all around. The early records of the town are careful to protect the Native fishing weirs set out in the river.
For a number of years, things moved along relatively smoothly. In early 1642, an unnamed Englishman was ordered to pay one bushel of corn to a Native once the harvest came around because his swine had dug up the field. The Natives had no domestic animals, and English cows, pigs, sheep and dogs must have been puzzling to them. Why expend so much time tending, feeding and sheltering these beasts when there was meat on the hoof running around the forests? Pigs, in particular, were allowed to run free foraging through their unfenced crops. This must have been a constant irritation.
Within a few years, the English erected dams on the river to power the grist and sawmills. The dams impeded the movement of fish, sawdust despoiled the water. The woods were quickly deforested leaving no place for deer and moose to roam. At some point, Wehanownowit realized that the place they’d been coming to for generations was no longer providing what they needed. By 1672, the Exeter town records refer to most Native holdings in the past tense – “an Indian field formerly planted with corn.” In 1693, Captain Peter Coffin bounded his land near “ye ould Indiane field at ye landing place.” It is most likely that the people moved to New York and did not return to the seacoast of New Hampshire. The experiment of two cultures living together didn’t last very long.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Her column appears every other Friday and she may be reached at info@exeterhistory.org.
Photo: The Wheelwright/Wehanownowit Deed signed in Exeter on April 3, 1638. Wehanownowit was careful to protect his tribe's fishing, hunting and planting rights. Even with these protections, the two groups used the land in different ways that were not compatible with one another.
Comments