The Fur Trade in New England, 1620–1676 [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674183490, 9780674334533

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HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE ESSAYS PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1931 FROM A GIFT BY

H E R B E R T NATHAN STRAUS '03

HONORS THESIS IN HISTORY

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFOKD OXFORD UNIVERSITÄT PRESS

THE FUR T R A D E IN NEW ENGLAND 1620-1676

BY

F R A N C I S X. M O L O N E Y Class of 1931

CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS · 1931 HARVARD - U N I V E R S I T Y - PRESS

COPYRIGHT, 1931 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS O F HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAUBRIDQE, Í1ASS., U.S.A.

TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. Π.

11

T H E F O B T R A D E OF PLYMOUTH COLONT

17

M A I N E AND N A R R A G A N S E T T

32

1. Fur Traders on the Maine Coast 2. Traders of the Narragansett Country III.

T H E F U R T R A D E ON T H E C O N N E C T I C U T RIVER

46

1. From 1623 to 1652 2. From 1652 to 1676 IV.

THE

FUR

TRADE OF THE

MERRIMAC

VALLEY V.

T H E F U R T R A D E IN THE FOREIGN

67 RE-

LATIONS O F N E W E N G L A N D

79

1. New England and the Dutch 2. New England and the French VI.

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N AND R E G U L A T I O N OF THE F U R TRADE

95

1. Organization 2. Regulation VII.

CONCLUSIONS

109

1. The Advance of the Fur-Trading Frontier 2. The Decline of the Fur Trade NOTES

119

BIBLIOGRAPHY

139

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

INTRODUCTION STUDENTS familiar with the history of the American frontier readily recognize the importance of the fur trade as a factor in the westward movement of population. In New England, as in the country as a whole, the fur traders explored the rivers, spied out the land, built outposts which later became towns, brought the Indians under their control, and came in conflict with the traders of other nations. Southern New England was populated so quickly and expanded so rapidly that our knowledge of the activities of the fur traders who preceded the pioneer farmers is obscure and confused. One of the main objects of this study is to indicate the distinct rôle played by the fur traders in the exploration, settlement, and foreign relations of New England during the period between the founding of Plymouth and King Philip's War. I n an economic sense, too, the fur trade was important in New England's early history. This trade and fishing enabled the (13)

INTRODUCTION

French, English, and Dutch to get footholds on the continent, and sustained many of the first settlements on the coast. The financial aspect of the fur trade did not play the large part in most other regions of the United States t h a t it did in this section. A major commercial activity for three decades, the fur trade was a prime factor in early transatlantic commerce. I t was therefore of special importance in the economy of the New England colonies. The beaver was the staple of the New England fur trade. This animal resembles a large muskrat, and its favorite environment is a small lake or sluggish stream. The outer hair is deep chestnut in color, coarse and long, while the under fur is silky, compact, and greyish. The Indians used the flesh of the beaver for food, and the fur for clothing and robes. Since the beaver is not highly reproductive and not a migrant, its destruction in any one locality made it necessary for hunters to move to new areas. 1 The fur of the beaver was preferred over t h a t of other animals in the European markets, because of its beauty, its size, its durability, warmth, and weight. The fashion in Europe of wear(14)

INTRODUCTION

ing beaver hats caused a large demand for the fur, and traders, sure of a ready market for this valuable product, were quick to urge the Indians to bring them all the beaver skins they could get. The Indians, on the other hand, were eager for the blankets, coarse cloths, bright ribbons, cheap personal ornaments, kettles, knives, axes, guns, powder, shot, and liquor which the white trader offered in exchange. The Indian demand for these commodities was large and constant. " T h e task of continuously supplying goods to the Indian tribes of North America, of maintaining the depreciation of these goods, and of replacing the goods destroyed was overwhelming." 2 The natives quickly wore out iron utensils; their guns were often in need of repair; and they always sought more ammunition; while their collective liquor-consuming capacity was very great. In order to get more of the white man's goods the Indians had to devote more of their time and effort to the hunting of beaver and other fur-bearing animals. 3 The fur traders sent the skins brought in by the native hunters to Europe. Fur was preeminently suited to the requirements of (15)

INTRODUCTION

overseas trade during the colonial period.4 I t was small in bulk; its high value could bear the heavy overhead cost of long voyages; and it always found a ready market. Beaver fur was the basis of exchange with Europe. 5 The only means by which the colonists in New England could procure the manufactured goods of Europe was by sending back articles of corresponding value. The fishing industry was a great commercial interest, but the fishing fleets from Europe almost monopolized it during the early years. The colonists needed for themselves all the food they could produce. The furs obtained from the Indians provided the easiest means of paying their debts, buying necessary goods from Europe, and acquiring modest fortunes.

CHAPTER I THE FUR TRADE OF PLYMOUTH COLONY T H E first permanent settlement in New England owed its successful foundation in a large degree to the trade it carried on in furs. Plymouth Colony was a fur-trading post from the beginning of its existence. The voyages of explorers and traders had made known to the world the economic possibilities of the coastal waters and the forests of New England. Bartholomew Gosnold, financed in part by the Earl of Southampton, voyaged hither in 1602 searching for sassafras and trading incidentally for furs with the Indians.1 Martin Pring, as the agent for merchants of Bristol, coasted along the Maine shore and loaded a cargo of sassafras. The narrator of this voyage of 1603 mentions the animals seen "whose Furres being hereafter purchased by exchange may yield no smal gaine to us. Since as we are certainly informed, the Frenchmen brought from Canada the value of thirty thousand (17)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

Crownes . . ." in one year. 2 George Weymouth, in a trading and exploring venture in 1604, went up St. George's River in northern Maine a distance of forty miles. " F o r knives, glasses, combs, and other trifles to the value of four or five shillings" his men received from the natives " f o r t y good Beaver skins, Otters skins, Sables, and other small skins." 3 Such reports advertised the resources of Maine and stimulated gentlemen adventurers and men of capital to invest in commercial ventures to the coast. A commercial colony was established at the mouth of the Sagadahoc or Kennebec River in 1607, but the severity of the winter, the poor quality of the settlers, and the death of the chief partner in England, Sir John Popham, caused its abandonment in 1608. Attempts to trade with the Indians failed, for the French had been to this region before and the natives had obtained more in exchange for furs than the English could offer. 4 I n April, 1614, Captain John Smith arrived off New England from London. The design of this expedition was " t o take Whales and make tryalls of a Myne of Gold and Copper. If those failed, Fish and Furres was then our refuge. . . ." Since (18)

THE F U B TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

Smith and his men found no gold, and could not catch whales, they devoted themselves to the less exciting but more profitable business of fishing. "While the sailors fished, myself with eight or nine others . . . ranging the coast in a small b o a t . . . got for trifles near 1100 Bever skins, 100 Martins, and neer as many Otters; and the most of them within a distance of 20 leagues." 6 The prospect of quick returns from the fish and fur trade led English merchants to finance the venture of the Pilgrims. Definite arrangements were made between the Pilgrim leaders and the merchants looking to the establishment of the projected colony as a permanent trading post on the American shore. 6 The merchants desired the emigrants to devote much of their time to commercial rather than agricultural activities, and agreed to send over the food which the Pilgrims could not raise themselves. As a matter of fact the merchants did not keep this part of the bargain, causing a serious food shortage in New Plymouth from 1621 to 1623. The Pilgrims were not well prepared for fishing, and agriculture was difficult and beset by human and natural obstacles. " I n (19)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

the end what saved the Plymouth colony from extinction and gave the settlers a chance to repay the London merchants for their advances was a well managed fur trade "7 The fur trade of Plymouth began with the first meeting with the Indians, Samoset being urged to send in the nearby natives with such beaver skins as they had to trade. 8 After their first harvest the Pilgrims began to look abroad for furs, and in September, 1621, they sent a small party in a shallop to Massachusetts Bay " t o discover and view that bay and trade with the natives." 9 Exploration and trade went on together. Guided by Squanto, an Indian, the traders sailed up to Boston harbor. Leaving their boat at the site of Charlestown, they marched toward the present Medford. There they met some Indian women who sold their coats from their backs, so eager were they for the white man's trinkets. 10 Having made agreements to return some later time, the Pilgrims set sail for Plymouth with " a good quantity of beaver." 11 True to their word, they returned to Massachusetts Bay the following March, (20)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND guided

by

two

Indians,

Captain

Miles

Standish being in command. Again they had " g o o d store of trade." In

November,

12

1621, the

ship

Fortune

came from England and " w a s speedily dispatched away, being laden with good clapboard as full as she could stowe, and two hogsheads of beaver and other skins." 13 This cargo was worth about £500, beaver contributing at least sixty per cent of its value.

In

the very

first

exchange

with

Europe furs bulked large. T h e Pilgrims never made a success in the fishing business, and the failure of this source of revenue made them concentrate the more on the beaver trade. T o carry on an extensive trade with the natives, however, a good stock of

trading

commodities was neces-

sary. Luckily, in the fall of 1622 Captain Thomas Jones brought the ship

Discovery

into Plymouth harbor. The vessel had been sent out by merchants of England for fishing and fur trading, and it had a large supply of English beads and knives on board.

The

Plymouth leaders needed trading goods so badly that they were willing to " p a y away coat beaver at three shillings per pound (21)

THE FUR TRADE I N NEW ENGLAND

which in a few years after yielded twenty shillings. By this means they were fitted again to trade for beaver. . . ." 14 T h a t they considered beaver absolutely essential to the success of the colony is indicated in Governor Bradford's statement that "there was no other means to procure the food which they so much needed and cloaths also." 15 While the Pilgrims were hampered by a lack of trading goods, an unwelcome neighbor at Wollaston, one Thomas Morton, was doing a large and lucrative business with the Indians. 16 He had come to America in 1622 as a member of a commercial expedition sent by the London merchant Thomas Weston. After spending a hard winter at Wessagusset, the men dispersed, most of them leaving for the Maine coast, where they could get food and supplies from the fishermen.17 Morton appeared again in Massachusetts Bay in 1625, acting as guide with the men of Captain Wollaston's company. The object was as before, to make the large profits which the tales of the explorers had promised. A trading post was erected on the site of Quincy, but supplies ran short and discontent spread among the thirty or forty men. ( 22 )

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

Wollaston's solution was to send many of them to Virginia as servants, but Morton had other things in mind. He persuaded seven of the men, vagabonds and rogues, to stay with him, on the promise t h a t they would prosper. Having conducted his mutiny successfully, Morton set up a trading post called " M e r r y m o u n t " and proceeded to barter with the Indians. Morton was " a broken down and probably disreputable London lawyer, with a Bohemian nature and without clients . . . who must have felt more at home when ranging the fields with hawk or hound than while rummaging law books." 18 I n the wilds of America he sought both pleasure and profit, and he cared not how he attained these ends. His policy was to sell the Indians the two things they wanted most, firearms and fire-water. Beaver and other furs were brought in great quantities to his truckhouse, and Morton made excellent profit on the exchange. He obtained goods for trading from the fishing and trading vessels which used to stop for both business and entertainment a t Merrymount. T h a t outpost soon became " a sort of a drunkard's resort and gambling hall, (23)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

very much of the type which were found on the frontier in the early days of the West." 18 Since the trading men preferred to do business with the liberal and bibulous Morton rather than with the shrewd and sober Pilgrims, the Plymouth leaders saw their stock of Indian goods constantly diminished. And what was worse, they heard that Morton was teaching the natives the use of guns for hunting. Merrymount was not only dangerous to the morals of the Pilgrim youth, but it was endangering the very existence of the Plymouth colony. The Pilgrim leaders, supported by the sentiment of the various straggling settlers around the Bay, sent Miles. Standish to arrest Morton on the charge that he was violating King James' proclamation of 1622 prohibiting the trade in firearms. The doughty little Pilgrim leader (Morton calls him "Captain Shrimp, a quondam drummer") succeeded in capturing "mine host of Merrymount," who was then shipped back to England.20 The settlement at Wollaston lasted from 1625 to 1630, and Morton's fur-trading activities included 1627 and 1628.21 Plymouth Colony was not well situated for (24)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

an extensive fur trade with the interior of New England; there were no large navigable rivers inviting its shallops to explore the hinterland. Nor were the Pilgrims themselves ever land pioneers. They conducted their exploring and fur trading by sea and along the coast to the north and south. As early as 1625 Plymouth began to extend its fur-trading operations to Maine. "After harvest this year, they sende out a boats load of corn forty or fifty leagues to the eastward, up a river called Kenibeck. . . . God preserved them and gave them good success for they brought home seven hundred pounds of beaver besides some other furs." 22 The next year they learned that a plantation at Monhegan Island belonging to some English merchants was about to break up, and, needing trading goods, Bradford and Winslow made a trip up the coast to buy what they could. They purchased £400 worth of trading commodities, and received an additional stock for £100 from a French ship which had been cast away at Sagadahoc. " W i t h these goods and some corn they traded with the Indians and got good store so as they were enabled to pay their engagements against the time, and (25)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

to get some clothing for the people," laying up in addition a stock of goods for future ventures.23 In 1628 the Plymouth men learned the extraordinary value of wampum in the trade with those Indian tribes which did not possess the secret or the means of manufacturing that article.24 The previous year the Dutch at New Amsterdam had made overtures to the Pilgrims for opening trading relations. Having been welcomed by Governor Bradford, they sent Captain De Rasiers with a vessel carrying sugar, linen, and other goods. The Dutch also brought a stock of wampum, which they had been accustomed to get from the Narragansets and the Pequots. De Rasiers sold this supply for £50 to the Plymouth leaders, in the hope that they would not. seek wampum directly from the natives. The Dutch intended to hold the fur traffic of Long Island Sound as well as to control the trade in wampum, and directed the view of the Pilgrims toward the north, telling them "how vendable it was at their fort Orania" (Albany), and trying to persuade them that "they would find it so at Kenibeck. . . ."2S The use of wampum (26)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND helped to make up the Pilgrims' limited supply of trading goods.

For years after

1628 they found wampum in constant demand by the Maine Indians, and obtained plenty of it themselves from the shore tribes of Massachusetts at low cost. T h e possession of wampum enabled Plymouth to cut off the fur trade from fishermen and individual traders on the Maine coast. Pilgrims

established

permanent

The

trucking

houses on the Kennebec, at Cushenoc, and in order to secure their rights there obtained a patent for territory on that river. 26 Having acquired a firm hold on the Kennebec trade, in 1629 they extended operations farther north to the Penobscot 27 and encroached upon

territory

claimed by

the

French governor of Acadia. Maine was the greatest

source of

beaver

for

Plymouth

Colony. 28 W e have few figures on the total amount of furs that Plymouth shipped to England from 1621 to 1631. T h e first shipment in the Fortune

was captured by the French when

the vessel had almost reached port. Another lot of eight hundred pounds was captured by the Barbary pirates in 1625. In 1628 a cargo (27)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

of beaver worth £659 was safely sent to England. From 1628 on, the Plymouth fur trade grew rapidly, since the traders now had wampum. How much beaver they exported in the three years immediately following the visit of De Rasiers we do not know, but Bradford comments that it was a large amount.29 During the period 1631-1636 the Pilgrims sent to England a total of more than twelve thousand pounds of beaver, and a thousand pounds of otter skins. Much of the beaver was sold for twenty shillings a pound, and none of it for less than fourteen. Governor Bradford estimated that the sales of beaver for these six years came to £10,000, and that the otter skins would pay the cost of transport. This was indeed " a great sume of money" for such a small colony as Plymouth.30 By 1640 the Indian trade was already falling off. The Penobscot outpost had been captured by the French. 31 The beaver meadows which the Plymouth traders were beginning to exploit on the Connecticut River were lost to them by the migration of settlers from Massachusetts Bay.32 In the Narragansett country individual pioneers (28)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

were taking over the fur trade formerly absorbed by the Pilgrims. New colonies were better situated for the fur trade than Plymouth, and the men of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island did not hesitate to strike out into the wilderness to reach the Indians. By 1640 those who wanted furs must move deeper into the back country west and north. In other words, the days of the coastal fur-trading frontier were passing. No other colony in New England depended so much on the fur trade for its economic foundations as did Plymouth. The Pilgrims began their settlement heavily indebted to the merchant adventurers who supplied their passage and advanced them goods; they landed with hardly more than the shirts on their backs. By an agreement with the merchants in 1627 the leading men of the Colony assumed the whole debt of Plymouth, £1800. 33 The undertakers of the debt also paid the transportation expenses of the rest of the Leyden Congregation, an additional £500. The members of the Colony vested the control of the fur trade in the hands of the leaders, who were to pay these debts with the proceeds and to make purchases in Eng(29)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

land. The Pilgrims' agent, Isaac Allerton, in 1628-1629 borrowed money at fifty per cent interest, and, disregarding instructions, bought clothes and household utensils instead of trading goods. Partly owing to Allerton's financial bungling, the Plymouth debt increased from £2200 to more than £4000.34 Another staggering blow was the news that Shirley, one of their English partners, had been cheating them. Bradford thought their debts should have been paid by 1636, considering the shipments of beaver they had sent. Shirley, however, had not divided the proceeds of many of the beaver sales with his associates, leaving the Pilgrims still in debt to those merchants.35 Under such circumstances the fur trade was of great economic importance to Plymouth for twenty years. I t enabled the Pilgrims finally to pay their debts, and to buy shoes, clothing, provisions, tools, cutlery, and many other necessary articles, in England; and it was the prime source of whatever wealth they had acquired by 1640. "The evidence of the Plymouth wills is absolutely conclusive; Plymouth was a decided economic success and the growth of wealth (30)

THE FUR TRADE I N NEW ENGLAND

after 1627 was rapid and permanent." 36 The profits obtained from the fur trade provided the basis for Plymouth's next economic development, the raising of cattle.

CHAPTER II MAINE AND NARRAGANSETT 1. F U R TRADEBS ON THE M A I N E COAST

T H E Plymouth traders were never without competitors for the fur trade along the coast and up the rivers of Maine. After the failure of the Sagadahoc colony some of the patentees of the Council for New England turned their attention to purely commercial enterprises rather than to the establishment of settlements. Sir Francis Popham, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and other gentlemen adventurers sent vessels on their own account to share in the fishing and the fur trade of the New England coast. 1 Merchants of Bristol also sent ships over, so t h a t in 1620 there were six or seven trading vessels engaged in this business. By 1622 the number of ships increased to thirty-five, and in 1624 about forty ships from the west of England were in Maine waters. 2 The masters of these vessels brought with them plentiful supplies of trinkets and trading cloth, and even guns (32)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

and powder, to exchange for the furs of the Indians. Gorges and the Council for New England saw freebooters and interlopers cutting into the monopoly which had been granted them, and obtained a royal proclamation forbidding the trade in furs and fish without license from the Council. But the commissioner sent over to restrain the interlopers, Captain Francis West, found that the fishermen were "stuberne fellows" 3 and could not be effectively stopped. In 1622 Gorges and Captain John Mason received a grant from the Council of all the country between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers, extending sixty miles into the interior, called the "Province of Maine." Many other grants were made during the next twelve years, for the gentlemen adventurers welcomed subordinates who could develop this great vacant territory. 4 In 1623 David Thompson brought over a few men and set up a trading post at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, near the site of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This outpost attracted Indian traders and became widely known. 5 Another trader was Christopher Levett, who received a grant of six thousand (33)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

acres of land to be selected by himself. After coasting up by Thompson's colony, he explored the harbor of Portland and erected a fort in Casco Bay in 1624, leaving ten men there while he returned to England. The near-by Indians welcomed the white men and brought such furs as they had gathered during the winter to barter with the English.6 Gorges and Mason decided to develop the fur trade more actively in 1629. Evidently they were not earning the large profits they expected, because of the competition of the fishermen and individual traders on the coast. They determined to reach the very heart and source of the beaver country which was thought to be further west. Joining with seven other business men, they secured a patent which extended their first grant to include a vast back-country area called Laconia, because of its numerous rivers and lakes.7 Another step was taken in 1631, when these patentees received a further grant of a tract on both sides of the Piscataqua River on the sea coast, within territory already owned by Gorges and Mason. The Laconia Company put new life into the Piscataqua colony. The scheme was "to send (34)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

over cargoes of Indian truck goods to the Piscataqua . . . and thence transport them up the Piscataqua, to Lake Champlain, to be bartered for peltries for exportation." 8 The trading posts at the river mouth would thus become the export points for the whole rich beaver country of the hinterland. Captain Walter Neale was sent over as governor of the Company, and Ambrose Gibbons was chosen factor. While the latter took care of the management of the trade, Captain Neale was to explore routes to the lakes in the west. Between 1630 and 1633 he made several exploring trips, but since the Piscataqua, like other New England rivers, runs in a northand-south direction, he was unable to penetrate deep into the interior. 9 Yet posts were built at Strawberry Bank and Newichwannock, near the river mouth, but some miles up from the coast. Ambrose Gibbons reported in 1633 that he had a hundred Indians at his post at one time, trading for beaver and other furs. 10 In proportion to the money and effort the Laconia Company put into their project, the returns were not great. Mason, in England, writing to Gibbons in 1634, said, " I have disbursed a great deal of (35)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

money in this plantation; never received one penny; but hope if there were a discovery of the lakes, that I should in some reasonable time, be reimbursed again." 11 This hope was never realized, for the Laconia Company was balked by adverse geographic conditions. Mason himself died in 1635, and the Company dissolved, for he had been the moving spirit of the enterprise. Besides the fishermen, the Pilgrims, and the Piscataqua settlers, there were other traders situated at various points on the Maine coast. In 1626 two British merchants, Robert Aldsworth and Giles EIbridge, bought Monhegan Island, an important center for fishing and fur trading, from Gorges and Mason for £50.12 Four years later they received a patent for twelve thousand acres of land between the Muscongus and Damariscotta rivers, and established a trading outpost at Pemaquid Point.13 In 1630 Richard Vines and John Oldham obtained a grant from the Council for New England for a tract thirty-two miles square on the Saco River by the sea coast. Vines settled there and remained fifteen years, actively and profitably engaging in the fur trade.14 Two (36)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

London merchants, John Beauchamp and Thomas Leverett, in 1630 received the "Muscongus Patent," covering the territory from the sea between the Penobscot and Muscongus rivers, an area thirty miles square. I t was procured expressly for the purpose of an exclusive trade with the natives. 15 The owners put considerable capital into the venture, and sent Edward Ashley and William Pierce as agents to conduct the business. Ashley, a "very profane yonge man," borrowed a supply of wampum and corn from Plymouth and gathered in more than a thousand pounds of beaver in a few months. 16 But he got himself into trouble by trading powder and shot with the Indians, and was sent home to England by Captain Walter Neale on behalf of the Council for New England and the Plymouth authorities. The trading post on the Penobscot was taken over by the Pilgrims in 1631. Richmond's Island, off Cape Elizabeth, was for long an important center for the fishing ships and the fur trade. Thomas Morton visited this island in 1627 after a successful trading voyage up the Kennebec, and may have had a branch trading post (37)

T H E F U R TRADE I N N E W

ENGLAND

17

there. When Morton was banished from Merrymount, one of his subordinates, Walter Bagnali, returned to the island. For three years Bagnali conducted a successful business with the Indians and fishermen, his post being well known up and down the coast. Morton says that Bagnali amassed £1000 from his trade. In 1631 he petitioned in England for a patent for the island, and must have been looking forward to a larger and more permanent business. But Bagnali was murdered by the natives that year. John Winthrop says that " h e was a wicked fellow and had much wronged the Indians," who were probably provoked by his unscrupulous methods of trade. 18 Soon after Bagnall's death Robert Trelawney and Moses Goodyear, merchants of Plymouth in England, acquired Richmond's Island and employed John Winter as their agent to manage the fishing and fur business. Winter was able, energetic, and unscrupulous. He ordered away two straggling traders, George Cleeves and Richard Tucker, who had built a truckhouse at the mouth of the Spurwink River, opposite the island. 19 Having got rid of rivals, Winter began busi(38)

THE FUR TRADE I N NEW ENGLAND

ness on a large scale. He employed sixty men in fishing, and engaged incidentally in the fur trade, exporting fish, beaver skins, oil, and so forth, to England. 20 Richmond's Island became the main place for storage of goods and for general traffic in this section of the New England coast. I n 1640 Winter was charged in court with cheating the Indians. I t was expected t h a t fur traders would make handsome profits, but Winter went too far, charging at the rate of £33 for a hogshead of brandy which cost him only £7, aDd selling powder at three shillings per pound which cost him but twenty pence. 21 Trelawney died in 1644, and Winter died the next year. After 1645 this island, once a flourishing commercial outpost, was deserted. 22 On the coast, which was the first furtrading frontier of New England, the fur traders followed the fishermen. Indeed, the furs of the natives lured the sailors from the ships to the wild and unfamiliar shores, just as the desire for the white man's goods brought the Indians down from the interior. I t was the fur trade which invited the exploration of the rivers — St. George's, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, and the Piscata(39)

THE P U R TRADE I N N E W

ENGLAND

qua — and which paid the expenses of the searches for the route to the "western sea." Fur traders and fishermen sowed the first seeds of white civilization in New England, and Maine was their favorite region. The trading posts at the mouth of the Piscataqua became the towns of Portsmouth, Dover, Kittery, and Berwick; the Pilgrims' station on the Kennebec became later the capital of Maine; and Portland, Casco, York, Brunswick, Phipsburg, and other towns owe their origin in whole or in part to the activities of the traders in fur. 23 These adventurous men were also an important factor in the foreign relations of New England, for they acted as buffers against the encroachment of the French in Canada. 24 2.

TRADERS OF THE NARHAGANSETT COUNTRY

South of Cape Cod the Dutch were the first to develop a trade with the Indians for furs. Having explored the whole coast from the Cape down to Virginia, they prosecuted the beaver trade actively, not only on the Hudson, but on the Connecticut River and (40)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

along the shores of Long Island Sound as far east as Narragansett Bay and Buzzard's Bay. 25 In 1614 the trader Adrian Block sailed up the " F r e s h " or Connecticut River, and, traveling eastward after that feat, gave his name to an island off Narragansett Bay. During the following years the shore Indians of these regions acquired a longing for the sugar, ornaments, and firearms of the Dutch traders. One of the favorite resorts of the Dutch was Manomet, at the head of Buzzard's Bay, and they carried on a lucrative trade almost under the noses of the Plymouth people. 26 The Pilgrims became jealous of their rivals, but could do little more than complain to the authorities in England that the Dutch were supplying the Indians with guns and powder. 27 In 1627 the Dutch taught Plymouth the use of wampum and directed the attention of the Pilgrims toward the Kennebec and away from Long Island Sound. Meanwhile the Dutch West India Company, organized in 1621, continued its profitable trade. By 1625 the Company had a post on an island in Narragansett Bay and had two other fortified trading houses on the mainland. 28 In 1637 the Dutch were also in (41)

T H E F U R TRADE I N N E W

ENGLAND

possession of Dutchman's Island, which lies off the Thames River.29 The peltry trade was very large in these years, and it was worth about $20,000 annually to the Dutch.30 Many of their furs must have come from the shore regions of New England south of Cape Cod. English traders began to cut into the virtual monopoly of the West India Company in 1627, when the Pilgrims set up a trading station at Manomet. In 1632 the Plymouth people also had a truckhouse at Sowamset (Barrington, Rhode Island).31 That daring, adventurous trader John Oldham, filled with "vast conceits of extraordinary gaine," began an extensive business on his own individual account in the region of Long Island Sound at least as early as 1633.32 Some of the Indians were so eager for his goods that they offered him Prudence Island in Narragansett Bay if he would come and live among them.33 In 1636 Oldham went on a trading voyage to the Connecticut, and on his return touched at Block Island, where the natives murdered him, carried off the two English boys whom he had with him, and (42)

THE PUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

plundered his boat. 34 This episode was the spark which set off the Pequot War of 1637. Fur traders were among the first settlers of Rhode Island, for the heavily wooded Narragansett country contained many streams and ponds, and was a likely source for beaver. According to Roger Williams, Richard Smith was the first white inhabitant of this section of Rhode Island. 35 He came from Taunton after 1639, and like a shrewd trader built a blockhouse on the Pequot and Narragansett Trail, on the site of Wickford. 36 Situated on the great road for all travel from Boston to Connecticut and New Amsterdam, he was in an excellent position for trade with the large and powerful Narraganset tribe. Roger Williams himself engaged in the fur trade. He and an associate, John Wilcox, " a sturring, driving, somewhat unscrupulous fellow," 3 7 built trading houses near Smith in 1642 and 1643.38 "Williams with his knowledge of the Indian language was particularly well fitted for this trade, and for six years he lived in the Narragansett country, still keeping his citizenship in Providence, but spending his time at what is now (43)

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called Wickford." In 1641 Williams sold out to Richard Smith for £50. He protested to Massachusetts Bay in 1656 that " t h e Indians have been filled with artillery and ammunition from the Dutch . . . and from the English by stealth. For myself . . . I have refused the gain of thousands by such a murderous trade." 40 But his neighbor, Smith, had no scruples about selling the natives ample supplies of "strong waters." 41 By 1646 Smith had pushed his trade farther west "among the Dutch," but his trucking house was burned by the Indians that year. 42 This trader continued in business throughout the fifties and grew wealthy from the proceeds.43 The fur trade in the Narragansett country did not retain its importance after 1660, but while it was good it was " t h e most profitable employment in these parts of America, and by which many persons of mean degree advanced to considerable estates." 44 While Smith, Wilcox, Williams, and others were trading for furs in the Narragansett country, the Dutch still carried on a large business with the Indians on the coasts. As late as 1647, a t "Dutchman's Island" the ( 44 )

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natives could "lay in a supply of strong waters sufficient to keep an Indian village in an uproar," and purchase guns and shot from Dutch traders despite all the laws of Rhode Island. 45 The English never wrested the trade of Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay from the Dutch.

CHAPTER

III

THE FUE TRADE ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER 1. FROM 1623 To 1652 T H E Connecticut River, with its many small tributary streams, was for several decades one of the best beaver regions in New England. As early as 1614 the Dutch trader Adrian Block had ascended about fifty miles from the river mouth. Between that year and 1632 the Dutch monopolized the fur trade of the Connecticut. By 1623 they had begun to develop their trade more actively, and during the next ten years they obtained from the Indians not less than ten thousand beaver skins annually.1 The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay heard of the rich Connecticut country in 1631, when Wahginnicut, sachem of the River Indians, came to Boston to invite the English to trade with his people.2 His motive seems to have been chiefly to get an ally against the fierce Pequots. Governor Winthrop was wary, and, (46)

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fearing treachery, declined the offer. Envoys from the same tribe also visited Plymouth, where the experienced Pilgrim leaders gave the matter more attention. By this time Plymouth had to look afield for fresh beaver territory if the Colony was to maintain its large exports.3 The next year the Pilgrims sent Edward Winslow on an exploring voyage to the river, and after his favorable report despatched Captain William Holmes in a small vessel to begin trade. They invited the Boston leaders to join in the expedition, but Winthrop and his associates "thought not fit to meddle with it," giving various reasons for their refusal.4 "But their real reason seems to have been the hope that the fur producing country which the Connecticut was supposed to tap . . . was also accessible from the headwaters of the Merrimac. If that were so, Massachusetts could divert the trade to Boston and would not have to share it with Plymouth." 5 Holmes proceeded nevertheless, and ascended the Connecticut, only to find that the Dutch had already built a fort on the river. Not daunted by the protests and threats of the Dutch, Holmes sailed past them and set (47)

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up a trading post a mile above Hartford, where he could get the best of the beaver furs brought down the river by the Indians. 6 In the same year, 1633, John Oldham with three others made the first overland trip from the Massachusetts coast to the Connecticut. 7 Their object was beaver fur, and they obtained guidance and aid on the way from the Indians. The fur traders followed what became known as the "Old Connecticut P a t h , " from Watertown, through Waltham and Wayland, to Cochituate Pond (near Framingham), thence southwest through Oxford to the Connecticut. They obtained some beaver from the natives, and brought back a glowing report of the fertile river bottoms they had seen. The next year John Hall and two companions went west seeking furs, but they lost their way, and had no trade because small-pox was raging among the Indians. 8 I n 1634 Oldham made another overland journey as far as the site of Wethersfield, where he probably built a truckhouse. 9 In 1635 he led a band of from fifteen to twenty men by way of the Connecticut Path to found the town of Wethersfield. These trips of fur traders along the (48)

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great Indian trails advertised the fertility of the soil and the friendliness of the Indians on the Connecticut River and pointed out the way to the pioneer farmers of Massachusetts Bay who were looking for new land in the west. They were, therefore, important factors in the great migration from the Bay which brought permanent settlers to the lands near the trading posts at Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor. The coming of farmers on the heels of Oldham and other traders doomed the business of both the Dutch and the Pilgrims. A controversy arose between the Pilgrims and the Boston authorities over the intrusion of settlers from Dorchester into the territory surrounding the truckhouse at Windsor. The upshot was that the smaller Plymouth Colony gave in, though Bradford complained that the Pilgrims were little better than thrust out of a promising beaver trade two years after they had themselves intruded upon the Dutch. 10 One man was to reap the best profits of the Connecticut River fur trade in the years following the migration. William Pynchon, a man of gentle birth, wealth, and refinement, (49)

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came over with Winthrop in 1630. One of the original patentees of the Massachusetts Bay Company, Pynchon was an Assistant in 1629 and Treasurer of the Colony 1632-1633. A merchant, he traded with the Indians near Boston from the start, and paid the Colony a flat rate of £25 a year for his license, instead of the usual tax of twelve pence for every pound of beaver.11 The beaver trade fell off rapidly as the population near the Bay increased. It was natural, therefore, that Pynchon should consider carefully the invitations extended to the Puritan leaders by the Connecticut Indians in 1631, 1633, and 1634.12 He probably gave financial support to John Oldham in that trader's project of exploring the country extolled by the natives, for Oldham owed Pynchon almost £23 at his death.13 The Puritan merchant decided to transfer his trading activities to this promising region. In 1635, with John Cable, John Woodstock, and an Indian interpreter, he made a preliminary exploring trip in a light-draught "shallop" up the river.14 Pynchon had a keen eye for the possibilities of trade, and looked for a favorable location above the river towns so that he could cut (50)

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them off from the main sources of the beaver supply. Ascending the Connecticut to the mouth of the Agawam, he selected the site of Springfield for his truckhouse, which Cable and Woodstock were to build while he returned alone via the Connecticut Path to Boston. In 1636 Pynchon made his second westward journey, this time bringing twelve Roxbury families with him to settle and establish a new town. Yet he was wise enough to realize that a large population would spoil his beaver trade. Three years later there were no more than fifteen adult males at Springfield. 15 The fur trader had reason to be pleased with his choice of location : it was near the intersection of the Connecticut Path with the river; it was on the line of communication from the north down the river to Long Island Sound; and, situated near the heart of an excellent beaver country and surrounded by the friendly Agawam and Woronoco Indians, it was in position to become the center of an active and lucrative business. The affairs of the new settlement absorbed much of Pynchon's time, yet during the first three years he traveled extensively, up the (51)

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river by canoe and overland on horseback. He made contacts with the neighboring Indians and early won a hold upon them. A merchant rather than a farmer, in 1638 he acquired a monopoly of the fur trade at Springfield from the Connecticut General Court. 16 Massachusetts had already granted him trading privileges on this remote frontier. By 1640 his trade had begun to expand, and he sent his agent Thomas Cooper to Woronoco, the site of Westfield, "where the Indians brought not only their own furs, but also furs which they obtained from the Mohawks." 17 As a commercial venture the founding of Springfield was already becoming a marked success. But Pynchon's gain meant a corresponding loss to the people down the river. In 1640 the Connecticut General Court granted to Governor Edward Hopkins and William Whiting, a merchant of Hartford, a thousand acres of land and " t h e benefitts and liberty of free trade at Woronoco and at any place thereabout . . . and all others to be restrained for the terme of seven years. . . ." 18 This grant was an attempt to checkmate Pynchon. Woronoco was a few miles west of (52)

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Springfield on a tributary of the Connecticut, and the trading post which Hopkins and Whiting built there was in position to take away a large part of Pynchon's business. " T h e plan to bring the trade of the Valley to the door of Hartford was under way." 19 Pynchon appealed to the Massachusetts authorities, who were loath to see the revenue derived from the fur trade go to the treasury of a neighboring colony.20 They claimed that Woronoco was within the bounds of Massachusetts. Their claim was resisted, but in 1644 the Commissioners of the United Colonies finally decided in favor of the Bay. Pynchon had won an important victory, but the Connecticut people were in a nasty mood. In 1645 they declared an impost on all goods coming down the river to its mouth, and made the best of this opportunity to squeeze the Springfield trader. Threatened with ruin by the tax, Pynchon sought the aid of Massachusetts. The Boston leaders upheld his case, and, when Connecticut persisted, took drastic action by levying a large duty on all goods from that colony in Boston harbor. Connecticut had to yield. Pynchon was again able to send his furs freely down (53)

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the river, to the chagrin of his baffled rivals.21 The founder of Springfield was an "acute, self-assertive, resolute, energetic man of large affairs." 22 Very early he had a warehouse built by the river below Enfield Falls, the head of ship navigation. To this point trading goods were brought up the river in light vessels, where they were transferred to smaller boats and ox carts to be carried to Springfield. 23 From the warehouse, also, Pynchon shipped his furs to England. He imported mirrors, knives, hatchets, hoes, trucking cloth, and other articles for the Indian trade direct from the home country, and his son John made occasional trips to do the buying in England. 24 From the merchants on the coast of Long Island Sound Pynchon bought wampun. For sixteen years this dominating man was the chief fur trader of the Connecticut River Valley. Already accounted wealthy when he invaded the wilderness, he increased his fortune very largely while at Springfield, and in 1652 was one of the richest men in New England. 26 Pynchon's business allowed him time to serve as magistrate for Springfield from 1636 (54)

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to 1650 and as deputy to the Massachusetts General Court for many years. He was well educated, having graduated from Oxford, and he spent much of his leisure studying the most controversial subject of the day, theology.26 Familiar with Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, he knew the Bible thoroughly, and had read the works of the great theologians. In 1650 his book entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption was published in London. When it appeared in Boston it created great excitement, for it was at variance with the views of the theocracy. 27 The General Court adopted a solemn protest against the heresies of Pynchon's book and ordered it to be burned in public. Pynchon was deprived of his magistracy as a mark of the Court's ill favor. Two years later he went back to England, to spend the last nine years of his life where he could have freedom to think and write. In every sphere of the life of the frontier society of the Connecticut River Valley — commercial, political, theological, and military — William Pynchon had been the leading man.

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William Pynchon left the management of the Connecticut Valley fur trade in the capable hands of his son John, who was thirty-one years old when his father returned to England. John Pynchon did not jeopardize his privileged trading position by concerning himself with theology and he quickly rose to prominence in the judicial, military, and political affairs of western Massachusetts. He built up the town that his father had founded. " He was the village merchant, the beaver trader, the land speculator, the farmer, the stock raiser, the mining prospector, the banker, and the importer of merchandise." 28 He dominated the economic life of the Connecticut Valley. The Pynchons owed their success in the fur trade to the monopoly which they enjoyed and to the wise and profitable methods of trade which they practised. For many years they were the only licensed Massachusetts traders on the Connecticut. In 1657 John Pynchon paid the Colony £20 for this privilege at Springfield and Northampton. 2 9 They sold trading rights to their agents, " but (56)

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their object . . . was not so much to gain the small pittance received from the sale of these rights, as to control the traffic in goods required for the Indian trade." 30 The lesser dealers, who tapped the beaver country to the north and west of Springfield, could obtain their trading goods from one place, the Pynchon store. For such goods these agents paid the Pynchons in beaver, and at prices fixed by the owners of the monopoly. Then the lesser traders advanced supplies to the Indians, who paid their debts at the end of the hunting season. Again there was only one place where the dealers could sell the furs they had collected, and the Pynchons also fixed the price of beaver. 31 Thus these shrewd business men made a profit at both ends of the transaction with their agents, selling trading goods at a profit, and buying beaver at a price somewhat below what they would themselves get for it in England. The fur traders of the Connecticut Valley were usually on peaceable terms with the Indians. If we judge the Pynchons by a relative standard, they treated the natives well. "The Pynchon rule of justice and fair p l a y " was known by Indians hundreds of (57)

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miles distant from Springfield. 32 The Agawam and Woronoco tribes regarded the Pynchons as allies against the Iroquois, to whom the River Indians paid tribute. During the Pequot War, when the settlement was still in its infancy, and when hostility might have retarded it for years, the natives near Springfield were friendly. William Pynchon prevented an Indian war in 1648, when there was great danger of a break between the whites and the natives. His shrewd diplomacy, firm yet conciliatory, convinced the Indians that they could trust his leadership. 33 The Pynchons rarely employed Indians in their business, for they made poor workers, being lazy, shiftless, and unreliable. Often the Indians ran too deeply in debt to the traders, taking more liquor, clothing, and agricultural tools than they could pay for. When the trader saw no prospect of getting furs in payment, he would sometimes demand a mortgage on Indian land. " T h e Indians, eternally improvident, seldom secured independence of the fur men and never redeemed their mortgages." 3 4 Thomas Cooper, an agent of the Pynchons, acquired land in this manner in 1664. John Pynchon (58)

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foreclosed a mortgage on a large tract of Indian land at Westfield in 1666 upon the native's failure to pay his trading debt, and Joseph Parsons of Northampton did the same thing. 35 It is difficult to find statistics of the fur trade in this period which we can rely on as telling the whole story. From John Pynchon's account book the following facts on the volume of his fur trade are derived. 36 I n the six years 1652-1658 he shipped to England more than 9000 beaver skins, weighing about 14,000 pounds. He also sent a few hundred otter and muskrat skins and other furs. For the period 1658-1674 some of the accounts are missing, but he shipped at least 9000 pounds of beaver, 415 moose skins averaging seventeen pounds apiece, about 400 otter skins, 718 muskrats, 315 "Foxes and Raccoons," and smaller quantities of mink, marten, and lynx. As far as the accounts are preserved, they show that John Pynchon sent 23,500 pounds or more of beaver to England during the whole period 1652-1674. If he sold the beaver at ten shillings, his gross receipts must have been £11,752 for this fur, to say nothing of the other furs. (59)

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We have no figures on the quantities of fur sent to England by William Pynchon, but his business (1636-1652) was no doubt considerably larger than that of his son. As early as 1650 a contemporary wrote that the beaver trade at Springfield was " become little w o r t h " because of the growth of competition. 37 If John Pynchon, despite the increase of population and the decrease in the number of animals, exported more than 2000 pounds of beaver a year for the period 1652-1674, then his father must have sent much more, probably two or three times as much, when the beaver trade was at its height. 38 While the Pynchons were occupied in business and public offices, their agents were pushing the fur-trading frontier of Massachusetts farther north and west. The chief traders under the Pynchons were Thomas Cooper of Springfield, Joseph Parsons and David Wilton of Northampton, and Dr. John Westcarr of Hadley. Parsons came to Massachusetts in 1630, and was associated with the elder Pynchon in the founding of Springfield. 39 He probably traded for Pynchon there for some years. I n 1654 he left the (60)

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town and set up a trucking house of his own on the site of Northampton, about fifteen miles up the river. For the privilege of trading at " N o n o t u c k " and the surrounding country he paid John Pynchon £12. From the Pynchon store he received hundreds of pounds of merchandise, sending back beaver and other furs. 40 Northampton was founded the same year that Parsons shifted his trading base to that place. In 1653 twenty-seven settlers of Windsor, Wethersfield, Hartford, and Springfield petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for liberty to plant a town at Nonotuck. The land was purchased from the Indians through John Pynchon. 41 Parsons may have traded in that region before 1653, or he may have decided that now would be a good time to settle there to preempt the fur trade, before the pioneer farmers arrived. At any rate, he was one of the chief founders of the new frontier town, which was the most remote settlement in the interior of New England. A merchant from the start, he engaged actively in the fur trade, and at his death was one of the wealthiest men of the Connecticut Valley.42 Down the river at Windsor, David Wilton (61)

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carried on two businesses, fur trading and liquor manufacturing. Wilton had come to Windsor from Dorchester, where he had traded on a small scale.43 From 1635 to 1660 he was prominent in the political and business life of the infant town. Since Windsor was the nearest town to Springfield on the south, Wilton often came in contact with the Pynchons. Perhaps at the suggestion of John Pynchon, Wilton removed from Windsor to Northampton in 1660. There he found the fur trade far more lively and lucrative, and became one of John Pynchon's chief agents.44 In 1662 he was licensed to sell liquors, and no doubt supplied the Indians with fire-water in return for furs. An account of his business with John Pynchon from May, 1675, to November, 1676, is still in existence. This account shows that the charge against Wilton was £100, the credit £204, leaving him a fair profit. Another account records his shipments of furs to Pynchon for four months, April to July, 1675. During this period he sent Pynchon 300 pounds of beaver, 173 otter skins, 64 raccoon skins, 52 martens, and varying smaller amounts of muskrats, mink, fox, and lynx.

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Another agent for the Pynchons was John Westcarr, who came to the town of Hadley in 1665, six years after it was first settled. He had no scruples about selling liquor to the Indians, and got into trouble with the colonial authorities for violating the laws against the practice. But he continued his fur trading until 1676, and had a large stock of goods always on hand. "His dwelling was a little aside from the village, and sufficiently shady for any doubtful transactions." 45 There were failures as well as successes in the fur trade. Thomas Cooper, who was the agent of the Pynchons near Springfield, and who traded up and down the river, ran up large bills at the Pynchon store, at one time amounting to almost £700. 46 He was continually sending beaver, moose, and deer skins to the Pynchons, but failed to get on the credit side of their ledger. The strategic location of the Springfield trading post brought the best part of the Connecticut River fur trade to the doors of the Pynchons, but there was enough profit in the business farther down the river to engage the attention of enterprising traders. David (63)

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Wilton at Windsor has been noted already. At Hartford, Thomas Stanton, and William Whiting, one of the town's most prominent merchants, secured exclusive fur-trading privileges in 1638.47 Whiting had been a partner of Governor Hopkins in the attempt to acquire the trade at Woronoco. He was commercially interested in the fur trade at Piscataqua and on Long Island Sound also, and he kept on hand a large store of hardware and drygoods, used in exchange with the Indians. At his death in 1647 Whiting's estate was valued at £2864, the largest recorded in Hartford up to t h a t time. 48 The other Hartford trader, Thomas Stanton, was granted in 1649 exclusive rights to trade and build a truckhouse at Pawcatuck. 49 Captain Richard Lord and George Hubbard obtained the monopoly of the fur trade at Wethersfield. We know little of Lord's dealings, but he apparently prospered, for when he died his estate amounted to £1539. He was "one of the most energetic and efficient men in the colony," and represented Hartford at the General Court from 1656 till his death in 1662.50 (64)

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The fur trade was a prime factor in the early life of the Connecticut River Valley. The river was discovered and explored by fur traders. The English traders, men like Holmes of Plymouth and Pynchon of Roxbury, successfully defied the authority of the Dutch, and secured preliminary possession of the Valley. The river towns, Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield, Springfield, Westfield, and Northampton, were originally furtrading posts. The migration of pioneer farmers from Massachusetts Bay came so quickly on the heels of the traders as almost to obscure the sequence of the two frontiers. But the fur traders from New Amsterdam, Plymouth, and Boston were the men who found the trails to the Connecticut, who selected the sites for trading stations which later became towns, and who in some instances actually led settlers to the fertile river bottoms of this rich and beautiful country. 51 They advertised the Connecticut region to the people on the coast, and by conciliating, satisfying, and even by demoralizing, the natives, the fur traders made the way easier for the pioneer farmers who came to (65)

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possess the Indians' land. When the river towns were once established, the returns from the fur trade helped to sustain them by providing a valuable article for exchange with England. Furthermore, the first fortunes won from the Connecticut Valley frontier came from the beaver trade with the Indians.

CHAPTER IV THE FÜR TRADE OF THE MERRIMAC VALLEY "WHILE some of the fur traders were leading the march westward to the Connecticut and were setting up their trucking houses in the wilderness, others directed the expansion of population toward the Merrimac Valley. Simon Willard, a merchant and fur trader, took the initiative in this movement. Coming to America in 1634, he lived for a year at Cambridge, and from the start dealt extensively with the Indians of the interior and engaged in the purchase and exportation of furs. 1 His business with the natives no doubt occasioned some travel toward the northwest, and he learned the nature of the region beyond the frontier of settlement. 2 When, in 1634, many of the Bay people were looking for new land, Willard and his close friend, Reverend Peter Bulkeley, petitioned the General Court for permission to locate a town at "Musketaquid." This place, the site of Concord, was about seventeen miles from (67)

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Boston and was very difficult to reach. In 1635 Willard led a dozen families through the woods to found the town which became the first settlement in the interior of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Town historians, many of them ministers, generally exalt the part played by religious motives and by the clergy in the extension of settlement to new regions. But fur traders like Willard were very often the men who selected the sites for location, who arranged for the purchase of lands from the Indians, and who took the lead in all the practical affairs of the new towns. The fact that Concord was so difficult of access makes it evident that Willard had a special interest in t h a t region. Indeed, he was very careful to choose his bounds so as " t o include six valuable mill sites, seven natural ponds, more than nine miles of river, and a large number of smaller streams. . . . Willard was specially interested in the fur trade, and it is likely that this tract, so abundantly supplied with ponds and water courses was selected . . . with particular regard to the prosecution of that business." 3 At Concord Willard was not only in the heart of a good beaver terri(68)

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tory, but he was also nearer to the Indians of the Merrimac River, of which the Concord River is a tributary. Thus Willard could intercept furs coming toward Cambridge and Boston from the Pawtucket and Nashaway tribes. I t is likely that his trade cut off much of the business of the truckhouse at the corner of Mt. Auburn and Brattle streets in Cambridge. 4 For twenty years Willard was the leader in the civic and economic affairs of Concord. As a well-known fur trader and public-spirited citizen, he was chosen superintendent of the fur trade of Massachusetts by the General Court in 1641. During the forties Willard extended his trading operations up the Merrimac River and had dealings with Passaconaway, chief of the powerful Penacook tribe which made its headquarters near the site of Concord, New Hampshire. When John Eliot, apostle of the Indians, sought to reach and convert that chieftain, he enlisted the aid of the most prominent fur trader of the district. In 1645 Eliot went with Willard on a visit to Passaconaway. Willard apparently was in the habit of making such trips for trade. I n a letter written in 1648, the missionary says (69)

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t h a t Passaconaway "spake to Captain Willard, who traded with them in those parts for beaver and otter . . . that he would be glad if I would come and live in some place thereabouts to teach them, and that Captain Willard would live there also. . . . " 5 One may wonder whether the Indians preferred the preaching of the apostle or the goods of the fur trader. Very likely Willard was with Eliot when the latter returned to Passaconaway in 1648, and again in 1651. The sincere and persistent Eliot finally " l a n d e d " his man. How much Passaconaway was inspired by religious motives and how much by a desire to keep on good terms with Eliot's fur-trading friend is problematical. Simon Willard was not the only trader to see the possibilities of the Merrimac region for furs. About 1643, Sholan, sachem of the Nashaway Indians, "laden with peltry," made a trip down to Watertown, where in the course of his trade he became acquainted with a young fur trader, Thomas King. 6 The Indian told King what a good trade he could carry on nearer the tribes on the Merrimac and its tributaries, and invited him to come into the wilderness to set up in business. For (70)

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Sholan and his fellows it was more convenient to have a trader near at hand, and perhaps he reasoned that competition might cause Willard of Concord to charge less for his goods. King was adventurous, ambitious, and willing to strike out for himself on the frontier. Leaving Watertown, he made a preliminary exploring trip to the territory of the Nashaways, following the Charles River valley, passing through Sudbury, and then crossing toward the Nashua River.7 After looking over the ground, he built a temporary trading post on the site of Lancaster and returned to Watertown to enlist financial aid. Henry Symonds of Boston, John Prescott of Watertown, and four or five others joined in this trading enterprise and bought a tract of land eighty miles square from the Indians as a preliminary to trade. But Symonds, the senior member and capitalist of the partnership, died at this time. King himself died in 1644, and only one of the associates actually moved to the new outpost.8 John Prescott decided to go through with the project. Selling his house and farm at Watertown and putting his all into the venture, he removed to Lancaster in 1645, be(71)

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coming the pioneer settler of that town. Having built another trading post near the one erected by King, he began to trade with the natives. "This trading post was the extreme outpost of civilization; beyond was interminable forest." 9 Prescott, we are told, was an ideal pioneer, a man of " commanding stature, fearless, strong," and energetic. He became the trader, farmer, blacksmith, surveyor, and builder of Lancaster. The growth of a town around Prescott's truckhouse was slower than was usually the case in Massachusetts. "Sudbury swamp was the lion in the path from the Bay westward during many a decade." 10 In 1653 there were only nine families in Lancaster. Perhaps Prescott did not want many neighbors who might compete with him for the Indian trade. T h a t business was evidently prosperous, for Prescott was accounted a fairly wealthy man in 1654.11 I n 1656 Prescott sold his fur-trading business to Mr. John Tinker, who had been a trader at Windsor on the Connecticut for many years, until the competition of the Pynchons made his business unprofitable. In 1654 Tinker was listed as a freeman of Bos(72)

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ton, and he engaged in the Indian trade of the Bay region. Hearing of better business toward the sparsely settled northwest, he took over Prescott's truckhouse. In 1657 Tinker paid the treasury of Massachusetts £8 for the privilege of trading at "Nashaw a y " and Groton.12 A man of good education, he became the leading citizen in Lancaster, and was one of the few men in the town dignified by the title of "Mr." Like many other fur traders, Tinker sold "strong waters " to the Indians, and "prominent men of the Nashaway tribe became so deeply indebted to him as to mortgage the prospective gains of two hunting seasons for payment." 13 But Tinker did not remain long in Lancaster. He was still young, and the trade may have seemed too small to warrant his living out in the lonely woods. He removed to New London, Connecticut, where he went into the prosperous business of distilling and retailing liquor. We left Simon Willard conducting an extensive trade with the Indians from his base of operations at Concord. In the fifties Willard looked farther afield, for the beaver (73)

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meadows near by were practically exhausted. In 1652 the Massachusetts General Court appointed him and Captain Edward Johnson commissioners to make a "better discovery of the North line" of the Colony's patent. With two assistants, Willard and Johnson followed the Merrimac up to Lake Winnepesaukee, and one may well suppose that the fur trader had an eye for business as the exploration proceeded. In the same year inhabitants of Concord (Willard's town) and of Woburn (Johnson's town) moved to a spot near the confluence of the Concord and Merrimac rivers and founded the frontier town of Chelmsford. 14 I n 1655 Willard himself transferred his trading operations up the Merrimac and became the leading citizen of Chelmsford. In 1657 he and three associates acquired the exclusive privilege of fur trading " a t Merrimack" for £25 a year. 15 The settlers of Chelmsford found themselves shut out of this lucrative business, and in 1658 petitioned the General Court for permission to engage in it because of the difficulty of procuring supplies " i n this Remoat Corner of the Wilderness." The request was not granted, for Massachusetts derived a fair (74)

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revenue from her practice of farming out the trade. Nevertheless, the Chelmsford people traded with the near-by Indians for twenty years. By this trade "the Indians obtained food in winter . . . better utensils, and, too often, rum." 16 Willard was not a man to sit tamely down and watch others cut into his business. He left Chelmsford in 1659 and went to Lancaster, where he took over the land and truckhouse of John Tinker. The settlers were fewer here, and Willard's trade must have been better than at Chelmsford, for he remained in Lancaster twelve years. In 1658 he was owed £44 by a Pawtucket Indian who had no means or no intention of paying his trading debt. Willard therefore petitioned the General Court to grant him a five-hundred-acre farm in satisfaction of the Indian's debt, and the influential trader was awarded the "Nonaicoicus Grant" in Groton.17 It was to this farm that he moved in 1672. The inventory of Willard's estate in 1676 shows an item of £273 due from him to Mr. Usher of Boston for trading goods, and (75)

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another item of debts owed to him by the Indians of £300. His biographer estimates the estate at about £8000, but the Indian war of 1676 had seriously reduced his property. Five years after his death in that year, his widow was granted one thousand acres of land by the General Court on account of his losses.18 The fur trade of the region near the Merrimac River led to the founding of Concord, Lancaster, and Chelmsford, and was an influence in the settlement of Groton, Sudbury, and Marlborough.19 Fur traders explored the Concord and Merrimac rivers, crossed Sudbury swamp, and demonstrated that white men could live in safety in the wilderness. The figure of the fur trader Simon Willard towers above all others in the early annals of this whole area. Deputy from Concord to the General Court for fifteen years, Assistant of Massachusetts Bay 1654-1676, Captain, Major, and Sergeant Major of Middlesex County, Willard was the leading man in the successive towns in which he resided. Town builder, Indian agent, explorer, his services were most valuable to the people of Massa(76)

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chusetts Bay, and prepared the way for those who came to till the soil. The volume of the Merrimac trade can be estimated only by comparison with that of John Pynchon. In 1657 we have the record that traders at Concord, Lancaster and Groton, and "Merrimack" paid to the Massachusetts treasury a total of £38. Other traders at Marlborough, Sudbury, and Cambridge paid £5, £2, and £2, respectively. 20 In the same year John Pynchon paid £20 for the monopoly of the trade on the Connecticut. At this period his shipments averaged more than two thousand pounds of beaver per year. Making allowance for the fact that £20 represented a reduction of probably £ 5 from the usual rate Pynchon paid, because of "commotions among the Indians," it is still safe to assume that the volume of trade of the localities just mentioned was greater than two thousand pounds of beaver a year, since they paid a total fee of £45 for the privilege of that trade. And this was in 1657, when the fur trade had already declined. We can only guess what business Willard did in the years while he was at Concord, and how many (77)

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beaver skins Prescott received from the Indians while he was almost alone at Lancaster. We may be sure, however, that most of such furs found their way to Europe in exchange for commodities which New England needed.

C H A P T E R

V

THE FUR TRADE IN THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND 1.

N E W ENGLAND AND THE D U T C H

T H E fur traders, penetrating into regions claimed by the French and the Dutch, brought the New England colonies into controversies and disputes with their neighbors. Between the New Englanders and the Dutch of the West India Company this trade was the most prolific source of contention. The prosperous business of the latter in the waters of Long Island Sound and in the Narragansett country excited the jealousy and alarm of the Pilgrims. As early as 1623 the Plymouth people made a trading voyage to Narragansett Bay, but failed to profit because the Dutch were better able to supply what the Indians wanted. 1 Governor Bradford, in 1627, though welcoming the commencement of trading relations between Plymouth and New Amsterdam, gave out a warning that the region southwest of the (79)

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Cape was English territory and requested the Dutch to cease trading there. Having no intention of giving up such a lucrative trade, the Dutch ignored the claim and tried to divert the attention of the Pilgrims toward the Kennebec. In 1634 Plymouth sent Edward Winslow to England to get official aid against the "intrusions" of the Dutch and the French, but the Pilgrims were not in favor with the Anglican churchmen and their request was refused. 2 Rhode Island was not able to prevent the Dutch from selling arms and liquor to the natives, so the West India Company continued to dominate the fur trade of the Narragansett Bay area as long as it was profitable. T h a t such activity did not cause serious reprisals was largely due to the fact that Rhode Island, denied the privilege of joining the New England Confederation, was itself the object of aggression by Massachusetts and Connecticut. On the Connecticut River the Dutch did not fare so well. Here they were confronted with the bold traders of Plymouth and the strong assertive colony of Massachusetts Bay. Captain Holmes, the Pilgrim pioneer, (80)

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had ignored the Dutch at Fort Good Hope, and when seventy men were sent from New Amsterdam to eject the trader, he and his company stood firm. The Dutch, not caring to risk bloodshed, made a parley with Holmes, and returned in peace. 3 In the year of Oldham's overland trip to the Connecticut, Massachusetts sent a small vessel to Long Island Sound and New Amsterdam, where the voyagers traded for beaver and other goods. Then the English showed Governor Van Twiller their commission from the King establishing their claim to the river and the region of Connecticut. They told the Dutch to confine themselves to other territories, but Van Twiller suggested that the issue be settled between the home governments in Europe. 4 The Dutch had explored and traded in the disputed area years before the Bay authorities had heard of the Connecticut, so the West India Company rightly felt that it had the better title. Force of numbers rather than validity of claim was to determine the ownership of the Connecticut River Valley. The interest of Massachusetts in this back country was due at first to the prospects of the fur trade. En(81)

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voys from the Indian tribes on the river had visited Boston in 1631, 1633, and 1634, so Governor Winthrop was acquainted with the possibilities of the fresh beaver meadows. In 1632 Thomas Morton published his New English Canaan, in which he wrote in glowing terms of the great profits made by the Dutch from the fur trade, and predicted that whoever should reach the great lake of the Iroquois would reap still larger returns. 5 The lake country was supposed to be accessible from the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Connecticut rivers, and Morton argued that it would be " a n irreparable oversight to protract time, and suffer the Dutch . . . to possesse themselves of that so pleasant and commodious country of Erocoise before us." Control of the Connecticut River, therefore, was a preliminary step toward diverting the beaver trade from the Dutch, and it is likely t h a t Winthrop had Morton's exhortations in mind when he sent his message to the New Amsterdam authorities. The great migration westward, beginning in 1635, settled the issue of possession of the Valley. "This movement, however, preceded by fur trading operations . . . must be regarded as the first (82)

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encroachment of the English upon the Dutch fur trade and the first of a series of clashes with the Dutch which were to end in their expulsion from North America. Rivalry over the fur trade must be reckoned as the earliest in time, and one of the most important of the causes contributing to that end." 6 The Dutch came in conflict with each of the five separate colonies of New England over the fur trade. New Haven was founded by wealthy merchants who had visions of making their town a commercial metropolis. They soon found that they were badly situated for the trade with the Indians, and began to look abroad for more suitable locations for trade and settlement. The Delaware River country promised good returns from investment, so in 1641 a group of New Haven men, "observing that this vast territory was sparsely settled, and that the Swedish and Dutch forts and trading stations there did not control the river nor the country," sent an expedition under George Lamberton to purchase land from the Indians and engage in trade. 7 A number of families were brought along from New Haven to settle on the Delaware. In 1642 Lamber(83)

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ton built a trading post near the mouth of the Schuykill River above the posts of the Swedes and the Dutch. From this strategic location the English were able to do much damage to the trade of their rivals. The Dutch protested, and when, in 1643, the intruders refused to go, destroyed their trading house and sent the prisoners to Manhattan. The New Haven men estimated the losses sustained at £1000. 8 This disastrous adventure destroyed New Haven's only hope of cutting into the fur trade, and brought her to the verge of war with the Dutch. Its results were important, for it contributed largely to the economic decline of New Haven, generated a bitter animosity toward the Dutch among her leaders, and hastened the formation of the United Colonies of New England. 9 The league of the New England colonies, established in 1643, was a response to the need of common defense against the Indians, the Dutch, and the French. The fur trade was a major force in making this need felt. 10 By that time English fur traders had explored and traded in territories claimed or possessed by their rivals to the north and south and had involved the various separate colonies in (84)

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disputes with the traders from France and Holland. Yet the New Englanders could not expect much help from the Stuarts. Isolated from the mother country by religion as well as by distance, they found it necessary to unite defensively and to develop common policies for their external relations. After the union was established the Commissioners devoted much time and effort to regulating, organizing, protecting, and promoting the fur trade. 11 The year after New Haven's failure on the Delaware, Massachusetts granted support to a company of Boston merchants who had a plan of discovering the great lake region described by Thomas Morton. "Finding that the great trade of beaver, which came to all the eastern and southern parts, came from thence," these merchants petitioned for a monopoly of such trade as they should discover, for a period of twenty years. 12 The General Court granted the request and the Governor gave the company letters of commendation. The plan was to reach the lake country via the Delaware, which was thought to have its source near there. With a large supply of trading goods, a pinnace (85)

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was sent to the southward. But the Dutch and Swedes were suspicious that the English were attempting to seize control of the Delaware trade at its source, and the former stopped their progress. "The company was ruined, the whole stock of the members, which was at least £700, was wasted and their design overthrown." 13 This episode added to the dislike of the New Englanders for the Dutch, and protests, claims, and counterclaims went back and forth between the Commissioners of the United Colonies and the Dutch governor at New Amsterdam during the next five years. In 1646 New Haven again encroached upon the fur-trading country of the Dutch. Some traders of that town bought land from the Indians and set up a trucking house on the Naugatuck River near its junction with the Housatonic, about sixty miles from Fort Orange. From Amsterdam Governor Kieft was told to forestall any such move toward Fort Orange " by all possible means short of such dangerous proceedings as might provoke a war." 14 A vigorous protest sent by Kieft to Governor Eaton complaining of New Haven's "insatiable desire" to seize (86)

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Dutch territory procured no satisfaction. 16 The Commissioners of the United Colonies were now distinctly hostile to the Dutch. The various disputes between New England and New Amsterdam reached a climax in 1650. In the preceding year the United Colonies had ordered that neither the Dutch nor the French should be allowed to trade longer with the Indians within their jurisdiction. " B y this resolution the Dutch were excluded from a very important and very valuable trade" which they had enjoyed for years.16 Governor Stuyvesant, succeeding Kieft, came in peace to Hartford to meet the Commissioners and to settle differences. He mentioned the ejection from the Connecticut River, stressed the injustice of prohibiting the Dutch from trading in New England, and complained that William Pynchon was spoiling the fur trade on the Connecticut by paying the Indians too much for beaver. 17 The English of course brought up their wide claims and objected to their treatment on the Delaware. The treaty of Hartford left both parties in the status quo prius on that river, and settled the boundary between New England and the Dutch territories, but did not (87)

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ENGLAND

concede the Dutch any trading privileges which had been prohibited in 1649. Further evidence of the hostility of New England to its rival was given in 1652, when England and Holland plunged into a naval war. New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were all for war on the Dutch. The first two, western colonies, went ahead with preparations. But Massachusetts declined to fight an offensive war, and news of peace in 1653 forestalled conflict in North America. Again in 1659 the fur trade caused controversy, this time directly between Massachusetts and Governor Stuyvesant. The occasion was the grant by the Bay Colony of a tract of land near Fort Orange to a company of merchants interested in a fur-trading venture. 18 The company sent an exploring party the same year to locate the grant, and a spot near the present town of Poughkeepsie was selected. Since the overland route to the Hudson was so long and difficult, the Boston men asked the Dutch for permission to pass and repass up and down the river. But Stuyvesant saw the danger, remarking t h a t the English "would intrude with their wampum on our beaver trade, and thus divert it (88)

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away from us." 19 He avoided making the concession, for Massachusetts was claiming nothing less than the right to trade with the tribes near Fort Orange, under a charter which would give her all territory north of 42°, westward to the Pacific, despite the claims and rights of all others. Luckily the excitement and changes caused by the Restoration in England caused the design of the Boston merchants to be abandoned. When, in 1664, King Charles I I ordered the seizure of New Netherlands from the Dutch, the royalist officials in charge of the expedition could depend upon the support of the New Englanders, whose jealousy of their neighbors overcame their Puritan antipathy to the restored Stuarts. This was a surprise to the people at New Amsterdam, who had had faith that the Puritans would never aid the royalists in overthrowing a colony with similar religious beliefs.20 Massachusetts was unwilling to engage in offensive war without just cause, but New Haven, Connecticut, Plymouth, and Rhode Island contributed troops to the King's forces. A background of bitter disputes over the fur trade had de(89)

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veloped in New England an intense dislike for the Dutch which was a prime factor leading to the subjugation of New Netherlands. 2 . N E W ENGLAND AND THE FBENCH

Rivalry over the fur trade was one of the earliest sources of actual friction between French and English pioneers in North America. Toward the end of the sixteenth century the French began to fear the encroachment of English traders along the Atlantic coast. The trade in that region was so lucrative that vessels sometimes carried back to Europe cargoes of furs worth forty thousand dollars.21 The English, never neglecting a good commercial opportunity, soon cut into the trade of the French, and gradually restricted them to the area about the mouth of the St. Lawrence. The fur-trading activities of Plymouth further limited the area open to the French on the coast of Maine. With their wampum the Pilgrims were able to compete on at least even terms with the French, and they set up trading houses on the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers. In 1631 a group of Frenchmen raided (90)

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the Plymouth post on the Penobscot, taking away goods valued at from four to five hundred pounds.22 Mr. Isaac Allerton, a former agent now disowned by Plymouth, established a trucking house still further north, at Machias, in 1633, but " L a Tour, governor of the French in those parts, making claim to the place, came to displant them, and finding resistance, killed two of the men, and carried away the other three and the goods." Allerton went to Port Royal to demand redress, but La Tour replied that " h e had authority from the king of France, who challenged all from Cape Sable to Cape Cod, wishing them to take notice . . . that if they traded to the east of Pemaquid, he would make prize of them."

23

In the same year, 1635, the French

made good this threat by coming in a manof-war to take possession of the Plymouth post at Penobscot.

I t was the intention of

Claude Razilly, governor of Acadia, to oust the bothersome English traders. The Plymouth people sent an expedition to get the Penobscot house back, but it failed, since the French were firmly entrenched there.24 Then Plymouth suggested that Massachusetts Bay make common cause with her against the (91)

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French, but the Bay leaders stipulated that Plymouth would have to bear all the cost of the proposed expedition, and the project failed. Governor Bradford in a bitter mood accused the Bay merchants of trading with the French soon after and of furnishing the enemy with provisions, powder, and shot, " a s they have seen opportunitie for their profite." 25 Governor Razilly died in 1635, and his two lieutenants, L a Tour and Aulnay, engaged in a long and violent wrangle over the succession to his office. The Massachusetts traders aided La Tour as volunteers because his original jurisdiction was farthest removed from their colony. Aulnay sent agents to Boston in 1644 to arrange peace, and the Bay leaders decided to support him as against La Tour, whose claim was judged weaker, and who was, moreover, a Catholic. A treaty made with Aulnay's agent provided t h a t Massachusetts should not be bound to restrain its merchants from trading "with any persons either French or other, wheresoever they dwell." 26 Again in 1646 Aulnay sent agents, who treated with the Commissioners of the United Colonies concerning the damages due (92)

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by the English traders in the Penobscot region. A compromise was reached, and French-English relations became fairlypeaceful in Maine. 27 The next year Boston merchants sent a trading vessel with £1000 worth of goods to the Gulf of Canada, but Aulnay heard of it, and sent an armed force which captured the men and the cargo. " T h e merchants complained to the court for redress, and offered to set forth a good ship, to deal with some of Aulnay's vessels, but the court thought it not safe nor expedient for us to begin a war with the French." 28 The merchants apparently did not altogether abandon efforts to trade to the northeast during the rest of our period. As late as 1668 Sir William Temple had posts in Acadia, getting his trading goods through Usher and Shrimpton of Boston. 29 T h a t this particular business in beaver was large is indicated by the fact that Temple owed the Boston firm more than £2000 for trading goods. While Boston traders were pushing up the Hudson, merchants of that town were risking considerable capital in fur-trading ventures to the territories of New France. The conflicts with the French over the fur (93)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND trade were not as serious as the conflicts with the Dutch. T h e fur trade of the French early became one of the interior; the coastal and Maine trade was of minor importance to them.

Y e t the frequent troubles with the

French as well as with the Dutch led to the formation of the United Colonies of N e w England in 1643.

T h e skirmishes on the

frontier indicated to the English that their northern neighbors, though small in population, were active, expansive traders, zealous missionaries among the Indians, and daring soldiers. Unlike the Dutch, these men were aggressive and quick to follow threats with deeds. N e w England leaders therefore came to regard the French as a serious menace to the safety of the colonies.

C H A P T E R

V I

THE ORGANIZATION AND REGULATION OF THE FUR TRADE 1.

ORGANIZATION

I N A century of strict economic regulation by the state, it was natural that the fur trade should be the subject of much colonial legislation. This trade was particularly important in the eyes of state authorities. I t was a major commercial activity; it supplied a convenient source of revenue; it provided essential elements of colonial currency, beaver skins and wampum; and it was closely related to the problem of defense against the Indians. The stronger the government of a colony, the tighter was its control over the organization and regulation of the fur trade. At Plymouth the conduct of the peltry traffic was vested in a group of eight to fifteen leaders, who were to monopolize the trade in the interests of the whole colony, paying its debts to the merchants with the proceeds. The system was continued in 1627, (95)

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when the leading men arranged to undertake the total debt and buy off the merchants. The settlers were not allowed to engage in the traffic with the Indians until 1640, when it had decreased to negligible proportions in Pilgrim territory. Apparently the leaders did more than pay the Colony's debts and buy English goods with the profits, for some of them acquired considerable property during the years when the trade was most prosperous. 1 The Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629 reserved the fur trade to the joint stock of merchants and settlers for seven years, ostensibly to help pay for the building of churches and the salaries of ministers. 2 Nothing came from this attempt at monopoly. From 1632 to 1634 the settlers had to pay a tax of twelve pence for every pound of beaver traded with the Indians, and the General Court provided that there should be one trucking house in each settlement, "whither the Indians may resort to trade, to avoid their coming to the several houses." 3 In 1636 the Court gave the Council authority to farm out the fur trade to individuals for a yearly rental. By t h a t date Willard had (96)

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founded Concord, and Pynchon had established Springfield. Five years later, " t o prevent great disorder in the bever trade," the Court appointed Simon Willard, John Holeman, and Richard Collecott commissioners to regulate the business. These men were to select one man in each town to be a member of the commission, and to each member was given the privilege of trading with the Indians, while all others were to be restrained. For this exclusive privilege the traders were to give to the Colony one twentieth of all furs received from the natives. The term was to be three years, and the prohibition against the sale of "strong waters" to the Indians was set aside in their favor. 4 The main purpose of the Court seems to have been to keep the fur trade in the hands of responsible citizens. The New England Confederation was formed in 1643, and one of the first problems of mutual concern that the Commissioners discussed was the organization of the fur trade. In 1644 they proposed to the several colonies that a joint stock be raised to conduct the business, suggesting that five or six thousand pounds might be sufficient capital (97)

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to start with, although "£10,000 may be to good advantage employed in it." 5 One great corporation would control the Indian trade and enjoy the exclusive privilege of trading for furs for ten years. That the Commissioners of the United Colonies should seriously recommend investing the equivalent of at least fifty to one hundred thousand dollars in the money of today in the traffic for beaver indicates the importance of that business in 1644. Competition from the Dutch and French was no doubt a main cause of this proposal. A single company would also maintain order in the trade and prevent abuses in the sale of liquor and arms to the Indians. Massachusetts and Connecticut endorsed this project, but Plymouth declined and New Haven made no reply.6 Had this plan of organization succeeded it would have stimulated the Confederation to press more strenuously for a larger share of the fur trade going to the Dutch and the French. After 1644 Massachusetts continued the system of selecting special traders, and we have seen how the possession of trading privileges enabled the favored individuals to build modest fortunes. The Colony also gave (98)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLANÖ its support to companies of merchant adventurers who were attempting to extend the fur trade beyond the bounds of Massachusetts and into territory claimed by the Dutch and the French. A group of Boston merchants and prominent citizens, William Tynge, Treasurer of the Colony, Valentine Hill, Captain Robert Sedgewick, and Robert Aspinwall, petitioned the General Court for letters under the public seal to support their activities, their aim being to reach the lake country via the Delaware River. The Court granted them a monopoly for twenty-one years of whatever trade they might "discover" in that region.7 The expedition sent to the Delaware was halted by the Dutch as related in a previous chapter. In 1645 Richard Saltonstall, Symon Bradstreet, Samuel Symonds, Richard Dummer, Captain William Hawthorne, and William Payne petitioned the Court for a monopoly of the fur trade which they intended to develop about fifty miles from Springfield, probably on the Hudson.8 Again the deputies granted an exclusive concession to the trade in territories which did not belong to Massachusetts. The Saltonstall group ap(99)

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parently did not proceed with the project until 1659, when their preliminary expedition caused a dispute with the Dutch. 9 In 1657 the General Court ordered that, "wheras the trade of furrs . . . doth properly belong to the commonwealth, & not to particular persons, who without liberty of this Court do trafficke with the Indians," no persons should trade for peltry except those authorized by the Court. It was also decided to appoint a committee " t o contract with such able and honest persons as shall tender themselves to prosecute the Indian trade for the best benefit of the country and suppressing all irregularities therein. . . ." 10 The committee subsequently appointed certain individuals as traders at the towns where the Indians were accustomed to bring their furs. The total revenue to the Colony from farming out the trade was in that year £67. 11 There is no further mention in the Massachusetts records of the system of organizing the fur trade until 1676, the year of King Philip's War, when all traffic with the Indians was ordered to cease.12 Connecticut followed the practice of farming out exclusive concessions in the fur trade (100)

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to certain individuals. I n 1638 the General Court granted the privilege at Windsor to Roger Ludlow and William Hull; at Hartford to William Whitney and Thomas Stanton; at Wethersfield to George Hubbard and Richard Lord; and at Springfield (then considered to be within Connecticut's jurisdiction) to William Pynchon. 13 Two years later the Court presented Governor Edward Hopkins with the privilege of trade at Woronoco (Westfield) and up the river, arranging also to buy the land at Woronoco for the Colony.14 Connecticut approved the project of the Commissioners of the United Colonies in 1644. In 1662 the General Court opened the fur trade to all settlers, but by that time there was little profit in the business in the country south of Springfield. 15 The merchants who controlled the government of the New Haven colony were careful to reserve the fur trade to themselves. Rhode Island was the exception to the general rule of exclusive privileges and special concessions. In her territory the trade was free to all men. 16

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THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND 2. REGULATION

The problem of restraining the sale of arms and liquor to the Indians gave colonial legislatures much trouble. One would think that great care would have been taken to keep these things from the natives. The folly of supplying them with guns was obvious, and the sale of intoxicating liquor to them made this danger much greater. But the problem was complicated by the fact that if responsible traders were forbidden to sell firearms and fire-water, the irregular traders, the fishermen, the Dutch, and the French, would still continue, while the licensed traders would lose business and profits. Enforcement of law was difficult on the first frontier, as it was on the last. At Plymouth the rigid control of the leaders over the fur trade and the exclusion of the main body of settlers from barter with the natives made it possible for the Pilgrims to withhold liquor and arms. But the practices of the Dutch on the south constituted a menace which Plymouth could not prevent, while the French on the Maine coast supplied the Indians with guns and thereby ( 102 )

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND threatened the trade of Plymouth beyond the Kennebec.

Governor Bradford com-

plained to the Council for N e w England in 1627 that the English fishermen had begun to leave fishing for the sake of quicker profits from the fur trade, and in their "greedy covetousness " were following the example of the French, selling weapons as well as the usual goods of exchange.17 While Plymouth was able to handle Thomas Morton, the Colony could do little against these disorderly traders and interlopers. Proclamations issued by the King's royal council in 1622 and again in 1630 had no effect three thousand miles from England.18 In the records of Massachusetts there appear no prohibitions against the sale of guns and ammunition to the Indians until 1637, the year of the Pequot War, and as soon as the danger was over this law was repealed.19 B y 1641 the natives must have acquired considerable numbers of weapons, for in that year the General Court expressly forbade the sale of guns, powder, shot, and lead.20

This policy was maintained until

1669, when the trade in these articles was reopened. B y that time the white population (103)

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had grown so large t h a t the authorities seemed to have little fear of another Indian war. Yet for seven years before the Pequot War, and for seven years before the Narraganset War, the Indians were able to procure weapons from fur traders and others. Connecticut prohibited the sale of guns and powder between 1642 and 1669, when the colony decided that, "since Massachusetts and Plymouth have opened the trade of powder and lead to the Indians . . . and our law prohibits, so that our people are deprived of the profit thereof, for the future there shall be one man in each plantation appointed . . . to sell powder and lead to the Indians." 2 1 Rhode Island passed laws against the sale of weapons in 1640, and again in 1647, when the penalty was raised. In 1655 the General Court ordered that a sub-committee should consider "some way of preventing the sale of ammunition to the Indians." 22 Evidently Rhode Island laws meant little to the fur traders, English and Dutch. Massachusetts tried, with small success, to restrain excessive drinking among the Indians. A law of 1633 forbade the sale of ( 104 )

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strong waters to them. They still managed to get liquor, and in 1637 the Court appointed one responsible liquor dealer in each town, 24 apparently on the theory that it was better to sell moderate quantities of strong waters to the Indians through licensed dealers than to allow them to get plentiful supplies from settlers and traders. The fur traders probably complained at this restriction, and special license was given to them in 1641 to sell liquor to the natives, who would readily part with beaver skins for firewater. 25 Three years later the Indians were permitted to purchase wine from licensed liquor dealers, paying, presumably, in furs. 26 The Indians were able to quench their thirst quite easily under such laws. By 1654 the General Court decided that the Indians were too often drunk, and blamed this condition upon traders who "regard their own profit." 27 A drastic restriction was made by which no liquor of any kind was to be sold to the Indians except by a few specified persons, and then only one pint at a time. But paper prohibitions were not very effective. In 1657 the Court noted that drunkenness still went on among the Indians, and ordered that no (105)

THE PUB TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

one at all sell any liquor to any Indians, and that "for the better execution of this order, all trucking houses erected, not allowed by this Court, shalbe forthewith demolished." 28 One may conclude, therefore, that the traders made a fairly regular practice of selling strong waters to the natives, with or without permission of the law. Even the respected and trusted fur traders supplied the Indians with liquor. John Pynchon retailed brandy at the rate of twelve shillings a gallon in 1653, the year before the Court called a halt to the business.29 John Tinker, while a trader near Boston in 1655, was fined ten shillings "for selling now & then a gill of strong waters to ye Indians." 30 If Tinker dared to do this in the region of Boston, it is more than likely that he sold liquor regularly when he was out in the wilderness near Lancaster. David Wilton, fur trader of Northampton, acquired a special license to sell liquors in 1662.31 Dr. John Westcarr of Hadley repeatedly violated the law against the sale of "strong waters" to the Indians. He was fined £30 in 1667 for selling fifteen pints. Yet the large fine did not deter him, and three years later Westcarr was again (106)

THE PUR TB ADE IN NEW ENGLAND

haled before a magistrate on a similar charge. Several Indians testified against the trader, one of whom said that he had obtained six quarts of liquor from Westcarr "and paid him a great beaver skin of my wife's." 32 After a long litigation the trader was let off with a fine of £5. In 1673 Westcarr was licensed to practise medicine, and by means of prescriptions was able to supply his fur customers with medical advice and rum.33 Joseph Parsons of Northampton, to mention another regular fur trader, had a license to keep an "ordinary" with liberty to sell strong waters in 1661.34 These isolated examples of well-reputed citizens selling liquor for furs lead one to assume that irregular traders, and pioneers generally, must have kept the natives rather well supplied. Such an assumption is borne out by the General Court's complaint in 1666 that "the sinn of drunkeness amongst the Indians doth much increase," and by its report nine years later that the Indians were very often found drunk.35 Since an Indian got drunk on about one fourth of the amount of liquor required to intoxicate an Englishman,36 large sales of strong waters were not necessary to produce (107)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

the result the red man wanted in return for his (or his wife's) beaver skins. Connecticut did not prohibit the sale of liquors to the Indians until 1654, when the General Court of that colony passed a drastic law against it, with a penalty of £5 for every pint sold or given. The same year the'Court said that the Indians still indulged in the "greate and crying sin of Drunkeness," and a further restriction was made against the sale of "Syder or Strong Beare." 37 In 1675 the Court said, "Despite all endeavors to prevent Indians from being drunk, t h a t sin doth increase among them." 38 Rhode Island passed laws forbidding the sale of strong waters to Indians in 1650, 1654, 1655, 1656, and 1659, but the very number of these enactments is sufficient proof of their futility. 39 The Dutch supplied the Narragansets with liquor, and the prominent citizen Richard Smith carried on a "bloody liquor trade," according to Roger Williams. The weakness of the Rhode Island government permitted a set of ''border ruffians" and the settlers themselves to exchange home brew for beaver and wampum. 40

C H A P T E R

V I I

CONCLUSIONS 1.

T H E ADVANCE OF T H E TBADING

FUR-

FRONTIER

traced the activities of the fur traders in some detail in each of the important beaver regions of New England, and we have seen the inevitable tendency of the traders to extend their operations farther afield. If we are to get a clearer view of the work they did, we must see the fur-trading frontier as a whole, and sum up its advances in successive decades. The coast was the first fur-trading frontier of New England, and the fishermen of four nations were the first fur traders. On the shores of Maine the French made the trade in beaver an organized business specialty, 1 but in the first quarter of the seventeenth century they had to meet increasing competition from traders sent out by English merchants. On the southern coast of New England the Dutch monopolized the coastal W

E HAVE

C 109)

THE FÜR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

trade. Beginning in 1614, Dutch traders became active in Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay, and succeeded in holding the business until after 1650. Years before any permanent settlements were made in New England, fur traders had explored and exploited its coasts. By 1630 the base of the fur trade was shifted to the colonial establishments on the shore. The Pilgrims during their first five years in America conducted a purely coastal trade along the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and toward Maine, with occasional trips to the Narragansett region. By 1625 they had penetrated inland by way of the Kennebec, and eight years later they challenged the Dutch on the Connecticut. During these years the New England shore was dotted with trading posts from the Penobscot on the northeast to the Connecticut on the southwest. The posts at Penobscot, Pemaquid, Saco, Strawberry Bank, Salem, Boston, Natascot, Plymouth, Manomet, and Block Island were all engaging in the Indian trade with more or less success. By 1630 the English had actually come to stay, and they began to crowd out the French and the (no)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND Dutch from the coastal trade, forcing them to concentrate on the more promising waterways of the St. Lawrence and Hudson rivers. The receding of the beaver country after 1630 drew the English fur traders from Massachusetts Bay to the Concord and Connecticut rivers, and by

1640 the fur-trading

frontier was pushed into the wilderness from Concord toward the Merrimac, and up the Connecticut as far as Springfield.

In the

Narragansett country Roger Williams and Richard Smith had built trading posts by this date, while the agents of Gorges and Mason on the Piscataqua had failed to find easy access to the interior of Maine. During the forties the fur traders extended their operations on the Merrimac and the Connecticut. Meanwhile, groups of merchants looking for profitable investments put capital into fur-trading ventures to the Delaware River, projected the exploitation of the lake country, encroached further upon the Dutch by setting up a post on the Housatonic, petitioned for grants to the land upon the Hudson, and even attempted to break into the trade of the Gulf of Canada. Comparing the French and English traders, Park(111)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

man says t h a t the range of the latter was limited and "seldom extended far beyond the outskirts of the settlements." 2 Yet balked as they were by the stubborn facts of geography, the merchant fur traders of Boston, Salem, and New Haven boldly and repeatedly attempted to get a larger share of the furs which were following the easiest paths of trade to the French and Dutch, sent expeditions hundreds of miles to the north and south, and almost drew the United Colonies into war for the sake of beaver skins. With the failure of such efforts and with the growth of other forms of commerce, the men of capital turned their attention to other fields. Yet on the Connecticut the founding of Northampton (1654) and Deerfield (1669) testifies to the expansive character of the fur trade in that region, while Simon Willard, near the Merrimac, shifted his trading base from Concord to Chelmsford, then to Lancaster and Groton. Between 1650 and 1672 a few attempts were made by enterprising merchants to gain a foothold on the Hudson. 3 Indeed, " t h e New Englanders pushed their Hudson river voyages so vigorously t h a t the (112)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

authorities at New York remonstrated." 4 The intruders were forbidden to pass up the river, and in 1670 were ordered not to trade at Albany. Such legislation had little effect, for six years later an official complaint was made to Governor Andros that " the Bostoners and other strangers goe up in their small vessels to Albany. . . . " 5 In the course of five or six decades the furtrading frontier advanced irregularly from the coasts up the rivers into the interior of New England. Blocked by the mountains from the beaver meadows of the western lakes, and unable to reach that region by water, the fur traders of New England had to seek other routes to the trans-Appalachian country. In so doing they came in conflict with the Dutch, and found themselves stubbornly checked on the Delaware and the Hudson. In Maine, meanwhile, the Indians were beginning to fall under the influence of French missionaries. 6 The double obstacle of keen competition and natural barriers halted the advance of the fur-trading frontier at the western bounds of Massachusetts and Connecticut. I t was not until the first (IIS)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

half of the eighteenth century that regular trading posts were set up in the interior of New Hampshire and Maine. 2.

T H E D E C L I N E OF THE ENGLAND F U B

NEW

TRADE

The trade in beaver was by its very nature destined to last only a few decades. The native supply of beaver was not extraordinarily large. The white population grew rapidly, and farmers followed right on the heels of the fur traders. I t has been stated already that the beaver is not a highly reproductive animal, and not a migrant. When the beaver meadows of a locality were exhausted, the animal became practically extinct on that spot. Hence the rapid decrease in the number of beaver, and the need for finding new sources of supply farther beyond the settled frontier. Physiography also was adverse to the New England fur trader. All the rivers of that geographic province run north and south. Explore as thoroughly as they could, the traders were never able to reach the western sources of supply by water. The Hudson pro(114)

THE FUR TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

vided easy access to the beaver country of the Great Lakes for the Dutch, and the St. Lawrence early invited the wide-ranging traders of New France to the interior, but the New Englanders were obstructed by mountain barriers. Given favorable geographic conditions, there is no doubt that these adventurous men would have penetrated far into the trans-Appalachian country in search of furs and that they would have been strong competitors of the "Coureurs de bois" and the shrewd Dutch traders. 7 The will was there, but the way could not be found. With this great limitation of beaver supply, the fur trade did not maintain its position of prime importance in the economy of New England for more than twenty or thirty years. We have seen how essential it was to Plymouth Colony. In the critical years of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay towns the fur trade and the fisheries sustained their commerce. 8 After 1635 the trade continued to be the first commercial activity of the scattered colonial settlements. In 1647 John Winthrop wrote that the law prohibiting of the trade with the Indians in guns and powder, recently passed by the Commission(115)

THE FUE TRADE IN NEW ENGLAND

ers of the United Colonies, had drawn " t h e greater part of the beaver trade to the Dutch and the French, by whom the Indians were constantly furnished with those things . . . so as our means of returns for English commodities were grown very short. . . ." 9 Fifteen years after the founding of Boston, therefore, beaver was a very important element in the external commerce of New England. The project of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of raising from five to ten thousand pounds in order to develop the fur trade further attests its importance in the midforties. I t remained a real factor in the economic development of the next fifteen years. 10 Fairly large quantities of furs were sent to Europe yearly down to 1675, when King Philip's War devastated the frontiers of Massachusetts. Down to 1645 the New Englanders turned the major part of their commercial energy toward the interior, and moneyed men invested in the fur trade. But the beginning of the trade with the West Indies supplied a new and better opportunity, attracting the attention of merchants and adventurers toward the sea. Soon exports of fish and lum(116)

T H E F U R TRADE IN N E W

ENGLAND

ber overshadowed shipments of fur.11 Shipbuilding and the distilling of rum from the West India molasses occupied the capitalists more and more. Governor Winthrop commented that the development of the West India trade was a fortunate thing for New England, 12 since the traders in fur were facing competition from the French and Dutch, as well as natural barriers. As the century grew older, the fur trade became relatively less and less a factor in foreign exchange. But the historian sees the fur traders as agents in the great process of the westward movement rather than as factors in an economic system. From this point of view the fur traders not only developed a great source of wealth for the young colonies, but, more important, explored the rivers and blazed trails through the forests of New England, brought the Indians under the white man's control, advertised the agricultural potentialities of the river bottoms, prepared the way for the pioneer farmers, and by their conflicts with the French and Dutch demonstrated the need for colonial union.

NOTES

NOTES INTRODUCTION

1. Harold Adams Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada (New Haven, 1930), p. 391. 2. Ibid., p. 13. 3. Besides beaver, the chief furs offered by the Indians were those of the otter, mink, raccoon, marten, muskrat, fox, and woodchuck. 4. Innis, p. 12. 5. William B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England 1630-1789 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1890), I, 38, 39, 90, 115. CHAPTER I

1. John Brereton, "Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North P a r t of Virginia, in 1602," in Early English and French Voyages 153^-1602, Henry S. Burrage, ed. (New York, 1906), p. 337. 2. Martin Pring, " A Voyage Set Out from the Citie of Bristoll, 1603," op. cit., p. 350. 3. James Rosier, " A True Relation of the Voyage of Captain George Waymouth, 1605," op. cit., p. 371. 4. "Relation of a Voyage to the Sagadahoc" (author unknown), op. cit., p. 403. 5. Captain John Smith, " A Description of New England," in Captain John Smith's Works, (121 )

NOTES

6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

Edward Arber, ed. (Birmingham, 1884), pp. 187-188. Roland G. Usher, The Pilgrims and their History (New York, 1918), pp. 48, 49, 59, 75, 76, 97. Edward Channing, A History of the United States (New York, 1909), I, 313-314. George Mourt, "Relation of the Beginning and Proceedings . . . of Plymouth," in Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, Edward Arber, ed. (Boston and New York, 1897), p. 469. William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, 1912), I, 228-229. Mourt, "Relation of the Beginning and Proceedings . . . of Plymouth," op. cit., p. 486. Bradford, I, 229. Edward Winslow, "Good News From New England," in Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, Edward Arber, ed., p. 526. Bradford, I, 235. Ibid., pp. 276-278. Ibid., p. 229. Charles Francis Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (Cambridge, 1892), I, 194-208. I n 1623 Wessagusset was occupied as a furtrading post by the company of Robert Gorges. Trade was poor here, so the men scattered about the shores of the Bay. Some of them set up a permanent trading station at Hull (Natascot). (Adams, op. cit., I, 159160.) ( 122 )

NOTES 18. Charles Francis Adams, " T h e May-Pole of Merrymount," Atlantic Monthly Magazine, X X I X (May, 1877), 562. 19. Usher, p. 138. 20. Bradford, II, 46-58. Morton gives an amusing account of this episode in his New English Canaan. See C. F. Adams' edition of that work (Boston, 1883), pp. 282-287 ff., and his Introduction. 21. Morton was deported in 1628, but returned in 1629 to Merrymount. The Massachusetts Bay Company arrested him and sent him back to England, after confiscating his goods and burning down his trading house. (Bradford, II, 74, and note.) 22. Ibid., 1,439. 23. Ibid., pp. 447-449. 24. Wampum, strings of shell beads used by the Indians as money, ceremonial pledges, or ornaments. The beads were polished and strung together in belts. The tribes on the shore manufactured the article, which was highly prized by the tribes of the interior. 25. Bradford, II, 42-44. 26. Ibid., pp. 40, 69, 174. Cushenoc is now Augusta. 27. Ibid., pp. 80, 86, 119. The Penebscot post was at the mouth of the river at Bagaduce Point. 28. Plymouth held the Kennebec Patent until 1661. By 1649 the trade there had declined, and for a yearly rent of £50 the Colony leased the trade for six years to five distinguished Pilgrims including Bradford and Winslow. In 1655 the rent was reduced to ( 123 )

NOTES

29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

£35. I n 1660 only £10 was paid. I n 1661 Plymouth sold the Patent for £400. (William D. Williamson, History of the State of Maine, 1602-1820 [Hallowell, 1839], I, 365-370.) Bradford, I, 435, and note; I I , 32-33, 131. Ibid., pp. 229-231. In 1637 the Pilgrims withheld their furs. I n 1638 they sent 1325 pounds of beaver to England. (Ibid., p. 268.) See Chapter V. See Chapter IV. Bradford, I I , 3-8. Ibid., pp. 130, 131, 230; Usher, pp. 230-231. Bradford, I I , 230, 259, 268, 336. Usher, p. 238.

CHAPTER II

1. Henry S. Burrage, The Beginnings of Colonial Maine 1602-1658 (Portland, 1914), p. 107. 2. Alexander Young, ed., Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636 (Boston, 1846) p. 5, note. 3. Bradford, I, 311-312, and notes. 4. John Ward Dean, ed., Captain John Mason, the Founder of New Hampshire. Memoir by Charles W. Tuttle (Boston, 1887), p. 16. 5. Dean, p. 20. 6. James Phinney Baxter, " Christopher Levett, First Owner of the Soil of Portland," in Historical Addresses (Portland, 1891), p. 19. 7. Dean, p. 55. 8. Ibid., p. 56. Quoted from John S. Jeness, The Isles of Shoals (New York, 1875), pp. 62( 124 )

NOTES

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

63. See also J. P. Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (Boston, 1890), I, 153-157. Dean, p. 60. Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., p. 330. Williamson, I, 233. William Willis, History of Portland (Portland, 1865), p. 19. Ibid., p. 21. Williamson, I, 240. Bradford, II, 83, 107, 108. Adams, Three Episodes, I, 351. John Winthrop, Journal, I, 69. Winthrop's estimate of Bagnall's property was £400. Cleeves and Tucker subsequently settled on the site of Portland in Casco Bay. I n 1637 they petitioned for protection under the privy seal " f o r searching out the great lake of Iroquois and for the sole trade of beaver." See Winthrop's Journal, I, 224, and J. P. Baxter, "George Cleeves of Casco Bay," in Historical Addresses, p. 357. James Phinney Baxter, ed., The Trelawney Papers, Documentary History of the State of Maine, I I I (Portland, 1884), p. xxi. Willis, p. 55. Ibid., pp. 39-41. By 1645 the coastal trade was no longer profitable. Up the Kennebec there was still an active fur trade. Thomas Purchase set up a trading post on the Androscoggin River in 1654 and did business for forty years, making much money. See James W. North, History of Augusta (Augusta, 1870), p. 11. There appear few if any other (125)

NOTES

23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

evidences of f u r trading in the interior of M a i n e in the period of this study. See Charles Knowles Bolton, The Real Founders of New England, (Boston, 1929), especially Appendix Β and Appendix C, for a complete list of the early settlements on the coast, their founders, a n d their I n d i a n and English names. See Chapter V. John Romeyn Brodhead, History of the State of New York (New York, 1853), I, 145. Ibid. Governor William Bradford's Letter Book, published by the Massachusetts Society of M a y flower Descendants (Boston, 1906), p. 43. Samuel Greene Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (New York, 1859-1860), I , 55. Brodhead, I, 268. E d m u n d Bailey O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland (New York, 1845), I, 110. Bradford, I, 202; Winthrop, I, 72. John Oldham arrived in America in 1623, a n d traded with Indians from the start. I n 1629 he proposed to the Massachusetts B a y C o m p a n y a plan b y which great profit would be made f r o m the f u r t r a d e if he were allowed to manage the business. His offer was declined, b u t Oldham continued his individual trading. See the letter of the C o m p a n y to Governor Endicott, April 17, 1629, in Young's Chronicles, pp. 147-149. Arnold, I, 87. Winthrop, I, 183-185. C 126 )

NOTES

35. John Russell Bartlett, ed., Letters of Roger Williams, 1632-1682 (Providence, 1874), p. 399. 36. Thomas Williams Bicknell, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (New York, 1920), I, 469. 37. Narragansett Historical Register (Providence, 1885), III, 287. 38. Bicknell, I, 470. 39. Harry Lyman Koopman, The Narragansett Country (Providence, 1927), p. 16. 40. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, J. R. Bartlett, ed. (Providence, 1856), I. 210. 41. Henry C. Dorr, "The Narragansets," in Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, VII, 135-237. 42. J . Warren Gardiner, "Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Narragansett," in the Narragansett Historical Register, II, 25-34.

43. Ibid., p. 27.

44. Ibid., p. 28. Quoted from a letter of Peleg Sanford, governor of Rhode Island in 1680. 45. Dorr, "The Narragansets," op. cit., VII, 179. This author also says that there was a set of border ruffians, illicit traders, in Rhode Island ("The Narragansets," op. cit., VII, 181). CHAPTER III

1. O'Callaghan, I, 149. 2. Winthrop, I, 61. 3. Charles H. Mcllwain, ed., An Abridgement of the Indian Affairs, by Peter Wraxall (Cam( 127 )

NOTES

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

bridge, 1915), Introduction, Note A, " T h e Fur Trade in New England," pp. xxviiixxxii. Winthrop, I, 110. Arthur Howard Buffinton, " N e w England and the Western Fur Trade, 1629-1675," in Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, X V I I I (Boston, 1916), 166-167. Bradford, II, 170. Winthrop, I, 108. Ibid., p. 118. Henry Reed Stiles, History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut (New York, 1904), I, 25; Charles McLean Andrews, The River Towns of Connecticut (Baltimore, 1889), pp. 16-17. Bradford, II, 216-223. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 2nd series, VIII, 231. Winthrop, I, 61, 138-140. Mason Arnold Green, Springfield, 1636-1886. History of Town and City (Springfield, 1888), p. 2. John Hoyt Lockwood, ed., Western Massachusetts; A History 1686-1925 (New York and Chicago, 1926), I, 92. John Hoyt Lockwood, Westfield and Its Historic Influences (Springfield, 1922), I, 33. Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, (hereafter cited as Conn. Col. Ree.) James Hammond Trumbull, ed. (Hartford, 1850), I, 20. Lockwood, Westfield, I, 52. Conn. Col. Ree., I, 57. Green, p. 51. ( 128 )

NOTES

20. George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Deerfield, 1895), I, 35; Green, p. 61. 21. Lockwood, Westfield, I, 54-55. 22. Lockwood, ed., Western Massachusetts, I, 87. 23. C. G. Burnham, " E a r l y Traffic on the Connecticut River," in the New England Magazine, X X I I I (October, 1900), p. 132. 24. J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, I, 467. 25. E. H. Byington, "William Pynchon, the Founder of Springfield," Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings, I I (Springfield, 1904), 28-29. 26. Lockwood, ed., Western Massachusetts, I, 87. 27. This book was " t h e production of a very intelligent layman, living upon the outermost rim of civilization, and moved by the currents of theological opinion in his time to put forth his independent protest against opinions that seemed to him inconsistent with the Word of God." (Byington, "William Pynchon, the Founder of Springfield," op. cit., II, 31.) His protest was " a bold departure from Calvinism." See Lockwood, ed., Western Massachusetts, I, 100-111. 28. Green, pp. 200, 203. 29. New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, I I I (Concord, New Hampshire, 1832), 96. 30. J. R. Trumbull, Northampton, I, 467-468. 31. H. M . Burt, "Springfield in Olden Times," Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings, I I (Springfield, 1904), 127128.

32. Green, p. 147. 33. Lockwood, ed., Western Massachusetts, I, 96. C 129 )

NOTES 84. Lockwood, Westfield, I, 33. 35. Green, p. 152. 36. T h e Pynchon Account Book is owned b y the Springfield Public Library. T h e figures which are more readily accessible are in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, X I (Boston, 1857), 217-219, article b y Sylvester J u d d , " T h e F u r T r a d e of the Connecticut River in the Seventeenth C e n t u r y . " 37. Edward Johnson, Wonder Working Providence of Sions Savior in New England (1653), J . Franklin Jameson, ed. (New York, 1910), p. 237. 38. Lockwood, Westfield, I, 34. 39. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association History and Proceedings, VII, 11. 40. H . M . B u r t , "Springfield in Olden T i m e s , " op. cit., I I , 127-128; Trumbull, Northampton, I, 467-468; Green, p. 202. 41. J. R . Trumbull, Northampton, I, 3-12. 42. Burt, "Springfield in Olden Times," op. cit., I I , 128. 43. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 2nd series, V I I I , 231. 44. J. R . Trumbull, Northampton, I, 109-110, tells the known facts a b o u t Wilton. 45. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association History and Proceedings, VI, 28, note on Westcarr. 46. Green, p. 202; B u r t , "Springfield in Olden Times," op. cit., I I , p. 124. 47. Conn. Col. Ree., I, 20. 48. William D e Loss Love, Colonial History of Hartford (Hartford, 1914), pp. 298, 300-301. Of articles used in trade with the Indians, (130)

NOTES

Whiting kept in his house hoes, hatchets, shoes, nails, pins, paper, shot, fish-hooks, buckles, mirrors, bells, thimbles, knives, scissors, brass kettles, "shagg c o t t e n " and other cloths, etc. I n 1647 he had in his house more than £250 worth of beaver, moose, and wampum. 49. James Hammond Trumbull, ed., Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut (Boston, 1886), I, 261; Conn. Col. Ree., I, 204. 50. James Hammond Trumbull, I, 249; Love, p. 301. Lord's son, like John Pynchon, became a very wealthy merchant on the basis of his father's profits in the fur trade. 51. E. g., Oldham leading Watertown settlers to Wethersfield, and Pynchon bringing Roxbury families to found Springfield.

CHAPTER IV

1. Joseph Willard, The Willard Memoir: Life and Times of Mayor Simon Willard (Boston, 1858), p. 135. 2. Edward Johnson, pp. 110-115. 3. Charles Hosmer AVolcott, Concord in the Colonial Period (Boston, 1884), p. 17. 4. John Stedman owned this store, and paid £ 2 a year for the privilege of fur trading in 1657. He kept his trading house for fifty years. See L. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877 (Boston, 1877), p. 661. 5. Willard, op. cit., p. 157. 6. Abijah Perkins Marvin, History of Lancaster (Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1879), p. 37. (131)

NOTES

7. Joseph Willard, An Address in Commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of Lancaster (Boston, 1853), p. 67. 8. Sholan and his tribe submitted themselves to the Massachusetts jurisdiction as evidence of good-will in 1644. (Willard, Address, p. 68.) 9. Henry S. Nourse, " J o h n Prescott, the Founder of Lancaster," Bay State Monthly, Vol. I I , February, 1885 (Boston), 226. 10. Ibid., p. 260. 11. Marvin, p. 53. 12. New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, I I I (Concord, New Hampshire, 1832), p. 96; H. S. Nourse, Early Records of Lancaster, 1643-1725 (Lancaster, 1884), p. 263. 13. James Kimball, " T h e Exploration of the Merrimac River," in Essex Institute Historical Collections (Salem, 1878), XIV, 159. 14. Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford (Lowell, 1917), p. 75. 15. New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, I I I , 96. 16. Waters, pp. 36-37, 81. 17. Willard, Willard Memoir, p. 327. 18. Ibid., pp. 331-332, 334-335. 19. The histories of Groton, Sudbury, and Marlborough give no information about the f u r trade, but we know there were traders in each — John Parmenter a t Sudbury, a certain Stone a t Marlborough, and Tinker and Willard a t Groton. 20. New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, I I I , 96. ( 132 )

NOTES

CHAPTER V

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

Bradford, I, 342-345, and notes. Winthrop, I, 163, 164. Bradford, II, 170. Winthrop, I, 109. Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, pp. 234-240. Buffinton, " N e w England and the Western Fur Trade, 1629-1675," op. cit., X V I I I , 167. Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements on the Delaware (Philadelphia, 1915), I, 205. Ibid., pp. 214-215. Charles Herbert Levermore, The Republic of New Haven (Baltimore, 1886), pp. 95, 100, 101. Charles McLean Andrews, The Fathers of New England (New Haven, 1920), pp. 90-91. See Chapter VI. Winthrop, II, 164. Amandus Johnson, I, 397. O'Callaghan, I I , 381. Brodhead, I, 428. O'Callaghan, II, 108. Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England (hereafter cited as Ply. Col. Ree.), Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed. (Boston, 1855), I X , 172. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (hereafter cited as M.C.R.), Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed. (Boston, 1853-1854), II, 138; I I I , 53. Brodhead, I, 673; O'Callaghan, I I , 402-404. Ibid., pp. 23-24. (133)

NOTES

21. H. P. Biggar, The Early Trading Companies of New France (Toronto, 1901), pp. 93, 119, 130. 22. Bradford, I I , 134-135. 23. Winthrop, I, 113, 146. 24. Bradford, I I , 206-211. 25. Ibid., p. 213. 26. Winthrop, I I , 203. 27. Ibid., pp. 284-286. 28. Ibid., pp. 325-326. 29. Weeden, I, 263-264. CHAPTER VI

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

Usher, p. 237. M.C.R., 1,55. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 322. Ply. Col. Ree., I X , 22-23. M. C. R., I I , 86; Conn. Col. Ree., I, 113; Ply. Col. Ree., I I , 82. M.C.R., 11,60. Ibid., p. 138. Buffinton, "New England and the Western Fur Trade, 1629-1675," op. cit., X V I I I , 17&181. M. C. R., I I I , 424. New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, I I I (Concord, New Hampshire, 1832), p. 96, "Return of the Commissioners 'about the Beaver Trade."' M. C. R., V, 80. Conn. Col. Ree., I, 20. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., I I , 257. (134)

NOTES

16. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (hereafter cited as R. I. Col. Ree.), John Russell Bartlett, ed. (Providence, 1856), I, 90. 17. Governor William Bradford's Letter Book, pp. 35-36. 18. Bradford, I, 313; II, 45. 19. M. C. R., I, 196, 208. 20. Ibid., p. 322. 21. Conn. Col. Ree., I, 79; II, 119. 22. R. I. Col. Ree., I, 123, 320. 23. M.C.R., I, 106. "Strong waters" meant (1) brandy distilled from wine, (2) a liquor made from malt or grain. Wine and beer were the main drinks of the day, and the settlers made much cider. Rum from the West Indies came in after 1654. 24. Ibid., p. 213. Simon Willard received this privilege in Concord. 25. Ibid., p. 322. 26. " T h e Court apprehending that it is not fit to deprive ye Indians of any lawful comfort which God alloweth to all men by the use of wine, do order that it shalbe lawful for all such as are licensed to sell wines, to sell also to ye Indians so much as may be fit for their needfull use or refreshing." — Ibid., II, 85. 27. Ibid., III, 369. 28. Ibid., pp. 425, 426. 29. Pocumtuck Valley Historical Society, History and Proceedings, VII (Deerfield, 1929), p. 399. 30. Nourse, Early Records of Lancaster, p. 109. 31. J . R. Trumbull, Northampton, I, 109. 32. S. Judd, History of Hadley, pp. 64-65. ( 135 )

NOTES

33. Pocumtuck Valley Hist. Soc., History and Proceedings, VI, 28. 34. J. R. Trumbull, Northampton, I, 98. 35. M.C.R.,Y, 63. 36. Judd, p. 65. 37. Conn. Col. Ree., I, 255, 263. 38. Ibid., II, 257. 39. R. I. Col. Ree., I, 279, 304, 307, 338, 413. 40. Dorr, " T h e Narragansets," op. cit., VII, 178-210, discussion of the trade in liquor. CHAPTER VII

1. Biggar, p. 34. 2. Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac (Boston, 1907), I, 60. 3. Buffinton, "New England and the Western Fur Trade, 1629-1675," op. cit., XVIII, 176188. This treats in detail the attempts on the Hudson. 4. Weeden, II, 263. 5. Documents Relative to the History of New York, J. R. Brodhead, ed. (Albany, 1853), III, 238. 6. James Phinney Baxter, Pioneers of New France in New England (Albany, 1894), pp. 43, 46, 60, 64, 142, 153, etc., tells the story of the rivalry between the French and the English for control of the Indians of Maine and their efforts to prevent the Indians from trading with each other. This story falls mainly in the period after 1700. 7. Buffinton, "New England and the Western Fur Trade, 1629-1675," op. cit., XVIII, p. 188, says that "under favorable circum(136)

NOTES

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

stances the energies of Massachusetts might have been directed as much westward as seaward, and t h a t we might have had in New England the development of just such a hunting, fur trading frontier as was to be found later in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas." Weeden, I, 129. Winthrop, II, 328. Weeden, I, 139, 147, 160. Ibid,., 143-144. Winthrop, II, 328.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY THE list of references on this subject is necessarily long, because the facts are scattered and must be gleaned from original narratives, colonial records, state and town histories, and the volumes of various historical societies. The primary sources yield much information on the fur trade of Plymouth and Maine, and on the conflicts with the French and Dutch. Governor Bradford's Plymouth, and Winthrop's Journal are particularly useful. In order to follow the traders into the wilderness, we must rely on the local histories, some of which give the Indian trade considerable mention. Most of the town historians, however, give but scanty information on this subject. Very little has been written about the fur trade in New England by modern writers. There are only two accounts of it in print that are of importance, and both are very short. Professor Mcllwain's introduction to his edition of Peter Wraxall's Abridgement of the Indian Affairs contains a good note which (141)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

indicates the significance of the fur trade in New England and which makes a convenient starting point for a longer work. Mcllwain did not attempt to cover the field in this brief note, and left out entirely the local histories. A. H . Buffinton's paper on " N e w England and the Western Fur Trade, 16291675," is a very interesting and suggestive work in eighteen pages. This author treats the fur trade almost exclusively from the angle of diplomacy, giving in detail the story of attempts to reach the western lakes and to cut into the trade on the Delaware and Hudson rivers. The article of H. L. Babcock in the American Magazine, " T h e Beaver as a Factor in the Development of New England," has a very misleading title. Written by a local antiquarian of Dedham, it merely suggests the importance of the beaver trade to Plymouth and Boston. I t is very vague on the rest of New England. Professor H. A. Innis's book, The Fur Trade in Canada, is the scholarly work of an economist. I t contains some essential facts which apply to New England as well as to Canada — for example, those on the place of beaver in exchange and the Indian demand ( 142 )

BIBLIOGRAPHY for E u r o p e a n products. W . B . W e e d e n , Economic and Social History

of New England,

has

m a n y scattered references t o t h e fur trade, and h e g i v e s it m u c h i m p o r t a n c e f r o m t h e commercial s t a n d p o i n t . Frontiers

S y d n e y Greenbie's

and the Fur Trade is a colorful s t o r y

of t h e fur traders o n successive frontiers, a n d c o n t a i n s a chapter o n P l y m o u t h .

B u t his

superficial t r e a t m e n t of t h e trade in N e w E n g l a n d as a w h o l e s h o w s t h e n e e d for a n a c c o u n t based o n solid facts. PRIMARY SOURCES Arber, Edward, ed. T h e Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1606-1623, as Told b y Themselves, Their Friends, and Their Enemies. Boston and New York, 1897. Bradford, William. History of P l y m o u t h Plantation 1620-1647, Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed. 2 vols. Boston, 1912. Governor William Bradford's Letter Book, reprinted from The Mayflower Descendant, and published by the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. Boston, 1906. Burrage, H e n r y S., ed. Early English and French Voyages 1534-1608 (in Original Narratives of Early American History Series). New York, 1906. Johnson, Edward. T h e Wonder Working Providence of Sion's Savior in N e w England, J . Franklin Jameson, ed. (in Original N a r r a (143)

BIBLIOGRAPHY ti ves of Early American History Series). New York, 1910. Morton, Thomas, T h e New English Canaan (1637), Charles Francis Adams, ed. Boston, 1883. Pulsifer, David, ed. Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England. 2 vols. (Vols. I X a n d X of Records of Plymouth Colony.) Boston, 1855. Smith, Captain John. " A Description of N e w E n g l a n d " (1616), E d w a r d Arber, ed., Captain J o h n Smith's Works, 1608-1631. Birmingham, 1884. Winthrop, John. Journal. History of New England 1630-1649, James Kendall Hosmer, ed. 2 vols, (in Original Narratives of Early American History Series). New York, 1908. Young, Alexander, ed. Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636. Boston, 1846. Colonial Records Bartlett, J o h n Russell, ed. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island a n d Providence Plantations, Vol. I, 1636-1663; Vol. I I , 1664-1677. Providence, 1885. Shurtleff, Nathaniel Bradstreet, ed. Records of the Colony of N e w P l y m o u t h in New England, Vols. I and I I . Boston, 1855. Shurtleff, Nathaniel Bradstreet, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1629-1686. 5 vols. Boston, 1853-1854. Trumbull, J a m e s H a m m o n d , ed. T h e Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Vols. I and I I . Hartford, 1850. ( 144 )

BIBLIOGHAPHY WORKS SPECIFICALLY ON THE FUR TRADE Babcock, H . L. " T h e Beaver as a Factor in the Development of New E n g l a n d , " American Magazine, April, 1916. Buffinton, Arthur Howard. " N e w England a n d the Western F u r Trade, 1629-1675," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, Vol. X V I I I , pp. 160-188. Greenbie, Sydney. Frontiers and the F u r Trade. New York, 1929. Innis, Harold Adams. T h e F u r T r a d e in Canada. New Haven, 1930. Mcllwain, Charles Howard, ed. An Abridgem e n t of the Indian Affairs, b y Peter Wraxall, Introduction, Chap. I, especially N o t e A, " T h e F u r T r a d e in New England," pp. xxviii-xxxii. Weeden, William B. Economic a n d Social History of New England 1620-1789. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1890. SECONDARY WORKS T h e trade of Plymouth is covered largely in the primary sources. Roland G. Usher's The Pilgrims and their History (New York, 1918) is a useful interpretative work based on the sources. Maine Adams, Nathaniel. Annals of Portsmouth. Portsmouth, 1825. Baxter, James Phinney. Historical Addresses. Portland, 1891. ( 145 )

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baxter, James Phinney, ed. Sir Ferdinando Gorges a n d his Province of Maine. 3 vols. Boston, 1890. . T h e Trelawney Papers (Documentary History of the S t a t e of Maine, Vol. I I I ) . Portland, 1884. Biggar, H . P . T h e E a r l y Trading Companies of New France. Toronto, 1901. Bolton, Charles Knowles. T h e Real Founders of New England. Boston, 1929. Burrage, H e n r y S. T h e Beginnings of Colonial Maine 1602-1658. Portland, 1914. Dean, J o h n Ward, ed. Captain J o h n Mason. Boston, 1887. N o r t h , James W. History of Augusta. Augusta, 1870. Williamson, William Durkee. T h e History of the S t a t e of Maine 1602-1820. 2 vols. Hallowell, 1839. Willis, William. History of Portland. Portland, 1865. The Narragansett

Country

Arnold, Samuel Greene. History of the S t a t e of Rhode Island a n d Providence Plantations. 2 vols. New York, 1859-1860. Bicknell, T h o m a s Williams. History of the S t a t e of Rhode Island a n d Providence Plantations. 4 vols. New York, 1920. Brodhead, J o h n Romeyn. History of the S t a t e of New York. 3 vols. New York, 1853. Dorr, H e n r y C. " T h e Narragansets," Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Vol. VII, pp. 135-237. ( 146 )

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Koopman, Harr}' Lyman. The Narragansett Country. Providence, 1927. Potter, Elisha R. The Early History of Narragansett. Providence, 1835. Weeden, William B. Early Rhode Island. New York, 1910. The Connecticut River Valley Andrews, Charles McLean. The River Towns of Connecticut. Baltimore, 1889. Burt, Henry Martyn. The First Century of Springfield. 2 vols. Springfield, 1898. . "Springfield in Olden Times," Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings 1882-1903, Vol. II, pp. 112130. . Cornet Joseph Parsons. Garden City, New York, 1898. Burnham, C. G. " E a r l y Traffic on the Connecticut River," New England Magazine, New Series, Vol. X X I I I (October, 1900), pp. 131149. Byington, Ezra Hoyt. "William Pynchon, the Founder of Springfield," Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings 1882-1903, Vol. II, pp. 20-39. Green, Mason Arnold. Springfield, 1636-1886. History of Town and City. Springfield, 1888. Judd, Sylvester. History of Hadley. Springfield, 1905. . " T h e Fur Trade on the Connecticut River in the Seventeenth Century," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. X I (Boston, 1857). (147)

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Levermore, Charles H e r b e r t . T h e Republic of New Haven. Baltimore, 1886. Lockwood, John H o y t . Westfield a n d I t s Historic Influences. 2 vols. Springfield, 1922. Lockwood, John Hoyt, ed. Western Massachusetts; A History 1636-1925, Vol. I. New York a n d Chicago, 1926. Love, William D e Loss. T h e Colonial History of H a r t f o r d . Hartford, 1914. O'Callaghan, E d m u n d Bailey. History of New Netherland. 2 vols. New York, 1845. Osborn, Norris Galpin, ed. History of Connecticut in Monographic Form, Vol. I . New York, 1925. Sheldon, George. History of Deerfield. 2 vols. Deerfield, 1895. Stiles, H e n r y Reed. History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut. 2 vols. New York, 1904. . History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut. 2 vols. Hartford, 1891. Temple, Josiah Howard, and Sheldon, George. History of Northfield. Albany, 1875. Trumbull, J a m e s H a m m o n d , ed. Memorial History of H a r t f o r d County, Connecticut, 16331884. 2 vols. Boston,' 1886. Trumbull, James Russell. History of N o r t h a m p ton. 2 vols. N o r t h a m p t o n , 1898. Merrimac River Region Butler, Caleb. History of Groton. Boston, 1848. Green, Samuel Α., ed. E a r l y Records of Groton. Groton, 1880. Hudson, Alfred Sereno. Colonial Concord. Concord, 1904. (148)

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Hudson, Alfred Sereno. History of Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1638-1889. Sudbury, 1889. Hudson, Charles. History of Marlborough. Boston, 1862. Kimball, James. " T h e Exploration of the Merrimac River in 1638 by Order of the General Court of Massachusetts," Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vol. XIV, pp. 153171. Salem, 1878. Marvin, Abijah Perkins. History of Lancaster. Lancaster, 1879. Merrill, Joseph. History of Amesbury and Merrimac. Haverhill, 1880. Mirick, B. L. History of Haverhill. Haverhill, 1832. Nourse, Henry Stedman. " J o h n Prescott, the Founder of Lancaster," Bay State Monthly, Vol. I I (February, 1885), pp. 261-276. Nourse, Henry Stedman, ed. Early Records of Lancaster, 1643-1725. Lancaster, 1884. Paige, Lucius Robinson. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877. Boston, 1877. Shattuck, Samuel. History of Concord and Adjoining Towns. Concord, 1835. Waters, Wilson. History of Chelmsford. Lowell, 1917. WTillard, Joseph. The Willard Memoir: Life and Times of Major Simon Willard. Boston, 1858. An Address in Commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of Lancaster. Boston, 1853. Wolcott, Charles Hosmer. Concord in the Colonial Period. Boston, 1884. ( 149 )

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Miscellaneous Works Adams, Charles Francis. Three Episodes of Massachusetts History. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1892. Vol. I. . " T h e May-Pole of Merrymount," Atlantic Monthly, X X I X (May, 1877), pp. 559566. Andrews, Charles McLean. The Fathers of New England. New Haven, 1920. Baxter, James Phinney. Pioneers of New France in New England. Albany, 1894. Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings. 4 vols. Springfield, 18811912. Johnson, Amandus. Swedish Settlements on the Delaware. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1915. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Second Series, Vol. VIII. Boston, 1819. Narragansett Historical Register (magazine), Vols. I I - I I I (Providence, 1883-1885). 1883-1885. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. X I (Boston, 1857). New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, Vol. III. Concord, New Hampshire, 1832. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association History and Proceedings, Vols. VI-VII. Deerfield, 1919, 1929. Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. Vol. VII. Providence, 1885.

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