1^ %■■'■:< \j:m^:^^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. i ~ - - L ; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A RETROSf'ECT THE ROUND TOWER POMHAM CLUB SiDNE-*' fir Rider (Cdpyn^rhi r88g) PROVIDENCE Privately PrwUd Chib Copy 18S9 i c 10 \^ A RETROSPECT. There rests on the eastern shore of the Narra^anset a stately building. From it a tower ascends, and this tower I ascend, an unbidden guest. Standing as it does upon a high bluff, it affords a view of great scope, not only of the bay, but also of the surrounding country. Nest- ling at the foot of this hluff lies I/aJ>J>y Islet, and contiguous to it Pomham Rock and the red light thereon; hence, it was the tower of the Pomham Club House wherein I stood. In serene silence the mind ran back among the forgotten years and visions arose of things I might have seen had I then stood here. The ciub took its name from the rock and the rock from the Sachem, but how, or why, or when, I do not know. The ancient do- 4 minions of Pomham are now within my vision ; across the bay southwesterly they lie, Showomet then, but now they call it Warwick. It was there that Pomham dwelt, and of those lands he gave a deed to Samuel Gorton in 1642, whereon he put his sign manual, an Indian pipe. From this tower I might have seen at the close of December, 1675, the blazing fires of his hundred wigwams, and himself and all his people driven to starva- tion in the distant woodlands; where a little later Pomham fell by an English bullet, and with him all his people. Harsh things have been said by our Rhode Island people of Pomham. Time, the great alleviator of all human animos- ities, enables us to see Pomham in possi- bly a clearer light than those Avho were smarting under his vigorous blows could hope to possess. To us he seems more sinned against than sinning. He died in the wild woods like a hero, as he was, or, as an ancient chronicler writes of him, "he was one of the great 5 Sachems of the Narrozviranccls ; if he is slain, the glory of that nation is sunk with him into the same pit." Another chroni- cler writes of him, "he was one of the stout- est and most valiant of the Sachems," and still another, "he was the most warlike and the best soldier of all the Narragansets." Shot, as here related^ he withdrew him- self into the bush to die. A wandering Englishman drew unconsciously near the djing chief, who, possessed as he was of immense muscular strength, instantly at- tacked, and but for assistance, would have slain another of his enemies. Thus died Pomhani on the 27th of July, 1676, and from this tower, his home it was that I saw burning two hundred years ago. I have thus related how I saw- from the tower, the town of Pom ham burned in midwinter, December 1675, and the In- dians driven to the woods for shelter. In these words the reverend chronicler re- cords the event: "On the 27th of Decem- ber, Captain Prentice was sent into Pom- ham's country, when they burnt near an hundred wigwams, but found never an Indian in any of them." Again I saw a lurid flame light the whole of Showomet. It was in the following March the out- raged Indians came, and left but a single house standing in the whole settlement. Vengeance thej took, with but a single life. In these words the reverend chron- icler records the event. "Another party of them (the Indians) fell upon Warwick, a place bejond Philip's land, towards the Narraganset country, where they burned down to the ground all but a few houses left standing as a monument of their bar- barous fury." The reverend chronicler had not then made the acquaintance of Will Shakespeare, else had he learned That we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return To plague the inventor. With Pomham the case was different. He may not have been familiar with the precise language of the great poet. In fact, it may be presumed that he was not thus familiar, but then the spirit Avas in him and he knew That even handed justic« Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. And he proceeded in his barbaric way to give to the -white men, in March, a taste of that medicine which the white men had administered to him in the pre- ceeding December. It was even handed justice. It was a sorrowful daj for us when Thomas Willett died, August 4, 1674. Captain Willett, we called him. He was among the first purchasers here. His name is among the half dozen grantees in Massasoits famous deed of 1653. Ou- samequin, we then called this Wampa- noag Sachem. He dwelt hereawaj at Sowames, or Warren, as you now call it. Captain Willett came and "took up" land just here at the head of Bullock's Cove as since you have named it, but we knew it as Peebe's Neck. You have changed it 8 into Phebe's Neck, but for what good reason I cannot now discover. Peebe Avas a Sachem of the Wampanoags ; here on this neck he lived and ruled his people, and here we shot him with a good Eng- lish bullet on the first day in Ju! v, 16755 among the first of King Philip's warriors to be "sent to hell," as the Reverend Mather might have Avritten it. Peebe, moreover, was his own executioner; that is, he brought his death upon himself. All that we w^anted was the land whereon he dwelt, and he should not have resisted us. In these degenerate days of civiliza- tion, no white man thinks of resisting the encroachments of alien citizens upon his land. In those emergencies we found a material helper in gunpowder. As an argument, persuasive in its eftect upon the "untutored savage." The least in amount properly administered, induced sleep to the patient, and he has slept the sleep of his fathers' ever since. Well, here just to the southward, at the very head of Peebe's Neck, Captain Willett 9 built his house and here he died, and just there, at the head of Bullock's Cove as you now call it, we buried him. Peebe knew it as Popanomscut. There had been trouble with the Dutch at New York, and Captain Willett having been much in Holland, and being well liked by that people, was sent to quiet the quar- rels. In this he succeeded, for he was a sagacious and politique man, and so he became the first mayor of that city in 1665. In 1666, he acted as alderman, probably for the reason that, at that time he was obliged to be more among us here at Wannamoiset, but the following vear, 1667, he was made mayor of New Yoifk ?^gain, thus "twice he did sustain the place," just as we cut the words on his tombstone, Avhich but for this little hill below, you could see from the tower. On the top of Captain Willett's house the old gentleman had built a "watch house." and in this watchhouse he had kept a sentinel. Lulled into security, or possibly lackinir in that watchful care, which so fully possessed the old gentle- man, who as I have wintten was now dead, this sentinel was one day not at his post. An unhappy day indeed it was, for Hez- ekiah Willett, the son of his father, "an hopeful young gentleman as any in these parts," "was betrayed (as the Reverend Hubbard writes it) into their cruel hands within a quarter of an hour after he went out of his own doors, within sight of his house, and he was shot by three of them at once, and from every one a mortal wound." All these things I might have seen from the round tower of the Pom- ham Club; but there was one thing about this "horrid and barbarous murder" of Hezekiah Willett, as the Reverend Hub- bard calls it, which the same pious chron- icler failed to mention ; and this it was, exactly one year to a day had passed since we shot Peebe. Hezekiah was shot on the first anniversary of the death of Peebe- We could not account for this unfortunate coincidence on any other theory than that Hezekiah's god was talking, or pursuing, or on a journey, or peradventure he slept, when Hezekiah went out. We are the more inclined to this belief for the reason that whenever we shot a few of the original owners of the soil, the pious Hubbard sajs "the Devil in whom they trusted deceived them." As the pious Hubbard hath it, "Except the Lord keep- eth the city the watchman watcheth in vain." And so indeed it was with the Willetts. It was midsummer's day, June 24, 1675, that I sat here in the Tower enjoying the cool breeze late in the afternoon. I had been to worship. A " day of solemn hu- miliation throughout the colony [had been appointed] for fasting and prayer, to intreat the Lord to give success to the present expedition respecting the enemy." So writes our godly chronicler. Our peo- ple were about to begin a war upon those whom they found in possession when we came here, and we wanted to make sure that God was on our side, so we put in this little preliminary meeting, The thing had been all arranged as we supposed, and the people had departed for their homes. Mine being the nearest, I had reached it first, and was seated in this tower as be- fore written, when, as I was looking land- ward towards Mattapoiset, the beautiful peninsular which you can see just there jutting out into the waters of Mount Hope bav, but much nearer, and in these very fields I saw a puff" of smoke, and heard the report of a rifle. A^notherand another followed until I had seen nine puffs, and heard the voices of nine rifles. The first blood in King Philip's Avar had been shed, and I had seen it from this tower of the Pomham Club. I looked towards our strong refuge, the house of our godly minister, Mr. Myles. I could see it plainly just here below us on the Sowams river. All was quiet there, and without doubt for a very good reason. We had built it for several purposes. It was a gar- rison house, a block house, a church, and a parsonage, all in one. From it we dis- patched our prayers and our bullets, both 13 at the same time ; and it became a matter of demonstration, that bullets propelled as ours Avere, by both praver and powder, be- catne exceedingly irritating to the skin of an Indian. It seems to me strange, now that I think of it, that notwithstanding our appeals before we begun an attack, nine of us should have been permitted to be shot dead on our way home from appeal- ing. Surely, we had no intention of shoot- ing any Indians for two or three davs. I have asked our godly minister, Mr. Myles, about it, and he says that he can't ex- plain it. It was but little more than a year from the day when I saw from this tower the first blood drawn in this terrible war, when 1 again stood here. It was in the early morning, Saturday, August 12, 1676, a Avet and lowering morning it was. The war was still progressing, and armed bands still prowled about the country. Was it that I imagined, or did I really see a slight cloud rise from the southwest foot of Mount Hope and float lazily away .^ 14 Whether I saw it or cnlj thought I saw it, it actually rose and floated away. It was the smoke of the musket discharged bj an Indian at King Philip, and him it killed. I had thus seen, from the tower of the Pomham Club, both the beginning and the end of King Philip's war. The old chroniclers thus quaintly put things concerning the shooting of this Indian sachem: "An Englishman and an Indian stood at such a place of the swamp where it hapned that Philip was breaking away; the morning being wet and rainy the Englishman's gun would not fire. The Indian having an old mus- ket with a large touchhole it took fire the more readily, with which Philip was dis- patched, the bullet passing directly through his heart, where Joab thrust his darts into the rebellious Absalom." Philip's head Avas cut oft' and given to the Indian who shot him, and by this Indian taken to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole, and there it stood for twenty-five years, of w^hich thus writes the pious Mather : "Thus did God break the Head of the Leviathan, and give it to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.'' Nearly a century elapsed before I again stood within the tower of the Pomham Club. Singularly enough, it was as be- fore, a midsummer day, or rather it was the evening of such a day, (the 9th of June, 1772,) that I saw two craft, one, a schooner, in chase of the other, a sloop. It was the British schooner Gaspce at- tempting to overhaul the New York packet Hannah^ then on her way to Providence. The Gaspee failed in her endeavor, and grounded firm and fast on Namquit Point, the long, low sandy land just across there in Pomham's country, Shawomet, but now it forms a part of the Spring Green Farm. Hard and fast there lay the Gaspee, and night descending — I slept, but scarcely had I slept when I was awakened by the wild shouting of men. Across the waters the shouts came in clear and distinct utter- ances. I could see nothing in the dark- ness ; presently all was again quiet ; a light i6 became discernable. It was on board the Gaspee. Larger and larger it grew — the wild flames enveloped the hull, and leaped to the topmasts, the ship was on fire and burned to the water's edge. The Lieu- tenant, Dudingston, who commanded her was shot, but not killed, by a musket ball fired by Joseph Bucklin. In a boat I saw him from this tower carried just there to Pawtuxet. Even as I had seen from this tower the first blood drawn in Philip's war, so had I now seen from this same tower the first blood shed in the greater struggle, the war of the Revolution. It was only a year or two later, while sitting here one afternoon in May, 1776, that I saw two ships launched from the stocks. They were men of war. One the Warren of 32 guns, the other the Pro- vidence oi 28 guns. Both were taken to sea, under my own eyes, and through the British fleet then blockading. The War- ren sailed first, commanded by Captain John B. Hopkins. He got safely to sea. A little later Congress applied to Com- 17 niodore Whipple, Avho Avas in command of the Providence^ to know whether he could take his ship to sea. Whipple an- swered that he could. Dispatches were sent to him to be taken to France. The importance of these dispatches was clearly indicated when it became known that thej related to the treaty with France con- cerning the alliance. It was on a dark and stormy night in April that Whipple cleared his ship and set sail for France. The wind was blowing half a gale. In the darkness I saw him, phantom like, sail by — close under the rock Pomham he laid the course of his vessel. Short Avas the time he made to W^arwick, off which point lay the British frigate Lark. I had often seen her lying there beneath this tower, and now, while I could not see her, it being night, I could plainly hear her cannon as she gave the Providence a broadside as she passed. Commodore Whipple returned her salute, and crowded the ship with sails. This salute b3' Wliip- ple, the flash of which I saw and the roar i8 of which I heard, killed and wounded twenty of his enemies. Further down the bay Whipple exchanged broadsides with the Jimo^ another British frii^ate, but stopping not, held swiftly on his course to the sea. Another ship impeded his progress — a broadside sunk her, and his course was open. Never man made -more adventurous voyage, nor one fraught with greater consequences to his country. I saw the beginnings of it from the tower of the Pomham Club. Thus has a mind in idleness wandered back, under the suggestion of a thought, among the days and the things which are gone. It was a thought begot by the scene and unthought before. There are many places of local histori- , cal interest in Rhode Island, around which cluster the memories of single ac- tions, but where can be found a spot within the State where one can gather be- neath a single glance, the fields of so many famous actions as in this tower of the Pomham Club.^ Like Kartaphilos, 19 I have traversed the centuries, and have gathered here and there an action ; but those untouched far outnumber those herein described. The gleaner has pre- ceded the harvester. Let some enthusi- astic member of the Club follow out the study for the regalement of himself and the delectation of his fellows. I came, did I say an unbidden guest.-* It is true, and yet it is not true. I cannot be a guest. I could be only a guest when the family were temporarily absent, and so indeed I was; and for it all I owe an apology to the Club for making tales about their domicil. THE PIPE OF P O M H A M . {Fi-om the Deed of 1642.) SACHEM OF J5HOWOMET. t^^ ^ LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 014 111 190 5 i ^<&\