Norwalk

There is strong ground for the belief that the Norwalk Indians belonged to the Mohicander family, small branches of which spread gradually over the country east of the Hudson, finding the way first to upper western Connecticut, and finally to the sea-shore. There is mention of this tribe's clan-occupancy of the wilderness a dozen miles to the north of Norwalk, and the tradition that after the arrival of the English, at least one of the Norwalk Sachems (Naramake 2d-) departed to the Mohawk territory, is not, it is prob- able, entirely baseless. This people, beyond doubt, gave the " Norwalk Companie" trouble, as certain repressionary measures prove, but as a rule the red man with his "trappes, dogges and arrowes " was not altogether savagely disposed toward the whites, while a vote passed in town meeting, as early as 1656, to the effect that "if any man, either English or Indian, take away any man's canoe from any landing-place without leave, he shall forfeit five shil- lings," would seem to indicate a decided but impartial spirit on the part of the founders. The Indians were allotted land in the planting field, (Benedict's and Marvin's farms,) and as long as they "kept them up well with their fences," all went smoothly. They grew a little lax in this particular in 1664, and were consequently reminded of their agreement.2 It is not for a moment to be supposed that, following the Ludlow assignment in their favor, the Norwalk colonists met with no after challenge, land-wise, from the native race, nor in view of the fact of the territory-area need there be surprise that, notwithstand- ing the explicit terms of the Ludlow-Partrick covenants, controversies should have arisen. Still, there was probably no "overwhelming" difficulty in this direction. Ludlow had been fifteen years absent when Thomas Fitch and Matthew Marvin were chosen^ to treat with iHe probably lived east of the Saugatuck, on the border of Compow's territory. In the Indian quit- claims to Fairfield, bearing date Oct. 6, 1680, occurs the signature of " Norwake James." 2Town Records, 1663-4. Action in same direc- tion again taken on Christmas-day, 1669, when an un- mistakably worded " voted and ordered •" resolution was acted upon. 3"At the same meeting it was voted that Mr. Fitch, and Matthew Marvin, junior, are desired and apointed, and it is left to their discretion, to treat with the Indians touching the lands between the West branch of Norwalk river and Saketuk river; to git it to be marked out and bounded twelve miles up the contery at theleast, and that it may be dun and finished according to law, and being so bounded and marked, the Indians are to have their 4 coates." N* O R W ALK. the Indians in relation to the country between one of the branches of the Norwalk River and the Saugatuck. This domain was, of course, included in the Ludlow deed-description, but the action of January 22, 1669, may have been (quite likely was) due to an imperfect conception, by the whites, of the plantation's original geography. Mamachimon seems to have comprehended the situation, and to have been authority in Indian matters.' He evidently was upon the spot, and his familiarity with the same caused him to be a power. It is possible that Mahackemo was now dead, and that Winnipauke's and Naramake's remote rcsidenceship militated against close touch with the settlers' every day transaction- interests. In either or any case, Mamachimon was unquestionably a leading spirit.' On the first' day of summer, 1670, Lieut. John Olmstead and John Gregory, Sr. were added to the former Indian boundary committee, for the purpose of settling the matter as to mid-Norwalk and Saugatuck Rivers' lands, but just before this (see proprietors record, Apr. 12, 1670,) there would seem to have been ruffled sailing Indian-wise, w hich, from the nature of the case, was to be expected. The lords of the soil must, with natural reluctance, have surrendered the babbling brooks, the forest glens, the game districts, the pine patches, the rock fortresses and their tribes' resting-places, to all which during numberless moons, they had been endeared, and consequently, if not inch by inch, yet portion by portion, have disputed the pale faces' inevitable possession-progress. There is no registration of any- particular " conciliation-crisis" in Norwalk Indian history , nor of over- mastering trouble with the primitive proprietors of the lands, but it is only reasonable to suppose that the latter did not yield w ithout something of a struggle. A portion of Chestnut Hill bearing the name of Indian Field, was early assigned to the aborigines, as was another section called the same, and lying between the settlement and Saugatuck. Ely's Neck, to some extent, was also subsequently made over to them. The reservations more particularly allotted them became visiting points for Indians from abroad. To such an annoying extent was this the case that notice w as formally given, in [702. "to all stray Indians to depart from town to their own places where they properly belong." This act might possibly- have been a sequel to the 1698 Game Law. which it was made the special duty of Andrew Messenger and John Keeler. deputies, to bring to the attention of the aborigines. Our red predecessors raised Indian corn and beans, and lived largely upon " succotash " and shell and sea fish and wild fow l. In the 1635 record of Killian Van Rensselaer's agent, is mentioned that the Mohawks of central New York made dishes of dried strawberries, dewberries and blackberries, and their Connecticut descend- ants may have done the same. The nearest Indian •'mill" of importance seems to have ....•hZn'-UI."^' J'"'"1 COm;UdeUd,M Ma- ' "-»• The following roll of "Indian, in Fairneld towne, when he shall have settled the hounds of the rfi>i^,„„ 1 1 , land „p the eountrv. ■ S miles a, the leaste ZZt aU M If" ^ Chi,RORAMOOKi JA' rtetow whatsoever' - ** " ,V Machoka. Mattanke. Nimrodd or Pocimoe. IHUlMm* h m\ m 1 Ol.I. AXTI1.(XY, FaSCOO, PeNOMSKCT. l\>XF.ItS. SHA- NOR W ALK. been the " Pequot Mills," in the upper portion of the settlement, now New Canaan, where was a "sett" of granite grinding bowls.' After the arrival of the English, they probably either bought, bartered for or begged their meals, for which, however, there was a constantly lessening demand, as they were fast decreasing in number. The shell-filled cavities near Wilson s Point and back of Piatt's Hill, near Barren Marsh, and the shell-heaped-up hol- lows near Saugatuck were, until a comparatively recent period, a pathetic sight. There Naramake's, Pemenante's and Compow's children rest, close by the water they loved and feared, and many of them facing, as do, if tradition be reliable, the remains of their greater chieftain Catonah, the rising full moon which they almost adored. In 1774 not a single red man mentioned in the foregoing list was living, and only nine of their immediate sur- vivors. These, as the years rolled along, passed away, until there was the Cayuga orator's "not one" left to mourn for Logan. From the fact that the Norwalk Indians parted so readily and so unremuneratingly with their lands, and from the fact, also, that there are few or no records of signal heroism ■The St. John woods, on the western slope of Smith's Ridge, and now the ownership of Dr. Samuel St. John of New Haven, a son of the late Prof. Sam- uel St. John of New Canaan, are notable as the seat of the " Indian Rocks." These so-called " rocks " are a mass of native granite, into which is Indian-cut a tier of cavities for the purpose, evidently, of pounding into coarse " samp" or " hominv " the grains of corn. The squaw sat at the side of the bowl, and with a stone or heavy wood pestle, performed the process. The St. John "mills'' do not bear marks of having been used as " boilers," as is the case, remarkably so, with the Norwalk upper-reservoir rock, some three miles beyond the Peqnot Mills, and nearer Winnipauke's Ridge. It is a theory not easily disproven, that the Smith's Ridge basins are the work of the Pequots, and that after Ludlow and Partrick's discomforture of this people in Pequot Swamp, Fairfield, there was a scattering of the survivors, the descendants of whom constituted, in a measurable degree, the Indian "help"' <>t the mid and later eighteenth century period. It is believed that a band of these refugees found the woods (St. John's) referred to, and there planted themselves, ilere thev remained — at the last a very dwindled portion — even until the days of the more recent pro- prietorship of that section of Smith's Ridge. It is Bouton testimony that the very last occupants thereat left for the vicinitv of Peekskill-on-the-Hudson, and that, once in a while, one or more birth-children of the locality, would revisit, in after years, the old spot. The testimony to this effect was taken from the lips of the aged Mrs. Waters Bouton of Canaan Ridge. This reference to the "Pequot Mills" is tradition and inference based ; but, as before intimated, it is difficult to overthrow the surmise. Indian remains have nut, to anv considerable ex- tent, been discovered within the area of middle Nor- walk. There were Mohegan burying-grounds at Bel- den Point, Barren Marsh bank, Indian Field and Sau gatuck, but none, probably, of pretence, elsewhere. It seems surprising that with the Indian's innate appre- ciation of the bold and striking, that such a spot, for instance, as the Norwalk Rocks should not have been appropriated for the burial of their braves. There is, however, no reason for believing, that this eminence was so used. At Houtonville (Lewisboro') and Cross River, in the same town, are distinctly marked Indian cemeteries, but their absence in middle Norwalk is, perchance, an additional argument in support of the theory that such terrirutv was largelv hunting-ground.