Beyond The Bridgewater Triangle: king philip's war

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Sachem Rock Farm: Monumental History, Murder & War

Not only is Sachem Rock Farm--owned by the town of East Bridgewater and the site of the East Bridgewater Senior Center-- the precise spot where first inland Native American land sale in the United States was made, it is also the site of the of one of the nine homes in East Bridgewater to burned to the ground by King Philip’s warriors in King Philip's War. It’s no surprise the Latham farm was first to be attacked. With this house, it was personal. Robert Latham’s wife, Susanna was a Winslow--a name that was almost royalty in the colony. Susanna’s mother was the famous Mary Chilton, the first woman to step on American soil off of the Mayflower. Her father was John Winslow, the brother of the esteemed Governor Edward Winslow. But more importantly…her other uncle was General Josias Winslow of The Plymouth Colony Militia, the captor and suspected murderer of Alexander, King Philip’s elder brother.

Robert Latham was a well respected man, even serving as town constable at the time of the war. The fact that not ten years earlier, Latham and his wife Susanna were charged and found guilty of murder seemed to do little to effect the Latham’s social standing in the colony.

The Murder

In 1659, Robert and Susanna were charged with the murder of their servant, John Walker. In the book Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691 it says of the crime: "On 31 January 1654/55 a coroner's jury was called to view the body of Latham's servant boy, John Walker." The jury found that the body of John Walker was blackish and blew, and the skine broken in divers places from the middle to the haire of his head, viz, all his backe with stripes given him by his master, Robert Latham, as Robert himselfe did testify; and also wee found a bruise of his left arme, and one of his left hipp, and one great bruise of his brest; and there was the knuckles of one hand and one of his fingers frozen, and alsoe both his heeles frozen, and one of the heeles the flesh was much broken, and alsoe one of his little toes frozen and very much perished, and one of his great toes frozen, and alsoe the side of his foot frozen; and alsoe, upon the reviewing the body, wee found three gaules like holes in the hames, which wee formerly, the body being frozen, thought they had been holes; and alsoe wee find that the said John was forced to carry a logg which was beyond his strength, which hee indeavoring to doe, the logg fell upon him, and hee, being downe, had a stripe or two, as Joseph Beedle doth testify; and wee find that it was some few daies before his death; and wee find, by the testimony of John Howland and John Adams, that heard Robert Latham say that hee gave John Walker som stripes that morning before his death; and alsoe wee find the flesh much broken of the knees of John Walker, and that he did want sufficient food and clothing and lodging, and that the said John did constantly wett his bedd and his cloathes, lying in them, and so suffered by it, his clothes being frozen about him; and that the said John was put forth in the extremity of cold, though thuse unabled by lamenes and sorenes to performe what was required; and therefore in respect of crewelty and hard usage he died.

The Land Sale

1661. Massasoit dies. The peaceful era between colonist and Indian was over. After his brother Alexander is allegedly poisoned by General Josiah Winslow in 1662, it is now perfectly clear to Massasoit’s son, Metacom (commonly known by his English name “Philip”) what the intentions of the people who had arrived upon the shores of a land that had already been inhabited for 10,000 years just 40 years before: They wanted it all and did not play by any rule understood by the Wampanoags.

The native name for Sachem Rock was Wonnocoote. Up until the turn of the 20th century, locals still referred to Sachem Rock Farm as “Cootah Hill.” In 1649 Massasoit met with reprentatives of Duxbury at Sachem Rock. It was on March 23, 1649, when Chief Massasoit unknowingly traded miles of fertile land enriched by the waters of The Matfield, Hockomock, and Town Rivers as well as West Meadow Brook for mere provisions for his tribe. Seven coats, nine hatchets, eight hoes, twenty knives, four moose skins and 10 yards of cotton is what the Wompanoags were paid for the territory of Bridgewater. The implications of a “land sale” was unfathomable to the Native American psyche at this time. The concept that land could be regarded as ‘ownable’ was unfamiliar one to the Wompanoags. It is no wonder that Sachem Rock, the very site of this monumental land sale has been witness to tragic events that date back to King Philip’s War in 1676.

On April 9, 1676, the Natives crept up Satucket Path to the Latham farm. Robert Latham’s house would be the first of nine houses to be destroyed by fire that day, the natives sparing only one dwelling…that of Nicholas Byram. Byram settled in East Bridgewater in 1662, and during that time it seems he broke the strict law of the colony not to sell cider or any other spirits to the red man. Breaking the law earned him one of the only surviving houses in the Bridgewater area after King Philip’s War.

Today, a stone marks the very spot Latham house stood before it was destroyed by arson.

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Did King Philip Curse The Bridgewater Triangle? The Likely Origin of The Legend

Image source: Native Village.org.

One of the most popular theories on why the Bridgewater Triangle powerhouses so much paranormal activity is that Chief Metacom, otherwise known as King Philip, cursed the land that the war that would be named after him was fought on. Specifically, the area that stretches from Narragansett Bay to Weymouth, Massachusetts.

Many books on the Bridgewater Triangle almost state this curse theory as fact. But where did the legend come from? If King Philip HAD cursed the land upon his death, would he really announce it? Certainly the great chief didn't go into a soliloquy upon his grotesque death about how he would curse the land! Can you imagine? "Wait, before you cut my head off where it will be spiked for 25 years on display and dismember my body and hang it in the trees...I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY! I WILL CURSE YOU AND A LAND THAT SOMEDAY WILL BE KNOWN AS THE BRIDGEWATER TRIANGLE. Okay, you may now continue your butchery."

The concept of an Indian cursing land is a highly unlikely one. To the Wampanoag, land and the tribe were ONE. To curse one would certainly curse the other. This curse of King Philip legend came from the imagination of poet John Greenleaf Whittier in his 1831 classic, "Legends of New England." Specifically, from this passage on from a poem entitled, "Metacom."

Yet, Brother, from this awful hour The dying curse of Metacom Shall linger with abiding power Upon the spoilers of my home. The fearful veil of things to come, By Kitchtan's hand is lifted from The shadows of the embryo years; And I can see more clearly through Than ever visioned Powwah did, For all the future comes unbid Yet welcome to my tranced view, As battle-yell to warrior-ears! From stream and lake and hunting-hill, Our tribes may vanish like a dream, And even my dark curse may seem Like idle winds when Heaven is still—No bodeful harbinger of ill, But, fiercer than the downright thunder, When yawns the mountain-rock asunder, And riven pine and knotted oak Are reeling to the fearful stroke, That curse shall work its master's will! The bed of yon blue mountain stream shall pour a darker tide than rain—The sea shall catch its blood-red stain, And broadly on its banks shall gleam The steel of those who should be brothers Yea—those whom one fond parent nursed Shall meet in strife, like fiends accursed—And trample down the once loved form, While yet with breathing passion warm, As fiercely as they would another's!"

Here is the poem in it's entirety:

MetacomByJohn Greenleaf Whittier

[Metacom, or Philip, the chief of the Wampanoags, was the most powerful and sagacious Sachem who ever made war upon the English. He had all the qualities of a high statesman—a noble monarch, and a courageous warrior. The rude majesty of untamed and unchastened nature was never more boldly developed than in the character of Metacom. He had the elements of a giant mind—the unformed chaos of a world of intellect. He perilled his all in one fast enterprise—in one mighty effort to shake off the White Vampyre which was draining the life-blood of his people; and had his enemies been any other than the stern settlers of New-England, they must assuredly have fallen. The War of King Philip forms a dark page in the history of New-England.—It is red with blood,—with the blood of the strong man and the meek and beseeching woman, and the fair-haired child, and the cradled infant.]

RED as the banner which enshrouds The warrior-dead, when strife is done,A broken mass of crimson clouds Hung over the departed sun. The shadow of the western hill Crept swiftly down, and darkly still, As if a sullen wave of night Were rushing on the pale twilight—The forest-openings grew more dim, As glimpses of the arching blue And waking stars came softly through The rifts of many a giant limb. Above the wet and tangled swamp White vapors gathered thick and damp, And through their cloudy-curtaining Flapped many a brown and dusky wing—Pinions that fan the moonless dun, But fold them at the rising sun!

Beneath the closing veil of night, And leafy bough and curling fog, With his few warriors ranged in sight—Scarred relics of his latest fight—Rested the fiery Wampanoag. He leaned upon his loaded gun, Warm with its recent work of death, And, save the struggling of his breath That, slow and hard, and long-suppressed,Shook the damp folds around his breast. An eye, that was unused to scan The sterner moods of that dark man. Had deemed his tall and silent form, With hidden passion fierce and warm, With that fixed eye, as still and dark As clouds which veil their lightning spark—That of some forest-champion, Whom sudden death had passed upon—A giant frozen into stone! Son of the throned Sachem!—Thou, The sternest of the forest kings,—Shall the scorned pale-one trample now, Unambushed on thy mountain's brow, Yea, drive his vile and hated plough Among thy nation's holy things, Crushing the warrior-skeleton In scorn beneath his armed heel, And not a hand be left to deal A kindred vengeance fiercely back, And cross in blood the Spoiler's track!

He started,—for a sudden shot came booming through the forest-trees—The thunder of the fierce Yengeese: It passed away, and injured not; But, to the Sachem's brow it brought The token of his lion thought. He stood erect—his dark eye burned, As if to meteor-brightness turned; And o'er his forehead passed the frown Of an archangel stricken down, Ruined and lost, yet chainless still—Weakened of power but strong of will! It passed—a sudden tremor came Like ague o'er his giant frame,—It was not terror—he had stood For hours, with death in grim attendance, When moccasins grew stiff with blood, And through the clearing's midnight flame, Dark, as a storm, the Pequod came, His red, right arm their strong dependence—When thrilling through the forest gloom The onset-cry of "Metacom!" Rang on the red and smoky air!—No—it was agony which passed Upon his soul—the strong man's last And fearful struggle with despair.

He turned him to his trustiest one—The old and war-tried Annawon—"Brother!"—The favored warrior stood In hushed and listening attitude—"This night the Vision-Spirit hath Unrolled the scroll of fate before me; And ere the sunrise cometh, Death Will wave his dusky pinion o'er me! Nay, start not—well I know thy faith—Thy weapon now may keep its sheath; But, when the bodeful morning breaks, And the green forest widely wakes, Unto the roar of Yengeese thunder, Then trusted brother, be it thine To burst upon the foeman's line, And rend his serried strength asunder. Perchance thyself and yet a few Of faithful ones may struggle through, And, rallying on the wooded plain, Strike deep for vengeance once again, And offer up in Yengeese blood An offering to the Indian's God."
Another shot—a sharp, quick yell—And then the stifled groan of pain, Told that another red man fell,—And blazed a sudden light again Across that kingly brow and eye, Like lightning on a clouded sky,—And a low growl, like that which thrills The hunter of the Eastern hills, Burst through clenched teeth and rigid lip—And, when the Monarch spoke again His deep voice shook beneath its rein, As wrath and grief held fellowship.
"Brother! methought when as but now I pondered on my nation's wrong, With sadness on his shadowy brow My father's spirit passed along! He pointed to the far south-west,
Where sunset's gold was growing dim, And seemed to beckon me to him, And to the forests of the blest!—My father loved the Yengeese, when They were but children, shelterless,For his great spirit at distress Melted to woman's tenderness—Nor was it given him to know That, children whom he cherished then, Would rise at length, like armed men, To work his people's overthrow. Yet thus it is;—the God, before Whose awful shrine the pale ones bow, Hath frowned upon, and given o'er The red man to the stranger now!—A few more moons—and there will beNo gathering to the council tree—The scorched earth—the blackened log—The naked bones of warriors slain, Be the sole relics which remain Of the once mighty Wampanoag! The forests of our hunting-land, With all their old and solemn green, Will bow before the Spoiler's axe—The plough displace the hunter's tracks,The morning star sat dimly on The lighted eastern horizon—The deadly glare of levelled gun Came streaking through the twilight haze And naked to its reddest blaze, A hundred warriors sprang in view—One dark red arm was tossed on high—One giant shout came hoarsely through The clangour and the charging cry, Just as across the scattering gloom, Red as the naked hand of Doom, The Yengeese volley hurtled by—The arm—the voice of Metacom!—One piercing shriek—one vengeful yell, Sent like an arrow to the sky, Told when the hunter-monarch fell!

And the tall Yengeese altar stand Where the Great Spirit's shrine hath been

Yet, brother, from this awful hour The dying curse of Metacom Shall linger with abiding power Upon the spoilers of my home. The fearful veil of things to come, By Kitchtan's hand is lifted from The shadows of the embryo years; And I can see more clearly through Than ever visioned Powwah did, For all the future comes unbid Yet welcome to my tranced view, As battle-yell to warrior-ears! From stream and lake and hunting-hill, Our tribes may vanish like a dream, And even my dark curse may seem Like idle winds when Heaven is still—No bodeful harbinger of ill, But, fiercer than the downright thunder, When yawns the mountain-rock asunder, And riven pine and knotted oak Are reeling to the fearful stroke, That curse shall work its master's will! The bed of yon blue mountain stream shall pour a darker tide than rain—The sea shall catch its blood-red stain, And broadly on its banks shall gleam The steel of those who should be brothers Yea—those whom one fond parent nursed Shall meet in strife, like fiends accursed—And trample down the once loved form, While yet with breathing passion warm, As fiercely as they would another's!"

When the colonists explored the area south and west of Plimouth Colony, they found many abandoned Wampanoag villages. Much of the land around these ghostly vacant villages was littered with the skulls and bones of Wampanoag people who died from a devastating smallpox invasion brought to New England in 1617 by Captain John Smith. By the time the mayflower landed, the numbers of natives had been reduced to a "manageable" number.

A treaty of peace between the survivors of the Wampanoag tribe and Plimouth Colony lasted forty years. During that time, the innocence of the Wampanoag was lost when their land was taken from them under the guise of lies and misconception on the colonists' part. The first example of this, was the deed to Bridgewater, signed by Massasoit in 1649 for the equivalent of $35 in today's standards. The great chief thought he was merely granting permission for the colonists to use the very fertile 70 square miles sold under the terms of a treaty unfathomable for a native American to understand.

For four decades, relations were peaceful. But after the death of Massasoit and the alleged murder of his son, Alexander, at the hands of Major Josiah Winslow of the Plimouth colony Militia, that era was over. A new one was brewing. Alexander's younger brother, "King Philip" was now chief. And decisions needed to be made. The plan of the colonists was clear now. All pretense gone.

The course of events that followed would be the most brutal, inhumane, horrific war ever to be fought on American soil...and even ever fought by a man born in America. Skinnings and corpal mutilation. Bodies chopped with axes and hung in trees. Heads chopped and spiked for display. The 100% true events of King Philip's War are far more horrific than anything anyone in Hollywood could possibly dream up.

A very unlikely scenerio of how Church gained control of the belt in his narrative:
"Entertaining passages from King Philip's War".

At the end of the war, the royal belongings of the Wampanoag Tribe were taken by Captain Benjamin Church in Rehoboth, MA upon the capture of Chief Annawon. Those belongings included six feet of beads "curiously wrought with wompom, being nine inches broad, wrought with black and white in various figures and flower, and pictures of many birds and beasts". The sacred royal wampum belt was believed to be very powerful. It had belonged to King Philip. This victory of capturing the most single most sacred item to the Wampanoags was a source of great pride for Plimouth Colony. Now Church had King Philip's head the royal tribal belt. TWO trophies to present to Plimouth. Church must have been proud, indeed.

Benjamin Church claimed that Annawon simply passed over the royal items of King Philip. This is highly unlikely. However Church came to possess them, where they ended up in a 300-year old mystery. Where the belts were stored for the next nine months or so is unknown. Possibly they were kept at a private residence in Swansea. But we do know that in the spring of 1677, the belts were supposedly sent to the King of England. But yet the royal tribal items were never received.

In the 1990s, members of The Rehoboth Historical Society wrote a letter to Prince Charles asking for a search of England's archives and museums for the missing Wampum Belt. According to Charles Turek Robinson in his book, True New England Mysteries, Ghosts, Crimes and Oddities, what resulted was "what might become the most thorough and comprehensive search to date in England." But the belt was never found.

The theory of the missing belt is a very popular one as to why the Bridgewater Triangle is tainted with so many instances of depression, insanity, suicide, tragic car accidents and drownings and murders. To this day, all of this strange phenomenon is still occurring. And it will continue.

"They lodged the first night on Nemasket, where so many Indians had died a few years before that the living could not bury the dead, but their sculls and bones lied in many places where the dead had been."
From "History of the Town of Middleboro," by Thomas Weston

The Wampanoag lived peacefully in a territory now known as the town of Middleboro (or Middleborough) for thousands of years. When the pilgrims arrived the New World, they were mystified to find entire villages abandoned by the plagues that had decimated local tribes in the years between 1617 and 1620. In those years of pestilence, some tribes lost 90% of their people. Middleboro was no exception. When colonists first discovered the area, the land of Middleboro was covered in skulls and bones, for there were so many that were ravaged by sickness "that the living could not bury the dead."

Middleboro, or Middleborough--the town still can't decide on the correct spelling--was originally called Middlebury, named for it's midpoint location between Boston and New Bedford. The Natives who walked this territory thousands of years before it was discovered by the colonists in 1621 called it "Nemasket."

In Eastern Algonquin, Nemasket translates to English as meaning "place of many fish," named for the river so abundant with Alewife, legend has it that the fish would leap of the river, right into the hands of Natives. Each spring the alewife (herring) make their journey from Narraganset Bay, up the Taunton River and finally to the "magical" waters of the Nemasket.

The waters of Nemasket were rumored to have healing properties. Doctors would prescribe the water to heal a long list of ailments and physicians would continue doing so all the way up to the beginning of the turn of the century. At one point, even scientists studied the water's composition to see what made it so special.

It was here in Nemasket that Weetamoo (meaning 'sweetheart'), the Sachem Princess lived seasonally at their royal camp with her father, Chief Corbitant, and her younger sister, Wootonekanuske. As was customary for the sons and daughters of powerful sachems, Weetamoo would marry into another royal family as would Wootonekanuske. The sisters would both marry brothers from the Pokonet tribe, Weetamoo to Massasoit's son Alexander and her sister to King Philip, the sons of the famous Chief Massasoit. The Sachem Squaw Princess Weetamoo was the most powerful woman of all the tribes, poised to inherit the title of Sachem upon Corbitant's passing. Weetamoo would never get the chance to lead her people, dying within weeks of her father in King Philip's War. Both father and daughter would share the same horrific fate: Their heads would be cut off and placed proudly on spikes at the hands of the English. Weetamoo's head paraded through the streets of Taunton and Corbitant's head displayed at Plymouth Fort near King Philip's and the rest of the Sachems captured.

Weetamoo died in August of 1676, when she (according to the English version) drowned in the Taunton River "slipped and fell attempting escape across a fallen tree." When her body "washed ashore," the Plymouth Colony Militia mutilated her and and finally cut off her head. (It was reported that she was naked when her body was found. It was also reported that her body was "taunted." Whether she was captured, raped and killed in the river or if she really drowned...we will never know. All we have is the written history of the colonists to tell us, and while those references are good information for locations and dates, they are often inaccurate descriptions of what really occurred.)

Just before the death of Weetamoo, many of her Pocasset people were taken prisoner out of the Hockomock Swamp where they were taking temporary refuge from the Colonists. They were so frightened upon capture, that they surrendered without a fight. The prisoners were marched to Taunton where a gully served as their prisoner camp. They were then forced to bare witness to the horror of the parading of Weetamoo's head upon a spike back and forth in front of there disbelieving eyes.

Some days later, "someone of Taunton finding an Indian squaw in Metapoiset, newly dead, cut off her head, and it happened to be Weetamoo, squaw sachem, her head, which, placed on a pole and paraded through Taunton, was greeted by the lamentations of the captive Indians who knew her, crying out that it was their queen's head.

Reverend Increase Mather, of Salem Witch Trials fame, was present at the beheading event. Of the grieving and horrified Pocasset prisoners as they were taunted with their Queen's head, Mather callously would recount, "They made a most horrid and 'diabolical' lamentation, crying out that it was their queen's head."

Haunted Woods?

One day, a local woman was walking her dog in an area of Middleboro where the unbeknown to her, the Nemaskets once lived. She was shocked when the figures of what looks like an Indian family appeared in the photo. She was not even aware that the woods where she took the photo was sacred land. This was in the same area where Weetamoo lived (near Oliver Mills park.)

The Grizzly Death of King Philip: Beheaded and Quartered, Body tied in Trees For the Birds To Pluck

On August of 1676, King Philip's luck had run out. Though he escaped capture by the skin of his teeth twice before in Hockomock Swamp, in Miery Swamp in Mount Hope, he had nowhere to hide. Philip was shot in the chest by John Alderman, "a praying Indian whose brother King Philip had ordered executed after a being deemed a traitor." Alderman was accompanied by Captain Benjamin Church himself, the most famous Indian hunter of the day. (It is interesting to note that in the scene depicted in the picture below of the death of King Philip, it is Church and not Alderman who is holding the gun.)

"The Death of King Philip," Harper's Magazine, 1883

Church ordered Philip's body to pulled up to higher ground to begin the act of his mutilation. His body was beheaded and dismembered. Quartered, Church picked four nearby trees and ordered four pieces of Philip's body to be tied to them for the birds to pluck. His hand was given to Alderman as a trophy of the kill. Philip's hand was very unique. It had been disfigured when a pistol misfired years before. Alderman took the maimed hand happily and later would place it in a jar preserved with rum. Alderman would take the jar to taverns where he would allow the owners to display it in exchange for free drinks.

Philip's head was spiked and proudly carried through the streets of Plymouth before it would meet it's final resting place upon Plymouth Colony Fort, now Burial Hill Cemetery. It would soon be joined by the heads of Chief Anawan and Tispaquin. How long the other Wampanoag leader's heads remained displayed on the fort is unknown. But we know that Philip's head remained on the fort for at least 25 years. As if sight of Philip's skull was not horrific enough, one day the Puritan leader Cotton Mather removed the jawbone, to keep "the devil from speaking from the grave." Historian's estimate that King Philip was 38 at the time of his death. Read More