Lawrence Yesterday and Today (1845-1918)

Maurice B. Dorgan 

June 1918

Indian History and Traditions

     One looking down from the encompassing hills upon the hive of industry, that is Lawrence today, can hardly imagine that a few generations past, the Red men roamed the territory within the city limits, now so densely populated by whites.  Yet it was not so very long ago that Indians camped on both sides of the river.

     Reliable  history of man in this vicinity begins with the Indians.  The Merrimack River (Menomack by the Indians, from Mena, an island and awke, a place, because of the number of beautiful islands in the river) furnished a locality attractive to the Indians who were great admirers of the beauties of nature.  Along its banks was a favorable resort for this mode of life.  There was plenty of fish in the river and numerous streams running into it; the light land near the water was suitable for cultivation of corn and beans and the forests afforded abundant game.

     At the of the first settlements upon the Merrimack River the most powerful and important tribe along its banks was the Pennacooks.  Their headquarters were on the river near where Concord NH is now built.  Their great chief was Passaconnaway.  He had conquered and subdued all tribes on the river, and all in some manner paid tribute to him.  The Agawams inhabited the river east below tidewater, having their homes from Merrimack to the Cape.  The Pentuckets owned and occupied the Merrimack from "little River" in Haverhill to Pawtucket Falls at Lowell; then came Wamesits, Nashua, Souhegan, Namoskeag, Winnipesaukee and several other tribes.  

    There is no evidence showing that any particular tribe had a home in Methuen, or what is now North Lawrence, but it is certain that Boswell's Falls, (then situated a short distance above the present Lawrence Dam) and the shores of the Spicket River were favorite resorts, especially in the fishing season.  On the Andover side, a company of Pentuckets had a settlement near Cochichewick Brook.  Some writers he located the ancient seat of the Agawams at Bodwell's Falls, and to this place came to reside the daughter of Passaconnaway, who was wedded to Winnepurket, a sachem of Saugus and who has been characterized by one write as the "dog of the marshes".  It turned out to be an unhappy union and warm might have resulted, had not the "pale faces" appeared upon the stage at this time and diverted attention from tribal troubles. 

    Passaconnaway provided a friend of the first white settlers and desired peace.  The residents along the river were never disturbed by Indian depredetation during his life.  He resigned his power as Grand Sachem of the tribes in 1660 to Wonolancet, about 20 years after the first white settlements upon the river.  After Passaconnaway's death a war sprang up between the Indians and the whites which was waged at intervals until the year 1696.  During these years the settlers of Andover had much trouble with the Indians.

    It was on the extreme southern border of Lawrence that a band of northern warriors were discovered when about to fall upon and destroy Andover Settlements. As late as 1722, seventy-eight years after the settlement of Andover, we find the town voting money to repair block-houses protecting "Shawsheen fields" (South Lawrence).  The severest Indian raids up Andover settlers were nearly 50 years after settlement.

    Local writers of early history have told us of an Indian village on Pine Island, and within very recent years their places of sepulchre on the Shattuck farm in West Andover have been desecrated in the hunt for skeletons as well as stone implements which the Indians were accustomed to bury with their dead.  They had a factory for arrow points among the sand dunes where the Wood Mills now stands and quantities of their chips, the waste product of their manufacture, could be picked up there before the great mills covered the grounds. 

    That the Indians undoubtedly found this locality favorable, not only for fish and game, but for the tilling of the sandy fields for their supply of corn is evident.  Speaking of this phase of Indian activity, Arthur D. Marble, the present city engineer, says that when he made surveys of Den Rock Cemetery in 1876 he was accompanied by two members of the Peters family in whose possession the land had been since white men first settled here.  Back of the rock on a gentle slope to the southeast, towards the little brook which runs through the valley, he was shown an old Indian cornfield.  The little hills were as pronounced and unmistakable as though it was but a year or so ago that the Indian squaw, with her crude stone hoe, piled up the earth around the tender blades. 

    On the sought bank of the river were the Indian burial grounds, one at the western limit of the city near Laurel grove, already mentioned, and another for their chieftains just east of Cold spring, through which South Union street now runs.  To this crude sepulchre of savages, wandering Indians have made pilgrimages, within the memory of man now living.  the burial ground on Shattuck's farm, just below the old steamer landing at Laurel grove, was extensive.  Whether a battlefield, a burial site in the days of pestilence, (when ninety percent of the savages died and Merrimack valley became a vast charnel house), or usual place of burial, is not know. 

    There is a tradition that Towel Hill was an important outlook or signal station in Indian warfare; that from the summit smoke of fire signaled wandering bands.    

    Of the Indian village, referred to, on Pine Island, four miles above Lawrence, Nancy Parker was apparently the last remnant.  She was remembered by the very old settlers as a tall, wild-looking, but harmless and industrious Indian woman, making her rounds among the farmers of the region, --"little dreaming that spinners would crowd to the valley by the hundreds, and that the noisy river rapids would be harnessed to the wheels at which they toiled.  From Nancy Parker's spinning wheel to the monster mill wheel is a long step".

    In 1676 a party of savages crossed the river at Bodwell's Ferry (about a mile above the dam) chased the people of Andover, killed a young man named Abbott and took his brother captive.

    There is a tradition that old Bodwell, standing on the spot now occupied by Davis' foundry, with a long English musket, shot an Indian spy skulking through the tall grass on the opposite side of the river.  He not only probably saved the Andover settlements from harm, but secured a fine wolf-skin robe which he found on the dead savage.

    There is another tradition that a thieving Indian, seeking to enter one of the old dwellings on the plain, was shot thru the chinks of timber wall, and buried beneath a great tree, standing near City hall; also that an early settler seeing a movement in in the grass near the site of the south canal, discovered a creeping savage working his way towards a pioneers cabin.  He shot the wily Indian, when three others broke from cover and made good their retreat.  A story is told of a young pioneer who, returning from a courting visit to the fair daughter of an up-river settler, had his dream of bliss suddenly disturbed by the whizzing of a tomahawk past his head.  Finding two Indians in chase, he saved himself by the knowledge of by-paths. 

    There are other traditions that related the perils of the hardy pioneers in this section, all of which are interesting and too numerous to mention. 

This was transcribed by MET Jan 16, 2006