by Martha DeWolf
2/5/2012

Following the 1675-76 war, the Colonial Government began to put pressure on all settlers to be sure they had complied with Colonial Law by obtaining legal land deeds from the sachems in the areas they settled.  They pressured the Indians to sell. In 1681 the General Court of Massachusetts authorized an investigation into land titles in what was then known as Nipnet after receiving a petition from the “inhabitants of the towns of Natick, Punkapoge & Wamasitt … being subject to his Majesty and this Government…having proved our Selves to ye English in yet late war and served them most of us as Soldiers … some of [our] relations lost their lives [in the war], we doe hereby … have a natural right to most of the lands lying in Nipmuck country…[MS Mass. Archives: 30:257]

It was signed by John Awassamugg [Senior], Andrew Pittomee, Thomas Romneymarsh, Peter Ephraim, Anthony Tray, Eleazor Pegun, Zachary Abraham, Sam Awassamugg, Waban, Piam Bow, Tom Tray, John Awassamaug, James Romneymarsh, Tom Dublit, Sa Somit, John Awassamaug Jr., [MS tear, name missing], Jethro, Benjamin, Sasowanno, John Magus, Nathaniel and Wattertown William.

Daniel Gookin, in his capacity as Superintendent of the Praying Indians, recorded that the Nipmuc people who had returned from Deer Island and who were again living at Natick were now objecting to the deeds which had previously been signed by the English settlers and an Indian named John Woampas.

The Indians testified that: … they well know John Woampus from a child and his father also, Old Woampas who was [MS torn] and brother to some of them; and do say that John Woampus was no sachem and had no more right [MS torn] and title to any lands in Nipmuk country … than other common Indians had … we utterly deny that we ever gave him any power to sell, give mortgage or other dispose of those lands … [MS: Mass. Archives: 30:260a]

Daniel Gookin further stated that in the court held near the Lower Falls of the Charles River in the spring of 1677 those assembled heard from John Woampus’ uncles Anthony and Tom Tray who “did beare witness against his practice & disclaim his right claiming he sold lands ‘to get money to be drunk’” so they were asking the court to forbid him to put forward any claims or further interfere with their concerns. [MS: Mass. Archives: 20:259a]  In the interest of the colony the General Court divided the land in question in to three parcels which were to be purchased from the Nipmuc and refused all further Nipmuc claims to any remaining lands in Nipnet.
 

Dutifully then,  Benjamin Bullard and his neighbors, the residents of what had become by then part of the Town of Sherborn, obtained a proper quitclaim deed to any and all remaining Indian interests in their land by paying twenty-two pounds English Sterling to the Sachems Waban, John Awasamog, Peter Ephraim, Piambowhow, John Magus, Andrew Pittimee, and Great John, who rightfully represented the now meager Indian interests in the area.  Again, colonial law gave all inhabitants both English and Indian, full hunting and fishing rights on all lands in the commonwealth, rights that were explicitly described and reinforced in the Sherborn Indian deed, but the settlers’ inclination to clear-cut the trees, build fences, plow the land, dam the brooks, and erect permanent dwellings had much the same effect as denying those rights.

Years later, the Fairbanks garrison house was sold to Benjamin Bullard’s descendants, passed on through a different line from the Bullards chronicled here, and eventually sold out of the family.  By the mid-nineteenth century, nearly two hundred years later, the stone fort was only a distant memory.  The stones had long since been carried away for other purposes.  Benjamin Bullard’s lands at the Farms and additional acreage he received in later town disbursements, descended to his heirs in various amounts and ways (including by sale).  Benjamin fathered eleven children by two wives.  It is the descendants of his eldest son by his second wife (Elizabeth Thorpe), Lt. John Bullard, whose story is chronicled here.  Lt. John Bullard received land at Bogastow Neck, later divided between Medway and the recently incorporated (1724) town of Holliston, where he built his home about a mile-and-a-half west of his father’s holdings at the Farms.  Two generations later Alice's paternal great-grandmother Rebecca Richardson and her husband Henry Bullard, great-grandson of Benjamin, built a new house in 1777 on land in Holliston received from his grandfather, which is the site of the present Bullard farm.  Henry’s son, also named Henry, added to the 1777 house in 1797 and the original house became the “ell” of the new house.

Land relations with indigenous Americans were part of the Bullard oral tradition well into the nineteenth century.   Born in 1884, Willis Kingsbury, Jr. had been instructed as a child that any Indian who came to the Bullard farm door asking permission was to be allowed free access across farm lands to Bogastow* Brook to gather reeds for basket-making.  His father Judge Willis A. Kingsbury, Sr. (1848-1935), husband of Fannie Bullard, had taken a particular interest in the local Indigenous Americans and their history as shown in his essay quoted below.  Here, Judge Kingsbury identified certain indigenous American occupation and use as involving land that is now part of the Bullard farm.

* Over the centuries this Indian word has been rendered into English under several different spellings.  The spelling used in this text, except as quoted in historical vernacular, is Bogastow.  

The Indians about Holliston were members of the Algonquin clan, a clan extending from the Canadian highlands southward to Virginia, and extending westward to include the Sacs and Foxes.  Their territory had no definite boundary, however, and there were even within their vague limits ‘islands’ held by members and branches of the Iroquois clan…  The Nipmuc Indians to which the local Indians belonged lived in the interior of Massachusetts…           

During the century preceding the coming of the white man, the Mohawks drove in from the west and disturbed what must have been a comparatively peaceful balance.  The Pequots, living at that time in the Connecticut Valley were practically exterminated, and as late as 1636 the Nashaway Indians, a minor tribe living in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts, were raided by the Mohawks.  The balance once disturbed, other troubles followed.  The Mohicans, following the destruction of the Pequots, raided into Nipmuc territory, and there were further incursions by the Narragansetts in 1631 or 1632.

At the time of the earliest coming of the white men, Holliston was but thinly populated by Indians.  This was due to the great pestilence, of about 1618, which had practically exterminated the Indians in many localities and had greatly thinned the villages all through southern New England.

From the relics of Indian occupancy we find, one of two things is true: either Holliston, particularly about the lake was inhabited by a large Indian population, over a short period, or by a small population over a long period of years.  Relics are discovered along Bogastow Brook, and the frequency with which they are found on the lake together with the enormous number of chips thickly scattered there, point to one conclusion or the other.

The more probable conclusion is that Holliston was the dwelling place of a smaller population of Indians over a long period of time.  Water was available, at the lake and in the many streams – and water meant good fishing.  Neither lake nor streams, however, could support a great number of persons.  A further reason for giving belief to this conclusion is that the sandy lands, easily worked by the primitive Indian implements and used for their crops of beans and corn, are distinctly limited in the area.

At the time of the earliest white settlements, Holliston was part of the territory of John Awassamog, of Natick, who also held authority over Washacum at Framingham and also Annamasset at Mendon.  The Megunnawanagook Indians of Ashland were a tributary to Nehutamet of Sterling.

Holliston then, was the center of a small settlement, a part of the Nipmuc tribe … Their village was at one time, on the land of Henry Cutler, at the lake [Lake Winthrop].  Well authenticated tradition has it that they lived there at the time of the first white settlement…Pottery remains of soapstone have been found there, and the charred remains of fires.  There are also indications of a settlement in the east part of town, on Bogastow Brook, near the crossing of Central Street [Bullard farm land]…  

This is indicated by the number of arrowheads and other relics found here, particularly on a field at the northeast side of the brook and at the north of the old road bridge, now a cart-way.  This field, thickly scattered with quartz chips, was either the site of a permanent village or of a place visited by the Indians at certain times…Here too the old Indian trail from Natick to Mendon later mentioned in deeds as ‘the Mendham road’, crossed Bogastow.  And here was the first settlement by the English in Holliston.

© Copyright 2012, Martha L. DeWolf