CHAPTER IX. THE MUH-HE-KA-NE-OK. Under the name of Stockbridges we have had mention of a people who, in their own language, call themselves the Muh-he-ka-ne-ok. 1 According to their legendary history of the tribe, "a great people came from the Northwest; crossed over the salt waters, and after long and weary pilgrimages (planting many colonies on their track), took possession and built their fires upon the Atlantic coast, extending from the Delaware on the south to the Penobscot on the north. They became, in process of time, divided into different tribes and interests; all, however, speaking one common dialect. This great confederacy, comprising Delawares, Munsees, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Pequots, Penobscots, and many others held its council once a year to deliberate on the general welfare. "The tribe to which your speaker3 belongs, and of which there were many bands, occupied and possessed the country from the sea-shore at Manhattan to Lake Champlain. Having found an ebb and flow of the tide, they said: This is Muh-he-con-new,-like our waters, which are never still.' From this expression and by this name they were afterwards known, until their removal to Stockbridge in the year 1730. Housatonic River Indians, Mohegans, Manhattas, were all names of bands in different localities but bound together, as one family, by blood, marriage and descent. 66 Where are the twenty-five thousand in number, and the four thousand warriors, who constituted the power and population of the great Muh-he-con-new Nation in 1604? They have been victims to vice and disease which the white man imported. The small-pox, measles and strong waters' have done the work of annihilation." In regard to the name and language of these people we have an authority that is both older and better than of Mr. Quinney. "When I was but six 1 If I were to write this name as I heard it spoken by Henry Sprague and wife,- the former a Munsee, the latter a grand-daughter of John Metoxen,- I should change the spelling by using, in the last syllable, a with the sound as in arm. For further remarks on this subject, see appendix, and also the author's monograph, "Muh-he-ka-ne-ok; a History of the Stockbridge Nation." To that booklet this chapter is, in part, purposely made supplementary. 2 "At the place where this and the other country are nearly connected," says the legend as given in Miss Electa Jones's history of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 3 These quotations are from a Fourth-of July speech made at Reidsville, New York, in 1854, by John W. Quinney (Waun-nau-con), of Stockbridge, Wisconsin. years of age," wrote the younger Jonathan Edwards,1 afterward president of Union college, "my father removed with his family to Stockbridge [Massachusetts], which at that time was inhabited by Indians almost solely; as there were in the town but twelve families of whites, or Anglo-Americans; and perhaps one hundred and fifty families of Indians. The Indians being the nearest neighbors, I constantly associated with them; their boys were my daily schoolmates and play-fellows. Out of my father's house I seldom heard any language spoken, beside the Indian. By these means I acquired the knowledge of that language, and a great facility in speaking it. It became more familiar to me than my mother tongue." "Both at this time, and in after life," says his grandson and biographer, Rev. Tryon Edwards, D. D., "he was so familiar with the Indian language that he often dreamed in it." President Edwards continues: "I knew the names of some things in Indian, which I did not know in English; even all my thoughts ran in Indian; and though the true pronunciation of the language is extremely difficult to all but themselves, they acknowledged that I had acquired it perfectly; which, as they said, never had been acquired before by any Anglo-American. "When I was in my tenth year, my father sent me among the Six Nations, with a design that I should learn their language, and thus become qualified to be a missionary among them. But on account of the war with France, which then existed, I continued among them but about six months. Therefore the knowledge which I acquired of that language was but imperfect; and at this time? I retain so little of it, that I will not hazard' any particular critical remarks on it. I may observe, however, that though the words of the two languages are totally different, yet their structure is, in some respects, analogous, particularly in the use of prefixes and suffixes. "The language which is now the subject of observation is that of the Muhhekaneew or Stockbridge Indians. They, as well as the tribe at New London, are by the Anglo-Americans, called Mohegans, which is a corruption of Muhhekaneew, in the singular, or Muhhekaneok in the plural. This language is spoken by all the Indians throughout New England. Every tribe, as that of Stockbridge, that of Farmington, that of New London3 etc. has a different dialect; but the language is radically the same. Mr. Eliot's translation of the Bible is in a particular dialect of this language. The dialect followed in these observations is that of Stockbridge. This language appears to be much more extensive than any other language in North America. The lan 1 He was born 1745, May 26th. The above quotations are made from his treatise "Observations on the Language of the Muhhekaneew Indians," published at the request of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the Appleton Cyclopedia (first edition) the remark is made that this treatise "led Humboldt to say that if he [Edwards] had not been the greatest theologian, he would have been the greatest philologist of his age." Observations" etc. was probably issued in 2 The first edition of President Edwards's 1788. In the same year it was reprinted in England in connection with the famous sermon delivered by Occom at the hanging of Moses Paul. 3 By this, Dr. Edwards doubtless meant the tribe whose chief settlement was at Mohegan, Occom's birthplace. guages of the Delawares in Pennsylvania, of the Penobscots bordering on Nova Scotia [which then comprised what is now New Brunswick], of the Indians of St. Francis in Canada, of the Shawanese on the Ohio, and of the Chippewaus at the westward of Lake Huron, are all radically the same with the Mohegan. The same is said concerning the languages of the Ottawaus, Nanticooks, Munsees, Menomonees, Messitaugas, Saukies, Ottagaumies, Killistinoes, Nipegons, Winnebagoes1 etc. That the languages of the several tribes in New England, of the Delawares and of Mr. Eliot's Bible, are radically the same with the Mohegan, I assert from my own knowledge." Dr. Edwards then gives authorities,-"Captain Yoghum of the Stockbridge tribe, and Carver's Travels,"-for his other statements, and proceeds with his dissertation on the Mohegan language. And notwithstanding his caution, he remarks of "the Mohauk, which is the language of the Six Nations," that it "is entirely different from that of the Mohegans. There is no more appearance of a derivation of one of these last mentioned languages from the other, than there is of a derivation of either of them from the English. One obvious diversity, and in which the Mohauk is perhaps different from every other language, is that it is wholly destitute of labials; whereas the Mohegan abounds with labials." It is this fact, presumably, that enabled Eleazar Williams to write his native language with the use of only eleven letters of the English alphabet. 2 Notwithstanding Mr. Quinney's implied statement, it was not from the Housatonic but from the Hudson, wherein, after their long legendary journey, the Muh-he-ka-ne-ok first saw on the Atlantic coast the ebbing and flowing of the tide, that they received their name "River Indians." Yet when the attention of the Anglo-Americans,—to use Dr. Edwards's happy term,—was first drawn to these people, their home was in the upper part of the valley of the Housatonic, and, therefore, in western Massachusetts. It is in early years of the eighteenth century that these people come into some prominence in the history of the Massachusetts frontier. Some of them may have borne arms for tho colonists in "Queen Anne's war,”— the one known in European history as the "war of the Spanish succession." If not then, they probably took the side of the Anglo-Americans in the Indian or, more correctly, the inter-colonial war that was "resumed” in 1722 and ended in 1725, when a "treaty" was made, ending a war that had really lasted about forty years. Whatever was the service and whenever rendered, we find that in May, 1734, two Muh-he-ka-ne-ew chiefs, Konkapot and Umpachene, received at Springfield from Governor Jonathan Belcher of Massachusetts commissions in the British colonial militia, Konkapot that of captain; Umpachene, of lieu In this, as we have seen, Dr. Edwards was in error. This of course may be an incorrect inference of his own or, for aught I know, there may be a mis-statement in Carver's "Travels." It is not likely that Yoghum, "a principal Indian of the [Stockbridge] tribe," would know anything about the Winnebagoes. 2 Wisconsin Historical Collections, volume VIII., page 350. tenant. Konkapot's home was at Wnahtukook (Stockbridge); Umpachene's at Skatekook (now Sheffield). These places the Indians had reserved for themselves when, by deed dated 1724, April 25th (May 6th),1 they made a sale of land to some white men to whom the right of purchase had been granted 1722 June 30th (July 11th), by act of the general court (legislature) of Massachusetts. These early settlers came into a wilderness unbroken save by a few clearings made" under the grant of the Livingston manor," by Dutchmen from New York, between which and Massachusetts the boundary line was yet undetermined. -- Ebenezer Miller, a humble parishioner of Rev. Samuel Hopkins of West Springfield, learned that Konkapot and his people seemed ready to receive instruction in Christianity. This fact he made known to his pastor who interested in the matter Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton and the Rev. Dr. Stephen Williams 3 of Longmeadow. Desiring to establish a mission among the Muh-he-ka-ne-ok,--the "River Indians," as they were commonly called,— Mr. Hopkins and his associates applied for aid to a “ Board of Indian Commissioners" in Boston. 4 Aid was promised. Now for the needed man. He was ready. A New Jersey boy, John Sergeant, born at Newark in 1710, had the misfortune, as it seemed at the time, to cripple his left hand by a cut with a scythe. That he might earn a living in some other way than by manual labor, he was sent to Yale college. "He proceeded Bachelor of Arts, September 1729, and commenc'd Master 1732, before which he was elected Tutor of the College, in which he had his Education. In that Post he continu'd four Years, to the Satisfaction of those who repos'd in him that Trust, and to the Advantage of those who were under his Instruction. "By this Time he was determin'd for the Work of the Ministry, and tho’ he was well pleased with the Business he was now in, and stood as fair as any Man whatever, for a Call & Settlement in any, even the best Parish, that might become vacant; yet he preferred a Mission to the Heathen: not from any Views he could have of Worldly Advantage from thence, but from a pious, generous and ardent Desire of being an Instrument in the Hand of God of Good to the Indians, who were sunk below the Dignity of human Nature, and even to the lowest Degree of Ignorance and Barbarity. "There was something very uncommon, and which seems to have been from above, in the Disposition and Inclination there was in him to this selfdenying Service: For before there was any Prospect of his being imploy'd among the Natives, his tender Mind was so affected with the Tho'ts of their perishing State, that it had been his Practice, for a long Time, to make Daily 1 The use of the Gregorian (new style) calendar was not legally established in England and her colonies until 1751. Then it was enacted that the day following the 2nd of September, 1752, should be accounted the 14th of that month. E. W. B. Canning. 3 Son of Rev. John Williams, the “Redeemed Captive." The son was taken prisoner with the others of his father's family. 4 An organization to be identified, probably, with that mentioned on page 69 as existing in New England. an article in his secret Addresses to God, that he would send him to the Heathen, and make him an Instrument in turning them from Darkness to Light, &c. God granted him that which he requested; for which he returned his grateful Acknowledgments to him who heareth Prayer. And of these Things he inform'd Mr. Woodbridge, his Fellow-Labourer, at his first going to Housatunnuk; but strictly injoin'd him to keep them secret, which he accordingly I did till since Mr. SERGEANT'S Death." The above is from a book that was new one hundred fifty years ago: a biography of Sergeant and an account of his work among the Muh-he-ka-ne-ok, by Samuel Hopkins, who thus became the historian as he had been a founder of the mission. The few copies of the book that are left, possibly not more than six in number, are among the choicest possessions of the libraries in which they are found. The man of whom it was written deserved the eulogy of his biographer and won the prize most to be desired by the noblest ambition, -a place among those who have turned many to righteousness. When Konkapot and Umpachene came to Springfield to be invested by Governor Belcher with the insignia denoting the rank of each in British service, they were met also by Messrs. Hopkins and Williams who had been asked by the commissioners in Boston to try to get the consent of the chiefs to the establishment of the proposed mission. These, like men of good sense, referred the matter to their people, by whom under Konkapot's leadership,-despite the opposition of traders who had been accustomed to furnish liquor to the Indians, -the desired consent was given at a four days' meeting beginning 8th (19th) July, 1734, in what is now the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The way for his coming being thus prepared, Sergeant, who was still engaged as tutor in Yale college, visited the people among whom he purposed soon to make his home. He was accompanied by one of the neighboring pastors, Rev. Nehemiah Bull of Westfield. On the day after their arrival, Sunday, the 13th (24th) of October, 1734, they gathered a congregation in which were about twenty adults. Then or soon thereafter, Mr. Sergeant's interpreter, Ebenezer Poohpoonuc, desired to be baptized. After what seems to have been a very thorough examination,—inasmuch as the candidate was brought to declare that he would rather burn in the fire than deny the truth,- Mr. Bull baptized him 18th (29th) October, at a meeting held in the wigwam of Lieutenant Umpachene at Skatekook. From this confession of faith and baptism of an Indian convert, the old church of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, counts the number of its years. The mission was first established in what is now the town of Great Barrington. Here on the 21st October (1st November), was begun the erection of a building which was to serve for church and school. So rapidly was the work pushed forward that the school itself was opened on Tuesday, the 5th (16th) of November. Mr. Sergeant himself was the teacher. Think of the college tutor, who had been giving instruction to such men as Joseph Bellamy, Aaron Burr, afterwards president of the college of New Jersey (Princeton), and |