INDIAN TOWN LAID OUT.

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township, and also to lay out a sufficient quantity of land for the accommodation of four English families, who were to be settled upon the land under the direction of the committee, by and with the advice of Messrs. Sergeant and Woodbridge. They were also empowered to dispose of the land reserved by the Indians in the deed of 1724, "in order to make satisfaction, so far as the same will go, to the proprietors and owners of the lands" now granted to the Indians; and also to give to the proprietors of Upper Housatonic, living below the mountain, an equivalent in the unappropriated land, lying adjacent to Sheffield, Upper Housatonic, or to the town granted to the Indians; and further to make to the proprietors, living above the mountain, an equivalent in some of the unappropriated lands of the province.

The committee proceeded to lay out the township in April, 1736, exhibiting a plan of it to the Indians, by whom it was well approved, and in May reported their proceedings to the Legislature. Early in May, "the Indians moved into the town with two new families added to their number." (1) "Others moved in soon after, so that by the close of June there were more than ninety souls in the settlement." (2) On the 7th of May, 1737, "the grant of the town was fully confirmed to the Indians," (3) and in 1739 the township. was incorporated as Stockbridge. (4) The township was laid out in an exact square of six miles on each side; and included a tract 770 rods in breadth north and south, and 1920 rods in length, east and west, equal to 9,240 acres, taken from the Upper Township.

Amongst the settlers who owned lands and dwelt above the mountain were John Burghardt, alias De Bruer, Jehoiakim Van Valkenburgh, Elias Van Schaick and Richard Moore. Burghardt exchanged his rights for land below the mountain, and removed thither. Van Valkenburgh was an especial friend of Captain Konkapot, often acting as an interpreter for the Indians, who were much attached to him, and he is reputed to have received a considerable tract of land as a gift (1) (2) (3) Field in History of Berkshire.

(4) Stockbridge then included West Stockbridge.

from Konkapot. The Indians desired that both Van Valkenburgh and Moore might be permitted to remain among them; and, as stated by the committee, the Indians "were very fond" of Van Valkenburgh and it would be "vain" to try to remove him. Van Valkenburgh-probably by common consent-did remain for a time, but his presence was injurious to the Mission, as he sometimes furnished rum to the Indians; he, finally, about 1739, disposed of his rights and removed below the mountain. Van Schaick, who appears to have been a Dutch trader, was a very troublesome fellow; he dealt in rum, was a great annoyance to the Mission, and was determined to hold on to his lands at all hazards. It was not until he was forced by legislative interference,-rendered necessary in order to protect the Indians and the Mission,-that he relinquished his rights and removed from the township.

In this connection, Hon. Charles Allen, in his "Report on the Stockbridge Indians," made to the Legislature in January, 1870, says: "On the 15th of June, 1739, the General Court voted that certain rights claimed by Elias Vauscoir [Van Schaac]? were justly forfeited to the province, and forasmuch as it appeared that he was a person "of a very turbulent and haughty spirit, and that he is often disturbing the quiet of the Indians, and has thereby rendered himself very obnoxious to them, and should he continue among them, it would greatly discourage the Indians from settling and continuing there, whereby the good intentions of the Government in making the grant of the town to the Indians, would be frustrated," it was ordered to eject him by lawful process in Court; but if he would go quietly to make him an allowance. The Mission was continued in Stockbridge for many years, perhaps as successfully as its founders had reason to anticipate. Idleness, and the love of rum, with the interference of unprincipled white men, who not only furnished the Indians with rum, but by misrepresentations and falsehoods, endeavored to dissuade them from listening to the instructions of the missionary, presented serious obstacles to its success; these were eventually overcome; the Indians were civilized; many of them were

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christianized and educated, and became respectable and industrious citizens. Their numbers were gradually increased by accessions from other parts of the country. In 1739 they numbered about twenty families, fourteen communicants, and about sixty of them had been baptized. Some had houses built after the style of their white neighbors, and Konkapot had a "shingled barn." In 1740 their population was 120; in 1749, 218. They afterwards increased to about 400.

We do not purpose to follow the history of the Mission during the years of its continuance in Stockbridge; from the spring of 1736, forward, its annals belong to the history of that town, and have been already faithfully written by the pen of a lady since deceased. (1)

Aside from christianizing and civilizing the Indians, one great advantage resulting from the Mission, was the securing of their friendship, which was of inestimable value to the settlers of the valley during the French wars, when their numbers, and known fidelity to the English, presented a barrier and a sure protection to the inhabitants against the massacres and devastation, with which many of our frontier towns were visited, and they in common with their white neighbors, enlisted in defending our borders against the attacks of the allied French and Indians.

Again in the war of the Revolution, the Stockbridge Indians rendered efficient service. A number of them enlisted as Minute Men, and with other Berkshire soldiers did duty about Boston during the time of its occupancy by the British. These minute men were, by a special vote of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, each presented with a blanket and ribbon. Through Colonel John Patterson and Captain William Goodrich, an address was made by the Congress to the tribe, explaining the reasons and causes of the controversy, and commending their zeal in the cause. this address, the Indians after a council of two days at Stockbridge, replied on the 11th of April, 1775, giving assurance of their sympathy and readiness to assist in

To

(1) For a detailed history of this Mission, the reader is referred to "Stockbridge; Past and Present, or Records of an old Mission Station," by Miss Electa F. Jones.

the coming struggle. (1) Of the Indians about Boston, eighteen petitioned the Congress in July, 1775, to pay over the money which was, or should become due them for services, to Messrs. Timothy Edwards and Jahleel Woodbridge, "as they were sensible of their [own] want of prudence in disposing of their money," and were desirous that the Congress "would devise some method to prevent them from getting too much strong drink."

"A full company of the Indians, went to White Plains, under Captain Daniel Ninham where four were slain and some died of sickness." (2)

Soon after the close of the war the Indians commenced removing to a township given them by the Oneidas, in the state of New York, called New Stockbridge, and by 1789 all had removed to that place.

(1) The "talk" of the Indians, will be found in the printed Journal of the Provincial Congress, page 311.

(2) Field-Berkshire History.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INDIAN RESERVATION AND INDIAN CLAIMS.

In preceding chapters we have made frequent mention of the Indian Reservation,—or the land which the Indians, in their deed of 1724, to the settling committee, reserved for their own use. The north line of this tract, aside from a small piece of clear meadow, now in Great Barrington,-was substantially the present north line of Sheffield. It bounded east on the Housatonic River, and extended west to the line of the state of New York, and its width north and south-exclusive of the clear meadow-varied but little from fiveeighths of a mile.

At the time of the beginning of settlements here, the Green River emptied into the Housatonic about one-fourth of a mile further south than it now does, and near where the divisional line between Sheffield and Great Barrington intersects the Housatonic. The relative locations of these streams have since very materially changed. By the constant wearing and washing away of its banks, the Housatonic has infringed upon and absorbed the Green River, and now occupies the original bed of the latter for some distance east and south of the bridge, on the meadow road; whilst a little further south, the cove called "Warner's Cove," running southerly to the town line, apparently marks the former course of the Green River. A brook, called by the Indians Mau-nau-pen-fe-con,-the same sluggish stream which crosses the road south of the old William W. Warner place-then discharged its waters into the Housatonic near the north line of George Kellogg's land, where there is now a small cluster of maples on