Timeline: In Search of Benjamin Church: His God, Indians and Rum

CHAPTER ONE

Author Lisa Saunders pictured in 2013 with the Mayflower II in Plymouth

The story of Ranger Benjamin Church versus King Philip (Metacomet) in 1675-76 really begins with Church's grandfather, Richard Warren of the Mayflower, and King Philip's father, Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag Indians.

Timeline:

1595: Richard Warren, Benjamin Church's grandfather, is born in Hertford, England.

1620: Richard Warren, age 35, was among the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Warren, a merchant, had left his wife and five daughters in England. 

Wednesday, December 6, 1620: Inadequately dressed for the freezing weather, Richard Warren and others, including Governor Carver, Bradford, Standish, Winslow , John and Edward Tilley, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins and his servant, Edward Doty, paddled in the Mayflower's shallop to explore the area. This exploration resulted in the "first encounter" with Indians whose rapid-fire arrows were more effective than the slow-firing muskets of the English. 

Legend has it that when they landed in Plymouth, they stepped on "Plymouth Rock" (seen in photo with the year 1620 etched on it). 

They disembarked too late in the year to build suitable homes and gather food. Richard Warren was one of the only eight married men out of 24 who managed to survive that first winter of 1620-1621. Half of the 102 passengers died.

According to Richard Warren descendant, Dr. Lee McDowell, scurvy is what led to the majority of deaths among the Mayflower passengers that first winter. As the scurvy progressed, the settlers became too weak to walk. Lee McDowell said, “Scurvy is a hideous disease that involves body tissue breakdown. Clinical signs and symptoms include bloody patches under the skin, extreme weakness, loosening of the teeth, rotting gums and a breath that is an intolerable stench of putrefaction. Old healed wounds and scars can suddenly break open, and fresh wounds and sores show no tendency to heal.”

Some of the Mayflower deaths were a direct result of scurvy, “while other deaths may have resulted from an indirect effect of scurvy, with the lack of vitamin C resulting in a lower resistance and greater susceptibility to disease organisms (e.g. pneumonia).”  McDowell said scurvy can develop in as little as six weeks, “though generally it takes 10-12 weeks for scurvy to develop.” 

March 1621 - Massasoit (statue above taken October 2017 by Lisa Saunders), king of the Wampanoag Indians (father of King Philip) travels to Plymouth with colleague Samoset, who has been friendly to the newcomers. Massasoit believes there is value in having a thriving trade between the two peoples and wants the English as allies against the nearby Narragansetts. The English colonists and Wampanoags enjoy peaceful relations for 50 years. 

Fall 1621: The Thanksgiving Feast--Richard Warren and the other Mayflower passengers feasted with the Wampanoag Indians to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest. The English leader Edward Winslow wrote home to a friend: “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.” The governor, William Bradford, said, “And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.” 

1623: Richard Warren''s wife and five daughters (I come from their daughter Elizabeth)  joined him in Plymouth on the ship Anne.  Richard and wife Elizabeth had two more children, sons Nathaniel and Joseph.

1628: Richard Warren passed away from unknown causes.

This English sword handle is believed to be Richard Warren’s. It was discovered at the Edward Winslow house in Plymouth (now the Mayflower Society House) during excavation for a basement in 1898. Anthony Darling, author of “A Rare Sword from Plymouth Colony” believes it could be Richard Warrens because the Warrens lived on this property in 1678 (Warren died in 1628) and because there are several references to swords in the Warren family inventories.

[Year?] Richard Warren's daughter, Elizabeth Warren, married Richard Church (in the second edition of Church's memoir, his father's name is given as Joseph Church).

May 26, 1637:  Under Captain John Mason, the English and Narragansett and Mohegan allies attacked and set fire to a fortified Pequot village near the Mystic River in Mystic, Connecticut.  The battle is known as the Mystic Massacre. Listed among the History Channel's “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America,” the Mystic Massacre had a major impact on early American history. The Pequot War involved disputes over control of the fur trade. It’s a very complicated series of retaliations over murders and kidnappings, which reportedly began when the Pequot Indian tribe killed another Indian tribe traveling through their territory on their way to a Dutch trading post. The English, under Captain John Mason, along with the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes, joined forces against the Pequots at their stockade-walled village once located down the street from my home. The English burned the village to the ground, killing at least 400 Pequot Indians. Several inhabitants managed to escape over the wall, but others who tried were captured and sold into slavery. The majority of the remaining Pequot Indians were hunted down and killed or enslaved by other native American tribes and European slave traders. The Treaty of Hartford officially ended the Pequot War in 1638 and the English began to settle in the Mystic area 16 years later. (Learn more about the Mystic Massacre at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, which includes a recreated 16th-century Pequot village.)

[Although the Native Americans who enslaved the Pequot survivors forbade them to speak their native language or even the name of their tribe, the Pequot name is everywhere—from trails to a health center. Foxwoods, the largest resort casino in the Northeast, is owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (descendants of Pequots and Mohegans).] 

1638 (circa) - Metacomet (later known as King Philip), son of Massasoit of the Wampanoag Indians, is born in Massachusetts. 

1639 - Benjamin Church, grandson of Richard Warren, is born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to parents Elizabeth (Warren) and Richard (or Joseph) Church (MF 18:1:26)

1661 - Massasoit, king of the Wampanoag Indians (father of King Philip) dies near Bristol, RI. His son Wamsutta, who asked for an English name (Alexander) for himself and his brother (Philip) of the Pokanoket Tribe, becomes the leader of Wampanoag nation.

1662 - Wamsutta (or King Alexander), who is suspected of conspiring with the Narragansetts against the English, dies.  King Philip, approximately 24 years old,  succeeds his older brother and later claims the English poisoned his brother. 

26 Dec 1667 - Benjamin Church (age 28) marries Alice Southworth (b. 1646), Perhaps in Duxbury, MA. (MF 18:1:26)

1673 - Alice and Benjamin Church, living in Duxbury, MA, have their first child, son Thomas, who goes onto publish his father's memoirs--Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War. 

Timeline for King Philip's War 

To understand the causes and players in the war, I recommend you click into this article: https://www.britannica.com/event/King-Philips-War

Dec 1674 - John Sassamon, a "praying Indian" (converted to Christianity) who was educated at Harvard and served as King Philip's translator and advisor, tells Plymouth colony officials that King Philip is planning to gather other Indian tribes to attack colonial settlements. King Philip hears of this betrayal. 

Jan 29, 1675:  John Sassamon was killed and his body dumped in Assawompsett Pond,  a few miles south of Middleborough, Mass, where it was pushed under the ice. 

Sassamon's body is discovered under the ice and there is an Indian witness to the murder. 

June 1, 1675 – Three Indians are tried for the murder of  John Sassamon: Tobias, Wampapaquan, and Mattashunnamo. The men are sentenced to hang on June 8.

June 8, 1675 – The men continue to claim their innocence up until the hanging. Tobias and Mattashunnamo died in the usual way of a hanging, but Wampapaquan’s rope broke. When he fell to the ground, he started confessing, but said it was the other two that killed John Sassamon and that all he did was help with the body. He is hanged again, and this time, he died.  Philip and the other Wampanoags are furious the English handled what should have been a Wampanoag matter.

At the time, Benjamin Church was building a "plantation" on his newly acquired property in Indian territory called Sagkonate. The English called the area Little Compton (now in Rhode Island). His wife and son remained in Duxbury, Mass.

June 14, 1675 –  Benjamin Church attends a dance near his Little Compton property at the Indian village of Awashonks. In attendance were some of Philip’s warriors in war paint.

Church's memoir takes off from there, which I will quote where appropriate.

For a general timelines and  understanding, click here: https://worldhistoryproject.org/topics/king-philips-war-metacoms-rebellion

For a good map of the attacks you are about to read about, with an explanation of unfolding events, click here: http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/bloodbath-in-new-england/

Continue to follow a more complete time line, with more information under each date, with this link:    http://historum.com/blogs/baltis/1141-chronology-king-philips-war-part-one.html 

MORE RELEVANT DATES TO FOLLOW AS I HAVE TIME.