From the Files of the Rochester Historical Society

1679 is the year in which a group of investors, the Proprietors, received permission from the Old Colony Court to purchase land for a new town. The land deeded to the original 29 Proprietors was incorporated on June 4, 1686 as “Rochester-Towne in new England”. This was a large tract of land reaching from Middleboro through part of what is now Wareham and including current Marion and Mattapoisett. Previously, this land had been used for grazing, fishing rights, and forest land by Plymouth. Earlier this land had been made available for sale by two “Indian” chiefs of the Pokanoket tribe under orders of King Philip, supreme leader of the Wampanoag Federation.

            There were still parts of the area to which Indian claims could be made and it is interesting to note that on the February 10, 1694 list of 30 Proprietors was the name of Joseph Lothrop, who was the Indian agent for the settlers. He was able to settle two of the claims and records show that Charles (Paumpmutt) of Ashimuitt was paid six pounds and Peter Sacasow received five shillings. However, Will Connett claimed ownership of the whole area and “bitterly” contested the grant and took his claim to the court. The case was never pleaded and Connett was given a proprietor’s share in the lands of Rochester. Today his name lives on in the Connet Woods neighborhood.

            The records seem to indicate that Rochester had no ill effects from the French and Indian Wars but one of the fiercest and most famous fighters to terrorize the Plymouth colonists during the war, Totosin, made an upland strip of land surrounded by Haskell Swamp his “haunt and hiding place”.

            In 1746, the General Court of Massachusetts appointed a committee “to provide a place for the reception of the Pigwacket Indians now at Fort William” (in Boston Harbor). The place provided was in Rochester, perhaps northwest of Witch Rock. One of these Pigwackets was a woman, Molly Orcut, who was known for her skills as a medicine woman and was called on by many of the settlers to cure illnesses. The Pigwacketts eventually moved to Maine where there is a museum with information on Molly.

            A Native American presence continued in Rochester even after white settlers arrived and they are mentioned in accounts of the time. In his memoirs, Abraham Holmes claims that a potion given to a Mr. Allen by a neighboring Indian saved his life from an unnamed disease. It was a potion made from a root and the dosage was a tablespoon once in two hours and the pounded roots were paced as a poultice on the throat. Holmes’s father was able to retrieve an unmashed root from the medicine provided to him and he grew a plant from it which was a common weed. He then was able to dispense this potion to many who needed it. The doctors vilified it but according to Holmes everyone who took it “in season recovered”.

            There are still members of the Wampanoag Nation in our area today.

            A disclaimer; I realize that I used the term “Indian” in this article but it was in order to be true to the historical record of the time.

By Connie Eshbach