0:02

Happy Saturday everyone. On the show. Recently

0:04

we talked about King Phillip's War and

0:07

how it had ongoing ramifications within

0:09

New England, and that includes places

0:11

that we did not discuss at all in

0:13

the King Phillips War episode, and that includes

0:15

New Hampshire. Today, we are going to

0:17

go back to our April episode

0:20

on the Sham Battle in the Cohico Massacre,

0:22

which happened a few years later think King

0:24

Phillips War and involved refugees

0:27

from that war. So here we go.

0:33

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

0:35

a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff

0:38

Works. Hello,

0:43

and welcome to the podcast. I am Tracy

0:46

B. Wilson and I'm Holly fry

0:48

So. Last fall I took a trip to Dover,

0:51

New Hampshire, and this was mostly just to be a

0:53

little personal adventure that sounded like something fun

0:55

to do and a chance to look at some really amazing

0:57

autumn leaves. But one of the things that

0:59

led me need to pick Dover specifically for

1:01

my adventure was the Woodman Institute

1:04

Museum. So this museum opened in nineteen

1:06

sixteen and it's mostly dedicated to local

1:09

and natural history, although it has other exhibits

1:11

as well. One of the town's

1:13

original garrisons is there. That

1:16

building was built in sixteen seventy five

1:18

and then moved to the Woodman Institute property

1:20

later after it was donated to the museum.

1:23

It's actually pretty cool because there is an entire

1:26

structure built around the garrison to

1:28

protect it from the elements because it's so old.

1:31

There's a lot of really fascinating stuff

1:33

in the Woodman Institute Museum. Natural

1:35

history and taxon Army displays are

1:37

really arranged and curated a lot like they

1:40

were when the museum originally opened.

1:42

But one of the things that really caught my eye was

1:44

inside the garrison, which

1:46

is full of colonial era artifacts, and

1:49

on the wall was a map that

1:51

traced the progression of a conflict between

1:54

British colonists and the Native Americans

1:56

from the area. And the docent

1:58

told me the basic story of what had happened,

2:00

and the part that made me think, this needs to be an episode

2:04

hinged on a sham battle.

2:06

So today sham basically means

2:08

trick or hoax um, but at the time,

2:11

and maybe also regionally, i'm not quite sure, the

2:13

term sham battle was used to describe

2:15

a lot of different mock battles, so

2:18

re enactments were sham battles or

2:21

UH battles that were done as part

2:23

of a ritual where sham battles,

2:25

so it wasn't necessarily

2:28

meant to be deceptive in this case,

2:30

however, it was from a couple of different

2:33

angles, So that

2:35

is what we were going to talk about today. UH.

2:37

This sham led to what came

2:40

to be known as the Cohico Massacre or

2:42

the Raid on Dover. The Raid

2:44

on Dover took place during one of the many times

2:46

in history which Britain has been at war with France.

2:49

In this case, wars were happening both in North

2:51

America and in Europe concurrently, with

2:54

each of the wars having a different name depending

2:56

on exactly when it happened and which side

2:58

the historian was on. Specifically, these

3:00

were the French and Indian Wars, which in

3:02

North America were between Britain

3:04

and its Native American allies on one side,

3:07

and France and its Native American allies

3:09

on the other. So

3:12

each of the French and Indian Wars ran alongside

3:14

a related conflict that was happening in

3:16

Europe, and we could easily spend an entire

3:19

episode outlining all of the various nuances

3:21

of who is it, were, with whom and why If

3:24

you look at UH timelines

3:27

of all of this, different historians group them together

3:29

differently and define them differently, and different

3:31

nations give them different names. So for

3:33

the sake of simplicity, France and England

3:35

were at war with one another off and on for almost

3:38

a hundred years, with part of the conflict

3:40

focused on their territories in North America

3:43

and who should control those territories. So

3:45

it was part of like the greater history of

3:48

Britain being at war with France UH,

3:51

and this part had a specifically American

3:55

component to it, and as far as where the

3:57

theater of the war was happening, and today's

3:59

subject kind of took place in a

4:02

time that it overlapped a bit with King William's

4:04

War, which ran from six nine to sixteen

4:06

ninety seven. It was the first

4:08

of the French and Indian Wars, and in the European

4:11

theater, it was the War of the Grand Alliance

4:13

or the War of the League of Augsburg, along

4:15

with other names that it's sometimes called King

4:18

Williams War was named after King William the Third,

4:20

also known as William of Orange, who ruled

4:23

Britain and other places at the time.

4:26

I know this may sound like a soup of many

4:28

different wars, and one of the things I am

4:30

holly as I was working on this was I find

4:33

uh the progression of all of these battles

4:36

on each side of the Atlantic Ocean to be very confusing.

4:39

It is because there is battle soup. It

4:41

really becomes that way when you try to sort it all

4:43

out. Yeah, So, during

4:46

King William's War, battles ranged all over

4:48

what's now Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, Maine,

4:50

and New York. The colonies of New Hampshire

4:53

and New York already existed this at this point,

4:55

but Maine was founded much later, and at the

4:57

time Nova Scotia was Acadia

4:59

and us. We have heard your many

5:01

requests for an episode on the expulsion

5:04

of the Acadians. We will do that at some point.

5:07

I'm not sure when, but lots of people

5:09

ask for that. The French

5:11

also tried and failed to

5:14

conquer Boston during King William's

5:16

War. But before we get into

5:18

this particular event in King William's War, we're

5:21

gonna have to talk a little bit about where it

5:23

happened. And before we jump into that. Uh,

5:25

it's a little early, but let's go ahead and do a sponsor

5:27

break now so that we can keep some continuity

5:30

later. So

5:39

to get back to the setting of where this event

5:41

happened, Dover, New Hampshire

5:44

was founded in sixteen twenty three on the Cohico

5:46

River. The colonists and Dover

5:49

overall maintained generally

5:51

good relationships with the Native American tribes

5:53

in the area, which were primarily the

5:55

Pennacook, and as was

5:57

common with many tribes in the area, the Pennacook

6:00

tended to move from place to place seasonally,

6:02

depending on where food was most available. And

6:05

although they hunted, gathered, and fished,

6:07

they did also cultivate corn, and

6:09

they taught these skills to the colonists in

6:11

and around Dover, while trading with the

6:13

colonists for tools and supplies. There

6:17

were, of course, sometimes disputes, and

6:19

to be quite clear, nearly half

6:21

of the Pennacook had died of disease after

6:24

the arrival of Europeans and the Americans.

6:27

But in general, at this point

6:29

in history, the Pennacook tried to maintain

6:31

positive diplomatic relations with

6:33

their neighbors from

6:35

Europe while also defending themselves

6:38

from the Mohawk, which had been their enemies

6:40

for quite a long time. Pennacook

6:43

Chief pass Conaway formed

6:45

a confederation among other neighboring

6:47

tribes to this end of

6:49

having positive relations with the

6:52

colonists from Europe as well as defending

6:54

themselves from the Mohawk. His son

6:56

want A Lancet, also maintained this confederation

6:59

and the ties to the colony at Dover after

7:02

he uh succeeded his father

7:04

as becoming the chief. The first

7:06

industry and Dover came via a sawmill

7:09

which was founded by Richard Waldron in sixteen

7:11

forty two, and depending on what

7:13

records you're looking at, you're going to see different spellings.

7:16

Sometimes it comes up as waldern d

7:18

e r n E or Waldron

7:21

uh d r y n E in

7:23

the various records. But by sixteen

7:25

sixty four more than forty families

7:28

had settled near the sawmill. Today that's

7:30

actually downtown Dover, but at this point

7:32

people called it Cohico after the sawmill.

7:35

Waldron himself was put in command of the militia

7:37

and given the rank of major. The colonists

7:40

in the Dover area also constructed garrisons

7:43

that could be used for both defense of the town

7:45

and to shelter people in case there was an attack.

7:47

So families would gather up their food and

7:49

their betting, and they would go to the garrison, which

7:51

could be defended thanks to being constructed

7:54

out of immensely thick logs. I mean they

7:56

are enormous. Having stood in one of these things,

7:58

they are almost in comprehensibly

8:01

huge logs, and there would be little

8:03

slits in them for firearms to be able to shoot

8:05

through. And the protection

8:07

of the garrison was not just for the European

8:10

colonists. Native peoples in

8:12

the area also frequently asked for and

8:14

were granted shelter in the garrisons

8:16

for the night. The population in

8:18

this area really increased significantly

8:20

in sixteen seventy six when Native

8:23

Americans from Massachusetts fled to

8:25

Dover and other settlements in

8:27

the wake of King Philip's War. So,

8:30

in spite of the similarity in the name to

8:33

King William's War came, King Philip's

8:35

War was not one of the French and Indian

8:37

Wars, and the early sixteen

8:39

hundreds colonists and what's now Massachusetts

8:42

had gradually become independent from needing

8:44

Native American help for their own survival,

8:46

and as the colonists began moving farther

8:48

and farther into territory that Native

8:51

people's were already living on, the tribes

8:53

started to resist to this encroachment. Relationships

8:56

between the Native peoples and the colonists in

8:58

the areas Pretty Clee soured.

9:01

Medicom, also known as King Philip, had

9:03

become the leader of the Wampanoaggs after

9:06

the death of his father, and in sixteen

9:08

seventy five, Medicom led most

9:10

of the Native American tribes in the area in

9:12

an uprising against the British. It

9:14

went on for more than a year. The Native

9:17

peoples were generally holding their own in these

9:19

battles, or even winning, until

9:21

the spring of sixteen seventy six, when they faced

9:23

starvation due to the destruction of their crops.

9:26

The uprising also lost its leader when

9:28

medicalm was beheaded. King Philip's

9:31

war ended not long after. This

9:34

was an extremely bloody, extremely

9:36

destructive war, especially considering

9:38

the population of the area at the time.

9:41

It wound up killing almost three thousand

9:43

of the Native people and six

9:45

hundred Europeans, and it destroyed settlements

9:48

all over the New England Frontier. The

9:50

area around Dover had been less affected,

9:53

largely because the Pennacook had retreated

9:55

to more remote areas to try to avoid

9:57

the fighting. And in the wake of y

10:00

Phillip's War, Native American refugees

10:02

fled both north and west. About

10:04

four hundred wound up at the Cohico settlement

10:07

at Dover. So

10:09

that's where we get to the sham battle that led

10:12

me to want to do this episode. It's sixteen

10:14

seventy six, so King William's War has not

10:16

started yet. That's gonna play a part in the

10:19

next chapter of this Uh.

10:21

The area around Dover, New Hampshire at

10:23

this point is home to us a sawmill, some

10:25

garrisons, fewer than fifty families

10:28

of colonists from Europe, its

10:30

own local Native American population,

10:32

and also about four hundred Native

10:35

American refugees who had fled

10:37

the terror and destruction of King

10:39

Philip's War. And we will

10:41

go on to talk about how

10:43

this turned into a problem after another

10:46

reef word from a sponsor. So,

10:55

because the Native American refugees in Dover

10:58

had fled from around Boston, Boston

11:00

actually sent two companies of soldiers

11:02

to capture them and bring them back by

11:04

force. Now,

11:07

Major Waldron thought it might be possible to

11:09

make this problem go away without bloodshed.

11:12

He did think that the Boston area

11:14

Native Americans should be returned back to Boston,

11:16

but he didn't want the Native peoples

11:18

from around Dover to be harmed. I

11:21

mean, after all, especially from the colonists

11:23

point of view, relationships

11:25

with the Pannica had been pretty good. They

11:28

didn't really want to mess that up. There was a

11:30

productive trade relationship going on, there was

11:32

cooperation between the people's and my overall

11:35

a lot of fighting at that point. So

11:38

he proposed that they have a sham

11:40

battle. He would arm the Native

11:42

Americans with muskets and they would have a mock

11:44

fight against the Dover militia to make a

11:47

good show for the Boston troops. The

11:49

Boston troops would see this battle, be

11:51

satisfied that things were being taken care of, and

11:54

go back home. Waldron

11:56

reportedly armed them, although with

11:58

only enough for the armed men to fire one

12:00

single shot and not reload. So

12:04

the part about putting on a good show for the Boston

12:06

troops and making them go away seems to have been

12:08

how he sold the refugees on

12:10

this whole plant. But here's what he

12:12

did not tell them. He had actually arranged

12:15

for the Dover area militia to be present.

12:17

And what's the Native fighters had all fired

12:19

their one shot from their muskets, surround

12:22

them and weed out the ones who were

12:24

from Dover from the ones who were from Boston,

12:26

and then send the Boston group back

12:28

with the Massachusetts soldiers. The

12:31

Massachusetts soldiers took more than

12:33

two hundred Native Americans back to Boston,

12:36

where some of them were executed and

12:38

others were sold into slavery.

12:41

So this whole sham battle had done

12:43

what it was supposed to do. From

12:46

Waldern's point of view. It had

12:48

gotten the Boston area Native

12:50

population back to Boston, and it had left

12:52

the Dover Native population unharmed.

12:55

However, unsurprisingly, this

12:58

was not good for the relationship between the Dover

13:00

colonists and the Native Americans from the area.

13:02

There's productive trading relationships and diplomatic

13:05

ties quickly started to crumble. Things

13:08

remained tense for more than a decade,

13:10

during which Dover added to its collection

13:12

of garrisons, and the newer garrisons

13:14

had a second floor that was larger than the

13:16

first floor, which created an overhang

13:18

that could be used to pour hot oil on people

13:21

who were trying to set the structure on fire or

13:23

break their way into it. Each neighborhood

13:25

had its own garrison and five houses.

13:28

Those that were at the highest vantage points around

13:30

Dover were converted into garrisons

13:32

at public expense and surrounded

13:34

by a palisade. Some accounts

13:37

actually say there were a total of six heavily fortified

13:39

garrisons, so there's a little bit

13:42

of lack of clarity around those specifics.

13:46

So Major Wildren, possibly in

13:48

an effort to try to keep things under control, also

13:50

started putting a number of restrictions

13:52

on the native people around Dover. He started

13:55

restricting their like their rights to travel in the

13:57

woods, and he started quote trading

14:00

with them for land. But these trades

14:02

always happened under Durest and they

14:04

always worked strongly in the colonists

14:07

favor, So things

14:09

were going south pretty quickly. Eventually,

14:13

Chief one A Lancet died and he was succeeded

14:15

by conk Omegus. While one

14:17

A Lancet had followed his father's example

14:19

in maintaining cooperative relationships

14:21

with the Dover colonists, Concamegus

14:23

had no intention of doing any such

14:25

thing. While his father and his grandfather

14:28

had tried to maintain these diplomatic ties

14:30

with colonists, he had seen

14:32

one injustice after another following

14:34

in the wake of the Sham Battle. Also

14:38

running concurrently with all of this escalation

14:41

was, as we mentioned at the top of the podcast,

14:43

King William's War. So things are

14:45

becoming increasingly tense all over the area.

14:49

Small scale attacks against colonial homes

14:51

and settlements were happening all over New England,

14:53

and it was clear to the colonists at Dover

14:56

that more serious hostility was eminent.

14:59

People started to taking refuge in the garrisons

15:01

every single night. Governor Edward

15:03

Cranfield decided to enlist the aid

15:05

of the Mohawk, who remember had

15:08

long been enemies of the Pennacook, for

15:10

support. So cock

15:12

Omegus at first moved as many of his

15:14

people as he could into a more remote

15:17

area to try to keep them safe, and

15:19

he sent a series of letters to Governor Cranfield

15:21

to try to reach some kind of agreement. The

15:25

Governor apparently didn't enter into serious

15:27

negotiations with Conchamegus at any

15:29

point, so Concamegus eventually

15:32

started planning a more coordinated attack

15:34

against the colonists and Dover. Although

15:37

Major Waldron insisted that everyone's

15:40

fears were overblown, some of the Pennacook

15:42

who were loyal to the colonists tried to warn

15:45

them that there was an incoming attack. Word

15:47

made it to the governor, who wrote to Waldron warning

15:50

him of a large gathering of Native Americans

15:52

in the area who seemed to have hostile

15:54

intentions. He sent this letter on

15:56

the twenty seven of June

15:59

nine. Unfortunately,

16:01

that same night, before the letter

16:03

reached its destination, two or

16:05

three Native American women asked for shelter

16:08

at the garrisons around Dover and were

16:10

allowed in it all but one of them. While

16:13

everyone was asleep, these women unbarred

16:16

the doors and opened the gates so that the

16:18

UH warriors who were waiting outside could

16:21

come in. At Major Waldron's

16:23

garrison, the Major himself was tied

16:26

to a chair and slashed with his own sword,

16:28

with his attacker reportedly saying quote,

16:31

I cross out my account. He

16:33

was dismembered and killed, and his family

16:35

was killed or taken captive before his house

16:38

was burned down. Similar

16:40

scenes played out at Dover's other garrisons,

16:42

as the colonists within were killed and captured

16:45

before the garrison itself was set on fire.

16:48

Some of the garrisons were ultimately left standing,

16:50

but their contents were looted and their inhabitants

16:53

killed or captured before the

16:55

raiders moved on. The only

16:57

garrison that was left untouched was one

16:59

where a bar working dog had alerted the family

17:01

who were there. Most of them were actually

17:04

away Uh, and someone who was

17:06

there had woken up, closed the gate and mounted

17:08

a defense. Twenty three people

17:10

were killed in twenty nine were taken captive,

17:13

and this was about a quarter of Dover's

17:15

population. Some of the captives

17:17

were reportedly also sold into slavery.

17:19

As had happened after the Sham battle, Conca

17:23

Vegas and the Pennacook retreated quickly

17:25

before the militia could be raised or before

17:27

any kind of real resistance could be mounted

17:30

and Uh. Coca Vegas

17:32

eventually relocated the Pennacook and then

17:35

joined his people with the Abenaki people,

17:37

which was a closely related tribe that

17:39

was native to the area. Many

17:41

of Concho Vegas family was killed

17:43

or captured in a raid later on by Captain

17:46

Benjamin Church that took place in sixteen

17:48

nine. He and the Pennacook

17:51

continued to attack other settlements

17:53

in the area after the raid on Cahico,

17:55

and this stopped only when he learned that the

17:57

British were holding his his surviving

18:00

family members hostage. Because

18:02

such a large proportion of the population

18:04

of Dover had been lost, it took quite

18:06

a while for the town to recover. It

18:08

continued to be the target of similar attacks

18:11

and raids, but there was never anything

18:13

on the scale of this massacre. When

18:15

you look into information about the Pennacook and the Abenaki

18:18

today, a lot of times they're written about as one tribe

18:21

or as like different parts

18:23

of the same tribe or the same people. So

18:26

Um, there are still members of

18:28

those tribes who are alive today. They're not

18:31

a group that has disappeared. So

18:34

that is what I learned when I

18:36

delved more deeply into something

18:38

that I had heard the very brief um

18:41

Museum docent version of while

18:44

on a weekend trip. Museums are very

18:46

inspiring places. They

18:49

are I tend even when I am deliberately

18:51

like, Okay, I am on vacation

18:54

and I am not going to think about the podcast,

18:56

because we like to work on the podcast,

18:58

but it is still our jobs. It is work, and sometimes

19:00

we need to break from work. Um

19:03

So, even when I am conscientiously like I'm

19:05

at this museum for myself and my

19:07

own edification, I still wind up writing

19:09

down things the new episodes about later on

19:11

me to thank

19:18

you so much for joining us today for this Saturday

19:20

classic. If you have heard any kind

19:22

of email address or maybe a Facebook you are

19:25

l during the course of the episode, that might be obsolete.

19:27

It might be doubly obsolete because we have changed

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now reach us at History podcast at

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