Harper's Round Table, May 5, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

There once lived in New York an Indian warrior by the name of Peter Twenty Canoes. Tommy Ten Canoes lived at Pokanoket, near Mount Hope, on an arm of the Mount Hope Bay.
He was not a warrior, but a runner; not a great naval hero, as his picturesque name might suggest, but a news agent, as it were; he used his nimble feet and his ten canoes to bear messages to the Indians of the villages of Pokanoket and to the Narragansetts, and, it may be, to other friendly tribes.
Pokanoket? You may have read Irving's sketch of Philip of Pokanoket, but we doubt if you have in mind any clear idea of this once beautiful region, from whose clustering wigwams the curling smoke once rose from the giant oaks over the many waterways. The place of it on the map is now covered by Bristol and Warren (Rhode Island) and Swansea (Massachusetts). It is a place of bays and rivers, which were once rich fishing-grounds; of shores full of shells and shell-fish; of cool springs and wild-grape vines; of bowery hills; and of meadows that were once yellow with maize.
Tommy Ten Canoes was a great man in his day. As a news agent in peace he was held in high honor, but as a scout in war and a runner for the great chiefs he became a heroic figure. There were great ospreys' nests all about the shores of old Pokanoket on the ancient decayed trees, and Tommy made a crown of osprey feathers, and crowned himself, with the approval of the great Indian chiefs.
Once when swimming with this crown of feathers on his head, he had been shot at by an Englishman, who thought him some new and remarkable bird. But while his crown was shattered, it was not the crown of his head. He was very careful of both his crowns after that alarming event.
Tommy Ten Canoes was a brave man. He was ready to face any ordinary danger for his old chief Massasoit, and for that chief's two sons, Wamsutta (Alexander) and Pomebacen (Philip). He would cross the Mount Hope or the Narragansett bay in tempestuous weather. He used to convey the beautiful Queen Weetamoc from Pocassett to Mount Hope to attend Philip's war-dances under the summer moons, and when the old Indian war began he offered his two swift legs and all of his ten canoes to the service of his chief.