OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES.
BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
No. VI.
LOVEWELL'S FIGHT WITH THE PIGWACKETS.
At the southern base of the White Mountains, where the river Saco winds through green meadows, was the home of the Pigwacket Indians. Their chief was Paugus. During the years of peace he visited the English in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and was well acquainted with the settlers, but he liked the French better.
The Jesuit Father Rale, who had converted the Kennebec Indians, made his influence felt over all the surrounding tribes, and Paugus, through his influence, sided with the French. He could always obtain guns, powder, and balls at Quebec and Montreal in exchange for furs.
From their wigwams on the Saco, it was easy for the Pigwackets to go down that stream to the settlements in Maine, or going southwest to the "Smile of the Great Spirit," as they called Lake Winnipiseogee, they could descend the Merrimac to the settlements in Massachusetts.
In 1724 the Pigwackets killed two men at Dunstable. When the alarm was given, eleven men started after them, but the Indians discovering them, shot all but two, took their scalps, and returned to their wigwams on the Saco, where they held a great feast over the successful raid, dancing and howling through the night, and boasting of what they would do on the next raid.
"I will give £100 for every Indian scalp," said the Governor of Massachusetts.