[5] Undoubtedly much of the clay used in Pokanoket was procured at Barrington and North Swansea.
[6] Captain Thomas Hunt. He sold the Indians, Winslow tells us, for £20 apiece “like a wretched man that cares not what mischief he doth for his profit.”
[7] From Handy Street to Metacom Avenue.
[8] Another name of Massasoit.
[9] Durfee, “Whatcheer.”
[10] Winthrop.
[11] Morton’s Memorial, Appendix, 463.
[12] The late Miss Annie E. Cole, who spent many years in collecting historical data relating to Warren, believed that the trading post occupied a central location upon the west bank of the Kickemuit, near the “wading-place” before mentioned.
[13] On the east shore of the river, a few yards below the “wading-place,” could be seen less than a century ago, the remains of an Indian “hot-house,” a cell-like chamber constructed of stone and built into the river bank, having in its centre, a flat bed of stone, the whole enclosure measuring about eight feet in length. The savages made use of the sweating-bath in sickness or to cleanse their skins of accumulations of dirt, paint, and grease. A huge fire was built on the rude fireplace of the “hot house,” being removed after the chamber became thoroughly heated. The Indians then seated themselves around the hot stones, and remained “for an hour or more,” says Roger Williams, “taking tobacco, discoursing and sweating together.” After thus profusely perspiring they plunged into the water, to cool their bodies.
[14] The Indians accounted for the serpentine course of Kickemuit River thus. Ages ago, they said, a deluge covered the whole face of the earth. When the waters subsided, a certain divinity who inhabited Pokanoket, feeling hungry sallied forth in search of food. Espying a huge eel basking in the mud, he raised his spear aloft but the eel, perceiving his design, began wriggling rapidly in the opposite direction. As it twisted, first to the right then to the left, its pursuer was obliged to also constantly turn and turn and soon became so fatigued that the eel easily out-distanced him and finally plunged into Mount Hope Bay. The track left in the mud by pursued and pursuer eventually became the bed of the Kickemuit River.