THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Golden Hill Indians
The Housatonic
The Wepawaug
Cupheags and Pequannock
Weantinock
Goodyear's Island
Indian Slaves
Indian Remnants
Indian Troubles
New Indian Papers

THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Wm. Howard Wilcoxson

Stratford Indians

Trouble with the Indians

Establishing Title to the Land

Indian Deeds and Relics

White Hills Purchase

FORREST MORGAN

Lifestyles, Government, Religion and War

Indian Titles and Mohegan Land Troubles

Sowheag, Uncas, and Miantonomo

Owenoco, the Son of Uncas

THE? HOUSATONIC

CHARD POWERS SMITH

The Promised Land
Heathen in the Land
The Lord's Scouts

The Land and The Lord

The Next Seven Tribes

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON

Connecticut Indian History

The Pequot War

COLONIAL HISTORY OF PEQUOT SWAMP

Charlotte Lacey Historical Story of Southport

The Pequot Swamp was responsible for the being of Southport and it is fitting to give it honorable mention in this story. It was described by one of the participators in the Great Swamp Fight as a hideous swamp! The fragments of which still exist show a rich black mire which unquestionably would be very productive under cultivation. Some of the settlers knew a good thing when they saw it.

I found the following on the Town Records.

May 15, 1684

Wee, the Town Committee appointed by the town to exchange lands, have granted unto Mr. John Burr and unto Samuel Ward the Great Swamp on Ye west side of Mill Hill, as it is already bounded, but the whole that we have granted to them is 25 acres, they to divide between them when they please, and it is bounded on all sides by the Common. In consideration of the premises, the said John Burr returns to ye town his building and his pasture lot hee had in ye woods.

These 25 acres have been drained and utilized so that now only a few fragments of the great swamp remain. Mrs. John Hawkins and Miss Emma Hawkins own a portion adjoining or including, the traditional knoll where the fight took place. Center street passes through this spot. Two monuments stand to mark the site of this historic encounter. One is of stone and was erected by the sons of the Colonial Wars. The other is the living monument, which marks the western end of the swamp and that is the Southport Park. This tract of woodland, comprising about 12 acres, has undoubtedly never been other than woodland.

In the distribution of the estate of James Dennie, who died in 1759, about twenty acres of woodland in Sasqua were divided between his two daughters Sarah Dennie Sayre and Eunice Dennie Burr. The greater part of that woodland is now embraced in the Southport Park area.

Pequot Swamp was until 1835 another natural curiosity of the town. It was so named from the famous swamp fight between the New Englanders and the Pequots, which will eer make it remarkable in the annals of local history. The rise of ground in its center, which had the appearance of an artificial mound, was a natural hill. For a long time it was supposed to be the work of the Indians, and filled with their graves; but when Pequot Avenue was opened in 1835, it became necessary to make a passage through it. This was done by tunneling through the center, as the ground above was frozen hard. Most of the men of the place were sea captains, who employed their leisure hours in the winter in making this excavation. They found but one Indian skeleton, and to their surprise discovered, by the different strata of earth, that the supposed mound was a natural hill. The open hill for many ears formed walls on either side of the road, which are now leveled, so that only a faint vestige of the hill is to be seen. (History of Fairfield, Elizabeth Hubbell Schenck)

Indian Names of Fairfield, Cyrus Sherwood Bradley

Sasquaukit, where the last fight was (Roger Williams, Letter, 1637, Coll. Mass. His. Soc. 4^th Ser. VI. 213). For from New Haven to Sashquaket we did pursue the Pequets (Thomas Stanton, Letter 1659 Stratford Records in Orcutt's History of Stratford and Bridgeport, 12). The Indians at Sasquat 1656 Sasquat field, Ibid Ye land at ye Towne is built up on ye Creeke yt ye Tide mill of Fairefield [stands upon] South Westward is called Sasqua, March 20, 1656-7.Sasqua Land, Ibid. Sasqua Indians, Ibid.Ye Sasqua Land, April 11, 1661 (2). Sasquanaugh, 1679