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Updated: May 9, 2025
The place of settlement was at the northeastern corner of the island, and was known first by its Indian name of Pocasset and afterwards as Portsmouth. The first settlers, nineteen in number, constituted themselves a body politic and elected William Coddington as executive magistrate, with the title of chief judge, and William Aspinwall as secretary.
At Pocasset the young men explored all the thick woods, some who ought to have known better taking their guns, which made a talk, as one might well suppose it would. Hunting on a Sabbath day! They did n't mean to shoot Myrtle Hazard, did they? it was keenly asked.
She had no thought of surrendering herself into slavery. No respect was paid to her. Her head was cut off and hoisted upon a pole in the town of Taunton, as revenge for the similar beheading of some English bodies, earlier in the war. When, in Taunton, the Pocasset captives saw the head "They made a most horrid and diabolical lamentation, crying out that it was their queen's head."
To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers began to plot against his life, that by sacrificing him they might purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery a number of his faithful adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy.
When King Philip had planned his war, he well knew that he might depend upon Wetamoo, the squaw sachem of Pocasset. After the death of the luckless Alexander, Wetamoo married a Pocasset Indian named Petananuit. He was called by the English "Peter Nunnuit." This Peter Nunnuit appears to have been a poor sort of a husband, for he early deserted to the enemy, leaving his wife to fight alone.
Appearance of the embassadors. Exciting conference. Rage of Captain Church. Awashonks to remain friendly. The Pocasset tribe. Wetamoo joins Philip. Indian warfare. The colonists much scattered. An illustration. Heroic woman. Dispatching the Indians. Succor arrives. Defiance of the English. Horrible sight. Destruction of corn. An ambush. Attempt to surround them. A retreat.
In a cruise last summer we dropped anchor in a lovely little out-of-the-way harbor of Buzzard's Bay, which proved to be near Pocasset; where, not long ago, a pious man, reading the Hebrew tradition of Abraham and Isaac, as a real command of the Most High, and having this word of the Lord borne in on his mind, as spoken to himself, murdered his child in sacrifice to God no angel interfering to stay his knife.
By the first week in August of 1676, she had only twenty-six men left, out of her three hundred. Then there came to the colonists at Taunton, which lay up the river Taunton from Pocasset, another deserter, with word that he could lead them to the little Wetamoo camp, not far southward. Twenty armed English descended upon her, August 6, and easily overcame her camp. She alone escaped, in flight.
The next morning, Major Bradford, with his whole force, marched down the Tiverton shore, and encamped at a place called Punkatese, half way between Pocasset and Saconet Point. Awashonks collected her warriors and repaired to Punkatese to meet the English. Major Bradford received her with severity and suspicion, which appears to have been quite unjustifiable.
Captain Church soon after joined a body of English and returned to Pocasset, and Philip, after a skirmish, retired to the swamps, where for a time his situation became desperate; but at length he contrived to elude his besiegers, and fled to the Nipmucks, who received him with a warmth of welcome quite gratifying to the ambitious chieftain.
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