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��THE TWO LAST SAGAMORES OF NEWICHAWANNOCK.
��South Berwick now stands. Seven years later Gov. Godfrey and council granted to Richard Leaders, Assabumbadoc falls and adjacent lands. Dams and mills were erected there, and at Quampheagen and Salmon Falls. The forests melted away, the game disappeared and migra- tory fish could no longer ascend the river. Every means on which Rowles and his people had relied for support had been swept away.
In 1670, five years before the com- mencement of the Indian wars. Rowles being bedridden with age and sickness, complained of the great neglect with which he had been treated by the English. At length he sent a messenger to some ot the principal men of Newichawan- nock to make him a visit. He told them " he was loaded with years and that he expected a visit in his infirmities from those who were now tenants on the land of his fathers. Though all of these plan- tations are of right my children's, I am forced in this age of evil, humbly to re- quest a few hundred acres of land to be marked out and recorded for them upon the town books as a public act, so that when I am gone they will not be perish- ing beggars in the pleasant places of their birth."
This modest request of the dying Rowles was deemed of sufficient im- portance to be attested to by Major Waldron and others, but it was never granted. Rowles passed away beyond the setting sun, leaving no inheritance for his children in the places of their birth .
His son and successor, Blind Will— who received that name from having lost one eye — regarding the premonitory counsel of his father with sacred respect, at the commencement of the King Phil-
��lip war, about 1675, he entered the Eng- lish service where he remained two years, or until his death. Although sometimes distrusted by his comrades because he had a red skin he always proved himself loyal to the English and is spoken of by the early historians as a Sagamore of note and ability. He be- came the trusted friend of Maj. Waldron, accompanied him on various expeditions against the Indians and acted as pilot in the expedition to Ossipee lakes.
After the English made an alliance with the " Mohawks " against the Eastern tribes, strange Indians were re- ported to be in the vicinity of Coehecho. Maj. Waldron sent Blind Will with a company to ascertain who they were. The "Mohawks" mistaking them for en- emies rushed upon them and only three escaped. Blind Will was dragged away by his hair and perished in the woods at the confluence of the Isinglass and Cho- checho rivers in the south-west part of Rochester, a short distance above the line between Rochester and Dover. This location still bears the name of " Blind Will's Neck," and the old inhab- itants in that locality will point out the spot where he was buried, and some of them insist that they have heard his ' k war-whoop " as they pass it with their teams in the midnight hour. Few of the subjects of Rowles remained long in the valley of the Newichawannock after his death. A century ago one had his home on the banks of Worster's river, near the Newichawannock, by the name of Sun- set, a suggestive name. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the old Wors- ter burying ground and not a ray of twi- light from the departed race lingers in the pleasant places of their birth.
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