Mohican Influence on Great Barrington

As I research my family I find more and more evidence of Mohican people who remained in the homeland, married, had families and became an important part of the community.  My great-grandfather Henry Winchell, his father John L. Winchell, his brothers Daniel and Robert Winchell and his cousin Nathaniel Warner were all carpenters.  In addition, Henry’s uncles Isaac Strong and Uriah Surriner were also Native and also carpenters.  They all lived in the town of Great Barrington, Berkshire County, Massachusetts.  Although the central fire of the Mohican Nation had moved and for the most part the ways of the ancestors had been forgotten, the Mohicans still continued to literally shape Berkshire County society through its descendants.  Did the residents know their homes and businesses were built by them?

Henry F. Winchell

 Here is a photo taken from A History of Searles Castle in Great Barrington, Massachusetts: The Great Wigwam written by the late Lila S. Parrish:

 

I remember when I first saw it.  I was visiting James N. Parrish at his home.  He seems to have a photographic memory for all Great Barrington history and I enjoyed discussing it with him.  He showed me this book that his mother had written.  He put it down on the table to go get something else.  While he was gone, I looked more closely at the photo and was very surprised to see that my great-grandfather was the last person on the right.  His characteristic posture makes him easily identifiable.  This is the only piece of documentation for the constructive left in existence.  I see some resemblance among the men.  I will always probably wonder who his relatives are in the photo. It seems very likely that there is more than one family member on a big job like this.  I like the photo very much.  It almost makes me feel that these men are happy that I’ve discovered who they are to me.

 Here is a photo of the constructed building, Searles Castle,from CNBC no less.  The Castle was an ostentatious anachronism in the New England village of Great Barrington.  As I have always approached it from the west, its location seemed to dominate the entry into downtown.  In a way, it dominated my perception of it, too, and now I know why.

Searles Castle, Great Barrington, Mass.

 Below is another photo showing one view of the marvelous woodwork inside, supporting my theory that multiple carpenters would've been needed during the construction.

 

I've never been able to see the interior myself.

John Van Gilder's Character

In the course of investigating a crown court case between the two prominent and powerful landlords Van Rensselaer and Livingston, the following testimony on the character of the Mohican-Wappinger man John Van Gilder was obtained from Timothy Woodbridge in 1768.  Woodbridge was a teacher at the Stockbridge Mission in western Massachusetts. 

That he [Timothy Woodbridge] known and been acquainted with Joseph Van Gelder’s family his Father an Indian his Mother a White Woman and well behaved.  It is probable Joseph Van Gelder was baptized.  His father attended the publick Worship and was Christened as he told the witness  That he understood Joseph Van Gelder had been also christened  the Family lived in a Manner of the English and Dutch and were esteemed to be christians like the rest of the Neigbours  it is 27 or 28 Years since he instructed Joseph Van Gelder in Reading and the Catechism, he has seen the Family admitted as witnesses  Joseph Van Gelder was eight or nine Years old when he was at School with [me] he was there two Summers  Supposes all the Children of old Van Gelder and his wife when were baptized  that his father was put on the same footing with respect to the Laws as the Whites were  other Indians were not so considered.

Richard Moore further claimed:

he has known Joseph Van Gelder [John's son who was also interviewed for this case] he is Christian and baptized by a high Dutch Minister  Joseph Van Gelder’s Father’s Children was baptized and he himself  That he was Married by a Minister.  Joseph Van Gelder lives at Egremont on this side Howsitenack River to the Eastward of Tackannick Mountains  he his [sic] known him from a Child  he always bears a good Character  he would Venture to take his Oath at any time for the truth  The General Reputation is that he is a Christian.  He believes His father belonged to the Catt’s Kills 

This documentation can be found in the New-York Historical Society, Miscellaneous Manuscripts V, filed under John Van Rensselaer.

Mohican Reserved Land

Occasionally I see a reference to the Mohican reservation in Berkshire County.  It perplexed me until I began my research.  The reservation was not as we know reservations today, poor land where Native Americans were forced by the United States government to live in poor housing with little food.  This reservation was only land reserved by the Mohican Nation for themselves.  There was a Mohican settlement nearby at one time in the vicinity of Big Springs, but not during the 1700s. 

On 20 October 1740 the Mohican Nation leased the northern half of the reserved land to Andrew Karner, Van Gelder's brother-in-law.  The  Mohicans deeded the southern half of the land to Van Gelder on 19 June 1744 and he deeded part  to his other brother-in-law Lodowick Karner 15 June 1745.    They all lived in the northern half of the land.  It is possible that this was part of a survival strategy by the nation, to make sure they had land they could move to if need be.  This practice was followed by their relatives in northwestern Connecticut.

In this map that I created, the extended family lived on the land between the purple dashed lines.  There was a  Mohican burial ground at the mouth of Guilder Hollow and it was probably used by my family.  It was dug up in the 1950s to be used as roadfill, even though there was a headstone and bones visible in the dirt.

Mohican References

Below is an updated list of published references on the Mohican Nation and its people.

Mohican Bibliography

Bradley, James W. (June 28, 2007). Before Albany: An Archaeology of Native-Dutch Relations in the Capital Region 1600-1664, New York State Museum, Albany, N.Y.

Brasser, Ted, "Mahican," Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15: Northeast, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Calloway, Colin G. (1995). The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. Cambridge Studies in North American Indian History. Cambridge University Press, New York, N.Y.

Calloway, Colin (1990). The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration and the Survival of an Indian People. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Okla.

Carlson, Richard G., editor. (1987). Rooted Like the Ash Trees: New England Indians and the Land. Eagle Wing Press, Inc., Naugatuck, Conn.

Day, Gordon (1981). “The Identity of the St. Francis Indians,” Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71. Ottawa, Ont., Canada.

Shirley W. Dunn (October 30, 2009). The River Indians: Mohicans Making History. Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmans, NY.

Shirley W. Dunn, editor (September 30, 2005) Mohican Seminar 2: The Challege An Algonquian Peoples Seminar, New York State Museum, Albany, N.Y.

Dunn, Shirley, editor (2004). Mohican Seminar 1, The Continuance-An Algonquian Peoples Seminar, Selected Research Papers - 2000. New York State Museum Bulletin 501 2004. University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, Albany, N.Y.

Dunn, Shirley (2002). The Mohican World. Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmans, NY.

Dunn, Shirley (1994). The Mohicans and Their Land. Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmans, NY.

Frazier, Patrick (1992). The Mohicans of Stockbridge. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Haefeli, Evan and Kevin Sweeney (1997). “Revisiting The Redeemed Captive: New Perspectives on the 1704 Attack on Deerfield,” in Colin Calloway, After King Philip’s War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. University Press of New England, Hanover, N.H.

Haviland, William A. and Marjory W. Power (1994). The Original Vermonters: Native Inhabitants, Past and Present. University Press of New England, Hanover, N.H.

Miles, Lion G. (2009). A Life of John Konkapot. New Marlborough, MA, Historical Society.

Miles, Lion G. (2008). "The Stockbridge Indians in New York, 1784-1829," Proceedings of the Northeastern Native Peoples & the American Revolutionary Era: 1760-1810 Symposium,  Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, , Mashantucket, CT, pp. 32-48.

Miles, Lion G. (March 1994). "The Red Man Dispossessed: The Williams Family and the Alienation of Indian Land in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1736-1818." The New England Quarterly, Vol. LXVII, No. 1, pp. 46-76. Also anthologized in Alden T. Vaughan, ed. (1999), New England Encounters, Northeastern University Press, Boston, Mass., pp. 276-302.

James W. Oberly (February 1, 2008). A Nation Of Statemen: The Political Culture of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans, 1815-1972 (Civilization of the American Indian). University of Oklahoma Press.

Smith, J. Michael (Spring 2010). "Wappinger Kinship Associations: Daniel Nimham's Family Tree," The Hudson River Valley Review, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 69-98.

Rachel Wheeler (June 2008). To Live Upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth-century Northeast. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.