Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/140

104 states that it cannot be easily ascertained. Certain it is, however, that the lay out of this section was not completed as late as 1720, after a period of twenty years' discussion.

My reasons for the position that Barrington is as a whole or in part ancient Sowams are these:

I. The whole territory occupied by Philip, including what is now Bristol and Warren, was known by the Indians and whites as Consumpsit or Mount Hope and Mount Hope Neck and included the land from Kickemuit River on the north to Mount Hope and Narragansett Bays on the south. All references to persons or events in this territory are referred to as at Consumpsit Neck, Mount Hope, Pokanoket, or Kickemuit; Mount Hope was the chief residence of Philip before and while he was sachem of the Wampanoags, while Sowams was the home of Massassoit. Sowams was therefore without the Mount Hope Lands and between them and Rehoboth.

II. Miantonomi, Chief of the Narragansetts, in his deed to Randall Holden, calls the bay in front of the Warwick Purchase "Sowhomes (Sowams) Bay." A most natural thing for him to do, since the Barrington territory opposite was known to his tribe as Sowams. The territory of Warren did not touch the bay, nor could it be seen from the Warwick Purchase, while the lands of Barrington Neck, Sowams, from Rumstick Point to Pomham Rocks were daily seen by his tribe, and the shores and waters of "Sowhomes Bay" were often the scene of deadly contest between the warriors of Canonicus and Massassoit.

III. Nathaniel Morton, Secretary of Plymouth Colony, writing in 1669, a memorial of New England from 1620, states that the chief, Massassoit, after his league with the whites, "returned to his place called Sowams, about forty miles from Plymouth." The foot note to the above statement adds, "Massassoit resided at Sowams or Sowampsett, at the confluence of two rivers in Rehoboth or Swansea, though occasionally at Mont Haup or Mount Hope, the principal residence of his son Philip." Barrington and New