Page:Massasoit's town Sowams in Pokanoket, its history, legends and traditions (IA massasoitstownso00bake).pdf/37

Rh Plymouth government, upon being notified of the condition of affairs, immediately dispatched companies of militia to the assistance of the distressed township. On June 22d, six men were killed or mortally wounded at Mattapoiset. Thursday, June 24th, was appointed a day of fasting and prayer, and as some of the colonists were returning from church they were fired upon by the Indians with the result that one man was killed and another wounded. During the same day "six men were killed in another part of the town." On the 28th, William Hammond was killed and "one Corporal Belcher" wounded while scouring the "enemy's territory" between Miles' garrison at North Swansea and the Sowams' settlement. On the 29th, a party of Indians who had shown themselves near the garrison were pursued by the English towards Sowams but made their escape into a nearby swamp. That night Philip, fearful of capture, abandoned Mt. Hope Neck retreating across the bay to Pocasset, now Tiverton. One of the last acts performed by the savages ere quitting the home of their ancestors, was the final destruction of Sowams. Hubbard tells us that on the following day the entire English force (which had concentrated at North Swansea) marched from Miles' garrison towards Mt. Hope. At a point about a mile and a half below the bridge near the garrison they "passed by some houses newly burned" and "not far off one of them they found a Bible newly torn and the leaves scattered about by the enemy." These charred ruins and torn and scattered leaves were all that remained of English Sowams, ill-fated Sowams, strangely destined to be destroyed by the same hands that had nurtured it in its infancy. Two or three miles further on, at the "Narrow of the Neck" on the west