9 



far less ability and unable to resist the pressure of the English 

 immigration. 



The new comers to Pennycook encountered no opposition 

 from the red men. Indeed, about all of these had retired in- 

 land before their advent. A few only maintained a straggling 

 life in and around this locality. Of these, Waternummons was 

 the most prosperous and important. 



His wigwam stood on the south bank of the brook which 

 drains the waters of Horse Shoe pond into Merrimack river, 

 and still bears his name; midway between the two, at a point 

 where the Concord & Montreal railroad crosses it. Its site 

 was the highest in that vicinity and above the annual freshets. 

 From its entrance he could survey his little patches of corn and 

 pumpkins which his squaws were wont to plant and cultivate. 

 Descending therefrom a few steps he could give attention to his 

 pots of wicker work anchored in the stream to capture fish for 

 his larder, while on their passage between the pond and the 

 river. Here he smoked his pipe, nursed his scattered thoughts, 

 and responded by shrugs of his shoulders and by deep gutterals 

 to the remarks made to him by his unwelcome neighbors. He 

 considered the lands about him his by occupancy. 1 They con- 

 sidered them theirs, by a title which traced back to its origin 

 was the same. Might was the tribunal which settled land 

 titles in those days. Waternummons was soon to lose his 

 cause in this despotic court. He was the last of the Penny- 

 cooks at the headquarters of his people. 



From the spring of 1726, when the survey of the plantation 

 was made, on for four successive seasons, the proprietors were 



1 The Indian title to the lands at Pennycook was extinguished near the 

 close of the seventeenth century, as appears by the following extract from the 

 Massachusetts records : 



" Wanalanset made a demand of the Lands at Penicook from Suncook to 

 Contocook as his Inheritance, saying that they were never purchased of him 

 nor his Fathers ; and he likewise in behalf of the Indians resorting to Peni- 

 cook, prayed that a Trading house might be set up there. 



" The Govr thereupon acquainted the Indians, that Wanalanset, Chief Sa- 

 chem on Merrimack River, had sold all those lands to the English almost 

 forty years agoe, and the Secretary shew' d the Indian the Record of his 

 Deeds, with which they express'd themselves fully satisfied and acknowledged 

 that the English had a good right to the said Lands by those Deeds." — 

 Mass. Council Records and Archives, Vol. 31, p. 183. 



