12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



a broken line indicates the route of the party westward. They un- 

 doubtedly followed an Indian trail, which may have been about the 

 course of the road that leads west from Falmouth, on the left bank 

 of the Rappahannock at the falls, and crosses the river at Richards 

 Ford, about i mile above the mouth of the Rapidan.'" 



The name Manahoac was not used by Lederer when referring to 

 the native tribes, although it had been employed in the earlier records, 

 but it is believed the names Mahoc and IMahock of his narrative were 

 other forms of the word that were used at the later day. 



As so often told in history, sometime before the spring of 1656 

 a large number of Indians, probably an entire village with all of their 

 possessions, " sett downe neer the falls of James river, to the number 

 of six or seaven hundred "." They had come as friends to seek a 

 new home, not as enemies, and desired peace, not war. Later they 

 were attacked by the colonists in the endeavor to expel them from 

 the colony. The English had as allies Totopotomi and his Pamunkey 

 warriors. In the encounter that ensued the English sufifered great 

 losses and their allies were routed and driven back." The Indians 

 against whom the combined attack had been directed probably retired 

 up the James and were lost to history, but INIohawk Creek, on the 

 right bank of the James a mile or more south of the present Gooch- 

 land, is believed to perpetuate their name. 



Some 15 years after the disastrous encounter Lederer mentioned 

 it and wrote in part : " a great Indian king called Tottopottoma was 

 heretofore slain in battle, fighting for the Christians against the 

 Mahocks and Nahyssana." '' The latter were from far up the James, 

 and it is now believed the Mohocks, who had come from a distance, 



*" The road as it was used at the beginning of the last century was shown on 

 the Bishop James Madison map, first issued in 1807 and again in 1818; also on 

 the Nine Sheet Map, 1827. The road from Falmouth crossed the Rappahannock 

 at Richards Ford, then continued to Stevensburg and beyond, as it does at the 

 present time. 



" Hening, WilHam Waller, The statutes at large .... of all the laws of 

 Virginia, vol. i, New York, 1823. 



" The exact date of the engagement is not known, but it occurred subsequent 

 to March 27, 1656, when it was enacted by the General Assembly " That the 

 two upper countyes, under the command of Coll. Edward Hill, do presently send 

 forth a party of 100 men at least and that they shall first endeavour to remoove 

 the said new come Indians without makeing warr if it may be, only in case 



of their own defence " (Hening, vol. i, pp. 402-403). And it was probably 



between April 23 and June 4, 1656, as is suggested by brief references to early 

 Council and General Court records. (Virginia Hist. Mag., Virginia Hist. Soc, 

 vol. 8, no. 2, p. 164, Richmond, 1900.) 



" Lederer, op. cit. 



