Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1917 — REMNANTS OF THE PEQUOTS [ARTICLE]

REMNANTS OF THE PEQUOTS

Few Descendants Left of the Rod Men Who Onoe Lived on Long Island. IDarly in the seventeenth century the Pequots occupied a territory about thirty miles In length and fifteen or twenty in width, lying near the mouth of the Thames river on Long Island sound and northward to a little above They' were estimated variously to number about 8,500, Including 700 warriors. In 1636 Endicott estimated 800 warriors, but while traveling through their country on a punitive expedition Mason found only seventy wigwams. Underhill, an eyewitness at the massacre in which the Pequots were destroyed as a nation, says that 400 men. perished at the Pequot fort at Groton in 1636. In 1655 the shattered tribe was reunited, restored to its ancient name and territory, and placed again under Its own chiefs by permission of the colonial authorities, F. G. Speck writes in the Southern Workman. The Pequots had, however, to pay an annual tribute in wampum to the English. By 1683 their lands and numbers had diminished considerably and In 1731 they were reported to number only 164 persons. In 1762, still occupying their ancient country in two separate bands, they were estimated at 176. In 1786 many jhined the Brothertown Indians In New. York state, whence their descendants migrated with the Oneidas to Wisconsin. Here the Brothertown Indians are still to be found, some of the families still recognizing their Pequot descent. In Connecticut the res* ident included fifty persons in 1820, under chiefs by the names of Shelley, Shantup and Ned. Upon the Inquiry of DeForest, who has written much on the Connecticut tribes in his work, "History of the Indians of Connecticut,** in 1848 only three families, amounting to about seventeen persons, were found on the reservation..