Momauguin and Half Mile Island: An Historical Journey - Part I

CHAPTER 1: Let Us Step Back In Time To The Early 1600s

Long before the arrival of Europeans, Connecticut was populated by a multitude of American tribes, including the Quinnipiac, a coastal branch of the Algonquin whose language they spoke.  Within the Quinnipiac there were four groups:  the Momauguin, living along the New Haven shore; the Montowese in North Haven, the Shaumpish in Guilford, and the Totoket in Branford. Our story begins with the Momauguin and their migration to East Haven.

Before English colonists arrived, the coastal Momauguins numbered about 250 members.  Living off the water and the land, they pursued a variety of activities: fishing and clamming; farming of beans, squash and corn; and gathering of nuts, berries and roots.  They also hunted game animals and birds. 

They lived in wigwams covered with rush mats, skins or bark.  Travel was by foot or dugout.  Clothing consisted of tanned hides decorated with feathers, porcupine quills, and shell beads.

The East Haven group was led by Momauguin, the sachem (leader) of the tribe at the time of English colonization of New Haven in 1638.  His family included the tribe’s most prominent leaders: his sister, leading the Menunkatuck, and his uncle, the sachem of the Totoket.  

Their culture, blood relationships, and belief in a higher spirit kept them together.  Little is known about their spirituality, except that they practiced rituals and ceremonies showing respect for an inner power they believed existed in all things.  They believed in multiple deities such as the god of the sun, the moon, and the skies.  According to their beliefs, after death the souls of both good and evil left for a spiritual dwelling in the southwest where they enjoyed an afterlife like their time on earth.

Chapter 2: The Colonization of New Haven

It was quite challenging in the 1600s to move from England to New England.  There were no stores or shops to buy provisions, building materials, and furniture.  There were no supermarkets or hospitals.  There was no Starbucks!  Migrants to the new world had to bring everything with them:  furniture, bedding, clothing for all conditions, cookware and plates and knives, books and candles.  They brought all manner of tools.  They brought cows and sheep for their milk or their wool.  When ready to leave, they said their goodbyes, knowing full well that they were leaving forever, to live, die and be buried in a strange land.

In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans colonized North America, mainly in New England. Puritans were generally members of the Church of England who believed that the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, retaining too much of its Roman Catholic doctrinal roots.  In 1633 King Charles I appointed William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest office in the English Church.  Both men hated the Puritans and treated them harshly, with many Puritan ministers arrested for their views.  Eventually it came to pass that two such Puritan ministers, John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, decided to escape to the new world: Mr. Davenport because he was a known and troublesome Puritan, and Mr. Eaton because he was a wealthy man and secretly a Puritan afraid of being found out.  By 1637 they were ready to depart.  After months at sea, they arrived in Boston where they found the people open and friendly.  However, there were signs of religious persecution and the appointment of an English governor of the Massachusetts colony by the King was pending.

And so, the good ship Hector along with a companion ship left Boston in the Spring of 1638.  They planned to sail to a place called Quinnipiac. 

Mr. Eaton’s good friend, Captain Stoughton, had recently visited the area while chasing the Pequot Indians during a fierce war.  The captain had described the fine harbor and rivers that emptied into it, as well as broad rich meadows, as the best place for a settlement that he had ever seen.

That same November, they signed a treaty designating the eastern side of the harbor as a reserve for the Momauguin band.  The remaining lands were formally transferred to the British.

In the early years, the settlers and natives enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship.  Unskilled in hunting, the English traded for deer meat, and learned to fish using weirs (dams) to catch fish.  The natives served as guides and messengers, hunted predators that killed livestock, and taught the settlers how to fish and clam.

By the 1660s, the natives found it challenging to grow sufficient crops on their lands to sustain the tribe.  They offered to buy back some lands to increase their harvests, but after some debate at a town meeting, in 1657 the town rejected the offer.

Despite the strained relations, there remained a mutual interest in a military alliance.  As more and more wars with neighboring tribes occurred, the tribe’s population continued to decrease.  Over time they sold off more lands to the colonists and the English settlement expanded, consuming nearby forests and natural resources needed by the tribe.

In 1675 the Quinnipiac joined the colonists in fighting King Philip and the Wampanoag, who were aligned with the British.  The Quinnipiac lost nearly two thirds of their population and, upon returning home, found the colonists had built a fort around their remaining properties and refused entry to any native.  They were eventually exiled from lands that had been theirs for generations.

As of 1774, only 71 natives remained, and they were further decimated on July 5, 1779, fighting side by side with the colonists against the British invasion of New Haven.  In 1850, the last of the Quinnipiac tribe died.  There are still natives of Connecticut who have Quinnipiac ancestors, but there are no known full-blooded Quinnipiacs left.

Life wasn’t all about Indians, settlers and life under a British King.  Colonists feared outsiders and witches as well.

  Click here for a brief story about the witches of Dark Hallow and “jack o’ lanterns”.