pendent chief, and placed himself and his tribe of several
thousand souls under the protection of the colonial magistrates. The
Indian villages at Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack, and Wamesit Falls,
on the Concord, the Musketaquid of the aborigines, were first visited in
1647 by the Reverend John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. In 1652,
Captain Simon Willard and Captain Edward Johnson made their tour up the
Merrimack Paver to Lake Winnipiseogee, and marked a stone near the Weirs
as the northern boundary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The following
year the work of settlement swept onward, crowding in upon the
cornfields of the red men; and Eliot, caring for his charges, procured
the passage of an act by the General Court reserving a good part of the
land on which Lowell now stands to the exclusive use of the Indians.

[Illustration: MERRIMACK RIVER BELOW HUNT'S FALLS.]

The towns of Chelmsford and Billerica were incorporated May 29, 1655.

In 1656, Major-General Daniel Gookin was appointed superintendent of all
the Indians under the jurisdiction of the Colony. By his fair dealing he
won their entire confidence. They had good friends in Judge Gookin and
the Apostle Eliot, who were ever ready to protect them from
encroachments of their neighbors.

In 1660, Passaconaway relinquished all authority over his tribe,
retiring at a ripe old age, and turning over his office of sachem to his
son Wannalancet, whose headquarters were at Penacook. Numphow, who was
married to one of Passaconaway's daughters, was the chief for some years
of the village of Pawtucket. In 1669, Wannalancet, in dread of the
Mohawks, came down the river with his whole tribe, and located at
Wamesit, and built a fortification on Fort Hill in Belvidere, which was
surrounded with palisades. The white settlers of the vicinity, catching
the alarm, took refuge in garrison-houses.

[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE OVER PAWTUCKET FALLS.]

In 1674, there were at Wamesit fifteen families, or seventy-five souls,
enumerated as Christian Indians, aside from about two hundred who
adhered to their primitive faith in the Great Spirit. Numphow was their
magistrate as well as chief, his cabin standing near the Boott Canal.
The log chapel presided over by the Indian preacher, Samuel, stood at
the west end of Appleton Street near the site of the Eliot Church. In
May of each year came Eliot and Gookin; the former to give spiritual
advice; the latter to act as umpire or judg