The Devil's Footprints, Washington Irving & King Philip's War

Who needs the tales of Washington Irving when you have the legendary history of the Leonard Family of the Bridgewater Triangle’s Taunton and Norton? Spooky elements of the Leonard family history sounds very much like a combination of two of Irving’s most famous stories: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Pacts with the Satan, devil’s footprints, buried bones–even a man on galloping on horseback through the woods carrying a severed head are just some of the legends associated with this early colonial family. “It is said that (George) Leonard made a league with the devil in order to acquire great wealth. He promised his body to the devil when he died. Leonard became very rich and an influential citizen of the town. In 1716 when Leonard died, the devil came to claim his body. Surprised in the act, the devil climbed out a window. He jumped so hard on a nearby boulder, that he left footprints there. One can see those footprints on the rock by the parking lot of the Solomonese School. The mansion was situated at the corner of West Main and North Worcester Streets where Chartley Corner Plaza is today,” says the Norton Historical society about the legend. Norton Historical Society’s George Yelle says that while he is not a believer in the paranormal, he has to admit he found it odd that when he was filmed for a local cable station special about the Devil’s Footprints at the rock he had to do the entire shoot over again. Shortly after shooting Yelle’s interview, producers of the cable show contacted Yelle, explaining though this had never happened before in any of their careers, the footage of his interview at the Devil’s Footprints inexplicably was now blank and they needed to schedule a reshoot. The second attempt at filming was successful. Washington Irving’s tale of another fortune-seeking Colonial character that Irving named Tom Walker, also has a man on horseback encounter a man in black in the dark woods, but Irving places Walker in a dark swamp: “One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighbourhood, he took what he considered a short cut homewards through the swamp. Like most short cuts, it was an ill chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high; which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighbourhood. In Irvings tale, Walker’s destination is an old Indian Fort. “At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground, which ran out like a peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the strong holds of the Indians during their wars with the first colonists. Here they had thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children.” “It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Anyone but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely melancholy place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time of the Indian wars; when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be troubled with any fears of the kind. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and lo! a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors.” Strange that George Leonard’s grandfather played a role in that very Indian wars Irving refers to. Because this story of the Leonard’s begins with Thomas Leonard, George Leonard’s grandfather, who was among the first men to settle the area of Taunton in a part of town that is present-day Raynham. The son of an English iron worker, Thomas Leonard and his brother immediately set out to build the first successful iron forge in the country, using the rich iron ore deposits of nearby Fowling Pond and Lake Nippenicket. Fowling Pond has long since disappeared, now a swath of land known as Pine Swamp on King Philip’s Street. Reportedly two miles long and nearly three-quarters of mile wide, historians of the 19th century recorded recollections of old timers who remembered swimming and boating on Fowling Pond in their youth. B4INREMOTE-aHR0cDovLzIuYnAuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLy1vcjRZNF9fZDJfay9VSGdfckNxSVdDSS9BQUFBQUFBQUFXWS9KY3E0bG1Sa1BYOC9zNDAwL1ZCK1JheW5oYW0rMSstK0Zvd2xpbmcrUG9uZCslMjUyODElMjUyOS5qcGc= Fowling Pond. Courtesy of Old Colony Historical Society. How Fowling Pond, once the summer camp of King Philip (Massasoit’s son) disappeared is a bit of a mystery. “Perhaps a great storm cut a swath through the embankment and drained the pond, it is one of nature’s curiosities where once King Philip rested and summered on the banks of a beautiful body of water and the tribe stocked to food to last through the long cold months ahead, there is now nothing left but the tall trees rising from a murky swamp.” Carolyn Owen, former Old Colony Historical Society Archivist. Before 1670, Thomas Leonard built a house that might have been the oldest house in country to bare the scars of war. It was said until at least the 1900s, there was “an ancient case of drawers that used to stand in this house upon which the deep scars of King Philip’s War and mangled impressions are to be seen” that was still in existence. Until its destruction in 1850, the Leonard house was officially the oldest mansion in the country The house was enormous compared to America’s standards at the time. Thomas Leonard would have no way of knowing that his grand home would serve as a garrison in a war that would go down as being the most grizzly, barbaric, and bloodiest war in the history of America. Known locally until its destruction as “The House of Seven Gables,” the old Leonard house rose two-and-half stories, framed with its famed façade gables. The house’s most unique feature was its impressive two story, gable-roofed porch. B4INREMOTE-aHR0cDovLzEuYnAuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLy1fZGVCNVBmVFNRcy9VSGdfdVB2VmNSSS9BQUFBQUFBQUFXZy9GdE9sRTcwVGsyMC9zNDAwL1ZCK1JheW5oYW0rMistK0hvdXNlK29mK1NldmVuK0dhYmxlcytMZW9uYXJkK0hvdXNlK2Ryd2cuanBn The “House of Seven Gables.” Courtesy of The Old Colony Historical Society. The house served a major role in King Philip’s War– a war that would only last fourteen months and would totally decimate the Wamapanoag Tribe, whose territories stretched from Halifax to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island at the time of the war. “King Philip,” whose Native American name was either Pometacom or Metacom, was the second son of Chief Massasoit, who aided the pilgrims in their early years and taught them how to survive in an unfamiliar land. In 1675, after over ten years of tension between the tribe and the colonists, war broke out. Before the late 1800s, King Philip’s War was simply known as “The Indian War,” as Washington Irving refers to it in “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Massasoit’s first son Alexander (Wamsutta) was taken prisoner by the Plymouth Colony Militia in 1662 who mysteriously fell ill while being held for questioning in Duxbury. Many historians speculate, based on Plymouth Colony records, that Alexander was murdered. After Alexander’s death, Philip became chief and in the next thirteen years, tensions would only mount between the Wampanoag Tribe, who had inhabited the land for over 30,000 years and the English, who had been here roughly 40 years. There was no tension between the Leonard Family and the Wampanoag Tribe. The great chief and the Leonards were neighbors and spent time together in the summer when Philip “was in town” as well as traded amonst each other. The Leonards had valuable metal tools needed by the tribe. In 1675, inevitable war broke out. But King Philip gave strict orders to his warriors to spare Leonard Country from attacks and burning. He made them promise “never to harm a Leonard.” The Chief’s order was ignored at least once, possibly twice. The first time was well documented when Uriah, James Leonard’s brother, was shot at by Wampanoag Warriors as he tried to escape horseback. Fortunately for Leonard, the two bullets aimed at his head simply passed through his hat. The most tragic betrayal of King Philip’s warriors (If it even HAPPENED!) to their Chief’s command would be the shooting of two young girls who tried to flee the garrison. In 1797, a genealogist and historian by the name of Dr. Fobes published a book of historical recollections of Taunton. It is in Fobes’ book that this story appears about the two girls being killed at the garrison. What is the opinion of The Old Colony Historical Society on this matter? Their standpoint on what they consider to be legend is that if this event actually happened, there would be some kind of documentation, not just a blurb in one historical recollection. In his book, Fobes wrote that the two young war victims were buried beneath the porch of the Leonard House. In this same book, Fobes makes reference to an event that if indeed true, then it was by far the most horrific act ever performed in the Old Leonard house. Fobes makes mention of the “deposition”of King Philip’s head in the basement of the Leonard house. Captured and killed on August 12, 1676, Captain Benjamin Church ordered the chief’s beheading and quartering of his body. The four corners of his body were hung in trees, Church vowing that King Philip’s soul would never rest, as his bones would never be buried. The image of Church riding his horse, carrying around a severed head through the forests of New England on his way to present to Plymouth is gruesome indeed. That he may have stashed the chief’s head at the Leonard House–King Philip’s trusted friends– is simply horrific. This writer cannot help but to wonder if James Leonard even knew, or if Church hid the head in the cellar of the garrison without consent from Leonard. Wonder is all we can do. Since no details of how long or when the head “was deposited” at the Leonard family exist on record–and only exists in Fobes recollection–even the Old Colony Historical Society is forced to speculate.