Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program
History Of Connecticut's Water Trails
Native Americans
The
A small band, headed by a chief named Sebequanash (the man who weeps). The Hammonasset Indians were one of five tribes who lived, fished and farmed the area when the first English settlers arrived in 1639 in the Clinton to Madison area.
Location
These Indians lived on the west side of the
Connecticut River
to the
Hammonasset River
along the Sound.
They also resided westward of that river in North Madison and
North Guilford to Bluff Head.
Name
Hammonasset Indians, whose
name means "where we dig the ground" "where we dig holes in the ground,"
which is a reference to the tribe's ancient agricultural lifestyle.
Connecticut Village Locations
Clinton,
Guilford, and
Madison
By the time European settlers arrived in the mid to late 1600's, the area was farmed by the Hammonasset Indians. Their main crops were probably beans, corn and squash, plus they also collected shellfish and probably fished in the Sound and rivers. The Hammonasset Indians later turned over the area around Hammonasset to the Mohegans as part of a marriage dowry. The Mohegan Sachem Uncas sold the area to George Fenwick in 1639, who later gave or traded this land to the Guilford colony for use as farmland. The colonists mainly used the area to gather seaweed and to cut salt-marsh hay for feed and bedding for horses and cattle.
About 1641, tracts of land which included Clinton Beach were purchased from the Indians (via multiple transactions) for 30 shillings and a shirt cloth
The last Hammonasset Indian died in 1802 at her camp
at The Big Hammock, now Shore Road in Clinton. (Hammocks Construction
Company)
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