Old
Betty
by Doris Sherrow, March 2001
The last
Wangunk Indian in Portland was called "Old Betty."
In the early 1800s, she lived on the west side of Penny Corner Road, on
a hill which was still called "Betty’s Hill" a century
later. It is possible that "Penny Corner" was actually "Betty
Corner" and has somehow been changed over the decades.
Every year Betty hosted a great feast, and Wangunk from as far away as
New York gathered to enjoy the good food and each other’s company.
The Wangunks lived on the large part of
the reservation between High Street and Gospel Lane — the small part,
on Indian Hill Avenue, was largely for ceremonial purposes. Portland resident
David Sage (1718-1803) told his grandson Philip (1786-1855)
of the days of his childhood, when many Wangunk families lived on Penny
Corner Road, and Philip passed on the information to Dr. Joseph Barratt
(1796-1882), who recorded it in the pamphlet for the 1850 opening of Indian
Hill Cemetery in Middletown.
Barratt wrote, "There were fourteen
wigwams on Betnees Hill, near the old meeting house where Mr. Talcott
now preaches. (In 1850 the meeting house stood on the site of 86 Bartlett
Street.) Of the Indians, many went to Stockbridge. The settlement about
Wangunk was thick with Indians. The present Philip Sage, Esq.,
late Collector of this port, relates that his grandfather David,
went to reside in Chatham [around 1725 after his father died]. There were
then only three white boys. His playmates were fourteen Indian lads."
Beers’ History of Middlesex County,
written in 1884, offers more information about Betty. The Portland section
of this magnificent book was written by Mrs. Julia Bayne, wife
of John S. Bayne, the minister of the Congregational Church. Mrs.
Bayne talked to people who could remember Betty as an old woman, "bent,
white-haired, her dark skin almost blanched by age, living in a hut on
the spot still called Betty’s Hill." (p.496). One man of Mrs.
Bayne’s acquaintance recalled his terror as a child upon seeing a
parade of Indians passing his grandmother’s house on their way to
Betty’s for their annual visit. His grandmother pulled him out from
under her bed where he had hidden, and made him watch the Indians as they
cooked their food. They had brought sacks of small turtles which they
threw into kettles of boiling water, cooked until tender, then ate off
the shell with great relish. His fear disappeared. Betty was famous for
her cooking.
Mrs. Bayne cites another dish of Betty’s---"savory
eel." The diner in this case was a Yankee rather than a Wangunk,
a nearby landowner who had been out strolling when Betty invited him to
lunch. Bayne speculates that he asked her where she got the delicious
eels. "She answered calmly, ‘plenty black snake on the ledge,’
pointing to a pile of heads which were too serpentine to leave room for
doubt." He was taken aback by the snake heads, but he had to admit,
the meal had been wonderful!
Who was Betty? Deeds from the Wangunk show
at least two "Bettys." A 1719 deed was signed by "Sawoppin
alias Bette," who was the daughter of Wesumsha, one of the
original 1673 Proprietors of the Wangunk reservation. A 1740 deed bore
the signature of both "Old Bettynees" and "Young Bettynees."
And a 1749 deed called the two women Old and Young Betty Neas.
One interesting 1726 entry in Middletown
Land Records says, "Several Indians desired a record of their names
& [descent] from Indians which were the proprietors of lands in Midletown
[sic]." In it, James Sasepequan, born in 1719 (and doubtless
one of David Sage’s Wangunk playmates), traces his descent from Old
Betty the daughter of Wesumsha--Betty was his grandmother. And in fact,
one of the lots east of Penny Corner Road was long described as Pequin
Pasture, "Pequin" being one of many shortened versions of
James’s name. The 1765 deed signing the reservation over to the English
bore the mark of "Betty Nepash." It would be likely that
"Old Betty" had passed away, and this was "Young Betty."
Of course there is still a chronology problem: if Young Betty was old
enough to sign in 1740, she would be well into her 90s or older by the
1810s. Perhaps there was a Betty Neas III, or perhaps Young Betty lived
this long. Such longevity is not unheard of in native cultures. Gladys
Tantaquidgeon of the Mohegan has passed the century mark, nurtured
on native folk medicine and spiritual power.
A man called Jonathan Palmer (c.1756-1813)
was the last Wangunk in East Hampton. His is a sad story, told in Carl
Price’s Yankee Township. Surely Jonathan Palmer would have known
Betty, and he probably attended her annual celebrations. One of Palmer’s
descendants lives in the area today. He has told me that the name Bette
(with an e) was always held in some sort of respect in his family. I suspect
that Old Betty herself was held in great respect, and that her glow radiates
on some 180 years later.
About 1747, Job Bates built himself
a house on a corner of the smaller part of the reservation. This was perhaps
18 years before the land was legally sold to the English---that means
Bates was a squatter. I live in his house. I have often pondered why someone
would put their young family in such a location if it were dangerous,
and I am inclined to think that he got on well enough with the Wangunk
to feel friendliness rather than danger.
His second daughter, born in 1750, was named
Betty. Perhaps that was just a pretty girl’s name. Perhaps his wife
Faith’s older sister Elizabeth had been called Betty.
Or perhaps he and Faith wanted to do honor
to Betty, the Wangunk Proprietor’s daughter.
