Massasoit Road
From Worcester Activist wiki
Even the settler who coined the phrase-“The only good Injun is a daid Injun!” might have allowed Massasoit was an exception.
“This chief has never had full justice done to his character,” said General Fessenden, of Civil War fame.
Massasoint-meaning great chief-was grand sachem of the Wampanoags. At one time he ruled over all of Massachusetts and Rhode Island between Massachusetts and Narragansett Bays.
In 1621 the Indian chief was described by Drake as a “very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of countenance and spare of speech.”
Some historians have claimed were it not for Massasoit the Plymouth Pilgrims would have perished altogether of famine and the cold.
It was Massasoit who welcomed them, advised them how to meet the rigors of the weather, gave them food, sold them land, showed how to cultivate the strange grains that Indians grew.
Probably because of Massasoit, the Pilgrims had few difficulties with Indians.
More suspicious historians have pointed out that Massasoit had no choice but to be friendly. Nearly all his people were decimated by an epidemic- probably yellow fever-which raged a few years before the Pilgrims came.
“Thousands of them dyed,” wrote Governor Bradford, “they not being able to burie one another,” and “that their sculls and bones were found in many places lying still aboe ground, where their houses and dwelling had been; a very sad specktacle to behould.”
In 1623, Massasoit sent word to the English that he was dying. John Winslow and others went to see him, brewed him a soup, which helped, then nearly killed him by stuffing him with a fine, fat duck which Winthrop shot.
“Now I see the English are my friends and love me,” exclaimed Massasoit, “and whilst I live, I will never forget this kindness they have showed me!” He kept his promise.
Massasoit was the father of King Philip, who finally unleashed the great war that smashed the power of the Indians in New England.
Massasoit road, running from Grafton street south to the Millbury line, honors a great Indian chief. It was named in 1910.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
