Golden Hill Tribe: A Persistent Presence

The Native American communities that had existed for centuries in what is now Bridgeport began to decline precipitously soon after European settlement began in the 1630s.  The large indigenous population of that time is evidenced by the fact that the palisaded fort at the head of Black Rock Harbor was said to have been manned by "200 warriors;" the village at Golden Hill supposedly contained 100 wigwams and some 500 inhabitants.  Faced with restriction to an 80-acre reservation which could not possibly support a substantial population, individuals and families began to move away to inland sites, particularly New Milford with its productive fisheries and bottomland soils and its distance from white settlements.

 By 1710, the number of wigwams on Golden Hill was down to 25, and the whole of Stratford township counted but "60 to 80 warriors." The year 1731 marked the death of Chief Konckapotanaugh, last Great Sachem of the Paugussett nation, at Derby.  This is said to have broken the spirit of the local tribes, and many members answered an invitation to settle with other displaced Connecticut natives in Schaticoke in what is now Kent.  This was followed by another invitation to the Paugussetts to join with the Oneida nation in New York issued in 1743.

 In 1765, four men and three women, the Sherman family, remained on the Golden Hill reservation (at around the same time, 1774, the Indian population of all of Stratford township was 35).  In October, 1765, Tom and Eunice Sherman turned what was left of tribal lands over to the whites in exchange for permanent rights to a 12-acre lot at the head of Bridgeport Harbor.

 From that time to the present, repeated predictions of the imminent demise of this tribal remnant have proven to be in error.  Tom and Eunice Sherman had three children: Sarah married Ben Roberts, ‘negro,’ and lived at Eagle's Nest in Stratford (an 1886 history noted that their descendants "still reside at Orange"); Tom Jr. married another Sarah and had a daughter Ruby, and Eunice married a man named Mack from Schaticoke; her children were Garry, Eunice and Jim.

 The last-named Jim Mack married his cousin Ruby Sherman and lived at Woodbridge.  He had a daughter Nancy.  John DeForest described the family in his 1852 History of the Indians of Connecticut: "I have often seen (them) coming into my native village, to sell parti-colored baskets and purchase provisions."

 Nancy Mack had five children by three husbands.  These were William Sherman; Beecher, Nancy and Charles Sharpe, and Olive Rensler.

 William Sherman was born in 1825 and returned to his tribe's lands in Trumbull.  Here he married Nancy Hopkins, a member of the Pequot tribe from New London.  Their children were William; Henry (died aged 17 years); George W. (who married Mary Hamilton and lived on the Trumbull reservation); Mary Olive (died young);  Caroline; Huldah; Mary Olive, and Charles (died young).

 Hurd's History of Fairfield County (published 1881) states "At the present writing there are still several families of these Indians remaining.  William Sherman. lives in the town of Trumbull . . . . His wife is a negro woman, and they have three or four children.  Henry Pease (Pann?), a nephew of William Sherman, is also a resident of Trumbull . . . . There is also a family named Jackson, whose home is in North Stratford.  So far as is known to this writer, these are all the survivors of the once-numerous Golden Hill branch of the Patigusset tribe."

 George Sherman, son of William and Nancy, continued in residence on the Trumbull reservation until his death in 1938.  He had a son Edward and a daughter Ethel.  Ethel Sherman Piper Baldwin, known as "Princess Red Rose" and "Cliieftess Rising Star", was the mother of Aurelius Piper, "Chief Big Eagle."

 Pann Family

Scant information has come to light regarding this group, acknowledged to be another remnant of the Paugussett nation, or their descendants.  Apparently, they maintained a migratory existence between the shores of Long Island Sound and the New Milford/Kent area, hiring out as day laborers and making baskets for local households.  DeForest's History (1852) states ". . .(they) wander about this part of the country, and seem to have no land.  They number three adults and one boy, and resemble the Shermans in character and habits."

 An article in the Bridgeport Daily Standard of October 18, 1913, noted that "Above Old Still Green there was an Indian settlement and Nathaniel Pan, one of the tribe, used to come down to the Pixlee House to do chores. There were Zeke and Jerry Pan, too.”  Another story appearing in the Standard on January 13, 1917, described this family utilizing the unoccupied Agur Curtis House on Booth Street in Stratford for shelter as they harvested clams on the Housatonic River and made baskets.  A September, 1908, article stated that "Jerry Pann was the last of his tribe."

 Little Success was probably located within the present Remington Park.  As this tract has remained relatively undisturbed and therefore unexcavated and has been fenced off and closed to the public since 1910, the precise location has never been pinpointed.  It is surmised to have been located in the immediate vicinity of Success Lake.  The name may be a corruption of "sexexet", meaning "where we go in the spring", or "sassucksuc", "muddy brook." Another substantial spring of water, known in the last century as Peck's Spring or Wolfram's Spring, issued forth here, and a ridge with outcrops of sugar quartz (to the east of Greystone Road) known to have been used for the fabrication of chipped stone implements were associated with this site.  The Pann family of the Paugussett tribe continued to camp at this location at least until the time of the Civil War.  When the Nob Hill apartments were built a considerable burial site was disturbed (described in Bridgeport Telegram of 25 November 1953).

 Nesumpaws (possibly derived from "neeshapaug", meaning "great creek") was a village located at the base of the former "Muskrat Hill", on the shore of Bruce's Brook at the southerly extremity of the present St. Michael's Cemetery.  In common with other sites with similar situations, it was an ideal place for harvesting fish, shellfish and waterfowl at the head of a salt-water bay.  Its graves were opened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, yielding numerous pottery artifacts.

 Old Fort was possibly a 17th-century fortification constructed to protect the great planting fields of the Pequonnock Plain from European incursion.  It was described as being a palisaded enclosure, one acre in extent, and harbored some 200 warriors.  The location was at the head of Burr Creek (filled during the first half of the present century), probably on the site of the present Evergree- Apartments off Fairfield Avenue.

 Uncoway ("Beyond the fishing place") was located on the west bank of the Uncoway River (today's Rooster River) across from Mountain Grove Cemetery.  It was a place of rich soils at the foot of Tunxis Hill and was the meeting place of fresh and salt water, another another optimal situation for fish harvest.  At the time of European contact this was said to be the place of the Sachems' longhouse.

 White Plain was located just north of the Trumbull town line on a sheltered plain fronting on the Pequonnock River.  It took its name from the heavy fogs that frequently settled over the alluvial flats here.  Numerous graves and artifacts were unearthed during construction of a housing development known as "Sunny Ridge" (described in a Bridgeport Post article on May 24, 1935).  A portion of this area along Quarry Road was retained by the Golden Hill tribe until it was exchanged for the present Trumbull reservation in 1842.