History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

Historical Address 79
night, June 28th, two companies of foot and one of cavalry
from Boston had joined the Plymouth forces already assembled
at the garrison house of Pastor Myles, which was near
Myles's Bridge, at Barneyville. This bridge spans what is now
known as Palmer's river, from Walter Palmer, an elderly settler
of Rehoboth, its first representative at Plymouth, whose
farm was on its banks. Across this bridge a detachment of
cavalry pushed, but were fired upon and driven back with the
loss of one killed and two wounded. Tuesday morning several
Indians having appeared, were driven across the bridge and
five or six of them slain. That night, Philip fearing that he
should be caught in his own narrow peninsula, escaped to the
Pocasset country, Tiverton, across the Mount Hope Bay.
Major Savage, who had been placed in command of the Massachusetts
troops, having arrived, the combined forces marched
into Mount Hope Neck, in search of Philip. On their way, at
Kickemuit, near the present village of Warren, they saw, set
upon poles, the heads of the men who had been slain at Metapoiset.
They continued their march down the Neck, but they
found the wigwams untenanted and no Indians to be seen.
Thursday the Massachusetts troops returned to Myles's
garrison, the cavalry going on to Rehoboth for better quarters.
Returning the next morning they came upon some Indians
burning a building, and killed four or five of them. On Sunday,
July 4th, Capt. Hutchinson brought orders for the Massachusetts
troops to go to Narraganset country, and seek an agreement
which should hold that tribe back from the support of
PhiHp.
The next two weeks saw the expedition of Capt. Fuller
and Church to the Pocasset and Seaconnet country, which
revealed the bitterly hostile temper of these tribes; the two
expeditions which Church led to the Pocasset Swamp, in one
of which Philip lost fifteen men, the march of the major part
of the Plymouth force by way of Taunton toward the swamp,
the apparently successful negotiation of the Narragansetts,
their return to Swansea and their junction with the Plymouth
troops, at Pocasset Swamp, within which Philip had taken
refuge. Philip eluded his besiegers on the night of the last
day of July, crossing Taunton river, probably near Dighton
Rock. Though assailed while crossing Seekonk plain by the
men of Rehoboth who slew some thirty of his men, he escaped
into the Nipmunk country. Thus he was launched upon a
life and death struggle with the colonists.
With unabated fury the contest raged through the remainder
of 1675 and the first half of 1676. But the sanguinary
and ferocious conquest of the Narragansetts, the desertion of