Visitors to the Sawin Museum will note a small collection of Native American artifacts on the Main Level, including both stone tools and a number of baskets. While relatively small in size, the collection is of interest in that it spans roughly 6,000 years of human occupation.

Native Americans first arrived in New England with the retreat of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago, however the majority of the stone artifacts in our collection can be reliably dated by their size and shape to the Late Archaic period, between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago.  Distinguishing characteristics of the Late Archaic period include the use of local lithics, or stone materials, in the manufacture of tools, and indeed, prehistoric felsite quarries can readily be seen today at several locations in Hale Reservation.

The Native Americans of our area were known as Massachuset, this being an Algonquian word meaning “at the great hill”.  At the time of the first European contact there were said to be as many as 3,000 Massachuset, living in some 20 villages between present day Salem and Plymouth. By 1631 their number had dropped to less than 500 and shortly thereafter Reverend John Eliot gathered the surviving Massachuset into 14 “praying Indian” villages including Natick.

With the onset of King Philip’s War in 1675 virtually all of the Christian Indian population was forcibly removed to Deer Island in Boston Harbor, where many died of starvation and exposure.  With the cessation of hostilities a few dispossessed survivors returned to Natick, however their population continued to diminish and, by 1797, only 20 remained.  Several local histories make mention of these survivors peddling their split ash basketry here in Dover and it is highly likely that this was the source of the specimens in our collection.

Many of the artifacts in our collection were undoubtedly found while walking plowed fields many years ago, and it is unfortunate that the specific locations at which they were discovered have not survived.  Readers who have been so fortunate as to find additional artifacts are urged to contact the Society in the hope that we may broaden our knowledge of our earliest residents.

By Elisha Lee