Note 258 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN.

Passaconoway, already referred to (supra, p. 150, note), dwelt at a place called Pennakook, and his dominions extended over the sachems living upon the Piscataqua and its branches. The young Sachem of Saugus was named Winnepurkitt, and was commonly known among the English as George Rumney-marsh. He was a son of Nanepashemet, and at one time proprietor of Deer Island in Boston Harbor. (Drake’s Book of the Indians, ed. 1851, pp. 105, 111, 278.) The incident in the text has been made the subject of a poem, The Bridal of Pennacook, by Whittier, and Drake repeats it; but as Winnepurkitt is said by Drake to have been born in 1616, and to have succeeded Montowampate as Sachem in 1633, and as Morton, at the close of the present chapter, declares that “the lady, when I came out of the country [in 1630], remained still with her father,” the whole story would seem to be not only highly inconsistent with what we know of Indian life and habits, but also at variance with facts and dates.