* There is event that we observe in April – or we used to, but seem to forget too often these days. April 13th is Nehoiden Day in Needham, a local holiday first declared in 1980 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the deed that set aside the land that is now Needham and Wellesley. The holiday also bids us remember the Native Americans who lived here some 7000 or 9000 years before the English came, and the remarkable man who stood with one foot in Indian land, and the other in English land, but who managed to keep his balance anyway.
The facts of Nehoiden’s early life are not always clear. We are not even really sure of his name. There are 23 different transcriptions of his name in the state archives, most of them variations of “Hahaton” (as in Nahaton and Nahanton); the sounds of his language did not always fit cleanly into English letters. In Dedham records he is “Nehoiden”. He was born sometime around 1630. He and is family were converted to Christianity by the Rev. John Eliot in the 1640s.
Although he is often known around here as “Chief Nehoiden”, Nehoiden was not a chief. He was, however, the local leader at Ponkapoag (and probably the preacher and schoolmaster as well).
As a convert, Nehoiden was taught to read and write in English. It was this skill that came in useful when the local tribes negotiated with the settlers for land rights. Speaking both languages, Nehoiden was the go-between for the deeds with Hingham, Braintree, Walpole, and Dorchester, as well as Needham.
There is much more to this story than I can tell here. In 1671 Nehoiden was one of three emissaries sent by John Eliot to Metacom (“King Philip”), in a failed effort to defuse the tensions that Eliot saw growing between the Indians and the English. When war came, Nehoiden led a company of scouts that helped the English to understand Indian methods of warfare. Exempt from internment because of the need for his services, he was able to run supplies to his people interned on Deer Island.
Nehoiden returned to Ponkapaug after the war. He died in 1717 at the age of about 90. |