Ponkapaug

The Ponkapaug are a group of Massachusetts Native people whose historical territory lies in the Blue Hills of Massachusetts.  Their winter home was the village of Ponkapaug ("a spring that bubbles from red soil") and in the summer they lived around the mouth of the Neponset River.  After European settlement, English authorities established the Ponkapaug Plantation as an Indian Praying Town in 1654.  

Petition of Polly Crowd to the Massachusetts General Court

                                                                                                                     

1 To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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Burr, James, Sr.

James Burr was the son of Seymour Burr and Mary Wills, a member of the Ponkapog community.  He married Sally Turner and had a son, James, Jr.  James, Sr. died sometime before 1859.  Letter from Endicott to John Milton Earle, December 31, 1860, John Milton Earle Papers, American Antiquarian Society.

Petition of Polly Crowd to the Massachusetts General Court

To The Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of  Massachusetts

The subscriber respectfully represents that she is a member of the Ponkapog Tribe of Indians,  that she is in feeble health and unable comfortably to maintain herself.  She, therefore, prays that the sum of fifty-two dollars may be granted in addition to her annuity of fifty dollars for her benefit and that the same be made payable to the Guardian of said tribe and by him expended for her benefit.

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Petition of Sally Burr to the Massachusetts General Court

To The Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts                            

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Petition of Rebecca Davis to the Massachusetts General Court

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in General Court Assembled                

Respectfully represents Rebecca Davis of Boston, that she belongs to the Ponkapog tribe of Indians, that she is over eighty years of age, in feeble health and not able to support herself without a continuance of the aid heretofore from then by this Commonwealth.

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Petition of Sally Burr to the Massachusetts General Court

To The Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The subscriber respectfully represents that she is a member of the Ponkapog Tribe of Indians, that she is in feeble health and unable comfortably to maintain herself.  She, therefore, prays that the sum of one hundred dollars may be granted annually for her benefit and that the same be made payable to the Guardian of said tribe and by him expended for her benefit.

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Petition of Charlotte Myers to the Massachusetts General Court

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives

Respectfully represents Charlotte E. Myers of Boston, widow,1 that she is a member of the Ponkapog Tribe of Indians, of advanced age and in destitute circumstances.

That by reason of the infirmities of age and of feeble health, she is unable by her own industry to procure the common necessaries of life.     

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Petition of Rebecca Davis to the Massachusetts General Court

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts                      

The undersigned respectfully represents that she is a member of the Ponkapog Tribe of Indians, that she now has an annual grant from the Commonwealth of the sum on fifty dollars, that in consequence of the feeble state of her health that sum is insufficient for her comfortable support.                

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Petition of Polly Crowd to the Massachusetts General Court

1 To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in General Court Assembled

The undersigned, being an invalid member of the Ponkapog Tribe of Indians, would respectfully ask that there be paid to the Guardian of said Ponkapog Tribe one dollar weekly during her natural life, payment commencing January 1, 1853.

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Petition of Jonathan Capen, Guardian of the Ponkapaug Indians, to the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence

To the Honorable the Council of the State of the Massachusetts Bay

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