Mitchell, Melinda, 1836 - 1919

Melinda Mitchell was the daughter of Thomas Mitchell and Zerviah Gould of North Abington, Massachusetts.  She was educated in the public schools of Abington and at Union Academy.  She removed to ancestral lands at Assawompsett or Betty's Neck in Lakeville, Massachusetts in 1859 where she, her mother and sister Charlotte lived in a house they built themselves.  Melinda and Charlotte farmed the property, raising crops and taking on boarders.  They were also basket makers and herbalists, with Melinda being a familiar vendor at Boston, Lakeville, and Onset markets.  In 1903 they saw legal challenges which ultimately removed 500 acres of land in Lakeville from their ownership and threatened their water use rights to Lake Assawompsett.  By 1908, Melinda had become bedridden from tuberculosis and dependent on her sister's care.  She died at the homestead in late fall of 1919.  For more information and photographs, see "Teweelema, Betty's Neck and Wampanoag Rye-straw Basketry," Historic Iroquois and Wabanaki Beadwork."To Oust Descendants of Massasoit Chief Boston Men Trying to Dispossess Indian Princesses," The Boston Journal, October 8, 1903, 14.  Patricia Rubertone, "Archaeologies of Native Production and Marketing in 19th Century New England," in Craig Cipolla, ed., Foreign Objects: Rethinking Indigenous Consumption in American Archaeology (Tuscon, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 2017), 207-208.  "The Last Princess of the Tribe of Massasoit," The Sunday Herald, July 5, 1908, 35.  Sketch of Melinda Mitchell from Pierce, Indian History, Biography, and Genealogy.  Basketry Advertisement from the Brockton, Massachusetts Street Directory (1874), Ancestry.  Photograph of Melinda Mitchell c. 1905, Charles T. Scott, "The Last of the Wampanoags," New England Magazine (1905-1906) 33:394.