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Re: Native American History

Posted By: Ted
Date: Saturday, 2 June 2001, at 9:25 p.m.

In Response To: Native American History (Jim)

sir:

one only has to walk up hosmer mountain and stop and listen ( up near water tank) to hear what many of us call 'the whisperers'.....the spiritual 'vibrations' are very strong indeed up there.

unconfirmed history before stephen hosmer bought the land a century or 2 ago is that it served as a burial ground for pequots . 

Posted By: Jim <jimatdesai@hotmail.com>
Date: Sunday, 3 June 2001, at 10:34 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Native American History (Ted)

Very interesting Ted, thank you. The Willimantic area is suppossed to be rich in Native American history, it's unfortunate that I have been unable to find much written about it.

Anyone know of any other sources of Willimantics Native history? 

Posted By: Tom Beardsley <tom@threadcity.com>
Date: Monday, 4 June 2001, at 7:22 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Native American History (Jim)

Little is known about Willimantic's American-Indian history. Try the first 11 pages of Ellen Larned's "History of Windham County" (1874), Volume I, a chapter entitled "Aboriginal Gleanings." Mount Obweebetuck in South Windham, Windham Town's highest point, is supposed to be an Indian burial site, and is considered to be a very spiritual place. Julian Alden Weir, the famed impressionist who spent his summers in Windham Center, thought so. He asked to be buried in sight of it in Windham Center Cemetery. He painted Obweebetuck from the rear of the Baker homestead:

http://www.threadcity.org/clubs.shtml

Charles Smith and Harvey Winchester built a luxury hotel on its peak in 1888. However, it failed and was taken over by the Houston Narcotics Institution in 1893. The northeast's rich and wealthy paid big bucks to try and recover from their heroin and alcohol addiction, and were treated by Obweebetuck's fresh spring waters.

Mount Hosmer is full of fresh water springs of course. Bill Potvin, of the Hosmer Mountain Soda Company, has found arrow heads there. The Indians encamped near fresh water springs, and Willimantic has many. When the housing was being built on Prospect hill in the 1870s-90s, on the opposite side of the Willimantic River valley to Hosmer, freshwater springs were often encountered. The Holland Silk Mills, that were located on the corners of Valley and Church from 1864 until 1938, used fresh spring water in their processes,taken from springs on their site, and such water also refreshed the silk workers.