By WAYNE D. KING, The View From Rattlesnake Ridge
One of my favorite “new” contributors at the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism’s news website – InDepthNH.org – is Michael Ferber, whom I have admired for many years, but not yet had the pleasure of meeting personally even though we have circled one another for many years.
His recent piece on Native American words that pervade our day-to-day lives and language was pure joy for a native boy who recently moved from the valley at the confluence of the Asquamchumaukee and Pemigewasset rivers to a small bungalow at the confluence of the Ammonoosuc and Connecticut rivers.
My place is easy to find. From downtown Woodsville you take a right onto Monroe Road and enter onto the Raymond Burton Memorial Bridge. The bridge was a long-term project of the late Raymond Burton, built as a way to save the Woodsville Covered Bridge and at the same time ease the traffic congestion that beautiful old one-lane bridge caused for the local folks.
As you begin to cross the bridge, you pass over the Ammonoosuc River terminus where it enters the Connecticut. By the end, you will find yourself looking over the Connecticut River and Ammonoosuc confluence, on your left.
On your right you will see a modest Sears & Roebuck bungalow flying the American Flag, the Abenaki Flag and the Iroquois flag, a tribute to my roots as an all-American mutt, who cherishes his Native roots and spirituality and embraces the joys of being an American.
Sears really did build complete houses in the early 1900s and shipped them by rail where they were hauled, usually by oxen, to the site where they would be placed.
On many a day you will likely also see a big white “wolf-dog” staring out from the porch where he surveys his domain, reveling at the honking of multiple flocks of Canada Geese as they pass back and forth between the two rivers; barking hello to all my neighbors and their dogs, out for a morning walk; or scolding an occasional grey fox who screeches at us in the middle of the night when we are just trying to sleep.
Now you can be forgiven if you don’t immediately recognize the name of the Asquamchumaukee River which at the moment is still – sadly – referred to as the Baker River in honor of a bloodthirsty scalp hunter who savaged a peaceful village of Pemigewasset Abenaki at the confluence of the two beautiful rivers back in the 1800s.
Like the rivers in my life, I have already meandered over seemingly unrelated and trivial details but there is a method to my madness here, if you are patient enough to read on.
I want to use the wonderful piece by Michael Ferber, to tell you about my “brother” Metallak; perhaps the Abenaki most enthusiastically embraced by the people of northern New Hampshire. Metallak stands at the confluence of culture, legend and lore, even the reality of current life here in our beloved state.
I have been waiting for the opportunity to share the story of Metallak for some time and Michael’s column opened up that possibility. Especially since InDepthNH.org has recently initiated a much more robust Obituary section, giving us weekly insights into the passing of friends and neighbors as well as an affordable way to honor them given the hyper-inflation associated with posting obits these days . . . trust me, I know about this from personal experience.
Every day is a challenge for the good folks at InDepthNH. They are at a confluence of their own, in an era of shrinking reliable news sources and the slow erosion of traditional media they are trying to provide real news to a public hungry for it but already tired of running into paywalls every time they follow a link to a news story. I respect the fact that they are making an effort to create an affordable way for New Hampshire folks to celebrate the lives of those friends and neighbors in an era when the cost of such announcements are a heart-rending insult to injury in the lives of bereaved families.
I suppose that discussing obituaries at all here is going to be received as the ramblings of an old buck, to which I plead guilty. But I’ve had an interest in them since the summer after I graduated from college when I cared for a 101 year old Irish spitfire of a woman named Molly Clark. Molly began each day by asking me to bring her coffee and the “Irish Sports Page.” Do I need to spell that one out?
A few years ago my friend and colleague Gary Ghioto and I were in the North Country conducting interviews for a podcast about the fight over Northern Pass. Over the previous few years we had spent a considerable amount of time with North County icon and writer John Harrigan at his home in Colebrook. Among the topics oft-discussed was Metallak. (John insisted that the proper pronounciation of the name was “metaal ick” as if describing steel.) Spurred on by these discussions, one day Gary and I set out in search of the burial plot of Metallak at the North Hill Cemetery in Stewartstown.
The monument was erected by the people of his community and other friends after his death in 1847.
Judging by the number of mementos adorning the tombstone, Metallak, who’s actual Abenaki name was “madahlakw”, gets quite a few visitors even now.
If you believe the legends, Metallak lived to 120 and died in 1870. In his final years he was blind and a “ward” of Stewartstown, NH. He lost his eyesight in two separate accidents during his later years.
For many years, after the passing of his beloved wife, Molly Oozalluc, Metallak lived alone, causing the people of the area to dub him “The Lone Indian of the Megalloway” inferring that he was the last of his people – probably the COOASK-AUKES, a branch of the Abenaki, though speculation continues to this day if that was his “tribe.”
In point of fact, this was not true. At the same time that Metallak lived many of the Abenaki had fled to St Francis and Odanack, but many were also “hiding in plain sight” living their lives out in anonymity in their communities of choice. “Passing” was the phrase we use to employ to describe it, I don’t know if that is a PC term these days and I hope it’s no longer relevant in any case. My own paternal Great Grandfather and Grandmother, Simeon Gideon Roy and Amelia Roy were probably just embarking on their own life adventure in Metallak’s later years, traveling between Odanack, Quebec and Whitefield New Hampshire annually while having 24 children to boot. One of their sons, my uncle Bert, was known to half the folks in his Gilman, Vermont community as Bert Roy and the other half called him Bert King. As far as I know, few, if any, of them knew he was Abenaki.
In his younger days Metallak was a fabled hunter and guide. According to the late North Country writer Richard E. Pinette there is reason to believe he helped local settlers smuggle their goods to Canadian markets during the Revolution. Later he served as a Captain in the US Army during the War of 1812, probably as a scout.
One interesting legend about Metallak was that he “owned” a moose, which he rode like a horse. I put the word owned above in quotes because to an Abenaki a moose is a four-legged brother or sister, not a possession. Conflicting reports on this legend range from the opinion that it was nonsense to begin with, to suggestions that the animal served as his seeing-eye support after he lost his eyesight. If you have read “Sacred Trust” the novel I wrote, loosely based on a “Northern Pass” like story, you’ll likely remember that one of my characters, Thomas, rode a lovable moose named Metallak.
There is some evidence, again according to Pinette, that Metallak did indeed have a moose. First, according to some accounts from local residents, there was a young moose in a pen at Metallak’s camp at the time he was blinded in his second eye. A possible explanation for this is that the moose was orphaned or injured and Metallak took it upon himself to raise it until it could fend for itself. This would not be uncommon. Oral tradition also tells us that if a hunter took the life of a female with young, it was the hunter’s responsibility to raise the young.
So now you have met Metallak. When I write that Metallak was at the “confluence” it may be grammatically incorrect (Sorry Dr. Ferber) but his life was lived at so many individual historic and cultural confluences that it just seems right to title this column in a way that is respectful of the large-than-life and singular role that he played in the early years of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.
May his spirit and that of “the Great Mystery” Niwaskowôgan help to heal both the historic trauma and the current woes within the Abenaki community.
About Wayne D. King:
Author, podcaster, artist, activist, social entrepreneur and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published five books of his images, most recently, “New Hampshire – a Love Story”. His novel “Sacred Trust” a vicarious, high-voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives on the “Narrows” in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags, attesting to both his ancestry and his spiritual ties. His publishing website is: Anamaki.com. Anamaki is a derivative of an Algonquin word meaning “abiding hope”.
Art, Columns and Podcasts produced at Anamaki Studios in Bath, NH.
This land lies in N’dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Sokoki, Koasek, Pemigewasset, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude those who have stewarded N’dakinna throughout the generations.
*Sacred Trust, a Novel*
“The Monkey Wrench Gang Meets the Third Industrial Revolution”
The View from Rattlesnake Ridge
New England Newspaper & Press Assoc. award-winning column by Wayne King at InDepthNH.org, NH Center for Public Interest Journalism.
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