It was March 28, 1676, and Zoeth Howland, a pious Quaker, was riding through the deep woods of Pocasset, as he was wont to travel, for the purpose of attending the meetings of his sect at Newport. It was quite a distance to travel in those days, and all the more so because of the dangers en route. Howland had to be careful of wolves and rattlesnakes, and, because of the ongoing King Philip’s War, ticked-off natives. Having come about fifteen miles from Dartmouth, and with a like distance still to go, Howland was following a small stream through a forest in Tiverton when he was ambushed by six natives, one of whom went by the name Manasses. Without any provocation, the peaceful Friend was slain in cold blood and the assassins satisfied their passion by mutilating the dead body. Then they carried the mangled corpse to the stream which flows into Nannaquaket Pond at the foot of Highland Road and threw it in the water. His horrified friends, when they discovered the outrage, called the brook “Sinning Flesh River”.
Relations between native people and New England settlers had been tense since the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. Colonists encroached on local lands, and natives retaliated by raiding settlers’ homes and property. By the 1670s, the English colonists had abandoned diplomacy and resorted almost exclusively to force in their dealings with local tribes. Wampanoag leader Metacom — known by the English as King Philip — struck back. An alliance of Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Nipmuck people led by Metacom embarked on a guerilla campaign that, over the course of fourteen months, left an indelible mark on the landscape and history of New England.
The English colonists responded to the “many notorious and execrable murders, killings, and outrages” committed by Metacom’s men with extreme violence of their own. Three months before Howland’s murder, English soldiers shot and burned alive up to 600 Narragansett men, women, and children in what the victors named the “Great Swamp Fight.” Tribes that remained neutral early in the war sided with Metacom as the war spread across New England, devolving into a racial struggle.
By late summer of 1676, King Philip’s War was nearly over. Metacom had been shot and killed in August, and the English commander ordered his body cut into pieces. The Pocasset native who killed him received one of Metacom’s hands as a reward. His head was carried back to Plymouth and mounted on a palisade of the town’s fort, along with the proudly exhibited dismembered heads of other “heathen malefactors.” Metacom’s head remained on display for twenty years, a clear message that the colonists had staked their claim on this land.
Only one of the men involved in Howland’s murder was ever identified in court records. “Manasses,” alternatively written as “Molasses,” was turned over to colonial authorities and sold as a slave.
Howland’s life was also not without strife. Howland had moved to Dartmouth from Plymouth, where his religious beliefs led to persecution from Puritan clergy, including time spent in the stocks. He was born in Duxbury in 1631, and settled in Dartmouth as early as 1662. He took the oath of fidelity in Duxbury in 1657, and probably about this time converted to Quakerism with his father, and held meetings at his house, for which he was fined. The following deposition of Samuel Hunt will show the esteem in which he held the Puritan clergy and their teachings: “About a fortnight before the date heerof, being att the house of Zoeth Howland, hee said hee would not goe to meeting to hear lyes, and that the diuill could teach as good a sermon as the minnisters; and that a 2cond time being att the house of the said Zoeth Howland, and his brother, John Hunt, and Tho Delano being with him, hee questioned with the said Zoeth Howland whether hee would not goe to the meeting, because the minnesters taught lyes, and that the diuill could teach as good a sermon as the minnesters; and hee said hee denied it not. Alsoe, Tho Delano questioned him whether the minnesters taught lyes; and hee said yes, and lett him looke in the Scriptures and hee should find it soe.” For this utterance he was arraigned at the next term of the court in March of 1657-8, “for speaking opprobiously of the minnesters of Gods Word,” and was given the humiliating sentence “to sitt in the stockes for the space of an houre, or during the pleasure of the Court; which accordingly was pformed, and soe released.”
The unnamed brook where Howland’s body was found became known as “Sinning Flesh Brook.” Did this refer to the sinful killing of a pious Englishman? Or did some people consider Howland a sinful man for going against Puritanical teachings? Perhaps you can ask Zoeth Howland yourself. Some say his spirit still flits along the hiking trails in Fort Barton Woods that crisscross what is now called “Sin and Flesh Brook.”
[excerpts from “The Early Years of Tiverton” by Albion C. Cook, “Sin and Flesh Brook” by Elon Cook, and Zoeth Howland genealogy on geni.com]