1928 Great Wampanoag Powwow (part 2)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry describes some of the people, family lines, and activities at the 1928 Wampanoag powwow, focusing on the Wixon family line. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I continue covering the first grand powwow in 250 years of the Wampanoag people in Massachusetts, which took place on 13 October 1928.

Indians from the communities at Mashpee, Gay Head, and Herring Pond came together with several members of both the Narragansett and Algonquin Nations, as well as the Pequot Tribe of Connecticut.

I have been researching all the attendees and today’s subject is the Wixon family.

To recap: Part one covered Chief Sachem Silver Star and his wife Sachem Iona. He was a member of the Pequot Tribe in Connecticut.

Here he is pictured with Chief Crazy Bull (left) a Sioux Indian from South Dakota who came for the peace gathering.

According to sources, the most important accomplishment at this event was restoring peace among the tribes. It was a pivotal moment: the smoking of a pipe of peace by the Wampanoags and their blood enemies, the Pequots.

Here is a photo of four of the five Pequots who attended the 1928 powwow (left to right): Prince Leaping Deer; Sachem Iona and her husband Chief Sachem Silver Star; and Neese Mahah (Neeseemaha), a niece. Not pictured is Prince Fleeting Star.

This healing among the tribes occurred at Pondville Indian Baptist Church on the shore of Great Herring Pond, in Bourne, Massachusetts.

The Wixon Line

Chief Red Shell, aka Mantasikaun, a medicine man, was among the leaders who proposed peace and presented a long, elaborately decorated pipe which was passed around while members of the church applauded.

The Boston Herald covered the story. Here is some intel on Chief Red Shell’s part.

This article reports:

Since their reservation at Herring Pond was divided up about 1870, the Wampanoags and their children have scattered over southern New England. Many of them have intermarried with other races and the ties which formerly bound the tribe together have greatly weakened. They have had no chief and no organization.

Largely through the interest of the Rev. Oliver W. Bell of Sagamore, who has conducted services for the last two years at the Pondville church, and Clarence M. Wixon, who is of Indian descent, today’s and tomorrow’s meetings were arranged. They had no list of tribesmen to whom to mail invitations, and so they could send notice of the gathering only through word of mouth and through the newspapers.

The cold, rainy weather undoubtedly kept many from responding, but as it was, about 50 men and women in whose veins flows the blood of the Wampanoags answered the call of the tribe. They crowded into the church, where they were greeted by Chief Red Shell (Mr. Wixon) and addressed by high dignitaries of other tribes.

Chief Red Shell was born Clarence Wixon/Wickson (1908-1941) in Brewster, Massachusetts. His marriage certificate lists his mother as Rhoda Eva Wixon (1886-1958), daughter of Jeremiah Russell and Betsy (Murphy) Wixon. His father is listed as unknown.

In the 1910 census Clarence is listed with his mother Rhoda and his grandparents Jeremiah and Betsy.

Clarence married Lucretia Elizabeth Tinkham on 9 January 1927 in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Lucretia, aka “Princess Silver Star,” was born in Lakeville, Plymouth, Massachusetts, to Louis Benjamin and Angeline Berkeley (Manuel) Tinkham.

The couple left descendants, including Clinton Neakeahamuck “Lightining Foot” Wixon, a Korean War veteran who founded and chartered the first modern nonprofit Indian organization in Massachusetts, the Algonquin Indian Association, and later founded the United Indian Tribes of America.

On his marriage certificate Chief Red Shell is listed as an “herb specialist.”

In 1930 Chief Red Shell shared his genealogy with the Patriot Ledger in a feature article entitled, “Mashpee Indians Keep Alive Traditions of Massasoit.”

Chief Red Shell was the acting historian of the Mashpee Tribe. Many assert that he was instrumental in reestablishing the Wampanoag traditions. Massasoit was the leader of the Wampanoag when the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in 1620.

Here are three photos about the Pilgrims and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (from left to right): statue of Massasoit, Cole’s Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Plymouth Tercentenary celebration, September 1921, reenactors for the scene of Massasoit receiving treaty of April 1621; Wampanoag Indian.

The above newspaper article reports:

Clarence Wickson, Chief Red Shell, who traces his ancestry back to one Matta Quason, subchief or sachem under Massasoit, is the sagamore or historian of the tribe. He has recently completed researches, with the aid of his grandfather, Chief Thunderbird, into the fast-dwindling store of tradition and tribal history.

Seated cross-legged in the shade of a tepee with his symbolic beaded headband of office drawn tight over his raven black hair, Chief Red Shell related chapter and verse of the history and genealogy of the tribe with a ready accuracy that bespoke months of painstaking toil. With Chiefs Squanto Wild Horse [Clinton Mye Haynes], High Eagle, and Supreme Sachem Perry, he has kept up his practice in the rapidly forgotten tongue of his forefathers, and is, it is said, one of the four men now alive able to converse in it.

In this photo we see (left to right): Chief Standing Rock of the Herring Pond Tribe; Chief Red Shell of the Wampanoags; Lorenzo T. Hammond aka Chief Small Bear of the Mashpee Tribe; and Chief High Eagle, medicine man of the Wampanoags.

I am unable to find records on his claims to the lineage which connected him to Matta Quason, but I can confirm that Chief Red Shell was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins through his great grandmother Elizabeth W. (Newcomb) Wixon, daughter of Jeremiah and Sally (Long) Newcomb.

Jeremiah Newcomb is the son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Cooke) Newcomb; she is the daughter of Josiah and Deborah (Hopkins) Cooke; she is the daughter of Giles and Catherine (Weldon) Hopkins; he is the son of Stephen and Mary (Kent) Hopkins.

More on the way!

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Note on the header image: Ousamequin, or “Massasoit” (Wampanoag term for “Great Sachem”) and Governor John Carver smoking a ceremonial pipe at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Credit: Sutro Library; Wikimedia Commons.

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