Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry offers more photos, history and genealogy about the two federally recognized Wampanoag Tribes. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I continue to look at some of the history of the Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) with some AI enhanced photo features gathered from newspaper clips and archives.

The Wampanoag, the “People of the First Light,” are comprised of two federally recognized tribes: the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe located in Mashpee, Massachusetts; and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) located on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Their people have inhabited this land for 12,000 years.

I begin today with a prominent farmer and mariner in the Mashpee community, Captain Benjamin Jones Attaquin (1813-1875), son of Ezra Attaquin and Sarah (Jones) Attaquin and brother of Captain Solomon Attaquin, a leading figure in Mashpee history who owned an iconic town landmark called Hotel Attaquin.

Benjamin appears on this list of residents “for rents of meadow and land, and for wood cut by the proprietors and inhabitants in 1841.” This list is from the General Court Sessions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dated 1841. Also listed are other family members living in Mashpee.

Benjamin married Elizabeth, possibly a cousin, through the Attaquin line. Below is a death notice for Benjamin’s wife Elizabeth, who died on 6 September 1857 in Mashpee at age 35.

There is a record of Elizabeth leaving her heirs land, available on FamilySearch.

After Elizabeth died, Benjamin married Susan Winslow Pocknett (1839-1924), daughter of Moses Pocknett and Mercy Squib (Moody) Pocknett.

After Benjamin died in 1875, his second wife Susan married Simeon Hamblin Handy, son of Mason Handy and Ruth Hamblin (Downs) Handy. Both were 68 years old. Here is the wedding announcement, published in the Boston Herald.

This wedding notice reports:

PROVIDENCE, R. I., March 13 – A marriage license was granted here today to a white man and a squaw from Massachusetts. The man gave his name as Simeon Handy and said he is 68 years old and a farmer of Mashpee. The bride is Susan Winslow Attaquin, a full-blooded Indian, her maiden name being Pocknett. She is also 68 years old and the daughter of a farmer. She was born in Mashpee.

Benjamin and Susan Attaquin left descendants, including their daughter Anna Jones Attaquin (1866-1940), who married Willard Pocknett, son of Eusebia Pocknett.

Below is a photo of Anna in full regalia.

Anna was an instrumental member of the Mashpee community. She was a mail carrier, a healer, and active in civic matters and politics.

Here is an article about the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe published in the Quincy Patriot in 1930 that mentions Anna.

This article reports:

Mrs. Anna Pocknett, hail and jovial after 14 years of piloting the United States mail through summer suns and winter snows in the flivver which she drives with the skillful aplomb of a big city taxi man, has just contracted to continue the good work for another four years. Mrs. Pocknett’s aged mother is one of the authorities on tribal lore and these two ladies are among the rapidly vanishing number who still ken the secrets of herbs and roots, where to go for them in the woods, which to gather and brew for illness, which to steep for the dye stuffs with which they stain the oak and willow and witch hazel withes that they use for basket-making.

Here is a photo of Anna from an old newsclip in the archives.

The photo caption for this picture of Anna reads:

Mrs. Anna [Pocknett] on her postal route for 17 years. During that time, she has never missed a trip, rain or shine. She is shown in her wagon at a railroad mailer.

Anna and Willard Pocknett had several children. Their son Willard Jr., a Mashpee fisherman, drowned on 13 September 1949. Below is his death notice published in the Boston Herald.

Willard Jr. had married Elsie Vaughn Jonas, daughter of Frederick Douglas Jonas and Anna Maria (Jones) Jonas. They left descendants, including Wampanoag tribal leader Chief Vernon “Sly Fox” Pocknett (1934-1999), who left many descendants including 22 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild.

Vernon is described by his tribe as a master fisherman and hunter in the Pocknett tradition. He would take tribal children on camping trips and excursions to remind each generation of their unique heritage and valued place in the world.

More to come on this family and more!

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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. [052825]

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• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 2)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 3)
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• 1928 Great Wampanoag Powwow (part 1)
• 1928 Great Wampanoag Powwow (part 2)
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• Photos from the Past: Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 1)
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 2)
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 3)
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 4)
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 5)
• Photos from the Past: Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) (part 6)